CHAPTER XL.
CONCLUSION.
Six years have passed since the events narrated in the last chapter transpired. Judge McGullet, Sheriff Bottlesby and Old Joe Porter, have in the interval been summoned to attend the last assize. The latter died of delirium tremens, and it was whispered around that his family were afraid to bring a physician, because he raved so of the treacherous slaying of Richard Ashton. The judge was said to have died of brain fever, and the sheriff of inflammation; yet it is an open secret that drink was the real agent in their destruction.
Rivers, Ben Tims, and the others whom we have mentioned, are still plying their nefarious trade, which will in all probability ultimately involve themselves and their unfortunate customers in a common ruin.
The temperance men are not disheartened, but intend ere long to try and pass the Scott Act, which has more grip to it than the Dunkin Act, in King's County; for in every county the friends of temperance can apply to Government for the appointment of a stipendiary magistrate, from whose decisions there can be no appeal. So the antis, as they have found to their cost in several counties where it has been tried, cannot trifle with it as they did with the latter. The liquor party know this to be the case, and so they have lately held a monster meeting, which was presided over by the chief distiller in the Dominion—a man who has become a millionaire by the manufacture of that which, no doubt, has destroyed thousands of men, caused untold misery in thousands of homes, and sent, God only knows the number, to a drunkard's hell. What he has manufactured has, no doubt, prepared many men to murder their wives; mothers to neglect, starve, and even destroy their children; and, I have no hesitancy in saying, I believe has caused more wide-spread devastation and ruin in this Dominion since its establishment than what has been caused in the same period by those two destructive agencies—flood and fire combined. The meeting was convened for the purpose of taking steps to fight the Scott Act in every county where it was submitted, and it was there resolved to employ the "Dodger" to again take the stump as the champion of their life-destroying traffic.
"I can assure you, gentlemen," said one present, who had lately come from a county where the Scott Act was in force, and who had been fined until he was forced to give up the business, "you are not fighting the Dunkin Act this time, for it was a thing without vertebrae or claws; but the present Act has both; yes, and teeth, too, as I have found to my cost. What we have to do is to resort to every means to defeat it; for if it once becomes law in a county then we are done."
Before the meeting closed forty thousand dollars were subscribed by those present to stubbornly contest every inch of ground, and if possible still to keep, this fair province under the demon rule of "Old King Alcohol."
The liquor party in King's County are not so confident as they endeavor to lead people to think they are, as may be gathered from the following conversation between Rivers and Capt. McWriggler, M.P. He has gained the coveted position; but it is the opinion of the most intelligent men in the riding that the whiskey-horse, which carried him to victory this time will utterly fail him in the next campaign.
"I hear," said Rivers, "that old Gurney and his set are determined to pass the Scott Act in this county, and Murden says it is a much more perfect bill than the Dunkin Act was."
"Yes, I believe they are," said McWriggler, "and, as far as I can learn, it is about as perfect as any sumptuary law can be; but Toper says they will have that fixed all right. George Maltby, M.P., member for Eastmorland, is going to introduce a clause next session, if possible, which will utterly destroy it. The clause stipulates that there must be a majority of all the legal voters; and as there are hundreds who cannot be induced to go to the polls, you can easily see, if this amendment carries, it will make the Act as good as nil. Maltby could not have been elected had it not been for the help he received from the association, and he will do anything to retain their good will; for it is only by their favor he can hope to win again."
"But supposing he does not succeed," said Rivers, "what will you do then?"
"I don't think there is much danger of that in the present house. In fact we have calculated pretty closely, and have every reason to be satisfied with the conclusion at which we have arrived; but if he fails we hold another trump card. Allsot, in the senate, will introduce a rider to it, which will be so heavy as to break its back."
McWriggler laughed at his play upon words, manifesting the fact that one person, at least, could enjoy his attempt at wit.
We will now bid a final farewell to these worthies. Their plots have so far been successful, but the end is not yet. The untimely death of the majority of those who were their associates in iniquity should, one would think, be to them as the handwriting upon the wall, to warn them, what would be their fate if they still persisted in their course. But such men seem to forget that God's word, which is certain of fulfilment, says:
"The wicked plotteth against the just, and gnasheth upon him with his teeth.
"The Lord shall laugh at him: for he seeth that his day is coming….
"I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green-bay tree.
"Yet he passed away, and, lo, he was not: yea, I sought him, but he could not be found."
Mr. and Mrs. Gurney still reside in Bayton, and his business is the most prosperous in the town. They have not grown weary in well-doing, but are now actively engaged agitating the public mind for the submission of the Scott Act in King's County, and they ardently hope they will live to see the day when a prohibitory law shall be passed in our Dominion, and the liquor curse shall be banished forever.
Mrs. Holman is still actively engaged in helping on, with pen and voice, the good cause of temperance, and has deservedly won for herself a continental fame.
Eddy Ashton, who is a fine specimen of handsome, intellectual manhood, has, by his business tact and energy, so engratiated himself into the good will of his employer that he has now for over a year occupied the position in Mr. Gurney's establishment which was formerly held by his father. He removed with his mother and sister to the house which was their home the first happy year they spent in Bayton, and it is as beautiful and cosy as ever.
Allie developed into a beautiful and cultured woman, and shortly after they were again settled in their old home, desisted from giving music lessons; there were, however, for some time those mysterious preparations which are the certain precursors of a wedding. And a wedding, my dear young friends, in due time there was. Allie was the happy bride, the bridegroom being Frank Congdon, the young man who so chivalrously came to her rescue when she was so grossly insulted by the brutal Joe Porter. Congdon's father, who was a retired merchant, had had extensive business transactions with some of the Bayton establishments. It was to settle some old standing accounts that Frank first went there, and, while taking a stroll for the purpose of viewing the town and its surroundings, he went into Joe Porter's to make certain enquiries, and met with the adventure which we have already narrated to the reader.
He had at that time formed such a liking for Bayton that he resolved, with his father's consent, to purchase a partnership in one of the leading dry goods firms in the town, of which he is at the present sole proprietor, and doing a flourishing business.
He had not been long there when he sought out Allie, who had made such an impression upon him that it was a case of love at first sight. Closer acquaintance served to deepen that impression; for he, who was himself a noble, intelligent young fellow, when he became more intimate loved her, not only from a mere passing impulse or fancy, but from a deep and ever deepening respect for her intelligent, womanly, self-sacrificing nature. In fact, they became affianced lovers, and the wedding day came as such days do. Mrs. Gurney insisted upon furnishing the trouseau, and there was a small but select company at the wedding.
As Allie stood by her husband a fair young bride, her mother, in memory, went back to a wedding that took place over twenty-five years before in the dear home land, and she prayed that the daughter might not have to "pass under the rod" as she had done.
Eddie is still unmarried, and lives with his mother. And Ruth is now happy, though that happiness is mellowed by the sorrows through which she has passed, and the memories of the loved ones she has lost; but the hope of meeting them again is the rainbow that spans the sky of her existence, shining out radiantly in her hours of mist and gloom, enabling her to say, even when most cast down: "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."
Friends, we will now say farewell. The sad tale which you have read but faintly conveys an idea of the misery, degradation, and sin which is caused in thousands of homes by this blighting; withering traffic.
Oh, rum! cursed rum! I hate it with intensest hatred: for it dims the brightest intellects; it sullies and makes impure the most spotless and the best; it spares neither frail and unprotected womanhood, innocent childhood, nor hoary age; it enters like a serpent the Eden called home and seduces its inmates to their fall, thus turning this paradise of love into a hell of fiercest passions and intensest hate; it entails upon the drunkard's children in their very existence a patrimony of depraved appetites and unholy passions; and it supplies the prisons and lunatic asylums with a large percentage of their inmates, the gallows with its victims, and hell with lost souls. If what he has written will be effective in winning any from the ranks of the indifferent, or from the ranks of those who oppose prohibitory laws, to become active, energetic workers in the cause of temperance, and what he is convinced is the cause of God, it will amply repay