Mosses from an old manse
“Reuben, my boy,” said he, “this rock beneath which we sit will serve
for an old hunter’s gravestone. There is many and many a long mile of
howling wilderness before us yet; nor would it avail me anything if the
smoke of my own chimney were but on the other side of that swell of
land. The Indian bullet was deadlier than I thought.”
“You are weary with our three days’ travel,” replied the youth, “and a
little longer rest will recruit you. Sit you here while I search the
woods for the herbs and roots that must be our sustenance; and, having
eaten, you shall lean on me, and we will turn our faces homeward. I
doubt not that, with my help, you can attain to some one of the
frontier garrisons.”
“There is not two days’ life in me, Reuben,” said the other, calmly,
“and I will no longer burden you with my useless body, when you can
scarcely support your own. Your wounds are deep and your strength is
failing fast; yet, if you hasten onward alone, you may be preserved.
For me there is no hope, and I will await death here.”
“If it must be so, I will remain and watch by you,” said Reuben,
resolutely.
“No, my son, no,” rejoined his companion. “Let the wish of a dying man
have weight with you; give me one grasp of your hand, and get you
hence. Think you that my last moments will be eased by the thought that
I leave you to die a more lingering death? I have loved you like a
father, Reuben; and at a time like this I should have something of a
father’s authority. I charge you to be gone that I may die in peace.”
“And because you have been a father to me, should I therefore leave you
to perish and to lie unburied in the wilderness?” exclaimed the youth.
“No; if your end be in truth approaching, I will watch by you and
receive your parting words. I will dig a grave here by the rock, in
which, if my weakness overcome me, we will rest together; or, if Heaven
gives me strength, I will seek my way home.”
“In the cities and wherever men dwell,” replied the other, “they bury
their dead in the earth; they hide them from the sight of the living;
but here, where no step may pass perhaps for a hundred years, wherefore
should I not rest beneath the open sky, covered only by the oak leaves
when the autumn winds shall strew them? And for a monument, here is
this gray rock, on which my dying hand shall carve the name of Roger
Malvin, and the traveller in days to come will know that here sleeps a
hunter and a warrior. Tarry not, then, for a folly like this, but
hasten away, if not for your own sake, for hers who will else be
desolate.”
Malvin spoke the last few words in a faltering voice, and their effect
upon his companion was strongly visible. They reminded him that there
were other and less questionable duties than that of sharing the fate
of a man whom his death could not benefit. Nor can it be affirmed that
no selfish feeling strove to enter Reuben’s heart, though the
consciousness made him more earnestly resist his companion’s
entreaties.
“How terrible to wait the slow approach of death in this solitude!”
exclaimed he. “A brave man does not shrink in the battle; and, when
friends stand round the bed, even women may die composedly; but here—”
“I shall not shrink even here, Reuben Bourne,” interrupted Malvin. “I
am a man of no weak heart, and, if I were, there is a surer support
than that of earthly friends. You are young, and life is dear to you.
Your last moments will need comfort far more than mine; and when you
have laid me in the earth, and are alone, and night is settling on the
forest, you will feel all the bitterness of the death that may now be
escaped. But I will urge no selfish motive to your generous nature.
Leave me for my sake, that, having said a prayer for your safety, I may
have space to settle my account undisturbed by worldly sorrows.”
“And your daughter,—how shall I dare to meet her eye?” exclaimed
Reuben. “She will ask the fate of her father, whose life I vowed to
defend with my own. Must I tell her that he travelled three days’ march
with me from the field of battle and that then I left him to perish in
the wilderness? Were it not better to lie down and die by your side
than to return safe and say this to Dorcas?”
“Tell my daughter,” said Roger Malvin, “that, though yourself sore
wounded, and weak, and weary, you led my tottering footsteps many a
mile, and left me only at my earnest entreaty, because I would not have
your blood upon my soul. Tell her that through pain and danger you were
faithful, and that, if your lifeblood could have saved me, it would
have flowed to its last drop; and tell her that you will be something
dearer than a father, and that my blessing is with you both, and that
my dying eyes can see a long and pleasant path in which you will
journey together.”
As Malvin spoke he almost raised himself from the ground, and the
energy of his concluding words seemed to fill the wild and lonely
forest with a vision of happiness; but, when he sank exhausted upon his
bed of oak leaves, the light which had kindled in Reuben’s eye was
quenched. He felt as if it were both sin and folly to think of
happiness at such a moment. His companion watched his changing
countenance, and sought with generous art to wile him to his own good.
“Perhaps I deceive myself in regard to the time I have to live,” he
resumed. “It may be that, with speedy assistance, I might recover of my
wound. The foremost fugitives must, ere this, have carried tidings of
our fatal battle to the frontiers, and parties will be out to succor
those in like condition with ourselves. Should you meet one of these
and guide them hither, who can tell but that I may sit by my own
fireside again?”
A mournful smile strayed across the features of the dying man as he
insinuated that unfounded hope,—which, however, was not without its
effect on Reuben. No merely selfish motive, nor even the desolate
condition of Dorcas, could have induced him to desert his companion at
such a moment—but his wishes seized on the thought that Malvin’s life
might be preserved, and his sanguine nature heightened almost to
certainty the remote possibility of procuring human aid.
“Surely there is reason, weighty reason, to hope that friends are not
far distant,” he said, half aloud. “There fled one coward, unwounded,
in the beginning of the fight, and most probably he made good speed.
Every true man on the frontier would shoulder his musket at the news;
and, though no party may range so far into the woods as this, I shall
perhaps encounter them in one day’s march. Counsel me faithfully,” he
added, turning to Malvin, in distrust of his own motives. “Were your
situation mine, would you desert me while life remained?”
“It is now twenty years,” replied Roger Malvin,—sighing, however, as he
secretly acknowledged the wide dissimilarity between the two cases,—“it
is now twenty years since I escaped with one dear friend from Indian
captivity near Montreal. We journeyed many days through the woods, till
at length overcome with hunger and weariness, my friend lay down and
besought me to leave him; for he knew that, if I remained, we both must
perish; and, with but little hope of obtaining succor, I heaped a
pillow of dry leaves beneath his head and hastened on.”
“And did you return in time to save him?” asked Reuben, hanging on
Malvin’s words as if they were to be prophetic of his own success.
“I did,” answered the other. “I came upon the camp of a hunting party
before sunset of the same day. I guided them to the spot where my
comrade was expecting death; and he is now a hale and hearty man upon
his own farm, far within the frontiers, while I lie wounded here in the
depths of the wilderness.”
This example, powerful in affecting Reuben’s decision, was aided,
unconsciously to himself, by the hidden strength of many another
motive. Roger Malvin perceived that the victory was nearly won.
“Now, go, my son, and Heaven prosper you!” he said. “Turn not back with
your friends when you meet them, lest your wounds and weariness
overcome you; but send hitherward two or three, that may be spared, to
search for me; and believe me, Reuben, my heart will be lighter with
every step you take towards home.” Yet there was, perhaps, a change
both in his countenance and voice as he spoke thus; for, after all, it
was a ghastly fate to be left expiring in the wilderness.
Reuben Bourne, but half convinced that he was acting rightly, at length
raised himself from the ground and prepared himself for his departure.
And first, though contrary to Malvin’s wishes, he collected a stock of
roots and herbs, which had been their only food during the last two
days. This useless supply he placed within reach of the dying man, for
whom, also, he swept together a bed of dry oak leaves. Then climbing to
the summit of the rock, which on one side was rough and broken, he bent
the oak sapling downward, and bound his handkerchief to the topmost
branch. This precaution was not unnecessary to direct any who might
come in search of Malvin; for every part of the rock, except its broad,
smooth front, was concealed at a little distance by the dense
undergrowth of the forest. The handkerchief had been the bandage of a
wound upon Reuben’s arm; and, as he bound it to the tree, he vowed by
the blood that stained it that he would return, either to save his
companion’s life or to lay his body in the grave. He then descended,
and stood, with downcast eyes, to receive Roger Malvin’s parting words.
The experience of the latter suggested much and minute advice
respecting the youth’s journey through the trackless forest. Upon this
subject he spoke with calm earnestness, as if he were sending Reuben to
the battle or the chase while he himself remained secure at home, and
not as if the human countenance that was about to leave him were the
last he would ever behold. But his firmness was shaken before he
concluded.
“Carry my blessing to Dorcas, and say that my last prayer shall be for
her and you. Bid her to have no hard thoughts because you left me
here,”—Reuben’s heart smote him,—“for that your life would not have
weighed with you if its sacrifice could have done me good. She will
marry you after she has mourned a little while for her father; and
Heaven grant you long and happy days, and may your children’s children
stand round your death bed! And, Reuben,” added he, as the weakness of
mortality made its way at last, “return, when your wounds are healed
and your weariness refreshed,—return to this wild rock, and lay my
bones in the grave, and say a prayer over them.”
An almost superstitious regard, arising perhaps from the customs of the
Indians, whose war was with the dead as well as the living, was paid by
the frontier inhabitants to the rites of sepulture; and there are many
instances of the sacrifice of life in the attempt to bury those who had
fallen by the “sword of the wilderness.” Reuben, therefore, felt the
full importance of the promise which he most solemnly made to return
and perform Roger Malvin’s obsequies. It was remarkable that the
latter, speaking his whole heart in his parting words, no longer
endeavored to persuade the youth that even the speediest succor might
avail to the preservation of his life. Reuben was internally convinced
that he should see Malvin’s living face no more. His generous nature
would fain have delayed him, at whatever risk, till the dying scene
were past; but the desire of existence and the hope of happiness had
strengthened in his heart, and he was unable to resist them.
“It is enough,” said Roger Malvin, having listened to Reuben’s promise.
“Go, and God speed you!”
The youth pressed his hand in silence, turned, and was departing. His
slow and faltering steps, however, had borne him but a little way
before Malvin’s voice recalled him.