The Chainbearer Part 97

John was quite right; there was Opportunity standing in the very path, and at the very spot where I had last seen her disappear from my sight, the past night. That spot was just where the path plunged into the wooded ravine, and so far was her person concealed by the descent, that we could only perceive the head, and the upper part of the body. The girl had shown herself just that much, in order to attract my attention, in which she had no sooner succeeded, than, by moving downward a few paces, she was entirely hid from sight. Cautioning John to say nothing of what had pa.s.sed, I sprang down the steps, and walked in the direction of the ravine, perfectly satisfied I was expected, and far from certain that this visit did not portend further evil.

The distance was so short that I was soon at the verge of the ravine, but when I reached it Opportunity had disappeared. Owing to the thicket, her concealment was easily obtained, while she might be within a few yards from me, and I plunged downward, bent only on ascertaining her object. One gleam of distrust shot across my mind, I will own, as I strided down the declivity; but it was soon lost in the expectation and curiosity that were awakened by the appearance of the girl.

I believe it has already been explained, that in this part of the lawn a deep, narrow ravine had been left in wood, and that the bridle-path that leads to the hamlet had been carried directly through it, for effect.

This patch of wood may be three or four acres in extent, following the course of the ravine until it reaches the meadows, and it contains three or four rustic seats, intended to be used in the warmer months. As Opportunity was accustomed to all the windings and turnings of the place, she had posted herself near one of these seats, which stood in a dense thicket, but so near the main path as to enable her to let me know where she was to be found, by a low utterance of my name, as my tread announced my approach. Springing up the by-path, I was at her side in an instant. I do believe that, now she had so far succeeded, the girl sunk upon the seat from inability to stand.

"Oh! Mr. Hugh!" she exclaimed, looking at me with a degree of nature and concern in her countenance that it was not usual to see there--"Sen--my poor brother Sen--what _have_ I done?--what _have_ I done?"

"Will you answer me one or two questions, Miss Opportunity, with frankness, under the pledge that the replies never shall be used to injure you or yours? This is a very serious affair, and should be treated with perfect frankness."

"I will answer anything to _you_--any question you can put me, though I might blush to do so--but," laying her hand familiarly, not to say tenderly, on my arm--"why should we be _Mr._ Hugh and _Miss_ Opportunity to each other, when we were so long Hugh and Op? Call me Op again, and I shall feel that the credit of my family and the happiness of my poor Sen are, after all, in the keeping of a true friend."

"No one can be more willing to do this than myself, my dear Op, and I am willing to be Hugh again. But, you know all that has pa.s.sed."

"I do--yes, the dreadful news has reached us, and mother wouldn't leave me a moment's peace till I stole out again to see you."

"Again? Was your mother, then, acquainted with the visit of last night?"

"Yes, yes--she knew it all, and advised it all."

"Your mother is a most thoughtful and prudent parent," I answered, biting my lip, "and I shall know hereafter how much I am indebted to her. To _you_, Opportunity, I owe the preservation of my house, and possibly the lives of all who are most dear to me."

"Well, that's something, any how. There's no grief that hasn't its relief. But, you must know, Hugh, that I never could or did suppose that Sen himself would be so weak as to come in his own person on such an errand! I didn't want telling to understand that, in anti-rent times, fire and sword are the law--but, take him in general, Sen is altogether prudent and cautious. I'd a bit my tongue off before I'd got my own brother into so cruel a sc.r.a.pe. No, no--don't think so ill of me as to suppose I came to tell of Sen."

"It is enough for me that I know how much trouble you took to warn me of danger. It is unnecessary for me to think of _you_ in any other light than that of a friend."

"Ah, Hugh! how happy and merry we all of us used to be a few years since! That was before your Miss Coldbrookes, and Miss Marstons, and Mary Warrens ever saw the country. _Then_ we _did_ enjoy ourselves, and I hope such times will return. If Miss Martha would only stick to old friends, instead of running after new ones, Ravensnest would be Ravensnest again."

"You are not to censure my sister for loving her own closest a.s.sociates best. She is several years our junior, you will remember, and was scarcely of an age to be _our_ companion six years ago."

Opportunity had the grace to color a little, for she had only used Patt as a cloak to make her a.s.saults on me, and she knew as well as I did that my sister was good seven years younger than herself. This feeling, however, was but momentary, and she next turned to the real object of this visit.

"What am I to tell mother, Hugh? You will let Sen off, I know?"

I reflected, for the first time, on the hardships of the case; but felt a strong reluctance to allow incendiaries to escape.

"The facts must be known, soon, all over the town," I remarked.

"No fear of that; they are pretty much known already. News _does_ fly _fast_ at Ravensnest, all must admit."

"Ay, if it would only fly _true_. But your brother can hardly remain here, after such an occurrence."

"Lord! How you talk! If the law will only let him alone, who'd trouble him for this? You haven't been home long enough to learn that folks don't think half as much of setting fire to a house, in anti-rent times, as they'd think of a trespa.s.s under the old-fashioned law. Anti-rent alters the whole spirit."

How true was this! And we have lads among us, who have pa.s.sed from their tenth to their eighteenth and twentieth years, in a condition of society that is almost hopelessly abandoned to the most corrupting influence of all the temptations that beset human beings. It is not surprising that men begin to regard arson as a venial offence, when the moral feeling of the community is thus unhinged, and boys are suffered to grow into manhood in the midst of notions so fatal to everything that is just and safe.

"But the law itself will not be quite as complaisant as the 'folks.' It will scarcely allow incendiaries to escape; and your brother would be compelled to flee the land."

"What of that? How many go off, and stay off for a time; and that's better than going up north to work at the new prison. I'm not a bit afraid of Sen's being hanged, for these an't hanging times, in this country; but it is _some_ disgrace to a family to have a member in the State's prison. As for any punishment that is lasting, you can see how it is, as well as I. There've been men murdered about anti-rentism, but, Lord! the Senators and a.s.semblymen will raise such a rumpus, if you go to punish them, that it won't be long, if things go on as they have, before it will be thought more honorable to be put in jail for shooting a peace-officer, than to stay out of it for not having done it. Talk's all; and if folks have a mind to make anything honorable, they've only to say so often enough to make it out."

Such were the notions of Miss Opportunity Newcome, on the subject of modern morals, and how far was she from the truth? I could not but smile at the manner in which she treated things, though there was a homely and practical common sense in her way of thinking that was probably of more efficiency than would have been the case with a more refined and nicer code. She looked at things as they are, and that is always something toward success.

As for myself, I was well enough disposed to consider Opportunity, in this unfortunate affair of the fire, for it Would have been a cruel thing to suffer the girl to imagine she had been an instrument in destroying her brother. It is true, there is no great danger of a rogue's being hanged, nowadays, and Seneca was not sufficiently a gentleman, though very tenacious of the t.i.tle, to endanger his neck. Had he been a landlord, and caught lighting a fire on the kitchen-floor of one of the tenants, the State would not grow hemp enough for his execution; but it was a very different thing to catch a tenant at that work. I could not but ask myself, how many of the "honorable gentlemen"

at Albany would interfere in _my_ behalf, had matters been reversed? for this is the true mode of arriving at the "spirit of the inst.i.tutions;"

or, rather, I have just as good a right to affirm such is their "spirit," as any one has to a.s.sert that the leasehold tenure is opposed to them; the laws and inst.i.tutions themselves being equally antagonist to both.

The results of the interview I had with Opportunity were: firstly, I kept my heart just where it was at its commencement, though I am not certain that it was in my own custody; secondly, the young lady left me much encouraged on the subject of the credit of the Newcomes, though I took very good care not to put myself in her power by promising to compromise felony; thirdly, I invited the sister to come openly to the Nest, that evening, as one of the means to be employed in attaining her ends--as respects Seneca, be it remembered, not as respects _me_; and lastly, we parted just as good friends as we ever had been, and entertaining exactly the same views as regards each other. What those views were it may not be modest in me to record.

CHAPTER XXVI.

"If men desire the rights of property, they must take their consequences; distinction in social cla.s.ses. Without the rights of property civilization can hardly exist, while the highest cla.s.s of improvements is probably the result of the very social distinctions that so many decry. The great political problem to be solved is to ascertain if the social distinctions that are inseparable from civilization can really exist with perfect equality in political rights. We are of opinion they can; and as much condemn him who vainly contends for a visionary and impracticable social equality, as we do him who would deny to men equal opportunities for advancement."--_Political Essay._

My interview with Opportunity Newcome remained a secret between those who first knew of it. The evening service in St. Andrew's was attended only by the usual congregation, all the curiosity of the mult.i.tude seeming to have been allayed by the visit in the morning. The remainder of the day pa.s.sed as usual, and after enjoying a pleasant eventide, and the earlier hours of the night in the company of the girls, I retired early to bed, and slept profoundly until morning. My Uncle Ro partook of my own philosophical temper, and we encouraged each other in it by a short conversation that occurred in his room before we respectively retired to rest.

"I agree with you, Hugh," said my uncle, in reply to a remark of my own; "there is little use in making ourselves unhappy about evils that _we_ cannot help. If we are to be burnt up and stripped of our property, we _shall_ be burnt up and stripped of our property. I have a competency secured in Europe, and we can all live on _that_, with economy, should the worst come to the worst."

"It is a strange thing to hear an American talk of seeking a refuge of any sort in the Old World!"

"If matters proceed in the lively manner they have for the last ten years, you'll hear of it often. Hitherto, the rich of Europe have been in the habit of laying by a penny in America against an evil day, but the time will soon come, unless there is a great change, when the rich of America will return the compliment in kind. We are worse off than if we were in a state of nature, in many respects; having _our_ hands tied by the responsibility that belongs to our position and means, while those who choose to a.s.sail us are under a mere nominal restraint. They make the magistrates, who are altogether in their interests; and they elect the sheriffs who are to see the laws executed. The theory is, that the people are sufficiently virtuous to perform all these duties well; but no provision has been made for the case in which the people themselves happen to go astray, _en ma.s.se_."

"We have our governors and masters at Albany, sir."

"Yes, we _have_ our governors and servants at Albany, and there they are! There has not been the time, probably, since this infernal spirit first had its rise among us, that a clear, manly, energetic and well-principled proclamation alone, issued by the governor of this State, would not have aroused all the better feelings of the community and put this thing down; but, small as would have been that tribute to the right, it has never been paid, and, until we drop double-distilled patriots, and have recourse again to the old-fashioned, high-principled gentlemen for offices of mark, it never will be done. Heaven preserve me from extra-virtuous, patriotic, and enlightened citizens; no good ever comes of them."

"I believe the wisest way, sir, is to make up our minds that we have reached the point of reaction in the inst.i.tutions, and be ready to submit to the worst. I keep the 'revolver' well primed, and hope to escape being burnt up at least."

After a little more such discourse, we parted and sought our pillows, and I can say that I never slept more soundly in my life. If I did lose my estate, it was what other men had suffered and survived, and why might not I as well as another? It is true, those other men were, in the main, the victims of what are called tyrants; but others, again, had certainly been wronged by the ma.s.ses. Thousands have been impoverished in France, for instance, by the political confiscations of the mult.i.tude, and thousands enriched by ill-gotten gains, profiting by the calamities of those around them; and what has happened there might happen here. Big words ought to pa.s.s for nothing. No man was ever a whit more free because he was the whole time boasting of his liberty, and I was not now to learn that when numbers did inflict a wrong, it was always of the most intolerable character. Ordinarily, they were not much disposed to this species of crime; but men in ma.s.ses were no more infallible than individuals. In this philosophic mood I slept.

I was awoke next morning by John's appearing at my bedside, after having opened the shutter of my window.

"I declare to you, Mr. Hugh," began this well-meaning, but sometimes officious servant, "I don't know what will come next at Ravensnest, now the evil spirit has got uppermost among the inhabitants!"

"Tut, tut, John--what you call the evil spirit is only the 'spirit of the inst.i.tutions;' and is to be honored, instead of disliked."

"Well, sir, I don't know what they calls it, for they talks so much about the hinst.i.tutions in this country, I never can find out what they would be at. There was a hinst.i.tution near where I lived in my last place, at the West End, in Lun'on, and there they taught young masters to speak and write Latin and Greek. But hinst.i.tutions in Hamerica must mean something, for them as doesn't know any more Latin than I do seems to be quite hintimate with these Hamerican hinst.i.tutions. But, Mr. Hugh, would you, _could_ you, believe the people committed parricide last night?"

"I am not at all surprised at it, for to me they have seemed to be bent on matricide for some time, calling the country their mother."

"It's hawful, sir--it's truly hawful, when a whole people commits such a crime as parricide! I know'd you would be shocked to hear it, Mr. Hugh, and so I just came in to let you know it."

"I am infinitely obliged to you for this attention, my good fellow, and shall be still more so when you tell me all about it."

"Yes, sir, most willingly; and most unwillingly, too. But there's no use in 'iding the fact; it's gone, Mr. Hugh!"