But their father was now sometimes mad. It was a particular kind of madness, which they had heard the doctor call by a long name (delirium tremens), and they thought it must be the most terrible kind of all, though it always went off, after a fit of it, which might last from a day to a week. The doctor had said that it would not always go off—that he would die in one of the attacks. The dread was lest he should kill somebody else before that day came; for he was as ungovernable as any man in bedlam at those times, and fearfully strong, though so weak before and after them.
When it was possible, the children went down into the valley, and sent up strong men to hold him; but if the weather was stormy, or if their father was in the way, they could only go and hide themselves out of his sight, among the rocks in the beck, or up in the loft, or somewhere; and then they knew what their mother must be suffering with him. By degrees they had scarcely any furniture left whole but their heavy old-fashioned bedsteads. The last of their crockery was broken by his overturning the lame old table at which they had been dining. Then their mother said, with a sigh, that they must somehow manage to buy some things before winter. There really was nothing now for any of them to eat out of. She must get some wooden trenchers and tin mugs; for she would have no more crockery. But how to get the money! for the whole of the land was mortgaged now.
A little money was owing for oats when November arrived; and the purchaser had sent word that he should be at a certain sale in Langdale, at Martinmas; and that if Raven should be there, they could then settle accounts. Now, this money had been destined to go as far as it would toward the payment of interest due at Christmas. But if Raven went to the sale (the usual occasions for social meetings in the lake-district, in spring and autumn), he would only waste or lose the money. He had long ceased to bring home any money, unless his wife was with him; and then it was she that brought it, and, if possible, without his knowledge. She must go with him, and lay out the money immediately, in necessaries for the house and the children, before her husband could make away with it, in a worse way than if he threw it into the sea.
They went, at dawn, in a clear cold November day. Raven had taken care of himself for a day or two, aware of the importance of the occasion, and anxious not to disable himself for the first social meeting he had enjoyed for long, and thinking, in spite of himself, of the glasses of spirits which are, unhappily, handed round very often indeed at these country-sales. As the walk was an arduous one for an infirm man, and the days were short, and the sale was to last two days, the children were to be left for one night. Oatmeal and potatoes enough were left out for two days, and peat, to dry within the house, for fuel. Willy engaged to nurse the baby, while Sally looked to the cow. Their mother promised the little ones some nice things for the winter, if they were good while she was gone; and their father kissed them all, and said he knew they would be good.
And so they were, all that first day; and a very good dinner they made, after playing about the whole morning; and they all went instantly to sleep at night, while Sally sat knitting for an hour longer by the dim red light of the peat fire. The next day was not so fine. The mountain ridges were clear; but the sky was full of very heavy gray clouds; and before dinner, at noon, there was some snow falling. It came on thicker and thicker; and the younger children began to grow cross, because they could not go out to play, and did not know what to do with themselves. Sally cheered them with talking about how soon mother would come home. Mother had not come, however, when the little things, worried and tired, went to bed. Nor had she come, hours after, when Sally herself wanted very much to be asleep. She had looked out at the door very often, and it was still snowing; and the last time, such a cloud of snow was driven against her face, that it was a settled matter in her mind at once that father and mother would not be home to-night. They would stay in the vale for daylight, and come up to breakfast. So she put on another peat, to keep in the fire, and went to bed.
In the morning, it seemed dark when baby cried to get up; and well it might; for the window was blocked up with snow, almost to the very top. When the door was opened, a mass of snow fell in, though what remained was up to Willy's shoulders. The first thing to be done was to get to the cow, to give her her breakfast, and bring baby's. So Sally laid on her last dry peat, and filled the kettle; and then she and Willy set to work to clear a way to the cow. They were obliged to leave baby to the little ones; and it took an hour to cross the yard. Willy was to have brought in some fuel; but the peat-stack was at the end of the house, and, as they could see, so completely buried in snow, as to be hopelessly out of reach. Here was the milk, however, and there was a little of the oatmeal left, and some potatoes. Sally wished now they had brought in more from the barn; but who could have thought they would want any more? Father would get them presently, when he came.
But nobody came all that day. Late at night all the children but Sally were asleep at last though they had been too cold and too hungry to go to rest quietly as usual. The fire had been out since noon; and the last cold potatoes had been eaten in the afternoon. Sally was lying with the baby cuddled close to her for warmth; and, at last, she fell asleep too, though she was very unhappy. In the morning, she felt that their affairs were desperate. Willy must get down the mountain, be the snow what it might, and tell somebody what state they were in; for now there was no more food for the cow within reach, and she gave very little milk this morning; and there was nothing else. It had not snowed for some hours; and Willy knew the way so well that he got down to the valley, being wet to the neck, and having had a good many falls by the way. At the first farm-house he got help directly. The good woman took one of the laborers with her, with food, and a basket of dry peat, and a promise to clear the way to the oat-straw and hay for the relief of the cow. The farmer set off to consult the neighbors about where Raven and his wife could be; and the rest of the family dried the boy's clothes, and gave him a good bowl of porridge.
In a very short time, all the men in the valley, and their dogs, were out on the snow, their figures showing like moving specks on the white expanse. Two of them, who had been at the sale, knew that Raven and his wife had set out for home, long before dark on the second day. Raven was, as might be expected, the worse for liquor; but not so much so but that he could walk, with his wife to keep him in the path. They might possibly have turned back; but it was too probable that they were lost. Before night, it was ascertained that they had not been seen again in Langdale; and in two days more, during which the whole population was occupied in the search, or in taking care of the children, their fate was known. Raven's body was found a little way from the track, looking like a man in a drunken sleep. Some hours after, the barking of a dog brought the searchers to where Janet was lying, at the foot of a precipice about thirty feet deep. Her death must have been immediate.
It seemed that her husband, overcome by the effect of the cold (which, however, had not been excessive) on his tipsy brain, had fallen down in sleep or a stupor; and that Janet, unable to rouse him, had attempted to find her way back; and, by going three or four yards aside from the path, in the uniformity of the snow, had stepped over the rock. There was a strange and ghastly correspondence between the last day of her married life and the first; and so thought her old friend and bridesmaid, Sally, who came over to the funeral, and who, in turning over the poor remnants of Janet's wardrobe, found the bunches of orange flowers carefully papered up, and put away in the furthest corner of a drawer.
There was nothing left for the children, but the warning of their father's life, and the memory of their mother's trials. They were not allowed to go upon the parish—not even Dan. It was plain that he would not live very long; and neighborly charity was sure to last as long as he. The others were dispersed among the farms in that and the nearest vales, and they have grown up as laborers. The land and buildings had been mortgaged beyond their value, and they went at once into the hands of strangers.