The speaker stood pen in hand when he had closed his address.
“Come—which of you young people will sign?”
Samuel made his way to the table.
“I don’t mind if I do,” he said; and then turning to Betty, when he had written his name, “come, Betty,” he cried, “you’ll sign too—come, stick to the pen.”
“Well, I might do worse, I reckon,” said Betty, and she also signed. A few more followed, and shortly afterwards the meeting broke up.
But a storm was now brewing, which the brother and sister had not calculated for. Johnson and three or four kindred spirits were sitting round a neighbour’s fire smoking and drinking while the meeting was going on. A short time after it had closed, a man thrust open the door of the house where Johnson was sitting, and peeping round, said with a grin,—
“I say, Tommy Jacky,” (the nickname by which Johnson was familiarly known), “your Sammul and Betty have just been signing Teetottal Pledge.”
“Eh! what do you say?” exclaimed Johnson in a furious tone, and springing to his feet; “signed the pledge! I’ll see about that;” and hurrying out of the house, he half ran half staggered to his own miserable dwelling. He was tolerably sobered when he got there. Samuel was sitting by the fire near his mother, who was frying some bacon for supper. Betty had just thrown aside on to the couch the handkerchief which she had used instead of a bonnet, and was preparing to help her mother. Johnson sat down in the old rickety rocking-chair at the opposite side of the fire to Samuel, and stooping down, unbuckled his clogs, which he kicked off savagely; then he looked up at his son, and said in a voice of suppressed passion,—
“So, my lad, you’ve been and signed teetottal.”
“Yes, I have,” was the reply.