“Your intention, if I take it rightly, is to
get this poor girl into your power, and then to force
her into a marriage,” said Hugh Crombie.
“It is; and I think I possess the means of doing
it,” replied his comrade. “But methinks,
friend Hugh, my enterprise has not your good wishes.”
“No; and I pray you to give it over,”
said Hugh Crombie, very earnestly. “The
girl is young, lovely, and as good as she is fair.
I cannot aid in her ruin. Nay, more: I must
prevent it.”
“Prevent it!” exclaimed the traveller,
with a darkening countenance. “Think twice
before you stir in this matter, I advise you.
Ruin, do you say? Does a girl call it ruin to
be made an honest wedded wife? No, no, mine host!
nor does a widow either, else have you much to answer
for.”
“I gave the Widow Hutchins fair play, at least,
which is more than poor Ellen is like to get,”
observed the landlord. “My old comrade,
will you not give up this scheme?”
“My old comrade, I will not give up this scheme,”
returned the other, composedly. “Why, Hugh,
what has come over you since we last met? Have
we not done twenty worse deeds of a morning, and laughed
over them at night?”
“He is right there,” said Hugh Crombie,
in a meditative tone. “Of a certainty,
my conscience has grown unreasonably tender within
the last two years. This one small sin, if I
were to aid in it, would add but a trifle to the sum
of mine. But then the poor girl!”
His companion overheard him thus communing with himself,
and having had much former experience of his infirmity
of purpose, doubted not that he should bend him to
his will. In fact, his arguments were so effectual,
that Hugh at length, though reluctantly, promised his
cooperation. It was necessary that their motions
should be speedy; for on the second day thereafter,
the arrival of the post would bring intelligence of
the shipwreck by which Mr. Langton had perished.
“And after the deed is done,” said the
landlord, “I beseech you never to cross my path
again. There have been more wicked thoughts in
my head within the last hour than for the whole two
years that I have been an honest man.”
“What a saint art thou become, Hugh!”
said his comrade. “But fear not that we
shall meet again. When I leave this valley, it
will be to enter it no more.”
“And there is little danger that any other who
has known me will chance upon me here,” observed
Hugh Crombie. “Our trade was unfavorable
to length of days, and I suppose most of our old comrades
have arrived at the end of theirs.”
“One whom you knew well is nearer to you than
you think,” answered the traveller; “for
I did not travel hitherward entirely alone.”
“A naughty night to swim in.”—Shakespeare.
