The Complete Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne (Illustrated Edition). Nathaniel Hawthorne
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the contrary. “I am a stranger to the stream, and have doubtless passed over many a likely place for sport.”
“You have an angler’s eye, sir,” rejoined Edward.
“I observed that you made your casts as if you had often trod these banks, and I could scarcely have guided you better myself.”
“Yes, I have learned the art, and I love to practise it,” replied the man. “But will not the young lady try her skill?” he continued, casting a bold eye on Ellen. “The fish will love to be drawn out by such white hands as those.”
Ellen shrank back, though almost imperceptibly, from the free bearing of the man. It seemed meant for courtesy; but its effect was excessively disagreeable. Edward Walcott, who perceived and coincided in Ellen’s feelings, replied to the stranger’s proposal.
“The young lady will not put the gallantry of the fish to the proof, sir,” he said, “and she will therefore have no occasion for your own.”
“I shall take leave to hear my answer from the young lady’s own mouth,” answered the stranger, haughtily. “If you will step this way, Miss Langton” (here he interrupted himself), — ”if you will cast the line by yonder sunken log, I think you will meet with success.”
Thus saying, the angler offered his rod and line to Ellen. She at first drew back, then hesitated, but finally held out her hand to receive them. In thus complying with the stranger’s request, she was actuated by a desire to keep the peace, which, as her notice of Edward Walcott’s crimsoned cheek and flashing eye assured her, was considerably endangered. The angler led the way to the spot which he had pointed out, which, though not at such a distance from Ellen’s companions but that words in a common tone could be distinguished, was out of the range of a lowered voice.
Edward Walcott and the student remained by the oak: the former biting his lip with vexation; the latter, whose abstraction always vanished where Ellen was concerned, regarding her and the stranger with fixed and silent attention. The young men could at first hear the words that the angler addressed to Ellen. They related to the mode of managing the rod; and she made one or two casts under his direction. At length, however, as if to offer his assistance, the man advanced close to her side, and seemed to speak, but in so low a tone, that the sense of what he uttered was lost before it reached the oak. But its effect upon Ellen was immediate and very obvious. Her eyes flashed; and an indignant blush rose high on her cheek, giving to her beauty a haughty brightness, of which the gentleness of her disposition in general deprived it. The next moment, however, she seemed to recollect herself, and, restoring the angling-rod to its owner, she turned away calmly, and approached her companions.
“The evening breeze grows chill; and mine is a dress for a summer day,” she observed. “Let us walk homeward.”
“Miss Langton, is it the evening breeze alone that sends you homeward?” inquired Edward.
At this moment the angler, who had resumed, and seemed to be intent upon his occupation, drew a fish from the pool, which he had pointed out to Ellen.
“I told the young lady,” he exclaimed, “that, if she would listen to me a moment longer, she would be repaid for her trouble; and here is the proof of my words.”
“Come, let us hasten towards home,” cried Ellen, eagerly; and she took Edward Walcott’s arm, with a freedom that, at another time, would have enchanted him. He at first seemed inclined to resist her wishes, but complied, after exchanging, unperceived by Ellen, a glance with the stranger, the meaning of which the latter appeared perfectly to understand. Fanshawe also attended her. Their walk towards Dr. Melmoth’s dwelling was almost a silent one; and the few words that passed between them did not relate to the adventure which occupied the thoughts of each. On arriving at the house, Ellen’s attendants took leave of her, and retired.
Edward Walcott, eluding Fanshawe’s observation with little difficulty, hastened back to the old oak-tree. From the intelligence with which the stranger had received his meaning glance, the young man had supposed that he would here await his return. But the banks of the stream, upward and downward, so far as his eye could reach, were solitary. He could see only his own image in the water, where it swept into a silent depth; and could hear only its ripple, where stones and sunken trees impeded its course. The object of his search might, indeed, have found concealment among the tufts of alders, or in the forest that was near at hand; but thither it was in vain to pursue him. The angler had apparently set little store by the fruits of his assumed occupation; for the last fish that he had taken lay, yet alive, on the bank, gasping for the element to which Edward was sufficiently compassionate to restore him. After watching him as he glided down the stream, making feeble efforts to resist its current, the youth turned away, and sauntered slowly towards the college.
Ellen Langton, on her return from her walk, found Dr. Melmoth’s little parlor unoccupied; that gentleman being deeply engaged in his study, and his lady busied in her domestic affairs. The evening, notwithstanding Ellen’s remark concerning the chillness of the breeze, was almost sultry; and the windows of the apartment were thrown open. At one of these, which looked into the garden, she seated herself, listening, almost unconsciously, to the monotonous music of a thousand insects, varied occasionally by the voice of a whippoorwill, who, as the day departed, was just commencing his song. A dusky tint, as yet almost imperceptible, was beginning to settle on the surrounding objects, except where they were opposed to the purple and golden clouds, which the vanished sun had made the brief inheritors of a portion of his brightness. In these gorgeous vapors, Ellen’s fancy, in the interval of other thoughts, pictured a fairyland, and longed for wings to visit it.
But as the clouds lost their brilliancy, and assumed first a dull purple, and then a sullen gray tint, Ellen’s thoughts recurred to the adventure of the angler, which her imagination was inclined to invest with an undue singularity. It was, however, sufficiently unaccountable that an entire stranger should venture to demand of her a private audience; and she assigned, in turn, a thousand motives for such a request, none of which were in any degree satisfactory. Her most prevailing thought, though she could not justify it to her reason, inclined her to believe that the angler was a messenger from her father. But wherefore he should deem it necessary to communicate any intelligence that he might possess only by means of a private interview, and without the knowledge of her friends, was a mystery she could not solve. In this view of the matter, however, she half regretted that her instinctive delicacy had impelled her so suddenly to break off their conference, admitting, in the secrecy of her own mind, that, if an opportunity were again to occur, it might not again be shunned. As if that unuttered thought had power to conjure up its object, she now became aware of a form standing in the garden, at a short distance from the window where she sat. The dusk had deepened, during Ellen’s abstraction, to such a degree, that the man’s features were not perfectly distinguishable; but the maiden was not long in doubt of his identity, for he approached, and spoke in the same low tone in which he had addressed her when they stood by the stream.
“Do you still refuse my request, when its object is but your own good, and that of one who should be most dear to you?” he asked.
Ellen’s first impulse had been to cry out for assistance; her second was to fly: but, rejecting both these measures, she determined to remain, endeavoring to persuade herself that she was safe. The quivering of her voice, however, when she attempted to reply, betrayed her apprehensions.
“I cannot listen to such a request from a stranger,” she said. “If you bring news from — from my father, why is it not told to Dr. Melmoth?”
“Because what I have to say is for your ear alone,” was the reply; “and if you would avoid misfortune now, and sorrow hereafter, you will not refuse to hear me.”
“And does it concern my father?” asked Ellen, eagerly.
“It does — most deeply,” answered the stranger.
She meditated a moment, and then replied, “I will not refuse, I will hear — but speak quickly.”
“We are in danger of interruption in this place, and that would be fatal to my errand,” said the stranger. “I will await you in the garden.”