Charlemont

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It was night before the wayfarers reached the appointed baiting
place. There they found their company--a sort of little caravan,
such as is frequent in the history of western emigration--already
assembled, and the supper awaiting them. Let us leave them to its
enjoyment, and return once more to the village of Charlemont.

CHAPTER III

THE STRONG-MINDED WOMAN.

The young maiden last met by our travellers, and whose appearance
had so favorably impressed them, had not been altogether uninfluenced
by the encounter. Her spirit was of a musing and perhaps somewhat
moody character, and the little adventure related in our last
chapter, had awakened in her mind a train of vague and purposeless
thought, from which she did not strive to disengage herself. She
ceased to pursue the direct path back to Charlemont, the moment she
had persuaded herself that the strangers had continued on their way;
and turning from the beaten track, she strolled aside, following the
route of a brooklet, the windings of which, as it led her forward,
were completely hidden from the intrusive glance of any casual
wayfarer. The prattle of the little stream as it wound upon its
sleepless journey, contributed still more to strengthen the musings
of those vagrant fancies that filled the maiden's thoughts.

She sat down upon the prostrate trunk of a tree, and surrendered
herself for a while to their control. Her thoughts were probably of
a kind which, to a certain extent, are commended to every maiden.
Among them, perpetually rose an image of the bold and handsome
stranger, whose impudence, in turning back in pursuit of her,
was somewhat qualified by the complimentary curiosity which such
conduct manifested. Predominant even over this image, however, was
the conviction of isolation which she felt where she was, and the
still more painful conviction, that the future was without promise.
Such thoughts and apprehensions may be natural enough to all young
persons of active, earnest nature, not permitted to perform; but
in the bosom of Margaret Cooper they were particularly so. Her mind
was of a masculine and commanding character, and was ill-satisfied
with her position and prospect in Charlemont. A quiet, obscure
village, such as that we have described, held forth no promise for
a spirit so proud, impatient, and ambitious as hers. She knew the
whole extent of knowledge which it contained, and all its acquisitions
and resources--she had sounded its depths, and traced all its
shallows. The young women kept no pace with her own progress--they
were good, silly girls enough--a chattering, playful set, whom
small sports could easily satisfy, and who seemed to have no care,
and scarce a hope, beyond the hilly limits of their homestead; and
as for the young men--they were only suited to the girls, such as
they were, and could never meet the demand of such an intellect as
hers.

This lofty self-estimate, which was in some sense just, necessarily
gave a tone to her language and a coloring to all her thoughts,
such as good sense and amiability should equally strive to suppress
and conceal--unless, as in the case of Margaret Cooper, the individual
herself was without due consciousness of their presence. It had the
effect of discouraging and driving from her side many a good-natured
damsel, who would have loved to condole with her, and might have
been a pleasant companion. The young women regarded her with some
dislike in consequence of her self-imposed isolation--and the
young men with some apprehension. Her very knowledge of books,
which infinitely surpassed that of all her sex within the limits
of Charlemont, was also an object of some alarm. It had been her
fortune, whether well or ill may be a question, to inherit from
her father a collection, not well chosen, upon which her mind had
preyed with an appetite as insatiate as it was undiscriminating.
They had taught her many things, but among these neither wisdom nor
patience was included;--and one of the worst lessons which she had
learned, and which they had contributed in some respects to teach,
was discontent with her condition--a discontent which saddened, if
it did not embitter, her present life, while it left the aspects
of the future painfully doubtful, even to her own eye.

She was fatherless, and had been already taught some of those rude
lessons which painfully teach dependence; but such lessons, which
to most others would have brought submission, only provoked her to
resistance. Her natural impetuosity of disposition, strengthened
by her mother's idolatrous indulgence, increased the haughtiness
of her character; and when, to these influences, we add that
her surviving parent was poor, and suffered from privations which
were unfelt by many of their neighbors, it may be easily conceived
that a temper and mind such as we have described those of Margaret
Cooper--ardent, commanding, and impatient, hourly found occasion,
even in the secluded village where she dwelt, for the exercise of
moods equally adverse to propriety and happiness. Isolated from the
world by circumstances, she doubly exiled herself from its social
indulgences, by the tyrannical sway of a superior will, strengthened
and stimulated by an excitable and ever feverish blood; and, as
we find her now, wandering sad and sternly by the brookside, afar
from the sports and humbler sources of happiness, which gentler
moods left open to the rest, so might she customarily be found, at
all hours, when it was not absolutely due to appearances that she
should be seen among the crowds.

We will not now seek to pursue her musings and trace them out to
their conclusions, nor will it be necessary that we should do more
than indicate their character. That they were sad and solemn as
usual--perhaps humbling--may be gathered from the fact that a big
tear might have been seen, long gathering in her eye;--the next
moment she brushed off the intruder with an impatience of gesture,
that plainly showed how much her proud spirit resented any such
intrusion. The tear dispersed the images which had filled her
contemplative mood, and rising from her sylvan seat, she prepared
to move forward, when a voice calling at some little distance,
drew her attention. Giving a hasty glance in the direction of the
sound, she beheld a young man making his way through the woods, and
approaching her with rapid footsteps. His evident desire to reach
her, did not, however, prompt her to any pause in her own progress;
but, as if satisfied with the single glance which she gave him, and
indifferent utterly to his object, she continued on her way, nor
stopped for an instant, nor again looked back, until his salutation,
immediately behind her, compelled her attention and answer.

"Margaret--Miss Cooper!" said the speaker, who was a young rustic,
probably twenty or twenty-one years of age, of tall, good person,
a handsome face, which was smooth, though of dark complexion, and
lightened by an eye of more than ordinary size and intelligence. His
tones were those of one whose sensibilities were fine and active,
and it would not have called for much keen observation to have
seen that his manner, in approaching and addressing the maiden,
was marked with some little trepidation. She, on the contrary,
seemed too familiar with his homage, or too well satisfied of his
inferiority, to deign much attention to his advances. She answered
his salutation coldly, and was preparing to move forward, when his
words again called for her reluctant notice.

"I have looked for you, Margaret, full an hour. Mother sent me
after you to beg that you will come there this evening. Old Jenks
has come up from the river, and brought a store of fine things--there's
a fiddle for Ned, and Jason Lightner has a flute, and I--I have a
small lot of books, Margaret, that I think will please you."

"I thank you, William Hinkley, and thank your mother, but I can
not come this evening."

"But why not, Margaret?--your mother's coming--she promised for you
too, but I thought you might not get home soon enough to see her,
and so I came out to seek you."

"I am very sorry you took so much trouble, William, for I cannot
come this evening."

"But why not, Margaret? You have no other promise to go elsewhere
have you?"

"None," was the indifferent reply.

"Then--but, perhaps, you are not well, Margaret?"

"I am quite well, I thank you, William Hinkley, but I don't feel
like going out this evening. I am not in the humor."

Already, in the little village of Charlemont, Margaret Cooper
was one of the few who were permitted to indulge in humors, and
William Hinkley learned the reason assigned for her refusal, with
an expression of regret and disappointment, if not of reproach.
An estoppel, which would have been so conclusive in the case of
a city courtier, was not sufficient, however, to satisfy the more
frank and direct rustic, and he proceeded with some new suggestions,
in the hope to change her determination.

"But you'll be so lonesome at home, Margaret, when your mother's
with us. She'll be gone before you can get back, and--"

"I'm never lonesome, William, at least I'm never so well content
or so happy as when I'm alone," was the self-satisfactory reply.

"But that's so strange, Margaret. It's so strange that you should
be different from everybody else. I often wonder at it, Margaret;
for I know none of the other girls but love to be where there's a
fiddle, and where there's pleasant company. It's so pleasant to be
where everybody's pleased; and then, Margaret, where one can talk
so well as you, and of so many subjects, it's a greater wonder
still that you should not like to be among the rest."

"I do not, however, William," was the answer in more softened
tones. There was something in this speech of her lover, that found
its way through the only accessible avenues of her nature. It was
a truth, which she often repeated to herself with congratulatory
pride, that she had few feelings or desires in common with the
crowd.

"It is my misfortune," she continued, "to care very little for
the pastimes you speak of; and as for the company, I've no doubt
it will be very pleasant for those who go, but to me it will
afford very little pleasure. Your mother must therefore excuse me,
William:--I should be a very dull person among the rest."

"She will be so very sorry, Margaret--and Ned, whose new fiddle
has just come, and Jason Lightner, with his flute. They all spoke
of you and look for you above all, to hear them this evening. They
will be so disappointed."

William Hinkley spoke nothing of his own disappointment, but it was
visible enough in his blank countenance, and sufficiently audible
in the undisguised faltering of his accents.

"I do not think they will be so much disappointed, William Hinkley.
They have no reason to be, as they have no right to look for me
in particular. I have very little acquaintance with the young men
you speak of."

"Why, Margaret, they live alongside of you--and I'm sure you've met
them a thousand times in company," was the response of the youth,
uttered in tones more earnest than any he had yet employed in the
dialogue, and with something of surprise in his accents.

"Perhaps so; but that makes them no intimates of mine, William
Hinkley. They may be very good young men, and, indeed, so far as
I know, they really are; but that makes no difference. We find our
acquaintances and our intimates among those who are congenial, who
somewhat resemble us in spirit, feeling, and understanding."

"Ah, Margaret!" said her rustic companion with a sigh, which amply
testified to the humility of his own self-estimate, and of the
decline of his hope which came with it--"ah, Margaret, if that
be the rule, where are you going to find friends and intimates in
Charlemont?"

"Where!" was the single word spoken by the haughty maiden, as her
eye wandered off to the cold tops of the distant hills along which
the latest rays of falling sunlight, faint and failing, as they fell,
imparted a hue, which though bright, still as it failed to warm,
left an expression of October sadness to the scene, that fitly
harmonized with the chilling mood under which she had spoken
throughout the interview.

"I don't think, Margaret," continued the lover, finding courage as
he continued, "that such a rule is a good one. I know it can't be
a good one for happiness. There's many a person that never will meet
his or her match in this world, in learning and understanding--and
if they won't look on other persons with kindness, because they
are not altogether equal to them, why there's a chance that they'll
always be solitary and sad. It's a real blessing, I believe, to have
great sense, but I don't see, that because one has great sense,
that one should not think well and kindly of those who have little,
provided they be good, and are willing to be friendly. Now, a good
heart seems to be the very best thing that nature can give us;
and I know, Margaret, that there's no two better hearts in all
Charlemont--perhaps in all the world, though I won't say that--than
cousin Ned Hinkley, and Jason Lightner, and--"

"I don't deny their merits and their virtues, and their goodness
of heart, William Hinkley," was the answer of the maiden--"I only
say that the possession of these qualities gives them no right to
claim my sympathies or affection. These claims are only founded upon
congeniality of character and mind, and without this congeniality,
there can be no proper, no lasting intimacy between persons. They
no doubt, will find friends between whom and themselves, this
congeniality exists. I, on the other hand, must be permitted to find
mine, after my own ideas, and as I best can. But if I do not--the
want of them gives me no great concern. I find company enough, and
friends enough, even in these woods, to satisfy the desires of my
heart at present; I am not anxious to extend my acquaintance or
increase the number of my intimates."

William Hinkley, who had become somewhat warmed by the argument,
could have pursued the discussion somewhat further; but the tones
and manner of his companion, to say nothing of her words, counselled
him to forbear. Still, he was not disposed altogether to give up
his attempts to secure her presence for the evening party.

"But if you don't come for the company, Margaret, recollect the
music. Even if Ned Hinkley was a perfect fool, which he is not,
and Jason Lightner were no better,--nobody can say that they are
not good musicians. Old Squire Bee says there's not in all Kentucky
a better violinist than Ned, and Jason's flute is the sweetest
sound that ear ever listened to along these hills. If you don't care
anything for the players, Margaret, I'm sure you can't be indifferent
to their music; and I know they are anything but indifferent to
what you may think about it. They will play ten times as well if
you are there; and I'm sure, Margaret, I shall be the last"--here
the tone of the speaker's voice audibly faltered--"I shall be the
very last to think it sweet if you are not there."

But the words and faltering accents of the lover equally failed in
subduing the inflexible, perverse mood of the haughty maiden. Her
cold denial was repeated; and with looks that did not fail to speak
the disappointment of William Hinkley, he attended her back to the
village. Their progress was marked by coldness on the one hand, and
decided sadness on the other. The conversation was carried on in
monosyllables only, on the part of Margaret, while timidity and
a painful hesitancy marked the language of her attendant. But a
single passage may be remembered of all that was said between the
two, ere they separated at the door of the widow Cooper.

"Did you see the two strangers, Margaret, that passed through
Charlemont this afternoon?"

The cheeks of the maiden became instantly flushed, and the rapid
utterance of her reply in the affirmative, denoted an emotion which
the jealous instincts of the lover readily perceived. A cold chill,
on the instant, pervaded the veins of the youth; and that night
he did not hear, any more than Margaret Cooper, the music of his
friends. He was present all the time and he answered their inquiries
as usual; but his thoughts were very far distant, and somehow or
other, they perpetually mingled up the image of the young traveller,
whom he too had seen, with that of the proud woman, whom he was
not yet sure that he unprofitably worshipped.

CHAPTER IV.

SIMPLICITY AND THE SERPENT.

The mirth and music of Charlemont were enjoyed by others, but not
by Margaret Cooper. The resolution not to share in the pleasures
of the young around her, which she showed to her rustic lover, was
a resolution firmly persevered in throughout the long summer which
followed. Her wayward mood shut out from her contemplation the only
sunshine of the place; and her heart, brooding over the remote,
if not the impossible, denied itself those joys which were equally
available and nigh. Her lonesome walks became longer in the forests,
and later each evening grew the hour of her return to the village.
Her solitude daily increased, as the youth, who really loved her
with all the ardency of a first passion, and who regarded her at
the same time with no little veneration for those superior gifts
of mind and education which, it was the general conviction in
Charlemont, that she possessed, became, at length, discouraged in a
pursuit which hitherto had found nothing but coldness and repulse.
Not that he ceased to love--nay, he did not cease entirely
to hope. What lover ever did? He fondly ascribed to the object of
his affections a waywardness of humor, which he fancied would pass
away after a season, and leave her mind to the influence of a more
sober and wholesome judgment. Perhaps, too, like many other youth
in like circumstances, he did not always see or feel the caprice
of which he was the victim. But for this fortunate blindness, many
a fair damsel would lose her conquest quite as suddenly as it was
made.

But the summer passed away, and the forest put on the sere and
sombre robes of autumn, and yet no visible change--none at least
more favorable to the wishes of William Hinkley--took place in the
character and conduct of the maiden. Her mind, on the contrary,
seemed to take something of its hue from the cold sad tones of the
forest. The serious depth of expression in her dark eyes seemed
to deepen yet more, and become yet more concentrated--their glance
acquired a yet keener intentness--an inflexibility of direction--which
suffered them seldom to turn aside from those moody contemplations,
which had made her, for a long time, infinitely prefer to gaze upon
the rocks, and woods, and waters, than upon the warm and wooing
features of humanity.

At distance the youth watched and sometimes followed her, and
when, with occasional boldness, he would draw nigh to her secret
wanderings, a cold fear filled his heart, and he shrunk back with
all the doubt and dread of some guilty trespasser. But his doubt,
and we may add, his dread also, was soon to cease entirely, in the
complete conviction of his hopelessness. The day and the fate were
approaching, in the person of one, to whom a natural instinct had
already taught him to look with apprehension, and whose very first
appearance had inspired him with antipathy.

What a strange prescience, in some respects, has the devoted and
watchful heart that loves! William Hinkley, had seen but for a
single instant, the face of that young traveller, who has already
been introduced to us, and that instant was enough to awaken his
dislike--nay, more, his hostility. Yet no villager in Charlemont
but would have told you, that, of all the village, William Hinkley
was the most gentle, the most generous--the very last to be moved
by bad passions, by jealousy or hate.

The youth whom we have seen going down with his uncle to the great
valley of the Mississippi, was now upon his return. He was now
unaccompanied by the benignant senior with whom we first made his
acquaintance. He had simply attended the old bachelor, from whom
he had considerable expectations, to his plantation, in requital
of the spring visit which the latter had paid to his relatives in
Kentucky; and having spent the summer in the southwest, was about
to resume his residence, and the profession of the law, in that
state. We have seen that, however he might have succeeded in
disguising his true feelings from his uncle, he was not unmoved by
the encounter with Margaret Cooper, on the edge of the village. He
now remembered the casual suggestion of the senior, which concluded
their discussion on the subject of her beauty; and he resolved to
go aside from his direct path, and take Charlemont in the route of
his return. Not that he himself needed a second glance to convince
him of that loveliness which, in his wilfulness, he yet denied.
He was free to acknowledge to himself that Margaret Cooper was one
of the noblest and most impressive beauties he had ever seen. The
very scorn that spoke in all her features, the imperious fires that
kindled in her eyes, were better calculated than any more gentle
expressions, to impose upon one who was apt to be skeptical on the
subject of ordinary beauties. The confidence and consciousness of
superiority, which too plainly spoke out in the features of Margaret,
seemed to deny to his mind the privilege of doubting or discussing
her charms--a privilege upon which no one could have been more apt
to insist than himself. This seeming denial, while it suggested to
him ideas of novelty, provoked his curiosity and kindled his pride.
The haughty glance with which she encountered his second approach,
aroused his vanity, and a latent desire arose in his heart, to
overcome one who had shown herself so premature in her defiance.
We will not venture to assert that the young traveller had formed
any very deliberate designs of conquest, but, it may be said, as well
here as elsewhere, that his self-esteem was great; and accustomed
to easy conquests among the sex, in the region where he dwelt, it
was only necessary to inflame his vanity, to stimulate him to the
exercise of all his arts.

It was about noon, on one of those bright, balmy days, early in
October, when "the bridal of the earth and sky," in the language of
the good old Herbert, is going on--when, the summer heats subdued,
there is yet nothing either cold, or repulsive in the atmosphere;
and the soft breathing from the southwest has just power enough to
stir the flowers and disperse their scents; that our young traveller
was joined in his progress towards Charlemont, by a person mounted
like himself and pursuing a similar direction.

At the first glance the youth distinguished him as one of the
homely forest preachers of the methodist persuasion, who are the
chief agents and pioneers of religion in most of the western woods.
His plain, unstudied garments all of black, rigid and unfashionable;
his pale, demure features, and the general humility of his air and
gesture, left our young skeptic little reason to doubt of this;
and when the other expressed his satisfaction at meeting with
a companion at last, after a long and weary ride without one, the
tone of his expressions, the use of biblical phraseology, and the
monotonous solemnity of his tones, reduced the doubts of the youth
to absolute certainty. At first, with the habitual levity of the
young and skeptical, he congratulated himself upon an encounter
which promised to afford him a good subject for quizzing; but a
moment's reflection counselled him to a more worldly policy, and he
restrained his natural impulse in order that he might first sound
the depths of the preacher, and learn in what respect he might be
made subservient to his own purposes. He had already learned from
the latter that he was on his way to Charlemont, of which place
he seemed to have some knowledge; and the youth, in an instant,
conceived the possibility of making him useful in procuring for
himself a favorable introduction to the place. With this thought,
he assumed the grave aspect and deliberate enunciation of his
companion, expressed himself equally gratified to meet with a person
who, if he did not much mistake, was a divine, and concluded his
address by the utterance of one of those pious commonplaces which
are of sufficiently easy acquisition, and which at once secured
him the unscrupulous confidence of his companion.

"Truly, it gladdens me, sir," said the holy man in reply, "to meet
with one, as a fellow-traveller in these lonesome ways, who hath a
knowledge of God's grace and the blessings which he daily sheddeth,
even as the falling of the dews, upon a benighted land. It is my
lot, and I repine not that such it is, to be for ever a wayfarer,
in the desert where there are but few fountains to refresh the
spirit. When I say desert, young gentleman, I speak not in the
literal language of the world, for truly it were a most sinful
denial of God's bounty were I to say, looking round upon the mighty
forests through which I pass, and upon the rich soil over which
I travel, that my way lies not through a country covered, thrice
covered, with the best worldly bounties of the Lord. But it is
a moral desert which my speech would signify. The soul of man is
here lacking the blessed fountains of the truth--the mind of man
here lacketh the holy and joy-shedding lights of the spirit; and
it rejoiceth me, therefore, when I meet with one, like thyself,
in whose language I find a proof that thou hast neither heard the
word with idle ears, nor treasured it in thy memory with unapplying
mind. May I ask of thee, my young friend, who thou art, and by
what name I shall call thee?--not for the satisfaction of an idle
curiosity, to know either thy profession or thy private concerns,
but that I may the better speak to thee in our conference
hereafter, Thou hast rightly conjectured as to my calling--and my
own name, which is one unknown to most even in these forests, is
John Cross--I come of a family in North Carolina, which still abide
in that state, by the waters of the river Haw. Perhaps, if thou
hast ever travelled in those parts, thou hast happened upon some
of my kindred, which are very numerous."

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