Evening at Home 68

Evening at Home 68

They all entered the house together. A good-looking middle-aged woman

was busied in preparing articles of cookery, assisted by her grown-up

daughter. She spoke to the children as they came in, and casting a look

of some surprise on Edward, asked him what his business was.

 

Edward was some time silent; at length, with a faltering voice, he

cried, “Have you forgot me, mother?”

 

“Edward! my son Edward!” exclaimed the good woman. And they were

instantly locked in each other’s arms.

 

“My brother Edward!” said Molly; and took her turn for an embrace, as

soon as her mother gave her room.

 

“Are you my brother?” said Rose.

 

“That I am,” replied Edward, with another kiss. Little Roger looked hard

at him, but said nothing.

 

News of Edward’s arrival soon flew across the yard, and in came from the

barn his father, his next brother, Thomas, and the third, William. The

father fell on his neck, and sobbed out his welcome and blessing. Edward

had not hands enough for them all to shake.

 

An aged, white-headed labourer came in, and held out his shrivelled

hand. Edward gave it a hearty squeeze. “God bless you,” said old Isaac;

“this is the best day I have seen this many a year.”

 

“And where have you been this long while?” cried the father. “Eight

years and more,” added the mother.

 

His elder brother took off his knapsack; and Molly drew him a chair.

Edward seated himself, and they all gathered round him; the old dog got

within the circle and lay at his feet.

 

“O, how glad I am to see you all again!” were Edward’s first words. “How

well you look, mother! but father grows thinner. As for the rest, I

should have known none of you, unless it had been Thomas and old Isaac.”

 

“What a sunburnt face you have got!—but you look brave and hearty,”

cried his mother.

 

“Ay, mother, I have been enough in the sun, I assure you. From seventeen

to five-and-twenty I have been a wanderer upon the face of the earth,

and I have seen more in that time than most men in the course of their

lives.

 

“Our young landlord, you know, took such a liking to me at school, that

he would have me go with him on his travels. We went through most of the

countries of Europe, and at last to Naples, where my poor master took a

fever and died. I never knew what grief was till then; and I believe the

thoughts of leaving me in a strange country went as much to his heart as

his illness. An intimate acquaintance of his, a rich young West Indian,

seeing my distress, engaged me to go with him in a voyage he was about

to make to Jamaica. We were too short a time in England before we

sailed, for me to come and see you first, but I wrote you a letter from

the Downs.”

 

“We never received it,” said his father.

 

“That was a pity,” returned Edward; “for you must have concluded I was

either dead or had forgotten you. Well—we arrived safe in the West

Indies, and there I stayed till I had buried that master, too; for young

men die fast in that country. I was very well treated, but I could never

like the place; and yet Jamaica is a very fine island, and has many good

people in it. But for me, used to see freemen work cheerfully along with

their masters—to behold nothing but droves of black slaves in the

fields, toiling in the burning sun, under the constant dread of the lash

of hard-hearted task-masters—it was what I could not bring myself to

bear; and though I might have been made an overseer of a plantation, I

chose rather to live in a town, and follow some domestic occupation. I

could soon have got rich there; but I fell into a bad state of health,

and people were dying all round me of the yellow fever; so I collected

my little property, and though a war had broken out, I ventured to

embark with it for England.

 

“The ship was taken, and carried into the Havana, and I lost my all and

my liberty besides. However, I had the good fortune to ingratiate myself

with a Spanish merchant whom I had known at Jamaica, and he took me with

him to the continent of South America. I visited great part of this

country, once possessed by flourishing and independent nations, but now

groaning under the severe yoke of their haughty conquerers. I saw those

famous gold and silver mines, where the poor natives worked naked, for

ever shut out from the light of day, in order that the wealth of their

unhappy land may go to spread luxury and corruption throughout the

remotest regions of Europe.

 

“I accompanied my master across the great southern ocean, a voyage of

some months, without the sight of anything but water and sky. We came to

the rich city of Manilla, the capital of the Spanish settlements in

those parts. There I had my liberty restored, along with a handsome

reward for my services. I got thence to China; and from China to the

English settlements in the East Indies, where the sight of my

countrymen, and the sounds of my native tongue, made me fancy myself

almost at home again, though still separated by half the globe.

 

“Here I saw a delightful country, swarming with industrious inhabitants,

some cultivating the land, others employed in manufactures, but of so

gentle and effeminate a disposition, that they have always fallen under

the yoke of their invaders. Here how was I forced to blush for my

countrymen, whose avarice and rapacity so often have laid waste this

fair land, and brought on it all the horrors of famine and desolation! I

have seen human creatures quarrelling like dogs for bare bones thrown

upon a dunghill. I have seen fathers selling their families for a little

rice, and mothers entreating strangers to take their children for

slaves, that they might not die of hunger. In the midst of such scenes I

saw pomp and luxury of which our country affords no examples.

 

“Having remained here a considerable time, I gladly at length set my

face homeward, and joined a company who undertook the long and perilous

journey to Europe over land. We crossed vast tracts both desert and

cultivated; sandy plains parched with heat and drought, and infested

with bands of ferocious plunderers. I have seen a well of muddy water

more valued than ten camel-loads of treasure; and a few half-naked

horsemen strike more terror than a king with all his guards. At length,

after numberless hardships and dangers, we arrived at civilized Europe,

and forgot all we had suffered. As I came nearer my native land, I grew

more and more impatient to reach it; and when I had set foot on it, I

was still more restless till I could see again my beloved home.

 

“Here I am at last—happy in bringing back a sound constitution and a

clear conscience. I have also brought enough of the relics of my honest

gains to furnish a little farm in the neighbourhood, where I mean to sit

down and spend my days in the midst of those whom I love better than all

the world besides.”

 

When Edward had finished, kisses and kind shakes of the hand were again

repeated, and his mother brought out a large slice of harvest-cake, with

a bottle of her nicest currant-wine, to refresh him after his day’s

march. “You are come,” said his father, “at a lucky time, for this is

our harvest-supper. We shall have some of our neighbours to make merry

with us, who will be almost as glad to see you as we are—for you were

always a favourite among them.”

 

It was not long before the visiters arrived. The young folks ran out to

meet them, crying, “Our Edward’s come back—our Edward’s come home! Here

he is—this is he;” and so without ceremony they introduced them.

 

“Welcome!—welcome!—God bless you!” sounded on all sides. Edward knew all

the elderly ones at first sight, but the young people puzzled him for

awhile. At length he recollected this to have been his schoolfellow, and

that his companion in driving plough; and he was not long in finding out

his favourite and playfellow Sally, of the next farmhouse, whom he left

a romping girl of fifteen, and now saw a blooming full-formed young

woman of three-and-twenty. He contrived in the evening to get next her:

and though she was somewhat reserved at first, they had pretty well

renewed their intimacy before the company broke up.

 

“Health to Edward, and a happy settlement among us!” was the parting

toast. When all were retired, the _Returned Wanderer_ went to rest in

the very room in which he was born, having first paid fervent thanks to

Heaven for preserving him to enjoy a blessing the dearest to his heart.

 

[Illustration:

 

The Landlord’s Visit, p. 314

 

EVENING XXVI.

]

 

 

 

 

DIFFERENCE AND AGREEMENT OR, SUNDAY MORNING.

 

 

It was Sunday morning. All the bells were ringing for church, and the

streets were filled with people moving in all directions.

 

Here, numbers of well-dressed persons, and a long train of charity

children, were thronging in at the wide doors of a large handsome

church. There, a smaller number, almost equally gay in dress, were

entering an elegant meetinghouse. Up one alley, a Roman Catholic

congregation was turning into their retired chapel, every one crossing

himself with a finger dipped in holy water as he went in. The opposite

side of the street was covered with a train of Quakers, distinguished by

their plain and neat attire and sedate aspect, who walked without

ceremony into a room as plain as themselves, and took their seats, the

men on one side, and the women on the other, in silence. A spacious

building was filled with an overflowing crowd of Methodists, most of

them meanly habited, but decent and serious in demeanour; while a small

society of Baptists in the neighbourhood quietly occupied their humble place of assembly.