“Woman! are you mad? My children shall not touch it;” and he lifted the glasses from the table and handed them to one of the company that had crowded around to witness this strange scene.
“Why not?” said his wife, in the calm tone with which she had at first spoken. “If it is good for you, it is good for your wife and children. It will put these dear ones to sleep, and they will forget that they are cold and hungry. To you it is fire and food and bed and clothing—all these we need, and you will surely not withhold them from us.”
By this time Ralph was less under the influence of liquor than he had been for weeks, although he had drank as freely as ever through the day. Taking hold of his wife’s arm, he said, in a kind voice, for he began to think that her mind was really wandering —
“Come, Sally, let us go home.”
“Why should we go, Ralph?” she replied, keeping her seat. “There is no fire at home, but it is warm and comfortable here. There is no food there, but here is plenty to eat and to drink. I don’t wonder that you liked this place better than home, and I am sure I would rather stay here.”
The drunken husband was confounded. He knew not what to do or to say. The words of his wife smote him to the heart; for she uttered a stunning rebuke that could not be gainsaid. He felt a choking sensation, and his trembling knees bore heavily against each other.
“Sally,” he said, after a pause, in an altered and very earnest tone—“I know it is more comfortable here than it is at home, but I am going home, and I intend staying there. Wont you go with me, and try to make it as comfortable as it used to be? The change is all my fault, I know; but it shall be my fault no longer. Here, once and forever, I solemnly pledge myself before God never again to drink the poison that has made me more than half a brute, and beggared my poor family. Come, Sally! Let us hurry away from here; the very air oppresses me. Come, in Heaven’s name! come!”
Quickly, as if an electric shock had startled her, did Mrs. Lyon spring from her seat, as her husband uttered the last word, and lay hold of his arm with an eager grasp.
“The Lord in heaven be praised!” she said, solemnly, “for it is his work. Yes, come! Let us go quickly. There will again be light, and fire and food in our dwelling. Our last days may yet be our best days.”
Lifting each a child from the floor, the husband and wife left that den of misery with as hasty steps as Christian’s when he fled from the City of Destruction.