WHERE PATHS CONVERGE
"If we do meet again, we'll smile indeed;
If not, 'tis true this parting was well made."
--Julius Caesar.
Violent emotions, like the lunar tides, must have their ebb because they
have their flow. The feelings do not so much advance like a river, as
oscillate like a pendulum.
Striding homeward after his downfall in the log cabin, David's
determination to join his fortunes to those of the two adventurers began
to wane. He trembled at an unknown future and hesitated before untried
paths.
Already the strange experience through which he had just passed began to
seem to him like a half-forgotten dream. The refluent thoughts and
feelings of his religious life began to set back into every bay and
estuary of his soul.
With a sense of shame, he regretted his hasty decision, and was saying
to himself, "I will arise and go to my Father," for all the experiences
of life clothed themselves at once in the familiar language of the
Scriptures.
It is more than likely that he would have carried out this resolution,
and that this whole experience would have become a mere incident in his
life history, if his destiny had depended upon his personal volition.
But how few of the great events of life are brought about by our choice
alone!
Just at sunset, he crossed the bridge over the brook which formed the
boundary line of the farm, and as he did so heard a light footstep.
Lifting his eyes, he saw Pepeeta, who at that very instant stepped out
of the low bushes which lined the trail she had been following.
Her appearance was as sudden as an apparition and her beauty dazzled
him. Her face, flushed with exercise, gleamed against the background of
her black hair with a sort of spiritual radiance. When she saw the
Quaker, a smile of unmistakable delight flashed upon her features and
added to her bewitching grace. She might have been an Oread or a Dryad
wandering alone through the great forest. What bliss for youth and
beauty to meet thus at the close of day amid the solitudes of Nature!
Had Nature forgotten herself, to permit these two young and
impressionable beings to enjoy this pleasure on a lonely road just as
the day was dying and the tense energies of the world were relaxed?
There are times when her indifference to her own most inviolable laws
seems anarchic. There are moments when she appears wantonly to lure her
children to destruction.
They gazed into each other's eyes, they knew not how long, with an
incomprehensible and delicious joy, and then looked down upon the
ground. Having regained their composure by this act, they lifted their
eyes and regarded each other with frank and friendly smiles.
"I thought thee had gone," said David.
"We stayed longer than we expected," Pepeeta replied.
"Has thee been hunting wild flowers?" he asked, observing the bouquet
which she held in her hand.
"I picked them on the way."
"Has thee been walking far?"
"I have not thought."
"It is easy to walk in these spring days."
"I must have found it so, for I have been out since sunrise, and am not
tired."
"Thee does love the woods?"
"Oh, so much! I am a sort of wild creature and should like to live in a
cave."
"I am afraid thee would always turn thy face homeward at dusk, as thee
is doing now," he said with a smile.
"Oh, no! I am not afraid! I go because I must."
"I will join thee, if I may. The same path will take us toward our
different destinations."
"Oh, I shall be glad, for I want to ask you many questions. I can think
of nothing else but what I heard you say in the meeting house."
"I fear I have said some things which I do not understand myself," he
replied, with a flush, remembering the experience through which he had
just passed.
The path was wide enough for two, and side by side they moved slowly
forward.
The somber garb in which he was dressed, and the brilliant colors of her
apparel, afforded a contrast like that between a pheasant and a scarlet
tanager. Color, form, motion--all were perfect. They fitted into the
scene without a jar or discord, and enhanced rather than disturbed the
harmony of the drowsy landscape.
As they walked onward, they vaguely felt the influence of the repose
that was stealing upon the tired world; the intellectual and volitional
elements of their natures becoming gradually quiescent, the emotions
were given full sway. They felt themselves drawn toward each other by
some irresistible power, and, although they had never before been
conscious of any incompleteness of their lives, they suddenly discovered
affinities of whose existence they had never dreamed. Their two
personalities seemed to be absorbed into one new mysterious and
indivisible being, and this identity gave them an incomprehensible joy.
Over them as they walked, Nature brooded, sphynx-like. Their young and
healthy natures were tuned in unison with the harmonies of the world
like perfect instruments from which the delicate fingers of the great
Musician evoked a melody of which she never tired, reserving her
discords for a future day. On this delicious evening she permitted them
to be thrilled through and through with joy and hope and she accompanied
the song their hearts were singing with her own multitudinous voices.
"Be happy," chirped the birds; "be happy," whispered the evening
breeze; "be happy," murmured the brook, running along by their side and
looking up into their faces with laughter. The whole world seemed to
resound with the refrain, "Be happy! Be happy! for you are young, are
young, are young!"
Pepeeta first broke the silence.
"I had never heard of the things about which you talked," she said.
"Thee never had? How could that be? I thought that every one knew them!"
"I must have lived in a different world from yours."
"What sort of a world has thee lived in?"
"A world of fairs and circuses, of traveling everywhere and never
stopping anywhere."
"Has thee never been in a church?"
"Never until that night."
"And thee knows nothing of God?"
"Nothing except the gypsy god, and he was not like yours."
"And thee was happy?"
"I thought so until I heard what you said. Since then I have been full
of care and trouble. I wish I knew what you meant! But I have seen that
wonderful light!"
"Thee has seen it?"
"Yes, to-day! And I followed it; I shall always follow it."
"When does thee leave the village?" David asked, fearing the
conversation would lead where he did not want to go.
"To-morrow," she said.
"Does thee think that the doctor would renew his offer to take me with
him?"
"Do I think so? Oh! I am sure."
"Then I will go."
"You will go? Oh! I am so happy! The doctor was very angry; he has not
been himself since. You don't know how glad he will be."
"But will not thee be happy, too?" he asked.
"Happier than you could dream," she answered with all the frankness of a
child. "But what made you change your mind?"
"I will tell thee sometime; it is too late now. There is my home and I
have much work to do before dark."
"Home!" she echoed. "I never had a home, or at least I cannot remember
it. We have always led a roving life, here to-day and gone to-morrow. It
must be sweet to have a home!"
"Thee has always led a roving life and wishes to have a home? I have
always had a home, and wish to lead a roving life," said David.
They looked at each other and smiled at this curious contradiction. They
smiled because they were not yet old enough to weep over the
restlessness of the human heart.
Having reached the edge of the woods, where their paths separated, they
paused.
"We must part," said David.
"Yes; but we shall meet to-morrow."
"We shall meet to-morrow."
"You are sure?"
"I am sure."
"You will not change your mind?"
"I could not if I would."
"Good-bye."
"Good-bye."
At the touch of their hands their young hearts were swayed by tender and
tumultuous feelings. A too strong pressure startled them, and they
loosened their grasp. The sun sank behind the hill. The shadows that
fell upon their faces awakened them from their dreams. Again they said
goodbye and reluctantly parted. Once they stopped and, turning, waved
their hands; and the next moment Pepeeta entered the road which led her
out of sight.
In this interview, the entire past of these two lives seemed to count
for nothing.
If Pepeeta had never seen anything of the world; if she had issued from
a nunnery at that very moment, she could not have acted with a more
utter disregard of every principle of safety.
It was the same with David. The fact that he had been reared a Quaker;
that he had been dedicated to God from his youth; that he had struggled
all his days to be prepared for such a moment as this, did not affect
him to the least degree.
The seasoning of the bow does not invariably prevent it from snapping.
The drill on the parade ground does not always insure, courage for the
battle. Nothing is more terrible than this futility of the past.
Such scenes as this discredit the value of experience, and attach a
terrible reality to the conclusion of Coleridge, that "it is like the
stern-light of a vessel--illuminating only the path over which we have
traveled."
Nor did the future possess any more power over their destinies than the
past. Not a conscious foreboding disturbed their enjoyment of that brief
instant which alone can be called the present.
And yet, no moment in their after lives came up more frequently for
review than this one, and in the light of subsequent events they were
forced to recognize that during every instant of this scene there was an
uneasy but unacknowledged sense of danger and wrong thrilling through
all those emotions of bliss.
It is seldom that any man or woman enters into the region of danger
without premonitions. The delicate instincts of the soul hoist the
warning signals, but the wild passions disregard them.
It was to this moment that their consciences traced their sorrows; it
was to that act of their souls which permitted them to enjoy that
momentary rapture that they attached their guilt; it was at that moment
and in that silent place that they planted the seeds of the trees upon
which they were subsequently crucified.