University of Virginia Library

22. CHAPTER XXII.
HOW HOFFLAND PREFERRED A GLOVE TO A DOZEN PISTOLES.

ONE of the most beautiful walks in the neighborhood
of Williamsburg was known to the fair dames and
gallant cavaliers of that epoch as the “Indian Camp.”

To this spot, on the morning of the day fixed for the
ball at the Raleigh, did Mowbray and the young student
Hoffland direct their steps, conversing pleasantly, and
glad of the occasion to enjoy the fresh beauties of nature,
which presented so agreeable a contrast to the domains
of study at the good College of William and Mary. Let
it not, however, be imagined that the boy Hoffland was
in the habit, as Panurge said, of “breaking his head
with study.” Not at all. The remissness of that young
gentleman in his attendance upon the lectures of the
professors, had become by this time almost a proverb.
Indeed, his attendance was the exception—his absence
the rule. Buried in his quarters, in the neighborhood of
Gloucester street, he seemed to exist in a pleasant disregard
of all the rules and regulations of the college;
and when the professors attempted to reason with him—
which was seldom, inasmuch as they scarcely ever saw
him—he would acknowledge his sins very readily, and
as readily promise amendment; and then, after the
well-known fashion of sinners, return to his evil courses,
and become more remiss than ever.

Mowbray would often remonstrate with him on this
neglect of his studies; but Hoffland always turned aside
his advice with some amusing speech, or humorous banter.
When the elder student said, “Now, Charles, as
your friend I counsel you not to throw away your time
and dissipate your mind;” to this Hoffland would reply,
“Yes, you are right, Ernest; the morning, as you
say, is lovely.” Or when Mowbray would say, “Charles,
you are incorrigible;” “Yes,” Hoffland would reply,
with his winning smile, “I knew how much you liked
me.”

On the fine morning to which we have now arrived,
the conversation of the friends took exactly this direction.
Hoffland for two or three days had obstinately
kept away from the college, and “non est inventus” was
the substance of the proctor's return when he was sent
to drum up the absent student.

“Indeed, Charles,” said Mowbray, with his calm sadness,
“you should not thus allow your time to be absorbed
in indolent lounging. A man has his career in
the world to run, and college is the threshold. If you
enter the world ignorant and awkward—and the greatest
genius is awkward if ignorant—you will find the
mere fops of the day pass you in the course. They may
be superficial, shallow, but they have cultivated their
natural gifts, while you have not done so. They enter
gracefully, and succeed; you will enter awkwardly, and
fail.”

“A fine Mentor you are!” replied Hoffland; “and I
ought to be duly grateful for your excellent advice.”

“It is that of a friend.”

“I know it.”

“A very true friend.”

“Yes,” Hoffland said, “I am convinced that your
friendship for me is very true. Strange you should like
me so!”

“I think not: you are by yourself here, and I am
naturally attracted always by inexperience. I find great
freshness of thought and feeling in you, Charles——”

“Do you?”

“And more still,” said Mowbray, smiling sadly; “I
think you love me.”

“Indeed?” said Hoffland, turning away his face.

“Yes; you gravitated toward me; but I equally to
yourself. And now I think you begin to have a sincere
affection for me.”

“Begin, indeed!”

Mowbray smiled.

“I am glad you liked me from the first then,” he
said. “I am sure I cannot explain my sudden liking for
yourself.”

“But I can,” said Hoffland, laughing; “we were congenial,
my dear fellow—chips of the same block—companions
of similar tastes. You liked what was graceful
and elegant, which of course you found in me. I have
always experienced a passionate longing for truth and
nobility; and this, Ernest, I find in you!”

Hoffland's tone had lost all its banter as he uttered
these words; and if Mowbray had seen the look which
the boy timidly cast upon his pale countenance, he would
have started.

But Hoffland regained his lightness almost immediately;
his earnestness passed away, and he was the same
light-hearted boy.

“Look!” he cried, “that oriole is going to die for joy
as he swings among the cherry blossoms! How green
the grass is—what a lovely landscape!”

And Hoffland gazed rapturously at the green fields,
and blossom-covered trees, and the distant river flowing
on in gladness to the sea, with the kindling eye of a true
poet.

“And here is the `Indian Camp!' ” he cried; “grassy,
antique, and romantic!”

“Let us sit down,” said Mowbray.

And seating himself upon a moss-covered stone, he
leaned his head upon his hand and pondered.

“Now, I'll lay a wager you are thinking about me!”
cried Hoffland; “perhaps you still revolve in your mind
my various delinquencies.”

“No,” said Mowbray.

“I know I am very bad—very remiss. I ought to
have been at college this morning, but I was not able to
come.”

“Why, Charles?” said Mowbray, raising his head.

“I was busy.”

“Indeed!”

“Yes, reading.”

“Ah! not studying?”

“No; unless Shakspeare is study.”

“It is a very hard study, but not the sort which I
would have you apply yourself to. What were you
reading?”

“ `As You Like It,' ” said Hoffland; “and I was really
charmed with the fair Rosalind.”

“Yes,” said Mowbray indifferently; “a wonderful
character, such as Shakspeare only could draw.”

“And as good as she was wild—as maidenly as she
was pure.”

Mowbray shook his head.

“That foray she made into the woods en cavalier was
a very doubtful thing,” he said.

“Why, pray?” Hoffland asked, pouting. “I should
like to know what there was wrong in it.”

Mowbray smiled, but made no reply.

“Answer me,” said Hoffland.

“That is easy. Do you think it wholly proper, perfectly
maidenly, for a woman to assume the garb of our
sex?”

“Certainly; why not, sir?”

Mowbray smiled again.

“I fear any argument would only fortify you in your
convictions, as our rebel student says,” he replied.
“True, Rosalind was the victim of circumstances, but
her example is one of an exceedingly doubtful nature, or
rather it is not at all doubtful.”

“Pray, how?”

“Really, Charles, you make me give a reason for
every thing. Well then, I think that it is indelicate in
women to leave their proper sphere and descend to the
level of men, and this any woman must do in assuming
the masculine garb. If I am not mistaken, the common
law bears me out, and inflicts a penalty upon such
deviations from established usage. None but an inexperienced
youth like yourself would uphold Rosalind.”

Hoffland colored, and said with bitter abruptness:

“I believe you despise me, sir!”

“Despise you! Why?” said the astonished Mowbray.

“Because—because—you call me an inexperienced

youth; and—and—Ernest, it is not friendly in you!—
no, it is not!—it is unjust—to treat me so!”

And Hoffland turned away like a child who is about
to “have a cry.”

Mowbray looked at the averted face for a moment,
and saw two large tears clinging to the long dusky
lashes. He experienced a strange sensation in the presence
of this boy which he could not explain; it was half
pity for his nervous weakness of temperament, half regret
at having uttered he knew not what, to move him.

“Well, well, Charles,” he said, “yours is a strange
character, and I never know how to shape my discourse
in your presence. You fly off at every thing, and I believe
you are really shedding tears——”

“No, no,” said Hoffland, hastily brushing away the
pearly drops; “do n't look at me.”

“I was wrong.”

Hoffland sobbed.

“Forgive me, Charles—I will endeavor in future to
avoid these occasions of dispute; forgive my harshness.”

“You are forgiven,” murmured Hoffland; and his
sad face became again cheerful.

“I am not a very pleasant companion, I know,” said
Mowbray, smiling; “my own thoughts oppress me; but
if I cannot be merry with you, I may at least forbear to
wound your feelings.”

“My feelings are not wounded, Ernest,” Hoffland
said, with a bright glance which shone like the sun after
an April shower; “I only—only—thought you were
not right in abusing Rosalind; and—and calling me `an
inexperienced youth!' I am not an inexperienced youth,”

he laughed; “but let us dismiss the subject. What oppresses
you, Ernest? I can't bear to see you sad.”

“My thoughts,” said Mowbray.

“That is too general.”

“It is useless to particularize.”

And Mowbray's head drooped. As the pleasant May
breeze raised the locks of his dark hair, his face looked
very pale and sad.

“The subject of our discourse in the fields some days
since?” asked Hoffland in a low tone.

“Yes,” said Mowbray calmly.

A long silence followed this reply. Then Hoffland
said:

“Why should that still annoy you? Men should be
strong.”

“Yes, yes.”

“And yet you are weak.”

“In my heart, very weak.”

“You love her still?”

“Yes, yes; deeply, passionately, far more than ever!”
said Mowbray, unable to repress this outburst.

Hoffland seemed to be frightened by the vehemence
of his companion, for he turned away his head, and
colored to the temples.

“Can you not conquer your feelings?” he said at
length.

“No.”

“Make the attempt.”

“I have made it.”

“Why not go and see her again then? You will lose
nothing.”

“Go and see her? What! after being repelled with

so much insult and coldness!—after being charged with
base and mercenary motives!—after having my heart
struck by a cruel and unfeeling accusation—my pride
humbled by a misconception as humiliating as it was
unjust! Never, Charles! My heart may break—I may
feel through life the bitterness of the fate which separates
us for ever—I may groan and rebel and struggle
with my heart—but never again will I address one syllable
to that proud girl, who has trampled on me, as
she would upon a worm, and told me how degraded a
being I was in her eyes—no, never!”

And pale, his forehead bathed with perspiration, his
frame agitated, his eyes full of fire and regret, Mowbray
turned away his head and rose.

Hoffland was silent, and yet the deep color in his
cheeks betrayed the impression which his companion's
passionate words had made upon him.

In a few moments Mowbray had regained his calmness.

“Pardon me, Charles, for annoying you with these
things,” he said, with a last tremor in his voice; “but
your question prompted me to speak. Let us not return
to this subject; it afflicts me to speak of it, and
there is no good reason why I should revive my sufferings.
Let us go back, and endeavor in the pleasant
sunshine to find some balm for all our grief. I do not
despair of conquering my passion, for all things are possible
to human energy—this far at least. Come, let us
return.”

Calmly buttoning his coat, Mowbray took Charles's
arm, and they bent their way back to town.

As for Hoffland, he seemed overcome by the vehemence

of his companion, and for some time was completely
silent. He seemed to be thinking.

As they approached the town, however, his spirits
seemed to regain their customary cheerfulness, and he
smiled.

“Well, well, Ernest,” he said, “perhaps your grief
may be cured in some other way than by strangulation.
Let us not speak further of it, but admire the beautiful
day. Is it not sweet?”

“Very,” said Mowbray calmly.

“It is getting warm.”

“Yes, Charles; summer is not far distant.”

“Summer! I always liked the summer; but we
have not then those beautiful blossoms—look how they
cluster on the boughs, and what a sweet perfume!”

“Very sweet.”

“Then another drawback of summer is its dust. I
hate dust; and it is already beginning to invade my
hands.”

“Wear gloves then, Charles,” said Mowbray, smiling
at the boyish naïveté of his companion's tone.

“I'd like to know how I can, without the money to
buy them,” said Hoffland; “you are very unreasonable,
Mr. Mowbray!”

Mowbray smiled.

“Have you none?” he said.

“Not a penny—at the moment. My supplies have
not reached my new address.”

And Hoffland laughed.

“Let me lend you some. How much will you have?
We are friends, you know, Charles, and you can have no
feelings of delicacy in borrowing from me. See,” said

Mowbray, taking out his purse, “I have a plenty of pistoles.
Take a dozen.”

“And how many will you have left?”

“Let me see—there are thirteen. I shall still have
enough. There are twelve, Charles.”

And he counted them out, leaving the single coin in
his purse.

Hoffland, however, drew back, and obstinately closed
his hands.

“You ought to be ashamed to tempt an inexperienced
youth to go in debt,” he said; “that is your fine guardianship,
Mr. Mowbray.”

“Come, Charles; this is folly. You do not become
my debtor; I do not want the money. Take it, and repay
it when your own comes.”

“No, I will not. But still I want a pair of gloves.
Do me a greater favor still, Ernest. Give me those
pretty fringed gloves you wear, and which are plainly
too small for your huge hands. I know Miss Lucy gave
them to you, for she said as much the other day—I
asked her!—and now I want them. Don't refuse me,
Ernest; my hand is much smaller and handsomer than
yours, and they will just fit me.”

Mowbray took off the gloves, asking himself, with a
sad smile, what charm this boy exercised over him.

“There they are then, Charles,” he said; “I can refuse
you nothing.”

“Suppose I asked for the hand as well as the gloves?”

“The hand? Perfectly at your service,” said Mowbray,
holding out his hand; “I can only give it to you
in a friendly spirit, however, and there it is.”

“No,” said Hoffland, drawing back; “I will not accept

it upon those terms—but I have the gloves. Thank
you, Ernest. Perhaps some day I may ask you to accept
a present from me; or at least I promise not to refuse
you if you ask what I have this moment refused.”

And laughing heartily, Hoffland cried:

“Just look at those flowers! and there is the great
city of Williamsburg! We pass from Indian Camps to
learned halls—from barbarism to civilization. Come!
let us get into Gloucester street—that promenade of elegance
and fashion! Come on, Ernest!”

And they entered the town.