The Lost Hunter Part 47

"It is Tom Gladding, whom Perkins hired to make the clearing, one of the best wood-choppers in the country. It is wonderful with what dexterity he wields an axe."

As the Judge uttered these words, the two gentlemen emerged from the wood into the open s.p.a.ce, denuded of its sylvan honors, by the labors of Gladding.

The clearing (as it is technically termed), was perhaps a couple of acres in extent, in the form of a circle, and surrounded on all sides by trees, only a narrow strip of them, however, being left on the margin of the river, glimpses of which were caught under the branches and the thin undergrowth. A brook which came out of the wood, ran, glistening in the beams of the setting sun, and singing on its way across the opening to fall into the Wootuppocut. The felled trees had been mostly cut into pieces of from two to four feet in length, and collected into piles which looked like so many altars scattered over the ground. Here it was intended they should remain to dry, during the summer, to be ready for a market in the fall.

"So it's you, Judge and Mr. Armstrong," exclaimed Gladding as the two came up. "I guessed as much, that somebody was coming, when I heard Tige bark. He makes a different sort of a noise when he gits on the scent of a rabbit or squirrel."

"I dare say, Tiger knows a great deal more than we fancy," said the Judge. "Why, Gladding you come on bravely. I had no idea you had made such destruction."

"When I once put my hand to the work," said Tom, laughing, "down they must come, in short metre, if they're bigger than Goliah. Me and my axe are old friends, and we've got the hang of one another pretty well. All I have to do, is to say, 'go it,' and every tree's a goner."

After this little bit of vanity, Tom, as if to prove his ability to make good his boast by deeds, with a few well-directed blows, that seemed to be made without effort, lopped off an enormous limb from the tree he had just cut down.

"I've heard tell," said Tom, continuing his employment of cutting off the limbs, "that the Britishers and the Mounseers don't use no such axes as ourn. You've been across the Big Pond, and can tell a fellow all about it."

"It is true, they do not. The European axe is somewhat differently shaped from your effective weapon."

"The poor, benighted critturs!" exclaimed Tom, in a tone of commiseration. "I saw one of them Parleyvoos once, try to handle an axe, and I be darned, if he didn't come nigh cutting off the great toe of his right foot. If he hadn't been as weak as Taunton water--that, folks say, can't run down hill--as all them outlandish furriners is, and had on, to boot, regular stout cowhiders, I do believe he'd never had the chance to have the gout in one toe, anyhow. Why, I'd as soon trust a monkey with a coal of fire, in a powder-house, as one of them chaps with an axe."

"We have the best axes, and the most skillful woodmen in the world,"

said the Judge, not unwilling to humor the harmless conceit of the wood-chopper.

"It's plaguy lucky we have, seeing as how we've got so many thousands and thousands of acres to clear up," said Tom, with a sort of confused notion, that the skill of his countrymen was a natural faculty not possessed by "furriners." "But, Judge," he added, "I'm astonished at your cutting down the trees at this season of the year, and it kind o'

goes agin my conscience to sling into 'em."

"I know what you mean. You think they ought not to be cut when the sap is rising. I suppose, the fire-wood is not so good?"

"Not half. Turn the thing as you choose, and you'll see you're wrong.

In the first place, the wood ain't nigh as good; then, you lose the growth the whole summer, and, lastly, you take away a fellow from business that's more profitable."

"How?" said the Judge. "Do I not give you full wages? Can you get higher wages elsewhere?"

"No fault to find with the pay," answered Tom; "that's good enough.

But, that ain't the idee. What I'm at is, that when I work, I like to see something useful come to pa.s.s. Now, every time I strike a blow, it seems to go right to my heart; for, I says to myself, this ain't no season for cutting wood. The Judge don't understand his own interest, and he's only paying me for injuring him."

Judge Bernard was too well-acquainted with the honest independence of Gladding to be offended at his uncomplimentary frankness. Nor, indeed, looking at it from Tom's point of view, could he avoid feeling a certain respect for that right-mindedness, which regarded not merely the personal remuneration to be received, but, also, the general benefit to be produced. He laughed, therefore, as he replied--

"You do not seem to set much value on my judgment, Gladding. Perhaps, I have objects you do not see."

"It ain't to be expected," said Tom, "and it ain't rational to suppose, that a man, who, when he was young, spent his time travelling over all creation, and then when he come home, took to the law, should know much about these matters; though, I guess you know as much as most folks, who ain't been brought up to 'em. But, as you say, it's likely you've got reasons of your own, as plenty as feathers in a bed, and I've been talking like most folks whose tongues is too long, like a darned fool."

"You are too hard on yourself, now. But, for your consolation, we will stop to-day with this piece of work, and you shall not be pained to cut down any more trees out of season. The clearing is as large as I wish it, and we will see to the burning of the brush, when it is drier. But, where is Mr. Armstrong?"

Armstrong, at the commencement of the conversation, had strayed away by himself, and sat down by one of the altar-like piles of wood, near the margin of the brook. Here he leaned his head on his hand, and seemed lost in meditation. He was in this posture when the exclamation was made by the Judge, who, on looking round, discovered the missing man, and immediately advanced toward him. So deep was his abstraction, that it was not until his friend's hand rested on his shoulder that he was aware of the other's presence. He arose, and the two retraced their steps together. The sun, by this time, had sunk behind the horizon, and, as they pa.s.sed, Gladding threw his axe on his shoulder and joined their company.

"I'm glad," said the wood-chopper, as they stepped out of the clearing, and turned to look back upon what he had accomplished, "that job's done, and I can turn my hand to something else more like summer work."

"Do you mean to proceed no further with your chopping?" inquired Armstrong.

"Not at present. All has been done that I desired, and I ought to respect Gladding's conscientious scruples."

Armstrong looked inquiringly from one to the other, but asked no question.

The hospitable invitation of Mr. and Mrs. Perkins was too pressing to be resisted, and it was not until the full moon had risen, that the gentlemen departed. The soft beauty of the delicious evening, or some other cause, exercised an influence over Armstrong, that disposed him to silence and meditation, which his companion perceiving, they returned home without exchanging scarcely a dozen words.

CHAPTER XL.

Man is a harp, whose cords elude the sight, Each yielding harmony disposed aright; The screws reversed (a task which if he please, G.o.d in a moment executes with ease), Ten thousand thousand strings at once go loose, Lost, till he tune them, all their power and use.

COWPER

The aberration of mind of the unhappy Mr. Armstrong was at last with inevitable and steady step approaching its dreaded culminating point.

To the outward eye he exhibited but little change. He was indeed, at times more restless, and his eyes would wander round as if in quest of some object that was trying to elude his sight; at one moment listless, silent, and dejected, and again animated, almost gay, like one who, ashamed of an exhibition of moody temper, tries to atone by extraordinary efforts of amiability for the error. His intimate friends had some knowledge of these changes, and to Faith, above all, living with him in the same house, and in the tender relation of a daughter to a parent, each of whom idolized the other, they were painfully apparent, and great was the anxiety they occasioned. How bitter were the tears which in solitude she shed, and frequent and fervent her supplications to the universal Father to pity and protect her father! How willingly, even at the sacrifice even of her own life, would she have restored peace and happiness to him!

But to the neighbors, to those who saw Armstrong only in public, no great change was manifest. He was thinner and paler than usual, to be sure, but every one was liable to attacks of indisposition, and there was no reason why he should be exempt; he did not speak a great deal, but he was always rather taciturn, and when he did converse, it was with his usual sweetness and affability. They guessed he'd be better after a while.

Such was the common judgment in the little community among those who had any knowledge of Armstrong's condition. They saw him daily in the streets. They conversed with him, and could see nothing out of the way. But some few who recollected the history of the family, and the circ.u.mstances attending the latter years of Armstrong's father, shook their heads, and did not hesitate to intimate that there had always been something strange about the Armstrongs. Curious stories, too, were told about the grandfather, and there was a dim tradition, n.o.body knew whence it came, or on what authority it rested, that the original ancestor of the family in this country, was distinguished in those days of ferocious bigotry, when the Indians were regarded by many as Canaanites, whom it was a religious duty to extirpate, as much for an unrelenting severity against the natives, bordering even on aberration of mind, as for reckless courage.

It is sad to look upon the ruins of a palace in whose halls the gay song and careless laugh long ago echoed; to contemplate the desolation of the choked fountains in gardens which _were_ princely; and with difficulty to make one's way through encroaching weeds and tangled briers, over what once were paths where beauty lingered and listened to the vow of love; or to wander through the streets of a disentombed city, or seated on a fallen column, or the stone steps of the disinterred amphitheatre, to think of the human hearts that here, a thousand years agone, beat emulously with the hopes and fears, the loves and hates, the joys and sorrows, the aspiration and despair that animate or depress our own, and to reflect that they have all vanished--ah, whither? But however saddening the reflections occasioned by such contemplations, however much vaster the interests involved in them, they do not affect us with half that wretched sorrow with which we gaze upon the wreck of a human mind. In the former case, that which has pa.s.sed away has performed its part; on every thing terrestial "transitory," is written, and it is a doom we expect, and are prepared for; but in the latter it is a shrouding of the heavens; it is a conflict betwixt light and darkness, where darkness conquers; it is an obscuration and eclipse of the G.o.dlike. We therefore feel no desire to dwell upon this part of our history, but, on the contrary, to glide over it as rapidly as is consistent with the development of the tale.

Next after Faith, the faithful Felix noticed, with disquietude, the alteration in his master, and many were the sad colloquies he held with Rosa on the subject. Holden in some way or another was connected in his mind with the cause of Mr. Armstrong's melancholy, for although for several years the latter had not been remarkably cheerful, yet it was only since Holden's acquaintance had become intimacy, that that melancholy deepened into gloom. The simple fellow naturally looked round for some cause for the effect, and none presented itself so plausible as the one he adopted.

"I wish," he had repeatedly said to Rosa, "that the old man would stay away. I'd see the divil with as much satisfacshum as him. Miss Faith too, I am sorry to say, is out of her wits."

One morning when Felix went up stairs, in answer to his master's bell, he could not avoid remarking on his altered appearance.

"I hope you will 'scuse me, sir," he said, "but me and the servants very much alarm about you, sir."

"I am obliged to you, Felix, and to all of you, but really there is no occasion for any alarm," said Mr. Armstrong.

"The case is the alarmingest when the patient doesn't know how sick he is. There was my old friend, Pompey Topset. He was setting up on the bed, when I come in to see him, smoking a pipe. And says he, says Pompey to me, says he, Felix, how do you do? this child never feel better. Then he give one puff and his head fall on the breast, and the pipe jump out of his mouth and burnt the clothes, and where was Pompey! He never," added Felix, shaking his head, "was more mistaken in all his life."

Mr. Armstrong was obliged to smile. "So you think me in as dangerous a condition as Pompey was, when he took his last smoke."

"Bless you, Mr. Armstrong for the sweet smile," exclaimed, the negro.

"If you know how good it make me feel here, (laying his hand on his heart) you would smile pretty often. I can remember when the wren wasn't merrier than you, and you laughed almost as much as this fool Felix." At the recollection of those happy days, poor Felix pressed his hands upon his eyes, and tried to hide the tears, that in spite of his efforts stole through the fingers. "But," continued he, "I hope in the name of marcy, that you ain't so bad off as Pompey. That can't be.

I only spoke of him for the sake of--of--the illumination."

"And what would you have me do?" inquired Armstrong, desirous to take all possible notice of the affectionate fellow.

"I pufess a high 'pinion of the doctor," answered Felix. "There is no man who gives medicine that tastes worse, and therefore must be the powerfullest. I would proscribe the doctor, sir."

"You would prescribe the doctor? Ah, Felix, I am afraid my case has nothing to do with his medicines."

"There is one other thing I should like to mention if I wasn't 'fraid it might offend Mr. Armstrong," said Felix, hesitatingly.