The storm which had made shipwreck of the fortunes of Ephraim Lovegrove had leveled with the earth prouder roof-trees than his. In early life he had succeeded his father as the tenant of a farm in Wiltshire. He was industrious, careful, and ambitious; and aided by the sum of £500, which he received with his wife, and the high prices which agricultural produce obtained during the French war, he was enabled, at the expiration of his lease in Wiltshire, to become the proprietor of Bursley Farm. This purchase was effected when wheat ranged from £30 to £40 a load, at a proportionately exorbitant price of £5000. His savings amounted to about one half of this sum, and the remainder was raised by way of mortgage. Matters went on smoothly enough till the peace of 1815, and the subsequent precipitate fall in prices. Lovegrove showed gallant fight, hoping against hope that exceptional legislation would ultimately bolster up prices to something like their former level. He was deceived. Every day saw him sinking lower and lower; and in the sixth year of peace he was reluctantly compelled to abandon the long since desperate and hopeless struggle with adverse fortune. The interest on the borrowed money had fallen considerably in arrear, and Bursley Farm was sold by auction at a barely sufficient sum to cover the mortgage and accumulated interest. The stock was similarly disposed of, and stout Ephraim withdrew with his family to a small cottage in the neighborhood of his old home, possessed, after his debts were discharged, of about thirty pounds in money and a few necessary articles of furniture. The old man's heart was broken: he took almost immediately to his bed, and after a long agony of physical pain, aggravated and embittered by mental disquietude and discontent, expired, as we have seen, worn out in mind and body.
The future of the surviving family was a dark and anxious one. Edward Lovegrove, a frank, kindly-tempered young man, accustomed, in the golden days of farming, to ride occasionally after the hounds, as well equipped and mounted as any in the field, was little fitted for a struggle for daily bread with the crowded competition of the world. He had several times endeavored to obtain a situation as bailiff, but others more fortunate, perhaps better qualified, filled up every vacancy that offered, and the almost desperate man, but for the pleading helplessness of his wife and child, would have sought shelter in the ranks of the army—that grave in which so many withered prospects and broken hopes lie buried. As usual with disappointed men, his mind dwelt with daily-augmenting bitterness upon the persons at whose hands the last and decisive blows which had destroyed his home had been received. Sandars the mortgagee he looked upon as a monster of perfidy and injustice; but especially Nichols the attorney, who had superintended and directed the sale of the Bursley homestead, was regarded by him with the bitterest dislike. Other causes gave intensity to this vindictive feeling. The son of the attorney, Arthur Nichols, a wild, dissipated young man, had been a competitor for the hand of Mary Clarke, the sole child of Widow Clarke, and now Edward Lovegrove's wife. It was not at all remarkable or surprising that young Nichols should admire and seek to wed pretty and gentle Mary Clarke, but it was deemed strange by those who knew his father's grasping, mercenary disposition, that he should have been so eager for the match, well knowing, as he did, for the payments passed through his hands, that the widow's modest annuity terminated with her life. It was also known, and wonderingly commented upon, that the attorney was himself an anxious suitor for the widow's hand up to the day of her sudden and unexpected decease, which occurred about three years after her daughter's marriage with Edward Lovegrove. Immediately after this event, as if some restraint upon his pent-up malevolence had been removed, the elder Nichols manifested the most active hostility toward the Lovegroves; and to his persevering enmity it was generally attributed that Mr. Sandars had availed himself of the power of sale inserted in the mortgage deed, to cast his unfortunate debtor helpless and homeless upon the world.
Sadly passed away the weary, darkening days with the young couple after the old man's death. The expenses of his long illness had swept away the little money saved from the wreck of the farm; and it required the sacrifice of Edward's watch and some silver teaspoons to defray the cost of a decent funeral. At last, spite of the thriftiest economy, all was gone, and they were penniless.
"You have nothing to purchase breakfast with to-morrow, have you, Mary?" said the husband, after partaking of a scanty tea. The mother had feigned only to eat: little Edward, whose curly head was lying in her lap as he sat asleep on a low stool beside her, had her share.
"Not a farthing," she replied, mildly, even cheerfully, and the glance of her gentle eyes was hopeful and kind as ever. "But, bear up, Edward: we have still the furniture; and were that sold at once, it would enable us to reach London, where, you know, so many people have made fortunes, who arrived there as poor as we."
"Something must be done, that is certain," replied the husband. "We have not yet received an answer from Salisbury about the porter's place I have applied for."
"No; but I would rather, for your sake, Edward, that you filled such a situation at some place further off, where you were not so well known."
Edward Lovegrove sighed, and, presently, rising from his chair, walked toward a chest of drawers that stood at the further end of the room. His wife, who guessed his intention—for the matter had been already more than once hinted at—followed him with a tearful, apprehensive glance. Her husband played tolerably well—wonderfully in the wife's opinion—upon the flute, and a few weeks after their marriage, her mother had purchased and presented him with a very handsome one with silver keys. He used, in the old time, to accompany his wife in the simple ballads she sang so sweetly—and now this last memorial of the past, linked as it was with tender and pious memories, must be parted with! Edward Lovegrove had not looked at it for months: his life, of late so out of tune, would have made harsh discord of its music; and as he took it from the case, and, from the mere force of habit, moistened the joints, and placed the pieces together, a flood of bitterness swelled his heart to think that this solace of "lang syne" must be sacrificed to their hard necessities. He blew a few tremulous and imperfect notes, which awakened the little boy, who was immediately clamorous that mammy should sing, and daddy play, as they used to do.
"Shall we try, Mary," said the husband, "to please the child?" Poor Mary bowed her head: her heart was too full to speak. The flutist played the prelude to a favorite air several times over, before his wife could sufficiently command her voice to commence the song, and she had not reached the end of the second line when she stopped, choked with emotion, and burst into an agony of tears.
"It is useless trying, Mary," said Edward Lovegrove, soothingly, as he rose and put by the flute. "I will to bed at once, for to and from Christchurch, where I must dispose of it, is a long walk." He kissed his wife and child, and went up-stairs. The mother followed soon afterward, put her boy to rest, and after looking wistfully for a few moments at the worn and haggard features of her husband as he lay asleep, re-descended the stairs, and busied herself with some necessary household work.