Nathaniel Hawthorne - The Complete Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne (With Illustrations)

“I have found you, villain!” he said to the angler. “It is you who have done this.”

“And, having done it, the wrath of a boy — his drunken wrath — will not induce me to deny it,” replied the other, scornfully.

“The boy will require a man’s satisfaction,” returned Edward, “and that speedily.”

“Will you take it now?” inquired the angler, with a cool, derisive smile, and almost in a whisper. At the same time he produced a brace of pistols, and held them towards the young man.

“Willingly,” answered Edward, taking one of the weapons. “Choose your distance.”

The angler stepped back a pace; but before their deadly intentions, so suddenly conceived, could be executed, Hugh Crombie interposed himself between them.

“Do you take my best parlor for the cabin of the Black Andrew, where a pistol-shot was a nightly pastime?” he inquired of his comrade. “And you, Master Edward, with what sort of a face will you walk into the chapel to morning prayers, after putting a ball through this man’s head, or receiving one through your own? Though, in this last case, you will be past praying for, or praying either.”

“Stand aside: I will take the risk. Make way, or I will put the ball through your own head,” exclaimed Edward, fiercely: for the interval of rationality that circumstances had produced was again giving way to intoxication.

“You see how it is,” said Hugh to his companion, unheard by Edward. “You shall take a shot at me, sooner than at the poor lad in his present state. You have done him harm enough already, and intend him more. I propose,” he continued aloud, and with a peculiar glance towards the angler, “that this affair be decided tomorrow, at nine o’clock, under the old oak, on the bank of the stream. In the mean time, I will take charge of these popguns, for fear of accidents.”

“Well, mine host, be it as you wish,” said his comrade. “A shot more or less is of little consequence to me.” He accordingly delivered his weapon to Hugh Crombie and walked carelessly away.

“Come, Master Walcott, the enemy has retreated. Victoria! And now, I see, the sooner I get you to your chamber, the better,” added he aside; for the wine was at last beginning to produce its legitimate effect, in stupefying the young man’s mental and bodily faculties.

Hugh Crombie’s assistance, though not, perhaps, quite indispensable, was certainly very convenient to our unfortunate hero, in the course of the short walk that brought him to his chamber. When arrived there, and in bed, he was soon locked in a sleep scarcely less deep than that of death.

The weather, during the last hour, had appeared to be on the point of changing: indeed, there were, every few minutes, most rapid changes. A strong breeze sometimes drove the clouds from the brow of heaven, so as to disclose a few of the stars; but, immediately after, the darkness would again become Egyptian, and the rain rush like a torrent from the sky.

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“About her neck a packet-mail

Fraught with advice, some fresh, some stale,

Of men that walked when they were dead.”

HUDIBRAS.

Scarcely a word had passed between Dr. Melmoth and Ellen Langton, on their way home; for, though the former was aware that his duty towards his ward would compel him to inquire into the motives of her conduct, the tenderness of his heart prompted him to defer the scrutiny to the latest moment. The same tenderness induced him to connive at Ellen’s stealing secretly up to her chamber, unseen by Mrs. Melmoth; to render which measure practicable, he opened the house-door very softly, and stood before his half-sleeping spouse (who waited his arrival in the parlor) without any previous notice. This act of the doctor’s benevolence was not destitute of heroism; for he was well assured that, should the affair come to the lady’s knowledge through any other channel, her vengeance would descend not less heavily on him for concealing, than on Ellen for perpetrating, the elopement. That she had, thus far, no suspicion of the fact, was evident from her composure, as well as from the reply to a question, which, with more than his usual art, her husband put to her respecting the non-appearance of his ward. Mrs. Melmoth answered, that Ellen had complained of indisposition, and after drinking, by her prescription, a large cup of herb-tea, had retired to her chamber early in the evening. Thankful that all was yet safe, the doctor laid his head upon his pillow; but, late as was the hour, his many anxious thoughts long drove sleep from his eyelids.

The diminution in the quantity of his natural rest did not, however, prevent Dr. Melmoth from rising at his usual hour, which at all seasons of the year was an early one. He found, on descending to the parlor, that breakfast was nearly in readiness; for the lady of the house (and, as a corollary, her servant-girl) was not accustomed to await the rising of the sun in order to commence her domestic labors. Ellen Langton, however, who had heretofore assimilated her habits to those of the family, was this morning invisible, — a circumstance imputed by Mrs. Melmoth to her indisposition of the preceding evening, and by the doctor, to mortification on account of her elopement and its discovery.

“I think I will step into Ellen’s bedchamber,” said Mrs. Melmoth, “and inquire how she feels herself. The morning is delightful after the storm, and the air will do her good.”

“Had we not better proceed with our breakfast? If the poor child is sleeping, it were a pity to disturb her,” observed the doctor; for, besides his sympathy with Ellen’s feelings, he was reluctant, as if he were the guilty one, to meet her face.

“Well, be it so. And now sit down, doctor; for the hot cakes are cooling fast. I suppose you will say they are not so good as those Ellen made yesterday morning. I know not how you will bear to part with her, though the thing must soon be.”

“It will be a sore trial, doubtless,” replied Dr. Melmoth, — ”like tearing away a branch that is grafted on an old tree. And yet there will be a satisfaction in delivering her safe into her father’s hands.”

“A satisfaction for which you may thank me, doctor,” observed the lady. “If there had been none but you to look after the poor thing’s doings, she would have been enticed away long ere this, for the sake of her money.”

Dr. Melmoth’s prudence could scarcely restrain a smile at the thought that an elopement, as he had reason to believe, had been plotted, and partly carried into execution, while Ellen was under the sole care of his lady, and had been frustrated only by his own despised agency. He was not accustomed, however, — nor was this an eligible occasion, — to dispute any of Mrs. Melmoth’s claims to superior wisdom.

The breakfast proceeded in silence, or, at least, without any conversation material to the tale. At its conclusion, Mrs. Melmoth was again meditating on the propriety of entering Ellen’s chamber; but she was now prevented by an incident that always excited much interest both in herself and her husband.

This was the entrance of the servant, bearing the letters and newspaper, with which, once a fortnight, the mail-carrier journeyed up the valley. Dr. Melmoth’s situation at the head of a respectable seminary, and his character as a scholar, had procured him an extensive correspondence among the learned men of his own country; and he had even exchanged epistles with one or two of the most distinguished dissenting clergymen of Great Britain. But, unless when some fond mother enclosed a one-pound note to defray the private expenses of her son at college, it was frequently the case that the packets addressed to the doctor were the sole contents of the mail-bag. In the present instance, his letters were very numerous, and, to judge from the one he chanced first to open, of an unconscionable length. While he was engaged in their perusal, Mrs. Melmoth amused herself with the newspaper, — a little sheet of about twelve inches square, which had but one rival in the country. Commencing with the title, she labored on through advertisements old and new, through poetry lamentably deficient in rhythm and rhymes, through essays, the ideas of which had been trite since the first week of the creation, till she finally arrived at the department that, a fortnight before, had contained the latest news from all quarters. Making such remarks upon these items as to her seemed good, the dame’s notice was at length attracted by an article which her sudden exclamation proved to possess uncommon interest. Casting her eye hastily over it, she immediately began to read aloud to her husband; but he, deeply engaged in a long and learned letter, instead of listening to what she wished to communicate, exerted his own lungs in opposition to hers, as is the custom of abstracted men when disturbed. The result was as follows: —