The Coward: A Novel of Society and the Field in 1863

by Henry Morford

  CHAPTER XVIII.

  HORACE TOWNSEND AND MARGARET HAYLEY--A STRANGE RENCONTRE IN THE PARLOR--ANOTHER RENCONTRE, EQUALLY STRANGE BUT LESS PLEASANT--HOW CLARA VANDERLYN FADED AWAY PROM THE MOUNTAINS--AND HOW THE COMANCHE RIDER DISAPPEARED.

  Breakfast was nearly over, the next morning, and many of the guests hadleft the tables, when Horace Townsend strolled into the parlor, attractedby the ripple of a set of very light fingers on the piano--something notusual at that early hour. He found the great room entirely unoccupied,except by the player; and he had half turned to leave the room in order toavoid the appearance of intrusion, when he ventured a look at the pianistand discovered her to be Margaret Hayley! Then he hesitated for a moment,bowed, and was again about to retire, when the young girl rose from thepiano and advanced towards him. He was a man, past those years when theblood should rush to the face with the rapidity of that of a school-girl;but the dark cheek was certainly flame in an instant as she came nearer,and when she spoke his name his whole appearance evinced some feeling somuch like terror that the object of it seemed to start back with acorresponding emotion. That was the first instance in which he had chancedto be alone for one moment with the lady, from the time of their firstmeeting at the Profile, and something might be forgiven a bachelor on thataccount; but some cause beyond this must have moved that man, accustomedalike to society, to the company of women and the making of publicappearances.

  If he tried to speak, his breath did not shape itself into audible words;and Margaret Hayley was very near him and had herself spoken, before he inany degree recovered from that strange confusion.

  "Good-morning, Mr. Townsend," she said; and--mingled surprise and raptureto the man who had heard himself so denounced in her presence the nightbefore!--she held out those long, slight, dainty white fingers to shakehands with him! An advance like that, and from her! That thought seemedalmost to take away his breath, and he really permitted those temptingfingers to be extended for quite a moment before he took them.

  "Good-morning, Miss Hayley," at length he uttered, in a voice low andperceptibly husky, taking the offered hand at the same instant, butscarcely holding it so long as even the briefest acquaintance might havewarranted.

  One instant's pause: the lady was not doing as ladies of her delicacy andgentle breeding are in the habit of doing under correspondingcircumstances--she was looking the lawyer steadily and still not boldly inthe face, penetrating inquiry in her eyes, as if she would read the soulthrough the countenance, and yet with an interest shown in her own whichmade the act a compliment instead of an insult.

  "I am afraid that you are not a very cordial friend," at last she said. "Ihoped that I had made one, the other day, after nearly drowning you; butlast night you merely bowed without speaking, and this morning when you seeme you attempt to run away!"

  There was warm, genial, kindly pleasantry in her tone--pleasantry a littlebeyond what the proud face indicated that she would bestow upon any casualacquaintance; and perhaps that recognition did something to unlock thetongue that had been silent.

  "You are very kind to remember me at all!" he said. "Some of us poorfellows of the rougher sex have reason to be glad to form new acquaintancesor remember old ones; but beautiful women like yourself, Miss Hayley, aremuch more likely to wish to diminish the list than to increase it."

  "What!--a compliment already!" she said, in the same tone of gayety. "But Iforgot--you told me that you were a lawyer, and I believe that you allhave a sort of license to say words that mean nothing."

  "Oh, you paid the first compliment!" answered Townsend, catching her tone,as they turned in the unconscious promenade into which their steps hadshaped themselves, and walked down the still lonely parlor.

  "I? How?" she asked.

  "By noticing me at all!" was the reply.

  "Very neatly turned, upon my word!--and still another repetition of thesame compliment smuggled into it! Decidedly you must be a dangerous man inthe presence of a jury."

  "Let me hope that _you_ will not consider me so, and I shall be contentwith the other part of the reputation."

  Neither said any thing more for a moment, though they were still walkingtogether with any thing rather than the manner of comparative strangers.Then Horace Townsend paused in his walk, and said, his voice falling nearlyas low as it had been at first:

  "Miss Hayley, this is the first opportunity that I have enjoyed of speakingwith you, away from the ears of others. Will you pardon me if I do not dealaltogether in complimentary badinage, but speak a few words of earnest?"

  "What can you mean, Mr. Townsend?" She looked at him for a moment, as if indoubt, then added: "Yes, certainly!"

  "Then, to be candid--that is, as candid as I dare be," said the lawyer, "Ihave taken the great liberty of being very much interested in you, sincethe first day we met. I had no reason to expect you to be correspondinglyimpressed, but--"

  "What am _I_ to expect at the end of this, Mr. Townsend?" she interruptedhim. "Are you sure that you are not about to say very imprudent words, outof time, out of place, and that may do much evil while they cannotaccomplish any good?"

  He saw her put her left hand to her heart, when she made the interruption,as if some sudden pang had pierced her or some organic pain was locatedthere; and all the past gayety of her manner was gone.

  "I am perfectly sure, Miss Hayley!" he said, bowing; and the assurance wasreceived with a nod of confidence. "I have only said what any gentleman ofrespectability ought to be able to say to any lady without offence--that Ihave been very much interested in you; and I was about to say that while Ihad no reason to expect my impression to be returned, yet I felt that I hada _right_ to fair-dealing and no unfavorable prejudgment."

  "Fair-dealing? prejudgment?" she uttered, in a not unnatural tone ofsurprise. "Does my conduct of this morning--oh, what am I saying?--Mr.Townsend, I do not understand you!"

  "Of course you cannot, until I explain," said the lawyer. "I have just saidthat _you_ honored me too much, but I cannot extend that remark to some ofyour most intimate friends--Captain Coles, for instance--who may be--I hopeyou will excuse what may sound like an impertinence but is certainly notintended to be such--more nearly connected with yourself and your futureplans in life than I have any right to know."

  There was respectful inquiry in his tone, though he by no means put theremark as a question. Margaret Hayley recognized the tone but did not seethe keen interrogation in his eyes at that moment, for her own--thoseproud, magnificent eyes--were drooped to the floor.

  "By which you mean," answered the lady, "that you think it possible thatCaptain Coles is my betrothed husband."

  "I am sorry to say--yes!" said the lawyer, his voice again dropped verylow.

  "Well, the remark, which amounts to a direct question, is certainly asingular one to come from a man who has no right--even of oldacquaintance--to make it," responded Margaret. "And yet I _will_ answer it,a little more frankly than it was put! Captain Hector Coles is not, andnever will be, any nearer in relationship to myself than you see himto-day."

  "I thank you very much for the confidence, to which, as you say, I have noright," said Townsend. "It makes what I have yet to say a little easier. Ibeg you not to misunderstand me when I tell you that I was last evening anaccidental listener to the story of my disgraceful conduct coming down themountains, as told by the Captain at second-hand, as well as to hisallegations that I was a coward and an adventurer."

  Margaret Hayley did not say "What, eaves-dropping?" as the heroine ofsensation romance or melo-drama would certainly have been called upon todo. She did not even question how he had heard what he alleged. She merelysaid:

  "I am sorry, indeed, if you heard words that should never have beenspoken."

  "I did hear them," pursued the lawyer, "and I really did not suppose, thismorning, that after hearing the statements made by the Captain, you wouldeven have cared to pursue the very slight speaking acquaintance you haddone me the honor to form with me."


  "Had I believed them, I would not!" spoke the lady, frankly.

  "And you did _not_ believe them?" Tone very intense and anxious.

  "Not one word of them!" Tone very sharp and decided.

  "God bless the heart of woman, that leaps to the truth when the boastedbrain of man fails!" said Townsend, fervently. "Not every word that he saidwas a falsehood, but every _injurious_ one was so, if I know myself andwhat I do. May I tell you what really occurred yesterday on the mountain,so that you may better understand the next version?"

  "I shall be very happy to hear your account," she replied, "for theincident must at all events have been a thrilling one."

  "It was thrilling indeed, as you suppose," said the lawyer. "People formromances sometimes out of much less, I fancy!" The two stood by the window,looking at the hurrying to and fro of drivers and passengers preparing forsome late departures; and so standing, Horace Townsend briefly and rapidlyrelated the facts of the adventure. Margaret Hayley did not turn her eyesupon him as he spoke, and a part of the time she was even drumminglistlessly and noiselessly on the glass with those dainty white fingers;but that she was listening to him and to him only was evident, for thespeaker could catch enough of her side-glance to know that eye and cheekwere kindling with excitement, and he could hear the quick breath laboringin throat and nostrils almost as if she herself stood in some situation ofperil. She was interested--he felt and knew it,--not only in the danger ofClara Vanderlyn and the rash bravery in riding of Halstead Rowan, but in_him_--in the scape-goat of the occasion; and he was stirred by theknowledge to a degree that made a very cool and clear head necessary foravoiding a plunge quite as fatal in its effects as would have been thatfrom the brow of the precipice over the gulf.

  "And that is the whole story--a dull one, after all, I am afraid!" he said,not altogether candidly, perhaps, in conclusion.

  "Dull? oh no, Mr. Townsend, every thing but dull!" was her reply. "I haveseldom been so much interested in any relation. And the facts, so far asthey relate to yourself, are very nearly what I should have supposed afterhearing the story floating about the hotel."

  "You seem to have something of the legal faculty--that of sifting out truthfrom falsehood, grain from chaff!" said the lawyer, looking at her a littlesearchingly.

  "I? No, not always, though I may be able to do so sometimes," she said,somewhat sadly, and with a sigh choked in its birth. "I have made someterrible mistakes in the judgment of character and action, Mr. Townsend,young as my life is; but perhaps the effect of all that is to make me alittle more careful in the reception of loose statements, and so I may havelost nothing. And now--"

  "--I have occupied as much of your time as you can spare me this morning,"the lawyer concluded the sentence for her, with a smile calculated to puther at her ease in the dismissal.

  "Well, _you_ draw conclusions pretty rapidly!" she said, turning her eyesupon him curiously. "I _was_ going to excuse myself; and yet I should notbe afraid to make a small woman's-wager that you err in at least half ofyour calculation?"

  "As how?" asked the lawyer, somewhat surprised.

  "Why, Mr. Townsend," answered Margaret Hayley (and what woman who held lesstrue pride and less confidence in herself would ever have spoken sosingularly, not to say boldly?) "it is at perhaps a rather early period inour acquaintance for me to return your candor with any thing thatcorresponds, and yet I feel disposed to waive the woman's right ofreticence and do so. You think that I am already tired of your company andconversation, and that when you leave me I may go into pleasanter company.You are mistaken--I think you will not misunderstand me, any more than Idid you a while ago, when I say that I quite reciprocate the interest andfriendship you have expressed, and that I shall _not_ go into morecongenial associations when I leave you! There, will _that_ do?"

  Her eyes were smiling, but there was a tell-tale flush on either cheek, asshe said this and extended those taper fingers, bending her proud neck thewhile, it must be confessed, a _little_ as a queen might do when conferringknighthood upon one of her most favored nobles. Horace Townsend, in strictpropriety, should have taken that offered hand in the tips of his ownfingers, bowed over it, and let it fall gently back to its place. He wasnot playing strict propriety, as, indeed, the lady had not been for thepast few minutes; and whether he took that chance before the surprisedowner of the hand could draw it away, or whether there was very littlesurprise or offence in the matter, certain it is that though he did bowover the hand, he bowed too low--so low that his still warmer lips touchedthe warm fingers with a close, clinging pressure, and that the breath fromthose lips sent a tingle through every pulse of that strange girl, who waseither dangerously frank or an arrant coquette.

  That rape of the fingers perpetrated, Townsend turned away, too suddenly tonotice whether his action had planted yet deeper roses on the lady's cheek.Margaret Hayley went back towards the piano, without another word,apparently to re-commence her suspended musical exercises, and the lawyerpassed through the door leading into the hall. He did not do so, however,sufficiently soon to escape the notice of Captain Hector Coles, who,apparently on a voyage of discovery after the truant Margaret, strode intothe parlor just as the other was leaving it, and as he nodded managed atthe same time to stare into the lawyer's face in so supercilious andinsulting a manner that he fairly entitled himself to what he did notreceive--a mortal defiance or a blow on the spot! It was plain that herecognized Margaret Hayley at the piano, and that he saw she must have beenalone with the object of his suspicion and hatred: was there not indeedsome cause for the face of the gallant Captain assuming such an arrogantferocity of aspect as might have played Gorgon's head to a whole rebelarmy? But the awkward meeting did not seem seriously to disturb the younglady: she looked up from her keys, saw the foes in the door-way, saw theglance they interchanged, and then dashed those bewitching fingers into aGerman waltz of such startling and impudent brilliancy that it seemed toaccord almost premeditatedly with certain points in her own character.

  Here, to Horace Townsend, the curtain of that morning shut down. He passedon and did not see the meeting between Captain Hector Coles, and "the lady"(more or less) "of his love," which may or may not have been cordial andagreeable to an extreme!

  * * * * *

  Another of those inevitable dashes, here. They are very useful, as theyprevent the necessity of a steady and unbroken narration which would not beat all like real life--that thing most unsteady and most constantly brokeninto fragments.

  The reader, who is perhaps by this time somewhat sated with White Mountainscenery (though, sooth to say, no gazer, however old a habitue, ever wasso)--the reader is to be spared any further infliction, except as oneremaining point of personal adventure may require the advantage ofappropriate setting; and the mountains themselves are soon to fade awaybehind writer and reader, as they have faded away amid longing andlingering looks from the eyes of so many, losing their peaks one by one asthey swept up Northward by rail from Gorham or rolled down Southward bycoach through the long valley of the Pemigawasset to Plymouth. The thousandmiscellaneous beauties of the White Mountain Notch, grander than those atthe Franconia but far less easy of intelligent description--the magnificentlong rides down the glen and over the bridges that span the leaping andtumbling rock-bedded little Saco--the Willey House with its recollectionsof a sad catastrophe and its one-hundred-and-fifty-eighth table being cutup and sold in little chips at a dime each, as "the one used by theunfortunate Willey Family,"--all these must wait the eye that is yet to seethem for the first time, or linger unrecounted in the memories of those whohave made them a loving study in the past. Personal adventure must hurryon, like the ever accelerating course of the goaded and maddened nation,and eliciting the same inquiry--_whither_?

  Two days following the events already recorded, and all the differentcharacters involved in this portion of the life-drama, yet lingered at theCrawford. On one of the two days another ascent of Mount Washington hadbeen made; but with the exceptio
n of Mrs. Burton Hayley, her daughter andCaptain Hector Coles, all those people peculiarly belonging to us hadalready made the ascent, and it was the intention of the Philadelphiamatron (perhaps a little influenced by the story of the Vanderlyn peril)to go up herself and take up her small party from the Glen House bycarriage, when her stay at the Crawford should be completed.

  In all that time we have no data whatever for declaring the state ofaffairs existing between Halstead Rowan and the lady whose auburn hair hadlain for those few blissful moments on his breast. Probably no explicitlove-declaration had passed between them; and Mrs. Vanderlyn and herarrogant son were sufficiently familiar with all the modes by which thosewho wish to be together can be kept apart, to prevent any of thosedangerous "opportunities" which might otherwise have brought an immediate_mesalliance_ upon the stately house of Vanderlyn. If the would-be loversmet, they only met beneath watchful eyes; and Halstead Rowan, who hadalready displayed that amount of dash and recklessness in personal exposureindicating that an elopement down the mountain roads, with a flying horsebeneath him and his arm around the lady's waist, would have been the mostcongenial thing in life to his nature,--even had Clara Vanderlyn been weakenough to yield to such a proposal, bore all the while within him too muchof the true gentleman to lower himself by a runaway alliance, or tocompromise the character of the woman he wished to make his wife by weddingher otherwise than in the face of all who dared raise a word of opposition.So there seemed--heigho, for this world of disappointments, hindrances, andincongruities!--little prospect that any thing more could result from themeetings that had already been so eventful, than an early and finalparting, and two lives shadowed by one long regret that the fates had notordained otherwise.

  But little more can be said of the fortunes, during those two days, ofHorace Townsend and the lady of the proud eyes and the winning smile. Twoor three times they had met and conversed, but only for a moment, and theyhad by no means ever returned again to the sudden cordiality and confidenceof that first morning. Something in the manner of Margaret Hayley seemedto give token that she was frightened at the position she had assumed andthe emotions of her own heart (might she not well have been--she who but amonth or two before had been clasped to the breast of an accepted lover andbelieved that she held towards him a life-long devotion?); and something inthe demeanor of Horace Townsend quite as conclusively showed that he wastreading ground of the solidity of which he was doubtful, and impelled toutter words that could not be spoken without sacrificing the whole truth ofhis manhood! Captain Hector Coles had believed his name an assumed one andlooked after the initials on his handkerchief to satisfy himself of thefact; and the reader has found reason to believe that there was really anassumption: did that departure from truth already begin to assert itspenalty, when he was brought into contact with a woman who showed her owncandor so magnificently? Strange problems, that will be solved eventuallywithout any aid from the imagination.

  Once during that two days there had been a collision between the lawyer andthe V. A. D. C., not one word of which, probably, had reached the ears ofthe lady in whose behalf it had occurred, from the lips of the politicCaptain, or from any of those who saw and heard it,--as it certainly hadnot been hinted to her by the other party in the rencontre.

  That collision had happened in this wise.

  On the afternoon of the same day on which the very pleasant interview withMargaret Hayley took place in the parlor of the Crawford, Horace Townsendstrolled into the billiard-saloon. Since the night before, in oneparticular direction, he had been decidedly ill-tempered, not to sayferocious; and however he might have been softened for the moment by theencounter of the morning, in one respect that encounter had left him muchmore likely to assault the man who had calumniated him so foully, than hecould have been before a certain assurance had been given him on thatoccasion. Then the officer's stare into his face, when leaving the room,had not tended to remove any of his bile; he did not believe, it isprobable, that he would stand any the worse with the peculiarly constitutedMargaret Hayley, in the event of an insult to the man who had insulted_him_ coming to her knowledge; and in short he had been all day prepared,at any time when he could do so with most effect, to repay him, interestincluded, in his own coin of ill-treatment. How soon or how effectually hisopportunity was coming--_the_ opportunity of all others for a stab in avital part,--he had no idea when he entered the billiard-room.

  Several gentlemen were there, some playing and others smoking and inconversation. In one corner of the room, conversing with two or threeothers, Captain Hector Coles was giving a graphic account of the Battle ofWhite Oak Swamp, in the retreat from the Peninsula, during one period ofwhich, according to his account, General ---- was wounded and all the fieldofficers of a whole division cut up, so that he, though only on the staffand without positive command, was obliged to direct all the movements andeventually to head three different charges by which the enemy, four or fivetimes superior in numbers in that part of the field, were finally repulsedwith great slaughter. The story, as told, was a good one, and CaptainHector Coles played the part of Achilles in it to perfection, especially asthere did not happen to be present (and there is strong reason to believethat he had assured himself of the fact in advance) a single officer whohad shared in the Peninsular campaign. He was emphatically, just then, thehero of the hour, in that most assured of all points of view, a militaryone. It does not follow that Horace Townsend had been an actor in thePeninsular campaign, but he certainly arrogated to himself some knowledgeof very small details that had taken place at Glendale, for he was guiltyof the great rudeness of breaking in upon a conversation in which he wasnot included, with a question that served as a sort of pendant to the storyof the Captain:

  "Let me see--it was in one of those charges, Captain, or was it whilecarrying some order, that you had that bad attack of giddiness in the headand were obliged to dismount and lie behind one of the brush-heaps in theswamp for an hour?"

  "Who the----." The Captain, who had not recognized the voice or seen theintruder, began to ask some question which he never finished, for hechecked himself as suddenly as if he had been about committing a seriousblunder. But he recovered himself very quickly, and pieced-out the remarkso that it seemed very much as if he had pursued his original intention.

  "Who the ---- are _you_, Horace Townsend as you call yourself, to put inyour remarks when _gentlemen_ are in conversation?"

  "Oh, I beg pardon, I did not know that you were ashamed of it. I happenedto hear Colonel D---- relate the little circumstance not long after thebattle; and I thought, from your leaving it out, that you might possiblyhave forgotten it."

  The gentlemen present stared from one to the other and said nothing. Suchplain speaking was a novelty even among the excitements of mountain life.The Captain began by having a very white face, and ended with having a veryred one.

  "Colonel D---- lied, if he said any thing of the kind!" he foamed.

  "I will tell him you say so, the next time I meet him," was the cool reply,"and you can try the little question of veracity between yourselves."

  "No, I will try it with _you_!" the Captain almost shouted. "You are theliar--not Colonel D----, and I will shoot you as I would a dog."

  "You will be obliged to do it by waylaying me, then," answered the lawyer."Apart from any objection I may have to duels in the abstract, I certainlyam not going out with a _gentleman_," and he laid a terrible stress uponthe word--"a _gentleman_ who picks pockets."

  "Gentlemen! gentlemen!" expostulated one or two at that period.

  "Recall that word, or I will shoot you on the spot!" cried the Captain, hisface now fiery as blood itself, and his hand moving up to his breast as ifhe really followed the cowardly practice of carrying a revolver there,while meeting in peaceful society. If he had a weapon and momentarilyintended to draw it, he desisted, however.

  "I will not recall the word, but I will explain it," answered the lawyer."I heard you confess last night, Captain Hector Coles, in the midst o
fabout half an hour's falsehoods about my poor self, that you had picked mypocket of a handkerchief, the night before in the ten-pin alley. After thatand the little indisposition at White-Oak Swamp, I think you will all agreewith me, gentlemen, that I am under no obligations to afford that personany satisfaction."

  "Coward!" hissed the Captain. At the word a shiver seemed to go over thelawyer's frame, but he only replied:

  "Yes, that was what you called me last night! Excuse me, gentlemen, forinterrupting a very pretty little story, but I am going away and theCaptain will no doubt continue it."

  He did go away, walking down towards the house, a little flushed in facebut otherwise as composed as possible. Captain Hector Coles did not tellout his story, for some reason or other; and the moment after he too wentaway.

  "What the deuce is it all about?" asked one of the gentlemen when they hadboth departed.

  "Haven't the least idea," said another. "Though, by the way, the Captainhas a very pretty woman with him--I wonder if there should not be a lady atthe bottom of the trouble, as usual?"

  "Seemed to be some truth in that story about getting giddy in the head, bythe way it hit!" said a third.

  "Don't look much like cowards, either of them," said a fourth. "And, nowthat I think of it--wasn't that the name--Townsend--of the fellow wholeaped into the Pool the other day over at the Profile?"

  "Don't know--shouldn't wonder--well, let them fight it out as theyplease--none of _our_ business, I suppose!" rejoined one of the others; andthe party dispersed in their several directions.

  Such was the scene in the billiard room; and it was not strange that morethan a day after, no report of it had come to the ears of Margaret Hayleyor her mother, through the medium of any of the bye-standers; for thepersons most nearly interested are not those who first hear suchrevelations of gossip. That neither the Captain nor Horace Townsend shouldpersonally have spoken of it to Margaret is quite as natural, for reasonseasily appreciated. That young lady, with two lovers more or less declared,was accordingly very much in the dark as to the peculiarly volcaniccharacter of her admirers and the chances that at some early day they mightfall to and finish each other up on the Kilkenny-cat principle, leaving herwith none!

  * * * * *

  The third day after the ascent of Washington by our party witnessed itsdisruption in some important particulars. The morning stage down the Notchtook away the Vanderlyns, on their way to Lake Winnipiseogee and thence toNewport. They had been in the mountains little more than a week, but seenmost of the points of interest at the Franconia and White Notches; andother engagements, previously formed, were hurrying them forward, ashumanity in the New World is always hurried, whether engaged in a pleasuretour or a life labor. They left a vacancy behind them, and foretold thegradual flight of all those summer birds who had made the mountainsmusical, and the coming of those long and desolate winter months when therooms then so alive with life and gayety should all be bare and empty, thesnow lying piled in valley and on mountain peak so deeply that no foot ofman might venture to tread them, and the wild northern blast wailingthrough the gorges and around the deserted dwellings as if sounding arequiem for the life and love and hope fled away.

  They left a blank--all the three; and yet how different was the vacancycaused by each of the three departures! Mrs. Vanderlyn, a lady in thehighest fashionable acceptance of the term, but so proud and stately thather better qualities were more than half hidden beneath the icy crust ofconventionalism,--had dazzled much and charmed to a great degree, but wonno regard that could not be supplied, after a time, by some other. Her sonFrank, handsome and gifted but arrogant beyond endurance, had won nofriends wherever he moved, except such friends as money can mould fromsubservience; and his going away left no regrets except in the breasts ofthe landlords whom he lavishingly patronized and the servants whom hesubsidized after the true Southern fashion. But Clara Vanderlyn, who seemedto have fallen among the mountains with the softness, innocence andtenderness of a snow-flake--Clara with her gentle smile, her sweet, lowvoice and wealth of auburn hair,--the friends _she_ had formed from therough ore of strangerhood and then from the half-minted gold of mereacquaintance, were to be numbered only by counting the inmates of thehouses where she made her sojourn; and there was not one, unless theexception may have been found in some spiteful old maid who could notforgive her not being past forty, angular and ugly, or some man ofrepulsive manners and worse morals who had been intuitively shunned by thepure, true-hearted young girl--not one but lifted up a kind thought halfsyllabled into breath, as they caught the last glimpse of the sunnyhead--"God bless her!"

  It is a rough, difficult world--a cold, hard world, in many regards. Thebrain is exalted at the expense of the heart, and scheming intellectcounted as the superior of unsuspicious innocence and goodness."Smart"--"keen"--"sharp"--these are the flattering adjectives to be appliedeven to the sisters we love and the daughters we cherish, while in thatone word "soft" lies a volume of depreciation. And of those educated withsuch a thought in view, are to be the mothers of our land if we have a landremaining to require the existence of mothers. Is not a little leaven ofunquestioning tenderness necessary to season the cold, hard, crystallizingmass? Will womanhood still be that womanhood which has demanded and won ourknightly devotion, when all that is reliant and yielding becomes crushed orschooled away and clear-eyed Artemis entirely usurps the realm once ruledby ox-eyed Juno? Will there be any chivalry left, when she who once awokethe spirit of chivalry stands boldly out, half-unsexed, the equal of man inguile if not in bodily strength, and quite as capable of giving as ofrequiring protection? And may we not thank God for the few Clara Vanderlynsof the age--the gentle, impulsive, unreasoning souls, who make the heartthe altar upon which the first and best tribute of life is to be laid--wholove too soon, perhaps, and too irrevocably, but so escape that hard, coldmercantile calculation of the weight of a purse and the standing of a loverin fashionable society, upon which so many of their sisters worse wreckthemselves than they could do by any imprudent love-match that did notbring absolute starvation within a twelvemonth?

  This is something of a rhapsody, perhaps; and let it be so. It flows out,unbidden, under the impulse of a gentle memory; and sweet Clara Vanderlyn,when she goes to her long rest, might have a worse epitaph carved upon thestone above her head, than the simple legend: "She lived to love."

  But if the going away of Clara Vanderlyn left a blank in the social circleat the Crawford, what must have been the effect produced by it uponHalstead Rowan, the chivalrous and the impressible, with a heart as big ashis splendid Western physique, who could have little prospect of evermeeting her again except under circumstances of worse disadvantage than hadfought against him in the mountains, and who could entertain no more hopeof ever wedding her without bringing her painfully down from her positionin society, than he could of plucking one of the stars harmlessly from itsplace in heaven!

  The Illinoisan was not upon the piazza when the coach drove away. If anyfarewell had been made, it had been made briefly and hurriedly, where noeye but their own could see it. Horace Townsend thought of all that hasbeen here set down, and looked around for Rowan at the moment of theirdeparture; but he was invisible. The lawyer had himself a pleasant word offarewell and shake of the hand as she stepped to her seat in the coach,from the young girl whose dangerous perch upon the pinnacle of themountains he was not likely soon to forget; and then the door closed andshe disappeared from his sight perhaps forever in life, leaving himthinking of the pleasant afternoon, so few days before, when he gazed forthe first time upon her sweet face as they came up from Plymouth andLittleton,--and of the romance connected with her which had since beencrowded into so brief a space.

  He saw nothing of Rowan for an hour after. Then he met him walking alone upthe road north of the house, with his head bent down a little and somethingdim and misty about the eyes that even gave a suspicion of the lateunmanliness (that is what the world calls it!) of tears. He raised his heada
s he recognized the lawyer, and held out his hand in a silence very unlikehis usual bold, frank greeting. Townsend, who may all the while have hadquite enough matters of his own to demand his whole attention, could nothelp pitying the subdued manner and the downcast look that sat so strangelyupon the usually cheerful face. There had been nothing like it before,within his knowledge--not even on the night when he had been so foullyinsulted by Frank Vanderlyn at the Profile.

  The lawyer knew, intuitively, what must be the subject of conversation towhich the mind of Rowan would turn, if his lips did not; and he felt quiteenough in his confidence to humor him.

  "I did not see you this morning," he said.

  "When they went away?--no!" was the answer. No fear that his listener couldmisunderstand who "they" were, and he did not display the cheap wit ofpretending to do so.

  "You look down-hearted! Come--that will never do for themountains--especially for the boldest rider and the most dashing fellowthat has ever stepped foot among them!" and he laid his hand somewhatheavily on the shoulder of the other, as if there might be power in theblow to rouse and exhilarate. It did indeed produce the effect of makinghim throw up his head to its usual erect position, but it was beyond anyphysical power to lighten the dark shadow that lay upon his face.

  "You are a good fellow as well as a gentleman, Townsend," he said. "I wish_I_ was a gentleman--one of the miserable dawdling things that know nothingelse than small talk and the use of their heels. Then, and with plenty ofmoney, I should know what to do."

  "And what _would_ you do?" asked the lawyer.

  "Marry the woman I loved, in less than a month, or never speak to a womanagain as long as I lived!" was the energetic reply. "As it is, I am a poordevil--only a railroad conductor! What business have _I_, with neithermoney in my pocket nor aristocratic blood in my veins, to think of a womanwho has white hands and knows nothing of household drudgery?"

  "A woman, however," said Townsend, "who could and would learn householddrudgery, and do it, for the sake of the man she loved--well, there is nouse in mincing the matter--for _you_,--and think it the happiest thing sheever did in all her life!"

  "God bless her sweet face! do you think so? do you really believe thatpersonally she likes me well enough to marry me if my circumstances werenearer her own?" He had grasped Townsend by the hand with one of his ownand by the arm with the other, with all the impetuosity of a school-boy;but before the latter could answer he dropped the hand and the tone ofinquiry, and said: "Pshaw! What use in asking that question?--I _know_ shecould be happier with me than with any other man in the world, and thatmakes the affair all the more painful."

  "Heigho!" said the lawyer, "you are not the only man in the world who doesnot see his way clearly in matrimonial affairs, and you must not be one ofthe first to mope."

  "I suppose not," replied the Illinoisan. "But then you, with your wealthand education--you can know nothing of such a situation except by guess;and so your sympathy is a little blind, after all."

  "Think so?" asked Horace Townsend. "Humph! well, old boy, confidence forconfidence, at least a little! Look me in the face--do you see any thinglike jest or trifling in it?"

  "No, it is earnest, beyond a doubt."

  "Then listen for one moment. Halstead Rowan, I do not believe that there isany barrier between Clara Vanderlyn and yourself, that cannot be removed ifyou have the will to remove it. Now for myself. What would you think--" Hestopped and seemed to consider for a moment, while the other watched himnarrowly and with much interest. Then he went on: "You saw me meet--well,we will mention no names--the lady down at the house, the same night onwhich you chanced upon your own destiny."

  "Yes," answered the Illinoisan.

  "You thought, no doubt, that it was a first meeting. And so it was, on herpart, for she had never before met Horace Townsend, to know him. But whatwould you think if I should tell you that I had seen and loved _her_, manymonths before--that she was then engaged to be married to a very differentperson, though a man in the same profession--that I love her so madly as tomake my life one long torture on her account--that I am throwing myselfinto her company, under circumstances that if she knew them would make hershrink away from me with loathing--and that such a barrier exists betweenus that I have not much more hope of winning her than of bending down oneof yon mountain peaks to kiss me, while I can no more avoid the trial thanthe drunkard can keep away from his glass or the madman escape hisparoxysm!"

  "Is all that true?" asked Rowan, who had been looking at the speaking facewith still increasing wonder.

  "Every word of it, and more!" was the reply.

  "Then _my_ situation is nothing, and I have been whining like a school-boybefore I was half whipped!" exclaimed the Illinoisan. The effect intendedby the other had been produced: he had been made to see that there could beeven worse barriers between man and woman, than differences of family andfortune. And once teach any man that there is something worse that mighthave happened to him, than that which has indeed happened--much is achievedtowards bringing him to resignation if not to content.

  "I have told you all this," said the lawyer, "partially because I felt thatI had no right to be acquainted with so much in your situation while youknew nothing of mine, and partially because I was really anxious to showyou that others than yourself sometimes find rocks in the bed of thatpleasant stream which the poets call 'true love.' And now that I have goneso far, involving reputation as well as happiness, I know that you will dome the only favor I ask in return, and forget that I have said a word onthe subject."

  "I have forgotten it already, so far as repeating it to any mortal man isconcerned," replied the Illinoisan. He paused an instant, as his friend haddone before, and then he added: "Meeting you has been the pleasantest--no,one of the pleasantest incidents of my days among the mountains, and I amglad that you have made me feel so much nearer to your confidence at themoment of parting."

  "Parting? What, are you going away already?" asked Townsend.

  "At once," answered Halstead Rowan. "I should think, though, that youwould scarcely need to ask the question! My friends and myself are going tostart back for Littleton immediately after dinner, and on to Montrealto-morrow. Do you think that I could sit at that table, as I feel just now,more than one meal longer, and think of the vacant chairs? No--I am a baby,I suppose, and God knows whether I shall ever grow any older and wiser!"

  "God forbid that you ever _should_ grow so old and so wise as to be able tomaster your heart altogether!" said the lawyer. "I am sorry to part withyou, for I too, have made a pleasant acquaintance. But you are right, nodoubt. Try a little change of scene; and you will be calmer next week, ifnot happier."

  They were now near the house, and walked on for a moment in silence.Suddenly Rowan, catching up the last words at some distance, turned shortaround and said:

  "Townsend, I am going to change something besides scene--_life_! I am goingback into the army again, not for a frolic this time, but as a profession.Officers are _gentlemen_, are they not, even in fashionable society?--andwould not a pair of shoulder-straps make somebody even out of a railroadconductor?"

  His tone was half badinage, but oh, what a sad earnest lay at the bottom ofit! His companion understood him too well to reply, and the conversationwas not renewed. They parted at the piazza a moment after. Two or threehours later, after a long grasp of the hand which went far to prove thatstrong friendship between men has not become altogether a myth since thedays of David and Jonathan, of Damon and Pythias, they parted at the samepiazza once more and for a period that no human calculation could measure.Horace Townsend and Halstead Rowan were almost as certain never to meetagain after that parting moment, as if one of the two had been already donewith life and ticketed away with the dead Guelphs and Bourbons!