There was something in this speech, from one whom old Hinkley was accustomed to look upon as a dreaming bookworm, which goaded the tyrannical father into irrepressible fury; and, grinding his teeth, without a moment"s hesitation he advanced, and was actually about to lay the crab-stick over the shoulders of the speaker: but the latter was as prompt as he was fearless. Before Hinkley could conceive his intention, he had leaped over the still unconscious person of William, and, flinging the old man round with a sudden jerk, had grasped and wrested the stick from his hands with a degree of activity and strength which confounded all the bystanders, and the subject of his sudden exercise of manhood no less than the rest.
"Were you treated justly," said Calvert, regarding him with a look of the loftiest indignation, "you should yourself receive a taste of the cudgel you are so free to use on others. Let your feebleness, old man, be a warning to your arrogance."
With these words, he flung the crab-stick into the lake, old Hinkley regarding him with looks in which it was difficult to say whether mortification or fury had preponderance.
"Go," he continued--"your son lives; but it is G.o.d"s mercy, and none of yours, which has spared his life. You will live, I hope, to repent of your cruelty and injustice to him; to repent of having shown a preference to a stranger, so blind as that which has moved you to attempt the life of one of the most gentle lads in the whole country."
"And did he not come here to murder the stranger? did we not find him even now with pistol ready to murder Brother Stevens? See the pistols now in his hands--my father"s pistols. We came not a minute too soon.
But for my blow, he had been a murderer."
Such was the justification which old Hinkley now offered for what he had done.
"I am no advocate for duelling," said Calvert, "but I believe that your son came with the stranger for this purpose, and not to murder him."
"No, no! do you not see that Brother Stevens has no pistols? Did we not see him trying to escape--walking off--walking almost over the rocks to get out of the way?"
Calvert comprehended the matter much more clearly.
"Speak, sir!" he said to Stevens, "did you not come prepared to defend yourself?"
"You see me as I am," said Stevens, showing his empty hands.
Calvert looked at him with searching eye.
"I understand you, sir," he said, with an expression not to be mistaken; "I understand you now. THIS LAD I KNOW. HE COULD NOT BE A MURDERER. HE COULD NOT TAKE ANY MAN AT ADVANTAGE. If you do not know the fact, Mr.
Stevens, I can a.s.sure you that your life was perfectly secure from his weapon, so long as his remained equally unendangered. The sight of that lake, from which he rescued you but a few days ago, should sufficiently have persuaded you of this."
Stevens muttered something, the purport of which was, that "he did not believe the young man intended to murder him."
"Did he not send you a challenge?"
"No!" said old Hinkley; "he sent him a begging note, promising atonement and repentance."
"Will you let me see that note?" said Calvert, addressing Stevens.
"I have it not--I destroyed it," said Stevens with some haste. Calvert said no more, but he looked plainly enough his suspicions. He now gave his attention to William Hinkley, whose mother, while this scene was in progress, had been occupied, as Calvert had begun, in stanching the blood, and tr.i.m.m.i.n.g with her scissors, which were fortunately at her girdle, the hair from the wound. The son, meanwhile, had wakened to consciousness. He had been stunned but not severely injured by the blow, and, with the prompt.i.tude of a border-dame, Mrs. Hinkley, hurrying to a pine-tree, had gathered enough of its resin, which, spread upon a fragment of her cotton ap.r.o.n, and applied to the hurt, proved a very fair subst.i.tute for adhesive plaster. The youth rose to his feet, still retaining the pistols in his grasp. His looks were heavy from the stupor which still continued, but kindled into instant intelligence when he caught sight of Stevens and his father.
"Go home, sir!" said the latter, waving his hand in the prescribed direction.
"Never!" was the reply of the young man, firmly expressed; "never, sir, if I never have a home!"
"You shall always have a home, William, while I have one," said Mr.
Calvert.
"What! you encourage my son in rebellion? you teach him to fly in the face of his father?" shouted the old man.
"No, sir; I only offer him a shelter from tyranny, a place of refuge from persecution. When you learn the duties and the feelings of a father, it will be time enough to a.s.sert the rights of one. I do not think him safe in your house against your vindictiveness and brutality.
He is, however, of full age, and can determine for himself."
"He is not of age, and will not be till July."
"It matters not. He is more near the years of discretion than his father; and, judging him to be in some danger in your house, as a man and as a magistrate I offer him the protection of mine. Come home with me, William."
"Let him go, if he pleases--go to the d--l! He who honors not his father, says the Scriptures--what says the pa.s.sage, Brother Stevens--does it not say that he who honors not his father is in danger of h.e.l.l-fire?"
"Not exactly, I believe," said the other.
"Matters not, matters not!--the meaning is very much the same."
"Oh, my son," said the mother, clinging to his neck, "will you, indeed, desert me? can you leave me in my old age? I have none, none but you!
You know how I have loved--you know I will always love you."
"And I love you, mother--and love him too, though he treats me as an outcast--I will always love you, but I will never more enter my father"s dwelling. He has degraded me with his whip--he has attempted my life with his bludgeon. I forgive him, but will never expose myself again to his cruelties or indignities. You will always find me a son, and a dutiful one, in all other respects."
He turned away with Mr. Calvert, and slowly proceeded down the pathway by which he had approached the eminence. He gave Stevens a significant look as he pa.s.sed him, and lifted one of the pistols which he still carried in his hands, in a manner to make evident his meaning. The other smiled and turned off with the group, who proceeded by the route along the hills, but the last words of the mother, subdued by sobs, still came to the ears of the youth:--
"Oh, my son, come home! come home!"
"No! no! I have no home--no home, mother!" muttered the young man, as if he thought the half-stifled response could reach the ears of the complaining woman.
"No home! no hope!" he continued--"I am desolate."
"Not so, my son. G.o.d is our home; G.o.d is our companion; our strength, our preserver! Living and loving, manfully striving and working out our toils for deliverance, we are neither homeless, nor hopeless; neither strengthless, nor fatherless; wanting neither in substance nor companion. This is a sharp lesson, perhaps, but a necessary one. It will give you that courage, of the great value of which I spoke to you but a few days ago. Come with me to my home; it shall be yours until you can find a better."
"I thank you--oh! how much I thank you. It may be all as you pay, but I feel very, very miserable."
CHAPTER XXIV.
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 ill.u.s.tration 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, pa.s.singly, 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 fort.i.tude. 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 a.s.sa.s.sin 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:--