The Redemption of David Corson Part 18

Sharp and irritating as the encounter had been between the two lovers, the momentary antipathy pa.s.sed away as they moved along. They drew nearer together; they lifted their eyes furtively; their glances met; they smiled; they spoke; their sympathies flowed back into the old channel; their hopes and affections mingled. They gave themselves up to joy with the abandon of youth, falling into that mood in which everything pleases and delights. Nature did not need to tell them her secrets aloud, for they comprehended her whispers and grasped her meaning from sly hints. They melted into her moods.

What joys were theirs! To be young; to be drawn together by an affinity which produced a mysterious and ineffable happiness; to wander aimlessly over the earth; to yield to every pa.s.sing fancy; to dream; to hope; to love. It was the culminating hour of their lives.

Pa.s.sing through the little village since called Avondale, they turned down what is now the Clinton Springs road, climbed a hill, descended its other slope, and came upon an old spring house where, as they paused to drink, David scratched their names with his penknife on one of the stones of the walls, where they may be read to-day.

Leaving the turnpike, they entered a grove through which flowed a noisy stream; cast themselves upon a bank, bathed their faces, ate their lunch and rested. There for a few moments, in the tranquil and uplifting influence of the silence and the solitude, all that was best in their natures came to the surface. Pepeeta nestled down among the roots of a great beech tree, her hat flung upon the ground by her side, her arms folded across her bosom, her face upturned like a flower drinking in the sunshine or the rain. At her feet her lover reclined, his head upon his arms and his gaze fixed upon the canopy of leaves which spread above them and through which as the branches swayed in the breeze he caught glimpses of the sky.

Pepeeta broke the silence. "I could stay here forever," she said. "I nestle here in the roots of this great tree like a little child in the arms of its mother. I feel that everything around me is my friend. I feel, not as if I were different from other things, but as if I were a part of them. Do you comprehend? Do you feel that way?"

"More than at any time since leaving home," he said. "That was the way I always felt in the old days--how far away they seem! I could then sit for hours beside a brook like this, and thoughts of G.o.d would flow over my soul like water over the stones; and now I do not think of Him at all! It was by a brook like this that we first met. Do you remember, Pepeeta?"

"I shall never forget."

"Are you sure?"

"As certain as that I live."

"Sure--certain! Of what are we sure but the present moment? Into it we ought to crowd all the joys of existence."

Her feminine instinct discovered the return of his thoughts into the old dangerous channel, and her quick wit diverted them.

"Tell me more about your home, and how you felt when you used to sit like this and think."

He determined to yield himself for a little while longer to her will, and said: "In those days Nature possessed for me an irresistible fascination; but the spell is broken now. I then thought that I was face to face with the eternal spirit of the universe. How far I have drifted away from the world in which I then existed! I could never return to it.

I am like a bird which has broken its sh.e.l.l and which can never be put back again. I have found another face into which I now look with still deeper wonder than into that of Nature, and which exerts a still deeper fascination. It is the face of a woman, in whom all the beauties of nature seem to be mirrored. She is everything to me; she is the entire universe embodied in a gentle heart."

He gazed at her with a look that made her pulses beat; but she was determined not to permit him to drift back into that dangerous mood from which she had drawn him with such difficulty.

"One time you told me," she said, "that the birds and squirrels were such good friends to you, that if you called them they would come to you like your dog. I should love to see that. Look! There is a squirrel sitting on the limb of this very tree! How saucy he looks! How shy!

Bring him to me! I command you! You have said that I am your mistress; go, slave!"

Rising to her feet she pointed to the squirrel. Her lithe form was outlined against the green background of the forest in a pose of exquisite grace and beauty, her eyes glowed with animation, and her lips smiled with the consciousness of power. It was impossible to resist her.

He rose, looked in the direction toward which she pointed, and saw the squirrel cheeping among the branches. Imitating its cries, he began to move slowly toward it. The little creature p.r.i.c.ked up its ears, c.o.c.ked its head on one side, flirted its bushy tail and watched the approaching figure suspiciously. As it drew nearer and nearer, he began to creep down the branches. Stopping now and then to reconnoiter, he started forward again; paused; retreated; returned, and still continued to advance, until he was within a foot or two of David's hand, which he examined first with one eye and then the other and made a motion as if to spring upon it. Suddenly the spell was broken. With a wild flirt of his tail and a loud outcry, he sprang up the tree and disappeared in the foliage.

David watched him until he had vanished, and then turned toward Pepeeta with a look of disappointment and chagrin.

"It is too bad," she cried, hastening toward him sympathetically, "but see, there is a redbird on the top of that old birch tree. Try again!

You will have better success this time, I am sure you will."

He determined to make another experiment. The brilliant songster was pouring out his heart in that fine cry of strength and hope which he sends resounding over hill and vale. Suddenly hearing his own voice repeated to him in an echo sweet and pure as his own song, he fluttered his wings, peered this way and that, and sang again. Once more the answering call resounded, true as an image in a mirror.

David now began to move with greater caution than before toward the little creature, who looked at him with curious glances. Back and forth resounded the sweet antiphonal, and the bird hopped down a branch or two. Neither of the actors in this woodland drama removed his eyes from the other, and the spectator watched them both with breathless interest.

Presently David lifted his hands--the palms closed together in the form of a cup or nest. The songster bent farther forward on the twig, and suddenly with a downward plunge shot straight toward them; but just as his tiny feet touched the fingers, turned as the squirrel had done, and uttering a loud cry of terror flew away. David dropped his hands and his eyes.

"I have lost my power," he said sadly.

"You are out of practice, you must exercise it oftener. It will all come back," Pepeeta responded cheerfully.

They walked slowly and silently back to the place where they had been sitting, and David began tossing pebbles into the brook.

"Three times to-day," he said, pausing and turning toward Pepeeta, "I have opened my hands and my heart, and each time the object whose love I sought has fluttered away from me in terror or repugnance."

"Oh! no, not in terror and repugnance," she said eagerly.

"Am I then incapable of exciting love?" he asked.

"You will break my heart if you speak so. I love you more than I love my own life."

"I do not believe it. Can I believe that the squirrel and the redbird love me, when they flee from me? If they had loved me, they would have come to me and nestled to my heart. And so would you. I have come back to the old subject. I cannot refrain any longer. Will you go with me, or will you not?"

"Oh! David," she cried, wringing her hands, "why, why will you break my heart? Why can you not permit me to finish this day in peace? Wait until some other time. Why can you not enjoy this present moment? I could wish it to last forever, if you were only kind. If the flight of time could be stopped, if we could be forever what we are just now, I could not ask for any other thing. See how beautiful the world is. See how happy we are. See how everything hangs just like a balance! Do not speak, do not move; one unkind word would jar and spoil it all."

"It is impossible," he cried roughly, "you must leave your husband and come with me. You cannot put me off any longer. I am desperate."

He was looking at her with eyes no longer full of pleading, but of determination and command.

"What will you do?" he asked.

"Oh!" she answered, trembling, "why will you compel me to act? Let something happen! Wait! It is not necessary always to act! Sometimes it is better to sit still! We are in G.o.d's hands. Let us trust Him. Has He not awakened this love in our hearts? He has not made us love and long for each other only to thwart us!"

"Thwart us! Who coaxes the flowers from the ground, only that the frost may nip them? Who opens the bud only to permit it to be devoured by the worm? Who places the babe in its mother's arms only to let it be s.n.a.t.c.hed away by the hand of death? You cannot appeal to me in that way," he retorted, bitterly.

"Do not speak so," she exclaimed with genuine terror. "It is wicked to say such things in this quiet and holy place. Oh! why have you lost that faith you once possessed? What has blinded your eyes to the light that you taught me to see? I see it now! All will be well! Something says to me in my heart, 'All will be well,' if we only follow the light!"

Nothing could have given stronger proof that inspiration and intuition are as natural and legitimate functions of the spiritual nature as sensation and sense perception are of the physical, than her words and looks. They would have convinced and mastered him, except for the self-denial which they demanded of his love! But he was now far past all reason.

"Pepeeta," he cried, approaching her, "you must be mine and mine alone!

I can no longer endure the thought of your being the wife of another man. You must come with me. I will not take 'no' for an answer. I command you to leave this man and go with me. It is a worse crime for you to live with him when you hate him than to leave him! Come, let us go! I have money! There are horses to be had. He does not know where we are. Let us fly!"

It was evident that he had brooked her refusal as long as he could. The man was mad. He seized her by the arm.

In a single instant this gentle creature pa.s.sed through an incredible transformation. She wrenched her arm from his hand and stood before him fearless, resolute, magnificent! Her gypsy training stood her in good stead now. Young as she was when a pupil in that hard school, she had learned from her wild teachers the cardinal principle of their code--_loyalty to her marriage vows_. They had taught her to believe that this breach was the one unpardonable sin.

She drew a little stiletto from the folds of her dress, placed its point upon her heart and said: "It is not necessary that a gypsy should live; but it is necessary that she should be virtuous!"

Her resplendent beauty, her fearless courage, her invincible determination quenched the wild impulses of the reckless youth in a single instant. All the manhood, all the chivalry of his better nature rose within him and did homage. He threw himself on his knees and frantically besought her pardon.

In an instant the fierce light died from her eyes. She stooped down, laid her hand on his arm, and with an all-forgiving charity lifted him to his feet. They stood regarding each other in silence. All that their souls could reveal had been manifested in actions. The brief scene was terminated by a common impulse. They turned their faces toward the city and walked quietly, each reflecting silently upon the struggle that had been enacted and the denouement which was yet to come.

In her ignorance and inexperience, Pepeeta hoped that a scene so dreadful would quench the madness in her lover's soul; but this revelation of the grandeur of her nature only inflamed his desires the more. The momentary feeling of shame and penitence pa.s.sed away. His determination to possess her became more fixed than ever and during the homeward walk a.s.sumed a definite form.

For a long time a sinister purpose had been rolling about in his soul.

That purpose now crystallized into resolution. He determined to commit a crime if need be in order to gain his end.

Nothing can be more astonishing than the rapidity and ease with which the mind becomes habituated to the presence of a criminal intention.

The higher faculties are at first disturbed, but they soon become accustomed to the danger, and permit themselves to be destroyed one after another, with only feeble protestations.