“Ah, faith!” he replied, “and there's sense in what you say; it must be done, I suppose; but devil a bit, to my thinking, does any moon last a month in this climate; and the first cloudy weather, d'ye see, and I'm after you.”
It was difficult to escape from the generous embraces of my ardent father-in-law; and the whole street witnessed them.
That afternoon I spent in part with the Edgertons. I went soon after my own dinner and found the family at theirs. William Edgerton was present. The old man insisted that I should take a seat at the table and join them in a bottle of wine, which I did. It was a family, bearing apparently all the elements within itself of a happiness the most perfect and profound. Particularly an amiable family. Yet there was no insipidity. The father has already been made known; the son should be by this time; the mother was one of those strong-minded, simple women, whose mind may be expressed by its most striking characteristic—independence. She had that most obvious trait of aristocratic breeding, a quiet, indefinable, easy dignity—a seemingly natural quality, easy itself, that puts everybody at ease, and yet neither in itself nor in others suffered the slightest approach to be made to unbecoming familiarity. A sensible, gentlewoman—literally gentle—yet so calm, so firm, you would have supposed she had never known one emotion calculated to stir the sweet, glass-like placidity of her deportment.
And yet, amidst all this calm placidity, with an eye looking benevolence, and a considerateness that took note of your smallest want, she sustained the pangs of one yearning for her firstborn; dissatisfied and disappointed in his career, and apprehensive for his fate. The family was no longer happy. The worm was busy in all their hearts. They treated me kindly, but it was obvious that they were suffering. A visible constraint chilled and baffled conversation; and I could see the deepening anxieties which clouded the face of the mother, whenever her eye wandered in the direction of her son. This it did, in spite, I am convinced, of her endeavors to prevent it.
I, too, could now look in the same quarter. My feelings were less bitter than they were, and William Edgerton shared in the change. I did not the less believe him to have done wrong, but, in the renewed conviction of my wife's purity, I could forgive him, and almost think he was sufficiently punished in entertaining affections which were without hope. Punished he was, whether by hopelessness or guilt, and punished terribly. I could see a difference for the worse in his appearance since I had last conferred with him. He was haggard and spiritless to the last degree. He had few words while we sat at table, and these were spoken only after great effort; and, regarding him now with less temper than before, it seemed to me that his parents had not exaggerated the estimate which they had formed of his miserable appearance. He looked very much like one, who had abandoned himself to nightly dissipation, and those excesses of mind and body, which sap from both the saving and elevating substance. I did not wonder that the old man ascribed his condition to the bottle and the gaming-table. But that I knew better, such would most probably have been my own conclusion.
The conversation was not general—confined chiefly to Mr. Edgerton the elder and myself. Mrs. Edgerton remained awhile after the cloth had been withdrawn, joining occasionally in what was said, and finally left us, though with still a lingering, and a last look toward her son, which clearly told where her heart was. William Edgerton followed her, after a brief interval, and I saw no more of him, though I remained for more than an hour. He had said but little. It was with some evident effort, that he had succeeded in uttering some general observation on the subject of the Alabama prairies—those beautiful “gardens of the desert,”
“For which the speech of England has no name.”
My removal had been the leading topic of our discourse, and when I declared my intention to start on the very next day, and that the present was a farewell visit, the emotion of the son visibly increased. Soon after he left the room. When I was alone with the father, he took occasion to renew his offer of service, and, in such a manner, as to take from the offer its tone of service. He seemed rather to ask a favor than to suggest one. Money he could spare—the repayment should be at my own leisure—and my bond would be preferable, he was pleased to say, to that of any one he knew. I thanked him with becoming feelings, though, for the present, I declined his assistance. I pledged myself, however, should circumstances make it necessary for me to seek a loan, to turn, in the first instance, to him. He had been emphatically my friend—THE friend, sole, singular—never fluctuating in his regards, and never stopping to calculate the exact measure of my deserts. I felt that I could not too much forbear in reference to the son, having in view the generous friendship of the father.
That day, and the night which followed it, was a long period with me. I had to see many acquaintances, and attend to a thousand small matters. I was on my feet the whole day, and even when the night came I had no rest. I was in the city till near eleven o'clock. When I got home I found that my wife had done her share of the tasks. She had completed her preparations. Our luggage was all ready for removal. To her I had assigned the labor of packing up her pictures, her materials for painting, her clothes, and such other matters as she desired to carry with us, to our new place of abode. The rest was to be sold by a friend after our departure, and the proceeds remitted. I knew I should need them all. Most of our baggage was to be sent by water. We travelled in a private carriage, and consequently, could take little. Julia, unlike most women, was willing to believe with me that impediments are the true name for much luggage; and, with a most unfeminine habit, she could limit herself without reluctance to the merest necessities. We had no bandboxes, baskets, or extra bundles, to be stuffed here and there, filling holes and corners, and crowding every space, which should be yielded entirely to the limbs of the traveller. Though sensitive and delicate in a great degree, she had yet that masculine sense which teaches that, in the fewness of our wants lies our truest source of independence; and she could make herself ready for taking stage or steamboat in quite as short a time as myself.
Her day's work had exhausted her. She retired, and when I went up to the chamber, she already seemed to sleep. I could not. Fatigue, which had produced exhaustion, had baffled sleep. Extreme weariness becomes too much like a pain to yield readily to repose. The moment that exercise benumbs the frame, makes the limbs ache, the difficulty increases of securing slumber. I felt weary, but I was restless also. I felt that it would be vain for me to go to bed. Accordingly, I placed myself beside the window, and looked out meditatingly upon the broad lake which lay before our dwelling.