CHAPTER XVIII.
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Strange voices still are ringing in mine ears, Something of shame, of anguish, and reproach; My brain is dark, I have forgot it all.—S.M. |
In the miserable attic over the kitchen in the public-house already described, there was a sound of deep, half-suppressed, passionate weeping—a young mother weeping for her first-born, who would not be pacified. The deepest fountain of love in the human heart had been stirred; its hallowed sources abused, and violently broken up; and the shock had been too great for the injured possessor to bear patiently. Her very reason had yielded to the blow, and she lamented her loss, as a forward child laments the loss of some favorite plaything. Had she not been a creature of passionate impulses, the death of this babe of shame would have brought a stern joy to her bereaved mind. She would have wept—for nature speaks from the heart in tears; but she would have blessed God that He had removed the innocent cause of her distress from being a partaker of her guilt, a sharer of her infamy, a lasting source of regret and sorrow.
Mary Mathews had looked forward with intense desire for the birth of this child. It would be something for her to love and cling to—something for whose sake she would be content to live—for whom she could work and toil; who would meet her with smiles, and feel its dependence upon her exertions. She thought, too, that Godfrey would love her once more, for his infant's sake. Rash girl! She had yet to learn that the love of man never returns to the forsaken object of his selfish gratification.
The night before this event took place, violent words had arisen between Mary and her brother. The ruffian was partially intoxicated, and urged on by the infuriated spirit of intemperance, regardless of the entreaties of the woman Strawberry, or the helpless situation of the unfortunate girl, he had struck her repeatedly; and the violent passion into which his brutal unkindness had hurried his victim produced premature confinement, followed by the death of her child, a fine little boy.
Godfrey was absent when all this occurred; and though the day was pretty far advanced, he had not as yet returned.
As to William Mathews, he wished that death had removed both mother and child, as he found Mary too untractable to be of any use to him.
"My child! my child!" sobbed Mary. "What have you done with him? where have you put him? Oh! for the love of Heaven, Mrs. Strawberry, let me look at my child!"