Bressant

Bressant jumped on to the platform of the newly-arrived train. The cars

were pretty full; but, coming at last to a vacant seat by the side of a

clean-shaven gentleman with a straight, hard mouth, and a glossy-brown

wig, curling smoothly inward all around the edge, he dropped into it

without ceremony.

The train left the depot and hurried away over the road which Bressant

had just traversed in the opposite direction. He sat with his arms

folded, appearing to take no notice of any thing, and his neighbor with

the wig read the latest edition of a New-York paper with stern

attention, occasionally altering the position of his stove-pipe hat on

his head. By-and-by, the conductor, a small, precise man, with a

dark-blue coat, cap to match, a neatly-trimmed sandy beard, shaved upper

lip, and an utterance as distinct and clippy as the holes his steel

punch made in the tickets, came along upon his rounds.

Bressant put his hands into his pockets, and discovered, with some

consternation, that he had but a comparatively small amount of money

left; his newly-accepted poverty was certainly losing no time in making

itself felt. However, such as it was, he handed it to the conductor, and

inquired how near it would take him to his proposed destination.

"Eighty-one miles, rail," responded the official, as he took and clipped

the ticket of the gentleman with the newspaper; "comes shorter by road,

seventy-four to seventy-five," and he proceeded down the aisle, snapping

up tickets on one side or the other, as a hen does grains of corn.

Bressant covered his eyes with his hand, and amused himself by

performing a little sum in mental arithmetic. The amount of money he had

given the conductor represented a distance which it would take a certain

length of time--say four hours--to traverse. It was now four o'clock in

the afternoon, and consequently would be eight before that distance was

accomplished. From eight o'clock Saturday night, till twelve o'clock

Sunday noon, was sixteen hours, and in sixteen hours he must travel, on

foot, and through the snow, seventy-five miles of unknown roads.

"Four and a half miles an hour, and nothing to eat since breakfast,"

said Bressant to himself. He took his hand from his eyes, and passed it

down his face to his beard, which he twisted and turned unmercifully.

"It's lucky it isn't any more," remarked he, philosophically.

In the course of half an hour or so, the straight-mouthed gentleman,

having finished the last column of his paper, folded it up into the

smallest possible compass, and handed it politely to Bressant. The

latter accepted it abstractedly, and, opening one fold, read the first

paragraph which presented itself, his interest increasing as he

proceeded. It was in the column of latest local news, and, after

bewailing, in choice language, the frightful prevalence, even among the

highest aristocracy, of opium-eating and kindred indulgences, it went on

to particularize the sad case of an esteemed lady, of great wealth and

high connections, widow of a scion of one of our oldest families, who,

having unwisely yielded herself, during many years past, to an

inordinate use of morphine, as an antidote to nervous disorder, had, on

the previous evening, in a temporary paroxysm of madness, succeeded in

taking her own life. "No other cause can be assigned for the rash act,"

pursued the paragraph, "Mrs. V---- being, in all other respects than as

regarded this unfortunate weakness, blessed beyond the average. She was

at the moment, it is understood, contemplating immediate departure for a

lengthened sojourn in Europe, taking with her an only son, a young man

of fine attainments, and a recent graduate of one of our first

theological seminaries, who desired to seek, among the European

capitals, at once for the recreation and culture, which the arduous

preparation for and the enlightened prosecution of his exalted calling

rendered respectively necessary and desirable. It is not known whether

this sad casualty will cause him to relinquish his design."