“Promised fayther!—you need say nowt to your fayther about it—he’ll never be none the wiser.”
“O mother, mother, how can you talk so, after all as is come and gone! How can you ask me to cheat my own poor fayther, as is so changed? he’s trying gradely to get to heaven, and to bring you along with him too, and you’re wanting to pull us all back. Mother, mother, how can you do it? How can you ask me to go agen fayther when he leaves all to me? You’re acting the devil’s part, mother, when you ’tice your own child to do wrong. Oh, it’s cruel, it’s cruel, when you know, if I were to deceive fayther it’d break his heart. But it’s the drink that’s been speaking. Oh, the cursed drink! that can pluck a mother’s heart out of her bosom, and make her the tempter of her own child! I must leave you, mother, now. I durstn’t stay. I might say summat as I shouldn’t, for I am your child still. But oh, mother, pray God to forgive you for what you’ve said to me this night; and may the Lord indeed forgive you, as I pray that I may have grace to do myself.” So saying, she hastily threw her handkerchief over her head and left the cottage.
And what were Alice Johnson’s thoughts when she was left alone? She sat still by the fire, and never moved for a long time. Darkness, midnight darkness, a horror of darkness, was settling down on her soul. She had no false support now from the drink, and so her physical state added to her utter depression. Conscience began to speak as it had never spoken before; and then came pressing on her the horrible craving, which she had no means now of gratifying. The past and the future fastened upon her soul like the fiery fangs of two fearful snakes. She saw the wasted past—her children neglected; her home desolate, empty, foul, comfortless; her husband and herself wasting life in the indulgence of their common sin, living without God in the world;—she saw herself the cause, in part at least, of her son’s flight; she remembered how she had ever set herself against his joining the band of total abstainers;—and now she beheld herself about the vilest thing on earth—a mother deliberately tempting her daughter to deceive her father, that herself might gratify her craving for the drink. Oh, how she loathed herself! oh, what a horror crept over her soul! Could she really be so utterly vile? could she really have sunk so low? And then came up before her the yet more fearful future: her husband no longer a companion with her in her sin—she must sin alone; her daughter alienated from her by her own act; and then the drink, for which she had sold herself body and soul, she must be without it, she must crave and not be satisfied—the thought was intolerable, it was madness. But there was a farther future; there was in the far distance the blackness of darkness for ever, yet rendered visible by the glare of a coming hell. Evening thickened round her, but she sat on. The air all about her seemed crowded with spirits of evil; her misery became deeper and deeper; she did not, she could not repent—and what then?
An hour later Betty returned from Ned Brierley’s. Where was Alice? Betty looked for her, but she was nowhere to be found; she called her, but there was no answer. She concluded that she had gone into a neighbour’s, and sat down waiting for her till she grew weary: her heart was softened towards her; she would pray for her, she would try still to win her back from the bondage of Satan; she was her mother still. Hour after hour passed, but still her mother did not come. Betty took a light, and went up into the chamber to fetch her Bible. Something unusual near the door caught her eye—with a scream of terror she darted forward. Oh, what a sight! her miserable mother was hanging behind the door from a beam! Betty’s repeated screams brought in the neighbours; they found the wretched woman quite dead. She had sinned away her day of grace; and was gone to give in her account of body, soul, time, talents, utterly wasted, and of her life taken by her own hands; and all—all under the tyranny of the demon of drink.
Chapter Fourteen.
Plotting.
When Betty’s cries of horror brought the neighbours round her, they found the poor girl lying insensible by the corpse of her mother, which was still suspended by the beam behind the door. They cut down the wretched creature, and tried everything to restore her to consciousness; but life was fled—the day of trial was over. Johnson returned from the pit, from whence he was summoned, to find his wife dead, destroyed by her own hand; and Betty utterly prostrate on her bed with the terrible and agonising shock.
Oh, drink, drink! most heartless of all fiendish destroyers, thou dost kill thy victims with a smile, plucking away from them every stay and support that keeps them from the pit of destruction; robbing them of every comfort, while hugging them in an embrace which promises delight, and yet crushes out the life-blood both of body and soul; making merriment in the eye and on the tongue, while home, love, character, and peace are melting and vanishing away. Wretched Alice! she might have been a happy mother, a happy wife, with her children loving, honouring, and blessing her; but she had sold herself for the drink, and a life of shame and a death of despair were her miserable reward.