valise and a stout stick, with which all prudent pedestrians provide
themselves, and saw with delight the dusty pavements merging into the
dustier road, and the houses becoming more and more widely separated.
He had intended to choose the byways rather than the main road, and to
make it convenient to stop at farm-houses instead of the country taverns
along his route, thinking by this means to be able to see more of the
people, and to gain a little insight into habits and customs with which he
felt as though he ought to be somewhat more familiar. He had anticipated
a great deal of pleasure from the variety of character and mode of life
which would thus be brought under his notice; but his first attempt proved
so unsatisfactory, that he gave up all farther idea of intruding on the
privacy of those who were unprepared for receiving strangers.
He had stopped at a farm-house, and asked if he could be lodged for the
night just at eight o'clock. He found the occupants preparing to retire,
and, though they made him welcome, and entertained him hospitably, yet
he could not help perceiving that he gave them additional trouble; and,
when he found that they would not receive payment for it, he decided that
it was a false position in which he had placed himself, and that nothing
but necessity should induce him to adopt the same course again. He lacked
the cheerful assurance with which some men can make themselves at home
anywhere, without a suspicion that others are not equally pleased with
their society.
The next morning, feeling rather footsore and unrefreshed, after his
unusual exertions of the day before, Frederick took advantage of a stage
that was going in the same direction with himself, and rode to the village
in which he had decided to pass the night. Here he amused himself by
wandering about the beautiful and romantic country around, and returning
when he was weary to the country inn. This he found so much easier and
pleasanter a mode of travelling than the fatiguing one of walking, that
he went almost to the foot of the Green Mountains before he thought
of resuming it. Then, ashamed of his faint-heartedness, he left the
stage, and, shouldering his valise again, he walked for some hours quite
vigorously.
He entered the little village of Hillsdale just as the moon was rising,
and, after a supper such as none but a pedestrian could eat, he strolled
out to enjoy the loveliness of the summer evening and his own meditations,
by the banks of a clear and rapid stream, the beauty of which had
attracted his notice as he was entering the village. He walked for some
distance up its banks, and then, throwing himself down on a grassy mound,
he lay in a sort of musing trance, watching the moonlight shimmering on
the flashing waters, and listening to the tinkling music of their flow,
while his imagination was busily engaged in inventing deeds of heroism and
chivalric daring, by which he fancied himself proving to the lady of his
love that he was worthy of one so noble and high-souled.
Midnight stole unawares upon him while thus engaged, and, with reluctant
steps, he sought the Eagle Hotel, where he had decided to pass the night.
A decision not difficult to arrive at, as there was no other public house
in the place. The next morning he discovered, to his great annoyance, that
he had lost his purse in his evening ramble. He sought for it in vain; and
when the landlord, conjecturing from his movements that he was about to
depart, asked him if he would like his bill, he could not help a guilty
conscious feeling stealing over him as he tried to answer, in an off-hand
way, that he intended to pass a few days in Hillsdale.
If Frederick Lanier had not been so unaccustomed to the ways of the world,
he would have stated his situation frankly to the landlord, and then have
made himself easy until he could receive remittances from home. But, as it
was, he kept his affairs to himself; and, while waiting for an answer to
the letter he had written home, he went in and out, took his meals, read
the paper, and did his best to pass the time away without addressing a
remark to any one.
It struck him that he had never been among people quite so rural and
primitive, and he was right. But, as the arrival of a stranger was a rare
event among them, so he was of proportionate importance. And they were
also gifted with the usual sociability of the New Englanders; and a young
man that did not seem inclined to tell who he was, and where he came from,
and where he was going to, and seemed to have nothing to do but to go
regularly to the post-office, and then with his fishing-rod to the river,
from which he always returned empty-handed, was an object of wonder and
suspicion.
Frederick Lanier, unconscious of the speculations of which he was the
object, began to be greatly worried and perplexed by not receiving the
letter for which he was anxiously waiting. He grew daily more restless and
uneasy.
"He's got a bad conscience, depend upon it," said the landlord,
oracularly, as he sat in the midst of his satellites and customers
listening to the hasty strides with which Frederick Lanier was pacing up
and down the room over their heads.
At length a paragraph in a newspaper brought their suspicions to an open
expression.
"That's him, depend upon it," said the landlord. "James Wilson. J. W.;
them's the very letters on his portmantle. Five hundred dollars reward.
That will be doin' a pretty good business for one day."
"Are you going to take him up, Squire?" asked one of the men in the
bar-room.
"Certingly. Think I am going to let such a chance slip through my fingers?
It's him--it's as like him as two peas. Read that, friend," continued the
landlord, addressing himself to Frederick as he was going hastily through
the room, and planting himself so that the young man could not pass him.
Frederick took the paper, and read an advertisement offering a reward
of five hundred dollars for the apprehension of a clerk in a bank of a
neighboring town, who had absconded with two or three thousand dollars.
As Frederick glanced over the description of the runaway, it struck
him that James Wilson must have been rather an ill-looking fellow. A
broad-shouldered, down-looking, dark-haired, swarthy-complexioned man
would be rather an unpleasant person to meet in a lonely place, he
thought. He returned the paper to the landlord, saying, carelessly--
"Do you think there is any probability that the thief will be taken?"
"Well, I guess so, if we look sharp."
Something in the landlord's tone struck Frederick disagreeably. He glanced
around, and the distrustful, watchful expression on the countenances of
those about him revealed at once the nature of the suspicions against him.
"You surely do not suspect me of being this James Wilson?" asked he, in
surprise.
"I guess you'll have hard work to prove that you are anything else. What
is your name?"
"Frederick Lanier."
"And what business do you follow?"
"I am a student in New York city. My uncle, with whom I reside there, is
Mr. Oliver Lawrence. You may have heard of him?"
But no. Well known as Mr. Lawrence was in Wall Street, his reputation did
not extend to Hillsdale. Frederick saw that the mention of his uncle's
name produced no effect. He glanced again over the description of the
defaulter.
"I surely am neither swarthy nor down-looking," said he, catching at a
straw.
"Wall, I don't think you be 'ither," said a young man, who seemed to look
with some compassion on Frederick in his painful position.
"Asa Cutting, who asked your opinion?" said the landlord, magisterially.
"Young man," continued he to Frederick, "I hain't once seen the color of
your eyes sence you've ben in my house."
He must have seen them at that moment, for they were bent on him full of
flashing indignation. But he went on.
"If you are a college-larnt young man, you can read Greek most likely?"
"Yes."
"Wall, I've got a Greek book here that I would like to have you read out
of."
And, after some searching, a small book bound in paper was handed to
Frederick. He took it readily, hoping to prove by his scholarship the
truth of his assertions. To his disappointment, it was a little Chinese or
Japanese pamphlet that had found its way to this remote place.
"This is not Greek; it is Chinese," said he.
"Hum!" said the landlord, in a tone of contempt; "that jest shows how much
you know about it. If that ain't Greek, I would like to know what is. Do
you ever see paper like that nowadays? That's Greek paper; it was invented
ages before Chiny was ever heard of."
"Wall," said Asa Cutting, "I always have thought that them scratches
in that book that pass for letters were jest like the scratches on the
tea-chists in my store."
"Asa Cutting, what you think is nothin' to nobody, and what you say had
better be the same. Young man, sence Greek is unbeknown to you, may be
you'll have better luck with Latin."
"I can read Latin," said Frederick, modestly.
"Do you see them letters on my sign? You can read them out of the window
here."
"You mean the motto, '_E pluribus unum_,' I suppose?" said Frederick.
"Yes," said the landlord. "What do they stand for now?"
"'One of many,'" said Frederick.
"I thought how it would be," exclaimed the landlord, triumphantly. "'One
of many!' What, in the name of common sense, does that mean? No, young
man; don't you see they are put under the eagle, and they mean, 'The
eagle's flight is out of sight?'"
"I think you are mistaken, Square," said the pertinacious Asa; "I am sure
the stranger is right."
"Capen Cutting, you are like a sheep's head, all jaw," said the landlord,
with some irritation. "You think you've got more sense than any one about
here; but I guess you'll find yourself mistaken. Leftenant Davis, of the
United States Army, told me what them words stood for, not more than a
year ago, and it's likely he'd know. Young man, I'm afraid you are in a
bad way."
Frederick began to think so himself.
"I assure you," he said, "that I am not James Wilson."
"Young man, you be," said the landlord, sternly. "What have you got J. W.
on your portmantle for, I'd like to know?"
"That is a valise that was lent to me by my cousin, John Williams," said
Frederick. "If you will wait till I can write to New York and receive an
answer, I can satisfy you that you are mistaken in the person."
"I think, Square, you might allow the young man that chance," said Asa
Cutting.
"Wall, I'd be willin' to do it," said the landlord, "if I only knew where
to keep him; but the jail hasn't been mended sence that nigger took the
roof off with his head and got out, two months ago; and there ain't a room
in my house but the cellar that ain't about as onsafe as out doors."
Meantime, as people were dropping into the bar-room, the landlord,
for greater privacy and safety, took his captive, with a small train
of advisers and lookers-on, into the parlor, and there continued the
discussion as to the proper course to be pursued. Frederick offered to
give his word not to attempt an escape; but that proposal the landlord put
aside with great contempt, and, disdaining any farther parley, Frederick
listened in angry silence to the different plans suggested by the landlord
to insure the safe keeping of the prisoner, and the consequent obtaining
of the reward.
There was a slight bustle in front of the tavern, but the debate was so
interesting that it passed almost unnoticed. Soon after, the parlor door
was thrown open, and Adelaide Marshall entered, followed by her brother.
Frederick thought he had never seen her look so magnificently beautiful.
Her long riding-habit showed her figure to great advantage; her cheeks
were flushed, and her eyes sparkling with the light and color of vigorous
health and animation, and the mountain breeze had arranged her blonde hair
with a most picturesque negligence around her fair open forehead.
"Why, Mr. Lanier," said she, with gracious cordiality, "this is an
unexpected pleasure."
"Fred, I am delighted to meet you," exclaimed Henry Marshall.
An expression of disappointment passed over the landlord's face.
"Do you know this young man?" asked he.
"Certainly," replied Mr. Marshall, with some surprise; "he is an old
friend of mine."
"Wall, Square," said Asa Cutting, "I told you you'd better take care what
you was about. I kinder thought all along the young man didn't look like a
thief."
"That's complimentary," said Miss Marshall. "You seem to have been in some
trouble. I am glad we came in time to relieve you from such suspicions."
Frederick could not echo her expressions of pleasure. A week or two in
jail, or even a temporary confinement in the landlord's cellar, would
have been a light trouble compared with the mortification of being seen
by Miss Marshall in such a position. He explained, with an attempt
at indifference, the circumstances which had conspired against him,
and Adelaide found them highly amusing. She laughed heartily over the
advertisement, dwelling with malicious pleasure over each unflattering
epithet. She listened to Asa Cutting's circumstantial account of the whole
affair with an interest that led him insensibly to make it as long as
possible; and, when he came to the landlord's suggestion of confining the
suspected man in the cellar, she seemed so very much amused that Frederick
could hardly endure it with becoming patience. Even after they were alone,
she recurred again and again to the same theme, and always contrived to
hit upon the very points that jarred most on Frederick's sensitive nature.
When her mother and sister arrived, Miss Marshall repeated the story to
them, dwelling and expatiating upon it until Frederick could no longer
conceal his annoyance.
He declined coldly the invitation urged upon him by the whole family to
join them in their tour--an invitation he would gladly have accepted a
few days before; and it was with real pleasure that he saw the cavalcade
set out the next morning to continue their journey, Miss Marshall looking
back, after she had said "Good-by," to "hope that Mr. James Wilson would
enjoy the solitary fishing excursions he seemed to like so well."
The long-looked-for letter came that day; some accident had delayed it
on the road. With the remittance it contained he paid his bill, and left
the village of Hillsdale with no very pleasant feelings. He was somewhat
puzzled what course to take. His liking for travelling on foot had not
stood the test of experience, and just then he would have directed his
course to any other part of the Union more willingly than to the White
Mountains. He wisely decided to return to New York, and, by taking the
speediest conveyances, he managed to reach his uncle's house just two
weeks after he had left it.
He was warmly welcomed by his aunt and cousins, and Bessie Graham's bright
face looked brighter as she greeted him.
"You have come just in time, Fred," said Emily; "we are going to Lake
George to-morrow. But how did you happen to get back so soon? I am afraid
your 'predestinarian tower,' as that old lady out West called it, has not
been so delightful as you expected."
Frederick acknowledged that it had not; and, after tea, he told the whole
story to an audience more sympathizing than the former one had been.
"I thought you had a very crestfallen look as you came in," said Emily.
"I hope," said Mrs. Lawrence, "that you made the people understand who you
were before you left."
Bessie said nothing; but Frederick was struck by the spirit in which she
had listened to his misadventures, so different from the one that Miss
Marshall had displayed. The one he had always thought a grave and serious
character, and the other a light and childish one. But Miss Marshall
seemed to find an endless source of amusement in the mortification of
other people's vanity, while Bessie was so occupied with the painful
position in which he had been placed that she could hardly smile, easily
as her smiles generally came, at Frederick's imitation of the pompous and
ignorant landlord.
"Bessie is a sweet little girl," said he to Emily, at the close of the
evening.
"I knew you would like her," was Emily's pleased reply.
The pleasant weeks the party spent at Lake George served to confirm
Frederick's opinion, and the liking that commenced that first evening
after his return went on increasing, until in a few years it ended, as
most stories and novels do, in a wedding.
[Illustration]
LETTERS LEFT AT THE PASTRY-COOK'S:
BEING THE CLANDESTINE CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN KITTY CLOVER AT SCHOOL, AND
HER "DEAR, DEAR FRIEND" IN TOWN.
EDITED BY HORACE MAYHEW.
THE SIXTH LETTER LEFT.
(_Dated April the 9th._)
SHOWING WHAT HAPPENED ON A VERY IMPORTANT DAY, AND WHAT KITTY
THOUGHT OF SOME OF HER MASTERS.
TO-DAY, dearest Nelly, is the 14th of February. Not a girl, I believe,
in the whole school, slept a wink last night; ever since sunrise, there
has been such a humming and buzzing, exactly as you hear at church when
the service is just over. I believe all the girls are mad. No one seems
to care for fines or forfeits. What is twopence or sixpence, or a hundred
lines of the "History of England," so long as a dear sweet valentine is
smuggled into the college? and it requires all the art which a woman
has of smuggling, to pass a letter through the examination of this
place. I declare it's worse than the custom-house, when you land from
Boulogne. Every one who comes in has his pockets searched, and the Lady
Principal stands on the staircase all day, watching for the postman.
She little knows, however, that he has been bribed (_with half a dozen_
SILVER THIMBLES) to slip all the letters under the door without that
tell-tale "tat-tat;" or that Susan has earned in one day more ribbons and
handkerchiefs than a year's wages would buy her, simply by having a little
human feeling. Snapp and the Lady Principal were never fluttered with such
hopes, I'll be bound, when they were young, although it is so long ago
they may well be excused for forgetting it.
But it does not matter, Nelly, their locking us up in a state of siege.
Rosy May has got a beauty sent round her bottle of strengthening mixture
by the doctor's handsome young man; and Lucy Wilde found such a duck
tucked in her stockings from the wash. And those impudent fellows next
door have pelted us over the garden wall with half a dozen all tied on to
a piece of string precisely as if it were the tail of a kite that had got
entangled in the trees.
And then, Nelly (mind, this is a secret), there came a new Sunday dress
for me (a beautiful shot silk, with all kinds of colors, just like
mother-o'-pearl); and what do you think? There, inside it, hid up the
sleeve, was such a love of a valentine for your dear, happy, happy Kitty!
Oh gracious! when I opened it, I saw two sweet little doves, as white as
bride-cake, caged in a net of beautiful silver paper, hovering over a
large heart, smothered, dear, in the sweetest roses! It was so pretty,
you can't tell; and I was _so_ happy I could have gone to bed and have
cried the rest of the afternoon. How kind of _him_ to think of me on such
a day! Bless him! How foolishly I love him to be sure, and I should be
very wicked if I didn't; for it was only yesterday I flung the paring of
an apple three times round my head, and when it had fallen on the ground,
there it was in the form of the dear letter "S!" You understand, dearest;
but not a word.
Snapp had one. It was inside an orange that was thrown at her from over
the wall. Those impudent boys again! She tore it up most indignantly, and
flung the bits away with a burst of eloquence about "the vulgar ribaldry
of such ignorant, witless insults." We picked up the bits afterwards, and,
putting them together, found they formed the ugliest picture that ever was
seen, of an old witch riding on a birch-broom, with a big bottle in her
hand. It was too bad, but we have pasted the pieces on a sheet of paper,
and intend to keep it by us to spite her with some day, if she is unkind
to us.
The fact is, the whole house is crazy. If it was breaking-up day, there
couldn't be more fun and less discipline. Even that long piece of dryness,
Miss Twigg, has been caught laughing several times, and the servants have
been giggling up and down stairs, and all over the house, and running
every minute to the door, until at last Mrs. Rodwell has put the chain up,
and says she'll answer the door herself. She's in such a passion that I
shouldn't like to be one of those poor girls who hav'n't paid for their
last half year, and to be taken up before her!
Even that curious old Mr. Penn has become touched with the infection. He
has been setting us the drollest copies, about "Faint Heart ne'er won
Fair Lady," and "Though Lost to Sight, to Memory Dear," and such like;
exceeding even his usual eccentricities.
He is the funniest little specimen you ever saw, Nelly, and ought to sit
to have his portrait taken in China. He would make a capital Dresden
ornament, for he is a very great curiosity; but in his present shape he
is much more curious than ornamental. He is our writing-master; but his
accomplishments go far beyond pot-hooks and hangers; for he teaches us,
also, arithmetic, mathematics (much we understand about them!), and Latin
(we all like "_Amo_, I love"--I think of Sidney as I conjugate it), and
elocution; besides drawing to the juniors. Poor Penn! His is a sad life,
Nell. He was brought up with expectations of having a large fortune. Those
expectations are all gone now; for you cannot read the slightest hope
in his care-worn face. His whole appearance implies a struggle to live.
Every article of his dress speaks of a long fight with poverty. His coat
looks so thin that you imagine, if it were brushed, it would be swept
clean away like so much dust. It is buttoned close up to his throat, and
what you see of his linen is clean, though rough and jagged at the edges,
like the leaves of a book that's been badly cut. His boots are patched
to that extent that, when it has been raining very hard, he doesn't like
drying them at the fire, for fear of our laughing at the numerous patches
about them. His hat--but never mind about his dress, Nelly; for I feel a
sort of shame in counting the darns and stitches about this poor fellow's
appearance. Suffice it to say, he always looks the gentleman in the midst
of his shabbiness, and that he wins the respect of us giddy little girls,
even in spite of his bad clothes. The latter, I can tell you, is no small
recommendation in a girl's school.
He is clever, and I would sooner learn of him than of that ponderous
Professor Drudge, whose explanations are so high-flown that we never can
see what they mean, _even by standing on tip-toe_. At first, all manner of
tricks were played upon old Penn. He never could find his spectacles--his
knife was always mislaid--his quills were always stolen--but he never
grumbled or made the slightest complaint. Last winter he used repeatedly
to leave the room. We could not fancy why or where he went, until one
day he dropped his pocket-handkerchief. It was nothing but holes and
rags--almost as bad as the handkerchief I have seen the clown in a
pantomime wipe his eyes with when he has pretended to be crying. He had
been ashamed to withdraw it in our presence; and well he might, for on my
word, without meaning any harm, we should all have burst out laughing, if
he had. We could not have helped it, Nelly. You never saw such a thing,
dear! "It was not a pocket-handkerchief," said that great stupid Meggy
Sharpe, "so much as a Penn-wiper!"
Well! as we were all laughing at its poverty and comical appearance--you
must have laughed yourself, Nelly--who should come in but Blight? In a
few strong words she made us ashamed of our unfeeling mirth, and brought
the color still more to our tingling cheeks by running up stairs and
bringing down one of her own pocket-handkerchiefs, which she bade us
slip unperceived into poor old Penn's coat pocket. We watched him from
the window. The old gentleman pulled out his handkerchief as soon as he
left the house, but, perceiving the substitution, his head dropped, poor
fellow, and we saw him with the handkerchief held up to his eyes until he
turned the corner.