University of Virginia Library

3. 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 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 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 can not 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.