CHAPTER XII.

Oh, now I see where your ambition points.-- Take heed you steer your vessel right, my son: This calm of heaven, this mermaid's melody, Into an unseen whirlpool draws you fast, And, in a moment, sinks you. DRYDEN--_The Spanish Fryar_.

The summer had just set in, when the painter returned to the Traveller's Rest, with the prospect, so rapid was his convalescence, of being able to leave the valley within the space of a fortnight. But week came after week, June exchanged her green cloak for the golden mantle of July, the laurels bloomed on the hills, and the fire-flies twinkled in the evening grass, and still he lingered among the pleasant solitudes of Hawk-Hollow, as if unable to tear himself away. This faintness of purpose, for weekly, at least, he vowed he would depart, he excused to himself, by pleading the strong necessity he was under of delighting Captain Loring's heart with a picture, which he could not begin until his arm was released, not only from the wooden bonds of splints, but from the weakness resulting from the fracture. Until that happy period arrived, he was a frequent and indeed a welcome visiter at the mansion, his society being not less agreeable to Catherine than it was absolutely indispensable to her father. Young as she was, and with a spirit so gay and frank, there was much good sense in all Miss Loring's actions; and this had been doubtless sharpened by the necessity, imposed upon her so early, of playing the matron in her father's household, and guarding against the consequences of his many eccentricities. It was this good sense which taught her the propriety of getting rid of the stranger guest, as soon as humanity would sanction his expulsion; and this she had, in part, indirectly confessed to the party herself, with her usual good-humoured openness. This being accomplished, and Herman now assuming his proper station at a distance, and visiting the house as an avowed favourite of her father, she felt herself delivered from restraint, and received him without reserve. His manners and conversation were at all times those of a gentleman; and this is always enough, in America, to entitle a stranger, of whom no evil is known or suspected, to hospitality and respectful consideration, especially at a distance from the larger cities. That curiosity, which travellers have chosen to saddle upon Americans as a national characteristic, along with the two or three forms of speech that have belonged to the mother-land since the days of Chaucer, is in no country less really intrusive than in America. If it be irksome, and, at times, ludicrously impertinent, it is easily satisfied. It springs, indeed, not from a suspicious, so much as an inquisitive, disposition; and is the result of a certain openness of character, such as arises under every democratic government, and is well known to have prevailed to an extraordinary extent among the old Greek republics, notwithstanding the proverbial craftiness of individual character. With this curiosity is associated an equal quantity of credulity; and Americans are very content to receive the stranger, whose deportment is at all prepossessing, entirely upon his own self-recommendations. No jealousy accompanies an introduction made only by accident; and the same generous confidence is reposed in the new acquaintance, which the bestower will expect, under similar circumstances, to have lavished upon himself.

It did not, therefore, enter into the thoughts of Miss Loring to question Hunter's claims to such friendly courtesies as were accorded to him; and if any doubts of the propriety of continuing his acquaintance had occurred, they must have been dispelled by a remembrance of the circumstances under which he was introduced. Her happy instrumentality in rescuing him from a dreadful peril, had given her a right to be interested in his behalf; and the great pleasure the young man's society afforded her father, was an additional argument to banish reserve. The visits of Herman were therefore received and encouraged; the young lady's spirits, animated by such companionship, became more elastic and joyous; and Captain Loring rejoiced in the painter's acquaintance as much on her account as his own. "Adzooks, Kate," he was used to exclaim, "the young dog is as good company for you as cousin Harry,"--so he often called Miss Falconer, as well as her brother,--"and the lord knows how much _better_ for me! And then the picture, Kate, adzooks, is'n't it a charmer! that is to say, it _will be_; but the young dog won't show it to me."

The picture,--'the grand picture of the Battle of Brandywine, and Tom Loring dying,'--had been at last begun, or rather a drawing in water colours, meant to represent that double calamity; and from the few samples of proficiency in his art which Herman had already shown, the expectations of the daughter were almost as agreeably kindled as those of the parent. The painter had presented Catherine with a few little sketches from his port-folio,--landscapes, representing views of Southern scenery, which to her appeared highly spirited, while to the Captain they seemed sublime,--only that _he_ had a perverse facility at seeing rocks and stumps of trees in groups of kine on the meadows; and in distant flocks of sheep, nothing better than so many rambling killdeers on the barren upland. Notwithstanding these unlucky mistakes, he conceived so high an opinion of the artist's ability, that he strenuously urged him to begin the Battle of Brandywine upon a scale of magnitude commensurate with the grandeur of the subject; 'He would have it,' he said, 'done magnificently. He would go down to the village, and buy Ephraim Gall, the tavern-keeper's, big sign, that had the great Black Bear on it; or he would have another made just like it; and, he had no doubt, his young dog Haman,'--for the Captain could never fall upon his protegé's true name,--'would beat John Smith, the sign-painter, hollow,'--a flight of panegyric that somewhat nettled the artist, but vastly diverted Miss Loring.

But the greatest accession to his reputation was obtained when Herman, as the only means of securing a likeness of the Captain's deceased son, prevailed upon Catherine to sit to him for hers, and the radiant features beamed at last from the ivory. The delight with which the Captain seized upon this happy effort of art, was not merely boisterous; it was obstreperous,--nay, uproarious; and Catherine, laughing and weeping together, acknowledged that, in thus enrapturing her father's heart, the painter had made her his friend for ever.

"Now, Captain," said Hunter, with a beaming eye, "now, all I have to do, is to take that sketch home"----

"Shan't let it go out of my hands!" cried Captain Loring. "Why, it's my Kate herself! Give up my heart's blood first."

"You shall have it again, Captain; I promise you that. It is only to copy it, you know--that is, to paint the likeness of your son from it."

"Shall do no such thing--must do another," cried Captain Loring; and it required all the arguments of the painter, backed by those of Catherine, to prevail upon the obstinate old man to surrender the sketch, that it might be devoted to the purpose for which it was executed.

Thus passed the time of the painter in an employment, which, as much as his conversation, recommended him to the friendship of two isolated beings, simple-hearted, guileless, and unsuspicious of any coming ill. Thus he passed his time, confiding and confided in--the gayest, the merriest, and perhaps the happiest visiter who had ever been admitted to the privileges of Avondale; yet, all the time, whether rambling with the frank maiden in search of summer flowers to transfer to her garden, whether listening to the gay music of her conversation, or gazing, in the exercise of his art, upon her beautiful features, drinking in a poison which he felt and feared, yet without knowing the deep hold it was taking upon his spirit, until the sudden crash of coming events made him dreadfully aware of its influence. He was neither too young nor too short-sighted to be ignorant of the impression made on his feelings by each daily interview with a maiden so bewitching; nor did he attempt to repress the humiliating consciousness, that, in thus giving his heart to the affianced bride of another, he was preparing for himself a retribution of pain and penitence, and perhaps of shame. From the moment in which he discovered himself treasuring away with such jealous care, the gift of withering fern,--a bagatelle of compliment, which, he well knew, was only given by Catherine to remove a mortification she had inflicted,--he saw that he was sporting upon the brink of a precipice--trifling upon some such slippery bridge as that of fatal memory over the streamlet, from which his folly might at any moment hurl him. With this consciousness before him, he perceived the necessity of flight, yet fled not, deeming that the power of escape at the right moment could not be denied him--of taking some antidote with the poison, but took none, resolving it should be swallowed thereafter; and, in fine, while still thinking that he resisted, or was prepared to resist, when the peril should become urgent, he gave himself up to the intoxication of the new passion, and, in reality, sought every means to augment it.

'When the flame of love is kindled first, 'Tis the fire-fly's light at even,'--

the flash of an insect, which one can admire, without fearing its power to create a conflagration. A vague impression that Catherine's want of affection for the licensed lover would prevent the completion of the marriage contract, gave a sort of encouragement and hope to his selfishness, which he interpreted into the more generous sympathy of one who lamented her hard fate, and desired only to shield and protect her. In this delusive thought, in this romantic willingness to watch over the safety of another, he lingered around the vortex of fate, until the ripple became a current, and the current an impetuous tide, from which there was no escape, except by exerting his remaining strength to the utmost. At the very period when the exertion should have been made, he bore to his solitary chamber the idol lately completed by his own hands, and as he gazed upon it, felt that the moment of salvation had passed by.

"Yes, it is now too late," he muttered, apostrophising the miniature; "I have fooled myself a second time into the whirlpool; and who, Catherine, will play thy part with me again, and again save me? It _is_ too late; it is too late to retreat, and now therefore I must go on--yet with what hope go on? With none. She heeds me not, she dreams not of my folly, she cares not. Friendship is the grave of love; and in her friendship my love is entombed, before it has breathed twice in existence. I will speak to her, and be derided!--I will confess myself, and be driven from her presence! And this is honourable of me too! to take advantage of her unsuspicious frankness, her anxious desire to gratify her father, and steal a portrait from her! I saw she doubted the propriety of sitting; and yet I, by base dissimulation and affected indifference, cajoled her to consent. Well, if I can copy, I can destroy; and if this fool--this slave--this Falconer wed her, why, then good-by to the knavery and the folly together! I will tarry, at least, until I see the privileged woer; and then, if she like him not, if she recoil--nay, if she shed but a tear of repugnance, may heaven forsake me if I do not----Well, what? Kill him!----There has been enough of that among us already."

Thus murmuring to himself, and expressing invectives against his folly, with the usual arguments for continuing to indulge it, he sat down before a table, and despite his convictions of the impropriety, if not the meanness of the act, began to copy the miniature. He laboured assiduously until he had completed the outline, and then exclaimed, with a species of reproachful triumph,

"Now, foolish father of the best and loveliest! though you rob me of my labour, yet have I secured its counterpart. Send me a thousand leagues away, and within this dim outline shall my hand reproduce the image of your sacrifice.--But here come the fools again! Now for a smooth face, a merry voice, and a frolic with my jolterhead admirers."

The vow which the painter had made, when the doctor and his two friends passed by the widow's cottage, and smiled at his choice of lodgings, that he would make them fonder of the Traveller's Rest than their own village quarters, he had in part fulfilled. Whatever was his secret and growing care, it was yet confined to his own bosom; and he was altogether of too joyous a temperament, had he even desired to nourish his melancholy, to bear a sad spirit in company. He was one of those who suffer most, and suffer longest, by grieving only at intervals, and enjoying themselves heartily among friends. The idea of a continuous grief, of any duration, at least, is preposterous. The body can live upon the rack only a few hours, or days; and the spirit's powers of endurance are not much greater.

His gay and agreeable manners had strongly recommended him to the trio; and the two lawyers, having nothing better to do, were wont to mount their horses, and accompany the doctor on his professional visitations, which he continued for some time after the patient had taken refuge within the Traveller's Rest; and even after he insisted upon being cured, they wasted their tediousness upon him at least twice or thrice a week, in the way of friendly calls; and he was wont to entertain them as well as he could. Of the doctor he had made a conquest by asking for his bill, and paying it in good English guineas, a handful of which coin gave doctor Merribody more sensible delight than could the bushel of paper with which he expected to fill his saddle-bags; the amount charged against the unlucky amateur being some few thousands of dollars,--Continental currency.

One of the doctor's friends, whom he usually addressed by the familiar title of Jingleum, but whose real name was Jackson, or Johnson, or some such unhappy dissyllable, was the poet of the village, and a bard of renown for at least ten miles round. Him the painter won by praising his verses, and what was still more captivating, by singing them, and what was yet more enslaving, by requesting permission to cull all the stanzas of a _cantabile_ nature from the long blue-covered log-books, in which Mr. Jingleum had carefully recorded his labours. Seeing what a congenial soul he had found in the painter, Jingleum freely supplied his wants, and wrote divers madrigals at his suggestion, with which Herman charmed the ears of Miss Loring. The poet soon became his intense admirer and perpetual visiter; they grew fast friends, and soon came to regard each other, the one as the divinest poet, the other as the most finished singer, under the moon. It would have been an interesting sight, could one have invaded the sanctity of the painter's apartment, on such occasions, to see them together, industriously fixing a tune to each affecting ditty,--a labour that was sometimes none of the lightest; and sometimes, when the genius of the bard, as it often did, chose to disdain the base bonds of metre and rhythm, and none of the thousand melodies in their service could be forced or wheedled into nuptials with his independent verse, they were fain to betake themselves to their own resources, and finish the business with such a _quodlibet_ as they could manufacture between them. It was a divine enjoyment to the poet, when they had at last succeeded with any refractory song, to hear his lines breathed out from the mellow lips of his friend; for then his poetry seemed as celestial as his pleasure. His bliss, however, was not complete, until he lighted by accident, one day, in the village, upon a battered guitar,--an instrument of such venerable antiquity, that there was not a soul therein who was able to pronounce for what unheard-of purpose such an extraordinary engine had been framed, until Herman Hunter, swearing it could discourse most eloquent music, and was _not_ a banjo, managed, by dint of much exertion, to fit it up with fiddle-strings and the savings of some demolished harpsichord, and set its dumb tongues twangling: it was not until he heard his rhymes trolled forth to the clatter of this romantic instrument, that the joy of the poet mounted to the heaven of ecstasy. He would sit distilling with delight, while the lips of his friend warbled over the seraphic lines, and while his fingers hopped over the amaranthine strings; and then, sometimes, with a sudden feeling of inspiration, he would snatch the lyre, as he poetically called it, into his own hands, doubtless expecting an overflow of ineffable harmony from the mere fulness of his spirit, until warned by the dreadful dissonance of his touches, and the remonstrances of his admirer, he found, however extraordinary it seemed, that the drum and the jewsharp were the only instruments the playing of which came by nature.

This peculiar friendship betwixt the bard and the singer it is perhaps necessary here to mention, in order that it should be understood to whom should be given the credit of those canzonets sung by the painter, which seem to have any peculiar reference to his own condition. He did not carry his affection so far as to bestow any of his private confidence on the bard; nor did the latter ever suspect that any call, however urgent, for a ballad especially sad and amatory, was to be understood as indicating a passion deeper than that of the mere songster. There was little suspiciousness in the poet's frame, and no scandal-mongers in the neighbourhood. It was indeed the golden age of that part of the world; although the country was somewhat overflowed with paper-money.

It was one result of this generous spirit, doubtless, that caused the story of the resuscitation of a Hawk of Hawk-Hollow to be so soon forgotten. The account of the outrage upon Colonel Falconer, as having been perpetrated by Oran Gilbert, did indeed at first create a considerable sensation; and many excitable individuals, hearing of the chase after the fugitive Nehemiah, mounted their horses, and resumed the trail, the next day, with the resolution of sifting the mystery to the bottom. But the trail ended where Lieutenant Brooks had left it; the raw-boned white horse had passed through divers hands, and was, in course of time, supposed to have been recovered by the rightful owner; but the rider had vanished as if swallowed up by the earth, or melted into the air, and was never more heard of. The story died away, or was remembered only as a jest, which finally expired in the vapour of its own silliness. The reasonable men laughed at their late fears, and forgot them.

About the present time, however, there arose a rumour, no one knew how or why, which created a new sensation among the credulous and foreboding. It was whispered that a band of tories was secretly forming among the hills; but where, or for what purpose, no one pretended to say. It was a vague and mysterious apprehension, that spread from person to person, by virtue, perhaps, of its enigmatic character; for no inquiry could detect a better reason for its prevalence. As it carried its contagion further and further, men began again to talk of the Hawks of Hawk-Hollow; the refugees, in imagination, rose again from their tombs, and the scalp-hunter stole anew through the forests. The rumour had reached the Traveller's Rest; but it made little impression on the spirit of the painter.

He laid aside his drawing in haste, so soon as he heard that clatter of hoofs in the oaken yard, which, he thought, betokened the coming of his friends; and having secured it beyond the reach of any prying eye, he descended to meet them.