HOW THE TOAD GRINS UPON THE ALTAR.
Shall we go the rounds with our pastor? Shall we look in upon him at
Mrs. Thackeray's, while, obeying the suggestion of the widow Cooper, he
purges her library of twenty volumes, casting out the devils and setting
up the true gods? It is scarcely necessary. Enough to know that,
under his expurgatorial finger, our beloved and bosom friend, William
Shakspere, was the first to suffer. Plays! The one word was enough.
Some lying histories were permitted to escape. The name of history saved
them! Robinson Crusoe was preserved as a true narrative; and Swift's
Tale of a Tub escaped, as it was assumed (there being no time to read
any of the books, and in this respect John Cross showed himself much
more of a professional critic than he conjectured) to be a treatise
on one branch of the cooperage business, and so, important to domestic
mechanics in a new country. The reader will remember the manner in which
the library of the knight of La Mancha was disposed of. He would err,
however, if he supposed that John Cross dismissed the books from the
window, or did anything farther than simply to open the eyes of Mrs.
Thackeray to the bad quality of some of the company she kept. That
sagacious lady did not think it worth while to dispute the ipse dixit of
a teacher so single-minded, if not sagacious. She bowed respectfully
to all his suggestions, promised no longer to bestow her smiles on the
undeserving--a promise of no small importance when it is remembered
that, at thirty-three, Mrs. Thackeray was for the first time a
widow--and that night she might have been seen laughing heartily with
Mesdames Ford and Quickly at the amorous pertinacity of the baffled
knight of Eastcheap.
Under the paternal wing of John Cross, Alfred Stevens obtained the
desired entree into the bosom of the flock. He was everywhere admitted
with gladness--everywhere welcomed as to a home; and the unsophisticated
old teacher by whose agency this was effected, congratulated his
congregation and himself, on leaving the village, that he had left in it
a person so full of grace, and one who, with the blessing of God, was
so likely to bring about the birth of grace in others. The good old man
bestowed long and repeated counsels upon his neophyte. The course of
study which he prescribed was very simple. The Bible was the Alpha and
the Omega--it was the essential whole. It would be well to read other
books if they could be had--Clarke and Wesley were, of course, spoken
of--but they could be done without. The word of God was in the one
volume, and it needed no help from commentators to win its way and
suffice the hungering and thirsting soul.
“If you could lay hands upon the book of sermons written by Brother
Peter Cummins, which his wife had printed, I'm thinking it would serve,
next to God's own blessed word, to put you in the right way. It's been
a great helping to me, Alfred Stevens, that same book of sermons; and,
I reckon it's because it's so good a book that it's not printed now.
I don't see it much about. But I'll get you one if I can, and bring
or send it to you, soon enough to help you to the wisdom that you're a
seeking after. If it only wakes the spirit in you as it did in me--if
it only stirs you up with the spirit of divine love--you'll find it easy
enough to understand the teachings of the holy volume. All things become
clear in that blessed light. By its help you read, and by its working
you inwardly digest all the needful learning. The Lord be with you,
Alfred Stevens, and bring to perfect ripening your present undertaking.”
“Amen!” was the solemn response of the hypocrite, but we need not say
what an irreverent and unholy thought lay at the bottom of his mind in
making this ejaculation.
Before the departure of John Cross, the latter had made terms with
Squire Hinkley for the board and lodging of Brother Stevens and his
horse. Hinkley would have preferred taking nothing, considering the
praiseworthy purpose of the supposed theological student; but Stevens
shrunk from receiving such an obligation with a feeling of pride, which
yet had no scruples at practising so wretched an imposture. He insisted
upon making compensation, or upon leaving the house; and, not to incur
this risk, Hinkley consented to receive a weekly sum in payment; but the
charge was considerably smaller, as we may suppose, than it would
have been had the lodger simply appeared as an inoffensive traveller,
practising no fraud and making no professions of religion.
Having effected all these arrangements, to his own satisfaction and
seemingly that of all others, John Cross departed once more into the
wilderness on his single-hearted ministry of love. A sturdy and an
honest worker was he in the tabernacle, with a right mind if not a very
wise one; and doing more good in his generation, and after the fashion
of his strength, than is often permitted to the stall-fed doctors of his
vocation.
The reader will suppose that the old man has been already gone some
seven days. Meanwhile, the young student has fairly made himself at
home in Charlemont. He has a snug room, entirely to himself, at Squire
Hinkley's, and, by the excellent care of the worthy dame, it is provided
with the best bedding and the finest furniture. Her own hands sweep it
clean, morning and night, for the incipient parson; she makes up the
bed, and, in customary phrase, puts it in all respects to rights. His
wants are anticipated, his slightest suggestion met with the most prompt
consideration; and John Cross himself, humble and unexacting as he was,
might have felt some little twinges of mortal envy could he have
known that his protege promised to become a much greater favorite than
himself.
This, indeed, seemed very likely to be the case. A good young man in the
sight of the ladies is always a more attractive person than a good old
man. Dame Hinkley, though no longer young herself, remembered that she
had been so, and preserved all her sympathies, in consequence, for
young people. She thought Alfred Stevens so handsome, and he smiled so
sweetly, and he spoke so genty, and, in short, so great had been his
progress in the affections of his hostess in the brief space of a single
week, that we are constrained to confess ourselves rejoiced that she
herself was an old woman, as well on her own account as on that of her
worthy spouse.
Her good man was very well satisfied, whether from confidence or
indifference, that such should be the case. Her attentions to the young
stranger probably diverted them from himself. But not so with William
Hinkley--the son. We have already had some glimpses of the character
of this young man. We may now add that the short week's residence of
Stevens in Charlemont had increased the soreness at his heart. In that
week he had seen fairly established that intimacy between his rival
and the lady of his love which seemed to give the death-blow to any
pretensions of his. He had seen them meet; had seen them go forth
together; beheld their mutual eyes, and, turning his own inward, saw
how deeply his heart was concerned in the probable sympathies of theirs.
Then, to turn to his own habitation, and to behold THAT, mother and all,
devoted to the same absolute stranger; to pass unheeded in the presence
of those whom he best loved--over whom natural ties gave him inalienable
rights; to feel himself put aside for one only known of yesterday; to
look with yearning, and meet eyes only of disregard and indifference!
Such being the suggestions of his jealous and suffering nature, it
is surely no matter of wonder that the youth grew melancholy and
abstracted.
Our adventurer was snugly seated in the little but select chamber which
had been given him in the house of Squire Hinkley. A table, neatly
spread with a cotton cover, stood before him: a travelling-portfolio
was opened beneath his hand, with a broad sheet of paper, already well
written over, and waiting nothing but his signature, and perhaps the
postscript. He was absorbed unusually in his cogitations, and nibbled
into bits the feathery end of the gray goosequill of which he had been
making such excellent use. While he meditates, unseeing, we will use the
liberty of an old acquaintance to scan the letter--for such it is--which
he has been writing. Perhaps we shall gather from it some matters which
it may concern us yet to know:--
“Dear Barnabas: The strangest adventure--positively the very
strangest--that ever happened to a son of Murkey's, will keep me
from the embraces of the brethren a few weeks longer. I am benighted,
bewildered, taken with art-magic, transmuted, TRANSMOGRIFIED, not
myself nor yet another, but, as they say in Mississippi, 'a sort
of betweenity.' Fancy me suddenly become a convert to the bluest
presbyterianism, as our late excellent brother Woodford became, when he
found that he could not get Moll Parkinson on any other terms--and your
guess will not be very far from the true one. I am suddenly touched with
conviction. I have seen a light on my way from Tarsus. The scales have
fallen from my eyes. I have seen the wickedness of my ways, and yours
too, you dog; and, having resolved on my own repentance, I am taking
lessons which shall enable me to effect yours. Precious deal of salt
will it need for that! Salt river will fall, while its value rises. But
the glory of the thing--think of that, my boy! What a triumph it will
be to revolutionize Murkey's!--to turnout the drinkers and smokers, and
money-changers; to say, 'Hem! my brethren, let us pay no more taxes to
sin in this place!' There shall be no more cakes and ale. Ginger shall
have no heat i' the mouth there; and, in place of smoking meats and
tobacco, give you nothing but smoking methodism! Won't that be a sight
and a triumph which shall stir the dry bones in our valley--ay, and
bones not so dry? There shall be a quaking of the flesh in sundry
places. Flam will perish in the first fit of consternation; and if Joe
Burke's sides do not run into sop and jelly, through the mere humor of
the thing, then prophecy is out of its element quite.
“Seriously, you dog, I have become a theological student! Don't you see
proofs of my progress in my unctuous phraseology. I was taken suddenly
upon the highway--a brand plucked from the burning--and to be stuck up
on high, still lighted, however, as a sort of lantern and lighthouse to
other wayfarers--wandering rogues like yourself, who need some better
lights than your own if it only be to show you how to sin decently. I am
professedly a convert to the true faith, though which that is, I think,
has not well been determined among you at Murkey's, or, indeed, anywhere
else. I believe the vox populi, vox Dei, still comprises the only
wholesome decision which has yet been made on the subject. The popular
vote here declares it to be methodism; with you it is baptism or
presbyterianism--which? I am a flexible student, however, and when I meet
you again at Murkey's, shall be prepared to concur with the majority.
“But, in sober fact, I am a professor--actually recognised by my
neighbors as one of the elect--set apart to be and do mighty things.
How I came so, will call for a long story, which I defer to another
occasion. Enough to tell you that an accidental rencontre with a silly
old preacher (whose gullet I filled with raw brandy, which I recommended
to him, under another name, as a sovereign remedy against flatulence,
and which nearly strangled him he took such a premeditated swallow),
brought me into one of the loveliest little villages in all this western
country, and there I saw many things--among others--a woman!--
“A woman!--that one word, you dog, will explain the mystery--will
show you why I am thus transmuted, TRANSMOGRIFIED, and in 'a state of
betweenity.' Nothing less, I assure you, could make me disguise myself
after the present fashion; wear the sanctimonious and sour phiz which
the common law of modern religion prescribes, and keep me much longer
from the pleasanter communion of such glorious imps, as I suppose, are,
even now, beginning to gather in the dingy smoke-room of our sovereign
Murkey. But this woman, you will ask. Ay, ay, but you shall have no
answer yet. It shall be enough for you that she is a queen of Sheba,
after her own fashion. A proud, imperious, passionate creature--tall,
really beautiful--and so majestic! You should see the flashing of her
eyes to know what sort of a thing is moral lightning. Her face kindles
up in an instant. She is an intensifier, and like most such, cursedly
smart. Young too--scarce eighteen, I think; queer too--almost tyrannical
at times--but full of blood, of unregulated passions, moody, capricious,
and, of course, easy game, if the sportsman knows anything of the habits
of the bird. She is a country-girl, but no hoyden. Her intensity of
character, her pride and great self-esteem, have made her a solitary.
Unsophisticated in some respects, she is yet not to be surprised. In
solitude, and a taste for it, she has acquired a sort of moral composure
which makes her secure against surprise. I am really taken with the
girl, and COULD love her, I tell you--nay, do love her--so long as love
can keep himself--out of a state of bondage! I do not think, at this
moment, that I shall violate any of the laws of the conventicle, like
small-witted Brother Woodford; though, so far as the woman is concerned,
I should leave it without argument to the free vote of all the Lads of
Fancy that ever gather round Murkey's round table, if my justification
for turning traitor, would not prove immeasurably more complete than
his.
“So! so! There are bones enough for you to crunch, you professional
bandog. I had not meant to tell you half so much. There is some danger
that one may lose his game altogether, if he suffers his nose to point
unnecessarily to the cover where it lies. I know what keen scents are
in the club, some of which would be on my track in no time if they knew
where to find me; but I shall baffle you, you villains. My post-town is
fifty miles from the place where I pursue my theological studies; you
are too wise to attempt a wild-goose chase. You may smack your chaps,
Barney, with envy; bite them too if you please, and it will only whet
my own sense of pleasure to fancy your confusion, and your hopeless
denunciations in the club. I shall be back in time for term--meanwhile
get the papers in readiness. Write to me at the post-town of Ellisland,
and remember to address me as Alfred Stevens--nay, perhaps, you may even
say, 'Rev. Alfred Stevens,' it will grace the externals of the document
with a more unctuous aspect, and secure the recipient a more wholesome
degree of respect. Send all my letters to this town under envelope with
this direction. I wrote you twice from Somerville. Did I tell you that
old Hunks has been deused liberal? I can laugh at the small terms,
yet go to Murkey's and shine through the smoke with the best of you. I
solicit the prayers of the Round Table.
“Faithfully, yours, &c.”
So far our profligate had written to his brother profligate, when a tap
was heard at the entrance of his chamber. Thrusting the written papers
into his portfolio, he rose, and opening the door discovered his hostess
at the entrance.
“I came, Brother Stevens,” said the old lady, “if you not too busy in
your studies, to have a little talk with you, and to get your counsel
upon a subject that a little distresses me. But you look as if you were
busy now--”
“Not too busy, Mrs. Hinkley, to oblige you in this or in any other
respect,” replied the guest with suitable suavity of expression--“shall
I attend you down stairs.”
“Oh! no! it won't need,” said she. “I'll take a seat with you awhile. We
shall be less liable to interruption here.”
Stevens scarcely repressed his smile, but the seniority of the old lady
made her proceedings very innocent, however much they might have
been adverse to the rules. He threw wide the door, and without more
hesitation she followed him at once into the chamber.