University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER I.
RICHARD COMES TO THE CITY.

It began to snow. What the almanac directed its readers
to look out for about this time — what his mother told Richard
of, as she tied the muffler on his neck in the morning —
what the men in the bar-rooms, where he stopped to warm
himself, seemed to be rubbing out of their hands into the fire
— what the cattle, crouching on the windward side of barn-yards,
rapped to each other with their slim, white horns —
what sleigh-bells, rapidly passing and repassing, jingled to
the air — what the old snow, that lay crisp and hard on the
ground, and the hushed atmosphere, seemed to be expecting
— what a “snow-bank,” a dense, bluish cloud in the south,
gradually creeping along the horizon, and looming midheavens,
unequivocally presaged, — a snow-storm, came
good at last.

Richard had watched that cloud, as it slowly unfurled
itself to the winds, and little by little let out its canvas, till
it seemed to be the mainsail of the huge earth, and would
bear everything movable and immovable along with it. He
saw the first flakes that skurry forwards so gingerly and
fool-happy through the valleys, as if they had nothing to do
but dance and be merry, and were not threatened by a
howling pack behind. He rejoiced in the feeling of these
herald drops on his cheeks, and caught at them with his
lips, refreshing himself in the dainty moisture; for he had
walked a long distance, and, though it was mid winter, his

blood was warm, and his throat dry. The regular brush
commenced, — a right earnest one it was; and he had
something else to do than dally with it; — he must brave
the storm, and cleave his way through it. He had some
miles to go yet, and night was at hand. The pack he bore
grew heavier on his shoulders, his feet labored in the new-fallen
snow, and what with frequent slips on the concealed
ice, his endurance was sore taxed. But he was cheerful
without, and strove to be quiet within; and made as if he
were independent of circumstance, and free from anxiety.
The storm had a good many plans and purposes of action.
It riddled the apple-trees; it threw up its embankments
against the fences; it fell soft and even upon shrubs and
flowers in the woods, as if it were tenderly burying its dead;
it brought out the farmer, to defend his herds against it; it
stirred the pluck of the school-boys, who insulted it with
their backs, and laughed at it with their faces; and, as if
to spite this, it turned upon an unprotected female, a dressmaker,
going home from her daily task, and twisted her
hood and snatched off her shawl; but, failing in the attempt
to rend her entire dress to pieces, it blinded her with its
gusts, and pitched her into the gutter. This was too much
for Richard. If his blood was hot before, it boiled now; and
flinging down his bundle, he sprang to the rescue. He raised
the woman, refitted her wardrobe, and sent her on her way
with many thanks. The storm, maddened and unchecked,
rallied, to stifle and subdue this new champion of woman's
rights. It smote Richard violently in the face, snatched
away his morsels of breath, and would have sunk him, by
sheer weight, in the White Sea that surrounded him.
When it could not do this, it flapped its enormous wings in
his face, so he could not see his way. Anon it raised its
sweep aloft, and left a little clear space, through which he
beheld houses with bright hearth-fires, and tables savorily
spread for the evening meal, and little children getting
into their mothers' laps, as if to plague him in this fashion.
The flakes, as if each one had an individual commission,
flew in under the vizor of his cap, settled upon his eye-lashes,
clung to his muffler; some penetrated into his neck;
others explored his nostrils. He tried to whistle; but the
storm kept his lips so chilled he could not do that: he
attempted to laugh; certain flakes that sat on his lips seized
the moment to melt and run down his throat. When the
storm could not arrest his course, it began to trick him for
everybody to laugh at: it whitened his black suit, till he
looked like a miller's apprentice; the flakes piled themselves
in antic figures on his pack and shoulders, and strewed
his buttons with flaunting wreaths; they danced up and
down on his cap. But he pressed on, with a whistling
heart, as if he thought it was mere facetiousness in the
elements to do so. He knew there was love and gladness
at the core of all things; and the feathery crystals that
frolicked about him, and then laid themselves down so quietly
to sleep for the dreary months of winter, were full of beauty,
and there was a luminousness of Good Intent in all the haze
and hurly-burly of the storm. Richard was deeply religious;
and he knew God said to the snow, Be thou on the earth;
and he felt that the Divine Providence cared for the lilies
of the field as well in their decay as in their bloom; and
that a ceaseless Benignity was covering the beds where they
lay with the lovely raiment of the season, and cherishing in
the cold ground the juices that should, after a brief interval,
spring forth again, and create a gladsome resurrection of
nature.

He had none but kindly feelings when there passed him
a sleigh, with its occupants neck deep in buffalo-robes and

coasts, and comfortably intrenched behind a breastwork of
muffs and tippets; and the horse, he knew, was merry, by
the way he shook his bells. He even went one side, and
stood knee-deep in the drifts, for a slow ox-sled to pass.
“Ho! my good fellow!” he cried to the teamster, who sat
on a strip of board, with his back bowed and braced against
the storm, as if there was to his mind certainly something
in the case suggestive of the knout; “you must bide your
time.”

“That is the first truth I have heard to-day,” responded
a gloomy voice, which, with the coarse shape in which it
was wrapped, soon swept out of hearing.

“One truth to-day,” said Richard to himself, “is something,
though it is towards night.”

He relapsed into musing and philosophizing on the world
and life, the day and hour, and on himself and his objects,
and on the City in which truth was so scarce. Of a sudden,
the Factories burst upon him, or their windows did, — hundreds
of bright windows, illuminated every night in honor
of Toil, — and which neither the darkness of the night, nor
the wildness of the storm, could obscure, and which never
bent or blinked before the rage and violence around. The
Factories, and factory life, — how it glowed at that moment
to his eye! and even his own ideal notions thereof were more
than transfigured before him, and he envied the girls, some
of whom he knew, who, through that troubled winter night,
were tending their looms as in the warmth, beauty, and
quietness of a summer-day. The Factories appeared like an
abode of enchantment; and the sight revived his heart, and
gave him a pleasant impression of the City, as much as a
splendid church, or a sunny park of trees, or fine gardens,
would have done. He was too much occupied to notice a
spread umbrella that approached him, moving slantwise

abreast the storm, now criss-crossing, now plunging forward,
as it were intoxicated. It struck him, and in his insecure
footing, threw him.

“What is it?” said the umbrella, peering about on every
side.

“It is nothing,” replied Richard, who could hardly be
distinguished from the snow in which he rolled.

The umbrella raised itself, as if it were one great eyelid,
in astonishment, muttering, at the same time, “That's it;
I knew I should do it, and now I have!”

Beneath the umbrella was really a man, but apparently a
cloak, a long and slim cloak, with a shawl about its head
and ears; and it looked, also, as if this cloak was hung by
some central loop to the handle of the umbrella, and as if
the umbrella was the only live thing in the whole concern;
and it kept bobbing up and down in the wind, wrenching
and prying, as if it would draw the vitals from the cloak.
The language of the thing favored the idea of evisceration.
“I am almost dead!” it said.

“Let me help you,” said Richard.

“I have only a little further to go,” replied the other.

“How far have you come?” asked Richard, sympathetically,
thinking of the many miles he had fared that day.

“Across the River,” was the reply.

“Is it so far?” rejoined Richard, despairingly.

“A hundred rods or so. But one meets with so many
accidents here; and nobody's ways are taken care of, and
life is of no value whatever, in these times.”

Richard, delighted at the near end of his journey, did not
conceal his pleasure.

“You will not laugh, when you have experienced what I
have,” said the man.

“Is there nothing to do here?” asked Richard.

“Yes, everything,” was the answer.

“Then I am secure,” added Richard.

“Move carefully!” — such was the advice of the retreating
shadow; “it is a slip, or a slump, all the way through.
You will be running into somebody else, or somebody will
run into you.”

Richard grew thoughtful; but he repelled the phantom of
discouragement, and clung closer to the good angel of common
sense and rational hope, that ever attended him.

He was coming to Woodylin to find employment. The
construction of mill-dams and railroads had sounded a general
summons, throughout the country, for capital and labor
to flow in thither. Business, which means the combined
and harmonious activity of capital and labor, was reported
to be good. The City was evidently growing, and there
were those who hesitated to say how large they thought
it would become, lest they should appear vain. Many
young men were attracted thither, and among these
was Richard Edney. He came from a farm, in a small
interior village, and brought with him considerable mechanical
expertness; and now, just turned of age, on the evening
of the day in which he set out to seek his fortune, or,
more strictly, to find a snug operative's berth, he appears
before the reader. He had a married sister in town, whose
house he would make his home.

He came to the covered bridge, and entering by the narrow
turn-stile, found a breathing-place from the storm in that
labyrinth of timbers. He stamped the snow from his feet,
and, unbuttoning his over-coat, seized the lappels with his
two hands, and shook them heartily, as if they were old
friends whom he had not seen for a long time, and then
folded them carefully to his breast.

One or two lamps suggested the idea of light, and that

was about all. Their chief effect was shadow; they made
darkness visible, and very uncomfortably so. They worked
it into uncouth shapes, which were put skulking among the
arches, set astride of the braces, hung up like great spiders
on the rafters, and multitudes of them lay in ambuscade
under the feet of passengers. No; — if there were kind
feelings in that Bridge, — if any pulse of philanthropy ran
through those huge beams and iron-riveted joints, — if there
were any heart of good-will in that long vault, well studded
at the sides, close-pent above, and firmly braced under foot,
it was an unfortunate bridge; unfortunate in its expression,
unfortunate in its efforts to show kindness.

The readers of this story would like to know how Richard
felt. To speak more in detail, there are two popular
impressions anent the Bridge, one of which Richard avoided,
and into the other he fell. The first is, that the Bridge is
of no use, that it is a damage to the community; in other
words, that it defeats the very object for which it was built,
the facilitation of travel and increase of intercourse. For
instance, you will hear men say they could afford to keep a
horse, if it were not for the Bridge; some, that they should
ride a great deal more, if it were not for the Bridge; one,
that while his business is on one side of the water, he
should like to live on the other, but cannot because of the
Bridge; ladies, visiting on the opposite side of the river, are
always in haste to return before sunset, on account of the
Bridge. So business and pleasure, in innumerable forms,
seem to be interrupted by this structure. This feeling, of
course, Richard had not been long enough in the neighborhood
to understand or to share. But the other popular impression,
which indeed is connected with the first, he did,
in some degree, though perhaps unconsciously, entertain;
this, — that the Bridge is useful as a shelter from storms,

from cold, and from the intense heat of summer. It has this
credit with the people; a passive credit, a credit bestowed
without the least idea of desert on its part; an accidental
good, wholly aside from the original design of the thing,
which it cannot help but bestow, and which it would not
bestow, if it could help. It is as if, in this vale of winds
and rain, the Bridge were a little arbor one side of the
way, to which the weary pilgrim can betake himself. So,
in summer, when the mercury is at ninety, or at any time
in a storm, or when the roads are muddy, you will see people
hastening to the Bridge; wagons are driven faster, and
foot-people increase their momentum. “We shall soon be
at the Bridge,” they say; or, “Here is the Bridge; I do not
care, now.” Umbrellas are furled, cloaks are loosened, feet
cleaned, and there is a smile of contentment and of home
in all faces, as soon as they reach that pavilion.

How fine a refuge it was from the hurtling snow, how
admirably it was adapted to protect one in this extremity of
the season, how dry and warm it was, what a convenient
place to take breath in; — this Richard felt. He had this
feeling even deeper than most folk. Blinded as he was by
the storm, tired by his long journey, lonely in feeling, knowing
no one, harrowed a little by the dark intimations that
had accosted him just as he got into the City, even the small
lamp that glimmered aloft had a friendly eye; and he overflowed
with gratitude to the little twinkler that worked so
patiently and so hopefully in the deathlike, skeleton ribs of
the edifice; and as he seated himself on a sill, since he did
not know anybody in particular, and had not participated in
those feelings to which we have referred, he thanked God
for the Bridge. The tramping of horse-feet, grating of
sleigh-runners, and buzz of lively voices, were heard in the
darkness; and immediately there passed near him an empty

sleigh, driven by a man on foot, and four or five men and
women, likewise walking.

“Horrid!” exclaimed one. “What a place for robbers!”
cried another. “I had rather face it out there,” added a
third, jerking his head towards the gate, “than have my
shins barked here.” “I think the lecturer might have spent
a few evenings in a bridge like this,” interposed a fourth;
“it corresponds to his ideas of Gothic architecture. There
is the dimness, awe, and faint religious light; and there is
no place where one is so reverential, or walks so circumspectly,
as here.” These were young people, returning
from the Athenæum, and among them were members of
the Governor's Family, — a name that appears on our title-page;
and these observations fell from them while they
waited for the gate to be opened. “What is that by the
post?” exclaimed one. “A drunken man!” echoed another.
The ladies faintly screamed, and rushed towards the gate.
“You are mistaken,” said Richard, calmly, but a grain
piqued. His tone and manner recalled the young folk to
their senses, and not the least to a sense of injustice toward
a stranger; and they all stopped and looked towards him.
The light of the lamp revealed brotherly faces of young
men, and gentle faces of young women, and Richard spoke
freely. “I am very tired,” he said; “I have walked forty
miles since breakfast, and I was glad to sit here. But you
alarm me. Is this such a horrid place?” “No, indeed,”
replied one of the girls; it was the Governor's daughter
Melicent, that spoke. “We are addicted to scandalizing
the Bridge, just as one finds fault with his best friends.”

“I do not mean that,” answered Richard, “but all through
here — what is about you here — this neighborhood?”

“There are rum-shops hereabouts, and there is the foot
of Knuckle Lane,” said a young man.

“I did not see them,” replied Richard.

“We live in St. Agnes-street,” said one of the females,
laughing very hard, “and you may have passed our houses,
the minister's, the Governor's, and all. And we all belong
here. I hope you don't think evil of us.”

“I was warned of evil hereabouts,” responded Richard.
“But I am sure I have nothing to fear from you.”

“Melicent! Barbara!” cried the laughing voice, “has he
anything to fear from you?”

“I have been misunderstood,” said Richard, laughing in
turn. “But really I have had as pure religious feeling,
while I have been resting myself on this bridge, as I ever
enjoyed, notwithstanding your slight and caricature of the
spot.”

“Benjamin!” cried the same bright voice, “defend yourself;
it is your ribaldry the young man has overheard.”

“We have come from a lecture on Architecture,” said
Benjamin Dennington; “and the rest is obvious. Fantastic
associations are awakened here.”

“You will not say,” answered Richard, “that religious
sentiment is fantastic!” This was seriously said, and the
company became silent when he spoke. “I mean,” he
added, “may not religious feeling be as pure in this place,
at this hour, as in any place at any hour?”

“Certainly, certainly,” said Melicent. “But who are you
that says this?”

“I am Richard Edney,” said our friend. “I am seeking
employment; can turn my hand to almost anything; would
like a chance in a saw-mill. Can you tell me where Asa
Munk lives?”

“I cannot,” said Benjamin; and none of them could. “I
am shivering with the cold,” said the laughing one, “and I
would advise the young man to learn better manners than

to sit here and scare folks in the night.” “I should think
he might find some place more suitable for his devotions,”
added one of the girls. “Perhaps a mill-log would be as
agreeable for him to kneel upon as a hassock,” continued
the laughing one.

“I fear this is a bad place,” said Richard. “Farewell to
you all, gentle ladies,” he added, and went on his way.

“May it fare well with you!” rejoined Melicent Dennington,
sending her voice after him.

Richard crossed the Bridge, and by dint of information
plucked from the few people abroad at that time, he made
his way to a story-and-a-half white house, with doric pilasters,
that stood near the bank of the River, just above the
first dam.

He went in at the front door without ringing, traversed
with a quiet step the narrow, dark entry, and let himself
into the kitchen, where he knew he should find his friends.
He was evidently looked for, and warmly welcomed; his
sister embraced him affectionately, and his brother-in-law
shook his hand very cordially. They were sitting in front
of the stove, near a large table drawn to the centre of the
room, on which burned two well-trimmed lamps. His sister
was mending a child's garment; his brother was smoking,
and reading a newspaper. These people were about thirty
years of age; his sister had dark eyes and hair, and a face
that had once been handsome, but it now wore a sallow and
anxious expression; she was neatly dressed in dark-sprigged
calico. The brother-in-law, or Munk, as everybody called
him, had a freer look, and more sprightly bearing. He had
a small, twinkling, blue eye, a long, good-humored chin, and
slender, sorel whiskers. He wore a stout teamster's frock,
girded at the waist. If a shadow of seriousness sometimes

stole over him, it was instantly dissipated, or illumined, by
a cheerful voice and a jocund laugh.

Richard laid off his pack and over-coat. “Do not shake
off the snow here, brother,” said his sister; “let Asa take
the things into the shed.”

Richard took off his boots, and sank into the rocking-chair
his sister drew up for him, with his feet bolstered on
the clean and bright stove-hearth. As he has now got out
of the storm and his storm-gear, and looks like himself, our
readers would like to know how he looks. He, like his
sister, had dark eyes and hair; his features were comely, his
forehead was fairly proportioned, his eyebrows were distinct
and well placed, his mouth was small, and his teeth white.
His predominant expression was cheerfulness, frankness,
earnestness. He had what some would call an intellectual
look; and, judging from the contour of his head, one would
see that he possessed a modicum of moral qualities. His
cheeks were browned by the weather, but his forehead preserved
a belt of skin of remarkable whiteness. He was of
medium height, and his body was strongly built, and in all
its members very regularly disposed. He wore a red shirt,
and a roundabout, sometimes called a monkey-jacket. His
coat, vest and pantaloons, were of a dark, stout cloth, which
his mother had evidently manufactured, as she possibly had
been the tailoress of her son.

His sister hastened supper for him; she toasted the bread,
cut fresh slices of corned beef, and prepared a cup of fragrant,
hot tea. They all sat round the table, and each had
many inquiries to make, and many to answer; and many
details of home, and friends, and life, to dilate upon. The
supper was abundant, and freely eaten, but it was not satisfying;
an uneasiness remained—so much so, that, although
Richard resumed his chair by the stove, he could not sit in

it. He looked from side to side of the kitchen, and at last
thrust his head into a partly-opened door, that led into the
bed-room. “Not to-night,” whispered his sister, earnestly.
“I must,” said Richard. “Let him, Roxy,” said Munk.
“I must see them,” said Richard. “You will wake them,”
replied his sister. “I have made it a rule not to have
them waked after they have once been put to sleep. It will
get them into bad habits, and they have troubled me about
going to bed.” “I will not wake them,” added Richard,
pushing himself still further into the room. “Only let me
see them; let me have a light, that I may look at them.”
“Not on any account!” exclaimed his sister. “I always
said, if ever I had a child, it should not be waked up after
it was put to sleep.” But he seized a lamp, which his
brother, despite the remonstrances of Roxy, handed him, and
shading it with his fingers, went into the room. Munk followed,
and leaned upon the door-post, with much fatherly
fondness, and perhaps some brotherly pride. His sister
went too, plainly with the expectation of beholding her predictions
verified, and with the desire, also, of having displayed
before the eyes of her husband the consequences
she had so often denounced. What appeared? Two little
children, snugly asleep in their truckle-bed; two girls they
were,—one about four years old, the other of a year and a
half. Two beautiful cherub heads were all that could be
seen, and if they were not truly alive, they might have been
taken for the best of sculpture. The hair of the oldest one
had been treated with a cap, which had fallen off; and that
of the youngest was free and loose, soft, silvery, and running
every way in little shining curls, and half-formed natural ringlets.
“I see,” said the mother. “So do I,” said the uncle, as,
holding the lamp over his head, he stooped towards the
sweet, tempting faces. “You mean to wake them!” cried
the mother. “I mean to kiss them,” responded Richard.
“Let him,” whispered the father. “It is impossible,” said
the mother; “it is contrary to all the rules I have laid down
for the children, and what Mrs. Mellow said.” “I will not
do that,” added Richard; and, making an effort, he did not;
but hovered about the faces of the children, put his mouth
towards one, and then the other, and kissed the air between,
as if that was sweet enough; experimented with the light
on this side and on that, to get every possible view of them;
with his thumb and finger took hold of the little velvety
hands, that lay over the quilt. “Did they not know I was
coming?” he asked. “They have talked about nothing
else all day,” replied his brother; “Memmy asks about
Uncle Richard; Bebby can't articulate, but she mows and
winks, and knows all about it.” “They have the promise
of seeing you in the morning,” said his sister, “and went
quietly to sleep on that.” The children slumbered on,
undisturbed alike by the storm above the roof, and the
deep anxieties and affections that were shaking beneath.
“Mother sent them some cakes and apples; they are in my
luggage. I should love to give them to them to-night.”

“How foolish you are, brother!” said Roxy. “I would
not have them eat such things, just before going to bed, for
the world.”

But Richard got the apples, large and rosy, which he
held insinuatingly before the closed eyes of the children;
pleased himself with imagining how they would like to eat
them; put them close to their cheeks, as it were comparing
colors; and, when he had finished this pantomime, laid them
on the coverlid in front of their mouths; and they left the
room.

This slight ripple of discord having spent itself, their
hearts returned to their old and proper level of kindness and

brotherly feeling. They resumed their seats by the fire,
which burned briskly and noisily. Roxy took her sewing;
Munk leaned back against the wall, with his feet on a
round of his wife's chair, and continued to smoke; and
Richard, by the warmth of his heart, as well as that of the
fire, tried to subdue the chills with which a long walk in
the open air had infused his system.

“I do not doubt,” said Roxy, “that Richard loves the
children, and that their father does; but you are very injudicious.”

“Perhaps I was hasty,” said Richard.

“I believe I shall go to California,” said Munk. This
last remark was evidently thrown in, not to aid conversation,
or even to decoy it, but to quench it altogether, when
it happened to take a disagreeable turn.

Richard went to bed. His chamber — such as a story-and-a-half
house affords — was small and low, with sloped
ceiling, but plastered, papered, and quite convenient. It
contained a looking-glass, side-table, and fireplace. The
single window of which it could boast looked out upon the
River, and a beautiful landscape beyond. The bed was soft
and warm; and, after offering his evening thanksgiving to
the Giver of all good, exhausted and weary, our young
friend sank into a sound sleep.

Early in the morning, he was aroused by the clamor of
voices at his bed-side; there stood the disputed little ones,
in their night-gowns, each with an apple in its hands, with
which they were pummeling the face of their uncle, and at
the same time making very awkward attempts to clamber
into the bed. One of them, as the father said, could talk,
and the other could make a noise; but neither lacked the
power of rendering itself intelligible. Their uncle lifted
them up, and had them on either side of him, where he

kissed and embraced their tender bodies to his heart's content.
But they were not for lying there. They mounted
his neck and shoulders; they took all sorts of liberty with
his nose and eyes, and ended with an endeavor to drag
him from the bed. He yielded to the children what the
storm could not accomplish, and came almost headlong to
the floor. Presently, taking Bebby in his arms, and mounting
Memmy on his back, he went below.