University of Virginia Library

6. CHAPTER VI.
THE TOAD ON THE ALTAR.

The next day was the sabbath. John Cross had timed
his arrival at the village with a due reference to his duties,
and after a minute calculation of days and distances, so that
his spiritual manna might be distributed in equal proportions
among his hungering flock. His arrival made itself
felt accordingly, not simply in Charlemont, but throughout
the surrounding country for a circuit of ten miles or more.
There was a large and hopeful gathering of all sorts and
sexes, white and black, old and young. Charlemont had a
very pretty little church of its own; but one, and that, with
more true Christianity than is found commonly in this world
of pretence and little tolerance, was open to preachers of
all denominations. The word of God, among these simple
folks, was quite too important to make them scruple at receiving
it from the lips of either Geneva, Rome, or Canterbury.
The church stood out among the hills at a little distance
from, but in sight of the village; a small, neat Grecian-like
temple, glimmering white and saintlike through solemn-visaged
groves, and gaudy green foliage. The old trees
about it were all kept neatly trimmed, the brush pruned
away and cleared up, and a smooth sweet sward, lawnlike,
surrounded it, such as children love to skip and scramble
over, and older children rest at length upon, in pairs, talking
over their sweet silly affections.

Surrounded by an admiring crowd, each of whom had his

respectful salutation, we see our friend John Cross toward
noon approaching the sacred dwelling. Truly he was the
most simple, fraternal of all God's creatures. He had a
good word for this, an affectionate inquiry for that, a benevolent
smile, and a kind pressure of the hand for all.
He was a man to do good, for everybody saw that he
thought for others before himself, and sincerity and earnestness
constitute, with the necessary degree of talent, the
grand secrets for making successful teachers in every department.

Though a simple, unsophisticated, unsuspecting creature,
John Cross was a man of very excellent natural endowments.
He chose for his text a passage of the Scriptures
which admitted of a direct practical application to the concerns
of the people, their daily wants, their pressing interests,
moral, human, and social. He was thus enabled to
preach a discourse which sent home many of his congregation
much wiser than they came, if only in reference to their
homely duties of farmstead and family. John Cross was
none of those sorry and self-constituted representatives of
our eternal interests, who deluge us with a vain, worthless
declamation, proving that virtue is a very good thing, religion
a very commendable virtue, and a liberal contribution
to the church-box at the close of the sermon one of the most
decided proofs that we have this virtue in perfection. Nay,
it is somewhat doubtful, indeed, if he ever once alluded to
the state of his own scrip and the treasury of the church.
His faith, sincere, spontaneous, ardent, left him in very
little doubt that the Lord will provide, for is he not called
“Jehovah-jireh?” — and his faith was strengthened and
confirmed by the experience of his whole life. But then
John Cross had few wants — few, almost none! In this respect
he resembled the first apostles. The necessities of
life once cared for, never was mortal man more thoroughly
independent of the world. He was not one of those fine
preachers who, dealing out counsels of self-denial, in grave

saws and solemn maxims, with wondrous grim visage and a
most slow, lugubrious shaking of the head — are yet always
religiously careful to secure the warmest seat by the fireside,
and the best buttered bun on table. He taught no
doctrine which he did not practice; and as for consideration
— that test at once of the religionist and the gentleman
— he was as humbly solicitous of the claims and feelings
of others, as the lovely and lowly child to whom reverence
has been well taught as the true beginning, equally of politeness
and religion.

Before going into church he urged his protégé, Stevens,
to consent to share in the ceremonies of the service as a
layman; but there was still some saving virtue in the young
man, which made him resolute in refusing to do so. Perhaps,
his refusal was dictated by a policy like that which
had governed him so far already; which made him reluctant
to commit himself to a degree which might increase
very much the hazards of detection. He feared, indeed,
the restraints which the unequivocal adoption of the profession
would impose upon him, fettering somewhat the
freedom of his intercourse with the young of both sexes,
and, consequently, opposing an almost insurmountable
barrier to the prevailing object which had brought him to
the village. Whatever may have been the feelings or motives
which governed him, they, at least, saved him from
an act which would have grievously aggravated his already
large offence against truth and propriety. He declined,
in language of the old hypocrisy. He did not feel justified
in taking up the cross — he felt that he was not yet worthy;
and, among the members of a church, which takes largely
into account the momentary impulses and impressions of
the professor, the plea was considered a sufficiently legitimate
one.

But though Stevens forbore to commit himself openly in
the cause which he professed a desire to espouse, he was
yet sufficiently heedful to maintain all those externals of

devotion which a serious believer would be apt to exhibit.
He could be a good actor of a part, and in this lay his best
talent. He had that saving wisdom of the worldling,
which is too often estimated beyond its worth, called cunning;
and the frequent successes of which produces that
worst of all the diseases that ever impaired the value of
true greatness — conceit. Alfred Stevens fancied that he
could do everything, and this fancy produced in him the
appearance of a courage which his moral nature never possessed.
He had the audacity which results from presumption,
not the wholesome strength which comes from the
conscious possession of a right purpose. But a truce to
our metaphysics.

Never did saint wear the aspect of such supernatural
devotion. He knelt with the first, groaned audibly at intervals,
and when his face became visible, his eyes were
strained in upward glances, so that the spectator could behold
little more in their orbs than a sea of white.

“Oh! what a blessed young man!” said Mrs. Quackenbosh.

“How I wish it was he that was to preach for us to-day,”
responded that gem from the antique, Miss Polly Entwistle,
who had joined every church in Kentucky in turn, without
having been made a spouse in either.

“How handsome he is!” simpered Miss Julia Evergreen
— a damsel of seventeen, upon whom the bilious eyes of
Miss Entwistle were cast with such an expression as the
devil is said to put on when suddenly soused in holy water.

“Handsome is that handsome does!” was the commentary
of a venerable cormorant to whom Brother Cross had
always appeared the special and accepted agent of heaven.

“I wish Brother Cross would get him to pray only. I
wonder if he believes in the new-light doctrine?” purred
one of the ancient tabbies of the conventicle.

“The new light is but the old darkness, Sister Widgeon,”
responded an old farmer of sixty four, who had

divided his time so equally between the plough and the
prayer-book, that his body had grown as crooked as the
one, while his mind was bewildered with as many doctrines
as ever worried all sense out of the other.

We shall not suffer these to divert us, any more than
Stevens permitted their speculations upon his person and
religion to affect his devotion. He looked neither to the
right nor to the left while entering the church, or engaging
in the ceremonies. No errant glances were permitted to
betray to the audience a mind wandering from the obvious
duties before it; and yet Alfred Stevens knew just as well
that every eye in the congregation was fixed upon him, as
that he was himself there; and among those eyes, his own
keen glance had already discovered those of that one for
whom all these labors of hypocrisy were undertaken.

Margaret Cooper sat on the opposite side of the church,
but the line of vision was uninterrupted between them, and
when — though very unfrequently — Stevens suffered his
gaze to rest upon her form, it was with a sudden look of
pleased abstraction, as if, in spite of himself, his mind was
irresistibly drawn away from all recollection of its immediate
duties.

If a word is sufficient for the wise, a look answers an
equal purpose with the vain. Margaret Cooper left the
church that morning with a pleased conviction that the
handsome stranger had already paid his devotion to her
charms. There was yet another passion to be gratified.
The restless ambition of her foolish heart whispered to her
momently, that if her person had done so much, what might
she not hope to achieve when the treasures of her mind
were known. She had long since made the comparison of
her own intellect with that of every other maiden in the
village, and she flattered herself that before many days, the
young stranger should make it too. Her vain heart was
rapidly preparing to smooth the path of the enemy and
make his conquests easy.

But it was not the women only, by whom the deportment
of Alfred Stevens was so closely watched. The eyes of
suspicion and jealousy were upon him. The two young
men whose interview formed the conclusion of our last
chapter, scanned his conduct and carriage with sufficient
keenness of scrutiny.

“I'll tell you what, Bill Hinkley,” said his cousin, “this
fellow, to my thinking, is a very great rascal.”

“What makes you think so?” demanded the former,
with slow, dissatisfied accents; “he seems to pray very
earnestly.”

“That's the very reason I think him a rascal. His
praying seems to me very unnatural. Here, he's a perfect
stranger in the place, yet he never shows any curiosity to
see the people. He never once looks around him. He
walks to the church with his eye cast upon the ground, and
sometimes he squints to this side and sometimes to that,
but he seems to do it slyly, and seems to take pains that
nobody should see him doing it. All this might answer for
an old man, who — believes that everything is vanity — as,
indeed, everything must seem to old people; but to a young
fellow, full of blood, who eats well, drinks well, sleeps
well, and should naturally have a hankering after a young
girl, all this is against nature. Now, what's against nature
is wrong, and there's wrong at the bottom of it. Youth is
the time to laugh, dance, sing, play on the violin, and always
have a sweetheart when it can find one. If you can't
get a beauty take a brown; and if Mary won't smile, Susan
will. But always have a sweetheart; always be ready for
fun and frolic; that's the way for the young, and when they
don't take these ways, it's unnatural — there's something
wrong about it, and I'm suspicious of that person. Now,
I just have this notion of the young stranger. He's after
no good. I reckon he's like a hundred others; too lazy
to go to work, he goes to preaching, and learns in the first
sermon to beg hard for the missionaries. I'll lick him,

Bill, to a certainty, if he gives me the littlest end of an
opportunity.”

“Pshaw, Ned, don't think of such a thing. You are
quite too fond of licking people.”

“Deuse a bit. It does 'em good. Look you, this chap
is monstrous like Joe Richards. I'll have to lick him on
that account.”

“You're mad, Ned; talk of whipping a preacher.”

“He's no preacher yet,” said the other, “but if I lick
him he may become one.”

“No matter, he's never offended you.”

“Ay, but he will. I see it in the fellow's looks. I
never was mistaken in a fellow's looks in all my life.”

“Wait till he does offend you then.”

“Well, I'm willing to do that, for I know the time will
come. I'm always sure, when I first see a man, to know
whether I'll have to flog him or not. There's a something
that tells me so. Isn't that very singular, Bill?”

“No! you form a prejudice against a man, fancy that
you ought to whip him, and then never rest till you've done
so. You'll find your match some day.”

“What! you think some other chap will fancy he ought
to whip me? Well — maybe so. But this ain't the fellow
to do that.”

“He's a stout man, and I reckon strong. Besides, Ned,
he's very handsome.”

“Handsome! Lord, Bill, what a taste you have? How
can a man be called handsome that never altogether opens
his eyes, except when he turns up the whites until you'd
think he'd never be able to get the balls back to their
proper place? Then, what a chin he has — as sharp as a
pitchfork, and who but a girl child would fancy a man with
his hair combed sleek like a woman's on each side of his
ears, with big whiskers at the same time that looks for all
the world like the brush of a seven years running fox.

Handsome! If my pup `Dragon' was only half so much
like a beast, I'd plump him into the horsepond!”

It is probable that Ned Hinkley did not altogether think
of the stranger as he expressed himself. But he saw how
deep a hold his appearance had taken, in an adverse way,
upon the mind and feelings of his relative and friend, and
his rude, but well-meant endeavors were intended to console
his companion, after his own fashion, by the exhibition
of a certain degree of sympathy.

His efforts, however well intended, did not produce any
serious effect. William Hinkley, though he forbore the
subject, and every expression which might indicate either
soreness or apprehension, was still the victim of that presentiment
which had touched him on the very first appearance
of the stranger. He felt more than ever apprehensive
on the score of his misplaced affections. While his cousin
had been watching the stranger, his eyes had been fixed upon
those of Margaret Cooper, and his fears were increased and
strengthened, as he perceived that she was quite too much
absorbed in other thoughts and objects to behold for an instant
the close espionage which he maintained upon her
person. His heart sunk within him, as he beheld how bold
was her look, and how undisguised the admiration which it
expressed for the handsome stranger.

“You will go home with me, William?” said the cousin.

The other hesitated.

“I think,” said he, after a moment's pause, “I should
rather go to my own home. It is a sort of weakness to let
a stranger drive a man off from his own family, and though
I somehow dislike this person's looks, and am very sorry
that John Cross brought him to our house, yet I shouldn't
let a prejudice which seems to have no good foundation
take such possession of my mind. I will go home, Ned,
and see — perhaps I may come to like the stranger more
when I know him better.”

“You'll never like him. I see it in the fellow's eye; but

just as you please about going home. You're right in one
thing — never to give up your own dunghill, so long as you
can get room on it for a fair fling with your enemy. Besides,
you can see better, by going home, what the chap's
after. I don't see why he should come here to learn to
preach. We can't support a preacher. We don't want
one. He could just as well have learned his business,
where he came from.”

With these words the cousins separated.

“Now,” said Ned Hinkley as he took his own way
homeward, in a deeper fit of abstraction than was altogether
usual with him, “now will Bill Hinkley beat about the bush
without bouncing through it, until it's too late to do anything.
He's mealy-mouthed with the woman, and mealy-mouthed
with the man, and mealy-mouthed with everybody.
— quite too soft-hearted and too easy to get on. Here's a
stranger nobody knows, just like some crow from another
corn-field, that'll pick up his provisions from under his very
nose, and he doing nothing to hinder until there's no use in
trying. If I don't push in and help him, he'll not help
himself. As for Margaret Cooper, dang it, I'll court her
for him myself. If he's afraid to pop the question, I ain't;
though I'll have to be mighty careful about the words I use,
or she'll be thinking I come on my own hook; and that
would be a mighty scary sort of business all round the
house. Then this stranger. If anybody can look through a
stranger here in Charlemont, I reckon I'm that man. I
suspect him already. I think he's after no good with his
great religioning; and I'll tie such a pair of eyes to his
heels, that his understanding will never be entirely out of
my sight. I'll find him out if anybody can. But I wont
lick him till I do. That wouldn't be altogether right, considering
he's to be a parson, though I doubt he'll never
make one.”

And thus, with a head filled with cares of a fashion
altogether new, the sturdy young Kentuckian moved homeward

with a degree of abstraction in his countenance which
was not among the smallest wonders of the day and place
in the estimation of his friends and neighbors.

Meanwhile, the work of mischief was in full progress.
Everybody knows the degree of familiarity which exists
among all classes in a country-village, particularly when
the parties are brought together under the social and stimulating
influences of religion. It was natural that the pastor,
long known and well beloved, should be surrounded by
his flock as he descended from the pulpit. The old ladies
always have a saving interest in his presence, and they
pave the way for the young ones. Alfred Stevens, as the
protégé of John Cross, naturally attended his footsteps,
and was introduced by him to the little congregation, which
had mostly remained to do honor to the preacher. Of
these, not last, nor least, was the widow Cooper; and, unreluctant
by her side, though in silence, and not without a
degree of emotion, which she yet was able to conceal, stood
her fair but proud-hearted daughter.

Margaret, alas! Margaret stood there with a heart more
proud, yet more humble, than ever. Proud in the consciousness
of a new conquest — humble in the feeling that
this conquest had not been made, but at the expense of some
portion of her own independence. Hitherto, her suitors
had awakened no other feeling in her heart but vanity.
Now, she felt no longer able to sail on, “imperial arbitress,”
smiling at woes which she could inflict, but never share.
That instinct, which, in the heart of young Hinkley had
produced fear, if not antipathy, had been as active in her
case, though with a very different result. The first glimpse
which she had of the handsome stranger, months before,
had impressed her with a singular emotion; and now that
he was returned, she could not divest herself of the thought
that his return was a consequence of that one glimpse.

With a keener judgment than belonged to her neighbors,
she too had some suspicions that religion was scarcely the

prevailing motive which had brought the youth back to their
little village; for how could she reconcile with his present
demure gravity and devout profession, the daring which he
had shown in riding back to behold her a second time?
That such had been his motive she divined by her own feeling
of curiosity, and the instincts of vanity were prompt
enough to believe that this was motive sufficient to bring
him back once more, and under the guise of a character,
which would the readiest secure an easy entrance to society.
Pleased with the fancy that she herself was the object
sought, she did not perceive how enormous was the sort of
deception which the stranger had employed to attain the
end desired. With all her intellect she had not the wisdom
to suspect that he who could so readily practise so bold
an hypocrisy, was capable of the worst performances; and
when their names were mentioned, and his eyes were permitted
to meet and mingle their glances with hers, she was
conscious of nothing farther than a fluttering sentiment
of pleasure, which was amply declared to the stranger, in
the flash of animation which spoke openly in her countenance;
eye speaking to lip and cheek, and these, in turn,
responding with a kindred sentiment to the already tell-tale
eye.

William Hinkley, from a little distance, beheld this meeting.
He had lingered with the curiosity which belongs to
the natural apprehension of the lover. He saw them approach
— nay, fancied he beheld the mutual expression of
their sympathizing eyes, and he turned away, and hurried
homeward, with the feeling of a heart already overborno,
and defrauded in all its hopes and expectations. The
flowers were threatened with blight in his Eden: but he did
not conjecture, poor fellow, that a serpent had indeed entered
it!