“Better is a poor and wise child than an old and foolish _father_, who
will no more be admonished.”--ECCL.
After the breaking up of the party, as described in the former chapter,
Arthur Elwood, on joining the family circle, and not meeting his host
and brother there, as he naturally expected, expressed his surprise
at the circumstance, and inquired the cause of his absence. But,
perceiving that the subject gave pain to Mrs. Elwood, who deemed it
prudent but to repeat, as she hesitatingly did, what her husband had
told her, that he had gone out, soon to be back, the former forbore any
further inquiries or comments, and soon retired to rest, wishing her a
good-night and pleasant slumbers.
“Good-night and pleasant slumbers!” slowly and murmuringly repeated
the anxious and troubled wife, on whose ear the words, kindly meant as
she knew them to be, fell as if in mockery to her feelings. “Pleasant
slumbers for me! Heaven grant they may be made so by his speedy coming;
but----” and, being now alone, and thus relieved of the restraining
presence of others, she burst into tears, and wept long and bitterly.
Woman was not created to act independently. The sphere in which she
is formed to move, though different, is yet so immediately connected
with that of man, that her destiny is inseparable from his. Her
happiness and prosperity are not in her own keeping. The welfare of
the husband is the welfare of the wife; and, if poverty and disgrace,
the concomitants of vice, fall on him, she must participate equally in
the physical evil, and drink as much deeper of the cup of moral misery
as her unblunted sensibilities are more lively, and her sense of
right and wrong are more acute, than those of him who has become dead
to the one and lost to the other. What wonder, then, that she should
so agonize and weep in secret over his moral deviations, and all the
more bitterly, because, with the most intense desire to do so, she has
no power to remedy the evil? But, for that sorrow and suffering, who
before high Heaven will be held responsible? Who, but the doubly-guilty
husband whose conduct has caused them?
Through the whole of that, to her, long and dreary night, Mrs. Elwood
never once thought of retiring to rest, but kept up her vigils in
waiting and watching for her husband: now listening pensively to the
wind that seemed to moan round her solitary apartment in unison with
her own feelings; now straining her senses to catch some sound of his
approach; and now, perhaps, throwing herself upon a sofa, and falling,
for a moment, into a troubled slumber, but only to start up at the
first sound of the rattling windows, to listen again, and again to
be disappointed. In this manner she wore away the lingering hours of
the night, till the long prayed-for daylight, which she supposed, at
the farthest, would bring back her truant husband, made its welcome
appearance. But daylight came not this time to remove the cause of
her anxieties. Elwood had several times before staid out nearly
through the night, but the approach of daylight had always, till now,
brought him home; and, not making his appearance, as she confidently
expected, she became, as the morning advanced, really alarmed for his
personal safety, and would have immediately sent out for him, but she
knew not whom to send. She therefore concluded to put off the already
long-delayed breakfast no longer; and, summoning her brother-in-law,
who, with herself (her son, whom we have yet more particularly to
introduce to the reader, being temporarily absent from town), now
constituted all the family remaining to join in the repast. The two
then sat down to the table, and partook the meal mostly in gloomy
silence, one still hoping all might yet turn out well, and therefore
repressing her twofold apprehensions; and the other, out of regard to
her feeling, kindly forbearing to pain her with remarks and inquiries
on a subject which they mutually felt conscious was oppressing the
hearts of both.
After the meal was over, Arthur Elwood arose, and, briefly announcing
his intention of going out to look up his brother, who, he said, would
be likely soon to be found at his store, left the house. At the usual
dinner hour, Arthur Elwood returned to the house, and was met at the
door by his anxious hostess, whose countenance quickly fell as she
perceived him to be alone.
“Have you not yet seen my husband?” she eagerly demanded.
“No, but have heard of him. He is somewhere in the city, I believe,”
replied the other.
“In the city and not return?” persisted the surprised and distressed
wife. “How can this be?--what does it mean?”
“I do not know,” replied Arthur, with a thoughtful and perplexed air.
Mrs. Elwood for a moment stood mute as a statue; for, but too well
conjecturing what was passing in the mind of the other, she durst not
ask his opinion. But, soon regaining her usual composure, she led the
way to the dinner-table, where the meal that followed was partaken much
as the one that preceded it,--in silence and mutual constraint, which
was only relieved by an occasional forced, commonplace remark.
“I shall again go to Mark’s store,” said Arthur, with stern gravity, as
he rose from the table, after he had finished his repast, “and I shall
also take the liberty of looking into the condition of his affairs.
After that, I may return here again, though to remain only for a short
time, as I leave for home in the evening.”
Towards night Arthur Elwood returned, and in his usual quiet way
entered the room where Mrs. Elwood was sitting; when, shaking his head
as if in reply to the question respecting her still absent husband,
which he saw, by the painfully inquiring expression of her countenance,
was rising to her lips, he took a seat by her side, and, with an air of
concern and a slight tremor of voice, commenced:
“I have been debating with myself, sister Alice, whether it were a
greater kindness to go away without seeing you, and of course without
apprising you of what I may have discovered respecting your husband
and his affairs, or come here and tell you truths which would be
painful,--too painful, perhaps, for you to bear.”
“’Tis better I should know all,” rather gasped than uttered Mrs.
Elwood. “_You_ will tell me the truth,--_others_ may not. Go on.”
“Your husband,” resumed the other, “wrote me for the help of a few
thousands, which I would have freely loaned, but for my suspicions that
all was not right with him; and, as I plainly told him, I came on to
ascertain for myself whether such help would be thrown away, or really
relieve him, as he represented, from a mere temporary embarrassment.
I have now been into the painful investigation, and find matters, I
grieve to say, tenfold worse than I suspected. He is, and must have
been for a long time, the companion and the victim of blacklegs and
cut-throats, and----”
“I suspected,--I knew it,” interrupted the eager and trembling
listener; “and O Arthur, how I have tried and wept and prayed to induce
him to break off from them; for I felt they would eventually ruin him.”
“_Eventually_ ruin him! Why, Alice, with his own miscalculations in
business, folly and extravagance in every thing, they have done so
already.”
“But the main part of his property,” demanded the other, with a
startled look, “you don’t mean but what the main part of his property
is still left?”
“Yes, I do, Alice,--but I see you are not prepared for this. Still,
you may as well know it now as ever. Yes, Alice, your husband is
irretrievably bankrupt!”
Mrs. Elwood was not _indeed_ prepared for this development. She had
foreseen, it is true, the coming evil; but she supposed it was yet in
the distance. She knew her husband’s property had been a large one;
and the announcement, from one she could not disbelieve, that it was
all gone, struck her dumb with surprise and consternation. She uttered
not a word. She could not speak, but sat pale and trembling, the very
picture of distress.
After pacing the room a few moments, with frequent commiserating
glances at the face of the other, whose distress evidently deeply moved
him, Arthur Elwood stopped short before her, and said:
“Sister Alice, my time is about up,--I must go.”
“Have you no word to leave for my husband when he comes?” asked Mrs.
Elwood, with an effort to appear composed.
“No,--none whatever to _him_; but with you, Alice,” he added, drawing
out a small package of bank notes and dropping them into her lap,
“with you, and for you alone, against a day of necessity, I leave that
trifle--no hesitation--keep it--put it out of sight--there, that is
right. Now only one thing more,--what of your son?”
“Claud?”
“Yes. You know it has happened that I have never seen him.”
“I do know it, and have much regretted his absence; for I wished you
to see him. But I am now looking for him every hour, and if you could
delay----”
“No, no, I must go. Tell him to forget, at once, that he was ever a
rich man’s only son and heir, and learn to profit by a rich man’s
errors; for, till he does this, which, if he is like others, will
require some time, he will make no real advance in life.”
“Your impression may be natural, but it hardly does him justice. He is
_not_ like most others. Claud is a man now.”
“So much the better, then, for you and himself. But you see with a
mother’s eyes, probably, and speak with a mother’s heart. I will
inquire about him, however, as indeed I will about you all. Good-by.”
Thus did the unimpassioned Arthur Elwood, with a seeming business-like
roughness and want of feeling, assume to hide the emotions which he
really felt in the discovery of his brother’s ruin, and in witnessing
the distress he had just caused in communicating it, hurry through
the painful interview, and abruptly depart, leaving Mrs. Elwood to
struggle in secret with the chaos of thoughts and emotions which
Arthur’s unexpected revelation had brought over her. She was not left
long, however, to struggle with her feelings alone. In a short time the
sound of a familiar footstep hastily entering the front hall of the
magnificent mansion,--alas! now no longer her own,--suddenly caught her
ear; when, with the exclamation, “Claud, O Claud!” she rushed forward
to her advancing son, and, to use the expressive language of Scripture,
“fell on his neck and wept.”
“I heard of father’s failure,” said the son, a fine looking youth
of about twenty, with his mother’s cleanly cut features and firm,
thoughtful countenance, joined to his father’s manly proportions. “I
learned, as I came into the city, an hour ago, that father had just
failed, his store been shut up, and all his property put into the hands
of his creditors; and I hurried home to break the news to you. But I
see you know it all.”
“Yes, that the blow was impending, but not that it had already fallen,
as you now report; but it may as well come to-day as to-morrow or next
week. Half my nights, for months, Claud, have been made sleepless by
the bodings and fears of the evil day, which, as things were going, I
felt must eventually come; but never, till within this very hour, did
I dream that our misfortunes were so near. But, though the storm has
burst so much sooner than I expected, I could bravely face it, could
we say that it was caused by no fault of our own; but to be brought
upon us in this manner, my son, it is hard, hard to bear.”
“But you have not been to blame, mother; and I did not suppose you
thought enough of wealth to grieve so at its loss.”
“I do not, Claud. It is not that; still, I could not help thinking of
your disappointment, even in that view of the misfortune.”
“Mine, mother? Why, I am no worse off than father was when he started
in life; no worse off than thousands who begin with no other resources
than what lie in clear heads and strong hearts. I can take care of
myself; and, what is more, I can take care of you, dear mother. Surely,
you won’t doubt me?”
“No, Claud, no. You have _always_ been my pride, latterly almost my
only hope; and I know not now but that you must be my only staff, on
which to lean as I pass down the decline of life.”
“And I will be one to you, mother; but come, cheer up, and let us go in
and talk over these matters more calmly.”
The mother and son accordingly retired to her usual sitting-room;
where, since her overcharged bosom had found relief in tears, and her
sinking spirits had been raised by the kind and comforting words of
her dutiful son, she told him all that had occurred during the two
preceding days, which constituted the brief but eventful period of his
absence. They then were beginning to counsel together on the prospects
and probabilities of their gloomy future; but their conversation was
suddenly cut short by the abrupt entrance of the wretched husband
and father, who, on his way from the hotel where he had spent the
day in sleeping off his debauch in concealment, having received an
intimation of what was going on among his creditors, had hurried home,
with a confidence and self-possession which he could not summon when
he started; for, out of this movement among his creditors, which he
still would not believe was any thing more than a sort of practical
menace to enforce payment, he saw not only how he could frame a
plausible excuse for his guilty absence, but make the circumstance an
irresistible plea for forcing from his brother a loan sufficient to
enable him to arrest his failure and continue business. On entering
the room, therefore, after saluting his wife and son in a sort of
brisk, unconcerned manner, and muttering that he “thought they would
never let him get home again,” he eagerly inquired for Arthur; and,
on being informed that his brother had started for his home, without
leaving any note or word for him, and especially on being told by his
son--as he at length calmly and persistingly was, in despite of his
multiplied prevarications and denials, what they all knew, and what he
himself should have been the last to be ignorant of--that the question
of his failure, for more than he could ever pay, had already been
settled against him, he became frantic in the outpourings of his rage,
disappointment, and chagrin; sometimes declaring that the world, grown
envious of his prosperity, had all suddenly become his enemies, and
grossly belied him; sometimes savagely charging his brother, wife, and
son with conspiring together against him; and sometimes cursing his own
blindness and folly. And thus he continued to rave, and walk the room
for hours, till his wife and son, having partaken their evening meal
before his unheeding eyes, and become sick and wearied in listening
to his insane ravings,--to which they had wholly ceased making any
reply,--retired to rest, leaving him to partake such food as was
left on the table, to occupy, as he chose to do, the same sofa which
his hapless wife had done the night before, to sleep down the wild
commotion of his feelings, and awake a calmer and more humbled, but not
yet a better or much wiser man.
But we do not propose to describe in detail the rapid descent from
opulence and station to poverty and insignificance, which now
transpired to mark this era in the singular fortunes of Elwood and
his family. Their history, for the next three months, was but the
usual painful one which awaits the failed merchant everywhere in the
cities. The crushing sense of misfortune which, for the first few days
after the unexpected blow has fallen, weighs down the self-deceived
or otherwise unprepared victims; the succeeding weeks of dejection
and mortified pride; then the painful trial of parting with the showy
equipage, the costly furniture, and the cherished mementoes, which
had required, perhaps, the care of half a life in gathering; then the
compulsory abdication of the great and conspicuous mansion for the
small, obscure, hired cottage; then the saddening bodings and deep
concern felt in seeing the means of living daily diminishing, with
no prospect of ever being replenished; and, finally, the humiliating
resort of the wife and children to the needle or menial employments,
for the actual necessaries of life,--these, all these, are but the
usual graduated vicissitudes of sorrow and trial which are allotted
to those whose folly and extravagance have suddenly thrown them on
the downward track of fortune, and which the Elwoods, in common with
others, were now doomed to experience, and, on the part of Mrs.
Elwood, especially, with aggravations not necessarily incident to such
reverses. She would have borne all the deprivations and evils incident
to her husband’s failure without a murmur, could she have seen in him
any amendment in those habits and vicious inclinations which had led
to his downfall. But she could not. The hopes she had confidently
entertained, that his misfortunes would humble and reform him, were
doomed to disappointment. He still madly clung to his old associates
of the gambling-table; and all the money he could get was lost or
squandered among them, till he became too poor and desperate even for
them, and they drove him from their society to join another and a lower
set, who in turn compelled him to seek other still lower and more
degraded associations. And so descended, step by step, along the path
of degradation, the once princely merchant, till, despised and shunned
by all respectable men, he became the fit companion of the meanest
thimble-riggers of the cellars and the lounging tipplers of the streets.
His case, however, as hopeless as it might appear, was not permitted
to become an irretrievable one. Through a seemingly accidental
circumstance, a light one day broke on his beclouded and half-maddened
brain, that led to a self-redemption as happy for himself and family
as it was unexpected by all. A former friend, one morning, moved
perhaps by his forlorn appearance, in passing him with a light
carriage, invited him to ride a few miles into the country; where,
being unexpectedly called off in another direction, he left Elwood to
return on foot by a nearer route across the fields to his home. After
travelling some distance, he reached an elevation which overlooked
the city, and, feeling a little fatigued, he sat down on a mossy
hillock to rest and enjoy the prospect. As he cast his eye over that
busy haunt of men, with its numerous spires shooting upward, its long
lines of princely dwellings, its encircling forest of masts, its lofty
warehouses, and other evidences of wealth and business, his own former
important participation in its busy scenes, and his present worse than
insignificant position there, rose in vivid contrast in his awakening
mind; and the thought of his past but squandered wealth came up only
to add poignancy to the sense of his present poverty and humiliation,
which thus, and for the first time, was brought home to his agitated
bosom. Suddenly leaping from his seat, from the torturing force of the
reflection, he exclaimed: “Must I bear this? Cannot I still be a man? I
will! yes, before Heaven, I _will_!” And, resuming his seat, his mind
became intently engaged in studying out ways and means for carrying the
sudden but stern resolution into effect; when, after another hour thus
employed, he again jumped up, and, with the air of one who has reached
some unalterable conclusion, he rapidly made his way homeward.
While the besotted Elwood was undergoing, so unexpectedly, even to
himself, such a moral transformation in the solitude of the fields,
an event occurred to his sorrowful wife at home, which was equally
unexpected to _her_; which, though of a wholly different character,
produced an equally great revulsion in her feelings as the one
happening to her husband, about the same hour, was to him, or was
producing in _his_ feelings, and which, by the singular coincidence,
seemed to indicate that the angel of mercy was at length spreading his
wings at the same time over both heads of this unfortunate family. She
had been having one of her most disconsolate days, and was sitting
alone in her little room, gloomily pondering over her disheartening
trials, without being able to see one ray of light in the dark future,
when she received a call from one of her husband’s chief creditors;
who announced that those creditors, at a recent meeting, having
ascertained her meritorious conduct and needy situation, had voted her
the sum of five hundred dollars, which, confiding in her discretion
for a judicious outlay of the money, he now, he said, had the pleasure
of presenting her. And, having placed the money in her hands, and
taken the tear of gratitude--which, preventing the utterance of the
word-thanks she attempted, had started to her cheek at the unexpected
boon--as a sufficient acknowledgment, he kindly bade her adieu, and
departed.
That evening the husband and wife met as they had not for months
before: each at first surprised at seeing the unclouded brow and
hopeful countenance of the other, but each soon instinctively feeling
that something had occurred to both, which was not only of present
moment, but the harbinger of happier days to come. When confidence and
hope are springing up in doubtful or despairing bosoms, the tongue is
soon loosened from the frosts of reserve, however closely they may
have before imprisoned it. Elwood, with many expressions of regret at
his past conduct, and of wonder at the blindness and folly which had
permitted him so long to persevere in it, told his gratified companion
all that had that day passed through his mind,--his sudden sense of
shame and degradation; his bitter self-reproaches, and succeeding
determination to reform; to atone for the past, as far as he could,
by future good conduct; to begin, in fine, the world anew, and, after
placing himself beyond the reach of those temptations to which he
had so fatally yielded, devote the remainder of his days to honest
industry. And she, anxious to encourage and strengthen him, and fearing
his total want of means might defeat his good resolutions,--she,
also, as she believed it would be true wisdom to do, informed him
of _her_ good fortune, and offered him a portion of her unexpected
acquisition, to enable him to engage in such business as he should
decide to follow. They then discussed, and soon mutually agreed on, the
expediency of leaving the city, where, as they had once there enjoyed
wealth and station, they must both ever be subjected to mortifying
contrasts,--both constantly doomed
“To see profusion which they must not share,”--
and he be exposed to temptations which he might not always have the
firmness to withstand.
“But I resolved,” said Elwood, after a pause, “not only on going to
the country, but on to a new lot of land in the very outskirts of
civilization. You, however, should I succeed in getting up comfortable
quarters, would not be content to make such a place your home?”
“Anywhere, Mark; and the farther from the dangerous influences of this
wicked city, the better. Yes, to the very depths of the wilderness, and
I will not complain.”
“It is settled, then. I was once, in one of my early excursions, along
the borders of the wild lakes lying on the northeastern line of New
Hampshire, where a living may be obtained from the cultivation of the
soil alone; but where more may be made, at particular seasons, in
taking the valuable furs that there abound. There I will go, contract
for a lot of land, and prepare a home, leaving you, and Claud, if he
shall decide for a woodman’s life, to come on and join me next summer.”
“That Claud will do; for he often declares himself disgusted with
the trickery of trade, and to be longing for the country life of his
boyhood. But here he comes, and can speak for himself.”
The son now joined in the family deliberations, and learning, with
surprise and gratification, what had occurred during the eventful
day, joyfully fell in with his father’s proposition; when it was soon
decided that the latter should take half the money that day given to
Mrs. Elwood, to lay out in a lot of land and house, and immediately
proceed on his journey.
Whatever Mark Elwood had once firmly decided on, he was always prompt
and energetic in executing. Before nine o’clock that evening, his
knapsack of clothing was made up for a journey on foot, which, contrary
to the wishes of his wife and son, he decided should be his mode of
travelling. He then went to bed, slept six hours, rose, dressed, bade
his family good-by, turned his back on the now loathed city, and, by
sunrise next morning, was far on his way towards his designated home
among the distant wilds of the North.