Endings and Beginnings

Passages from Bedford Village

As in The Forest And The Fort, Bedford Village has some of the best writing in the genre of the historical novel. These passages are offered as evidence to support our claim!

With Captain Ecuyer

"About sunset Ecuyer began to twitch with his hands. The signet ring he wore dropped off and rolled under the bed. He sighed ever so deeply. Salathiel rose from the floor and leaned over to look at him. At that moment the sun was setting behind the Alleghenies. The room suddenly went grey. Ecuyer's head fell to the side.

Salathiel stood in the gathering twilight and wept silently. He was utterly and painfully alone."

Captain Jack is avenged

"His desire was coming true. He had had a full taste of it. For the first time he felt avenged, his cup of hatred emptied. The men gathered about him on sudden impulse and cheered him. He thanked them calmly. His thanks were sincere. After him the good work would go on, safe in such hands as theirs. He, himself, might even go home now and wait in peace for the end. No voices would call to him from the shadows of the woods at twilight. No faces would mow at him from the flames on his own hearth. The end could be peace for Jack on Jack's Mountain.

He turned away from them and went down to stand by the river of clear water that ran by the bitter springs of salt. His throat was still raw with powder smoke. He laid his rifle in the grass and knelt down to drink from the river. He drank deep, and thanked God in his heart. But when he rose and stooped to pick up his rifle again his hand hesitated. A tremor shook him. The long rifle-gun lay in the grass, shining, with many nicks on the stock. But there would soon be rust upon it. His work was over. He was of no use any more. The full realization numbed him. Finally he picked the rifle up and cradled it in his arm."

Salathiel on his own

"But he would take his time about it. He was alone in the woods again. Away-and his own master. He found he liked that. Why had he been so anxious to learn what other people wanted him to do? And who made the rules they were always pressing upon him? He hobbled his horse, put out the fire, and went to sleep looking up at the stars and clouds moving across the branches."

And later........

"Oh, what a morning! Oh, to be free in this great natural world! Salathiel knew they would know what he meant- He rose in the stirrups again and thrust his rifle sparkling in the sunlight towards the western mountains. He threw his other hand up open-palmed, eastward, in a wide, wild, happy gesture. Good-bye, wilderness; good day, tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow- Farewell, and hail.

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