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
"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 whatever new kind of ruin is ordained for the
horrible 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 farther 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 of a cave, which, at first sight,
reminded him of Elijah's 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, had become as hard as adamant; and wherever that
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 herbs and roots,
drinking his own destruction, sleeping, 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 been, and affrighted at the
dreariness of the cave, she 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 tenfold 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 upon thy head, or some other speedy destruction
is at 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 saving, 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 of heaven, and as thou wouldst not
dwell in this tomb 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 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 Golfe had been buried in an English churchyard, months before;
and either it was her ghost that haunted the wild forest, or else a
dream-like 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 formed the walls and portal of the cave. On
minuter 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 hillside. 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!