University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.

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 repulses. 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 way wardness of humour, 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 the melancholy autumn,
and yet no visible change—none at least more favourable
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 aspect. 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 for those seemingly
abstract 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. His backward journey was 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, which he practised
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 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 sceptical 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
their charms—a privilege upon which no one could have
been more ready to insist than himself. This seeming
denial, while it suggested to him ideas of novelty, provoked
his curiosity and enkindled 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
self-esteem was greatly active in his mind; and accustomed,
as he had been, to make easy conquests among the
sex, in the region where he dwelt, it was only necessary
to inflame her vanity, to stimulate him to the use and exercise
of all his arts of victory.

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 Hubert, seemed 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 him little reason to doubt of this conviction;
and when he spoke and expressed his simple satisfaction
at meeting with a companion at last, after a long and
weary ride without one, the turn of his expressions, the
use of an antiquated biblical phraseology, and the unvarying
and monotonous solemnity of his tones, reduced the
doubts of the youth, if any remained in his mind, to absolute
certainty. At first, with the habitual levity of the
young and sceptical, 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 stranger 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 favourable introduction
to the people of that 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, to all who have ever listened to the wandering
and verbose harangues of the western preacher, and
which at once secured him the unscrupulous confidence of
his companion.

“Truly it gladdens me, young gentleman,” 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 a 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 me 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 favours. 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 succour 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 towards the flock entrusted 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 in
tones of some little precipitation. The colour increased
upon his cheek even after the words were spoken. But
they were spoken. The falsehood was registered against
him beyond recal, 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 should'st 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 honour, 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 labour, 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 which he has assigned 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 an 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 one 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 towards
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 spirits, faintings of the frame, disordered nerves,
and even against flatulence and indigestion. If, at any
time, thou should'st 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 preservative of 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 cholic.”

“From cholic 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 hold'st 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 imbided 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 guggling 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 too 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 towards it, sir, and it will relieve you.”

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

Repeated groans accompanied this apostrophe, and marked
every step in the progress of the preacher to the little
rivulet which did, indeed, trickle across the road. John
Cross, descended with the rapidity of one whose hope
hangs upon the suspension of 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 did'st not mean me harm in giving me that poisonous
liquor?”

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

“How could'st 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 would'st 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 set 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 for 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 would'st have
me think of thee with favour, 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. He had obtained a seeming victory,
and did not care to examine its details.