The Redemption of David Corson

A free download from http://www.dertz.in


The Redemption of David Corson

The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Redemption of David Corson, by
Charles Frederic Goss
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: The Redemption of David Corson
Author: Charles Frederic Goss
Release Date: January 19, 2005 [eBook #14730]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
REDEMPTION OF DAVID CORSON***
E-text prepared by Audrey Longhurst, Charlie Kirschner, and the
Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team

THE REDEMPTION OF DAVID CORSON

by
CHARLES FREDERIC GOSS
The Bowen-Merrill Company
1900

To my friend William Harvey Anderson

Contents
I. This Other Eden II. And Satan Came Also III. The Egyptians IV. The
Woman V. The Light That Lies VI. The Trail of the Serpent VII. The
Chance Word VIII. A Broken Reed IX. Where Paths Converge X. A
Poisoned Spring XI. The Flesh and the Devil XII. The Moth and the
Flame XIII. Found Wanting XIV. Turned Tempter XV. The Snare of
the Fowler XVI. The Derelicts XVII. The Shadow of Death XVIII. A
Fugitive and a Vagabond XIX. Alienation XX. The Inevitable Hour
XXI. A Signal in the Night XXII. Heart Hunger XXIII. Where I Might
Find Him XXIV. Safe Haven XXV. The Little Lad XXVI. Out of the
Shadow XXVII. If Thine Enemy Hunger XXVIII. A Man Crossed
With Adversity XXIX. As a Tale That is Told XXX. Out of the Jaws of
Death XXXI. The Great Refusal XXXII. The End of Exile XXXIII. A
Self-imposed Expiation XXXIV. Fasting in the Wilderness XXXV. A
Forest Idyl XXXVI. The Supreme Test XXXVII. Paradise Regained
CHAPTER I.
THIS OTHER EDEN
"This other Eden, demi-paradise, this fortress built by nature."
--Richard II.
Hidden away in this worn and care-encumbered world, scarred with its

frequent traces of a primeval curse, are spots so quiet and beautiful as
to make the fall of man seem incredible, and awaken in the breast of the
weary traveler who comes suddenly upon them, a vague and dear
delusion that he has stumbled into Paradise.
Such an Eden existed in the extreme western part of Ohio in the spring
of eighteen hundred and forty-nine. It was a valley surrounded by
wooded hills and threaded by a noisy brook which hastily made its way,
as if upon some errand of immense importance, down to the big Miami
not many miles distant. A road cut through a vast and solemn forest led
into the valley, and entering as if by a corridor and through the open
portal of a temple, the traveler saw a white farm-house nestling beneath
a mighty hackberry tree whose wide-reaching arms sheltered it from
summer sun and winter wind. A deep, wide lawn of bluegrass lay in
front, and a garden of flowers, fragrant and brilliant, on its southern
side. Stretching away into the background was the farm newly carved
out of the wilderness, but already in a high state of cultivation. All
those influences which stir the deepest emotion of the heart were
silently operating here--quiet, order, beauty, power, life. It affected one
to enter it unprepared in much the same way, only with a greater
variety and richness of emotion, as to push through dense brush and
suddenly behold a mountain lake upon whose bosom there is not so
much as a ripple, and in whose silver mirror surrounding forests, flying
water-fowl and the bright disk of the sun are perfectly reflected.
In this lovely valley, at the close of a long, odorous, sun-drenched day
in early May, the sacred silence was broken by a raucous blast from
that most unmusical of instruments, a tin dinner horn. It was blown by
a bare-legged country boy who seemed to take delight in this
profanation. By his side, in the vine-clad porch of the white farm-house
stood a woman who shaded her eyes with her hand as she looked
toward a vague object in a distant meadow. She was no longer young,
but had exchanged the exquisite beauty of youth for the finer and more
impressive beauty of maturity. As the light of the setting sun fell full
upon her face it seemed almost transparent, and even the unobserving
must have perceived that some deep experience of the sadness of life
had added to her character an indescribable charm.

"Thee will have to go and call him, Stephen, for I think he has fallen
into another trance," the woman said, in a low voice in which there was
not a trace of impatience, although the evening meal