CHAPTER XII.
A WORTHY SHERIFF AND JUDGE—DR. DALTON.
Aunt Debie continued: "They were out shooting on the marsh, and the jedge and the sheriff had whiskey with them, of which I guess they drank as much as he did, but it 'pears they was able to stand it better, for they did not get drunk. I think it is a disgrace to this county to have a drunken jedge and sheriff. The idea of the judge setting on the bench and trying men for breaking the law! And yet he will intice other men to drink that which will fit them to commit the crime which, if they come before him, he will punish them for doing. And the sheriff will take them to jail when they are condemned by the jedge, though he helped to prepare them for the evil work they did."
"I agree with you, Aunt Debie," said Mrs. Gurney, speaking for the first time. "These two men being allowed to hold such high positions is not only a disgrace to this county but also to Canada. Men who hold offices of trust and grave responsibility should be patterns to the community, and above reproach. Especially should this be the case with a judge. He should be a man not only of the highest legal talent, and with a broad, judicial mind, but also of a pure and lofty character. How ever they came to appoint a man with the loose habits of Judge McGullett to the position is a mystery to me."
"Why, my dear," said Mr. Gurney, "it was given him because he worked for his party. He has ever been a man of low instincts and loose habits, though he was considered what is called a smart lawyer. In my opinion this did not qualify him for his position as judge. A man may be cunning, and so is a fox. He may have the qualities which enable him to browbeat a witness, and so has a bully. He may have great volubility, and so has a Billingsgate fishwife. He may even have considerable legal acumen, and yet be narrow and coarse. A man to be a judge, as you just remarked, should be of a broad, judicial mind, able to look at a case in all its bearings, to sift evidence, balance probabilities, and, being above prejudice and every outward influence, should decide a case on its merits. And I believe with you and Aunt Debie, that he should be as far above anything that is coarse or impure in his private life as above suspicion in his public capacity. But I look upon our present judge as the farthest remove from this; he was a good party hack, and, to the shame of the government in power when he was appointed be it said, he was rewarded for his unscrupulousness by being elevated to the bench of our county.
"In regard to Sheriff Bottlesby, he is a man who is almost beneath contempt; he has neither the brains, dignity, nor character to fit him for such a position. He cunningly worked to pack a caucus to secure the choice of our present member as a candidate to the local legislature, with the understanding, no doubt, if his efforts were crowned with success, that he should receive his reward. By low cunning, and resorting to means that no honorable man could employ, he succeeded. The last occupant of the position was found to be too old, and therefore asked to retire; and Bottlesby was rewarded for his faithfulness by getting the vacant position, though his predecessor was infinitely his superior in every respect.
"The fact is, everything that is pure and good in the government of our country is being dragged through the mire of party politics. If a measure is brought forward, I am afraid the question is not, Will this be for the best interest of society or the country? but, Will it help or hurt the party? If a public position of great responsibility becomes vacant, they do not appoint the man who is best qualified to fill it, but the one who has done the most for his party. And in some instances when they have not places for those who have been their subservient tools, they make them by removing, on some trivial pretext, those who are the occupants of the position, utterly regardless of the fact that it may cause misery to the ones removed and their families. If this evil is allowed to grow unchecked, our country will ere long be cursed with a system similar to that introduced into the United States by Burr and Jackson, and forcibly expressed by the words of an unscrupulous politician, 'To the victor belongs the spoil.'"
Mr. Gurney became quite excited while he was making this speech, for it was a subject upon which he had often thought, and with a great deal of solicitude. In fact, it was about the only topic which could have inspired him to speak with so much bitterness, and it was also the only time any of his friends had seen him so animated since his great bereavement. He was a man too broad in his views to make principle subservient to party. He had a party, and believed that it was necessary in the government of a country that such should exist; but he would not be a mere tool and follow his leaders, even though he could not endorse their policy. He said he would not vote for a man whom he believed was unprincipled, even if his party, through the caucus system, did make him their standard-bearer. He was strongly of the opinion that men who were not pure in private life should not be entrusted to conduct public affairs; and if the party to which he gave allegiance chose such a man as their candidate, he would not so violate his conscience as to give him his support, for he would not trample his honor and principle in the dust for any party.
As Mr. Gurney has given to my readers some idea of Judge McGullett and Sheriff Bottlesby, I will give a sketch of Charles Dalton, the one whose name had been associated with those two worthies.
He was the only son of Aunt Debie's youngest sister. This sister had not married a Quaker, and in this respect differed from the rest of the family. Her husband was, however, a farmer in very comfortable circumstances, and was chosen, because of his superior intelligence, as reeve of the township in which he resided; but he had become a poor, besotted victim of strong drink, and driving home from Bayton one night, while in a helpless state of intoxication, he was thrown from his buggy, being so injured by the fall as never to recover consciousness, and died the following day. He left his wife and only child—a son, three years old—ample means.
Mrs. Dalton, much to the surprise of the Mrs. Grundys of the neighborhood, never married again, but seemed to devote her life to her son, whom she loved with a passionate tenderness. He, from a very early age, manifested that he was a child of quick parts: he seemed to master in a short time, with consummate ease, lessons that would tax the brains of others for hours; and he had a prodigious memory. He was also a general favorite, because of his chivalrous character and amiable disposition. In fact, this last element of character was his weakness, for he was so amiable as to sometimes be persuaded to enter into engagements against the dictates of his better judgment.
When he reached the age necessary for him to decide as to his future course of action, he chose medicine for his profession. He first took an Arts course in Toronto University, and then entered one of the Medical Schools of that city, in both institutions taking front rank as a student.
He had, previous to his entering the Medical School, neither smoked nor drank, and even when there, though he was almost alone in this respect, his companions found it impossible to tempt him. His mother had suffered so much from drink that she had taught him to shrink from even a glass that contained it as he would from a rattlesnake. But visiting one day at an old friend of his mother's, who was at that time residing in Toronto, a glass of wine was placed before him; and as all the rest drank, he, through fear of being laughed at for being singular, drank too. He would, no doubt, have passed through the ordeal unscathed, had not the eldest daughter of his host, a handsome young girl of eighteen, said to him, when she saw he hesitated, "Take a glass, Charley; it will do you good, and cannot possibly do you any harm."
Now, he had conceived a warm attachment for her, and had every reason to believe that his attentions were not distasteful to her; so, when she made the remark, he no longer hesitated, but took the fatal first glass. As he and a companion were on their way home from Mr. Fulton's to their boarding-house, the companion said: "Come, Charley, let us go into Frank's and take a glass of ale;" and, since he had taken the wine, it strangely presented itself to his consciousness as a reason why he should not refuse to take the beer. Thus Satan leads us on by first tempting us to transgress, then making our first sin an argument to sweep away all objections in regard to committing others. Dalton took the ale; and the enemy having broken down the barriers of his temperance principles, it was not long ere he had full possession of the citadel. In fact, in a short time after he had taken his first glass, he and several of his fellow-students had, what they termed, "a regular spree."
His mother, fortunately for her, did not live to hear of her son's sad fall; for, as she was sitting in her easy chair one day, she was suddenly seized with a pain near her heart, asked to be assisted to bed, and before the doctor could arrive she was dead.
"Died of heart disease," said the doctor; and then he added: "There is no doubt it resulted from her husband's death. She has never recovered from the shock; and though she has lived for years, she might have dropped off at any moment if she had been the least excited."
But she received her call home while sitting in her chair reading the 14th chapter of St. John's Gospel; asked to be carried to her bed, and, after being propped up by pillows, she said to her attendant, "Elizabeth, I think I am dying; tell Charley my last thoughts were of him." And then, looking heavenward, she murmured, "God bless and guard my own dear boy," and in another moment she was dead. But "the silver cord was loosed" as if by seraph fingers, and "the golden bowl was broken" so gently that she scarcely felt the stroke of the Death Angel. They laid her to rest while yet in her prime by the side of the husband of her youth.
The son was sadly stricken by his mother's death, for he had a very strong affection for her; and for a long time after his return to the Medical College—in fact, until he had taken his diploma—he remained perfectly sober; but in the banquet that he and the rest of his class held to celebrate that event he again fell, and ere he left was so intoxicated he had to be helped to his lodgings. From that period he seemed to lose all power of resistance and almost all sense of shame.
He had been engaged to Mary Fulton, the young woman who, in her innocence, first tempted him to drink, and who now bitterly repented of her thoughtlessness; for she was a true woman, and loved him with all the strength of her deep, sensitive nature. He, after taking his medical degree, had started to practice in Orchardton, a small and lovely village not far from Bayton, and would have done exceedingly well had it not been for his drinking propensities.
It was about a year after he had begun to practice that he met with the adventure of which Aunt Debie and her friends were speaking.
"God was merciful when He removed poor Rebecca before she had a chance to hear of her boy's shameful conduct," said Aunt Debie. "'Pears to me that the words of Scripter is come troo in his case—'The sins of the parent has to be borne by the children to the third and fourth generation.'"
Aunt Debie endeavored to quote from memory, and so she is to be excused if she did not render it according to the letter.
"I believe with thee, Aunt Debie," said Mrs. Gurney. "It was a blessed thing for Rebecca she died thinking her boy was pure; if she had known how it was—and if she had lived a little longer she would have been sure to have found out—it would have broken her heart. Then she would have gone down to her grave in sorrow, and Charles would have had his mother's death to answer for."
"I believe," said Mr. Gurney, breaking in rather abruptly, "that a tendency to drink is transmitted from father to son—that, in fact, it is a disease, and in this respect is similar to consumption or insanity. Because I take this view of the case, I have a great deal of sympathy with Charley Dalton. I am determined to do all I can to save the boy. I heard from a lady friend the other day who is very intimate with Mary Fulton, and she said that the latter was experiencing deep grief because of Charley's utter fall; for she holds herself partially responsible, because she, in her innocence and thoughtlessness, tempted him to take his first glass of wine. Her friends have been endeavoring to influence her to break the engagement, but she resolutely refuses to do so. She says she will never marry him while he continues to drink as he does, but breaking off the engagement will be the last report, and she declares she will never marry another."
"Well," said Phoebe, "I don't wonder she feels bad; 'pears to me I should feel bad, too, if I had coaxed the man I thought more of than any one else to drink, and then he went to the bad after it."
"Thee must not be too severe in thy thoughts of poor Mary," said Mrs. Gurney, "but when thee feels like censuring her, just remember that she has been accustomed to see wine on her father's table ever since she was a girl. It is the custom which should be condemned, and not poor, foolish innocents like Mary Fulton."