THE GOOD YOUNG MAN IN MEDITATION.
Perhaps, it may be assumed, with tolerable safety, that no first villany
is ever entirely deliberate. There is something in events to give
it direction--something to egg it on--to point out time, place, and
opportunity. Of course, it is to be understood that the actor is one,
in the first place, wanting in the moral sense. What we simply mean
to affirm is, that the particular, single act, is, in few instances,
deliberately meditated from the beginning. We very much incline to
think that some one event, which we ordinarily refer to the chapter
of accidents, has first set the mind to work upon schemes, which would
otherwise, perhaps, never be thought of at all. Thus, we find persons
who continue very good people, as the world goes, until middle age, or
even seniority; then, suddenly breaking out into some enormous
offence against decency and society, which startles the whole pious
neighborhood. Folks start up, with outstretched hands and staring eyes,
and cry aloud:--
“Lord bless us, who would have thought so good a man could be so bad!”
He, poor devil, never fancied it himself, till he became so, and it was
quite too late to alter his arrangements. Perhaps his neighbors may
have had some share in making him so. Pious persons are very frequently
reduced to these straits by having the temptation forced too much
upon them. Flesh and blood can not always withstand the provocation of
earthly delicacies, even where the spirit is a tolerably stout one; and
of the inadequacy of the mind, always to contend with the inclinations
of the flesh, have we not a caution in that injunction of Holy Book
which warns us to fly from temptation? But lame people can not fly, and
he is most certainly lame who halts upon mere feet of circumstances.
Such people are always in danger.
Now, Alfred Stevens, properly brought up, from the beginning, at some
theological seminary, would have been--though in moral respects pretty
much the same person--yet in the eye of the world a far less criminal
man. Not that his desires would have been a jot more innocent, but they
would have taken a different direction. Instead of the recklessness of
course, such as seems to have distinguished the conduct of our present
subject--instead of his loose indulgences--his smart, licentious
speeches--the sheep's-eye glances, right and left, which he was but
too prone to bestow, without prudence or precaution, whenever he walked
among the fair sisters--he, the said Alfred, would have taken counsel
of a more worldly policy, which is yet popularly considered a more pious
one. He would have kept his eyes from wandering to and fro; he would
have held his blood in subjection. Patient as a fox on a long scent in
autumn, he would have kept himself lean and circumspect, until, through
the help of lugubrious prayer and lantern visage, he could have beguiled
into matrimony some one feminine member of the flock--not always
fair--whose worldly goods would have sufficed in full atonement for all
those circumspect, self-imposed restraints, which we find usually so
well rewarded. But Alfred Stevens was not a man of this pious temper.
It is evident, from his present course, that he had some inkling of the
MODUS OPERANDI; but all his knowledge fell short of that saving
wisdom which would have defrauded the social world of one of its moral
earthquakes, and possibly deprived the survivors of the present moral
story--for moral it is, though our hero is not exactly so.
It would be doing our subject and our theory equal injustice if we were
to suppose that he had any fixed purpose, known to himself, when he
borrowed the professional garment, and began to talk with the worthy
John Cross in the language of theology, and with the tongue of a
hypocrite. He designed to visit Charlemont--that was all--as he had
really been impressed by the commanding figure and noble expression of
beauty of that young damsel whom he had encountered by the roadside.
Even this impression, however, would have been suffered to escape from
his mind, had it not been so perfectly convenient to revisit the spot,
on his return to his usual place of residence. During the summer,
Charlemont and its rustic attractions had been the frequent subject of
a conversation, running into discussion, between himself and the amiable
old man, his uncle. The latter repeatedly urged upon his nephew to
make the visit; fondly conceiving that a nearer acquaintance with
the pleasant spot which had so won upon his own affections, would be
productive of a like effect upon his nephew. Alas, how little did he
know the mischief he was doing!
In the very idleness of mood--with just that degree of curiosity which
prompts one to turn about and look a second time--Alfred Stevens resumed
the route which included Charlemont. But the devil had, by this time,
found his way into the meditations of the youth, and lay lurking,
unknown to himself, perhaps, at the bottom of this same curiosity. The
look of pride and defiance which Margaret Cooper had betrayed, when the
bold youth rode back to steal a second glance at her matchless person,
was equivalent to an equally bold challenge; and his vanity hastily
picked up the gauntlet which hers had thrown down. He wished to see
the damsel again--to see if she WAS so beautiful--if she did, indeed,
possess that intellectual strength and vivacity which flashed out
so suddenly and with so much splendor from beneath her long, dark
eye-lashes!
In this mood he met with John Cross; and the simplicity of that worthy
creature offered another challenge, not less provoking than the former,
to the levity and love of mischief which also actively predominated in
the bosom of the youth. Fond of a malicious sort of fun, and ever on the
look-out for subjects of quizzing, it was in compliance with a purely
habitual movement of his mind that he conjured up that false, glozing
story of his religious inclinations, which had so easily imposed upon
the unsuspecting preacher. Never was proceeding less premeditated, or
so completely the result of an after-thought, than this; and now that it
had proved so perfectly successful--now that he found himself admitted
into the very heart of the little village, and into the bosoms of the
people--he began, for the first time, to feel the awkwardness of the
situation in which he had placed himself, and the responsibilities,
if not dangers, to which it subjected him. To play the part of a mere
preacher--to talk glibly, and with proper unction, in the stereotype
phraseology of the profession--was no difficult matter to a clever young
lawyer of the West, having a due share of the gift of gab, and almost as
profoundly familiar with scripture quotation as Henry Clay himself. But
there was something awkward in the idea of detection, and he was not
unaware of those summary dangers which are likely to follow, in those
wild frontier regions, from the discovery of so doubtful a personage
as “Bro' Wolf” in the clothing of a more innocent animal. Chief-Justice
Lynch is a sacred authority in those parts; and, in such a case as his,
Alfred Stevens did not doubt that the church itself would feel it only
becoming to provide another sort of garment for the offender, which,
whether pleasant or not, would at least be likely to stick more closely,
and prove less comfortably warm.
But, once in, there was no help but to play out the game as it had been
begun. Villagers are seldom very sagacious people, and elegant strangers
are quite too much esteemed among them to make them very particular in
knowing the whys and wherefores about them--whence they come, what they
do, and whither they propose to go. Stevens had only to preserve his
countenance and a due degree of caution, and the rest was easy. He had
no reason to suppose himself an object of suspicion to anybody; and
should he become so, nothing was more easy than to take his departure
with sufficient promptness, and without unnecessarily soliciting the
prayers of the church in behalf of the hurried traveller! At all events,
he could lose nothing by the visit: perhaps something might be gained.
What was that something? Behold him in his chamber, preparing to ask and
to answer this question for himself. The sabbath-day is finally over. He
has been almost the lion of the day. We say almost, for the worthy John
Cross could not easily be deprived, by any rivalry, of the loyal regards
of his old parishioners. But, though the latter had most friends, the
stranger, Alfred Stevens, had had most followers. All were anxious to
know him--the young, in particular, maidens and men; and the grave old
dames would have given their last remaining teeth, bone or waxen, to
have heard him discourse. There was so much sense and solemnity in
his profound, devout looks! he has been made known to them all; he has
shaken hands with many. But he has exchanged the speech of sympathy and
feeling with but one only--and that one!--
Of her he thinks in his chamber--his quiet, snug, little chamber--a mere
closet, looking out upon a long garden-slip, in which he sees, without
much heeding them, long lanes of culinary cabbage, and tracts of other
growing and decaying vegetation, in which his interest is quite too
small to make it needful that he should even ask its separate names. His
chin rests upon his hands with an air of meditation; and gradually his
thoughts rise up in soliloquy, which is suffered to invade no ear but
ours:--
“Well! who'd have thought it? a parson!--devilish good indeed! How it
will tell at Murkey's! What a metamorphose! if it don't stagger 'em,
nothing will! It's the best thing I've done yet! I shall have to do it
over a hundred times, and must get up a sermon or two beforehand, and
swear that I preached them--and, egad! I may have to do it yet before
I'm done--ha! ha! ha!”
The laughter was a quiet chuckle, not to be heard by vulgar ears; it
subsided in the gorges of his throat. The idea of really getting up a
sermon tickled him. He muttered over texts, all that he could remember;
and proceeded to turn over the phrases for an introduction, such
as, unctuous with good things in high degree, he fancied would be
particularly commendable to his unsuspecting hearers. Alfred Stevens had
no small talent for imitation, he derived a quiet sort of pleasure, on
the present occasion, from its indulgence.
“I should have made a famous parson, and, if all trades fail, may yet.
But, now that I am here, what's to come of it? It's not so hard to put
on a long face, and prose in scripture dialect; but, cui bono? Let me
see--hem! The girl is pretty, devilish pretty--with such an eye, and
looks so! There's soul in the wench--life--and a passion that speaks out
in every glance and movement. A very Cressid, with a cross of Corinne!
Should she be like her of Troy? At all events, it can do no harm to see
what she's made of!
“But I must manage warily. I have something to lose in the business.
Frankfort is but fifty miles from Charlemont--fifty miles--and there's
Ellisland, but fourteen. Fourteen!--an easy afternoon ride. That way it
must be done. Ellisland shall be my post-town. I can gallop there in
an afternoon, drop and receive my letters, and be back by a round-about
which shall effectually baffle inquiry. A week or two will be enough.
I shall see, by that time, what can be done with her; though still,
cautiously, Parson Stevens!--cautiously.”
The farther cogitations of Stevens were subordinate to these, but of the
same family complexion. They were such as to keep him wakeful. The Bible
which had been placed upon his table, by the considerate providence of
his hostess, lay there unopened; though, more than once, he lifted the
cover of the sacred volume, letting it fall again suddenly, as if with a
shrinking consciousness that such thoughts as at that moment filled his
mind were scarcely consistent with the employment, in any degree, of
such a companion. Finally, he undressed and went to bed. The hour had
become very late.
“Good young man,” muttered worthy Mrs. Hinkley to her drowsy spouse, in
the apartment below, as she heard the movements of her guest-“good young
man, he's just now going to bed. He's been studying all this while. I
reckon Brother Cross has been sound this hour.”
The light from Stevens's window glimmered out over the cabbage-garden,
and was seen by many an ancient dame as she prepared for her own
slumbers.
“Good young man,” said they all with one accord. “I reckon he's at the
Bible now. Oh! he'll be a blessed laborer in the vineyard, I promise
you, when Brother Cross is taken.”
“If it were not for the cursed bore of keeping up the farce beyond
the possibility of keeping up the fun, such a rig as this would be
incomparably pleasant; but”--yawning--“that's the devil! I get monstrous
tired of a joke that needs dry nursing!”
Such were the last muttered words of Parson Stevens before he
yielded himself up to his slumbers. Good young man--charitable old
ladies--gullible enough, if not charitable! But the professions need
such people, and we must not quarrel with them!