SIMPLICITY AND THE SERPENT.
The mirth and music of Charlemont were enjoyed by others, but not by
Margaret Cooper. The resolution not to share in the pleasures of the
young around her, which she showed to her rustic lover, was a resolution
firmly persevered in throughout the long summer which followed. Her
wayward mood shut out from her contemplation the only sunshine of the
place; and her heart, brooding over the remote, if not the impossible,
denied itself those joys which were equally available and nigh. Her
lonesome walks became longer in the forests, and later each evening grew
the hour of her return to the village. Her solitude daily increased, as
the youth, who really loved her with all the ardency of a first passion,
and who regarded her at the same time with no little veneration for
those superior gifts of mind and education which, it was the general
conviction in Charlemont, that she possessed, became, at length,
discouraged in a pursuit which hitherto had found nothing but coldness
and repulse. Not that he ceased to love--nay, he did not cease entirely
to hope. What lover ever did? He fondly ascribed to the object of his
affections a waywardness of humor, which he fancied would pass away
after a season, and leave her mind to the influence of a more sober
and wholesome judgment. Perhaps, too, like many other youth in like
circumstances, he did not always see or feel the caprice of which he was
the victim. But for this fortunate blindness, many a fair damsel would
lose her conquest quite as suddenly as it was made.
But the summer passed away, and the forest put on the sere and sombre
robes of autumn, and yet no visible change--none at least more favorable
to the wishes of William Hinkley--took place in the character and
conduct of the maiden. Her mind, on the contrary, seemed to take
something of its hue from the cold sad tones of the forest. The serious
depth of expression in her dark eyes seemed to deepen yet more, and
become yet more concentrated--their glance acquired a yet keener
intentness--an inflexibility of direction--which suffered them seldom
to turn aside from those moody contemplations, which had made her, for
a long time, infinitely prefer to gaze upon the rocks, and woods, and
waters, than upon the warm and wooing features of humanity.
At distance the youth watched and sometimes followed her, and when, with
occasional boldness, he would draw nigh to her secret wanderings, a cold
fear filled his heart, and he shrunk back with all the doubt and dread
of some guilty trespasser. But his doubt, and we may add, his dread
also, was soon to cease entirely, in the complete conviction of his
hopelessness. The day and the fate were approaching, in the person of
one, to whom a natural instinct had already taught him to look with
apprehension, and whose very first appearance had inspired him with
antipathy.
What a strange prescience, in some respects, has the devoted and
watchful heart that loves! William Hinkley, had seen but for a single
instant, the face of that young traveller, who has already been
introduced to us, and that instant was enough to awaken his
dislike--nay, more, his hostility. Yet no villager in Charlemont but
would have told you, that, of all the village, William Hinkley was
the most gentle, the most generous--the very last to be moved by bad
passions, by jealousy or hate.
The youth whom we have seen going down with his uncle to the great
valley of the Mississippi, was now upon his return. He was now
unaccompanied by the benignant senior with whom we first made his
acquaintance. He had simply attended the old bachelor, from whom he had
considerable expectations, to his plantation, in requital of the spring
visit which the latter had paid to his relatives in Kentucky; and having
spent the summer in the southwest, was about to resume his residence,
and the profession of the law, in that state. We have seen that, however
he might have succeeded in disguising his true feelings from his uncle,
he was not unmoved by the encounter with Margaret Cooper, on the edge
of the village. He now remembered the casual suggestion of the senior,
which concluded their discussion on the subject of her beauty; and he
resolved to go aside from his direct path, and take Charlemont in the
route of his return. Not that he himself needed a second glance to
convince him of that loveliness which, in his wilfulness, he yet denied.
He was free to acknowledge to himself that Margaret Cooper was one of
the noblest and most impressive beauties he had ever seen. The very
scorn that spoke in all her features, the imperious fires that kindled
in her eyes, were better calculated than any more gentle expressions, to
impose upon one who was apt to be skeptical on the subject of ordinary
beauties. The confidence and consciousness of superiority, which too
plainly spoke out in the features of Margaret, seemed to deny to his
mind the privilege of doubting or discussing her charms--a privilege
upon which no one could have been more apt to insist than himself. This
seeming denial, while it suggested to him ideas of novelty, provoked
his curiosity and kindled his pride. The haughty glance with which she
encountered his second approach, aroused his vanity, and a latent desire
arose in his heart, to overcome one who had shown herself so premature
in her defiance. We will not venture to assert that the young traveller
had formed any very deliberate designs of conquest, but, it may be
said, as well here as elsewhere, that his self-esteem was great; and
accustomed to easy conquests among the sex, in the region where he
dwelt, it was only necessary to inflame his vanity, to stimulate him to
the exercise of all his arts.
It was about noon, on one of those bright, balmy days, early in October,
when “the bridal of the earth and sky,” in the language of the good
old Herbert, is going on--when, the summer heats subdued, there is
yet nothing either cold, or repulsive in the atmosphere; and the soft
breathing from the southwest has just power enough to stir the flowers
and disperse their scents; that our young traveller was joined in
his progress towards Charlemont, by a person mounted like himself and
pursuing a similar direction.
At the first glance the youth distinguished him as one of the homely
forest preachers of the methodist persuasion, who are the chief agents
and pioneers of religion in most of the western woods. His plain,
unstudied garments all of black, rigid and unfashionable; his pale,
demure features, and the general humility of his air and gesture, left
our young skeptic little reason to doubt of this; and when the other
expressed his satisfaction at meeting with a companion at last, after a
long and weary ride without one, the tone of his expressions, the use of
biblical phraseology, and the monotonous solemnity of his tones, reduced
the doubts of the youth to absolute certainty. At first, with the
habitual levity of the young and skeptical, he congratulated himself
upon an encounter which promised to afford him a good subject for
quizzing; but a moment's reflection counselled him to a more worldly
policy, and he restrained his natural impulse in order that he might
first sound the depths of the preacher, and learn in what respect he
might be made subservient to his own purposes. He had already learned
from the latter that he was on his way to Charlemont, of which place he
seemed to have some knowledge; and the youth, in an instant, conceived
the possibility of making him useful in procuring for himself a
favorable introduction to the place. With this thought, he assumed the
grave aspect and deliberate enunciation of his companion, expressed
himself equally gratified to meet with a person who, if he did not much
mistake, was a divine, and concluded his address by the utterance of one
of those pious commonplaces which are of sufficiently easy acquisition,
and which at once secured him the unscrupulous confidence of his
companion.
“Truly, it gladdens me, sir,” said the holy man in reply, “to meet with
one, as a fellow-traveller in these lonesome ways, who hath a knowledge
of God's grace and the blessings which he daily sheddeth, even as the
falling of the dews, upon a benighted land. It is my lot, and I repine
not that such it is, to be for ever a wayfarer, in the desert where
there are but few fountains to refresh the spirit. When I say desert,
young gentleman, I speak not in the literal language of the world,
for truly it were a most sinful denial of God's bounty were I to say,
looking round upon the mighty forests through which I pass, and upon the
rich soil over which I travel, that my way lies not through a country
covered, thrice covered, with the best worldly bounties of the Lord. But
it is a moral desert which my speech would signify. The soul of man is
here lacking the blessed fountains of the truth--the mind of man here
lacketh the holy and joy-shedding lights of the spirit; and it rejoiceth
me, therefore, when I meet with one, like thyself, in whose language I
find a proof that thou hast neither heard the word with idle ears, nor
treasured it in thy memory with unapplying mind. May I ask of thee, my
young friend, who thou art, and by what name I shall call thee?--not for
the satisfaction of an idle curiosity, to know either thy profession
or thy private concerns, but that I may the better speak to thee in
our conference hereafter, Thou hast rightly conjectured as to my
calling--and my own name, which is one unknown to most even in these
forests, is John Cross--I come of a family in North Carolina, which
still abide in that state, by the waters of the river Haw. Perhaps, if
thou hast ever travelled in those parts, thou hast happened upon some of
my kindred, which are very numerous.”
“I have never, reverend sir, travelled in those parts,” said the youth,
with commendable gravity, “but I have heard of the Cross family, which I
believe, as you say, to be very numerous--both male and female.”
“Yea, I have brothers and sisters an equal number; I have aunts and
uncles a store, and it has been the blessing of God so to multiply and
increase every member thereof, that each of my brothers, in turn, hath
a goodly flock, in testimony of his favors. I, alone, of all my kindred,
have neither wife nor child, and I seem as one set apart for other ties,
and other purposes.”
“Ah, sir,” returned the other, quickly, and with a slyness of expression
which escaped the direct and unsuspecting mind of the preacher, “but if
you are denied the blessings which are theirs, you have your part in the
great family of the world. If you have neither wife nor child of your
own loins, yet, I trust, you have an abiding interest in the wives and
children of all other men.”
“I were but an unworthy teacher of the blessed word, had I not,” was the
simple answer. “Verily, all that I teach are my children; there is not
one crying to me for help, to whom I do not hasten with the speed of a
father flying to bring succor to his young. I trust in God, that I have
not made a difference between them; that I heed not one to the forfeit
or suffering of the other; and for this impartial spirit toward the
flock intrusted to my charge, do I pray, as well as for the needful
strength of body and soul, through which my duties are to be done. But
thou hast not yet spoken thy name, or my ears have failed to receive
it.”
There was some little hesitation on the part of the youth before he
answered this second application; and a less unheeding observer than his
fellow-traveller, might have noticed an increasing warmth of hue upon
his cheek, while he was uttering his reply:--
“I am called Alfred Stevens,” he replied at length, the color increasing
upon his cheek even after the words were spoken. But they were spoken.
The falsehood was registered against him beyond recall, though, of
course, without startling the doubts or suspicions of his companion.
“Alfred Stevens; there are many Stevenses: I have known several and
sundry. There is a worthy family of that name by the waters of the Dan.”
“You will find them, I suspect, from Dan to Beersheba,” responded the
youth with a resumption of his former levity.
“Truly, it may be so. The name is of good repute. But what is thy
calling, Alfred Stevens? Methinks at thy age thou shouldst have one.”
“So I have, reverend sir,” replied the other; “my calling heretofore has
been that of the law. But it likes me not, and I think soon to give it
up.”
“Thou wilt take to some other then. What other hast thou chosen; or art
thou like those unhappy youths, by far too many in our blessed country,
whom fortune hath hurt by her gifts, and beguiled into idleness and
sloth?”
“Nay, not so, reverend sir; the gifts of fortune have been somewhat
sparing in my case, and I am even now conferring with my own thoughts
whether or not to take to school-keeping. Nay, perhaps, I should incline
to something better, if I could succeed in persuading myself of my own
worthiness in a vocation which, more than all others, demands a pure
mind with a becoming zeal. The law consorts not with my desires--it
teaches selfishness, rather than self-denial; and I have already found
that some of its duties demand the blindness and the silence of that
best teacher from within, the watchful and unsleeping conscience.”
“Thou hast said rightly, Alfred Stevens; I have long thought that the
profession of the law hardeneth the heart, and blindeth the conscience.
Thou wilt do well to leave it, as a craft that leads to sin, and makes
the exercise of sin a duty; and if, as I rightly understand thee, thou
lookest to the gospel as that higher vocation for which thy spirit
yearneth, then would I say to thee, arise, and gird up thy loins;
advance and falter not;--the field is open, and though the victory
brings thee no worldly profit, and but little worldly honor, yet the
reward is eternal, and the interest thereof, unlike the money which thou
puttest out to usury in the hands of men, never fails to be paid, at the
very hour of its due, from the unfailing treasury of Heaven. Verily, I
rejoice, Alfred Stevens, that I have met with thee to-day. I had feared
that the day had been lost to that goodly labor, to which all my days
have been given for seventeen years, come the first sabbath in the next
November. But what thou hast said, awakens hope in my soul that such
will not be the case. Let not my counsels fail thee, Alfred;--let thy
zeal warm; let thy spirit work within thee, and thy words kindle, in the
service of the Lord. How it will rejoice me to see thee taking up
the scrip and the staff and setting forth for the wildernesses of the
Mississippi, of Arkansas, and Texas, far beyond;--bringing the wild man
of the frontier, and the red savage, into the blessed fold and constant
company of the Lord Jesus, to whom all praise!”
“It were indeed a glorious service,” responded the young stranger--whom
we shall proceed, hereafter, to designate by the name by which he
has called himself. He spoke musingly, and with a gravity that was
singularly inflexible--“it were indeed a glorious service. Let me see,
there were thousands of miles to traverse before one might reach the
lower Arkansas; and I reckon, Mr. Cross, the roads are mighty bad after
you pass the Mississippi--nay, even in the Mississippi, through a part
of which territory I have gone only this last summer, there is a sad
want of causeways, and the bridges are exceedingly out of repair. There
is one section of near a hundred miles, which lies between the bluffs
of Ashibiloxi, and the far creek of Catahoula, that was a shame and
reproach to the country and the people thereof. What, then, must be
the condition of the Texas territory, beyond? and, if I err not, the
Cumanchees are a race rather given to destroy than to build up. The
chance is that the traveller in their country might have to swim his
horse over most of the watercourses, and where he found a bridge, it
were perhaps a perilous risk to cross it. Even then he might ride fifty
miles a day, before he should see the smokes which would be a sign of
supper that night.”
“The greater the glory--the greater the glory, Alfred Stevens. The toil
and the peril, the pain and the privation, in a good cause, increase
the merit of the performance in the eyes of the Lord. What matters the
roads and the bridges, the length of the way, or the sometimes lack of
those comforts of the flesh, which are craved only at the expense of the
spirit, and to the great delay of our day of conquest. These wants are
the infirmities of the human, which dissipate and disappear, the more
few they become, and the less pressing in their complaint. Shake thyself
loose from them, Alfred Stevens, and thy way henceforth is perfect
freedom.”
“Alas! this is my very weakness, Mr. Cross:--it was because of these
very infirmities, that I had doubt of my own worthiness to take up the
better vocation which is yet my desire. I am sadly given to hunger and
thirst toward noon and evening; and the travel of a long day makes me so
weary at night, that I should say but a hurried grace before meal, and
make an even more hurried supper after it. Nay, I have not yet been able
to divest myself of a habit which I acquired in my boyhood; and I need
at times, throughout the day, a mouthful of something stronger than mere
animal food, to sustain the fainting and feeble flesh and keep my frame
from utter exhaustion. I dare not go upon the road, even for the brief
journey of a single day, without providing myself beforehand with a
supply of a certain beverage, such as is even now contained within this
vessel, and which is infallible against sinking of the the spirits,
faintings of the frame, disordered nerves, and even against flatulence
and indigestion. If, at any time, thou shouldst suffer from one or
the other of these infirmities, Mr. Cross, be sure there is no better
medicine for their cure than this.”
The speaker drew from his bosom a little flask, such as is sufficiently
well known to most western travellers, which he held on high, and which,
to the unsuspecting eyes of the preacher, contained a couple of gills or
more of a liquid of very innocent complexion.
“Verily, Alfred Stevens, I do myself suffer from some of the weaknesses
of which thou hast spoken. The sinking of the spirits, and the faintness
of the frame, are but too often the enemies that keep me back from the
plough when I would thereto set my hand; and that same flatulence--”
“A most frequent disorder in a region where greens and collards form the
largest dishes on the tables of the people,” interrupted Stevens, but
without changing a muscle of his countenance.
“I do believe as thou say'st, Alfred Stevens, that the disorder comes in
great part from that cause, though, still, I have my doubts if it be not
a sort of wind-melancholy, to which people, who preach aloud are greatly
subject. It is in my case almost always associated with a sort of
hoarseness, and the nerves of my frame twitch grievously at the same
periods. If this medicine of thine be sovereign against so cruel an
affliction, I would crave of thee such knowledge as would enable me to
get a large supply of it, that I may overcome a weakness, which, as I
tell thee, oftentimes impairs my ministry, and sometimes makes me wholly
incapable of fervent preaching. Let me smell of it, I pray thee.”
“Nay, taste of it, sir--it is just about the time when I find it
beneficial to partake of it, as a medicine for my own weakness, and
I doubt not, it will have a powerful effect also upon you. A single
draught has been found to relieve the worst case of flatulence and
colic.”
“From colic too, I am also a great sufferer,” said the preacher as he
took the flask in his hand, and proceeded to draw the stopper.
“That is also the child of collards,” said Stevens, as he watched with
a quiet and unmoved countenance the proceedings of his simple companion,
who finding some difficulty in drawing the cork, handed it back to the
youth. The latter, more practised, was more successful, and now returned
the open bottle to the preacher.
“Take from it first, the dose which relieves thee, Alfred Stevens,
that I may know how much will avail in my own case;” and he watched
curiously, while Stevens, applying the flask to his lips, drew from it
a draught, which, in western experience of benefits, would have been
accounted a very moderate potion. This done, he handed it back to his
companion, who, about to follow his example, asked him:--
“And by what name, Alfred Stevens, do they call this medicine, the
goodly effect of which thou holdst to be so great?”
Stevens did not immediately reply--not until the preacher had applied
the bottle to his mouth, and he could see by the distension of his
throat, that he had imbibed a taste, at least, of the highly-lauded
medicine. The utterance then, of the single word--“Brandy”--was
productive of an effect no less ludicrous in the sight of the youth,
than it was distressing to the mind of his worthy companion. The
descending liquor was ejected with desperate effort from the throat
which it had fairly entered--the flask flung from his hands--and with
choking and gurgling accents, startling eyes, and reddening visage, John
Cross turned full upon his fellow-traveller, vainly trying to repeat,
with the accompanying horror of expression which he felt, the single
spellword, which had produced an effect so powerful.
“Bran--bran--brandy!--Alfred Stevens!--thou hast given me poison--the
soul's poison--the devil's liquor--liquor distilled in the vessels of
eternal sin. Wherefore hast thou done this? Dost thou not know”--
“Know--know what, Mr. Cross?” replied Stevens, with all the astonishment
which he could possibly throw into his air, as he descended from his
horse with all haste to recover his flask, and save its remaining
contents from loss.
“Call me not mister--call me plain John Cross,” replied the preacher--in
the midst of a second fit of choking, the result of his vain effort to
disgorge that portion of the pernicious liquid which had irretrievably
descended into his bowels. With a surprise admirably affected, Stevens
approached him.
“My dear sir--what troubles you?--what can be the matter? What have I
done? What is it you fear?”
“That infernal draught--that liquor--I have swallowed of it a mouthful.
I feel it in me. The sin be upon thy head, Alfred Stevens--why did you
not tell me, before I drank, that it was the soul's poison?--the poison
that slays more than the sword or the pestilence;--the liquor of the
devil, distilled in the vessels of sin--and sent among men for the
destruction of the soul! I feel it now within me, and it burns--it burns
like the fires of damnation. Is there no water nigh that I may quench
my thirst?--Show me, Alfred Stevens, show me where the cool waters lie,
that I may put out these raging flames.”
“There is a branch, if I mistake not, just above us on the road--I think
I see it glistening among the leaves. Let us ride toward it, sir, and it
will relieve you.”
“Ah, Alfred Stevens, why have you served me thus? Why did you not tell
me?”
Repeated groans accompanied this apostrophe, and marked every step in
the progress of the preacher to the little rivulet which trickled across
the road. John Cross, descended with the rapidity of one whose hope
hangs upon a minute, and dreads its loss, as equal to the loss of life.
He straddled the stream and thrust his lips into the water, drawing up
a quantity sufficient, in the estimation of Stevens, to have effectually
neutralized the entire contents of his flask.
“Blessed water! Blessed water! Holiest beverage! Thou art the creation
of the Lord, and, next to the waters of eternal life, his best gift to
undiscerning man. I drink of thee, and I am faint no longer. I rise up,
strong and refreshed! Ah, my young friend, Alfred Stevens, I trust thou
didst not mean me harm in giving me that poisonous liquor?”
“Far from it, sir, I rather thought to do you a great benefit.”
“How couldst thou think to do me benefit by proffering such poison to my
lips? nay, wherefore dost thou thyself carry it with thee, and why dost
thou drink of it, as if it were something not hurtful as well to the
body as the soul? Take my counsel, I pray thee, Alfred Stevens, and cast
it behind thee for ever. Look not after it when thou dost so, with an
eye of regret lest thou forfeit the merit of thy self-denial. If thou
wouldst pursue the higher vocation of the brethren, thou must seek for
the needful strength from a better and purer spirit. But what unhappy
teacher could have persuaded thee to an indulgence which the good men of
all the churches agree to regard as so deadly?”
“Nay, Mr. Cross--”
“John Cross, I pray thee; do I not call thee Alfred Stevens?--Mr. is a
speech of worldly fashion, and becomes not one who should put the world
and its fashions behind him.”
Stevens found it more difficult to comply with this one requisition of
the preacher, than to pursue a long game of artful and complex scheming.
He evaded the difficulty by dropping the name entirely.
“You are too severe upon brandy, and upon those who use it. Nay, I am
not sure, but you do injustice to those who make it. So far from its
manufacturers being such as you call them, we have unquestionable proof
that they are very worthy people of a distant but a Christian country;
and surely you will not deny that we should find a medicine for our
hurts, and a remedy for our complaints, in a liquor which, perhaps, it
might be sinful to use as an ordinary beverage. Doctors, who have the
care of human life, and whose business and desire it is to preserve it,
nevertheless do sometimes administer poisons to their patients, which
poisons, though deadly at other times, will, in certain diseases and
certain conditions of disease, prove of only and great good.”
“Impossible! I believe it not! I believe not in the good of brandy. It
is hurtful--it is deadly. It has slain its thousands and its tens of
thousands--it is worse than the sword and the summer pestilence. Many a
man have I known to perish from strong drink. In my own parts, upon the
river Haw, in North Carolina state, I have known many. Nay, wherefore
should I spare the truth, Alfred Stevens?--the very father of my own
life, Ezekiel Cross, perished miserably from this burning water of sin.
I will not hear thee speak of it again; and if thou wouldst have me
think of thee with favor, as one hopeful of the service of the brethren,
cast the accursed beverage of Satan from thy hands.”
The youth, without a word, deliberately emptied the contents of his
vessel upon the sands, and the garrulous lips of the preacher poured
forth as great a flood of speech in congratulation, as he had hitherto
bestowed in homily. The good, unsuspecting man, did not perceive that
the liquor thus thrown away, was very small in quantity, and that his
companion, when the flask was emptied, quietly restored it to his bosom.
John Cross had obtained a seeming victory, and did not care to examine
its details.