“To suckle fools and chronicle small beer”—
who, raised to the sudden control of unexpected wealth, becomes insane upon it, and is blind, deaf, and dumb, to all counsel or reason which suggests the possibility of its loss. From the very moment when Mr. Clifford spoke of selling out house, horses, and carriage, as the inevitable result which must follow his adoption of my recommendation, she declared herself against it at all hazards, particularly when her husband assured her that “the glorious uncertainties of the law” afforded a possibility of his escape with less loss. The loss of money was, with her, the item of most consideration; her mind was totally insensible to that of reputation. She was willing to make this compromise with me, as a sort of alternative, for, in that case, there would be no diminution of attendance and expense—no loss of rank and equipage. We should all live together—how harmoniously, one may imagine—but the grandeur and the state would still be intact and unimpaired. Even for this, however, she was not prepared, when she discovered that there was no certainty that my alliance would bring immunity to her husband. How this notion got even partially into his head, I know not; unless in consequence of a growing imbecility of intellect, which in a short time after betrayed itself more strikingly. But of this in its own place.
My attempts to convince my unfortunate uncle were all rendered unavailing, and shown to be so to Julia herself in a very short time afterward. The insolence of Mrs. Clifford, when I did seek an interview with her husband, was so offensive and unqualified, that Julia herself, with a degree of indignation which she could not entirely suppress, begged me to quit the house, and relieve myself from such undeserved insult and abuse. I did so, but with no unfriendly wishes for the wretched woman who presided over its destinies, and the no less wretched husband whom she helped to make so; and my place as consulting friend and counsellor was soon supplied by Mr. Perkins—one of those young barristers, to be found in every community, who regard the “penny fee” as the sine qua non, and obey implicitly the injunction of the scoundrel in the play “Make money—honestly if you can, but—make money!” He was one of those creatures who set people at loggerheads, goad foolish and petulant clients into lawsuits, stir up commotions in little sets, and invariably comfort the suit-bringer with the most satisfactory assurances of success. It was the confident assurances of this person which had determined Mr. Clifford—his wife rather—to resist to the last the suit in question. Through the sheer force of impudence, this man had obtained a tolerable share of practice. His clients, as may be supposed, lay chiefly among such persons as, having no power or standard for judging, necessarily look upon him who is most bold and pushing as the most able and trustworthy. The bullies of the law—and, unhappily, the profession has quite too many—are very commanding persons among the multitude. Mr. Clifford knew this fellow's mental reputation very well, and was not deceived by the confidence of his assurances; nay, to the last, he showed a hankering desire to give me the entire control of the subject; but the hostility of Mrs. Clifford overruled his more prudent if not more honorable purposes; and, as he was compelled to seek a lawyer, the questionable moral standing of Perkins decided his choice. He wished one, in short, to do a certain piece of dirty work: and, as if in anticipation of the future, he dreaded to unfold the case to any of the veterans, the old-time gentlemen and worthies of the bar. I proposed this to him. I offered to make a supposititious relation of the facts for the opinion of Mr. Edgerton and others—nay, pledged myself to procure a confidential consultation—anything, sooner than that he should resort to a mode of extrication which, I assured him, would only the more deeply involve him in the meshes of disgrace and loss. But there was a fatality about this gentleman—a doom that would not be baffled, and could not be stayed. The wilful mind always precipitates itself down the abyss; and, whether acting by his own, or under the influence of another's judgment, such was, most certainly, the case with him. He was not to be saved. Mr. Perkins was regularly installed as his defender—his counsellor, private and public—and I was compelled, though with humiliating reluctance, to admit to the plaintiffs, Banks & Tressell, that there was no longer any hope of compromise. The issue on which hung equally his fortune and his reputation was insanely challenged by my uncle.
But my share in the troubles of this affair was not to end, though I was no longer my uncle's counsellor. An event now took place which gave the proceedings a new and not less unpleasing aspect than they had worn before. Mrs. Clifford, it appears, in her communications to her husband's lawyer, did not confine herself to the mere business of the lawsuit. Her voluminous discourse involved her opinions of her neighbors, friends, and relatives; and, one day, a few weeks after, I was suddenly surprised by a visit from a gentleman—one of the members of the bar—who placed a letter in my hands from Mr. Perkins. I read this billet with no small astonishment. It briefly stated that certain reports had reached his ears, that I had expressed myself contemptuously of his abilities and character, and concluded with an explicit demand, not for an explanation, but an apology. My answer was immediate.
“You will do me the favor to say, Mr. Carter, that Mr. Perkins has been misinformed. I never uttered anything in my life which could disparage either his moral or legal reputation.”
“I am sorry to say, Mr. Clifford,” was the reply, “that denial is unnecessary, and can not be received. Mr. Perkins has his information from the lips of a lady; and, as a lady is not responsible, she can not be allowed to err. I am required, sir to insist on an apology. I have already framed it, and it only needs your signature.”
He drew a short, folded letter, from his pocket, and placed it before me. There was so much cool impertinence in this proceeding, and in the fellow's manner, that I could with difficulty refrain from flinging the paper in his face. He was one of the little and vulgar clique of which Perkins was a sort of centre. The whole set were conscious enough of the low estimate which was put upon them by the gentlemen of the bar. Denied caste, they were disposed to force their way to recognition by the bully's process, and stung by some recent discouragements, Mr. Perkins was, perhaps, rather glad than otherwise, of the silly, and no less malicious than silly, tattle of Mrs. Clifford for I did not doubt that the gross perversion of the truth which formed the basis of his note, had originated with her, which enabled him to single out a victim, who, as the times went, had suddenly risen to a comparative elevation which is not often accorded to a young beginner. I readily conjectured his object from his character and that of the man he sent. My own nature was passionate; and the rude school through which my boyhood had gone, had made me as tenacious of my position as the grave. That I should be chafed by reptiles such as these, stung me to vexation; and though I kept from any violence of action, my words did not lack of it.
“Mr. Perkins is, permit me to say, a very impertinent fellow; and, if you please, our conference will cease from this moment.”
He was a little astounded—rose, and then recovering himself, proceeded to reply with the air of a veteran martinet.
“I am glad, sir, that you give me an opportunity of proceeding with this business without delay. My friend, Mr. Perkins, prepared me for some such answer. Oblige me, sir, by reading this paper.” He handed me the challenge for which his preliminaries had prepared me.
“Accepted, sir; I will send my friend to you in the course of the morning.”
As I uttered this reply, I bowed and waved him to the door. He did not answer, other than by a bow, and took his departure. The promptness which I had shown impressed him with respect. Baffled, in his first spring, the bully, like the tiger, is very apt to slink back to his jungle. His departure gave me a brief opportunity for reflection, in which I slightly turned over in my mind the arguments for and against duelling. But these were now too late—even were they to decide me against the practice—to affect the present transaction; and I sallied out to seek a friend—a friend!
Here was the first difficulty. I had precious little choice among friends. My temper was not one calculated to make or keep friends. My earnestness of character, and intensity of mood, made me dictatorial; and where self-esteem is a large and active development, as it must be in an old aristocratic community, such qualities are continually provoking popular hostility. My friends, too, were not of the kind to whom such scrapes as the present were congenial. I was unwilling to go to young Edgerton, as I did not wish to annoy his parents by my novel anxieties. But where else could I turn? To him I went. When he heard my story, he began by endeavoring to dissuade me from the meeting.
“I am pledged to it, William,” was my only answer.
“But, Edward, I am opposed to duelling myself, and should not promote or encourage, in another, a practice which I would not be willing myself to adopt.”
“A good and sufficient reason, William. You certainly should not. I will go to Frank Kingsley.”
“He will serve you, I know; but, Edward, this duelling is a bad business. It does no sort of good. Kill Perkins, and it does not prove to him, even if he were then able to hear, that Mrs. Clifford spoke a falsehood; and if he kills you, you are even still farther from convincing him.
“I have no such desire, William; and your argument, by the way, is one of those beggings of the question which the opponents of duelling continually fall into when discussing the subject. The object of the man, who, in a case like mine, fights a duel, is not to prove his truth, but to protect himself from persecution. Perkins seeks to bully and drive me out of the community. Public opinion here approves of this mode of protecting one's self;—may, if I do not avail myself of its agency, the same public opinion would assist my assailant in my expulsion. I fight on the same ground that a nation fights when it goes to war. It is the most obvious and easy mode to protect myself from injury and insult. So long as I submit, Perkins will insult and bully, and the city will encourage him, If I resist, I silence this fellow, and perhaps protect other young beginners. I have not the most distant idea of convincing him of my truth by fighting him—may, the idea of giving him satisfaction is an idea that never entered my brain. I simply take a popular mode of securing myself from outrage and persecution.”
“But, do you secure yourself? Has duelling this result?”
“Not invariably, perhaps; simply because the condition of humanity does not recognise invariable results. If it is shown to be the probable, the frequent result, it is all that can be expected of any human agency or law.”
“But, is it probable—frequent?”
“Yes, almost certain, almost invariable. Look at the general manners, the deportment, the forbearance, of all communities where duelling is recognised as an agent of society. See the superior deference paid to females, the unfrequency of bullying, the absence of blackguarding, the higher tone of this public press, and of society in general, from which the public press takes its tone, and which it represents in our country, but does not often inform. Even seduction is a rare offence, and a matter of general exclamation, where this extra-judicial agent is recognised.”
And so forth. It is not necessary to repeat our discussion on this vexed question, of its uses and abuses. I did not succeed in convincing him, and, under existing circumstances, it is not reasonable to imagine that his arguments had any influent over me. To Frank Kingsley I went, and found him in better mood to take up the cudgels, and even make my cause his own. He was one of those ardent bloods, who liked nothing better than the excitement of such an affair; whether as principal or assistant, it mattered little. To him I expressed my wish that his arrangements should bring the matter to an issue, if possible, within the next twenty-four hours.
“Prime!” he exclaimed, rubbing his hands. “That's what I like. If you shoot as quickly now, and as much to the point, you may count any button on Perkins's coat.”
He proceeded to confer with the friend of my opponent, while, with a meditative mind, I went to my office, necessarily oppressed with the strange feelings belonging to my situation. In less than two hours after Kingsley brought me the carte, by which I found that the meeting was to take place two miles out of town, by sunrise the day after the one ensuing—the weapons, pistols—distance, as customary, ten paces!
“You are a shot, of course?” said Kingsley.
My answer, in the negative, astonished him.
“Why, you will have little or no time for practice.”
“I do not intend it. My object is not to kill this man; but to make him and all others see that the dread of what may be done, either by him or them, will never reconcile me to submit to injury or insult. I shall as effectually secure this object by going out, as I do, without preparation, as if I were the best shot in America. He does not know that I am not; and a pistol is always a source of danger when in the grasp of a determined man.”
“You are a queer fellow in your notions, Clifford, and I can not say that I altogether understand you; but you must certainly ride out with me this afternoon, and bark a tree. It will do no hurt to a determined man to be a skilful one also.”
“I see no use in it.”
“Why—what if you should wish to wing him?”
“I think I can do it without practice. But I have no such desire.”
“Really you are unnecessarily magnanimous. You may be put to it, however. Should the first shot be ineffectual and he should demand a second, would you throw away that also?”
“No! I should then try to shoot him. As my simple aim is to secure myself from persecution, which is usually the most effectual mode of destroying a young man in this country, I should resort only to such a course as would be likely to yield me this security. That failing, I should employ stronger measures; precisely as a nation would do in a similar conflict with another nation. One must not suffer himself to be destroyed or driven into exile. This is the first law of nature—this of self-preservation. In maintaining this law, a man must do any or all things which in his deliberate judgment, will be effectual for the end proposed. Were I fighting with savages, for example, and knew that they regarded their scalps with more reverence than their lives, I should certainly scalp as well as slay.”
“They would call that barbarous?”
“Ay, no doubt; particularly in those countries where they paid from five to fifty, and even one hundred pounds to one Indian for the scalp of his brother, until they rid themselves of both. But see you not that the scalping process, as it produces the most terror and annoyance, is decidedly the most merciful, as being most likely to discourage and deter from war. If the scalp could bo taken from the head of every Seminole shot down, be sure the survivors never after would have come within range of rifle-shot.”
But these discussions gave way to the business before me. Kingsley left me to myself, and though sad and serious with oppressive thoughts, I still had enough of the old habits, dominant with me, to go to my daily concerns, and arrange my papers with considerable industry and customary method. My professional business was set in order, and Edgerton duly initiated in the knowledge of all such portions as needed explanation. This done, I sat down and wrote a long farewell letter to Julia, and one, more brief, but renewing the counsel I had previously given to her father, in respect to the suit against him. These letters were so disposed as to be sent in the event of my falling in the fight. The interval which followed was not so easy to be borne. Conscience and reflection were equally busy, and unpleasantly so. I longed for the time of action which should silence these unpleasant monitors.
The brief space of twenty-four hours was soon overpassed, and my anxieties ceased as the moment for the meeting with my enemy, drew nigh. My friend called at my lodgings a good hour before daylight—it was a point of credit with him that we should not delay the opposite party the sixtieth part of a second. We drove out into the country in a close carriage, taking a surgeon—who was a friend of Kingsley—along with us. We were on the ground in due season, and some little time before our customers. But they did not fail or delay us. They were there with sufficient promptitude.
Perkins was a man of coolness and courage. He took his position with admirable nonchalance; but I observed, when his eyes met mine, that they were darkened with a scowl of anger. His brows were contracted, and his face which was ordinarily red, had an increased flush upon it which betrayed unusual excitement. He evidently regarded me with feelings of bitter animosity. Perhaps this was natural enough, if he believed the story of Mrs. Clifford—and my scornful answer to his friend, Mr. Carter, was not calculated to lessen the soreness. For my part, I am free to declare, I had not the smallest sentiment of unkindness toward the fellow. I thought little of him, but did not hate—I could not have hated him. I had no wish to do him hurt; and, as already stated, only went out to put a stop to the further annoyances of insolents and bullies, by the only effectual mode—precisely as I should have used a bludgeon over his head, in the event of a personal assault upon me. Of course, I had no purpose to do him any injury, unless—with the view to my own safety. I resolved secretly to throw away my fire. Kingsley suspected me of some such intention, and earnestly protested against it.
“I should not place you at all,” he said, “if I fancied you could do a thing so d—-d foolish. The fellow intends to shoot you if he can. Help him to a share of the same sauce.”
I nodded as he proceeded to his arrangements. Here some conference ensued between the seconds:—
“Mr. Carter was very sorry that such a business must proceed. Was it yet too late to rectify mistakes? Might not the matter be adjusted?”
Kingsley, on such occasions, the very prince of punctilio, agreed that the matter was a very lamentable one—to be regretted, and so forth—but of the necessity of the thing, he, Mr. Carter, for his principal, must be the only judge.
“Mr. Carter could answer for his friend, Mr. Perkins, that he was always accessible to reason.”
“Mr. Kingsley never knew a man more so than HIS principal.”
“May we not reconcile the parties?” demanded Mr. Carter.
“Does Mr. Perkins withdraw his message?” answered Kingsley by another question.
“He would do so, readily, were there any prospect of adjusting the matter upon an honorable footing.”
“Mr. Carter will be pleased to name the basis for what he esteems an honorable adjustment.”
“Mr. Perkins withdraws his challenge.”
“We have no objection to that.”
“He substitutes a courteous requisition upon Mr. Clifford for an explanation of certain language, supposed to be offensive, made to a lady.”
“Mr. Clifford denies, without qualification, the employment of any such language.”
“This throws us back on our old ground,” said Carter—“there is a lady in question—”
“Who can not certainly be brought into the controversy,” said Kingsley—“I see no other remedy, Mr. Carter, but that we should place the parties. We are here to answer to your final summons.”
“Very good, sir; this matter, and what happens, must lie at your door. You are peremptory. I trust you have provided a surgeon.”
“His services are at your need, sir,” replied Kingsley with military courtesy.
“I thank you, sir—my remark had reference to your own necessity. Shall we toss up for the word?”
These preliminaries were soon adjusted. The word fell to Carter, and thus gave an advantage to Perkins, as his ear was more familiar than mine with the accents of his friend. We were placed, and the pistol put into my hands, without my uttering a sentence.
“Coolly now, my dear fellow,” said Kingsley in a whisper, as he withdrew from my side;—“wing him at least—but don't burn powder for nothing.”
Scarcely the lapse of a moment followed, when I heard the words “one,” “two,” “three,” in tolerably rapid succession, and, at the utterance of the last, I pulled trigger. My antagonist had done so at the first. His eye was fixed upon mine with deliberate malignity—THAT I clearly saw—but it did not affect my shot. This, I purposely threw away. The skill of my enemy did not correspondend (sic) with his evident desires. I was hurt, but very slightly. His bullet merely raised the skin upon the fleshy part of my right thigh. We kept our places while a conference ensued between the two seconds. Mr. Perkins, through his friend, declared himself unsatisfied unless I apologized, or—in less unpleasant language—explained. This demand was answered by Kingsley with cavalier indifference He came to me with a second pistol. His good-humored visage was now slightly ruffled.
“Clifford!” said he, as he put the weapon into my hand, “you must trifle no longer. This fellow abuses your generosity. He knows, as well as I, that you threw away your fire; and he will play the same game with you, on the same terms, for a month together, Sundays not excepted. I am not willing to stand by and see you risk your life in this manner; and, unless you tell me that you will give him as good as he sends, I leave you on the spot. Will you take aim this time?”
“I will!”
“You promise me then?”
“I do!”
I was conscious of the increased activity of my organ of destructiveness as I said these words. I smiled with a feeling of pleasant bitterness—that spicy sort of malice which you may sometimes rouse in the bosom of the best-natured man in the world, by an attempt to do him injustice. The wound I had received, though very trifling, had no little to do with this determination. It was not unlike such a wound as would be made by a smart stroke of a whip, and the effect upon my blood was pretty much as if it had been inflicted by some such instrument. I was stung and irritated by it, and the pertinacity of my enemy, particularly as he must have seen that my shot was thrown away, decided me to punish him if I could. I did so! I was not conscious that I was hurt myself, until I saw him falling!—I then felt a heavy and numbing sensation in the same thigh which had been touched before. A faintness relieved me from present sensibility, and when I became conscious, I found myself in the carriage, supported by Kingsley and the surgeon, on my way to my lodgings. My wound was a flesh wound only; the ball was soon extracted, and in a few weeks after, I was enabled to move about with scarcely a feeling of inconvenience. My opponent suffered a much heavier penalty. The bone of his leg was fractured, and it was several months before he was considered perfectly safe. The lesson he got made him a sorer and shorter—a wiser, if not a better man; but as I do not now, and did not then, charge myself with the task of bringing about his moral improvement, it is not incumbent upon me to say anything further on this subject. We will leave him to get better as he may.
The hurts of Perkins did not, unhappily, delay the progress of my uncle to that destruction to which his silly wife and knavish lawyer had destined him. His business was brought before the court by the claimants, Messrs. Banks & Tressell; and a brief period only was left him for putting in his answer. When I thought of Julia, I resolved, in spite of all previous difficulties—the sneers of the father, and the more direct, coarse insults of the mother—to make one more effort to rescue him from the fate which threatened him. I felt sure that, for the reasons already given, the merchants would still be willing to effect a compromise which would secure them the principal of their claim, without incurring the delay and risk of litigation. Accordingly, I penned a note to Mr. Clifford, requesting permission to wait upon him at home, at a stated hour. To this I received a cold, brief answer, covering the permission which I sought. I went, but might as well have spared myself the labor and annoyance of this visit. Mrs. Clifford was still in the ascendant—still deaf to reason, and utterly blind to the base position into which her meddlesome interference in the business threw her husband. She had her answer ready; and did not merely content herself with rejecting my overtures, but proceeded to speak in the language of one who really regarded me as busily seeking, by covert ways, to effect the ruin of her family. Her looks and language equally expressed the indignation of a mind perfectly convinced of the fraudulent and evil purposes of the person she addressed. Those of my uncle were scarcely less offensive. A grin of malicious self-gratulation mantled his lips as he thanked me for my counsel, which, he yet remarked, “however wise and good, and well-intended, he did not think it advisable to adopt. He had every confidence in the judgment of Mr. Perkins, who, though without the great legal knowledge of some of his youthful neighbors, had enough for his purposes; and had persuaded him to see the matter in a very different point of view from that in which I was pleased to regard it.”
There was no doing anything with or for these people. The fiat for their overthrow had evidently been issued. The fatuity which leads to self-destruction was fixed upon them; and, with a feeling rather of commiseration than anger, I prepared to leave the house. In this interview, I made a discovery, which tended still more to lessen the hostility I might otherwise have felt toward my uncle. I was constrained to perceive that he labored under an intellectual feebleness and incertitude which disconcerted his expression, left his thoughts seemingly without purpose, and altogether convinced me that, if not positively imbecile in mind and memory, there were yet some ugly symptoms of incapacity growing upon him which might one day result in the loss of both. I had always known him to be a weak-minded man, disposed to vanity and caprice, but the weakness had expanded very much in a brief period, and now presented itself to my view in sundry very salient aspects. It was easy now to divert his attention from the business which he had in hand—a single casual remark of courtesy or observation would have this effect—and then his mind wandered from the subject with all the levity and caprice of a thoughtless damsel. He seemed to entertain now no sort of apprehension of his legal difficulties, and spoke of them as topics already adjusted. Nay, for that matter, he seemed to have no serious sense of any subject, whatever might be its personal or general interest; but, passing from point to point, exhibited that instability of mental vision which may not inaptly be compared to that wandering glance which is usually supposed to distinguish and denote, in the physical eye, the presence of insanity. It was not often now that he indulged, while speaking to me, in that manner of hostility—those sneers and sarcastic remarks—which had been his common habit. This was another proof of the change which his mental man had undergone. It was not that he was more prudent or more tolerant than before. He was quite as little disposed to be generous toward me. But he now appeared wholly incapable of that degree of intellectual concentration which could enable him to examine a subject to its close. He would begin to talk with me seriously enough, and with a due solemnity, about the suit against him; but, in a tangent, he would dart off to the consideration of some trifle, some household matter, or petty affair, of which, at any other time, he must have known that his hearers had no wish to hear. Poor Julia confirmed the conjectures which I entertained, but did not utter, by telling me that her father had changed very much in his ways ever since this business had been begun.
“Mother does not see it, but he is no longer the same man. Oh, Edward, I sometimes think he's even growing childish.”
The fear was a well-founded one. Before the case was tried, Mr. Clifford was generally regarded, among those who knew him intimately, as little better than an imbecile; and so rapid was the progress of his infirmity, that when the judgment was given, as it was, against him, he was wholly unable to understand or fear its import. His own sense of guilt had anticipated its effects, and his intense vanity was saved from public shame only by the substitution of public pity. The decree of the court gave all that was asked; and the handsome competence of the Cliffords was exchanged for a miserable pittance, which enabled the family to live only in the very humblest manner.
It will readily be conjectured, from what I have stated in respect to myself, that mine was not the disposition to seek revenge, or find cause for exultation in these deplorable events. I had no hostility against my unhappy uncle; I should have scorned myself if I had. If such a feeling ever filled my bosom, it would have been most effectually disarmed by the sight of the wretched old man, a grinning, gibbering idiot, half-dancing and half-shivering from the cold, over the remnants of a miserable and scant fire in the severest evening in November. It was when the affair was all over; when the property of the family was all in the hands of the sheriff; when the mischievous counsel of such a person as Jonathan Perkins, Esquire could do no more harm even to so foolish a person as my uncle's wife; and when his presence, naturally enough withdrawn from a family from which he could derive no further profit, and which he had helped to ruin, was no longer likely to offend mine by meeting him there—that I proceeded to renew my direct intercourse with the unfortunate people whom I was not suffered to save.
The reader is not to suppose that I had kept myself entirely aloof from the family until these disasters had happened. I sought Julia when occasion offered, and, though she refused it, tendered my services and my means whenever they might be bestowed with hope of good. And now, when all was over, and I met her at the door, and she sank upon my bosom, and wept in my embrace, still less than ever was I disposed to show to her mother the natural triumph of a sagacity which had shown itself at the expense of hers. I forgot, in the first glance of my uncle, all his folly and unkindness. He was now a shadow, and the mental wreck was one of the most deplorable, as it was one of the most rapid and complete, that could be imagined. In less than seven months, a strong man—strong in health—strong, as supposed, in intellect—singularly acute in his dealings among tradesmen—regarded by them as one of the most shrewd in the fraternity—vain of his parts, of his family, and of his fortune—solicitous of display, and constant in its indulgence!—that such a man should be stricken down to imbecility and idiotism—a meagre skeleton in form—pale, puny, timid—crouching by the fireplace—grinning with stealthy looks, momently cast around him—and playing—his most constant employment—with the bellows strings that hung beside him, or the little kitten, that, delighted with new consideration, had learned to take her place constantly at his feet! What a wreck!
But the moral man had been wrecked before, or this could not have been. It was only because of his guilt—of its exposure rather—that he sunk. In striving to shake off the oppressive burden, he shook off the intellect which had been compelled chiefly to endure it. The sense of shame, the conviction of loss, and, possibly, other causes of conscience which lay yet deeper—for the progeny of crime is most frequently a litter as numerous as a whelp's puppies—helped to crush the mind which was neither strong enough to resist temptation at first, nor to bear exposure at last. I turned away with a tear, which I could not suppress, from the wretched spectacle. But I could have borne with more patience to behold this ruin, than to subdue the rising reproach which I felt as I turned to encounter Mrs. Clifford.
This weak woman, still weak, received me coldly, and I could see in her looks that she regarded me as one whom it was natural to suppose would feel some exultation at beholding their downfall. I saw this, but determined to say nothing, in the attempt to undo these impressions. I knew that time was the best teacher in all such matters, and resolved that my deportment should gradually make her wiser on the subject of that nature which she had so frequently abused, and which, I well knew, she could never understand. But this hope I soon discovered to be unavailing. Her disaster had only soured, not subdued her; and, with the natural tendency of the vulgar mind, she seemed to regard me as the person to whom she should ascribe all her misfortunes. As, to her narrow intellect, it seemed natural that I should exult in the accomplishment of my predictions, so it was a process equally natural that she should couple me with their occurrence; and, indeed, I was too nearly connected with the event, through the medium of my unconscious father, not to feel some portion of the affliction on his account also; though neither his memory nor my reputation suffered from the development of the affair in the community where we lived.
Mrs. Clifford did not openly, or in words, betray the feelings which were striving in her soul; but the general restraint which she put upon herself in my presence, the acerbity of her tone, manner, and language, to poor Julia, and the unvaried querulousness of her remarks, were sufficient to apprize me of the spite which she would have willingly bestowed upon myself, had she any tolerable occasion for doing so. A few weeks served still further to humble the conceit and insolence of the unfortunate woman. The affair turned out much more seriously than I expected. A sudden fall in the value of real and personal estate, just about the time when the sheriff's sale took place, rendered necessary a second levy, which swept the miserable remnant of Mr. Clifford's fortune, leaving nothing to my uncle but a small estate which had been secured by settlement to Mrs. Clifford and her daughter, and which the sheriff could not legally lay hands on.
I came forward at this juncture, and, having allowed them to remove into the small tenement to which, in their reduced condition they found it prudent to retire, I requested a private interview with Mrs. Clifford, and readily obtained it.
I was received by the good lady in apparent state. All the little furniture which she could save from the former, was transferred very inappropriately to the present dwelling-house. The one was quite unsuited to the other. The massive damask curtains accorded badly with the little windows over which they were now suspended, and the sofa, ten feet in length, occupied an unreasonable share of an apartment twelve by sixteen. The dais of piled cushions, on which so many fashionable groups had lounged in better times, now seemed a mountain, which begot ideas of labor, difficulty, and up-hill employment, rather than ease, as the eye beheld it cumbering two thirds of the miserable area into which it was so untastefully compressed. These, and other articles of splendor and luxury, if sold, would have yielded her the means to buy furniture more suitable to her circumstances and situation, and left her with some additional resources to meet the daily and sometimes pressing exigencies of life.
The appearance of this parlor argued little in behalf of the salutary effect which such reverses might be expected to produce in a mind even tolerably sensible. They argued, I fancied, as unfavorably for my suit as for the humility of the lady whom I was about to meet. If the parlor of Mrs. Clifford bore such sufficient tokens of her weakness of intellect, her own costume betrayed still more. She had made her person a sort of frame or rack upon which she hung every particle of that ostentatious drapery which she was in the habit of wearing at her fashionable evenings. A year's income was paraded upon her back, and the trumpery jewels of three generations found a place on every part of her person where it is usual for fashionable folly to display such gewgaws. She sailed into the room in a style that brought to my mind instantly the description which Milton gives of the approach of Delilah to Samson, after the first days of his blind captivity:—
“But who is this, what thing of sea or land?—Female of sex it seems—That so bedecked, ornate and gay,Comes this way sailing, like a stately shipOf Tarsus, bound for the islesOf Javan or Gadire,With all her bravery on and tackle trim,Sails filled, and streamers waving,Courted by all the winds that hold their play,An amber scent of odorous perfumeHer harbinger!”
No description could have been more, just and literal in the case of Mrs. Clifford. I could scarce believe my eyes; and when forced to do so, I could scarcely suppose that this bravery was intended for my eyes only. Nor was it;—but let me not anticipate. This spectacle, I need not say, sobered me entirely, if anything was necessary to produce this effect, and increased the grave apprehensions which were already at my heart. The next consequence was to make the manner of my communication serious even to severity. A smile, which was of that doubtful sort which is always sinister and offensive, overspread her lips as she motioned me to resume the seat from which I had risen at her entrance; while she threw herself with an air of studied negligence upon one part of the sofa. I felt the awkwardness of my position duly increased, as her house, dress, and manner, convinced me that she was not yet subdued to hers; but a conscious rectitude of intention carried me forward, and lightened the task to my feelings.
“Mrs. Clifford,” I said, without circumlocution, “I have presumed to ask your attention this morning to a brief communication which materially affects my happiness, and which I trust may not diminish, if it does not actually promote, yours. Before I make this communication, however, I hope I may persuade myself that the little misunderstandings which have occurred between us are no longer to be considered barriers to our mutual peace, and happiness—”
“Misunderstandings, Mr. Clifford?—I don't know what misunderstandings you mean. I'm sure I've never misunderstood you.”
I could not misunderstand the insolent tenor of this speech, but I availed myself of the equivoque which it involved to express my gratification that such was the case.
“My path will then be more easy, Mrs. Clifford—my purpose more easily explained.”
“I am glad you think so, sir,” she answered coolly, smoothing down certain folds of her frock, and crossing her hands upon her lap, while she assumed the attitude of a patient listener. There was something very repulsive in all this; but I saw that the only way to lessen the unpleasantness of the scene, and to get on with her, would be to make the interview as short as possible, and come at once to my object. This I did.
“It is now more than a year, Mrs. Clifford, since I had the honor to say to my uncle, that I entertained for my cousin Julia such a degree of affection as to make it no longer doubtful to me that I should best consult my own happiness by seeking to make her my wife. I had the pleasure at the same time to inform him, which I believed to be true, that Julia herself was not unwilling that such should be the nearer tie between us—”
“Yes, yes, Mr. Clifford, I know all this; but my husband and myself thought better of it, and—” she said with fidgety impatience.
“And my application was refused,” I said calmly; thus finishing the sentence where she had paused.
“Well, sir, and what then?”
“At that time, madam, my uncle gave as a reason that he had other arrangements in view.”
“Yes, sir, so we had; and this reminds me that those arrangements were broken off entirely in consequence of the perversity which you taught my daughter. I know it all, sir; there's no more need to tell me of it, than there is to deny it. You put my daughter up to refusing young Roberts, who would have jumped at her, as his father did—and he one of the best families and best fortunes in the city. I'm sure I don't know, sir, what object you can have in reminding me of these things.”
Here was ingenious perversity. I bore with it as well as I could, and strove to preserve my consideration and calmness.
“You do your daughter injustice, Mrs. Clifford, and me no less, in this opinion. But I do not seek to remind you of misunderstandings and mistakes, the memory of which can do no good. My purpose now is to renew the offer to you which I originally made to Mr. Clifford. My attachment to your daughter remains unaltered, and I am happy to say that fortune has favored me so far as to enable me to place her in a situation of comparative comfort and independence which I could not offer then—”
“Which is as much as to say that she don't enjoy comfort and independence where she is; and if she does not, sir, to whom is it all owing, sir, but to you and your father? By your means it is that we are reduced to poverty; but you shall see, sir, that we are not entirely wanting in independence. My answer, sir, is just the same as Mr. Clifford's was. I am very much obliged to you for THE HONOR you intend my family, but we must decline it. As for the comfort and independence which you proffer to my daughter, I am happy to inform you that she can receive it at any moment from a source perhaps far more able than yourself to afford both, if her perversity does not stand in the way, as it did when young Roberts made his offers. Mr. Perkins, sir, the excellent young man that you tried to murder, is to be here, sir, this very morning, to see my daughter. Here's his letter, sir, which you may read, that you may be under no apprehensions that my daughter will ever suffer from a want of comfort and independence.”
She flung a letter down on the sofa beside her, but I simply bowed, and declined looking at it. I did not, however, yield the contest in this manner. I urged all that might properly be urged on the subject, and with as much earnestness as could be permitted in an interview with a lady—and such a lady!—but, as the reader may suppose, my toils were taken in vain: all that I could suggest, either in the shape of reason or expostulation, only served to make her more and more dogged, and to increase her tone of insolence; and sore, stung with vexation, disappointed, and something more than bewildered, I dashed almost headlong out of the house, without seeing either Julia or her father, precisely at the moment when Mr. Perkins was about to enter.