 | CHAPTER EIGHTH.
PAUL GOES TOWARD HIS HOME. Paul Ardenheim, the monk of Wissahikon |  |
8. CHAPTER EIGHTH.
PAUL GOES TOWARD HIS HOME.
Paul crossed the Wissahikon by means of the fallen tree, and ascending
the opposite bank, plunged into the shadow of the woods. As he threaded
his way over the earth, strewn with withered pine leaves, while the huge
trunks were dimly seen on every side, his face was still turned to the
north-west.
He strode rapidly onward, until the sombre depths and unnatural stillness
of the pines was succeeded by a thicket full of flowers and sunshine,
with green boughs stretching across his path at every step. But the sunlight
that danced so merrily among the leaves and blossoms, did not chase
the settled gloom from his face, nor did the luxurious atmosphere of June,
steeped in fragrance and musical with the hum of bees, call one glow of
rapture to his cheek. Ever turning his eyes to the north-west, he threaded
the windings of the faintly defined pathway, while the gloom came darker
over his face.
It was a pathway rarely trodden; it led among the wildest recesses of
the woods, and led toward the Home of Paul. In a few moments he
would be there; he would behold the old Block-house smiling under its
garmenture of vines and flowers.
Paul felt his knees bend under him, and wiped the cold moisture from his
brow. Every moment brought him nearer to that Home; soon he would
know the worst.
His thoughts became vague and dream-like. He was again a wanderer
over the face of the earth. Again he stood in the streets of Paris, an unknown
and friendless man, alone in a desert of strange people. Again he
trod the soil of Germany, and paused for a while amid the chivalric student
people of Heidelberg, and heard their earnest songs, chorused by the
clash of swords, swelling deep and far over the bosom of the Rhine. Then
he was on the way that leads through a dark wood, to the summit of a
craggy hill, from whence you may drink in the valley of the Arno, with
Florence glittering on its breast. He was in Rome, at dead of night, in
the great Temple of St. Peter's, with only a single light burning through
its profound gloom—alone at dead of night in that great temple, whose
dome is itself a sky. He was in Rome, in the Catacombs—the city of the
dead sunken under the feet of the living millions—he knelt by the graves
of martyrs, and, oppressed by the memories of the place, felt his soul glide
away into the New World, where the father and the sister were waiting
for him.
And with these thoughts of his pilgrimage over Europe—a pilgrimage
accomplished on foot, with but little money and no friends, save those
whom his sad visage won by the way—there came other and wilder thoughts
of adventures too strange for belief.
He thought of the night when, belated among the Hartz mountains, whose
abrupt cliffs and pines and shadows reminded him of his own Wissahikon,
a voice spoke to him, and—
Paul dared not pursue the thought. He shuddered as it crossed his
mind.
And as he banished the memory of the Hartz mountains, the thought
of his Father, his Sister, his Home came back with overwhelming force.
“I cannot go on!” he cried, and flung himself at the foot of a wild poplar
tree—“How can I look upon my father's face, when there is Perjury
written upon mine?”
Again the cold moisture gathered on his brow—he raised his right hand
to dash it away—when his eye assumed an unnatural brightness, and he
gazed upon the half-raised hand with a look of singular interest.
“This hand—this hand—” he muttered, and springing from the seat at
the foot of the wild poplar, hurried on his way.
There was a strip of wood to be passed, a lane to be crossed, a gentle
hill to be ascended, and then his feet would press the wild grass of the
winding road which led to the gate of the Monastery.
Paul hurried through the strip of wood, and descended the steep bank
into the lane, which led from the Wissahikon to the Schuylkill. He was
hurrying toward the opposite bank, when his ear caught the sound of a
footstep. A man attired in the garb of a laborer was journeying slowly
along the road with a scythe on his shoulder.
Paul waited until he approached.
“Can you tell me, friend, whether the old man still lives in the Block-house
yonder?”
The laborer started at the sound of the voice—looked in Paul's face
with a vacant stare, while his rugged visage was stamped with an expression
of intense terror.
“The old man—sometimes called the Priest of Wissahikon—does he
still live yonder?”
Paul held his breath as he awaited an answer to this question. But the
laborer did not answer; he stood in the centre of the road like one stricken
dumb by the hand of Heaven; his eyes dilating and every line of his face
agitated by terror.
The suspense of Paul amounted to agony.
“Speak! Does the old man yet live? The old man who lived in the
Block-house, not two hundred yards from where you stand. Is he yet
alive?”
As he spoke, he advanced, his whole frame trembling with emotion.
up the bank and into the bushes as though he had been pursued by a wild
beast.
“What can it mean? Is the curse of Cain indeed written on my forehead?”
Paul remained standing in the centre of the road, absorbed in thought.
After a moment he raised his eyes; there was a noble poplar tree standing
on the verge of the opposite bank, its broad green leaves intermingled with
flowers that resembled cups of gold adorned with pearl. At sight of this
tree, which stood alone, reaching forth its magnificent branches on every
side, all the associations of his youth rushed upon the soul of the Wanderer.
Beneath that tree, on the night of his flight, he had hesitated for an instant—uncertain
whether to go back and fling himself at his father's feet,
or to rush forward into the unknown world, an outcast, stamped with the
brand of Cain.
Two hundred yards from that tree stood the Monastery of Wissahikon.
Maddened by this monument of the Past, this green memorial of his
crime, Paul ascended the bank, and darting over the irregular fence,
hurried blindly onward. It was not long before his feet pressed the
winding road which led to the Block-house gate.
Do not picture to yourself a smooth path, paved with brown pebbles,
and bordered by regularly planted flowers, with the limbs of carefully
clipped trees arching overhead. But picture a road whose traces are
almost lost in a growth of wild grass overspread with briers—a devious
road, wandering among trees of every shape and kind, with brushwood
starting in luxuriant vegetation, all about their massive trunks. A road
that now strikes to the east, now to the west, at this point comes out in
sunlight, and yonder hides itself beneath the branches that bend down
until their leaves are mingled with the rank grass.
Paul gazed upon the few paces of the road which were visible, and
felt that every thing announced decay and desolation. The deep hollows
dug by wheels in former days, were buried in the briers and grass; it was
evident that the path had not been used for many a day—perchance
years.
After standing for a moment, buried in thought, Paul commenced that
journey of two hundred yards, which to him was more terrible than a
journey around the entire globe.
As he went onward, tearing his way through the briers, his cheek became
paler, until his eyes, increasing in brightness, resembled the eyes of a
living man set in the face of a corse. He trembled with cold, although the
day was one of the most delicious in June, and gathered his mantle closely
over his breast.
He attained the solitary chesnut tree, around which the path turned
a moment, and remembered that from this tree to the gate of the Block-house,
the road was marked by five inclinations. At the first,—counting
from the chesnut tree—stood a tulip-poplar; at the second, an oak; at
the third, a pine; at the fourth, a beech; and at the fifth, a sycamore or
buttonwood tree. Around the trunk of each of these trees—distinguished
from the other trees by their remarkable size—the path made a sudden
turn.
From the foot of the old sycamore, it was but a few yards to the gate
of the Block-house. The dense foliage prevented the ancient edifice
from being seen, until this point was attained, when it suddenly, and in
all its interesting details, rushed upon the eye.
“I cannot go on—every tree, every flower brings some memory before
me—I will retrace my steps, and go forth into the world again!”
These words were not spoken in a tone remarkable for depth or power.
The accents of the speaker were tremulous and broken, while his chest
rose and fell with spasmodic throbbings.
The five trees, which he would have to pass, each tree venerable
with age, and clad in the glory of summer, seemed whirling before
his eyes.
With trembling footsteps, he left the chesnut tree. Faint and powerless
from the emotion, which only added brightness to his eyes, while
it paled his cheek, and loosened every fibre of his frame, Paul toiled
slowly onward, until he stood beneath the shade of the tulip-poplar.
Then it was, that the memory of the fatal night came upon him with
crushing force; he sank on his knees, and buried his face amid the grass.
“With this hand I struck him down—” he moaned—“I dashed him
beneath my feet, and lived. Perjured! Perjured! The burden of the
Unpardonable Sin is upon me. And yet, that which has been, even the
guilt of perjury, the crime of an unnatural blow, is innocence compared
to that which is to be.”
An unbroken silence prevailed through the forest, while Paul remained
prostrate, with his face buried in the grass. There was no human eye to
look upon his agony, and listen to his incoherent words. He was alone
with his Soul—with Memory. Memory of what?
A low humming sound came to his ears. He started up—it was the
sound of a human voice. It came gently through the wood, now rising
on the air, and again dying away in an indistinct murmur.
“It is the voice of Catharine,” he cried, springing to his feet, and turning
around the foot of the wild poplar. “There are two voices—I hear
them distinctly. The voice of Catherine and—”
“My father!” he would have said, but could not speak the word.
Trampling over the briers, and through the grass, he hurried onward
toward the oak. He was strong in his very despair. He was resolved
prostrate himself at the feet of his Father. He drew near the old tree, whose
branches might have sheltered an hundred men. Venerable with the
growth of five centuries, its immense trunk hollowed by decay, and its
gnarled limbs woven together with fragrant vines, it broke on the eye of
Paul as he hastened forward, just as he had seen it in the summers of his
boyhood.
Beneath its shade he paused, and gazed beyond—that sound of voices
breaking more distinctly on his ear. Before him, tangled no longer with
briers, the road stretched to the west again, with sunlight playing over
its grass and flowers, while the bright foliage quivered overhead.
Paul held his breath; the sight which he beheld, enchained every
faculty of his soul.
Where the sunshine came in wandering rays, there was a little child
tossing merrily on the grass, and crushing leaves and flowers in his tiny
hands. A boy with cheeks like the rose, and lips like twin-cherries, hair
of bright gold, mingling with the grass, and eyes of laughing blue, turned
towards the sky. His face and naked arms were embrowned by the sun,
and his coarse garb indicated that he was but a peasant's child. The air
rang with his merry laughter, as he tossed his flowers in the air—caught
them upon his face and hair, and then—while his cheeks were almost
hidden by violets and roses—reached forth his little hands to gather more.
A happy child, dressed in an humble garb, playing all alone in the
midst of the silent forest, making the air musical with his voice, and baptizing
his stainless cheeks with freshly gathered flowers!
Paul stood very still, afraid to move or breathe, lest he might scare the
beautiful vision away. Leaning against the trunk of the great oak, he
rested his pale cheek against the rough bark, and gazed in silence upon
the laughing child.
His eyes filled with tears.
That picture of laughing innocence stood up beside the image of his
own dark fate, in terrible contrast.
—The tears rolled slowly down his cheeks.
—Afraid to breathe, he soon became conscious that there was another
spectator of this scene. Amid the foliage, not far from the child, appeared
the face of a young woman, with a finger pressed upon the red lip, and
the Heaven of a Mother's love lighting up her eyes.
It was the face of an humble laborer's daughter—Paul remembered it
well. She was but a girl when he left the Wissahikon. One day, four
years ago, near this very spot, a girl of some fifteen years had knelt
before him, and joining her hands upon her breast, asked his blessing.
The blessing of Paul Ardenheim! Inspired by the superstitious awe
which then prevailed among the country folks of Wissahikon, in regard
his lips.
And the face now gazing upon the laughing child, with the finger on the
red lip, was the face of the young girl who, four years since, had knelt at
the feet of the Monk of Wissahikon.
“They at least are happy! The young mother, whose eyes are full of
Heaven, and the child freshly gathered from the blossoms of Paradise!”
It seemed to Paul that he could gaze for ever on this scene; it was to
him a picture which memory might wear for ever in her holiest shrine.
The child centred amid grass and flowers—the mother gazing from the
foliage, her sunburnt face glowing into beauty,—the profound forest all
around!
“She can tell me of my father,” thought Paul. “At last I can know
whether he lives. I long to hear her speak the name of Catharine.”
The mother started from the foliage, and stood disclosed in the centre
of the hidden road, her young form clad in the coarse attire of a poor
man's wife, while her brown hair fell loosely over the 'kerchief which
veiled her bosom.
Paul advanced; his footstep crashing down the wild grass as he left the
shadow of the oaken tree.
“It is a beautiful child,” he said, in that voice, which was wont to win
the ear with its rich intonation—“Let me take it in my arms, and learn
from its lips the song which the angels sing in Heaven.”
The mother looked up, startled by the unexpected footstep and the voice.
“Do you not remember me?” he said, with an attempt to smile—“Has
my face grown strange so soon. I have only been absent two years—”
The young woman gazed upon this form, clad in strange attire, with
the mantle floating down the shoulder, and the plume trembling above the
dark hair and livid face. She did not speak, but her eyes dilated; her
lips parted; she was motionless.
“Do you not know me?”—again that sad attempt at a smile.
The limbs of the young woman bent beneath her; she sank on the grass,
and with an involuntary gesture, gathered her child to her bosom. Never
for a moment did she turn her wild gaze from the countenance of Paul.
The color had vanished from her face; it was evident that she was
oppressed by some indefinable terror.
“Do you not remember the day when you knelt before me—near this
very spot—and asked my blessing?” cried Paul, as the undeniable fear of
the young mother cut him to the soul—“Have I become so changed, so
hideous, that you do not know me?”
“Do not harm me—” faltered the affrighted mother, gathering her child
closer to her heart—“The dead—the dead—”
“Tell me, does my father live? Catharine—my sister—you have seen
her—she is well?”
—“The dead should never return to earth, but to bless us! Do not—
do not harm me!”
“The dead—what mean you? I am living—”
But still the young mother clutched her child to her bosom, and with
her dilating eyes fixed upon the face of Paul, faltered, in a tone pitiful with
terror—
“Do not harm me! Do not harm me!”
—The agony of the damned rent the heart of the Wanderer, as he rushed
past the mother and her child. Never for an instant looking back, he fled
from their presence, he passed the pine, and ere he was aware, reached
the foot of the beechen tree.
From this point the road extended toward the north; had it not been
for the branches, which bent down until their leaves swept the grass, Paul
could have seen the Block-house.
“I am accursed in the sight of God and man. Yes, the meanest wretch
who digs to save himself from starvation, looks on me with loathing. The
young mother shrinks from me, as if there was death in my look; the
very babe upon her bosom lifts its little hands to curse me.”
Upon the smooth rind of the giant-beech, some unknown hand had
carved a name and date.
PAUL — JANUARY FIRST, 1775.
He gazed upon this inscription with a vacant wonder. He could not
trust his sight, but passing his hand over the smooth surface of the beechen
trunk, felt every letter, and counted them one by one.
“What hand has dared record that date, and stamp the memory of my
crime upon this tree?”
There was no answer to the question. Paul left the shadow of the
beech and staggered onward. His steps were wild and unsteady—he
tottered like a drunken man.
“It is only a moment longer,—only a moment! I will stand beneath
the sycamore and see my home. Home!”
| CHAPTER EIGHTH.
PAUL GOES TOWARD HIS HOME. Paul Ardenheim, the monk of Wissahikon | |