University of Virginia Library

3. CHAPTER III.

The young maiden last met by our travellers, and whose
appearance had so favourably 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 lead 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 awhile 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 are natural enough to all young persons
of active, earnest minds; 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 prospects 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 re ources—she had
sounded its depths, and seen 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 colouring to all her
actions, 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 in consequence
of this allotment been also taught some of those
rude lessons which painfully teach dependance; 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 neighbours, 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
mind, 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 fonnd,
at all hours, when it was not absolutely due to appearances
that she should be seen among the crowd.

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, at one moment in her eye;—
at the next 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
suspension of 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 paused
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 cannot come this evening.”

“But why not, Margaret?—your mother's coming,—she
promised me 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
humour.”

Already, in the little village of Charlemont, Margaret
Cooper was one of the few who were permitted to indulge in
humours, and William Hinkley learned the reason assigned
for her refusal, with an expression of regret and disappointment,
but 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 preceeded 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 every body 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 every
body's pleased that we see; 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
no feeling, no desire in common with the crowd.

“It is my misfortune,” she continued, “to care very
little for the pastimes which you speak of; and as for the
company, I've no doubt it will be very pleasant for those
who go, but to me, I am sure, 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 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 getting 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, as you are, Margaret.
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 to 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 kindred, acquaintance
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
farther; 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
any thing for the players, Margaret, I'm sure you can't be
indifferent to their music; and I know they are any thing
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 with the arguments of common sense and a gentle
nature in subduing the inflexible, perverse mood of the
haughty maiden. Her cold denial was repeated, and with
looks that did not once 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 regret and reluctance 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.