Charlemont

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"You are fortunate sir, if, at your time of life, you have succeeded
in withdrawing your thoughts and feelings, with your person, from
such scenes of ambition as you speak of. But I fancy the passions
dwell with us in the country as well as with the wiser people in
the town; and I am not sure that there is any pursuit much more
free from their intrusion than that of the law."

"Your remark exhibits penetration, Mr. Hinkley. I should not be
surprised if you have chosen your profession properly. Still, I
should counsel you not to overwork yourself. Bear with me, sir; I
feel an interest in your behalf, and I must think you do so. Allow
me to be something of a judge in this matter. You are aware, sir,
that I too have been a lawyer."

The youth bowed stiffly.

"If I can lend you any assistance in your studies, I will do so.
Let me arrange them for you, and portion out your time. I know
something about that, and will save you from injuring your health.
On this point you evidently need instruction. You are doing yourself
hurt. Your appearance is matter of distress and apprehension to
your parents."

"To my parents, sir?"

"Your mother, I mean! She spoke to me about you this very morning.
She is distressed at some unaccountable changes which have taken
place in your manners, your health, your personal appearance. Of
course I can say nothing on the subject of the past, or of these
changes; but I may be permitted to say that your present looks do
not betoken health, and I have supposed this to be on account of
your studies. I promised your good mother to confer with you. and
counsel you, and if I can be of any help--"'

"You are very good, sir!"

The young man spoke bitterly. His gorge was rising. It was not
easy to suppress his vexation with his mother, and the indignation
which he felt at the supercilious approaches of the agent whom she
had employed. Besides, his mind, not less than his feelings, was
rising in vigor in due degree with the pressure put upon it.

"You are very good, sir, and I am very much obliged to you. I
could have wished, however, that my mother had not given you this
trouble, sir. She certainly must have been thinking of Mr. John
Cross. She could scarcely have hoped that any good could have
resulted to me, from the counsel of one who is so little older than
myself."

This speech made our adventurer elevate his eyebrows. He absolutely
stopped short to look upon the speaker. William Hinkley stopped
short also. His eye encountered that of Stevens with an expression
as full of defiance as firmness. His cheeks glowed with the generous
indignation which filled his veins.

"This fellow has something in him after all," was the involuntary
reflection that rose to the other's mind. The effect was, however,
not very beneficial to his own manner. Instead of having the effect
of impressing upon Stevens the necessity of working cautiously,
the show of defiance which he saw tended to provoke and annoy him.
The youth had displayed so much propriety in his anger, had been
so moderate as well as firm, and had uttered his answer with so
much dignity and correctness, that he felt himself rebuked. To be
encountered by an unsophisticated boy, and foiled, though but for
an instant--slightly estimated, though but by a youth, and him
too, a mere rustic--was mortifying to the self-esteem that rather
precipitately hurried to resent it."

"You take it seriously, Mr. Hinkley. But surely an offer of service
need not be mistaken. As for the trifling difference which may be
in our years, that is perhaps nothing to the difference which may
be in our experience, our knowledge of the world, our opportunities
and studies."

"Surely, sir; all thece MAY be, but at all events we are not bound
to assume their existence until it is shown."

"Oh, you are likely to prove an adept in the law, Mr. Hinkley."

"I trust, sir, that your progress may be as great in the church."

"Ha!--do I understand you? There is war between us then?" said
Stevens, watching the animated and speaking countenance of William
Hinkley with increasing curiosity.

"Ay, sir--there is!" was the spirited reply of the youth. "Let it
be war; I am the better pleased, sir, that you are the first to
proclaim it."

"Very good," said Stevens, "be it so, if you will. At all events
you can have no objection to say why it should be so."

"Do you ask, sir?"

"Surely; for I can not guess."

"You are less sagacious, then, than I had fancied you. You, scarce
older than myself--a stranger among us--come to me in the language
of a father, or a master, and without asking what I have of feeling,
or what I lack of sense, undertake deliberately to wound the one,
while insolently presuming to inform the other."

"At the request of your own mother!"

"Pshaw! what man of sense or honesty would urge such a plea. Years,
and long intimacy, and wisdom admitted to be superior, could alone
justify the presumption."

The cheeks of Stevens became scalding hot.

"Young man!" he exclaimed, "there is something more than this!"

"What! would it need more were our positions reversed?" demanded
Hinkley with a promptness that surprised himself.

"Perhaps not! would you provoke me to personal violence?"

"Ha! might I hope for that? surely you forget that you are a
churchman?"

Stevens paused awhile before he answered. His eyes looked vacantly
around him. By this time they had left the more thickly-settled parts
of the village considerably behind them. But a few more dwellings
lay along the path on which they were approaching. On the left,
a gorge opened in the hills by which the valley was dotted, which
seemed a pathway, and did indeed lead to one or more dwellings which
were out of sight in the opposite valley. The region to which this
pathway led was very secluded, and the eye of Stevens surveyed it
for a few moments in silence. The words of Hinkley unquestionably
conveyed a challenge. According to the practice of the country,
AS A LAWYER, he would have been bound to have taken it as such. A
moment was required for reflection. His former and present position
caused a conflict in his mind. The last sentence of Hinkley, and
a sudden glimpse which he just then caught of the residence of
Margaret Cooper, determined his answer.

"I thank you, young man, for reminding me of my duties. You had
nearly provoked the old passions and old practices into revival.
I forgive you--you misunderstand me clearly. I know not how I have
offended you, for my, only purpose was to serve your mother and
yourself. I may have done this unwisely. I will not attempt to
prove that I have not. At all events, assured of my own motives, I
leave you to yourself. You will probably ere long feel the injustice
you have done me!"

He continued on his way, leaving William Hinkley almost rooted to
the spot. The poor youth was actually stunned, not by what was said
to him, but by the sudden consciousness of his own vehemence. He
had expressed himself with a boldness and an energy of which neither
himself nor his friend, until now, would have thought him capable.
A moment's pause in the provocation, and the feelings which had
goaded him on were taken with a revulsion quite as sudden. As he
knew not well what he had said, so he fancied he had said everything
precisely as the passionate thought had suggested it in his own
mind. Already he began to blame himself--to feel that he had done
wrong--that there had been nothing in the conduct or manner of
Stevens, however unpleasant, to justify his own violence; and that
the true secret of his anger was to be found in that instinctive
hostility which he had felt for his rival from the first. The more
he mused, the more he became humbled by his thoughts; and when he
recollected the avowed profession of Stevens his shame increased.
He felt how shocking it was to intimate to a sworn non-combatant
the idea of a personal conflict. To what point of self-abasement his
thoughts would have carried him, may only be conjectured; he might
have hurried forward to overtake his antagonist with the distinct
purpose of making the most ample apology; nay, more, such was the
distinct thought which was now pressing upon his mind, when he was
saved from this humiliation by perceiving that Stevens had already
reached, and was about to enter the dwelling of Margaret Cooper.
With this sight, every thought and feeling gave place to that of
baffled love, and disappointed affection. With a bitter groan he
turned up the gorge, and soon shut himself from sight of the now
hateful habitation.

CHAPTER XII.

THE MASTER AND HIS PUPILS.

The course of the young rustic was pursued for half a mile further
till he came to a little cottage of which the eye could take no
cognizance from any part of the village. It was embowelled in a
glen of its own--a mere cup of the slightly-rising hills, and so
encircled by foliage that it needed a very near approach of the
stranger before he became aware of its existence. The structure was
very small, a sort of square box with a cap upon it, and consisted
of two rooms only on a ground floor, with a little lean-to or
shed-room in the rear, intended for a kitchen. As you drew nigh
and passed through the thick fringe of wood by which its approach
was guarded, the space opened before you, and you found yourself
in a sort of amphitheatre, of which the cottage was the centre. A
few trees dotted this area, large and massive trees, and seemingly
preserved for purposes of shade only. It was the quietest spot in
the world, and inspired just that sort of feeling in the contemplative
stranger which would be awakened by a ramble among the roofless
ruins of the ancient abbey. It was a home for contemplation--in
which one might easily forget the busy world without, and deliver
himself up, without an effort, to the sweetly sad musings of the
anchorite.

The place was occupied, however. A human heart beat within the
humble shed, and there was a spirit, sheltered by its quiet, that
mused many high thoughts, and dreamed in equal congratulation and
self-reproach, of that busy world from which it was an exile. The
visit of William Hinkley was not paid to the solitude. A venerable
man, of large frame, and benignant aspect, sat beneath an aged
tree, paternal in its appearance like himself. This person might be
between fifty and sixty years of age. His hair, though very thick
and vigorous, was as white as driven snow. But there were few wrinkles
on his face, and his complexion was the clear red and white of a
healthy and sanguine temperament. His brow was large and lofty. It
had many more wrinkles than his face. There were two large horizontal
seams upon it that denoted the exercise of a very busy thought.
But the expression of his eye was that of the most unembarrassed
benevolence and peace. It was subdued and sometimes sad, but then
it had the sweetest, playfullest twinkle in the world. His mouth,
which was small and beautifully formed, wore a similar expression.
In short he was what we would call a handsome old gentleman, whose
appearance did not offend taste, and whose kind looks invited
confidence. Nor would we mistake his character.

This person was the Mr. Calvert, the schoolmaster of the village,
of whom Mrs. Hinkley spoke to Alfred Stevens in discussing
the condition of her son. His tasks were over for the day. The
light-hearted rabble whom he taught, released from his dominion which
was not severe, were, by this time, scampering over the hills, as
far from their usual place of restraint as the moderate strength of
their legs could carry them. Though let loose, boys are not apt to
feel their liberty in its prime and freshness, immediately in the
neighborhood of the schoolhouse. The old gentleman left to himself,
sat out in the open air, beneath a massive oak, the paternal stretching
of whose venerable arms not unfrequently led to the employment of
the shade below for carrying on the operations of the schoolhouse.
There, squat on their haunches, the sturdy boys--germs of the finest
peasantry in the world--surrounded their teacher in a group quite
as pleasing as picturesque. The sway of the old man was paternal.
His rod was rather a figurative than a real existence; and when
driven to the use of the birch, the good man, consulting more
tastes than one, employed the switch from the peach or some other
odorous tree or shrub, in order to reconcile the lad, as well as
he could, to the extraordinary application. He was one of those
considerate persons, who disguise pills in gold-leaf, and if compelled,
as a judge, to hang a gentleman, would decree that a rope of silk
should carry out the painful requisitions of the laws.

Seated beneath his tree, in nearly the same spot and position in
which he had dismissed his pupils, William Calvert pored over the
pages of a volume as huge of size as it was musty of appearance.
It was that pleasant book--quite as much romance as history--the
"Knights of Malta," by our venerable father, Monsieur L'Abbe
Vertot. Its dull, dim, yellow-looking pages--how yellow, dim, and
dull-looking in comparison with more youthful works--had yet a
life and soul which it is not easy to find in many of these latter.
Its high wrought and elaborate pictures of strife, and toil, and
bloodshed, grew vividly before the old man's eyes; and then, to help
the illusion, were there not the portraits--mark me--the veritable
portraits, engraved on copper, with all their titles, badges, and
insignia, done to the life, of all those brave, grand, and famous
masters of the order, by whom the deeds were enacted which he
read, and who stared out upon his eyes, at every epoch, in full
confirmation of the veracious narrative? No wonder that the old
man became heedless of external objects. No wonder he forgot the
noise of the retiring urchins, and the toils of the day, as, for
the twentieth time, he glowed in the brave recital of the famous
siege--the baffled fury of the Turk--the unshaken constancy and
unremitted valor of the few but fearless defenders. The blood in
his cheek might be seen hastening to and fro in accordance with the
events of which he read. His eye was glowing--his pulse beating,
and he half started from his seat, as, hearing a slight footstep,
he turned to encounter the respectful homage of his former pupil,
still his friend, our young acquaintance, William Hinkley.

The old man laid down his book upon the grass, extended his hand
to his visiter, and leaning back against the tree, surrendered
himself to a quiet chuckle in which there was the hesitancy of a
little shame.

"You surprised me, William," he said; "when I read old Vertot,
and such books, I feel myself a boy again. You must have seen my
emotion. I really had got so warm, that I was about to start up and
look for the weapons of war; and had you but come a moment later,
you might have suffered an assault. As it was, I took you for
a Turk--Solyman himself--and was beginning to ask myself whether
I should attack you tooth and nail, having no other weapons, or
propose terms of peace. Considering the severe losses which you--I
mean his Turkish highness--had sustained, I fancied that you would
not be disinclined to an arrangement just at this moment. But
this very notion, at the same time, led me to the conclusion that
I might end the struggle for ever by another blow. A moment later,
my boy, and you might have been compelled to endure it for the
Turk."

The youth smiled sadly as he replied: "I must borrow that book
from you, sir, some of these days. I have often thought to do so,
but I am afraid."

"Afraid of what, William?"

"That it will turn my head, sir, and make me dislike more difficult
studies."

"It is a reasonable fear, my son; but there is no danger of this
sort, if we will only take heed of one rule, and that is, to take
such books as we take sweetmeats--in very small quantities at a
time, and never to interfere with the main repast. I suspect that
light reading--or reading which we usually call light, but which,
as it concerns the fate of man in his most serious relations, his
hopes, his affections, his heart, nay, his very people and nation--is
scarcely less important than any other. I suspect that this sort
of reading would be of great service to the student, by relieving
the solemnity of more tedious and exacting studies, if taken sparingly
and at allotted hours. The student usually finds a recreation of
some kind. I would make books of this description his recreation.
Many a thick-headed and sour parent has forced his son into
a beer-shop, into the tastes for tobacco and consequently brandy,
simply from denying him amusements which equally warm the blood
and elevate the imagination. Studies which merely inform the head
are very apt to endanger the heart. This is the reproach usually
urged against the class of persons whom we call thorough lawyers.
Their intense devotion to that narrow sphere of law which leaves
out jury-pleading, is very apt to endanger the existence of feeling
and imagination. The mere analysis of external principles begets a
degree of moral indifference to all things else, which really impairs
the intellect by depriving it of its highest sources of stimulus.
Mathematicians suffer in the same way--become mere machines, and
forfeit, in their concern for figures, all the social and most
of the human characteristics. The mind is always enfeebled by any
pursuit so single and absorbing in its aims as to leave out of
exercise any of the moral faculties. That course of study is the
only one to make a truly great man, which compels the mind to do
all things of which it is capable."

"But how do you reconcile this, sir, with the opinion, so generally
entertained, that no one man can serve two masters? Law, like the
muse, is a jealous mistress. She is said to suffer no lachesse to
escape with impunity."

"You mistake me. While I counsel one to go out of his profession
for relief and recreation, I still counsel but the one pursuit. Men
fail in their professions, not because they daily assign an hour
to amusement, but because they halt in a perpetual struggle between
some two leading objects. For example, nothing is more frequent in
our country than to combine law and politics. Nothing is more apt
to ruin the lawyer."

"Very true, sir. I now understand you. But I should think the great
difficulty would be, in resorting to such pleasant books as this
of Vertot for relief and recreation, that you could not cast him
off when you please. The intoxication would continue even after
the draught has been swallowed, and would thus interfere with the
hours devoted to other employments."

"There is reason in that, William, and that, indeed, is the grand
difficulty. But to show that a good scheme has its difficulties is
not an argument for abandoning it."

"By no means, sir."

"The same individual whom Vertot might intoxicate, would most
probably be intoxicated by more dangerous stimulants. Everything,
however, depends upon the habits of self-control which a man has
acquired in his boyhood. The habit of self-control is the only
habit which makes mental power truly effective. The man who can not
compel himself to do or to forbear, can never be much of a student.
Students, if you observe, are generally dogged men--inflexible,
plodding, persevering--among lawyers, those men whom you always
find at their offices, and seldom see anywhere else. They own
that mental habit which we call self-control, which supplies the
deficiency in numerous instances of real talent. It is a power,
and a mighty power, particularly in this country, where children
are seldom taught it, and consequently grow up to be a sort of moral
vanes that move with every change of wind, and never fix until they
do so with their own rust. He who learns this power in boyhood will
be very sure to master all his companions."

The darker expression of sadness passed over the countenance of
the ingenuous youth.

"I am afraid," said he, "that I shall never acquire this habit."

"Why so? In your very fear I see a hope."

"Alas! sir, I feel my own instability of character. I feel myself
the victim of a thousand plans and purposes, which change as soon
and as often as they are made. I am afraid, sir, I shall be nothing!"

"Do not despond, my son," said the old man sympathizingly. "Your
fear is natural to your age and temperament. Most young men at
your time of life feel numerous yearnings--the struggle of various
qualities of mind, each striving in newly-born activity, and
striving adversely. Your unhappiness arises from the refusal of
these qualities to act together. When they learn to co-operate, all
will be easy. Your strifes will be subdued; there will be a calm
like that upon the sea when the storms subside."

"Ah! but when will that be? A long time yet. It seems to me that
the storm rather increases than subsides."

"It may seem so to you now, and yet, when the strife is greatest,
the favorable change is at hand. It needs but one thing to make
all the conflicting qualities of one's mind cooperate."

"What is that one thing, sir?"

"An object! As yet, you have none."

"None, sir!"

"None--or rather many--which is pretty much the same thing as having
none."

"I am not sure, sir--but it seems to me, sir, that I have an object."

"Indeed, William! are you sure?"

"I think so, sir."

"Well, name it,"

"I have ambition, sir."

"Ah! that is a passion, not an object. Does your ambition point in
one direction? Unless it does, it is objectless."

The youth was silent. The old man proceeded:--

"I am disposed to be severe with you, my son. There is no surer
sign of feebleness than in the constant beginnings and the never
performings of a mind. Know thyself, is the first lesson to learn.
Is it not very childish to talk of having ambition, without knowing
what to do with it? If we have ambition, it is given to us to work
with. You come to me, and declare this ambition! We confer together.
Your ambition seeks for utterance. You ask, 'What sort of utterance
will suit an ambition such as mine?' To answer this question,
we ask, 'What are your qualities?' Did you think, William, that I
disparaged yours when I recommended the law to you as a profession?"

"No, sir! oh, no! Perhaps you overrated them. I am afraid so--I
think so."

"No, William, unfortunately, you do not think about it. If you
would suffer yourself to think, you would speak a different language."

"I can not think--I am too miserable to think!" exclaimed the youth
in a burst of passion. The old man looked surprised. He gazed with
a serious anxiety into the youth's face, and then addressed him:--

"Where have you been, William, for the last three weeks? In all
that time I have not seen you."

A warm blush suffused the cheeks of the pupil. He did not immediately
answer.

"Ask ME!" exclaimed a voice from behind them, which they both
instantly recognised as that of Ned Hinkley, the cousin of William.
He had approached them, in the earnestness of their interview,
without having disturbed them. The bold youth was habited in a
rough woodman's dress. He wore a round jacket of homespun, and in
his hand he carried a couple of fishing-rods, which, with certain
other implements, betiayed sufficiently the object of his present
pursuit.

"Ask me!" said he. "I can tell you what he's been about better than
anybody else."

"Well, Ned," said the old man, "what has it been? I am afraid it
is your fiddle that keeps him from his Blackstone."

"My fiddle, indeed! If he would listen to my fiddle when she speaks
out, he'd be wiser and better for it. Look at him, Mr. Calvert, and
say whether it's book or fiddle that's likely to make him as lean
as a March pickerel in the short space of three months. Only look
at him, I say."

"Truly, William, I had not observed it before, but, as Ned says,
you do look thin, and you tell me you are unhappy. Hard study might
make you thin, but can not make you unhappy. What is it?"

The more volatile and freespoken cousin answered for him.

"He's been shot, gran'pa, since you saw him last."

"Shot?"

"Yes, shot!--He THINKS mortally. I think not. A flesh wound to my
thinking, that a few months more will cure."

"You have some joke at bottom, Edward," said the old man gravely.

"Joke, sir! It's a tough joke that cudgels a plump lad into a lean
one in a single season."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean to use your own language, gran'pa. Among the lessons
I got from you when you undertook to fill our heads with wisdom
by applications of smartness to a very different place--among the
books we sometimes read from was one of Master Ovid."

"Ha! ha! I see what you're after. I understand the shooting. So
you think that the blind boy has hit William, eh?"

"A flesh wound as I tell you; but he thinks the bolt is in his
heart. I'm sure it can and will be plucked out, and no death will
follow."

"Well! who's the maiden from whose eyes the arrow was barbed?"

"Margaret Cooper."

"Ah! indeed!" said the old man gravely.

"Do not heed him," exclaimed William Hinkley; but the blush upon
his cheeks, still increasing, spoke a different language.

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