Charlemont

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"No home! no hope!" he continued--"I am desolate."

"Not so, my son. God is our home; God is our companion; our
strength, our preserver! Living and loving, manfully striving and
working out our toils for deliverance, we are neither homeless,
nor hopeless; neither strengthless, nor fatherless; wanting neither
in substance nor companion. This is a sharp lesson, perhaps, but
a necessary one. It will give you that courage, of the great value
of which I spoke to you but a few days ago. Come with me to my
home; it shall be yours until you can find a better."

"I thank you--oh! how much I thank you. It may be all as you pay,
but I feel very, very miserable."

CHAPTER XXIV.

EXILE.

The artist in the moral world must be very careful not to suffer
his nice sense of retributive justice, to get so much the better
of his judgment, as an artist, as to make him forgetful of human
probabilities, and the superior duty of preparing the mind of the
young reader by sterling examples of patience and protracted reward,
to bear up manfully against injustice, and not to despond because
his rewards are slow. It would be very easy for an author to make
everybody good, or, if any were bad, to dismiss them, out of hand,
to purgatory and places even worse. But it would be a thankless
toil to read the writings of such an author. His characters would
fail in vraisemblance, and his incidents would lack in interest.
The world is a sort of vast moral lazar-house, in which most have
sores, either of greater or less degree of virulence. Some are
nurses, and doctors, and guardians; and these are necessarily free
from the diseases to which they minister. Some, though not many,
are entirely incurable; many labor for years in pain, and when
dismissed, still hobble along feebly, bearing the proofs of their
trials in ugly seams and blotches, contracted limbs, and pale,
haggard features. Others get off with a shorter and less severe
probation. None are free from taint, and those who are the most
free, are not always the greatest favorites with fortune.

We are speaking of the moral world, good reader. We simply borrow
an illustration from the physical. Our interest in one another is
very much derived from our knowledge of each other's infirmities;
and it may be remarked, passingly, that this interest is productive
of very excellent philosophical temper, since it enables us to bear
the worst misfortunes of our best friends with the most amazing
fortitude. It is a frequent error with the reader of a book--losing
sight of these facts--to expect that justice will always be done
on the instant. He will suffer no delay in the book, though he
sees that this delay of justice is one of the most decided of all
the moral certainties whether in life or law. He does not wish to
see the person in whom the author makes him interested, perish in
youth--die of broken heart or more rapid disaster; and if he could
be permitted to interfere, the bullet or the knife of the assassin
would be arrested at the proper moment and always turned against
the bosom of the wrong-doer.

This is a very commendable state of feeling, and whenever it occurs,
it clearly shows that the author is going right in his vocation.
It proves him to be a HUMAN author, which is something better than
being a mere, dry, moral one. But he would neither be a human nor
a moral author were he to comply with the desires of such gentle
readers, and, to satisfy their sympathies, arrest the progress
of events. The fates must have their way, in the book as in the
lazar-house; and the persons of his drama must endure their sores
and sufferings with what philosophy they may, until, under the
hands of that great physician, fortune, they receive an honorable
discharge or otherwise.

Were it with him, our young friend, William Hinkley, who is
really a clever fellow, should not only be received to favor with
all parties, but such should never have fallen from favor in the
minds of any. His father should become soon repentant, and having
convicted Stevens of his falsehood and hypocrisy, he should be rewarded
with the hand of the woman to whom his young heart is so devoted.
Such, perhaps, would be the universal wish with our readers; but
would this be fortunate for William Hinkley? Our venerable friend
and his, Mr. Calvert, has a very different opinion. He says:--

"This young man is not only a worthy young man, but he is one,
naturally of very vigorous intellect. He is of earnest, impassioned
temperament, full of enthusiasm and imagination; fitted for work--great
work--public work--head work--the noblest kind of work. He will be
a great lawyer--perhaps a great statesman--if he addresses himself
at once, manfully, to his tasks; but he will not address himself to
these tasks while he pursues the rusting and mind-destroying life
of a country village. Give him the object of his present desire
and you deprive him of all motive for exertion. Give him the woman
he seeks and you probably deprive him even of the degree of quiet
which the country village affords. He would forfeit happiness without
finding strength. Force him to the use of his tools and he builds
himself fame and fortune."

Calvert was really not sorry that William Hinkley's treatment had
been so harsh. He sympathized, it is true, in his sufferings, but
he was not blind to their probable advantages; and he positively
rejoiced in his rejection by Margaret Cooper.

It was some four or five days after the events with which our last
chapter was closed, that the old man and his young friend were to
be seen sitting together, under the shade of the venerable tree
where we have met them before. They had conferred together seriously,
and finally with agreeing minds, on the several topics which have
been adverted to in the preceding paragraph. William Hinkley had
become convinced that it was equally the policy of his mind and
heart to leave Charlemont. He was not so well satisfied, however, as
was the case with Mr. Calvert, that the loss of Margaret Cooper was
his exceeding gain. When did young lover come to such a conclusion?
Not, certainly, while he was young. But when was young lover wise?
Though a discontent, William Hinkley was not, however, soured
nor despairing from the denial of his hopes. He had resources of
thought and spirit never tested before, of the possession of which
he, himself, knew nothing. They were to be brought into use and
made valuable only by these very denials; by the baffling of his
hope; by the provocation of his strength.

His resolution grew rapidly in consequence of his disappointments.
He was now prepared to meet the wishes of his venerable and wise
preceptor--to grapple stoutly with the masters of the law; and,
keeping his heart in restraint, if not absolute abeyance, to do that
justice to his head, which, according to the opinion of Mr. Calvert,
it well-deserved if hitherto it had not demanded it. But to pursue
his studies as well as his practice, he was to leave Charlemont. How
was this to be done--where was he to go--by what means? A horse,
saddle, and bridle--a few books and the ante-revolutionary pistols of
his grandsire, which recent circumstances seemed to have endeared
to him, were all his available property. His poverty was an
estoppel, at the outset, to his own reflections; and thinking of
this difficulty he turned with a blank visage to his friend.

The old man seemed to enter into and imagine his thoughts. He did
not wait to be reminded, by the halting speech of the youth, of
the one subject from which the latter shrunk to speak.

"The next thing, my son," said he, "is the necessary means. Happily,
in the case of one so prudent and temperate as yourself, you will
not need much. Food and clothing, and a small sum, annually, for
contingencies, will be your chief expense; and this, I am fortunately
able to provide. I am not a rich man, my son; but economy and
temperance, with industry, have given me enough, and to spare. It
is long since I had resolved that all I have should be yours; and
I had laid aside small sums from time to time, intending them for
an occasion like the present, which I felt sure would at length
arrive. I am rejoiced that my foresight should have begun in time,
since it enables me to meet the necessity promptly, and to interpose
myself at the moment when you most need counsel and assistance."

"Oh, my friend, my kind generous friend, how it shames me for my
own father to hear you speak thus!"

The youth caught the hands of his benefactor, and the hot tears
fell from his eyes upon them, while he fervently bent to kiss them.

"Your father is a good but rough man, William, who will come to
his senses in good time. Men of his education--governed as he is by
the mistake which so commonly confounds God with his self-constituted
representative, religion with its professor--will err, and can not
be reasoned out of their errors. It is the unceasing operation of
time which can alone teach them a knowledge of the truth. You must
not think too hardly of your father, who does not love you the less
because he fancies you are his particular property, with whom he
may do what he pleases. As for what I have done, and am disposed
to do for you, let that not become burdensome to your gratitude.
In some respects you have been a son to me, and I send you from
me with the same reluctance which a father would feel in the like
circumstances. You have been my companion, you have helped to cheer
my solitude; and I have learned to look on the progress of your
mind with the interest of the philosopher who pursues a favorite
experiment. In educating you, I have attempted an experiment which
I should be sorry to see fail. I do not think now that it will
fail. I think you will do yourself and me ample justice. If I have
had my doubts, they were of your courage, not your talent. If you
have a weakness, it is because of a deficiency of self-esteem--a
tendency to self-disparagement. A little more actual struggle with
the world, and an utter withdrawal from those helps and hands which
in a youth's own home are very apt to be constantly employed to
keep him from falling, and to save him from the consequences of
his fall, and I do not despair of seeing you acquire that necessary
moral hardihood which will enable you to think freely, and to make
your mind give a fair utterance to the properties which are in
it. When this is done, I have every hope of you. You will rise to
eminence in your profession. I know, my son, that you will do me
honor."

"Ah, sir, I am afraid you overrate my abilities. I have no
consciousness of any such resources as you suppose me to possess."

"It is here that your deficiency speaks out. Be bold, my son--be
bold, bolder, boldest. I would not have you presumptuous, but there
is a courage, short of presumption, which is only a just confidence
in one's energies and moral determination. This you will soon
form, if, looking around you and into the performances of others,
you see how easy they are, and how far inferior they are to your
own ideas of what excellence should be. Do not look into yourself
for your standards. I have perhaps erred in making these too high.
Look out from yourself--look into others--analyze the properties
of others; and, in attempting, seek only to meet the exigencies of
the occasion, without asking what a great mind might effect beyond
it. Your heart will fail you always if your beau ideal is for ever
present to your mind."

"I will try, sir. My tasks are before me, and I know it is full time
that I should discard my boyhood. I will go to work with industry,
and will endeavor not to disappoint your confidence; but I must
confess, sir, I have very little in myself."

"If you will work seriously, William, my faith is in this very
humility. A man knowing his own weakness, and working to be strong,
can not fail. He must achieve something more than he strives for."

"You make me strong as I hear you, sir. But I have one request to
make, sir. I have a favor to ask, sir, which will make me almost
happy if you grant it--which will at least reconcile me to receive
your favors, and to feel them less oppressively."

"What is that, William? You know, my son, there are few things
which I could refuse you."

"It is that _I_ MAY BE YOUR SON; that I may call you father, and
bear henceforward your name. If you adopt me, rear me, teach me,
provide me with the means of education and life, and do for me
what a father should have done, you are substantially more than
my father to me. Let me bear, your name. I shall be proud of it,
sir. I will not disgrace it--nay, more, it will strengthen me in
my desire to do it and myself honor. When I hear it spoken, it will
remind me of my equal obligations to you and to myself."

"But this, my son, is a wrong done to your own father."

"Alas! he will not feel it such."

The old man shook his head.

"You speak now with a feeling of anger, William. The treatment of
your fether rankles in your mind."

"No, sir, no! I freely forgive him. I have no reference to him in
the prayer I make. My purpose is simply what I declare. Your name
will remind me of your counsels, will increase my obligation to
pursue them, will strengthen me in my determination, will be to
me a fond monitor in your place. Oh, sir, do not deny me! You have
shown me the affections of a father--let me, I entreat you, bear
the name of your son!"

The youth flung his arms about the old man's neck, and wept with
a gush of fondness which the venerable sire could not withstand.
He was deeply touched: his lips quivered; his eyes thrilled and
throbbed. In vain did he strive to resist the impulse. He gave him
tear for tear.

"My son, you have unmanned me."

"Ah, my father, I can not regret, since, in doing so, I have
strengthened my own manhood."

"If it have this effect, William, I shall not regret my own
weakness. There is a bird, you are aware, of which it is fabled
that it nourishes its young by the blood of its own bosom, which
it wounds for this purpose. Believe me, my dear boy, I am not
unwilling to be this bird for your sake. If to feel for you as the
fondest of fathers can give me the rights of one, then are you most
certainly my son--my son!"

Long, and fond, and sweet, was their embrace. For a full hour,
but few words, and those of a mournful tenderness, were exchanged
between the parties. But the scene and the struggle were drawing
nigh their close. This was the day when they were to separate. It
had been arranged that William Hinkley, or as he now calls himself,
William Calvert, was to go into the world. The old man had recalled
for his sake, many of the memories and associations of his youth.
He had revived that period--in his case one of equal bitterness
and pleasure--when, a youth like him he was about to send forth,
he had been the ardent student in a profession whose honors he had
so sadly failed to reap. In this profession he was then fortunate
in having many sterling friends. Some of these were still so. In
withdrawing from society, he had not withdrawn from all commerce
with a select and sacred few; and to the friendly counsel and
protection of these he now deputed the paternal trusts which had
been just so solemnly surrendered to himself. There were long and
earnest appeals written to many noble associates--men who had won
great names by dint of honorable struggle in those fields into which
the feebler temper of Mr. Calvert did not permit him to penetrate.
Some of these letters bore for their superscriptions such names as
the Clays, the Crittendens, and the Metcalfs--the strong men, not
merely of Kentucky, but of the Union. The good old man sighed as
he read them over, separately, to his young companion.

"Once I stood with them, and like them--not the meanest among
them--nay, beloved by them as an associate, and recognised as a
competitor. But they are here--strong, high, glorious, in the eye
of the nation--and I am nothing--a poor white-headed pedagogue in
the obscurest regions of Kentucky. Oh, my son, remember this, and
be strong! Beware of that weakness, the offspring of a miserable
vanity, which, claiming too much for itself, can bestow nothing
upon others. Strive only to meet the exigency, and you will do
more--you will pass beyond it. Ask not what your fame requires--the
poor fame of a solitary man struggling like an atom in the bosom
of the great struggling world--ask only what is due to the task
which you have assumed, and labor to do that. This is the simple,
small secret, but be sure it is the one which is of more importance
than all beside."

The departure of William Hinkley from his native village was kept
a profound secret from all persons except his adopted father and
his bosom friend and cousin, Fisherman Ned. We have lost sight of
this young man for several pages, and, in justice equally to the
reader and himself, it is necessary that we should hurriedly retrace
our progress, at least so far as concerns his. We left him, if we
rememoer, having driven Alfred Stevens from his purpose, riding
on alone, really with no other aim than to give circulation to his
limbs and fancies. His ride, if we are to believe his random but
significant words, and his very knowing looks, was not without
its results. He had certainly made some discoveries--at least he
thought and said so; but, in truth, we believe these amounted to
nothing more than some plausible conjectures as to the route which
Alfred Stevens was in the habit of pursuing, on those excursions,
in which the neighbors were disposed to think that there was something
very mysterious. He certainly had jumped to the conclusion that, on
such occasions, the journey of Stevens was prolonged to Ellisland;
and, as such a ride was too long for one of mere pleasure and
exercise, the next conclusion was, that such a journey had always
some business in it.

Now, a business that calls for so much secrecy, in a young student
of theology, was certainly one that could have very little relation
to the church. So far as Ned Hinkley knew anything of the Decalogue
it could not well relate to that. There was nothing in St. Paul
that required him to travel post to Ellisland; though a voyage to
Tarsus might be justified by the authority of that apostle; and
the whole proceeding, therefore, appeared to be a mystery in which
gospelling had very little to do. Very naturally, having arrived
at this conclusion, Ned Hinkley jumped to another. If the saints
have nothing to do with this journey of Alfred Stevens, the sinners
must have. It meant mischief--it was a device of Satan; and the
matter seemed so clearly made out to his own mind, that he returned
home with the further conviction, which was equally natural and
far more easily arrived at, that he was now bound by religion, as
he had previously been impelled by instinct, to give Stevens "a
regular licking the very first chance that offered." Still, though
determined on this measure, he was not unmindful of the necessity
of making other discoveries; and he returned to Charlemont with a
countenance big with importance and almost black with mystery.

But the events which had taken place in his absence, and which we
have already related, almost put his own peculiar purposes out of
his mind. That William Hinkley should have cowskinned Stevens would
have been much more gratifying to him could he have been present;
and he was almost disposed to join with the rest in their outcry
against this sacrilegious proceeding, for the simple reason, that
it somewhat anticipated his own rigorous intentions to the same
effect. He was not less dissatisfied with the next attempt for two
reasons.

"You might have known, Bill, that a parson won't fight with pistols.
You might have persuaded him to fist or cudgel, to a fair up and
down, hand over, fight! That's not so criminal, they think. I
heard once of Brother John Cross, himself trying a cudgel bout with
another parson down in Mississippi, because he took the same text
out of his mouth, and preached it over the very same day, with
contrary reason. Everybody said that John Cross served him right,
and nobody blamed either. But they would have done so if pistols
had been used. You can't expect parsons or students of religion to
fight with firearms. Swords, now, they think justifiable, for St.
Peter used them; but we read nowhere in Old or New Testament of
their using guns, pistols, or rifles."

"But he consented to fight, and brought his own pistols, Ned?"

"Why, then, didn't you fight? That's the next thing I blame you
for--that, when you were both ready, and had the puppies in your
hands, you should have stood looking at each other without taking
a crack. By jingo, had there been fifty fathers and mothers in
the bush, I'd have had a crack at him. No, I blame you, William--I
can't help it. You didn't do right. Oh! if you had only waited for
me, and let me have fixed it, how finely we would have managed.
What then, if your father had burst in, it was only shifting the
barkers from your hands to mine. I'd have banged at him, though
John Cross himself, and all his flock, stood by and kneed it to
prevent me. They might have prayed to all eternity without stopping
me, I tell you."

William Hinkley muttered something about the more impressive sort
of procedure which his father had resorted to, and a little soreness
about the parietal bones just at that moment giving a quick impatient
air to his manner, had the effect of putting an end to all further
discussion of this topic. Fisherman Ned concluded with a brief
assurance, meant as consolation, that, when he took up the cudgels,
his cousin need make himself perfectly easy with the conviction that
he would balance both accounts very effectually. He had previously
exhorted William to renew the attempt, though with different weapons,
to bring his enemy into the field; but against this attempt Mr.
Calvert had already impressively enjoined him; exacting from him
a promise that he would not seek Stevens, and would simply abide
any call for satisfaction which the latter might make. The worthy
old man was well assured that in Stevens's situation there was very
little likelihood of a summons to the field from him.

Still, William Hinkley did not deem it becoming in him to leave the
ground for several days, even after his preparations for departure
were complete. He loitered in the neighborhood, showed himself
frequently to his enemy, and, on some of these occasions, was
subjected to the mortification of beholding the latter on his way
to the house of Margaret Cooper, with whom, a few moments after, he
might be seen in lonely rambles by the lake-side and in the wood.
William had conquered his hopes from this quarter, but he vainly
endeavored to suppress his pangs.

At length the morning came for his departure. He had seen his mother
for the last time the night before. They had met at the house of
the widow Hinkley, between which and that of Calvert, his time had
been chiefly spent, since the day of his affair with Stevens. His
determination to depart was carefully concealed from his mother.
He dreaded to hear her entreaties, and he doubted his own strength
to endure them. His deportment, however, was sufficiently fond and
tender, full of pain and passion, to have convinced her, had she
been at all suspicious of the truth, of the design he meditated.
But, as it was, it simply satisfied her affections; and the fond
"good night" with which he addressed her ears at parting, was
followed by a gush of tears which shocked the more sturdy courage
of his cousin, and aroused the suspicions of the widow.

"William Hinkley," she said after the mother had gone home--"you
must be thinking to leave Charlemont. I'm sure of it--I know it."

"If you do, say nothing, dear cousin; it will do no good--it can
not prevent me now, and will only make our parting more painful."

"Oh, don't fear me," said the widow--"I shan't speak of it, till
it's known to everybody, for I think you right to go and do just
as Gran'pa Calvert tells you; but you needn't have made it such a
secret with me. I've always been too much of your friend to say a
word."

"Alas!" said the youth mournfully, "until lately, dear cousin,
I fancied that I had no friends--do not blame me, therefore, if I
still sometimes act as if I had none."

"You have many friends, William, already--I'm sure you will find
many more wherever you go; abler friends if not fonder ones, than
you leave behind you."

The youth threw his arms round the widow's neck and kissed her
tenderly. Her words sounded in his ears like some melodious prophecy.

"Say no more, cousin," he exclaimed with sudden enthusiasm; "I am
so well pleased to believe what you promise me of the future, that
I am willing to believe all. God bless you. I will never forget
you."

The parting with Calvert was more touching in reality, but with
fewer of the external signs of feeling. A few words, a single
embrace and squeeze of the hand, and they separated; the old man
hiding himself and his feelings in the dimness of his secluded
abode, while his adopted son, with whom Ned Hinkley rode a brief
distance on his way, struck spurs into his steed, as if to lose, in
the rapid motion of the animal, the slow, sad feelings which were
pressing heavily upon his heart. He had left Charlemont for ever.
He had left it under circumstances of doubt, and despondency--stung
by injustice, and baffled in the first ardent hopes of his youthful
mind. "The world was all before him, where to choose." Let us not
doubt that the benignant Providence is still his guide.

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