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."
[Illustration: "_Past mossy banks where great eddies whirled._"]
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."
[Illustration: "_Come ashore, you and your companion._"]
"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?"