University of Virginia Library

20. CHAPTER XX.
THE SECOND MEETING.

“MISS EVELETH requests the pleasure of Mr.
Lindsay's company to meet a few friends on the
evening of the Feast of St. Ambrose, December 7th,
Wednesday.

“The Parsonage, December 6th.”

It was the luckiest thing in the world. They always
made a little festival of that evening at the Rev. Ambrose
Eveleth's, in honor of his canonized namesake, and because
they liked to have a good time. It came this year
just at the right moment, for here was a distinguished
stranger visiting in the place. Oxbow Village seemed to
be running over with its one extra young man, — as may
be seen sometimes in larger villages, and even in cities of
moderate dimensions.

Mr. William Murray Bradshaw had called on Clement
the day after his arrival. He had already met the Deacon
in the street, and asked some questions about his
transient boarder.

A very interesting young man, the Deacon said, much
given to the reading of pious books. Up late at night
after he came, reading Scott's Commentary. Appeared
to be as fond of serious works as other young folks were
of their novels and romances and other immoral publications.
He, the Deacon, thought of having a few religious
friends to meet the young gentleman, if he felt so disposed;
and should like to have him, Mr. Bradshaw, come in and

take a part in the exercises. — Mr. Bradshaw was unfortunately
engaged. He thought the young gentleman could
hardly find time for such a meeting during his brief visit.

Mr. Bradshaw expected naturally to see a youth of imperfect
constitution, and cachectic or dyspeptic tendencies,
who was in training to furnish one of those biographies
beginning with the statement that, from his infancy, the
subject of it showed no inclination for boyish amusements,
and so on, until he dies out, for the simple reason that there
was not enough of him to live. Very interesting, no
doubt, Master Byles Gridley would have said, but had no
more to do with good, hearty, sound life than the history
of those very little people to be seen in museums preserved
in jars of alcohol, like brandy peaches.

When Mr. Clement Lindsay presented himself, Mr.
Bradshaw was a good deal surprised to see a young fellow
of such a mould. He pleased himself with the idea that
he knew a man of mark at sight, and he set down Clement
in that category at his first glance. The young man met
his penetrating and questioning look with a frank, ingenuous,
open aspect, before which he felt himself disarmed,
as it were, and thrown upon other means of analysis. He
would try him a little in talk.

“I hope you like these people you are with. What sort
of a man do you find my old friend the Deacon?”

Clement laughed. “A very queer old character. Loves
his joke as well, and is as sly in making it, as if he had
studied Joe Miller instead of the Catechism.”

Mr. Bradshaw looked at the young man to know what
he meant. Mr Lindsay talked in a very easy way for a
serious young person. He was puzzled. He did not see
to the bottom of this description of the Deacon. With

a lawyer's instinct, he kept his doubts to himself and tried
his witness with a new question.

“Did you talk about books at all with the old man?”

“To be sure I did. Would you believe it, — that aged
saint is a great novel-reader. So he tells me. What is
more, he brings up his children to that sort of reading,
from the time when they first begin to spell. If anybody
else had told me such a story about an old country deacon,
I would n't have believed it; but he said so himself, to me,
at breakfast this morning.”

Mr Bradshaw felt as if either he or Mr. Lindsay must
certainly be in the first stage of mild insanity, and he did
not think that he himself could be out of his wits. He
must try one more question. He had become so mystified
that he forgot himself, and began putting his interrogation
in legal form.

“Will you state, if you please — I beg your pardon —
may I ask who is your own favorite author?”

“I think just now I like to read Scott better than
almost anybody.”

“Do you mean the Rev. Thomas Scott, author of the
Commentary?”

Clement stared at Mr. Bradshaw, and wondered whether
he was trying to make a fool of him. The young lawyer
hardly looked as if he could be a fool himself.

“I mean Sir Walter Scott,” he said, dryly.

“Oh!” said Mr. Bradshaw. He saw that there had
been a slight misunderstanding between the young man
and his worthy host, but it was none of his business, and
there were other subjects of interest to talk about.

“You know one of our charming young ladies very well,
I believe, Mr Lindsay. I think you are an old acquaintance
of Miss Posey, whom we all consider so pretty.”

Poor Clement! The question pierced to the very marrow
of his soul, but it was put with the utmost suavity
and courtesy, and honeyed with a compliment to the young
lady, too, so that there was no avoiding a direct and pleasant
answer to it.

“Yes,” he said, “I have known the young lady you
speak of for a long time, and very well, — in fact, as you
must have heard, we are something more than friends. My
visit here is principally on her account!”

“You must give the rest of us a chance to see something
of you during your visit, Mr. Lindsay. I hope you
are invited to Miss Eveleth's to-morrow evening?”

“Yes, I got a note this morning. Tell me, Mr. Bradshaw,
who is there that I shall meet if I go? I have no
doubt there are girls here in the village I should like to
see, and perhaps some young fellows that I should like
to talk with. You know all that 's prettiest and pleasantest,
of course.”

“O, we 're a little place, Mr. Lindsay. A few nice
people, the rest comme ça, you know. High-bush blackberries
and low-bush blackberries, — you understand, —
just so everywhere, — high-bush here and there, low-bush
plenty. You must see the two parsons' daughters, —
Saint Ambrose's and Saint Joseph's, — and another girl I
want particularly to introduce you to. You shall form
your own opinion of her. I call her handsome and stylish,
but you have got spoiled, you know. Our young poet, too,
one we raised in this place, Mr. Lindsay, and a superior
article of poet, as we think, — that is, some of us, for the
rest of us are jealous of him, because the girls are all
dying for him and want his autograph. — And Cyp, —
yes, you must talk to Cyp, — he has ideas. But don't

forget to get hold of old Byles — Master Gridley I mean
— before you go. Big head. Brains enough for a cabinet
minister, and fit out a college faculty with what was
left over. Be sure you see old Byles. Set him talking
about his book, — `Thoughts on the Universe.' Did n't
sell much, but has got knowing things in it. I 'll show
you a copy, and then you can tell him you know it, and he
will take to you. Come in and get your dinner with me
to-morrow. We will dine late, as the city folks do, and
after that we will go over to the Rector's. I should like
to show you some of our village people.

Mr. Bradshaw liked the thought of showing the young
man to some of his friends there. As Clement was already
“done for,” or “bowled out,” as the young lawyer would
have expressed the fact of his being pledged in the matrimonial
direction, there was nothing to be apprehended on
the score of rivalry. And although Clement was particularly
good-looking, and would have been called a distinguishable
youth anywhere, Mr. Bradshaw considered himself
far more than his match, in all probability, in social
accomplishments. He expected, therefore, a certain amount
of reflex credit for bringing such a fine young fellow in his
company, and a second instalment of reputation from outshining
him in conversation. This was rather nice calculating,
but Murray Bradshaw always calculated. With
most men life is like backgammon, half skill, and half luck,
but with him it was like chess. He never pushed a pawn
without reckoning the cost, and when his mind was least
busy it was sure to be half a dozen moves ahead of the
game as it was standing.

Mr. Bradshaw gave Clement a pretty dinner enough for
such a place as Oxbow Village. He offered him some

good wine, and would have made him talk so as to show
his lining, to use one of his own expressions, but Clement
had apparently been through that trifling experience, and
could not be coaxed into saying more than he meant to
say. Murray Bradshaw was very curious to find out how
it was that he had become the victim of such a rudimentary
miss as Susan Posey. Could she be an heiress in
disguise? Why no, of course not; had not he made all
proper inquiries about that when Susan came to town? A
small inheritance from an aunt or uncle, or some such relative,
enough to make her a desirable party in the eyes of
certain villagers perhaps, but nothing to allure a man like
this, whose face and figure as marketable possessions were
worth say a hundred thousand in the girl's own right, as
Mr. Bradshaw put it roughly, with another hundred thousand
if his talent is what some say, and if his connection is
a desirable one, a fancy price, — anything he would fetch.
Of course not. Must have got caught when he was a child.
Why the diavolo did n't he break it off, then?

There was no fault to find with the modest entertainment
at the Parsonage. A splendid banquet in a great house is
an admirable thing, provided always its getting up did not
cost the entertainer an inward conflict, nor its recollection
a twinge of economical regret, nor its bills a cramp of anxiety.
A simple evening party in the smallest village is
just as admirable in its degree, when the parlor is cheerfully
lighted, and the board prettily spread, and the guests
are made to feel comfortable without being reminded that
anybody is making a painful effort.

We know several of the young people who were there,
and need not trouble ourselves for the others. Myrtle
Hazard had promised to come. She had her own way of

late as never before; in fact, the women were afraid of her.
Miss Silence felt that she could not be responsible for her
any longer. She had hopes for a time that Myrtle would
go through the customary spiritual paroxysm under the
influence of the Rev. Mr. Stoker's assiduous exhortations;
but since she had broken off with him, Miss Silence had
looked upon her as little better than a blackslider. And
now that the girl was beginning to show the tendencies
which seemed to come straight down to her from the belle
of the last century, (whose rich physical developments
seemed to the under-vitalized spinster as in themselves a
kind of offence against propriety,) the forlorn woman folded
her thin hands and looked on hopelessly, hardly venturing
a remonstrance for fear of some new explosion. As for
Cynthia, she was comparatively easy since she had, through
Mr. Byles Gridley, upset the minister's questionable arrangement
of religious intimacy. She had, in fact, in a
quiet way, given Mr. Bradshaw to understand that he would
probably meet Myrtle at the Parsonage if he dropped in at
their small gathering.

Clement walked over to Mrs. Hopkins's after his dinner
with the young lawyer, and asked if Susan was ready to
go with him. At the sound of his voice, Gifted Hopkins
smote his forehead, and called himself, in subdued tones, a
miserable being. His imagination wavered uncertain for
a while between pictures of various modes of ridding himself
of existence, and fearful deeds involving the life of
others. He had no fell purpose of actually doing either,
but there was a gloomy pleasure in contemplating them as
possibilities, and in mentally sketching the “Lines written
in Despair” which would be found in what was but an
hour before the pocket of the youthful bard, G. H., victim

of a hopeless passion. All this emotion was in the nature
of a surprise to the young man. He had fully believed himself
desperately in love with Myrtle Hazard; and it was not
until Clement came into the family circle with the right of
eminent domain over the realm of Susan's affections, that
this unfortunate discovered that Susan's pretty ways and
morning dress and love of poetry and liking for his company
had been too much for him, and that he was henceforth
to be wretched during the remainder of his natural
life, except so far as he could unburden himself in song.

Mr. William Murray Bradshaw had asked the privilege
of waiting upon Myrtle to the little party at the Eveleths.
Myrtle was not insensible to the attractions of the young
lawyer, though she had never thought of herself except as
a child in her relations with any of these older persons.
But she was not the same girl that she had been but a few
months before. She had achieved her independence by
her audacious and most dangerous enterprise. She had
gone through strange nervous trials and spiritual experiences
which had matured her more rapidly than years of
common life would have done. She had got back her
health, bringing with it a riper wealth of womanhood. She
had found her destiny in the consciousness that she inherited
the beauty belonging to her blood, and which, after sleeping
for a generation or two as if to rest from the glare of
the pageant that follows beauty through its long career of
triumph, had come to the light again in her life, and was
to repeat the legends of the olden time in her own history.

Myrtle's wardrobe had very little of ornament, such as
the modistes of the town would have thought essential to
render a young girl like her presentable. There were a
few heirlooms of old date, however, which she had kept as

curiosities until now, and which she looked over until she
found some lace and other convertible material, with which
she enlivened her costume a little for the evening. As
she clasped the antique bracelet around her wrist, she felt
as if it were an amulet that gave her the power of charming
which had been so long obsolete in her lineage. At
the bottom of her heart she cherished a secret longing to
try her fascinations on the young lawyer. Who could
blame her? It was not an inwardly expressed intention,
— it was the simple instinctive movement to subjugate
the strongest of the other sex who had come in her way,
which, as already said, is as natural to a woman as it is to
a man to be captivated by the loveliest of those to whom
he dares to aspire.

Before William Murray Bradshaw and Myrtle Hazard
had reached the Parsonage, the girl's cheeks were flushed
and her dark eyes were flashing with a new excitement.
The young man had not made love to her directly, but he
had interested her in herself by a delicate and tender flattery
of manner, and so set her fancies working that she was
taken with him as never before, and wishing that the
Parsonage had been a mile farther from The Poplars. It
was impossible for a young girl like Myrtle to conceal the
pleasure she received from listening to her seductive admirer,
who was trying all his trained skill upon his artless
companion. Murray Bradshaw felt sure that the game
was in his hands if he played it with only common prudence.
There was no need of hurrying this child, — it
might startle her to make downright love abruptly; and
now that he had an ally in her own household, and was to
have access to her with a freedom he had never before enjoyed,
there was a refined pleasure in playing his fish, —

this gamest of golden-scaled creatures, — which had risen
to his fly, and which he wished to hook, but not to land,
until he was sure it would be worth his while.

They entered the little parlor at the Parsonage looking
so beaming, that Olive and Bathsheba exchanged glances
which implied so much that it would take a full page to
tell it with all the potentialities involved.

“How magnificent Myrtle is this evening, Bathsheba!”
said Cyprian Eveleth, pensively.

“What a handsome pair they are, Cyprian!” said Bathsheba
cheerfully.

Cyprian sighed. “She always fascinates me whenever
I look upon her. Is n't she the very picture of what a
poet's love should be, — a poem herself, — a glorious lyric,
— all light and music! See what a smile the creature
has! And her voice! When did you ever hear such
tones? And when was it ever so full of life before.”

Bathsheba sighed. “I do not know any poets but Gifted
Hopkins. Does not Myrtle look more in her place by
the side of Murray Bradshaw than she would with Gifted
hitched on her arm?”

Just then the poet made his appearance. He looked
depressed, as if it had cost him an effort to come. He
was, however, charged with a message which he must
deliver to the hostess of the evening.

“They 're coming presently,” he said. “That young
man and Susan. Wants you to introduce him, Mr. Bradshaw.”

The bell rang presently, and Murray Bradshaw slipped
out into the entry to meet the two lovers.

“How are you, my fortunate friend?” he said, as he
met them at the door. “Of course you 're well and happy

as mortal man can be in this vale of tears. Charming,
ravishing, quite delicious, that way of dressing your hair,
Miss Posey! Nice girls here this evening, Mr. Lindsay.
Looked lovely when I came out of the parlor. Can 't say
how they will show after this young lady puts in an appearance.”
In reply to which florid speeches Susan
blushed, not knowing what else to do, and Clement smiled
as naturally as if he had been sitting for his photograph.

He felt, in a vague way, that he and Susan were being
patronized, which is not a pleasant feeling to persons with
a certain pride of character. There was no expression of
contempt about Mr. Bradshaw's manner or language at
which he could take offence. Only he had the air of a
man who praises his neighbor without stint, with a calm
consciousness that he himself is out of reach of comparison
in the possessions or qualities which he is admiring in
the other. Clement was right in his obscure perception of
Mr. Bradshaw's feeling while he was making his phrases.
That gentleman was, in another moment, to have the tingling
delight of showing the grand creature he had just begun
to tame. He was going to extinguish the pallid light
of Susan's prettiness in the brightness of Myrtle's beauty.
He would bring this young man, neutralized and rendered
entirely harmless by his irrevocable pledge to a slight girl,
face to face with a masterpiece of young womanhood, and
say to him, not in words, but as plainly as speech could
have told him, “Behold my captive!”

It was a proud moment for Murray Bradshaw. He
had seen, or thought that he had seen, the assured evidence
of a speedy triumph over all the obstacles of Myrtle's
youth and his own present seeming slight excess of maturity.
Unless he were very greatly mistaken, he could now

walk the course; the plate was his, no matter what might
be the entries. And this youth, this handsome, spirited-looking,
noble-aired young fellow, whose artist-eye could
not miss a line of Myrtle's proud and almost defiant beauty,
was to be the witness of his power, and to look in admiration
upon his prize! He introduced him to the others,
reserving her for the last. She was at that moment talking
with the worthy Rector, and turned when Mr. Bradshaw
spoke to her.

“Miss Hazard, will you allow me to present to you my
friend, Mr. Clement Lindsay?”

They looked full upon each other, and spoke the common
words of salutation. It was a strange meeting; but
we who profess to tell the truth must tell strange things,
or we shall be liars.

In poor little Susan's letter there was some allusion to a
bust of Innocence which the young artist had begun, but
of which he had said nothing in his answer to her. He
had roughed out a block of marble for that impersonation;
sculpture was a delight to him, though secondary to his
main pursuit. After his memorable adventure, the image
of the girl he had rescued so haunted him that the pale
ideal which was to work itself out in the bust faded
away in its perpetual presence, and — alas, poor Susan!
— in obedience to the impulse that he could not control,
he left Innocence sleeping in the marble, and began modelling
a figure of proud and noble and imperious beauty,
to which he gave the name of Liberty.

The original which had inspired his conception was before
him. These were the lips to which his own had clung
when he brought her back from the land of shadows.
The hyacinthine curl of her lengthening locks had added

something to her beauty; but it was the same face which
had haunted him. This was the form he had borne seemingly
lifeless in his arms, and the bosom which heaved so
visibly before him was that which his eyes — they
were the calm eyes of a sculptor, but of a sculptor hardly
twenty years old.

Yes, — her bosom was heaving. She had an unexplained
feeling of suffocation, and drew great breaths, —
she could not have said why, — but she could not help it;
and presently she became giddy, and had a great noise in
her ears, and rolled her eyes about, and was on the point
of going into an hysteric spasm. They called Dr. Hurlbut,
who was making himself agreeable to Olive just then,
to come and see what was the matter with Myrtle.

“A little nervous turn, — that is all,” he said. “Open
the window. Loose the ribbon round her neck. Rub
her hands. Sprinkle some water on her forehead. A
few drops of cologne. Room too warm for her, — that 's
all, I think.”

Myrtle came to herself after a time without anything
like a regular paroxysm. But she was excitable, and
whatever the cause of the disturbance may have been, it
seemed prudent that she should go home early; and the
excellent Rector insisted on caring for her, much to the
discontent of Mr. William Murray Bradshaw.

“Demonish odd,” said this gentleman, was n't it, Mr.
Lindsay, that Miss Hazard should go off in that way?
Did you ever see her before?

“I — I — have seen that young lady before,” Clement
answered.

“Where did you meet her?” Mr. Bradshaw asked, with
eager interest.

“I met her in the Valley of the Shadow of Death,”
Clement answered, very solemnly. — “I leave this place
to-morrow morning. Have you any commands for the
city?”

(“Knows how to shut a fellow up pretty well for a
young one, does n't he?” Mr. Bradshaw thought to
himself.)

“Thank you, no,” he answered, recovering himself.
“Rather a melancholy place to make acquaintance in,
I should think, that Valley you spoke of. I should like to
know about it.”

Mr. Clement had the power of looking steadily into
another person's eyes in a way that was by no means encouraging
to curiosity or favorable to the process of cross-examination.
Mr. Bradshaw was not disposed to press
his question in the face of the calm, repressive look the
young man gave him.

“If he was n't bagged, I should n't like the shape of
things any too well,” he said to himself.

The conversation between Mr. Clement Lindsay and
Miss Susan Posey, as they walked home together, was not
very brilliant. “I am going to-morrow morning,” he said,
“and I must bid you good by to-night.” Perhaps it is as
well to leave two lovers to themselves, under these circumstances.

Before he went he spoke to his worthy host, whose
moderate demands he had to satisfy, and with whom he
wished to exchange a few words.

“And by the way, Deacon, I have no use for this book,
and as it is in a good type, perhaps you would like it.
Your favorite, Scott, and one of his greatest works. I
have another edition of it at home, and don't care for this
volume.”

“Thank you, thank you, Mr. Lindsay, much obleeged.
I shall read that copy for your sake, — the best of books
next to the Bible itself.”

After Mr. Lindsay had gone, the Deacon looked at the
back of the book. “Scott's Works, Vol. IX.” He opened
it at hazard, and happened to fall on a well-known page,
from which he began reading aloud, slowly,

The whole hymn pleased the grave Deacon. He had
never seen this work of the author of the Commentary. No
matter; anything that such a good man wrote must be
good reading, and he would save it up for Sunday. The
consequence of this was, that, when the Rev. Mr. Stoker
stopped in on his way to meeting on the “Sabbath,” he
turned white with horror at the spectacle of the senior
Deacon of his church sitting, open-mouthed and wide-eyed,
absorbed in the pages of “Ivanhoe,” which he found enormously
interesting; but, so far as he had yet read, not
occupied with religious matters so much as he had expected.

Myrtle had no explanation to give of her nervous attack.
Mr. Bradshaw called the day after the party, but did not
see her. He met her walking, and thought she seemed a
little more distant than common. That would never do.
He called again at The Poplars a few days afterwards,
and was met in the entry by Miss Cynthia, with whom he
had a long conversation on matters involving Myrtle's
interests and their own.