University of Virginia Library

9. CHAPTER IX.

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 Shakspeare, 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 narative; and
Swift's Tale of a Tub escaped, as it was assured—(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 any thing 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 entrée into the bosom of the flock.
He was every where admitted with gladness—every where
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 stallfed 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 protégé promised
to become a much greater favourite than himself.
This, indeed, seemed very like 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 gently,
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 deathblow to any pretensions of his. He had
seen them meet; had seen them go forth together; beheld
their mutual eyes, and, turning his own inwards, 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 sure 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 which he had been making such excellent
use. While he meditates, unseeing, we will use the liberty
of an old acquaintance to scan the letter—for such it is—
which he has been writing. Perhaps we shall gather from
it some matters which it may concern us yet to know.

“Dear Barnabas—

“The strangest adventure—positively the very strangest
—that ever happened to a son of Murkey's, will keep me
from the embraces of the brethren a few weeks longer. I
am benighted, bewildered, taken with art-magic, transmuted,
transmogrified, not myself nor yet another, but,
as they say in Mississippi, `a sort of betweenity.' Fancy
me suddenly become a convert to the bluest Presbyterianism,
as our late excellent brother Woodford became, when
he found that he could not get Moll Parkinson on any
other terms—and your guess will not be very far from the
true one. I am suddenly touched with conviction. I have
seen a light on my way from Tarsus. The scales have
fallen from my eyes. I have seen the wickedness of my
ways, and yours too, you dog, and having resolved on my
own repentance, I am taking lessons which shall enable

me to effect yours. Precious deal of salt will it need for
that. Salt river will fall, while its value rises. But the
glory of the thing—think of that, my boy. What a triumph
it will be to revolutionize Murkey's. To turn out
the drinkers, and smokers, and money-changers. To say,
`hem! my brethren let us pay no more taxes to sin in this
place!' There shall be no more cakes and ale. Ginger
shall have no heat i'the mouth there; and in place of
smoking meats and tobacco, give you nothing but smoking
Methodism. Won't that be a sight and a triumph which
shall stir the dry bones in our valley,—ay, and bones not
so dry. There shall be a quaking of the flesh in sundry
places. Flam will perish in the first fit of consternation,
and if Joe Burke's sides do not run into sop and jelly,
through the mere humour of the thing, then prophecy is
out of its element quite.

“Seriously, you dog, I have become a theological student!
Don't you see proofs of my progress in my unctuous
phraseology. I was taken suddenly upon the highway—a
brand plucked from the burning—and to be stuck
up on high, still lighted, however, as a sort of lantern
and lighthouse to other wayfarers—wandering rogues like
yourself, who need some better lights than your own if it
only be to show you how to sin decently. I am professedly
a convert to the true faith, though which that is I
think has not well been determined among you at Murkey's,
or indeed any where else. I believe the vox populi, vox
Dei, still comprises the only wholesome decision which
has yet been made on the subject. The popular vote here
declares it to be Methodism; with you it is Baptism or
Presbyterianism—which? I am a flexible student, however,
and when I meet you again at Murkey's shall be
prepared to concur with the majority.

“But, in sober fact, I am a professor—actually recognised
by my neighbours as one of the elect—set apart to
be and do mighty things. How I came so, will call for a
long story, which I defer to another occasion. Enough to
tell you that an accidental rencontre with a silly old
preacher—(whose gullet I filled with raw brandy, which I
recommended to him under another name as a sovereign
remedy against flatulence, and which nearly strangled him,
he took such a premeditated swallow)—brought me into
one of the loveliest little villages in all this western country,

and there I saw many things—among others—a
woman!—

“A woman!—that one word, you dog, will explain the
mystery—will show you why I am thus transmuted,
transmogrified, and in `a state of betweenity.' Nothing
less, I assure you, could make me disguise myself after
the present fashion; wear the sanctimonious and sour
phiz which the common law of modern religion prescribes,
and keep me much longer from the pleasanter communion
of such glorious imps, as I suppose, are, even now, beginning
to gather in the dingy smoke-room of our sovereign
Murkey. But this woman, you will ask. Ay, ay,
but you shall have no answer yet. It shall be enough for
you that she is a Queen of Sheba, after her own fashion.
A proud, imperious, passionate creature—tall, really beautiful—and
so majestic! You should see the flashing of her
eyes to know what sort of a thing is moral lightning.
Her face kindles up in an instant. She is an intensifier,
and like most such, cursedly smart. Young too,—scarce
seventeen, I think;—queer too—almost tyrannical at
times—but full of blood, of unregulated passions, moody,
capricious, and of course easy game, if the sportsman
knows any thing of the habits of the bird. She is a country
girl, but no hoyden. Her intensity of character, her
pride and great self-esteem, have made her a solitary.
Unsophisticated in some respects, she is yet not to be surprised.
In solitude, and a taste for it, she has acquired a
sort of moral composure which makes her secure against
surprise. I am really taken with the girl, and could love
her, I tell you—nay, do love her—so long as love can
keep himself—out of a state of bondage! I do not think,
at this moment, that I shall violate any of the laws of the
conventicle, like small-witted Brother Woodford; though,
so far as the woman is concerned, I should leave it without
argument to the free vote of all the Lads of Fancy that ever
gather round Murkey's round table, if my justification for
turning traitor, would not prove immeasurably more complete
than his.

“So! so! There are bones enough for you to crunch,
you professional bandog. I had not meant to tell you half
so much. There is some danger that one may lose his
game altogether, if he suffers his nose to point unnecessarily
to the cover where it lies. I know what keen scents

are in the club, some of which would be on my track in
no time if they knew where to find me; but I shall baffle
you, you villains. My post-town is twenty miles from
the place where I pursue my theological studies; you are
too wise to attempt a wild goose chase. You may smack
your chops, Barney, with envy;—bite them too if you
please, and it will only whet my own sense of pleasure to
fancy your confusion, and your hopeless denunciations in
the club. I shall be back in time for term—meanwhile
get the papers in readiness. Write to me at the post-town
of Ellisland, and remember to address me as Alfred Stevens—nay,
perhaps, you may even say, `Rev. Alfred
Stevens,' it will grace the externals of the document with
a more unctuous aspect, and secure the recipient a more
wholesome degree of respect. Send all my letters to this
town under envelope with this direction. I wrote you
twice from Somerville. Did I tell you that old Hunks has
been deused liberal? I can laugh at the small terms, yet
go to Murkey's and shine through the smoke with the best
of you. I solicit the prayers of the Round Table.

“Faithfully, yours, &c.”

So far our profligate had written to his brother profligate,
when a tap was heard at the entrance of his chamber.
Thrusting the written papers into his portfolio, he rose,
and opening the door discovered his hostess at the entrance.

“came, Brother Stevens,” said the old lady, “if you
were not too busy in your studies, to have a little talk
with you, and to get your counsel upon a subject that a
little distresses me. But you look as if you were busy
now—”

“Not too busy, Mrs. Hinkley, to oblige you in this or
in any other respect;” replied the guest with suitable
suavity of expression—“shall I attend you down stairs.”

“Oh! no! it won't need,” said she. “I'll take a seat
with you awhile. We shall be less liable to interruption
here.”

Stevens scarcely repressed his smile, but the seniority
of the old lady made her proceedings very innocent, however
much they might have been adverse to the rules. He
threw wide the door, and without more hesitation she followed
him at once into the chamber.