University of Virginia Library

15. CHAPTER XV.
A CATASTROPHE.

“You disparage these scenes,” said Stevens, after several
moments had been given to the survey of that before
him, “and yet you have drawn your inspiration from them
— the fresh food which stimulates poetry and strengthens
enthusiasm. Here you learned to be contemplative; and
here, in solitude, was your genius nursed. Do not be ungrateful,
Margaret — you owe to these very scenes all that
you are, and all that you may become.”

“Stay! before I answer. Do you see yon bird?”

“Where?”

“In the west — there!” she pointed with her fingers,
catching his wrist unconsciously, at the same time, with the
other hand, as if more certainly to direct his gaze.

“I see it — what bird is it?”

“An eagle! See how it soars and swings; effortless, as
if supported by some external power!”

“Indeed — it seems small for an eagle.”

“It is one nevertheless! There are thousands of them
that roost among the hills in that quarter. I know the
place thoroughly. The heights are the greatest that we
have in the surrounding country. The distance from this
spot is about five miles. He, no doubt, has some fish, or
bird now within his talons, with which to feed his young.
He will feed them, and they will grow strong, and will

finally use their own wings. Shall he continue to feed them
after that? Must they never seek their own food?”

“Surely they must.”

“If these solitudes have nursed me, must they continue
to nurse me always? Must I never use the wings to which
they have given vigor? Must I never employ the sight to
which they have imparted vigilance? Must I never go forth,
and strive and soar, and make air, and earth, and sea, tributary
to my wing and eye? Alas! I am a woman! — and her
name is weakness! You tell me of what I am, and of what
I may become. But what am I? I mock myself too often
with this question to believe all your fine speeches. And
what may I become? Alas! who can tell me that? I
know my strength, but I also know my weakness. I feel the
burning thoughts of my brain; I feel the yearning impulses
in my heart; but they bring nothing — they promise nothing
— I feel the pang of constant denial. I feel that I can
be nothing!”

“Say not so, Margaret — think not so, I beseech you.
With your genius, your enthusiasm — your powers of expression
— there is nothing, becoming in your sex, and
worthy of it, which you may not be.”

“You can not deceive me! It might be so, if this were
Italy; there, where the very peasant burns with passion,
and breathes his feeblest and meanest thoughts and desires
in song. But here, they already call me mad! They look
on me as one doomed to Bedlam. They avoid me with
sentiments and looks of distrust, if not of fear; and when
I am looking into the cloud, striving to pierce, with dilating
eye its wild yellow flashing centres, they draw their flaxen-headed
infants to their breasts, and mutter their thanks to
God, that he has not, in a fit of wrath, made them to resemble
me! If, forgetful of earth, and trees, and the
human stocks around me, I pour forth the language of the
great song-masters, they grin at my insanity — they hold
me incapable of reason, and declare their ideas of what

that is, by asking who knows most of the dairy, the cabbage-patch,
the spinning-wheel, the darning-needle — who
can best wash Polly's or Patty's face and comb its head —
can chop up sausage-meat the finest — make the lightest
paste, and more economically dispense the sugar in serving
up the tea! and these are what is expected of woman!
These duties of the meanest slave! From her mind nothing
is expected. Her enthusiasm terrifies, her energy
offends, and if her taste is ever challenged, it is to the
figures upon a quilt or in a flower-garden, where the passion
seems to be to make flowers grow in stars, and hearts,
and crescents. What has woman to expect where such are
the laws; where such are the expectations from her?
What am I to hope? I, who seem to be set apart — to feel
nothing like the rest — to live in a different world — to
dream of foreign things — to burn with a hope which to
them is frenzy, and speak a language which they neither
understand nor like! What can I be, in such a world?
Nothing, nothing! I do not deceive myself. I can never
hope to be anything.”

Her enthusiasm hurried her forward. In spite of himself,
Stevens was impressed. He ceased to think of his
evil purposes in the superior thoughts which her wild, unregulated
energy inspired. He scarcely wondered, indeed
— if it were true — that her neighbors fancied her insane.
The indignation of a powerful mind denied — denied justice
— baffled in its aims — conscious of the importance of all
its struggles against binding and blinding circumstances —
is akin to insanity! — is apt to express itself in the defiant
tones of a fierce and feverish frenzy.

“Margaret,” said he, as she paused and waited for him,
“you are not right in everything. You forget that your
lonely little village of Charlemont, is not only not the world,
but that it is not even an American world. America is not
Italy, I grant you, nor likely soon to become so; but if
you fancy there are not cities even in our country, where

genius such as yours would be felt and worshipped, you are
mistaken.”

“Do you believe there are such?” she demanded incredulously.

“I know there are!”

“No! no! I know better. You can not deceive me.
It can not be so. I know the sort of genius which is popular
in those cities. It is the gentleman and lady genius.
Look at their verses for example. I can show you thousands
of such things that come to us here, from all quarters
of the Union — verses written by nice people — people of
small tastes and petty invention, who would not venture
upon the utterance of a noble feeling, or a bold sentiment
of originality, for fear of startling the fashionable nerves
with the strong words which such a novelty would require.
Consider, in the first place, how conclusive it is of the
feeblest sort of genius that these people should employ
themselves, from morning to night, in spinning their small
strains, scraps of verse, song, and sonnet, and invariably
on such subjects of commonplace, as can not admit of originality,
and do not therefore task reflection. Not an infant
dies or is born, but is made the subject of verse; nay, its
smiles and tears are put on record; its hobby-horse, and
its infant ideas as they begin to bud and breathe aloud.
Then comes the eternal strain about summer blooms and
spring flowers; autumn's melancholy and winter's storms,
until one sickens of the intolerable monotony. Such are
the things that your great cities demand. Such things
content them. Speak the fearless and always strange language
of originality and strength, and you confound and
terrify them.”

“But, Margaret, these things are held at precisely the
same value in the big cities as they are held by you here
in Charlemont. The intelligent people smile — they do not
applaud. If they encourage at all it is by silence.”

“No! no! that you might say, if, unhappily, public

opinion did not express itself. The same magazines which
bring us the verses bring us the criticism.”

“That is to say, the editor puffs his contributors, and
disparages those who are not. Look at the rival journal
and you will find these denounced and another set praised
and beplastered.”

“Ah! and what would be my hope, my safety, in communities
which tolerate these things; in which the number
of just and sensible people is so small that they dare not
speak, or can not influence those who have better courage?
Where would be my triumphs? I, who would no more
subscribe to the petty tyranny of conventional law, than to
that baser despotism which is wielded by a mercenary editor,
in the absence of a stern justice in the popular mind.
Here I may pine to death — there, my heart would burst
with its own convulsions.”

“No! Margaret, no! It is because they have not the
genius, that such small birds are let to sing. Let them but
hear the true minstrel — let them but know that there is a
muse, and how soon would the senseless twitter which
they now tolerate be hushed in undisturbing silence. In
the absence of better birds they bear with what they have.
In the absence of the true muse they build no temple —
they throng not to hear. Nay, even now, already, they
look to the west for the minstrel and the muse — to these
very woods. There is a tacit and universal feeling in the
Atlantic country, that leads them to look with expectation
to the Great West, for the genius whose song is to give us
fame. `When?' is the difficult — the only question. Ah!
might I but say to them — `now' — the muse is already
here!”

He took her hand — she did not withhold it; but her
look was subdued — the fires had left her eyes — her whole
frame trembled with the recoil of those feelings — the relaxation
of those nerves — the tension of which we have enendeavored
feebly to display. Her cheek was no longer

flushed but pale; her lips trembled — her voice was low
and faint — only a broken and imperfect murmur; and her
glance was cast upon the ground.

“You!” she exclaimed.

“Yes, I! Have I not said I am not altogether what I
seem? Ah! I may not yet say more. But I am not without
power, Margaret, in other and more powerful regions.
I too have had my triumphs; I too can boast that the minds
of other men hang for judgment upon the utterance of
mine.”

She looked upward to his glance with a stranger expression
of timidity than her features had before exhibited. The
form of Stevens had insensibly risen in seeming elevation
as he spoke, and the expression of his face was that of a
more human pride. He continued: —

“My voice is one of authority in circles where yours
would be one of equal attraction and command. I can not
promise you an Italian devotion, Margaret; our people,
though sufficiently enthusiastic, are too sensible to ridicule
to let the heart and blood speak out with such freedom as
they use in the warmer regions of the South: but the homage
will be more intellectual, more steady, and the fame
more enduring. You must let your song be heard — you
must give me the sweet privilege of making it known to
ears whose very listening is fame.”

“Ah!” she said, “what you say makes me feel how foolishly
I have spoken. What is my song? what have I
done? what am I? what have I to hope? I have done
nothing — I am nothing! I have suffered, like a child, a
miserable vanity to delude me, and I have poured into the
ears of a stranger those ravings which I have hitherto
uttered to the hills and forests. You laugh at me now —
you must.”

The paleness on her cheek was succeeded by the deepest
flush of crimson. She withdrew her hand from his
grasp.

“Laugh at you, Margaret! You have awakened my
wonder. Struck with you when we first met—”

“Nay, no more of that, but let us follow these windings;
they lead us to the tarn. It is the prettiest Indian path,
and my favorite spot. Here I ramble morning and eve,
and try to forget those vain imaginings and foolish strivings
of thought which I have just inflicted upon you. The
habit proved too much for my prudence, and I spoke as if
you were not present. Possibly, had you not spoken in
reply, I should have continued until now.”

“Why did I speak?”

“Ah! it is better. I wish you had spoken sooner. But
follow me quickly. The sunlight is now falling in a particular
line which gives us the loveliest effect, shooting its
rays through certain fissures of the rock, and making a
perfect arrow-path along the water. You would fancy
that Apollo had just dismissed a golden shaft from his
quiver, so direct is the levelled light along the surface of
the lake.”

Speaking thus, they came in sight of the party on the opposite
hills, as we have already shown — without, however,
perceiving them in turn. It will be conjectured without
difficulty that, with a nature so full of impulse, so excitable,
as that of Margaret Cooper — particularly in the company
of an adroit man like Stevens, whose purpose was to encourage
her in that language and feeling of egotism which,
while it was the most grateful exercise to herself, was that
which most effectually served to blind her to his designs —
her action was always animated, expressively adapting itself,
not only to the words she uttered, but, even when she
did not speak, to the feelings by which she was governed.
It was the art of Stevens to say little except by suggestives.
A single word, or brief sentence, from his lips, judiciously
applied to her sentiments or situation, readily excited her
to speech; and this utterance necessarily brought with it
the secret of her soul, the desire of her heart, nay, the very

shape of the delusion which possessed it. The wily libertine,
deliberate as the demon to which we have likened
him, could provoke the warmth which he did not share —
could stimulate the eloquence which he would not feel —
could coldly, like some Mephistopheles of science, subject
the golden-winged bird or butterfly to the torturous process
of examination, with a pin thrust through its vitals, and
gravely dilate on its properties, its rich plumage, and elaborate
finish of detail, without giving heed to those writhings
which declared its agonies. It is not meant to be understood
that Stevens found no pleasure himself in the display
of that wild, unschooled imagination which was the prevailing
quality in the mind of Margaret Cooper. He was a
man of education and taste. He could be pleased as an
amateur; but he wanted the moral to be touched, and to
sympathize with a being so gifted and so feeble — so high
aiming, yet so liable to fall.

The ardor of Margaret Cooper, and the profound devotion
which it was the policy of Stevens to display, necessarily
established their acquaintance, in a very short time, on
the closest footing of familiarity. With a nature such as
hers, all that is wanted is sympathy — all that she craves
is sympathy — and, to win this, no toil is too great, no sufferance
too severe; alas, how frequently do we see that no
penalty is too discouraging! But the confiding spirit never
looks for penalties, and seldom dreams of deceit.

What, then, were the emotions of William Hinkley as he
beheld the cordiality which distinguished the manner of
Margaret Cooper as she approached the edge of the lake
with her companion? In the space of a single week, this
stranger had made greater progress in her acquaintance
than he had been able to make in a period of years. The
problem which distressed him was beyond his power to
solve. His heart was very full; the moisture was already
in his eyes; and when he beheld the animated gestures of
the maid — when he saw her turn to her companion, and

meet his gaze without shrinking, while her own was fixed
in gratified contemplation — he scarcely restrained himself
from jumping to his feet. The old man saw his emotion.

“William,” he said, “did I understand you that this
young stranger was a preacher?”

“No, sir, but he seeks to be one. He is studying for
the ministry, under Brother Cross.”

“Brother Cross is a good man, and is scarcely likely to
have anything to do with any other than good men. I suppose
he knows everything about the stranger?”

William Hinkley narrated all that was known on the subject
in the village. In the innocence of his heart, Brother
Cross had described Alfred Stevens as a monument of his
own powers of conversion. Under God, he had been a
blessed instrument for plucking this brand from the burning.
A modified account of the brandy-flask accompanied
the narrative. Whether it was that Mr. Calvert, who had
been a man of the world, saw something in the story itself,
and in the ludicrousness of the event, which awakened his
suspicions, or whether the carriage of Alfred Stevens, as
he walked with Margaret Cooper, was rather that of a
young gallant than a young student in theology, may admit
of question; but it was very certain that the suspicions of
the old gentleman were somewhat awakened.

Believing himself to be alone with his fair companion,
Alfred Stevens was not as scrupulous of the rigidity of manner
which, if not actually prescribed to persons occupying
his professional position, is certainly expected from them;
and, by a thousand little acts of gallantry, he proved himself
much more at home as a courtier and a ladies' man
than as one filled with the overflow of divine grace, and
thoughtful of nothing less than the serious earnest of his
own soul. His hand was promptly extended to assist the
progress of his fair companion — a service which was singularly
unnecessary in the case of one to whom daily rambles,
over hill and through forest, had imparted a most unfeminine

degree of vigor. Now he broke the branch away
from before her path; and now, stooping suddenly, he gathered
for her the pale flower of autumn.

These little acts of courtesy, so natural to the gentleman,
were anything but natural to one suddenly impressed with
the ascetical temper of methodism. Highly becoming in
both instances, they were yet strangely at variance with the
straight-laced practices of the thoroughgoing Wesleyan, who
sometimes fancies that the condition of souls is so desperate
as to leave no time for good manners. Mr. Calvert had
no fault to find with Stevens's civility, but there was certainly
an inconsistency between his deportment now, and
those characteristics which were to be predicated of the
manner and mode of his very recent conversion. Besides,
there was the story of the brandy-flask, in which Calvert
saw much less of honor either to John Cross or his neophyte.
But the old man did not express his doubts to his
young friend, and they sat together, watching, in a silence
only occasionally broken by a monosyllable, the progress
of the unconscious couple below.

Meanwhile, our fisherman, occupying his lonely perch
just above the stream, had been plying his vocation with
all the silent diligence of one to the manner born. Once
busy with his angle, and his world equally of thought and
observation became confined to the stream before his eyes,
and the victim before his imagination. Scarcely seen by
his companions on the heights above, he had succeeded in
taking several very fine fish; and had his liberality been
limited to the supper-table of his venerable friend Calvert,
he would long before have given himself respite, and temporary
immunity to the rest of the finny tribe remaining in
the tarn. But Ned Hinkley thought of all his neighbors,
not omitting the two rival widows, Mesdames Cooper and
Thackeray.

Something too, there was in the sport, which, on the
present occasion, beguiled him rather longer than his wont.

More than once had his eye detected, from the advantageous
and jutting rock where he lay concealed, just above the
water, the dark outlines of a fish, one of the largest he had
ever seen in the lake, whose brown sides, and occasionally
flashing fins, excited his imagination and offered a challenge
to his skill, which provoked him into something like a feeling
of personal hostility.

The fish moved slowly to and fro, not often in sight, but
at such regularly-recurring periods as to keep up the exciting
desire which his very first appearance had awakened in the
mind of his enemy.

To Ned Hinkley he was the beau-ideal of the trout
genius. He was certainly the hermit-trout of the tarn.
Such coolness, such strength, such size, such an outline,
and then such sagacity. That trout was a triton among his
brethren. A sort of Dr. Johnson among fishes. Ned
Hinkley could imagine — for on such subjects his imagination
kindled — how like an oracle must be the words of such
a trout, to his brethren, gathering in council in their deep-down
hole — or driven by a shower under the cypress log —
or in any other situation in which an oracle would be apt
to say, looking around him with fierceness mingled with
contempt, “Let no dog bark.” Ned Hinkley could also
fancy the contemplations of such a trout as he witnessed
the efforts made to beguile him out of the water.

“Not to be caught by a fly like that, my lad!” and precisely
as if the trout had spoken what was certainly whispered
in his own mind, the fisherman silently changed his
gilded, glittering figure on his hook for one of browner
plumage — one of the autumn tribe of flies which stoop to
the water from the overhanging trees, and glide off for
twenty paces in the stream, to dart up again to the trees,
in as many seconds, if not swallowed by some watchful
fisher-trout, like the one then before the eyes of our companion.

Though his fancy had become excited, Ned Hinkley was

not impatient. With a cautious hand he conducted the fly
down the stream with the flickering, fidgety motion which
the real insect would have employed. The keen-nosed
trout turned with the movements of the fly, but philosophically
kept aloof. Now he might be seen to sink, now to
rise, now he glided close under the rock where the angler
reclined, and, even in the very deep waters which were
there, which were consequently very dark, so great was the
size of the animal, that its brown outline was yet to be seen,
with its slightly-waving tail, and at moments the flash of its
glittering eye, as, inclining on its side, it glanced cunningly
upward through the water.

Again did Ned Hinkley consult his resources. Fly after
fly was taken from his box, and suffered to glide upon the
stream. The wary fish did not fail to bestow some degree
of attention upon each, but his regards were too deliberate
for the success of the angler, and he had almost began to
despair, when he observed a slight quivering movement in
the object of pursuit which usually prepares the good sportsman
to expect his prey. The fins were laid aback. The
motion of the fish became steady; a slight vibration of the
tail only was visible; and in another moment he darted,
and was hooked.

Then came the struggle. Ned Hinkley had never met
with a more formidable prey. The reel was freely given,
but the strain was great upon shaft and line. There was
no such thing as contending. The trout had his way, and
went down and off, though it might have been observed that
the fisherman took good care to baffle his efforts to retreat
in the direction of the old log which had harbored him, and
the tangling alders, which might have been his safest places
of retreat. The fish carried a long stretch of line, but the
hook was still in his jaws, and this little annoyance soon
led him upon other courses. The line became relaxed, and
with this sign, Ned Hinkley began to amuse himself in
tiring his victim.

This required skill and promptness rather than strength.
The hermit-trout was led to and fro by a judicious turn of
wrist or elbow. His efforts had subsided to a few spasmodic
struggles — an occasional struggle ending with a
shiver, and then he was brought to the surface. This was
followed by a last great convulsive effort, when his tail
churned the water into a little circle of foam, which disappeared
the moment his struggles were over. But a few
seconds more were necessary to lift the prey into sight of
all the parties near to the lake. They had seen some of
the struggle, and had imagined the rest. Neither Margaret
Cooper nor Stevens had suspected the presence of the
fisherman until drawn to the spot by this trial of strength.

“What a prodigious fish!” exclaimed Stevens; “can
we go to the spot?”

“Oh! easily — up the rocks on the left there is a path.
I know it well. I have traversed it often. Will you go?
The view is very fine from that quarter.”

“Surely: but who is the fisherman?”

“Ned Hinkley, the nephew of the gentleman with whom
you stay. He is a hunter, fisherman, musician — everything.
A lively, simple, but well-meaning young person. It
is something strange that his cousin William Hinkley is
not with him. They are usually inseparable.”

And with these words she led the way for her companion
following the edge of the lake until reaching the point
where the rocks seemed to form barriers to their further
progress, but which her agility and energy had long since
enabled her to overcome.

“A bold damsel!” said Calvert, as he viewed her progress.
“She certainly does not intend to clamber over
that range of precipices. She will peril her life.”

“No!” said William Hinkley; “she has done it often
to my great terror. I have been with her more than once
over the spot myself. She seems to me to have no fear,
and to delight in the most dangerous places.”

“But her companion! If he's not a more active man
than he seems he will hardly succeed so well.”

William was silent, his eye watching with the keenest
interest the progress of the two. In a few moments he
started to his feet with some appearance of surprise.

“What's the matter?” demanded Calvert.

“She does not seem as if she wished to ascend the rocks,
but she's aiming to keep along the ledges that overhang the
stream, so as to get where Ned is. That can hardly be
done by the surest-footed, and most active. Many of the
rocks are loose. The ledge is very narrow, and even where
there is room for the feet there are such projections above
as leave no room for the body. I will halloo to her, and
tell her of the danger.”

“If you halloo, you will increase the danger — you will
alarm her,” said the old man.

“It will be best to stop her now, in season, when she
can go back. Stay for me, sir, I can run along on the
heights so as to overlook them, and can then warn without
alarming.”

“Do so, my son, and hasten, for she seems bent on going
forward. The preacher follows but slowly, and she stops
for him. Away!”

The youth darted along the hill, pursuing something of
a table-line which belonged to the equal elevation of the
range of rock on which he stood. The rock was formed
of successive and shelving ledges, at such intervals, however,
as to make it no easy task — certainly no safe one —
to drop from one to the other. The perch of Ned Hinkley,
was a projection from the lowest of these ledges, running
brokenly along the margin of the basin until lost in the
forest slope over which Margaret Cooper had led her companion.

If it was a task to try the best vigor and agility — to say
nothing of courage — of the ablest mountaineer, to ascend
the abrupt ledges from below, aiming at the highest point

of elevation — the attempt was still more startling to follow
the lower ledges, some of which hung, loosened and tottering,
just above the deepest parts of the lake. Yet, with
that intrepidity which marked her character, this was the
very task which Margaret Cooper had proposed to herself.
William Hinkley had justly said that she did not seem to
know fear; and when Stevens with the natural sense of
caution which belongs to one to whom such performances
are unusual, suggested to her that such a pathway seemed
very dangerous—

“Dangerous!” she exclaimed, standing upon the merest
pinnacle of a loosened fragment which rested on the very
margin of the stream.

“Did you never perceive that there was a loveliness in
danger which you scarcely felt to be half so great in any
other object or situation. I love the dangerous. It seems
to lift my soul, to make my heart bound with joy and the
wildest delight. I know nothing so delightful as storm
and thunder. I look, and see the tall trees shivering and
going down with a roar, and feel that I could sing — sing
aloud — and believe that there are voices, like mine, then
singing through all the tempest. But there is no danger
here. I have clambered up these ledges repeatedly — up
to the very top. Here, you see, we have an even pathway
along the edge. We have nothing to do but to set the
foot down firmly.”

But Stevens was not so sure, and his opinion on the beauties
of the dangerous did not chime exactly with hers. Still,
he did not lack for courage, and his pride did not suffer
him to yield in a contest with a female. He gazed on her
with increasing wonder. If he saw no loveliness in danger
— he saw no little loveliness just then in her; and she
might be said to personify danger to his eyes. Her tall,
symmetrical, and commanding figure, perched on the trembling
pinnacle of rock which sustained her, was as firm and
erect as if she stood on the securest spot of land.

Nor was her position that of simple security and firmness.
The grace of her attitude, her extended and gently waving
arm as she spoke, denoted a confidence which could only
have arisen from a perfect unconsciousness of danger. Her
swan-like neck, with the face slightly turned back to him;
the bright flashing eyes, and the smile of equal pride and
dignity on her exquisitely-chiselled mouth; — all formed a
picture for the artist's study, which almost served to divert
the thoughts of Stevens from the feeling of danger which he
expressed.

While he gazed, he heard a voice calling in tones of warning
from above; and, at the sound, he perceived a change
in the expression of Margaret Cooper's face, from confidence
and pride, to scorn and contempt. At the same
time she darted forward from rock to rock, with a sort of
defying haste, which made him tremble for her safety, and
left him incapable to follow. The call was repeated; and
Stevens looked up, and recognised the person of the youth
whom he had counselled that morning with such bad success.

If the progress of Margaret Cooper appeared dangerous
in his sight, that of the young man was evidently more so.
He was leaping, with the cool indifference of one who valued
his life not a pin's fee, from ledge to ledge, down the long
steppes which separated the several reaches of the rock
formation. The space between was very considerable, the
descent abrupt; the youth had no steadying pole to assist
him, but flying rather than leaping, was now beheld in air,
and in the next moment stood balancing himself with difficulty,
but with success, and without seeming apprehension,
on the pinnacle of rock below him. In this way he was approaching
the lower ledge along which Margaret Cooper
was hurrying as rapidly as fearlessly, and calling to her as
he came, implored her to forbear a progress which was so
full of danger.

Stevens fancied he had no reason to love the youth, but

he could not help admiring and envying his equal boldness
and agility; the muscular ease with which he flung himself
from point to point, and his sure-footed descent upon the
crags and fragments which trembled and tottered beneath
the sudden and unaccustomed burden. Charitably wishing
that, amid all his agility he might yet make a false step,
and find an unexpected and rather cold bath in the lake below,
Stevens now turned his eyes upon Margaret Cooper.

She did not answer the counsels of William Hinkley —
certainly did not heed them: and, but for the increased impatience
of her manner might be supposed not to have heard
them. The space between herself and Stevens had increased
meanwhile, and looking back, she waited for his approach.
She stood on a heavy mass which jutted above the lake,
and not six feet from the water. Her right foot was upon
the stone, sustaining the whole weight of her person. Her
left was advanced and lifted to another fragment which lay
beyond. As she looked back she met the eyes of Stevens.
Just then he saw the large fragment yield beneath her feet.
She seemed suddenly conscious of it in the same moment,
and sprung rapidly on that to which her left foot was already
advanced. The impetus of this movement, sent the
rock over which she had left. This disturbed the balance
of that to which she had risen, and while the breath of the
stranger hung suspended in the utterance of the meditated
warning, the catastrophe had taken place. The stone
shrank from beneath her, and, sinking with it, in another
moment, she was hidden from sight in the still, deep waters
of the lake.