University of Virginia Library

18. CHAPTER XVIII.
TRAILING THE FOX.

This dialogue was broken by a summons to the breakfast-table.
We have already intimated that while the hateful
person of Stevens was an inmate of his own house, William
Hinkley remained, the better portion of his time, at that of
his cousin. It was not merely that Stevens was hateful to
his sight, but such was the devotion of his father and mother
to that adventurer, that the young man passed with little
notice from either, or if he incurred their attention at all,
it was only to receive their rebuke. He had not been able
to disguise from them his dislike to Stevens. This dislike
showed itself in many ways — in coldness, distance, silence
— a reluctance to accord the necessary civilities, and in
very unequivocal glances of hostility from the eyes of the
jealous young villager.

Such offences against good-breeding were considered by
them as so many offences against God himself, shown to
one who was about to profess his ministry; and being prepared
to see in Brother Stevens an object of worth and
veneration only, they lacked necessarily all that keenness
of discrimination which might have helped somewhat to
qualify the improprieties of which they believed their son
to be guilty. Of his causes of jealousy they had no suspicion,
and they shared none of his antipathies. He was
subject to the daily lecture from the old man, and the
nightly exhortation and expostulation of the old woman.

The latter did her spiriting gently. The former roared
and thundered. The mother implored and kissed — the
father denounced and threatened, The one, amidst the
faults of her son which she reproved, could see his virtues;
she could also see that he was suffering — she knew not
why — as well as sinning; the other could only see an insolent,
disobedient boy who was taking airs upon himself,
flying in the face of his parents, and doomed to perish like
the sons of Eli, unless by proving himself a better manager
than Eli, he addressed himself in time to the breaking in
of the unruly spirit whose offences promised to be so heinous.
It was not merely from the hateful sight of his rival,
or the monotonous expostulation of his mother, that the
poor youth fled; it was sometimes to escape the heavily
chastening hand of his bigoted father.

These things worked keenly and constantly in the mind
of William Hinkley. They acquired additional powers of
ferment from the coldness of Margaret Cooper, and from
the goadings of his cousin. Naturally one of the gentlest
of creatures, the young man was not deficient in spirit.
What seemed to his more rude and elastic relative a token
of imbecility, was nothing more than the softening influence
of his reflective and mental over his physical powers. These,
under the excitement of his blood were necessarily made
subject to his animal impulses, and when he left the house
that morning, with his Blackstone under his arm, on his way
to the peaceful cottage of old Calvert, where he pursued
his studies, his mind was in a perfect state of chaos. Of
the chapter which he had striven to compass the previous
night, in which the rights of persons are discussed with
the usual clearness of style, but the usual one-sidedness of
judgment of that smooth old monarchist, William Hinkley
scarcely remembered a solitary syllable. He had read
only with his eyes. His mind had kept no pace with his
proceedings, and though he strove as he went along to recall
the heads of topics, the points and principles of what

he had been reading, his efforts at reflection, by insensible
but sudden transitions, invariably concluded with some
image of strife and commotion, in which he was one of the
parties and Alfred Stephens another; the beautiful, proud
face of Margaret Cooper being always unaccountably present,
and seeming to countenance, with its scornful smiles,
the spirit of strife which operated upon the combatants.

This mood had the most decided effect upon his appearance;
and the good old man, Calvert, whose attention had
been already drawn to the condition of distress and suffering
which he manifested, was now more than ever struck
with the seemingly sudden increase of this expression upon
his face. It was Saturday — the saturnalia of schoolboys —
and a day of rest to the venerable teacher. He was seated
before his door, under the shadows of his paternal oak, once
more forgetting the baffled aims and profitless toils of his
own youthful ambition, in the fascinating pages of that historical
romancer the stout Abbé Vertôt. But a glance at
the youth soon withdrew his mind from this contemplation,
and the sombre pages of the present opened upon his eye,
and the doubtful ones of the future became, on the instant,
those which he most desired to peruse.

The study of the young is always a study of the past with
the old. They seem, in such a contemplation, to live over
the records of memory. They feel as one just returning
from a long and weary journey, who encounters another,
freshly starting to traverse the same weary but inviting
track. Something in the character of William Hinkley,
which seemed to resemble his own, made this feeling yet
more active in the mind of Mr. Calvert; and his earnest
desire was to help the youth forward on the path which, he
soon perceived, it was destined that the other should finally
take. He was not satisfied with the indecision of character
which the youth displayed. But how could he blame
it harshly? It was in this very respect that his own character
had failed, and though he felt that all his counsels

were to be addressed to this point, yet he knew not where,
or in what manner, to begin. The volume of Blackstone
which the youth carried suggested to him a course, however.
He bade the young man bring out a chair, and taking
the book in his hand, he proceeded to examine him upon
parts of the volume which he professed to have been
reading.

This examination, as it had the effect of compelling the
mind of the student to contract itself to a single subject of
thought, necessarily had the further effect of clearing it
somewhat from the chaos of clouds which had been brooding
over it, obscuring the light, and defeating the warmth
of the intellectual sun behind them; and if the examination
proved the youth to have been very little of a student, or
one who had been reading with a vacant mind, it also
proved that the original powers of his intellect were vigorous
and various — that he had an analytical capacity of
considerable compass; was bold in opinion, ingenious in
solution, and with a tendency to metaphysical speculation,
which, modified by the active wants and duties of a large
city-practice, would have made him a subtle lawyer, and a
very logical debater. But the blush kept heightening on
the youth's cheeks as the examination proceeded. He had
answered, but he felt all the while how much his answer
had sprung from his own conjectures and how little from
his authorities. The examination convinced him that the
book had been so much waste-paper under his thumb. When
it was ended the old man closed the volume, laid it on the
sward beside him, and looked, with a mingled expression
of interest and commiseration, on his face. William Hinkley
noted this expression, and spoke, with a degree of mortification
in look and accent, which he did not attempt
to hide: —

“I am afraid, sir, you will make nothing of me. I can
make nothing of myself. I am almost inclined to give up
in despair. I will be nothing — I can be nothing. I feared

as much from the beginning, sir. You only waste your
time on me.”

“You speak too fast, William — you let your blood mingle
too much with your thoughts. Let me ask you one
question. How long will you be content to live as you
do now — seeking nothing — performing nothing — being
nothing?”

The youth was silent.

“I, you see, am nothing,” continued the old man — “nay,
do not interrupt me. You will tell me, as you have already
told me, that I am much, and have done much, here
in Charlemont. But, for all that I am, and have done here,
I need not have gone beyond my accidence. My time has
been wasted; my labors, considered as means to ends, were
unnecessary; I have toiled without the expected profits of
toil; I have drawn water in a sieve. It is not pleasant for
me to recall these things, much less to speak of them; but
it is for your good that I told you my story. You have, as
I had, certain defects of character — not the same exactly,
but of the same family complexion. To be something, you
must be resolved. You must devote yourself, heart and
mind, with all your soul and with all your strength, to the
business you have undertaken. Shut your windows against
the sunshine, your ears to the song of birds, your heart
against the fascinations of beauty; and if you never think
of the last until you are thirty, you will be then a better
judge of beauty, a truer lover, a better husband, a more
certain candidate for happiness. Let me assure you that,
of the hundred men that take wives before they are thirty,
there is scarcely one who, in his secret soul, does not repent
it — scarcely one who does not look back with yearning
to the days when he was free.”

There was a pause. The young man became very much
agitated. He rose from his chair, walked apart for a few
moments, and then, returning, resumed his seat by the old
man.

“I believe you are right, sir — nay, I know you are; but
I can not be at once — I can not promise — to be all that
you wish. If Margaret Cooper would consent, I would
marry her to-morrow.”

The old man shook his head, but remained silent. The
young one proceeded:—

“One thing I will say, however: I will take to my studies
after this week, whatever befalls, with the hearty resolution
which you recommend. I will try to shut out the
sunshine and the song. I will endeavor to devote soul and
strength, and heart and mind, to the task before me. I
know that I can master these studies — I think I can” —
he continued, more modestly, modifying the positive assertion
— “and I know that it is equally my interest and duty
to do so. I thank you sir, very much for what you have
told me. Believe me, it has not fallen upon heedless or
disrespectful ears.”

The old man pressed his hand.

“I know that, my son, and I rejoice to think that, having
given me these assurances, you will strive hard to make
them good.”

“I will, sir!” replied William, taking up his cap to depart.

“But whither are you going now?”

The youth blushed as he replied frankly:—

“To the widow Cooper's. I'm going to see Margaret.”

“Well, well!” said the old man, as the youth disappeared,
“if it must be done, the sooner it's over the better.
But there's another moth to the flame. Fortunately,
he will be singed only; but she! — what is left for her —
so proud, yet so confiding — so confident of strength, yet
so artless? But it is useless to look beyond, and very
dismal.”

And the speaker once more took up Vertôt, and was soon
lost amid the glories of the knights of St. John. His studies

were interrupted by the sudden, and boisterous salutation
of Ned Hinkley:—

“Well, gran'pa, hard at the big book as usual? No end
to the fun of fighting, eh? I confess, if ever I get to love
reading, it'll be in some such book as that. But reading's
not natural to me, though you made me do enough of it
while you had me. Bill was the boy for the books, and I
for the hooks. By-the-way, talking of hooks, how did those
trout eat? Fine, eh? I haven't seen you since the day of
our ducking.”

“No, Ned, and I've been looking for you. Where have
you been?”

“Working, working! Everything's been going wrong.
Lines snapped, fiddle-strings cracked, hooks missing, gun
rusty, and Bill Hinkley so sulky, that his frown made a
shadow on the wall as large and ugly as a buffalo's. But
where is he? I came to find him here.”

While he was speaking, the lively youth squatted down,
and deliberately took his seat on the favorite volume which
Mr. Calvert had laid upon the sward at his approach.

“Take the chair, Ned,” said the old man, with a smaller
degree of kindness in his tone than was habitual with him.
“Take the chair. Books are sacred things — to be worshipped
and studied, not employed as footstools.”

“Why, what's the hurt, gran'pa?” demanded the young
man, though he rose and did as he was bidden. “If 'twas
a fiddle, now, there would be some danger of a crash, but
a big book like that seems naturally made to sit upon.”

The old man answered him mildly:—

“I have learned to venerate books, Ned, and can no
more bear to see them abused than I could bear to be
abused myself. It seems to me like treating their writers
and their subjects with scorn. If you were to contemplate
the venerable heads of the old knights with my eyes and
feelings, you would see why I wish to guard them from
everything like disrespect.”

“Well, I beg their pardon — a thousand pardons! I
meant no offence, gran'pa — and can't help thinking that
it's all a notion of yours, your reverencing such old Turks
and Spaniards that have been dead a thousand years. They
were very good people, no doubt, but I'm thinking they've
served their turn; and I see no more harm in squatting
upon their histories than in walking over their graves,
which, if I were in their country of Jericho — that was
where they lived, gran'pa, wa'n't it? — I should be very
apt to do without asking leave, I tell you.”

Ned Hinkley purposely perverted his geography and history.
There was a spice of mischief in his composition,
and he grinned good-naturedly as he watched the increasing
gravity upon the old man's face.

“Come, come, gran'pa, don't be angry. You know my
fun is a sort of fizz — there's nothing but a flash — nothing
to hurt — no shotting. But where's Bill Hinkley, gran'pa?”

“Gone to the widow Cooper's, to see Margaret.”

“Ah! well, I'm glad he's made a beginning. But I'd
much rather he'd have seen the other first.”

“What other do you mean?” demanded the old man;
but the speaker, though sufficiently random and reckless in
what he said, saw the impolicy of allowing the purpose of
his cousin in regard to Stevens to be understood. He contrived
to throw the inquirer off.

“Gran'pa, do you know there's something in this fellow
Stevens that don't altogether please me? I'm not satisfied
with him.”

“Ah, indeed! what do you see to find fault with?”

“Well, you see, he comes here pretending to study.
Now, in the first place, why should he come here to study?
why didn't he stay at home with his friends and parents?”

“Perhaps he had neither. Perhaps he had no home.
You might as well ask me why I came here, and settled
down, where I was not born — where I had neither friends
nor parents.”

“Oh, no, but you told us why,” said the other. “You
gave us a reason for what you did.”

“And why may not the stranger give a reason too?”

“He don't, though.”

“Perhaps he will when you get intimate with him. I
see nothing in this to be dissatisfied with. I had not
thought you so suspicious, Ned Hinkley — so little charitable.”

“Charity begins at home, gran'pa. But there's more
in this matter. This man comes here to study to be a parson.
How does he study? Can you guess?”

“I really can not.”

“By dressing spruce as a buck — curling his hair backward
over his ears something like a girl's, and going out,
morning, noon, and night, to see Margaret Cooper.”

“As there is no good reason to suppose that a student
of divinity is entirely without the affections of humanity,
I still see nothing inconsistent with his profession in this
conduct.”

“But how can he study?”

“Ah! it may be inconsistent with his studies though not
with his profession. It is human without being altogether
proper. You see that your cousin neglects his studies in
the same manner. I presume that the stranger also loves
Miss Cooper.”

“But he has no such right as Bill Hinkley.”

“Why not?”

“Why not? Why, Bill is a native here, has been loving
her for the last year or more. His right certainly ought to
be much greater than that of a man whom nobody knows
— who may be the man in the moon for anything we know
to the contrary — just dropped in upon us, nobody knows
how, to do nobody knows what.”

“All that may be very true, Ned, and yet his right to
seek Miss Cooper may be just as good as that of yourself
or mine. You forget that it all depends upon the young

lady herself whether either of them is to have a right at all
in her concerns.”

“Well, that's a subject we needn't dispute about, gran'pa,
when there's other things. Now, isn't it strange that this
stranger should ride off once a week with his valise on his
saddle, just as if he was starting on a journey — should be
gone half a day — then come back with his nag all in a
foam, and after that you should see him in some new cravat,
or waistcoat, or pantaloons, just as if he had gone home
and got a change?”

“And does he do that?” inquired Mr. Calvert, with
some show of curiosity.

“That he does, and he always takes the same direction;
and it seems — so Aunt Sarah herself says, though she
thinks him a small sort of divinity on earth — that the day
before, he's busy writing letters, and, according to her account,
pretty long letters too. Well, nobody sees that he
ever gets any letters in return. He never asks at the postoffice,
so Jacob Zandts himself tells me, and that's strange
enough, too, if so be he has any friends or relations anywhere
else.”

Mr. Calvert listened with interest to these and other
particulars which his young companion had gathered respecting
the habits of the stranger; and he concurred with
his informant in the opinion that there was something in
his proceedings which was curious and perhaps mysterious.
Still, he did not think it advisable to encourage the prying
and suspicious disposition of the youth, and spoke to this
effect in the reply which finally dismissed the subject. Ned
Hinkley was silenced not satisfied.

“There's something wrong about it,” he muttered to
himself on leaving the old man, “and, by dickens! I'll get
to the bottom of it, or there's no taste in Salt-river. The
fellow's a rascal; I feel it if I don't know it, and if Bill
Hinkley don't pay him off, I must. One or t'other must do
it, that's certain.”

With these reflections, which seemed to him to be no
less moral than social, the young man took his way back
to the village, laboring with all the incoherence of unaccustomed
thought, to strike out some process by which to
find a solution for those mysteries which were supposed
to characterize the conduct of the stranger. He had just
turned out of the gorge leading from Calvert's house into
the settlement, when he encountered the person to whom
his meditations were given, on horseback, and going at a
moderate gallop along the high-road to the country. Stevens
bowed to him and drew up for speech as he drew
nigh. At first Ned Hinkley appeared disposed to avoid
him, but moved by a sudden notion, he stopped and suffered
himself to speak with something more of civility
than he had hitherto shown to the same suspected personage.

“Why, you're not going to travel, Parson Stevens,” said
he — “you're not going to leave us, are you?”

“No, sir — I only wish to give myself and horse a stretch
of a few miles for the sake of health. Too much stable,
they say, makes a saucy nag.”

“So it does, and I may say, a saucy man too. But
seeing you with your valise, I thought you were off for
good.”

Stevens said something about his being so accustomed to
ride with the valise that he carried it without thinking.

“I scarcely knew I had it on!”

“That's a lie all round,” said Ned Hinkley to himself
as the other rode off. “Now, if I was mounted, I'd ride
after him and see where he goes and what he's after.
What's to hinder? It's but a step to the stable, and but
five minutes to the saddle. Dang it, but I'll take trail this
time if I never did before.”