Newspapers / Western Carolinian (Salisbury, N.C.) / June 18, 1822, edition 1 / Page 4
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jfJNfcWv -JUpniiij jwmt (--t-' "v" .lip s., ,. Variety's the very npice of life. That gives it all its flavor. mux Blackwood's xagizise. TJIi: FOHG&11S. 44 Let us sit down on this stone seat," aid my aged friend, the pastor, "and I will tell vou a tale of tears, concern ing the last inhabitants of yo.ider soli tary house, just visible on the hill-side, through the gloom of those melancholy pines. Ten years have passed away since the terrible catastrophe of which I am about to speak ; and 1 know not fcow it is, but methinis, whenever I copie into this glen, there is something rueful in its silence, while the common sounds of nature seem to my mind dirge-like and forlorn. Was not this very day bright and musical as we walked across all the other hills and valleys; but now a dim mist over spreads the sky, and, beautiful as this lonely place must in truth be, there is a want of life in the verdure and the flowers, as if they grew beneath the darkness of perpetual shadows." As the old man was speaking, a fe male figure, bent with age and infirm ity, came slowly up the bank below us with a pitcher in her hand, and when she reached a little well dug out of a low rock all covered with moss and lichens, she seemed to fix her eyes up on it as in a dream, and gave a long, deep, broken sigh. 44 The names of her husband and her only son, both dead, are chiselled by their own hands on a smooth stone within the arch of that fountain, and the childless widow at this moment sees nothing on the face of the earth but a few letters not yet overgrown with the creeping timcstains. See ! her pale lips are moving in prayer, and, old as she is, and long resigned in her utter hopelessness, the tears are not yet ajl shed or dried up within her broken heart, a few big drops are on her withered cheeks, but she feels them not, and is unconsciously weeping with eyes that old age has oi itself enough bedimmed." The figure remained motionless be- side the well; and, though I knew not j tether some envied the good fortune ; cruelty in his face ; he f e It himself m the history of the griefs that stood all! of those who had so ill borne adversi- ,'jured ; and looked resolved to right embodied so mournfully before me, sty. Hut in a short time, the death, the j himself, h ppen what would. 44 1 sav I felt that they must have been gather- j w ill, and the disinherited were all for-j he has forged my father's will. As to ing together for many long years, and j gotten, and the lost lands being re- j escaping; let him escape if he can. I that such highs as I had now heard j deemed, peace, comfort, and happiness ! do not wish to hang him; though I came from the uttermost desolation of j were supposed again to be restored to j have seen better men run up the fore- the human heart. At bst she dipped; her pitcher in the water, lifted her eyes to heaven, and, distinctly saying, " O, Jesus, Son of God ! whose blood was shed for sinners, be merciful to their aouls .'" she turned away from the scene of her sorrow, and, like one seen in a vision, disappeared. 44 I have beheld the childless tvidow happy," said the nastor. 44 even her who sat done, with none to comfort her, on - 4 ' a floor swept by the hand of death of all us blossoms. Hut her whom we have now seen I dare not call happy. even tnougn she puts her trust in bodiservicc, which he now again attended and l.er Saviour. Her's is an affliction J rhich faith itself cannot assuage Yet religion may have softened even sighs like those, and, as you shall hear, it was religion that set her free from the horrid dreams of madness, and restor ed her to that comfort which is always found in the possession of a reasonabje being." Tnere was not a bee roaming near us, nor a bird singing in the solitary glen, when the old man gave me these hints of a melancholy tale. The sky was black and lowering, as it lay on the silent hills, and enclosed us from the far-off world, in a sullen spot that was felt to be sacred unto sorrow. The figure that had come and gone with a sigh was the only dweller here ; and I was prepared to hear a doleful history of one left alone to commune with a broken heart in the cheerless solitude cf nature. 44 That house from whose chimnies no smoke has ascended for ten long years," continued my friend, once shewed its windows bright with cheer ful fires ; and her whom we now saw so wo-begone, I remember brought home a youthful bride, in all the beau ty of her joy and innocence. Twenty years beheld her a wife and a mother, with all their most perfect happiness, with somr, too, of their inevitable griefs. Death passed not by her door without his victims, and, of five chil dren, all but one died, in i n fancy, child hood, or blooming youth. Hut they died in nature's common decay, peaceful prayers were said around the bed of peace ; and whe:a the flowers grew upon their graves, the mother's cyzs zuld bear to look on them, as she passed on with unaching heart in to the house of God. All but one died, and better had it been if that one hid never been born. 44 Father, mother, and son now come to man's estate, survived, and in the house there was peace. Hut suddenly poverty ftll upon them. The dishon esty of a kinsman, of which I need not state the particulars, robbed them of their few hereditary fields, which now passed into the hands of a stran ger. They, however, remained as tenants in the house which had been their own ; and for a while, father and son bore the change of fortune seem ingly undismayed, and toiled as com mon labourers on the soil still dearly beloved. At the dawn of light they went out together, and at twilight they returned. Hut it seemed as if their industry was in vain. Year after year the old man's face became more deep ly furrowed, and more seldom was he seen to smile ; and his son's counte nance, once bold and open, was now darkened with anger and dissatisfac tion. They did not attend public worship so regularly as they used to do ; when I met them in the fields, or visited them in their dwelling, they looked on me coldly, and with altered eyes ; and I grieved to think how soon they both seemed to have forgotten the ble-.sir.gs Providence had so long permitted them to enjoy, and how sul lenly they now struggled with its de crees. Hut something worse than poverty was now disturbing both their hearts. 44 The unhappy old man had a broth er who at this time died, leaving an cnlv son, who had for many years aban doned his father's house, and of whom ail tidins had long been lost. It was thought bv main that he had died be yond the sea ; .md .or.c doubted, that,! living or dead, he had been disinherit-' ed by his stern and unrelenting parent, j On the day after the funeral, the old; man produced his brother's will, by which he became heir to all his prop erty, except an annuity to be paid to the natural heir, should he ever return, Some pitied the prodigal son, who h id J 14 The sailor stood silent and frown been disinherited some blamed the ! intr. There seemed neither mtv nor the dwelling from which they had sojyard arm before now, for only 'asking long uecn uanisneu. 41 Hut it was not so. If the furrows ' on the old man's face were deep be- onc ' I fore, when he had to toil from morn- i all looked ghastily around and ing to night, they seemed to have sunk ' tne wretched wife and mother, spring into more ghastly trenches, now that -ing to her feet, rushed out of the house, the goodness of Providence had re-', followed, one and all. The door stored a gentle shelter to his declining if the stable was open, and the modi- years, w lien seen wandering through his fields at even-tide, he looked not like the Patriarch musing tranquilly on the works and ways of God ; and wren my eyes met his during divine with scrupulous regularity, I some- times thought they were suddenly ' rafter in that squalid place, and, carry averted in conscious guilt; or closed". nS nim m nis arms, laid him down in hypocritical devotion. I scarcely j upon the green bank in front of the knew if I had any suspicions against j house. There he lay with his livid him In ray mind, or not ; but his high j face, and blood-shot protruded eyes, bald head, thin silver h.dr, and coun-: :,u in a few minutes, he raised him tenance with its fine features so intel-'self up, and fixed them upon his wife, ligent, had no longer the same solemn -who, soon recovering from a fainting expression which they once possessed,; fiu came shrieking from the mire in and something dark and hidden seem- fed now to belong to them, which with- stood his forced and unnatural smile. The son, who, in the days of their for- mcr prosperity, nau oeen stained ty;worsi is now pasr ; ana ratner would novice, and who, during their harder ' sail the seas twenty years longer, lot, had kept himself aloof from all his! tran add another pang to that old f i- 1 1 1 , former companions, now became dis solute and profligate, nor did he meet with any reproof from a father whose heart would once have burst asunder at one act of wickedness in his belov ed child. 44 About three years after the death of his father, the disinherited son re turned to his native parish. He had been a sailor on board various ships on foreign stations but hearing by chance of his father's death, he came to claim his inheritance. Having heard on his arrival, that his uncle had succeeded to the property, he came to me and told me, that the night before he left his home, his father stood by his bed side, kissed him, and said, that never more would lie own such an undutiful son but that he forgave him all his sins at death would not defraud him of the pleasant fields that had so long belonged to his humble ancestors and hoped to meet reconciled in heaven, 44 My uncle is a villain," said he, fierce ly, 44 and I will cast anchor on the green bank where I played when a boy, even if I must first bring his grey head to the scaffold." 44 I accompanied him to the house of his uncle. It was a dreadful visit. The family had just sat down to their frugal midday meal ; and the old man, though for some years he could have had little heart to pray, had just lifted up his hand to ask a blessing. Our shadows, as we entered the door, fell upon the table- and turning his eyes, he beheld before him on the floor the man whom he fearfully hoped had been buried in the sea. His face was in deed, at that moment, most unlike that of prayer, but he still held up his lean, shrivelled, trembling hand. 44 Ac cursed hypocrite," cried the' fierce mariner, 44 dost thou call down the blessing of God on ft meal won base ly from the orphan ? But, lo ! j God, whom thou hast blasphemed, has sent me from the distant isles of the ocean, to bring thy white head into the hang man's hands !" 44 For a moment all was silent then a loud stifled gasping was heard, and she whom you saw a little while ago, rose shrieking from her seat, and ftll down on her knees at the sailor's feet. The terror of that unforgiven crime, now first revealed to her knowledge, struck her down to the floor. She fix ed her bloodless face on his before whom she knelt but she spoke not a single word. There was a sound in her convulsed throat, like the death rattle. 44 1 forged the will," said the son, advancing towards his cousin wiih a firm step, 4 my father could not I alone am guilty I alone must die." The wife soon recovered the power of speech, but it was so unlike her usual voice, that I scarcely thought, at first, the sound proceeded from her white i a 1 j" quivering lips. s you nope lor mercy at the great judgment day, let the old man make his escape hush, hush, hush till in a few days he has sailed away in the hold of some ship to America. You surelv will not hancr m old grey-headed man of threescore and ten vears !" their own. But no more kneeling, woman Holla ! where is the old man er anu son entering, Jouu shrieks were heard. The miserable old man had slunk out of the room unobserved curing the passion that had struck all our souls, and had endeavored to com- mit suicide. His own son cut him down, as he hung suspended from a which she had just fallen dow n. 44 Poor people !" said the sailor with a crasn- ;ing voice, 4you have suffered enough for your crime. Fear nothing; the man a iicari. jl.cc us ue Kinu to the old man." 44 Hut it seemed as if a raven had croaked the direful secret all over the remotest places among the hills ; for, in an hour, people came flocking in from all quarters, and it was seen, that con cealment or escape was no longer pos siblc, and that father and son were des tined to die together a felon's death." - Here the pastor's voice ceased ; and I had heard enough to understand the long deep sigh that had come moaning from that bowed-down figure beside the solitary well. "That was the last work done by the father and the son, and finished the day before the fatal discovery of their guilt. It had prob ably been engaged in as a sort of amusement to beguile their unhappy minds of ever-anxious thoughts, or perhaps as a solitary occupation, at which they could unburthen their guilt to one another undisturbed. Here, no doubt,, in the silence and solitude, they often felt remorse, perhaps pen- itence. Thev chiselled out their names on that slab, as you perceive ; and hither, as duly as the morning and evening shadows, comes the ghost whom we beheld, and, after a prayer for the souls of them so tenderly be loved in their guilt and in their graves, she carries to her lonely hut the water that helps to preserve her hopeless life, from the well dug by dearer hands, now mouldered away, both flesh and bone, into the dust." After a moment's silence the old man continued, for he saw that I longed to hear the details of that dreadful catastrophe, and his own soul seemed likewise desirous of renewing its grief, 44 The prisoners were con demned. Hope there was none. It wa3 known, from the moment of the verdict- guiltv, that they would be executed. Petitions were, indeed, signed by many thousands ; but it was all in vain, and the father and the son had to prepare themselves for death. 44 About a week after their condem nation I visited them in their cell. God forbid, I should say that they were resigned. Human nature could not resign itself to such a doom ; and I found the old man pacing up and down the stone floor, in his clanking chains, with hurried steps, and a coun tenance of unspeakable horror. The son was lying oa his face upon his bed of straw, and had not lifted up his head as the massy bolts were withdrawn, and the door creaked sullenly on its hinges. The father fixed his eyes upon me for some lime, as if I had been a stranger intru ding upon his misery ; and, as soon as he knew rac, shut them with a deep groan, and pointed to his son. 44 1 have murder ed William I have brought my only son to the scaffold and I am doomed to hell I" I gently called on the youth by name, but he was insensible lie was lying in a fit. 4 I fear he will awake out of that fit," cried the old man with a broken voice. 44 They have come upon him every day since our condemnation, and sometimes during the night. It is not fear for him self that brings them on for my boy, though guilty, is brave but he continues looking on my face for hours, till at Idst he seems to lose all sense, and falls down in strong convulsions, often upon the stone-floor, till he is all covered with blood." The old man then went up to his son, knelt down, and, putting aside the thick clustering hair from his fore head, continued kissing him for some minutes, with deep sobs, but eyes dry as dust. 44 But w hy should I call to my remem brance, or describe to you. every hour of anguish that I witnessed in that cell- For several weeks it was all agony and despair the Bible lay unheeded before their ghastly eyes and for them there was no consolation. The old man's soul was fill ed but with one thought that he had de luded his son into sin, death, and eternal punishment. He never slept ; but vis ions, terrible as those of sleep, seemed often to pass before him, till I have seen the t-cy hairs bristle horribly over his temples, and big drops of sweat splash down upon the floor. I sometimes thought that they would both die before the day of execution ; but their mortal sorrows, though thev sadly changed both face and frame, seemed at last to give a horrible energy to life, and every morning that I I visited them, they were stronger, and more broadly awake in the chill silence of their lonesome prison-house. 44 1 know not how a deep change was at last wrought upon their souls ; but two days before that of execution, on entering their celi, I found them sitting calm and composed by each other's side, with the. Hiblc open before them. Their faces, though pale and haggard, had lost that glare of misery, that had so long shone about their restless and wandering eyes, and they looked like men recovered from a long and painful sickness. I almost thought I saw a faint smile of hpe.i 44 God has been merciful unto us,' said the father, with a calm voice. 44 1 must not think he has forgiven my bins, but he has enabled me to look on my poor son's face to kiss him to fold him in my arms rto pray for him to fall asleep with him in my bosom, as I used often to do in the days of his boyhood, when, during the heat of mid-day, I rested from labour be low the trees of my own farm. We have found resionation atlast, and are prepared to die." " 44 There were no transports of deluded enthusiasm in the souls of these unhappy men. I hey had never doubted the truth of revealed religion, although they had fatally disregarded its precepts ; and now that remorse had given way to penitence, and nature had become reconciled to the thought of inevitable death, the light that had been darkened, but never extinguish ed in their hearts, rose up anew ; snd knowing that theirsouls were immortal, they humbly put their faith in the mercy of their Creator and their Redeemer. u It was during that resigned and se rene hour, that the old man ventured to :sk for the mother of his unhappy boy. I told him the truth calmly, and calmly he heard it all. On the dav of his con demnation, she had been deprived of IW reason, 3nd. in the house of a kind friend, whose name he blessed, now remained in merciful ignorance of all that had befall en, believing herself, indeed, to be a motherless widow, but one who had long ago lost her husband, and all her children, in the ordinary course of nature. At this recital his soul was satisfied. The son said nothing, but wept long and bitterly. 44 The day of execution came at last. The great city lay still as on the morn ing of the Sabbath day ; and all the or dinary business of life semed, by one consent of the many thousand hearts beating there, to be suspended. Hut as the hours advanced, the frequent tread of feet was heard in every ave- j nue ; the streets began to fill with pale, i anxious and impatient faces ; and many j eyes were turned to the dials on the steeples, watching the silent progress I of the finger of time, till it should reach the point at which the curtain vas ! to be drawn up from before a most mournful tragedy. ; ' 44 The hour was faintly heard through . the thick prison walls by us, who were j together for the last time in the con i donned cell. I had administered to , them the most awful rite of our reli j gion, and father and son sat together as ; silent as death. The door of the dun ; geon opened, and several persons came in. One of them, who had a shrivelled ' bloodless face, and small red gray eyes, i an old man, feeble and tottering, but : cruel in his decrepitude, laid hold of the son with his palsied fingers, and be ! gah to pinion his arms with a cord. ! No resistance was offered ; but, straight ! and untrembling, stood that tall and beautiful youth while the fiend bound j him for execution. At this mournful sight, how could I bear to look on his j father's face ? Yet thither were mine j eyes impelled by the agony that afflicted I my commiserating soul. During that f hideous gaze, he was insensible of the ; executioner's approach towards him ' self ; and all the time that the cords i were encircling his own arms, he felt ! them not, he saw nothing but his son. standing at last before him, ready for j the scaffold. - ; 44 1 darkly recollect a long dark vaul ted passage, and the echoing tread of footsteps, till at once we stood in a crowded hall, with a thousand eyes fix j ed on these two miserable men. How j unlike they were to all besides ! Thev sat down together within the shadow of death. Prayers were said and a j psalm was sung, in which their voices were heard to join, with tones that j wrung out tears from the hardest or the most careless heart. Often had X heard those voices singing in my own peaceful cnurch, before evilhad disturb ed, or misery broken them ; but the last word of t!v psalm vas sung, and the hour of their departure was come. 44 They stood at last upon the scaf fold. That long street, that seemed to stretch away interminably from the old Prison-house, was paved with uncov ered heads, for the moment these ghosts appeared, that mighty crowd felt rev erence for human nature so terriblr Jried, and prayers and blessings, pas sionately ejaculated, or convulsivelv stifled, went hovering over all the mul titude, as if they feared some great ca lamity to themselves, and felt standing on the first tremor of an earthquake. 44 It was a most beautiful summer's day on which they were led out to die ; and as the old man raised his eyes, for the last time, to the sky, the clouds lay motionless on that blue translucent arch, and the sun shone joyously over the magnificent heavens. It seemed a day made for happiness or for mercy. But no pardon dropt down from these smiling skies, and the vast multitude were not to be denied the troubled feast oi death. Many who now stood there w ished they had been in the heart of some far-off wood or glen; there ivs shrieking and fainting, not only among . maids vxd wives and matrons, who had come there in the misery of their hearts, but men fell down in their strength for it was an overwhelming thing to behold a father and his only son now haltered for a shameful death. 4 Is m v father wiih me on the scaffold? give me his hand, tor I see hint not. I joined their hands together, and at that moment the great bell in the Cathedral tolled, but I am convinced neither of them heard the sound. For a moment there seemed to be no such thing as sound in the world; and then all at once the multitude heaved like the sea, and uttered a wild yelling shriek. Their souls were in eternity and I fear not to say. not an eternity of grief. A due sense of the gTantleur of man's nature and destination, is the best bulwark ag-ainst thji frequent assaults temptation makes on hira, '
Western Carolinian (Salisbury, N.C.)
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June 18, 1822, edition 1
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