Related to His Children
by Holme Lee.
Originally published in The National Magazine (National Magazine Company) #3 (Jan 1857).
I.
It was in the fever-time, that dreadful season which you must all remember, that I left home.
I came in one night to my tea as usual, at half-past six,—a rainy, unwholesome night it was,—and found my father sitting over the fire with his head aching, and deadly sick: he was just beginning in the fever. Ten days after, he was in his coffin. There we all were—six of us at home, little and big—and nobody to earn bread for us. What were we to do? My mother,—she was a high-spirited proud woman, who had been decently bred and used to comfort in her young days,—looked at us dry-eyed. I distinctly remember her saying, the evening after my father was buried, as we sat about the fire just after tea: "Children, there must be something done; your father has left us nothing but debts, and we cannot starve,"
Some of us were old enough then to dislike the mad speculation my father had undertaken; I say mad, because it was impossible we could know so early how well it would turn out for us. The first idea was, of course, to close the shop, and seek some quiet private occupation, My mother thought of dress-making; but several people came and asked her to try it,—selling the fish and game, I mean,—and after a few days' consideration she determined to do so. I don't know that any of us objected, or that our friends fell off in consequence. A man who understood the trade came from London and managed it, and my mother kept the books. She was a very clever upright woman; and though I have come across many clever women in my lifetime, I never yet met one who was her equal. In the course of eight years she brought up her family,—Willy, the youngest, died four months after my father,—paid off every farthing of previously accumulated debt, and laid by a sufficient maintenance for her old age: then she shut up the shop. Are we ashamed of it now? Most certainly not. If ever—being a man of property—I am carried away by the vanity of imitating my betters, and desire to bear a coat of arms on my carriage, I shall take for my crest a crayfish with the motto, "By this I rise."
The young ones got a better education than I had the chance of. I was fifteen when my father died, and had just been apprenticed to a printer. I hated the business, and asked my master if he would cancel my indentures. He said he would if my mother agreed, thinking that I was going to help her in the business, though that was a long way from my intentions, and from hers too; for she never suffered any one of us to go near the shop. My sisters went to the best schools in the town (and here, let me acknowledge, that, knowing our former position and our present difficulties, every where friends turned up for us); they had all they wanted as far as books and masters went. My mother used to say, "Children, I cannot give you a fortune, but I will give you an education suitable to the station in which you were born, and you must each work your way back to it for yourselves." We have all done so, thanks to her. I had no distinct idea when I left home of what I wanted to become. Adventure and change were the vague hankerings in my mind; at all events, I did not want to be a printer. I told her so one Sunday night, when all the children but Maggie had gone to bed. She looked rather puzzled, and asked, "Then what do you want to be, Richard?"
I said I did not exactly know, but thought I should like to be a merchant. She did not speak decidedly, but conveyed that to get into a merchant's office required a very high premium, Now, in some book or other,—I ought to recollect it, but don't,—I had read of a man earning his way to great wealth from a beginning of half-a-crown. I started in life with threepence-halfpenny. No more was said then; but I gave my mother two kisses instead of one that night when I went to bed; and, as soon as it began to dawn in the morning, I got up and ran away from home.
II.
And this is what I began life with. My black cloth Sunday-trousers with threepence-halfpenny in the pocket, black jacket and waistcoat, one shirt on my back and another in my bundle; also two extra pairs of socks; and Maggie's present to me on my last birthday—a little shilling Testament;—that was all, so far as I recollect.
It did not enter into my head at first what sore hearts I should make at home by my flight; but Maggie has told me since that great was the dismay when it was found out that I was gone. My mother hoped for a week or two that I should come back, and fretted continually; but at length she made up her mind to it, and said: "Richard is an honest lad, and he has a good spirit; he will not starve."
I did not starve, but very near it, as you shall hear. It was a Monday morning in September when I ran away; a very raw morning, drizzling and misty. I could not have chosen a worse time if I had looked out for it. I started straight along the road, stopping now and then to look at the guide-posts. The first said, "London 189 miles;" that was a long tramp; but I kept my eye on the end of it, not on the hardships by the way, or I should never have got there at all. I took my breakfast in a wheat-field, where the grain was half ripe, my dinner the same, and my supper the same: it did very well, only I am afraid it was not honest, though I had done it fifty times before without a qualm when I was not hungry. At nightfall I was at a distance from any village, and the drizzle had changed to an even down-pour. I was glad to come in sight of a road-side inn. I meant to beg shelter for the night in some of the out-buildings. I was big enough and strong enough to rough it and not care, looking to the end—mind, always to the end. There were some grooms and people hanging about the doorway, waiting for the night-coach, which changed horses there; and besides them, a gentleman with a carpet-bag, waiting to be taken up by it. He stared at me very hard, as many people had done in the course of my day's journey, and at last said very smartly, "You're a runaway, my lad, arn't you? Tell truth, and shame the devil! I ran away from school myself; it is enough to make a fellow run away! Are you going to sea? I went to sea—runaways always do; but I came back." He took it all for granted, asking his questions and answering them in a breath. The coach arrived as he was speaking; and he immediately bustled off, and mounted to the only vacant seat on the roof; and then called to me to hand him up his carpet-bag, which I did, and he threw me sixpence for my trouble, thus increasing my capital to ninepence-halfpenny. The coach drove away in a few minutes, but stopped before it had gone fifty yards, and the strange man screamed out at the top of a stentorian voice, "Here, you runaway lad, take that; it'll be of use to you, may be;" and as the vehicle rolled on, a scrap of paper fluttered down into the mud. I took it up, thinking of bank-notes, but the paper was too thick for that; and when I brought it to the lamp over the inn-door, I saw that it was merely the outside of a letter, with a name and address—"Mr. Morley, 18 Great Walton Street, London." I put it into my pocket, and asked the ostler if I might have shelter any where for the night, in the stable or barn? He said he would ask his mistress. She was just within the doorway, and met the request with a very curt refusal, and turned round to look at me, as I stood outside in the rain, dripping at every angle and point. Having considered me a minute or two in silence, she said, "You've run away, have you, young man; how old are you?" Now, even at that age, I was averse to questions. I was not going back; and therefore I determined to stop interrogatories which might lead to my being discovered by one decisive answer: "I'm old enough to be my own master; if you'll give me a shelter I'll be thankful; if you won't, say so, and I'll go elsewhere," She immediately said that I might go in.
The place where I passed the night was the kitchen, clean, warm, and cosey. I slept like a top on the long settle, after a gratuitous supper of bread, cheese, and ale. I had only to answer one more question—was my father living or dead? and the woman was like a mother to me when I said that he was dead. In the morning, rested and refreshed, I started on my second day's journey.
I thought of them at home a good deal that day.
III.
I got to London on Saturday. I cannot say that I was very dilapidated; for I had slept under a roof every night and had fed in the cornfields by day. It is surprising how much you can go through with a stout heart, youth, and health. But having got into the great Babel, I found myself alone. Think of that: alone and penniless,—for all my capital was gone now,—alone in London. There was no ripe corn growing any where near the steps of St. Martin's Church, on which I slept that night. Fortunately it was fine, though frosty and chill; and I don't care to acknowledge now that I shed some tears on the old stones, thinking of my mother and the rest of them at home; perhaps, also, I was rather hungry: it is most likely. I can't throw any romantic glamour over the prosaic facts of that Sunday if I were to talk till doomsday. When I woke, stiff and cold, the sun was rising, and the houses looked taller than they have ever done since; and my last idea on falling asleep was my first at waking—an idea I did not get rid of all that day—that I had got nothing to eat. I attended service at St. Martin's Church in the morning: not looking quite a mendicant, but very nearly so; in the afternoon I had a siesta in one of the parks; and towards evening, memory quickened by appetite, may be, I bethought myself of Mr. Morley and Great Walton Street. I inquired my way, lost it, found it again, and finally came to a stand opposite a large important house; then I felt profoundly that I did not look what is called "respectable:" I was not a weakling, so that a four-and-twenty hours fast had not exhausted me; but my clothes had a week's dust on them. However, up the steps I went, and rang the bell; a livery-servant opened the door, and I asked if Mr. Morley was at home. Yes, he was; but he never saw company or transacted business on a Sunday. I was not company and I had no business; but I took the back of the letter and asked the servant to carry it to his master, which he did. I have heard since that he thought I was one of Mr. Morley's poor relations from the country. I waited on the step for five minutes or more before he returned, and when he did, looked very anxiously for his message, as you may think.
"Master says he'll see you; come in." And in I went. "You'd better leave that here," indicating the bundle, "and rub your shoes on the mat."
The man was quite civil, being, I believe, familiarised with folks coming for help. Mr. Morley was a good man.
I followed him upstairs, and into a room where Mr. Morley and two children were sitting at a table covered with dessert. Doffing my cap at the door, I made a pause there.
"So you've got here! I said you did not look like turning back," cried Mr. Morley. "When did you come?"
"Last night."
"Found your friends?"
"I had none to seek."
Mr. Morley turned full round and faced me. "Come and sit down, and tell me all about it. What school was it?
Here's Tom means to run away soon; the amusements are so mild. At his school they take them to teetotal meetings by way of fun. Now what's your grievance?"
"I've not run away from school," said I, rather diffidently; "I've run away from home because there are too many of us for my mother to keep, and I want to keep myself."
"What's your name?"
"Richard Farquerson."
"I knew a Farquerson once—James Farquerson; he was a rich merchant at one time, but he failed. He had a son Richard—any thing to you?"
"My grandfather lived in London, but he died long ago; it may be the same. He was unfortunate in business I have heard my mother say—"
"His son Richard was unfortunate too, I should think; he was a man whose vocation it was not to succeed in the world. How about your father?"
"He was very good-humoured and fond of company. My mother's fortune was lost in my grandfather's failure. She had money left her too, but it was wasted; my father lent some, and I don't know how the rest went. My mother does not speak much about it. We were in debt when he died, but she means to pay every body in the end."
"Richard Farquerson—the one I knew—liked racing and betting. He settled at Warleigh when he married, intending to carry on business in connection with his father here; but they both came to ruin together."
I blushed. Warleigh I had come from, but I would rather have kept my secret. Mr. Morley had his eye upon me.
"You're Richard Farquerson's son; I know you by that turn of the lip. He stood my good friend more than once."
"How so, sir?" I ventured to ask.
"He was a warning to me," was the abrupt and very unexpected response. "Where have you got your pith and
spirit from? not from father or grandfather, I vouch for it."
"From my mother, sir."
"She must be one in a thousand. I remember your father. I was a lad then in James Farquerson's office. The most lively, thoughtless, reckless young fellow he was; looking forward to a handsome competence, and throwing his money about as if it had been chucky-stones. We were at the same school; and there he was all for tops, kites, marbles, and alecampane. We proposed to run away together; but he could never make up his mind to climb the playground-wall, and I ran away alone. He was successively apprenticed to a civil engineer, an architect, and an attorney; and each master was so obliging as to cancel his indentures after the lapse of a few months. Then he went to sea, and turned up again, like a bad halfpenny, at six weeks' end: a sea life did not agree with him; indeed, nothing did agree with him but his ease and his pleasure, so he subsided upon a stool in his father's office. I have heard him tell the story of his youthful mischances as an excellent joke, and have laughed with him and thought him a fine fellow, though I had begun to go steadily in the mill, and work there. He never worked; he used to lie in bed till half-past ten or eleven o'clock, and be threatened through the keyhole with cold pig by his Aunt Jane. He had expectations from her, but offended her."
"Will you have a piece of cake?" asked the little girl whom I had noticed at my entrance into the room. She was standing in front of me with a great wedge of it in her fingers offering it tome. I took it, and ate it slowly, not as if I were particularly hungry, though every crumb was precious; and she watched me with a very earnest attention as if she had never seen any thing like me before. I was rather ogreish, no doubt. Her father ordered the boy who sat still at the table, cracking filberts and listening with all his might, to pour me out a glass of wine, which he did reluctantly. He was a pale small creature, with mean features, and not more than ten years old to look at, though he was thirteen; the girl was pretty, and prettily dressed in a white muslin frock and blue sash. They were cousins; Cousin Tom and Cousin Nellie they called each other. After I had drunk the wine, and was listening again to what Mr. Morley talked about, his words grew involved and indistinct. Will it be believed that I fell asleep?
When I woke up with a great start, the children were gone, and a servant was bringing in candles. I sprang UP, and began to stammer an apology.
"Sit down again, I have not heard all I want to hear, or said all I want to say," Mr. Morley interposed. "How many of you did Richard Farquerson—did your father leave? Tell me all about it."
So I began and told him all I knew: how things had not prospered with us, and how we were getting behind-hand
with the world when my father took it into his head to open that shop; what a grievance it was to my mother; and how he died of the fever a fortnight after it was begun, and left six children unprovided for.
"Richard Farquerson all over! he was one of those careless ne'er-do-wells, who are kept by a social providence for the encouragement of charitable and indulgent persons. I remember how he used to rave against skittish fortune, and swear she had a spite against him, when he was doing every thing in his power to spite her. And he is dead?"
"Two months ago."
Mr. Morley was silent for several minutes; at last he said suddenly, "What do you expect from me; what do you
want with me? I know nothing of you. You've not come begging—I can't offer you a shilling."
"He evidently expected me to say something more, but I did net; I only got up to go away: indeed, I had no claim on any one.
"Where are you going to-night—nowhere particular perhaps? then you may stay here, if you choose. As I said before, your father did me a good turn once, and I'll pay it to his son," said Mr. Morley. "Now the first thing you'll do will be to write to your mother."
"I'd rather not, sir, until I see my way," said I. I did not want them at home to know any thing about me until I could say that I was above need and getting on.
"Not see your way! It's straight forward; every body's way is straight forward, if they would only keep to it, instead of edging off in search of something grander or pleasanter than what they see before them. You'll write to your mother, Richard Farquerson, and tell her that you are safe and have found a friend; even if you don't tell her more. It is your plain duty, sir; quite as much your duty as it was in the first instance to run away. Then we will have up the cold beef."
I wrote the letter with pen and paper that he gave me there and then; but it never went. Well, I've been sorry for it since.
After the cold beef I went to bed in the "cousins' room." Mr. Morley had hosts of country relatives who came up to town periodically to be helped on in the world by him; and until they got a step, they occupied this little green bed-room at the back of the house. When I entered Mr. Morley's office it was supposed that I was one of these many poor country-cousins, until Tom let out the truth.
IV.
It was not until I had been away from Warleigh six years that I let them know at home where I was and what I was doing. To be sure, once in every few months I dropped them a line to say that I was in the land of the living; but I wanted some day to surprise them all. It was a very foolish ambition, and by the time I had been six years on the world I found it out. I was not going to be rich by any sudden stroke of fortune; and if I waited until I grew independent in the ordinary course of events, why, I thought, I may wait until I am a middle-aged man, and there is no mother left to rejoice over me. So just before I went abroad, I wrote her a long letter, telling her all about my doings since I left Warleigh, and promising to go down and see on all when I came back from Rio, whither I was sent on Mr. Morley's business. Her answer did not come till I was just on the point of sailing; and the nearest word to a reproach that she said in it was: "You would have spared me many a sleepless night, dear Richard, if you had written earlier." I knew her quiet way, and how much pain it hid; and I declare those few words cut me up more than any others I ever heard.
Well, I was away at Rio two years,—a long two years they were, I assure you,—and when I came back to England I got a holiday, and went home to Warleigh for a month. The changes in those eight years! In the first place, there was the old house converted into a respectable place again; the shop had vanished, and was become a parlour, where my good mother sat in her easy-chair, with her knitting on a little white marble table, which she told me had been the slab once upon a time. Maggie laughed about it, calling it mother's "vanity;" and, "Indeed," says my mother,
‘What would have become of you children but for it? You ought to feel a respect for it." And so in our hearts we do. Maggie has many a jest about what she calls our "aquatic origin." "Like Venus, we rise from the sea," she cries, and my mother bids her hush. My mother sees no fun in it; to her it was a hard trial, and as such will always be remembered.
Maggie was grown up, and looking old for her age, which is only two years more than my own; but you might see she was a predestined old maid, even if the mourning-ring on her finger had not let you partly into the poor girl's romance. Marian, my second sister, was married and gone from home; and Lena, the youngest, was out as a governess in a great family. But it was Christmas-time, and they both came to Warleigh for a few days, and also Henry, from his situation in Manchester.
"I shall perhaps never see all my children around me at one time again," said my mother; "I am getting old in the world." But she has had us all around her many happy Christmases since then; and some of us with very considerable additions, or incumbrances,—which shall we call the great boys and girls that are growing up about us into men and women so fast, that our own youth is quite thrown back into the shade? Not incumbrances, I think.
V.
I had managed Mr. Morley's affairs at Rio, which had got into some entanglement, so much to his satisfaction, that when I went back to town he let me have a small share in the business, and make ventures on my own account. I began to get on then; for my speculations, though on a small scale, prospered, and paved the way to greater: every body must have a beginning. Long before I went out to Rio, I had vacated the little green "cousins' room" for lodgings of my own, but had still continued a very frequent guest in Great Walton Street; and I had not been there more than twice after my return before I made a discovery which did not please me, indeed it made me a miserable disconsolate dog for months: it was that Mr. Morley destined his daughter Ellen for her cousin Tom. Mr, Morley told me himself one night when we were alone in the dining-room; perhaps the old man suspected; but no matter.
Tom Fletcher was one-and-twenty then; a pale-faced, undersized, insignificant, poor-spirited creature. I could not abide him. Ellen was eighteen: a rosebud, a merry, laughing, kind, warm-hearted girl she was as ever breathed; and quite as friendly towards me as she was that first night when she gave me the big lump of cake out of her hand, and my boy's heart was vowed to her for ever for the kindness of the act.
When Mr. Morley and I went upstairs after I had heard the news, I was naturally very dull. Tom came in soon after from dining at his club, and had tea. Ellen did not like Tom any more than I did; and when she was not ridiculing him mercilessly (she had a sharp tongue—as what woman who is worth a chip has not?) she kept him at such a distance that he did not dare speak to her. She was in one of her icy moods that night, and Tom would have been much more comfortable in a shower-bath than he was under her sleety civility. She had fathomed him long ago; but she had promised to marry him when almost a child, and before she knew what marrying meant. She began to change her mind now, and I was the cause of that change. I was as much in love with her as a man could be; and if she had a fondness for any body besides her father, it was for myself. We were both well aware of this some time before we ventured explicitly to say so. It was on this particular evening, if Ellen had not found me out before, that she made the discovery of my affection for her, though I had not my assurance of hers so early.
Tom asked her to sing; and instead of making any of the thousand-and-one excuses that girls are generally so ready with, she simply replied, that she was not in the humour. If Tom had not been such a mean scoundrel, I could have pitied him for the contemptuous coldness that Ellen threw into all she said to him, though that was little enough; but Tom knew that her father was on his side, and bore it philosophically enough. He confided to me,—I could have beaten his infatuated vanity out of him with relish,—that Nellie was crazed in love with him; but as she was quite safe for him, he should take a little longer time to sow his wild oats. He had set up a house of his own at a short distance from town, and there he received his own kind of company that he could not bring to his uncle's house—very low company it generally was. It used to throw me into the wildest rage to think that my pure little Ellen could ever be the wife of such a creature; and if I had not seen her so thoroughly set against him, I don't know what I might not have done.
Tom left before me that evening; and when he was gone, Ellen recovered her good humour; she would sing for me with once asking. I cannot exactly tell how it came about, but Mr. Morley having dropped asleep in his easy-chair, we began to talk together in an undertone by the piano, and I told her about all of them at home, which I had never done before. She listened with a great deal of interest, and asked a good many questions respecting my mother and sisters; and how I had enjoyed going home after so long an absence. And I said, "It was very pleasant to be there, Nellie; but I was glad to come back here: it always seems home to me most where you are now." She turned very red, and looked away as she shut up the music-book. I was startled at what I had said, for she seemed frightened, and I did not know whether she was angry or not. "Nellie, are you angry with me?" I whispered, catching one of her hands in mine and holding it fast.
She was very white now, and her eyes were shining as if there were tears in them; but "You had better go away, Richard," was all she said, and she gave a hurried glance at her father. I was very much disposed to linger, but she reiterated, "Go, Richard; go now." She remembered her miserable tie to her cousin Tom; while I, for a moment, felt that I was not acting right by my benefactor. Afterwards, when it came to the point of seeing the woman I loved sacrificed to an evil-minded man, who would break her heart, I threw that and every other consideration to the winds, and spoke out. But the time was not yet ripe for that.
VI.
Another year went over our heads, during which interval Mr. Morley retired almost entirely from the management of his commercial affairs, leaving them in the hands of Tom Fletcher. I was surprised how my good friend, who, in other matters was an acute far-sighted man, could be so hoodwinked to his nephew's real character and pursuits. Perhaps it might be that he had become habituated to him by long dependence, and the young man was too cautious ever to let his vices become obtrusive; that Mr. Morley was deceived there is no doubt, for Tom had entire possession of his ear, and influenced him to undertake several speculations, which, if hinted at by another, tenacious as he was of his commercial credit, the old man would have scouted as rash in the extreme. The firm was "Morley and Fletcher" then. Mr. Morley hinted to me that it might be "Morley, Fletcher, and Farquerson," if I had a mind; but I have never regretted the lost opportunity. Tom certainly possessed business talents, if he could have kept straight; but I disliked his course of proceedings so much, that I withdrew from Mr. Morley's office, and began on my own account. There was in consequence a slight coolness between us for a short time; but it wore off, and our friendly relations were again resumed. It was on the first evening that I dined in Great Walton Street after this temporary coolness that Ellen and I spoke openly to each other. I found her looking ill and depressed; and by dint of a few questions, extracted from her an admission that Tom Fletcher was hateful to her, and that the thought of a marriage with him was most repugnant to her feelings. Her father had been desirous of hastening it, that he might resign all business anxieties, for which he began to feel himself unequal, into the hands of his son-in-law; and she, fearful of encountering his displeasure, had not dared to speak out her abhorrence. It was a very critical moment; I could by no means be sure of Ellen's feelings, and a rejection would have mortified me beyond expression. That she liked me, I knew well enough. Well, there she sat, drooping before me, her cheeks all lily-white, and the tears glittering in her pretty eyes; and I stood shifting restlessly from one foot to the other, not venturing to bring my fortune to the test, to win or lose it all, until she looked up at me and began,
"You know, Richard—"
I only knew one thing at that moment,—how much I loved Nellie; so I cut her trembling little phrase short, and told her so. She blushed, and made no answer; but she did not pull her hand away or bid me go this time, so I stayed. And presently, "But how shall we tell my father?" asked she.
"Leave that in my hands, Nellie," I said. "I will tell him when he comes up from the dining-room, You can run away, if you are afraid."
"I am afraid, Richard. His heart was so set on my marrying Tom, that if you had not spoken I think I should. I don't like to grieve him. But, Richard, what if he is angry? He never was angry with me in his life. How can I bear it?"
I cheered her, and bade her have courage.
"I will have courage for you, dear Richard," said she; and though she was trembling like a leaf, a colour came into her face and a sparkle into her eyes, that told me love for somebody put that courage into her shrinking little heart.
When Mr. Morley came in, she went away to her bed-room, and I spoke to the old man, and told him all. He was a fiery man and an obstinate man, notwithstanding his many good points, and at first he went into an awful rage, calling me all manner of traitors and serpents and knaves; refusing to listen to a single plea, and finally forbidding me ever to set foot within his doors again, or to hold with Ellen any correspondence either by word or letter. He fetched Ellen from her room, and tried to make her, in my presence, promise never more to hold any communication with me; but the brave girl, though she wept bitterly, refused to do that.
"I should break it, father; I should break it the first time I saw Richard," sobbed she; "and indeed I cannot marry Cousin Tom, for I hate him."
Mr. Morley threw upon me a withering look. "This is your doing, Richard Farquerson," said he bitterly; "this is the sort of requital you make to me who took you out of the streets. You are a base ungrateful scoundrel, sir, and I wish never to see your face again," and much more to the same effect. Then to Ellen he said, "If you don't marry your cousin Tom Fletcher, while I live you shall with my consent marry no man; and if you marry without my consent, I will throw you off and have no more a daughter."
His voice sank at the last words, and Ellen clung weeping to his arm. "Don't say any thing more, father; don't say hard things of Richard," cried she; "I never liked Tom. He does not care for me, and he would kill me soon, I know he would. Richard, can't you say something?"
To see her stretch out her hand to me, as if for help, threw the old man into a terrible fury. "Begone!" he exclaimed. "Out of my sight, hound—"
"Mr. Morley," said I very quietly, but in a way that checked his vituperation, "you will be sorry for this one day, but yet not half so sorry as you would have reason to be did you force Ellen to become Tom Fletcher's wife. But you will not force her; you will be true to me, Ellen, will you not?"
"Yes, yes, Richard; but go now."
And as my staying seemed only still more to infuriate her father, I reluctantly departed, sore enough and angry enough, as you may well imagine.
I tried to see Ellen the next day and the next after that, but was always refused admittance; I wrote, but my letters were returned to me unread, so that I knew they had never reached my darling's hands. At last I found out that she had left town; but where she was gone was a mystery. Four months elapsed, and I was still in the dark about her, and very wretched at times, when one night the post brought me a very tiny billet written in pencil: "Have patience, dear Richard; I know how you have sought me, and am ever your faithful Nellie," was every word it contained. But that was precious. The post-mark outside was "Dawlish;" and off to Dawlish I went, and mooned about the sands morning after morning for a week, but never caught a sight of my Nellie; so I supposed they were gone away again from thence, and returned to London.
I met Tom Fletcher a few days afterwards; and from the sullen hang-dog look he gave me, I knew he had received his final dismission by Ellen; and that was some comfort to think on, where there was so little else that was cheering.
It was not until six months, or rather more, after the fiery scene in Great Walton Street that Nellie and I saw each other again, and that was across from opposite sides of a crowded concert-room. Mr. Morley was beside his daughter; so, though I got as near to them as I could, I had no speech of her I thought she looked rather graver, but prettier than ever. The next day I risked another letter, which got into her hands, and she sent me a reply. "You may write to me openly, my dear Richard," she said in one part of it; "for though my father is still as firm against you, and as angry as ever, I have told him my resolve; and he says, 'You may take your own way, Nellie, to a certain extent, but marry any body but Cousin Tom you never shall;' so we must live in hope of better days, dear." Bless her kind heart! that "hope of better days" made me quite my own man again; and I went to work in my commercial concerns with a vigour and spirit that prospered well. There were just at that juncture fine openings for enterprise in the Australian trade, and I took a very successful advantage of them. I used to say to myself, "My Nellie is my good fortune;" and so she has been all my life through since the moment her father took me out of the streets.
VII.
For the next two years I progressed steadily; but Tom Fletcher, who had a larger capital to work with, made several splendid speculations. I knew how proud of him Mr. Morley would be, and how his praises would sound in my Nellie's ears, Experienced people spoke of Tom as a rising and most fortunate man; and the firm of "Morley and Fletcher" was of the highest standing in the commercial world. But unhappily Tom grew top-heavy in the bewilderment of his successes, and was smitten with the dangerous and seductive ambition of building up a colossal fortune in no time. He took into his foolish head some belief of his having been born under a lucky star, and predestined to immense wealth. I have been told, that he thought nothing in which he embarked could fail; and that he was in the habit of encouraging timid speculators to join in a hazardous scheme by saying, with infatuated assurance, "Throw your doubts to the winds. Why I am in it; the thing must succeed." But Tom's lucky star turned out a treacherous Will-o'-the-wisp, which led him considerably out of his depth, and sunk him in irremediable quagmires of difficulty. The whole City was electrified one morning to hear that "Morley and Fletcher" were in the Gazette. Their liabilities were enormous, and several smaller firms fell with them. Tom had been in much too great taste to get rich to be careful of his own means; and several disgraceful transactions came out in the examinations before the court. Mr. Morley was heart-broken; this close to a close to a long and honourable career, this assassination of his good name and his credit, almost killed him. Nellie wrote to me in their distress, and begged my help, which, indeed, I was only too glad to give. But nothing was saved out of the wreck: Tom Fletcher was penniless, and Mr. Morley had nothing left but his wife's fortune, which had been settled on his daughter. They left the house in Great Walton Street therefore, and went to reside in a small cottage at some miles from London, near Richmond.
One might have thought that this catastrophe would have opened Mr. Morley's eyes to Tom Fletcher's misconduct; but instead of that, he only seemed more than ever bound up in his interests. This was the period of the railway mania; and Tom turned sharebroker. With his natural genius for gambling, he made his thousands one day and his tens of thousands another, and has said since that at one period he did not know what he was worth. Mr. Morley himself was bitten by the popular frenzy, but not until the bubble was on the point of bursting. He drew Nellie's little fortune out of the funds, and entrusted it to Tom to double; but Tom, aware that the golden day was at an end, and having realised nothing out of his speculative gains, took possession of his poor old uncle's money, and decamped. This was the cruellest blow of all: but no pursuit was made after him. Mr. Morley only said: "Let the graceless scoundrel go; he was my sister's son;" and he escaped accordingly.
VIII.
My Nellie was a gem. Instead of pretending to think I might wish to break off our engagement as some would have done, she showed a perfect confidence in me, and wrote; "Dear Richard, you are my only hope; will you come to me? My poor father is almost mad, and I know not on which hand to turn. But you will not fail me, will you, Richard?" Directly I got that pitiful little letter, I posted off to Woodside, where they were living, glad in my heart, I believe, that they had only me to look to.
I met them walking in the sunshine on the road outside their garden. Nellie's arm supported her father, whose bent head and uncertain gait betrayed how terribly he had been shaken by recent disasters. I saw them some minutes before they perceived me, and had time to observe Nellie's face, which, pale though it was, showed no traces of anxiety. I cannot tell you how proud I felt to know what a sincere faith she had in me; and seeing it so happily expressed in the midst of real troubles was better than all. When she saw me coming towards them hastily, a brilliant colour flew into her face, and she put out her hand long before I was within reach, as if, dear soul, she were catching at a forlorn hope. "I knew you would come, Richard," said she; and then to her father, "Father, here is Mr. Richard Farquerson come to see you, and to ask after your health."
My kind old benefactor lifted up his face, and held out a trembling hand. "I am very glad to make your acquaintance, sir," said he. "It is a fine morning out in the fields. My daughter and I are breathing the air for the first time to-day. Have you walked far?"
"It is Richard Farquerson, father," reiterated Ellen, slightly raising her voice. "An old friend, father; not a new one."
"Richard Farquerson, is it? I remember his father. There are great changes, sir, since then. We will go home, Nellie; perhaps Mr. Farquerson would like to sit down and rest a short time.' He mumbled his words indistinctly, and his thoughts seemed all astray. I was most painfully shocked to see this fine mind so unstrung, and to see Ellen's eyes fill with tears as she listened to him. We turned back, and all entered the house together. Ellen led the way to a little parlour overlooking the garden, and Mr. Morley sat him down in a great chair by the window. As I removed my hat, he looked at me earnestly, and a dull red suffused his face. He remembered me then, and appeared embarrassed; but suddenly catching at another idea, he said in his old strong voice: "You know my nephew, Tom Fletcher, my sister Rosie's son? well, sir, he has robbed his poor old uncle! He has taken his last penny, and left him to starve with his daughter."
"Not while I live, Mr. Morley," said I. Ellen came and stood by me; she was very pale, and trembled excessively. "Listen to Richard, father, said she. And then I spoke, and asked him to give me Nellie. The old man began to cry.
"Don't, father, don't; you break my heart," supplicated my dear girl. "Look at Richard, and speak to him."
"Would you have believed it of Tom Fletcher, sir? I loved that lad as if he had been my own son; I did indeed, sir."
"Let me be your son, Mr. Morley; let me pay you back one tithe of the great debt I owe you."
"Nellie has not sixpence, Richard Farquerson."
I was only too glad to take her as there she stood clad in her simple cotton gown and her fresh maiden beauty. I drew her to my side, and put my arm round her; while she leant her face on my shoulder to hide the tears that would come. When Mr. Morley saw us standing thus, he understood all. "She is a good girl, Richard Farquerson; mind you use her well," said he tremulously. "If I have said any thing harsh before, I beg your pardon heartily, sir. I was mistaken; I was deceived."
"Don't say another word; this moment cancels all," cried I.
And so Nellie and I were married; and she has been to me for nearly ten years the best, truest, kindest wife that ever man had. Mr. Morley lived with us long enough to see four of you about his knees; and then died in his daughter's arms very happily and contentedly, as you all know. And that is all I can tell you of my fortune, children.