CHAPTER VIII.
AFFLICTION.
One day Mr. Townsend came home earlier in the afternoon than usual, his face wearing a troubled look. He found his wife and daughters alone in the parlors.
“I’ve just received letters from New Orleans,” he said.
“How is John?” eagerly asked Mrs. Townsend, interrupting him.
“He is sick,” was replied.
“Sick! Not dangerously, I hope?”
“I am afraid so. One of his clerks has written.”
“What is the matter with him?”
“He does not say—but I will read you his letter.”
And Mr. Townsend drew forth a letter and read:
“I regret to inform you that your son, Mr. John Townsend, has been quite ill for several days with a violent fever. He has desired me not to write to you, lest you should be unnecessarily alarmed, but I have felt it to be my duty to act contrary to his wishes. I have just seen the doctor, who says I ought to inform you of your son’s illness. He does not answer any of my inquiries satisfactorily, which makes me fear that the case is dangerous. I will write you to-morrow, and every day, until there is some change.”
“Mercy!” exclaimed the mother, striking her hands together, and bursting into tears. “It is the yellow fever!”
“I fear it is,” replied Mr. Townsend, striving to keep his feelings under control. “The sickly season has commenced earlier than usual, and before John could make his arrangements to come north.”
Oh! how anxiously did that family wait, for the next twenty-four hours, the arrival of another mail from New Orleans! Mrs. Townsend and her daughter did little but weep all the time, and Mr. Townsend in vain attempted to fix his mind upon business. Long before the southern mail could be assorted, he was at the post-office; and when the window was thrown open, his face was the first one presented to the clerk. He received a package of letters, and hastily retired. One bore the New Orleans post mark. All the rest were hurriedly thrust into his pocket. Breaking the seal of this, with trembling hands, he read—
“Your son is no better. All last night he was delirious under the raging violence of the fever. The doctors say but little. I have deemed it right to call in additional medical aid. Rest assured, sir, that all shall be done that medicine and careful attention can accomplish. I was with him all last night, and shall remain constantly by his side. All that human power can do shall be done; the result is with Him in whose hands are the issues of life.”
The whole letter, up to the last sentence, deeply agitated Mr. Townsend; but that sentence, like a knell of doom, subdued the wild struggles of human passion, and crushed all suddenly down into hopelessness. He had already discovered that there was a Power above the human will, and a Disposer of events against whose designs human prudence was nothing; and he felt that into the hands of this higher Power he had come, with his very household treasures as well as his worldly wealth, and that these, too, or a part of these, were to be taken away. Thus, the very words meant to suggest confidence and resignation, destroyed the balance of his mind, and overwhelmed it with the thickest clouds.
At home, he found an anxious and agitated circle awaiting him.
“He is no better,” he said, as he entered the room where his wife and daughter were sitting.
Tears followed the announcement, that were renewed when the letter he had received was read.
Anxiously passed another day. Mr. Townsend was at the post-office, impatiently awaiting the opening of the mail, long before it could be distributed; but there was no letter. The southern mail had been delayed beyond Richmond. Two letters came to hand on the next day. That of the last date was torn open and read, with eyes that took in sentences rather than words. It ran thus:
“I wrote you yesterday, stating that there were some favorable symptoms; that the fever had yielded to the efforts of Mr. Townsend’s physicians. To-day he lies in a very low state. Life seems scarcely to beat in his pulses. But still there is life, and the disease has abated; we may, therefore, confidently hope that the vital spark will slowly rekindle. The attack was most malignant, and bore him down with great rapidity. To-morrow I hope to be able to say that every thing is progressing toward recovery.”
“God grant that the issue may be favorable!” murmured the father, as he crushed the letter in his hand, and hurried away toward the anxious ones at home.
It was the first prayer that had ever ascended from the heart of the merchant—the first deeply-felt acknowledgment of his own powerlessness, and dependence upon a Supreme Being.
To the mother and sister this last intelligence brought a ray of hope, feeble though it was, and scarcely to be called light.
Three days more went by, and in all that time—an age of suspense—there came no word of the sick son and brother.
“Has there been a failure of the southern mail?” asked Mr. Townsend every day. The answer “No,” fell each time upon his feelings like a stroke from a hammer; for to his mind it indicated the worst. If there had been any improvement, the clerk would most certainly have written.
At last another letter came. It was brought to the house of Mr. Townsend by his clerk immediately on the arrival and distribution of the mail. The merchant had not been out that day. His distress of mind had become so great that he could attend to no business. This letter he received as he sat in the midst of his family. He did not break the seal until the servant who handed it in had retired. A short time before the letter came, he was walking about the room in an agitated manner, listening for the ringing of the street bell, as it was full time for his clerk to be there from the post-office, and had just seated himself with a deep sigh. Now he was calm, and broke the seal with strange deliberation.
“I have waited three days in the hope of having favorable news to send you; but, alas! I have waited in vain. Your son expired—”
A heavy groan broke from the lips of the unhappy father as the letter fell from his nerveless hand; and at the same time a wild cry of anguish burst from the mother’s heart. Eunice alone was externally calm, though she felt the bereavement as deeply, perhaps, as any; but it was not felt in the same way. It did not strike down, as in the father’s case, the selfish hopes of a worldly mind.