University of Virginia Library

5. CHAPTER V.
THE SERPENT IN THE GARDEN.

The concession made by Stevens, and which had produced
an effect so gratifying upon his companion, was one
that involved no sacrifices. The animal appetite of the
young lawyer was, in truth, comparatively speaking, indifferent
to the commodity which he discarded; and even
had it been otherwise, still he was one of those selfish, cool
and calculating persons, who seem by nature to be perfectly
able to subdue the claims of the blood, with great ease,
whenever any human or social policy would appear to
render it advisable. The greatest concession which he
made in the transaction, was in his so readily subscribing
to that false logic of the day, which reasons against the
use of the gifts of Providence, because a diseased moral,
and a failing education, among men, sometimes result in
their abuse.

The imperfections of a mode of reasoning so utterly
illogical, were as obvious to the mind of the young lawyer
as to anybody else; and the compliance which he exhibited
to a requisition which his own sense readily assured him
was as foolish as it was presumptuous, was as degrading
to his moral character from the hypocrisy which it declared,
as it was happy in reference to the small policy by
which he had been governed. The unsuspecting preacher
did not perceive the scornful sneer which curled his lips
and flashed his eyes, by which his own vanity still asserted

itself through the whole proceeding; or he would not have
been so sure that the mantle of grace which he deemed to
have surely fallen upon the shoulders of his companion,
was sufficiently large and sound, to cover the multitude of
sins which it yet enabled the wearer, so far, to conceal.
Regarding him with all the favor which one is apt to feel
for the person whom he has plucked as a brand from the
burning, the soul of John Cross warmed to the young sinner;
and it required no great effort of the wily Stevens to
win from him the history, not only of all its own secrets and
secret hopes — for these were of but small value in the eyes
of the worldling — but of all those matters which belonged
to the little village to which they were trending, and the
unwritten lives of every dweller in that happy community.

With all the adroit and circumspect art of the lawyer,
sifting the testimony of the unconscious witness, and worming
from his custody those minor details which seem to
the uninitiated so perfectly unimportant to the great matter
immediately in hand — Stevens now propounded his direct
inquiry, and now dropped his seemingly unconsidered insinuation,
by which he drew from the preacher as much as
he cared to know of the rustic lads and lasses of Charlemont.
It does not concern our narrative to render the
details thus unfolded to the stranger. And we will content
ourselves, as did the younger of the travellers, who
placed himself with hearty good will at the disposal of the
holy man.

“You shall find for me a place of lodging, Mr. Cross,
while it shall suit me to stay in Charlemont. You have
a knowledge of the people, and of the world, which I possess
not; and it will be better that I should give myself
up to your guidance. I know that you will not bring me
to the dwelling of persons not in good repute; and, perhaps,
I need not remind you that my worldly means are
small — I must be at little charge wherever I stop.”

“Ah, Brother Stevens, worldly goods and worldly wealth

are no more needed in Charlemont, than they are necessary
to the service of the blessed Redeemer. With an empty
scrip is thy service blest; — God sees the pure heart through
the threadbare garment. I have friends in Charlemont
who will be too happy to receive thee in the name of the
Lord, without money and without price.”

The pride of Stevens, which had not shrunk from hypocrisy
and falsehood, yet recoiled at a suggestion which involved
the idea of his pecuniary dependence upon strangers,
and he replied accordingly; though he still disguised his
objections under the precious appearance of a becoming
moral scruple.

“It will not become me, Mr. Cross, to burden the brethren
of the church for that hospitality which is only due
to brethren.”

“But thou art in the way of grace — the light is shining
upon thee — the door is open, and already the voice of the
Bridegroom is calling from within. Thou wilt become a
burning and a shining light — and the brethren of the
church will rejoice to hail thee among its chosen. Shall
they hold back their hand when thou art even on the threshold?”

“But, Mr. Cross—”

“Call me not Mr., I pray thee. Call me plain John
Cross, if it please thee not yet to apply to me that sweeter
term of loving kindness which the flock of God are happy
to use in speech one to another. If thou wilt call me
Brother Cross, my heart shall acknowledge the bonds between
us, and my tongue shall make answer to thine, in
like fashion. Oh, Alfred Stevens, may the light shine soon
upon thine eyes, that thou may'st know for a truth how
pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in the peace of
of the Lord, and according to his law. I will, with God's
grace, bring thee to this perfect knowledge, for I see the
way clear because of the humility which thou hast already
shown, and thy yielding to the counsels of the teacher.

As for what thou sayest about charges to the brethren, let
that give thee no concern. Thou shalt lodge with old
Brother Hinkley, who is the pattern of good things and of
holiness in Charlemont. His house is more like unto the
tent of the patriarch pitched upon the plain, than the house
of the dweller among the cities. No lock fastens its doors
against the stranger; and the heart of the aged man is even
more open than the doorway of his dwelling. He standeth
in the entrance like one looking out for him that cometh,
and his first word to the messenger of God, is `welcome!'
Thou shalt soon see the truth of what I say to thee, for even
now do we look down upon his house in the very midst of
the village.”

If the scruples of Stevens still continued to urge him
against accepting the hospitality of the old patriarch of
whom he had received a description at once just and agreeable,
the recollection of the village-maiden whom he had
gone aside from his direct path of travel, and made some
even greater departures from the truth, to see, determined
him at length to waive them; particularly when he ascertained
from his fellow-traveller that he knew of nobody in
Charlemont who accommodated strangers for money.

Stevens was one of those persons who watch the progress
of events, and he resolved, with a mental reservation —
that seems strange enough in the case of one who had
shown so little reluctance to say and do the thing which
he could not maintain or defend — to avail himself of some
means for requiting, to the uttermost farthing, the landlord,
to whose hospitality he might be indebted during his stay
in Charlemont.

Such are the contradictions of character which hourly
detect and describe the mere worldling — the man lacking
in all principle, but that which is subservient to his selfish
policy. To accept money or money's worth from a stranger,
seemed mean and humbling to one, who did not hesitate,
in the promotion of a scheme, which had treachery for

its object, to clothe himself in the garments of deception,
and to make his appearance with a lie festering upon his
lips. That evening, Alfred Stevens became, with his
worthier companion, an inmate of the happy dwelling of
William Hinkley, the elder — a venerable, white-headed
father, whose whole life had made him worthy of a far
higher eulogium than that which John Cross had pronounced
upon him.

The delight of the family to see their reverend teacher
was heartfelt and unreserved. A vigorous gripe of the
hand, by the elder dragged him into the house, and a sentence
of unusual length, from his better half, assured him
of that welcome which the blunter action of her venerable
husband had already sufficiently declared. Nor was the
young adventurer who accompanied the preacher, suffered
to remain long unconsidered. When John Cross had told
them who he was, or rather when he had declared his
spiritual hopes in him — which he did with wonderful
unction, in a breath — the reception of old Hinkley, which
had been hospitable enough before, became warm and benignant;
and Brother Stevens already became the word of
salutation, whenever the old people desired to distinguish
their younger guest.

Brother Stevens, it may be said here, found no difficulty
in maintaining the character he had assumed. He had, in
high degree, the great art of the selfish man, and could,
when his game required it, subdue with little effort, those
emotions and impulses, which the frank and ardent spirit
must speak out or die. He went into the house of the
hospitable old man, and into the village of Charlemont, as
if he had gone into the camp of an enemy. He was,
indeed, a spy, seeking to discover, not the poverty, but the
richness of the land. His mind, therefore, was like one
who has clothed himself in armor, placed himself in
waiting for the foe, and set all his sentinels on the watch.
His caution measured every word ere it was spoken, every

look ere it was shown, every movement ere he suffered his
limbs to make it. The muscles of his face, were each put
under curb and chain — the smiles of the lip and the
glances of the eyes, were all subdued to precision, and
permitted to go forth, only under special guard and restriction.
In tone, look, and manner, he strove as nearly as he
might, to resemble the worthy but simple-minded man, who
had so readily found a worthy adherent and pupil in him;
and his efforts at deception might be held to be sufficiently
successful, if the frank confiding faith of the aged heads of
the Hinkley family be the fitting test of his experiment.

With them he was soon perfectly at home — his own carriage
seemed to them wondrously becoming, and the approbation
of John Cross was of itself conclusive. The
preacher was the oracle of the family, all of whom were
only too happy of his favor not to make large efforts to be
pleased with those he brought; and in a little while, sitting
about the friendly fireside, the whole party had become as
sociable as if they had been “hail fellow! well met,” a
thousand years. Two young girls, children of a relative,
and nieces of the venerable elder, had already perched
themselves upon the knee of the stranger, and strove at
moments over his neck and shoulder, without heeding the
occasional sugary reproof of Dame Hinkley, which bade
them “let Brother Stevens be;” and, already had Brother
Stevens himself, ventured upon the use of sundry grave
saws from the holy volume, the fruit of early reading and
a retentive memory, which not a little helped to maintain
his novel pretensions in the mind of the brethren, and the
worthy teacher, John Cross himself. All things promised
a long duration to a friendship suddenly begun; when
William Hinkley, the younger, a youth already introduced
to the reader, made his appearance within the happy circle.
He wore a different aspect from all the rest as he recognised
in the person of Brother Stevens, the handsome
stranger, his antipathy to whom, at a first glance, months

before, seemed almost to have the character of a warning
instinct. A nearer glance did not serve to lessen his hostility.

Our traveller was to the eye of a lover, one, indeed, who
promised dangerous rivalship, and an intrepid air of confidence
which, even his assumed character could not enable
him to disguise from the searching eyes of jealousy, contributed
to strengthen the dislike of the youth for a person
who seemed so perfectly sure of his ground. Still, William
Hinkley behaved as a civil and well-bred youth might be
expected to behave. He did not suffer his antipathy to put
on the aspect of rudeness; he was grave and cold, but respectful;
and though he did not “be-brother” the stranger,
he yet studiously subdued his tones to mildness, when it became
necessary, in the course of the evening meal, that he
should address him. Few words, however, were exchanged
between the parties. If Hinkley beheld an enemy to his
heart's hopes in Stevens, the latter was sufficiently well-read
in the human heart to discover quite as soon, that the
rustic was prepared to see in himself any character but
that of a friend. The unwillingness with which Hinkley
heard his suggestions — the absence of all freedom and
ease in his deportment, toward himself, so different from
the manner of the youth when speaking or listening to all
other persons; the occasional gleam of jealous inquiry and
doubt within his eye, and the utter lack of all enthusiasm
and warmth in his tones while he spoke to him, satisfied
Stevens, that he, of all the household of his hospitable
entertainers, if not actually suspicious of his true character,
was the one whose suspicions were those most easily
to be awakened, and who of all others, needed most to be
guarded against. It will not increase our estimate of the
wisdom of the stranger, to learn that, with this conviction,
he should yet arrogate to himself a tone of superiority,
while speaking in hearing of the youth.

This was shown in a manner that was particularly galling

to a high-spirited youth, and one whose prejudices were
already awakened against the speaker. It was that of a
paternal and patronizing senior, whose very gentleness and
benignity of look and accent, seem to arise from a full conviction
of the vast difference which exists between himself
and his hearer. An indignity like this, which can not be
resented, is one which the young mind feels always most
anxious to resent. The very difficulties in the way of
doing so, stimulates the desire. Such was the feeling of
William Hinkley. With such a feeling it may be conjectured
that opportunity was not long wanting, or might
soon be made, for giving utterance to the suppressed fires
of anger which were struggling in his heart. Days and
weeks may elapse, but the antipathy will declare itself at
last. It would be easier to lock up the mountain torrent
after the breath of the tornado has torn away its rocky
seals, than to stifle in the heart that hates, because of its
love, the fierce fury which these united passions enkindle
within it.

In the first hour of their first interview, William Hinkley
and Alfred Stevens felt that they were mutual foes. In
that little space of time, the former had but one thought,
which, though it changed its aspect with each progressive
moment, never for an instant changed its character. He
panted with the hope of redressing himself for wrongs
which he could not name; for injuries and indignities
which he knew not how to describe. Stevens had neither
done nor said anything which might be construed into an
offence. And yet, nobody knew better than Stevens that
he had been offensive. The worthy John Cross, in the
simplicity of his nature, never dreamed of this, but, on the
contrary, when our adventurer dilated in the fatherly manner
already adverted to, he looked upon himself as particularly
favored of Heaven, in falling upon a youth, as a pupil,
of such unctuous moral delivery.

“Surely,” he mused internally, “this is a becoming instrument

which I have found, for the prosecution of the
good work. He will bear the word like one sent forth to
conquer. He will bind and loose with a strong hand. He
will work wondrous things!”

Not unlike these were the calculations of old Hinkley,
as he hearkened to the reverend reasonings and the solemn
commonplaces of the stranger. Stevens, like most recent
converts, was the most uncompromising enemy of those
sins from which he professed to have achieved with difficulty
his own narrow escape; and finding, from the attentive
ear of his audience, that he had made a favorable impression,
he proceeded to manufacture for them his religious
experience; an art which his general information,
and knowledge of the world enabled him to perform without
much difficulty.

But the puritan declamation which pleased all the rest,
disgusted young Hinkley, and increased his dislike for the
declaimer. There was too much of the worldling in the
looks, dress, air, and manner of Stevens, to satisfy the rustic
of his sincerity. Something of his doubts had their
source, without question, in the antipathy which he had
formed against him; but William Hinkley was not without
keen, quick, observing, and justly discriminating faculties,
and much of his conclusions were the due consequence of a
correct estimate of the peculiarities which we have named.
Stevens, he perceived, declared his experiences of religion,
with the air of one who expects the congratulations of his
audience. The humility which thinks only of the acquisition
itself, as the very perfection of human conquest, was
wanting equally to his language and deportment. The very
details which he gave, were ostentatious; and the gracious
smiles which covered his lips as he concluded, were those
of the self-complacent person, who feels that he has just
been saying those good things, which, of necessity, must
command the applause of his hearers.

A decent pause of half an hour after the supper was finished,

which was spent by the jealous youth in utter silence,
and he then rose abruptly and hurried from the apartment,
leaving the field entirely to his opponent. He proceeded to
the house of his neighbor and cousin, Ned Hinkley, but
without any hope of receiving comfort from his communion.
Ned was a lively, thoughtless, light-hearted son of the soil,
who was very slow to understand sorrows of any kind; and
least of all, those which lie in the fancy of a dreaming and
a doubtful lover. At this moment, when the possession of
a new violin absorbed all his thoughts, his mind was particularly
obtuse on the subject of sentimental grievances, and
the almost voluptuous delight which filled his eyes when
William entered his chamber, entirely prevented him from
seeing the heavy shadow which overhung the brows of the
latter.

“What, back again, William? Why, you're as changeable
as the last suit of a green lizard. When I asked you
to stop, and hear me play `Cross-possum,' and `Criss-cross,'
off you went without giving me a civil answer. I've a
mind now to put up the fiddle and send your ears to bed
supperless. How would you like that, old fellow? but
I'll be good-natured. You shall have it, though you don't
deserve it: she's in prime tune, and the tones — only hear
that, Bill — there. Isn't she delicious?”

And as the inconsiderate cousin poured out his warmest
eulogy of the favorite instrument, his right hand flourished
the bow in air, in a style that would have cheered the heart
of Jean Crapaud himself, and then brought it over the catgut
in a grand crash, that sounded as harshly in the ears of
his morbid visiter, as if the two worlds had suddenly come
together with steam-engine velocity. He clapped his hands
upon the invaded organs, and with something like horror in
his voice, cried out his expostulations.

“For heaven's sake, Ned, don't stun a body with your
noise.”

“Noise! Did you say noise, Bill Hinkley — noise?”

“Yes, noise,” answered the other with some peevishness
in his accents. The violinist looked at him incredulously,
while he suffered the point of the fiddle-bow to sink
on a line with the floor; then, after a moment's pause, he
approached his companion, wearing in his face the while, an
appearance of the most grave inquiry, and when sufficiently
nigh, he suddenly brought the bow over the strings of the
instrument, immediately in William's ears, with a sharp
and emphatic movement, producing an effect to which the
former annoying crash, might well have been thought a very
gentle effusion. This was followed by an uncontrollable
burst of laughter from the merry lips of the musician.

“There — that's what I call a noise, Bill. Sweet Sall
can make a noise when I worry her into it; she's just like
other women in that respect; she'll be sure to squall out if
you don't touch her just in the right quarter. But the first
time she did not go amiss, and as for stunning you — but
what's the matter? Where's the wind now?”

“Nothing — only I don't want to be deafened with such
a clatter.”

“Something's wrong, Bill, I know it. You look now for
all the world like a bottle of sour sop, with the cork out,
and ready to boil over. As for Sall making a noise the
first time, that's all a notion, and a very strange one. She
was as sweet-spoken then as she was when you left me before
supper. The last time, I confess, I made her squall
out on purpose. But what of that? you are not the man to
get angry with a little fun!”

“No, I'm not angry with you, Ned — I am not angry with
anybody; but just now, I would rather not hear the fiddle.
Put it up.”

“There!” said the other good-naturedly, as he placed
the favorite instrument in its immemorial case in the corner.
“There; and now Bill, untie the pack, and let's see the
sort of wolf-cubs you've got to carry; for there's no two
horns to a wild bull, if something hasn't gored you to-night.”

“You're mistaken, Ned — quite mistaken — quite!”

“Deuse a bit! I know you too well, Bill Hinkley, so
it's no use to hush up now. Out with it, and don't be
sparing, and if there's any harm to come, I'm here, just as
ready to risk a cracked crown for you, as if the trouble was
my own. I'd rather fiddle than fight, it's true; but when
there's any need for it, you know I can do one just as well
as the other; and can go to it with just as much good humor.
So show us the quarrel.”

“There's no quarrel, Ned,” said the other, softened by
the frank and ready feeling which his companion showed;
“but I'm very foolish in some things, and don't know how
it is. I'm not apt to take dislikes, but there's a man come
to our house with John Cross, this evening, that I somehow
dislike very much.”

“A man! What's he like? Anything like Joe Richards?
That was a fellow that I hated mightily. I never longed
to lick any man but Joe Richards, and him I longed to lick
three times, though you know I never got at him more than
twice. It's a great pity he got drowned, for I owe him a
third licking, and don't feel altogether right, since I know
no sort of way to pay it. But if this man's anything like
Joe, it may be just the same if I give it to him. Now—”

“He's nothing like Richards,” said the other. “He's
a taller and better-looking man.”

“If he's nothing like Joe, what do you want to lick him
for?” said the single-minded musician, with a surprise in
his manner, which was mingled with something like rebuke.

“I have expressed no such wish, Ned; you are too hasty;
and if I did wish to whip him, I don't think I should trouble
you or any man to help me. If I could not do it myself, I
should give it up as a bad job, without calling in assistants.”

“Oh, you're a spunky fellow — a real colt for hard
riding,” retorted the other with a good-natured mock in
his tones and looks; “but if you don't want to lick the fellow,
how comes it you dislike him? It seems to me if a

chap behaved so as to make me dislike him, it wouldn't be an
easy matter to keep my hands off him. I'd teach him how
to put me into a bad humor, or I'd never touch violin again.”

“This man's a parson, I believe.”

“A parson — that's a difficulty. It is not altogether right
to lick parsons, because they're not counted fighting people.
But there's a mighty many on 'em that licking would help.
No wonder you dislike the fellow, though if he comes with
John Cross, he shouldn't be altogether so bad. Now, John
Cross is a good man. He's good, and he's good-humored.
He don't try to set people's teeth on edge against all the
pleasant things of this world, and he can laugh, and talk,
and sing, like other people. Many's the time he's asked
me, of his own mouth, to play the violin; and I've seen his
little eyes caper again, when sweet Sall talked out her funniest.
If it was not so late, I'd go over now and give him
a reel or two, and then I could take a look at this strange
chap, that's set your grinders against each other.”

The fiddler looked earnestly at the instrument in the corner,
his features plainly denoting his anxiety to resume the
occupation which his friends coming had so inopportunely
interrupted. William Hinkley saw the looks of his cousin,
and divined the cause.

“You shall play for me, Ned,” he remarked; “you
shall give me that old highland-reel that you learned from
Scotch Geordie. It will put me out of my bad humor, I
think, and we can go to bed quietly. I've come to sleep
with you to-night.”

“You're a good fellow, Bill; I knew that you couldn't
stand it long, if Sweet Sall kept a still tongue in her head.
That reel's the very thing to drive away bad humors, though
there 's another that I learnt from John Blodget, the boatman,
that sounds to me the merriest and comicalest thing
in the world. It goes—,” and here the fiddle was put
in requisition to produce the required sounds: and having
got carte blanche, our enthusiastic performer, without weariness,

went through his whole collection, without once perceiving
that his comical and merry tunes had entirely failed
to change the grave, and even gloomy expression which
still mantled the face of his companion. It was only when
in his exhaustion he set down the instrument, that he became
conscious of William Hinkley's continued discomposure.

“Why, Bill, the trouble has given you a bigger bite
than I thought for. What words did you have with the
preacher?”

“None: I don't know that he is a preacher. He speaks
only as if he was trying to become one.”

“What, you hadn't any difference — no quarrel?”

“None.”

“And it's only to-night that you've seen him for the first
time?”

A flush passed over the grave features of William Hinkley
as he heard this question, and it was with a hesitating
manner and faltering accents, that he contrived to tell his
cousin of the brief glimpse which he had of the same stranger
several months before, on that occasion, when, in the
emotion of Margaret Cooper, replying to a similar question,
he first felt the incipient seed of jealousy planted within
his bosom. But this latter incident he forbore to reveal to
the inquirer; and Ned Hinkley, though certainly endowed
by nature with sufficient skill to draw forth the very soul
of music from the instrument on which he played, had no
similar power upon the secret soul of the person whom he
partially examined.

“But 'tis very strange how you should take offence at
a man you've seen so little; though I have heard before
this of people taking dislikes at other people the first moment
they set eyes on 'em. Now, I'm not a person of that
sort, unless it was in the case of Joe Richards; and him
I took a sort of grudge at from the first beginning. But
even then there was a sort of reason for it; for, at the beginning,
when Joe came down upon us here in Charlemont,

he was for riding over people's necks, without so
much as asking, `by your leave.' He had a way about him
that vexed me, though we did not change a word.”

“And it's that very way that this person has that I don't
like,” said William Hinkley. “He talks as if he made
you, and when you talk, he smiles as if he thought you
were the very worst work that ever went out of his hands.
Then, if he has to say anything, be it ever so trifling, he
says it just as if he was telling you that the world was to
come to an end the day after to-morrow.”

“Just the same with Joe Richards. I never could get
at him but twice; though I give him then a mighty smart
hammering; and if he hadn't got under the broadhorn and
got drowned; — but this fellow?”

“You'll see him at church to-morrow. I shouldn't wonder
if he preaches; for John Cross was at him about it before
I came away. What's worse, the old man's been asking
him to live with us.”

“What, here in Charlemont?”

“Yes.”

“I'll be sure to lick him then, if he's anything like Joe
Richards. But what's to make him live in Charlemont?
Is he to be a preacher for us?”

“Perhaps so, but I couldn't understand all, for I came
in while they were at it, and left home before they were
done. I'm sure if he stays there I shall not. I shall leave
home, for I really dislike to meet him.”

“You shall stay with me, Bill, and we'll have Sall at
all hours,” was the hearty speech of the cousin, as he
threw his arms around the neck of his morose companion,
and dragged him gently toward the adjoining apartment,
which formed his chamber. “To-morrow,” he continued,
“as you say, we'll see this chap, and if he's anything like
Joe Richards—” The doubled fist of the speaker, and
his threatening visage, completed the sentence with which
this present conference and chapter may very well conclude.