Twice-told tales
Pearson in a state of religious dulness, yet mentally disquieted and
longing for a more fervid faith than he possessed. The first effect of
his kindness to Ilbrahim was to produce a softened feeling, an
incipient love for the child’s whole sect, but joined to this, and
resulting, perhaps, from self-suspicion, was a proud and ostentatious
contempt of their tenets and practical extravagances. In the course of
much thought, however—for the subject struggled irresistibly into his
mind—the foolishness of the doctrine began to be less evident, and the
points which had particularly offended his reason assumed another
aspect or vanished entirely away. The work within him appeared to go on
even while he slept, and that which had been a doubt when he laid down
to rest would often hold the place of a truth confirmed by some
forgotten demonstration when he recalled his thoughts in the morning.
But, while he was thus becoming assimilated to the enthusiasts, his
contempt, in nowise decreasing toward them, grew very fierce against
himself; he imagined, also, that every face of his acquaintance wore a
sneer, and that every word addressed to him was a gibe. Such was his
state of mind at the period of Ilbrahim’s misfortune, and the emotions
consequent upon that event completed the change of which the child had
been the original instrument.
In the mean time, neither the fierceness of the persecutors nor the
infatuation of their victims had decreased. The dungeons were never
empty; the streets of almost every village echoed daily with the lash;
the life of a woman whose mild and Christian spirit no cruelty could
embitter had been sacrificed, and more innocent blood was yet to
pollute the hands that were so often raised in prayer. Early after the
Restoration the English Quakers represented to Charles II. that a “vein
of blood was open in his dominions,” but, though the displeasure of the
voluptuous king was roused, his interference was not prompt. And now
the tale must stride forward over many months, leaving Pearson to
encounter ignominy and misfortune; his wife, to a firm endurance of a
thousand sorrows; poor Ilbrahim, to pine and droop like a cankered
rose-bud; his mother, to wander on a mistaken errand, neglectful of the
holiest trust which can be committed to a woman.
A winter evening, a night of storm, had darkened over Pearson’s
habitation, and there were no cheerful faces to drive the gloom from
his broad hearth. The fire, it is true, sent forth a glowing heat and a
ruddy light, and large logs dripping with half-melted snow lay ready to
cast upon the embers. But the apartment was saddened in its aspect by
the absence of much of the homely wealth which had once adorned it, for
the exaction of repeated fines and his own neglect of temporal affairs
had greatly impoverished the owner. And with the furniture of peace the
implements of war had likewise disappeared; the sword was broken, the
helm and cuirass were cast away for ever: the soldier had done with
battles, and might not lift so much as his naked hand to guard his
head. But the Holy Book remained, and the table on which it rested was
drawn before the fire, while two of the persecuted sect sought comfort
from its pages.
He who listened while the other read was the master of the house, now
emaciated in form and altered as to the expression and healthiness of
his countenance, for his mind had dwelt too long among visionary
thoughts and his body had been worn by imprisonment and stripes. The
hale and weatherbeaten old man who sat beside him had sustained less
injury from a far longer course of the same mode of life. In person he
was tall and dignified, and, which alone would have made him hateful to
the Puritans, his gray locks fell from beneath the broad-brimmed hat
and rested on his shoulders. As the old man read the sacred page the
snow drifted against the windows or eddied in at the crevices of the
door, while a blast kept laughing in the chimney and the blaze leaped
fiercely up to seek it. And sometimes, when the wind struck the hill at
a certain angle and swept down by the cottage across the wintry plain,
its voice was the most doleful that can be conceived; it came as if the
past were speaking, as if the dead had contributed each a whisper, as
if the desolation of ages were breathed in that one lamenting sound.
The Quaker at length closed the book, retaining, however, his hand
between the pages which he had been reading, while he looked
steadfastly at Pearson. The attitude and features of the latter might
have indicated the endurance of bodily pain; he leaned his forehead on
his hands, his teeth were firmly closed and his frame was tremulous at
intervals with a nervous agitation.
“Friend Tobias,” inquired the old man, compassionately, “hast thou
found no comfort in these many blessed passages of Scripture?”
“Thy voice has fallen on my ear like a sound afar off and indistinct,”
replied Pearson, without lifting his eyes. “Yea; and when I have
hearkened carefully, the words seemed cold and lifeless and intended
for another and a lesser grief than mine. Remove the book,” he added,
in a tone of sullen bitterness; “I have no part in its consolations,
and they do but fret my sorrow the more.”
“Nay, feeble brother; be not as one who hath never known the light,”
said the elder Quaker, earnestly, but with mildness. “Art thou he that
wouldst be content to give all and endure all for conscience’ sake,
desiring even peculiar trials that thy faith might be purified and thy
heart weaned from worldly desires? And wilt thou sink beneath an
affliction which happens alike to them that have their portion here
below and to them that lay up treasure in heaven? Faint not, for thy
burden is yet light.”
“It is heavy! It is heavier than I can bear!” exclaimed Pearson, with
the impatience of a variable spirit. “From my youth upward I have been
a man marked out for wrath, and year by year—yea, day after day—I have
endured sorrows such as others know not in their lifetime. And now I
speak not of the love that has been turned to hatred, the honor to
ignominy, the ease and plentifulness of all things to danger, want and
nakedness. All this I could have borne and counted myself blessed. But
when my heart was desolate with many losses, I fixed it upon the child
of a stranger, and he became dearer to me than all my buried ones; and
now he too must die as if my love were poison. Verily, I am an accursed
man, and I will lay me down in the dust and lift up my head no more.”
“Thou sinnest, brother, but it is not for me to rebuke thee, for I also
have had my hours of darkness wherein I have murmured against the
cross,” said the old Quaker. He continued, perhaps in the hope of
distracting his companion’s thoughts from his own sorrows: “Even of
late was the light obscured within me, when the men of blood had
banished me on pain of death and the constables led me onward from
village to village toward the wilderness. A strong and cruel hand was
wielding the knotted cords; they sunk deep into the flesh, and thou
mightst have tracked every reel and totter of my footsteps by the blood
that followed. As we went on—”
“Have I not borne all this, and have I murmured?” interrupted Pearson,
impatiently.
“Nay, friend, but hear me,” continued the other. “As we journeyed on
night darkened on our path, so that no man could see the rage of the
persecutors or the constancy of my endurance, though Heaven forbid that
I should glory therein. The lights began to glimmer in the cottage
windows, and I could discern the inmates as they gathered in comfort
and security, every man with his wife and children by their own evening
hearth. At length we came to a tract of fertile land. In the dim light
the forest was not visible around it, and, behold, there was a
straw-thatched dwelling which bore the very aspect of my home far over
the wild ocean—far in our own England. Then came bitter thoughts upon
me—yea, remembrances that were like death to my soul. The happiness of
my early days was painted to me, the disquiet of my manhood, the
altered faith of my declining years. I remembered how I had been moved
to go forth a wanderer when my daughter, the youngest, the dearest of
my flock, lay on her dying-bed, and—”
“Couldst thou obey the command at such a moment?” exclaimed Pearson,
shuddering.
“Yea! yea!” replied the old man, hurriedly. “I was kneeling by her
bedside when the voice spoke loud within me, but immediately I rose and
took my staff and gat me gone. Oh that it were permitted me to forget
her woeful look when I thus withdrew my arm and left her journeying
through the dark valley alone! for her soul was faint and she had
leaned upon my prayers. Now in that night of horror I was assailed by
the thought that I had been an erring Christian and a cruel parent;
yea, even my daughter with her pale dying features seemed to stand by
me and whisper, ‘Father, you are deceived; go home and shelter your
gray head.’—O Thou to whom I have looked in my furthest wanderings,”
continued the Quaker, raising his agitated eyes to heaven, “inflict not
upon the bloodiest of our persecutors the unmitigated agony of my soul
when I believed that all I had done and suffered for thee was at the
instigation of a mocking fiend!—But I yielded not; I knelt down and
wrestled with the tempter, while the scourge bit more fiercely into the
flesh. My prayer was heard, and I went on in peace and joy toward the
wilderness.”
The old man, though his fanaticism had generally all the calmness of
reason, was deeply moved while reciting this tale, and his unwonted
emotion seemed to rebuke and keep down that of his companion. They sat
in silence, with their faces to the fire, imagining, perhaps, in its
red embers new scenes of persecution yet to be encountered. The snow
still drifted hard against the windows, and sometimes, as the blaze of
the logs had gradually sunk, came down the spacious chimney and hissed
upon the hearth. A cautious footstep might now and then be heard in a
neighboring apartment, and the sound invariably drew the eyes of both
Quakers to the door which led thither. When a fierce and riotous gust
of wind had led his thoughts by a natural association to homeless
travellers on such a night, Pearson resumed the conversation.
“I have wellnigh sunk under my own share of this trial,” observed he,
sighing heavily; “yet I would that it might be doubled to me, if so the
child’s mother could be spared. Her wounds have been deep and many, but
this will be the sorest of all.”
“Fear not for Catharine,” replied the old Quaker, “for I know that
valiant woman and have seen how she can bear the cross. A mother’s
heart, indeed, is strong in her, and may seem to contend mightily with
her faith; but soon she will stand up and give thanks that her son has
been thus early an accepted sacrifice. The boy hath done his work, and
she will feel that he is taken hence in kindness both to him and her.
Blessed, blessed are they that with so little suffering can enter into
peace!”
The fitful rush of the wind was now disturbed by a portentous sound: it
was a quick and heavy knocking at the outer door. Pearson’s wan
countenance grew paler, for many a visit of persecution had taught him
what to dread; the old man, on the other hand, stood up erect, and his
glance was firm as that of the tried soldier who awaits his enemy.
“The men of blood have come to seek me,” he observed, with calmness.
“They have heard how I was moved to return from banishment, and now am
I to be led to prison, and thence to death. It is an end I have long
looked for. I will open unto them lest they say, ‘Lo, he
feareth!rsquo;”
“Nay; I will present myself before them,” said Pearson, with recovered
fortitude. “It may be that they seek me alone and know not that thou