Charlemont

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"There are always some people, Brother Cross, to hate the saints
of the Lord and to slander them! They lie in wait like thieves of
the night, and roaring lions of the wilderness, seeking what they
may devour."

"Ah," exclaimed Brother Cross, "how little do such know that they
devour themselves; for whoso destroyeth his best friend is a devourer
of himself."

"The blindness of Satan is upon them, and they do his work."

And thus--purr, purr, purr--they went on, to the end of the chapter.
Poor Ned Hinkley found the whole kennel was upon him. Not only did
they deny everything that could by possibility affect the fair fame
of the absent brother, but, from defending him, they passed, with
an easy transition, to the denunciation of those who were supposed
to be his defamers. In this the worthy old man Calvert came in for
his share.

"All this comes of your supporting that worthless boy of mine in
defiance of my will," said old Hinkley. "You hate Brother Stevens
because that boy hated him, and because I love him."

"You are mistaken, Mr. Hinkley," said Calvert, mildly. "I hate
nobody; at the same time I suffer no mere prejudices to delude me
against sight and reason."

"Ah!" said Brother Cross, gently, "it's that very reason, Brother
Calvert, that ruins you worldlings. You must not rely on human
reason. Build on faith, and you build on the Rock of Ages."

"I propose to use reason only in worldly matters, Mr. Cross," said
the other; "for which use, only, I believe it was given us. I
employ it in reference to a case of ordinary evidence, and I beg
your regards now, while I draw your attention to the use I make of
it in the present instance. Will you hear me without interruption?"

"Surely, Brother Calvert, but call me not Mr. Cross. I am not a
Mister. I am plain John Cross; by virtue of my business, a brother,
if it so please you to esteem me. Call me Brother Cross, or Brother
John Cross, or plain John Cross, either of these will be acceptable
unto me."

"We are all brothers, or should be," said Calvert; "and it will
not need that there should be any misunderstanding between us on
so small a matter."

"The matter is not small in the eye of the Lord," said the preacher.
"Titles of vanity become not us, and offend in his hearing."

The old teacher smiled, but proceeded.

"Now, Brother Cross, if you will hear me, I will proceed, according
to my reason, to dwell upon the proofs which are here presented
to you, of the worthlessness of this man, Alfred Stevens; and when
you consider how much the feelings and the safety of the daughters
of your flock depend upon the character of those moral and religious
teachers to whom the care of them is intrusted, you will see, I
think, the necessity of listening patiently, and determining without
religious prejudice, according to the truth and reason of the case."

"I am prepared to listen patiently, Brother Calvert," said John
Cross, clasping his hands together, setting his elbows down upon
the table, shutting his eyes, and turning his face fervently up
to heaven. Old Hinkley imitated this posture quite as nearly as he
was able; while Mrs. Hinkley, sitting between the two, maintained
a constant to-and-fro motion, first on one side, then on the other,
as they severally spoke to the occasion, with her head deferentially
bowing, like a pendulum, and with a motion almost as regular and
methodical. The movements of her nephew, Ned Hinkley, were also a
somewhat pleasant study, after a fashion of his own. Sitting in a
corner, he amused himself by drawing forth his "puppies," and taking
occasional aim at a candle or flowerpot; and sometimes, with some
irreverence, at the curved and rather extravagant proboscis of his
worthy uncle, which, cocked up in air, was indeed something of a
tempting object of sight to a person so satisfied of his skill in
shooting as the young rustic. The parties being thus arranged in
a fit attitude for listening, Mr. Calvert began somewhat after the
following fashion:--

"Our first knowledge of Alfred Stevens was obtained through Brother
John Cross."

"And what better introduction would you have?" demanded old Hinkley.

"None," said the other, "if Brother Cross knew anything about the
party he introduced. But it so happens, as we learn from Brother
Cross himself, that the first acquaintance he had with Stevens was
made upon the road, where Stevens played a trick upon him by giving
him brandy to drink."

"No trick, Brother Calvert; the young man gave it me as a medicine,
took it as a medicine himself, and, when I bade him, threw away
the accursed beverage."

"Ordinary men, governed by ordinary reason, Brother Cross, would
say that Stevens knew very well what he was giving you, and that
it was a trick."

"But only think, Mr. Calvert," said Mrs. Hinkley, lifting her hands
and eyes at the same moment, "the blessed young man threw away the
evil liquor the moment he was told to do so. What a sign of meekness
was that!"

"I will not dwell on this point," was the reply of Calvert. "He comes
into our village and declares his purpose to adopt the profession
of the preacher, and proceeds to his studies under the direction
of Brother Cross."

"And didn't he study them?" demanded Mrs. Hinkley. "Wasn't he, late
and early, at the blessed volume? I heard him at all hours above
stairs. Oh! how often was he on his bended knees in behalf of our
sinful race, ungrateful and misbelieving that we are!"

"I am afraid, madam," said Calvert, "that his studies were scarcely
so profound as you think them. Indeed. I am at a loss to conceive
how you should blind your eyes to the fact that the greater part
of his time was spent among the young girls of the village."

"And where is it denied," exclaimed old Hinkley, "that the lambs
of God should sport together?"

"Do not speak in that language, I pray you, Mr. Hinkley," said
Calvert, with something of pious horror in his look; "this young man
was no lamb of God, but, I fear, as you will find, a wolf in the
fold. It is, I say, very well known that he was constantly wandering,
even till a late hour of the night, with one of the village maidens."

"Who was that one, Brother Calvert?" demanded John Cross.

"Margaret Cooper."

"Hem!" said the preacher.

"Well, he quarrels with my young friend, the worthy son of Brother
Hinkley--"

"Do not speak of that ungrateful cub. Brother Stevens did not
quarrel with him. He quarrelled with Brother Stevens, and would
have murdered him, but that I put in in time to save."

"Say not so, Mr. Hinkley. I have good reason to believe that Stevens
went forth especially to fight with William."

"I would not believe it, if a prophet were to tell me it."

"Nevertheless, I believe it. We found both of them placed at the
usual fighting-distance."

"Ah! but where were Brother Stevens's pistols?"

"In his pocket, I suppose."

"He had none. He was at a distance from my ungrateful son, and
flying that he should not be murdered. The lamb under the hands of
the butcher. And would you believe it, Brother Cross, he had gone
forth only to counsel the unworthy boy--only to bring him back into
the fold--gone forth at his own prayer, as Brother Stevens declared
to Betsy, just before he went out."

"I am of opinion that he deceived her and yourself."

"Where were his pistols then?"

"He must have concealed them. He told Ned Hinkley, this very day,
that he had pistols, but that they were here."

"Run up, Betsy, to Brother Stevens's room and see."

The old lady disappeared. Calvert proceeded.

"I can only repeat my opinion, founded upon the known pacific and
honorable character of William Hinkley, and certain circumstances
in the conduct of Stevens, that the two did go forth, under a
previous arrangement, to fight a duel. That they were prevented,
and that Stevens had no visible weapon, is unquestionably true.
But I do not confine myself to these circumstances. This young man
writes a great many letters, it is supposed to his friends, but
never puts them in the post here, but every Saturday rides off, as
we afterward learn, to the village of Ellisland, where he deposites
them and receive others. This is a curious circumstance, which
alone should justify suspicion.

"The ways of God are intricate, Brother Calvert," said John Cross,
"and we are not to suspect the truth which we can not understand."

"But these are the ways of man, Brother Cross."

"And the man of God is governed by the God which is in him. He
obeys a law which, perhaps, is ordered to be hidden from thy sight."

"This doctrine certainly confers very extraordinary privileges upon
the man of God," said Calvert, quietly, "and, perhaps, this is one
reason why the profession is so prolific of professors now-a-days;
but the point does not need discussion. Enough has been shown to
awaken suspicion and doubt in the case of any ordinary person; and
I now come to that portion of the affair which is sustained by the
testimony of Ned Hinkley, our young friend here, who, whatever his
faults may be, has been always regarded in Charlemont, as a lover
and speaker of the truth."

"Ay, ay, so far as he knows what the truth is," said old Hinkley,
scornfully.

"And I'm just as likely to know what the truth is as you, uncle!','
retorted the young man, rising and coming forward from his corner.

"Come, come," he continued, "you're not going to ride rough shod
over me as you did over Cousin Bill. I don't care a snap of the
finger, I can tell you, for all your puffed cheeks and big bellied
speeches. I don't, I tell you!" and suiting the action to the
word, the sturdy fellow snapped his fingers almost under the nose
of his uncle, which was now erected heavenward, with a more scornful
pre-eminence than ever. The sudden entrance of Mrs. Hinkley, from
her search after Stevens's pistols, prevented any rough issue between
these new parties, as it seemed to tell in favor of Stevens. There
were no pistols to be found. The old lady did not add, indeed, that
thers was nothing of any kind to be found belonging to the same
worthy.

"There! That's enough!" said old Hinkley.

"Did you find anything of Stevens's, Mrs. Hinkley?" inquired Mr.
Calvert.

"Nothing, whatever."

"Well, madam," said Calvert, "your search, if it proves anything,
proves the story of Ned Hinkley conclusively. This man has carried
off all his chattels."

John Cross looked down from heaven, and stared inquiringly at Mrs.
Hinkley.

"Is this true? Have you found nothing, Sister Betsy?"

"Nothing."

"And Brother Stevens has not come back?"

"No!"

"And reason for it, enough," said old Hinkley. "Didn't you hear
that Ned Hinkley threatened to shoot him if he came back?"

"Look you, uncle," said the person thus accused, "if you was anybody
else, and a little younger, I'd thrash you for that speech the same
as if it was a lie! I would."

"Peace!" said Calvert, looking sternly at the youth. Having obtained
temporary silence, he was permitted at length to struggle through
his narrative, and to place, in their proper lights, all the
particulars which Ned Hinkley had obtained at Ellisland. When this
was done the discussion was renewed, and raged, with no little
violence, for a full hour. At length it ceased through the sheer
exhaustion of the parties. Calvert was the first to withdraw from
it, as he soon discovered that such was the bigotry of old Hinkley
and his wife, and even of John Cross himself, that nothing short
of divine revelation could persuade them of the guilt of one who
had once made a religious profession.

Brother Cross, though struck with some of the details which Calvert
had given, was afterward prepared to regard them as rather trivial
than otherwise, and poor Ned was doomed to perceive that the
conviction was general in this holy family, that he had, by his
violence, and the terror which his pistols had inspired, driven
away, in desperation, the most meek and saintly of all possible
young apostles. The youth was nearly furious ere the evening and the
discussion were over. It was very evident to Calvert that nothing
was needed, should Stevens come back, but a bold front and a lying
tongue, to maintain his position in the estimation of the flock,
until such time as the truth WOULD make itself known--a thing
which, eventually, always happens. That night Ned Hinkley dreamed
of nothing but of shooting Stevens and his comrade and of thrashing
his uncle. What did Margaret Cooper dream of?

CHAPTER XXXIII.

STORM AND CONVULSION.

What did Margaret Cooper dream of? Disappointment, misery, death.
There was a stern presentiment in her waking thoughts, sufficiently
keen and agonizing to inspire such dreadful apprehensions in her
dreams. The temperament which is sanguine, and which, in a lively
mood, inspires hope, is, at the same time, the source of those
dark images of thought and feeling, which appal it with the most
terrifying forms of fear; and when Saturday and Saturday night
came and passed, and Alfred Stevens did not appear, a lurking dread
that would not be chidden or kept down, continued to rise within
her soul, which, without assuming any real form or decisive speech,
was yet suggestive of complete overthrow and ruin.

Her dreams were of this complexion. She felt herself abandoned.
Nor merely abandoned. She was a victim. In her desolation she had
even lost her pride. She could no longer meet the sneer with scorn.
She could no longer carry a lofty brow among the little circle,
who, once having envied, were now about to despise her. To the
impatient spirit, once so strong--so insolent in its strength--what
a pang--what a humiliation was here! In her dreams she saw the
young maidens of the village stand aloof, as she had once stood
aloof from them:--she heard the senseless titter of their laugh;
and she had no courage to resent the impertinence. Her courage
was buried in her shame. No heart is so cowardly as that which
is conscious of guilt. Picture after picture of this sort did her
fancy present to her that night; and when she awoke the next morning,
the sadness of her soul had taken the color of a deep and brooding
misanthropy. Such had been the effect of her dreams. Her resolution
came only from despair; and resolution from such a source, we well
know, is usually only powerful against itself.

It is one proof of a religious instinct, and of a universal belief
in a controlling and benevolent Deity, that all men however abased,
scornful of divine and human law, invariably, in their moments of
desperation, call upon God. Their first appeal is, involuntarily,
to him. The outlaw, as the fatal bullet pierces his breast--the
infidel, sinking and struggling in the water--the cold stony
heart of the murderer, the miser, the assassin of reputation as of
life--all cry out upon God in the unexpected paroxysms of death.
Let us hope that the instinct waich prompts this involuntary appeal
for mercy, somewhat helps to secure its blessings. It is thus
also with one who, in the hey-day of the youthful heart, has lived
without thought or prayer--a tumultuous life of uproar and riot--a
long carnival of the passions--the warm blood suppressing the cool
thought, and making the reckless heart impatient of consideration.
Let the sudden emergency arise, with such a heart--let the blood
become stagnant with disease--and the involuntary appeal is to that
God, of whom before there was no thought. We turn to him as to a
father who is equally strong to help and glad to preserve us.

Margaret Cooper, in the ordinary phrase, had lived without God. Her
God was in her own heart, beheld by the lurid fires of an intense,
unmethodized ambition. Her own strength--or rather the persuasion
of her own strength--had been so great, that hitherto she had seen
no necessity for appealing to any other source of power. She might
now well begin to distrust that strength. She did so. Her desperation
was not of that sort utterly to shut out hope; and, while there
is hope, there is yet a moral assurance that the worst is not
yet--perhaps not to be. But she was humbled--not enough, perhaps--but
enough to feel the necessity of calling in her allies. She dropped
by her bedside, in prayer, when she arose that morning. We do not
say that she prayed for forgiveness, without reference to her future
earthly desires. Few of us know how to simplify our demands upon
the Deity to this one. We pray that he may assist us in this or
that grand speculation: the planter for a great crop; the banker
for investments that give him fifty per cent.; the lawyer for more
copious fees; the parson for an increase of salary. How few pray for
mercy--forgiveness for the past--strength to sustain the struggling
conscience in the future! Poor Margaret was no wiser, no better,
than the rest of us. She prayed--silly woman!--that Alfred Stevens
might keep his engagament!

He did not! That day she was to be married! She had some reference
to this in making her toilet that morning. The garments which she
put on were all of white. A white rose gleamed palely from amid
the raven hair upon her brow. Beautiful was she, exceedingly. How
beautiful! but alas! the garb she wore--the pale, sweet flower on
her forehead--they were mockeries--the emblems of that purity of
soul, that innocence of heart, which were gone--gone for ever! She
shuddered as she beheld the flower, and meditated this thought.
Silently she took the flower from her forehead, and, as if it were
precious as that lost jewel of which it reminded her, she carefully
placed it away in her toilet-case.

Yet her beauty was heightened rather than diminished. Margaret
Cooper was beautiful after no ordinary mould. Tall in stature, with
a frame rounded by the most natural proportions into symmetry, and
so formed for grace; with a power of muscle more than common among
women, which, by inducing activity, made her movements as easy as
they were graceful; with an eye bright like the morning-star, and
with a depth of expression darkly clear, like that of the same
golden orb at night; with a face exquisitely oval; a mouth of great
sweetness; cheeks on which the slightest dash of hue from the red,
red rose in June, might be seen to come and go under the slightest
promptings of the active heart within; a brow of great height and
corresponding expansion; with a bust that impressed you with a
sense of the maternal strength which might be harbored there, even
as the swollen bud gives promises of the full-bosomed luxuriance
of the flower when it opens: add to these a lofty carriage, a
look where the quickened spirit seems ever ready for utterance; a
something of eager solemnity in her speech; and a play of expression
on her lips which, if the brow were less lofty and the eye less
keenly bright, might be a smile--and you have some idea of that
noble and lovely temple on which fires of lava had been raised by
an unholy hand; in which a secret worship is carried on which dreads
the light, shrinks from exposure, and trembles to be seen by the
very Deity whose favor it yet seeks in prayer and apprehension.

These beauties of person as we have essayed, though most feebly,
to describe them, were enhanced rather than lessened by that air
of anxiety by which they were now overcast. Her step was no longer
free. It was marked by an unwonted timidity. Her glance was no
longer confident; and when she looked round upon the faces of the
young village-maidens, it was seen that her lip trembled and moved,
but no longer with scorn. If the truth were told, she now envied
the meanest of those maidens that security which her lack of beauty
had guarantied. She, the scorner of all around her, now envied the
innocence of the very meanest of her companions.

Such was the natural effect of her unhappy experience upon her
heart. What would she not have given to be like one of them? She
dared not take her place, in the church, among them. It was a dread
that kept her back. Strange, wondrous power of innocence! The guilty
girl felt that she might be repulsed; that her frailty might make
itself known--MUST make itself known; and she would be driven with
shame from that communion with the pure to which she had no longer
any claim! She sunk into one of the humblest seats in the church,
drawing her reluctant mother into the lowly place beside her.

John Cross did not that day address himself to her case: but sin has
a family similitude among all its members. There is an unmistakeable
likeness, which runs through the connection. If the preacher speaks
fervently to one sin, he is very apt to goad, in some degree, all
the rest: and though Brother Cross had not the most distant idea
of singling out Margaret Cooper for his censure, yet there was a
whispering devil at her elbow that kept up a continual commentary
upon what he said, filling her ears with a direct application of
every syllable to her own peculiar instance.

"See you not," said the demon, "that every eye is turned upon you?
He sees into your soul; he knows your secret. He declares it, as
you hear, aloud, with a voice of thunder, to all the congregation.
Do you not perceive that you sit alone; that everybody shrinks from
your side; that your miserable old mother alone sits with you; that
the eyes of some watch you with pity, but more with indignation?
Look at the young damsels--late your companions--they are your
companions no longer! They triumph in your shame. Their titter
is only suppressed because of the place in which they are. They
ask: 'Is this the maiden who was so wise, so strong--who scorned
us--scorned US, indeed!--and was not able to baffle the serpent in
his very first approaches?' Ha! ha! How they laugh! Well, indeed,
they may. It is very laughable, Margaret--not less laughable and
amusing than strange!--that YOU should have fallen!--so easily, so
blindly--and not even to suspect what every one else was sure of!
O Margaret! Margaret! can it be true? Who will believe in your wit
now, your genius, your beauty? Smutched and smutted! Poor, weak,
degraded! If there is pity for you, Margaret, it is full of mockery
too; it is a pity that is full of bitterness. You should now cast
yourself down, and cover yourself with ashes, and cry, 'Wo is me!'
and call upon the rocks and the hills to cover you!"

Such was the voice in her soul, which to HER senses seemed like
that of some jibing demon at her elbow. Margaret tried to pray--to
expel him by prayer; but the object of his mockery had not been
attained. She could not surrender herself entirely to the chastener.
She was scourged, but not humbled; and the language of the demon
provoked defiance, not humility. Her proud spirit rose once more
against the pressure put upon it. Her bright, dazzling eye flashed
in scorn upon the damsels whom she now fancied to be actually
tittering--scarcely able to suppress their laughter--at her obvious
disgrace. On John Cross she fixed her fearless eye, like that of
some fallen angel, still braving the chastener, whom he can not
contend with. A strange strength--for even sin has its strength for
a season--came to her relief in that moment of fiendish mockery.
The strength of an evil spirit was accorded her. Her heart once more
swelled with pride. Her soul once more insisted on its ascendency.
She felt, though she did not say:--

"Even as I am, overthrown, robbed of my treasure, I feel that I am
superior to these. I feel that I have strength against the future.
If they are pure and innocent, it is not because of their greater
strength, but their greater obscurity. If I am overthrown by the
tempter, it was because I was the more worthy object of overthrow.
In their littleness they live: if I am doomed to the shaft, at
least it will be as the eagle is doomed; it will be while soaring
aloft--while aiming for the sun--while grasping at the very bolt
by which I am destroyed!"

Such was the consolation offered by the twin-demons of pride and
vanity. The latter finds its aliment in the heart which it too
completely occupies, even from those circumstances which, in other
eyes, make its disgrace and weakness. The sermon which had touched
her sin had not subdued it. Perhaps no sermon, no appeal, however
powerful and touching, could at that moment have had power over
her. The paroxysm of her first consciousness of ruin had not yet
passed off. The condition of mind was not yet reached in which an
appeal could be felt.

As in the case of physical disease, so with that of the mind and
heart, there is a period when it is neither useful nor prudent to
administer the medicines which are yet most necessary to safety.
The judicious physician will wait for the moment when the frame is
prepared--when the pulse is somewhat subdued--before he tries the
most powerful remedy. The excitement of the wrong which she had
suffered was still great in her bosom. It was necessary that she
should have repose. That excitement was maintained by the expectation
that Stevens would yet make his appearance. Her eye, at intervals,
wandered over the assembly in search of him. The demon at her elbow
understood her quest.

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