The Lost Hunter Part 33

This allusion recalled her more to herself, and without looking at the paper she put it into her bosom. "I'm sure I thank you with all my heart, and shall always try to do my duty by them," she said.

Here Mr. Armstrong rose, and Faith, putting down the child, that seemed loth to leave her, spoke in a low tone some parting words of consolation.

"I'm sure you're very good; I'm sure I'm very much obleeged to you,"

was all Mrs. Sill could say.

On their way home Faith spoke of the promising appearance of the children, and of what the hopes of the mother must be on their account.

"It is true they are all that are left to her," said Mr. Armstrong, "and what hopes she has of earthly happiness must be built on them.

But who can look into to-morrow? A few days ago, never dreaming of misfortune, she exulted in the enjoyment of her husband and little boys. The first is taken away, and none know how soon the latter may be. So joys and sorrows are mingled together. At this moment she is more miserable for having been happy, and so great is the misery, it outweighs all the happiness of former years. Such is the nature of pain and pleasure. A pang of the former, an instant's acute agony, may be equivalent to hours of what is called enjoyment. We are so made. We may hope for happiness: we are certain of sorrow. We must seek after the one: the other is sure to find us. When I look round, what evidences of wretchedness do I see! Alas, it is indeed a fallen world, and the ground is cursed for man's sake."

"You take a gloomy view, father," said Faith. "Look beyond. Are we not promised a happier time when the bliss of Eden shall be renewed?"

"Yes, and the time will come. Not only prophets and apostles have had it revealed to them, but grand souls among the heathen have dimly descryed its dawning from afar. But what unimaginable scenes of horror must first be? What doleful _misereres_ must first ascend to cloud the brightness of the heavens and dim the joy of the blest! Long, long before then, your and my remembrance, Faith, will have perished from the earth. You will be then a seraph, and I--. If there be ever an interval of pain, it will be when I think of your blessedness, and you, if angels sometimes weep, will drop a tear to the memory of your father, and it shall cool his torment."

What could the grieved and alarmed daughter say? She spoke in gentle and loving tones. She combated by every possible argument these miserable fancies. She entreated him for her sake as well as his own, to cast them off. He listened to her without impatience, and as if he loved to hear the sound of her voice. But he shook his head with a mournful sadness, and his melancholy remained. As may well be supposed, the dark cloud that had settled down upon his mind was not thus to be dissipated. Faith, though troubled, did not despair. She trusted the impression of the late calamity, to which she attributed much of his unhappiness, would in time wear off. Meanwhile, she commended him to the kind protection of that Gracious Being who is loving to all his works.

CHAPTER XXVII.

I cannot think of sorrow now: and doubt If e'er I felt it--'tis so dazzled from My memory by this oblivious transport.

BYRON

"Here come that strange old man," said Felix, the next morning, looking out of the kitchen window, which commanded a view of the road.

"I do believe he's bewitched the boss."

Rosa, to whom the remark was addressed, ran to the window, and saw the Recluse coming up the street.

"I'm 'stonished," she said, "that Mr. Armstrong and Miss Faith give so much encouragement to these low pussons. They always take so much liberty."

"Give 'em an inch and they take two feet," said Felix. "I wish his two feet take him away from this house for the last time," he added, laughing.

"Ha, ha, ha, you so 'musing Felix," said Rosa. "There is something too very genteel in your laugh."

"You do me proud, sweet Rosa," answered Felix, bowing with his hand upon his breast.

Holden was no favorite of the black. The well-dressed and well-fed servant of a wealthy family, with the feeling common to all who judge from outside appearances, had at first been disposed to look down upon the coa.r.s.ely-dressed anchorite, who supported himself by so mean a labor as the manufacture of baskets, and to consider him as little better than a beggar-man. No sooner, however, did Holden detect the feeling, and it was instantly, than he corrected it, so that it never made its appearance again in his presence. In fact, a feeling of fear superseded the impertinence of the negro. There was something in the burning glare of Holden's eyes, and the deep tones of his voice, that exerted an inexplicable power over Felix. Much he turned it over in his mind, why, in spite of himself, he was obliged to be as civil to Holden as to white gentlemen, and at last concluded, the Solitary possessed some magic art, by which he controlled others. He the more readily adopted the opinion because he considered his master and young mistress under the spell of the same glamourie to which he himself had succ.u.mbed.

When, therefore, Holden struck with the knocker on the door, the obsequious Felix was at hand to open it, and show him into the parlor.

"Tell your master I am here," said Holden, entering.

"How does he know Mr. Armstrong is at home?" said Felix, to himself.

"But I'm a free man, and it is very onpolite to talk about my master."

"The Lord hath raised up a mighty salvation for us," was the address of Holden, as Mr. Armstrong entered the room. "I come to bid thee farewell for a time."

"Farewell!" repeated Mr. Armstrong, without comprehending the meaning of the other.

"Sit thee down, dear friend, and listen to what will give thee joy for my sake now, and thine own hereafter. My son, who was dead, is alive again.".

Armstrong was at a loss to divine the meaning of his visitor. He took it for some figurative form of expression, and, without making any reply, pa.s.sed his hand over his forehead, as if trying to recall some idea.

Holden read his thoughts. "Thou dost not understand," he said. "Know then that the child perished not with the mother."

"My friend," said Armstrong, who had now complete command of himself, "you do not reflect that I cannot understand your allusions. Explain to me, that I may partic.i.p.ate in your joy."

"The child of my youth, he whom I lost, whom I mourned for so many years as dead, is alive," exclaimed Holden, in tones of irrepressible emotion.

"I give you joy," said Armstrong, grasping his hand. "But you never mentioned you had a son. How have you lost, and how found him?"

"It is the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes," said Holden. "Not long since thou didst tell of an unhappy man, round whom afflictions had gathered. Now will I tell thee of another not less wretched, the clouds of whose sorrow the setting sun is gilding. Be it unto thee for a lesson of hope, for I tell thee, James, that a.s.suredly thou shalt be comforted."

We will endeavor to compress into a few words the more diffuse narrative of the Recluse, confining ourselves to the substance.

It will be recollected that before Holden's constrained retirement among the Indians, he had attached to him the squaw, Esther, by the ties of both grat.i.tude and respect. But it was only at a distance she looked up to him whom she regarded as a sort of superior being. She would not have ventured to speak to him of herself, for how could he take an interest in so insignificant a creature? The nearer relations, however, into which they were thrown, while he was an inmate of her cabin, without diminis.h.i.+ng her affection, abated her awe. The teachings of Holden, and the strong interest he manifested for herself and tribe so affected her, that one day she made to him a confession of the events of her life. It is only necessary to recount those which have a connection with this story. Some twenty years previous she had accompanied her husband on a visit to a tribe in Kentucky, into which some of her own relatives had been received. While there an expedition had been undertaken by the Indians, which her husband joined, against the white settlements, then inconsiderable, and exposed. After a few days the warriors returned in triumph, bringing with them many scalps, but no prisoner, except a little boy, saved by her husband, Huttamoiden. He delivered the child to her, and having none herself, she soon learned to love it as her own. Huttamoiden described to her with that particularity which marks the description of natural objects by an Indian, whose habits of life in the forest compel him to a close observation, the situation of the log-hut from which the child was taken, the hut itself before which leaped a mountain stream, the appearance of the unfortunate woman who was murdered, and the desperate resistance of the master of the cabin, who, at the time, was supposed to have perished in the flames, but was afterwards known by the name of Onontio--as the scourge and terror of the tribe which had destroyed his family. She had shortly afterwards started with her husband, taking with them the little boy, for the east, but they found the innumerable questions and suspicions occasioned by the possession of the white child so annoying, and dreaded so the inquiries and investigation that would be made upon their return home, that they determined to get rid of him upon the first opportunity. As their route lay through New York, the streets of a populous city furnished the very chance they desired. It was with great reluctance Esther felt herself compelled to this course, and she was unwilling the child should fall into unkind hands. While reflecting upon what was to be done, she remembered a family which had come from that part of the country whence she came, and whom she had known as worthy people, and determined to entrust to them the boy. She dared not to do this openly. So one night she placed the child on their door-step, enjoining him not to stir until some one took him into the house, while she herself watched close by, until she saw him taken in. Since then, not daring to make inquiries, for fear of bringing on herself some unknown punishment, she had not heard of the boy. She remembered the name of the people with whom he was left, and also the street, and the number, and gave them to Holden.

Upon this foundation it was the Recluse built up the hope that his son was yet alive.

"I am Onontio," he said. "The Being who touched the heart of the ferocious savage to spare the life of the child, hath preserved him.

Mine eyes shall yet behold him."

Armstrong was deeply touched, and in the contemplation of the brightening prospects of his friend, he forgot the clouds that hung around his own horizon. Perhaps he was not so sanguine of success as Holden, whose eagle eyes seemed penetrating the future, but he respected too deeply the high raised hopes and sacred feelings of the father, to drop a word of doubt or discouragement.

"Myself, my purse," he said, "are at your service."

"Thomas Pownal goeth to the city to-morrow," replied Holden. "I will speak unto him, and accompany him. Nor do I refuse thy a.s.sistance, but freely as it is offered as freely do I accept it. They who are worthy to be called my friends, regard gold and silver only as it ministers to their own and others' wants."

He took the proffered bank-bills with quite as much an air of one conferring, as one of receiving a favor, and, without even looking at the amount, put them in his pocket.

It was so long since Holden had been in the great world, or mingled in the ordinary pursuits of men--and his appearance and mode of speech were so different from those of others--that Armstrong had some fears respecting his researches. It was, perhaps, this latent apprehension of his fitness to appear in the world--an apprehension, however, only dimly cognizable by himself--that induced Holden to seek the companions.h.i.+p of Pownal. With these feelings, and believing he might be of advantage to this strange man, for whom this new development awakened additional interest in his mind, Armstrong offered to be his companion, in the search for his son; but, to his surprise, his offer was hastily rejected.

"No," said Holden; "it befitteth not. Stay, to take care of Faith.

Stay, to welcome me when I shall return with a crown of rejoicing upon my head."

Armstrong shrunk within himself at the repulse. He would not have regarded or hardly noticed it once, but, his mind had become morbidly sensitive. A word, a look, a tone had now power to inflict a wound.

He was like the Sybarite whose repose was disturbed by a wrinkled rose-leaf; with this difference, that they were spiritual, not material hurts he felt. Did the forecast of Holden penetrate the future? Did he, as in a vision, behold the spectres of misfortune that dogged Armstrong's steps? Was he afraid of a companions.h.i.+p that might drag him down and entangle him in the meshes of a predestined wretchedness? He is right, thought Armstrong. He sees the whirlpool into which, if once drawn, there is no escape from destruction.

Holden succeeded better in communicating a portion of his confidence to Pownal. In the morning of life, before experience has dimmed our sky with clouds, we readily perceive the sun of joy. The bright eyes of youth catch his rays on the mountain tops, before the drooping lids of age are raised from the ground. The ardent temperament of the young man entered with delight into the hopes of his elder. He even antic.i.p.ated the request Holden intended to make, and asked permission to accompany him. With a very natural feeling he endeavored to effect some change in the costume of the Recluse, but here he met with decided opposition.

"I have nothing to do with the world or its follies," said Holden.

"Let it pa.s.s on its way as I will on mine. It will reck but little of the garments of an unknown man."

It was more for the sake of his friend than himself that Pownal proposed the change. Perceiving the feelings of the other, he forbore to press a proposal further, which, after all, was of but little consequence. A sloop was to sail the next day--the wind favoring--from Hillsdale, and it was agreed between the two to take pa.s.sage together.