At the close of the second year, John died after great suffering, and he was laid among his kindred in a small cemetery in Charles Street. As a burial ground it was no longer used, except by the families who had originated it more than one 65 hundred years previously. It was a neglected enclosure, over-grown with tall grasses and rank weeds, and surrounded by the decaying untidy houses of poverty. A more dreary, ghastly place I never saw, and my heart ached for the little lad laid there. I was thankful my mother was too ill to go to the mournful service, but Father was consoled by the fact, that he was among his kindred; and it seemed to me, there was no one but Huddlestons buried there. Every stone I read was in memoriam of a Huddleston, and always that same persistence of the name “Henry.”
Not more than a month afterwards, our baby Henry was laid beside his brother in the desolate place. I have no heart to write of his death. He was taken in the midst of health, and went laughing to seize the bowl of boiling milk, from which he drank a cruel death. It is better to be silent about such calamities; at the time we were all dumb with grief. Yet it was an accident, and accident is always God’s part in any event; so to this knowledge we bowed our hearts in submission. There is a difference, however, in silence. Mother’s quiet was full of heavenly hope and trust; Father’s speechless, tearless grief, was almost despair, and many times afterward, I heard Mother rejoice over a trouble treading close upon Henry’s death, because it roused the physical man to wrath, and broke up the spiritual torpor into which Father had fallen.
This trouble came in a letter, which was handed into the parlor where we were together one afternoon three weeks after Henry’s death. Mother and Jane were sewing. I was copying music—a song of Balfe’s, I believe, and father was walking up and down—up and down the room. All was so still I could hear the ashes dropping from the grate to the hearth. Then came the postman’s knock, and the delivery of the letter to Father.
He read it without a word, growing every moment grayer and more angry. As he finished, he slowly tore the paper into fragments, his passion growing with every movement of his hands, and stamping on them, gave way to an inconceivable rage, accompanied by words that shocked and terrified us. It was not Father, it was some madman who had taken possession 66 of him. Mother went to him, put her hands on his shoulders, and said softly, “William! William!”
“Mary! Forgive me!” he cried. “You see now, what I have to struggle against. Every day I have this temper to fight; it will conquer me some time, and then I shall be lost—but this trouble is my own fault. You have warned me, and I would not listen to you. Yes, I have been warned twice by dreams I understood, but would not obey. If I could suffer alone! If I could suffer alone, I would not care. It is my great punishment. You and the children must suffer with me.”
“What punishment? What has happened, William?” asked Mother.
“I have lost every shilling. That scoundrel Philip Blackpool has gone to Australia with my money, a month ago.”
“My dear, we can live without it.”
“We cannot live without it, Mary,” he answered. “What is the good of talking nonsense?”
Then Mother was silent. She sat down and lifted her work, Jane followed her example, and I went on copying my song, while from the next room came the faint sounds of Alethia and Mary playing. Before our silence and assumed indifference his anger waned; he said again, “Forgive me, Mary! I will go to my study now, and come down when I am better. Disturb me for nothing.”