Chapter Eight.
A Double Peril.
“I’ll tell you what it is, Mark, I must have a stop put to this: my patience is quite worn out. Do you think I’m made of money? Do you think I can coin money as fast as you choose to spend it? You’ll ruin me with your thoughtless, selfish extravagance, and break your mother’s heart and mine by your drunkenness and folly, that you will.”
These words, uttered in a tone of passionate bitterness, were spoken by Mr Rothwell to his son in the hall at “The Firs,” as the young man was urging his father to grant him a considerable sum to pay some pressing debts. At the same moment Mr John Randolph came out of the drawing-room, and could not help overhearing what was being said.
Mr Rothwell turned fiercely upon him:
“What right have you, sir, to be intruding on my privacy?” he cried, nettled at his rebuke having been overheard by a stranger.
“I am not conscious of being guilty of any intrusion,” said the other quietly.
“You are intruding,” cried Mark, glad to vent his exasperation at his father’s reproaches on somebody, and specially glad of an opportunity of doing so on the music-master.
“You shall not need to make the complaint again then,” said Mr Randolph, calmly, “my lessons to your sisters will cease from to-day;” and with a stiff bow he closed the door behind him.
Rather more than two years had elapsed since Jim Forbes’ enlistment when the scene just described took place. Mark had been sinking deeper and deeper in the mire; he was scarcely ever sober except when visiting the Franklins, on which occasions he was always on his guard, though his excited manner, and the eagerness with which he tossed down the few glasses of wine to which he, evidently with difficulty, restricted himself, made a most painful impression not only on Mrs Franklin, but also on her daughter.
Mary was now nineteen, and shone with the brightness which the gentle light of holiness casts on every word and feature. She was full of innocent cheerfulness, and was the joy of all who knew her. Mark loved her as much as he could love anything that was not himself, and tried to make himself acceptable to her. Mary hoped the best about him, but that hope had begun to droop for some time past. He had never yet ventured to declare his affection to her; somehow or other he could not. A little spark of nobleness still remained in him unquenched by the drink, and it lighted him to see that to bind Mary to himself for life would be to tie her to a living firebrand that would scorch and shrivel up beauty, health and peace. He dared not speak: before her unsullied loveliness his drink-envenomed lips were closed: he could rattle on in wild exuberance of spirits, but he could not yet venture to ask her to be his. And she? She pitied him deeply, and her heart’s affections hovered over him; would they settle there? If so, lost! Lost! All peace would be lost: how great her peril!
Another visit from Mr Tankardew: the old man had been a frequent caller, and was ever welcome. That he cherished a fatherly love for Mary was evident; indeed his heart seemed divided between herself and the young musician, Mr John Randolph, who, though he had ceased to give lessons at “The Firs,” was most scrupulously punctual in his attendance at “The Shrubbery.”
It was a bright summer’s morning as the old man sat in the drawing-room where Mary and her mother were engaged in the mysteries of the needle.
“Let me hear your last piece, my child,” he said; “John tells me that he will soon have nothing more to teach you.”
Mary sat down and played with loving grace, till the old man bowed his head upon his hands and wept.
“‘Home, sweet home!’” he murmured. “Ay; you have played that lovely air with variations as if you felt it: you know what a sweet home is, Mary; I knew it once. ‘Home, sweet home!’” he added again, with a sigh.
There was a pause: then he went on: “There are plenty of homes that aren’t sweet; homes with variations enough and to spare in them; but they’re variations of misery. I hope you’ll never have one of those homes, my child.”
Mary coloured deeply, and her mother’s eyes filled with tears. Mr Tankardew looked earnestly at them both.
“No danger of any but sweet variations here,” he said; “but all new homes are not sweet homes—there’s no sweetness that will last where the barrel, the bottle, and the spirit-flask play a trio of discords: they’ll drown all the harmonies of harp and piano. Promise me two things, my child;” he added, abruptly.
“What are they?” asked Mary, timidly and tearfully.
“Just these: promise me to become a pledged abstainer; and promise me that you’ll never marry a man that loves the drink.”
Poor Mary burst into tears, but her mother came to her aid, and said:
“I don’t quite see what good Mary’s signing the pledge will do. She has taken neither beer nor wine for some time past, so that she does all that is needed in the way of example.”
“No, she does not, madam, if you’ll excuse my being so blunt. She just does not do what will make her example tell. Power for good comes through combination; the devil knows it well enough, and he gets drunkards to band together in clubs; and worldly people band together in clubs, and back one another up and concentrate their forces. All who see the curse and misery of the drink should sign, and not stand apart as solitary abstainers; they won’t do the same good; it is by uniting together that the great work is done by God’s blessing. A body of Christian abstainers united in the same work, and bound by the same pledge, attract others, and give them something to lean on and cling to: and that is one reason why we want children to combine in Bands of Hope. Why, I’ve seen a man light a fire with a piece of glass, but how did he do it? Not by putting the fuel under one ray of the sun; not by carrying it about from place to place in the sunshine; but by gathering, with the help of the glass, all the little rays together into one hot bright focus. And so we want to gather together the power and influence of total abstainers in Total Abstinence Societies and Bands of Hope, by their union through the pledge as a common bond. We want to set hearts on fire with a holy love that shall make them burn to rescue poor slaves of the drink from their misery and ruin. Won’t you help? Can you hold back? Are not souls perishing by millions through the drink, and is any sacrifice too dear to make, any cross too heavy to take up in such a cause?”
The old man had risen, and was walking up and down the room with great swinging strides. Then he stopped abruptly and waited for an answer.
“I’m sure,” said Mrs Franklin, “we would both sign if it could do any real good.”
“It will do good, it must do good: sign now;” he produced a pledge-book: “no time like the present.”
The signatures were made, and then Mr Tankardew, clasping his thin hands together, and lifting up his eyes to heaven, offered a short emphatic prayer that God would bless and strengthen these His servants, and enable them by His grace to be a blessing to others as pledged abstainers. And then he turned again to Mary, and said:
“You have given me the one promise; will you give me the other? Will you promise me that you will never knowingly marry a man who loves the drink?”
Mary buried her face in her hands. A few moments, and no one spoke.
“Hear me, my child,” cried the old man, again beginning to pace the room with measured strides; “you are dear to me, very dear, for you’re the image of one lost to me years ago, long weary years ago. I cannot bear to see you offered as another victim on the altar of the Drink-Moloch: he has had victims enough: too many, too many. Do you wish to wither into a premature grave? Do you wish to see the light die out of your mother’s smile? Then marry a drink-worshipper. Do you wish to tremble every time you hear the footstep of the man who has turned ‘sweet home’ into a shuddering prison? then marry a drink-worshipper. Do you wish to see little children hide the terror of their eyes in your lap and tremble at the name of father? Then marry a drink-worshipper. Stay, stay, I’m an old fool to break out in this way, and scare you out of your wits;” for Mary and her mother were both sobbing bitterly: “forgive me, but don’t forget me; there, let us change the subject.”
But Mary had checked her sobs, and, rising up calm and beautiful in her tears, she laid her hand lovingly on the old man’s arm, and said, gently but firmly:
“Dear old friend, thank you for what you have said. I promise you that never will I knowingly marry one who loves intoxicating drinks.”
“God bless you, my child. You have taken a load off the old man’s heart, and off your mother’s too, I know.”
Would Mary keep her word? She was soon to be put to the test. Though Mark hesitated to propose to Mary Franklin, his mother had no scruples on the subject. He had now come to man’s estate, and she wished him to marry; specially she wished him to marry Mrs Franklin’s daughter, as Mary would enjoy a nice little income when she came of age, and Mark’s prospects were cloudy enough as far as anything from his father was concerned. Besides, she hoped that marrying Mary would steady her son—a favourite scheme with mothers of drunkards. As for Mary’s own peace or happiness, she never gave them a thought. The experiment would be something like caging a tiger and a lamb together for the purpose of subduing the tiger’s ferocity; pleasant enough for the tiger, but simply destruction to the lamb. However, Mrs Rothwell pressed Mark to propose, so he yielded after a faint resistance, and now watched for his opportunity.
It was a sweet July evening: the sun was near his setting, and was casting long shadows across the lawn at the back of “The Shrubbery.” Mrs Franklin was sitting on a garden seat reading, her attention divided between her book and the glowing tints of a bed of flowers all ablaze with variegated beauty. A little shaded walk turned off near this seat into the kitchen garden, which was separated from the flower garden in this quarter by a deep ravine, at the bottom of which ran a trout stream. The ravine was crossed by a rustic bridge. Mr John Randolph had been calling at the house with some music, and, being now looked upon more in the light of a friend than an instructor, had the privilege of making a short cut to the turnpike road over this foot bridge and through the kitchen garden. Mark Rothwell also usually availed himself of this more direct approach to the house. On the present occasion the two young men met in the kitchen garden, and passed each other by without recognition, Mark hurrying forward to make his proposal, his already intense excitement inflamed by strong drink, which he had taken with less caution than on his ordinary visits to “The Shrubbery”; John Randolph lingering on his way in a somewhat discontented mood, which was not improved by the sight of Mark. Suddenly the stillness was broken by a loud scream and cry for help: it was Mary Franklin’s voice. Both the young men rushed towards the bridge, and beheld a sight which filled them with dismay. Mary had strolled from her mother’s side to the little foot bridge, and, filled with sorrowful thoughts, leant against the rustic parapet. The woodwork, which was inwardly decayed, gave way beneath her weight; she tried to recover herself but in vain, and fell over the side of the bridge, still, however, managing to keep herself from plunging into the stream by clinging to a creaking fragment of the broken rails. Her dress also helped to stay her up, having become entangled with the woodwork. Mark reached the bridge first, but was so confused by drink and excitement that he scarcely knew what he was doing, when he felt himself flung aside by the strong arm of John Randolph, who sprang forward, and stooping down endeavoured to raise the poor terrified girl, but for a few moments without success: indeed his own strength began to fail, and it seemed as if both must be precipitated into the stream, if assistance had not come from another quarter.
The gardener hearing the cries hurried up, and, lending his powerful help, Mary was delivered from her peril, and was carried, fainting and bruised, into the house by her two rescuers, before Mark Rothwell had fairly recovered himself from the fall which John Randolph had given him in his haste. But now, boiling with wrath and vexation, Mark made his way to the front door, and disregarding in the blindness of his passion the sight of Mary just recovering consciousness, and of Mrs Franklin who was bending over her in mingled grief and thankfulness, he turned furiously upon John, who was just retiring, and shaking his fist in his face, cried out:
“How dare you interfere with me, sir? I’ll not put up with this insolence from my sisters’ discarded music-master.”
The face of the other flushed crimson for a moment, then with unruffled voice he replied:
“Better, Mr Mark, to be a master of music and of one’s self, than a slave of the drink. I wish you good evening.”