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Title: Nelly's dark days
Author: Hesba Stretton
Release date: December 17, 2025 [eBook #77483]
Language: English
Original publication: Glasgow: Scottish Temperance League, 1891
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NELLY'S DARK DAYS ***
Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.
[Illustration: WAITING FOR FATHER.]
_Nelly's Dark Days._
_BY THE AUTHOR OF_
_"JESSICA'S FIRST PRAYER," "LITTLE MEG'S CHILDREN,"_
_"ALONE IN LONDON," &c._
[_Hesba Stretton_]
[Illustration]
_One hundred and fifth thousand._
_GLASGOW:_
_SCOTTISH TEMPERANCE LEAGUE._
_LONDON: HOULSTON & SONS;_
_AND NATIONAL TEMPERANCE LEAGUE._
_EDINBURGH: JOHN MENZIES & CO._
_1891._
CONTENTS.
————
CHAPTER I.
A STREET CORNER
CHAPTER II.
LOCKED OUT
CHAPTER III.
MORNING FEARS
CHAPTER IV.
ONLY A DOLL
CHAPTER V.
VIOLETS
CHAPTER VI.
THE PRICE OF A DRAM
CHAPTER VII.
HALF MEASURES
CHAPTER VIII.
A SORROWFUL FACT
CHAPTER IX.
FOUND DROWNED
CHAPTER X.
DEEPER STILL
CHAPTER XI.
THE ONLY REFUGE
CHAPTER XII.
TRUE TO A PROMISE
CHAPTER XIII.
DEAD AND ALIVE AGAIN
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
NELLY'S DARK DAYS.
————————
CHAPTER I.
A STREET CORNER.
IT was nearly twelve o'clock at night on the first Sunday of the New
Year. The churches and chapels had all been closed for some hours;
and none of the better class of shops had been opened during the day.
Business had been set on one side, even by those workmen and labourers
who lived from hand to mouth, and scarcely knew beforehand where the
day's meals were to come from. There had been, as usual, a prevailing
feeling that the day was not a day for work or traffic of any kind;
and what had been done had been, more or less, away from the public
scrutiny. But though midnight was close at hand, the streets in the
lower parts of Liverpool were neither quiet nor dark. Up higher,
farther away from the long line of docks and the troubled stream of
the mighty river, there was silence in the deserted streets where the
wealthier classes had their comfortable homes; but where the poor
dwelt, and wherever there was a corner of a street which afforded a
good situation for traffic, or wherever it was supposed there was an
"immense drinking neighbourhood capable of improvement," * there stood
a gin-palace still open, with its bright gas-lights sparkling down each
dark row of dingy houses with a show of cheery welcome not easy to
resist.
* "Capital Spirit Vaults to Let, in an Immense Drinking Neighbourhood,
capable of great improvement by an industrious man and his wife."
(_Newspaper Advt._)
At one spot where four roads met, each corner house was thus
brilliantly lit up; and the doors, which swung to and fro readily and
noiselessly, were constantly moving, and giving a passing glimpse, but
no more, of what was going on within. The streets were so light here
that a pin lying on the flagged pavement was plainly seen. So were the
rags of a child who stood in the full glare of the most popular of the
gin-palaces, leaning against a lamp-post, with her face turned towards
the often-opening door. It was a small, meagre face, yet pretty, with
a mingled and wistful expression of anxiety and happiness. The anxiety
was visible whenever the door stood ajar; when it was closed, the
happiness came uppermost. The secret of her brief, new-born happiness
was very simple, but very deep to the child. She clasped tenderly, but
carefully, in her thin bare arms a gaily dressed doll, whose finery
contrasted strongly with her own rags. When the door remained closed
for a few minutes, she passed the time in timid, half-fearful caresses
of her shining doll; as soon as it opened she peered, with heedful and
searching eyes, to the farthest corner of the interior.
"Nelly!" said a clear, shrill voice, which startled the child from an
anxious gaze. "You here at this time! How's poor mother to-night?"
"Very bad," said the child sadly.
"And father's in there, I reckon?"
"Yes," said Nelly, "and oh! I want him to come home so, because mother
says she'd go to sleep maybe if father was home."
The girl who had spoken to her—a bright, brisk-looking girl—pushed open
the door a little way, and glancing in turned back with a decisive
shake of her head.
"No use, Nelly," she said; "he won't come as long as he can stay. Well,
I'll nurse you a bit to keep you warm; it's very bitter to-night. I
don't much wonder at father drinking to-night, I don't."
All day long the wind had been blowing keenly from the north-east,
bringing a fine, piercing sleet with it, and at nightfall the bitter
cold had increased. The girl sat down on a door-step, and drew the
shivering child into her lap, covering her as well as she could with
her own scanty clothing.
"Father didn't use to get drunk once, did he, Bessie?" asked the child,
plaintively.
"Oh dear, no!" answered Bessie, in a cheery voice.
"Tell me all about that time," said Nelly, nestling closer to Bessie.
It was an old story, often told, but neither the girl nor the child
ever grew weary of it.
"It's ever so many years ago, before you was born," said Bessie; "and
he lived in a beautiful house, with a parlour in front, and a kitchen
behind, and two rooms upstairs, all full of beautiful furniture.
Everybody that I knew called him Mister Rodney then; but I was nothing
but a poor ragged little girl, raggeder than you, Nelly, selling
matches in the streets. And this was how I come to know him. I was
hanging about the basket-women, down by the stages, running errands for
'em, and one day, almost as cold as this, my foot slipped, and down I
fell into the water. Oh! It was so cold; and I seemed to be sinking
down, down, down."
"And father jumped in after you and fetched you out," interrupted
Nelly, eagerly.
"Ay! He did, though he knew nothing of me, and I was nothing to him,
only a little, dirty match-girl. And then he carried me all the way to
his own house in his arms."
"He never, never carried me in his arms," cried the child, "they aren't
strong enough now."
"No; but he was as strong as strong then," continued Bessie, "and he
clipped me so fast I wasn't a bit afraid. That's how I'm never afraid
of him now, Nelly. He's a good man, and kind, and clever, when he's
himself; and I love him, and you love him; don't we?"
"Yes," said Nelly, drawing a long breath, "mother says she's going to
heaven soon, where the other children are, and there 'll be nobody left
but me to take care of father. I don't much mind, though I'd rather go
with mother. Will he go on getting drunk always and always?"
"If he could only see the gentleman I saw!" exclaimed Bessie. "It's six
years ago, and I was a big, grown girl, ready to push in anywhere, and
I see a lot of boys and girls crowding into a great hall, and I pushed
in with them, nobody stopping me. And then they sang a lot of songs,
oh! beautiful songs, and some gentlemen spoke to 'em about drink, and
how they'd grow up good, decent men and women if they'd keep from it.
And I was one of the very last to come away, the place was so nice, and
a gentleman come up to me, and he said,—
"'My girl, what is your name?'
"And I said, 'Bessie Dingle, sir.'
"And he said, 'Can you read?'
"And I said, 'No, sir.'
"And he said, 'That's a pity. Do you ever drink what will make you
drunk?'
"And I was ashamed to say yes, so I answered him nothing.
"And he said, looking me full in the face with eyes as kind as kind
could be, 'I wish you'd promise me never to taste it till you see me
again.'
"And I said, 'Yes, I will promise, sir.'"
"And when did you see him again?" asked Nelly.
"Never!" she answered. "He wrote down on a bit of paper where he lived,
and said any of the p'leece would show me where it was; and that very
night I fell sick with fever and they took me to the workhouse, and the
slip of paper got lost. Anyhow, I never could find it or the place, and
I've never seen him again. He's sure to think I broke my promise, and
did not care for him; he's almost sure to think that, but I never did."
She raised her head and looked down the long street, where the gloom
seemed to press darkly against the glare of the gas-lights; it was
very cheerless beyond the light, and the girl's face grew darker for a
minute or two.
"It's no wonder they drink as long as the place is open," she said;
"I'd like to be inside there, where it's light and warm. I wonder why
the shops are all shut, and those places open. That gentleman, he said
to me,—
"'My girl, you've got sharp eyes of your own; you just look round and
see what makes the most mischief among the people about you, and tell
me when I see you again.'
"I know what I'd say if he stood here this minute."
"Did you ever tell father about him?" asked Nelly.
"Scores and scores of times," she answered, emphatically; "and
sometimes he cries and wishes he knew him, and could make him a promise
like me; and sometimes he curses and calls me an idiot. If he could
only see him, Nelly!"
They sat silent for a minute or two, Bessie nursing the child as
tenderly as she nursed her doll. At last, the girl touched the doll
with the tip of her finger, and said cheerfully,—
"Why, wherever did you get this grand plaything from?"
"It's a lady doll, and it's my very own," answered Nelly, opening her
rags to display it fully; "there was a Christmas-tree at our school,
and this was the very best thing there, and teacher gave it me because
she said I was the best child. Isn't it a beauty, Bessie?"
"It's wonderful!" said Bessie, in a voice of admiration.
"I take such care of it," continued Nelly, eagerly, "only I'm afraid of
nursing it when there are children about, for fear they should snatch
it from me, you know."
As the child spoke, the clocks in the town struck twelve, and a trail
of lingerers crept reluctantly out of each brilliant gin-palace. Bessie
kept Nelly back from springing forward to meet her father, and then
seeing him take his way homewards, she followed at a little distance,
clasping the child's hand warmly in her own.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER II.
LOCKED OUT.
THE figure which staggered on before them had once been that of a tall,
well-built man, strong and upright, with a firm tread and a steady
hand. Bessie had known him in his better days; but such as he was
now—feeble and bent, with reddened eyes and shaking hands—Nelly had
never known him otherwise. Rodney loved Nelly with all that was left
to him of a heart. It was perhaps the last link which bound him in
nature to God and his fellow-men. She was his latest-born, and the only
child remaining to him; and though he had lost the sense of all other
affections, this one still glimmered and lived within him. Such as he
was now, he was sure of her love for him, for she could not compare
him with any better self in happier times. The state to which he had
reduced himself was the only one she knew; and the drunkard felt that
there was no reproach mingled with the little child's kisses upon his
parched lips.
Rodney floundered on through the narrow streets leading homewards,
unconscious that he was followed by the silent and noiseless girls,
whose ill-shod feet made no sound upon the slushy pavement. His
progress was slow and uncertain; but at length he turned down a short
passage, and paused, with labouring breath, at the foot of a flight
of stone steps leading to the upper flat of the building in which he
lived. It was to see him safe up this perilous staircase that Bessie
had come so far out of her own way. A false step here, or a giddy
lurch, might be death to him. They ventured nearer to him between the
dark and narrow walls as he climbed up before them; and as soon as he
reached the landing, upon which several doors opened, their hearts
were at rest, now all danger was over. He groped his way on from door
to door until he gained his own, and then with an unexpected quickness
and steadiness of hand he lifted the latch and passed in, slamming the
door behind him, and turning the key noisily in the lock. Nelly sprang
forward with a sudden cry.
"Oh! Bessie," she cried, wringing her small hands in distress,
"whatever are I to do? When father's like that, I durstn't let him see
me nor hear me, for mother says maybe he'd kill me. And mother durstn't
stir to open the door or he'd nearly kill her. And it's so cold out
here, and all the neighbours gone to bed, and it 'ud kill me to stay
out of doors all night, wouldn't it, Bessie? Whatever are I to do?"
It was too dark for Bessie to see the terror upon the child's wan face,
but she could hear it in her voice, and she could feel the little
creature trembling and shivering beside her.
"Never mind," she said, soothingly, "I'm not afraid of him. He's a kind
man, and he'll open the door for me, I know; or else you shall come
home with me, Nelly, and I'll carry you all the way. Hegh! Mr. Rodney,
sir, please to open the door again."
She knocked sharply and decisively at the door, and called out in a
shrill voice, which made itself heard through all the din he was making
inside. He was silent for a moment, listening, and Bessie went on in
the same clear tones,—
"You've locked Nelly out, Mr. Rodney, as has been waiting and watching
ever so long for you; and it's bitter cold to-night, and she's tired to
death. Please unfasten the door and I'll bring her in."
There was no sound for a minute or so except the hollow and suppressed
cough of the mother, who was struggling to hush the noise she made,
lest it should arouse the drunken fury of her husband. Then Rodney
shouted with an oath that he would not open the door again that night
for any one.
"It's me, father!" sobbed the child. "Little Nelly, and its snowing out
here. You didn't use to be so bad to me. Please to let me in."
She was beating now with both hands at the door, and crying aloud with
cold and terror, while her mother's low cough sounded faintly within;
but she dare not rise from her bed and open the door for her little
girl.
"It'll teach you to come waiting and watching for me," cried Rodney,
savagely; "get off from there, and be quiet, or I'll break every bone
in your body. Now, I've said it!"
Nelly's hands dropped down, and she crouched upon the door-sill in
silent agony; but Bessie knocked again bravely.
"Never you mind, Mrs. Rodney," she said, "I'll take Nelly home with me,
and carry her every inch of the road. And, Mr. Rodney, sir, you'll be
as sorry as sorry can be as soon as you come to yourself. Good-night,
now; and don't you fret. Nelly's here, up in my arms, safe and sound;
and I'll take care of her."
Bessie had lifted the child into her arms, but still lingered in the
hope that the door would open. But it did not; and turning away with
a sorrowful and heavy heart, and with Nelly sobbing herself to sleep
on her bosom, she made her way toilsomely along, under her burden, and
through the thickening snow, to her own poor lodging.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER III.
MORNING FEARS.
WHEN Rodney awoke in the morning, he had a vague remembrance of the
night before, which made him raise his aching head, and look with a
sharp prick of anxiety to see if his little child was in bed beside her
mother. His wife, who had been lying awake all night, had now fallen
into a profound slumber, and her hollow face, with the skin drawn
tightly across it, and with a hectic flush upon her cheeks, was turned
towards him; but Nelly was not there. What was it he had done the night
before? In his dull and clouded mind there was a dawning recollection
of having heard little hands beat against the door, and a piteous voice
call to him to open it. It was quite impossible that the child could be
concealed in the room, for it was very bare of furniture, and there was
no corner in its narrow space where she could hide.
Through the broken panes of the uncurtained window he could see the
snow lying thickly upon the roofs; and he was himself benumbed by the
biting breath of the frost, which found its way, in rime and fog,
through the crazy casement. Could it by any possibility have happened
that he had driven out his little daughter, Nelly, who did not shrink
from kissing and fondling him yet, drunkard as he was, into the deadly
cold of such a winter's night? He crept quietly across the room, and
unlocked the door, letting in a keener draft of the bitter wind as he
opened it.
His wife moved restlessly in her sleep, and began to cough a little.
He drew the door behind him, and stood looking down over the railings
which protected the gallery upon which the houses opened, into the
street below. The snow that had fallen during the darkness was already
trodden and sullied by many footsteps; but wherever the northern wind
had blown, it had drifted it into every cranny and crevice, in pure
white streaks. A few boys were snow-balling one another along the
street; but all the house doors, which usually stood open, were closed,
and the neighbours were keeping within. If any of them had been open,
he could have asked carelessly if they knew where his Nelly could be;
but he did not like to knock formally at any one of them. In which of
the houses at hand could he inquire for her, without exposing himself
to the anger and contempt of the inhabitants?
He could not make up his mind to inquire anywhere. He was afraid of
almost any answer he could get. More than once he had beaten his little
girl; but they had made it up again, he and Nelly, with many tears and
kisses, and he knew she had borne no malice in her heart against him.
But he had never driven her out of her home before—a little creature,
not eight years old, in the wild, wintry night; at midnight too,
when every other shelter would be closed. Where could she be at this
moment? What if she had been frozen to death in some corner, where she
had tried to shield herself from the snow-storm? He wandered along
the street, casting fearful glances down each flight of cellar-steps,
where a child might creep for refuge, until he reached the wider
thoroughfares, and the numerous gin-palaces in them.
But just now Rodney's heart was too full of his missing child to feel
the temptation strongly. He fumbled mechanically in his pockets for
any odd pence that might be there; but he was thinking too much of
Nelly to have more than a faint, instinctive desire for the stimulus.
He was cold, miserable, and downcast; but he had not as yet sunk so
low that anything except the assurance that his little daughter was
alive and well, could revive him. With bowed head he went on in a blind
search for her, along the snowy streets, looking under archways, and
up covered passages, wherever she might have found a shelter for the
little face and form, which were dearer than all the world to him,
cruel as he had been to them.
He turned home again at length, worn out and despondent, wishing
himself dead and forgotten by all those whom he had made miserable, and
more than half tempted to make an end of it altogether in the great,
strong river, whose tide would sweep him out to sea. Swept away from
the face of the earth—that would be the best thing for them and for
him! If he only had courage to do it; but his courage was all gone,
had oozed away from him, and left him only the husk of a man, fearful
of his own shadow, except when he was drunk. He scarcely knew whether
he trembled from cold or dread as he loitered homewards; and he could
hardly climb the worn steps which he must ascend to reach his house,
for the throbbing of his heart and the tremor in his limbs. He was
afraid of facing his dying wife, and telling her that he could not find
their last little child, the only one that she would have had to leave
behind her.
But as he came within sight of the door, he saw that it stood open an
inch or two, and his eye caught the gleam of a handful of fire kindled
in the grate. Before his hand could touch it, the door was quickly but
quietly opened, and Nelly herself stood within, her hand raised to warn
him not to make any noise.
"Hush!" she whispered. "Mother's asleep still, and you're yourself
again. Bessie said you'd be yourself again, and I needn't be afraid.
Come in and let me warm you, daddy."
She drew him gently to the broken chair on the hearth, and began to
rub his numbed fingers between her own little hands; while Rodney sunk
helplessly into the seat, and leaned his head upon her small shoulder.
"Never mind, father," said Nelly, "you didn't mean to do it. Bessie
says you'd never have done it of your own self. It's only the drink
that does it; and I wasn't hurt, daddy; not hurt a bit. Bessie carried
me all the way to her home, like you carried her once, she says. Did
you ever carry Bessie, when you were a strong man, in your own arms, a
long, long way?"
"Ay! I did," said Rodney, with a heavy sigh, "and now I can scarcely
lift you upon my knee. Do you love poor, old father, Nelly?"
[Illustration: SHE DREW HIM GENTLY TO THE BROKEN CHAIR.]
"To be sure I do," said the child, earnestly, "why, when mother's dead,
there 'll be nobody left but me to take care of you, you know. You
mustn't ever turn me out of doors then, or you might hurt yourself, and
there 'd be nobody to see when you're drunk."
"I'll never get drunk again," cried Rodney, "and I'll never be cruel to
you again, Nelly. Give me a kiss, and let it be a bargain."
Nelly covered his fevered face with kisses, in all a child's
hopefulness and gladness; and told her mother the good news the moment
she awoke. But neither the wife, nor Rodney himself, dared to believe
he would have strength to keep the promise he had made.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER IV.
ONLY A DOLL.
AS the night drew on, and the time at which he was accustomed to seek
the excitement of the spirit-vaults or beer-shops, a sore conflict
began within Rodney's soul. With the darkness came a cold, thick fog
from the river, which penetrated into the ill-built houses, and wrapped
freezingly about their poorly-clad inmates. What few pence he had saved
from the scanty wages of the previous week, he had spent earlier in the
day in buying a little food for Nelly, and some medicine to lull his
wife's racking cough. There was no light in his house, and the fire
was sparingly fed with tiny lumps of coal or cinder, which gave little
warmth, and no brightness to his hearth. The sick woman had stayed in
bed all day, and had only strength enough to speak to him from time
to time; while Nelly, who was also suffering from cold, and hunger
but half-satisfied, grew dull as the darkness deepened, and rocked
her doll silently to and fro, as she sat on the floor in front of the
fire, where the gleams of red light from the embers fell upon her. Not
far away was the brilliant gin-palace, where the light fell in rainbow
colours on the glittering prisms of the gas pendants, to which his dim
and drunken eyes were so often lifted in stupid admiration.
A chilly depression hung about Rodney, which by and by gave place to
an intense, unutterable craving for the excitement of drink, which
fastened upon him, and which he felt no power to shake off. As time
dreary minutes dragged by, he pictured to himself the warmth and
comfort that were within a stone's-throw of him. But there was no money
now in his pocket, and nothing that was worth pawning in the house. He
almost repented of having spent the poor sum that had been his in food
and medicine; for Nelly was still hungry, and her mother's cough had
not ceased. That cough irritated him almost to frenzy; and he felt that
he should die, perish that night of cold and misery, if he could not
buy one dram to warm and comfort him.
He peered anxiously around, in the gloom, upon the few beggarly
possessions remaining to him, and groaned aloud as he confessed to
himself that they were worthless. His wandering glance fell upon Nelly,
curled up sleepily on the hearth, with her doll lying on her arm. That
looked gay and attractive in the red light, its blue dress and scarlet
sash showing up brightly against Nelly's dingy rags.
Rodney's conscience smote him for a moment as he thought that the toy,
fresh and unsoiled still, might fetch enough, if sold, to satisfy his
more immediate craving this evening—but the idea once in his mind, he
could not banish it. To-morrow he would work, and earn money enough to
buy Nelly another quite as good as this one. If he had not spent his
money for her and her mother, he would not now be driven to taking her
plaything from her; and it was only a toy, nothing necessary to her, as
it was necessary to get warmth, and what was more to him than food. She
would not be any colder or hungrier without her doll; and she would not
mind it much, as it was for him. He did not mean to take it from her
against her will; but she would give it up, he knew. Leaning forward,
he laid his shaking hand upon her cheek.
"Nelly," he said, in his kindest tones, "Nelly, you've got a pretty
plaything there."
"Oh, yes!" she answered, opening her eyes wide, and hugging the doll
closer to her. "But it isn't a plaything, father. It's a lady that has
come to live with me."
"A lady, is it?" said Rodney, laughing. "Why, it's a queer place for a
lady to live in. Would you mind lending her to me for a little while,
Nelly?"
"What for?" asked Nelly, her eyes growing large with terror, and her
hands fastening more closely around her treasure.
"No harm," he answered softly, "no harm at all, my little woman. I only
want to show it to a friend of mine that's got a little girl like you
that's fond of dolls. I'll bring it back very soon, all right."
"Oh! I cannot let her go!" cried Nelly, bursting into tears, and
creeping away from him towards the bed where her mother lay.
"John," murmured the mother, in feeble and tremulous tones, "let the
child keep her doll. It's the only comfort she's got."
Rodney sat still for another half-hour, the numbness and depression
gaining upon him every minute. Nelly had sought refuge by her mother's
side, and the dreary room was awfully silent. At last, he could endure
it no longer; and with a hard resolution in his heart, he stirred the
fire till a flickering light played about the bare walls, and then he
strode across to the bedside.
"Look here, Nelly," he said, in a harsh voice, "I promised that friend
of mine to show his little girl your doll; so you'd better give it up
quietly, or I must take it off you. What are you afraid of? I'm not
going to do you any harm, but have the doll I must. I'll bring it back
again with me, if you'll only lend it me without, any more words."
"Nelly," said the mother, tenderly, "you must let him take it, my
darling."
Nelly sat up in bed, rocking herself to and fro in a passion of grief
and dread. Yet her father had promised to bring it back, and she had
still some childish faith in him. The doll lay upon the ragged pillow,
but she could not muster courage enough to give it herself into her
father's hands, and with a bitter sob she pushed it, towards her mother.
"You give it him," she said.
For a minute or two, Rodney's wife looked up steadily into his face,
for some sign of relenting, but though his eyes fell, and his head
sank, he still held out his hand for the toy, which she gave to him,
murmuring, "God have mercy upon you!"
For a second Rodney stood irresolute, but the flickering flame died
out, and darkness hid him from his wife and Nelly. Without speaking
again, he groped his way to the door and passed out into the street.
[Illustration: THE PAWNBROKER AND THE DOLL.]
It proved a very paltry, insufficient satisfaction after all. The toy,
handsome as it seemed to him, did not sell for as much as he expected
at the pawn-shop, where they refused altogether to take it in pledge.
He could only drink enough to stupify him for a little while, but not
sufficient to give him the savage courage to go back and meet Nelly
without her doll. What he had taken only served to quicken the stings
of his conscience, which made it a difficult thing to return home at
all.
The night was even keener than the last when Nelly watched for him at
the door of the gin-palace, yet he dare not go back till she was fast
asleep, and in the morning he could readily pacify her by promising
to buy another doll. He hung about the entrances of the spirit-vaults
with a listless hope that some liberal comrade might offer him a glass;
and as long as there was any chance of it, he loitered in the streets.
But they were closed at last, the brilliant lights extinguished, and
the shutters put up; and Rodney was forced to return home tenfold more
miserable than when he left it.
His hope that Nelly would be asleep was ill-founded. He could not see
her; but the instant his foot struck against the door-sill, he heard
her eager voice calling to him to bring the doll back to her. His own
voice, when he answered her, was broken by a whimper, and a sob which
he could not control,—
"Father couldn't bring it home," he answered; "my friend's little girl
wouldn't part with it to-night. But it will come home to-morrow, Nelly."
"Oh! I know it never will," wailed the child. "I shall never see my
lady any more; never any more. They've stolen her off me; and I shall
never, never have her again."
He could hear her sobbing far into the night; and after she had cried
herself to sleep, her breath came in long and troubled sighs. He
cursed himself bitterly, vowing a hundred times that Nelly should have
a doll again to-morrow. But when the day came, the daily temptation
came with it; and though he found work, and borrowed a shilling from a
fellow-workman, the money went where his money had gone for many a past
month and year.
For some days his child was dull and quiet—bearing malice, Rodney
called it, when she gave no response to his fits of fondness. But
neither she nor his wife spoke to him of the lost plaything, and before
long, it had passed away altogether from his weakened memory.
CHAPTER V.
VIOLETS.
ALL the neighbours said it was a mystery how the Rodneys lived for the
next three months, for Rodney was away for days together, only coming
home now and then during his sober intervals; but it was no mystery at
all. The wondrous kindness which the poor show to the poor was at work
for them. Mrs. Rodney needed little food, and Nelly was always welcome
to share the stinted meals in any house near at hand. Every day at
dusk Bessie came in, and if she had been lucky in selling her flowers
or fruit in the streets, she did not fail to bring some small, cheap
dainty with her to tempt the sick woman's appetite. So the depth of the
winter passed by; and the spring drew near, with its Easter week of
holiday and gladness.
It was the day before Good Friday, when Rodney was returning, with
lagging steps and a heavy heart, to his wretched home, after an absence
of several days. Every nerve in his body was jarring, and every limb
ached. He could scarcely climb the narrow and steep staircase; and
when he reached his door, he was obliged to lean against it, breathing
hardly after the exertion. It seemed very silent within, awfully still
and silent. He listened for Nelly's chatter, or her mother's cough,
which had sounded incessantly in his ears before he had left home;
but there was no breath or whisper to be heard. Yet the door yielded
readily to his touch, and with faint and weary feet he crossed the
threshold, to find the room empty.
It was his first impression that it was empty; but when he looked round
again with his dim, red eyes, whose sight was failing, they fell upon
one awful occupant of the desolate room. Even that one he could not
discern all at once, not till he had crossed the floor and laid his
hand upon the strange object resting upon the old bed—the poor, rough
shell of a coffin which the parish had provided for his wife's burial.
She was not in it yet, but lay beyond it, in its shadow; her white,
fixed face, very hollow and rigid, at rest upon the pillow, and her
wasted hands crossed upon her breast. The neighbours had furnished
their best to dress her for the grave, and a white cap covered her gray
hair; while between her hands, on the heart that would beat no more,
Bessie had laid a bunch of fresh spring violets.
Rodney sank down on his knees, with his arms stretched over the coffin
towards his dead wife. Some of the deep, hard lines had vanished from
her face, and an expression of rest and peace had settled upon it,
which made her look more like the girl he had loved and married twenty
years ago. How happy they had been then! And how truly he had loved
her! If any man had told him to what a wretched end he would bring her,
he would have asked indignantly, "Am I a dog, that I should do this
thing?"
The memory of their first years together swept over him like a flood:
their pleasant home, of which she had been so proud; their first-born
child, and their plans and schemes for his future; the respect in which
he had been held by all who knew him; and he had thrown them all away
to indulge a shameful sin! And now she was dead; and even if he had the
power to break through the hateful chain which fettered him body and
soul, he could never make amends to her. He had killed her as surely,
but more slowly and cruelly, than if he had stained his hands with her
blood. God, if not man, would charge him with her murder.
The twilight came on as he knelt there, and for a few minutes the
white features looked whiter and more ghastly before the darkness hid
them from him. Then the night fell. It seemed more terrible than ever
now—this stillness in the room which was not empty. His mind wandered
in bewilderment; he could not fix his thoughts upon one subject for a
minute together, not even on his wife, who was lying dead within reach
of his hand. His head ached, and his brain was clouded. One dram would
set him right again, and give him the courage to seek his neighbours,
and inquire after Nelly; but he dared not meet them as he was. He
could not bear to meet their accusing eyes, and listen to their rough
reproaches, and hear how his wife had died in want, and neglect, and
desertion. He must get something to drink, or he should go mad.
There was nothing in the room of any value—he knew that; yet there
was one thing might give him the means of gratifying his quenchless
drouth. He knew a man, serving at the counter of one of the nearest
spirit-vaults, who had a love for flowers; and there was the bunch of
sweet violets withering in the dead hands of his wife. For a minute
or two the miserable drunkard's brain grew steady and clear, and he
shuddered at the thought of thus robbing the dead; but the better
moments passed quickly away. The scent of the flowers brought back to
his troubled memory the lanes and hedgerows where he had rambled with
her, under the showery and sunny skies of April, to gather violets—so
long ago that surely it must have been in some other and happier life,
and he must have been another and far better man. How happy the days
had been! No poverty then; no aching limbs and wandering thoughts. He
had believed in God, and loved his fellow-men. Now there was not a cur
in the streets that was not a happier and nobler creature than himself.
Still, underneath the surface of these thoughts, his purpose
strengthened steadily to exchange the fresh, sweet flowers for one
draught of the poison which was destroying him—he knew it—body and
soul. But the darkness had grown so dense that he could not, with all
the straining of his be-dimmed eyes, trace the white outline of the
dead face and hands; and his skin crept at the thought of touching,
with his hot hand, the deathly chill of the corpse. The flowers were
there; but how was he to snatch them away from the frigid grasp which
held them without feeling her fingers touch his? But the pangs of his
thirst gathered force from minute to minute, until overpowered by them,
he stretched out his feverish and trembling hands across the coffin in
the darkness, and laid them upon the dead hands of his wife.
The cold struck through him with an icy chill that he would never
forget, but he would not now fail in his purpose. He loosed the violets
from her fingers, and rushed away from the place, not daring to pause
for an instant till he had reached the gin-palace where he could sell
them.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VI.
THE PRICE OF A DRAM.
RODNEY had not left the house many minutes when Bessie Dingle entered
it, shading with her hand a candle which she had borrowed from a
neighbour. She stepped softly across the room, and looked down with
tearful eyes upon her friend's corpse. The hands had been disturbed,
and the flowers were gone. Bessie started back for an instant with
terror, but guessing instinctively what had happened, and whither the
miserable man had gone, without hesitation she drew her shawl over her
head, and ran down the street in the direction he had taken.
She had to peep into three or four gin-palaces before she found him,
lolling against the counter, and slowly draining the last few drops of
the dram he had bought. There were not many customers yet in the place,
for it was still early in the night; and the man behind the counter
was fastening into his button-hole the bunch of violets, with their
delicate white blossoms, and the broad green leaf behind them. Bessie
did not pause in her hurried steps, and she threw herself half across
the counter, speaking in clear and eager tones.
"You don't know where those vi'lets come from," she cried; "he's taken
'em out of the hands of his poor dead wife, where I put 'em only this
afternoon, because she loved 'em so, and I thought they'd be buried
with her. I think she knows what he's done, I do. Her face is gone
sadder—ever so—since I saw it this afternoon; for he's stolen the posy
from her, I tell you, and she lying dead!"
Bessie's voice faltered with her eagerness and grief; and the people
present gathered about her and Rodney, listening with curious and awed
faces; while the purchaser of the flowers laid them down quickly upon
the counter.
"Dead!" he exclaimed. "Come straight from a dead woman to me!"
"Ay!" said Bessie. "Straight! And she loving him so to the very last,
and telling me when she could hardly speak, 'Take care of him, take
care of him!' And he goes and robs her of the only thing I could give
her. That's what you make of a man," she continued, more and more
eagerly; "you give him drink till there isn't a brute beast as bad; and
he was a kind man to begin with, I can tell you."
"It's his own fault, my girl," said the man, in a pacifying tone; "he
comes here of his own accord. We don't force him to come."
"But you do all you can to 'tice him in," answered Bessie; "if it
wasn't standing here so handy, and bright, and pleasant, he wouldn't
come in. There's something wrong somewhere, or Mr. Rodney 'ud never be
like that, or do such a thing as that, I know. Look at him! And when
I was a little girl, he jumped into the river after me, and saved my
life."
She pointed towards him as he was trying to slink away through the ring
that encircled them, bowing his head with a terrified and hang-dog
look. The little crowd was beginning to sneer and hiss at him, but
Bessie drew his hand through her own strong, young arm, and faced them
with flashing eyes and a glance of indignation, before which they were
silent.
"You're just as bad, every one of you," she cried; "you take the bread
out of your children's mouths, and that's as bad as stealin' vi'lets
from your poor, dead wife. It doesn't do her any real harm, but you
starve and pinch, and cheat little children, and it harms them ev'ry
day they live. None of you have any call to throw stones at him."
She thrust her way through them, and was leading Rodney to the door,
when the man behind the counter called to her to take away the flowers.
"Do you think I'd take 'em from such a place as this?" she asked, more
vehemently than before. "Could I go and put 'em back into her poor,
dead hands, after he'd bought a glass o' gin with 'em? No, no; keep
'em, and carry 'em home with you, and tell everybody you see what your
customers will do for drink. I'd sooner cut my fingers off than touch
them again."
The courage her agitation had given her was well-nigh spent now, and
she was glad to get Rodney out of the place. She trembled almost as
much as he did, and the tears rained down her face. She did not try
to speak to him until Rodney began to talk to her in a whimpering and
querulous voice.
"Hush!" she said. "Hush! Don't go to say you couldn't help it, and she
loving you so to the very last minute of her life. 'If he'd only pray
to God to help him!' she said. And then, just before she was going
away, she said, 'Bessie, you take care of him and Nelly.' And I'm going
to do it, Mr. Rodney. You saved me once, and I'm going to try to save
you now, if God 'll only help me. It shan't be for want of praying to
Him, I promise you. Oh! If you'd only give it up now at once before you
get worse and worse."
[Illustration: BESSIE TAKES RODNEY FROM THE GIN-PALACE.]
"I can't be any worse," moaned the drunkard.
"Not much, may be," said Bessie, frankly; "you went and stole Nelly's
doll for drink, and now you've stole the vi'lets. But you might be
dead, and that's worse. And every day you're only getting nearer it,
and if you go on drinking, you're sure to die pretty soon. Perhaps, if
you go on as you are, you'll be dead in a very little while."
"I wish I was dead," he groaned.
"Why!" exclaimed Bessie, in a tone of astonishment. "And then you could
never undo the harm you've done to poor little Nelly, that you love so,
I know, spite of all. If you'd only think of Nelly, and think of God—I
don't know much about God, you used to know more than me; but I've a
feeling as if He really does care for us all, every one of us, and you,
when you're drunk even. If you'd only think of Him and little Nelly,
you wouldn't get drunk again, I'm sure."
"I never will again, Bessie; I never will again," he repeated
fervently. And he continued saying it over and over again, till they
reached the gallery at the top of the staircase.
Bessie drew him aside as he was about to turn into his own room.
"No," she said, "you couldn't bear to stay in there alone all night; it
'ud be too much for you. Mrs. Simpson, as is taking care of Nelly 'll
let you sit up by her fire; and I'll go and stay in your house. I'm not
afeard at all. She loved us all so—you, and Nelly, and me. We're going
to bury her in the morning, and I'd like to sit up with her the last
night of all."
Before long Rodney was seated by his neighbour's fire, in a silent and
very sorrowful mood, with Nelly leaning against him, her arm round his
neck, and her cheek pressed against his. He was quite sober now; and
his spirit was filled with bitter grief, and a sense of intolerable
degradation. He loathed and abhorred himself, cursed his own sin, and
the greed of the people who lived upon it. If the owners of these
places of temptation—members of Christian churches, some of them—could
hear the deep, unutterable curses breathed against them, their souls
would be ready to die within them for their own sin, and the terrible
shame of it.
CHAPTER VII.
HALF MEASURES.
AS soon as Mrs. Rodney was buried, Bessie entered upon her charge of
Rodney and Nelly. She was little more than a child herself in years,
but her life in the streets had given her a keen, shrewd knowledge
of human nature. She set about at once to make Rodney's home more
attractive than it had been during his wife's illness. And every
evening, as soon as her own necessary livelihood was earned, she
hastened to spend all the time she could with him and Nelly. She could
sing and talk well; and Rodney, whose good resolutions were deeper than
usual, was often induced to stay at home, or pay only a brief visit to
some public-house, for the sake of society, accompanied by both Bessie
and Nelly, who waited for him outside the door, now and then sending in
a message, till he was ashamed of keeping them longer.
There was a little change for the better. Nelly's rags were covered by
a gay pink cotton frock, trimmed with a number of small flounces, which
Bessie picked up cheap at a clothes-shop, and which she washed until
the colour was faded. Rodney often promised to buy his little daughter
the other clothes she so greatly needed; but work was slack, very slack
for unsteady hands like him; and he could earn but little, more than
half of which still went for drink. But he had no violent outbreak, and
often when he was tempted to greater excesses, there rose before his
mind the image of his dead wife, with the violets in her folded hands.
This memory, with Bessie's influence and Nelly's love, had a salutary
effect upon him in part; and in his heart, he had determined to be
altogether a changed and reformed man some day.
By degrees Rodney recovered confidence in himself and his own power
of moderation. Three months had passed since his wife's death, and he
had never been so drunk as to be incapable. Bessie, with the sanguine
delight of a girl, believed in his reformation, and rejoiced in it
openly; while Nelly praised and fondled him every day. The slavery of
the habit seemed over; he was master of it, or at least he was no more
than a hired servant, who could cast off the yoke at any moment, and be
altogether free. He drank still, drank deeply; but he could come out
of the gin-palace with money in his pocket; a feat impossible a few
months ago. The abject drunkards, who could not tear themselves away
from the neighbourhood of the spirit-vaults, became objects of contempt
and disgust to him. He was pursuing the rational and manly course of
breaking off the habit by slow but sure degrees.
Yet there was not after all much to be proud of. The poor place at home
was still bare and comfortless, in spite of Bessie's efforts; Nelly was
pining for better food, and he himself was shabby and out-at-elbow.
No person passing him in the street would have distinguished him from
the drunken objects he despised. He was feeble and tremulous still;
his eyes were red and dim, and his head was hot. The only point gained
was that the vice, which still had possession of him, held him with a
somewhat slighter grasp.
But when the next autumn came, and heavy fogs from the river filled the
town, Bessie caught cold after cold till her spirits failed her, and
she could do little more than call in at Rodney's house upon her way
home to her lodgings, where she longed to lie down to rest. There was
nobody to wile away the listless time at home, and if he stayed longer
than usual at the beer-shop or gin-palace, there was no one waiting for
him outside, for he took care to lock Nelly up safely before he left
her. By little and little the old slavery established itself again in
all its tyranny. He had built his house upon the sand, and the storm
came and beat upon it, and it fell; and great was the fall thereof.
Night after night Rodney came home late, raving more furiously than
ever, while Nelly crouched in the darkest corner of the little room
in an agony of terror, not daring to stir lest she should draw his
attention to her. Sometimes, as she grew better, Bessie would make
her way through the chilly evenings to the house to exert her old
influence, but she found that it was all gone before this new outbreak.
Once he struck her brutally, and thrust her out into the rain, bidding
her begone, and come back no more; but the faithful girl would not
forsake him and little Nelly. She was hoping against hope.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VIII.
A SORROWFUL FACT.
IT was not long before the time came when Rodney was never really
sober. When he could not stagger along the narrow streets to the
spirit-vaults, he sent Nelly, as scores and hundreds of little children
are sent in our Christian country; and he drank himself dead drunk in
the room where his wife had died. At last there was neither shame, nor
sorrow, nor a consciousness of sin in his soul; only the one absorbing,
insatiable craving for drink. A seven-fold possession had taken fast
hold of him, and Bessie lost all hope.
It was quite dark one evening, and Rodney was lying prostrate, unable
to stir, upon the low bed, with a bottle near him which he had lately
drained, but without power to fumble with his nerveless fingers for any
more pence which might possibly remain in his possession. His eyes were
open, and in a state of drunken lethargy he was watching Nelly going
softly to and fro about the room, casting terrified glances at him from
time to time. He saw her bent almost double under the weight of the
old iron-kettle, which she was lifting with both her little arms on to
the fire; and lying there, powerless and speechless, he saw the thin,
ragged frock, with its torn and faded flounces, catch the flame between
the bars, and kindle rapidly into a blazing light about her.
An extreme agony came upon him. With all the might of his will, he
struggled to raise himself up to save her; but he could not move. He
had no more power over his own limbs than the mother's corpse would
have had, if it had been lying there. For a moment, his little girl
stretched out her arms to him with a scream for help; and then she
sprang past him to the door, and he heard the street ring and echo with
her cries, and the shrieks of frightened women and children. But still
he could not stir. He lay there like a log, while great drops of terror
and anguish gathered on his face.
How long it was he did not know—it might have been years of
torment—before the door was flung open, and a woman's face looked in
upon him, white and haggard with fear.
"She's burned to death!" she cried, "and you'll have to answer for it.
I'm not sorry; I'm glad. She'll be better off now; and I hope they 'll
hang you for it. You'll have to answer for the child's death."
She drew the door to again sharply, and left him in his miserable and
helpless loneliness. Nelly was dead then; burned to death through his
sin! The intolerable agony of his spirit gave him a little strength,
and he crawled upon his hands and knees to the door, and succeeded in
opening it. Down in the street below the people were talking of it, the
women calling to one another to tell the horrible news; he could hear
many of the words they said, with his name sometimes, and sometimes
Nelly's. Dead! Was it possible that his little Nelly could be dead? Why
did they not bring her home? But then a great shuddering of horror fell
upon him. He could not bear to see her again, his dead child; burned to
death with him lying by, too drunk to save her.
By and by his limbs gathered more power, and with pain and toil he
raised himself to his feet. The tumult in the streets was subsiding,
and the people were retiring to their houses. Some of them, who lived
on the same flat, kicked at his door with loud and angry curses; but he
had locked it as soon as his fingers could turn the key, and he kept
a silence like the grave. All was quiet after a while, and the clocks
of the town struck eleven. If he could only steal away now, there
would be no one to stop him and ask him what he was about to do, or
whither he was going. The streets were almost deserted, except about
the gin-palaces. He cursed them bitterly as he went by. There was now
only one purpose, one idea in his tormented brain: if his miserable
feet would but carry him to the river, all should soon be ended for
him. Nothing in the world to come could be worse than the hell of his
own sin. The only plea Bessie herself could urge—that he should live to
make amends to Nelly—had no longer an existence.
It was slow and weary work, creeping, creeping down to the river side.
He saw it long before he reached it, with the lights glimmering across
it from the opposite shore. He was obliged to lean often against the
walls and the lamp-posts to gain breath and power to take a few more
footsteps towards his grave. He was drunk no longer. His mind was
terribly clear. He knew distinctly what had happened, and what was
about to happen to him if his strength would only take him down to the
edge of yonder black water. His conscience raised no voice against his
purpose. There was a certain feeling, almost of satisfaction, that in a
little while the tide would be carrying him out to sea.
He had almost gained a spot where a single effort would plunge him
into the cooling waters; there were but few persons about, and they
at some distance away, far enough not to hear the splash as he fell
into the basin, when his unsteady foot caught upon the curb-stone, and
he fell forward, dashing his head violently upon the pavement. Before
many minutes had passed, a policeman was conveying him in a cab to the
infirmary; and he was laid, unconscious and delirious, upon a bed in
one of the wards there.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER IX.
FOUND DROWNED.
THREE days after Rodney's disappearance, Bessie was sitting at an
apple-stall in her old place by the landing-stages, when the news ran
along the line of basket-women that the body of a drowned man had just
been brought ashore at one of the wharves near at hand. Bessie's heart
sank within her. There had been no tidings of Rodney since the evening
she had first missed him, though she had sought everywhere for him; and
she recollected too well the threat he had often made of putting an end
to his life. She felt sick and giddy at the mere thought of recognizing
him in this drowned man, yet she left her basket and stall in charge
of a neighbour, and ran in search of the crowd which would be sure to
gather about the ghastly object.
Bessie pushed through the circle of bystanders, and looked down on the
dripping form lying upon the stones. The face was livid and disfigured,
and the scanty hair was smooth and dark; yet it was like him, so like
him that Bessie fell upon her knees beside him, sobbing passionately.
"Oh! I know him!" she cried. "He saved me from being drowned once, and
now he's gone and drowned himself. Oh! I wish he could be brought to
life again! Is he quite dead? Are you sure he's quite dead?"
"He's been in the water two or three days," said one of the lookers-on,
speaking to another who stood near.
"Oh! Then, it must be him!" sobbed Bessie. "It must be him. It's three
days since little Nelly set herself on fire while he was drunk; and he
went and drowned himself. He used to say he'd do it, and I hindered
him. Why wasn't I there to hinder him again?"
"Are you his daughter?" asked a policeman.
"No, I was nothing to him," answered Bessie, "only he saved me from
being drowned when I was a little girl. He ought never to have come to
this; he oughtn't. He was a good man, and as kind as kind could be when
he was himself. Oh! Why wasn't I here, Mr. Rodney, when you came to
drown yourself?"
"Do you know where his family lives?" asked the policeman again.
"He hasn't got any family now," said Bessie, with fresh tears; "his
wife died at Easter, and little Nelly is dying in the hospital. They
say they think she'll die to-day, but I'm to go again this evening.
He's got nobody but a mother down in the country thirty miles away; and
as soon as I can walk it, I was going to tell her about Nelly; and now
there 'll be this to tell her as well. And he was such a good man once."
"You must tell me where you live," said the policeman; "we shall want
you on the inquest, you know."
"Oh, yes," she answered, "but I haven't got any more to tell. Only I
was very fond of him and Nelly, I was."
She rose from her knees and wiped her eyes, watching them earnestly as
they carried the corpse into a small public-house near at hand, where
it was not unwelcome, as it brought custom to the bar. The next morning
she gave her evidence at the inquest, and the corpse was buried as that
of John Rodney. Bessie gave up the key of the house, which she had kept
in her possession; and the few poor articles of furniture in it were
sold by the landlord to pay the rent that was due to him.
In the meantime, and for several weeks after, Rodney lay on the verge
of death, crazy and delirious with brain-fever. His wretched life hung
upon a thread, and only the marvellous skill and patience of those
about him could have saved it. Nothing was known of him, and when the
delirium was over, his mind and memory were at first too weak for him
to give any account of himself.
As recollection returned and conscience awoke, he kept silence,
brooding over the terrible history of the past. There were time and
opportunity now, during the long hours, day and night, while he lay
enfeebled, but sober, calling up one by one all the memories of his sad
life. He knew that he should be compelled to live now, and compelled
to enter upon the desolate future, with its sore burden of remorse and
shame. He vowed to himself that if ever he went out into the streets
again, where temptations beset him on every hand, nothing should induce
him to fall again into sin.
When the time came for him to leave, he was asked where his home was,
and what he intended to do. Rodney's white and sunken face flushed a
little as he answered, "I've no home now," he said. "I had one once as
good as a man could wish for. I earned good wages, and I'd a dear wife
and little children to meet me when I came in from my day's work. But
I threw it all away for drink. All my children are dead—the last that
died was little Nelly. And my poor wife is dead, thank God! I've nobody
in the world belonging to me, save my old mother, and I've broken her
heart. I think I'll go home to her; I know she'll take me in."
With half-a-crown to pay his fare down to his mother's house in the
country, Rodney left the infirmary, and found himself once more in the
familiar streets, with their common, everyday sounds and sights, and
their gin-palaces thrusting themselves upon his notice at every other
minute of his progress through them.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER X.
DEEPER STILL.
WITH bowed head and despair tugging at his heart, Rodney passed through
the noise and business of the streets. He was bent upon seeing over
again the poor place where his wife had died and Nelly been killed. It
was the middle of the morning as he approached it, and as he shrank
from being the object of notice to his former neighbours, he slunk down
the side-alleys and passages, which brought him almost opposite the
building where his home had been. Again he climbed the worn steps and
gave a low knock at his own door, which was quickly answered by a voice
calling, "Come in."
Yes, his home was gone, quite gone. Here was another family on the same
road to ruin as himself, dwelling within the old walls. Upon the hearth
was a woman sitting on a low stool and nursing a wailing baby, with a
bottle in reach of her hand, while the scent of gin, which made every
nerve in him creep and tingle, filled the place.
She looked up with blood-shot eyes: and asked him what his business
might be.
"I'd a friend who lived here once," he said, leaning against the
door-post, for he felt faint and giddy, "John Rodney by name. I suppose
he's gone?"
"Oh! He's dead," answered the woman, "drowned himself: and a good thing
too. Everybody was glad to hear the news. His little girl set herself
afire, and him lying there, the brute, too drunk to stir; couldn't lift
hand or foot to help her. Mrs. Simpson, as lived next door, said how
she see him crawl away after, down them steps and up the street, and
three days after his body was found in the river."
"What did you say about the little girl?" he asked, sick at heart.
"Why! She set herself afire at this very grate, and him lying as it
might be there, and she ran out, all in a flame, down them steps, and
was burned to death. Bless you! I'd lots of folks to see the place,
specially ladies; but they're forgetting it now. I couldn't bear it
at first myself, but I bore up. This 'll help you bear up against
anything."
She laid her hand on the bottle, smiling drearily, and Rodney shivered
and shuddered throughout all his frame. He knew well what it would do
for him: what a warmth, what a genial glow would run through all his
veins, till some, at least, of this deadly sickness of heart would pass
away. In the hospital he had had wine given to him at stated intervals,
and his burden had always seemed lighter after he drank it. Here,
within the narrow compass of these bare walls was the scene of his most
terrible remembrance; but here also the temptation beset him with awful
and renewed strength. He gazed with greedy eyes at the bottle in the
woman's hand.
[Illustration: THE VISIT TO THE OLD HOME.]
"It's all gone," she said, "or I'd have given you a drop."
Rodney turned away without a word, his brain on fire with the old
hellish craving for drink. Some words were running through his mind
with monotonous repetition,—
"Cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame."
Half-way down the narrow street lay a man in the gutter, the butt for
any passer-by to kick at. The children had strewn ashes upon his head
and face, from the dust-heaps which lay before each door, without
disturbing the profound slumber of the drunkard. Rodney stood still and
gazed at him, with a mingled feeling of wonder and envy to think of
what, deep draughts he must have taken, and what utter forgetfulness
had come over him. At length, he passed onwards to the more public
thoroughfares. There was the old frequented gin-palace, with its easily
swinging doors, and its attractive appliances to help the temptation to
conquer him. He could resist no longer; and he did not turn away from
the counter till the whole of the money, given to him to carry him to
his mother's home, was gone.
It was some hours before Rodney came to himself; being hastened to it
by a shove from the foot of the proprietor, who had allowed him to lie
asleep in a corner of the place during the slack hours of the daytime.
It was time for him now to make room for others who had money to spend.
He gathered himself up and stood on his feet, looking drearily into the
man's face.
"Where am I to go to?" he asked. "I've spent my last penny with you.
I haven't got a hole to put my head in, nor a farthing in my pocket.
Where am I to go to?"
"Where you were last night," said the man angrily.
"I came out of the infirmary this morning," he answered, in a
bewildered tone; "where am I to go to to-night?"
"To the workhouse then," said the man; "only out of this anyhow."
He opened the door, and pushed him out.
Rodney tottered to a doorway, and sat down, gazing at the stream of
people constantly passing by, with a rigid and stony face of despair.
It was still twilight, and a crimson flush was tinging the sky
westward, while a fresh invigorating breeze played about his burning
forehead.
"Oh God! Oh God!" he cried within himself. "I meant to have kept that
vow. Where can I hide myself from these places that entrap me? Would to
God they'd take me into some madhouse, and put a strait-waistcoat on
me! I am mad, or the devil is in me. If I could but crawl to some place
where they'd lock me up and keep me from it, if I died for thirst! Oh!
If there were only such a place for a madman like me!"
But there was no place for him, even to shelter him for the night. He
was homeless, without a penny or a friend in the great and busy town.
Or rather, there was one refuge for him—the workhouse. The thought of
going there came dimly to him at first; but by and by he began to see
that it was not merely the only place for him, but it was a place where
he could not be assailed by the sight and smell of the poison which
took away his senses. As long as he could keep to the resolution of
remaining within its walls, he would be preserved from the temptation
of the numberless gin-palaces which met him at every turn. It might be
that after a time, the spell would be broken; the devil's witchcraft
which had cost him so much.
It was a painful pilgrimage, with his heavy feet and despairing spirit,
to make his way to the workhouse. He could only be admitted to the
casual ward for the night; but the next morning he entered, as an
inmate, this last and only refuge.
"God help me," he said to himself, "God help me to keep inside these
walls. I daren't trust myself in the streets. If there's any chance for
me, it's here."
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XI.
THE ONLY REFUGE.
FOR a season Rodney's mind was clouded and bewildered. It is probable
that if he had been in ordinary health and strength, he could not have
held to his resolution to keep within the walls, which were his only
defence from overpowering temptation. But though his craving often
amounted to intense agony, the weakness which was the result of his
long and dangerous illness made him incapable of much exertion, and
the little labour he was put to completely exhausted his powers. Day
after day passed by, the hours dragging along heavily. In the midst of
the miserable poor who peopled the place, he lived alone, in a kind of
dreary lethargy of body and soul, which rendered him almost unconscious
of what was going on around him.
Gradually, however, the cloud which drunkenness had brought across his
mind melted away, and his thoughts and memories grew clear. All his
past life lay behind him, mapped out plainly and distinctly; his early
manhood, his strength of muscle and nerve, his marriage, his children,
and last of all his little Nelly,—all sacrificed, all destroyed, all
lost, by his fatal obedience to the sin which had possessed him. It
had come to this, that he who should have been a happy and useful
man, respected and beloved, was a pauper, eating the begrudged bread
of a workhouse table. He had been acting out the story told centuries
ago by the Lord of truth and wisdom. He had left the Father's house
and wandered into a far country, where a sore famine had arisen; and
behold! he was eating the husks which the swine did eat, and no man
gave unto him. That was his condition.
It was a long time before Rodney went any farther than that.
Broken-hearted and cast down in spirit, he thought he must resign
himself to abide in his miserable condition. An importunate remorse
was gnawing in his conscience, and he said to himself, it was only
just that he should be left without hope, and without God, in a world
where he had brought all his misery upon himself. At this time, little
Nelly was always in his thoughts, the puny, pale little child, puny
and pale through his vice, hungry often, crying often, seldom merry
and light-hearted as other children are, yet always patient and fond
of him, always ready to be glad if he only smiled upon her. Oh! What a
wretch he had been!
How often, too—his memory was vivid in recalling it—how often, when he
had received any money, had he resolved to hasten home with it that
Nelly's wants might be supplied, and those accursed gin-palaces had
been strewn so thickly in his path that when he had reached home, it
had been penniless, but raging mad with drink, striking the quiet,
patient little creature if she only came in his way!
But one morning, so early that it was still an hour or two before
the paupers left their pauper beds, a whisper seemed to come to his
troubled conscience, partly, as it were, in a dream, which said to his
awakening ears,—
"I will arise, and go to my Father."
He repeated the words over and over again. Had that poor prodigal son,
living amongst swine, and eating of their husks, still a right to call
any good and great being his Father? Still, it was he who had said it,
without hesitation, as it seemed, in saying the word, Father: Christ,
the Son of God, who knew all things, and could make no mistake, was He
who had told the story. The miserable prodigal, who had spent every
penny in riotous living, just as he had done, when he came to himself,
had said, "I will arise, and go to my Father." Was it possible he could
do the same?
Day after day Rodney pondered this question over in his heart. Long ago
he had known that Jesus Christ had come to seek and to save those who
were lost; and now, if he would only suffer himself to be found by Him,
if he would only receive Christ and His love, He would give, even to
him, the power to become one of the sons of God. Oh! If Christ would
but find him! down there in his deep degradation and despair! Had He
never known a drunkard like him! If He had not when He was a man on
earth, He knew them now, by hundreds and thousands, in the streets of
Christian cities; His pure eyes beheld them in all their vileness, in
their desecrated homes, and in the gin-palaces thickly studding the
streets.
The day dawn that was breaking upon his soul grew stronger and
stronger, until the shadows fled away. There was neither drink nor the
temptation to drink to make it dim, or to quench it. He could think
now. He could repent, pray, and believe. Reason and faith could work
within him, and there was no subtle foe to steal away his senses. The
hour came at last, when from his inmost soul, drunkard though he had
been, though his wife and little Nelly had perished through his sin, he
could look up to God, and cry, "Father!"
CHAPTER XII.
TRUE TO A PROMISE.
IT was not many days after this that Rodney came to the conclusion that
he ought not to stay any longer within the sheltering walls of the
workhouse, to be a burden upon the poor-rates. He was strong enough now
to earn his own living, though he could never regain the vigour he had
thrown away. Weakness of body, and a sorrowful spirit within him, must
be his portion in this life, though his sin was forgiven, and his heart
could call God his Father. He knew also that outside the gates, within
sight of them, a vehement temptation would assail him. Even there,
within the refuge, if the thought of drink came across him, he could
only find help against it in earnest prayer. Would the demon take him
captive again if he ventured out to confront the peril?
With a trembling heart, and in an agony of prayer, Rodney left his
shelter and found himself once more free and unrestrained in the
streets. He was compelled to pass the places of his temptation, not
once or twice only, but scores of times, with the fumes of the liquors
poisoning the atmosphere about them. He could not help but breathe it,
could not choose but see the gaudy and bright interiors, as his feet
carried him from one fierce assault to another. Sometimes he felt as if
he should be lost if he did not flee back to the shelter he had left,
and end his days there shamefully. But he continued his course down to
the docks, where he hoped he might happen on work to supply his wants
for that day and night, for if he failed, he must return to the casual
ward for a lodging.
He had earned a few pence, and was about to seek lodgings for the
night, when he saw a number of decent working-men crowding into a
schoolroom, which was well lit up. He stopped one of them to ask what
was going on inside.
"It's a lecture," he answered, "on temperance, by Mr. Radford. He's
always plenty to say, and says it out like a man. Come in, and hear
him."
"Ay, I'll come in," said Rodney eagerly, forgetting both his hunger and
fatigue.
The lecture had just begun, and the speaker, whose face was earnest and
hearty, and who had a pleasant voice, had gained the fixed attention of
his hearers.
"I'll tell you what a promise once did," he said, towards the close of
his lecture: "We had a meeting of our Band of Hope some years ago, and
I saw amongst the children a rough, barefoot little girl staring about
her with large, eager eyes, as if she could not make out what we were
about. I asked her her name, and told her to come to my house; and I
wrote down my address for her. But I said to her, 'Will you promise me
not to taste anything that will make you drunk till you see me again?'
And she promised me."
"That's Bessie Dingle!" cried Rodney, half aloud.
And the lecturer paused for an instant, looking down kindly but gravely
upon his listeners.
"I expected her to come to me within a day or two, and I should have
persuaded her to join our Band of Hope; but she never came. Nearly
six years were gone, and one day last autumn, when I was on the
landing-stage, I heard some one cry out, 'That's him again!' And a girl
of seventeen or so, a bright, busy girl, came rushing towards me from
an apple-stall.
"'I've kept my promise, sir!' she cried. 'I've never took a drop to
make me drunk. I said I never would till I see you again.'
"The girl had been faithful to her promise. Yes, in her place, and
according to her strength, she had kept her promise, as God keeps His."
Rodney scarcely heard the end of the lecture, so full was his mind of
Bessie, whom he had scarcely thought of, but who was the only friend he
had left in Liverpool. He could not go away without making some inquiry
after her; and when the audience was dispersing, he made his way up to
the lecturer's desk:—
"Sir," he said, "that girl was Bessie Dingle. Could you tell me where I
could find her this very night?"
"She left Liverpool last autumn," he answered; "she is gone to live in
the country with an old woman of the name of Rodney."
"Why! That must be my mother!" exclaimed Rodney, involuntarily.
"Who are you?" inquired Mr. Radford.
"My name's John Rodney," he answered; "Bessie knows all about me. Oh,
sir! I was a dreadful drunkard; and one night I saw my little girl—she
was the last of them, and my poor wife was dead as well, thank God!—and
the child set herself on fire, and me lying by so drunk I could not
move; I could not stir a limb no more than if I'd been dead. Oh God! Oh
God! It was a horrible thing."
Rodney grasped the desk with both hands to keep himself from falling,
and neither he nor the stranger could speak again for some moments.
"I understood you were drowned," said Mr. Radford at length; "Bessie
believes so; she told me all about it."
"No," murmured Rodney, "I went off with the intention of putting an end
to myself; but I slipped on the pavement, and they carried me to the
infirmary. I was there a long time, and then I went home, and other
folks had taken to my house, and I'd no place to sit down in, and the
liquor-vaults were the only place open to such as me, and I went in and
got dead drunk again."
"Again!" repeated Mr. Radford.
"Ay, again," he said, with a deep groan; "but it was the last time. I
pray God it may be the last time. Then I knew there was no hope for me
as long as I could see or smell drink, and I went into the workhouse to
be out of the way partly, and partly because I'd no other place to go
to. I only came out this morning."
"And where are you going to now?" asked his new friend.
"Anywhere," he answered; "but I'm afraid of going where they 'll be
drinking. There seems to be drink everywhere. You don't know what it is
down in the low parts of the town, sir."
"Yes, I do," said Mr. Radford; "but I'll speak to a friend of mine
here, who will take you to his place for to-night. He was one of the
first to join us here, and he was as great a slave to drink as you ever
were before."
"Sir," said Rodney, earnestly, "I believe God has forgiven me, and I
believe He will help me. He has helped me this day, or I should never
have been here. If you will let me join myself to you, with a promise,
I'll try to keep it as Bessie kept hers, God helping me."
"I believe from my heart it would be of great use to you," answered Mr.
Radford, after a moment's thought. "Mark! I do not say it will save
you, but it will help you. You can give it as a reason for not drinking
to your old comrades; but the chief thing will be that it will bring
you into acquaintance with new comrades of your own way of thinking,
who will not tempt you to drink. Remember, too, if you should break it,
that's no reason why you should not promise again; yes, and again and
again, if you fall again and again. Most of us promise God very often
to give up our favourite sin, and when we forget our promise, He does
not forbid us to renew it."
With trembling fingers, and with deep, unspoken prayer in his heart,
Rodney signed his name to a form by which he pledged himself to abstain
from all intoxicating drinks; and then Mr. Radford committed him to the
care of his friend, who was to take him home for the night.
"What are you going to do to-morrow?" asked Mr. Radford.
"I'll make my way down to my mother's," he answered. "I shall be safer
out of the town, though I ought to be ashamed to go to her in these
rags. But it's no more than I deserve, and she'll be overjoyed to see
me."
"Go down by train," said Mr. Radford. "I will lend you the fare, and
you can repay me when you are in work again. They all think you are
dead down there."
"Yes," he answered, smiling sadly, "my mother will say, 'This my son
was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.'"
With these words he went his way; and after a night's rest, more
refreshing than any he had had for years, he started by the earliest
train down into the country.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XIII.
DEAD AND ALIVE AGAIN.
IT was spring-time again—twelve months since his wife had died. The
hedgerows were sweet with primroses and violets, whose fresh fragrance
was full of sorrowful memories to Rodney. The years, which had changed
him so much, had hardly touched the face of the country. Every step of
the road was familiar and dear to him. Here were the nut-bushes, where
he and his brothers had come nutting in the autumn, when he was a boy;
they were fringed and tasselled with yellow catkins now. On the other
side of the hedge lay the corn-fields, where they had all gone gleaning
together in the harvest, as happy a time as any in the whole year.
Yonder was the bank where the violets grew thickest, and where he had
been used to seek the first-scented blossom for Ellen, before they were
married. The wooden bridge over the shallow brook, whose water rippled
round pebbles as bright as gems, where he had paddled barefoot when he
was young—barefoot like little Nelly, only it had been sport to him;
the willow-trees dipping down into the stream; the cottage-roofs; but
above all, the thatched roof of his own cottage home; all seemed to
him like another world, compared with the noisy, bustling, tempting
streets of Liverpool, where, in those parts to which he had sunk, there
were none but sordid sights and sounds of misery. Oh! If Nelly had only
lived a young life like his own!
He reached the garden-gate, and leaned against it, looking down the
long, straight, narrow walk which led to the door. It stood open, and
the sun was shining brightly into the house, lighting up for him the
old, polished oak dresser, with the shelves above it, well filled with
plates and dishes. A lavender and rosemary bush grew close up to the
door-sill, and the bees were humming busily about them. He could hear
also the murmur of voices; the prattle of a child's voice talking gaily
within, out of his sight.
Once he saw Bessie cross the kitchen to the little pantry, but she
did not glance his way, through the open door. And he still lingered
outside, scarcely knowing how he should make himself known to his
mother, who believed he was dead.
She came to the door at last—a neat old woman, with a snow-white frill
round her face, looking out through her horn spectacles upon her sunny
garden; and Rodney, leaning over the gate, stretched out his hands
towards her, unable to speak a word, except the low, murmured cry,
"Mother! Mother!" which reached her ears, though they had grown dull of
hearing years ago.
For a minute or two old Mrs. Rodney stood still, gazing intently at the
motionless figure leaning over her wicket, and then, almost in a voice
of terror, she called out loudly, "Bessie." And in an instant Bessie
was at her side, in the doorway, with her quick, sharp eyes fastened
upon him.
"Bessie!" cried Rodney, in a louder voice than before, "I was not
drowned, as you thought I was. I've been almost dead in the infirmary,
but didn't die. I've come home now, a changed man, if you and mother
will take me in."
Would they take him in? They could hardly hasten to the wicket fast
enough, the old woman with her short, unsteady steps, hanging on
to Bessie's arm to prevent her from being the first to welcome her
son. She threw her arms round his neck, and pressed many motherly
kisses upon his haggard face, crying, "My boy! My boy!" While Bessie
clasped his hand in both her own, fondling and kissing it as if it was
impossible to express her great and unexpected gladness. It seemed to
Rodney as if they were making too much of him, and forgiving him too
freely. They ought at least to hang back a little from such a sinner as
he.
[Illustration: THE PRODIGAL'S RETURN.]
"Mother," he said sadly, "you know all about my poor little Nelly."
"Yes, yes, my son," she answered, "I know it all; but now you've come
home safe and sound, after we thought you were dead, we cannot remember
all that. Nelly forgot it long ago."
"Ah!" cried Rodney, with a heavy sigh.
"Nelly's happier than ever she was in her life," said Bessie, "and
she'll be happier than all now. It was a good change for her to be took
away from those dirty streets, where everybody about her was getting
drunk. She was never so well off as now."
"I know it," answered Rodney.
"And though the pain was very bad," continued Bessie, soothingly,
"she's forgotten it all by now. She's never in any pain, and she's
singing as happy as an angel all day long. I wouldn't fret about that
if I was you. We've forgot it; and now you're come home again, though I
was sure and positive you were drowned. I said so before the coroner;
and Mr. Rodney, please, I followed you to the grave."
Bessie burst into an hysterical fit of laughter and sobbing, which she
could hardly conquer, and she ran back along the garden-path, leaving
Rodney and his mother to follow more slowly. His mother was hanging
fondly on his arm; and before he entered the cottage, he paused and
lifted his old hat from his head.
"Please God," he said, earnestly, "I'll be a different man to what I've
ever been; and may He at last bring me to where my poor wife and little
Nelly are gone!"
"Father!" cried a sweet, childish voice inside the cottage, a voice
he had never thought to hear again in this world. "Where is father,
Bessie?"
How he crossed the threshold, and passed into sight of his child, he
could never tell. But there was Nelly before his very eyes, her wan,
small face unchanged, save for a faint tinge of colour in her cheeks,
and a happy light in her eyes. She was lying on a little couch beneath
the lattice-window, with a doll beside her, and a cup of violets on the
window-sill; peaceful and happy, with a childish patience and sweetness
in her face. Her arms were stretched out to him, and her features began
to quiver with eagerness as he stood awe-stricken and motionless.
Bessie drew him to her side, and he fell down on his knees with his
gray head upon the pillow, while she laid her arm about his neck.
He had no voice to tell them what he had thought during these last
terrible months, and with what a shock of rapture it came over him to
find that his little Nelly was still living.
"Come," said Bessie, in a tone of comforting, "don't take on so,
please, Mr. Rodney. We never thought as Nelly would pull through at
all; and she's not in any pain; are you, darling?"
"No," answered Nelly, pressing her arm closer about him; "are you come
home to stay, daddy?"
Still Rodney could not speak, for his throat seemed dried up and
choked. The child's voice grew plaintive and wistful.
"Oh! Father," she said, "you're not going to get drunk any more, and
make Granny, and Bessie, and me all poor and miserable again? You've
come back to be good, aren't you, father?"
"God help me!" sobbed Rodney.
"We're all so happy now," continued Nelly pleadingly; "Bessie goes out
to work, and Granny and me are alone all day, and at nights we sing,
and I'm learning to read, and so is Bessie. And if you'll only be good,
it'll be nicer than ever. You didn't mean to hurt me, I know; never,
did you?"
He could not lift up his head yet, or answer her in any way, except by
his reiterated cry, "God help me!"
"See, I've got a doll again," said Nelly in a gayer tone, to cheer him;
"it's all my own, and it keeps me company all day and night too. The
doctor says I shall never walk and run about like other children, but I
don't mind that. I don't mind anything, now you're come home, if you'll
only be good, and never get drunk, and make us all poor and ragged
again. I shouldn't like to see poor Granny like mother was. You'll
never do that, will you, father?"
"Hush, Nelly!" said Bessie, as she saw Rodney shaking with his sobs.
"Hush! Father's come home to work, and get money for you; and we shall
all be happier than ever now. If God wasn't going to help him to be
good, now he's trying himself, He'd have let him be drowned in the
river, and not brought him back here to be a plague to us. There, Mr.
Rodney, please get up, and sit down on this chair beside of little
Nelly."
Rodney did as she told him, and sat still for a time, holding Nelly's
small hand tightly in his own. Bessie bustled about getting dinner
ready, for it was nearly mid-day, and in their simple country fashion
they took their meals early, and lived in the day-light, from sunrise
till not long after sunset. His mother was sitting opposite to him in
her old three-cornered chair, from time to time wiping the glasses of
her horn spectacles, while her white head trembled a little. He could
scarcely believe that it was not all a dream.
In the long, sunny afternoon, with the bees humming at the door, and
the scent of lavender and rosemary wafted in upon every breath of the
fresh spring air, Rodney told them all that had happened to him, and
the great change that had passed over him in the workhouse, and his
interview with Mr. Radford the evening before. Then Bessie related to
him the history of their lives.
"Mr. Rodney," she said, "when little Nelly came flying down them steps
all in a flame, I met her just at the bottom, and I'd a big cloak on as
was lent me by a woman I was friends with, and I wrapped it all round
her, and quenched the fire.
"Then a woman as was in the crowd shouted, 'Take her to the Children's
Hospital. They 'll do well by her, if she isn't dead.'
"And I cried out, 'Oh! She is dead!'
"And then me and some other women carried her to the hospital, and at
first they said she was dead, and then they said she'd be sure to die.
So I had to leave her there, and I came back to tell you, and you was
gone, and Mrs. Simpson she said she'd seen you go creeping off in the
dark, and it 'ud be a good riddance if you never came back. And it was
three days after they found somebody in the river, and I was certain it
was you, and I followed you to the churchyard, me and nobody else at
all. And then I went to the hospital, and they said there was a little
sparkle of hope, but if Nelly lived, she'd never be good for anything.
"And I said, 'Never you mind. You make her live, and I'll take care of
her after.'
"And then I came down here, walked every foot of the way, and told Mrs.
Rodney, and she said,—
"'Bessie, as soon as that dear child is well enough, her and you shall
have a home with me.'
"So as soon as Nelly could come, we moved down to this place; and it's
been like heaven to us—hasn't it, Nelly?"
"Yes," answered the child with a quiet smile.
"But now you're come home as well," continued Bessie, blithely, "it'll
be better than ever. It was bad to think of you being drowned, and
never been the good man you ought to have been. I'm glad you've seen
Mr. Radford; and glad you've made him a promise like me. And oh! I'm
so glad you're going to be good and kind again at last. I always knew
you'd be that, if it hadn't been for drink."
Long after the others had gone to bed, and were sleeping soundly and
peacefully under the thatched roof, Rodney sat up by the cottage
fire, brooding over his past life and that which lay before him, with
many earnest prayers for light, and strength, and help. One thing was
certain: whatever other people might do who had never fallen captives
to drunkenness, he must never touch the accursed thing again.
He trembled to think of the snares that would be laid to entrap, and
with what wary and watchful steps he must tread among them. He could
not walk down the village street, or greet any of his former friends,
who had believed him dead, without being invited, urged, and tempted to
drink. He could not seek work where he should meet with fellow-workmen
who would not mock at the pledge he had taken. He could not even sit
among some religious people who would not despise him somewhat for his
weakness. Whatever he did, where-ever he went, in town or country, he
would be forced into contact with drinking customs, which would assail
him from without; while within there would ever be a treacherous foe
ready to betray him. No other sin met with so constant a temptation.
Yet, on the other hand, here was his little child restored to him from
the dead; here his mother, so long broken-spirited for him, and with so
few days left which he could make happy; and here was Bessie, constant
and faithful, true to the promises she made, his helper and example.
Could he plunge them again into the depths from which God had delivered
them? Rodney opened his mother's old Bible, with the large print which
his own dim eyes needed now, and turning over page after page he found
at last the promise he was searching for, and set an indelible mark
against it to look at in after-years:
"My grace is sufficient for thee; for my strength is made perfect in
weakness."
[Illustration]
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