University of Virginia Library

12. CHAPTER XII.

The course of the young rustic was pursued for half a
mile further 'till he came to a little cottage of which the
eye could take no cognizance from any part of the village.
It was embowelled in a glen of its own—a mere cup of
the slightly rising hills, and so encircled by foliage that
it needed a very near approach of the stranger before he
became aware of its existence. The structure was very
small, a sort of square box with a cap upon it, and consisted
of two rooms only on a ground floor, with a little
lean-to or shed-room in the rear, intended for a kitchen.
As you drew nigh and passed through the thick fringe of
wood by which its approach was guarded, the space opened
before you, and you found yourself in a sort of amphitheatre,
of which the cottage was the centre. A few trees
dotted this area, large and massive trees, and seemingly
preserved for purposes of shade only. It was the quietest
spot in the world, and inspired just that sort of feeling in
the contemplative stranger which would be awakened by
a ramble among the roofless ruins of the ancient abbey.
It was a home for contemplation—in which one might
easily forget the busy world without, and deliver himself

up, without an effort, to the sweetly sad musings of the
anchorite.

The place was occupied however. A human heart
beat within the humble shed, and there was a spirit, sheltered
by its quiet, that mused many high thoughts, and
dreamed in equal congratulation and self-reproach, of that
busy world from which it was an exile. The visit of
William Hinkley was not paid to the solitude. A venerable
man, of large frame, and benignant aspect, sat beneath
an aged tree, paternal in its appearance like himself. This
person might be between fifty and sixty years of age. His
hair though very thick and vigorous was as white as
driven snow. But there were few wrinkles on his face,
and his complexion was the clear red and white of a
healthy and sanguine temperament. His brow was large
and lofty. It had many more wrinkles than his face.
There were two large horizontal seams upon it that denoted
the exercise of a very busy thought. But the expression
of his eye was that of the most unembarrassed benevolence
and peace. It was subdued and sometimes sad, but then
it had the sweetest, playfullest twinkle in the world. His
mouth, which was small and beautifully formed, wore a
similar expression. In short he was what we would call
a handsome old gentleman, whose appearance did not offend
taste, and whose kind looks invited confidence. Nor
would we mistake his character.

This person was the Mr. Calvert, the schoolmaster of
the village, of whom Mrs. Hinkley spoke to Alfred Stevens
in discussing the condition of her son. His tasks
were over for the day. The light-hearted rabble whom
he taught, released from his dominion which was not
severe, were, by this time, scampering over the hills, as
far from their usual place of restraint as the moderate
strength of their legs could carry them. Though let loose,
boys are not apt to feel their liberty in its prime and freshness,
immediately in the neighbourhood of the school-house.
The old gentleman left to himself, sat out in the
open air, beneath a massive oak, the paternal stretching of
whose venerable arms not unfrequently led to the employment
of the shade below for carrying on the operations of
the school-house. There, squat on their haunches, the
sturdy boys—germs of the finest peasantry in the world—
surrounded their teacher in a group quite as pleasing as

picturesque. The sway of the old man was paternal. His
rod was rather a figurative than a real existence; and
when driven to the use of the birch, the good man, consulting
more tastes than one, employed the switch from
the peach or some other odorous tree or shrub, in order
to reconcile the lad, as well as he could, to the extraordinary
application. He was one of those considerate persons,
who disguise pills in gold-leaf, and if compelled, as
a judge, to hang a gentleman, would decree that a rope of
silk should carry out the painful requisitions of the laws.

Seated beneath his tree, in nearly the same spot and position
in which he had dismissed his pupils, William
Calvert pored over the pages of a volume as huge of size
as it was musty of appearance. It was that pleasant book
—quite as much romance as history—the “Knights of
Malta,” by our venerable father, Monsieur L'Abbe Vertot.
Its dull, dim, yellow-looking pages—how yellow, dim,
and dull-looking in comparison with more youthful works
—had yet a life and soul which it is not easy to find in
many of these latter. Its high wrought and elaborate pictures
of strife, and toil, and bloodshed, grew vividly before
the old man's eyes; and then, to help the illusion, were
there not the portraits—mark me—the veritable portraits,
engraved on copper, with all their titles, badges, and insignia,
done to the life, of all those brave, grand, and
famous masters of the order, by whom the deeds were
enacted which he read, and who stared out upon his eyes,
at every epoch, in full confirmation of the veracious narrative?
No wonder that the old man became heedless of
external objects. No wonder he forgot the noise of the
retiring urchins, and the toils of the day, as, for the twentieth
time, he glowed in the brave recital of the famous
siege—the baffled fury of the Turk—the unshaken constancy
and unremitted valour of the few but fearless defenders.
The blood in his cheek might be seen hastening
to and fro in accordance with the events of which he read.
His eye was glowing—his pulse beating, and he half
started from his seat, as, hearing a slight footstep, he
turned to encounter the respectful homage of his former
pupil, still his friend, our young acquaintance, William
Hinkley.

The old man laid down his book upon the grass, extended
his hand to his visited, and leaning back against the

tree, surrendered himself to a quiet chuckle in which there
was the hesitancy of a little shame.

“You surprised me, William,” he said; “when I read
old Vertot, and such books, I feel myself a boy again.
You must have seen my emotion. I really had got so
warm that I was about to start up and look for the weapons
of war; and had you but come a moment later, you
might have suffered an assault. As it was, I took you for
a Turk—Solyman himself—and was beginning to ask
myself whether I should attack you tooth and nail, having
no other weapons, or propose terms of peace. Considering
the severe losses which you—I mean his Turkish
Highness—had sustained, I fancied that you would not be
disinclined to an arrangement just at this moment. But
this very notion, at the same time, led me to the conclusion
that I might end the struggle for ever by another blow.
A moment later, my boy, and you might have been compelled
to endure it for the Turk.”

The youth smiled sadly as he replied—“I must borrow
that book from you, sir, some of these days. I have often
thought to do so, but I am afraid.”

“Afraid of what, William?”

“That it will turn my head, sir, and make me dislike
more difficult studies.”

“It is a reasonable fear, my son; but there is no danger
of this sort, if we will only take heed of one rule, and that
is to take such books as we take sweetmeats—in very
small quantities at a time, and never to interfere with the
main repast. I suspect that light reading—or reading
which we usually call light—but which, as it concerns the
fate of man in his most serious relations, his hopes, his
affections, his heart, nay his very people and nation, is
certainly scarcely less important than any other. I suspect
that this sort of reading would be of great service to
the student, by relieving the solemnity of more tedious and
exacting studies, if taken sparingly and at allotted hours.
The student, usually finds a recreation of some kind. I
would make books of this description his recreation.
Many a thick-headed and sour parent has forced his son
into a beer-ship, into the tastes for tobacco, and consequently
brandy, simply from denying him amusements
which equally warm the blood and elevate the imagination.
Studies which merely inform the head are very apt

to endanger the heart. This is the reproach usually urged
against the class of persons whom we call thorough lawyers.
Their intense devotion to that narrow sphere of
law which leaves out jury pleading, is very apt to endanger
the existence of feeling and imagination. The
mere analysis of external principles begets a degree of
moral indifference to all things else, which really impairs
the intellect by depriving it of its highest sources of stimulus.
Mathematicians suffer in the same way—become
mere machines, and forfeit, in their concern for figures, all
the social and most of the human characteristics. The
mind is always enfeebled by any pursuit, so single and
absorbing in its aims as to leave out of exercise any of the
moral faculties. That course of study is the only one to
make a truly great man, which compels the mind to do all
things of which it is capable!”

“But how do you reconcile this, sir, with the opinion,
so generally entertained, that no one man can serve two
masters? Law, like the muse, is a jealous mistress. She
is said to suffer no lachesse to escape with impunity.”

“You mistake me. While I counsel one to go out of
his profession for relief and recreation, I still counsel but
the one pursuit. Men fail in their professions, not because
they daily assign an hour to amusement, but because
they halt in a perpetual struggle between some two
leading objects. For example, nothing is more frequent
in our country than to combine law and politics. Nothing
is more apt to ruin the lawyer.”

“Very true, sir. I now understand you. But I should
think the great difficulty would be, in resorting to such
pleasant books as this of Vertot, for relief and recreation,
that you could not cast him off when you please. The
intoxication would continue even after the draught has
been swallowed, and would thus interfere with the hours
devoted to other employments.”

“There is reason in that, William, and that, indeed, is
the grand difficulty. But to show that a good scheme has
its difficulties is not an argument for abandoning it.”

“By no means, sir.”

“The same individual whom Vertot might intoxicate,
would most probably be intoxicated by more dangerous
stimulants. Every thing, however, depends upon the
habits of self-control which a man has acquired in his boyhood.

The habit of self-control is the only habit which
makes mental power truly effective. The man who cannot
compel himself to do or to forbear, can never be much
of a student. Students, if you observe, are generally
dogged men—inflexible—plodding, persevering—among
lawyers, those men whom you always find at their offices,
and seldom see any where else. They own that mental
habit which we call self-control, which supplies the deficiency
in numerous instances of real talent. It is a power
—and a mighty power, particularly in this country, where
children are seldom taught it, and, consequently, grow up
to be a sort of moral vanes that move with every change
of wind, and never fix until they do so with their own
rust. He who learns this power in boyhood will be very
sure to master all his companions.”

The darker expression of sadness passed over the countenance
of the ingenuous youth.

“I am afraid,” said he, “that I shall never acquire this
habit.”

“Why so? In your very fear I see a hope.”

“Alas! sir, I feel my own instability of character. I
feel myself the victim of a thousand plans and purposes,
which change as soon and as often as they are made. I
am afraid, sir, I shall be nothing!”

“Do not despond, my son,” said the old man sympathizingly.
“Your fear is natural to your age and temperament.
Most young men at your time of life feel numerous
yearnings—the struggle of various qualities of mind,
each striving in newly-born activity, and striving adversely.
Your unhappiness arises from the refusal of
these qualities to act together. When they learn to cooperate
all will be easy. Your strifes will be subdued,
there will be a calm like that upon the sea when the
storms subside.”

“Ah! but when will that be? A long time yet. It
seems to me that the storm rather increases than subsides.”

“It may seem so to you now, and yet, when the strife
is greatest, the favourable change is at hand. It needs but
one thing to make all the conflicting qualities of one's
mind co-operate.”

“What is that one thing, sir?”

“An object! As yet you have none!”

“None, sir!”

“None—or rather many—which is pretty much the
same thing as having none.”

“I am not sure, sir—but it seems to me, sir, that I have
an object.”

“Indeed, William—are you sure?”

“I think so, sir.”

“Well, name it.”

“I have ambition, sir.”

“Ah! that is a passion not an object. Does your ambition
point in one direction? Unless it does it is objectless.”

The youth was silent. The old man proceeded.

“I am disposed to be severe with you, my son. There
is no surer sign of feebleness than in the constant beginnings
and the never-performings of a mind. Know thyself,
is the first lesson to learn. Is it not very childish to
talk of having ambition, without knowing what to do with
it? If we have ambition, it is given to us to work with.
You come to me and declare this ambition! We confer
together. Your ambition seeks for utterance. You ask
`What sort of utterance will suit an ambition such as mine?'
To answer this question, we ask, what are your qualities?
Did you think, William, that I disparaged yours when I
recommended the law to you as a profession?”

“No, sir! oh, no! Perhaps you overrated them. I am
afraid so—I think so.”

“No, William, unfortunately, you do not think about
it. If you would suffer yourself to think you would speak
a different language.”

“I cannot think—I am too miserable to think!” exclaimed
the youth in a burst of passion. The old man
looked surprised. He gazed with a serious anxiety into
the youth's face, and then addressed him:—

“Where have you been, William, for the last three
weeks? In all that time I have not seen you.”

A warm blush suffused the cheeks of the pupil. He did
not immediately answer.

“Ask me!” exclaimed a voice from behind them which
they both instantly recognised as that of Ned Hinkley, the
cousin of William. He had approached them, in the earnestness
of their interview, without having disturbed them.
The bold youth was habited in a rough woodman's dress.

He wore a round jacket of homespun, and in his hand he
carried a couple of fishing-rods which, with certain other
implements, betrayed sufficiently the object of his present
pursuit.

“Ask me!” said he. “I can tell you what he's been
about better than any body else.”

“Well, Ned,” said the old man, “what has it been? I
am afraid it is your fiddle that keeps him from his Black-stone.”

“My fiddle, indeed! If he would listen to my fiddle
when she speaks out, he'd be wiser and better for it. Look
at him, Mr. Calvert, and say whether it's book or fiddle
that's likely to make him as lean as a March pickerel in
the short space of three months. Only look at him, I say.”

“Truly, William, I-had not observed it before, but, as
Ned says, you do look thin, and you tell me you are unhappy.
Hard study might make you thin, but cannot
make you unhappy. What is it?”

The more volatile and freespoken cousin answered for
him.

“He's been shot, gran'pa, since you saw him last.”

“Shot?”

“Yes, shot!—He thinks mortally. I think not. A
flesh wound to my thinking, that a few months more will
cure.”

“You have some joke at bottom, Edward,” said the old
man gravely.

“Joke, sir! It's a tough joke that cudgels a plump lad
into a lean one in a single season.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean to use your own language, gran'pa. Among
the lessons I got from you when you undertook to fill our
heads with wisdom by applications of smartness to a very
different place—among the books we sometimes read from
was one of Master Ovid.”

“Ha! ha! I see what you're after. I understand the
shooting. So you think that the blind boy has hit William,
eh?”

“A flesh wound as I tell you; but he thinks the bolt is
in his heart. I'm sure it can and will be plucked out, and
no death will follow.”

“Well, who's the maiden from whose eyes the arrow
was barbed?”

“Margaret Cooper.”

“Ah! indeed!” said the old man gravely.

“Do not heed him;” exclaimed William Hinkley, but
the blush upon his cheeks, still increasing, spoke a different
language.

“I would rather not heed him, William. The passions
of persons so young as yourself are seldom of a permanent
character. The attractions which win the boy seldom
compensate the man. There is time enough for this, ten
years hence, and love then will be far more rational.”

“Ah, lud!—wait ten years at twenty. I can believe a
great deal in the doctrine of young men's folly, but I can't
go that. I'm in love myself.”

“You!”

“Yes! I!—I'm hit too—and if you don't like it, why
did you teach us Ovid and the rest? As for rational love,
that's a new sort of thing that we never heard about before.
Love was never expected to be rational. He's known the
contrary. I've heard so ever since I was knee-high to the
great picture of your Cupid that you showed us in your
famous Dutch edition of Apuleius. The young unmarried
men feel that it's irrational; the old married people tell us
so in a grunt that proves the truth of what they say. But
that don't alter the case. It's a sort of natural madness
that makes one attack in every person's lifetime. I don't
believe in repeated attacks. Some are bit worse than
others; and some think themselves bit, and are mistaken.
That's the case with William, and it's that that keeps him
from your law-books and my fiddle. That makes him
thin. He has a notion of Margaret Cooper, and she has
none of him; and love that's all of one side is neither real
nor rational. I don't believe it.”

William Hinkley muttered something angrily in the
ears of the speaker.

“Well, well!” said the impetuous cousin, “I don't
want to make you vexed, and still less do I come here to
talk such politics with you. What do you say to tickling
a trout this afternoon? That's what I come for.”

“It's too cool,” said the old man.

“Not a bit. There's a wind from the south, and a
cast of cloud is constantly growing between us and the
sun. I think we shall do something—something better
than talking about love, and law, where nobody's agreed.

You, gran'pa, won't take the love; Bill Hinkley can't
stomach the law, and the trout alone can bring about a
reconciliation. Come, gran'pa, I'm resolved on getting
your supper to-night, and you must go and see me do it.”

“On one condition only, Ned.”

“What's that, gran'pa?”

“That you both sup with me.”

“Done for myself. What say you, Bill?”

The youth gave a sad assent, and the rattling youth
proceeded.

“The best cure of grief is eating. Love is a sort of
pleasant grief. Many a case of affliction have I seen
mended by a beefsteak. Fish is better. Get a lover to
eat, rouse up his appetites, and, to the same extent, you
lessen his affections. Hot suppers keep down the sensibilities;
and, gran'pa, after ours, to-night, you shall have
the fiddle. If I don't make her speak to you to-night, my
name's Brag, and you need never again believe me.”

And the good-humoured youth, gathering up his canes,
led the way to the hills, slowly followed by his two less
elastic companions.