THE FOX IN THE TRAP.
The youth barely stopped to swallow his breakfast, when he set off from
the village. He managed his movements with considerable caution; and,
fetching a circuit from an opposite quarter, after having ridden some
five miles out of his way, passed into the road which he suspected that
Stevens would pursue. We do not care to show the detailed processes by
which he arrived at this conclusion. The reader may take for granted
that he had heard from some way-side farmer, that a stranger rode by his
cottage once a week, wearing such and such breeches, and mounted upon a
nag of a certain color and with certain qualities. Enough to say, that
Ned Hinkley was tolerably certain of his route and man.
He sped on accordingly--did not once hesitate at turns, right or left,
forks and crossroads, but keeping an inflexible course, he placed
himself at such a point on the road as to leave it no longer doubtful,
should Stevens pass, of the place which usually brought him up. Here he
dismounted, hurried his horse, out of sight and hearing, into the
woods, and choosing a position for himself, with some nicety, along the
road-side, put himself in close cover, where, stretching his frame at
length, he commenced the difficult labor of cooling his impatience with
his cogitations.
But cogitating, with a fellow of his blood, rather whets impatience.
He was monstrous restiff. At his fishing pond, with a trout to hook,
he would have lain for hours, as patient as philosophy itself, and as
inflexible as the solid rock over which he brooded. But without an angle
at his hand, how could he keep quiet? Not by thinking, surely; and,
least of all, by thinking about that person for whom his hostility was
so active. Thinking of Stevens, by a natural association, reminded
him of the pistols which Calvert had given him. Nothing could be more
natural than to draw them from his bosom. Again and again he examined
them in fascinated contemplation. He had already charged them, and he
amused himself by thinking of the mischief he could do, by a single
touch upon the trigger, to a poor little wood-rat, that once or twice
ran along a decaying log some five steps from his feet. But his object
being secrecy, the rat brushed his whiskers in safety. Still he amused
himself by aiming at this and other objects, until suddenly reminded
of the very important difference which he had promised Calvert to make
between the pistols in his future use of them. With this recollection he
drew out his knife, and laid the weapons before him.
“This,” said he, after a careful examination, in which he fancied
he discovered some slight difference between them in the hang of the
trigger--“this shall be my bull-pup--this my peace-maker!”
The latter was marked accordingly with a “P,” carved rudely enough by
one whose hand was much more practised in slitting the weasand of a
buck, than in cutting out, with crayon, or Italian crow-quill, the
ungainly forms of the Roman alphabet. Ned Hinkley shook his head with
some misgiving when the work was done; as he could not but see that
he had somewhat impaired the beauty of the peacemaker's butt by the
hang-dog looking initial which he had grafted upon it. But when he
recollected the subordinate uses to which this “puppy” was to be put,
and considered how unlikely, in his case, it would be exposed to
sight in comparison with its more masculine brother, he grew partially
reconciled to an evil which was now, indeed, irreparable.
It does not require that we should bother the reader with the numberless
thoughts and fancies which bothered our spy, in the three mortal
hours in which he kept his watch. Nothing but the hope that he should
ultimately be compensated to the utmost by a full discovery of all that
he sought to know, could possibly have sustained him during the trying
ordeal. At every new spasm of impatience which he felt, he drew up his
legs, shifted from one side to the other and growled out some small
thunder in the shape of a threat that “it would be only so much the
worse for him when the time came!” HIM--meaning Stevens.
At last Stevens came. He watched the progress of his enemy with keen
eyes; and, with his “bull-pup” in his hand, which a sort of instinct
made him keep in the direction of the highway, he followed his form upon
the road. When he was out of sight and hearing, the spy jumped to his
feet. The game, he felt, was secure now--in one respect at least.
“He's for Ellisland. That was no bad guess then. He might have been for
Fergus, or Jonesboro', or Debarre, but there's no turn now in the clear
track to Ellisland. He's there for certain.”
Ned Hinkley carefully restored his pistols to his bosom and buttoned up.
He was mounted in a few moments, and pressing slowly forward in pursuit.
He had his own plans which we will not attempt to fathom; but we fear we
shall be compelled to admit that he was not sufficiently a gentleman to
scruple at turning scout in a time of peace (though, with him, by
the way, and thus he justified, he is in pursuit of an enemy, and
consequently is at war), and dodging about, under cover, spying out
the secrets of the land, and not very fastidious in listening to
conversation that does not exactly concern him. We fear that there is
some such flaw in the character of Ned Hinkley, though, otherwise, a
good, hardy fellow--with a rough and tumble sort of good nature, which,
having bloodied your nose, would put a knife-handle down your back, and
apply a handful of cobwebs to the nasal extremity in order to arrest the
haemorrhage. We are sorry that there is such a defect in his character;
but we did not put it there. We should prefer that he should be
perfect--the reader will believe us--but there are grave lamentations
enough over the failures of humanity to render our homilies unnecessary.
Ned Hinkley was not a gentleman, and the only thing to be said in
his behalf, is, that he was modest enough to make pretensions to the
character. As he once said in a row the company muster:--
“I'm blackguard enough, on this occasion, to whip e'er a gentleman among
you!”
Without any dream of such a spectre at his heels to disturb his
imagination, Alfred Stevens was pursuing his way toward Ellisland, at
that easy travelling gait, which is the best for man and beast, vulgarly
called a “dog-trot.” Some very fine and fanciful people insist upon
calling it a “jog-trot.” We beg leave, in this place, to set them
right. Every trot is a jog, and so, for that matter, is every canter. A
dog-trot takes its name from the even motion of the smaller quadruped,
when it is seized with no particular mania, and is yet disposed to go
stubbornly forward. It is in more classical dialect, the festina lente
motion. It is regularly forward, and therefore fast--it never puts
the animal out of breath, and is therefore slow. Nobody ever saw a dog
practice this gait, with a tin canister at his tail, and a huddle of
schoolboys at his heels. No! it is THE travelling motion, considering
equally the health of all parties, and the necessity of getting on.
In this desire, Ned Hinkley pressed too closely on the heels of Stevens.
He once nearly overhauled him; and falling back, he subdued his
speed, to what, in the same semi-figurative language, he styled “the
puppy-trot.” Observing these respective gaits, Brother Stevens rode into
Ellisland at a moderately late dinner-hour, and the pursuer followed
at an unspeakable, but not great, distance behind him. We will,
henceforward, after a brief glance at Ellisland, confine ourselves more
particularly to the progress of Brother Stevens.
Ellisland was one of those little villages to which geographers scarcely
accord a place upon the maps. It is not honored with a dot in any map
that we have ever seen of Kentucky. But, for all this, it is a place!
Some day the name will be changed into Acarnania or Etolia, Epirus or
Scandinavia, and then be sure you shall hear of it. Already, the village
lawyers--there are two of them--have been discussing the propriety of
a change to something classical; and we do not doubt that, before
long, their stupidity will become infectious. Under these circumstances
Ellisland will catch a name that will stick. At present you would
probably never hear of the place, were it not necessary to our purposes
and those of Brother Stevens.
It has its tavern and blacksmith shop--its church--the meanest fabric in
the village--its postoffice and public well and trough. There is also a
rack pro bono publico, but as it is in front of the tavern, the owner
of that establishment has not wholly succeeded in convincing the people
that it was put there with simple reference to the public convenience.
The tavern-keeper is, politically, a quadrupled personage. He combines
the four offices of post-master, justice of the peace, town council, and
publican; and is considered a monstrous small person with all. The truth
is, reader--this aside--he has been democrat and whig, alternately,
every second year of his political life. His present politics, being
loco-foco, are in Ellisland considered contra bonos mores. It is hoped
that he will be dismissed from office, and a memorial to that effect is
in preparation; but the days of Harrison--“and Tyler too”--have not yet
come round, and Jerry Sunderland, who knows what his enemies are driving
at, whirls his coat-skirts, and snaps his fingers, in scorn of all their
machinations. He has a friend at Washington, who spoons in the
back parlor of the white-house--in other words, is a member o f the
kitchen-cabinet, of which, be it said, en passant, there never was a
president of the United States yet entirely without one--and--there
never will be! So much for politics and Ellisland.
There was some crowd in the village on the day of Brother Stevens's
arrival. Saturday is a well known day in the western and southern
country for making a village gathering; and when Brother Stevens, having
hitched his horse at the public rack, pushed his way to the postoffice,
he had no small crowd to set aside. He had just deposited his letters,
received others in return, answered some ten or fifteen questions which
Jerry Sunderland, P. M., Q. U., N. P., M. C., publican and sinner--such
were all deservedly his titles--had thought it necessary to address to
him, when he was suddenly startled by a familiar tap upon the shoulder;
such a tap as leads the recipient to imagine that he is about to be
honored with the affectionate salutation of some John Doe or Richard
Roe of the law. Stevens turned with some feeling of annoyance, if not
misgiving, and met the arch, smiling, and very complacent visage of a
tall, slender young gentleman in black bushy whiskers and a green coat,
who seized him by the hand and shook it heartily, while a chuckling
half-suppressed laughter gurgling in his throat, for a moment, forbade
the attempt to speak. Stevens seemed disquieted and looked around him
suspiciously.
“What! you here, Ben?”
“Ay, you see me! You didn't expect to see me, Warham---”
“Hush!” was the whispered word of Stevens, again looking round him in
trepidation.
“Oh! ay!” said the other with a sly chuckle, and also in a whisper, “Mr.
Stevens--Brother Stevens--hem! I did not think. How is your holiness
to-day?”
“Come aside,” muttered Stevens; and, taking the arm of the incautious
speaker, he led him away from the crowd and took the way out of the
village. Their meeting and departure did not occasion much, if any,
sensation. The visitors in the village were all too busy in discussing
the drink and doctrines, pretty equally distributed, of Jerry the
publican. But there was one eye that noted the meeting of the friends;
that beheld the concern and confusion of Stevens: that saw their
movements, and followed their departing steps.
“Take your horse--where is he?” demanded Stevens.
“Here, at hand; but what do you mean to do?”
“Nothing, but get out of hearing and sight; for your long tongue, Ben,
and significant face, would blab any secret, however deep.”
“Ah! did I not say that I would find you out? Did you get my last
letter?”
“Ay, I did: but I'm devilish sorry, Ben, that you've come. You'll do
mischief. You have always been a mar-plot.”
“Never, never! You don't know me.”
“Don't I?--but get your horse, and let's go into the woods, while we
talk over matters.”
“Why not leave the nags here?”
“For a very good reason. My course lies in that direction, so that I am
in my way; while yours, if your purpose be to go back to Frankfort, will
lie on the upper side. Neither of us need come back to the village.”
“And you think to shuffle me off so soon, do you?”
“What would you have me do?”
“Why, give us a peep at this beauty--this Altamira of yours--at least.”
“Impossible! Do not think of it, Ben; you'd spoil all. But, get the
horse. These billet-heads will suspect mischief if they see us talking
together, particularly when they behold your conceited action. This
political landlord will surmise that you are a second Aaron Burr, about
to beat up recruits to conquer California. Your big whiskers--what
an atrocious pair!--with your standing collar, will confirm the
impression.”
The two were soon mounted, and rode into the adjoining woods. They were
only a stone's-throw from the village, when Stevens alighted, followed
by his companion. They hitched their horses to some swinging branches
of a sheltering tree, and, going aside a few paces beyond, seated
themselves upon the grass, as they fancied, in a place of perfect
security.
“And now, Ben, what in truth brings you here?” demanded Stevens, in
tones of voice and with a look which betrayed anything but satisfaction
with the visit.
“Curiosity, I tell you, and the legs of my horse.”
“Pshaw! you have some other motive.”
“No, 'pon honor. I resolved to find you out--to see what you were
driving at, and where. I could only guess a part from your letter to
Barnabas, and that costive scrawl with which you honored me. Perhaps,
too--and give my friendship credit for the attempt--I came with some
hope to save you.”
“Save me--from what?”
“Why, wedlock--the accursed thing! The club is in terror lest you should
forget your vows. So glowing were your descriptions of your Cleopatra,
that we knew not what to make. We feared everything.”
“Why, Barnabas might have opened your eyes: he knew better.”
“You're not married, then?”
“Pshaw! no.”
“Nor engaged?”
The other laughed as he replied:--
“Why, on that head, the least said the better. The roving commission
permits you to run up any flag that the occasion requires.”
“Ah, you sly dog!--and what success?”
“Come, come, Ben, you must not be so inquisitive. The game's my own, you
know; and the rules of the club give me immunity from a fellow-member.”
“By Gad, I'll resign! I must see this forest beauty.”
“Impossible!”
“Where's she? How will you prevent?”
“By a very easy process. Do you know the bird that shrieks farthest from
her young ones when the fowler is at hand? I'll follow her example.”
“I'll follow you to the uttermost ends of the earth, Warham!”
“Hush! you forget! Am I not Brother Stevens? Ha! ha! ha! You are not
sufficiently reverent, brother. See you no divinity in my look and
bearing? Hark you, Ben, I've been a sort of small divinity in the eyes
of a whole flock for a month past!”
“You pray?”
“And preach!”
“Ha! ha! ha!--devilish good; but I must see you in order to believe. I
must, indeed, Brother Stevens. Why, man, think of it--success in this
enterprise will make you head of the fraternity--you will be declared
pope: but you must have witnesses!”
“So I think; and hark ye, Ben”--laying a finger on the arm of the
other--“I am successful!”
“What! you don't say so! This queen, this princess of Egypt, Cleopatra,
Altamira--eh?”
“Is mine--soul and body--she is mine!”
“And is what you say? Come, come, you don't mean that such a splendid
woman as you describe--such a genius, poet, painter, musician--beauty
too!--you don't mean to say that--”
“I do, every bit of it.”
“'Gad! what a fellow!--what a lucky dog! But you must let me see her,
Warham!”
“What! to spoil all--to blurt out the truth?--for, with every
disposition to fib, you lack the ability. No, no, Ben: when the game's
up--when I'm tired of the sport, and feel the necessity of looking out
fresh viands--you shall then know all; I'll give the clue into your own
hands, and you may follow it to your heart's content. But not now!”
“But how will you get rid of me, mon ami, if my curiosity is stubborn?”
“Do as the kill-deer does--travel from the nest--go home with you,
rather than you should succeed in your impertinence, and have you
expelled from the club for thrusting your spoon into the dish of a
brother-member.”
“You're a Turk, with no bowels of compassion. But, at all events,
you promise me the dish when you're done with it? you give me the
preference?”
“I do!”
“Swear by Beelzebub and Mohammed; by Jupiter Ammon and Johannes
Secundus; by the ghost of Cardinal Bembo, and the gridiron of the
fraternity!”
“Ay, and by the virginity of Queen Elizabeth!”
“Simulacrum! no! no! no such oath for me! That's swearing by the thing
that is not, was not--could not be! You shall swear by the oaths of
the club--you must be bound on the gridiron of the fraternity, before I
believe you. Swear!”
“You are as tenacious as the ghost of buried Denmark But you shall be
satisfied. I swear by the mystic gridiron of the fraternity, and by
the legs thereof, of which the images are Beelzebub, Mohammed, Johannes
Secundus, and so forth--nay, by that memorable volume, so revered in the
eyes of the club, the new edition of 'The Basiad,' of which who among us
has been the true exponent?--that profound mystery of sweets, fathomed
hourly, yet unfathomable still--for which the commentators, already
legions, are hourly becoming legions more;--by these, and by the
mysteries of the mirror that reflects not our own, but the image we
desire;--by these things--by all things that among the brotherhood are
held potent--I swear to--”
“Give me the preference in the favor of this princess; the clue to
find her when you have left her; and the assurance that you will get a
surfeit as soon as possible: swear!”
“Nay, nay! I swear not to that last! I shall hold on while appetite
holds, and make all efforts not to grow dyspeptic in a hurry. I'll keep
my stomach for a dainty, be sure, as long as I can. I were no brother,
worthy of our order, if I did not.”
“Well, well--to the rest! Swear to the rest, and I am satisfied.”
“You go back, then, instanter?”
“What! this very day?”
“This hour!”
“The d---l! you don't mean THAT, Warham?” returned the other in some
consternation.
“Ay, this very hour! You must swear to that. Your oath must precede
mine.”
“Ah! man, remember I only got here last night--long ride--hard-trotting
horse. We have not seen each other for months. I have a cursed sight to
tell you about the boys--girls too--love, law, logic, politics. Do you
know they talk of running you for the house?”
“All in good season, Ben; not now. No, no! you shall see me when you
least look for me, and there will be time enough for all these matters
then. They'll keep. For the present, let me say to you that we must
part now within the hour. You must swear not to dog my steps, and I
will swear to give you carte blanche, and the first privileges at my
princess, when I leave her. This is my bargain. I make no other.”
“I've a great mind not to leave you,” said the other doggedly.
“And what will that resolution bring you, do you fancy? Do you suppose
I am to be tracked in such a manner? No, Ben! The effect will be to make
me set off for the east instantly, whether you go with me or not; and an
equally certain effect will be to make us cut loose for ever.”
“You're a d---d hard colt to manage,” said the other moodily.
“I sha'n't let myself be straddled by every horse-boy, I assure you.”
“Come, come, old fellow, that's too much like horse-play. Don't be angry
with me. I'll accept your conditions.”
“Very good,” said Stevens; “if you did not, Ben, it would be no better
for you; for, otherwise, you should never even see my beauty!”
“Is she so very beautiful, old boy?”
“A queen, I tell you! a proud, high-spirited, wild beauty of the
mountains--a thing of fire and majesty--a glorious woman, full of song
and sentiment and ambition--a genius, I tell you--who can improvise
like Corinne, and, by the way, continually reminds one of that glorious
creature. In Italy, she would have been greater than Corinne.”
“And you've won her--and she loves you?”
“Ay--to doting! I found her a sort of eagle--soaring, striving--always
with an eye upon the hills, and fighting with the sunbeams. I have
subdued her. She is now like a timid fawn that trembles at the very
falling of a leaf in the forests. She pants with hope to see me, and
pants with tremulous delight when I come. Still, she shows every now
and then, a glimmering of that eagle spirit which she had at first. She
flashes up suddenly, but soon sinks again. Fancy a creature, an idolater
of fame before, suddenly made captive by love, and you have a vain,
partial image of my forest-princess.”
“What a lucky dog! You'll marry her yet, old boy, in spite of all!”
“Pshaw! You are green to talk so.”
“You'll be devilish loath to give her up; I'm afraid I'll have to wait a
cursed long time.”
“No, not long! Do not despair. Easy won, easy valued.”
“And was she easily won?”
“Very! the game was a short one. She is a mere country-girl, you know,
but eighteen or thereabouts--suspecting nobody, and never dreaming that
she had a heart or passions at all. She thought only of her poetry and
her books. It was only necessary to work upon heart and passions while
talking of poetry and books, and they carried her out of her depth
before she could recover. She's wiser now, Ben, I can assure you, and
will require more dexterity to keep than to conquer.”
“And she has no brother to worry a body--no d---d ugly Hobnail, who has
a fancy for her, and may make a window between the ribs of a gallant,
such as nature never intended, with the ounce-bullet of some d---d
old-fashioned seven-foot rifle--eh?”
“There was a silly chap, one Hinkley, who tried it on me--actually
challenged me, though I was playing parson, and there might have been
work for me but for his own bull-headed father, who came to my rescue,
beat the boy and drove him from the place. There is nobody else to give
me any annoyance, unless it be a sort of half-witted chap, a cousin of
the former--a sleepy dog that is never, I believe, entirely awake unless
when he's trout-fishing. He has squinted at me, as if he could quarrel
if he dared, but the lad is dull--too dull to be very troublesome. You
might kiss his grandmother under his nose, and he would probably regard
it only as a compliment to her superior virtues, and would thank you
accordingly--”
A voice a little to the left interrupted the speaker.
“So he does, my brave parson, for his grandmother's sake and his own,”
were the words of the speaker. They turned in sudden amaze to the spot
whence the sounds issued. The bushes opening in this quarter, presented
to the astonished eyes of Brother Stevens, the perfect image of the
dull lad of whom he had been speaking. There was Ned Hinkley in proper
person--perfectly awake, yet not trout-fishing! A sarcastic grin was
upon his visage, and rolling his eyes with a malicious leer, he repeated
the words which had first interrupted the progress of the dialogue
between the friends.
“I thank you, Brother Stevens, for the compliment to my grandmother's
virtues. I thank you, on her account as well as my own. I'm very
grateful, I assure you, very grateful, very!”