The Lost Hunter Part 30

"And didst thou nothing to alienate her affections from thy brother?"

inquired Holden, in a hoa.r.s.e voice.

"She never regarded him with more than a pa.s.sing liking," returned Armstrong, "nor do I believe she had an idea of the fervor of his affection. G.o.d be my witness, I never spoke a word in his disparagement. We were married, and shortly after George began to exhibit indications of insanity. By the advice of physicians he was taken to an asylum for the insane, where it was hoped, under proper treatment, his reason might be restored. May G.o.d pardon me, who am the cause of the horrid tragedy, but, by some negligence of his keeper, he was permitted to escape--his body was found, after some days, in a neighboring pond." Here Armstrong paused and covered his face with both hands.

"The body was recognized as thy brother's?" inquired Holden.

"It had been in the water too long to be perfectly recognized, but the height, and age, and color of the hair, and what there was left to make it distinguishable, were sufficient to identify it as George's."

"There is no certainty then. Thy brother may be yet alive."

"There can be no doubt of his death. Thirty years have elapsed, and were he in existence he must have been heard of. Twelve years afterwards my Frances died, leaving me two children, a son and infant daughter. G.o.d saw fit, in his providence, to take my boy, but left me Faith, to lay my grey hairs in the grave. It will not be long before she will do me that service."

Mr. Armstrong ceased speaking, and silence succeeded, which was at last broken by the Solitary. He bent his brows with a keen, searching glance upon his guest, and said:

"Thou wert false to thy brother."

"Yes, and his blood cries against me. Whither shall I turn to hide my guilt?"

"Thou dost repent, then, of thy treachery?" inquired Holden, who seemed determined to probe the wound to the bottom.

"Alas! restore to me the morning of life; place me in the same circ.u.mstances, and I should fall again. I should be irresistibly attracted by a heart that seemed made for mine."

"In _her_ arms thou didst forget the brother, whom thy cruelty had doomed to the maniac's cell and chain?" said Holden.

"Never! his image is graven on my heart. I have never ceased to think of him."

"Thou wouldst know him should he stand before thee?"

"Know him! aye, amidst ten thousand. No years could make such changes as to hide him from me. But he is in his grave, while his murderer lives."

"Thou didst find compensation for lamentation over the dead, in the caresses of the living?"

"True, too true. While Frances lived, she was my heaven. It was necessary that this idol should be torn from me. My son, too. Oh, James, my son! my son!"

Holden, during the conversation, had been unable to keep his seat, but with the restlessness of his nature had been walking across the room, stopping occasionally before Armstrong. The last expression of feeling evidently affected him. The rapidity of his steps diminished; his motions became less abrupt; and presently he laid his hand upon the shoulder of Mr. Armstrong.

"Thy tale," he said, "is one of sorrow and suffering. Thou didst violate thy duty, and art punished. No wrong shall escape the avenger.

As it is written, 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.'

But it is also written, 'He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil.' Thou art after all but an instrument in the hand of One mighty to do. Even out of crime He works out the purposes of his will. Thou knowest not from what sin and sorrow an early death may be the refuge. Commit thyself to the hands of the Lord, nor grieve as one without hope. Thy brother liveth, and thou shalt yet behold him."

"I know he lives, and at the Judgment shall I behold him," said Armstrong, shuddering, "to upbraid me with his murder."

"Not to upbraid, but to forgive, and to imprint upon thy brow the seal of reconciliation, as I now, by this token, vow to thee an everlasting love." So saying, Holden bent down, and his lips touched the forehead of Armstrong.

We do not know that we ought to be surprised at anything in the conduct of this extraordinary man. The principles by which he regulated himself, if he had any that were fixed and determinate, and was not impelled to his actions by the impulse of the moment, were so different from those of other men, that it is difficult to reduce them to the same standard, or, indeed, to a.s.sign them to any standard. Be it as it may, so accustomed was Mr. Armstrong to his ways, that so singular a thing did not impress him as strange. He only looked up with eyes dimmed with tears, and, in broken accents, thanked the Solitary.

The rest of the time spent by Armstrong on the island, was pa.s.sed in conversation of very much the same description. It would seem from his self-reproaches and confessions, that during the lives of his wife and son, the melancholy death of his brother had made no great impression upon him. Happy in a woman he adored, and who returned his affection; with a blooming family around him; immersed in thoughts of business; and in the enjoyment of a large fortune, there seemed nothing wanting to complete his felicity. He remembered, too, that there had been an instance of insanity in his family, some years before the birth of himself, which had terminated fatally, the cause of which could not be traced, and felt disposed, therefore, with the natural tendency to self-exculpation of the happy, to find the reason for the tragical end of his brother in hereditary infirmity, rather than attach any serious blame to himself for securing the affections of a lady, whom he was a.s.sured had never loved another. But when after a few years of unclouded bliss, first his wife, and then his son, was taken away, all things a.s.sumed an altered aspect. He found himself the last male of his family, his name about to become extinct and forgotten, with only one other being in the world in whose veins ran his blood, and for whose life his paternal solicitude almost daily trembled. His mind brooded day by day more and more over his misfortunes, which gradually began to wear the form of judgments, the object and result of which must be to erase his hated name from the earth. As Faith grew up, his anxieties on her account diminished, but that only left him the wider scope to dwell upon wild imaginations and make himself more the subject of his thoughts. Of a grave and reflective cast of mind, he had even from his early years respected the duties of religion, and now he turned to it for consolation. But the very sources whence he should have derived comfort and peace were fountains of disquiet. His diseased mind seemed incapable of appropriating to itself the gentle promises of pardon and acceptance, but trembled at the denunciations of punishment. The universal Father came not to him with open arms, as to welcome a returned prodigal, but frowned with the severity of a Judge about to p.r.o.nounce sentence. Whithersoever the unhappy man turned, he saw no ray of light to gild the darkness, and he himself sometimes feared lest reason should desert her throne. But his friends felt no apprehensions of the kind. In their presence, though grave, he was always reasonable and on his guard--for he shrunk with the sensitiveness of a delicate mind from exposing its wounds--nor with the exception of the minister, and now Holden, was there one who suspected his condition, and they probably did not realize it fully.

These remarks may serve to abate, if not to remove entirely the reader's surprise, that one with the education, and in the position of Armstrong, should have sought counsel from Holden. But it may be, that the condition of mind to which Armstrong was approaching--similar in some respects to that of the Solitary--established a sort of relation or elective affinity between them, operating like the influence of the magnet, to attract one to the other. We have seen how fond Holden was of visiting the house of Mr. Armstrong. Could it be that this mysterious influence, all unconsciously to himself, led his steps thither, and that afar off he dimly espied the talisman that should establish a full community between them? Or was not this community already established? How else account for the visit of Armstrong, the strange conversation, the confessions, concluded by an act, tender, and perhaps graceful, but only such as was to be expected from a deranged man?

Josiah Sill, true to his promise, arrived while the two men were still talking, heedless of the pa.s.sage of time. Mr. Armstrong stepped on board, and the boat resumed her course. The wind was drawing down the river, remaining nearly in the same point from which it had blown in the morning, and they were obliged in consequence to pursue a zig-zag course, tackling from one sh.o.r.e to the other. It blew fresh, and the little vessel, gunwale down, with the water sometimes pouring over the lee side, flew like a bird. They had run two-thirds of the distance, nor was the sun yet set, when the wind, which, till then, had blown pretty steadily, began to intermit and come in flaws or puffs, now driving the small craft with great rapidity, and now urging her gently on. At an instant, when she was about to tack, having hardly head-way sufficient to prevent missing stays, a sudden and violent puff, from a gorge in the hills, struck the sail. Had it come at any other moment, the catastrophe that followed could not have happened; but the boat lying almost motionless, received all the force of the wind, and instantly upset. Mr. Armstrong, unable to swim, and enc.u.mbered by his clothes, sank, but was caught by the strong arm of Sill, and pulled upon the keel. In a state of great discomfort, though of safety, there both remained for some time, waiting for a.s.sistance. None arriving, Sill, at last, became impatient, and as he was an excellent swimmer, proposed to throw off the heavier part of his clothing, and swim to land to hasten succor. As Mr. Armstrong made no objection, and the danger appeared less than what was likely to proceed from a long continuance on the boat, exposed in their wet clothes to the wind, the sh.o.r.e being but a few rods distant, Sill, after divesting himself of a part of his clothes, plunged into the water, and with vigorous strokes swam towards the land. He had proceeded but a short way when, either in consequence of becoming benumbed by the coldness of the water after being chilled by exposure to the wind, or from being seized by cramp, or from what other cause, the unfortunate man suddenly turning his face towards Armstrong, and uttering a cry of alarm, sank and disappeared from sight. Once more only was anything seen of him, when brought near the surface, perhaps, by an eddy in the stream, a hand emerged, and for an instant the fingers quivered in the air.

With a sort of desperate horror Armstrong gazed upon the appalling spectacle. The expression of anguish on the face of the drowning fisherman, as his distended eyes met his own, froze his blood, and left a memory behind to last to his dying day. Fascinated, his eyes dwelt on the spot where the fisherman sunk, and for a moment a terrible temptation was whispered into his ear quietly, to drop into the river, and accompany the spirit of the drowned man. But it lasted only a moment, and the instinct of life resumed its power.

It was not long ere his condition was discovered from the sh.o.r.e, when chilled and shivering he was taken off by a boat that put out to his rescue. On arriving at his home, Faith, excessively alarmed, immediately dispatched the faithful Felix for the doctor.

CHAPTER XXV.

How sweetly could I lay my head Within the cold grave's silent breast, Where sorrow's tears no more are shed, No more the ills of life molest.

MOORE

Mr. Armstrong escaped, to all appearance, with a cold, from the accident. But although this seemed the only effect produced upon his bodily health, his mind had suffered a severe shock which was not equally obvious. Fancies, each gloomier than the preceding, took, henceforth, more and more possession of his imagination. He seemed the harbinger of misfortune to all connected with him. Frequently rose up the image of his dead brother, mingling with his dreams and obtruding itself even into his waking thoughts, at one time dripping with water as when taken from the pond--ghastly pale--livid--with scarcely distinguishable lineaments; at another wrapped in the dress of the tomb, and pointing with bony finger to a new-made grave. Then his wife would appear, holding their little son by the hand, and standing on the opposite side of a river that rolled between, beckoning him to cross. But whenever he made the attempt the waves would close over his head, and he awoke with a sense of suffocation and gasping for breath.

At another time the scene of the drowning fisherman would be repeated, but with innumerable variations. Sometimes, in some way or other, Holden would be mixed up with it, sometimes Faith, and sometimes, most horrible of all, he himself would be desperately struggling to hold Sill under water, till finally the yielding body sunk, sunk into depths no eye could fathom. But never till the face turned and transfixed him with the despairing glare of those dreadful eyes.

But we are antic.i.p.ating and rather describing the condition into which his mind gradually fell, than its state immediately after his interview with the Solitary. It took some time longer before the idea that by an inexorable decree he was doomed to entail destruction on all connected with him, became fixed. For awhile it floated uncertainly and impalpably before him, and only slowly, like an approaching spectre, took upon itself shape and presence. A conversation between himself and his daughter on the second day after the accident, and his conduct immediately thereafter, may give us some apprehension of the current of his thoughts and feelings then.

"My dearest father," said Faith, throwing her arms around his neck, and repeating what she had said more than once before, "oh, how thankful ought I to be for the saving of your precious life!"

"We are often thankful in our ignorance," said her father, "for the greatest misfortunes."

"Do you call it a misfortune to me," she cried, "that I am not left alone in the world? Oh, father, what should I do without you?" And in spite of her exertions to suppress them, the tears burst from her eyes.

"Come to me, my child," said Armstrong, and he took the weeping girl into his arms, and leaned her head gently upon his bosom. "Compose yourself. Believe me, there are trials harder to be borne than the loss of parents."

"None, none to me," sobbed Faith. "If it were right I would pray that I might die the same moment with you."

"It is well for one like me to think often of death," said her father, "nor should the young forget they are mortal. But many happy days, I trust, are reserved for my darling."

"Happy, if you are to share them with me, father. But why do I weep,"

she said, raising up her head and smiling through her tears, "at thinking of the possibility of a misfortune to myself, when my heart is swelling with thankfulness for your preservation?" She arose from her father's lap, drew a chair to his side, and as her custom was, took one of his hands in both of hers.

"Such are the dispensations of Providence," said Armstrong. "The old man, with white hair and bent body, creeps to his grave, while the infant that has just learned to smile in its mother's face, is hurried from her arms. Why was it that Sill, so strong, so happy, so young, with a wife and children dependant on him for support, should be taken and I left?"

"Why should we curiously inquire?" replied Faith. "If we could look behind the curtain, no doubt we should see sufficient reasons for the choice."

"When I look back upon my life," continued Armstrong, more distinctly revealing the thought lurking in his mind, "it seems as if I were born to be the cause of misfortune to others. Had any one else been in the boat, the accident would not have happened, or certainly not terminated fatally."

"Do not say so, dear father. Can you regulate the winds and waves?"

"No, Faith. Yet unmanly as it is, let me lament the fate that makes me the instrument to execute the decrees of Heaven. I am a rod to attract the fires that consume, while itself rises unscathed amid the destruction."

It seemed to Faith natural that her father should be affected by the death of the fisherman, who, after saving his life, had perished in the attempt to bring rescue, although she thought his expressions exaggerated. She felt pained at his self-reproaches, but doubted not that soon the keenness of regret would lose its edge. In order the sooner, therefore, to produce this result, she attempted to divert his thoughts into another channel.

"You are unjust to yourself, father," she said. "How many are there to bless you for charities known only to themselves and you?"