But, just at the moment when I thus thought and felt--when I
no longer suffered and no longer inflicted pain--when my wife was
not only virtue in my sight, but love, and beauty, and grace, and
meekness--all that was good and all that was dear besides;--when
my sky was without a cloud, and the evening star shone through the
blue sky upon the green tops of our cottage trees, with the serene
lustre of a May-divinity--just then a thunderbolt fell upon my
dwelling, and blackened the scene for ever.
I had now been three months a resident in M----, and never
had I been more happy--never less apprehensive on the score of my
happiness--when I received a letter from my venerable friend and
patron, the father of William Edgerton.
"My son," he wrote, "is no better than when you left us. We have
every reason to believe him worse. He has a cough, he is very thin,
and there is a flushed spot upon his cheek which seems to his mother
and myself the indubitable sign of vital decay. His frame is very
feeble, and our physician advises travel. Under this counsel he
set off with a favorite servant on Wednesday of last week. He will
make easy stages through Tennessee to the Ohio, will descend into
Mississippi, and return home by way of Alabama. He contemplates
paying you a brief visit. I need not say, dear Clifford, how grateful
I shall be for any kindness which you can show to my poor boy. His
mother particularly invokes it. I should not have deemed it necessary
to say so much, but would have preferred leaving it to William to
make his own communication, were it not that she so particularly
desires it. It may be well to add, that on one subject we are
both very much relieved. We now have reason to believe that our
apprehensions on the score of his morals were without foundation.
It is our present belief that he neither gamed nor drank. This is
a consolation, dear Clifford, though it brings us no nigher to our
wish. It is something to believe that the object of our love is
not worthless; though it adds to the pang that we should feel in
the event of losing him. Our parting would be less easy. For my own
part, I have little hope that his journey will do him any material
benefit. It may prolong his days, but can not, I fear, have any more
decided influence upon his disease. His mother, however, is more
sanguine, and it is perhaps well that she should be so. I know
that when William reaches your neighborhood, you will make it as
cheerful and pleasant to him as possible. The talent of your young
and sweet wife--her endowments in painting and music--have always
been a great solace to him. His tastes you know are very much like
hers. I trust she will exercise them, and be happy in ministering
to the comfort of one, who will not, I fear, trespass very long
upon any earthly ministry. My dear Clifford, I know that you will
do your utmost in behalf of your earliest friend, and I will waste
no more words in unnecessary solicitation."