Part 31

“One,” I replied, “who is willing to serve you.”

“Oh, then, as you are my friend, burn that fatal letter! While it exists, I am wretched: it is the curse of the few short moments I have yet to live. I have read it until each word, nay, each letter, seemed as a coal of fire consuming my very heart-strings. It is chained to my brain, and each thought I bestow upon it acts as an electric shock to heighten my misery. I essayed to destroy it; but dared not,—cannot.”

I took the letter and deliberately burned it: he watched its disappearance with a maddening glare, and, when it was entirely burned to ashes, he burst into a hysterical laugh, and fell back upon the bed.

It is scarcely necessary to inform the reader that, after the scene at the post-office, I caused him to be conveyed to my room, and he had continued in a state of delirium during the whole of that time. On recovering from the hysterical affection caused by the excitement of destroying the letter, he became more calm.

“I thank you,” he muttered; “I remember it all, and you have been my true friend. Heaven will bless you for it: my prayers—they are all I have to offer—shall be breathed for thee and thine.”

“Compose yourself,” I answered; “think of nothing now but your recovery and return to your friends.”

“Friends!—ha, ha, ha! Who talks of friends? Ah! yes; you that are a real one, and never felt the venomed tooth of a smiling hypocrite in your flesh. No, I will speak; bear with me a while. Think, only! he was my chum at college, the companion of my youth, the friend of my more matured age, and we lived in the hope of ending our days beneath the same roof; but now the broad canopy of heaven cannot shelter both of us alive. One or the other should—must die, and fate accords it to me.”

“You distress yourself. Do not speak of these things.”

“I speak of them, my dear sir, to drive away the curse of recollection. Left alone to dwell upon them, I would go mad. I will relate to you something of my short but eventful history. It is simple; there is no romance in it: it is one of those incidents which occur in every life among men of the world. I was not suited for the world: it has crushed me. Amelia has wounded the heart that loved her. But no more of that. We were cousins, destined at an early age by our parents for each other. We grew up in the perfect knowledge of the happiness which awaited us: we were young, we were lovers. There is not a stream, there is not a mountain of our native home, but could tell a tale of our early loves. We have wandered over the one and sat beside the other, when the moon shed her pale and silvery light upon its waters. There nature smiled upon us, and we in return rejoiced that she was so good. Pardon my folly, sir; but those were moments of pure, unalloyed bliss. There came one among us, who, in my dreams and my waking hours of madness, I have cursed. It was Sinclair, my friend. I will not enter further into the details of my history. I will not relate to you the causes which induced me to quit home: suffice it, however, to say that I was unfortunate. I wrote to Amelia. The fatal answer and the result of it you are already acquainted with, and it is to your kindness that I am indebted for those few days added to a life of insupportable wretchedness. My nervous system, susceptible of the slightest shock, my mind weakened by the hereditary disease of our family, consumption, could not battle against the accumulation of domestic misfortunes, and a jealous feeling which I harbored of Amelia. I left home: my misery is now complete; my former suspicions have proved true. She is faithless! This, sir, is all: bear with me but a short time, and then I will tell you the rest. I feel myself sinking; listen. Oh, God! oh, God!—I—I——” He gasped for breath; the muscles of his face worked as if struggling to retain life; his eyes became fixed; his lips muttered sounds,—they were unmeaning. I took his hand: it was cold and stiff. I gazed upon his face: Death’s seal was set forever!

* * * * *

In the Episcopal churchyard, near C—— Street, is to be seen a neat marble slab, with the following inscription:—

_Sacred to the Memory of HENRY MIDDLETON, aged 24 years. Sic transit gloria mundi._

_THE WIDOWED MOTHER._

“Though grief may blight, or sin deface Our youth’s fair promise, or disgrace May brand with infamy and shame. * * * * * A mother, though her heart may break, From that fond heart will never tear The child whose last retreat is there.”

ELLEN FITZARTHUR.

It was a cold, dreary morning in the month of December, a heavy snow lay upon the ground, and the wind whistled around the northeast corner of the post-office; the streets were nearly deserted; none ventured out but those whose business rendered it absolutely necessary. I sat at the window watching the flakes of snow as they peeled from the roofs of the opposite houses and scattered their whitened particles on the pavement beneath.

The Southern mail had arrived, and all the business-letters were delivered; a drowsy feeling crept over me, and I was just falling into the Lethean lake of forgetfulness,—that dreamy portion of our life, without which this paradise, this glorious world, with its riches and its charms, would be as a howling desert.

“Sleep, sweet restorer, balmy sleep.”

But I am digressing. I was awakened from my slumber by a slight touch upon the elbow and a tremulous voice uttering the words, “Sir! sir!”

“Madam!” cried I, starting up.

“I am sorry to disturb you, sir, but I wish to know if there are any letters from my son?”

Honest creature: she looked the picture of distress; the widow of hope as well as kin, her age apparently about fifty, her dress neat but indicating poverty,—the hand of Time had furrowed her cheek and left his impress there.

“From your son, madam?”

“Yes, sir, my only son: a good, brave boy, and my only dependence; he lives in New Orleans, and sends me my little allowance every month. Is there any, sir?”

“What is your name?”

“Williams, sir,—Mary Williams.”

“Here are two letters, ma’am, for Mary Williams.”

“That is me, sir; and that is his handwriting, dear, good boy! he never will forget his aged mother.”

“Fifty cents, ma’am.”

“Fifty cents, sir! my William always pays for the letters.”

“In this instance he has failed to do so.”

“What shall I do?”

“I think you said, ma’am, that your son sends you a monthly allowance: so probably one of these letters contains it.”

The letter was opened, and, as I anticipated, a ten-dollar bill was enclosed.

After the departure of the old lady I began to weave an imaginary tale from the simple incident attending her appearance. Her son was in New Orleans: it was true, the season was healthy,—the winter there being in point of salubrity the very antipodes of the summer,—still, an undefined presentiment of a something yet in embryo glided across my brain. I noted down the facts that had already occurred, and in the mean time gathered materials for other tales.

Two months passed away, and a letter remained in the post-office for Mrs. Mary Williams. In taking it up I accidentally noticed the careless manner in which it was folded. The following scraps of sentences were distinct and legible:—

“Business very dull—but two dollars a day—sickness—doctor’s bill—I never go to the gambling-house—what made you think so?—send money next week.”

It was evident from this that William had got into bad company, and although he denied frequenting the gambling-houses, those sinks of iniquity, those common sewers for draining from the weak and dissipated their hard earnings, yet I felt assured that he was lost, and his mother left in her old days poor and destitute, relying upon the cold charity of the world for the common means of subsistence. Her brave and noble boy, as she had fondly called him, was now drawn into the vortex of vice, from whose baneful and impetuous influence the tears, the cries, the agonizing grief of her who doted upon him, to whose existence her whole soul seemed linked, could not rescue him. The spark of filial affection was extinguished, and the love of pleasures, the gratification of passions, dissipation, and debauchery, had usurped its place. The winter was now passed away with its wrath: storms and tempests with their hail, rain, and snow were rushing down the tide of time, and spring was seen smiling in the dim perspective. It was, I think, in the early part of March, when Mrs. Williams stood at the window. Her whole appearance was changed. I forgot to mention she had previously sent for and received the letter to which I have above alluded. Sickness and sorrow had done their work. Her eyes were sunken, her cheeks more furrowed, and poverty still more strikingly displayed in her person. To her question, “Are there any letters for me?” that powerful monosyllable “No!” was another shock to the poor mother. She stood a while in silence, the tears rolled down her cheeks, she struggled a while to restrain her feelings, then fast flowed the sorrowing waters from a heart surcharged with grief. She turned to depart, but faltered, and at length overcome, she sat down upon the steps of the post-office and wept aloud.

There is something unnatural in the weeping of the aged. Youth is the seed-time of the harvest, and hath its sunshine and clouds. But age is the garnered fruit, the sere and the yellow leaf of all that was beautiful. When age weeps, ’tis for youth, not for itself. I gazed on the heart-broken woman before me, and thought of her many nights and days of anguish. I thought of all her bright visions of hope and joy which shone through her son and lighted the path of her future. They were all vanished, and here she lay in utter darkness and desolation.

I spoke to her: she looked up. I told her if she would leave her address I would send a letter, as soon as it came, to her home.

“Home!” she exclaimed; “I have none! Yes, yes, I have!” Reader, it was the poor-house!

Week after week elapsed: no letter came for the aged widow. One day I accidentally took up a New Orleans paper. Curiosity prompted me to read it more carefully than usual: the paper fell from my hand; my worst apprehensions for Mary Williams were realized.

* * * * *

I stood at the bedside of the widow,—she lay on one of straw, beside which stood a table containing sundry bottles of medicine, and near her a Bible, upon which were a pair of common steel spectacles, black and rusted with age. She instantly recognized me.

“Ah! you have brought me a letter from my dear boy. I knew he would not, could not, desert his poor mother. How is he? where is he?”

* * * * *

Reader, here I close my sketch, the remembrance of which haunts me still, and the last sigh, the last pang of the heart-broken widow will be as the monitor to prompt me to deeds of charity, with a heart alive to the cries of the suffering, and a feeling of joy at their alleviation which I could not previously have experienced.

_THE SIREN._

The morning was one in May, the first of the month. All nature was smiling and putting forth, like the gay daughters of earth, her ever-beauteous charms. I had just returned from a long ramble in the country, and reluctantly seated myself at the window to distribute the thoughts, the opinions, the love, the hatred, the wisdom, and the follies of mankind through the medium of letters.

Passing over several commonplace, everyday applicants, I was at last struck with the interesting appearance of a young lady who could not have attained the age of eighteen. There was, however, a certain expression of the countenance, a lurking devil—if I may use the expression—in her eye, denoting alike ungovernable passions and a reckless disregard of the consequences attending their gratification. The study of human nature for years, and a close observation of all its wire-workings _and mappings of the face_, which my position had a tendency to improve, have made me conversant with many of those signs which the bad passions of the human heart cannot keep in its deep recess, but send forth as warnings to the young and unwary to shun them as they would a pestilence. She gave her name as Caroline Somerville. There were fourteen letters to her address, the postage of which amounted to nearly three dollars. Her correspondence seemed to embrace the four quarters of the globe: for amongst them were two ship letters,—one from Bordeaux, the other from a small town in Scotland. I immediately set her down as one of our best female customers.

I think it was on the third day from her first application at the office that I noticed in her handwriting a note addressed to a merchant of this city,—a man of family and reputed a model of his sex, and a pattern for husbands. This excited an unusual excitement within me.

What could she have to do with Middleton? There was nothing in common between them. His situation in life, his moral character and standing in society were all opposed to the bare supposition of such a thing.

In the mean time, by the usual method, I deciphered the following words: “Pardon the freedom”—“No. 26 Gaskill Street”—“alone, seven o’clock”—“drop a note”: these were all I could make out; but they were sufficient. The character and plots of the siren were no longer a subject of doubt. I knew her as well from those unconnected sentences as if her whole history had been written out before me. She was, in the literal sense of the word, A FEMALE SEDUCER.

The next question that presented itself to my mind was, would Middleton pay any attention to her? That he would not admitted scarcely a shadow of doubt: he might probably reply to her note, but only to refuse and remonstrate with her upon the folly and imprudence, if not guilt, of her conduct.

I handed him the letter myself: he remarked immediately that it was not one of business. The seal was broken and the letter was read with an eagerness that surprised me. He placed it carefully in his pocket-book and departed. Towards evening Caroline received through me an answer from Mr. Middleton, in which I discovered he promised to meet her. From that period there came a change over his dream of life: I could not but mark the wasted form and haggard looks which others would attribute to different causes. I possessed the key to unlock the truth, but _that_ formed no part of my _vocation_.

Weeks, nay, months, elapsed, and I was only reminded of this circumstance by the daily appearance of Middleton. The few short months were as years upon the calendar of his face, while the curse of memory was dragging him with an iron grasp to an early tomb. One day he told me, in a manner evidently intended to convey the request more as a matter of business than otherwise, to deliver his letters to no person but himself: “remember,” he repeated, “to _no one_, if you please, sir.” I promised to follow his instructions strictly. He had his reasons, and I knew it.

As I had anticipated, his wife, a lovely woman, in the fulness of life’s bloom, rich in accomplishments, the _observed_ of all _observers_, called at the office; I could detect beneath the bland smile the canker-worm of domestic sorrow; the seeds of misery were sown, the harvest was ripening.

“Are there any letters here for Mr. Middleton?”

If I detest any thing in the world, it is the telling of a white lie; it soon leads to a black one. I replied that there were, but orders had been given to deliver them to no person but himself.

“Orders, sir?—did he leave such orders?”

“He did, madam.”

She struggled with passion; it was, however, in vain. The words, “perjured villain,” escaped her, and she left the office.

I could now imagine their domestic scenes,—conscious guilt on the one side, injured and insulted innocence on the other. But even this was doomed to have an end.

A report ran through the city that a murder had been committed at No. 26 Gaskill Street. Good heavens! The dwelling of Caroline! I hurried to the scene of blood, and there lay the dead body of Middleton, and beside him, in the custody of two officers, his murderer,—a youthful paramour of this modern Jezebel.

He forfeited his life upon the gallows, and Caroline Somerville died of _mania a potu_ in the alms-house.

What became of the wife of the unfortunate Middleton? the reader may inquire. Do you see that little red frame-house which stands alone; that one with the neat little garden connected with it? There resides Mrs. Middleton, the once happy wife, together with her four small children: to maintain them she takes in washing. Yes, reader, such, alas! is her destiny.

The tide of public opinion rolls from crime, even while it carries upon its bosom many a bark freighted with the unhallowed cargo, and involves many an innocent victim in its reckless and overwhelming course. She is now alone in the world, with none to sympathize, none to alleviate her anguish. Her little ones are the peopled world in which she moves; beyond that all is chaos.

XVI.

Addenda.

_ABRAHAM LINCOLN._

We had written this portion of our work with feelings of gratitude to the brave men who achieved the glorious victory over the rebellious armies of the South, and looked forward to the time when Abraham Lincoln in triumph could repeat his words, uttered long before the surrender of Lee’s army: “_When the rebellion is crushed, my work is done._” That work was done, and four millions of people were rescued from slavery; not alone from the fact of any determined opposition to the institution as it was and existed under the Constitution, but the effect of the rebellion itself.

Freedom under the administration of Abraham Lincoln became a reality, what before was but a name,—a shadow! He had just reached that point: his labor was nearly done, armies had surrendered, and the power of the government fully sustained. The shout of gratitude went up from the four points of our country, North, South, East, and West, and was carried to other nations with a rapidity unequalled in telegraphic or steam history. In the midst of this rejoicing, at a time when every heart throbbed with pleasurable emotions and a nation’s gratitude was about being manifested by brilliant illuminations and rejoicings, the demon of hell sent a fiend forth to destroy the life which had given a new one to our nation.

Our country was an Eden on the morning of the fatal day whose evening shrouded it in the deepest gloom. All nature was joyous, all men happy save those who inaugurated the rebellion and looked upon the downfall of slavery as the end of an institution upon which they sinned and grew rich,—vampire-like living on the blood of their fellow-creatures! Abraham Lincoln stood in the garden, the Eden of our country, the Adam of a new order of things,—a recreated world! The tree of liberty had been planted, its apples had been eaten eighty years before, and the curse of slavery followed. But now the tree was clear of its “Dead Sea fruit,” which had withered its branches; anew it blossomed, anew the rich, ripe fruit of freedom loaded its stems, and hung suspended,—bright jewels on a living tree. It was, is, and ever will be the tree of knowledge to a free and independent people, the golden fruit of all that is good, whose roots were watered by the tears of the grateful, and whose soil was enriched by the blood of those who died in defending it. Abraham Lincoln stood in this garden, the man of the people, as was the first man of God. There came up from the four corners of our land in lightning flashes the congratulations of twenty-five millions of _free_ people. Proudly there he stood; the smile on his face was lighted up by the sunshine of his heart. Then it was that a wretch, whose vocation and associations had totally demoralized him, crept into this Eden, wherein all was joy and happiness,—his vile nature, envying a nation’s return to peace, aimed to destroy it. The name of this serpent was J. Wilkes Booth, the tool of Southern chivalry, the assassin by whose hand Abraham Lincoln fell. The moment that the spirit of this martyr passed from earth to heaven, the chains fell from the limbs of four millions of people, and the doom of slavery was sealed forever! The 14th of April, 1865, may be dated as an era in our country’s history long to be remembered, for Abraham Lincoln died in carrying out his great work of emancipation. He lived to see the last battle fought, lived till the power of the rebellion was broken, and then, having finished the work for which God had sent him, he passed away from this world to that high and glorious realm where the patriot and the good shall live forever.

“For the stars on our banner grown suddenly dim, Let us weep in our sorrow, but weep not for him; Not for him who departing leaves millions in tears, Not for him who has died full of honors and years, Not for him who ascended fame’s ladder so high, From the round at the top he has stepped to the sky: It is blessed to go when so ready to die.”

_OUR NATIONAL GRIEF._

The murder of Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, on the 14th of April, 1865.

WRITTEN BY LAURA L. REES.

The drapery of death enshrouds, In its dark, funereal pall, Each quiet home. Its gloomy shade Reveals the grief of all. A country mourns. The moaning winds Sigh requiems of woe; E’en from the shifting clouds the tears In crystal showers flow.

Our Father’s dead! from our sad hearts Goes up one burden’d strain, Till every trait of his great life As monuments remain. We fondly, thro’ the vista dim, Our tearful visions cast, And live in memory o’er again Each history of the past.

We watch him in the ship of state, On a treacherous, bloody tide: ’Neath his firm hand the nation’s bark In triumph on shall ride. His eagle eye, through shadows dark, Still saw the beacon light; His heart, unwavering, placed its trust In God and freedom’s right.

Now came the promised shore in view, Now dawned the glorious day; The darksome river brighter grew, Reflecting victory’s ray Rebellion falls—a bleeding form— Upon the crimson deck; While Slavery sinks beneath the stream, A black, dismantled wreck.

A peaceful rainbow bends its hues Across the mighty strand; It faded soon:—a ruler loved Fell ’neath a traitor’s hand. Mid festive scenes the assassin comes To act the dastard deed: The nation’s heart was wounded When she saw the patriot bleed.

The stripes that deck Columbia’s flag Grew pallid at the sight; The brilliant galaxy of stars Flashed with a vivid light. The unseen spirit of our land Seem’d living in her wrath, And threw the starry banner’s folds Across the murderer’s path. But from her clasp the assassin fled, Like all the rebel horde, Who spurn our colors with their heel, And grasp the traitor’s sword.

Centuries ago, that day, A saddening act was done, That rocked the earth in horror And dimmed the radiant sun. The Anointed One was crucified, Mid agony and shame. “Father, forgive them!” still he prayed, Whilst _they_ reviled his name.

Towards the mount of Calvary The heavy cross was borne By one of Afric’s sons, a race Now abject and forlorn. The cruel yoke was on their life, Its curse upon their head, Till another raised its ponderous weight: For it his blood was shed.

Upon Good Friday’s holy eve The stalwart Roman band Removed the cross, lest its dread form Pollute the Jewish land. Upon Good Friday’s holy eve Columbia’s noblest son Laid down the weighty cross he bore: The martyr crown was won.