“I have neither wit nor words nor worth,
Action or utterance or the power of speech,
To stir men’s blood. I only speak right on.”
SHAKSPEARE.
Now during the first day of Markham’s visit to his parents no progress
had been made in the matter of business, for as yet the answers of the
creditors had not been received. The elder Markham had sent off by the
same post the letter to his son, and those which were destined for his
creditors. That which had been sent to his son was first answered, as we
have stated.
On the morning, therefore, after the young man’s arrival, the coming of
the postman was anxiously looked for by all three. The father, indeed,
seemed more and more dejected; and ever and anon, instead of taking
notice of his wife and son, he muttered to himself, “They won’t accept a
composition; I am sure they won’t; it was foolish of me to expect it.”
This was at the breakfast-table; and when either his wife or son urged
him to partake of the morning meal, he coldly said, “It is not mine, it
belongs to my creditors.” That was very true; but it was distressing to
his family to hear such language; and that not merely because it was
true, but because it indicated a bitterness of soul in him who used it.
No answer was made; for neither mother nor son had steadiness enough to
trust themselves to speak to one who was under the influence of such
distressful feelings. They sat at the breakfast-table beyond their usual
time, and the postman brought no letters. The elder Markham looked
wildly and distractedly, and he said, “Pray give me the letters; let me
know the worst. I can very well bear it.” But when they told him that
no letters were arrived, he smiled incredulously, and replied, “It is
very kind and considerate of you, that you will break the matter to me
gradually.”
“Indeed, my dear,” replied Mrs. Markham, “there are no letters this
morning.”
“Then they have detained the letters in the shop,” said Mr. Markham; “I
will go and fetch them.”
He rose for the purpose, but he presently returned; and just as he was at
the door of the apartment, he hastily came back again, and resuming his
seat, he covered his face with his hands, and said, in a melancholy under
tone, “Oh! I can never show my face there again.”
The poor man’s distress now increased to a degree that rendered it almost
as painful to witness as to bear. It is indeed hardly to be imagined to
what excess it might have proceeded, had it not been for an interruption
of a peculiar and unexpected nature. This was the appearance of the
principal creditor, whose high opinion of Mr. Markham’s integrity would
not permit him to satisfy himself with a mere letter of reply to the
communication which he had received from the embarrassed tradesman.
There was ushered into the apartment where the family was sitting a very
tall thin man, in a long single-breasted drab coat of the finest cloth
that was ever woven, and wearing a hat which in its shape and expression
so sympathised with the wearer’s look, that the hat and the head seemed
made for each other. The visitor stalked directly and undeviatingly up
to the elder Markham, took hold of the poor man’s hand, squeezed it very
hard, and shook it very violently; and after performing this ceremony in
total silence, and with most unperturbable steadiness of look, he then
spoke with a shrill nasal twang, at the very top of his voice; “Neighbour
Markham, I am sorry to see thee.”
This unusually loud noise and strange-sounding voice was quite a relief
to the party, who had that morning held intercourse with each other only
in low murmurings and subdued and sorrowful tones. To such a greeting, on
such an occasion, Mr. Markham felt it difficult to reply. He only shook
his head, and said, “I am sorry to see you, sir.”
Thereupon the man in drab, who had taken a seat by the side of poor Mr.
Markham, and had crossed his extended legs and clasped his long fingers,
leaving only his thumbs at liberty to move, screwed up his lips as tight
as a miser’s purse, and, as if economical of words, uttered through the
nose a sound which no vowels or consonants in any European alphabet are
competent to express, either severally or conjointly. As it oftentimes
occurs that words are used when no meaning is conveyed, so does it on
the other hand sometimes happen that much meaning is conveyed when no
words are uttered. Thus it was on the occasion to which we now allude.
Mr. Markham was familiar with the above-named unwriteable sound; and he
knew that it indicated in the mind of him, through whose nose it passed,
a feeling of compassion and a promise of kindness.
Turning to Mrs. Markham, the visitor said, “Mary Markham, this is thy
son, probably.” On this, Horatio Markham took occasion to speak to the
creditor, and began by saying,
“I am very much concerned, sir, for the unpleasant situation in which
my father is now placed; but I believe we shall be able to surmount the
difficulty, if not immediately, at least in a very short time.”
“Do thee, indeed?” said the Quaker; and without making more reply, or
vouchsafing to the young gentleman any farther attention, he directed
himself again to the elder Markham, and said to him, “Thy son is a
promising young man.”
“I have reason, Mr. Wiggins, to be very well pleased with my son; he is
indeed a blessing to us.”
“Neighbour Markham, my name is Wiggins; but my name is not Mister. But
let us proceed to business; for to that intent I came hither.”
Thereupon the creditor thrust his long arm into a deep side-pocket, and
extracted therefrom a long black letter-case, and from that letter-case
he drew out the letter which he had received from Mr. Markham.
“Neighbour,” said the Quaker, “thee might be disposed to think that I
had forgotten thee, seeing that thy letter did not receive an immediate
answer: but I was willing to see thy other creditors to know how they
stood inclined towards thee. So yesterday we had a meeting.”
“A meeting of my creditors!” exclaimed Mr. Markham, with great emphasis
of grief; “Oh God! that I should ever come to this!”
“Thee will come to something worse, neighbour Markham, if thee don’t
leave off taking the name of the Lord in vain,” replied Mr. Wiggins;
“but thee is impatient; thee will not listen. I tell thee that there has
been a meeting of thy creditors, and they are sorry for thy misfortunes,
and they are disposed to assist thee. They respect thy integrity; but
they would not have thee take the name of the Lord in vain. It is a sad
thing, neighbour, to want money; but it is worse to want patience: thee
will never get rich by putting thyself in a passion. But thy creditors
will not trouble thee at present. They besought me to tell thee that they
would wait thy own time.”
At this information Mr. Markham shook his head mournfully. There are
those who when in trouble are exceeding sceptical as to good tidings, and
are slow to believe what pretends to promise them good. Poor Mr. Markham
was of that description. He hardly liked to have the pathos of his deep
sorrow interrupted or interfered with. But his son Horatio was a man of
more words and somewhat less formality. He readily expressed his thanks
to the principal creditor, but at the same time added,
“I trust, sir, there will be no necessity for any long forbearance;
had my father stated all the particulars to me before he wrote to his
creditors, I believe there would not have been found any occasion for the
step which he has now taken. I will be answerable--”
Here Mr. Wiggins interrupted the young barrister. “Young man, be not in
too great haste to part with thy money; thee has not been in possession
of it long enough to know its weight.” Then turning to the elder
Markham, he said, “Neighbour Markham, thee shall go on with thy business,
and if thee needs any supply, thy credit is good with me yet. Let thy son
keep that which he has earned. Farewell.”
Not a word that could be said, nor any entreaties whatever were effectual
to detain the strange Mr. Wiggins a moment after he had said farewell. It
seemed to him a matter of conscience to depart as soon as he had uttered
the word which indicated the intention of going.
The spirits of the elder Markham were not cheered by that visit which
was designed to remove an oppressive weight of sorrow from his mind.
The very consideration that there had been any thing like a necessity
for proposing a composition weighed very deeply upon him, and produced
serious illness.
Markham, whose intention it had been to make a short visit to his native
place, now found himself powerfully and indeed irresistibly detained. It
was not indeed absolutely necessary for him to be in town at this time;
and had even his professional occupations urged his attendance, it is
more than probable that their importunity would have been disregarded:
for it is not likely that his father’s commercial perplexities should
have commanded his sympathies more strongly than an actual sickness.
Our English proverbs are not frequently to our taste; for many of them
want point, not a few are destitute of truth, and most of those which
are correct are cold common-place truisms. There is, however, one
which occurs at the present juncture, not indeed very graceful in its
expression or profound in its observation, but having in its meaning
and application a moral lesson which cannot be too frequently or too
earnestly inculcated on the misery-loving and ever-grumbling people of
this most highly-favored land. The proverb to which our allusion points
is as follows, “It is an ill wind that blows nobody good.” Certainly
it was not pleasant to the father of Horatio Markham to be so situated
that he must be within a little of bankruptcy. Certainly it was not
pleasant to the young man to find that his professional success should
in its earliest stages be destined to repair the ravages which untoward
circumstances had made in his father’s property. Certainly it was very
painful to see that after this calamity had been partially healed, or at
least palliated, his poor father had so taken to heart the unexpected
affliction, as to suffer from its influences a severe bodily illness.
Certainly it was mortifying to the young man who was looking upwards in
society, and was in the way of what is called making his fortune, to have
this sudden and unforeseen blight coming over his fair hopes. Certainly
also there was something sorrowful to his soul in the consideration
that at the very moment in which there seemed a probability that his
attachment to Clara might be honorably avowed, he should be called away
from scenes of hope and brightness and opulence, to a house of fear, of
gloom, of poverty.
These circumstances gathering together round the mind of our young friend
perplexed and pained him. It is very true that he was perfectly well
acquainted with all the commonplaces of consolation, and he knew that
there not unfrequently arises good out of evil. But what does knowledge
amount to in the way of consolation? He saw no particular good end likely
to be answered by all these perplexities; but he saw, or thought he saw,
a great evil as the probable result of them. He had left London without
giving notice to any of his friends; and the business on which he visited
the country was not one which he was very desirous of advertising. He
therefore very naturally thought that Clara would suppose that he was not
very anxious to renew the acquaintance with her; and he also contemplated
the possibility of some more rational being than Tippetson making
advances more acceptably and successfully. This thought was a source of
uneasiness to him, and he could not see any mode of communicating to Mr.
Martindale the cause of his sudden absence from town. He had thought that
a day or two would suffice, and that in that short time he should not be
missed; but now he found that he was likely to be detained much longer;
and should he on his return to London state that his father’s illness had
delayed him in the country beyond his intention, there would still be
something remarkable in the fact of his hasty and silent departure from
town.
He therefore thought that this illness was most peculiarly unfortunate
and calamitous, as not only being distressing to his parents, but
probably productive of serious inconvenience to himself.
We have already intimated that Horatio Markham was deficient in some
of those qualities that form a hero. Here we have occasion to repeat
the observation. His want of heroism was manifested in several points
alluded to in the present chapter. For had he been a proper hero, he
would never have suffered Mr. Wiggins to grant any thing of indulgence
to the embarrassed shopkeeper, but he would forthwith have paid to the
utmost every farthing of the debt to him and the other creditors, had he
been under the necessity for that purpose of parting with his library
and every saleable article in his possession, even to his very watch.
Had he been a proper hero, he would have regarded with more apathy and
magnanimity a commercial failure. Had he been a proper hero, he would
not have admitted the possibility that there could exist on the face of
the earth any human being but himself worthy of Clara’s hand, or likely
to obtain it. Had he been a proper hero, he would not have been quite so
shy, as he clearly was, of the fact that his father kept a linen-draper’s
shop in a country town.
We have represented Horatio Markham as a man of talent and general good
judgment, but we have not described him as a paragon of all possible
and impossible excellence. He was a steady, quiet, sober, clear-headed
man, who understood his professional and his moral duties, who gave
himself seriously to the business to which he was brought up, and who
wished very naturally to rise in the world. In a very high degree he was
early successful; but he was not vain of that success, nor did he think
himself the greatest or the only genius in the world. In matters of
intellect he was unpretending, and in matters of a moral nature pure and
conscientious.
As he had proceeded he became more ambitious; and by the distinguished
patronage which he enjoyed, he hoped to take ultimately a higher rank
in society than at the commencement of his career he had anticipated.
He had hoped that his parents, either by his own exertions or by their
circumstances, might soon retire from business; but when instead of this
retirement he found that there was pecuniary embarrassment which he could
not easily, if at all, remove, he was severely disappointed; and when in
addition to this the illness of his father detained him from town and
from Clara, he feared the worst that could happen. Nor could he imagine
that in this complication of unfortunate and perplexing circumstances
there was any good likely to arise either to himself or to any one else.
But he was wrong; for the illness of the father was the means of deciding
the destiny of the son’s life.