Prologue. The Thread of Life and Death.
[figure description] Prologue.[end figure description]
WHEN a stranger, under guidance and protection of
police, or a home missionary, fearlessly breaking
bread with outcasts, penetrates some gloomy court or
narrow alley in the great Christian city of New York, he
beholds destitution and squalor of most repulsive feature:
he discovers tottering buildings crowded with sickly and
depraved human beings; stalwart, malign-looking men,
glancing furtively at every passer-by; brazen-browed women,
with foul words upon their reeking lips; children
of impure thoughts and actions, leering with wicked precocity.
When he enters the wretched abiding-places of
these unhappy people, he may find, amid associations of
vice and uncleanness, many suffering and patient souls
-- 010 --
[figure description] Prologue. Page 010.[end figure description]
bearing earthly martyrdom with serene trust in their
Heavenly Father, and plucking, even out of their “ugly
and venomous” adversity, the “jewel” of immortal peace.
Such struggling ones do not dwell long in the darkness
and dolor of their probation; for the celestial ladders,
let down from Mercy's throne, rest quite as often upon the
black pavement of a tenant-court as amid the flowers that
tesselate a palace garden; and up, unceasingly, on the
shining rounds, glide disenthralled spirits of the poor and
lowly watchers for their Lord.
There were many strange occupants in the old houses
which formed the row called “Foley's Barracks,” fronting
on a street in the eastern quarter of the city. Six buildings
were joined, side by side, to form this row, and on the
ground floor of every building were four rooms. Through
each building ran a passage-way, four feet in width, and
on either side of this passage-way doors opened into the
four rooms. Every building was five stories in height, and
each floor was a duplicate in plan of the one below or
above. Through the six buildings ran the six passage-ways
to a rear court, or well, of twelve feet in width, separating
the six front buildings from six similar ones in the
rear. In the front row of “Foley's Barracks” were
twenty-four apartments on a floor, and in the rear twenty-four
upon a floor, and in both buildings were ten floors;
consequently, there were four hundred and eighty apartments
in the two rows, and one-half of these were closets
without light or air, in which the tenants of Foley's
Barracks were supposed to sleep—to the number,
-- 011 --
[figure description] Prologue. Page 011.[end figure description]
probably, of one thousand persons—men and women, and children
of every age.
It may well be supposed, then, that a variety of people
dwelt in such a population; some whose methods of life
were questionable or precarious, or altogether bad; others
who toiled incessantly, and more who idled time, and
begged their scanty means of subsistence. It is plain, also,
that hundreds of little children must dwell in such a
crowded locality; children, with voices varying from a
babe's thin treble to the changing tones of adolescence.
It would be curious to speculate as to places, and society,
and habits, whence each family had emerged long
since, before its members became tenants of Foley's Barracks.
What strange life-histories would be thereby
unveiled!—what changes of fortune!—what fearful alternations
of mortal suffering! But it is only one Historian
who readeth unerringly the intricate secrets involved in
the existence of His humblest subjects. Suffice it that no
leaf is blotted, no recorded word erased, of all the multitudinous
chronicles of the lowliest poor!
Nevertheless, dear Human Heart that beatest tenderly
for thy kind, we will go together—thou and I—to the
pavement of Foley's Barracks, and descend to its damp
and noisome cellars, where, as in dim rooms above, the
likenesses of their Maker dwell in dens unfit for brutes.
Go down those broken steps, where the green mould collects
in every crevice, and pass into a dark, cold vault,
with water submerging its rotten flooring. Step with
care, now; treading from brick to brick of a row placed
on their edges, to form a sort of causeway from the cellar
-- 012 --
[figure description] Prologue. Page 012.[end figure description]
entrance to an arch in the rear, where lies a straw bed,
spread upon two thin boards which are raised by bricks
above the water's level. Close your eyes one moment,
that the darkness may be less when you look again, and
then glance toward the straw bed.
But your ears have already caught the cry of a new-born
child; another soul ushered into the world upon that
bed of straw, in a cellar submerged with water. You
advance, and your vision, a little more accustomed to the
obscurity, discovers that the new-born babe clings to the
breast of a dead mother! The woman died last night of
cholera. Turning to the right, you will see two other
corpses—that of a husband and son of the orphan babe's
mother. Presently the policeman will arrive and discover
the dead, and bear away the infant—sole remnant of a
family of paupers.
You have seen enough! No? Follow me, then, out of
the death-vault, to the warm air of a summer's twilight.
Before us a servant girl, in holiday attire, is leading by the
hand a toddling child, just essaying its first steps. But
you notice that the girl herself staggers, as if inebriated.
It is true: she has been visiting a “gossip” in yonder
tenant-house, and indulged in a glass of liquor which has
overcome her. It is her mistress's babe that she drags
along; a blue-eyed, angelic-looking infant, with golden
ringlets clustering on its white neck; it is worshipped by
its happy parents, and yet they intrusted its charge to the
drunken nurse who now staggers with it through the
streets, smouching its rich clothing with the dust in which
-- 013 --
[figure description] Prologue. Page 013.[end figure description]
it trails. Observe her closer; she totters, and with nodding
head, seats herself on yonder curb-stone, at the
mouth of that dark alley at the side of the tenant-house.
The weary babe ceases its cries, frightened at the nurse's
strange demeanor; while she, poor wretch, endeavors
vainly to recall her scattered senses. Presently, abandoning
the effort, and swaying back and forth, she drops to
sleep.
Now, behold, emerging from the black alley's mouth, a
grotesque and sordid figure—that of an old woman, bent
almost double, who carries a basket in one hand and a
long iron-hooked staff in the other. It is old Pris, the
Rag-Picker, whose evil eye is the terror of a superstitious
neighborhood. She approaches the intoxicated servant
girl, and stands grimly before her. The babe screams,
but its nurse awakes not, and the ancient crone grins
maliciously. Then, peering cautiously around, to be sure
that no observer is near, she disengages the babe's hand
from that of its unconscious nurse, and snatching the
innocent to her withered arms, hobbles away, and disappears
in the dark alley.
But the piercing screams of the child have aroused its
wretched nurse, who starts wildly up, misses her charge,
and, with a shriek, rushes wildly through the street, unknowing
whither. When she has gone, the old Rag-Picker
again creeps from the alley, with the babe in her
arms, not clothed as before in garments of fine linen and
velvet, but wrapped in a muddy and dingy blanket-rag,
which already soils its pure skin and draggles its golden
locks with the filth of the pavement. The hag leers about
-- 014 --
[figure description] Prologue. Page 014.[end figure description]
her cautiously, and then depositing the child on the curbstone,
totters away with her hook and basket, gloating
meanwhile, over the theft she has committed, and on the
price which the pawnbroker will pay for an infant's costly
garb.
Meanwhile the baby remains on the side-walk, while
the evening shadows gather fast. The intoxicated nurse
has fled away, half frantic. Presently, a policeman or
other passer-by will discover the foundling, and bear it
away.
Here, now, O Human Heart! are two babes; one born
of a dying mother, on the straw of the submerged cellar;
the other suckled amid luxury and refinement, and idolized
by its doting parents; both now naked, abandoned,
exposed to famine—waifs on the world's great stream.
Expound me now the problem: whither go the pair?
who shall unravel me the thread of the rich offspring and
the thread of the poor offspring? O Human Heart! let
us watch and wait.
Nay? thou wouldst go farther? Follow me, then,
away from the vicinity of Foley's Barracks—away from
the crowded Tenant-House—through narrow and illlighted
streets, till we emerge upon the thoroughfares of
business, and thence to the Avenues, where long rows of
princely mansions, with gardens and conservatories, lofty
ceilings, and broad casements, permit the balmy evening
air to penetrate every room, and disperse an aroma of
luxury in keeping with the magnificence that reigns
-- 015 --
[figure description] Prologue. Page 015.[end figure description]
throughout. As we saunter towards this elegant locality,
we look up to the heavens and behold a fleecy
cloud, tinged with the purple hues of sunset. When we
left Foley's Barracks, that cloud rested directly above the
cellar wherein lay the victims of cholera: it has traversed
the sky, following us, and now, as the last sunbeam disappears
in the west, it pauses, darkly over-shadowing an
Avenue-palace, ready to descend with the night-damps,
and enter the gilded chambers.
Nay! it has already entered; for, as we pass over the
marble threshold, we encounter pallid faces, and eyes
swollen with watching and tears. A beautiful child lies
cold on its little bier, and the mother is dying upon pillows
of lace, while the stricken master of the house bows
his head, and will not be comforted.
O Human Heart! that fleecy, purple-hued cloud arose
from the exhalations of disease in the Tenant-House, and
was wafted by summer zephyrs over squares, and gardens,
to descend, loaded with pestilence, upon the mansion of
luxury and love. The cholera was born of the submerged
hovel, and released unto the air, to destroy the life and
beauty of a palace. Unravel me the thread so closely
woven between the poor and the rich; the babe and
mother of the Avenue, and the babe and mother of Foley's
Barracks; and the pestilence uniting them in death.
-- 016 -- p553-023
Chapter I. Footprints, and Where they led.
[figure description] Page 016.[end figure description]
SNOW, falling in myriads of sharp particles, filling the
air with white, cold fleeces, and hiding house-roofs
and tree-tops, lintels of doors, awnings, and piles of building-materials,
and all the great city-squares, under an
icy covering.
Snow driving wildly around street corners, drifting
over crossings, penetrating narrow alleys and cellar-openings,
blown against walls, driven into nooks and crannies
of piers and wharves, and only melting away in the black
waters of the river.
Snow clinging to box-coats of stage drivers, accumulating
on coach-tops and wheels, and about the fetlocks
of horses, and upon harness, and beating against close
carriage windows.
Snow thrashed into the faces of pedestrians, congealing
in hair and beard, collecting on collars and in mufflefolds,
and whirling in gusts around human feet hurrying
homeward.
The winter's evening had set in with a violent storm
of snow descending incessantly. People gathered in areas
-- 017 --
[figure description] Page 017.[end figure description]
and under shelter of porches, watching for slow-moving
omnibuses to drag along, and dropping in, one by one, to
the last vacant seat. Men and women, bundled in shawls
and cloaks, their faces half hid in scarfs, plodded stubbornly
forward, with bowed forms, breasting the ice-laden
blasts. Lamp-lighters climbed iron posts, brightened their
features a moment with jets of gas, and then obscured
themselves in grey darkness beyond. Wheels ceased to
sound upon the pave, dulled by clogging snow. Broad
entrances to theatres, lit with many-colored lights, opened
for play-goers, but few play-goers passed in. Even the
green woollen doors of bar-rooms swung not often to
admit a visitor.
Anon the shutters of stores were flung up clatteringly
by shivering lads, locks were turned, and bolts made fast,
and clerks hastened to lone chambers, and crept quickly
to bed, hearing the sleet whirled fiercely against their window
panes. A little later, the theatre fronts were darkened,
and lights went out, one after another, behind the
screens of bar-rooms; and at length the glazed doors of
hotels were barred by grumbling porters, who then betook
themselves to doze in arm-chairs; and at last, the
wretched street-wantons, latest wanderers, crawled away
to their sad habitations.
Then, to eyes that looked between parted curtains from
some sick room, or to the night-watch, cowering under
porches and peering outward through blinding mist, the
streets grew white and desolate. Carriage ruts now became
level, under multitudinous flakes of snow, and prints
of human feet could no more be discerned upon the
-- 018 --
[figure description] Page 018.[end figure description]
pavement. Still the snow fell, drifted, and gathered silently,
overspreading the great city with white loneliness.
Very solemnly, muffled by thick atmosphere, the tongues
of church clocks told the hour of twelve, clanging to one
another, as if complaining of the stormy midnight. The
watchers, gazing from sick-rooms, listened a moment,
counting the strokes, and then turned away, smoothing
the curtain folds, and muttering “Who would be out
in a night like this?” And the night-guardians shrunk
back under shelter, haply murmuring, “God help the
poor!”
Then it was that, to eyes which scanned closely those
deserted walks wherever the dark snow clung so shroudlike,
there might have been visible a line of footprints,
going from the mouth of a dark alley, in a squalid quarter
of the city, traversing narrow streets, up to the great
Broadway thoroughfare, thence past the closed hotels and
theatres, and entering at length the iron-gated, lonesome
Park; not heavy boot-marks, tramping the pave with
wide strides, but small, uneven tracks, as of a child's
unsteady feet.
One, two, three—prints small as the span of my lady's
fingers—five, six, seven, sinking in the snow; thus on:
hundreds of little tracks through the silent streets, clouds
of drift constantly obliterating the tiny traces of a baby's
feet, toiling painfully through the storm of a December
midnight. O, if sleeping mothers, in that hour folding
the beloved in their arms, could dream of such infant
footprints in the snow, how closely would the little ones
be gathered to their trembling hearts! how tears would
-- 019 --
[figure description] Page 019.[end figure description]
steal from under drooped eyelashes, moistening the innocent
cheeks that nestled closely to maternal lips.
One, two, three: little tracks inside the iron gates,
around which sleet was whirling in sharp eddies; then
along the drifted walks across to Nassau street, through
snowy darkness, and down beside the walls of a lofty
building whence lights shone out of high windows, and
wherein crashed incessantly, like strokes of iron flails, the
laboring machinery of steam-presses, printing news of all
the world—bulletins of battles and elections, records of
markets and stocks—but seldom or never a word concerning
such trifles as I now write about—a child's footprints
in the snow.
-- 020 -- p553-027
Chapter II. The Giant and the Dwarfs.
[figure description] Page 020.[end figure description]
IN cells under sidewalks, and caverns hollowed beneath
city streets, a powerful and subtle spirit is confined by
strong bars and bands of iron that baffle his efforts to
escape. This imprisoned spirit, in whose ethereal nature
the elements of fire and water are mingled, has been
made the servant of human skill and wisdom, so that he
bears heavy burdens, draws great ships and vehicles
through seas and lands, and whirls the axles of intricate
machines, obeying the will and performing the work of
mankind. Steam! the giant spirit, by whose aid nations
draw near to nations, knowledge becomes a thousand-fold,
thoughts wax numberless in the world, fast and silently
falling, like flakes of midnight snow!
The giant toiled mightily during the long hours—writhing
in iron cells beneath ice-bound pavement—swelling
against copper walls, and urging steel shafts before him,
to drive the whirling wheels of presses, stamping the news
of a world. His hot breath rose in clouds through
gratings in the walk above, melting the snow as it fell,
and warming the wintry air. And wherever those clouds
of hot moisture escaped through iron gratings, there
-- 021 --
[figure description] Page 021.[end figure description]
might be seen clustered a group of little children, in tattered
garb, with half-shod feet, and fingers cramped by
cold. Snow swept gustily on either side, but the gratings
were warm with ascending vapor, and there the shivering
children crept together, clinging to the damp bars, and
cowering away from the cruel storm. Like giant Steam
himself, they were slaves of the Press, which clanged and
thundered near. Their task was to watch for earliest
printed sheets, and scatter them far and wide through
city streets; crying, meanwhile, in childish treble, the
news of a mighty world—that world of which, too oft,
their own poor share was cold and hunger. It was sad to
behold those children—the dwarfs of the Press, as Steam
was its giant—crouching at such an hour in the streets of
a Christian city; and it was sadder still to think that for
them no mother's lullaby might thrill—no little sister's
prayer be lisped to heaven.
Yet, at this hour, amid the beating storm, there came a
seeker for one of that trembling group surrounding those
iron bars where rose the clouds of steam. Out from the
blasting drifts that swept unceasingly along the highway,
there suddenly crept a diminutive figure, with head and
body covered by an old plaid shawl, white with congelated
snow. This figure advanced slowly to the grating, and
lifting its thin arms, blue with cold, removed the shawl
from a face pale as alabaster, but very sweet and infantile
in feature.
“Is this Nassau street?”
The startled dwarfs rose quickly, as these words, murmured
by a gentle voice, fell upon their ears. They
-- 022 --
[figure description] Page 022.[end figure description]
stared a moment in silent amazement at the small being
who stood before them, shivering with cold, weighed down
by the snow that clung to her scanty garments, and
frightened, apparently, at her own boldness in addressing
them.
“Wot yer want, little girl?” at last demanded one of
them. “Wot yer doin' out in the snow, this time o'
night?”
“I want to find Robert Morrison. He's a newsboy,
and” —
“Ain't no newsboy o' that name here, little girl. Yer
better go home, or yer'll be took up.”
“O dear!” exclaimed the child, “what shall I do? He
said it was Nassau street. Isn't this Nassau street?”
“Wot yer say his name was?” asked another urchin.
“Robert Morrison,” said the child, sobbing.
“Ain't no sich feller round, I tell yer,” cried the dwarf
who had spoken first; but his curly-pated companion
interrupted him.
“I knows who yer mean,” he said, nodding encouragingly
to the weeping girl. “It's Bob the Weasel.”
“O, no,” cried the child, shaking her head, sorrowfully;
“it's Robert Morrison.”
“Well, what o' that? Bob the Weasel he's Rob
Morrison, an' Rob Morrison he's Bob the Weasel—
nothin' shorter.”
The urchins laughed at this sally of their comrade, who
thereupon began to brush the snow from their strange
visitor's threadbare cloak.
“Look, sissy, yer all kivered,” he said kindly. “Guess
-- 023 --
[figure description] Page 023.[end figure description]
yer been a-travellin'. Shet up—don't yer cry, cos I knows
where Bob the Weasel is! He's yer brother, ain't he?”
“No; I haven't any brother,” murmured the child.
“Wot yer want o' Bob?”
“Oh, dear, oh! My mother is dying, and Robert
knows her,” cried the little girl, wildly sobbing, and
hiding her face with her thin hands.
“Oh, my!” exclaimed the dwarf, regarding the weeping
child with wondering sympathy, while his companions
gathered near, in silence. “Is that so? Come along,
poor little sis, an' I'll take yer right away to Bob—I
mean Rob Morrison. He's close by! Don't cry; I'll
find Bob the—I mean Rob Morrison—in jes' one
minute!”
Saying this, the ragged urchin gave his hand kindly to
the stranger child, conducting her away from the grating,
out into the thick drifts that filled the air beyond.
And as she followed, her little feet sank in the dank
snow, tracking the impress of a child's travel—one, two,
three—even as they had tracked that night a thousand
footprints, alone, through the fearful storm.
Crossing the street, followed by the urchins whose sympathy
(poor dwarfs) rendered them careless of exposure,
the two children reached another sidewalk, where an iron
railing protected passers-by from stumbling down a dozen
steep steps which descended to the basement of a large
building. On this sidewalk the snow had gathered in
uneven drifts, momently changing as the wind caught up
its surface in fantastic wreaths. Pausing here, the dwarf,
who still held the hand of his new acquaintance, whistled
-- 024 --
[figure description] Page 024.[end figure description]
shrilly, and, after listening a moment without hearing a
response, approached the railing and called loudly, “Bob!
Bob!—Weasel!” The girl peered timidly down the steps
that were dimly visible in the faint light of a corner lamp,
and beheld a movement of some dark object in the area
beneath. She drew closer then, and, bending over the
railing, saw what is common enough in that locality, yet
very sad to see.
Partially shielded by the masonry of the steps and
lintels of a vault door below, several boys had nestled
together for warmth and protection from the tempest.
They were doubled and locked in each other's arms, and
sleeping calmly—dreaming, it might be, of green fields
and sunny waters, through the long hours of that inclement
night. One lying upon another, in layers of two and
three, those young outcasts—homeless and friendless, save
in mutual destitution—were slumbering peacefully, like
happier children who, on downy beds, were lulled with
prayers and sweet “good-nights.” And, by the flickering
gas-light, it could be seen that, upon the sordid garments
of those who lay uppermost, the snow-flakes, blown between
the railing, were collected in white bars, just as they had
fallen on the motionless bodies.
“W-e-a-sel!”
Another movement was perceptible in the heap of life
below, and then a fragment disengaged itself, and emerged
upward. It was a very small boy, whose puny proportions
were more than hinted at in the name applied by his
companions. He was narrow-shouldered, with spare frame
and delicate limbs, and a face that was childish, yet
-- 025 --
[figure description] Page 025.[end figure description]
appeared old and weazen. Vexed at being disturbed in
his nap, he muttered sulkily, rubbing his eyes—
“Wot makes yer wake a feller up for?” But, noticing
the little girl among the rest, his tone altered at once,
and he caught her cold hand within his own, saying—
“Fanny! O poor Fanny! how is your mother?”
“Oh! Robert,” responded the child, breaking into
quick sobs, as she clung convulsively to the ragged
urchin, “Oh! dear Robert—mother is all cramped, and
can't speak.”
The wind swept up sharply from the rivers, bearing
new clouds of bleaker snow; but it seemed to moan for
the poor babe, even while piercing icily through her thin
garments. Bob the Weasel tightened the shawl about
her shoulders, and spoke low and soothingly. Presently,
she became calm as before, and then the Weasel drew
her tenderly by the hand, leading her away into the darkness,
whilst his comrades, the dwarfs, crept back to the
grating where rose the breath of their fellow-slave, the
giant Steam. Here, with much marvelling, they talked
together of the scene just witnessed, and of the strange
child who had come to seek the Weasel. Meantime, that
small creature himself toiled up through the drifted street,
supporting his shivering little friend; up to silent Broadway,
where, during the last hour, the snow had been
blown into great hillocks, high almost as the children's
heads, and making barriers across the pavements. Here
the Weasel stopped, and said—
“O Fanny! What a hard place! But I can carry
you, if you'll let me.”
-- 026 --
[figure description] Page 026.[end figure description]
“Oh, no, Robert—I can walk!”
“Jes' le' me try! You're so tired, poor Fanny, and
I'm famous strong.”
Then the old-faced urchin, lifting a form that was yet
smaller and lighter than his own, put forth all his strength,
and carried Fanny through the drift, many times staggering
beneath his fragile burden.
“Don't any more, Robert! you'll hurt yourself.”
“Nary bit! Let's go on,” said the Weasel, breathing
hard. “I could carry you all the way home.”
But Fanny slid from the feeble arms that sustained her,
and then, hand in hand, the wandering ones struggled
forward.
“I wonder you wasn't lost, Fanny,” said the Weasel.
“How in the world could you find your way in all this
snowy night?”
“I was afraid to stay alone,” answered Fanny; “and
you said, if mother”—. A fresh burst of tears checked
her words.
“Yes—I said, if your mother got worse, to come and
find me. But, O Fanny, I didn't believe it would snow so!”
“I couldn't get lost, 'cause I remembered where the
Park was; and when I got to it, I heard the presses
going.”
“Oh! that's the way you found me! My! what a
bright girl you are!” the Weasel said, admiringly. “But
it's too bad a night for a feller to be out, let alone a little
girl like you!” Bob straightened himself, as he said this,
endeavoring to look taller than usual; but his poor
weazen face was not much higher than Fanny's.
-- 027 --
[figure description] Page 027.[end figure description]
“I was so frightened, Robert, and cried so much!
And then I thought I'd go for you.”
“All right, Fan! you knew I wasn't afeard! But it
was too far for you.”
“Ah! Robert,” sobbed the little girl, “I didn't know
anybody else to go for.”
A gust of wind swept by, seeming to take up those
words of the lonely child, and whistle them wildly to the
night. Nobody to go for—no one to seek, in all the
great city, but—Bob the Weasel!
And then the little feet plodded on; and their prints—
one, two, three—became marked in the snow of Broadway.
But drifts followed fast, soon covering up, and
effacing for ever, those slight tracks of infant travel. Will
the footprints of their lives be so easily hidden? Does
not every human foot impress, for good or ill, its pathway
through the world—pathway which the drifts of eternal
winters have no power to cover or obliterate?
-- 028 -- p553-035
Chapter III. Kolephat College.
[figure description] Page 028.[end figure description]
THE glittering garniture of snow which covered old
roofing, and concealed dilapidated walls, in the square
of tottering tenant houses of which Mordecai Kolephat
was proprietor, and Peleg Ferret “agent” and collector
of rents, did not and could not hide the squalid misery
contained within its gloomy precincts. Already, though
it was yet early morning, and the grocery at the corner
not open to its poverty-tricken customers, there were
evidences of life stirring in the purlieus of “Kolephat College.”
There was a dirty track in the snow, leading from
the street to an open front door, and thence up a narrow
staircase, dark and steep, conducting to small, confined
apartments, ventilated only by broken panes of glass.
This track had been made by the passing of many feet
since daylight—feet of rag-pickers and bone-gatherers,
sallying out to root and dig under the snow for cast-a-way
scraps which were to them the material of existence;
feet of beggar-children and old men, going forth to plod
through drifted snow to the areas of rich men's kitchens,
there to solicit a customary dole—barrier between them
and starvation; feet of night-toilers or unhappy
-- 029 --
[figure description] Page 029.[end figure description]
drunkards and street-wanderers, creeping home at dawn to
shiver into scant-covered beds; feet of hard-working
shop-girls, and seamstresses, and washer-women, hurrying
to labor, with a single crust to stay their hungry stomachs.
Yes! long before Peleg Ferret opened his grocery-door
and took down his window-shutters, a well-beaten pathway,
begrimed by dirty feet, had marked the ingress and
egress of Kolephat College tenants.
Peleg Ferret was tolerably well-to-do in the world, and
looked-up-to, accordingly, as a thriving chandler and good
citizen. His “store” was very dirty, and extensively
patronized, not only by the promiscuous population under
his peculiar charge, but by a variety of nondescript customers,
who dwelt in several blind lanes and crooked
passages which intervened between his particular locality
and the jurisdiction of a Dutchman, who kept an opposition
grocery at a square's distance. Peleg was known as
a stirring politician of his ward, and likewise as a hard
creditor: attending primary meetings punctually, and
presenting weekly bills promptly. He prided himself upon
being a “blunt man,” and quoted freely from the ancients
such aphorisms as “Be just before you are generous,” and
“Charity begins at home.” He was the resident agent
of Mr. Kolephat's property in and around “Kolephat
College,” and it was, in fact, his own delicate fancy which
had bestowed this name upon the square of tumblingdown
tenements that his equally happy satire dignified
with the name of “dwelling-houses,” forming a dingy close
from end to end of a brick-paved alley, running beside his
corner-store. Mr. Ferret rented these tenements, to be
-- 030 --
[figure description] Page 030.[end figure description]
sure, “rather promiscu'sly,” as he was wont to observe,
when jocose—being only particular upon one essential
point, namely, that every applicant should exhibit the
possession of sufficient goods, chattels, etc., as might warrant
security for the payment of one month's rent, expense
of “settling” included. In consequence of this “wise
precaution,” which Mr. F. aphoristically declared to be
“the parent of security,” as well as from the fact that his
method of “settling” was to the last degree summary
(comprising the prompt ejectment of tenant and locking
up of tenant's domicil, goods secured), this provident
grocer and faithful agent seldom suffered by delinquent
debtors. Moreover, being a bachelor, he “lived in chambers,”
occupying a couple of rooms framed in a loft above
his grocery, and thus established a sort of reconnoitring
post, whence a constant surveillance could be exercised
over the vagabond denizens of Kolephat College and its
rickety surroundings. By this means, he contrived to
gain timely notice of any movement betokening bad faith
on the part of a tenant; no vagrant chair, bench, or stool
being allowed to pass the corner barrier without watchful
observation and prompt detention by himself or the moonfaced
shop-boy, who was kept on the lookout; for Mr.
Ferret estimated every item of miserable furniture used by
tenants to be inventoried solely for the landlord's ultimate
benefit, representing so much collateral, not to be interfered
with by insatiate pawnbrokers. Seldom did a week
elapse without witnessing the transfer of some last pauper
comfort, from a suddenly-vacated apartment to the capacious
storeroom of the grocer, there to be appraised and
-- 031 --
[figure description] Page 031.[end figure description]
held for rent, while its despairing owner was ejected to
seek shelter, where shelter alone could be found—in the
poorhouse. Occasionally, indeed, a spirit of obstinacy, or
perhaps a slight inkling of legal points, on the part of
debtors, constrained Peleg to “due course of law;” but,
in general, he encountered little difficulty in impressing his
evil-doing lodgers with such wholesome terror, that they
were glad to escape his justice, even with the loss of all
their wretched possessions.
Mr. Peleg Ferret enjoyed another strategic pleasure by
reason of his proximity to Kolephat College—a pleasure
equally combined with profit, inasmuch as it enabled him
to learn the habits, means of life, and general domestic
history of his tenants. There was a passage leading from
the cellar of his store to damp vaults beneath the tenant-house,
by which, whenever he wanted, he could penetrate
into the dark entries above, and possess himself of much
valuable information, at a small expense of time in eavesdropping.
This innocent recreation acquainted the prudent
agent betimes with the condition of desponding
debtors, enabling him to detect incipient bankruptcy in
season for his own personal security.
The tenant-house itself was an interesting field of
exploration, being one of original construction and economical
apportionment, as well as wholly guiltless of “all
the modern improvements.” The primary portion of it
had been used as a church, in times when churches were
built of less costly materials than at present are used;
and the copings and clapboards, mildewed and wormeaten,
which formed the ancient walls, had been
-- 032 --
[figure description] Page 032.[end figure description]
afterwards pierced with narrow windows and doors, and
corridored and staircased with unhewn pine, to afford
means of climbing from base to roof. Within, cheap
floors and ceilings spanned the wide area, once occupied
by pews and gallery, and thin partitions of panels, or
laths and plaster, intersected each other, cutting up every
available foot of space into narrow rooms or cells, in
which human beings were expected to exist, without light
or air, save the niggard apology for those elements received
through cramped passages and dirt-obscured casements.
In this collection of wooden dens (as Mr. Peleg
Ferret knew by his tenant-book) there dwelt one hundred
and thirty odd families, comprising more than four hundred
individuals of all sexes, ages, and complexions, in a
matter of one hundred divisions, as they might be termed,
made by the board and lath partitions. In those dens,
moreover, ate and drank (when they had wherewith), slept
(when the cold or vermin permitted), suffered, fought,
revelled, blasphemed, toiled, prayed hopelessly, and died,
year by year, scores upon scores of human beings, in the
guise of men, women, and children, of whom the world
knew nothing, save through coroners' inquests, policereports,
or pauper statistics, and of whom Mr. Kolephat
and Mr. Ferret cared nothing, save to collect of them
inexorably the monthly extortion of rent.
In the summer season, when flowers bloom and harvests
wax golden, and orchards rock with luxuriant fruitage—
when the merchant leaves his ledger, the mechanic his
bench, the student his books, to run out upon the hill-side
and catch short breaths of heaven's air—in such balmy,
-- 033 --
[figure description] Page 033.[end figure description]
fragrant summer-time, Peleg Ferret could always find his
wretched tenants “at home.”
At home! in the stifling, noisome dwelling-dens of
Kolephat College—at home, amid infection, fever-damp,
corruption; at home, with no blessed breeze of heaven,
no fragrance, no bloom, but only one horrible, life-wasting
malaria!
But in the winter months, Peleg Ferret did not always
find his tenants at home! Sometimes, when he entered
that crowded tenant-house, unwelcome even as the biting
wind, there came no response to his demand; for the fearful
inmates of some desolate room had crawled out, amid
frost and snow, to beg or steal, appalled at the approach
of hunger and darkness. Then Peleg would watch craftily,
or set his moon-faced shop-boy as scout to intercept the
returning wretch, and clamor for the rent. At other
times, the agent would get no answer to his demand, because
the lonely tenant within was dead. Then Peleg
would grumble, send for a policeman, and calculate his
profit and loss. But as a general thing, the grocer, as we
have said, did not lose much; for he tracked and worried
his tenants till they feared the sound of his creaking boot.
He was a faithful agent, this Peleg Ferret, and though he
saw his tenants dragging their weak bodies to soup-houses,
to struggle for scanty charity—though he encountered on
the stairs of Kolephat College hundreds of desperatelooking
people—lean children, and haggard-faced mothers,
and palsied old men—Peleg failed not to collect his rent.
He was a faithful steward!
Yet they were not all vile and vicious who dwelt in
-- 034 --
[figure description] Page 034.[end figure description]
Kolephat College. Sometimes—far up in dens under the
mouldering roof, or in clammy vaults in the horrible basement—
there were dwelling pure souls and honest hearts;
pure and honest amid crime and misery surrounding
them. But Peleg Ferret, as a faithful agent, knew
no difference between the good and bad, save the difference
in rates of the dens, which he rented for the
sums of four, six, and eight dollars per month, respectively.
So, therefore, it was with a business-like air that his
creaking boots sounded on the thresholds of the various
doors of the tenant-house, about an hour after sunrise,
and a while, even, before his moon-faced clerk had fairly
removed the grocery-shutters, and placed that intricate
establishment in order for custom. It was a maxim of
Mr. Ferret, that “the early bird catches the worm,” and,
in illustration of its wisdom, he was always “up and
round,” as he expressed it, at the earliest hour of rentday.
With leather-covered book, in which the immutable
accounts of landlord and tenant were scored, in figures
ominous to the latter, when poverty pressed hard, the
grocer entered each dingy passage, ascended each narrow
staircase, knocked at each shaking door, with a consciousness
of power and determination of executing it, that
none but a faithful agent, such as he, could feel. Then it
was that suppressed pleadings might be overheard by
listeners in Kolephat College—pleadings of distress, cut
short by abrupt rebukes and stern threatenings; then it
was that perishing women became faint, and Peleg said
they were “shamming;” and ghastly, half-starved men
-- 035 --
[figure description] Page 035.[end figure description]
told of sickness and no work, and Peleg said they were
drunk and lazy.
On the third story of the tenant-house, and at the
extremity of a long narrow, and dark passage, the agent
knocked at a door twice, without receiving any response,
and then pushing it rudely, caused the worm-eaten woodwork,
which held the inner hasp, to give way suddenly,
allowing him entrance. The room was damp, and so
dimly lighted by its single window, which opened within
five feet of a brick wall in the rear, that for a moment
Peleg found it difficult to distinguish any object within.
Presently, however, as he paused near the threshold, peering
curiously about, he caught sight of what appeared to
be a bundle of dirty clothing rolled up at the edge of the
hearth, upon which a pile of cold ashes rested between
two bricks that had served for andirons. Peleg advanced
toward this bundle, and discovered, what he suspected,
that it contained human life. Two children, clasped in
each other's arms, were wrapt in a tattered coverlid and
dirty piece of carpet, and sleeping so soundly that the
alarm and approach of Ferret did not awaken them. The
agent struck the bundle with his foot.
“Hillo, there!—what's all this? What are ye doing
here, young 'uns?” he said, as he kicked away the covering
from the two children. “Stir your stumps, vagabonds,
and let's know where your mother is!”
At the first tones of the man's voice, the little heads
had started suddenly from their recumbent position, and
the frightened eyes were lifted to encounter Peleg's scrutinizing
gaze. Then the youngest of the children burst
-- 036 --
[figure description] Page 036.[end figure description]
into tears, and covered her face with her thin, trembling
hands.
“Here! come, now, none o' that! where's your mother?
Don't she know her rent's due? I let her off a week
ago, when she couldn't pay in advance; but I can't let
her up no longer. Where's she gone so airly?—ch?”
“She's gittin' her purse out to pay yer,” here interposed
the other child, with a look of undisguised malice
levelled at the agent. “Look there, mister! don't you
see her?” With these words, he pointed a bony arm
towards a sort of recess in the darkest corner of the dingy
apartment.
Peleg Ferret looked in the direction indicated, and saw
a truckle-bed, on which a few shreds of covering were
apparently drawn together near its foot-board, but no
form was visible upon the straw mattress.
“Don't yer see her? she's a-waitin' to pay yer,” reiterated
the urchin, who had now risen from beside his weeping
companion, and stood, with his weasen face lifted
towards that of Ferret, who remained silent. Then, shuffling
over the floor, to the bed, the boy drew away a
portion of the rags at its foot, and disclosed the corpse
of a woman, not recumbent, as the dead should lie, but
with cramped limbs, drawn up, the knees almost in contact
with the chin, and the body half fallen from the low
bedside to the floor. Peleg Ferret, hardened as he was,
and accustomed to sights of misery, slarted at this frightful
spectacle, and uttered an exclamation of horror.
“D'yer want her to pay yer?” asked the boy, fixing
his small eyes upon the agent, with a glance that made
-- 037 --
[figure description] Page 037.[end figure description]
the latter almost tremble, as it seemed to look into his
sordid soul. But the man of business recovered himself
instantly.
Such occurrences as death in a tenant-house were not
so rare as to impress Mr. Ferret with any long-continued
emotion; and though the sudden disclosure of the contorted
form, indicative as it was of a violent and painful
death, had for a moment agitated him, the purport of his
morning visit did not escape his mind. It was rent-day,
and he had come to collect his dues, like a faithful agent,
as he was. Consequently, his next impulse was a purely
mechanical one, suggesting a mental inventory of the
articles which constituted the wretched movables of the
apartment. Computation was not, indeed, difficult; for,
save the miserable truckle-bed and sordid mattress, no
other furniture but a deal table, a pine stool, and child's
small chair, with a few domestic utensils, and an old chest,
were to be discovered in the poor apartment. On the
table, stuck in a broken bottle, was the last fragment of a
tallow candle, which had flickered its dying rays upon the
closing convulsions of the poor woman—its light going
out with hers.
Peleg Ferret, as he glanced hurriedly upon the corpse,
on whose white brow the trace of agony was yet visible,
did not trouble himself to fancy how terrible must have
been the moment of dissolution, when that departing
mother looked last upon her orphan child, left to a cold
world's neglect; he did not annoy himself with reflecting
how, through the long dark hours, those little ones had
cowered tremblingly in the death-chamber, crouching
-- 038 --
[figure description] Page 038.[end figure description]
beside the perishing embers, until at length, exhausted
with watching, they had sunk to slumber on the cold
floor.
Peleg Ferret was not given to sentiment, and he had
witnessed poverty, and disease, and death in tenant-houses
before. Nevertheless, as he peered calculatingly over the
apartment, the agent began to experience an uncomfortable
sensation, becoming aware that every motion of
his eye was watched by the quick glance of the boy who
had so jeeringly called his attention to the truckle-bed.
There was an oldish, precocious meaning in the lad's eye,
and a pertinacity in his regards, which so aroused Mr.
Ferret's temper, that he turned abruptly on the weazenfaced
urchin:
“Ye young vagabond,” he cried, catching him by the
collar of his threadbare jacket, “come, now, what are ye
up to?”
The boy replied only with a leer, that served to exasperate
the agent, who shook him roughly a moment, and
then recoiled, with a muttered expletive, from a well-directed
kick which the youngster dealt upon the tenderest
portion of his knee-joint. At the same instant, a
movement on the part of the other child diverted Ferret's
attention. Still sobbing bitterly, the little girl had risen,
and was reaching for a broken tea-cup which stood upon
a jutting edge of the fire-place. As she lifted it, the
agent's quick ear caught the chink of silver, and he hastily
released his hold of the boy's collar.
“Well, sis—what's that? Something to pay the rent?
Eh, sis?”
-- 039 --
[figure description] Page 039.[end figure description]
“My mother put it away, for to pay the rent,” sobbed
the child.
“Ah, you don't say so! That's right! Come, now,
your mother was right honest, wasn't she, sis?” said Peleg,
blandly, as he possessed himself of the broken tea-cup
which the girl held out to him; but the boy rushed
forward, and snatched it suddenly from his hand.
“Don't let him have it, Fan! It's yours, and yer ain't
got nothin' else,” he cried, transferring the few silver
coins which the vessel contained to his own hand; “you've
got more right to it than old Ferret has.”
Fanny remained silent and trembling, amazed at the
temerity of her companion, and impressed with a doubt as
to her own correctness in yielding the tea-cup with its
contents to Peleg Ferret. That worthy himself could with
difficulty credit his senses, in witnessing the hardihood of
the diminutive urchin, who so boldly confronted him.
“Yer ought ter be ashamed, yer mean old thief!” muttered
the latter. “Yer want ter take a poor orphan
child's last shillin', yer do.” Then, turning reassuringly
to the girl: “But he shan't do it, Fan—ye needn't be
afeard.”
“Oh, Robert—it was for the rent, mother said,” exclaimed
the child, with a new burst of tears.
“I know'd that,” replied the newsboy, shaking his
head. “I know'd how your poor mother tried to scrape
all she could together, last week—a wearin' her eyes out,
an' gettin' cramp colic, workin' all night on them ile-cloth
pantaloons an' shirts at four cents a-piece. I know'd all
about that, Fanny,” —
-- 040 --
[figure description] Page 040.[end figure description]
Here Bob the Weasel brushed away a mist from his
eyes with one hand, while he held the silver change tightly
in the other.
“Look here, youngster,” interrupted Peleg Ferret,
“you aren't one o' the family? You aren't brother to
this ere little 'un!”
“No! I ain't, but I'm goin' to be,” rejoined Bob the
Weasel, straightening his slight form. “She ain't got no
one to purtect her—and I'll purtect her.”
The agent glanced a moment from the small, old-faced
child, whose eyes flashed as he uttered the last words, to
the yet smaller orphan, of whom, with a spirit worthy of
ancient knighthood, he avowed himself the champion,
and who testified her appreciation of such a defender by
another gush of tears. To Peleg Ferret, the scene began
to present puzzling features, and he gave expression to
his astonishment in a prolonged whistle.
“Be you witches?” the agent half-muttered between
his teeth, as he surveyed the two children. Then, with an
effort at temporizing, as the best means of proceeding, he
continued: “Did your mother die last night, sis? She
was right honest, wasn't she, to tell you to pay the
rent?”
“I say, now, yer ain't goin' to get it,” cried Bob the
Weasel, fiercely. “Ye're tryin' to coax that little girl,
but it ain't no go. Her mother died o' cramp colic, 'cause
she was hungry, and a'most friz, too; and now yer want
to take a few shillin's she's left. Yer ain't no man, or
yer wouldn't think o' sich mean business.”
This last appeal of the Weasel, delivered in vehement
-- 041 --
[figure description] Page 041.[end figure description]
language, seemed to reach some chord of feeling, either
of shame or sympathy, in the agent's bosom; for he
hastily shifted his position, and muttered:
“If the woman was so poor, why didn't she say so?
It can't be helped now, rent or no rent. What's to come
o' this little girl, youngster?”
“Yes jes' let the little girl alone, will yer?” returned
the newsboy.
“Who's to bury her mother?” suggested the agent.
“Potter's Field, I s'pose!” said Bob the Weasel, at
which rejoinder Peleg Ferret emitted another expressive
whistle.
“Well, if you ain't one of 'em,” he cried, surveying the
small newsboy, with a wondering stare. “What do you
know about Potter's Field?”
“Ain't I poor? say!” was the reply of Bob the
Weasel. “Oughtn't poor folks to know where they're
goin' to!”
“You're too much for me—that's so,” said the agent,
soliloquizingly, as he turned away. “Well, you take care
o' this little girl, and I'll send for the coroner. That's
the quickest way to fix it.” Saying this, Peleg left the
children to themselves.
The orphan Fanny listened tearfully, as Peleg Ferret's
heavy boots tramped, step by step, away from the apartment,
and down the narrow stairs, which he descended in
search of a policeman. Bob the Weasel took her kindly
by the hand, and tried, in his quaint way, to comfort her,
by renewed assurances of his protection.
“Old Ferret shan't hurt yer—don't be afeard, Fanny,”
-- 042 --
[figure description] Page 042.[end figure description]
said he; and, in answer, the child looked at him through
her blinding tears, and murmured:
“Oh, Rob! what's Potter's Field? Must mother be
put in Potter's Field?”
“That's where they put poor folks! But don't cry,
Fanny.”
“Must my mother be put there?” asked the orphan,
sobbing bitterly.
“Don't cry—don't cry, Fanny!” said the newsboy,
striving to appear very stout-hearted; but as he uttered
the cheering sentence, a sob came up in his throat, and
choked the last word.
“O robert—you are crying yourself!” exclaimed the
orphan, with renewed grief; and at the discovery, her
head fell heavily on the boy's coarse jacket, which smothered
the quick sobs breaking thickly from her breast; while
tears, that could no longer be checked, gushed from the
Weasel's eyes, and fell fast upon the poor little forehead
that hid itself in his bosom. Still, however, the newsboy
whispered soothing words, and presently, with an instinct
of sympathy that was strangely delicate, lifted his desolate
little charge across the damp floor, and placed her by
her mother's lifeless form. The grey light of morning
crept dimly through the discolored window panes, and
painted ashy hues upon the rigid features of the dead;
but, as the children's eyes fell upon them, it almost seemed
as if the stamp of agony which had impressed the cold
lips gave place, for the moment, to a placid smile for the
orphan. Fanny clasped her thin hands together, as the
newsboy supported her, and said to him, suddenly—
-- 043 --
[figure description] Page 043.[end figure description]
“Robert! I want to pray.”
“What for?” asked the Weasel.
“I want to ask the Lord to help us, Robert.”
“That ain't no good. The Lord don't know us.”
“O Robert! don't you ever pray to the Lord?”
“No? what for?”
“Not to be put in Potter's Field,” exclaimed the orphan,
with a new burst of grief. “O Robert! I don't want
poor mother to be put in Potter's Field.”
“Don't you cry, Fanny! You and me is both orphans
now! We ain't nu'ther of us got any father or mother—
have we, Fanny?”
“No, Robert,” returned the child; then, looking timidly
in his face, she added, “Yes, Robert, I think we have
a Father!—God is our Father!”
“Who says so?”
“My mother told me so! Mother said God was the
Father of orphan children, and we're both orphan children,
Robert—you said so, just now.”
“That's so, Fanny.”
“Oughtn't we to pray a little, Robert?”
“I dunno how.”
“Don't you know `Our Father which art in Heaven?”'
“No! I never heard anybody pray! How should I
know?”
“Please say `Our Father' with me, Robert! I think
I'll feel better if I do. Say, `Our Father which art in
heaven,”' —
“`Father which art in heaven!”'
“`Hallowed be thy name!”'
-- 044 --
[figure description] Page 044.[end figure description]
“`Hallowed be thy name!' What's that mean, Fan?”
“I don't know, exactly, Robert—but it's good! Mother
used to pray so.”
“Well, go on, Fan.”
“Blowed if them children ain't a playin' on the bed,”
cried a rough voice, as a burly man, in the garb of a
police-officer, appeared on the threshold, accompanied by
Mr. Ferret and the coroner. “Hillo, youngsters! aren't
ye ashamed to he making sport o' your poor dead
mother?”
At this untimely interruption, the frightened girl slid
from the bedside, on which the Weasel had lifted her, and
shrank weeping into the corner. The newsboy stood his
ground, with a glare of defiance at the intruders.
“Here, you—just you give up that money you stole!”
said the policeman, looking sternly at the boy.
“What money?”
“The money that was in the tea-cup,” interrupted
Ferret.
“It's hers,” answered the Weasel, with a significant
jerk of his head towards the corner where Fanny had
taken refuge.
“Just you give it up, and no gammon,” said the policeman.
“We'll settle who it belongs to.”
“He's a cute 'un,” whispered Ferret, as the newsboy
appeared to hesitate. “Reg'lar `old head on young
shoulders.”'
“Jes' you shet up, yer old thief!” muttered the Weasel.
“Will you give it up, or go to the station-house?”
asked the policeman, sententiously, winking alternately, to
-- 045 --
[figure description] Page 045.[end figure description]
the agent and the coroner, with his dexter and sinister
eye.
“I won't do nu'ther,” suddenly ejaculated the newsboy;
and then, springing forward like a cat, he darted under
the uplifted arm of the representative of law, and bounding
against Mr. Ferret with such force as to destroy that
individual's equilibrium entirely, disappeared in the dark
passageway beyond, and the next moment was heard
jumping down the staircase.
“Stop thief!” yelled the policeman; and “Stop thief!”
echoed the agent, as he recovered from his overthrow;
and immediately there rose from the entry below, and the
alleyway without, a confusion of discordant cries, followed
by a rush of squalid men and women to the open door of
the death-chamber.
Then the inquest went on; and neighbors who dwelt in
poverty, and filth, and darkness, on every floor of the
tenant-house, beneath, around, and above, gathered about
the bed of a tenant who had paid her last debt. The
little child, terrified and sorrowing, was interrogated by
the pompous coroner, and related how her mother had died
from cramps, in the night, speechless and agonized; how,
during a week previous, she had stitched clothing for oilsuits,
working all the days and most of the nights, to earn
sufficient to pay her week's rent; how they had shivered
from cold, and eaten only crust and water; until the night
before, when “mother was taken with cramps,” and the
child had gone for a penny's worth of tea, and mixed a cup
for her mother; how the poor woman had suffered afterwards,
without fire or medicine, because her week's
-- 046 --
[figure description] Page 046.[end figure description]
earning were laid by in a broken cup for the “rent,” next
morning; how, finally, the child had become frightened,
and gone out in the storm to seek her only acquaintance,
Robert Morrison.
“And who was this Robert Morrison?” the coroner
asked.
He was a newsboy who had found a penny which the
child had lost in the street, when going for milk one day,
and, on the strength of a few weeks' acquaintance, had
become somewhat of a protector. Robert had told her to
come for him, if her mother grew worse, and she had
sought and brought him home; but only in time to see
her poor mother die.
“He's not so bad a boy, after all,” said the policeman,
rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand; while Mr.
Ferret went on to testify that he had known deceased five
weeks; she had paid her first month's rent in advance,
but had begged off on the second, and he had “let her
up” a week; and the week was just passed, but that boy
had run away with the rent-money; didn't know anything
else about deceased; wasn't in the habit of inquiring
about tenants, only as to ability to meet rent: a good
many tenants had cramps and rheumatism in Kolephat
College.
“Whose daguerreotype was that which was found
clasped in the hand of deceased?” the coroner inquired.
Mr. Ferret said it was of no value—an old one, in a
broken case; the child said it was a picture of her mother,
and begged that it might be given to her. “Mother gave
it to me,” she said. At this juncture, the burly
-- 047 --
[figure description] Page 047.[end figure description]
policeman took out his handkerchief, blew his nose with great
force, and exclaimed vehemently—
“Blowed if the child shan't have that picter, any how.”
So the inquest went on, and a permit was made out
for burial in Potter's Field.
-- 048 -- p553-055
Chapter IV. The Weasel and Samson.
[figure description] Page 048.[end figure description]
THE cry of “stop thief!” served only to quicken the
motions of Bob the Weasel, who dashed down the
uneven and rickety stairs, and through narrow passages,
out into the brick-walled court, with a celerity not inferior
to that of the little animal whose name had been applied
to him by his fellow-newsboys. The tenants scarcely
noticed his agile and diminutive figure, ere it had emerged
from their neighborhood, and was flying down an adjoining
street, over heaps of unshovelled snow. Arrived at a
point which he judged to be beyond danger, Bob paused
to recover breath, and, kicking away the drift upon a
door-step, sat himself down to rest, just as a somewhat
older lad darted around the adjoining corner, crying the
morning papers at the top of his voice.
“Hillo, Weasel!” ejaculated the latter, recognizing a
fellow-professional: “where's your papers? Is you retired
from business, Weasel?”
“Sellin' papers is all up, this mornin', I'm afeared,”
returned Bob. “But I haven't bought none, and so I
shan't be stuck.”
“Nobody's out—that's a fact,” rejoined the other,
-- 049 --
[figure description] Page 049.[end figure description]
lugubriously. “All the streets is blocked up, and no cars
don't run nu'ther.”
“Give us half a dozen, and I'll sell 'em anyhow,” said
the Weasel, drawing some change from his pocket. “Two'
Eralds, and two Times, and two Tribunes! yes, and two
Suns, if you like, Smokyback.”
The Weasel made this demand with a very business-like
air, and it was responded to in like manner by his
confrère, who counted out the papers, received the change,
and was off, the next instant, in chase of a pedestrian
whom he discovered plodding through an opposite snowbank.
Bob counted his purchase with great deliberation,
and was about to resume his travel, when the door before
which he had seated himself opened slowly, and an old
man appeared on the threshold.
“Paper, sir—mornin' papers?” were the quick exclamations
of the Weasel, the instant that his sharp eye caught
a glimpse of the moving door.
“Yes, lad—come here!” replied the old gentleman,
whose figure was bent almost double, and who leaned on
an ivory-headed cane. His attire was a threadbare camlet
cloak, fastened about the neck by clasps of brass, and a
suit of rusty black, well-patched and worn shiny, like the
cloak. His head was covered with a broad-brimmed napless
hat, beneath which his grey curls escaped, falling on
either side of the face. His eyes were of a clear blue,
and very bright, and there was a ruddy hue on his cheek,
and a gentle expression about the lips, that struck the
Weasel as very pleasant to see.
“Come in, my lad, to the hall; for I have yet to make
-- 050 --
[figure description] Page 050.[end figure description]
out the change,” said the old man. “Samson has gone
early to the post-office, and the carrier left us no paper
this morning.” He began to fumble in his pocket, as he
said this.
“Please, sir, it's such a bad storm, the carriers has a
hard time,” suggested Bob, encouraged, by the old gentleman's
invitation, to edge forward, and step upon the doormat.
“Yes, yes—it was indeed a terrible storm! Ah! here
is a shilling! Yes—a grievous storm! God help the
poor! Here, my boy—can you make change? Yes!
God pity those who must be out in such storms!”
The Weasel looked up scrutinizingly to the old gentleman's
face, and saw his eyelids wet, as with a tear, and at
that moment Bob forgot to count, penny by penny, the
change which he was tendering for a shilling piece.
“Please, sir,” he said, hesitatingly, and scratching the
door-mat with his half-shod feet, “I—I was out in that
storm, last night, and”—
Here the Weasel stopped short, alarmed at his own
boldness; but the expression of the old gentleman's face
was reassuring.
“Bless me, child! what were you doing out?” exclaimed
the latter.
“With a little girl—arter one o'clock, in the big drifts
down Broadway!—a little girl so-high!” cried the Weasel,
indicating the supposed stature of Fanny by a motion
of his hand downward, to the floor.
“Poor children! Were you lost?” inquired the aged
man, with much simplicity.
-- 051 --
[figure description] Page 051.[end figure description]
“No, sir!” answered Bob, with emphasis; “you can't
git me lost, nohow.”
“What were you doing away from home, my little
boy?”
“Home!” repeated Bob, with a curious expression on
his face, as he let his glance fall to the door-mat, “supposin'
a feller hain't got no home?”
“My gracious!” exclaimed the old gentleman, compressing
his lips, and elevating his brows, to examine the
newsboy more attentively. “Do you tell me you have no
home, my child? Where, then, do you live?—where do
you sleep?”
“Sometimes in a wagon, and sometimes in a barrel,”
returned the Weasel, sententiously.
“Bless me!” cried the old gentleman, drawing a long
breath, as he continued to survey the curious little figure
before him. Then, shaking his head, while a sad expression
came over his benevolent countenance—“I fear you
are telling me untruths,” he added, solemnly.
“No, I ain't,” cried Bob, raising his voice, and looking
straight upward to his companion.
“I hope not, my boy,” said the latter. “But what you
tell me is very improbable. Have you no parents?”
“Nary one,” answered Bob.
“What is your name?”
“Which name?”
“Why, bless me! the name you go by!”
“Bob the Weasel.”
“There, now!” exclaimed the old gentleman, getting
quite red in the face. “You are I fear, a sad little boy!
-- 052 --
[figure description] Page 052.[end figure description]
you are making game of me! It is very wrong—very
wrong, my lad! Now, go!—there! I'm sorry—very
sorry!”
Bob felt his temper rising, and he was about to reply
angrily, with some expletive such as should demonstrate
his feelings; but as the old man turned his head, the
newsboy saw that a big tear was staining the ruddy
cheek.
“My! what a funny old cove!” he said to himself, and
with this reflective observation, was about to retire, when
he bethought him that he still held the change for his
customer's shilling.
“Here's your change, mister,” said the Weasel.
“Keep the money, boy, and never tell falsehoods any
more! It's wrong—very wrong!”
“You be blowed!” cried Bob, indignantly; and, flinging
the pennies at the old man's feet, the sprang, with a
loud whoop, through the open door, just in time to dash
himself full against the stomach of an old negro man
of herculean proportions, who had just ascended the
steps.
“Sakes alive!” ejaculated the new-comer, as the newsboy's
thin form rebounded from his own, almost doubling
him, at the same time, like the old gentleman within.
“What am dat?” Then, recovering himself, he stepped
cautiously in, and glanced with astonishment about him.
“Poor lad! is he hurt? Look, Samson—look!” cried
the master, observing that the newsboy lay without motion
on the floor. The negro stooped, and lifting the weazen
face, saw that it had become ghastly pale, and that blood
-- 053 --
[figure description] Page 053.[end figure description]
was slowly trickling from a cut which had been inflicted
by a projecting moulding of the cornice.
“Bress de chile?” exclaimed the black; “what for he
dash hisself agin me? O massa! I'se feared he quite
dead! Ugh!”
“Nonsense, Samson! lift him gently, and carry him
into the library. Dear me! this is so painful! Poor
child! Was he frightened at me!”
Saying this, the old gentleman hurried through the hall,
in advance of the negro, who lifted the Weasel like an
infant in his strong arms, and carried him gently to the
library, where burned a bright fire of sea-coal, while a
sofa, piled with cushions, was wheeled to one side of it.
On this sofa the wounded lad was placed, while the master
rang a little silver bell, which was immediately answered
by the appearance of an old lady, clad in a black stuff
gown, with a spotless kerchief crossed over her bosom,
and a high-starched cap crowning her evenly-parted grey
hair. This matronly-looking personage paused in astonishment,
as she beheld the object on the sofa, and clasping
her hands together impressively, exclaimed:
“Laws! me! what a dirty child!”
“Please to look at the child's head, for the present,
madam,” remarked the old gentleman, somewhat stiffly.
“I fear he is hurt seriously.
“And what an old face for a child!” pursued the lady,
as she inspected the Weasel more closely.
“Bless me, madam! have you no feeling? Can you
not see the boy is wounded? Here, Samson! Samson!
go for a doctor, at once, as Mrs. George is so critical!”
-- 054 --
[figure description] Page 054.[end figure description]
Samson rolled up his eyes, as if in astonishment at his
master's unwonted agitation; and Mrs. George herself
seemed to be rebuked; for she proceeded at once to
adjust the pillows under Bob's head, and then bustled
away to procure sponge and water to bathe the “beggar's
head,” as she mutteringly expressed herself, though not
loud enough to reach the master's ears.
“I fear Mrs. George has not proper feeling,” said the
old gentleman, sadly. “But, I dare say she knows more
than I about these boys. Samson, what do you think this
child said?—that he has no home, and sleeps in—bless
me!—in a barrel!”
“Berry likely, massa!” rejoined the negro, showing his
white teeth.
“What, what, Samson! was it true, do you think?
And his name, he said, was—`Bob the Weasel!”'
“Berry probably, massa. Dey gib sich quare names to
de newsboys. Dat am sartain, massa.”
“Goodness! then I must have wronged the poor child;
and he was not telling untruths, at all. Poor boy! poor
boy!”
The old gentleman, all unheedful of the dirt which
Mrs. George found so distasteful, here patted softly the
matted hair of the newsboy, as it fell over his pallid
cheek; at which caressing movement, Mrs. George, entering,
at the moment, with washes and linen, could not
repress an expression of alarm.
“Mercy on us, Mr. Granby!—supposing that child
should have something catching!”
“Samson, had you not better dress the lad's cut, as
-- 055 --
[figure description] Page 055.[end figure description]
Mrs. George is timid?” asked the master, in a quiet tone,
which had the effect of disposing the trim housekeeper to
a silent application of her remedial skill; while the old
gentleman himself looked on, with hands clasped behind
him; Samson, meantime, removing the threadbare camlet
cloak that had enveloped his person.
“Sleeps in wagons and barrels, and is named after a
weasel!” murmured Mr. Granby. “What a very curious
child, Samson!”
“Dis is a berry cur'ous world, massa.”
“That is true, Samson; and the saying is likewise true,
that one half the world knows not what the other half
suffers—or how it lives! But this child said he was out
in the dreadful storm of last night, and with another
baby like himself! Could that have been true, Samson?”
“Dese newsboys am berry tough,” suggested the negro.
“But another—a little girl with him, in the violent
storm!”
“Mebbe it was a fib, and mebbe not,” was Samson's
non-committal response. “You nebber knows how to
take dese boys.”
“We must see—we must inquire,” said Mr. Granby.
“It is a strange matter. Ah! thank God! he revives—
his eyes are open!” continued the good old man, as the
color began to return to Bob's face, under the emollient
stimulus which the housekeeper had applied. “How do
you feel, my poor boy?”
The Weasel's glance wandered vacantly round, for his
faintness had been as much the result of exhaustion from
-- 056 --
[figure description] Page 056.[end figure description]
watching and abstinence, as the effect of his sudden
shock; his poor thin lips fluttered, and half breathed a
word.
“What does he say, Mrs. George?”
“I thought he said `Fanny!”'
“It must be his sister. Perhaps it was she who was
with him in the storm. Hush! he is trying to speak
again!”
“What an odd creature, to be sure!” remarked the
housekeeper, listening to the half-formed syllables. “What
on earth can he mean by that?”
“What is it, Mrs. George?”
“He says `Potter's Field!' First `Fanny,' and now
`Potter's Field!' What connection can there be between
the two? He's an odd boy, I do declare!”
Mrs. George! you are wise in your generation, and
have a horror of uncleanliness, as every good housewife
should. But you are not wise as regards the human
heart!—nor of the heart which throbs faintly beneath
the coarse jacket of that outcast newsboy—Bob the
Weasel!
“What does he say now, Mrs. George? Bless me!
he has fainted again!”
“He has, indeed, and is quite cold!” exclaimed the
housekeeper, now much alarmed.
“Samson, you had better go for a doctor!”
“No, no! the cut is not deep! He is very weak,”
said Mrs. George. “Poor child! Perhaps he is
starving.”
And with this thought, the good woman seemed
-- 057 --
[figure description] Page 057.[end figure description]
suddenly to forget the dirt and shabbiness of Bob, and proceeded
to apply new lotions and administer restoring
stimulants, to her charge which soon had the effect of
imparting strength to his feeble frame. In an hour longer,
he was sitting up, propped by the pillows of Mr. Granby's
sofa, and relating to that wondering old gentleman the
particulars of his acquaintance with Fanny the orphan—
of their midnight tramp through the snow, and of their
lonely watch by the corpse, in cold and darkness. Samson
stood behind his master's arm-chair, with mouth and eyes
distended. Mr. Granby listened, with many nods of the
head and upliftings of the hand, and even Mrs. George
lost sight entirely of the weazen face, while she followed
the Weasel's quaint recital, with newly-awakened sympathy.
The result of the narration (for Bob had been previously
regaled with a nourishing repast) was a direction
from Mr. Grauby to Mrs. George to allow the child to
have a sound sleep upon the cushions, while himself, accompanied
by Samson, would proceed as soon as possible to
Kolephat College, there to ascertain the condition of the
orphan Fanny.
“That's what the poor boy meant by `Fanny,”' said
the master to his man, as, wrapped once more in his
camlet cloak, he led the way to the street.
“And `Potter's Field,' massa! Dat's de connection
Missy George couldn't find out.”
-- 058 -- p553-065
Chapter V. Tenants of Foley's Barracks.
[figure description] Page 058.[end figure description]
IF poverty be a sin, there was a poor widow who dwelt
in Foley's Barracks, who might be said to be very
wicked, indeed; if patience and industry be virtues, this
same widow was nearly angelic in their practice. She
had been, during many years, a tenant of one of the humblest
rooms in the third story of that crowded wilderness
of brick, and had there reared a young daughter, now in
her fifteenth year. A small room, of twelve feet square,
will with a dark and narrow closet adjoining, dignified by the
name of bed-chamber, constituted premises for which the
widow Marvin paid a monthly rent of six dollars, the
means to meet which she laboriously scraped together by
a division of her daily time into as many varieties of work
as she could fortunately obtain to do; sometimes securing
the job of house-cleaning in some friendly patron's family,
sometimes toiling at the wash-tub at home, periodically
scrubbing the floors and paint of a neighboring school-house,
and always ready with her needle at odd bits of
plain sewing, on shirts or coarse garments, in default of
having which, she plied the same busy implement in keeping
her own shabby clothing, as well as that of her child,
-- 059 --
[figure description] Page 059.[end figure description]
most scrupulously free from raggedness. The neighbors
on the third floor (and the oldest remembered her as their
predecessor) testified to her virtues as a fellow-tenant,
never quarrelsome or annoying; and one and all remarked,
with much marvelling thereat, that “Widow Marvin was
a good woman, and beat the world for keeping clean.”
How this latter excellence became so noted in the
widow was, indeed, not strange, though how she contrived
to deserve it might be a problem to any one at all conversant
with the habits of tenants in Foley's Barracks, or
with the difficulties which the pursuit of cleanliness in so
filthy a place must entail upon such as sought to possess
that quality akin to godliness. It must be owned that
great hardship and incessant care were prerequisites; for
heavy pails of water were to be carried through narrow
entries and up steep staircases, trodden daily by thousands
of feet; and varieties of garbage and accumulations were
to be carried downward through the same avenues; all
this, it may be fancied, adding arduous features to the
good woman's domestic industry. Nevertheless, Widow
Marvin did manage, through many, many years, to deserve
and maintain the reputation of a “clean body that ought
to be a pattern;” while it is extremely problematical if
the pattern was followed by many of the residents in
Foley's Barracks. Little, however, did the poor soul think
of influencing by her example, though perhaps it had a
good effect, of which she was wholly unconscious. She
loved to be neat herself, and to make her humble domicile
as comfortable as smoky chimneys, damp walls, and
stifling closeness would allow; and so, day after day,
-- 060 --
[figure description] Page 060.[end figure description]
through year and year, she scrubbed the floors and walls,
polished the row of tin vessels on her pine dresser, kept
her hearth bright with “redding,” and her narrow windows
clean, for the early sun to peep into unashamed.
Such habits produced their natural result, in imparting
neatness and taste to her child; and, therefore, much to
the wonder of improvident and reckless neighbors, Emily
Marvin, the widow's little daughter, grew up totally unlike
the squalid children on every floor of the Barracks—
never absenting herself from her mother to make acquaintances
among the constantly-changing tenants, but learning,
little by little, to imitate the widow's industry, and
unconsciously wearing her patched but spotless clothes
with an easy grace that might have been remarked in
quarters remote from this miserable tenant-house.
It might have been, that the Widow Marvin's stated
task of cleaning the district school-house suggested to her
mind the importance of attention to her daughter's childish
mind; though it is more likely that the fact (well-whispered
about the Barracks) of her having herself “seen
better days,” determined the good woman to afford her
child such means as could be commanded, to obtain an
education. Indeed, there were some who averred that the
widow was not devoid of accomplishments learned in
youth, and that she had been known to “play tunes” on
a piano-forte, in some remote period, albeit her fingers
were now stiff with hard toil. Be that as it may, the
mother denied herself many a comfort, in order that her
daughter could go decently to a daily school, the result of
which was that Emily, who was naturally quick and
-- 061 --
[figure description] Page 061.[end figure description]
intelligent, became, at a very early age, possessed of much
useful knowledge, while other children of her condition
in the Barracks had learned only lessons of cunning or
depravity. Well, in sooth, was the widow repaid for her
privations and struggles, in the untiring devotion of her
child, who strove by every mark of affection to prove her
appreciation of so good a mother; and it was pleasant to
behold the two, in neat though humble garb, wending
their way on Sunday to a neighboring church, or to listen
in the evening at their door, when Emily read from the
newspaper some stories of the great world that rolled its
mighty tides of life beyond the narrow limits of a tenant-house
court.
But, of late, the widow's health had been breaking, and
it was plain that an existence of wintry labor and endurance
would soon yield to the coming of that spring which
blossoms beyond the grave; for consumption, with insidious
power, was withering the mother's life, before the
eyes of her child, and from the bed of suffering she now
looked darkly forward. Her feeble fingers could no longer
ply the needle, and her dim eyes seemed dazzled by the
white cambric. Cold grew the widow's heart in foreboding
for her daughter. But God had kept that daughter,
thus far, and His Mightiness still overlooked her
footsteps.
Blessed is the heart of the young, loving, and hopeful,
even amid sorrow and gloom. When the widow's weak
hands could no longer toil, the daughter's industry took
the place of hers. School was resigned, and with it all
the charms of school society, prized the more by Emily
-- 062 --
[figure description] Page 062.[end figure description]
because so unlike the surroundings of Foley's Barracks.
Now, instead of tripping blithely away, with ready morning
lessons, Emily hurried, though with no less blithe a
footstep, to a hot, narrow back parlor, where, with half a
dozen pale-faced girls, happy, like herself, to be employed,
she plied the busy needle twelve hours every day, earning
a scanty pittance by incessant work. But she hoped—
toiled and hoped; for she was but a novice as yet, and
flattered her young fancy with the prospect of soon ending
her probationary apprenticeship, and becoming worthy
to receive the wages of a finished workwoman. She knew
not how many thousands, versed in all the mysteries of
fashion's paraphernalia, had hoped unto despair, and sunk
by the wayside to death, perhaps to shame. Well for
Emily that she was yet hopeful and ignorant. Sorrow
and knowledge of good and evil are learned soon enough
in this world of ours.
Sorrow, indeed! when the milliner's apprentice was
called away from her task, by a message from her mother,
who, poor sufferer! had concealed from her the rapid
progress which disease was making; choosing much rather
to dwell upon every indication of favorable change!
Sorrow, indeed! as the grey dawn of a wintry morning,
struggling into the dim chamber, discovered the poor girl,
after a night of watching, bowing herself, weeping, at her
dying mother's bedside.
During that long night, while fierce snow-gusts were
driving through deserted streets, the young girl had been
kneeling, with hushed breath; sustaining with one slight
arm the feeble head so soon to be at rest for ever; and
-- 063 --
[figure description] Page 063.[end figure description]
listening to the hard, dry cough and thick breathing which
shook the laboring breast. Long and wearisomely had
the hours dragged on, till now, in the early morning, the
daughter resigned her clasp of the hot hand she had been
holding, and with an anxious glance at the widow's closed
eyes, rose from her bent posture, and drew the white curtain
of the window. The coals were blackening in the
grate, and Emily's limbs felt chilled and cramped. She
shuddered as she looked out upon the great drifts of snow
in the streets, and saw, above, how the house-smokes rose
sluggishly upward from chimney-tops, as if half-congealed
by the keen frost. Then, returning to the hearth, she
gathered its few decaying embers together, essaying to
rekindle the fire; and as she did so, her mother stirred in
the bed, and turned her face upon the pillow. Emily was
by her side, in a moment, supporting the drooping head.
A history of grief was legible in the Widow Marvin's
countenance, written out in sharp furrows and scored by
worn lines; poverty, sickness, the world's neglect, had
stamped their separate impress; but enduring patience,
and the meekness that forgives, had mellowed all into
gentle resignation, even though death's strange seal was
already pressing on the pallid brow its awful finis.
“My Emily!”
Her daughter's arms twined about the widow's neck,
her lips pressed the bony forehead, cold and clammy with
the dews of dissolution. “Mother! mother!” was all the
poor girl could utter, her cheek growing ashy, and the
blood shrinking to her heart.
“My child! I am dying!”
-- 064 --
[figure description] Page 064.[end figure description]
“No, no, mother!—no! don't say so! Oh! you must
not leave me!”
“My poor Emily!” murmured the widow, folding her
daughter, with a convulsive effort, to her bosom. “I had
hoped to be spared—a little longer; but His will, my
child, must be done!”
Emily could not speak; she only bent her head upon
the pillow, while agonized sobs broke incessantly from her
breast.
“Oh! Heaven look down upon my child!” cried the
widow, clasping her attenuated hands around Emily's
neck. “God of the orphan! have pity upon her! Thou
who temperest the wind to the shorn lamb! be her consoler
and strength!”
“Mother! mother!”
“Pray with me, Emily!”
The broken accents of a dying orison quivered on the
Widow Marvin's lips, mingled with her child's sobbing
supplication. From that dim and cold room of Foley's
Barracks, the murmurs of devotion arose, reaching far
above minarets and cathedral towers, to the throne of
Him in whom the widow hoped. When the last syllable
trembled and rose solemnly, Emily lifted her cheek from
the bosom where it had rested, and gazed through blinding
tears upon her mother's face; but she beheld no light
in the fixed eyes: naught but a smile—bright flicker of a
departing spirit—upon the marble lip. She unclasped
the thin arms that had enfolded her neck, and, as they fell
inertly upon the bed, Emily knew that she was henceforth
an orphan.
-- 065 --
[figure description] Page 065.[end figure description]
But, even in that moment, when the sense of irremediable
affliction fell heaviest, and the unutterable idea of
loneliness settled gloomily around her, the influence of a
mother's dying prayer seemed to surround the child, as
with sustaining wings of angels; its cadences, though
hushed in death, still vibrated in her memory, but more
like triumphal numbers now—the strains of an ascending
seraph—than the broken whispers of a daughter of poverty,
perishing amid the wilderness of a tenant-house.
Blessed be prayer for evermore! Though thoughtless
scoffers, and cold reasoners upon subtle abstrusities, sneer
at the offering of a sacrifice like this of words—though
shrinking fatalists aver that prayer is powerless to unfix
the laws of destiny—yet are they but fools in their icy
philosophy! Prayer unburdens the heart, like the prophet's
rod, cleaving men's rocky natures, till the waters
of refreshing peace gush forth. Better wrest a cup of
water from the parched lip of a desert wanderer—rather
sever the cord by which a drowning victim essays to climb
the toppling cliff above him—than dash from a mourner's
breast the holy solace of an earnest prayer, or that soothing
trust in the efficacy of adjuration which sustains the
soul when all else crumbles, quicksand-like, beneath it!
A knock at the door startled the orphan, and rising, she
opened it to a short, portly man, clad in a glossy suit of
broadcloth, his head covered by a very shining hat, and
his feet encased in patent-leather boots, with sandals
bound over them. He held a gold-headed cane in one
hand, and in the other a blank-book. His black satin
vest was crossed by a thick gold watch-guard, and heavy
-- 066 --
[figure description] Page 066.[end figure description]
seals of the same material dangled from his fob. Altogether,
the appearance of this visitor was unexceptionably
respectable; nevertheless, Emily's pale cheek grew whiter
as she recognized him.
“Ah, miss! Good morning! Great snow last night!
horrid walking!” Saying this, the patent-leather boots,
with sandals, were violently stamped upon the entry
floor, to disengage the muddy snow that adhered to
them.
“Please, Mr. Jobson—if you would call again,” began
the young girl.
“What, little lady—isn't your ma in? Well, no matter!
I'll have a chat with you! I like to chat with you,
you know,” said the man, with a leering smile, as he familiarly
tapped Emily under the chin, still stamping the
patent-leather boots, with a loud noise.
“But, sir,”—began the orphan, and burst into tears
that checked her further speech.
“You're always so neat and clean here, little lady—
does one good to see it! tenants are generally the filthiest
people! but your mother's the pattern of cleanness! Yes,
and industrious, too, is the widow. Dare say she's been
out to her work an hour ago! always punctual with her
rent! Never gives a bit of trouble! There, now! I'm
tol-lol, and ready for a chat with you, Emily.”
With these words, the portly man in broadcloth bustled
into the apartment, past the weeping girl, and was about
to seat himself complacently in the widow's vacant rocking-chair,
when he chanced to cast his glance to the bed
which stood in one corner, and there beheld a sight that
-- 067 --
[figure description] Page 067.[end figure description]
caused his apoplectic face to lose for a moment its usual
scarlet tinge.
“What!—dead!” he cried, starting back, and almost
falling over the chair.
A fresh sobbing burst from Emily, as the poor girl
tottered towards the bedside, attested the certainty of her
orphanhood.
“Bad business!—uncommon afflicting dispensation!”
said the visitor, drawing out a red silk handkerchief, and
rubbing his rubicund face, in much agitation. “When did
it occur?”
“My mother has just gone!” answered Emily, looking
up into the man's face, with an expression so desolate that
it might have awakened the sympathy of a savage.
“Poor thing!” said the visitor, “I am really shocked—
greatly shocked! So unexpected! Here one day, and
gone the next. Such is life! Have you sent for anybody?”
“'Twas so sudden, sir—and last night the storm was so
bad, I could not leave her, to go for Dr. Cannon! I had
a mind to call Mrs. Dumsey, who lives on the second
floor, front; but, indeed, I was afraid to leave mother
even for a moment.”
“Yes! Mrs. Dumsey — a very good woman! — pays
promptly! By-the-by, miss, your mother was quite industrious—
must have saved something—eh?”
“What, sir?” inquired Emily, seeming not to understand
the remark.
“Laid by a little, to make you kind o' comfortable, I
hope,” pursued Mr. Jobson.
-- 068 --
[figure description] Page 068.[end figure description]
“Did Mr. Jobson mean that mother had money laid
by?”
“That's it!—Hope so!”
“We were very rich!” replied the young girl, earnestly;
as she opened a trunk near the bed, and drew forth a
small purse of faded-cotton; “not in money, Mr. Jobson—
but in contentment! Here is the sum of our worldly
wealth.” As she spoke, Emily emptied the contents of
her purse upon the table, before her visitor. It was not
much—a double eagle would have paid dearly for the
crumpled notes and silver that Mr. Jobson saw.
“Is that all?” he asked with emphasis. “About
enough for funeral expenses!”
“And the rent, Mr. Jobson,” rejoined Emily, as if she
read the man's unspoken thoughts.
“O—miss—I beg! don't trouble yourself!—make your
mind quite easy on that head. Any time, you know!
We are old friends—eh, little lady?”
Jobson smiled, as he uttered this, in a manner that
caused Emily to drop her eyes to the floor, while a sensation
of terror crept through her frame.
“If you would be so good as to speak to Mrs. Dumsey,
when you go down, sir,” —
“Certainly, miss; and anything I can do, you know,”
returned Jobson, approaching, and taking Emily's small
fingers in his own. “I had a great respect for your
mother, you know.” He squeezed her hand, as he spoke,
and patted the glossy ringlets that hung upon her white
neck. “You'll find me a good friend, never fear.”
“You'll not forget to speak to Mrs. Dumsey,” said
-- 069 --
[figure description] Page 069.[end figure description]
Emily, shrinking from Jobson's touch, and anxious that
he would depart. “She will help me, greatly.”
“Yes, little lady,” said the man, with a look more of
admiration than of pity, upon the changing countenance
of the orphan. Then, reluctantly turning away, he continued:
“Always call on me, you know! Good-by! I'll
be around soon again! I'm your best friend, you know.”
Jobson then rubbed his crimson face with the handkerchief
of similar color, and, with a bow and smile—both
unheeded by the orphan, whose face had again sunk beside
her mother's—stamped his patent-leather boots, sandals,
and gold-headed cane out into the passageway, and thence
down the narrow stairs. Emily breathed more freely
when he had gone.
Mrs. Dumsey's room was a small one, with the inevitable
dark, unventilated closet adjoining. It was kept tolerably
clean, though four children occupied it, sleeping
with their mother on a capacious feather bed, the relic of
Mrs. Dumsey's better days, which she hoped to be able to
leave, as an heirloom, to her eldest daughter. Mrs.
Dumsey's offspring comprised three girls and one boy, the
latter her youngest, very dirty, and a great favorite of
his mother. He was eight years old, and his sisters were
respectively, ten, twelve, and thirteen. The room which
constituted their parlor and kitchen by day, and their
bedroom by night, where the rickety old sofa-bedstead was
disposed for their accommodation, had been the limit of
their domestic experience, since infancy; for Mrs. Dumsey,
after the Widow Marvin, was the next oldest tenant of
Foley's Barracks. In that one small room—for the inner
-- 070 --
[figure description] Page 070.[end figure description]
closet was used as a sort of pantry, and receptacle for
odds and ends—the mother had resided seven years with
a husband, and after he had enlisted as a soldier, and died
by disease and wounds in a Mexican hospital, had reared
to their present age the four children left to her. A
small stipend from government, in the shape of forty dollars
per annum, the half-pay pension due to the widow of
a soldier, assisted wonderfully in eking out her living,
earned by watching as a nurse and assistant at funerals.
Her three daughters were slatternly and ignorant, her
darling Tommy a most malicious urchin, the terror of the
tenant-house, on account of his multitudinous tricks, and
herself a good-hearted, moralizing sort of a woman, slave
to her children, and continually getting into disturbances
with her neighbors on their account. Mrs. Dumsey stood
at her door, as the gentleman in patent-leathers was
descending to her landing.
“Morning, Mrs. Dumsey! Ah! there you are, with
your nice family—Tommy and his fine sisters! Eh,
Tommy,” —
“Speak to the gentleman, Tom! Don't you know
Mr. Jobson?”
“O yes, Tommy, you know me, you know,” said Mr.
Jobson, making a pleasant grimace at the dirty-faced
boy, who thereupon walked cautiously up to the gentleman,
and planted a well-directed kick upon the instep of
the patent-leather boot. Mr. Jobson uttered an exclamation
of pain and anger, and raised his cane, at which
motion Master Tommy set up a most ear-piercing howl,
and took refuge behind the squat person of his mamma.
-- 071 --
[figure description] Page 071.[end figure description]
“Excuse him, Mr. Jobson; the poor child hasn't had
his breakfast, and is cross.”
“Yes, and I want my breakfast!” cried the boy, plucking
at his mother's gown, and making indescribable
mouths, under her arm, at Mr. Jobson.
“Here—you! Matilda, pacify Tommy!” said the mother,
getting very red, and beckoning to her eldest daughter,
who hereat approached, and seized her brother by his
collar, upon which he kicked backward with fearful intent,
but found his foot caught by his dexterous sister, who forthwith
trundled him off in triumph to the pantry, where a
succession of yells bore witness to her success in pacifying
him. The remaining two girls stood staring at Jobson,
and gnawing their hands at the same time. They were
half-clad, their clothes ragged, and falling from their
shoulders, but, like the eldest, they had pretty faces, and
appeared healthy.
“Here's the rent, Mr. Jobson, all rolled up in half-dollars,
legal money,” said Mrs. Dumsey, who prided herself
on her method of doing business according to law, a fact
which no neighbor dared to dispute, as it was well known
the good woman had more to do with gentlemen of the
legal profession (through her pension matters) than any
other person in Foley's Barracks.
“All in half-dollars, eh?” said Mr. Jobson, receiving
the money, which he counted, with the remark, “though
you're always correct, you know, Mrs. Dumsey,” and then
produced a ready-signed receipt from the book which
he carried. “And now we're both correct!” he concluded.
-- 072 --
[figure description] Page 072.[end figure description]
“Mommy, she's a-pullin' my hair!” cried the heir of the
family, screaming from the place of his captivity.
“It's a lie—I'm a-tryin' to comb it,” was the sisterly
response.
Another howl followed this contradictory remark, and
then a brief conflict was heard, immediately after which
Tommy appeared in flight, pursued by his sister, whose
frock had been torn from neck to skirt in the struggle.
“O, I'm worried to death, as I'm a livin' woman, with
them innocents!” cried Mrs. Dumsey, apparently much
vexed. “You, Tom! I'll skin you! Matilda, why don't
you pacify him?”
“Try it yourself, and see how easy it is,” replied the
daughter, and then sulked away in a corner; but was
presently brought forward again, by an exclamation of
surprise from her parent.
“Dead! you don't tell!—poor critter! and that g'rl,
Emily, all alone! Gracious me! I must run up there,
this very minute!”
“Do so, Mrs. Dumsey. No doubt, she's in great distress.”
“Right straight away!” returned the neighbor; and, as
Mr. Jobson, his boots, and cane, commenced to step towards
another room, Mrs. Dumsey ran up stairs, followed by the
three listening girls, with great clamor; while the unhappy
Tom, forsaken by his relatives, threw himself upon the
door-sill, and began a savage series of kicks against the
wall, at the same time pealing forth a succession of aboriginal
war-whoops, which presently brought all the surrounding
tenants to their doors.
-- 073 --
[figure description] Page 073.[end figure description]
Mr. Jobson punctuated each step he took with a stroke
of his iron-feruled cane upon the flooring, until he reached
a room at the opposite extremity of the passageway, and
there knocked with the golden head. A woman about
twenty-five years of age, once undoubtedly handsome,
but with marks of dissipation on her features, which
were rouged and powdered thickly, opened the door to
him.
“Ah!—morning!” said Mr. Jobson.
“Walk in!” responded the woman, testily, and with no
mark of deference. “I suppose you're after the rent.
Here, Freid!—the landlord!”
The last words were addressed to a man who stood in the
middle of the room, clad in close-fitting flesh-colored shirt
and tights. This man was very stout and muscular, his
neck short and powerful as a bull's, his breast bulging
and head small, covered with short, curly black hair, while
a beard of the same description almost concealed his face.
He was fixed, with legs astride, his arms extended, and
sustaining a young girl, who balanced upon the wrist with
one small white foot, while the other pointed, in a sort
of aerial pas, to the ceiling. Mr. Jobson paused, as he
beheld this spectacle, astonished both at the situation and
surpassing loveliness of the posturante.
And well might he be surprised; for certainly no
Grecian sculptor ever fancied a more beautiful mould than
that of this female child, scarce ten years of age, who,
with no article of clothing upon her polished limbs but a
gauze robe or petticoat, was practising some pose with the
muscular fellow who sustained her. The tips of her left
-- 074 --
[figure description] Page 074.[end figure description]
taper fingers were just clasped by her companion's left
hand, while the right held the toes of her extended foot.
Her hair, which was of a pale golden hue, hung in thickclustering
ringlets upon her rounded shoulders; her eyes,
half-covered by long lashes, were yet sufficiently open to
permit the lustre of a dreamy blue to contrast with the
clear red and white of her complexion, and the full crimson
of her pouting lips. Altogether, she might have been
a model for some Catholic sculptor, picturing a childish
saint, or newly-created angel, half-reclined on air. Mr.
Jobson did not, of course, imagine all this poetic nonsense,
but he could not help murmuring, as he looked—“What
a doosed pretty girl, to be sure!”
The posturer lowered his arm, and his beautiful pupil
alighted on the floor, with scarce the sound of a footfall,
and, turning a pirouette, at the same time throwing a
bold glance at the visitor, skipped through the open door
of their dark bedroom. The posturer fixed a pair of
sleepy eyes upon Mr. Jobson, and mumbled some words in
broken English, which the agent appeared to interpret as
a demand concerning the amount of rent due.
“Six dollars—in advance, you know! you paid three
weeks when you took the rooms, and now it's even months.
Six dollars, if you please.”
“What does he say?” asked the athlete, turning to his
female companion, and speaking in an odd mixture of
English and some other dialect. The woman muttered
something, that resulted in the production, on the part
of the man, of an iron snuff-box, wherein were some
greasy notes, which he handed to the woman. She then
-- 075 --
[figure description] Page 075.[end figure description]
tendered the required sum to Jobson, who smiled complacently,
as he returned a receipt, and said:
“Hope you're nicely suited—everything satisfactory,
mem? Like to make tenants comfortable, you know.”
“Comfortable!” echoed the woman, with a short laugh.
“In this den!”
“For the matter of that, mem,” rejoined Mr. Jobson,
rather tartly, “other people lives in this house.”
“Lives!” responded the woman, with a sneer; “better
say, rots—dies—you'll hit it nearer! What with filth,
vermin, and smoke, it's enough to breed the pest at any
time.”
“Indeed, mem”—began Mr. Jobson, in an expostulatory
tone; but the woman cut him short, exclaiming—
“You've got your rent—what more d'ye want?”
The agent hesitated, and cast a look towards the back
chamber in which had vanished the lovely vision that a
few moments since seemed to illume the dingy room; but
he met the posturer's sluggish eyes fixed on him, with a
surly expression, and relinquished his half-formed intention
of inquiring concerning the young girl. However, as if
anxious to leave a favorable impression, he ventured, as he
turned away, to say—
“Anything I can do, you know, to make you comfortable,
you know,” —
But no reply was vouchsafed to this magnanimous offer
on the part of Mr. Jobson, save, indeed, a decided slam of
the door after his emerging form; whereupon he marched
away, with dignity much hurt, emphasizing his rising feelings
by downward strokes of the gold-headed cane, to the
-- 076 --
[figure description] Page 076.[end figure description]
infinite terror of delinquent tenants tremblingly awaiting
his advent in various quarters of the alarmed territory
known as Foley's Barracks.
“Who the doose can that handsome child belong to?”
soliloquized Mr. Jobson. “It can't be hers—though it
may be his! Queer individuals, anyway, them modelartists!”
-- 077 -- p553-084
Chapter VI. Mallory the Miser.
[figure description] Page 077.[end figure description]
ASCENDING to the highest dwelling-floor of Kolephat
College, through narrow pine-walled passages,
the visitor would find a score of small apartments separated
from the cockloft by a sort of ceiling, constructed of
hemlock boards, with insterstices between each, through
which not only the wind found access, but rain and snowwater,
from the rickety shingle-roof above. In one of these
wretched rooms, lying upon a coarse bed of straw in the
corner, on the morning that succeeded the great snowstorm,
was stretched the form of a woman, covered by a
patched quilt and some ragged under-garments, her head
supported by an old shirt-sleeve stuffed with the damp
straw of the pallet. This woman's hair was long and
quite grey, her features were haggard and flushed with
fever, her arms and hands were bony, like a skeleton.
She seemed to suffer greatly: her eyes were closed, and
low moans proceeded incessantly from her compressed lips.
Drops of water, oozing from the roof above, fell, with
measured plash, upon the boards near the bed's foot,
around which a wet space appeared, discoloring the dirty
flooring. The ceiling and partitions of this upper story
-- 078 --
[figure description] Page 078.[end figure description]
were so rotten with decay, and pervious to the elements,
that they momently shook and rattled, as the wind rushed
gibbering through each forlorn passage.
There was another living being in this desolate tenant-room—
a shivering, puny child, with scarce a shred of
clothing on her limbs, whose face was marked by scrofulous
blotches. This child's yellow hair was so tangled and
matted, that it stood out in every direction from her face,
begrimed with dirt and tears. More, indeed, like an elfish
spectre than like a human child, did this little creature
appear, as her sharp features and attenuated figure were
disclosed in the morning light that struggled dimly through
a side window, the principal glass of which had long
since given place to boards, nailed over broken panes, or
crushed hats stuffed between their fragments. Crouching
on her knees at the fire-place, down which water mixed
with soot was coustantly dripping, this squalid child
endeavored to ignite, with her feeble breath, a few shavings
collected upon the hearth.
As the blaze flashed up, the little one started, hearing
a staggering footstep without; and the next moment, the
door was burst rudely open, and a drunken man reeled
over the threshold, and fell heavily on the straw at the
foot of the sick woman's bed.
“O! it's father!” cried the child, allowing the fire
just kindled to die away, while she lifted her shrivelled
arms, as if expecting a sudden blow. But the man
appeared powerless to inflict injury, or even to help himself;
his bloated face lay prone upon the floor, and his
blood-shot eyes stared vacantly forward. Brutalized by
-- 079 --
[figure description] Page 079.[end figure description]
strong drink, he presently subsided into a lethargic slumber;
and the child went on to kindle the few chips and
shavings dispersed upon the damp hearthstone. Then,
trembling all the while, with the chill wind that swept
the room, as well as from terror, lest her besotted
parent might awake, the spectral figure proceeded to
boil some water in a lidless saucepan, placed upon the
fire.
No inventory was needed to describe the furniture of
this wretched attic room in Kolephat College. Besides
the straw bed and its tattered covering, there were a
broken table, or rather high stool, standing upon three
legs, near the wall, a chair destitute of back, on which
about an inch of tallow dip was stuck in its own grease,
for lack of a candlestick; a broken basket, containing a
few chips of wood, two or three earthen cups, and a black
teapot, upon a shelf, and the saucepan, before-mentioned,
upon the fire. These were the visible effects pertaining to
that apartment, wherein a woman lay helpless with fever,
and a man intoxicated to stupefaction.
The weird child, after watching the water till it boiled,
now dragged the shattered chair to the wall, and, climbing
upon it, reached her little hand upward for the teapot
and cups. From one of the latter, she extracted a few
pinches of a compound which had been purchased from
Peleg Ferret's store, under the illusive impression that it
was “tea,” and, dropping it into the pot, proceeded to
prepare her mother's, breakfast.
It might have furnished a subject—if not for a painter,
at least for a moralist—to observe the look of anxious
-- 080 --
[figure description] Page 080.[end figure description]
care with which the child measured out with her fingers
the allowance of tea, to scan the busy expression of her
sharp features, as she watched the process of steeping the
beverage, and, finally, to mark her furtive glances, now
at her moaning mother, now at the prostrate drunkard,
while she took a fragment of bread off the shelf, cut some
thin slices from it with a broken knife, and browned them
at the scanty fire. So old her childish face, so strangely
slow and measured were her motions, she seemed to be
rather a dwarf woman than an infant of scarce six miserable
winters—for summer, in the sense of life's enjoyments,
she had never known.
When the dirty liquid, which the poor child fancied to
be tea, had been duly prepared, and poured into one of
the earthen cups, she softly approached her mother, and
whispered that it was ready; and the sick woman, stirring
painfully, received it from her hands. Here was another
scene for preacher or painter to sketch: the sufferer upon
the straw, raising with difficulty her trembling head from
its wretched pillow—the weird-like child, striving with
feeble arms to assist, and the strong man, who should have
been helper and protector of both, lying dumb and senseless
at their feet.
“Is he asleep?” murmured the woman, glancing uneasily
at the prostrate drunkard.
“Yes, mother! he fell down, when he came in,”
answered the child, with a fearful look. “O, I do hope
he won't wake up now.”
The woman sighed, and put away the tea from her lips,
with a nauseated look. “It's slops,” she said.
-- 081 --
[figure description] Page 081.[end figure description]
“Dear me! the fire wouldn't burn, and there's no
milk,” replied the child, mournfully.
“And no money,” rejoined the mother, bitterly.
“There's seven cents, mother, and I can go for milk,
please. I'd gone before, but I was afeard you'd miss me.”
“It's very dark, Moll,” said the woman, looking towards
the window.
“It's the snow—there was a big snow come in the
night.”
“Go for some milk—and see if you can pick up a few
chips in the street, Moll.”
“There's snow all over, mother.”
“No matter, Moll—try!”
The woman turned away her head, and the wretched
child took up an old hood from the floor, and placed it
over her matted hair. The hood was her mother's, and
Moll's poor face looked still more witch-like, peering out
from it. Then, throwing a tattered and filthy shawl
about her half-naked shoulders, she sat down to fasten
her shoe, slipshod and broken at every side.
“'Deed, I might as well be barefoot,” she muttered, in
her odd manner, ruefully surveying the torn leather; but
there was no help for the matter; and so Moll rose, and
climbed to the shelf, where a sixpence and a copper were
hidden under one of the cups. The silver she at once
placed in her mouth, and, jumping from the chair, was
about to depart, when her foot was grasped by the outstretched
hand of her father, who had recovered from his
stupor, or feigned sleep, and was eyeing her, with an
ill-omened expression.
-- 082 --
[figure description] Page 082.[end figure description]
“I seen ye, Moll,” muttered the man, with a drunken
chuckle, as he detained the frightened child. “You was
sly, but I seen ye.”
“Let her go, Phil,” cried the sick wife, half-rising from
her bed.
“Stop up, ould woman! nobody's interferin' with you!
Jes' you stop, ould woman!” replied the husband, speaking
thickly, as he endeavored to raise himself on one hand,
while with the other he held the now weeping child.
“Lie down, brute!” muttered the woman, angrily.
“Yes—you—sham sick, will ye?” cried the husband.
“No go, ould woman—'tis no use! Moll! go for rum!
It's a sixpence ye got—I seen it.”
“Please, father! let me go for the milk, and some
chips,” pleaded the child, striving to get away.
“Rum—go for rum, I tell ye.”
“There's no bottle, father.”
“Old Fer—Ferret 'll lend—a bottle!” replied the
drunkard. “Go—and ask him.”
“O, dear father! mother is so sick, and I was goin' for
milk!”
“Your mother!—shammin'—shammin sick, I tell you.
Here, now!—gi' me the sixpence!”
“O, please, father, don't take it!”
“Gi' me it,” cried the drunkard, twisting the child's
ankle, as he dragged her back, till she fell, with pain, upon
the floor. “Open yer mouth—I seen it.”
The wretched child's mouth was forced open by her
brutal parent, and the silver taken out. Then the
ruffian, with a chuckle, released his grasp, and she fled,
-- 083 --
[figure description] Page 083.[end figure description]
sobbing, to the door. But her mother's sharp voice
recalled her:
“Moll! never you mind the drunken vagabone. Go
for the chips, girl, and ask Ferret to trust you for a
penn'orth o' milk.”
“He'll not, mother. He said, last night, he was comin'
for the rent.”
“Rent! ha, ha!” laughed the woman, bitterly. “Wish
he may get it, the ould skin-flint!”
It was horrible to hear that laugh, from those lips
twitching with feverish pain; and to hear it echoed by
the wretched husband, as he staggered to his feet, and
leered vacantly at his partner.
“Vagabone—am I? vagabone—ould woman?” He
swayed backward and forward, as he spoke, endeavoring
to sustain his balance, and shaking his fist the while, by
turns, at mother and daughter. Then, examining the
sixpence, which he clutched between his fingers, he staggered
to the door, and out upon the passage.
“He's gone!” cried the wife, striking her forehead, as
if relieved. “Don't go yet, Moll!—maybe he'll fall and
break his neck! God forgive me for the wish!”
The sick woman and her weird child listened to the
plunges and steps of the drunken man, as he descended
the stairs, flight by flight, intent on satisfying his thirst
for rum. What a “home” for human beings was this
attic chamber of Kolephat College!
Hardly had the last vibrations of the drunkard's downward
steps reached the listener's ears, than a new footfall
sounded in the passage, and a knock was heard outside.
-- 084 --
[figure description] Page 084.[end figure description]
Moll opened the door, and admitted Mr. Peleg Ferret,
who glanced around the room, eyeing its squalid appearance,
and the half-famished features of its tenants, with a
professional scrutiny. Obviously, the inspection was not
productive of satisfaction for he scowled at the frightened
child, and asked, “Where's your father?”
“He went down stairs,” answered the child.
“Ay! to pay his good friend Ferret a visit,” added the
woman; “to change his last sixpence for Ferret's poison,
that has turned a hard-working, sober man into a drunken
loafer.”
“He'd better pay his rent,” snarled Peleg.
“And what matters it to you, whether the penny comes
first for rent or rum?” muttered the woman. “He and
his are yours and the devil's, body and soul.”
“Come, come, woman! none o' your abuse, or you'll
pack off, sick or well! I don't keep a harbor for beggars.
Your rent has been due now a fortnight, and I'm
losing money every day.”
“And Phil has been drunk in your shop every day, for
the last month, Ferret! How many times did I beg and
pray that you'd not sell him the liquor! It's the rent
you want, is it?”
“Yes, and I'll have it, or you'll all march,” said the
agent, vindictively.
“Maybe, you'll sell my bed,” muttered the woman, with
a hollow laugh, as she kicked the loose straw that had
broken through its dirty sack.
“We'll see, we'll see!” was the reply, as Peleg Ferret,
frowning blackly, shook his head at his tenant, and left
-- 085 --
[figure description] Page 085.[end figure description]
the apartment. When he had disappeared, the woman
sunk back, with closed eyes, in a deep swoon. Excitement
and suffering had exhausted her to the last point, and
she lay as one dead. Moll looked, and, with a sharp cry,
ran to the bed, and threw herself upon her wretched
mother's breast.
Meantime, the miserable inebriate, holding the sixpence
in his clutch, had descended to the lower passages of
Kolephat College, and thence, betaking himself to the
street, reeled towards the Dutch grocery which divided
neighboring custom with that of Peleg Ferret. It might
be that the cold air, or the snow-heaps through which he
staggered, somewhat sobered his senses, and brought
some feeling of shame over his besotted mind; for he
paused at the street-corner, and appeared to hesitate as
to proceeding further. As he did so, a most singularly-shabby
and forlorn object shuffled past him, in the direction
of the tenant-house. It was an old man, withered
and bent almost double with age or infirmities. His palsied
head shook like that of a toy-mandarin upon some
parlor mantel-shelf; and, as he tottered along, a dry,
hacking cough shook his leau frame. The drunkard
regarded him for a moment, with vacant look, and then
more earnestly, as if some thought were forming in his
muddled brain. “Ho, ho!” he chuckled to himself. “It's
Mallory, the miser!”
The object of his remark kept on, with shuffling gait,
to the entrance of Kolephat College; and, after gazing
for a moment longer, the man Phil followed him, with
somewhat steadier motion, till they both entered the
-- 086 --
[figure description] Page 086.[end figure description]
tenant-house. Within its dark entry, sound was a better
guide than vision, to determine the direction of footsteps,
and so Phil listened a moment, after he crossed the
threshold, to hear the old man ascend the dingy stairs.
Slowly, pausing at each step; to take breath, and
groaning at the difficulties of progress, the tottering
miser groped upward, stretching out his shaking hands to
feel the way, while Phil stepped closely behind, till the
pair reached a landing on the fourth story, and the old
man crawled towards the rear of the passage, reaching, at
last, the door of his dark and narrow chamber. The
drunkard, Phil, knew the locality, for he had seen its
tenant enter it before; but he still kept close to the
miser's heels, and arrived at the threshold as the latter
crossed it, closing carefully the door behind him.
Phil appeared now to be recovered, in a great measure,
from his drunken stupidity, and possessed with some
crafty purpose suddenly conceived, for he crouched down
in the murky entry, beside the old man's apartment, and
essayed to catch a glimpse of the inmate through a crevice
in the rotten panel.
It was a miserable apartment—more so, even, than that
which the drunkard himself occupied above; for it was
narrow and dingy, with hardly room to turn between the
truckle-bed that formed the old man's resting-place, and
the small hearth, with a broken stove between the jambs.
There was no fire in this stove; but the miser had
brought home coals and cinders, scraped from some ashheap,
and now emptied them on the floor, out of a filthy
handkerchief. Stooping then, groaning unceasingly, he
-- 087 --
[figure description] Page 087.[end figure description]
placed a few sticks in the stove, and essayed to ignite
them by the aid of a match which he took from the fire-place.
Presently, the sticks took fire, and flashing up,
cast their light upon the withered features of this wretched
dotard. They were very forbidding to look at: lips shrivelled
and drawn in at the corners; gums yellow and
almost toothless; nose hooked and chin protruding; eyes,
furtive and restless in their glance, roving about the
apartment, scanning every shadow, and twinkling like
fire-flies under the bony forehead—a portrait of distrust,
fretfulness, and fear.
The outer garb of this old man consisted of a shabby
brown coat, full of patches of other colors, and fringed
with rags upon skirt and sleeves. Instead of buttons, a
strand of rope confined it about his withered figure, and
held up, at the same time, the waistbands of thin trowsers,
likewise patched and tattered. A pair of rusty
boots, rent in divers places, shod his feet, and were bound
about by pieces of bagging that served as leggings to
cover the broken leather. An old blue cotton shirt,
that had probably covered his body during months, was
partially visible on his breast, and his grey hair was
covered by a fur hat, once white, but long ago blackened
with street mud, from which the dotard had picked it,
when his last head-gear fell to pieces from rottenness.
Such was Mallory the Miser, who now, after causing his
rickety stove to emit puffs of smoke till the miserable
apartment was filled with it, rose to his feet, and shuffled
slowly towards the door, still watched by Phil the
drunkard from without. Pausing, as he reached it, he
-- 088 --
[figure description] Page 088.[end figure description]
stretched out his talon-like fingers, grasping a wooden
bar that stood in the corner, and, fixing this like a stanchion
against a panel (for the rust-eaten lock had long
been useless), listened a moment attentively, as though
hearing a voice, and then tottered to his single window,
letting down a smoke-stained newspaper that served for
its curtain. This done, he crept, still slowly and stealthily,
to the fire-place, and sat down, with his back towards the
door at which Phil was watching his movements. Now
came the drunkard's moment of interest; for he beheld
the old man remove a brick from the side of the hearth,
disclosing a dark recess, from which he drew out a broken
flower-pot, his palsied hands shaking the vessel, and causing
its contents to strike together, with the peculiar chink
of metal. It was gold—bright, yellow gold—the god of
the old man, whose eyes glistened with snaky light, as he
glanced nervously around him, clasping his two hands over
the flower-pot, and crouching upon it, like some unclean
fowl brooding over its young.
One by one! chink, chink! while smoke puffed up,
unheeded, from his broken stove, there the dotard squatted
in the hollow of his wretched hearth, counting his hidden
treasure — one! two! three! — chink! chink! chink!
Tottering, drivelling old miser! hour after hour, day and
night, his only solace has been to gloat, with rheumy
eyes, over the hoarded accumulations of a life unblest by
affection, barren of sympathy, desolate and destitute to
the last degree; his only solace to caress, and embrace,
and sleep with his darling gold; yes, sleep with his idolized,
his adored; for a bundle of straw, at the fire-place
-- 089 --
[figure description] Page 089.[end figure description]
jambs, hard by the nook that held his treasure, had been
the only bed of Mallory the Miser, during half a score of
years. There had he stretched so long his withered
bosom, close to his well-beloved.
And now, bowing down, he hugged the clay vessel that
contained the joy of his existence. Starving in body and
soul, with the grave yawning under his dim vision, the
ancient miser clasped to his dry heart the bride of his
dotage, his shining fiend-wife, born from yellow earth.
Phil, as he beheld the scene before him, started back,
surprised, and comparatively sobered, at the unexpected
sight. He had known that Mallory was penurious, and
was aware of the reputation he had acquired, among fellow-tenants,
of having scraped together some wretched
savings, thereby gaining the soubriquet of “miser;” but
the sight of a pot of bright gold pieces was something
totally unexpected by the drunkard, and had the effect
of a cold shower-bath upon his faculties. True, the
impulse that had prompted him to follow the old man up
stairs, was one which looked for the discovery of some
mystery like this, but the extent of Mallory's amassings
confounded the spy completely, so that some time elapsed,
after his first glimpse at the flower-pot, before he ventured
to apply his eye once more to the narrow crevice in the
panel. As he did so, he saw, much to his dismay, that
the miser had arisen suddenly, after concealing his treasure,
and was now close to the door. In another instant,
his withered hands had removed the bar, and Phil, ere he
could balance himself, fell forward over the threshold.
“Thieves! help! murder!” screamed the old man, as
-- 090 --
[figure description] Page 090.[end figure description]
he fell back upon the floor; while Phil rolled over him,
and struggled to his feet. A fancied noise startling the
wretched dotard, as he counted his money, he had hastened
to the door, after hastily concealing the pot, and
Phil's body, pressing against the panel, caused it to give
way at the moment Mallory's hand was shifting to a securer
angle the bar that served for fastening. The abrupt
intrusion, overthrowing his feeble frame, did not, however,
deprive him of his voice, which continued to cry for help.
“Curse ye!” muttered Phil, as he grasped the miser's
arm, lifting him to his feet. “What are ye screechin'
for? Who's harmed ye, Mallory?”
“O—it's you, Philip—Mr. Keeley,” said the miser,
somewhat relieved, as he recognized the countenance of a
neighbor, whom he had often encountered in the passageway
of the tenant-house; but he still trembled with
alarm, for he had regarded Keeley as a suspicious character,
and the latter's looks and position, at this moment,
were not at all in his favor.
“I was comin' to pay ye a visit,” said the drunkard,
with a grim smile; and the miser fancied he beheld him
glance curiously towards the fire-place.
“It's a poor place you've come to, Mr. Keeley,” responded
the old man, uneasily.
“Beggars mustn't be choosers,” replied Phil, with a
twinkle of his eye; for his cunning had already pointed
him a course of proceeding. “I'd be askin' a favor, if ye
plaze, Mallory.”
“Of me?” cried the miser, twitching his head to one
side, and affecting to laugh.
-- 091 --
[figure description] Page 091.[end figure description]
“An' who else, Mallory? Sure, it's the poor that
knows how to help the poor; and the likes of us is poor
enough, Mallory.”
“That's true! it's a hard world!” said the miser, in a
whining tone.
“An' so I'll make bowld wid ye, Mallory. Lind me a
goold piece, to pay Ferret the rint that's doo.” Phil said
this with a leer that was unmistakable in its meaning, and
the old man grew ghastly pale.
“What do you mean?” he gasped, as the drunkard's
crafty eye fell upon him. “I've no money, avick! I'm a
poor man, like” —
“It's a lie, Mallory! Give me a goold piece, I say!
an' be neighborly, for onst in yer life.” As he uttered
this, Phil placed his back against the door, and carelessly
stooped, picking up the heavy wooden bar that had
secured it. There was a strange expression settling over
the man's features that boded no good to the miser; and
the latter retreated as he encountered it.
“What do you mean to do, Mr. Keeley?” he asked, in
a terrified whisper.
“Hark to me, Mallory. There's a sixpence—divil a
coin have I but that—an' I know ye have plinty. Up
stairs, now, is my wife, maybe dyin', and the child Moll,
without a bit or sup. I'm a drunkard, they say, and spind
all I make at the dram-shop; an' it's thrne; but, Mallory,
I'm no miser.”
The old man cowered under the singular gaze that was
fixed upon him, shrinking back towards the fire-place, like
one of those grotesque gnomes that are fabled to guard
-- 092 --
[figure description] Page 092.[end figure description]
the hidden treasures of earth, in deep caves. He felt
that his long-concealed secret was known to Keeley, and
that the latter was resolved upon some means, desperate
or otherwise, to obtain the whole or a portion; but he
could not bear the thought of relinquishing a single coin.
“I'm a poor man,” he whimpered.
“You lie, Mallory! you've goold in the pot; and by
all the saints, I'll have it,” cried Phil. “Now, fair means
or foul, ould man! It's not the gallus Phil Keeley the
outlaw's afraid of! Stan' by, Mallory!” With these
words, he fixed the bar against the door, and advanced
towards the fire-place.
But the imminence of the danger, to which his treasure
was exposed, served to inspire the miser with new resolution.
No sooner had Keeley left the door, than the old
man darted to possess himself of the wooden bar, and, as
the robber stooped and displaced the brick which concealed
the gold, he flung himself forward with all his
feeble force, and dealt a blow at his head. Phil had
grasped the prize, and was rising, when the weapon
descended, grazing his forehead, and striking the flowerpot,
which it dashed to fragments, scattering the golden
contents over hearth and floor, and the dirty straw of the
bed. Then, like a wild beast robbed of its young, the
miser flung himself on Keeley, clutching his arms and
endeavoring to reach his throat; following, at the same
time, with straining glance, the coins that rolled beneath
their feet. The robber defended himself a moment, and
then became the assailant, dealing a blow upon the old
man's forehead, which dashed his feeble frame to the floor,
-- 093 --
[figure description] Page 093.[end figure description]
where he lay still for a moment, and then threw himself
wildly about, striving to collect his scattered golden
pieces. Phil, too, who now began to feel his brain again
whirling with excitement, gathered up those which lay
nearest to his feet, and sprang for the door—the miser in
vain attempting to stop him.
“Bad cess to you, Mallory!” cried the drunkard. “I'll
have what I got, an' no thanks to you, murtherin' ould
miser that ye are!” And the next moment, his retreating
steps shook the stairs, as he unsteadily descended.
Mallory did not halloo, or call for help, for he dreaded
too much the exposure of his hoardings to the eyes of
other tenants, or the avaricious Peleg Ferret; and the consideration
of this fear on the miser's part had emboldened
Phil Keeley to the theft—though, indeed, it is doubtful
whether, in his half-drunken state, the latter thought at
all of the consequences of his assault. As it was, however,
Mallory was now intent only on securing what was
left of his treasure; and, though his head was bleeding
from a severe contusion received in falling, he managed to
crawl to the door and fasten it, once more, with the stanchion
that had served him for a weapon. Then, dragging
himself on hands and knees over the floor of the room, he
peered into every crevice, raked the straw with his talon
fingers, and counted and recounted, piece by piece, the
gold which he gathered up. When all this was done, he
raised from the middle of the hearth one of its flat bricks,
and revealed a rusted tin measure, filled to the brim with
coins of various hues, to which he added those preserved
from Keeley; first wrapping them in a piece of dirty
-- 094 --
[figure description] Page 094.[end figure description]
flannel. Then, replacing the stone, he dragged his wretched
litter over it, quite behind the stove, and sat down, moaning
bitterly, and rocking himself to and fro.
Was it a problem that he revolved in the brain confined
by that yellow, bony forehead? Did he ask himself
if justice had been done upon him by the thief who pilfered
his useless gold? Did he arraign Eternal Wisdom, because
he had lost so much of his golden comfort in the
terrible desert of his life? And might not human judgment
reprove him, saying that himself was cruel and
inhuman to hoard such treasure, while hundreds starved
and died in the tenant-house, above and beneath him?
Ah! not the miser of Kolephat College, but the great
city, and the mighty world without, must answer that.
-- 095 -- p553-102
Chapter VII. The Brown-Haired Boy.
[figure description] Page 095.[end figure description]
LEAVING the drunkard's wretched wife and daughter
to their desolate communion, Mr. Peleg Ferret
descended from the attic of Kolephat College, treading
the devious passages and mouldering stairways, till he
reached the door of a front room upon the third floor, at
which he rapped sharply. It was opened by a girl, apparently
about twenty-eight years of age, whose cheeks were
very pale, and eyes sunken. She curtesied, as the agent
appeared, and invited him to enter, proffering, at the same
time, a chair.
“Don't trouble yourself, miss,” said Mr. Ferret. “Business
before pleasure! I've just called to”—and he sat
down, fingering his leather-covered book.
“The rent,” interrupted the girl, with a faint smile. “I
am glad it is ready; you will find it correct, I think.”
She handed him some bank notes, pinned together, which
he scanned closely.
“Ye-es! all right!” said he, holding one of the bills to
the light. “No offense, but there's counterfeits around;
and `a wise precaution is the parent of security.”'
“I received it from”—began the tenant, trembling
-- 096 --
[figure description] Page 096.[end figure description]
violently, lest the agent should discover something wrong.
She was a thin, fragile creature, with hands transparent
and attenuated. Always, after every sentence she uttered,
a dry attempt to cough, or to clear the throat, followed,
denoting pectoral disease.
“Guess it'll do!” said the agent, placing the bills in his
wallet, and staring at the girl. “Business good, ma'am?
Plenty to do?—heh?”
“I'm pretty well supplied now,” answered the tenant.
“That's right. Work brings money, and money meets
bills. Short payments, long friends—heh, miss?”
“I suppose so,” returned the young woman, not knowing
what else to say.
“Had a death last night,” pursued the agent. “Woman
on the same floor.”
“A death, sir!”
“Yes!—new tenant—sewing-woman, like yourself—left
a little child, and owed two weeks' rent. Hard case!”
Mr. Ferret rose, as he said this, and moved towards the
door, allowing his hearer to determine in her own mind
whether the two weeks' indebtedness of her late fellowtenant
for rent, or the payment of a greater debt to
nature, constituted what he termed a “hard case.”
“What did the poor woman die of?” timidly inquired
the girl.
“Pleurisy—or consumption, the coroner said. Most
of 'em die o' that!” answered the agent, as he nodded,
and went out, leaving his tenant standing in the middle
of the floor, her small hands pressed against her side, and
the short, hacking cough checking her breath.
-- 097 --
[figure description] Page 097.[end figure description]
“Most of them die of that!” she repeated, as the door
closed. “Yes—yes, indeed! and I, too, am dying!”
Murmuring these words, she sank into the chair which
Ferret had occupied, and, bowing her head upon her
hands, wept silently, while thick sighs broke from her
heaving bosom.
The room tenanted by this young seamstress was of the
pattern of most of the rooms in Kolephat College, with
all their dinginess and close-contracted dimensions; nevertheless,
it was clean and orderly, and possessed some certain
air of comfort. Near the fire-place, in which a few
coals were burning, stood a small walnut-wood stand,
whereon lay a half-finished shirt, with the needle sticking
in it. The room was cold, for it was accessible to every
blast, by many crevices in the floor and doors; but its
curtained window, and a thin carpet, together with a
few framed prints upon the walls, made it seem to be
more furnished than the generality of apartments in the
tenant-house.
The sewing-girl did not long yield to the grief which
had suddenly impressed her, for the consciousness of
duties to be performed recalled her to herself, and she
drew nearer to the little stand by the grate, resuming her
needle-work, and bending low, as if to hide from consciousness
the tears that gathered upon her pale cheeks.
Thus she went on in silence, her fingers becoming cramped
and cold, but plying their task, fast and deftly, over the
rows of stitching, until, at length, as in very weariness, the
cambric slipped from her relaxed hands, and fell to the
floor, her breath the meanwhile growing audible, and her
-- 098 --
[figure description] Page 098.[end figure description]
left hand clasping her side, as if to repress a sudden spasm
of pain. Some sound, however, seemed to startle her, and
rising, she moved to the inner chamber, where was her bed,
covered by a blanket and neat quilt, from under which
appeared the rosy face and open eyes of a boy—an innocent
face, with brown hair clustering round the forehead.
Bending over this child, the young girl pressed his cheek
with her lips, a half-checked sob breaking from them;
whereat the little one stretched out his hands.
“Sister Margery!” he said, folding his arms around
her neck. “Good mornin'! Did you hear me call
you?”
“Yes, dear. Are you pretty well, Harry?” she asked,
patting his glowing cheek.
“Real well, sissy! Must I get up now? Is it school-time?”
“I fear you cannot go to school to-day, dear Harry,”
she replied. “There has been a great snow, and the
streets are all blocked up.”
“Then, I may stay home and play with you, sister!
O, I'm so glad!” exclaimed the child, clasping his hands.
“Will you lie still a little while, dear? Are you very
hungry?”
“I'm pretty hungry, Margery; but I can wait. You're
sewing, ain't you?”
“Yes, dear!”
“And you were sewing 'most all night. I heard you
cough, and was so sorry.”
“Darling!—was you?” cried the poor girl, throwing
herself upon the bed, and kissing the boy again, while her
-- 099 --
[figure description] Page 099.[end figure description]
unrestrainable tears gushed out afresh. “O! heaven!
must I leave this child?” she murmured; for the thought
that her own life was ebbing pressed fearfully upon her
mind.
“Who leave?—you ain't going away, sissy, are you?”
“No, dear child!—no, no!” cried Margaret. “Not
from you, Harry.”
“Never, sissy—never?”
“No, dear Harry!”
“O! what a darling sissy you be!” cried the little one,
coaxingly, as he put up his dimpled mouth to receive the
convulsive kiss which Margaret imprinted.
“Now, dear! lie very still!”
“Yes, Margery.”
Once more the seamstress returned to her work, and
plied the needle busily for a half-hour longer, till the task
which she had toiled upon day and night was at length
finished, and folded away upon the table. Then, unheeding
the pain in her side, or the laboring tightness of her
chest, she began to sing merrily, as, placing a few more
coals upon the fire, and preparing a basin of warm bread
and milk for Harry's breakfast, she contented herself, as
often before, with a crust, or cracker, and glass of sweetened
water.
This was the daily life of one tenant of Kolephat
College, and, perhaps, the least painful phase of that
monstrous existence. Had Peleg Ferret entered at the
moment when, singing snatches of an old ballad, his
tenant romped with the brown-haired boy, eating his
porridge, that apothegmatic individual had surely
-- 100 --
[figure description] Page 100.[end figure description]
delivered some saw concerning “a merry heart;” but Peleg
Ferret would have divined but faintly the sewing-girl's
inner being. He would scarcely have credited the fact, of
which herself was conscious, that for years she had been
daily wearing away her young life, drying up her heartsprings,
searing her brain with the slow agony of neglect,
privation, and unceasing toil. Peleg Ferret would never
suspect that those light song-words smothered the inner
sobbings that bewailed a blighted heart, lying in her
bosom, like a rose trodden in the dust, but fragrant still
with sweetness kept alive by the watering of constant
tears. Peleg Ferret could never imagine that his tenant's
lonely hours were clouded by memories and fears—memories
stirring the bitterness of the past, and fears shadowing
the future of that brown-haired boy, whose only
protection in the wide world was a seamstress—one of
that class of whom the agent had carelessly said, “Most
of 'em die o' consumption!”
But many an hour had Margaret wept, many a night
watched, while the infant Harry slept, and sang at his
awakening. Often had she put her last morsel of bread
to his lips, when her own fast had not been broken through
the weary day. Thus had her young existence wasted,
like the oil of her midnight lamp.
Wasted! said I? Ah, no! For up, far up, in the
bright, eternal home of angels, a pure sisterhood await
the coming of that patient martyr of the world's neglect.
Holy eyes will light up the darkness of her pathway—soft
whisperings of love welcome her to the communion of
kindred saints! Yet, a little while, O suffering one! and
-- 101 --
[figure description] Page 101.[end figure description]
the goal will be attained. Happiness abides beyond the
portals of an early grave.
The seamstress feels that death is nestling near her
heart—death, with dove-wings, shedding peace from their
dark plumage. Gladly would she lie down from earthly
toil; but the thought of her brown-haired brother is the
link that binds her to the dreary task. For him she
weeps—for him she prays, to the God of the poor and
fatherless.
“Margery! I do so love you,” said the child, as he
stood beside her knee, while she smoothed his wavy locks.
“Ain't you good-hearted, sissy?”
“Do you think so, Harry?”
“'Deed I do. When I'm a man, I mean to take care
of you, and not let you sew a bit, Margery—'cause it
hurts your side, and makes you cough.”
“When you're a man? That'll be a long time, Harry!
What else will you do, dear?”
“Have a sled!” answered the boy, quickly, as the
thought of snow in the streets suddenly crossed his young
fancy. “O, I wish I had a sled now.”
“Poor child!” murmured the seamstress; adding earnestly:
“But you would not go and slide, with all the
rude boys in the court, Harry?”
“No, indeed,” answered the boy; “but I'd draw you,
Margery, when you wanted to ride.”
Such prattle was Margery's sole comfort; but was it
not much? she often asked herself; ought she not be
thankful ever to toil, thus sweetly repaid by the dear
affection of her baby brother?
-- 102 --
[figure description] Page 102.[end figure description]
The little fellow finished his breakfast, and ran to look
at the snow, piled upon chimneys and roofs visible from
their window; and Margery was preparing to arrange her
remaining work, when a sudden cry, shrill and piercing,
resounded from the passage-way outside, and at the same
moment a noise was heard, as of shuffling feet. The
seamstress hastened to the door, and, opening it, beheld
two men carrying a rough, pine coffin towards the rear
of the entry. The remark of Ferret, concerning a death
on the previous night, now recurred to her recollection,
and for an instant a sickness at the heart paralyzed her
motions; but the next moment, she heard the shrill cry
again, and beheld a child standing at an open door, some
few rooms distant, and apparently struggling in the grasp
of a policeman. Yielding to a sudden impulse, she crossed
her threshold, and hurried after the coffin-bearers, who
entered the door at which the child was screaming.
“What is the matter, sir?” inquired she, of the policeman,
who seemed endeavoring to restrain the grief of the
little girl, rather than to coerce her movements.
“Well, ma'am, the poor thing takes it hard, you see!
Her mother is dead, and the little 'un's afeard they'll take
her to Potter's Field, she says!”
“They sha'n't—they sha'n't!” cried the child Fanny;
for it was she, who now, excited almost to hysteries from
her night's watch and abstinence from food, had completely
abandoned herself to despair.
“Hush! they're not a-goin' to hurt your mammy,” said
the policeman, soothingly. “You see, ma'am,” he continued,
addressing Margery, “she's a little queer, like.
-- 103 --
[figure description] Page 103.[end figure description]
Ain't used.” Strange remark! as if the orphan could get
accustomed to such bereavements.
“My poor child!—come to me! Let me talk to you,”
said Margery, in a low voice, that seemed to exert an
influence over Fanny, who, released by the policeman,
hesitatingly approached the seamstress, looking up, with
tearful eyes into her face.
“Will you tell the men not to take my mother to Potter's
Field?” she asked, earnestly, her lips remaining
parted, in anxious expectation of the response.
“Who told you, dear, they would take your mother
there?” asked the seamstress. The policeman rejoined:
“Ye see, ma'am, nobody knows the woman, it seems.
She's not been a tenant long, and there ain't no friends o'
the family, like—and so, you see, the `Guardians' has
charge of sich cases.”
“I understand,” murmured Margery; and the reflection
occurred to her, for the first time, “Where shall I be
buried?” At the same moment, her rapid fancy pictured
a scene, perhaps not distant, when she might be the dead
and friendless woman, and her orphan brother the despairing
child.
“The poor thing is afeard of the men, like, that Mr.
Ferret sent for, to box up the mother, and take her to the
almshouse.”
“And this child—what is to become of her?”
“The Governors, on the Island, I suppose,” returned
the policeman—“they has charge of orphans.”
Margery stooped, and looked at the weeping child,
and pressed her lips on the poor forehead, where a
-- 104 --
[figure description] Page 104.[end figure description]
mother's dying kiss had lingered last. As she did so, a new
voice was heard at a few yards' distance, and the form of
a negro appeared, emerging from the narrow staircase,
and sustaining with his outstretched arm the slow footsteps
of an old gentleman, attired in a shabby camlet
cloak and broad-brimmed hat.
“Bless, me, Samson! it is very dark, surely, for a
dwelling-house!”
“Sartain sure, Massa Granby! Dis are a tenant-house,
not a dwelling-house, massa!”
The two had now stepped upon the passage-floor, and
were at once attracted by the sight of the group collected
at the open door; for, in the room beyond, they could
see a rough coffin resting on the bare floor.
“What's wanting?” inquired the policeman, advancing
towards the new-comers
“A Mr. Ferret—isn't that the name, Samson?—the
owner or agent of this building.”
“He's in the house, somewhere about,” answered the
policeman, while Margery shrank back into the shadow,
soothing the orphan Fanny, who clung to her with an
instinct of confidence. At this moment, too, the voice of
Harry called for his sister, and the little figure appeared
running towards them.
“A poor woman died here this morning, or last night?”
interrogated Mr. Granby.
“In that room—there's her child Are you a friend?”
asked the policeman, scanning the old camlet cloak with a
glance that seemed to indicate his impression that so
rusty-looking a friend might be of very little service.
-- 105 --
[figure description] Page 105.[end figure description]
“I trust I am a friend of the unfortunate, always,”
replied Mr. Granby. “That is her child, you tell me!”
he continued. “Pardon me, madam,” addressing Margery,
“did you know the poor deceased?”
“No, sir. I but a little while since heard of her death—
last night.”
“This must be the little girl, Samson,” affirmed Mr.
Granby. Then, very much to the surprise both of Margery
and the policeman, he stretched out his hand to the
child, and said, in an assuring tone—
“Come hither, little Fanny, and tell me if you were out
in the storm, last night?”
Fanny looked wonderingly at the old gentleman, and
burst into tears again.
“I went for Robert,” she murmured, “before mother
died!”
“And I have promised your friend Robert,” said Mr.
Granby, lifting a fold of his camlet cloak, to wipe a tear
that started suddenly to his eye, “that your mamma
should not be buried in Potter's Field.”
The last words were uttered thickly, for the old gentleman's
emotion interfered with his voice; but Fanny
understood them, and, with a loud cry, sprang away from
Margery's side, and fell at the feet of Mr. Granby.
“Dear me, Samson! lift her up!” cried the master,
much affected, and not a little frightened, as the girl
remained without motion on the floor. But the seamstress
had already darted forward, and raised the poor orphan,
whose head fell slackly backward, as she did so; revealing
the countenance pallid and the eyes closed in insensibility.
-- 106 --
[figure description] Page 106.[end figure description]
No wonder, indeed, that the infant had fainted; for the
endurance of her young soul and body had been taxed to
its uttermost.
“Poor, dear little one!” exclaimed the old gentleman.
“Very likely, famished, too!”
“Berry like, indeed,” echoed Samson.
“I will lay her on my bed,” said Margery, quickly, and
lifting the puny form in her arms. “It is just there, sir—
where the door is open.”
In a moment more, the orphan was laid quietly in the
sewing-girl's bed, while Margery bathed her forehead with
camphor, used often for her own aching brow. Mr. Granby
and Samson, with the policeman, conferred together,
meantime, in the outer apartment; the result of their
colloquy being the sending for Peleg Ferret, and his
issuing of instructions to the coffin-bearers to permit the
corpse to remain for the present undisturbed by removal.
This accomplished, Mr. Granby applying a handkerchief
to his eyes, declared that he felt better, and that he was
glad he had come to see a tenant-house.
-- 107 -- p553-114
Chapter VIII. Noon at the Death-Bed.
[figure description] Page 107.[end figure description]
THE noon-day sun, shining coldly into Emily Marvin's
chamber, beheld her with heart uplifted still to the
Father of Orphans, whilst the folded hands of her mother,
clasped closely within her own, seemed, as they rested on
the marble breast, to be a link between dead and living,
even as the unuttered prayer was a union of earth with
heaven.
Mrs. Dumsey had, with kind officiousness, relieved the
sorrowing daughter of the first necessary preparations for
that saddest of all duties, the burial of a parent. Administering
such neighborly consolation as was within her
power, she had already laid out the corpse upon its humble
couch, smoothing the thin hair beneath a white cap,
and arranging the worn limbs, in the last habiliments of
mortality. She now entered, accompanied by a cadaverous-looking
lad, who held a spring tape-measure in his
hand, which he drew out and let slip, with a jerk, to show
his nonchalance, as he glanced from the body to Emily.
“It's the undertaker's assistant,” whispered Mrs. Dumsey,
taking the girl's trembling hand, and leading her
-- 108 --
[figure description] Page 108.[end figure description]
gently from the bed to her mother's arm-chair, while the
white-faced boy began, in a business-like way, to take the
dimensions necessary for the selection of a coffin, pausing,
at each stretch of his tape, to set down a figure, at the
same time slowly turning his head towards his right shoulder,
to catch a glimpse of Emily's face; all the time
whistling, just audibly, like heavy breathing.
“It's a dispensation,” said Mrs. Dumsey, wiping her
eyes with a white and blue handkerchief, and sitting down
beside the orphan, still holding her cold hand. “I'm
often called on quite distressing occasions; an' I've got a
feelin' heart, Miss Marvin, though I says it myself, miss;
and I always says, says I, on sich occasions—it's a dispensation.”
Emily made no reply, and the day-nurse went on with
her well-meant method of administering comfort, by remarking,
in a decided tone, that, “We're all mortal critters,
and liable to go,” at which declaration, the sepulchral
assistant looked over his shoulder, gave a sideling glance,
and continued his ventriloquial whistle.
“A nuss sees a deal o' sufferin' and trials,” pursued Mrs.
Dumsey. “Though I says it myself, as oughtn't to speak
o' oneself, seein' as self-praise don't go a great ways, but
people that knows me, knows I speak what's true, and no
lie—a nuss like me, goin' about, sees an orful amount of
human sufferin's.”
Emily nodded her head, only half-listening to the good
woman's words; and Mrs. Dumsey, encouraged by the
reflection that she was comforting her distressed neighbor,
went on, in the same strain, till the undertaker's agent
-- 109 --
[figure description] Page 109.[end figure description]
had finished his task, and, turning from the bed-side,
approached them, leering stupidly.
“Are you talkin' to that g'rl?” he asked, jerking his
yellow chin toward Emily. “Mighty little she hears—
been a-faintin' this half-hour.”
Mrs. Dumsey bent forward, scanning the young girl's
face, which drooped against the chair-back.
“Dear me!” she cried, greatly agitated, “she's off,
sure enough! Heart alive! why didn't you tell me,
young man?” And, hastily supporting Emily, the nurse
began to rub her head and hands.
“Quick! get some water!” she exclaimed. “Run,
lad!”
“I ain't a errand-boy!” responded the yellow-faced
individual, with a snap of his tape-spring. “You're a
nuss, ain't you? 'Tend to your business, and I'll 'tend to
mine.” And resuming his sepulchral whistle, he sauntered
leisurely out.
“Was there ever!” ejaculated Mrs. Dumsey, amazed at
the stripling's lack of feeling. “Here, you! Matil-da!”
And she stamped her foot upon the floor, to attract some
member of her family, who occupied the room beneath.
“Poor, unfort'nate critter! The dispensation has overcome
her, an' she's gone clean off.” Then, with renewed
vigor, she beat and rubbed the hands of her fainting
charge, alternately pounding with her foot, and screaming
at the top of her voice—“Ma-til-da!—Hen-ri-et-ta!—
Lau-ra J-a-ne!” the sponsorial appellations, respectively,
of her three interesting daughters. But no response
came to her outcries; and, at length, in great excitement,
-- 110 --
[figure description] Page 110.[end figure description]
she withdrew her arm from around the fainting girl,
placed her in a reclining position on the chair, and then
hurried frantically out of the room, and down stairs to
her own quarters, whence, in a moment afterwards, a succession
of yells arose, proceeding from the throats of all
her innocents, knocked desperately to right and left.
This domestic retribution accomplished, Mrs. Dumsey
seized a bottle of hartshorn, and violently retraced her
steps upward.
But what was the astonishment of the worthy nurse, on
reaching the threshold of the death-chamber, to behold
within, standing in the middle of the floor, with eyes fixed
wonderingly upon the fainting orphan's face, a young man,
clad in fashionable garments, and wearing a look of gentility
entirely at variance with the atmosphere of Foley's
Barracks. He appeared to have just paused, as if himself
transfixed at the spectacle before him; but the approach
of Mrs. Dumsey aroused him from his contemplation.
“Beg pardon, madam!” he said, lifting his hat. “I
have intruded, I fear, on your apartment; but” —
“It's not my apartment, sir!” said the nurse, undecided
whether to be displeased or not, as the young gentleman's
demeanor was so respectful. “It's hers!” She pointed,
in saying this, at the bed on which lay the rigid form of
the dead. The stranger started, uttering an exclamation
of surprise.
“It's poor Widow Marvin, sure enough!” cried the
nurse. “If you was a friend of the family, you know'd as
good a critter as ever lived on the face of this ere canopy.
And her poor darter's een'most gone herself! Laws me!
-- 111 --
[figure description] Page 111.[end figure description]
what am I thinkin' about?” she continued, running to
Emily's side, and beginning to apply her hartshorn
liberally.
“I trust you will pardon my intrusion!” resumed the
young gentleman, with an inclination of his head. “I am
extremely sorry! I was looking for Mr. Jobson, who, I
learned, was in the building, and by accident, I—I” —
“O, no harm's done!” said Mrs. Dumsey, greatly won
by the stranger's deferential manner to herself. “Mistakes
will happen, we all know, sir! Mr. Jobson was to
see me this mornin', early—always comes early to me, as
he knows Mrs. Dumsey is a punctooal woman all her born
days.” This information was given in a subdued tone,
while the operation of bathing Emily's forehead went
steadily on. “Mr. Jobson's about the house somewhere,”
concluded Mrs. Dumsey. “They've not all paid yet, I'll
warrant.” This was said with a consciousness that, whatsoever
might be the delinquencies of other tenants of
Foley's Barracks, she, Mrs. Dumsey, was entirely clear of
Mr. Jobson's books.
The stranger lingered a moment longer, glancing at the
bed and at Emily, and evidently anxious to prolong the
conversation; but the duration of the orphan's swoon had
now begun to alarm her attendant, who redoubled her
restorative measures. At the same time, the entire family
of Mrs. Dumsey, including the infant Tommy, presented
themselves in force at the door of the apartment, at
which fatal apparition the gentleman, bowing low to their
mother, backed himself out, his eyes still riveted on the
insensible maiden.
-- 112 --
[figure description] Page 112.[end figure description]
And truly, at this moment, to an admirer of statuesque
beauty, the drooping form of Emily, as it reclined, half
relieved against the chair-back, half supported by Mrs.
Dumsey's arm, presented a beautiful study. The nurse
had ceased those approved modes of proceeding, involved
in clapping the palms of the hands and shaking the arms,
and was now gently bathing the pallid forehead with her
usually infallible hartshorn; and the orphan's face lay,
death-like, against her breast. White, motionless, and
lovely, the milliner's apprentice appeared more like modelled
marble than living clay; for her lips were bloodless,
and, save the long-fringed eyelids, heavily pendant,
and the clustering curls upon her neck, both face and
bust seemed sculptured out in strange and hueless immobility.
“Go down this minute!—what are you all taggin' arter
me for!” exclaimed the nurse, who, at this juncture, had
succeeded in bringing some animation to her patient, by a
continued pressure of the hartshorn bottle to her nostrils.
“Do you hear me, Ma-til-da? Will you take the children
down?”
“They won't mind me!” returned the eldest Miss Dumsey,
with a wriggle of her neck, as she caught hold of
Tommy, who thereupon delivered himself of a war-whoop,
and cried out, “She's pinchin' me!” A diversion in
Tom's favor was made at this instant, arising from the
breaking out of a private feud between Henrietta and
Laura Jane, who simultaneously grasped each other's
hair, and performed a discordant duet, causing the elder
sister to interfere between them; whereat Master Tom
-- 113 --
[figure description] Page 113.[end figure description]
escaped, and took refuge behind the chair near his
mother.
Poor Mrs. Dumsey was at her wit's end; but the eyes
of Emily opening at this moment, withdrew her attention
from intestine broils, and, like a good, tender-hearted
woman, as she really was, she now bent kindly over the
orphan, and whispered:
“Do you feel better, my poor dear?”
“Yes—yes, thank you!—thank you!” the girl murmured,
brokenly. “I was” —
A shiver ran through her frame, and she almost relapsed
into her swoon; but Mrs. Dumsey's ready hartshorn and
sustaining arm, interposed to prevent it.
“Dear heart!” she said, “you are very weak!”
Emily's eyes once more awakened to the sight and her
heart to the sense of sorrow; for the dizziness of returning
consciousness too soon gave place to a more bitter
realization of her desolate position. The nurse, meantime,
had made vigorous demonstrations upon her rebellious
progeny, driving them literally to “outer darkness,” by
swiftly closing on their retreating forms the door of the
apartment; not, however, without a parting injunction
upon Matilda concerning the pacification of Tommy,
whose pipes continued to be audible in the distance.
Mrs. Dumsey then, in a mysterious manner, informed
Emily concerning the recent visit of the stranger gentleman.
“One of the nicest young gentlemen you ever seen in
all your born days, Miss Marvin. 'Pon my word, he was
a figger, in his elegant white coat, and his” —
-- 114 --
[figure description] Page 114.[end figure description]
“Dear Mrs. Dumsey—what is it to me? Did he not
want Mr. Jobson?”
“O! tell that to the marines!” rejoined the nurse,
knowingly. “If you'd seen him stare at you, and so sorrowful-like!
And sich a nice-spoken man!”
Emily tried to rise from the chair, more to escape the
nurse's loquacity than for any object, and her glance wandered
towards the table. Suddenly she exclaimed:
“I do not see it! where—where can it be?” and she
searched hurriedly in her bosom. “It isn't here!”
“Sakes! have you lost anything, child?” asked the
nurse, alarmed at Emily's confusion.
“There was a purse!—it was on the table,” said the
orphan, in an agitated voice.
“I'll be bound, then, that heathenish lad stole it!—the
unmannerly scamp that he was!” cried the nurse, bustling
forward to the table. “Here it was, you say? He's got
it, you may be sure! A rascally villyan, if ever there
was one! Gallus was in his face!”
“It's—don't worry yourself, Mrs. Dumsey!” murmured
poor Emily, sinking back in the chair. “Yet—O heaven!
it was all!” And covering her face with her hands, the
orphan hurst into a flood of tears.
When the daughter of a rich house bends, weeping,
over a departed mother, she may indulge, unrestrained, the
holy privilege of mourning for the dead alone, and her
thoughts, clustering around the beloved one, may entwine
with the memory of a thousand joys, and then soar up, in
hope and trust, following the enfranchised spirit to its
home of light and beauty. With such thoughts, such
-- 115 --
[figure description] Page 115.[end figure description]
unrestrained communion with and for the dead alone, a
mourner's heart is solaced, the bitterness of its grief
assuaged. But to the poor, this is impossible! The desolate
orphan Emily was denied—as those in her condition
are ever denied—the dear consolation of an unbroken
period of secret grief, during which the memory of the
beloved dead may inhabit and purify the heart. Poverty
denied this. The dull, deadening sense of her own
helplessness—her utter friendlessness—weighed upon her
soul, mingling with the consciousness of her irreparable
bereavement.
Mrs. Dumsey sat down once more beside her young
friend, endeavoring to console her. “All you had, poor
child! Is that so? But I'll follow the rascal! I'll
expose him! He must come with the coffin! I'll fix
him! Now, I'll stir about, and get all things ready, and
you, child—you just sit still. No! lie down!—that's
better. You need rest!”
Saying all this in a breath, Mrs. Dumsey began hastily
to arrange an impromptu bed, upon a few chairs which she
placed against the wall, and spread with a pillow and
some clothing.
“There, child! there's a nice bed for you! lie down,
now, do, and try to get a wink o' sleep, and you'll feel
right smart.”
The exhausted girl sank on the couch prepared for her,
and essayed to thank the kind woman; but her lips
scarcely emitted an audible sound.
“Poor thing!” said the nurse, “you're weak from
cryin', I do b'lieve. I'll be bound, a cup o' tea 'll do you
-- 116 --
[figure description] Page 116.[end figure description]
a mint o' good. You won't? Well, now, that's queer!
Well, jes' lie still; and I'll be back directly.”
So saying, Mrs. Dumsey made a rush for the door, and
disappeared, returning, in a few moments with a glass of
some smoking beverage, which she announced confidentially
as “port-wine negus, made o' fust rate stuff.” Emily
turned away, when this was proffered to her.
“Drink it up! It'll make you sleep!”
The orphan touched her lips to the compound, and then
placed the glass on the chair beside her. Mrs. Dumsey
shook her head, in melancholy reproof; and then, bidding
the orphan “go to sleep!” covered her slight form with
the quilt, and sat beside, till a quiet slumber stole over
Emily's eyelids, and wrapt her mourning spirit in forgetfulness.
-- 117 -- p553-124
Chapter IX. Mr. Jobson's Visitors.
[figure description] Page 117.[end figure description]
WHEN the young gentleman who had found himself,
as it seemed, unexpectedly within a tenant-room of
Foley's Barracks, and in presence of a dead mother and
fainting daughter, departed to continue his search for
Mr. Jobson, his mind was filled with conjectures regarding
the spectacle just presented to his view—involving, of
course, speculations concerning Emily, and comparisons
between her and Mrs. Dumsey not favorable to the latter—
all of which mental wool-gathering was interjected by
expostulatory “pshaws,” and closed by an abrupt encounter
with an individual, in broadcloth and patent-leathers,
heretofore introduced to the reader.
“Mr. Peyton! here?” exclaimed the agent, starting
back in surprise at meeting this fashionable young gentleman
in a dim passage-way of Foley's Barracks.
“Veritably me!” returned the stranger; “at which,
doubtless, you are greatly astonished, as usual, Jobson?”
“But to come here, Mr. Peyton, you know!”
“Where the deuce else would I be likely to find you,
my dear Jobson? Here is your domain, where you indulge
all your charming little eccentricities, such as
-- 118 --
[figure description] Page 118.[end figure description]
squeezing the last dollar from miserable debtors, and
selling at auction the broken chairs and straw beds of
pauper tenants. Eh, Jobson! am I right?”
“You're hard on me, Mr. Peyton; but you will have
your joke, you know.”
“Joke! not a bit of it! But, let's to business—for
your avarice has already divined what brought me here, in
your place of torment. Jobson, I want money!”
“But, Mr. Peyton,”—began the agent, hesitatingly.
“None of your sham excuses. My sleigh is at the
door, and you'll oblige me by just stepping into it; for,
egad! money I must have, and you shall get it for me!”
Saying this, the young gentleman, in rather an impetuous
manner, ran his arm through that of Jobson, and
descended the stairs so rapidly that he dragged the agent
downward with imminent peril to his neck. Arrived at
the floor entrance, the latter beheld a stylish sleigh, with
a pair of horses, restrained by a negro driver, who held
the reins, but evidently so restive that Mr. Jobson drew
back in apparent alarm. His companion, however, hurried
him forward, and the wondering tenants around,
much to their astonishment, beheld their landlord captured,
as it were, in this summary manner, and borne
away by flying steeds through whirling drifts of snow. It
is likely that, had they considered this a final farewell on
the part of Mr. Jobson, more than one of them might
have been tempted to indulge in personal feeling to the
extent of projecting a few missiles after the sleigh; but
as it was, they contented themselves with sundry muttered
expletives which may or may not have reached the agent's
-- 119 --
[figure description] Page 119.[end figure description]
ears. Altogether, Mr. Jobson was not a particular favorite
of the tenants of Foley's Barracks.
Out of poverty's precincts, the horses sped fast, gaily
prancing through the drifts in narrow streets, until Broadway
was at last reached, with its jangle of merry sleighbells.
Meantime, Mr. Jobson remained silent, as if
immersed in thought, till the quick tones of his companion's
voice suddenly roused him:
“Jobson! how does our business stand? What do I
owe you?”
“Well, to tell the truth, I couldn't, you know, just give
the exact” —
“Pshaw! I'll wager, now, you have the sum, principal
and interest, to a fraction, at your finger's end! And,
moreover, I know just what your computation will be!”
“And what is it?—if you'd be so good?” asked the
agent, with a covert smile.
“Just the highest penny you think I'll stand, Jobson!
eh! I have you there!”
“You've such a way, Mr. Peyton. But really, you
know,” —
“Nonsense! I know all about you, Jobby, my boy!
But here we are at your confounded office, where I danced
attendance a full half-hour before I learned your whereabouts.
Now, Jobson! spry, my good fellow; for I've
an appointment to dine to-day.” Saying this, Mr. Peyton
sprang from the sleigh, and catching the agent's hand,
landed him, with a jerk, upon the sidewalk.
Mr. Jobson's office was a small, square, uncarpeted
room, with a cubby-hole adjoining, on the ground floor of
-- 120 --
[figure description] Page 120.[end figure description]
a building devoted to the accommodation of lawyers,
brokers, artists, speculators, and all other professional or
non-professional sojourners in a “good business locality.”
On a tin sign at the door was painted, “J. Jobson, Real
Estate,” and over the lintel was inscribed, upon a board,
“Superintendent.” An open stove, with a sleepy-looking
fire, stood in the middle of the floor; near one of the dirty
windows was a high desk, at which a red-haired young man
sat, posting books. On the walls hung a few dust-covered
maps. The cubby-hole, or sanctum of Mr. Jobson, was an
oblong space, separated by a glazed door, with a green
curtain; and in this cubby-hole were an iron safe, a small
desk, and a rotary stool, which completely furnished the
apartment, there not being room for another article. Into
this, his sanctum, Mr. Jobson preceded his companion,
and seated himself upon the stool, before his desk, while
Peyton vaulted nimbly on the safe, and there established
himself—his legs dangling in the remaining space of the
apartment.
“Now, Shylock, my boy—let me have the needful.”
Mr. Jobson requested Mr. Peyton to “be so kind as to
raise your leg, you know,” and then, opening the safe-door,
drew forth, from various crevices within, a handful of
smoky-looking papers, apparently memoranda of different
ventures on the sea of money-craft; he unfolded, one by
one, and then as carefully refolded, several dog-eared
documents, from which, at no distant day, he well knew
as good gold would be extracted as if they were the
fabled philosopher's stone itself; he thumbed the parchment
records of foreclosed mortgages and notes of
-- 121 --
[figure description] Page 121.[end figure description]
judgments gone by default; and at length he drew out a roll
of paper slips, tied tightly with a red tape, and as he
unfastened and glanced at them, gave utterance to several
cabalistic words:
“Um! Two hundr'd—seven hundr'd—five hundr'd—
seventy-five—three hundr'd—nine hundr'd—five is five—
two and seven's nine—five's fourteen, and three is” —
“What the deuce are you about, Jobson?” here interrupted
Peyton, who had been yawning over the agent's
delay, and now vented his impatience by a stretch of his
limbs, which caused his foot, either through accident or
design, to fly suddenly against certain broadcloth-covered
sesquipedal proportions, forcing an abrupt whirl of the
rotary stool, that almost destroyed Mr. Jobson's equilibrium,
as he leaned on the edge of the desk.
“Ouch! Mr. Peyton! He, he! you're so rough, you
know! Might ha' broke my back!”
“Hurry yourself, then, and no more nonsense! Just
defer the study of my notes and obligations to another
time, you unconsionable usurer! and attend to my present
necessities. At your leisure you can gloat over the documents,
and study out new methods of overreaching! but
be so good now as to hand over the needful—five hundred,
at least!”
“But, you know, Mr. Peyton,”—began Jobson.
“I know nothing at present but the want of money.
There's my note; and the securities you have already.
So hand over!”
Jobson sighed, and drew from his safe a plethoric
packet of bank-notes, from which he passed over the
-- 122 --
[figure description] Page 122.[end figure description]
required amount, after closely scanning Peyton's obligation;
and the young gentleman, cramming the bills carelessly
into his pocket-book, then leaped from the safe.
“Is your uncle well, Mr. Peyton?” inquired Jobson, as
he proceeded to return his papers to the safe.
“Unfortunately for you—yes!” returned the other,
with a laugh.
“He, he! you're so funny!” rejoined Jobson, as his
visitor left the cubby-hole.
“Ah—by-the-way, who is that young girl—a tenant of
yours—whose mother died last night?” inquired Peyton,
pausing on the threshold, and speaking in a low key.
Jobson started, and changed color. “Eh!” he remarked,
carelessly, “you saw her—a protégé of mine, you
know.”
This was said with a nod and wink, at which Peyton
laughed, and called Jobson a “sly dog,” whereat Jobson
chuckled and rubbed his hands. Then the fashionable
young gentleman emerged from the agent's office, sprang
into his handsome sleigh, and was borne swiftly away.
Jobson returned to his cubby-hole, reclosed his safe,
walked a few moments up and down the outer apartment,
with his hands clasped under his coat-tails, and then muttered
between his teeth—
“Impertinent spendthrift!—he saw Emily, it seems!
but I'll—I'll take care o' that!”
“Well, Jobson! how are you to-day?” said a voice at
his elbow; and turning, he beheld a man of fine exterior
and richly dressed, but with marks of dissipation on his
features.
-- 123 --
[figure description] Page 123.[end figure description]
“Ah, Mr. Richmond—proud to see you here? Heavy
fall o' snow, last night.”
“Have you ascertained concerning the matter of which
I spoke, Jobson?” asked the visitor, in a low tone, seating
himself in a chair offered by the agent, while the latter
drew his rotary stool from its aperture.
“Estate of Mordecai Kolephat—property, et cetera, of
all kinds! Every item, Mr. Richmond—that is, you
know, all reliable items—eh? Wealthy man! Richer
than I thought! Here's a list of houses, et cetera, drawn
up from best authorities.”
Mr. Jobson took from a drawer in his desk a folded
paper, and handed it to his visitor.
“Thank you, Mr. Jobson!—this is reliable?”
“Safe—best authorities—almost to a T what he's
worth,” answered the agent. Then, as the gentleman
rose, he asked: “Did you meet Mr. Peyton? He's just
left here—two-horse sleigh!”
“No, he must have turned the corner. Two-horse
sleigh!—fast young man, Peyton.”
“Gay—a little gay!” returned Mr. Jobson. “Spends
freely! but then, you know, when his uncle dies, he'll be a
rich man!”
“Ah, yes!” said Mr. Richmond, moodily. “But people's
dying is not so certain.”
“Young people's,” assented Jobson, deferentially. “But
his uncle's old, you know.”
“And why not the young as well as old?” muttered
the other, as he turned toward the door.
“I—I don't know but they may, you know,” said Mr.
-- 124 --
[figure description] Page 124.[end figure description]
Jobson, quickly, willing to correct himself, if he had committed
an error. But the visitor had already departed,
with scarce a nod.
“Got somethin' on his mind—that's clear!” soliloquised
the agent, resuming his walk. “Mr. Richmond's a queer
man—very rich, but a queer man!”
A timid knock at the office-door now announced a new
visitor; and Mr. Jobson cried, in a loud tone, “Come in!”
upon which the door opened slowly, and discovered a man
who entered hesitatingly, removing from his head a very
shabby hat.
“Shut the door!” said Mr. Jobson, sharply, as he
seemed to recognize the new-comer, who obeyed the mandate
in a tremulous manner, and remained just within side,
apparently without courage to advance.
“It's you, Dobbs! is it?” said the agent, pursing out
his under lip, and elevating his chin at an angle, without
looking directly at his visitor. Then, with a jerk of his
under jaw, as though he was apprehensive of tetanus, he
projected the word “Well?”
This interrogative exclamation appeared, in fact, to
operate as a well-aimed missile upon the unfortunate
Dobbs, who, after several efforts to enunciate something,
continued dumb.
“Come to beg off again, I take it,” pursued Mr. Jobson,
letting his eyes fall upon the silent man at the door, with
an expression which seemed to make that individual
shrink into a yet smaller space than his thin figure had
before occupied. The two now stood in strong contrast
before the furtive glance of the red-haired clerk; indeed,
-- 125 --
[figure description] Page 125.[end figure description]
it was easy to perceive that Jobson and Dobbs were quite
different men. The former, arrayed in glossy broadcloth,
with portly dimensions, patent-leather boots, imposing
watch-establishment, and head thrown back in conscious
dignity of position; and the latter, a small man, with thin
legs, his coat rusty and threadbare, his shoes patched, his
features worn and thoughtful, and an air of unmistakable
penury about his entire person and demeanor.
“If you please, sir,” at last ventured the little man,
coughing once or twice, to reassure himself, “if I might
explain” —
“Yes, that's it!—that's the way! Always explaining,
you know! And, pray, Mr. Dobbs, what might you
explain this time?”
“I have met with a great misfortune,”—began the
shabby man, but was again taken up suddenly by the
agent.
“I'll be bound you have,” said that personage, with a
sneer; “you're always meeting misfortunes, Dobbs! Well,
go on, sir—go on! My time is always at your disposal,
you know,” he added, ironically.
The little man appeared for a moment to struggle with
some rising emotion, which he checked with difficulty, and
then resumed:
“A fire took place, last night, and” —. He hesitated.
“Well?” The catapult word struck the poor man a
second time, full in the face.
“My little shop, tools, machine, everything—gone—
ashes!” cried Dobbs, in hurried interjections; after
-- 126 --
[figure description] Page 126.[end figure description]
concluding which, he retreated close to the wall, and wiped
his forehead with a faded silk handkerchief.
Mr. Jobson remained silent during a moment's space,
and fixed his eyes upon Dobbs, with an expression of fearful
import, as if measuring the dimensions of the little
man, before proceeding to annihilate him. Then, advancing
close to his victim, so that his watch-seals pressed
against that wretched being's shivering form, he drew a
long inward breath, and straightened himself menacingly.
“Hah—you—Dobbs!” he said, “you—come—here, and
tell me my security is gone—burnt—destroyed! My
property, sir—my security” —. He paused, and glared
terribly upon Dobbs.
“But I—I will pay all I owe, Mr. Jobson—if you will
be easy. This is a sudden—a very great misfortune.”
“Dobbs!—you shall pay me! Remember that! I'll
have no shilly-shally. Hark ye, sir! you owe me seventy-five
dollars, with interest and costs. I took a mortgage
on your rickety machine and tools, to secure my debt;
and now, sir,”—Jobson elevated his voice to a very high
key—“now, sir, you've gone and burnt them—to swindle
me—to swindle me, sir!”
“Mr. Jobson!” expostulated the debtor, lifting his thin
arms, while a crimson flush overspread his pallid cheeks,
“don't say that!”
“It's a trick—a humbug! I'll see to it, sir.”
“It is no trick, Mr. Jobson! I have lost, in one night,
the result of ten years' labor! I am disheartened!”
There was an earnest pathos in the utterance of these
last words which might have touched any heart but
-- 127 --
[figure description] Page 127.[end figure description]
Jobson's. They seemed to express the utter prostration of
hope.
“I'll find out all about it, Dobbs. I'm not to be gammoned,
you know,” cried the agent, wrathfully.
“I owe you a month's rent, Mr. Jobson. If I could be
allowed to look about a bit among my friends” —
“Yes! look about! and run up another score! No,
sir! pay the rent, or leave! That's my answer. Pay,
or go!”
Mr. Jobson, in saying this, reached forward, and opened
the door.
“I will do all in my power, Mr. Jobson,” replied the
debtor, mildly, as he covered his head with the shabby
hat, and turned away. “I am sorry you are so hard on
me.”
“Good day, Dobbs! Pay, or go, you know!” said the
agent, with a malicious emphasis, and then slammed the
door hard upon the retreating figure of the poor man,
who said not another word, but went his melancholy way.
Mr. Jobson then startled his red-locked clerk with a mandate
enjoining him to repair at once to the locality of
the little work-shop lately occupied by Dobbs the Inventor,
and ascertain, by personal inspection, the amount of damage
done by the fire; after which, dusting his glossy
beaver and patent leathers, the respectable agent, superintendent,
and broker of real estate, leisurely sallied out
once more upon the busy thoroughfare.
-- 128 -- p553-135
Chapter X. A Family Council.
[figure description] Page 128.[end figure description]
THERE were close consultation and great planning in
the house of Mr. Granby, on the evening of the day
on which the old gentleman had made the acquaintance
of sundry tenants of Kolephat College. Bob the Weasel,
on that eventful day, had, in great astonishment and
some little trepidation, been initiated into certain secrets
of civilized life, most novel and startling to his experience.
He had felt the touch of a woman's fingers, bathing his
bruised head; had been permitted to devour, without
reproof, a plentiful and savory meal; and had received,
moreover, at the hands of black Samson, a most necessary
ablution, coupled with a thorough scrubbing of his diminutive
person. In this condition, after listening to family
prayers, and partaking of a parting bowl of porridge,
prepared by the stately housekeeper, of whom Bob already
stood in extreme awe, the newsboy was inducted, for the
first time in his life, into a comfortable bed, with the promise
that, on the morrow, he should see his friend Fanny,
and attend the funeral of her mother.
Bob the Weasel, it is not to be doubted, was somewhat
exercised in mind in endeavoring to account for his own
-- 129 --
[figure description] Page 129.[end figure description]
share in the day's incidents. It was altogether so surprising
that anybody should take an interest in him—so
unheard-of that an old gentleman, out of mere goodness
of heart, should have bestowed upon a ragged newsboy
such marks of kindness—and it appeared, indeed, so like
a dream or fairy-tale, that he was to go to the funeral of
Fanny's mother, and that she was not to be buried in
Potter's Field—all these marvels, making the subject of
Bob's reflections, as he was left in his new bed by Samson,
caused in the poor urchin's brain so much perplexing
cogitation as to delay for a long time the approach of
sleep. And when his eyes at length closed, troops of
grotesque tableaux marshalled themselves through his
dreams, in which myriads of weeping little orphans and
ancient gentlemen in camlet cloaks, fire-engines with pipes
held by stalwart Samsons, and a confused crowd of
policemen, newsboys, landlords, and tenants, all driven up
and down by a mighty steam press, composed the main
phantasmagoria.
Meantime, Mr. Granby sat in his arm-chair, in the
library, while Samson occupied a seat at a little distance,
and Mrs. George disposed herself comfortably upon the
sofa, before the cheerful sea-coal fire. On a mahogany
stand, beside the master, lay an open Bible, on which the
silver-bound spectacles of the old gentleman were placed,
within his reach, and the mild light of a shaded lamp fell,
equally radiant, upon his reverend forehead and the divine
page. Mr. Granby appeared absorbed in profound thought,
which was at last broken in upon by the housekeeper, with
the abrupt remark:
-- 130 --
[figure description] Page 130.[end figure description]
“That child is a perfect heathen!”
“A heathen, Mrs. George?”
“Not a bit better! I asked him, while you were
absent, if he ever went to church or Sunday-school, and,
would you believe it, he laughed in my face!”
“Poor child!” said Mr. Granby.
“Poor child, indeed!” returned Mrs. George, bridling.
“I asked him if he knew the Lord's Prayer, and he inquired,
`What Lord?' as if there were a dozen. He's a
downright heathen, Mr. Granby.”
“And what are we to do with him, if that be the case,
Mrs. George?”
“Mercy me! I really can't advise!” said Mrs. G.,
with a toss of the head. “My opinion isn't worth mentioning.”
“But we are Christians, Mrs. George, and profess to
have duties toward the heathen.”
“I dare say, there are places provided for such poor
children,” said the housekeeper, with some asperity of
manner, which was in decided contrast with her master's
cahn demeanor. “Almost every day, somebody calls for
a subscription to one or another charity. Isn't there such
a place as the Orphan Asylum?”
“Doubtless, Mrs. George. And Samson, here, will
inform you that there is a place called Potter's Field;
nevertheless, we have seen to-day how strong a prejudice
exists concerning the latter; and, I doubt not, our young
friend up stairs would object to being sent to the Asylum.”
“Object!” echoed the matron. “I should think `beggars
mustn't be choosers.”'
-- 131 --
[figure description] Page 131.[end figure description]
“Pardon me, Mrs. George! The lad, it appears, is no
beggar, but has contrived to support himself by his own
industry. To be sure, his earnings must be scanty, or he
would not have been obliged to sleep in—barrels!” The
old gentleman paused and reflected; for it seemed to him
an unaccountable riddle of city life, that children of Bob's
age should be exposed to such privations and hardships.
“Quare children, dese newsboys—berry quare!” here
interposed Samson, rubbing his head with both hands, as
if greatly perplexed. The housekeeper nodded and pursed
her lips, to indicate that more might be uttered on that
head.
“Listen to me,” said Mr. Granby. “We are all, I
trust, anxious to perform our duties, as Christians, toward
less fortunate fellow-creatures. It has been the will of
God, this day, to cast upon our sympathies two of that
class of whom our Lord and Master spake, when he
said, `Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid
them not! for of such is the kingdom of heaven!' Two
helpless orphans appeal to our ministering care, Mrs.
George! one rests under this roof—perhaps for the first
time in his life, upon a comfortable bed. Another, bereft
of a maternal protector, remains under care of a poor
sewing-girl, scarce able to support herself. Mrs. George!
we will seek counsel, in this matter, of Him who `doeth
all things well.”'
Saying these words, the aged man left his chair, and
kneeling devoutly beside the little stand, crossed his hands
upon the open Bible, and closed his eyes. Mrs. George
laid down her needle-work, and, with Samson, also knelt,
-- 132 --
[figure description] Page 132.[end figure description]
while the master poured forth a simple and earnest prayer
for direction in the course which should be pursued. Then,
resuming his arm-chair, Mr. Granby adjusted his spectacles,
and, turning the leaves of the Bible, read, in an
impressive tone:
“`If thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfiest
the afflicted soul, then shall thy light rise in obscurity,
and thy darkness shall be as the noon-day, and the Lord
shall guide thee continually, and thou shalt be as a watered
garden, as a well of water, whose waters fail not.”'
“Bress the good Lord!” ejaculated the negro, when
his master paused.
“Let Samson now decide, Mrs. George, what shall be
done with the boy Robert. What say you, my old friend?”
said Mr. Granby, turning to his servant.
“De Lord is our Shepherd!” responded Samson, solemnly
bending his sable head.
“`Feed my sheep!”' rejoined the old gentleman.
“And de Lord says, `Oder sheep hab I, which are not
ob dis fold!”' continued Samson, raising his eyes to his
master's face. “Massa Granby! I s'pose Bob is one ob
dat kind o' sheep, and” —
“We must lead him to the fold of the Good Shepherd!”
said Mr. Granby, quickly. “Ay, Samson! you are right;
and our duty, as Christian stewards, is plain. Is it not
so, Mrs. George?”
The housekeeper bowed her head in silence.
“Your little heathen must be converted,” continued
Mr. Granby, with a smile; “and I know you will not
grudge a little trouble for his welfare, Mrs. George.”
-- 133 --
[figure description] Page 133.[end figure description]
“What do you propose to do with the child, Mr.
Granby?”
“For the present, let him abide with us,” answered the
master. “To-morrow, Samson will see that he is clad
decently; and, I doubt not, you will speedily make the lad
useful about the house.”
Mrs. George sighed, and looked as if she abandoned at
once all hope of further quiet or comfort in the world. At
the same time, an angry impulse almost made her propose
that a general invitation should be extended to all tenant-house
orphans, but she checked in season the ironical suggestion,
and contented herself with inquiring, if “the other
orphan,” the girl “Fanny,” was to be brought likewise to
their dwelling.
“I am perplexed about that,” said Mr. Granby. “The
child is so young, and” —
“Female children are very troublesome,” added Mrs.
George.
“'Scuse me, Massa Granby!” here interposed Samson,
“I tink I knows what to do!”
“Speak, then, Samson! You know this is a family
council.”
“Dere's de chile Bob—I'se able to manage him, you
see, so as dere'll be no trouble to Missy George! Now,
dere's de 'ittle Fanny—bress de Lord! she's in good hands
now. Bes' let her stay jis' whar she is.”
“But you forget, Samson—the seamstress is dependent
on her needle for a living, and has already a child to
support.”
“Dar's jis' de reason, Massa Granby. If dere mought
-- 134 --
[figure description] Page 134.[end figure description]
be jis' a dollar guv to de seamstress ebbery week, for dat
ar chile's libin,' den her rent might be paid, massa.”
Samson glanced up, sidewise, at Mr. Granby, as he
spoke this, and his dark features grew luminous with an
expression of intelligent benevolence. His master looked
at him a moment, fixedly, and then stretched out his hand,
which the negro warmly grasped.
“Samson!” said the old gentleman, rising from his
chair, and shaking his servant's hand, “often has your
plain, practical sense relieved me of embarrassment. God
bless you, boy! you have a good heart. It shall be done
as you say. The lad shall be in your charge, and little
Fanny may remain with her present protector! Mrs.
George, will that suit you?”
Mrs. George looked as if she would rather have had the
credit of proposing some such arrangement herself, but,
nevertheless, nodded acquiescingly.
“So, all is happily settled!” said the good master,
again shaking Samson's hand. “The Lord grant that
our work may be sanctified unto His praise and glory,
evermore!”
“Amen!” responded the old negro; “and bress de
Lord!”
-- 135 -- p553-142
Chapter XI. The Neglected Wife.
[figure description] Page 135.[end figure description]
TO the pedestrian, toiling over barriers of muddy
snow at the crossings, and picking his steps along
the pave—to the hardly more comfortable traveller, peering
from closed glasses of carriage or omnibus, dragged
slowly by laboring horses; and to the watchman, stamping
uneasily the sidewalk, with wet feet—it was a sight
suggestive of great comfort that met the glance directed
to warm, fire-lighted windows of splendid mansions lining
the aristocratic Avenues: and either of such beholders
might be pardoned, if a shade of envy flitted over his
mind, while fancying the luxurious happiness half-disclosed
from these elegant dwellings. But “all is not gold that
glisters,” is an axiom, the truth of which causes its triteness;
and the bright firelight in magnificent parlors may
cast its gleam upon pale cheeks and sad eyes, denoting, it
may be, the ice of despairing hearts.
Thus, truly, if the wayfarer's vision could have penetrated
through satin curtains to an apartment wherefrom
mellowed radiance shone upon the darkness without, it
might have discovered amid wealth and refinement which
the unthinking world sighs for, that their possessor was
-- 136 --
[figure description] Page 136.[end figure description]
no happier than the shrinking outcast cowering in the
area beneath. For, as the warm light danced hither and
thither, chasing shadows around the gorgeously frescoed
ceilings and gilded walls—flashing upon the polished surfaces
of curious woods that formed the furniture—playing
upon golden-framed antique paintings—glittering on the
rounded beauties of chiselled marble and alabaster—and
illumining emblazoned volumes of ancient and modern
literature—it did not, it could not dissipate the gloom of
a sorrowing spirit in their midst; it shed no warmth into
the bosom of an unhappy one who reclined upon the velvet
couch, with pale lips compressed, eyes painfully fixed, and
white fingers convulsively clenched upon a jewelled bosom.
There was no realization of surrounding luxuries in the
absorbed thoughts of that wretched one—of the wealth
that was hers—of the gold squandered for her pleasure.
Hours stole away; and quarter strokes tinkled again and
again upon the golden ball of the elaborate mantel clock;
but the cold, sad shadow moved not from that lady's
brow, her rigid fingers ceased not to press the almost
pulseless heart.
She was a young wife still, though five years wedded,
who had stepped from the threshold of her father's house,
with a heart rich in hopes, and a nature yet unschooled
by the hard lessons of endurance. And now, weary and
neglected, she wasted her existence in watching and waiting
for uncertain gleams of happiness with an unloving
husband.
The long time crept heavily, ere a loud peal of the
door-bell rang through the silent mansion, startling the
-- 137 --
[figure description] Page 137.[end figure description]
lonely woman, and calling to her eyes a faint gleam, which
was as quickly shaded by a cloud, as, with a perceptible
shudder, she rose from the sofa, glancing nervously towards
the door. Again the bell-wire was violently agitated, and
the hurried steps of a servant, in the hall below, were succeeded
by the sound of unsteady feet ascending the stairs.
In another moment, the door of the boudoir was flung
open, and a man entered, advancing with swaying motion
towards the lady. It was her husband—Mr. Charles
Richmond, a gentleman whose acquaintance the reader
has already made, in the office of Mr. Jobson, real-estate
agent.
He was apparently about thirty-five years old, of elegant
form, and face which might be esteemed handsome,
though the blue eyes were shifting in their expression, and
the lips tremulous and undecided, while the full chin gave
token of a sensual nature. His dress was disordered, and
his flushed countenance and bloodshot eyes betrayed the
situation in which the unhappy wife, too unerringly, had
looked to see him appear. From the haunts of revellers,
reeling with the fumes of wine, he had returned to that
neglected woman, and now, unmindful of her greeting as
he approached, threw himself upon the sofa from which
she had arisen, half-muttering a drunken oath.
For a moment, the wife paused, as if irresolute—her
hands pressed upon her breast—and then, gliding hurriedly
to his side, laid her small hand upon his hot forehead.
“Charles!” she murmured. There was no answer.
“Dear Charles! you are ill!” whispered the lady,
bending over the man, unmindful of the poisonous
-- 138 --
[figure description] Page 138.[end figure description]
breath of wine, while she pressed her cold lips to his
brow.
“Why have you not retired, madam?” muttered the
husband, with no manifestation of affection in his voice.
“What are you doing, up at this hour?”
“I could not sleep, Charles!”
“Stuff! you have been dozing over a book, all the
evening! Your eyes are red, and” —
“I have been weeping,” half rose to the wife's lips, but
she repressed the avowal, and turned aside to hide the sob
which choked her.
“Go to bed, Helen! Do you hear?”
“Charles! why do you treat me thus? It is unkind—
it is”—exclaimed the wife; and a gush of tears, not to
be restrained, concluded what she would have uttered.
The husband laughed sneeringly. “Pooh! pooh!—
your sex have always tears at their disposal,” he said.
“Go to bed!”
“Charles! do you—do you mean to be so cruel?”
“Will you leave me, madam?”
The wife turned silently away, tottering towards her
chamber-door, while the man, with a drunken yawn,
stretched himself at length upon the couch.
“Are you not gone yet?” he muttered, perceiving that
the unhappy woman had paused in the middle of the floor,
and was gazing mournfully back towards him.
“Charles!—my husband!” was the response, as, with
a sudden impulse, the lady retraced her steps to the
sofa, and sank, kneeling beside it. “You do not mean
to be unkind to me! I know you do not! How have
-- 139 --
[figure description] Page 139.[end figure description]
I offended you? Tell me, dearest Charles! O tell
me!”
“Will you go to bed, madam?”
“Cruel, cruel! I cannot bear it! Charles, if you
have ever cared for me, tell me why you treat me in this
manner? Night after night, you come without a smile or
kind word. I have not complained, Charles—I thought it
would pass over! But, indeed, indeed, I cannot bear this
treatment! It is breaking my heart!”
As the lady said this, she bowed her head upon the
sofa, by her husband's side, and the thick, brown tresses
of her hair fell, disordered, to the floor.
“Really, you are very careless of your toilet, madam!”
remarked the man, with his former sneering laugh. “You
must be quite sleepy! I beg you to retire!”
Those loosened tresses were then flung back quickly,
and a look, in which tenderness, grief, and despair, struggled
for the mastery, fell upon the countenance of the
heartless husband, causing the flush upon his cheeks to
fade for an instant into pallor. For a full minute, that
strange glance perused his regular features, till the blue,
insincere eye fell beneath it, and the mobile lip quivered as
with fear. Then, as if, in that strange look, the wife read
terrible truths, concealed before, she rose, without a word,
moved towards her chamber-door, and, pausing at the
threshold, murmured in a voice very low, but clearly
audible:
“Good-night, Charles! God bless you!”
For a quarter of an hour after the door of her chamber
had closed upon his unhappy wife, Charles Richmond
-- 140 --
[figure description] Page 140.[end figure description]
remained as if in stupor, breathing heavily, while the
mantel-clock ticked with solemn distinctness, and the fireshadows
flitted irregularly in the light of the blazing sea-coal.
But, as the golden quarters struck again, he started
suddenly, and, rising from the sofa, walked towards a door
opposite to that of the bed-chamber, and, opening it,
entered an inner apartment, furnished luxuriously, like the
boudoir, with the addition of a sumptuous bookcase, escritoir,
and articles of toilet furniture, denoting it to be his
private dressing-room. Here, turning on the gaslight, he
seated himself at a table, whereon stood an ivory cabinet,
which he presently unlocked, taking from it several papers,
and spreading them on the table before him. The effects
of his evening's dissipation seemed somewhat to confound
his ideas; for some minutes elapsed ere he proceeded further,
but leaned moodily upon his elbows, rubbing his
fingers alternately through his thick auburn hair, and
over his flushed face. At length, slowly collecting his
faculties, he poured out a glass of water from a silver
pitcher which stood beside the cabinet, and drank it at a
draught; then proceeded with his examination of the
papers.
There were several notes, traced in a delicate, female
hand, which he glanced at, and laid aside; a packet of
business-like papers, that were evidently bills and receipts;
a few discolored sheets, seeming to be old letters,
which he hastily tossed back into the casket; and, finally,
a roll whereon was scheduled a list of some sort, which
latter seemed to be the object of his scrutiny; for he
unfolded it carefully, and, drawing from his pocket a
-- 141 --
[figure description] Page 141.[end figure description]
folded paper, the same he had received that day from
Mr. Jobson, began slowly to compare the two.
To one who might observe this young man, as he now
sat under the light of a shaded chandelier, the aspect of
his features would not have been prepossessing, handsome
as he was generally conceded to be by female connoisseurs,
who envied Helen Richmond the possession of such an
“elegant” husband. A close reader of the human countenance
might discern in the compressed though feeble
lips, and changing eye, as well as in the narrow space
between the brows, the token of a crafty, and, perhaps,
cruel nature. There was a certain sweetness in the conformation
of the mouth, when slightly curved, which might
pass, to a loose glance, like the mark of amiability; but a
shrewd inspector would detect no permanence in this, but
rather the chance or studied expression of yielding muscles.
Altogether, though regular in feature, and of clear
complexion, Charles Richmond's face was not a face to
attract the love of a cautious observer. Certainly, if now
scanned keenly, the changing flickers of vexation, cunning,
and triumph, which it variously betrayed, were not at all
pleasing to follow.
“No brothers or sisters—sole heiress!” muttered the
young man, as he perused the papers attentively. “Jobson
has done his business well! I hardly thought the old
man was so wealthy.” Here he seemed to be mentally
computing the sum of certain figures in the column before
him. “A house in F — street; two blocks upon —
Avenue; eight lots in South Brooklyn; two stores in
Broadway; bonds, mortgages, stock securities! 'Egad!
-- 142 --
[figure description] Page 142.[end figure description]
the old fellow must be a millionaire!” Richmond laid
down the schedule, and passed his jewelled fingers several
times through his glossy hair.
“And all may be mine!—all! for he has neither chick
nor child but Rebecca!” The young man rose, as he said
this, and walked up and down the apartment, with hurried
steps.
“Curses!” he muttered between his set teeth, as he
paused again, near the door, and stretched out his clenched
hand in the direction of his wife's chamber. “Were it not
for her!—a whining, pale-faced fool!” The man's eye, as he
said this, glittered with a wicked light, which it was well
for Helen she could not see, or she had learned more of
her husband's character than had been revealed during
her years of married life. But at this moment, a suppressed
cough echoed from the bed-chamber, and the
sound seemed to change the current of thought in the
brain of him who listened; for he laughed strangely, and
said: “Hah! she fears she is in a decline! My treatment,
she will tell me, has brought on consumption. She coughs
a great deal, of late—that's true!”
With these words, Charles Richmond walked back to
the table, and proceeded to return the various papers to
their receptacle; but, twice, ere he locked that casket
again, he glanced over the schedule, muttering, as he
read: “It may—it must be mine! Helen cannot live
long, and—it must be so!”
What were the thoughts of this heartless man, and
what the intentions darkly shadowed forth by his disconnected
words, were not such as generally permit sleep to
-- 143 --
[figure description] Page 143.[end figure description]
descend calmly upon the soul. Yet Charles Richmond, in
an hour longer, was wrapped in slumber, upon the sofa in
his wife's boudoir; and there, at daybreak, Helen found
him, as she stole tremblingly forth from her own chamber,
and crept softly to his side, imprinting a kiss upon the
forchead shaded by auburn curls; then, fearful of rebuke,
fled back to weep upon her pillow.
An hour later, Richmond awoke, and, after hastily performing
his ablutions, in the adjoining dressing-room appropriated
to his own use, pulled the bell-rope violently,
and ordered the servant who responded to have breakfast
served at once in his library. It was soon announced as
ready, and then the husband left his wife's boudoir, without
a manifestation of solicitude concerning one who had
kissed and wept over his sleeping form. When he had
departed, Helen stole out once more from her chamber,
listening to his footsteps, and half-murmuring his name, as
if she hoped to call him back.
But the man was beyond the influence of her voice or
her affection. Wrapped in his selfishness, scheming alone
for personal enjoyment, Charles Richmond had walked
beyond the circle of household peace, and given himself
over to the demons of pride and falsehood. He was no
longer to be controlled by a wife's love, nor moved by a
wife's devotion.
And yet that neglected wife had bestowed upon the
dark spirit who now plotted her ruin, all that he possessed
of wealth and position. A few years since, Helen Ellwood
moved, the belle of a southern city, the idol of a doting
father, her only relative, and the toast of the fashionable
-- 144 --
[figure description] Page 144.[end figure description]
world in which she moved. A ball had been incomplete,
if lacking her presence—an evening circle from which she
was absent, accounted dull and tedious. A beauty and
an heiress, was it a wonder that she was openly flattered
and courted by a host of male admirers, or that she was
secretly abused and slandered by half her female acquaintances?
Brilliant at all times, she spoke and was obeyed.
The men bowed to her slightest behest, the women called
her “love,” “darling,” and “charming,” and almost broke
their swelling hearts with envy at her graces. But jealousy
was of no effect, while the gentlemen acknowledged
Helen's attractions; and at length the lesser lights in that
firmament of beauty, wherein the heiress was the sun,
united in a sisterly wish that some matrimonial eclipse
would soon take place, obscuring, if not extinguishing, the
overpowering brightness of this southern cynosure.
But Helen remained long in “maiden meditation fancy
free,” though her refusals of ambitious swains, and they
were many, were chronicled with due seasoning of remark,
until her reputed fastidiousness furnished a constant theme
for the innocent gossip of all the unmarried young ladies
of thirty and upwards—a fastidiousness which, in their
eyes, assumed the character of heartless arrogance, when
a certain Mr. Peyton, in the first flush of youth, and a
large fortune, was unceremoniously rejected by the young
beauty, and thereupon plunged into reckless dissipation.
But, at this juncture, and even before the charitable
gossip of the young ladies had been entirely expended,
another event caused the spontaneous elevation of all the
fair hands and sparkling eyes of the neighborhood. Miss
-- 145 --
[figure description] Page 145.[end figure description]
Helen Ellwood, the heiress, suddenly married Mr. Charles
Richmond, a young lawyer, without clients, but a capital
performer on the flute—without fortune, but an unexceptionable
waltzer—with a graceful shape, delicate hands,
and azure eyes—the whole constituting him, when en
promenade, in close-fitting frock coat, as dashing a walking
companion as any lady could desire.
The town was paralyzed—the gossips affected to condemn,
but secretly rejoiced—the young gentlemen grew
indignant, and voted Richmond “an artful scamp.” But,
after a few weeks, the newly-wedded pair gave a sumptuous
entertainment, to which hundreds of “friends” were
invited; whereupon the guests all agreed that Richmond
was “a lucky dog,” and “a clever fellow;” and thenceforth
they envied him, drank his wine, abused, and dined
with him as often as they were invited.
The death of her only parent followed shortly after the
marriage of Helen Ellwood to the husband of her choice,
and in another year, Mr. Charles Richmond removed from
the South to the city of New York. Here the young man
began to mingle in gay society—to patronize his “club,”
the Opera, and the “turf;” and here the wife experienced
the first bitterness of her life, in witnessing the altered
demeanor of her husband. Her rejected suitor, Peyton,
had also transferred his residence to the northern metropolis,
a few years sufficing him to squander, in a thousand
follies, an ample patrimony to which he had succeeded at
his majority. Mrs. Richmond met the gentleman occasionally
in society, and grieved to see that his ruddy cheek
had lost its hue, that wrinkles bordered his somewhat
-- 146 --
[figure description] Page 146.[end figure description]
sunken eyes, and that the frank expression of his youthful
features had given place to the cold smoothness of a
worldly face.
But if she remarked this change in Peyton, that
individual was no less quick in discerning evidence of
some secret uneasiness in her own bosom; his eager perception
taught him that something was hidden beneath a
veil of assumed calmness—a veil that hid, perchance, her
eyes, but could not prevent unbidden tears from stealing
through its gossamer threads.
At first, the rejected lover experiened a secret satisfaction
in fancying that the proud beauty who had denied his
suit, was now a prey to concealed suffering. But, as, in
various interviews during several years, he marked with
jealous scrutiny a gradual but constant wasting of the
woman's beauty, and could not but divine that some worm
was gnawing at her peace of mind, the young man began
to feel a renewed interest in her to whom he had been
once passionately devoted. He longed to learn the cause
of her unquiet, which, surrounded as she was by luxuries,
and apparently ardently loved by her husband, seemed, at
best, an anomaly; for, never did he suspect the existence
of that domestic tyranny which Richmond, after a few
years, had reduced to a sort of systematic torture. In
society, the wife never permitted a shadow to rest upon
her snowy brow, or the trace of a tear to dim the lustre of
her eyes. Still the life of any circle in which she might be
thrown, though seldom, of late years, mingling in fashionable
throngs, no one, save a reader of the heart, could
have imagined that Mrs. Richmond's light laugh and
-- 147 --
[figure description] Page 147.[end figure description]
joyous glance were other than indices of her still happy
and thoughtless girlish nature.
Such was Helen Richmond, after five years of wedded
life with the man she loved. Faded and sinking, with
all her tenderness chilled and beaten back upon her
own heart, the wife saw herself solitary amid society,
starving in spirit, with every luxury around her.
It was Richmond's usual custom to breakfast alone, and
Helen dared not intrude her presence, though she yearned
to throw herself upon his breast, and, in his sober moments,
reveal to him how, day by day, she was slowly,
surely perishing under his neglect. Poor trembler! little
did she dream that such a revelation from her lips would
but yield a greater satisfaction to his selfish soul! little
did she suspect the feverish anxiety with which Charles
Richmond watched and waited for the death of her whom
he had sworn to love, to cherish and protect.
Helen folded her hands across her fluttering bosom, and
walked to the next apartment, wherein, upon her husband's
table, stood his writing-desk and the casket containing
his private papers. As she crossed the threshold,
her eyes bent vacantly to the floor, a folded paper on the
carpet suddenly drew her notice, and she stooped, absently,
to reach it. It was a letter, and the first words at its
head at once arrested her attention; for, though very
simple, they were fraught with interest to her. Those
words, traced in a female hand, were, “My ever-cherished
and beloved Charles.”
It had been better for Helen Richmond, on reading this
first line, to have cast the fatal missive amid the fiery coals
-- 148 --
[figure description] Page 148.[end figure description]
of the grate, and beheld it consume, without further
perusal. But a spell seemed to be upon the poor wife,
holding her steadfast where she had paused, with the
letter open before her straining eyes, till all—even to the
last syllable—had been burned into her brain for ever.
Yet it was no love-note—no tender wooing of a rival in
her husband's heart. It was of a remote date, moreover—
showing it to have been written months before her marriage
with Charles. Yet, old and free from rivalship as it
was, that letter had power to blanch the cheek of Helen
to a deeper paleness, and to check, with fearful suddenness,
the pulses of her stricken heart. It ran as follows:
“My ever-cherished and beloved Charles—
“Your letter was received yesterday, and I have
spent the hours since in weeping and prayer. I have
prayed for you, dear Charles! with my heart sobbing, well-nigh
to break. O could I ever dream that you would
leave me for another? But I must not chide you—God
knows how I love you, dearest—I would lay down my life
for you cheerfully, without a murmur. But it is a hard
sacrifice you require of me—to give you up to another
woman, Charles! when you have sworn to love no other
one but your Margaret. You tell me you do not love the
lady—that you will marry her only for your worldly prospeets!
O Charles! I feel this is all wrong; but, alas!
what dare I say to you? I am poor—without fortune but
my deep love—God knows, I would resign a throne for
your affection, if I were a queen, instead of a portionless
girl. Charles! what was it that you said?—O Heaven!
-- 149 --
[figure description] Page 149.[end figure description]
did I understand your meaning?—that your love for me
would remain unchanged, and we should be happy after
your marriage! After your marriage, Charles! Do you
not know me better? Do you think I would consent to
do wrong, even of my great love for you? No, Charles!
after your marriage, we must never meet more! Beloved,
bear with me—it is the last time I shall annoy you. You
will wed the lady, Charles! Do not wrong her trust!—
be kind to her when she becomes your—wife! make her
happy! love her—and forget me! I shall not live a
great while, dear Charles; for my heart will break, in
thinking of the past, and of my hopes, all, all withered.
Farewell, dearest! I submit to your wishes, but I must
never see you after you are another's. Adieu, Charles!—
for the last time, my Charles! God bless and protect
you! Dear, dear Charles — husband!—I resign you.
Farewell, forever!
“Margaret.”
The letter was creased with folding, and there were
stains upon the pages, as if tears, dropping upon it while
the ink was yet wet, had blotted some of the words.
But Helen Richmond did not notice aught of this, for the
contents of the missive—a revelation of the dreadful truth
that Richmond had never loved her—had already accomplished
their work upon her brain. Pressing the fatal
letter to her bosom, she sank senseless upon the floor.
-- 150 -- p553-157
Chapter XII. Margery and the Miser.
[figure description] Page 150.[end figure description]
THE stillness of the night was unbroken, save when
some fiercer blast than usual swept through the passages
of the old house, rattling its shattered windows, and
slamming unfastened doors. The light of stars stole dimly
into the room where lay, in a plain pine coffin, the corpse
of Fanny's mother. Otherwise, the apartment, squalid
and desolate, presented the same aspects as it might have
exhibited the night previous; only the red-stained coffin
showed that death had been there, and that now one the
less of humanity suffered in mortal life. The door had
been locked, and the dead left until the morrow should
arrive, and a burial consign dust to dust. Meantime, the
orphan, under protection of the seamstress, had been tenderly
cared for, and soothed to sleep, with little Harry,
while Margery herself remained at her work-stand, repairing,
with kindly thought, the tattered habiliments of her
new charge. She had heard the two children say their
simple prayers at her knee, kissed them, as she disposed the
bed-clothes snugly about their forms, and then, as usual,
hurried to her evening toil. And now, as the midnight
came again, and the fire burned low upon the hearth, she
-- 151 --
[figure description] Page 151.[end figure description]
still plied the needle, fashioning a mourning frock for the
stranger child, out of a portion of her own scanty wardrobe.
Margery's eyes were heavy, and it was with difficulty
that she pursued the task; for her overwrought frame
required repose; indeed, at length, a stupor, for it could
not be called sleep, overcame her faculties completely, and
she bowed her forehead upon the table, while unquiet
fancies crowded on her mind. When her eyes again
unclosed, the candle had burned into its socket, and thick
darkness shrouded the room, while her breath was stifled
with smoke that seemed to encompass her densely. Starting
to her feet, Margery tottered to the door, and,
opening it, became sensible that the passage-way without,
like her own apartment, was filled with smoke, and a
smell as of burning wood, which almost choked her. The
unclosing of the door of her chamber caused a current
of air to flow through the entry, and, as the seamstress
paused tremblingly upon her threshold, a low groan, and
then a stifled cry, as for assistance, reached her ears,
apparently proceeding from the floor above. It was the
impulse and act of a moment for Margery to reach for and
light a fragment of tallow candle, and, shielding it from
the draught, to advance to the flight of stairs near her
door, and listen for other sounds. At the same time, the
dreadful thought crossed her mind, that if the tenant-house
should be on fire, the lives of all its inmates were
in danger.
There is courage, we may believe, in the soldier, mounting
to the deadly breach amid a thousand flying deaths;
-- 152 --
[figure description] Page 152.[end figure description]
courage in the mariner, stemming in shattered boat the
stormy waters; but there was more than courage in the
devotion of that poor girl, as, murmuring a prayer to her
Heavenly Father, she passed through the thickening atmosphere,
and, with unfaltering steps, began to ascend
the narrow staircase to the next story. Compressing
her lips, and retaining her breath, she struggled upward,
the flickering candle-light scarce penetrating the gloom
before her.
Arrived at the top of the broken steps, Margery paused
once more, endeavored to listen, and the next instant
heard the stifled groaning close at hand. Then it suddenly
occurred to her mind, that an old man was in the
daily habit of passing her own apartment, and ascending
to this floor, and that perhaps it was his feeble voice
which now essayed to make itself heard. By the candlerays,
she saw a closed door before her, and at once knocked
upon its panel. A smell of smouldering cloth and pinewood
rising, at the same time, from the crevice under this
door, satisfied the seamstress that the fire, from whatever
proceeding, was within the apartment.
There was indeed, something strange in the quiet coolness
of this girl, thus seeking, at the dead of night, to
discover the presence of that dread element, before the
mere suspicion of which hundreds would have fled in
terror. But Margery trusted in God, and was not afraid.
She felt intuitively—at the moment when, starting from
feverish dreaming, a cloud of smoke enveloped her—that
upon her discretion and coolness, perhaps, depended the
lives of a hundred fellow beings. She knew that her
-- 153 --
[figure description] Page 153.[end figure description]
darling brother, and the orphan child, Fanny, were slumbering,
unconscious of danger, in the little bed-room. She
was aware that most of the inmates of Kolephat College
were at this hour asleep, wearied, the greater part of
them, by the day's struggle against want and cold. If
fire had broken out in that crowded dwelling-place, and if
it could not be checked, a terrible sacrifice of life would
inevitably result; and so, likewise, if a sudden alarm
should be given, the panic-stricken inmates, seeking flight
in darkness, through the narrow passages and steep stairways,
must run a fearful risk of being crushed or trampled
upon, or cast headlong to the floors beneath. To weigh
these consequences in her mind, and to act at once for
their prevention, by seeking to discover, by herself, the
cause of the smoke which enveloped her, were Margery's
prompt impulses, and she now felt, with thankful heart,
that but a single door interposed between herself and the
burning material.
But that door was fast, and to Margery's repeated
knocks and calls, no response was returned, save the low,
moaning sound she had heard before. The smoke, meanwhile,
continued to emerge, in denser wreaths, from the
opening at the threshold, and the seamstress feared now
that all within would speedily burst forth in flames. She
knocked and called more vehemently, and shook the wormeaten
panels, till suddenly a bolt appeared to give way,
and the next moment a draught of air revealed an open
passage. The wooden bar, used by the miser Mallory as
a stanchion, had again slipped from its place, and allowed
the door to swing back upon its hinges. Margery,
-- 154 --
[figure description] Page 154.[end figure description]
extending the fragment of candle before her, entered the
apartment, and saw, lying across the floor, the prostrate
figure of the old man whom she had often encountered,
climbing, with feeble steps, the stairs of Kolephat College.
He lay insensible, or rather impotent, stretched beside the
hearth, his lips emitting the moans that had guided the
seamstress to his room, in season to save not only him,
perhaps, but all the wretched inmates of the tenant-house,
from cruel injury, if not from death.
Mallory was nearly dead, from asphyxia, caused by
inhaling the poisonous atmosphere that pervaded the apartment.
Beside him was the broken stove, which had been
overturned, and the coals, escaping from it, had ignited
a bundle of filthy rags and shreds of leather, collected by
the wretched old man from the gutters which it was his
custom to rake, when not covered by snow. These rags,
in a vile accumulation, had sogged and burned, with
smothered fire, during hours past, since the miser, in
attempting to rise from his pallet, had overthrown the
stove, and fallen with it, dangerously burned, to the floor.
A cloud of poisonous gas, rising around him, pervaded the
room, and escaped in smoke through the outer passages;
and, in a few more minutes, the miser's breath would, perhaps,
have been stifled for ever, and the wood-work of his
wretched hovel, reached by the fire, might, in all likelihood,
have been a funeral pyre for both him and his
beloved gold beneath the hearth-stone.
But the fire still smouldered, and Margery, with calm
presence of mind, averted all impending danger. Closing
her nostrils and mouth against the noxious effluvia, she
-- 155 --
[figure description] Page 155.[end figure description]
caught up a fragment of the broken stove, and with it
swept the charred mass of rags into the fire-place. Then,
rushing to the single window of the apartment, she dashed
it open, and, leaning over the sill, inhaled a deep, refreshing
draught of the reviving breeze.
The chill air rushed in, scattering the poisonous vapors,
and Mallory's eyes opened, his dim senses half-returning.
Groaning still, he essayed to rise, but his aged limbs had
been bruised and burned by the stove in falling, and blood
still flowed from a broad wound on the forehead, received
that day in his struggle with the drunken ruffian,
Keeley. Margery, somewhat invigorated by the pure air
she had breathed at the window, now approached the
wretched dotard, with the light, and saw that his thin
hairs were all stained with a clotted stream, that had
effused from the wounded brow. Mallory looked up at
her face, and his red eyes gleamed with suspicion, from
beneath the bony forehead, over which his yellow skin
was drawn tightly, like parchment.
The seamstress stooped beside him, taking his shrivelled
hand in her own, while she softly asked him concerning his
hurt. The forlorn miser seemed to shrink, apprehensively,
unused to words of sympathy from human lips, and his
own moved, as though he would speak, though emitting no
sound. Then he half-raised one trembling hand to his
bleeding head, and nodded slowly.
“Poor old man! I will come again, in a moment,”
said Margery; and, placing the candle near him, she
lightly retraced her steps to her own room, whence she
presently returned, with water and some linen cloth,
-- 156 --
[figure description] Page 156.[end figure description]
wherewith to bathe the miser's wounds. Old Mallory, as
his wandering senses began again to inform him, marvelled
much, in his sordid mind, concerning the soft hand that
washed the bloody clots from his grey hair. To his desolate
selfishness, it appeared strange—even as if an angel
of mercy were near—though he saw that a very homely
garb clothed the fragile form which knelt beside him.
In a few moments, Mallory's forehead was freed from
dirt and gore, and swathed with a linen bandage; and
then, by the feeble rays of her candle, Margery endeavored
to arrange the wretched litter of straw, that served the
miser for his pallet. The dotard's furtive glances followed
her every motion, and, ever, as she moved near the fire-place,
a gleam of suspicion shot from under his shaggy
brows. At length the seamstress contrived to dispose
the miserable rags which served for covering, in such a
manner as to present the semblance, at least, of a bed,
and then, exerting all her strength, assisted the helpless
old man to reach his resting-place. He mumbled unintelligibly,
as his head sank upon the pillow she had made,
and Margery, fancying that he asked for water, again
descended to her room, and brought back a glass of
sweetened milk, which the miser drank greedily.
“Can I get anything else?” Margery inquired, softly;
and the old man, somewhat revived by his draught, muttered:
“What do you want? I have nothing to give!
I'm very poor!”
Margery looked as if she thought there need be no
assurance given of this fact, and Mallory seemed to interpret
her reflection, for he said:
-- 157 --
[figure description] Page 157.[end figure description]
“Ay, ay!—you're a nice girl!—good to the old man!—
the poor old man!”
“You will sleep now—don't you think?” asked Margery.
“Ugh!” returned the miser. “He will come in the
night, perhaps!”
“Who will come?” asked the seamstress.
“Nobody—nobody! Go away!” replied Mallory, his
suspicious mind becoming again troubled. “Good-night
to you.”
“I'm just underneath,” said the girl: “if you should
be sick, you might knock on the floor.”
“Ay, ay!—I'm not sick. Good-night to you.”
“Good-night! You'll not forget to knock?” said Margery,
turning towards the door. Mallory did not answer,
but turned his head to the wall.
“I must not annoy him! he is wearied and in pain!”
thought the seamstress. “Hard that he should be left
alone!”
Saying this, and sighing as she spoke, Margery looked
about, to discover, if possible, some lamp or candle to
light; for it seemed to her wrong to leave the sick old
man in the darkness of his wretched den. She recollected,
too, the open window, and stepped back to close it. As
she did so, Mallory turned his head, and muttered:
“Will ye leave the bit o' candle?”
“Surely,” replied Margery, at once setting down the
tin candlestick, in which a couple of inches of the candle
were yet unconsumed. “But I fear it will not last till
morning.”
“Put it out, plaze!”
-- 158 --
[figure description] Page 158.[end figure description]
“But it will be so dark for you!”
“I'd rather save it, avick! An' I've matches!”
The miser again turned his face to the wall, and Margery,
bidding him again good-night, left the apartment;
but, as she was descending the stairs, a renewed noise recalled
her, in fear that the helpless dotard had fallen from
his truckle-bed. But, on reaching the door, which she
had closed behind her, she found it again fastened, and
heard, from within, what sounded like a chuckling laugh.
The wretched Mallory had risen, tottering from his pallet,
and once more secured his wooden bar against the panel.
-- 159 -- p553-166
Chapter XIII. The Hebrew's Daughter.
[figure description] Page 159.[end figure description]
BEFORE a comfortable-looking dwelling-house, in a
secluded street, of the eastern quarter of the city, an
old man walked slowly back and forth upon the sidewalk,
his hands clasped behind his back. He was stout in build,
with a short, thick neck, suggestive of apoplectic tendencies.
He wore a thick, brown surtout, closely buttoned,
and a narrow-brimmed hat; and his feet were encased in
stout leather boots. Short-curled hair, the sable hue of
which was slightly varied by silver threads, and a large
curved nose, stamped him as of the Hebrew race. Indeed,
he was well known, not only in the purlieus of exchange,
but throughout the financial world, as Mordecai Kolephat,
the rich Jew. He now tramped up and down the snowy
walk, impatiently waiting the postman, who, about this
hour in the morning, was accustomed to bring his daily
correspondence.
Mordecai Kolephat was considered to be a frigid and
selfish old gentleman, little given to mingling with the
world, and penurious to the last degree. Yet, there were
some who said he had been known to perform generous
actions, perhaps from whim, perhaps through ulterior
-- 160 --
[figure description] Page 160.[end figure description]
motives of interest. He was a widower, and childless;
though Rebecca, his niece, who dwelt with him in the old
mansion, was considered by everybody as his adopted
daughter, to whom would, undoubtedly, descend his property,
real and personal. To what that property might
amount in value, was a subject of much speculation among
the gossips of the neighborhood; but all agreed that it
was large, not falling short of half a million, in houses,
bonds and mortgages, and substantial stocks. It may be
supposed, then, this Mordecai Kolephat was a person of
considerable consequence, and that, as he walked in front
of his house, many good citizens bowed deferentially as
they passed, and, perhaps, envied him his wealth and
position.
But, perchance, had such good citizens been permitted
to look into the old Hebrew's thoughts, and partake of his
reflections, they might not altogether have wished to
exchange positions with him, humble soever as their own
lot in life might be. Impassible as were Mordecai Kolephat's
bronzed features—hard as seemed his cold and
glittering eyes—there were times when lines of anguish
and tears of remorse disturbed their immobility. The
Jew had his hours and days of suffering, of which the
world knew nothing.
Mordecai Kolephat was very rich. His houses might
be counted by squares; his title-deeds fenced in miles of
rich lands; his bonds secured great ships and rich cargoes;
and his coffers held heaps of bright gold. People
said the broker and usurer Kolephat was “worth half a
million,” for they judged by his taxes on assessors' books;
-- 161 --
[figure description] Page 161.[end figure description]
but the old man laughed at his neighbors' surmises, knowing
well that their estimate might be multiplied sevenfold,
nor reach the sum of his accumulations.
Nevertheless, the Jew was an unhappy man. His retrospect
of life was not a soothing one. He could look
back to partnerships in ocean adventures — to vessels
manned and victualled by his money, bearing unholy
freights of kidnapped Africans, to glut the markets of the
Indies, and coin, from human agony, more gold to swell
his hoards. He could recall investments in the far-off
western wilds, when his drugged liquor had maddened
Indian tribes, and his gunpowder, trafficked for costly
peltries, had armed the savages against his countrymen,
the frontier whites. He could recollect the prayers of
debtors, left to rot in mouldy prisons, when law stood by
to aid the crimes of Mammon. But, of these reminiscences,
Mordecai Kolephat took less heed than of the
bitter personal experiences which had made him comfortless
amid luxury—poor, in spite of his affluence; for the
Jew had beheld his family wither, one by one. Seven
children had been born to him, by their mother; five had
withered in their beds, and died in the spring of life; one
had wedded with a stranger, an alien from his faith, and
fled away with his bride, from the bitterness of a father's
malediction, to be heard of no more. The seventh, child
of his old age, had been stolen from her nurse's arms,
while yet a little babe, and the mother had then sunk
down and died, with broken heart, leaving the rich Jew to
curse the fate that had left him, the last of his house, a
blasted trunk, its branches prematurely lopped away, its
-- 162 --
[figure description] Page 162.[end figure description]
vigor “dead at the top.” Such was Mordecai Kolephat,
the owner of Kolephat College.
The Hebrew, at length, received his letters from the
obsequious postman, and then slowly entered his habitation.
In the hall, as he closed the door, a young girl
came to meet him. It was his niece, Rebecca: a girl,
with feminine features, marked with Israelitish lineaments,
but delicately, as not to mar a very attractive contour of
face and really fine complexion. Heavy curls were pendant
upon a well-developed bust, and the form and air of
the lady were what the French would style petite. She
caught her uncle's hand, as he advanced, and asked:
“Nothing for me—no note, dear uncle?”
“Here is one, my child. I fear you are carrying on
some clandestine correspondence, Rebecca!” said the old
man, with a grim smile, as he handed her a letter. “I
must see to it.”
“Pshaw, uncle! it's from Miriam Woolff!—who do I
write to but her! There—her name, uncle!” And the
girl offered the note, written in a delicate hand, to her
uncle's inspection; but he moved his head, impatiently,
saying: “Nonsense, child—I did but jest!” and passed on
to his private parlor.
Rebecca's dark eyes flashed, as she looked after him,
and, kissing the note she had received, she hastily thrust
it into her bosom, and ran up stairs, singing as she went,
to her apartment. Arrived there, closing and locking
the door, she sat down to read the missive, her face and
neck growing crimson, as the first words met her eye; for,
indeed, it was no school-girl epistle, from her friend Miriam
-- 163 --
[figure description] Page 163.[end figure description]
Woolff, but a letter filled with words such as stir, in a
maiden's soul, the thrills of passionate love.
“My dearest Rebecca,”—so the note ran—“I am
thinking of you by day, dreaming of you at night, adoring
you always. I have much to tell you, sweet one, and
must see you to-day. Fail not to meet me, at the usual
hour, at our trysting-place, darling of my soul.
“Your fond one, Miriam Woolff.”
A proud smile played on Rebecca's chiselled lips, as she
persued the love-letter, and kissed it repeatedly, with all
the ardor of first-love as usually developed in a girl of
seventeen. “Darling fellow!” she murmured, evidently
referring to another than her friend “Miriam Woolff;”
and then, starting up suddenly, added—“the usual hour!—
I must hurry to see the darling!” With these words
the Jew's daughter proceeded hastily to the mysteries of
the toilet, intent on arranging herself in all the elegancies
of dress and ornament deemed essential to the state of
“perfect love” in which she felt herself.
Meantime, Mordecai Kolephat, returning to his study,
began to read his correspondence. He passed quickly
over letters respecting the rise and fall of stocks, the
exchange of money, and the sales of real estate; laid
aside two or three longer epistles, to be perused at leisure;
and, finally, opened a small, clumsily-folded note, written
on a dirty scrap of paper, in a cramped hand, and addressed
to “M. Kolephat, Esq.” Its contents riveted
his attention:—
-- 164 --
[figure description] Page 164.[end figure description]
“If Mister Kolephat wants to see an old acquaintance,
and hear a secret, he will come to the tenant-house,
No. —, in — street, rear building, back room—to-day,
or never.”
The Hebrew scanned the note closely, seeking for a
signature, but discovered none. The handwriting, scarcely
to be deciphered, he could not recognize; yet, as he
spelled out the scroll, the old man's lips quivered, and a
presentiment of something to befall him flitted strangely
across his mind. But Mordecai Kolephat was not one to
speculate long upon what was doubtful, when the means
of explanation were so plainly indicated. He rose, refolding
the note, and, placing it in his pocket, said, with a nod
of the head, “to-day, or never!”—I will obey this summous—
to pass away the time.”
“To pass away the time!”—to find refuge from his own
unhappy reveries—Mordecai Kolephat would have voyaged
around the world. Why not, then, stroll to the
back-room of a tenant-house? So the Jew buttoned himself
again in his brown great-coat, and went quietly out
of the house, to visit “an old acquaintance;” and scarcely
had he departed, when his niece Rebecca, arrayed in captivating
symmetry, with furred mantilla, furred boots, and
dainty fur-tipped gloves, descended the staircase from her
dressing-room, and tripped away to meet “a new acquaintance”—
whither, as in deference to her sex, the reader is
called upon to follow.
The trysting-place was not remote, and the steps of
love are fleet, so Rebecca soon traversed the streets that
-- 165 --
[figure description] Page 165.[end figure description]
intervened, and crossing a fashionable avenue, entered into
one of those quiet and genteel retreats, usually kept by
starched, prudish-looking ladies, of uncertain years, and
devoted at once to the dispensation of ice-creams and thin
sugar cakes, and to the happiness of tête-à-tête lovers,
seated at little round marble tables. The young Jewess
appeared to be well acquainted in the saloon, for she
nodded familiarly to the waitress, and passed to an interior
apartment, separated from the main room by a heavy
curtain drapery, looped up, at either side, with gilded
rings. As she reached the curtain, her quick eye caught
sight of an elegantly-attired and handsome gentleman,
who rose immediately to greet her, and led her to the
table at which he had been sipping chocolate.
“Dear Charles! I hurried so!” said the Jewess,
naïvely. “I was frightened, lest you would think I was
not coming.”
“Then I would have waited in grief and lonesomeness,
darling Rebecca!” replied the gentleman, pressing her
hand. “But, here is the girl.”
A waitress approached at this moment, and Rebecca,
loosening her bonnet-strings, gave an order for some slight
refreshment, and then fixed her eyes upon her companion's
face, with a look of such doating fondness that the lover
smiled to observe it.
“Is your uncle well, to-day, Rebecca?”
“Oh! Charles, don't talk of the stupid old man. It's
so horrid dull in that house. Let us talk of ourselves!
Tell me you love me, Charles!—that I am as dear to you
as you are to me.”
-- 166 --
[figure description] Page 166.[end figure description]
All this was said in a hurried whisper, full of strange
fervor. He to whom it was addressed replied gallantly,
in a like low tone of voice, to the effect that the maiden
was the light of his heart, and the joy of his existence,
and much more of the same style, in the generally
accepted language patent of love interviews; after which,
ice-cream was brought to Rebecca, which she toyed with,
languidly, declaring that she could not eat—that she
feasted on Charles' smiles—to which Charles replied that
her smiles were more than mortal food—they were ambrosia
of the gods, and so forth. Nevertheless, both of them
took cream.
“And, Charles! you have not spoken of—her,” at
length said the Jewess, with a flush overspreading her
face and neck.
“I wish to avoid disagreeable subjects,” returned the
lover. “Will you not permit the prisoner to forget his
chain, dearest?”
“Is it not my chain, too?” asked Rebecca.
“But not to fetter us long,” said the man, in a whisper
which was intense in its distinctness, and was accompanied
by a strange glitter of the eye that made Rebecca's glance
droop.
“How foolish—how wicked I am, to love you,” said the
Jewess. “And yet,” she added passionately, “I am never
happy, unless when thinking of you, Charles. Oh! shall
we ever be entirely free to love each other?”
“Can we control our affections?” asked Richmond,
insidiously, as he bent towards the fond girl. “I am older
than you, dearest, and yet love you quite as foolishly.
-- 167 --
[figure description] Page 167.[end figure description]
But, let us hope to be happy, sweet one! Perhaps, before
June next I shall be free to cherish the only being I ever
could love—my adored Rebecca.”
The maiden's hand was held within that of her admirer,
as he passionately uttered these words, and her soft fingers
returned the pressure which he gave. Then more words
of fondness followed, and much was talked of concerning
the future: of a marriage to be waited for only till an
event should take place; that event the death of a woman;
that woman the wife of Charles Richmond.
Charles Richmond! the cruel and neglectful husband—
the heartless tyrant of a patient, suffering lady—the crafty
schemer to possess a usurer's wealth—well could he dissemble
before the fond and foolish Rebecca. Versed in
all the wicked lore which worldly experience can furnish—
adept in hypoerisy and dissimulation—he had reckoned it
but pastime to win the heart of this untutored school-girl,
and mould her so completely to his wishes that she would
have left her home, her uncle, and all earthly prospects, to
follow him whithersoever he might command. But this
was not the object of Mr. Richmond; for his callous
nature was untouched by the self-forgetting fondness of
Rebecca. He sought the Jewess only as the adopted
child of Mordecai Kolephat—the heiress of a millionaire;
and his purpose was to hold her as a captive bird, till the
speedily looked-for death of his wife, and the decease of
the usurer, necessarily not far distant—as he had already
reached the Prophet's verge of human life—should give
him Rebecca as an ornamental wife, and her large possessions
as his own, by right of conquest.
-- 168 --
[figure description] Page 168.[end figure description]
And, truly, at this stage of the man's career, it became
a necessity for him to weave some scheme of profit in the
future. Charles Richmond was a patron of the gay
world, a welcome guest in every fashionable circle. His
house was magnificent, his horses superb, his wines incomparable.
He was reputed to be immensely rich, and his
style of living accorded with the reputation which he
enjoyed. But Richmond had indulged in speculation—
Richmond was an habitual gamester—and of these facts
the world was yet in blissful ignorance. Helen Ellwood
brought to her husband a large fortune—plantations in
several southern States; houses and lands yielding lordly
incomes. But, in the confidence of her young affection,
Helen had yielded to her husband the entire control of
her wealth; and the reckless man had used it as his own.
What more is to be told? Suffice it, that, as he sat now,
toying with the youthful Jewess, he was a bankrupt, with
mortgages covering his very dwelling and furniture, the
very couch on which his betrayed wife was now resting
her aching head. Such was Charles Richmond, whom
Helen Ellwood had married—for love.
It was a necessity, then, that the adventurer should
cast forth his nets upon new waters. He had encountered
the Jewess—read easily her plastic nature—and with little
difficulty awakened her sympathy, by portraying himself
as a man unloved and unloving, but fettered by an illassorted
marriage. He pictured, with a master's skill,
the unhappiness of a union between unsympathizing natures;
sighed from his unappreciated heart; described
such a woman as he could love—and there was but
-- 169 --
[figure description] Page 169.[end figure description]
one—and in the end, won the love, uncalculating and
unreserved, of a woman in heart, but a child in experience
as well as in years.
A child, indeed! for, as Richmond, after accompanying
the young Jewess through a few streets, towards her
uncle's house, parted from her, with a thrilling pressure of
the hand, he muttered, under his breath, as he walked
away: “Pshaw! a bread-and-butter school-girl!”
To such a fashionable villain is many a young creature
betrayed, in the full flush of maidenly trust; immolated at
the altar, to be miserable thereafter for life, or become a
heartless woman of the world. How many are there, at
this moment, listening, with quickened pulses, to the first
words of deception from lips that will hereafter utter
harsh rebukes or mocking banter of their easy trust?
-- 170 -- p553-177
Chapter XIV. “An Old Acquaintance. ”
[figure description] Page 170.[end figure description]
MORDECAI KOLEPHAT pursued his way, with his
chin sunk within his raised collar, and his hat covering
his whole forehead, down to the piercing black eyes,
that seemed to scrutinize every object they encountered.
He well knew the locality indicated in the note which he
had received; for it was one of the many decayed and
crowded tenements which he held in fee, and leased,
through faithful agents of the class of Peleg Ferret, to
thousands of such needy human beings as occupied the
crumbling rooms of Kolephat College. It was the Jew's
custom, at least once a year, to visit his property in various
wards of the city—not, indeed for the purpose of
ameliorating the condition of his tenantry, or to hear suggestions
tending to improvement of the premises, but
simply as a duty owed to himself as proprietary and suzerain
of lands and appurtenances represented by the taxes
which he had paid the city. On these annual tours of
inspection, Mordecai often saw, for the first time, some
lot of land, or dwelling-house, which, during the twelve
months previous, had fallen to his ownership, through due
process of law, including seizure and foreclosing of
-- 171 --
[figure description] Page 171.[end figure description]
unsatisfied mortgages. These new possessions, it may well be
fancied, were looked upon by the old usurer in the light
with which conquerors, on their triumphal tours, might be
supposed to regard the goodly sequestrations consequent
on their eminent domain. But, like such conquerors, the
Hebrew little troubled himself about the civilization or
refinement of his new subjects, content that tithes and
dues, arrears and rentals, were duly accounted for by his
chief officers, the agents, who farmed the different demesnes
for their own profit as well as his security.
As regarded the tenants of Kolephat College, or of any
other shambling, contracted, and unhealthy building leased
through his middle-men, little did they know or care of
Mordecai Kolephat. As far as interest to them was conconcerned,
the rich old man might have been a myth, or
that impalpable motive-power—a corporation. They knew
but the individual who periodically demanded the rent,
and whom they grudgingly paid, when able so to do; and
behind him might have stood the Czar of Russia, with
quite as much disposition to redress their grievances, as
the millionaire who reckoned houses, lands, and human
beings, by the unvarying rule of “ten per cent.”
Mordecai Kolephat, therefore, in presenting himself in
the by-ways and passages leading to the locality which he
sought, occasioned no stir or apprehension such as usually
marked the approach of Mr. Peleg Ferret, or other agents
of the Jew's business. He paused in front of his own
property, and looked upward to dingy windows, or peered
into dim alley-ways and entries, without remark or notice
from the squalid people who tramped their errands, in and
-- 172 --
[figure description] Page 172.[end figure description]
out. He passed over broken thresholds, and through filthy
hall-ways of a building fronting on the narrow street,
which, in the ward assessor's books, was posted against
his name; but the slatternly women and dirty men, who
stood around, merely looked at him vacantly as he passed,
removed their clay pipes from between their lips a moment,
and then relapsed to apathetic indifference. To
their eyes, Mordecai Kolephat was an old man, in a rusty
brown surtout, and nothing more; for they dreamed not
of Kolephat the rich broker, whose word was law in the
stock market. Even so, O Mordecai! might it be, were
angels, instead of tenants, to encounter thee in thy walks!
The rich Jew—the cunning broker—the grasping landlord—
might be all unrecognized by their exalted natures.
For whom livest thou, O man of millions?—a stranger in
the hovels wherefrom thy golden hoards are heaped!—a
stranger in that other world whither thou canst not bear
thy golden treasure!
But Mordecai Kolephat knew and cared as little for his
tenantry as they did for him; and so troubled himself not
concerning their neglect to greet him as their lord. He
looked only for the place to which he had been bidden;
and, penetrating to the rear pile of shattered tenements,
sought the room wherein, according to the summons, he
was to find “an old acquaintance.”
The row of buildings comprising this property presented
no variation from the general type of tenant-houses.
Built of rotten brick, barely held together by cheap
mortar, the sand of which was continually crumbling out
of gaps between the rickety layers; pierced by narrow,
-- 173 --
[figure description] Page 173.[end figure description]
dark, and dilapidated entries, extending to a brick court
in the rear; ascended roofward by wooden-panelled staircases,
not two feet wide, crooked and steep, and lighted
only by such dim daylight as might penetrate to the landings
through dingy casements, at the end of each; burrowed
under by cellars, wherein the rats disputed with
lodgers as to which should first starve, stifle, or be drowned
out by tides or the overflowing of gutters; encompassed
and pervaded by fœtid smells, the effluvia of noxious
gases, generated in stagnant water, decaying matter, and
unchanging malaria; crowded with poor people, the bad
and the good, the old and the young, the hopeful and the
repining, the patient and the complaining: in all things, a
veritable tenant-house, and, under that distinction, the
abode of wretchedness, vice, want, and despair.
Mordecai Kolephat did not pause to dwell upon these
matters in connection with his property; but, after passing
the brick-paved court, between the front and rear
buildings, that was piled with dirty snow, proceeded
through an entry till he reached the room of which he was
in search, and knocked at its discolored door. An old
negress presented herself in answer to the alarm, and
querulously demanded his business.
Mordecai Kolephat peered sharply at the crone, who
was decrepid and ugly in the extreme. Her grizzled
locks were filled with ashes, and the scanty covering
which sheltered her from the cold was literally encrusted
with dirt, as were likewise her hands and face. With
wrinkled features, blear eyes, rimmed with red, and distended
mouth, within which could be seen but two yellow,
-- 174 --
[figure description] Page 174.[end figure description]
fanglike teeth, this hag stood, shaking, before the Hebrew,
holding the door with her palsied hands, as if to prevent
the stranger's ingress before he disclosed his purpose.
“Who have you within there?” asked Mordecai, nodding
his head towards the interior.
“Anow—do ye want her?” mumbled the crone. “She's
a most gone!”
The Jew was about to inquire concerning the personage
designated by “her,” when a hand was placed upon the
old woman's shoulder, dragging her back roughly, while
another voice muttered, “Get away, mother, I know what
he wants.” Then Mordecai beheld, emerging from the
darkness within, a dwarfed mulatto man, who said briefly
to him:
“You're Kolephat, master?”
“That is my name,” returned the Jew.
“You'll find the woman dyin'. It's well yer come,
master, for `Old Pris' has got somethin' preyin' on her
mind that consarns you.”
“Ha! `Old Pris!'—it is she!” murmured Mordecai, as
he advanced into the room occupied by the negress.
It was a dark apartment, the walls clammy with mould,
the floor damp and uneven. A few stools, some straw,
and a pile of filthy rags, and shreds of carpet in a corner,
made up the furniture. At first the visitor could hardly
distinguish objects, so destitute of light was the place;
for the shattered frames of its single window had been
covered up with boards, save one solitary pane, that admitted,
through a veil of dirt, such struggling morning
rays as could penetrate between the two high buildings
-- 175 --
[figure description] Page 175.[end figure description]
into the court without. When his eyes, however, became
accustomed to the obscurity, Mordecai saw the hag flitting
to and fro, and the squat, thick-set form of the dwarf,
apparently awaiting for him to speak.
“It was Old Pris that sent the note to me—heh?”
asked the Hebrew.
“Yes, master! The old ooman's g'wine to the ragheap,
mighty quick now. She's been a rattlin in her troat,
master.”
“Where is she?”
“Yander—ye can't see, master, kin you? Old ooman's
sleep, or playin' possum. I'll stir her up!”
Saying this, the dwarf, whose thick limbs and burly
body Kolephat now saw were clad, or rather draped, with a
collection of ragged strips that scarcely concealed his sable
skin, tramped over the wet flooring to a sort of closet, or
recess, behind the fireless chimney-place, and made some
demonstration upon an object concealed by the darkness,
immediately after which, Kolephat heard his name pronounced,
by a harsh voice, which he recognized as that of
the ancient rag-picker, known to him, during many years,
by the sobriquet of “Old Pris.”
“My good fellow! let us have some sort of a light
here,” said the Jew, as the dwarf emerged again from the
gloom into which he had faded. “I can never see the
woman in this place.”
Saying this, Mordecai placed a shilling in the negro's
hand, who received it with a chuckle, and at once disappeared
through the door. The visitor remained standing
in the middle of the floor, though he heard his name
-- 176 --
[figure description] Page 176.[end figure description]
called once, from the dark recess, and recognized, also, the
lugubrious sound of the death-rattle in the old rag-picker's
throat, until the re-appearance of the mulatto, with matches
and a candle, which he forthwith lighted; then, assisted
by the flickering glare, he advanced to the closet, and
beheld the “old acquaintance” who had sent for him.
Old Pris was a pitiable object to look upon, in any
dwelling of a Christian land, even as the place in which
she lay was doleful to contemplate. She was a woman of
more than seventy years, with hair grey, and, at this time,
matted by filth, in clots upon her low forehead. Her
nose was prominently curved showing the type of that
race to which her visitor himself belonged, and on either
side of it gleamed, from under the shaggy brow, a fierce,
unquiet eye, which even now, when about to close forever,
shot forth malevolent rays. Her mouth was shrivelled,
the lips drawn tightly over the gums, beneath which appeared
a row of blackened teeth. This woman lay upon
a heap of rags, reeking with accumulated dirt, a strip of
rotten cloth, the remains of a tattered horse-blanket, constituting
her only covering, while a bundle of straw at her
head, was soaked by falling drops of moisture, which
exhuded through the plaster from the wall without. The
recess wherein she reclined was formed by the span of a
staircase which ascended from the entry outside; but, as
it was hardly deep enough to admit the woman's entire
length, her feet, wrapped in rags, projected out upon the
broken hearth.
For the first time in his life, as he glanced about him,
from the dying rag-picker at his feet, to the drivelling
-- 177 --
[figure description] Page 177.[end figure description]
negress and her son the dwarf, Mordecai Kolephat asked
himself the question, “How do these people live?” He
saw the rags whereon Old Pris was stretched, saw a
wooden stool or two, a fireless hearth, and another mound
of rags opposite, and the truth flitted across the Jew's
mind, that the three wretched ones before him—the dying
and the quick—were all inmates of that narrow, dungeonlike
apartment, breathing the same miasma, suffering the
same privations, dying the same death.
“Got her toes frozed, master, in the great snow, an'
we tuck her in,” here remarked the mulatto, as if interpreting
Mordecai's reflections, and pointing, as he spoke,
to the rags that bandaged the woman's feet. “She was
a-dyin' then, ye see, and been a-dyin' ever since.”
“Two days an' two nights,” mumbled the black crone,
hobbling towards them.
“Has she had food—was she nourished?” inquired the
Jew, and heard in answer, almost as he had anticipated,
a mocking laugh from the dwarf.
“Food is scass, master, hereabouts. Mother, what did
ye eat for break-quest?”
The negress stared vacantly at her dwarf son, but made
no reply.
“Here—take this—you must be starving!” said Kolephat,
drawing a half-dollar from his pocket, and placing it
in the mulatto's hand, who received it with a grotesque
bow. “Go and get food for yourselves!”
The dwarf turned to his mumbling mother, and the two
retired towards the heap of rags, at the other extremity
of the room, where they sat down, and began to converse
-- 178 --
[figure description] Page 178.[end figure description]
closely together, seemingly in no hurry to satisfy their
hunger. Mordecai Kolephat then drew one of the stools
near the prostrate rag-picker, and sat down, saying—
“Well, Old Pris, I received your note, and have come
to see you.”
“You have, Mordecai Kolephat!” replied the woman,
in a discordant voice, as she raised herself upon one elbow,
and fixed her snaky gaze upon the visitor.
The Jew started, for the glance which rivetted his own
seemed like one that he remembered to have met in the
days of his youth, long years before he had encountered
the degraded being before him.
“You have something to communicate to me, Pris?”
“I have much to say,” responded the hag; “more than
there is time left me to speak. Mordecai Kolephat—will
you promise to listen?”
There was a wild earnestness in the rag-picker's manner,
and her tones, though grating on the ear, were as impressive
as was the strange gleam that shot from under her
thick eyebrows. The Jew bent nearer to her, and
answered—“Yes!”
“Then, I will speak to you of the past,” whispered the
old woman. She paused, for the rattling breath in her
throat impeded her utterance, but, in a moment, exerted
herself anew. “I will tell Mordecai Kolephat of the time
when I was young, and walked the streets, as a lady, that
I've since raked for the rags I'm lying on. A lady was I
once, with rings on my fingers, and silks on my back—with
fresh, red cheeks, and teeth white as the pearls that bound
my neck, and eyes bright as the diamonds on my forehead.
-- 179 --
[figure description] Page 179.[end figure description]
And I was proud, Mordecai! proud as the devil that
tempted our mother in the garden, spurning the ground
I trod, and the hearts that were cast down at my feet
in homage. He! he! even I—the old rag-picker!—
he! he!”
The horrible, chuckling laughter was ended by another
choking rattle in the hag's withered throat. The listener
shuddered, and drew back from the distorted face that
was shaken up and down, in the fitful candle-light, like a
hideous mask.
“Don't be frightened, man! 'Twas but a pleasant
memory of the past, when I had riches, and beauty,
and lovers—ay, lovers plenty, Mordecai! Are ye listening?”
The Jew nodded, and again fixed his gaze on her,
which he had withdrawn before the horrible grimaces
that her wild mirth had occasioned.
“One there was—a lover! who knelt and kissed the
dust at my feet, and swore to me body and soul, if I'd
cast him not away. And I loved the youth, Mordecai!
I loved him!”
The hag's voice grew strangely soft, as she uttered the
last words, and the Jew suddenly felt a curious emotion
stirring in his bosom.
“I loved him, for we had plighted our troth in youth—
and he was one that a woman well might love. But,
nevertheless, I spurned him, Mordecai Kolephat!—drove
him away, with frenzy in his brain—because he was poor!
hah! Mordecai, because the youth was poor! Was it
not right, old man?”
-- 180 --
[figure description] Page 180.[end figure description]
The red glitter darted from those serpent eyes, seeming
to fascinate the Hebrew's senses. He gasped wildly,
as if his breath were stifled. He essayed to speak, but
the sound died on his lips. Old Pris laughed, once
more, her fearful laugh, and drew herself up suddenly
to a sitting position, on the rags, her shrivelled hands
clasping her knees, and her head supported by the wall
behind.
“Ay, Mordecai Kolephat! I drove him away, for his
poverty, and wedded a rich lover, to ride in my carriage,
and have my liveried servants, as a lady should. But he
was avenged!—my lover was avenged!”
“And how?—and how?” demanded Mordecai, scarcely
knowing what he uttered.
“By the downfall of her who had deserted him,”
answered the woman. “By the curse which clung unto
her as a leprosy—wasting her riches, and searing her
beauty, and shrivelling the pride of her heart. By the gold
which he amassed while she sunk down to beggary—by
the good name which he gained amid men, while she—
Rachel the traitress—became a mock and a shame among
women” —
“Hold—woman! hag!” gasped the listener, “what
memories do you awaken in my brain! Who tutored you
to this?”
“Tutored!” echoed the rag-picker, with a fierce laugh.
“Mordecai Kolephat! where is the Rachel of your youth,
whom you waited for long, and lost at last—because you
were poor? Look at `Old Pris,' Mordecai! and see if
Rachel still lives!”
-- 181 --
[figure description] Page 181.[end figure description]
The Hebrew covered his eyes with clasped hands, and
groaned aloud. In an instant, memory rushed back and
pictured the woe of his youth; the unselfish love he had
cherished for a beautiful daughter of his race; the heartlessness
with which she had broken her plight to him, in
order to marry a wealthier suitor; his madness and
despair at her treachery; and, finally, the recklessness
which made him cast himself into the world's struggle, to
wrestle with fortune till she yielded her gold in abundance,
and made him the selfish, grasping man he had since
become. All those shadows of the past flitted phantom-like,
in one moment, over his mind; and then, uncovering
his eyes, he looked once more upon the hideous features
of his “old acquaintance,” who rocked her withered body
to and fro, and muttered slowly—
“Yes, Mordecai Kolephat, I am—Rachel!”
-- 182 -- p553-189
Chapter XV. The Rag-Picker's Revelation.
[figure description] Page 182.[end figure description]
THE scene presented was hideously grotesque. Propped
against the mouldy wall, in her dark corner, sat the
dying rag-picker, “Old Pris”—her cadaverous features
cast in strong relief by the candle rays that flickered fitfully
upon them, and her shrunken limbs and body, almost
doubled together, seeming more like a goblin shape than
that of human creature. Mordecai Kolephat sat opposite,
his head bowed on his arms, his face averted, to avoid
the glittering look which the woman fixed upon him, at
every pause in her strange recital. At the other extremity
of the room, crouching together on their heap of rags, the
dwarf and his mother still remained, the mulatto apparently
engaged in listening to some mumbling words that
dropped at intervals from the crone's lips. On the one
side, in the dim recess, the two figures were visible by a
trembling candle's gleam; and on the other, a few discolored
day-beams, slanting through the single window pane,
disclosed the miserable pair beneath. Cold, nakedness,
hunger, disease, darkness and death—with all the harrowing
images of ill-spent years and guilty deeds—abode in
this wretched apartment, where the Jew listened to the
-- 183 --
[figure description] Page 183.[end figure description]
harsh voice of one whom he had loved in youth, and
whose treachery had made him trust the world no more in
future years.
Mordecai Kolephat did not weep, for tears had long
been alien to his eyes; but his eyelids and lips quivered,
and his breath grew thick and painful to draw; for the
damp atmosphere around waxed full of ghostly shapes,
and the withered hag seemed now like the weird one of
Endor unto Saul of old, marshalling the phantoms of
memories bitter and gloomy to his soul.
“So was I, once,” resumed the woman, as if interpreting
his thoughts. “The beauty—the belle—the coquette!
Thus am I now, as you see, Mordecai—the despised, forsaken,
and doomed. When I drove you scornfully from
my side, I wept not, for my heart was cold with pride;
nor weep I now, Mordecai, for my heart is chill with
despair. I wedded another—a rich man, and all my
dreams of wealth and position were realized; but years
rolled by, to avenge the love I had slain in my bosom,
and I strove to condemn, and ridicule, and hate all who
were happier than I; till, at last, Mordecai, riches fled
from me! My husband died, a dishonored bankrupt;
I became a shameless woman, and sunk—sunk down,
Mordecai! to the lowest depths of mortal vice and
misery.”
“No more! no more, Rachel!” gasped the Hebrew.
“I was, indeed, avenged!”
“Listen, Mordecai!” again muttered the woman, in her
harsh whisper. “When next I saw you, after returning
from a foreign land, where my youth and prime had been
-- 184 --
[figure description] Page 184.[end figure description]
consumed in excesses, you were married, and the angel of
death had been with your household. But your wedded
life, your reputed wealth, and apparent happiness, instead
of giving pleasure to my wicked soul, made me regard
you with envy and bitterness. I saw that another shared
with you what might have been mine. I beheld you rich,
when I, after revelling in luxury, was reduced to want
and shame. Years passed on, and I grew to hate you,
day by day; till, at length, a lovely child was born to
you—the first daughter of your house. I watched you
once, Mordecai, as you stooped and kissed that beautiful
child, while tears fell from your eyes upon its face, and its
mother” —
The Jew groaned, and raised his hand, with a tremulous
gesture.
“Rachel! Rachel!” he cried, “if you would have my
pardon for the misery you caused me long ago, which has
since clouded my existence, let not that angel woman be
mentioned now. Let not her memory be mingled with
this hour!” He rose, as he spoke, and fixed his eyes upon
the rag-picker, adding, solemnly:—“I forgive you, dark
spirit, the crime of days gone by! And now I will hasten
to send hither attendance and comforts, that your last
hour may be, at least, not void of comfort” —
“Stay!” cried the hag, the breath rattling sharply in
her throat, as she plucked at the Jew's skirts, with a fierce
clutch. “I have not done with you, Mordecai Kolephat!
Ah! I would speak to ye of the child—your baby child—
that was stolen—stolen from its nurse!”
The old man, as he heard these words, seemed suddenly
-- 185 --
[figure description] Page 185.[end figure description]
stricken with ague; for his teeth parted and met, convulsively,
and his whole frame shook. “What of the child,
Rachel?—speak!” he demanded, in a stifled tone.
“Did I not say I hated you, Mordecai?” cried the hag.
“Hated you and the white-cheeked woman that loved
you, and bore you the beautiful babe! I resolved, in my
hate, to rob ye both of your idol!—and so 'twas I, Mordecai
Kolephat, that stole the child away from its drunken
nurse, and left my old lover again in misery and despair!
Ah!—kill me now, Mordecai! trample on the vile rag-picker's
head that plotted the deadly wrong!—kill me,
for 'twas I that murdered your wife!”
The wretched woman, in the frenzy of remorse, cast
herself forward at the Hebrew's feet, her distorted face
burying itself in the wet straw, while her body writhed as
if in mortal agony. Mordecai Kolephat bent over, and
with difficulty raised her head, turning her features once
more to the light. They were stained with dirt and blood,
and a dark red stream was gushing from her mouth. The
Jew supported her in his arms, forgetful, in his newly-awakened
anxiety concerning his long-lost child, of the
disgust which he had experienced but a moment before.
At seeing her prostrate, too, the mulatto rose from his
rag-heap, and, advancing, assisted to sustain the wretched
crone, while her mouth was relieved of foam and blood
which the spasm had caused to flow. Still, however, the
rag-picker remained without motion, apparently senseless
and deprived of speech. Mordecai Kolephat wrung his
hands and groaned as he beheld this, fearful that she
would die without another word, and thus leave him
-- 186 --
[figure description] Page 186.[end figure description]
tortured by a thousand doubts and fears engendered by her
partial revelation. He hastily sought for another coin,
and giving it to the mulatto, bade him quickly bring a
glass of spirits, to revive, if possible, the strength which
was fast ebbing from the shattered frame before him.
The dwarf's eyes glistened, as before, in receiving the
money, and he quickly departed to procure the stimulant,
while Mordecai watched the discolored and ghastly features
beneath his gaze, unable to trace a single lineament
of the proud and radiant face that had charmed his
youthful soul. Time, dissipation, and disease, with the
unbridled rule of wicked passions, had done their fearful
work, in obliterating every trait of womanly nature, and
leaving only the hard, cold, ugliness of a demonized human
being. It was a terrible sight to look upon, and doubly
so to him who could remember like Kolephat.
The mulatto returned, with some fiery liquid in a broken
glass, which Mordecai placed to the woman's lips, allowing
a few drops to moisten her throat. A moment afterwards,
a shiver ran through her frame, and her eyes, unclosing,
glittered again on the Hebrew; but now with a changed
expression, as if the secret fires which fed their unnatural
brightness were now smouldering out in the dying heart
below. Her voice, too, was not so harsh, nor quick, but
very feeble, as she muttered, mumblingly, like the old
negress—
“You are here, Mordecai—not gone!”
“The child—the child, Rachel!” cried Kolephat, clasping
his hands together, as he bent over the dying woman.
“You said that you stole the baby, Rachel” —
-- 187 --
[figure description] Page 187.[end figure description]
“From its nurse,” muttered the rag-picker.
“And — O Father Moses! — her eyes close again!
speak! Rachel—the child! You did not murder my
child?”
“The child!—ah! she is not dead, Mordecai!” gasped
the rag-picker.
“Speak! on your life, Rachel! As you hope for pardon,
Rachel!—where is my child?”
The Jew bent, distractedly, as he spoke, over the almost
speechless woman at his feet.
“She lives—here—tenant-house!” were the almost
indistinct words that came from her lips.
“Here, say you, Rachel? In this tenant-house?”
“No—no!—not—not here!—at the other—there—
there—Mordecai.”
The woman's under-lip fell, and her face grew ghastlier.
Kolephat placed the liquor to her mouth again, with
trembling eagerness.
“One more word. Die not yet, Rachel!—with whom
is my child?—where is she? speak!”
“Yes—yes! she lives!—dance—beautiful!—the organ-people!
Mordecai—oh!”
These were the last words of “Old Pris,” the rag-picker,
ended by a choking gasp, which closed her
wretched life forever.
“She's gone!” said the mulatto.
Mordecai Kolephat spoke not, but rose from beside the
corpse, and tottered away, through the narrow and dark
passages, and out into the street, with brain confused and
eyes blinded, like a drunken man. But one thought
-- 188 --
[figure description] Page 188.[end figure description]
possessed his mind—that his long-lost daughter, stolen in
youth, was still living, and within a tenant-house such as
he had just left—such as he owned. Every word of the
rag-picker's parting disclosure was fixed within his recollection,
filling his withered bosom with a new passion—
with a new quest—before which the incentives and realizations
of his past were as shadows and dross.
-- 189 -- p553-196
Chapter XVI. The Yellow Dwarf.
[figure description] Page 189.[end figure description]
WHEN an impatient citizen, annoyed by the monotonous
bray of a third-class organ under his window,
flings a subsidizing coin to the wretched son of Italy
without, in vain hope of release, and then, in desperation,
hears the solemn waltz or sepulchral quickstep maliciously
renewed, it is not to be denied, nor marvelled at, that he
gives vent to his chagrin in splenetic expletives. But of
aught save the ring of metal on the pavement, the scion
of Italy takes little heed, intent on finishing his allotted
number of crank-turns, whereafter, shifting his instrument
by its strap, he saunters leisurely to another halting-place.
Thus on, through the highways and by-ways of the great
city, attracting at corner curbstones close throngs of
curious urchins, whose untutored tastes have not yet
learned to distinguish between different gradations of
orchestral effect. If, haply, the Italian be attended by a
dancing-girl, with close-fitting bodice and embroidered
skirt, whose fingers deftly vibrate over a tambourine,
holding its cup aloft, to catch small drops of copper or
silver rain; or if, more captivating still, a restless ape, in
flaming regimentals, perch upon the stroller's back,
-- 190 --
[figure description] Page 190.[end figure description]
chattering and moaning, as he clings, while, at the open organfront,
a punchinello-ball-room displays its groups of clockworked
manikins—then shall your first-born urchin,
O good citizen! desert the maternal knee, and with wild
delight, clapping his eager hands, yield to the charming
of the vagrant music-murderer whom your more fastidious
ears are closed against in operatic horror.
All the live-long day, and far into the night, you hear
the organ-drone. Long after the city streets have been
deserted by all save travellers, a solitary Italian will plant
himself at your door, and deal out his hum-drum notes to
silence and darkness. At last, however, the organ-grinder
goes home, and leaves his last victim unmolested till the
morrow.
There was one, we may be sure, who halted opposite
Foley's Barracks, in the early morning, though with little
prospect of a douceur from the ragged, unkempt urchins
swarming at the windows. There was a monkey, it is
not to be doubted, that played his pranks in the gloomy
purlieus of Kolephat College. Very likely a tambourincgirl
whirled, sometimes, in front of the miserable pile of
tenant-houses, where “Old Pris” the rag-picker lay dying
in the dwarf's room. But no such figure danced in the
snowy street, or through the muddy gutter, when Mordecai
Kolephat, the Jew, after listening to the confession of
his “old acquaintance,” emerged once more upon daylight,
and wended his way towards his home. Nevertheless,
had the Hebrew desired to inspect the abodes and
surroundings of organ-grinders and their attachés, he
would not need to have left that block of buildings which
-- 191 --
[figure description] Page 191.[end figure description]
stood on tax-books opposite his name. Indeed, it was
but a few rods distant, in the rear of the apartment where
the rag-picker had died, that an entire floor of the shattered
dwelling was occupied as a rendezvous and lodging-place
for yellow-faced and black-headed men, belonging to
that “army of Italy” who traverse, night and day, with
heavy load, the streets of this metropolis.
Long before the interview between Mordecai and Old
Pris, various squads of this army, that harbored in the
tenant-house, had dispersed on their daily perambulations.
But still, in a dingy room on the floor devoted to their
accommodation, some dozen Italians of both sexes, were
disposed in different attitudes. The group was composed
of a withered and nearly superannuated man, an aged
woman, who might be his wife, with a strong gipsey face,
three younger women, and a half-dozen children of both
sexes. The old man sat on a block, in one corner of the
apartment, and held in his palsied hands a string of beads,
with a wooden crucifix depending, on which he seemed to
be mumbling unintelligible prayers. The elder woman
crouched upon the floor, engaged in knitting, as were
likewise two of the younger females, while the third stirred
with a wooden spoon some smoking beverage in an iron
pot that stood upon a furnace in the fire-place. Two
boys were sorting rags near the fire, another engaged in
repairing the broken pipes of an organ, and the rest, mere
babes, were crawling or asleep upon the floor. Three
straw beds, with rug-quilts spread over them, were ranged,
head to foot, on two sides of the room, which, in dimensions,
was about sixteen feet square, and, in addition to its
-- 192 --
[figure description] Page 192.[end figure description]
human denizens, contained two malicious-looking monkeys,
chained near a pile of wood-chips, over which they were
constantly springing.
Such was one dwelling, or home, of Italian organ-grinders,
in which, at the present time, twelve occupants
remained, and which, each night, accommodated three more,
the husbands of the younger women, making in all fifteen
persons confined within four walls of sixteen feet to each.
Three families thus existed in a single room; and upon the
same floor of the tenant-house were other rooms with like
“accommodations” for like wanderers of the streets. It
may now appear no marvel to the good citizen, who learns
for the first time these facts, that the organ-grinder beneath
his window seemed reluctant, even at midnight, to
“move on” towards such a crowded home.
The apartment was not, indeed, so dark as the basement
lodging wherein dwelt the mulatto dwarf and his negress
mother. Two windows, overlooking the court, admitted
light, and the removal of a knot or two of rags from
sundry broken panes could afford, if such a thing were
thought of, some apology for ventilation. But, in dirt
and grimness, the room might boast of peerlessness; for
the floor was thick with hardened mud, and the walls and
ceiling black from the furnace smoke. Yet, over the beds
hung two or three pictures of saints—cheap daubs, it is
true—but sufficient to relieve the cheerlessness around,
and impart some air of civilization to what might else
have appeared barbarian life.
Civilization! well may the political philosopher despair
of that civilization which goes not hand in hand with
-- 193 --
[figure description] Page 193.[end figure description]
Christianity! well may the Christian grieve over the
refinement which exalts the temples of his faith to the
perfection of architecture—investing his worship with all
the attributes of physical grandeur—and yet leaves the
tenant-house, its surroundings, and its associations, to
remain a blot upon civilization and a libel upon religion!
The female who stirred the contents of the iron pot
paused in her task, as a voice sounded at the door of the
room, and turned her head in time to greet with a nod of
welcome the visitor who entered; for it was, indeed, a
visitor, and one, as it seemed, in much favor with the
denizens, particularly the younger portion, who began a
confused jargon of welcome, as they crowded forward.
The new-comer was, in good sooth, of attractive face and
manner—a young girl, perhaps ten years old, with features
of surpassing beauty, and figure that seemed, as she
moved on over the floor of that miserable room, the very
mould of grace.
“Ninetta!” cried the woman, embracing the visitor;
and “Ninetta!” echoed a chorus of shrill voices, as the
children clustered about her, plucking at her dress, or
lifting their mouths for the kiss she bestowed on each.
“And where have you stayed so long?” asked one of
the females, who sat knitting, whilst the elder woman,
after nodding her head thrice, in measured recognition,
pointed to a wooden box, as a seat for the guest.
“I have been making great fame,” answered the young
girl, speaking, as she had been addressed, in the Italian
tongue. “Maestro Freidrich promises that I shall be
-- 194 --
[figure description] Page 194.[end figure description]
rich, and have horses and carriages in good time! Ah!
cara mia! you should see me! Look, monna!”
Saying this, the speaker made a bound into the middle
of the floor, and, poising her little form on the points of
her left toes, lifted the right foot slowly, and then began
a rapid pirouette around the apartment, much to the
delight of the urchins, who shouted and clapped their
hands at the performance.
“There, Monna Maria! how do you like that? Is it
not a pose? The Maestro says it will make our fortune
when we accomplish a grand contract with the theatre!
What do you think, Monna Maria?”
All these words were uttered during the pauses of the
girl's evolutions, and were spoken to the old woman who
sat, knitting, upon the floor, and who only shook her
head in reply.
“Ah, monna! you are angry with me!” cried the
visitor, ceasing her dance, and stooping suddenly beside
the old woman. “But I have not forgotten you, cara
monna! See!—I have brought you money!—look! it
is the bright gold!”
She drew from her pocket, in speaking, a quarter-eagle,
and held it up before the Italian woman's eyes, which glistened
with an expression of cupidity, as she stretched out
her bony hand to take the coin.
“Ah, monna! you are not angry now! And I have
saved it all—from the Maestro's gifts—to bring to you,
who do not love me.”
The brilliant eyes of the child filled with tears, as she
murmured these words, and her emotion seemed to affect
-- 195 --
[figure description] Page 195.[end figure description]
the old woman; for the latter began to speak in a
deliberate tone, saying—
“No, Ninetta! that is wrong of thee!—much I love
thee, little one! It is a fine gift thou bringst me! much
I love thee!”
The other women exchanged glances, as they saw the
elder one place the quarter-eagle in her mouth, and both
commenced to compliment their visitor, at once, concerning
her proficiency as a dancer. But, ere she could
reply, a knock was heard, and one of the children opened
the door, disclosing a grotesque figure upon the threshold.
It was the dwarf mulatto, who at once shuffled forward
towards the spot where sat the beldam who had received
the coin, and whispered a few words in her ear which
apparently startled her somewhat, causing a sudden exclamation
to break from her lips:
“Dead!” she muttered, staring at the mulatto.
“Clean gone!” answered the latter. “I know'd you
and her was old friends,” he added, with a chuckling
sound; “and so I t'ought I'd let you know.”
“Who is dead?” asked the child Ninetta, regarding
Monna Maria with a curious look.
“She is dead, bambina, whom thou didst hate—`Old
Pris,' who beat thee in the street!—dost recollect?”
“Yes, monna! but she knew not what she did, for she
drank! Is she dead, poor Old Pris? I am sorry, Monna
Maria!”
“Go! you are a strange one!” said the woman.
Then, addressing the dwarf, “Who was with her?” she
demanded.
-- 196 --
[figure description] Page 196.[end figure description]
“Him—she sent for—the rich Jew, that owns all these
houses,” answered the mulatto; “and a long time they
had of it, like old friends. He's to send a coffin, and she'll
be buried to-morrow.”
“Aha!” muttered the crone, as if annoyed and disappointed
at what the dwarf related; and then she mumheld
other words which were unintelligible to the listeners.
Ninetta watched the workings of her grim face, and said,
in a low tone:
“I would like to see poor Old Pris—now she is dead,
and cannot speak cross, or curse me, Monna Maria!
Come, let us go, and look at her!”
“Go not near the witch,” returned Monna Maria,
threateningly lifting her finger. “She may have power
to harm thee still.”
“Nay, I fear her not. Let us go, good Monna Maria.
Listen! I will save more money—bright gold—for you!”
she added, in a whisper.
“Have thy will, then, bambina,” said the croue, laying
down her needles, and rising from the floor, displaying, as
she stood erect, a very tall figure, with gaunt limbs. She
then took a long cane from a corner where it stood, and
leaning upon it, clasped the extended hand of Ninetta, and,
thus supported, hobbled after the dwarf, who led the way.
The dotard on the block looked vacantly after them, as
they crossed the threshold of the room, and then continued
to tell his beads; and the remainder of the family
went on with the avocations which had been interrupted.
When the yellow dwarf and his companions reached the
murky apartment in which the former dwelt, they found
-- 197 --
[figure description] Page 197.[end figure description]
the negress crouching near the hearth, warming her withered
frame over a fire of pine-knots, purchased at a neighboring
grocery, the blaze of which penetrated through the
room, illuming its filthy corners, and disclosing the corpse
of Old Pris, stretched rigidly, as she had died, an hour
before. Monna Maria drew nigh the body, and regarded
it with attention, while Ninetta remained a little space
behind, as if fearful to encounter the malevolent eyes
which she remembered to have shrunk from, years before.
The mulatto whispered to his mother, and the hag replied
in her mumbling monotone, and the two then moved
away, as before, to the bundle of rags near the dingy
window.
“Monna Maria! do you think Old Pris is gone to
heaven?” asked Ninetta, hesitatingly drawing nearer to
the dead rag-picker.
“No! she was heathen and heretic,” answered the
Italian woman, sharply.
“But, maybe to Purgatory, Monna Maria?”
“No! she's lost—her soul is with the devils!—there
was no priest to confess her, child, and she died in mortal
sin.”
“O, dreadful!” murmured Ninetta, with a shudder. “I
wish I had known she was to die—I would have gone for
Padre Clement, and he should have forgiven all her sins,
even if I had to starve till I earned the money. It is so
sad to think she must be burned forever, Monna Maria!”
“Tush, child, thou couldst do no good. Ten thousand
masses would hardly have been enough to release her from
Purgatory, even if she had received the sacrament before
-- 198 --
[figure description] Page 198.[end figure description]
death. And small was the kindness thou owedst her, if the
truth were known to thee.”
“Nay, Monna Maria; freely did I forgive her ill-nature,
in cursing and striving to hurt me, so long ago. She was
old and lonesome, and the strong drink made her crazy
sometimes.”
“Ay, ay!” muttered the old woman, “that's not the
wrong—that's not the hurt she did thee, bambina! But,
peace!—soon, I doubt me, thou'lt know all!”
“What is it, Monna Maria?”
“No matter! There'll be one coming for thee soon, it
may be!” said the crone, evasively, stooping beside Old
Pris, and pretending to examine the dead features closely.
As she did this, a dirty scrap of folded paper, held tightly
in the old rag-picker's fingers, suddenly caught her notice,
and she hastily drew it out, scanning, with eager glance,
some printed letters upon one side. Ninetta saw it, too,
and inquired—
“What's that, Monna Maria?”
“Nothing, bambina! See! have you not looked at the
dead heathen long enough? Come! let us go away.”
Saying this, the Italian hastily concealed the slip of
paper; and, sustaining herself upon the oak staff which
she carried, turned towards the door. Ninetta gave one
more sorrowing look at the corpse, and then covered her
brilliant eyes with her white hand.
“Oh!” murmured she, “if the poor soul was only in
Purgatory! but, alas! to be burned forever and ever!”
“Come, child! what art crying for? She was no
friend, little fool!”
-- 199 --
[figure description] Page 199.[end figure description]
“Ah, Monna Maria! she is dead now!” replied Ninetta,
and then went slowly away, with her gaunt companion.
The mulatto watched them both, till they had disappeared,
and then accosted his negress mother.
“Mus' be one o'clock, nigh, old ooman.”
“He, he!” mumbled the hag, “one o'clock. Dat dream
was a good 'un. Two, tree, and one! Go, boy, and see.
He, he!”
She chuckled to herself, hoarsely, and relapsed into
incoherent muttering, while her dwarf son moved his grotesque
figure away, passing through the door and entry,
and out into the narrow street in front of the tenant-houses,
till he reached a corner of the block. Here pausing,
he descended a few steps, and pushed open the door
of a basement-room, over the lintel of which was inscribed
the single word “Exchange.”
It was a strange place for such a word to appear in—a
word suggestive of financial operations that one would
hardly expect to meet with in so miserably poor a neighborhood.
In flaming letters, near the open doors of
fashionable hotels, or down in the haunts of trade and
business, where brokers like Mr. Jobson might be supposed
to congregate, a word like this, designating the transfer
of money, or stocks, or lands, would have had legitimate
place and significance; but, in the present locality, over a
shattered basement door, surrounded by tottering hovels,
it could not but appear, to the reflective observer, as
somewhat out of its meridian. Whatever the incongruity
might be, however, it certainly did not strike the dwarf
mulatto, who, with shambling gait, entered the room,
-- 200 --
[figure description] Page 200.[end figure description]
or office, where were already assembled some score of
wretched-looking people, black and white, seated on
wooden benches ranged along the walls, and eyeing, with
furtive glances, the movements of a greasy-haired young
man, who stood at a desk behind what seemed to be a
counter, and whose figure was partly concealed by a faded
green curtain depending from a wire stretched over his
desk to a point near the door. In the middle of the floor
stood a cast-iron cylinder stove, red hot, from which a dry
heat radiated, filling the place with close and stifling air.
In the countenances of the people who occupied the
benches might be traced every variety of expression,
resulting from different habits of life. There was the
bloated face of one long sunk from all good opinion and
social standing by an unrestrained indulgence of his appetites;
there was the low-browed, bulging face of an Irish
female, with intelligence scarce one degree removed from
mere instinct; there was the sharp chin and small greedy
eyes of one who was a prey to covetousness, and near him
the unquiet visage of an habitual gambler. All types of
poverty, stupidity, dissipation, and recklessness were visible
in the waiting crowd of that basement shop, over the
door of which was inscribed the word “Exchange.”
“Exchange!” Here came the boy of twelve, the stripling
but a few years older, the female child, and the girl
just verging on womanhood, which it had been better for
her if she never reached. Here staggered in the adult
man and woman, with garments ragged, seant, and filthy.
Here tottered from the street grey-headed males and
females, long since forgetful of human character or duties.
-- 201 --
[figure description] Page 201.[end figure description]
Did they come to “exchange” their want for comfort—
their degradation for dignity—their viciousness for morality—
their disease for health and life? Alas! no! they
brought less of every cruel burden than they were doomed
to carry forth again; they entered oftentimes with longing
hope, but left that gloomy basement disappointed and
despairing.
“Exchange!” Here was the “'change” of the poor,
the ignorant, the superstitious! The greasy-haired youth
at the desk unrolled a scroll of paper, on which were
printed irregular lines of figures, in many gaudy colors,
and as he scanned each figure closely, appeared to compare
it with other figures entered on the pages of a book
before him. Meanwhile, the lookers-on watched his countenance
with great anxiety.
“Two—Three—One! A hit!” at length said the
young man, measuredly.
“Two—three—one!” was passed from mouth to mouth,
and then a half shriek sounded from one corner, and the
dwarf mulatto sprang towards the counter, tossing his
yellow arms above his head, while his black eyes sparkled
like live coals, from excitement.
“A hit!—how much?” he demanded, with breathless
impatience.
“Seventy-two dollars, Josh!” answered the clerk, looking
up from his scroll. “There's only one other hit today:
that's five dollars to Two, Five, Seven.”
“Hooray! that's mine, too!” yelled the dwarf Josh.
“Them's my numbers.”
“Is that so? You're in luck, Josh!” said the clerk.
-- 202 --
[figure description] Page 202.[end figure description]
“If that's the way you play policies, we'll have to close up
the concern.”
Saying this, the greasy-haired youth shut up his book,
and the motley inmates of the shop began to crowd about
the dwarf, who at once put on an air of importance, listening
to their remarks with dignified condescension, while
the policy-dealer proceeded to count out, in bank-notes,
the amount of money to which, as a winner in this day's
lottery, the mulatto was entitled.
“Was it yo'r ould mother that dhramed the won—
three—two?” inquired a red-faced Irishwoman, gazing
admiringly at the squat figure of the fortunate policy-player.
“She's a dreamer, as knows how to dream,” remarked
a flat-nosed boy, crowding forward. “Ain't she, Josh!”
The dwarf smiled benignly, pleased at the compliment
to his venerable parent, the negress; and then, as the
dealer finished counting the money, stretched up his hand
to the desk to receive it.
“What are you going to do with all this money, Josh?”
asked the policy man, with a pleasant grin. “Take off
seven-seventy for our ten per cent., and then you'll have
most seventy dollars left. Great deal o' money, Josh.
Better let me keep it safe for you.”
“No you don't, master,” answered the dwarf, with a
leer, at which the group around him laughed vociferously,
as is customary when a wealthy man delivers himself of a
jest. “If you please, I'm a-goin' to use that money,
master.”
The dealer grinned, and handed a roll of notes to the
-- 203 -- p553-210
[figure description] Page 203.[end figure description]
mulatto, whereupon that individual re-counted them leisurely,
and tucked them securely away under the lining of
his ragged waistcoat. Then, looking around upon the
gaping spectators, black and white, who had almost forgotten
their own disappointments in wondering admiration
of the little man whose mother had “dreamed him” such
a brace of “hits,” Josh held up a dollar that he had separated
from the rest of his fortune, and with great politeness,
invited all present to take a glass of beer at his
expense—a proposition which was received with hearty
applause by the policy-players, who thereupon, with loud
shouting, followed the yellow dwarf to the adjoining
corner grocery.
And this was the signification of “Exchange!” Here,
in the dingy basement of a tenant-house, was located one
of those pit-falls which waylay the steps of discontented
poverty—the shop of a policy-dealer, where, in defiance
of the laws, unchecked by authorities, the trecherous
lines of fraud are spread to snare the ignorant, thriftless,
and superstitious dwellers in surrounding hovels. Here,
for the sums of three cents, a dime, a quarter or a half-dollar,
the wretched man or woman may select numbers
of a lottery on which to stake the miserable pittance
earned by some job or other. Here, where chances are
nearly all on the side of the dealer, a lucky “hit,” or winning,
may secure some prize of five or ten, but seldom
over one hundred dollars. Such hits, it is true, are rare,
as deaths by lightning, but still like ignes fatui, they
lead expectant worshippers of fortune, day by day, and
year by year, till health, means, reputation, life itself, is
-- 204 --
[figure description] Page 204.[end figure description]
sacrificed at last, in the wretched frenzy of a gambler's
passion. Not in one lane, or alley, or squalid quarter,
but dispersed thickly through the great city, wherever
poverty dwells, or want sharpens the desire for gain, or
credulity listens to flattering expectations, there may be
found the illegal and destructive policy-office, crouching in
a sordid nook of some dilapidated square, with miserable
people clustered near its entrance, and over its door or
window the single word “Exchange.”
-- 205 --
Chapter XVII. The Adopted Sisters.
[figure description] Page 205.[end figure description]
THE funeral was over, and Fanny's mother slept, not
in Potter's Field, but amid the shady walks of Greenwood.
Bob the Weasel had ridden in a coach, holding
Fanny's hand in his, while the good gentleman, Mr.
Granby, sat on the opposite seat, talking to them in mild
tones, which Bob could never forget, he knew, in all his
future days. Fanny had wept, and clung with sobs to his
side, when the coffin was taken from the hearse and put
away into a dark vault beneath the snowy bank. But
Mr. Granby said that, in the spring-time, all that snow
would melt away, and make the flowers grow lovelier and
fresher on the turf, and that then the children should
come again to Greenwood, and weave a garland of the
sweetest blossoms, to lay upon the mother's grave. And
when, after all was over, they entered the carriage again,
the kind old gentleman clasped their cold hands together,
and taught them to repeat after himself a prayer to the
dear Lord in Heaven, with whom, he trusted, Fanny's
mother dwelt in peace; and Bob the Weasel, after that
simple prayer, and in listening to his benefactor's gentle
words, felt as if he were younger even than Fanny, and
-- 206 --
[figure description] Page 206.[end figure description]
was only now beginning to perceive and learn some pleasant
knowledge of the world in which he had lived unknowing
and unknown since babyhood. And when, that
evening, the orphan Fanny was left with Margery, the
kind seamstress, and Bob returned with Mr. Granby to
his new home, to eat heartily of supper, whilst old Samson
talked to him of the newsboys, his late comrades, and he
related to the wondering negro how often he had slept in
areas and under wagons; and when, after that, he went
with Samson to Mr. Granby's library, and made a bow to
Mrs. George, and then knelt down, with the rest, to evening
prayers; and, finally, when he ascended, once more, to
his little dormitory, and felt the warm quilts covering him,
and a soft pillow under his head, it may well be conceived
that Rob Morrison thought himself a very happy boy.
Meantime, Fanny, left with her new friend, sat quiet
and reserved on a stool near the seamstress, who plied her
needle, as usual. The child was clad in a black frock,
which, with her pale features, and eyes swollen by weeping
all the day, recalled unceasingly, to Margery's tender sympathy,
the sad bereavement of her little charge. Harry,
with his brown curls all disordered by play, tilted in his
tiny rocking-chair, at one side of the fire-place, holding
a purring kitten in his lap; and his large eyes, full of
affection, rested by turns upon his sister and the young
stranger. At length he asked—
“Sissy Margery, may Fanny be my sissy, too?”
“Why do you wish Fanny to be your sister, dear?”
“'Cause she cries, like you, Margery, and looks so sorrowful.”
-- 207 --
[figure description] Page 207.[end figure description]
“And do you think you will make her very happy, if
she becomes your sister, Harry?”
“Yes, dear Margery! I'll give her all my playthings,
and she may play with kitty all the time; and I'll show
her all the letters that I know! Won't that be nice,
Fanny?” he asked, looking archly towards the orphan,
who smiled faintly, and nodded her poor little head.
“Perhaps Fanny knows her letters,” remarked the
seamstress; but Harry rejoined, quickly—
“No, indeed, she don't—but I told her I'd teach her
this morning, when she was crying, and she said I might—
didn't you, Fanny?”
Fanny's eyes filled with tears, and she murmured—
“My mother wanted me to go to school, but I had no
frock when I was old enough. Mother tried to teach me
a good many times, but she got sick, and then I went out
to sell matches.”
“Poor child! such a young creature as you to sell
matches!” exclaimed Margery.
“Oh, I used to sell a good many, before mother got
very sick. Sometimes, I'd make a whole shilling. Rob
said `that was famous luck, though.”'
“Rob! who is Rob?”
“He's a newsboy, please, ma'am. He went to my
mother's funeral to-day, and he's gone home with Mr.
Granby and Samson.”
“Samson was a strong man, in the Bible,” here interrupted
Harry, with a wise look. “Didn't you ever hear
of Samson and the Philistines, Fanny?” asked he, recailing
suddenly a recent Sabbath-school lesson. Fanny
-- 208 --
[figure description] Page 208.[end figure description]
answered that she had not, whereat Harry expressed
great astonishment, and inquired—
“Don't you know who Moses was?”
“Is he in the Bible?”
“Yes,” replied the boy. “He was in Egypt—I should
think you'd heard of him.”
“O yes! I have. Mother told me about Moses, and
about our Saviour,” said the little orphan.
“About God?”
“Yes, indeed! and I know how to pray to God! I
know `Our Father!”'
“That's real good,” cried Harry, approvingly. “Sister
Margery! mayn't Fanny and me pray to Jesus alone
to-night?”
“Yes, darling! but I fear you will not recollect your
prayers—you have never said them alone.”
“O, yes, Margery—I know 'em! Fanny! we must
kneel down, you know! Don't you want to?”
“O, yes!” returned the weeping child. “It'll make
me feel better—I know it will.”
The seamstress laid down the work on which she had
been stitching, and leaned her forehead upon her hand. The
innocent prattle of the children stirred within her bosom
many varying emotions. She thought of the child Fanny,
deprived of a mother's love, and of the little care the
poor trembler had experienced even in her parent's life—
forced out, as she had been, by penury, to seek precarious
livelihood upon the great thoroughfares, among busy wayfarers
or pleasure-seekers, amid whose changing crowd her
baby form might scarce be noticed. And woven ever
-- 209 --
[figure description] Page 209.[end figure description]
with the orphan's unprotected fate arose the bitter fear
that Harry, darling of her lonely heart, might thus be
cast abroad, so helpless and unfriended. Yet, as if in
mild rebuke of all her apprehensions, the artless accents
of the little ones beside her, asking permission to address
their Heavenly Father, fell upon her ears, and sunk into
her heart, with soft and soothing influence. She wiped
away the tears that had risen to her eyes, and clasping
the children's fingers together, pointed their small hands
upward, and with a swelling bosom listened to their simple
prayer.
There was no rude interruption now to Fanny's orisons,
as there had been when her cold hands were clasped in
those of Rob Morrison, beside the rigid corpse of her
mother. All was very still in that humble tenant-house
apartment, and the childish voices, commingled in sweet
distinctness, rose, like fragrant offerings as they were, in
the language of that beautiful invocation which, alike for
the baby in its cradle and the monarch on his throne, is
still, as at the hour when our Saviour breathed it, unequalled
in simplicity, in tenderness, and in power. Blessed
and ever beautiful it has descended to our day, and still
shall the generations of men be calmed and strengthened,
through the ages to come, in breathing heavenward, with
lowly hearts, the prayer that Jesus offered to “Our Father.”
Then Margery kissed her brother and the orphan, and
when they had been wrapped in little night gowns, made
by her own untiring hands, she said “good-night” to
both, with another kiss, and led them away to the small
chamber.
-- 210 --
[figure description] Page 210.[end figure description]
“Sissy! please leave the door open!” said Harry, calling
after her from beneath the warm coverlid.
“Yes, dear Harry!—go to sleep!”
But Harry was not yet prepared to close his dark
brown eyes; and his sister, when she had resumed her
sewing, could hear, for half an hour, the whispering voices
of the children. But at last the murmur grew still, and
Margery, bending over the dim candle, which was her only
light, pursued her nightly toil.
Many feet passed and repassed her room, as the seamstress
sat, silent and thoughtful, at her task; feet of
drunken men, staggering through the dark passages, and
of weary laborers, returned from work, slowly mounting
the steep staircase. At length, a light footstep paused at
the door-sill, and a low knock startled Margery from her
reflections. She opened the door, and in a moment was
clasped in the arms of a sad-faced girl, clad in black, who
entered hurriedly. “Margaret!” “Emily!” were the only
words spoken, and then the visitor fell, weeping, upon the
neck of the seamstress.
“My poor girl! what has happened?” asked Margery,
tenderly, and pressing her lips to the other's forehead.
“Your mother” —
“She's dead!—she's dead! Oh, Margaret—I am all
alone in the world!” exclaimed Emily, in a voice choked
with sobs, as she clung convulsively to her friend's
bosom.
“Poor child!—dear Emily! Come, my poor girl, sit
down!” cried the seamstress, kissing the orphan again and
again, and leading her gently to a chair, while her own
-- 211 --
[figure description] Page 211.[end figure description]
tears began to flow, and her voice trembled with emotion.
“There, dear! lay your head on my lap.”
She sat down beside the maiden, then, and twined her
arms lovingly about her neck. Emily, meanwhile, bowed
her head upon her friend's knees, while low moans broke
incessantly from her lips, and gushing tears relieved her
overburdened heart. It was some moments before this
burst of sorrow, to which, upon the breast of her sympathizing
companion, Emily unrestrainedly gave way, was
calmed sufficiently to admit of speech. But, at last, the
paroxysm became subdued, and then the brief story of
bereavement was poured into ears as attentive, and responded
to by a heart as kind, as heaven ever permitted
to console an orphan. And, as the sweet, though tearful
face of Emily was uplifted to that of her friend, and the
latter's meek eyes looked down with unspeakable pity,
there fell also an influence of calm and confidence upon
the orphan's spirit, and she felt that she was not all alone
in the wide world.
“Oh! Emily! there has been death here, too, my
child!” said the seamstress, after a pause. “Death and
orphanhood, also! A little child, motherless, and without
a friend who knows aught concerning her, is sleeping in
that room with my own poor Harry! Ah! dear! we
do not know how many orphans, like yourself, are weeping,
at this very hour, over the cold remains of their last and
nearest friend on earth.
“'Tis true, dear Margaret,” replied Emily, endeavoring
to staunch her tears. “But, oh! it is hard to bear! No
friends!—O, mother! mother!”
-- 212 --
[figure description] Page 212.[end figure description]
Once more her head drooped, and sobs broke painfully
from her breast. Margaret gently laid her hand upon the
mourner's hair, that, loosed from its folds, fell in disordered
masses, upon her shoulders, which, contrasted with the
black stuff dress she wore, appeared like alabaster in their
whiteness.
“Dear Emily!” said the seamstress, “is not our Heavenly
Father the orphan's friend! Does not that thought
console you, dear?”
Emily raised her tearful eyes again. “It does—it
does!” she answered. “Dear Margaret, your voice seems
like poor mother's. I do feel confidence in God! I know
He will not desert me!”
“There whispers your dear mother's spirit, Emily.
Perhaps, indeed, it hovers near us, listening to our
words, before it wings its upward way to peace eternal.
Emily! my mother, you know, died but two short years
ago, and I have loved since to believe that her guardian
care attends me. She was your mother's friend, Emily!
and perhaps, even now, as we are weeping together, our
mothers are embracing in heaven, and looking down in
love upon their children. Is it not a sweet thought,
Emily?”
“O, my sister! my dear sister!” murmured the orphan.
“Sister, indeed, darling! Let us be so to each other!
for we are both fatherless and motherless!”
The two friends tenderly embraced, and Emily whispered:—
“I have always looked upon you, Margaret, as
an elder sister, and now I feel that God has made you so
indeed.”
-- 213 --
[figure description] Page 213.[end figure description]
For some moments, then, they remained silent, twined
by each other's arms, their hearts beating together, and
tears mingling on their wet cheeks. Still the feet of
tenants sounded from without, stumbling through the
passages of Kolephat College; still, at intervals, doors
were closed, with jarring clang, in the distance, and
voices of men and women, intermingled occasionally with
coarse laughter, echoed from neighboring rooms, or from
the alley below—all distinctly audible through the dilapidated
shells, which served for walls or partitions; for, in
a crowded tenant-house, no quiet ever reigns, save when
midnight sleep brings temporary silence. But, in the
deep abstraction of their sympathies, the sisters, as they
now felt themselves, heeded not the outward world, but,
listening with their inner natures, seemed to hear the
tones of angel voices, and the wings of heavenly messengers,
fluttering through superior ether, in a life beyond
and far above the homes of poverty and woe.
“Come, sister!” at length said Margaret, when the
two again unclasped their arms. “Come, and see poor
Harry and my other orphan!” She rose, in saying this,
and taking the candle in her hand, led Emily to the bedroom,
where reposed the children. “Look!” she continued,
shading the light with her hand, and turning down
the coverlid, disclosing the two little ones, locked in each
other's arms, like babes of one mother. Harry's brown
curls were intertwined with Fanny's silky hair, and the
flushed and healthful cheek of the boy pressed closely
against the sweet but paler face of his new companion.
-- 214 --
[figure description] Page 214.[end figure description]
“How beautiful they are!” said Emily, stooping to kiss
the sleeping infants.
“The poor child's mother died, without a soul near to
assist her. No one appears to know anything about them,
as they were tenants here but a few weeks! O Emily! it
is terrible to think of such a thing as to die utterly friendless,
and without a human being to offer a last prayer!”
Margaret turned from the bed, as she spoke, hastily
wiping her eyes, to which tears were again springing,
in spite of her fortitude.
When they were again seated together in the outer room,
Emily, now soothed into calmness, related to her friend
the incidents following her mother's death, embracing the
loss of her purse, with nearly all her scanty stock of money.
The undertaker's assistant, on returning with the coffin,
had been boldly charged, by Mrs. Dumsey, with the perpetration
of the theft, which he as stoutly denied, and retorted
so defiantly upon the nurse, with threats of suing her for
slander, that she, albeit of legal experience, was fain to
drop the unsupported accusation, and content herself with
sundry epithets, muttered before the lad, and loudly
repeated in the bosom of her family, which, applied to the
cadaverous youth, attested her belief in his possession of
all the crimes and vices usually dispersed over an entire
State-prison calendar; ending with the declaration, enforced
by emphasis, that “the gallus would never get its
due till that same young villyan danced on nothin', with
his shoes on.”
Nevertheless, the good Mrs. Dumsey, in her indignation
against the wicked youth, who, she averred, would “steal
-- 215 --
[figure description] Page 215.[end figure description]
the coppers off his own father's eyes, and never wink at
it,” did not lose sight of the fact that her young neighbor's
scanty fund remaining was insufficient to meet the
expenses necessary to her mother's funeral. On the contrary,
in her blunt, yet kindly way, as soon as the undertaker's
assistant had again departed, Mrs. Dumsey descended
to her own quarters, and soon returned with a
canvas bag, in which was snugly tied a little hoard of
silver, in federal halves and quarters of the dollar, the
accumulation of many years of thrifty savings. This,
with much honest pride exhibited in her face, she announced
as “her own, and nobody's else, and kept for
rainy days,” and then, and without more ceremony, proceeded
to inform the orphan, that “Mrs. Dumsey, and
Mrs. Dumsey alone, for the sake of she that's dead and
gone, and a good woman she was, and as kind a neighbor
as ever breathed the breath o' mortal life, was a-going to
bury the Widow Marvin at her own expense, and two
carriages, and not a cent for Emily to trouble herself to
pay.” This determination, resolutely communicated to
her young neighbor, was received with tearful gratitude,
and a hope expressed by Emily that she might soon be
able to repay the unexpected kindness, which relieved her
of a load of uneasiness at that hour; to which the generous
nurse replied, that “she needn't give herself a morsel
of trouble,” adding, with a smile, to raise the orphan's
spirits, that “when she should marry a coach-and-four,
she might refund the same.” All this, with many tears,
and blessings invoked upon her kindly neighbor, Emily
now related to Margaret, concluding her recital by
-- 216 --
[figure description] Page 216.[end figure description]
informing her that her mother's funeral would take place upon
the morrow, which was the Sabbath, and earnestly requesting
her new sister to accompany her parent's remains to
their last resting-place. The seamstress promised to be
ready; and then, after another embrace of her friend,
Emily prepared to depart.
“It is nine o'clock,” she said, “and good Mrs. Dumsey
is waiting up for me. O Margaret! I am so sorry to go
away from you. Bless you! bless you, dear friend! for
you are a blessing to every one! O! I wish I were like
you!”
“We are to be sisters, you know,” said Margery.
“And we must live together, for the future, Margaret!
“You must come with me. It will be more comfortable
for you than this place, and we can be so quiet together,
all our lives.”
“Perhaps so,” said the seamstress, with a sad smile;
for she felt, even at that instant, a sharp pain in her side,
which made her grow faint for a moment.
“O, indeed, yes, dear Margaret! we must be together!
Now, good-night, sister! God bless you forever!”
“May the Almighty have you in his keeping, dear
Emily!” answered Margaret; and then, with another kiss,
the two friends separated, and the seamstress returned to
her task. But her eyes were blinded with suffusing tears,
her breath grew painfully thick; and she bowed her poor
head upon the table, her heart heavy with sorrow, of
which the world knew nothing.
-- 217 -- p553-224
Chapter XVIII. Margery's Sabbath-School.
[figure description] Page 217.[end figure description]
THE Sabbath day, with holy and ameliorating influences,
dawned over the great city. A blessed calmness
ushered in the sun, which rose unclouded, shimmering
over the smooth waters of the two broad rivers that belt
the metropolis, and clothing all the rolling billows of the
bay with radiant light. It was one of those mild days
which come in midwinter, to thaw the heavy snows, and
unlock for a space the waters that the hand of frost had
sealed; one of those spring-like days, with clear blue sky
and soft south-western wind, usually the presage of renewed
storms, and seeming as if Winter paused, relaxing
his rigor, for a space, perhaps, to gather up the scattered
elements of future warfare. On such a day, in the country,
you may note the flash of multitudinous rivulets,
emancipated from their icy chains, and dancing musically
through softened meadows, or over moss-clad rocks; you
may hear, occasionally, the quick twitter of a bird, half
cheated into a welcome-song to spring! and it may be
that you can discern small blades of tender grass springing
into short-lived greenness, to die, like too early
-- 218 --
[figure description] Page 218.[end figure description]
budding hopes, nipped by a cold reality. And, as you pause
on the hill-side, the peals of Sabbath bells will fall upon
your ear, with mellower music, as if in unison with sun-lit
heaven and smiling earth.
In the city, on such a mild mid-winter Sabbath, you
may see, should you pass along the water front, thousands
of men and boys wandering up and down the wharves,
looking at ships and their cargoes piled upon the piers,
watching steamboats plying over the water, or gazing idly
out to the pilot boats sailing in the bay, to the islands at
the harbor mouth, and to the tall lighthouses far in the
hazy distance. Crowds of listless people saunter on the
Battery walks, and other crowds stand at corners of the
streets, near open doors of drinking shops, while separate
groups sit upon boxes, anchors, and bulk-heads, hour after
hour, watching the river life. Often, unhappily, you may
hear the laugh of young men at some low jest uttered by
a comrade, and oftener still an oath or ribald word from
lips on which the down of early manhood is but just
appearing. For these young men, and for throngs of
boys at riotous play upon the piers, and for the idlers
wandering up and down, there is no sanctity in the day—
no Sabbath feeling, elevating heart and mind. They hear
the church-chimes, floating from tall belfries over the city,
but no theme of peaceful thought blends with the aerial
music; they behold blue skies above them, and feel the
southwest breeze, but no chord of prayerful gratitude is
touched in their hearts, responsive to the loveliness of
nature. Strange and very sad that such multitudes of
people, in a Christian city, should go forth upon so bright
-- 219 --
[figure description] Page 219.[end figure description]
a Sabbath day, without one Sabbath feeling stirring in
their breasts!
But, if we would closely observe most of these Sabbath
loiterers upon wharves and at street corners—haggard-looking
men, with jaded and vacant faces; rough youths,
in flashy secondhand clothes, with rank-smelling cigars
held between their discolored teeth; and children of
every age, boys and girls, from the precocious urchin of a
half-dozen years, to the one just verging into adolescence;
if we would follow them, as the night draws on, to their
dwelling-places, and mark the influences and associations
pervading and surrounding such abodes, we should not
experience much difficulty in discovering the reason and
cause of the Sabbath idling and desecration which we had
witnessed. We should behold children reared in localities
of filth and disease—with vice and dissipation constantly
before their eyes; born of parents steeped in the dregs of
poverty and wretchedness, their earliest habit beggary,
their first lesson profanity, their constant experiences hunger,
and cold, and neglect; we should see these children
growing in years without ever hearing the name of their
Heavenly Father, save when coupled with horrible curses—
see them swarming out upon the wharves and streets,
by day, and burrowing in hovels, worse than the kennels
of dogs, at night—see them merging into youth, as
hangers-on of fire-companies, or river-thieves, or attendants
of bar-rooms and gambling-houses, or banded together
as fighters and political bravos; see their sisters,
born in the same hovels, reared amid like scenes—learning,
with feminine quickness, the worst lessons at the
-- 220 --
[figure description] Page 220.[end figure description]
tenderest years, and going on, step by step, from infancy
to prime, in ways of wickedness that lead to early death.
All this we should behold; and, oh! Father of Mercy!
we should see civilization standing, even like the listless
wharf-loiterers, gazing abroad upon great ships with stores
of wealth, and upon pilot-boats, and lighthouses built up
for the protection of commerce—while not a glance of
its eyes is turned toward the human beings perishing, soul
and body, in the great city behind, with no lighthouse to
show to them the rocks and quicksands of life—no pilots
to lead them away from the gulf of despair into which
they and their children are falling.
Their children! O Christian fathers and mothers!
think of the kind of children that must inevitably be born
unto the dwellers among filth, dissipation, disease, and
starving squalor!—think of the malaria poisoning body,
and the evil example influencing mind, and the debased
associations corrupting heart!—think of future communities
physically weakened and morally depraved by the
vicious habits of the present generation—habits almost
inseparable from the condition of life out of which no
helping hand seeks to rescue them—habits grounded in
dark and filthy abodes—nursed amid crowded localities—
fostered by want of air, of light, of water, of room wherein
to move and dwell—habits, to sum up all, which never
can be broken and eradicated until that blot upon civilization
is removed from our midst—the crowded, reeking,
pestiferous tenant-house of the poor.
A quiet Sabbath morning, even in Kolephat College!
-- 221 --
[figure description] Page 221.[end figure description]
for most of the male occupants were out of doors, strolling
upon the wharves, or congregated at groggeries, imbibing
drugged spirits, which, inflaming their blood, would bring
them home at dusk riotous and quarrelsome, to banish all
quiet from the tenant-house thenceforward through the
night. It might be that a stray denizen of the College
would find himself in a church upon that calm Sunday,
but such occurrence, should it transpire, were strange
indeed; for, in truth, as I have said, it is from tenant-houses,
such as that in charge of Peleg Ferret, that the
crowds of Sabbath-idlers go forth, at morning, one by
one.
Betimes, in the early day, Margaret the seamstress had
set her humble home in order, putting away the work
that had occupied her through the weary week. The little
ones received their breakfast, and were rendered tidy for
the Sabbath, and then the boy, as was his wont, brought
to his sister's little stand a well-worn Bible, from which
Margery was accustomed to read some chronicle of godly
ones who served the God of Israel or, more favorite theme
of Harry, the story of our blessed Lord, who walked the
sea, discoursed upon the mount, and died unmurmuring on
the cruel cross. On this occasion, Harry seemed perplexed
concerning what should be the subject of his sister's lesson,
and Margery said—
“Does Harry remember what was read on Sunday
last?”
“O, yes!” he answered. “It was little Joseph that
you read about, and how his wicked brothers throwed him
into a pit.”
-- 222 --
[figure description] Page 222.[end figure description]
“And do you recollect what afterwards became of
Joseph?”
“Yes, Margery! and about Benjamin, and all.”
“Then, Harry, perhaps you can sit down here with
Fanny, and tell her how the Lord took care of Joseph, in
Egypt, among strangers, and made him a great and good
man.”
“Please, sissy, I'll try,” said Harry. And then, seating
Fanny in his own little chair, the boy leaned against
his sister, as she sat by her table, and began in his simple,
childish way, to rehearse that beautiful narrative which
has charmed the hearts of children through so many ages
of the past. Fanny, very quiet and attentive, listened to
the tale, her sweet face eloquent with feeling, as the
strange vicissitudes of the Hebrew youth's life were gradually
unfolded to her wondering mind. The orphan's
hands were clasped together, as she sat, her eyes fixed
earnestly upon the countenance of her new friend, and
thus, for the first time in all her infant life, the words of
Sabbath teaching fell upon her ears. At last, the quaintly-told,
but all-absorbing history was ended; and then,
Margaret, stooping fondly over her brother, to kiss his
clear forehead, said—
“You have a famous memory, Harry, and must pay
great attention to what you hear me read. Do you think,
Fanny, that you can remember the story of Joseph?”
“I think so,” said the orphan, hesitatingly. “But, oh!
if Rob was here, he could recollect it all.”
“And Rob is here!” cried a jubilant voice, at that
moment, as the door of Margaret's room was flung
-- 223 --
[figure description] Page 223.[end figure description]
suddenly open, and the Weasel bounded forward, and then
abruptly paused, looking extremely foolish, as he encountered
the surprised look which the seamstress directed
towards him.
Fanny would hardly have recognized her newsboy friend,
had not his voice assured her of his identity; for the
kindness of Mr. Granby, conjoined with Samson's care,
had produced a complete metamorphosis in his appearance,
even since the day before. A suit of brown, the first new
clothes the boy had ever known, a pair of stout boots,
and cloth cap, and, more than all, a white shirt-collar,
turned neatly over his vest, were sufficient, indeed, to disguise
from ordinary gaze the weird and ragged urchin who
had slept so lately, with his fellow-dwarfs, half-buried by
the falling snow. In truth, the lad seemed strange even
to himself, and though a sudden impulse had caused him
to introduce himself so wildly into Margery's apartment,
he now stood where he had stopped, much frightened at
his temerity, and doubtful what apology could be sufficient
for his rudeness. Fanny, however, quickly interposed,
exclaiming, as she caught the eye of Margaret—
“It's Rob, please.”
“I come to see that little girl,” cried the Weasel,
naïvely pointing to his friend. “Please, ma'am, I didn't
go for to jump in so, but I heerd Fanny say, `If Rob was
here,' and—so—and so—I couldn't wait to knock.”
“No matter, Rob,” said the seamstress, kindly. “Come
here, now, and let us shake hands. Fanny has spoken to
me of her friend Robert, and so we are pretty well acquainted.
There,” she continued, as she drew the boy
-- 224 --
[figure description] Page 224.[end figure description]
forward, “you shall sit down here, beside your little
friend, and Harry, who is my brother, and we shall have
a real Sabbath-school. Eh, Harry?—shall I be the
teacher?”
Harry laughed, and clapped his hands, and then ran
and brought a cricket, for the stranger-child to sit on.
“You haven't got nary seat yourself,” remarked the
Weasel, hesitating.
“Yes, this cricket is big enough for two,” replied
Harry; “and you may sit in my chair, and I'll sit here,
with Fanny.”
“Maybe, Fanny would rather sit with Robert,” said the
sister; and Fanny's eyes seemed to express the same
thing. So Harry led the young orphan to a seat beside
her other friend, upon the cricket, and then drew his own
chair close to Fanny.
“There, sissy—we're a class,” he exclaimed, merrily;
but at this moment a knock was heard, and Rob said
“Mr. Granby is a-comin'.”
Mr. Granby was accompanied by Samson, and Samson
brought a basket, covered by a napkin, and with a newspaper
pinned around it, in which basket were niceties
that Samson himself had selected in Mr. Granby's storeroom,
by and with the consent of Mrs. George the housekeeper.
Margaret, after shaking hands with the old
gentleman, and replying to his thoughtful inquiries concerning
her health, received the basket from the negro's
hand, and laid it away; at the same time reaching chairs
for her visitors.
“The little ones were about giving me a new vocation,”
-- 225 --
[figure description] Page 225.[end figure description]
said Margaret, noticing that Mr. Granby was curiously
observing the three children, seated in a row together.
“I was to open school for them.”
“Ah, indeed!” returned the old gentleman, pleasantly
smiling. “And it is a noble vocation.”
“Sister Margery can teach better than the school-ma'am,”
here said Harry, turning his sunny face towards
Mr. Granby. “She knows all about everything, I do
believe!”
Margery smiled and told her brother he was a chatter-box;
whereupon Harry qualified his declaration, affirming
that “Sister Margery knew all he wanted to know.”
Samson the negro showed his white teeth, in great enjoyment
of the child's archness, and both Rob and Fanny
looked as if they agreed with the happy brother in admiration
of that pale-faced woman with the dark, mild
eyes.
Mr. Granby remained a moment or two silent, as if
revolving some thought in his mind, that had just occurred
to him.
“Truly, Miss—Miss” —
“Winston,” added Margery.
“Truly, Miss Winston,” said the old gentleman, “when
I passed along the street below, and through the entries
of this house, and saw the crowd of neglected-looking
children swarming at every corner, I wondered if there
were no teachers in the world, to look after their infant
souls.”
Margaret shook her head, and looked at Harry, with a
sorrowful expression.
-- 226 --
[figure description] Page 226.[end figure description]
“You could teach 'em, sissy,” exclaimed the brother.
“I believe the little fellow is right,” rejoined Mr.
Granby. “It is the benevolent and christian spirit that
can best teach these poor abandoned ones. Samson!
what was it I remarked, as we walked through the alley
below?”
“You said dere ought to be a big government schule'
stablished, Massa Granby, for de trainin' up of all de poor
children.”
“And what did you reply, my old friend?”
“Lor' bress you, massa, what I says doesn't 'mount to
nothin'. I jes' t'ought dere ought to be a skule in ebbery
alley an' tenant-house—dat's all.”
“And you were right, Samson!” cried his master,
warmly. “It is here, in the midst of these habitations,
that reforming influences should be set at work; here, in
the tenant-house, ought to be planted a school, wherein to
gather, as in a sheepfold, the poor lambs who are outcast
from the flock of society. Yes, Samson! the miserable
and squalid offspring of these poor people might thus be
made infant missionaries, to carry to their depraved homes
an influence and power of good, whereby whole families
should be reformed and elevated.”
The old gentleman, as he uttered this speech, had risen
from his chair, and stood, with hand outstretched, and
eyes fixed upon his sable servant and friend. A lovely
expression rested on his venerable face, and shone in his
clear eye, and Margaret Winston, as she regarded him,
and marked the mild benevolence that radiated from his
brow, could not but recall the words of Holy Writ—
-- 227 --
[figure description] Page 227.[end figure description]
“Behold an Israelite, indeed, in whom there is no
guile.”
“But, we are forgetting our school here,” returned
Mr. Granby, with a gentle smile, as he turned towards
the seamstress. “Here are our three patient pupils in
waiting, and, if you please, Miss, Samson and myself, who
are both near our second childhood, will add our docility
to theirs. Will not my young friend Harry accept us as
fellow-scholars in his sister's school?”
Harry glanced up in Margery's face, ready to laugh
outright at what appeared to him a very comical suggestion;
but his sister's serious look checked all merriment
in a moment.
“Please, Margery,” he said, “won't you tell your
pretty story about Moses?—not from the Bible, but the
way you tell me about the King's daughter.”
“Moses! Oh! I'd like to hear about Moses, Rob,”
whispered Fanny, softly, to her companion on the
cricket.
“I'd like to hear about the King's daughter,” replied
the Weasel. “Who was Moses, Fan?”
“He was a good man, Rob, in the Bible.”
“Well, I'd like to hear about him, too.”
“Won't you tell about Moses, Margery?” pleaded
Harry.
“Do, by all means, Miss Winston,” said Mr. Granby;
and thus encouraged, Margery drew her chair close to
the children, and began her paraphrase of that tenderest
incident of old-time Scripture history. Meantime, Samson
the negro leaned forward, with one sable hand raised
-- 228 --
[figure description] Page 228.[end figure description]
to his listening ear, while his master watched the maiden's
speaking face with growing interest. And this was
Margery's story of the Hebrew Foundling:—
“The last glow of sunset,” said the seamstress, in a
tone of exceeding softness, “the last glow of sunset was
silvering the temple-roofs of a beautiful city; trembling
upon the shapes of great statues, hewn out of dark rock,
that filled the colonnaded streets; and flashing redly back
from brazen gates, whereon were carved strange symbols
of an ancient race of men. Through the wide avenues, that
were shaded by long rows of date-trees, there moved a
procession of males and females, some of them carrying
garlands of flowers in their hands, others holding aloft
urns made of brown earth, and others, again, as they
walked, swinging backwards and forwards small silver
censers, in which rare perfumes were burning, sending up
clouds of sweet smoke upon the evening air. This procession
was a company of priests and priestesses, who
were going down to the banks of a great river, in order
to perform a religious ceremony; for, in those days, and
in that ancient country, the people were not Christians,
but heathens, who worshipped idols of wood, and brass,
and stone.”
“They didn't know any better, Fanny,” whispered
Harry, as his sister paused a moment. “That was the
reason.” But Margaret went on:
“As the procession moved forward,” she said, “towards
the city gate, a great many richly-dressed people joined in
it, swelling its numbers very much. Among these were
-- 229 --
[figure description] Page 229.[end figure description]
tall soldiers, with spears, and bows, and shields, and also
portly merchants, who wore long, flowing garments of
white and purple cloth, and many ladies, too, arrayed in
costly stuffs, with light head-dresses, from which thin,
gossamer-looking veils were drooping. Besides these, a
great number of children walked along, between the
company of priests, some of them led by their parents'
hands, and others gambolling by themselves. All the
people in this procession were clothed very handsomely,
and seemed to be, as they really were, the wealthiest and
most favored people of the city.
“But as the procession passed along through the broad
streets, and outside of the gates, there were great multitudes
of people who did not take part in the ceremonies,
but, rather, appeared to be fearful of approaching the
priests, and soldiers, and merchants. These multitudes
were composed of men and women, like the procession,
but they were not clothed in fine raiment—indeed, most
of them had scarcely any garment to cover themselves—
and they had no garlands of flowers, or gilded urns, and
no silver censers to swing; neither did they sing any joyful
songs, like the company of worshippers. On the contrary,
some of these poor people carried upon their heads
and shoulders great loads of stones and clay, staggering
all the time, with fatigue; others stooped down, almost
doubled, digging deep pits, and scooping out earth, in
order to make channels to the river-bed; others clambered
up ladders, with much pain and difficulty, bearing
burdens of sun-baked brick, which they piled up into
walls and ramparts on the river-banks, and with which,
-- 230 --
[figure description] Page 230.[end figure description]
also, they raised lofty structures of masonry, high above
all the city temples.”
“Dear me!” here interrupted Mr. Granby, who had
been listening very earnestly to Margaret's description;
“they are doing the same things now-a-days. But, pardon
me, Miss! Go on, please!”
“On every side of the poor people, who were laboring
so hard, fierce-looking men were stationed, holding whips
in their hands. These men were the task-masters, who
forced the laborers to exert themselves oftentimes beyond
their strength, so that many of the latter continually sank
down, and died under the heavy loads which they were
carrying. But the saddest thing of all was to see great
numbers of children among the toiling people, weeping,
and bitterly lamenting, because their fathers and mothers
were so miserable, and because they constantly fell down
and died from severe toils. But nobody appeared to take
any notice of these children, so that they went aside, by
themselves, and began to creep near to the procession of
rich people; and then, whenever they could do so without
being seen, they would run up, slyly, and snatch away
some of the merchants' jewels, or some ornament of the
ladies, and very often they would cunningly entice the
little children of the merchants, to steal the money and
costly goods of their fathers and mothers. In this manner,
the children of the poor people became a plague and terror
to all the wealthy people who were in the procession.”
“O my!” ejaculated Bob the Weasel. “What did
they do to 'em? Wasn't there no p'licemen?”
“Hush!” said Harry—“you'll hear.”
-- 231 --
[figure description] Page 231.[end figure description]
“Then came tall men, with staves,” pursued Margery,
“and these men seized the little children, and shut them
up in dark cells, near the city gates, or else tied weights
to their ankles, and condemned them to labor, like the
other slaves, in deep pits and on the walls. For in reality
all poor people were slaves in that ancient land, because
of the pride and hardheartedness of the merchants, and
because of the neglect of the priests, who would not
hearken to the prayers of those unfortunates.”
“I am afraid such hardheartedness and neglect are
not entirely the sins of ancient lands,” said Mr. Granby,
thoughtfully.
“Well, the procession moved grandly down to the
river side,” resumed the teacher; “and there the priests,
and merchants, and maidens, and beautiful children, sang
loud songs, and threw their garlands of flowers upon the
water, and swung their censers on the banks, making
clouds of sweet incense. But the people behind, who
toiled and were scourged, and the weeping children of
these poor ones, dared not approach the priests, but stood
afar off, lifting up their voices in lamentation.”
Margaret paused in her recital, and looked at the newsboy,
who sat with his right hand clasped by Fanny, whose
own right hand rested on Harry's neck. Bob the Weasel
appeared strangely absorbed in the narrative to which he
was listening; his lips were parted, his eyes raised steadfastly,
and as the seamstress became silent, a deep sigh
escaped his breast.
“Do you understand the story, Robert?” asked Mr.
Granby, noticing the boy's earnest attention.
-- 232 --
[figure description] Page 232.[end figure description]
“I think there's jes' sich poor folks now, please sir!”
said the Weasel. “I know there's children jes' like them.”
Mr. Granby, as he heard this remark, looked more
closely at Rob Morrison's face than ever he had done
before, and was struck with the lines of thoughtfulness that
appeared in it. Since the transformation which the lad's
outward person had undergone, much of the weazen expression
had departed, and what seemed before a look of
mingled craft and recklessness now was sobered into a
serious cast. The small eyes still glittered with their old
sharpness, and there was a curve about the lip muscles
that told of an impatient temperament; but, after all, in
his new garb, the Weasel would not have figured to disadvantage
among a score of ordinary school-boys from a
much higher walk in life than that to which he, poor
child, had been accustomed. Mr. Granby was evidently
pleased with his observation of Rob, as well as with the
latter's remark, and nodded his head to Samson, to indicate
his satisfaction; whereat the acute negro displayed
his dazzling teeth, as in agreement with his master. Then
all grew attentive again, as Margery resumed her story.
“After the company had remained for some time near
the river, and when the priests had concluded their ceremonies,
the grand procession was formed again, and
returned homeward to the city. And as it entirely disappeared
within the gates, there came a poor woman, walking
slowly and cautiously down towards the river-banks. This
woman, it seemed, was one of the poor toiling people,
because her countenance was very sorrowful, and because
she came out of the ranks of children who were weeping
-- 233 --
[figure description] Page 233.[end figure description]
afar off. She held in her arms a little baby, which she
constantly kissed and clasped to her bosom, sighing all the
while; and, at last, when the sun was going down, she
took a little cradle that she had made out of reeds which
grew by the water-side, and placed the dear little infant
in that frail vessel. Then, watching to see that nobody
was near, she pushed the cradle of reeds away, and let it
float down on the river's bosom.”
“Oh! what did she do that for?” cried Fanny, with
an appealing look from Margaret to Mr. Granby, and
then to Rob Morrison.
“It was to save the poor baby's life,” said the seamstress.
“There was a very cruel and unjust man, who was
king of that country, and he had given orders to have
every little boy belonging to the poor people killed, as
soon as he was born; and this dear infant's mother hoped
that her baby might be saved, if she let it float away on
the river, because, she thought, perhaps, the wicked soldiers
might not know it was one of the poor babies that
the king had ordered them to kill.”
“O! that was it!” exclaimed Rob—he and Fanny
appearing to be much relieved.
“So, my dear children,” went on the seamstress, “the
mother let the cradle, with her dear child in it, glide away
on the waters, although, you may be sure, she was very
much frightened, thinking of all the monsters that lived
in the river. But she was a very good woman, and
trusted in God; and so she felt, although this little naked
child of the poor outcast people was exposed to so many
dangers, that the Almighty was watchful and would be a
-- 234 --
[figure description] Page 234.[end figure description]
Father to the east-away. And thus, indeed, it turned
out; for, at that very hour, when the child floated on the
water, there came thither the King's daughter, with all
her maidens, to bathe in the river; and, presently, the
princess spied the cradle, and sent one of her attendants
to bring it to her. You may be sure, this princess, whose
name, we are told, was Thermuthis, was much astonished
to find the babe; but she was very kindhearted, and, seeing
how helpless it looked, she resolved not to abandon
the poor little foundling. It was the Lord who put it
into her heart to be so good, for it is He who inspires all
generous thoughts in the mind. So, then, the king's
daughter called one of the women who was standing near,
and said: `Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and
I will give thee thy wages!' And the woman took the
baby, to nurse it, and bring it up, under protection of the
friendly princess; and the child grew to be a great and
learned man, and a servant of the Almighty.”
“It was Moses!” cried Harry, who had remained silent
a long period, and now broke out suddenly, addressing
Fanny.
“Bress de Lord! yes!—it was Moses!” said Samson,
quite as much interested as the children.
“I wish I knowed Moses!” whispered Bob the Weasel,
to Fanny, though not so low but that Margery overheard
him.
“Sometime I will tell you more about him,” said the
seamstress, kindly. “How he was a great leader and
law-giver in Israel, and led all the poor people, his
-- 235 --
[figure description] Page 235.[end figure description]
countrymen, out of Egypt, and away from the cruel king who
oppressed them.”
Mr. Granby remained for a few moments without speaking,
absorbed, apparently, in thought; then, rising slowly,
the old gentleman approached the seamstress, and took
her thin, transparent hand within his own.
“Yes, dear Miss Winston,” he said, solemnly. “It
was Moses, the great Israelitish lawgiver, who led his
countrymen out of the Land of Egypt, and out of the
House of Bondage! Oh! that the beautiful ones who
are as princesses and daughters of kings in this our
favored land, would do unto the outcast children of our
day, even as Thermuthis, the daughter of Pharaoh, did
unto Moses, the foundling child!—ay, even as you are
striving to do, Miss Winston, unto these neglected babes
before you. All around us are the naked and destitute,
appealing to our pity, but how few, indeed, respond to the
cry of the perishing. Miss! may I ask of you to aid me
in a work which I would fain set about at once?”
Mr. Granby fixed his benevolent gaze upon the seamstress,
as he said this, with an expression of sympathy
and esteem that caused Margaret's eyes to droop modestly
to the floor; but, as if in relief of her embarrassment,
the speaker continued:
“I see you here, Miss, humble and patient, but toiling
almost beyond your strength—this child dependent upon
your exertions and care! Heaven has blessed me with
means which may be usefully employed, and I have been
thinking that, if the neglected children of this poor neighborhood
could be brought together under your teaching
-- 236 --
[figure description] Page 236.[end figure description]
and influence, much good might be done in forming their
young character.”
The old gentleman spoke slowly, and in low tones,
holding Margery's hand, which trembled in his clasp.
“And, so, I have been thinking, that you might put
aside this toilsome occupation of the needle, which is
undermining your health, as can be plainly seen, and if a
class could be gathered together, as you were playfully
saying—in short, Miss, if you could have a little school,
and teach these poor children of your neighborhood—
would it not be a good work?”
“Indeed, indeed, it would sir!” cried Margaret, earnestly.
“Then, if you like, it shall be done!” said the old gentleman,
enthusiastically. “A school we will have, here,
in your room, or wherever you like; and the expenses it
shall be my privilege to bear. You shall be teacher, my
dear Miss Winston, and I'll be—committee-man.”
Harry Winston opened his eyes very widely, half unable
to comprehend the proposition; but when he saw tears
flowing down his sister's cheeks, and beheld her warmly
shaking Mr. Granby's hand, he seemed to catch the spirit
of the scene at once, and, springing suddenly from his
chair, ran and caught the visitor's disengaged hand—
“Is sister Margery to have a school, really?” he asked,
breathlessly.
“Yes, dear Harry.”
“And me, and Fanny, and Rob—all to be scholars?”
“Yes, Harry! and you are to bring all the poor little
boys and girls you can find, who will promise to behave
well.”
-- 237 --
[figure description] Page 237.[end figure description]
“Oh, how nice that'll be!” exclaimed the child.
“So it's settled!” said Mr. Granby, with great satisfaction.
“Samson! does it suit you, my good boy?”
“Not 'xactly,” answered the negro, shaking his head.
“Why, Samson, what have you to say?” asked Mr.
Granby, somewhat astonished, and rather grieved, at his
servant's apparent disapproval.
“'Skuse me, Massa Granby—but 'sposin' de children
won't come to skule?”
“Bless me! I did not think of that?” said the old
gentleman.
“Dey is berry cur'ous, dose children,” continued Samson,
rubbing his head. “An' if dere was such a ting as
to gib 'em suthin' to eat, an' suthin' to take away home,
for de ole folks to eat, whenebber dey was good children,
an' larned de lesson—kind o' 'ward o' good behavior,
like, massa—you know” —
“You are right, Samson!” replied his master. “The
instruction that is listened to, upon an empty stomach,
may be thanklessly received. The poor children have
physical as well as mental wants. Samson, I thank you for
the hint, and it shall be acted upon. We will send to
the highways, and bring in the hungry in body and soul,
to eat of that which we have. And now, Miss Winston, if
you would like to read from that blessed book before you,
I will afterwards implore a blessing on our undertaking.”
Margaret opened the sacred volume, and read from the
Gospel of John of that love which is eternal, and of that
confidence in God which is omnipotent in life and death.
And then the venerable philanthropist knelt down beside
-- 238 --
[figure description] Page 238.[end figure description]
her, in that humble tenant-room, and prayed the Father
of all mercies, for His blessing upon the work which they
would do. While the alleys and corners around Kolephat
College, and all its wretched neighborhood, swarmed with
unshaven men, and untidy women, and neglected, quarrelsome
children, there were prayer and supplication arising
in their midst, from hearts filled with love and compassion
even for these outcasts from the family of refined civilization—
these dwellers in the Darkness and Bondage of
Social Egypt.
Be sure, O Human Heart! the prayer was sanctified
unto good in future days!
-- 239 -- p553-246
Chapter XIX. Kolephat and Ferret.
[figure description] Page 239.[end figure description]
AT the same hour of the Sabbath morning in which
the little group of worshippers knelt in Margery's
room, Peleg Ferret, rent-collector of Kolephat College;
sat in the library of his employer, engaged in close conversation
with the old Hebrew. He had been sent for, hastily,
by Mordecai Kolephat, and, like a faithful agent, obeyed
with alacrity the summons. As it was Sunday, Mr. Ferret
was attired with great regard to fashion; wearing a blue
coat, with rounded skirts and gilt buttons, a yellow-striped
waistcoat, and cravat of crimson, spotted with
delicate drops of white. His shirt-collar was turned over,
and his hair stiff and shining with bears'-grease. He sat,
with legs crossed, near Mr. Kolephat's desk, and opposite
a large mirror, in which he glanced, at intervals, with
apparent self-satisfaction at his own reflected image.
The owner of Kolephat College was wrapped in a
dressing-gown somewhat the worse for wear, and from
the expression of his countenance, as he leaned back in an
easy-chair, regarding his agent, it might be conjectured
-- 240 --
[figure description] Page 240.[end figure description]
that he was in a state of much mental agitation; for his
brow was deeply corrugated, and a nervous trembling
could be observed in his eyelids and nether lip, as if
unquiet thoughts were passing through his mind.
“Ferret,” said the Jew, abruptly, “what did you know
about the rag-picker who called herself `Old Pris?”'
“A dirty old critter—never paid her rent, when she
could beg off, or git clear to another house,” answered the
agent, sententiously.
“You knew her a great many years, Ferret?”
“More'n a dozen, I should say! Allers the same filthy
old critter—some folks thought she had money saved, but
I never could discover any. Drank a good deal, and
policied.”
“She bought tickets in the lottery, you mean, Ferret.”
“Yes, policied—bought policies; but never heerd she
made any `hits,”' answered the agent.
“Well, well,” said the Jew, impatiently. “You have
known her twelve years, you say—did you ever know her
to have a family—any children, about her?”
“She!—children?” echoed the agent. “Why, they'd
all run away from her, skeered to death!”
Kolephat's countenance fell. “Did she have intercourse
with her neighbors—the rag-pickers, or bone-collectors,
or the organ-grinders, Ferret?”
“Well, slightly—yes!” said the man, hesitatingly.
“'Pears to me, there was an old furrin critter—French
woman, or suthin' o' the sort—used to harbor Old Pris—
ye-es! guess it was an Italian, 'cause she had a parcel o'
organ-grinders an' tambourine-g'rls allers 'round.”
-- 241 --
[figure description] Page 241.[end figure description]
“And is this Italian you speak of now living?”
“Reckon so—shouldn't wonder if she lived where Old
Pris did—thereabouts—you know I haint had charge o'
that property, Mr. Kolephat.”
Ferret uttered the last words in a tone that might
signify a gentle sort of complaint that his principal had
not yet given him the agency of the crowded tenement
buildings wherein Old Pris had breathed her last.
“I think it is hardly six months since that property fell
into my possession, Ferret,” replied Kolephat, as if he
understood the collector's drift.
“Pays?” conjectured Ferret, interrogatively. “Rag-pickers
ain't the wust sort o' tenants, nohow, Mr. Kolephat!”
“Ferret!” suddenly spoke the Hebrew, and then abruptly
paused, apparently relapsing into reflection; whereupon
Ferret began industriously to twirl his hat upon one
knee, at the same time throwing his head to one side, and
lifting his right eyebrow, as if to say, “Well—here I am
waiting, old fellow—what have you got to say?”
“Ferret,” at length the Jew resumed, “I have something
to tell you, and something for you to do, which, I
am convinced, your shrewdness and perseverance will not
fail to accomplish, and for which you shall be well
rewarded.”
Kolephat paused a second time, and Ferret pricked up
his ears like a hound, much interested by the concluding
words of his employer's remark.
“Ten years ago, I was richer than I am now, Ferret,
in possessing a priceless jewel. That jewel was stolen
-- 242 --
[figure description] Page 242.[end figure description]
from me by the rag-picker, Old Pris; and has never been
restored to me. I wish you to find it.”
The agent opened his eyes widely, staring at the old
man, whom he began to suspect was wandering in his
mind, in spite of the calm tone in which he spoke.
“What, me!—me find it?” ejaculated the rent-collector.
“Ten years is a long time—and she's sold it, or pawned
it, no doubt. How much was it wu'th, Mr. Kolephat?”
“Stop, Ferret! It was not a jewel, such as this paltry
stone!” cried the Jew, extending his long, pale hand, on
one of the fingers of which glittered a first-water diamond.
“It was a human being—a soul, Ferret, in the body of an
infant child! It is this I lost, Ferret, this which I would
have you seek for me, and I will well reward you, if you
succeed, as if it were the chief jewel of a king's crown
that you restored to me.”
The old man had risen, as he was speaking, and now
stood before Ferret, with one arm extended, while the
gown which he wore, depended like drapery around him,
giving to his attitude a certain dignity that the agent had
never noticed before. He was somewhat startled, indeed,
at the manner of his principal, and not yet clear in his
mind about the sanity of that person—nevertheless, he
saw that it was necessary for him to speak, and therefore
ventured to utter the monosyllable—“child?”
“Ay, Ferret,” said Mordecai Kolephat. “Tell me!
how long have you acted as my agent?”
“Seven years, next May,” replied the collector.
“Three years before that, Ferret, an infant, the last of
my children, was kidnapped from her nurse, in the streets
-- 243 --
[figure description] Page 243.[end figure description]
of this city. All search, all offer of reward, failed to
discover her fate, until yesterday I learned that she is
living, somewhere, in this great town, and that she is
connected in some manner with organ-grinders! These
are all the clues that I could obtain from the dying
woman, who confessed to the kidnapping; and I have
sent for you, Ferret, to disclose to you these facts, and to
rely upon your shrewdness to follow up such traces as you
may discover, in order to ascertain for me the whereabouts
of my lost child. I will reward you well, if you succeed;
now, can I depend upon you?”
The agent's eyes glistened at the suggestion of personal
profit, and he eagerly expressed his readiness to undertake
the task of searching for the lost child. But the Jew
checked him.
“Listen, Ferret,” said the old man. “I have mourned
for ten long years over the unknown fate of my daughter,
and gladly would I receive her to my house and heart, if
she be yet unsullied by the associations in which she has
probably been reared. But, if she be like the vile children
of the street, Ferret,” —
“Ah—ye es!” hesitated the agent, perceiving that his
principal was strongly affected by some sudden thought.
“Have I not heard—is it not true, Ferret,” demanded
the Hebrew, in a voice quivering with emotion—“that—
that children of tender years—of scarce ten years, I mean—
are adepts in vice and wicked craft?”
“Orful!” was Peleg's epigrammatic response. “Reg'lar
young catamarans!”
“That profanity and lewdness are customary to them—
-- 244 --
[figure description] Page 244.[end figure description]
that precocious knowledge renders them old in defilement
ere they are yet past the days of childhood! Is this true,
Ferret? Answer me! Is it not true of the young girls,
as of the boys?”
“The g'rls is wuss, if anything—that's a fact, Mr.
Kolephat. They picks up all sorts o' wickedness, so the
p'lice says. House o' Refuge, and 'Sylum's the place for
sich young 'uns.”
“It is all true, then, Ferret?”
“Sure thing!” replied Peleg.
“Oh! Father Abraham! this is the last blow!” murmured
the Hebrew, covering his face with his hands, and
sinking back into his chair. “My child! the child of mine
age! for this fate thou hast been reserved—to be a child
of the street!” He bent his head upon his knees, and
rocked to and fro, violently agitated. Peleg Ferret
looked on, only half able to comprehend his employer's
emotions.
During forty years, Mordecai Kolephat had dwelt in
the great city, toiling, day by day, to amass hoards of
wealth. Daily, during all that period, in his walks
through the populous thoroughfares to the mart of business—
in his saunterings at early morn, or upon holidays,
through streets containing his increasing property—the
broker had encountered, in ones and twos, and in dozens
and scores, the multitudes of neglected creatures whom
he had known, or cared to know, only as “children of the
street.” They had jostled him at the curb-stones, they
had stretched out their fingers to him as he crossed the
gutters, they had begged of him at the open gate; he had
-- 245 --
[figure description] Page 245.[end figure description]
seen them, in squalor and wretchedness, congregated
around tenant-houses, beheld them in the hands of policemen,
who were bearing them to trial or prison for petty
thefts, read of them as dying very fast, in seasons of distemper,
and heard reports about their numbers and condition,
submitted before charitable societies or public
committees. During all the forty years, Mordecai Kolephat
had looked upon those forlorn and outcast street
children as pests to society, in a general way, and he had,
therefore, paid his taxes as a citizen should, with reference
to the support of those great utilitarian features of a city—
the prisons and houses of correction, built for the
relief of society, in taking safe charge of its “dangerous
classes.”
But here, suddenly, and with fearful tangibility, a “child
of the street” was laid, foundling-like, at the threshold
of the citizen's door, and upon its breast was written:
“Mordecai Kolephat is the father!” Here, in its rags,
its filthiness, its viciousness, a miserable street-child lifted
up its little hands, at the crossing, and said, with terrible
earnestness: “Blood of my blood—flesh of my flesh!—
take me from the gutter where I lie, and cover my nakedness
with the mantle of your fatherly love!” No wonder,
indeed, that the millionaire groaned in the depth of his
heart, and trembled, as if smit with ague, while he murmured
unto himself—
“A child of the street!—mine own little one—a child
of the street!”
Peleg Ferret watched his employer, until the latter's
agitation had somewhat subsided, and he regained
-- 246 --
[figure description] Page 246.[end figure description]
sufficient calmness to renew the conversation. But when the
agent looked again upon Kolephat's features, he could
not but notice that a serious alteration had taken place in
them. The eyes, usually so glittering and scrutinizing,
appeared now vacant and glassy; the severe lips were
relaxed; and there seemed to be new wrinkles gathering
upon the forehead. Peleg Ferret said to himself, as he
left the library, and walked to the house-door, twirling
his hat—
“The old man's breaking down!—that's so!”
For some moments after the rent-collector had departed,
Mordecai remained seated in his arm-chair, one elbow
resting on the desk near by, and supporting his head,
which drooped heavily downward. A dismal retrospect
of thought was passing through the rich man's mind:
visions of youth-times, bright and fleeting, succeeded by
shadowy confusion, and chased into oblivion by phantom-scenes
of dark aspect and threatening import. The struggle
for wealth, its attainment, and the blight which turned
its fruit to ashes, its honey-stores to gall-like bitterness—
all these, the product of a world-serving existence, a selfcheating
pursuit of unreal good, were now passing over
the cloudy disc of his memory, even as shapes of fearful
things were invoked of old, to flit across the sight of one
who sought unhallowed revelations. In this state of
dreamy suffering, the Hebrew continued for some time
after Peleg Ferret had left him; but at length, appearing
to recover himself with a strong effort, he passed his
hands hurriedly over his forehead, sighed deeply, and, rising
to his feet, moved feebly from the library, the door of
-- 247 --
[figure description] Page 247.[end figure description]
which he closed behind him. As he disappeared, another
door, communicating with one of the parlors of the house,
was slowly opened, and Rebecca, the Heiress, stepped
cautiously into the room. Her face was pale as marble,
her eyes wandering in their expression. She had overheard
the conversation. She had learned that there
was a daughter of Mordecai Kolephat to come between
herself and fortune—perchance between herself and—
Richmond.
-- 248 -- p553-255
Chapter XX. A Street Battle.
[figure description] Page 248.[end figure description]
THE funeral was over, and Widow Marvin slept in her
last bed, in the plain cemetery which was the burial-place
of the humble congregation to which she had been
attached in life. Margaret Winston, clasping the orphan
Emily's hand, as they stood in the church-yard together,
had listened, with her, to that sound so dismal to a
mourner's ear, the grating fall of gravel on the coffin's lid,
when the sexton cast his first clod into the grave, and the
solemn words, “ashes to ashes and dust to dust,” trembled
upon the preacher's lips. Good Mrs. Dumsey, also,
with her darling Tommy, and his eldest sister, formed
part of the funeral group; and the worthy day-nurse
mingled her tears in earnest sympathy with her young
friend. And when, returning together in the single carriage
which served for the funeral cortege, Emily leaned
her head upon Margaret's bosom, Mrs. Dumsey spoke kind
words, in discreet consolation, and hushed Tommy's noisy
exclamations, as he remarked, with great delight, the
objects which they passed; showing herself, albeit unversed
in social refinement, at least the possessor of that
homely grace—the art of doing good.
-- 249 --
[figure description] Page 249.[end figure description]
It was evening when they arrived at Emily's now lonesome
home in Foley's Barracks; and it was on crossing
its threshold that the most bitter realization of her
bereavement smote the young girl's heart. Mrs. Dumsey,
with her children, had bidden good-night, and the two
friends sat, with arms entwined together, upon the bed
whence all that was earthly of the widow had so lately
been removed.
“What a long, weary day it has been to me!” murmured
Emily. “Oh, Margaret! my heart feels dead
in my bosom!”
“It will revive dear! you will feel better to-morrow!
Please God, Emily, there are many happy days in store
for you!”
A sigh, which the seamstress heaved, as she uttered
these words, almost belied their hopefulness; but she
kissed Emily's forehead, drawing her fondly to her breast.
“You must go home with me to-night, Emily. It is
too lonely here for you, and I cannot bear to leave you.
I will make up a bed for the children, and you shall sleep
in my arms, sister! God will watch over us both.”
Emily returned convulsively the embrace which Margaret
gave her, and stifling the sobs that were breaking out
afresh, endeavored to summon calmness to her reflections.
Then, acceding gratefully to the proposition which the
seamstress had made, she took the latter's arm, and, locking
the door, they left in company the room that seemed
no longer to be home to Emily's sorrowing spirit.
Twilight was at hand when the two girls emerged from
the gloomy precincts of Foley's Barracks, and turned the
-- 250 --
[figure description] Page 250.[end figure description]
corner of a narrow street conducting to Kolephat's College,
that was but a few squares distant. The clear
skies and balmy air, which had made the Sunday so lovely,
had at this time given place to clouds and a raw east
wind, and a drizzling rain was just commencing to descend.
Emily, weak and trembling, clung heavily to her companion's
arm, as they picked their way over the muddy
pavement.
It was no unusual sight—two humble females, walking
through uncomfortable mist, and along the narrow street,
at nightfall, in this poor quarter of the town; such realities
as orphanage and sorrow—such truths as poverty and loneliness—
were, indeed, but habitudes of those dim purlieus
of which the tenant-house was the central feature. But of
such unselfish pity as animated Margaret's brow, and of
such tender confidence as soothed the heart of Emily,
there might, alas! be found but few examples in this
squalid neighborhood. Yet, indeed, over these wretched
hovels, as over the dwellings of luxury, in other localities,
He watched, whose power is limitless, and whose unsleeping
vision “seeth the fall of a sparrow,” and “heareth
the young ravens when they cry.”
The rain increased as the friends hurried on, in silence,
towards their destination, drawing more closely their
shawls about them, as the air blew sharply from the piers.
Few persons were in the streets, for the night threatened
to be a very stormy one; but, as the girls crossed a pentup
square, whence branched off many alleys filled with
dingy huts, inhabited by beings far poorer than themselves,
and sentinelled by low drinking-shops, they could
-- 251 --
[figure description] Page 251.[end figure description]
hear at intervals the voices of men and women, loud in
drunken hilarity, or violent in quarrelsome altercation.
Margaret shuddered; for she had heard that some of
these horrible by-ways were the abiding-places of thieves,
and, perhaps, criminals of a darker character.
But in a neighborhood such as this, poverty is the wayfarer's
protection. The wretches who skulked from the
face of day in these miserable dens warred mainly against
the possessors of the world's goods—waging unequal strife,
from day to day, and from year to year, until their worthless
lives became the forfeit of their outcast hatred of
society. Perhaps, on this account, the sewing-girls were
in less danger of insult in those dark streets than they
might have been in quarters lined with costly mansions;
nevertheless, it was not without trepidation that they pursued
their way, clinging to one another, as they hastened
past each dark-mouthed alley; and it was with increased
terror that, in turning a corner, they encountered the
staggering figure of an intoxicated man, who stretched
out his hand suddenly, as if to grasp the arm of Emily.
Margaret stopped, and drew her companion back, checking
a cry which rose to her lips, and endeavoring to make
room quietly for the drunkard, who, indeed, seemed incapable
of any violence, being hardly able to support his
reeling frame.
There was just light enough left to enable the seamstress
to observe that the inebriate was clad in ragged
garb, and that he had evidently fallen repeatedly to the
ground, for his face and body were covered with the
street mud. A feeling of pity mingled with the disgust
-- 252 --
[figure description] Page 252.[end figure description]
which his appearance excited, and, as she drew back, to
let him pass, she sighed to think that the wretch would
soon fall helpless in the gutter, or, worse still, find his
devious way to some desolate hovel, there, perhaps, to
inflict his evil presence on some suffering wife and mother.
At this moment, and while the man staggered past
them, a confused rattle of wheels, and sudden jargon of
shouting voices, sounded in the contiguous street, and at
the same instant the bell of the City Hall struck the
alarm for fire. The drunkard seemed to grow bewildered,
and swayed violently to the right, stumbling heavily over
the broken curb-stone, and pitching at his length out into
the narrow street. Margaret uttered a shriek, which was
lost in the din that immediately succeeded; for a crowd
of yelling men and boys, clinging to the rope of a fireengine,
came ploughing, with a wide sweep, around the
corner, and then the machine itself, glittering in brass, on
which a score of torchlights were reflected, followed in
noisy clangor, and with fearful velocity. The blare of
horns, the wild turmoil of rushing men, and noisy clash
of bells, nearly paralyzed Emily, and it was almost by
main strength that Margaret drew her quickly backward
to the porch of a dwelling-house, till the reckless
multitude had passed. There, crouching down, with the
orphan's trembling form in her arms, the seamstress
beheld a spectacle which filled her with horror. The
wheels of the engine, whirled onward by a hundred strong
hands, had passed the spot where she had seen the drunkard
fall, and the fierce tramp of hundreds of feet had
swept over the prostrate wretch. Margaret could not
-- 253 --
[figure description] Page 253.[end figure description]
distinguish aught in the darkness, but she felt that a
human form lay mangled and bleeding, perhaps dead, upon
the stones.
No other being heeded, and perchance, few of that
drove of men had seen the miserable one whose helpless
body they had stumbled over in their wild progress. None
turned back to succor; for in another moment one of those
fearful scenes was transpiring, too often witnessed in the
city streets, where rival companies of firemen, encountering
suddenly, appear at once inspired with mortal hatred, and
engage in conflict almost instantaneously. Another engine,
dragged around a neighboring corner, was dashed violently
against the first, and the motley press immediately commenced
a horrible mêlée.
The concussion of the two engines, entangling each
other's ropes, seemed to be the occasion of transforming
the opposing bands from human beings into demons.
Shouts of defiance, oaths, and maledictions resounded
through the confused mass, and blows were interchanged
spontaneously. Everything that could be converted into
a weapon was seized upon and wielded as such. The
heavy brazen trumpets and engine-wrenches were seized
and brandished aloft, paving-stones were torn from their
bed, and clumps of rotten ice fell in showers upon the
combatants, while knives gleamed and pistols were discharged
in the very midst of the infuriated crowd.
A burly youth, in a red shirt, appeared to bear the
brunt of the fight, a rain of blows falling incessantly
upon his head, while he fought with arms and legs,
delivering blows and kicks with an alacrity and
-- 254 --
[figure description] Page 254.[end figure description]
exactitude that proved him no stranger to such contests.
Behind him was a lank and thin-faced lad, garbed also in
fireman's shirt and cap, who flourished a trumpet wildly,
dealing up and down blows with the rapidity of a hammer.
It was the youngster introduced, in a previous
chapter, to the reader's notice, as the undertaker's
apprentice.
The belligerents on either side appeared to be animated
with intense vindictiveness, clutching at one another, and
exchanging savage blows, while a chorus of fierce exclamations
rose above the clatter of bells, rung ceaselessly, as if
to stimulate the wrath of those who fought. Amidst all,
the torches danced to and fro, flashing upon the strange
and frightful scene. The ropes of the two engines became
entangled still more, in the evolutions of the combat, and
as they marked the centre of the field, the forces on
either side were alternately driven to and from them, as
the fortune of the battle seemed by turns to vary. At
length the weaker or less courageous party yielded ground
and fled, leaving their engine overturned upon the pavement,
and a yell, like the whoop of Indians, testified the
triumph of their opponents.
For a moment after this there was a cessation of the
unearthly clamor, and then a fresh excitement agitated
the swaying crowd. Lights suddenly appeared in a house
upon one side of the narrow street, and a door seemed to
be violently forced in by a rush of those nearest to it. In
a moment afterwards, the interlocked engines were left
almost unguarded in the street, while the late combatants,
thronged over the curb-stone, and, uttering hideous
-- 255 --
[figure description] Page 255.[end figure description]
cries, dashed into a beer-house which they had broken
open.
During the progress of this disgraceful, though, alas!
too common mêlée, Emily, more dead than alive, had been
held closely in the arms of Margaret, who crouched in the
shadow of the area where she had sought shelter, and
there tremblingly awaited the result, dreading each moment
that some rush of the infuriated young men would
precipitate them upon her retreat, yet daring not to seek
safety in flight, because on either side the street presented
a scene of disorder. The seamstress had heard, in times
past, of encounters between fire-companies, but, in her
simplicity, had deemed that they were but passing contests
in the street, speedily checked by interference of
policemen. Yet here, at the close of a Sabbath day, and
within a few short squares of crowded thoroughfares, a
fierce and protracted riot went on before her eyes, while
not a guardian of the city's peace appeared, to stay its
fury. The police—loitering in the purlieus of taverns,
with watchful eyes for petty rogues and homeless wanderers—
the police, conniving with criminals and sharing
their unlawful gains—the police, entertaining stool pigeons
and serviceable villains whom outraged justice should
banish from society—the police, winking at open violations
of law by the keepers of gaming-houses, by lottery dealers,
by professional thieves and marketable bravos—the police,
aiding to exalt unscrupulous and dishonest men to place
and power, suborning corruption in the ballot-box, and
supporting fraud in the court-room—where were they
when drunken riot endangered the peace of a civilized
-- 256 --
[figure description] Page 256.[end figure description]
city, and profaned the holy quiet of a Christian Sabbath?
Where were they when, hurled down and trampled over
by brutal ruffians, a human being—miserable outcast, yet
still a human being—lay mangled, bleeding, and unnoticed
on the pavement?
It is not improbable that some good reader—dweller,
perhaps, amid the calm of rural society—may feel inclined
to give but little credence to a narrative of scenes like
that I have but now depicted, regarding its details as an
author's customary license; but it must, unhappily, be
declared that fiction cannot claim a place in such relation.
Street-combats between rival fire-bands, quite as bold and
bloody, quite as secure from interruption by police, are far
too common in our metropolis to challenge wondering
remark. Gangs of ruffian youths, under various slang
designations, hailing from different wards and precincts
of the city, identify themselves more or less with the Fire-Department,
and cast a stigma on that noble arm of
municipal service which its worthy members deplore as
cruel and unmerited. The odium should not lie, indeed,
at the doors of those whose lives are perilled in defence of
property and life; but until they free their gallant ranks
from the ruffians who disgrace them, the violence and disorder
which a few create must too often involve in reprobation
the many who condemn the evils. It is from
hordes of desperate youths, leagued in secret, for wicked
purposes, that brutal members of our police, turbulent
portions of the fire organization, hired bullies at the polls,
and combinations of river-thieves, foot-pads, and burglars,
are recruited, day by day and year by year, until the
-- 257 --
[figure description] Page 257.[end figure description]
great city swarms with unknown banditti—threatening to
be far more dangerous in the future than the swell-mob of
London, the lazzaroni of Naples, the leperos of Mexico,
or that restless underswell of revolution, the lower strata
of Parisian social life.
And whence come, individually, all these ignorant,
debased, besotted, or malignant youths and boys that
form the classes to which I have alluded? and whence
arise their young sisters of the streets, flitting through
their short night of wretchedness and shame, and dropping
incessantly, like the brothers, into prisons, hospitals, and
graves? Whence, O Human Heart! come these wretched
ones—crossing our daily path, like dusky shades or noxious
airs, and vanishing away into a gloomy Beyond, wherefrom
come unto our ears wailing and shrieks as of lost
souls? Where, but from Foley's Barracks?—where, but
from Kolephat College?—where, but from all the abodes
of desolation, and squalor, and misery, and vice, wherein
nature is warped into crookedness, and humanity is brutalized—
wherein infants become adepts in vice, and the
virus of evil example jaundices the moral sense, even as
transmittal of corruption abases the bodily blood. Go
down to the tenant-house, political economist! and learn
how civilization can breed desert scorpions! go thither,
physician! and behold how society can gangrene unseen;
descend, Samaritan! with wine and oil, to bind up the
wounds of God's image, passed by too long by Priest and
Levite.
Margaret the seamstress—yea, and Emily the orphan—
were aware of truths that political philosophy has but of
-- 258 --
[figure description] Page 258.[end figure description]
late years begun to consider. They knew that many little
ones, of two, and four, and six years, whom they habitually
encountered in the passage-ways of the houses wherein
they dwelt—whom, likewise, they marked in childish play
on the street walks, and in lanes and alleys—were growing
up under influences that would surely fashion them
into the ruffianly youths whom they saw desecrating the
Sabbath day by drunken rioting. Must the wise legislators
and philosophers of the world ever remain ignorant
of simple truths with which the humble are so familiar?
Let them go down to the tenant-house, and con lessons of
life.
With beating hearts and timid steps, the two girls at
length stole away from their shelter, while the revellers
crowded around the beer-house door. Cowering in the
house-shadows, and retracing their steps deviously amid
the thick mist, they at length left the sounds of riot
behind—left, too, as they recollected, with a shudder, the
form of a poor outcast man, lying on the stones of the
street, perhaps dying, perhaps dead!
-- 259 -- p553-266
Chapter XXI. Sabbath Night at Mr. Granby's.
[figure description] Page 259.[end figure description]
HURRYING away from the scene of riot, Margaret
and Emily paused not till they reached a quiet and
secluded street, lined with plain but substantial mansions,
at the corner of which stood an unpretending house; its
door painted of a bright green, gained by two marble
steps, and displaying upon the centre a lion-headed knocker,
thereby differing from its neighbors, which boasted the
more modern appendage of bell-knobs. Here the seamstress
stopped, and said to her companion—
“I left Harry with the kind old gentleman, Mr. Granby,
who thought it would be too lonesome for the children to
remain in our room. Come in with me, dear! we will
stay but a moment, and then hurry home.”
Then, lightly ascending the steps, Margaret lifted the
knocker, and its alarm was speedily answered by the
appearance of Samson at the opening door. The old
negro smiled pleasantly, and welcomed them in.
“Berry great times, Missy!” cried the honest fellow.
“Dat 'ittle Fanny 'most as good skule-missy as you is
yourself, Missy. Jes' come in, please, Missy.”
Saying this, Samson, closing the door softly, stepped
-- 260 --
[figure description] Page 260.[end figure description]
back in the hall, that was cheerfully lighted by a pendant
lamp, and then marshalled the two girls, in his friendly
way, towards the quiet back room, which served Mr
Granby for his library, and constituted, at the same time,
a cosy sitting-room for his little family. Pausing a moment,
on reaching its threshold, the black placed his
finger upon his lip, as if to invoke silence, and Margaret
recognized, next moment, the low voice of Fanny the
orphan engaged in repeating something which sounded
quite familiar to her ears.
“Knows it all by heart, Missy, I do tink,” said Samson,
with a look of intelligence; and the seamstress,
listening intently, became aware that the child was rehearsing,
almost in the language which she had herself
used, that little story concerning the babe Moses, that
had formed the subject of their morning's lesson in her
own room at the tenant-house. Then opening the library
door, Samson ushered the visitors into a circle, whose
homelike peace was in lovely contrast to the wild and
wicked scene that had so lately passed before their
eyes, in the gloomy precincts through which they had
wandered.
Mr. Granby leaned back in his arm-chair, the open
Bible on the stand before him, and opposite, upon the
lounge, sat Mrs. George. Bob the Weasel, sitting on a
low stool, was holding little Harry closely, with one hand
clasped about his neck, and playing with his brown locks,
and at the old man's knee stood Fanny, her face upraised
with an expression of melancholy sweetness, while, in a
low and distinct tone, she recited the touching narrative,
-- 261 --
[figure description] Page 261.[end figure description]
to which Mrs. George, with parted lips, seemed the most
attentive listener. At a sign from Mr. Granby, Margaret
paused, with her friend, just after crossing the door-sill,
in order to remain noiselessly listening a moment; but
the child had heard the opening of the door, her eye
wandered, and her voice faltered in its tones, and then
ceased.
“Do not be frightened, dear child!” was the impulsive
exclamation that rose at once to Margaret's lips, as she
moved forward to take the offered hand of Mr. Granby,
and at the same time stooped, to imprint a kiss upon the
little orphan's cheek. Fanny, perturbed and bashful,
shrank back to the side of Rob, and then Harry caught
her suddenly, and threw his arms about her neck, while
Mrs. George, rising with much dignity, hastily covered her
eyes with her handkerchief to hide the tell-tale glister
that betrayed her woman's heart. The seamstress modestly
introduced her friend Emily to Mr. Granby, who, in
turn, presented the two young girls to Mrs. George.
“This is my new school-mistress,” said Mr. Granby,
shaking Margaret's hand warmly. “You can judge of
her skill in teaching, by its effect upon this little one
Fanny. Miss Winston,” he continued, “your pupil possesses
a wonderful memory, if, as I suppose, this morning's
lesson was her first. But what is this?—you are not crying,
Fanny? Bless me! what is the matter?”
Fanny had sunk down, with her arms about Rob Morrison's
neck, her eyes gushing with tears, while a succession
of sobs broke from her lips. Harry appeared to catch
the infection of grief, and began to weep likewise, and
-- 262 --
[figure description] Page 262.[end figure description]
Mrs. George, growing quite bewildered, seemed to forget
her dignity, for a moment, in astonishment at this new
phase of domestic experience.
“My child, you must not cry so!” continued Mr.
Granby, puzzled and alarmed at Fanny's passionate sorrow.
He stooped, as he spoke, and laid his hand upon
the child's head; and she seemed to check her sobs, with
a great effort. Emily Marvin, who had remained beside
her friend, likewise bent down at this moment, and said
in a soft tone—
“What is it for, dear? What were you thinking of!”
Was it the instinct of her orphanage, or the prompting
of some strange, superior power, that caused the child to
turn suddenly, as Emily's voice fell upon her ear—to
stretch out her delicate arms, as if in supplication—while
her eyes, blinded by tears, were uplifted, and her choked
voice murmured—“Mother! Oh, my mother!”
Ah! good Mrs. George! do not turn away so quickly,
nor hide your face with your handkerchief! Let those
drops of human sympathy gush forth without restraint!
See! there are tears on Mr. Granby's cheeks, and Samson's
eyes are misty.
It was, indeed, a sight fitted to stir the deep of kindly
sympathy; for another orphan heart had echoed the
exclamations that burst so wildly from Fanny, and
another bereaved one's grief had mingled with the child's
sorrow. Caught abruptly to a strange but tender breast,
clasped upon a heart that throbbed in anguish bitter as
her own for a mother's loss, the little one mingled her
plaint with that of Emily, who sobbed a moment deeply,
-- 263 --
[figure description] Page 263.[end figure description]
and then became fearfully still, just as the seamstress,
extending her arms, received the relaxed form of her
young friend in their sustaining clasp.
“She has fainted, sir,” whispered Margaret to Mr.
Granby, as the young girl's head dropped backward, disclosing
the deathly pallor of her features; and at this
announcement, the ruffled remnant of Mrs. George's dignity
vanished instantly, and the good lady became at once
the active hostess and kindly nurse; so that, under the
operation of hastily-mustered restoratives, Emily Marvin
soon recovered her animation, and was able to listen languidly
to Margaret's simple narrative of the scenes in
which they had both participated during the latter
portion of her sorrowful Sabbath.
The last few days, since her mother's eyes closed upon
the world, had been days of weariness and pain to the
young maiden, thus left in loneliness and mourning. She
had, indeed, preserved comparative calmness during the
period occupied in solemn preparation for her last filial
duties, and had even passed with fortitude through that
sternest trial of an orphaned heart, the awful parting at
the grave; but in the moment when her broken spirit
caught the wail of Fanny, motherless like herself—the
yearning and unrestrainable call of that poor infant upon
the departed parent who might no more answer her desolate
little one's cry—in this moment, the waters of bitterness
broke forth from the Marah of her own pent feelings,
and the realization of her woe found relief only in sudden
insensibility.
Mr. Granby's sympathies were awakened freshly by the
-- 264 --
[figure description] Page 264.[end figure description]
new and interesting object presented to them, and he
heard with great satisfaction of Margaret's intention to
unite her domestic life with that of Emily. Mrs. George,
on her part, was conscious of a new revelation regarding
a class of persons concerning whom she had hitherto
known very little, and, as must truly be said, troubled
herself less. The worthy housekeeper was a member of
that very-much-to-be-pitied circle of society known to themselves,
if not to the world, as reduced gentlewomen. Her
parents, lost to her at an early period of her life, had
been the possessors of little fortune, but a great deal of
pride, and had brought up their only child with no lack
of the latter and a very great respect for possessors of
the former. She had been educated as fashionably as the
straitened finances of her parents could afford, and taught
in infancy that as good blood ran in her veins as in any
English family, dating back to King William of Hastings.
Consequently, when the death of her natural protectors
left the young lady with a pretty face and slim wardrobe,
in the care of a matter-of-fact, match-making relative, her
family pride assisted her to refuse sundry eligible offers of
plain young business men, and to yield gracefully to the
blandishments of a gentleman who had no business at all,
as it turned out, after she had married him, and who,
when they had lived several years together in a precarious
and most unfashionable way, managed to leave her in
middle life, very proud still, but totally unprovided for.
Had she, at this crisis, been in England, the country of
her parents, she might have merged her gentility in the
position of a governess, at twenty pounds a year; but in
-- 265 --
[figure description] Page 265.[end figure description]
America, where governesses are not in demand, she found
a refuge, in her need, in the goodness of an old friend of
her parents, Mr. Martin Granby, and became, at his
request, the care-taker and manager, with due dignity, of
his plain but comfortable family economy. Such was
Mrs. George at the period when her quiet life was so
unexpectedly broken in upon by what she at first termed
the “whimsical” benevolence of her patron; and great
was her own mental wonderment, it must be told, to find
herself, upon this Sabbath evening, so forgetful of station
as to weep at a little beggar girl's stories, and agitate
her nerves most unprecedentedly in ministering to a fainting
sewing-girl.
But Mrs. George, though lacking in genteel deportment
that evening, did not, as it appeared, sink at all in the
estimation of either Mr. Granby or his servant Samson;
for it was noticeable that, during a temporary absence of
the housekeeper from the library, after Emily had been
recovered, a quick interchange of glances passed between
master and man, and the old gentleman whispered in his
sable friend's ears, that “Mrs. George was a kindhearted
woman, after all,” to which Samson responded by the
emphatic word “berry;” and it is furthermore matter
worthy of record, that when, shortly afterwards, Margaret
and Emily, with Harry and Fanny, took their farewell for
the evening, Mrs. George not only shook hands warmly
with both the sewing-girls, but saluted their pale cheeks
with a real matronly kiss, and then actually stooped and
kissed the children, not forgetting Bob the Weasel, who
thus, for the first time in his life, felt the touch of woman's
-- 266 --
[figure description] Page 266.[end figure description]
lips upon his poor face, and thereafter, when he was safe
in bed, cried a whole hour about it, in very joy. Ah,
indeed, Mrs. George! sorrowful as that Sabbath day
seemed to the orphans, it was sanctified unto you, and
unto them, by the divine charity, the holy human sympathy,
that thrilled in a parting kiss and glittered, jewel-like,
in a pitying tear.
When the sewing-girls went home through the misty
streets, to Kolephat College, that night, the light of Mr.
Granby's cheerful library fire shone out before and behind
their footsteps, irradiating the stormy darkness; and
when they knelt in prayer with the little ones, and then,
folded in one another's sisterly arms, sank into the calm
slumber of innocence, be sure the kindly forms of Mr.
Granby and his housekeeper, and the shining friendliness
of Samson's face, stole over their dreams, mingled, haply,
with the glorified shapes of mothers bending down in
heavenly benediction over mortal children. Thus, even
the tenant-house was no more gloomy, and the memory of
death became blessed unto the mourners.
-- 267 -- p553-274
Chapter XXII. The Beer-House and its Guests.
[figure description] Page 267.[end figure description]
IT was an hour after the rencontre which took place
between the rival engine companies before comparative
quiet returned to the dingy quarter wherein the
affray had broken out; and during the interval, crowds
of young men caroused in the vile porter-houses of the
vicinity. The false alarm of fire and subsequent street
conflict, were soon after succeeded by a truce between
the belligerents, pending which much bad liquor was
drank, and the captured engine restored to its proper
custodians. Then, manning the ropes, with loud shouting
and many discordant noises, the riotous companies
diverged to their respective head-quarters, leaving the
locality of the strife to subside into gloomy wretchedness.
Then, one by one, the street loiterers slunk away, some to
cellars, others to the garrets of neighboring tenant-houses,
others again to places of rendezvous, where were met
together low gamblers, thieves, and receivers of stolen
goods. A few shabby wretches lingered in the corner
beer-shop, after the fire-boys had departed, busy in discussing
the merits of respective companies as well as the
-- 268 --
[figure description] Page 268.[end figure description]
quality of a muddy-looking beverage which the keeper of
the place chose to designate as ale.
This beer-shop, a type of its class, was located at the
corner of a block of shambling houses. It stood a few
feet back from the broken pavement, and formed the
basement of a plastered building, with a long, shelving
roof, and projecting eaves, rotten with age. A sort of
piazza, or stoop, separated the door from the sidewalk,
and under two windows, looking upon the street, stood,
at certain seasons, a high-backed bench—the loungingplace,
in fine weather, of ill-looking men and coarse
boys, and the depository, in winter, of ash-boxes, shattered
glass-ware, and whatever other lumber might be cast at
random from the upper windows. The door of entrance
to the beer-shop's interior was glazed, and curtained with
some material once red, but now of mottled dinginess,
through which the inside light struggled in yellow streaks.
On a wet night, amid cold fog and muddy gutters, this
miserable beer-shop's exterior seemed unpromising enough;
nevertheless, there was no hour, during day or evening, in
which some visitor did not enter, or some one customer or
more disburse his copper coins for strange decoctions of
intoxicating fluids. Indeed, at intervals, if a passer-by
might judge from sounds of revelry, the beer-shop entertained
a class of roystering guests; and should such
passer-by pause, and haply enter through the glazed door,
he would, it is not to be doubted, encounter a mingling
of mirth, ferocity, and wretchedness, that might or might
not be to his taste.
At the present hour, after the last rattle and clamor of
-- 269 --
[figure description] Page 269.[end figure description]
engines and firemen had died away outside, the beer-shop,
as before remarked, still detained, in Circean attraction, a
portion of the crowd which had lately filled it. The wants
of these customers were comprised, of course, in the area
of a wooden counter, denominated the “bar,” behind
which were displayed on shelves a row of black bottles,
sundry bundles of cheap cigars, and a few green looking
glasses—the whole presided over by a consumptive Irishman,
with sandy whiskers and unsteady legs, who coughed
a great deal, and constantly stooped behind the counter,
to imbibe repeated swallows of some nondescript liquor,
that he averred to be the “rale stuff for a cowld.” His
guests at the time were of doubtful social standing, if
physiognomy, as well as apparel, be any index of position.
In a corner of the apartment, with limbs extending loosely
under the low funnel of a cylinder stove, and his head
resting uneasily against the counter-front, sat on a wooden
bench such a figure as Hogarth might have been glad to
sketch; a newly-imported immigrant from Ireland, whose
knotted fingers clasped the handle of a tin vessel which
he had drained of its contents, while a short blackened
tobacco pipe, fallen from his mouth, had scattered its
ashes freely over the ragged corduroys that covered his
nether limbs. A green jacket, threadbare and blotched,
but exhibiting a trace of former jauntiness in two or three
brass jockey buttons that still hung to it, and a lowcrowned
hat, once beaver, that was poised crazily on the
edge of the coat-collar, constituted the residue of national
costume possessed by this off-shoot of an island where,
unhappily, the whisky still is more cherished than the
-- 270 --
[figure description] Page 270.[end figure description]
school-house, and, as a consequence, the poor-house is
more crowded than the church. Near by, and stretched
at full length upon a settee, reclined a youth with face
turned upward, and a noxious cigar in his mouth, from
which, likewise, he directed a succession of smoke-puffs,
toward the stupefied owner of the corduroys and broken
pipe; sipping at intervais, the while, from a glass of
smoking liquor held in one hand. A claret-hued coat,
much defaced, was buttoned half-way up over a red cotton-velvet
vest, under which might be detected an extremely
dirty shirt, and the latter was surmounted at the
neck by a tattered black kerchief, tied in a hangman's
knot.
One other individual was visible, besides the bar-keeper—
a man who appeared to shrink from observation in
a dusky corner, or recess, formed by the outer door frame
extending inward. This man's garments, tattered and
threadbare, were wet, and much stained and dirty, as if
his back had made frequent acquaintanceship with the
gutter; his hat or head-covering was crushed, and seemed
to have been stamped upon, and his shoes were thick with
mud, as though the owner had been traversing through
the clay of a country highway. His face, bent down,
apparently to shun notice, was impressed with a sullen
and desperate cast. He cowered from the gaze of the
bar-keeper, and started nervously at every sound in the
street without. If Mallory the Miser of Kolephat College
could see this man, he would recognize him as the
robber of his darling gold; for it was, in truth, Keeley,
who after wandering away on the outskirts of the city, in
-- 271 --
[figure description] Page 271.[end figure description]
terror lest his theft should have been discovered, had
returned, on the Sabbath night, to his old haunts in the
city, and was now drowning fear and reflection in draughts
of stupefying poison. He had already drank deeply, as it
seemed by his demeanor; nevertheless, the pale Irishman
at the bar responded, with a commendatory grin, to his
order, given in husky tones, for “more brandy,” proceeding,
at the same time, to prepare a mixture similar in hue
and odor to the steaming potation in which the youth in
crimson waistcoat was indulging. At this moment, the
door was abruptly opened, and two young men—the brace
of champions who had distinguished themselves during
the late fight—entered swaggeringly, and advanced towards
the counter. They still wore their red shirts; but
the bull-necked youth had donned likewise a blue frock
coat, and exchanged his fireman's cap for a black hat,
while his comrade, the undertaker's apprentice, had enveloped
his loose limbs in a black coat capacious enough to
have swathed two youths of the same dimensions, and
crowned his cadaverous visage with a cloth cap of Teutonic
cut and scantiness. The new-comers simultaneously
addressed the occupant of the settee, soliciting him to join
them in “another glass,” which invitation the young gentleman,
swallowing the liquor in his tumbler, signified his
entire readiness to accept.
“Brandy?” suggested the consumptive bar-keeper;
“brandy,” replied the bull-necked fire-boy; and “brandy,”
echoed the undertaker's assistant and the crimson-vested
youth upon the settee. It is a single word, pronounced
hourly in ten thousand places of the great metropolis;
-- 272 --
[figure description] Page 272.[end figure description]
drawled, at times, from the lips of undecided neophytes,
hurriedly ejaculated by eager sots, lisped by delicate
young gentlemen, as they wave their gloved fingers to the
poison-mixer; imperatively uttered by desperate men,
anxious to seek oblivion from thought in transient brutishness;
it is a little word, easily breathed; but, oh! what
a train of consequences follows its repetition! what blasted
hopes, withered happiness, desolated homes, ruined lives,
and dread, untimely deaths, glide on funereally behind the
wizard word that opens, to cheat the soul, the wretched
phantasma of a drunkard's enjoyments.
“Our boys is got somethin' to brag on, now,” remarked
the undertaker's lad.
“Yes,” responded the crimson-vested youth, rising from
his reclining position. “You'd better b'lieve they's some,
now.”
“We don't get frightened at any plug-muss, you better
lay your dear life we don't,” asseverated the bull-necked
youth, tossing off his hot liquor with the air of a connoisseur,
and glancing superciliously about him, as if desirous
of having his remarks contradicted. The consumptive
bar-keeper, to whose accustomed ears the vernacular of
his customers was quite intelligible, smiled ghastly approval
of the last speaker's opinion, and then, spreading
his hands out upon the counter, remained in silent expectation
of payment for his beverages.
“Who treats?” asked he of the red waistcoat, resuming
his cigar, and puffing rapidly.
“Me!” answered the undertaker's apprentice, assuming
a dignified air, as he exhibited a silk purse, and drew from
-- 273 --
[figure description] Page 273.[end figure description]
it a half-dozen bank-bills, the sight of which caused a
manifestation of surprise by his companions.
“In funds, Jim!” exclaimed the bull-necked youth; to
which James replied, dogmatically, “Nothin' shorter;”
whereupon the pale Irishman consulted a greasy “Counterfeit
Detector,” which he took from beneath the counter,
and, having satisfied himself that the note tendered was a
good one, rummaged out the necessary silver change from
his till, and handed it to his customer. The three young
men then called for cigars, and after consulting in regard
to their future nocturnal explorations, took one another's
arms, and sallied upon the street, leaving the wretched
immigrant in corduroys stupidly intoxicated on his bench,
while the bar-keeper, mindful of his interests, was preparing
to respond to another demand from Keeley, for “more
brandy.”
It is an hourly subject for description—the common
nightly routine of a corner beer-house; but it is because
it is so hourly and common that I have chosen to describe
it. It is because, in every street of this great city, in
almost every block of its more squalid quarters, are one,
two, and perchance many more, of these pitfalls and
quicksands of society, wherein thoughtless youth, and
desperate manhood, and repining age, sink incessantly,
and are lost, body and soul. Lying in wait for the
unwary, they lure continual victims; born of the ignorance
and appetite of the poor, they generate poverty in
their turn, and with it shame, misery, disease, and death.
Therefore, trite as may be the subject, and common the
scene, there lies beneath my mention of a corner grocery
-- 274 --
[figure description] Page 274.[end figure description]
much that may well be reflected upon by the moralist,
much that may rightly alarm the conscience of a Christian
man.
“More brandy,” muttered the wretched Keeley, as he
had growled thrice, at least, before; and the sickly barkeeper,
shuffling from the counter, with ghastly visage and
spectral figure, presented again the steaming poison that
was to steep the drunkard's brain in deeper imbecility.
Meantime, the Irishman in corduroys had roused himself
in part from his drowsiness, and was staring about him
with a stupid look. The bar-keeper advanced towards
him, and remarked, gruffly, “It's time ye was off, my good
man.”
“An' where'll I be off, honey?” asked the man. “Sorra
the rap I've got—more-be-token that I spint my last pinny
with ye's, honey.”
“Ye'll not lie here, anyhow,” returned the bar-keeper.
“So put your best foot before ye.”
The half-stupefied immigrant, thus adjured, staggered
to his feet, and began to move towards the door; but he
paused before reaching the threshold.
“Ned Connery,” he said, looking askance at the owner
of the beer-shop, “ye'll be afther turnin' me out, bekase
I've no money, though many's the bit an' sup your father
got of my father, in the ould counthry. But, niver mind,
Ned! it's the likes o' ye that has the heart to turn the
back upon a poor man.”
“Off with ye, an' no more palaver, now,” rejoined the
bar-keeper; and, opening the door quickly, he thrust his
tottering countryman out into the porch. The old man
-- 275 --
[figure description] Page 275.[end figure description]
struggled a moment, half resistingly, but the door was
slammed rudely against him, crushing his fingers as they
clung with drunken tenacity to the jambs. He uttered a
cry of pain, and staggered into the deserted street.
The rain was falling in small close drops, chill as sleet,
and over the broken pavement and gutters pools of
muddy water were beginning to collect. The street was
pitchy dark, save only a spot nearly half a square distant,
where stood a corner lamp-post, the dim light from which
scarcely penetrated a dozen yards through the surrounding
murk. Towards this dull beacon, however, the drunken
immigrant reeled, with uncertain steps, until he had nearly
crossed the street, when his progress was suddenly checked
by some prostrate object, over which he stumbled, and
fell headlong at the pavement edge.
“Blissed Mary! what's that?” ejaculated the old man,
as he rolled heavily over, and, discovering himself to be
unhurt, scrambled slowly up, until seated upon the curbstone.
Then fortifying himself by a rapid crossing of his
hands over head and breast, he ventured to creep back
a few paces, stretching out his hand in the darkness, till
he encountered what appeared to be a human body lying
in the hollow of the gutter.
“Wirasthru!” cried the Irishman, “it's a dead corpse,
I'm thinkin';” and appalled at the thought, he shrank
back; but at the moment, a deep groan from the object
arrested his movements.
“It's a murthered Christian, anyhow, for I hear him
spake!” cried the immigrant. “I'll go back at onct to
Ned Connery, the white-livered spalpeen, an”' —
-- 276 --
[figure description] Page 276.[end figure description]
But a footstep, at this moment, sounded on the sidewalk
near him, and the Irishman caught sight of a man's figure
just visible in the darkness. In an instant, he gained the
pedestrian's side, and plucked him by the arm.
“'Ud ye be after goin' by, and a feller-crachure murthered
and kilt, Misther?” he demanded, abruptly, addressing
the astonished passer, who responded, nervously—
“What can I do for you?”
“Sorra a bit for me, good man; but if ye'd look in the
gutther, beyant, there's a poor body groanin', like one kilt
intirely. It's here he is, Misther.”
Saying this, the immigrant stooped, and directed the
other's extended hand to the body before them, resting in
a puddle of water, and drenched by the falling rain.
“He is not dead, it is evident,” said the stranger;
“but he is wounded, I fear, and should be removed at
once, that his condition may be seen. My dwelling is but
a few rods distant, and perhaps we shall be able to lift
him thither.”
These words were uttered very quietly, as if the speaker
had been prepared for the recontre, and made dispositions
to meet it; at least, so it appeared to the immigrant,
whose Milesian excitement was in strange contrast to his
new companion's unperturbed demeanor. Nevertheless,
his sturdy, though not youthful arms were put in immediate
requisition in raising the suffering man, who seemed
totally helpless, only groaning at intervals, as if in internal
pain. Supporting him on either side, the two then
managed to draw their burden along the sidewalk, though
the immigrant's legs were not, indeed, of the steadiest,
-- 277 --
[figure description] Page 277.[end figure description]
the result of recent potations, or, perhaps, of scanty
nourishment otherwise. Arrived beneath the street lamp,
they saw that the wounded man's face was covered with
blood, and that one arm hung loosely, as if broken. The
Irishman, likewise, glanced furtively at the individual
whom he had called to assist him, and saw that he was a
short and rather oldish person, with a mild and thoughtful
face, marked, at this moment, with an expression of
great pity.
“Here is my poor dwelling-place,” said this man, indicating
by a nod of his head the entrance of a narrow
alley opposite the lamp post.
“It's not the richest houses the best people lives in,”
returned the immigrant. “Aisy, now, till I get a good
hoult.”
So saying, he shifted his arm, and assisted to sustain
their load, till a small ten-foot house, or rather shed, was
reached, at the window of which the short man knocked,
his summons being answered immediately by the opening
of a door, and the appearance of a female child on the
threshold, holding a light, which she shaded from the rain
with her small hand. She uttered an exclamation of
alarm at the unexpected sight that met her eyes; but a
word from the person who had knocked appeared to quiet
her at once, and she drew back, admitting the two bearers
into the room. The wounded man was deposited upon an
old sofa, which stood between the windows, and the resident
of the house then said to the child—
“Is your uncle asleep, my child?”
“No, father—he's writing in his room.”
-- 278 --
[figure description] Page 278.[end figure description]
“This is a poor man who is hurt, I fear, very badly,
Ally; and your uncle had better see him.”
“Yes, father—I'll call uncle.”
“Stop a bit,” said the man, lowering his tone, and looking
anxiously about him. “Your mother has not”—
“No, father!—haven't you seen her?”
The man groaned deeply, and shook his head.
“But go, Ally,” he said, “call your uncle.”
The girl disappeared through a door which opened
into a back room, and presently her low voice was heard
speaking to some one, who replied querulously, after which
a shuffling was heard, and the door re-opening discovered
the child returning, and leading by the hand a very curious
figure. It was a man who might be forty, fifty, or seventy
years of age, according to an observer's skill in computing
the marks upon a countenance ruddy with color, and yet
made old-looking by masses of silver hair, which hung on
either side of the shining cheeks. Blue eyes, small but
clear and bright, and white teeth, seemed, with his fine
complexion, to give a claim to youth; but, on the other
hand, his shoulders were stooped, his neck bent, and his
limbs tottered, as he advanced, like those of an old man.
He fixed his glance on the immigrant, immediately, and
said, in a childish tone of voice—
“What do you want, my good man?—what has my
brother brought you here for?”
“Sure, an' it's aisy to find that out, Misther, if ye's got
eyes,” returned the Irishman, pointing to the wounded
form on the sofa.
“Oh! there's another—is there?” cried the uncle,
-- 279 --
[figure description] Page 279.[end figure description]
seemingly much perplexed. “Oh, yes!—Alice said so!
I'm very forgetful!” He pressed his forehead with his
hand.
“Yes, Walter—'tis a poor fellow we found in the street,
just opposite, and I thought you could tell how he was
hurt, at once.”
“That was right, brother,” said the other, stooping at
once to the sofa, and passing his hand, in a professional
manner over the man, who groaned, but still remained
with eyes closed, and apparently powerless to move or
speak. The girl and her father, with the immigrant,
looked on in silence, till the uncle had concluded his examination,
and pronounced the man's arm to be broken in
several places, while bruises and contusions were discoverable
on his other limbs, head, and body.
“I should say he has been knocked down, and run over
by a carriage, and perhaps kicked by horses,” said the
examiner, with a sagacious look.
“Maybe it was the fire-boys that bate him,” suggested
the Irishman.
“If he is in a condition to be moved to the hospital,
now, Walter, I might call a policeman?” said the other
man; at which remark, Walter shook his head, and
observed—
“The patient had better remain undisturbed. I am
sufficient for his case, and I can, perhaps, to alleviate
humanity, spare one night from more laborious duties,
designed likewise, brother Hubert, to benefit our common
kind.”
These words, spoken with great seriousness and dignity,
-- 280 --
[figure description] Page 280.[end figure description]
were heard with much deference by the brother and
niece, while the immigrant looked somewhat perplexed, as
though he could not entirely fathom their meaning. But
Walter's next remark was much more intelligible.
“I shall set this fellow-creature's broken limb,” said he;
“and you, Hubert, may get ready some splints and bandages,
as I shall direct, while Alice will hold the light. As
for this other man, I don't know as he will be wanted at
all—so he may go, if he pleases.”
The Irishman held down his head, much abashed at the
speaker's deliberate dignity. He-glanced from one to the
other of the two brothers, and then at the door.
“Is it go, ye mane?” he asked hesitatingly.
“Certainly, my good man; I shall not require your
assistance. You may, if you please, call at the hospital,
and say the patient is in good hands.”
“And where might that place be?” ventured the immigrant;
“maybe they'd give a fellow-crachure a night's
lodgin' for `humanity,' as ye was talkin' about.”
“Have you nowhere to lodge?” asked the brother who
had been addressed as Hubert.
“Throth, I've no better lodgin' than the bed where this
same poor chap was lyin' when we tuk him up,” answered
the immigrant, as he nodded his head towards the wounded
man, who had now opened his eyes, under the effects of
some powerful stimulant contained in a phial which Alice
had handed to her uncle.
“If that be the case,” said Hubert, in the calm tone
that appeared so remarkable to the Celt, “you had better
remain here. We will strive to accommodate you.”
-- 281 --
[figure description] Page 281.[end figure description]
“Accommodate!” echoed the immigrant, “is it that
you'd be doin'? Small accommodation I want, but the
flure, behind the stove; or, if I might be bould, to sit up
and be company for ye's, till the poor chap is made asier.
I'm a poor stranger in a strange land; but I'm not a thafe
nor a beggar-man.”
“Sit down, then, my friend, by the stove,” said the
host; and then proceeded to renew the fire, that had
become low; after which, while his brother busied himself
in bathing his patient's hurts, he procured cloth for
bandages and smoothed out some pine fragments into
splints wherewith to support the fractured limb. The
Irishman watched the movements of his new acquaintances
with great apparent interest, occasionally hazarding
a shrewd observation; and the child Alice stood
patiently by the sofa, holding the lamp as her uncle
directed.
At length, the operations were finished, the arm swathed
and set, and the sufferer, under the influence of an anodyne,
soothed into a profound sleep, his head supported
by a pillow that Alice brought from an interior room,
and his breast and shoulders, from which the mud-covered
vesture had been removed, covered with a light quilt.
These dispositions made, Walter, whose surgical skill
seemed to afford him great self-satisfaction, as well as to
impress his brother and niece with renewed reverence,
rubbed his hands together, as he surveyed the sleeping
man, and exclaimed—
“There, brother! I have not forgotten the art of healing,
though so long out of practice. Astley Cooper could
-- 282 --
[figure description] Page 282.[end figure description]
not have done it more cleverly, Hubert. Eh! what does
our Celtic friend think?”
“Is it me ye mane?” asked the immigrant. “Faix,
docther, it 'ud be worth while for a chap to break his leg,
jist to be traited so dacently.”
Walter pursed up his lips, and scanned the Irishman
narrowly. “You seem to be tolerably intelligent, my
good fellow,” he remarked, patronizingly. “I suppose you
enjoyed all the advantages a hedge school could afford, at
home—eh, my good man?”
“Throth, an' I tached a hedge-school mesilf,” replied
the Irishman. “Latin, Graak, and the mathematics,
more-be-token. But what good is larnin' in a counthry
like this?”
The Irishman's retort seemed to hit the humor of the
singular individual to whom it was addressed; for Walter
laughed immoderately, and remarked to his brother that
“Celtic wit was proverbial;” whereat the calm-spoken
Hubert smiled, likewise, as in appreciation of the wisdom
contained in the observation.
“So, you have been a hedge schoolmaster, my Celtic
friend,” pursued Walter. “Now, you are just the man I
was seeking for; and I will read to you, at once, a chapter
of my great work upon `Humanity and its Necessities,”—
a chapter, my dear sir, that interests, in a great
degree, your unfortunate Milesian countrymen, who, in
their immigration to this favored land, bring also their
poverty, degradation, ignorance, and general social misery.
It will be very instructive to you, and I shall have your
opinion on some important points.”
-- 283 -- p553-290
[figure description] Page 283.[end figure description]
The immigrant looked bewildered, venturing no reply,
whereupon the white-haired but ruddy-visaged Walter
half walked and half tottered to the door through which
he had previously emerged, and opening it, disclosed a
small, but neat apartment, containing a single bed, a
chair and table, the latter piled with manuscript sheets.
The room was lit by a tin lamp, depending over the table
from a sort of frame-work, that might be elevated or depressed
by means of a cord. Pen and ink lay beside a
half-written-over sheet of paper, denoting that Walter,
when summoned by the child, had been engaged in adding
to the mass of closely-written matter that was collected
on and under the table, and upon various shelves around
the walls of the apartment.
Shuffling towards one of the heaps, the singular man
bent his round shoulders so low, that he appeared like a
hunchback, and then wheeling suddenly, held up a heavy
roll of manuscript which he had taken from a lower shelf.
“Here, Mr. Schoolmaster, you see the chapters of my
great work that I intend reading to you to-night. You
may sit down now. Alice, bring a chair for our Milesian
friend, while I proceed to read what will greatly edify, if
heard with proper attention.”
Alice brought a chair for the immigrant, in which that
individual seated himself, without remark, and Hubert,
taking another at the threshold of the small apartment,
drew the little girl to his knee, kissing, as he did so, her
pale cheek, and whispering something in a low tone, of
which only the word “mother” was uttered above the
breath, and that with a deep sigh. Walter then placed
-- 284 --
[figure description] Page 284.[end figure description]
himself at the table, and adjusted his tin lamp, so that its
light fell upon the closely-written pages which he spread
out before him. Coughing thrice to clear his throat, he
then began to read aloud, in a very measured distinctness
that failed not to impress his Hibernian hearer with a
fitting sense of the dignity as well as importance of the
subject.
-- 285 --
Chapter XXIII. Walter's Book.
[figure description] Page 285.[end figure description]
“WHAT is a man?—what is a soul?—what is a
state? The first is I—the second is you—the
third is both of us. If I exist in solitude, and without
you, I am barren of a SOUL, because the higher faculties
of my being, which are friendship, love and sympathy,
come not into use; but only the lower instincts, provident
of my subsistence and security, shall be necessary to me.
If you be with me, the divinity which is in you draws out
the divinity that lies dormant in my nature, and the
drawing out is education, whereby you and I know each
other, as men and as souls, and become a union of vital
interests, which is the proper society, or state. Thus, two
men, endowed with souls, mutually educated, enlightened,
and understanding one another, constitute a state—which
one man cannot be, of himself, and which two apes, or
other brute natures, without souls, cannot be.
“What is the object of a state? i. e., of two immortal
natures, mutually intelligent concerning one another? It
is, of a surety, happiness, because each of the two individuals
desires happiness, and the two have a community
of interests. If an object attained, a work achieved,
-- 286 --
[figure description] Page 286.[end figure description]
bestow happiness upon the man, it will likewise, it is probable,
insure happiness to the state, or multitude of men,
one man being considered in this view as a duplicate of
another man. If it be conceded, therefore, that individual
morality, political liberty, physical comfort, and religious
feeling, are the bases of true happiness in the man, then it
shall follow that a multitude, or people, or state, must
ground its happiness on the same foundation.
“But every man of the multitude—every individual
of the people, or state—does not possess the four elements
of happiness enumerated above; that is, individual
morality, political liberty, physical comfort and religious
feeling. He may be wanting in the first, through neglected
education—in the second, through bad government—
in the third, through poverty—in the last, because
of evil association or habitude; ergo, he, as an isolated
man, cannot be happy. If this be the case, then the
people, or community, in which the man dwells, must
likewise suffer, and the sympathy or harmony of the state
be more or less injuriously affected. The balance or equilibrium
of happiness is destroyed, because one of the
individual immortal natures in the state is himself unhappy,
for two reasons—first, because he cannot enjoy
good; and, second, because he does not sympathize with
his neighbor's possession of good. If two men should be
suddenly placed upon a desolate island together—the one
having been educated in the knowledge and love of good,
the other's nature neglected, so that he remained wild and
savage—no true harmony could exist between the two;
because the savage, obeying his instincts, would be rude
-- 287 --
[figure description] Page 287.[end figure description]
and ferocious, plotting against and unwilling to consort
with the other; while the educated man could have no
sympathy with the brutal appetites and animal propensities
of his fellow inhabitant of the island. In this position
of affairs, the educated man would be in danger of harm
or death from the wild man, or he must enslave or kill
him, or he must destroy his brute instincts and malice.
The educated man would resolve upon the latter course,
and compass his object in one way only; i. e., by winning
the confidence of the wild man, becoming kind and useful
to him, and by degrees making him like himself—that is
to say, educated. He would do this, not only from the
dictates of humanity prompting benevolent action, but he
would do it in self-protection, bestowing his own knowledge
and attributes upon the savage, in order to render
the latter's disposition humane and harmless.
“We apply this principle of self-protective education
to society at large, and inquire: Are not all ignorant,
destitute, brutal natures in the position of savages, as
regards their relations to the community?—dangerous
to the well-being of the state, destructive to its sense of
security, its equilibrium, its harmony, and its happiness?
What, then, is left, but for the community, society, or the
state, to enslave, kill, or educate its savage constituents?
It will not enslave or kill; therefore, it must instruct,
refine, and elevate. The desolate island savage could not
be instructed without the direct agency of a teacher; so,
neither can the masses of uneducated society be properly
influenced till educated society shall assume the teacher's
task. Here, then, as a personal necessity, the state must
-- 288 --
[figure description] Page 288.[end figure description]
charge itself with the enforcement of proper methods of
local education, as fundamental safeguards of social symmetry
and security. For, `If men are not lovers of virtue,'
says the statesman, Lacroix, `punishments will not
be sufficient to keep them in their duty: they will gratify
their passions whenever they think they can do it with
impunity. The best way, therefore, nay, the only way, to
make them obey the laws, is to give them morals; that
is, to inspire them with a love of virtue.' Good education,
indeed, is that palladium in the possession of which
Minerva taught that a state should be prosperous and
secure. Men whose infancy was neglected, or whose
youth was badly instructed, will not hesitate to violate
the clearest and most positive laws; whereas they who
have received a proper education shall cheerfully and
readily submit to proper regulations, finding more happiness
in so doing than an immoral man will experience in
the indulgence of broadest license. Well said Isocrates,
the Grecian—`Those who would govern a state properly
must not think of filling porticos with laws written upon
tablets of stone, but must take care that citizens have
the maxims of justice engraven on their hearts.”'
Walter here paused, to arrange the scattered leaves,
glancing, as he did so, at his Irish listener, who sat half
upright in his chair, with mouth distended, and eyes fixed
upon the reader, though no very impressive marks of
intelligence or sympathy were noticeable in his countenance.
Hubert had left his seat, near the door, and withdrawn,
with Alice, into another room, adjoining the main
one, and seeming to be furnished with somewhat more
-- 289 --
[figure description] Page 289.[end figure description]
attention to appearance than the outer apartment, which
latter served for eating and sitting-room. The house itself,
a small wooden cottage of uncertain age, contained only
four rooms, upon the street level, though a basement that
was used as kitchen added to the capacity of the building.
The room into which Hubert had stepped, with Alice, was
carpeted, and contained a curtained bed, bureau, rockingchair,
and a few other articles of domestic comfort, and
its walls were hung with a mirror and several pictures.
The father sat down, with his little child, whose hands
were clasped in his, and leaning his head against a table,
on which he had deposited the candle, appeared to sink
into sombre meditation.
“Father, will mother come home to-night?”
“I cannot tell, my child,” said the man, with a deep
sigh.
“Mother don't love us any more,” continued the girl,
looking up to her father's face.
“Alas! I fear not,” cried Hubert. “Tell me, Alice,
what did she say this morning, before she went out?”
“I'd rather not, dear father—you will be angry.”
“I shall not be angry, my child.”
“She said that uncle Walter and you were both crazy,
and would be sent to the poor-house,” —
“Ah, ah!” exclaimed Hubert. “What else?”
“Oh, father! I'd rather not tell you.”
“Do not fear, Alice.”
“She wished you were both dead.”
“Oh!” groaned the man, covering his face with his
hands, to hide the tears that gushed to his eyes.
-- 290 --
[figure description] Page 290.[end figure description]
Alice climbed upon his knees, winding her arms about
his neck, laying her cheek against his, and trying, with
silent caressing, to soothe the pain that she feared had
been inflicted by her words. The father asked no other
question of his child, but he clasped her convulsively in
his arms, and rocked to and fro. The candle began to
flare in its socket, till presently its uncertain flickers died
away; but still, in the darkness, Hubert pressed his child's
form to his breast, feeling the beating of her little heart
with his own, whilst, from the outer room, sounded the
monotonous voice of his brother Walter, reading to his
silent auditor the wandering fancies of a strange mind.
Thus passed an hour away, before the father, rousing his
faculties, discovered that Alice had fallen to quiet slumber
in his arms. “Thank God!” he said, “her young spirit
can find forgetfulness so soon!” Then, kissing her again,
he lifted her slight form tenderly, and laid her upon the
bed, after which, noiselessly opening the door, he passed
to the sitting-room, and, glancing hastily at the still
sleeping man upon the settee, quietly resumed his seat at
Walter's door, without attracting attention from either
reader or listener.
Walter had, as it appeared, succeeded in magnetizing
the Hibernian's senses completely; for the latter, though
still maintaining his erect position, with head firmly braced
against the back of his chair, had evidently long since
yielded to the influence of drowsiness, and was enjoying
a peaceful nap, while the rounded sentences rolled measuredly
from his instructor's lips. Hubert noticed this, at
once, but made no remark, knowing his brother would be
-- 291 --
[figure description] Page 291.[end figure description]
grieved at the discovery of such inattention, but willing,
rather, to assume himself the quality of auditor, though,
truth to say, the matter was to him “an oft told tale.”
As he seated himself, however, the Milesian awoke, and,
with great gravity, fixed his grey eyes upon Walter, in
apparently earnest interest.
“What is liberty?—what is equality?—what is fraternity?”
went on the voice of Walter, reading from his voluminous
pages. “Liberty is justice; equality is order;
fraternity is duty. There exists no liberty in wrong—no
equality in misrule—no fraternity in mischief. A man
hath not liberty to be ignorant, nor to be dishonest, nor
to be reckless; he may not outlaw himself in life, or die
by his own hand, and yet commit no sin; and if he be a
true freeman, he will not desire so to do. A man may
not equalize his neighbor's proportions or stature with his
own, by lopping off a limb from that neighbor, or cutting
an inch from his height. Neither may he circumscribe his
neighbor's enjoyments, possessions, desires, by the limit of
his own; for this would be disorder, and not equality—
since the equality of each man with another is as to the
sphere which he fills, and the relation that he bears to it.
The pigmy in a cottage hath the same measure of room
wherein to move as doth the giant in a palace; for the
relations which they hold to limits are the measures of
their equality. If the pigmy shall grow larger, he may
require the palace-area, but, as a pigmy, the cot is fittingly
his house. Neither may a man fraternize with repulsiveness;
for brotherhood is not in the body, but in the soul,
of a fellow-creature. If, therefore, I would show
-- 292 --
[figure description] Page 292.[end figure description]
fraternity, it shall be to the hopeful, to the courageous, to the
aspiring—not to the despairing, nor to the cowardly, nor
to the grovelling man; since his soul is not brotherly
with mine, nor the qualities thereof sympathetic with my
nature. Here, then, lies liberty—in the freedom of a man
to be generous, and truthful, and pure of heart; and
equality—in his acting fairly his own part, in the midst of
his own surroundings, and recognizing the while all other
parts, in all other surroundings; and fraternity—in making
harmony only with pure interests, beholding kindred only
in loftier attributes. Liberty aspires—equality seeth and
filleth properly the measure of aspiration—fraternity
linketh liberty with equality as a bond of virtuous ambition
between all classes of men. Do you seek for Liberty?
go not to the great cities of our republic; for in their
midst you will find thousands of human beings left to
become thieves and to uprear their children thieves—to
sink into pauperism, and make of their offspring paupers.
Would you discover Equality? go not to the cities,
wherein wallow men and women in ignorance, and filth,
and depravity, corrupting their souls, and the souls of
their little ones, day by day, and losing the equality of
their humanity, in the disorder of brutish instincts. Go
not thither to preach Fraternity; for the wretched ones
will fancy that demons are brothers, and cling to them
rather than to angels.
“Nevertheless, go there, whosoever you are that would
preach liberty, equality, and fraternity! go into the abodes
of wretchedness that disfigure the cities, marring their
beauty with sores and leprosy. Behold the debased slaves
-- 293 --
[figure description] Page 293.[end figure description]
of intemperance, the practitioners in vice, the grovellers
at Humanity's foot. Mark the forlorn wrecks of dissolute
men and women, the indolent, the diseased, the enervated,
the brutal—all victims, in a greater or less degree, to a
moral scurvy engendered by ignorance, licentiousness, and
poverty. Reflect that these degraded creatures have liberty
to be the custodians of sinless souls in the bodies of
little children—reflect that they will, sooner or later,
equalize those sinless souls into one horrible level of precocious
knowledge, one undistinguishable generality of
infantile beggary, squalor, and disease. Reflect that they
will make of their innocent offspring, born in filth and
nursed amid malaria, a fraternity of tainted childhood, to
grow up like themselves into corrupt maturity. Reflect
that, at this moment, thousands and tens of thousands of
such infant souls are narrowed and cramped by miserable
sordid bodies—souls of little children imprisoned and
debased by the liberty which their parents possess of
ruining their divine natures—souls, bright from their
Maker's hand a few years since, but now dim and lustreless—
still immortal, still capable of redemption, indeed,
but doomed—doomed to perdition, if not rescued from
their vile surroundings. Reflect on those things, O philanthropist!
and let your voice be heard as one crying in
the great wilderness of city life—`Save, O God! these
infants—these immortal souls!'
“Or, go not there! pass by, like Priest and Levite,
on the other side! Let liberty riot in squalor, equality
confound virtue and vice, fraternity make kindred of civilization's
outcasts, to undermine the fabric of society. Let
-- 294 --
[figure description] Page 294.[end figure description]
the speculator herd in his tenant-house a thousand likenesses
of men and women and children, without the comforts
or accommodations vouchsafed to the horse in his
stall or the dog in his kennel. Let these crowded receptacles
of poverty be made pest-houses by the foulness of their
surroundings, till the air of heaven is tainted in their
neighborhood, the waters made bitter, the sunlight clouded
with the smoke of their torture arising unceasingly. Let
the gambler cast out his lines, to entrap the hopes and
longings of want; let the vender of poison sit at the
gates of penury, selling his drugs for their priceless souls.
Let the law-officers lurk in their pathways, to punish them
for crimes; but let no gentle hand interpose to deter them
from its commission. Let sin entice, and virtue repel
them; and, when all is over, let the statistician chronicle
the ratios of their misery and crime—the moralist sigh
over the statistician's revelations, and the political economist
shake his head, and mutter `there is no remedy.'
Go not thither, into the city's enormities, then, O flippant
political economist! but, oh! go thither Christian men
and women, and rebuke by your ministrations the apathy
of Priest and Levite—the heartlessness of those who take
no note of the woes and the shames around them. And
fear not to rebuke them, just men and women! for, in the
sight of Heaven and of Humanity, of what account are
such beings? By what right do they breathe the free air,
eat of the earth's fruits, walk in the light of day, and
yet bear no share in the great work for which man was
created? Of what weight in the scale of human progress
is the man-vulture, preying on all that can gratify his
-- 295 --
[figure description] Page 295.[end figure description]
selfish appetites—the man-moth, fluttering uselessly in the
blaze of fashion—or the man-sloth, hanging listlessly on
the great life-tree which, in its growth, sustains his parasitic
existence? How regard they unblushingly the busy
insect and the toiling worm? how escape they the curse
that smote the barren fig-tree—`cut it down! why cumbereth
it the earth?'
“Can we fathom the limitless ether, or trace the rays of
planets back to the great fountain of their light? How,
then, can we circumscribe the growth of that mind whose
Present reveals no glimpse of its future? How dare we,
in neglecting or spurning the work of our Present, annihilate
so much of the means set apart from the Beginning
towards our own moral growth, and thus lose our linked
place in the infinite chain of existence? Rather, on the
other hand, let each human being develop the resources
of his own soul, by aiding in the development of other
souls; thus forever educating himself for the great cycles
of Eternity's progression. It is blasphemy to scoff at the
improvement of even the meanest human mind, when we
behold blank idiots educated into reflection, and see the
dark and silent prison-houses of the blind, the deaf, and
the dumb, made luminous by the reflex of outer light,
and melodious with the inflowing harmonies of a loving
teacher's care—till the mental desert becomes fragrant
with culture, and not only a clue to the world is afforded,
but a glimpse of heaven beyond. History, Science, Revelation
itself, impart to us but conjectural ideas of the
extent to which mind may be cultivated through contact
with kindred mind. The speculations of to-day may be
-- 296 --
[figure description] Page 296.[end figure description]
to-morrow's convictions and the future's truths. A thread
of thought may furnish the guide-line through a labyrinth
of metaphysics. Who, then, shall predict the destiny of
the child born yesterday, or venture to bound the knowledge
he may be capable of compassing? Though its
cradle be the vile and reeking hillock that fronts the
wretched hovel of a rag-picker—though the first educative
forces brought to bear upon its senses and soul be squalor,
strife, and misery—yet, O Christian Samaritan! pluck
him from but the influences of these—cleanse his infant
body, and purify his childish mind—place him, weed
though he seem, under the cultivation allowed to fairer
human growths—exalt him in the image of God, with his
face upturned to the light of Heaven—and then leave it
to the infidel alone to dare, in word or thought, to circumscribe
the power of the Almighty in developing that
child's intellect and soul!”
Walter paused, and Hubert started abruptly, as a
knock sounded, this instant, at the street door. The
Irishman, however, manifested neither satisfaction at what
had been read, nor surprise at the alarm that interrupted
so philosophic a disquisition. Poor fellow! he had long
since relapsed into sleep, and was, it is very likely, dreaming
of a hedge school-house or mountain whisky-still.
Walter laid down his manuscript, with an indignant gesture,
and exclaimed—
“'Tis the way of the world to take no heed of its counsellors.
This Milesian is no worse than the rest. God
bless us! my head aches with reading, brother Hubert.
But—it was a knock—she comes, perhaps!”
-- 297 --
[figure description] Page 297.[end figure description]
“I fear so, Walter!”
An impatient rattle of the closed shutter followed this
remark, whereat Hubert hastily lit a candle, and going to
the entry, opened the door. The next moment, he reentered,
supporting a female figure, which bore heavily
against him, as he advanced into the room, and, ere he
could prevent it, swayed to one side from his hold, and fell
heavily to the floor.
“She is intoxicated, brother,” said Walter, stepping
from his room, and peering with his clear eyes from under
the mass of white hair that covered his forehead.
“Heaven help me! yes!” answered Hubert. “Alas!
I expected it! But I must get her to bed, if possible,
without waking those poor men.” He stooped, as he
spoke, and raised the woman's face, which had fallen
prone upon the floor.
It was the face of one who might be forty years of age,
though, in the situation she then was, it appeared much
older. Her hair hung in disordered masses over her
cheeks, and straggled about her neck. Her blood-shot
eyes were without expression, and her head swayed, as
Hubert lifted it, helplessly to and fro. She opened her
lips, on which froth was gathered, essaying, apparently,
to speak, but only an indistinct murmur came from them.
“Maria!” said her unhappy husband, in a plaintive
tone. “Maria! do you know me?”
A gurgling sound in the woman's throat was her only
audible response; but she threw her arm up, and let it
fall against Hubert, who took her hand.
“Maria, will you go to bed?”
-- 298 --
[figure description] Page 298.[end figure description]
The wretched wife's eyes rolled, and a noise like a laugh
was emitted from her lips. Hubert glanced nervously
towards the immigrant in his chair, and the wounded man
stretched upon the settee, and seemed relieved in noticing
that they had not been disturbed.
“Walter,” said he, “open the bed-room door, while I
try to lift her in. She was never so far gone before!”
He passed his arm under her relaxed figure, as he spoke,
and raising her from the floor, supported her to the chamber.
Walter, meantime, hastened to do as his brother had
requested, but was anticipated; for there, on the threshold,
stood the young daughter, Alice, her small hands clasped
together, and her eyes, full of anguish, fixed upon the face
of her drunken mother.
When the husband had laid his insensible partner upon
the bed, Alice assisted in removing her parent's bedraggled
clothes, all torn and blotched by frequent falling
upon the muddy streets through which she had wandered
homeward. Fast and thickly fell her tears the while, till
at length the shameful spectacle of brutish intoxication
was hidden beneath the covering of the curtained bed;
then the child stole to her father, who had seated himself
once more, in unspeakable grief, and, climbing upon his
knees, kissed his face again and again, in mute sympathy.
Hubert embraced her in silence.
It was an affecting sight—the father and daughter
mingling their tears, without a word, while the degraded
object of their solicitude lay, like a dead thing, in her bed,
unconscious even of the hands that placed her there.
Walter looked in upon them, a moment, from the outer
-- 299 --
[figure description] Page 299.[end figure description]
room, and then closed the door softly, and went to his
own closet, with its shelves and table full of manuscripts.
Not a long time, however, elapsed before Hubert came
forth again, having kissed Alice, as the poor child crept
upon the bed beside her mother; and, after arranging the
pillow under the head of their sleeping patient, and constructing
a couch for the immigrant, with some chairs
and old garments, he replenished the fuel in the stove,
and then sat down by his brother's door, leaning his head
against the intels, wearied, exhausted, but sleepless. And
Walter—the philosopher, the theorist—trimmed his midnight
lamp, and went on with his never-ceasing task of
writing a great book on “Humanity and its Necessities.”
Perhaps it occurred to him, and to his brother Hubert,
that a great Necessity was suggested in their very midst
that solemn Sabbath night! As they looked upon the
maimed sufferer sleeping upon the settee, and upon the
homeless immigrant, and as they thought of her who lay
within the next room, a besotted victim to strong drink—
perhaps, I say, both reflected upon the Necessity that
more than theory should go forth into the world—that
practice, human and Christian PRACTICE, ought to interpose
its saving hands, to guide the erring, restrain the
unthinking, and pluck the falling from those gulfs, and
quicksands, and precipices, that lie so bewilderingly in
their path.
But, whether Walter's mind dwelt upon this theme, or
not, he still wrote on, by the dim light of his pendant
lamp, whilst his strange eyes lost none of their brightness,
and his ruddy cheek still glowed under the hoary locks
-- 300 --
[figure description] Page 300.[end figure description]
that fell down upon it. Walter did not think of himself,
or of the lapse of time, but of his work, “Humanity and
its Necessities;” and therefore was it that his sister-in-law,
the drunken woman on the bed, had told the child Alice
that her white-haired uncle was crazed.
-- 301 -- p553-308
Chapter XXIV. A Day in the Orphan's Life.
[figure description] Page 301.[end figure description]
EMILY and Margaret were both early risers, and on
the Monday morning following their night's companionship,
after Harry and Fanny had been dressed and
served with their simple meal, and the two girls had also
breakfasted, they sat down to consult upon Emily's future
plans. The seamstress was mother, as well as sister, in
her interest for the orphan, and therefore it was not
strange that the latter felt relieved and strengthened in
relying upon her. It was arranged that Emily should
remain in the apartments at Foley's Barracks, so long the
home of her mother, and that, after the close of a week,
Margaret should remove from Kolephat College, to reside
with her adopted sister—not only because their dwelling
together would be more economical for both, but because
the tenant-house in which Emily resided was in a somewhat
better neighborhood, bad as it might be, than the
squalid locality under Peleg Ferret's supervision, and the
rooms, moreover, were larger and less inconvenient to
reach.
“But we must see Mr. Granby about it,” said Margaret,
smiling; “for I have promised him to be a teacher.”
-- 302 --
[figure description] Page 302.[end figure description]
“A teacher!” echoed Emily.
“Yes, dear—that is to say, a Sabbath-school teacher,
here in Kolephat College tenant-house. Don't you think
our little Fanny will be a very useful assistant?” continued
the seamstress, presently, drawing to her knee the child,
who had been conning an alphabet with Harry.
“But that is a grand idea, Margaret—a Sabbath-school
in a tenant-house!” said Emily. “What a deal of
good it would do! for, only think of the number of children
living in Kolephat College, or Foley's Barracks,
or” —
“Or any other tenant-house, Emily! yes, indeed! children
who all possess immortal souls, too, dear sister; and
yet are permitted to run wild upon the streets, never
hearing a prayer, and, many of them, knowing not if
there be a God!”
“How dreadful!” cried Emily.
“How true!” rejoined the seamstress. “Indeed, I have
often wept over it; and thought, if (God forbid!) Harry
should be left without a protector, how he might be like
other poor children that we constantly meet in these
wretched places—growing up without care, without culture,
and, indeed, like rank weeds. And so, when Mr.
Granby, yesterday, suggested that these neglected ones
might be brought together, with proper treatment, and
was good enough to say he would bear any expenses that
the school might be under, my heart was full of thankfulness,
and I seemed to see at once a sphere in which I
could be useful, and, perhaps, do a little good.”
“Oh, Margaret!” cried Emily, throwing herself,
-- 303 --
[figure description] Page 303.[end figure description]
weeping, upon her friend's breast, “you are doing good all
the time. You are a blessing to all of us.”
“Hush, Emily!” said the seamstress, in her low voice,
as she kissed the orphan's forehead. “See, my child!
Harry and Fanny are crying, too.”
It was, indeed, so; for the little ones, listening to Margaret's
words, had seemed to catch their meaning, and
were now holding each other's hands, whilst tears streamed
from their eyes.
“Come—I was forgetting entirely my morning duties,
Emily!” cried the seamstress. “What a careless creature
I am, to neglect my poor old baby up stairs.”
“Poor old baby,” echoed Harry, laughingly, his grief
changing to smiles in a moment, as he heard his sister's
light tones. “That's the old miser, Margery.”
“Fie, Harry! you must not call him miser!—he is a
poor old man.”
“All the people call him miser, sissy,” persisted Harry.
“No matter—you must not, brother. But, Emily,
dear, you are wondering who we are talking about. Presently,
you shall see my patient, who is getting better,
though he has been quite sick. I must get his gruel ready.”
Saying this, the seamstress began to prepare a mixture
of oaten meal, with milk and water, which she allowed to
simmer a few moments, and then poured, steaming, into a
bowl.
“Now, come with me, Emily,” cried she gaily, and led
the way, followed by the wondering orphan, out into the
passage-way, and up the rickety staircase that led to the
room of Mallory the Miser.
-- 304 --
[figure description] Page 304.[end figure description]
The old man lay upon a rude but (thanks to Margaret)
cleanly couch, spread in the corner nearest his fireless
hearth. His thin hair was smoothed neatly back, and a
linen bandage, bound around his forehead over the wound
which he had received in his struggle with Keeley, caused
his ashy features to appear very ghastly and cadaverous.
But a marked change was visible in the miser's eyes;
they seemed to have lost the red fire that had imparted so
hateful an expression to his furtive glances, and were comparatively
calm and gentle in their look. As the seamstress
drew near, Mallory raised his head nervously from
the pillow, but let it fall back at once, while something
akin to a smile trembled on his thin lips.
“How do you feel now, Mr. Mallory?” asked Margaret,
in her pleasant voice.
“Better, avick, much better,” replied the old man.
“You're very good to me, you are.”
“See, I have brought something nice, and you must
drink it all, for it's warm, and will do you good,” said the
seamstress. “Let me feel your pulse,” continued she,
taking his shrunken hand. “Oh! the fever is gone! and
your head—that is quite cool, and all without a doctor!
Emily,” she added, turning to her companion, “am I not
a good nurse?”
“Yes,” muttered the miser; “I am so poor, you know,
Miss! a doctor would want money, but I—I have not a
cent.” The old man's eyes began to roll, as he said this.
“You forget,” said Margaret, gently. “Don't you
know I found some silver pieces on the floor, in the
straw?”
-- 305 --
[figure description] Page 305.[end figure description]
“Yes, yes!—I've got that, avick. But it's all—it's all,
honey! It's here, you know!” He lifted his pillow, as
he spoke, disclosing a few silver coins wrapped in a bit of
gauze rag. “This is all—every penny. Musha! I'm
poor, poor—a miserable ould beggar man.”
“Well, maybe we shall all be rich, by-and-by,” said the
seamstress, pleasantly, noticing the perturbed manner of
her charge. “Now, drink some of this good gruel,
please.”
“Yes, yes! thank you—thank you, Miss. It's a good
girl you are, to come to the ould man. I wish I was rich
for your sake, avick, to give you a present.”
“There, do not talk, but drink your gruel,” said Margaret,
proffering the beverage. Then, as the old man
partook greedily of it, she began to busy herself in
arranging his pillow, and smoothing the clothes upon his
bed. Mallory, meanwhile, watched both her and her
companion, with a half-suspicious scrutiny, but, nevertheless,
did not relinquish his bowl of gruel till he had
drained its last drop. Then, sinking back on the pillow,
he muttered—
“Thank you—it's good ye are to me.”
“And our Heavenly Father is good to all of us,”
answered the seamstress, solemnly.
“What's that?” cried the old man, quickly; upon
which Margaret quietly repeated her observation.
“It's all blarney,” returned Mallory, peevishly. “Who
bid you say that to me?”
“Do you not like to hear Our Father spoken of?”
asked the seamstress, in her low, sweet tone, as she drew
-- 306 --
[figure description] Page 306.[end figure description]
close to Mallory's side, and bent over him. The evil red
glare lighted in the dotard's eyes again, and he spat with
his lips upon the bed.
“If you've nothing to tell me but that, you might keep
from me: I want no praste-craft here.”
Emily shuddered, and drew back, as her glance encountered
that of the miser; but Margaret only bent nearer,
and laid her hand softly upon his.
“You are not feeling well, now,” she said. “I will
come again when you are better. Good-morning.”
“And l'ave the religion behind, plaze,” muttered the
dotard. “D'ye mind?”
“Good-by,” said Margaret, smiling pleasantly; and
then, taking Emily's arm, hurried noiselessly from the
room, and down the stairs, while Mallory turned over
moodily on his pillow.
“Poor old man!” said the seamstress, when, with
Emily, she reached her own apartments. “I fear he is an
atheist.”
“An atheist! how frightful! what can you do, Margaret?—
he was so angry, when you spoke to him!”
“We shall see!” replied Margaret; and at that
moment, a strange but lovely responsibility, seemed to
glide into her heart—a responsibility linked with the
immortal soul of the miser, Mallory. She said no more,
however, but proceeded to make Harry, and Fanny (who
was to accompany him, for the first time), ready for the
primary school which her brother attended. Emily,
meantime, prepared to depart for Foley's Barracks,
whence she designed to go at once to her place of
-- 307 --
[figure description] Page 307.[end figure description]
employment; for the poor have no leisure to devote to idle
grief, even though dearest ones are taken from them.
Perchance, in reality, this is no hardship; as occupation
of mind or body is often an antidote for sorrow that
might otherwise consume the spirits; nevertheless, it was
not without a sigh that the young girl, a few hours after
this, resumed her place in the circle of her fellow work-women,
and began to ply her needle in the task allotted
to her. Mrs. Florette, the modiste, spoke very kindly to
her, indeed, inquiring concerning her recent bereavement,
and there were looks and words of sympathy from
some who had known affliction like herself; but still memory
would dwell upon her loss, and tears blinded the
eyes of poor Emily, as she bent them closely upon the
fabric she was sewing. At noon, Mrs. Florette came into
the little back parlor, and calling the young girl to her,
informed her that she had a pleasant commission for her
to perform.
“There is an elegant lady, one of my dear favorite
patrons,” said the Frenchwoman, somewhat enthusiastically,
“who wishes to have some dresses made up, at her
home, because she seldom comes out; and I have placed
you at her service, for which you must be very grateful,
as she is the gentlest lady in the world, and will treat you
well, my good child. It will be so much better for you,
in your trouble, than the shop—is not that true?”
“Oh, indeed, Madame Florette, I am very thankful to
you,” answered Emily, the tears rising more thickly to her
eyes. “You are very, very thoughtful and kind.”
“So you will go with this lovely lady, in her carriage,
-- 308 --
[figure description] Page 308.[end figure description]
at once,” continued Mrs. Florette; “and I hope to hear
a very good report of you.”
The other needlewomen congratulated Emily on the
good fortune, as they all esteemed it, which had befallen
her; and, in truth, it was good fortune to be permitted
to leave the hot atmosphere of that close work-room,
and breathe, even though for a brief season, in the light-some,
airy rooms that wealth and taste make common to
their possessors, but which, to the dwellers between tenant-house
walls, or in narrow places of toil, seem like
far-off Edens of social life. Then, accompanying Mrs.
Florette to the front parlor, or sales-room, as it was called,
the sewing-girl was presented to a lady, who was richly
dressed, and of much grace and beauty, but of a pale
countenance, and eyes that were full of a sorrowing
expression. Emily felt instantly attracted to this lady,
who took her hand, and said, in a low, sweetly-modulated
voice—
“Madame Florette has been speaking to me of your
skill in needlework, Miss; and she permits me to take you
home with me—if you are willing!”
“Oh, madam, I shall try to deserve,” — Emily
paused, trembling with emotion.
“We shall get along very well, I am sure,” said the
stranger, with a re-assuring smile, in noticing Emily's
agitation. “Are you quite ready now, Miss?”
Emily answered in the affirmative, and shook hands
with Mrs. Florette. Then stepping with the lady into a
private carriage, at the door, she was quickly rolled away
through busy thoroughfares, towards the upper portion of
-- 309 --
[figure description] Page 309.[end figure description]
the city. In a few moments, the young girl found herself
in the boudoir of her new friend.
There are some rare natures in this world of ours, that
possess the happy power to diffuse, as it were, an aroma
of consolation and peace upon all around them; and it
was in the presence of such a nature that Emily Marvin
now found herself. The kind words, and gentle, thoughtful
manner of the lady, seemed to assert at once a sway
over the orphan's confidence, and it was not long before
she had related to her all the history of her mother's life
and death.
“You have, indeed, been sorely tried, my child,”
remarked the listener to this simple recital. “I, too,
have known the desolation of loneliness, and can sympathize
with your bereavement.” The lady sighed deeply
as she spoke, and Emily fancied that a tear trembled
on her eyelid. “But you spoke to me of a sister—or
friend,” —
“A sister! yes, indeed, Margaret is both friend and
sister!” said Emily. “She is a hard-working girl, madam,
supporting, by her needle, a young brother; but she is,
indeed, one whom I love as if she were my sister.”
In such conversation, the afternoon of Emily's first
employment in the house of her new friend, passed quickly
away, and long before twilight, the lady bade her lay
aside the needle, and sit at the little tea-table spread for
herself in the boudoir; and afterwards, when, bidding
good-night, she left the mansion, with its rich furniture
and soft carpets, and ornamented walls, to hurry homeward
to Foley's Barracks, Emily felt as if she had left
-- 310 --
[figure description] Page 310.[end figure description]
behind a kindly vision, out of which followed her always
a pale face, full of sorrowful thought, but very sweet and
beautiful.
At Foley's Barracks, the vision vanished all away, and
only her mother's bed, in the lone chamber, appeared,
causing the orphan to sit down, weeping bitterly, and feeling
herself desolate again. But a voice, rough, but cheerful,
interrupted the grief to which she was giving way.
“Sakes, Miss—an' it's you, sure enough! I heard your
step on the stairs, and says to 'Till, says I, `That's Emily
Marvin, I do believe!' An' how do you do, dear?
What!—not cryin' again? Well, now I do say that's
not right! Come, Miss, cheer up, cheer up. You don't
know all the news I've got to tell you But, mercy me!
it's cold as a barn here. 'Till shall make a fire for you
at once. Here, 'Till—Ma-til-da!”
Good Mrs. Dumsey's voice was nearly exhausted by her
somewhat hurried preface, so that the call for her eldest
did not reach the pitch intended, but broke down abruptly
at the second syllable of her daughter's name.
“Laws me! I do believe I'm getting short-winded,
Miss,” she said, apologetically, and was about to repeat
her summons, but Emily interposed.
“I'm not at all cold, dear Mrs. Dumsey. I was going to
call round on Margaret Winston, presently. So, I think
I'll not make up a fire to-night.”
“An' you've been to work hard all day, poor child?”
remarked Mrs. Dumsey. “You must be real tired, an'
I've jes' got a nice cup o' tea ready, down stairs. Come
right away down, and eat somethin'.”
-- 311 --
[figure description] Page 311.[end figure description]
Emily protested that she had taken tea, but Mrs. Dumsey
would hear no denial of her hospitality, averring that
“the poor child must be half starved,” and that she herself
had “all sorts o' news” to tell her; so that, in a few
moments, the orphan was obliged to be seated at the
good nurse's table, opposite to its portly mistress, with the
female scions of the race on either hand, and Master
Thomas making mouths at her, while he sulked behind
his mother's chair.
“Yes! indeed, and news enough,” cried the good
woman; “and if you was to guess and guess, you couldn't
hit upon who's been here to see you this blessed day.”
“To see me?” asked Emily, looking surprised.
“You, and nobody else—and stood full an hour talkin'
all about you. No, indeed, you couldn't guess.”
Emily admitted the correctness of this assertion, whereupon
Mrs. Dumsey, who was manifestly impatient to make
her revelation, informed the orphan that it was—“a gentleman.”
“Ah! the nicest young man—the very same that saw
you when you was a-faintin', and called to-day to ask all
about it. Deed an' truth, he is a gentleman, Miss. An'—
what else do you think? But you couldn't guess, I'll be
bound.”
Emily remained silent, not knowing how to reply to the
loquacity of her hostess, who thereupon, with many mysterious
winks and shrugs, rose from the table, and went to
her little back room, whence she returned immediately,
bearing triumphantly aloft a fragrant hot-house bouquet.
Master Tommy shouted lustily, as he caught sight of the
-- 312 --
[figure description] Page 312.[end figure description]
flowers; and Mrs. Dumsey's eldest daughter was obliged
at once to restrain him from violent efforts to obtain
possession of them.
“They're mine, they're mine!” screamed the youthful
Dumsey, making severe demonstrations with his small
boots upon his sister Matilda's person.
“Deed an' they're none o' yours, child,” rejoined his
mother. “Jes' shet up this minute, or 'Till shall put you
to bed. No, Miss Marvin, they're all your own, and the
sweetest-smellin' bowket that ever was growed, I do
believe. Take a good sniff o' them posies, and see if it
ain't, for all the world, like a country garding.”
Saying this, the good woman handed Emily the bouquet,
after a long inhalation of its perfume, and then proceeded
to relate how the “nice young gentleman—Mr. Peyton
was his name—and sich eyes was in his head”—had left
this bunch of posies “for herself and nobody else, with his
compliments, and would call again.”
“Call again,” said Emily. “Why, dear Mrs. Dumsey,
he is a stranger—and what can he want with me?”
Mrs. Dumsey only smiled, and remarked that “people
took likings sometimes, and no wonder to her, for somebody
she knew was good and pretty enough to be a queen,
like Cinderella and the glass slipper;” and then she
patted the orphan's cheek, and bent her good-natured
face down, to take another “sniff” of the “posies,” while
Emily remained silent, half-frightened at receiving the
gift, and yet not displeased, in her young heart, at the
thought of having inspired an interest in the stranger who
had left it. Neither unnatural nor unfeminine was her
-- 313 --
[figure description] Page 313.[end figure description]
emotion, and He who read the orphan's heart might
pardon the innocent vanity that made her smile, even
through tears, as she looked at the fragrant flowrets.
A little while afterwards, when Tommy had been
“pacified” by summary incarceration in the back room,
and Mrs. Dumsey had enjoyed a parting inhalation of the
bouquet, Emily bade good-by to her hostess, and passing
down the staircase of Foley's Barracks, and out upon the
streets, clasping the flowers under her shawl, hurried
towards the dwelling of her friend and sister, Margaret.
She had not proceeded far, however, before her name was
uttered by a man who followed closely, and turning, she
recognized in the light of a street-lamp—for it was now
dusk—the well-known figure of Mr. Jobson.
“Ah, little lady! where are you travelling to, so fast?”
said the agent, with a smile that was intended to be peculiarly
affable, as he brought his cane and patent-leather
boots on a line with the little feet that had stopped suddenly,
when their owner's name was called.
“Good-evening, sir!” said Emily, respectfully, as the
agent took her hand. Then, answering his question, she
remarked that she was going but a short distance, to call
upon a friend.
“If that be the case, I must walk with you, little lady.
You mustn't mind me, you know—I'm an old friend of the
family, you know. Where have you been these two or
three days, Miss? for I've called several times to see you.”
Emily's heart sank, as she heard this; for she was
aware of a month's rent being in arrears, and feared that
Mr. Jobson had called in relation to that.
-- 314 --
[figure description] Page 314.[end figure description]
“Please, sir,” she said, hesitatingly, “if it would not
be asking too much, I shall earn enough by next week;
and” —
“Oh!—I did not call about money, my dear Miss!
Oh, no, indeed—wouldn't have you suppose it. Mrs.
Dumsey told me about the scamp that stole your purse,
you know; and—oh! don't, I beg, trouble yourself about
the rent, Miss.”
Emily raised her glance, in wonder, at the agent's face,
as he walked beside her; for this unusual manifestation
of forbearance on the part of one proverbial, in the
tenant-house, for exacting the uttermost farthing of
rent, on the very morning when due, appeared a real
miracle of benevolence. But, if she desired to express a
grateful sense of her appreciation of Jobson's kindness,
the wish was checked suddenly, as she noticed the peculiar
look with which the broker was regarding her—a look
beneath which her own gaze sank instantly abashed; and
she felt troubled and perplexed—she knew not why.
“Mrs. Dumsey said you was out at work, Miss. I'm
really afeard you work too hard, now—ain't it so?”
Emily replied that she liked to be employed, whereupon
Mr. Jobson remarked that “all work and no play made
Jack a dull boy,” and that a young lady ought not to kill
herself for other people.
“You ain't got your mother on your hands now, Miss,
you know; and a young, intelligent lady, like yourself,
ought not to be a slave, you know.” —
“But I must work, to live, Mr. Jobson,” said Emily.
“And I am very sure I am much happier in being
-- 315 --
[figure description] Page 315.[end figure description]
employed than in being idle, even if I could afford to live
without work.”
“Oh, yes!” answered the agent. “But, then, you
know, you had to leave school, where you was getting
educated, as Mrs. Dumsey says, and now you must go out
every day, you know, Miss, rain or shine. It ain't quite
pleasant, is it, Miss?”
Emily said she did not mind it.
“But, you'd a leetle rather stayed at school?”
“Yes—I love school,” said Emily, sighing, in remembrance
of pleasant hours, ere the illness of Widow Marvin
had rendered it necessary for her daughter to take up the
routine of daily toil. “I was very, very happy at school.”
Jobson slackened his pace, and spoke in a low tone.
“How would you like to go to school again, Miss? I
was a-thinkin' we might arrange it for you very nicely—
so you could go to school, and live like a lady. I ventur'
to say, I could find the money to pay for a little girl's
schooling—if she'd only love me a bit for it.”
Emily glanced again at Jobson, who had paused in the
walk, and fixed his eyes upon her face. The agent's countenance
was full of amiability—his lips smiling, his eyes
very benevolent in their expression; and, as he raised his
cane to his chin, and drew up his portly frame, he might
have been taken, from the top of his shining beaver to the
soles of his polished boots, as an incarnation of philan-thropic
tenant-house brokerage and orphanage protection.
Nevertheless, there was an unaccountable something
about the worthy agent, as he thus displayed himself to
the young sewing-girl, that impressed her with emotions
-- 316 --
[figure description] Page 316.[end figure description]
very different from those of gratitude at the kind intentions
expressed in his language. She felt, indeed, that she
would rather be away from the side of this smooth gentleman
in broadcloth, who had declared himself “an old
friend of the family;” that she would rather be, that
moment, in the little room of her friend the seamstress,
with Margaret's clear eyes shining down upon her; and,
unconsciously, as it were, at the same time, she pressed to
her bosom the bouquet that she held beneath her shawl,
as if she would rather think of that, and its fragrance,
than of the words which Jobson had just spoken so softly
to her. Perhaps the contact of those sweet flowers
imparted strength to Emily—perhaps their perfume made
her less fearful of the agent; for, the next moment, she
found courage to say—
“Mr. Jobson, I shall never go back to school! I am
a poor girl, but my dear mother taught me not to be
ashamed to work for my living. I shall never forget her
counsels, and God will protect me while I try to be good
and contented.”
Mr. Jobson, the broker, who was used to meet with
“all sorts of tenants,” as he himself remarked, and who
never failed, as he boasted, in frightening any of them,
when he “set out to do it,” appeared, at this moment,
standing beside the fragile sewing-girl, to be shorn of half
his usual swelling proportions. The tone in which Emily
uttered her last words was so distinct, and her clear eyes
rested so calmly upon his own, that, albeit he was landlord
and she tenant—he creditor and she delinquent debtor—
he, man of means and authority, and she timid,
-- 317 --
[figure description] Page 317.[end figure description]
shrinking maiden—yet, for the first time in his life, Mr. Jobson
felt bereft of his dignity, and humbled in the presence of
poverty and weakness. He walked a few steps farther,
beside the sewing-girl, and essayed a remark or two,
interjected with attempts to clear his throat, but he was
glad when the next corner was reached, giving him an
opportunity of bidding his “little lady” an abrupt goodbye,
after which, with some violent rappings of his cane's
ferule against the pavement, he walked hastily away,
leaving Emily to hurry onward in the direction of Kolephat
College, where she soon arrived, and threw herself,
breathless and weeping, into the arms of the kind seamstress.
A recital of the day's incidents, poured into the attentive
ears of her friend, relieved the orphan's heart; for Margaret's
gentle nature responded entirely to her yearnings for
sympathy, while the stronger faith of one who had been
more sorely tried than herself was well suited to sustain
her spirit, agitated by conflicting emotions. Perhaps it
was the memory of other days, in her own experience,
that imported a sorrowing cast to the smile with which
Margaret took from Emily's hand the bunch of flowers
that she had kept close in her bosom; perchance the sigh
which the seamstress heaved had much to do with blossoms
that once nestled near her own heart, but had withered
since, leaving only the ashes of their crumbled leaves
as tokens that they once existed.
But if aught of bitterness was recalled to Margaret's
recollection, as she now listened to Emily's relation, no
shadow fell from her transparent forehead upon her young
-- 318 --
[figure description] Page 318.[end figure description]
friend's face. Her voice was soft as ever, and her glance
kindly.
“Beautiful flowers!” she murmured; “so fresh and
sweet in this cold winter month!”
“Dear Margery! let me and Fanny smell,” said Harry,
running to his sister's side. “Oh! Fanny! isn't it sweet!
Oh! what real pretty flowers! Wouldn't you like to
have a bunch like that, Fanny?”
“I'd like just one little rosy,” ventured the child.
“To put in water, Fan?” asked Harry.
“No! not for myself,” said Fanny, earnestly.
“Why, who for, then?” cried the boy. “Oh, I know!—
for Rob.”
“No! not for Rob—for—for” —
“Well, dear,” said Emily encouragingly, as she noticed
that the child hesitated, and raised her dove-like eyes
timidly towards the seamstress.
“I'd like to give it to the poor old gentleman up stairs,
that's sick. He's so lonesome, please.”
“Bless you, you darling, you shall have all you like!”
exclaimed Emily, the tears gushing to her eyes, as she
quickly disengaged a portion of the bouquet. Margaret
was likewise much affected, and whispered to her friend—
“Fanny went with me this afternoon to see the poor
man, and he seemed much attracted by her. She is a
very thoughtful child.”
Harry received a bud and some green leaves, with
which he was greatly pleased, but immediately tendered
them to his little companion to add to her own. It was
then agreed that Fanny should accompany Margaret,
-- 319 --
[figure description] Page 319.[end figure description]
when the latter went with her customary bowl of gruel to
Mallory's room; meantime, Emily and the seamstress
continued their conversation, the former dwelling much
upon that kind lady who had engaged her services in
making up dresses in the fine house up town. The young
girl became, indeed, voluble in expressing her admiration
of this new friend.
“Oh, indeed, dear Margaret! she is all I describe—so
lovely, and sweet-tempered, and yet so melancholy! though
how a lady so rich, with everything elegant around her,
can be sad, I cannot imagine.”
“Ah, Emily! we know not how much misery may be
the lot of the rich!—perhaps the harder to bear because
in contrast to the luxury around them. Is this lady
married?”
“Oh, yes! her husband is a very fine man—immensely
rich, and very handsome! I saw his portrait on the wall.
And Mrs. Richmond must be very much attached to him,
for” —
“Sissy, oughtn't Fanny to tie up her flowers?” here
interrupted Harry. Margaret did not answer, and presently
the boy screamed loudly, and ran to her knee.
“Oh, dear! oh, dear! sissy is going to faint!” he cried,
piteously; and at the moment, Margaret's form relaxed,
and she would have fallen from her chair, had not Emily
caught her in her arms.
There was an instant consternation in the little circle,
Harry clinging to his sister's arm, and Fanny beginning to
weep, while Emily felt the greatest alarm in witnessing
her friend's pallid face, closed eyes, and parted lips, as she
-- 320 --
[figure description] Page 320.[end figure description]
supported her. Exerting all her strength, she succeeded
in placing the insensible seamstress in a recumbent position,
her head sustained by a pillow that Harry brought
immediately, together with a vial of hartshorn, which
restorative she applied to the poor girl's nostrils and
temples. At the same time, she spoke soothingly to the
boy, assuring him that his sister would quickly revive.
“Oh, I'm so 'fraid sissy 'll die,” sobbed Harry. “She
said, sometime she might die in a faintin'-fit.”
“Does she have them often?” asked Emily, much agitated
at Margaret's situation.
“'Most every week,” answered the child. “Once she
was faintin', on the floor, when I came from school, and I
thought she'd never come to! O, dear Miss Emily, won't
you make her open her eyes? Oh! I'm afraid she'll die.”
And, indeed, it was a long time before the seamstress,
breathing a heavy sigh, slowly awoke to consciousness.
At last, however, Harry's eyes grew bright through their
tears, and Fanny's hands, that had been clasped in mute
terror, were permitted to touch the neck of her kind protectress.
But, when the seamstress, still pale and weak,
leaned back in her chair, and said that she “was subject”
to these fainting-fits, and that they were “soon over,”
though, indeed, the doctor feared they would “sometime
be fatal,” then Emily realized—though she made no remark—
how much of lonesome suffering, how much of
patient endurance, must have been the portion of this
uncomplaining one, toiling, through long days and nights,
and sinking at times from exhaustion upon the floor, while
her infant brother was at school. “But she shall not be
-- 321 --
[figure description] Page 321.[end figure description]
so lonely again,” murmured the orphan to herself. “I
will be near this good creature, who never thinks of herself,
but always of others.” And it was with deeper
sisterly affection than she had before felt that Emily kissed
her friend's lips, and clasped to her bosom with renewed
interest the now happy and prattling children.
-- 322 -- p553-329
Chapter XXV. Peleg Ferret's Monday.
[figure description] Page 322.[end figure description]
MR. PELEG FERRET rose betimes on the Monday
following his interview with Mordecai Kolephat;
for the recollection of certain pecuniary inducements suggested
by his Hebrew employer made the thrifty agent
anxious to begin his search for that gentleman's lost child.
The fear and trembling of Kolephat College tenantry
began at an earlier hour, even, than was usual on weekly
rent-days, and consequently there were more numerous
threats of ejectment, more earnest appeals for lenity, and,
perhaps, a more generally diffused panic, from roof to
cellar of the rickety premises, than had been known
during the previous hard months of the winter season.
The seamstress, Margaret, had, as usual, been ready
with her scanty savings, to meet the agent's summons.
Old Mallory had resigned, in dismay, a few of the silver
coins that he clutched beneath his bed-covering. The
ancient Irishwoman, who occupied a rear room on the
third floor (and whose children, at service, paid her rent);
the little German tailor, sitting cross-legged all day in a
wretched apartment, eight feet square, where, with a consumptive
wife, he toiled, ate, drank, or sang (half-stifled,
-- 323 --
[figure description] Page 323.[end figure description]
while warmed, by the open furnace that heated his iron
goose); the four young girls, in front rooms, who wore
gandy ribbons, and were never without money; the old
negro cripple, who did odd jobs for the neighborhood,
and burrowed in a kennel-like closet under the staircase;
the beetle-browed Englishman who stole out after nightfall
and crept back near morning, to abuse his delicate
wife, and who, the rumor ran, was a burglar or river-thief;
the shabby genteel gentleman, on the first floor, who wore
a rusty brown coat and napless hat, and bought ink by
the penny's worth at the grocery, and whom Mr. Ferret
employed occasionally to post his accounts, and who was
said to be writing a story-book; the rheumatic man, in
the cellar, who was once a cartman and owned a horse,
but had been run over and shattered to pieces, and now
lay bed-ridden, while his wife took in slop-work to keep
both out of the alms-house; the small widow, in a cap,
with a sea-faring son, who sometimes came home, and got
drunk daily while he stayed ashore; the black man, who
worked on the wharves, and lived with his white wife in
a decently-kept room at the head of the first flight of
stairs; the asthmatic female, in a yellow turban, who took
seven men boarders, in her two rooms, and sent her boy
out to beg broken victuals wherewith to supply her table;
the bright-eyed French flower-worker, on the first-floor,
who embroidered and chirped all day long; the family of
three young women, and their aged mother, who picked
wool sixteen hours a day; the Italian people who kept
dry maccaroni in the upper story; the Swiss boys, living
in a back shed, and raising spearmint in boxes, to sell to
-- 324 --
[figure description] Page 324.[end figure description]
the keepers of bar-rooms; the beggar-woman, who came
home at night with an infant, and gave it gin and paregoric
to stupefy it till morning; the —
But, O tenants of Kolephat College! why shall I
enumerate your characteristics? why dwell upon your
wretched vocations, your miserable life, your vile associations,
your uncivilized habitudes? Suffice it, now, that
Peleg Ferret, as was his wont, traversed the dingy close,
from damp and noisome basement to shattered, rain-soaked
attic, collecting here and there his dues—menacing the
tardy, brow-beating the timid, and seasoning his demands
with coarse jests, low innuendoes, and fierce abuse—till
the tenant-house, as was customary when he visited it,
scethed and boiled, as it were, with all the bitter feelings
that are begotten of misery, malice, and petty tyranny.
Little recked Peleg, it is true, of these results of rentday
faithfulness, since he beheld in them only the perversity
of tenant-nature; nevertheless, it is not probable
that the collector's own disposition was ameliorated by
his exercise of duty, or that, when at length he ascended
to the dilapidated upper stories of the building, and
knocked at the door of Phil Keeley's garret-room, his
brow was anything the less frowning, or his voice more
placid in its tones.
Phil Keeley's garret had undergone no improving
change since the agent's visit on the previous week. The
wind blew keenly as before, through crannies in the
broken shingle roof, and water stood in dirty pools upon
the rat-eaten floors, or oozed darkly from the rotten
plastering. Ferret knocked once, and then, without
-- 325 --
[figure description] Page 325.[end figure description]
waiting for a response, opened the door, and walked
forward.
The room was filled with smoke that puffed out from
the foul chimney, and by the hearth, on which a few chips
were burning, Keeley's wife sat, or rather squatted, her
elbows resting on her knees, and her clenched hands
supporting her chin, while she gazed vacantly into the
embers. On her knees, at a little distance, appeared her
daughter, Moll, and between the two was an old basket,
in which were some fragments of cold meat and stale
bread, the collection of a begging excursion from which
the child had just returned. Moll was gnawing ravenously
at a bone clutched in both her hands, and neither
she nor her mother seemed to be aware of the agent's
approach, till his harsh voice grated suddenly upon their
ears, and his scowling countenance looked down upon
them.
“Umph! enjoyin' yourselves—plenty to eat, I see; but
where's the whisky-bottle?”
At the first word, Moll had dropped her bone, and
cowered affrightedly away, but the woman glanced up
defiantly, with teeth set and lips drawn down at the
corners, but without answering Ferret's taunt.
“Where's that skulkin' husband of your'n?” pursued
the collector, in a loud tone. “I gave you warnin' last
week to stir your stumps from these premises, and here
you are hangin' on, with near three weeks' rent doo. D'ye
think I'm goin' to stand that, old woman?”
Still no reply came from Mrs. Keeley, though her eyes
glared upwards, in dull fierceness, mingled with an
-- 326 --
[figure description] Page 326.[end figure description]
expression of despair. To another than Ferret, who was
too accustomed to all shapes of wretchedness to trouble
himself about making distinctions, the miserable woman
would have appeared the very incarnation of human
squalor. Her arms were bare, and so shrunken that
hardly more than the bones, with shrivelled blue skin
drawn over them, were visible; her forehead was stamped
with the yellow signet of consumption's last stage; her
checks were hollowed, and her lips so distorted that teeth
and gums protruded from between them. It was manifest
that she was dying from starvation and neglected
disease; but Peleg Ferret saw in her atrophied form only
a delinquent debtor, and her silence under his remarks
merely served to increase his ill humor.
“Look here, old woman—hain't you got no tongue, or
be you drunk? leastwise you might cuss a little, so I'd
know it was you, and no mistake, you old catamaran!'
Twon't do to sham sick on me! I'm up to you, and out
you go before this day's over—jes' you make up your
mind to that, Miss Keeley.”
Ferret had advanced, as he was speaking, shoving
roughly past the child Moll, who had begun to moan
bitterly, terrified at his threatening looks. He now stood
with arms akimbo immediately over the drunkard's wife,
whose voice was heard, for the first time, in reply to
his words; not, indeed, in the quick, querulous manner
that was natural to the woman's temperament, but with
hoarse intonation, yet solemn distinctness.
“Ferret!” began Mrs. Keeley, “stoop down, man, till
I whisper a word in your ear! I'm dyin' Ferret, an' ye'll
-- 327 --
[figure description] Page 327.[end figure description]
be obleeged to take me out o' this, feet foremost. But
my blessin' to ye, for your good deeds, Ferret—d'ye mind
me?”
Her long, bony arm was upraised, till the attenuated
hand touched the agent, and made him shrink back from
the contact. Her eyes grew preternaturally bright, and
she set her teeth together, so that the gums were exposed
between the receding lips. No wonder Peleg Ferret
changed color, and stepped back a pace; for if the woman's
glance had possessed basilisk power, it could not
have glittered with more intense and unearthly hatred
than it now exhibited.
“Ye gave the drink to Phil, till ye made him a sot an'
a ruffian; ye brought us down from a decent home to
this wild beast's den, that ye call Kolephat College—ye
brought us from a comfortable bit an' sup to starvation
and nakedness; an' now ye're come for your rint, Ferret—
ye're come for your rint!”
As the woman paused, the agent tried to turn from the
glance which shot out of her eyes, but she threw herself
upwards, with a spasmodic effort, and clutching at his
garments, held him firmly.
“Ye'll hear—ye'll hear me, Ferret,” she shricked, in a
paroxysm of excitement, the reaction of her previous
unnatural calmness. “Hold by, till I pray for you,
Ferret — may the orphan's curse cling to ye! — Phil
Keeley's wife will meet you at the bar o' God! may your
heart wither out of your breast, and your soul go down
to the black pit o”' —
Peleg Ferret's yellow face grew crimson with fear and
-- 328 --
[figure description] Page 328.[end figure description]
rage, as with a great effort he withdrew his gaze from
that of Mrs. Keeley, and, uplifting his heavily shod foot,
dealt the miserable woman a violent kick which forced
her back upon the floor. Then, ere the shrieking Moll
could reach her mother's side, he strode, with a wrathful
malediction, out of the garret, and down the rickety
stairs, until he emerged into the alley, and thence sought
his grocery. Hither summoning two brutal-featured
negroes, a species of familiars attracted by the love of
poisonous whisky around the purlieus of all such places—
wretches in whose lineaments depravity struggled with
stolidity, for the blotting out of human traits—he
whispered to them a few words, serving out to each
a glass of some execrable spirits, and hurrying them
away. Then, turning to a nook behind his bar, wherein
stood a high-raised desk, Peleg proceeded to count the
sum total of his cash receipts, entering each item, as he
proceeded, in sundry dingy books before him.
A brief space sufficed to transact this rent-day business,
after concluding which, the collector once more sallied out
upon the street, and bent his steps away from the locality
of Kolephat's tenant-house. The effects of his interview
with Mrs. Keeley were still noticeable in the soured looks
that he cast about him, but, at the same time, other subjects
occupied the man's thoughts. He had golden prospects
before him, contingent on a successful search for the
Jew's lost child, and as he proceeded on his way, a dozen
schemes to compass his pursuit were entertained and dismissed
in rapid succession. At length, however, a plan
appeared to shape itself before his crafty mind, as was
-- 329 --
[figure description] Page 329.[end figure description]
apparent from the expression of satisfaction that began to
be manifest in his features, and the quickened pace with
which he traversed the thoroughfares.
Mordecai Kolephat, in his interview with the collector,
had been unable, it is true, to give any certain data
whereon to base a clue to the whereabouts of the stolen
girl; but the little that he had gleaned from the rag-picker's
dying revelation, and which he imparted to
Ferret, afforded the latter sufficient matter for, at least,
shrewd conjecture; and it was Peleg's resolution, in the
first place, to direct his scrutiny to the occupants of the
tenant-house neighborhood wherein Old Pris had breathed
her last. With this determination uppermost, he soon
found himself in the wretched pile of buildings, wherein
dwelt the yellow dwarf Josh and his negress mother.
Ferret was no stranger to the domain which he now
entered upon, for he had long regarded it with respect as
a “paying property,” and looked forward to a speedy
agency of the premises, in behalf of their owner, Kolephat.
He knew that it was densely populated, and that,
therefore, a snug per centage could be realized out of the
collection of its rents. It is true, the wooden hovels in
the rear of its brick fronting were not of the cleanest
description, nor devoted to the most sweet-smelling purposes;
being inhabited by hordes of German rag-pickers
and gatherers of bones in streets and gutters, who penetrated
to their peculiar district through two narrow alleyways,
and there lived, amid a surrounding of filth and
malaria that would seem to be deadly to all human existence,
and yet apparently exercised very little deleterious
-- 330 --
[figure description] Page 330.[end figure description]
influence upon the poison-proof denizens within. Peleg
Ferret had sniffed the effluvia of rag-pickers' abodes on
other visits before this, and knew how great heaps of
bleaching market bones, canine and feline skeletons, fragments
of mangled hides, with putrid meat clinging to
them, and piles of garbage dragged from sink and sewer,
were to be encountered by one who should seek them.
He had seen, on other occasions, the long rope-lines
extending from windows and chimneys of the wooden
huts, and strung with dense bunches of rags, of every
color, fluttering in the wind, which caught up their diseased
and infectious exhalation to bear it away to other
neighborhoods, depositing continually the seeds of slow
decline or quick, unsparing disease. He was aware, likewise,
that the tenants of those interior dwellings were
crowded by threes, and fours, and often sevens, in narrow,
close, and unventilated rooms, wherein they breathed the
noxious gases generated by their own personal squalor
and by vile concomitants of their wretched trade; that
they devoted single apartments to the usage of sleeping,
and eating, and rag-washing, and the boiling of bones,
whence arose an atmosphere of fœtid steam, densifying in
cold air, or brooding above their roofs in clouds charged
with venomous matter. All these things were familiar to
Peleg Ferret, though little recked he of their consequences;
for he looked upon the tenant-house and its
inmates as the field and subjects of his business thrift, and
classified them merely by two qualifications—the “paying”
and the “non-paying”—in the former of which category
he placed the rag-pickers and bone-gatherers, and in the
-- 331 --
[figure description] Page 331.[end figure description]
latter an indistinguishable mass of various pauper designations.
But, before venturing into the interior close, inhabited
by the rag-picking community, the agent knocked at the
door of Josh, the mulatto, which was speedily opened by
that personage. Some considerable alteration had taken
place in the appearance of the apartment since the visit
of Mordecai Kolephat and the death of Old Pris. The
broken casement had been glazed, and now admitted some
light of day to the interior, before so dark, and a flock
mattress, and clothing, with a few cheap articles of furniture,
relieved the dingy basement of the aspect of naked
misery that it had previously worn. A fire was burning
on the hearth, and altogether the place seemed comfortable—
a change attributable to the dwarf's exalted fortune,
as the possessor of the windfall brought by his
lottery speculations.
But, if in point of a few necessary comforts the mulatto
appeared to have bettered his condition, it was manifest,
likewise, that he had not been unmindful of the superfluities
of domestic life; for at this time there was another
occupant of the apartment in addition to Josh and the
dreaming hag, his mother. A girl of scarce eighteen
years of age, with prepossessing features and not ungraceful
figure, was reclining upon the bed, beside which sat
the negress, and the two were drinking some hot beverage
redolent of stale lemons and whisky. Ferret noticed
these features of the dwarf's room, at a glance, as Josh
removed a short pipe from his mouth, and invited him to
enter.
-- 332 --
[figure description] Page 332.[end figure description]
“Walk in, master! Jes' say what I kin do for you,”
said the mulatto, with a roll of his eyes that indicated a
somewhat deep indulgence in liquor, even at this early
hour of the day.
“I want to talk to you about a woman that died
here—`Old Pris,”' remarked the agent, in seating himself.
“Ugh!” rejoined the dwarf, as though something unpleasant
had been recalled. “That ole critter is a mortal
sight o' consequence since she went dead. There's ole
Mr. Kolephat—he buried her, and” —
“Well,” replied Ferret, “it might be worth while to
find out su'thin' about her, an' you mightn't lose nothin'
by it.”
“Well, sit down, master,” said the mulatto. “Don't be
skeered at my folks,” he continued, observing that his
visitor's eyes were directed towards the female portion of
his family. “That ar' ole woman's my mother, an' the
young 'un's my wife.” The last words were accompanied
by a chuckling laugh, which disclosed his discolored teeth
and red gums.
Ferret looked keenly at the young girl, who only
laughed, in a low tone, as she sipped her whisky; whereupon
the agent laughed, also, and winked at the mulatto,
saying—“You've got a nice wife, now, hain't you?”
Peleg Ferret then thought no more of the yellow
dwarf's attractive-looking companion, who lolled upon the
bed, but proceeded to his category of inquiries concerning
the dead rag-picker and her recent associations. And
why, indeed, should the agent of tenant-houses have
-- 333 --
[figure description] Page 333.[end figure description]
manifested wonder that a deformed mulatto could induce a
young white girl to abandon her own race and live with
him, in his negro-den, with a hag mother? What marvel
could Ferret discover in the union of that distorted African
offshoot, yellow-skinned and grizzled-locked, with a
flaxen-haired, blue-eyed, and delicate-featured woman of
Teutonic blood? Such consortings were to his eyes no
new phase of tenant-house life; for many were the blacks
and whites, of every grade, that the agent had collected
his dues from, in the course of a business life. Peleg
Ferret did not philosophize upon the matter—did not
affect to account for the practical amalgamation so usual
to his sight—did not speculate upon the moral and physical
destitution that must precede the period at which a
youthful white girl could resign herself to the society of a
depraved and grotesque negro, merely because he might
procure her for a season wherewith to eat, to drink, and
to be clothed. What had the tenant-house agent to do
with morals or decency, among the miserable denizens
under his supervision? His business was to take the
system as he found it, and out of it make the most.
Consequently, after the first scrutinizing glance at the
dwarf's helpmate, Peleg Ferret troubled himself no more
about her. And in this, Peleg Ferret imitated the Christian
world, that has so long contented itself with casual
notice of the wrongs and shames in its midst, passing
speedily to other themes, and becoming absorbed in other
interests.
“Old Pris was mixed up a good deal with organ-grinders,
and such people—heh?” suggested the agent,
-- 334 --
[figure description] Page 334.[end figure description]
after a few preliminary inquiries. “Didn't ye ever hear
of any young g'rl she used to have around?”
“No, master—not any g'rl that I ever heerd of,” returned
Josh. “She was a critter that used to keep to
herself, and folks thought she had a pile o' money somewhere;
but I never seed any.”
“Didn't leave you nothin', then?” said Ferret, closing
his left eye, and throwing back his head. “You took her
in—but you didn't git anything, heh?”
“That poor critter didn't have nothin',” returned Josh.
“And when old Kolephat come here, she was a-lyin' jes'
under them steps—a-dyin' fast. Mother, yander, said she
had some pawn-tickets, but we couldn't find any when
they laid her out.”
“Some pawn-tickets—what for?”
“Dunno, master—must ha' been lost; 'cause they wan't
nowhere when they washed the corpse.”
The agent mused a moment, and then asked—
“Didn't nobody give you a shillin' for takin' care of
her?”
“Yes—Kolephat—he guv me a five-dollar bill, he did—
and, yes, that ar' g'rl that come with ole Maria—she
guv me a quarter, kind o' sly.”
“What g'rl?” asked Ferret, abruptly.
“Why, the g'rl that come with ole Maria.”
“And who's Maria?”
“Why, she's the mother of all the organ-grinders,”
answered Josh, with a chuckle, at his own humor, which
almost strangled him. “She lives out in the rear, ye see,
and Ole Pris used to be thick with her.”
-- 335 --
[figure description] Page 335.[end figure description]
“That's enough!” muttered Peleg Ferret to himself;
and then rising, asked the mulatto to direct him to the
dwelling-place of Maria, which the dwarf did, with some
circumlocution. Then, in order to impress his informant
with a proper sense of the honor he had enjoyed in conversing
with a distinguished visitor, the agent remarked
that he should very shortly, it was probable, attend to
Mr. Kolephat's business in “these ere premises.” Under
cover of this piece of information, so conveyed, Mr. Ferret
backed out of the dwarf's room, relieving himself of the
necessity of disbursing any small coin to the communicative
proprietor, who thereupon returned to the society of
his blue-eyed wife, whose lips he kissed before turning to
another draught of whisky. The yellow dwarf was an
independent man, for he had made lucky “hits,” and had
a “dreaming” mother.
Peleg Ferret picked his path across the muddy outdoor
space that intervened between the extremity of the
entry, on which was situated the dwarf's room, and a
narrow rear portion of the building, occupied principally
by organ-grinders and other foreign vagrants, and forming
one side of an angular court, bordered by two alleys that
conducted into an inner area dwelt in by rag-pickers and
bone-gatherers. Ascending the stairs, of familiar gloom
and filthiness, the agent reached a landing, the narrow
window of which overlooked a collection of wooden huts,
with mounds of bones in front, and thousands of particolored
rags fluttering over their roofs and porches. At
the bases of the bone-hills dozens of hungry-looking dogs
were stretched at length, gnawing the more savory
-- 336 --
[figure description] Page 336.[end figure description]
fragments, and occasionally howling in horrible concert.
Under a pine shed were piled several bales of washed
rags, roped and secured, in readiness for market, and near
the aperture of an alley leading out to the street stood a
small handcart, whereto a brace of dogs was harnessed,
and from which an old woman was unloading the product
of her morning's tour, in the shape of wet or frozen rags,
bones, shreds of paper, sticks of wood, and a variety of
east-away rubbish, raked from the streets—“unconsidered
trifles,” in the eye of the world, but to the chiffonnier the
means of existence, and often the foundation of fortune.
Ferret paused not, however, to observe, save by a
passing glance, the motley appearance of this rag-pickers'
domain, but proceeded, according to the direction that he
had received from the dwarf, to a room into which the
reader has been already introduced, as that of Monna
Maria and her Italian family.
Early as it was in the forenoon, all the active men and
most of the children belonging to the establishment had
long since emerged upon the streets, dispersing to their
several itinerancies. The superannuated greybeard remained,
however, sitting on his block, and drivelling over
his beads, and the mother of the household, with the
younger women, was engaged in various manipulations.
Monna Maria—her forbidding face bent down—was busied
in knitting, and scarcely raised her eyes, when the visitor,
after waiting for the door to be opened to his knock,
walked into the apartment, and began to survey the group
with his crafty glance.
Peleg Ferret was accustomed, like Jobson of Foley's
-- 337 --
[figure description] Page 337.[end figure description]
Barracks, “to do with all sorts o' tenants;” nevertheless,
the indifference with which his advent was regarded rather
abashed his customary self-possession. For a minute or
two he remained standing in the middle of the floor, his
gaze passing from the dotard, with his rosary, to the old
woman, and then scanning the other females, who had
silently resumed their employments. At length he asked,
in a tone that was intended to be conciliatory, if “all the
folks were at home,” to which sapient interrogatory the
Italians made no answer whatever.
“Well, if ye hain't got tongues, or don't understand
English, I'm sort o' blocked,” muttered the agent to himself;
but at this moment the old woman raised her eyes,
and inquired, in tolerably intelligent language, concerning
his business in their apartment.
“You can talk, can you?” ejaculated Ferret. “Well,
now, that's clever, anyhow. S'posin' I ask you, if you
ever knew a rag-pickin' old critter called Old Pris?”
“What would you know about the dead?” demanded
Monna Maria, in a measured voice, while her eyes darted a
searching glance, as she leaned partially forward, pausing
in her task.
Ferret hesitated a moment, and then said—
“I'd like to find some of her friends.”—
“She had no friends,” was the chilling response.
“Well, somebody that knowed her—somebody that
knowed about her and the child she stole—and about the
pawn-tickets she had—that's all.”
The agent uttered these words slowly, keeping his eyes
fixed upon the woman's face; and he saw, at once, that
-- 338 --
[figure description] Page 338.[end figure description]
she was startled with their abrupt meaning; for her
glance fell before his, and her frame apparently trembled,
But, whatever might be her emotion, the Italian concealed
it instantly, and rejoined—
“Why come you here to ask such questions? What
know I about your lost children and pawn-tickets? Have
I stolen from you?”
“Well,” drawled the crafty agent, perceiving, at once,
that the woman was desirous of eluding his scrutiny, and
that, whatever she might know concerning the object of
his search, she was, for some reason, evidently unwilling
to disclose it—“Well, ma'am, no offence, I hope—only
there's a large reward offered to find out something about
the child that Old Pris stole away, and they said you
knew somethin' about the critter. It 'ud be wu'th your
while, ma'am, if ye did—that's a fact.”
“There was a boy stolen?” inquired the Italian, nodding
her head.
“A boy—well, it might be a boy,” returned Peleg.
“Did you know about a boy?”
“The child of a heretic,” went on the woman, in an
evasive manner. “All heretics are damned, and their
children with them.”
“That's comfortable,” remarked Ferret. “Nice—don't
you think?”
“What do you come here for?” suddenly exclaimed
Monna Maria, dropping her knitting needles. “If a
heretic lost his child, the child was saved from perdition.”
“That's your opinion, is it?” said Ferret, who began to
conjecture that the Italian was either deranged, or
-- 339 --
[figure description] Page 339.[end figure description]
endeavoring to mislead him by assuming to wander in her
mind. “Now, I'd like to have you explain what you
mean by a heretic?”
“It is he who forsakes the True Church,” answered
Monna Maria.
“That's the Roman Church—hain't it?” asked Ferret.
“Well, is a Jew a heretic?”
“Accursed!” exclaimed Monna Maria.
“And a Protestant, too, I s'pose?”
“There is no hope for either, or for their children,”
cried the woman, vehemently, as she rose suddenly, and
stood with her gaunt figure erect before Ferret, her long
arms extended, as if to thrust him away. But as she
made this movement, something that fell from her bosom
to the floor caught the agent's quick eye, and, stooping
immediately, he possessed himself of it. A single glance
discovered to him that it was a pawn-ticket, and he
instantly divined a connection of this scrap of paper with
the deceased rag-picker, perhaps with the living child that
had been stolen.
Monna Maria's aspect became wilder, as she beheld the
ticket in her visitor's hand. Stamping her foot upon the
floor, she attempted to clutch Ferret's arm, and failing in
that, demanded fiercely that what she had dropped should
be restored to her. But Ferret, familiar with such demonstrations
on the part of females, and perceiving that, in
pursuit of his quest, he had now gained an important
clue, adroitly avoided the woman's hands, while he thrust
the scrap of paper into his pocket.
“You can have this 'ere ticket, ma'am, after a certain
-- 340 --
[figure description] Page 340.[end figure description]
person has seen it, an' if any damage is done, I'm responsible—
d'ye hear?” said the agent, quietly. “So jes' stop
your caterwaulin', if you please.”
But the Italian virago was not one to be intimidated by
Ferret's coolness. No sooner did she lose sight of the
pawn-ticket, as it was transferred to her visitor's pocket,
than, with a shrill, cat-like cry, she turned suddenly
towards a shelf, and took from it a long, sharp-bladed
knife, or stiletto. Then, while the agent was speaking,
she glided quickly past him, her black eyes fixed upon his,
and, before he was aware of her intention, stood, brandishing
the weapon, between himself and the door, as if
defying his egress without a deadly struggle.
This change of incident was quite unlooked-for on the
part of the somewhat timid, though unscrupulous, collector
of Mordecai Kolephat's rents. To be tongue-lashed by
Xantippean tenants, had generally afforded him a piquant
passage-at-arms, in which his own Billingsgate vocabulary
was usually more than enough to silence any adversary;
nay, to be occasionally grappled by a bellicose Amazon
somewhat the worse for liquor, had never caused flinching
on the part of the truculent agent—inasmuch as a backhanded
blow or straightforward kick was, in most cases,
as in his interview with Mrs. Keeley, sufficient to settle all
female opposition; but in the present instance, when a
gaunt and powerful Italian hag, armed with a keen dagger,
disputed his right of way, while two others, with
darkening countenances, seemed ready to rush to her
assistance, it is not to be wondered at if Peleg Ferret
grew somewhat nervous, and, in view of all the
-- 341 --
[figure description] Page 341.[end figure description]
circumstances, appeared rather more inclined to parley than to
fight. He stood irresolute a moment, with foot advanced,
and one hand rubbing his smoothly-shaved chin—then, in
a tone of much more suavity than he had previously seen
fit to use, remarked—
“You're goin' agin the law, and can be put in prison—
don't you know that?”
The woman, in reply, only made an impatient gesture,
signifying a demand for the restoration of her property.
“What good is a pawn-ticket?” pursued Peleg.
“'Tain't no family jewel, I reckon. What do you consider
such a piece o' paper wu'th? I'm willin' to pay you anything
reasonable. That's fair—ain't it? Come, you and
I can settle it, I guess.”
But no audible response to these cajoling words came
from the gloomy Italian woman, whose bright eyes wandered
not from his own, and who pointed the stiletto
downward, as though indicating the place where Ferret
had deposited the ticket. Peleg began to feel really
uncomfortable, under the regards of those glittering eyes,
that were triplicated by the orbs of two other quite as
fierce-looking females. He thrust one hand into his
pocket, and began to fumble for the scrap of paper that
he had feloniously appropriated; for the unpleasant
thought occurred to him, that however autocratic he
might be in his own domain of Kolephat College, he was
here, in a strange tenant-house, of very little account at
all, and far more liable to receive a fatal thrust from a
well-driven dagger, than if, instead of being Peleg Ferret,
he was simply some vagabondizing organ-grinder, or other
-- 342 --
[figure description] Page 342.[end figure description]
garlic-scented foreigner, to whom stiletto-playing was
natural as eating maccaroni. He was on the point, therefore,
after a few reflections like this, of drawing out the
pawn-ticket, for the purpose of restoration, when a low
knock startled both himself and the Italian woman, and
the next instant the door was lightly opened, and an
astonishing presence became suddenly visible, within the
threshold, and just behind his armed antagonist.
Well might Peleg Ferret, coarse-grained and flinty-souled
though he was, look with wonder at the vision of
loveliness disclosed to his gaze. A child of ten years,
graceful and symmetric as a fawn, with face of surprising
beauty—dark, lustrous eyes, rosy lips, forehead low and
broad, and covered with clustering curls that hung thickly
over her dazzling neck and shoulders; her figure clothed,
or rather draped, with a short, semi-transparent gauze
robe, bedizened with spangles and brilliants of paste, her
clear-veined bosom half-exposed, as well as her lower
limbs, below the tunic edges, which were clad in flesh-colored
stockings, while the small and exquisitely shaped
feet below were cased in white satin slippers, clasped by
glittering buckles—such was the strange but radiant
object that lightened, as it were, within the dusky tenant-room,
making it, all at once, redolent of fairy land.
The agent drew back an instant, almost frightened at
the apparition, but a second glance revealed to his practised
eye the meretricious character of what he beheld.
There were beauty and grace before him, it was true, and
sparkling, buoyant childhood. A light, ringing laugh,
melodious as a bird-song, broke, moreover, from the
-- 343 --
[figure description] Page 343.[end figure description]
parted lips of the young maid; but Peleg saw upon her
form the tawdry trappings of a cheap theatre, the gewgaws
and finery of some humble stage; for he, shrewd
agent, and experienced collector of rents, had often encountered
in bar-rooms and garrets the coryphees and
ballet-nymphs of scenic life — encountered them, poor
wretches! on his weekly rounds, receiving from their
thin, cold hands, as they shivered in fireless rooms, the
hard-earned dollar of rent, wrung from the miserable
wages of their nightly exposures on the unhealthy boards
of theatres. Speedily, therefore, as his cold glance fell
upon the gauze-robed vision, the transient charm of her
luminous entry faded from his mind, and he beheld a
lovely child, it is true, but only a child of the foot-lights,
of the tenant-house, of the streets.
And the little one herself paused, faltered, and shrank
back, beneath the narrow, crafty look of the strange man
in Monna Maria's apartment. Poor child! it was evident
that, in her low knock, and sudden appearance, she had
sought, in the innocent merriment of her heart, to cause a
little surprise to her Italian friends; for it was Ninetta,
the youthful dansense, who, on her way to a morning
rehearsal, clad in her poor finery, had taken off at the
door a thick cloak that sheltered her, and removed the
thick, long boots in which her small feet had been hidden,
in order to enter at once, like a fairy just evoked, thus
pleasantly to greet the youngsters whom she expected
were within, and, perhaps, to call a smile to Monna
Maria's morose countenance. Poor child, indeed! trembling
and ready to burst into tears, she stood, a moment,
-- 344 --
[figure description] Page 344.[end figure description]
while the door remained ajar, and then, slowly retreating,
caught up her thick cloak and boots, that she had let
fall outside the threshold, and hastily throwing the former
over her shoulders, bounded past the Italian woman and
her strange visitor, and sank sobbing in a corner of the
room, between the two young women, who immediately
flew to her.
Peleg Ferret, meantime, had not been idle. His cunning
eye, while it measured the dancing girl, her beauty,
and the fustian which covered it, watched, at the same
time, the movements of his adversary, whose attention,
attracted momentarily by Ninetta's appearance, was the
next instant diverted by the child's rapid transit across
the floor. In that instant, the agent sprang forward,
struck a violent blow upon Monna Maria's uplifted arm,
and then, stooping to avoid any missile, darted along the
dark passageway, and down the steep staircase, at a speed
which presently bore him out of reach of pursuit, and
safe upon the street pavement in front of the tenant-house.
Arrived there, he walked leisurely, drawing from
his pocket the pawnbroker's ticket that he had been so
near relinquishing to the Italian Amazon.
It was of the common stamp of duplicates, two or three
figures designating its number in a multitude of pledges;
and when Mordecai Kolephat examined it sharply afterwards,
when listening to Ferret's account of his search,
the old man shook his head doubtfully. Nevertheless, it
was a clue, and he lost no time in accompanying his agent
to the dingy shop of the money-lender whose receipt it
purported to be: a memorial-place of shattered fortunes,
-- 345 --
[figure description] Page 345.[end figure description]
ruined hopes, despairing efforts, in the guise of many a
cherished relic of the past, piled together upon dusty
shelves, or thrust out of sight in recesses of gloomy
drawers. But the date of the ticket was remote, and no
satisfactory information could be obtained respecting that
which it purported to represent. The trinket might have
long since been sold, was the pawnbroker's opinion; could
have been of little value, from the fact that but a few
shillings had been loaned upon it. It might or might not
be among the accumulated rubbish of years; but, to
oblige the respected Mr. Kolephat, his books would be
ransacked, and, if possible, the article should be traced.
So the rich man left the money-lender's door, surmounted
by triple-balls, no wiser than he came, but with bowed
head and dejected air.
Peleg Ferret, however, did not seem to be discouraged;
but Peleg was a shrewd business-man, and well knew his
own interest. He had evinced commendable zeal, in
obtaining even so slight a memorial of Old Pris as the
duplicate was believed to be, and knew, consequently,
that this fact would go deeply to his credit in the old
man's memory. But the collector did not disclose to
Kolephat the conjectures that possessed his own mind,
linking the dancing-child whom he had seen for a moment
in Monna Maria's apartment with the Hebrew's long-lost
daughter. He had not even adverted to his meeting with
the beautiful child, because, as a faithful agent, he knew
the value of caution, and resolved to nurse, as it were, his
present relations with Mordecai, the better to secure his
own interest, when success should reward his perseverance
-- 346 --
[figure description] Page 346.[end figure description]
in the search. With this view, therefore, he preserved
strict silence regarding his intentions, only assuring the
melancholy old man that he should be unrelaxing in the
task committed to his care; to which the Jew, with
broken voice, replied, in parting from him—
“Ferret, I confide in you! Leave no stone unturned,
and you shall be—richly rewarded!”
“I'll take care o' that,” muttered the agent to himself,
as he turned away. “Whatever is found out must be
found out by me! Leave me alone for takin' care of
No. 1.”
And, pleased with this estimate of himself, Peleg Ferret
resolved upon making himself further acquainted with the
theatrical protége of Monna Maria, the Italian.
-- 347 -- p553-354
Chapter XXVI. The Inventor's Wife.
[figure description] Page 347.[end figure description]
WHEN Mr. Jobson, the benevolent broker, diverged
from the side of Emily Marvin, his feelings of disappointment
at the orphan's decided rejection of his liberal
offers of protection, found vent in sundry tossings of
the head and smackings of the lips, as though he would
have given utterance to—“Ha, ha! we shall see!”—
“Pride and poverty!” and the like objurgatory sentences.
At the same time, an expression of no very gentle
character dwelt on the features of the man of business,
gradually deepening and darkening, as he hurried along,
into a facial gloom of the most threatening description;
and it was with this countenance, betokening no charitable
mood within, that he turned abruptly, at the corner of
a block in the next street, and penetrating a few steps
into an alley-way, stopped before the door of a small
wooden house, and thereat knocked with a most portentous
violence. It was immediately opened by a man, who,
upon seeing his visitor, shrunk mechanically backward.
“Aha, Dobbs! I've caught you—have I? You'd like
to have been out, eh? But I'm too smart for you, you
know, Dobbs, my good fellow.”
-- 348 --
[figure description] Page 348.[end figure description]
Saying this, and with a malicious grin, Mr. Jobson
pushed forward, backing the unresisting Dobbs into a
little entry-way, and thence into an apartment plainly
furnished, and having a cheap cotton curtain drawn across
one side, as if to conceal some bed or recess. A female
child, who had apparently been reading, sat with a book
upon her lap, near a small table, on which a candle was
burning, and, in a corner behind the stove, a woman
reclined in a rocking-chair.
“Go in, Dobbs—go in, I say!” exclaimed Jobson, as
his portly person pressed against the little man. “Comfortable
you have it here! Where's that brother of
yours—heh, Dobbs—the crazy fellow, you know?”
All this time, the proprietor of the humble dwelling
had been pushed forward into the middle of the room,
without venturing a word of reply to the broker, whose
overbearing manner appeared to deprive him of all resolution;
and now he silently dusted a chair, and handed it
to Jobson, who seated himself in it with a crash, and
drawing out his handkerchief, snorted loudly, and then
pursing his lips, commenced, with elevated head, a survey
of the apartment and its inmates.
“My brother is—in his room,” hesitated Dobbs.
“Aha! got a room to himself—heh? What's the
crazy man doing?—writing his book, I s'pose, Dobbs!”
“Walter is engaged, as usual,” said Dobbs, apologetically;
“but” —
“Oh, yes!—always a `but,' you know, Dobbs! If
it wasn't for `buts,' your good-for-nothing gim-cracks
might have made your fortune before this. But”—and
-- 349 --
[figure description] Page 349.[end figure description]
here the broker paused, and fixed his eyes upon the
inventor, whose cheek grew pale—“But, my fine fellow, I
want to know where's the eighty or ninety dollars you
owe me to come from? That's the `but' I'd like to have
answered.”
Mr. Jobson threw his right leg over his left, and began
to nurse it, while he elevated his chin to an angle, and
contracted his brows. Dobbs seemed to be incapable of
replying, but a voice from the corner here interposed
suddenly.
“Hubert! ask him to lend you the money at a hundred
per cent. interest,” said this voice, in a quavering tone
that indicated weakness, while, at the same time, it was
dry and caustic. Jobson turned suddenly towards the
stove.
“Aha!” he exclaimed, “so that's your drunken wife
that I've heard of! A sharp tongue's in the jade's head,
anyhow. I pity you, Dobbs—'pon my word, I do.” The
broker gave way to a chuckle, which was manifestly
forced.
“Pity him!” echoed the woman, who now rose suddenly
from her seat, and advanced towards the agent, in
spite of her husband's efforts to seize her hand and restrain
her. “Let me alone, Hubert! I'm not drunk
now!” she cried, stepping before the inventor, and placing
herself directly opposite Jobson, who grasped his gold-headed
cane, as if apprehensive of an assault. “Pity
him!—and well you may! you, who scrape dollars together,
and pass your days and nights in scheming to
defraud and oppress your fellow men! You may well
-- 350 --
[figure description] Page 350.[end figure description]
pity and despise the wretched husband of a worthless
wife!”
The woman dashed her hand to her forehead, as she
uttered these words, as if to cover the burning tears that
gushed from her inflamed eyes.
“Oh, Maria! Maria! do not talk so!” exclaimed her
husband. “It is not your fault! You are not worthless!
I ought never to have brought you to poverty by
my folly—my folly!”
Dobbs tried to take his wife's hand, as he said this, but
she waved him back.
“Hubert! leave me alone! This man has come here
to insult us because you have the misfortune to be in his
debt! He has heard the truth concerning me—that I
am drunken, worthless—a disgrace to you and to my
child!”—
“Oh, no! no, Maria!” cried the poor husband, lifting
his hands in supplication.
“I say, he has heard the truth!” went on the woman,
with strange composure. “And he comes here to insult,
to tread upon us, in our poverty and shame. Is it not
so?” she demanded, fiercely, of Jobson, with a step
nearer to him, as she spoke.
“I—I want my money,” replied the broker, quailing,
in spite of himself, before the determined bearing of the
woman whom he had exasperated. “I ask nothing but
my due!”
“Yes! your due!” repeated the female, scornfully.
“You found my poor, but honest, sensitively honest husband,
struggling, as none but he has ever struggled, to
-- 351 --
[figure description] Page 351.[end figure description]
overcome reverses, and obtain a livelihood. You leased
him this little but, exacting an exorbitant rent, and when,
in the effort to perfect his inventions, he found himself
cramped for means, you were pleased to take a mortgage
on machinery worth ten times the paltry debt which he
had contracted.”—
“And where's my security?—what have I to show for
my money?” interrupted the agent.
“What has he to show for years of patient labor?—
for months of privation?” cried the woman. “The fire
that destroyed your security, left him likewise a ruined
man—his shop, his machinery, his models—all gone!”
“Too true! too true!” murmured Dobbs, who had
retreated behind the stove, listening with trepidation
to his wife's defiant rehearsal of his transactions with
Jobson.
“I've got nothing to do with your husband's misfortunes,”
rejoined the broker, in a blustering tone. “If
he's a mind to be a fool, its his own look-out! I didn't
saddle troubles on him! All I want is my own, and that
I'll have, you know, ma'am—that I'll have.”
“And I'll pay, Mr. Jobson!” ejaculated Dobbs. “Every
cent—if you'll only give a little time. It's all I ask.”
“Yes—time!” sneered the agent. “And my rent runnin'
on! I tell you what, Dobbs, your family is entirely
too expensive for me. Two things are enough to make a
man poor, you know—a crazy brother, and a” —
Jobson laughed sardonically, and rapped the floor with
his cane.
“`Drunken wife,' you were about to say, Mr. Jobson,”
-- 352 --
[figure description] Page 352.[end figure description]
cried the woman, quickly. “Speak openly, sir; it is the
truth!”
“Well, drunken wife, if you wish, ma'am,” returned
the broker, maliciously.
At this moment, the curtain that hung near the wall
was violently agitated, and presently fell, detached from
the cord by which it was suspended, disclosing an extended
arm and hand, and the face of a man of about
thirty years of age, who lay extended on a settee, and
propped up by pillows. This man was dark in complexion,
with strongly defined lineaments, a profusion of
black, curling hair, and heavy beard of the same color.
His cheeks were lank and sallow, as from disease, and his
eyes sunken, but, at the present time, seemed to burn with
excitement, as they were directed full upon the broker's
countenance.
The unlooked-for apparition, so ghostly, yet threatening,
had the effect of disturbing Mr. Jobson's equanimity,
more than had all the denunciations of his debtor's wife.
The color retreated from his plethoric cheeks, and he
instinctively moved his chair backward But Mrs. Hubert
Dobbs raised her hand, as if to calm the invalid's emotion,
while her husband stole away from his corner, clasping
with one hand the young child, who had crept near her
father during the scene, and was looking anxiously up into
his troubled face.
“Well, sir!” said the woman, pointing to the agitated
stranger on the settee, “you have sneered at and insulted
your poor debtor before one who knows him not—you
have called me a drunken wife, which is, as I said, the
-- 353 --
[figure description] Page 353.[end figure description]
truth! for I came home here, last night, to my husband
and child, brutally intoxicated and helpless!—as I have
done a hundred times before. Now, hear me, you who
have branded me, and you, Hubert, my abused and patient
husband—and you, sir,” she added, turning to the invalid,
“whoever you are, whom his kindness shelters! hear what
I have now to say! Alice, bring me that book.” —
The child left her father's side, and approaching her
mother timidly, handed her the volume that she had been
reading and still retained in her hand. It was a small
Bible, which the woman, as she received it, raised to her
lips, and then, sinking suddenly upon her knees, pressed it
convulsively to her bosom.
“Hear me, Father of Heaven!” she exclaimed, raising
her hands as they clasped the book. “Be witness, I pray
Thee, to my sorrow and repentance for the past, as I now
promise, with thy help, never to let a drop of intoxicating
drink pass these lips of mine! O God! I pray thee to
assist me in keeping this sacred pledge!”
For an instant, there was utter silence in the room.
Even Jobson, cold and calculating as he was, seemed
momentarily impressed with the solemn intensity of the
woman's pledge—the deep contrition that was apparent
in her words and action. Then, all at once, as if it were
an effort for breath, a sobbing sound burst from the
husband's bosom, echoed by his child's cry of irrepressible
joy. But the sob was not one of sorrow—it was the glad,
overpowering expression of his thankful heart, as the
poor man sprang forward, and clasped his wife to his
heart, regardless of his hard creditor—thoughtless of
-- 354 --
[figure description] Page 354.[end figure description]
aught save her who had spoken these blessed words—he
folded in his arms a new love—a spirit disenthralled—the
bride of his youth, the redeemed mother of his child.
Mr. Jobson, real estate broker and agent, felt decidedly
de trop. He drew his portly form, bolt upright in the
chair, and glanced, with determined contempt, around.
Before him, he beheld the group of father, mother, and
child weeping in each other's arms; he glanced at the
settee, and saw that its occupant had covered his face
with his hands, and turned to the wall; he heard a step
behind, and looking, discovered the inventor's brother,
Walter, who had emerged from his little study, and, like
a crazy man as he was, was kneeling in the middle of the
floor, uplifting hands and eyes as if in thanksgiving.
Mr. Jobson rubbed his chin, grasped his gold-headed cane,
and rose abruptly, with his back to all of them.
“Stay, sir!” said a deep voice; and the broker felt
that the bright dark eyes of the stranger on the settee
were fixed upon him. “I have a something—to say—to
you.”
The words were uttered slowly, as though with difficulty.
Jobson turned his face in the direction of the
voice, but not sufficiently to interrupt the invalid's glance.
“Well!” he exclaimed, impatiently, “what do you
want.”
“You will give this gentleman—Mr. Dobbs—a receipt,
in full, for—your claim.”
“I'll do no such thing!” began Jobson; but paused
immediately, as he beheld the stranger thrust his hand
beneath the bed-clothes, and draw out a belt, which his
-- 355 --
[figure description] Page 355.[end figure description]
quick eye saw was of the description wherein money is
carried.
“My good friend,” said the invalid, “in that belt—
there is money. Let the fellow be paid!”
The order was given in a deep, though trembling voice,
as the stranger let his belt drop beside the settee, and
then sank backward on the pillow, apparently exhausted.
Walter was by his side in a moment, supporting his head,
while he applied a phial of salts to his nostrils; for the
excitement in his weakened state, had caused the invalid
to faint. Hubert, obeying the stranger's words, lifted the
money-belt, which was heavy with gold; but, as he
opened it, he heard a mild voice at his side remark—
“Oh, don't trouble yourself now, Dobbs, my dear
friend! Call down at my office, at your leisure, you
know! I won't interrupt you at this moment, Dobbs—
you must be quite happy, you know! Mrs. Dobbs, and
all of you! Good-day, Mr. Dobbs. Any time, you know;
we can settle this little matter at my office, you know.”
Saying these words, and with the most placid smile
imaginable, Mr. Jobson, the broker, dusted his pantaloons
with his handkerchief smoothed his hat, and then, with a
bow that included Mr. and Mrs. Dobbs, the little girl,
crazy Walter, and the fainting man on the settee, gracefully
backed himself out of the room, and with gold-headed
cane and patent-leather boots, speedily departed
from the premises, while the now happy family turned
their united attention to restoring to animation the generous
stranger whose gratitude had interposed for their
salvation.
-- 356 -- p553-363
Chapter XXVII. The Ruined Gamester.
[figure description] Page 356.[end figure description]
“IS this true, that you tell me?—a child—a daughter
still living?”
These words were spoken by Charles Richmond to the
niece of Mordecai Kolephat, as they sat together in the
saloon which was their usual place of meeting. The
man's eyes were fixed upon the face of Rebecca, with a
gaze of singular intensity, beneath which the young girl
almost trembled.
“I overheard my uncle relating all that I have told
you, Charles, and, indeed, it frightened me nearly to
death.”
“It may be a fraud, Rebecca—an effort to extort
money.”
“Oh, no, indeed. Uncle has changed so much within
a few days. He wanders up and down the house continually,
and scarcely ever speaks to me. It's true—it's all
true, Charles; and that child, I know, will be found—
probably a beggar-girl, or something of the kind! Isn't
it dreadful?”
“And your uncle is rejoiced greatly, no doubt,” said
Richmond, shading his eyes, as he looked earnestly at his
-- 357 --
[figure description] Page 357.[end figure description]
companion. “And you?—is my sweet Rebecca to give
way for some coarse, low-bred girl?”
“I'm almost crazy about it. If it were not that you
love me, I should die with vexation. Dear Charles! I
thought I should be so happy in having uncle's property—
not for myself, really—no, indeed, but for you—indeed,
Charles, I” —
The lover remained silent. He was absorbed in thought,
and the low, passionate tones of Rebecca's voice appeared
to fall unheeded on his ear. It might be that a shadow
of what was to come fell across the girl's soul, as she
noticed his abstracted manner, for a sudden sigh agitated
her breast, and she paused irresolutely. Nevertheless,
whatever might be Richmond's reflections, he was too
much an adept in dissimulation to permit his countenance
to reveal them. He presently resumed the conversation,
in the light phrases of flattery and adulation which were
as music to the fond girl's ears, and thus the interview
passed, as many previous ones had, till the time for parting
came, and Rebecca hurried homeward, more than ever
a slave to the wiles of one who counterfeited all that she,
poor self-deceived, too deeply felt. Richmond left her, a
few squares from her uncle's residence, with his usual well-dissembled
reluctance; but, as he walked hurriedly away,
a frown dark as night gathered upon his forehead, and
the muscles of his full lip twitched convulsively.
“Curses!” he muttered, “have I played the fool with
this school-girl to no purpose, after all? A lost child!—
to rob me of the prize so nearly within my reach?”
He clenched his white teeth, and turning abruptly from
-- 358 --
[figure description] Page 358.[end figure description]
the thoroughfare which he was traversing, entered an
intersecting street, and ascended the steps of a house that
formed one of an elegant block. At a quick pull of the
bell-wire, the door was opened by a negro in livery, who,
bowing deferentially, ushered him to the interior. Apparently,
Richmond was no stranger in the house, for he at
once passed into a richly-furnished parlor, and thence to a
rear apartment, in which were several well-dressed men
grouped around a table, that they concealed from view,
while others lounged upon velvet couches, in various attitudes.
Upon a marble table in one corner stood various
liquors, in decanters of finely-cut glass. Though it was
mid-day without, the room was lit with gas, streaming
from a magnificent chandelier, and the windows were
draped with heavy curtains. Richmond nodded, as he
entered, to several whom he seemed to recognize, and
then, pausing at the table, lifted a glass, which was at
once filled with brandy by an obsequious waiter who stood
in attendance.
“Do you not play to-day, Richmond?” asked a young
man, approaching him, as he threw himself upon a sofa,
after quaffing the undiluted liquor.
“I may—presently,” he answered, absently. Then, as
if rousing himself, he said—“Have you luck?
“Indifferent,” returned the young man. “The play has
been deep all day, and I have ventured nothing of consequence.”
Richmond rose, and, with the other, approached the
group who surrounded the faro-table—men whom he knew
well, as they moved in the same circles with himself—
-- 359 --
[figure description] Page 359.[end figure description]
youths with beards of scarce a year's growth, and old
grey-haired men—but all more or less haggard, and with
nerves overstrung by the excitement of gaming. Only one
man at the table appeared to be unperturbed, and that
was the dealer of cards, whose countenance was wholly
expressionless in the light that fell from the gas jets
above him.
Richmond and his companion watched the changing
game for several minutes before either of them designated
a card, and then both staked largely, and both won.
“We are in the vein, perhaps,” said the former, and they
went on, winning still, and became mingled and undistinguishable
in the gambling coterie, who thronged about
the bank, under the sickly, artificial light that revealed
their set features, and disclosed, at times, what they would
fain conceal—the demoniac manifestations of avarice and
greed, of exultation, rage, and disappointment, of fear,
and often of despair.
The game went on in that quiet luxurious room—the
game in which souls were played for, even as in the lifegame
of the world without. It was no new thing to
Richmond. Thither, during years, had he come, in day
and in night, to yield to that deadly fascination which, by
slow but sure degrees, had brought him to the verge of
ruin. It was no new thing; but on this day he was, as
gamesters, in their superstition, term it, “in luck,” and
resolved to tempt Fortune to her utmost. So the hours
wore away, and the play went on heavily, until Charles
Richmond, who had entered the house nearly a ruined spendthrift,
found himself the possessor of many thousands.
-- 360 --
[figure description] Page 360.[end figure description]
Many new faces took the place of others around that
faro-table, as the hours fled silently, but Charles Richmond,
infatuated with his fortune, continued his play,
until, at length, there came a reverse, and he began to
lose as heavily as he had won. The uncertain goddess
who presides over the destinies of the gamester seemed
suddenly to have withdrawn her smiles, and the heaps of
counters that had accumulated to his credit, diminished
speedily as they had swollen. With his changing fortune,
Richmond's infatuation seemed to increase. Though a
practised gamester, a fiendish excitement grew upon him,
as again and again he flung his stakes upon the losing
cards. He spoke not, save to indicate, at times, his bet,
and then his voice was hoarse and broken; but ever and
anon he beckoned to the servant for the strong drink,
which was as fuel to his appetite for play. Many there
were, among the lookers-on, who had often seen Richmond
win and lose before, but always with the placid smile of
one who could preserve to himself the advantage of calmness;
but these observers now exchanged meaning glances,
perhaps of pity, but far likelier of satisfaction; for the
bank had won largely of them all, and misfortune courts
fellowship. Thus passed the day, though, in that strange
room, day and night were unknown, save by the strokes
of a bronze clock, upon a bracket, regularly chronicling
the hours during which fortunes changed their owners,
and peace vanished from many a bosom that was henceforth
to harbor only unquiet.
But all things must have a term; and at last the pallid
features of Charles Richmond waxed haggard and
-- 361 --
[figure description] Page 361.[end figure description]
unnatural, his lips quivered, as every card was turned, and he
more frequently lifted to his mouth the replenished goblet
of brandy. Therefore, none were surprised when, as the
relentless dealer swept a tall pile of his crimson counters
to the ever winning bank, the gamester suddenly dashed
his hand to his brow, and muttered in a hollow tone, “I'll
play no more;” then turned, and, staggering, would have
fallen to the floor, had not his relaxed frame been suddenly
upheld by a young man who had been for some time
regarding him intently.
“Peyton!' gasped the gamester, as he recognized his
supporter, who at once assisted him to a sofa. “Peyton,
I am ruined!” Then, overcome by the effect of his reckless
potations, he sank back unconscious.
“I looked for this,” said the young man, in a low
voice, as if addressing himself. “This, Helen, is your
husband!”
There was no exultation in the feeling with which the
spendthrift Peyton regarded the rival for whom his love,
years before, had been rejected by Helen Ellwood. Indeed,
as he had watched the desperate gamester during
the last hour, the young man's reflections had partaken
more of sorrow and pity for the poor wife than of satisfaction
in speculating upon the husband's impending ruin.
He had long known of Richmond's excesses at play, but
little dreamed he, even now, that the man before him was
not only himself impoverished, but that he had beggared
the woman who had bestowed her fortune and her love
upon one so unworthy of either.
“You must leave this place,” said Peyton, when, after
-- 362 --
[figure description] Page 362.[end figure description]
an interval, the gamester had somewhat recovered; and,
sustaining the wretched man, who, in the passiveness of
helpless intoxication, submitted to his control, he called
one of the lackeys to his assistance, and together they
supported Richmond to a carriage at the door, which he
then entered himself, ordering the driver to convey them
to that home where, his heart told him, their arrival would
bring sorrow and shame to the one who had been once too
dear to him.
It was near midnight when the coach reached Mrs.
Richmond's mansion, and to the quick summons a manservant
opened the door. Peyton had hoped that, at so
late an hour, the wife would have retired; but Helen,
anxious and alarmed, appeared upon the staircase, as her
intoxicated husband was borne into the hall. The light
from a chandclier fell upon his pale features, his disordered
hair, his sinking frame, and to the poor lady's
apprehensions, some calamity at once was presented. She
saw not her former suitor—saw nothing but the one
drooping form of her husband, as, flying down the stairs,
she flung herself upon his bosom, crying—“Charles!
beloved Charles!”
Peyton stood beside her, as she clung to the ruined
gamester, sinking on her knees beside his helpless frame,
which the servant supported. He smiled bitterly, and
said—
“Mrs. Richmond, compose yourself! Your husband is
not bodily injured; but he had better be removed to
bed.”
Helen had discovered, ere her ancient lover spoke, that
-- 363 --
[figure description] Page 363.[end figure description]
a too usual malady affected the miserable man, who had
now fallen insensible at her feet. A quick flush of shame
crimsoned her face, and her voice trembled, in replying—
“Mr. Peyton, pardon me! I thank you for your attention
to Charles. “And you will”—she hesitated. “It is
so terrible a thing to be known,” she added.
Peyton divined at once all the wife would have said—
her anxiety lost the world should hear of Richmond's
errors. He took the hand which she extended to him,
half-lifted it to his lips, and then, recollecting himself,
said, hurriedly—
“I leave him in your care. Good-night, Mrs. Richmond.”
Helen answered by a mute look of gratitude, and then
Peyton departed, with the memory of his old love in his
heart, causing pity for the wife to struggle with indignation
against the husband.
“Charles! beloved Charles! awake! speak to me!”
murmured the wretched woman, as she stooped over her
husband, who lay in a swoon upon the carpet, his head
supported by the old servant, who endeavored to raise
him. With difficulty, after summoning more assistance,
Richmond was carried to his own apartment; but for a
long time, after being laid upon the bed, he remained, as
he had fallen, rigid and insensible, Helen bending over
him with sobs and prayers. Once he seemed to revive,
his breath came thickly, and a shiver ran through his
limbs, but immediately afterwards the lethargy appeared
deeper; till at length Helen, greatly alarmed, dispatched
one of the servants for a physician, who, on arriving, at
-- 364 --
[figure description] Page 364.[end figure description]
once opened a vein, relieving the pressure of blood that
seemed to threaten death. Richmond at last opened his
eyes, but his wandering glances betokened that his mind
was as disordered as his body.
“Some sudden and extreme excitement, added to stimulus,
has induced this attack, which might, indeed, have
been fatal,” said the physician. “Has your husband's
mind been agitated, of late, Mrs. Richmond?”
“Alas! he never confided aught to me,” almost rose to
Helen's lips; but she murmured only a negative to the
doctor's question. “His health has appeared good,” she
added. “He has not complained.”
“His physical health is good, to all appearance,”
responded Dr. C—, “but some strong mental agitation
has brought on this paroxysm. He must be kept very
quiet.”
Richmond opened his eyes, and their glance flitted
restlessly from Helen to the doctor and the servants,
seemingly without recognition.
“Alas! he does not know me! Oh! this is dreadful!”
exclaimed the wife, throwing herself upon her knees
beside him. “Charles! dear Charles!”
“My dear madam, command yourself. He must be
kept very still,” said Dr. C—, in a sympathizing tone.
Then, after a few requisite directions to the servant who
attended, he took his leave. Helen, as the door closed
behind him, sobbed heavily, and leaned her head upon
her husband's breast.
Hours thus passed away, interrupted only by the entrance
and withdrawal of the attendant, with Dr. C—'s
-- 365 --
[figure description] Page 365.[end figure description]
prescriptions; but Helen still kept her place beside Richmond,
watching his face, as he lay with closed eyes and
lips parted, breathing heavily, and, it seemed, painfully;
for, at intervals, his respiration grew thick, and his throat
was spasmodically contracted—at which times, the wife
would bend wildly forward, crying—“Charles! dear
Charles!”
Richmond reclined on his back, his hands beside him,
the fingers slightly clenched. Helen had twined one of her
delicate arms about his neck, supporting his head, while
the other rested lightly on his breast, and wiped away,
anxiously, the heavy sweat that gathered on his forehead.
The chandelier lights cast a subdued radiance through
their shaded globes, a time-piece ticked slowly in the next
apartment, and against the window-blinds pattered drops
of rain, that had begun falling since midnight.
Suddenly Richmond started from the pillow, and uttered
a sharp cry, his eyes opening, at the same time, in a wide
stare. helen threw her arms around him, but he wrestled
violently, endeavoring to release himself.
“Charles! my husband! lie down! do not excite yourself—
you are ill, dear love!—let me implore you” —
“Give me another chance! I double the stakes! I've
won—I've won!”
“Charles! husband!”
“Let the Jew take my bet—I'll play against him till
midnight. Hah! they say I murdered Helen!—it is a
lie!”
It was pitiable to behold the brilliant Charles Richmond,
tossing and struggling on his bed, as bewildered
-- 366 --
[figure description] Page 366.[end figure description]
fancies chased one another through his brain. Helen
clung to his bosom, pressed her lips to his fevered brow,
and strove, with tender words, to recall his wandering
senses. But the frenzy, instead of diminishing, seemed to
wax in power, till at length the man shook her roughly
from him, and leaping from the bed, strode violently to
and fro on the floor, beating his breast and forehead
with clenched hands. The wife followed his footsteps,
clasping momently his arm, unheeding the fury with which
he repulsed her. Still she murmured, “Charles! beloved!
it is Helen—it is your wife, who loves you better than all
the world!”
“Give me my coat—my hat!—do you hear?” cried
Richmond, abruptly, glancing, as he spoke, upon the old
servant, who trembled, in witnessing his master's fierce
derangement.
“Dear husband! lie down, lie down, I pray!” pleaded
Helen; but the maniac laughed, and muttered—
“I'll have my revenge, this time! Rebecca! you—
you shall be my fortune” —
Rebecca! the name of a woman, breathed from her
husband's lips, fell like ice upon Helen's heart; but she
still clasped Richmond's arm, and prayed that he would
lie down—that he would rest.
“For the love of Heaven, Charles, listen to your wife!”
“Wife!—I have no wife!” exclaimed the gamester.
“She is dead—and now, sweet Rebecca! we can be
married.”
Again! that woman's name! Will Helen's heart bear
all, and break not?” She pleaded still—
-- 367 --
[figure description] Page 367.[end figure description]
“Charles! you must not agitate yourself—O hear
me!”
But Richmond, in his delirium, lifted his hand, and,
ere the servant could rush forward to restrain him, struck
the clinging woman twice upon her forehead, and she fell
by his side upon the floor. Then, as the paroxysm gave
way to weakness, he staggered, and fell back upon the
bed.
-- 368 -- p553-375
Chapter XXVIII. Scenes in Kolephat College.
[figure description] Page 368.[end figure description]
MR. GRANBY was not one to forget his good intentions;
and the project of establishing a day-school,
under Margaret Winston's care, in the very heart of that
moral desert which was bounded by the confines of Kolephat
College, occupied his thoughts constantly, from the
hour of his conversation with the seamstress, until the
morning, three days afterwards, when, accompanied by
Samson and Rob Morrison, he found himself seated in an
apartment of the tenant-house just converted into a
school-room, by the introduction of a few deal benches and
a low desk, with a black-board elevated behind it. There
was but little room to spare in the place, after disposition
of those articles; for it was the miserable apartment that
had been occupied by the mother of little Fanny, and in
which that forsaken woman had perished in darkness and
alone. But its more gloomy features were now concealed
by a coat of whitewash on the walls, and some necessary
ventilation had been procured by means of an aperture cut
above the door, corresponding to a plate of perforated tin
in the window. In this rude temple of letters, Mr. Granby
-- 369 --
[figure description] Page 369.[end figure description]
now filled a chair, near the desk, at which Margaret was
seated, whilst Samson stood by the door, and a dozen
children of tender ages, including Rob, Harry, and Fanny,
were ranged upon the wooden benches.
The group of stranger urchins was motley enough, it
must be said. Gathered from the alley without, and
dingy entries within, they had been bribed by Samson,
with pieces of bread, coaxed by Fanny and Harry, with
childish argument, and lured not a little, at last, by the
kind voice of Margaret, to trust themselves over the
threshold of that untried bourne—a school-room. Clothed,
or rather unclad, in habitual tatters, their hands begrimed
with filth, eyes bleared, and hair matted, these little
waifs of Kolephat College were aught but agreeable to a
refined taste, and the odor of their old rags, when it
became released by the heat of the stove, was anything
but pleasant to the senses. Their faces, too, as they were
turned in stupid wonder towards Margaret, exhibited little
to attract love or sympathy; for, infants as they were,
there could yet be noticed traits of vindictive passion,
precocious cunning, and leering mischief, in the lineaments
that were half concealed by indurated dirt. Nevertheless,
to the eyes of Mr. Granby and his protegee, Margaret, the
row of ragged children was full of deep interest, since, in
their estimation, each individual in it was representative
of diverse neglected classes of the human family. The
weird-looking boy who sat upon the right, and who had
yesterday stood at a street-crossing, sweeping the pavement,
with a shrill cry of “Please, gi'me penny,” to every
passer-by—that urchin, with unkempt, tangled hair, face
-- 370 --
[figure description] Page 370.[end figure description]
prematurely old, and mouth distorted by an elfin grin—
that infant outcast was, in their regard, a holy thing—for
it was human, instinct with life, endued with a soul. It
occupied, in their understanding, more space than the
square of pine board which formed its seat; for it was an
integer of creation, a tabernacle of spirit, a link in the
chain of all immortal beings. And though, like the rest
of its sordid companions, it rested uneasily immobile,
shrinking, as it were, shamefaced, down to dust—like unto
the lowest scale of God's creatures. Mr. Granby and
Margaret felt that it was kindred even with them, and the
former whispered, earnestly—
“These little ones are pleading with us to be made
clean, to be fed, and to be clothed.”
“And to be made angels!” answered Margery, softly,
with a divine look radiating from her clear eyes.
“You are right, Miss Winston—they ask to be made
angels, and we, as Christians, must answer their appeal.
Truly, we, who are educated and refined, and who trust to
be redeemed, have a mission confided to us, in behalf of
these unfortunates. I have been thinking that they illustrate
the parable of the talent which was given unto the
faithful steward. They are as priceless jewels, indeed,
placed in charge of Christians, and ought not to be hidden
in dust under the world's feet; for our Lord will require
usury for them at the last day. Look, Miss Winston!
does not yonder infant man plead with us that he may be
made useful?—does he not seem to ask that his limbs, his
heart, his soul, shall be placed at interest for his Lord?
In the name of his wretched class, in the name of Him
-- 371 --
[figure description] Page 371.[end figure description]
whose workmanship is degraded by his abasement, he
pleads that we, as stewards of the Lord Christ, shall not
leave him in the desert of the streets. Oh, Miss! would
not that shrivelled form and the shrunken soul it hides,
covered with dust on the Judgment Day, be a terrible
evidence of unfaithful stewardship, were our Master to say
to one of us, `Thou oughtest to have put my money to
the exchangers, and then, at my coming, I should have
received mine own with usury!”'
Margery was silent, but her expressive face responded
to Mr. Granby's words, as she proceeded in the task of
endeavoring to interest her untutored charge. In accomplishing
this, the new teacher found valuable auxilliaries
not only in her kind patron, but in Harry, and Fanny, and
Rob Morrison. The latter, indeed, appeared to give himself
entirely to the business—following Margaret's fingers,
as they traced letters on the black-board, or listening
eagerly to her explanations, with an interest that never
flagged a moment. The other children grew, little by
little, more accustomed to their novel position, and soon
vied with one another in answering quickly such simple
questions as the teacher asked; so that, in the course of
a few hours' session, Mr. Granby, with much satisfaction,
felt that the Tenant-House School was an accomplished
fact, and that Miss Winston was a teacher of whom he, as
“Committee-man,” might well be proud.
But it was still more satisfactory, at the close of the
first morning of tuition—after a brief prayer had fallen
upon the children's unaccustomed ears—to see the good
Samson, with smiles breaking over all his features, raise
-- 372 --
[figure description] Page 372.[end figure description]
the lid of a covered basket, which he had concealed till
then, and thence taking generous buttered cakes, of
Mrs. George's own preparation, distribute them equitably
among his ragged little clients, whose eyes danced with
hungry delight. And it was more affecting than all to
observe Margery weeping, as she sat holding Fanny and
Harry by the hand a moment, and watching the poor
little ones, as they awkwardly received their biscuits, and
then stooping down, as they crept, one by one, to her knee,
and kissing their thin faces, soiled and unhandsome as they
were—kissing them with a smile and tear, and bidding
them to be good, and come regularly to school.
“God bless you!” said Mr. Granby, warmly, after the
children had quietly left the room, and then broken wildly
down the stairs, eager to disperse to their separate domiciles,
to tell parents, or such other poor protectors as they
owned, the story of their new adventure. “God bless
you, Miss Winston!”
“Dat he will—an' yourse'f, too, massa!” cried Samson,
who held one handle of his basket, while Rob Morrison
grasped the other.
Then, shaking Margery by the hand, the old gentleman,
followed by his servant, descended to the front door of
Kolephat College, but found his progress suddenly arrested
by a throng of tenants who stood around the threshold,
blocking up the narrow alley-way. These people seemed
to be much excited, and were talking in a variety of
idioms, among which the Irish brogue was most distinguishable.
“Bless me, Samson! what is the matter?” ejaculated
-- 373 --
[figure description] Page 373.[end figure description]
Mr. Granby, as he saw the crowd before him, which the
negro was endeavoring to penetrate.
“Sure, it's a dead woman,” answered a stout, broad-featured
Irishwoman, who stood directly in the entrance,
her naked arms blue from cold, and dripping, at the same
time, with soap-suds. “Sure, it's that poor crathur,
Mrs. Keeley, that's kilt an' murthered by the ould thafe
o' the wor-r-ld, Ferret, bad cess to him.”
“Murdered? what is that?—a woman murdered?”
exclaimed Mr. Granby, greatly shocked. “Where are the
police?”
“Sure, an' if it's not murthered, what is it?” cried the
Hibernian female. “The black-hearted ould villyan tuk
the poor sowl's bed from undher her, and” —
“Where is she, my good woman—this person of whom
you speak?”
“Is it her ye mane? Down there!—in the cellar!”
answered the tenant, pointing to an opening, near the
door, which was the entrance to certain subterranean
depths, used formerly for the stabling of horses, but now
as dwelling-places for the poorest of those wretched ones
who swarmed about the dismal neighborhood. Mr. Granby
found that the crowd made way for him, as, followed by
Samson, he moved towards the cellar-mouth, beneath
which were several decayed and water-soaked wooden
steps, descending to a darkness like that of night. The
old gentleman paused, for it scarcely seemed to him that
a human being could exist in such a place as this appeared
to be; but he heard, at this moment, a sound as of voices
below, and Samson said—
-- 374 --
[figure description] Page 374.[end figure description]
“Massa Granby, please!—I'll go down dere fust.”
So saying, the negro, leaving Rob Morrison in charge
of the basket, bent his stalwart frame, and, stooping
under the low cross-piece, let himself down to the damp
and chilly abode, into which but a few day-beams struggled,
scarcely discovering the figures of two or three men
and women, who stood in the middle of the clay floor,
looking solemnly upon a woman, who lay outstretched,
with head thrown back, and eyes set in the last stare of
death. There was not a particle of furniture in the cellar,
and scarcely rags enough upon the corpse to cover nakedness.
A few feet from the spot where it was extended,
appeared a hillock of discolored snow, frozen hard, the
remains of a heap that had gathered just under the single
narrow window, level with the ground above, through
which it had drifted during the previous week's storm.
All the rest of the floor was hard clay, save in a depression
near one corner, where a pool of dirty water had
congealed to ice. But the most melancholy spectacle of
all was the form of a child, lying prone over the dead
woman's body, its small face pressed against the breast,
its skeleton arms clasped about the neck. The negro, as
he entered, and, after remaining a moment, became able
to distinguish objects, shuddered, and gave utterance to
an exclamation of horror.
Oh! Samson, it is exceedingly dark,” said Mr. Granby,
who was just behind him.
“Look! look at dat, massa!” responded the negro,
directing the old gentleman's gaze to the object at their
feet. Mr. Granby did look, and, like his servant, seemed
-- 375 --
[figure description] Page 375.[end figure description]
transfixed in dread surprise. But before either of them
could make any further inquiries concerning what they
saw, a shout arose above in the alley-way, and the next
moment a man precipitated himself down the broken steps,
and dashed into the cellar, a dozen of the tenants following
closely. As the crowd entered, the darkness became for a
moment opaque, and it was a minute before Mr. Granby
was again enabled to discern aught near him. Then he
heard a wild cry, and saw another form lying loose beside
the dead woman.
“It's Keeley,” said the voice of the Irish laundress,
who was among those who had entered. “It's the poor
body's husband!”
It was, indeed, the wretched Keeley, whom we last
encountered in the beer-shop, calling for fiery draughts of
brandy, to feed the unnatural thirst which consumed him,
while his deserted wife was starving in the garret of
Kolephat College. Driven to and fro by the demon of
his appetite, the drunkard had wandered, during a week
past, from grocery to bar-room, from one degraded resort
to another, squandering the gold which he had stolen from
Mallory, until at length, in his stupor, he had staggered
near the cellar, and heard a single word that sobered him
at once. And now, with fingers clutching his hair, and
froth gathered upon his lip, he lay beside the corpse of
his wife, and howled in the agony of unavailing remorse.
Then Mr. Granby heard, from the lips of those who
stood irresolutely around, how the agent of the tenant-house,
in the “strict” discharge of his duty, had evicted
the woman from the miserable garret in which she was
-- 376 --
[figure description] Page 376.[end figure description]
dying; how she had been dragged away, with her child,
and then returned, and crawled into this horrible cellar,
and there lay down and died; how, finally, the screams
of the orphan Moll had made known the fact to tenants
above, and —
Mr. Granby desired to listen no longer; for the rest
was revealed at his feet. He gave orders to Samson to
remain, and make such dispositions as were needful for
the immediate relief of the child, while he himself hurriedly
left the cellar, accompanied by Rob Morrison, whose
hand he grasped tightly. But when he had proceeded a
little way, he heard a sob at his side, and observed that
the Weasel was weeping, though, when noticed, the boy
brushed his eyes with the sleeve of his jacket, and turned
away his head.
“Rob—Robert, my boy, what is the matter?” asked
Mr. Granby, pausing in his walk. But the Weasel only
sobbed the more.
“It was a sad thing,” said Mr. Granby, supposing that
his protégé was thinking of the scene just witnessed.
Bob shook his head, and then murmured—
“Please, sir—Mr. Granby—don't be mad with me.”
“What, my boy?” asked the old gentleman, much
astonished at the boy's demeanor.
“'Cause—it made me cry. Folks all'ays said I was
born in a cellar, too—an' mother died—same way.” —
The poor boy stopped, and vainly strove to check his
grief.
“O Father in Heaven!” murmured Mr. Granby, to
himself, as he felt a tear upon his own eyelid. “What
-- 377 --
[figure description] Page 377.[end figure description]
misery is in this world! Come, Rob,” he continued, in a
hurried tone, “let us go home.”
“Please, sir, won't you take care o' that poor little
girl?” asked the Weasel, as if suddenly summoning courage,
and holding hard on Mr. Granby's hand. “She's a
orphan, too!”
“That will I—that will I!” answered the old gentleman,
and then drew Rob Morrison along, without saying
more.
But when, at Mr. Granby's knock, good Mrs. George
presented herself in the hall, she lifted her hands, in amazement,
at beholding her patron and his young companion,
with misty eyes and tear-drops rolling down their cheeks.
“They've been to that tenant-house school,” thought
the housekeeper to herself. Mrs. George judged aright;
but she knew not that another orphan had been discovered—
that another pupil for the tenant-house school
was left by Death at the door of Charity.
Another, indeed; for already had Samson, in his
thoughtfulness, coaxed the half-starved Moll away from
her mother's cold form—the more easily because the
wretched child shrank from the father who had been her
tyrant—and conveyed her to the apartment of Margaret,
whose kindness soon won the orphan's confidence. The
negro then, after learning that Keeley, nearly crazy from
the effects of his long debauch, had again reeled away
from the cellar, directed his steps homeward, to acquaint
his master with what he had done.
Meantime, the child Fanny, after leaving the school-room,
had been sent by the seamstress, with a bowl of tea,
-- 378 --
[figure description] Page 378.[end figure description]
to the room of Mallory the Miser, who lay in his bed,
propped upon the pillow, that had been smoothed as
usual in the morning by Margaret's kind hands. On a
round wooden stand near him stood a broken tumbler,
half filled with water, and containing also the few withered
flowers which Fanny had obtained from Emily Marvin, as
a gift to the forlorn miser. The old man's eyes wandering
constantly, still returned to rest upon those faded emblems
of sweetness and beauty, and evermore his thin lips
moved, murmuring broken soliloquies.
“'Tis good she is—the little child! to come to an ould
man like me! It's not for my money she comes, anyhow,
I'll go bail. I'd like, if I could afford, to give her—a bit
of silver; but I'm too poor—I'm too poor!”
Thus babbled the aged miser to himself, as he watched
a single cold gleam of sunshine that penetrated the casement,
and sometimes trembled on the flowers in the broken
glass. Presently, he listened intently, for a light step was
at the door, and a moment afterwards, Fanny stole noiselessly
in, and crept to the bed-side.
“Please, sir, Miss Margery sent you this—it's real
nice!”
She presented, as she spoke, the tea, which Mallory
received with a grim smile, taking hold of Fanny's hand.
“You're a good child,” said he.
“Please, sir, Miss Margery is better than me,” answered
the girl. “Oh! I pray the Lord to make me as good as
she is.”
“The Lord—and what do you know about the Lord,
omadhaun?” asked Mallory, with a curious smile.
-- 379 --
[figure description] Page 379.[end figure description]
“You're mighty young, to be sp'akin' of prayers, I'm
thinkin'.”
Fanny looked wonderingly at the sinister face of her
questioner, and replied, seriously—
“The Lord Jesus was good, and gave me friends when
my mother died; and I want to pray to him all the time,
to thank him.”
These simple words were spoken in so earnest a tone
that Mallory remained silent, and an unusual feeling
seemed manifest in his features, as if a dim consciousness
of something wrong in his own nature were stirring in his
mind; but the next moment, he relinquished Fanny's
hand, and gave vent to a hard, dry laugh.
“Ye'd better go and pray, then, ye young saint,” he
said, sneeringly. “Maybe ye'll find a mare's nest. Good-bye
to ye. Take your teacup with you.”
Saying this, the miser handed Fanny the bowl, and
closed his eyes. The child lingered a moment, to arrnage
the bed-clothes, as she had seen Margaret do, and then
departed as quietly as she had come. Mallory, when he
was alone again, opened his eyes, and muttered an imprecation.
“Prayers!” he cried, nervously, turning on his
pillow. “It's prayers an' priestcraft that makes the
world as bad as it is. Bad luck to the” —
Mallory paused, for his glance fell upon the broken
tumbler, with its bunch of flowers, and the sunbeam glittering
on the glass, painting transparent hues in its passage
across the room. Queerly enough, as he looked, his
memory recalled a beautiful story that he had heard,
long ago, in his native land, of a poor idiot, or “
-- 380 --
[figure description] Page 380.[end figure description]
innocent,” as they called him, who, when a sunbeam fell
athwart his sight, as he knelt in church, cast his cloak
across it, thinking it palpable, and—the mantle hung
there, in mid-air, supported by the shining motes. Prayer
and Faith, so ran the legend, worked this miracle; for
Heaven would not disappoint the idiot's trust.
It was a strange thought to enter into Mallory's breast,
and he banished it, at once, and fiercely. Then, another
recollection beset him—of a story that had been rife
among the peasantry, when he was a boy, relating to a
rich man—an arrogant, sinful scoffer, a hater of his fellowmen,
and oppressor of the poor; whose life, indeed, was a
long scene of selfishness; and it chronicled how this man,
as he walked one day, beheld a miserable, mangy dog,
lying in the gutter, dying from starvation, yet too feeble
to move from the spot where he writhed; and how the
proud sinner, as in mere wantonness, kicked a bone that
lay in his path towards the perishing cur, and then went,
unthinkingly, on his way; and how the man died, and
went to doom—condemned to ever-during torment; but,
wonderful to tell, the foot which had kicked the bone
to a helpless dog, did not suffer, like the rest of his
body, in endless fire, but was thrust out of the flame
unscathed, because that limb alone had been the instrument
of the one good deed which the sinner had performed
in his earthly life.
Mallory, as he reflected, began to shudder, and a cold
sweat broke from his yellow face. He struggled to divest
himself of thought—of memory. He started up in his
bed, gazing anxiously about him; then crept from beneath
-- 381 --
[figure description] Page 381.[end figure description]
the clothes, and stole to the wooden stand, and put away
the broken glass, with its flowers, to a corner where they
could not meet his gaze. Then he placed the bar against
his door, and crawled back to his pillow. It was a sad
spectacle! that old man shuffling over the floor, listening
at the door, crouching at the hearth, where lay concealed
his hoarded gold, and finally, shivering back to his pallet,
lifting his pillow, and drawing from beneath a few silver
coins, wherewith to glut his eyes with the white leprosy
that had made him an incarnation of grovelling avarice.
Presently, while yet the miser gazed at the money, a
sense of weariness came over him, and his feeble frame
sank into slumber, its withered arms dropping on the bedside,
its lean fingers still clutching the pieces of coin.
Then, as he slept, the sunbeams stole nearer to him, and
fine particles of perfume were liberated from the faded
flowers, and followed the shining rays; while, back, at
the corner of the room, and down in the fire-place, dark
shadows jostled together, grotesquely crowding each other,
to escape from the increasing light. Thus surrounded,
Mallory the miser began to dream.
Far away, up the bright hills of childhood, the old
man wandered in his slumber, becoming once more a
sunny-haired boy, with laughter in his heart and hopes
garlanded about his forehead; climbing a mother's knee,
and gambolling with a brother, fair and sinless as himself.
A smile illumined the sleeping dotard's features, as the
sunbeam of childhood stole through his dream.
Then the vision changed, and he stood, with his brother,
beside their mother's grave, and wrung his companion's
-- 382 --
[figure description] Page 382.[end figure description]
hand, as they parted—one orphan to go to the far land of
India, the other (himself) to remain at the old home;
and here, the sunbeam began to flicker, and the smile
faded from Mallory's sleeping face.
Another change in his dream: The brother had returned
from India with a small fortune, the fruit of toil
and thrift, and bringing with him a young daughter, the
love-pledge of a lost wife; returned, with an incurable
disease, to die in his native land, leaving the child to her
uncle's care, as guardian of the patrimony which was to
be hers in the future. At this stage of the old man's
dreaming memories, there was a frown, instead of a smile,
upon his sharp lineaments, and the crooked shadows that
had been crouching in corners, glided thickly up to the
bed, scaring away the sunbeams from Mallory's pillow.
The miser's lips cleaved together, and drops of perspiration
hung upon his brow. Ah! miserable dream! he
beheld, through the misty past, the parting look of his
dying brother, heard the broken accents of that brother's
voice, committing a sacred charge to his hands; and then
he remembered how he had broken the trust; how he had
seized, by fraud, the orphan's fortune, and reared her as a
dependent upon his bounty, until, at last, she had fled
away from his inhospitable roof, with a stranger who had
won her love—her fate thenceforth remaining a mystery;
how he, the forsworn brother and fraudulent guardian,
had thenceforth become a slave to gold, and had known
no love in the world, and had sunk, lower and lower, in
self-imposed misery, till he had become—Mallory the
Miser of Kolephat College!
-- 383 --
[figure description] Page 383.[end figure description]
This was the miser's dream; and he awoke from it with
his heart like ice in his withered bosom, but with brain
burning as a flame—awoke, and leaped wildly from his
bed, grappling with air, and clutching his pillow in frenzy.
The shadows were all about his bed; the sunbeams had
shrunk away to the cold casement, leaving that wretched
old man with only nightmare shapes at his side. His blue
lips quivered, his teeth chattered, and he spread out his
talon-fingers, as if to exercise the memories of the past.
“Ah—ha!” he gasped; “my brother's child! my
brother's child! where is she?”
“Dead!” echoed from his icy heart. “Dead! dead!”
murmured the miser. “My brother! my mother's boy!
my brother's child! I wronged them! Oh! villain that
I am!”
He swayed to and fro, the red gleam in his eyes, which
rolled incessantly in their sockets.
“Gold!—money!—that did it all—that hardened my
heart agi'n the child of my mother's son! O cursed
money—it ates my soul!”
The miser's eyes, wandering wildly, fell upon the coins
of silver that had fallen from his relaxed fingers, during
sleep, and now lay scattered on the bed-cover, as if mocking
him with their glitter. He gazed at them, gnashing
his teeth; his lips moved, as though to curse them; then,
with a quick grasp, he gathered the pieces together, held
them aloft a moment in his extended hand, and dashed
them down upon the floor.
They fell and rolled away, like demons fleeing from a
repentant heart. The old man listened to their clatter, a
-- 384 --
[figure description] Page 384.[end figure description]
smile breaking over his grim face. In that moment, the
evil spirit went out from him; a weight slid from his
breast; he sat up, once more, upon his humble couch—no
longer the writhing miser, but clothed, and in his right
mind. He raised his long fingers to his eyes, and felt that
tears were there—blessed tears, such as he had not shed
since boyhood; for the waters of a soul were stirred,
and welled up through the desert of life-time selfishness.
Mallory the Miser wept like a young child.
As he thus sat, the door was opened softly, and Margaret
came in, with Fanny; and there glinted also through
the casement a new ray of sunlight; and the withered
flowrets gave forth a fresh perfume. She paused, on
seeing tears upon the old man's cheeks; but Mallory
beckoned with his shrunken hand, and said to Fanny—
“The posies! the posies, my child.”
The little one took the flowers to him, and he pressed
them to his withered mouth, and then said, in a tone that
was quite unlike his usual harsh accents:
“Say your prayers, darlint—I want to hear them!”
Oh! the music of that child's untaught orison, as it
rose tremblingly from her lips, when she had kneeled
down by the pallet side! Ah! the radiant wonder, and
beautiful sympathy that shone upon the face of the seamstress,
as she knelt, also, and joined in the ovation! A
miracle had been worked in that dim room of the tenant-house—
a miracle of love, and faith, and charity.
When the orphan ceased, Mallory clasped her hand,
and Margaret saw that no longer a red gleam was in his
eyes, but, instead, a look of quiet and sadness. But as
-- 385 --
[figure description] Page 385.[end figure description]
Fanny had risen, and he looked down upon her gentle
face, a faded ribbon that she wore about her neck became
loosened, and a small locket-case attached to it dropped
upon the bed. It was the miniature of her mother—sole
relic of the poor woman who had died, unknown and
friendless, in the room below—and which, from that hour
when the sympathizing policeman had restored it to her,
the poor child had hidden close to her heart. The likeness
lying uppermost, as it fell, its lineaments attraced
Mallory's glance; he grasped it nervously—his gaze became
riveted at once—grew steadfast for the space of a
minute—and then, with a gasping cry, he exclaimed—
“This—this picture!—where got ye it?”
“It's my mother's likeness!” said Fanny, tears gushing
from her eyes, as she answered.
Mallory remained for a time silent, his regards wandering
from the portrait to the orphan, his hands shaking,
his lips parted, and tremulously agitated. Then he bent
down, and cast his long arms about the child's neck, and
leaned his head upon her forehead, clasping her closely,
kissing her convulsively.
“You're my child,” he murmured, hurriedly. “You're
her baby—her baby!”
It was strange to behold that old man, shaking as with
palsy, and straining to his withered breast the weeping
infant; strange to hear the muttered interjections that
he uttered. Margaret looked on in silence till he became
calmer, and then, taking one of Mallory's hands,
and winding her arm around the orphan's waist, she stood
by the bedside, and listened to a strange history of wrong
-- 386 --
[figure description] Page 386.[end figure description]
and remorse and retribution—a recital of events such as
were hinted at in the changing shadows of the miser's
dream—discovering to her apprehension, at last, that
Fanny was the grandchild of the miserable but now
repentant man before her. In return, Mallory, with
bowed head, heard of the fate of his brother's daughter,
perishing neglected and alone, within sound of his voice,
while he, wretched one, watched and hearded his ill-gotten
wealth, in squalor and darkness.
“You shall have it, avick!—all! it's for you, now!
Sure it was hers, and no luck ever come to me with it.”
The miser bent his body, swaying his head to and fro,
as remorse stirred in his heart. But Fanny put her hand
to his grey beard, and said softly—
“Please, let Miss Margery say her good prayers.”
And Margery prayed, fervently and long, whilst Mallory
hearkened and was soothed; but when the seamstress
rose to go, he would not suffer the child to accompany
her, but held the little one's hand, drawing her near—
very near to his heart.
-- 387 -- p553-394
Chapter XXIX. The Catholic Child.
[figure description] Page 387.[end figure description]
THE experiment of a ragged school in Kolephat
College had been modestly inaugurated, but it was
not long before its influence became manifest; its presence
eliciting various comments, according to the light
in which the tenants regarded it; and Margaret Winston
found herself suddenly brought out from the seclusion of
her late toil at the needle to the position of a much-talked-about
and sufficiently-abused personage. Every
morning, when the urchins who regularly attended her
class, under the incentive of kind words and the daily
allowance of food, appeared with faces more or less clean,
and dispositions in a greater or less degree docile, there
came likewise to the door of the school-room a crowd of
slatteruly women and not a few coarse men, with a dull
expression of curiosity upon their countenances, striving
to obtain a look at the “missus;” and many were the
remarks upon her personal appearance, her motives and
objects, that Margaret constantly heard from those self-constituted
inspectors of her labors. But as she progressed,
from day to day, the task became easier and the
-- 388 --
[figure description] Page 388.[end figure description]
rewards sure; for in the neglected little ones who listened
to her simple instructions, she began to discover sensibilities,
and aptitudes, and yearnings of the spirit, which were
as grapnels upon her sympathies, uniting the poor children
with her purest hopes and aspirations. Some twenty
boys and girls, their ages varying from the infant of four
to the child of twelve, soon attended pretty punctually at
every session. Among these were Bob the Weasel and
Fanny, who learned everything surprisingly fast, her own
young brother Harry, and the orphan child of Keeley,
who himself had wandered nobody could tell whither, after
his dead wife had been buried by the charitable aid of
Mr. Granby. Margaret was much interested in this last
unhappy orphan of poverty and dissipation, who soon
became reconciled to a more peaceful shelter than she
had ever known before.
Meantime, in view of her new duties, Margaret remained
in her old apartments of Kolephat College, and Emily
Marvin, dreading a repetition of Mr. Jobson's proffers of
friendship, removed from Foley's Barracks, and engaged a
room contiguous to that tenanted by her friend. This, it
is true, she seldom occupied, her week-days being passed
at the residence of kind Mrs. Richmond, who still gave
employment to her, and with the sympathy of a good
heart made each day's industry attractive to the orphan's
nature. Emily loved to talk to Margaret of her new
patroness—of the sad grace which entered into all her
movements—of her thoughtfulness and care for dependants
and the poor. She had promised, Emily said, to
come, when the spring opened, and see the school at
-- 389 --
[figure description] Page 389.[end figure description]
Kolephat College; but her health was not good at present,
and she dared not venture out, even in her carriage.
Something, the apprentice said, concerning Mr. Richmond
who had been sick, and confined to his room on one occasion
a whole day, during which time his lady was very
dejected, and continually going to her husband's chamber,
to return to her bondoir, almost immediately, sadder than
ever. But Emily had never seen Mr. Richmond, she said,
in answer to a question of Margaret's—only his portrait
that hung upon the wall. But it was ever a theme of
wonder to the young girl, how a lady like Mrs. Richmond,
so amiable, with such a fine-looking husband, and surrounded
by every luxury, could yet seem so unhappy;
and then Emily would talk of the elegant velvet carpets,
the rosewood covered with blue and gold, and green and
gold brocades, the curiously carved lables and étagerès
and eseritoires, and medallion chairs; the mahogany and
oak furniture, the pictures and chandeliers—all the accumulations
of wealth, and art, and taste—ah! was it not
pardonable if the poor child dwelt with a sigh upon the
enumeration of these? and was it not sad, at last, to
hear from her lips the expression of her pity for one who
possessed them—“Poor Mrs. Richmond! she's not happy
after all!”
This passed away three months of winter, and the
early spring days began to come, slowly, one by one,
loosening the grasp of frost upon town and country. The
school progressed, and was blessed daily in the influences
that it sent forth upon the neighborhood; Mr. Granby
and Samson came regularly to visit it, bringing food for
-- 390 --
[figure description] Page 390.[end figure description]
the children, and a portion, likewise, for the more deserving
to take home to their parents. Rob Morrison's sharp
intelligence began to develop itself in close application
and quick reception of knowledge, and Fanny's bright
intuition became the means not only of pleasure to herself
and Margaret Winston, but to the old man, her grandfather,
who began to dote upon the child, listening for
hours to the music of her voice, as she read to him the
books mastered by her daily lessons in the school below.
Mallory was able, as the spring approached, to go out
again upon the street—not any more to rake for broken
coals in the gutters, and totter homewards with them, to his
dismal straw and hidden treasure; but to procure, bit by
bit, articles of comfort for his room, and, oftener, to purchase
little dainties wherewith to surprise Fanny, when
she should come to read to him on his return. Truly,
God had worked a great change in the ancient miser's
heart.
Peleg Ferret did not trouble himself about the new use
to which one of his tenant-rooms was appropriated, satisfied
that he received his rent promptly from Samson. He
was, moreover, occupied by his yet unsuccessful search
after Kolephat's lost child; having, most unaccountably,
lost sight of Monna Maria and her interesting family,
who had suddenly changed their quarters, leaving no
trace of their whereabouts. Ferret knew that, as spring
approached, it was customary for many of the organ-grinding
fraternity to disperse on expeditions to other
cities and the interior towns, and, consequently, he feared
that the Italian woman, with her flitting friends, was now
-- 391 --
[figure description] Page 391.[end figure description]
far away from the metropolis; nevertheless, he followed
up such clues as he could gather from those who had
known Old Pris, contriving, in so doing, to learn much
more than he chose to make his employer acquainted
with. He had carried his inquiries back to the period
when Kolephat's babe was missed, ascertaining that,
about the same time, a whole family, save an infant, had
perished by cholera in a cellar of Foley's Barracks, the
child being found clinging to its dead mother's breast,
taken care of by some poor neighbor, and growing up
one of the neglected children abounding in the streets.
This, of course, did not interest the agent—nor would it
have interested him even had he beheld in Rob Morrison,
of the tenant-house school at Kolephat College, that same
poor foundling, no longer abandoned, but, thanks to
Christian charity! cherished and protected, and trained
to become useful in the future—a blessing and a reward
to his kind benefactor, Mr. Granby.
But Ferret discovered that Old Pris the rag-picker
had wandered away from the city about the time of the
child's disappearance, and that, a year or more afterwards,
Monna Maria, the Italian, was first known among other
denizens of Foley's Barracks, whence she afterwards removed,
and that, in her motley family, there was a very
handsome little girl, who had, within a year or two past,
been seldom seen. This child the agent rightly conjectured
to be the dancing-girl he had seen in Monna Maria's
room, and the more closely he followed the few threads
of the past, of which he could take hold, the more he
became convinced that the reputed Italian girl was no
-- 392 --
[figure description] Page 392.[end figure description]
other than the “lost jewel” of his employer, Kolephat.
But of Monna Maria he had lost sight. She had changed
her dwelling-place, as it seemed, on the day following
that unceremonious visit received from the collector of
rents; but in what direction she had vanished, Ferret
could not, as yet discover. Indeed, Monna Maria had her
own reasons for evading the agent's search.
“Bambina!” she said to Ninetta, when, at her new
quarters, in a tenant house quite as squalid as that she
had left, she saw the beautiful dancing-child again by
her side—“Bambina! that man—the heretic—would steal
thee away—kidnap thee, if he could, little one.”
“Sweet Virgin!” exclaimed Ninetta. “Is it true,
Monna Maria?”
“Ay, child! the vile heretic would steal thee for the
Jews, who desire to turn thee from our Holy Church, and
make thee like themselves—the devil's children!”
Ninetta clasped her small hands together, gazing at the
old woman's forbidding features, in mute terror.
“Hast thy rosary with thee, bambina? and thy Agnus
Dei? and thy scapula? And the box of holy water—is
it always near thy bed?”
“Yes, dear Monna.”
“And thou goest to confession twice a week?”
“Surely, dear Monna.”
“Then, thou art safe, I trust, from the heretic wolves.
Where is thy rosary, bambina?”
“Here it is, Monna Maria,” answered the child, drawing
from her pocket a string of black and white beads,
with a small gilt crucifix depending.
-- 393 --
[figure description] Page 393.[end figure description]
“Now, Ninetta!” continued the Italian woman, “kiss
the cross, and promise that you will never leave Monna
Maria, to go with the wicked heretics!”
She pressed the beads, as she spoke, to Ninetta's lips,
and the dancing-girl said solemnly—“I promise.” Then
Monna Maria laid her hand upon the child's head, and
muttered—
“My blessing, if thou keep'st thy word—and my curse,
if thou dost deceive me.”
When Ninetta had left her, the old woman clasped her
hands, and bowed down on the floor, while tears streamed
from her black eyes, and she beat her breast with heavy
strokes. “God have mercy!” she said; “Christ have
mercy! Save the little one from heretics! Thou dost
know that the Jew is her father, and that, if she be
restored to him, he will make her a Jewess, and thus she
will be doomed eternally! O Saviour of the world! let
her not be lost from thy holy Catholic Church.”
Thus prayed this woman—a bigot and fanatic in the
cause of what she believed to be religion. More intelligent
than the class by which she was surrounded, Monna
Maria was yet a slave to the tenets and dogmas of her
Church; and, though she well knew that the child whom,
ten years before, she had received naked from the hands
of Old Pris, was none other than the lost daughter of
Kolephat the broker—though she could not but know
that Ninetta, in being restored to her natural protector,
would be placed in comfort and luxury, while her own
poor condition would, doubtless, be materially improved,
through the child's affection—still, one idea mastered all
-- 394 --
[figure description] Page 394.[end figure description]
other emotions in her breast: she feared that Ninetta
would be forced to change her belief for that of the
detested heretics, whom, in her bitter prayers, she consigned
to eternal perdition. Bigotry controlled the woman's
heart, and she was willing rather to see Ninetta
dead at her feet, with the rosary clasped in her hands,
than to behold her living in opulence, but estranged from
the altar and confessional. Alas! Monna Maria, in her
sectarianism, was not more blamable than many who,
calling themselves Evangelical Christians, have yet no
charity for Christians of other denominations, but consign
them, even as did the poor Italian woman, to “ever-during
shame and ceaseless woe.”
Ninetta was glad to be away from the woman of gloomy
faith, whom yet she regarded as a mother, having never
known other care than hers, till she became the pupil of a
ballet-woman and her husband, the posturer Freidrich.
The poor child's situation with these people was not a pleasant
one; for they obliged her to stand, during long hours,
upon her toes, extend her limbs at painful angles, and
stretch her tender muscles to the verge of distortion.
Sometimes Alsace, the wife of Freidrich, would compel
Ninetta to practise during many hours, in which time she
would become so weary as to faint away, whereupon they
would lay her upon her little bed, in a dark room, to sleep
off fatigue and insensibility. On week-day nights, the
little one appeared in tableaux with the posturist, at a
model-artist exhibition, and on the Sabbath evenings
danced in a casino; and these were the pleasantest portions
of Ninetta's life; for she then received presents of
-- 395 --
[figure description] Page 395.[end figure description]
confections, and pieces of money, and wreaths of flowers,
thrown to her upon the stage, as a compliment to her
grace and beauty. Very proud and happy was the child,
on these gala occasions, and especially on the Sunday
nights when she danced in a German garden, before many
hundreds of people, who set up loud shouts of welcome
when she appeared, and cried “brava! bravissima!” at
every fine pas that she executed. Poor infant! she cared
not that Maestro Freidrich (as he called himself) and his
French wife were the shrewd ones who profited by the
money accruing from her dancing—except small douceurs
which she was permitted to receive, and hoarded faithfully
for Monna Maria!—she thought not of the cruel avarice
that exposed her young loveliness to the rude gaze of
beer-drinking guests in a casino! She only enjoyed, in
her simplicity, the intoxicating incense of applause, which,
whether rising in the gilded opera-house, or the low bagnio,
is always sweet to the poor slaves of the footlights.
Ninetta, after leaving the Italian woman, on the morning
at which the brief conversation above related took
place, tripped lightly away towards the obscure theatre in
which she was to rehearse her nightly part; but as she
did so, a pair of sharp eyes suddenly observed her figure,
and presently a man walked slowly behind her, watching
the route she took, and following at a distance, till the
street was reached in which the play-house was situated.
This man was Peleg Ferret, who, after losing sight of the
Italian woman during several months, now, with great
satisfaction, encountered the child in whom he was still
more interested.
-- 396 --
[figure description] Page 396.[end figure description]
The agent rubbed his hands, in self-gratulation, as he
traced Ninetta to the door of the theatre; and he was
not long in making up his mind as to the further course
he should pursue. He lingered in the neighborhood,
closely scrutinizing the door at which the child had
entered, until, in an hour's time, he beheld her re-emerge,
accompanied by a man and woman, who were no other
than the posturer Freidrich and his wife; then, keeping
constantly in their rear, he tracked their steps to Foley's
Barracks—a place well known to the collector as a tenant-house
owned by a capitalist who dwelt abroad, confiding
its management to the broker Jobson. Mr. Ferret was
overjoyed in beholding the object of his search so familiarly
located, and he did not check his curiosity until,
ascending the dark and narrow stairs of the Barracks,
just behind the unsuspecting maestro, he ascertained the
very room in which the dancing-girl and her protector
dwelt. It was a white day for Peleg Ferret, and he
resolved to make the most of it, by calling at once upon
his acquaintance, Mr. Jobson, in order to inquire concerning
his model-artist tenants.
Mr. Jobson was in his cubby-hole, and received his
brother agent with due dignity, but in an affable manner,
inasmuch as Ferret represented, in a degree, the wealth
of Mordecai Kolephat. To his inquiries, however, concerning
the dancing-girl, Mr. Jobson could, as he averred,
give no information. Mr. Jobson said he did not trouble
himself about that sort of tenants, you know, so long as
they paid their rent punctually, you know; he did recollect
a child—yes, a little girl in tights—balancing on a
-- 397 --
[figure description] Page 397.[end figure description]
man's arm; they had been tenants for some months—yes,
the man's name was on his books—Freidrich Kamph.
But, what in the world could Mr. Ferret want with such
people?—had they left Kolephat College without paying?
of course, that could not be, you know.
Mr. Ferret answered, “No, indeed!” and protested he
had no particular motive—except curiosity, and all that;
after which, chuckling at his own shrewdness, the agent
took his leave. Mr. Jobson rubbed his hands and began
to ruminate, when he was called upon by another visitor,
Mr. Richmond.
“Ah! Mr. Richmond! glad to see you! By the way,
just had a call from Mordecai Kolephat's agent—Ferret,
you know.”
Richmond started, as if Mordecai Kolephat occupied
his own thoughts.
“Yes! called to ask about some vagabond tenants of
mine—model-artists, you know, and a little dancing-girl.”
“Hoh!” cried Mr. Richmond. “What is that, Jobson? a
dancing-girl—Ferret inquired about her? And, pray, who
is the dancing-girl?” he asked, in a more subdued tone.
“'Pon my word, I havn't an idea! but there's something
queer about it. Ferret is a crafty dog—some motive, you
know.”
“Where is the child?—this dancing girl?” demanded
Richmond, quickly. “Could I not see her?”
“Why, 'pon my word, Mr. Richmond. Are you curious
about these people? Well, really” —
“Did you understand me? I should like to see this
child!” said Richmond.
“Oh, certainly, you know! They're at the Barracks,
-- 398 --
[figure description] Page 398.[end figure description]
it's likely. Maybe you'd walk round there, Mr. Richmond—
it's only a step, you know.”
Mr. Richmond said he would go, and together they
went to the tenant-house, where the gamester's refined
sensibilities were somewhat shocked by the sights, sounds,
and smells of a neighborhood wherein the winter's filth had
been suffered to accumulate, and which the spring weather
was now converting into a laboratory of poisonous gases,
distilling disease and death. Mr. Richmond held a lavendered
handkerchief to his nostrils, until he had hurriedly
traversed the alleys and entries, and, under pretence of
examining the building, obtained a glance at Ninetta, in
the room of Freidrich Kamph and his partner Alsace.
What Mr. Richmond's reflections were, as he looked upon
the young girl's face, tracing, with a quick eye, the
softened Asiatic lineaments, and dreamy expression, and
satisfying himself at once that the dancing-girl was of the
same blood as that which ran the veins of Kolephat's
niece, Rebecca, were not, of course, divined by Mr. Jobson;
but as he emerged from the tenant-house to the
light of day, it was manifest that some new and deep
emotions were agitating his mind. Had Rebecca been
present, indeed, and able to read her lover's thoughts,
the heiress might have shrunk into wretchedness and despair;
for they pictured dark alternations of crime, in
which she, wretched one! was to be an instrument or a
victim.
Richmond parted from Mr. Jobson, at the adjoining
street, saying that he would again see him, on important
business; and the broker was thus left to his own reveries,
once more.
-- 399 -- p553-406
Chapter XXX. The Tempter.
[figure description] Page 399.[end figure description]
MR. MORDECAI KOLEPHAT was confined to his
chamber; anxiety of mind preyed upon his bodily
faculties, reducing to weakness the vigorous system that
had withstood the trials of a lengthened life. He had
been very ill, during many weeks, and was now with difficulty
convalescing; for the recollection of the rag-picker's
revelation was constantly present, harrowing his thoughts
by night and day. He was alone; his usual attendant,
Rebecca, having descended to the parlor, to see—Miriam
Wolff.
It was, indeed, her “Miriam Wolff;” for Richmond had
called to speak with her upon an important matter. He
had visited the heiress often, during Kolephat's seclusion
up stairs, and the young girl had become accustomed to
these clandestine interviews; but this evening he had
news to tell her—he had discovered the lost child, from
whose restoration they had so much to fear.
“Is she beautiful?” was Rebecca's question, when, in a
few rapid words, Richmond had related his interview with
Mr. Jobson, and subsequent sight of Ninetta. The lover
-- 400 --
[figure description] Page 400.[end figure description]
answered carelessly that she was a pretty child, and then
said, in a more earnest manner—
“Rebecca, there is no doubt of this girl's identity!
She possesses all your family traits, and, once seen by
your uncle, she will be received as his child. What is to
be done?”
“Dear Charles! why do you look at me so strangely?”
asked Miriam, her eyes drooping beneath the singular
gaze which Richmond bestowed upon her.
“Because—I would have you answer me. How is this
foundling to be prevented from usurping your place—how
are you to escape—beggary?”
The last word was spoken with a bitterness that made
the young girl start, and exclaim—
“Oh Charles! do not talk so wildly. Tell me—what
can I do? I am dependent on my uncle! I have no one
else but you, dearest—in all the world.”
“Pshaw! you care not for me!” exclaimed the man,
abruptly, withdrawing his hand, which Rebecca had held
within her own.
“Charles!—dear Charles! you know that I love you!
Oh! how devotedly!” She burst into tears, and bowed
her head upon his shoulder.
“And you will permit this—dancing-girl—to come
between yourself and fortune!—you, who are used to
luxury” —
“But you are rich, Charles!”
This was said with great simplicity, and it revealed, at
once, the entire confidence which the fair girl reposed in
the being whose blandishments had won her heart, and
-- 401 --
[figure description] Page 401.[end figure description]
whom she believed loved her with the same devotedness
that she herself felt—a devotedness that was content to
wait, through patient years, until the period when he
should be free to call her his wife—a trust which invested
all his wishes with the sanctity of love to guide her
actions.
“I may or may not be rich,” answered Richmond, evasively.
“Speculations in business may make the millionaire
a bankrupt in a day.”
“But you are not” —
“No matter what I am, Rebecca,” replied the lover.
“You have it in your power to make me—both of us—
happy—perhaps rescue me from ruin! Yet you hesitate—
you care not” —
“Charles!” murmured Rebecca, sadly. “Do not say I
care not. What—O tell me—what can I do!”
Richmond passed his arm about the girl's waist, and
drew her close to him, as they sat upon the sofa. He
bent down and whispered in her ear—
“Your uncle has been very ill—his life was thought to
be in danger.”
“But he is now recovering,” said Rebecca.
“It is—not—necessary—that he—should—recover!”
continued Richmond, speaking very deliberately. “It
would be better for us if he should not.”
He paused, but Rebecca remained silent, though he
could feel her heart heave and her frame tremble, as
though, with woman's quick perceptions, she already
understood him.
“Should he die now, it would be considered a relapse.
-- 402 --
[figure description] Page 402.[end figure description]
Should he die at once, this—dancing-girl—will never be
brought to the house. He will never see her, and you
will be his heiress. Is it not so, dearest?”
Richmond bent his lips to those of Rebecca, and she
raised her eyes, fixing them intently on his face; but yet
replied not.
“Do you not hear me, love?” whispered the tempter.
“Yes—yes,” murmured the girl.
“Your uncle is old—he has outlived enjoyment, Rebecca.”
“Yes, dear,” answered the Jewess, abstractedly. “He
is old.”
“You comprehend, dearest! Look at this!” Richmond
drew from his vest pocket a diminutive phial, filled with a
colorless liquid. “Rebecca,” he said, “a single drop of
this transparent oil will bring eternal sleep, and leave no
trace. Will you do with it as I shall direct?”
Rebecca answered not. Her eyes, which had been
fixed upon her lover's face, closed suddenly, and her
frame grew heavy, as it leaned against him. She had
sunk into a swoon, overpowered by the words to which
she had listened.
“Maledictions!” muttered Richmond, his forehead corrugating
gloomily, as he raised the young girl's head, and
saw that her countenance was pale as alabaster. “A
soft-hearted fool!” He hastily concealed the phial, and
then essayed to restore the Jewess to animation; but
some minutes elapsed before—under the influence of his
mocking caresses—the poor girl's eyes again opened, to
dwell at once upon his face. As her lips moved to speak,
-- 403 --
[figure description] Page 403.[end figure description]
an abrupt ringing of the hall-door bell announced a
visitor, and presently, at the servant's response, a man's
voice was heard in the vestibule. Rebecca started, and
exclaimed—
“It is Mr. Ferret!”
“Ferret!” muttered Richmond, as the new-comer's footsteps
were heard ascending the stairs to Mr. Kolephat's
chamber. “He comes, then, to inform your uncle that he
has found his long-lost child. Rebecca! do you hear
me?—to bring this beggar-minx!”
“Oh! Charles! dearest Charles! what shall I do?”
She clasped her hands, and raised her glance appealingly
to the face of him she loved so fervently.
“Obey me!” answered the man, in a meaning tone.
“There is no time to lose! A drop of this potion in
your uncle's medicine will never be detected, and to-morrow
we shall have nothing to fear!”
“Charles! I would lose my soul for you!”
“Hush, dearest! what is a year or two in an old man's
life? He will rest, and we shall be happy! You will
do it.”
“Ah! do you love me, Charles?”
“As my life, dearest.”
He bent over the maiden, whose face was white as
marble, and placed the phial in her hand. Her fingers
mechanically clasped it, but trembled violently.
“Courage, dearest! It is for our happiness!”
Rebecca rose from the sofa, and stood before her lover.
“Charles!” she exclaimed, solemnly, “will you swear
to love me always, if I do—this act?”
-- 404 --
[figure description] Page 404.[end figure description]
“How can I do otherwise, sweet? You will be mine
own one, love, by every tie.”
“You will swear it, Charles?”
“I will swear it!”
“God forgive me!” cried the wretched girl. “I will
obey you!”
She sank forward, as she spoke, and threw her arms
about her tempter's neck. Richmond smiled triumphantly,
as her face was hidden on his breast; but he kissed her
cold forehead, and said—
“You are my own Rebecca!”
A few moments more and the gamester parted from the
Jewess, at the door of the old man whose death he had
schemed, and hurried along the street, enveloped in a
heavy mantle. As he walked, he muttered—
“The Jew will go to-night, and then—Helen only
stands between me and fortune! It is full time! for ruin
is almost at my back! Fond fool! her wealth will all
be mine!”
Fond fool! Could the cruel Richmond have looked
back to Kolephat's parlor, after he had departed, he
would have beheld Rebecca lying prone upon the floor,
her hair dishevelled, her small hands pressed tightly on
her bosom, where was hidden the phial of poison. Torn
with terrible emotions, in which every impulse of right
struggled with the temptings of wrong, while her mad
passion for Richmond mingled in all, the wretched maiden
suffered pangs unutterable, perished a thousand deaths,
while meditating one. But still she cried, as though
impelled by direful fate—
-- 405 --
[figure description] Page 405.[end figure description]
“I must perform his wish! I dare not disobey him!”
Meantime, Peleg Ferret, closeted with the broker, had
revealed to him the important intelligence that traces of
the lost child were gained. Kolephat's withered features
brightened, as he listened. Extending his hand, he drew
from beneath the bed on which he lay a small box, and
directed Ferret to open it.
“It is what we sought at the money-lender's,” he said,
“recovered yesterday, and sent to me.”
The agent looked, and saw a jet clasp, diamond-shaped,
and of no great value. Its inside surface was corroded
by rust, and the enamel much defaced; but Kolephat,
shading his eyes, said—
“It was hers—the babe's trinket. You were right,
Ferret. It clasped the girdle of my child.”
“Then that foreign jade knows all about it, depend
on't,” cried Peleg Ferret. “She must be found by hook
or crook, and obleeged to make her affidavy. That's the
way to do it.”
“But the child!—I must see her, Ferret. God help
me! there is something tells me I shall recognize her at
once! Ferret! this theatre of which you speak! can
she not be found there? It is night already.”
“Well, I presume!—Certingly—shouldn't wonder!”
said the agent, hesitatingly, doubtful whether he should
not procrastinate longer, in order to give his services a
higher value. “But—you are sick, and couldn't go
out.” —
“I am not sick! I am well!” exclaimed the old man,
vehemently. “Ferret! I will go with you—to-night—to
-- 406 --
[figure description] Page 406.[end figure description]
that place, and satisfy myself, at once! My presentiment,
I feel, will not mislead me; and I can no longer endure
the agony of suspense. Go you, immediately, and order
a carriage. Ring yonder bell!”
Kolephat spoke in the tone which Ferret knew was
customary to him when determined to be obeyed; so,
without another word, he summoned a servant, whom the
Jew dispatched at once for his niece; and the agent then
descended to procure a coach.
Rebecca faltered beneath her uncle's gaze, as he informed
her, in a few words, that he was about to ride out
with Ferret. Her heart smote her, as she saw the old
man's eyes luminous with an expression that her quick intuition
divined to be the anticipation of regaining his lost
child; but, in the same moment, she thought of Richmond,
and of the rival who was to usurp her place in
Kolephat's heart and fortune. She felt, too, the phial
of poison, lying cold, like a snake, upon her bosom.
“I shall return shortly, dear Rebecca!” said the uncle,
when, after being wrapped closely in his outer garments,
he extended his hand. His voice seemed more tender than
usual, as if he even regretted that his niece must soon be
secondary in his favor—so the girl's jealous thought interpreted
its accents; but she answered only that she should
await him.
Await him! with the fatal gift of her felon lover nestling
close to her heart—await him! through the hours of
his absence, contemplating that which she was to do!
Oh! wretched Rebecca!
The carriage in which the agent and his employer sat
-- 407 --
[figure description] Page 407.[end figure description]
rolled rapidly through the streets, till it reached the
shabby but densely populated locality where was situated
the establishment—half theatre and half drinking-house—
which, dignified by some classic name, and fronted with
glaring transparencies, indicating its interior uses, attracted
nightly a motley audience, to witness grotesque
caricatures of sculptured gods and goddesses, illusions of
various colored fire, dancing by scantily draped coryphees,
and such other entertainment as could be afforded at the
very low price charged for admission to the whole. The
performance had just commenced when the new visitors
were ushered into the close atmosphere of an ill-ventilated
room, in which two or three hundred amusement-seekers
were congregated; but Ferret found no difficulty in procuring
seats for himself and companion. Presently, the
curtain rose, and the curious eyes of the audience were
directed to the stage, whereon a pile of male and female
posturers were disposed in singular attitudes, and with
painful contortions of limbs, representing, as was affirmed,
some mythic scenes, which revolved, very obligingly, upon
a circular platform, thus allowing appreciating spectators
to view the interesting exhibition from every point, as it
were, of the dramatic compass. Mr. Kolephat looked on,
but seemed neither to understand nor appreciate.
Another spectacle with entangled groups, and slow
revolutions, succeeded the first; and then another, and
another; after which, performers with blackened faces
sang buffo songs, thumbed banjos, and rattled castanets;
these, in turn, were followed by a muscular man, who bent
bars of iron and balanced plates and chairs; and then,
-- 408 --
[figure description] Page 408.[end figure description]
with a great scraping of fiddle bows, and amid loud cries
from the audience, there bounded suddenly upon the
boards a beautiful figure, which Ferret at once recognized
as the dancing-girl whom he had seen at Monna Maria's.
It was evident that Mordecai Kolephat likewise recognized
in that fair form—that eloquent face—something
which recalled the past in vivid distinctness. The old
man's eyes became riveted upon the graceful creature,
tracing her light steps, following her swaying motion,
until all other objects swam indolently before him—then
faded from his gaze—and he saw but the one vision,
soaring in the luminous air—saw but that one smiling,
angel face, with its clusters of dark hair, its large, radiant
eyes fascinating his own.
A clash of applause shook the slight walls of the building,
as the execution of some difficult pose called forth the
admiration of the motley spectators; but Mordecai Kolephat
heard it not. His hands were lifted nervously, and
outstretched, as though he would rush forward to the
child; his lips parted, disclosing the teeth set rigidly
together. But, as he gazed, suddenly all became vague
before him; for Ninetta, concluding her dance, had disappeared
from the stage. Mordecai half arose, uttered a
sharp cry, and then, overcome by his emotion, sank back
feebly into Ferret's arms, whilst the tumult of an encore
resounded through the theatre. Little notice was taken,
during the next few minutes, of aught save another dance,
and thus the agent experienced no trouble in assisting his
employer to the open air, which was now chill and raw, a
drizzly rain commencing to fall, and wrapping all the streets
-- 409 --
[figure description] Page 409.[end figure description]
in misty gloom. Mr. Kolephat speedily revived, with the
change of atmosphere, but his bewildered mind could
only recall one image. “My child—my long-lost child!”
he cried, piteously. “Take me to her, Ferret! Let me
embrace the child of mine age!”
Ferret endeavored to calm his employer's agitation,
representing that, as they knew the dwelling-place of the
girl Ninetta, there would be ample time to visit her.
But the old man, yielding only to the new impulse which
controlled him, demanded to be at once conducted to that
portion of the theatre appropriated to the performers, and
Ferret, ascertaining the entrance thither, proceeded to
lead the way. Mordecai had drawn from his pocket the
small jet buckle—relic so long hidden in the dust of a
pawnbroker's shelf—and pressing it to his lips, again
and again, was murmuring prayers in which the name of
his deceased wife mingled with that of their lost infant.
Thus, clinging to his agent's arm, the Hebrew penetrated
to the shabby recesses at the theatre's rear, where a
couple of roughly-partitioned boxes constituted the private
dressing-rooms of a dozen “artists” of the establishment.
Arrived here, they sought the youthful danseuse,
whose light footsteps seemed yet echoed on the stage, but,
to Kolephat's dismay, she was nowhere to be found. In
vain they questioned the stolid-looking master of the
show, or his dwarfish assistant. These only knew that
Mademoiselle Ninetta had gone, with the Maestro Freidrich
and the Madame. They had hurried away.
Disappointed and reluctant, Mordecai Kolephat turned
from the theatre, and, calling a coach, ordered it to be
-- 410 --
[figure description] Page 410.[end figure description]
driven to the locality called Foley's Barracks, in which, as
Ferret had that day learned, the child Ninetta dwelt with
her patrons. The agent took upon himself to ascend to
the room occupied by Maestro Freidrich, and there found
that individual, with his “madame;” but the child, they
said, had not returned with them; she was, that night, to
go home with her god-mother—with Monna Maria.
Ferret endeavored to ascertain the dwelling-place of
Monna Maria, but neither the posturer nor his wife could
return a satisfactory answer. “Monna Maria,” they said,
“lived in another tenant-house. Ninetta was accustomed
to go home with her. She would be at the Barracks next
day.” This was all that could be gleaned by Peleg
Ferret; so he returned to Mordecai Kolephat, in the
carriage, chagrined at his want of success, and yet determined
to turn the delay and disappointment to his own
advantage.
Dark and dismal was the night, and very melancholy
the drift of rain upon the pavement sounded to the old
Hebrew's ears, as he awaited, in the coach, before Foley's
Barracks, the return of Ferret from above. The scene he
had witnessed at the theatre—the fleeting vision that had
gleamed in his eyes, of the child whom his heart recognized
as flesh of his flesh and blood of his blood—shone
still before his straining gaze, chasing the gloom that
surrounded him. His heart grew soft, and tears bedewed
his cheeks, as he fancied the arms of that beautiful one
about his neck, and those red lips parting to salute him
with the long-hushed name of “Father!” But Ferret
came, with chilling words, to tell that Ninetta was not
-- 411 --
[figure description] Page 411.[end figure description]
within the house, and Mordecai Kolephat sank back
upon the carriage cushions, a desolate old man. The
excitement which had upheld him gave way to dejection,
and he replied no more to the agent's attempted consolation,
but, burying his face in his hands, bowed himself in
sorrowful reflection. It was only when, arrived at his
own door, and assisted to its threshold, he turned to bid
good-night to Ferret, that, with broken voice, he murmured—
“Bring her to me, to-morrow!—bring hither my
child, Ferret—or it will be too late—too late!” Then,
assisted by a servant, and followed by his niece Rebecca,
who had overheard his parting words, the Hebrew ascended,
slowly and painfully, to his chamber. Fever
burned in his brain, the effect of the late powerful excitement
he had experienced; but in his bosom lay a heavy
coldness. He had seen his child—the daughter of his
age; but was she not worse, far worse, even, than a child
of the streets? was she not a castaway of the footlights—
an outcast of the theatre?
-- 412 -- p553-419
Chapter XXXI. The Garroters.
[figure description] Page 412.[end figure description]
WHEN Richmond left the house of Mordecai Kolephat,
a tumult of contending hopes and apprehensions
filled his bosom. The unhappy man had on that
day learned that he was a bankrupt beyond hope of
retrieval, and that legal steps were about to be taken by
his creditors through which his situation must ere long be
known to the world. Nearly all his means had been
staked at the gaming table, during a year past, and his
liabilities of “honor,” as he termed them, were quite as
large as those involved by his style of luxurious living.
Save only a small inalienable income settled upon Helen,
the selfish gamester had squandered, since his marriage,
the large estate yielded to his control by a too-confiding
wife; and now, in the future, he beheld but ruin, and
meditated but crime. The knowledge of his impending
bankruptcy had prompted him, months before, to weave
his web of dissimulation around Mordecai Kolephat's niece,
until now, under the influence of his specious temptings,
the wretched girl had promised to commit a deed from
the very thought of which her nature shrank as from a
serpent. But what recked the schemer Richmond?—
secure, as he believed himself, in Rebecca's love, and
-- 413 --
[figure description] Page 413.[end figure description]
confident that, even should his purpose be baulked, no peril
would threaten himself, from any divulgement of his complicity
by one who loved him with such regardlessness of
self. “But it will not fail!” he muttered to himself, as,
gathering his cloak about him, he traversed swiftly the
twilight streets. “One drop of that subtle fluid will
make the dotard sleep forever; and his recent sickness
must preclude all suspicion of other agency. Helen,”
mattered the gamester, in continuation, and pausing, as
if to ponder—“Helen may live or die—she stands not
between me and fortune; for once let the Jew's wealth
be Rebecca's, and—it is mine!”
Thus speculated Charles Richmond, with no feeling of
remorse for the crime he had plotted—no sentiment of
affection for the poor instrument he had chosen for its
execution. Alas! remorse and love were alike alien to
his breast—possessed as it had been, during years, by the
demons of avarice and pride. From the unprincipled
fortune-hunter, who had won a trusting woman's hand and
heart, to the arrogant husband, neglecting her who had
given him all; from the luxurious speadthrift, vying with
other fashionable men in splendor of equipage and elegance
of ménage, to the callons man of the world, living
only for self-gratification; from the desperate gamester to
the unscrupulous cheat, and from bankruptcy to premeditated
villainy—these were but natural transitions, sequences
of artificial life daily occurring in our midst, and
yet, too oft, unheeded!
Wrapped in his dark cogitations, Richmond sought
the gaming-house; but an excitement, such as play were
-- 414 --
[figure description] Page 414.[end figure description]
powerless to generate, already trembled through his nerves;
growing more intense, as he reflected upon the fearful
crime contemplated long, and now upon the eve of consummation.
The figure of the old man Kolephat, as he
had last beheld him, months since, resting on his cane at
the door of his mansion, and looking up and down the
street, with a melancholy scrutiny, as if seeking for the
child whom he mourned anew—the pale face of Rebecca,
as it had been uplifted to his own, when, falteringly, she
had received the poison from his hand—these images rose
to Richmond's fancy, present almost to his visual sense;
and more than once he dashed his palm across his eyes
as if to shut away the too-familiar lineaments of his victim
and his dupe. He threw himself upon one of the
soft couches in the gaming-saloon, striving to watch the
players, but he could not banish other forms and faces
crowding in between; he called for wine, and drank deep,
but the draughts were but fuel to the fever, which grew
fierce as the hours wore on; till, at length, perturbed
and impatient, he again rushed to the streets, wandering
he recked not whither. It was a fearful stake he risked
that evening—involving life and death; what marvel,
then, that the gaming-board and its surroundings offered
too poor excitement to his chafed spirit! He had flung
the die on which his soul was depending; the risk was
dishonor—destruction; the prize, wealth—perdition.
“To-morrow!” he muttered, as he strode upon his
way—“To-morrow will see the end of this!”
Ay, indeed! Charles Richmond! to-morrow will behold
the end of this!
-- 415 --
[figure description] Page 415.[end figure description]
The night was dark, and heavy clouds, precursors of a
coming storm, were hanging over the city; but, absorbed
in his uncertain reveries, the gamester took no note of the
direction whither his steps were tending, till, after traversing
many squares, a wet wind sweeping up from the
street, before him, suddenly blew his mantle apart, warning
him of proximity to the water-side. At the same
moment, a few drops dashing in his face intimated the
impending rain. The blast, too, gathering strength, now
began to moan through neighboring lanes and alleys, and
Richmond, shivering under its rawness, slackened his
pace, endeavoring to identify his locality. As he thus
paused, a dull gleam of light, struggling through the redcurtained
glass of a grocery at the nearest corner, caught
his glance, and, approaching it, he opened the rough door
and entered, at once, to shelter himself for a moment, and
inquire concerning his whereabouts.
The grocery was of the usual type of those receptacles
of decayed provisions, drugged articles of daily use, and
poisoned alcoholic decoetions. A low ceiling, hung with
onion-bunches, mouldy codfish, and half-rotted hams; the
single window strewed with dirty clay pipes and broken
crockery ware; the shelves filled with samples of supposititious
tea, coffee, sugar, and flour; the counter thick
with greasy dirt; and at its extremity a few upright slats,
forming a bar, behind which were dispensed the fiery preparations
that, with fever, suffocation, filth, and poverty,
made up the daily and nightly torment of the poor who
thronged the neighborhood. At the present hour, some
half dozen devotees surrounded this squalid shrine of
-- 416 --
[figure description] Page 416.[end figure description]
Bacchus; men and youths seated about a stove, and
presenting, through an atmosphere of execrable tobacco
smoke, a variety of countenances that were far from prepossessing
the new-comer in favor of their owners. Richmond,
however, advanced across the wet floor, and
approaching one who wore a greenbaize coat, and whose
round cheek, thick lips, and bulging eyes, proclaimed
Tentonic origin, requested information regarding the
locality in which he found himself.
The man addressed, whether from stupidity or design,
stammered in his reply, but the voice of a man near him
responded to Richmond's question. This one was apparently
about fifty years of age, yellow-skinned, and villainously
low-browed, with tangled elf-locks depending on
his muscular neck; beside him sat a cadaverous-looking
youth, with greenish eyes, whom Emily Marvin or good
Mrs. Dumsey would have recognized at once as the coffinmaker's
lad, the pilferer of the orphan girl's purse; and
near this worthy was the bull-necked young man who had
figured with him in the fireman's conflict, and who wore
now, as on that occasion, a shirt of flaming red, with
large bone buttons on its bosom. Richmond glanced from
one to another of these personages, and could not fail to
be convinced that he had chanced upon suspicious company.
Nevertheless, he bowed, without apparent hesitation,
in acknowledging the answer given to his question
by the saffron-featured man, and then, rubbing his hands
before the stove, demanded if there were a coach to be
procured in the vicinity.
“Of course,” the yellow man replied, briskly, “gen'
-- 417 --
[figure description] Page 417.[end figure description]
elman have a coach? Dick or Jim 'll go and get you
one, sir.”
“I shall be obliged to you,” said Richmond, who was
desirous of leaving the place as quickly as possible; for a
certain personal uneasiness began to master his previous
nervousness.
“Dick! go for a wehicle!” called out the elder speaker,
upon which the red-shirted youth moved off, with alacrity,
and Richmond fancied that he detected an interchange of
looks between the round-faced vender of liquor and his
saffron-skinned guest. Nevertheless, at so early an hour
and in a populous neighborhood, the apprehension of
danger did not give the gamester much thought; though
he could not but notice that he had become an object of
close scrutiny to all the occupants of the shop, who, sitting,
or drinking at the bar, presented a sinister appearance
that augured not well for their characters. He felt
relieved, therefore, when Dick, returning, announced the
coach, which, after throwing a piece of silver to the lad,
and giving hasty directions to the driver, he entered, and
was driven rapidly away; unnoticing, however, that two
of his late companions ascended to the coach-box, and
took post, raining though it was, with the man who
guided the horses.
Seated in the carriage, Richmond's thoughts reverted to
the fearful matter which had before occupied them; and
again he became a prey to doubt and forebodings. With
Kolephat, now, and Rebecca, was mingled in his memory
the form of another whom he had long since wronged and
forgotten—the maiden who had earliest loved him, and
-- 418 --
[figure description] Page 418.[end figure description]
whose parting letter, the echo of a broken heart, had
been perused by the devoted Helen on that fatal morning
when she realized the full desolation of an unloved wife.
The face—pale, thoughtful, sorrowing—of that first martyr
to his selfishness—looked now upon him from the
murk of night, blended with the despairing lineaments of
Rebecca and the features of Kolephat, rigid in the ghastliness
of death. “Horrible!” gasped the murderer, striking
his forehead with his clenched hands; and then,
suddenly, the stopping of the coach and abrupt unclosing
of its door, startled his fevered brain, so that he sprang
up wildly in the darkness.
“Gen'l'man want to stop?” demanded a voice at the
open door. Richmond mechanically alighted from the
carriage, and was received in the embrace of muscular
arms, while simultaneously a hand was passed around his
neck, constricting his throat nearly to suffocation.
“Hah!” gasped the gamester—but further exclamation
was stifled; for a heavy blow fell upon his head, at the
same instant that another hand dragged him to the pavement.
“Down with him! finish him!” cried a hoarse voice,
which Richmond recognized as belonging to the yellow-faced
man whom he had seen at the grocery. The conviction
that he was in the grasp of ruffians, who had,
without doubt, accompanied the treacherous driver of the
coach, recalled the young man's faculties, and the love of
life, strong within him, caused him at once to resist with
all his strength. By a sudden and dexterous movement,
he contrived to release his right arm from the ruffian who
-- 419 --
[figure description] Page 419.[end figure description]
had seized it, and, leaning back against the carriage,
though the effort almost strangled him, he struck forward
full into the face of the man who clutched his throat,
whose fingers immediately left their hold. Then, gulping
a quick breath, he shouted loudly—
“Help!—murder!—help!”
“Stab him!” muttered one of the assailants, and the
words were followed by the lunge of a sharp blade, which
pierced the gamester's side. Another cry broke from
Richmond's lips, and then he felt himself dragged downwards,
prone upon the pavement.
“Another like that, Jim!” cried the yellow-visaged
man. “'Twill finish him!”
“I've dropped the knife,” returned the cadaverous
apprentice, with an oath; and then Richmond, as he
struggled in the gloom, felt a loaded whip-handle descending
again upon his forehead. His brain reeled, and his
sight became clouded at once; but, ere he sank into
insensibility, he was conscious of a short struggle above
his head, and heard the quick report of a pistol. Then
all grew dark around him.
-- 420 -- p553-427
Chapter XXXII. The Dying Gamester.
[figure description] Page 420.[end figure description]
THE school at Kolephat College had been blessed
through the months during which Margaret labored
in her vocation as teacher. Day by day, some new proselyte
from the streets—some weed plucked by the wayside—
was transplanted into the genial atmosphere of the
small room where, recompensed by constant fruit, the toiling
woman sought to nourish her young growth of souls.
“We have much for which to be thankful!” said Mr.
Granby to the seamstress, as she sat one evening in his
quiet library, with Emily Marvin, who had become a favorite
of the good old man, as well as of Mrs. George, the
housekeeper. “We have found, indeed that it is more
blessed to give than to receive.”
“I have been happier,” answered Margaret, “since the
school was opened—much happier than for years past.”
“Because you have been doing good, my child,” said
Mr. Granby, “and because the blessing of God rests
upon all that is done for humanity, in His name!”
Samson brought nearer to his master the stand, on
which, as usual, lay the open Scriptures; and the old
man, shading his eyes, read aloud, in his low but impressive
-- 421 --
[figure description] Page 421.[end figure description]
tones. The light fell downward upon Mr. Granby's brow,
wreathing a halo in his reverend locks. A placid smile
illumined his benevolent features, in which love and seriousness
were united; indeed, his whole appearance, had
there been no Bible before him, or had his voice been
inaudible, might have reminded the most thoughtless
observer that his calm spirit was soaring in pure communion
with its Creator.
Samson sat upon a cushioned stool, his back and head
propped by a massive side-board standing near the door.
His eyes rested upon Mr. Granby's face with close attention,
his lips moving in unison with the reader's accents.
A weather-beaten, scarred, but honest and intelligent
countenance was that of the negro, with a look of childlike
confidence as he listened to the teachings of the
“Good Book.” His herculean proportions were in strong
contrast with the fragile figure of his master, and it was
an interesting spectacle to behold this type of physical
power subdued at the feeble Rabbi's feet, and tears
streaming profusely down his dusky cheeks.
“Let us pray,” said the aged man, reverently closing
the sacred volume, and sinking upon his knees. Samson
did the same, bowing his head upon his muscular breast,
and crossing his labor-seamed hands. Mrs. George knelt
at a little distance, while Margaret and her friend prostrated
themselves together.
There was no pride there, in the little circle of those
so strangely brought together but a brief space before;
no gilded seats separated rich from poor, no mummery of
forms stifled the spirit of piety; but, together, with God's
-- 422 --
[figure description] Page 422.[end figure description]
holy Word before them, these earnest worshippers prayed
in humility for the weary and way-worn of all His family.
Master and servant—black and white—united in a heartfelt
supplication for their common humanity; for the
stranger and the alien, for the sinner and the righteous,
for the oppressed and the enfranchised; a prayer of charity—
fit oblation to the throne of Love!”
“Amen! amen!” murmured the negro, as with moist
eyes, he rose from his knees, and then tenderly assisted
his master, whose quiet features attested the inner peace
of his heart. And as they stood thus together, with
hands interclasped, one might not think that they were
other than brothers—sons of the one great and eternal
Father!
“Samson!” said the old man, as he leaned upon the
black's stronger arm, “we are journeying together to our
home!”
“Yes, massa,” responded the negro, in his broken
way. “Dat is so!—we is both berry old men, massa—
we is.”
“But not afraid to die, Samson!”
“Bress de Lord, no! Nebber 'fraid for de Lord
Jesus to call, massa. When Samson's time come, he will
pray to de Lord, and nebber fear de shadder ob death.”
“No, Samson, my old friend!” cried his master. “Little
cause to fear death have you, my boy. We have seen
danger together, and have known Heaven's mercies in
company. Samson! I trust neither of us will falter when
the Master comes. May we ever be prepared, rather, to
welcome Him.”
-- 423 --
[figure description] Page 423.[end figure description]
“Ah, Massa Granby! de Lord grant Samson be taken
fust.”
“And would you leave your old friend alone, boy?”
“No, massa!” exclaimed the negro, bursting into tears.
“Poor Samson serve you to the last! Many a time he
hol' you in his arms when you was a chile. Maybe de
Lord wills dat he hol' you when de angel comes! Samson
nebber leave you! Bress de Lord, de old boy knows
his duty.”
The negro dashed his sleeve across his eyes, brushing
away the tears which he could not restrain. His master
pressed his hand with a fervent grasp.
“You are always the same true heart, boy,” he murmured.
“No kinder breast than yours could I find
whereon to pillow my dying head. Did I not say, years
ago, that I had found in my poor slave, as then you were,
a friend who would never desert me?”
“Ah, Massa Granby, Samson nebber desarved half de
good you said about him!”
“My good boy,” replied the venerable man, “I have
found you worthier than those whom the world places far
above us both. We have been called `Master' and
`Slave,' but your bondage to me, Samson, has been that
of the heart.”
“Yes, massa! what harm in de word `slave,' when my
heart only be chained in lubbing a kind massa? Samson
rather be slave ten thousand times, dan part from Massa
Granby.” He bent his head, as he spoke, kissing the old
man's hand.
“And have you never, indeed, regretted the choice
-- 424 --
[figure description] Page 424.[end figure description]
you made, when, twenty years ago, I offered you freedom
and competence?—never repented following your old
friend?”
“Nebber! nebber!” sobbed the negro. “Samson hab
a white heart in his black bosom, and close down dere is
de face ob massa, jes' like a lookin'-glass, forebber and
ebber. Bress de Lord, dat put sense in de nigger's head.”
He raised his glance upward, while tears rolled plentifully
down his dark cheeks. Mr. Granby hastily wiped
his own eyes and glanced at the young girls and Mrs.
George. They, too, were weeping, and the stately housekeeper
had even crept close to her sable friend, clinging
to him as if in sympathy. At this moment, the sharp
report of a pistol, in the street without, broke upon
their silence, and whilst they yet listened, there came a
loud and prolonged knocking at the house door. Samson
started quickly, to answer the summons, followed into
the hall by Mr. Granby and the alarmed housekeeper.
Ere the door could be reached, however, another peal of
the knocker shook the whole building, followed by a
succession of shrill whistles, and the dull concussion of a
club upon the pavement—the signal rap of the night
policemen.
The night was dark, and had set in with gusty rain,
beating through the hall when Samson cautiously opened
the door, but the hanging lamp shed its gleams outward,
showing two men standing upon the steps, and supporting
in their arms the drooping figure of a third, whose eyes
were closed, and whose face was covered with blood,
which also saturated his clothing.
-- 425 --
[figure description] Page 425.[end figure description]
“Merciful heaven!” ejaculated Mr. Granby, “what is
this?”
“My friend, here, has been attacked, and wounded,”
returned the voice of one who stood nearest. “I fear he
is mortally hurt, and the hospital is far.”
“An' we want his deppysition,” said another voice, which
Mr. Granby recognized as as that of an elderly guardian
of the night, whose patrol was on neighboring streets.
“Come in, at once!” cried Mr. Granby. “The front
room!” continued he, opening a door upon the right,
while Samson proceeded to assist in sustaining the insensible
stranger, upon whose face the lamp-light now fell
directly, revealing features of manly beauty, overspread
by a greyish shade, and showing thick curly hair matted
with blood, where it clustered about the forehead. Mr.
Granby had but an instant to note this, ere he was startled
by a sudden cry from the library door, where the
females had remained. The next moment, Margaret
Winston darted past him, paused, with clasped hands,
before the wounded stranger, perusing his lineaments, and
then sank beside him on her knees, sobbing brokenly:
“It is he!—it is he!”
“Oh, sister!” cried Emily Marvin, who had followed
her friend. “It is Mrs. Richmond's husband!”
Margaret only responded by hollow murmurs, scarcely
audible, as she passed her hand under the head which
rested immovable upon the cushions of the couch whereon
the wounded man had been laid.
“Do you know him?”
Emily looked up, and met the glance of a young
-- 426 --
[figure description] Page 426.[end figure description]
gentleman, one of the two persons who had supported the
injured stranger.
“Do you know Mr. Richmond?” Emily was about to
answer, when Mr. Granby interposed—
“Whoever he be,” said the old gentleman, “it is plain
that he should at once have medical aid. Samson, run
for a physician!”
The negro needed no second mandate, but at once
pressed his way through the throng of spectators, residents
of the neighborhood, who, alarmed by the report
of firearms, had by this time, gathered from all quarters,
in front of Mr. Granby's house. Interrogatories regarding
the affray were propounded from a dozen tongues at
once, but the aged watchman could only relate how he
had heard the cry of murder, and, speeding towards it
through the darkness, had suddenly encountered the
wounded stranger, supported by the young gentleman
now present, in whose hand was a pistol which he had
just discharged at a carriage that was driven off at a
furious rate, and to the box of which three men were
clinging.
“And the young gentleman!—could he give any information?”
None, save that he had been drawn by the cry of murder,
and, beholding a single man contending with three
ruffians, discharged his pistol immediately; the assailants
then mounting a coach which stood near, and driving
furiously away.
While the young man was speaking, Margaret Winston
had arranged the pillows under Richmond, and now gazed
-- 427 --
[figure description] Page 427.[end figure description]
fixedly upon the pale, bloodstained features of the unhappy
man. It was apparent to Mr. Granby, who observed her
with a troubled look, and marked the shivering sigh which
agitated her whole frame, that she cherished some strange
interest in him who lay before her. He glanced at Emily
Marvin, but the orphan seemed as much perplexed as himself,
in regarding her adopted sister, who, after wiping
the blood from Richmond's cheeks and brow, murmured,
in an appealing tone—
“Oh, will not assistance come? He is—dying!”
The throng outside divided, at this moment, to admit
Samson. He was followed by three policemen, and accompanied
by a physician, who proceeded at once to an investigation
of Richmond's hurts, his every movement
anxiously watched by the spectators.
“There is but a flicker of life,” said the doctor, after
probing the wounds, and staying the flow of blood. “I
fear the patient is mortally injured.”
“Can't he be brought to the 'ospital?” asked a policeman,
whose accent betrayed his English birth. “We'll
want his deppysition, you know.”
“An' who'd be afther takin' a dead man to the hospital,
sure?” rejoined another of the officials.
“Mein Gott! is der man dead?” inquired the third
guardian of the public, who was a short and very plethoric
German.
“He cannot be removed,” said the physician; “the
utmost quiet must be preserved; and I would recommend
the immediate departure of all whose presence here is not
necessary.”
-- 428 --
[figure description] Page 428.[end figure description]
The crowd, which had penetrated from the outer door
to the very edge of the couch, gave way before Samson's
courteous energy, and in a short time, the room was comparatively
cleared of intruders. Meantime, the physician
applied such immediate restoratives as Mrs. George's medicine
chest could furnish, and, ere long, succeeded in recalling
animation to the insensible sufferer. Richmond again
opened his eyes upon life, but there was no assuring light
in those orbs, already blurred with the film of approaching
dissolution. There, indeed, with the last dews heavy
upon his brow, lay all that would soon be of the gay and
fashionable man, the reckless, unprincipled schemer; there,
with livid lips painfully parting, as he essayed to utter
some disconnected words, reclined upon his last earthly
couch the husband of a neglected wife—the deceiver of a
trusting maiden. Margaret Winston moistened his mouth
with a few drops of reviving cordial.
“I'll—play—no more!” An almost inaudible whisper
revealed that the dying man's thoughts were upon the
gaming table; then his wandering sense shifted suddenly,
and he muttered—“The Jew—is old—must die;” after
which darkness fell once more over Richmond's countenance—
darkness which awed into silence the lookers on;
all, save Margaret, who, bending over the wretched man,
murmured, in a low, thrilling tone—“Charles—Char-lcy!”
The mournful tenderness with which the name was spoken
last appeared to affect Richmond strangely. His quivering
lips became still, his glance lost its fixedness, and, as
if responding to a call, he cried—“Margery! where are
you?”
-- 429 --
[figure description] Page 429.[end figure description]
Mr. Granby and Emily marvelled to behold the brightness
which flashed for an instant over Margaret Winston's
pale face, as, with heaving bosom and yearning look, she
stooped forward, till her cheek almost touched the damp
and bloody curls upon Richmond's brow. Their looks at
that moment met, a gleam, apparently of full recognition,
lighting over the man's ashy face, followed by an expression
of bitter recollection and inward torture.
“Charles!” murmured the seamstress, clasping Richmond's
hand. “Is it thus we meet—at last?”
“Ah!” gasped the dying man, “'tis Margaret—deserted
Margaret!” He stared wildly upon her face,
moaned bitterly, and closed his eyes once more. They
feared he had relapsed into unconsciousness, but it was
not so; for he started up immediately, crying loudly—
“Helen—Rebecca! it is too late!”
Peyton and the physician, who stood at the back of the
couch, endeavored to restrain the paroxysm; but Richmond
struggled fiercely in their arms, the blood gushing
from his wound, as he uttered fearful groans.
Some minutes elapsed ere excitement gave way to
debility, and the sufferer's hollow words became intelligible.
He was understood to ask for his tablets, which
Samson soon discovered in a pocket of his coat that
had been removed. Then, with feeble hand, Richmond
traced a few words upon the ivory, and turning his
glassy eyes upon Peyton, gasped—
“To—the—to—Mordecai Kolephat.”
“That's the rich Jew,” said a policeman.
“I know,” said Mr. Granby. “Samson shall go at
-- 430 --
[figure description] Page 430.[end figure description]
once. You know where he resides, my boy?” The negro
replied affirmatively, and proceeded to depart at once,
while Peyton, stooping over his friend, said softly—
“Richmond—your wife!”
“I will go for her!” here exclaimed Emily Marvin, to
whose thought the image of that unhappy wife had been
presented constantly, as she regarded the dying husband.
“Samson will accompany me. Ah! Mrs. Richmond might
die, if too abruptly told of this.”
Tears gushed from the orphan's brilliant eyes, as she
spoke, and Peyton, turning towards her, thought he had
never beheld such expressive female features. He had
looked once before upon that countenance, while it reclined
in the immobility of a swoon, and thought it
beautiful indeed, but now, irradiated with the eloquence
of deep feeling, it seemed well-nigh angelic in its loveliness.
“Let me go with you, Miss!” he cried, involuntarily
stepping forward. “I, too, am acquainted with Mrs.
Richmond, and — Nay!” he continued, interrupting
himself—“you cannot go out in this storm! Let me be
the messenger!” Emily Marvin's eyes fell beneath Peyton's
glance, and her cheek burned under the tears that
bedewed it; but the young man lost no time in departing
on his sad mission, and the orphan, wondering at the
interest in herself which his manner had seemed to manifest,
turned towards Margaret Winston, who still knelt
beside the dying Richmond.
-- 431 -- p553-438
Chapter XXXIII. The Poison-Phial.
[figure description] Page 431.[end figure description]
WEAK and suffering in body and mind, Mordecai
Kolephat lay upon his bed, and Rebecca sat beside
him, watching with strange earnestness his quivering eyelids,
as they sought uncertain repose. Her own eyes were
inflamed, for she had been weeping during the hours of
her uncle's absence, and her cheeks were pale as the lace
upon her bosom, beneath which one small hand was
thrust, perhaps to still the quck beating of her heart,
perhaps to feel always the tiny phial, Richmond's gift, in
which sparkled those deadly drops that she had promised
her lover to dispense ere morning's light. Was it fear
that, as yet, restrained her hand?—that had made her
falter when, with her uncle's return, the opportunity came
to mingle the potion with a draught which his fevered
lips had eagerly accepted? Was it irresolution, now,
that caused her hesitation, as the medicine which he must
soon drink stood upon a table within her reach, and with
a turn of her small hand she might let fall a drop of the
phial's contents—to do its work when she had gone to
her chamber? Whatever it might be that checked her
-- 432 --
[figure description] Page 432.[end figure description]
purpose, Rebecca still paused—still shaded her brow with
one white palm, and gazed upon the aged face of her
uncle—that face which, however harsh to others, wore
ever a smile for her. Often had she felt those hard lips
press her orphaned brow, and linger on her lips, when, as
a child, she first recalled them. The old man's countenance
was now ashy pale—the lines sharp and repulsive;
but, nevertheless, there was still about them the old look,
remembered well, and she shuddered in meditating the
deed that she must do.
Must do? Yes! for had not her promise been given
to Richmond, her lover, that the lost child should not
come between their love and fortune? To-night her
uncle had beheld that child—where, how, she knew not;
but her woman's jealousy told her that Mordecai Kolephat
had gone forth with Ferret for no purpose save one,
and that, whithersoever he had been led, he had looked
upon the one who claimed to be his daughter. The
thought was madness to Rebecca's wild nature; she
closed her white teeth together, drew her hand from her
bosom, clasping the poison-phial, and, rising, moved towards
the table. In another moment, the deadly liquid
had been conveyed to a cup of anodyne medicine of which
Kolephat was accustomed to sip at intervals during a
restless night, and Rebecca resumed her place beside the
bed. As she did so, her uncle opened his eyes.
“My child,” he said, kindly, “do not remain—retire to
your room. I shall sleep very soon.”
“Sleep,” repeated Rebecca, mechanically echoing the
old man's words—“very soon!”
-- 433 --
[figure description] Page 433.[end figure description]
“Yes, my child!—do not sit up longer. I have much to
say to you, to-morrow, Rebecca—and we both need rest.”
“Yes, uncle!” Rebecca answered, scarcely knowing
what she uttered; for a fearful conflict was agitating her
mind. She trembled violently, her face became pallid, her
breath grew stifled.
“Stay, Rebecca—before you go, give me the anodyne
draught,” said Kolephat, not noticing the girl's excitement.
“Then, my child, I'll not trouble you again.”
Rebecca rose, and tottered towards the table. A fire
seemed to burn in her brain—a thousand discordant
sounds rang in her ears. She strove in vain to collect
her thoughts—to master her emotion; only one blurred
object swam before her vision—the countenance of Richmond,
dark and frowning, as if chiding her delay. She
clung to the table, and looked around upon the old man,
who had sunk back, with closed eyes, unobservant of her
excitement. His features were calm—his breast nourished
no suspicion of her treachery. Rebecca could not bear to
look at him, but, with a groan, sank suddenly upon her
knees, her head supported by the table which she had
clasped.
“Rebecca—what ails you, my child? Are you ill?”
The Hebrew's voice trembled, as he spoke, and he
raised himself from the pillow. His niece recovered herself,
abruptly turning, with a distorted smile, toward him.
“I was faint, uncle—for a moment!” she said.
“My child, you are wearied. Give me the anodyne,
and—good-night.”
Rebecca raised the poisoned cup, but in that instant
-- 434 --
[figure description] Page 434.[end figure description]
her good angel interposed to stay the accomplishment of
that which she had contemplated. The luring face of
Charles Richmond, that had swam before her love-sick
vision with well-nigh fatal witchery, vanished for a moment
from her memory, and in its place appeared alone
the form of Mordecai Kolephat, her uncle, her protector,
swollen and disfigured—murdered by one whom he had
ever cherished. The terrible shape seemed to be outstretched
between herself and the bed whereon the old
man reclined—a phantom barrier to her design. She
raised her hands in horror at the sight, and the poisoned
anodyne fell from her relaxed fingers, the cup that held it
dashed to fragments upon the carpet.
Kolephat, alarmed at the wild expression which he had
marked upon Rebecca's features, was still more startled at
the sudden fall of the vessel from her hands; he called
upon her, feebly, stretching forth his clasp; but she
replied not. Overpowered by the fierce conflict that had
raged within her bosom, she sank upon the floor, exhausted.
Her uncle grasped the bell-cord at his bedside,
ringing long and violently, till a brace of servants
appeared. In a moment afterwards, a peal sounded from
the outer door-bell, announcing some visitor to the house.
“Help her!” cried the old man, as the attendants
entered. “See what ails my child! Quick, Sarah!” he
continued, to the woman, who had already knelt, and
raised Rebecca in her arms. “Look to your mistress—
she was never thus before.”
The maid, assisted by her fellow-servant, lifted the
young girl from the floor, discovering her pallid cheeks
-- 435 --
[figure description] Page 435.[end figure description]
and closed eyes. A few crimson drops stained her neck,
flowing from a cut upon the white shoulder.
“Father Abraham!” exclaimed Kolephat, as he beheld
this. “What blood is that?”
“Here is broken glass! She has cut herself, in falling!”
said Sarah. “Poor, dear child! What could
have been the matter with her? Her dress is loose!”
“Take her at once to her chamber,” cried Mordecai.
“I fear something serious has happened to her. Make
haste, I say—make haste!”
The old man waved his hand, impatiently, and sank
back, exhausted, while Sarah and her assistant prepared
to bear Rebecca from her uncle's apartment to her own,
which was contiguous. As they sustained her in their
arms, the footman presented himself at the door, with a
message for Mr. Kolephat.
“Speak! what is it!” said the Hebrew. “Who comes
at this late hour?”
The servant handed Kolephat a case of ivory tablets,
on a leaf of which was written, in a cramped hand—
“I am dying—it is too late! Farewell, Rebecca.
“Charles.”
“What does this mean? Who sends me this?” asked
the old man, with a wondering look. “Who is dying?
who is this Charles, who” —
He paused, for the eyes of his niece had opened and
were fixed upon him, while she essayed, brokenly, to
speak.
-- 436 --
[figure description] Page 436.[end figure description]
“Give me—give me!” she gasped, extending her hand
towards the tablets.
“Rebecca!—my child! what means all this?” murmured
Kolephat, as Sarah, in obedience to Rebecca's
motions, received the ivory from his trembling grasp, and
passed it to her mistress.
Perplexed and astonished, indeed, might the old man
be; for strength seemed suddenly to be restored to his
niece, who stood, without support, holding the tablets
before her fixed eyes, while her cheek became flushed
again, and her breast throbbed audibly.
“Dying!” she cried, in a hoarse whisper—“Charles
dying?—too late! Oh, no!—oh, no!” She pressed the
ivory to her forehead, as if to compress her thoughts,
and rushed to the footman, who stood upon the threshold.
“Whence came this?” she demanded, vehemently; “who
brought these false tablets?”
“There is—a colored man—in the hall,” stammered
the servant, frightened at the unusual demeanor of his
young mistress. “He said the person that sent the message
was dying from a stab.”
Rebecca hardly heard the last words. She had darted
past the footman, and descending the broad staircase,
reached the hall, where stood the negro Samson, who, to
her incoherent questions, could give no reply, save the
one terrible response—that Charles Richmond was, as
they feared, wounded unto death.
“Take me to him! do you hear?—take me to him!”
cried the wretched girl. “He must not die! I say, he
shall not die!”
-- 437 --
[figure description] Page 437.[end figure description]
Samson's honest face gleamed with sympathy for the
evident suffering of the impulsive creature before him,
though he marvelled much as to the relationship which
she could bear to the wounded man, whose wife had been
summoned likewise to his dying bed. Nevertheless, to
Rebecca's repeated entreaties, he replied as kindly as his
feeling nature prompted—
“It is cold and stormy in the street,” he said. “But
he could find a carriage for the lady.”
“No—I cannot wait! Let me go with you at once.
Take me to Mr. Richmond!” She grasped the negro's
hand, in her increasing tremor.
“Rebecca! my child!” The feeble voice of Mordecai
Kolephat called to her from the head of the staircase.
Already alarmed at her sudden flight, he had risen from
his bed, and, supported by the footman, came painfully
forth. “Rebecca!” he repeated, “in God's name, tell
me what ails you this night?” He slowly descended the
stairs, till he stood beside his niece.
“Do not ask me, uncle!” cried the frenzied maiden.
“I must go—for they have murdered him! I tell you they
have murdered him. Come!” she said, in a thrilling whisper,
to Samson, “let us go at once!—at once, I say!”
It was evident that the miserable child's reason wandered;
her eyes were unnaturally bright and dilated;
her cheeks burned with a strange hectic. In truth, the
conflict that had shaken her soul upon this fated evening—
the intense alternations of temptation, horror, remorse,
and fear, added to the sudden revelation of Richmond's
situation—had been too violent in their action upon her
-- 438 --
[figure description] Page 438.[end figure description]
passionate temperament. Her uncle felt that her brain
was now disordered, and he essayed, with gentle words,
to recall her to calmness; but she only clung with closer
clasp to Samson's arm, redoubling her prayers, and silent
only while, in answer to the Hebrew's inquiries, the negro
briefly recounted the scene at his master's house.
“There is some strange mystery here,” said Mordecai
Kolephat, “for my poor child's mind is entirely distracted.
Let a carriage be sent for,” he continued, addressing the
footman. “I cannot rest to-night, till I learn more of
this.”
Saying this, the Hebrew, ill and weak though he was,
summoned his customary will, to overcome all obstacles,
and prepared to accompany Samson and Rebecca to the
house of Mr. Granby, where lay, awaiting death, the
wretched man who would have been his murderer.
-- 439 -- p553-446
Chapter XXXIV. The God-mother's Home.
[figure description] Page 439.[end figure description]
MR. PELEG FERRET, shrewd as he was, and scrutinizing
in the glances which he customarily cast
about him, had been watched that evening by as piercing
a gaze as could be levelled by a pair of bead-like eyes,
which, from a dark nook of the theatre, were bent upon
him and his companion. Monna Maria, the Italian,
undistinguished amid other spectators of the night's performance,
had recognized him as he entered, and her
quick suspicion instantly conjectured the errand on which
he had come. Mordecai Kolephat's person was likewise
familiar to the crafty associate of Old Pris, and, as the
Hebrew, with evident restlessness, regarded the earlier
action of the stage, the woman, in her obscure position,
traced with malicious skill the workings of his anxious
mind, too plainly legible upon his features. And when, at
last, the form of Ninetta darted like a sunbeam across
the tawdry boards, and the loud greeting of her admirers
stirred the dust from crazy walls and rotten flooring,
Monna Maria leaned forward from her dark seat, and
riveted her look upon the old man's countenance, while
her thin lips muttered, almost audibly—“The heretic!—
-- 440 --
[figure description] Page 440.[end figure description]
be would take away the child! Accursed be his race!
he shall never have Ninetta!”
The din of applause rose, at the close of the child's
dance, and then Monna Maria beheld Kolephat sink into
Ferret's arms, and saw him lifted by the agent behind the
regardless crowd, till both disappeared from the saloon.
She cared not to follow them farther, but, hastily stealing
from her place, crossed to a narrow door in the wall near
which she had been seated, and passing through it, entered
a dim passage that penetrated behind the stage. Arrived
thither, she beckoned to Ninetta, who, flushed and
happy, stood, in her gauze robes, listening to the shouts
of “brava!” and violent stamping of the crowd in front.
“Ninetta! come hither!—I must speak with thee!”
But Ninetta, at this moment, obeying a signal from the
dwarf manager, had whirled once more upon the boards,
and was pattering along the line of footlights, with twinkling
steps, then pirouetting coquettishly back, tossing her
radiant head, and smiling, like an infant angel, upon the
boors before her, whom she, poor child, regarded as her
world, the fount of honor and the reward of toil. Thus,
to and fro like a fluttered bird—round and round like
dancing spray of golden waterfalls—and then back to the
naked, miserable slip behind the scenes, to the coarse-faced
manager, the squat prompter, the iron-limbed Maestro
Freidrich, and the hag Monna Maria.
“Come, bambina! I must take thee away! Come with
me, to-night, my Ninetta.”
My Ninetta! Seldom, if ever, had Monna Maria
spoken thus affectionately to the child.
-- 441 --
[figure description] Page 441.[end figure description]
“To-night, Monna Maria!” she said.
“Ay, child—your maestro will leave you with me, this
night. We have to talk of your great triumph, Ninetta—
the bravas, and” —
The little one's eyes danced with delight, and, seizing
her god-mother's withered hand, she kissed it passionately.
“Ah! I'm so glad Monna is pleased!” she said, coaxingly.
“Haste, then, we must go quickly,” cried the crone.
Then, as Ninetta hurried into one of the wooden cells, to
change her stage-finery for the plain garments that she
usually wore, the Italian woman whispered to Maestro
Freidrich, in a patois compounded of Italian and German—
“They of whom I spoke were here to-night.” She pointed,
in speaking, towards the audience. “They came to rob
you of Ninetta, and spoil your fortune, maestro!”
The man scowled, fixing his eyes on Monna Maria.
“They shall not have her,” he answered, moodily,
“unless—unless they pay me well for her services.”
“Hah! thou wilt sell her, then, maestro?” demanded
the hag, quickly.
“Is she not my fortune?” responded the man.
“Truly,” answered Monna Maria, in a changed voice,
“A great loss would it be to thee, maestro—her services.”
“Ay, it must be a round sum that would satisfy me,”
growled the posturer. “Alsace and myself have taught
her everything—eh, Monna Maria!”
“It is very true,” replied the hag. “You must be paid
much gold, to give her up, maestro.”
-- 442 --
[figure description] Page 442.[end figure description]
“Aha! I shall see to that!” said the man, with a short
laugh.
“But—to-night, Ninetta goes with me, maestro. The
robbers watch her without. But I will keep good watch,
too.”
Monna Maria's shrivelled lip was distorted for an instant,
in a horrible grin, disclosing her teeth, as she
turned from the posturer to meet Ninetta, who now appeared,
clad in her coarse cloak and heavy boots, with
her theatrical wardrobe disposed in a small bundle. Taking
the child's hand, the woman hastily-led the way to an opening
at the back of the stage, conducting to a neighboring
alley. Maestro Freidrich followed, but parted from them
on reaching the pavement, glad to be relieved from the
charge of Ninetta, and eager to indulge in copious draughts
of beer, before returning to his Alsace of Foley's Barracks.
Monna Maria quickened her steps, drawing the child
along the muddy streets; and they had left the theatre
far behind, ere Ferret and Kolephat, penetrating to the
stage, discovered, to their disappointment, that the dancing-girl
was no longer there.
Through the chill mist and gusty rain the Italian and
her god-daughter hurried along, tightening their shabby
garments about their forms, and picking their steps over
swollen gutter and shattered curbstone, till they had
entered a dark alley that skirted the rear of Kolephat
College. Here they diverged into a gloomy cul-de-sac, up
which they groped their way to a contracted building,
separated from the domains of Peleg Ferret by a range
of filthy pens used for the stabling of horses. This narrow
-- 443 --
[figure description] Page 443.[end figure description]
building was likewise a tenant-house, but of far less capacity
than the wooden church wherein a hundred families
were crowded. It was four stories in height, but scarcely
twelve feet from front to rear, having been erected upon
a gore of land which bordered on a narrow street, forming
one of the labyrinth that made up the entire neighborhood.
A stranger who should, from curiosity, or by accident,
penetrate in daylight to this squalid quarter, would
be at a loss, indeed, to thread his way out again, through
the maze of alleys, arched passages, and unpaved courts
that divided the various stacks of tottering dwellingplaces;
but were he elevated above the roofs, and able
to look down, with bird's-eye contemplation, upon the
rambling fabries of wood and brick, he would notice how,
in the first place, narrow streets, after intersecting great
thoroughfares of business, on opposite sides of the city,
abruptly plunged downwards, crossing each other at
angles in a basin or valley, over which hung constantly a
cloud of smoke and fœtid exhalations; how, secondly,
the narrow streets were lined with drinking-house, dancing-cellars,
policy-offices, pawnbrokers' dens, groceries,
receptacles of second-hand furniture, junk-shops and stalls
of those who received and trafficked in stolen goods; how,
behind and in front, and at either side of these different
establishments, extended alleys and lanes, two or three
feet in width, that were entrances to interior dwellingplaces,
or tenant-houses, wherein burrowed men, women,
and children, as much apart from the great civilized world
of the city wherein we live as if they were below its
pavements, crouching, like troglodytes, in darkness, amid
-- 444 --
[figure description] Page 444.[end figure description]
worms and rats. On one side of a narrow street, Kolephat
College formed a block; other tenant-houses stared
at it from the opposite side; behind Kolephat College
were angular alleys; skirting these alleys were the horse-pens,
and at the end of the horse-pens opened the cul-desac
through which Monna Maria and Ninetta stumbled in
the dark, and reached the four-story brick structure, on
a gore of land, and crawled up its staircase, two feet
wide, till they gained a room eight feet by ten, with a
closet four feet by ten, beyond, which Monna Maria called
her home. Here, after lighting a piece of tallow candle,
the old woman bade her god-daughter remove her cloak.
Then, stooping to the fire-place, Monna Maria ignited some
shavings that were packed in an earthen furnace, and
placing sticks of charcoal over them, soon caused a glowing
fire to disperse its heat into the confined apartment.
The Italian's quarters were, like all the dwelling-divisions
in this four-story tenant-house, of most contracted
dimensions; consequently, the sixteen families who occupied
the sixteen “parlors” and closets of the building
had no spare room for useless furniture. A bed, if this
luxury were possessed, filled up all available space in the
sleeping-chamber; a deal table, two or three chairs, and
a wooden dresser, consumed the area of the living-room.
Monna Maria's household articles were, therefore, very
few; but, conspicuous among them was a sort of altar,
opposite the fire-place, formed of an oblong packing-box,
covered with a white cloth, whereon were a crucifix and
a glass bottle, containing water from the church, and
over which hung several colored prints, representing the
-- 445 --
[figure description] Page 445.[end figure description]
agony of Christ, and the Virgin Mother. Here, in solitude,
Monna Maria, a bigot and ascetic, was used to
practise her superstitious devotions—here, in fanatical
endurance, she framed new penances to undergo, new
chastisements wherewith to torture her miserable body.
“Ninetta!” said the crone, extinguishing her bit of
candle, as the red light of the burning charcoal cast its
glare about the room. “Ninetta! sit thee beside me,
and tell me if thou lovest me.”
“Truly, dear Monna Maria,” replied the child, seating
herself upon a stool, and glancing up confidingly into the
Italian's face.
“And wilt thou run away from me, and leave me forever?”
“Oh, Monna! what is that?” asked Ninetta, with a
frightened look. “Do I not bring all that I have?—do I
not think of my god-mother, always?” Tears glittered on
the child's long eyelashes, as she uttered these words in a
tone of soft reproach. Meanwhile, the old woman surveyed
her earnestly.
“I know, bambina,” she resumed, laying her tawny
hand upon the radiant forehead that was turned upwards—
“yes, little one! I know thou wilt prate of love;
nevertheless, when they come for thee, with their gilded
carriage, and prancing horses, to take thee away like a
princess; and when the lackeys kneel down to tie thy
shoe-strings, and bring thee fine dresses, and diamonds,
and serve thy food on platters of gold and silver—ay!
bambina! where, then, will be Monna Maria?”
Ninetta's face was clouded with perplexed wonder.
-- 446 --
[figure description] Page 446.[end figure description]
Her beautiful lips parted, and her breath was repressed,
as she listened to her god-mother's words, spoken in a low
tone, as if to enchant the listener's fancy by their enumeration
of sensuous enjoyments.
“Monna Maria!” she murmured, clasping her small
hands together—“Oh, dear Monna! who will come? who
will take me away?'
“Hah! wouldst go, then, Ninetta?” cried the Italian,
a malevolent expression on her face. “Wouldst go with
the rich ones, who claim thee, to their grand palace, and
be dressed in silks, and waited on by servants, while
Monna Maria starves in the streets?”
“No, no—no!” exclaimed the dancing-girl, bursting
into tears. “I would bring gold to thee, Monna Maria.
The servants should wait on thee, and thou shouldst have
the silken dresses, as well as Ninetta!”
“Curses on the silken dresses, and on the gold of
hereties!” muttered Monna Maria, rising from her seat.
“Listen to me, Ninetta! Thou art my god-daughter, and
I promised, at the font where thou wert made a Christian,
that I would guide thee in the path of our Holy Church.
Thou wert then a heretic baby, a child of an accursed
race that slew their God; and thou wert brought to me
by a Jezebel of the tribe, to be baptized in blessed water,
that the vile woman might revenge herself on one she
hated. But when I answered for thee at the font, Ninetta,
I swore thou shouldst live and die in the Holy Roman
faith; and so I have watched over thee since, bambina,
and kept thee in thy duty. Hast confessed this day,
Ninetta?”
-- 447 --
[figure description] Page 447.[end figure description]
The child had listened, mutely, and with awe-stricken
features, to the vehement revelations which Monna Maria
now made, for the first time; and when they closed with
the abrupt question, she started, and trembled violently.
“Answer! hast confessed?”
“Surely!” replied Ninetta. “I went to Padre Clement
before the play, dear Monna.”
“And did he give thee absolution—tell me the truth,
bambina?”
“He bade me say twelve paters and aves, backward
and forward, dear Monna.”
“And hast thou done so?”
“Nay, not yet; but I will say them with thee, Monna,”
answered the child, in a coaxing manner, as she clasped
the crone's hand. “But, first, wilt thou not tell me more
about the great people?—Oh! be not angry, Monna
Maria! If I were rich, thou shouldst be also rich, godmother;
and we would live in a grand house together!”
“Avaunt! get away, Satan!” cried the woman, with a
gesture of abhorrence, as though she described the Evil One
behind Ninetta's lovely form. “Tempt me not, child of
perdition!” She stamped the floor, as she spoke, and
glared fiercely upon her god-daughter.
“Oh! Monna Maria! thou wilt frighten me to death!”
exclaimed Ninetta, covering her face with her hands.
But the crone, mastering her passion, regained the usual
impassible look, and, resuming her seat, said, calmly—
“I doubt not, bambina, thou wouldst have me prate
long about the heretics; but I will tell thee all in few
words. There is in this great city a rich man whose child
-- 448 --
[figure description] Page 448.[end figure description]
thou art, and he searches for thee to and fro.” — The
woman paused to note the effect of her words upon
Ninetta, whose expressive face grew bright with joyful
wonder, as she exclaimed—
“My father, dear Monna?—my real father!”
“Ay, he is thy father—but if thou shalt go to him,
thou wilt lose heaven, and thy soul. He is a heretic, and
will make thee like himself!”
“Oh, no—no!” cried the child, lifting her clasped
hands. “No, dear Monna! I will save him! he shall
not lose his soul! I will pray for him! I will say thousands
of paters and aves, backwards and forwards! I will
take him to good Padre Clement!”
“Peace, foolish one!” cried the woman's chilling voice,
checking Ninetta's impassioned utterance. “He is an old
man, of the doomed race who will suffer as Christ's murderers.
He can but drag thee with him to perdition! I
should see thy soul in torment, bambina, as I looked down
from Abraham's bosom.”
“Oh, no—no!” pleaded the child. “God is good,
Padre Clement says. I would pray to God always for my
father, till he sent thee to save us, dear Monna.”
“Foolish child! There is no salvation from the eternal
fire. Thinkest thou a heretic or his child would be admitted
to Purgatory, where souls of Christians are purified?
No, thou art mad, bambina. Say no more—where
is thy rosary?”
“Here, dear Monna,” answered the child, taking from
her bosom a string of beads, to which a cross was appened.
-- 449 --
[figure description] Page 449.[end figure description]
“Kneel, and say thy paters and axes, and see that thy
prayers are earnest!” said Monna Maria. “Pray for thy
soul, and that God will keep thee in His holy faith; for
to-morrow thou wilt be in thy father's mansion.”
“Oh, dear Monna!” cried the child, “wilt thou, then,
take me to my father? O! I bless thee, dear godmother!
I am so happy!”
Ninetta lifted her hands to the woman's withered neck,
and mutely solicited a kiss. But Monna Maria did not
even smile; she only said, in her measured voice—
“After thy prayers, I will kiss thee—after thy paters
and aves!”
The child, thus enjoined, knelt upon the floor, beside
the stool on which she had been seated, and, raising
her eyes reverently, began to murmur her prayers rapidly,
as she had been taught to utter them in early
infancy. Beginning at the cross upon the rosary, her
small fingers pattered over the string, the fall of a bead
denoting the completion of each pater and each ave, till
the allotted number was completed, and her penance
finished. Light it was, compared with daily penances of
Monna Maria; and light it well might be, in view of
Ninetta's innocent mind, which, save a little thoughtless
vanity, harbored no evil thought or sinful wish.
“Padre Clement gave thee full absolution?” said Monna
Maria, earnestly, when her god-daughter had concluded
her prayers. “I shall pray, likewise, for thee, bambina;
and I have sharp penance to perform, this night. Eat
now, if thou art hungry, and when thou art sleeping,
afterwards, Monna Maria's penance must begin.”
-- 450 --
[figure description] Page 450.[end figure description]
Ninetta, who had eaten nothing during the evening,
partook with avidity of the dried fruit and sweetened
water that her god-mother placed before her, whilst the
crone refused to break her fast, which she had kept
throughout the day. The dancing-girl was accustomed
to this, and aware, moreover, that Monna Maria was a
most rigid inflicter of various kinds of torture on herself;
so that, at this time, in hearing the woman speak of penance
to be undergone this night, Ninetta knew that she
should hear cries and groans, ere long, and the sound,
perhaps, of blows, mingled with despairing prayers.
“Now, bambina, to rest!” said the god-mother, lighting
her bit of candle once more, and going to the narrow
closet, wherein, upon tressles, was fixed a narrow framework,
supporting a flock mattress. There were more
prints of saints upon the walls, a wooden cross at the
bed's head, and a small bottle of holy water suspended by
a string near the foot. The closet itself was without window
or any aperture for ventilation save the door that
opened to the outer room; because the rear wall of the
tenant-house, abutting against another building, admitted
of no perforation to the outer air. In this respect, the
building was of similar construction to thousands of other
dwellings for the poor, whose infancy, childhood, and
maturity, are thus choked and poisoned by malaria and
disease. Little, however, did poor Ninetta, unused to
other atmosphere, think of the closeness of that narrow
apartment; but when, in answer to her entreaty, Monna
Maria had kissed her, with cold lips, she pressed her
rosary to her breast, smiled under the sprinkling of holy
-- 451 --
[figure description] Page 451.[end figure description]
water, that the crone dispensed, and then, with a soft
“good night, dear Monna,” turned her sweet face from
the red glare that shone into the closet out of the burning
charcoal in the other room.
Monna Maria closed the door of the dark room, and
returning to her place near the hearth, sat for a few
moments in silence, her angular elbows resting on her
knees, whilst her large fingers, clinched together, sustained
her repulsive head, at the same time that they
clutched the cross of a rosary. In the gleam of the charcoal,
her fixed eyes wore a crimson tinge; and had a
stranger come suddenly upon her, in the apparent solitude,
and marked her thin lips mumbling unintelligible
words, her hands shifting uneasily around the chin which
they held, her brow corrugating in a heavy frown, he
might have looked upon her as a witch, awaiting the
working of an unholy spell. Had he, moreover, been
able to penetrate the hag's reveries, and to trace the
chain of thought which lengthened under her long forehead,
he would have shuddered to discover what wicked
intents nestled, like serpents, in Monna Maria's brain—
intents hurried to execution by the promptings, too, of
what the wretched woman, in her bigotry, had learned to
deem her duty. Always, as she peered forward into the
fire-place, where arose continually gas-puffs and sparks from
the charcoal brazier, the crone's fingers dropped her beads,
one by one, upon the rosary string, and it was evident
that the mumblings which her lips emitted were such
prayers as she was used to mutter. Thus, for many
minutes, she continued absorbed in strange devotion;
-- 452 --
[figure description] Page 452.[end figure description]
then, rising, began slowly to remove a thin shawl from
her neck, and to uncover her shoulders and sallow breast,
until she stood unclothed to the waist, standing erect,
like a spectre, in the glare of the brazier. When this
disrobing was accomplished, she knelt down, bowing her
head almost to the floor, and resumed her mumbling
prayers and self-accusations, smiting her bosom constantly,
as she repeated the dismal Confiteor of the Romish
Church. Presently, as her fanatical excitement waxed
stronger, she struck her hands upon her forehead, and
knotted the fingers in her disordered hair, plucking shreds
of it away, and scattering them into the fire-place. More
than before, she now grew like a witch, engaged in incantation,
though words of prayer fell from her writhing
lips.
At length, as if wearied, she ceased the beating of her
breast, which had become bruised and discolored by
severe blows, and remained, during a few moments, with
closed eyes, half prostrate upon the rough flooring. But
there was not yet to be a respite to Monna Maria's penance;
for, rising soon, and shuffling to the rude altar,
she took from behind it a leather thong, of two strands,
almost eighteen inches in length, and studded with bits of
lead, like points of broken nails. In an instant afterwards,
she had brandished this instrument of torture
around her head, and it descended with cruel force across
her left shoulder, and upon her naked back, leaving two
narrow welts, from which small drops of blood began at
once to flow. Another and another stroke succeeded,
dealt with all the strength of her muscular arm—the
-- 453 --
[figure description] Page 453.[end figure description]
thongs clinging around neck and waist, and winding
under her sallow breast, wounding the shrinking flesh,
whilst the miserable penitent, setting her teeth together,
groaned in the agony of her self-inflicted torture. Thus
the dreadful flagellation was continued, until Monna
Maria's back and bosom were wealed and bloody, and her
arm sank, powerless to prolong its work. Then, moaning
fearfully, and muttering supplications in her native tongue,
the Italian woman drew her ragged garments once more
over her shoulders, and resumed her seat near the hearth,
where she remained silent, save in uttering groans, for
several minutes.
But not yet was the bigoted woman to rest; though
the mortification of her body, in her bigoted belief, had
been for the behoof of the sinful soul. Not yet could
she seek the slumber which exhausted vitality might seem
to crave. Monna Maria's penance, though of greater
violence and duration than ordinary, was of no uncommon
occurrence in her solitude; for an evil conscience, wherein
the memory of an ill-spent life was an ever-present horror,
made bodily suffering appear of small account; nevertheless,
on this night, the hag nourished purposes that, to her
warped mind, seemed commanded of heaven, and yet were
dark and deadly; and now, as she crouched to her chair
near the furnace, her coarse garments stained with the
blood that oozed from the stripes she had borne, the dim
thoughts that shaped themselves in her brain took form
in mutterings more distinct than had been her prayers.
“The child's soul will be lost,”—thus Monna Maria
muttered—“lost forever, if she goes back to the Jew;
-- 454 --
[figure description] Page 454.[end figure description]
and the oath that I took at the font would lie upon me
like a curse, and drag me with her! Ninetta, the baptized
child, will become heretic and accursed, like all her
kin, and I—I,”—the crone's fierce features became distorted
with wrath—“I shall be spurned by the Jew and
his lady daughter—I, that would save her soul from perdition.”
Monna Maria rose, paused an instant, and then going
to the door of the closet, opened it a few inches, and
peered in. Ninetta lay upon the flock bed, in quiet sleep,
her small white arm folded under her fair cheek, her
clustering ringlets half concealing neck and face. She
breathed heavily, though unconscious; for the dark room,
with the door shut, had been close, and perhaps oppressive.
Nevertheless, in happy forgetfulness, or, perchance,
charmed by visions of a golden future, the child reposed
as peacefully as if enclosed by palace walls; and Monna
Maria, in contemplating her, could not but feel that she,
her god-daughter, was surpassingly lovely.
“But what will profit her beauteous body, when the
evil one claims her soul?” muttered the hag. “Better be
as ugly as a blackamoor, and vile as a leper, and yet hold
faith in our holy religion. Ay! she elasps the rosary
now,” continued Monna Maria, noting that Ninetta's
fingers still held her beads, “but where will be rosary, or
blessed water, or cross itself, when the Jew's black gates
close on the child of perdition? No! Blessed Virgin
Maria!” gasped the woman, closing the closet door, and
sinking again on her knees—“she shall never go to the
Jews! she shall go to thee—to thee!—this night—pure
-- 455 --
[figure description] Page 455.[end figure description]
from sin, and I will live to do penance for the sin—if sin
it be to save a soul from hell!”
Thus saying, Monna Maria rose, with her customary
impassible look, and proceeded, as calmly as if engaged in
ordinary vocations, to make her dispositions for the commission
of a fearful crime. Taking the bottle of water
from her altar, she went to the dark closet again, and
sprinkled the bed profusely with the sanctified element;
then placed her own crucifix at the head of the mattress,
and hung a rosary at its foot. This done, with the
mumbling of many prayers, while Ninetta still slumbered
sweetly, the god-mother bent over her, and, lifting her
hands in apparent supplication, seemed to invoke a blessing
upon the act she had resolved upon, in impious superstition
engendered by her bigoted faith. Then she
stooped close over Ninetta, but did not kiss the child's
innocent lips, perhaps apprehensive of awakening her,
perhaps fearing to pollute the sinless soul so soon to leave
its earthly habitation. There was a pause, then, in the
hag's movements, though no hesitation. She seemed
only to be concentrating her faculties to accomplish that
which she was to do; and it was even with a sterner
countenance than she had before worn, that now, lifting
the red furnace from the hearth, she bore it to the
dark closet, and placing it near to the tressles, glanced
once more at her god-daughter's face, and then, reclosing
the door tightly, crept back to her chair in the dark
outer room, where she remained rigid and upright, with
her rosary cross pressed to her lips, her withered fingers
telling the beads, her dry lips mumbling their incessant
-- 456 --
[figure description] Page 456.[end figure description]
prayers. Monna Maria knew that the pent charcoal
must soon fill the closet with its fumes, and that Ninetta
would die without pain, suffocated in her quiet sleep.
One by one—drop, drop—the beads rattled in falling,
like the solemn tick of a watch, chronicling the lapse of
time into eternity. One by one, the prayers of the fanatic—
blasphemous mockery of Heaven—trembled on Monna
Maria's lips. About her all was darkness, but her soul
grew darker momently. Thus the minutes glided away.
“She sleeps!” thus wandered the crone, in her strange
prayers; “she will pass away like a saint, and mine will
be the sin to expiate by heavy penance! Holy Virgin!
give me strength—blessed St. Geronimo! sustain me!
all the Saints pray for me, a sinful woman! She sleeps!
the child Ninetta—she will awake in Paradise! This
day hath she confessed, and the Padre gave her absolution?
Never will she be more fitted to die! Thus will
she escape the heretic! and I—miserable—will journey
to the grave alone! Holy Virgin! help me!—blessed
company of saints! intercede for me. Pure Maria!
receive the child's soul! Holy Innocents of Bethlehem!
bear Ninetta to Paradise!”
Thus Monna Maria communed in the darkness, believing,
in her superstition, that she did no wrong. O Human
Heart! this poor Italian woman is not alone in her bigotry!
Alas! how many of the refined, the educated, the
gospel-taught are in our midst, who build up about their
spirits a wall of fanaticism, like unto Monna Maria's—
shutting out all charity for that which they judge to be
the heresy of others, whilst, in their blind selfishness, they
-- 457 --
[figure description] Page 457.[end figure description]
make crosses of their own daily deeds, whereon they crucify
the Son of Man afresh!
Many minutes crept away, and all was yet still, save
the old woman's broken whispers. Monna Maria, strive
against it as she might, began now to feel a nameless terror
creeping around her in the darkness. Her face grew
cold, and her limbs numb, and even the smart of scarified
back and bosom—matted against the coarse vesture
that was covered by congulating blood—seemed to be forgotten
in the shivering dread that drew nigh to her heart,
like unto an icy hand grasping and compressing it.
“Holy Mother of God!” ejaculated the fanatic, hugging
her breast closely with her folded arms—“Blessed
St. Ursula, St. Agatha, St. Monica, St. Veronica! pray
for me!”
“Again she cast herself prostrate upon the floor, bowing
her forehead in the dust; but at this moment, a voice
from the inner room called—
“Monna Maria! god-mother! Monna Maria!” The
voice was choked and gasping, and the hag knew it came
from Ninetta. “Monna Maria! come! they will carry
me away! They come for me!” Ay! it is the voice
of the child, stifling in her sleep, thinks Monna Maria;
and she gathered her arms and hands over her face, and
crouched silently in the darkness.
Again came that voice, feeble in its intonation, yet
modulated like music; and it said—“Monna Maria!
good-night! the angels have come. I am going to my
mother and the angels!” The hag grovelled on the floor,
shutting her ears against the child's voice, and thus she
-- 458 --
[figure description] Page 458.[end figure description]
lay for many minutes longer; but the voice was heard no
more. “She—is—dead!” muttered Monna Maria; “she
is in heaven! and the heretic will be cheated!” Then,
painfully rising to her feet, the woman tottered through
the darkness, till her hand came in contact with the closet
door. All yet remained silent, and Monna Maria slowly
opened the door; but at this instant, her name was pronounced
again, and, uttering a shrick, the hag sunk upon
the threshold, her eyes dilated in terror, whilst the sudden
rush of carbonic gas almost stifled her gasping throat.
And well might the superstitious bigot tremble at the
spectacle which met her half-averted eye. Ninetta was
not lying, as she expected to behold her, still and rigid
upon the bed, but standing erect, seeming, as it were,
ascending upwards, whilst lambent flames played around
her white-robed form, and a luminous clond enveloped her
transfigured face. Her hands were raised, clasped together,
and she seemed about to spring away on wings of
fire, beyond the cloven roof-tree of that squalid tenant-house—
above the dark and wretched world—to realms of
light and never-ending beauty. Monna Maria looked,
with wildered glance, then covered her eyes with her
hand, and, with another cry of fear, fell prone upon the
floor. Ninetta's form remained poised an instant amid
the fiery smoke, and then, with a bound, descended over
the god-mother's prostrate body, and sprang forward to
the outer room, while the closet, no longer dark, became
enveloped in thick flames, that rose from the flock bed,
darted over the crackling wood-work, and licked, with
curving tongue, the walls and ceiling.
-- 459 -- p553-466
Chapter XXXV. The Fiery Trial.
[figure description] Page 459.[end figure description]
WALTER DOBBS sat at his writing-table, reading
from the ponderous manuscript, which he called
“his book.” The light of the pendant lamp illuminated
his broad forehead, white hair and grotesque form, and it
shone, likewise, out of the small room, into the outer
apartment, around the threshold of which were gathered
Walter's listeners, intent on the reader's words; for the
author had, during several days past, been elaborating a
chapter upon such scenes as were familiar to all of them:
scenes of daily life in the great city; of people with whom
they met and spoke in their common walks; of dwellers
in lanes, and alleys, in cellars and garrets; of close-pent
rooms, in tenant-houses, and of their demoniac surroundings,
in the guise of gambling-dens, lottery-offices and
groggeries, jails and chains, fevers, starvation and death.
Of these usual sights and associations Walter had been
writing, and was now reading to his little audience; and
it is therefore, not wonderful that they heard him earnestly,
for they knew too well the truth of so sad a
chronicle.
-- 460 --
[figure description] Page 460.[end figure description]
Hubert Dobbs, the inventor, sat nearest to the table,
which, as before, stood just within his brother's door.
Hubert's countenance appeared not so troubled as formerly,
and there was evidently more elasticity in his
frame than could have been remarked at the period of his
introduction at Mr. Jobson's office. And there was a
cause, simple yet all-powerful, of the apparent improvement
in the poor man's demeanor; for now, thanks to his
stranger-guest's liberality, he was free from the debts that
formerly shackled him, and had made rapid progress
towards the completion of a machine whereon he had
expended many years of laborious research and inventive
genius, but which now, as men of science declared, was to
lay for him the foundation of a fortune. Beside Hubert
sat his wife—no longer the wretched slave of drink—no
longer with bloodshot eyes, and shaking limbs, and rent
garments—but clad neatly and with scrupulous cleanliness,
her hair parted smoothly back from a really handsome
face, her right hand resting in that of her husband,
whilst her left drew near to them the child Alice, whose
intelligent features were irradiated with happiness. The
woman's good resolution, attested by a solemn oath, had
never been broken during three months, and she was now
the comfort and supporter of Hubert Dobbs, as she had
been once the weight that dragged him down to ruin.
But there were two other individuals in that little
circle of auditors to Walter's book. The guest, whose
timely aid had rescued his host from the power of a hard
creditor, and who, nursed and tended with unremitting
care by the grateful family, had completely recovered his
-- 461 --
[figure description] Page 461.[end figure description]
strength, acknowledging Walter's skill as a surgeon, as
well as his power as a writer—this strange personage still
remained an inmate of the dwelling, and was now as
earnest in attention to the reader as were the other
hearers; quite as much, indeed, as the odd-looking personage
who sat beside him, ever and anon rubbing a
round face, with knotted hands, as some point in the
argument struck his fancy, and who was no other, in fact,
than our Hibernian acquaintance, the “hedge-schoolmaster,”
who, having contrived to attach himself as a “handy
man” to Hubert, had proved of no small use to the latter,
as an assistant in his little workshop.
“The `Tenant-House,”' thus Walter read, in a deep
voice, from his manuscript, “is at the bottom of social
degradation in our great cities! In vain may the legislator
make laws to punish crime or coerce to virtue; in vain
shall the philanthropist invent systems of amelioration;
in vain shall the preacher inveigh against licentiousness
among the poor; while the capitalist, rearing his cheap
edifices of brick and mortar, is allowed to crowd them
with human beings, debarred from the air of heaven, the
light of day, the purity of nature. To extirpate the
influence of the upas, we must not merely lop off its
branches, but we must destroy its roots, and in the earth
whence it is eradicated plant fresh and healthy seeds.
The Tenant-House is a laboratory of disease, of vice, and
of their kindred evils. Cleanse, remodel, purify the dwellings
of Poverty, and the result will be that Thrift will
displace Shiftlessness, and Industry earn bread, from lack
of which Idleness becomes Crime.”
-- 462 --
[figure description] Page 462.[end figure description]
“It is the eureka of social reform,” said the guest, as
Walter paused to turn a leaf of his papers.
“If the world would only believe it,” remarked Hubert,
sadly.
“`The world moves!”' rejoined the stranger, “even
though Galileo be tortured for truth's sake! But, hark!
what is that?”
A rush in the street without—a blow and clash, and
the sound of men's voices, and hurrying of feet—tokens
these of a fire alarm in the neighborhood—interrupted further
reading of the book; and the next moment a bright
glare, shining through the windows of the house, caused
all to hasten to the door. A chill rain beat inward, as
they opened it, and the gusty wind, entering suddenly,
extinguished the light of Walter's lamp; but they noticed
it not, for the alley outside was illuminated with the
brightness of day, the sky above reflecting a red gleam
that disclosed every object distinctly. In the narrow
street, whence the small alley or court debouched, a concourse
of men, women, and children were hurrying along,
while the din of engine-bells, the loud burst of horns, and,
above all, the measured strokes of alarm from the fire
look-outs, filled the heavy air with discordant clangor.
Walter and Hubert, with their guest and the hedge-schoolmaster,
hastily covered themselves, and emerged
from the alley into the midst of the excited throng which
poured along, and in which they were borne forward to
the corner of an adjoining street, whence they obtained a
view of the locality of the conflagration. The burning
buildings were not yet, indeed, to be discerned, but, from
-- 463 --
[figure description] Page 463.[end figure description]
the large flakes of flame, ignited shingles, and fragments
of wood that rose, volcano-like, above the tops of houses
that lined the sidewalk on which they stood, they knew
that the scene of destruction must comprise a mass of
rotten fabrics, including several tenant-houses, which occupied
an area of low land a few squares distant. At the
same time, a cry arose from voices in the crowd, through
which men were furiously dragging an engine, that “Kolephat
College was on fire!”
Kolephat College! There was not one in the multitude
of surrounding poor who did not know familiarly
the miserable ruin that had long been marked by this
appellation; the old wooden structure, years since a
church, wherein, from corner-stone to highest string-piece,
a succession of squalid inhabitants might be found, from
year to year, rising, layer upon layer, up the different
floors, distinguished only by degrees of squalor. There
was hardly a neighbor who had not, in times past, predicted
that on some occasion the besom of fire would
sweep the edifice, and that its inmates would, undoubtedly,
be smothered or burned, like rats in their holes.
Consequently, it was more than common curiosity which
prompted the people, when they heard that Kolephat
College was burning, to dash forward with renewed speed;
it was the strange desire to reach a spot where, perhaps,
human beings were, at this moment, perishing by torture
in their beds.
But if the men and women who had long dwelt in this
shabby quarter were excited by the mention of “Kolephat
College,” so, likewise, was the guest of the brothers
-- 464 --
[figure description] Page 464.[end figure description]
Dobbs—the stranger who, three months before, had been
flung down and grievously hurt by the rush of a score of
men, hurling their clattering engine along the pavement.
Since that night, the man had not tasted of liquor, but,
like the hedge-schoolmaster and Hubert's wife, had seemed
to have lost all desire for such stimulus; nevertheless, as
the words “Kolephat College” rose from the people now,
the guest became suddenly pale, and staggered like one
intoxicated.
“My God!” he ejaculated, as Walter supported his
arm—“that building contains a hundred families!”
“It is true,” murmured Walter, in reply, “and only
Heaven's mercy can save them from a cruel fate! for the
shell and partitions are like tinder, the passages confined
and crooked, the staircases steep and narrow!”
“Let us hasten thither!” cried the guest, recovering
himself. “We may be able to save some lives!” Then,
hurrying forward with the rest, he muttered, in a broken
voice—“O Mordecai Kolephat! thy wealth is cursed!
for the blood of the poor hath ever stained it!”
They soon arrived in view of the range of brick and
wooden structures forming a block, at the rear of which
was the burning building. A mass of people filled the
street, and choked the entrance of a narrow alley, the
cul-de-sac before mentioned as penetrating to the fourstory
tenant-house into which Monna Maria had conducted
her god-daughter Ninetta. The fire at this time appeared
to be confined to the back portions of this building, from
the roof of which flames and fiery splinters were borne
upward like the blaze of a blasting furnace. From the
-- 465 --
[figure description] Page 465.[end figure description]
second floor of that narrow house—from the dark closet
wherein the Italian bigot sought to smother an innocent
child—the flames had worked upward through dry panels,
till they reached the story above, and thence communicated
with a wooden structure in the rear.
But the spectators thought not, at this moment, of
ascertaining the origin of the disaster which now threatened
to spread widely through the stacks of frame dwellings,
horse-stables, and workshops, that were huddled
within the limits of a few squares. The firemen shouted
loudly, as they endeavored to bring their engines nearer
to the blazing building, but were prevented by narrow,
impassable alleys, and were then obliged to draw out
great lengths of hose, carrying them over sheds, and
through passage-ways, till they might attain a position
whence water could be cast upon the flames. Cries of
alarm rose continually from the crowd, as they seemed to
catch the shrieks of tenants within the building, unable to
escape; but, save the broken limbs of a poor woman who
had plunged headlong down the staircase, in a wild effort
to descend, no accident had as yet been witnessed. Sufficient
notice, it appeared, had providentially been received
by the inmates of the house, so that they had all reached
the street in safety, with some fragments of their scanty
furniture, which were now scattered upon the wet side-walk,
their owners shivering beside them, as they watched
the ruin of their only shelter.
All!—not so; for, suddenly, a tumult rose among the
people—a great shout was heard, and then the voices of
men and women, calling to each other, in frightened
-- 466 --
[figure description] Page 466.[end figure description]
tones—“Look! look! there is a child! a child at the
window! She will be lost! the fire is all around her!”
Walter and Hubert Dobbs, with their two companions,
stood at the extremity of the range of horse-sheds that
formed an angle with the four-story building. They had
entered through the cul-de-sac, and reached nearly to the
spot where a fireman stood, with pipe in hand, preparing
to direct the first stream of water upon the flame, that
had now crept along the eaves of the brick house, and
was lapping downward, whilst, in the rear, it had spread
fiercely through the roof and upper stories of a stack of
tottering frames. Kolephat College was not, as had been
reported, yet on fire, but it was evident that, if not arrested,
the sparks and cinders must be carried by the
strong wind across the narrow lane which intervened, and
settling upon the tinder-like roofing of the old church,
soon wrap it with the devouring element. All speculation
upon this or other contigencies was banished by the new
spectacle that was visible in the third story, below which
the red tongues of fire came darting incessantly. It was
the figure of Ninetta, the dancing-girl, who, garbed in
her white night-clothes, as she had sprung from the dark
closet that had nearly been her tomb, now appeared at an
open window, her beautiful face emerging, pale as marble,
but radiant in the surrounding light, her white arms
stretched outward, imploring succor from the crowd
below.
“A ladder! a rope!—a ladder!” were the confused
exclamations of the nearest spectators, as they beheld the
child's jeopardy; and a rush was made outward from the
-- 467 --
[figure description] Page 467.[end figure description]
cul-de-sac, as if to procure the means of escape. But the
next instant a voice cried—“No ladder can be taken
through this crooked alley! The house must be entered!”
It was the fireman holding the water-pipe, who
saw at a glance that the use of ladders was impracticable
in so confined a space. At the same instant, the gallant
man placed the pipe in the hands of a comrade, and, darting
forward, disappeared within the narrow doorway of
the tenant-house. The people, meanwhile, raised their
shouts anew, calling to the child at the window to run
from the apartment where she was, and seek safety by the
staircase. But she, poor trembler, was bewildered by terror;
for she had lain fainting, where she had fallen upon
the floor of the room, during several moments after her
escape from suffocation, until the rapid progress of the
fire had completely cut off all avenues of egress save the
solitary window. The flame, communicated by the charcoal
furnace to the flock bed, had burned up through a
low ceiling, and out along a thin panelled wall to the
passage-way, thence, augmented by the draught, devouring
the dry woodwork of the staircase, and emitting
volumes of thick smoke and lurid sparks, which were
hurled throughout the rest of the houses. The flooring
behind the window-sill to which Ninetta clung in despair,
was crisping under the heat, and had long since given
way, but that the fire, ascending in the closet, and there
confined by the closing of the door, had first worked its
path above, before spreading to the outer room.
In this state of things, there was no opportunity for the
child to obey the hoarse directions of the excited crowd
-- 468 --
[figure description] Page 468.[end figure description]
below. She could only wave her little arms, and raise
them beseechingly above her head, as she leaned further
out of the window, shrinking from the heat within, which
scorched her flesh, and from the smoke that grew close
and deadly. The spectators shuddered now, for they
could catch glimpses of forked gleams behind Ninetta's
white form; and, presently, they beheld the brave fireman,
who had entered the tenant-house, appear at a window
in the second story, and dash out the sash, gasping
for breath, while his voice, choked and harsh, scarcely
reached their ears. “The house within is a sheet of
flame!” he cried; and swinging himself out of the casement,
let himself down a dozen feet into the street.
Then, indeed, cries of terror from the men, and wailings
from the women, rose in dire discord from the multitude,
as their faces were turned upwards to the high
third-story window, where clung the beautiful child, at
the month of the fiery furnace, into which, it was too
probable, she must shortly fall backwards, or, springing
outward, be dashed upon the stony pavement. Then a
loud demand was made for bedding, to strew upon the
gutter, or hold above the people's heads, whereon the girl
might fall, and be saved from death, even with mutilation.
A score of men rushed outward, as this call was
heard, to procure, if possible, beds and mattresses; but
in the meantime, a new horror was added to the scene.
It has been said that a row of sheds, used for the
stabling of horses, diverged at an angle from the brick
tenant-house. The roofing of these dilapidated structures
had received, during several minutes, a shower of cinders,
-- 469 --
[figure description] Page 469.[end figure description]
thrown upward from the burning building, and at length
broke out into a blaze, which rapidly extended to the
rotten walls. The animals within, tethered to the stalls,
had become frantic with the glare around them, and now,
breaking their halters, were plunging madly to and fro,
uttering frightful shrieks. They dashed at the burning
doors, the frail fastenings of which at once gave way,
permitting the infuriated brutes to rush outward upon
the alley; and now, just at the instant when the shout
went up for beds, to break the child's fall, the people in
the cul-de-sac beheld a dozen steeds plunging upon them,
with dilated nostrils, and manes tossed aloft, their throats
venting horrible sounds like the roar of wild beasts in the
jungles. On came the terror-stricken animals, and the
multitude made way before them, thinking no longer of
the doomed child in the flames, as they cast themselves
out of the cul-de-sac, or crowded to the wooden buildings
at its sides, uttering, the while, the most fearful cries,
which mingled horribly with the din of the tramping
horses.
But all did not fly thus, or Ninetta's last moment had
surely come. Hardly had the exhausted fireman reached
once more the street, after his vain effort to penetrate to
the third story, than a dark figure sprang from a foremost
group in the alley, and gaining the base of the
tenant-house, clasped a metal conduit, which served for
the sewer connection of the building, and unto which was
joined, at the height of the second story, a spout of
weaker material, slightly fastened to the brickwork by
iron hooks. Clinging to this frail support, with both
-- 470 --
[figure description] Page 470.[end figure description]
hands, and bending his knees across it likewise, the man
began slowly to climb, while the spout shook and rattled
at every foot of his ascent. At this instant came the
alarm from the horse-sheds, and the rush which followed
it; and, save by a few who watched with straining eyes,
from a corner where they had retreated, the daring
climber was unnoticed by the crowd, till the scattering
animals had broken far away, and the multitude bore
back into the cul-de-sac. Then the dark figure was seen
close to the casing of the window, which one hand grasped
while the other lifted the child Ninetta from the floor
within, and supported her slight form in the air without.
At this sight, a shout arose that seemed like a prolonged
peal of thunder, and a hundred rude expressions
of admiration broke from the overwrought bosoms of the
multitude below. Then all was hushed, as the climber
was observed to wave his hand, and cast downward a
strand of rigger's yarn, which began slowly to unwind
from the ball within his palm, and descend towards the
pavement.
“A rope! a rope!—he wants a rope!” was passed
from mouth to mouth; and ere the string could reach
the ground, a heavy cord was hastily cut from an engine
in the narrow street, at the mouth of the alley, dragged
into the cul-de-sac, and affixed to the strand of yarn. In
a little space longer, which seemed an hour to the breathless
spectators, the rope was drawn upward, fastened
securely to the window-frame, and then, amidst the deafening
plaudits of the crowd, the intrepid climber lowered
himself to the pavement, and staggered with his
-- 471 --
[figure description] Page 471.[end figure description]
insensible burthen into the arms of the brothers Dobbs, who
rushed forward to support him. It was their guest, and
he had saved the life of Ninetta.
Slowly, and almost reverentially, the people fell back,
silently permitting the little one, whose white night-dress
was all scorched, and discolored with smoke, to be borne
from the cul-de-sac, and the alley into which it opened,
outward to the street, that was now densely packed with
men and women. Behind them crackled and roared the
increasing flames, on which now the engines began to hurl
their volumes of water; but the people forgot for a time
the raging element, as they pressed behind the human
being who had been rescued from the fiery abyss. Thus,
solemnly as it were, though with great shouts, the brothers
and their friend, assisted by the hedge-schoolmaster,
worked their way through the multitude, until the broader
pavement was gained, the misty rain descending all the
while upon Ninetta's upturned face, so still and white, like
marble. Arrived there, the little group were brought to
a pause; for a carriage, attempting to pass through the
street, had become jammed in the crowd, the horses attached
to it stamping and plunging, affrighted by the
lurid glare across their path. The door of this carriage
was open and an old man's face peered anxiously out—
the face of Mordecai Kolephat.
At this crisis, and as the people pressed around the
brothers and their friend, a new flash of the spreading
flames cast its awful radiance over the scene, illumining
the curious faces of the spectators, and disclosing, in all
her sweet loveliness, the form of Ninetta sustained by
-- 472 --
[figure description] Page 472.[end figure description]
Walter and Hubert, her head, with the face upward,
resting upon the arm of their guest. Mordecai Kolephat's
glance fell upon that childish face, which he had
last beheld that night so full of life and animation; as he
heard the shouts of the multitude, he saw that some
strange emotion pervaded them all; then, uttering a loud
cry, he sprang from the carriage, and in a moment had
clasped the insensible girl to his bosom. The people
swayed backward, as they beheld the old man clasp the
little one, and heard his lips murmur—“My child! my
child!” They heeded his imploring looks, as he raised
his head, and gazed upon Ninetta's features; and the
brothers who supported her, yielding to one whom they
supposed to be a relative, obeyed the Hebrew's low request
that she should be placed within the carriage. In
a moment more, Ninetta the dancing-girl reposed upon
the cushions, her head resting on the lap of Rebecca—
that wretched Rebecca who, at the bidding of her lover,
had meditated in the past hour a great crime, in order
that her uncle's lost child should come no more between
her love and fortune. Was it, indeed, retribution that
had now brought this little one to her arms, to hold close
to her breast, while the carriage pressed slowly through
the crowded street? Was it justice that had brought
this young face so near to her, lying white and beautiful
upon her lap—immobile, too, like death, beneath the
fiery glare that fell athwart them?
Slowly the carriage passed through the multitude; and
behind it walked the brothers Walter and Hubert, and
the hedge-schoolmaster, followed by their guest. The
-- 473 --
[figure description] Page 473.[end figure description]
latter spoke no word, though he had recovered from his
exertion; he replied not to the admiring shouts that
greeted him, as eager fingers pointed him out; he only
kept close to the coach, his eyes dwelling upon the
inmates, with a fixed regard—upon Mordecai Kolephat,
and Rebecca, and the fainting Ninetta.
Meantime, the fire raged fiercely; for the delay caused
by the difficulty of bringing the hooks or ladders near,
and the subsequent pause which ended in Ninetta's rescue,
had given it great headway; so that not only was the
brick tenant-house wrapped in a sheet of flame, but the
roofs of a dozen miserable buildings extending to the frail
walls of Kolephat College were likewise ignited, and shot
forth clouds of smoke, mixed with crackling sparks. The
firemen strove in vain to gain positions whence they could
command the conflagration. Wheresoever they sought to
penetrate or scale, they encountered the same obstacles,
of narrow alleys, steep stairs, intricate passages, and walls
of such slight material that it was a mockery of danger to
seek to surmount them. Thus, in spite of arduous labor
and exposure, on the part of the untiring men, the entire
block, including Kolephat College, was soon involved in
equal ruin. Kolephat College, indeed, was like a magazine,
wherein a spark falls to enkindle at once its combustible
stores, and hurl them all suddenly to nothingness;
for no sooner had the fiery element reached its dilapidated
eaves, its shattered walls, and inflammable partitions, than
a besom of destruction seemed to sweep from floor to
floor, driving the hapless fenants, young and old, sick or
suffering, or nigh unto death, to flee, as best they might,
-- 474 --
[figure description] Page 474.[end figure description]
along the wooden passages and down through cramped
stairways, until they reached the dismal outer air, and
were lost in the shouting crowd that stared upon their
desolate rooftrees.
Old Mallory—who had been the miserable miser, but
was now the proud protector of Fanny, whose sweet
voice chased away shadows from his pillow, and whose
smile made sunshine in every nook of his room—Old Mallory,
that afternoon, had celebrated his grand-daughter's
birthday, treating the children of Margaret's tenant-house
school to a little feast of cates and bonbons, to purchase
which he had expended a trifle of his hoarded
wealth. In Fanny's name had been regaled a dozen eager
urchins, who flocked to enjoy the unusual luxury; and in
Fanny's name, also, had been presented to the neglected
ones some article of clothing suited to the needs of each.
Fanny had been the queen of the festival, her clear eyes
brimming with joyous tears, her face radiant with love.
Thus the evening had drawn on; and when the school-children
went to their homes, Fanny, and Rob Morrison,
and Harry Winston, and poor Moll, the orphan child,
remained with Mallory, whilst Margaret and Emily Marvin
went out to visit, for a few hours, their friend and
benefactor, Mr. Granby—there to become participants,
not only in the quiet family devotions that made the
Samaritan's household so pleasant, but, alas! to mingle in
the scenes of suffering and sorrow which had followed so
abruptly on their first peaceful communion.
Meanwhile, Mallory and the children passed the hours
in innocent enjoyment. Fanny, with grave gentleness,
-- 475 --
[figure description] Page 475.[end figure description]
essayed to fill the place of Margaret Winston, marshalling
her young friends, and even the old man, as scholar in
her mimic school. Never had the grandfather before
experienced that tranquil happiness which springs from
doing good; yet, never before had he felt so deeply in his
withered bosom the terrific blankness of his past existence—
the desert desolation of the path which he had
traversed.
Thus was gathered together the little circle, absorbed
in buoyant pastime, when the rush and clash of people on
the staircases of Kolephat College, the cries of women
flying for their lives, and a sudden glare around the building,
startled the children from their sport, with the fearful
knowledge that the tenant-house was on fire. Mallory,
weak and paralytic, hobbled to the door, clasping the
child Fanny by her hand, whilst Bob the Weasel took
firm hold of Harry and the orphan Moll. Then, with
panic-stricken haste, they all hurried from the apartment,
to thread the dark passages and descend the steep stairways.
Many other tenants, roused from the various floors of
Kolephat College, had reached the passage which Mallory
and the children sought, and were crowding together at
the head of the staircase. Then, women and children,
half clothed, and many with naked feet, found themselves
at once, in the impervious darkness, jostling one another,
and trampled and kicked in their eager attempt to escape.
Cries of pain, oaths, and maledictions, and plaintive appeals
for pity, sounded throughout the undistinguishable
throng which struggled and fought for precedence in that
-- 476 --
[figure description] Page 476.[end figure description]
unlighted passage, and at the well-like mouth of the staircase,
whence descended, ladder-like, to the lower floors, a
declivity of rotten, dilapidated steps. “Oh! my child!”
cried Mallory, drawing Fanny nearer to him in the press,
“we shall be crushed to death! the poor people are mad
with fright.”
“Rob, dear Rob! where are you?” murmured Fanny,
in the darkness, as she clung to the old man's weak arm.
“Here I am, sister—me and Harry, and Moll,” cried
the brave Weasel, who had succeeded in creeping onward,
and was now jammed among those who were foremost on
the stairs. Rob's voice was faint, for his breath had been
nearly squeezed from his body, but he spoke hopefully,
and took a closer grip of Harry and Moll. Scarcely had
he spoken, however, when a new rush of other fugitives
from the upper stories took place, and the three children
were borne downward in the press, clinging tenaciously to
each other, and supported on their feet by the compactness
of the mass behind and before them. Mallory was
forced downward also, his weak limbs yielding instantly;
but at the moment when he felt himself lowered, as it
were, upon the crowd below, the little hand which clasped
his own became loosened, and a cry of pain from Fanny
told him that she was lost from his grasp.
“Oh! grandpa!” the child's almost stifled voice was
heard to murmur; and then, as if with a last effort, it
cried—“Rob! dear Rob!” But Rob was far below,
dragged helplessly in the desperate rush; and Mallory,
after a brief struggle to return to his grand-daughter,
was hurled likewise downward in the darkness, amid
-- 477 --
[figure description] Page 477.[end figure description]
shrieks, prayers, groans, and curses, that were horrible to
hear.
At length, however, the wretched tenants, fighting for
life and the lives of their poor children, succeeded in
reaching the lower floor, and emerged into the outer
glare, to behold the crowded street, and feel a misty rain
dashing in their faces, with reviving coolness. Some
were hurt severely, having been stamped upon and beaten
in the wild scramble for egress; some fainted outright,
on reaching the air; others sank down in gutters, conscious,
but without power to move farther.
Rob Morrison, in all the tumult and conflict, had never
released his hold of his companions, and this had saved
the three from being prostrated and trampled upon on the
stairs. The Weasel's new coat, the gift of Mr. Granby,
was rent from his shoulders, and the frocks of Harry and
Moll had been torn in tatters; but they were safe, and
ran, with eager faces, to meet old Mallory, who shortly
tottered forth, bruised and feeble. But where was little
Fanny?
Ay! where was Fanny? The child came not with the
last fugitives; her voice had not been heard since that
terrible moment when her hand was wrested from that of
her grandfather. Where, indeed, was Fanny?
Mallory clasped his shrivelled hands, and stood a moment,
in the lurid light of the sky, an image of desolate
fear. His features were ghastly, his hair hung disordered,
and he stared back, with glassy eyes, into the dark entry
of Kolephat College, as if he gazed, horror-stricken, into
an open grave. Then a light gleamed on his features, he
-- 478 --
[figure description] Page 478.[end figure description]
uttered a hollow groan—it might be a prayer—and tottered
back to the building, retracing his steps in the
darkness.
Rob Morrison, brave-hearted boy, hesitated a moment,
and half advanced to follow the old man; but Harry
Winston, frightened at the increasing flames, and fierce
din about them, clung fast to his hand, and the orphan
Moll had sunk exhausted on the curbstone. The Weasel
hurriedly supported both, leading them to the shelter of a
porch, at the mouth of the court, and then, bidding them
clasp each other's hands, and stir not a step till he should
return, ran swiftly back to the door of Kolephat College,
following Mallory's path to the dark staircase. But he
had not to ascend them; for Heaven, in its mercy, had
already saved his sweet Fanny from her deadly peril. A
strange man appeared emerging from the gloom, holding
the fair child in his arms; and the glad Weasel knew
that she was alive and without hurt, for her dove-like eyes
opened to greet him, and she murmured gently—“Rob—
dear Rob!” Mallory came behind, his form bowed and
weak, but his face radiant with joy. He clasped the boy's
hand in silence, and Rob led the way to the porch where
waited Harry and Moll. There the strange man deposited
his burthen, and turning his face to the glare of the sky,
disclosed the haggard features of the drunkard Keeley.
“Mallory! do you know me?” he cried, in a choked
voice.
“God pardon my sins!” cried the old man. “Is it
you, Keeley?”
“I robbed ye of your goold,” exclaimed the man;
-- 479 --
[figure description] Page 479.[end figure description]
“an' it's a heavy curse it's been to me! Will ye forgive
me, Mallory, for I've not long to live?”
“May God forgive my sins only as I freely forgive you,
Keeley!” answered the old man, solemnly. “Here is
your child, Keeley—and blessin's on your hand that
saved mine!”
The drunkard, now sober and sorrowing, clasped his
orphaned daughter to his breast; and then, unbuttoning
his ragged coat, drew out a white cloth containing some
heavy substance.
“I watched ye to-day, Mallory,” he said, “when ye
played with the children! Unbeknownst to ye, I saw ye
kiss poor Moll, here! An' when ye tried to run from the
house yonder, and your child was dragged away an'
almost smothered in the passage, I saved her from the
feet that was tramping her. Then, Mallory, I took her
back to your room—the room where I robbed ye—and
now—look there, Mallory!” He threw the cloth bundle
that he held at the old man's feet, and the metallie ring
which followed showed that it contained coin. “It's your
money, Mallory! I robbed ye when the liquor was in me,
but—I've saved your treasures, to-night, for the sake of
the kiss you gave poor motherless Moll!”
-- 480 -- p553-487
Chapter XXXVI. Unravelment.
[figure description] Page 480.[end figure description]
CHARLES RICHMOND was, indeed, dying; and
hardly could one of his companions of the gaminghouse
have recognized in the glazed, despairing eye, and
sallow, haggard cheek, the features of him who had been
the gay and elegant “man of the world.” His livid forehead
was damp with the last dews; and, as he sat,
propped by the pillows of the couch, it might have
seemed to a sudden spectator that he was at the close of
a long and cruel sickness. His hand was clasped in that
of a woman, who had thrown herself upon her knees
beside the sofa, and with agonized look was gazing into
his face. His lips opened, as if with pain, and he struggled
for utterance.
“Helen!—will—you—for—give?”
“O Charles! dear love! dear Charles! you will not
leave me?”
“You will—not—hate—my memory, Hel—en,” gasped
the stricken man. “I—have in—jured you—deeply!”
“No, no! my husband! you have been kind! you
were” —
The poor wife sobbed, and bowed her head upon the
-- 481 --
[figure description] Page 481.[end figure description]
pillows. All thought of Richmond's delinquencies—of
his neglect—his abuse—was banished from her recollection.
She only saw, lying in his blood before her, the
man to whom she had plighted troth so few years ago—
whom she had cherished since, with a true wife's unswerving
affection.
“Helen!” resumed Richmond, collecting, with an evident
effort, his small remaining strength, and speaking
in a low but fearfully distinct accent—“I am going
away, and all is dark before me! I have no more to do
with mortal things. But, I have been cruel—to you,
Helen—and” — He paused, and, breathing heavily,
pronounced the name of “Margaret;” and the seamstress,
who was kneeling near to the couch, a little way from
Helen, softly approached him. “Margaret!” he repeated,
“I wronged you—in your youth—but I am punished
now.” The seamstress remained silent; and Helen, with
a strange terror creeping about her heart, looked wonderingly
into her face.
“Helen!” went on her husband, “look upon Margaret,
whom I deserted, that I might wed with you, and who
murmured not at my treachery. My wife! my wife!” he
repeated—“Promise me that—you—will protect poor
Margaret!”
Helen Richmond's sad eyes had rested on the pale,
thoughtful countenance of the seamstress. She saw the
traces of long and silent suffering; she marked the mild
light of those gentle eyes; and she recalled suddenly that
dreadful memory when, in her husband's apartment, she
had found a letter, stained with tears, and signed by the
-- 482 --
[figure description] Page 482.[end figure description]
name “Margaret.” In a moment, her perception had
mastered the entire mystery; her woman's instinct traversed
the past of this deserted one—a past enveloped in
loneliness and tears. She took Margaret's hand, very
quietly, and laid it beside that of Charles Richmond,
clasping them both with her own. “I will protect Margaret!”
she murmured, in a broken voice. “Oh! will
Margaret comfort me?”
The wife and the deserted one bowed together beside
the dying man; their tears mingled, their sobs answered
to one another.
“Helen!—Margaret!—will you forgive me?” gasped
Richmond, whose senses began once more to wander.
“Oh, Charles! I love you better than my life. I cannot
let you die!” murmured Helen, wildly. Richmond
sank back, his lips fluttered, and his eyes closed.
“O Heaven help me! he is—he is” — The wife
trembled and moaned, but could utter no more. The
physician drew near, and placing his hand on Richmond's
breast, said—
“It beats still.”
“Oh!” suddenly shrieked the dying man, starting upward,
with a wild look, made terrible by the blood which
gushed at once from his mouth. “Rebecca Kolephat!—
it is too late! Beware, Rebecca! let the old man live!”
His eyes became fixed, as if regarding some ghastly vision;
he motioned with his hand, making a gesture as of warning,
“Rebecca!” he cried, more loudly—“Rebecca!”
As that name rang through the room, the group which
surrounded the couch, made way before a female form,
-- 483 --
[figure description] Page 483.[end figure description]
that suddenly entered by the opening door. It was
Rebecca herself, who, bounding forward, caught the fixed
eye and pallid face of Richmond, and sank, like one dead,
upon the carpet. Richmond beheld her with a vacant
glance, that was but half recognition, but the apparition
had turned the current of his fancies, and he sank backward
silently upon the pillow. Helen supported his head,
and Margaret wiped the bloody froth from his lips. In a
moment afterwards, the physician placed his hand upon
his breast, and said—
“It does not beat!—he is departed.”
Thus died Charles Richmond, in the presence of his
deserted wife and the woman whom he had deserted in
his youth; whilst the unhapy object of his latest treachery
lay in a deathly swoon upon the floor beside him. And
this was the end of his scheming and heartlessness.
All remained still for a space within that place of death.
Mrs. George entered noiselessly, and spoke a few words to
Mr. Granby, who followed her to the library. Samson
was there, and beside him an old gentleman, whom the
master greeted as Mr. Kolephat. He silently returned
Mr. Granby's salutation, but without removing his anxious
gaze from a form which reposed in the large arm-chair.
It was Ninetta, still insensible. Mrs. George hurriedly
gathered her restoratives, applying them, in rapid succession,
to the fainting child; but long and fruitless were
her efforts to revive suspended animation. At last, the
physician, summoned from the outer room, where his
services were, alas! no longer needed, decided to open a
vein—an operation that, in a little while, induced the
-- 484 --
[figure description] Page 484.[end figure description]
flow of life's current through the little one's frame. Her
dark eyes soon opened, and her lips moved in faint
murmurs.
“Monna Maria!” she articulated, “the fire will burn
us! Monna Maria! let us escape! let us fly!”
Alas! the poor child was dwelling upon that fearful
prison of fire from which she had been rescued; and the
thought of her wretched god-mother's safety was mingled
with the thought of her own. But Monna Maria—bigot
and fanatic—had found no guardian angel in the moment
of her peril; and no human hand had interposed to save
her from the doom she had invoked for another.
Tears fell from Mordecai Kolephat's eyes—the first
tears that had watered his heart during years of lonely
misery. The drops fell upon Ninetta's brow, and she
looked up wonderingly. The revelation of Monna Maria
suddenly stole across her memory, and she murmured, in a
simple, childish way—“Are you my father?”
The Hebrew bowed himself, with a low moan, and
clasped the child in his arms. He spoke no word, but
held Ninetta in that close embrace, as a mother would
clasp her new-born babe. Memories of the past were
busy in the old man's bosom—“God is good to me!” he
murmured. “God is good to me!” Then, releasing his
hold of Ninetta, he laid her gently back in the arm-chair,
and knelt, gazing upon her face. As he did so, a hand
was laid upon his arm, and turning, he started, and
uttered a feeble cry. A dark-featured man, of middle
age, stood behind him, and looked steadfastly into his
eyes.
-- 485 --
[figure description] Page 485.[end figure description]
“Almighty Father!” ejaculated the Hebrew, raising
his eyes upward, and then letting them fall once more
upon the other man, with a wondering look, while his
hands were unconsciously outstretched.
“Speak! who are you?”
“I am he who saved this child from the flames!”
returned the stranger, who was no other than the guest
of Dobbs the inventor.
“And you are” —
“I am—I was—your son!”
“God is merciful!” cried the Hebrew, extending his
arms, and clasping the stranger to his heart. “My boy!
my boy! whom I drove forth, with my curse! Is it,
indeed, thou who art returned to mine age?”
“Father! I sinned against your will; but my offence
was in loving one who was worthy of all love!”
“And she—your wife, Samuel?”
“She is in heaven!” answered the son, with a deep sigh.
“O Samuel! my boy! I have sinned against heaven!”
cried Mordecai Kolephat. “But, with the help of Almighty
God, my life shall yet atone for all. My poor
boy!” he continued, holding his son's hand, whilst he
clasped Ninetta to his side—“God is good to me—a sinner!
In an hour He has restored my daughter, by the
hands of my long-lost son!”
The negro Samson, who had looked on silently during
the affecting scene, now turned his shining eyes towards
his master. Mr. Granby seemed to understand the expression
which was in them, for he knelt at once in the midst
of that group, and said in an earnest voice—
-- 486 --
[figure description] Page 486.[end figure description]
“Let us pray!”
And the prayer arose! for the departed who lay amid
mourners in one apartment—for the living and restored,
who were clasped to happy hearts, in the other! It was
a simple, but impressive prayer, touching upon the confines
of life and death—mingling supplication with thanksgiving—
a prayer such as might ascend from every lip,
could all the inscrutable purposes of Divine Providence, in
all their beautiful symmetry, be made as clear unto human
comprehension as were the scenes of sorrow and of joy
blent together that night in Mr. Granby's house.
Ere the prayer was ended, other ears listened to its
tender lessons. Helen Richmond came in, sorrowing but
resigned—her cheek bowed upon the breast of Margaret
Winston. Emily Marvin followed, led by Harry Peyton,
who, as he clasped her hand, looked upon her beautiful
face, and dreamed, for the first time since he had lost
Helen Ellwood, of love and, perchance, happiness yet in
store for him. And, as he stood beside the young girl,
and heard, with her, the words of Christian prayer, there
were softness and moisture in his heart, and the good seed
fell quietly into it, displacing the tares that had been
sown in his worldly past.
As Mr. Granby rose from his knees, at the close of his
devotion, and while the broken “Amen!” yet trembled on
Samson's lips, a new group was added to the circle. A
tottering step was heard upon the threshold, and the
murmur of childish voices. Mr. Granby turned, and saw
the old man Mallory, holding little Fanny by the hand,
while Rob Morrison and Harry Winston pressed forward
-- 487 --
[figure description] Page 487.[end figure description]
together. Behind was a figure blackened with smoke—
with garments scorched and tattered. His singed hair
straggled back from his charred forehead, and he seemed
to shrink from observation. Clasping this man's hand,
was a little child. Mr. Granby looked inquiringly at
Mallory, who, led forward by Fanny, essayed to speak;
but his voice was choked by emotion.
“Please, sir,” said Bob the Weasel, “there ain't no
more Kolephat College.”
“What do you mean, Robert?”
“Kolephat College is burnt down, sir!—but Fanny's
saved—Fanny's all safe!”
Kolephat College was, indeed, no more! But its
owner, richer than ever, clasped to his bosom his recovered
children, and murmured—
“My dead one alive again!—my lost one found!”
Charles Richmond had passed away! But the hearts
he had wronged, now soothed and made holy in suffering,
were drawn near to each other in a kindred of tender
memories. Helen and Margaret became friends, mingling
their prayers, their tears, and their good works, in a life
of charity to others.
The spendthrift, Henry Peyton, will borrow no more
money from the Jobsons and other speculators on the
luxuries or necessities of others; for he has become rich
again, by an uncle's will, and is withal a wiser and a
-- 488 --
[figure description] Page 488.[end figure description]
happier man, and will be yet happier when Emily Marvin, the
poor widow's orphan, shall lay her hand in his, and call
him “husband!” So says good Mrs. Dumsey, whose
favorite Peyton is, and who avers that she knew, from the
first, they were “made for one another, as sure as two
peas is in a pod.”
There is one who, though apparently less happy than
others of our story, thanks Heaven, by day and by night,
that she was prevented from committing a great crime.
Her passionate nature has been subdued; she looks back
upon her love-dream, as upon a dark shadow; and she
kisses Ninetta, the Hebrew's daughter, when the child is
sleeping, dropping tears upon her fair brow. But Rebecca
keeps her fearful secret, and prays to be forgiven.
It was but a few months after the burning of Kolephat
College that a wretched youth was arrested for
mortally wounding a comrade in an affray. He had been
an undertaker's apprentice, but previously one of those
outcast children that swarm about tenant-houses, growing
up adepts in vice and crime. He was condemned and
executed, and confessed, under the gallows, to the murder
of Charles Richmond.
The restored son of Mordecai Kolephat, who had fled,
years before, from his father's malediction, and, after long
sojourn in a foreign clime, had buried his wife, and returned
desolate to his native land—there to become,
bruised and bleeding, the guest of Hubert Dobbs—had
-- 489 --
[figure description] Page 489.[end figure description]
not listened to “Walter's Book” without imbibing the
spirit of its philosophy. Henceforth, in wielding the
revenues of his millionaire father, he knew how to provide
for Poverty's wants, and to consider Poverty's sorrows.
“Kolephat College is destroyed,” said he to Walter,
“but upon its ashes shall arise a house that will be fit
for human beings to enter—a habitation and a HOME for
tenants!”
“There ought to be a Tenant-House School-room in
it!” said Rob Morrison; and Mr. Granby replied—
“Yes! for the tenant-house children are still to be fed
and taught.”
And upon the ruins of Kolephat College, the foundations
of a Model Dwelling for the Poor have been already
laid. In this new Tenant-House there are to be allowed
no damp and dark cellars; no confined passage-ways; no
steep staircases; no gloomy, unventilated bedrooms; no
inflammable partitions; no crowding together of hundreds
in an area scarce capable of accommodating scores. Near
this new dwelling, the poison-dealing grocery will not be
revived; nor the unlawful office of a policy dealer be
permitted to approach; nor the triple balls swing in
luring temptation of poverty. But children's voices in
play, and in singing, and in praise to God; and the plash
of cool water from the hydrants; and the chime of a
church-bell shall be heard by contented Industry. Neither
Ferret nor Jobson shall draw nigh; but the owners will
behold their tenants, face to face, and landlord and tenant
shall be happier in mutual confidence and respect.
-- 490 --
[figure description] Page 490.[end figure description]
Thus ends the chronicle of the Tenant-House; haply
to be read by thoughtful men and women; perhaps to
stir the Human Heart of society, in at least a little
degree, so that it may beat in sympathy with virtuous
poverty, struggling amid the darkness of its low estate.
O Human Heart! O Christian Soul! the little book
goes humbly but prayerfully forth to you!
THE END.
Back matter
-- --
Advertisement
[figure description] Advertisement.[end figure description]
&rpoint; Copies mailed to any distance, free of postage, on receipt of price.
Be Certain and Order De Witt's Edition.
CAPTAIN MARRYATT'S NOVELS.
The Most Popular in the World!
ROBERT M. DE WITT,
160 & 162 Nassau St., New York,
Has just published in one octavo volume, a new edition of
CAPTAIN MARRYATT'S NOVELS.
AT THE VERY LOW PRICE OF
Three Dollars and Fifty Cents,—Complete!
So as to put it within the reach of every Citizen, Traveller, and
Resident in the United States. It is printed from new stereotype
plates, on the fine&longs;t and be&longs;t of white paper, forming a large,
splendid volume of over 1,000 super-royal 8vo. pages, beautifully
bound with emblematic designs.
The volume comprises the following Novels:—
Peter Simple,
The King's Own,
The Pirate,
Moonshine,
Midshipman Easy,
Newton Forster,
Jacob Faithful,
The Pacha of Many Tales,
The Three Cutters,
Snarleyyow,
Japhet in Search of a Father.
Frank Mildmay.
In speaking of these Works, the Westminster Review uses the following language:—
“Captain Marryatt's productions are happy in more senses than one: he employs neither
the effort nor the prolixity of Cooper; his conception of character is so facile and felicitous
that his personages immediately become our intimate acquaintance and astonish
us by their faithful resemblance to whole classes of beings similarly situated. Captain
Marryatt's humor is genuine, it flows naturally, and insensibly communicates to the
reader the gaiety the author seems himself animated with.”
Address all Orders to
ROBERT M. DE WITT, Publisher,
160 & 162 Na&longs;sau Street, N. Y.
W. H. Tinson, Printer and Stereotyper, Rear of 43 & 45 Centre St., N. Y.
-- --
Advertisement
[figure description] Advertisement.[end figure description]
&rpoint; Copies mailed to any distance, free of postage, on receipt of price.
CAPTAIN MAYNE REID'S
SCENES AND ADVENTURES
IN THE WEST AND SOUTHWEST.
THE RIFLE RANGERS.
Beautifully Embellished with Eight Splendid Illustrations on Plate Paper. $1 25.
This work is remarkable for stirring and wild adventures, many of which the writer
personally passed through; and running through the whole there is a vein of quiet
humor, which relieves the more fearful parts of the narrative.
THE SCALP HUNTERS;
OR, ADVENTURES AMONG THE TRAPPERS.
One Volume, 12mo., Eight Beautiful Illustrations, cloth. Price $1 25.
So marked was the success of the “Rifle Rangers,” both in this country and in Europe,
that the author was induced to publish at an early day the above named book, a work of
more thrilling adventure, bolder incident, and glowing description than had ever before
appeared in the same field of literature.
THE HUNTERS' FEAST;
OR, CONVERSATIONS AROUND THE CAMP-FIRE.
Beautifully Illustrated with Eight Engravings by N. Orr. Price $1 25.
In all our experience we have never met with a book which gives such vivid and soulstirring
pictures of the wonderful and terrible adventures of a Western Hunter's and
Trapper's life, as are presented in this evidently truthful narrative.
THE WHITE CHIEF;
A LEGEND OF NORTH MEXICO.
One Volume, 12mo., Eight Elegant Illustrations, cloth. Price $1 25.
This is another of those popular works of adventure which have taken such a hold of
the American public—adapted as they are to rouse all that feeling of enthusiasm and
thirst for bold deeds which seems to be inherent in the breasts of our people.
THE QUADROON;
OR, A LOVER'S ADVENTURES IN LOUISIANA.
Illustrated with Eight Elegant Engravings. Price $1 25.
Another spirited and brilliant romance, quite equal in stirring interest, graphic descriptions
of natural scenery, and truthful, vivid portraitures of character, to anything the
Captain has yet written, and little more need be said in its favor.
THE WAR TRAIL;
OR, THE HUNT OF THE WILD HORSE.
One Volume, 12mo., Eight Beautiful Illustrations, cloth. Price $1 25.
Capt. Mayne Reid was an officer in our army during the late war with Mexico, and
while in that country met with many adventures, which form the groundwork of his last
and best effort. We can truthfully say it is the most interesting book of the day.
RANGERS AND REGULATORS OF THE TANAHA;
OR LIFE AMONG THE LAWLESS.
BY JUDGE ARRINGTON.
Eight Beautiful Illustrations. $1 25.
The author of this book was Judge of the Rio Grande District, in Texas, for many years,
and has produced a work of unsurpassing interest. It is a vivid description of Border
Life, Lynch Law, Might Makes Right, etc., which characterized the early settlement of
Texas. There is just enough of civilization and romance in the work to soften the more
startling revelations, and to render it, as a whole, a volume of high merit.
Address all Orders to
ROBERT M. DE WITT, Publisher,
160 & 162 Na&longs;sau Street, N. Y.
W. H. Tinson, Printer and Stereotyper, Rear of 43 and 45 Centre N. Y.
-- --
[figure description] Blank Page.[end figure description]
-- --
[figure description] Blank Page.[end figure description]
-- --
[figure description] Free Endpaper.[end figure description]
-- --
[figure description] Free Endpaper.[end figure description]
-- --
[figure description] Paste-Down Endpaper.[end figure description]
Duganne, A. J. H. (Augustine Joseph Hickey), 1823-1884 [1857], The tenant-house, or, Embers from poverty's hearthstone. (Robert M. De Witt, New York) [word count] [eaf553].
