EXILE.
The artist in the moral world must be very careful not to suffer his
nice sense of retributive justice, to get so much the better of his
judgment, as an artist, as to make him forgetful of human probabilities,
and the superior duty of preparing the mind of the young reader by
sterling examples of patience and protracted reward, to bear up manfully
against injustice, and not to despond because his rewards are slow. It
would be very easy for an author to make everybody good, or, if any were
bad, to dismiss them, out of hand, to purgatory and places even worse.
But it would be a thankless toil to read the writings of such an author.
His characters would fail in vraisemblance, and his incidents would lack
in interest. The world is a sort of vast moral lazar-house, in which
most have sores, either of greater or less degree of virulence. Some are
nurses, and doctors, and guardians; and these are necessarily free from
the diseases to which they minister. Some, though not many, are entirely
incurable; many labor for years in pain, and when dismissed, still
hobble along feebly, bearing the proofs of their trials in ugly seams
and blotches, contracted limbs, and pale, haggard features. Others get
off with a shorter and less severe probation. None are free from taint,
and those who are the most free, are not always the greatest favorites
with fortune.
We are speaking of the moral world, good reader. We simply borrow an
illustration from the physical. Our interest in one another is very much
derived from our knowledge of each other's infirmities; and it may be
remarked, passingly, that this interest is productive of very excellent
philosophical temper, since it enables us to bear the worst misfortunes
of our best friends with the most amazing fortitude. It is a frequent
error with the reader of a book--losing sight of these facts--to expect
that justice will always be done on the instant. He will suffer no delay
in the book, though he sees that this delay of justice is one of the
most decided of all the moral certainties whether in life or law. He
does not wish to see the person in whom the author makes him interested,
perish in youth--die of broken heart or more rapid disaster; and if he
could be permitted to interfere, the bullet or the knife of the assassin
would be arrested at the proper moment and always turned against the
bosom of the wrong-doer.
This is a very commendable state of feeling, and whenever it occurs, it
clearly shows that the author is going right in his vocation. It proves
him to be a HUMAN author, which is something better than being a mere,
dry, moral one. But he would neither be a human nor a moral author were
he to comply with the desires of such gentle readers, and, to satisfy
their sympathies, arrest the progress of events. The fates must have
their way, in the book as in the lazar-house; and the persons of his
drama must endure their sores and sufferings with what philosophy they
may, until, under the hands of that great physician, fortune, they
receive an honorable discharge or otherwise.
Were it with him, our young friend, William Hinkley, who is really a
clever fellow, should not only be received to favor with all parties,
but such should never have fallen from favor in the minds of any. His
father should become soon repentant, and having convicted Stevens of
his falsehood and hypocrisy, he should be rewarded with the hand of the
woman to whom his young heart is so devoted. Such, perhaps, would be the
universal wish with our readers; but would this be fortunate for William
Hinkley? Our venerable friend and his, Mr. Calvert, has a very different
opinion. He says:--
“This young man is not only a worthy young man, but he is one, naturally
of very vigorous intellect. He is of earnest, impassioned temperament,
full of enthusiasm and imagination; fitted for work--great work--public
work--head work--the noblest kind of work. He will be a great
lawyer--perhaps a great statesman--if he addresses himself at once,
manfully, to his tasks; but he will not address himself to these tasks
while he pursues the rusting and mind-destroying life of a country
village. Give him the object of his present desire and you deprive him
of all motive for exertion. Give him the woman he seeks and you probably
deprive him even of the degree of quiet which the country village
affords. He would forfeit happiness without finding strength. Force him
to the use of his tools and he builds himself fame and fortune.”
Calvert was really not sorry that William Hinkley's treatment had been
so harsh. He sympathized, it is true, in his sufferings, but he was not
blind to their probable advantages; and he positively rejoiced in his
rejection by Margaret Cooper.
It was some four or five days after the events with which our last
chapter was closed, that the old man and his young friend were to be
seen sitting together, under the shade of the venerable tree where we
have met them before. They had conferred together seriously, and finally
with agreeing minds, on the several topics which have been adverted to
in the preceding paragraph. William Hinkley had become convinced that it
was equally the policy of his mind and heart to leave Charlemont. He was
not so well satisfied, however, as was the case with Mr. Calvert, that
the loss of Margaret Cooper was his exceeding gain. When did young lover
come to such a conclusion? Not, certainly, while he was young. But when
was young lover wise? Though a discontent, William Hinkley was not,
however, soured nor despairing from the denial of his hopes. He had
resources of thought and spirit never tested before, of the possession
of which he, himself, knew nothing. They were to be brought into use and
made valuable only by these very denials; by the baffling of his hope;
by the provocation of his strength.
His resolution grew rapidly in consequence of his disappointments.
He was now prepared to meet the wishes of his venerable and wise
preceptor--to grapple stoutly with the masters of the law; and, keeping
his heart in restraint, if not absolute abeyance, to do that justice
to his head, which, according to the opinion of Mr. Calvert, it
well-deserved if hitherto it had not demanded it. But to pursue his
studies as well as his practice, he was to leave Charlemont. How was
this to be done--where was he to go--by what means? A horse, saddle, and
bridle--a few books and the ante-revolutionary pistols of his grandsire,
which recent circumstances seemed to have endeared to him, were all his
available property. His poverty was an estoppel, at the outset, to his
own reflections; and thinking of this difficulty he turned with a blank
visage to his friend.
The old man seemed to enter into and imagine his thoughts. He did not
wait to be reminded, by the halting speech of the youth, of the one
subject from which the latter shrunk to speak.
“The next thing, my son,” said he, “is the necessary means. Happily, in
the case of one so prudent and temperate as yourself, you will not need
much. Food and clothing, and a small sum, annually, for contingencies,
will be your chief expense; and this, I am fortunately able to provide.
I am not a rich man, my son; but economy and temperance, with industry,
have given me enough, and to spare. It is long since I had resolved that
all I have should be yours; and I had laid aside small sums from time to
time, intending them for an occasion like the present, which I felt
sure would at length arrive. I am rejoiced that my foresight should have
begun in time, since it enables me to meet the necessity promptly,
and to interpose myself at the moment when you most need counsel and
assistance.”
“Oh, my friend, my kind generous friend, how it shames me for my own
father to hear you speak thus!”
The youth caught the hands of his benefactor, and the hot tears fell
from his eyes upon them, while he fervently bent to kiss them.
“Your father is a good but rough man, William, who will come to his
senses in good time. Men of his education--governed as he is by the
mistake which so commonly confounds God with his self-constituted
representative, religion with its professor--will err, and can not be
reasoned out of their errors. It is the unceasing operation of time
which can alone teach them a knowledge of the truth. You must not think
too hardly of your father, who does not love you the less because he
fancies you are his particular property, with whom he may do what he
pleases. As for what I have done, and am disposed to do for you, let
that not become burdensome to your gratitude. In some respects you have
been a son to me, and I send you from me with the same reluctance
which a father would feel in the like circumstances. You have been my
companion, you have helped to cheer my solitude; and I have learned to
look on the progress of your mind with the interest of the philosopher
who pursues a favorite experiment. In educating you, I have attempted an
experiment which I should be sorry to see fail. I do not think now that
it will fail. I think you will do yourself and me ample justice. If I
have had my doubts, they were of your courage, not your talent. If
you have a weakness, it is because of a deficiency of self-esteem--a
tendency to self-disparagement. A little more actual struggle with the
world, and an utter withdrawal from those helps and hands which in a
youth's own home are very apt to be constantly employed to keep him from
falling, and to save him from the consequences of his fall, and I do not
despair of seeing you acquire that necessary moral hardihood which will
enable you to think freely, and to make your mind give a fair utterance
to the properties which are in it. When this is done, I have every hope
of you. You will rise to eminence in your profession. I know, my son,
that you will do me honor.”
“Ah, sir, I am afraid you overrate my abilities. I have no consciousness
of any such resources as you suppose me to possess.”
“It is here that your deficiency speaks out. Be bold, my son--be bold,
bolder, boldest. I would not have you presumptuous, but there is a
courage, short of presumption, which is only a just confidence in one's
energies and moral determination. This you will soon form, if, looking
around you and into the performances of others, you see how easy they
are, and how far inferior they are to your own ideas of what excellence
should be. Do not look into yourself for your standards. I have perhaps
erred in making these too high. Look out from yourself--look into
others--analyze the properties of others; and, in attempting, seek only
to meet the exigencies of the occasion, without asking what a great mind
might effect beyond it. Your heart will fail you always if your beau
ideal is for ever present to your mind.”
“I will try, sir. My tasks are before me, and I know it is full time
that I should discard my boyhood. I will go to work with industry, and
will endeavor not to disappoint your confidence; but I must confess,
sir, I have very little in myself.”
“If you will work seriously, William, my faith is in this very humility.
A man knowing his own weakness, and working to be strong, can not fail.
He must achieve something more than he strives for.”
“You make me strong as I hear you, sir. But I have one request to make,
sir. I have a favor to ask, sir, which will make me almost happy if you
grant it--which will at least reconcile me to receive your favors, and
to feel them less oppressively.”
“What is that, William? You know, my son, there are few things which I
could refuse you.”
“It is that _I_ MAY BE YOUR SON; that I may call you father, and bear
henceforward your name. If you adopt me, rear me, teach me, provide me
with the means of education and life, and do for me what a father should
have done, you are substantially more than my father to me. Let me bear,
your name. I shall be proud of it, sir. I will not disgrace it--nay,
more, it will strengthen me in my desire to do it and myself honor. When
I hear it spoken, it will remind me of my equal obligations to you and
to myself.”
“But this, my son, is a wrong done to your own father.”
“Alas! he will not feel it such.”
The old man shook his head.
“You speak now with a feeling of anger, William. The treatment of your
father rankles in your mind.”
“No, sir, no! I freely forgive him. I have no reference to him in the
prayer I make. My purpose is simply what I declare. Your name will
remind me of your counsels, will increase my obligation to pursue them,
will strengthen me in my determination, will be to me a fond monitor in
your place. Oh, sir, do not deny me! You have shown me the affections of
a father--let me, I entreat you, bear the name of your son!”
The youth flung his arms about the old man's neck, and wept with a gush
of fondness which the venerable sire could not withstand. He was deeply
touched: his lips quivered; his eyes thrilled and throbbed. In vain did
he strive to resist the impulse. He gave him tear for tear.
“My son, you have unmanned me.”
“Ah, my father, I can not regret, since, in doing so, I have
strengthened my own manhood.”
“If it have this effect, William, I shall not regret my own weakness.
There is a bird, you are aware, of which it is fabled that it nourishes
its young by the blood of its own bosom, which it wounds for this
purpose. Believe me, my dear boy, I am not unwilling to be this bird for
your sake. If to feel for you as the fondest of fathers can give me the
rights of one, then are you most certainly my son--my son!”
Long, and fond, and sweet, was their embrace. For a full hour, but few
words, and those of a mournful tenderness, were exchanged between the
parties. But the scene and the struggle were drawing nigh their close.
This was the day when they were to separate. It had been arranged that
William Hinkley, or as he now calls himself, William Calvert, was to
go into the world. The old man had recalled for his sake, many of the
memories and associations of his youth. He had revived that period--in
his case one of equal bitterness and pleasure--when, a youth like him he
was about to send forth, he had been the ardent student in a profession
whose honors he had so sadly failed to reap. In this profession he was
then fortunate in having many sterling friends. Some of these were still
so. In withdrawing from society, he had not withdrawn from all commerce
with a select and sacred few; and to the friendly counsel and protection
of these he now deputed the paternal trusts which had been just so
solemnly surrendered to himself. There were long and earnest appeals
written to many noble associates--men who had won great names by dint of
honorable struggle in those fields into which the feebler temper of Mr.
Calvert did not permit him to penetrate. Some of these letters bore for
their superscriptions such names as the Clays, the Crittendens, and the
Metcalfs--the strong men, not merely of Kentucky, but of the Union.
The good old man sighed as he read them over, separately, to his young
companion.
“Once I stood with them, and like them--not the meanest among them--nay,
beloved by them as an associate, and recognised as a competitor. But
they are here--strong, high, glorious, in the eye of the nation--and I
am nothing--a poor white-headed pedagogue in the obscurest regions
of Kentucky. Oh, my son, remember this, and be strong! Beware of that
weakness, the offspring of a miserable vanity, which, claiming too much
for itself, can bestow nothing upon others. Strive only to meet the
exigency, and you will do more--you will pass beyond it. Ask not what
your fame requires--the poor fame of a solitary man struggling like an
atom in the bosom of the great struggling world--ask only what is due
to the task which you have assumed, and labor to do that. This is
the simple, small secret, but be sure it is the one which is of more
importance than all beside.”
The departure of William Hinkley from his native village was kept a
profound secret from all persons except his adopted father and his bosom
friend and cousin, Fisherman Ned. We have lost sight of this young man
for several pages, and, in justice equally to the reader and himself, it
is necessary that we should hurriedly retrace our progress, at least so
far as concerns his. We left him, if we remember, having driven Alfred
Stevens from his purpose, riding on alone, really with no other aim than
to give circulation to his limbs and fancies. His ride, if we are to
believe his random but significant words, and his very knowing looks,
was not without its results. He had certainly made some discoveries--at
least he thought and said so; but, in truth, we believe these amounted
to nothing more than some plausible conjectures as to the route which
Alfred Stevens was in the habit of pursuing, on those excursions, in
which the neighbors were disposed to think that there was something
very mysterious. He certainly had jumped to the conclusion that, on such
occasions, the journey of Stevens was prolonged to Ellisland; and, as
such a ride was too long for one of mere pleasure and exercise, the next
conclusion was, that such a journey had always some business in it.
Now, a business that calls for so much secrecy, in a young student of
theology, was certainly one that could have very little relation to the
church. So far as Ned Hinkley knew anything of the Decalogue it could
not well relate to that. There was nothing in St. Paul that required
him to travel post to Ellisland; though a voyage to Tarsus might be
justified by the authority of that apostle; and the whole proceeding,
therefore, appeared to be a mystery in which gospelling had very little
to do. Very naturally, having arrived at this conclusion, Ned Hinkley
jumped to another. If the saints have nothing to do with this journey
of Alfred Stevens, the sinners must have. It meant mischief--it was a
device of Satan; and the matter seemed so clearly made out to his own
mind, that he returned home with the further conviction, which was
equally natural and far more easily arrived at, that he was now bound
by religion, as he had previously been impelled by instinct, to give
Stevens “a regular licking the very first chance that offered.” Still,
though determined on this measure, he was not unmindful of the necessity
of making other discoveries; and he returned to Charlemont with a
countenance big with importance and almost black with mystery.
But the events which had taken place in his absence, and which we have
already related, almost put his own peculiar purposes out of his mind.
That William Hinkley should have cowskinned Stevens would have been much
more gratifying to him could he have been present; and he was almost
disposed to join with the rest in their outcry against this sacrilegious
proceeding, for the simple reason, that it somewhat anticipated his own
rigorous intentions to the same effect. He was not less dissatisfied
with the next attempt for two reasons.
“You might have known, Bill, that a parson won't fight with pistols. You
might have persuaded him to fist or cudgel, to a fair up and down, hand
over, fight! That's not so criminal, they think. I heard once of Brother
John Cross, himself trying a cudgel bout with another parson down
in Mississippi, because he took the same text out of his mouth, and
preached it over the very same day, with contrary reason. Everybody said
that John Cross served him right, and nobody blamed either. But they
would have done so if pistols had been used. You can't expect parsons
or students of religion to fight with firearms. Swords, now, they think
justifiable, for St. Peter used them; but we read nowhere in Old or New
Testament of their using guns, pistols, or rifles.”
“But he consented to fight, and brought his own pistols, Ned?”
“Why, then, didn't you fight? That's the next thing I blame you
for--that, when you were both ready, and had the puppies in your hands,
you should have stood looking at each other without taking a crack. By
jingo, had there been fifty fathers and mothers in the bush, I'd have
had a crack at him. No, I blame you, William--I can't help it. You
didn't do right. Oh! if you had only waited for me, and let me have
fixed it, how finely we would have managed. What then, if your father
had burst in, it was only shifting the barkers from your hands to mine.
I'd have banged at him, though John Cross himself, and all his flock,
stood by and kneed it to prevent me. They might have prayed to all
eternity without stopping me, I tell you.”
William Hinkley muttered something about the more impressive sort of
procedure which his father had resorted to, and a little soreness about
the parietal bones just at that moment giving a quick impatient air to
his manner, had the effect of putting an end to all further discussion
of this topic. Fisherman Ned concluded with a brief assurance, meant
as consolation, that, when he took up the cudgels, his cousin need make
himself perfectly easy with the conviction that he would balance both
accounts very effectually. He had previously exhorted William to renew
the attempt, though with different weapons, to bring his enemy into the
field; but against this attempt Mr. Calvert had already impressively
enjoined him; exacting from him a promise that he would not seek
Stevens, and would simply abide any call for satisfaction which the
latter might make. The worthy old man was well assured that in Stevens's
situation there was very little likelihood of a summons to the field
from him.
Still, William Hinkley did not deem it becoming in him to leave the
ground for several days, even after his preparations for departure were
complete. He loitered in the neighborhood, showed himself frequently
to his enemy, and, on some of these occasions, was subjected to the
mortification of beholding the latter on his way to the house of
Margaret Cooper, with whom, a few moments after, he might be seen in
lonely rambles by the lake-side and in the wood. William had conquered
his hopes from this quarter, but he vainly endeavored to suppress his
pangs.
At length the morning came for his departure. He had seen his mother for
the last time the night before. They had met at the house of the widow
Hinkley, between which and that of Calvert, his time had been chiefly
spent, since the day of his affair with Stevens. His determination to
depart was carefully concealed from his mother. He dreaded to hear
her entreaties, and he doubted his own strength to endure them. His
deportment, however, was sufficiently fond and tender, full of pain and
passion, to have convinced her, had she been at all suspicious of the
truth, of the design he meditated. But, as it was, it simply satisfied
her affections; and the fond “good night” with which he addressed her
ears at parting, was followed by a gush of tears which shocked the more
sturdy courage of his cousin, and aroused the suspicions of the widow.
“William Hinkley,” she said after the mother had gone home--“you must be
thinking to leave Charlemont. I'm sure of it--I know it.”
“If you do, say nothing, dear cousin; it will do no good--it can not
prevent me now, and will only make our parting more painful.”
“Oh, don't fear me,” said the widow--“I shan't speak of it, till it's
known to everybody, for I think you right to go and do just as Gran'pa
Calvert tells you; but you needn't have made it such a secret with me.
I've always been too much of your friend to say a word.”
“Alas!” said the youth mournfully, “until lately, dear cousin, I fancied
that I had no friends--do not blame me, therefore, if I still sometimes
act as if I had none.”
“You have many friends, William, already--I'm sure you will find many
more wherever you go; abler friends if not fonder ones, than you leave
behind you.”
The youth threw his arms round the widow's neck and kissed her tenderly.
Her words sounded in his ears like some melodious prophecy.
“Say no more, cousin,” he exclaimed with sudden enthusiasm; “I am so
well pleased to believe what you promise me of the future, that I am
willing to believe all. God bless you. I will never forget you.”
The parting with Calvert was more touching in reality, but with fewer of
the external signs of feeling. A few words, a single embrace and squeeze
of the hand, and they separated; the old man hiding himself and his
feelings in the dimness of his secluded abode, while his adopted son,
with whom Ned Hinkley rode a brief distance on his way, struck spurs
into his steed, as if to lose, in the rapid motion of the animal, the
slow, sad feelings which were pressing heavily upon his heart. He had
left Charlemont for ever. He had left it under circumstances of doubt,
and despondency--stung by injustice, and baffled in the first ardent
hopes of his youthful mind. “The world was all before him, where to
choose.” Let us not doubt that the benignant Providence is still his
guide.