Chapter X: A Poisoned Spring

"It was the saying of a great man, that if we could trace our
descents, we should find all slaves to come from princes and all
princes from slaves!"--Seneca.

Early the next morning the two adventurers took their departure.

The jovial quack lavished his good-byes upon the landlord and the "riff-raff" who gathered to welcome the coming or speed the parting guest at the door of the country tavern. He drove a pair of beautiful, spirited horses, and had the satisfaction of knowing that he excited the envy of every beholder, as he took the ribbons in his hand, swung out his long whip and started.

If her husband's heart was swelling with pride, Pepeeta's was bursting with anxiety. An instinct which she did not understand had prevented her from telling the doctor of her interview with the Quaker. Long before the farmhouse came in sight she began to scan the landscape for the figure which had been so vividly impressed upon her mind.

The swift horses, well fed and well groomed, whirled the light wagon along the road at a rapid pace and as they passed the humble home of the Quaker, Pepeeta saw a little child driving the cows down the long lane, and a woman moving quietly among the flowers in the garden; but David himself was not to be seen.

"He has gone," she said to herself joyously.

On through the beech grove, around the turn of the road, into full view of the bridge, they sped.

It was empty! And yet it was there that he had agreed to meet them!

A tear fell from her eye, and her chin quivered. With the utmost effort of her will she could not repress these evidences of her disappointment, and with a spasmodic motion she clutched the arm of the driver as if it were that of Destiny and she could hold it back.

So sudden and so powerful was the grasp of her young hand, that it turned the horses out of the road and all but upset the carriage.

With a violent jerk of the reins, the astonished driver pulled them back, and exclaimed with an oath:

"You little wild cat, if you ever d-d-do that again, I will throw you into the d-d-ditch!"

"Excuse me!" she answered humbly, cowering under his angry glances.

"What in the d-d-deuce is the matter?" he asked more kindly, seeing the tears in her eyes.

"I do not know. I am nervous, I guess," she answered sadly.

"Nervous? P-p-pepeeta Aesculapius nervous? I thought her nerves were m-m-made of steel? What is the m-m-matter?" he asked, looking at her anxiously.

His gentleness calmed her, and she answered: "I am sorry to leave a place where I have been so happy. Oh! why cannot we settle down somewhere and stay? I get so tired of being always on the wing. Even the birds have nests to rest in for a little while. Are we never going to have a home?"

"Nonsense, child! What do we want with a h-h-home? It is better to be always on the go. I want my liberty. It suits me best to fly through the heavens like a hawk or swim the deep sea like a shark. A home would be a p-p-prison. I should tramp back and forth in it like a polar bear in a c-c-cage."

Pepeeta answered with a sigh.

"Cheer up, child," he cried in his hearty fashion. "Your voice sounds like the squeak of a mouse! B-b-be gay! Be happy! How can you be sad on a morning like this? Look at the play of the muscles under the smooth skins of the horses! Remember the b-b-bright shining dollars that we coaxed out of the tightly b-b-buttoned breeches pockets of the gray-backed Q-Q-Quakers. What more do you ask of life? What else can it g-g-give?"

"It does not make me happy! I shall never be happy until I have a home," she said, still sobbing, and trying to conceal the cause of her grief from herself as well as from her husband.

Nothing could have astonished the great, well-fed animal by her side more than this confession. In all his life he had never heaved a sigh. His contentment was like that of a lion in a forest full of antelopes. But if he was fierce and cruel to others, he was at least kind to his mate, and he now put his great paw around her little shoulders and gave her one of his leonine kisses.

"You are as melancholy as an unstrung d-d-drum," he said. "I must cheer you up. How would you like a s-s-song? What shall it be? 'Love's Young D-D-Dream'? All right. Here g-g-goes."

And at the word, he opened his great mouth and stuttered it forth in stentorian tones that went bellowing among the hills like the echoes of thunder.

Pepeeta smiled at his kindness and was grateful for his clumsy efforts at consolation; but they did not dispel her sadness. Her spirits sank lower and lower. The light seemed to have faded out of the world, and the streams of joy to have run dry. She sighed again in spite of herself, and in that sigh exhaled the hope which had sprung from her heart at the prospects of a new and sweet companionship.

She had divined the cause of her disappointment with an unerring instinct. It was exactly as she thought. At the last instant, David's heart had failed him.

On the preceding evening, he had hurried through his "chores," excused himself from giving an account of the adventures of the day on the ground of fatigue, and retired to his room to cherish in his heart the memories of that beautiful face and the prospects of the future. He could not sleep. For hours he tossed on his bed or sat in the window looking out into the night, and when at last he fell into an uneasy slumber his dreams were haunted by two faces which struggled ceaselessly to crowd each other from his mind. One was the young and passionate countenance of the gypsy, and the other was that of his beautiful mother with her pale, carven features, her snow-white hair, her pensive and unearthly expression. They both looked at him, and then gazed at each other. Now one set below the horizon like a wan, white moon, and the other rose above it like the glowing star of love. Now the moon passed over the glowing star in a long eclipse and then disappearing behind a cloud left the brilliant star to shine alone.

When he awoke the gray dawn revealed in vague outline the realities of the world, and warned him that he had but a few moments to execute his plans. He sprang from his couch strong in his purpose to depart, for the fever of adventure was still burning in his veins, and the rapturous looks with which Pepeeta had received his promise to be her companion still made his pulses bound. He hurriedly put a few things into a bundle and stole out of the house.

As he moved quietly but swiftly away from the familiar scenes, his heart which had been beating so high from hope and excitement began to sink in his bosom. He had never dreamed of the force of his attachment to this dear place, and he turned his face toward the old gray house again and again. Every step away from it seemed more difficult than the last, and his feet became heavy as lead. But he pressed on, ashamed to acknowledge his inability to execute his purpose. He came to the last fence which lay between him and the bridge where he had agreed to await the adventurers, and then paused.

He was early. There was still time to reflect. Had the carriage arrived at that moment he would have gone; but it tarried, and the tide of love and regret bore him back to the old familiar life. "I cannot go. I cannot give it up," he murmured to himself.

Torn by conflicting emotions, inclining to first one course and then another, he finally turned his face away from the bridge and fled, impelled by weakness rather than desire. He did not once look back, but ran at the top of his speed straight to the old barn and hid himself from sight. There, breathless and miserable, he watched. He had not long to wait. The dazzling "turn-out" dashed into view. On the high seat he beheld Pepeeta, saw the eager glance she cast at the farm house, followed her until they arrived at the bridge, beheld her disappointment, raved at his own weakness, rushed to the door, halted, returned, rushed back again, returned, threw himself upon the sweet smelling hay, cursed his weakness and indecision and finally surrendered himself to misery.

From the utter wretchedness of that bitter hour, he was roused by the ringing of the breakfast bell. Springing to his feet, he hastened to the spring, bathed his face, assumed a cheerful look and entered the house.

For the first time in his life he attempted the practice of deception, and experienced the bitterness of carrying a guilty secret in his bosom. How he worried through the morning meal and the prayer at the family altar, he never knew, and he escaped with inexpressible relief to the stable and the field to take up the duties of his daily life. He found it plodding work, for the old inspirations to endeavor had utterly vanished. He who had hitherto found toil a beatitude now moved behind the plow like a common drudge.

Tired of the pain which he endured, he tried again and again to forget the whole experience and to persuade himself that he was glad the adventure had ended; but he knew in his heart of hearts that he had failed to follow the gypsy, not because he did not really wish to, but because he did not wholly dare. The consciousness that he was not only a bad man but a coward, added a new element to the bitterness of the cup he was drinking.

Each succeeding day was a repetition of the first, and became a painful increment to his load of misery and unrest. The very world in which he lived seemed to have undergone a transformation. The sunlight had lost its glory, the flowers had become pale and odorless, the songs of the birds dull and dispiriting.

What had really changed was the soul of the young recluse and mystic. The consciousness of God had vanished from it; the visions of the spiritual world no longer visited it; he ceased to pray in secret, and the petitions which he offered at the family altar were so dull and spiritless as even to excite the observation and comment of his little nephew.

"Uncle Dave," remarked that fearless critic, "you pray as if you were talking down a deep well."

No wonder that the child observed the fact upon which he alone had courage to comment, for there is as great a difference between a prayer issuing from the heart and one merely falling from the lips as between water gushing from a fountain and rain dripping from a roof.

Some men pass their lives in the midst of environments where insincerity would not have been so painful; but in a home and a community where sham and hypocrisy were almost unknown these perpetual deceptions became more and more intolerable with every passing hour. Nothing could be more certain than that in a short time, like some foreign substance in a healthy body, his nature would force him out of this uncongenial environment. With some natures the experience would have been a slow and protracted one, but with him the termination could not be long delayed.

It came in a tragedy at the close of the next Sabbath. The day had been dreary, painful and exasperating beyond all endurance, and he felt that he could never stand the strain of another. And so, having detained his mother in the sitting room after the rest of the family had retired, he paced the floor for a few moments, and after several unsuccessful attempts to introduce the subject gently, said bluntly:

"Mother, I am chafing myself to death against the limitations of this narrow life."

"My son," she said calmly, "this has not come to me as a surprise."

He moved uneasily and looked as if he would ask her "Why?"

"Because," she said, as if he had really spoken, "a mother possesses the power of divination, and can discern the sorrows of her children, by a suffering in her own bosom."

The consciousness that he had caused her pain rendered him incapable of speech, and for a moment they sat in silence.

"What is thy wish and purpose, my son?" she asked at last, with an effort which seemed to exhaust her strength.

"I wish to see the world," he answered, his eye kindling as he spoke.

This reply, foreseen and expected as it was, sent a shiver through her. She turned paler, if possible, than before; but summoning all the powers of self-control resident in that disciplined spirit, she replied with an enforced tranquillity:

"My son, does thee know what this world is which thee fain would see?"

"I have seen it in my dreams. I have heard its distant voices calling to me. My spirit chafes to answer their summons. I strain at my anchor like a great ship caught by the tide."

"Shall I tell thee what this world of which thee has dreamed such dreams is really like, my son?" she asked, struggling to maintain her calm.

"How should thee know?"

"I have seen it."

"Thee has seen it? I thought that thee had passed thy entire life among the Quakers," he answered with surprise.

"I say that I have seen it. Shall I tell thee what it is?" she resumed, as if she had not heard him.

"If thee will," he answered, awed by a strange solemnity in her manner.

Her quick respirations had become audible. Small but intensely red spots were burning on either cheek. Her white hands trembled as they clutched the arms of the old rocking chair in which she sat.

"I will!" she said, regarding him with a look which seemed to devour him with yearning love. "This world whose voices thee hears calling is a fiction of thine own brain. That which thee thinks thee beholds of glory and beauty thee hast conjured up from the depths of a youthful and disordered fancy, and projected into an unreal realm. That world which thee has thus beheld in thy dreams will burst like a pin-pricked bubble when thee tries to enter it. It is not the real world, my son. How shall I tell thee what that real world is? It is a snare, a pit-fall. It is a flame into which young moths are ever plunging. It promises, only to deceive; it beckons, only to betray; its smiles are ambushes; it is sunlight on the surface, but ice at the heart; it offers life, but it confers death. I bid thee fear it, shun it, hate it!"

She leaned far forward in her chair, and her face upon which the youth had never seen any other look but that of an almost unearthly calm, was glowing with excitement and passion.

"Mother," he exclaimed, "what does thee know of this world, thee who has passed thy life in lonely places and amongst a quiet people?"

She rose and paced the floor as if to permit some of her excitement to escape in physical activity, and pausing before him, said: "My only and well-beloved son, thee does not know thy mother. A veil has been drawn over that portion of her life which preceded thy birth, and its secrets are hidden in her own heart. She has prayed God that she might never have to bring them forth into the light; but he has imposed upon her the necessity of opening the grave in which they are buried, in order that, seeing them, thee may abandon thy desires to taste those pleasures which once lured thy mother along the flower-strewn pathway to her sin and sorrow."

Her solemnity and her suffering produced in the bosom of her son a nameless fear. He could not speak. He could only look and listen.

"Thee sees before thee," she continued, "the faded form and features of a woman once young and beautiful. Can thee believe it?"

He did not answer, for she had seemed to him as mothers always do to children, to have been always what he had found her upon awakening to consciousness. He could not remember when her hair was not gray.

Something in her manner revealed to the startled soul of the young Quaker that he was about to come upon a discovery that would shake the very foundation of his life; for a moment he could not speak.

The silence in which she awaited the answer to her question became profound and in it the ticking of the old clock sounded like the blows of a blacksmith's hammer, the purring of the cat like the roar of machinery, and the beating of his heart like the dull thud of a battering ram.

As if reading his inmost thoughts, the white-faced woman said: "And so thee thought that I was always old and gray?"

As she uttered these words in a tone of indescribable sadness, a faint smile played around the corners of her mouth--such a marble smile as might have appeared upon the face of Niobe. In an instant more it had composed itself into its former sadness, as a sheet of pure water resumes its calmness, after having been lightly stirred by a summer wind.

So long did she stand regarding him with looks of unutterable love that he could not endure the strain of the withheld secret, but exclaimed hoarsely: "Go on! Mother, for God's sake, go on! If thee has something to disclose, reveal it at once!"

It seemed impossible for her to speak. The opening of the secrets of her heart to God before the bar of judgment could have cost her no greater effort than this confession to her son.

"David," she said, in a voice that sounded like an echo of a long-dead past, "the fear that the sins of thy parents should be visited upon thee has tormented every hour of my life. I have watched thee and prayed for thee as no one but a mother who has drunk the bitter cup to its dregs could ever do. I have trembled at every childish sin. In every little fault I have beheld a miniature of the vices of thy mother and thy father--thy father! Oh! David, my son--my son!"

The white lips parted, but no sound issued from them. She raised her white hand and clutched at her throat as if choking. Then she trembled, gasped, reeled, and fell forward into his arms.

In a moment more, the agitated heart had ceased to beat, and the secret of her life was hidden in its mysterious silence. The sudden, inexplicable and calamitous nature of this event came near unsettling the mental balance of the sensitive and highly organized youth. Coming as it did upon the very heels of the experiences which had so thoroughly shaken his faith in the old life, he felt himself to be the target for every arrow in the quiver of misfortune.

He seemed to himself not so much like a boat that had sprung a single leak, as like one out of which every nail had been pulled and the joints left open to the inrushing waters.

Into the unfilled gap in his mother's narrative, ten thousand suspicions crept, each displacing the other and leaving him more and more in darkness and in dread with regard to the origin of his own life. Wherever he went and whatever he did these confused suspicions resounded in his ears like the murmur in a seashell.

He did not dare communicate this story even to his sister; for if she knew nothing he feared to poison her existence by telling her, and if she knew all he had not the courage to listen to the sequel. Perhaps no other experience in life produces a more profound shock than a discovery like that upon which David had so suddenly stumbled. It leads to despair or to melancholy, and many a life of highest promise has been suddenly wrecked by it. While he brooded over this mystery the days slipped past the young mystic almost unnoted; he wandered about the farm, passing from one fit of abstraction into another, doing nothing, saying nothing, thinking everything.

The world was shrouded in a gloom through whose shifting mists a single star shone now and then, emitting a brilliant and dazzling ray. It was the figure of a gypsy.

In his heavy, aching heart thoughts of her alone aroused an emotion of joy. As other objects lost their power to attract or charm, she more and more filled all his horizon.

Her name was whispered by each passing breeze. It was syllabled by every singing bird. The old clock ticked it on the stairway. The hoofs of his horse which he rode recklessly over the country uttered it to the hard roads on which they fell--"Pepeeta, Pepeeta, Pepeeta."

Whenever he really tried to banish the temptations which haunted his soul, they always returned to the swept and garnished chamber bringing with them seven spirits worse than themselves.

He tried to look forward to the future with hope. But how can a man hope for harvests, when all his seed corn has been destroyed? If his father was bad, what hope was there that he could be better?

He made innumerable resolves to take up the duties of life where he had laid them down, but they were all like birds which die in the nest where they are born.

Pepeeta was drawing him irresistibly to herself; he was like a man in the outer circle of a vortex, of which she was the center. The touch of her soft hand which he could still feel, the farewell glance of eyes which still glowed before his imagination, attracted him like a powerful magnet. It was true that he did not know where she was; but he felt that he could find her in the uttermost parts of the earth by yielding himself to the impulse which she had awakened in his heart.

"A dark veil of mystery hangs over my past. My present is full of misery and unrest. I will see if the future has any joys in store for me," he said to himself at the close of one of his restless days.

Without so much as a word of farewell, he crept out of the house in the gathering dusk, and started in pursuit of the bright object that floated like a will-o'-the-wisp before his inner eye.

A feeling of exultation and relief seized him as he left the place made dark and dreadful by the memory of that tragic scene through which he had so recently passed; the quiet of the evening soothed his perturbed spirits, and the tranquil stars looked down upon him with eyes that twinkled as if in sympathy.

It is an old tradition of the monks, that when the sap begins to run in the vines on sunny slopes, a revolt and discontent thrills in the bottles imprisoned in the darkness of the wine vaults. Such a discontent and fever had been thrilling in David's veins during these warm spring days, when the whole world had been in a ferment of life, and he had been bottled up in the gloom and narrowness of the little country village; and yielding himself to the emotions that seethed in his breast, he broke all the tender ties of the past and went blindly into the future.

He had been suddenly fascinated by a beautiful woman and bewildered by an unscrupulous man; he had felt the foundations of his religious faith shaken, and discovered that his own life had sprung from an illicit passion. These are violent blows, and many a man has gone down before a single one of them. If the blows had been delivered singly at long intervals he might have survived the shock; but following each other in swift succession like great tidal waves they had literally swept him from his moorings.

Such collapses fill us with horror and questioning. How do they come about? Can they be prevented? These are the deepest problems of life, and our psychology is still impotent to solve them. We can detect and measure the dross in metals or the poison in drugs; but we have no solvent that will reduce a complex nature like David's into its original elements and enable us to differentiate a son's responsibility from that of his father.

We make bold guesses and confident affirmations as to the comparative influence of heredity and environment. We enter into learned disputations as to the blessing or the bane of an education such as his. But every such case is still a profound and insoluble mystery. The most comprehensive laws and the most careful generalizations meet with too many exceptions to enable us to form a science. The children of the good are too often bad and the children of the bad too often good to permit us to dogmatize about heredity. We learn as our experience deepens and our horizon widens to regard such collapses with a compassionate sympathy and a humbled consciousness of our own unfitness to judge and condemn. Whether we create our individuality or only bring it to light--is the question that makes us stumble! But while we move in the midst of uncertainties in this realm, there is another in which we walk in the glare of noonday. We know beyond the peradventure of a doubt that whatever may be the origin of such weakness as that of the young mystic, the results are always inevitable! Nature never asks any questions nor makes any allowances. To her mind, sin is sin! Whatsoever a man sows--that shall he also reap. Whether he yield to evil voluntarily or be driven into it by resistless force; whether he sin because of a self-originating propensity or because his father sinned before him, is all one to those resistless executors of Nature's law, sickness, sorrow, disaster, death!

No man ever defeated Nature! No man ever will! From the instant when he turned his back upon his home, David's fate was sealed. He was playing against a certainty and he knew it. But he ought to have remembered it! It was of this that he ought to have been thinking, and not of the gypsy's eyes!

Sometimes such men escape from the final catastrophe of the long series; but not from the intermediate lashings!

This brutal, idiotic step of Corson's looks like a final plunge; a fatal fall; a hopeless retrogression. But we must not judge prematurely. "Man advances; but in spiral lines," said Goethe. The river goes forward, in spite of its eddies. You can complete a geometric circle from a minute portion of its curve; but not a human cycle. We can not predict the final issue of a human life until the last sigh is drawn.