"Ah! I thought as much. Have you been long a student?"
"I may scarcely consider myself one yet. I have read, sir, rather than studied."
"A good distinction, not often made. But, do you incline to law seriously?"
"Yes, sir--I know no occupation to which I so much incline."
"The law is a very arduous profession. It requires a rare union of industry, talent, and knowledge of mankind to be a good lawyer."
"I should think so, sir."
"Few succeed where thousands fail. Young men are very apt to mistake inclination for ability; and to be a poor lawyer--"
"Is to be worse than poor--is to be despicable!" replied Hinkley with a half-smile, as he interrupted a speech which might have been construed into a very contemptuous commentary on his own pretensions. It would seem that the young man had so understood it. He continued thus:--
"It may be so with me, sir. It is not improbable that I deceive myself, and confound inclination with ability."
"Oh, pardon me, my dear young friend," said Stevens patronizingly; "but I do not say so. I utter a mere generality. Of course, I can know nothing on the subject of your abilities. I should be glad to know.
I should like to converse with you. But the law is very arduous, very exacting. It requires a good mind, and it requires the whole of it.
There is no such thing as being a good lawyer from merely reading law.
You can"t bolt it as we do food in this country. We must chew upon it.
It must be well digested. You seem to have the right notion on this subject. I should judge so from two things: the distinction which you made between the reader and the student; and the fact that your appearance is that of the student. I am afraid, my young friend, that you overwork yourself. You look thin, and pale, and unhappy. You should be careful that your pa.s.sion for study is not indulged in at the peril of your health."
The frame of the young man seemed to be suddenly agitated. His face was flushed, and a keen, quick, flash of anger seemed to lighten in his eyes as he looked up to the paternal counsellor and replied:--
"I thank you, sir, for your interest, but it is premature. I am not conscious that my health suffers from this or any other cause."
"Nay, my young friend, do not deceive yourself. You perhaps underrate your own industry. It is very difficult matter to decide how much we can do and how much we ought to do, in the way of study. No mere thinking can determine this matter for us. It can only be decided by being able to see what others do and can endure. In a little country village like this, one can not easily determine; and the difficulty may be increased somewhat by one"s own conviction, of the immense deal that one has to learn. If you were to spend a year in some tolerably large community.
Perhaps you meditate some such plan?".
"I do not, sir," was the cold reply.
"Indeed; and have you no desire that way?"
"None!"
"Very strange! at your time of life the natural desire is to go into the great world. Even the student fancies he can learn better there than he can anywhere else--and so he can."
"Indeed, sir: if I may be so bold to ask, why, with this opinion, have you left the great city to bury yourself in a miserable village like Charlemont?"
The question was so quickly put, and with so much apparent keenness, that Stevens found the tables suddenly reversed. But he was in nowise discomposed. He answered promptly.
"You forget," he said, "that I was speaking of very young men, of an ambitious temper, who were seeking to become lawyers. The student of divinity may very well be supposed to be one who would withdraw himself from the scene of ambition, strifes, vanities, and tumultuous pa.s.sions."
"You speak, sir, as if there were a material difference in our years?"
said Hinkley inquiringly.
"Perhaps it is less than in our experience, my young friend," was the answer of the other, betraying that quiet sense of superiority which would have been felt more gallingly by Hinkley had he been of a less modest nature. Still, it had the effect of arousing some of the animal in his blood, and he responded in a sentence which was not entirely without its sneer, though it probably pa.s.sed without penetrating such a buff of self-esteem as guarded the sensibilities of our adventurer.
"You are fortunate sir, if, at your time of life, you have succeeded in withdrawing your thoughts and feelings, with your person, from such scenes of ambition as you speak of. But I fancy the pa.s.sions dwell with us in the country as well as with the wiser people in the town; and I am not sure that there is any pursuit much more free from their intrusion than that of the law."
"Your remark exhibits penetration, Mr. Hinkley. I should not be surprised if you have chosen your profession properly. Still, I should counsel you not to overwork yourself. Bear with me, sir; I feel an interest in your behalf, and I must think you do so. Allow me to be something of a judge in this matter. You are aware, sir, that I too have been a lawyer."
The youth bowed stiffly.
"If I can lend you any a.s.sistance in your studies, I will do so. Let me arrange them for you, and portion out your time. I know something about that, and will save you from injuring your health. On this point you evidently need instruction. You are doing yourself hurt. Your appearance is matter of distress and apprehension to your parents."
"To my parents, sir?"
"Your mother, I mean! She spoke to me about you this very morning. She is distressed at some unaccountable changes which have taken place in your manners, your health, your personal appearance. Of course I can say nothing on the subject of the past, or of these changes; but I may be permitted to say that your present looks do not betoken health, and I have supposed this to be on account of your studies. I promised your good mother to confer with you, and counsel you, and if I can be of any help--""
"You are very good, sir!"
The young man spoke bitterly. His gorge was rising. It was not easy to suppress his vexation with his mother, and the indignation which he felt at the supercilious approaches of the agent whom she had employed.
Besides, his mind, not less than his feelings, was rising in vigor in due degree with the pressure put upon it.
"You are very good, sir, and I am very much obliged to you. I could have wished, however, that my mother had not given you this trouble, sir. She certainly must have been thinking of Mr. John Cross. She could scarcely have hoped that any good could have resulted to me, from the counsel of one who is so little older than myself."
This speech made our adventurer elevate his eyebrows. He absolutely stopped short to look upon the speaker. William Hinkley stopped short also. His eye encountered that of Stevens with an expression as full of defiance as firmness. His cheeks glowed with the generous indignation which filled his veins.
"This fellow has something in him after all," was the involuntary reflection that rose to the other"s mind. The effect was, however, not very beneficial to his own manner. Instead of having the effect of impressing upon Stevens the necessity of working cautiously, the show of defiance which he saw tended to provoke and annoy him. The youth had displayed so much propriety in his anger, had been so moderate as well as firm, and had uttered his answer with so much dignity and correctness, that he felt himself rebuked. To be encountered by an unsophisticated boy, and foiled, though but for an instant--slightly estimated, though but by a youth, and him too, a mere rustic--was mortifying to the self-esteem that rather precipitately hurried to resent it.
"You take it seriously, Mr. Hinkley. But surely an offer of service need not be mistaken. As for the trifling difference which may be in our years, that is perhaps nothing to the difference which may be in our experience, our knowledge of the world, our opportunities and studies."
"Surely, sir; all these MAY be, but at all events we are not bound to a.s.sume their existence until it is shown."
"Oh, you are likely to prove an adept in the law, Mr. Hinkley."
"I trust, sir, that your progress may be as great in the church."
"Ha!--do I understand you? There is war between us then?" said Stevens, watching the animated and speaking countenance of William Hinkley with increasing curiosity.
"Ay, sir--there is!" was the spirited reply of the youth. "Let it be war; I am the better pleased, sir, that you are the first to proclaim it."
"Very good," said Stevens, "be it so, if you will. At all events you can have no objection to say why it should be so."
"Do you ask, sir?"
"Surely; for I can not guess."
"You are less sagacious, then, than I had fancied you. You, scarce older than myself--a stranger among us--come to me in the language of a father, or a master, and without asking what I have of feeling, or what I lack of sense, undertake deliberately to wound the one, while insolently presuming to inform the other."
"At the request of your own mother!"
"Pshaw! what man of sense or honesty would urge such a plea. Years, and long intimacy, and wisdom admitted to be superior, could alone justify the presumption."
The cheeks of Stevens became scalding hot.