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 re-illumine 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.