University of Virginia Library

62. CHAPTER LXII.

It was nearly a year since he had landed at New York, and
Morton still remained a literary hermit. Society was stale
and distasteful to him. He passed three fourths of his day
in his library, and the rest on horseback. At length, however,
it happened that a cousin of his mother, one of his few
relatives in the city, was to give a ball on occasion of her
daughter's début; and lest his refusal should be thought unkind,
Morton promised to come. He drove to town in the
afternoon; and walking through a somewhat obscure street,
suddenly, on turning a corner, saw, some four or five rods
before him, a well-remembered face. It was the face of
Henry Speyer. The discovery was mutual. Speyer instantly
turned down a by-lane. Morton quickened his pace, and
reached the head of the lane in time to see the broad shoulders
of the patriot in full retreat. He soon lost sight of him
among a wilderness of back yards and squalid houses. The
incident greatly disturbed and exasperated him. “A broken
oath is nothing to him,” he thought to himself; “he is at
Vinal again, dragging at his veins like a vampire.”

The evening drew on, and he entered the ball room in a
gloomy and dejected frame of mind. After a few words to

his relatives, he took his stand among a group who were
watching the dancers; and had scarcely done so, when he
saw a young lady, simply, but very richly dressed, whose fine
figure and powerfully expressive beauty arrested his eye at
once. The indifference and listlessness with which he had
entered vanished. He soon observed that she was not an
object of attention to him alone; for near him stood a certain
old beau, well known about town, and a young collegian,
both following her with their eyes. The music ceased, and
her partner led her to a seat at the farther side of the room.
Glancing at his two neighbors, Morton saw that they were in
the act of moving towards her; but he, being nearer, had the
advantage. Gliding through the dissolving fragments of the
dance, Le stood by her side.

“Miss Fanny Euston, I see two persons coming to ask you
to dance. May I hope that you will reject them for an old
friend's sake, and let me be your partner?”

She raised her eyes with a perplexed look, which instantly
changed to a bright gleam of recognition, and cordially took
his proffered hand.

“So,” said Morton, “you have not forgotten me. And
yet, as I see you, I hardly dare to take up again the broken
thread of our old intimacy. I used to call you Fanny.”

“Call me Fanny still,” she said, “if only for the memory
of auld lang syne.”

“I hoped to have seen you before, but you have been
away.”

“Yes, with my relations, and yours, at Baltimore. I have
heard a great deal about you. Your story is the talk of the

town. You might be the lion of the season; but I have not
seen you at parties.”

“No, I have outlived my liking for such matters.”

“I cannot wonder at it. What horrors you have suffered!
what dangers you have passed!”

“I have weathered them, though.”

“You were more than four years in a dungeon.”

“Yes, but I gave them the slip.”

“You were led out to be shot by the soldiers.”

“They thought better of it, and saved their ammunition.”

“And yet I see,” said Miss Euston, smiling, “that you still
remain your former self. I remember telling you that, if you
were sentenced to the rack, you would go to it with a gibe
on your tongue, and speak of it afterwards as a pleasant diversion.
But,” she added, with a changed look, “you have
not come off unscathed. Your face is darker and thinner
than it used to be, and there are lines in it that were not
there before.”

“Fortune fondled me till she grew tired of me; then
turned at me, tooth and nail.”

“You banter with your lips, but your look belies your
words. You have suffered greatly; you have suffered intensely.”

Morton looked grave in spite of himself.

“Perhaps you are right. I have very little heart left for
jesting.”

The eyes of his companion, as they met his, assumed a peculiar
softness.

“You must have suffered beyond all power of words to

speak it. The world to you was fresh and full of interest.
You were ambitious; full of ardor and energy; loving hardship
for its own sake, and obstacles for the sake of conquering
them. You were formed for action. It was your element —
your breath; and without it you did not care to live. You
were high in confidence, and believed that whatever you had
once resolved on must, sooner or later, come to pass.”

“Why are you saying this?” demanded Morton, in great
surprise.

“Out of this life you were suddenly snatched and buried
in a dungeon; shut off from all intercourse with men; your
energies stifled; your restless mind left to prey upon itself,
or sustain a weary siege against despair. Pain or danger you
could have faced like a man; but this passive misery must to
you have been a daily death.”

“Who,” interrupted Morton, “taught you, a woman, to
penetrate the nature of a man, and describe sufferings that
you never felt?”

“Your mind was like a spring of steel, springing up the
more strongly the harder it was pressed down. The suffering
must have been deep indeed from which you could not
rebound. To have escaped, to have reached home, and to
have found any thing but relief and delight —”

“Home!” ejaculated Morton, bitterly, as a sharp memory
of the anguish which had met him on the threshold came
over him. “A prison may be borne with patience. Those
are fortunate who have felt no keener stabs.”

The words, equivocal as they were, were scarcely spoken,
when he had repented them. Fanny Euston was silent for a

moment. “Can it be possible,” she thought, “that the
stories whispered about, that before he went away he was
engaged to Edith Leslie, are something more than an idle
rumor?”

“Why do you look at me so searchingly?” thought Morton,
on his part, as, raising his eyes, he saw those of his
friend fixed on him in a gaze in which a woman's curiosity
was mingled with a fully equal share of a woman's kindliness
and sympathy. He hastened to escape from the critical
ground which he had approached.

“I can retort upon you,” he said. “You have had your
ordeal, too.”

“What, do you see its traces? Do you find me scorched
and withered?”

“I see,” said Morton, “such traces as on gold that has
passed through the furnace.”

“Truly, I have cause to rejoice, then; for I remember
that, among other compliments, you once intimated your
opinion that I was possessed with a devil.”

“I am afraid that I pushed to its farthest limit my privilege
of cousinship.”

“And yet, when I look back to that time, I cannot help
thinking that you had some reason for believing that an influence
from the nether world had some share in me.”

“Now pardon me, if I am rude again. Looking at you, I
can see the same devil still.”

“Indeed, and you will console me now, as you did then,
by telling me that a dash of viciousness is necessary to make
a character interesting.”

“I should prune and explain my speech. By a devil, I
did not mean a malicious imp of darkness, wholly bent on
evil. I meant nothing more than certain impulses and emotions,
— passions, if I may call them so, — very turbulent
tenants, yet of admirable use when well dealt with. These
were the devil whom I used to see in you, and whom I see
still.”

“I shall tremble at myself.”

“Then you are not so brave as you were when you leaped
the fallen tree at New Baden. Your demon has ceased to
have an alarming look. I think you have turned him to
good account. Shall I illustrate from the legends of the
saints?”

“In any way you please; but I should never have expected
you to resort to so pious a source.”

“St. Bernard, crossing the Alps on some holy errand, was
met by Satan, who, being anxious to prevent his journey,
broke one of his carriage wheels. But St. Bernard caught
him, sprinkled him with holy water, doubled him into a wheel,
and put him upon the carriage in place of the broken one.
The legend says that he answered the purpose admirably, and
bore the saint safely to the end of his journey.”

“Your legend is absurd enough; but I think I catch your
meaning, and wish I could think you wholly in the right. It
is singular that you and I have never met without our conversation
becoming personal to ourselves. We are always
studying each other — always trying to penetrate each other's
thoughts.”

“On one side, at least, the success has been complete. As

you look at me, I feel that you are reading me like a book,
from title page to finis.”

“You greatly overrate my penetration. I am conscious, at
this moment, of movements in your mind which I do not
understand.”

“And would you have me confess them to you?”

“You might repent it afterwards; and that would make a
breach between us.”

“You are a miraculous woman, to postpone your curiosity
to a scruple like that. No, I would not have spoken of confession,
if I should ever repent it. Do you know, I would
rather open my mind to you than to any one else I am now
acquainted with.”

“But you have male friends; very old and intimate ones.”

“Excellent in their way; but I would as soon confess to
my horse. Find me a woman of sense, with a brain to discern,
a heart to feel, passion to feel vehemently, and principle
to feel rightly, and I will show her my mind; or, if not, I
will show it to no one. Now, after this preamble, you have
a right to think that I should begin to confess something at
once. But first, I will ask you a question.”

“What is it?”

“Tell me what effect you think any long and severe suffering
ought to have on a man — something, I mean, that
would bring him to the brink of despair, and keep him there
for months and years.”

“What kind of man do you mean?”

“Suppose one given over to pleasure, ambition, or any
other engrossing pursuit not too disinterested.”

“It would depend on how the suffering was taken.”

“Suppose him resolved to make the best of a bad bargain.”

“Why, the effect ought to be good, I suppose, — so the
preachers say.”

“I do not wish to know what the preachers say. I wish
your own opinion.”

“Are you quite in earnest?”

“Quite.”

“Such suffering, rightly taken, would strip life of its disguises,
and show it in its naked truth. It would teach the
man to know himself and to know others. It would awaken
his sympathies, enlarge his mind, and greatly expand his
sphere of vision; teach him to hold present pleasure and
present pain in small account, and to look beyond them into
a future of boundless hopes and fears.”

“Now,” said Morton, “you have betrayed yourself.”

“How have I betrayed myself?” asked his friend, in some
discomposure.

“You have shown me the secrets of your own mind.
You have given me a glimpse of your own history, since we
last met.”

“And so, under pretence of confessing to me, you have
been plotting to make me confess to you!”

“No, you shall hear my confession. I have it now, such
as it is, at my tongue's end.”

“I have no faith in you.”

“Perhaps you will have still less when you have heard
this great secret. You remember me before I went away.
I was a very exemplary young gentleman, — quiet, orderly,

well behaved, — of a studious turn, — soberly and virtuously
given.”

“You give yourself an excellent character.”

“And what should be the results of the discipline of a
dungeon on such a person?”

“Discipline would be a superfluity, considering your perfections.”

“So I thought myself. Nevertheless, for four years, or so,
I was shut up, with nothing to look at but stone walls, under
circumstances most favorable for the culture of patience,
resignation, forgiveness, and all the Christian virtues; and
yet the devil has never been half so busy with me as since I
came out; never whispered half so many villanous suggestions
into my ears, nor baited me with such scandalous temptations.”

“That is very strange,” said Fanny Euston, who was
looking at him intently.

“For example,” pursued Morton, “a little more than a
year ago, in New York, he said to me, `Renounce all your
old plans, and habits, and antiquated scruples — reclaim your
natural freedom — fling yourself headlong into the turmoil
of the world — chase whatever fate or fortune throws in your
way — enjoy the zest of lawless pleasures — launch into mad
adventure — embark on schemes of ambition — care nothing
for the past or the future — think only of the present — fear
neither God nor man, and follow your vagrant star wherever
it leads you.”

Morton knew that, restrained and governed as it might be,
there was quicksilver enough in his companion's veins to enable

her to understand what he had said, and prevent her
being startled at it. But he was by no means prepared for
the close attack she proceeded to make on him.

“Such a state of mind is foreign to your nature. You
have prudence and forecast. You used to make plans for the
future, and study the final results of every thing you did.
There is something upon your mind. It is not imprisonment
only that has caused that compression of your lips, and
marked those lines on your face. You have met with some
deep disaster, some overwhelming disappointment. Nothing
else could have wrought such a convulsion in you.”

Morton was taken by surprise; and, as he struggled to
frame an answer, his features betrayed an emotion which he
could not hide. Fanny Euston hastened to relieve his embarrassment,
and assuage, as far as she could, the tumult she
had called up.

“With whatever fate you may have had to battle, your
wounds are in the front, — all honorable scars. Your desperation
is past; — it was only for the hour; — and for the
other extreme, it is not in you to suffer that.”

“What other extreme?”

“Idle dreaming; — melancholy; — weak pining at disappointment.”

“No, thank God, it is not in me to lie and whine like a
sick child.”

“You are the firmer for what you have passed. Manhood,
the proudest of all possession to a man, is strengthened and
deepened in you.”

“What do you call this manhood, which you seem to hold
in such high account?”

“That unflinching quality which, strong in generous
thought and high purpose, bears onward towards its goal,
knowing no fear but the fear of God; wise, prudent, calm,
yet daring and hoping all things; not dismayed by reverses,
nor elated by success; never bending nor receding; wearying
out ill fortune by undespairing constancy; unconquered
by pain or sorrow, or deferred hope; fiery in attack, steadfast
in resistance, unshaken in the front of death; and when
courage is vain, and hope seems folly, when crushing calamity
presses it to the earth, and the exhausted body will no longer
obey the still undaunted mind, then putting forth its hardest,
saddest heroism, the unlaurelled heroism of endurance,
patiently biding its time.”

“And how if its time never come?”

“Then dying at its post, like the Roman sentinel at
Pompeii.”

Her words struck a chord in Morton's nature, and roused
his early enthusiasm, dormant for years.

“Fanny,” he said, “I thank you. You give me back my
youth. An hour ago, the world was as dull to me as a
November day; but you have brought June back again. You
would make a coward valiant, and breathe life into a
dead man.”

Miss Euston seemed, for a moment, in embarrassment what
to reply; indeed, she showed some signs of discomposure,
contrasting with her former frankness. They were still in

the recess of the window. She was visible to those in the
room; while he, standing opposite, was hidden by a curtain.
At this moment, a gentleman, with a slight limp in
his gait, approaching quickly, accosted Miss Euston, smiling
with an air of the most earnest affability. She looked
up to reply, but, as she did so, her eyes were arrested
by a sudden change in the features of her companion, who
was bending on the new comer a look so fierce and threatening,
that she scarcely repressed an ejaculation of surprise.
Mr. Horace Vinal followed the direction of her gaze, and
saw himself face to face with the victim of his villany.
He started as if he had found a grizzly bear behind the
curtain. The smile vanished from his lips, the color from
his cheeks, and he hastily drew back, and mingled with the
crowd.

This sudden apparition, breaking in upon the brightening
mood of the moment, incensed Morton almost to fury; and
his anger, absurdly enough, was a little tinged with a feeling
not wholly unlike jealousy. He made an involuntary
movement to follow his enemy, but recollecting himself,
smoothed his brow and calmed his ruffled spirit as he best
might.

“You seem to know that man very well,” he said to Miss
Euston.

“Yes, I know him.”

“He seems to think himself on excellent terms with you.”

“He has charge of my mother's property.”

“You are good at reading faces. I hope you liked the
expression on his, as he slunk away just now.”

“It was fear — abject fear. Why are you so angry?
Why is he so frightened?”

“His nerves, you may have observed, are something of the
weakest. He is my attendant genius, my familiar. A word
from me, and he will run my errand like a spaniel.”

“How could you gain such power over him?” she asked,
in great astonishment.

“Magnetism, Fanny, magnetism. The effects of the
mesmeric fluid are wonderful. See, the polking is over;
they are forming a quadrille. Shall we take our places in
the set?”

During the dance, Morton looked for his enemy, but could
not discover him till it was over, and he had led his partner
to a seat.

“Look,” he said, “there is our friend again; in the next
room, just beyond the folding doors, talking with Mrs. —
and Mrs. —. He seems to have got the better of the
shock to his nerves; at least, he stands up manfully against
it. Mr. Horace Vinal has a stout heart, and needs nothing
but valor, and one other quality, to make a hero. But his
face is flushed. I fear he suffers in his health. See, he
makes himself very agreeable. Vinal was always famous for
his wit. Pardon me a moment; I have a word for my
friend's ear.”

Fanny Euston looked at him doubtingly.

“Pray, don't be discomposed. There's no gunpowder impending.
Vinal is not a fighting man; nor am I. What I
have to say is altogether pacific, loving, and scriptural.”

And passing into the adjoining room, he approached Vinal,

who no sooner saw the movement, than he showed a manifest
uneasiness. His forced animation ceased, his manner became
constrained, and while Morton stood near, waiting an opportunity
to speak to him, he withdrew to another part of the
room. Morton followed, and pronounced his name. Vinal,
with pretended unconsciousness, mingled with the crowd.
Morton again tried to accost him, and again Vinal moved
away. Impatient and exasperated, Morton stepped behind
him, touched his shoulder, and whispered in his ear, —

“You fool, do you know your danger? Speyer is looking
for you. I saw him this afternoon. He looks as if he needed
your charity. You had better be generous with him. He is
a tiger, and will be upon you before you know it.”

Anger and terror, of which the latter vastly predominated,
gave a ghastly look to Vinal's face, as he turned it towards
Morton. But he drew back without a word, and soon left
the room.

“Where is Mr. Vinal?” asked the wondering Fanny
Euston, as her companion returned to her side. The momentary
interview had been invisible from where she sat.

“Obeyed the magic word, and vanished. Never doubt
again the power of magnetism. Now you may see that the
claptrap of the charlatans about the mutual influence of congenial
spheres is not quite such trash as one might think.
Vinal and I, being congenial spheres, put each other, the one
into a passion, the other into a fright. But I have a request
to you. Whoever knows you, knows, in spite of the libellers,
a woman who can keep counsel; and as I am modest in
respect to my magnetic gifts, I shall beg it of you, that you

will not mention these experiments to any one. Good evening.
I have revived to-night an old and valued friendship.
If I can help it, it shall not die again.”

He took leave of his hostess, wrapped his cloak about
him, and walked out into the drizzling night.