University of Virginia Library

12. CHAPTER XII.

An unexpected family-meeting.

—Cowley.

—Dryden.

—Shakspeare.

—Dryden.

—Otway.

—Shakspeare.

The progress of our story brings us to the description of a
scene, such as I believe is new to the readers of romance, and
could only have been produced by the fatal effects of that vice
which it is my object faithfully to portray.

As the little black Hannah had long retired to renewed sleep,
by taking refuge up-stairs, the apartment was left to the sole
occupancy of Cooke, Mrs. Johnson, and her son.

The object of his late solicitude being now safe from immediate
peril, and asleep by the fire, Henry approached the bed
and drew aside the curtains to inquire how far this intrusion
had disturbed his mother. Having been assured by her, that
although she had been frightened and agitated, still she was
glad that he had brought the unhappy man to her house, he
said, “I presume, mother, that Emma has told you who it is

that we have prevented from freezing to death, like an outcast
from the human race, in the streets of this populous city. Is
it not strange, that the celebrated Mr. Cooke, after whom
thousands run to enjoy the effects of his skill, and night after
night hail him with delight, and crown him with applause,
should be abandoned to perish like a dog, unsheltered from
such a storm of wind and snow as now howls around us? Is
it not strange?”

“Strange! It is all strange.”

“That we should succour him?”

“Yes, Henry, that we should succour him.”

“We, who however much we might wish to share in the
pleasure his talents afford—and all say he is unrivalled—that
we, who are by poverty prevented the gratification thousands
enjoy, in seeing and hearing him during the proud exhibitions
of genius—that we should see him thus, and be instruments
in saving him from destruction. That while his admirers and
his intimates should be unconscious of his peril—that he should
owe his safety to us, who have never even seen him!”

“To us! To us, who—to one—Henry, my son, did you
—did you bear him in your arms to your mother's roof for
shelter?”

“Yes. After, by the assistance of Mr. Spiffard and George
Crosby, he had been raised from the pavement, and brought
near the house, I, alone, took him in my arms until we reached
the door; and then they assisted in bringing him in.”

“O, merciful father! what a picture is this!”

“Mother!”

“The son—Henry, the time has come—you must know—”

“Mother!”

“The son, bearing his degraded and almost lifeless father
in his arms to the hearth of the deserted wife—the cherished
mother!”

“For heaven's sake, mother!” And he turned his eyes to
the man of whom they spoke, with emotions so conflicting, that
his countenance assumed the appearance of one without
thought. But when his sight was fixed on the disgusting object
occupying the chair which he had prepared for his feeble
mother, and muttering incoherent sentences in his troubled
sleep, he could not withdraw it, but gazed as if fascinated by
an obscene spectre. At length he exclaimed, “This! this!
My father!”

“Yes, Henry. That man, on whom your straining
eyes are fixed as though they would start from their sockets

—that man, from whom, for your sake, I would willingly
withdraw my eyes forever—that man is my husband, and your
father.”

Thus were three beings brought together in one small apartment—drawn,
as into an enchanter's circle, by a power beyond
all sorcery—forced against will to approach each other by a
chain of causation forged from all eternity. Ordained to meet
for good purposes, and the exercise of charity, by the great
and all-beneficent Artificer of that great universe, whose revolving
worlds and central suns cherish life and motion, beyond
our faculties to comprehend—of that great system in
which the man, and the worm, and the mite are parts: all provided
for by that infinite wisdom, against whose will they seem
to struggle, but struggle in vain.

In this, as in all things, his will shall ultimately prevail.
Three of the human family so connected—so dissevered—
so dissimilar—are here brought together by means unsought
and unknown. There stood the son, between the sick and
long-suffering mother, and a father whose faults and cherished
habits had caused that wife and mother to fly for shelter to a
foreign land, that her child might not be sullied by his father's
vices. A mother who had withheld all knowledge of his father
from her son, until she saw him the pure and high-souled being
who would only be more firmly fixed in worth by the knowledge
of a father's weakness.

Such were the beings brought thus strangely together. Such
is the picture I would place before my reader.

Mrs. Johnson, now in the decline of life, who had by twenty
years of penitence, united with well-doing, expiated the follies
of youth, and suffered with humility and resignation the inevitable
consequences of self-willed rashness. Mr. Cooke, still
further declined “into the vale of years,” conscious, when capable
of thought, that by the gratification of selfishness and sensual
propensities, nourished into habits, he had brought disease
and premature decay on himself, and blighted all the good
gifts of nature. But the third figure in this incongruous family
picture, stood between them, in health, strength, bright intellectual
faculties, perfected by ardent study, and crowned by
moral and religious habits.

“No, mother, no! A father is one who protects, instructs,
blesses. This man did neither for me. My father must have
loved and cherished my mother. This man did neither. I
have but one father! He did all this for you and for me! To
this man I owe nothing, for he has done nothing for me; and

the blessings I enjoy—for which I owe you my gratitude—are
owing to my never having known that man: being separated
from him I have escaped pollution!”

“Do not speak so, my son! He is your father! Sit down
by me, Henry. You are agitated by the thoughts that this discovery
suggests.”

He sunk down on the bed and embraced his mother.

“That you, a being so pure, should have been united to
such—”

“Hush! He is your father!”

“That you, mother, whose soul is truth, should, for a long
series of years, have lived in a foreign country, and sheltered
by a false character! You, who have taught me to shun all
mystery, and have even disapproved of this pious disguise
which I now wear; though I have never denied what I thought
my name, but am enrolled in the city watch as Henry Johnson—a
name I will always retain! Even this dress, put on
when my duty as a clerk is over, to gain a pittance for your
comfort in sickness, appeared to your mind too much like deception;
and yet that man's baseness has forced you to assume
a false name, and hide from me, your son, the knowledge of
your marriage with one, whose name has been bruited in our
ears, year after year, and who has for months occupied the
public attention in the land to which he had driven you for
refuge!”

“I have never said that he drove me from England.”

“Circumstances speak louder than words. But now there
can be no objections to my knowing all; and while he sleeps
under the influence of the poison which has caused his ruin,
and so much sorrow to you, tell me the leading facts of your
story; let me know—Mister Cooke!”

Mrs. Johnson, at the earnest solicitations of her son,
briefly related the facts connected with her marriage; which
I will give, as briefly, in my own words, in the next chapter.