The End of the World: A Love Story

  CHAPTER XXI.

  THE HAWK IN A NEW PART.

  Humphreys was now in the last weeks of his singing-school. He had becomea devout Millerite, and was paying attentions to the not unwillingBetsey Malcolm, though pretending at Anderson's to be absolutelyheart-broken at the conduct of Julia in jilting him after she had givenhim every assurance of affection. And then to be jilted for a Dutchman,you know! In this last regard his feeling was not all affectation. Inhis soul, cupidity, vanity, and vindictiveness divided the narrowterritory between them. He inwardly swore that he'd get satisfactionsomehow. Debts which were due to his pride should be collected byhis revenge.

  Did you ever reflect on the uselessness of a landscape when one has noeyes to see it with, or, what is worse, no soul to look through one'seyes? Humphreys was going down to the castle to call on the Philosopher,and "Shady Hollow," as Andrew called it, had surely never been moreglorious than on the morning which he chose for his walk. The black-hawbushes hung over the roadside, the maples lifted up their greattrunk-pillars toward the sky, and the grape-vines, some of them fourand even six inches in diameter, reached up to the high boughs, fifty ora hundred feet, without touching the trunk. They had been carried up bythe growth of the tree, tree and vine having always lived in eachother's embrace. Out through the opening in the hollow, Humphreys sawthe green sea of six-feet-high Indian corn in the fertile bottoms, thetwo rows of sycamores on the sandy edges of the river, and the hazyhills on the Kentucky side. But not one touch of sentiment, not aperception of beauty, entered the soul of the singing-master as hedaintily-chose his steps so as to avoid soiling his glossy boots, and ashe knocked the leaves off the low-hanging beech boughs with his delicatecane. He had his purpose in visiting Andrew, and his mind was benton his game.

  Charon, the guardian of the castle, bayed his great hoarse bark at theHawk, and with that keen insight into human nature for which dogs are soremarkable, he absolutely forbade the dandy's entrance, until Andrewappeared at the door and called the dog away.

  "I am delighted at having the opportunity of meeting a great light inliterature like yourself, Mr. Anderson. Here you sit weaving, earningyour bread with a manly simplicity that is truly admirable. You are likeCincinnatus at his plow. I also am a literary man."

  He really was a college graduate, though doubtless he was as much of ahumbug in recitations and examinations as he had always been since.Andrew's only reply to his assertion that he was a literary man was arather severe and prolonged scrutiny of his oily locks, his daintymustache, his breast-pin, his watch-seals, and finally his straps andhis boots. For Andrew firmly believed that neglected hair, Byroncollars, and unblackened boots were the first signs of literary taste.

  "You think I dress too well," said Humphreys with his ghastly smirk."You think that I care too much for appearances. I do. It is a weaknessof mine which comes from a residence abroad."

  These words touched the Philosopher a little. To have been abroad wasthe next best thing to having been a foreigner _ab origine_. But stillhe felt a little suspicious. He was superior to the popular prejudiceagainst the mustache, but he could not endure hair-oil. "Nature," hemaintained, "made the whole beard to be worn, and Nature provides an oilfor the hair. Let Nature have her way." He was suspicious of Humphreys,not because he wore a mustache, but because he shaved the rest of hisface and greased his hair. He had, besides, a little intuitiveperception of the fact that a smile which breaks against the rock-boundcoast of cold cheek-bones and immovable eyes is a mask. And so hedetermined to test the literary man. I have heard that Masonic lodgeshave been deceived by impostors. I have never heard that a literary manwas made to believe in the genuineness of the attainments of acharlatan.

  And yet Humphreys held his own well. He could talk glibly andsuperficially about books; he simulated considerable enthusiasm for thebooks which Andrew admired. His mistake and his consequent overthrowcame, as always in such cases, from a desire to overdo. It was afterhalf an hour of talking without tripping that Andrew suddenly asked: "Doyou like the ever-to-be-admired Xenophanes?"

  It certainly is no disgrace to any literary man not to know anything ofso remote a philosopher as Xenophanes. The first characteristic of agenuine literary man is the frankness with which he confesses hisignorance. But Humphreys did not really know but that Xenophanes waspart of the daily reading of a man of letters.

  "Oh! yes," said he. "I have his works in turkey morocco."

  "What do you think of his opinion that God is a sphere?" asked thePhilosopher, smiling.

  "Oh! yes--ahem; let me see--which God is it that he speaks of, Jupiteror--well, you know he was a Greek."

  "But he only believed in one God," said Andrew sternly.

  "Oh! ah! I forgot that he was a Christian."

  So from blunder to blunder Andrew pushed him, Humphreys stumbling moreand more in his blind attempts to right himself, and leaving, at last,with much internal confusion but with an unruffled smile. He dared notbroach his errand by asking the address of August. For Andrew did notconceal his disgust, having resumed work at his loom, suffering thebowing impostor to find his own way out without so much as acourteous adieu.