“Jim, dear,” she said, soothingly, “we’ve nothing in the house for supper: we didn’t expect you: we hoped you’d gone back to your master’s.”
“Ah! There it is! Didn’t expect me! No supper! This is all I’m to get after spending all my wages on them as don’t care to give me a mouthful of meat and a drop of drink when I want ’em!”
“Jim! Jim! Don’t,” exclaimed his poor sister, “oh! Don’t! For the Lord’s sake! You’ll repent it bitterly by-and-by! Oh! It can’t be our dear, kind Jim, as God sent to help and comfort us! We’d give you meat and drink, if we had them, but the last crumb’s gone, and mother’s never bitten to-day!”
“Nonsense! Don’t tell me! None of your humbug and cant with me! If I can’t get supper where I ought, I’ll get it where I can! I’ll not darken this door again as sure as my name’s Jim Forbes!”
With a scowl, and a curse, and a slam of the door that startled the little ones from their sleep, the miserable son flung himself out of his home. The next day he enlisted; the day following he was gone altogether.
Weep! Weep! Ye holy angels! Howl with savage glee, ye mocking fiends! See what the drink can do! And yet, O wondrous strange! There are thinking men, loving men, Christian men, who tell us we are wrong, we are mad in trying to pluck the intoxicating cup away from men and women, and to keep it wholly out of the hands of little children and upgrowing boys and girls. Mad are we? Be it so; but there’s method, there’s holy love, there’s heavenly wisdom in our madness.
A month had passed away, but no tidings of Jim Forbes; no letter telling of penitence or love. Oh! If he would only write: only just a word: only to say, “Mother, sister, I love you still.” But no; hearts must wither, hearts must break, as the idol car of intemperance holds on its way, crushing out life temporal and eternal from thousands and tens of thousands who throw themselves madly under its wheels. But must it be so for ever?—No! It cannot, it shall not be, God helping us; for their rises up a cry to heaven against the unholy traffic in strong drink; a cry that must be heard.
The snow was falling fast, but not faster nor more softly than the tears of the widowed mother and the crippled daughter, as they bowed themselves down before the cold bars, which ought to have enclosed a mass of glowing coals on that pitiless December day; but only a dull red spark or two, amid a heap of dust, just twinkled in the grate, and seemed to mock their wretchedness. Cold! Cold! Everything was cold there but faith and love. Food there was none! But on the little table lay the open Bible; and just beneath those weary, swollen eyes, were the words, “They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the sun light on them nor any heat; for the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and lead them to living fountains of waters, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.” But what were those voices? Were they the voices of angels? Poor, shivering, weary watchers! They might almost seem so to you. Anyhow, they were very gentle, loving voices; and now they ask admittance. Mrs Franklin and Mary entered; and, though not angels, they were come to do angels’ work, as messengers of love and mercy. Tea, and bread and butter, and eggs, and divers other comforts came suddenly to light from under the wide folds of the ladies’ cloaks, and then the visitors sat down, and stopped the outburst of tearful thanks by bright loving words of pity and interest.
“Oh, ma’am! It is true, but I never knowed afore how true it was that God will never forsake His own. I’d well nigh given up all for lost.”
“Nay, mother,” said Sally; “it wasn’t you, it was me; your faith held out still.”