CHAPTER IV.

ISRAEL AND HIS VICTIM.

Israel Yorke left the Temple, accompanied by Ninety-One and followed by the eleven. Israel, clad once more in his every-day _practical_ dress, with his hat drawn over his bald head, and his diminutive form enveloped in a loose sack of dark cloth, looked like a dwarf beside the almost gigantic frame of Ninety-One. Yet Ninety-One, with creditable politeness, gave his arm to the Financier, and urged him onward in the darkness, toward Broadway, something in the manner that you may have seen a very willing boy, assist the progress of a very unwilling dog,--the boy's hand being attached to one end of a string, and the dog's neck to the other. And Ninety-One cheered Israel with various remarks of a consolatory character, such as, "go in gold specks! let her went my darlin'! don't give it up so easy!--" and so-forth.

"It's so dark, and I'm so devilish cold," whined Israel, in vain endeavoring to keep pace with the giant strides of his huge companion,--"Where the deuce are we going anyhow?"

"Come along feller sinners," said Ninety-One, looking over his shoulders at the eleven who followed sturdily in the rear. The eleven did not deign to express themselves in words, but manifested some portion of their feelings, by bringing their clubs upon the pavement, with something of the force of thunder, and more of the wickedness of a suddenly _slammed_ door. "Where are we leadin' you to? To one of yer tenants, Isr'el,--one of yer tenants, you pertikler example of all the christ'in vartues,--"

"To one of my tenants!" echoed Israel.

"To one of yer tenants," repeated Ninety-One, and he crossed a curb as he spoke, and gave Israel's arm a wrench which nearly tore the arm from Israel's body.--"You know you've got to pay cash for your bank notes to-day, an' you'll need all the money you can rake and scrape. To-day's rent day,--isn't it? Well we're goin' on a collectin' _tower_ among yer tenants. Ain't we feller sinners?"

He turned his head over his shoulder, and again the clubs thundered their applause.

"I'll be deuced if I can make you out," said Israel arranging his 'specks,' which had been displaced by one of the eccentric movements of Ninety-One,--and Israel felt very much like the man who, finding himself late at night, very unexpectedly in the same bed-room with a bear, desired exceedingly to get out of the room, but thought it no more than proper to be civil to the bear until he did get out.

"Don't you own a four story house in ---- street?" asked Ninety-One.

"I do. Four stories,--two to four rooms on a floor,--besides the cellar and the garret,--a fine property,--and, to-day _is_ rent day--"

"You stow 'em away like maggots in a stale cheese,--do you?" and Ninety-One stopped, and regarded the little man admiringly,--added in an under tone, "Moses! How I'd like to have the picklin' of you!"

Thus conversing, they entered Broadway, along which they passed for some distance, and at last turned down a by-street, the eleven following them closely all the while.

They stood in front of a huge edifice, four stories high, formerly the residence of a Wall street nabob, but now the abode of,--we are afraid to say how many families. The basement was, of course, occupied as a manufactory of New York politics,--in simple phrase, it was a grog-shop; and although the hour was exceedingly late, its door was wide open, and the sound of drunken voices and the fragrance of bad rum, ascended together upon the frosty air. Save the basement, the entire front of the mansion was dark as ink; the poor wretches who burrowed in its many rooms, were doubtless sleeping after the toil of the winter's day.

"In the fourth story you have a tenant named ---- ----?" whispered Ninety-One.

"Yes; a poor devil," responded Israel Yorke.

"Let's go up an' see the poor devil," said Ninety-One, and grasping Israel firmly by the arm, he passed through the front door and up the narrow stairway.

The eleven followed in silence, supporting Israel firmly in the rear.

As they reached the head of the fourth stairway, Ninety-One put forth his brawny hand, and,--in the darkness,--felt along the wall.

"Here's the door," he whispered, "in a minnit we'll bust in upon your tenant like a thousand o' brick."

Israel felt himself devoured by curiosity, suspense, and fear.

As for the eleven gathering around Israel closely in the darkness, they preserved a dead silence, only broken for a moment by the exclamation of one of their number,--"What a treat it 'ud be to pitch this here cuss down stairs!"

"Hush, boys! hark!" said Ninety-One, and laid his hand upon the latch of the door.

Before we enter the door and gaze upon the scene which Ninety-One disclosed to the gaze of Israel Yorke, our history must retrace its steps.

It was nightfall, and the light of the lamps glittering among the leafless trees of the Park, mingled with the last flush of the departed day, and the mild, tremulous rays of the first stars of evening. At the corner of Broadway and Chambers street, two young men held each other by the hand, as they talked together. The contrast between their faces and general appearance was most remarkable, even for this world of contrasts. One tall in stature, with florid cheeks, and blue eyes glittering with life and hope, was the very picture of health. He was dressed at the top of the fashion. A sleekly-brushed beaver sat jauntily upon his chesnut curls; an overcoat of fine gray cloth fitted closely to his vigorous frame, and by its rolling collar, suffered his blue scarf and diamond pin to be visible; his hands were gloved, and he carried a delicate cane, adorned with a head of amber; and his voice and laugh rung out so cheerily upon the frosty air!

The other,--alas! for the contrast,--dressed in a long overcoat of faded brown cloth, resembled a living skeleton. His face was terribly emaciated; his cheeks sunken; his eyes hollow. His voice was low and husky. As he spoke, his eyes lighted up like fire-coals, and seemed to burn in his sallow and withered face. His hair, black as jet, and straight and long, only made his countenance seem more pale and death-like. He was evidently in the last stage of consumption, and his dress, neat as it was,--the faded brown coat, and much-worn hat carefully brushed,--betokened poverty, and the saddest poverty of all,--that which tries, and vainly, to hide itself under a "decent" exterior.

And thus they met, at the corner of Chambers street and Broadway, Lewis Harding, the rich broker and man of fashion, and John Martin, the poor artist and--dying man. They had been playmates and school-fellows in other years. Five years ago, they left the academy, in a country town, to try their fortunes in the world; both orphans, both young, both full of life and hope, and--poor. Harding had taken the world _as he found_ it, adopted its philosophy,--"Success is the only test of merit,"--and became a rich broker and a man of fashion. John Martin had taken the world as it _ought to have been_,--believed in the goodness of mankind, and in the certainty of honest success following honest labor--of hand and brain,--steadily devoted to the elevation of man. He became an artist, and,--we see him before us now.

"Why, Jack, my dear fellow, what are you doing out in the cold air?" said Harding, in his kindly voice. "You ought to be more careful of yourself,----"

"I am out in the cold air, because I cannot breathe freely in the house," answered the artist, with a smile on his cadaverous lips.

"But you have no cough,--you'll be better in spring."

"True, I have no cough, but the doctor informed me to-day that my right lung was entirely gone, and my left hard after it; the simple truth is, I am wasting to death; and I hate the idea of dying in bed. I want to keep on my feet,--I want to keep in the air,--I want to die on my feet."

Harding had rapidly grown into a man of the world, but somehow the tears started into his eyes.

"But you must keep up your spirits, Jack,--in the spring you will be----"

"In my grave, Harding; there's no use of lying about it."

And his eyes flared up, and a bitter smile moved his lips.

"O, how's the wife and children?" said Harding; as though anxious to change the conversation.

"They are well," said John, and a singular look passed over his face.

"And your sister?"

"Eleanor is well,"--and the vivid brightness of his eyes was for a moment vailed in moisture.

"O, by-the-bye, I met Nelly the other day," said Harding. "Bless my soul! what a handsome little girl she has grown! It was in a store where they sell embroidered work. I was pricing a set of regalia,--thirty dollars they said was the price,--and little Nell had worked on it about three weeks for five dollars. Great world, Jack!"

"Good night, Harding," said the artist, quietly.

"But let me accompany you home,----"

"I'd rather you would not. Good night, Harding."

"But God bless you, John, can't I do anything for you?"

"Why, why after I am dead,"--and the words seemed to stick in his throat,--"after I am dead,--my wife,--my sister,----" he could say no more.

"I swear that I will protect them," said Harding, warmly. John quietly pressed his hand, and turned his face away. After a moment they parted, Harding down Broadway on his way to the theater, and John up Broadway, on his way home. And Harding gazed after John for a moment,--"I'm glad he didn't want to borrow money! Nell is quite a beauty!"

Walking slowly, and pausing every now and then to breathe, John gazed in the bright shop-windows, and into the contrasted faces of the hurrying crowd as he passed along.

"Soon this will be all over for me," he muttered, with a husky laugh. "I'm afraid, friend John, that you are taking your last walk."

An arm was gently thrust through his own, and a voice light and trilling as the notes of a bird, said quietly,--

"I'm so glad I've caught up with you John,"--and he leaned upon that gentle arm, and turned to look upon the face of the speaker. It was his sister Eleanor, a very pretty child of some fourteen years, dressed in a faded cloak, and with a hood on her dark hair. Her complexion was a rich brown, tinged with red in the cheeks; her eyes, brows and hair, all black as midnight. And by turns, over that face, in which the woman began to mingle with the child, there flitted a look of the brightest joyousness, and an expression of the most touching melancholy.

"I've just been taking my work home, John. They paid me half a dollar for what I have done this week, (and that, you know, John, will keep us in bread and coal to-morrow,) and O, I am so glad you've got eight dollars saved for the rent. I am _so_ glad! The rent is due to-morrow, and the landlord is such a hard man."

"Yes, I have eight dollars," John said, and there was an indefinable accent marking every word. "Yes, Nelly, dear, I have eight dollars."

"John, do tell me, who are those good ladies who pass us every moment, dressed so richly,--all in velvet, and satin, and jewels; who are they, John?"

John stopped,--bent upon his cane,--looked for a moment upon the crowd which whirled past him,--and then into the happy, innocent face of his sister. And then his shrunken chest heaved with a sigh. "O God!" he said, in a low voice.

"Who are they, John,--do tell me,--they must be very, O, ever so rich."

"Those handsome ladies, dressed so gaudily, Nelly, are sisters and daughters. Once they had brothers and fathers who protected them, and now their fathers and brothers are dead. The world takes care of them now, Nelly."

The poor girl heard his words, but did not guess their hidden meaning. Still supporting her brother on her arm, she continued,--

"Do you know, John, that your handsome friend, Mr. Harding, met me in the store the other day, and said he took such an interest in me, and that if I chose I might be dressed as rich and gayly as these grand ladies, who pass us every moment."

John started as though he had trodden upon a snake. "And only a moment ago he promised to protect her when I am gone," he muttered,--"_Protection_!"

And thus they passed along until turning into a by-street, they came near their home, which was composed of a single room, up four pairs of stairs, in a four-storied edifice. At the street door they were met by a young woman, plainly,--meagerly clad, but with a finely-rounded form, and a countenance, rich, not only in loveliness, but in all the _goodness_ of womanly affection. It was the artist's wife.

"O, John, I have been so anxious about you," she said, and took him by the arm; and while Nelly held the other, she gently led him through the doorway and up the dark stairs. "Why will you go out when it is so cold?"

"I want air, Annie, _air_," he returned in his hollow voice,--"and I will die on my feet."

And the wife and sister helped the dying artist gently up the stairs; gently, slowly, step by step, and led him at last over the threshold, into that room which was their home.

About an hour afterward, John was seated in an arm-chair, in the center of that home, whose poverty was concealed as much as might be, by the careful exertions of his wife and sister. In the arm-chair, his death-like face looking ghastly in the candle-light,--his wife, a woman of _blonde_ countenance, blue eyes, and chesnut-hair, on one side; his sister, with her dark hair, and clear, deep eyes, on the other; each holding a hand of the husband and the brother. A boy of four years, sat on a stool, looking up quietly with his big eyes into his father's face; and near, a little girl of three years, who took her brother by the hand, and also looked in the face of the dying artist. Very beautiful children; plainly clad, it is true, but beautiful; the girl with light hair and blue eyes, reflecting the mother, while the boy, dark-haired and black-eyed, was the image of the father.

The table, spread with the remains of the scanty meal, stood near; the grate was filled with lighted coals; a bed with a carefully patched coverlet stood in one corner; between the two windows was placed an old-fashioned bureau; and two pictures adorned the neatly whitewashed walls.

Such was the picture, and such the artist's home.

The stillness which had prevailed since supper, was at length broken by the voice of John.

"Annie, I'll leave you soon," he said, quietly, and his eyes lighted up.--"O, wouldn't it be a good thing if we could all die together! To die, I do not fear, but to leave you all,--and in such a world! O, my God! such a world!"

Annie buried her face in her hands, and rested her hands against the arm of the chair. Nelly, her large eyes brimful of tears, quietly put his hand to her lips. And the little boy, in his childish way, asked what "to die" meant.

"Bring me that picture, Nelly,"--he pointed to a picture on the wall. She went and brought it quietly. "Now let down the window a little, for I feel the want of air, and come and sit by me again."

He took the picture and gazed upon it earnestly and long. It was a picture of himself, in the prime of young manhood, the cheeks rounded, the eyes full of hope, the brow, shaded by glossy black hair, stamped with genius. A picture taken only sixteen months before.

"Only sixteen months ago, Nelly," he said. "Only sixteen months ago, Annie; and now--well, there's a crayon sketch on the bureau, which I took of myself the other day, as I looked in the glass. Bring it, Nelly."

His sister brought the crayon sketch; and, with a sad smile, he held it beside the other picture. It was all too faithful. His prominent cheek bones, hollow cheeks, colorless lips, and sunken eyes, all were copied there; only the deathly fire of the eyes was lacking.

"A sad contrast, isn't it, Annie? When this picture was taken, sixteen months ago, we were all doing well. My pictures sold; some lithographs which I executed, met also with ready sale. I had as much as I could do, and everything was bright before me. I even thought of a tour to Italy! Don't you remember our nice little cottage out in the country, Nell? But I was taken sick--sick;--I couldn't work any longer. Our money was soon spent; and you, Annie, made shirts; and you, Nelly, you embroidered; and that kept us thus far--and--," he stopped, and gazed upon his wife and sister, who were weeping silently: and then upon his children. "And now I must go and leave you in this world.--Oh, my God! such a world!"

"Don't think of us, John," said his wife. "If you could only live,--"

"Oh, you will--you will get better, as the spring comes on," exclaimed Nelly; "and we'll go into the country, on the first sunny day, and gather flowers there."

John drew forth from his vest pocket certain pieces of paper, which he spread forth upon his knee. Bank notes, each marked with the figure 2, and signed by the name of Israel Yorke, (a prominent banker of the _bogus_ stamp,) in a bold hand. There were four in all.

"This is the eight dollars, Annie, which I saved to pay our rent," said the artist.

The wife and sister gazed upon the bank notes earnestly--for those bank notes were their last hope. Those bank notes were "_rent money_;" and of all money on the earth of God, none is so bitterly earned by Poverty, nor so pitilessly torn from its grasp by the hand of Avarice, as "_rent money_."

"Well,--well;"--and John paused, as if the words choked him. "These notes are not worth one penny. All of Israel Yorke's banks broke to-day."

There was not a word spoken for five minutes, or more. This news went like an ice-bolt through the hearts of the wife and sister.

"And to-morrow we'll be put into the street by this same Israel Yorke, who is also our landlord;" said John, breaking the long pause. "Put the window a little lower, Nelly--it feels close--I want air."

Nelly obeyed; and resumed her seat at her brother's face, which now glowed on the cheeks and shone in the eyes with an expression which she could not define.

"Oh, wouldn't it be good, Annie--would not it be glorious, Nelly--if I could gather you all up in my arms and take you with me, whither I am going?" he said, with a sort of rapture, looking from his children to his wife and sister. And then, in a gentler tone: "Kneel down, Nelly, and say a prayer, and ask God to forgive us all our sins--_all_, remember,--and to smooth the way for us, so that we may all go to Him."

Neither Nelly nor Annie remarked the singular emphasis which accompanied these words.

Nelly knelt in their midst, and prayed.

As she uttered that simple and child-like prayer, John fixed his eyes upon her face, and muttered, "And so he took a great _interest_ in you, and would dress you gayly, would he?"

Then he said, aloud, in a kind of wild and wandering way--"Now we've had our last supper, and our last prayer. It will soon be time for us to go. Call me, love, in time for the cars."

He paused, and raised his hand to his forehead,--

"Don't cry, Annie; my mind wanders a little--that's all. I want rest. I'll take a little sleep in the chair, and you and Nelly, and the children, lay down in the bed. And let me kiss the children, and do you all kiss me--"

The young mother lifted the little boy and girl, and they pressed their kiss upon the lips of the dying man. Then the wife and the sister; their tears mingling on his face, as their lips were pressed by turns to his lips and brow.

"Come, Nelly," whispered the wife, "we'll lay down, but we will not sleep. He will take a little rest if he thinks we are sleeping."

Presently the sister and the wife, with the children near them, were resting on the bed, their hands silently joined. They conversed in low tones, while the children fell gently asleep. But gradually their conversation died away in inarticulate whispers; and they also slept.

And the artist--did he sleep? By no means. Sitting erect in his arm-chair, his back toward the bed, and his eyes every instant glittering bright and brighter, he listened intently to the low whispers of his wife and sister. "At last they sleep!" he cried, as the sound of their calm, regular breathing struck his ears. "They sleep--they sleep! They sleep--wife, sister, children; Annie, Nelly, little John, and little Annie,--they all sleep."

And he burst into tears.

But his death-stricken face was radiant through his tears:--radiant with intense joy.

John sat silently contemplating a small image of white marble, which he had taken from one of the drawers of the bureau. It represented the MASTER on the cross.

"Better go to God, and trust him, than trust to the mercy of man," he frequently murmured.

After much silent thought he rose, and, from beneath the bureau drew forth two objects into the light--a sack and a small plaster furnace. He placed the furnace in the center of the floor, and half filled it with lighted coals from the grate. Then he poured the contents of the sack upon the burning coals; his hands trembling, and his eyes, fiery as they were, suddenly dimmed by moisture.

"Charcoal, good charcoal--such a blessing to the poor! Nelly didn't know what a blessing it was, when I sent her for it this afternoon--that is, yesterday afternoon. It takes fire--it burns--such a mild, rich blue flame! Opium and charcoal are the poor man's best friends. They cost so little, and they save one from so much,"--as he knelt on the floor, he cast his gaze over his shoulder toward the bed--"so very much! They will save us all from so much!"

Nelly murmured in her sleep, and rose in bed, and, opening her eyes, gazed at her brother, kneeling by the lighted furnace, with a wild dreamy stare. Then she lay down and slept again.

The charcoal burned brightly, its pale blue flame casting a spectral glow over the face of the kneeling man, so haggard and death-stricken. The noxious gas began to fill the room. John rose and went, with unsteady steps to the window, and eagerly inhaled the fresh air. Resting his arms upon the sash, he felt the cold air upon his cheek, and looked out and upward,--there was the dark blue sky set with stars.

"In which of them, I wonder, will we all meet again?" he said, in a wandering way. Then he tottered from the window to the bed. The air was stifling. He breathed only in gasps.

By the bed again, gazing upon them all,--wife, sister, children,--so beautiful in their slumber.

And they began to move restlessly in their sleep, and mutter half-coherent words, and--"In the spring time, John, we'll gather flowers," said Nelly; "You'll be better soon, John," whispered the wife; and all was still again.

Back to the window, with unsteady steps, to inhale another mouthful of fresh air--to take another look at the cold, cold winter stars.

Brighter burns the charcoal; the pale blue flame hovers there, in the center of the room like an infernal halo. And there is Death in the air.

Breathing in gasps, John tottered from the window again. He took the image in one hand, the candle in the other; and thus, on tip-toe, he approached the bed.

A very beautiful sight. Little John and little Annie sleeping side by side, a glow upon their cheeks,--Nelly and Annie sleeping hand joined in hand; their beautiful faces invested with a smile that was all quietness and peace. They did not murmur in their sleep this time.

John's eyes glared strangely as he stood gazing upon them. "And did you think, Annie," he said softly, putting his hand upon her head, "that I'd leave you in this world, to work and to slave, and to rear our children up to work and to slave, and eat the bitter bread of poverty? And you, Nelly, did you think I'd leave you to slave here, until your soul was sick; and then, some day, when work failed, and starvation looked in at the window, to sell yourself to some rich scoundrel for bread? No, wife--no, sister--no, children: _I have gathered you up in my arms, and we're all going together_!"

He kissed them one by one, and then tottered back toward the lighted furnace--toward his chair--the light which he held, shining fully over his withered face and flaming eyes. In one hand he still grasped the marble image. He had gained half the distance to his chair, when the door opened. A man of middle age, clad in sober black, his hair gray, and his hooked nose supporting gold spectacles, appeared on the threshold.

"Ah, Doctor, is that you?" cried John, "I thought it was the landlord;--you've come too late, Doctor, too late."

"Too late? What mean you, Mr. Martin?" said the doctor, advancing into the room--but starting back again, as he encountered the poisoned air.

"Too late--too late!" cried John, the candle trembling in his unsteady grasp, as he raised his skeleton-like form to its full height--"We're all cured,--"

"Cured? What mean you? How cured?"

"Cured of--life!" said John; and, stepping quickly forward, he fell at the doctor's feet.

The doctor seized the light as he fell, and attempted to raise him from the floor,--but John was dead in his arms.

* * * * *

Our history now returns to Israel Yorke, whom, with Ninety-One and the eleven, we left waiting in the dark, outside the artist's door.

"Hush, boys! hush!" whispered Ninety-One, and laid his hand upon the latch "Enter, Isr'el, and talk to yer tenant."

The door opened, and Israel entered, followed by Ninety-One and the eleven, all of whom preserved a dead stillness.

A single light was burning dimly in the artist's humble room. It cast its rays over the humble details of the place,--over the bed, which was covered by a white sheet. The place was deathly still.

"What does all this mean?" cried Israel. "There is no one here." Ninety-One took the light from the table, and led Israel silently to the bed. The eleven gathered round in silence; you could hear their hard breathing through the dead stillness of the room. Ninety-One lifted the sheet, slowly; his harsh features quivering in every fiber.

"That's what it means," he said hoarsely.

They were there, side by side; the husband and the wife, the sister and the children--there, cold and dead. The light, as it fell upon them, revealed the wasted face of the artist, his closed eyelids, sunken far in their sockets, his dark hair glued to his forehead by the moisture of death; and the face of his young wife, with her fair cheek and sunny hair; and the sad, beautiful face of his sister, whose dark hair lay loosely upon her neck, while the long fringes of her eyelashes rested darkly upon her cheek. There was a look of anguish upon the face of John, as though Poverty had struck its iron seal upon him as he died; but the faces of Annie and Nelly were calm, smiling--very full of peace. The little children--the dark-haired boy, and bright-haired girl--slept quietly, their hands clasped and their cheeks laid close together. The poor artist, in the last wild hour of his life, had indeed _gathered them up in his arms and taken them with him_. They had all gone together.

The furnace, with the fire put out, still remained in the center of the room.

Such was the scene which the light disclosed; a scene incredible only to those who, unfamiliar with the ACTUAL of the large city, do not know that all the boasted triumphs of our modern civilization but miserably compensate for the POVERTY which it has created, and which stalks side by side with it, at every step of its progress, like a skeleton beside a painted harlot;--a poverty which gives to the phrase, "_I am poor!_" a despair unknown even in the darkest ages of the most barbarous past.

"They are asleep,--asleep, certainly," cried Israel, falling back, "they can't be dead."

The truth is, that Israel felt exceedingly uncomfortable.

"They ain't asleep,--they _are_ dead," hoarsely replied Ninety-One, and he grasped Israel fiercely by the wrist. "They are dead, you dog. Look thar! That man owed you eight dollars for rent; he know'd if he didn't pay you this mornin' he'd be pitched into the street, dyin' as he was, with wife and children and sister at his heels. But he'd saved eight dollars, Israel, an' last night he crawled out to take a walk, an' found that his eight dollars was so much trash--found out that yer banks had broke, an' his eight dollars in yer bank notes, was wuss than nothin'. An' from yer bankin' house he went to a drug store, an' from a friend he got a quick an' quiet p'ison. He came home; he put it in the coffee, slyly; they all drank of it, an' slep'; an' then he filled the furnace with charcoal an' lighted it, an' _then_ they slep' all the better,--an' there they air! out o' yer clutches, dog--out o' yer fangs, hell-hound,--gone safe to kingdom come!"

And he clutched Israel's wrist until the little man groaned with pain.

"But how do you know he poisoned himself and these?" faltered Israel.

"He left a scrap o' paper in which he told about it an' the reason for doin' it. The doctor who came in when it was too late, saw the charcoal burnin', an' found the p'ison at the bottom of the cups. An' this man," he pointed to one of the eleven, a sturdy fellow with a frank, honest face, "this man an' his wife live in the next room. He was out last evenin', but she was in, an' she heard poor Martin ravin' about you an' his eight dollars, an' his wife, an' sister, an' children, an' starvation, death, an' the cold dark street. She heered him, I say, but didn't suspec' there was p'ison in the case until the doctor called her in, an' then it was too late."

"But how did you know of all this? What have you to do with it?"

"You see the doctor went an' told the JUDGE, who has just been tryin' you,--told him hours ago, you mind,--an' THE JUDGE sent me here with you, in order to show you some of yer work. How d'ye like it Isr'el?"

Ninety-One's features were harsh and scarred, but now they quivered with an almost child-like emotion. With his brawny hand he pointed to the bodies of the dead,--

"Thar's eight dollars worth o' yer notes, Isr'el," he said. "Thar's Chow Bank, Muddy Run, an' Tarrapin Holler! Look at 'em! Don't you think that some day God Almighty will ax you to change them notes?"

And Israel shrank back appalled from the bed. Ninety-One clutched his wrist with a firmer grasp; the eleven gathered closely in his rear, their ominous murmur growing more distinct; and the light, held in the convict's hand, shed its calm rays over the faces of the dead family.

This death-scene in the artist's home, calls up certain thoughts.

Poverty! Did you ever think of the full meaning of that word? The curse of poverty is the cowardice which it breeds, cowardice of body and soul. Many a man who would in full possession of his faculties, pour out his life-blood for a friend, or even for a stranger, will, when it becomes a contest for a crust of bread,--for the last means of a bare subsistence,--steal that crust from the very lips of his starving friend, and would, were it possible, drain the last life-drop in the veins of another, in order to keep life in his own wretched carcass. The savage, starving in the snow, in the center of his desolate prairie, knows nothing of the poverty of the civilized savage, much less of that poverty, which takes the man or woman of refined education, and kills every noble faculty of the soul, before it does its last work on the body. Poverty in the city, is not mere want of bread, but it is the lack of the means to supply innumerable wants, created by civilization,--and that lack is slow moral and physical death. Talk of the bravery of the hero, who, on the battle-field stands up to be shot at, with the chance of glory, on the one hand, and a quick death on the other! How will his heroism compare with that brave man, who in the large city, year after year, and day by day, expends the very life-strings of his soul, in battling against the fangs of want, in keeping some roof-shelter over his wife and children, or those who are as dependent upon him as wife and children? Proud lady, sitting on your sofa, in your luxurious parlor, you regard with a quiet sneer, that paragraph in the paper (you hold it in your hand), which tells how a virtuous girl, sold her person into the grasp of wealthy lust for--bread! You sneer,--virtue, refined education, beauty, innocence, chastity, all gone to the devil for a--bit of bread! Sneer on! but were you to try the experiment of living two days without--not your carriage and opera-box,--but without bread or fire in the dead of winter, working meanwhile at your needle, with half-frozen fingers for just sixteen pennies per day, you would, I am afraid, think differently of the matter. Instead of two days, read two years, and let your trial be one of perpetual work and want, that never for a moment cease to bite,--I am afraid, beautiful one, were this your case, you would sometimes find yourself thinking of a comfortable life, and a bed of down, purchased by the sale of your body, and the damnation of your soul. And you, friend, now from the quiet of some country village, railing bravely against southern slavery, and finding no word bitter enough to express your hatred of the slave market, in which black men and black women are sold--just look a moment from the window of your quiet home, and behold yonder huge building, blazing out upon the night from its hundred windows. That is a factory. Yes. Have you no pity for the white men, (nearer to you in equality of organization certainly than black men,) who are chained in hopeless slavery, to the iron wheels of yonder factory's machinery? Have you no thought of the white woman, (lovelier to look upon certainly than black women, and in color, in organization, in education resembling very much your own wife, sister, mother,) who very often are driven by want, from yonder factory to the grave, or to the--brothels of New York? You mourn over black children, sold at the slave block,--have you no tear for white children, who in yonder factory, are deprived of education, converted into mere working machines (without one tithe of the food and comfort of the black slave), and transformed into precocious old men and women, before they have ever felt one free pulse of childhood?

Ah! this enterprise which forms the impulse and the motto of modern civilization, will doubtless in the future ripen into good for all men,--for there is a God,--but the path of its present progress, is littered with human skulls. It weaves, it spins, it builds, it spreads forth on all sides its iron arms,--and it has a good capital,--the blood of human hearts. Labor-saving machinery, (the most awful feature of modern civilization,) will, in the future, when no longer monopolized by the few, do the greater portion of the physical work of the world, and bless the entire race of man,--but until that future arrives, labor-saving machinery will send more millions down to death, than any three centuries of battle-fields, that ever cursed the earth. Yes, modern civilization, is very much like the locomotive, rolling along an iron track, at sixty miles per hour, with hot coals at its heart, and a cloud of smoke and flame above it. Look at it, as it thunders on! What a magnificent impersonation of power; of brute force chained by the mind of man! All true,--but woe, woe to the weak or helpless, who linger on its iron track! and woe to the weak, the crippled, or the poor, whom the locomotive of modern civilization finds lingering _in its way_. Why should it care? It has no heart. Its work is to move onward, and to cut down all, whom poverty and misfortune have left in its path.

There is one phase of poverty which hath no parallel in its unspeakable bitterness. A man of genius with a good heart, and something of the all-overarching spirit of Christ in him, looks around the world, sees the vast sum of human misery, and feels like this, '_With but a moderate portion of money, what good might not be accomplished!_' and yet that little sum is as much beyond him,--as far beyond his grasp, as the planet Jupiter.

That forth from the womb of the present chaos, a nobler era will be born, no one can doubt, who feels the force of these four words, '_there is a God_.' And that the present age with its deification of the money power, is one of the basest the world ever saw, cannot be disproved, although it may be bitterly denied. There is something pitiful in the thought that a world once deemed worthy of the tread of Satan, is now become the crawling ground of Mammon.