The Beauty of the Village | Page 5

creature as innocent as she is lovely,--who pretends to feel a pure and genuine passion for this pure and too-believing girl, passes his evenings, his nights, in drinking, in gambling, in debauchery of the lowest and most degrading nature. He is doubtless at this very instant at the wretched beer-shop at the corner of the common--the haunt of all that is wicked, and corrupter of all that is frail, 'The Foaming Tankard'. It is there, in the noble game of Four Corners, that the man who aspires to the love of Hannah Colson passes his hours.--Lucy, do you remember the exquisite story of Phoebe Dawson, in Crabbe's Parish Register?--such as she was, will Hannah be. I could resign her, Heaven knows, grievous as the loss would be, to one whom she loved, and who would ensure her happiness. But to give her up to Edward Forester--the very thought is madness!"
"Surely, brother, she cannot know that he is so unworthy! surely, surely, when she is convinced that he is so, she will throw him off like an infected garment! I know Hannah well. She would be protected from such an one as you describe, as well by pride as by purity. She cannot be aware of these propensities."
"She has been told of them repeatedly; but he denies the accusation, and she rather believes his denial than the assertion of her best friends. Knowing Hannah as you do, Lucy, you cannot but remember the petulant self-will, the scorn of contradiction and opposition, which used half to vex and half to amuse us in the charming spoilt child. We little dreamt how dangerous that fault, almost diverting in trifles, might become in the serious business of life. Her mother and brother are my warm advocates, and the determined opponents of my rival; and therefore, to assert what she calls her independence and her disinterestedness, (for with this sweet perverse creature the worldly prosperity which I valued chiefly for her sake makes against me,) she will fling herself away on one wholly unworthy of her, one whom she does not even love, and with whom her whole life will be a scene of degradation and misery."
"Will he be to-night at the Foaming Tankard?"
"He is there every night!"
At this point of their conversation the brother was called away; and Lucy, after a little consideration, tied on her bonnet, and walked to Mrs. Colson's.
Her welcome from William Colson and his mother was as cordial and hearty as ever, perhaps more so; Hannah's greetings were affectionate, but constrained. Not to receive Lucy kindly was impossible; and yet her own internal consciousness rendered poor Lucy, next perhaps to her brother, the very last person whom she would have desired to see; and this uncomfortable feeling increased to a painful degree, when the fond sister, with some diminution of her customary gentleness, spoke to her openly of her conduct to James, and repeated with strong and earnest reprehension, all that she had heard of the conduct and pursuits of her new admirer.
"He frequent the Foaming Tankard! He drink to intoxication! He play for days and nights at Four Corners! It is a vile slander! I would, answer for it with my life! He told me this very day that he has never even entered that den of infamy."
"I believe him to be there at this very hour," replied Lucy, calmly. And Hannah, excited to the highest point of anger and agitation, dared Lucy to the instant proof, invited her to go with her at once to the beer-house, and offered to abandon all thoughts of Edward Forester if he proved to be there. Lucy, willing enough to place the fate of the cause on that issue, prepared to accompany her; and the two girls were so engrossed by the importance of their errand, that they did not even hear Mrs. Colson's terrified remonstrance, who vainly endeavoured to detain or recal them by assurances that smallpox of the confluent sort was in the house; and that she had heard only that very afternoon, that a young woman, vaccinated at the same time, and by the same person with her Hannah, lay dead in one of the rooms of the Foaming Tankard.
Not listening to, not even hearing her mother, Hannah walked with the desperate speed of passion through the village street, up the winding hill, across the common, along the avenue; and reached in less time than seemed possible the open grove of oaks, in one corner of which this obnoxious beer-house, the torment and puzzle of the magistrates, and the peat of the parish, was situated. There was no sign of death or sickness about the place. The lights from the tap-room and the garden, along one side of which the alley for four-corners was erected, gleamed in the darkness