The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales Part 37

"I can't tell you," said Mr. Cleveland.

"I insist," said Mrs. Cleveland, stamping her foot.

"Then I won't tell--if you die!" said the rebellious Cleveland.

"I shall trouble you, ma'am, to leave my house," said the irritated mistress of the mansion. "Not one farthing on that note do you get out of me."

"Then I shall be under the unpleasant necessity of taking legal measures to obtain the debt," said the French woman, rising. "Mr.

Cleveland, I wish you very much happiness with your amiable lady."

There was a storm--a regular equinoctial gale--after the departure of Madame St. Germain. Mrs. Cleveland was very provoking, and Mr.

Cleveland indulged in epithets unbecoming a scholar and a gentleman.

That night the "happy couple" luxuriated in separate apartments. The next day came a lawyer's letter, then a civil process, and finally Mr.

John Cleveland was marched off to Leverett Street jail, where, after giving due notice to his creditor and obtaining bail, he was allowed the benefit of the "limits," with the privilege of "swearing out," at the expiration of thirty days.

Jack engaged lodging at a little tavern, on the limits, where he found Frank Aikin, who had run through _his_ "pile," and a few kindred spirits of the fast young men school enacting the part of "gentlemen in difficulties." Cigars, champagne, and cards were ordered, and Jack became a fast young man once more. Towards the small hours of the morning, he forgot having married a widow, and thinking himself a bachelor, he proposed the health of a certain Miss Julia Vining, which was drank with three times three. The next morning, he sat down to a capital breakfast, with more fast young men, and for a whole week he enjoyed himself _en garcon_, without once thinking of the forsaken Dido in Beacon Street.

One day, however, when he had exhausted his cash and credit, and a racking headache induced him to regret the speed of his late life, a carriage rattled up to the door of the tavern, his own door was shortly after thrown open, and a lady flung herself into his arms.

Mrs. Cleveland looked really fascinating.

"Come home, my dear Jack," said she, bursting into tears; "I've been so lonely without you."

"Not so fast, Mrs. Cleveland," said the young gentleman, as he perceived his power. "I'm very happy where I am. I can't go back except on certain conditions."

"Name them, dearest."

"I'm to smoke as many cigars as I please."

"Granted."

"Not to carry any more bandboxes or tomcats."

"Granted."

"To give a dinner party to the 'boys' once in a while."

"Granted--granted. And I've paid your note, and opened a cash account for you at the bank."

"You are an angel," said Cleveland; "and now it's all over--that note was given Madame St. Germain for tuition of a young girl, Miss Julia Vining, whom I educated with the romantic notion of making her my wife, when she should arrive at a suitable age, at which period she ran off with a one-eyed French fiddler, and is now taking in sewing at 191st Street, New York."

The happy pair went home in their carriage, and we never heard of any differences between them. Mrs. Cleveland wears very well, and Mr.

Cleveland is now an alderman, remarkable chiefly for the ponderosity of his person, and the heaviness of his munic.i.p.al harangues. "Sich is life."

THE EMIGRANT s.h.i.+P.

On a summer's day, some years ago, business brought me to one of the wharves of this city, at the moment when a s.h.i.+p from Liverpool had just arrived, with some two hundred and fifty emigrants, men, women, and children, chiefly Irish. Much as I had heard and read of the condition of many of the poor pa.s.sengers, I never fully realized their distresses until I personally witnessed them.

Under the most favorable circ.u.mstances, the removal of families from the land of their birth is attended by many painful incidents. About to embark upon a long and perilous voyage, to seek the untried hospitalities of a stranger soil, the old landmarks and a.s.sociations which the heartstrings grasp with a cruel tenacity are viewed through the mist of tears and agony.

The old church--the weather-worn homestead--the ancient school house, the familiar play ground, and more sadly dear than all, the green graveyard, offer a mute appeal "more eloquent than words." But when to these afflictions of the heart are added the pangs of physical suffering and privation; when emigrants, in embarking, embark their all in the expenses of the voyage, and have no hope, even for existence, but in a happy combination of possible chances; when near and dear ones must be left behind, certainly to suffer, and probably to die,--the pangs of separation embrace all that can be conceived of agony and distress.

The emigrant s.h.i.+p whose arrival we witnessed had been seventy odd days from port to port. Her pa.s.sengers were of the poorest cla.s.s. Their means had been nearly exhausted in going from Dublin to Liverpool, and in endeavors to obtain work in the latter city, previous to bidding a reluctant but eternal farewell to the old country. They came on board worn out--wan--the very life of many dependent on a speedy pa.s.sage over the Atlantic. In this they were disappointed. The s.h.i.+p had encountered a succession of terrific gales; it had leaked badly, and they had been confined, a great part of the voyage, to their narrow quarters between decks, herded together in a noisome and pestilential atmosphere, littered with damp straw, and full of filth.

What marvel that disease and death invaded their ranks? One after another, many died and were launched into the deep sea. The s.h.i.+p entered Fayal to refit, and there that clime of endless summer proved to the emigrants more fatal than the blast of the upas-poisoned valley of Java. The delicious oranges, and the mild Pico wine, used liberally by the pa.s.sengers, sowed the seeds of death yet more freely among their ranks. On the pa.s.sage from Fayal, the mortality was dreadful, but at length, decimated and diseased, the band of emigrants arrived at Boston.

It was a summer's day--but no cheering ray of light fell upon the spires of the city. The sky was dark and gloomy; the bay spread out before the eye like a huge sheet of lead, and the clouds swept low and heavily over the hills and house tops.

After the vessel was moored, all the pa.s.sengers who were capable of moving, or of being moved, came up or were brought up on deck. We scanned their wan and haggard features with curiosity and pity.

Here was the wreck of an athletic man. His eyes, deep-sunken in their orbits, were nearly as gla.s.sy as those of a corpse; his poor attire hung loosely on his square shoulders. His matted beard rendered his sickly, greenish countenance yet more wan and livid. He crawled about the deck _alone_--his wife and five children, they for whom he had lived and struggled, for whose sake he was making a last desperate exertion, had all been taken from him on the voyage. We addressed him some questions touching his family.

"They are all gone," said he, "the wife and the childer. The last one--the babby--died this mornin'--she lies below. They're best off where they are."

In another place sat a s.h.i.+vering, ragged man, the picture of despair.

A few of his countrymen, who had gathered round him, offered him some food. He might have taken it eagerly some days before. _Now_ he gazed on vacancy, without noticing their efforts to induce him to take some nourishment. Still they persevered, and one held a cooling gla.s.s of lemonade to his parched lips.

Seated on the after hatchway was a little boy who had that morning lost both his parents. He shed no tear. Familiarity with misery had deprived him of that sad consolation.

We pa.s.sed on to a group of Irishmen gathered round an old gray-haired man lying at length upon the forward deck. One of them was kneeling beside him.

"Father, father!" said he, earnestly, "rouse up, for the love of Heaven. See here--I've brought ye some porridge--tak a sup ov it--it will give ye heart and life."

"Sorrow a bit of life's left in the old man any how. Lave him alone, Jamie."

"Lift him ash.o.r.e," said the mate--"he wants air."

The dying man was carefully lifted on the wharf, and laid down upon a plank. His features changed rapidly during the transit. His head now fell back--the pallid hue of death invaded his lips--his lower jaw relaxed--the staring eyeb.a.l.l.s had no speculation in them--a slight shudder convulsed his frame. The son kneeled beside him; closed his eyes--it was all over. And there, in the open air, with no covering to s.h.i.+eld his reverend locks from the falling rain, pa.s.sed away the soul of the old man from its earthly tabernacle.

The hospital cart arrived. Busy agents lifted into it, with professional _sang froid_, crippled age and tottering childhood. But all the spectators of this harrowing scene testified, by their expressions, sympathy and sorrow, one low-browed ruffian alone excepted.

"Serves 'em right ----d ----n 'em!" said he, savagely. "Why don't they stay at home in their own country, and not come here to take the bread out of honest people's mouths?"

Honest, quotha? If ever "flat burglary" and "treason dire" were written on a man's face, it stood out in staring capitals upon that Cain-like brow.

But there were lights as well as shadows to the picture. Out of that grim den of death, out of that floating lazar house, there came a few blooming maidens and stalwart youths, like fair flowers springing from the rankness of a charnel. Their sorrows were but for the misfortunes of others; and even these were a while forgotten in the joy of meeting near and dear relatives, and old friends upon the sh.o.r.e of the promised land. They went their way rejoicing, and with them pa.s.sed the solitary ray of suns.h.i.+ne that streamed athwart the dark horrors of the emigrant s.h.i.+p, like the wandering pencil of light that sometimes visits the condemned cell of a prison.

THE LAST OF THE STAGE COACHES.

A FRAGMENT OF A CLUB-ROOM CONVERSATION.

"Did you ever," said the one-eyed gentleman, fixing his single sound optic upon us with an intensity which made it glow like one of the coals in the grate before us, "did you ever hear how I met with this misfortune?"