CHAPTER XII
FROM the shock of his son's failure, Mr. Howland did not recover. In arranging with his own creditors, he had arranged to do too much, and consequently his reduced business went on under pressure of serious embarrassment. He had sold his house, and two other pieces of property, and was living at a very moderate expense; but all this did not avail, and he saw the steady approaches of total ruin.
One day, at a time when this conviction was pressing most heavily upon him, one of the creditors of Edward, who had lost a good deal by the young man, came into the store, and asked if he had heard lately from his son.
Mr. Howland replied he had not.
"He's in Mobile, I understand?" said the gentleman.
"I believe he is," returned Mr. Howland.
"A correspondent of mine writes that he is in business there, and seems to have plenty of money."
"It is only seeming, I presume," remarked Mr. Howland.
"He says that he has purchased a handsome piece of property there."
"It cannot be possible!" was ejaculated.
"I presume that my information is true. Now, my reason for communicating this fact to you is, that you may write to him, and demand, if he have money to invest, that he refund to you a portion of what you have paid for him, and thus save you from the greater difficulties that I too plainly see gathering around you, and out of which I do not think it is possible for you to come unaided."
"No, sir," was the reply of Mr. Howland, as he slowly shook his head. "If he have money, it is ill-gotten, and I cannot share it. He owes you, write to him, and demand a payment of the debt."
"I am willing to yield my right in your favor, Mr. Howland. In your present extremity, you can make an appeal that it will be impossible for him to withstand. He may not dream of the position in which you are placed; and it is due to him that you inform him thereof. It will give him an opportunity to act above an evil and selfish spirit, and this action may be in him the beginning of a better state."
But the father shook his head again.
"Mr. Howland," said the other "you owe it to your son to put it in his power to act from a better principle than the one that now appears to govern him. Let him know of your great extremity, and he may compel himself to act against the selfish cupidities by which he is too plainly governed. Such action, done in violence of evil affections, may be to him the beginning of a better life. All things originate in small beginnings. There must first be a point of influx for good, as well as for bad principles. Sow this seed in your son's mind, and it may germinate, and grow into a plant of honesty."
Mr. Howland heaved a deep sigh, as he answered—
"This is presenting the subject in a new light; I will think about it."
"May you think about it to good purpose," replied the friend, earnestly.
This communication disturbed Mr. Howland greatly. He had too many good reasons for doubting his son's integrity of character; but he was not prepared to hear of such deliberate and cruel dishonesty as this. It was but another name for robbery—a robbery, even to the ruin of his own father.
"I will demand restitution!" said the old man, impatiently, as his mind dwelt longer and longer on the subject, and his feelings grew more and more indignant. From the thought of any appeal on the ground of humanity, he revolted. It was something entirely out of keeping with his peculiar character. He could not bend to this.
So Mr. Howland wrote a pretty strong letter to his son, in which he set forth in terse language the facts he had heard, and demanded as a right, that restitution be at once made.
Weeks passed and no answer to this demand was received. In the meantime, another crisis in the affairs of Mr. Howland was rapidly approaching. Unless aid were received from some quarter, he must sink utterly prostrate under the pressure that was upon him, and again fail to meet the honorable engagements that he had made. When that crisis came, he would fall to rise no more.
Ten days only remained, and then there would come a succession of payments, amounting in all to over five thousand dollars. To meet these payments unaided, would be impossible; and there was no one now to aid the reduced and sinking merchant. There was not a friend to whom he could go for aid so substantial as was now required, for most of his business friends had already suffered to some extent by his failure, and were not in the least inclined to risk anything farther on one whose position was known to be extremely doubtful.
The nearer this second crisis came, and the more distinctly Mr. Howland was able to see its painful features, the more did his heart shrink from encountering a disaster that would involve all his worldly affairs in hopeless ruin.
In this strait, the mind of Mr. Howland kept turning, involuntarily, toward his son Edward, as toward the only resource left him on the earth; but ever as it turned thus, something in him revolted at the idea, and he strove to push it from his thoughts. He could not do this, however, for it was the straw on the surface of the waters in which he felt himself sinking.
Painfully, and with a sense of deep humiliation, did Mr. Howland at length bring himself up to the point of writing again to his son. As everything depended on the effect of this second letter, he went down into a still lower deep of humiliation, and after representing in the most vivid colors the extremity to which he was reduced, begged him, if a spark of humanity remained in his bosom, to send him the aid he needed.
With a trembling hope did the father wait, day after day, for an answer to this letter. Time passed on, and the ninth day since its transmission came and yet there was no reply.
Nervously anxious was Mr. Howland on the morning of the tenth day, for if no help came then, it was all over with him. His note for fifteen hundred dollars fell due, and must be lifted ere the stroke of three, or the end with him had come.
A few mouthfuls of food were taken at breakfast, and then Mr. Howland hurried away to the Post Office, his heart fluttering with fear and expectation. A few moments, and he would know his fate. As he came in sight of the long row of boxes, his eyes glanced eagerly toward the one in which his letters were filed up. There was something in it. In a tone of forced composure, he called out the number of his box, and received from the clerk two letters. He glanced at the post-mark of one, and read—"New York," and at the other, and saw—"Boston." For a moment or two his breath was suspended, and his knees smote together. Then he moved away, slowly, with such a pressure on his feelings that the weight was reproduced on his physical system, and he walked with difficulty.
The letters were from business correspondents, and in no way affected the position of extremity he occupied. For a greater part of the morning Mr. Howland sat musing at his desk, in a kind of dreamy abstraction. All effort was felt to be useless, and he made none. At dinner time he went home, and sat at the table, silent and gloomy; but he scarcely tasted food. After the meal, he returned to his store—a faint hope springing up in his mind that Edward might have submitted the aid he had asked for so humbly by private hand, or through some broker in the city, and that it would yet arrive in time to save him. Alas! this proved a vain hope. Three o'clock came, and the unredeemed note still lay in bank.
"It is all over!" murmured the unhappy man, as like the strokes of a hammer upon his heart fell the three distinct chimes that rung the knell of his business life.
Taking up a newspaper, and affecting to read, Mr. Howland sat for nearly an hour awaiting the notorial visit, which seemed long delayed. At last he saw a man enter and come walking back toward the desk at which he sat. Not doubting but that it was the Notary, he was preparing to answer—"I can't take it, up," when a well-dressed stranger, with a dark, sun-burnt, countenance that had in it many familiar lines, passed before him, and fixed his eyes with an earnest look upon his face. For a few moments the two men regarded each other in silence, and then the stranger reached out his hand and uttered the single word—
"Father!"
"Andrew!" responded Mr. Howland, catching eagerly hold of the offered hand; "Andrew! my son! my son! are you yet alive?"
The great deep of the old man's heart was suddenly broken up, and he was overwhelmed by the rising floods of emotion. His lips quivered; there was a convulsive play of all the muscles of his face; and then large tears came slowly over his cheeks. The man of iron will was melted down; he wept like a child, and his son wept with him.
Scarcely had the first strong emotions created by this meeting exhausted themselves, when another person entered the store, and advanced to where the father and son were standing. He held a small slip of paper in his hand, and as he came up to Mr. Howland, he said, holding up the piece of paper—
"Your note for fifteen hundred dollars remains unpaid."
"I'm sorry, but I can't lift it," replied Mr. Howland, in a low voice that he wished not to reach the ear of his son; but Andrew heard the answer distinctly, and instantly drawing a large pocket book from his pocket, took out a roll of bank bills which he reached to his father, saying, as he did so—
"Take what you want. How timely has been my arrival!"
"My heart blesses you, my son, for this generous tender of aid in a great extremity," said Mr. Howland in a trembling voice, as he pushed back the roll of money. "But a crisis in my affairs has just arrived, and the lifting of this note will not save me."
"How much will save you?" asked Andrew.
"I must have five or six thousand dollars in as many days," replied Mr. Howland.
"This package of money will serve you then, for it contains ten thousand dollars," said Andrew. "Take it."
"I cannot rob you thus," returned Mr. Howland, in a broken voice, as he still drew back.
"Let me have that note, my friend." Andrew now turned to the Notary, who did not hesitate to exchange the merchant's promise to pay, for three five hundred dollar bills of a solvent bank.
A brief but earnest and affectionate interview then took place between Andrew and his father, which closed with a request from the former that he might be permitted to see his mother alone, and spend with her the few hours that remained until evening, before the latter joined them.
CHAPTER XIII
IT is nine years since Mrs. Howland looked her last look on her wayward, wandering boy, and eight years since any tidings came from him to bless her yearning heart. She appears older by almost twenty years, and moves about with a quiet drooping air, as if her heart were releasing itself from its hold on earthly objects, and reaching out its tendrils for a higher and surer support. With the exception of Martha, the youngest, all her children have given her trouble. Scarcely one of the sweet hopes cherished by her heart, when they first lay in helpless innocence upon her bosom, have been realized. Disappointment—disappointment—has come at almost every step of her married life. The iron hand of her husband has crushed almost every thing. Ah! how often and often, as she breathed the chilling air of her own household, where all was constrained propriety, would her heart go back to the sunny home in which were passed the happy days of girlhood, and wish that something of the wisdom and gentleness that marked her father's intercourse with his children could be transferred to her uncompromising husband. But that was a vain wish. The two men had been cast in far different moulds.
Martha, now in her eighteenth year, was more like her mother than any of the children, and but for the light of her presence Mrs. Howland could hardly have kept her head above the waters that were rushing around her. Toward Martha the conduct of her father had, from the first, been of a mild character compared with his action toward the other children; and this received a still farther modification, when it become apparent even to himself, that by his hardness he had estranged the affections of his elder children, and driven them away. Gentle and loving in all her actions, she gradually won her way more and more deeply into the heart of her father, until she acquired a great influence over him. This influence she had tried to make effectual in bringing about a reconciliation between him and her sister's husband; but, up to this time, her good offices were not successful. The old man's prejudices remained strong—he was not prepared to yield; and Markland's self-love having been deeply wounded by Mr. Howland, he was not disposed to make any advances toward healing the breach that existed. As for Mary, she cherished too deeply the remembrance of her father's unbending severity toward his children—in fact his iron hand had well nigh crushed affection out of her heart—to feel much inclined to use any influence with her husband. And so the separation, unpleasant and often painful to both parties, continued. To Mrs. Howland it was a source of constant affliction. Much had she done toward affecting a reconciliation; but the materials upon which she tried to impress something of her own gentle and forgiving spirit were of too hard a nature.
On the afternoon of the day on which Andrew returned so unexpectedly, almost like one rising from the dead, Mrs. Howland was alone, Martha having gone out to visit a friend. She was sitting in her chamber thinking of the long absent one—she had thought of him a great deal of late—when she heard the street door open and shut, and then there came the sound of a man's feet along the passage. She bent her head and listened. It was not the sound of her husband's feet—she knew his tread too well. Soon the man, whoever he was, commenced ascending the stairs; then he came toward her door, and then there was a gentle tap. The heart of Mrs. Howland was, by this time, beating violently. A moment or two passed before she had presence of mind sufficient to go to the door and open it.
"Andrew! Andrew! Oh, Andrew, my son!" she cried, in a glad, eager voice, the instant her eyes rested on the fine figure of a tall, sun-burnt man, and as she spoke, she flung her arms around his neck, and kissed him with all the fondness of a mother caressing her babe.
"Mother! dear, dear mother!" came sobbing from the lips of Andrew, as he returned her embrace fervently.
"Am I dreaming? or, is this all really so?" murmured the happy mother, pushing her son from her, yet clinging to him with an earnest grasp, and gazing fondly upon his face.
"It is no dream, mother," returned Andrew, "but a glad reality. After a long, long absence I have come back."
"Long—long! Oh, it has been an age, my son! How could you? But hush, my chiding heart! My wandering one has returned, and I will ask no questions as to his absence. Enough that I look upon his face again."
Andrew now led his mother to a seat, and taking one beside her, while he still held her hand tightly, and gazed with a look of tenderness into her face, said—
"You have grown old in nine years, mother; older than I had thought."
"Do you wonder at it, my son?" significantly inquired Mrs. Howland.
"I ought not to wonder, perhaps," replied Andrew, a touch of sadness in his voice. "There is such a thing as living too fast for time."
"You may well say that," answered Mrs. Howland, with visible emotion, "Years are sometimes crowded into as many days. This has been my own experience."
Both were now silent for a little while.
"And how are all the rest, mother?" asked Andrew, in a more animated voice.
"Your father has failed a good deal of late," replied Mrs. Howland, as she partly averted her eyes, doubtful as to the effect such reference might have.
"He has failed almost as much as you have, mother," was the unexpected reply. "I saw him a little while ago."
"Did you!" ejaculated Mrs. Howland, a light of pleasure and surprise breaking over her face.
"Yes; I called first at his store."
"I'm glad you did. Poor man! He has had his own troubles, and, I'm afraid, is falling into difficulties again. He has looked very unhappy for a week or two. Last night I hardly think he slept an hour at a time, and to-day he scarcely tasted food."
"I found him in trouble," said Andrew, "and fortunately was able to give him the relief he needed."
Mrs. Howland looked wonderingly into her son's face.
"I have not come back empty-handed, mother," said Andrew. "A year ago, when thousands of miles from home, I heard of father's troubles. I was about returning to see you all again, and to make P—my future abiding place, if I could find any honest employment; but this intelligence caused me to change my mind. News had just been received of the wonderful discoveries of gold in California, and I said to myself, 'If there is gold to be had there, I will find it.' I was not thinking of myself when I made this resolution, but of you and father. In this spirit I made the long and wearisome overland journey, and for more than eight, months worked amid the golden sands of that far off region. And my labor was not in vain. I accumulated a large amount of grains and lumps of the precious metal, and then hurried homeward to lay the treasures at your feet. Happily, I arrived at the most fitting time."
Mrs. Howland was deeply affected by this relation, so strange and so unlooked for in every particular.
"And now, mother, what of Mary?" said Andrew, before time was given for any remark upon this brief narrative. "Has she and her husband yet been reconciled to father?"
"No; and my heart has grown faint with hope deferred in relation to this matter. I think Mary's husband is too unyielding. Your father, I know, regrets the unkind opposition he made to their marriage; and has seen many good reasons for changing his opinion of Mr. Markland's character. But you know his unbending disposition. If they would yield a little—if they would only make the first step toward a reconciliation, he would be softened in a moment. And then, oh, how much happier would all be!"
"They must yield; they must take the first step," said Andrew, rising from his chair.
"That reconciliation would be the top sheaf of my happiness, today," replied Mrs. Howland.
"It shall crown your rejoicing," said Andrew, in a positive tone. "Where do they live?"
Mrs. Howland gave the direction asked by her son, who departed immediately on his errand of good will.
For a time after Andrew left the store of his father, Mr. Howland sat half bewildered by the strange occurrence that had just taken place, while his heart felt emotions of tenderness going deeper and deeper toward its centre. Though confessed to no one, he had felt greatly troubled in regard to the iron discipline to which he had subjected his wayward boy, and had tried for years, but in vain, to force from his mind the conviction that upon his own head rested the sin of his ruin. Long since had he given him up as lost to this world, and, he sadly feared, lost in the next. To have him return, as he did, without even a foreshadowing sign of his coming, was an event that completely broke down his feelings. Moreover, he was touched by the spirit in which his son came back; a spirit of practical forgiveness; the first act flowing from which was the conference of a great benefit.
"There was good in the boy," sighed the old man, as he mused on what had just occurred. "Alas! that it should have been so long overshadowed. A milder course might have done better. Ah, me! we are weak and shortsighted mortals."
Mr. Howland remained in his store until the late mails were distributed at the post-office, when, unexpectedly, a letter came from Edward. It contained a draft for a thousand dollars, and was in these words—
"DEAR FATHER—I received your two letters. To the first returned no answer; I need hardly give you the reason. It was a hard, harsh, insulting letter, charging me with extensive frauds on you and others, assuming that I was in possession of large sums of money thus obtained, and imperiously demanding restitution. As to your sources of information, I know nothing; but I trust, that before you take such stories for granted, you will, at least, look well to their authenticity. Your second letter was in a different tone, and awoke in me a far different spirit from that awakened by the one first received. I am pained to hear of your great embarrassment, which I did not anticipate. I thought that the extension of time you received, would enable you to meet all demands, and deeply regret that such has not proved to be the case. Enclosed, I send you a draft for one thousand dollars, which I have raised with great difficulty; I wish, for your sake, that it were ten times the amount. But it is the best I can do. When I came here I had about fifteen hundred dollars in money; upon this I commenced business, and have done tolerably well, but I am still on the steep up-hill side, and it is far from certain whether I will go up or down from the point I now occupy. Give my love to mother and Martha,
Affectionately yours,
EDWARD."
Mr. Howland mused for some time after receiving the letter; then he turned to his desk, and wrote briefly, as follows—
"MY DEAR SON—I have your letter enclosing a draft for one thousand dollars. I thank you for the remittance, but, happily, have received aid from an unexpected quarter, and do not now need the money. With this I return the draft you sent. I regret any injustice I may have done you in a former letter, and hope you will forgive a too warm expression of my feelings.
Yours, &c.,
ANDREW HOWLAND."
This letter was dispatched by the Southern mail, and then Mr. Howland turned his steps homeward. He felt strangely. There was a pressure on his bosom; but it was not the pressure of trouble that had rested upon it so long, but a pressure of conflicting emotions, all tending to soften and subdue his feelings, to bend the iron man, and to mould his spirit into a new and better form. With a lively pleasure was he looking forward to the second meeting with Andrew in the presence of his mother, but he did not know how great a pleasure, beyond his anticipations, was in store for him.
On arriving at his house, Mr. Howland opened the door and went in. He had passed along the entry but a few paces, when some one stepped from the parlor. He paused, and looked up. It was his daughter Mary who stood before him. In her arms was a sweet little girl, and on her face was a smile, the warmth and light of which were on his heart in an instant.
"Father!"
It was the only word she uttered. The tone of her voice, and the expression of her face told all he wished to know.
"My dear child!" fell warmly from the lips of Mr. Howland, as he grasped his daughter's hand, and then kissed tenderly both her own lips and those of her babe.
"Dear father!" murmured Mary, as she leaned her head, in tears, upon his breast.
At this moment there was a movement of feet in the parlor, and the husband of Mary presented himself. An open, frank, forgiving expression was on his face, as he came forward and offered his hand, which was instantly seized by Mr. Howland, in a hearty pressure. Andrew and his mother joined the group, and, with smiles and pleasant words, made perfect the sphere of happiness.
"My children," said Mr. Howland, at length, speaking in a trembling voice, "my cup is full to-night. I must leave you a little while, or it will run over."
And saying this, he gently disengaged himself, and passed up to his chamber, where he remained alone for over half an hour. When he joined the family, his manner was greatly subdued, and in his speech there was a softness which none had known before.
In the glad reunion of that evening, how many heart-wounds were healed, how many old scars covered over and hidden!