Charlemont

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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.

CHAPTER XVI.

SOUSING A GURNET.

The disappearance of Margaret Cooper was succeeded by a shriek
from above--a single shriek--a cry of terror and despair; and in
the same instant the form of William Hinkley might have been seen
cleaving the air, with the boldness of a bird, secure always of
his wing, and descending into the lake as nearly as it was possible
for him to come, to the spot where she had sunk. Our cooler fisherman
looked up to the abrupt eminence, just above his own head, from
which his devoted cousin had sprung.

"By gemini!" he exclaimed with an air of serious apprehension, "if
William Hinkley hasn't knocked his life out by that plunge he's
more lucky than I think him. It's well the lake's deep enough in
this quarter else he'd have tried the strength of hard head against
harder rock below. But there's no time for such nice calculations!
We can all swim--that's a comfort."

Thus speaking, he followed the example of his cousin, though more
quietly, plunging off from his lowlier perch, and cleaving the
water, headforemost, with as little commotion as a sullen stone would
make sent directly downward to the deep. By this time, however,
our former companion, Stevens, had done the same thing. Stevens
was no coward, but he had no enthusiasm. He obeyed few impulses.
His proceedings were all the result of calculation. He could swim
as well as his neighbors. He had no apprehensions on that score;
but he disliked cold water; and there was an involuntary shrug of
the shoulder and shiver of the limbs before he committed himself
to the water, which he did with all the deliberation of the cat,
who, longing for fish, is yet unwilling to wet her own feet. His
deliberation, and the nearness of his position to Margaret Cooper,
were so far favorable to his design that he succeeded in finding
her first. It must be understood that the events, which we have
taken so much time to tell, occupied but a few seconds in the
performance. Stevens was in the water quite as quickly as Ned
Hinkley, and only not so soon as his more devoted and desperate
cousin. If it was an advantage to him to come first in contact
with the form of Margaret Cooper, it had nearly proved fatal to
him also. In the moment when he encountered her, her outstretched
and grasping arms, encircled his neck. They rose together, but he
was nearly strangled, and but for the timely interposition of the
two cousins, they must probably have both perished.

It was the fortune of our fisherman to relieve the maiden, whom
he bore to the opposite shore with a coolness, a skill and spirit,
which enabled him to save himself from her desperate but unconscious
struggles, while supporting her with a degree of ease and strength
which had been acquired while teaching some dozen of the village
urchins how to practise an art in which he himself was reckoned a
great proficient.

It was fortunate for Stevens that the charities of William Hinkley
were more active and indulgent than his own, since, without the
timely succor and aid which he afforded, that devout young gentleman
would have been made to discontinue his studies very suddenly and
have furnished a summary conclusion to this veracious narrative--a
consummation which, if it be as devoutly wished by the reader
as by the writer, will be a much greater source of annoyance to
our publisher than it has proved already. Never had poor mortal
been compelled to drink, at one time, a greater quantity of that
celestial beverage, which the Reverend Mr. Pierpont insists is the
only liquor drunk at the hotels of heaven. We should be sorry to
misrepresent that very gentle gentleman, but we believe that this
is substantially his idea. It was unfortunate for Stevens that,
previously to this, he had never been accustomed to drink much of
this beverage in its original strength anywhere. He had been too
much in the habit of diluting it; and being very temperate always
in his enjoyment of the creature comforts, he had never taken it,
even when thus diluted, except in very moderate quantities.

In consequence of his former abstemiousness, the quantity which
he now swallowed nearly strangled him. He was about to take his
last draught with many wry faces, when the timely arms of the two
cousins, by no very sparing application of force withdrew him from
the grasp of the damsel; and without very well understanding the
process, or any particulars of his extrication, he found himself
stretched upon the banks over which he had lately wandered, never
dreaming of any such catastrophe; discharging from his stomach by
no effort of his own, a large quantity of foreign ingredients--the
ordinary effect, we are given to understand, of every inordinate
indulgence in strong waters.

Our excellent old friend, Mr. Calvert, was soon upon the spot, and
while Ned Hinkley was despatched to the village for assistance,
he took himself the charge of recovering the unconscious maiden.
Half-forgetting his hostility, William Hinkley undertook the same
good service to Stevens, who really seemed to need succor much more
than his fair companion. While William Hinkley busied himself by
rolling, friction, fanning, and other practices, employed in such
cases, to bring his patient back to life, he could not forbear an
occasional glance to the spot where, at a little distance, lay the
object of his affections.

Her face was toward him, as she lay upon her side. Her head was
supported on the lap of the old man. Her long hair hung dishevelled,
of a more glossy black now when filled with water. Her eyes were
shut, and the dark fringes of their lids lay like a pencil-streak
across the pale, prominent orbs which they served to bind together.
The glow of indignant pride with which she was wont to receive
his approaches had all disappeared in the mortal struggle for life
through which she had lately gone; and pure, as seemingly free
from every passion, her pale beauties appeared to his doating eye
the very perfection of human loveliness. Her breast now heaved
convulsively--deep sighs poured their way through her parted lips.
Her eyes alternately opened upon but shut against the light, and,
finally, the exertions of the old man were rewarded as the golden
gleam of expression began to relight and reillumine those features
which seemed never to be without it.

She recovered her consciousness, started up, made an effort to
rise, but, reeling with inability, sunk down again into the paternal
grasp of the old man.

"Mr. Calvert!" she murmured.

"You are safe, my daughter," said the old man.

"But how did it happen?--where am I?"

"By the lake."

"Ah! I remember. I was drowning. I felt it all--the choking--the
struggle--the water in my ears and eyes! It was a dreadful feeling.
How did I come here? Who saved me?"

"Ned Hinkley brought you to land, but he was helped by his cousin
William, who assisted the stranger."

"The stranger? ah! yes, I remember: but where is he?"

She looked around wildly and anxiously, and beholding William
Hinkley at a little distance, busy with the still unconscious form
of Stevens, a quick, fearful shudder passed over her frame. She
almost crouched into the old man's arms as she asked, in husky
accents--

"He is not dead--he lives?"

"I hope so. He breathes."

She waited for no more, but, starting to her feet, she staggered to
the spot where Stevens lay. The old man would have prevented her.

"You are feeble; you will do yourself harm. Better, if you are able
to walk, hurry homeward with me, when you can change your clothes."

"Would you have me ungrateful?" she exclaimed; "shall I neglect
him when he risked his life for me?"

There was a consciousness in her mind that it was not all gratitude
which moved her, for the deathly paleness of her cheek was now
succeeded by a warm blush which denoted a yet stronger and warmer
emotion. The keen eyes of William Hinkley understood the meaning of
this significant but unsyllabling mode of utterance, and his eyes
spoke the reproach to hers which his lips left unsaid:--

"Ah! did I not risk my life too, to prevent--to save? When would
she feel such an interest in me? when would she look thus were my
life at stake?"

"He will not be neglected," said the old man, gently endeavoring
to restrain her. Perhaps she would not have given much heed to
the interruption, for hers was the strength of an unfettered will,
one accustomed to have way, but that, at this moment, the eyes of
Stevens unclosed and met her own. His consciousness had returned,
and, under the increasing expression in his looks, she sunk back,
and permitted the old man to lead her along the homeward path. More
than once she looked back, but, with the assurance of Mr. Calvert
that there was no more danger to be apprehended, she continued to
advance; the worthy old man, as they went, seeking to divert her
mind, by pleasant and choice anecdotes of which his memory had
abundant stores, from dwelling upon the unpleasant and exciting
event which had just taken place.

Margaret Cooper, whose habits previously had kept her from much
intimacy with the village sage, was insensibly taken by his gentleness,
the purity of his taste, the choiceness of his expression, the
extent of his resources. She wondered how a mind so full should have
remained unknown to her so long--committing the error, very common
to persons of strong will and determined self-esteem, of assuming
that she should, as a matter of inevitable necessity, have known
everything and everybody of which the knowledge is at all desirable.

In pleasant discourse he beguiled her progress, until Ned Hinkley
was met returning with horses--the pathway did not admit of a vehicle,
and the village had none less cumbrous than cart and wagon--on
one of which she mounted, refusing all support or assistance; and
when, Mr. Calvert insisted upon walking beside her, she grasped
the bough of a tree, broke off a switch, and, giving an arch but
good-natured smile and nod to the old man, laid it smartly over
the horse's flank, and in a few moments was out of sight.

"The girl is smart," said Calvert, as he followed her retreating
form with his eye--"too smart! She speaks well--has evidently read.
No wonder that William loves her; but she will never do for him.
She has no humility. Pride is the demon in her heart. Pride will
overthrow her. These woods spoil her. Solitude is the natural nurse
of self-esteem, particularly where it is strong at first, and is
coupled with anything like talent. Better for such a one if sickness,
and strife, and suffering, had taken her at the cradle, and nursed
her with the milk of self-denial, which is the only humility worth
having. And yet, why should I speak of her, when the sting remains
in my own soul--when I yet feel the pang of my feebleness and
self-reproach? Alas! I should school none. The voice speaks to me
ever, 'Old man, to thy prayers! Thy own knees are yet stubborn as
thy neck!'"

Leaving him to the becoming abasement of that delusive self-comfort
which ministers to our vain-glory, and which this good old man had
so happily succeeded in rebuking, we will return to the spot where
we left our other parties. Ned Hinkley had already joined them.
With his horse he had providently brought a suit of his own clothes
for the stranger, which, though made of homespun, and not of the
most modern fashion, were yet warm and comfortable, and as Stevens
was compelled to think, infinitely preferable to the chilly and
dripping garments which he wore. A few moments, in the cover of
the woods, sufficed the neophyte to make the alteration; while the
two cousins, to whom the exigencies of forester and fisherman life
were more familiar prepared to walk the water out of their own
habits, by giving rapid circulation to their blood and limbs. While
their preparations were in progress, however, Ned Hinkley could not
deny himself the pleasure of discoursing at length on the subject
of the late disaster.

"Stranger," he said, "I must tell you that you've had a souse in
as fine a fishing-pond as you'll meet with from here to Salt river.
I reckon, now, that while you were in, you never thought for a
moment of the noble trout that inhabit it."

"I certainly did not," said the other.

"There, now! I could have sworn it. That a man should go with his
eyes open into a country without ever asking what sort of folks
lived there! Isn't it monstrous?"

"It certainly seems like a neglect of the first duty of a traveller,"
said Stevens good-humoredly; "let me not show myself heedless of
another. Let me thank you, gentlemen, for saving my life. I believe
I owe it to one or both of you."

"To him, not to me," said Ned Hinkley, pointing to his cousin.
William was at a little distance, looking sullenly upon the two
with eyes which, if dark and moody, seemed to denote a thought
which was anywhere else but in the scene around him.

"He saved you, and I saved the woman. I wouldn't have a woman
drowned in this lake for all the houses in Charlemont."

"Ah! why?"

"'Twould spoil it for fishing for ever."

"Why would a woman do this more than a man?"

"For a very good reason, my friend. Because the ghost of a woman
talks, and a man's don't, they say. The ghost of a man says what
it wants to say with its eyes; a woman's with her tongue. You know
there's nothing scares fish so much as one's talking."

"I have heard so. But is it so clear that there is such a difference
between ghosts? How is it known that the female does all the
talking?"

"Oh, that's beyond dispute. There's a case that we all know
about--all here in Charlemont--the case of Joe Barney's millpond.
Barney lost one of his children and one of his negroes in the
pond--drowned as a judgment, they say, for fishing a Sunday. That
didn't make any difference with the fish: you could catch them there
just the same as before. But when old Mrs. Prey fell in, crossing
the dam, the case was altered. You might sit there for hours and
days, night and day, and bob till you were weary; devil a bite after
that! Now, what could make the difference but the tongue? Mother
Frey had a tongue of her own, I tell you. 'Twas going when she
fell in, and I reckon's been going ever since. She was a sulphury,
spiteful body, to be sure, and some said she poisoned the fish if
she didn't scare them. To my thinking, 'twas the tongue."

Stevens had been something seduced from his gravity by the blunt
humor and unexpected manner of Ned Hinkley; besides, having been
served, if not saved, by his hands, something, perhaps, of attention
was due to what he had to say; but he recollected the assumed
character which he had to maintain--something doubtful, too, if
he had not already impaired it in the sight and hearing of those
who had come so opportunely but so unexpectedly to his relief, He
recovered his composure and dignity; forbore to smile at the story
which might otherwise have provoked not only smile but corresponding
answer; and, by the sudden coolness of his manner, tended to confirm
in Ned Hinkley's bosom the half-formed hostility which the cause
of his cousin had originally taught him to feel.

"I'll lick the conceit out of him yet!" he muttered, as Stevens,
turning away, ascended to the spot where William Hinkley stood.

"I owe you thanks, Mr. Hinkley," he began.

The young man interrupted him.

"You owe me nothing, sir," he answered hastily, and prepared to
turn away.

"You have saved my life, sir."

"I should have saved your dog's life, sir, in the same situation.
I have done but an act of duty."

"But, Mr. Hinkley--"

"Your horse is ready for you, sir," said the young man, turning
off abruptly, and darting up the sides of the hill, remote from
the pathway, and burying himself in the contiguous forests.

"Strange!" exclaimed the neophyte--"this is very strange!"

"Not so strange, stranger, as that I should stand your groom, without
being brought up to such a business for any man. Here's your nag,
sir."

"I thank you--I would not willingly trespass," he replied, as he
relieved our angler from his grasp upon the bridle.

"You're welcome without the thanks, stranger. I reckon you know
the route you come. Up hill, follow the track to the top, take the
left turn to the valley, then you'll see the houses, and can follow
your own nose or your nag's. Either's straight enough to carry you
to his rack. You'll find your clothes at your boarding-house about
the time that you'll get there."

"Nay, sir, I already owe you much. Let them not trouble you. I will
take them myself."

"No, no, stranger!" was the reply of our fisherman, as he stooped
down and busied himself in making the garments into a compact bundle;
"I'm not the man to leave off without doing the thing I begin to
do. I sometimes do more than I bargain for--sometimes lick a man
soundly when I set out only to tweak his nose; but I make it a
sort of Christian law never to do less. You may reckon to find your
clothes home by the time you get there. There's your road."

"A regular pair of cubs!" muttered the horseman, as he ascended
the hill.

"To purse up his mouth as if I was giving him root-drink, when I
was telling him about Mother Frey's spoiling the fish! Let him take
care--he may get the vinegar next time, and not the fish!"

And, with these characteristic commentaries, the parties separated
for the time.

CHAPTER XVII.

PHILOSOPHY OP FIGHTING.

"You're not a fighter, Bill Hinkley, and that's about the worst
fault that I can find against you."

Such was the beginning of a dialogue between the cousins some
three days after the affair which was narrated in our last chapter.
The two young men were at the house of the speaker, or rather at
his mother's house; where, a favorite and only son, he had almost
supreme dominion. He was putting his violin in tune, and the
sentences were spoken at intervals with the discordant scraps of
sound which were necessarily elicited by this unavoidable musical
operation. These sounds might be said to form a running accompaniment
for the dialogue, and, considering the sombre mood of the person
addressed, they were, perhaps, far more congenial than any more
euphonious strains would have been.

"Not a fighter!" said the other; "why, what do you mean?"

"Why, just what I say--you are not a fighter. You love reading, and
fiddling, and fishing sometimes, and sometimes dancing, and hunting,
and swimming; but I'm pretty certain you don't love fighting. You
needn't contradict, Bill--I've been thinking the matter over; and
I'm sure of it. I recollect every battle or scrape you ever were
in, from the time we went to old Chandler's, and I tell you, you're
not a fighter--you don't love fighting!"

This was concluded with a tremendous scrape over the strings,
which seemed to say as well as scrape could speak--"There can be
no mistake on the subject--I've said it."

"If I knew exactly what you were driving at," said the other, "perhaps
I might answer you. I never pretended to be a fighter; and as for
loving it, as I love eating, drinking, books, fiddling, and dancing,
why that needs no answer. Of course I do not, and I don't know who
does."

"There it is. I told you. I knew it. You'd sooner do almost anything
than fight."

"If you mean that I would submit to insult," said the more peaceable
cousin, with some displeasure in his tones and countenance, "sooner
than resent it, you are very much mistaken. It wouldn't be advisable
even for you to try the experiment."

"Poh, poh, Bill, you know for that matter that it wouldn't take
much trying. I'd lick you as easily now as I did when we were boys
together."

"We are boys no longer," said the other gravely.

"I'm as much a boy as ever, so far as the licking capacity calls
for boyhood. I've pretty much the same spirit now that I had then,
and ten times the same strength and activity. But don't look so
blue. I'm not going to try my strength and spirit and activity on
you. And don't suppose, Bill Hinkley, that I mean to say you're
anything of a coward, or that you'd submit to any open insult; but
still I do say, you're not only not fond of fighting, but you're
just not as much inclined that way as you should be."

"Indeed! what more would you have? Do you not say that I would not
submit to insult?--that I show the proper degree of courage in such
cases?"

"Not the PROPER degree. That's the very question. You're not quick
enough. You wait for the first blow. You don't step out to meet
the enemy. You look for him to come to you."

"Surely! I look upon fighting as brutal--to be waited for, not
sought--to be resorted to only in compliance with necessity--to be
avoided to the last!"

"No such thing--all a mistake. Fighting and the desire to get on
the shoulders of our neighbors is a natural passion. We see that
every day. The biggest boy licks the one just below him, he whips
the next, and so down, and there's not one that don't lick somebody
and don't stand licked himself--for the master licks the biggest.
The desire to fight and flog is natural, and this being the case,
it stands to reason that we must lick our neighbor or he'll be sure
to lick us."

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