 | The snow-image |  |
THE MAN OF ADAMANT:
AN APOLOGUE.
In the old times of religious gloom and intolerance,
lived Richard Digby, the gloomiest and most intolerant
of a stern brotherhood. His plan of salvation was so
narrow, that, like a plank in a tempestuous sea, it could
avail no sinner but himself, who bestrode it triumphantly,
and hurled anathemas against the wretches whom he
saw struggling with the billows of eternal death. In his
view of the matter, it was a most abominable crime —
as, indeed, it is a great folly — for men to trust to their
own strength, or even to grapple to any other fragment
of the wreck, save this narrow plank, which, moreover,
he took special care to keep out of their reach. In other
words, as his creed was like no man's else, and being
well pleased that Providence had intrusted him alone,
of mortals, with the treasure of a true faith, Richard
Digby determined to seclude himself to the sole and
constant enjoyment of his happy fortune.
“And verily,” thought he, “I deem it a chief condition
of Heaven's mercy to myself, that I hold no communion
with those abominable myriads which it hath cast
off to perish. Peradventure, were I to tarry longer in
the tents of Kedar, the gracious boon would be revoked,
and I also be swallowed up in the deluge of wrath, or consumed
in the storm of fire and brimstone, or involved in
perversity of this generation.”
So Richard Digby took an axe, to hew space enough
for a tabernacle in the wilderness, and some few other
necessaries, especially a sword and gun, to smite and
slay any intruder upon his hallowed seclusion; and
plunged into the dreariest depths of the forest. On its
verge, however, he paused a moment, to shake off the
dust of his feet against the village where he had dwelt,
and to invoke a curse on the meeting-house, which he
regarded as a temple of heathen idolatry. He felt a
curiosity, also, to see whether the fire and brimstone
would not rush down from Heaven at once, now that the
one righteous man had provided for his own safety.
But, as the sunshine continued to fall peacefully on the
cottages and fields, and the husbandmen labored and
children played, and as there were many tokens of
present happiness, and nothing ominous of a speedy
judgment, he turned away, somewhat disappointed.
The further he went, however, and the lonelier he felt
himself, and the thicker the trees stood along his path,
and the darker the shadow overhead, so much the more
did Richard Digby exult. He talked to himself, as he
strode onward; he read his Bible to himself, as he sat
beneath the trees; and, as the gloom of the forest hid
the blessed sky, I had almost added, that, at morning,
noon, and eventide, he prayed to himself. So congenial
was this mode of life to his disposition, that he often
laughed to himself, but was displeased when an echo
tossed him back the long, loud roar.
In this manner, he journeyed onward three days and
two nights, and came, on the third evening, to the mouth
cave at Horeb, though perhaps it more resembled Abraham's
sepulchral cave, at Machpelah. It entered into
the heart of a rocky hill. There was so dense a veil of
tangled foliage about it, that none but a sworn lover of
gloomy recesses would have discovered the low arch of
its entrance, or have dared to step within its vaulted
chamber, where the burning eyes of a panther might
encounter him. If Nature meant this remote and dismal
cavern for the use of man, it could only be to bury in its
gloom the victims of a pestilence, and then to block up
its mouth with stones, and avoid the spot forever after.
There was nothing bright nor cheerful near it, except a
bubbling fountain, some twenty paces off, at which
Richard Digby hardly threw away a glance. But he
thrust his head into the cave, shivered, and congratulated
himself.
“The finger of Providence hath pointed my way!”
cried he, aloud, while the tomb-like den returned a
strange echo, as if some one within were mocking him.
“Here my soul will be at peace; for the wicked will not
find me. Here I can read the Scriptures, and be no more
provoked with lying interpretations. Here I can offer
up acceptable prayers, because my voice will not be
mingled with the sinful supplications of the multitude.
Of a truth, the only way to heaven leadeth through the
narrow entrance of this cave, — and I alone have found
it!”
In regard to this cave, it was observable that the roof,
so far as the imperfect light permitted it to be seen, was
hung with substances resembling opaque icicles; for the
damps of unknown centuries, dripping down continually,
moisture fell, it seemed to possess the power of converting
what it bathed to stone. The fallen leaves and sprigs
of foliage, which the wind had swept into the cave, and
the little feathery shrubs, rooted near the threshold, were
not wet with a natural dew, but had been embalmed by
this wondrous process. And here I am put in mind
that Richard Digby, before he withdrew himself from the
world, was supposed by skilful physicians to have contracted
a disease for which no remedy was written in
their medical books. It was a deposition of calculous
particles within his heart, caused by an obstructed circulation
of the blood; and, unless a miracle should be
wrought for him, there was danger that the malady might
act on the entire substance of the organ, and change his
fleshy heart to stone. Many, indeed, affirmed that the
process was already near its consummation. Richard
Digby, however, could never be convinced that any such
direful work was going on within him; nor when he
saw the sprigs of marble foliage, did his heart even throb
the quicker, at the similitude suggested by these once
tender herbs. It may be that this same insensibility
was a symptom of the disease.
Be that as it might, Richard Digby was well contented
with his sepulchral cave. So dearly did he love
this congenial spot, that, instead of going a few paces to
the bubbling spring for water, he allayed his thirst with
now and then a drop of moisture from the roof, which,
had it fallen anywhere but on his tongue, would have
been congealed into a pebble. For a man predisposed to
stoniness of the heart, this surely was unwholesome
liquor. But there he dwelt, for three days more, eating
as it were, in a tomb, and awaking to the solitude of
death, yet esteeming this horrible mode of life as hardly
inferior to celestial bliss. Perhaps superior; for, above
the sky, there would be angels to disturb him. At the
close of the third day, he sat in the portal of his mansion,
reading the Bible aloud, because no other ear could
profit by it, and reading it amiss, because the rays of the
setting sun did not penetrate the dismal depth of shadow
round about him, nor fall upon the sacred page. Suddenly,
however, a faint gleam of light was thrown over
the volume, and, raising his eyes, Richard Digby saw
that a young woman stood before the mouth of the cave,
and that the sunbeams bathed her white garment, which
thus seemed to possess a radiance of its own.
“Good-evening, Richard,” said the girl; “I have come
from afar to find thee.”
The slender grace and gentle loveliness of this young
woman were at once recognized by Richard Digby. Her
name was Mary Goffe. She had been a convert to his
preaching of the word in England, before he yielded
himself to that exclusive bigotry which now enfolded
him with such an iron grasp that no other sentiment
could reach his bosom. When he came a pilgrim to
America, she had remained in her father's hall; but now,
as it appeared, had crossed the ocean after him, impelled
by the same faith that led other exiles hither, and perhaps
by love almost as holy. What else but faith and
love united could have sustained so delicate a creature,
wandering thus far into the forest, with her golden hair
dishevelled by the boughs, and her feet wounded by the
thorns? Yet, weary and faint though she must have
looked on the lonely man with a mild and pitying
expression, such as might beam from an angel's eyes,
towards an afflicted mortal. But the recluse, frowning
sternly upon her, and keeping his finger between the
leaves of his half-closed Bible, motioned her away with
his hand.
“Off!” cried he. “I am sanctified, and thou art
sinful. Away!”
“O, Richard,” said she, earnestly, “I have come this
weary way because I heard that a grievous distemper
had seized upon thy heart; and a great Physician hath
given me the skill to cure it. There is no other remedy
than this which I have brought thee. Turn me not
away, therefore, nor refuse my medicine; for then must
this dismal cave be thy sepulchre.”
“Away!” replied Richard Digby, still with a dark
frown. “My heart is in better condition than thine
own. Leave me, earthly one; for the sun is almost set;
and when no light reaches the door of the cave, then is
my prayer-time.”
Now, great as was her need, Mary Goffe did not plead
with this stony-hearted man for shelter and protection,
nor ask anything whatever for her own sake. All her
zeal was for his welfare.
“Come back with me!” she exclaimed, clasping her
hands, — “come back to thy fellow-men; for they need
thee, Richard, and thou hast ten-fold need of them.
Stay not in this evil den; for the air is chill, and the
damps are fatal; nor will any that perish within it ever
find the path to heaven. Hasten hence, I entreat thee,
for thine own soul's sake; for either the roof will fall
hand.”
“Perverse woman!” answered Richard Digby, laughing
aloud, — for he was moved to bitter mirth by her foolish
vehemence, — “I tell thee that the path to heaven
leadeth straight through this narrow portal where I sit.
And, moreover, the destruction thou speakest of is
ordained, not for this blessed cave, but for all other habitations
of mankind, throughout the earth. Get thee
hence speedily, that thou mayst have thy share!”
So saying, he opened his Bible again, and fixed his
eyes intently on the page, being resolved to withdraw
his thoughts from this child of sin and wrath, and to
waste no more of his holy breath upon her. The shadow
had now grown so deep, where he was sitting, that he
made continual mistakes in what he read, converting all
that was gracious and merciful to denunciations of vengeance
and unutterable woe on every created being but
himself. Mary Goffe, meanwhile, was leaning against
a tree, beside the sepulchral cave, very sad, yet with
something heavenly and ethereal in her unselfish sorrow.
The light from the setting sun still glorified her form,
and was reflected a little way within the darksome den,
discovering so terrible a gloom that the maiden shuddered
for its self-doomed inhabitant. Espying the bright
fountain near at hand, she hastened thither, and scooped
up a portion of its water, in a cup of birchen bark. A
few tears mingled with the draught, and perhaps gave it
all its efficacy. She then returned to the mouth of the
cave, and knelt down at Richard Digby's feet.
“Richard,” she said, with passionate fervor, yet a
gentleness in all her passion, “I pray thee, by thy hope
forever, drink of this hallowed water, be it but a single
drop! Then, make room for me by thy side, and let us
read together one page of that blessed volume, — and,
lastly, kneel down with me and pray! Do this, and
thy stony heart shall become softer than a babe's, and
all be well.”
But Richard Digby, in utter abhorrence of the proposal,
cast the Bible at his feet, and eyed her with such
a fixed and evil frown, that he looked less like a living
man than a marble statue, wrought by some dark-imagined
sculptor to express the most repulsive mood that
human features could assume. And, as his look grew
even devilish, so, with an equal change, did Mary Goffe
become more sad, more mild, more pitiful, more like a
sorrowing angel. But, the more heavenly she was, the
more hateful did she seem to Richard Digby, who at
length raised his hand, and smote down the cup of
hallowed water upon the threshold of the cave, thus
rejecting the only medicine that could have cured his
stony heart. A sweet perfume lingered in the air for a
moment, and then was gone.
“Tempt me no more, accursed woman,” exclaimed he,
still with his marble frown, “lest I smite thee down
also! What hast thou to do with my Bible? — what
with my prayers? — what with my heaven?”
No sooner had he spoken these dreadful words, than
Richard's Digby's heart ceased to beat; while — so the
legend says — the form of Mary Goffe melted into the
last sunbeams, and returned from the sepulchral cave to
heaven. For Mary Goffe had been buried in an English
church-yard, months before; and either it was her
spirit, typifying pure Religion.
Above a century afterwards, when the trackless forest
of Richard Digby's day had long been interspersed with
settlements, the children of a neighboring farmer were
playing at the foot of a hill. The trees, on account of
the rude and broken surface of this acclivity, had never
been felled, and were crowded so densely together as to
hide all but a few rocky prominences, wherever their
roots could grapple with the soil. A little boy and girl,
to conceal themselves from their playmates, had crept
into the deepest shade, where not only the darksome
pines, but a thick veil of creeping plants suspended from
an overhanging rock, combined to make a twilight at
noonday, and almost a midnight at all other seasons.
There the children hid themselves, and shouted, repeating
the cry at intervals, till the whole party of pursuers
were drawn thither, and pulling aside the matted foliage,
let in a doubtful glimpse of daylight. But scarcely was
this accomplished, when the little group uttered a simultaneous
shriek, and tumbled headlong down the hill,
making the best of their way homeward, without a
second glance into the gloomy recess. Their father,
unable to comprehend what had so startled them, took
his axe, and, by felling one or two trees, and tearing
away the creeping plants, laid the mystery open to the
day. He had discovered the entrance of a cave, closely
resembling the mouth of a sepulchre, within which sat
the figure of a man, whose gesture and attitude warned
the father and children to stand back, while his visage
wore a most forbidding frown. This repulsive personage
seemed to have been carved in the same gray stone that
inspection, indeed, such blemishes were observed, as
made it doubtful whether the figure were really a
statue, chiselled by human art, and somewhat worn and
defaced by the lapse of ages, or a freak of Nature, who
might have chosen to imitate, in stone, her usual handiwork
of flesh. Perhaps it was the least unreasonable
idea, suggested by this strange spectacle, that the
moisture of the cave possessed a petrifying quality, which
had thus awfully embalmed a human corpse.
There was something so frightful in the aspect of this
Man of Adamant, that the farmer, the moment that he
recovered from the fascination of his first gaze, began to
heap stones into the mouth of the cavern. His wife,
who had followed him to the hill, assisted her husband's
efforts. The children, also, approached as near as they
durst, with their little hands full of pebbles, and cast
them on the pile. Earth was then thrown into the
crevices, and the whole fabric overlaid with sods. Thus
all traces of the discovery were obliterated, leaving only
a marvellous legend, which grew wilder from one generation
to another, as the children told it to their grandchildren,
and they to their posterity, till few believed
that there had ever been a cavern or a statue, where now
they saw but a grassy patch on the shadowy hill-side.
Yet, grown people avoid the spot, nor do children play
there. Friendship, and Love, and Piety, all human and
celestial sympathies, should keep aloof from that hidden
cave; for there still sits, and, unless an earthquake
crumble down the roof upon his head, shall sit forever,
the shape of Richard Digby, in the attitude of repelling
the whole race of mortals — not from heaven — but from
the horrible loneliness of his dark, cold sepulchre!
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