We pray you, therefore, gentle reader, to imagine yourself in a small cabin, where there are two beds—that is to say, two scanty portions of damp straw, spread out thinly upon a still damper foot of earth, in a portion of which the foot sinks when walking over it. The two beds—each what is termed a shake down—have barely covering enough to preserve the purposes of decency, but not to communicate the usual and necessary warmth. In consequence of the limited area of the cabin floor they are not far removed from each other. Upon a little three-legged stool, between them, burns a dim rush candle, whose light is so exceedingly feeble that it casts ghastly and death-like shadows over the whole inside of the cabin. That family consists of nine persons, of whom five are lying ill of fever, as the reader, from the nature of their bedding, may have already anticipated—for we must observe here, that the epidemic was rife at the time. Food of any description has not been under that roof for more than twenty-four hours. They are all in bed but one. A low murmur, that went to the heart of that one, with a noise which seemed to it louder and more terrible than the deepest peal that ever thundered through the firmament of heaven—a low murmur, we say, of this description, arose from the beds, composed of those wailing sounds that mingle together as they proceed from the lips of weakness, pain, and famine, until they form that many-toned, incessant, and horrible voice of multiplied misery, which falls upon the ear with the echoes of the grave, and upon the heart as something wonderful in the accents of God, or, as we may suppose the voice of the accusing angel to be, whilst recording before His throne the official inhumanity of councils and senates, who harden their hearts and shut their ears to “the cry of the poor.”
Seated upon a second little stool was a man of huge stature, clothed, if we can say I so, with rags, contemplating the misery around him, and having no sounds to listen to but the low, ceaseless wail of pain and suffering which we have described. His features, once manly and handsome, are now sharp and hollow; his beard is grown; his lips are white; and his eyes without I speculation, unless when lit up into an occasional blaze of fire, that seemed to proceed as much from the paroxysms of approaching insanity as from the terrible scene which surrounds him, as well as from his own I wolfish desire for food. His cheek bones project fearfully, and his large temples seem, by the ghastly skin which is drawn tight about them, to remind one of those of a skeleton, were it not that the image is made still more appalling by the existence of life. Whilst in this position, motionless as a statue, a voice from one of the beds called out “Jemmy,” with a tone so low and feeble that to other ears it would probably not have been distinctly audible. He went to the bedside, and taking the candle in his hand, said, in a voice that had lost its strength but not its tenderness:
“Well, Mary dear?”
“Jemmy,” said she, for it was his wife who had called him, “my time has come. I must lave you and them at last.”
“Thanks be to the Almighty,” he exclaimed, fervently; “and don't be surprised, darlin' of my life, that I spake as I do. Ah, Mary dear,” he proceeded, with, a wild and bitter manner, “I never thought that my love for you would make me say such words, or wish to feel you torn out of my breakin' heart; but I know how happy the change will be for you, as well as the sufferers you are lavin' behind you. Death now is our only consolation.”
“It cannot be that God, who knows the kind and affectionate heart you have, an' ever had,” replied his dying wife, “will neglect you and them long,”—but she answered with difficulty. “We were very happy,” she proceeded, slowly, however, and with pain; “for, hard as the world was of late upon us, still we had love and affection among ourselves; and that, Jemmy, God in his goodness left us, blessed be his—his—holy name—an' sure it was betther than all he took from us. I hope poor Alley will recover; she's now nearly a girl, an' will be able to take care of you and be a mother to the rest. I feel that my tongue's gettin' wake; God bless you and them, an', above all, her—for she was our darlin' an' our life, especially yours. Raise me up a little,” she added, “till I take a last look at them before I go.” He did so, and after casting her languid eyes mournfully over the wretched sleepers, she added: “Well, God is good, but this is a bitther sight for a mother's heart. Jemmy,” she proceeded, “I won't be long by myself in heaven; some of them will be with me soon—an' oh, what a joyful meeting will that be. But it's you I feel for most—it's you I'm loath to lave, light of my heart. Howsomever, God's will be done still. He sees we can't live here, an' He's takin' us to himself. Don't, darlin', don't kiss me, for fraid you might catch this fav——”
She held his hand in hers during this brief and tender dialogue, but on attempting to utter the last word he felt a gentle pressure, then a slight relaxation, and on holding the candle closer to her emaciated face—which still bore those dim traces of former beauty, that, in many instances, neither sickness nor death can altogether obliterate—he stooped and wildly kissed her now passive lips, exclaiming, in words purposely low, that the other inmates of the cabin might not hear them:
“A million favers, my darlin' Mary, would not prevent me from kissin' your lips, that will never more be opened with words of love and kindness to my heart. Oh, Mary, Mary! little did I drame that it would be in such a place, and in such a way, that you'd lave me and them.”
