The fountain and the bottle comprising thrilling examples of the opposite effects of temperance and intemperance |
 |
 | DOCTOR GRAY AND HIS DAUGHTER. |
| 1. |
| 2. |
| 3. |
|
 | The fountain and the bottle |  |
DOCTOR GRAY AND HIS DAUGHTER.
By J. R. Orton.
1. CHAPTER I.
There is something lovely in the name of sister,
and its utterance rarely fails to call up the warm affections
of the gentle heart. The thoughts that circle
round it are all quiet, beautiful and pure. Passion
has no place with its associations. The hopes and
fears of love, those strong emotions, powerful enough
to shatter and extinguish life itself, find no home there,
The bride is the star, the talisman of the heart, the diamond
above all price, bright and blazing in the noonday
sun; a sister, the gem of milder light, calm as the
mellow moon, and set in a coronet of pearls.
It was late in the Autumn of 18—, when a small
party of young gentlefolks were assembled at the mansion
of Doctor Gray, in one of the principal streets of
the city of Boston. The house was large, and well
furnished; and all the arrangements for the little fete,
and the fete itself were conducted with that simplicity
and propriety, which are ever the evidences of taste
and delicacy. At a moderate hour, the happy guests
departed, pleased with the hostess, the entertainment,
and with themselves. One only lingered behind, a
upon the drawing-room door, in conversation with
Mrs. Gray, and her young, charming daughter. Mrs.
Gray remarked that it was still early, and that Henrietta
and herself would sit up for the Doctor; and
his own wishes thus seconded, the young man again
resumed his chair.
Henrietta Gray, at this period, was thirteen, half-girl,
and half-woman; an age when the maiden stops
in her childish sports, and wonders why they have
always interested her so deeply; and as she muses,
sees in the distance, fairy palaces, and green and flowery
banks, and smooth, translucent rivers—the thorns
and rough waves of the future all blissfully hidden
from her. She was not handsome: her features were
not regular, her face was too pale, her form too slight.
But then the combined expression of the whole was
pleasing. Her eyes were a liquid blue, her countenance
intelligent; and, above all, kindness beamed in
every feature; and when she spoke, her voice was like
the soothing ripple of a gentle stream.
Arthur Blane, the youth who had secured a few additional
minutes for the enjoyment of Henrietta's society,
was about two years her senior; a fair-haired, rosy
lad, of modest manners; who, as he finally bade her
good night, looked into her eyes and trembled; and
his voice sunk to a cadence almost as mellow as her
own; so true it is, that gentleness begets gentleness,
and tends to subdue all things to itself.
But Arthur Blane's footsteps had hardly died away
on the stairs, when they were heard again in a rapid
and her mother, pale and affrighted, in a few broken
words, but tenderly as possible, he informed them
that an accident had befallen the Doctor. The brief
announcement was hardly ended, when the ghastly
person of Doctor Gray, senseless and bleeding, was
borne into the house. The explanation of the casualty
was, that in returning from a professional visit, in
a dark and narrow street, his carriage had been overturned
by striking against a post.
The sudden transformation of Doctor Gray's elegant
and happy mansion to a house of mourning; the wild
grief of Mrs. Gray, the heart-broken sighs of Henrietta;
and the attempts of Arthur Blane, and other
friends hastily summoned at midnight, with consternation
pictured in their faces to administer hope and
consolation; the Doctor's gradual return to consciousness;
and the doubts and apprehensions of his
medical attendants as to the final result; are of a nature
too painful to dwell on. Suffice it, that with the
morning the family were permitted to hope; and the
Doctor entered on a period of slow and painful convalescence.
Doctor Gray was, or had been, one of the most
skilful and popular physicians of the city. He was
now fifty years old; and, unfortunately having remained
a bachelor until thirty-five, during the period
of his single life he had acquired habits of conviviality
and late hours, which he had never found the
resolution to abandon. He was in the main a kind
husband, and an affectionate parent; but as evil habits,
to vanquish, so the Doctor's relish for the glee club
and the bottle had grown upon him, until it had nearly
made its last demand, in a claim for his life.
Another evil had still followed in the wake of the
Doctor's course of life. It lost him the confidence of
his friends; and for several years, while the expenses
of his family had been increasing, his business had
been diminishing. His accident, and the confinement
of several months which followed, turned the attention
of his creditors to the condition of his affairs;
and his wife and children reduced to beggary.
At this distressing period in the history of the
Gray family, the Doctor and his three younger
children suddenly disappeared; and no trace of them
could be discovered. After a time of wonder,
of grief and despair, Mrs. Gray and Henrietta, the
sole remaining members of the household, retired
to cheap and narrow quarters in the suburbs of the
town, where the mother, overcome by the successive
shocks of her severe destiny, sunk into a condition
of imbecility.
Not so with Henrietta. Though a shadow rested
on her pale face, and the sorrows of her young life
had sunk deeply into her heart, a kind Providence
had not suffered her to be broken by their unusual
weight. She was still gentle as ever, but misfortune
is rapid in the development of character; and to
gentleness were now added an unlooked-for fortitute
and energy. Her mother, entirely incapable of effort,
and herself, were to be fed. She laid her case at the
foot of Omnipotence, and received strength. Friends,
it is true, were kind; and some relations there were,
who did not utterly forget the bereaved ones in their
affliction; but, in the main, the wants of both mother
and daughter were now to be supplied, and, for a period
of weary months and years, were supplied by the
labours of Henrietta. When not occupied with the care
of her sick parent, her needle was in active requisition:
and early and late she toiled, and toiled cheerfully, for
bread; and thanked God that it was daily given her
Among her kind friends, none were more constant
or thoughtful than Mr. and Mrs. Blane. Neither did
Arthur forget her; and to the great scandal of the
prying ones, he divided the leisure of his college
vacation pretty equally between his father's
and the homely tenement of the Grays; and as
he was an only son, of large expectations, to the
further scandal of the gossips, his parents seemed to
view his conduct with a total unconcern. Indeed, in
these visits, his mother was almost his constant companion.
When not diversified with the society of these
friends, life, with Henrietta, presented little else than
one unvarying toilsome round. Her household duties,
her struggle for sustenance, and her care of her half
idiotic and often captious parent, occupied her hands,
her thoughts, and her heart; and yet she had room
for other sorrows; and withal, was not unhappy.
The inscrutable and mysterious fate of her father and
her little brothers, was of itself a burden hard to be
borne: and yet, with all these causes of depression
bearing upon her, the consciousness of a daily effort
to perform her duty, and above all, an humble and sincere
reliance on the goodness and care of Heaven,
lightened her heart and her footsteps, and clothed her
brow with serenity. While the ills of life are scattered
with great apparent irregularity, its happiness is
dispensed with far more equal balance than is generally
imagined.
Nearly four years thus wore away, when the thread
of life, which for some months had been growing
weaker and weaker with Mrs. Gray, parted; and
were with her in her affliction; and crowned their
generous kindness by offering her a home. The sympathies
of her own relatives, too, were so far awakened
by this last event, and the desolate condition of
the stricken orphan, that her aunt Totten made her a
like offer, which, for obvious reasons, Henrietta preferred
to accept. Her rooms were accordingly given
up, the humble furniture disposed of, and she became
domesticated at her aunt's.
About a month after this event, Mrs. Totten's servant,
one morning, left a couple of letters at Mr.
Blane's. One was addressed to Mrs. Blane, and the
other to Arthur; and they proved to be from Henrietta.
The one to Arthur was unsealed, and as follows:
“Dear Arthur,—At a moment like this, when I am
about to be separated from you for a time, and possibly
for ever, no feeling of delicacy must prevent my
treating you with the frankness due to your noble and
generous nature. That I love you, you will not
doubt; and I am ready, so far as my heart is concerned,
to become your wife. But I have first another
and imperative duty to discharge. My inquiries after
my lost father and brothers, have at length, as I have
reason to believe, been crowned with success. I must
go to them. Do not seek to follow me, or to trace
me out; and if Heaven preserve me, the devotion of
my life shall repay you. But if this be too hard, dear
Arthur, take back your plighted troth, and be only my
brother again.”
When these letters arrived, Arthur Blane was absent
from the city; and on his return, he hastened to
Mrs. Totten's. From that discreet lady he obtained
little additional intelligence. Henrietta was gone;
but where, if she was in possession of the secret, Mrs.
Totten was too guarded to disclose. His inquiries at
the several stage offices and elsewhere, with a view
to ascertain the direction she had taken, were equally
unsuccessful; and as this hope faded, gradually Arthur
Blane's handsome and happy face assumed a lengthened
and woe-begone expression. As months rolled
away, he sunk into a nervous listlessness, which assumed,
in the lapse of years during which he heard
nothing from his betrothed, more and more the
character of moroseness. His only relief was in travel;
and what excited a much greater amount of
remark was the circumstance that his parents, in their
old age, were also seized with a mania to see the
world. During these peregrinations, the three, often
in company, visited most of the towns in New England,
explored a large part of New York, and penetrated,
at several points, the interminable West beyond.
2. CHAPTER II.
The scene of our little history now changes to the
small village of K—, in the interior of the State of
New York: the period, about two years after the
sudden disappearance of Dr. Gray and his children
from Boston. The village was of no great pretension.
It lay in a wide valley encompassed by massive,
but not abrupt hills; and to the south and east flowed
small meandering rivers. It was of sufficient age to
be free from stumps, and the immediate enroachments
of the forests; possessed an air of thrift and comfort,
several respectable tenements, and a goodly number
of neat white cottages, surrounded with ample grounds
and embosomed in shrubbery. But it was laid out
absolutely without plan. Its principal street was
thrice the width usually granted to avenues of the
kind; and from its northern extremity, in wild irregularity,
diverged other streets towards every conceivable
point of the compass. Its principal ornaments,
in the way of buildings, were its churches and halls
of learning. Two respectable structures, one of stone
and the other of brick, were devoted to the purposes
of an academy; while several massive collegiate edifices
crowned a hill at the south. The “Brick academy,”
the germ of two noble institutions of learning,
in the poverty of a new settlement, had been built
and sustained as a classic school through its infancy,
inhabitants of the place. These, it is hardly
necessary to add, were staid New-Englanders.
It was spring-time, and the buds and foliage of village
and country were just bursting into a rejoicing
green,—when, one morning, the inhabitants of K—
became aware of an accession to their numbers. A
little dilapidated hovel, standing on a common, and
for a long period untenanted, had during the night
been accommodated with occupants. A poor broken-down
horse, hitched to a broken weather-beaten cart,
stood by the shattered door-way; and an elderly,
square-built man, was endeavouring, with refuse
boards and paper, to patch up the open windows. In
the appearance of this individual there was something
peculiar. He wore a faded lion-skin coat, of large
dimensions, and enormous pockets; and an old slouched
hat to match. He was of middle height, but thickset
and muscular; with a most massive chest and
head. His face was pale and wrinkled, surmounted
with a heavy Roman nose, and shaded by an abundance
of short grizzly hair. His eyebrows were
heavy and projecting, and beneath them were a pair
of cold, keen, gray eyes. His head he carried a little
on one side, as though his neck was stiff; and all his
movements were made with great deliberation, and
an obtrusive self-possession. His companions—for
he was not alone—were three lads of, perhaps, twelve,
ten, and eight years of age, ragged and filthy, without
shoes or hats; their long, tangled locks sticking
out in every direction, and bleached almost white by
enough, such as they were, to cover their nakedness.
The eldest was robust in appearance; the next in
size less so; while the youngest was painfully frail.
It is, perhaps needless to say, that these individuals
were Doctor Gray and his children. He had
consented to the loss of his standing in life, and to
the disruption and degradation of his family, as he
flattered himself, from a feeling of excusable pride;
an inability to brave the reverses of fortune amid the
scenes of his prosperity, and to bear up under the
sneers of rivals and the pity of sunshine friends.
But had he probed his heart deeper, he would have
discovered there a consciousness, that in order to
regain his lost ground and retrieve his fortunes, it
was necessary for him to relinquish the bottle; and
that for a sacrifice so great as this, he was not quite
ready—not yet. It is unnecessary to trace him
through the two years of intervening time. Suffice
it, that he had changed his place of abode more than
once, each time sinking lower in the scale of respectability;
until the little remnant of availables he had
managed to smuggle from the city having become
exhausted, he and his children were reduced to the
condition in which they have been described.
The inhabitants of K— looked on him with some
wonder and curiosity, but nobody molested him: and
soon he came to be known, on what authority no one
exactly knew, as Doctor Glegg. Ere long, the hut he
occupied became a charmed precinct to all the children;
for the door was kept carefully closed against
of glass in any one of them; or other contrivance
for the admission of light, save a few straggling
patches of oiled paper. Stolen glimpses, it is true,
had been caught by the more curious of the urchins,
through the door-way, of a box, or large chest; and,
it was cautiously whispered around, and, at length
among the grown-up and gray-headed children of
the place, that Doctor Glegg was a miser; and that
the chest in question contained his gold.
But the Doctor was poor enough; so poor, that his
miserable and cheerless tenement was rarely out of
the reach of absolute want. Indeed, it is surprising
how he and his wretched children managed to live at
all. Unfitted by the habits of his life for manual
labour; and maintaining, even in his most abject degradation,
a sort of personal respect, which forbade a
resort to menial offices, his sphere of exertion was
limited. Instead, therefore, of resorting to days'
works, he planted patches of corn and potatoes, on
shares; and secured a little hay in the same manner,
for the benefit of his famished horse; and in place of
the carriage to which he had been accustomed, he rode
to and from his fields in his cart; while his elfin boys
scoured the commons for refuse wood, and, bare-headed
and bare legged, waded and fished in the
streams.
As time passed on, Doctor Glegg became more and
more an object of curiosity. It was evident to all,
that he was intemperate; but he was never seen
drunk, and was never vulgar or profane. It was
and that his conversation was a singular mixture of
wit and wisdom, of bombast and simplicity, according
to the circumstances under which he was accosted.
With men of sense he talked sense; with scholars, he
was scholastic; with fools, bombastic; and to those
who pressed him with an impertinent curiosity, he
was utterly unintelligible. To the last class his replies
were somewhat after this sort:
“Mon Dieu! man is a curious biped, made up of
the most heterogeneous and incomprehensible parts.
Procul! procul! scat! Neither him nor his concomitants
have I any desire to know; but consign them
all, in one conglomerated mass, to the crocus acclicatus
of the common cant.”
Others, however, who fell into casual conversation
with him, and did not attempt to pry into his circumstances,
or the events of his life found his mind well
stored with a variety of information, which he was
capable of imparting in forcible and appropriate language.
A student of the Academy having politely
accosted him, Dr. Gray said,
“You are in pursuit of knowledge, my young sir:
and among all the attainments after which the scholar
should strive, nothing is more important than a just
appreciation of his mother tongue. Allow me to inquire
of you, what is the chief element of good composition?”
“Simplicity,” replied the student.
“The question is well answered,” continued the
doctor; “De Witt Clinton himself could not have replied
and then to make the communication in
just those exact words necessary to convey the whole
idea, constitute the chief excellence of style.”
A rough person, having taken it upon himself to
abuse Dr. Gray, and to heap on him a volume of oaths
and profane epithets, the old man listened for some
time in silence. At length he quietly remarked:
“Sir, you cannot swear.”
“Swear, old curmudgeon!—what do you mean?”
“It requires sense, sir,” continued the doctor, “to
swear. You may use the words, but you cannot
swear.”
Thus lived, or rather existed, Dr. Gray and his
children in the village of K—, for a period of two
years; when an event occurred which wrought a gradual
change in their condition. There arrived in the
stage from the East, a pale and delicate, but sweeteyed
young woman, dressed in deep black; who, having
attended to the safe disposition of her baggage at
the hotel, inquired for the residence of the Rev. Mr.
Trimble. It was shown to her, and she at once bent
her steps in that direction.
The stranger lady approached the dwelling of the
clergyman, not without trepidation. Brushing an
unbidden tear from her eye, she raised the knocker
with a shaking hand, but her heart and her determination
were constant, for it was none other than Henrietta
Gray. She found Mr. Trimble at home; and
more than that, a kind and feeling man. She
told to him her little story, and exhibited to him her
Boston, as a voucher for her honesty, if, indeed, any
thing else were wanting than her sweet countenance
and modest deportment.
The good man entered heartily into the object of
her mission; informed her that Dr. Glegg and the
three children were still in K—; and from his account
of them, she became more fully confirmed in
the supposition that they were no other than her lost
father and brothers. To change probability into a
certainty, however, with a small daughter of Mr.
Trimble as her cicerone, she strolled into the quarter
of the village where stood Dr. Glegg's hut,—and saw
and recognized her parent. She also passed quite
near one or two of the boys; but in their changed
condition, she failed to discover any thing which bore
resemblance to the well-fed, well-clothed, and happy
children she had known. In great agitation of feeling,
she returned to Mr. Trimble's house; and accepted
a cordial invitation from him and his kind
lady, to pass the night with them.
3. CHAPTER III.
On the following morning Henrietta found herself
refreshed from the fatigues of her journey, and in a
condition of mind and body to proceed in the accomplishment
of her purposes. Her new friend, Mr.
Trimble, introduced her at once into a highly respectable
family, where she took a room and board; and
himself arranged an interview between her and her
brothers. Her baggage was hardly transported from
the hotel to her new quarters, before they arrived:
and ragged and filthy as they were, were clasped
over and over again to her heart, and bathed in her
tears.
She found them as wild as the untamed colts of the
desert. Dick, the eldest, after some little conversation,
remembered her; and she perceived, on studying
his countenance, that some of his former features
remained. But with the others, William and Henry,
there was no recognition on either side; and the two
little fellows endured her caresses in sullen silence,
as though in doubt of the whole proceeding.
An hour was devoted to the joy and sorrow of the
meeting; and then Henrietta assisted her brothers to
cleanse themselves, bathing them thorougly from head
to foot, and cutting and smoothing their matted hair.
This done, she put on her bonnet, and taking them
by the hand, walked out into the business street of
them with hats and shoes, and purchased cloth for
garments, all of a cheap but substantial quality, appropriate
to their condition: and telling them to come
again on the morrow, with good advice and soothing
words of encouragement and tenderness, she sent
them home.
For a large part of the succeeding night, Henrietta,
happy, and even joyous, plied her busy needle;
and on the following day, several of the garments
came from her hand, finished; but the children did
not appear. Restless in consequence as the night
approached, she walked into the street, and naturally
turned her footsteps towards the quarter where they
resided. From the first she would gladly have seen
her father, and have included him directly in her
mission of love and mercy. But this she feared to do.
He had never been familiar with his children; she
well understood the pride and selfish stubbornness of
his character; and in studying her plans, she had determined
it safest for their success, not to intrude upon
him, but to leave him to make the first advances, or
to chance, to bring them together. She suspected
that he had forbidden the children to see her, but for
this she was prepared. Passing the hut, she discovered
Dick in the road beyond, and accosting him,
learned that her suspicions were correct. Her father
on hearing of her presence in K—, and interview
with her brothers, had manifested considerable uneasiness,
and peremptorily forbidden them to see her
again. Placing the garments she had brought in her
father would recall the prohibition, and even that he
would soon allow her to see him; and retired.
But the next day brought no change; and on the
following morning, having completed the rest of the
garments, she again walked towards the hut. This
time she found her father in the road, harnessing his
poor old horse, and was obliged either to turn back,
or to pass him. She chose the latter alternative; and
as she came near, he turned suspiciously upon her,
regarded her coldly and sternly, but without speaking
Greatly agitated, Henrietta extended her arms towards
him, and uttered the word “father.”
Dr. Gray turned away, and walked to his door.
“My dear father!” said she, in the most beseeching
tones, “will you not own me?”
Dr. Gray leaned against the gate, with his back
towards her, apparently as much affected as herself.
He shook as though with an ague fit, and with a
strong effort at last managed to say, in a broken, hollow
voice:
“Go away! I know you not, and will not know
you!”
Poor Henrietta hung her gifts for her outcast
brothers upon the broken fence near her wretched
father, and departed with a sad heart. But her constancy
was rewarded. That afternoon her little
brothers were permitted to visit her again; and from
that time forward their intercourse was uninterrupted.
Soon she had all her plans for their benefit in successful
operation. Her industry and skill with her needle,
which surrounded her, gave her an abundance
of employment; her three brothers spent much of
each day with her; and as she worked, she heard
their lessons, conversed with them, and gave them
instruction, so far as she was able, in every department
of knowledge which she deemed necessary to
their success in life. Her little workshop became a
school of the most practical and valuable kind.
Neither did Henrietta forget her father, or cease
her efforts to ameliorate his condition. Though she
held no direct intercourse with him, through her
prudently-exerted influence he was induced to remove
to more comfortable quarters, where she managed to
surround him with most of the necessaries, and
eventually, to supply him with many of the little
comforts of life, to which, latterly, he had been a
stranger. She even visited his rooms in his absence,
attended to their cleanliness, and conferred upon
them those little graces and finishing touches which
woman alone can bestow. She also attended to his
wardrobe, kept it in repair, and added to it, from time
to time, as her own means permitted, and his wants
required. He, meanwhile, though he still refused to
see her, regarded her, not in his superficial mind so
clearly, but in his innermost soul, as a ministering
angel,—and blessed her.
Thus nearly three years passed away. During
this time Henrietta had several times heard from her
aunt Totten, and through her of the uneasiness of her
good friends, the Blanes. This she deeply regretted,
sense of propriety and duty permitted. But to have
informed them of her plans would have been to
defeat them. It is not to be supposed that Arthur
Blane would have consented to remain in quiet expectancy
of a wife while she should devote two or three
years of her life to the care of her dissolute and thankless
father, and to the uncertain task of rescuing and
reclaiming her vagabond brothers. Yet to the mind
of Henrietta, when she had once succeeded in discovering
where they were, this was her first duty;
in comparison with which, all else, her own hopes
and prospects in life, and even the temporary happiness
of him she loved most faithfully and deeply sunk
into insignificance. In the rescuing and training of
those helpless children, there was a great work to be
done; and to her it was clear, that it belonged to herself,
their sister, and the eldest, to do it; and further,
that if she shrunk from the undertaking, it never
would be accomplished. So strong in the consciousness
of the rectitude of her heart and her actions, she
looked back without regret, if not always without sorrow,
as she thought of her almost dissipated dream of
life and love with Arthur Blane; and forward with
that cheering hope which the just and trustful have
in heaven.
At this period Dr. Gray was prostrated by a sudden
stroke of paralysis, and Henrietta hesitated no longer.
She hastened to his bedside, and gave him the watchful
care and tender solicitude of a daughter. He never
recovered sufficiently to speak; but he knew her, and
expressed his gratitude by mute signs; and pressing
her hand in his, expired.
This event released Henrietta from a necessary confinement
to the village of K—. Her brothers were
now greatly improved; and, under her skilful training,
had made respectable advances in manners,
morals, and education. They had proved apt pupils,
with kind and affectionate natures; and their sister's
unwonted love and purity had assimilated them much
and readily to herself. But in case of her own return,
she did not propose to take them to the city. A
country life she considered most conducive to their
about providing them with suitable homes. Dick
chose to be a farmer; and William and Henry, now
grown into robust lads, selected mechanical occupations.
Aided by the kindness and interest of the
most respectable citizens of K—, good places were
soon found, and the boys were properly bestowed.
The death of her father was announced by Henrietta
to her aunt Totten very soon after its occurrence;
and that hitherto discreet lady at once “took
the responsibility” of consulting the Blanes as to the
future movements of her niece. The consequence of
this unauthorized proceeding was the arrival in the
village of K—, in a very few days, of a barouche,
containing the whole Blane family. Arthur's handsome
face, so his mother declared, within a week, had
shed a most solemn bevy of incipient wrinkles, and
shortened half an inch; and the crimson which mantled
on the cheek of Henrietta, as they met, did not,
by any means, detract from the graces of her meek,
but now blooming and mature beauty.
A day or two later, through the agency of the
Blanes, who all at once became active in the affairs
of the little village of K—, a council was held at
the Rev. Mr. Trimble's at which it was decided,
that, under the peculiar circumstances of the present
case, it was meet and proper that Henrietta Gray
should return to Boston in no other capacity than as
Mrs. Arthur Blane. On the morning of their departure,
accordingly, the marriage ceremony was solemnized.
The principal personages in this little history, we
believe, are still living. Henrietta is a happy wife,
surrounded with an interesting family; and her three
brothers, who have learned so well to know the depth
and purity of a sister's love, are respectable and
thriving citizens of one of the western States.
| The fountain and the bottle | |