CHAPTER V.
Which begins with some remarks upon Mosley's
character—The Soda Shop—The bill rendered—
Mosley in difficulties—Threatened with Jail—
A struggle, and his departure—A sleeping room
and its inmate—Mosley shows the object of his
visit—Disappointed—Ellen Emery and her history—
Mosley and Ellen decide on a separation—
A plan proposed by Ralph—Our hero manifestly
in peril—Ellen enters into the plan—They separate,
each prepared to play their part.
When a young man has been so unhappy as to
yield to all the wayward impulses of passion, until
he has lost his self respect, the pillars of which
are integrity and virtue, he gradually imbibes,
like the insensible impulse of deadly poison, a hatred
towards those whom he finds are yet upright;
and is tortured with a wicked and restless
desire to bring them down to his own level;
for, so long as they stand upon the noble elevation
of an upright character, they serve to show
more prominently from what height he himself
has fallen, and more clearly to mark the depth of
his own degradation.
Such were the feelings of Ralph Mosley with
reference to Harry Harefoot, when, after reflecting
on the conversation that passed between them,
he arrived, at length, to a just estimate of his
character; acquiting him of all suspicion of guilt
with reference to Isabel Wentworth, and attributing
the manner and words with which he had
given him a wrong impression, alone to a vanity,
too common among young men, which led him to
wish to be thought in favor with a person whom
his fellow-clerk thought so worthy of notice.
Having satisfied his own mind that Harry was
sincere in all he had said, and that he was quite
free from all vice and possessed a remarkably ingenuous
and open character; and having learned
from Burnham and Tarfton, as well as he discerned
in his conversation with him, the weak points
of his character, which led him to wish to conceal
the fact of his being from the country; to
feel above his place; to be ambitious to be considered
`a young gentleman' in the eyes of the
ladies; and to imitate the manners and air of the
gay young men about town; (all of which, we
are sorry to have to say of our hero, was true) he
resolved to give variety to his idle life, as well as
for the pleasing gratification of the pursuit, to
endeavor to lead Harry into the temptations by
which he himself had fallen, as well as to avenge
himself for his firm and virtuous refusal to give
him an introduction to the pretty milliner's apprentice—
his acquaintance with whom he envied
him. He also hoped to replenish his purse, by
his means, if he could tempt him once to stray.
He could not forgive him either because he had
never been `out of nights'; because when he
himself was seeking pleasure through the haunts
of vice, Harry was peacefully reading, and improving
his mind in his chamber at home! he
could not forgive him because he had refused to
attend the theatre without permission; because
he had once refused to drink with him; because
he was yet free from the gross and licentious indulgences
which degraded his own mind, and
shattered his own fair fame!
As Mosley made these resolutions in his heart;
he was seated in a box at a drinking room, near
the head of Franklin street, where he had gone
after quitting Harry, who felt not a little relieved
at his departure; for he did not like to be seen
walking in the street with him. He was leaning
upon a table. Upon a finger of his thin, delicate
hand, blazed with a deep rich light, a massive
ruby, its hue strikingly contrasting with the paleness
of his cheek, which the hand supported.—
His long, waving brown hair, was dry and disordered;
his fine broadcloth coat was covered with
bed-lint, as if he had slept without undressing;
the ruffle of his shirt was soiled and untidy; his
vest unbuttoned; his boots without polish; and
his whole appearance and air that of a dissipated
young man, the morning after a revel.
With a good education; a generous temper;
an intelligent mind; and uncommon talent and
address, this young man had been launched on
the voyage of life without compass or chart, and
was now stranded on the very shores of his departure.
The error and shame of this surely must
lie at some door. Justice and truth will place it
at the paternal threshold, from which, mercenary
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motives, false pride, which would see a son clerking,
rather than learning a useful trade, a slavish
submission to a false system of society which has
slain its thousands, drove him at that tender age,
when, if ever, he needed, and solemnly required
the guiding, protecting, defending, sacred care of
a parent.
`I say, O'Bruce!' he at length muttered, slowly
lifting his heavy eye-lids; for coming into the
apartment after his walk in the morning air, had
relaxed his nerves and sickened him.
`Well, Ralph,' civilly answered a short, fullfaced,
and dark-complexioned man, with a pleasant
expression of his features.
`I—I say, O'Bruce!' he muled with a whining
cry.
`Well.'
`O'Bruce, I say!' he repeated, as if he had forgotten
that he had bofore spoken.
`You want some soda, I guess, Mosley.'
`Yes—you know—you un'stand! so—so—da'
That last glass of bitters I took in at the Washington
Garden was vile stuff. It made me sick.—
Pah!'
While the soda was being drawn, he left the
box, staggered weakly up to the counter, received
it in his shaking grasp, and drank it down
with the eagerness of a thirsty man.
`That's reviving! I'll stop taking wine at
night, Bruce! I drank at that infernal third row
bar, and they sell such wretched stuff there that
I was sick all night. Give me another glass of
soda, with a little dash of raw brandy! That's
enough! Ah, that is a feeler, and braces me up!
I won't be caught again drinking to be sick after
it, as I have been this morning! That brandy
has made me feel nice! I'll go out to the barber's!
Just put them glasses down to me, Bruce!'
`I have made cut your hill, Mr. Mosley,' gravely
said the keeper of the shop, for `Soda and Rochelle
waters,'—as this place of youthful dissipation
was innocently designated upon the sign
above the door.
`Oh, let it stand, Bruce!' I'll pay up Saturday,
' said Mosley, coloring, and feeling in vain in
his pockets for what he well knew, and the other
had reason to suspect, was not there.
`I have trusted you now four weeks beyond my
time, and you have promised to pay every Saturday,
' answered the keeper of the bar-room, sullenly.
`If I got a place, I said.'
`I heard no such if. I want my money,' repeated
the soda man, firmly.
`Well, let me look at the hill,' said Mosley,
turning back and taking from him with a colorless
cheek, the very long piece of paper; which,
as it was a correct minute of the events of the
few weeks past, we will make a tranuscript of one
day's record, while Mosley, to gain time to frame
an excuse, is reading it over with a sinking sipirit.
SEPT. 9th, morning, two bitters, two sodas, two
brandies with Bob Silsby.
SEPT. 9th, 11 A. M. 3 pieces of pie and two brandy
toddies.
SEPT. 9th, 1 P. M. bitters for self and Ned Lynch.
SEPT. 9th, 4 P. M. 12 gin cock tails, 4 cream
cakes, 2 dishes blackberries, and 2
Port wine sangrees, for self and Bob
Silsby.
SEPT. 9th, 5 P. M. loaned half a dollar.
SEPT. 9th, 6 1-2 P. M. paid for breaking Gragg's
chaise, $3,60, riding in from Fresh
Pond, Sunday, loaned 2s 6d.
SEPT. 9th, 11 1-2 P. M. to bottle champangne with
Bob Silsby, and to breaking two
tumblers and three wine glasses and
smashing a chair.
SEPT. 9th, 12 1-2 A. M. to breaking door pannel to
get in after shutting up, and to treating
two watchmen to let you off.
The entire amount of this precious bill was
twenty-seven dollars and a half.
Our ex-clerk read over a few items with a sort
of cool desperation, and then finding the task too
much for him, he laid the account on the bar, and
looked at his creditors unmoved, yet money expecting
countenance, with a feeling of despair.
He could call up no energy of mind to meet the
exigency, for there is nothing which so weakens
the resources of the mind, and so paralyzes them
when called upon, as intemperance.
`It's a larger bill than I thought for, Bruce,'
he gasped, faintly; `can't you give me a little
time?'
`No—my chance of getting paid is becoming
less every day. You are in no business. You
must settle it, or I will make you.'
`But you don't mean to sue me, Bruce?' he inquired,
with alarm.
`If I cannot get it any other way! I have lost
money enough by such swells as you are, and I
am not going to lose any more,' he answered,
with an oath.
`Don't get angry I—I can't pay it, Bruce—
don't throw me into jail! It would disgrace me!
I know you wouldn't take advantage of me. I
have always been a good customer,' he pleaded,
pitifully.
`Such customers would soon send me to jail.'
`I brought Silsby here, and he has spent a good
deal of money, and pays well.'
`If Silsby is your friend, he'll lend you the
money.'
`No, he won't, for I owe him already,' he answered,
faintly.
`Well, you must get it some how, or go to jail,'
said the bar-keeper resolutely, quietly burnishing
the brass ornaments on his soda fountain.
Mosely glanced at the face of his customer, and
then at the long piece of paper that gave such an
eloquent history of his dissipations, and hung his
head in painful reflection, not upon his follies, for
he was not penitent, but to invent some way of
getting out of the difficulty. At length he spoke
with animation and confidence.
`Give me till to-morrow morning, and I positively
promise to settle it, O'Bruce.'
`This is only a plea to leave the city.'
`No, upon my honor. I know where I can get
it. I will leave you my rings and brooch as security
for my return.'
`They are not worth a quarter of the bill.'
`Upon my honor I will come back with the
money,' said Mosley, going towards the door.
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`You don't leave this house until I am paid, or
you give me security,' said O'Bruce, jumping to
the door, closing it, and turning the key. `Pay
me, sir, or go to jail.'
The dread of imprisonment overcame in the bosom
of Mosley every other feeling, and the natural
energy and decision of his character momentarily
recovered from the depression caused by
habitual intemperance. He suddenly seized the
astonished man by the throat, and threw him
across a bench, and there held him with the grasp
of desperation.
`Say you will let me go without troubling me,'
he said, speaking menacingly through his closed
teeth, `and I will let you off. Otherwise I swear
by Heaven I will take your life. I pledge you
on my word that I will pay your infernal bill tomorrow
morning. Will you let me go without
molestation?'
`Yes,' gasped the man with difficulty articulating
the word.
`Will you swear not to molest me, either, for
this assault?'
`Yes, if I am paid to-morrow.'
`Then get up. It is your own fault, all this,
Bruce! You might have let me gone! I will
pay you, I repeat tomorrow! I did not mean to
hurt you, and I hope I havn't; but I would take
any man's life that would put me in jail.'
Thus speaking Mosley turned the key in the
door, opened it, and went out into the street,
leaving the proprietor too much confounded to
offer any obstacle to his departure, which he did
not, on reflection, wish to do, as he had suffered
no personal injury, and hoped yet to get paid;
his love of money being paramount to his desire
of avenging himself; and so, with the wise resolution
to await the issue of another day, he adjusted
his damaged collar, and busied himself
with affairs behind the bar.
After stopping a few moment's in a barber's
shop to arrange his hair and attire, and get his
boots polished, greatly to the improvement of his
exterior, for he was studious of making a good
appearance in the street, Ralph Mosley took his
way along Washington street, passing the Old
South as the bell was ringing for seven. He
glanced in at Mr. Cushing's store, where he saw
Harry dusting the goods, but did not linger, and
turning up School street, he walked rapidly into
Beacon street, and there turning from it by the
west side of the State House, crossed Mount Vernon,
and passed from that well built and respectable
part of the city into one of the narrow lanes
of a quarter, which, at that period, was thronged
with the abodes of vice, wretchedness and crime.
Descending a steep street containing a better order
of houses than the others, he came to a narrow
court, shaded with sickly looking trees, at the extremity
of which stood a three story brick dwelling,
of a more decent appearance than its neighbors.
After casting his glance quickly up and
down the street, to see if he was watched by any
one whose observation he would avoid he turned
into the alley, and approached the house. The
shutters were all closed, but the front door was
ajar, and yielded to his hand. Softly he entered
and carefully closed it behind him. The entry
was still, and a lamp half expiring was flickering
on the lower stair. At his left hand was a door,
partly open.
`Yes,' he said within himself, `all is as I hoped!
Not one has stirred since I got up at five
and went out, that vile wine not letting me sleep.
I wish I had staid in before I had seen and had
that scrape with O'Bruce; but that was well paid
for by discovering where Harefoot's little rustic
beauty kept. Now, if Ellen is not awake, I shall
get what I came after. If she discovers me, I can
easily frame an excuse for returning.'
Thus reflecting, Mosley softly pushed open the
door to the front room, on the first floor and noiselessly
entered. All was as he had left it when he
rose, feverish and sleepless three hours before,
save that a broad sunbeam shone in through a
broken shutter, and fell upon the bed. Upon it,
with her cheek pillowed in her hand, lay an extremely
young and lovely girl, sleeping as sweetly
as if the dove of innocence had not taken his
flight from her bosom. Mosley approached and
bent over her. The quiet repose of the limbs, and
her regular breathing, assured him of her slumber.
With a stealthy step and a look of inward gratification,
he left the bedside, and advanced, with
cautious glances towards her, in the direction of a
bureau on the opposite side of the chamber. Upon
it was a small esretoire, which, from the
eager grasp he laid upon it, was plainly the object
of his wishes. He carefully tried it, and found it
was locked.
`Curse it!' he muttered; `the girl mistrusts
me! She needn't lock from me what I have myself
given her. But I must not be foiled.'
After a short search he found a ring of keys,
one of which fitted the desk. Withdrawing with
it out of sight, where he could be screened by the
curtain, he opened it; but the deeply disappointed
look his countenance instantly expressed, showed
that what he sought was missing.
`Could she have suspected I should ever want
the watch, and so has hidden it from me! Confound
the girl! I saw her place it here last night.
By heaven! I am in a mind to wake her and demand
it of her! But then I know her firmness,
and she would refuse to give it up! No, I see I
have no chance of paying O'Bruce here! But
perhaps it is in the bureau, or under her pillow!
With the threat of a jail before me I must risk
something!'
Locking and replacing the little rose-wood box,
he searched the beaurea-drawers, and every place,
but beneath her pillow. There, he was at length
convinced, must be the valuable watch which he
had bought with a portion of the money he had
obtained by fraudulently selling goods from his
employer's store on his own account, and had
some weeks before presented to her, or rather out
of which she had coaxed him. It was the prospect
of getting possession of this upon which he
had based his confident promise to pay Bruce; as
he knew, by pawning it, he could get forty or fifty
dollars upon it. His disappointment, and its anticipated
consequences, filled him with despair,
and prompted him to take a bold step to recover
his gift, and so possess the means of saving himself
from being put in prison, as well for the debt
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as for the assault; for he was well aware that if
he did not pay O'Bruce, he should be not only imprisoned
for the former, but also indicted for the
latter.
In this guilty dilemma, the young man, for an
instant, let the idea of murder enter and linger in
his mind; but only for an instant, for he banished
the temptation with a shudder! Yet he felt he
must save himself! `Would it not,' it occurred
to him, `be best to wake her, and demand it of
her.' But this course he rejected, knowing her
character, and that when she knew he was so
wholly without resources, she would treat him
with contempt. His situation required action of
some kind, and he resolved to search the pillow.'
She did not wake; and he even ventured to raise
her head, and lift its abundant cloud of fair hair
from her arm. But he turned away disappointed,
with a deep curse upon his lips, and then stood a
few moments deliberating. Suddenly his features
brightened up! The light of hope returned to
his sullen eye, and his form became firmly erect
again!
`I have it! Silsby will do it. I shall find him
at the Exchange! Confound the little suspicious
vixen, with her, watch! Let her keep it. It is the
last jewelry I can lavish on her, She has been my
ruin, and I will get rid of her as soon as I can.—
But I cannot speak against her,' he said aloud.—
`She is a noble, generous creature, and it is a pity
she can never be other than her love for me has
made her. But it is as much her fault as mine.
Yet we must part. She expects it, and I have determined
on it.'
`Who are you speaking about, Ralph? Why I
thought you had gone out,' said the sleeper waking
and fixing upon him a pair of fine hazel eyes
the beauty of which was marred by the slight inflammation
of dissipation and late hours.
`I was speaking of you, Ellen,' he said, approaching
her and coloring.
`What o'clock is it?'
`Look at your watch,' he said quickly.
`I believe it has run down,' she replied, placing
her hand in her bosom and drawing forth,
with a peculiar smile, a beautiful gold lever, the
hour-hand of which pointed to III.
Mosley bit his lip with vexation; but he had
already calculated for relief from another source,
and to this now determined to look for the funds
he wanted. But her smile moved his suspicions.
`What does that knowing look mean?' he asked,
half guessing the truth.
`That I have not been asleep and very well
know what you have been searching for,' she said,
smiling and significantly tapping the watch with
her finger.
`Did you hide your watch from me?' he asked,
angrily.
`Yes, Don't you know you desired me yesterday
to let you take it to the watchmaker's, when
I knew there was nothing the matter with it. I
have not seen my brooch nor ear-rings you took
there, last week.'
`But I gave them to you, Ellen,' he said
sharply.
`And now you would take them away again. I
want twenty dollars, Ralph.'
`Twenty devils!'
`Why, what is the matter?'
`I have no money.'
`And so you wanted to rob me of my watch.—
The rent is due next week.'
`I can't pay it.'
`I am sure I cannot,' she said warmly.
`The truth is, I can't support you any longer,
Ellen?' he said, walking to the opposite side of
the room, as if to avoid her look.
`No!' she exclaimed raising herself up with
alarm quick in her paling countenance.
`No. I am run out! worse and worse every
day. I have this morning been threatened with
jail.'
`What shall I do if you desert me?'
`Find some one else fool enough to keep you.'
`How can you talk so cruelly! I have been true
to you. This degraded condition—an unmarried
wife—is not my fault. I loved you and when you
brought me to Boston you shamefully deceived
me. I was taken in a web of lies.'
`And your own silly vanity furnished the warp,'
he retorted. `But that is past. I am sorry, Ellen;
but I cannot support this way of living. You
must find some other friend. I may have to leave
the city yet. I would see you taken care of—
Silsby or Lynch, or some of the fellows who have
supped here with me, would be glad to take you
off my hands.'
`Oh, God, I have been expecting this,' said the
young girl, with tears gushing from her eyes; and
burying her face in the pillow, she wept like an infant.
Ellen Emery was now in her eighteenth year.
She was a native of Salem and had known Mosley
from a child; but her mother, the widow of a seacaptain,
being poor, Ellen did not move in the
same society. After he had been in Boston long
enough to learn its vices, on one of his visits to
Salem he was struck with the beauty of Ellen
Emery who was assisting her mother in keeping
a mantuamaker's shop. Ellen was susceptible;
had been a great deal flattered, was vain of her
personal attractions and therefore felt not a little
gratified when she saw the gay and handsome
Ralph Mosley, `from Boston,' added to her admirers.
Ralph was artful in the art of pleasing,
and his engaging manners and superior address as
well as the respectability of his family soon made
their impress on upon her. When he discovered
this preference for his society and that she was
flattered by his attentions he resolved to make her
his victim. He brought her presents from the
city; told her how greatly her charms eclipsed
those of the Boston belle, and that she ought to
go to Boston just to create a sensation in Washington
street.
Such language with a show of warm attachment,
and an increasing perseverance soon won
her regard, while he returned her no love, but
merely amused her with its false outside. At
length by making use of her beauty as the talisman
of his power he so far ingratiated himself
into her confidence as to dare to propose to her an
elopement to Boston, there to be married; and he
so far overcame her faint objections by overwhelming
her with vows and protestations as to get her
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consent to this rash step. On the pretence of
going to church in the afternoon of a Sabbath,
the imprudent girl met him at the foot of the
street that led to her mother's house, where he
waited for her in a stylish gig he had hired the
evening before in Boston for this purpose, so confident
was he of her weakness. The unprincipled
young man lifted her into the chaise with
guilty triumph, and drove rapidly off; the deluded
girl, leaving behind her scenes of childhood
that she was never to behold in innocence again.
He took care to amuse her during the two hours
ride to the city, so that she should not have time
to reflect and repent of the step, as she might
have done, her imagination having been more
touched than her heart. But she had listened to
his flattery, been vain of his attention, aspired to
associate with those in a condition the aristocracy
of society had placed above her, and ruin was the
consequence. Mosley had in fact won her, as
many a foolish girl is won, almost wholly through
compliments to her beauty. During the drive to
town she was in fine spirits, for all before her was
bright with the sunshine of hope. `She was soon
to be a bride, live in a fine house in Boston, and
be admired for her beauty! and wouldn't she
triumph over all her young acquaintances in
Salem!' were the gilded thoughts that filled her
mind.
Such were her meditations as they rolled across
Charlestown bridge and rattled along the pavements
of the city streets. After riding some distance
into the midst of the city, Mosley suddenly
turned into a neatly built court out of Elliott street
and stopped the gig before a genteel looking twostory
house painted pea-green. It was a pleasant
place with a flower yard in front and vines creeping
above the door.
`Here is the house we are to live in, dear Ellen,
' said Mosley assisting the joyful, trembling
girl to alight.
He knocked at the door, which was at the same
instant opened by an agreeable looking woman to
whom he introduced Ellen as his bride. The woman
gazed with admiration upon her youth and
beauty, welcomed her with respect and ushered
them into a hadsomely furnished parlor. Ellen
blushed at the term `bride,' he had prematurely
used, but it excited no suspicion in her mind.
`Now are not these fine rooms, Ellen! This is
your parlor and that door leads into as handsome
a sleeping room. Now remain here while I go
for the clergyman. I shall soon be back; and
lest you should repent and run away,' he said
playfully, `I shall lock your cage door, pretty
bird!'
His motive in introducing her already as his
wife and for locking the door was that he had also
deceived the woman, who had rented the lodgings,
as she supposed to a `newly-married pair'—
for so he gave her to understand when he engaged
them. He did not therefore wish Ellen to
have any communication with her while he went
to take his gig to the stable. As he went out he,
in a low tone, desired the landlady not to disturb
`his wife' as she had laid down.
In half an hour he returned, and having been
lonely and sad in his absence, no sooner did Ellen
hear his step than she flew, yet half shrinking
back, to meet him.
`Where is the clergyman?' she timidly and
blushingly inquired, seeing he came alone.
`He was out to attend a funeral,' he said with
a well assumed look of regret. `I left word for
him and he will be here soon. We will take tea,
Ellen, and by the time we are through he will
certainly be here.' We will not prolong this narrative
of a painful story of real occurrence. With
one pretence or other he excused the absence of
the clergyman, till the hour for preserving her
honor after the imprudent step she had taken, had
fled forever; and, a victim to her own imprudence,
love of flattery and ambition to mate above
her degree, the unhappy girl found herself in the
power of one who had artfully spread a snare for
her ruin.
For the first few weeks, by a succession of
amusements Mosley succeeded in making her reconciled
to her degradation. She, however, at
length grew reckless; her modesty of manner departed;
while her associates were alone with
those of her own condition whom Mosley introduced
to his rooms where he held card parties;
and in a few months the beautiful and pure Ellen
Emery had lost all of her former self but her incomparable
beauty. Notwithstanding his base
deceptions she blamed her own imprudence, as
much as she did Mosley, and had hitherto been
indeed as a wife to him, resisting for his sake,
tempting proposals of style and equipage from
many wealthy young men. Lately there had
grown an indifference between them. Mosley
became addicted to hard drinking and often treated
her rudely. His money too had been expended
and he had had to remove her from place to
place to the single room he now occupied. Her
late demands for money had been met with illhumor
and as he had taught her expensive habits,
she felt disappointed and vexed if he did not indulge
her. More than once before this morning
he had hinted that they had best separate; and
her hopes of being made his wife or of changing
her fate being long since dissipated, and as her
more intimate knowledge of him showed her
qualities both of his head and heart which disgusted
her, the frail tie which had hound her affections
to him, was ready to be loosened so soon
as circumstances should call for its severance.
She was a girl of a good mind, pleasing and fascinating
in conversation and possessed a large
share of judgment and observation of character.
Mosley respected her, and her influence over him
was very great. To supply her with money and
load her with presents he had repeatedly been
guilty of abstracting funds and goods from his employers;
and the failure of the last one with whom
he kept was owing to the large amount of goods
sent to the auction room through his secret peculations.
But now all his means and resources
were dried up. He felt that the time had come
for him to leave her, as hundreds in her situation
had been left, to the current of fortune.
While she lay with her face buried in the pillow
she, also, felt that the time had indeed come
for their separation. She saw that he could no
longer supply the wants he had created; while the
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rent of their room was soon due; and winter was
approaching to find neither without money to
meet it. Yet to come to this decision was painful
and trying. She was attached to Mosley but she
had long since discovered that she never had
loved him. The separation would be painful, but
she resolved that it must be borne. No moral
objections intruded upon her thoughts; for though
hitherto faithful to him, her mind had been sufficiently
corrupted by associating with others of
her sex, and by a thorough knowledge of the resources
of persons in her situation, to leave her
long to hesitate. Nothing is more surprising in
the phenomena of character than the sudden and
thorough abandonment of the mind of a young
girl, however pure it hitherto may have been,
when she has once departed from virtue. So
profound and innate is the poison of vice that
scarcely ever does a woman reform! with her it
is all downward till her star of life, which rose in
beauty and glory, sets forever in a night of infamy
and unrepented guilt! If the pure and guileless
girl in humble life, whose beauty promises, like
Ellen Emery's, to become a snare to her, could
behold the career of a woman lost in her sad
course through a life of alternate hollow pleasure
and horrid woe, and follow her down to the
chambers of death, she would shudder at its contemplation,
and turn a deaf ear to the tongue of
the flatterer, and shun carefully the companionship
of those fine young men whose station in life
is above her own—whose notice is infamy.
Ellen lay with her face hid till she had decided
to leave him and had quite dried up her tears.
`Well, Ralph, I think it is best we do separate,'
she said with spirit; for she was both grieved and
angry at this issue, but yet not sorry that it had
occurred.
`You seem to be quite willing,' he said, sneeringly.
`I suppose you have already settled the
matter with some one of your own choice.'
`Indeed I have not,' she said with a toss of her
pretty head. `I mean to remain here till I decide
what to do. My watch will pay my rent.'
`I have a plan that I think will please you, Ellen.
Now, if you will agree to it, it will be for
your good and place you in funds, at the same
time, perhaps, give you a good protector.'
`What is it?' she asked eagerly.
`It is a plan I have been thinking about since
day before yesterday. There is quite a handsome
young fellow in town, who is clerk in one of the
richest dry goods stores in Washington street.
He has recently come to the city, is quite unsophisticated,
but is ambitious to polish his rusticity.
He is too fond of dress, I think, to dress well long
upon nothing and I am told his father, though
well off gives him no money; he is also, I have
discovered, vain of the admiration of young ladies;
and though he affects virtue and may, possibly be
well enough that way, he is very susceptible and I
am greatly mistaken if he will not easily fall into
temptation. Now, as I know you will like him,
what I propose is that you call at his store, try
and get waited on by him, and with such beauty
as you possess for bait, I am mistaken, if you play
your card well, if you do not have him at your
feet, and as much of his employer's money in your
purse as you want. He is one of those enthusias
tic characters that will go any lengths for the object
of his attachment. You will then have a protector
and as many fine things as you want. You
can too avenge yourself on my sex in teaching to
stray an innocent youth, Ellen,' he said laughing.
Ellen seemed to reflect a few moments very
deeply upon his plan and then said,
“He might suspect my — yes, I will out
with it, my true character and that would be a
bar to future progress at the first step.”
“No—you are not known! Your appearance
and air, as well as that simplicity of dress you
know so well how to assume, are all in your favor.
If you, herein, will stand by me fairly, I
will not only do you a service but do myself one.
I am not in favor with him now, but I will soon
be, if you will agree to this. I want money as
well as you!”
“Has he money?” she asked with a quiet air.
“If you can make him bite, I will answer for
that. He shan't want for all my own experience
in knowing how to replenish his finances—though
I am low enough now.”
“Well, I agree to it, if after I have seen him I
like him,” said the girl, who felt she was now
fairly turned upon the tide of her own fortunes,
by the desertion and poverty of Mosley; and that
unless she wished to sink to the degredation of
the most wretched and abject of her class, she
must attempt and achieve something for her
safety. She therefore entered into the compact
with her quondam lover, without compunction,
to tempt and plot the ruin of an unsuspecting
young man, her plea being to save herself from
otherwise destitution. The artful motive and
depth of purpose which actuated Mosley will be
more fully developed in the progress of the
story.
Considering himself by this compact now clear
from the incubus of a mistress' which to one in
his narrow condition was no light burden, he
shook Ellen by the hand very cordially and feeling
great relief at getting so well rid of an affair
the thoughts of which had vexed and perplexed
him for several days past. They parted, therefore,
after he had given her the name and the
place of business of this young victim without
much sorrow on either side, but without any feelings
of animosity.
Ingraham, J. H. (Joseph Holt), 1809-1860 [1845], Harry Harefoot, or, The three temptations: a story of city senses (H. L. Williams, Boston) [word count] [eaf182].
