Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. VI, November 1850, Vol. I

by Various

The house was large enough for a gentleman's abode, but there were no neatly kept walks; no carefully cultivated shrubberies; no garden lying in exquisite richness around it. There was no use made of the barns and offices. There were no servants about. A troop of little children who were in the field in front, ran into the house and disappeared.

On entering the house, the stranger observed that its ample rooms were very naked and filled only by a visible presence of stern indigence. The woodwork was unpainted. The stone floors were worn, and merely sanded. The room into which he was conducted, and where the table was already laid for dinner, differed only in having the uncarpeted floor marked in figures of alternating ochre and pipe-clay, and was furnished with a meagre amount of humblest chairs and heavy oak tables, a little shelf of books and almanacs, and a yellow-faced clock. A shabby and tired-looking maid-servant was all the domestics seen within or without.

Joe, the simple-looking son, received them, and the only object which seemed to give a cheering impression to the stranger, was Joe's wife, who presented herself with a deep courtesy. The guest was surprised to see in her a very comely, fresh colored, and modestly sensible woman, who received him with a kindly cordiality and native grace, which made him wonder how such a woman could have allied herself to such a man. There were four or five children about her, all evidently washed and put into their best for his arrival, and who were pictures of health and shyness.

Mrs. Warilow took off the old man's great coat with an affectionate attention, and drew his plain elbow chair, with a cushion covered with a large-patterned check on its rush bottom, toward the fire; for there was a fire, and that quite acceptable in this cold region after the heavy rain. Dinner was then hastily brought in; Mrs. Warilow apologizing for its simplicity, from the short notice she had received, and she might have added from the painful news which Joe brought with him; for it was very evident, though she had sought to efface the trace of it, by copious washing, that she had been weeping.

The old man was obviously oppressed by the ill result of his morning's journey to the steward, and the position of his affairs. His daughter-in-law cast occasional looks of affectionate anxiety at him, and endeavored to help him in such a manner as to induce him to eat; but appetite he had little. Joe played his part as valiantly as in the morning; and the old man occasionally rousing from his reverie, again renewed the observation of the breakfast-table.

"Joe, lad, thou eats nothing;" adding too now, "Milly, my dear, thou eats nothing. You eat nothing, sir. None of you have any appetite, and I have none myself. God help me!"

An ordinary stranger would scarcely have resisted a smile—none appeared on the face of the guest.

After dinner they drew to the fire, which consisted of large lumps of coal burning under a huge beamed chimney. There a little table was set with spirits and home-made wine, and the old man and Joe lit their pipes, inviting the stranger to join them, which he did with right good-will. There was little conversation, however; Joe soon said that he must go over the lands to see that the cattle was all right; he did more, and even slept in his chair, and the stranger proposed to Mrs. Warilow a walk in the garden, where the afternoon sun was now shining warmly. In his drive hither in the chaise, he had learned the exact position of the old farmer. He was, as he had observed, so heavily in arrear of rent, that his whole stock would not discharge it. When they had seated themselves in the old arbor, he communicated his proposal to her father-in-law to remove to America; observing, that he had conceived so great a sympathy for him, that he would readily advance him the means of conveying over the whole family.

Mrs. Warilow was naturally much surprised at the disclosure. Such an offer from a casual stranger, when all friends and family connections had turned a deaf ear to all solicitations for aid, was something so improbable that she could not realize it. "How can you, sir, a stranger to us, volunteer so large a sum, which we may never be in a position to repay?"

The stranger assured her that the sum was by no means large. That to him it was of little consequence, and that such was the scope for industry and agricultural skill in America, that in a few years they could readily refund the money. Here, from what the old gentleman had told him of the new augmented rate of rental, there was no chance of recovering a condition of ease and comfort.