Gershom was a
living, and, all things considered, a remarkable instance of these
creditable traits. When sober, he was uniformly kind to Dorothy; and
for Margery he would at any time risk his life. The latter, indeed,
had more power over him than his own wife possessed, and it was her
will and her remonstrances that most frequently led him back from
the verge of that precipice over which he was so often disposed to
cast himself. By some secret link she bound him closest to the
family dwelling, and served most to recall the days of youth and
comparative innocence, when they dwelt together beneath the paternal
roof, and were equally the objects of the affection and solicitude
of the same kind mother. His attachment to Dorothy was sincere, and,
for one so often brutalized by drink, steady; but Dorothy could not
carry him as far back, in recollections, as the one only sister who
had passed the morning of life with him, in the same homely but
comfortable abode.
We have no disposition to exaggerate the character of those whom it
is the fashion to term the American yeomen, though why such an
appellation should be applied to any in a state of society to which
legal distinctions are unknown, is what we could never understand.
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