He said all this with very little emotion; and then lay back, wearied with his exertions in speaking.
“And have you any—” The rector did not know how to finish the sentence which he had begun after a long pause.
“Have I any family? you would ask,” said the other. “I had once. I had a wife and little child; my only child—a little girl. Well, I suppose she’s better off. She pined and pined when there was next to nothing to eat in the house; and they tell me—for I was not at home when she died—that she said at the last, ‘I’m going to Jesus; they are not hungry where he is.’ Poor thing!”
“And your wife?” exclaimed Bernard, his blood running cold at the tone of indifference in which this account was given.
“Oh, my wife? Ah, we did not see much of one another after our child’s death! I was often from home; and once, when I returned, I found that she was gone: they had buried her in my absence. She died—so they said—of a broken heart. Poor thing! it is not unlikely.”
Mr Oliphant hid his head in his hands, and groaned aloud. He had never before conceived it possible—what he now found to be too true—that long habits of drunkenness can so utterly unhumanise a man as to reduce him to a mere callous self, looking upon all things outside self as dreamy and devoid of interest, with but one passion left—the passion for the poison which has ruined him.
At last the rector raised his head, and said slowly and solemnly,—
“And if God spares you, will you not strive to lead a new life? Will you not pray for grace to conquer your besetting sin?”
The wretched man did not answer for a while. Then he said,—
“I have only one thing to live for, and that is the drink. I cannot live without it. Oh, I implore you to let me have some spirits! You do not, you cannot, know how I crave them, or in pity you would not withhold them from me.”