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Christmas passed away with its misletoe boughs to kiss
under, and its stockings hung up for Saint Nic, and its
Christmas trees shaken by chirping children. It had
been a very merry Christmas in the mountain land, for
none of the old adjuncts of the festive season had been
wanting; the same joyous Yule it was which cheered
those English hearts in cabin and in hall, in the fine
open-hearted times of old. May it ever live a deathless
legend, ever to be shaped in act with each recurring year;—
may modern innovation never lay its cold prosaic hand
on the true-hearted habitudes, so long the wont of our old
ancestors, from the days of Arthur and the sage Merlin.

So Christmas, honored with high revelry and song,
passed onward like a word of comfort, like a trumpetblast
of hope to fearful souls. The New Year marched
in also, and passed onward blithe and joyous; crowned
with some early flowers, and emptying, with laughing,
youthful lips, great beakers to the time! Then the tender
days of spring began to hint of their approach, though
snow still covered the ground. Still hunter John was no
better. He had been carefully removed to the Parsonage,
after the scene we have briefly traced in the last chapter—
but only to retire again to his bed, overcome with weakness.
The old mountaineer was very ill, and soon all his
old neighbors and friends flocked round him—their horses
standing in a long row tied to the fence before the house.
They assembled in the dining-room, shaking their heads
and whispering—he was too old, they said, his life too
feeble much longer to cling to him. Then one by one

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they went into his chamber, and gave him cheerful,
hearty words, and cheered him up, making a jest of his
sickness. The spring was coming! they said, the spring
would see him strong and well again.

The spring was coming truly; the cold winter waned
away before the approach of vernal winds, unbinding the
lowland and the mountain streams, and whispering to
the little fearful flowers upon the grassy knolls to raise
their heads and not be afraid. The spring said it would
soon be coming, though other snow-storms might delay
for a time its onward march. Soon it would marshal its
bright crocuses, and primroses, and its tender violets and
eglantine, and sending forward over the sunny hills its
couriers to spy out the land, would give the signal with
its merry winds, and make its inroad on the forces of the
haughty winter-time.

Still hunter John remained very ill; still his old neighbors
came to see him, cheering him with hopeful words.
Alice and Caroline would never leave him;—those tender
hearts were struck by the same blow which smote the
grandfather. Alice would read to him often from the
Bible, which was his favorite book—he could bear indeed
to hear no other; and Caroline would hang upon his lips,
ready to do his bidding. The young girls left scarcely
any thing to Mr. Courtlandt and his wife.

And so the winter slowly passed away, and hunter
John grew weaker.

His old neighbors now came oftener, and shook their
heads and whispered more than ever; Doctor Courtlandt
was never absent now, having taken up his residence very
nearly at the Parsonage; his presence was a great relief,
and a great hope to all—and never had the worthy Doctor
so taxed his brain for what he had observed and learned;
never had science so battled with the grim enemy who
defied it.

And so the winter very nearly went away, and spring

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grew every moment stronger and more gay. But winter
rose up like a giant for the last struggle, and one morning
the dwellers in the mountains found the earth again
wrapped in snow.

The old hunter grew more faint and weak; the long
day waned, and the sun slowly sloped to the red west.

With Mrs. Courtlandt on one side, the Doctor and his
brother at the foot of the bed, and Alice and Caroline by
his side—he had thrown his feeble arm around their necks—
old hunter John rested quietly, gazing wistfully at his
old stag hound stretched upon the floor, or looking through
the window at the snow.

“I think I'm goin',” he murmured, “I think the Lord's
a callin' me, children. Keep still, old Oscar,” he continued,
looking at the hound who had risen, “poor old
fool! your master will never hunt any more upon the
earth—never any more, old Oscar!”

“Oh, grandfather!” Alice sobbed, “don't talk so!—
please don't!”

The old man smiled.

“I ain't complainin' darlin',” he said cheerfully but
feebly, “you know I ain't complainin'. No, no! the
Lord's mighty good to me—he's been mighty good to me
these many long years—and he's a smilin' on me now
when I'm most nigh gone.”

He gazed through the window, dreamily; the sun
was on the mountain top: and the shadow of the “Moss
Rock” ran over the snow clad valley toward the Parsonage.

“The Lord's been merciful to me,” murmured the old
man. “I'm rememberin' the time now, when he turned
aside my gun—I didn't cut down my little blossom,
darlin',” he said turning to Mrs. Courtlandt, who was
weeping, “the Lord was mighty good to me: glory and
worship be his, evermore: Amen.”

His thoughts then seemed to wander to times more
deeply sunken in the past than that of the event his

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words touched on. Waking he dreamed; and the large
eyes melted or fired with a thousand memories which
came flocking to him, bright and joyous, or mournful and
sombre, but all now transmuted by his almost ecstasy to
one glowing mass of purest gold. He saw now plainly
much that had been dark to him before; the hand of
God was in all, the providence of that great almighty
being in every autumn leaf which whirled away!

Again, with a last lingering look his mental eyes surveyed
that eventful border past, so full of glorious splendor,
of battle shocks, and rude delights; so full of beloved
eyes, now dim, and so radiant with those faces and those
hearts now cold; again leaving the present and all around
him, he lived for a moment in that grand and beauteous
past, instinct for him with so much splendor and regret.

But his dim eyes returned suddenly to those much
loved faces round him; and those tender hearts were
overcome by the dim, shadowy look.

The sunset slowly waned away, and falling in red
splendor on the old gray head, and storm-beaten brow,
lingered there lovingly and cheerfully. The old hunter
feebly smiled.

“You'll be good girls,” he murmured wistfully, drawing
his feeble arm more closely round the children's necks,
“remember the old man, darlin's!”

Caroline pressed her lips to the cold hand, sobbing.
Alice did not move her head which, buried in the
counterpane, was shaken with passionate sobs.

The old man gazed wistfully on the little head, and
gently smoothed down the curls with his rugged hand.
Then he felt one of those strange sensations which dart
through the mind at certain times, and have so singular
an effect upon us. The old dying mountaineer was certain
that he had lived all this before; those faces were
around him in that identical arrangement, ages ago;
Alice was sobbing there; his eyes were growing dim; he

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had lain dying there as he now lay a century ago! It
was so plain that heaven itself seemed to have plunged a
beam of supernatural light into his heart, a beam which
lit up all the mysterious hidden crypts of memory, revealing
to him as he lay there on the border of two worlds,
the secret of humanity! “Yes, yes!” he murmured,
“she has cried for me before—I have died before—blessed
Saviour you were mine before!” Then he became very
calm; his eyes no longer wandered, but dwelt with looks
of deep affection on those tender faces grouped around
him, as he was about to fall into his last sleep on this
earth; that sleep from which he must awake in another
world.

The Doctor felt his pulse and turned with a mournful
look to his brother. Then came those grand religious
consolations which so smooth the pathway to the grave;
he was ready—always—God be thanked, the old man
said; he trusted in the Lord.

And so the sunset waned away, and with it the life
and strength of the old storm-beaten mountaineer—so
grand yet powerless, so near to death yet so very cheerful.

“I'm goin',” he murmured as the red orb touched the
mountain, “I'm goin', my darlin's; I always loved you
all, my children. Darlin', don't cry,” he murmured feebly
to Alice, whose heart was near breaking, “don't any of
you cry for me.”

The old dim eyes again dwelt tenderly on the loving
faces, wet with tears and on those poor trembling lips.
There came now to the aged face of the rude mountaineer,
an expression of grandeur and majesty, which illumined
the broad brow and eyes like a heavenly light. Then
those eyes seemed to have found what they were seeking;
and were abased. Their grandeur changed to humility,
their light to shadow, their fire to softness and unspeakable
love. The thin feeble hands, stretched out upon the
cover were agitated slightly, the eyes moved slowly to the

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window and thence returned to the dear faces weeping
round the bed; then whispering:

“The Lord is good to me! he told me he was comin''
fore the night was here; come! come—Lord Jesus—
come!” the old mountaineer fell back with a low sigh; a
sigh so low that the old sleeping hound, dreamed on.

The life strings parted without sound; and hunter
John, that so long loved and cherished soul, that old
strong form which had been hardened in so many storms,
that tender loving heart—ah, more than all, that grand
and tender heart—had passed as calmly, as a little babe
from the cold shadowy world to that other world; the
world, we trust, of light, and love, and joy.

The family fell on their knees sobbing, and weeping.
The calm voice of Mr. Courtlandt—that calm tender
voice which sounded like a benediction—rose in prayer
for the soul which had thus passed; and so the night
came down upon them with shadowy wing, but could not
take from them the light of hope. A silent voice whispered
good tidings for their weary hearts, and in the very
stillness of the dusky chamber was the calm promise of
a brighter, grander world.

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