by G.E.S.
Originally published in The Leisure Hour (Religious Tract Society) vol.1 #2 (08 Jan 1852).
Chapter II.
In the cottage which had in former days been Mary Wilson's home, lived a cousin, once her playfellow. From him the Wilsons had received many an invitation, which they had never been able to accept. Under the circumstances narrated at the close of the first chapter, he was written to, to the effect that Mary, her husband, and their three children would, if agreeable, spend the ensuing week at the cottage.
Meanwhile, waiting the reply, which came in due course, and was warmly affirmative, Wilson busied himself in paying a few of his most pressing debts, and in seeking other lodgings. He had long been at feud with his landlord, who had more than once threatened him with ejection for irregular payment of rent: and both landlord and tenant were glad to bring their connexion to a close.
It was pleasant weather for mid-winter; cold, bracing, and clear; and Wilson's spirits were light and buoyant. A heavy burden had been removed from his mind, and his future prospects were hopeful. True, there was the mortification he had undergone in consequence of the exposure of his private circumstances, but no harm had come of it. On the contrary, Wilson felt himself more secure in his situation than ever, and the advanced salary was pleasant to think about. True, also, he was still in debt, and liable to annoyance on this score; but he would be economical and careful in future. He would soon clear off arrears. Certainly, the new lodgings he that day provided did not exactly prove this determination; they were more expensive than the old, but then they were necessarily so; his family was larger, and needed increased accommodation; but he would curtail his expenses in other matters. So, at least, he felt. Yes, he was light-hearted as a bird that day; and what of annoyance and vexation there had been or was to damp his spirits, he determined not to think about. Mary, too, was cheerful; pleased to see her husband with a smiling countenance, pleased at their improving prospects, pleased too with the expectation of the holiday, and of once more seeing the happy home of her childhood: her pale and anxious face was brightened up with renewed hope.
At length, all arrangements were made, and the week's holiday was entered upon. None save those who have for years been enclosed in the bustling atmosphere of a London business life, without change of scene or employment, would be able to enter into the feelings of Mary and her husband during those few days. It was winter, to be sure; but they were in the country. It was not all unalloyed happiness either. Mary had much to think about. Since she was last within the walls of that cottage, how many changes had she seen and felt! She had left it with the joyful feelings of a young bride; she returned to it a careful mother; her bright anticipations, "rainbow built," had vanished into every-day realities; the poetry of her early life had passed away. Her kind and pious aged grandfather, where was he? and his instructions, and anxieties, and hopes, and prayers for her—what results had they yet produced? Ah! they had been too nearly forgotten: first the pleasures and then the cares of the world—the new world on which she had entered on leaving her childhood's home—had choked "the good seed of the kingdom." When she thought of these things, her eyes filled with tears; and, on the second day of her visit she escaped from her husband and children to the chamber which, in other days, she had been used to call her own; she went to weep, to think, and, perhaps, to pray. She was long gone; the evening had set in when she returned to the expectant family group.
"We had quite lost you, dear," said her husband, who sat by the fire-side, cracking filberts for the children; "and have you been up-stairs all this time? how cold you must have been!"
*I have not felt cold, indeed," replied Mary.
From that time, through the remainder of the week, Mary Wilson was very thoughtful, and yet not cheerless. Was it that even then a beam of a better hope had penetrated the dark mist which the world had long been casting around her soul; and that, in the solitude and self-communion of that chamber, she listened to the small still voice of heavenly and merciful invitation, "Come unto ME, all ye that labour and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest?" Was it that then, for the first time, amidst scenes so congenial to sorrowful reflection, the prayer-divinely dictated—sprang up within her?
"Thou know'st the way to bring me back,
My fallen spirit to restore:
Oh, for thy truth and mercy's sake,
Forgive, and bid me sin no more:
The ruins of my soul repair,
And make my heart a house of prayer."
Wilson, too, had his thoughts. His memory was also carried back to the days of old, with their aspirations and promises. He felt, proably, some self-reproach; he had done many things which he ought not to have done, and left undone much that he ought to have done. But he shook off these sombre feelings. A pleasanter future seemed to expand before him. He had not done all that was in his power to make his wife happy:—well, he would be more attentive in time to come. Indeed, he began at once, under the influence of unobliterated recollections, to manifest unusual regard to her wishes and comfort.
It was old life renewed to him, those few days in the country; and before their return to London, Wilson had confided to his wife that which, until then, he had sedulously kept from her—the history of the bill, his perplexities concerning it, his deliverance, and his promise to his employer.
"And you will keep your promise," Mary ventured to say; "you will, will you not?"
"Certainly I will, Mary: I should be a blockhead indeed to run the risk of losing my situation; but we must try, dear, to avoid the necessity in future. We must get out of debt as soon as we can, and keep out of it. There are some things that we cannot afford with even a hundred and fifty pounds a year."
"I will try to do my part, Edward; I am afraid I am a sadly expensive wife," said Mary, sighing; "but I will try hard to be more economical; and you will tell me—only speak kindly, dear Edward, as kindly as you do now," she added with a faltering voice, "and you shall not find me unwilling to give up anything rather than vex or trouble you."
The next week Mary was very busy, setting her new home in order; and Wilson had returned to the daily routine of the counting-house.
Three months after this, and Wilson and Maxwell might again have been seen arm-in-arm, not far distant from the spot where we at first discovered them. They had each a disturbed look, and Maxwell was speaking, though in a low tone, with some energy.
"But what can I do, Maxwell?" asked Wilson, when his friend came to a pause; "I have given my solemn promise to our people to have nothing more to do with such things; and it is as much as my situation is worth to put my hand to another bill."
"Pshaw!" exclaimed the young man, somewhat angrily; "is this not a mere excuse, Wilson? It seems an easy way of getting off an obligation, at all events."
"You have no right to say that, Maxwell. I do not forget that you helped me, and if I had the money I would willingly lend it to you; but—"
"Oh yes," retorted Maxwell, almost sneeringly, "it is very easy to say what one would do if one could. The thing is, you cannot lend me the cash—I know that as well as you do; but you can help me to get it; and the question is, will you? Come—yes or no."
Wilson hesitated to give an answer, and that hesitation was his undoing. Again he stammered something about his promise and the consequences which would result if it were known that he had broken it.
"Why should anything be known about it?" asked Maxwell.
"Our people knew about the other bill: how they found it out is a mystery to me; I am sure I did not tell them."
"TI can explain that," said Maxwell. "The fact is—:" and he entered into a long history of the bill discounter having paid the bill to certain parties, through whom it had passed to Wilson's employers; but added that, in the present case, the proposed bill would not pass out of the broker's hands at all until due; "so you see, there is no danger whatever."
Wilson still held back, but he had not the moral courage to say—"I have promised, and I will perform."
"I shall certainly think it very shabby, Wilson," continued Maxwell, "if you refuse. I did not hesitate to give you a lift; and it was part of the agreement that you would do the same for me some day, when I should want it; and I want it now."
"But did I not tell you three months ago that circumstances were so altered that I could not have anything more to do with bills?"
"Nonsense—sheer nonsense, Wilson; you can if you will, and you know it."
"It is a large sum too, Maxwell; forty-eight pounds! Suppose you should not be able to meet it; why, it would be my ruin."
"I tell you I shall be able to meet it; but I wont argue with you any longer: I shall know what to think of you, however, and how to thank you for your friendship;" and the speaker withdrew his arm from that of his friend.
"Stop, Maxwell; don't be in such a hurry, man; well, if it must be, it must. Have you the stamp ready?"
Yes, that was ready; and Maxwell was willing to stop—quite. Thus, once more, was Wilson drawn into the whirlpool in which many a man before and after him has been hopelessly engulfed.
Three years passed away; to Mary Wilson years of sorrowful experience in domestic life. During those years her husband's course was evidently a downward one. His renovated kindness had been very short-lived; his irregularities became more obvious; his temper increasingly uncertain. Sometimes he seemed unnaturally elated, and talked largely of the enhanced value of his services to his employers, whom he, at the same time, charged with meanness and stinginess in not proportionably advancing his salary: at other times he was, in an equal degree, depressed, and uncontrollably savage if his poor wife sought to probe the secret cause of his depression. At these times, he was often half the night absent from home, and when he reached it, it was in a state of inebriety. Then again, these fits of despondency suddenly changed into boisterous hilarity; and the companions whom, at these times, he brought with him from the city, "to spend a pleasant evening," gave poor Mary many a heart-ache by their unhallowed conversation and rude excesses.
Added to all these anxieties was the withering dread of impending evil. Mary knew that, though she strove hard and most conscientiously to keep her expenses within bounds, and suffered unmurmuringly many privations, her husband was becoming more and more reckless in his expenditure, and that every day must be hastening them on to some fearful crisis. At times, she ventured to hint at this, and was spurned and insulted for her "interference." All this was hard to bear; but happily, most happily for the long-enduring wife, she had learned, at length, to go to the Strong for strength. She had been led by a way that she knew not to the mercy-scat of her God, and, disappointed of rest elsewhere, she had found it there. The three years of suffering, toil, and wearying care had been also to her happy years—precious years at least. She had tasted the pleasures of true religion. Trusting in the Saviour with her whole heart, she had found—as He had promised—rest in so doing to her weary spirit. It was well for her, every way, that this happy change had been wrought in her, and that she had made God her refuge. The day was at hand in which her strength was to be sorely tried.
One evening, while expecting the return of her husband from the city, and employed in teaching her eldest son to write (she was the sole instructress of all her children), a step was heard on the stairs, and a minute afterwards a stranger was in the room. Mary looked up apprehensively; but the stranger was, or appeared to be, a gentleman, middle-aged, and serious in demeanour; and his looks re-assured her.
"Do you wish to see Mr. Wilson, sir, my husband? He is not at home; I expect him in soon. Would you wish to wait, sir? Will you take a seat?"
The stranger silently sat down. He was evidently embarrassed; and when, at length, he spoke, it was with an effort.
"I am grieved, Mrs. Wilson, to be the bearer of unpleasant tidings, and heartily wish it could have been avoided; but I thought it kinder to you to break the news myself. I have come far out of my way to do so."
"O, sir, what is it you have to tell?" Mary gasped. "My husband—has he met with any accidentP is he ill, sir?"
"Your husband is well—in health as well as when he left you this morning; but he cannot return this evening."
"What do you mean, sir?" Mrs. Wilson asked, distressfully.
"I should first explain," continued the gentleman, "that my name is C—, and that I am one of the partners in the house in which your husband is—I ought rather to say was—clerk."
Mary started when she heard the name; and she began to tremble before the stranger had completed the sentence; but she did not lose presence of mind. "Stop one moment, sir," she said, in a broken voice; and added, "Will you give me five minutes, sir? in that time I will be with you again. Edward," she continued, speaking to her boy, "it is time you were in bed; come with me." The next moment Mr. C-- was alone in the sitting-room. He looked inquisitively around, took up the boy's copy book, and the lesson books which lay on the table, and curiously examined them. There was an open Bible on the table;he looked at that. Some unfinished needlework lay near it; he looked at that too.
"She has not been the cause," was the result of his investigation.
In five minutes Mrs. Wilson returned; her cheeks were marble pale, and her eyes were swollen; she had been weeping. Her heart was strengthened, and her voice composed; she had been praying.
"I am ready now, sir, for the tidings. If they are bad as I suppose, it was not proper that our boy should hear them."
Very distressing was the information which Mr. C-- had to give. Wilson had that day been committed to Newgate on a charge of forgery. One step had led to another, still lower. "During the past three years," said the commiserating employer, "he has, by his own confession, been keeping up a fictitious command of money by means of accommodation bills. In this mad course he was prompted and assisted by two or three companions—by one, in particular, Maxwell, who has absconded; and bills, to a scandalous amount, bearing their names, have been constantly kept floating. At last the bubble burst; the only wonder is that it kept up so long; the discounters refused to discount, and, as a last desperate resource, your husband forged the acceptance of our firm to a bill of a hundred pounds; and the fraud was discovered. My partners," continued Mr. C--, "are determined to prosecute; and all I can do for him and for you will be at his conviction—and convicted he must be—to recommend him to mercy. I warned him three years ago to avoid the first steps to this fearful consummation, and offered him my personal assistance: and I thought the danger was over; but he has been weak and irresolute, and the end of it is crime and ruin."
This was the substance of the communication. Mary heard it to the end; she neither fainted nor wept. "Can I see him to-night, sir?" she asked, when Mr. C-- had done speaking.
"Not to-night: it is too late. To-morrow you can. I will call for you; we will go together."
A few years later, in one of the broad streets of Sydney, a small store was kept by a female, yet under middle age, but whose countenance bore marks of strong and long-continued sorrow. She had three children, the eldest of whom, a boy, assisted her at the counter; a fourth child was said to have died on the passage from England. At first, the woman had much to struggle against, for she was poor, and ignorant of the ways and wants of the colony; but in the course of time her industry was rewarded with a considerable share of prosperity. Before this, however, she had been joined by her husband, who was known to have entered the colony as a convict, and for whom a conditional pardon had been obtained by the exertions of one of his former prosecutors. Wilson—for that was the convict's name—soon after his appearance in Sydney, obtained a situation in a merchant's office; this was also said to be through the strong recommendation of the employers in England whom he had injured. But whether or not this were so, his future conduct was satisfactory; and, at length, the convict stain gradually wore out, and he became respected as an honourable member of society.
Probably, religion had something to do with this change. Certainly, "in the day of adversity" he had "considered;" and though generally very silent respecting himself and his own spiritual condition, and often very dejected, there were times in which the dark spirit of doubt, reserve, and fear seemed withdrawn, and he was enabled to rejoice in the liberty of the Gospel—to thank God and take courage. Probably, at other times also, he had reason to say, "In the multitude of my thoughts within me, thy comforts delight my soul; "but of these comforts he could not often be induced to speak.
For two traits of conduct Wilson was thence forward remarkable. The first was the eager and trembling scrupulosity which marked all his commercial transactions; the second was his anxious and unremitting affection for his wife.
Our sketch is ended; and it will have been badly drawn if a formal moral be needed at its close. As to the incidents and characters of the story, they are taken from real life, and but little effort of imagination has been required to present them in the present form.