about noon
This seeming denial , while it suggested to him ideas of novelty , provoked his curiosity and kindled his pride . The haughty glance with which she encountered his second approach , aroused his vanity , and a latent desire arose in his heart , to overcome one who had shown herself so premature in her defiance . We will not venture to assert that the young traveller had formed any very deliberate designs of conquest , but , it may be said , as well here as elsewhere , that his self-esteem was great ; and accustomed to easy conquests among the sex , in the region where he dwelt , it was only necessary to inflame his vanity , to stimulate him to the exercise of all his arts . It was about noon , on one of those bright , balmy days , early in October , when `` the bridal of the earth and sky , '' in the language of the good old Herbert , is going on -- when , the summer heats subdued , there is yet nothing either cold , or repulsive in the atmosphere ; and the soft breathing from the southwest has just power enough to stir the flowers and disperse their scents ; that our young traveller was joined in his progress towards Charlemont , by a person mounted like himself and pursuing a similar direction . At the first glance the youth distinguished him as one of the homely forest preachers of the methodist persuasion , who are the chief agents and pioneers of religion in most of the western woods . His plain , unstudied garments all of black , rigid and unfashionable ; his pale , demure features , and the general humility of his air and gesture , left our young skeptic little reason to doubt of this ; and when the other expressed his satisfaction at meeting with a companion at last , after a long and weary ride without one , the tone of his expressions , the use of biblical phraseology , and the monotonous solemnity of his tones , reduced the doubts of the youth to absolute certainty . At first , with the habitual levity of the young and skeptical , he congratulated himself upon an encounter which promised to afford him a good subject for quizzing ; but a moment 's reflection counselled him to a more worldly policy , and he restrained his natural impulse in order that he might first sound the depths of the preacher , and learn in what respect he might be made subservient to his own purposes .