Back Aa

Opening a Chestnut Burr

Close

<h2 id="id00486" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER IX</h2> <h5 id="id00487">MISS WALTON RECOMMENDS A HOBBY</h5> To Gregory's surprise he waked and then admitted to himself that, contrary to his expectation and purpose, he had been asleep. His last remembered consciousness was that of sweet, low music; and how long ago was that? He looked at his watch; it was nearly two, and he must have slept several hours. He glanced around and saw that he was alone, but the fire still blazed on the hearth, and the afghan infolded him with its genial warmth as before, and it seemed that although by himself he was still cared for. "She is a witch," he muttered. "Her spells are no jokes. But I will investigate her case like an old-time Salem inquisitor. With more than Yankee curiosity, which was at the bottom of their superstitious questionings, I will pry into her power. But she will find that she has a wary sceptic to convince. I have seen too many saints and sinners to be again deceived by fair seeming." A broad ray of sunlight shot across the room. "By my soul! it's clearing off. Is this her work also? Has she swept away the clouds with her broomstick? And there goes the dinner-bell, too;" and he went to his room two steps at a time, as he had done when a boy. Annie coming out of the sitting-room at that moment, smiled and said: "He must be better." At the table she asked, "How do you find yourself now?" "Much given to appetite." Then, turning to Mr. Walton, he said, abruptly, "Do you believe in witchcraft?" "Well, no, sir," said Mr. Walton, a little taken aback. "I do!" continued he, emphatically. "When and where have you had experience of the black art?" "This morning, and in your house, sir." "You seem none the worse for it," said his host, smiling. "Indeed, I have not felt so well in months. Your larder will suffer if I am practiced upon any more." "Well, of all modern and prosaic results of witchery this exceeds," said Annie, laughing, "since only a good appetite comes of it." "It yet remains to be seen whether this is the only result," replied Gregory. "What possessed the old Puritans to persecute the Salem witches is a mystery to me, if their experience was anything like mine." "You must remember that the question of what was agreeable or otherwise scarcely entered into a Puritan's motives." "I am not so sure of that," he answered, quickly. "It has ever seemed to me that the good people of other days went into persecution with a zeal that abstract right can hardly account for. People will have their excitements, and a good rousing persecution used to stir things like the burning of Chicago or a Presidential election in our day." "Granting," said Annie, "the bigotry and cruelty of the persecutor—and these must be mainly charged to the age—still you must admit that among them were earnest men who did from good motives what appears very wrong to us. What seemed to them evil and destructive principles were embodied in men and women, and they meant to destroy the evil through the suffering and death of these poor creatures." "And then consider the simplicity and ease of the persecutor's method," continued Gregory, mockingly. "A man's head has become full of supposed doctrinal errors. To refute and banish these would require much study and argument on the part of the opponent. It was so much easier to take an obstinate heretic's head off than to argue with him! I think it was the simplicity of the persecutor's method that kept it in favor so long." "But it never convinced any one," said Annie, "and the man killed merely goes into another world of the same opinion still." "And there probably learns, poor fellow, that both were wrong, and that he had better have been content with good dinners and a quiet life, and let theology alone." "The world would move but slowly, if all men were content with 'good dinners and a quiet life,'" said Annie, satirically. "But you have not answered my question. Could not good, earnest men have been very cruel, believing that everything depended on their uprooting some evil of their day?" "To tell the truth, Miss Walton," he replied, a little nettled, "I have no sympathy with that style of men. To me they are very repulsive and ridiculous. They remind me of the breathless, perspiring politicians of our time, who button-hole you and assert that the world will come to an end unless John Smith is elected. To me, the desperate earnestness of people who imagine it their mission to set the world right is excessively tiresome. For one man or a thousand to proclaim that they speak for God and embody truth, and that the race should listen and obey, is the absurdity of arrogance." "If we were to agree with you, should we not have to say that the prophets should have kept their visions to themselves, and that Luther should have remained in his cell, and Columbus have coasted alongshore and not insisted on what was to all the world an absurdity?" "Come, Miss Walton," said Gregory, with a vexed laugh as they rose from the table, "you are a witch. I am willing to argue with flesh and blood, but I would rather hear you sing. Still, since you have swept away these clouds so I can have my ramble, I will forgive you for unhorsing me in our recent tilt." "If you would mount some good honest hobby and ride it hard, I doubt whether any one could unhorse you," she replied in a low tone, as she accompanied him to the parlor. "Men with hobbies are my detestation, Miss Walton." "Nevertheless, they are the true knights-errant of our age. Of course it depends upon what kind of hobbies they ride, or whether they can manage their steeds." "Miss Walton, your figure suggests a half-idiot, with a narrow forehead and one idea, banging back and forth on a wooden horse, but making no progress—in other words, a fussy, bustling man who can do and talk but one thing." "Your understanding of the popular phrase is narrow and literal, and while it may have such a meaning, it can also have a very different one. Suppose that, instead of looking with languid eyes alike upon all things, a man finds some question of vital import, or a pursuit that promises good to himself and to others and that enlists his interest. He comes at last to give it his best energies and thought. The whole current of his life is setting in that direction. Of course he must ever be under the restraints of good sense and refinement. A man's life without a hobby is a weak and wavering line of battle indefinitely long. One's life with a hobby is a concentrated charge." There was in Miss Walton's face and manner, as she uttered these words, that which caused him to regard her with involuntary admiration. Suddenly he asked, "Have you a hobby?" Her manner changed instantly, and with an arch look she said, "If you detest a man with a hobby, what a monster a woman with one would be in your eyes!" "I have admitted that you are a witch." "Oh, I am a monster already, and so have no character to lose. But where is your penetration? If a man with a hobby is idiotic, narrow-browed, fussy and bustling, excessively obtrusive with his one idea, a woman must be like him with all these things exaggerated. Has it not occurred to you that I have a hobby of the most wooden and clumsy order?" "But that was my idea of a hobby. You have spiritualized my wooden block into a Pegasus—the symbol of inspiration. Have you such a hobby?" "I have." "What is it?" She went out of the room, saying smilingly over her shoulder, "You must find that out for yourself." <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2