I Told Him That We Were Two Ladies,
Who Had Walked All The Way From Douro To See His Mamma, And That We
Wished Very Much To Speak To Her.
The lad answered us, with the ease
and courtesy of a gentleman, that he did not know whether his mamma
could be seen by strangers, but he would go in and see.
So saying he
abruptly left us, leaving behind him an ugly skeleton of a dog, who,
after expressing his disapprobation at our presence in the most
disagreeable and unequivocal manner, pounced like a famished wolf
upon the sack of good things which lay at Emilia's feet; and our
united efforts could scarcely keep him off.
"A cold, doubtful reception this!" said my friend, turning her back
to the wind, and hiding her face in her muff. "This is worse than
Hannah's liberality, and the long, weary walk."
I thought so too, and began to apprehend that our walk had been in
vain, when the lad again appeared, and said that we might walk in,
for his mother was dressed.
Emilia, true to her determination, went no farther than the passage.
In vain were all my entreating looks and mute appeals to her
benevolence and friendship; I was forced to enter alone the
apartment that contained the distressed family.
I felt that I was treading upon sacred ground, for a pitying angel
hovers over the abode of suffering virtue, and hallows all its woes.
On a rude bench, before the fire, sat a lady, between thirty and
forty years of age, dressed in a thin, coloured muslin gown, the
most inappropriate garment for the rigour of the season, but, in all
probability, the only decent one that she retained. A subdued
melancholy looked forth from her large, dark, pensive eyes. She
appeared like one who, having discovered the full extent of her
misery, had proudly steeled her heart to bear it. Her countenance
was very pleasing, and, in early life (but she was still young), she
must have been eminently handsome. Near her, with her head bent
down, and shaded by her thin, slender hand, her slight figure
scarcely covered by her scanty clothing, sat her eldest daughter, a
gentle, sweet-looking girl, who held in her arms a baby brother,
whose destitution she endeavoured to conceal. It was a touching
sight; that suffering girl, just stepping into womanhood, hiding
against her young bosom the nakedness of the little creature she
loved. Another fine boy, whose neatly-patched clothes had not one
piece of the original stuff apparently left in them, stood behind
his mother, with dark, glistening eyes fastened upon me, as if
amused, and wondering who I was, and what business I could have
there. A pale and attenuated, but very pretty, delicately-featured
little girl was seated on a low stool before the fire. This was
old Jenny's darling, Ellie, or Eloise. A rude bedstead, of home
manufacture, in a corner of the room, covered with a coarse woollen
quilt, contained two little boys, who had crept into it to conceal
their wants from the eyes of the stranger. On the table lay a dozen
peeled potatoes, and a small pot was boiling on the fire, to receive
their scanty and only daily meal. There was such an air of patient
and enduring suffering to the whole group, that, as I gazed
heart-stricken upon it, my fortitude quite gave way, and I burst
into tears.
Mrs. N - - first broke the painful silence, and, rather proudly,
asked me to whom she had the pleasure of speaking. I made a
desperate effort to regain my composure, and told her, but with much
embarrassment, my name; adding that I was so well acquainted with
her and her children, through Jenny, that I could not consider her
as a stranger; that I hoped that, as I was the wife of an officer,
and like her, a resident in the bush, and well acquainted with all
its trials and privations, she would look upon me as a friend.
She seemed surprised and annoyed, and I found no small difficulty
in introducing the object of my visit; but the day was rapidly
declining, and I knew that not a moment was to be lost. At first
she coldly rejected all offers of service, and said that she was
contented, and wanted for nothing.
I appealed to the situation in which I beheld herself and her
children, and implored her, for their sakes, not to refuse help from
friends who felt for her distress. Her maternal feelings triumphed
over her assumed indifference, and when she saw me weeping, for I
could no longer restrain my tears, her pride yielded, and for some
minutes not a word was spoken. I heard the large tears, as they
slowly fell from her daughter's eyes, drop one by one upon her
garments.
At last the poor girl sobbed out, "Dear mamma, why conceal the
truth? You know that we are nearly naked, and starving."
Then came the sad tale of domestic woes: - the absence of the husband
and eldest son; the uncertainty as to where they were, or in what
engaged; the utter want of means to procure the common necessaries
of life; the sale of the only remaining cow that used to provide the
children with food. It had been sold for twelve dollars, part to be
paid in cash, part in potatoes; the potatoes were nearly exhausted,
and they were allowanced to so many a day. But the six dollars she
had retained as their last resource. Alas! she had sent the eldest
boy the day before to P - -, to get a letter out of the post-office,
which she hoped contained some tidings of her husband and son.
She was all anxiety and expectation, but the child returned late
at night without the letter which they had longed for with such
feverish impatience. The six dollars upon which they had depended
for a supply of food were in notes of the Farmer's Bank, which at
that time would not pass for money, and which the roguish purchaser
of the cow had passed off upon this distressed family.
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