University of Virginia Library

19. CHAPTER XIX.

With this determination our suspicious youth made
rapid progress in getting out his horse. A few minutes
saw him mounted, and putting some of his resolution into
his heels, he sent the animal forward at a killing start,
under the keen infliction of the spur. He had marked
with his eye the general course which Stevens had taken
up the hills, and having a nag of equal speed and bottom,
did not scruple, in the great desire which he felt, to ascertain
the secret of the stranger, to make him display the
qualities of both from the very jump. Stevens had been
riding with a free rein, but in consequence of these energetic
measures on the part of Hinkley, the latter soon succeeded
in overhauling him. Still he had already gone a
space of five miles, and this too in one direction. He
looked back when he found himself pursued, and his countenance
very clearly expressed the chagrin which he felt.
This he strove, but with very indifferent success, to hide
from the keen searching eyes of his pursuer. He drew
up to wait his coming, and there was a dash of bitterness
in his tones as he expressed his “gratification at finding a
companion where he least expected one.”

“And perhaps, parson, when you didn't altogether
wish for one,” was the reply of the reckless fellow. “The
truth is, I know I'm not the sort of company that a wise,
sensible, learned and pious young gentleman would like to
keep, but the truth is what you said about taking a stretch,
man and beast, seemed to me to be just about as wise a

thing for me and my beast also. We've been lying by so
long that I was getting stiff in my joints, and Flip-flap,
my nag here, was getting stiff in his neck, as they
say was the case with the Jews in old times, so I took
your idea and put after you, thinking that you'd agree with
me that bad company's far better than none.”

There was a mixture of simplicity and archness in the
manner of the speaker that put Stevens somewhat at fault;
but he felt sure it wouldn't do to show the dudgeon which
he really felt; and smoothing his quills with as little obvious
effort as possible, he expressed his pleasure at the
coming of his companion. While doing so, he wheeled
his horse about, and signified a determination to return.

“What! so soon? Why, Lord bless you, Flipflap has
scarcely got in motion yet. If such as stir will do for your
nag 'twont do for him.”

But Stevens doggedly kept his horse's head along the
back track, though the animal himself exhibited no small
restiveness and a disposition to go forward.

“Well, really, Parson Stevens, I take it as unkind that
you turn back almost the very moment I join you. I seem to
have scared ride out of you if not out of your creature; but
do as you please. I'll ride on, now I'm out. I don't want
to force myself on any man for company.

Stevens disclaimed any feeling of this sort, but declared
he had ridden quite as far as he intended; and while he
hesitated, Hinkley cut the matter short by putting spurs to
his steed, and going out of sight in a moment.

“What can the cur mean?” demanded Stevens of himself,
the moment after they had separated. “Can he have
any suspicions? Ha! I must be watchful! At all events,
there's no going forward to day. I must put it off for next
week; and mean while have all my eyes about me. The
fellow seems to have as much cunning as simplicity. He
is disposed too to be insolent. I marked his manner at the
lake, as well as that of his dull-headed cousin; but that
sousing put anger out of me, and then again 'twill scarcely
do in these good days for such holy men as myself to take
up cudgels. I must bear it for awhile as quietly as possible.
It will not be long. She at least is supicionless. Never
did creature so happily delude herself. Yet what a judgment
in some things! What keen discrimination! What
a wild, governless imagination! She would be a prize,

if it were only to exhibit. How she would startle the dull,
insipid, tea-table simperers on our Helicon,—nay, with
what scorn she would traverse the Helicon itself. The devil
is that she would have a will in spite of her keeper. Such
an animal is never tamed. There could be no prescribing
to her the time when she should roar—no teaching her to
fawn and fondle, and not to rend. Soul, and eye, and tongue
would speak under the one impulse, in the exciting moment;
and when Mrs. Singalongohnay was squeaking out
her eternal requiems,—her new versions of the Psalms and
Scriptures—her blank elogies—oh! how blank!—beginning,
`Night was upon the hills,'—or, `The evening
veil hung low,' or, `It slept,'—or after some other
equally threatening form and fashion. I can fancy how
the bright eye of Margaret would gleam with scorn, and
while the Pollies and Dollies, the Patties and Jennies,
the Corydons and Jemmy Jessamies, all round were
throwing up hands and eyes in a sort of diluted rapture,
how she would look, with what equal surprise and contempt,
doubting her own ears, and sickening at the stuff
and the strange sycophancy which induced it. And should
good old Singalongohnay, with a natural and patronizing
visage, approach, and venture to talk to her about poetry,
with that assured smile of self-excellence which such a
venerable authority naturally employs, how she would
turn upon the dame and exclaim—`What! do you call
that poetry?' What a concussion would follow. How
the simperers would sheer off;—the tea that night might
as well be made of aqua fortis. Ha! ha! I can fancy the
scene before me. Nothing could be more rich. I must
give her a glimpse of such a scene. It will be a very
good mode of operation. Her pride and vanity will do
the rest. I have only to intimate the future sway—the
exclusive sovereignty which would follow—the overthrow
of the ancient idols, and the setting up of a true divinity
in herself. But shall it be so, Master Stevens? Verily,
that will be seen hereafter. Enough, if the delusion takes.
If I can delude the woman through the muse, I am satisfied.
The muse after that may dispose of the woman as
she pleases.”

Such was a portion of the soliloquy of the libertine as he
rode slowly back to Charlemont. His farther musings we
need not pursue at present. It is enough to say that they

were of the same family character. He returned to his
room as soon as he reached his lodging-house, and drawing
from his pocket a bundle of letters which he had intended
putting in the post-office at Ellisland, he carefully
locked them up in the portable writing-desk which he
kept at the bottom of his valise. When the devout Mrs.
Hinkley tapped at his door to summon him to dinner, the
meritorious young man was to be seen, seated at his table,
with the massive Bible of the family conspicuously open
before him. Good young man! never did he invoke a
blessing on the meats with more holy unction than on that
very day.

Meanwhile, let us resume our progress with William
Hinkley, and inquire in what manner his wooing sped
with the woman whom he so unwisely loved. We have
seen him leaving the cottage of Mr. Calvert with the
avowed purpose of seeking her for a final answer. A purpose
from which the old man did not seek to dissuade him,
though he readily conceived its fruitlessness. It was with
no composed spirit that the young rustic felt himself approaching
the house of Mrs. Cooper. More than once he
hesitated and even halted. But a feeling of shame, and the
efforts of returning manliness re-resolved him, and he
hurried with an unwonted rapidity of movement towards the
dwelling, as if he distrusted his own power, unless he did
so, to conclude the labour he had begun. He gathered
some courage when he found that Margaret was from
home. She had gone on her usual rambles. Mrs. Cooper
pointed out the course which she had taken, and the young
man set off in pursuit. The walks of the maiden were of
course well known to a lover so devoted. He had sought
and followed her a thousand times, and the general direction
which she had gone, once known, his progress was as
direct as his discoveries were certain. The heart of the
youth dilated with better hopes as he felt himself traversing
the old familiar paths. It seemed to him that the fates
could scarcely be adverse in a region which had always
been so friendly. Often had he escorted her along this
very route, when their spirits better harmonized,—when,
more of the girl struggling into womanhood, the mind of
Margaret Cooper, ignorant of its own resources and unconscious
of its maturer desires, was more gentle, and
could rejoice in that companionship for which she now

betrayed so little desire. The sheltered paths, the well
known trees, even the little clumps of shrubbery that filled
up the intervals, were too pleasant and familiar to his eye
not to seem favourable to his progress, and with a hope
that had no foundation save in the warm and descriptive
colours of a young heart's fancy, William Hinkley pursued
the route which led him to one of the most lovely
and love-haunted glades in all Kentucky. So sweet a
hush never hallowed the Sabbath rest of any forest. The
very murmur of a dowsy zephyr among the leaves was of
slumberous tendency; and silence prevailed, with the least
possible exertion of her authority, over the long narrow
dell through which the maiden had gone wandering. At
the foot of a long slope, to which his eye was conducted
by a natural and lovely vista, the youth beheld the object
of his search, seated, motionless, with her back towards
him. The reach of light was bounded by her figure,
which was seated on the decaying trunk of a fallen tree.
She was deeply wrapped in thought, for she did not observe
his approach, and when his voice reached her ears,
and she started and looked round, her eyes were full of
tears. These she hastily brushed away, and met the
young man with a degree of composure which well might
have put the blush upon his cheek, for the want of it.

“In tears!—weeping, Margaret?” was the first address
of the lover who necessarily felt shocked at what he saw.

“They were secret tears, sir—not meant for other eyes,”
was the reproachful reply.

“Ah, Margaret! but why should you have secret tears,
when you might have sympathy—why should you have
tears at all? You have no sorrows.”

“Sympathy!” was the exclamation of the maiden, while
a scornful smile gleamed from her eyes; “whose sympathy,
I pray?”

The young man hesitated to answer. The expression
of her eye discouraged him. He dreaded lest, in offering
his sympathies, he should extort from her lips a more
direct intimation of that scorn which he feared. He chose
a middle course.

“But that you should have sorrows, Margaret, seems
very strange to me. You are young and hearty; endowed
beyond most of your sex, and with a beauty which cannot
be too much admired. Your mother is hearty and

happy, and for years you have had no loss of relations
to deplore. I see not why you should have sorrows.”

“It is very likely, William Hinkley, that you do not
see. The ordinary sorrows of mankind arise from the
loss of wives and cattle, children and property. There
are sorrows of another kind; sorrows of the soul; the
consciousness of denial; of strife—strife to be continued—
strife without victory—baffled hopes—defeated aims and
energies. These are sorrows which are not often computed
in the general account. It is highly probable that
none of them afflict you. You have your parents, and
very good people they are. You yourself are no doubt a
very good young man—so every body says—and you
have health and strength. Besides, you have property,
much more, I am told, than falls to the lot ordinarily of
young people in this country. These are reasons why
you should not feel any sorrow; but were all these mine
and a great deal more, I'm afraid it would not make me
any more contented. You, perhaps, will not understand
this, William Hinkley, but I assure you that such nevertheless
is my perfect conviction.”

“Yes, I can, and do understand it, Margaret,” said the
young man, with flushed cheek and a very tremulous voice,
as he listened to language which, though not intended to
be contemptuous, was yet distinctly coloured by that
scornful estimate which the maiden had long since made
of the young man's abilities. In this respect she had done
injustice to his mind, which had been kept in subjection
and deprived of its ordinary strength and courage, by the
enfeebling fondness of his heart.

“Yes, Margaret,” he continued, “I can, and do understand
it, and I too have my sorrows of this very sort. Do
not smile, Margaret, but hear me patiently, and believe,
that, whatever may be the error which I commit, I have
no purpose to offend you in what I say or do. Perhaps,
we are both of us quite too young to speak of the sorrows
which arise from defeated hopes, or baffled energies, or
denial of our rights and claims. The yearnings and apprehensions
which we are apt to feel on this subject are
not to be counted as sorrows, or confounded with them.
I had a conversation on this very subject, only a few days
ago, with old Mr. Calvert, and this was his very opinion.”

The frankness with which William Hinkley declared

the source of his opinions, though creditable to his sincerity,
was scarcely politic—it served to confirm Margaret
Cooper in the humble estimate which she had formed of
the speaker.

“Mr. Calvert,” said she, “is a very sensible old man,
but neither him nor you can enter into the heart of another
and say what shall, or what shall not be its source
of trouble. It is enough, William Hinkley, that I have
my cares—at least I fancy that I have them—and though
I am very grateful for your sympathies, I do not know
that they can do me any good, and, though I thank you,
I must yet decline them.”

“Oh, do not say so, Margaret—dear Margaret—it is to
proffer them that I seek you now. You know how long
I have sought you, and loved you: you cannot know how
dear you are to my eyes, how necessary to my happiness!
Do not repulse me—do not speak quickly. What I am,
and what I have, is yours. We have grown up together;
I have known no other hope, no other love, but that for
you. Look not upon me with that scornful glance—hear
me—I implore you—on my knee, dear Margaret. I implore
you as for life—for something more dear than life—
that which will make life precious—which may make it
valuable. Be mine, dear Margaret—”

“Rise, William Hinkley, and do not forget yourself!”
was the stern, almost deliberate answer of the maiden.

“Do not, I pray you, do not speak in those tones, dear
Margaret—do not look on me with those eyes. Remember
before you speak, that the dearest hope of a devoted heart
hangs upon your lips.”

“And what have you seen in me, or what does your
vain conceit behold in yourself, William Hinkley, to make
you entertain a hope?”

“The meanest creature has it.”

“Ay, but only of creatures like itself.”

“Margaret!” exclaimed the lover starting to his feet.

“Ay, sir, I say it. If the meanest creature has its hope.
it relates to a creature like itself—endowed with its own
nature and fed with like sympathies. But you—what
should make you hope of me? Have I not long avoided
you, discouraged you? I would have spared you the pain
of this moment by escaping it myself. You haunt my
steps—you pursue me—you annoy me with attentions

which I dare not receive for fear of encouraging you, and
in spite of all this, which every body in the village must
have seen but yourself, you still press yourself upon me.”

“Margaret Cooper, be not so proud!”

“I am what I am! I know that I am proud—vain,
perhaps, and having little to justify either pride or vanity;
but to you, William Hinkley, as an act of justice, I must
speak what I feel—what is the truth. I am sorry, from
my very soul, that you love me, for I can have no feeling
for you in return. I do not dislike you, but you have so
oppressed me that I would prefer not to see you. We
have no feelings in common. You can give me no sympathies.
My soul, my heart, my hope—every desire of
my mind, every impulse of my heart, leads me away from
you—from all that you can give—from all that you can
relish. To you it would suffice, if all your life could be
spent here in Charlemont—to me it would be death to
think that any such doom hung over me. From this one
sentiment judge of the rest, and know, for good and all,
that I can never feel for you other than I feel now. I cannot
love you, nor can the knowledge that you love me,
give me any but a feeling of pain and mortification.”

William Hinkley had risen to his feet. His form had
put on an unusual erectness. His eye had gradually become
composed; and now it wore an expression of firmness
almost amounting to defiance. He heard her with
only an occasional quiver of the muscles about his mouth.
The flush of shame and pride was still red upon his cheek.
When she had finished, he spoke to her in tones of more
dignity than had hitherto marked his speech.

“Margaret Cooper, you have at least chosen the plainest
language to declare a cruel truth.”

The cheek of the girl become suddenly flushed.

“Do you suppose,” she said, “that I found pleasure in
giving you pain? No! William Hinkley, I am sorry for
you! But this truth, which you call cruel, was shown to
you repeatedly before. Any man but yourself would have
seen it, and saved me the pain of its frequent repetition.
You alone refused to understand, until it was rendered
cruel. It was only by the plainest language that you could
be made to believe a truth that you either would not or
could not otherwise be persuaded to hear. If cold looks,
reserved answers, and a determined rejection of all familiarity

could have availed, you would never have heard
from my lips a solitary word which could have brought
you mortification. You would have seen my feelings in
my conduct, and would have spared your own that pain,
which I religiously strove to save them.”

“I have, indeed, been blind and deaf!” said the young
man; “but you have opened my eyes and ears, Margaret,
so that I am fully cured of these infirmities. If your purpose,
in this plain mode of speech, be such as you have
declared it, then I must thank you; though it is very much
as one would thank the dagger that puts him out of his
pain by putting him out of life.”

There was so much of subdued feeling in this address—
the more intense in its effect, from the obvious restraint
put upon it, that the heart of the maiden was touched.
The dignified bearing of the young man, also—so different
from that which marked his deportment hitherto—was not
without its effect.

“I assure you, William Hinkley, that such alone was
my motive for what else would seem a most wanton
harshness. I would not be harsh to you or to any body;
and with my firm rejection of your proffer, I give you my
regrets that you ever made it. It gives me no pleasure
that you should make it. If I am vain, my vanity is not
flattered or quickened by a tribute which I cannot accept;
and if you never had my sympathy before, William Hinkley,
I freely give it now. Once more I tell you, I am
sorry, from the bottom of my heart, that you ever felt for
me a passion which I cannot requite, and that you did not
stifle it from the beginning; as, Heaven knows, my bearing
toward you, for a whole year, seemed to me to convey
sufficient warning.”

“It should have done so! I can now very easily understand
it, Margaret. Indeed, Mr. Calvert and others
told me the same thing. But as I have said, I was blind
and deaf. Once more, I thank you, Margaret,—it is a
bitter medicine which you have given me, but I trust a
wholesome one.”

He caught her hand and pressed it in his own. She
did not resist or withdraw it, and, after the retention of an
instant only, he released it, and was about to turn away.
A big tear was gathering in his eye, and he strove to conceal
it. Margaret averted her head, and was about to

move forward in an opposite direction, when the voice of
the young man arrested her:—

“Stay, but a few moments more, Margaret. Perhaps
we shall never meet again—certainly not in a conference
like this. I may have no other opportunity to say that
which, in justice to you, should be spoken. Will you
listen to me, patiently?”

“Speak boldly, William Hinkley. It was the subject of
which you spoke heretofore which I shrunk from rather
than the speaker.”

“I know not,” said he, “whether the subject of which
I propose to speak now will be any more agreeable than
that of which we have spoken. At all events, my purpose
is your good, and I shall speak unreservedly. You have
refused the prayer of one heart, Margaret, which, if unworthy
of yours, was yet honestly and fervently devoted to
it. Let me warn you to look well when you do choose,
lest you fall into the snares of one, who with more talent
may be less devoted, and with more claims to admiration,
may be far less honest in his purpose.”

“What mean you, sir?” she demanded hurriedly, with
an increasing glow upon her face.

“This stranger—this man, Stevens!”

“What of him? What do you know of the stranger
that you should give me this warning?”

“What does any body know of him? Whence does he
come,—whither would he go? What brings him here to
this lonely village?—”

A proud smile which curled the lips of Margaret Cooper
arrested the speech of the youth. It seemed to say, very
distinctly, that she, at least, could very well conjecture
what brought the stranger so far from the travelled haunts.

“Ha! do you then know, Margaret?”

“And if I did not, William Hinkley, these base insinuations
against the man, of whom, knowing nothing, you
would still convey the worst imputations, would never
move my mind a hair's breadth from its proper balance.
Go, sir,—you have your answer. I need not your counsel.
I should be sorry to receive it from such a source. Failing
in your own attempt, you would seek to fill my mind with
calumnious impressions in order to prejudice the prospects
of another. For shame! for shame, William Hinkley. I
had not thought this of you. But go! go! go, at once,

lest I learn to loathe as well as despise you. I thought
you simple and foolish, but honourable and generous. I
was mistaken even in this. Go, sir, your slanderous insinuations
have no effect upon me, and as for Alfred Stevens,
you are as far below him in nobleness and honest
purpose, as you are in every quality of taste and intellect.”

Her face was the very breathing image of idealized scorn
and beauty as she uttered these stinging words. Her
nostrils were dilated, her eyes flashing fire, her lips
slightly protruded and parted, her hand waving him off.
The young man gazed upon her with wild looks equally
expressive of anger and agony. His form fairly writhed
beneath his emotions; but he found strength enough
gaspingly to exclaim—

“And even this I forgive you, Margaret.”

“Go! go!” she answered—“you know not what you
say, or what you are;—go! go!”

And turning away, she moved slowly up the long avenue
before her, till, by a sudden turn of the path she was
hidden from the sight. Then, when his eye could no
longer follow her form, the agony of his soul burst forth
in a single groan, and staggering, he fell forward upon the
sward, hopeless, reckless, in a wretched condition of self-abandonment
and despair.