had granted a new poet to this earth. He, likewise, was a native of the
valley, but had spent the greater part of his life at a distance from
that romantic region, pouring out his sweet music amid the bustle and
din of cities. Often, however, did the mountains which had been
familiar to him in his childhood lift their snowy peaks into the clear
atmosphere of his poetry. Neither was the Great Stone Face forgotten,
for the poet had celebrated it in an ode, which was grand enough to have
been uttered by its own majestic lips. This man of genius, we may say,
had come down from heaven with wonderful endowments. If he sang of a
mountain, the eyes of all mankind beheld a mightier grandeur reposing on
its breast, or soaring to its summit, than had before been seen there.
If his theme were a lovely lake, a celestial smile had now been thrown
over it, to gleam forever on its surface. If it were the vast old sea,
even the deep immensity of its dread bosom seemed to swell the higher,
as if moved by the emotions of the song. Thus the world assumed another
and a better aspect from the hour that the poet blessed it with his
happy eyes. The Creator had bestowed him, as the last best touch to his
own handiwork. Creation was not finished till the poet came to
interpret, and so complete it.
The effect was no less high and beautiful, when his human brethren were
the subject of his verse. The man or woman, sordid with the common dust
of life, who crossed his daily path, and the little child who played in
it, were glorified if he beheld them in his mood of poetic faith. He
showed the golden links of the great chain that intertwined them with an
angelic kindred; he brought out the hidden traits of a celestial birth
that made them worthy of such kin. Some, indeed, there were, who
thought to show the soundness of their judgment by affirming that all
the beauty and dignity of the natural world existed only in the poet's
fancy. Let such men speak for themselves, who undoubtedly appear to have
been spawned forth by Nature with a contemptuous bitterness; she having
plastered them up out of her refuse stuff, after all the swine were
made. As respects all things else, the poet's ideal was the truest
truth.
The songs of this poet found their way to Ernest. He read them after his
customary toil, seated on the bench before his cottage-door, where for
such a length of time he had filled his repose with thought, by gazing
at the Great Stone Face. And now as he read stanzas that caused the soul
to thrill within him, he lifted his eyes to the vast countenance beaming
on him so benignantly.
"O majestic friend," he murmured, addressing the Great Stone Face, "is
not this man worthy to resemble thee?"
The Face seemed to smile, but answered not a word.
Now it happened that the poet, though he dwelt so far away, had not only
heard of Ernest, but had meditated much upon his character, until he
deemed nothing so desirable as to meet this man, whose untaught wisdom
walked hand in hand with the noble simplicity of his life. One summer
morning, therefore, he took passage by the railroad, and, in the decline
of the afternoon, alighted from the cars at no great distance from
Ernest's cottage. The great hotel, which had formerly been the palace of
Mr. Gathergold, was close at hand, but the poet, with his carpet-bag on
his arm, inquired at once where Ernest dwelt, and was resolved to be
accepted as his guest.
Approaching the door, he there found the good old man, holding a volume
in his hand, which alternately he read, and then, with a finger between
the leaves, looked lovingly at the Great Stone Face.
"Good evening," said the poet. "Can you give a traveller a night's
lodging?"
"Willingly," answered Ernest; and then he added, smiling, "Methinks I
never saw the Great Stone Face look so hospitably at a stranger."
The poet sat down on the bench beside him, and he and Ernest talked
together. Often had the poet held intercourse with the wittiest and the
wisest, but never before with a man like Ernest, whose thoughts and
feelings gushed up with such a natural freedom, and who made great
truths so familiar by his simple utterance of them. Angels, as had been
so often said, seemed to have wrought with him at his labor in the
fields; angels seemed to have sat with him by the fireside; and,
dwelling with angels as friend with friends, he had imbibed the
sublimity of their ideas, and imbued it with the sweet and lowly charm
of household words. So thought the poet. And Ernest, on the other hand,
was moved and agitated by the living images which the poet flung out of
his mind, and which peopled all the air about the cottage-door with
shapes of beauty, both gay and pensive. The sympathies of these two men
instructed them with a profounder sense than either could have attained
alone. Their minds accorded into one strain, and made delightful music
which neither of them could have claimed as all his own, nor
distinguished his own share from the other's. They led one another, as
it were, into a high pavilion of their thoughts, so remote, and hitherto
so dim, that they had never entered it before, and so beautiful that
they desired to be there always.
As Ernest listened to the poet, he imagined that the Great Stone Face
was bending forward to listen too. He gazed earnestly into the poet's
glowing eyes.
"Who are you, my strangely gifted guest?" he said.
The poet laid his finger on the volume that Ernest had been reading.
"You have read these poems," said he. "You know me, then--for I wrote
them."
Again, and still more earnestly than before, Ernest examined the poet's
features; then turned toward the Great Stone Face; then back, with an
uncertain aspect, to his guest. But his countenance fell; he shook his
head, and sighed.
"Wherefore are you sad?" inquired the poet.
"Because," replied Ernest, "all through life I have awaited the
fulfilment of a prophecy; and, when I read these poems, I hoped that it
might be fulfilled in you."
"You hoped," answered the poet, faintly smiling, "to find in me the
likeness of the Great Stone Face. And you are disappointed, as formerly
with Mr. Gathergold, and Old Blood-and-Thunder, and Old Stony Phiz.
Yes, Ernest, it is my doom. You must add my name to the illustrious
three, and record another failure of your hopes. For--in shame and
sadness do I speak it, Ernest--I am not worthy to be typified by yonder
benign and majestic image."
"And why?" asked Ernest. He pointed to the volume. "Are not those
thoughts divine?"
"They have a strain of the Divinity," replied the poet. "You can hear in
them the far-off echo of a heavenly song. But my life, dear Ernest, has
not corresponded with my thought. I have had grand dreams, but they have
been only dreams, because I have lived--and that, too, by my own
choice--among poor and mean realities. Sometimes even--shall I dare to
say it?--I lack faith in the grandeur, the beauty, and the goodness,
which my own works are said to have made more evident in nature and in
human life. Why, then, pure seeker of the good and true, shouldst thou
hope to find me, in yonder image of the divine?"
The poet spoke sadly, and his eyes were dim with tears. So, likewise,
were those of Ernest.
At the hour of sunset, as had long been his frequent custom, Ernest was
to discourse to an assemblage of the neighboring inhabitants in the open
air. He and the poet, arm in arm, still talking together as they went
along, proceeded to the spot. It was a small nook among the hills, with
a gray precipice behind, the stern front of which was relieved by the
pleasant foliage of many creeping plants, that made a tapestry for the
naked rock, by hanging their festoons from all its rugged angles. At a
small elevation above the ground, set in a rich framework of verdure,
there appeared a niche, spacious enough to admit a human figure, with
freedom for such gestures as spontaneously ascompany earnest thought and
genuine emotion. Into this natural pulpit Ernest ascended, and threw a
look of familiar kindness around upon his audience. They stood, or sat,
or reclined upon the grass, as seemed good to each, with the departing
sunshine falling obliquely over them, and mingling its subdued
cheerfulness with the solemnity of a grove of ancient trees, beneath and
amid the boughs of which the golden rays were constrained to pass. In
another direction was seen the Great Stone Face, with the same cheer,
combined with the same solemnity, in its benignant aspect.
Ernest began to speak, giving to the people of what was in his heart and
mind. His words had power, because they accorded with his thoughts; and
his thoughts had reality and depth, because they harmonized with the
life which he had always lived. It was not mere breath that this
preacher uttered; they were the words of life, because a life of good
deeds and holy love was melted into them. Pearls, pure and rich, had
been dissolved into this precious draught. The poet, as he listened,
felt that the being and character of Ernest were a nobler strain of
poetry than he had ever written. His eyes glistening with tears, he
gazed reverentially at the venerable man, and said within himself that
never was there an aspect so worthy of a prophet and a sage as that
mild, sweet, thoughtful countenance, with the glory of white hair
diffused about it. At a distance, but distinctly to be seen, high up in
the golden light of the setting sun, appeared the Great Stone Face, with
hoary mists around it, like the white hairs around the brow of Ernest.
Its look of grand beneficence seemed to embrace the world.
At that moment, in sympathy with a thought which he was about to utter,
the face of Ernest assumed a grandeur of expression, so imbued with
benevolence, that the poet, by an irresistible impulse, threw his arms
aloft, and shouted:
"Behold! Behold! Ernest is himself the likeness of the Great Stone
Face!"
Then all the people looked, and saw that what the deep-sighted poet said
was true. The prophecy was fulfilled. But Ernest, having finished what
he had to say, took the poet's arm, and walked slowly homeward, still
hoping that some wiser and better man than himself would by and by
appear, bearing a resemblance to the GREAT STONE FACE.
THE GENTLE BOY
By NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
In the course of the year 1656, several of the people called Quakers,
led, as they professed, by the inward movement of the spirit, made their
appearance in New England. Their reputation, as holders of mystic and
pernicious principles, having spread before them, the Puritans early
endeavored to banish, and to prevent the further intrusion of the rising
sect. But the measures by which it was intended to purge the land of
heresy, though more than sufficiently vigorous, were entirely
unsuccessful. The Quakers, esteeming persecution as a divine call to the
post of danger, laid claim to a holy courage, unknown to the Puritans
themselves, who had shunned the cross, by providing for the peaceable
exercise of their religion in a distant wilderness. Though it was the
singular fact, that every nation of the earth rejected the wandering
enthusiasts who practiced peace toward all men, the place of greatest
uneasiness and peril, and therefore, in their eyes, the most eligible,
was the province of Massachusetts Bay.
The fines, imprisonments, and stripes, liberally distributed by our
pious forefathers, the popular antipathy, so strong that it endured
nearly a hundred years after actual persecution had ceased, were
attractions as powerful for the Quakers as peace, honor, and reward
would have been for the wordly-minded. Every European vessel brought new
cargoes of the sect, eager to testify against the oppression which they
hoped to share; and, when shipmasters were restrained by heavy fines
from affording them passage, they made long and circuitous journeys
through the Indian country, and appeared in the province as if conveyed
by a supernatural power. Their enthusiasm, heightened almost to madness
by the treatment which they received, produced actions contrary to the
rules of decency, as well as of rational religion, and presented a
singular contrast to the calm and staid deportment of their sectarian
successors of the present day. The command of the spirit, inaudible
except to the soul, and not to be controverted on grounds of human
wisdom, was made a plea for most indecorous exhibitions, which,
abstractedly considered, well deserved the moderate chastisement of the
rod. These extravagances, and the persecution which was at once their
cause and consequence, continued to increase, till, in the year 1659,
the government of Massachusetts Bay indulged two members of the Quaker
sect with the crown of martyrdom.
An indelible stain of blood is upon the hands of all who consented to
this act, but a large share of the awful responsibility must rest upon
the person then at the head of the government. He was a man of narrow
mind and imperfect education, and his uncompromising bigotry was made
hot and mischievous by violent and hasty passions; he exerted his
influence indecorously and unjustifiably to compass the death of the
enthusiasts; and his whole conduct, in respect to them, was marked by
brutal cruelty.
The Quakers, whose revengeful feelings were not less deep because they
were inactive, remembered this man and his associates, in after times.
The historian of the sect affirms that, by the wrath of Heaven, a blight
fell upon the land in the vicinity of the "bloody town" of Boston, so
that no wheat would grow there; and he takes his stand, as it were,
among the graves of the ancient persecutors, and triumphantly recounts
the judgments that overtook them, in old age or at the parting hour. He
tells us that they died suddenly, and violently, and in madness; but
nothing can exceed the bitter mockery with which he records the
loathsome disease, and "death by rottenness," of the fierce and cruel
governor.
On the evening of the autumn day, that had witnessed the martyrdom of
two men of the Quaker persuasion, a Puritan settler was returning from
the metropolis to the neighboring country town in which he resided. The
air was cool, the sky clear, and the lingering twilight was made
brighter by the rays of a young moon, which had now nearly reached the
verge of the horizon. The traveller, a man of middle age, wrapped in a
gray frieze cloak, quickened his pace when he had reached the outskirts
of the town, for a gloomy extent of nearly four miles lay between him
and his home. The low, straw-thatched houses were scattered at
considerable intervals along the road, and the country having been
settled but about thirty years, the tracts of original forest still bore
no small proportion to the cultivated ground. The autumn wind wandered
among the branches, whirling away the leaves from all except the
pine-trees, and moaning as if it lamented the desolation of which it was
the instrument. The road had penetrated the mass of woods that lay
nearest to the town, and was just emerging into an open space, when the
traveller's ears were saluted by a sound more mournful than even that of
the wind. It was like the wailing of some one in distress, and it seemed
to proceed from beneath a tall and lonely fir-tree, in the centre of a
cleared, but uninclosed and uncultivated field. The Puritan could not
but remember that this was the very spot which had been made accursed a
few hours before by the execution of the Quakers, whose bodies had been
thrown together into one hasty grave, beneath the tree on which they
suffered. He struggled, however, against the superstitious fears which
belonged to the age, and compelled himself to pause and listen.
"The voice is most likely mortal, nor have I cause to tremble if it be
otherwise," thought he, straining his eyes through the dim moonlight.
"Methinks it is like the wailing of a child; some infant, it may be,
which has strayed from its mother, and chanced upon this place of death.
For the ease of mine own conscience, I must search this matter out."
He therefore left the path, and walked somewhat fearfully across the
field. Though now so desolate, its soil was pressed down and trampled by
the thousand footsteps of those who had witnessed the spectacle of that
day, all of whom had now retired, leaving the dead to their loneliness.
The traveller at length reached the fir-tree, which from the middle
upward was covered with living branches, although a scaffold had been
erected beneath, and other preparations made for the work of death.
Under this unhappy tree, which in after times was believed to drop
poison with its dew, sat the one solitary mourner for innocent blood. It
was a slender and light-clad little boy, who leaned his face upon a
hillock of fresh-turned and half-frozen earth, and wailed bitterly, yet
in a suppressed tone, as if his grief might receive the punishment of
crime. The Puritan, whose approach had been unperceived, laid his hand
upon the child's shoulder, and addressed him compassionately.
"You have chosen a dreary lodging, my poor boy, and no wonder that you
weep," said he. "But dry your eyes, and tell me where your mother
dwells. I promise you if the journey be not too far, I will leave you in
her arms to-night."
The boy had hushed his wailing at once, and turned his face upward to
the stranger. It was a pale, bright-eyed countenance, certainly not more
than six years old, but sorrow, fear, and want had destroyed much of its
infantile expression. The Puritan, seeing the boy's frightened gaze, and
feeling that he trembled under his hand, endeavored to reassure him.
"Nay, if I intended to do you harm, little lad, the readiest way were
to leave you here. What! you do not fear to sit beneath the gallows on a
new-made grave, and yet you tremble at a friend's touch. Take heart,
child, and tell me what is your name, and where is your home!"
"Friend," replied the little boy, in a sweet, though faltering voice,
"they call me Ilbrahim, and my home is here."
The pale, spiritual face, the eyes that seemed to mingle with the
moonlight, the sweet airy voice, and the outlandish name almost made the
Puritan believe that the boy was in truth a being which had sprung up
out of the grave on which he sat. But perceiving that the apparition
stood the test of a short mental prayer, and remembering that the arm
which he had touched was life-like, he adopted a more rational
supposition. "The poor child is stricken in his intellect," thought he,
"but verily his words are fearful, in a place like this." He then spoke
soothingly, intending to humor the boy's fantasy.
"Your home will scarce be comfortable, Ilbrahim, this cold autumn night,
and I fear you are ill provided with food. I am hastening to a warm
supper and bed, and if you will go with me, you shall share them!"
"I thank thee, friend, but though I be hungry, and shivering with cold,
thou wilt not give me food nor lodging," replied the boy, in the quiet
tone which despair had taught him, even so young. "My father was of the
people whom all men hate. They have laid him under this heap of earth,
and here is my home."
The Puritan, who had laid hold of little Ilbrahim's hand, relinquished
it as if he were touching a loathsome reptile. But he possessed a
compassionate heart, which not even religious prejudice could harden
into stone.
"God forbid that I should leave this child to perish, though he comes of
the accursed sect," said he to himself. "Do we not all spring from an
evil root? Are we not all in darkness till the light doth shine upon us?
He shall not perish, neither in body, nor, if prayer and instruction may
avail for him, in soul." He then spoke aloud and kindly to Ilbrahim, who
had again hid his face in the cold earth of the grave. "Was every door
in the land shut against you, my child, that you have wandered to this
unhallowed spot?"
"They drove me forth from the prison when they took my father thence,"
said the boy, "and I stood afar off, watching the crowd of people; and
when they were gone, I came hither, and found only this grave. I knew
that my father was sleeping here, and I said, This shall be my home."
"No, child, no; not while I have a roof over my head, or a morsel to
share with you!" exclaimed the Puritan, whose sympathies were now fully
excited. "Rise up and come with me, and fear not any harm."
The boy wept afresh, and clung to the heap of earth, as if the cold
heart beneath it were warmer to him than any in a living breast. The
traveller, however, continued to entreat him tenderly, and seeming to
acquire some degree of confidence, he at length arose. But his slender
limbs tottered with weakness, his little head grew dizzy, and he leaned
against the tree of death for support.
"My poor boy, are you so feeble?" said the Puritan. "When did you taste
food last?"
"I ate of bread and water with my father in the prison," replied
Ilbrahim, "but they brought him none neither yesterday nor to-day,
saying that he had eaten enough to bear him to his journey's end.
Trouble not thyself for my hunger, kind friend, for I have lacked food
many times ere now."
The traveller took the child in his arms and wrapped his cloak about
him, while his heart stirred with shame and anger against the gratuitous
cruelty of the instruments in this persecution. In the awakened warmth
of his feelings, he resolved that, at whatever risk, he would not
forsake the poor little defenceless being whom Heaven had confided to
his care. With this determination, he left the accursed field, and
resumed the homeward path from which the wailing of the boy had called
him. The light and motionless burden scarcely impeded his progress, and
he soon beheld the fire rays from the windows of the cottage which he, a
native of a distant clime, had built in the Western wilderness. It was
surrounded by a considerable extent of cultivated ground, and the
dwelling was situated in the nook of a wood-covered hill, whither it
seemed to have crept for protection.
"Look up, child," said the Puritan to Ilbrahim, whose faint head had
sunk upon his shoulder, "there is our home."
At the word "home," a thrill passed through the child's frame, but he
continued silent. A few moments brought them to the cottage-door, at
which the owner knocked; for at that early period, when savages were
wandering everywhere among the settlers, bolt and bar were indispensable
to the security of a dwelling. The summons was answered by a
bond-servant, a coarse-clad and dull-featured piece of humanity, who,
after ascertaining that his master was the applicant, undid the door,
and held a flaring pine-knot torch to light him in. Further back in the
passageway, the red blaze discovered a matronly woman, but no little
crowd of children came bounding forth to greet their father's return. As
the Puritan entered, he thrust aside his cloak, and displayed Ilbrahim's
face to the female.
"Dorothy, here is a little outcast whom Providence hath put into our
hands," observed he. "Be kind to him, even as if he were of those dear
ones who have departed from us."
"What pale and bright-eyed little boy is this, Tobias?" she inquired.
"Is he one whom the wilderness folk have ravished from some Christian
mother?"
"No, Dorothy, this poor child is no captive from the wilderness," he
replied. "The heathen savage would have given him to eat of his scanty
morsel, and to drink of his birchen cup; but Christian men, alas! had
cast him out to die."
Then he told her how he had found him beneath the gallows, upon his
father's grave; and how his heart had prompted him, like the speaking of
an inward voice, to take the little outcast home, and be kind unto him.
He acknowledged his resolution to feed and clothe him, as if he were his
own child, and to afford him the instruction which should counteract the
pernicious errors hitherto instilled into his infant mind. Dorothy was
gifted with even a quicker tenderness than her husband, and she approved
of all his doings and intentions.
"Have you a mother, dear child?" she inquired.
The tears burst forth from his full heart, as he attempted to reply; but
Dorothy at length understood that he had a mother, who, like the rest of
her sect, was a persecuted wanderer. She had been taken from the prison
a short time before, carried into the uninhabited wilderness, and left
to perish there by hunger or wild beasts. This was no uncommon method of
disposing of the Quakers, and they were accustomed to boast, that the
inhabitants of the desert were more hospitable to them than civilized
man.
"Fear not, little boy, you shall not need a mother, and a kind one,"
said Dorothy, when she had gathered this information. "Dry your tears,
Ilbrahim, and be my child, as I will be your mother."