University of Virginia Library

2. CHAPTER II.

The two young men taking up their fishing and hunting instruments, and
followed by Roundy Beebe, who in walking rolled like a man-o'war's-man
from very obesity, walked on a little while in silence. The path led along
the brook, and then leaving it crossed the larger stream beyond by a rustic
bridge. At the other side of the bridge were two paths, one leading by the
edge of the meadow round to the villages, the other crossing the intervale
in the direction of the villa visible above the woodlands.

`Here we separate, Ralph,' said Edward, `unless you will come home
and take tea with me.'

`Thank you, Austin. But I believe I'll go home. I leave for New York
to-morrow afternoon you know, and I have got things to attend to.

`Do you go so soon?'

`Yes. I received a letter yesterday from my uncle, in which he said he
would like to have me come to the city as soon as convenient, as he wished
to leave as soon after I came as possible.'

`You are going into partnership with him, Waldron?'

`Yes. I was his clerk you know until I was twenty-one, when I came
home to study law, for which I always had a fancy. But two years study
has shown me that it is not so desirable a profession after all. So as my
Uncle Ward wanted a partner, I wrote to him telling him I intended to relinquish
the law and return to business, and proposed to go in with him.—
The reply was he would like nobody better.'

`This was certainly very creditable to you,' answered Austin.

`Yes. Mr. Ward is a thorough merchant and a man of business. He
was satisfied with me when I was with him. He could not help being so,
for I devoted every hour and all my energies to his interests.'

Austin was silent and thoughtful. At length he said sadly, `Your uncle,
Mr. Ward has not seen you within a year or two has he?'

Waldron glanced at his face with a quick eye of suspicion; for his conscience
could not fail to help him in understanding the motive which led
his friend to ask this question, and in a tone so sorrowful. He would have
replied to him in a quick and angry manner; but he thought it best not to
seem to have understood.

`No. It is two years since I saw him,' he answered with an embarrassed
air in spite of his forced indifference.

`I trust you will find it pleasant in New York, and that your business connection
with Mr. Ward will prove as agreeable as formerly.'

`I have no fears. I understand you, Ned,' he said with a laugh. `You
think I shall take a little something now and then. You see I comprehend
your thoughts. But never fear for me. I only take a little when I am hunting,
or such like. As soon as I get to the city, I shall stop with it. Yes, I
intend to put my foot down and say done! I can leave it off when I choose.
I shall be as steady as a judge in the city. Business men can't drink and be
good for anything. I pride myself on my business habits. Never fear me
Ned. A drop out of a flask when one is out a gunning isn't drinking at
bars. That I never did. I never drank at a bar in my life.'

`I am glad to hear it. It is bad enough to drink, Ralph; but when a
young man drinks openly at bars he shews by the act that he is so far gone
in intemperance as to be lost to all sense of shame; that his mind is stolid
to the lynx-eyed penetration and unerring judgment of public opinion. As

a friend let me urge you to abandon this practice at once. It will insensibly
fasten upon you. You cannot throw it off at will. If you could have
done so, why not have done so but now? I fear me, Ralph, your are farther
committed to intemperance than you will admit, or than you suspect.
The man who drinks alone and in private as you say you do, is the last to
discover his own infamy. He walks in a mist, and thinks himself and his
acts invisible. He believes not, suspects not, that men regard him as an intemperate
man. He truly believes that his breath is not noticed by those he
talks with. He deludes himself with the idea that his thick tongue, his
unsteady gait, his garrulity and false hilarity are unnoticed. Because he tries
to blind himself to what he feels is becoming a habit, and succeeds in doing
so, he thinks that he has been as successful in blinding others. Now, my
dear Ralph, take the advice of a friend from boyhood, and resolve not to
become a slave to an appetite that is sure to bring infamy upon you. Now
my dear Ralph, take the advice of a friend from boyhood, and resolve not to
become a slave to an appetite that is sure to bring infamy upon you. Now
few, very few know that you drink. You have followed it but a year. It is
growing upon you. Three months ago you would not have drank before
me as you have done to day. This insensibility to my opinion alarms me
for you! You are going into the way of greater temptation. I beg you
strengthen yourself at once against it, for each hour will weaken your power
to do so. Before you all is bright and promising. Do be entreated, my
dear friend, to give it up at once and forever!'

Austin spoke with the warmth of a sincere friend, and with touching eloquence.
Waldron's countenance had undergone various changes during
his appeal to him; but he now replied with a light laugh—

`You are too serious altogether, Ned! I know the evils of intemperance
as well as you do. I should despise myself if I was an habitually intemperate
man. What little I drink never effects me in the least.'

`You said that it makes you strong.'

`So it does!'

`This is an effect. It will lead to more evil ones. This artificial strength
as weakness under a mask. This continual tension of the cord destroys at
last its elasticity.'

`Well, well, my dear Ned, you are no doubt thinking you are speaking for
my good. I ought to be angry with you; for you talk to me as if I was a
regular toper. You had best take orders, for you seem well fitted to preach.
Did you never drink in your life?

`No.'

`Not a glass of wine?'

`Not one.'

`Don't you know the taste of brandy or any spirit?'

`I do not.'

`It seems incredible.'

`Why should it? Did you drink until the last year?'

`No, not spirits, that is true. But then my father you know always had
wine at table, and I always was accustomed to it from a boy with dinner.—
Father you know is a gentleman of the old school; takes his glass of wine
when he sees fit and loves a bowl of punch on Christmas eve.'

`My father never had wine on the table while he lived; and my mother
has educated me in the habits of the strictest temperance. A glass of cold
spring water, Ralph, is more refreshing to my palate than could be the richest
wines of Spain. It strengthens me too. It gives me a clear head and cool
blood. I should fear to touch wine lest it should vitiate that exquisite taste
given me by nature, by which a draught of pure water is rendered so delicious.'

`Yes, mister Ralph, said Roundy with zeal; `I'd rayther have a pull at a

gallon bucket o' molasses and water in a summer's day when I'm sweaty
than at all the Champaigny and Derrymysherry as was ever uncorked.'

Both of the young men laughed at the sally of Roundy, and shaking hands
in a friendly manner they parted, Edward saying that he should probably
go to New York also in two or three weeks to go into business.

`That ar' young gen'leman, Master Nedward,' said Roundy, after they had
walked on a little ways together,' seems to me to be fairly on the broad road
to ruination. I'm beflambygusted, if I didn't see a young pimple seed a takin'
root on the eend o' his nose. Then the little fine red veins like scarlet
thread as looks as if thar was brandy in 'em, is beginning to sprangle on
his cheeks. If he han't been takin' to liquor ony a year he's got ahead
pretty fast.'

`It's a pity, Roundy, a great pity. I've seen it growing upon him for some
time. It is only lately he has openly carried a flask with him. It is a great
pity and I fear the worst after he arrives in New York where he will be
daily tempted. He has six thousand dollars to put in with his uncle, and it
he was steady he might become a rich and useful man.'

`It's nat'ral he should like it, master. He learned to taste the critter out
o' cut glass bottles at his father's table. It he becomes a drunkard his father
may thank himself.'

`Mr. Waldron is a gentleman who has been a high liver, though never an
intemperate man. In giving Ralph wine he never supposed he was creating
a taste which in manhood would crave stronger stimulant. Children
may love wine only, but when they become men and women they will have
alcohol.'

`Thank my father and mother!' ejaculated Roundy with a congratulatory
sigh; `thank 'em for not bringing me up to love champaigne at dinner. If
I'm a temperate man, Master Ned, I owe it to my broughten up and your
good example!'

`Yon had, it is true, little temptation to rich wines at your father's humble
table, Roundy,' said Edward, smiling. `I can join with you in saying
that I owe much to my parents also for my love of temperance. I can remember
how my father, heaven bless his memory! inculcated upon my
mind a disgust for drunkenness. He came into the house one day when
we lived in the city and taking me by the hand said, `Edward come with
me a moment.' He led me out the back-way into a lane in which was a
tippling shop. He conducted me to a spot where lay a' man on his back
half in the gutter half on the side walk. His clothes were in rags and covered
with filth. His face was a scarlet black hue bloated hideously and
turned upward towards the hot sun. His mouth hung half open and the
saliva dribbled and puled down his cheeks upon his collar in a manner disgusting
to behold. He was wholly incapable of helping himself and lay
there with a dull idiotic laugh upon his marred visage, trying to sing snatches
of vile songs with drawling, broken words, intermingled with drunken
oaths so thickly articulated that I could hardly understand them. While I
was looking at him with horror and disgust, a monstrous hog came rooting
along and seeing him obstructing his way began to smell over him with his
snout. When the drunkard saw him he stared at the brute with a half-conscious
look and began to talk or rather to try to talk to it and expostulate
with it for disturbing him. The hog, however, kept on smelling round him
and then began to thrust his snout beneath him, under his back, as if to
move him out of the way. But a fearful shriek from the drunkard showed
that it was with other intention. The wretches hand, the fingers of which
he had cut by falling on broken glass as he was kicked out of the shop where
he had been made drunk, lay under him, and the brute smelling the blood
had rooted under his back and seized it with his jaws. My father with difficulty
caused the fierce and blood-tasting brute to release his hold, which he

did taking off with his savage teeth half of the drunken man's hand. I
never saw such a fearful sight—so fearful yet so horribly revolting. The
man was taken to the hospital, but died from madness induced by the bite.
Since then I have had a horror of every thing like drinking. Besides, Roundy,
such terrible effects as these, it is sinful in the sight of God to brutalize
ourselves and cloud our intellects. “No drunkard,” says the word of Truth,
“no drunkard shall inherit the kingdom of God.” It not only degrades us
here, but destroys us body and soul forever. Poor Ralph!' He placed his
hand upon his heart and sighed deeply.

`Poor, poor Ralph!' groaned Roundy, laying his hand solemnly upon his
stomach.

They now came near the house. It was an imposing mansion situated
upon a sloping lawn and half hid in a grove of noble oaks, elins and chestnuts.
Upon the portico stood a middle-aged lady with traces of great beauty
in her countenance and the still elegant tournure of her figure. She was
the mother of Edward Austin, a widow left with a good estate and this only
son to inherit it. By her side stood a young lady of nineteen summers,
for from her sunny looks all her years seemed to have been summers. She
was rather small in figure yet exquisitely graceful, with a fair and brilliant
complexion, in which were blent the most delicate tints of rosy health. Her
profile was faultless; no Grecian chisel ever fashioned one so purely classical.
Her motions were like those of a happy bird and each movement
was an artless display of natural grace that enchanted, bewildered, and took
captive first the eye and then the heart. When in repose her countenance
had a pensive cast, and her deep blue eyes were sad and drooping as if tears
hung upon the lids invisibly. At such moments, perhaps, she was most lovely.
But when she was animated her eyes were full of dancing smiles, and
a chorus of wild Cupids were heard in the tones of her joyous laughter.—
Add to this a sweet voice full of all the tones of music, a gentle and loving
heart, a cultivated mind balanced by good sense, and a small white hand of
which she was very proud and ought to have been so, for it was a charming
toy for a lover to play with, (and she had a lover!) and a bewitching little
foot that seemed made expressly for waltzing and not for walking, and
the portrait of Anne Laurens is complete.

`You are a loiterer to night, Sir Angler,' said this maiden as Edward approached
the steps; for she remained upon them to receive him demurely
by the side of his mother, although if she had obeyed her heart, she would
have flown to meet him when he first came in sight. As she spoke, a soft
rich color deepened the pure tone of her complexion, and the lids of her
conscious eyes fell, half concealing their expression, as if she feared she
should betray too much of her heart in them.

`Yes, Anne,' answered the young man modulating his voice into a cadence
of singular delicacy and tenderness, that spoke to the bystander a volume
of love between them; for need we say that Edward was her lover to whom
we have alluded? The week before they had plighted troth. Anne was a
sort of cousin to Edward—that, is, she was the daughter of a second cousin
of his mother! a remote relationship, but one which the young man resolved,
when he first saw her, he would spare no pains to make amends for
by making her his wife it he could teach her to love him! Teach her?—
Anne needed no tutor other than young master Cupid; for she fell irrevocably
in love with her handsome fourth cousin, while he was so busily letting
himself fall in love with her. Anne's father was a merchant in Pearl
street, in New York, and a man of wealth; and as he was the executor of
the estate of which Edward was the heir, he was under the necessity from
time to time of visiting Mrs. Austin. The last time he came, which was
about four weeks before our story commences he brought Anne with him;
and at Mrs. Austin's earnest solicitation left her to make a visit of a month.

This month the cousins had made the most of in bringing their little affair
to a crisis, and before it was three quarters out they had come to a very satisfactory
understanding with each other. At first they resolved to keep it a
secret from every body till Edward, who was about to establish himself in
business in the city, should be settled; but eyes, lovers' eyes in particular,
are arrant tell-tales. They could not look at each other without letting every
body see that they loved one another. So Mrs. Austin was not long
mystified, and when Roundy roundly accused `Master Nedward' of being
`dead smit' with Miss Anny, Master Edward saw it was useless any longer
to keep a bird concealed in a glass cage, and he made a frank confession to
his mother of the true state of affairs, and was made happy by receiving
her sanction.

`Yes, Anne,' said Edward, `I have not had much success to day. It is
because you were not with me to select and fix my flies.'

`That's it, Master Nedward,' exclaimed Roundy, `Didn't I see how fast
you cotch'd the trout when Miss Anny baited the hooks. Lor! the fishes
seemed to fight for the pleasure o' being caught with the flies what she put
on. It shows their taste!'

`Roundy, how can I ever repay you?' cried Miss Laurens, laughing.—
`What shall I ever say to such a perfect compliment?'

`Say to Master Nedward, (coz he'll do anything you say! (say he must
take me to York with him when he goes.'

At this request all laughed very heartily except Roundy, who looked perfectly
grave aed serious.

`Why, Roundy, they'd put you in the Museum and advertise you as `the
fat gentleman,' said Anne.

`And I should have to keep an omnibus for you to move about in, Roundy,'
said Edward.

`I could be of service to you though, Master Nedward. I've stuck to you
through life since you dived into the trout pool and saved me from drownin',
and as you saved me you've got to keep me with you. You know I axes
no wages, ony the love of waitin' on you. Who'd brush your coat I warn't
to know? or your shoes? or go your arrands? or call you in the mornin'?
or keep you company when you fished? or—' Here Roundy burst out
a crying and couldn't proceed for his sobs.'

`Well, Roundy, as you are anxious to go with me, I will take you,' answered
Edward. `I have been thinking of it before this; for I knew you
would hardly consent to part with me.'

`I may go with you?' eagerly demanded Roundy, brightening up and
smiling through his tears.

`Yes.'

`Oh be joyful, Nicodemus!' he cried, leaping up and dancing round after
the fashion of a waltzing elephant. `I'm goin' to York with Master Nedward!
“Get out de way Ole Dan Tucker,

You're too late to come to supper!”'

`Why, Roundy, you're beside yourself.'

`No, Master Nedward, I'm beside you, and mean to be beside you as long
as I live. You've made me happy. Hurray! hurray! out o' the way old
Bruce, and don't look so as if you thought I was makin' a fool o' myself. I
don't watch trout in a basket as if they had wings and would fly off through
the woods! I'm going to York and you are goin' to stay at home—that's
the news and put it in your eye and cry.'

`Edward, Roundy must have been drinking,' said Mrs. Austin, as he went
skipping off towards the kitchen, followed by Bruce, to make known his
good fortune to the servants.

`No, The poor honest fellow is only intoxicated with joy. I am glad he
is so easily pleased. I shall find him serviceable in the city, I dare say!'

`I can't bear to her you speak of leaving, my son,' said Mrs. Austin.

`It is quite time I should be in active business. I have been a year and a
half from college doing nothing.

`Nothing? You have given me your society and in a thousand ways contributed
to my happiness. Is this nothing. You have been pursuing a thorough
and useful course of reading. You have acquired the German and
Italian, and elegantly ornamented the rooms with handsome oil and water
color paintings from your own pencil? Is this nothing, my son?'

`I feel that I ought to have done more. But I am content, dear mother,
if you are! I am reconciled to it in the feeling that if I had perchance not
have been an idler at home, I should not have been the proud and happy
possessor of this sweet hand!' As he spoke he took the hand of Miss Laurens
and pressed it to his lips with passionate devotion. They then entered
the dwelling and after passing the evening in social conversation, varied by
the music of the piano and guitar, Edward playing the first while Anne
sang with the latter. Mrs. Austin assembled the household, opened the
family Bible and read a chapter, a sentiment or two in which, after it was
ended, led to a grave and pleasing discussion between Edward and his
mother. A beautiful hymn was then sung, in which all joined, including
Roundy, who was no mean vocalist. The clear manly voice of Edward,
mingling with the rich tones of the maiden, rising above yet blending with
the mellow notes of the mother, created a flow of divine harmony singularly
appropriate to the hour and the occasion. The hymn being concluded
all humbly knelt down, and Edward, with his prayer-book before him,
offered up devoutly that excellent and comprehensive prayer composed for
evening worship in families; a prayer that embraces all we need ask, whose
petitions cover all our wants.