University of Virginia Library

7. VII.
DICK.

It was a raw, cold winter day, in Warren Clifford's
first college vacation. He had spent a week with
Juno, in her winter residence, on Mount Vernon
street, and was now passing a few days at a fashionable
hotel in New York, with his friend and chum, Percy
Douglass. He was to start on his return to Boston,
the next morning, and the idea entered his head, that
he would like to carry home some costly and beautiful
present to his mother. Taking his friend's arm, he
strolled down Broadway, and entered a certain noted
establishment, unrivalled then, as well as now, for the
chaste and costly elegance of its importations. He
selected a magnificent opera cloak of crimson velvet,
and ordered it sent to his hotel.

“Dick,” called the salesman, in an authoritative
tone. The name awoke a chord of remembrance in
Warren's heart, which had long been slumbering. He
had never chanced to know but one person who bore
that name, and he turned round, almost expecting to

see the open, spirited face of his little brother; the
curling chestnut hair, the sparkling hazel eyes, and
the athletic figure, with the threadbare cap and
patched, comfortless garments. The boy of almost sixteen,
who answered the summons, was quite a different
looking person. He was well, though not richly dressed,
handsome, and manly-looking his age, with an
honest yet fearless expression of countenance. And
yet in Warren's heart, the newly wakened chord kept
on vibrating. His long-lost brother was indeed before
him. There were twenty reasons which came to his
mind, in the brief moment afforded him for consideration,
why he ought not to recognize his brother.
In the first place, the very condition on which he was
entitled to his stately home, his fine education, and
more than all, the love of his beautiful mother, was
that he should neither write nor speak to any of his
family. Beside, it was the wish and pride of his
adopted parents, that he should pass for their own
child, wherever it was possible; and the friend who
was with him, the only son of the haughty General
Douglass, had never heard the story of his adoption.
No, he must not betray the secret, and if he did, what
would it avail? Honor, he thought, forbade him to
make any inquiries concerning his family, and it would
seem less heartless not to speak at all, and leave Dick
to suppose that perhaps he did not know him. So he
bit his lip, and remained silent, and yet, all the while,
reason as he would, the newly wakened chord kept on
vibrating.

Dick looked earnestly in his face, as he received the
bundle from the salesman's hands. His color came
and went—his lips parted, and he seemed to restrain
himself with difficulty. But he turned, and walked
resolutely out of the shop. He had left the bundle,
and was on his return, when he again encountered
Warren and his friend. He crossed the side-walk,
and said, in a low tone, close to his brother's ear—
“Good-bye, brother Warren.” Then turning, he walked
away, pale as death, his lips firmly shut, and his
long eye-lashes heavy with glittering tears. Percy
Douglass turned round inquiringly. Warren's face
was flushed, and his whole manner agitated in the extreme.
“Percy,” he said, hurriedly, “let me beg that
you will ask me no questions, for I should feel it due
to your friendship to answer them. This affair involves
a family secret, which I am not at liberty to disclose,
and yet no blame attaches to any one. It it too much
to ask that you will believe me, and trust me? At
some future day, I may be at liberty to tell you all.”

“Surely, Warren, my friendship would be of small
value if such an incident could weaken my trust in
you. Take your own time for an explanation, and
never tell me, if it be any thing I ought not to know.”

That night, when business hours were over, a kind
hand was laid upon Dick's shoulder. He looked up

Simon Goldthwaite stood before him. Simon was
the paymaster and head clerk, the confidential chargé
d'affaires. He was a unique specimen of a genuine
Yankee. One look at him would have convinced you
he never could have been born out of New England.
Tall and large, he had, in spite of his strength, an appearance
of being very loosely put together. He
walked with a kind of characteristic shuffle; his limbs
seemed as much too long for his body, as his clothes
were too short at the extremities. The very features
of his face were at sixes and sevens. His hair, about
an inch and a half in length, would, most persistently,
stand straight up, all over his head. Perhaps this
effect was aided by his constant, but ineffectual attempts
to run his fingers through it. Every individual
hair was so at war with its neighbor, that it did not
afford safe neutral ground even for a goose-quill.
There was no particular fault to be found with his
nose or his forehead, or indeed any of his features, only
no two of them looked as if they could, by any possibility,
have been designed to go together. The mouth
was wide, and very often wide open, and the nose and
chin were as unlike as a Gothic church and a Parisian
villa. The chin was a respectable and firm-looking
affair, short and broad, while the nose was long and
somewhat peaked. In addition to these various personal
qualifications, he had the fullest confidence of his
—employers, and was the very soul of kindness and
fidelity.

“Well, Dick, what is it?” he exclaimed, in his
hearty, kind-sounding voice—“some boyish scrape, or
a piece of real trouble?”

The kind words were too much for poor Dick.
The tears choked his utterance, as he answered, “Oh,
sir, if you only knew!”

“Well, to know, is just what I want. I've seen
enough in the few months that you've been here, to be
satisfied that you are a good, faithful boy, and I may
be able to help you in more ways than you dream of.
Come, now, just walk into my counting-room, and tell
me all about it. It'll be quiet there. Come along.”

Dick followed him, grateful for his sympathy, and
yet half reluctant to expose his family affairs to the
consideration of a stranger. Perhaps Simon guessed
this feeling, for he said in a low, half-sorrowful tone—
“Come, you needn't be afraid to trust me. If you
need help, I can afford to help you, for I've no kith
or kin in the wide world. My mother and my little sunny-haired
sister Lizzie died of starvation, when I was
four years old. Of starvation! Do you hear, Dick?
Young as I was, I can remember it perfectly. My
father lost all he had in an unfortunate speculation,
and was thrown into prison for debt. He died there
of a broken heart. My mother was sick, and she
could get nothing to do. Lizzie was two years older

than I, and mother used to send her out into the streets
to beg. But the poor little thing would get chilled and
frightened, and come back again empty-handed. And
so we lay and starved. Dick, I always give to beggars.
God said, `The poor ye have always with you;' and I
should be afraid to go home at night, if I had turned
away pitiless from a pleading face and an outstretched
hand. My mother and sister both died in one
night. I was so weak then, I couldn't walk; but little
as I was, I bore it better than they did, for my nature
was more hardy. Oh, how distinctly I remember it.
We all three went to bed together, on our heap of
straw, and in the morning, when the sunshine stole in
at the broken window, it wakened me. My mother's
arm felt very cold. I put up my lips to kiss her, and
her face was colder still. I turned to Lizzie, but she
couldn't speak, or open her blue eyes, and her little
bounding limbs were stiff and motionless. That
morning our landlord came to turn us out of doors.
We were bad tenants, we hadn't paid our rent. But
he found the debtor's widow in a sleep from which
his voice could not waken her. They buried them
both that day, and took me to the alms-house. Ah,
Dick, these are such memories as are seared upon the
soul. There is no such thing as forgetfulness possible.
They have been my safeguard against temptation.
But I bear a lonely heart. Let me help you in your
sorrows, and it will make my own lot easier.”

Silently Dick pressed his hand; for a moment his
heart was too full to speak. Then he cleared his
voice, and said in a low tone—“Since you too have
suffered, Mr. Goldthwaite, you will understand my
mother's situation five years ago. A lonely Englishwoman
in a strange land—her fatherless children
around her, and not a sixpence to buy them a loaf of
bread. There were four of us; Warren, Emmie, Mabel
and I. Warren was our eldest, and he was only
twelve. One day, as he was hawking papers, a gentleman
took a fancy to him, and carried him home to his
wife. She liked him also. I have heard my mother say
the lady was the most beautiful being she ever looked
upon. That afternoon they came to our wretched
dwelling. They were childless, and they offered to
educate Warren, and adopt him as their own son, on
condition that he should never again recognize us as
his kindred, and, indeed, neither see nor speak to us.
Beside taking him, they agreed to give us a comfortable
home and four hundred dollars a year. What
could my mother do, when we were all starving?
She was sick, and suffering, and then, Warren wanted
to go. She consented. When I came home, the arrangement
was concluded, and the lady had gone with
her husband. But oh, Mr. Goldthwaite, that was a
night of fearful agony to my poor mother. Thus to
give up her first-born son, and feel that she was never
more to see his face on earth. I believe she suffered

as much as she would have done to see him die before
her eyes. But she bore it bravely for our sakes.
His adopted parents have fulfilled their part of the
contract faithfully. Through the kind offices of our
village physician, I obtained my situation here, and
now my highest ambition is to get a salary large
enough to relieve my mother from her dependence
upon strangers. I know you will think this a very
insufficient explanation of the agitated state in which
you found me, but you have not heard all. Warren
took the name of Clifford, and people say he bids fair
to realize the proudest expectations of his adopted
parents. He is welcomed into circles where I should
be looked upon with contempt, and yet, Mr. Goldthwaite,
he never can find truer friends than the
mother who mourns for him day and night, and the
little sisters who never forget to say his name over in
their prayers. Oh how I loved him! Until he left
us, we had never been separated. We knelt together
every night at our mother's knee, we slept in each
other's arms, and we would have shared together our
last morsel. Well, I saw this cherished brother to-day,
for the first time in five years, and he turned
away his face, though I knew he recognized me, and
never spoke.”

“Nor you either, Dick?”

“Not then. I was sent to carry home a costly
garment he had been purchasing, and on my return, I

met him once more in the open street. I walked up to
him, I could not help it, and called him brother. He
made no reply. He stood there as if thunderstruck
at my audacity, and I left him with his fashionable
friend and walked on. That was all; but oh, Mr.
Goldthwaite, if you knew how I loved him; how I
have dreamed at night of some chance meeting, when
the voice of kindred blood would be too strong for
restraint, and he would throw himself upon my neck
and weep.”

There was a strange moisture about Simon Goldthwaite's
eyes. He wouldn't have been suspected of
crying for the world, but he coughed and ahemmed, and
finally turned away without speaking. He came back
at length, and wringing Dick's hand said, in a tone of
honest, hearty sympathy, “You are a good boy, Dick.
My heart warms to you, as it doesn't very often warm
to any body. I can feel it all. I don't see how the
fellow could help speaking to you, and yet, may-be, he
made it a point of conscience. Some people have
very tender consciences, nowadays. Humph! Dick,
remember, you are to change boarding-places at
quarter-time. It won't cost you as much as it does
now. You shall share my room, for I want you where
I can see to you.”

From that night the rough but kind-hearted man
was Dick's firm and faithful friend. He himself had
risen by slow degrees from the position of errand-boy,

until, at thirty, he found himself head clerk and
confidential adviser of the noted establishment he
served. He could fully sympathize with the boy's
loneliness and heart-sickness, and he resolved to open
a path for him to success.

That night, long after the turbulent hum of the
great city had gradually died away; long after gayest
revellers had left the theatres and assembly rooms,
Warren Clifford paced restlessly to and fro in his
chamber, communing with his own heart. Do what he
would, the newly-wakened chord would not cease to
vibrate—the voice of kindred would not be silenced.
Two mournful hazel eyes seemed continually meeting
his own; and a voice, tremulous with sorrow, said
over and over again in his ears, “Good-bye, brother
Warren.” He could not resolve to condemn himself
for the part he had acted. It was his duty, as he repeated
many times that night to his unquiet heart;
his duty to keep faith with his adopted parents. Alas,
if, that hour, less worthy motives arose to haunt him,
and he bowed his head before the mocking spectres of
sinful pride and unchristian vanity. But, through all,
he kept his promise to Juno, faithfully. She was still
dearer than all the rest of earth. Not even to have
knelt at his own mother's feet, and felt her hands laid
in blessing upon his head, would he have stricken that
proud woman's heart with a single pang. But the

Past was strangely distinct before him, with its early
joys, its after-current of want and misery. Through
the breezes blowing over its unquiet fields, he heard
the distant gurgle of the waves closing over his dead
father—then there stole to him his mother's gentle
voice, and the low cadence of his sister's evening
prayers, and Dick was once more beside him. He
lived over again the dark days that followed—
when his sick mother's face grew each day paler and
thinner—when even Emmie cried for bread, and the
little Mabel lifted to heaven the untroubled azure of
her sightless eyes, and whispered, “The little children
that Jesus holds in his arms don't ever get very hungry,
do they, mamma?” Then, into the midst of all
this gloom and suffering, he seemed once more to watch
Juno Clifford's coming, with her grace, and her wondrous
beauty, and still, even as to his childish fancy,
she seemed the embodiment of all bright and lovely
things; and involuntarily he whispered once more,
after all this lapse of years—“The angel, mother!”

It was nearly morning before he threw himself on
his bed for an hour of troubled sleep, and then his
dreams were as unquiet as his waking visions had
been. He seemed walking through crowded streets,
with Juno Clifford on his arm, and at every corner he
met the sorrowful eyes of his brother Dick. Sometimes
Juno would hurry him along, and laugh triumphantly
as they left Dick behind them, but once he

paused to speak to him. His companion was transformed
to a beautiful demon, and vanished from his
sight. He awoke with a shudder. It wanted but
forty minutes to the time when he must start for
Boston.

“I have business out this evening, Juno,” said
John Clifford, rising and pushing back his chair, the
evening after Warren's return. “I suppose your
charming ladyship will want to give that new opera-cloak
an airing, so Warren can take you to hear
Norma; I brought home tickets.”

“Thank you,” said Juno, with her most brilliant
smile, but a moment after he left the room, she crossed
over to Warren's chair, and putting her arm about his
neck, whispered, playfully, “I believe I won't go after
all, Warren. I shan't have my dear boy at home very
long, and I want to see all I can of him. Will it be too
great a sacrifice to stay with your mother, darling?”

“No, indeed, it will be so much pleasanter to stay
with you. Do you know I have been thinking of late
how queer it sounds to hear you call me `son;' how
singular it is to say `mother,' to one so young and
beautiful!”

“Flatterer!” cried the lady, playfully, but with a
deep blush.

“No, sweetest mother, any thing but that. You
know well enough how beautiful you are, when you
see it every day in your mirror, and the very passersby

in the street stand still, when they meet you, in an
involuntary homage. Oh, mother, how I love beauty!
I am going to marry when I find some one like you,
whose face it will be such a perpetual joy to look
upon.”

The proud woman trembled like a bashful girl as
she listened. He was silent for a moment, and then
he said in a husky tone—“Sit down, mother, please, I
have something to tell you.”

She obeyed, seating herself so that her own face
was in the shadow, while she could see the minutest
play of his every feature revealed in the strong light.
“Well, Warren?”

“Mother, day before yesterday I saw Dick.”

“Dick?” She repeated the word with an inquiring
cadence, as if she would encourage him to say more.

“Yes, Dick, mother; my own brother Dick, whom
I had not seen for five years.”

“Warren, Warren!” she exclaimed, earnestly—
“did you speak to him? did you forget your promise,
the conditions on which you came to us?”

“No, mother, I forgot nothing. I did not speak.”

“And he, did he speak to you, my son?”

“Only three words. I could see that my silence
was agony to him. He did not reproach me, but the
tone in which he said—`Good-bye, brother Warren,'
will haunt me to my dying day.”

Juno looked at him keenly. She could see the

veins swell in his forehead, and the tears gather in
his eyes. She waited a moment, and then she said,
in a low, sweet tone, “Come hither, Warren, my brave,
noble boy, and let me hold your head upon my breast,
as I have done in many another hour of trouble.
You were so good and true to keep your promise at
such a fearful cost. I know how hard it was, I can
feel it all.”

Warren felt the heart beat tumultuously against
which his head was lying. For a time there was silence
between them. Her mute sympathy satisfied
him. At length she bent over him, and whispered,
“Warren, in that hour did you love me better than
all? Did no longing to seek your other mother's side
cross this restless heart? Remember, you have sworn
I should be dearest. No other voice ever called
me mother; no other child ever clasped my neck.
Warren, Warren, dearer than life, answer me!”

The boy looked up, with his head still lying upon
her breast. He drew her hand tenderly to his lips.
Then he said, “God, who hears me, knows, that in
that hour even, I had not one wish to leave you. God
knows that in that hour, as in all others, you were
dearer to me than my own life. I could die for you
so easily—try me!”

“Nay, my beloved, I had rather you should live
for me;” and bending over him, in her bewildering
beauty, she pressed her lips to his own.