CHAPTER VII.
THE END OF THE BEGINNING.
Abraham Allcraft, with all his base and sordid habits, was a beggar. His gluttony had been too powerful for his judgment, and he had speculated beyond all computation. His first hit had been received in connexion with some extensive mines. At the outset they had promised to realize a princely fortune. All the calculations had been made with care. The most wary and experienced were eager for a share in the hoped for el dorado, and Abraham was the greediest of any. In due time the bubble burst, carrying with it into air poor Abraham's hard-earned fifty thousand pounds, and his hearty execrations. Such a loss was not to be repaired by the slow-healing process of legitimate business. Information reached him respecting an extensive manufactory in Glasgow. Capabilities of turning half a million per annum existed in the house, and were unfortunately dormant simply because the moving principle was wanting. With a comparatively moderate capital, what could not be effected? Ah, what? Had you listened to the sanguine manufacturer your head would have grown giddy with his magnificent proposals, as Allcraft's had, to the cost of his unhappy self, and still unhappier clients. As acting is said to be not a bare servile exhibition of nature, but rather an exalted and poetic imitation of the same, so likewise are the pictures of houses, the portraits of geniuses, the representations of business facts, and other works of art which undertake to copy truth, but only embellish it and render it most grateful to the eye. Nothing could look more substantial than the Glasgow manufactory on paper. A prettier painting never charmed the eye of speculating amateur. Allcraft was caught. Ten thousand pounds, which had been sent out to bring the fifty thousand back, never were seen again. The manufacturer decamped—the rickety house gave way, and failed. From this period Allcraft entangled himself more and more in schemes for making money rapidly and by great strokes, and deeper he fell into the slough of difficulty and danger. His troubles were commencing when he heard of Mildred's serious illness, and the certainty of his speedy death. With an affectionate solicitude, he mentally disposed of the splendid fortune which the sick man could not possibly take with him, and contrived a plan for making it fill up the gaps which misfortune had opened in the banking-house. This was a new speculation, and promised more than all the rest. Every energy was called forth—every faculty. His plans we already know—his success has yet to be discovered. Abraham did not die intestate. He left a will, bequeathing to Michael, his son and heir, a rotten firm, a dishonourable name, a history of dishonesty, a nest of troubles. Accompanying his will, there was a letter written in Allcraft's hand to Michael, imploring the young man to act a child's part by his unhappy parent. The elder one urged him by his love and gratitude to save his name from the discredit which an exposure of his affairs must entail upon it; and not only upon it, he added, but upon the living also. He had procured for him, he said, an alliance which he would never have aspired to—never would have obtained, had not his father laboured so hardly for his boy's happiness and welfare. With management and care, and a gift from his intended wife, nothing need be said—no exposure would take place—the house would retain its high character, and in the course of a very few years recover its solvency and prosperity. A fearful list of the engagements was appended, and an account of every transaction in which the deceased had been concerned. Michael read and read again every line and word, and he stood thunderstruck at the disclosure. He raved against his father, swore he would do nothing for the man who had so shamefully involved himself; and, not content with his own ruin, had so wickedly implicated him. This was the outbreak of the excited youth, but he sobered down, and, in a few hours, the creature of impulse and impetuosity had argued himself into the expediency of adapting his conduct to existing circumstances—of stooping, in short, to all the selfishness and meanness that actuate the most unfeeling and the least uncalculating of mortals. If there were wanting, as, thank Heaven, there is not, one proof to substantiate the fact, that no rule of life is safe and certain save that made known in the translucent precepts of our God—no species of thought free from hurt or danger—no action secure from ill or mischief, except all thoughts and actions that have their origin in humble, loving, strict obedience to the pleasure and the will of Heaven; if any one proof, I say, were wanting, it would be easy to discover it in the natural perverse and inconsistent heart of man. A voice louder than the preacher's—the voice of daily, hourly experience—proclaims the melancholy fact, that no amount of high-wrought feeling, no loftiness of speech, no intensity of expression, is a guarantee for purity of soul and conduct, when obedience, simple, childlike obedience, has ceased to be the spring of every motion and every aim. Reader, let us grapple with this truth! We are servants here on earth, not masters! subjects, and not legislators! Infants are we all in the arms of a just father! The command is from elsewhere—obedience is with us. If you would be happy, I charge you, fling away the hope of finding security or rest in laws of your own making in a system which you are pleased to call a code of honour—honour that grows cowardlike and pale in the time of trial—that shrinks in the path of duty—that slinks away unarmed and powerless, when it should be nerved and ready for the righteous battle. Where are the generous sentiments—the splendid outbursts—the fervid eloquence with which Michael Allcraft was wont to greet the recital of any one short history of oppression and dishonesty? Where are they now, in the first moments of real danger, whilst his own soul is busy with designs as base as they are cowardly? Nothing is easier for a loquacious person than to talk. How glibly Michael could declaim against mankind before the fascinating Margaret, we have seen; how feelingly against the degenerate spirit of commerce, and the back-slidings of all professors of religion. Surely, he who saw and so well depicted the vices of the age, was prepared for adversity and its temptations! Not he, nor any man who prefers to be the slave of impulse rather than the child of reason. After a day's deliberation, he had resolved upon two things—first, not to expose himself to the pity or derision of men, as it might chance to be, by proclaiming the insolvency of his deceased father and secondly, not to risk the loss of Margaret, by acknowledging himself to be a beggar. His father had told him—he remembered the words well that she was induced to name the wedding-day, only upon receiving the assurance of his independence. Not to undeceive her now, would be to wed her under false pretences; but to free her from deception, would be to free her from her plighted word, and this his sense of honour would not let him do. I will not say that Michael grossly and unfeelingly proposed to circumvent—to cheat and rob the luckless Margaret; or that his conscience, that mighty law unto itself, did not wince before it held its peace. There were strugglings and entreaties, and patchings up, and excuses, and all the appliances which precede the commission of a sinful act. Reasons for honesty and disinterestedness were converted for the occasion into justifications of falsehood and artifice. A paltry regard for himself and his own interests was bribed to take the shape of filial duty and affection. The result of all his cogitation and contrivances was one great plan. He would not take from his Margaret's fortune. No, under existing circumstances it would be wrong, unpardonable; but at the same time he was bound to protect his father's reputation. The engagement with the widow must go on. He could not yield the prize; life without her would not be worth the having. What was to be done, then? Why, to wed, and to secure the maintenance of the firm by means which were at his command. Once married to the opulent Mrs Mildred, and nothing would be easier than to obtain men of the first consideration in the county to take a share of his responsibilities. Twenty, whom he could name, would jump at the opportunity and the offer. The house stood already high in the opinion of the world. What would it be with the superadded wealth of the magnificent widow? The private debts of his father were a secret. His parsimonious habits had left upon the minds of people a vague and shadowy notion of surpassing riches; Had he not been rich beyond men's calculation, he would not have ventured to live so meanly. Michael derived support from the general belief, and resolved most secularly to take a full advantage of it. If he could but procure one or two monied men as partners in the house, the thing was settled. Matters would be snug—the property secured. The business must increase. The profits would enable him in time to pay off his father's liabilities, and if, in the meanwhile, it should be deemed expedient to borrow from his wife, he might do so safely, satisfied that he could repay the loan, at length, with interest. Such was the outline of Michael Allcraft's scheme. His spirit was quiet as soon as it was concocted, and he reposed upon it for a season as tired men sleep soundly on a bed of straw.
Whilst the bridegroom was distressed with his peculiar grievances, the lovely bride was doomed to submit to annoyances scarcely less painful. Her late husband's friend, Doctor Wilford, who had been abroad for many months, suddenly returned home, and, in fulfilment of Mildred's dying wish, repaired without delay to the residence of his widow. Wilford had seen a great deal of the world. He did not expect to find the bereaved one inconsolable, but he was certainly staggered to behold her busy in preparations for a second marriage. Indignant at what he conceived to be an affront upon the memory of his friend, he argued and remonstrated against her indecent haste, and besought her to postpone the unseemly union. Roused by all he saw, the faithful friend spoke warmly on the deceased's behalf, and painted in the strongest colours he could employ, the enormity of her transgression. Now Margaret loved Michael as she had never loved before. Slander could not open its lying lips to speak one word against the esteem and gratitude she had ever entertained for Mildred but esteem and gratitude—I appeal to the best, the most virtuous and moral of my readers—cannot put out the fire that nature kindles in the adoring heart of woman. Her error was not that she loved Michael more, but that she had loved Mildred less. Ambition, if it usurp the rights of love, must look for all the punishment that love inflicts. Sooner or later it must come. "Who are you?" enquires the little god of the greater god, ambition, "that you should march into my realms, and create rebellion there? Wait but a little." Short was the interval between ambition's crime and love's revenge with our poor Margaret. Wilford might never know how cruelly his bitter words wrung her smitten soul. She did not answer him. Paler she grew with every reproach—deeper was the self-conviction with every angry syllable. She wept until he left her, and then she wrote to Michael. As matters stood, and with their present understanding—he was perhaps her best adviser. Wilford called to see her on the following day—but Margaret's door was shut against him, and she beheld her husband's friend no more.
And the blissful day came on—slowly, at last, to the happy lovers—for happy they were in each other's sight, and in their passionate attachment. And the blissful day arrived. Michael led her to the altar. A hundred curious eyes looked on, admired, and praised, and envied. He might be proud of his possession, were she unendowed with any thing but that incomparable, unfading loveliness. And he, with his young and vigorous form, was he not made for that rare plant to clasp and hang upon? "Heaven bless them both!" So said the multitude, and so say I, although I scarce can hope it; for who shall dare to think that Heaven will grant its benediction on a compact steeped in earthliness, and formed without one heavenward view!
THE WRONGS OF WOMEN.
I knew, my dear Eusebius, how delighted you would be with that paper in Maga on "Woman's Rights." It was balm to your Quixotic spirit. Though your limbs are a little rheumatic, and you do not so often as you were wont, when your hair was black as raven's wing, raise your hands to take down the armour that you have long since hung up, you know and feel with pride that it has been charmed by due night-watchings, and will yet serve many a good turn, should occasion require your service for woman in danger. Then, indeed, would you buckle on in defence of all or any that ever did, or did not, "buckle to." Then would come a happy cure to aching bones—made whole with honourable bruises, oblivious of pain, the "brachia livida," lithesome and triumphant. Your devotion to the sex has been seasoned under burning sun and winter frost, and has yet vital heat against icy age, come on fast as it will. You would not chill, Eusebius, though you were hours under a pump in a November night, and lusty arms at work watering your tender passion.
I know you. Rebecca and her daughters had a good word, a soft word from you, till you found out their beards. No mercy with them after that with you—the cowardly disguise—pike for pike was the cry. It was laughable to see you, and to hear you, as you brought a battery that could never reach them—fired upon them the reproach of Diogenes to an effeminate—"If he was offended with nature for making him a man, and not a woman;" and the affirmation of the Pedasians, from your friend Herodotus, that, whenever any calamity befell them, a prodigious beard grew on the chin of the priestess of Minerva. You ever thought a man in woman's disguise a profanation—a woman in man's a horror. The fair sex were never, in your eyes, the weaker and the worse; how oft have you delighted in their outward grace and moral purity, contrasting them with gross man, gloriously turning the argument in their favour by your new emphasis—"Give every man his deserts, and who shall escape whipping"—satisfying yourself, and every one else, that good, true, woman-loving Shakspeare must have meant the passage so to be read. And do you remember a whole afternoon maintaining, that the well-known song of "Billy Taylor" was a serious, true, good, epic poem, in eulogy of the exploits of a glorious woman, and in no way ridiculous to those whose language it spoke; and when we all gave it against you, how you turned round upon the poor author, and said he ought to have the bastinado at the soles of his feet?