I passsucceeding interviews, of which there were several. Poor Clarice had little to say, but was quite willing to listen to any suggestions of mine. What Jane unkindly calls beating about the bush is necessary with a person of her sensitive organization. She seems to feel that she has fallen from her old estate, and is not yet established in a new one. I am satisfied that she never would have made those admissions, slight as they are, and allowed me to go on this secret embassy, if she had only herself to consider. For the first time duty to others has come into collision with her pride, and shaken the citadel of her reserve. Always hitherto she has had things and people come to her; the exercise has been in keeping them off. To want, to seek, to invite—to lift a finger, unless in the way of small and graceful social management—this is new to her, and she takes it hard. The thing I have to do beyond all others is to preserve her dignity: she knows I can be trusted for that, though Jane does not. I can't blameJane:she has never seen me conduct an affair like this, nor has any one else, for the simple reason that I never had it to do till now. I am only her brother: she has had experience of all my failings, and is imperfectly acquainted with my resources. Mabel is more satisfactory. She has not figured as much as some others in this chronicle; connubial modesty prevents my making her prominent. But she too possesses some very good traits; especially she has a way of bringing forward and dwelling upon points which nobody else would think of mentioning. She used to scold me sometimes, but that was chiefly when she thought I was not treatingClarice well. She lays great stress on ties of blood, and considers herself natural guardian and defender to the Princess, whom she sometimes forgets that I knew for fifteen years before I ever met her. Clarice talks little with her, and no more with Jane: I really believe that her only confidences—which are not much, if measured by words—have been made to me. But they are very fond of each other all the same. I suppose you can understand that much affection can exist with little intimacy. The Princess was cast in her own peculiar mould: I don't want to see many more like her, for they would be poor imitations. None of us ever attempt to pry into her inner life—or to meddle with her outward life either; when she wants anything of any of us, we are ready, and there it ends. She knows we love her, and that is enough.
Hartman, now, is much less impenetrable; though I suppose he will shut himself up like an oyster over the dubious pearl of his precious secret, and give me no end of trouble to extract his contents. But I possess a knife which is able to open his shell. He has answered my letter promptly, and expects me presently. Does he think I am going up there merely to fish and hunt, and hear him talk a lot of rubbish about the Vanity of Life? Or does he scent my deeper motives—discern the Ethiopian within the encompassing pale, as they say in Boston? If so, he is apparently as willing to be operated on as he was before. At any rate he is a gentleman, and knows how to respect a woman—when he takes time to think about it. This is a delicate business for him as well as for the lady—and there is where the awkwardness comes in: from his point of view he can't speak out, any more than she. Well, I'll turn him inside out and manipulate him, if it takes the whole week. Happily I don't have to consider him as I did Clarice; as Jane intimates, a man can't expect to have his feelingsspared in the process. What are a man's feelings anyway, compared with a woman's? And what rights has he as againsthers? No: between man and man all that can be needed is plain speech and manly frankness—aided by a little diplomacy. I'll break you to pieces, James H., if you are fractious; and I've got the weapons to do it with. It is all for your good, and you'll bless me the rest of your life. One thing must be understood: I can't have you coming to my place and practising your wild backwoods manners on my family, and then sneaking off in the night and evading responsibility. The next time you come you will have to behave yourself, and to stay till Somebody has had enough of you.
Mabel thinks I ought to enliven the account of my trip with descriptions of scenery and the like. But a rock is a rock, and a field is a field, and who wants to know whether a tree is elm or maple? I am not a geological survey, and you can get mountains enough from Craddock. Not that I am insensible to the beauties of Nature—as I have proved before now. How often have I sat upon an eminence, and admiringly gazed at the departing luminary as he sank slowly to rest, flooding hill and valley with tints which a painter might strive in vain to reproduce! I would have to sit there some time to see it all, for I have noticed that with us the Sunset proper does not begin till after the Setting of the Sun is finished. And when the distant mountains assumed a robe of royal purple, and 'the death-smile of the dying day' lingered pathetically on the horizon, my thoughts would soar to the Celestial City, and long to rest themselves upon its pavement of liquid gold. I heard Dr. Chapin say these last words at the first lecture I ever attended, and it struck my infant intelligence that they ought to be preserved. And I too might be a poet if I lived in the country, in constant communion with Nature, abandoningmy soul to her maternal caress. But alas, the stir, the scramble, the mad whirl of city life, the debasing contact with low material minds, the daily study of Prices Current, make even of me a muckworm. Still, I might work up a brook or two after I get to the woods, or expatiate on a seven-pound trout: my conscience forbids me to weigh them higher, for I never saw any above three. And yet some men will talk familiarly of ten-pounders!—Or I might analyze the mediæval garments of Hodge and his old Poll. As for the Wayback houses, they are like any other habitations, only less of them, and few and far between: Jim's is the best, and it is nothing to brag of. You can see much better buildings any day on Broadway. The rural parts, as Lord Bacon observed, are but a den of savage men. It is to see one of these, and resume the interrupted process of civilizing him, that I am about starting on this philanthropic journey, leaving my happy home and the advantages of a metropolis. If the savage breast is open to ennobling influences, it shall be soothed and charmed by the music of my discourse. What loftier, more disinterested task than to reclaim the wanderer, and guide the penitent in the way wherein he should go? I began this soul-raising labor some time ago, but an unexpected hitch occurred in the proceeding: there must be no more such now.
I found Hodge awaiting me at the station: he said that Hartman was arranging the tackle for to-morrow. The fact is, it is one of Jim's notions not to keep a horse, but to depend on Hodge for his communications with the outside world; and another never to see the railroad when he can help it.
"Well, old man," I said as the effete steed began laboriously to get in motion, "how is your valuable health?"
"Pooty tollable. How's them gells o' yourn as wanted to foller ye up here las' time?"
"The ladies are reasonably well, and will beflattered by your inquiries. How is Mr. Hartman?"
"Wall, Square, I ain't none too satyfied 'bout him. He don't say nothin to nobody, but he seems kinder low in his mind, like. Ever sence you played that durn trick on me and him, he's ben someways diffurnt. He—"
"Look here, my aged friend; why should you accuse me of playing durn tricks on people? To what circumstance do you allude?"
"I ain't alludin' to nothin; I says it out plain. If ye don't know, Id'no as I'm called to tell ye. Me an' Hartman was gittin on fust rate, till ye come and upsot us; we ain't used to bein upsot. So when our commydations wan't good enough for ye an' yer gells, ye went and got Hartman down thar in the city, or wharever 'twas. An' Id'no what ye done to him thar, an' I spose it's no good to ask a feller like ye; but he ain't ben the same man sence. That's howheis. He uster be chipper, an' peart, an' clost frens with me; an' now he don't say nothin. Ye can see fur yerself pooty durn soon."
And the native bestowed on me a malign glance. I trotted him out and entertained myself with his paces (which were livelier than those of his nag) for the next three hours. Those who like nature unadorned can find it here. As a specimen of unbridled rancor Hodge deserves a prize. I believe I have got to the bottom of his luminous intellect—not that it was worth the labor, if one had anything else to do. Supposing himself Jim's most intimate friend, he is jealous of me as a rival in that capacity; and he has never forgiven the slight put on his establishment in connection with the girls' proposed visit. I partly appeased him by suggesting that he supply the shanty with a new signboard labeled 'Palace Hotel.' Fortunately I don't have to put up there this time.
Of course he told me a lot of lies. A casualeye could see no change in the recluse: his head does not hang down on his breast, his locks are not long and matted, his sighs do not resound through the primeval forest and scare away the panthers. When you look closely at him, or have been with him long enough, you can see that he is a little thinner, a little older, a little less inclined to chaff—as well he may be. Chaffing is a bad habit anyway, and was his worst fault when I was here before; so far, his woes have improved him. He met me cordially enough, but with no wild demonstration: he seems no nearer insanity than last May. He asked after Mabel, Jane, and the children, but not after Clarice; nor did I mention her, of course. It was not a very pleasant evening, for each of us was watching the other to see what he would say. He knows as well as I do that the enemy has troops in reserve: he is not so unsuspicious as he was. He did not ventilate his theories to any great extent, nor did I see my way to expound my great scheme for the Ascertainment of Truth: the ground ought to be in good condition before you drop seed of such value upon it.
If I thought things would go on like this, I should begin to grumble; but we shall probably get broken in to each other in a day or two, and then I can thaw him out. We talked glittering generalities for a while—the weather, and the war prospects abroad, and the chances of getting deer on the other side of a mountain not far away—like any commonplace boobies at a county fair. Then he proposed for next morning a stream I had not seen, some distance off, which would necessitate a start before daybreak: so I pretended to be tired from the journey, and we turned in early.
Nextday we went some miles along a lonely road, and then through the fields of an abandoned farm. I don't wonder they abandoned it; I am only sorry for the poor wretch who once cherished the delusive dream of scratching a living there; when he died or went back to Canada, he couldn't well be worse off. Nature had but partially reclaimed the land, and we tramped through weeds and grass up to ourmiddle;one might as well be wading a fair-sized river. You have no idea of the dew up here till you have tried it. After a while we struck into the woods, and such woods you never saw—at least I hope so for your sake. Rocks, big and little, generally of the most unchristian shapes—not picturesque, but sprawling; underbrush wherever it had a chance to grow: you could scarcely find a foot of smooth ground. The worst of it was the way the trees lay around loose. The region had not been burned over, at least not for many years; but it did seem to have been cursed, as if Adam's fall had been enacted there. The monarchs of the forest, for countless generations, had indulged a depraved propensity to fall also, and across each other in all possible directions. It was such an abattis as I trust our men, in the war, never had to fight their way through: here it was bad enough without anybody to shoot at you. I would go rods out of my way to get around a great bowlder, and come upon a conglomeration of big trees which had tumbled about till they made a Virginia fence fifteen feet high. Climbing is all very well in its way, but I don't like this kind. The queer thing was that they had not the sense to decay and crumble; the wood was mostly sound enoughto be standing yet. I asked Hartman why they did not haul off all this timber, and he said there was no place to haul it to, nor any way to haul it, nor anybody to do the hauling; that fuel was cheap, and the few inhabitants had plenty nearer home; and besides, that it was most ornamental and useful where it was—it afforded exercise to the bodily and spiritual muscles of any anglers from the city who might come that way like me. "You forget the characteristics of this region, which are its advantages in my view. You can get turnpike roads, and teams, and sawmills, nearer home. You come up here to be away from the busy haunts, you know, and to see Nature in her native purity. This stream that I am taking you to is very seldom visited."
"I should think it would be, if this is the way to get to it," I said, as I fell over a root and barked my nose and knees. "What the deuce did we come to such a blanked place for?"
"For trout: you said they were what you wanted. The less fishermen, the more fish. This is the best brook in the county, because it is the least accessible. I rarely come here myself: I've been saving it up this year for you."
We went on, our progress marked by frequent delays and accidents; that it was marked by no profanity was due merely to Jim's reticence and to my exceptional manners and principles. After what seemed to me about twenty miles—though he said it was only one and a half—of this singularly forsaken country, he cried, "Look out now, or you'll fall in. Here is the brook."
It made noise enough to be heard a long way off, but I thought that was something else—some kobolds or other abnormal beings, probably, working at their forges underground. The brook itself was well enough, but it did not seem to belong there; you could not see ittill you were on the edge of it. I have fished a good many streams, and tramped through all sorts of woods, but I never saw such a place as that before, and I never want to again. We had left our rods at home; high-toned anglers who carry fancy tackle through such regions leave it along the painful way in small pieces. So we carried merely our baskets—which were encumbrance enough—and what we had in our pockets. You can cut a pole anywhere, and it does not want to be a long one either: take your fly-book if you like, but worms are as good or better. There was no use of wading: you would be more likely to scare the fish so than by staying on the bank, where they could never see you; the difficulty was to see far enough to throw in five feet of line. It was a superior brook—all but the getting to it, and, as I afterwards found, away from it. If it could be removed from its loathsome surroundings and put down in a decent country, I would go there every year. I was going to say that some of the cascades were forty feet high, till I remembered that trout cannot climb as far as that.
"Don't lose your balance," said Jim; "these fish are fierce." They were, in the wilder parts. They would bite like mad, and then wriggle and wrench themselves off the hook before you could get them up the bank. I never saw or heard of such ferocity, except in the celebrated scaly warrior which chased an equally famous fisherman all over an Adirondack lake, jumped across his boat several times, and, if I remember rightly, bit him on the nose. No such adventure fell to my lot on this occasion, though I thought that some of them, when sufficiently near my face, grinned at me as they parted company. Yet none of them were over half a pound, and most of them much less. You can see that this healthful pastime does not produce its usual demoralizing effect on me. When we reached a flat piece of ground, the water would become quiet and the manners of thefish more humane, so that they would come out like chubs. I stood in one spot under a tree, and took twenty-nine in succession. My sister, looking over these memoirs, suggests that they probablywerechubs; but Hartman, who was behind me then, came up and saw them, so I have his evidence. He said it was a spawning bed, and I ought to put the twenty-nine back. Who would have thought him capable of such mean jealousy? But he cannot play his tricks on me.
About two P.M. he said we had better start.
"Why, we don't want to reach home much before dark," said I.
"No danger of it. It's much worse getting out of this than getting in. You saw how much path there is: we can't go straight, and it's all chance where we strike the fields. You'd better eat what you've got, and drink all you can: there's no water between this and the road."
"Didn't you take landmarks? Look at the mountains all round."
"They are like the mountains about the Dark Tower Childe Roland came to. I've been here twice before, and missed the way back both times. Nobody ever got out of here without going a circuit to the right, and taking his chances. The natives are afraid to come here: they say there are ghosts—the ghosts of those who got lost of old, and were eaten by bears. That's how we took so many trout. Look to your belt now, and the straps of your basket. The last time I was here, the other fellow lost his fish in the woods, and I made him go back and hunt them up: it was near night before he found them, and his basket was not much heavier than yours is now. If we should have to camp out, we can build a fire, cook some of the fish, and probably avoid freezing: but we'd better try to get out."
I thought so too, and supposed he was trying to scare me; but the sun was nearly down whenwe saw the fields. We went four times too far, through that beastly region of rocks and dead trees: I think our course was mainly northwest by south-southeast. At last we got back to the house, tired and hungry; but Jim's old housekeeper is a pretty good cook for a native, and there is no better supper than trout that were in the water the same day.
Whenwe were settled down to our pipes, I said, "Is this the way you treat the friends of your youth, when they entrust life and limb to your hospitality?"
"I give 'em the best I've got: sorry if it doesn't suit. There's no Delmonico's round the corner, here. What's the matter with you, old man?"
"O, it's not your housekeeping: that's all right. But why did you lead me such a dance, and get me lost in that unconscionable doghole of a wilderness?"
"Did you ever take so many fish out of a brook in one day before? No, of course you didn't. Well, that's why. I told you it would be a rough expedition; but I thought you came here to rough it. You didn't expect balls and a casino, did you? You were here last May."
"Last May I saw nothing as bad as this to-day. You haven't been playing it on me, I hope? Jim, have you got any grudge against me?"
"What should I have? You're deucedly suspicious and sensitive—far more so than I was with you. I believe I let you play on me to your heart's content, and never complained—did I?"
"Jim, I don't like this. There's a change in you: Hodge said so, and I didn't believe him. You're not the same man."
"O, we all change—from year to year, and from day to day. But I ought never to have left these woods, Bob, and that's the truth. You should have let me stay here as I was."
"I meant it in all kindness, for your good, Jim. Surely you'll do me the justice to acknowledge that."
"No doubt. But your philanthropic experiments are apt to be damnably expensive to the patient."
"You couldn't be much worse than you were, according to your own account. Any change ought to have been for the better."
"That was your assumption. Do I strike you as being changed for the better?"
"Well, no, you don't—not to put too fine a point upon it."
He certainly does not. His whole manner is altered. His former gentleness has given way to rough harshness. You have seen how he treats me. It may be his best, as he says; if so, his best is far from good. His bitterness used to be, if I may say so, in the abstract, and leveled against abstractions; now it seems to have a painfully concrete character and aim. His estrangement from the scheme of things, or from his kind at least, was purely intellectual, leaving his heart no more affected than the heart usually is by brain-disorders; now it is moral. He is like a man tormented by remorse, or regrets as savage. But I think I know a cure for his complaint.
After a pause he said, "I don't want to blame you, Bob, and I don't propose to whine. Nor was it any great matter what came to me, wherever it might come from. I thought I was done with the world, and had nothing to fear from it, except being bored and disgusted. There was only one thing I cared about, and that I supposed I could keep. I was mistaken.It was my little ewe lamb—all I had; and they took it from me."
"I thought your live stock was confined to dogs, and a cow, and the tomcat—by the way, I don't see him any more. I didn't know you went into sheep. Was Tommy the ewe-lamb, and did the dogs play Nathan and David with him?"
This I said, thinking to cheer him up a bit; but he only scowled. Really, I must remember Mabel's caution about telling the wrong stories and laughing in the wrong places. "Well, Jim, what was 'it' that you valued so, and who were 'they' who took it away?"
"The prince of the power of the air; the spirit that walks in darkness, and rules in the children thereof. The beautiful order of things generally, and their incurable depravity. All these are one, and the name doesn't matter. If you urged me to it, I might say that you had played a very passable David to my Uriah."
"Who—I? I'm not a sheep-stealer. What would I want to hurt you for? Jim, you're joking, and it's a joke of doubtful taste."
"Do I look like it?Youmight find a joke in this: you can find them everywhere. I can't."
"As I told you, you take Life too seriously. If you will be more specific, and tell me what you have lost, perhaps I can help you to find it."
"Some losses are irrecoverable. You'd better let it alone, Bob; you'd better have let me alone before, as I've said. You mean well enough; but it's ill meddling with another man's life. You don't know what responsibility you take, or what effect you may produce. I don't say that it's the worst of all possible worlds, but it is such that each of us had best go his own way, and keep clear of the others. When one forgets that safe rule, and mixes with his kind, only harm seems to come of it."
"If that is so, I might better have staid athome now. Methinks your written hand is different from your spoken. I mean—"
"O yes, when I write I try to come out of myself and be decently civil; and so I should to a chance visitor for five minutes, or an hour maybe. But I can't keep it up all day—not to say for a week. You'll have to see the facts, and bear with them. I don't want to be rough on you; but I'm not myself—or not what I was before, or supposed myself to be. It's all in the plan, no doubt; we are fulfilling the beneficent intentions of Nature. Perhaps I'm breaking down, and the end is not so far off as we thought. If so, so much the better: we'll escape that sad old age you prophesied."
Now I am not lacking in humanity, but it does not afflict me as it did six months ago to hear Jim go on in this way. I know what is the matter with him now, and what he is driving at, though I must assume ignorance for a while yet. The patient must tell his symptoms, and then the doctor will give him the physic he needs, and proceed to make a new man of him. That is what I am after now, and the good work must not be spoiled by undue haste. So I put on a decorous air of sympathy, and said,
"That's all bosh, you know. If anything is the matter with you physically, I ought to hear about it; but I don't believe there is. As for the mind, we are all subject to gloomy moods and periods of depression; but they pass, Jim—they pass. You believed in friendship before; hadn't you better tell me what you think ails you?"
"I can't talk about it, except in this roundabout way: what's the use? Best keep to broad principles: the particular case only illustrates the general law. I knew it of old: what business had I to expose myself again? What would you do with a child who will keep on playing about moving cars, or mill machinery? Let him fall under the wheels, and rid the earth of an idiot."
"O no: pull him out in time, and he'll learn better. Well, Jim, you might at least tell me what hand I had in this catastrophe."
"O, none, none whatever: how should you? You never laid any plots for me, and used me for your mirth. You never devised an elaborately concealed ambush, and smoothed it over till I was in the snare. That would be foreign to your open and candid nature. It is very good fun to practice on unsuspecting innocence; but you are far above that."
"See here, Hartman: you talk as if my house were a den of iniquity. If so, I was not aware of it till now. Your ill opinion has not thus far been reciprocated. We entertain none but kind feelings toward you: we all regretted your hasty departure. You were received as a friend, and treated as such, I believe. My wife and sister often speak of you: you could command their fullest sympathy in this, or any trouble, real or imaginary."
"That I never doubted: I owe them nothing but pleasant memories, and thankful good will.—You need not stare at me so: I make no charges, and imply none.—Well, if you must have it, I can say that every member of your family has my absolute respect,—down to the twins; do you understand? If I have any grudge, it is toward you alone."
It was plain that he forced himself to say this—or some of it—as if it were coming perilously near a name he could not utter. He is having his bad time now, as I had mine last week. It is his own fault: he has no need to be so censorious. Hehadto say what he did, or there would be trouble: some things a man cannot stand, and my best friend would be my friend no longer, if he ventured to reflect upon the Princess.
"I'm glad to hear you say so: the difficulty is simple then, and easily settled. You've got no pistols, of course, and I didn't bring mine. I'll take your rifle, and you can borrow Hodge'sold shotgun: if it bursts, it won't be much loss—only you mustn't come too near me with it. There's no danger of interference from the police up here, I judge? But I say, what shall we do for a surgeon?"
"There you go again, turning everything into a jest. Can you never be serious, man?"
"Try to say something original, James: that is stale. Jane asks me that about six times a day, and Mabel frequently, and—and the others. I was serious with you just now, or nearly: had I been entirely so, I might have knocked the top of your head off, and then they would have blamed me at home. You see, they think you are more of a man than you show yourself. To be serious all the time is the most serious mistake one can make in life; and I want no worse example than you. When I go back to town I shall write the Decline and Fall of an Alleged Seeker after Truth, who missed it by taking things too seriously. You are too stiff and narrow and rigid and dogmatic: you take one point of view and stick to it like grim death. You can't get at Truth in that way."
"I suppose you would stand on your head and look at it upside down, and then turn a back somersault and view it from between your legs."
"You express it inelegantly, but you have caught the idea. Truth is not a half pound package done up in brown paper and permanently deposited in one corner of the pantry shelf; she is big and various and active. While you have your head fixed in the iron grip and are staring at the sign 'Terms Cash,' she is off to the other side of the room—and you don't make a good picture at all in that constrained attitude. Your mind has got to be nimble and unbiassed if you want to overtake her, because she is always changing: that is, she appears in new and—to you—unexpected places. I gave you a hint of this in May, and another last summer, but you seem to have forgotten it. O,I could sit here all night and explain it to you, if you were in the right frame of mind."
"No doubt: happily I am not. What has this to do with your defence of buffoonery, and apotheosis of clowns and pantomimes?"
"A pantomime is a very good thing in its way. But that is your illustration; I would rather say opera bouffe, which is probably the truest copy of Life—if we were limited to one kind. But we are not: I tell you, we must have all sorts. There is tragedy in Life, and comedy—that more especially; a little of the other goes a long way. But they are always mixed—not kept apart, and one alone taken in large and frequent doses, after your fashion. Shakespeare understood his business pretty well; though, if I had been he, I would have put in more of those light and graceful touches which hit us where we live, and make the whole world kin."
"Like the Dromios, or the Carriers in Henry Fourth."
"Or the Gravediggers; they are more to your purpose. I want you to see that Humor is the general solvent and reconciler, the key that opens most locks: a feeling for it, well developed, would be money in your pocket. Things don't go to suit you, and you think your powers of the air are frowning, the universe a vault, and the canopy a funeral pall: perhaps the powers are only laughing at you, and want you to smile with them. If you could do that, it would let in light on your darkness. Any situation, properly viewed, has its amusing elements: if you ignore them, you fail to understand the whole. What did Heine say about his irregular Latin nouns? That his knowledge of them, in many a gloomy hour, supplied much inward consolation and delight. You ought to read him more, Jim."
"And Josh Billings, and Bill Nye. Well, that's enough of your wisdom for to-night.We must arrange for to-morrow. Are you up to anotherscramble?"
"Not like to-day's. Let's take in some decent scenery along with the trout."
"There is a wild gorge ten miles off, with a brook in it. We can take Hodge's mare, put up at a house, and work down the ravine. It's not so bad as the last place, nor so good for fish." I agreed, and we went to bed.
You may think I am humoring Hartman too much, and letting him shirk the subject. But I have a week—more if necessary—and I don't want to be too hard on him. He'll thaw out by degrees: so long as he doesn't blame Clarice, it is all right. He has got my idea about the way to discover Truth now, and it will work in his brain, and soften him. I know Jim: he never seems to take hold at first, but he comes round in time. You just wait, and you will see whether I know what I am about.
Thenext day we drove to a farmhouse which had annexed some rather decent fields for that region. On one side was tolerably level ground, on the other a cut between two savage mountains. Down this we made our way, taking presently the bed of a small brook: woodroad or footpath never can be there. For a while there was room to walk on dry land: soon the cliffs closed in upon us,onthe right rising sheer, on the left sloping, but steeper than I would want to climb. At first the stream was very shallow and narrow, and the fish small and scarce; but think of the creatures that must come there to drink at night! It was the only watercourse for miles, Jim said. He pointed out the tracks of a bear or two, andhe thought of a panther; but it is not here I should choose to hunt—your game might have you at a disadvantage. He tried to make me believe that even now some of these beasts might catch us; but that was simply to discourage me from going after them, later on: Jim does not like the chase.Myjokes are in better taste: as he is now, I believe the bears could beat him in manners. Near noon we found a place to sit down, where we could see a little of the crags, and proceeded to assimilate our frugal lunch.
"Hartman," said I, "I should think you would want to live up to your scenery, as the ladies do to their blue china. Look at this majestic cliff, whose scarred and aged front, frowning upon these lonesome trout since the creation, has never been profaned by mortal foot."
"Probably not. People very seldom come here, and when they do, they wouldn't be fools enough to try to climb up. They couldn't do it, and it wouldn't pay if they could."
"Well, it is grand, anyway, and it ought to quicken your soul to grand thoughts. In such a scene you ought to feel stirring within you noble sympathies and resolves."
"I can't see much grandeur in human nature, Bob, nor any in myself. If you had thought yourself a gentleman, and suddenly awaked to the fact that you were a cad and a scoundrel, you would be apt to change your tune, and drop the high notes."
Oho, I thought, he is coming to the point. While I was meditating how to utilize this confidence, a small piece of rock fell from above upon the edge of my toes: if it had been a large piece, and fallen on my head, you would have missed this moral tale. When I had expressed my sentiments, he said, "I can't insure you against accidents,—any more than you did me. If I had brought you here in spring, you might growl. The rocks are loosethen, and it is dangerous. A man was killed once just below here, and his body never found till the year after." This trivialoccurrenceseemed to turn his thoughts away from the important topic, and I could not get him back to it.
It was a warm day for the season: once in a while it will be hotter in these sylvan solitudes than it is in New York. While we were in the brook we did not mind that, for we could drop every five minutes and drink. I suppose I consumed some nine gallons ofaqua puraduring the morning: you can do this with impunity, because there is no ice in it, and the bacteria are of the most wholesome kind. But by and by we finished with the gorge: then we had to go across a sort of common, up hill. There was no water now, and it was hot. After more trees, and a steeper ascent, Jim said, "You'll get a view now." We came out on an open place, with steep rocks beneath. Before us lay a wilderness, with clearings here and there, and a background of mountains. The forests were in their early November bloom; the country looked one great flower. In the Alps or the Rockies they can give this odds, and beat it easily, but it was pretty well for eastern America—and an occasion to be improved. "Jim, if the crags don't appeal to you, this might. If you don't feel up to moral grandeur, why not go in for peace? Let your perturbed spirit catch the note of harmony from this landscape, and drink in purity from this air."
"That is all very fine, and you would make a pretty fair exhorter—with practice. But natural theology is not in my line. These hills look nicely now, but it will be different within a month. If I am to learn peace from a fine day, what from a stormy one? Nature changes for the worse like us, and with less shame: she has no regrets for the past, no care to keep up appearances or make a show of consistency."
"I fear you have been learning of Nature on her wrong side then. Half confidences are in bad taste, Jim. What is it you keep hinting at? It ought to be murder, from the airs you put on about it."
"Leave that for to-night, when we have nothing better to attend to. There is another brook here we ought to try."
Wegot back reasonably early, much less tired than the day before. Now, I thought, for some progress. "Well, Jim, you wanted to unfold your tale to-night."
"That is, you wanted to ask me about it. You can't do any good, and I don't find speech a safety-valve: but I suppose it is my duty to supply you with amusement. So get on, and say what is on your mind."
He takes this tone to conceal his morbid yearning to ease his bosom of its perilous stuff: I will have his coil unwound pretty soon. If I were not here, he would probably be whispering her name under the solemn stars, and shouting it in tragic tones on the lonely mountain-top; sighing it under the waterfalls, and expecting the trout to echo it. He talks about fishing the home brook the first rainy day, but he must have scared all the fish away from there with his sentiment. I must remember to notice whether 'C. E.' is carved about the forest. He will pretend to hold back; but I will get it out of him.—I made this pause long enough to let him prepare for the examination on which depends his admission into the civil service, so to speak—he will have to be more civil and serviceable than hitherto if he is topass it, and follow me back to town—and indeed his whole future.
"You say you have lost something valuable. All you had, you said it was; but that is nonsense. You have health, and more money than you want, and brains and education, of which you are making very poor use, and friends, whom you are treating badly. I can't think what you have lost—unless it was your heart, perhaps." This I brought in in the way of afterthought, as if it had suddenly occurred to me. He started, but assumed a tone of cynical indifference.
"My heart? Would I sit down and howl over that? What use have I for a heart, any more than for a poodle? And if I had one, what does it matter what may have become of it?"
"Strayed or stolen, probably. Such things have happened, especially when persons of the opposite sex are about. They are apt to attach themselves to poodles, and vice versa. But if you give me your honor that a loss of heart is not the cause of these lamentations—"
"Why will you press that point, Bob? What is done can't be undone, and what is broken can't be mended."
"And what is crooked can't be made straight, and what is wanting can't be supplied; though these things are done every day and every hour. Why any able-bodied lady of my acquaintance, even those at my own house, limited as is their experience of the world's devious ways—Jane, I mean, or Mabel—could tell you how."
"Robert, I am too old for these follies."
"James, you are the youngest man I ever knew. Any boy of eighteen would be apt to know better how to manage such matters, and—if you will pardon the frankness you employ yourself—to exhibit more sense."
He stared a little, and I gave him time to recover. Then he took up his parable, defensively falling back on the abstract, after his manner.
"Of course I have thought of these things, Bob, and the philosophy of them, if they can be said to have any. They seem much like everything else. Taking Life in its unfinancial aspects, men do things, not because the particular things are worth doing, but as an apology for the unwarranted liberty they take in being alive. 'I am: why am I?' said the youth at prayer-meeting, and everybody gave it up. As an effort toward answering his own conundrum, he entered the ministry. Being alive, we have to make a pretense of doing something, which else might better remain undone. That is why books are written, and controversies waged; it explains most of our intellectual and moral activities. So with society: time must be killed, and we go out for an evening, though we are dreadfully bored and gain nothing at all. So, I suppose, with what is called love. The emotional part of our nature, which is the absurdest part of all, finds or fancies itself unemployed: a void craves and aches in the breast, and the man, as an old farmer once expressed it, is 'kinder lovesick for suthin he ain't got and dunno what.' Almost any material of the other sex, if you allow a little for taste and temperament, will fill the void—in a way, and for a time at least. Darby marries Joan and is content, though any other woman would have served his turn as well. With us of the finer feelings and higher standards, the only difference is that we rant more and sophisticate more, as belongs to our wider range. No one ever felt thus before—because the feeling is new to us, and newer each time it comes: so Festus protests to each successive mistress, perjuring himself in all sincerity. Nor was any mistress ever so beautiful and divine as this one, appointed to possess and be adored by us. All that is purely a mental exercise: carry the illusion a little farther, and it might be practised as well on a milliner's lay-figure. 'He that loves a coral cheek or aruby lip admires' is simply a red hot donkey, Bob. Nature provides the imbecile desire, Propinquity furnishes an object at random. Imagination does all the rest."
"Just so, Jim. I am glad to find you again capable of such lucid and exhaustive analysis. But how about what is calledfallingin love, when the wild ass has not been craving to have his void filled up at all, but is suddenly brought down unawares by an Amazonian arrow?"
"He was no less a donkey that he didn't know it, and it only comes harder for him. The fool ought to have been better acquainted with his own interior condition; then he might have eased his descent to his royal thistle, secured his repast or gone without it, and got back to his stable with a whole skin. Otherwise it is just the same. The heart is an idiot baby, Robert: it feeds on pap and thinks it is guzzling nectar on Olympus."
"Exactly, James; exactly. As you say, it is our fertile fancy that does it all. You and I can conjure up women far more charming than we ever met on brick or carpet. If we only had the raw material and knew how to work it up, we could beat these flesh and blood girls off the field before breakfast. Their merits and attractions are mainly such as we generously invest them with; and often they take a mean advantage of our kindness."
I glanced at him sideways, and he flushed and winced. "I would not derogate from women, nor rate myself so high. I meant only that we imagine—well, monstrous heaps of nonsense. For instance, we often fancy that they care for us when they don't—and whose fault is that but ours? There's a deal of rot talked about lords of creation—when a man isn't able to be lord of himself. O, women are very well in their way: I've nothing against them. They are just as good as we—better, very likely; and wiser, for they don't idealize us as we do them."
"Yes, but this idealizing faculty is a very useful one to have. I see you must have found a Blowsalinda on some of these hill farms:—why, man, you're as red as her father's beets. I congratulate you, Jim: I do, heartily. As you say, the tender passion is merely a spark struck by the flint of Opportunity on the steel of Desire; and for the rest, you can enrich her practical native virtues with the golden hues of your imagination. She'll suit you just as well as any of these proud cityfied damsels—after you've sent her a term or two to boarding school; and she'll be more content to stay up here than the city girl would."
I paused to view my work, and was satisfied. The shadows of wrath and disgust were chasing each other over my friend's intelligent countenance. You see, I get so browbeaten at home that I must avenge myself on somebody now and then; and of course, it has to be a man. And then it is all for Jim's good, and he deserves all he is getting. So I went on.
"But seeing this is so, Jim, you ought to be content; and what means all your wild talk of last night and this morning, as if you had something on your conscience? You haven't—you wouldn't—No, you're not that kind of a man. Well then, what in thunder have you been making all this fuss about, and pitching into me for?"
He suppressed something with a gulp: I think it was not an expression of gratitude or affection. "Confound you, Bob; one never knows how to take you. In the name of Satan and all the devils, what are you after now?"
"I'm not after anything in the name of the gentlemen you mention; they are no friends of mine, nor objects of my regard. Put a better name on it, and I'm after getting you to say what you mean, as we agreed—though it seems to be hard work. Who's playing tricks upon travellers, and misleading a confiding friendnow? I never knew such a man for beating about the bush, and talking nonsense." (I remembered this apothegm of Jane's, which sounded well, and fitted in nicely just here.)
He appeared to take himself to pieces, shake them well, and put them together carefully, before he spoke. "Perhaps my language was obscure, or even enigmatical; but I thought you might understand. Forgive me if I have been harsh, Bob, not to say uncivil: I have gone through a good deal, until I hardly know myself. It is base enough for a man to be thus at the mercy of mere externals—and I used to think I could practice the Stoic doctrine! But to be human is to be a pitiable, and, if you like, a despicable creature. I knew a case that may serve in a way to explain—not to justify—my treatment of you. Say it was years ago; the man met, in a friend's house, a lady who showed him the utmost kindness. She was used to all deference, till she and every one regarded it as her right—as it was. And he—it's not pleasant to tell—he ended by insulting her. I always understood how that fellow never could bear to mention her name, nor to hear it; how any reminder of her, or contact with the friends through whomhe mether, would upset him. He would get confused, and some of his self-reproaches would fall on the wrong heads. I suppose you never knew how that could be, Bob."
"I never was in exactly such a scrape as that; but I've been near enough to imagine, and make allowances. Your friend must have thought a good deal of the lady, in spite of his insulting her. He apologized, of course?"
"Certainly, and then took himself off, and kept out of her way ever after. It was all he could do."
"Just how did he insult her? It could hardly have been intentional."
"O no. He had had misfortunes, orsomethingof the kind, and she took a humane interest in him—tried to help him, no doubt. Women often do such things, I believe; it is very creditable to them, but liable to be dangerous in a case like this, for men are sometimes fools enough to misinterpret it. Well, this particular beast took it into his wooden head that she cared for him—in a personal way, you know; and—you wouldn't think a man could be such an infernal ape, would you?—he told her so."
"He planned beforehand to tell her so—thought that was the right card to play, the proper way of wooing?"
"You make him worse than he was. It came out unawares—he was surprised into it. The conversation took a certain turn, and he misunderstood for a moment. That was all, and it was quite enough."
"What did the lady do then?"
"She was naturally and properly indignant and contemptuous; made him see his place. He took it, and took his departure."
"Did it never enter your friend's wise head that he might have mismanaged the affair in some other way than the one you mention; for instance, in going off so speedily?"
"No other course was possible. Enough of this, Bob: he bore the penalty of his offence."
"Excuse me: it's a curious case, and as a student of human nature I like to study such, and master all the facts. You say it never occurred to him that the worst part of his offence might be his levanting in such haste? that it might have been a more appropriate act of penitence to wait a day, or five minutes, and give the lady a chance to forgive him?"
"How can you make such low suggestions? The man was not a scoundrel at heart: at least he had always passed for a gentleman before, and thought himself such."
"For one who goes about insulting ladies, he was a singularly modest youth. So he never thought afterwards that there might have been a basis of fact for the fancy that made the trouble?"
"Drop the subject, will you? I brought it in merely as an illustration, that you might see how a man can be affected—even his character changed—by the recollection of such a blunder. It would destroy his self-respect."
"Naturally. But self-respect is too good a thing to lose forever, and this illustration of yours may serve to pass the time till you are ready to talk of your own affairs, which you say it somehow illustrates. Did your friend never think that the girl might have led him on, either seriously or for mere amusement? If she did, that would be some excuse for him."
"I tell you he was not that kind of a blackguard. All sorts of thoughts will offer themselves to a man in such a state of mind, I suppose; but he knew her too well to admit any that lowered her. O no, he saw the fault was all his. At the moment he was bewildered, and could not realize the sudden change, nor what he had done; so his apology (if I remember that part of his story) may have been inadequate in manner, however suitable in words. Apart from that, which could not be mended afterwards, he did all he possibly could."
"I beg to differ, Jim. I think this fellow did much worse than you seem to realize. Stare as much as you like: if he is still a friend of yours, I am sorry for him, as for one who has committed a most outrageous blunder and a nearly unpardonable wrong. What right had he to think of himself alone? You say the girl had shown goodness of heart, and a real interest in him? Then suppose the interest went no further than he thought: what business had he to burden her mind with a broken friendship and the feeling that she had helpedto spoil his life? Or suppose the interest in him did go further. What do you and he know about a woman's feelings?"
He was pale now, and wild in the eyes. "Your last supposition is impossible. For the other—you may possibly be right. He never thought she would care—or that he could do anything but what he did."
"A nice lot he is then. If I were you, I would write to him to-morrow and give him a lecture—supposing they are both alive and free. And if this affair was anyway parallel to your own, of which you won't talk, I hope it may be a lesson to you—a warning, if you need one. Do you suppose women, of the high-minded and superior sort, have no hearts, no consciences, no sense of the duties of humanity? They have a blanked sight more than you and your friend seem to have, I can tell you. You'd better sleep on this, and wake with some enlarged ideas. As you decline to tell me anything of yourself, and so I can't help you there, I'm going to bed."
Nextday Jim was haggard and restless, and wanted to potter about the house. I took him to the largest stream in those parts, when our rods came in play; and there he did some of the worst fishing I ever saw—worse than I did in May, when I had him on my mind. He has himself on his mind now, and some one else too. He kept trying to talk, which is impossible when you are wading. After he had lost a two-pounder and fallen into a deep hole, I got out on the bank to avoid a place where the water went down hill too fast—something between rapids and a cascade. He came and sat on a log by me, looking disconsolate.
"Jim," I said, "You're pretty wet. Perhaps you'd better go home and write that letter."
"I don't see my way yet. How can you be so positive?"
"Because I've heard the story before, and know more about it than you do. I had a friend who was there at the time too. O, it caused some talk, I can tell you. Did your hero suppose it would interest nobody but himself?"
"Yes, as I told you. Good heavens! You don't mean—"
"O, no public talk; only the family, and people who knew the facts and could be trusted. They were all sorry for him too; they thought he was such an ass. You see a performance like his can't end where it begins; it has consequences."
"You say, 'for him too.' They couldn't be sorry for the lady—why should they?"
"You are pigheaded, Jim. What did I tell you last night? This thing put its mark on her, in a way no man has a right to mark awoman without her consent. See that trout jump, in the pool down yonder? I must get him."
"Wait a moment. What I told you about could not have been known unless the lady told it; and she was not of that sort. I don't understand."
"Decidedly you don't. I can't waste a day like this on second-hand gossip, Jim; as you said yesterday, the evening is the time for talk. You go home and change your clothes and rest your brain. I know my way here, and I want to fill my basket. I'll get back in time for supper. Here, you can take these."
And so I sent him off. He is biddable and humble now, and will be more so presently; in a kind of transition state, he is. He came back in the afternoon, and sat on the bank while I pulled out the biggest fish yet. I carried home the best basket we've had; not so many specimens, but far finer ones, than from that Devil's Brook in the Land Accursed. In fishing, as in other things, a good deal depends on your state of mind.
That evening I dressed for dinner, as far as I could, like a gentleman; not that any visitors were likely to drop in, but I thought it due to the occasion. Jim, having plenty of leisure at command, and noting my manœuvres, did the same. He ate little, but I paid due attention to the trout and claret, and took my time to it; though we do not have a lot of courses and ceremony at meals up here, nor are such necessary. Then we settled ourselves in easy chairs before the great fireplace, where pine logs were roaring: the nights are cold now, and this is one comfort of these out-of-the-way places, where fuel is plenty.
As soon as he had a chance, he began. "There is some mystery about this, Bob. You wouldn't answer my question this morning."
"Now that I have dined, James, I'll answer any questions you like—provided they are suchas may fitly be put to the father of a family. So fire away."
"First then, how do you come to know so much about this?"
"Because I was there. O, not eavesdropping, not as a spy—that is out of my line; but purely, and luckily as it proves, by accident." And I told him all about it. I will not say that his jaw dropped, but his facial apparatus elongated.
"Then Cl—she knows that you know?"
"Not a word. What do you take me for? How could I tell her?"
"But—the others know?"
"Certainly not. You have the most extraordinary notions, Hartman. It was her secret, not theirs. If you had been in my place, perhaps you would have written to the papers, or told the story at family prayers. Can't you see that it was impossible for me to let her know till I had had it out with you?"
"And you have stood by me, knowing all this—you are still my friend?"
"Well, if I had had merely myself to consider, my natural loathing and contempt for the beast, ape, idiot and scoundrel who was capable of such conduct might have led me to extremities. O, I endorse all the compliments you have paid yourself. But there is my interesting family; the twins have quite a regard for you, and Herbert. And so has my wife; she doesn't know you as well as I do. And my sister—a superior person, though too soft-hearted, whom I cherish with a deep fraternal affection—she has been besieging me with intercessions, and melting my obduracy with her tears; and that for one who has made all this coil, and whose qualities have been too well enumerated by himself."
"I will try to be more deserving of her kindness, Bob: I told you she was the right sort. But you said just now they did not know."
"Only by surmise, and inference from yourhasty departure, and from—subsequent developments. Women are not wholly fools, Jim: they are just as good as we; perhaps better, and sometimes wiser. O, they are very well in their way. Let us bear with them, James, and allow for their redeeming traits."
"Don't hit a man with his own words when he is down, Bob. But—there is Another, whom you've not mentioned."
"So there is: you didn't mention her, either. Come to think of it, there is another member of my household, whom we have overlooked in this discussion, yet to whom I owe some sort of consideration."
"Of course I know who is first with you: I am content to come in a bad second. You haven't—I suppose—any word—from Her?"
"What do you take her for? Ladies can't do that sort of thing. See here, Hartman, don't get on that line again. She is used to due respect."
His face fell. "I know: I mean nothing else. What have you to say to me then?"
"Say? Haven't I said enough? Confound you, it's your turn to say things now."
"I thought I had said a good deal. O, I am ready to make my submission, if it will do any good. Imagine the rest, can't you? Don't be playing your games on me now, Bob."
There was a tone of pathos in this: I took a good look at him, and saw that he was doing the contrite as well as I could expect. He will do it better without a middleman when he gets the chance; he'll hardly lapse into the other style again soon. All I have to do is to secure her position meanwhile.
"Well, what comes next? I believe I am on the witness-stand now."
"Tell me about Her, Bob."
"She is changed. Of old, one never knew what to expect of her. Now she is different. No stale customs about her, my boy."
"'Nor custom stale her infinite variety,' Isuppose you mean. Yes, so I found—but that was my own fault. Some might prefer your version. But you don't imply—"
"No, I don't. You must find out for yourself about that. I thought you knew that she is chary of her confidences, and that none of us is given to seeking them. She has mentioned your name once in all this time, and then to say that you and I were great clumsy things—which is true; measurably of me, of you most eminently."
"What chance is there for me then?" He was discouraged again. Jim is so foolish; he gets exalted and depressed on the slightest provocation. Perhaps I was like that once, but it was long ago.
"Well, she knows I am here; do you suppose I would have come if she objected? Make what you can out of that.—You needn't make too much of it either: go slow, now. You see she doesn't like to be thwarted in her benevolent plans; and you were a wild man, to be reclaimed and civilized. Instead of submitting like a decent savage, you broke loose all at once, and left her to feel that she had done you harm instead of good. You are the only fellow who ever gave her any trouble: I can't see how you had the cheek to do it. Why, man, you have got to learn manners if you want to associate with that kind. She could do better than you any day; but a wilful woman must have her way, and a gentleman usually lets her have it.—Now there you go again. I didn't say what her way might be in this case, did I? How should I know what she wants of you? Probably just to smooth you down, and be friends, and see you behave. The other supposition, as you said last night, is too wildly impossible. You ought to be glad to meet her on any terms she may choose to make, and thankful and proud to undergo any penance of her imposing, after your conduct, and the annoyance it has caused her and all of us.Most women, in her place, would let you stay in the woods and eat your heart out. Perhaps she will yet; you needn't look so pleased. All I know is that you owe her reparation. You ought to go on your knees from here to the avenue, even if you have to come back on foot."
"You have gained in insight since August, Bob. You express my views with accuracy—though one can hardly talk of these matters to another man. I always honored you for holding Her in such esteem. But practically, what am I to do?"
"That is not easy to say, James: it can hardly be plain sailing. If women were not more forgiving than we, bless their little hearts, you would have no chance to do anything. And the finer grain they are of, the more embarrassing it becomes; with her sort it is peculiarly difficult. I know, from long and trying experience; I have to mind my p's and q's, I tell you. If you had taken up with one of these farmers' daughters, as you nearly led me to believe last night—there's nothing to get mad about—it would have been much simpler and easier for you. If it were that other man, I should say to him, Write to the lady, if you think that safe: I don't advise it. But if you had a friend who knew her well, and was a person of capacity and resource and great tact and approved discretion, and willing to employ all these qualities in your service—"
"O, I'll leave the affair in your hands: I don't see what else I can do. I'm everlastingly obliged to you, of course."
"Yes, I should think you would be; a nice mess you'd make of it by yourself. You have no idea how this thing has weighed on my mind ever since you left us at Newport; nor how awkward it is, even for me, to approach a girl of her sensitive pride and highminded delicacy on such a subject. But I'm ready to go on suffering in your cause, James, even if it be for years."
"I hope it won't take as long as that. Hurry it up, old man, now you've got a start. Don't let the injury to Her and the weight on my conscience go on accumulating. What you do, do quickly."
"So you'd like me to rush offto-morrow? There's gratitude. No, sir; I must think the matter over, and I may have to consult you about details. Besides, they are all exercised about my health, and expect me to make my week out. Your case is not a strong one, James; all depends on the way it is put. I will not ruin it by indecent pressure or undue haste. Leave it to me, and let sweet sleep revisit the weary head whence she has fled so long. In simpler language, keep still and do as I tell you, and don't bother."
I took pen and ink to my room, and indited a home epistle. It informed Mabel that I was progressing toward recovery, and expected to ship some large trout, carefully packed in ice; also that she was a true prophet, and the other business in hand was moving just as she had foretold. I enclosed a brief note to Clarice, which said simply, "O. K. Ever thine," and signed it with my initials and Jim's: and a cartoon for Jane, which I sat up late to design and execute. It represented a small lover, transfixed with a large arrow, prostrating himself before a Haughty Damsel of High Degree. This work of art, with the subjoined effusions, will keep up their spirits till I get home.
I willnot tell you what more we did that week, nor how many wagonloads of big game we bagged when we sallied forth with guns to make war upon the monarchs of the forest: perhaps their hides and horns are on view in my library, and perhaps not. Nor will you expect any more scenery of me, seeing how I have groaned and sweated to produce the pen-pictures you have already enjoyed: I don't desire to advertise Jim's retreat too much, and spoil its seclusion. He was impatient and restive, but feeling much better than when I came, and ready to do anything I wished—of course. But he wanted to talk all the time, and ask questions: he kept me busy pacifying him, till I was tired. Rational conversation on serious subjects is good, but to be thus forever harping on small personal feelings and relations makes one realize that Silence is Golden. Clarice never acts in that way: I wish Jim would have some occasional flashes of taciturnity, like Macaulay.
The day before I left, while we were burying a calf I had shot by mistake, he said, "Bob, do you remember my asking you once, in a purely suppositious way, what you would do if I were to quarrel with—Her?"
"O yes. But the farmer that owned this late lamented beast ought to be paid for it."
"Never mind that. I'll attend to it after you're gone, and save your feelings. Well, you said you'd stand by both of us."
"Hang my feelings: do you suppose I expend feelings on a misguided heifer? It got in the bushes where you said I might look for a deer, and here's a ten on account; you can write me if it costs more. My sympathies, James, arereserved for nobler animals when they make worse mistakes."
"Yes, as I have proved. You've kept your word; but you were pretty rough on me."
"Your conduct was pretty rough on all of us. I had to open your eyes; and I don't want you to try those tricks again. If you do, I may have to shoot you by mistake."
"You would have been welcome to shoot me last week. Why did you leave me so long in the dark, Bob?"
"O, the deuce! Were explanations due from our side? It's true you need somebody to take care of you; but, you see, I have others to look after, and so can't devote myself exclusively to you: you'd better get a keeper. It was Jane who urged my coming up here. I always meant to, but I couldn't till Clarice suggested it."
"She suggested it, did she? You never told me that before."
"I ought not to have told you now, if it makes you fly off the handle in this way. She merely said to Mabel, no doubt in all sincerity, that I looked badly and needed a change; she said nothing about my coming here. She has a regard for me; whether you are anybody in her eyes remains to be seen. Don't jump to conclusions, now. The Princess is not a person to take liberties with, as I've learned by repeated lessons."
"I know it, Bob: one lesson is enough for me. I suppose it would hardly do for me to go back with you?"
"Hardly. Personally I should be delighted, and so would some others; but—you know as well as I do. I have got to feel somebody's pulse, and proceed very gingerly. Possess your soul in what patience you can till you hear from me. See here, Hartman; with your views, and your well-grounded aversion to domestic and even social life, a little of this sort of thing ought to go a long way. I should think you'd be unwilling to risk contact withthe world again. A child that will play about the cars, you know, after it's once been run over—"
"O, but you have opened my eyes to a sacred duty. Honor is above self-preservation. I want to purge my conscience, you see."
"Then do that and pause there. It was your vaulting ambition which overleaped all bounds before. If you get into another row, you may have to stay in it. I have full power of attorney, you say; well, I may have to make all sorts of promises for you before I can get you leave to return to duty, and you'll be expected to keep them. You don't know how difficult that will be for your unbridled inexperience; you'll be cabined, cribbed, confined within the dull limits of Propriety. It would be much better for you to be content with a correspondence, if you can get as far as that. You could expound your penitence and changed views by mail, and have time to think what you were saying, and get it in shape; whereas, if you plunge into the cold and heartless world again, you'll probably get into more trouble, and I can't come up here to set you straight again—not before next May. You were right, James: there is nothing in common between you and the world. Why expose yourself to its temptations, its dangers, its hollow and soul-wearying forms? This atmosphere is so much purer; there is less of Vanity and Woe up here. Stay where you are well off. Clarice can write a pretty good letter when she chooses; I'll try to fix it that way for you." But he would not accept this reasonable view, and insisted on my getting permission for him to come down before Christmas, and as much sooner as possible.