CHAPTER XXI.
"Considerate, et videte si est dolor sicut dolor meus."
"Attend, and see if there be any sorrow like to my sorrow."
Lam. Jer.
There was a complete suspension of the ordinary occupations on the farm of Gulvert for near ten days, owing to the trials with which his family was visited. The wife was still confined to her room, and continually threatening her husband with the divorce, who, on his part, had no heart to conduct the necessary work of his farm, he felt so dispirited at the loss of his team and of the money out of which "his converts" had tricked him. Add to this that there were very ugly rumors going the round of the neighborhood in reference to the ill usage the little Irish orphan met with. While he was living and in suffering, there was nobody to sympathize with him or to say a word in his favor; but now, when that sympathy could do him no good, according to the custom of modern philanthropy, there was an abundance on hand, and the conduct of Shaw Gulvert, as the agent of Parson Waistcoat, was censured by a thousand tongues. This is characteristic of Protestant charity: when one is dying of hunger, or forced to beg a crum of bread, she shuts her ears, and points to the prison or poorhouse, as the only proper retreat for whoever is compelled to commit the sin of mendicity; but no sooner does the victim of her own neglect or misdirected benevolence die, no sooner is he out of the reach of all human relief, than the heralds of Protestant charity gather round his tomb, to proffer their assistance, aid, and liberality—like the Jews building the tombs of the prophets put to death by their own malice.
This was the case in the instance here related. Some were for having the body of the martyred Eugene exhumed, to see if there were any marks of violence visible. Some proposed to raise a collection to have a monument raised on his grave, and all unanimously condemned Gulvert's cruelty to the "dear little child." What principally turned the current and force of public opinion against Gulvert was, that he was impudent enough to go and demand restitution of Parson Waistcoat, of the money that, on account of his recommendation, he advanced to the runaway converts. And the parson, to be revenged on Gulvert, on next meeting day called on the congregation for their prayers, to save said Gulvert from the relapsing gulf into which he had fallen. The parson, enraged at being held accountable for the money lost by Gulvert, through his own "want of godliness," as he termed it, and incensed on account of Gulvert's declaration of deserting his church, held him up continually as a stray sheep, and already, if not lost, far advanced on the broad way to perdition. In the midst of this excitement, the progress of public feeling against Gulvert was suddenly checked by the following afflicting and sudden accidents.
The wife of Gulvert, being a Boston lady, of course was altogether in favor of the Sons of Temperance; but, by some means or other, she happened always to keep a little in the house for medicinal purposes. It was well known, among the well informed, that this lady, having been "jilted," or, in other words, deceived, by a merchant in her native city, who promised to marry her, was subject to frequent melancholy attacks, and on these occasions especially did she make use of "medicinal brandy." She suffered from one of these periodical attacks now, and, consequently, the medicinal glass was always within her reach. On the small stand by her bed stood two tumblers, one containing the medicinal "eau de vie," and the other was half full of vinegar.
She ordered Jane, on this fatal day, to pour a little laudanum into that tumbler that contained the vinegar, to see if, by applying it to her temples, it would not allay the terrible headache which she said had tormented her. Instead of pouring the poison into the vinegar glass, where would the Scotch Abigail empty the cruet but into the tumbler with the brandy in it? Her mistress soon after quaffed off the liquor into which the poisonous drug had been poured, and in an hour after she was a lifeless corpse. This was not all; for, on the day of the funeral, young Harry, Mr. Gulvert's son and heir, in order to show his devotion to his beloved parent's remains, was all the morning busy in collecting flowers with which to deck the room where she was laid in state, and, attempting to reach a flower that grew out of the side of a deep, deserted well, in the lower end of the garden, the little fellow fell in and was drowned. "When the feet of them who buried" Mrs. Gulvert "were at the door," they found out the corpse of Harry was at the bottom of the well. It was a long time before any body could be induced to go into that well, as well because it was very deep as on account of the prevalent report in the neighborhood that Gulvert's father had killed a negro and cast him into the well, with heavy weights attached to him. After several unsuccessful attempts to raise the body, they at length succeeded, by the aid and undaunted courage of a young man who was just after riding up to the crowd, and who, on learning the cause of such a gathering, generously volunteered to go into the well, notwithstanding the hints he received from some of the bystanders that the "nigger" was at the bottom. In a few minutes Paul O'Clery was at the bottom of the "enchanted well," and, amid shouts of "Bravo!" and "Well done!" almost instantly returned, with the lifeless body of little Harry in his arms. But what's this that he finds tangled in the drowned child's hands? It is surely the beads of his beloved mother, which she bequeathed as her dying legacy to his youngest brother Eugene. How did it get into the well? He trembled visibly as it struck his mind that possibly Eugene might have fallen in too.
"Are you sure there is nobody else in?" said he to the bystanders.
"No, there ain't nobody else in," said Gulvert; "all we have left, now, are around here."
"And how came this relic to get into the well?" said Paul. "I think I saw this before."