“Sad things!” replied Peter. “In the first place, I have lost every one—there is not a single soul left—of all my family. Mrs. Veriquear,—the little Veriquears that you used to take such pleasure in drawing about in the coach,—all have been taken away from me. One of those horrible fevers which it is the business of Providence sometimes to send into the heart of a great city like that in which I lived, laid them down almost all together on beds of sickness. They lay ill for some time, during which the doctor made it his affair to physic them so much that the stock of bottles in my warehouse was very materially increased. At the same time the rag trade was torn to rags by competition; while the 'rents' became bigger every year in proportion. One after another the family dropped off; until really, grieved as I was, I could not help thinking that the undertaker did nothing in the world else but make it his business to go backwards and forwards from his own house to mine.”
Colin scarcely knew in what manner to reply to this statement, as it would have raised a smile on the face of Pity herself; but by dint of considerable efforts he contrived to look sufficiently grave, and bid Mr. Veriquear proceed.
“The consequence of all this was that nearly everything I had saved to keep my family alive, was spent in putting them into the ground. The marrow, as I may say, of my bone of fortune was picked out, and my poverty was left with scarcely a rag to cover her. However, I thought it my best way to bottle up my complaints; and since Providence had made it her business to visit me with afflictions, I would make it mine to endure as patiently as I could.”
“A worthy resolution!” observed his auditor, “and very highly to your credit.”
“However,” continued Peter, “after these misfortunes were over, my old house seemed such a desert to me that I could not endure it. Everywhere it appeared that I ought to meet one or other of them, and yet I was always disappointed,—always alone! Used to having those little people for ever about my feet,—to feed them at my table,—to talk about them to my wife,—to think how I should dispose of them as they grew up, and speculate on their luck in after-life,—and thus suddenly to be deprived of them all,—to have all swept away,—not one left,—not a solitary one! to be myself the only one where there had been many,—I assure you, sir, that sometimes I felt terrified at my own shadow as it chased along the wall by lamplight, and seemed to reproach me with being the only creature left there alive. I could have fancied myself like a solitary spider in a huge closet of a house without any other tenant, and that has nothing to do but sit in the heart of its own web, silently waiting and waiting for other living things besides itself, which never come, until at length it withers imperceptibly, and is found dead in its home by some visitor at last.”
Peter's feelings had now made him too eloquent even for himself, and certain hard tears which appeared to be looking about for, and puzzled to find a furrow to run in, scrambled oddly down his cheeks.
“The place,” he continued, “made me nervous. Sometimes I fancied I heard the voices of my children crying above stairs, or below, or laughing in the yard. I have even been foolish enough, weak enough, to make it my business to go up or down sometimes to see. The little chairs and stools were there, or, perhaps, the playthings I had once chidden them for breaking. How I then regretted it! Could I have had them back again, they might have pulled my very house to pieces, but I should have been a happy man! If you have children, sir, may you never lose them as I have done!”
Colin could not but feel Mr. Veriquear's words, while he requested him to conclude his narrative.
“At last,” added Peter, “I made it my business to dispose of my business, and sell all off I had. And though it was a good deal to look at, it produced me little money. However, as I could no longer endure the place, I made the best of the case I could, and resolved to travel back to the place where I originally came from, and pass the rest of my life there, without any other attempt to make my fortune.”
“And, pray, Mr. Veriquear,” asked his entertainer, “in what part of the country may that be?”