A week after he had heard the tidings from the old housekeeper, Morton saw Dr. Steele coming out of a patient's door and getting into his chaise.
"Good morning, Dr. Steele."
"Sir, your servant," said the old-fashioned doctor.
"I'm sorry to hear that Mrs. Leslie is so ill."
"It's very sad," said the doctor. "Now, what the deuse is this young fellow stopping me for?"—this was his internal comment.
"I hope you don't despair of her."
"Well, sir, she will hold out to-morrow, and the next day, too."
"I beg your pardon. Your check rein is loose. Let me make it right."
"Thank you, Mr. Morton," said the doctor, somewhat mollified.
"Ahem!—Colonel Leslie is well, I hope."
"Apparently so, sir."
"And—ahem!—his family, too."
"I wasn't aware he had a family."
"I mean—that is to say—his daughter—Miss Leslie."
The shrewd doctor turned his gray eyes sideways on the querist.
"Ah, his daughter. What did you wish to know of her, sir?"
"Merely to inquire——" said Morton, stammering and blushing visibly. "I mean only to ask if she is well."
"I know nothing to the contrary. She seemed very well when I brought her down from Matherton last evening. I dare say, though, she can tell you herself a great deal better than I can. Good morning, Mr. Morton."
And with a slight twinkle in his eye, Dr. Steele drove off.
Morton looked after the chaise, as it lumbered down the street.
"May I be hanged and quartered if I ever question you again; you are too sharp, by half."
The doctor's information was very welcome, however; and, armed with an anxious inquiry after her mother's health, Morton proceeded to call upon Miss Leslie. She had come to the city, as he had already judged, on some mission connected with the wants of the invalid, and was to go back to Matherton, with Dr. Steele, in the afternoon.
Thenceforward, for a week or upwards, he saw her no more; but, during the interval, he contrived, by various expedients, to keep himself advised of the condition and movements of the family at Matherton. Among other incidents, he became aware of two visits made them by Vinal, and was tormented, in consequence, with an unutterable jealousy. One morning he met the purblind old housekeeper, mousing along in spectacles through the crowded street, and, stopping her, to her great alarm and perplexity, he made his usual inquiry concerning Mrs. Leslie's health. This investigation led to the discovery that Miss Edith was coming from Matherton that very afternoon.
Morton, upon this, grew so restless, that he could not refrain from going to the railroad station, a little before the train was to come in. And here his worst fear was realized; for he beheld, slowly pacing along the platform, the hated form of Horace Vinal. Morton retreated unseen, went into a neighboring hotel, and seated himself, a little withdrawn from a window, where he could see all that passed. The train arrived; and soon after Vinal appeared, conducting Miss Leslie to a carriage, with an air, as Morton thought, of the most anxious devotion. He grasped his walking stick, and burned with a feverish longing to break it across his rival's back.
He saw Miss Leslie on the next day, and thus added fuel to a flame which already burned high enough. In short, he found himself in that most profoundly serious and profoundly ridiculous of all conditions, the condition of being over head and ears in love,—and his zeal for science was merged utterly in a more engrossing devotion. By one means or another, he contrived to keep pace with the course of things at Matherton, and learned from day to day that Mrs. Leslie was worse,—that she seemed to revive a little,—that she was on the point of death,—that she was dead. By the time this sad climax was reached, he had been starving a fortnight from the sight of his mistress, having the consolation to know that meantime his rival had made at least four visits to Matherton.
One morning Morton was pacing the street in an abstracted mood, his looks bent on the bricks, when, chancing to look up, he saw those very eyes which his fancy had been that moment picturing, employed in guiding their owner's steps over a crossing towards him. As Edith Leslie stepped upon the sidewalk, she saw him for the first time. He bowed, joined her, spoke a few bungling words of condolence, and walked on at her side. After the fashion of those who are peculiarly anxious to appear at their best advantage, he appeared at his worst. And when his companion bade him good morning on the steps of her father's house, she left him in a most unenviable mood, muttering maledictions against himself and his fate, and brought, indeed, to the borders of despair. This depression, however, was not long in producing its reaction, under the influence of which, adopting his usual panacea against mental ailments, he mounted his horse, and spurred into the country.
Here, about sunset, he beheld a horseman, slowly pacing along the road in front. On this, he drew rein, and began to look about him for the means of escape; for in the person of the rider he recognized his classmate Wren, to whose society he was far from partial. Neither lane nor by-road was to be seen.
"At the worst," he thought, "it is but a mile or two;" and, setting forward at a trot again, he was in a moment at his classmate's side.
"How are you, Wren?"
"Ah, Morton, good evening," exclaimed Wren, with a graceful wave of his hand. "I'm delighted to see you. A charming evening—isn't it?"
"Charming."
"That's a fine horse you have."
"Tolerably good."
"Did you ever observe this fellow that I'm riding? Do you see how long and straight he is in the back? Well, that's the Arab blood that's in him. His grandfather was a superb Arab, that the Pacha of Egypt gave my uncle when he was travelling there;" and he proceeded to dilate at large on the merits and pedigree of his horse, the truth being that he and his ancestry before him had been born and bred in the State of Vermont. Morton listened with civil incredulity, and wished his companion at the antipodes.
"Ah, there's my cousin's house," exclaimed Wren, pointing to a very pretty cottage and grounds which they were approaching—"Mary Holyoke, you know—Mary Everard that was some three months ago. What a delightful retreat for the honeymoon!"
"Very," said Morton.
"Stop there with me, will you? I'm going in for a few minutes, to wish them a pleasant journey. They are going to Niagara to-morrow."
"Thank you, I believe I won't stop."
"As you please, my dear fellow. I think they are quite right to travel now; it's a better season than the spring; and a honeymoon journey, after all, isn'tallromance, you know. Besides, they are going to have a charming companion—Miss Leslie."
"I thought that she had just lost her mother-in-law."
"That's the very thing. She's almost ill with watching night after night; so Mary,—they used to be friends at school,—has been very anxious that she should make the journey with them, for a change of scene, you know,—and Colonel Leslie has persuaded her to go."
"When will they leave town?"
"To-morrow. They mean to spend a few days at Trenton, and then go to the Falls. But here we are; won't you change your mind, and come in?"
"No, thank you. Good night."
"Good evening, then;" and waving his hand again, Wren trotted up the avenue.
"Virtue never goes unrewarded," thought Morton; "if I hadn't joined the fellow, I might not have known about this journey."
On the next day he discovered that they had actually gone, and that, as Wren had said, Niagara was to be the ultimatum of their tour. On the following morning, he himself took the western train, and made all speed for the Falls.
If folly grows romantic, I must paint it.—Pope.
If folly grows romantic, I must paint it.—Pope.
On the American side of the Niagara, a few miles below the Falls, is a deep chasm, bearing the inauspicious christening of the Devil's Hole. Near it there is—or perhaps was, for things have changed thereabouts—a path winding far down among rocks and forests, till it leads to the brink of the river. Here, darkened by the beetling cliffs and sombre forests, the Niagara surges on its way, like a compressed ocean, raging to break free. At the verge of this watery convulsion stood Holyoke and his wife, Miss Leslie, and Morton, whom they had chanced to meet that morning.
"It is very fine, no doubt," said the good-natured, though very shallow Mrs. Holyoke, "but I have no mind to take cold in these dark woods. If we stay much longer, I believe I shall go mad, looking at that rushing, foaming water, and throw myself in. Come, Harry, let us go back to daylight again."
"Just as you please," said the model husband, offering his arm.
"Come, Edith;—why, she really seems to like it;—Edith!—she don't hear me; no wonder, in all this noise;—Edith, we are going back to the upper world. You can stay here, if you please, with Mr. Morton."
But Miss Leslie chose to follow her friend; while Morton aided her up the rough path.
"I have observed," he said, as they came to smoother ground, "in our excursions yesterday and to-day, that Mrs. Holyoke has not much of your liking for rocks, trees, and water. I mean, that she has no great taste for nature."
"At all events, she has an eye for what is picturesque in it. She is an artist, you know, and paints in water colors extremely well."
"Yes, and whenever she sees a landscape, she thinks only how it would look on paper or canvas, and judges it accordingly. That is not a genuine love of nature. One does not value a friend for good looks, or dress, or air; and so, in the same way, is not a true fondness for nature independent, to some extent at least, of effects of form, or color, or grouping?"
"It does not imply, I think, any artistic talent, or even a good eye for artistic effect. And yet I cannot conceive of a great landscape artist being without it, any more than a great poet."
"If he were, he would be no better than a refined scene painter. We are in a commercial country; so pardon me if I use commercial language. This liking for nature is a capital investment. She is always a kind mistress, a good friend, always ready with a tranquillizing word, never inconstant, never out of humor, never sad."
"And yet sometimes she can speak sadly, too."
Edith Leslie said no more; but there came before her the remembrance of her long watchings in the room of the dying Mrs. Leslie, when, seated by the window, open in the hot summer nights, she had listened, hour after hour, mournfully, drearily, almost with superstitious awe, to the chirping of the crickets, the plaintive cry of the whippoorwill, and now and then the hooting of a distant owl.
"Here in America," continued Morton, "we ought to make the most of this feeling for nature; for we have very little else."
"And yet there is less of it here than in some other countries; in England, for instance."
"We are too busy for such vanities. Besides, we are just now in an unlucky position. A wilderness is one thing; savageness and solitude have a character of their own; and so has a polished landscape with associations of art, poetry, legend, and history."
"And we have destroyed the one, and have not yet found the other."
"And so, between two stools we fall to the ground."
"If you have a liking for a wilderness and primitive scenery, I don't think that you have much reason to complain; for you, at least, have contrived to see something of them."
"And you of the other sort; art and history wedded to nature; at Tivoli, for example,—at the Lake of Albano; where else shall I say?"
"Say, at Giardini, in Sicily."
"Why at Giardini? I never heard of it before."
"Not that the view there is finer than in some other places, though towards evening it is very beautiful. You see the ocean on one side, and the mountains on the other, covered to the top with orange, lemon, and olive trees, and Mount Etna rising above them all, with a spire of white smoke curling out of its crater, tinted with red, yellow, and purple, where the sunset strikes it. On the mountain above you there is an ancient theatre, where a Greek audience once sat on the stone benches, and after them, in their turn, a Roman. On the peak of the mountain over it is a Saracen castle, and, not far off, a Norman tower."
"So that the whole is an embodiment of poetry and history from the days of the Odyssey downwards."
"Nobody, I think, who has seen that eastern shore of Sicily can have escaped without some strong impression from it. The Fourrierites, you know, pretend to believe that the earth is a living being, with a soul, only a larger one, like ours that creep on the outside of it. One is sometimes tempted to adopt their idea, and fancy that the changing face of nature is the expression of the earth's thoughts, and its way of communicating with us."
"A landscape will sometimes have a life and a language,—that is, when one happens to be in the mood to hear it,—and yet, after all, association is commonly the main source of its power. The Hudson, I imagine, can match the Rhine in point of mere beauty; but a few ruined castles, with the memories about them, turn the tables dead against us."
"You have always—have you not?—had a penchant for the barbarism of the middle ages."
"Not for their barbarism, but for the germs of civilization that lay in the midst of it. Religion towards God, devotion towards women—these were the vital ideas of the middle ages."
"But how were those ideas acted on? Their religion was not much better than a mass of superstitions."
"Not more gross and vulgar than the spirit rapping superstition, the last freak into which this age of reason has stumbled. And, for the other idea, the fundamental idea of chivalry, we are beginning to replace it with woman's rights, Heaven deliver us!"
"Pardon me if I doubt whether ladies in the middle ages were better treated than they are now. The theory was admirable, no doubt, but the practice, if there were any, seems at this distance a little ridiculous."
"Chivalry was like Don Quixote, who stands for it—fantastic and absurd enough on the outside, but noble at the core."
"But you would not imply seriously that you would prefer the age of chivalry to this nineteenth century."
"No, the reign of shopkeepers is better than the reign of cutthroats. But the nineteenth century has no right to abuse the middle ages. The best feature of its civilization is handed down from them. That feeling which found a place in the rough hearts of our northern ancestry, half savages as they were, and gave to their favorite goddess attributes more high and delicate than any with which the Greeks and Romans, at the summit of their refinement, ever invested their Venus; the feeling which afterwards grew into the sentiment of chivalry, and, hand in hand with Christianity, has made our modern civilization what it is,—that is the heritage we owe to the middle ages, and for which we are bound to be grateful to them. It was a flower all the fairer for springing in the midst of darkness and barbarism; and now that we have it in a kinder soil, we can only hope that it is not fast losing its fragrance and brightness."
"Of that, I imagine, a woman is a very poor judge; but if it has lost its antique freshness, at all events we can enjoy it in peace and tranquillity, and be spared the risk of life and limb in gathering it. Those sweetbrier blossoms that grow yonder, down the side of the precipice, are very pretty, but it would require nothing less than a paladin, or a knight errant, made crazy with the hope of a smile, to get them and bring them up."
"Now it is you that asperse the present, and I that will defend it." And the words were hardly spoken before the young fool was over the edge of the cliff, scarcely hearing his companion's startled cry of remonstrance.
The rock sloped steeply to a few feet below the spot where the brier grew, and then sank in a sheer precipice of a hundred feet or more, so that if hand or foot had failed him, his career would have ended somewhat abruptly. To the spectatress above the danger seemed appalling; but, with the climber's practised eye and well-strung sinews, it was in fact very slight. Once, indeed, a fragment of stone loosened under his foot, and fell with a splintering crash upon the rocks below, followed by a shower of pebbles and gravel, rattling among the trees. But he soon reached his prize, secured it in his hatband, and grasping the friendly root of a spruce tree, drew himself up to the level top of the cliff.
Here he saw the fruit of his Quixotism. Edith Leslie, pale as death, seemed on the very verge of fainting. He sprang in great consternation to her aid, supported her to a rock near at hand, on which she could rest; and as her momentary dizziness passed away, she began to distinguish his eager words of apology and self-reproach.
"You will think that I have grown backward into a child again. Think what you will; I deserve your worst thought; only do not believe that I could fancy such paltry exploits and paltry risks could be a tribute worthy of you; or that you are to be served with such boy's service as that. Here are the flowers: throw them away, or keep them as a memento of my absurdity; but let them remind you, at the same time, that wherever your wish points, there I would go, if it were into the jaws of fate."
Here, looking up, he saw the expediency of curtailing his eloquence; for not far off appeared their two companions, returning to look for them. Both Miss Leslie and he had much ado to explain, the one why her face was so pale, the other why his dress was so dusty and disordered. The carriage was waiting for them on the road near by; and their morning's excursion being finished, they proceeded towards it, Morton leading the way in silence.
His first feeling had been one of compunction and indignation at himself; but close upon it followed another, very different—a sense of mixed suspense and delight. What augury might he not draw from the pale cheek and fainting form of his companion?
During the rest of the journey, Morton, on Mrs. Holyoke's invitation, was one of the party. Again and again he was impelled to learn his fate; but recoiled from casting the die, dreading that his hour was not come. Still, though every day more helplessly spell-bound, his mood was not despondent.
They came to the town of ——, a half day from home.
"My household gods are not far off," said Morton. "My father was born at Steuben, a few miles below, where my grandfather used to preach against King George, and stir up his parish to rebellion. I have relations there still, and have a mind to spend to-morrow with them."
This announcement proceeded much less from family affection than from another motive. Mrs. Holyoke saw it in an instant.
"Excellent! Then Miss Leslie can accept her friend's invitation to make a day's visit at this place; and you will meet her and escort her to Boston."
And Morton, much rejoiced at this successful issue of his diplomacy, repaired to his relatives at Steuben; Holyoke and his wife proceeded homeward; while Miss Leslie remained to accomplish the visit with her country friend.
Morton spent a quiet day in the primitive New England village, a place of which boyish association made him fond. On the next morning, Miss Leslie was to come to Steuben, with her hostess; but as there was an abundance of time before the train would appear, he strolled along a quiet road leading back into the country. He soon came to an old inn, over whose tottering porch King George's head might once have swung. Nothing human was astir. The ancient lilacs flaunted before the door; the tall sunflowers peered over the garden fence; the primeval well-sweep slanted aloft, far above the mossy shingles of the roof. The rural quiet of the place tempted him. He sat under the porch, and watched the swallows sailing in and out of the great barn whose doors stood wide open, on the opposite side of the road.
A voice broke the silence—a voice from the barn yard. It was the voice of a hen mother, the announcement that an egg was born into the world. Not the proud, exulting cackle which ordinarily proclaims that auspicious event, but a repining, discontented cry, now rising in vehement remonstrance with destiny, now sinking into a low cluck of disgust. Morton, skilled in the language of birds, construed these melancholy cacklings as follows:—
"Whither does all this tend? Why is my happiness blighted, my aspirations repressed? Why am I forever penned up within these narrow precincts, amid low domestic cares, and sordid, uncongenial, unsympathizing associates? And thou, my white and spotless offspring, what shall be thy fate? To be steeped in hot water, and eaten with a spoon? Or art thou to be the germ of an existence wretched as my own, doomed to a ceaseless round of daily parturition? O, weariness! O, misery! O, despair!"
And throwing her ruffled feelings into one indignant cackle, the hen was silent.
The advent of a human biped here enlivened the scene. This was a young gentleman on horseback, a collegian to all appearance, admirably mounted, but bestriding his horse with the look of one who has just passed his first course under the riding master, and rides by the book, as Touchstone quarrelled. This important personage, with an air oddly compounded of assumption and timidity, proceeded to call the hostler, and order oats for his horse, after which he strutted into the house, switching his leg with his whip.
As ample time remained, Morton continued his walk along the road, his mood in harmony with the brightness of the morning. He was in a humor to please himself with trifles. A ground squirrel chirruped at him from a crevice of the wall. He stood watching the small, shy visage, as it looked out at him. Then a red squirrel, a much livelier companion, uttered its trilling cry from a clump of hazel bushes. Morton seated himself on a stone very near it. The squirrel resented the intrusion, ran out on a fence rail towards the offender, chattered, scolded, swelled himself like a miniature muff, made his tail and his whole body vibrate with his wrath; then suddenly dodged down behind the rail and peered over it at the trespasser, his nose and one eye alone being visible; then bolted into full sight again, and scolded as before, jerking himself from side to side in the extremity of his petulance; till at last, without the smallest apparent cause, he suddenly wheeled about and fled, bounding like the wind along the top of the stone wall.
This interview over, Morton looked at his watch, saw that it was time to go back towards the village, and began to retrace his steps accordingly. He had gone but a few paces, when he saw a countryman, a simple-looking fellow, running at top speed, and in great excitement, up a byway, which led to the railroad, the latter crossing it by a high bridge, at some distance from the station.
"What's the matter?" demanded Morton.
"The railroad cars!" gasped the countryman.
"What of them?"
"They'll all go to smash, and no mistake."
"What!" cried Morton, aghast.
"Fact, mister. Some born devil has been and sawed the bridge timbers most through in the middle."
"What!" cried Morton again.
"Sure as I stand here! I seen the heaps of sawdust on the road. That's the way I come to take notice. The minute the locomotive gets on the bridge, down she'll go, and no two ways about it."
Morton had no doubt that the man was right. The newspapers, within the last few weeks, had contained various accounts of impediments, great and small, maliciously placed on railroads. It was a species of villany which was just then having its run, as incendiarism will sometimes have; and a like case of a bridge partly sawed through had lately occurred in a neighboring state.
"You fool!" exclaimed Morton, in anguish and despair; "why didn't you get on the track, and stop the train?"
"I'd like to see you stop the train!" retorted the man.
Morton turned to run for the road, bent on stopping the engine, or letting it pass over him. But as he turned, a new arrival caught his eye. This was the cavalier who had baited his horse at the inn, and who, seeing the excited looks of the two men, had checked his pace, and was looking at them with much curiosity.
Crazed with agitation, and hardly knowing what he did, Morton leaped towards him, seized his horse, a powerful and high-mettled animal, by the head, and, with a few broken words of explanation, called on him to dismount. The astonished collegian did not comply. Morton bore back fiercely on the bit; the horse plunged and snorted; the rider clutched the pommel; Morton took him by the arm, drew him to the ground, mounted at a bound after him, and, as he touched the saddle, struck his whalebone walking stick with all his force over the horse's flank. The horse leaped forward frantically, and rushed headlong down the road. His discarded rider saw his hoofs twinkling for an instant out of the cloud of dust, and thought he had had a Heaven-directed escape from a madman.
The small village above Steuben, at which Miss Leslie and her friend were to take the train, was three miles off. The road ran almost directly towards it for more than three fourths of the way, when it made a bend to the right. Morton, with his furious riding, very soon reached this point. He could see the station house before him, on the left, and not more than a third of a mile distant. The space between, though uneven, had no visible impediments but a few low fences and scattered clumps of bushes. Morton pushed through the barberry growth that fringed the road, galloped over the hard pasture, leaped one fence, passed a gap in another, and half way to his goal, found himself and his horse in a quagmire. At this moment, straining his eyes towards the cluster of houses, he saw, with agony at his heart, a white puff of vapor rising above the trees beyond. Then the dark outline of the train came into view, checking its way, and stopping, half hidden behind the buildings.
Morton knew that it would stop only for a moment, and plied his horse with merciless blows. The horse plunged through the mire,—the mud and water spouting high above his rider's head,—gained the firm ground, and bounded forward wild with fright and fury. It was too late. The bell rang, and with quicker and quicker pants, the engine began to move. Morton shouted,—gesticulated,—still it did not stop, though the passengers seemed to take alarm, for a head was thrust from every window, while the occupants of an open carriage drawn up on the road were bending eagerly towards him.
Morton wheeled to the left, and urged his horse up the embankment in front of the train. With a violent effort, he reached the top. The engineer was running against time, and cared for nothing but winning his match. He blew the steam whistle; and as Morton dragged on the curb with desperate strength, the horse reared upright, pawing the air. But, as he rose, Morton disengaged his feet, slid over the crupper to the ground, and let go the rein. The horse leaped down the bank, and scoured over the meadow, mad with terror. Morton took his stand in the middle of the track, and facing the advancing train, stood immovable as a post. The engineer reversed the engine, brought it to a stand within a few yards of him, and, with a profusion of oaths, demanded what he wanted.
Before the breathless Morton could well explain himself, the passengers began to leap out of the cars, and running forward, gathered about him. He soon found words to make the case known. But one object alone engrossed him. He pushed on among the throng of questioning, eager men, mounted the foremost car, and made his way through it, the crowd pushing behind and around him, and plying him with questions, to which, in the confusion and abstraction of his faculties, he gave wild and random answers. He looked at every face. Edith Leslie was not there. He crossed the platform into the next car, passed through it, and still could not find her. It was the last in the train. And now a strange feeling came over him, a bitterness, a sense of disappointment, as if his efforts and his pangs had been uncalled for and profitless; for so intensely had his thoughts been concentred on one object, that he forgot for the moment the hundred men and women whom he had saved from deadly jeopardy.
The train rolled back to the station, the distance being only a few rods. Morton got out and leaned against the wall of the house. Men thronged about him with questions, exclamations, thanks, praises. The reaction of his violent emotion produced in him a frame of mind almost childish. He was restless to free himself from the crowd.
"It's nothing; it's nothing," he answered, as fresh praises were showered on him. "I saw the train going to the devil, and did what I could to save it. Any of you, I dare say, would have done as much. Be good enough to let me have a little air."
The crowd gave way, and he walked forward past the corner of the building. Here, standing on the road, close at hand, he suddenly saw an open carriage, and in it, pale as death, sat Miss Leslie, with her friend, and a boy of twelve, her friend's brother. He sprang towards it with an irrepressible impulse.
"My God! Miss Leslie, I thought you were in the train."
"And so we should have been," said the boy, "but the cars came in three minutes before their time."
Edith Leslie did not utter a word.
Some of the passengers were soon about him again. He repeated to them what he knew of the danger, and told them how he had learned it. In a few minutes, several men were seen at a distance on the railroad, running forward with a handkerchief tied to a stick to warn off the train. A few minutes later, a Connecticut pedler, one of the passengers, came up to Morton.
"Mister, they're going to do the handsome thing by you. They're getting up a subscription to give you a piece of silver plate."
"The deuse they are!" was Morton's ungrateful response.
Going into the room where the passengers were met, he found that the pedler had told the truth; on which, for the first and last time in his life, he addressed an assemblage of his fellow-citizens. He told them that he thanked them for their kind intention; but that if he had done them a service, he wished for no other recompense than the knowledge of it, and urged them, if they did any thing in the matter, to devote their efforts to gaining the arrest and punishment of the scoundrel who had attempted the mischief. His oratory was much applauded; many, who had thought themselves in for the subscription, joyfully buttoned their pockets, and, instead of the plate, he received a series of complimentary resolutions, to be published in the newspapers.
Meanwhile, having made his speech, he had lost no time in making his escape also. Going back to the carriage, Miss Leslie's friend asked him to accompany them home, whence they could return to take the afternoon train, when the bridge would, no doubt, be repaired. Morton, however, declined the invitation, and, having sent two men to catch the horse, with instructions to refer the distressed owner to him, he drove in a farmer's wagon to Steuben. In a few hours, he rejoined Miss Leslie and her friend; and having escorted both safely to town, took leave of the former, that evening, at the door of her father's house.
Several of the newspapers next morning contained the resolutions passed by the passengers, trumpeting Morton's humanity, presence of mind, &c. He himself very well knew that the praise was undeserved, since he had neither thought nor cared for the objects of his supposed humanity, and, far from acting with presence of mind, had scarcely known what he was about.
The bridge had been cut by an Irish mechanic in the employ of the road, who, for some misdemeanor, had been reprimanded and turned out, and who had passed half the night in preparing his demoniac revenge. It afterwards appeared that he had been a state's prison convict in a neighboring state, and that he would have been still in confinement, had not the officious zeal of certain benevolent persons availed to set him loose before his time.
On the day after their return, Morton visited Miss Leslie to learn if she had suffered from the fatigues and alarms of yesterday; and, in truth, she had the pale face of one whose rest has been short and broken.
"It has been my fate to terrify you," said the anxious Morton.
During his visit, the door bell was most obtrusively busy. Messages, parcels, notes, cards, visitors came in, and expelled all hope of atête à tête.
Soon after he left the room, Leslie entered.
"Who gave you those flowers, Edith?"
"Mr. Morton, sir."
"Humph!" ejaculated Leslie, with a look by no means of gratification.
Meanwhile, Morton, walking the street in an abstracted mood, overtook unawares his bachelor friend Mr. Benedick Sharpe, jurist, philosopher, and man of letters—a personage whose ordinary discourse was a singular imbroglio of irony and earnest.
"Why, Morton, what problem of ethnology are you at now? the unity of the human race, and the descent from Adam—science versus orthodoxy—is that it?"
"Nothing so deep."
"What, nothing ethnological?"
"Nothing at all."
"Ah, then I begin to tremble for you. There's but one thing else could lose you in such a maze. The flame of a candle is very pretty; but the moth that flies into it scorches his wings, poor devil."
"I am too dull to see through your metaphors."
"There's another blind divinity besides Justice. Beware the shoal of matrimony! Many a good fellow has been wrecked there."
"Harping on your old string! You are a professed woman hater."
"Who, I? Now that is a scandalous libel. I admire them,—of course."
"And yet there's not a lady of your acquaintance whom I have not heard you analyze, criticise, cavil at, and disparage."
"My dear fellow!"
"You have no conscience to deny it."
"I protest I have the greatest—ahem!—admiration for the ladies of our acquaintance. We have an excellent assortment,—we have witty women; brilliant women; women of taste and genius; exact and fastidious women,—a full supply,—accomplished women; finished and elegant women,—not too many, but still we have them; learned women; gentle, amiable, tender women; sharp and caustic women; sensible and practical women; domestic women,—all unimpeachable,—all good in their kind."
"Then why is matrimony so dangerous?"
"No, no, not dangerous, exactly,—thanks to discreet nurture and northern winters; not dangerous hereabouts as it was in the days of the old satirists. A wise man may be safe enough here from any climax of matrimonial evil; but there are minor mischiefs, dailydésagrémens."
"What, in spite of that catalogue of feminine virtues which you delivered just now?"
"Vanity of vanities! Admirable in the abstract; excellent at a safe distance; but to be tied to for life, bed and board, day light and candle light,—that's another thing."
"Even the tender and amiable,—is there risk even there?"
"One cloys on perpetual sweetmeats."
"And the domestic women?"
"Who incarcerate themselves in their nurseries, and have no brains but for their babies; who are frantic if the infant coughs, and are buried and lost among cradles, porringers, go-carts, pills, and prescriptions."
"The brilliant woman, then?"
"Brilliant at dinner tables andsoirées;but, on the next day, your Corinne is disconsolate with a headache. Her wit is for the world,—her moods and mopings, caprices and lamentations,—those she keeps for her husband."
"You are a cynic. The woman of taste and genius; where do you place her?"
"What are the rude heart and brain of a man to such exalted susceptibilities? What homage is too much for him to render? Be a bond slave to the sweet enthusiast. Bow yourself before the delicate shrine. Do your devoirs; she will not bate you a jot."
"But there are in the world women governed by reason."
"My dear Morton, are you demented? A woman always rational, always sensible, always consistent; a logical woman; one who can distinguish the relations of cause and effect, one who marches straight to her purpose like a man,—who ever found such a woman; or, finding her, who could endure such a one?"
"You fly into extremes; but women may be rational, as well as men."
"I like to see the organ of faith well developed,—yours is a miracle. Granted, a rational woman; and with a liberal rendering of the word, such, I admit, are now and then seen,—women always even, always cheerful, never morbid, always industrious, always practical; busy with good works,—charity, for example, or making puddings,—pious daughters, model wives, pattern mothers——"
"At last you have found a creditable character."
"Very creditable; but far from interesting. The truth is, Morton, the very uncertainty, the flitting gleams and shadows, the opalescent light, the chameleon coloring of a woman's mind are what make her fascination,—the fascination and the danger,—there lies the dilemma. Shun the danger, and you lose the charm as well. A woman's human nature is not our human nature; the tissue is more cunningly woven; the string more responsive; the essence lighter and subtler,—forgive the poetic style,—appropriate to the theme, you know. In their virtues and their faults they shoot away into paths where we do not track them. They can sink in a more abject abasement; and sometimes, again, while we tread the earth, they are aeronauts of the pure ether. Stable, stubborn, impassive man holds the steadfast tenor of his walk, little moved by influences which, on the one hand, bury his helpmate in ruin, or, on the other, wing her on a flight to the zenith. They out-sin us, and they out-saint us; weak as a reed, and strong as an oak; measureless in folly, profound in wisdom; for the deepest of all wisdom springs, not out of a questioning brain, but out of a confiding heart; and all human knowledge must find its root at last in a blind belief. There, I have given you a sublime touch of eloquence; and, for the moral to it,—shun matrimony. It is Satan's slyest mantrap. No, not so, at all; it is a blessed institution for perfecting mankind in patience, charity, and meekness, and booking their names in the catalogue of saints. So be wise, in time. Good by. Look before you leap!"
And, with an ironical twinkle in his eye, Sharpe vanished.
Quelle diable de fantaisie t'es tu allé mettre dans la cervelle? Tu le veux, amour; il faut être fou comme beaucoup d'autres.—Le Malade Imaginaire.