Olive Leaves Part 20

"I always think," said John Williams, "about my poor brother, in stormy nights, especially in winter. So many years have past, since we have heard from him, and his way of life is so full of danger, that I fear he must be numbered with the dead."

"Husband, did I hear a faint knock! or was it the wind among the trees?" said his wife. The farmer opened the door, and a traveller entered, leaning heavily on a crutch. His garments were old and thin, and his countenance haggard.

He sank into a chair, and gazed earnestly around on every article of furniture, as on some recollected friend. Then, extending a withered hand, he uttered in a tone scarcely audible, "Brother! brother!"

That word, opened the tender memories of other years. They hastened to welcome the wanderer, and to mingle their tears with his. "Sister, brother, I have come home to _die_." They found him too much exhausted to converse, and after giving him comfortable food, induced him to retire to rest.

The next morning, he was unable to rise. They sat by his bedside, and soothed his worn heart with kindness, and told him the simple narrative of the changes in the neighbourhood, and what had befallen them, in their quiet abode.

"I have had many troubles," said he, "but none have bowed me down, like the sin of leaving home to be a soldier, without the knowledge of my parents, and against their will. I have felt the pain of wounds, but there is nothing like the sting of conscience.

"I have endured hunger, and thirst, and imprisonment, and the misery of sickness in an enemy's land; and then the image of my home, and my disobedience and ingrat.i.tude, were with me when I lay down, and when I rose up, and when I was sleepless and sick in the neglected hospitals.

"In broken visions, I would see my dear mother bending tenderly over me, as she used to do, when I had only a headache; and my father with the great Bible in his hand, reading as he used to do before prayer; but when I cried out in agony. 'I am no more worthy to be called thy son,'

I awoke, and it was all a dream."

His brother a.s.sured him of the perfect forgivenness of his parents, and that duly, at morn and eve, he was borne upon their supplications at the family altar, as the son, erring, yet beloved. "Ah, yes, and those prayers followed me. But for them I should have been a reprobate, forsaken both of G.o.d and man."

As strength permitted, he told them the story of his wanderings. He had been in battles, on land and sea. He had heard the deep ocean echo to the cannon's thunder, and seen earth drink the red shower from the bosoms of her slaughtered sons.

He had stood in the martial lists of Europe, and hazarded his life for a foreign power, and had pursued, in his native land, the hunted Indian, flying at midnight from the flames of his own hut. He had ventured with the bravest, into the deepest danger, seeking every where for the glory which had dazzled his boyhood, but in vain.

He found that it was the lot of the soldier to endure hards.h.i.+p, that others might reap the fame. He saw what fractures and mutilations, what misery, and mourning, and death, were necessary to purchase the reward of victory. He felt how light was even the renown of the conqueror, compared with the good that he forfeits, and the sorrow that he inflicts to obtain it.

"Sometimes," he said, "just before rus.h.i.+ng into battle, I felt a shuddering, and inexpressible horror, at the thought of butchering my fellow-creatures. But in the heat of contest, all such sympathies vanished, and madness and desperation possessed me, so that I cared neither for this life nor the next.

"I have been left wounded on the field, unable to move from among the feet of trampling horses, my open gashes stiffening in the chilly night air, and death staring me in the face, while no man cared for my soul.

Yet I will not distress your kind hearts, by describing my varieties of pain.

"You, who have always lived amid the influences of mercy; who shrink to give unnecessary suffering, even to an animal, cannot realize what hardness of heart, comes with the life of a soldier, familiar as he must be with groans, and violence, and cruelty.

"His moral and religious feelings, are in still greater danger. Oaths, imprecations, and contempt of sacred things, are mingled with the elements of his trade. The sweet and holy influences of the Sabbath, and the precepts of the Gospel, impressed upon his childhood, are too often swept away.

"Yet though I exerted myself to appear bold and courageous, and even hardened, my heart reproached me. Oh, that it might be purified by repentance, and at peace with G.o.d, before I am summoned to the dread bar of judgment, to answer for my deeds of blood."

His friends flattered themselves, that, by medical skill, and careful nursing, he might be restored to health. But he answered, "No, it can never be. My vital energies are wasted. Even now, is Death standing at my right hand."

"When I entered this peaceful valley, my swollen limbs tottered, and began to fail. Then I prayed to the Almighty, whom I had so often forgotten, 'Oh, give me strength but a little longer, that I may reach the home where I was born, and die there, and be buried by the side of my father and my mother.'"

The sick and penitent soldier, sought earnestly for the hope of salvation. He felt that a great change was needed in his soul, ere it could be fitted for the holy employments of a realm of purity and peace. He prayed, and wept, and studied the Scriptures, and listened to the counsel of pious men.

"Brother, dear brother," he would say, "you have obeyed the precepts of our parents. You have chosen the path of peace. You have been merciful even to the inferior creatures. You have shorn the fleece, but not wantonly destroyed the lamb. You have taken the honey, and spared the labouring bee.

"But I have destroyed man, and his habitation; the hive and the honey; the fleece and the flock. I have defaced the image of G.o.d, and crushed out that breath, which I can never restore. You know not how bitter is the warfare of my soul with the 'Prince of the power of the air, the spirit that ruleth in the children of disobedience.'"

As the last hour approached, he laid his cold hand on the head of his brother's eldest child, who had been named for him, and said faintly, "Little James, obey your parents, and never be a soldier. Sister, brother, you have been angels of mercy to me. The blessing of G.o.d be upon you, and your household."

The venerable minister who instructed his childhood, and laid his parents in the grave, had daily visited him in his sickness. He stood by his side, as he went down into the valley of the shadow of death. "My son, look unto the Lamb of G.o.d." "Yes, father, there is a fullness in Him for the chief of sinners."

The aged man lifted up his fervent prayer for the departing soul. He commended it to the boundless compa.s.sions of Him who receiveth the penitent; and besought for it, a gentle pa.s.sage to that world, where there is no more sin, neither sorrow, nor crying.

He ceased. The eyes of the dying were closed. There was no more heaving of the breast, or gasping. They thought the breath had quitted the clay.

They spoke of him as having pa.s.sed where all tears are wiped from the eyes for ever.

But again there was a faint sigh. The white lips slowly moved. His brother bending over him caught the last, low whisper,--"Jesus! Saviour!

take a repentant sinner to the world of peace."

The Indian King.

Among the early settlers of these United States, were some pious people, called Hugenots, who fled from the persecutions in France, under Louis the Fourteenth. It has been said, that wherever the elements of their character mingled with the New World, the infusion was salutary.

Industry, patience, sweet social affections, and piety, firm, but not austere, were the distinctive features of this interesting race. A considerable number of them, chose their abode in a part of the State of Ma.s.sachusetts, about the year 1686, and commenced the labours inseparable from the formation of a new colony.

In their vicinity, was a powerful tribe of Indians, whom they strove to conciliate. They extended to them the simple rites of hospitality, and their kind and gentle manners, wrought happily upon the proud, yet susceptible nature of the aborigines.

But their settlement had not long a.s.sumed the marks of regularity and beauty, ere they observed in their savage neighbours, a reserved deportment. This increased, until the son of the forest, utterly avoided the dwellings of the new comers, where he had been pleased to accept a shelter for the night, or a covert for the storm.

Occasionally, some lingering one might be seen near the cultivated grounds, regarding the more skilful agriculture of the white inhabitants with a dejected and lowering brow. It was rumoured that these symptoms of disaffection arose from the influence of an aged chief, whom they considered a prophet, who denounced the "pale intruders;" and they grieved that they should not have been more successful in conciliating their red brethren.

Three years had elapsed since the establishment of their little colony.

Autumn was now advancing towards its close, and copse and forest exhibited those varied and opposing hues, which clothe in beauty and brilliance, the foliage of New England. The harvest was gathered in, and every family made preparation for the approach of winter.

Here and there groups of children might be seen, bearing homeward baskets of nuts, which they had gathered in the thicket, or forest. It was pleasant to hear their joyous voices, and see their ruddy faces, like bright flowers, amid wilds so lately tenanted by the prowling wolf, the fierce panther, and the sable bear.

In one of these nut-gatherings, a little boy and girl, of eight and four years old, the only children of a settler, whose wife had died on the voyage hither, accidentally separated from their companions. They had discovered on their way home, profuse cl.u.s.ters of the purple frost-grape, and entering a rocky recess to gain the new treasure, did not perceive that the last rays of the setting sun were fading away.

Suddenly they were seized by two Indians. The boy struggled violently, and his little sister cried to him for protection, but in vain. The long strides of their captors, soon bore them far beyond the bounds of the settlement. Night was far advanced, ere they halted. Then they kindled a fire, and offered the children some food.

The heart of the boy swelled high with grief and anger, and he refused to partake. But the poor little girl took some parched corn from the hand of the Indian, who held her on his knee. He smiled as he saw her eat the kernels, and look up in his face with a wondering, yet reproachless eye. Then they lay down to sleep, in the dark forest, each with an arm over his captive.

Great was the alarm in the colony, when those children returned not.

Every spot was searched, where it was thought possible they might have lost their way. But, when at length their little baskets were found, overturned in a tangled thicket, one terrible conclusion burst upon every mind, that they must have been captured by Indians.

It was decided, that ere any warlike measures were adopted, the father should go peacefully to the Indian king, and demand his children. At the earliest dawn of morning, he departed with his companions. They met a friendly Indian, pursuing the chase, who had occasionally shared their hospitality and consented to be their guide.

They travelled through rude paths, until the day drew near a close.

Then, approaching a circle of native dwellings, in the midst of which was a tent, they saw a man of lofty form, with a cornet of feathers upon his brow, and surrounded by warriors. The guide saluted him as his monarch, and the bereaved father, bowing down, addressed him:

"King of the red men, thou seest a father in pursuit of his lost babes.

He has heard that your people will not harm the stranger in distress. So he trusts himself fearlessly among you. The king of our own native land, who should have protected us, became our foe. We fled from our dear homes, from the graves of our fathers.

"The ocean-wave brought us to this New World. We are a peaceful race, pure from the blood of all men. We seek to take the hand of our red brethren. Of my own kindred, none inhabit this wilderness save two little buds from a broken, buried stem.

"Last night, sorrow entered into my soul, because I found them not.

Knowest thou, O king, if thy people have taken my babes? Knowest thou where they have concealed them? Cause them, I pray thee, to be restored to my arms. So shall the Great Spirit bless thine own tender plants, and lift up thy heart when it weigheth heavily in thy bosom."