University of Virginia Library

9. CHAPTER IX.
MISS WALTON ADVISES A HOBBY.

TO Walter's surprise he woke up and then admitted
to himself that, contrary to his expectation
and purpose, he had been asleep. His last remembered
consciousness was that of sweet, low music;
and how long ago was that? He looked at his
watch; it was nearly two, and he must have slept
two hours. He glanced around and saw that he was
alone, but the fire still blazed on the hearth, and the
Afghan enfolded him with its genial warmth as before,
and it seemed that though by himself he was
still cared for.

“She is a witch,” he muttered. “Her spells are
no jokes. But I will investigate her case like an
old-time Salem inquisitor. With more than Yankee
curiosity, which was at the bottom of their superstitious
questionings, I will pry into her power. But
she will find that she has a wary skeptic to convince.
I have seen too many saints and sinners to be again
deceived by fair seeming.”

A broad ray of sunlight shot across the room.
“By my soul! it's clearing off. Is this her work
also? Has she swept away the clouds with her
broomstick? And there goes the dinner-bell, too;”

and he went to his room two steps at a time, as he
did when a boy.

Annie coming out of the sitting-room at that
moment, smiled and said: “He must be better.”

At the table she asked: “How do you find
yourself now?”

“Much given to appetite.” Then turning to
Mr. Walton, he said, abruptly: “Do you believe in
witchcraft?”

“Well, no, sir,” said good Mr. Walton, a little
taken aback.

“I do!” continued he, emphatically.

“When and where have you had experience in
the black art?”

“This morning, and in your house, sir.”

“You seem none the worse for it,” said his host,
smiling.

“Indeed, I have not felt so well in months.
Your larder will suffer if I am practised upon any
more.”

“Well, of all modern and prosaic results of
witchery this exceeds,” said Annie, laughing, “since
only a good appetite results.”

“It yet remains to be seen whether this is the
only result,” replied Walter. “What possessed the
old Puritans to persecute the Salem witches is a
mystery to me, if their experience was any thing
like mine.”

“You must remember that the question of what
was agreeable or otherwise scarcely entered into a
Puritan's motives.”

“I am not so sure of that,” answered Walter quickly.
“It has ever seemed to me that the good people
of other days went into persecution with a zeal that
abstract right can hardly account for. People will
have their excitements, and a good rousing persecution
used to stir things like the burning of Chicago
or a Presidential election in our day.”

“Granting,” said Annie, “the bigotry and cruelty
of the persecutor—and these must be mainly charged
to the age—still you must admit that among them
were earnest men who did what appears very wrong
to us from good motives. What seemed to them
evil and destructive principles were embodied in men
and women, and they meant to destroy the evil
through the suffering and death of these poor creatures.”

“And then consider the simplicity and ease of
the persecutor's method,” continued Walter, mockingly.
“A man's head has become full of supposed
doctrinal errors. To refute and banish these would
require much study and argument on the part of the
opponent. It was so much easier to take an obstinate
heretic's head off than to argue with him. I
think it was the simplicity of the persecutor's method
that kept it in favor so long.”

“But it never convinced any one,” said Annie,
“and the man killed merely goes into another world
of the same opinion still.”

“And there probably learns, poor fellow, that
both were wrong, and that he had better have been

content with good dinners and a quiet life, and let
theology alone.”

“The world would move but slowly, if all men
were content with `good dinners and a quiet life,'”
said Annie, satirically. “But you have not answered
my question. Could not good, earnest men
have been very cruel, believing that everything depended
on their uprooting some evil of their day?”

“To tell the truth, Miss Walton,” said Walter,
a little nettled, “I have no sympathy with that
style of men. To me they are very repulsive and
ridiculous. They remind me of the breathless, perspiring
politicians of our time, who button-hole
you and assert that the world will come to an end
unless John Smith is elected. To me, the desperate
earnestness of people who imagine it their mission
to set the world right is excessively tiresome. For
one man or a thousand to proclaim that they speak
for God and embody truth, and that the race should
listen and obey, is the absurdity of arrogance.”

“If we were to agree with you, would we not
have to say that the prophets should have kept their
visions to themselves, and that Luther should have
remained in his cell, and Columbus have coasted
along shore and not have insisted on what was to all
the world an absurdity?”

“Come, Miss Walton,” said Walter, with a
vexed laugh as they rose from the table, “you are a
witch. I am willing to argue with flesh and blood,
but I would rather hear you sing. Still, since you
have swept away these clouds so I can have my ramble,

I will forgive you for unhorsing me in our recent
tilt.”

“If you would mount some good honest hobby
and ride it hard, I doubt whether any one could
unhorse you,” she replied in a low tone, as she accompanied
him to the parlor.”

“Men with hobbies are my detestation, Miss
Walton.”

“Nevertheless, they are the true knights errant
of our age. Of course it depends upon what kind
of hobbies they ride, or whether they can manage
their steeds.”

“Miss Walton, your figure suggests a half idiot,
with narrow forehead and one idea, banging back
and forth on a wooden horse, but making no progress—in
other words, a fussy, bustling man who
can do and talk but one thing.”

“Your understanding of the popular phrase is
narrow and literal, and while it may have such a
meaning, can also have a very different one. Suppose,
instead of looking with languid eyes alike upon
all things, a man finds some question of vital import
or pursuit that promises good to himself and many
others and that enlists his interest. He comes at
last to give it his best energies and thought. The
whole current of his life is setting in that direction.
Of course he must ever be under the restraints of
good sense and refinement. A man's life without a
hobby is a weak and wavering line of battle indefinitely
long. One's life with a hobby is a concentrated
charge.”

There was in Miss Walton's face and manner, as
she uttered these words, that which caused Walter
to regard her with involuntary admiration. Suddenly
he asked:

“Have you a hobby?”

Her manner changed instantly, and with an arch
look said: “If you detest a man with a hobby, what
a monster a woman would be in your eyes.”

“I have admitted that you are a witch.”

“Oh, I am a monster already, and so have no
character to lose. But where is your penetration?
If a man with a hobby is idiotic, narrow browed,
fussy and bustling, excessively obtrusive with his
one idea, a woman must be like him with all these
things exaggerated. Has it not occurred to you that
I have a hobby of the most wooden and clumsy
order?”

“But that was my idea of a hobby. You have
spiritualized my wooden block into a Pegasus—the
symbol of inspiration. Have you such a hobby?”

“I have.”

“What is it?”

“She went out of the room saying smilingly over
her shoulder:

“You must find that out for yourself.”