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Mosses From An Old Manse | Nathaniel Hawthorne | |
Roger Malvin's Burial |
Page 4 of 13 |
A mournful smile strayed across the features of the dying man as he insinuated that unfounded hope,--which, however, was not without its effect on Reuben. No merely selfish motive, nor even the desolate condition of Dorcas, could have induced him to desert his companion at such a moment--but his wishes seized on the thought that Malvin's life might be preserved, and his sanguine nature heightened almost to certainty the remote possibility of procuring human aid. "Surely there is reason, weighty reason, to hope that friends are not far distant," he said, half aloud. "There fled one coward, unwounded, in the beginning of the fight, and most probably he made good speed. Every true man on the frontier would shoulder his musket at the news; and, though no party may range so far into the woods as this, I shall perhaps encounter them in one day's march. Counsel me faithfully," he added, turning to Malvin, in distrust of his own motives. "Were your situation mine, would you desert me while life remained?" "It is now twenty years," replied Roger Malvin,--sighing, however, as he secretly acknowledged the wide dissimilarity between the two cases,-"it is now twenty years since I escaped with one dear friend from Indian captivity near Montreal. We journeyed many days through the woods, till at length overcome with hunger and weariness, my friend lay down and besought me to leave him; for he knew that, if I remained, we both must perish; and, with but little hope of obtaining succor, I heaped a pillow of dry leaves beneath his head and hastened on." "And did you return in time to save him?" asked Reuben, hanging on Malvin's words as if they were to be prophetic of his own success. |
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Mosses From An Old Manse Nathaniel Hawthorne |
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