The Lights and Shadows of Real Life

by T. S. Arthur

"I will sacrifice half that I am worth, before I will yield to such dictation," was his only answer to the demand. The foolish men "struck," and turned out to lounge idly in taverns and other places, until their employer should come to terms. They were, however, soon convinced of their folly; for but a few weeks elapsed before Mr. had employed females to make his cigars, who could afford to work for one-third less than the journeymen had been receiving, and make good wages at that. The consequence was, that the men who had, from motives of selfishness, endeavoured to deprive Mrs. W. of her only chance of support, were unable to obtain work at any price. Several of them fell into idle and dissolute habits, and became vagabonds. Other manufacturers of cigars followed the example of Mr.—, and lessened the demand for journeymen; and the result in this instance was but a similar one to that which always follows combinations against employers—viz: to injure the interests of journeymen.

It was not long before Coulson found out the retreat of Mrs. Warburton, and commenced his persecutions. The note of her husband had fallen due, and his first movement was to demand the payment. Perceiving, however, at once, that to make the money out of any property in her possession was impossible, he changed his manner, and offered to befriend her in any way that lay in his power. For a moment she was thrown off her guard; but remembering the caution she had received, she assumed a manner of the most rigid coldness towards him, and told him that she already had friends who would care for her. The next day she managed to apprize the clerk in the Stage Office of the visit of Coulson, who promptly took measures to alarm his fears, for he was a coward at heart, and effectually prevent his again troubling her.

Little of an interesting nature occurred for about a year, when she received a letter from her husband at Cincinnati. He stated that having despaired of getting along in the business he had entered into on leaving—which had involved him in debt, he had left with a company of traders for Mexico, and had just returned with a little money, with which he wished to go into business. But that if he returned to—, he would be troubled, and all he had taken from him. He enclosed her a hundred dollar note, and wished her to come to him immediately, and to leave—without letting any one know her destination. He professed much sorrow for having left her in so destitute a condition, but pleaded stern necessity for the act.

Mrs. W. did not hesitate a moment. In four days from the time she received the letter, she was on the way to Cincinnati. Arrived there, she was met by her husband with some show of affection. He was greatly changed since she had seen him, and showed many indications of irregular habits. He appeared to have plenty of money, and took rooms for his wife in a respectable boardinghouse. The improvement in his child pleased him much. When he went away it was only about five months old—now it was a bright little boy, and could run about and chatter like a bird. After some hesitation in regard to the kind of business he should select, he at last determined to go into the river-trade. To this Mrs. Warburton gently objected; because it would keep him away from home for months together. But his capital was small, and he at length made his first purchase of produce, and started in a flat-boat for New Orleans. Poor Mrs. W. felt as if deserted again when he left her. But at the end of three months he returned, having cleared four hundred dollars by the trip. He remained at home this time for two months, drinking and gambling; and at the expiration of that period had barely enough left to make a small purchase and start again.

Her troubles, she plainly saw, were just beginning again, and Mrs. Warburton almost wished herself back again in the city, for which, though there she had no friends, her heart yearned.

Her husband did not return, this time, from his river-voyage, for three months; nor did he send his wife during that time any money. The amount left her was entirely exhausted before the end of the second month, and having heard nothing of him since he went away, she feared to get in debt, and, therefore, two weeks before her money was out, applied for work at a cigar-factory. Here she was fortunate enough to obtain employment, and thus keep herself above absolute want.

Long before her husband returned, her heart had fearful forebodings of a second blighting of all its dearest hopes. Not the less painful, were those anticipations, because she had once suffered.

One evening in June, just three months from the time her husband left, she had paused from her almost unremitted employment, during the violence of a tremendous storm, that was raging without. The thunder rattled around in startling peals, and the lightning blazed from cloud to cloud, without a moment's intermission. She could not work while she felt that the bolt of death hung over her. For half an hour had the storm raged, when in one of the pauses which indicated its passing away, she started at the sound of a voice that seemed like that of her husband. In the next moment another voice mingled with it, and both were loud and angry. Fearfully she flung open the door, and just on the pavement, drenched with the rain, and unregardful of the storm, for one more terrible raged within, stood two men, contending with each other in mortal strife, while horrible oaths and imprecations rolled from their lips. One of these, from his distorted face, rendered momently visible in the vivid flashes of the lightning, and from his voice, though loud and disguised by passion, she at once knew to be her husband. His antagonist was not so strong a man, but he was more active, and seemed much cooler. Each had in his hand an open Spanish knife, and both were striking, plunging, and parrying thrusts with the most malignant fury. It was an awful sight to look upon. Two human beings striving for each other's lives amid the fury of a terrible storm, the lightnings of which glanced sharply upon their glittering knives, revealing their fiend-like countenances for an instant, and then leaving them in black darkness.

For a few moments, Mrs. Warburton stood fixed to the spot, but, recalling her scattered senses, she rushed towards the combatants, calling upon them to pause, and repeating the name of her husband in a voice of agony. The result of the strife was delayed but an instant longer, for with a loud cry her husband fell bleeding at her feet. His antagonist passed out of sight in a moment.

Lifting the apparently lifeless form of her husband in her arms, Mrs. Warburton carried or rather dragged him into the house, and placed him upon the bed, where lay their sleeping boy. She then hurried off for the nearest physician, who was soon in attendance.