“I’m afraid not,” said my father, shaking his head.
“But something must be done. Christy isn’t a great way off, and we must put him through by daylight,” I added.
“What can we do? It isn’t much use to do any thing.”
“Yes, it is. Something can be done, I know.”
“Where are we now, Wolf?” asked my father.
I did not know where we were, for there was no chance to see the shore from the engine-room. I walked out on the forward deck, and returned immediately.
“Well, where are we, Wolf?” demanded my father, rather sharply, as he laid down the glass from which he had just drained another dram taken from Christy’s queer-shaped bottle.
“We are just off the North Shoe,” I replied, as gloomily as though another third of my father’s worldly wealth had also taken to itself wings.
My poor father was drinking whiskey again. In his depression and despair, the bottle seemed to be his only resource. I have since learned enough of human nature to understand how it was with him. Men in the sunlight of prosperity play with the fiend of the cup. Full of life, full of animal spirits, it is comparatively easy to control the appetite. But when the hour of despondency comes; when depression invades the mind; when earthly possessions elude the grasp—then they flee to the consolations of the cup. It gives an artificial strength, and men who in prosperity might always have kept sober and temperate, in adversity are lost in the whirlpool of tippling and inebriation.
Thus it seemed to be with my father. He had begun to drink that day in the elation of his spirits; he was now resorting to the cup as an antidote for depression and despair. The dram had its temporary effect; but, while he was cheered by the fiery draught, I trembled for him. I feared that this was only the beginning of the end—that he needed prosperity to save him from himself.