Charlemont

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"And you've kept them mighty well, gran'pa," replied the young man,
as he contemplated with an eye of anxious admiration, the polish
of the steel barrels, the nice carving of the handles, and the
fantastic but graceful inlay of the silver-mounting and setting.
The old man regarded him with a smile.

"Yes, Ned, I've kept them well. They have never taken life, though
they have been repeatedly tried upon bull's eye and tree-bark. If
you will promise me not to use them to-day, Ned, you shall have
them."

"Take 'em back, gran'pa."

"Why?"

"Why, I'd feel the meanest in the world to have a we'pon, and not
use it when there's a need to do so; and I'm half afraid that the
temptation of having such beautiful puppies for myself--twin-puppies,
I may say--having just the same look out of the eyes, and just the
same spots and marks, and, I reckon, just the same way of giving
tongue--I'm half afraid, I say, that to get to be the owner of
them, might tempt me to stand quiet and let a chap wink at me--maybe
laugh outright--may be suck in his breath, and give a phew-phew-whistle
just while I'm passing! No! no! gran'pa, take back your words, or
take back your puppies. Won't risk to carry both. I'd sooner take
Patsy Rifle, with all her weight, and no terms at all."

"Pshaw, Ned, you're a fool."

"That's no news, gran'pa, to you or me. But it don't alter the
case. Put up your puppies."

"No, Ned; you shall have them on your own terms. Take 'em as they
are. I give them to you."

"And I may shoot anybody I please this afternoon, gran'pa?"

"Ay, ay, Ned--; anybody--"

Thus far the old man, when he stopped himself, changed his manner,
which was that of playful good-humor, to that of gravity, while
his tones underwent a corresponding change--

"But, Ned, my son, while I leave it to your discretion, I yet beg
you to proceed cautiously--seek no strife, avoid it--go not into
the crowd--keep from them where you see them drinking, and do not
use these or any weapons for any trifling provocation. Nothing but
the last necessity of self-preservation justifies the taking of
life."

"Gran'pa--thank you--you've touched me in the very midst of my
tender-place, by this handsome present. One of these puppies I'll
name after you, and I'll notch it on the butt. The other I'll call
Bill Hinkley, and I won't notch that. Yours, I'll call my pacific
puppy, and I'll use it only for peace-making purposes. The other
I'll call my bull-pup, and him I'll use for baiting and butting,
and goring. But, as you beg, I promise you I'll keep 'em both out
of mischief as long as I can. Be certain sure that it won't be
my having the pups that'll make me get into a skrimmage a bit the
sooner; for I never was the man to ask whether my dogs were at hand
before I could say the word, 'set-on!' It's a sort of nature in a
man that don't stop to look after his weapons, but naturally expects
to find 'em any how, when his blood's up, and there's a necessity
to do."

This long speech and strong assurance of his pacific nature and
purposes, did not prevent the speaker from making, while he spoke,
certain dextrous uses of the instrument's which were given into his
hands. Right and left were equally busy; one muzzle was addressed
to the candle upon the mantelpiece, the other pursued the ambulatory
movements of a great black spider upon the wall. The old man surveyed
him with an irrepressible smile. Suddenly interrupting himself the
youth exclaimed:--

"Are they loaded, gran'pa?"

He was answered in the negative.

"Because, if they were," said he, "and that great black spider was
Brother Stevens, I'd show you in the twinkle of a musquito, how
I'd put a finish to his morning's work. But I'd use the bull-pup,
gran'pa--see, this one--the pacific one I'd empty upon him with
powder only, as a sort of feu de joie--and then I'd set up the
song--what's it? ah! Te Deum. A black spider always puts me in mind
of a rascal."

CHAPTER XXX.

THE FOX IN THE TRAP.

The youth barely stopped to swallow his breakfast, when be set
off from the village. He managed his movements with considerable
caution; and, fetching a circuit from an opposite quarter, after
having ridden some five miles out of his way, passed into the road
which he suspected that Stevens would pursue. We do not care to
show the detailed processes by which he arrived at this conclusion.
The reader may take for granted that he had heard from some way-side
farmer, that a stranger rode by his cottage once a week, wearing
such and such breeches, and mounted upon a nag of a certain color
and with certain qualities. Enough to say, that Ned Hinkley was
tolerably certain of his route and man.

He sped on accordingly--did not once hesitate at turns, right or
left, forks and crossroads, but keeping an inflexible course, he
placed himself at such a point on the road as to leave it no longer
doubtful, should Stevens pass, of the place which usually brought
him up. Here he dismounted, hurried his horse, out of sight
and hearing, into the woods, and choosing a position for himself,
with some nicety, along the road-side, put himself in close cover,
where, stretching his frame at length, he commenced the difficult
labor of cooling his impatience with his cogitations.

But cogitating, with a fellow of his blood, rather whets impatience.
He was monstrous restiff. At his fishing pond, with a trout to hook,
he would have lain for hours, as patient as philosophy itself, and
as inflexible as the solid rock over which he brooded. But without
an angle at his hand, how could he keep quiet? Not by thinking,
surely; and, least of all, by thinking about that person for whom
his hostility was so active. Thinking of Stevens, by a natural
association, reminded him of the pistols which Calvert had given
him. Nothing could be more natural than to draw them from his bosom.
Again and again he examined them in fascinated contemplation. He
had already charged them, and he amused himself by thinking of the
mischief he could do, by a single touch upon the trigger, to a poor
little wood-rat, that once or twice ran along a decaying log some
five steps from his feet. But his object being secrecy, the rat
brushed his whiskers in safety. Still he amused himself by aiming
at this and other objects, until suddenly reminded of the very
important difference which he had promised Calvert to make between
the pistols in his future use of them. With this recollection he
drew out his knife, and laid the weapons before him.

"This," said he, after a careful examination, in which he fancied
he discovered some slight difference between them in the hang of
the trigger--"this shall be my bull-pup--this my peace-maker!"

The latter was marked accordingly with a "P," carved rudely enough
by one whose hand was much more practised in slitting the weasand
of a buck, than in cutting out, with crayon, or Italian crow-quill,
the ungainly forms of the Roman alphabet. Ned Hinkley shook his
head with some misgiving when the work was done; as he could not
but see that he had somewhat impaired the beauty of the peacemaker's
butt by the hang-dog looking initial which he had grafted upon it.
But when he recollected the subordinate uses to which this "puppy"
was to be put, and considered how unlikely, in his case, it would
be exposed to sight in comparison with its more masculine brother,
he grew partially reconciled to an evil which was now, indeed,
irreparable.

It does not require that we should bother the reader with the
numberless thoughts and fancies which bothered our spy, in the three
mortal hours in which he kept his watch. Nothing but the hope that
he should ultimately be compensated to the utmost by a full discovery
of all that he sought to know, could possibly have sustained him
during the trying ordeal. At every new spasm of impatience which
he felt, he drew up his legs, shifted from one side to the other
and growled out some small thunder in the shape of a threat that
"it would be only so much the worse for him when the time came!"
HIM--meaning Stevens.

At last Stevens came. He watched the progress of his enemy with
keen eyes; and, with his "bull-pup" in his hand, which a sort of
instinct made him keep in the direction of the highway, he followed
his form upon the road. When he was out of sight and hearing, the
spy jumped to his feet. The game, he felt, was secure now--in one
respect at least.

"He's for Ellisland. That was no bad guess then. He might have been
for Fergus, or Jonesboro', or Debarre, but there's no turn now in
the clear track to Ellisland. He's there for certain."

Ned Hinkley carefully restored his pistols to his bosom and buttoned
up. He was mounted in a few moments, and pressing slowly forward
in pursuit. He had his own plans which we will not attempt to
fathom; but we fear we shall be compelled to admit that he was not
sufficiently a gentleman to scruple at turning scout in a time of
peace (though, with him, by the way, and thus he justified, he is
in pursuit of an enemy, and consequently is at war), and dodging
about, under cover, spying out the secrets of the land, and not
very fastidious in listening to conversation that does not exactly
concern him. We fear that there is some such flaw in the character
of Ned Hinkley, though, otherwise, a good, hardy fellow--with a
rough and tumble sort of good nature, which, having bloodied your
nose, would put a knife-handle down your back, and apply a handful
of cobwebs to the nasal extremity in order to arrest the haemorrhage.
We are sorry that there is such a defect in his character; but we
did not put it there. We should prefer that he should be perfect--the
reader will believe us--but there are grave lamentations enough
over the failures of humanity to render our homilies unnecessary.
Ned Hinkley was not a gentleman, and the only thing to be said in
his behalf, is, that he was modest enough to make pretensions to
the character. As he once said in a row the company muster:--

"I'm blackguard enough, on this occasion, to whip e'er a gentleman
among you!"

Without any dream of such a spectre at his heels to disturb his
imagination, Alfred Stevens was pursuing his way toward Ellisland,
at that easy travelling gait, which is the best for man and beast,
vulgarly called a "dog-trot." Some very fine and fanciful people
insist upon calling it a "jog-trot." We beg leave, in this place,
to set them right. Every trot is a jog, and so, for that matter,
is every canter. A dog-trot takes its name from the even motion of
the smaller quadruped, when it is seized with no particular mania,
and is yet disposed to go stubbornly forward. It is in more classical
dialect, the festina lente motion. It is regularly forward, and
therefore fast--it never puts the animal out of breath, and is
therefore slow. Nobody ever saw a dog practice this gait, with a
tin canister at his tail, and a huddle of schoolboys at his heels.
No! it is THE travelling motion, considering equally the health of
all parties, and the necessity of getting on.

In this desire, Ned Hinkley pressed too closely on the heels
of Stevens. He once nearly overhauled him; and falling back, he
subdued his speed, to what, in the same semi-figurative language,
he styled "the puppy-trot." Observing these respective gaits, Brother
Stevens rode into Ellisland at a moderately late dinner-hour, and
the pursuer followed at an unspeakable, but not great, distance
behind him. We will, henceforward, after a brief glance at
Ellisland, confine ourselves more particularly to the progress of
Brother Stevens.

Ellisland was one of those little villages to which geographers
scarcely accord a place upon the maps. It is not honored with a dot
in any map that we have ever seen of Kentucky. But, for all this,
it is a place! Some day the name will be changed into Acarnania or
Etolia, Epirus or Scandinavia, and then be sure you shall hear of
it. Already, the village lawyers--there are two of them--have been
discussing the propriety of a change to something classical; and
we do not doubt that, before long, their stupidity will become
infectious. Under these circumstances Ellisland will catch a name
that will stick. At present you would probably never hear of the
place, were it not necessary to our purposes and those of Brother
Stevens.

It has its tavern and blacksmith shop--its church--the meanest
fabric in the village--its postoffice and public well and trough.
There is also a rack pro bono publico, but as it is in front of the
tavern, the owner of that establishment has not wholly succeeded in
convincing the people that it was put there with simple reference
to the public convenience. The tavern-keeper is, politically, a
quadrupled personage. He combines the four offices of post-master,
justice of the peace, town council, and publican; and is considered
a monstrous small person with all. The truth is, reader--this
aside--he has been democrat and whig, alternately, every second
year of his political life. His present politics, being loco-foco,
are in Ellisland considered contra bonos mores. It is hoped that
he will be dismissed from office, and a memorial to that effect
is in preparation; but the days of Harrison--"and Tyler too"--have
not yet come round, and Jerry Sunderland, who knows what his enemies
arc driving at, whirls his coat-skirts, and snaps his fingers, in
scorn of all their machinations. He has a friend at Washington, who
spoons in the back parlor of the white-house--in other words, is a
member o f the kitchen-cabinet, of which, be it said, en passant,
there never was a president of the United States yet entirely without
one--and--there never will be! So much for politics and Ellisland.

There was some crowd in the village on the day of Brother Stevens's
arrival. Saturday is a well known day in the western and southern
country for making a village gathering; and when Brother Stevens,
having hitched his horse at the public rack, pushed his way to
the postoffice, he had no small crowd to set aside. He had just
deposited his letters, received others in return, answered some ten
or fifteen questions which Jerry Sunderland, P. M., Q. U., N. P.,
M. C., publican and sinner--such were all deservedly his titles--had
thought it necessary to address to him, when he was suddenly
startled by a familiar tap upon the shoulder; such a tap as leads
the recipient to imagine that he is about to be honored with the
affectionate salutation of some John Doe or Richard Roe of the law.
Stevens turned with some feeling of annoyance, if not misgiving,
and met the arch, smiling, and very complacent visage of a tall,
slender young gentleman in black bushy whiskers and a green coat,
who seized him by the hand and shook it heartily, while a chuckling
half-suppressed laughter gurgling in his throat, for a moment,
forbade the attempt to speak. Stevens seemed disquieted and looked
around him suspiciously.

"What! you here, Ben?"

"Ay, you see me! You didn't expect to see me, Warham---"

"Hush!" was the whispered word of Stevens, again looking round him
in trepidation.

"Oh! ay!" said the other with a sly chuckle, and also in a whisper,
"Mr. Stevens--Brother Stevens--hem! I did not think. How is your
holiness to-day?"

"Come aside," muttered Stevens; and, taking the arm of the incautious
speaker, he led him away from the crowd and took the way out of
the village. Their meeting and departure did not occasion much, if
any, sensation. The visitors in the village were all too busy in
discussing the drink and doctrines, pretty equally distributed, of
Jerry the publican. But there was one eye that noted the meeting
of the friends; that beheld the concern and confusion of Stevens:
that saw their movements, and followed their departing steps.

"Take your horse--where is he?" demanded Stevens.

"Here, at hand; but what do you mean to do?"

"Nothing, but get out of hearing and sight; for your long tongue,
Ben, and significant face, would blab any secret, however deep."

"Ah! did I not say that I would find you out? Did you get my last
letter?"

"Ay, I did: but I'm devilish sorry, Ben, that you've come. You'll
do mischief. You have always been a mar-plot."

"Never, never! You don't know me."

"Don't I?--but get your horse, and let's go into the woods, while
we talk over matters."

"Why not leave the nags here?"

"For a very good reason. My course lies in that direction, so that
I am in my way; while yours, if your purpose be to go back to
Frankfort, will lie on the upper side. Neither of us need come back
to the village."

"And you think to shuffle me off so soon, do you?"

"What would you have me do?"

"Why, give us a peep at this beauty--this Altamira of yours--at
least."

"Impossible! Do not think of it, Ben; you'd spoil all. But, get
the horse. These billet-heads will suspect mischief if they see
us talking together, particularly whon they behold your conceited
action. This political landlord will surmise that you are a second
Aaron Burr, about to beat up recruits to conquer California. Your
big whiskers--what an atrocious pair!--with your standing collar,
will confirm the impression."

The two were soon mounted, and rode into the adjoining woods. They
were only a stone's-throw from the village, when Stevens alighted,
followed by his companion. They hitched their horses to some swinging
branches of a sheltering tree, and, going aside a few paces beyond,
seated themselves upon the grass, as they fancied, in a place of
perfect security.

"And now, Ben, what in truth brings you here?" demanded Stevens,
in tones of voice and with a look which betrayed anything but
satisfaction with the visit.

"Curiosity, I tell you, and the legs of my horse."

"Pshaw! you have some other motive."

"No, 'pon honor. I resolved to find you out--to see what you were
driving at, and where. I could only guess a part from your letter
to Barnabas, and that costive scrawl with which you honored me.
Perhaps, too--and give my friendship credit for the attempt--I came
with some hope to save you."

"Save me--from what?"

"Why, wedlock--the accursed thing! The club is in terror lest you
should forget your vows. So glowing were your descriptions of your
Cleopatra, that we knew not what to make. We feared everything."

"Why, Barnabas might have opened your eyes: he knew better."

"You're not married, then?"

"Pshaw! no."

"Nor engaged?"

The other laughed as he replied:--

"Why, on that head, the least said the better. The roving commission
permits you to run up any flag that the occasion requires."

"Ah, you sly dog!--and what success?"

"Come, come, Ben, you must not be so inquisitive. The game's my
own, you know; and the rules of the club give me immunity from a
fellow-member."

"By Gad, I'll resign! I must see this forest beauty."

"Impossible!"

"Where's she? How will you prevent?"

"By a very easy process. Do you know the bird that shrieks farthest
from her young ones when the fowler is at hand? I'll follow her
example."

"I'll follow you to the uttermost ends of the earth, Warham!"

"Hush! you forget! Am I not Brother Stevens? Ha! ha! ha! You are
not sufficiently reverent, brother. See you no divinity in my look
and bearing? Hark you, Ben, I've been a sort of small divinity in
the eyes of a whole flock for a month past!"

"You pray?"

"And preach!"

"Ha! ha! ha!--devilish good; but I must see you in order to believe.
I must, indeed, Brother Stevens. Why, man, think of it--success in
this enterprise will make you head of the fraternity--you will be
declared pope: but you must have witnesses!"

"So I think; and hark ye, Ben"--laying a finger on the arm of the
other--"I am successful!"

"What! you don't say so! This queen, this princess of Egypt,
Cleopatra, Altamira--eh?"

"Is mine--soul and body--she is mine!"

"And is what you say? Come, come, you don't mean that such a splendid
woman as you describe--such a genius, poet, painter, musician--beauty
too!--you don't mean to say that--"

"I do, every bit of it."

"'Gad! what a fellow!--what a lucky dog! But you must let me see
her, Warham!"

"What! to spoil all--to blurt out the truth?--for, with every
disposition to fib, you lack the ability. No, no, Ben: when the
game's up--when I'm tired of the sport, and feel the necessity of
looking out fresh viands--you shall then know all; I'll give the
clue into your own hands, and you may follow it to your heart's
content. But not now!"

"But how will you get rid of me, mon ami, if my curiosity is
stubborn?"

"Do as the kill-deer does--travel from the nest--go home with you,
rather than you should succeed in your impertinence, and have you
expelled from the club for thrusting your spoon into the dish of
a brother-member."

"You're a Turk, with no bowels of compassion. But, at all events,
you promise me the dish when you're done with it? you give me the
preference?"

"I do!"

"Swear by Beelzebub and Mohammed; by Jupiter Ammon and Johannes
Secundus; by the ghost of Cardinal Bembo, and the gridiron of the
fraternity!"

"Ay, and by the virginity of Queen Elizabeth!"

"Simulacrum! no! no! no such oath for me! That's swearing by
the thing that is not, was not--could not be! You shall swear by
the oaths of the club--you must be bound on the gridiron of the
fraternity, before I believe you. Swear!"

"You are as tenacious as the ghost of buried Denmark But you shall
be satisfied. I swear by the mystic gridiron of the fraternity, and
by the legs thereof, of which the images are Beelzebub, Mohammed,
Johannes Secundus, and so forth--nay, by that memorable volume, so
revered in the eyes of the club, the new edition of 'The Basiad,'
of which who among us has been the true exponent?--that profound
mystery of sweets, fathomed hourly, yet unfathomable still--for
which the commentators, already legions, are hourly becoming legions
more;--by these, and by the mysteries of the mirror that reflects
not our own, but the image we desire;--by these things--by all
things that among the brotherhood are held potent--I swear to--"

"Give me the preference in the favor of this princess; the clue to
find her when you have left her; and the assurance that you will
get a surfeit as soon as possible: swear!"

"Nay, nay! I swear not to that last! I shall hold on while appetite
holds, and make all efforts not to grow dyspeptic in a hurry. I'll
keep my stomach for a dainty, be sure, as long as I can. I were no
brother, worthy of our order, if I did not."

"Well, well--to the rest! Swear to the rest, and I am satisfied."

"You go back, then, instanter?"

"What! this very day?"

"This hour!"

"The d---l! you don't mean THAT, Warham?" returned the other in
some consternation.

"Ay, this very hour! You must swear to that. Your oath must precede
mine."

"Ah! man, remember I only got here last night--long ride--hard-trotting
horse. We have not seen each other for months. I have a cursed sight
to tell you about the boys--girls too--love, law, logic, politics.
Do you know they talk of running you for the house?"

"All in good season, Ben; not now. No, no! you shall see me when
you least look for me, and there will be time enough for all these
matters then. They'll keep. For the present, let me say to you
that we must part now within the hour. You must swear not to dog
my steps, and I will swear to give you carte blanche, and the first
privileges at my princess, when I leave her. This is my bargain.
I make no other."

"I've a great mind not to leave you," said the other doggedly.

"And what will that resolution bring you, do you fancy? Do you
suppose I am to be tracked in such a manner? No, Ben! The effect
will be to make me set off for the east instantly, whether you go
with me or not; and an equally certain effect will be to make us
cut loose for ever."

"You're a d---d hard colt to manage," said the other moodily.

"I sha'n't let myself be straddled by every horse-boy, I assure
you."

"Come, come, old fellow, that's too much like horse-play. Don't be
angry with me. I'll accept your conditions."

"Very good," said Stevens; "if you did not, Ben, it would be no
better for you; for, otherwise, you should never even see my beauty!"

"Is she so very beautiful, old boy?"

"A queen, I tell you! a proud, high-spirited, wild beauty of the
mountains--a thing of fire and majesty--a glorious woman, full
of song and sentiment and ambition--a genius, I tell you--who can
improvise like Corinne, and, by the way, continually reminds one
of that glorious creature. In Italy, she would have been greater
than Corinne."

"And you've won her--and she loves you?"

"Ay--to doting! I found her a sort of eagle--soaring, striving--always
with an eye upon the hills, and fighting with the sunbeams. I have
subdued her. She is now like a timid fawn that trembles at the
very falling of a leaf in the forests. She pants with hope to see
me, and pants with tremulous delight when I come. Still, she shows
every now and then, a glimmering of that eagle spirit which she
had at first. She flashes up suddenly, but soon sinks again. Fancy
a creature, an idolater of fame before, suddenly made captive by
love, and you have a vain, partial image of my forest-princess."

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