University of Virginia Library

21. CHAPTER XXI.

The whole scene passed in very few minutes. No
time was given for reflection, and each of the parties obeyed
his natural or habitual impulses. Old Hinkley, except
when at prayers, was a man of few words. He was much
more prompt at deeds than words,—a proof of which has
already been shown; but the good mother was not so
patient, and made a freer use of the feminine weapon, than
we have been willing to inflict upon our readers. Though
she heartily disapproved of her son's conduct towards
Stevens, and regarded it as one of the most unaccountable
wonders, the offender was still her son. She never once
forgot, or could forget, that. But the rage of the old man
was unappeasable. The indignity to his guest, and that
guest of a calling so sacred, was past all forgiveness, as it
was past all his powers of language fitly to describe. He
swore to pursue the offender with his wrath to the end of
the world, to cut him off equally from his fortune and forgiveness;
and when Brother Stevens, endeavouring to
maintain the pacific and forgiving character which his profession
required, uttered some commonplace pleading in

the youth's behalf, he silenced him by saying that “were
he on the bed of death, and were the offender then to
present himself, the last prayer that he should make to
Heaven would be for sufficient strength to rise up and
complete the punishment which he had then begun.” As for
Stevens, though he professed a more charitable spirit, his
feelings were quite as hostile and much more deadly. He
was not without that conventional courage which makes
one, in certain states of society, prompt enough to place
himself, in the fields of the duello. To this condition of
preparedness, it has hitherto been the training of the
west, that every man, at all solicitous of public life, must
eventually come. As a student of divinity it was not a
necessity with Alfred Stevens. Nay, it was essential to
the character which he professed that he should eschew
such a mode of arbitrament. But he reasoned on this
subject, as well with reference to past habits, as to future
responsibilities. His present profession being simply a
ruse d'amour, (and, as he already began to perceive, a
harmless one in the eyes of the beauty whom he sought,
and whose intense feelings and unregulated mind did not
suffer her to perceive the serious defects of a character
which should attempt so impious a fraud,) he was beginning
to be somewhat indifferent to its preservation; and
with the decline of his caution in this respect, arose the
natural inquiry as to what would be expected of him in
his former relations to society. Should it ever be known
hereafter, at a time when he stood before the people as a
candidate for some high political trust, that he had tamely
submitted to the infliction of a cowskin, the revelation
would be fatal to all his hopes of ambition, and conclusive
against all his social pretensions. In short, so far as
society was concerned, it would be his moral death.
These considerations were felt in their fullest force.
Indeed, their force cannot well be conceived by the citizen
of any community where the sense of individual responsibility
is less rigid and exacting. They naturally outweighed
all others in the mind of Alfred Stevens, and
though no fire-eater, he not only resolved in fighting with
Hinkley, but, smarting under the strokes of the cowskin—
heavily laid on as they had been—his resolution was
equally firm, that, in the conflict, they should not separate
until blood was drawn. Of course there was some difficulties
to be overcome in bringing about the meeting, but
where the parties are willing, most difficulties are surmounted
with tolerable ease. This being the case at present,
it followed that both minds were busy at the same
moment in devising the when, the how, and the where.

William Hinkley went from the house of his father to
that of his cousin, but the latter had not yet returned from
that ride which he had taken in order to discover the
course usually pursued by Stevens. Here, he sat down to
dinner, but the sister of Ned Hinkley observed that he
ate little, and fancied he was sick. That he should come
to dine with his cousin was too frequent a matter to occasion
question or surprise. This lady was older than her
brother by some seven years. She was a widow, with an
only child,—a girl. The child was a prattling, smiling
good-natured thing, about seven years old, who was never
so happy as when on cousin William's knee. Poor William,
indeed, was quite a favourite at every house in the
village except that of Margaret Cooper, and, as he sometimes
used bitterly to add, his own. On this occasion,
however, the child was rendered unhappy by the seeming
indifference of cousin William. The heart of the young
man was too full of grief, and his mind of anxiety, to
suffer him to bestow the usual caresses upon her; and
when, putting her down, he passed into the chamber of
Ned Hinkley, the little thing went off to her mother to
complain of the neglect she had undergone.

“Cousin William don't love Susan any more, mamma,”
was the burden of her complaint.

“Why do you say so, Susan?”

“He don't kiss me, mamma; he don't keep me in his
lap. He don't say good things to me and call me his little
sweetheart. I'm afraid cousin William's got some other
sweetheart. He don't love Susan.”

It was while the little prattler was pouring forth her
infantile sorrows in her mother's ear, that the voice of
William Hinkley was heard calling her name from the
chamber.

“There, he's calling you now, Susan. Run to him and
kiss him, and see what he wants. I'm sure he loves you
just as much as ever. He's got no other sweetheart.”

“I'll run, mamma,—that I will. I'm so glad. I hope he

loves me!” and the little innocent scampered away to the
chamber. Her artless tongue as she approached, enabled
him to perceive what had been her grievances.

“Do you call me to love me, and to kiss me, cousin
William, and to make me your sweetheart again?”

“Yes, Susan, you shall be my only sweetheart. I will
kiss nobody but you.”

“You'll forget—you will—you'll put me out of your
lap, and go away shaking your head and looking so!—”
and here the observant little creature attempted a childish
imitation of the sad action and the strange moody gestures
with which he had put her down when he was retiring
from the room—gestures and looks which the less quick
eyes of her mother had failed utterly to perceive.

“No, no!” said he with a sad smile, “no, Susan. I'll
keep you in my lap for an hour whenever I come; and
you shall be my sweetheart always.”

“Your little sweetheart, your little Susan, cousin William.”

“Yes, my dear little Susan, my dearest little sweetheart,
Susan.”

And he kissed the child fondly while he spoke, and
patted her rosy cheeks with a degree of tenderness which
his sad and wandering thoughts did not materially diminish.

“But now, Susan,” said he, “if I am to be your sweetheart
and to love you always, you must do all that I bid
you. You must go where I send you.”

“Don't I, cousin William? When you send me to
gran'pa Calvert, don't I go and bring you books, and didn't
I always run, and come back soon, and never play by the
way?”

“You're a dear Susan,” said he; “and I want you to
carry a paper for me now. Do you see this little paper?
What is it?”

“A note—don't I know?”

“Well, you must carry this note for me to uncle's, but
you mustn't give it to uncle, nor to aunty, nor to any body
but the young man that lives there—young Mr. Stevens.”

“Parson Stevens;” said the little thing, correcting
him.

“Ay, ay, Parson Stevens, if you please. You must

give it to him and him only; and he will give you a paper
to bring back to me. Will you go now, Susan?”

“Yes, I'll go: but, cousin William, are you going to
shoot the little guns? Don't shoot them till I come back,
will you?”

The child pointed to a pair of pistols which lay upon
the table where William Hinkley had penned the billet.
A flush of consciousness passed over the young man's
cheek. It seemed to him as if the little innocent's inquiry
had taken the aspect of an accusation. He promised and
dismissed her, and when she had disappeared proceeded to
put the pistols in some condition for use. In that time
and region duels were not often fought with those costly
and powerful weapons, the pistols of rifle bore and sight.
The rifle, or the ordinary horseman's pistol, answered the
purposes of hate. The former instrument, in the hands of
the Kentuckian, was a deadly weapon always; and in the
grasp of a firm hand, and under the direction of a practised
eye, the latter, at ten paces, was scarcely less so. This
being the case, but few refinements were necessary to
bring about the most fatal issues of enmity; and the instruments
which William Hinkley was preparing for the
field, were such as would produce a smile on the lips of
more civilized combatants. They were of the coarsest
kind of holster pistols, and had probably seen service in
the revolution. The stocks were ricketty, the barrels
thin, the bore almost large enough for grape, and, really,
such as would receive and disgorge a three ounce bullet
with little straining or reluctance. They had been the
property of his own grandfather, and their value for use,
was perhaps rather heightened than diminished by the
degree of veneration which, in the family, was attached to
their history.

William Hinkley soon put them in the most efficient
order. He was not a practised hand, but an American
forester is a good shot almost by instinct. He naturally
cleaves to a gun, and without instruction learns its use.
William, however, did not think much of what he could
hit, at what distance, and under what circumstances. Nothing,
perhaps, could better show the confidence in himself
and weapon than the inattention which the native-born
woodman usually exhibits to these points. Let his
weapon be such as he can rely upon, and his cause of

quarrel such as can justify his anger, and the rest seems
easy and gives him little annoyance. This was now the
case with our rustic. He never, for a moment, thought of
practising. He had shot repeatedly, and knew what he
could do. His simple object was to bring his enemy to
the field and to meet him there. Accordingly, when he
had loaded both pistols, which he did with equal care, and
with a liberal allowance of lead and powder, he carefully
put them away without offering to test his own skill or
their capacities. On this subject, his indifference would
have appeared, to a regular duellist, the very extreme of
obtuseness.

His little courier, conveyed his billet to Stevens, in due
season. As she had been instructed, she gave it into the
hands of Stevens only; but when she delivered it, old
Hinkley was present, and she named the person by whom
it was sent.

“My son! what does he say?” demanded the old
man, half suspecting the purport of the billet.

“Ah!” exclaimed Stevens with the readiness of a practised
actor—“there is some hope, I am glad to tell you,
Mr. Hinkley, of his coming to his senses. He declares
his wish to atone, and invites me to see him. I have no
doubt that he wishes me to mediate for him.”

“I will never forgive him while I have breath!” cried
the old man, leaving the room. “Tell him that!”

“Wait a moment, my pretty one,” said Stevens, as he
was about retiring to his chamber, “till I can write an answer.”

The billet of Hinkley he again read. We may do so
likewise. It was to the following effect.

“Sir

:—If I understood your last assurance on leaving
you this day, I am to believe that the stroke of my whip
has made its proper impression on your soul—that you
are willing to use the ordinary means of ordinary persons,
to avenge an indignity which was not confined to your
cloth. If so, meet me at the lake with whatever weapons
you choose to bring. I will be there, provided with pistols
for both, at any hour from three to six. I shall proceed
to the spot as soon as I receive your answer.

W. H.”

“Short and sharp!” exclaimed Stevens as he read the
billet. “ `Who would have thought that the old man had
so much blood in him!' Well, we will not baulk your
desire, Master Hinkley. We will meet you, in verity,
though it may compel me tot hrow up my present hand
and call for other cards. N'importe:—there is no other
course.”

While soliloquizing, he penned his answer, which was
brief and to the purpose.

A. S.”

“There, my little damsel,” said he, re-entering the
dining-room, and putting the sealed paper into the hands
of the child—“carry that to Mr. Hinkley, and tell him I
will come and speak with him as he begs me. But the
note will tell him.”

“Yes, sir.”

“So—”

Mrs. Hinkley entered the room at this moment. Her
husband had apprised her of the communication which her
son had made, and the disposition to atonement and repentance
which he had expressed. She was anxious to
confirm this good disposition, to have her son brought
back within the fold, restored to her own affections and
the favour of his father. The latter, it is true, had signified
his determined hostility, even while conveying his
intelligence; but the mother was sanguine—when was a
mother otherwise?—that all things would come right
which related to her only child. She now came to implore
the efforts of Stevens; to entreat, that, like a good
Christian, he would not suffer the shocking stripes which
her son, in his madness, had inflicted upon him, to outweigh
his charity; to get the better of his blessed principles;
and make him war upon the atoning spirit which
had so lately, and so suddenly wakened up in the bosom
of the unruly boy. She did not endeavour to qualify the
offence of which her son had been guilty. She was far
from underrating the indignity to which Stevens had been
subjected; but the offender was her son—her only son—

in spite of all his faults, follies, and imperfections, the
apple of her eye—the only being for whom she cared to
live! Ah! the love of a mother!—what a holy thing!
sadly wanting in judgment—frequently misleading, perverting,
nay, dooming the object which it loves; but, nevertheless,
most pure; least selfish; truest, most devoted!
And the tears gushed from the old woman's eyes as she
caught the hand of Stevens in her own, and kissed it—
kissed his hands—could William Hinkley have seen that,
how it would have rankled, how he would have writhed!
She kissed the hands of that wily hypocrite, bedewing
them with her tears, as if he were some benign and blessing
saint; and not because he had shown any merits or
practised any virtues, but simply because of certain professions
which he had made, and in which she had perfect
faith because of the professions, and not because of any
previous knowledge which she had of the professor.
Truly, it behoves a rogue monstrous much to know what
garment it is best to wear; the question is equally important
to rogue and dandy.

Stevens made a thousand assurances in the most Christian
spirit—we cannot say that he gave her tear for tear—
promised to do his best to bring back the prodigal son to
her embrace, and the better to effect this object—put his
pistols under his belt! Within the hour he was on his
way to the place of meeting.