Chapter V (6)

I immediately acted upon this plan. The wolves, having regained their feet, sprang directly toward me. The race was renewed for twenty yards up the stream; they were already close on my back, when I glided round and dashed directly past my pursuers. A fierce yell greeted my evolution, and the wolves, slipping upon their haunches, sailed onward, presenting a perfect picture of helplessness and baffled rage. Thus I gained nearly a hundred yards at each turning. This was repeated two or three times, every moment the animals getting more excited and baffled.

At one time, by delaying my turning too long, my fierce antagonists came so near, that they threw the white foam over my dress as they sprang to seize me, and their teeth clashed together like the spring of a fox-trap. Had my skates failed for one instant, had I tripped on a stick, or caught my foot in a fissure in the ice, the story I am now telling would never have been told. I thought all the chances over; I knew where they would first take hold of me if I fell; I thought how long it would be before I died, and when there would be a search for the body that would already have its tomb; for oh! how fast man's mind traces out all the dead colors of death's picture, only those who have been near the grim original can tell.

But soon I came opposite the house, and my hounds--I knew their deep voices--roused by the noise, bayed furiously from the kennels. I heard their chains rattle; how I wished they would break them, and then I would have protectors that would be peers to the fiercest denizens of the forest. The wolves, taking the hint conveyed by the dogs, stopped in their mad career, and after a moment's consideration, turned and fled. I watched them until their dusky forms disappeared over a neighboring hill. Then, taking off my skates, I wended my way to the house, with feelings which may be better imagined than described.

But even yet, I never see a broad sheet of ice in the moonshine, without thinking of that snuffling breath and those fearful things that followed me so closely down the frozen Kennebec.

[From Recollections and Anecdotes of the Bard of Glamorgan.]

STORY OF A POET.

During one of his perambulations in Cardiganshire, the Bard found himself, on a dreary winter evening, at too great a distance from the abode of any friend, for him to reach it at a reasonable hour: he was also more than commonly weary, and therefore turned into a roadside public house to take up his night's lodgings. He had been there only a short time, standing before the cheerful fire, when a poor peddler entered with a pack on his back, and evidently suffering from cold and fatigue. He addressed the landlord in humble tone, begging he might lodge there, but frankly avowing he had no money. Trade, he said, had of late been unfavorable to him--no one bought his goods, and he was making the best of his way to a more populous district. There were, however, articles of value in his pack, much more than sufficient to pay for his entertainment, and he tendered any part of them, in payment, or in pledge for the boon of shelter and refreshment. The landlord, however, was one of those sordid beings who regard money as the standard of worth in their fellow-men, and the want of it as a warrant for insult; he, therefore, sternly told the poor wayfarer there was no harbor for him under that roof, unless he had coin to pay for it. Again and again, the weary man, with pallid looks and feeble voice, entreated the heartless wretch, and was as often repulsed in a style of bulldog surliness, till at length he was roughly ordered to leave the house. The bard was not an unmoved witness of this revolting scene; and his heart had been sending forth its current, in rapid and yet more rapid pulsations to his now glowing extremities, as he listened and looked on. He had only one solitary shilling in his pocket, which he had destined to purchase his own accommodations for that wintry night; but its destination was now changed. Here was a needy man requiring it more than himself; and according to his generous views of the social compact, it became his duty to sacrifice his minor necessities to the greater ones of his fellow-creature. Snatching the shilling from its lurking place, he placed it in the hand of the peddler, telling him _that_ would pay for his lodging, and lodging he should have, in spite of the savage who had refused it. Then darting a withering look at the publican, he exclaimed, "Villain! do you call yourself a man? You, who would turn out a poor exhausted traveler from your house on a night like this, under any circumstances! But he has offered you ample payment for his quarters and you refused him. Did you mean to follow him and rob him--perhaps murder him? You have the heart of a murderer; you are a disgrace to humanity, and I will not stay under your roof another minute; but turn out this poor traveler at your peril--you dare not refuse the money he can now offer you." Having thus vented his indignant feeling with his usual heartiness, Iolo seized his staff and walked out into the inclement night, penniless indeed, and supperless too, but with a rich perception of the truth uttered by Him who "had not where to lay his head," though omnipotent as well as universal in his beneficence--"It is more blessed to give than to receive." A walk of many miles lay between him and his friend's house, to which he now directed his steps, and by the time he entered early on the following morning his powers had nearly sunk under cold and exhaustion. A fever was the sequel, keeping him stationary for several weeks.

[From Dickens's Household Words.]

HIRAM POWERS'S GREEK SLAVE.

They say Ideal Beauty cannot enter
The house of anguish. On the threshold stands
This alien Image with the shackled hands,
Called the Greek Slave: as if the artist meant her,
(The passionless perfection which he lent her,
Shadowed, not darkened, where the sill expands,)
To, so, confront man's crimes in different lands,
With man's ideal sense. Pierce to the centre,
Art's fiery finger! and break up ere long
The serfdom of this world. Appeal, fair stone,
From God's pure heights of beauty, against man's wrong!
Catch up, in thy divine face, not alone
East griefs, but west, and strike and shame the strong,
By thunders of white silence, overthrown.

[From Papers for the People.]

THE BLACK POCKET-BOOK.

"What do you pay for peeping?" said a baker's boy with a tray on his shoulder to a young man in a drab-colored greatcoat, and with a cockade in his hat, who, on a cold December's night was standing with his face close to the parlor window of a mean house, in a suburb of one of our largest seaport towns in the south of England.

Tracy Walkingham, which was the name of the peeper, might have answered that he paid _dear enough_; for in proportion as he indulged himself with these surreptitious glances, he found his heart stealing away from him, till he literally had not a corner of it left that he could fairly call his own.

Tracy was a soldier; but being in the service of one of his officers, named D'Arcy, was relieved from wearing his uniform. At sixteen years of age he had run away from a harsh schoolmaster, and enlisted in an infantry regiment; and about three weeks previous to the period at which our story opens, being sent on an early errand to his master's laundress, his attention had been arrested by a young girl, who, coming hastily out of an apothecary's shop with a phial in her hand, was rushing across the street, unmindful of the London coach and its four horses, which were close upon her, and by which she would assuredly have been knocked down, had not Tracy seized her by the arm and snatched her from the danger.

"You'll be killed if you don't look sharper," said he carelessly; but as he spoke, she turned her face toward him. "I hope my roughness has not hurt you?" he continued in a very different tone: "I'm afraid I gripped your arm too hard?"

"I'm very much obliged to you," she said; "you did not hurt me at all. Thank you," she added, looking back to him as she opened the door of the opposite house with a key which she held in her hand.

The door closed, and she was gone ere Tracy could find words to detain her; but if ever there was a case of love at first sight, this was one. Short as had been the interview, she carried his heart with her. For some minutes he stood staring at the house, too much surprised and absorbed in his own feelings to be aware that, as is always the case if a man stops to look at anything in the street, he was beginning to collect a little knot of people about him, who all stared in the same direction too, and were asking each other what was the matter. Warned by this discovery, the young soldier proceeded on his way; but so engrossed and absent was he, that he had strode nearly a quarter of a mile beyond the laundress' cottage before he discovered his error. On his return, he contrived to walk twice past the house; but he saw nothing of the girl. He had a mind to go into the apothecary's and make some inquiry about her; but that consciousness which so often arrests such inquiries arrested his, and he went home, knowing no more than his eyes and ears had told him--namely, that this young damsel had the loveliest face and the sweetest voice that fortune had yet made him acquainted with, and, moreover, that the possessor of these charms was apparently a person in a condition of life not superior to his own. Her dress and the house in which she lived both denoted humble circumstances, if not absolute poverty, although he felt that her countenance and speech indicated a degree of refinement somewhat inconsistent with this last conjecture. She might be a reduced gentlewoman. Tracy hoped not, for if so, poor as she was, she would look down upon him; she might, on the contrary, be one of those natural aristocrats, born Graces, that nature sometimes pleases herself with sending into the world; as in her humorous moments she not unfrequently does the reverse, bestowing on a princess the figure and port of a market-woman. Whichever it was, the desire uppermost in his mind was to see her again; and accordingly, after his master was dressed, and gone to dinner, he directed his steps to the same quarter. It was now evening, and he had an opportunity of more conveniently surveying the house and its neighborhood without exciting observation himself. For this purpose he crossed over to the apothecary's door, and looked around him. It was a mean street, evidently inhabited by poor people, chiefly small retail dealers; almost every house in it being used as a shop, as appeared from the lights and the merchandise in the windows, except the one inhabited by the unknown beauty. They were all low buildings of only two stories; and that particular house was dark from top to bottom, with the exception of a faint stripe of light which gleamed from one of the lower windows, of which there were only two, apparently from a rent or seam in the shutter, which was closed within. On crossing over to take a nearer survey, Tracy perceived that just above a green curtain which guarded the lower half of the window from the intrusions of curiosity, the shutters were divided into upper and lower, and that there was a sufficient separation between them to enable a person who was tall enough to place his eye on a level with the opening, to see into the room. Few people, however, were tall enough to do this, had they thought it worth their while to try; but Tracy, who was not far from six feet high, found he could accomplish the feat quite easily. So, after looking round to make sure nobody was watching him, he ventured on a peep; and there indeed he saw the object of all this interest sitting on one side of a table, whilst a man, apparently old enough to be her father, sat on the other. He was reading, and she was working, with the rich curls of her dark-brown hair tucked carelessly behind her small ears, disclosing the whole of her young and lovely face, which was turned toward the window. The features of the man he could not see, but his head was bald, and his figure lank; and Tracy fancied there was something in his attitude that indicated ill health. Sometimes she looked up and spoke to her companion, but when she did so, it was always with a serious, anxious expression of countenance, which seemed to imply that her communications were on no very cheerful subject. The room was lighted by a single tallow candle, and its whole aspect denoted poverty and privation, while the young girl's quick and eager fingers led the spectator to conclude she was working for her bread.

It must not be supposed that all these discoveries were the result of one enterprise. Tracy could only venture on a peep now and then when nobody was nigh; and many a time he had his walk for nothing. Sometimes, too, his sense of propriety revolted, and he forebore from a consciousness that it was not a delicate proceeding thus to spy into the interior of this poor family at moments when they thought no human eye was upon them: but his impulse was too powerful to be always thus resisted, and fortifying himself with the consideration that his purpose was not evil, he generally rewarded one instance of self-denial by two or three of self-indulgence. And yet the scene that met his view was so little varied, that it might have been supposed to afford but a poor compensation for so much perseverance. The actors and their occupation continued always the same; and the only novelty offered was, that Tracy sometimes caught a glimpse of the man's features, which, though they betrayed evidence of sickness and suffering, bore a strong resemblance to those of the girl.

All this, however, to make the most of it, was but scanty fare for a lover; nor was Tracy at all disposed to content himself with such cold comfort. He tried what walking through the street by day would do, but the door was always closed, and the tall green curtain presented an effectual obstacle to those casual glances on which alone he could venture by sunlight. Once only he had the good fortune again to meet this "bright particular star" out of doors, and that was one morning about eight o'clock, when he had been again sent on an early embassy to the laundress. She appeared to have been out executing her small marketings, for she was hastening home with a basket on her arm. Tracy had formed a hundred different plans for addressing her--one, in short, suited to every possible contingency--whenever the fortunate opportunity should present itself; but, as is usual in similar cases, now that it did come, she flashed upon him so suddenly, that in his surprise and agitation he missed the occasion altogether. The fact was that she stepped out of a shop just as he was passing it; and her attention being directed to some small change which she held in her hand, and which she appeared to be anxiously counting, she never even saw him, and had reentered her own door before he could make up his mind what to do. He learned, however, by this circumstance, that the best hope of success lay in his going to Thomas Street at eight o'clock; but alas! this was the very hour that his services could not be dispensed with at home; and although he made several desperate efforts, he did not succeed in hitting the lucky moment again.

Of course he did not neglect inquiry; but the result of his perquisitions afforded little encouragement to his hopes of obtaining the young girl's acquaintance. All that was known of the family was, that they had lately taken the house, that their name was Lane, that they lived quite alone, and were supposed to be very poor. Where they came from, and what their condition in life might be, nobody knew or seemed desirous to know, since they lived so quietly, that they had hitherto awakened no curiosity in the neighborhood. The Scotsman at the provision shop out of which she had been seen to come, pronounced her a _wise-like girl_; and the apothecary's lad said that she was uncommon _comely and genteel-like_, adding that her father was in very bad health. This was the whole amount of information he could obtain, but to the correctness of it, as regarded the bad health and the poverty, his own eyes bore witness.

Nearly three weeks had elapsed since Tracy's first meeting with the girl, when one evening he thought he perceived symptoms of more than ordinary trouble in this humble menage. Just as he placed his eye to the window, he saw the daughter entering the room with an old blanket, which she wrapped round her father, whilst she threw her arms about his neck, and tenderly caressed him; at the same time he remarked that there was no fire in the grate, and that she frequently applied her apron to her eyes. As these symptoms denoted an unusual extremity of distress, Tracy felt the strongest desire to administer some relief to the sufferers; but by what stratagem to accomplish his purpose it was not easy to discover. He thought of making the apothecary or the grocer his agent, requesting them not to name who had employed them; but he shrank from the attention and curiosity such a proceeding would awaken, and the evil interpretations that might be put upon it. Then he thought of the ribald jests and jeers to which he might subject the object of his admiration, and he resolved to employ no intervention, but to find some means or other of conveying his bounty himself; and having with this view inclosed a sovereign in half a sheet of paper, he set out upon his nightly expedition.

He was rather later than usual, and the neighboring church clock struck nine just as he turned into Thomas Street; he was almost afraid that the light would be extinguished, and the father and daughter retired to their chambers, as had been the case on some previous evenings; but it was not so: the faint gleam showed that they were still there, and after waiting some minutes for a clear coast, Tracy approached the window--but the scene within was strangely changed.

The father was alone--at least except himself there was no living being in the room--but there lay a corpse on the floor; at the table stood the man with a large black notebook in his hand, out of which he was taking what appeared to the spectator, so far as he could discern, to be bank notes. To see this was the work of an instant; to conclude that a crime had been committed was as sudden! and under the impulse of fear and horror that seized him, Tracy turned to fly, but in his haste and confusion, less cautious than usual, he struck the window with his elbow. The sound must have been heard within; and he could not resist the temptation of flinging an instantaneous glance into the room to observe what effect it had produced. It was exactly such as might have been expected; like one interrupted in a crime, the man stood transfixed, his pale face glaring at the window, and his hands, from which the notes had dropped suspended in the attitude in which they had been surprised; with an involuntary exclamation of grief and terror, Tracy turned again and fled. But he had scarcely gone two hundred yards when he met the girl walking calmly along the street with her basket on her arm. She did not observe him, but he recognized her; and urged by love and curiosity, he could not forbear turning back, and following her to the door. On reaching it, she, as usual, put her key into the lock; but it did not open as usual; it was evidently fastened on the inside. She lifted the knocker, and let it fall once, just loud enough to be heard within; there was a little delay, and then the door was opened--no more, however, than was sufficient to allow her to pass in--and immediately closed. Tracy felt an eager desire to pursue this strange drama further, and was standing still, hesitating whether to venture a glance into the room, when the door was again opened, and the girl rushed out, leaving it unclosed, and ran across the street into the apothecary's shop.

"She is fetching a doctor to the murdered man," thought Tracy. And so it appeared, for a minute had scarcely elapsed, when she returned, accompanied by the apothecary and his assistant; they all three entered the house; and upon the impulse of the moment, without pausing to reflect on the impropriety of the intrusion, the young soldier entered with them.

The girl, who walked first with a hasty step, preceded them into that room on the right of the door which, but a few minutes before, Tracy had been surveying through the window. The sensations with which he now entered it formed a singular contrast to his anticipations, and furnished a striking instance of what we have all occasion to remark as we pass through life--namely, that the thing we have most earnestly desired, frequently when it does come, arrives in a guise so different to our hopes, and so distasteful to the sentiments or affections which have given birth to the wish, that what we looked forward to as the summit of bliss, proves, when we reach it, no more than a barren peak strewn with dust and ashes. Fortunate, indeed, may we esteem ourselves if we find nothing worse to greet us. How often had Tracy fancied that if he could only obtain entrance into that room he should be happy! As long as he was excluded from it, it was _his_ summit, for he could see no further, and looked no further, sought no further: it seemed to him that, once there, all that he desired must inevitably follow. Now he _was_ there, but under what different circumstances to those he had counted on! with what different feelings to those his imagination had painted!

"What's the matter?" inquired Mr. Adams the apothecary, as he approached the body, which still lay on the floor.

"I hope it's only a fit!" exclaimed the girl, taking the candle off the table, and holding it in such a manner as to enable the apothecary to examine the features.

"He's dead, I fancy," said the latter, applying his fingers to the wrist. "Unloose his neckcloth, Robert, and raise the head."

This was said to the assistant, who, having done as he was told, and no sign of life appearing, Mr. Adams felt for his lancet, and prepared to bleed the patient. The lancet, however, had been left in the pocket of another coat, and Robert being sent over to fetch it, Tracy stepped forward and took his place at the head of the corpse; the consequence of which was, that, when the boy returned, Mr. Adams bade him go back and mind the shop, as they could do very well without him; and thus Tracy's intrusion was, as it were, legitimized, and all awkwardness removed from it. Not, however, that he had been sensible of any: he was too much absorbed with the interest of the scene to be disturbed by such minor considerations. Neither did anybody else appear discomposed or surprised at his presence: the apothecary did not know but he had a right to be there; the boy, who remembered the inquiries Tracy had made with regard to the girl, concluded they had since formed an acquaintance; the girl herself was apparently too much absorbed in the distressing event that had occurred to have any thoughts to spare on minor interests; and as for the man, he appeared to be scarcely conscious of what was going on around him. Pale as death, and with all the symptoms of extreme sickness and debility, he sat bending somewhat forward in an old arm-chair, with his eyes fixed on the spot where the body lay; but there was "no speculation" in those eyes, and it was evident that what he seemed to be looking at he did not see. To every thoughtful mind the corporeal investiture from which an immortal spirit has lately fled must present a strange and painful interest; but Tracy felt now a more absorbing interest in the mystery of the living than the dead; and as strange questionings arose in his mind with regard to the pale occupant of the old arm-chair as concerning the corpse that was stretched upon the ground. Who was this stranger, and how came he there lying dead on the floor of that poor house? And where was the pocket-book and the notes? Not on the table, not in the room, so far as he could discern. They must have been placed out of sight; and the question occurred to him, was _she_ a party to the concealment? But both his heart and his judgment answered _no_. Not only her pure and innocent countenance, but her whole demeanor acquitted her of crime. It was evident that her attention was entirely engrossed by the surgeon's efforts to recall life to the inanimate body; there was no _arriere pensee_, no painful consciousness plucking at her sleeve; her mind was anxious, but not more so than the ostensible cause justified, and there was no expression of mystery or fear about her. How different to the father, who seemed terror-struck! No anxiety for the recovery of the stranger, no grief for his death, appeared in him; and it occurred to Tracy that he looked more like one condemned and waiting for execution than the interested spectator of another's misfortune.

No blood flowed, and the apothecary having pronounced the stranger dead, proposed, with the aid of Tracy, to remove him to a bed; and as there was none below, they had to carry him up stairs, the girl preceding them with a light, and leading the way into a room where a small tent bedstead without curtains, two straw-bottomed chairs, with a rickety table, and cracked looking-glass, formed nearly all the furniture; but some articles of female attire lying about, betrayed to whom the apartment belonged, and lent it an interest for Tracy.

Whilst making these arrangements for the dead but few words were spoken. The girl looked pale and serious, but said little; the young man would have liked to ask a hundred questions, but did not feel himself entitled to ask one; and the apothecary, who seemed a quiet, taciturn person, only observed that the stranger appeared to have died of disease of the heart, and inquired whether he was a relation of the family.

"No," replied the girl; "he's no relation of ours--his name is Aldridge."

"Not Ephraim Aldridge?" said the apothecary.

"Yes; Mr. Ephraim Aldridge," returned she: "my father was one of his clerks formerly."

"You had better send to his house immediately," said Mr. Adams. "I forget whether he has any family?"

"None but his nephew, Mr. Jonas," returned the girl. "I'll go there directly, and tell him."

"Your father seems in bad health?" observed Mr. Adams, as he quitted the room, and proceeded to descend the stairs.

"Yes; he has been ill a long time," she replied, with a sad countenance; "and nobody seems to know what's the matter with him."

"Have you had any advice for him," inquired the apothecary.

"Oh, yes, a great deal, when first he was ill; but nobody did him any good."

By this time they had reached the bottom of the stairs; and Mr. Adams, who now led the van, instead of going out of the street door, turned into the parlor again.

"Well, sir," said he, addressing Lane, "this poor gentleman is dead. I should have called in somebody else had I earlier known who he was; but it would have been useless, life must have been extinct half an hour before I was summoned. Why did you not send for me sooner?"

"I was out," replied the girl, answering the question that had been addressed to her father. "Mr. Aldridge had sent me away for something, and when I returned I found him on the floor, and my father almost fainting. It was a dreadful shock for him, being so ill."

"How did it happen?" inquired Mr. Adams, again addressing Lane.

A convulsion passed over the sick man's face, and his lip quivered as he answered in a low sepulchral tone. "He was sitting on that chair, talking about--about his nephews, when he suddenly stopped speaking, and fell forward. I started up, and placed my hands against his breast to save him, and then he fell backward upon the floor."

"Heart, no doubt. Probably a disease of long standing," said Mr. Adams. "But it has given you a shock: you had better take something, and go to bed."

"What should he take?" inquired the daughter.

"I'll send over a draught," replied the apothecary, moving toward the door; "and you won't neglect to give notice of what has happened--it must be done to-night."

"It is late for you to go out," observed Tracy, speaking almost for the first time since he entered the house. "Couldn't I carry the message for you?"

"Yes: if you will, I shall be much obliged," said she; "for I do not like to leave my father again to-night. The house is No. 4, West Street."

Death is a great leveler, and strong emotions banish formalities. The offer was as frankly accepted as made; and his inquiry whether he could be further useful being answered by "No, thank you--not to-night," the young man took his leave and proceeded on his mission to West Street in a state of mind difficult to describe--pleased and alarmed, happy and distressed. He had not only accomplished his object by making the acquaintance of Mary Lane, but the near view he had had of her, both as regarded her person and behavior, confirmed his admiration and gratified his affection; but, as he might have told the boy who interrupted him, he had paid dear for peeping. He had seen what he would have given the world not to have seen; and whilst he eagerly desired to prosecute his suit to this young woman, and make her his wife, he shrank with horror from the idea of having a thief and assassin for his father-in-law.

Engrossed with these reflections he reached West Street before he was aware of being half-way there, and rang the bell of No. 4. It was now past eleven o'clock, but he had scarcely touched the wire, before he heard a foot in the passage, and the door opened. The person who presented himself had no light, neither was there any in the hall, and Tracy could not distinguish to whom he spoke when he said, "is this the house of Mr. Ephraim Aldridge?"

"It is: what do you want?" answered a man's voice, at the same time that he drew back, and made a movement toward closing the door.

"I have been requested to call here to say that Mr. Aldridge is"--And here the recollection that the intelligence he bore would probably be deeply afflicting to the nephew he had heard mentioned as the deceased man's only relation, and to whom he was now possibly speaking, arrested the words in his throat, and after a slight hesitation he added--"is taken ill."

"Ill!" said the person who held the door in his hand, which he now opened wider. "Where? What's the matter with him? Is he very ill? Is it any thing serious?"

The tone in which these questions were put relieved Tracy from any apprehension of inflicting pain, and he rejoined at once, "I'm afraid he is dead."

"Dead!" reiterated the other, throwing the door wide. "Step in if you please. Dead! how should that be? He was very well this afternoon. Where is he?" And so saying, he closed the street door, and led the young soldier into a small parlor, where a lamp with a shade over it, and several old ledgers, were lying on the table.

"He's at Mr. Lane's in Thomas Street," replied Tracy.

"But are you sure he's dead?" inquired the gentleman, who was indeed no other than Mr. Jonas Aldridge himself. "How did he die? Who says he's dead?"

"I don't know how he died. The apothecary seemed to think it was disease of the heart," replied Tracy; "but he is certainly dead."

At this crisis of the conversation a new thought seemed to strike the mind of Jonas, who, exhibiting no symptoms of affliction, had hitherto appeared only curious and surprised. "My uncle Ephraim dead!" said he. "No, no, I can't believe it. It is impossible--it cannot be! My dear uncle! My only friend! Dead! Impossible!--you must be mistaken."

"You had better go and see yourself," replied Tracy, who did not feel at all disposed to sympathize with this sudden effusion of sentiment. "I happened to be by, by mere chance, and know nothing more than I heard the apothecary say." And with these words he turned toward the door.

"You are an officer's servant, I see?" rejoined Jonas.

"I live with Captain D'Arcy of the 32d," answered Tracy; and wishing Mr. Jonas a good-evening, he walked away with a very unfavorable impression of that gentleman's character.

The door was no sooner closed on Tracy than Mr. Jonas Aldridge returned into the parlor, and lighted a candle which stood on a side-table, by the aid of which he ascended to the second floor, and entered a back-room wherein stood a heavy four-post bed, the curtains of which were closely drawn together. The apartment, which also contained an old-fashioned mahogany set of drawers, and a large arm-chair, was well carpeted, and wore an aspect of considerable comfort. The shutters were closed, and a moreen curtain was let down to keep out the draught from the window.

Mr. Jonas had mounted the stairs three at a time; but no sooner did he enter the room, and his eye fall upon the bed, then he suddenly paused, and stepping on the points of his toes toward it, he gently drew back one of the side curtains, and looked in. It was turned down, and ready for the expected master, but it was tenantless: he who should have lain there lay elsewhere that night. Mr. Jonas folded in his lips, and nodded his head with an expression that seemed to say _all's right_. And then having drawn the bolt across the door, he took two keys out of his waistcoat pocket; with one he opened a cupboard in the wainscot, and with the other a large tin-box which stood therein, into which he thrust his hand, and brought out a packet of papers, which not proving to be the thing he sought, he made another dive; but this second attempt turned out equally unsuccessful with the first; whereupon he fetched the candle from the table, and held it over the box, in hopes of espying what he wished. But his countenance clouded, and an oath escaped him, on discovering it was not there.

"He has taken it with him!" said he. And having replaced the papers he had disturbed, and closed the box, he hastily descended the stairs. In the hall hung his greatcoat and hat. These he put on, tying a comforter round his throat to defend him from the chill night-air; and then leaving the candle burning in the passage, he put the key of the house-door in his pocket, and went out.

Dead men wait patiently; but the haste with which Mr. Jonas Aldrich strode over the ground seemed rather like one in chase of a fugitive; and yet, fast as he went, the time seemed long to him till he reached Thomas Street.

"Is my uncle here!" said he to Mary, who immediately answered to his knock.

"Yes, sir," replied she.

"And what's the matter? I hope it is nothing serious?" added he.

"He's dead, sir, the doctor says," returned she.

"Then you had a doctor?"

"Oh yes, sir; I fetched Mr. Adams over the way immediately; but he said he was dead the moment he saw him. Will you please to walk up stairs, and see him yourself?"

"Impossible! It cannot be that my uncle is dead!" exclaimed Mr. Jonas, who yet suspected some _ruse_. "You should have had the best advice--you should have called in Dr. Sykes. Let him be sent for immediately!" he added, speaking at the top of his voice, as he entered the little room above: "no means must be neglected to recover him. Depend on it, it is only a fit."

But the first glance satisfied him that all these ingenious precautions were quite unnecessary. There lay Mr. Ephraim Aldridge dead unmistakably; and while Mary was inquiring where the celebrated Dr. Sykes lived, in order that she might immediately go in search of him, Mr. Jonas was thinking on what pretense he might get her out of the room without sending for anybody at all.

Designing people often give themselves an enormous deal of useless trouble; and after searching his brain in vain for an expedient to get rid of the girl, Mr. Jonas suddenly recollected that the simplest was the best. There was no necessity, in short, for saying anything more than that he wished to be alone; and this he did say, at the same time drawing his handkerchief from his pocket, and applying it to his eyes, a little pantomime that was intended to aid the gentle Mary in putting a kind construction on the wish. She accordingly quitted the room, and descended to the parlor; whereupon Mr. Jonas, finding himself alone, lost no time in addressing himself to his purpose, which was to search the pockets of the deceased, wherein he found a purse containing gold and silver, various keys, and several other articles, but not the article he sought; and as he gradually convinced himself that his search was vain, his brow became overcast, angry ejaculations escaped his lips, and after taking a cursory survey of the room, he snatched up the candle, and hastily descended the stairs.

"When did my uncle come here? What did he come about?" he inquired abruptly as he entered the parlor where Mary, weary and sad, was resting her head upon the table.

"He came this evening, sir; but I don't know what he came about. He said he wanted to have some conversation with my father, and I went into the kitchen to leave them alone."

"Then you were not in the room when the accident happened?"

"What accident, sir?"

"I mean, when he died."

"No, sir; I had gone out to buy something for supper."

"What made you go out so late for that purpose?"

"My father called me in, sir, and Mr. Aldridge gave me some money."

"Then nobody was present but your father?"

"No, sir."

"And where is he now?"

"My father is very ill, sir; and it gave him such a shock, that he was obliged to go to bed."

"Had my uncle nothing with him but what I have found in his pockets?"

"Nothing that I know of, sir."

"No papers?"

"No, sir."

"Go and ask your father if he saw any papers."

"I'm sure he didn't, sir, or else they would be here."

"Well, I'll thank you to go and ask him, however."

Whereupon Mary quitted the room; and stepping up stairs, she opened, and then presently shut again, the door of her own bedroom. "It is no use disturbing my poor father," said she to herself; "I'm sure he knows nothing about any papers; and if I wake him, he will not get to sleep again all night. If he saw them, he'll say so in the morning."

"My father knows nothing of the papers, sir," said she, reentering the room; "and if they're not in the pocket, I'm sure Mr. Aldridge never brought them here."

"Perhaps he did not, after all," thought Jonas; "he has maybe removed it out of the tin-box, and put it into the bureau." A suggestion which made him desire to get home again as fast as he had left it. So, promising to send the undertakers in the morning to remove the body, Mr. Jonas took his leave, and hastened back to West Street, where he immediately set about ransacking every drawer, cupboard, and press, some of which he could only open with the keys he had just extracted from the dead man's pocket. But the morning's dawn found him unsuccessful: it appeared almost certain that the important paper was not in the house; and weary, haggard, and angry, he stretched himself on his bed till the hour admitted of further proceedings. And we will avail ourselves of this interval to explain more particularly the relative position of the parties concerned in our story.

Ephraim Aldridge, a younger member of a large and poor family, had been early in life apprenticed to a hosier; and being one of the most steady, cautious, saving boys that ever found his bread amongst gloves and stockings, had early grown into great favor with his master, who, as soon as he was out of his apprenticeship, elevated him to the post of book-keeper; and in this situation, as he had a liberal salary, and was too prudent to marry, he contrived to save such a sum of money as, together with his good character, enabled him to obtain the reversion of the business when his master retired from it. The prudence which had raised him adhered to him still; his business flourished, and he grew rich; but the more money he got, the fonder he became of it; and the more he had, the less he spent; while the cautious steadiness of the boy shrank into a dry reserve as he grew older, till he became an austere, silent, inaccessible man, for whom the world in general entertained a certain degree of respect, but whom nobody liked, with the exception perhaps of one person, and that was Maurice Lane, who had formerly been his fellow-apprentice, and was now his shopman. And yet a more marked contrast of character could scarcely exist than between these two young men; but, somehow or other, everybody liked Lane; even the frigid heart of Ephraim could not defend itself from the charm of the boy's beautiful countenance and open disposition; and when he placed his former comrade in a situation of responsibility, it was not because he thought him the best or the steadiest servant he could possibly find, but because he wished to have one person about him that he liked, and that liked him. But no sooner did Lane find himself with a salary which would have maintained himself comfortably, than he fell in love with a beautiful girl whom he saw trimming caps and bonnets in an opposite shop-window, and straightway married her. Then came a family, and with it a train of calamities which kept them always steeped in distress, till the wife, worn out with hard work and anxiety, died; the children that survived were then dispersed about the world to earn their bread, and Lane found himself alone with his youngest daughter Mary. Had he retained his health, he might now have done better; but a severe rheumatic fever, after reducing him to the brink of the grave, had left him in such infirm health, that he was no longer able to maintain his situation; so he resigned it, and retired to an obscure lodging, with a few pounds in his pocket, and the affection and industry of his daughter for his only dependence.

During all this succession of calamities, Mr. Aldrich had looked on with a severe eye. Had it been anybody but Lane, he would have dismissed him as soon as he married; as it was, he allowed him to retain his place, and to take the consequences of his folly. He had carved his own destiny, and must accept it; it was not for want of knowing better, for Ephraim had warned him over and over again of the folly of poor men falling in love and marrying. Entertaining this view of the case, he justified his natural parsimony with the reflection, that by encouraging such imprudence he should be doing an injury to other young men. He made use of Lane as a beacon, and left him in his distress, lest assistance should destroy his usefulness. The old house in Thomas Street, however, which belonged to him, happening to fall vacant, he so far relented as to send word to his old clerk that he might inhabit it if he pleased.

Some few years, however, before these latter circumstances, Mr. Aldridge, who had determined against matrimony, had nevertheless been seized with that desire so prevalent in the old especially, to have an heir of his own name and blood for his property. He had but two relations that he remembered, a brother and a sister. The latter, when Ephraim was a boy, had married a handsome sergeant of a marching regiment, and gone away with it; and her family never saw her afterward, though for some years she had kept up an occasional correspondence with her parents, by which they learned that she was happy and prosperous; that her husband had been promoted to an ensigncy for his good conduct; that she had one child; and finally, that they were about to embark for the West Indies.

His brother, with whom he had always maintained some degree of intercourse, had early settled in London as a harness-maker, and was tolerably well off; on which account Ephraim respected him, and now that he wanted an heir, it was in this quarter he resolved to look for one. So he went to London, inspected the family, and finally selected young Jonas, who everybody said was a facsimile of himself in person and character. He was certainly a cautious, careful, steady boy who was guilty of no indiscretions, and looked very sharp after his halfpence. Ephraim, who thought he had hit upon the exact desideratum, carried him to the country, put him to school, and became exceedingly proud and fond of him. His character, indeed, as regarded his relations with the boy, seemed to have undergone a complete change, and the tenderness he had all through life denied to everybody else, he now in his decline lavished to an injudicious excess on this child of his adoption. When he retired from business he took Jonas home; and as the lad had some talent for portrait-painting, he believed him destined to be a great artist, and forbore to give him a profession. Thus they lived together harmoniously enough for some time, till the factitious virtues of the boy ripened into the real vices of the man; and Ephraim discovered that the cautious, economical, discreet child was, at five-and-twenty, an odious specimen of avarice, selfishness, and cunning; and what made the matter worse was, that the uncle and nephew somehow appeared to have insensibly changed places--the latter being the governor, and the former the governed; and that while Mr. Jonas professed the warmest affection for the old man, and exhibited the tenderest anxiety for his health, he contrived to make him a prisoner in his own house, and destroy all the comfort of his existence--and everybody knows how hard it is to break free from a domestic despotism of this description, which, like the arms of a gigantic cuttle-fish, has wound itself inextricably around its victim.

To leave Jonas, or to make Jonas leave him, was equally difficult; but at length the declining state of his health, together with his ever-augmenting hatred of his chosen heir, rendering the case more urgent, he determined to make a vigorous effort for freedom; and now it first occurred to him that his old friend Maurice Lane might help him to attain his object. In the mean time, while waiting for an opportunity to get possession of the will by which he had appointed Jonas heir to all his fortune, he privately drew up another, in favor of his sister's eldest son or his descendants, on condition of their taking the name of Aldridge; and this he secured in a tin-box, of which he kept the key always about him, the box itself being deposited in a cupboard in his own chamber. In spite of all these precautions, however, Jonas penetrated the secret, and by means of false keys, obtained a sight of the document which was to cut him out of all he had been accustomed to consider his own; but it was at least some comfort to observe that the will was neither signed nor witnessed, and therefore at present perfectly invalid. This being the case, he thought it advisable to replace the papers, and content himself with narrowly watching his uncle's future proceedings, since stronger measures at so critical a juncture might possibly provoke the old man to more decisive ones of his own.

In a remote quarter of the town resided two young men, commonly called Jock and Joe Wantage, who had formerly served Mr. Aldridge as errand boys, but who had since managed to set up in a humble way of business for themselves; and having at length contrived one evening to elude the vigilance of his nephew, he stepped into a coach, and without entering into any explanation of his reasons, he, in the presence of those persons, produced and signed his will, which they witnessed, desiring them at the same time never to mention the circumstance to anybody, unless called upon to do so. After making them a little present of money, for adversity had now somewhat softened his heart, he proceeded to the house of his old clerk.

It was by this time getting late, and the father and daughter were sitting in their almost fireless room, anxious and sad, for, as Tracy had conjectured, they were reduced to the last extremity of distress, when they were startled at a double knock at the door. It was long since those old walls had reverberated to such a sound.

"Who can that be?" exclaimed Lane, looking suddenly up from his book, which was a tattered volume of Shakspeare, the only one he possessed. "I heard a coach stop."

"It can be nobody here," returned Mary: "it must be a mistake."

However, she rose and opened the door, at which by this time stood Mr. Aldridge, whose features it was too dark to distinguish.

"Bring a light here!" said he. "No; stay; I'll send you out the money," he added to the coachman, and with that he stepped forward to the little parlor. But the scene that there presented itself struck heavily upon his heart, and perhaps upon his conscience, for instead of advancing, he stood still in the doorway. Here was poverty indeed! He and Lane had begun life together, but what a contrast in their ultimate fortunes! The one with much more money than he knew what to do with; the other without a shilling to purchase a bushel of coals to warm his shivering limbs; and yet the rich man was probably the more miserable of the two!

"Mr. Aldridge!" exclaimed Lane, rising from his seat in amazement.

"Take this, and pay the man his fare," said the visitor to Mary, handing her some silver. "And have you no coals?"

"No, sir."

"Then buy some directly, and make up the fire. Get plenty; here's the money to pay for them;" and as the coals were to be had next door, there was soon a cheerful fire in the grate. Lane drew his chair close to the fender, and spread his thin fingers to the welcome blaze.

"I did not know you were so badly off as this," Mr. Aldridge remarked.

"We have nothing but what Mary earns, and needlework is poorly paid," returned Lane; "and often not to be had. I hope Mr. Jonas is well?"

Mr. Aldridge did not answer, but sat silently looking into the fire. The corners of his mouth were drawn down, his lip quivered, and the tears rose to his eyes as he thought of all he had lavished on that ungrateful nephew, that serpent he had nourished in his bosom, while the only friend he ever had was starving.