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A LOSS AND A RECOVERY.
I need not dwell upon my course of life during the next few months. Most men have experienced what it is to make one’s way in a strange town, and I do not think it would be very interesting to any one, if I were to give a detailed account of the process of being made a factitious lion of. My good friend the bookseller would have it so in my case: he wanted a lion at that moment: there was no other material at hand, and he made me into a lion. Not a newspaper did I open, without seeing my name in it. If I went to look at Faneuil Hall, or strolled from Court Street to the Common, it was sure to be recorded for the public, and by the mere act of iteration the public were driven by seeing my name every day, to think I must be somebody. But the worst of this lion system is, that it is not always very easy to shake off your lion skin when you are tired of it. I confess I began to be weary of seeing my name in the columns of the journals, and at first I was inclined to correct all the various lies that were told about me, and to assure the people of Boston, in print, that I had never done fifty things I was reported to have done, and never intended to do fifty other things that were sketched out for me by the fertile imagination of various editors. A kind and judicious friend, however, advised me to refrain; and as this little sort of false celebrity obtained for me a great number of most delightful acquaintances, I was obliged to take the good with the bad, and receive much hospitality and kindly and instructive communion, as some compensation for being made to dance grotesquely in the public prints. I lost no opportunity, however, of denying, in private, all that was said about me in public, of telling all my friends in the city that I was not the great man, or the celebrated character I was represented—that I had never been in La Vendee in my life, and had never even seen a battle but that of Zurich. I must do them the justice to say also, that these confessions did not diminish their kindness in the least; and that when they found me to be a very plain, humble person, they were, perhaps, more hospitable and friendly than before. The writing of my book was favorable to me in all respects. It was but a poor affair, it is true; but it saved my little fortune, filled the pockets of the bookseller—for its success was ridiculous, in consequence of all the Charlitanism which was used before it appeared—and it did still more for me, by weaning my thoughts from the one deep, sorrowful subject of contemplation, which otherwise would have engrossed my mind continually. The autumn was coming on rapidly when it appeared; the woods around were glowing with colors such as I never in my life beheld in Nature’s robe before; and partly to get away from the crowds of a great city, partly to enjoy the loveliness of the scenery at a little distance from Boston, I used to wander forth early in the morning, and often not return till nightfall. I used sometimes, too, to call at the post-office and inquire for letters, with very little expectation of receiving any. Who would write to me, unless it were good Professor Haas or Monsieur Du Four? but from the former I thought there had been but little time to hear, and upon the promises of the latter I placed but little reliance.
One day, however, a thick letter was handed to me, with my address written on coarse German paper, with a black seal, and bearing the post-mark of Hamburgh. The handwriting, however, was not that of the good old professor; and I opened it with considerable apprehension, thinking that he must be ill, and must have employed some other hand to write for him. It was worse than I expected. Professor Haas was dead; and the letter was from his old friend the notary, who had drawn up the marriage contract between Louise and myself. He informed me of the fact of my friend’s death, in brief, formal terms, and then went on to state that Professor Haas had left the whole bulk of his property to me, naming as executors, one of his fellow professors and the notary himself, with directions to sell his house, and all that he possessed, and remit the money to a great banking-house in London for my benefit. I thought this a somewhat strange proceeding till I read further. I then found that the professor, who had always entertained the most profound horror for Revolutionists, had, during his latter days, and especially his sickness, become impressed with a notion that the French Republicans would sooner or later get possession of Hamburgh, and plunder the whole city. Ample directions were added to enable me to dispose of the money in any way I pleased, and more than one half of the paper was occupied with a long statement of accounts, which I did not even try to understand. The sum already remitted to England, however, was large, and enough to put me at my ease for life.
First impressions are, I suppose, always the most generous ones; and however great might have been the relief at any other moment to know that the means of subsistence were no longer to depend upon the caprice of Fortune, the intelligence afforded me but little consolation, when coupled with the death of my poor friend. I was very, very sad. The last earthly tie between myself and my poor Louise seemed gone; and all the painful memories connected with the last days of her life, revived as darkly and gloomily as ever. I took no steps in regard to the property. I did not even answer the notary’s letter; but day after day I walked out over the curious broken ground, and cedar-covered hills to the south and west of Boston, meditating sadly upon the past. At the face of nature I used to look from time to time, finding I know not what, of similarity between the fading aspect of the autumn-woods and the withering away of my own hopes and happiness. But I looked little at man when he fell in my way, and many a time felt half angry when a fellow walker on the same road gave me good day, or stopped to ask me the hour. There were very few human habitations in that direction at the time; and one solitary public house, about four miles from the city, I used to pass with my eyes always bent upon the ground. I know not what induced me to raise my eyes toward it one day, as I was walking along, somewhat more slowly than usual—for the weather had become suddenly sultry, in what they call the Indian Summer. Perhaps it was that my eye caught an indistinct sight of some one sitting under the veranda—an old man, very shabbily dressed in brown. I could not see his features, for I was at the distance of more than a hundred yards, and I only took a casual glance. But as I returned by the same road, the old man was still sitting there; and a young girl of twelve or thirteen years of age was standing by, talking to him, and offering him something in a cup. In my morose selfishness, I was going on without any further notice, when suddenly he took the girl’s arm, and rose up feebly, looking straight toward me. A strange feeling of recognition instantly seized upon me, and I turned sharply toward the house, with doubt in my mind, but certainty in my heart—a contrast that takes place more often than people imagine.
As I got near, doubt vanished. It was Father Bonneville; but as doubt disappeared with me, it seemed to increase with him, for it would seem that, although he had been very ill, I was far more changed than he was. Something in my gait and figure had struck him; but when he saw a broad and powerful young man, instead of the stripling who had been separated from him at Zurich, he could hardly believe in my identity, and did not feel quite sure till his hand was grasped in mine. I never saw the poor man so much agitated in all the many scenes we had passed through together. His usual calm placidity abandoned him entirely; and for a moment or two he wept with feelings which I am sure were not all unpleasant. I sat down beside him, while the girl ran into the house to tell her father, who was the landlord thereof, that the French gentleman had found a friend; and during her absence he told me that he had been living there for the last six weeks, almost on charity. He had sought me he said, far and near, and at length, partly from some preconception of the course I was likely to take, partly from some false information he had received in Holland, had concluded I had sailed for America, within four months after the battle of Zurich. He had in consequence embarked for New York, and had at that time made many efforts to make me acquainted with his arrival. For six months after reaching the shores of America, he had continued to receive supplies of money; but suddenly they had ceased, he said, and then for some time he had supported himself by teaching. His scholars fell off, however, and he was advised to try Boston; but his means were too small for the hotels or boarding-houses of that city, and feeling himself ill, he had come out to that remote place, both for purer air and greater economy. His money lasted but a fortnight, and he had explained to the landlord his situation. The good man—for he really was a good man—told him not to make himself uneasy, and proposed that he should teach his two daughters for his board until he was well enough to return to Boston again. But poor Father Bonneville soon became too ill, either to teach or to rise from his bed, and then all the native kindness of the people came forth. His two little pupils nursed him, he told me, as if he had been a parent. Their father supplied him with every thing that he required, and brought a physician, at his own expense, to see him.
“This is the third time I have left my room,” he said, “and they are still as kind as ever, though I have been a great burden to them.”
“No burden at all, my good man,” said the landlord, who was by this time standing by our side. “It’s but little good one can do in this world, and God forbid we shouldn’t do it when we can. I am very happy, however, he has found one of his friends at last.”
“He has found one,” I said, shaking the landlord by the hand, “to whom he has been more than a father, and who will never forget your kindness to him. I thank God that I am now in a situation to say, he shall never at least know what want is again.”
“Well, well,” said the landlord, “that is all very well. But you had better come into the house and talk it out there. We are just going to dinner, and there’s as good a chowder as ever was made. He told my girl he couldn’t eat just now, but he’s got his appetite back now, I guess.”