University of Virginia Library

3. CHAPTER III.

Under the direction of a more supple tutor
than the first, I finished my education, if so
we may call it. William Harding was still
my associate. He was still the same nervous,
susceptible, gentle youth; and though, as he
grew older, the more yielding points of his
character became modified in his associations
with society, he nevertheless did not vary in
his mental and moral make, from what I have
already described him. Though disapproving
of many of my habits and propensities, and
continually exhorting me upon them, he yet
felt the compliment which my spirit, involuntarily,
as it were, rendered to his; and he was

not at any time averse to the association which
I tendered him. Still he was like me in few
respects, if any. It is the somewhat popular
notion that sympathy in pursuit, and opinions
and sentiments in common, bring about the
connexions of friendship and love. I think
differently. Such connexions spring from a
thousand causes which have no origin in mutual
sympathies. The true source of the relationship
is the dependence and weakness on
the one hand—the strength and protection on
the other. This, I verily believe, was the fact
in our case.

With little other society than that of William
Harding, years glided away, and if they
brought little improvement to my moral attributes—they,
at least, bringing no provocation,
left in abeyance and dormancy, many of

those which were decidedly immoral. My
physical man was decidedly improved in their
progress. My features underwent considerable
change for the better—my manners were
far less objectionable—I had suppressed the
more rude and brutal features, and, mingling
more with society—that particularly of the other
sex—I had seen and obeyed the necessity of
a gentlemanly demeanor. But my heart occupied
the same place and character—there was
no change in that region. There, all was stubborness
and selfishness—a scorn for the possessions
and claims of others—a resolute and
persevering impulse which perpetually sought
to exercise and elevate its own. The spell of
my fate was upon it—it seemed seared and
soured—and while it blighted, and sought to
blight the fortunes and the feelings of others,
without any sympathy, it seemed nevertheless,
invariably, to partake of the blight. In
this respect, in the vexation of my spirit at this
strange inconsistency of character, I used to
curse myself, that I was not like the serpent—
that I could not envenom my enemy, without
infecting my own system, with the poison
meant only for his. To this mood, the want of
employment gave activity if not exercise and
exhibition. The secretions of my malignity,
having no object of development, jaundiced
my whole moral existence; and a general hostility
to human nature and the things of society,
at this stage of my being, vented itself in idle
curses, and bitter but futile denunciations. I
lived only in the night time—my life has been
a long night, in which there has been no starlight—in
which there have been many tempests.
Talk not of Greenland darkness, or
Norwegian ice. The moral darkness is the
most solid—and what cold is there like that,
where, walled in a black dungeon of hates and
fears and sleepless hostility, the heart broods
in bitterness and solitude, over its own cankering
and malignant purposes.

Many years had now elapsed since my adventure
with Michael Andrews, my old school-master.
I had grown up to manhood, and my
personal appearance, had been so completely
changed by the forming hand of time, that I
had not the same looks which distinguished
me at that period. One morning, pursuing a
favorite amusement, I had wandered with my
gun for some distance, into a part of the country,
which was almost entirely unknown to
me. The game, though plentiful, was rather

shy, and in its pursuit, I was easily seduced
to a greater distance from our village, and on
the opposite side of a stream, which though
not a river, was yet sufficiently large, particularly
when swollen by freshets,—a not unfrequent
event—to make something like a barrier
and dividing line between two divisions of
the country. The day was fine, and without
being at all conscious of the extent of my
wanderings, I proceeded some fourteen or fifteen
miles. My way led through a close and
umbrageous forest. A grove of dwarf or scrub
oaks, woven about with thick vines and sheltering
foliage, gave a delightful air of quietness
to the scene, which could not fail altogether
in its effect on a spirit as discontented and
querulous even as mine. Wandering from
place to place in the silent and seemingly sacred
haunt of the dreamy nature, I perceived,
for the first time, a clear and beautifully winding
creek, that stole in and out, half sheltered
by the shrubbery growing thickly about it—
now narrowing into a thin stream, and almost
lost among the leaves, and now spreading itself
out in all the rippling and glassy beauty
of a sylvan and secluded lake. I was won
with its charms, and pursued it in all its bendings.
The whole scene was unique in loveliness.
The hum of the unquiet breeze, now
resting among, and now flying from the slowly
waving branches above, alone broke, at intervals,
the solemn and mysterious repose of that
silence, which here seemed to have taken up
its exclusive abode. Upon a bank that jutted
so far into the lake by a winding approach, as
almost to seem an island, the trees had been
taught to form themselves into a bower; while
the grass, neatly trimmed within the enclosure,
indicated the exercise of that art, whose
hand has given life to the rock, and beauty to
the wilderness. I was naturally attracted by
the prospect, and approaching it from the
point most sheltered, came suddenly into the
presence of a tall and beautiful girl, about fifteen
years of age, sitting within its shade,
whose eyes cast down upon some needlework
which she had in her hands, enabled me to
survey, for sometime before she became conscious
of my presence, the almost singular
loveliness of feature and person which she
possessed. She started, and trembled with a
childish timidity at my approach, which not a
little enhanced the charm of her beauty in my
eyes. I apologized for my intrusion; made
some commonplace inquiry and remark, and
we soon grew familiar. The cottage in which
her parents resided, was but a little way off,
and I was permitted to attend her home.
What was my surprize to discover in the person
of her father, my old tutor. But, fortunately
for me, he was not in a condition to recognize
me. His mind and memory were in
great part gone. He still contrived, mechanically
as it were, to teach the `accidence' to
three white-headed urchins, belonging to the
neighborhood, and in this way, with the industry
of his daughters, the family procured a
tolerable livelihood. I was treated kindly by
the old people, and had certainly made some
slight impression on Emily—the maiden I
had accompanied. I lingered for some hours
in her company—and, though timid, uneducated
and girlish in a great degree, I was fascinated
by her beauty, her gentleness, and the
angelic smile upon her lips.

It was late in the day when I left the house
of old Andrews. He had heard my name,
and showed no emotion. He had evidently
forgotten all the circumstances of my boyhood
in connexion with himself. I could then venture
to return—to repeat my visits—to see
once more, and when I pleased, the sweet object,
whose glance had aroused in my bosom
an emotion of sense and sentiment entirely unknown
to it before. We did meet, and each
returning day found me on the same route.
Our intimacy increased, and she became my
own—she was my victim.