"Drunk as usual!" whispered little Jack; "now look out for thumps and bruises. Oh!" he whispered through his clenched teeth, "I wish I were a man, then he wouldn't beat us like he does now, for I wouldn't let 'un do it."
"Take the baby, mother, and run over to Tremaine's," said Nannie;
"I'm afraid he'll kill you."
"No, Nannie, I'll not run; if he kills me I can't help it; I'll not run away any more. I'm afraid it will come to that some day, but I will stay and take care of you all, no matter what happens."
The children had just managed to crawl under the two dilapidated beds when their father lifted the latch and stumbled into the room.
"Oh! what's the matter, Tom?" said his wife, as at a glance she took in his disfigured face.
"What's that to you?" he replied with an oath. "If you'd get me something to eat, it 'ud show more sense than asking what's none of your business."
"There is not a bit in the house," she replied, and then, stung into reckless madness by his asking for food when he had spent for whiskey the money with which he had promised to procure it, she continued bitterly: "The children have been crying for something to eat for the last two hours, in tones that would melt the heart of a stone, and I hadn't a crumb to give 'um, and you, who have been spending on drink what should have bought it for them, have the brazen impudence to come home drunk, demanding food. Go to the cupboard and get you some, if you think there is any there."
"Now, Nance, I don't want any of your chin music, but I wants you to get me suthin' to eat. You can't fool me; I knows you has got it in the house."
"God knows, Tom, there isn't a bit. Do you suppose if there was any I would let the children be crying for it and not give it to them? If you think so, you don't know me yet; for I can tell you it would have been given to them two hours ago, and not saved for one who allows his own flesh and blood to starve, while he spends that which would furnish them with bread for rum in a rum-shop."
The reader might be ready to assert, after reading this connubial wrangle, that the fault was not all on one side, but that Nancy's sharp tongue was in some measure responsible for Tom's drinking; that, in fact, if she had not been such a termagant he might, at least, have been an average husband. But if you have so concluded, I will endeavour to disabuse your mind; for Nancy, before she married Tom Flatt, was a smart, good-tempered lass, but his continued neglect and abuse had vinegared all her sweetness, and she was not of that temperament which could bear ill-treatment without giving expression to her feelings. If, in her youth, she had been surrounded by different associations, and then married to a man who could have appreciated her, she might have developed into an intelligent, loving woman; but the terrible wretchedness of her life, brought about by the faults of her husband, had turned all her nature into bitterness.