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The foregoing was one of the longest talks
that Bushfield probably ever held in the whole
course of his life, a large portion of which had
been spent in solitude. He might be called a
hermit of a rare species. One who loved to be
alone, not for the purposes of pious abstraction, or
uninterrupted repose, but that he might indulge
his own active, unrestrained love of liberty without
interruption. There had been days, nay
years of his life, in which he scarcely spoke to
a human being; and he had thus acquired a
habit of taciturnity which could with difficulty be
overcome, except when among those he liked, or
animated by the subject of the happiness of his
peculiar mode of life. He lived, for the most part,
with his dog and his gun; and the encounter
with a fellow-creature in the woods he ranged,
had the same effect on him that the presence of a
wild beast in a populous city has on the peaceable
citizens. It was an intrusion, and excited a
strong disposition to hunt the outlaw. He was
not by any means devoid of excitement in his solitary
abode, for hunting had become a habit, a
passion; and never did the vainest old soldier relate
his exploits in the field with a higher relish of
enthusiasm than did our sturdy backwoodsman
detail his triumphs over the wild animals that
peopled his woodland domain. In doing this, he,

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like the war-worn veteran aforesaid, was prone
to make inroads upon the regions of the imagination,
insomuch that some of his stories actually
bordered on the marvellous.

Rainsford accompanied him in one or two of his
enormous peregrinations, which generally lasted
all day, and would have consumed the night too,
had he not protested against sleeping in the open
air, though Bushfield swore, “like all wrath,” that
it was the greatest luxury in the world. But two
men of such dissimilar habits seldom covet the
society of each other, or form any permanent
friendship. Each secretly despises his companion.
It is only in the crowded haunts, and among
the peaceful occupations of mankind, that the superiority
of education, intellectual acquirements,
and gentlemanly accomplishments, are highly
valued; and it is only on the exposed frontiers of
life, in the midst of perils and privations, that
hardy daring, and the capacity to endure fatigue,
are estimated at their proper value.

Rainsford gave out the third day, and his host
voluntarily, and indeed necessarily, accompanied
him home to show the track through the woods.

“Stranger,” said he, “you've had a mighty
poor sort of a raising, I should reckon. Why,
you're no more fit for the woods than a wild turkey
is for a justice of peace. What would you
do now if you had to turn out every day and
shoot your dinner, or go without it, or fight a
dozen Indians at a time, or find your way through
the woods two or three hundred miles, without a
path, and nothing to eat but an old pair of moccasins?
I wish I may be shot if I don't think some
of our old Kentucky women would cut a better
figure than you do here.”

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The last part of this speech grated harshly on
the feelings of Rainsford.

“And what would you do,” replied he, “if you
were obliged to live in a city, change your linen
twice a day, and your coat three times; gallant
the ladies; attend tea-parties; dance the waltz;
and go through all the ceremonies of good breeding?
'Faith, I think you'd cut rather a more ridiculous
figure than I do here in the woods. The
ladies would all run away from such a savage,
and the men laugh at you.”

“Would they! If they attempted to follow
such a track as that, I'd soon tree them. If I
didn't make 'em shut their pans quicker than a
flash of lightning, I hope I may be civilized tomorrow,
as you call it. I don't much mind being
shot at, nor should I care a great deal about running
the gauntlet Ingen fashion, because I'm used
to that. But let me give you one piece of advice
stranger, never laugh at a feller in a hunting-shirt,
or you'll be likely to get a most almighty licking.
You'll be down as quick as I can dodge
an Ingen, and that's quicker than wink, anyhow.”

The return of Rainsford was welcomed by Virginia
with mingled emotions of pleasure and
pain; by Mrs. Judith with most extraordinary
marks of satisfaction; and by Master Zeno with
wonderful cordiality. Since his departure Mrs.
Judith had laboured under a fit of mortal ennui,
seeing she had nobody to watch, and her life became
as it were a dead blank, for want of the excitement
of curiosity. There was not a secret
stirring in the whole village of Dangerfieldville.
Master Zeno had a still better reason for hailing

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the return of his guest; it was now almost time to
begin his preparations for the Daily, and he took
an early opportunity of jogging Mr. Rainsford's
memory.

“Well, well, sir” rubbing his hands; “I've
kept the secret.”

“What secret?”

“Why—why, you know, the secret you told—
I mean that I happened, by the merest accident
in the world to overhear in the woods. The
secret that you are—hem!—”

A deep paleness passed over the face of the
young man; and it was not unnoticed by Master
Zeno, who had an eye and an ear like the man in
the fairy tale; he could see through a mountain, and
hear the grass grow when a secret was in the way.

“Well,” and he vainly essayed a melancholy
smile. “Well, you have kept your word, you
say, and I will keep mine. Make out an estimate
of the cost of establishing a paper.”

“A daily, sir?”

“Ay, a daily, if you wish. I will give you an
order on a merchant, who has money of mine in
his hands, at Pittsburg. And you can very likely
procure all the materials you want at that place.”

“Here it is, sir, here's the estimate. I've had
it ready ever since I overheard, by the merest
accident in the world, you were—hem. What a
fortunate man I am!”

“Very,” said the other, dryly, and he went and
wrote, and returned with an order for the money
required.

“I'm afraid I'm robbing you, sir,” said Master
Zeno, after putting up the draft snugly in an old
leather convenience called a pocket-book. “But

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you may calculate on me to a certainty. I'll keep
your secret, sir; and if anybody dares to accuse
you of being a—hem—I'll attack them in my Daily,
in such a style they'll be glad to be quiet. But
really, sir, I'm afraid I'm robbing you.”

“No, not in the least. I am in possession of more
than I want; far more than I shall ever live to
use. It is no pleasure to me to be rich, for when
I think of the manner in which I became so, I
loathe the very name of money. I would willingly
be made a public example; that my secret
should be exposed to the world, so I could bring
back to life, and its best gift, those to whom it
once belonged, and restore all I have received, to
its owners. You are welcome to the money, so
you only make a good use of it.”

“I will enlighten the universe,” said Zeno;
and they parted just at the moment Mrs. Judith
had applied her ear to the keyhole, or rather to a
knothole, for other there was none.

She heard nothing, save the latter part of the
last speech of Rainsford, about being made
a public example—of restoring the money to
those to whom it once belonged; and above all,
the never to be forgotten words; “Take the
money, so you only make a good use of it.” And
she resolved within her secret soul to take special
care that this last injunction was complied with.

Master Paddock remained on the exact spot
where he had been left by Rainsford, cogitating
on the full and free confession he had just heard
from that wicked, yet inconsiderate youth, as he
now felt satisfied he was. “`To those to whom
it once belonged.' These were his very words.
Then he must have robbed and murdered at least
two persons! What a diabolical young sinner!

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I wish I had made him pay double for keeping
his secret. But never mind, I'll get more out of
him, I warrant. And when I've got all I can,
why I'll quiet my conscience by getting the
young rascal hanged.”

Having come to this righteous conclusion, he
turned round, and turning saw the head of Holofernes
within what is called striking distance, for
it certainly struck him dumb.

“My dear,” quoth the enchanted head, “how
much money did Mr. Rainsford give you to keep
his secret?”

“Pooh! What money? what secret?”

“Ah! heigho!—what a wicked world this is.
Now, who'd have thought such a nice young man
was a—”

“A what?”

“Hem—ah!—heigho!—it's a very scandalous
world. I sometimes almost wish I was out of it.
But come now, tell me how much money you got
for keeping the secret; now do, Zeno!” and she
fawned on him like a roaring lioness.

“Pooh! pooh!—nonsense. I've got no money—
how should you know any thing about it?”

“Why, then, if you must know, I'll tell you. I
happened to be in the next room, and I happened
to hear every thing you said, and I know all
about it. There now, are you satisfied? Heigho!
what a wicked world we live in!”

“Why then, if you know all, I may as well tell
you, I suppose.”

“Yes, yes—do, do, do—oh!” and she discovered
such an itching curiosity, that the shrewd Zeno
was convinced she pretended to know more than
she really did; whereupon, he coolly replied,—

“But now I think of it, if you do really know

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all, there is no occasion to waste time in telling
you.” And so saying, he walked out of the room
with the air of a man having money in his pocket,
which, we presume, is what is called the air noble.

Had it not been for one single resource, Mrs.
Judith would have undoubtedly burst the boiler
of her curiosity, and exploded into scalding steam
instead of tears. People who live in the great
world, surrounded by excitements of a thousand
various kinds, and with a thousand resources for
passing away the time, can form no idea of the
biting curiosity of a real full-blooded village gossip,
who, having little employment at home, has
no other resource for passing the idle hours than
prying into the affairs of her neighbours. It becomes,
not only a passion, but the master passion
of the soul, and swallows up all the others, as the
rod of—no, hang it! that's too musty—as the
mighty Mississippi swallows up a hundred mighty
streams.

Next to the pleasure of gaining a secret, that of
telling it is held the most delectable; nay, some
who have investigated this matter more deeply
are inclined to the opinion that the after-pleasure
of telling, like the dessert of a modern lady's dinner,
is the better part of the feast. However this
may be, there is no doubt in our minds that Mrs.
Judith Paddock would have met with a catastrophe,
had she not forthwith solaced her disappointment
at failing to get at the whole secret by
communicating the portion she did know, to the
first person she could get to listen to it, which unfortunately
happened to be Miss Virginia Dangerfield.
She sought that young maiden, who, in
truth, could scarcely bear the sight of her since
the communication of this being such a wicked

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world, such a scandalous world. She never
saw her coming across the way without feeling
a shivering presentiment of some unwelcome
news; but such is the strange inconsistency of
human nature, that she still would linger and
listen, though perhaps every word was a dagger
to her heart. There is a sort of supernatural fascination
in fear, and, above all, in horrible realities.
The gentlest, tenderest portion of the human
race, that portion whose charity is untiring, whose
pity never dies—need I name woman?—which is
the most fearful, the most apprehensive, the most
delicate, dwells with most intense interest, and
lingers most devotedly over the page where
horrors are accumulated on horrors, and wickedness
is displayed in the most atrocious colours
of utter abandonment. We see decent women
thronging from all parts of the country to
witness the last agonies of a dying villain who
falls a merited sacrifice to the sanctity of the laws
and the safety of society; not because they are
cruel, but that they are attracted by the grateful
horrors of the scene, fascinated by the witchcraft
of the terrible. All our readers will probably
recollect occasions when some horribly disgusting
or exquisitely painful exhibition of the vices or
infirmities of human nature in its lowest stage of
degradation and misery has suddenly presented
itself. They have turned away in thrilling horror
as they passed; yet, strange to tell, curiosity,
or rather the fascination of the terrible, has
wrested from them by force a single glance, and
that glance has impressed the scene so keenly on
the imagination, as to haunt it by day and appear
as a spectre by night for a long while afterwards.

It was thus with Virginia, who, while she

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shrunk with averted mind from the mere idea of
the possibility of the suspicions of Mrs. Judith
being true, was yet irresistibly impelled to listen
to every new surmise and every questionable circumstance
that, while it increased her doubts,
added to her sufferings. Already had that struggle
between the heart and the reason commenced
in her mind, to which it falls to the lot of so
many gentle beings either to yield unresisting victims,
or, if victors, to conquer at the price of the
loss of all that vivacity of hope, that thrilling
sense of pleasure, which makes us look up from
the dark valley of the shadow of old age with
a long, lingering, wishful eye, at the sunshiny
region of youth, from which we have imperceptibly
slidden for ever.

To such croaking ravens as Mrs. Judith, there
is nothing so grateful as to excite surprise, wonder,
pleasure, pain, any striking or violent emotion;
it is all one to them, provided they can
excite something. Indifference gives them the
fidgets irretrievably. Mrs. Judith had for this
reason particular pleasure in telling Virginia any
thing which was calculated to increase her suspicions
of Rainsford, for she saw it created the most
intense and painful interest. She began, as usual,
with the eternal gossip cant of the wickedness of
this world, the propensity to scandal, &c. &c., and
finally disclosed, not only what she had heard, but
what she imagined of what she had not heard of
the conversation between Rainsford and Master
Zeno, not by any means omitting the large sum
of money the former had given her husband to
keep his secret. “If it is not a wicked and abominable
secret, why should he bribe my Zeno to

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keep it? Ah! heigho! what a wicked world,
what a scandalous world we live in?”

Poor Virginia! what a situation was thine, and
what a struggle hadst thou to go through in order
to hide, if possible, in the folds of thine innocent
heart the poisonous asp that lay coiled there instilling
his deadly poisons!

“You don't seem well somehow, Miss Phiginny,”
said this mischievous incendiary, after sitting
in simpering hypocritical sympathy, watching
the war of feelings reflected in the changeful
countenance of the young maiden; “you don't
seem well. Let me advise you to take some
spring physic—some yerbs; do now, dear Miss
Phiginny. Ah! heigho! this is a wicked, a scandalous
world!” and the woman departed to watch,
but not to pray.

Mrs. Dangerfield came in a few minutes after,
and found Virginia sitting still, and white as a
statue, unconscious of existence. She started
as her mother entered, and, throwing her arms
about her neck, melted into a quiet shower of
tears.

“My dear Virginia, what is the matter with
you?”

“I don't know; I cannot tell you now, my dear
mother; but in a little while, as soon as I know
more, you shall know all.”

“In your own good time, my daughter; but
remember, there are no sorrows, no perplexities,
no wishes, no disappointments which a virtuous
and obedient daughter ought to keep long from
the ear of a kind, affectionate mother.”

“You shall know all; I promise you shall know
all as soon as I know it myself.”

“I am content, dear Virginia; and now cheer

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up, for I see Mr. Rainsford has returned from his
visit to Bushfield, and is crossing over this way.”

The young lady retired for a few minutes, and
met Rainsford with an effort to be cheerful.

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