Northwood; or, Life north and south :: :: University of Virginia Library

Thus, sometimes, hath the brightest day a cloud;
And after summer, evermore succeeds
The barren winter, with his wrathful cold:
So cares and joys abound, as seasons fleet.

King Henry VI.

The story of Sidney's generosity soon circulated
through the neighborhood, and produced what the fashionables
would call quite a sensation.

Merrill was as much esteemed for probity and industry
as Skinner was detested for his meanness and rapacity;
and though riches gave the latter the means of purchasing
many smiles, the situation of the former insured the
sympathy of all hearts. Those who would not have felt
it their duty to have assisted him, applauded his benefactor,
flattering themselves, no doubt, that to appreciate
charity was nearly as meritorious as to practice it.

There were, however, a few who felt rather mortified
that a southern man, as they considered Sidney, should
thus display his consequence—it seemed a tacit reproof
of their own illiberality, or a convincing argument of his
superior wealth. Either way it was mortifying. The
old deacon was perhaps prompted by such feelings when
he observed, very gravely, that

“Mr. Sidney Romilly knew nothing about getting
property, and it was no wonder he thought little of
spending it or giving it away. But I should like,” continued
he, “to see him work a few years as hard as his
negroes do, and then I guess he'd keep his money, if he
had any, in his own pocket.”

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But the sweetest praise Sidney received was from Dr.
Perkins and Annie Redington. The doctor felt every
word he uttered, and again and again congratulated Sidney
on thus having an opportunity to exhibit the noblest
virtue humanity can boast—disinterested benevolence.

Then came Annie with a blush, smile and tear, to thank
him for the example of philanthropy he had so happily
displayed. “We cannot imitate it,” said she to him as
he was sitting beside her a few days after the affair,
“but we will admire it.”

“If it secure the admiration of Miss Redington, I shall
feel amply rewarded,” replied Sidney, fixing his dark
eyes on her animated face.

She felt her cheek glow, and angry with herself for
blushing so easily, raised her eyes, intending to reply
gaily to his compliment, but when they met his she forgot
her answer, and might in her confusion have betrayed
more sensibility than the occasion could justify, had
not their tete-a-tete been luckily interrupted by the entrance
of her uncle.

He told Sidney he had been to Skinner's store on business,
and just looked into the post-office room, where
the mail was opening, and saw a large packet for him
taken out.

“I would have paid the postage and brought it along,”
said he, “only I hadn't any money in my purse. I
don't have money quite so plenty as you do, Mr. Sidney.”

“Your cannot be more destitute than I am at present,”
replied Sidney, smiling. “The witches might now hold
their `jig and reel' as conveniently in my pockets as they
ever did in those of Burns; and if the packet you mention
has not brought a supply, I must e'en solicit a loan
to expedite my departure, or I shall be compelled to
quarter with you through the winter.”

“Well, that would suit our young folks well enough,
I guess,” replied the old deacon, with one of his significant
grins. “My niece, here, wouldn't be much sorry;
should you, Annie?”

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Annie did not dare look up, while she observed, in as
calm a manner as she could assume, “that she should be
sorry to have any one compelled to stay, but in their
limited society such an acquisition as Mr. Romilly was
certainly to be desired.”

Sidney, while warmly thanking her for the compliment,
thought he never saw her look so beautiful, and
on his way to his father's he recalled her words and manner,
and almost fancied he could, if he pleased, rival
George Cranfield.

“And yet,” thought he, “I never can be so secure of
possessing any woman's affections as Stuart was of Zemira's.
He had no fortune to conceal his defects or add
lustre to his excellencies; he was loved, well and truly
loved. O, could I be so blessed as to gain the undivided
affection of a pure and lovely being, how willingly would
I, this moment, relinquish all pretensions to my uncle's
fortune, and go forth, like Stuart, to conquer fate with a
ferule.”

Immediately on reaching home, he despatched Harvey
to the post-office, who soon returned with the letter.

“It is very large,” said the little fellow, as he handed
it to his brother. “Pray, Sidney, who gives you all
your money?”

“My uncle—he always gives me all I ask for.”

“Then I'd ask for a thousand dollars,” said the boy.

“What would you do with it, Harvey?” inquired his
father.

“O, give it to poor people, papa. Everybody is
praising Sidney for being generous, and I mean to be
generous.”

Squire Romilly sighed as he looked on the animated
face of his youngest son, and contrasted it with the noble
countenance of his eldest.

“Your disposition,” said he, addressing Sidney, “and
Harvey's are almost similar; yet I must educate him
differently from what you have been. Perhaps, however,
his happiness through life will be as well insured
as yours. If he never attain to your prosperity, he will

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not be in danger of those reverses to which you are
exposed.”

“I have never yet pondered much on the possibility
of a reverse,” said Sidney, while he pressed the rich
packet between his fingers, as if to calculate something
of the contents—and this might be pardoned, as he had
been for a few days destitute of money. “I know there
are casualties no human prudence can foresee or avoid,
and they may occur to me; yet my philosophy teaches
me it is the height of folly to anticipate evil. The man
who does so commits suicide on his own happiness.”

He then retired to his chamber to peruse his packet.

The envelope contained two letters; the one in his
uncle's hand he opened first, and stared, astonished, when
he saw it contained no money! What could it mean!

He broke the seal of the other, and a solitary hundred
dollar note was all that appeared.

He laid it down, drew a hard breath, and pressed his
lips closely together, as if nerving himself for whatever
might be recorded, and again took up his uncle's epistle.
It had no date, and the hand-writing was scarcely legible,
yet Sidney soon made out what follows:

“My ever Dear Nephew:—The sickness that oppresses
me, and which is hurrying me to the grave, is
on my heart. I am sick of the follies and vices of the
world; I am miserable when reflecting on my own. I
have longed and pined to write and confide to you all
my troubles and griefs; but I could not persuade myself
to damp the pleasures I hoped you were enjoying with
your friends.

“My physician, however, informs me I cannot long
survive. I shall never see you more, and I must write;
yet my shaking hand will scarce be commanded—and
my brain burns. Strange visions often pass before me;
my mind wanders, and I see you and hear you speak,
and say you forgive me. Will you forgive me? I never
regretted I was not blest with a son since you resided
with me. You have been all a child need be, and I was

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proud, justly proud of your merits and accomplishments,
and intended to leave you a fortune to support the style
in which I had educated you.

“Sidney, I am now a beggar, or soon should be, and
I thank God that he is in mercy removing me from a
world where nothing now remains which I can call my
own. I would tell you the circumstances of this change,
but my weakened nerves will not permit; and Henry
Howard—you know him, he is a worthy man, and you
may trust him—has promised to write you every particular,
as soon as I am gone.

“Sidney, do not blame me too severely for your disappointment—I
have erred, but I have been deceived.
I suffer more than you can, for I suffer remorse and self-reproach—remorse
for wronging you and my servants,
whom I had promised to leave to your care. When they
found they were to be transferred to a stranger, their
lamentations nearly overpowered me. If you ever have
it in your power, Sidney, remember them; they would
all die to serve you. I am weak, very weak, and when
I would collect my thoughts I cannot. I lie down and
think of a thousand things to tell you, but when I begin
to write they are vanished.

“Your father will advise you what to do; he has
always walked in the paths of wisdom, while I have
committed myself to the guidance of folly. Sidney, I
know you will mourn for me, and you will wish you
had been with me in my last moments; but I do not.
It would increase my distress to witness your sorrow,
and when the tribute is paid, which I feel assured your
kind heart will give my memory, I hope you will endeavor
to be happy. My sight fails me—farewell. O,
it is the hardest pang in death to say farewell to those
we love! God bless you, my son!—I have no inheritance
but my good wishes to leave you, but may God
bless you, and forgive me,

Your Uncle.”

After Sidney had a little recovered from the first shock
of the intelligence which this letter conveyed, he took

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the other. It was from a lawyer, a gentleman in whose
probity and honor he could implicitly confide, and who
he was certain would “nothing extenuate, nor set down
aught in malice.”

Perhaps the circumstances detailed in the letter will
be best understood by inserting the whole; and though
long, it will not be very tedious to those who feel an
interest in the fortunes of my hero.

“Charleston, Nov. 1, 18—.

My Dear Mr. Romilly:—Your uncle is no more;
and his earnest request, must be my apology for addressing
you, and detailing some of the unfortunate circumstances
which have occurred to him since you left the
city. It is an unpleasant office, and one I would gladly
have been excused from performing; but I could not
refuse Mr. Brainard, and I trust your good sense will not
confound the narrator of evil tidings with the unpleasant
intelligence he must communicate.

Perhaps you will recollect your uncle had not, for
several months before your departure, exhibited his
wonted cheerfulness. This melancholy proceeded, no
doubt, partly from ill health; but more from the anxiety
he was suffering on account of pecuniary embarrassments.
He was not addicted to extravagance, yet the
companions with whom he most associated had, by degrees,
drawn him into expensive amusements, and he
had engaged in hazards which proved unlucky, and—
for I will omit a minute detail of circumstances, which
can benefit no one by being related—in consequence
he found himself involved to such an amount that he
must sell a part of his estate to satisfy his clamorous
creditors.

The reasons he gave me for not acquainting you
with his embarrassments, were these:—He knew your
generosity would consent to any sacrifice to save him
from anxiety; but still he feared you would suffer a
mortification in thus seeing your fortune diminished,
and he loved you so entirely he could not bear to witness

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your vexation or melancholy. He knew, too, that
you had not been accustomed to business, and could
not endure your first lesson should be the humiliating
one of studying to repair his errors and miscalculations.
In short, by keeping you in ignorance he spared his own
pride and your sensibility; and he therefore urged you
to visit your friends, intending, during your absence, to
settle his affairs, and hoping—when do we cease to hope?
—that before your return he should devise some expedient
to repair his fortune, or at least prevent you from
feeling sensibly its diminution.

His whole estate you undoubtedly know he valued at
two hundred seventy-five thousand dollars; one half of
this estimate included his plantation and slaves; his city
residence and a large tract of unimproved land the other.
His debts, as nearly as he could estimate, amounted to
sixty thousand dollars. He concluded to dispose of his
city residence and wild land, pay his creditors, and, as he
saw your predilection had of late appeared for the country,
he hoped his plantation, servants, and a few thousands in
ready money, would satisfy your ambition.

Accordingly he offered his elegant house in — street
and his city lots for sale, immediately after your departure,
and soon found a purchaser. A Mr. Cox, a Philadelphian,
well known here and considered rich and
respectable, appeared and bargained for the property
without a single demur at the price. The deeds I drew
myself, and your uncle took his note for sixty days. Mr.
Cox departed for Philadelphia to procure the money, and
your uncle was arranging with his creditors and flattering
himself he should leave you an unincumbered estate,
which, though not so large as he wished, would yet insure
your independence, and be sufficient for your happiness.

But who can calculate his destiny, or claim exemption
from disappointment? Before the time fixed for the
return of Cox had expired, another gentleman from Philadelphia
arrived in our city and exhibited a deed of the
property purchased from your uncle, and insisted on possession.
The villain Cox had sold it him for twenty-five

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thousand dollars, taken the money, and absconded; and
every effort to trace him has hitherto proved unsuccessful.
Your uncle's creditors caught the alarm—creditors
are a sensitive and sympathetic race, and the panic of one
is communicated to the herd with electrical rapidity.
They brought suits by the dozen, and attachments were
laid on the plantation—nothing could satisfy their rapacity.
To prevent a public sale, your uncle, by my advice, consigned
all his effects to Owen Dunbar, Esq. Every thing
is to be valued by commissioners; Dunbar satisfies the
claimants, and whatever remains is to be paid over to
you, and you have one year to redeem your property by
repaying what the consignee advances. I cannot, however,
flatter you with the hope of receiving much; indeed
I fear there will be a deficiency. The amount of debts,
costs, and incidental expenses is more than we anticipated.

Your uncle's anxiety made his last days unhappy, no
doubt, yet I do not think it hastened his death. He had
been failing during the summer, but so gradually, he
would not acknowledge it, and never consented you
should be informed of it, or be recalled. It was not till
the day before his decease he wrote the letter I forward
with this. I saw him buried according to his desire, and
in a manner I think you will approve. With respect to
what course you can pursue, I feel incompetent to offer
any advice; yet should you conclude to return here, my
house shall be open to receive you. Whatever services
I can render you shall be cheerfully performed, and any
orders you transmit faithfully executed.

Your letters to your uncle, requesting a remittance of
cash were received by him when confined, and happening
to be present, he requested me to read them. The part
relating to the money I omitted, as it would have caused
him uneasiness, and I have taken the liberty of enclosing
a hundred dollars, as a trifle to answer your present exigencies.
I would have sent more, but am myself suffering
embarrassments. I hope, sincerely hope, you will yet
surmount your misfortunes, and that the time will come
when they will merely serve, by contrast, to enhance

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more fully your prosperity. Those who have never experienced
reverses are but half schooled in the discipline of
the world, and know not the resources of their own minds.

I am still endeavoring to ascertain the retreat of Cox,
yet from what I can learn of his habits and resources,
there is but little hope that you will ever obtain any
thing of consequence from him. He is a gambler and
speculator, characters on which no reliance for probity
can be placed. How we were so long deceived by such
a one is now surprising, but villany so deliberate as his,
is rarely anticipated or guarded against by men of integrity.
I shall, however, be vigilant to trace him, and at
least expose his baseness.

Let me hear from you soon, and believe me, sir,

Most respectfully, your servant,

Henry Howard.”

	CHAPTER XXIII. A REVERSE. Northwood; or, Life north and south