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Anon. - "Fires and Firemen"

Harold Bell Wright - "The Calling Of Dan Matthews"

Charles H. Sylvester - "Journeys Through Bookland V2"

George Meredith - "The Shaving of Shagpat, v3"

Charlemont

W >> W. Gilmore Simms >> Charlemont




"I have never, reverend sir, travelled in those parts," said the
youth, with commendable gravity, "but I have heard of the Cross
family, which I believe, as you say, to be very numerous--both male
and female."

"Yea, I have brothers and sisters an equal number; I have aunts and
uncles a store, and it has been the blessing of God so to multiply
and increase every member thereof, that each of my brothers, in
turn, hath a goodly flock, in testimony of his favors. I, alone,
of all my kindred, have neither wife nor child, and I seem as one
set apart for other ties, and other purposes."

"Ah, sir," returned the other, quickly, and with a slyness of
expression which escaped the direct and unsuspecting mind of the
preacher, "but if you are denied the blessings which are theirs,
you have your part in the great family of the world. If you have
neither wife nor child of your own loins, yet, I trust, you have
an abiding interest in the wives and children of all other men."

"I were but an unworthy teacher of the blessed word, had I not,"
was the simple answer. "Verily, all that I teach are my children;
there is not one crying to me for help, to whom I do not hasten
with the speed of a father flying to bring succor to his young. I
trust in God, that I have not made a difference between them; that
I heed not one to the forfeit or suffering of the other; and for
this impartial spirit toward the flock intrusted to my charge,
do I pray, as well as for the needful strength of body and soul,
through which my duties are to be done. But thou hast not yet spoken
thy name, or my ears have failed to receive it."

There was some little hesitation on the part of the youth before
he answered this second application; and a less unheeding observer
than his fellow-traveller, might have noticed an increasing warmth
of hue upon his cheek, while he was uttering his reply:--

"I am called Alfred Stevens," he replied at length, the color
increasing upon his cheek even after the words were spoken. But
they were spoken. The falsehood was registered against him beyond
recall, though, of course, without startling the doubts or suspicions
of his companion.

"Alfred Stevens; there are many Stevenses: I have known several
and sundry. There is a worthy family of that name by the waters of
the Dan."

"You will find them, I suspect, from Dan to Beersheba," responded
the youth with a resumption of his former levity.

"Truly, it may be so. The name is of good repute. But what is thy
calling, Alfred Stevens? Methinks at thy age thou shouldst have
one."

"So I have, reverend sir," replied the other; "my calling heretofore
has been that of the law. But it likes me not, and I think soon to
give it up."

"Thou wilt take to some other then. What other hast thou chosen; or
art thou like those unhappy youths, by far too many in our blessed
country, whom fortune hath hurt by her gifts, and beguiled into
idleness and sloth?"

"Nay, not so, reverend sir; the gifts of fortune have been somewhat
sparing in my case, and I am even now conferring with my own thoughts
whether or not to take to school-keeping. Nay, perhaps, I should
incline to something better, if I could succeed in persuading myself
of my own worthiness in a vocation which, more than all others,
demands a pure mind with a becoming zeal. The law consorts not
with my desires--it teaches selfishness, rather than self-denial;
and I have already found that some of its duties demand the blindness
and the silence of that best teacher from within, the watchful and
unsleeping conscience."

"Thou hast said rightly, Alfred Stevens; I have long thought that
the profession of the law hardeneth the heart, and blindeth the
conscience. Thou wilt do well to leave it, as a craft that leads
to sin, and makes the exercise of sin a duty; and if, as I rightly
understand thee, thou lookest to the gospel as that higher vocation
for which thy spirit yearneth, then would I say to thee, arise,
and gird up thy loins; advance and falter not;--the field is open,
and though the victory brings thee no worldly profit, and but
little worldly honor, yet the reward is eternal, and the interest
thereof, unlike the money which thou puttest out to usury in the
hands of men, never fails to be paid, at the very hour of its due,
from the unfailing treasury of Heaven. Verily, I rejoice, Alfred
Stevens, that I have met with thee to-day. I had feared that the
day had been lost to that goodly labor, to which all my days have
been given for seventeen years, come the first sabbath in the next
November. But what thou hast said, awakens hope in my soul that such
will not be the case. Let not my counsels fail thee, Alfred;--let
thy zeal warm; let thy spirit work within thee, and thy words
kindle, in the service of the Lord. How it will rejoice me to
see thee taking up the scrip and the staff and setting forth for
the wildernesses of the Mississippi, of Arkansas, and Texas, far
beyond;--bringing the wild man of the frontier, and the red savage,
into the blessed fold and constant company of the Lord Jesus, to
whom all praise!"

"It were indeed a glorious service," responded the young stranger--whom
we shall proceed, hereafter, to designate by the name by which he
has called himself. He spoke musingly, and with a gravity that was
singularly inflexible--"it were indeed a glorious service. Let me
see, there were thousands of miles to traverse before one might reach
the lower Arkansas; and I reckon, Mr. Cross, the roads are mighty
bad after you pass the Mississippi--nay, even in the Mississippi,
through a part of which territory I have gone only this last summer,
there is a sad want of causeways, and the bridges are exceedingly
out of repair. There is one section of near a hundred miles,
which lies between the bluffs of Ashibiloxi, and the far creek of
Catahoula, that was a shame and reproach to the country and the
people thereof. What, then, must be the condition of the Texas
territory, beyond? and, if I err not, the Cumanchees are a race
rather given to destroy than to build up. The chance is that the
traveller in their country might have to swim his horse over most
of the watercourses, and where he found a bridge, it were perhaps
a perilous risk to cross it. Even then he might ride fifty miles
a day, before he should see the smokes which would be a sign of
supper that night."

"The greater the glory--the greater the glory, Alfred Stevens. The
toil and the peril, the pain and the privation, in a, good cause,
increase the merit of the performance in the eyes of the Lord.
What matters the roads and the bridges, the length of the way, or
the sometimes lack of those comforts of the flesh, which are craved
only at the expense of the spirit, and to the great delay of our
day of conquest. These wants are the infirmities of the human,
which dissipate and disappear, the more few they become, and the
less pressing in their complaint. Shake thyself loose from them,
Alfred Stevens, and thy way henceforth is perfect freedom."

"Alas! this is my very weakness, Mr. Cross:--it was because of these
very infirmities, that I had doubt of my own worthiness to take up
the better vocation which is yet my desire. I am sadly given to
hunger and thirst toward noon and evening; and the travel of a long
day makes me so weary at night, that I should say but a hurried
grace before meal, and make an even more hurried supper after it.
Nay, I have not yet been able to divest myself of a habit which I
acquired in my boyhood; and I need at times, throughout the day,
a mouthful of something stronger than mere animal food, to sustain
the fainting and feeble flesh and keep my frame from utter exhaustion.
I dare not go upon the road, even for the brief journey of a single
day, without providing myself beforehand with a supply of a certain
beverage, such as is even now contained within this vessel, and
which is infallible against sinking of the the spirits, faintings
of the frame, disordered nerves, and even against flatulence and
indigestion. If, at any time, thou shouldst suffer from one or the
other of these infirmities, Mr. Cross, be sure there is no better
medicine for their cure than this."

The speaker drew from his bosom a little flask, such as is sufficiently
well known to most western travellers, which he held on high, and
which, to the unsuspecting eyes of the preacher, contained a couple
of gills or more of a liquid of very innocent complexion.

"Verily, Alfred Stevens, I do myself suffer from some of the
weaknesses of which thou hast spoken. The sinking of the spirits,
and the faintness of the frame, are but too often the enemies that
keep me back from the plough when I would thereto set my hand; and
that same flatulence--"

"A most frequent disorder in a region where greens and collards
form the largest dishes on the tables of the people," interrupted
Stevens, but without changing a muscle of his countenance.

"I do believe as thou say'st, Alfred Stevens, that the disorder comes
in great part from that cause, though, still, I have my doubts if
it be not a sort of wind-melancholy, to which people, who preach aloud
are greatly subject. It is in my case almost always associated with
a sort of hoarseness, and the nerves of my frame twitch grievously
at the same periods. If this medicine of thine be sovereign against
so cruel an affliction, I would crave of thee such knowledge as
would enable me to get a large supply of it, that I may overcome
a weakness, which, as I tell thee, oftentimes impairs my ministry,
and sometimes makes me wholly incapable of fervent preaching. Let
me smell of it, I pray thee."

"Nay, taste of it, sir--it is just about the time when I find it
beneficial to partake of it, as a medicine for my own weakness,
and I doubt not, it will have a powerful effect also upon you. A
single draught has been found to relieve the worst case of flatulence
and colic."

"From colic too, I am also a great sufferer," said the preacher as
he took the flask in his hand, and proceeded to draw the stopper.

"That is also the child of collards," said Stevens, as he watched
with a quiet and unmoved countenance the proceedings of his
simple companion, who finding some difficulty in drawing the cork,
handed it back to the youth. The latter, more practised, was more
successful, and now returned the open bottle to the preacher.

"Take from it first, the dose which relieves thee, Alfred Stevens,
that I may know how much will avail in my own case;" and he watched
curiously, while Stevens, applying the flask to his lips, drew from
it a draught, which, in western experience of benefits, would have
been accounted a very moderate potion. This done, he handed it back
to his companion, who, about to follow his example, asked him:--

"And by what name, Alfred Stevens, do they call this medicine, the
goodly effect of which thou holdst to be so great?"

Stevens did not immediately reply--not until the preacher had applied
the bottle to his mouth, and he could see by the distension of his
throat, that he had imbibed a taste, at least, of the highly-lauded
medicine. The utterance then, of the single word--"Brandy"--was
productive of an effect no less ludicrous in the sight of the youth,
than it was distressing to the mind of his worthy companion. The
descending liquor was ejected with desperate effort from the throat
which it had fairly entered--the flask flung from his hands--and
with choking and gurgling accents, startling eyes, and reddening
visage, John Cross turned full upon his fellow-traveller, vainly
trying to repeat, with the accompanying horror of expression which
he felt, the single spellword, which had produced an effect so
powerful.

"Bran--bran--brandy!--Alfred Stevens!--thou hast given me poison--the
soul's poison--the devil's liquor--liquor distilled in the vessels
of eternal sin. Wherefore hast thou done this? Dost thou not know"--

"Know--know what, Mr. Cross?" replied Stevens, with all the
astonishment which he could possibly throw into his air, as he
descended from his horse with all haste to recover his flask, and
save its remaining contents from loss.

"Call me not mister--call me plain John Cross," replied the
preacher--in the midst of a second fit of choking, the result of
his vain effort to disgorge that portion of the pernicious liquid
which had irretrievably descended into his bowels. With a surprise
admirably affected, Stevens approached him.

"My dear sir--what troubles you?--what can be the matter? What have
I done? What is it you fear?"

"That infernal draught--that liquor--I have swallowed of it a mouthful.
I feel it in me. The sin be upon thy head, Alfred Stevens--why did
you not tell me, before I drank, that it was the soul's poison?--the
poison that slays more than the sword or the pestilence;--the
liquor of the devil, distilled in the vessels of sin--and sent among
men for the destruction of the soul! I feel it now within me, and
it burns--it burns like the fires of damnation. Is there no water
nigh that I may quench my thirst?--Show me, Alfred Stevens, show me
where the cool waters lie, that I may put out these raging flames."

"There is a branch, if I mistake not, just above us on the road--I
think I see it glistening among the leaves. Let us ride toward it,
sir, and it will relieve you."

"Ah, Alfred Stevens, why have you served me thus? Why did you not
tell me?"

Repeated groans accompanied this apostrophe, and marked every step
in the progress of the preacher to the little rivulet which trickled
across the road. John Cross, descended with the rapidity of one
whose hope hangs upon a minute, and dreads its loss, as equal to
the loss of life. He straddled the stream and thrust his lips into
the water, drawing up a quantity sufficient, in the estimation of
Stevens, to have effectually neutralized the entire contents of
his flask.

"Blessed water! Blessed water! Holiest beverage! Thou art the
creation of the Lord, and, next to the waters of eternal life,
his best gift to undiscerning man. I drink of thee, and I am faint
no longer. I rise up, strong and refreshed! Ah, my young friend,
Alfred Stevens, I trust thou didst not mean me harm in giving me
that poisonous liquor?"

"Far from it, sir, I rather thought to do you a great benefit."

"How couldst thou think to do me benefit by proffering such poison
to my lips? nay, wherefore dost thou thyself carry it with thee,
and why dost thou drink of it, as if it were something not hurtful
as well to the body as the soul? Take my counsel, I pray thee,
Alfred Stevens, and cast it behind thee for ever. Look not after
it when thou dost so, with an eye of regret lest thou forfeit
the merit of thy self-denial. If thou wouldst pursue the higher
vocation of the brethren, thou must seek for the needful strength
from a better and purer spirit. But what unhappy teacher could
have persuaded thee to an indulgence which the good men of all the
churches agree to regard as so deadly?"

"Nay, Mr. Cross--"

"John Cross, I pray thee; do I not call thee Alfred Stevens?--Mr.
is a speech of worldly fashion, and becomes not one who should put
the world and its fashions behind him."

Stevens found it more difficult to comply with this one requisition
of the preacher, than to pursue a long game of artful and complex
scheming. He evaded the difficulty by dropping the name entirely.

"You are too severe upon brandy, and upon those who use it. Nay, I
am not sure, but you do injustice to those who make it. So far from
its manufacturers being such as you call them, we have unquestionable
proof that they are very worthy people of a distant but a Christian
country; and surely you will not deny that we should find a medicine
for our hurts, and a remedy for our complaints, in a liquor which,
perhaps, it might be sinful to use as an ordinary beverage. Doctors,
who have the care of human life, and whose business and desire it
is to preserve it, nevertheless do sometimes administer poisons to
their patients, which poisons, though deadly at other times, will,
in certain diseases and certain conditions of disease, prove of
only and great good."

"Impossible! I believe it not! I believe not in the good of brandy.
It is hurtful--it is deadly. It has slain its thousands and its tens
of thousands--it is worse than the sword and the summer pestilence.
Many a man have I known to perish from strong drink. In my own
parts, upon the river Haw, in North Carolina state, I have known
many. Nay, wherefore should I spare the truth, Alfred Stevens?
--the very father of my own life, Ezekiel Cross, perished miserably
from this burning water of sin. I will not hear thee speak of it
again; and if thou wouldst have me think of thee with favor, as one
hopeful of the service of the brethren, cast the accursed beverage
of Satan from thy hands."

The youth, without a word, deliberately emptied tho contents of
his vessel upon the sands, and the garrulous lips of the preacher
poured forth as great a flood of speech in congratulation, as he had
hitherto bestowed in homily. The good, unsuspecting man, did not
perceive that the liquor thus thrown away, was very small in quantity,
and that his companion, when the flask was emptied, quietly restored
it to his bosom. John Cross had obtained a seeming victory, and
did not care to examine its details.






CHAPTER V.

THE SERPENT IN THE GARDEN.





The concession made by Stevens, and which had produced an effect so
gratifying upon his companion, was one that involved no sacrifices.
The animal appetite of the young lawyer was, in truth, comparatively
speaking, indifferent to the commodity which he discarded; and even
had it been otherwise, still he was one of those selfish, cool and
calculating persons, who seem by nature to be perfectly able to
subdue the claims of the blood, with great ease, whenever any human
or social policy would appear to render it advisable. The greatest
concession which he made in the transaction, was in his so readily
subscribing to that false logic of the day, which reasons against
the use of the gifts of Providence, because a diseased moral, and
a failing education, among men, sometimes result in their abuse.

The imperfections of a mode of reasoning so utterly illogical, were
as obvious to the mind of the young lawyer as to anybody else; and
the compliance which he exhibited to a requisition which his own
sense readily assured him was as foolish as it was presumptuous,
was as degrading to his moral character from the hypocrisy which it
declared, as it was happy in reference to the small policy by which
he had been governed. The unsuspecting preacher did not perceive
the scornful sneer which curled his lips and flashed his eyes,
by which his own vanity still asserted itself through the whole
proceeding; or he would not have been so sure that the mantle
of grace which he deemed to have surely fallen upon the shoulders
of his companion, was sufficiently large and sound, to cover
the multitude of sins which it yet enabled the wearer, so far, to
conceal. Regarding him with all the favor which one is apt to feel
for the person whom he has plucked as a brand from the burning, the
soul of John Cross warmed to the young sinner; and it required no
great effort of the wily Stevens to win from him the history, not
only of all its own secrets and secret hopes--for these were of but
small value in the eyes of the worldling--but of all those matters
which belonged to the little village to which they were trending,
and the unwritten lives of every dweller in that happy community.

With all the adroit and circumspect art of the lawyer, sifting the
testimony of the unconscious witness, and worming from his custody
those minor details which seem to the uninitiated so perfectly
unimportant to the great matter immediately in hand--Stevens
now propounded his direct inquiry, and now dropped his seemingly
unconsidered insinuation, by which he drew from the preacher as
much as he cared to know of the rustic lads and lasses of Charlemont.
It does not concern our narrative to render the details thus unfolded
to the stranger. And we will content ourselves, as did the younger
of the travellers, who placed himself with hearty good will at the
disposal of the holy man.

"You shall find for me a place of lodging, Mr. Cross, while it
shall suit me to stay in Charlemont. You have a knowledge of the
people, and of the world, which I possess not; and it will be better
that I should give myself up to your guidance. I know that you will
not bring me to the dwelling of persons not in good repute; and,
perhaps, I need not remind you that my worldly means are small--I
must be at little charge wherever I stop."

"Ah, Brother Stevens, worldly goods and worldly wealth are no more
needed in Charlemont, than they are necessary to the service of the
blessed Redeemer. With an empty scrip is thy service blest;--God
sees the pure heart through the threadbare garment. I have friends
in Charlemont who will be too happy to receive thee in the name of
the Lord, without money and without price."

The pride of Stevens, which had not shrunk from hypocrisy and
falsehood, yet recoiled at a suggestion which involved the idea of
his pecuniary dependence upon strangers, and he replied accordingly;
though he still disguised his objections under the precious appearance
of a becoming moral scruple.

"It will not become me, Mr. Cross, to burden the brethren of the
church for that hospitality which is only due to brethren."

"But thou art in the way of grace--the light is shining upon thee--the
door is open, and already the voice of the Bridegroom is calling
from within. Thou wilt become a burning and a shining light--and
the brethren of the church will rejoice to hail thee among its
chosen. Shall they hold back their hand when thou art even on the
threshold?"

"But, Mr. Cross--"

"Call me not Mr., I pray thee. Call me plain John Cross, if it please
thee not yet to apply to me that sweeter term of loving kindness
which the flock of God are happy to use in speech one to another.
If thou wilt call me Brother Cross, my heart shall acknowledge the
bonds between us, and my tongue shall make answer to thine, in like
fashion. Oh, Alfred Stevens, may the light shine soon upon thine
eyes, that thou may'st know for a truth how pleasant it is for
brethren to dwell together in the peace of of the Lord, and according
to his law. I will, with God's grace, bring thee to this perfect
knowledge, for I see the way clear because of the humility which
thou hast already shown, and thy yielding to the counsels of the
teacher. As for what thou sayest about charges to the brethren,
let that give thee no concern. Thou shalt lodge with old Brother
Hinkley, who is the pattern of good things and of, holiness in
Charlemont. His house is more like unto the tent of the patriarch
pitched upon the plain, than the house of the dweller among the
cities. No lock fastens its doors against the stranger; and the
heart of the aged man is even more open than the doorway of his
dwelling. He standeth in the entrance like one looking out for
him that cometh, and his first word to the messenger of God, is
'welcome!' Thou shalt soon see the truth of what I say to thee,
for even now do we look down upon his house in the very midst of
the village."

If the scruples of Stevens still continued to urge him against
accepting the hospitality of the old patriarch of whom he had
received a description at once just and agreeable, the recollection
of the village-maiden whom he had gone aside from his direct path
of travel, and made some even greater departures from the truth,
to see, determined him at length to waive them; particularly when
he ascertained from his fellow-traveller that he knew of nobody in
Charlemont who accommodated strangers for money.

Stevens was one of those persons who watch the progress of events,
and he resolved, with a mental reservation--that seems strange
enough in the case of one who had shown so little reluctance to say
and do the thing which he could not maintain or defend--to avail
himself of some means for requiting, to the uttermost farthing,
the landlord, to whose hospitality he might be indebted during his
stay in Charlemont.

Such are the contradictions of character which hourly detect and
describe the mere worldling--the man lacking in all principle, but
that which is subservient to his selfish policy. To accept money
or money's worth from a stranger, seemed mean and humbling to one,
who did not hesitate, in the promotion of a scheme, which, had
treachery for its object, to clothe himself in the garments of
deception, and to make his appearance with a lie festering upon
his lips. That evening, Alfred Stevens became, with his worthier
companion, an inmate of the happy dwelling of William Hinkley, the
elder--a venerable, white-headed father, whose whole life had made
him worthy of a far higher eulogium than that which John Cross had
pronounced upon him.

The delight of the family to see their reverend teacher was heartfelt
and unreserved. A vigorous gripe of the hand, by the elder dragged
him into the house, and a sentence of unusual length, from his
better half, assured him of that welcome which the blunter action
of her venerable husband had already sufficiently declared. Nor
was the young adventurer who accompanied the preacher, suffered
to remain long unconsidered. When John Cross had told them who he
was, or rather when he had declared his spiritual hopes in him--which
he did with wonderful unction, in a breath--the reception of old
Hinkley, which had been hospitable enough before, became warm and
benignant; and Brother Stevens already became the word of salutation,
whenever the old people desired to distinguish their younger guest.

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