Timothy Arthur - Home Lights and Shadows

"Try, and do so if you can, Mr. Fenwick, for the plaintiff is a good deal irritated about the matter, and will push the thing to extremities."

"I should be sorry for that. But if so, let him use his own pleasure. Take nothing from nothing, and nothing remains."

"You had better come then with security, Mr. Fenwick, for my orders are, to have an execution issued against your person, as soon as the case is decided."

"You are not in earnest, John?" suddenly ejaculated the lawyer, rising to his feet, and looking at the humble minister of the law with a pale cheek and quivering lip. "Surely Mr. – is not going to push matters to so uncalled-for an extremity!"

"Such, he positively declares, is his fixed determination. So hold yourself prepared, sir, to meet even this unpleasant event."

The debt for which the warrant had been issued against Mr. Fenwick, amounted to ninety dollars.

The whole of the remaining part of that day was spent in the effort to obtain security in the case. But in vain. His friends knew too well his inability to protect them from certain loss, should they step between him and the law. Talents, education, brilliant addresses, fine poetry "and all that," turned to no good and useful ends, he found availed him nothing now. Even many of those with whom he had been in intimate literary association, shrunk away from the penniless individual, and those who did not actually shun him had lost much of their former cordiality.

The idea of being sent to jail for debt, was to him a terrible one. And he turned from it with a sinking at the heart. He said nothing to Adelaide on returning home in the evening, for the high communion of spirit, in which they had promised themselves such deep and exquisite delight, had long since given place to coldness, and a state of non-sympathy. He found her deeply buried, as usual, in some volume of romance, while every thing around her was in disorder, and full of unmitigated realities. They were living alone in two small rooms, and the duty of keeping them in order and providing their frugal meals devolved as a heavy task upon Adelaide—so heavy, that she found it utterly impossible to do it justice.

The fire—that essential preliminary to household operations—had not even been made, when Fenwick reached home, and the dinner table remained still on the floor, with its unwashed dishes strewn over it, in admirable confusion.

With a sigh, Adelaide resigned her book, soon after her husband came in, and commenced preparations for the evening meal. This was soon ready, and despatched in silence, except so far as the aimless prattle of their little girl interrupted it. Tea over, Mrs. Fenwick put Anna to bed, much against her will, and then drew up to the table again with her book.

Cheerless and companionless did her husband feel as he let his eye fall upon her, buried in selfish enjoyment, while his own heart was wrung with the bitterest recollections and the most heart-sickening anticipations.

Thoughts of the gaming table passed through his mind, and with the thought he placed his hand involuntarily upon his pocket. It was empty. Sometimes his mind would rise into a state of vigorous activity, with the internal consciousness of a power to do any thing. But, alas—it was strength without skill—intellectual power without the knowledge to direct it aright.

Late on the next morning he arose from a pillow that had been blessed with but little sleep, and that unrefreshing. It was past eleven o'clock before Adelaide had breakfast on the table. This over, she, without even dressing Anna or arranging her own person sat down to her novel, while he gave himself to the most gloomy and desponding reflections. He feared to go out lest the first man he should meet, should prove an officer with an execution upon his person.

About one o'clock, sick and weary of such a comfortless home, he went out, glad of any change. Ten steps from his own door, he was met by a constable who conveyed him to prison.

Several hours passed before his crushed feelings were aroused sufficiently to cause him even to think of any means of extrication. When his mind did act, it was with clearness, vigor, and decision. The walls of a jail had something too nearly like reality about them, to leave much of the false sentiment which had hitherto marred his prospects in life. There was, too, something deeply humiliating in his condition of an imprisoned debtor.

"What shall I do?" he asked himself, towards the close of the day, with a strong resolution to discover the best course of action, and to pursue that course, unswayed by any extraneous influences. The thought of his wife came across his mind.

"Shall I send her word where I am?"—A pause of some moments succeeded this question.

"No," he at length said, half aloud, while an expression of pain flitted over his countenance. "It is of little consequence to her where I am or what I suffer. She is, I believe, perfectly heartless."

But Fenwick was mistaken in this. She needed, as well as himself, some powerful shock to awaken her to true consciousness. That shock proved to be the knowledge of her husband's imprisonment for debt, which she learned early on the next morning, after the passage of an anxious and sleepless night, full of strange forebodings of approaching evil. She repaired, instantly, to the prison, her heart melted down into true feeling. The interview between herself and husband was full of tenderness, bringing out from each heart the mutual affections which had been sleeping there, alas! too long.

But one right course presented itself to the mind of either of them, and that was naturally approved by both, as the only proper one. It was for Fenwick to come out of prison under the act of insolvency, and thus free himself from the trammels of past obligations, which could not possibly be met.

This was soon accomplished, the requisite security for his personal appearance to interrogatories being readily obtained.

"And now, Adelaide, what is to be done?" he asked of his wife, as he sat holding her hand in his, during the first hour of his release from imprisonment. His own mind had already decided—still he was anxious for her suggestion, if she had any to make.

"Can you still obtain that school you spoke of?" she asked with much interest in her tone.

"Yes. The offer is still open."

"Then take it, Charles, by all means. One such lesson as we have had, is enough for a life time. Satisfied am I, now, that we have not sought for happiness in the right paths."

The school was accordingly taken, and with humbled feelings, modest expectations, and a mutual resolution to be satisfied with little, did Charles Fenwick and his wife re-commence the world at the bottom of the ladder. That he was sincere in his new formed resolutions, is evident from the fact, that in a few years he became the principal of a popular literary institution, for which office he was fully qualified. She, too, learned, by degrees, to act well her part in all her relations, social and domestic—and now finds far more pleasure in the realities, than she ever did in the romance of life.

"OF course, both are to blame."

"Of course. You may always set that down as certain when you see two persons who have formerly been on good terms fall out with each other. For my part, I never take sides in these matters. I listen to what both have to say, and make due allowance for the wish of either party to make his or her own story appear most favorable."

Thus we heard two persons settling a matter of difference between a couple of their friends, and it struck us at the time as not being exactly the true way in all cases. In disputes and differences, there are no doubt times when both are equally to blame; most generally, however, one party is more to blame than the other. And it not unfrequently happens that one party to a difference is not at all to blame, but merely stands on a just and honorable defensive. The following story, which may or may not be from real life, will illustrate the latter position.