University of Virginia Library

19. CHAPTER XIX.
THE DOOM.

With this determination our suspicious youth made rapid
progress in getting out his horse. A few minutes saw him
mounted, and putting some of his resolution into his heels,
he sent the animal forward at a killing start, under the
keen infliction of the spur. He had marked with his eye
the general course which Stevens had taken up the hills,
and having a nag of equal speed and bottom, did not scruple,
in the great desire which he felt, to ascertain the secret
of the stranger, to make him display the qualities of both
from the very jump. Stevens had been riding with a free
rein, but in consequence of these energetic measures on the
part of Hinkley, the latter soon succeeded in overhauling
him. Still he had already gone a space of five miles, and
this, too, in one direction. He looked back when he found
himself pursued, and his countenance very clearly expressed
the chagrin which he felt. This he strove, but with very
indifferent success, to hide from the keen searching eyes
of his pursuer. He drew up to wait his coming, and there
was a dash of bitterness in his tones as he expressed his
“gratification at finding a companion where he least expected
one.”

“And perhaps, parson, when you didn't altogether wish
for one,” was the reply of the reckless fellow. “The
truth is, I know I'm not the sort of company that a wise,
sensible, learned, and pious young gentleman would like to

keep, but the truth is what you said about taking a stretch,
man and beast, seemed to me to be just about as wise a
thing for me and my beast also. We've been lying by so
long that I was getting a little stiff in my joints, and Flipflap,
my nag here, was getting stiff in his neck, as they
say was the case with the Jews in old times, so I took your
idea and put after you, thinking that you'd agree with me
that bad company's far better than none.”

There was a mixture of simplicity and archness in the
manner of the speaker that put Stevens somewhat at fault;
but he saw that it wouldn't do to show the dudgeon which
he really felt; and smoothing his quills with as little obvious
effort as possible, he expressed his pleasure at the coming
of his companion. While doing so, he wheeled his horse
about, and signified a determination to return.

What! so soon? Why, Lord bless you, Flipflap has
scarcely got in motion yet. If such a stir will do for your
nag 'twont do for him.”

But Stevens doggedly kept his horse's head along the
back track, though the animal himself exhibited no small
restiffness and a disposition to go forward.

“Well, really, Parson Stevens, I take it as unkind that
you turn back almost the very moment I join you. I seem
to have scared ride out of you if not out of your creature;
but do as you please. I'll ride on, now I'm out. I don't
want to force myself on any man for company.”

Stevens disclaimed any feeling of this sort, but declared
he had ridden quite as far as he intended; and while he
hesitated, Hinkley cut the matter short by putting spurs to
his steed, and going out of sight in a moment.

“What can the cur mean?” demanded Stevens of himself,
the moment after they had separated. “Can he have
any suspicions? Ha! I must be watchful! At all events,
there's no going forward to-day. I must put it off for next
week; and meanwhile have all my eyes about me. The
fellow seems to have as much cunning as simplicity. He

is disposed too, to be insolent. I marked his manner at the
lake, as well as that of his bull-headed cousin; but that
sousing put anger out of me, and then, again, 'twill scarcely
do in these good days for such holy men as myself to take
up cudgels. I must bear it for awhile as quietly as possible.
It will not be long. She at least is suspicionless. Never
did creature so happily delude herself. Yet what a judgment
in some things! What keen discrimination! What
a wild, governless imagination! She would be a prize,
if it were only to exhibit. How she would startle the dull,
insipid, tea-table simperers on our Helicon — nay, with
what scorn she would traverse the Helicon itself. The
devil is that she would have a will in spite of her keeper.
Such an animal is never tamed. There could be no prescribing
to her the time when she should roar — no teaching
her to fawn and fondle, and not to rend. Soul, and eye,
and tongue, would speak under the one impulse, in the exciting
moment; and when Mrs. Singalongohnay was squeaking
out her eternal requiems — her new versions of the
Psalms and Scriptures — her blank verse elogiacs — oh!
how blank! — beginning, `Night was upon the hills,'— or,
`The evening veil hung low,' or, `It slept,'— or after some
other equally threatening form and fashion — I can fancy
how the bright eye of Margaret would gleam with scorn;
and while the Pollies and Dollies, the Patties and Jennies,
the Corydons and Jemmy Jesamies, all round were throwing
up hands and eyes in a sort of rapture, how she would
look, with what equal surprise and contempt, doubting her
own ears, and sickening at the stuff and the strange sycophancy
which induced it. And should good old Singalongohnay,
with a natural and patronizing visage, approach,
and venture to talk to her about poetry, with that assured
smile of self-excellence which such a venerable authority
naturally employs, how she would turn upon the dame and
exclaim — `What! do you call that poetry?' What a concussion
would follow. How the simperers would sheer off;
the tea that night might as well be made of aqua-fortis.
Ha! ha! I can fancy the scene before me. Nothing could
be more rich. I must give her a glimpse of such a scene.
It will be a very good mode of operation. Her pride and
vanity will do the rest. I have only to intimate the future
sway — the exclusive sovereignty which would follow — the
overthrow of the ancient idols, and the setting up of a true
divinity in herself. But shall it be so, Master Stevens?
Verily, that will be seen hereafter. Enough, if the delusion
takes. If I can delude the woman through the muse, I
am satisfied. The muse after that may dispose of the
woman as she pleases.”

Such was a portion of the soliloquy of the libertine as he
rode slowly back to Charlemont. His further musings we
need not pursue at present. It is enough to say that they
were of the same family character. He returned to his
room as soon as he reached his lodging-house, and drawing
from his pocket a bundle of letters which he had intended
putting in the postoffice at Ellisland, he carefully locked
them up in his portable writing-desk which he kept at the
bottom of his valise. When the devout Mrs. Hinkley
tapped at his door to summon him to dinner, the meritorious
young man was to be seen, seated at his table,
with the massive Bible of the family conspicuously open
before him. Good young man! never did he invoke a
blessing on the meats with more holy unction than on that
very day.

Meanwhile, let us resume our progress with William
Hinkley, and inquire in what manner his wooing sped
with the woman whom he so unwisely loved. We have
seen him leaving the cottage of Mr. Calvert with the avowed
purpose of seeking a final answer. A purpose from which
the old man did not seek to dissuade him, though he readily
conceived its fruitlessness. It was with no composed
spirit that the young rustic felt himself approaching the
house of Mrs. Cooper. More than once he hesitated and

even halted. But a feeling of shame, and the efforts of
returning manliness re-resolved him, and he hurried with
an unwonted rapidity of movement toward the dwelling, as
if he distrusted his own power, unless he did so, to conclude
the labor he had begun.

He gathered some courage when he found that Margaret
was from home. She had gone on her usual rambles. Mrs.
Cooper pointed out the course which she had taken, and
the young man set off in pursuit. The walks of the maiden
were of course well known to a lover so devoted. He had
sought and followed her a thousand times, and the general
direction which she had gone, once known, his progress
was as direct as his discoveries were certain. The heart
of the youth, dilated with better hopes as he felt himself
traversing the old familiar paths. It seemed to him that
the fates could scarcely be adverse in a region which had
always been so friendly. Often had he escorted her along
this very route, when their spirits better harmonized —
when, more of the girl struggling into womanhood, the mind
of Margaret Cooper, ignorant of its own resources and unconscious
of its maturer desires, was more gentle, and could
rejoice in that companionship for which she now betrayed
so little desire. The sheltered paths and well-known trees,
even the little clumps of shrubbery that filled up the intervals,
were too pleasant and familiar to his eye not to seem
favorable to his progress, and with a hope that had no foundation,
save in the warm and descriptive colors of a young
heart's fancy, William Hinkley pursued the route which
led him to one of the most lovely and love-haunted glades
in all Kentucky.

So sweet a hush never hallowed the sabbath rest of any
forest. The very murmur of a drowsy zephyr among the
leaves was of slumberous tendency; and silence prevailed,
with the least possible exertion of her authority, over the
long narrow dell through which the maiden had gone wandering.
At the foot of a long slope, to which his eye was

conducted by a natural and lovely vista, the youth beheld
the object of his search, sitting, motionless, with her back
toward him. The reach of light was bounded by her figure,
which was seated on the decaying trunk of a fallen
tree. She was deeply wrapped in thought, for she did not
observe his approach, and when his voice reached her ears,
and she started and looked round, her eyes were full of
tears. These she hastily brushed away, and met the young
man with a degree of composure which well might have
put the blush upon his cheek, for the want of it.

“In tears! — weeping, Margaret?” was the first address
of the lover who necessarily felt shocked at what he saw.

“They were secret tears, sir — not meant for other eyes,”
was the reproachful reply.

“Ah, Margaret! but why should you have secret tears,
when you might have sympathy — why should you have
tears at all? You have no sorrows.”

“Sympathy!” was the exclamation of the maiden, while
a scornful smile gleamed from her eyes; “whose sympathy,
I pray?”

The young man hesitated to answer. The expression of
her eye discouraged him. He dreaded lest, in offering his
sympathies, he should extort from her lips a more direct
intimation of that scorn which he feared. He chose a middle
course.

“But that you should have sorrows, Margaret, seems
very strange to me. You are young and hearty; endowed
beyond most of your sex, and with a beauty which can not
be too much admired. Your mother is hearty and happy,
and for years you have had no loss of relations to deplore.
I see not why you should have sorrows.”

“It is very likely, William Hinkley, that you do not see.
The ordinary sorrows of mankind arise from the loss of
wives and cattle, children and property. There are sorrows
of another kind; sorrows of the soul; the consciousness
of denial; of strife — strife to be continued — strife

without victory — baffled hopes — defeated aims and energies.
These are sorrows which are not often computed in
the general account. It is highly probable that none of
them afflict you. You have your parents, and very good
people they are. You yourself are no doubt a very good
young man — so everybody says — and you have health and
strength. Besides, you have property, much more, I am
told, than falls to the lot ordinarily of young people in this
country. These are reasons why you should not feel any
sorrow; but were all these mine and a great deal more,
I'm afraid it would not make me any more contented.
You, perhaps, will not understand this, William Hinkley,
but I assure you that such, nevertheless is my perfect conviction.”

“Yes, I can, and do understand it, Margaret,” said the
young man, with flushed cheek and a very tremulous voice,
as he listened to language which, though not intended to
be contemptuous, was yet distinctly colored by that scornful
estimate which the maiden had long since made of the
young man's abilities. In this respect she had done injustice
to his mind, which had been kept in subjection and deprived
of its ordinary strength and courage, by the enfeebling
fondness of his heart.

“Yes, Margaret,” he continued, “I can and do understand
it, and I too have my sorrows of this very sort. Do
not smile, Margaret, but hear me patiently, and believe,
that, whatever may be the error which I commit, I have no
purpose to offend you in what I say or do. Perhaps, we
are both of us quite too young to speak of the sorrows which
arise from defeated hopes, or baffled energies, or denial of
our rights and claims. The yearnings and apprehensions
which we are apt to feel of this sort are not to be counted
as sorrows, or confounded with them. I had a conversation
on this very subject only a few days ago, with old
Mr. Calvert, and this was his very opinion.”

The frankness with which William Hinkley declared the

source of his opinions, though creditable to his sincerity,
was scarcely politic — it served to confirm Margaret Cooper
in the humble estimate which she had formed of the
speaker.

“Mr. Calvert,” said she, “is a very sensible old man,
but neither he nor you can enter into the heart of another
and say what shall, or what shall not be its source of
trouble. It is enough, William Hinkley, that I have my
cares — at least I fancy that I have them — and though I
am very grateful for your sympathies, I do not know that
they can do me any good, and, though I thank you, I must
yet decline them.”

“Oh, do not say so, Margaret — dear Margaret — it is
to proffer them that I seek you now. You know how long
I have sought you, and loved you: you can not know how
dear you are to my eyes, how necessary to my happiness!
Do not repulse me — do not speak quickly. What I am,
and what I have, is yours. We have grown up together;
I have known no other hope, no other love, but that for
you. Look not upon me with that scornful glance — hear
me — I implore you — on my knee, dear Margaret. I implore
you as for life — for something more dear than life —
that which will make life precious — which may make it
valuable. Be mine, dear Margaret—”

“Rise, William Hinkley, and do not forget yourself!”
was the stern, almost deliberate answer of the maiden.

“Do not, I pray you, do not speak in those tones, dear
Margaret — do not look on me with those eyes. Remember
before you speak, that the dearest hope of a devoted
heart hangs upon your lips.”

“And what have you seen in me, or what does your vain
conceit behold in yourself, William Hinkley, to make you
entertain a hope?”

“The meanest creature has it.”

“Aye, but only of creatures like itself.”

“Margaret!” exclaimed the lover starting to his feet.

“Ay, sir, I say it. If the meanest creature has its hope,
it relates to a creature like itself — endowed with its own
nature and fed with like sympathies. But you — what
should make you hope of me? Have I not long avoided
you, discouraged you? I would have spared you the pain
of this moment by escaping it myself. You haunt my steps
— you pursue me — you annoy me with attentions which I
dare not receive for fear of encouraging you, and in spite
of all this, which everybody in the village must have seen
but yourself, you still press yourself upon me.”

“Margaret Cooper, be not so proud!”

“I am what I am! I know that I am proud — vain, perhaps,
and having little to justify either pride or vanity; but
to you, William Hinkley, as an act of justice, I must speak
what I feel — what is the truth. I am sorry, from my very
soul, that you love me, for I can have no feeling for you in
return. I do not dislike you, but you have so oppressed
me that I would prefer not to see you. We have no feelings
in common. You can give me no sympathies. My
soul, my heart, my hope — every desire of my mind, every
impulse of my heart, leads me away from you — from all
that you can give — from all that you can relish. To you
it would suffice, if all your life could be spent here in Charlemont
— to me it would be death to think that any such
doom hung over me. From this one sentiment judge of the
rest, and know, for good and all, that I can never feel for
you other than I feel now. I can not love you, nor can the
knowledge that you love me, give me any but a feeling of
pain and mortification.”

William Hinkley had risen to his feet. His form had
put on an unusual erectness. His eye had gradually become
composed; and now it wore an expression of firmness almost
amounting to defiance. He heard her with only an
occasional quiver of the muscles about his mouth. The
flush of shame and pride was still red upon his cheek.

When she had finished, he spoke to her in tones of more
dignity than had hitherto marked his speech.

“Margaret Cooper, you have at least chosen the plainest
language to declare a cruel truth.”

The cheek of the girl became suddenly flushed.

“Do you suppose,” she said, “that I found pleasure in
giving you pain? No! William Hinkley, I am sorry for
you! But this truth, which you call cruel, was shown to
you repeatedly before. Any man but yourself would have
seen it, and saved me the pain of its frequent repetition.
You alone refused to understand, until it was rendered
cruel. It was only by the plainest language that you could
be made to believe a truth that you either would not or
could not otherwise be persuaded to hear. If cold looks,
reserved answers, and a determined rejection of all familiarity
could have availed, you would never have heard from
my lips a solitary word which could have brought you mortification.
You would have seen my feelings in my conduct,
and would have spared your own that pain, which I religiously
strove to save them.”

“I have, indeed, been blind and deaf,” said the young
man; “but you have opened my eyes and ears, Margaret,
so that I am fully cured of these infirmities. If your purpose,
in this plain mode of speech, be such as you have declared
it, then I must thank you; though it is very much
as one would thank the dagger that puts him out of his pain
by putting him out of life.”

There was so much of subdued feeling in this address —
the more intense in its effect, from the obvious restraint put
upon it, that the heart of the maiden was touched. The
dignified bearing of the young man, also — so different from
that which marked his deportment hitherto — was not without
its effect.

“I assure you, William Hinkley, that such alone was
my motive for what else would seem a most wanton harshness.
I would not be harsh to you or to anybody; and

with my firm rejection of your proffer, I give you my regrets
that you ever made it. It gives me no pleasure that you
should make it. If I am vain, my vanity is not flattered or
quickened by a tribute which I can not accept; and if you
never had my sympathy before, William Hinkley, I freely
give it now. Once more I tell you, I am sorry, from the
bottom of my heart, that you ever felt for me a passion
which I can not requite, and that you did not stifle it from
the beginning; as, Heaven knows, my bearing toward you,
for a whole year, seemed to me to convey sufficient warning.”

“It should have done so! I can now very easily understand
it, Margaret. Indeed, Mr. Calvert and others told
me the same thing. But as I have said, I was blind and
deaf. Once more, I thank you, Margaret — it is a bitter
medicine which you have given me, but I trust a wholesome
one.”

He caught her hand and pressed it in his own. She did
not resist or withdraw it, and, after the retention of an instant
only, he released it, and was about to turn away. A
big tear was gathering in his eye, and he strove to conceal
it. Margaret averted her head, and was about to move
forward in an opposite direction, when the voice of the
young man arrested her:—

“Stay, but a few moments more, Margaret. Perhaps we
shall never meet again — certainly not in a conference like
this. I may have no other opportunity to say that which,
in justice to you, should be spoken. Will you listen to me,
patiently?”

“Speak boldly, William Hinkley. It was the subject of
which you spoke heretofore which I shrunk from rather than
the speaker.”

“I know not,” said he, “whether the subject of which I
propose to speak now will be any more agreeable than that
of which we have spoken. At all events, my purpose is
your good, and I shall speak unreservedly. You have refused
the prayer of one heart, Margaret, which, if unworthy

of yours, was yet honestly and fervently devoted to it.
Let me warn you to look well when you do choose, lest you
fall into the snares of one, who with more talent may be
less devoted, and with more claims to admiration, may be
far less honest in his purpose.”

“What mean you, sir?” she demanded hurriedly, with
an increasing glow upon her face.

“This stranger — this man, Stevens!”

“What of him? What do you know of the stranger that
you should give me this warning?”

“What does anybody know of him? Whence does he
come — whither would he go? What brings him here to
this lonely village?—”

A proud smile which curled the lips of Margaret Cooper
arrested the speech of the youth. It seemed to say, very
distinctly, that she, at least, could very well conjecture what
brought the stranger so far from the travelled haunts.

“Ha! do you then know, Margaret?”

“And if I did not, William Hinkley, these base insinuations
against the man, of whom, knowing nothing, you would
still convey the worst imputations, would never move my
mind a hair's breadth from its proper balance. Go, sir —
you have your answer. I need not your counsel. I should
be sorry to receive it from such a source. Failing in your
own attempt, you would seek to fill my mind with calumnious
impressions in order to prejudice the prospects of another.
For shame! for shame, William Hinkley. I had
not thought this of you. But go! go! go, at once, lest I
learn to loathe as well as despise you. I thought you simple
and foolish, but honorable and generous. I was mistaken
even in this. Go, sir, your slanderous insinuations
have no effect upon me, and as for Alfred Stevens, you are
as far below him in nobleness and honest purpose, as you
are in every quality of taste and intellect.”

Her face was the very breathing image of idealized scorn
and beauty as she uttered these stinging words. Her nostrils

were dilated, her eyes flashing fire, her lips slightly
protruded and parted, her hand waving him off. The
young man gazed upon her with wild looks equally expressive
of anger and agony. His form fairly writhed beneath
his emotions; but he found strength enough gaspingly to
exclaim: —

“And even this I forgive you, Margaret.”

“Go! go!” she answered; “you know not what you
say, or what you are. Go! go!”

And turning away, she moved slowly up the long avenue
before her, till, by a sudden turn of the path she was hidden
from the sight. Then, when his eye could no longer
follow her form, the agony of his soul burst forth in a single
groan, and staggering, he fell forward upon the sward,
hopeless, reckless, in a wretched condition of self-abandonment
and despair.