The Lost Hunter Part 2

"Why, doctor, what is in the wind now?"

The person who thus addressed him was a young man of probably not more than twenty-five years of age. His dress indicated that he belonged to the wealthier cla.s.s of citizens, and there was something pleasing in his manners and address.

"Glad to see you, William," said the doctor. "I want a crew; come, ship for a cruise."

"But where away, doctor?"

"To Holden's island, to visit a wounded man. Jump aboard, and tend jib-sheets."

By this time the sails were hoisted, and, the young man complying with the invitation, the little craft was soon under weigh, and rapidly proceeding down the river. The distance was only three or four miles, and quickly pa.s.sed over. They were met on the beach by Holden, to whom the gentlemen were both known, but he was unable to inform them of the name of the wounded man. As soon as the doctor beheld him, however, he exclaimed:

"It is Mr. Pownal. G.o.d forbid the hurt should be serious."

The countenance of the doctor's companion, and the few words he uttered, denoted also recognition of the stranger.

"So, my poor fellow," said the doctor, as the sufferer extended a hand, and expressed in a few words his pleasure at the coming of the two, "that is enough, I claim a monopoly of the talking."

He proceeded at once to examine the wound, which he did with great care and in silence. He found, as Holden had said, that the charge had only grazed the surface, tearing the flesh from the side up to the shoulder, pretty deeply, indeed, but making an ugly, rather than a dangerous wound. After the task was completed, and lint and fresh bandages were applied, the doctor sunk with a sigh, as of relief, upon a chair, and a.s.sured the young man that he only needed rest for the present, and in a day or two might return to his friends.

"I would rather lose six ordinary patients than you, Tom Pownal," he said. "Why you are my beau ideal of a merchant, the Ionic capital of the pillar of trade. Now, let not your mind be

'Tossing on the ocean; There, where your argosies with portly sail, Like signiors and rich burghers on the flood; Or, as it were the pageants of the sea, Do overpower the petty traffickers.'

Quiet, my dear boy, both of mind and body, are your indispensables. I want you to understand that:

'I tell thee what, Antonio-- love thee, and It is my love that speaks.'"

Pownal promised to be very obedient, in consideration whereof the doctor guaranteed he should receive great satisfaction from his wound.

"You shall see for yourself," he said, "how beautifully it will heal.

To a scientific eye, and under my instruction you shall get one, there is something delightful in witnessing the granulations. We may say of Nature, as Dr. Watts sings of the honey-bee:

'How skillfully she builds her cell, How neat she stores the wax!'

I consider you a fortunate fellow."

The young men were obliged to smile at the doctor's way of viewing the subject; but he paid little attention to their mirth.

"And I will remain, meanwhile, with you," said William Bernard, which was the name of the gentleman who had accompanied the physician, addressing himself to Pownal, "if our good friend,"--and here he looked at Holden--"has no objection."

The Recluse signified his a.s.sent; and Pownal, thanking his friend, the doctor gave his sanction to the arrangement.

"It will do you no harm, William," he said, "to rough it for a night or two, and you will prove yourself thereby of a different stamp from Timon's friends." And here the doctor, who loved to quote poetry, especially Shakspeare's, better than to administer medicine, indulged again in his favorite habit:

"'As we do turn our backs From our companion thrown into his grave, So his familiars, to his buried fortunes, Slink all away; leave their false vows with him, Like empty purses picked, and his poor self A dedicated beggar to the air.'

But, Mr. Holden, lend me thy ears a moment, and thy tongue, too, if you please, for you must tell me how this happened. I do not care to disturb Pownal with the inquiry."

So saying, he walked out of the chamber, followed by the Recluse.

"Tell me first," said Holden, as they stood in the open air, "what thou thinkest of the wound."

"Ha!" cried the doctor, "'tis not so deep as a well nor so wide as a church door; but 'tis enough--'twill serve."

"What!" exclaimed the Recluse, "hast thou been deceiving the boy! But no, thou art incapable of that; and, besides, I have seen too many wounds to apprehend danger from this."

"I see, friend, you have read Shakspeare to some purpose," cried the doctor; "but know that I spoke not in the sense in which Mercutio speaks of the wound that Tybalt gave him. My mirth is not so grave as poor Mercutio's. Look you, now, I told you but the simple truth, and what your own eyes have seen. The wound _is not_ so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door. If it were--admitting the physical possibility--Pownal would be a monster to look at, and no dressings of mine would be of any use. And it is enough, too. You would not have it more. Besides, 'twill serve; that is, to keep him a day or two in your cabin. And herein consists one of the innumerable excellences of Shakspeare. Every sentence is as full of matter as my saddle-bags of medicine. Why, I will engage to pick out as many meanings in each as there are plums in a pudding. But, friend, I am sure you must have a copy. Let me see it."

"I know little of these vanities," replied Holden. "In my giddy youth, I drank such follies, even as the a.s.s sucketh up the east wind. But it pleased the Lord to open mine eyes. In thoughts from the visions of the night," he continued--and his eyes shone brighter, and his stature seemed to increase--"when deep sleep falleth on men, fear came upon me and trembling, which made all my bones to shake. Then a vision pa.s.sed before me, and the hair of my flesh stood up. It stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof: an image was before mine eyes--there was silence, and then I heard a voice saying, 'Behold, I come quickly; watch and pray, for thou knowest not the day nor the hour!' I was not disobedient to the heavenly warning, and thenceforth the pomps and vanities of the world have been as the dust beneath my feet."

This was not the first time that the doctor heard the Recluse speak of his peculiar opinions; but, although always ready to avow and dilate upon them when others were willing to listen, he had uniformly manifested an unwillingness to allude to himself or the incidents of his life. Whenever, heretofore, as sometimes happened, the curiosity of his auditors led the conversation in that direction, he had invariably evaded all hints and repulsed every inquiry. But his mood seemed different to-day. Elmer was a friend whom Holden highly prized, and he could therefore speak the more freely in his presence; but this is not sufficient to account for the dropping of his reserve. We know no other explanation than that there are times when the heart of every one is opened, and longs to unburden itself, and this was one of them that unsealed the lips of the Solitary.

"Is it long since the revelation?" inquired the doctor.

"Too long," said Holden, "did I wander in the paths of sin, and in forgetfulness of my G.o.d, and my youth was wasted in that which satisfieth not, neither doth it profit. My heart was very hard, and it rose up in rebellion against the Lord. Then it pleased Him (blessed be His holy name) to bray me in the mortar of affliction, and to crush me between the upper and the nether millstone. Yet I heeded not; and, like Nebuchadnezzar, my mind was hardened in pride, continually. Then, as the King of Babylon was driven forth from the sons of men, and his heart made like the beasts', and his dwelling was with the wild a.s.ses, and they fed him with gra.s.s, like oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, even so did the Spirit drive me forth into the tabernacles of the wild men of the forest and the prairie, and I sojourned with them many days. But He doth not always chide, neither keepeth He His anger for ever. In His own good time, He s.n.a.t.c.hed me from the fiery furnace, and bade me here wait for His salvation; and here, years, long years, have I looked for His promise. O, Lord, how long!"

The doctor's question was unanswered, either because Holden forgot it, in his excitement, or that he was incapable of giving any accurate account of the pa.s.sage of time. But thus much the doctor could gather from his incoherent account, that, at some period of his life, he had suffered a great calamity, which had affected his reason. In this condition, he had probably joined the Indians, and pa.s.sed several years among them, and afterwards, upon a partial restoration of intellect, adopted the wild notions he professed. What had pa.s.sed during those years, was a secret known only to himself, if, indeed, the events had not disappeared from his memory.

"You have suffered bitterly," said the doctor.

"Talk not of suffering," exclaimed Holden. "I reckon all that man can endure as not to be compared with the crown of glory that awaits him who shall gain entrance into the Kingdom. What is this speck we call life? Mark," he continued, taking up a pebble and dropping it into the water, "it is like the bubble that rises to burst, or the sound of my voice that dies as soon away. Thereon waste I not a thought, except to prepare me for the coming of my Lord."

"You think, then, this solitary life the best preparation you can make for the next?"

"Yes," said Holden; "I work not my own will. Can the clay say to the potter, what doest thou? Behold, I am in the hand of One wiser and mightier than I. Nor hath he left me without duties to perform. I am one crying in the wilderness, and though the people heed not, yet must the faithful witness cry. I have a work to perform, and how is my soul straitened until it be done? Canst thou not thyself see, by what hath happened to-day, some reason why the solitary is upon his lonely island? Had he loved the crowded haunts of men, a fellow-being had, perhaps, perished."

The allusion to the occurrence of the morning recalled the doctor's attention to the purpose for which he had left the chamber, and which he had forgotten, in listening to the talk of the enthusiast. He now directed the conversation to the subject of the wound, and heard Holden's account. He became convinced, both from his statement, and from a few words Pownal himself had dropped, as well as from the sight of the gun which Holden had picked up, and found just discharged, that the wounding was accidental, and occasioned by the young man's own fowling-piece. Having satisfied himself on this point, the doctor, with his companion, re-entered the hut. It was only to give a few parting directions to Bernard, to enjoin quiet upon his patient, and to take leave of him, which he did, in the words of his favorite--

"Fare thee well!

The elements be kind to thee, and make Thy spirits all of comfort."

CHAPTER III.

Ici il fallut que j'en divina.s.se plus qu'on ne m'en disoit.

MEMOIRES DE SULLY.

A week after the events narrated in the preceding chapters, a small company was collected in a parlor of one of the houses of Hillsdale.

It consisted of a gentleman, of some fifty years of age; his wife, a fine-looking matron, some years his junior; their daughter, a bright blue-eyed flaxen-haired girl, rounding into the most graceful form of womanhood, and a young man, who is not entirely a stranger to us.

The judgment of the doctor, respecting the wound of Pownal--for it is he--had proved to be correct, and, on the second day after the hurt, he had returned to the village, with his friend William Bernard, in the house of whose father he was, for the present, domiciliated. The young men had been acquainted before, and the accident seemed to have established a sort of intimacy between them. It was, therefore, with no feeling of reluctance, that Pownal accepted an invitation to desert his boarding-house for a while, for the hospitality of his friend.

Perhaps, his decision was a little influenced by the remembrance of the blue eyes of Miss Bernard, and of the pleasant effect which, from their first acquaintance, they had exerted upon him. However that may be, it is certain, that, although somewhat paler than usual, he appeared to be quite contented with his condition.

It was evening, and candles were lighted, and Mr. Bernard, or as he was more commonly, or, indeed, almost universally, called, Judge Bernard, from having been one of the judges of the Superior Court, was sitting in an arm-chair, reading a newspaper; Mrs. Bernard was busy with her knitting; the young lady employed upon one of those pieces of needle-work, which, in those days, were seldom out of female hands, and Pownal looking at her all he dared, and listening to an occasional paragraph read by the Judge from his newspaper.

"You are the cause of quite a sensation in our little community, Thomas," said the Judge, laying down his spectacles and newspaper at the same time. "Mr. Editor Peters and the gossips ought to be infinitely obliged to you for wounding yourself, and affording him an opportunity to display his inventive genius and the brilliancy of his imagination, and giving them something to talk about. Here, Anne, read the article aloud for our edification."