Charlemont

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But though Stevens forbore to commit himself openly in the cause
which he professed a desire to espouse, he was yet sufficiently
heedful to maintain all those externals of devotion which a serious
believer would be apt to exhibit. He could be a good actor of a
part, and in this lay his best talent. He had that saving wisdom
of the worldling, which is too often estimated beyond its worth,
called cunning; and the frequent successes of which produces that
worst of all the diseases that ever impaired the value of true
greatness--conceit. Alfred Stevens fancied that he could do everything,
and this fancy produced in him the appearance of a courage which
his moral nature never possessed. He had the audacity which results
from presumption, not the wholesome strength which comes from
the conscious possession of a right purpose. But a truce to our
metaphysics.

Never did saint wear the aspect of such supernatural devotion. He
knelt with the first, groaned audibly at intervals, and when his
face became visible, his eyes were strained in upward glances, so
that the spectator could behold little more in their orbs than a
sea of white.

"Oh! what a blessed young man!" said Mrs. Quackenbosh.

"How I wish it was he that was to preach for us to-day," responded
that gem from the antique, Miss Polly Entwistle, who had joined
every church in Kentucky in turn, without having been made a spouse
in either.

"How handsome he is!" simpered Miss Julia Evergreen--a damsel of
seventeen, upon whom the bilious eyes of Miss Entwistle were cast
with such an expression as the devil is said to put on when suddenly
soused in holy water.

"Handsome is that handsome does!" was the commentary of a venerable
cormorant to whom Brother Cross had always appeared the special
and accepted agent of heaven.

"I wish Brother Cross would get him to pray only. I wonder if
he believes in the new-light doctrine?" purred one of the ancient
tabbies of the conventicle.

"The new light is but the old darkness, Sister Widgeon," responded
an old farmer of sixty four, who had divided his time so equally
between the plough and the prayer-book, that his body had grown
as crooked as the one, while his mind was bewildered with as many
doctrines as ever worried all sense out of the other.

We shall not suffer these to divert us, any more than Stevens
permitted their speculations upon his person and religion to affect
his devotion. He looked neither to the right nor to the left while
entering the church, or engaging in the ceremonies. No errant
glances were permitted to betray to the audience a mind wandering
from the obvious duties before it; and yet Alfred Stevens knew just
as well that every eye in the congregation was fixed upon him, as
that he was himself there; and among those eyes, his own keen glance
had already discovered those of that one for whorn all these labors
of hypocrisy were undertaken.

Margaret Cooper sat on the opposite side of the church, but the
line of vision was uninterrupted between them, and when--though very
unfrequently--Stevens suffered his gaze to rest upon her form, it
was with a sudden look of pleased abstraction, as if, in spite of
himself, his mind was irresistibly drawn away from all recollection,
of its immediate duties.

If a word is sufficient for the wise, a look answers an equal purpose
with the vain. Margaret Cooper left the church that morning with
a pleased conviction that the handsome stranger had already paid
his devotion to her charms. There was yet another passion to be
gratified. The restless ambition of her foolish heart whispered to
her momently, that if her person had done so much, what might she
not hope to achieve when the treasures of her mind were known. She
had long since made the comparison of her own intellect with that
of every other maiden in the village, and she flattered herself
that before many days, the young stranger should make it too. Her
vain heart was rapidly preparing to smooth the path of the enemy
and make his conquests easy.

But it was not the women only, by whom the deportment of Alfred
Stevens was so closely watched. The eyes of suspicion and jealousy were
upon him. The two young men whose interview formed the conclusion
of our last chapter, scanned his conduct and carriage with sufficient
keenness of scrutiny.

"I'll tell you what, Bill Hinkley," said his cousin, "this fellow,
to my thinking, is a very great rascal."

"What makes you think so?" demanded the former, with slow, dissatisfied
accents; "he seems to pray very earnestly."

"That's the very reason I think him a rascal. His praying seems
to me very unnatural. Here, he's a perfect stranger in the place,
yet he never shows any curiosity to see the people. He never once
looks around him. He walks to the church with his eye cast upon
the ground, and sometimes he squints to this side and sometimes
to that, but he seems to do it slyly, and seems to take pains that
nobody should see him doing, it. All this might answer for an old
man, who--believes that everything is vanity--as, indeed, everything
must seem to old people; but to a young fellow, full of blood,
who eats well, drinks well, sleeps well, and should naturally have
a hankering after a young girl, all this is against nature. Now,
what's against nature is wrong, and there's wrong at the bottom of
it. Youth is the time to laugh, dance, sing, play on the violin,
and always have a sweetheart when it can find one. If you can't get
a beauty take a brown; and if Mary won't smile, Susan will. But
always have a sweetheart; always be ready for fun and frolic; that's
the way for the young, and when they don't take these ways, it's
unnatural--there's something wrong about it, and I'm suspicious of
THAT person. Now, I just have this notion of the young stranger.
He's after no good. I reckon he's like a hundred others; too
lazy to go to work, he goes to preaching, and learns in the first
sermon to beg hard for the missionaries. I'll lick him, Bill, to
a certainty, if he gives me the littlest end of an opportunity."

"Pshaw, Ned, don't think of such a thing. You are quite too fond
of licking people."

"Deuse a bit. It does 'em good. Look you, this chap is monstrous
like Joe Richards. I'll have to lick him on that account."

"You're mad, Ned; talk of whipping a preacher."

"He's no preacher yet," said the other, "but if I lick him he may
become one."

"No matter, he's never offended you."

"Ay, but he will. I see it in the fellow's looks. I never was
mistaken in a fellow's looks in all my life."

"Wait till he does offend you then."

"Well, I'm willing to do that, for I know the time will come. I'm
always sure, when I first see a man, to know whether I'll have to
flog him or not. There's a something that tells me so. Isn't that
very singular, Bill?"

"No! you form a prejudice against a man, fancy that you ought to
whip him, and then never rest till you've done so. You'll find your
match some day."

"What! you think some other chap will fancy he ought to whip me?
Well--maybe so. But this ain't the fellow to do that."

"He's a stout man, and I reckon strong. Besides, Ned, he's very
handsome."

"Handsome! Lord, Bill, what a taste you have? How can a man be
called handsome that never altogether opens his eyes, except when
he turns up the whites until you'd think he'd never be able to get
the balls back to their proper place? Then, what a chin he has--as
sharp as a pitchfork, and who but a girl child would fancy a man
with his hair combed sleek like a woman's on each side of his ears,
with big whiskers at the same time that looks for all the world
like the brush of a seven years running fox, Handsome! If my pup
'Dragon' was only half so much like a beast, I'd plump him into
the horsepond!"

It is probable that Ned Hinkley did not altogether think of the
stranger as he expressed himself. But he saw how deep a hold his
appearance had taken, in an adverse way, upon the mind and feelings
of his relative and friend, and his rude, but well-meant endeavors
were intended to console his companion, after his own fashion, by
the exhibition of a certain degree of sympathy.

His efforts, however well intended, did not produce any serious
effect. William Hinkley, though he forbore the subject, and every
expression which might indicate either soreness or apprehension,
was still the victim of that presentiment which had touched him on
the very first appearance of the stranger. He felt more than ever
apprehensive on the score of his misplaced affections. While his
cousin had been watching the stranger, HIS eyes had been fixed
upon those of Margaret Cooper, and his fears were increased and
strengthened, as he perceived that she was quite too much absorbed
in other thoughts and objects to behold for an instant the close
espionage which he maintained upon her person. His heart sunk within
him, as he beheld how bold was her look, and how undisguised the
admiration which it expressed for the handsome stranger.

"You will go home with me, William?" said the cousin, The other
hesitated.

"I think," said he, after a moment's pause, "I should rather go
to my own home. It is a sort of weakness to let a stranger drive
a man off from his own family, and though I somehow dislike this
person's looks, and am very sorry that John Cross brought him to
our house, yet I shouldn't let a prejudice which seems to have no
good foundation take such possession of my mind. I will go home,
Ned, and see--perhaps I may come to like the stranger more when I
know him better."

"You'll never like him. I see it in the fellow's eye; but just as
you please about going nome. You're right in one thing--never to
give up your own dunghill, so long as you can get room on it for a
fair fling with your enemy. Besides, you can see better, by going
home, what the chap's after. I don't see why he should come here
to learn to preach. We can't support a preacher. We don't want
one. He could just as well have learned his business, where he came
from."

With these words the cousins separated.

"Now," said Ned Hinkley as he took his own way homeward, in a deeper
fit of abstraction than was altogether usual with him, "now will
Bill Hinkley beat about the bush without bouncing through it, until
it's too late to do anything. He's mealy-mouthed with the woman,
and mealy-mouthed with the man, and mealy-mouthed with everybody.
--quite too soft-hearted and too easy to get on. Here's a stranger
nobody knows, just like some crow from another corn-field, that'll
pick up his provisions from under his very nose, and he doing
nothing to hinder until there's no use in trying. If I don't push
in and help him, he'll not help himself. As for Margaret Cooper,
dang it, I'll court her for him myself. If he's afraid to pop the
question, I ain't; though I'll have to be mighty careful about
the words I use, or she'll be thinking I come on my own hook; and
that would be a mighty scary sort of business all round the house.
Then this stranger. If anybody can look through a stranger here in
Charlemont, I reckon I'm that man. I suspect him already. I think
he's after no good with his great religioning; and I'll tie such
a pair of eyes to his heels, that his understanding will never be
entirely out of my sight. I'll find him out if anybody can. But
I won't lick him till I do. That wouldn't be altogether right,
considering he's to be a parson, though I doubt he'll never make
one."

And thus, with a head filled with cares of a fashion altogether
new, the sturdy young Kentuckian moved homeward with a degree of
abstraction in his countenance which was not among the smallest
wonders of the day and place in the estimation of his friends and
neighbors.

Meanwhile, the work of mischief was in full progress. Everybody
knows the degree of familiarity which exists among all classes in a
country-village, particularly when the parties are brought together
under the social and stimulating influences of religion. It was
natural that the pastor, long known and well beloved, should be
surrounded by his flock as he descended from the pulpit. The old
ladies always have a saving interest in his presence, and they pave
the way for the young ones. Alfred Stevens, as the protege of John
Cross, naturally attended his footsteps, and was introduced by him
to the little congregation, which had mostly remained to do honor
to the preacher. Of these, not last, nor least, was the widow
Cooper; and, unreluctant by her side, though in silence, and not
without a degree of emotion, which she yet was able to conceal,
stood her fair but proud-hearted daughter.

Margaret, alas! Margaret stood there with a heart more proud,
yet more humble, than ever. Proud in the consciousness of a new
conquest--humble in the feeling that this conquest had not been
made, but at the expense of some portion of her own independence.
Hitherto, her suitors had awakened no other feeling in her heart
but vanity. Now, she felt no longer able to sail on, "imperial
arbitress," smiling at woes which she could inflict, but never share.
That instinct, which, in the heart of young Hinkley had produced
fear, if not antipathy, had been as active in her case, though with
a very different result. The first glimpse which she had of the
handsome stranger, months before, had impressed her with a singular
emotion; and now that he was returned, she could not divest herself
of the thought that his return was a consequence of that one glimpse.

With a keener judgment than belonged to her neighbors, she too had
some suspicions that religion was scarcely the prevailing motive
which had brought the youth back to their little village; for how
could she reconcile with his present demure gravity and devout
profession, the daring which he had shown in riding back to behold
her a second time? That such had been his motive she divined by her
own feeling of curiosity, and the instincts of vanity were prompt
enough to believe that this was motive sufficient to bring him
back once more, and under the guise of a character, which would
the readiest secure an easy entrance to society. Pleased with the
fancy that she herself was the object sought, she did not perceive
how enormous was the sort of deception which the stranger had
employed to attain the end desired. With all her intellect she had
not the wisdom to suspect that he who could so readily practise so
bold an hypocrisy, was capable of the worst performances; and when
their names were mentioned, and his eyes were permitted to meet
and mingle their glances with hers, she was conscious of nothing
farther than a fluttering sentiment of pleasure, which was amply
declared to the stranger, in the flash of animation which spoke
openly in her countenance; eye speaking to lip and cheek, and
these, in turn, responding with a kindred sentiment to the already
tell-tale eye.

William Hinkley, from a little distance, beheld this meeting. He
had lingered with the curiosity which belongs to the natural
apprehension of the lover. He saw them approach--nay, fancied
he beheld the mutual expression of their sympathizing eyes, and
he turned away, and hurried homeward, with the feeling of a heart
already overborne, and defrauded in all its hopes and expectations.
The flowers were threatened with blight in his Eden: but he did
not conjecture, poor fellow, that a serpent had indeed entered it!

CHAPTER VII.

THE GOOD YOUNG MAN IN MEDITATION.

Perhaps, it may be assumed, with tolerable safety, that no first
villany is ever entirely deliberate. There is something in events
to give it direction--something to egg it on--to point out time,
place, and opportunity. Of course, it is to be understood that the
actor is one, in the first place, wanting in the moral sense. What
we simply mean to affirm is, that the particular, single act, is,
in few instances, deliberately meditated from the beginning. We
very much incline to think that some one event, which we ordinarily
refer to the chapter of accidents, has first set the mind to work
upon schemes, which would otherwise, perhaps, never be thought of
at all. Thus, we find persons who continue very good people, as
the world goes, until middle age, or even seniority; then, suddenly
breaking out into some enormous offence against decency and society,
which startles the whole pious neighborhood. Folks start up, with
outstretched hands and staring eyes, and cry aloud:--

"Lord bless us, who would have thought so good a man could be so
bad!"

He, poor devil, never fancied it himself, till he became so,
and it was quite too late to alter his arrangements. Perhaps his
neighbors may have had some share in making him so. Pious persons
are very frequently reduced to these straits by having the temptation
forced too much upon them. Flesh and blood can not always withstand
the provocation of earthly delicacies, even where the spirit is a
tolerably stout one; and of the inadequacy of the mind, always to
contend with the inclinations of the flesh, have we not a caution in
that injunction of Holy Book which warns us to fly from temptation?
But lame people can not fly, and he is most certainly lame who halts
upon mere feet of circumstances. Such people are always in danger.

Now, Alfred Stevens, properly brought up, from the beginning, at some
theological seminary, would have been--though in moral respects
pretty much the same person--yet in the eye of the world a far
less criminal man. Not that his desires would have been a jot more
innocent, but they would have taken a different direction. Instead
of the recklessness of course, such as seems to have distinguished
the conduct of our present subject--instead of his loose indulgences--his
smart, licentious speeches--the sheep's-eye glances, right and
left, which he was but too prone to bestow, without prudence or
precaution, whenever he walked among the fair sisters--he, the said
Alfred, would have taken counsel of a more worldly policy, which
is yet popularly considered a more pious one. He would have kept
his eyes from wandering to and fro; he would have held his blood
in subjection. Patient as a fox on a long scent in autumn, he would
have kept himself lean and circumspect, until, through the help
of lugubrious prayer and lantern visage, he could have beguiled
into matrimony some one feminine member of the flock--not always
fair--whose worldly goods would have sufficed in full atonement
for all those circumspect, self-imposed restraints, which we find
asually so well rewarded. But Alfred Stevens was not a man of this
pious temper. It is evident, from his present course, that he had
some inkling of the MODUS OPERANDI; but all his knowledge fell
short of that saving wisdom which would have defrauded the social
world of one of its moral earthquakes, and possibly deprived the
survivors of the present moral story--for moral it is, though our
hero is not exactly so.

It would be doing our subject and our theory equal injustice if we
were to suppose that he had any fixed purpose, known to himself,
when he borrowed the professional garment, and began to talk with
the worthy John Cross in the language of theology, and with the
tongue of a hypocrite. He designed to visit Charlemont--that was
all--as he had really been impressed by the commanding figure and
noble expression of beauty of that young damsel whom he had encountered
by the roadside. Even this impression, however, would have been
suffered to escape from his mind, had it not been so perfectly
convenient to revisit the spot, on his return to his usual place of
residence. During the summer, Charlemont and its rustic attractions
had been the frequent subject of a conversation, running into
discussion, between himself and the amiable old man, his uncle. The
latter repeatedly urged upon his nephew to make the visit; fondly
conceiving that a nearer acquaintance with the pleasant spot which
had so won upon his own affections, would be productive of a like
effect upon his nephew. Alas, how little did he know the mischief
he was doing!

In the very idleness of mood--with just that degree of curiosity
which prompts one to turn about and look a second time--Alfred
Stevens resumed the route which included Charlemont. But the devil
had, by this time, found his way into the meditations of the youth,
and lay lurking, unknown to himself, perhaps, at the bottom of
this same curiosity. The look of pride and defiance which Margaret
Cooper had betrayed, when the bold youth rode back to steal a second
glance at her matchless person, was equivalent to an equally bold
challenge; and his vanity hastily picked up the gauntlet which hers
had thrown down. He wished to see the damsel again--to see if she
WAS so beautiful--if she did, indeed, possess that intellectual
strength and vivacity which flashed out so suddenly and with so
much splendor from beneath her long, dark eye-lashes!

In this mood he met with John Cross; and the simplicity of that
worthy creature offered another challenge, not less provoking than
the former, to the levity and love of mischief which also actively
predominated in the bosom of the youth. Fond of a malicious sort
of fun, and ever on the look-out for subjects of quizzing, it was
in compliance with a purely habitual movement of his mind that he
conjured up that false, glozing story of his religious inclinations,
which had so easily imposed upon the unsuspecting preacher. Never
was proceeding less premeditated, or so completely the result of an
after-thought, than this; and now that it had proved so perfectly
successful--now that he found himself admitted into the very heart
of the little village, and into the bosoms of the people--he began,
for the first time, to feel the awkwardness of the situation in which
he had placed himself, and the responsibilities, if not dangers,
to which it subjected him. To play the part of a mere preacher--to
talk glibly, and with proper unction, in the stereotype phraseology
of the profession--was no difficult matter to a clever young lawyer
of the West, having a due share of the gift of gab, and almost as
profoundly familiar with scripture quotation as Henry Clay himself.
But there was something awkward in the idea of detection, and he
was not unaware of those summary dangers which are likely to follow,
in those wild frontier regions, from the discovery of so doubtful
a personage as "Bro' Wolf" in the clothing of a more innocent
animal. Chief-Justice Lynch is a sacred authority in those parts;
and, in such a case as his, Alfred Stevsns did not doubt that the
church itself would feel it only becoming to provide another sort
of garment for the offender, which, whether pleasant or not, would
at least be likely to stick more closely, and prove less comfortably
warm.

But, once in, there was no help but to play out the game as it had
been begun. Villagers are seldom very sagacious people, and elegant
strangers are quite too much esteemed among them to make them very
particular in knowing tho whys and wherefores about them--whence
they come, what they do, and whither they propose to go. Stevens
had only to preserve his countenance and a due degree of caution,
and the rest was easy. He had no reason to suppose himself an object
of suspicion to anybody; and should he become so, nothing was more
easy than to take his departure with sufficient promptness, and
without unnecessarily soliciting the prayers of the church in behalf
of the hurried traveller! At all events, he could lose nothing by
the visit: perhaps something might be gained.

What was that something? Behold him in his chamber, preparing to
ask and to answer this question for himself. The sabbath-day is
finally over. He has been almost the lion of the day. We say almost,
for the worthy John Cross could not easily be deprived, by any
rivalry, of the loyal regards of his old parishioners. But, though
the latter had most friends, the stranger, Alfred Stevens, had
had most followers. All were anxious to know him--the young, in
particular, maidens and men; and the grave old dames would have
given their last remaining teeth, bone or waxen, to have heard him
discourse. There was so much sense and solemnity in his profound,
devout looks! he has been made known to them all; he has shaken
hands with many. But he has exchanged the speech of sympathy and
feeling with but one only--and that one!--

Of her he thinks in his chamber--his quiet, snug, little chamber--a
mere closet, looking out upon a long garden-slip, in which he
sees, without much heeding them, long lanes of culinary cabbage,
and tracts of other growing and decaying vegetation, in which his
interest is quite too small to make it needful that he should even
ask its separate names. His chin rests upon his hands with an air
of meditation; and gradually his thoughts rise up in soliloquy,
which is suffered to invade no ear but ours:--

"Well! who'd have thought it? a parson!--devilish good indeed! How
it will tell at Murkey's! What a metamorphose! if it don't stagger
'em, nothing will! It's the best thing I've done yet! I shall have
to do it over a hundred times, and must get up a sermon or two
beforehand, and swear that I preached them--and, egad! I may have
to do it yet before I'm done--ha! ha! ha!"

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