The two years that followed Job's untoward accident, instead of mending his fortunes, had only added to his embarrassments--all owing to his being just a hundred pounds behind the mark, which, as he often said, the price he could have obtained for poor Selim would have effectually prevented. His circumstances daily grew worse and worse, and at last became so desperate, that this patient and amiable couple were almost driven to their wits' end. Creditors, becoming impatient, at last resorted to legal remedies to recover their demands, until all his furniture was taken possession of under judicial process, which, being insufficient to discharge one half the debts for which judgments had been signed against him, he had no better prospect before his eyes than exchanging the bare walls of his present abode for the still more gloomy confines of a debtor's prison.
He had striven hard, but in vain, to bear all these trials with fortitude; and even poor Jessie--she who had hitherto never repined at the hardness of her lot, and who, to cheer her husband's drooping spirits, had worn a cheerful smile upon her countenance, whilst a load of sorrow pressed heavily upon her heart--even she now looked pale and sad, as with an anxious eye she stood by and watched poor Job, leaning with his back against the wall in an up-stairs room, now devoid of every article of furniture. And there he had been for hours, completely overcome by the accumulation of woes he saw no loophole to escape from; whilst his two little girls, terrified at the desolate appearance of every thing around them, and at the unusual agitation of their parents, were crouched together in a corner, fast grasped together, as if for mutual protection, in each other's arms.
Not a morsel of food had that day passed the lips of any member of that unhappy family, and every moveable belonging to the house had been taken away at an early hour in the morning; so that nothing but the bare walls were left for shelter, and hard boards for them to lie upon. Often had poor Jessie essayed to speak some words of comfort to her husband's ear; but even these, which had never before failed, were no longer at her command; for when some cheering thought suggested itself, a choking sensation in her throat deprived her of the power of uttering it. At length a loud single rap at the street door caused Job to start, whilst a hectic flush passed over his pale cheek, and a violent tremor shook his frame, as the dread thought of a prison occurred to him.