University of Virginia Library

24. CHAPTER XXIV.

The artist in the moral world must be very careful not
to suffer his nice sense of retributive justice, to get so
much the better of his judgment, as an artist, as to make
him forgetful of human probabilities, and the superior duty
of preparing the mind of the young reader by sterling examples
of patience and protracted reward, to bear up manfully
against injustice, and not to despond because his
rewards are slow. It would be very easy for an author to
make every body good, or, if any were bad, to dismiss
them, out of hand to purgatory and places even worse.
But it would be a thankless toil to read the writings of
such an author. His character would fail in vraisemblance,
and his incidents would lack in interest. The
world is a sort of vast moral lazar-house, in which most
have sores, either of greater or less degree of virulence.
Some are nurses, and doctors, and guardians; and these

are necessarily free from the diseases to which they minister.
Some, though not many, are entirely incurable;
many labour for years in pain, and when dismissed, still
hobble along feebly, bearing the proofs of their trials in
ugly seams and blotches, contracted limbs, and pale, haggard
features. Others get off with a shorter and less
severe probation. None are free from taint, and those who
are the most free, are not always the greatest favourites
with fortune. We are speaking of the moral world, good
reader. We simply borrow an illustration from the physical.
Our interest in one another is very much derived
from our knowledge of each other's infirmities; and it may
be remarked, passingly, that this interest is productive of
a very excellent philosophical temper, since it enables us
to bear the worst misfortunes of our best friends with the
most amazing fortitude. It is a frequent error with the
reader of a book—losing sight of these facts—to expect
that justice will always be done on the instant. He will
suffer no delay in the book, though he sees that this delay
of justice is one of the most decided of all the moral certainties
whether in life or law. He does not wish to see
the person in whom the author makes him interested,
perish in youth—die of broken heart or more rapid disaster;
and if he could be permitted to interfere, the bullet or the
knife of the assassin would be arrested at the proper
moment and always turned against the bosom of the wrongdoer.
This is a very commendable state of feeling, and
whenever it occurs, it clearly shows that the author is
going right in his vocation. It proves him to be a human
author, which is something better than being a mere, dry,
moral one. But he would neither be a human nor a
moral author were he to comply with their desires, and, to
satisfy their sympathies, arrest the progress of events.
The fates must have their way, in the book as in the lazar-house;
and the persons of his drama must endure their
sores and sufferings with what philosophy they may, until,
under the hands of that great physician, fortune, they
receive an honourable discharge or otherwise.

Were it with him, our young friend, William Hinkley,
who is really a clever fellow, should not only be received
to favour with all parties, but should never have fallen from
favour in the minds of any. His father should become

soon repentant, and having convicted Stevens of his falsehood
and hypocrisy, he should be rewarded with the hand
of the woman to whom his young heart is so devoted.
Such, perhaps, would be the universal wish with our
readers; but would this be fortunate for William Hinkley?
Our venerable friend and his, Mr. Calvert, has a very
different opinion. He says:—

“This young man is not only a worthy young man, but
he is one, naturally of very vigorous intellect. He is of
earnest, impassioned temperament, full of enthusiasm and
imagination; fitted for work—great work—public work—
head work—the noblest kind of work. He will be a great
lawyer—perhaps a great statesman if he addresses himself
at once, manfully, to his tasks; but he will not address
himself to these tasks while he pursues the rusting and
mind-destroying life of a country village. Give him the
object of his desire and you deprive him of all motive for
exertion. Give him the woman he seeks and you probably
deprive him even of the degree of quiet which the
country village affords. He would forfeit happiness without
finding strength. Force him to the use of his tools
and he builds himself fame and fortune.”

Calvert was really not sorry that William Hinkley's
treatment had been so harsh. He sympathized, it is true,
in his sufferings, but he was not blind to their probable
advantages; and he positively rejoiced in his rejection by
Margaret Cooper.

It was some four or five days after the events with
which our last chapter was closed, that the old man and
his young friend were to be seen sitting together, under
the shade of the venerable tree where we have met them
before. They had conferred together seriously, and finally
with agreeing minds, on the several topics which have
been adverted to in the preceding paragraph. William
Hinkley had become convinced that it was equally the
policy of his mind and heart to leave Charlemont. He
was not so well satisfied, however, as was the case with Mr.
Calvert, that the loss of Margaret Cooper was his exceeding
gain. When did young lover come to such a conclusion?
Not, certainly, while he was young. But when
was young lover wise? Through a discontent, William
Hinkley, was not soured nor despairing, from the denial of
his hopes. He had resources of thought and spirit, never

tested before, of the possession of which he knew nothing.
They were to be brought into use and made valuable only
by these very denials; by the baffling of his hope; by the
provocation of his strength. His resolution grew rapidly
in consequence of his disappointments. He was now
prepared to meet the wishes of his venerable and wise
preceptor—to grapple stoutly with the masters of the law;
and, keeping his heart in restraint, if not absolute abeyance,
to do that justice to his head, which, according to
the opinion of Mr. Calvert, it well deserved if hitherto it
had not demanded it. But to pursue his studies as well as
his practice, he was to leave Charlemont. How was this
to be done—where was he to go—by what means? A
horse, saddle and bridle—a few books and the ante-revolutionary
pistols of his grandsire, which recent circumstances
seemed to have endeared to him, were all his available
property. His poverty was an estoppel, at the outset, to
his own reflections; and thinking of this difficulty he
turned with a blank visage to his friend.

The old man seemed to enter into and imagine his
thoughts. He did not wait to be reminded, by the halting
speech of the youth, of the one subject from which the
latter shrunk to speak.

“The next thing, my son,” said he, “is the necessary
means. Happily, in the case of one so prudent and temperate
as yourself, these will not be much. Food and
clothing, and a small sum, annually, for contingencies, will
be your chief expense; and this, I am fortunately able to
provide. I am not a rich man, my son; but economy and
temperance, with industry, have given me enough, and to
spare. It is long since I had resolved that all I have
should be yours; and I had laid aside small sums from
time to time, intending them for an occasion like the present,
which I felt sure would at length arrive. I am
rejoiced that my foresight should have begun in time,
since it enables me to meet the necessity promptly, and to
interpose myself at the moment when you most need
counsel and assistance.”

“Oh, my friend, my kind generous friend, how it
shames me for my own father to hear you speak thus!”

The youth caught the hands of his benefactor, and the
hot tears fell from his eyes upon them, while he fervently
bent to kiss them.

“Your father is a good but rough man, William, who
will come to his senses in good time. Men of his education,
governed as he is by the mistake which so commonly
confounds God with his self-constituted representative,—
religion with its professor,—will err, and cannot be reasoned
out of their errors. It is the unceasing operation of time
which can alone teach them a knowledge of the truth. You
must not think too hardly of your father, who does not
love you the less because he fancies you are his particular
property, with whom he may do what he pleases. As for
what I have done, and am disposed to do for you, let that
not become burdensome to your gratitude. In some respects
you have been a son to me, and I send you from
me with the same reluctance which a father would feel in
the like circumstances. You have been my companion,
you have helped to cheer my solitude; and I have learned
to look on the progress of your mind with the interest of
the philosopher who pursues a favourite experiment. In
educating you, I have attempted an experiment which I
should be sorry to see fail. I do not think now that it
will fail. I think you will do yourself and me ample
justice. If I have had my doubts, they were of your
courage, not your talent. If you have a weakness, it is
because of a deficiency of self-esteem—a tendency to self-disparagement.
A little more actual struggle with the
world, and an utter withdrawal from those helps and hands,
which in a youth's own home are very apt to be constantly
employed to keep him from falling, and to save him
from the consequences of his fall, and I do not despair
of seeing you acquire that necessary moral hardihood
which will enable you to think freely, and to make your
mind give a fair utterance to the properties which are in it.
When this is done I have every hope for you. You will
rise to eminence in your profession. I know, my son,
that you will do me honour.”

“Ah, sir, I am afraid you overrate my abilities. I have
no consciousness of any such resources as you suppose
me to possess.”

“It is here that your deficiency speaks out. Be bold,
my son—be bold, bolder, boldest. I would not have you
presumptuous, but there is a courage, short of presumption,
which is only a just confidence in one's energies,
and moral determination. This you will soon form, if,

looking around you and into the performances of others,
you see how easy they are, and how far inferior they are
to your own ideas of what excellence should be. Do not
look into yourself for your standards. I have perhaps
erred in making these too high. Look out from yourself
—look into others—analyze the properties of others; and,
in attempting, seek only to meet the exigencies of the
occasion, without asking what a great mind might effect
beyond it. Your heart will fail you always if your beau
idéal is for ever present to your mind.”

“I will try, sir. My tasks are before me, and I know it
is full time that I should discard my boyhood. I will go
to work with industry, and will endeavour not to disappoint
your confidence; but I must confess, sir, I have
very little in myself.”

“If you will work seriously, William, my faith is in
this very humility. A man, knowing his own weakness
and working to be strong, cannot fail. He must achieve
something more than he strives for.”

“You make me strong as I hear you, sir. But I have
one request to make, sir. I have a favour to ask, sir, which
will make me almost happy if you grant it—which will
at least reconcile me to receive your favours, and to feel
them less oppressively.”

“What is that, William? You know, my son, there
are few things which I could refuse you.”

“It is that I may be your son; that I may call you
father, and bear henceforward your name. If you adopt
me, rear me, teach me, provide me with the means of
education and life, and do for me what a father should have
done, you are substantially more than my father to me.
Let me bear your name? I shall be proud of it, sir. I
will not disgrace it—nay, more, it will strengthen me in
my desire to do it and myself honour. When I hear it
spoken, it will remind me of my equal obligations to you
and to myself?”

“But this, my son, is a wrong done to your own
father.”

“Alas! he will not feel it such.”

The old man shook his head.

“You speak now with a feeling of anger, William.
The treatment of your father rankles in your mind.”

“No, sir, no! I freely forgive him. I have no reference

to him in the prayer I make. My purpose is simply what
I declare. Your name will remind me of your counsels,
will increase my obligation to pursue them—will strengthen
me in my determination—will be to me a fond monitor
in your place. Oh, sir, do not deny me! You have
shown me the affections of a father—let me, I intreat
you, bear the name of your son?”

The youth flung his arms about the old man's neck, and
wept with a gush of fondness which the venerable sire
could not withstand. He was deeply touched. His lips
quivered; his eyes thrilled and throbbed. In vain did he
strive to resist the impulse. He gave him tear for tear.

“My son, you have unmanned me.”

“Ah, my father, I cannot regret, since, in doing so, I
have strengthened my own manhood.”

“If it have this effect, William, I shall not regret my
own weakness. There is a bird, you are aware, of which
it is fabled that it nourishes its young by the blood of its
own bosom which it wounds for this purpose. Believe
me, my dear boy, I am not unwilling to be this bird for
your sake. If to feel for you as the fondest of fathers
can give me the rights of one, then are you most certainly
my son,—my son!”

Long and fond and sweet was their embrace. For a
full hour, but few words, and those of a mournful tenderness,
were exchanged between the parties; but the scene
and the struggle was drawing nigh its close. This was the
day when they were to separate. It had been arranged
that William Hinkley, or, as he now calls himself, William
Calvert, was to go into the world. The old man had recalled
for his sake many of the memories and associations
of his youth. He had revived that period, in his case one
of equal bitterness and pleasure, when, a youth like him
he was about to send forth, he had been the ardent student
in a profession whose honours he had so sadly failed to
reap. In this profession he was then fortunate in having
many sterling friends. Some of these were still so. In
withdrawing from society he had not withdrawn from all
commerce with a select and sacred few; and to the friendly
counsel and protection of these, he now deputed the paternal
trusts which had been just so solemnly surrendered
to himself. There were long and earnest appeals to many
noble associates—men who had won great names by dint

of honourable struggle in those fields into which the feebler
temper of Mr. Calvert did not permit him to penetrate.
Some of these letters bore for their superscriptions such
names as the Clays and the Metcalfs,—the strong men,
not merely of Kentucky, but of the Union. The good old
man sighed as he read them over, separately, to his young
companion.

“Once I stood with them, and like them—not the meanest
among them;—nay, beloved by them as an associate
and recognised as a competitor. But they are here—
strong, high, glorious, in the eye of the nation—and I am
nothing;—a poor white-headed pedagogue in the obscurest
regions of Kentucky. Oh, my son, remember this, and
be strong! Beware of that weakness, the offspring of a
miserable vanity, which, claiming too much for itself, can
bestow nothing upon others. Strive only to meet the exigency,
and you will do more—you will pass beyond it.
Ask not what your fame requires—the poor fame of a solitary
man struggling like an atom in the bosom of the great
struggling world—ask only what is due to the task which
you have assumed, and labour to do that. This is the
simple, small secret, but be sure, it is the one which is of
more importance than all beside.”

The departure of William Hinkley from his native village
was kept a profound secret from all persons except his
adopted father and his bosom friend and cousin, Fisherman
Ned. We have lost sight of this young man for several
pages, and, in justice equally to the reader and himself, it is
necessary that we should hurriedly retrace our progress, at
least so far as concerns his. We left him, if we remember,
having driven Alfred Stevens from his purpose, riding
on alone, really with no other aim than to give circulation to
his limbs and fancies. His ride, if we are to believe his random
but significant words, and his very knowing looks,
was not without its results. He had certainly made some
discoveries,—at least he thought and said so; but, in truth,
we believe these amounted to nothing more than some
plausible conjectures as to the route which Alfred Stevens
was in the habit of pursuing, on these excursions, in which
the neighbours were disposed to think that there was something
very mysterious. He certainly had jumped to the
conclusion that, on such occasions, the journey of Stevens
was prolonged to Ellisland; and as such a ride was too

long for one of mere pleasure and exercise, the next conclusion
was, that such a journey had always some business
in it. Now, a business that calls for so much secrecy, in
a young student of theology, was certainly one that could
have very little relation to the church. So far as Ned
Hinkley knew any thing of the Decalogue it could not well
relate to that. There was nothing in St. Paul that required
him to travel post to Ellisland; though a voyage to Tarsus
might be justified by the authority of that apostle; and the
whole proceeding, therefore, appeared to be a mystery in
which gospelling had very little to do. Very naturally,
having arrived at this conclusion, Ned Hinkley jumped to
another. If the saints have nothing to do with this
journey of Alfred Stevens, the sinners must have. It
meant mischief,—it was a device of Satan; and the matter
seemed so clearly made out to his own mind, that
he returned home with the farther conviction, which was
equally natural and far more easily arrived at, that he was
now bound by religion, as he had previously been impelled
by instinct, to give Stevens “a regular licking the very
first chance that offered.” Still, though determined on this
measure, he was not unmindful of the necessity of making
other discoveries; and he returned to Charlemont with a
countenance big with importance and almost black with
mystery.

But the events which had taken place in his absence,
and which we have already related, almost put his own
peculiar purposes out of his mind. That William Hinkley
should have cowskinned Stevens would have been much
more gratifying to him could he have been present; and
he was almost disposed to join with the rest in their outcry
against this sacrilegious proceeding, for the simple
reason, that it somewhat anticipated his own rigorous intentions
to the same effect. He was not less dissatisfied
with the next attempt for two reasons.

“You might have known, Bill, that a parson won't
fight with pistols. You might have persuaded him to fist
or cudgel, to a fair up and down, hand over, fight! That's
not so criminal, they think. I heard once of Brother
John Cross, himself trying a cudgel bout with another
parson down in Mississippi, because he took the same text
out of his mouth, and preached it over the very same day,
with contrary reason. Every body said that John Cross

served him right, and nobody blamed either. But they
would have done so if pistols had been used. You can't
expect parsons or students of religion to fight with firearms.
Swords, now, they think justifiable, for St. Peter
used them; but we read nowhere in Old or New Testament
of their using guns, pistols, or rifles.”

“But he consented to fight, and brought his own pistols,
Ned?”

“Why then didn't you fight? That's the next thing I
blame you for—that, when you were both ready, and had
the puppies in your hands, you should have stood looking
at each other without taking a crack. By jingo, had there
been fifty fathers and mothers in the bush, I'd have had a
crack at him. No, I blame you, William,—I can't help it.
You didn't do right. Oh! if you had only waited for me,
and let me have fixed it, how finely we would have managed.
What then, if your father had burst in, it was only
shifting the barkers from your hands to mine. I'd have
banged at him, though John Cross himself, and all his
flock, stood by and kneed it to prevent me. They might
have prayed to all eternity without stopping me, I tell you.”

William Hinkley muttered something about the more
impressive sort of procedure which his father had resorted
to, and a little soreness about the parietal bones just at that
moment giving a quick impatient air to his manner, had
the effect of putting an end to all farther discussion of this
topic. Fisherman Ned concluded with a brief assurance,
meant as consolation, that, when he took up the cudgels,
his cousin need make himself perfectly easy with the conviction
that he would balance both accounts very effectually.
He had previously exhorted William to renew the attempt,
though with different weapons, to bring his enemy into the
field; but against this attempt Mr. Calvert had already
impressively enjoined him, exacting from him a promise
that he would not seek Stevens, and would simply abide
any call for satisfaction which the latter might make. The
worthy old man assured that in Stevens's situation there
was very little likelihood of a summons to the field from
him. Still, William Hinkley did not deem it becoming in
him to leave the ground for several days, even after his
preparations for departure were complete. He loitered in
the neighbourhood, showed himself frequently to his enemy,
and, on some of these occasions, was subjected to the

mortification of beholding the latter on his way to the
house of Margaret Cooper, with whom, a few moments
after, he might be seen in lonely rambles by the lake side
and in the wood. William had conquered his hopes from
this quarter, but he vainly endeavoured to suppress his
pangs.

At length the morning came for his departure. He had
seen his mother for the last time the night before. They
had met at the house of the widow Hinkley, between
which and that of Calvert, his time had been chiefly spent,
since the day of his affair with Stevens. His determination
to depart was carefully concealed from his mother.
He dreaded to hear her entreaties, and he doubted his own
strength to endure them. His deportment, however, was
sufficiently fond and tender, full of pain and passion, to
have convinced her, had she been at all suspicious of the
truth, of the design he meditated. But, as it was, it simply
satisfied her affections; and the fond “good night”
with which he addressed her ears at parting, was followed
by a gush of tears which shocked the more sturdy courage
of his cousin, and aroused the suspicions of the widow.

“William Hinkley,” she said after the mother had gone
home—“you must be thinking to leave Charlemont. I'm
sure of it—I know it.”

“If you do, say nothing, dear cousin; it will do no
good—it cannot prevent me now, and will only make our
parting more painful.”

“Oh, don't fear me,” said the widow—“I shan't speak
of it, till it's known to every body, for I think you right
to go and do just as gran'pa Calvert tells you; but you
needn't have made it such a secret with me. I've always
been too much of your friend to say a word.”

“Alas!” said the youth mournfully, “until lately, dear
cousin, I fancied that I had no friends—do not blame me
therefore, if I still sometimes act as if I had none.”

“You have many friends, William, already—I'm sure
you will find many more wherever you go; abler friends
if not fonder ones, than you leave behind you.”

The youth threw his arms round the widow's neck and
kissed her tenderly. Her words sounded in his ears like
some melodious prophecy.

“Say no more, cousin,” he exclaimed with sudden enthusiasm,
“I am so well pleased to believe what you promise

me of the future, that I am willing to believe all. God
bless you. I will never forget you.”

The parting with Calvert was more touching in reality,
but with fewer of the external signs of feeling. A few
words, a single embrace and squeeze of the hand, and they
separated; the old man hiding himself and his feelings in
the dimness of his secluded abode, while his adopted son,
with whom Ned Hinkley rode a brief distance on his way,
struck spurs into his steed, as if to lose, in the rapid motion
of the animal, the slow, sad feelings which were pressing
heavily upon his heart. He had left Charlemont for ever.
He had left it under circumstances of doubt, and despondency—stung
by injustice, and baffled in the first ardent
hopes of his youthful mind. “The world was all before
him where to choose.” Let us not doubt that the benignant
Providence is still his guide.