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Charlemont; Or, The Pride of the Village. a Tale of Kentucky

by William Gilmore Simms · English · Gutenberg #6012 · 807,278 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Charlemont; Or, The Pride of the Village. a Tale of Kentucky

Author: William Gilmore Simms


        
Release date: July 1, 2004 [eBook #6012]
                Most recently updated: March 16, 2018

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHARLEMONT; OR, THE PRIDE OF THE VILLAGE. A TALE OF KENTUCKY ***




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Online Distributed Proofreading Team








CHARLEMONT;

OR,

THE PRIDE OF THE VILLAGE

A TALE OF KENTUCKY.

BY W. GILMORE SIMMS,


[Illustration: no caption, but contains the word Charlemont. Two men are
riding a horse and a woman stands nearby.]




   “Nor will I be secure.
    In any confidence of mine own strength,
    For such security is oft the mother
    Of negligence, and that, the occasion
    Of unremedy'd ruin.”

            Microcosmus--THO. NABBES.






TO THE HON. JAMES HALL, OF CINCINNATI:

AS ONE OF THE ABLEST OF OUR LITERARY PIONEERS A GENUINE REPRESENTATIVE
OF THE GREAT WEST;

WHOSE WRITINGS EQUALLY ILLUSTRATE HER HISTORY AND GENIUS:

this story of “CHARLEMONT,” and its Sequel “BEAUCHAMPE” are respectfully
inscribed by

THEIR AUTHOR






ADVERTISEMENT





The domestic legend which follows, is founded upon actual events of
comparatively recent occurrence in the state of Kentucky. However
strange the facts may appear in the sequel--however in conflict with
what are usually supposed to be the sensibilities and characteristics
of woman--they are yet unquestionably true; most of them having been
conclusively established, by the best testimony, before a court
of justice. Very terrible, indeed, was the tragedy to which they
conducted--one that startled the whole country when it took place, and
the mournful interest of which will long be remembered. More on this
subject need not be mentioned here. The narrative, it is hoped, will
satisfy all the curiosity of the reader. It has been very carefully
prepared from and according to the evidence; the art of the romancer
being held in close subjection to the historical authorities. I have
furnished only the necessary details which would fill such blanks in
the story as are of domestic character; taking care that these should
accord, in all cases, with the despotic facts. In respect to these,
I have seldom appealed to invention. It is in the delineation and
development of character, only, that I have made free to furnish scenes,
such as appeared to me calculated to perfect the portraits, and the
better to reconcile the reader to real occurrences, which, in their
original nakedness, however unquestionably true, might incur the risk of
being thought improbabilities.

The reflections which will be most likely to arise from the perusal of
such a history, lead us to a consideration of the social characteristics
of the time and region, and to a consideration of the facility with
which access to society is afforded by the manners and habits of our
forest population. It is in all newly-settled countries, as among the
rustic population of most nations, that the absence of the compensative
resources of wealth leads to a singular and unreserved freedom among
the people. In this way, society endeavors to find equivalents for those
means of enjoyment which a wealthy people may procure from travel, from
luxury, from the arts, and the thousand comforts of a well-provided
homestead. The population of a frontier country, lacking such resources,
scattered over a large territory, and meeting infrequently, feel the
lack of social intercourse; and this lack tends to break down most
of the barriers which a strict convention usually establishes for
the protection, not only of sex and caste, but of its own tastes and
prejudices. Lacking the resources of superior wealth, population, and
civilization, the frontier people are naturally required to throw the
doors open as widely as possible, in order to obtain that intercourse
with their fellows which is, perhaps, the first great craving of
humanity. As a matter of necessity, there is little discrimination
exercised in the admission of their guests. A specious outside,
agreeable manners, cleverness and good humor, will soon make their way
into confidence, without requiring other guaranties for the moral of the
stranger. The people are naturally frank and hospitable; for the simple
reason that these qualities of character are essential for procuring
them that intercourse which they crave. The habits are accessible, the
restraints few, the sympathies are genial, active, easily aroused, and
very confiding. It follows, naturally, that they are frequently wronged
and outraged, and just as naturally that their resentments are keen,
eager, and vindictive. The self-esteem, if not watchful, is revengeful;
and society sanctions promptly the fierce redress--that wild justice of
revenge--which punishes without appeal to law, with its own right hand,
the treacherous guest who has abused the unsuspecting confidence which
welcomed him to a seat upon the sacred hearth. In this brief portrait
of the morale of society, upon our frontiers, you will find the materiel
from which this story has been drawn, and its justification, as a
correct delineation of border life in one of its more settled phases in
the new states. The social description of Charlemont exhibits,
perhaps, a THIRD advance in our forest civilization, from the original
settlement.

It is not less the characteristic of these regions to exhibit the
passions and the talents of the people in equal and wonderful saliency.
We are accordingly struck with two classes of social facts, which do not
often arrest the attention in old communities. We see, for example, the
most singular combination of simplicity and sagacity in the same person;
simplicity in conventional respects, and sagacity in all that affects
the absolute and real in life, nature and the human sensibilities. The
rude man, easily imposed upon, in his faith, fierce as an outlaw in
his conflicts with men, will be yet exquisitely alive to the nicest
consciousness of woman; will as delicately appreciate her instincts and
sensibilities, as if love and poetry had been his only tutors from the
first, and had mainly addressed their labors to this one object of the
higher heart, education; and in due degree with the tenderness with
which he will regard the sex, will be the vindictive ferocity with
which--even though no kinsman--he will pursue the offender who has dared
to outrage them in the case of any individual. In due degree as his
faith is easy will his revenges be extreme. In due degree as he is slow
to suspect the wrong-doer, will be the tenacity of his pursuit when
the offender requires punishment. He seems to throw wide his heart and
habitation, but you must beware how you trespass upon the securities of
either.

The other is a mental characteristic which leads to frequent surprises
among strangers from the distant cities. It consists in the wonderful
inequality between his mental and social development. The same person
who will be regarded as a boor in good society, will yet exhibit
a rapidity and profundity of thought and intelligence--a depth and
soundness of judgment--an acuteness in discrimination--a logical
accuracy, and critical analysis, such as mere good society rarely shows,
and such as books almost as rarely teach. There will be a deficiency
of refinement, taste, art--all that the polished world values so
highly--and which it seems to cherish and encourage to the partial
repudiation of the more essential properties of intellect. However
surprising this characteristic may appear, it may yet be easily
accounted for by the very simplicity of a training which results in
great directness and force of character--a frank heartiness of aim and
object--a truthfulness of object which suffers the thoughts to turn
neither to the right hand nor to the left, but to press forward
decisively to the one object--a determined will, and a restless
instinct--which, conscious of the deficiencies of wealth and position,
is yet perpetually seeking to supply them from the resources within its
reach. These characteristics will be found illustrated in the present
legend, an object which it somewhat contemplates, apart from the mere
story with which they are interwoven.

A few words more in respect to our heroine, Margaret Cooper. It is our
hope and belief, that she will be found a real character by most of our
readers. She is drawn from the life, and with a severe regard to the
absolute features of the original. In these days of “strong-minded
women,” even more certainly than when the portrait was first taken, the
identity of the sketch with its original will be sure of recognition.
Her character and career will illustrate most of the mistakes which are
made by that ambitious class, among the gentler sex, who are now seeking
so earnestly to pass out from that province of humiliation to which the
sex has been circumscribed from the first moment of recorded history.
What she will gain by the motion, if successful, might very well be left
to time, were it not that the proposed change in her condition threatens
fatally some of her own and the best securities of humanity. We may
admit, and cheerfully do so, that she might, with propriety, be allowed
some additional legal privileges of a domestic sort. But the great
object of attainment, which is the more serious need of the sex--her
own more full development as a responsible being--seems mainly to depend
upon herself, and upon self-education. The great first duty of woman
is in her becoming the mother of men; and this duty implies her proper
capacity for the education and training of the young. To fit her
properly for this duty, her education should become more elevated, and
more severe in degree with its elevation. But the argument is one of too
grave, too intricate, and excursive a character, to be attempted here.
It belongs to a very different connection. It is enough, in this place,
to say that Margaret Cooper possesses just the sort of endowment to
make a woman anxious to pass the guardian boundaries which hedge in her
sex--her danger corresponds with her desires. Her securities, with
such endowments, and such a nature, can only be found in a strict and
appropriate education, such as woman seldom receives anywhere, and less,
perhaps, in this country than in any other. To train fully the
feminine mind, without in any degree impairing her susceptibilities and
sensibilities, seems at once the necessity and the difficulty of the
subject. Her very influence over man lies in her sensibilities. It will
be to her a perilous fall from pride of place, and power, when, goaded
by an insane ambition, in the extreme development of her mere intellect,
she shall forfeit a single one of these securities of her sex.






CHAPTER I.

THE SCENE.





The stormy and rugged winds of March were overblown--the first fresh
smiling days of April had come at last--the days of sunshine and shower,
of fitful breezes, the breath of blossoms, and the newly-awakened song
of birds. Spring was there in all the green and glory of her youth, and
the bosom of Kentucky heaved with the prolific burden of the season. She
had come, and her messengers were everywhere, and everywhere busy. The
birds bore her gladsome tidings to

    “Alley green,
    Dingle or bushy dell of each wild wood,
    And every bosky bourn from side to side--”

nor were the lately-trodden and seared grasses of the forests left
unnoted; and the humbled flower of the wayside sprang up at her summons.
Like some loyal and devoted people, gathered to hail the approach of a
long-exiled and well-beloved sovereign, they crowded upon the path over
which she came, and yielded themselves with gladness at her feet. The
mingled songs and sounds of their rejoicing might be heard, and far-off
murmurs of gratulation, rising from the distant hollows, or coming
faintly over the hill-tops, in accents not the lees pleasing because
they were the less distinct. That lovely presence which makes every land
blossom, and every living thing rejoice, met, in the happy region in
which we meet her now, a double tribute of honor and rejoicing.

The “dark and bloody ground,” by which mournful epithets Kentucky was
originally known to the Anglo-American, was dark and bloody no longer.
The savage had disappeared from its green forests for ever, and no
longer profaned with slaughter, and his unholy whoop of death, its broad
and beautiful abodes. A newer race had succeeded; and the wilderness,
fulfilling the better destinies of earth, had begun to blossom like the
rose. Conquest had fenced in its sterile borders with a wall of fearless
men, and peace slept everywhere in security among its green recesses.
Stirring industry--the perpetual conqueror--made the woods resound with
the echoes of his biting axe and ringing hammer. Smiling villages rose
in cheerful white, in place of the crumbling and smoky cabins of
the hunter. High and becoming purposes of social life and thoughtful
enterprise superseded that eating and painful decay, which has
terminated in the annihilation of the red man; and which, among every
people, must always result from their refusal to exercise, according
to the decree of experience, no less than Providence, their limbs and
sinews in tasks of well-directed and continual labor.

A great nation urging on a sleepless war against sloth and feebleness,
is one of the noblest of human spectacles. This warfare was rapidly
and hourly changing the monotony and dreary aspects of rock and forest.
Under the creative hands of art, temples of magnificence rose where the
pines had fallen. Long and lovely vistas were opened through the dark
and hitherto impervious thickets. The city sprang up beside the river,
while hamlets, filled with active hope and cheerful industry, crowded
upon the verdant hill-side, and clustered among innumerable valleys
Grace began to seek out the homes of toil, and taste supplied their
decorations. A purer form of religion hallowed the forest-homes of the
red-man, while expelling for ever the rude divinities of his worship;
and throughout the land, an advent of moral loveliness seemed
approaching, not less grateful to the affections and the mind, than
was the beauty of the infant April, to the eye and the heart of the
wanderer.

But something was still wanting to complete the harmonies of nature, in
the scene upon which we are about to enter. Though the savage had for
ever departed from its limits, the blessings of a perfect civilization
were not yet secured to the new and flourishing regions of Kentucky.
Its morals were still in that fermenting condition which invariably
distinguishes the settlement of every new country by a various and
foreign people. At the distant period of which we write, the population
of Kentucky had not yet become sufficiently stationary to have made
their domestic gods secure, or to have fixed the proper lines and limits
regulating social intercourse and attaching precise standards to human
conduct. The habits and passions of the first settlers--those fearless
pioneers who had struggled foot to foot with the Indian, and lived in
a kindred state of barbarity with him, had not yet ceased to have
influence over the numerous race which followed them. That moral amalgam
which we call society, and which recognises a mutual and perfectly equal
condition of dependence, and a common necessity, as the great cementing
principles of the human family, had not yet taken place; and it was
still too much the custom, in that otherwise lovely region, for the wild
man to revenge his own wrong, and the strong man to commit a greater
with impunity. The repose of social order was not yet secured to the
great mass, covering with its wing, as with a sky that never knew a
cloud, the sweet homes and secure possessions of the unwarlike. The
fierce robber sometimes smote the peaceful traveler upon the highway,
and the wily assassin of reputation, within the limits of the city
barrier, not unfrequently plucked the sweetest rose that ever adorned
the virgin bosom of innocence, and triumphed, without censure, in the
unhallowed spoliation.

But sometimes there came an avenger;--and the highway robber fell before
the unexpected patriot; and the virgin was avenged by the yet beardless
hero, for the wrong of her cruel seducer. The story which we have to
tell, is of times and of actions such as these. It is a melancholy
narrative--the more melancholy as it is most certainly true. It will not
be told in vain, if the crime which it describes in proper colors, and
the vengeance by which it was followed, and which it equally records,
shall secure the innocent from harm, and discourage the incipient
wrongdoer from his base designs.






CHAPTER II.

THE TRAVELLERS.





Let the traveller stand with us on the top of this rugged eminence, and
look down upon the scene below. Around us, the hills gather in groups
on every side, a family cluster, each of which wears the same general
likeness to that on which we stand, yet there is no monotony in their
aspect. The axe has not yet deprived them of a single tree, and they
rise up, covered with the honored growth of a thousand summers. But they
seem not half so venerable. They wear, in this invigorating season,
all the green, fresh features of youth and spring. The leaves cover the
rugged Limbs which sustain them, with so much ease and grace, as if for
the first time they were so green and glossy, and as if the impression
should be made more certain and complete, the gusty wind of March has
scattered abroad and borne afar, all the yellow garments of the
vanished winter. The wild flowers begin to flaunt their blue and crimson
draperies about us, as if conscious that they are borne upon the bosom
of undecaying beauty; and the spot so marked and hallowed by each
charming variety of bud and blossom, would seem to have been a selected
dwelling for the queenly Spring herself.

Man, mindful of those tastes and sensibilities which in great part
constitute his claim to superiority over the brute, has not been
indifferent to the beauties of the place. In the winding hollows of
these hills, beginning at our feet, you see the first signs of as lovely
a little hamlet as ever promised peace to the weary and the discontent.
This is the village of Charlemont.

A dozen snug and smiling cottages seem to have been dropped in this
natural cup, as if by a spell of magic. They appear, each of them, to
fill a fitted place--not equally distant from, but equally near each
other. Though distinguished, each by an individual feature, there is
yet no great dissimilarity among them. All are small, and none of
them distinguished by architectural pretension. They are now quite as
flourishing as when first built, and their number has had no increase
since the village was first settled. Speculation has not made it
populous and prosperous, by destroying its repose, stifling its
charities, and abridging the sedate habits and comforts of its people.
The houses, though constructed after the fashion of the country, of
heavy and ill-squared logs, roughly hewn, and hastily thrown together,
perhaps by unpractised hands, are yet made cheerful by that tidy
industry which is always sure to make them comfortable also. Trim hedges
that run beside slender white palings, surround and separate them from
each other. Sometimes, as you see, festoons of graceful flowers, and
waving blossoms, distinguish one dwelling from the rest, declaring its
possession of some fair tenant, whose hand and fancy have kept equal
progress with habitual industry; at the same time, some of them appear
entirely without the little garden of flowers and vegetables, which
glimmers and glitters in the rear or front of the greater number.

Such was Charlemont, at the date of our narrative. But the traveller
would vainly look, now, to find the place as we describe it. The garden
is no longer green with fruits and flowers--the festoons no longer grace
the lowly portals--the white palings are down and blackening in the
gloomy mould--the roofs have fallen, and silence dwells lonely among
the ruins,--the only inhabitant of the place. It has no longer a human
occupant.

“Something ails it now--the spot is cursed.”

Why this fate has fallen upon so sweet an abiding place--why the
villagers should have deserted a spot, so quiet and so beautiful--it
does not fall within our present purpose to inquire. It was most
probably abandoned--not because of the unfruitfulness of the soil, or
the unhealthiness of the climate--for but few places on the bosom of
the earth, may be found either more fertile, more beautiful, or
more healthful--but in compliance with that feverish restlessness of
mood--that sleepless discontent of temper, which, perhaps, more than
any other quality, is the moral failing in the character of the
Anglo-American. The roving desires of his ancestor, which brought him
across the waters, have been transmitted without diminution--nay, with
large increase--to the son. The creatures of a new condition of things,
and new necessities, our people will follow out their destiny. The
restless energies which distinguish them, are, perhaps, the contemplated
characteristics which Providence has assigned them, in order that they
may the more effectually and soon, bring into the use and occupation of
a yet mightier people, the wilderness of that new world in which their
fortunes have been cast. Generation is but the pioneer of generation,
and the children of millions, more gigantic and powerful than ourselves,
shall yet smile to behold, how feeble was the stroke made by our axe
upon the towering trees of their inheritance.

It was probably because of this characteristic of our people, that
Charlemont came in time to be deserted. The inhabitants were one day
surprised with tidings of more attractive regions in yet deeper forests,
and grew dissatisfied with their beautiful and secluded valley. Such
is the ready access to the American mind, in its excitable state, of
novelty and sudden impulse, that there needs but few suggestions to
persuade the forester to draw stakes, and remove his tents, where the
signs seem to be more numerous of sweeter waters and more prolific
fields. For a time, change has the power which nature does not often
exercise; and under its freshness, the waters DO seem sweeter, and the
stores of the wilderness, the wild-honey and the locust, DO seem more
abundant to the lip and eye.

Where our cottagers went, and under what delusion, are utterly unknown
to us; nor is it important to our narrative that we should inquire. Our
knowledge of them is only desirable, while they were in the flourishing
condition in which they have been seen. It is our trust that the
novelty which seduced them from their homes, did not fail them in its
promises--that they may never have found, in all their wanderings, a
less lovely abiding-place, than that which they abandoned. But change
has its bitter, as well as its sweet, and the fear is strong that the
cottagers of Charlemont, in the weary hours, when life's winter
is approaching, will still and vainly sigh after the once-despised
enjoyments of their deserted hamlet.

It was toward the close of one of those bright, tearful days in
April, of which we have briefly spoken, when a couple of travellers on
horseback, ascended the last hill looking down upon Charlemont. One of
these travellers had passed the middle period of life; the other was,
perhaps, just about to enter upon its heavy responsibilities, and more
active duties. The first wore the countenance of one who had borne many
sorrows, and borne them with that resignation, which, while it proves
the wisdom of the sufferer, is at the same time, calculated to increase
his benevolence. The expression of his eye, was full of kindness and
benignity, while that of his mouth, with equal force, was indicative
of a melancholy, as constant as it was gentle and unobtrusive. A feeble
smile played over his lips while he spoke, that increased the sadness
which it softened; as the faint glimmer of the evening sunlight, upon
the yellow leaves of autumn, heightens the solemn tones in the rich
coloring of the still decaying forest.

The face of his companion, in many of its features, was in direct
contrast with his own. It was well formed, and, to the casual glance,
seemed no less handsome than intellectual. There was much in it to win
the regard of the young and superficial. An eye that sparkled with fire,
a mouth that glowed with animation--cheeks warmly colored, and a contour
full of vivacity, seemed to denote properties of mind and heart equally
valuable and attractive. Still, a keen observer would have found
something sinister, in the upward glancing of the eye, at intervals,
from the half-closed lids; and, at such moments, there was a curling
contempt upon the lips, which seemed to denote a cynical and sarcastic
turn of mind. A restless movement of the same features seemed equally
significant of caprice of character, and a flexibility of moral; while
the chin narrowed too suddenly and became too sharp at the extremity, to
persuade a thorough physiognomist, that the owner could be either very
noble in his aims, or very generous in his sentiments. But as these
outward tokens can not well be considered authority in the work of
judgment, let events, which speak for themselves, determine the true
character of our travellers.

They had reached the table land of the heights which looked down upon
Charlemont, at a moment when the beauty of the scene could scarcely fail
to impress itself upon the most indifferent observer. The elder of the
travellers, who happened to be in advance, was immediately arrested by
it; and, staying the progress of his horse, with hand lifted above
his eye, looked around him with a delight which expressed itself in an
abrupt ejaculation, and brought his companion to his side. The sun had
just reached that point in his descent, which enabled him to level a
shaft of rosy light from the pinnacle of the opposite hill, into the
valley below, where it rested among the roofs of two of the cottages,
which arose directly in its path. The occupants of these two cottages
had come forth, as it were, in answer to the summons; and old and young,
to the number of ten or a dozen persons, had met, in the winding pathway
between, which led through the valley, and in front of every cottage
which it contained. The elder of the cottagers sat upon the huge trunk
of a tree, which had been felled beside the road, for the greater
convenience of the traveller; and with eyes turned in the direction of
the hill on which the sunlight had sunk and appeared to slumber, seemed
to enjoy the vision with no less pleasure than our senior traveller.
Two tall damsels of sixteen, accompanied by a young man something older,
were strolling off in the direction of the woods; while five or six
chubby girls and boys were making the echoes leap and dance along the
hills, in the clamorous delight which they felt in their innocent but
stirring exercises. The whole scene was warmed with the equal brightness
of the natural and the human sun. Beauty was in the sky, and its
semblance, at least, was on the earth. God was in the heavens, and in
his presence could there be other than peace and harmony among men!

“How beautiful!” exclaimed the elder of our travellers--“could
anything be more so! How pure, how peaceful! See, Warham, how soft, how
spirit-like, that light lies along the hill-side, and how distinct, yet
how delicate, is the train which glides from it down the valley, even
to the white dwellings at its bottom, from which it seems to shrink and
tremble as if half conscious of intrusion. And yet the picture below
is kindred with it. That, now, is a scene that I delight in--it is a
constant picture in my mind. There is peace in that valley, if there
be peace anywhere on earth. The old men sit before the door, and
contemplate with mingled feelings of pride and pleasure, the vigorous
growth of their children. They behold in them their own immortality,
even upon earth. The young will preserve their memories, and transmit
their names to other children yet unborn; and how must such a reflection
reconcile them to their own time of departure, not unfitly shown in the
last smiles of that sunlight, which they are so soon about to lose. Like
him, they look with benevolence and love upon the world from which they
will soon depart.”

“Take my word for it, uncle, they will postpone their departure to the
last possible moment, and, so far from looking with smiles upon what
they are about to leave for ever, they will leave it with very great
reluctance, and in monstrous bad humor. As for regarding their children
with any such notions as those you dwell upon with such poetical
raptures, they will infinitely prefer transmitting for themselves their
names and qualities to the very end of the chapter. Ask any one of them
the question now, and he will tell you that an immortality, each, in his
own wig-wam, and with his weight of years and infirmity upon him, would
satisfy all his expectations. If they look at the vigor of their young,
it is to recollect that they themselves once were so, and to repine at
the recollection. Take my word for it, there is not a dad among them,
that does not envy his own son the excellence of his limbs, and the long
time of exercise and enjoyment which they seemingly assure him.”

“Impossible!” exclaimed the elder of the two travellers. “Impossible! I
should be sorry to think as you do. But you, Warham, can not understand
these things. You are an habitual unbeliever--the most unfortunate of
all mankind.”

“The most fortunate, rather. I have but few burdens of credulity to
carry. The stars be blessed, my articles of faith are neither very many
nor very cumbrous. I should be sorry if my clients were so few.”

“I should be sorry, Warham, if I had so little feeling as yourself.”

“And I should be still more sorry, uncle, if I had half so much. Why,
sir, yours is in such excess, that you continually mistake the joys
and sorrows of other people for your own. You laugh and weep with them
alternately; and, until all's done and over, you never seem to discover
that the business was none of yours;--that you had none of the pleasure
which made you laugh, and might have been spared all the unnecessary
suffering which moved your tears. 'Pon my soul, sir, you pass a most
unprofitable life.”

“You mistake, Warham, I have shared both; and my profits have been
equally great from both sources. My susceptibility has been an exceeding
great gain to me, and has quickened all my senses. There is a joy of
grief, you know, according to Ossian.”

“Nay, if you quote Ossian, uncle. I give you up. I don't believe in
Ossian, and his raving stuff always sickens me.”

“I sometimes think, Warham,” said the uncle, good naturedly, “that
Providence has denied you some of the more human faculties. Nay, I fear
that you are partially deficient in some of the senses. Do you see that
sunlight to which I point--there, on the hill-side, a sort of rosy haze,
which seems to me eminently beautiful?”

“Yes, sir; and, if you will suffer me, I will get out of its reach as
quickly as possible. I have been half blinded by it ever since you found
it so beautiful. Sunlight is, I think, of very little importance to
professional men, unless as a substitute for candles, and then it should
come over the left shoulder, if you would not have it endanger the
sight. Nay, I will go farther, and confess that it is better than
candlelight, and certainly far less expensive. Shall we go forward,
sir?”

“Warham,” said the uncle, with increasing gravity, “I should be sorry to
believe that a habit of speech so irreverential, springs from anything
but an ambition for saying smart things, and strange things, which are
not always smart. It would give me great pain to think that you were
devoid of any of those sensibilities which soften the hearts of other
men, and lead them to generous impulses.”

“Nay, be not harsh, uncle. You should know me better. I trust my
sensibilities, and senses too, may be sufficient for all proper
purposes, when the proper time comes for their employment; but I can't
flame up at every sunbeam, and grow enthusiastic in the contemplation of
Bill Johnson's cottage, and Richard Higgins's hedgerow. A turnip-patch
never yet could waken my enthusiasm, and I do believe, sir--I confess it
with some shame and a slight misgiving, lest my admissions should give
you pain--that my fancy has never been half so greatly enkindled by
Carthula, of the bending spear, or Morven of the winds, as by the sedate
and homely aspect of an ordinary dish of eggs and bacon, hot from the
flaming frying-pan of some worthy housewife.”

The uncle simply looked upon the speaker, but without answering. He was
probably quite too much accustomed to his modes of thought and speech to
be so much surprised as annoyed by what he said. Perhaps, too, his own
benevolence of spirit interfered to save the nephew from that harsher
rebuke which his judgment might yet have very well disposed him to
bestow.

Following the course of the latter in silence, he descended into the
valley, and soon made his way among the sweet little cottages at
its foot. An interchange of courtsies between the travellers and the
villagers whose presence had given occasion to some portion of the
previous dialogue, in which the manner of the younger traveller was
civil, and that of the elder kind; and the two continued on their
journey, though not without being compelled to refuse sundry
invitations, given with true patriarchal hospitality, to remain among
the quiet abodes through which they passed.

As cottage after cottage unfolded itself to their eyes, along the
winding avenue, the proprietors appeared at door and window, and, with
the simple freedoms of rural life, welcomed the strangers with a
smile, a nod, and sometimes, when sufficiently nigh, a friendly word
of salutation, but without having the effect of arresting their onward
progress. Yet many a backward glance was sent by the elder of the
travellers, whose eyes, beaming with satisfaction, sufficiently declared
the delight which he received from the contemplation of so many of the
mingled graces of physical and moral nature. His loitering steps drew
from his young companion an occasional remark, which, to ears less
benevolent and unsuspecting than than those of the senior, might have
been deemed a sarcasm; and more than once the lips of the nephew had
curled with contemptuous smiles, as he watched the yearning glances of
his uncle on each side of the avenue, as they wended slowly through it.

At the end of the village, and at the foot of the opposite hills, they
encountered a group of young people of both sexes, whose bursts of
merriment were suddenly restrained as they emerged unexpectedly into
sight. The girls had been sitting upon the grassy mead, with the young
men before them; but they started to their feet at the sound of strange
steps, and the look of strange faces. Charlemont, it must be remembered,
was not in the thoroughfare of common travel. If visited at all by
strangers, it was most usually by those only who came with a single
purpose. Nothing, therefore could have been more calculated to surprise
a community so insulated, than that they should attract, but not arrest
the traveller. The natural surprise which the young people felt, when
unexpectedly encountered in their rustic sports, was naturally increased
by this unusual circumstance, and they looked after the departing forms
of the wayfarers with a wonder and curiosity that kept them for some
time silent. The elder of the two, meanwhile--one of whose habits of
mind was always to give instantaneous utterance to the feeling which was
upper-most--dilated, without heeding the sneers of his nephew, upon the
apparent happiness which they witnessed.

“Here, you see, Warham, is a pleasure which the great city never
knows:--the free intercourse of the sexes in all those natural exercises
which give health to the body, grace to the movement, and vivacity to
the manners.”

“The health will do well enough,” replied the skeptic, “but save me from
the grace of Hob and Hinney; and as for their manners--did I hear you
correctly, uncle, when you spoke of their manners?”

“Surely, you did. I have always regarded the natural manners which
belong to the life of the forester, as being infinitely more noble, as
well as more graceful, than those of the citizen. Where did you ever
see a tradesman whose bearing was not mean compared with that of the
hunter?”

“Ay, but these are no hunters, and scarcely foresters. I see not a
single Nimrod among the lads; and as for the lasses, even your eyes,
indulgent as they usually are, will scarcely venture to insist that I
shall behold one nymph among them worthy to tie the shoe-latchets of
Diana. The manners of the hunter are those of an elastic savage; but
these lads shear sheep, raise hogs for the slaughter-pen, and seldom
perform a nobler feat than felling a bullock. They have none of the
elasticity which, coupled with strength, makes the grace of the man;
and they walk as if perpetually in the faith that their corn-rows and
potatoe-hills were between their legs.”

“Did you note the young woman in the crimson body Warham? Was she not
majestically made?”

“It struck me she would weigh against any two of the company.”

“She is rather heavy, I grant you, but her carriage, Warham!”

“Would carry weight--nothing more.”

“There was one little girl, just rising into womanhood:--you must admit
that she had a very lovely face, and her form--”

“My dear uncle, what is it that you will not desire me to believe? You
are sadly given to proselytism, and take infinite pains to compel me
to see with eyes that never do their owner so much wrong, as when
they reject the aid of spectacles. How much would Charlemont and its
inhabitants differ to your sight, were you only to take your green
spectacles from the shagreen case in which they do no duty. But if you
are resolved, in order to seem youthful, to let your age go unprovided
with the means of seeing as youth would see, at least suffer me to enjoy
the natural privileges of twenty-five. When, like you, my hairs whiten,
and my eyes grow feeble, ten to one, I shall think with you that every
third woodman is an Apollo, and every other peasant-girl is a Venus,
whom--”

The words of the speaker ceased--cut short by the sudden appearance of a
form and face, the beauty and dignity of which silenced the skeptic, and
made him doubtful, for the moment, whether he had not in reality reached
that period of confused and confounding vision, which, as he alleged to
be the case with his uncle, loses all power of discrimination. A maiden
stood before him--tall, erect, majestic--beautiful after no ordinary
standard of beauty. She was a brunette, with large dark eyes, which,
though bright, seemed dark with excess of bright--and had a depth of
expression which thrilled instantly through the bosom of the spectator.
A single glance did she bestow upon the travellers, while she
acknowledged, by a slight courtesy, the respectful bow which they made
her. They drew up their horses as with mutual instinct, but she passed
them quickly, courtesying a second time as she did so, and, in another
moment a turn of the road concealed her from the eyes of the travellers.

“What say you to that, Warham?” demanded the senior exultingly.

“A Diana, in truth; but, uncle, we find her not among the rest. SHE is
none of your cottagers. SHE is of another world and element. She is no
Charlemonter.”

And, as he spoke, the younger traveller looked back with straining eyes
to catch another glance of the vanished object, but in vain.

“You deserve never to see a lovely woman again, Warham, for your
skepticism.”

“But I will have a second look at her, uncle, though the skies fall,”
 answered the young man, as, wheeling his horse round, he deliberately
galloped back to the bend in the avenue, by which she had been hidden
from his view.

He had scarcely reached the desired point, when he suddenly recoiled
to find the object of his pursuit standing motionless just beyond, with
eyes averted to the backward path--her glance consequently encountering
his own, the very moment when he discovered her. A deep crimson, visible
even where he stood, suffused her cheeks when she beheld him; and
without acknowledging the second bow which the traveller made, she
somewhat haughtily averted her head with a suddenness which shook her
long and raven tresses entirely free of the net-work which confined
them.

“A proud gipsy!” muttered the youth as he rode back to his uncle--“just
such a spirit as I should like to tame.” He took especial care, however,
that this sentiment did not reach the ears of his senior.

“Well?” said the latter, inquiringly, at his approach.

“I am right after all, uncle:--the wench is no better than the rest. A
heavy bulk that seemed dignified only because she is too fat for levity.
She walks like a blind plough-horse in a broken pasture, up and down,
over and over; with a gait as rigid and deliberate as if she trod
among the hot cinders, and had corns on all her toes. She took us so by
surprise that if we had not thought her beautiful we must have thought
her ugly, and the chances are equal, that, on a second meeting, we shall
both think her so. I shall, I'm certain, and you must, provided you give
your eyes the benefit, and your nose the burden of your green specs.”

“Impossible! I can scarce believe it, Warham,” replied the senior. “I
thought her very beautiful.”

“I shall never rely on your judgment again;--nay, uncle, I am almost
inclined to suspect your taste.”

“Well, let them be beautiful or ugly, still I should think the same of
the beauty of this village.”

“While the sun shines it may be tolerable; but, uncle, in wet bad
weather--it must become a mere pond, it lies so completely in the hollow
of the hills.”

“There is reason in that, Warham.”

“And yet, even as a pond, it would have its advantages--it would be
famous for duck-raising.”

“Pshaw! you are worse than a Mahometan.”

“Something of a just comparison, uncle, though scarcely aimed,” said
the other; “like Mahomet, you know, I doubt the possession of souls by
women.”

“Yet if these of Charlemont have not souls, they have no small share of
happiness on earth. I never heard more happy laughter from human lips
than from theirs. They must be happy.”

“I doubt that also,” was the reply. “See you not, uncle, that to nine or
ten women there are but three lads? Where the disproportion is so great
among the sexes, and where it is so unfavorable to the weaker, women
never can be happy. Their whole lives will be lives of turmoil,
jealousy, and pulling of caps. Nay, eyes shall not be secure under such
circumstances; and Nan's fingers shall be in Doll's hair, and Doll's
claws in Nanny's cheeks, whenever it shall so happen, that Tom Jenkins
shall incline to Nan, or John Dobbins to Doll. Such a disparity between
the sexes is one of the most fruitful causes of domestic war.”

“Warham, where do you think to go when you die?”

“Where there shall be no great inequality in the population. Believe me,
uncle, though I am sometimes disposed to think with Mahomet, and deny
the possession of souls to the sex, I also incline to believe, with
other more charitable teachers--however difficult it may be to reconcile
the two philosophies--that there will be no lack of them in either
world.”

“Hush, hush, Warham,” was the mild rebuke of the senior; “you go too
far--you are irreverent. As for this maiden, I still think her
very beautiful--of a high and noble kind of beauty. My eyes may be
bad;--indeed I am willing to admit they are none of the best; but I feel
certain that they cannot so far deceive me, when we consider how nigh we
were to her.”

“The matter deserves inquiry, uncle, if it were only to satisfy
your faith;--suppose we ride back, both of us, and see for
ourselves--closely, and with the aid of the green spectacles? Not that
I care to see farther--not that I have any doubts--but I wish you to
be convinced in this case, if only to make you sensible of the frequent
injustice to which your indulgence of judgment, subjects the critical
fastidiousness of mine. What say you; shall we wheel about?”

“Why, you are mad, surely. It is now sunset, and we have a good eight
miles before we get to Holme's Station.”

“But we can sleep in Charlemont to-night. A night in this earthly
Eden--”

“And run the risk of losing our company? Oh, no, most worthy nephew.
They will start at dawn to-morrow.”

“We can soon come up with 'em.”

“Perhaps not, and the risk is considerable. Travelling to the
Mississippi is no such small matter at any time, and, in these times
it is only with a multitude, that there is safety. The murder of old
Whiteford, is a sufficient warning not to go alone with more gold than
lead in one's pocket. We are two, it is true, but better ten than two.
You are a brave fellow enough, Warham, I doubt not; but a shot will
dispose of you, and after that I should be an easy victim. I could wink
and hold out my iron as well as the best of you, but I prefer to escape
the necessity. Let us mend our pace. We are burning daylight.”

The nephew, with an air of some impatience, which, however, escaped the
eyes of the senior, sent his horse forward by a sharp application of his
spur, though looking back the while, with a glance of reluctance, which
strongly disagreed with the sentiments which he expressed. Indeed,
with both the travellers, the impression made by the little village
of Charlemont was such that the subject seemed nowise displeasing to
either, and furnished the chief staple of conversation between them,
as they rode the remaining eight miles of their journey. The old man's
heart had been subdued and won by the sweet air of peace which seemed to
overspread and hallow the soft landscape, and the smiling cottages which
made it human. The laughing maidens with their bright eyes and cheering
accents, gave vivacity to its milder charms. We have heard from the lips
of the younger traveller, that these attractions had failed to captivate
his fancy. We may believe of this as we please. It is very probable that
he had, in considerable part, spoken nothing but the truth. He was too
much of a mocker;--one of those worldlings who derive their pleasures
from circumstances of higher conventional attraction. He had no feeling
for natural romance. His PENCHANT, was decidedly for the artificial
existence of city life; and the sneers which he had been heard
to express at the humble joys of rustic life, its tastes, and
characteristics, were, in truth, only such as he really felt. But, even
in his case, there was an evident disposition to know something more of
Charlemont. He was really willing to return. He renewed the same subject
of conversation, when it happened to flag, with obvious eagerness;
and, though his language was still studiedly disparaging, a more deeply
penetrating judgment than that of his uncle, would have seen that the
little village, slightly as he professed to esteem it, was yet an object
of thought and interest in his eyes. Of the sources of this new interest
time must inform us.

“Well, well, Warham,” at length exclaimed the uncle, in a tone that
seemed meant to close the discussion of a topic which his nephew now
appeared mischievously bent to thrust upon him, “you will return to
Kentucky in the fall. Take Charlemont in your route. Stop a week there.
It will do you no harm. Possibly you may procure some clients--may,
indeed, include it in your tour of practice--at all events, you will not
be unprofitably employed if you come to see the village and the people
with MY eyes, which, I doubt not, you will in time.”

“In time, perhaps, I may. It is well that you do not insist upon any
hurried convictions. Were I at your years uncle mine,” continued the
other irreverently, “I should no doubt see with your eyes, and possibly
feel with your desires. Then, no doubt, I shall acquire a taste for
warmingpans and nightcaps--shall look for landscapes rather than
lands--shall see nothing but innocence among the young, and resignation
and religion among the old; and fancy, in every aged pair of bumpkins
that I see, a Darby and Joan, with perpetual peace at their fireside,
though they may both happen to lie there drunk on apple-brandy. Between
caudle-cups and 'John Anderson, my Jo-John,' it is my hope to pass the
evening of my days with a tolerable grace, and leave behind me some
comely representatives, who shall take up the burden of the ditty where
I leave off. On this head be sure you shall have no cause to complain of
me. I shall be no Malthusian, as you certainly have shown yourself. It
is the strangest thing to me, uncle, that, with all your SPOKEN rapture
for the sex, you should never have thought of securing for yourself at
least one among the crowd which you so indiscriminately admire. Surely,
a gentleman of your personal attractions--attractions which seem
resolute to cling to you to the last--could not have found much
difficulty in procuring the damsel he desired! And when, too, your
enthusiasm for the sex is known, one would think it only necessary that
you should fling your handkerchief, to have it greedily grappled by
the fairest of the herd. How is it, uncle--how have you escaped from
them--from yourself?”

“Pshaw, Warham, you are a fool!” exclaimed the senior, riding forward
with increasing speed. The words were spoken good naturedly, but the
youth had touched a spot, scarcely yet thoroughly scarred over, in the
old man's bosom; and memories, not less painful because they had been
bidden so long, were instantly wakened into fresh and cruel activity.

It will not diminish the offence of the nephew in the mind of the
reader, when he is told that the youth was not ignorant of the
particular tenderness of his relative in this respect. The gentle nature
of the latter, alone, rescued him from the well-merited reproach of
suffering his habitual levity of mood to prevail in reference to one
whom even he himself was disposed to honor. But few words passed
between the two, ere they reached the place of appointment. The careless
reference of the youth had made the thoughts of the senior active at
the expense of his observation. His eyes were now turned inward; and the
landscape, and the evening sun, which streamed over and hallowed it with
a tender beauty to the last, was as completely hidden from his vision,
as if a veil had been drawn above his sight. The retrospect, indeed,
is ever the old man's landscape; and perhaps, even had he not been so
unkindly driven back to its survey, our aged traveller would have been
reminded of the past in the momently-deepening shadows which the evening
gathered around his path. Twilight is the cherished season for sad
memories, even as the midnight is supposed to be that of guilty ghosts;
and nothing, surely, can be more fitting than that the shadows of former
hopes should revisit us in those hours when the face of nature itself
seems darkening into gloom.

It was night before the wayfarers reached the appointed baiting place.
There they found their company--a sort of little caravan, such as is
frequent in the history of western emigration--already assembled, and
the supper awaiting them. Let us leave them to its enjoyment, and return
once more to the village of Charlemont.






CHAPTER III

THE STRONG-MINDED WOMAN.





The young maiden last met by our travellers, and whose appearance had
so favorably impressed them, had not been altogether uninfluenced by
the encounter. Her spirit was of a musing and perhaps somewhat moody
character, and the little adventure related in our last chapter, had
awakened in her mind a train of vague and purposeless thought, from
which she did not strive to disengage herself. She ceased to pursue the
direct path back to Charlemont, the moment she had persuaded herself
that the strangers had continued on their way; and turning from the
beaten track, she strolled aside, following the route of a brooklet, the
windings of which, as it led her forward, were completely hidden from
the intrusive glance of any casual wayfarer. The prattle of the little
stream as it wound upon its sleepless journey, contributed still more to
strengthen the musings of those vagrant fancies that filled the maiden's
thoughts.

She sat down upon the prostrate trunk of a tree, and surrendered herself
for a while to their control. Her thoughts were probably of a kind
which, to a certain extent, are commended to every maiden. Among them,
perpetually rose an image of the bold and handsome stranger, whose
impudence, in turning back in pursuit of her, was somewhat qualified by
the complimentary curiosity which such conduct manifested. Predominant
even over this image, however, was the conviction of isolation which
she felt where she was, and the still more painful conviction, that
the future was without promise. Such thoughts and apprehensions may
be natural enough to all young persons of active, earnest nature, not
permitted to perform; but in the bosom of Margaret Cooper they were
particularly so. Her mind was of a masculine and commanding character,
and was ill-satisfied with her position and prospect in Charlemont. A
quiet, obscure village, such as that we have described, held forth no
promise for a spirit so proud, impatient, and ambitious as hers. She
knew the whole extent of knowledge which it contained, and all its
acquisitions and resources--she had sounded its depths, and traced all
its shallows. The young women kept no pace with her own progress--they
were good, silly girls enough--a chattering, playful set, whom small
sports could easily satisfy, and who seemed to have no care, and scarce
a hope, beyond the hilly limits of their homestead; and as for the young
men--they were only suited to the girls, such as they were, and could
never meet the demand of such an intellect as hers.

This lofty self-estimate, which was in some sense just, necessarily gave
a tone to her language and a coloring to all her thoughts, such as
good sense and amiability should equally strive to suppress and
conceal--unless, as in the case of Margaret Cooper, the individual
herself was without due consciousness of their presence. It had the
effect of discouraging and driving from her side many a good-natured
damsel, who would have loved to condole with her, and might have been
a pleasant companion. The young women regarded her with some dislike in
consequence of her self-imposed isolation--and the young men with some
apprehension. Her very knowledge of books, which infinitely surpassed
that of all her sex within the limits of Charlemont, was also an object
of some alarm. It had been her fortune, whether well or ill may be a
question, to inherit from her father a collection, not well chosen,
upon which her mind had preyed with an appetite as insatiate as it
was undiscriminating. They had taught her many things, but among these
neither wisdom nor patience was included;--and one of the worst lessons
which she had learned, and which they had contributed in some respects
to teach, was discontent with her condition--a discontent which
saddened, if it did not embitter, her present life, while it left the
aspects of the future painfully doubtful, even to her own eye.

She was fatherless, and had been already taught some of those rude
lessons which painfully teach dependence; but such lessons, which
to most others would have brought submission, only provoked her to
resistance. Her natural impetuosity of disposition, strengthened by
her mother's idolatrous indulgence, increased the haughtiness of her
character; and when, to these influences, we add that her surviving
parent was poor, and suffered from privations which were unfelt by many
of their neighbors, it may be easily conceived that a temper and mind
such as we have described those of Margaret Cooper--ardent, commanding,
and impatient, hourly found occasion, even in the secluded village where
she dwelt, for the exercise of moods equally adverse to propriety and
happiness. Isolated from the world by circumstances, she doubly exiled
herself from its social indulgences, by the tyrannical sway of a
superior will, strengthened and stimulated by an excitable and ever
feverish blood; and, as we find her now, wandering sad and sternly by
the brookside, afar from the sports and humbler sources of happiness,
which gentler moods left open to the rest, so might she customarily be
found, at all hours, when it was not absolutely due to appearances that
she should be seen among the crowds.

We will not now seek to pursue her musings and trace them out to their
conclusions, nor will it be necessary that we should do more
than indicate their character. That they were sad and solemn as
usual--perhaps humbling--may be gathered from the fact that a big tear
might have been seen, long gathering in her eye;--the next moment she
brushed off the intruder with an impatience of gesture, that plainly
showed how much her proud spirit resented any such intrusion. The tear
dispersed the images which had filled her contemplative mood, and rising
from her sylvan seat, she prepared to move forward, when a voice calling
at some little distance, drew her attention. Giving a hasty glance
in the direction of the sound, she beheld a young man making his way
through the woods, and approaching her with rapid footsteps. His evident
desire to reach her, did not, however, prompt her to any pause in her
own progress; but, as if satisfied with the single glance which she gave
him, and indifferent utterly to his object, she continued on her way,
nor stopped for an instant, nor again looked back, until his salutation,
immediately behind her, compelled her attention and answer.

“Margaret--Miss Cooper!” said the speaker, who was a young rustic,
probably twenty or twenty-one years of age, of tall, good person,
a handsome face, which was smooth, though of dark complexion, and
lightened by an eye of more than ordinary size and intelligence. His
tones were those of one whose sensibilities were fine and active, and
it would not have called for much keen observation to have seen that his
manner, in approaching and addressing the maiden, was marked with some
little trepidation. She, on the contrary, seemed too familiar with
his homage, or too well satisfied of his inferiority, to deign much
attention to his advances. She answered his salutation coldly, and was
preparing to move forward, when his words again called for her reluctant
notice.

“I have looked for you, Margaret, full an hour. Mother sent me after you
to beg that you will come there this evening. Old Jenks has come up from
the river, and brought a store of fine things--there's a fiddle for
Ned, and Jason Lightner has a flute, and I--I have a small lot of books,
Margaret, that I think will please you.”

“I thank you, William Hinkley, and thank your mother, but I can not come
this evening.”

“But why not, Margaret?--your mother's coming--she promised for you too,
but I thought you might not get home soon enough to see her, and so I
came out to seek you.”

“I am very sorry you took so much trouble, William, for I cannot come
this evening.”

“But why not, Margaret? You have no other promise to go elsewhere have
you?”

“None,” was the indifferent reply.

“Then--but, perhaps, you are not well, Margaret?”

“I am quite well, I thank you, William Hinkley, but I don't feel like
going out this evening. I am not in the humor.”

Already, in the little village of Charlemont, Margaret Cooper was one
of the few who were permitted to indulge in humors, and William Hinkley
learned the reason assigned for her refusal, with an expression of
regret and disappointment, if not of reproach. An estoppel, which
would have been so conclusive in the case of a city courtier, was not
sufficient, however, to satisfy the more frank and direct rustic, and
he proceeded with some new suggestions, in the hope to change her
determination.

“But you'll be so lonesome at home, Margaret, when your mother's with
us. She'll be gone before you can get back, and--”

“I'm never lonesome, William, at least I'm never so well content or so
happy as when I'm alone,” was the self-satisfactory reply.

“But that's so strange, Margaret. It's so strange that you should be
different from everybody else. I often wonder at it, Margaret; for I
know none of the other girls but love to be where there's a fiddle, and
where there's pleasant company. It's so pleasant to be where everybody's
pleased; and then, Margaret, where one can talk so well as you, and of
so many subjects, it's a greater wonder still that you should not like
to be among the rest.”

“I do not, however, William,” was the answer in more softened tones.
There was something in this speech of her lover, that found its way
through the only accessible avenues of her nature. It was a truth, which
she often repeated to herself with congratulatory pride, that she had
few feelings or desires in common with the crowd.

“It is my misfortune,” she continued, “to care very little for the
pastimes you speak of; and as for the company, I've no doubt it will
be very pleasant for those who go, but to me it will afford very little
pleasure. Your mother must therefore excuse me, William:--I should be a
very dull person among the rest.”

“She will be so very sorry, Margaret--and Ned, whose new fiddle has just
come, and Jason Lightner, with his flute. They all spoke of you and
look for you above all, to hear them this evening. They will be so
disappointed.”

William Hinkley spoke nothing of his own disappointment, but it was
visible enough in his blank countenance, and sufficiently audible in the
undisguised faltering of his accents.

“I do not think they will be so much disappointed, William Hinkley.
They have no reason to be, as they have no right to look for me in
particular. I have very little acquaintance with the young men you speak
of.”

“Why, Margaret, they live alongside of you--and I'm sure you've met them
a thousand times in company,” was the response of the youth, uttered
in tones more earnest than any he had yet employed in the dialogue, and
with something of surprise in his accents.

“Perhaps so; but that makes them no intimates of mine, William Hinkley.
They may be very good young men, and, indeed, so far as I know, they
really are; but that makes no difference. We find our acquaintances and
our intimates among those who are congenial, who somewhat resemble us in
spirit, feeling, and understanding.”

“Ah, Margaret!” said her rustic companion with a sigh, which amply
testified to the humility of his own self-estimate, and of the decline
of his hope which came with it--“ah, Margaret, if that be the rule,
where are you going to find friends and intimates in Charlemont?”

“Where!” was the single word spoken by the haughty maiden, as her eye
wandered off to the cold tops of the distant hills along which the
latest rays of falling sunlight, faint and failing, as they fell,
imparted a hue, which though bright, still as it failed to warm, left an
expression of October sadness to the scene, that fitly harmonized with
the chilling mood under which she had spoken throughout the interview.

“I don't think, Margaret,” continued the lover, finding courage as he
continued, “that such a rule is a good one. I know it can't be a good
one for happiness. There's many a person that never will meet his or her
match in this world, in learning and understanding--and if they won't
look on other persons with kindness, because they are not altogether
equal to them, why there's a chance that they'll always be solitary and
sad. It's a real blessing, I believe, to have great sense, but I don't
see, that because one has great sense, that one should not think well
and kindly of those who have little, provided they be good, and are
willing to be friendly. Now, a good heart seems to be the very best
thing that nature can give us; and I know, Margaret, that there's no
two better hearts in all Charlemont--perhaps in all the world, though I
won't say that--than cousin Ned Hinkley, and Jason Lightner, and--”

“I don't deny their merits and their virtues, and their goodness of
heart, William Hinkley,” was the answer of the maiden--“I only say
that the possession of these qualities gives them no right to claim my
sympathies or affection. These claims are only founded upon congeniality
of character and mind, and without this congeniality, there can be no
proper, no lasting intimacy between persons. They no doubt, will find
friends between whom and themselves, this congeniality exists. I, on the
other hand, must be permitted to find mine, after my own ideas, and as I
best can. But if I do not--the want of them gives me no great concern. I
find company enough, and friends enough, even in these woods, to satisfy
the desires of my heart at present; I am not anxious to extend my
acquaintance or increase the number of my intimates.”

William Hinkley, who had become somewhat warmed by the argument, could
have pursued the discussion somewhat further; but the tones and manner
of his companion, to say nothing of her words, counselled him to
forbear. Still, he was not disposed altogether to give up his attempts
to secure her presence for the evening party.

“But if you don't come for the company, Margaret, recollect the music.
Even if Ned Hinkley was a perfect fool, which he is not, and Jason
Lightner were no better,--nobody can say that they are not good
musicians. Old Squire Bee says there's not in all Kentucky a better
violinist than Ned, and Jason's flute is the sweetest sound that ear
ever listened to along these hills. If you don't care anything for the
players, Margaret, I'm sure you can't be indifferent to their music; and
I know they are anything but indifferent to what you may think about
it. They will play ten times as well if you are there; and I'm sure,
Margaret, I shall be the last”--here the tone of the speaker's voice
audibly faltered--“I shall be the very last to think it sweet if you are
not there.”

But the words and faltering accents of the lover equally failed in
subduing the inflexible, perverse mood of the haughty maiden. Her cold
denial was repeated; and with looks that did not fail to speak the
disappointment of William Hinkley, he attended her back to the village.
Their progress was marked by coldness on the one hand, and decided
sadness on the other. The conversation was carried on in monosyllables
only, on the part of Margaret, while timidity and a painful hesitancy
marked the language of her attendant. But a single passage may be
remembered of all that was said between the two, ere they separated at
the door of the widow Cooper.

“Did you see the two strangers, Margaret, that passed through Charlemont
this afternoon?”

The cheeks of the maiden became instantly flushed, and the rapid
utterance of her reply in the affirmative, denoted an emotion which the
jealous instincts of the lover readily perceived. A cold chill, on the
instant, pervaded the veins of the youth; and that night he did not
hear, any more than Margaret Cooper, the music of his friends. He was
present all the time and he answered their inquiries as usual; but his
thoughts were very far distant, and somehow or other, they perpetually
mingled up the image of the young traveller, whom he too had seen, with
that of the proud woman, whom he was not yet sure that he unprofitably
worshipped.






CHAPTER IV.

SIMPLICITY AND THE SERPENT.





The mirth and music of Charlemont were enjoyed by others, but not by
Margaret Cooper. The resolution not to share in the pleasures of the
young around her, which she showed to her rustic lover, was a resolution
firmly persevered in throughout the long summer which followed. Her
wayward mood shut out from her contemplation the only sunshine of the
place; and her heart, brooding over the remote, if not the impossible,
denied itself those joys which were equally available and nigh. Her
lonesome walks became longer in the forests, and later each evening grew
the hour of her return to the village. Her solitude daily increased, as
the youth, who really loved her with all the ardency of a first passion,
and who regarded her at the same time with no little veneration for
those superior gifts of mind and education which, it was the general
conviction in Charlemont, that she possessed, became, at length,
discouraged in a pursuit which hitherto had found nothing but coldness
and repulse. Not that he ceased to love--nay, he did not cease entirely
to hope. What lover ever did? He fondly ascribed to the object of his
affections a waywardness of humor, which he fancied would pass away
after a season, and leave her mind to the influence of a more sober
and wholesome judgment. Perhaps, too, like many other youth in like
circumstances, he did not always see or feel the caprice of which he was
the victim. But for this fortunate blindness, many a fair damsel would
lose her conquest quite as suddenly as it was made.

But the summer passed away, and the forest put on the sere and sombre
robes of autumn, and yet no visible change--none at least more favorable
to the wishes of William Hinkley--took place in the character and
conduct of the maiden. Her mind, on the contrary, seemed to take
something of its hue from the cold sad tones of the forest. The serious
depth of expression in her dark eyes seemed to deepen yet more, and
become yet more concentrated--their glance acquired a yet keener
intentness--an inflexibility of direction--which suffered them seldom
to turn aside from those moody contemplations, which had made her, for
a long time, infinitely prefer to gaze upon the rocks, and woods, and
waters, than upon the warm and wooing features of humanity.

At distance the youth watched and sometimes followed her, and when, with
occasional boldness, he would draw nigh to her secret wanderings, a cold
fear filled his heart, and he shrunk back with all the doubt and dread
of some guilty trespasser. But his doubt, and we may add, his dread
also, was soon to cease entirely, in the complete conviction of his
hopelessness. The day and the fate were approaching, in the person of
one, to whom a natural instinct had already taught him to look with
apprehension, and whose very first appearance had inspired him with
antipathy.

What a strange prescience, in some respects, has the devoted and
watchful heart that loves! William Hinkley, had seen but for a single
instant, the face of that young traveller, who has already been
introduced to us, and that instant was enough to awaken his
dislike--nay, more, his hostility. Yet no villager in Charlemont but
would have told you, that, of all the village, William Hinkley was
the most gentle, the most generous--the very last to be moved by bad
passions, by jealousy or hate.

The youth whom we have seen going down with his uncle to the great
valley of the Mississippi, was now upon his return. He was now
unaccompanied by the benignant senior with whom we first made his
acquaintance. He had simply attended the old bachelor, from whom he had
considerable expectations, to his plantation, in requital of the spring
visit which the latter had paid to his relatives in Kentucky; and having
spent the summer in the southwest, was about to resume his residence,
and the profession of the law, in that state. We have seen that, however
he might have succeeded in disguising his true feelings from his uncle,
he was not unmoved by the encounter with Margaret Cooper, on the edge
of the village. He now remembered the casual suggestion of the senior,
which concluded their discussion on the subject of her beauty; and he
resolved to go aside from his direct path, and take Charlemont in the
route of his return. Not that he himself needed a second glance to
convince him of that loveliness which, in his wilfulness, he yet denied.
He was free to acknowledge to himself that Margaret Cooper was one of
the noblest and most impressive beauties he had ever seen. The very
scorn that spoke in all her features, the imperious fires that kindled
in her eyes, were better calculated than any more gentle expressions, to
impose upon one who was apt to be skeptical on the subject of ordinary
beauties. The confidence and consciousness of superiority, which too
plainly spoke out in the features of Margaret, seemed to deny to his
mind the privilege of doubting or discussing her charms--a privilege
upon which no one could have been more apt to insist than himself. This
seeming denial, while it suggested to him ideas of novelty, provoked
his curiosity and kindled his pride. The haughty glance with which she
encountered his second approach, aroused his vanity, and a latent desire
arose in his heart, to overcome one who had shown herself so premature
in her defiance. We will not venture to assert that the young traveller
had formed any very deliberate designs of conquest, but, it may be
said, as well here as elsewhere, that his self-esteem was great; and
accustomed to easy conquests among the sex, in the region where he
dwelt, it was only necessary to inflame his vanity, to stimulate him to
the exercise of all his arts.

It was about noon, on one of those bright, balmy days, early in October,
when “the bridal of the earth and sky,” in the language of the good
old Herbert, is going on--when, the summer heats subdued, there is
yet nothing either cold, or repulsive in the atmosphere; and the soft
breathing from the southwest has just power enough to stir the flowers
and disperse their scents; that our young traveller was joined in
his progress towards Charlemont, by a person mounted like himself and
pursuing a similar direction.

At the first glance the youth distinguished him as one of the homely
forest preachers of the methodist persuasion, who are the chief agents
and pioneers of religion in most of the western woods. His plain,
unstudied garments all of black, rigid and unfashionable; his pale,
demure features, and the general humility of his air and gesture, left
our young skeptic little reason to doubt of this; and when the other
expressed his satisfaction at meeting with a companion at last, after a
long and weary ride without one, the tone of his expressions, the use of
biblical phraseology, and the monotonous solemnity of his tones, reduced
the doubts of the youth to absolute certainty. At first, with the
habitual levity of the young and skeptical, he congratulated himself
upon an encounter which promised to afford him a good subject for
quizzing; but a moment's reflection counselled him to a more worldly
policy, and he restrained his natural impulse in order that he might
first sound the depths of the preacher, and learn in what respect he
might be made subservient to his own purposes. He had already learned
from the latter that he was on his way to Charlemont, of which place he
seemed to have some knowledge; and the youth, in an instant, conceived
the possibility of making him useful in procuring for himself a
favorable introduction to the place. With this thought, he assumed the
grave aspect and deliberate enunciation of his companion, expressed
himself equally gratified to meet with a person who, if he did not much
mistake, was a divine, and concluded his address by the utterance of one
of those pious commonplaces which are of sufficiently easy acquisition,
and which at once secured him the unscrupulous confidence of his
companion.

“Truly, it gladdens me, sir,” said the holy man in reply, “to meet with
one, as a fellow-traveller in these lonesome ways, who hath a knowledge
of God's grace and the blessings which he daily sheddeth, even as the
falling of the dews, upon a benighted land. It is my lot, and I repine
not that such it is, to be for ever a wayfarer, in the desert where
there are but few fountains to refresh the spirit. When I say desert,
young gentleman, I speak not in the literal language of the world,
for truly it were a most sinful denial of God's bounty were I to say,
looking round upon the mighty forests through which I pass, and upon the
rich soil over which I travel, that my way lies not through a country
covered, thrice covered, with the best worldly bounties of the Lord. But
it is a moral desert which my speech would signify. The soul of man is
here lacking the blessed fountains of the truth--the mind of man here
lacketh the holy and joy-shedding lights of the spirit; and it rejoiceth
me, therefore, when I meet with one, like thyself, in whose language I
find a proof that thou hast neither heard the word with idle ears, nor
treasured it in thy memory with unapplying mind. May I ask of thee, my
young friend, who thou art, and by what name I shall call thee?--not for
the satisfaction of an idle curiosity, to know either thy profession
or thy private concerns, but that I may the better speak to thee in
our conference hereafter, Thou hast rightly conjectured as to my
calling--and my own name, which is one unknown to most even in these
forests, is John Cross--I come of a family in North Carolina, which
still abide in that state, by the waters of the river Haw. Perhaps, if
thou hast ever travelled in those parts, thou hast happened upon some of
my kindred, which are very numerous.”

“I have never, reverend sir, travelled in those parts,” said the youth,
with commendable gravity, “but I have heard of the Cross family, which I
believe, as you say, to be very numerous--both male and female.”

“Yea, I have brothers and sisters an equal number; I have aunts and
uncles a store, and it has been the blessing of God so to multiply and
increase every member thereof, that each of my brothers, in turn, hath
a goodly flock, in testimony of his favors. I, alone, of all my kindred,
have neither wife nor child, and I seem as one set apart for other ties,
and other purposes.”

“Ah, sir,” returned the other, quickly, and with a slyness of expression
which escaped the direct and unsuspecting mind of the preacher, “but if
you are denied the blessings which are theirs, you have your part in the
great family of the world. If you have neither wife nor child of your
own loins, yet, I trust, you have an abiding interest in the wives and
children of all other men.”

“I were but an unworthy teacher of the blessed word, had I not,” was the
simple answer. “Verily, all that I teach are my children; there is not
one crying to me for help, to whom I do not hasten with the speed of a
father flying to bring succor to his young. I trust in God, that I have
not made a difference between them; that I heed not one to the forfeit
or suffering of the other; and for this impartial spirit toward the
flock intrusted to my charge, do I pray, as well as for the needful
strength of body and soul, through which my duties are to be done. But
thou hast not yet spoken thy name, or my ears have failed to receive
it.”

There was some little hesitation on the part of the youth before he
answered this second application; and a less unheeding observer than his
fellow-traveller, might have noticed an increasing warmth of hue upon
his cheek, while he was uttering his reply:--

“I am called Alfred Stevens,” he replied at length, the color increasing
upon his cheek even after the words were spoken. But they were spoken.
The falsehood was registered against him beyond recall, though, of
course, without startling the doubts or suspicions of his companion.

“Alfred Stevens; there are many Stevenses: I have known several and
sundry. There is a worthy family of that name by the waters of the Dan.”

“You will find them, I suspect, from Dan to Beersheba,” responded the
youth with a resumption of his former levity.

“Truly, it may be so. The name is of good repute. But what is thy
calling, Alfred Stevens? Methinks at thy age thou shouldst have one.”

“So I have, reverend sir,” replied the other; “my calling heretofore has
been that of the law. But it likes me not, and I think soon to give it
up.”

“Thou wilt take to some other then. What other hast thou chosen; or art
thou like those unhappy youths, by far too many in our blessed country,
whom fortune hath hurt by her gifts, and beguiled into idleness and
sloth?”

“Nay, not so, reverend sir; the gifts of fortune have been somewhat
sparing in my case, and I am even now conferring with my own thoughts
whether or not to take to school-keeping. Nay, perhaps, I should incline
to something better, if I could succeed in persuading myself of my own
worthiness in a vocation which, more than all others, demands a pure
mind with a becoming zeal. The law consorts not with my desires--it
teaches selfishness, rather than self-denial; and I have already found
that some of its duties demand the blindness and the silence of that
best teacher from within, the watchful and unsleeping conscience.”

“Thou hast said rightly, Alfred Stevens; I have long thought that the
profession of the law hardeneth the heart, and blindeth the conscience.
Thou wilt do well to leave it, as a craft that leads to sin, and makes
the exercise of sin a duty; and if, as I rightly understand thee, thou
lookest to the gospel as that higher vocation for which thy spirit
yearneth, then would I say to thee, arise, and gird up thy loins;
advance and falter not;--the field is open, and though the victory
brings thee no worldly profit, and but little worldly honor, yet the
reward is eternal, and the interest thereof, unlike the money which thou
puttest out to usury in the hands of men, never fails to be paid, at the
very hour of its due, from the unfailing treasury of Heaven. Verily, I
rejoice, Alfred Stevens, that I have met with thee to-day. I had feared
that the day had been lost to that goodly labor, to which all my days
have been given for seventeen years, come the first sabbath in the next
November. But what thou hast said, awakens hope in my soul that such
will not be the case. Let not my counsels fail thee, Alfred;--let thy
zeal warm; let thy spirit work within thee, and thy words kindle, in the
service of the Lord. How it will rejoice me to see thee taking up
the scrip and the staff and setting forth for the wildernesses of the
Mississippi, of Arkansas, and Texas, far beyond;--bringing the wild man
of the frontier, and the red savage, into the blessed fold and constant
company of the Lord Jesus, to whom all praise!”

“It were indeed a glorious service,” responded the young stranger--whom
we shall proceed, hereafter, to designate by the name by which he
has called himself. He spoke musingly, and with a gravity that was
singularly inflexible--“it were indeed a glorious service. Let me see,
there were thousands of miles to traverse before one might reach the
lower Arkansas; and I reckon, Mr. Cross, the roads are mighty bad after
you pass the Mississippi--nay, even in the Mississippi, through a part
of which territory I have gone only this last summer, there is a sad
want of causeways, and the bridges are exceedingly out of repair. There
is one section of near a hundred miles, which lies between the bluffs
of Ashibiloxi, and the far creek of Catahoula, that was a shame and
reproach to the country and the people thereof. What, then, must be
the condition of the Texas territory, beyond? and, if I err not, the
Cumanchees are a race rather given to destroy than to build up. The
chance is that the traveller in their country might have to swim his
horse over most of the watercourses, and where he found a bridge, it
were perhaps a perilous risk to cross it. Even then he might ride fifty
miles a day, before he should see the smokes which would be a sign of
supper that night.”

“The greater the glory--the greater the glory, Alfred Stevens. The toil
and the peril, the pain and the privation, in a good cause, increase
the merit of the performance in the eyes of the Lord. What matters the
roads and the bridges, the length of the way, or the sometimes lack of
those comforts of the flesh, which are craved only at the expense of the
spirit, and to the great delay of our day of conquest. These wants are
the infirmities of the human, which dissipate and disappear, the more
few they become, and the less pressing in their complaint. Shake thyself
loose from them, Alfred Stevens, and thy way henceforth is perfect
freedom.”

“Alas! this is my very weakness, Mr. Cross:--it was because of these
very infirmities, that I had doubt of my own worthiness to take up the
better vocation which is yet my desire. I am sadly given to hunger and
thirst toward noon and evening; and the travel of a long day makes me so
weary at night, that I should say but a hurried grace before meal, and
make an even more hurried supper after it. Nay, I have not yet been able
to divest myself of a habit which I acquired in my boyhood; and I need
at times, throughout the day, a mouthful of something stronger than mere
animal food, to sustain the fainting and feeble flesh and keep my frame
from utter exhaustion. I dare not go upon the road, even for the brief
journey of a single day, without providing myself beforehand with a
supply of a certain beverage, such as is even now contained within this
vessel, and which is infallible against sinking of the the spirits,
faintings of the frame, disordered nerves, and even against flatulence
and indigestion. If, at any time, thou shouldst suffer from one or
the other of these infirmities, Mr. Cross, be sure there is no better
medicine for their cure than this.”

The speaker drew from his bosom a little flask, such as is sufficiently
well known to most western travellers, which he held on high, and which,
to the unsuspecting eyes of the preacher, contained a couple of gills or
more of a liquid of very innocent complexion.

“Verily, Alfred Stevens, I do myself suffer from some of the weaknesses
of which thou hast spoken. The sinking of the spirits, and the faintness
of the frame, are but too often the enemies that keep me back from the
plough when I would thereto set my hand; and that same flatulence--”

“A most frequent disorder in a region where greens and collards form the
largest dishes on the tables of the people,” interrupted Stevens, but
without changing a muscle of his countenance.

“I do believe as thou say'st, Alfred Stevens, that the disorder comes in
great part from that cause, though, still, I have my doubts if it be not
a sort of wind-melancholy, to which people, who preach aloud are greatly
subject. It is in my case almost always associated with a sort of
hoarseness, and the nerves of my frame twitch grievously at the same
periods. If this medicine of thine be sovereign against so cruel an
affliction, I would crave of thee such knowledge as would enable me to
get a large supply of it, that I may overcome a weakness, which, as I
tell thee, oftentimes impairs my ministry, and sometimes makes me wholly
incapable of fervent preaching. Let me smell of it, I pray thee.”

“Nay, taste of it, sir--it is just about the time when I find it
beneficial to partake of it, as a medicine for my own weakness, and
I doubt not, it will have a powerful effect also upon you. A single
draught has been found to relieve the worst case of flatulence and
colic.”

“From colic too, I am also a great sufferer,” said the preacher as he
took the flask in his hand, and proceeded to draw the stopper.

“That is also the child of collards,” said Stevens, as he watched with
a quiet and unmoved countenance the proceedings of his simple companion,
who finding some difficulty in drawing the cork, handed it back to the
youth. The latter, more practised, was more successful, and now returned
the open bottle to the preacher.

“Take from it first, the dose which relieves thee, Alfred Stevens,
that I may know how much will avail in my own case;” and he watched
curiously, while Stevens, applying the flask to his lips, drew from it
a draught, which, in western experience of benefits, would have been
accounted a very moderate potion. This done, he handed it back to his
companion, who, about to follow his example, asked him:--

“And by what name, Alfred Stevens, do they call this medicine, the
goodly effect of which thou holdst to be so great?”

Stevens did not immediately reply--not until the preacher had applied
the bottle to his mouth, and he could see by the distension of his
throat, that he had imbibed a taste, at least, of the highly-lauded
medicine. The utterance then, of the single word--“Brandy”--was
productive of an effect no less ludicrous in the sight of the youth,
than it was distressing to the mind of his worthy companion. The
descending liquor was ejected with desperate effort from the throat
which it had fairly entered--the flask flung from his hands--and with
choking and gurgling accents, startling eyes, and reddening visage, John
Cross turned full upon his fellow-traveller, vainly trying to repeat,
with the accompanying horror of expression which he felt, the single
spellword, which had produced an effect so powerful.

“Bran--bran--brandy!--Alfred Stevens!--thou hast given me poison--the
soul's poison--the devil's liquor--liquor distilled in the vessels of
eternal sin. Wherefore hast thou done this? Dost thou not know”--

“Know--know what, Mr. Cross?” replied Stevens, with all the astonishment
which he could possibly throw into his air, as he descended from his
horse with all haste to recover his flask, and save its remaining
contents from loss.

“Call me not mister--call me plain John Cross,” replied the preacher--in
the midst of a second fit of choking, the result of his vain effort to
disgorge that portion of the pernicious liquid which had irretrievably
descended into his bowels. With a surprise admirably affected, Stevens
approached him.

“My dear sir--what troubles you?--what can be the matter? What have I
done? What is it you fear?”

“That infernal draught--that liquor--I have swallowed of it a mouthful.
I feel it in me. The sin be upon thy head, Alfred Stevens--why did you
not tell me, before I drank, that it was the soul's poison?--the poison
that slays more than the sword or the pestilence;--the liquor of the
devil, distilled in the vessels of sin--and sent among men for the
destruction of the soul! I feel it now within me, and it burns--it burns
like the fires of damnation. Is there no water nigh that I may quench
my thirst?--Show me, Alfred Stevens, show me where the cool waters lie,
that I may put out these raging flames.”

“There is a branch, if I mistake not, just above us on the road--I think
I see it glistening among the leaves. Let us ride toward it, sir, and it
will relieve you.”

“Ah, Alfred Stevens, why have you served me thus? Why did you not tell
me?”

Repeated groans accompanied this apostrophe, and marked every step in
the progress of the preacher to the little rivulet which trickled across
the road. John Cross, descended with the rapidity of one whose hope
hangs upon a minute, and dreads its loss, as equal to the loss of life.
He straddled the stream and thrust his lips into the water, drawing up
a quantity sufficient, in the estimation of Stevens, to have effectually
neutralized the entire contents of his flask.

“Blessed water! Blessed water! Holiest beverage! Thou art the creation
of the Lord, and, next to the waters of eternal life, his best gift to
undiscerning man. I drink of thee, and I am faint no longer. I rise up,
strong and refreshed! Ah, my young friend, Alfred Stevens, I trust thou
didst not mean me harm in giving me that poisonous liquor?”

“Far from it, sir, I rather thought to do you a great benefit.”

“How couldst thou think to do me benefit by proffering such poison to my
lips? nay, wherefore dost thou thyself carry it with thee, and why dost
thou drink of it, as if it were something not hurtful as well to the
body as the soul? Take my counsel, I pray thee, Alfred Stevens, and cast
it behind thee for ever. Look not after it when thou dost so, with an
eye of regret lest thou forfeit the merit of thy self-denial. If thou
wouldst pursue the higher vocation of the brethren, thou must seek for
the needful strength from a better and purer spirit. But what unhappy
teacher could have persuaded thee to an indulgence which the good men of
all the churches agree to regard as so deadly?”

“Nay, Mr. Cross--”

“John Cross, I pray thee; do I not call thee Alfred Stevens?--Mr. is a
speech of worldly fashion, and becomes not one who should put the world
and its fashions behind him.”

Stevens found it more difficult to comply with this one requisition of
the preacher, than to pursue a long game of artful and complex scheming.
He evaded the difficulty by dropping the name entirely.

“You are too severe upon brandy, and upon those who use it. Nay, I am
not sure, but you do injustice to those who make it. So far from its
manufacturers being such as you call them, we have unquestionable proof
that they are very worthy people of a distant but a Christian country;
and surely you will not deny that we should find a medicine for our
hurts, and a remedy for our complaints, in a liquor which, perhaps, it
might be sinful to use as an ordinary beverage. Doctors, who have the
care of human life, and whose business and desire it is to preserve it,
nevertheless do sometimes administer poisons to their patients, which
poisons, though deadly at other times, will, in certain diseases and
certain conditions of disease, prove of only and great good.”

“Impossible! I believe it not! I believe not in the good of brandy. It
is hurtful--it is deadly. It has slain its thousands and its tens of
thousands--it is worse than the sword and the summer pestilence. Many a
man have I known to perish from strong drink. In my own parts, upon the
river Haw, in North Carolina state, I have known many. Nay, wherefore
should I spare the truth, Alfred Stevens?--the very father of my own
life, Ezekiel Cross, perished miserably from this burning water of sin.
I will not hear thee speak of it again; and if thou wouldst have me
think of thee with favor, as one hopeful of the service of the brethren,
cast the accursed beverage of Satan from thy hands.”

The youth, without a word, deliberately emptied the contents of his
vessel upon the sands, and the garrulous lips of the preacher poured
forth as great a flood of speech in congratulation, as he had hitherto
bestowed in homily. The good, unsuspecting man, did not perceive that
the liquor thus thrown away, was very small in quantity, and that his
companion, when the flask was emptied, quietly restored it to his bosom.
John Cross had obtained a seeming victory, and did not care to examine
its details.






CHAPTER V.

THE SERPENT IN THE GARDEN.





The concession made by Stevens, and which had produced an effect so
gratifying upon his companion, was one that involved no sacrifices.
The animal appetite of the young lawyer was, in truth, comparatively
speaking, indifferent to the commodity which he discarded; and even
had it been otherwise, still he was one of those selfish, cool and
calculating persons, who seem by nature to be perfectly able to subdue
the claims of the blood, with great ease, whenever any human or social
policy would appear to render it advisable. The greatest concession
which he made in the transaction, was in his so readily subscribing to
that false logic of the day, which reasons against the use of the gifts
of Providence, because a diseased moral, and a failing education, among
men, sometimes result in their abuse.

The imperfections of a mode of reasoning so utterly illogical, were
as obvious to the mind of the young lawyer as to anybody else; and
the compliance which he exhibited to a requisition which his own sense
readily assured him was as foolish as it was presumptuous, was as
degrading to his moral character from the hypocrisy which it declared,
as it was happy in reference to the small policy by which he had been
governed. The unsuspecting preacher did not perceive the scornful sneer
which curled his lips and flashed his eyes, by which his own vanity
still asserted itself through the whole proceeding; or he would not have
been so sure that the mantle of grace which he deemed to have surely
fallen upon the shoulders of his companion, was sufficiently large and
sound, to cover the multitude of sins which it yet enabled the wearer,
so far, to conceal. Regarding him with all the favor which one is apt to
feel for the person whom he has plucked as a brand from the burning, the
soul of John Cross warmed to the young sinner; and it required no great
effort of the wily Stevens to win from him the history, not only of all
its own secrets and secret hopes--for these were of but small value in
the eyes of the worldling--but of all those matters which belonged to
the little village to which they were trending, and the unwritten lives
of every dweller in that happy community.

With all the adroit and circumspect art of the lawyer, sifting the
testimony of the unconscious witness, and worming from his custody those
minor details which seem to the uninitiated so perfectly unimportant to
the great matter immediately in hand--Stevens now propounded his direct
inquiry, and now dropped his seemingly unconsidered insinuation, by
which he drew from the preacher as much as he cared to know of the
rustic lads and lasses of Charlemont. It does not concern our narrative
to render the details thus unfolded to the stranger. And we will content
ourselves, as did the younger of the travellers, who placed himself with
hearty good will at the disposal of the holy man.

“You shall find for me a place of lodging, Mr. Cross, while it shall
suit me to stay in Charlemont. You have a knowledge of the people, and
of the world, which I possess not; and it will be better that I should
give myself up to your guidance. I know that you will not bring me to
the dwelling of persons not in good repute; and, perhaps, I need not
remind you that my worldly means are small--I must be at little charge
wherever I stop.”

“Ah, Brother Stevens, worldly goods and worldly wealth are no more
needed in Charlemont, than they are necessary to the service of the
blessed Redeemer. With an empty scrip is thy service blest;--God
sees the pure heart through the threadbare garment. I have friends in
Charlemont who will be too happy to receive thee in the name of the
Lord, without money and without price.”

The pride of Stevens, which had not shrunk from hypocrisy and falsehood,
yet recoiled at a suggestion which involved the idea of his pecuniary
dependence upon strangers, and he replied accordingly; though he still
disguised his objections under the precious appearance of a becoming
moral scruple.

“It will not become me, Mr. Cross, to burden the brethren of the church
for that hospitality which is only due to brethren.”

“But thou art in the way of grace--the light is shining upon thee--the
door is open, and already the voice of the Bridegroom is calling from
within. Thou wilt become a burning and a shining light--and the brethren
of the church will rejoice to hail thee among its chosen. Shall they
hold back their hand when thou art even on the threshold?”

“But, Mr. Cross--”

“Call me not Mr., I pray thee. Call me plain John Cross, if it please
thee not yet to apply to me that sweeter term of loving kindness which
the flock of God are happy to use in speech one to another. If thou wilt
call me Brother Cross, my heart shall acknowledge the bonds between us,
and my tongue shall make answer to thine, in like fashion. Oh, Alfred
Stevens, may the light shine soon upon thine eyes, that thou may'st know
for a truth how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in the
peace of of the Lord, and according to his law. I will, with God's
grace, bring thee to this perfect knowledge, for I see the way clear
because of the humility which thou hast already shown, and thy yielding
to the counsels of the teacher. As for what thou sayest about charges to
the brethren, let that give thee no concern. Thou shalt lodge with old
Brother Hinkley, who is the pattern of good things and of, holiness
in Charlemont. His house is more like unto the tent of the patriarch
pitched upon the plain, than the house of the dweller among the cities.
No lock fastens its doors against the stranger; and the heart of the
aged man is even more open than the doorway of his dwelling. He standeth
in the entrance like one looking out for him that cometh, and his first
word to the messenger of God, is 'welcome!' Thou shalt soon see the
truth of what I say to thee, for even now do we look down upon his house
in the very midst of the village.”

If the scruples of Stevens still continued to urge him against
accepting the hospitality of the old patriarch of whom he had received
a description at once just and agreeable, the recollection of the
village-maiden whom he had gone aside from his direct path of travel,
and made some even greater departures from the truth, to see, determined
him at length to waive them; particularly when he ascertained from his
fellow-traveller that he knew of nobody in Charlemont who accommodated
strangers for money.

Stevens was one of those persons who watch the progress of events, and
he resolved, with a mental reservation--that seems strange enough in the
case of one who had shown so little reluctance to say and do the thing
which he could not maintain or defend--to avail himself of some means
for requiting, to the uttermost farthing, the landlord, to whose
hospitality he might be indebted during his stay in Charlemont.

Such are the contradictions of character which hourly detect and
describe the mere worldling--the man lacking in all principle, but that
which is subservient to his selfish policy. To accept money or money's
worth from a stranger, seemed mean and humbling to one, who did not
hesitate, in the promotion of a scheme, which, had treachery for its
object, to clothe himself in the garments of deception, and to make
his appearance with a lie festering upon his lips. That evening, Alfred
Stevens became, with his worthier companion, an inmate of the happy
dwelling of William Hinkley, the elder--a venerable, white-headed
father, whose whole life had made him worthy of a far higher eulogium
than that which John Cross had pronounced upon him.

The delight of the family to see their reverend teacher was heartfelt
and unreserved. A vigorous gripe of the hand, by the elder dragged him
into the house, and a sentence of unusual length, from his better half,
assured him of that welcome which the blunter action of her venerable
husband had already sufficiently declared. Nor was the young adventurer
who accompanied the preacher, suffered to remain long unconsidered. When
John Cross had told them who he was, or rather when he had declared
his spiritual hopes in him--which he did with wonderful unction, in a
breath--the reception of old Hinkley, which had been hospitable enough
before, became warm and benignant; and Brother Stevens already became
the word of salutation, whenever the old people desired to distinguish
their younger guest.

Brother Stevens, it may be said here, found no difficulty in maintaining
the character he had assumed. He had, in high degree, the great art
of the selfish man, and could, when his game required it, subdue with
little effort, those emotions and impulses, which the frank and ardent
spirit must speak out or die. He went into the house of the hospitable
old man, and into the village of Charlemont, as if he had gone into the
camp of an enemy. He was, indeed, a spy, seeking to discover, not the
poverty, but the richness of the land. His mind, therefore, was like one
who has clothed himself in armor, placed himself in waiting for the foe,
and set all his sentinels on the watch. His caution measured every word
ere it was spoken, every look ere it was shown, every movement ere he
suffered his limbs to make it. The muscles of his face, were each put
under curb and chain--the smiles of the lip and the glances of the eyes,
were all subdued to precision, and permitted to go forth, only under
special guard and restriction. In tone, look, and manner, he strove as
nearly as he might to resemble the worthy but simple-minded man, who had
so readily found a worthy adherent and pupil in him; and his efforts
at deception might be held to be sufficiently successful, if the frank
confiding faith of the aged heads of the Hinkley family be the fitting
test of his experiment.

With them he was soon perfectly at home--his own carriage seemed to them
wondrously becoming, and the approbation of John Cross was of itself
conclusive. The preacher was the oracle of the family, all of whom were
only too happy of his favor not to make large efforts to be pleased
with those he brought; and in a little while, sitting about the friendly
fireside, the whole party had become as sociable as if they had been
“hail fellow! well met,” a thousand years. Two young girls, children
of a relative, and nieces of the venerable elder, had already perched
themselves upon the knee of the stranger, and strove at moments over his
neck and shoulder, without heeding the occasional sugary reproof of
Dame Hinkley, which bade them “let Brother Stevens be;” and, already had
Brother Stevens himself, ventured upon the use of sundry grave saws
from the holy volume, the fruit of early reading and a retentive memory,
which not a little helped to maintain his novel pretensions in the mind
of the brethren, and the worthy teacher, John Cross himself. All things
promised a long duration to a friendship suddenly begun; when William
Hinkley, the younger, a youth already introduced to the reader, made his
appearance within the happy circle. He wore a different aspect from all
the rest as he recognised in the person of Brother Stevens, the handsome
stranger, his antipathy to whom, at a first glance, months before,
seemed almost to have the character of a warning instinct. A nearer
glance did not serve to lessen his hostility.

Our traveller was to the eye of a lover, one, indeed, who promised
dangerous rivalship, and an intrepid air of confidence which, even his
assumed character could not enable him to disguise from the searching
eyes of jealousy, contributed to strengthen the dislike of the youth
for a person who seemed so perfectly sure of his ground. Still, William
Hinkley behaved as a civil and well-bred youth might be expected
to behave. He did not suffer his antipathy to put on the aspect of
rudeness; he was grave and cold, but respectful; and though he did
not “be-brother” the stranger, he yet studiously subdued his tones to
mildness, when it became necessary, in the course of the evening meal,
that he should address him. Few words, however, were exchanged between
the parties. If Hinkley beheld an enemy to his heart's hopes in Stevens,
the latter was sufficiently well-read in the human heart to discover
quite as soon, that the rustic was prepared to see in himself any
character but that of a friend. The unwillingness with which Hinkley
heard his suggestions--the absence of all freedom and ease in his
deportment, toward himself, so different from the manner of the youth
when speaking or listening to all other persons; the occasional gleam
of jealous inquiry and doubt within his eye, and the utter lack of all
enthusiasm and warmth in his tones while he spoke to him, satisfied
Stevens, that he, of all the household of his hospitable entertainers,
if not actually suspicious of his true character, was the one whose
suspicions were those most easily to be awakened, and who of all others,
needed most to be guarded against. It will not increase our estimate
of the wisdom of the stranger, to learn that, with this conviction, he
should yet arrogate to himself a tone of superiority, while speaking in
hearing of the youth.

This was shown in a manner that was particularly galling to a
high-spirited youth, and one whose prejudices were already awakened
against the speaker. It was that of a paternal and patronizing senior,
whose very gentleness and benignity of look and accent, seem to arise
from a full conviction of the vast difference which exists between
himself and his hearer. An indignity like this, which can not be
resented, is one which the young mind feels always most anxious to
resent. The very difficulties in the way of doing so, stimulates the
desire. Such was the feeling of William Hinkley. With such a feeling it
may be conjectured that opportunity was not long wanting, or might soon
be made, for giving utterance to the suppressed fires of anger which
were struggling in his heart. Days and weeks may elapse, but the
antipathy will declare itself at last. It would be easier to lock up the
mountain torrent after the breath of the tornado has torn away its rocky
seals, than to stifle in the heart that hates, because of its love, the
fierce fury which these united passions enkindle within it.

In the first hour of their first interview, William Hinkley and Alfred
Stevens felt that they were mutual foes. In that little space of time,
the former had but one thought, which, though it changed its aspect with
each progressive moment, never for an instant changed its character. He
panted with the hope of redressing himself for wrongs which he could not
name; for injuries and indignities which he knew not how to describe.
Stevens had neither done nor said anything which might be construed into
an offence. And yet, nobody knew better than Stevens that he had been
offensive. The worthy John Cross, in the simplicity of his nature, never
dreamed of this, but, on the contrary, when our adventurer dilated
in the fatherly manner already adverted to, be looked upon himself as
particularly favored of Heaven, in falling upon a youth, as a pupil, of
such unctuous moral delivery.

“Surely,” he mused internally, “this is a becoming instrument which I
have found, for the prosecution of the good work. He will bear the word
like one sent forth to conquer. He will bind and loose with a strong
hand. He will work wondrous things!”

Not unlike these were the calculations of old Hinkley, as he hearkened
to the reverend reasonings and the solemn commonplaces of the stranger.
Stevens, like most recent converts, was the most uncompromising enemy of
those sins from which he professed to have achieved with difficulty his
own narrow escape; and finding, from the attentive ear of his audience,
that he had made a favorable impression, he proceeded to manufacture for
them his religious experience; an art which his general information, and
knowledge of the world enabled him to perform without much difficulty.

But the puritan declamation which pleased all the rest, disgusted young
Hinkley, and increased his dislike for the declaimer. There was too much
of the worldling in the looks, dress, air, and manner of Stevens, to
satisfy the rustic of his sincerity. Something of his doubts had their
source, without question, in the antipathy which he had formed against
him; but William Hinkley was not without keen, quick, observing, and
justly discriminating faculties, and much of his conclusions were the
due consequence of a correct estimate of the peculiarities which we have
named. Stevens, he perceived, declared his experiences of religion,
with the air of one who expects the congratulations of his audience.
The humility which thinks only of the acquisition itself, as the very
perfection of human conquest, was wanting equally to his language and
deportment. The very details which he gave, were ostentatious; and the
gracious smiles which covered his lips as he concluded, were those of
the self-complacent person, who feels that he has just been saying
those good things, which, of necessity, must command the applause of his
hearers.

A decent pause of half an hour after the supper was finished, which was
spent by the jealous youth in utter silence, and he then rose abruptly
and hurried from the apartment, leaving the field entirely to his
opponent. He proceeded to the house of his neighbor and cousin, Ned
Hinkley, but without any hope of receiving comfort from his communion.
Ned was a lively, thoughtless, light-hearted son of the soil, who was
very slow to understand sorrows of any kind; and least of all, those
which lie in the fancy of a dreaming and a doubtful lover. At this
moment, when the possession of a new violin absorbed all his thoughts,
his mind was particularly obtuse on the subject of sentimental
grievances, and the almost voluptuous delight which filled his eyes
when William entered his chamber, entirely prevented him from seeing the
heavy shadow which overhung the brows of the latter.

“What, back again, William? Why, you're as changeable as the last
suit of a green lizard. When I asked you to stop, and hear me play
'Cross-possum,' and 'Criss-cross,' off you went without giving me a
civil answer. I've a mind now to put up the fiddle and send your ears
to bed supperless. How would you like that, old fellow? but I'll be
good-natured. You shall have it, though you don't deserve it; she's
in prime tune, and the tones--only hear that, Bill--there. Isn't she
delicious?”

And as the inconsiderate cousin poured out his warmest eulogy of the
favorite instrument, his right hand flourished the bow in air, in a
style that would have cheered the heart of Jean Crapaud himself, and
then brought it over the cat-gut in a grand crash, that sounded as
harshly in the ears of his morbid visitor, as if the two worlds had
suddenly come together with steam-engine velocity. He clapped his hands
upon the invaded organs, and with something like horror in his voice,
cried out his expostulations.

“For heaven's sake, Ned, don't stun a body with your noise.”

“Noise! Did you say noise, Bill Hinkley--noise?”

“Yes, noise,” answered the other with some peevishness in his accents.
The violinist looked at him incredulously, while he suffered the point
of the fiddle-bow to sink on a line with the floor; then, after a
moment's pause, he approached his companion, wearing in his face the
while, an appearance of the most grave inquiry, and when sufficiently
nigh, he suddenly brought the bow over the strings of the instrument,
immediately in William's ears, with a sharp and emphatic movement,
producing an effect to which the former annoying crash, might well
have been thought a very gentle effusion. This was followed by an
uncontrollable burst of laughter from the merry lips of the musician.

“There--that's what I call a noise, Bill. Sweet Sall CAN make a noise
when I worry her into it; she's just like other women in that respect;
she'll be sure to squall out if you don't touch her just in the right
quarter. But the first time she did NOT go amiss, and as for stunning
you--but what's the matter? Where's the wind now?”

“Nothing--only I don't want to be deafened with such a clatter.”

“Something's wrong, Bill, I know it. You look now for all the world like
a bottle of sour son, with the cork out, and ready to boil over. As
for Sall making a noise the first time, that's all a notion, and a very
strange one. She was as sweet-spoken then as she was when you left
me before supper. The last time, I confess, I made her squall out on
purpose. But what of that? you are not the man to get angry with a
little fun!”

“No, I'm not angry with you, Ned--I am not angry with anybody; but just
now, I would rather not hear the fiddle. Put it up.”

“There!” said the other good-naturedly, as he placed the favorite
instrument in its immemorial case in the corner. “There; and now Bill,
untie the pack, and let's see the sort of wolf-cubs you've got to carry;
for there's no two horns to a wild bull, if something hasn't gored you
to-night.”

“You're mistaken, Ned--quite mistaken--quite!”

“Deuse a bit! I know you too well, Bill Hinkley, so it's no use to hush
up now. Out with it, and don't be sparing, and if there's any harm to
come, I'm here, just as ready to risk a cracked crown for you, as if the
trouble was my own. I'd rather fiddle than fight, it's true; but when
there's any need for it, you know I can do one just as well as the
other; and can go to it with just as much good humor. So show us the
quarrel.”

“There's no quarrel. Ned,” said the other, softened by the frank and
ready feeling which his companion showed; “but I'm very foolish in some
things, and don't know how it is. I'm not apt to take dislikes, but
there's a man come to our house with John Cross, this evening, that I
somehow dislike very much.”

“A man! What's he like? Anything like Joe Richards? That was a fellow
that I hated mightily. I never longed to lick any man but Joe Richards,
and him I longed to lick three times, though you know I never got at him
more than twice. It's a great pity he got drowned, for I owe him a third
licking, and don't feel altogether right, since I know no sort of way to
pay it. But if this man's anything like Joe, it may be just the same if
I give it to HIM. Now--”

“He's nothing like Richards,” said the other. “He's a taller and
better-looking man.”

“If he's nothing like Joe, what do you want to lick him for?” said the
single-minded musician, with a surprise in his manner, which was mingled
with something like rebuke.

“I have expressed no such wish, Ned; you are too hasty; and if I did
wish to whip him, I don't think I should trouble you or any man to
help me. If I could not do it myself, I should give it up as a bad job,
without calling in assistants.”

“Oh, you're a spunky follow--a real colt for hard riding,” retorted the
other with a good-natured mock in his tones and looks; “but if you don't
want to lick the fellow, how comes it you dislike him? It seems to me
if a chap behaved so as to make me dislike him, it wouldn't be an easy
matter to keep my hands off him. I'd teach him how to put me into a bad
humor, or I'd never touch violin again.”

“This man's a parson, I believe.”

“A parson--that's a difficulty. It is not altogether right to lick
parsons, because they're not counted fighting people. But there's a
mighty many on 'em that licking would help. No wonder you dislike the
fellow, though if he comes with John Cross, he shouldn't be altogether
so bad. Now, John Cross IS a good man. He's good, and he's good-humored.
He don't try to set people's teeth on edge against all the pleasant
things of this world, and he can laugh, and talk, and sing, like other
people. Many's the time he's asked me, of his own mouth, to play the
violin; and I've seen his little eyes caper again, when sweet Sall
talked out her funniest. If it was not so late, I'd go over now and give
him a reel or two, and then I could take a look at this strange chap,
that's set your grinders against each other.”

The fiddler looked earnestly at the instrument in the corner, his
features plainly denoting his anxiety to resume the occupation which his
friends coming had so inopportunely interrupted. William Hinkley saw the
looks of his cousin, and divined the cause.

“You shall play for me, Ned,” he remarked; “you shall give me that old
highland-reel that you learned from Scotch Geordie. It will put me out
of my bad humor, I think, and we can go to bed quietly. I've come to
sleep with you to-night.”

“You're a good fellow, Bill; I knew that you couldn't stand it long, if
Sweet Sall kept a still tongue in her head. That reel's the very thing
to drive away bad humors, though there's another that I learnt from John
Blodget, the boat-man, that sounds to me the merriest and comicalest
thing in the world. It goes--,” and here the fiddle was put in
requisition to produce the required sounds: and having got carte
blanche, our enthusiastic performer, without weariness, went through
his whole collection, without once perceiving that his comical and
merry tunes had entirely failed to change the grave, and even gloomy
expression which still mantled the face of his companion. It was only
when in his exhaustion he set down the instrument, that he became
conscious of William Hinkley's continued discomposure.

“Why, Bill, the trouble has given you a bigger bite than I thought for.
What words did you have with the preacher?”

“None: I don't know that he is a preacher. He speaks only as if he was
trying to become one.”

“What, you hadn't any difference--no quarrel?”

“None.”

“And it's only to-night that you've seen him for the first time?”

A flush passed over the grave features of William Hinkley as he heard
this question, and it was with a hesitating manner and faltering
accents, that he contrived to tell his cousin of the brief glimpse which
he had of the same stranger several months before, on that occasion,
when, in the emotion of Margaret Cooper, replying to a similar question,
he first felt the incipient seed of jealousy planted within his bosom.
But this latter incident he forbore to reveal to the inquirer; and Ned
Hinkley, though certainly endowed by nature with sufficient skill
to draw forth the very soul of music from the instrument on which he
played, had no similar power upon the secret soul of the person whom he
partially examined.

“But 'tis very strange how you should take offence at a man you've seen
so little; though I have heard before this of people taking dislikes
at other people the first moment they set eyes on 'em. Now, I'm not a
person of that sort, unless it was in the case of Joe Richards; and him
I took a sort of grudge at from the first beginning. But even then there
was a sort of reason for it; for, at the beginning, when Joe came down
upon us here in Charlemont, he was for riding over people's necks,
without so much as asking, 'by your leave.' He had a way about him that
vexed me, though we did not change a word.”

“And it's that very way that this person has that I don't like,” said
William Hinkley. “He talks as if he made you, and when you talk, he
smiles as if he thought you were the very worst work that ever went out
of his hands. Then, if he has to say anything, be it ever so trifling,
he says it just as if he was telling you that the world was to come to
an end the day after to-morrow.”

“Just the same with Joe Richards. I never could get at him but twice;
though I give him then a mighty smart hammering; and if he hadn't got
under the broadhorn and got drowned;--but this fellow?”

“You'll see him at church to-morrow. I shouldn't wonder if he preaches;
for John Cross was at him about it before I came away. What's worse, the
old man's been asking him to live with us.”

“What, here in Charlemont?”

“Yes.”

“I'll be sure to lick him then, if he's anything like Joe Richards. But
what's to make him live in Charlemont? Is he to be a preacher for us?”

“Perhaps so, but I couldn't understand all, for I came in while they
were at it, and left home before they were done. I'm sure if he stays
there I shall not. I shall leave home, for I really dislike to meet
him.”

“You shall stay with me, Bill, and we'll have Sall at all hours,” was
the hearty speech of the cousin, as he threw his arms around the neck
of his morose companion, and dragged him gently toward the adjoining
apartment, which formed his chamber. “To-morrow,” he continued, “as you
say, we'll see this chap, and if he's anything like Joe Richards--” The
doubled fist of the speaker, and his threatening visage, completed the
sentence with which this present conference and chapter may very well
conclude.






CHAPTER VI.

THE TOAD ON THE ALTAR.





The next day was the sabbath. John Cross had timed his arrival at
the village with a due reference to his duties, and after a minute
calculation of days and distances, so that his spiritual manna might be
distributed in equal proportions among his hungering flock. His arrival
made itself felt accordingly, not simply in Charlemont, but throughout
the surrounding country for a circuit of ten miles or more. There was a
large and hopeful gathering of all sorts and sexes, white and black, old
and young. Charlemont had a very pretty little church of its own; but
one, and that, with more true Christianity than is found commonly in
this world of pretence and little tolerance, was open to preachers of
all denominations. The word of God, among these simple folks, was quite
too important to make them scruple at receiving it from the lips of
either Geneva, Rome, or Canterbury. The church stood out among the hills
at a little distance from, but in sight of the village; a small, neat
Grecian-like temple, glimmering white and saintlike through solemn
visaged groves, and gaudy green foliage. The old trees about it were all
kept neatly trimmed, the brush pruned away and cleared up, and a smooth
sweet sward, lawn-like, surrounded it, such as children love to skip and
scramble over, and older children rest at length upon, in pairs, talking
over their sweet silly affections.

Surrounded by an admiring crowd, each of whom had his respectful
salutation, we see our friend John Cross toward noon approaching the
sacred dwelling. Truly he was the most simple, fraternal of all God's
creatures. He had a good word for this, an affectionate inquiry for
that, a benevolent smile, and a kind pressure of the hand for all.
He was a man to do good, for everybody saw that he thought for others
before himself, and sincerity and earnestness constitute, with the
necessary degree of talent, the grand secrets for making successful
teachers in every department.

Though a simple, unsophisticated, unsuspecting creature, John Cross
was a man of very excellent natural endowments. He chose for his text
a passage of the Scriptures which admitted of a direct practical
application to the concerns of the people, their daily wants, their
pressing interests, moral, human, and social. He was thus enabled to
preach a discourse which sent home many of his congregation much wiser
than they came, if only in reference to their homely duties of farmstead
and family. John Cross was none of those sorry and self-constituted
representatives of our eternal interests, who deluge us with a vain,
worthless declamation, proving that virtue is a very good thing,
religion a very commendable virtue, and a liberal contribution to the
church-box at the close of the sermon one of the most decided proofs
that we have this virtue in perfection. Nay, it is somewhat doubtful,
indeed, if he ever once alluded to the state of his own scrip and the
treasury of the church. His faith, sincere, spontaneous, ardent, left
him in very little doubt that the Lord will provide, for is he not
called “Jehovah-Jireh?”--and his faith was strengthened and confirmed
by the experience of his whole life. But then John Cross had few
wants--few, almost none! In this respect he resembled the first
apostles. The necessities of life once cared for, never was mortal man
more thoroughly independent of the world. He was not one of those fine
preachers who, dealing out counsels of self-denial, in grave saws and
solemn maxims, with wondrous grim visage and a most slow, lugubrious
shaking of the head--are yet always religiously careful to secure the
warmest seat by the fireside, and the best buttered bun on table.
He taught no doctrine which he did not practise; and as for
consideration--that test at once of the religionist and the
gentleman--he was as humbly solicitous of the claims and feelings of
others, as the lovely and lowly child to whom reverence has been well
taught as the true beginning, equally of politeness and religion.

Before going into church he urged his protege, Stevens, to consent to
share in the ceremonies of the service as a layman; but there was still
some saving virtue in the young man, which made him resolute in refusing
to do so. Perhaps, his refusal was dictated by a policy like that which
had governed him so far already; which made him reluctant to commit
himself to a degree which might increase very much the hazards of
detection. He feared, indeed, the restraints which the unequivocal
adoption of the profession would impose upon him, fettering somewhat
the freedom of his intercourse with the young of both sexes, and,
consequently, opposing an almost insurmountable barrier to the
prevailing object which had brought him to the village. Whatever may
have been the feelings or motives which governed him, they, at least,
saved him from an act which would have grievously aggravated his already
large offence against truth and propriety. He declined, in language of
the old hypocrisy. He did not feel justified in taking up the cross--he
felt that he was not yet worthy; and, among the members of a church,
which takes largely into account the momentary impulses and impressions
of the professor, the plea was considered a sufficiently legitimate one.

But though Stevens forbore to commit himself openly in the cause which
he professed a desire to espouse, he was yet sufficiently heedful to
maintain all those externals of devotion which a serious believer would
be apt to exhibit. He could be a good actor of a part, and in this lay
his best talent. He had that saving wisdom of the worldling, which is
too often estimated beyond its worth, called cunning; and the frequent
successes of which produces that worst of all the diseases that ever
impaired the value of true greatness--conceit. Alfred Stevens fancied
that he could do everything, and this fancy produced in him the
appearance of a courage which his moral nature never possessed. He had
the audacity which results from presumption, not the wholesome strength
which comes from the conscious possession of a right purpose. But a
truce to our metaphysics.

Never did saint wear the aspect of such supernatural devotion. He knelt
with the first, groaned audibly at intervals, and when his face became
visible, his eyes were strained in upward glances, so that the spectator
could behold little more in their orbs than a sea of white.

“Oh! what a blessed young man!” said Mrs. Quackenbosh.

“How I wish it was he that was to preach for us to-day,” responded that
gem from the antique, Miss Polly Entwistle, who had joined every church
in Kentucky in turn, without having been made a spouse in either.

“How handsome he is!” simpered Miss Julia Evergreen--a damsel of
seventeen, upon whom the bilious eyes of Miss Entwistle were cast with
such an expression as the devil is said to put on when suddenly soused
in holy water.

“Handsome is that handsome does!” was the commentary of a venerable
cormorant to whom Brother Cross had always appeared the special and
accepted agent of heaven.

“I wish Brother Cross would get him to pray only. I wonder if he
believes in the new-light doctrine?” purred one of the ancient tabbies
of the conventicle.

“The new light is but the old darkness, Sister Widgeon,” responded an
old farmer of sixty four, who had divided his time so equally between
the plough and the prayer-book, that his body had grown as crooked as
the one, while his mind was bewildered with as many doctrines as ever
worried all sense out of the other.

We shall not suffer these to divert us, any more than Stevens permitted
their speculations upon his person and religion to affect his devotion.
He looked neither to the right nor to the left while entering the
church, or engaging in the ceremonies. No errant glances were permitted
to betray to the audience a mind wandering from the obvious duties
before it; and yet Alfred Stevens knew just as well that every eye in
the congregation was fixed upon him, as that he was himself there; and
among those eyes, his own keen glance had already discovered those of
that one for whom all these labors of hypocrisy were undertaken.

Margaret Cooper sat on the opposite side of the church, but the line
of vision was uninterrupted between them, and when--though very
unfrequently--Stevens suffered his gaze to rest upon her form, it was
with a sudden look of pleased abstraction, as if, in spite of himself,
his mind was irresistibly drawn away from all recollection, of its
immediate duties.

If a word is sufficient for the wise, a look answers an equal purpose
with the vain. Margaret Cooper left the church that morning with a
pleased conviction that the handsome stranger had already paid his
devotion to her charms. There was yet another passion to be gratified.
The restless ambition of her foolish heart whispered to her momently,
that if her person had done so much, what might she not hope to achieve
when the treasures of her mind were known. She had long since made the
comparison of her own intellect with that of every other maiden in the
village, and she flattered herself that before many days, the young
stranger should make it too. Her vain heart was rapidly preparing to
smooth the path of the enemy and make his conquests easy.

But it was not the women only, by whom the deportment of Alfred Stevens
was so closely watched. The eyes of suspicion and jealousy were upon
him. The two young men whose interview formed the conclusion of our last
chapter, scanned his conduct and carriage with sufficient keenness of
scrutiny.

“I'll tell you what, Bill Hinkley,” said his cousin, “this fellow, to my
thinking, is a very great rascal.”

“What makes you think so?” demanded the former, with slow, dissatisfied
accents; “he seems to pray very earnestly.”

“That's the very reason I think him a rascal. His praying seems to me
very unnatural. Here, he's a perfect stranger in the place, yet he never
shows any curiosity to see the people. He never once looks around him.
He walks to the church with his eye cast upon the ground, and sometimes
he squints to this side and sometimes to that, but he seems to do it
slyly, and seems to take pains that nobody should see him doing, it.
All this might answer for an old man, who--believes that everything is
vanity--as, indeed, everything must seem to old people; but to a young
fellow, full of blood, who eats well, drinks well, sleeps well, and
should naturally have a hankering after a young girl, all this is
against nature. Now, what's against nature is wrong, and there's wrong
at the bottom of it. Youth is the time to laugh, dance, sing, play on
the violin, and always have a sweetheart when it can find one. If you
can't get a beauty take a brown; and if Mary won't smile, Susan will.
But always have a sweetheart; always be ready for fun and frolic;
that's the way for the young, and when they don't take these ways, it's
unnatural--there's something wrong about it, and I'm suspicious of THAT
person. Now, I just have this notion of the young stranger. He's after
no good. I reckon he's like a hundred others; too lazy to go to work,
he goes to preaching, and learns in the first sermon to beg hard for the
missionaries. I'll lick him, Bill, to a certainty, if he gives me the
littlest end of an opportunity.”

“Pshaw, Ned, don't think of such a thing. You are quite too fond of
licking people.”

“Deuse a bit. It does 'em good. Look you, this chap is monstrous like
Joe Richards. I'll have to lick him on that account.”

“You're mad, Ned; talk of whipping a preacher.”

“He's no preacher yet,” said the other, “but if I lick him he may become
one.”

“No matter, he's never offended you.”

“Ay, but he will. I see it in the fellow's looks. I never was mistaken
in a fellow's looks in all my life.”

“Wait till he does offend you then.”

“Well, I'm willing to do that, for I know the time will come. I'm always
sure, when I first see a man, to know whether I'll have to flog him or
not. There's a something that tells me so. Isn't that very singular,
Bill?”

“No! you form a prejudice against a man, fancy that you ought to whip
him, and then never rest till you've done so. You'll find your match
some day.”

“What! you think some other chap will fancy he ought to whip me?
Well--maybe so. But this ain't the fellow to do that.”

“He's a stout man, and I reckon strong. Besides, Ned, he's very
handsome.”

“Handsome! Lord, Bill, what a taste you have? How can a man be called
handsome that never altogether opens his eyes, except when he turns up
the whites until you'd think he'd never be able to get the balls back to
their proper place? Then, what a chin he has--as sharp as a pitchfork,
and who but a girl child would fancy a man with his hair combed sleek
like a woman's on each side of his ears, with big whiskers at the
same time that looks for all the world like the brush of a seven years
running fox, Handsome! If my pup 'Dragon' was only half so much like a
beast, I'd plump him into the horsepond!”

It is probable that Ned Hinkley did not altogether think of the stranger
as he expressed himself. But he saw how deep a hold his appearance had
taken, in an adverse way, upon the mind and feelings of his relative and
friend, and his rude, but well-meant endeavors were intended to console
his companion, after his own fashion, by the exhibition of a certain
degree of sympathy.

His efforts, however well intended, did not produce any serious effect.
William Hinkley, though he forbore the subject, and every expression
which might indicate either soreness or apprehension, was still the
victim of that presentiment which had touched him on the very first
appearance of the stranger. He felt more than ever apprehensive on the
score of his misplaced affections. While his cousin had been watching
the stranger, HIS eyes had been fixed upon those of Margaret Cooper, and
his fears were increased and strengthened, as he perceived that she was
quite too much absorbed in other thoughts and objects to behold for an
instant the close espionage which he maintained upon her person. His
heart sunk within him, as he beheld how bold was her look, and how
undisguised the admiration which it expressed for the handsome stranger.

“You will go home with me, William?” said the cousin, The other
hesitated.

“I think,” said he, after a moment's pause, “I should rather go to my
own home. It is a sort of weakness to let a stranger drive a man off
from his own family, and though I somehow dislike this person's looks,
and am very sorry that John Cross brought him to our house, yet I
shouldn't let a prejudice which seems to have no good foundation take
such possession of my mind. I will go home, Ned, and see--perhaps I may
come to like the stranger more when I know him better.”

“You'll never like him. I see it in the fellow's eye; but just as you
please about going nome. You're right in one thing--never to give up
your own dunghill, so long as you can get room on it for a fair fling
with your enemy. Besides, you can see better, by going home, what the
chap's after. I don't see why he should come here to learn to preach. We
can't support a preacher. We don't want one. He could just as well have
learned his business, where he came from.”

With these words the cousins separated.

“Now,” said Ned Hinkley as he took his own way homeward, in a deeper
fit of abstraction than was altogether usual with him, “now will Bill
Hinkley beat about the bush without bouncing through it, until it's
too late to do anything. He's mealy-mouthed with the woman, and
mealy-mouthed with the man, and mealy-mouthed with everybody.--quite
too soft-hearted and too easy to get on. Here's a stranger nobody
knows, just like some crow from another corn-field, that'll pick up
his provisions from under his very nose, and he doing nothing to hinder
until there's no use in trying. If I don't push in and help him, he'll
not help himself. As for Margaret Cooper, dang it, I'll court her for
him myself. If he's afraid to pop the question, I ain't; though I'll
have to be mighty careful about the words I use, or she'll be thinking
I come on my own hook; and that would be a mighty scary sort of business
all round the house. Then this stranger. If anybody can look through
a stranger here in Charlemont, I reckon I'm that man. I suspect him
already. I think he's after no good with his great religioning; and I'll
tie such a pair of eyes to his heels, that his understanding will never
be entirely out of my sight. I'll find him out if anybody can. But I
won't lick him till I do. That wouldn't be altogether right, considering
he's to be a parson, though I doubt he'll never make one.”

And thus, with a head filled with cares of a fashion altogether new, the
sturdy young Kentuckian moved homeward with a degree of abstraction in
his countenance which was not among the smallest wonders of the day and
place in the estimation of his friends and neighbors.

Meanwhile, the work of mischief was in full progress. Everybody
knows the degree of familiarity which exists among all classes in a
country-village, particularly when the parties are brought together
under the social and stimulating influences of religion. It was natural
that the pastor, long known and well beloved, should be surrounded by
his flock as he descended from the pulpit. The old ladies always have
a saving interest in his presence, and they pave the way for the young
ones. Alfred Stevens, as the protege of John Cross, naturally attended
his footsteps, and was introduced by him to the little congregation,
which had mostly remained to do honor to the preacher. Of these, not
last, nor least, was the widow Cooper; and, unreluctant by her side,
though in silence, and not without a degree of emotion, which she yet
was able to conceal, stood her fair but proud-hearted daughter.

Margaret, alas! Margaret stood there with a heart more proud, yet more
humble, than ever. Proud in the consciousness of a new conquest--humble
in the feeling that this conquest had not been made, but at the expense
of some portion of her own independence. Hitherto, her suitors had
awakened no other feeling in her heart but vanity. Now, she felt no
longer able to sail on, “imperial arbitress,” smiling at woes which she
could inflict, but never share. That instinct, which, in the heart of
young Hinkley had produced fear, if not antipathy, had been as active in
her case, though with a very different result. The first glimpse which
she had of the handsome stranger, months before, had impressed her with
a singular emotion; and now that he was returned, she could not divest
herself of the thought that his return was a consequence of that one
glimpse.

With a keener judgment than belonged to her neighbors, she too had some
suspicions that religion was scarcely the prevailing motive which
had brought the youth back to their little village; for how could she
reconcile with his present demure gravity and devout profession, the
daring which he had shown in riding back to behold her a second
time? That such had been his motive she divined by her own feeling of
curiosity, and the instincts of vanity were prompt enough to believe
that this was motive sufficient to bring him back once more, and under
the guise of a character, which would the readiest secure an easy
entrance to society. Pleased with the fancy that she herself was
the object sought, she did not perceive how enormous was the sort of
deception which the stranger had employed to attain the end desired.
With all her intellect she had not the wisdom to suspect that he who
could so readily practise so bold an hypocrisy, was capable of the worst
performances; and when their names were mentioned, and his eyes were
permitted to meet and mingle their glances with hers, she was conscious
of nothing farther than a fluttering sentiment of pleasure, which was
amply declared to the stranger, in the flash of animation which spoke
openly in her countenance; eye speaking to lip and cheek, and these, in
turn, responding with a kindred sentiment to the already tell-tale eye.

William Hinkley, from a little distance, beheld this meeting. He had
lingered with the curiosity which belongs to the natural apprehension
of the lover. He saw them approach--nay, fancied he beheld the mutual
expression of their sympathizing eyes, and he turned away, and hurried
homeward, with the feeling of a heart already overborne, and defrauded
in all its hopes and expectations. The flowers were threatened with
blight in his Eden: but he did not conjecture, poor fellow, that a
serpent had indeed entered it!






CHAPTER VII.

THE GOOD YOUNG MAN IN MEDITATION.





Perhaps, it may be assumed, with tolerable safety, that no first villany
is ever entirely deliberate. There is something in events to give
it direction--something to egg it on--to point out time, place, and
opportunity. Of course, it is to be understood that the actor is one,
in the first place, wanting in the moral sense. What we simply mean
to affirm is, that the particular, single act, is, in few instances,
deliberately meditated from the beginning. We very much incline to
think that some one event, which we ordinarily refer to the chapter
of accidents, has first set the mind to work upon schemes, which would
otherwise, perhaps, never be thought of at all. Thus, we find persons
who continue very good people, as the world goes, until middle age, or
even seniority; then, suddenly breaking out into some enormous
offence against decency and society, which startles the whole pious
neighborhood. Folks start up, with outstretched hands and staring eyes,
and cry aloud:--

“Lord bless us, who would have thought so good a man could be so bad!”

He, poor devil, never fancied it himself, till he became so, and it was
quite too late to alter his arrangements. Perhaps his neighbors may
have had some share in making him so. Pious persons are very frequently
reduced to these straits by having the temptation forced too much
upon them. Flesh and blood can not always withstand the provocation of
earthly delicacies, even where the spirit is a tolerably stout one; and
of the inadequacy of the mind, always to contend with the inclinations
of the flesh, have we not a caution in that injunction of Holy Book
which warns us to fly from temptation? But lame people can not fly, and
he is most certainly lame who halts upon mere feet of circumstances.
Such people are always in danger.

Now, Alfred Stevens, properly brought up, from the beginning, at some
theological seminary, would have been--though in moral respects pretty
much the same person--yet in the eye of the world a far less criminal
man. Not that his desires would have been a jot more innocent, but they
would have taken a different direction. Instead of the recklessness of
course, such as seems to have distinguished the conduct of our present
subject--instead of his loose indulgences--his smart, licentious
speeches--the sheep's-eye glances, right and left, which he was but
too prone to bestow, without prudence or precaution, whenever he walked
among the fair sisters--he, the said Alfred, would have taken counsel
of a more worldly policy, which is yet popularly considered a more pious
one. He would have kept his eyes from wandering to and fro; he would
have held his blood in subjection. Patient as a fox on a long scent in
autumn, he would have kept himself lean and circumspect, until, through
the help of lugubrious prayer and lantern visage, he could have beguiled
into matrimony some one feminine member of the flock--not always
fair--whose worldly goods would have sufficed in full atonement for all
those circumspect, self-imposed restraints, which we find usually so
well rewarded. But Alfred Stevens was not a man of this pious temper.
It is evident, from his present course, that he had some inkling of the
MODUS OPERANDI; but all his knowledge fell short of that saving
wisdom which would have defrauded the social world of one of its moral
earthquakes, and possibly deprived the survivors of the present moral
story--for moral it is, though our hero is not exactly so.

It would be doing our subject and our theory equal injustice if we were
to suppose that he had any fixed purpose, known to himself, when he
borrowed the professional garment, and began to talk with the worthy
John Cross in the language of theology, and with the tongue of a
hypocrite. He designed to visit Charlemont--that was all--as he had
really been impressed by the commanding figure and noble expression of
beauty of that young damsel whom he had encountered by the roadside.
Even this impression, however, would have been suffered to escape from
his mind, had it not been so perfectly convenient to revisit the spot,
on his return to his usual place of residence. During the summer,
Charlemont and its rustic attractions had been the frequent subject of
a conversation, running into discussion, between himself and the amiable
old man, his uncle. The latter repeatedly urged upon his nephew to
make the visit; fondly conceiving that a nearer acquaintance with
the pleasant spot which had so won upon his own affections, would be
productive of a like effect upon his nephew. Alas, how little did he
know the mischief he was doing!

In the very idleness of mood--with just that degree of curiosity which
prompts one to turn about and look a second time--Alfred Stevens resumed
the route which included Charlemont. But the devil had, by this time,
found his way into the meditations of the youth, and lay lurking,
unknown to himself, perhaps, at the bottom of this same curiosity. The
look of pride and defiance which Margaret Cooper had betrayed, when the
bold youth rode back to steal a second glance at her matchless person,
was equivalent to an equally bold challenge; and his vanity hastily
picked up the gauntlet which hers had thrown down. He wished to see
the damsel again--to see if she WAS so beautiful--if she did, indeed,
possess that intellectual strength and vivacity which flashed out
so suddenly and with so much splendor from beneath her long, dark
eye-lashes!

In this mood he met with John Cross; and the simplicity of that worthy
creature offered another challenge, not less provoking than the former,
to the levity and love of mischief which also actively predominated in
the bosom of the youth. Fond of a malicious sort of fun, and ever on the
look-out for subjects of quizzing, it was in compliance with a purely
habitual movement of his mind that he conjured up that false, glozing
story of his religious inclinations, which had so easily imposed upon
the unsuspecting preacher. Never was proceeding less premeditated, or
so completely the result of an after-thought, than this; and now that it
had proved so perfectly successful--now that he found himself admitted
into the very heart of the little village, and into the bosoms of the
people--he began, for the first time, to feel the awkwardness of the
situation in which he had placed himself, and the responsibilities,
if not dangers, to which it subjected him. To play the part of a mere
preacher--to talk glibly, and with proper unction, in the stereotype
phraseology of the profession--was no difficult matter to a clever young
lawyer of the West, having a due share of the gift of gab, and almost as
profoundly familiar with scripture quotation as Henry Clay himself. But
there was something awkward in the idea of detection, and he was not
unaware of those summary dangers which are likely to follow, in those
wild frontier regions, from the discovery of so doubtful a personage
as “Bro' Wolf” in the clothing of a more innocent animal. Chief-Justice
Lynch is a sacred authority in those parts; and, in such a case as his,
Alfred Stevens did not doubt that the church itself would feel it only
becoming to provide another sort of garment for the offender, which,
whether pleasant or not, would at least be likely to stick more closely,
and prove less comfortably warm.

But, once in, there was no help but to play out the game as it had been
begun. Villagers are seldom very sagacious people, and elegant strangers
are quite too much esteemed among them to make them very particular in
knowing the whys and wherefores about them--whence they come, what they
do, and whither they propose to go. Stevens had only to preserve his
countenance and a due degree of caution, and the rest was easy. He had
no reason to suppose himself an object of suspicion to anybody; and
should he become so, nothing was more easy than to take his departure
with sufficient promptness, and without unnecessarily soliciting the
prayers of the church in behalf of the hurried traveller! At all events,
he could lose nothing by the visit: perhaps something might be gained.

What was that something? Behold him in his chamber, preparing to ask and
to answer this question for himself. The sabbath-day is finally over. He
has been almost the lion of the day. We say almost, for the worthy John
Cross could not easily be deprived, by any rivalry, of the loyal regards
of his old parishioners. But, though the latter had most friends, the
stranger, Alfred Stevens, had had most followers. All were anxious to
know him--the young, in particular, maidens and men; and the grave old
dames would have given their last remaining teeth, bone or waxen, to
have heard him discourse. There was so much sense and solemnity in
his profound, devout looks! he has been made known to them all; he has
shaken hands with many. But he has exchanged the speech of sympathy and
feeling with but one only--and that one!--

Of her he thinks in his chamber--his quiet, snug, little chamber--a mere
closet, looking out upon a long garden-slip, in which he sees, without
much heeding them, long lanes of culinary cabbage, and tracts of other
growing and decaying vegetation, in which his interest is quite too
small to make it needful that he should even ask its separate names. His
chin rests upon his hands with an air of meditation; and gradually his
thoughts rise up in soliloquy, which is suffered to invade no ear but
ours:--

“Well! who'd have thought it? a parson!--devilish good indeed! How it
will tell at Murkey's! What a metamorphose! if it don't stagger 'em,
nothing will! It's the best thing I've done yet! I shall have to do it
over a hundred times, and must get up a sermon or two beforehand, and
swear that I preached them--and, egad! I may have to do it yet before
I'm done--ha! ha! ha!”

The laughter was a quiet chuckle, not to be heard by vulgar ears; it
subsided in the gorges of his throat. The idea of really getting up a
sermon tickled him. He muttered over texts, all that he could remember;
and proceeded to turn over the phrases for an introduction, such
as, unctuous with good things in high degree, he fancied would be
particularly commendable to his unsuspecting hearers. Alfred Stevens had
no small talent for imitation, he derived a quiet sort of pleasure, on
the present occasion, from its indulgence.

“I should have made a famous parson, and, if all trades fail, may yet.
But, now that I am here, what's to come of it? It's not so hard to put
on a long face, and prose in scripture dialect; but, cui bono? Let me
see--hem! The girl is pretty, devilish pretty--with such an eye, and
looks so! There's soul in the wench--life--and a passion that speaks out
in every glance and movement. A very Cressid, with a cross of Corinne!
Should she be like her of Troy? At all events, it can do no harm to see
what she's made of!

“But I must manage warily. I have something to lose in the business.
Frankfort is but fifty miles from Charlemont--fifty miles--and there's
Ellisland, but fourteen. Fourteen!--an easy afternoon ride. That way it
must be done. Ellisland shall be my post-town. I can gallop there in
an afternoon, drop and receive my letters, and be back by a round-about
which shall effectually baffle inquiry. A week or two will be enough.
I shall see, by that time, what can be done with her; though still,
cautiously, Parson Stevens!--cautiously.”

The farther cogitations of Stevens were subordinate to these, but of the
same family complexion. They were such as to keep him wakeful. The Bible
which had been placed upon his table, by the considerate providence of
his hostess, lay there unopened; though, more than once, he lifted the
cover of the sacred volume, letting it fall again suddenly, as if with a
shrinking consciousness that such thoughts as at that moment filled his
mind were scarcely consistent with the employment, in any degree, of
such a companion. Finally, he undressed and went to bed. The hour had
become very late.

“Good young man,” muttered worthy Mrs. Hinkley to her drowsy spouse, in
the apartment below, as she heard the movements of her guest-“good young
man, he's just now going to bed. He's been studying all this while. I
reckon Brother Cross has been sound this hour.”

The light from Stevens's window glimmered out over the cabbage-garden,
and was seen by many an ancient dame as she prepared for her own
slumbers.

“Good young man,” said they all with one accord. “I reckon he's at the
Bible now. Oh! he'll be a blessed laborer in the vineyard, I promise
you, when Brother Cross is taken.”

“If it were not for the cursed bore of keeping up the farce beyond
the possibility of keeping up the fun, such a rig as this would be
incomparably pleasant; but”--yawning--“that's the devil! I get monstrous
tired of a joke that needs dry nursing!”

Such were the last muttered words of Parson Stevens before he
yielded himself up to his slumbers. Good young man--charitable old
ladies--gullible enough, if not charitable! But the professions need
such people, and we must not quarrel with them!






CHAPTER VIII.

PAROCHIAL PERFORMANCES.





The poor, conceited blackguards of this ungracious earth have a fancy
that there must be huge confusion and a mighty bobbery in nature,
corresponding with that which is for ever going on in their own little
spheres. If we have a toothache, we look for a change of weather; our
rheumatism is a sure sign that God has made his arrangements to give
us a slapping rain; and, should the white bull or the brown heifer die,
look out for hail, or thunderstorm, at least, as a forerunner of the
event. Nothing less can possibly console or satisfy us for such a most
unaccountable, not to say unnatural and unwarrantable, a dispensation.
The poets have ministered largely to this vanity on the part of mankind.
Shakspere is constantly at it, and Ben Jonson, and all the dramatists.
Not a butcher, in the whole long line of the butchering Caesars, from
Augustus down, but, according to them, died in a sort of gloom glory,
resulting from the explosion of innumerable stars and rockets, and the
apparitions of as many comets! “Gorgons, and hydras, and chimeras dire,”
 invariably announce the coming stroke of fate; and five or seven moons
of a night have suddenly arisen to warn some miserable sublunarian
that orders had been issued that there should be no moon for him that
quarter, or, in military and more precise phrase, that he should have
no “quarters” during that moon. Even our venerable and stern old puritan
saint, Milton--he who was blessed with the blindness of his earthly
eye, that he should be more perfectly enabled to contemplate the Deity
within--has given way to this superstition when he subjects universal
nature to an earthquake because Adam's wife followed the counsels of the
snake.

A pretty condition of things it would be, if stars, suns, and systems,
were to shoot madly from their spheres on such occasions! Well might the
devil laugh if such were the case! How he would chuckle to behold globes
and seas, and empires, fall into such irreverend antics because some
poor earthling, be he kingling or common sodling, goes into desuetude,
either by the operation of natural laws, or the sharp application of
steel or shot! Verily, it makes precious little difference to the Great
Reaper, by what process we finally become harvested. He is sure of us,
though no graves gape, no stars fall, no comets rush out, like young
colts from their stables, flinging their tails into the faces of
the more sober and pacific brotherhood of lights. But, denied the
satisfaction of chuckling at such sights as these, his satanic majesty
chuckles not the less at the human vanity which looks for them. Nay, he
himself is very likely to suggest this vanity. It is one of his forms of
temptation--one of his manoeuvres; and we take leave, by way of warning,
to hint to those worthy people, who judge of to-morrow's providence
by the corns of their great toe, or their periodical lumbago, or the
shooting of their warts, or the pricking of their palms, that it is in
truth the devil which is at the bottom of all this, and that the Deity
has nothing to do in the business. It is the devil instilling his
vanities into the human heart, in that form which he thinks least likely
to prove offensive, or rouse suspicion. The devil is most active in
your affairs, Mrs. Thompson, the moment you imagine that there must be
a revolution on your account in the universal laws of nature. At such a
moment your best policy will be to have blood let, take physic, and go
with all diligence to your prayers.

There was no sort of warning on the part of the natural to the moral
world, on the day when Alfred Stevens set forth with the worthy John
Cross, to visit the flock of the latter. There was not a lovelier
morning in the whole calendar. The sun was alone in heaven, without a
cloud; and on earth, the people in and about Charlemont, having been to
church only the day before, necessarily made their appearance everywhere
with petticoats and pantaloons tolerably clean and unrumpled. Cabbages
had not yet been frost-bitten. Autumn had dressed up her children in the
garments of beauty, preparatory to their funeral. There was a good crop
of grain that year, and hogs were brisk, and cattle lively, and all
“looking-up,” in the language of the prices current. This was long
before the time when Mr. M---- made his famous gammon speeches; but the
people had a presentiment of what was coming, and to crown the eventful
anticipations of the season, there was quite a freshet in Salt river.
The signs were all and everywhere favorable. Speculation was beginning
to chink his money-bags; three hundred new banks, as many railways, were
about to be established; old things were about to fleet and disappear;
all things were becoming new; and the serpent entered Charlemont, and
made his way among the people thereof, without any signs of combustion,
or overthrow, or earthquake.

Everybody has some tolerable idea of what the visitation of a parson is,
to the members of his flock. In the big cities he comes one day, and
the quarterly collector the next. He sits down with the “gude wife” in
a corner to themselves, and he speaks to her in precisely the same
low tones which cunning lovers are apt to use. If he knows any one art
better than another, it is that of finding his way to the affections of
the female part of his flock. A subdued tone of voice betrays a certain
deference for the party addressed. The lady is pleased with such a
preliminary. She is flattered again by the pains he takes in behalf of
her eternal interests; she is pretty sure he takes no such pains with
any of her neighbors. It is a sign that he thinks her soul the most
becoming little soul in the flock, and when he goes away, she looks
after him and sighs, and thinks him the most blessed soul of a parson.
The next week she is the first to get up a subscription which she heads
with her own name in connection with a sum realized by stinting her
son of his gingerbread money, in order to make this excellent parson
a life-member of the “Zion African Bible and Missionary Society, for
disseminating the Word among the Heathen.” The same fifty dollars so
appropriated, would have provided fuel for a month to the starving poor
of her own parish.

But Brother Cross gets no such windfalls. It is probable that he never
heard of such a thing, and that if he did, he would unhesitatingly cry
out, “Humbug,” at the first intimation of it. Besides, his voice was
not capable of that modulation which a young lover, or a city parson can
give it. Accustomed to cry aloud and spare not, he usually spoke as if
there were some marrow in his bones, and some vigor in his wind-bags.
When he came to see the good wife of his congregation, he gave her
a hearty shake of the hand, congratulated her as he found her at her
spinning-wheel; spoke with a hearty approbation, if he saw that her
children were civil and cleanly; if otherwise, he blazed out with proper
boldness, by telling her that all her praying and groaning, would
avail nothing for her soul's safety, so long as Jackey's breeches were
unclean; and that the mother of a rude and dirty child, was as sure
of damnation, as if she never prayed at all. He had no scruples about
speaking the truth. He never looked about him for the gentle, easy
phrases, by which to distinguish the conduct which he was compelled to
condemn. He knew not only that the truth must be spoken, and be spoken
by him, if by anybody, but that there is no language too strong--perhaps
none quite strong enough--for the utterance of the truth. But it must
not be supposed, that John Cross was in any respect an intolerant, or
sour man. He was no hypocrite, and did not, therefore, need to clothe
his features in the vinegar costume of that numerous class. His limbs
were put into no such rigid fetters as too often denote the unnatural
restraints which such persons have imposed upon their inner minds. He
could laugh and sing with the merriest, and though he did not absolutely
shake a leg himself, yet none rejoiced more than he, when Ned Hinkley's
fiddle summoned the village to this primitive exercise.

“Now, Alfred Stevens,” said he, the breakfast being over, “what say'st
thou to a visit with me among my people. Some of them know thee already;
they will all be rejoiced to see thee. I will show thee how they live,
and if thou shouldst continue to feel within thee, the growing of that
good seed whose quickening thou hast declared to me, it will be well
that thou shouldst begin early to practise the calling which may so
shortly become thine own. Here mightest thou live a space, toiling in
thy spiritual studies, until the brethren should deem thee ripe for thy
office; meanwhile, thy knowledge of the people with whom thou livest,
and their knowledge of thee, would be matter of equal comfort and
consolation, I trust, to thee as to them.”

Alfred Stevens expressed himself pleased with the arrangement. Indeed,
he desired nothing else.

“But shall we see all of them?” he demanded. The arch-hypocrite began
to fear that his curiosity would be compelled to pay a heavy penalty to
dullness.

“The flock is small,” said John Cross. “A day will suffice, but I shall
remain three days in Charlemont, and some I will see to-day, and some
to-morrow, and some on the day after, which is Wednesday.”

“Taken in moderate doses,” murmured Stevens to himself, “one may stand
it.”

He declared himself in readiness, and the twain set forth. The outward
behavior of Stevens was very exemplary. He had that morning contrived to
alter his costume in some respects to suit the situation of affairs. For
example, he had adopted that slavish affectation which seems to insist
that a preacher of God should always wear a white cravat, so constructed
and worn as to hide the tips of his shirt collar. If they wore none,
they would look infinitely more noble, and we may add, never suffer from
bronchitis. In his deportment, Stevens was quite as sanctified as heart
could wish. He spoke always deliberately, and with great unction. If he
had to say “cheese and mousetrap,” he would look very solemn, shake his
head with great gravity and slowness, and then deliberately and equally
emphasizing every syllable, would roll forth the enormous sentence
with all the conscious dignity of an ancient oracle. That “cheese and
mousetrap,” so spoken, acquired in the ears of the hearer, a degree of
importance and signification, which it confounded them to think they had
never perceived before in the same felicitous collocation of syllables.
John Cross was not without his vanities. Who is? Vanity is quite as
natural as any other of our endowments. It is a guaranty for amiability.
A vain man is always a conciliatory one. He is kind to others, because
the approbation of others is a strong desire in his mind. Accordingly,
even vanity is not wholly evil. It has its uses.

John Cross had his share, and Alfred Stevens soon discovered that he
ministered to it in no small degree. The good old preacher took to
himself the credit of having effected his conversion, so far as it had
gone. It was his hand that had plucked the brand from the burning. He
spoke freely of his protege, as well before his face as behind his back.
In his presence he dwelt upon the holy importance of his calling; to
others he dilated upon the importance of securing for the church a young
man of so much talent, yet of so much devotion: qualities not always
united, it would seem, among the churchlings of modern times.

Alfred Stevens seemed to promise great honor to his teacher. That
cunning which is the wisdom of the worldling, and which he possessed
in a very surprising degree, enabled him to adopt a course of conduct,
look, and remark, which amply satisfied the exactions of the scrupulous,
and secured the unhesitating confidence of those who were of a more
yielding nature. He soon caught the phraseology of his companion, and
avoiding his intensity, was less likely to offend his hearers. His
manner was better subdued to the social tone of ordinary life, his voice
lacked the sharp twang of the backwoods man; and, unlike John Cross, he
was able to modulate it to those undertones, which, as we have
before intimated, are so agreeable from the lips of young lovers and
fashionable preachers. At all events, John Cross himself, was something
more than satisfied with his pupil, and took considerable pains to show
him off. He was a sort of living and speaking monument of the good man's
religious prowess.

It does not need that we should follow the two into all the abodes which
they were compelled to visit. The reader would scarcely conceal his
yawns though Stevens did. Enough, that a very unctuous business was made
of it that morning. Many an old lady was refreshed with the spiritual
beverage bestowed in sufficient quantity to last for another quarter;
while many a young one rejoiced in the countenance of so promising a
shepherd as appeared under the name of Alfred Stevens. But the latter
thought of the one damsel only. He said many pleasant things to those
whom he did see; but his mind ran only upon one. He began to apprehend
that she might be among the flock who were destined to wait for the
second or last day's visitation; when, to his great relief, John Cross
called his attention to the dwelling of the widow Cooper, to whom they
were fast approaching.

Stevens remarked that the dwelling had very much the appearance of
poverty--he did not fail to perceive that it lacked the flower-garden
in front which distinguished the greater number of the cottages in
Charlemont; and there was an appearance of coldness and loneliness about
its externals which impressed itself very strongly upon his thoughts,
and seemed to speak unfavorably for the taste of the inmates. One is
apt to associate the love of flowers with sweetness and gentleness of
disposition, and such a passion would seem as natural, as it certainly
would be becoming, to a young lady of taste and sensibility. But the
sign is a very doubtful one. Taste and gentleness may satisfy themselves
with other objects. A passion for books is very apt to exclude a very
active passion for flowers, and it will be found, I suspect, that these
persons who are most remarkable for the cultivation of flowers are least
sensible to the charms of letters. It seems monstrous, indeed, that a
human being should expend hours and days in the nursing and tendance of
such stupid beauties as plants and flowers, when earth is filled with
so many lovelier objects that come to us commended by the superior
sympathies which belong to humanity. Our cities are filled with the
sweetest orphans--flowers destined to be immortal; angels in form, that
might be angels in spirit--that must be, whether for good or evil--whom
we never cultivate--whom we suffer to escape our tendance, and leave to
the most pitiable ignorance, and the most wretched emergencies of want.
The life that is wasted upon dahlias, must, prima facie, be the life
of one heartless and insensible, and most probably, brutish in a high
degree.

But Alfred Stevens had very little time for further reflection. They
were at the door of the cottage. Never did the widow Cooper receive
her parson in more tidy trim, and with an expression of less qualified
delight. She brought forth the best chair, brushed the deerskin-seat
with her apron, and having adjusted the old man to her own satisfaction
as well as his, she prepared to do a like office for the young one.
Having seated them fairly, and smoothed her apron, and gone through the
usual preliminaries, and placed herself a little aloof, on a third seat,
and rubbed her hands, and struggled into a brief pause in her brisk
action, she allowed her tongue to do the office for which her whole soul
was impatient.

“Oh, Brother Cross, what a searching sermon you gave us yesterday. You
stirred the hearts of everybody, I warrant you, as you stirred up
mine. We've been a needing it for a precious long time, I tell you; and
there's no knowing what more's a wanting to make us sensible to the evil
that's in us. I know from myself what it is, and I guess from the doings
of others. We're none of us perfect, that's certain; but it's no harm
to say that some's more and some's not so perfect as others. There's a
difference in sin, Brother Cross, I'm a thinking, and I'd like you to
explain why, and what's the difference. One won't have so much, and one
will have more; one will take a longer spell of preaching, and half
the quantity will be a dose to work another out clean, entire. I'm not
boastful for myself, Brother Cross, but I do say, I'd give up in despair
if I thought it took half so much to do me, as it would take for a
person like that Mrs. Thackeray.”

“Sister Cooper,” said brother Cross, rebukingly, “beware of the
temptation to vain-glory. Be not like the Pharisee, disdainful of the
publican. To be too well pleased with one's self is to be displeasing to
the Lord.”

“Oh, Brother Cross, don't be thinking that I'm over and above satisfied
with the goodness that's in me. I know I'm not so good. I have a great
deal of evil; but then it seems to me there's a difference in good and
a difference in evil. One has most of one and one has most of another.
None of us have much good, and all of us have a great deal of sin. God
help me, for I need his help--I have my own share; but as for that Mrs.
Thackeray, she's as full of wickedness as an an egg's full of meat.”

“It is not the part of Christianity, Sister Cooper,” said John Cross
mildly, “to look into our neighbors' accounts and make comparisons
between their doings and our own. We can only do so at great risk of
making a false reckoning. Besides, Sister Cooper, it is business enough
on our hands, if we see to our own short-comings. As for Mrs. Thackeray,
I have no doubt she's no better than the rest of us, and we are all, as
you said before, children of suffering, and prone to sin as certain as
that the sparks fly upward. We must only watch and pray without ceasing,
particularly that we may not deceive ourselves with the most dangerous
sin of being too sure of our own works. The good deeds that we boast
of so much in our earthly day will shrivel and shrink up at the last
account to so small a size that the best of us, through shame and
confusion, will be only too ready to call upon the rocks and hills to
cover us. We are very weak and foolish all, Sister Cooper. We can't
believe ourselves too weak, or too mean, or too sinful. To believe this
with all our hearts, and to try to be better with all our strength, is
the true labor of religion. God send it to us, in all its sweetness and
perfection, so that we may fight the good fight without ceasing.”

“But if you could only hear of the doings of Mrs. Thackeray, Brother
Cross, you'd see how needful it would be to put forth all your strength
to bring her back to the right path.”

“The Lord will know. None of us can hide our evil from the eyes of the
Lord. I will strive with our sister, when I seek her, which will be
this very noon, but it is of yourself, Sister Cooper, and your daughter
Margaret, that I would speak. Where is she that I see her not?”

This was the question that made our quasi hierophant look up with a
far greater degree of interest than he had felt in the long and random
twattle to which he had been compelled to listen. Where was she--that
fair daughter? He was impatient for the answer. But he was not long
detained in suspense. Next to her neighbors there was no subject of
whom the mother so loved to speak as the daughter, and the daughter's
excellences.

“Ah! she is up-stairs, at her books, as usual. She does so love them
books, Brother Cross, I'm afraid it'll do harm to her health. She cares
for nothing half so well. Morning, noon, and night, all the same, you
find her poring over them; and even when she goes out to ramble, she
must have a book, and she wants no other company. For my part I can't
see what she finds in them to love so; for except to put a body to sleep
I never could see the use they were to any person yet.”

“Books are of two kinds,” said Brother Cross gravely. “They are useful
or hurtful. The useful kinds are good, the hurtful kinds are bad. The
Holy Bible is the first book, and the only book, as I reckon it will be
the book that'll live longest. The 'Life of Whitefield' is a good book,
and I can recommend the sermons of that good man, Brother Peter Cummins,
that preached when I was a lad, all along through the back parts of
North Carolina, into South Carolina and Georgia. I can't say that
he came as far back into the west as these parts; but he was a most
faithful shepherd. There was a book of his sermons printed for the
benefit of his widow and children. He died, like that blessed man, John
Rogers, that we see in the primer-books, leaving a wife with eleven
children and one at the breast. His sermons are very precious reading.
One of them in particular, on the Grace of God, is a very falling of
manna in the wilderness. It freshens the soul, and throws light upon the
dark places in the wilderness. Ah! if only such books are printed, what
a precious world for poor souls it would be. But they print a great many
bad books now-a-days.”

The natural love of mischief which prevailed in the bosom of Alfred
Stevens now prompted him to take part in the conversation at this happy
moment. The opportunity was a tempting one.

“The printers,” said he, “are generally very bad men. They call
themselves devils, and take young lads and bring them up to their
business under that name!”

The old lady threw up her hands, and John Cross, to whom this
intelligence was wholly new, inquired with a sort of awe-struck
gravity--

“Can this be true, Alfred Stevens? Is this possible?”

“The fact, sir. They go by no other name among themselves; and you may
suppose, if they are not ashamed of the name, they are not unwilling
to perform the doings of the devil. Indeed, they are busy doing his
business from morning to night--and night to morning. They don't stop
for the sabbath. They work on Sunday the same as any other day, and if
they take any rest at all it is on Saturday, which would show them to be
a kind of Jews.”

“Good Lord deliver us!” ejaculated the widow.

“Where, O! where?” exclaimed the Brother Cross with similar earnestness.
The game was too pleasant for Alfred Stevens. He pursued it.

“In such cities,” he continued, “as New York and Philadelphia, thousands
of these persons are kept in constant employ sending forth those books
of falsehood and folly which fill the hearts of the young with vain
imaginings, and mislead the footsteps of the unwary. In one of these
establishments, four persons preside, who are considered brothers; but
they are brothers in sin only, and are by some supposed to be no other.
They have called themselves after the names of saints and holy men; even
the names of the thrice blessed apostles, John and James, have been in
this fashion abused; but if it be true that the spirits of evil may even
in our day as of old embody themselves in mortal shape for the better
enthralling and destruction of mankind, then should I prefer to believe
that these persons were no other than the evil demons who ruled in
Ashdod and Assyria. Such is their perseverance in evil--such their busy
industry, which keeps a thousand authors (which is but another name for
priests and prophets) constantly at work to frame cunning falsehoods and
curious devices, and winning fancies, which when printed and made into
books, turn the heads of the young and unwary, and blind the soul to the
wrath which is to come.”

The uplifted hands of the widow Cooper still attested her wonder.

“Lord save us!” she exclaimed, “I should not think it strange if Sister
Thackeray had some of these very books. Do ask, Brother Cross, when
you go to see her. She speaks much of books, and I see her reading them
whenever I look in at the back window.”

John Cross did not seem to give any heed to the remark of the old woman.
There was a theological point involved in one of the remarks of Alfred
Stevens which he evidently regarded as of the first importance.

“What you say, Alfred Stevens, is very new and very strange to me, and I
should think from what I already know of the evil which is sometimes put
in printed books, that there was indeed a spirit of malice at work in
this way, to help the progress and the conquests of Satan among our
blind and feeble race. But I am not prepared to believe that God has
left it to Satan to devise so fearful a scheme for prosecuting his evil
designs as that of making the demons of Ashdod and Assyria take the
names of mortal men, while teeming to follow mortal occupations. It
would be fearful tidings for our poor race were this so. But if so, is
it not seen that there is a difference in the shapes of these persons.
If either of these brothers who blasphemously call themselves John and
James, after the manner of the apostles, shall be in very truth and
certainty that Dagon of the Philistines whom Jehovah smote before his
altar, will he not be made fishlike from the waist downward, and will
this not be seen by his followers and some of the thousands whom
he daily perverts to his evil purposes and so leads to eternal
destruction?”

“It may be that it is permitted to such a demon to put on what shape he
thinks proper,” replied Stevens; “but even if it is not, yet this would
not be the subject of any difference--it would scarcely prevent the
prosecution of this evil purpose. You are to remember, Mr. Cross--”

“John Cross--plain John Cross, Alfred Stevens,” was the interruption of
the preacher.

“You are to remember,” Stevens resumed, “that when the heart is full
of sin, the eyes are full of blindness. The people who believe in these
evil beings are incapable of seeing their deformities.”

“That is true--a sad truth.”

“And, again,” continued Stevens, “there are devices of mere mortal art,
by which the deformities and defects of an individual may be concealed.
One of these brothers, I am told, is never to be seen except seated in
one position at the same desk, and this desk is so constructed, as
to hide his lower limbs in great part, while still enabling him to
prosecute his nefarious work.”

“It's clear enough, Brother Cross,” exclaimed the widow Cooper, now
thoroughly convinced--“it's clear enough that there's something that he
wants to hide. Lord help us! but these things are terrible.”

“To the weak and the wicked, Sister Cooper, they are, as you say,
terrible, and hence the need that we should have our lamps trimmed and
lighted, for the same light which brings us to the sight of the Holy of
Holies, shows us the shape of hatefuless, the black and crouching form
of Satan, with nothing to conceal his deformity. Brother Stevens has
well said that when the heart is full of sin, the eyes are full of
blindness; and so we may say that when the heart is full of godliness,
the eyes are full of seeing. You can not blind them with devilish arts.
You can not delude them as to the true forms of Satan, let him take any
shape The eye of godliness sees clean through the mask of sin, as the
light of the sun pierces the thickest cloud, and brings day after the
darkest night.”

“Oh! what a blessed thing to hear you say so.”

“More blessed to believe, Sister Cooper, and believing, to pray with all
your heart for this same eye of godliness. But we should not only
pray but work. Working for God is the best sort of prayer. We must do
something in his behalf: and this reminds me, Sister Cooper, that if
there is so much evil spread abroad in these books, we should look
heedfully into the character of such as fall into the hands of the young
and the unmindful of our flock.”

“That is very true; that is just what I was thinking of, Brother Cross.
You can not look too close, I'm thinking into such books as you'll find
at the house of Widow Thackeray. I can give a pretty 'cute guess where
she gets all that sort of talk, that seems so natural at the end of her
tongue.”

“Verily, I will speak with Sister Thackeray on this subject,” responded
the pastor--“but your own books, Sister Cooper, and those of your
daughter Margaret--if it is convenient, I should prefer to examine them
now while I am here.”

“What! Margaret's books! examine Margaret's books!”

“Even so, while I am present and while Brother Stevens is here, also, to
give me his helping counsel in the way of judgment.”

“Why, bless us, Brother Cross, you don't suppose that my daughter
Margaret would keep any but the properest books? she's too sensible, I
can tell you, for that. She's no books but the best; none, I'll warrant
you, like them you'll find at Widow Thackeray's. She's not to be put off
with bad books. She goes through 'em with a glance of the eye. Ah! she's
too smart to be caught by the contrivances of those devils, though in
place of four brothers there was four thousand of 'em. No, no! let her
alone for that--she's a match for the best of 'em.”

“But as Brother Stevens said,” continued John Cross, “where sin gets
into the heart, the eye is blinded to the truth. Now--”

“Her eye's not blinded, Brother Cross, I can tell you. They can't cheat
her with their books. She has none but the very best. I'll answer for
them. None of them ever did me any harm; and I reckon none of them'll
ever hurt her. But I'm mistaken, if you don't have a real burning when
you get to Mrs. Thackeray's.”

“But, Sister Cooper--” commenced the preacher.

“Yes, Brother Cross,” replied the dame.

“Books, as I said before, are of two kinds.”

“Yes, I know--good and bad--I only wonder there's no indifferent ones
among 'em,” replied the lady.

“They should be examined for the benefit of the young and ignorant.”

“Oh, yes, and for more besides, for Mrs. Thackeray's not young, that's
clear enough; and I know there's a good many things that she's not
ignorant of. She's precious knowing about many things that don't do her
much good; and if the books could unlearn her, I'd say for one let her
keep 'em. But as for looking at Margaret's books--why, Brother Cross,
you surely know Margaret?”

The preacher answered meekly, but negatively.

“Ain't she about the smartest girl you ever met with?” continued the
mother.

“God has certainly blessed her with many gifts,” was the reply, “but
where the trust is great, the responsibility is great also.”

“Don't she know it?”

“I trust she does, Sister Cooper.”

“You may trust every bit of it. She's got the smartness, the same as it
is in books--”

“But the gift of talents, Sister Cooper, is a dangerous gift.”

“I don't see, Brother Cross, how good things that come from God can be
dangerous things.”

“If I could see the books, Sister Cooper;--I say not that they are
evil--”

John Cross began in tones that denoted something like despair; certainly
dissatisfaction was in them, when Alfred Stevens, who had long since
tired of what was going on, heard a light footfall behind him. He turned
his eyes and beheld the fair maiden, herself, the propriety of whose
reading was under discussion, standing in the doorway. It appeared that
she had gathered from what had reached her ears, some knowledge of what
was going on, for a smile of ineffable scorn curled her classic and
nobly-chiselled mouth, while her brow was the index to a very haughty
volume. In turning, Alfred Stevens betrayed to her the playful smile
upon his own lips--their eyes met, and that single glance established a
certain understanding between them.

Her coming did not avail to stifle the subject of discussion. John Cross
was too resolute in the prosecution of his supposed duty, to give up the
cause he had once undertaken. He had all the inveteracy of the stout
old puritan. The usual introduction over and he resumed, though he now
addressed himself to the daughter rather than the mother. She scarcely
heard him to the end.

“The books were my father's, Mr. Cross; they are valuable to me on
that account. They are dear to me on their own. They are almost my only
companions, and though I believe you would find nothing in them which
might be held detrimental, yet I must confess, if there were, I should
be sorry to be made acquainted with the fact. I have not yet discovered
it myself, and should be loath to have it shown by another.”

“But you will let me see them, Margaret?”

“Yes, sir, whenever you please. I can have no objection to that, but if
by seeing them you only desire an opportunity to say what I shall read
and what not, I can only tell you that your labor will be taken in vain.
Indeed, the evil is already done. I have not a volume which I have not
read repeatedly.”

It is needless to add that Brother Cross was compelled to forego his
book examination at the widow Cooper's, though strongly recommended
there to press it at Widow Thackeray's. Alfred Stevens was a mute
observer during the interview, which did not last very long after the
appearance of Margaret. He was confirmed in all his previous impressions
of her beauty, nor did the brevity of the conference prevent him from
perceiving her intense self-esteem, which under certain influences of
temperament is only another name for vanity. Besides they had
exchanged glances which were volumes, rendering unnecessary much future
explanation. She had seen that he was secretly laughing at the simple
preacher, and that was a source of sympathy between them. She was very
much in the habit of doing the same thing. He, on the other hand, was
very well satisfied that the daughter of such a mother must be perverse
and vain; and he was moralist enough to know that there is no heart so
accessible to the tempter as the proud and wilful heart. But few words
had passed between them, but those were expressive, and they both
parted, with the firm conviction that they must necessarily meet again.






CHAPTER IX.

HOW THE TOAD GRINS UPON THE ALTAR.





Shall we go the rounds with our pastor? Shall we look in upon him at
Mrs. Thackeray's, while, obeying the suggestion of the widow Cooper, he
purges her library of twenty volumes, casting out the devils and setting
up the true gods? It is scarcely necessary. Enough to know that,
under his expurgatorial finger, our beloved and bosom friend, William
Shakspere, was the first to suffer. Plays! The one word was enough.
Some lying histories were permitted to escape. The name of history saved
them! Robinson Crusoe was preserved as a true narrative; and Swift's
Tale of a Tub escaped, as it was assumed (there being no time to read
any of the books, and in this respect John Cross showed himself much
more of a professional critic than he conjectured) to be a treatise
on one branch of the cooperage business, and so, important to domestic
mechanics in a new country. The reader will remember the manner in which
the library of the knight of La Mancha was disposed of. He would err,
however, if he supposed that John Cross dismissed the books from the
window, or did anything farther than simply to open the eyes of Mrs.
Thackeray to the bad quality of some of the company she kept. That
sagacious lady did not think it worth while to dispute the ipse dixit of
a teacher so single-minded, if not sagacious. She bowed respectfully
to all his suggestions, promised no longer to bestow her smiles on the
undeserving--a promise of no small importance when it is remembered
that, at thirty-three, Mrs. Thackeray was for the first time a
widow--and that night she might have been seen laughing heartily with
Mesdames Ford and Quickly at the amorous pertinacity of the baffled
knight of Eastcheap.

Under the paternal wing of John Cross, Alfred Stevens obtained the
desired entree into the bosom of the flock. He was everywhere admitted
with gladness--everywhere welcomed as to a home; and the unsophisticated
old teacher by whose agency this was effected, congratulated his
congregation and himself, on leaving the village, that he had left in it
a person so full of grace, and one who, with the blessing of God, was
so likely to bring about the birth of grace in others. The good old man
bestowed long and repeated counsels upon his neophyte. The course of
study which he prescribed was very simple. The Bible was the Alpha and
the Omega--it was the essential whole. It would be well to read other
books if they could be had--Clarke and Wesley were, of course, spoken
of--but they could be done without. The word of God was in the one
volume, and it needed no help from commentators to win its way and
suffice the hungering and thirsting soul.

“If you could lay hands upon the book of sermons written by Brother
Peter Cummins, which his wife had printed, I'm thinking it would serve,
next to God's own blessed word, to put you in the right way. It's been
a great helping to me, Alfred Stevens, that same book of sermons; and,
I reckon it's because it's so good a book that it's not printed now.
I don't see it much about. But I'll get you one if I can, and bring
or send it to you, soon enough to help you to the wisdom that you're a
seeking after. If it only wakes the spirit in you as it did in me--if
it only stirs you up with the spirit of divine love--you'll find it easy
enough to understand the teachings of the holy volume. All things become
clear in that blessed light. By its help you read, and by its working
you inwardly digest all the needful learning. The Lord be with you,
Alfred Stevens, and bring to perfect ripening your present undertaking.”

“Amen!” was the solemn response of the hypocrite, but we need not say
what an irreverent and unholy thought lay at the bottom of his mind in
making this ejaculation.

Before the departure of John Cross, the latter had made terms with
Squire Hinkley for the board and lodging of Brother Stevens and his
horse. Hinkley would have preferred taking nothing, considering the
praiseworthy purpose of the supposed theological student; but Stevens
shrunk from receiving such an obligation with a feeling of pride, which
yet had no scruples at practising so wretched an imposture. He insisted
upon making compensation, or upon leaving the house; and, not to incur
this risk, Hinkley consented to receive a weekly sum in payment; but the
charge was considerably smaller, as we may suppose, than it would
have been had the lodger simply appeared as an inoffensive traveller,
practising no fraud and making no professions of religion.

Having effected all these arrangements, to his own satisfaction and
seemingly that of all others, John Cross departed once more into the
wilderness on his single-hearted ministry of love. A sturdy and an
honest worker was he in the tabernacle, with a right mind if not a very
wise one; and doing more good in his generation, and after the fashion
of his strength, than is often permitted to the stall-fed doctors of his
vocation.

The reader will suppose that the old man has been already gone some
seven days. Meanwhile, the young student has fairly made himself at
home in Charlemont. He has a snug room, entirely to himself, at Squire
Hinkley's, and, by the excellent care of the worthy dame, it is provided
with the best bedding and the finest furniture. Her own hands sweep it
clean, morning and night, for the incipient parson; she makes up the
bed, and, in customary phrase, puts it in all respects to rights. His
wants are anticipated, his slightest suggestion met with the most prompt
consideration; and John Cross himself, humble and unexacting as he was,
might have felt some little twinges of mortal envy could he have
known that his protege promised to become a much greater favorite than
himself.

This, indeed, seemed very likely to be the case. A good young man in the
sight of the ladies is always a more attractive person than a good old
man. Dame Hinkley, though no longer young herself, remembered that she
had been so, and preserved all her sympathies, in consequence, for
young people. She thought Alfred Stevens so handsome, and he smiled so
sweetly, and he spoke so genty, and, in short, so great had been his
progress in the affections of his hostess in the brief space of a single
week, that we are constrained to confess ourselves rejoiced that she
herself was an old woman, as well on her own account as on that of her
worthy spouse.

Her good man was very well satisfied, whether from confidence or
indifference, that such should be the case. Her attentions to the young
stranger probably diverted them from himself. But not so with William
Hinkley--the son. We have already had some glimpses of the character
of this young man. We may now add that the short week's residence of
Stevens in Charlemont had increased the soreness at his heart. In that
week he had seen fairly established that intimacy between his rival
and the lady of his love which seemed to give the death-blow to any
pretensions of his. He had seen them meet; had seen them go forth
together; beheld their mutual eyes, and, turning his own inward, saw
how deeply his heart was concerned in the probable sympathies of theirs.
Then, to turn to his own habitation, and to behold THAT, mother and all,
devoted to the same absolute stranger; to pass unheeded in the presence
of those whom he best loved--over whom natural ties gave him inalienable
rights; to feel himself put aside for one only known of yesterday; to
look with yearning, and meet eyes only of disregard and indifference!
Such being the suggestions of his jealous and suffering nature, it
is surely no matter of wonder that the youth grew melancholy and
abstracted.

Our adventurer was snugly seated in the little but select chamber which
had been given him in the house of Squire Hinkley. A table, neatly
spread with a cotton cover, stood before him: a travelling-portfolio
was opened beneath his hand, with a broad sheet of paper, already well
written over, and waiting nothing but his signature, and perhaps the
postscript. He was absorbed unusually in his cogitations, and nibbled
into bits the feathery end of the gray goosequill of w

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