| Oh, now I see where your ambition points.— Take heed you steer your vessel right, my son: This calm of heaven, this mermaid's melody, Into an unseen whirlpool draws you fast, And, in a moment, sinks you. DRYDEN—The Spanish Fryar. |
The summer had just set in, when the painter returned to the Traveller's Rest, with the prospect, so rapid was his convalescence, of being able to leave the valley within the space of a fortnight. But week came after week, June exchanged her green cloak for the golden mantle of July, the laurels bloomed on the hills, and the fire-flies twinkled in the evening grass, and still he lingered among the pleasant solitudes of Hawk-Hollow, as if unable to tear himself away. This faintness of purpose, for weekly, at least, he vowed he would depart, he excused to himself, by pleading the strong necessity he was under of delighting Captain Loring's heart with a picture, which he could not begin until his arm was released, not only from the wooden bonds of splints, but from the weakness resulting from the fracture. Until that happy period arrived, he was a frequent and indeed a welcome visiter at the mansion, his society being not less agreeable to Catherine than it was absolutely indispensable to her father. Young as she was, and with a spirit so gay and frank, there was much good sense in all Miss Loring's actions; and this had been doubtless sharpened by the necessity, imposed upon her so early, of playing the matron in her father's household, and guarding against the consequences of his many eccentricities. It was this good sense which taught her the propriety of getting rid of the stranger guest, as soon as humanity would sanction his expulsion; and this she had, in part, indirectly confessed to the party herself, with her usual good-humoured openness. This being accomplished, and Herman now assuming his proper station at a distance, and visiting the house as an avowed favourite of her father, she felt herself delivered from restraint, and received him without reserve. His manners and conversation were at all times those of a gentleman; and this is always enough, in America, to entitle a stranger, of whom no evil is known or suspected, to hospitality and respectful consideration, especially at a distance from the larger cities. That curiosity, which travellers have chosen to saddle upon Americans as a national characteristic, along with the two or three forms of speech that have belonged to the mother-land since the days of Chaucer, is in no country less really intrusive than in America. If it be irksome, and, at times, ludicrously impertinent, it is easily satisfied. It springs, indeed, not from a suspicious, so much as an inquisitive, disposition; and is the result of a certain openness of character, such as arises under every democratic government, and is well known to have prevailed to an extraordinary extent among the old Greek republics, notwithstanding the proverbial craftiness of individual character. With this curiosity is associated an equal quantity of credulity; and Americans are very content to receive the stranger, whose deportment is at all prepossessing, entirely upon his own self-recommendations. No jealousy accompanies an introduction made only by accident; and the same generous confidence is reposed in the new acquaintance, which the bestower will expect, under similar circumstances, to have lavished upon himself.
It did not, therefore, enter into the thoughts of Miss Loring to question Hunter's claims to such friendly courtesies as were accorded to him; and if any doubts of the propriety of continuing his acquaintance had occurred, they must have been dispelled by a remembrance of the circumstances under which he was introduced. Her happy instrumentality in rescuing him from a dreadful peril, had given her a right to be interested in his behalf; and the great pleasure the young man's society afforded her father, was an additional argument to banish reserve. The visits of Herman were therefore received and encouraged; the young lady's spirits, animated by such companionship, became more elastic and joyous; and Captain Loring rejoiced in the painter's acquaintance as much on her account as his own. "Adzooks, Kate," he was used to exclaim, "the young dog is as good company for you as cousin Harry,"—so he often called Miss Falconer, as well as her brother,—"and the lord knows how much better for me! And then the picture, Kate, adzooks, is'n't it a charmer! that is to say, it will be; but the young dog won't show it to me."
The picture,—'the grand picture of the Battle of Brandywine, and Tom Loring dying,'—had been at last begun, or rather a drawing in water colours, meant to represent that double calamity; and from the few samples of proficiency in his art which Herman had already shown, the expectations of the daughter were almost as agreeably kindled as those of the parent. The painter had presented Catherine with a few little sketches from his port-folio,—landscapes, representing views of Southern scenery, which to her appeared highly spirited, while to the Captain they seemed sublime,—only that he had a perverse facility at seeing rocks and stumps of trees in groups of kine on the meadows; and in distant flocks of sheep, nothing better than so many rambling killdeers on the barren upland. Notwithstanding these unlucky mistakes, he conceived so high an opinion of the artist's ability, that he strenuously urged him to begin the Battle of Brandywine upon a scale of magnitude commensurate with the grandeur of the subject; 'He would have it,' he said, 'done magnificently. He would go down to the village, and buy Ephraim Gall, the tavern-keeper's, big sign, that had the great Black Bear on it; or he would have another made just like it; and, he had no doubt, his young dog Haman,'—for the Captain could never fall upon his protegé's true name,—'would beat John Smith, the sign-painter, hollow,'—a flight of panegyric that somewhat nettled the artist, but vastly diverted Miss Loring.
But the greatest accession to his reputation was obtained when Herman, as the only means of securing a likeness of the Captain's deceased son, prevailed upon Catherine to sit to him for hers, and the radiant features beamed at last from the ivory. The delight with which the Captain seized upon this happy effort of art, was not merely boisterous; it was obstreperous,—nay, uproarious; and Catherine, laughing and weeping together, acknowledged that, in thus enrapturing her father's heart, the painter had made her his friend for ever.
"Now, Captain," said Hunter, with a beaming eye, "now, all I have to do, is to take that sketch home"——
"Shan't let it go out of my hands!" cried Captain Loring. "Why, it's my Kate herself! Give up my heart's blood first."
"You shall have it again, Captain; I promise you that. It is only to copy it, you know—that is, to paint the likeness of your son from it."
"Shall do no such thing—must do another," cried Captain Loring; and it required all the arguments of the painter, backed by those of Catherine, to prevail upon the obstinate old man to surrender the sketch, that it might be devoted to the purpose for which it was executed.
Thus passed the time of the painter in an employment, which, as much as his conversation, recommended him to the friendship of two isolated beings, simple-hearted, guileless, and unsuspicious of any coming ill. Thus he passed his time, confiding and confided in—the gayest, the merriest, and perhaps the happiest visiter who had ever been admitted to the privileges of Avondale; yet, all the time, whether rambling with the frank maiden in search of summer flowers to transfer to her garden, whether listening to the gay music of her conversation, or gazing, in the exercise of his art, upon her beautiful features, drinking in a poison which he felt and feared, yet without knowing the deep hold it was taking upon his spirit, until the sudden crash of coming events made him dreadfully aware of its influence. He was neither too young nor too short-sighted to be ignorant of the impression made on his feelings by each daily interview with a maiden so bewitching; nor did he attempt to repress the humiliating consciousness, that, in thus giving his heart to the affianced bride of another, he was preparing for himself a retribution of pain and penitence, and perhaps of shame. From the moment in which he discovered himself treasuring away with such jealous care, the gift of withering fern,—a bagatelle of compliment, which, he well knew, was only given by Catherine to remove a mortification she had inflicted,—he saw that he was sporting upon the brink of a precipice—trifling upon some such slippery bridge as that of fatal memory over the streamlet, from which his folly might at any moment hurl him. With this consciousness before him, he perceived the necessity of flight, yet fled not, deeming that the power of escape at the right moment could not be denied him—of taking some antidote with the poison, but took none, resolving it should be swallowed thereafter; and, in fine, while still thinking that he resisted, or was prepared to resist, when the peril should become urgent, he gave himself up to the intoxication of the new passion, and, in reality, sought every means to augment it.