THE STRONG-MINDED WOMAN.
The young maiden last met by our travellers, and whose appearance had
so favorably impressed them, had not been altogether uninfluenced by
the encounter. Her spirit was of a musing and perhaps somewhat moody
character, and the little adventure related in our last chapter, had
awakened in her mind a train of vague and purposeless thought, from
which she did not strive to disengage herself. She ceased to pursue the
direct path back to Charlemont, the moment she had persuaded herself
that the strangers had continued on their way; and turning from the
beaten track, she strolled aside, following the route of a brooklet, the
windings of which, as it led her forward, were completely hidden from
the intrusive glance of any casual wayfarer. The prattle of the little
stream as it wound upon its sleepless journey, contributed still more to
strengthen the musings of those vagrant fancies that filled the maiden's
thoughts.
She sat down upon the prostrate trunk of a tree, and surrendered herself
for a while to their control. Her thoughts were probably of a kind
which, to a certain extent, are commended to every maiden. Among them,
perpetually rose an image of the bold and handsome stranger, whose
impudence, in turning back in pursuit of her, was somewhat qualified by
the complimentary curiosity which such conduct manifested. Predominant
even over this image, however, was the conviction of isolation which
she felt where she was, and the still more painful conviction, that
the future was without promise. Such thoughts and apprehensions may
be natural enough to all young persons of active, earnest nature, not
permitted to perform; but in the bosom of Margaret Cooper they were
particularly so. Her mind was of a masculine and commanding character,
and was ill-satisfied with her position and prospect in Charlemont. A
quiet, obscure village, such as that we have described, held forth no
promise for a spirit so proud, impatient, and ambitious as hers. She
knew the whole extent of knowledge which it contained, and all its
acquisitions and resources--she had sounded its depths, and traced all
its shallows. The young women kept no pace with her own progress--they
were good, silly girls enough--a chattering, playful set, whom small
sports could easily satisfy, and who seemed to have no care, and scarce
a hope, beyond the hilly limits of their homestead; and as for the young
men--they were only suited to the girls, such as they were, and could
never meet the demand of such an intellect as hers.
This lofty self-estimate, which was in some sense just, necessarily gave
a tone to her language and a coloring to all her thoughts, such as
good sense and amiability should equally strive to suppress and
conceal--unless, as in the case of Margaret Cooper, the individual
herself was without due consciousness of their presence. It had the
effect of discouraging and driving from her side many a good-natured
damsel, who would have loved to condole with her, and might have been
a pleasant companion. The young women regarded her with some dislike in
consequence of her self-imposed isolation--and the young men with some
apprehension. Her very knowledge of books, which infinitely surpassed
that of all her sex within the limits of Charlemont, was also an object
of some alarm. It had been her fortune, whether well or ill may be a
question, to inherit from her father a collection, not well chosen,
upon which her mind had preyed with an appetite as insatiate as it
was undiscriminating. They had taught her many things, but among these
neither wisdom nor patience was included;--and one of the worst lessons
which she had learned, and which they had contributed in some respects
to teach, was discontent with her condition--a discontent which
saddened, if it did not embitter, her present life, while it left the
aspects of the future painfully doubtful, even to her own eye.
She was fatherless, and had been already taught some of those rude
lessons which painfully teach dependence; but such lessons, which
to most others would have brought submission, only provoked her to
resistance. Her natural impetuosity of disposition, strengthened by
her mother's idolatrous indulgence, increased the haughtiness of her
character; and when, to these influences, we add that her surviving
parent was poor, and suffered from privations which were unfelt by many
of their neighbors, it may be easily conceived that a temper and mind
such as we have described those of Margaret Cooper--ardent, commanding,
and impatient, hourly found occasion, even in the secluded village where
she dwelt, for the exercise of moods equally adverse to propriety and
happiness. Isolated from the world by circumstances, she doubly exiled
herself from its social indulgences, by the tyrannical sway of a
superior will, strengthened and stimulated by an excitable and ever
feverish blood; and, as we find her now, wandering sad and sternly by
the brookside, afar from the sports and humbler sources of happiness,
which gentler moods left open to the rest, so might she customarily be
found, at all hours, when it was not absolutely due to appearances that
she should be seen among the crowds.
We will not now seek to pursue her musings and trace them out to their
conclusions, nor will it be necessary that we should do more
than indicate their character. That they were sad and solemn as
usual--perhaps humbling--may be gathered from the fact that a big tear
might have been seen, long gathering in her eye;--the next moment she
brushed off the intruder with an impatience of gesture, that plainly
showed how much her proud spirit resented any such intrusion. The tear
dispersed the images which had filled her contemplative mood, and rising
from her sylvan seat, she prepared to move forward, when a voice calling
at some little distance, drew her attention. Giving a hasty glance
in the direction of the sound, she beheld a young man making his way
through the woods, and approaching her with rapid footsteps. His evident
desire to reach her, did not, however, prompt her to any pause in her
own progress; but, as if satisfied with the single glance which she gave
him, and indifferent utterly to his object, she continued on her way,
nor stopped for an instant, nor again looked back, until his salutation,
immediately behind her, compelled her attention and answer.
“Margaret--Miss Cooper!” said the speaker, who was a young rustic,
probably twenty or twenty-one years of age, of tall, good person,
a handsome face, which was smooth, though of dark complexion, and
lightened by an eye of more than ordinary size and intelligence. His
tones were those of one whose sensibilities were fine and active, and
it would not have called for much keen observation to have seen that his
manner, in approaching and addressing the maiden, was marked with some
little trepidation. She, on the contrary, seemed too familiar with
his homage, or too well satisfied of his inferiority, to deign much
attention to his advances. She answered his salutation coldly, and was
preparing to move forward, when his words again called for her reluctant
notice.
“I have looked for you, Margaret, full an hour. Mother sent me after you
to beg that you will come there this evening. Old Jenks has come up from
the river, and brought a store of fine things--there's a fiddle for
Ned, and Jason Lightner has a flute, and I--I have a small lot of books,
Margaret, that I think will please you.”
“I thank you, William Hinkley, and thank your mother, but I can not come
this evening.”
“But why not, Margaret?--your mother's coming--she promised for you too,
but I thought you might not get home soon enough to see her, and so I
came out to seek you.”
“I am very sorry you took so much trouble, William, for I cannot come
this evening.”
“But why not, Margaret? You have no other promise to go elsewhere have
you?”
“None,” was the indifferent reply.
“Then--but, perhaps, you are not well, Margaret?”
“I am quite well, I thank you, William Hinkley, but I don't feel like
going out this evening. I am not in the humor.”
Already, in the little village of Charlemont, Margaret Cooper was one
of the few who were permitted to indulge in humors, and William Hinkley
learned the reason assigned for her refusal, with an expression of
regret and disappointment, if not of reproach. An estoppel, which
would have been so conclusive in the case of a city courtier, was not
sufficient, however, to satisfy the more frank and direct rustic, and
he proceeded with some new suggestions, in the hope to change her
determination.
“But you'll be so lonesome at home, Margaret, when your mother's with
us. She'll be gone before you can get back, and--”
“I'm never lonesome, William, at least I'm never so well content or so
happy as when I'm alone,” was the self-satisfactory reply.
“But that's so strange, Margaret. It's so strange that you should be
different from everybody else. I often wonder at it, Margaret; for I
know none of the other girls but love to be where there's a fiddle, and
where there's pleasant company. It's so pleasant to be where everybody's
pleased; and then, Margaret, where one can talk so well as you, and of
so many subjects, it's a greater wonder still that you should not like
to be among the rest.”
“I do not, however, William,” was the answer in more softened tones.
There was something in this speech of her lover, that found its way
through the only accessible avenues of her nature. It was a truth, which
she often repeated to herself with congratulatory pride, that she had
few feelings or desires in common with the crowd.
“It is my misfortune,” she continued, “to care very little for the
pastimes you speak of; and as for the company, I've no doubt it will
be very pleasant for those who go, but to me it will afford very little
pleasure. Your mother must therefore excuse me, William:--I should be a
very dull person among the rest.”
“She will be so very sorry, Margaret--and Ned, whose new fiddle has just
come, and Jason Lightner, with his flute. They all spoke of you and
look for you above all, to hear them this evening. They will be so
disappointed.”
William Hinkley spoke nothing of his own disappointment, but it was
visible enough in his blank countenance, and sufficiently audible in the
undisguised faltering of his accents.
“I do not think they will be so much disappointed, William Hinkley.
They have no reason to be, as they have no right to look for me in
particular. I have very little acquaintance with the young men you speak
of.”
“Why, Margaret, they live alongside of you--and I'm sure you've met them
a thousand times in company,” was the response of the youth, uttered
in tones more earnest than any he had yet employed in the dialogue, and
with something of surprise in his accents.
“Perhaps so; but that makes them no intimates of mine, William Hinkley.
They may be very good young men, and, indeed, so far as I know, they
really are; but that makes no difference. We find our acquaintances and
our intimates among those who are congenial, who somewhat resemble us in
spirit, feeling, and understanding.”
“Ah, Margaret!” said her rustic companion with a sigh, which amply
testified to the humility of his own self-estimate, and of the decline
of his hope which came with it--“ah, Margaret, if that be the rule,
where are you going to find friends and intimates in Charlemont?”
“Where!” was the single word spoken by the haughty maiden, as her eye
wandered off to the cold tops of the distant hills along which the
latest rays of falling sunlight, faint and failing, as they fell,
imparted a hue, which though bright, still as it failed to warm, left an
expression of October sadness to the scene, that fitly harmonized with
the chilling mood under which she had spoken throughout the interview.
“I don't think, Margaret,” continued the lover, finding courage as he
continued, “that such a rule is a good one. I know it can't be a good
one for happiness. There's many a person that never will meet his or her
match in this world, in learning and understanding--and if they won't
look on other persons with kindness, because they are not altogether
equal to them, why there's a chance that they'll always be solitary and
sad. It's a real blessing, I believe, to have great sense, but I don't
see, that because one has great sense, that one should not think well
and kindly of those who have little, provided they be good, and are
willing to be friendly. Now, a good heart seems to be the very best
thing that nature can give us; and I know, Margaret, that there's no
two better hearts in all Charlemont--perhaps in all the world, though I
won't say that--than cousin Ned Hinkley, and Jason Lightner, and--”
“I don't deny their merits and their virtues, and their goodness of
heart, William Hinkley,” was the answer of the maiden--“I only say
that the possession of these qualities gives them no right to claim my
sympathies or affection. These claims are only founded upon congeniality
of character and mind, and without this congeniality, there can be no
proper, no lasting intimacy between persons. They no doubt, will find
friends between whom and themselves, this congeniality exists. I, on the
other hand, must be permitted to find mine, after my own ideas, and as I
best can. But if I do not--the want of them gives me no great concern. I
find company enough, and friends enough, even in these woods, to satisfy
the desires of my heart at present; I am not anxious to extend my
acquaintance or increase the number of my intimates.”
William Hinkley, who had become somewhat warmed by the argument, could
have pursued the discussion somewhat further; but the tones and manner
of his companion, to say nothing of her words, counselled him to
forbear. Still, he was not disposed altogether to give up his attempts
to secure her presence for the evening party.
“But if you don't come for the company, Margaret, recollect the music.
Even if Ned Hinkley was a perfect fool, which he is not, and Jason
Lightner were no better,--nobody can say that they are not good
musicians. Old Squire Bee says there's not in all Kentucky a better
violinist than Ned, and Jason's flute is the sweetest sound that ear
ever listened to along these hills. If you don't care anything for the
players, Margaret, I'm sure you can't be indifferent to their music; and
I know they are anything but indifferent to what you may think about
it. They will play ten times as well if you are there; and I'm sure,
Margaret, I shall be the last”--here the tone of the speaker's voice
audibly faltered--“I shall be the very last to think it sweet if you are
not there.”
But the words and faltering accents of the lover equally failed in
subduing the inflexible, perverse mood of the haughty maiden. Her cold
denial was repeated; and with looks that did not fail to speak the
disappointment of William Hinkley, he attended her back to the village.
Their progress was marked by coldness on the one hand, and decided
sadness on the other. The conversation was carried on in monosyllables
only, on the part of Margaret, while timidity and a painful hesitancy
marked the language of her attendant. But a single passage may be
remembered of all that was said between the two, ere they separated at
the door of the widow Cooper.
“Did you see the two strangers, Margaret, that passed through Charlemont
this afternoon?”
The cheeks of the maiden became instantly flushed, and the rapid
utterance of her reply in the affirmative, denoted an emotion which the
jealous instincts of the lover readily perceived. A cold chill, on the
instant, pervaded the veins of the youth; and that night he did not
hear, any more than Margaret Cooper, the music of his friends. He was
present all the time and he answered their inquiries as usual; but his
thoughts were very far distant, and somehow or other, they perpetually
mingled up the image of the young traveller, whom he too had seen, with
that of the proud woman, whom he was not yet sure that he unprofitably
worshipped.