Who Was He?

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Title:     Who Was He?
Author: W.H.H. Murray [More Titles by Murray]

I

At the head of a stretch of swiftly running water the river widened into a broad and deep pool. From the western bank a huge ledge of rock sloped downward and outward into the water. On it stood the trapper, John Norton, with a look of both expectation and anxiety on his face. For a moment he lifted his troubled eyes and gazed steadily through the tree-tops; and as his eyes fell to the level of the river, while the look of anxiety deepened on his countenance, he said:

"Yis, the wind has changed and the fire be comin' this way; and ef it gits into the balsam thickets this side of the mountain and the wind holds where it is, a buck in full jump could hardly outrun it. Yis, the smoke thickens; ef I didn't know that the boy would act with jedgment, and that he's onusually sarcumspect, I would sartinly feel worried about him. I hope he won't do anything resky for the sake of the pups. Ef he can't git 'em, he can't; and I trust he won't resk the life of a man for a couple of dogs."

With these words the trapper relapsed into silence. But every minute added to his anxiety, for the smoke thickened in the air and even a few cinders began to pass him as they were blown onward with the smoke by the wind.

"The fire is comin' down the river," he said, "and the boy has it behind him. Lord-a-massy! hear it roar! I know the boy is comin', for I never knowed him to do a foolish thing in the woods; and it would be downright madness for him to stay in the shanty, or even go to the shanty, ef the fire had struck the balsam thicket afore he made the landin'. Lord, ef an oar-blade should break,--but it won't break. The Lord of marcy won't let an oar that the boy is handlin' break, when the fire is racin' behind him, and he's comin' back from an arrand of marcy. I never seed a man desarted in a time like"--

A report of a rifle rang out quick and sharp through the smoke.

"God be praised!" said the trapper, "it's the boy's own piece, and he let it off as he shot the rift the fourth bend above. Yis, the boy knows his danger and he took the vantage of the rift to signal me with his piece, for oars couldn't help him in the rift and the missin' of a single stroke wouldn't count. I trust the boy got the pups, arter all," added the old trapper, his mind instantly reverting to his loved companions the moment it was relieved from anxiety touching his comrade.

It couldn't have been over five minutes after the report of a rifle had sounded, before a boat swept suddenly around the bend above the rock and shot like an arrow through the haze toward the trapper. Herbert was at the oars and the two hounds were sitting on their haunches at the stern. The stroke the oarsman was pulling was such as a man pulls when, in answer to some emergency, he is putting forth his whole strength. But though the stroke was an earnest one, there was no apparent hurry in it; for it was long and evenly pulled, from dip to finish, and the recovery seemed a trifle leisurely done. The face of the trapper fairly shone with delight as he saw the boat and the occupants. Indeed, his happiness was too great to be enjoyed silently, and, in accordance with his habit when greatly interested, he broke into speech.

"Look at that now!" he exclaimed, as if speaking to some one at his side; "look at that now! There's a stroke that's worth notin', and is a kind of edication in itself. Ye might almost think that there wasn't quite enough snap in it; but the boy knows that he's pullin' for his life and the life of another man somewhere below him--not to speak of the pups--and he knows it's good seven miles to the rapids, and he's pullin' every ounce that's in him to pull, and keep his stroke. Now, he's come five miles, ef he's come a rod, and I warrant he hasn't missed a stroke, save when in shootin' the rift he let off his piece. And he knows he's got seven miles more to pull and he's set himself a twelve-mile stroke; and there aint many men that could do it, with the roar of the fire a leetle way behind him. Yis, the boy has acted with jedgment and is sartinly comin' along like a buck in full jump. I guess I'd better let him know where I be."

"Hillow there, boy! Hi, hi, pups! Here I be on the p'int of the rock, as fresh as a buck arter a mornin' drink. Ease away a leetle, Herbert, in yer stroke and move the pups forad a leetle and make room for a man and a paddle, for the fire is arter ye and the time has come to jine works."

The young man did as the trapper requested. He intermitted a stroke and the hounds, at a word, moved into the middle of the boat and crouched obediently in the bottom, but whimpering in their gladness at hearing their master's voice again. The boat was under good headway when it passed the point of the ledge on which the trapper was standing, but as it glanced by, the old man leaped with practised agility to his place in the stern and had given a full and strong stroke to his paddle before he had fairly settled to his seat.

"Now, Herbert," he began, "ease yerself a bit, for ye have had a tough pull and it's good seven miles to the rapids. The fire is sartinly comin' in arnest, but the river runs nigh onto straight till ye git within sight of 'em, and I think we will beat it. I didn't feel sartin that ye had got the pups, Herbert, for I could see by the signs that ye wouldn't have any time to spare. Was it a tech and a go, boy?"

"The fire was in the pines west of the shanty when I entered it," answered the young man, "and the smoke was so thick that I couldn't see it from the river as I landed."

"I conceited as much," replied the trapper, "I conceited as much. Yis, I knowed 'twould be a close shave ef ye got 'em, and I feared ye would run a resk that ye oughtn't to run, in yer love for the dogs."

"I didn't propose to leave the dogs to die," responded the young man; "I think I should have heard their cries in my ears for a year, had they been burned to death in the shanty where we left them."

"Ye speak with right feelin', Herbert," replied the trapper. "No, a hunter has no right to desart his dog when danger be nigh; for the Creator has made 'em in their loves and their dangers, alike. Did ye save the powder and the bullits, boy?"

"I did not," responded Herbert; "the sparks were all around me and the shanty was smoking while I was feeling around for the dogs' leash. I heard the canister explode before I reached the first bend."

"'Twas a narrer rub, boy," rejoined the trapper. "Yis, I can see 'twas a narrer rub ye had of it, and the holes in yer shirt show that the sparks was fallin' pritty thick and pritty hot, too, when ye come out of the shanty. How does the stroke tell on ye, boy?" continued the old man, interrogatively. "Ye be pullin' a slashin' stroke, ye see, and there's five mile more of it, ef there's a rod."

"The stroke begins to tell on my left side," answered Herbert; "but if you were sitting where you could see what's coming down upon us as I can, you would see it wasn't any time for us to take things leisurely."

"Lord, boy," rejoined the trapper, "do ye think I haven't any ears? The fire's at the fourth bend above us and the pines on the ridge we passed five minutes ago ought to be blazin' by this time. Ah me, boy, this isn't the fust time I've run a race with a fire of the devil's own kindlin', alone and in company, both. And my ears have measured the roar and the cracklin' ontil I can tell to a rod, eenamost, how fur the red line be behind me."

"What do you think of our chances?" queried his companion; "shall we get over the carry in time? for I suppose we are making for the big pool, are we not?"

"Yis, we be makin' for the pool," replied the trapper, "for it's the only safe spot on the river; and as for the chances, I sartinly doubt ef we can fetch the carry in time. Ef the fire isn't there ahead of us, it will be on us afore we could git to the pool at the other eend."

"Why can't we run the rapids?" asked Herbert promptly.

"The rapids can be run, as you and me know," responded the old man, "for we have both did it, although they be onusually swift, and there be spots where good jedgment and a quick paddle is needed."

"Why," exclaimed Herbert, "the last time we went down we never took in a drop of water."

"It's true, as ye say, boy," responded the trapper; "yis, we sartinly did as ye say, though few be the men that know the waters that would believe it."

"Why, then," exclaimed the young man, "can't we do it again?"

"The smoke, boy, the smoke," was the answer. "The smoke will be there ahead of us. And who can run a stretch of water like the one ahead yender, with his eyes blinded? No, boy, we must git there ahead of the fire, for we can't run the rapids in the smoke. Here," he added, "ye be pullin' a murderin' stroke, and it's best that I spell ye. Down with ye, pups, down with ye, and lie still as a frozen otter while the boy comes over ye."

With the celerity of long practice in boating, the two men changed places, and with such quickness was the change in position effected, that the onrushing shell scarcely lessened its headway. The trapper seized the oars on the instant, while Herbert supported him with equal swiftness with the paddle and the light craft raced along like a feather blown by the gale.

For several moments the trapper, who, by the change in his position was brought face to face with the pursuing fire, said not a word. His stroke was long and sweeping and pulled with an energy which only perfect skill and tremendous strength can put into action. He looked at the rolling flames with a face undisturbed in its calmness and with eyes that noted knowingly every sign of its progress.

"The fire is a hot un," he said at length, "and it runs three feet to our two. We may git there ahead of it, for there isn't more than a mile furder to go; but--Lord!" exclaimed the trapper, "how it roars! and it makes its own wind as it comes on. Don't break yer paddle shaft, boy; but the shaft is a good un and ye may put all the strength into it that ye think it will stand."

The spectacle on which the trapper was gazing was, indeed, a terrible one; and the peril of the two men was getting to be extreme. The valley, through the centre of which the river ran, was perhaps a mile in width, at which distance a range of lofty hills on either side walled it in. Down this enclosed stretch the fire was being driven by a wind which sent the blazing evidences of its approach in advance of its terrible progress. The spectacle was indescribable. The dreadful line of flame moved onward like a line of battle, when it moves at a charge against a flying enemy. The hungry flames ate up the woods as a monster might eat food when starving. Grasses, shrubs, bushes, thickets of undergrowth and the great trees, which stood in groves over the level plain on either side of the stream, disappeared at its touch as if swallowed up. The evergreens crackled and flamed fiery hot. The smoke eddied up in rushing volumes. Overhead, and far in advance of the on-rolling line of fire, the air was darkened with black cinders, amid whose sombre masses fiery sparks and blazing brands shone and flashed like falling stars.

A deer suddenly sprang from the bank into the river ahead of the boat and, frenzied with fear, swam boldly athwart its course. He was followed by another and another. Birds flew shrieking through the air. Even the river animals swam uneasily along the banks, or peered out of their holes, as if nature had communicated to them, also, the terrible alarm; while, like the roar of a cataract,--dull, heavy, portentous,--the wrath of the flames rolled ominously through the air.

Amid the sickening smoke which was already rolling in volumes over the boat and the terrible uproar and confusion of nature, Herbert and the trapper kept steadily to their task. But every moment the line of fire gained on them. The smoke was already at intervals stifling and the heat of the coming conflagration getting unbearable. Brands began to fall hissing into the water. Twice had Herbert flung a blazing fragment out of the boat. And so, in a race literally for life, with the flames chasing them and their lives in jeopardy, they turned the last bend above the carry which began at the head of the rapids. But it was too late; the fiery fragments blown ahead by the high wind had fallen in front of them, and the landing at the carry itself was actually enveloped in smoke and flame.

"The fire be ahead of us, boy!" exclaimed the trapper, "and death is sartinly comin' behind. The odds be agin us to start with, for the smoke is thick and the fire will be in the bends at least half the way down, but it's our only chance; we must run the rapids."

"What about the dogs?"

"The pups must shirk for themselves," answered the old man. "I'm sorry, but the rapids be swift and the waters shaller on the first half of the stretch. And the pups settle the boat half an inch, ef they settle it a hair. Yis, overboard with ye, pups! overboard with ye!" commanded the trapper. "Ye must use the gifts the Lord has gin ye now, or git singed. I advise ye to keep with the current and come down trailin' the boat; for man's reason is better than dogs' reason, techin' currents and eddies, not to speak of falls. But take yer own way; for yer lives be in jeopardy with yer master's, and ye ought, for sartin, to have the chance of dyin' as ye like to. But yer best chance is to foller the boat, as I jedge."

The trapper had continued to talk as if addressing members of the human and not the canine species; and long before he had finished his remarks, the hounds had taken to the water and were swimming with all their power directly in the wake of the boat, as if they had actually understood their master's injunction, and were, indeed, determined to shoot the rapids in his wake.

The conflagration was now at its fiercest heat. The smoke whirled upward in mighty eddies or rolled along in huge convolutions. Through the fleecy rolls here and there tongues of flame shot fiercely. The river steamed. The roar of the rushing flames was deafening. The tops of the huge pines that stood along the banks would wave and toss as the fiery line reached them, and then burst into blaze, as if they were but the mighty torches that lighted the path of the passing destruction. In all his long and eventful life, passed amid peril, it is doubtful if the trapper had ever been in a wilder scene. The rapids were ahead and the fire behind and on either side. The great mass of flame had not yet rolled abreast the boat, but the blazing brands were already falling in advance. It was not a moment to hesitate; nor was he a man to falter when action was called for.

By this time the boat had come nigh the upper rift of the rapids, and the motion of the downward suction was beginning to tell on its progress. The trapper shipped his oars and, lifting his paddle, placed himself in a kneeling posture, gazing down stream. The fire was almost upon them, and the smoke too dense for sight. But pressing as was the emergency, neither man touched his paddle to the water, but let the boat go down with the quickening current to the verge of the rapids, where the sharp dip of the decline would send it flying.

"This be an onsartin ventur', Henry," cried the trapper, shouting to his comrade from the smoke that now made it impossible for the young man, even at only the boat's length, to see his person. "This be an onsartin ventur', and the Lord only knows how it will eend. Ye know the waters as well as I do; and ye know the p'ints where things must be did right. We'll beat the smoke arter we make the fust dip and git out of the thickest of it in the fust half of the distance, onless somethin' happens. Let her go with the current, boy, ontil yer sight comes to ye, for the current knows where it's goin', and that's more than a mortal can tell in this infarnal smoke. Here we go, boy!" shouted the old man, as the boat balanced in its perilous flight on the sharp edge of the uppermost rift. "Here we go, boy!" he shouted out of the smoke and the rush of waters, "it's hotter than Tophet where we be and it matters mighty leetle what meets us below."

II

To those who have had no experience in running rapids, no adequate conception can be given touching what can with truth be called one of the most exciting experiences that man can pass through. The very velocity with which the flight is made is enough of itself to make the sensation startling. The skill which is required on the part of the boatman is of the finest order. Eye and hand and readiest wit must work in swift connection. Some who read these lines perhaps have--shall we say--enjoyed the sensation which we have always found impossible to describe in words? These, at least, will appreciate the difficulty of our task, and also the peril which surrounded the trapper and his companion.

The first flight down which the boat glanced was a long one. The river bed sloped away in a straight direction for nigh on to fifty rods, and at an angle so steep that the water, although the bottom was rough, fairly flattened itself as it ran; and the channel where the current was the deepest gave forth a serpentine sound as it whizzed downward. The smoke, which hung heavily over the stretch from shore to shore, was too dense for the eye to penetrate a yard. Amid the smoke sparks floated, and brands, crackling as they fell, plunged through it into the steaming water. Guidance of the frail craft was, as the trapper had predicted, out of the question; the two men could only keep their position as they went streaming downward. They kept their seats like statues, knowing well that their safety lay in allowing their light shell to follow, without the least interruption, the pressure of the swift current.

Half down the flight the volume of smoke was parted, by some freak of the wind, from shore to shore, and for a couple of rods they saw the water, the blazing banks, the fiery tree-tops and each other. The trapper turned his face, blackened and stained by the grimy cinders, toward his companion and gave one glance, in which humor and excitement were equally mingled. His mouth was open, but the words were lost in the roar of the flame and the rush of the water. He had barely time to toss a hand upward, as if by gesture he would make good the impossibility of speech, before face and hand alike faded from Herbert's eyes as the boat plunged again into the smoke.

The next instant the boat launched down the final pitch of the declivity and shot far out into the smooth water that eddied in a huge circle in the pool below. The smoke was at this point less compact, for through it the blazing pines on either flamed partially into view.

"It's the devil's own work, boy, for sartin," cried the trapper, "and the fool or the knave that started the fire oughter be toasted. I trust the pups will be reasonable and come down with the current. Has the fire touched ye anywhere?"

"Not much," answered Herbert. "A brand struck me on the shoulder and opened a hole in my shirt,--that's all. How do you feel?"

"Fried, boy; yis, actally fried. Ef this infarnal heat lasts, I'll be ready to turn afore we reach the second bend."

"How goes the stream below?" asked Herbert.

"All clear for a while," answered the trapper, "all clear for a while. Put yer strength into the paddle till we come to the varge below, for the fire be runnin' fast, and it's agin reason for a mortal to stand this heat long."

"Shall we run out of the smoke at the next flight?" asked Herbert.

"I think so, boy; I think so," answered the trapper. "The maples grow to the bank at the foot of the next dip, and it isn't in the natur' of hard wood to make smoke like a balsam."

He would have said more, but his companion had nodded to him as he had ended the sentence, for they had come to the last flight of the rapids, and the great pool lay glimmering through the branches of the trees below.

The old man knew what was meant and said: "I know it, boy, I know it. Take the east run, for the water be deeper that way, and the boat sets deep. I won't trouble ye, for ye know the way. Lord! how the water biles! Now's yer time, boy,--to the right with ye! to the right! Sweep her round and let her go!"

Away and downward swept the boat. The strong eddies caught it, but the controlling paddle was stronger than the eddies and kept it to the line of its safest descent. Past rocks that stood in mid current, against which the swift-going water beat and dashed--past mossy banks and shadowed curves where the great eddies whirled--down over miniature falls into bubbles and froth the light craft swept, and with a final plunge and leap jumped the last cascade, and, darting out into the great basin, ran shoreward.

It touched the beach, and the trapper and Herbert rose to their feet; but for a moment neither stirred, for in front of them, not thirty feet away, at the line where the sand and the green mosses met, and looking directly at them, _stood a man and a girl_!

* * * * *

WHO WAS HE? The two men asked this question a thousand times mentally in the next two months, and once afterward they asked it aloud, as they looked into each other's eyes across a grave. But to the question, whether spoken or silent, no answer ever came.

The world has its enigmas, and he was one.

Amid the jabbering crowd we chaff and chatter with, we meet occasionally a man who never chaffs nor chatters,--a man who sees all things; perhaps because of this, suffers all things, but says nothing at all. The sphinxes are still extant. The old time ones were of stone and bronze; the modern ones are of flesh and blood; that's all the difference. Nay, not quite all; for the secrets that the ancients held smothered within the folds of their stony silence were only such as nature revealed to them from her desert posts,--the secrets of sunrises and starry nights and simoons that swept the sandy plain and of civilizations, the murmurs of whose rising and the crash of whose sudden overthrow, they needs must hear. But the secrets that men hear today, and by hearing of which are made silent, are the secrets of lives being lived, of hearts being broken, of intentions so noble and failures so bitter as to make men sceptical whether God keeps watch over the passing events on the earth.

Was he young? No. Was he old? No, again. How old was he? Forty, perhaps; it may be fifty. The two men who stood looking at him never thought of his age, neither then nor afterward; never thought whether he was old or young. There are people who have no age to those who know them. Is it because their bodies so little represent them? A friend has been away--for years. He returns; enters your room; you shake his hand heartily in welcome. And then you stand off and look at him. You look at his hair and note the gray in it--at the wrinkles in his face--the dozen and one marks that denote change--and say, "you've grown old, old boy;" and so we judge most men, and so they should be judged. Why? Because they are not great and strong and soul-large enough to dwarf their bodies out of sight and dwindle them into insignificance.

But now and then you meet one whose mind represents him, whose soul is so gloriously finished that, as in the case of a great painting, you do not think of the frame around it, nor take notice of it at all. He is so strong vitally; so great in living force--in vital energies--in moving and persuading power--that he is to you like an immense, endless, all-conquering Life, wholly independent of his embodiment, who might exist in any form,--angel, archangel, spirit, winged or wingless, supernal or infernal, and still, in all forms, in all places, in all moral states would remain true to himself and be the same. There are some, I say, who are like this,--who are not of the earth, earthy, nor of the body, but of the spirit, whether good or bad, spiritual: angel or demon, always.

Do you know one such? No? Perhaps not, for they are rare, very rare. But some such there are, and if you do not know one, or one like to such a one, I ask you if you do not think of him as I have said? Body! what is body to such a man? what is a formation of clay deftly mingled in its chemistry round about such an indomitable indwelling spirit? Does the old rain-sodden nest photograph the bird, the swiftness and glory of whose wings lived in it once? What is age to such a one? What has he to do with the passing of years? Such a one is young and old both, from the beginning of his career forever onward. He has the freshness of youth, the strength of manhood, and the sagacity of age, fixed permanently in his structure, as nature fixes her colors in the fibre of the ash and the oak. Such have no age. How silly to ask how old he is. If you ask me, I should answer, _Who can tell_? Their earthly parents say they were born on such and such dates. Were they? Or had they lived as Mary's Son had, ages before they took--for God's wise purpose--flesh? Who can tell?

"_Heresy_?" I'm not writing a sermon, I am writing a story, and I seek to make my readers think. That would not be essential if I were sermonizing. Good people don't want that kind of preaching.

But to return. Was he young? Was he old? Neither then nor ever after did Herbert and the trapper think of him as having age; and yet he was with them, and his body had all the marks which reveal to the noticing eye the measure of man's days. This is the young man's description of him:

"Tall, straight, and well-formed; large in size, but shapely, hair brown with gray in it; in all the face a look of great power, reserved, but ready to act; eyes of changeable color, that took the shade of the emotion that chanced to come and look out of them; when unoccupied, cold, gray, and meaningless as a window-pane behind which no face is; and over all the countenance the look of great gravity, divided by but the slightest line from sadness."

So Herbert described him; but he always used to add: "Remember, this was only his body, and _therefore no description at all_."

The girl? Why, certainly, you shall know of her, and from the same authority:

"The girl that was with this strange man was not a girl merely, but both girl and woman; for she was at that age when the sweet simplicity of the one, and the full charm of the other, come into union, and a time, at least, stand in attractive alliance. She was of medium height, and perfectly formed. Her hair was brown, as were her eyes, that were large and mild of look; and over all her face was such an expression of gentleness and peace as I never saw on any other woman's face, and she loved the man with so great a love that it made her life and took it both."

* * * * *

For a moment Herbert and the trapper stood looking at the man and girl, who were standing on the edge of the beach, looking silently at them; and then the trapper said, still standing in the boat:

"We would not run agin ye so sudden-like had we seed ye, friend; and ef our company be not pleasant to ye, we will move on, and camp on some clump furder down," and the old man placed his paddle against the beach as if he would breast the boat out into the pool.

"I beg you not to do so," answered the man on the beach; "you have as good a right to this camp-ground as we, and I dare say a better one, as we are but strangers to the woods; while you, old man, look as if you had made them your home for years."

"Ye speak the truth, friend," replied the trapper. "Yis, the woods be my home; and ef livin' in 'em gives man a right, few would gainsay my claim. Yis, it's thirty years agone sence I hefted the fust trout from this pool, and br'iled him on the bank there,--and a toothsome supper he made for me, too. Lord-a-massy, boy," exclaimed the old man, half turning toward his companion, "what a thing memory be! Thirty year!--and I've seed some wanderin' sence then,--but I remember as though I'd eat him last night jest how that trout tasted. You're sartin, friend, that we won't distarb ye ef we come ashore?"

"No, no, old man," answered the other, "come ashore, you and your companion. Our camp is the other side of the balsam thicket there, and after you have built your own, we will come down and pass an hour with you, unless we should disturb you in your occupation or your pleasure."

"I be a man of the woods, as ye see," replied the trapper, "and Henry, here, be my companion; and though his home be in the city, he has consorted with me so much that he's fallen into my habits,--though it should be said to his credit that the Lord gin him nateral gifts in that direction; and when we be roamin', we take but leetle with us, and our camp be quickly made. No, no; we will have leetle to offer ye and the lady, but ef, when the sun darkens back of the mountain there, ye will honor an old man by yer comin', ye shall taste some venison that's waited three days for the mouth and is tender, as it should be. And ef the pool here will make its name good, ye shall have a trout cooked as the hunter cooks it when the fire is hot and the wet moss plenty."

"We will certainly come," answered the man. "I came into the woods to avoid men, not to meet them; but your face is honest and open as the day, old man; and your head is white as is the head of wisdom. I shall be glad to talk with you, and I doubt not your companion is as educated as you are knowing."

"I've seed the comin' and goin' of seventy year sence I've been on the arth," answered the trapper, stroking his head with the peculiar motion of the aged when speaking of their age reflectively; "and much have I seed of the passions of my kind, and many be the lessons that natur' has larnt me; and ef the convarse of an old man who has lived leetle in the clearin' would be pleasant to ye, yer comin' will be welcome.--Yis, yis, boy, I seed it. Ye had better j'int yer rod, and I will start a fire. Ye know the size ye want, and ye'll find 'em out there where the bubbles make the letter S."

The two strangers retired toward their own camp, and our friends set about their several tasks. Herbert proceeded to joint his rod and the trapper to make a rude fire-place from the stones that lined the bank at the water's edge.

The preparations for the forthcoming repast went forward rapidly. The pool kept its reputation good and yielded abundantly to the solicitation of Herbert's flies. The trout were large and in excellent condition and were quickly made ready for the trapper's treatment. A large piece of bark, peeled from a giant spruce standing near, and laid upon the ground, served for the table,--against the dark bark of which the tin dishes freshly scoured in the sand of the beach gleamed bright. The venison and trout were cooked as only one accustomed to the woods can do it, and the trapper contemplated the work of his skill with pleased complacency. At each plate Herbert had placed a bunch of checkerberries, and a small bouquet of small but exceedingly fragrant flowers adorned the centre of the bark table.

At this moment the man and girl drew near.

"I trust," said the man, as they approached, "that we have not kept you waiting by our tardiness?"

"Yer comin' be true to a minit," answered the trapper, glancing up at the western mountain, the top of whose pines the lower edge of the sun had just touched. "The meat be ready. We sartinly can't boast of the bark or the dishes," he continued, "but the victuals be as good as natur' allows, and yer welcome be hearty."

"We could ask no more," said the man, courteously, "and one might almost think that the hand of woman had adorned the table."

"The posies be the boy's doin'," replied the trapper, glancing at Herbert; "he has a likin' for their color and smell, and I never knowed him to eat without a green sprig or a bunch of bright moss or some sech thing on the bark."

"I am sure I do not like them any better than you do," answered Herbert, smiling, and looking pleasantly into the old man's face.

"They be of the Lord's makin'," responded the trapper. "They be of the Lord's makin', and it be fit thet mortals should love 'em, as I conceit. I've lived a good deal alone," he continued, "but I've never lived in a cabin yit that didn't have a few leetle flowers, or a tuft of grass, or a speck of green somewhere about it. They sort of make company for a man in the winter evenin's, and keep his thoughts in cheerful directions."

"Your sentiments do honor to your nature," responded the other, "and I am glad to meet with one of your age, who, having lived among the beauties of Nature, has not allowed them to become commonplace and unworthy of notice. Many in the cities show less refinement."

"I conceit it is a good deal in the breedin'," answered the trapper. "There be some that don't know good from evil in natur',--leastwise, they don't seem to have any eyes to note the difference; and what isn't born in a man or a dog you can't edicate into him. The breedin' settles more p'ints that the missioners dream, as I jedge. But come, friends, the victuals be coolin', and the mouth loves a warm morsel."

"I am certain," said the man, as they were partaking of the repast, "that I never tasted a piece of venison so finely flavored before."

"I've cooked the meat for nigh on to sixty year," answered the trapper, "and have larnt not to spoil the sweetness of natur' by overdoin' it. It's a quick aim that brings the buck to the camp, and a quick fire that puts the steak on to the plate ready for the mouth.--trust, lady, that ye enjoy the victuals?"

"I do, indeed," answered the girl, "and if the cooking were less perfect, I should count this as a feast."

"Yis, yis; I understand ye," answered the old man. "The sound of the tumblin' water be pleasant, and the eye eats with the mouth," and he glanced at the green woods that stretched away, and the brightly-colored clouds that hung like fleece of gold in the western sky.

"The barbarian eats from a trough," remarked Herbert; "civilize him, and he erects a table; and as you add to his refinement, he adorns that table until the furniture of it magnifies the feast and the guests think more of the beauty of the adornments than of the food they swallow."

And so with pleasant converse the meal progressed. Soon the sun declined and darkness began to thicken in the pines. The table was moved to one side, the dishes cleansed and the fire lighted for the evening. With the darkness silence had fallen upon the group,--not that silence which is awkward and oppressive, or which comes from lack of thought, but that fine silence, rather, which is only the thin shadow of the reflective mood, and because the thought is inward and overfull.

And so the four sat in silence by the fire. Above, a few great stars shone warmly. Here and there the rapids flashed white through the gloom. From a huge pine on the other side of the pool a horned owl challenged the darkness with his ponderous call.

Suddenly the man broke the silence,--broke it with a question which led to a remarkable conversation, and a tragical result. And the question was this:--

"Friend, answer me this question: _If a man take a life, should he give his own life in atonement for the dreadful deed?_"

III

"_If a man take a life, should he give his own life in atonement for the dreadful deed?_"

Such was the question that the man asked. He was looking at the trapper at the time,--looking at him steadily; but the sound of his voice as he put the question did not seem to give personal direction to the solemn interrogation; it seemed rather the echo of a reflection, as if his own mind in its communings had come upon the terrible question, and the words, without volition of his own, which framed it into speech, had passed out of his mouth.

He was looking at the trapper, as we said, and the trapper was looking into the fire,--the light of which, that came and went in flashes, brought distinctly out the settled gravity of the features, and the rugged but grand proportions of the head. There is no better light in which to see an old man's face than the fitful firelight; and no better background than that which the darkness makes.

One would have thought that the interrogation was not heard, for on the trapper's face there showed no line of change. The girl remained looking steadfastly into the face of the questioner, and Herbert made no response.

"I asked you a question, old trapper," said the man; "a question which reaches to the depths of human responsibility, and points to the heights of human sacrifice. In the old days, the wisdom of the world was with those who lived with Nature. Your head is white, and you tell me you have lived in the woods since you were a boy. You have seen war; have stood in battle; have slain your man, and made many graves of those you have slain. Have you wisdom? Are you able to answer the question I have asked you?"

"I have, as ye say," answered the trapper, "ben in wars. I've stood in battle; I've slain men; I've buried those I have slain; I know what it is to take a human creeter's life, and I think I know where the right to do the deed stops and where it begins."

"Where does it begin?" asked the man; "where does the right to take human life begin?"

The words came forth slowly and heavy-weighted with meaning. It was evident that the question which the man asked was not asked as one interrogates, but as one puts a question that has personal application to himself. The trapper felt this. He looked into the man's face, and studied his countenance a moment; noted the breadth of brow, the large, deep-set eyes, the fine curvature of the chin and cheek; saw the beauty and splendor of it; saw what some might not have seen,--both the beauty of its peaceful mood and the terribleness of the wrath that might surge out of it,--saw all this, and without answering the question, said simply,--

"You have killed a man."

The stranger looked steadily back into the trapper's face, and answered as simply,--

"Yes, I am a murderer."

Herbert started a trifle. The girl gave a slight exclamation and lifted her hand as if in protest. The trapper alone made reply,--

"Ye sartinly don't look like a murderer, friend."

"He is none! he is none!" exclaimed the girl. "He had provocation, old man! he had provocation!" and then she turned toward the man, and said: "Why will you say such things? Why will you condemn yourself wrongly? Why do you brood over a deed done in wrath, and under the strain that few might resist, as it had been done in cold blood, and with a murderer's malice and forethought of evil?"

The man listened to her gravely, with a kind of considerate patience in the look of his face; waited a moment, when she had finished, as one might wait from the habit of politeness, and then, without answering her, said:

"You have not answered my question, old trapper."

"I can't answer it,--I sartinly can't answer it, friend, onless I know the sarcumstances of the killin'; for there be killin' that be right and there be killin' that be wrong, and onless I know the sarcumstances of the killin', my words would be like the words of a boy that talks in council without knowing what he is talkin'. Ef ye killed a man, how did ye kill him?"

"I killed him face to face," answered the man. He paused a moment, and then repeated, "Face to face."

"Why did ye kill him?" asked the trapper. "Had he done ye wrong?"

"He was my friend," said the man, "my friend, true and tried."

"Had he done ye a wrong?" persisted the trapper.

"What is wrong?" asked the man. "I can't tell whether he had done me wrong or nay. I only know he had crossed my purpose,--stopped me from doing what I had set my heart on doing; and what I set my heart on doing, old man, _I do_." And the man's eyes darkened under the abundant brow and the face tightened and contracted, as a rope when a strain is upon it. "The man came between me and my purpose," he added, "he stood up and faced me, and said I should not do what I proposed to do, and should not have what I had sworn to have; and I killed him where he stood."

It was astonishing how quietly the words were said, considering the tremendous energy of will which was charged into and through their quietness.

"He had no right to do it," said the girl; "he had no right to do it. It was none of his business, and you know it wasn't," And she spoke, apparently to the man, "Oh, sir, why do you not tell them that he was an intermeddler, and meddled with what was none of his business,--kindled you to rage by his meddling, and that you slew him in your rage, thoughtlessly, unintentionally? Why do you not tell them these things?"

The man listened to her again, politely. There was a look of grave courtesy in his eye as he half turned his face and looked upon her as she was speaking; but beyond this there was no recognition that he heard her. When she had finished, he turned his face again toward the trapper, and said:

"Old trapper, you have not answered my question. Has a man a right to take life?"

"Sartinly," answered the trapper.

"How?" asked the man.

"In war," answered the trapper.

"In any other way?" queried the man.

"Yis,--in self-defence."

"Any other cause?" persisted the stranger.

"Not as a rule," answered the trapper.

After this there was a silence. The girl's head dropped into her two palms and for an instant her frame shook, as one contesting the passage of a strong feeling that insists on expression. The three men made no motion, but sat silently gazing into the fire.

For several minutes the silence lasted. There are two living that will never forget that silence. Then the man lifted his face and said,--

"Old trapper, have you ever known remorse?"

"I can't say I ever did," answered the trapper; "though I've felt a leetle oneasy arter dealin' with the thievin' vagabonds whose tracks I've found on the line of my traps. It has seemed to me, sometimes, in the evenin', in thinkin' the matter over, that perhaps a leetle less bullet and a leetle more scriptur' might have did jest as well. But a man is apt to be a leetle ha'sh in his anger; but I have an idee that the Lord makes some allowance for a man's doin's when he's a good deal r'iled. That's where the marcy comes in. Yis, that's where the marcy comes in; isn't it, boy?" and the old man looked at Herbert.

"There is certainly where we need the mercy to come in," answered Herbert; "but it were better that we acted so that mercy need not be shown."

The man listened to Herbert's reply with an expression of strong assent on his countenance, then he turned to the trapper.

"You say, old man, that you never knew remorse. Happy has your life been because of it; and happy shall your life be to its close. I have known remorse. It is a fearful knowledge,--as fearful as the knowledge of hell. Woe to the man that does an evil deed. That instant he is doomed; doomed to anguish. His divinity punishes him. Within his bosom the great tribunal is instantly set up. The judge takes his seat. The witnesses are summoned; and the whole universe swarms to the trial. His memory is a torment; and all the forces of his mind suddenly concentrate in memory,--the memory of one deed, or of many deeds, even as his sin has been sole or manifold. What torment, old man, is like the torment of one whose memory is confined wholly to his evil deeds!"

No one made any reply. The anguish of the man's speech made response impossible.

"Before I did the deed," he continued, after a pause, "my memory took knowledge of all sweet things; of all dear faces I have ever seen; of all generous and blessed deeds I had ever done. But after that I could remember but one thing,--the murderer; only one face,--the face of him I killed, and all my life, and the glory of it, was thrown into black eclipse by that one terrible act. Before I did the deed Nature was a joy to me, but now in every star I see his countenance looking down upon me. In every flower I see his still, cold face. The winds bear to me his voice. The water of those rapids"--and the man stretched his hand out towards the flowing river--"sounds to me like the rattle in his throat as he lay dying. How shall I find release, old man? How quit myself of this terrible curse?" and the man's words ended in a groan.

"The mercy of the Lord be great," replied the trapper; "greater than any deed of guilt did by mortal; great enough to cover you, friend, and your misdoin', as a mother covers the error of her child with her forgiveness."

"I know the mercy of the Lord is great," answered the man, "I know His forgiveness covers all; but the old law--old as the world, old as guilt and justice--the law of life for life and blood for blood,--has never been repealed. And this is the one comfort left for the noble: that however great the guilt, however wicked the deed, the atonement can be as great as the sin. He who dies pays all debts. He who has sent one to the grave and goes to the grave voluntarily, goes into the arms of mercy. I know not where else, with all his searching, man may surely find it."

Again there was silence. Above, the stars shone warmly through the dusky gloom. The rapids roared, falling hoarsely through the darkness. A moaning ran along the pine-tops; the firelight flamed and flickered, and the flames flashed the four faces into sight that were grouped around the brands. At length the trapper said:

"What is it ye have in yer heart to do, friend?"

"I took a life," answered the man; "I must give one in return. I took a life and my life is forfeited. This is my condemnation, and I pronounce it on myself. My judge is not above; my judge is within. In this the world finds protection, and in this the sinner finds release from sin. There is no other way; at least, no other way so perfect. One man was great enough to die for the sins of others. They who would rise to the level of his life must be great enough to lay down their life for their own sins. This is justice; and out of such true justice blooms the perfect mercy." To this the man added thoughtfully, "There is but one objection."

"What is the objection?" asked Herbert. "What is the objection, if one be great enough to make so great a sacrifice?"

"The objection," answered the man, "is found in this: it is so deep a sin to kill; it is so easy a thing to die--for what is death? The ignorant dread it because they do not analyze it; their lack of thoughtfulness makes them cowardly; for death is going out of bondage into liberty. He who passes through the dark gate finds himself, when he has passed, standing in the cloudless sunshine. In dying, the sorrowful become glad; the small become greater; and if they die rightly, the sinful become sinless. If a great motive prompts us to death, it is the perfect regeneration. Entering thus the new life, man is born anew. And so in punishment the great law of mercy stands revealed, and sin leads up to sinlessness. In such travail of soul, he who suffers through suffering is satisfied."

"It is sublime philosophy," exclaimed Herbert, "but few are great enough to practice it."

"Rather, sir," exclaimed the man, "few are knowing enough to accept it. The eyes of men, through their ignorance, are blinded by fear and they see not the delivering gates though they stand facing the open passage."

"Life is sweet."

The words fell from the lips of Herbert as if they spoke themselves.

"To the innocent, life is sweet," answered the man, "but to the guilty, life is bitterness. The world was not made for the guilty. The beauties and glories of it were not for them. The universe is not sustained for them. Only for the good do things exist. The breasts of life are full; but their nourishment is not for guilty lips to draw. I have seen the time when life was sweet. I have lived to see the time when life is bitter. Through death I go out of bitterness into sweetness. This is the mercy that is unto all and which all can take--take freely. Some get it through another--all might get it through themselves."

"It is a violent deed to kill one's self," said the trapper.

"You mistake," answered the man, "there is a coarse, rude way; there is a fine and noble way. 'I have power,' said the Man, 'to lay down my life and I have power to take it again.' Do you not think, old trapper, that a man can die when he wills?"

"I don't understand ye," answered the trapper.

"The soul rules the body," replied the stranger. "The soul is not bound to the body; it lives in it as a man lives in his house. My body is only my environment. I can quit it at will. I can go out of it."

"Do you mean to say," asked Herbert, "that we can leave our bodies through determination of purpose and mental decision?"

"There have been such cases," answered the man, "and such cases there might be continually. If the relations between the soul and the body are recognized and the supreme authority of the one over the other allowed full action, the soul can do anything it pleases. It can come and it can go. This is my faith."

While the foregoing conversation was being conducted, the girl had remained silent. Herbert sat opposite to her; and as the firelight flamed her face into sight, he could not but note the expression of it. The look of her face was that of one who was listening to what she had heard before--perhaps many times before, and which, upon the hearing, she had combated and was determined to continue to combat. And at this point she suddenly spoke up.

"I think, sir,"--and she lifted her eyes to the face of the man,--"that the living should live for the living rather than die for the dead; for the dead have no wants, neither of the body nor of the heart, neither of the mind nor the soul; for, if they want, God feeds them. But the living want and crave and have deep needs and God feeds not at all, unless through us who live; and it is our duty to do, and not to die."

The words were clearly and slowly spoken, spoken in a quiet but determined tone. The old trapper raised his face and looked at the girl, as if surprised at the wisdom of her speech. Herbert was already looking at her. The man slowly turned his face towards her, and said:

"Mary, we have argued that point before."

The tone in which he spoke was not one of rebuke, and yet it conveyed the idea that the point was settled and was not to be reopened. The girl waited a moment respectfully, as if she felt profound deference for the other's character and would not willingly oppose his wish, and then she said:

"I know, sir, we have discussed it before; but it is not settled, and never can be settled; for it sets in comparison the value of two lives--the one that was and the one that is; and I say that there are lives--of which yours is one--that belong to others and cannot be disposed of as if they were a selfish thing. And life is a truer atonement for sin than death. You owe more than one debt, and you have no right to pay the one, however great it is, if by the paying of that you leave the others unpaid."

"Friend," said the trapper, "the girl speaks wisdom; leastwise she brings matter into the council which men of gravity should not overlook. The livin' sartinly have claims. What can you say to her speech?"

For a moment the man made no reply, and then he said:

"My philosophy is based upon a sentiment--a sentiment born of conscience, and conscience makes duty for us all. There is no reasoning against conscience. It is the voice of God--the only God we have. My conscience tells me that there is but one atonement that I can make. There is no election. I must do it."

"What good," said Herbert, addressing the man, "what good will you do by dying?"

"I shall satisfy myself," said the man.

"And what right have you to satisfy yourself in such a matter?" exclaimed the girl. "What right have any of us to satisfy ourselves? What right have we to be selfish in our death any more than in our life? Oh, sir, if you saw rightly, you would see that you had no right to satisfy yourself in this dreadful way. You should satisfy others. They need you even as the poor need the rich; as the weak need the strong; as those who are prone, because they cannot lift themselves, need one who is strong enough to lift them. It is not heroic to die unless the full object of life is met by the dying. It is heroic to live, because it is harder than dying. Even death dedicated to atonement can be a greater sin than the deed which one would atone."

"I know not how the girl has such wisdom," said the trapper, "for she be young, and yit she sartinly seems to me to have the right of it. I know not who ye be, nor how many look to ye for help; but ef ye be one that can help, and there be many that need yer help, I sartinly conceit that ye should live--live to help 'em."

"You say right! You say right, old man!" exclaimed the girl. "His life is not a common life. It represents such power and faculty and opportunity, and I may say such devotion to the many, that it does not belong to him, and may not therefore be disposed of as if he owned it himself and had the right to do with it as he pleased."

"I do not say," answered the man, "that I own my life. I say rather that I do not own it. I owe it. There are debts you cannot pay by life. The laws of the whole world recognize this; nor do we do by living the greatest service. He who dies to uphold a righteous principle fulfils all righteousness. He who gives away a life in atonement for a life taken makes all life more sacred; and so he serves the living beyond all other service he might do. She looks at individuals; I observe principles. She contemplates only the present; I forecast the future needs of man. Moreover, the highest service one can do man is to serve himself in the highest manner. He who ministers to his own sense of justice strengthens the judicial sense of the world. Men overvalue life when they suppose that there is nothing better. To teach them that there is something better, to impress them by some signal event that there is something higher and nobler than mere living, is to fulfill all benevolence to their souls. How many the Saviour could feed and heal and bless by avoiding Calvary! And yet he did not avoid it. He showed the object of life, which is service. I trust I have not wholly failed to show men that. He then showed the highest object of dying, which is service. Why should I not imitate him? Why should I not be a law unto myself and bear the penalty voluntarily?"

The man rose to his feet as he concluded, and looking at the trapper and Herbert, said:

"Gentlemen, I thank you for your hospitality and courtesy," and turning to the girl he said, "Mary, we will talk this matter over more fully by ourselves."

And then he bowed to the group and turned away.

IV

Long after the man and the girl had departed, the trapper and Herbert sat by their campfire discussing the question which their guest had propounded. Their conversation was grave and deliberate, as became the theme; and they united in the opinion that if the deed had been done in anger elicited by a provocation, the man should give himself the favor which the law even would allow under similar circumstances.

"I tell ye, Herbert," said the trapper, "the girl said the man had cause; leastwise, that the man whom he struck worried him to it and that the blow was given in anger. Now, hot blood is hot blood, and cold blood is cold blood, and ef a man kill another man in cold blood it be murder,--the law says so, and what is better, natur' says so; but ef a man kill another man in his anger, when his blood is up and he is strongly provoked to it, the law says there be a difference, and it isn't murder. And I conceit that the girl be right, and that the man has no right, in natur' or law either, to murder himself because in his anger he murdered another man. And besides," continued the old man, after a moment's pause, during which he had evidently made an effort at memory, "ef there be any wrath in the case it belongs to the Lord and not to man. Ye may recall the varse, Henry."

"_'Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.'_" Such was the quotation Herbert made.

"Sartinly, sartinly," answered the trapper, "that is it. Vengeance is the Lord's, and he is the only one that can handle it rightly; and the man had better leave it to the Lord."

For several moments Herbert made no reply; and then, as if speaking to himself more than his companion, he said:

"How the girl loves him!"

"Ye've hit it, Henry," answered the trapper, promptly. "Yis, ye've hit it in the centre. I noted her face, the look in her eyes and the arnestness of her voice; and there is no doubt about the matter of the lovin'. She is one of the quiet kind, boy; and she has got the faculty of listenin' a long time, which isn't nateral to a woman. But when she speaks, ye can see what she is. She has a quiet face but a detarmined sperit. I've seed several of the same sort,--seed them afore the battle and arter the battle; and I know what's in the heart of the girl. Yis, I know what's in the heart of the girl," and the old man looked at his companion across the camp fire.

The young man returned his gaze, and then said quietly:

"What is in the heart of the girl, John Norton?"

"Ef the man dies, the girl dies, too," answered the trapper, and stooping, he pushed a brand into the centre of the fire.

"It is awful to think so," replied the young man, "it is awful to think that one so lovely should die so miserable."

"She belongs to the kind that does seen things," answered the trapper. "But whether ye can call her dyin' miserable, I sartinly doubt; for there be some that can't die miserable owin' to their feelin's. And I've noted that them who die feelin' a sartin way die happy whenever they die; for death means one thing to one and another thing to another; and the heart that has lost all, is happy to go in sarch of it, even ef it be along the trail that the sun never shines on."

And so the two men sat and talked, feeding the camp fire with sticks occasionally as they talked. They wondered who the man was and whence he came, wondered if he would change his views and if the girl could win him over to a rational way of looking at the deed that had been done and the true way to atone for it; wondered if they could not assist her in her loving task when the morning came; talked and wondered and planned, and at last, wrapping their blankets around them, they laid down to sleep. The last words spoken were by the Trapper, and were these:

"We will go over in the mornin', Herbert, and help the girl."

And then they slept.

* * * * *

Beyond the balsam thicket, by another camp fire, the girl and the man sat talking, talking of the deed that had been done and the atonement demanded, and of the great future beyond this present life; the future that stretches away endlessly, the future of peace to some, perhaps to all, who knows? For there be some who think that this life has in it such forces of education, such enlightenment to the understanding, such quickening to the conscience, such ripening of character; and that through its experiences, its trials, and its griefs, come such graces to the souls of those that leave it, that when they pass they leave their worse self behind them, even as the germ leaves the shuck out of which it sprouted,--leaves the dull, clamp ground forever while it groweth up into the sunlight in which it finds perfection.

"Mary," said the man, "I have done with the past. My mind turns wholly toward the future. I see it as the shipwrecked sailor sees the land, which, if he can but reach, he will not only be beyond the storm that wrecks him, but beyond all storms forever. Companion of my joys and companion of my grief,--companion in everything but in my sin,--counsel with me, with your eyes turned ahead. You are innocent and innocence is prophetic. What lies beyond this world and the life men live in it? What of good waits for him who gives up this life bravely and penitently, and trusts himself to the decisions and the certainties of the great hereafter?"

"My master," said the girl, "it is not for me to teach you, you who are so much greater than I, you who have been gifted with faculties and powers that have lifted you above men. What can I say to you save to repeat what you have said to me?"

"Mary," he replied, "talk to me from out your heart and not from out your mind. The prophecies that come to men from Heaven, Heaven has communicated through the emotions of the just and the pure, and not through the perceptions. Tell me of the faith of your heart, the heart which I know has been free of guile. Tell me of the great Hereafter and what awaits me there."

"The Hereafter?" said the girl, and she lifted her eyes lovingly to the face of the man. "The Hereafter is the same as Here, only larger; as things grown are larger than things ungrown. The Future is to the Present what the river is to the stream, what the stream is to the fountain,--it is the flowing out and the flowing on,--the widening and the deepening of what is."

"Is there no gap, no breakage, no chasm or gulf between the Here and the Hereafter?" asked the man.

"No," said the girl, "there is no gap, nor chasm, nor gulf, but continuity of progress and perfect sequence. The connections between the Known and the Unknown are perfect. The one does not end and the other begin. Time is the beginning of eternity; and the brief time that men call a day is only a fraction of endlessness."

"There is no end to life, then?" queried the man.

"End to life!" exclaimed the girl. "How can life end? Life changes its form, its embodiment, the location of its residence; but life is the breath of God and when once breathed into the universe and it has taken form and made for itself expression, who may annihilate it? Who may take it out of existence? No, master, there is no end to life."

"It is a sublime faith," said the man, "and I have proclaimed it unto many; but few have been great enough to receive the doctrine as a verity. In theory they have received it; but their superstition has robbed them of its mighty consolations. But if we do not die, but only pass forward as men go out of a city's gate along a road that has no end, what fate befalls them? Does a change of nature come to them?"

"Only such as comes through growth," answered the girl.

"Shall I be just as I am when I have passed into the great future?" he asked.

"You will be the same," answered the girl, "only more abundantly yourself. We are all our life looking for ourselves," continued the girl, "and few, if any, find themselves until they die."

"I don't understand," said the man. "I know the Lord is speaking through you, for you are uttering truths so great that at the utterance they seem mysteries. Explain as the teacher explains to the child she is trying to teach."

"I mean," answered the girl, "that death is an enlightenment and a discovery. It will give us revelations of ourselves; for never do we find Him save as we find Him in His, and we are His. You will not know who and what you are until you get far enough ahead, my master, to look back upon yourself. We must go up and go on a long way before we know what we are now."

Here the conversation paused for a while and nothing disturbed the profound silence but the roar of the rapids whose ceaseless sound swelled and sank in the silence like the waves of the sea. At length the man said, "Have you thought of the land ahead? Is it real? And where is it, and what the life lived there?"

"Why do you ask me such questions," answered the girl, "when you know that I have thought only as you have taught me to think, am but repeating the faith I learned from your lips? Surely, there is a land ahead, or rather many lands,--lands and seas and blessed islands in the seas where the blessed live; and loves and lovers and homes exquisitely and endlessly peaceful are there; and men who have grown nobler than they were here; and women, far sweeter than their short life here might make them, live and love in the lands ahead."

The girl spoke low but earnestly, and her words sounded on the silent air like softly-breathed music, so much did her sweet self possess her words. And the man listened as men listen to music when it comes softly and sweetly to their ears.

"Mary," said the man, "you make the life ahead seem so sweet that I shrink from entering it, lest by so doing I escape the punishment for my sin I would fain inflict upon myself."

"Oh, master!" exclaimed the girl, "you do mistake; for though I do believe all I have said and would trust myself to the far future as young eagles trust themselves to the warm air when they have grown equal to the joy of flight, yet the life of this earth is sweet, so sweet when the heart is satisfied that one might fear to exchange it for another as one fears to part with what fully satisfies, even though the promise of more abundant things is sure as God. It is sweet to breathe the airs of the earth as health receives them. 'Tis sweet to live and love and serve in loving and find your happiness in giving it. 'Tis sweet to teach and guide men up and on to wider knowledge and nobler living,--to make them gentler and finer in their thoughts and happier-hearted; and oh, my master, 'tis sweet to live with one you love; be unto him a new life daily, and see him grow in your growth, matching it, and so go on in that perfect companionship that the future may give to us as the highest fortune, and, having given, has given its best and all."

"You shall live," answered the man, "you shall live and have as you deserve, dear girl; and if I have taught you aught which, being known, has made or shall make your life on earth sweeter, take it as my legacy to you. I had thought to leave you something more, perhaps something better, but that is past."

"I will not take your legacy and stay," answered the girl, "I will rather take it and go with you, that where you are I may be with you. You have promised nothing and I want no promise. I have only asked one thing and only one thing now do I ask, and that you will not hold from me, for I have earned it, earned it by patient serving and by growth that you know came from you."

"What is it that you ask? Tell me," replied the man, "for you shall have it if it be in the power of my giving."

"Companionship," answered the girl,--"the companionship of service. My mind must serve your mind; for only so may it find its growth for which it longs. You have led me from darkness to light; and into what future light you advance I must enter too. I love you as women love men; but I love you more than that. I love you for what you are separate from what you can ever be to me. I love you as a mind; I love you as a soul; I love you as a spirit; I love you with a purity, with an ambition, with a longing that men cannot interpret and earthly relations cannot express; but which God understands and which in his Heaven I know there must be a name for, and a connection that is known through all the social life of Heaven."

"It must not be," answered the man. "I admit your claim; but it must not be."

"Why must it not be?" asked the girl.

The man hesitated a moment, and then he said:

"Because my future is uncertain; I dare not say what it will be."

"I care not what it is," answered the girl. "Whatever it is, that I share, share because I cannot help it. It is not a question of condition, but of presence. With you I could bear all misery; yea, in the misery find happiness. Without you my heart could feel no joy throughout eternity. Master, my master, I love you so!" And as she looked into the face of the man there came to her countenance the expression of utter devotion; and in her large eyes tears gathered, and, having formed, from them slowly fell.

The man groaned aloud, and said:

"Alas! alas! My curse is doubled, being brought on thee."

"There is no curse on thee or me," she answered. "You were but mortal, and, being sorely tempted, did a wicked deed. But no single deed can change the nature. You are the same great man; great in your goodness as you are great in power, and my love, too, remains the same; nay, master, it is greater. You should stay and live and make atonement by living; for you cannot live and not better men. You can do deeds that would wipe out the deadliest guilt. But if you will not stay,--if to you it seems right to die, and if only--through death your sense of justice can be met and yourself find peace, then neither will I stay, but go--go where thou goest. Yea, I will sink or rise with thee; go to this world or that, I care not which or where, if only I may go with thee. And I pray thee not to think it hard for me to share thy journey. Why should I be left behind? And what might I have, thou being gone? What pleasure in all the world could I find, with thee out of it! I have no home,--thy presence is my home. I have no kindred and no loves await me anywhere. How could I have, loving thee? For in thee I have found father and mother, brother and sister and all sweet relationships. And so whither thou goest, let me go; and where thou stayest, let me stay. Do not resist me, but be persuaded, and let me die with thee. So shall we, passing out of these mortal bodies in the self-same hour, be together still."

The man made no response; but sat silently gazing at her face. In a moment the girl moved softly to his side and took his hand in hers; and so they sat together while the firelight died away and the darkness enveloped them. But through the darkness the stars beamed mildly, as if they expressed the sweet mercy which the imaginations of men picture as throned above the azure in whose blue field they stand suspended.

What happened farther is known only to Him whose eyes see through all darkness and to whom the night is as the day.

During the night the trapper started suddenly from his sleep. Was it a woman's cry he heard? Was it only such a sound as comes to us at times in dreams? He listened but heard nothing save the monotonous murmur of the rapids and the equally steady movement of the night breeze stirring through the pine tops. He listened and, hearing nothing, lay down again and slept.

The morning came,--came as brightly and cheerfully as if the world knew no sorrow and the men and women in it had no griefs. The morning came; but before it came, a wing darker than the shadow of the night had passed over the world; for when the trapper and his companion visited the camp beyond the balsam thicket, they found the two lying side by side,--the girl's head on the bosom of the man and her right hand lying gently in his; no mark of violence on their bodies; no instrument of death near,--lying as if they had fallen asleep, the man's countenance in grave repose, the girl's blessedly peaceful; no name on either; no scrap of paper that might tell who they might be. Perhaps the man's faith was true. Perhaps the will has power to will itself and all of life there is in us, out of the body. Be this as it may, the trapper and his companion only saw this: the unknown man in the prime of his strength lying dead under the pines and the girl in her loveliness lying dead by his side.

[The end]
W. H. H. Murray's short story: Who Was He?

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