University of Virginia Library

11. CHAPTER XI.

A water-drinker and a wine-bibber in a snow-storm.

—Shakspeare.

—Cowley.

—Dryden.

—Cowley.

—Shakspeare.

—Dryden.

—Shakspeare.

Walter Scott.

We have seen that Spiffard, his wife, and her mother, had
gone to their several duties at the theatre before Emma Portland,
accompanied by black Rachel, braved the “peltings of
the pitiless storm” on her errand of charity: it was later
than usual before they returned home, and found that the adventurous
girl, beloved most sincerely by at least two of the

three, was absent. Although the circumstance occasioned
surprise, Rachael's testimony in some measure quieted any apprehensions
for her safety, as Kent was expected to be her
safeguard in returning.

The ladies took supper and retired. Spiffard did neither.
To wait the return of Emma, or, if necessary, go in search of
her, was the ostensible reason. He had another.

The great exertion of body and mind necessary to the due
performance of a long and arduous character, a labour frequently
continued for many successive hours, and that, after
the usual business of the day, and the toil of preparation, is the
excuse given for what is called taking refreshment during the
time of performance, and supper, with its concomitants, after.
Both the one and the other too frequently lead to undue excitement;
and, by degrees, aided by (those tempters to wrong)
our vitiated appetites, to destruction. Spiffard's exertion in
his profession, where singing and acting were united, never
induced him to swerve from his habit; and the tumbler of
water during labour, and sleep after it, were the only refreshments
he required.

He had found that the habits of his wife, fostered by her
mother, had long been different; but he had hoped that, by degrees,
when convinced that no necessity for stimulants existed,
and that they were pernicious, she would accommodate herself
to his views and wishes. But it was in vain that he had demonstrated
the utility of his practice. When disappointed, he
had remonstrated—in vain. He found that attempts at deception
were made, to blind him—promises, made with apparent
(and at times perhaps real) good faith, were broken.
He saw no hope of relief but by abandoning the life of an
actor.

He was unhappy. He loved the great tragic actress and his
love had been founded on admiration of her talents in the profession.
Until he saw her, Spiffard had despised the shafts of
the “weak wanton cupid,” or if he had felt them, he had roused
his strength and made the boy

but the malicious urchin had his revenge. The attributes of
this towering beauty, so distinctive from his own form and character,
seemed the more in that respect to have fascinated him.
Her skill and powers in an art he loved:her bold demeanor which
appeared like frankness, and often was so; her prompt and
pointed speech; her attentions to him in preference to others
more favoured in external beauty and lofty stature: all, all,
tended to drive the nail which Hymen clinched. He had been
subdued without struggle, and had yielded without capitulation
or caution.

To ruminate on the past and the present; to form schemes for
the future; employed his thoughts as he sat by the fire until a
very late hour. A sudden gust of wind howling at the windows
and down the chimney, brought to his mind the absence of Emma,
for whom he felt a brother's love; and he started from his
reverie.

Mrs. Spiffard on awaking from her first sleep, was alarmed,
for her husband's absence betokened that of Emma. She opened
her chamber door and called to him. He was preparing
himself to sally forth; and begging his wife not to be alarmed,
he, well prepared to meet the inclemency of the night, proceeded
towards the humble abode of the property-man.

His route was the same which led to the pitiable spectacle of
the man, admired by thousands, prostrate, “like a dead dog
despised,” and thrown, as if unworthy burial, to the streets.
Fortunately Spiffard took the same side of the pavement which
Emma had trodden, otherwise he might have passed, unnoticed,
an object that was whitened by the falling snow, and which appeared
in the obscurity of the storm more like a mass of accumulated
filth and ice than a man. On recognising in this forlorn
outcast the person in whom he took so deep an interest,
his astonishment was only equalled by his fears for his life.

“This! this is one fruit of intemperance!” darted through his
mind, accompanied by a thousand images flashing with the rapidity
of lightning, all connected with the brutalizing vice which
could alone bring a man in the height of popularity, flushed
with success and possessing all that wealth or admirers could
bestow, to this pitiable perishing condition—a houseless wretch
thrust to the winter's blast, to die abandoned by humanity.
Thought and action were coexistent. The shock experienced
and the train of ideas excited by this humiliating spectacle, did
not render Spiffard less prompt in his endeavours to ascertain
the extent of the evil, and to apply all possible remedy. His
friend was alive, but helpless as a corpse. Spiffard, though active
and strong, could not lift him, or he would have borne him
to the fire he had just left. He next thought of alarming the
neighbours and gaining a shelter for the almost inanimate body.

He had strength enough to place the unhappy man, leaning
and in a sitting position, against the lamp-post, with his face
turned from the cutting wind and driving snow. His head sunk
upon his chest, in deathlike sleep.

As he prepared to execute his purpose of knocking at a neighbouring
door and calling for assistance, he perceived that an effort
was making by the old man to speak, and with great difficulty
the paralyzed organs indistinctly uttered, “let me alone—
let me sleep—don't—don't.”

At the same moment he saw some persons approaching from
Broadway with a light; and to his astonishment he soon perceived
that one of them was a female. The image of Emma
had been driven from his mind by the surprise of finding Cooke
in such a place at such a time and in such a condition. His
surprise was as great when he saw the lovely girl advancing in
a direction opposite to that in which he would have sought her,
and accompanied by two watchmen. It is unnecessary to say
that Henry Johnson was one of them.

The explanations that took place were made briefly and rapidly.
Henry determined to convey the helpless man to the
house of his mother for present shelter. The three men raised
him—he protesting against being disturbed. They bore him
towards Mrs. Johnson's: Emma leading the way and carrying
the light.

Here were three votaries of temperance, saving from death
and conducting to the house of the sick and poor, the wealthy
and admired victim of a vice they abhorred.

On, Emma Portland made her way, against wind and snow;
a guide to the encumbered and labouring group. She might be
likened to the “bright particular star,” the mariner's safety in
trouble.

Spiffard's ever active mind, notwithstanding his bodily exertions,
was comparing the light and fragile figure braving the
blast and the snow-wreath to save a fellow-creature, with those
whose charity is bounded by the gift of alms. The charity of
action, was like an angel moving before him. When they arrived
at Mrs. Johnson's dwelling, Emma had already knocked
and was waiting for admission.

In the meantime her followers had many surmises and some
words. We will not endeavour to penetrate the thoughts of
Henry Johnson during this laborious walk: it is not too much
to suppose that admiration of the conducting messenger had an
ample share in them. But his brother watchman—the alltogether

watchman, who was not of that feeble or lame decrepid family
which dramatists and novelists have delighted to describe,
but a sturdy American mechanic, who added the wages of the
night to those of the day to procure present comfort, and future
increase of it, for a wife and children, and whose strength was
adequate to his share of the inert burthen he helped to bear—
what were his thoughts as he laboured with his companions to
support the heavy frame of the half dead tragedian? “Poor
wretch!” said Henry “but we shall soon get a comfortable
place for his shelter. My mother's doors will not be closed
against the sufferer.”

“The devil's doors,” said the watchman, “would open to receive
a fellow creature in such a night as this. The young
lady said he was a gentleman. The devil's a gentleman too,
they say. She called him Cooke. The cook has made a pretty
kettle of fish of it to-night. Johnson, do you know who he is?
She called him the great something—by George Washington!
he would soon have made something less than nothing if that
pretty little girl hadn't brought some of us little folks to help
his greatness.”

The motion had so far roused Cooke that the word George
caught his attention and he muttered heavily, “George—George
Frederick—let me alone— you black—I'll never go to his house
again—a blow!—George Fred—a blow—” and he sunk again
into lethargic slumber.

“What is he?” asked the watchman.

“A great player,” answered Spiffard.

“Player? at what?”

“He is a great actor,” said Henry.

“O, he makes believe great and good on the stage, and
plays the devil every where else—and see what it comes to.”

“He is not always wise,” said Spiffard. “Who is?”

“That's true,” said the watchman. “I have heard of lawyer's
breaking the law, and preachers forgetting the gospel, but some
how or another I am apt to put great and good together, like
Franklin or Washington: but it's hard to couple great with such
a thing as this.”

Each step the bearers took, their burthen became heavier.
They were silent for want of breath, for every foot was encumbered
with snow, and the furious blasts resisted their efforts to
proceed. The watchman shifted his part of the burthen from
one hand to the other. Spiffard stumbled, and to save himself
relinquished his grasp. Henry saw that Emma had reached the
door, and stood knocking without admittance.

“Stop!” said the watchman, “let us try—”

“Let go!” said Henry.—With the strength of athletic youth
he snatched the old man from his companions, and treading in
Emma's steps he reached his mother's door, where the almost
exhausted girl was striving to make herself heard.

Again the watchman and Spiffard assisted the youth to support
the ponderous load, while all impatiently awaited the moment
that should give them shelter, but none so intensely felt
the delay as he who saw the guiding minister of mercy before
him, shivering, almost sinking—and saw in her a creature he
loved more than life.

“Don't alarm your mother, they hear me, let me go in first.”

The sick woman did not sleep; but the little black Hannah
was so thickly encompassed by the blankets of forgetfulness
that although in the same room with her mistress, it was with
difficulty she was awakened, and even then, could not comprehend
for some time the direction to “see who knocked at the
door.” Emma, to prepare Mrs. Johnson, whose voice she heard
through the thin tenement, said, “open the door! it is me, Hannah.”
And with an exclamation of “O, it's Miss Emmy!” the
girl did not wait for further orders, but unlocked and opened.
Mrs. Johnson's alarm was for her young friend, whose voice
at such a season, and heard amid the howlings of a storm, filled
her with bewildering apprehensions.

The street-door of the uncomfortable dwelling-place opened
upon the only apartment below, which was the bed-chamber
of Mrs. Johnson and Hannah, as well as the receptacle of
kitchen utensils, and all the furniture poverty had left to the
poor. The garret-room served her son as a resting-place.

Emma, entered and begging Mrs. Johnson not to be alarmed,
took her hand and said in a low tone, “It is Henry, humanely
assisting a man in distress,” and then returned to the door
(which the bearers of Cooke had left open) and closed it.

A lamp on the hearth threw a faint light over the chamber.
The lanthorn which Emma had borne was deposited on a table
near the door immediately on her entering. The sick woman
had started up in bed and thrown aside the curtain between her
and the door on the first alarm; she gazed wildly on the three
figures as they came in supporting their senseless burthen.

The bearers of Cooke entered the room in such wise as to
present his feet to the hearth, from whence the strongest light
in the place proceeded. Henry Johnson, (who supported the
head and upper portion of the old man's person), at this moment

so lifted his head that the rays fell full on the face, and
the eyes were convulsively opened, as if to catch them.
Shaded by her situation from the light, the sick lady had for a
moment a full view of the face of the unfortunate creature, thus
borne into her hovel by her son. It was but momentary; for
the bodies of Spiffard and the watchman, who bore the inferior
extremities of the corpse-like object, intervened, and cast a
shadow over the features.

Emma was advancing towards her sick friend, after closing
the door against the storm, and was hastening to explain appearances
so extraordinary; but was shocked to see the expression
of her countenance. Her eyes, following in wild
gaze the group, (as they approached the fire-place, and put
their burthen down), seemed almost starting from their sockets.
A flash of light again fell on the old man's head; and before
Emma could speak, the sick woman exclaimed, “My
God! my God!” and fell back, covering her face with the bed-clothes.
She had fainted.

This might have been occasioned, in her weak state, by the
agitation which the incident produced; for to see a man borne
into her chamber after midnight, in a state of insensibility,
from whatever cause, was sufficient to overpower a stronger
frame than Mrs. Johnson's. But Emma's quick eye saw—or
her quick imagination suggested—something more; she knew
not what. She flew to her assistance. The men, occupied
with Cooke, did not notice either the looks or exclamations of
the invalid. They proceeded to rekindle the expiring fire; and
after placing the wretched man in a chair, they by degrees restored
him to a consciousness of existence, although still under
the influence of the fatal cause of his degradation.

The efforts of Emma Portland were successful. Mrs.
Johnson revived; and seeing herself in the arms of her young
friend, her first exclamation was, as she gazed in her beautiful
face, exposed fully to view by throwing off the drenched snow-covered
hood—“Thank God! it was but a dream. I did not
see—”

Before she had finished the sentence, the hoarse discordant
voice of the object of her terror gave assurance that he was
still in her presence. She heard him calling for brandy; and
uttering curses and imprecations on those who were endeavouring
to save him.

The sick lady hastily drew the curtains of her bed between
her and the group at the fire, and then throwing herself with

her face on the pillow, murmured wildly, “Save me! save
me!” For a moment Emma's astonishment rendered her immovable.
She then heard the sobs of her friend; and hoping
tears would relieve what she supposed was an hysterical affection,
produced by fright, endeavoured to quiet her agitation;
but for some minutes no attention was paid to her soothing and
encouraging words. Such conduct in one usually calm and
resigned under every suffering, created a confusion of ideas,
and a tumultuous thronging of half-formed conjectures, in the
mind of Miss Portland, that bade defiance to every effort she
could make, for the recovery of her self-command.

At length Mrs. Johnson, becoming more calm, inquired in
whispers the meaning of Emma's appearance, under such circumstances,
and at such a time. She was briefly told, that detained
late by her attendance on the sick, she had, in going
home, found Mr. Cooke in a state of insensibility, and, as she
thought, perishing; that Henry had saved him and brought him
to her hearth. But, again, to Emma's astonishment, the agitation
of her aged friend increased, and she murmured—

“You—brought Henry—to rescue him! He saved him—
from death! Henry—bore him—in his arms—to my fireside
—O, heavenly Father!”

And again she hid her face, and sobbed aloud. Emma
looked with bewildered feelings at emotion so strong as to be
unaccountable; for although the incidents were strange, they
were apparently inadequate to produce such effects upon such
a person, so mild, and piously resigned.

The scene became more calm. Mrs. Johnson appeared
quiet. Emma sat by her in silence. The voice of the turbulent
George Frederick sunk to mutterings; and finally, as the
warmth of the room and fire produced their effect, was lost in
a lethargic sleep. The watchman declared that he must return
to the hall and watch-house; undertaking, at Henry's suggestion,
to represent to the Captain the necessity for his remaining
with Cooke. Spiffard, assuring Mrs. Johnson that
at an early hour he would come with a sleigh and remove his
friend, obtained permission of Henry, that he might remain
under his protection until morning; and then representing to
Emma the propriety of their hastening home, where her long
absence must occasion great alarm, she prepared again, with
Henry's assistance and Spiffard's protection, to encounter the
storm—Henry lamenting the necessity for his remaining with
his mother and her unexpected inmate.