"You did not fail, sir?" exclaimed the youth with a painful expression of eager anxiety upon his countenance.

"I did fail—fail altogether! In the first effort to speak, I fainted, and was carried lifeless from the court-room."

The old man covered his face with his hands, for a few moments, to conceal the expression of pain and mortification which memory continued to renew in utter despite of time. The young man's hand rested affectionately on his shoulder. A few moments sufficed to enable the former to renew his narrative.

"I was stunned but not crushed by this event. I knew my own resources. I recollected a similar anecdote of Sheridan; of his first attempt and wretched failure. I, too, felt that 'I had it in me,' and though I did not express, I made the same resolution, that 'I would bring it out.' But Sheridan and myself failed from different causes, though I did not understand this at that time. He had a degree of hardihood which I had not; and he utterly lacked my sensibilities. The very intenseness of my ambition; the extent of my expectation; the elevated estimate which I had made of my own profession; of its exactions; and, again, of what was expected from me; were all so many obstacles to my success. I did not so esteem them, then; and after renewing my studies in private, my exercises of expression and manner, and going through a harder course of drilling, I repeated the attempt to suffer a repetition of the failure. I did not again faint, but I was speechless. I not only lost the power of utterance, but I lost the corresponding faculty of sight. My eyes were completely dazed and confounded. The objects of sight around me were as crowded and confused as the far, dim ranges of figures, tribes upon tribes, and legions upon legions, which struggle in obscurity and distance, in any one of the begrimed and blurred pictures of Martin's Pandemonium. My second failure was a more enfeebling disaster than the first. The first procured me the sympathy of my audience, the last exposed me to its ridicule."

Again the old man paused. By this time, the youth had got one of his arms about the neck of the speaker, and had taken one of his hands within his grasp.

"Yours is a generous nature, William," said Mr. Calvert, "and I have not said to you, until to-day, how grateful your boyish sympathies have been to me from the first day when you became my pupil. It is my knowledge of these sympathies, and a desire to reward them, that prompts me to tell a story which still brings its pains to memory, and which would be given to no other ears than your own. I see that you are eager for the rest—for the wretched sequel."

"Oh, no! sir—do not tell me any more of it if it brings you pain. I confess I should like to know all, but—"

"You shall have it all, my son. My purpose would not be answered unless I finished the narrative. You will gather from it, very possibly, the moral which I could not. You will comprehend something better, the woful distinction between courage of the blood and courage of the brain; between the mere recklessness of brute impulse, and the steady valor of the soul—that valor, which, though it trembles, marches forward to the attack—recovers from its fainting, to retrieve its defeat; and glows with self-indignation because it has suffered the moment of victory to pass, without employing itself to secure the boon!—

"Shame, and a natural desire to retrieve myself, operated to make me renew my efforts. I need not go through the processes by which I endeavored to acquire the necessary degree of hardihood. In vain did I recall the fact that my competitors were notoriously persons far inferior to me in knowledge of the topics; far inferior in the capacity to analyze them; rude and coarse in expression; unfamiliar with the language—mere delvers and diggers in a science in which I secretly felt that I should be a master. In vain did I recall to mind the fact that I knew the community before which I was likely to speak; I knew its deficiencies; knew the inferiority of its idols, and could and should have no sort of fear of its criticism. But it was myself that I feared. I had mistaken the true censor. It was my own standards of judgment that distressed and made me tremble. It was what I expected of myself—what I thought should be expected of me—that made my weak soul recoil in terror from the conviction that I must fail in its endeavor to reach the point which my ambitious soul strove to attain. The fear, in such cases, produced the very disaster, from the anticipated dread of which it had arisen. I again failed—failed egregiously—failed utterly and for ever! I never again attempted the fearful trial. I gave up the contest, yielded the field to my inferiors, better-nerved, though inferior, and, with all my learning, all my eloquence, my voice, my manner; my resources of study, thought, and utterance, fled from sight—fled here—to bury myself in the wilderness, and descend to the less ambitious, but less dangerous vocation of schooling—I trust, to better uses—the minds of others. I had done nothing with my own."

"Oh, sir, do not say so. Though you may have failed in one department of human performance, you have succeeded in others. You have lost none of the knowledge which you then acquired. You possess all the gifts of eloquence, of manner, of voice, of education, of thought."

"But of what use, my son? Remember, we do not toil for these possessions to lock them up—to content ourselves, as the miserable miser, with the consciousness that we possess a treasure known to ourselves only—useless to all others as to ourselves! Learning, like love, like money, derives its true value from its circulation."

"And you circulate yours, my dear sir. What do we not owe you in Charlemont? What do I not owe you, over all?"

"Love, my son—love only. Pay me that. Do not desert me in my old age. Do not leave me utterly alone!"

"I will not, sir—I never thought to do so."

"But," said the old man, "to resume. Why did I fail is still the question. Because I had not been taught those lessons of steady endurance in my youth which would have strengthened me against failure, and enable me finally to triumph. There is a rich significance in what we hear of the Spartan boy, who never betrayed his uneasiness or agony though the fox was tearing out his bowels. There is a sort of moral roughening which boys should be made to endure from the beginning, if the hope is ever entertained, to mature their minds to intellectual manhood. Our American Indians prescribe the same laws, and in their practice, very much resemble the ancient Spartans. To bear fatigue, and starvation, and injury—exposure, wet, privation, blows—but never to complain. Nothing betrays so decidedly the lack of moral courage as the voice of complaint. It is properly the language of woman. It must not be your language. Do you understand me, William?"

"In part, sir, but I do not see how I could have helped being what I am."

"Perhaps not, because few have control of their own education. Your parents have been too tender of you. They have not lessoned you in that proper hardihood which leads to performance. That task is before yourself, and you have shrunk from the first lessons."

"How, sir?"

"Instead of clinging to your Blackstone, you have allowed yourself to be seduced from its pages, by such attractions as usually delude boys. The eye and lip of a pretty woman—a bright eye and a rosy cheek, have diverted you from your duties."

"But do our duties deny us the indulgence of proper sensibilities?"

"Certainly not—PROPER sensibilities, on the contrary, prescribe our duties."

"But love, sir—is not love a proper sensibility?"

"In its place, it is. But you are a boy only. Do you suppose that it was ever intended that you should entertain this passion before you had learned the art of providing your own food? Not so; and the proof of this is to be found in the fact that the loves of boyhood are never of a permanent character. No such passion can promote happiness if it is indulged before the character of the parties is formed. I now tell you that in five years from this time you will probably forget Miss Cooper."

"Never! never!"

"Well, well—I go farther in my prophecy. Allow me to suppose you successful in your suit, which I fancy can never be the case—"

"Why, sir, why?"

"Because she is not the girl for you; or rather, she does not think you the man for her!"

"But why do you think so, sir?"

"Because I know you both. There are circumstances of discrepancy between you which will prevent it, and even were you to be successful in your suit, which I am very sure will never be the case, you would be the most miserably-matched couple under the sun."

"Oh, sir, do not say so—do not. I can not think so, sir."

"You WILL not think so, I am certain. I am equally certain from what I know of you both, that you are secure from any such danger. It is not my object to pursue this reference, but let me ask you, William, looking at things in the most favorable light, has Margaret Cooper ever given you any encouragement?"

"I can not say that she has, sir, but—"

"Nay, has she not positively discouraged you? Does she not avoid you—treat you coldly when you meet—say little, and that little of a kind to denote—I will not say dislike—but pride, rather than love?"

The young man said nothing. The old one proceeded:—

"You are silent, and I am answered. I have long watched your intercourse with this damsel, and loving you as my own son, I have watched it with pain. She is not for you, William. She loves you not. I am sure of it. I can not mistake the signs. She seeks other qualities than such as you possess. She seeks meretricious qualities, and yours are substantial. She seeks the pomps of mind, rather than its subdued performances. She sees not, and can not see, your worth; and whenever you propose to her, your suit will be rejected. You have not done so yet?"

"No, sir—but I had hoped—"

"I am no enemy, believe me, William, when I implore you to discard your hope in that quarter. It will do you no hurt. Your heart will suffer no detriment, but be as whole and vigorous a few years hence—perhaps months—as if it had never suffered any disappointment."

"I wish I could think so, sir."

"And you would not wish that you could think so, if you were not already persuaded that your first wish is hopeless."

"But I am not hopeless, sir."

"Your cause is. But, promise me that you will not press your suit at present."

The young man was silent.

"You hesitate."

"I dare not promise."

"Ah, you are a foolish boy. Do you not see the rock on which you are about to split. You have never learned how to submit. This lesson of submission was that which made the Spartan boy famous. Here, you persist in your purpose, though your own secret convictions, as well as your friend's counsel, tell you that you strive against hope. You could not patiently submit to the counsel of this stranger, though he came directly from your parents, armed with authority to examine and to counsel."

"Submit to him! I would sooner perish!" exclaimed the indignant youth.

"You will perish unless you learn this one lesson. But where now is your ambition, and what does it aim at?"

The youth was silent.

"The idea of an ambitious youth, at twenty, giving up book and candle, leaving his studies, and abandoning himself to despair, because his sweetheart won't be his sweetheart any longer, gives us a very queer idea of the sort of ambition which works in his breast."

"Don't, sir, don't, I pray you, speak any more in this manner."

"Nay, but, William, ask yourself. Is it not a queer idea?"

"Spare me, sir, if you love me."

"I do love you, and to show you that I do, I now recommend to you to propose to Margaret Cooper."

"What, sir, you do not think it utterly hopeless then?"

"Yes, I do."

"And you would have me expose myself to rejection?"

"Exactly so!"

"Really, sir, I do not understand you."

"Well, I will explain. Nothing short of rejection will possibly cure you of this malady; and it is of the last importance to your future career, that you should be freed as soon as possible from this sickly condition of thought and feeling—a condition in which your mind will do nothing, and in which your best days will be wasted. Blackstone can only hope to be taken up when you have done with her."

"Stay, sir—that is she below."

"Who?"

"Margaret——"

"Who is with her?"

"The stranger—this man, Stevens."

"Ha! your counsellor, that would be? Ah! William, you did not tell me all."



CHAPTER XIV.

THE ENTHUSIAST.



The cheeks of the youth glowed. He felt how much he had suppressed in his conference with his venerable counsellor. Mr. Calvert did not press the topic, and the two remained silent, looking down, from the shaded spot where they lay, upon the progress of Margaret Cooper and her present attendant, Stevens. The eminence on which they rested was sufficiently lofty, as we have seen, to enable them, though themselves almost concealed from sight, to take in the entire scene, not only below but around them; and the old man, sharing now in the interest of his young companion, surveyed the progress of the new-comers with a keen sense of curiosity which, for a time, kept him silent. The emotions of William Hinkley were such as to deprive him of all desire for speech; and each, accordingly, found sufficient employment in brooding over his own awakened fancies. Even had they spoken in the ordinary tone of their voices, the sounds could not have reached the persons approaching on the opposite side. They drew nigh, evidently unconscious that the scene was occupied by any other than themselves. Ned Hinkley was half-shrouded in the shrubbery that environed the jutting crag upon which his form was crouched, and they were not yet sufficiently nigh to the tarn to perceive his projecting rod, and the gaudy fly which he kept skipping about upon the surface. The walk which they pursued was an ancient Indian footpath, which had without doubt conducted the red warriors, a thousand times before, to a spot of seclusion and refreshment after their long day's conflict on the "DARK AND BLOODY GROUND." It was narrow and very winding, and had been made so in order to lessen the fatigue of an ascent which, though gradual enough, was yet considerable, and would have produced great weariness, finally, had the pathway been more direct.

The circuitousness of this route, which lay clear enough before the eyes of our two friends upon the eminence—crawling, as it did, up the woodland slopes with the sinuous course of a serpent—was yet visible to Ned Hinkley, on his lowlier perch, only at its starting-point, upon the very margin of the lake. He, accordingly, saw as little of the approaching persons as they had seen of him. They advanced slowly, and seemed to be mutually interested in their subject of conversation. The action of Stevens was animated; The air and attitude of Margaret Cooper was that of interest and attention. It was with something little short of agony that William Hinkley beheld them pause upon occasion, and confront each other as if the topic was of a nature to arrest the feet and demand the whole fixed attention of the hearer.

It will be conjectured that Alfred Stevens had pressed his opportunities with no little industry. Enough has been shown to account for the readiness of that reception which Margaret Cooper was prepared to give him. Her intelligence was keen, quick, and penetrating. She discovered at a glance, not his hypocrisy, but that his religious enthusiasm was not of a sort to become very tyrannical. The air of mischief which was expressed upon his face when the venerable John Cross proposed to purge her library of its obnoxious contents, commended him to her as a sort of ally; and the sympathy with herself, which such a conjecture promised, made her forgetful of the disingenuousness of his conduct if her suspicions were true. But there were some other particulars which, in her mind, tended to dissipate the distance between them. She recognised the individual. She remembered the bold, dashing youth, who, a few months before, had encountered her on the edge of the village, and, after they had parted, had ridden back to the spot where she still loitered, for a second look. To that very spot had she conducted him on their ramble that afternoon.

"Do you know this place, Mr. Stevens?" she demanded with an arch smile, sufficiently good-humored to convince the adventurer that, if she had any suspicions, they were not of a nature to endanger his hopes.

"Do I not!" he said, with an air of EMPRESSMENT which caused her to look down.

"I thought I recollected you," she said, a moment after.

"Ah! may I hope that I did not then offend you with my impertinence? But the truth is, I was so struck—pardon me if I say it—with the singular and striking difference between the group of damsels I had seen and THE ONE—the surprise was so great—the pleasure so unlooked for—that—"

The eye of Margaret Cooper brightened, her cheek glowed, and her form rose somewhat proudly. The arch-hypocrite paused judiciously, and she spoke:—

"Nay, nay, Mr. Stevens, these fine speeches do not pass current. You would make the same upon occasion to any one of the said group of damsels, were you to be her escort."

"But I would scarcely ride back for a second look," he responded, in a subdued tone of voice, while looking with sad expressiveness into her eyes. These were cast down upon the instant, and the color upon her cheeks was heightened.

"Come," said she, making an effort, "there is nothing here to interest us."

"Except memory," he replied; "I shall never forget the spot."

She hurried forward, and he joined her. She had received the impression which he intended to convey, without declaring as much—namely, that his return to Charlemont had been prompted by that one glimpse which he had then had of her person. Still, that nothing should be left in doubt, he proceeded to confirm the impression by other suggestions:—

"You promise to show me a scene of strange beauty, but your whole village is beautiful, Miss Cooper. I remember how forcibly it struck me as I gained the ascent of the opposite hills coming in from the east. It was late in the day, the sun was almost setting, and his faintest but loveliest beams fell upon the cottages in the valley, and lay with a strange, quiet beauty among the grass-plats, and the flower-ranges, and upon the neat, white palings."

"It is beautiful," she said with a sigh, "but its beauty does not content me. It is too much beauty; it is too soft; for, though it has its rocks and huge trees, yet it lacks wildness and sublimity. The rocks are not sufficiently abrupt, the steeps not sufficiently great; there are no chasms, no waterfalls—only purling brooks and quiet walks."

"I have felt this already," he replied; "but there is yet a deficiency which you have not expressed, Miss Cooper."

"What is that?" she demanded.

"It is the moral want. You have no life here; and that which would least content me would be this very repose—the absence of provocation—the strife—the triumph! These, I take it, are the deficiencies which you really feel when you speak of the want of crag, and chasm, and waterfall."

"You, too, are ambitious, then!" she said quickly; "but how do you reconcile this feeling with your profession?"

She looked up, and caught his eye tenderly fixed upon her.

"Ah!" said he, "Miss Cooper, there are some situations in which we find it easy to reconcile all discrepancies."

If the language lacked explicitness, the look did not. He proceeded:—

"If I mistake not, Miss Cooper, you will be the last one to blame me for not having stifled my ambition, even at the calls of duty and profession."

"Blame you, sir? Far from it. I should think you very unfortunate indeed, if you could succeed in stifling ambition at any calls, nor do I exactly see how duty should require it."

"If I pursue the profession of the divine?" he answered hesitatingly.

"Yes—perhaps—but that is not certain?" There was some timidity in the utterance of this inquiry. He evaded it.

"I know not yet what I shall be," he replied with an air of self-reproach; "I fear I have too much of this fiery ardor which we call ambition to settle down into the passive character of the preacher."

"Oh, do not, do not!" she exclaimed impetuously; then, as if conscious of the impropriety, she stopped short in the sentence, while increasing her forward pace.

"What!" said he, "you think that would effectually stifle it?"

"Would it not—does it not in most men?"

"Perhaps; but this depends upon the individual. Churchmen have a great power—the greatest in any country."

"Over babes and sucklings!" she said scornfully.

"And, through these; over the hearts of men and women."

"But these, too, are babes and sucklings—people to be scared by shadows—the victims of their own miserable fears and superstitions!"

"Nevertheless, these confer power. Where there is power, there is room for ambition. You recollect that churchmen have put their feet upon the necks of princes."

"Yes, but that was when there was one church only in Christendom. It was a monopoly, and consequently a tyranny. Now there are a thousand, always in conflict, and serving very happily to keep each other from mischief. They no longer put their feet on princes' necks, though I believe that the princes are no better off for this forbearance—there are others who do. But only fancy that this time was again, and think of the comical figure our worthy brother John Cross would make, mounting from such a noble horse-block!"

The idea was sufficiently pleasant to make Stevens laugh.

"I am afraid I shall have greater trouble in converting you, Miss Cooper, than any other of the flock in Charlemont. I doubt that your heart is stubborn—that you are an insensible!"

"I insensible!" she exclaimed, and with such a look! The expression of sarcasm had passed, as with the rapidity of a lightning-flash, from her beautiful lips; and a silent tear rose, tremulous and large, with the same instantaneous emotion, beneath her long, dark eyelashes. She said nothing more, but, with eyes cast down, went forward. Stevens was startled with the suddenness of these transitions. They proved, at least, how completely her mind was at the control of her blood. Hitherto, he had never met with a creature so liberally endowed by nature, who was, at the same time, so perfectly unsophisticated. The subject was gratifying as a study alone, even if it conferred no pleasure, and awakened no hopes.

"Do not mistake me," he exclaimed, hurrying after, "I had no purpose to impute to you any other insensibility except to that of the holy truths of religion."

She looked up and smiled archly. There was another transition from cloud to sunlight.

"What! are you so doubtful of your own ministry?"

"In your case, I am."

"Why?"

"You will force me to betake myself to studies more severe than any I have yet attempted."

She was flattered but she uttered a natural disclaimer.

"No, no! I am presumptuous. I trust you will teach me. Begin—do not hesitate—I will listen."

"To move you I must not come in the garments of methodism. That faith will never be yours."

"What faith shall it be?"

"That of Catholicism. I must come armed with authority. I must carry the sword and keys of St. Peter. I must be sustained by all the pomps of that church of pomps and triumphs. My divine mission must speak through signs and symbols, through stately stole, pontifical ornaments, the tiara of religious state on the day of its most solemn ceremonial; and with these I must bring the word of power, born equally of intellect and soul, and my utterance must be in the language of divinest poesy!"

"Ah! you mistake! That last will be enough. Speak to me in poesy—let me hear that—and you will subdue me, I believe, to any faith that you teach. For I can not but believe the faith that is endowed with the faculty of poetic utterance."

"In truth it is a divine utterance—perhaps the only divine utterance. Would I had it for your sake."

"Oh! you must have it. I fancy I see it in some things that you have said. You read poetry, I am sure—I am sure you love it."

"I do! I know not anything that I love half so well."

"Then you write it?" she asked eagerly.

"No! the gift has been denied me."

She looked at him with eyes of regret.

"How unfortunate," she said.

"Doubly so, as the deficiency seems to disappoint you."

She did not seem to heed the flattery of this remark, nor did she appear to note the expression of face with which it was accompanied. Her feelings took the ascendency. She spoke out her uncommissioned thoughts and fancies musingly, as if without the knowledge of her will.

"I fancy that I could kneel down and worship the poet, and feel no shame, no humility. It is the only voice that enchants me—that leads me out from myself; that carries me where it pleases and finds for me companions in the solitude; songs in the storm; affections in the barren desert! Even here, it brings me friends and fellowships. How voiceless would be all these woods to me had it no voice speaking to, and in, my soul. Hoping nothing, and performing nothing here, it is my only consolation. It reconciles me to this wretched spot. It makes endurance tolerable. If it were not for this companionship—if I heard not this voice in my sorrows, soothing my desolation, I could freely die!—die here, beside this rock, without making a struggle to go forward, even to reach the stream that flows quietly beyond!"

She had stopped in her progress while this stream of enthusiasm poured from her lips. Her action was suited to her utterance. Unaccustomed to restraint—nay, accustomed only to pour herself forth to woods, and trees, and waters, she was scarcely conscious of the presence of any other companion, yet she looked even while she spoke, in the eyes of Stevens. He gazed on her with glances of unconcealed admiration. The unsophisticated nature which led her to express that enthusiasm which a state of conventional existence prompts us, through fear of ridicule, industriously to conceal, struck him with the sense of a new pleasure. The novelty alone had its charm; but there were other sources of delight. The natural grace and dignity of the enthusiastic girl, adapting to such words the appropriate action, gave to her beauty, which was now in its first bloom, all the glow which is derived from intellectual inspiration. Her whole person spoke. All was vital, spiritual, expressive, animated; and when the last word lingered on her lips, Stevens could scarcely repress the impulse which prompted him to clasp her in his embrace.

"Margaret!" he exclaimed—"Miss Cooper!—you are yourself a poet!"

"No, no!" she murmured, rather than spoke;—"would I were!—a dreamer only—a self-deluded dreamer."

"You can not deceive me!" he continued, "I see it in your eyes, your action; I hear it in your words. I can not be deceived. You are a poet—you will, and must be one!"

"And if I were!" she said mournfully, "of what avail would it be here? What heart in this wilderness would be touched by song of mine? Whose ear could I soothe in this cold and sterile hamlet? Where would be the temple—who the worshippers—even were the priestess all that her vanity would believe, or her prayers and toils might make her? No, no! I am no poet; and if I were, better that the flame should go out—vanish altogether in the smoke of its own delusions—than burn with a feeble light, unseen, untrimmed, unhonored—perhaps, beheld with the scornful eye of vulgar and unappreciating ignorance!"

"Such is not your destiny, Margaret Cooper," replied Stevens, using the freedom of address, perhaps unconsciously, which the familiarity of country life is sometimes found to tolerate. "Such is not your destiny, Margaret. The flame will not go out—it will be loved and worshipped!"

"Ah! never! what is here to justify such a hope—such a dream?"

"Nothing HERE; but it was not of Charlemont I spoke. The destiny which has endowed you with genius will not leave it to be extinguished here. There will come a worshipper, Margaret. There will come one, equally capable to honor the priestess and to conduct her to befitting altars. This is not your home, though it may have been your place of trial and novitiate. Here, without the restraint of cold, oppressive, social forms, your genius has ripened—your enthusiasm has been kindled into proper glow—your heart, and mind, and imagination, have kept equal pace to an equal maturity! Perhaps this was fortunate. Had you grown up in more polished and worldly circles, you would have been compelled to subdue the feelings and fancies which now make your ordinary language the language of a muse."

"Oh! speak not so, I implore you. I am afraid you mock me."

"No! on my soul, I do not. I think all that I say. More than that, I feel it, Margaret. Trust to me—confide in me—make me your friend! Believe me, I am not altogether what I seem."

An arch smile once more possessed her eyes.

"Ah!" I could guess that! But sit you here. Here is a flower—a beautiful, small flower, with a dark blue eye. See it—how humbly it hides amid the grass. It is the last flower if the season. I know not its name. I am no botanist; but it is beautiful without a name, and it is the last flower of the season. Sit down on this rock, and I will sing you Moore's beautiful song, ''Tis the last of its kindred.'"

"Nay, sing me something of your own, Margaret."

"No, no! Don't speak of me, and mine, in the same breath with Moore. You will make me repent of having seen you. Sit down and be content with Moore, or go without your song altogether."

He obeyed her, and the romantic and enthusiastic girl, seating herself upon a fragment of rock beside the path, sang the delicate and sweet verses of the Irish poet, with a natural felicity of execution, which amply compensated for the absence of those Italian arts, which so frequently elevate the music at the expense of the sentiment. Stevens looked and listened, and half forgot himself in the breathlessness of his attention—his eye fastened with a gaze of absolute devotion on her features, until, having finished her song, she detected the expression of his face, and started, with blushing cheeks, to her feet.

"Oh! sweet!" he murmured as he offered to take her hand, but she darted forward, and following her, he found himself a few moments after, standing by her side, and looking down upon one of the loveliest lakes that ever slept in the embrace of jealous hills.



CHAPTER XV.

A CATASTROPHE.



"You disparage these scenes," said Stevens, after several moments had been given to the survey of that before him, "and yet you have drawn your inspiration from them—the fresh food which stimulates poetry and strengthens enthusiasm. Here you learned to be contemplative; and here, in solitude, was your genius nursed. Do not be ungrateful, Margaret—you owe to these very scenes all that you are, and all that you may become."

"Stay! before I answer. Do you see yon bird?"

"Where?"

"In the west—there!" she pointed with her fingers, catching his wrist unconsciously, at the same time, with the other hand, as if more certainly to direct his gaze.

"I see it—what bird is it?"

"An eagle! See how it soars and swings; effortless, as if supported by some external power!"

"Indeed—it seems small for an eagle."

"It is one nevertheless! There are thousands of them that roost among the hills in that quarter. I know the place thoroughly. The heights are the greatest that we have in the surrounding country. The distance from this spot is about five miles. He, no doubt, has some fish, or bird now within his talons, with which to feed his young. He will feed them, and they will grow strong, and will finally use their own wings. Shall he continue to feed them after that? Must they never seek their own food?"

"Surely they must."

"If these solitudes have nursed me, must they continue to nurse me always? Must I never use the wings to which they have given vigor? Must I never employ the sight to which they have imparted vigilance? Must I never go forth, and strive and soar, and make air, and earth, and sea, tributary to my wing and eye? Alas! I am a woman!—and her name is weakness! You tell me of what I am, and of what I may become. But what am I? I mock myself too often with this question to believe all your fine speeches. And what may I become? Alas! who can tell me that? I know my strength, but I also know my weakness. I feel the burning thoughts of my brain; I feel the yearning impulses in my heart; but they bring nothing—they promise nothing—I feel the pang of constant denial. I feel that I can be nothing!"

"Say not so, Margaret—think not so, I beseech you. With your genius, your enthusiasm—your powers of expression—there is nothing, becoming in your sex, and worthy of it, which you may not be."

"You can not deceive me! It might be so, if this were Italy; there, where the very peasant burns with passion, and breathes his feeblest and meanest thoughts and desires in song. But here, they already call me mad! They look on me as one doomed to Bedlam. They avoid me with sentiments and looks of distrust, if not of fear; and when I am looking into the cloud, striving to pierce, with dilating eye its wild yellow flashing centres, they draw their flaxen-headed infants to their breasts, and mutter their thanks to God, that he has not, in a fit of wrath, made them to resemble me! If, forgetful of earth, and trees, and the human stocks around me, I pour forth the language of the great song-masters, they grin at my insanity—they hold me incapable of reason, and declare their ideas of what that is, by asking who knows most of the dairy, the cabbage-patch, the spinning-wheel, the darning-needle—who can best wash Polly's or Patty's face and comb its head—can chop up sausage-meat the finest—make the lightest paste, and more economically dispense the sugar in serving up the tea! and these are what is expected of woman! These duties of the meanest slave! From her mind nothing is expected. Her enthusiasm terrifies, her energy offends, and if her taste is ever challenged, it is to the figures upon a quilt or in a flower-garden, where the passion seems to be to make flowers grow in stars, and hearts, and crescents. What has woman to expect where such are the laws; where such are the expectations from her? What am I to hope? I, who seem to be set apart—to feel nothing like the rest—to live in a different world—to dream of foreign things—to burn with a hope which to them is frenzy, and speak a language which they neither understand nor like! What can I be, in such a world? Nothing, nothing! I do not deceive myself. I can never hope to be anything."

Her enthusiasm hurried her forward. In spite of himself, Stevens was impressed. He ceased to think of his evil purposes in the superior thoughts which her wild, unregulated energy inspired. He scarcely wondered, indeed—if it were true—that her neighbors fancied her insane. The indignation of a powerful mind denied—denied justice—baffled in its aims—conscious of the importance of all its struggles against binding and blinding circumstances—is akin to insanity!—is apt to express itself in the defiant tones of a fierce and feverish frenzy.

"Margaret," said he, as she paused and waited for him, "you are not right in everything. You forget that your lonely little village of Charlemont, is not only not the world, but that it is not even an American world. America is not Italy, I grant you, nor likely soon to become so; but if you fancy there are not cities even in our country, where genius such as yours would be felt and worshipped, you are mistaken."

"Do you believe there are such?" she demanded incredulously.

"I KNOW there are!"

"No! no! I know better. You can not deceive me. It can not be so. I know the sort of genius which is popular in those cities. It is the gentleman and lady genius. Look at their verses for example. I can show you thousands of such things that come to us here, from all quarters of the Union—verses written by nice people—people of small tastes and petty invention, who would not venture upon the utterance of a noble feeling, or a bold sentiment of originality, for fear of startling the fashionable nerves with the strong words which such a novelty would require. Consider, in the first place, how conclusive it is of the feeblest sort of genius that these people should employ themselves, from morning to night, in spinning their small strains, scraps of verse, song, and sonnet, and invariably on such subjects of commonplace, as can not admit of originality, and do not therefore task reflection. Not an infant dies or is born, but is made the subject of verse; nay, its smiles and tears are put on record; its hobby-horse, and its infant ideas as they begin to bud and breathe aloud. Then comes the eternal strain about summer blooms and spring flowers; autumn's melancholy and winter's storms, until one sickens of the intolerable monotony. Such are the things that your great cities demand. Such things content them. Speak the fearless and always strange language of originality and strength, and you confound and terrify them."

"But, Margaret, these things are held at precisely the same value in the big cities as they are held by you here in Charlemont. The intelligent people smile—they do not applaud. If they encourage at all it is by silence."

"No! no! that you might say, if, unhappily, public opinion did not express itself. The same magazines which bring us the verses bring us the criticism."

"That is to say, the editor puffs his contributors, and disparages those who are not. Look at the rival journal and you will find these denounced and another set praised and beplastered."

"Ah! and what would be my hope, my safety, in communities which tolerate these things; in which the number of just and sensible people is so small that they dare not speak, or can not influence those who have better courage? Where would be my triumphs? I, who would no more subscribe to the petty tyranny of conventional law, than to that baser despotism which is wielded by a mercenary editor, in the absence of a stern justice in the popular mind. Here I may pine to death—there, my heart would burst with its own convulsions."

"No! Margaret, no! It is because they have not the genius, that such small birds are let to sing. Let them but hear the true minstrel—let them but know that there is a muse, and how soon would the senseless twitter which they now tolerate be hushed in undisturbing silence. In the absence of better birds they bear with what they have. In the absence of the true muse they build no temple—they throng not to hear. Nay, even now, already, they look to the west for the minstrel and the muse—to these very woods. There is a tacit and universal feeling in the Atlantic country, that leads them to look with expectation to the Great West, for the genius whose song is to give us fame. 'When?' is the difficult—the only question. Ah! might I but say to them—'now'—the muse is already here!"

He took her hand—she did not withhold it; but her look was subdued—the fires had left her eyes—her whole frame trembled with the recoil of those feelings—the relaxation of those nerves—the tension of which we have endeavored feebly to display. Her cheek was no longer flushed but pale; her lips trembled—her voice was low and faint—only a broken and imperfect murmur; and her glance was cast upon the ground.

"You!" she exclaimed.

"Yes, I! Have I not said I am not altogether what I seem? Ah! I may not yet say more. But I am not without power, Margaret, in other and more powerful regions. I too have had my triumphs; I too can boast that the minds of other men hang for judgment upon the utterance of mine."

She looked upward to his glance with a stranger expression of timidity than her features had before exhibited. The form of Stevens had insensibly risen in seeming elevation as he spoke, and the expression of his face was that of a more human pride. He continued:—

"My voice is one of authority in circles where yours would be one of equal attraction and command. I can not promise you an Italian devotion, Margaret; our people, though sufficiently enthusiastic, are too sensible to ridicule to let the heart and blood speak out with such freedom as they use in the warmer regions of the South: but the homage will be more intellectual, more steady, and the fame more enduring. You must let your song be heard—you must give me the sweet privilege of making it known to ears whose very listening is fame."

"Ah!" she said, "what you say makes me feel how foolishly I have spoken. What is my song? what have I done? what am I? what have I to hope? I have done nothing—I am nothing! I have suffered, like a child, a miserable vanity to delude me, and I have poured into the ears of a stranger those ravings which I have hitherto uttered to the hills and forests. You laugh at me now—you must."

The paleness on her cheek was succeeded by the deepest flush of crimson. She withdrew her hand from his grasp.

"Laugh at you, Margaret! You have awakened my wonder. Struck with you when we first met—"

"Nay, no more of that, but let us follow these windings; they lead us to the tarn. It is the prettiest Indian path, and my favorite spot. Here I ramble morning and eve, and try to forget those vain imaginings and foolish strivings of thought which I have just inflicted upon you. The habit proved too much for my prudence, and I spoke as if you were not present. Possibly, had you not spoken in reply, I should have continued until now."

"Why did I speak?"

"Ah! it is better. I wish you had spoken sooner. But follow me quickly. The sunlight is now falling in a particular line which gives us the loveliest effect, shooting its rays through certain fissures of the rock, and making a perfect arrow-path along the water. You would fancy that Apollo had just dismissed a golden shaft from his quiver, so direct is the levelled light along the surface of the lake."

Speaking thus, they came in sight of the party on the opposite hills, as we have already shown—without, however, perceiving them in turn. It will be conjectured without difficulty that, with a nature so full of impulse, so excitable, as that of Margaret Cooper—particularly in the company of an adroit man like Stevens, whose purpose was to encourage her in that language and feeling of egotism which, while it was the most grateful exercise to herself, was that which most effectually served to blind her to his designs—her action was always animated, expressively adapting itself, not only to the words she uttered, but, even when she did not speak, to the feelings by which she was governed. It was the art of Stevens to say little except by suggestives. A single word, or brief sentence, from his lips, judiciously applied to her sentiments or situation, readily excited her to speech; and this utterance necessarily brought with it the secret of her soul, the desire of her heart, nay, the very shape of the delusion which possessed it. The wily libertine, deliberate as the demon to which we have likened him, could provoke the warmth which he did not share—could stimulate the eloquence which he would not feel—could coldly, like some Mephistopheles of science, subject the golden-winged bird or butterfly to the torturous process of examination, with a pin thrust through its vitals, and gravely dilate on its properties, its rich plumage, and elaborate finish of detail, without giving heed to those writhings which declared its agonies. It is not meant to be understood that Stevens found no pleasure himself in the display of that wild, unschooled imagination which was the prevailing quality in the mind of Margaret Cooper. He was a man of education and taste. He could be pleased as an amateur; but he wanted the moral to be touched, and to sympathize with a being so gifted and so feeble—so high aiming, yet so liable to fall.

The ardor of Margaret Cooper, and the profound devotion which it was the policy of Stevens to display, necessarily established their acquaintance, in a very short time, on the closest footing of familiarity. With a nature such as hers, all that is wanted is sympathy—all that she craves is sympathy—and, to win this, no toil is too great, no sufferance too severe; alas, how frequently do we see that no penalty is too discouraging! But the confiding spirit never looks for penalties, and seldom dreams of deceit.

What, then, were the emotions of William Hinkley as he beheld the cordiality which distinguished the manner of Margaret Cooper as she approached the edge of the lake with her companion? In the space of a single week, this stranger had made greater progress in her acquaintance than HE had been able to make in a period of years. The problem which distressed him was beyond his power to solve. His heart was very full; the moisture was already in his eyes; and when he beheld the animated gestures of the maid—when he saw her turn to her companion, and meet his gaze without shrinking, while her own was fixed in gratified contemplation—he scarcely restrained himself from jumping to his feet. The old man saw his emotion.

"William," he said, "did I understand you that this young stranger was a preacher?"

"No, sir, but he seeks to be one. He is studying for the ministry, under Brother Cross."

"Brother Cross is a good man, and is scarcely likely to have anything to do with any other than good men. I suppose he knows everything about the stranger?"

William Hinkley narrated all that was known on the subject in the village. In the innocence of his heart, Brother Cross had described Alfred Stevens as a monument of his own powers of conversion. Under God, he had been a blessed instrument for plucking this brand from the burning. A modified account of the brandy-flask accompanied the narrative. Whether it was that Mr. Calvert, who had been a man of the world, saw something in the story itself, and in the ludicrousness of the event, which awakened his suspicions, or whether the carriage of Alfred Stevens, as he walked with Margaret Cooper, was rather that of a young gallant than a young student in theology, may admit of question; but it was very certain that the suspicions of the old gentleman were somewhat awakened.

Believing himself to be alone with his fair companion, Alfred Stevens was not as scrupulous of the rigidity of manner which, if not actually prescribed to persons occupying his professional position, is certainly expected from them; and, by a thousand little acts of gallantry, he proved himself much more at home as a courtier and a ladies' man than as one filled with the overflow of divine grace, and thoughtful of nothing less than the serious earnest of his own soul. His hand was promptly extended to assist the progress of his fair companion—a service which was singularly unnecessary in the case of one to whom daily rambles, over hill and through forest, had imparted a most unfeminine degree of vigor. Now he broke the branch away from before her path; and now, stooping suddenly, he gathered for her the pale flower of autumn.

These little acts of courtesy, so natural to the gentleman, were anything but natural to one suddenly impressed with the ascetical temper of methodism. Highly becoming in both instances, they were yet strangely at variance with the straight-laced practices of the thoroughgoing Wesleyan, who sometimes fancies that the condition of souls is so desperate as to leave no time for good manners. Mr. Calvert had no fault to find with Stevens's civility, but there was certainly an inconsistency between his deportment now, and those characteristics which were to be predicated of the manner and mode of his very recent conversion. Besides, there was the story of the brandy-flask, in which Calvert saw much less of honor either to John Cross or his neophyte. But the old man did not express his doubts to his young friend, and they sat together, watching, in a silence only occasionalry broken by a monosyllable, the progress of the unconscious couple below.

Meanwhile, our fisherman, occupying his lonely perch just above the stream, had been plying his vocation with all the silent diligence of one to the manner born. Once busy with his angle, and his world equally of thought and observation became confined to the stream before his eyes, and the victim before his imagination. Scarcely seen by his companions on the heights above, he had succeeded in taking several very fine fish; and had his liberality been limited to the supper-table of his venerable friend Calvert, he would long before have given himself respite, and temporary immunity to the rest of the finny tribe remaining in the tarn. But Ned Hinkley thought of all his neighbors, not omitting the two rival widows, Mesdames Cooper and Thackeray.

Something too, there was in the sport, which, on the present occasion, beguiled him rather longer than his wont. More than once had his eye detected, from the advantageous and jutting rock where he lay concealed, just above the water, the dark outlines of a fish, one of the largest he had ever seen in the lake, whose brown sides, and occasionally flashing fins, excited his imagination and offered a challenge to his skill, which provoked him into something like a feeling of personal hostility.

The fish moved slowly to and fro, not often in sight, but at such regularly-recurring periods as to keep up the exciting desire which his very first appearance had awakened in the mind of his enemy.

To Ned Hinkley he was the beau-ideal of the trout genius. He was certainly the hermit-trout of the tarn. Such coolness, such strength, such size, such an outline, and then such sagacity. That trout was a triton among his brethren. A sort of Dr. Johnson among fishes. Ned Hinkley could imagine—for on such subjects his imagination kindled—how like an oracle must be the words of such a trout, to his brethren, gathering in council in their deep-down hole—or driven by a shower under the cypress log—or in any other situation in which an oracle would be apt to say, looking around him with fierceness mingled with contempt, "Let no dog bark." Ned Hinkley could also fancy the contemplations of such a trout as he witnessed the efforts made to beguile him out of the water.

"Not to be caught by a fly like that, my lad!" and precisely as if the trout had spoken what was certainly whispered in his own mind, the fisherman silently changed his gilded, glittering figure on his hook for one of browner plumage—one of the autumn tribe of flies which stoop to the water from the overhanging trees, and glide off for twenty paces in the stream, to dart up again to the trees, in as many seconds, if not swallowed by some watchful fisher-trout, like the one then before the eyes of our companion.

Though his fancy had become excited, Ned Hinkley was not impatient. With a cautious hand he conducted the fly down the stream with the flickering, fidgety motion which the real insect would have employed. The keen-nosed trout turned with the movements of the fly, but philosophically kept aloof. Now he might be seen to sink, now to rise, now he glided close under the rock where the angler reclined, and, even in the very deep waters which were there, which were consequently very dark, so great was the size of the animal, that its brown outline was yet to be seen, with its slightly-waving tail, and at moments the flash of its glittering eye, as, inclining on its side, it glanced cunningly upward through the water.

Again did Ned Hinldey consult his resources. Fly after fly was taken from his box, and suffered to glide upon the stream. The wary fish did not fail to bestow some degree of attention upon each, but his regards were too deliberate for the success of the angler, and he had almost began to despair, when he observed a slight quivering movement in the object of pursuit which usually prepares the good sportsman to expect his prey. The fins were laid aback. The motion of the fish became steady; a slight vibration of the tail only was visible; and in another moment he darted, and was hooked.

Then came the struggle. Ned Hinkley had never met with a more formidable prey. The reel was freely given, but the strain was great upon shaft and line. There was no such thing as contending. The trout had his way, and went down and off, though it might have been observed that the fisherman took good care to baffle his efforts to retreat in the direction of the old log which had harbored him, and the tangling alders, which might have been his safest places of retreat. The fish carried a long stretch of line, but the hook was still in his jaws, and this little annoyance soon led him upon other courses. The line became relaxed, and with this sign, Ned Hinkley began to amuse himself in tiring his victim.

This required skill and promptness rather than strength. The hermit-trout was led to and fro by a judicious turn of wrist or elbow. His efforts had subsided to a few spasmodic struggles—an occasional struggle ending with a shiver, and then he was brought to the surface. This was followed by a last great convulsive effort, when his tail churned the water into a little circle of foam, which disappeared the moment his struggles were over. But a few seconds more were necessary to lift the prey into sight of all the parties near to the lake. They had seen some of the struggle, and had imagined the rest. Neither Margaret Cooper nor Stevens had suspected the presence of the fisherman until drawn to the spot by this trial of strength.

"What a prodigious fish!" exclaimed Stevens; "can we go to the spot?"

"Oh! easily—up the rocks on the left there is a path. I know it well. I have traversed it often. Will you go? The view is very fine from that quarter."

"Surely: but who is the fisherman?"

"Ned Hinkley, the nephew of the gentleman with whom you stay. He is a hunter, fisherman, musician—everything. A lively, simple, but well-meaning young person. It is something strange that his cousin William Hinkley is not with him. They are usually inseparable."

And with these words she led the way for her companion following the edge of the lake until reaching the point where the rocks seemed to form barriers to their further progress, but which her agility and energy had long since enabled her to overcome.

"A bold damsel!" said Calvert, as he viewed her progress. "She certainly does not intend to clamber over that range of precipices. She will peril her life."

"No!" said William Hinkley; "she has done it often to my great terror. I have been with her more than once over the spot myself. She seems to me to have no fear, and to delight in the most dangerous places."

"But her companion! If he's not a more active man than he seems he will hardly succeed so well."

William was silent, his eye watching with the keenest interest the progress of the two. In a few moments he started to his feet with some appearance of surprise.

"What's the matter?" demanded Calvert.

"She does not seem as if she wished to ascend the rocks, but she's aiming to keep along the ledges that overhang the stream, so as to get where Ned is. That can hardly be done by the surest-footed, and most active. Many of the rocks are loose. The ledge is very narrow, and even where there is room for the feet there are such projections above as leave no room for the body. I will halloo to her, and tell her of the danger."

"If you halloo, you will increase the danger—you will alarm her," said the old man.

"It will be best to stop her now, in season, when she can go back. Stay for me, sir, I can run along on the heights so as to overlook them, and can then warn without alarming."

"Do so, my son, and hasten, for she seems bent on going forward. The preacher follows but slowly, and she stops for him. Away!"

The youth darted along the hill, pursuing something of a table-line which belonged to the equal elevation of the range of rock on which he stood. The rock was formed of successive and shelving ledges, at such intervals, however, as to make it no easy task—certainly no safe one—to drop from one to the other. The perch of Ned Hinkley, was a projection from the lowest of these ledges, running brokenly along the margin of the basin until lost in the forest slope over which Margaret Cooper had led her companion.

If it was a task to try the best vigor and agility—to say nothing of courage—of the ablest mountaineer, to ascend the abrupt ledges from below, aiming at the highest point of elevation. The attempt was still more startling to follow the lower ledges, some of which hung, loosened and tottering, just above the deepest parts of the lake. Yet, with that intrepidity which marked her character, this was the very task which Margaret Cooper had proposed to herself. William Hinkley had justly said that she did not seem to know fear; and when Stevens with the natural sense of caution which belongs to one to whom such performances are unusual, suggested to her that such a pathway seemed very dangerous—

"Dangerous!" she exclaimed, standing upon the merest pinnacle of a loosened fragment which rested on the very margin of the stream.

"Did you never perceive that there was a loveliness in danger which you scarcely felt to be half so great in any other object or situation. I love the dangerous. It seems to lift my soul, to make my heart bound with joy and the wildest delight. I know nothing so delightful as storm and thunder. I look, and see the tall trees shivering and going down with a roar, and feel that I could sing—sing aloud—and believe that there are voices, like mine, then singing through all the tempest. But there is no danger here. I have clambered up these ledges repeatedly—up to the very top. Here, you see, we have an even pathway along the edge. We have nothing to do but to set the foot down firmly."

But Stevens was not so sure, and his opinion on the beauties of the dangerous did not chime exactly with hers. Still, he did not lack for courage, and his pride did not suffer him to yield in a contest with a female. He gazed on her with increasing wonder. If he saw no loveliness in danger—he saw no little loveliness just then in her; and she might be said to personify danger to his eyes. Her tall, symmetrical, and commanding figure, perched on the trembling pinnacle of rock which sustained her, was as firm and erect as if she stood on the securest spot of land.

Nor was her position that of simple security and firmness. The grace of her attitude, her extended and gently waving arm as she spoke, denoted a confidence which could only have arisen from a perfect unconsciousness of danger. Her swan-like neck, with the face slightly turned back to him; the bright flashing eyes, and the smile of equal pride and dignity on her exquisitely-chiselled mouth;—all formed a picture for the artist's study, which almost served to divert the thoughts of Stevens from the feeling of danger which he expressed.

While he gazed, he heard a voice calling in tones of warning from above; and, at the sound, he perceived a change in the expression of Margaret Cooper's face, from confidence and pride, to scorn and contempt. At the same time she darted forward from rock to rock, with a sort of defying haste, which made him tremble for her safety, and left him incapable to follow. The call was repeated; and Stevens looked up, and recognised the person of the youth whom he had counselled that morning with such bad success.

If the progress of Margaret Cooper appeared dangerous in his sight, that of the young man was evidently more so. He was leaping, with the cool indifference of one who valued his life not a pin's fee, from ledge to ledge, down the long steppes which separated the several reaches of the rock formation. The space between was very considerable, the descent abrupt; the youth had no steadying pole to assist him, but flying rather than leaping, was now beheld in air, and in the next moment stood balancing himself with difficulty, but with success, and without seeming apprehension, on the pinnacle of rock below him. In this way he was approaching the lower ledge along which Margaret Cooper was hurrying as rapidly as fearlessly, and calling to her as he came, implored her to forbear a progress which was so full of danger.

Stevens fancied he had no reason to love the youth, but he could not help admiring and envying his equal boldness and agility; the muscular ease with which he flung himself from point to point, and his sure-footed descent upon the crags and fragments which trembled and tottered beneath the sudden and unaccustomed burden. Charitably wishing that, amid all his agility he might yet make a false step, and find an unexpected and rather cold bath in the lake below, Stevens now turned his eyes upon Margaret Cooper.

She did not answer the counsels of William Hinkley—certainly did not heed them: and, but for the increased impatience of her manner might be supposed not to have heard them. The space between herself and Stevens had increased meanwhile, and looking back, she waited for his approach. She stood on a heavy mass which jutted above the lake, and not six feet from the water. Her right foot was upon the stone, sustaining the whole weight of her person. Her left was advanced and lifted to another fragment which lay beyond. As she looked back she met the eyes of Stevens. Just then he saw the large fragment yield beneath her feet. She seemed suddenly conscious of it in the same moment, and sprung rapidly on that to which her left foot was already advanced. The impetus of this movement, sent the rock over which she had left. This disturbed the balance of that to which she had risen, and while the breath of the stranger hung suspended in the utterance of the meditated warning, the catastrophe had taken place. The stone shrank from beneath her, and, sinking with it, in another moment, she was hidden from sight in the still, deep waters of the lake.



CHAPTER XVI.

SOUSING A GURNET.



The disappearance of Margaret Cooper was succeeded by a shriek from above—a single shriek—a cry of terror and despair; and in the same instant the form of William Hinkley might have been seen cleaving the air, with the boldness of a bird, secure always of his wing, and descending into the lake as nearly as it was possible for him to come, to the spot where she had sunk. Our cooler fisherman looked up to the abrupt eminence, just above his own head, from which his devoted cousin had sprung.

"By gemini!" he exclaimed with an air of serious apprehension, "if William Hinkley hasn't knocked his life out by that plunge he's more lucky than I think him. It's well the lake's deep enough in this quarter else he'd have tried the strength of hard head against harder rock below. But there's no time for such nice calculations! We can all swim—that's a comfort."

Thus speaking, he followed the example of his cousin, though more quietly, plunging off from his lowlier perch, and cleaving the water, headforemost, with as little commotion as a sullen stone would make sent directly downward to the deep. By this time, however, our former companion, Stevens, had done the same thing. Stevens was no coward, but he had no enthusiasm. He obeyed few impulses. His proceedings were all the result of calculation. He could swim as well as his neighbors. He had no apprehensions on that score; but he disliked cold water; and there was an involuntary shrug of the shoulder and shiver of the limbs before he committed himself to the water, which he did with all the deliberation of the cat, who, longing for fish, is yet unwilling to wet her own feet. His deliberation, and the nearness of his position to Margaret Cooper, were so far favorable to his design that he succeeded in finding her first. It must be understood that the events, which we have taken so much time to tell, occupied but a few seconds in the performance. Stevens was in the water quite as quickly as Ned Hinkley, and only not so soon as his more devoted and desperate cousin. If it was an advantage to him to come first in contact with the form of Margaret Cooper, it had nearly proved fatal to him also. In the moment when he encountered her, her outstretched and grasping arms, encircled his neck. They rose together, but he was nearly strangled, and but for the timely interposition of the two cousins, they must probably have both perished.

It was the fortune of our fisherman to relieve the maiden, whom he bore to the opposite shore with a coolness, a skill and spirit, which enabled him to save himself from her desperate but unconscious struggles, while supporting her with a degree of ease and strength which had been acquired while teaching some dozen of the village urchins how to practise an art in which he himself was reckoned a great proficient.

It was fortunate for Stevens that the charities of William Hinkley were more active and indulgent than his own, since, without the timely succor and aid which he afforded, that devout young gentleman would have been made to discontinue his studies very suddenly and have furnished a summary conclusion to this veracious narrative—a consummation which, if it be as devoutly wished by the reader as by the writer, will be a much greater source of annoyance to our publisher than it has proved already. Never had poor mortal been compelled to drink, at one time, a greater quantity of that celestial beverage, which the Reverend Mr. Pierpont insists is the only liquor drunk at the hotels of heaven. We should be sorry to misrepresent that very gentle gentleman, but we believe that this is substantially his idea. It was unfortunate for Stevens that, previously to this, he had never been accustomed to drink much of this beverage in its original strength anywhere. He had been too much in the habit of diluting it; and being very temperate always in his enjoyment of the creature comforts, he had never taken it, even when thus diluted, except in very moderate quantities.

In consequence of his former abstemiousness, the quantity which he now swallowed nearly strangled him. He was about to take his last draught with many wry faces, when the timely arms of the two cousins, by no very sparing application of force withdrew him from the grasp of the damsel; and without very well understanding the process, or any particulars of his extrication, he found himself stretched upon the banks over which he had lately wandered, never dreaming of any such catastrophe; discharging from his stomach by no effort of his own, a large quantity of foreign ingredients—the ordinary effect, we are given to understand, of every inordinate indulgence in strong waters.

Our excellent old friend, Mr. Calvert, was soon upon the spot, and while Ned Hinkley was despatched to the village for assistance, he took himself the charge of recovering the unconscious maiden. Half-forgetting his hostility, William Hinkley undertook the same good service to Stevens, who really seemed to need succor much more than his fair companion. While William Hinkley busied himself by rolling, friction, fanning, and other practices, employed in such cases, to bring his patient back to life, he could not forbear an occasional glance to the spot where, at a little distance, lay the object of his affections.

Her face was toward him, as she lay upon her side. Her head was supported on the lap of the old man. Her long hair hung dishevelled, of a more glossy black now when filled with water. Her eyes were shut, and the dark fringes of their lids lay like a pencil-streak across the pale, prominent orbs which they served to bind together. The glow of indignant pride with which she was wont to receive his approaches had all disappeared in the mortal struggle for life through which she had lately gone; and pure, as seemingly free from every passion, her pale beauties appeared to his doating eye the very perfection of human loveliness. Her breast now heaved convulsively—deep sighs poured their way through her parted lips. Her eyes alternately opened upon but shut against the light, and, finally, the exertions of the old man were rewarded as the golden gleam of expression began to relight and reillumine those features which seemed never to be without it.

She recovered her consciousness, started up, made an effort to rise, but, reeling with inability, sunk down again into the paternal grasp of the old man.

"Mr. Calvert!" she murmured.

"You are safe, my daughter," said the old man.

"But how did it happen?—where am I?"

"By the lake."

"Ah! I remember. I was drowning. I felt it all—the choking—the struggle—the water in my ears and eyes! It was a dreadful feeling. How did I come here? Who saved me?"

"Ned Hinkley brought you to land, but he was helped by his cousin William, who assisted the stranger."

"The stranger? ah! yes, I remember: but where is he?"

She looked around wildly and anxiously, and beholding William Hinkley at a little distance, busy with the still unconscious form of Stevens, a quick, fearful shudder passed over her frame. She almost crouched into the old man's arms as she asked, in husky accents—

"He is not dead—he lives?"

"I hope so. He breathes."

She waited for no more, but, starting to her feet, she staggered to the spot where Stevens lay. The old man would have prevented her.

"You are feeble; you will do yourself harm. Better, if you are able to walk, hurry homeward with me, when you can change your clothes."

"Would you have me ungrateful?" she exclaimed; "shall I neglect him when he risked his life for me?"

There was a consciousness in her mind that it was not all gratitude which moved her, for the deathly paleness of her cheek was now succeeded by a warm blush which denoted a yet stronger and warmer emotion. The keen eyes of William Hinkley understood the meaning of this significant but unsyllabling mode of utterance, and his eyes spoke the reproach to hers which his lips left unsaid:—

"Ah! did I not risk my life too, to prevent—to save? When would she feel such an interest in me? when would she look thus were my life at stake?"

"He will not be neglected," said the old man, gently endeavoring to restrain her. Perhaps she would not have given much heed to the interruption, for hers was the strength of an unfettered will, one accustomed to have way, but that, at this moment, the eyes of Stevens unclosed and met her own. His consciousness had returned, and, under the increasing expression in his looks, she sunk back, and permitted the old man to lead her along the homeward path. More than once she looked back, but, with the assurance of Mr. Calvert that there was no more danger to be apprehended, she continued to advance; the worthy old man, as they went, seeking to divert her mind, by pleasant and choice anecdotes of which his memory had abundant stores, from dwelling upon the unpleasant and exciting event which had just taken place.

Margaret Cooper, whose habits previously had kept her from much intimacy with the village sage, was insensibly taken by his gentleness, the purity of his taste, the choiceness of his expression, the extent of his resources. She wondered how a mind so full should have remained unknown to her so long—committing the error, very common to persons of strong will and determined self-esteem, of assuming that she should, as a matter of inevitable necessity, have known everything and everybody of which the knowledge is at all desirable.

In pleasant discourse he beguiled her progress, until Ned Hinkley was met returning with horses—the pathway did not admit of a vehicle, and the village had none less cumbrous than cart and wagon—on one of which she mounted, refusing all support or assistance; and when, Mr. Calvert insisted upon walking beside her, she grasped the bough of a tree, broke off a switch, and, giving an arch but good-natured smile and nod to the old man, laid it smartly over the horse's flank, and in a few moments was out of sight.

"The girl is smart," said Calvert, as he followed her retreating form with his eye—"too smart! She speaks well—has evidently read. No wonder that William loves her; but she will never do for him. She has no humility. Pride is the demon in her heart. Pride will overthrow her. These woods spoil her. Solitude is the natural nurse of self-esteem, particularly where it is strong at first, and is coupled with anything like talent. Better for such a one if sickness, and strife, and suffering, had taken her at the cradle, and nursed her with the milk of self-denial, which is the only humility worth having. And yet, why should I speak of her, when the sting remains in my own soul—when I yet feel the pang of my feebleness and self-reproach? Alas! I should school none. The voice speaks to me ever, 'Old man, to thy prayers! Thy own knees are yet stubborn as thy neck!'"

Leaving him to the becoming abasement of that delusive self-comfort which ministers to our vain-glory, and which this good old man had so happily succeeded in rebuking, we will return to the spot where we left our other parties. Ned Hinkley had already joined them. With his horse he had providently brought a suit of his own clothes for the stranger, which, though made of homespun, and not of the most modern fashion, were yet warm and comfortable, and as Stevens was compelled to think, infinitely preferable to the chilly and dripping garments which he wore. A few moments, in the cover of the woods, sufficed the neophyte to make the alteration; while the two cousins, to whom the exigencies of forester and fisherman life were more familiar prepared to walk the water out of their own habits, by giving rapid circulation to their blood and limbs. While their preparations were in progress, however, Ned Hinkley could not deny himself the pleasure of discoursing at length on the subject of the late disaster.

"Stranger," he said, "I must tell you that you've had a souse in as fine a fishing-pond as you'll meet with from here to Salt river. I reckon, now, that while you were in, you never thought for a moment of the noble trout that inhabit it."

"I certainly did not," said the other.

"There, now! I could have sworn it. That a man should go with his eyes open into a country without ever asking what sort of folks lived there! Isn't it monstrous?"

"It certainly seems like a neglect of the first duty of a traveller," said Stevens good-humoredly; "let me not show myself heedless of another. Let me thank you, gentlemen, for saving my life. I believe I owe it to one or both of you."

"To him, not to me," said Ned Hinkley, pointing to his cousin. William was at a little distance, looking sullenly upon the two with eyes which, if dark and moody, seemed to denote a thought which was anywhere else but in the scene around him.

"He saved you, and I saved the woman. I wouldn't have a woman drowned in this lake for all the houses in Charlemont."

"Ah! why?"

"'Twould spoil it for fishing for ever."

"Why would a woman do this more than a man?"

"For a very good reason, my friend. Because the ghost of a woman talks, and a man's don't, they say. The ghost of a man says what it wants to say with its eyes; a woman's with her tongue. You know there's nothing scares fish so much as one's talking."

"I have heard so. But is it so clear that there is such a difference between ghosts? How is it known that the female does all the talking?"

"Oh, that's beyond dispute. There's a case that we all know about—all here in Charlemont—the case of Joe Barney's millpond. Barney lost one of his children and one of his negroes in the pond—drowned as a judgment, they say, for fishing a Sunday. That didn't make any difference with the fish: you could catch them there just the same as before. But when old Mrs. Prey fell in, crossing the dam, the case was altered. You might sit there for hours and days, night and day, and bob till you were weary; devil a bite after that! Now, what could make the difference but the tongue? Mother Frey had a tongue of her own, I tell you. 'Twas going when she fell in, and I reckon's been going ever since. She was a sulphury, spiteful body, to be sure, and some said she poisoned the fish if she didn't scare them. To my thinking, 'twas the tongue."

Stevens had been something seduced from his gravity by the blunt humor and unexpected manner of Ned Hinkley; besides, having been served, if not saved, by his hands, something, perhaps, of attention was due to what he had to say; but he recollected the assumed character which he had to maintain—something doubtful, too, if he had not already impaired it in the sight and hearing of those who had come so opportunely but so unexpectedly to his relief, He recovered his composure and dignity; forbore to smile at the story which might otherwise have provoked not only smile but corresponding answer; and, by the sudden coolness of his manner, tended to confirm in Ned Hinkley's bosom the half-formed hostility which the cause of his cousin had originally taught him to feel.

"I'll lick the conceit out of him yet!" he muttered, as Stevens, turning away, ascended to the spot where William Hinkley stood.

"I owe you thanks, Mr. Hinkley," he began.

The young man interrupted him.

"You owe me nothing, sir," he answered hastily, and prepared to turn away.

"You have saved my life, sir."

"I should have saved your dog's life, sir, in the same situation. I have done but an act of duty."

"But, Mr. Hinkley—"

"Your horse is ready for you, sir," said the young man, turning off abruptly, and darting up the sides of the hill, remote from the pathway, and burying himself in the contiguous forests.

"Strange!" exclaimed the neophyte—"this is very strange!"

"Not so strange, stranger, as that I should stand your groom, without being brought up to such a business for any man. Here's your nag, sir."

"I thank you—I would not willingly trespass," he replied, as he relieved our angler from his grasp upon the bridle.

"You're welcome without the thanks, stranger. I reckon you know the route you come. Up hill, follow the track to the top, take the left turn to the valley, then you'll see the houses, and can follow your own nose or your nag's. Either's straight enough to carry you to his rack. You'll find your clothes at your boarding-house about the time that you'll get there."

"Nay, sir, I already owe you much. Let them not trouble you. I will take them myself."

"No, no, stranger!" was the reply of our fisherman, as he stooped down and busied himself in making the garments into a compact bundle; "I'm not the man to leave off without doing the thing I begin to do. I sometimes do more than I bargain for—sometimes lick a man soundly when I set out only to tweak his nose; but I make it a sort of Christian law never to do less. You may reckon to find your clothes home by the time you get there. There's your road."

"A regular pair of cubs!" muttered the horseman, as he ascended the hill.

"To purse up his mouth as if I was giving him root-drink, when I was telling him about Mother Frey's spoiling the fish! Let him take care—he may get the vinegar next time, and not the fish!"

And, with these characteristic commentaries, the parties separated for the time.



CHAPTER XVII.

PHILOSOPHY OP FIGHTING.



"You're not a fighter, Bill Hinkley, and that's about the worst fault that I can find against you."

Such was the beginning of a dialogue between the cousins some three days after the affair which was narrated in our last chapter. The two young men were at the house of the speaker, or rather at his mother's house; where, a favorite and only son, he had almost supreme dominion. He was putting his violin in tune, and the sentences were spoken at intervals with the discordant scraps of sound which were necessarily elicited by this unavoidable musical operation. These sounds might be said to form a running accompaniment for the dialogue, and, considering the sombre mood of the person addressed, they were, perhaps, far more congenial than any more euphonious strains would have been.

"Not a fighter!" said the other; "why, what do you mean?"

"Why, just what I say—you are not a fighter. You love reading, and fiddling, and fishing sometimes, and sometimes dancing, and hunting, and swimming; but I'm pretty certain you don't love fighting. You needn't contradict, Bill—I've been thinking the matter over; and I'm sure of it. I recollect every battle or scrape you ever were in, from the time we went to old Chandler's, and I tell you, you're not a fighter—you don't love fighting!"

This was concluded with a tremendous scrape over the strings, which seemed to say as well as scrape could speak—"There can be no mistake on the subject—I've said it."

"If I knew exactly what you were driving at," said the other, "perhaps I might answer you. I never pretended to be a fighter; and as for loving it, as I love eating, drinking, books, fiddling, and dancing, why that needs no answer. Of course I do not, and I don't know who does."

"There it is. I told you. I knew it. You'd sooner do almost anything than fight."

"If you mean that I would submit to insult," said the more peaceable cousin, with some displeasure in his tones and countenance, "sooner than resent it, you are very much mistaken. It wouldn't be advisable even for you to try the experiment."

"Poh, poh, Bill, you know for that matter that it wouldn't take much trying. I'd lick you as easily now as I did when we were boys together."

"We are boys no longer," said the other gravely.

"I'm as much a boy as ever, so far as the licking capacity calls for boyhood. I've pretty much the same spirit now that I had then, and ten times the same strength and activity. But don't look so blue. I'm not going to try my strength and spirit and activity on you. And don't suppose, Bill Hinkley, that I mean to say you're anything of a coward, or that you'd submit to any open insult; but still I do say, you're not only not fond of fighting, but you're just not as much inclined that way as you should be."

"Indeed! what more would you have? Do you not say that I would not submit to insult?—that I show the proper degree of courage in such cases?"

"Not the PROPER degree. That's the very question. You're not quick enough. You wait for the first blow. You don't step out to meet the enemy. You look for him to come to you."

"Surely! I look upon fighting as brutal—to be waited for, not sought—to be resorted to only in compliance with necessity—to be avoided to the last!"

"No such thing—all a mistake. Fighting and the desire to get on the shoulders of our neighbors is a natural passion. We see that every day. The biggest boy licks the one just below him, he whips the next, and so down, and there's not one that don't lick somebody and don't stand licked himself—for the master licks the biggest. The desire to fight and flog is natural, and this being the case, it stands to reason that we must lick our neighbor or he'll be sure to lick us."

"Pshaw! you speak like a boy yet. This is schoolhouse philosophy."

"And very good philosophy too. I'm thinking the schoolhouse and the play-ground is pretty much a sort of world to itself. It's no bad show of what the world without is; and one of its first lessons and that which I think the truest, is the necessity of having a trial of strength with every new-comer; until we learn where he's to stand in the ranks, number one or number nothing. You see there just the same passions, though, perhaps, on a small scale, that we afterward find to act upon the big world of manhood. There, we fight for gingerbread, for marbles, top and ball; not unfrequently because we venture to look at our neighbor's sweetheart; and sometimes, quite as often, for the love of the thing and to know where the spirit and the sinew are. Well, isn't that just what the big world does after us? As men, we fight for bigger playthings, for pounds, where before we fought for pence—for gold where before we fought for coppers—for command of a country instead of a schoolyard; for our wives instead of sweethearts, and through sheer deviltry and the love of the thing, when there's nothing else to fight about, just the same as we did in boyhood."

"But even were you to prove, and I to admit, that it is so, just as you say, that would not prove the practice to be a jot more proper, or a jot less brutal."

"Begging your pardon, Bill, it proves it to be right and proper, and accordingly, if brutal, a becoming brutality. If this is the natural disposition of boys and men, don't you see that this schoolboy licking and fighting is a necessary part of one's moral education? It learns one to use his strength, his limbs and sinews, as he may be compelled to use them, in self-defence, in every future day of his life. You know very well what follows a boy at school who doesn't show himself ready to bung up his neighbor's eye the moment he sees it at a cross-twinkle. He gets his own bunged up. Well, it's just the same thing when he gets to be a man. If you have a dispute with your enemy, I don't say that you shouldn't reason with him, but I do say that your reasoning will have very little effect upon him unless he sees that you are able and willing to write it in black and blue upon his sheepskin. And what better way could you find to show him THAT, unless by giving him word and blow, the blow first, as being the most impressive argument?"

"You must have been dreaming of these subjects last night." said the grave cousin—"you seem to have them unusually well cut and dried."

"I haven't been dreaming about it, Bill, but I confess I've been thinking about it very seriously all night, and considering all the arguments that I thought you would make use of against it. I haven't quite done with my discussion, which I took up entirely for your benefit."

"Indeed! you are quite philanthropic before breakfast; but let us hear you?"

"You talk of the brutality of fighting—now in what does that brutality consist? Is it not in breaking noses, kicking shins, bunging up eyes, and making one's neighbor feel uncomfortable in thigh, and back, and arms, and face, and skin, and indeed, everywhere, where a big fist or a cowhide shoe may plant a buffet or a bruise?"

"Quite a definition, Ned."

"I'm glad you think so: for if it's brutal in the boy to do so to his schoolmate, is it less so for the schoolmaster to do the same thing to the boy that's under his charge? He bruises my skin, makes my thighs, and arms, and back, and legs, and face, and hands, ache, and if my definition be a correct one, he is quite as brutal as the boys who do the same thing to one another."

"He does it because the boys deserve it, and in order to make them obedient and active."

"And when did a boy not deserve a flogging when he gets licked by his companion?" demanded the other triumphantly—"and don't the licking make him obedient, and don't the kicking make him active? By gemini, I've seen more activity from one chap's legs under the quick application of another's feet, than I think anything else could produce, unless it were feet made expressly for such a purpose and worked by a steam-engine. That might make them move something faster, but I reckon there would be no need in such a case of any such improvement."

"What are you driving at, Ned Hinkley? This is by far the longest argument, I think, that you've ever undertaken. You must be moved by some very serious considerations."

"I am, and you'll see what I'm driving at after a little while. I'm not fond of arguing, you know, but I look upon the fighting principle as a matter to be known and believed in, and I wish to make clear to you my reasons for believing in it myself. You don't suppose I'd put down the fiddle for a talk at any time if the subject was not a serious one?"

"Give way—you have the line."

"About the brutality of fighting then, there's another thing to be said. Fighting produces good feeling—that is to say supposing one party fairly to have licked another."

"Indeed—that's new."

"And true too, Bill Hinkley. It cures the sulks. It lets off steam. It's like a thunderstorm that comes once in a while, and drives away the clouds, and clears the skies until all's blue again."