"Why, I can't say for that, but I think not. The fact is, the tavern is nothing to Munro; he don't care a straw about it, and some among us do whisper that he only keeps it a-going as a kind of cover for other practices. There's no doubt that they drive some trade together, though what it is I can't say, and never gave myself much trouble to inquire. I can tell you what, though, there's no doubt on my mind that he's trying to get Miss Lucy—they say he's fond of her—but I know for myself she hates and despises him, and don't stop to let him see it."
"She will not have him, then, you think?"
"I know she won't if she can help it. But, poor girl, what can she do? She's at the mercy, as you may see, of Munro, who is her father's brother; and he don't care a straw for her likes or dislikes. If he says the word, I reckon she can have nothing to say which will help her out of the difficulty. I'm sure he won't regard prayers, or tears, or any of her objections."
"It's a sad misfortune to be forced into connection with one in whom we may not confide—whom we can have no sympathy with—whom we can not love!"
"'Tis so,'squire; and that's just her case, and she hates to see the very face of him, and avoids him whenever she can do so without giving offence to her uncle, who, they say, has threatened her bitterly about the scornful treatment which she shows him. It's a wonder to me how any person, man or woman, can do otherwise than despise the fellow; for, look you, 'squire, over and above his sulky, sour looks, and his haughty conduct, would you believe it, he won't drink himself, yet he's always for getting other people drunk. But that's not all: he's a quarrelsome, spiteful, sore-headed chap, that won't do as other people. He never laughs heartily like a man, but always in a half-sniffling sort of manner that actually makes me sick at my stomach. Then, he never plays and makes merry along with us, and, if he does, harm is always sure, somehow or other, to come of it. When other people dance and frolic, he stands apart, with scorn in his face, and his black brows gathering clouds in such a way, that he would put a stop to all sport if people were only fools enough to mind him. For my part, I take care to have just as little to say to him as possible, and he to me, indeed; for he knows me just as well as I know him: and he knows, too, that if he only dared to crook his finger, I'm just the man that would mount him on the spot."
Ralph could not exactly comprehend the force of some of the objections urged by his companion to the character of Rivers: those, in particular, which described his aversion to the sports common to the people, only indicated a severer temper of mind and habit, and, though rather in bad taste, were certainly not criminal. Still there was enough to confirm his own hastily-formed suspicions of this person, and to determine him more fully upon a circumspect habit while in his neighborhood. He saw that his dislike and doubt were fully partaken of by those who, from circumstance and not choice, were his associates; and felt satisfied—though, as we have seen, without the knowledge of any one particular which might afford a reasonable warranty for his antipathy—that a feeling so general as Forrester described it could not be altogether without foundation. He felt assured, by an innate prediction of his own spirit, unuttered to his companion, that, at some period, he should find his anticipations of this man's guilt fully realized; though, at that moment, he did not dream that he himself, in becoming his victim, should furnish to his own mind an almost irrefutable argument in support of that incoherent notion of relative sympathies and antipathies to which he had already, seemingly, given himself up.
The dialogue, now diverted to other topics, was not much longer protracted. The hour grew late, and the shutting up of the house, and the retiring of the family below, warned Forrester of the propriety of making his own retreat to the little cabin in which he lodged. He shook Ralph's hand warmly, and, promising to see him at an early hour of the morning, took his departure. A degree of intimacy, rather inconsistent with our youth's wonted haughtiness of habit, had sprung up between himself and the woodman—the result, doubtless, on the part of the former, of the loneliness and to him novel character of his situation. He was cheerless and melancholy, and the association of a warm, well-meaning spirit had something consolatory in it. He thought too, and correctly, that, in the mind and character of Forrester, he discovered a large degree of sturdy, manly simplicity, and a genuine honesty—colored deeply with prejudices and without much polish, it is true, but highly susceptible of improvement, and by no means stubborn or unreasonable in their retention. He could not but esteem the possessor of such characteristics, particularly when shown in such broad contrast with those of his associates; and, without any other assurance of their possession by Forrester than the sympathies already referred to, he was not unwilling to recognise their existence in his person. That he came from the same part of the world with himself may also have had its effect—the more particularly, indeed, as the pride of birthplace was evidently a consideration with the woodman, and the praises of Carolina were rung, along with his own, in every variety of change through almost all his speeches.
The youth sat musing for some time after the departure of Forrester. He was evidently employed in chewing the cud of sweet and bitter thought, and referring to memories deeply imbued with the closely-associated taste of both these extremes. After a while, the weakness of heart got seemingly the mastery, long battled with; and tearing open his vest, he displayed the massive gold chain circling his bosom in repeated folds, upon which hung the small locket containing Edith's and his own miniature. Looking over his shoulder, as he gazed upon it, we are enabled to see the fair features of that sweet young girl, just entering her womanhood—her rich, brown, streaming hair, the cheek delicately pale, yet enlivened with a southern fire, that seems not improperly borrowed from the warm eyes that glisten above it. The ringlets gather in amorous clusters upon her shoulder, and half obscure a neck and bosom of the purest and most polished ivory. The artist had caught from his subject something of inspiration, and the rounded bust seemed to heave before the sight, as if impregnated with the subtlest and sweetest life. The youth carried the semblance to his lips, and muttered words of love and reproach so strangely intermingled and in unison, that, could she have heard to whom they were seemingly addressed, it might have been difficult to have determined the difference of signification between them. Gazing upon it long, and in silence, a large but solitary tear gathered in his eye, and finally finding its way through his fingers, rested upon the lovely features that appeared never heretofore to have been conscious of a cloud. As if there had been something of impiety and pollution in this blot upon so fair an outline, he hastily brushed the tear away; then pressing the features again to his lips, he hurried the jewelled token again into his bosom, and prepared himself for those slumbers upon which we forbear longer to intrude.