CHAPTER VI.
THE RECLUSE.
To Mrs. Clarissa Truax, of the Happy-go-lucky Inn:
RESPECTED MADAM: Appreciating your anxiety, I hasten to give you theparticulars of an interview which I have just had with a person who knewEdwin Urquhart. They must be acceptable to you, and I shall make noexcuse for the length of my communication, knowing that each detail inthe lives of the three persons connected with this crime must be ofinterest to one who has brooded upon the subject as long as you have.
The person to whom I allude is a certain Mark Felt, a most eccentric andunhappy being now living the life of a recluse amid the forests of theCatskills. I became acquainted with his name at the time of my firstinvestigation into the history of the Dudleigh and Urquhart families,and it was to him I was referred when I asked for such particulars asmere neighbors and public officials found it impossible to give.
I was told, however, at the same time, that I should find it hard togain his confidence, as for sixteen years now he had avoided thecompanionship of men, by hiding in the caves and living upon such foodas he could procure through the means of gun and net. A disappointmentin love was said to be at the bottom of this, the lady he was engaged tohaving thrown herself into the river at about the time of the marriageof his friend.
He was, notwithstanding, a good-hearted man, and if I could once breakthrough the reserve he had maintained for so many years, they thought Iwould be able to surprise facts from him which I could never hope toreach in any other way.
Interested by these insinuations, and somewhat excited, for an old man,at the prospect of bearding such a lion in his den, I at once made up mymind to seek this Felt; and accordingly one bright day last weekcrossed the river and entered the forest. I was not alone. I had taken aguide who knew the location of the cave which Felt was supposed toinhabit, and through his efforts my journey was made as little fatiguingas possible. Fallen brambles were removed from my path, limbs lifted,and where the road was too rough for the passage of such faltering feetas mine, I found myself lifted bodily, in arms as strong and steadfastas steel, and carried like a child to where it was smoother.
Thus I was enabled to traverse paths that at first view appearedinaccessible, and finally reached a spot so far up the mountain sidethat I gazed behind me in terror lest I should never be able to returnagain the way I had come. My guide, seeing my alarm, assured me that ourdestination was not far off, and presently I perceived before me a hugeoverhanging cliff, from the upper ledges of which hung down a tangle ofvines and branches that veiled, without wholly concealing, the yawningmouth of a cave.
"That is where the man we are seeking lives, eats, and sleeps," quoth myguide, as we paused for a moment to regain our breath. And immediatelyupon his words, and as if called forth by them, we perceived an unkemptand disheveled head slowly uprear itself through the black gap beforeus, then hastily disappear again behind the vines it had for a momentdisturbed.
"I will encounter him alone," I thereupon declared; and leaving theguide behind me, I pushed forward to the cliff, and pausing before theentrance of the cave, I called aloud:
"Mark Felt, do you want to hear news from your friend Urquhart?"
For a moment all was still, and I began to fear that my somewhat daringattempt had failed in its effect. But this was only for an instant, forpresently something between a growl and a cry issued from the darknesswithin, and the next moment the wild and disheveled head showed itselfagain, and I heard distinctly these words:
"He is no friend of mine, your Edwin Urquhart."
"Then," I returned, without a moment's hesitation, "do you want to hearnews of your enemy?--for I have some, and of the rarest nature, too."
The wild eyes flashed as if a flame of fire had shot from them, and thehead that held them advanced till I could see the whole beardedcountenance of the man.
"Is he dead?" he asked, with an eagerness and underlying triumph in thevoice that argued well for the presence of those passions upon therousing of which I relied for the revelations I sought.
"No," said I, "but death is looking his way. With a little moreknowledge of his early life and a little more insight into his characterat the time he married Honora Dudleigh, the law will have so firm a holdupon him that I can safely promise any one who longs to see him pay thepenalty of his evil deeds a certain opportunity of doing so."
The vines trembled and suddenly parted their full length, and Mark Feltstepped out into the sunshine and confronted me. What he wore I cannotsay, for his personality was so strong I received no impression ofanything else. Not that he was tall or picturesque, or even rudelyhandsome. On the contrary, he was as plain a man as I had ever seen,with eyes to which some defect lent a strange, fixed glare, and a mouthwhose under jaw protruded so markedly beyond the upper that his profilegave you a shock when any slight noise or stir drew his head to oneside and thus revealed it to you. Yet, in spite of all this, in spite oftangled locks and a wide, rough beard, half brown, half white, his faceheld something that fixed the attention and fascinated the eye thatencountered it. Did it lie in his eyes? How could it, with one lookinglike a fixed stone of agate and the other like a rolling ball of fire?Was it in his smile? How could it be when his smile had no joy in it,only a satisfaction that was not of good, but evil, and promised troublerather than relief or sympathy? It must be in the general expression ofhis features, which seemed made only to mirror the emotions of a soulfull of vitality and purpose--a soul which, if clouded by wrongs andembittered by heavy memories, possessed at least the characteristic offorce and the charm of an unswerving purpose.
He seemed to recognize the impression he had made, for his lips smiledwith a sort of scornful triumph before he said:
"These are peculiar words for a stranger. May I ask your name and whoseinterests you represent?"
His speech was quick, and had an odd halt in it, such as might beexpected from one who had not conferred with his fellows for years. Butthere was no rudeness in its tone, nor was there any mistaking the factthat he was, both by nature and education, a gentleman. I began to takean interest in him apart from my mission.
"Mr. Felt," I replied, "my name is Tamworth. I am from Virginia, andonly by chance have I become involved in a matter near to you and theman who, you tell me, is, or was, your enemy. As for the interests Irepresent, they are those of justice, and justice only; and it is in herbehalf and for the triumph of law and righteousness that I now ask youfor your confidence and such details concerning your early intercoursewith Edwin Urquhart as will enable me to understand a past that willcertainly yield us a clew to the present. Are you willing to give them?"
"Will I give them?" he laughed. "Will I break the seal which guards thetablets of my youth, and let a stranger's eyes read lines to which Ihave shut my own for these many years! Do you not know that for me totell you what I once knew of Edwin Urquhart is to bare my own breast toview, and subject to new sufferings a heart that it has taken fifteenyears of solitude to render callous?"
I gave no answer to this, only looked at him and stood waiting.
"You have hunted me out, you have touched the last string that ceases tovibrate in a man's breast--that of a wild desire for vengeance--and nowyou ask me--"
"To ease your memories of a burden. To drag into light the skeleton ofold days, and by the light thus thrown upon it to see that it is only askeleton, that, once beheld, should be buried and its old bonesforgotten. You are too much of a man, Felt, to waste away in thesewilds. Come! forget I am a stranger, and relieve yourself and me byopening these tablets you speak of, even if it does cost you a pang ofthe old sorrow. The talk we have had has already made a flutter in thelong-closed leaves, and should I leave you this minute you could notsmother the thoughts and memories to which our conversation has givenrise. Then why not think to purpose and--"
He raised one hand and stopped me. The gesture was full of fire, and sowas the eye he now turned away from me to gaze up at the overhangingsteeps above, with their great gorges
and magnificent play of light andshadow; at the valley beneath, with its broad belt of shining waterwinding in and out through fertile banks and growing towns, and finallyat the blue dome of the sky, across which great clouds went sailing inshapes so varied and of size so majestic that it was like a vision offloating palaces on a sea of translucent azure.
Gasping in a strange mood between delight and despair, he flung up hisarms.
"Ah! I have loved these hills. Of all the longings and affections thatone by one have perished from my heart, the solitary passion for naturehas alone remained, unlessened and undisturbed. I love these trees withtheir countless boughs; these rocks, with their hidden pitfalls andsudden precipices. The sky that bends above me here is bluer than anyother sky; and when it frowns and gathers its storms together, and hurlsthem above these ledges and upon my uncovered head, I throw up my armsas I do now and exult in the tumult, and become a part of it, till thehunger in my soul is appeased, and the blood in my veins runs mildlyagain. And now I must quit all this. I must give to men thoughts thathave been closely wedded to Nature. I must tear her image from my heart,and in her pure place substitute interests in a life I thought foreversacrificed to her worship. It is a bitter task, but I will perform it.There are other calls than those which reverberate from yon peaks. Ihave just heard one, and my feet go down once more into the valleys."
His arms fell with the last words, and his eyes returned again to myface.
"Come into the cave," said he. "I cannot tell my story in the sight ofthese pure skies."
I followed him without a word. He had affected me. The invocation inwhich he had indulged, and which, from another man, and othercircumstances, would have struck me as a theatrical attempt upon mysympathy as forced as it was unnatural, was in him so appropriate, andin such keeping with the grandeur of the scene by which we weresurrounded, that I was disarmed of criticism, and succumbed withoutresistance to his power.
The cave, once entered, was light enough. On the ground were spread inprofusion leaves and twigs of the sweet-smelling cedar, making a carpetas pleasing as it was warm and healthful. On one side I saw a mound ofthe same, making a couch, across which a great cloak was spread; whilebeyond, the half-defined forms of a rude seat and table appeared,lending an air of habitableness to the spot, which, from the exterior, Ihad hardly expected to find. A long slab of stone served as a hearth,and above it I perceived a hole in the rock, toward which a thin columnof smoke was rising from a few smouldering embers that yet remainedburning upon the great stone below. Altogether, it was a home I hadentered; and awed a little at the remembrance that it had been therefuge of this solitary man through years pregnant with events forevermemorable in the history of the world as those which gave birth to a newnation, I sank down upon the pile of cedar he pointed out to me, andwaited in some impatience for him to begin his tale.
This he seemed in no hurry to do. He waited so long with his chin sunkin his two hands and his eyes fixed upon vacancy, that I grew restlessand was about to break the silence myself, when, without moving, hesuddenly spoke.