The Redemption of David Corson. Charles Frederic Goss
he had never seen them thoroughly tested, to meet every emergency arising for reflection or endeavor. In this mental attitude of serene and undisturbed confidence that he knew the real meaning of existence, and was in constant contact with the divine mind through knowledge or through vision, every avenue of his spirit was open to the influences of nature. Through all that gorgeous day of May he had been drawing these influences into his being as the vegetation drew in light and moisture, until his soul was drenched through and through, and at that perfect hour of dusk, when the flowers and grasses exhaled the gifts they had received from heaven and earth in a richer, finer perfume like an evening oblation, the young dreamer was also rendering back those gifts bestowed by heaven in an incense of purest thought and aspiration. It was one of those hours that come occasionally in that sublime period of unshattered ideals and unsullied faith, for which Pharaoh and Cæsar would have exchanged their thrones, Croesus and Lucullus bartered their wealth, Solomon and Aristotle forgotten their learning.
Every imaginative youth who has been reared in pure surroundings experiences over again in these rare and radiant hours all the bliss that Adam knew in Eden. To his joyous, eager spirit, the world appears a new creation fresh from the hand of God. He hears its author walking in the garden at eventide, and murmuring: "Behold it is very good." A single element of disquietude, a solitary, vague unrest disturbs him. He awaits his Eve with longing, but has no dread of the serpent.
At sight of this young man the most superficial observer would have paused to take a second look; an artist would have instinctively seized his pencil or his brush; a scientist would have paused to inquire what mysterious influences could have produced so finely proportioned a nature; a philosopher to wonder what would become of him in some sudden and powerful temptation.
None of these reflections disturbed the mind of the barefooted boy. Having suppressed his laughter, he tickled the sunburnt neck again. Once more the hand rose automatically, and once more the boy was almost strangled with delight. The dreamer was hard to awaken, but his tormentor had not yet exhausted his resources. No genuine boy is ever without that fundamental necessity of childhood, a pin, and finding one somewhere about his clothing, he thrust it into the leg of the plowman. The sudden sting brought the soaring saint from heaven to earth. In an instant the mystic was a man, and a strong one, too. He seized the unsanctified young reprobate with one hand and hoisted him at arm's length above his head.
"Oh, Uncle Dave, I'll never do it again! Never! Never! Let me down."
Still holding him aloft as a hunter would hold a falcon, the reincarnated "spirit" laughed long, loud and merrily, the echoes of his laughter ringing up the valley like a peal from a chime of bells. The child's fear was needless, for the heart and hands that dealt with him were as gentle as a woman's. The youth, resembling some old Norse god as he stood there in the gathering gloom, lowered the child slowly, and printing a kiss on his cheek, said:
"Thee little pest, thee has no reverence! Thee should never disturb a child at his play, a bird on his nest nor a man at his prayers."
"But thee was not praying, Uncle Dave," the boy replied. "Thee was only in another of thy tantrums. The supper has grown cold, the horses are tired and Shep and I have walked a mile to call thee. Grandmother said thee had a trance. Tell me what thee has seen in thy visions, Uncle Dave?"
"God and His angels," said the young mystic softly, falling again into the mood from which he had been so rudely awakened.
"Angels!" scoffed the young materialist. "If thee was thinking of any angel at all, I will bet thee it was Dorothy Fraser."
"Tush, child, do not be silly," replied the convicted culprit. For it was easier than he would care to admit to mingle visions of beauty with those of holiness.
"I am not silly. Thee would not dare say thee was not thinking of her. She thinks of thee."
"How does thee know?"
"Because she gives me bread and jam if I so much as mention thy name."
This did not offend the young plowman, to judge by the expression of his face; but he said nothing, and, stooping down, loosened the chains of the whiffletree and turned the faces of the tired horses homeward. The cavalcade moved on in silence for a few moments, but nothing can repress the chatter of a boy, and presently he began again.
"Uncle Dave, was it really up this very valley that Mad Anthony Wayne marched with his brave soldiers?"
"This very valley."
"I wish I could have been with him."
"It is an evil wish. Thee is a child of peace. Thy father and thy father's fathers have denied the right of men to war. Thee ought to be like them, and love the things that make for peace."
"Well, if I can not wish for war, I will wish that a runaway slave would dash up this valley with a pack of bloodhounds at his heels. Oh, Uncle Dave, tell me that story about thy hiding a negro in the haystack, and choking the bloodhounds with thine own hands."
"I have told thee a hundred times."
"But I want to hear it again."
"Use thy memory and thy imagination."
"Oh, no, please tell me. I like to hear some one tell something."
"Thee does? Then listen to the whip-poor-will, the cricket or the brook."
"I hear them, but I do not know what they say. Tell me."
"Tell thee! No one can tell thee, child, if thee can not understand for thyself. The message differs for the hearers, and the difference is in the ear and not the sound."
They both paused for a moment, and listened to those soothing lullabies with which nature sings the world to sleep. So powerful was the tide that floated the mystic out on the ocean of dreams, he would have drifted away again if the child had not suddenly recalled him.
"I can not make out what they say," he cried, "and anyhow there is no time to try. Come, let us go. Everybody is waiting for us."
"Thee is right," answered his uncle. "Go and let down the bars and we will hurry home."
The child, bounding forward, did as he was told, and the tired procession entered the barnyard. The plowman fed his horses, and stopped to listen for a moment to their deep-drawn sighs of contentment, and to the musical grinding of the oats in their teeth. His imaginative mind read his own thoughts into everything, and he believed that he could distinguish in these inarticulate sounds the words, "Good-night. Good-night."
"Good-night," he said, and stroking their great flanks with his kind hand, left them to their well-earned repose. On his way to the house he stopped to bathe his face in the waters of a spring brook that ran across the yard, and then entered the kitchen where supper was spread.
"Thee is late," said the woman who had watched and waited, her fine face radiant with a smile of love and welcome.
"Forgive me, mother," he replied. "I have had another vision."
"I thought as much. Thee must remember what thee has seen, my son," she said, "for all that thee beholds with the outer eye shall pass away, while what thee sees with the inner eye abides forever. And had thee a message, too?"
"It was delivered to me that on the holy Sabbath day I should go to the camp in Baxter's clearing and preach to the lumbermen."
"Then thee must go, my son."
"I will," he answered, taking her hand affectionately, but with Quaker restraint, and leading her to the table.
The family, consisting of the mother, an adopted daughter Dorothea, the daughter's husband Jacob and son Stephen, sat down to a simple but bountiful supper, during which and late into the evening the young mystic pondered the vision which he believed himself to have seen, and the message which he believed himself to have heard. In his musings there was not a tremor or a doubt; he would have as soon questioned the reality of the old farm-house and the faces of the family gathered about the table. Of the susceptibility of the nerves to morbid activity, or the powers of the overdriven brain to objectify its concepts, he had