The Prodigal Daughter CHAPTER 9.
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About six months previous to the occurrence of the exciting incident detailed in the preceding chapter, Mr. Melleville came home from an absence of a few days and found, greatly to his alarm, that all of his children, three sons and two daughters, all nearly grown, had been taken dangerously ill with a malignant fever, then raging throughout the neighborhood. A physician had been in attendance already, for two days; but thus far, he had not been able to make the slightest impression on the disease, which continued to increase in violence until the tenth day. Then came the crisis.
"Doctor," said the father, with a pale, anxious face, as he met the physician at the door on the tenth morning, "I want the very truth from you. Look at my children, and then tell me if there is any hope."
The doctor passed into the sick rooms without replying. He first went to the bed of a young girl, about fifteen, and examined all her symptoms with much care. A heavy sigh escaped him, as he turned away to another bed. Here he found still less to encourage him. An examination of all showed the painful fact, that in each one the disease had assumed its most malignant type, and that recovery would be little less than a miracle. He then gave a few directions to the attendants, and went out.
"Well, Doctor?" And Mr. Melleville placed his hand upon the physician's arm heavily, and stood looking him in the face, in pale suspense.
"There is but little hope, Mr. Melleville."
A quick shudder passed through the father's frame.
"I have done my best," resumed the physician. "Your children are in the hands of a merciful God."
Mr. Melleville clasped his hands upon his forehead and staggered back a few paces, as if from a heavy blow. But rallying himself with a strong effort, he said:
"Doctor I have often known people to recover after all hope was gone. You do not mean to say that my children will certainly die?"
"No, no Mr. Melleville. I mean to say no such thing. You asked me for the truth. That I have given you. He only can restore them, who, after all, is the physician who heals, even in the remedies that we prescribe. Leave them, then, in his hands and do so with the assurance, that, whether taken or not — their greatest good will be the end secured."
"But, sir," the agitated father said, again catching hold of the physician's arm, and looking him eagerly in the face, "I cannot give them up! They are my children! Bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh! Save them for me, and name your reward. Let it be the half of all my worldly goods. But save my children!"
"I could do no more than I have done, were my own children at stake," replied the physician, with solemn earnestness. "They are in the hands of Him with whom are the issues of life. Look up to Him."
The physician turned away, but Mr. Melleville would not let him go.
"Doctor! Is there nothing that I can offer you to save my children?"
The physician was deeply moved.
"Mr. Melleville," he again said, "they are in God's hands, not mine. I have no power to cure — but what I receive from Him who has given to medicine its virtue. All that I can do — I have done."
"But you will not leave us, Doctor," urged the father, in a tremulous voice. "Some change for the better may take place — a change that will require to be immediately attended by your skill."
"I will return in an hour," he replied. "I have two other patients in like peril with your children. I must see them."
"Doctor, do not leave us!" begged the distracted father.
"My other patients are children, loved as tenderly as you love your children. Today is the most critical period in their disease. I must see them."
"I will send for another physician to attend them. Do not go away, Doctor."
"My duty is plain, Mr. Melleville, and I cannot neglect it. I must see my other patients. But I will return in an hour."
And he moved towards the door.
Again the father urged and implored, but to no purpose. The selfishness of his affliction could not bend the inflexible physician from the course of duty. He went away, leaving Mr. Melleville half stupefied under the appalling sense of his children's danger. The mother was much calmer, though no less really appalled at the thought of the impending danger which threatened her offspring.
In an hour the physician returned, and again examined the sick children. There had been a change in their symptoms even in that short period — a change for the worse. This his quick eye at once detected.
"How are they now, Doctor?" This was asked by Mr. Melleville, in a husky whisper.
"There is no change for the better," was the reluctant reply.
The father sank upon a chair and groaned heavily. His head fell upon his bosom, his hands were tightly clenched, and his brows wrinkled. The strong, stern man was broken in spirit, and as weak as a woman.
"For the love of Heaven, Doctor," he at length said, low and mournfully, lifting his head, and looking at the physician with a sad, imploring face, "try and save me my children, for I cannot give them up. If they die — my life has no more charms for me. Take them away, and you leave me nothing."
The Doctor sat down by his side, and taking hold of his hand, said,
"Let me again urge you to look to the Great Physician. Whom he will — he sets up; and whom he will — he casts down. He gives us life — and, at his own good pleasure, takesback the blessing. I am but an instrument in his hands when he restores the sick to health. When he wishes to recall any of his creatures — my skill is unavailing."
But Mr. Melleville could look to any other source for aid, rather than to the one pointed out. He had no confidence in, and nothing to hope for from God. He had ever been more inclined to turn away from him, and set at nothing his precepts, to follow out the leadings of his own selfish heart. When life went smoothly — he had forgotten God. Now he felt that to look to him would be all in vain.
The well-skilled eye of the physician had not deceived him. Death speedily claimed, first one, and then another of the children for his own — until four of them slept calmly the everlasting sleep to earthly things.
One yet lingered, Mary, the eldest of the five. Though flickering in its socket, the slender flame of life still burned feebly on. Upon her were now centered all the parents' anxiety and hope. Those that had died, were beyond the reach of human hope. They could only be mourned for — but Mary still lived on. How eagerly did their shattered and aching affections cling to her. Others rendered to the dead the last sad offices — but their thoughts were all for the living, whose side they left not for a moment, except to join, for a short period, in the funeral train. While they stood by the graves of their dead children, their thoughts were with the living one. It was this which saved them. Nature could not have borne the agony they must have endured, in parting so suddenly with their household idols, if there had not been in their minds an all-absorbing anxiety for the one that yet remained.
One more day of agonizing suspense, and then there was a dawn of light. The wasting disease which had clung to the vitals of their child, relinquished its hold, and left her as weak as a newborn infant. Gradually, a healthy action supervened; and under the constant judicious care of the physician, she slowly, but surely recovered.
Lonely, sad, and desolate was the household of Mr. Melleville, after this afflictive dispensation. The father wandered about with drooping head, and his eyes turned dreamily inward. The mother hovered around the bed of Mary with trembling interest, fearful lest the destroyer had not passed over. But death had fulfilled his mission. One jewel was spared to them now, in their estimation, of princely value.
In about two weeks, Mary had so far recovered as to be able to sit up. The silence and desolation which reigned around oppressed her heart, which mourned over its lost ones with a grief that could not be comforted.
One morning, three weeks after the shadow of death had fallen darkly over them, Mary, who was able to sit up for a few hours at a time, was leaning back upon the pillows that a careful hand had arranged around her, with her eyes closed. Her father and mother held, each, a hand, and were gazing upon her face. They spoke not, for she seemed sleeping. But no, she slept not; for her eyelids quivered, and seemed tightly pressed together. In a little while, a tear stole quietly forth, and rested upon her cheek. The hearts of both father and mother were touched. That drop they knew was for the lost ones she had loved so tenderly. Their own eyes grew dim.
"Mother," said the invalid, in a little while, before closing her eyes, which were swimming in tears, "I had a strange dream last night. May I tell it to you?"
"Yes, my love. Let us hear your dream."
"I dreamed," said Mary, her voice trembling with suppressed feeling, while tears came slowly from her eyes and rolled over her face, "that I was well enough to walk out. It was a calm summer evening, and the air was sweet with the odor of May blossoms. I wandered out, I thought not where, but I soon came into a little enclosure, where were four newly made graves. I knew them to be the graves of my sister and brothers. I sat down beside them and cried bitterly. I wished that I had died also, that I might still be with them. I had been weeping there, it seemed to me, a long time, when I heard my name called, and turning around, saw Ellen standing near me, all dressed in white garments — her face radiant of heavenly beauty. She held by the hand a pale, wasted, sad-looking creature, in tattered garments and with a lank body. It was Alice! My own, long lost sister Alice!
"'There is one left to you,' Ellen said. 'Do not forget the living, while mourning over the dead!' All vanished from my eyes, and I awoke."
A deep groan, half repressed, escaped Mr. Melleville, as he arose and left the room, in an agitated manner. For more than three hours he paced the floor of his own chamber, his mind in an agony. He was suddenly self-convicted of the most unnatural and cruel conduct towards his cast-off child, whose condition, if living, he had too good reasons for believing, was in all respects as bad, if not worse than that of the apparition in Mary's dream. During all this time, the mother, with whom Mary had been pleading for her sister, did not go near him.
At length, however, she left the room and joined her husband. Mary's tears and entreaties had not been needed. Long, long before would Alice have been received into her bosom, but Mr. Melleville was proud and inexorable. Now, she thought it best to leave him to his own thoughts, and she did so for the period we have named. When she, at length, entered their chamber, where he had retired, she found him seated with his face buried in his hands and his head resting upon a table. He did not move at the sound of her footsteps.
"Let us forgive her — as we hope for God's forgiveness," Mrs. Melleville said, in a low, quivering voice, touching the hand of her husband with her own.
A quick shudder passed through his frame. Then he lifted his head and looked at his wife with a countenance greatly changed. It was sad, subdued, and full of remorse.
"I have been worse than a beast!" he said, with bitter emphasis. "My poor, poor child! Who can tell to what depths of wretchedness and misery your father's hard heart has doomed you!"
"Let us search her out, and bring her back," said Mrs. Melleville.
"If she yet lives, I will find her," was the firm reply to this. "Tomorrow I will begin the search. May God, in mercy, give me success!"
With anxious feelings on the morrow, Mr. Melleville commenced his search. The last news of Alice was the news that she had gone to Washington with her husband. Learning from Anderson's old employer that the young man had been offered the situation of a bar-keeper in that city, Mr. Melleville set out upon his errand, trembling lest his hard heart had relented too late. Arriving in Washington, his first inquiries were made at Brown's and Gadsby's, but without success. No person answering his description had ever been employed by the keeper of either of these taverns. He then commenced the descending scale, prosecuting his inquiries from tavern to tavern, until he had gone through nearly the whole series of drinking houses with which the city abounded,
"Did a young man, named William Anderson, ever keep bar for you?" he asked for the fortieth time, going up to a bloated wretch who stood behind the counter of a bar, and looked as if he might be the best customer of his own wares.
"No," was the gruff reply.
As he was turning away, a customer, several degrees lower in the scale of sensual degradation than the landlord, got up from a bench, and staggering forward, said,
"Did you ask for William Anderson?"
"Yes, I did," quickly replied Mr. Melleville, turning towards the speaker, "Do you know him?"
"I did know him several years ago. But haven't seen him for a long time."
"Do you know where he is?"
"He went to Baltimore seven or eight years ago."
"Was his wife with him?" asked Mr. Melleville, in an eager voice.
"His wife? O yes. He took her along, and his two children, also poor things!"
"Was he very poor?"
"Poor! Yes, as Job's turkey. Poor as a drunk! Just such a poor sot as I am now. Look at me and imagine that I am William Anderson."
"Did you ever see his wife?" Mr. Melleville ventured to ask.
"Did I! O yes. Many a time have I seen her with her poor, half clothed little boy by the hand, going to the shops for work. They said her father was a rich old fellow in Virginia, and that he had cast her off for marrying against his will. I don't know about that. If it was so, and he really did leave her to drag about after such a debauched man as her husband, he must have been the hardest hearted wretch in creation!"
"They went to Baltimore?" Mr. Melleville said, as soon as he could venture to speak, and not betray his real feelings.
"Yes about seven or eight years ago."
"Do you know for what purpose he went there?"
"To tend bar, he told me."
"For whom?"
"That I don't know. But it was for some base tavern keeper, no doubt."
Mr. Melleville would have inquired farther about Alice, but he dreaded to hear more. She had gone to Baltimore with her husband. That much he had learned. To Baltimore, he at once proceeded and commenced his search for Anderson amid the basest haunts of dissipation. Weeks passed, and he heard nothing about him. He was about abandoning the pursuit in that way, and resorting to advertisement, when in passing along a narrow street one evening, he saw a man staggering into the door of a poor tenement, followed immediately by a well-dressed man and a boy. A sudden impulse prompted him to follow. The scene he witnessed, has already been described.
Once more he looked upon the face of his child. But O, how changed! The bright young cheek, rich in its hue as the summer blossom, had lost its glow, and was now pale and thin. Her eye, that had shone with a happy sparkling luster, he saw but once lifted from its drooping position, and then it was wild for a moment with agony, and then fixed almost in despair. Her whole face beaming, the last time he saw it, with youth, health and beauty — was now molded into a cast of heart-touching sorrow, and marred with the lines of suffering!
For a few moments he gazed with the tears upon his cheeks, and then turning away, sick and faint, he was, in the next hour, hastening back to his home.
When he arrived back to Baltimore with Mrs. Melleville, they were just in time to witness the closing scene of little Alice's life.
The sad duties required were paid to all that was left of the sweet, innocent child, and then Mr. Melleville went back to his home, with Alice and her boy. The father was left by the old man to die in an almshouse, or lead an honest industrious life — just as he might choose. He had no sympathy for him.
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