Читать книгу Sheppard Lee, Written by Himself. Vol. II (of 2) - Bird Robert Montgomery - Страница 7

I should have cursed my simplicity in mistaking a drunkard for a dead man; but I had other evils to distress me besides chagrin. I was lost in a snow-storm, fainting with fatigue, shivering with cold, and afar from assistance, there not being a single house in sight. It was in vain that I sought to recover my way; I plunged from one snow-bank into another; and I believe I should have actually perished, had not succour arrived at a moment when I had given over all hopes of receiving it.

I had just sunk down into a huge drift on the roadside, where I lay groaning, unable to extricate myself, when a man driving by in a chair, hearing my lamentations, drew up, and demanded, in a most benevolent voice, what was the matter.

"Who art thou, friend?" said he, "and what are thy distresses? If thou art in affliction, peradventure there is one nigh at hand who will succour thee."

"I am," said I, "the most miserable wretch on the earth."

"Heaven be praised!" said the stranger, with great devoutness of accent; "for in that case I will give thee help, and the night shall not pass away in vain. Yea, verily, I will do my best to assist thee; for it is both good and pleasant, a comeliness to the eye and a refreshment to the spirit, to do good deeds among those who are truly wretched."

"And besides," said I, "I am sticking fast in the snow, and am perishing with cold."

"Be of good heart, and hold still for a moment, and I will come to thy assistance."

And with that honest Broadbrim (for such I knew by his speech he must be) descended from the chair, and helped me out of the drift; all which he accomplished with zeal and alacrity, showing not more humanity, as I thought, than satisfaction at finding such a legitimate object for its display. He brushed the snow from my clothes, and perceiving I was shivering with cold, for I had lost my cloak some minutes before, he transferred one of his own outer garments, of which, I believe, he had two or three, to my shoulders, plying me all the time with questions as to how I came into such a difficulty, and what other griefs I might have to afflict me, and assuring me I should have his assistance.

"Hast thou no house to cover thy nakedness?" he cried; "verily, I will find thee a place wherein thou shalt shelter thyself from snow and from cold. Art thou suffering from lack of food? Verily, there is a crust of bread and the leg of a chicken yet left in my basket of cold bits, and thou shalt have them, with something further hereafter. Hast thou no family or friends? Verily, there are many humane persons of my acquaintance who will, like myself, consider themselves as thy brothers and sisters. Art thou oppressed with years as well as poverty? Verily, then thou hast a stronger claim to pity, and it shall be accorded thee."

He heaped question upon question, and assurance upon assurance, with such haste and fervour, that it was some minutes before I could speak. I took advantage of his first pause to detail the latest, and, at that moment, the most oppressive of my griefs.

"I have been robbed," I cried, "of four hundred dollars, and a dozen silver spoons, by a rascal I found lying drunk under a shed. But I'll have the villain, if it costs me the half of his plunder, and – "

"Be not awroth with the poor man," said my deliverer. "It was a wickedness in him to rob thee; but thou shouldst reflect how wickedness comes of misery, and how misery of the inclemency of the season. Be merciful to the wicked man, as well as to the miserable; for thereby thou showest mercy to him who is doubly miserable. But how didst thou come by four hundred dollars and a dozen silver spoons? Thou canst not be so poor as to prove an object of charity?"

"No," said I, "I am no beggar. But I won't be robbed for nothing."

"Verily, I say unto thee again, be not awroth with the poor man. Thou shouldst reflect, if thou wert robbed, how far thou wast thyself the cause of the evil; for, having four hundred dollars about thee, thou mightst have relieved the poor creature's wants; in which case thou wouldst have prevented both a loss and a crime – the one on thy part, the other on his. Talk not, therefore, of persecuting the poor man; hunt him up, if thou canst, administer secretly to his wants, and give him virtuous counsel; and then, peradventure, he will sin no more."

I was struck by the tone and maxims of my deliverer; they expressed an ardour of benevolence, an enthusiasm of philanthropy, such as I had never dreamed of before. I could not see his face, the night being so thick and tempestuous; but there was a complacency, a bustling self-satisfaction in his voice, that convinced me he was not only a good, but a happy man. I regarded him with as much envy as respect; and a comparison, which I could not avoid mentally making, betwixt his condition and my own, drew from me a loud groan.

"Art thou hurt?" said the good Samaritan. "I will help thee into my wheeled convenience here, and take thee to thy home."

"No," said I, "I will never go near that wretched house again."

"What is it that makes it wretched?" said the Quaker.

"You will know, if you are of Philadelphia," I replied, "when I tell you my name. I am the miserable Abram Skinner."

"What! Abram Skinner, the money-lender?" said my friend, with a severe voice. "Friend Abram, I have heard of thy domestic calamities, and verily I have heard of those of many others, who laid them all at thy doors, as the author and cause thereof. Thou art indeed the most wretched of men; but if thou thinkest so thyself, then is there a hope thou mayst be yet restored to happiness. Thou hast made money, but what good hast thou done with it? thou hast accumulated thy hundreds, and thy thousands, and thy tens of thousands – but how many of thy fellow-creatures hast thou given cause to rejoice in thy prosperity? Truly, I have heard much said of thy wealth, and thy avarice, friend Abram; but, verily, not a word of thy kind-heartedness and charity: and know, that goodness and charity are the only securities against the ills, both sore and manifold, that spring from groaning coffers. I say to thee, friend Abram, hast thou ever given a dollar in alms to the poor, or acquitted a single penny of obligation to the hard-run of thy customers?"

My conscience smote me – not, however, that I felt any great remorse for not having thrown away my money in the way the Quaker meant: but his words brought a new idea into my mind. It was misery on the one hand, and the hope of arriving at happiness on the other, which had spurred me from transformation to transformation. Each change had, however, been productive of greater discontent than the other; and the woes with which I was oppressed in my three borrowed bodies, had been even greater than those that afflicted me in my own proper original casing. It was plain that I had not exercised a just discretion in the selection of bodies, since I had taken those of men whose modes of existence did not dispose to happiness. What mode of existence then was most likely to secure the content I sought? Such, I inferred from the Quaker's discourse, as would call into operation the love of goodness and of man – such as would cause to be cultivated the kindly virtues unknown to the selfish – such as would lead to the practice of charity and general philanthropy. I was grieved, therefore, that I had entered so many bodies for nothing; my conscience accused me of a blunder; and I longed to enter upon an existence of virtue; not that I had any great regard for virtue itself, but because I valued my own happiness. Had my deliverer chanced to break his neck while discoursing to me, I should have reanimated his corse, to try my hand at benevolence. As for being good and charitable in the body I then occupied, I felt that it was impossible: the impulse pointed to another existence.

The Quaker's indignation soon abated; he looked upon my silence as the effect of remorse, and the idea of converting me into an alms-giver and a friend of the poor, like himself, took possession of his imagination, and warmed his spirit. By such a conversion his philanthropic desires would be doubly gratified; it would make me happy, and, as I was a rich man, some hundreds of others also. He helped me into the chair, and driving slowly towards the city, attempted the good work by describing the misery so prevalent in the suburbs, and dilating with uncommon enthusiasm upon the delight with which every act of benevolence would be recorded in my own bosom.

It seems that he was returning from a mission of charity in one of the remotest districts, where he had relieved the necessities of divers unhappy wretches; and, he gave me to understand, it was his purpose to make one more charitable visitation before returning home, notwithstanding the lateness of the hour and the fury of the tempest. And this visit he felt the more urged to make, since it would afford a practical illustration of his remarks, and show how doubly charity was blessed, both to the giver and receiver.

"Thou shalt see," said he, "even with thine own eyes, what power he that hath money hath over the afflictions of his race – what power to dry the tear of the mourning, and to check the wicked deeds of the vicious. He that I will now relieve is what thou didst foolishly call thyself – to wit, the most miserable of men; for he is both a beggar and a convicted felon, having but a few days since been discharged from the penitentiary, where he had served out his three years, for, I believe, the third time in his life."

"Surely," said I, "he is then a reprobate entirely unworthy pity."

"On the contrary," said the philanthropist, "he is for that reason the more to be pitied, since all regard him with distrust and abhorrence, and refuse him the relief without which he must again become a criminal: the very boys say to him, 'Get up, thou old jail-bird;' and men and women hoot at him in the streets. Poverty made him a criminal, and scorn has hardened his heart; yet is he a man with a soul; and verily thou shalt see how that soul can be melted by the breath of compassion. In this little hovel we shall find him," said the Quaker, drawing up before a miserable frame building, which was of a most lonely aspect, and in a terrible state of dilapidation, the windows being without shutters and glasses, and even the door itself half torn from its hinges.

"It is a little tenement that belongeth to me," said my friend; "and here I told him he might shelter him, until I could come in person and relieve him. A negro-man whom I permitted to live here for a while did very ungratefully, that is to say, very thoughtlessly – destroy the window-shutters, and other loose work, for fire-wood, I having forgotten to supply him with that needful article, and he, poor man, being too bashful to acquaint me with his wants. Verily I do design to render it more comfortable; but in these hard times one cannot find more money than sufficeth to fill the mouths of the hungry. Descend, friend Abram, and let us enter. I see the poor man hath a fire shining through the door; this will warm thy frozen limbs, while the sound of his grateful acknowledgments will do the same good office for thy spirit."