“Yes; he is not responsible for the words he now utters,” cried the poor mother—“but oh, misery, misery! I am responsible. I held him back, I laughed him from his purpose, when he would have pledged himself to renounce that drink which has been his bane and ruin, body and soul.”
“Come, come, my dearest wife,” said her husband, “you must be comforted. You acted for the best. We are not responsible for his excess. He never learned excess from us.”
“No; but I cannot be comforted, for I see—I know that he might now have been otherwise. Ay, he might now have been as the Oliphants are, if his own mother had not put the fatal hindrance in his way. Oh, if I had worlds to give I would give them, could I only undo that miserable past!”
“I think,” said the medical man, “it will be wiser if all would now leave him except the nurse. The fewer he sees, and the fewer voices he hears, the less he will be likely to excite himself. I will call early again to-morrow.”
Lady Oldfield retired to her chamber, and poured out her heart in prayer. Oh, might she have but one hour of intelligence—one hour in which she might point her erring child to that loving Saviour, whom she had herself sought in earnest and found in truth since the departure of her son from home! Oh, might she but see him return to the Gatherer of the wandering sheep! She did not ask life for him—she dared not ask it absolutely; but she did ask that her heavenly Father would in pity grant her some token that there was hope in her beloved child’s death, if he must die. And does not God answer prayer? Yes, alway; but not always in our way. When sin has found the sinner out—when warnings have been slighted, mercies despised, the Spirit quenched, the gentle arm that would guide us to glory rudely and perseveringly flung aside—then, then, it may be, not even a believing mother’s prayer shall avail to turn aside the righteous stroke of the hand of that holy God who is to his determined enemies a consuming fire.
All the night long did Frank Oldfield toss to and fro, or start up with glaring eyes, calling on his drunken associates, singing wild songs, or now and then recalling days when sin had not yet set its searing brand on his heart and conscience. About midnight his father and mother stole into his chamber. The nurse put up her finger. They cautiously shrank back behind the screen of the bed-curtains out of his sight.
“Juniper, my boy!” exclaimed the wretched sufferer, “where’s my mother? Gone down to the rectory! Ah, they’re water-drinkers there. That don’t do for you and me, Juniper. ‘This bottle’s the sun of our table.’ Ha, ha!—a capital song that!”
Lady Oldfield sank on her knees, and could not repress her sobs.
“Who’s crying?” exclaimed Frank. “Is it Mary? Poor Mary! She loved me once—didn’t she? My poor mother loved me once—didn’t she? Why don’t she love me now? Where’s my mother now?”
“Here I am—here’s your mother—your own loving mother—my Frank—my darling boy!” burst from the lips of the agonised parent.