The ways of the hour

by James Fenimore Cooper

This was said with a frown; and then it was that the observer had an opportunity of tracing in a face otherwise so lovely, the lines that indicate self-will, and a spirit not easily controlled. Alas! that women should ever so mistake their natural means to influence and guide, as to have recourse to the exercise of agents that they rarely wield with effect; and ever with a sacrifice of womanly character and womanly grace. The person who would draw the sex from the quiet scenes that they so much embellish, to mingle in the strifes of the world; who would place them in stations that nature has obviously intended men should occupy, is not their real friend, any more than the weak adviser who resorts to reputed specifics when the knife alone can effect a cure. The Creator intended woman for a “help-meet,” and not for the head of the family circle; and most fatally ill-judging are the laws that would fain disturb the order of a domestic government which is directly derived from divine wisdom as from divine benevolence.

“I told him as much, Miss Mary,” answered Timms; “but he does not seem disposed to take ‘no’ for an answer. Williams has the true scent for a dollar.”

“I am quite certain of an acquittal, Mr. Timms; and having endured so much, and hazarded so much, I do not like to throw away the triumph of my approaching victory. There is a powerful excitement in my situation; and I like excitement to weakness, perhaps. No, no; my success must not be tarnished by any such covert bargain. I will not listen to the proposal for an instant!”

“I understand that the raising of the sum required would form no particular obstacle to the arrangement?” asked Timms, in a careless sort of way that was intended to conceal the real interest he took in the reply.

“None at all. The money might be in his hands before the court sits in the morning; but it never shall be, as coming from me. Let Mr. Williams know this definitively; and tell him to do his worst.”

Timms was a little surprised, and a good deal uneasy at this manifestation of a spirit of defiance, which could produce no good, and which might be productive of evil. While he was delighted to hear, for the fourth or fifth time, how easy it would be for his fair client to command a sum as large as that demanded, he secretly determined not to let the man who had sent him on his present errand know the temper in which it had been received. Williams was sufficiently dangerous as it was; and he saw all the hazard of giving him fresh incentives to increase his exertions.

“And now, as this matter is finally disposed of, Mr. Timms—for I desire that it may not be again mentioned to me”—resumed the accused, “let us say a word more on the subject of our new report. Your agent has set on foot a story that I belong to a gang of wretches who are combined to prey on society; and that, in this character, I came into Duke’s to carry out one of its nefarious schemes?”

“That is the substance of the rumour we have started at your own desire; though I could wish it were not quite so strong, and that there were more time for the reaction.”

“The strength of the rumour is its great merit; and, as for time, we have abundance for our purposes. Reaction is the great power of popularity, as I have heard, again and again. It is always the most effective, too, at the turn of the tide. Let the public once get possessed with the notion that a rumour so injurious has been in circulation at the expense of one in my cruel condition, and the current of feeling will set the other way in a torrent that nothing can arrest!”

“I take the idea, Miss Mary, which is well enough for certain cases, but a little too hazardous for this. Suppose it should be ascertained that this report came from us?”