“Yes, God helping us, we must,” said Phil.
From that moment Philip Maylands and Peter Pax passed, as it were, into a more earnest sphere of life, a higher stage of manhood. The influence of a powerful motive, a settled purpose, and a great end, told on their characters to such an extent that they both seemed to have passed over the period of hobbledehoyhood at a bound, and become young men.
With the ardour of youth, they set out on their mission at once. That very night they went together to the wretched abode of Abel Bones, having previously, however, opened their hearts and minds to May Maylands, from whom, as they had expected, they received warm encouragement.
Little did these unsophisticated youths know what a torrent of anxiety, grief, fear, and hope their communication sent through the heart of poor May. The eager interest she manifested in their plans they regarded as the natural outcome of a kind heart towards an old friend and playfellow. So it was, but it was more than that!
The same evening George Aspel and Abel Bones were seated alone in their dismal abode in Archangel Court. There were tumblers and a pot of beer before them, but no food. Aspel sat with his elbows on the table, grasping the hair on his temples with both hands. The other sat with arms crossed, and his chin sunk on his chest, gazing gloomily but intently at his companion.
Remorse—that most awful of the ministers of vengeance—had begun to torment Abel Bones. When he saved Tottie from the fire, Aspel had himself unwittingly unlocked the door in the burglar’s soul which let the vengeful minister in. Thereafter Miss Stivergill’s illustration of mercy, for the sake of another, had set the unlocked door ajar, and the discovery that his ill-treated little nephew had nearly lost his life in the same cause, had pulled the door well back on its rusty hinges.
Having thus obtained free entrance, Remorse sat down and did its work with terrible power. Bones was a man of tremendous passions and powerful will. His soul revolted violently from the mean part he had been playing. Although he had not succeeded in drawing Aspel into the vortex of crime as regards human law, he had dragged him very low, and, especially, had fanned the flame of thirst for strong drink, which was the youth’s chief—at least his most dangerous—enemy. His thirst was an inheritance from his forefathers, but the sin of giving way to it—of encouraging it at first when it had no power, and then of gratifying it as it gained strength, until it became a tyrant—was all his own. Aspel knew this, and the thought filled him with despair as he sat there with his now scarred and roughened fingers almost tearing out his hair, while his bloodshot eyes stared stonily at the blank wall opposite.
Bones continued to gaze at his companion, and to wish with all his heart that he had never met him. He had, some time before that, made up his mind to put no more temptation in the youth’s way. He now went a step further—he resolved to attempt the task of getting him out of the scrapes into which he had dragged him. But he soon found that the will which had always been so powerful in the carrying out of evil was woefully weak in the unfamiliar effort to do good!
Still, Bones had made up his mind to try. With this end in view he proposed a walk in the street, the night being fine. Aspel sullenly consented. The better to talk the matter over, Bones proposed to retire to a quiet though not savoury nook by the river-side. Aspel objected, and proposed a public-house instead, as being more cheerful.
Just opposite that public-house there stood one of those grand institutions which are still in their infancy, but which, we are persuaded, will yet take a prominent part in the rescue of thousands of mankind from the curse of strong drink. It was a “public-house without drink”—a coffee-tavern, where working men could find a cheap and wholesome meal, a cheerful, warm, and well-lit room wherein to chat and smoke, and the daily papers, without being obliged to swallow fire-water for the good of the house.