University of Virginia Library

5. CHAPTER V.
DARKNESS AND LIGHT.

As levying day had come before it was expected, so selling
day, the time so dreaded by the affectionate daughters, came duly
on, and no tidings yet of Augustus. Many letters had been forwarded
to his address in New York, and no answers arriving, the
anxiety of the family had been such as almost to drown all sense
of the hopeless, helpless destitution which now seemed to threaten
them. Being alone at this time, and wishing that whatever it
was possible to do might be done properly for Mrs. Clifford, I took
the liberty of sending for a neighbour, that is, a country neighbour—one
who lived “next door about four miles off”—a gentleman
well versed in the law, though not practising professionally.

Mr. Edward Percival, this friend of ours, came into this country—then
a land of promise indeed—some seven years since.
Having inherited a large tract of wild land, he chose to leave
great advantages behind him for the sake of becoming an improver—a
planter—a pioneer—what not? There must be some
marvellous witchery in the idea of being a land-holder, if we may
judge by the number of people who undertake this wild, rough life
without the slightest necessity. Englishmen seem to be peculiarly
attracted by the idea of unlimited shooting—a privilege so jealously
monopolized by the great in their own country; but with
our own citizens this is usually a matter of small interest. Be
the spell what it may, we shall not wish to see it reversed while
it brings us neighbours like Mr. Percival.

He came, he saw, he conquered—and Cæsar's victory must

pale by comparison, for Mr. Percival overcame a sheriff, and obtained
an extension of time. I say he came—that was a matter
of course, seeing he was sent for by a lady. He saw—but I am
sadly afraid it was not the sight either of Mrs. Clifford or myself
that enlisted his sympathies so completely. He saw two very
lovely young ladies—for Anna had easily obtained a furlough for
a day that she might comfort her mother and sister under their
trials. And Mr. Edward Percival, though no beau, was made
of “penetrable stuff,” and felt his heart strangely moved by the
unaffected sensibility and dutiful solicitude of those two sad-hearted
daughters. By what particular course of strategy he conquered
Sheriff Beals I have never learned, but I have understood
there is but one avenue to law-hardened hearts, and I suppose
some knowledge of the profession had endued Mr. Percival with
the acumen required for discovering this covered way.

The result was that Mrs. Clifford retained her fine old chased
gold watch, with its massive hook and crested seal, with several
other “superfluities” on which the law had laid its chill grasp;
and the two Miss Cliffords, though they did not fall at Mr. Percival's
feet to thank him for his intervention, looked as if they
could have done so; and the gentleman himself, as he took his
leave, gave utterance to some consoling expressions, which fell
with strange warmth from lips usually very guarded. So all
was well thus far.

But Augustus came not. Anna returned to her householdry,
Mrs. Clifford to her reading, and Rose to her round of anxious
cares and painful economy. Another week wore away—another
mail reached our Thule, and brought no tidings from the lost one.
Agonizing apprehensions were fast assuming the form of certainties,
and even Anna was yielding to despair, when Mr. Percival,
who had not failed to acquaint himself with the condition of
things, announced his intention of going to New York, and
offered his services in making the requisite inquiries after young
Clifford.

We have not been informed what urgent business called Mr.
Percival eastward, but conclude it to have been something sudden
and pressing, as he had returned from New York but a few weeks
before.

The suspense of our unhappy friends was destined to be lengthened
out yet another week; but we need not detain our readers
proportionally. At the end of that period then, after Mrs. Clifford
and her daughters had renounced all thoughts but one, Mr.
Percival returned, bringing with him the long-lost son and brother;
or, rather, what might seem more the shadow than the
substance of the gallant youth who had left us some three months
before.

Poor Augustus—his heart wrung, and his brain on the rack
when he left us—had been seized with a fever, so violent in its
symptoms, that no hotel at Buffalo would receive him, through
fear of infection. Other lodging places presenting the same difficulty,
he was at last placed with a poor coloured woman, on the
outskirts of the town; poverty, and perhaps a better motive, inducing
her to overlook the danger. Here he was nursed, with the
tenderness so characteristic of that kind-hearted race, through a
course of typhus fever; and from the first he had never been
long enough himself to give the address of his friends. Tracing
him as far as Buffalo by means of the steamboat's books, Mr.
Percival had found no difficulty in discovering the place of his
retreat. The invalid was beginning to sit up a little, and had
written a few lines to his mother by the mail of that very day.

Need we say that our friends forgot even grinding poverty for
awhile?

Home, and the attentions of those we love, have wondrous restorative
powers. Augustus gained strength rapidly, and exulted
in the change as only those who have

can exult, in the sunshine and the breeze. The exhilaration of
his spirits amounted almost to delirium. He would recount again
and again the kindness of his dark nurse, and in happy oblivion
of the narrowness of circumstances which drove him from home,
reiterate his schemes of gratitude to poor dear Chloe—schemes
devised on a scale better befitting past than present fortunes. As
the exquisite sense of recovery subsided, however, care reasserted
her empire, and poor Augustus gradually sank into his former
condition of premature gravity.

Here, again, Mr. Percival's affairs seemed to favour our young
friend strangely; for while Augustus had been gaining strength
and losing spirits, that gentleman made the discovery that he was
in pressing want of an assistant in his business. He had great
tracts of land in far-away counties, calling for immediate attention;
there was a great amount of overcharged taxes which must
be argued down (if possible) at various offices; he had distant
and very slippery debtors—in short, just such a partner as Augustus
Clifford would make was evidently indispensable; and,
Augustus got well.

Anna had come home to help nurse her brother, but with such
positive promise of return, that Mr. Larkins did not go girl-hunting,
but mixed griddle-cakes and dressed the children unrepiningly
during the interregnum. When Augustus recovered, the secret
of the weekly dollar was confided to him, and Anna prepared for
going back to her “place.” The brother was naturally very
averse to this, and laboured hard to persuade her that he should
now be able to make all comfortable without this terrible sacrifice.
But she persisted in fulfilling her engagement, and, moreover,
declared that it really was not a sacrifice worth naming.

“Look at your hands, dear Anna!” said Rose.

“Oh! I do look at them—but what then? Of what possible
use are white satin hands in the country? I should have browned
them with gardening, if nothing else; and when once Uncle Hargrave's
money comes, a few weeks' gloving will make a lady of
me again.”

“But Mr. Percival, I am sure—” Rose tried to whisper, but
Anna would not hear her, and only ran away the faster.

By and by, Uncle Hargrave's legacy did come, and whether
by a gloving process or not, it was not long before Anna's hands
recovered their beauty. Mrs. Larkins lost the best “help” she
ever had, and Anna at length told all to her mother, who learned
more by means of this effort of her daughter, than all her misfortunes
had been able to teach her.

The legacy, like many a golden dream, had been tricked out
by the capricious wand of Fancy. In its real and tangible form,

far from enabling Mrs. Clifford to return to city splendour, it
proved so moderate in size that she was obliged to perceive that a
comfortable home even in the country would depend, in some
degree, on economy and good management. Certainty being
thus substituted for the vague and glittering phantom which had
misled her, and helped to benumb her naturally good understanding,
she set herself about the work of reform with more vigour
than could have been anticipated; and an expression of quiet
happiness again took possession of faces which had long been
saddened by present or dreaded evils.

Strange to say, Mr. Edward Percival, by nature the most frank,
manly, straightforward person in the world, seems lately to have
taken a manœuvring turn. After showing very unmistakable
signs of an especial admiration of Mrs. Larkins' “girl,” he
scarce ventures to offer her the slightest attention. At the same
time, his interest in the ponderous mamma is remarkable, to say
the least. Hardly a fine day passes that does not see a certain
low open carriage at Mrs. Clifford's door, and a grave but gallant
cavalier—handsome and well-equipped—soliciting the old lady's
company for a short drive. This is certainly a very delicate
mode of mesmerizing a young lady, but it is not without effect.
Anna does not go to sleep—far from it! but her eyelids are
observed to droop more than usual, and choice flowers, which
come almost daily from the mesmerizer's green-house, are very
apt to find their way from the parlour vase to the soft ringlets of
the lovely sleep-waker. What these signs may portend we must
leave to the scientific.

Mr. Percival came from the very heart's core of Yankeeland;
he may say with Barlow,

he is a conscientious Presbyterian, and he has been four years a
widower. All these disabilities have been duly represented to
Miss Clifford; nay—I will not aver that they may not even have
been wickedly dwelt upon—thrown in her teeth, as it were, by
one who loves to tease such victims; and I have come to the
conclusion, which Anna herself suggested to me the other day,
hiding at the same time her blushing face on my shoulder, after a
confidential chit-chat, “There certainly is a fate in these things.”