She then, after wiping the tears which accompanied her words, sent out the girl, who bought some turf and milk, in order to provide a meal of wholesome food for the craving children.
“Now,” said she to the girl, “what is to be done? for if poor Art sees this meal in the morning, he will sell the best part of it to get whiskey; for I need scarcely tell you,” she added, striving to palliate his conduct, “that he cannot do without it, however he might contrive to do without his breakfast.” But, indeed, this was true. So thoroughly was he steeped in drunkenness—in the low, frequent, and insatiable appetite for whiskey—that, like tobacco or snuff, it became an essential portion of his life—a necessary-evil, without which he could scarcely exist. At all events, the poor children had one comfortable meal, which made them happy; the little stock that remained was stowed away in some nook or other, where Art was not likely to find it; the girl went home, and we were about to say that the rest of this miserable family went to bed; but, alas! they had no bed to go to, with the exception of a little straw, and a thin single blanket to cover them.
If Margaret's conduct during these severe and terrible trials was not noble and heroic, we know not what could be called so. The affection which she exhibited towards her husband overcame everything. When Art had got about half way in his mad and profligate career, her friends offered to support her, if she would take refuge with them and abandon him; but the admirable woman received the proposal as an insult; and the reply she gave is much the same as the reader has heard from her lips, with reference to the girl's message from her sister.
Subsequently, they offered to take her and the children; but this also she indignantly rejected. She could not leave him, she said, at the very time when it was so necessary that her hands should be about him. What might be the fate of such a man if he had none to take care of him? No, this almost unexampled woman, rather than desert him in such circumstances, voluntarily partook in all the wretchedness, destitution, and incredible misery which his conduct inflicted on her, and did so patiently, and without a murmur.
In a few days after the night we have described, a man covered with rags, without shoe, or stocking, or shirt, having on an old hat, through the broken crown of which his hair, wefted with bits of straw, stood out, his face shrunk and pale, his beard long and filthy, and his eyes rayless and stupid—a man of this description, we say, with one child in his arms, and two more accompanying him, might be seen begging through the streets of Ballykeerin; yes, and often in such a state of drunkenness as made it frightful to witness his staggering gait, lest he might tumble over upon the infant, or let it fair out of his arms. This man was Art Maguire; to such a destiny had he come, or rather had he brought himself at last; Art Maguire—one of the great Maguires of Fermanagh!
But where is she—the attached, the indomitable in love—the patient, the much enduring, the uncomplaining? Alas! she is at length separated from him and them; her throbbing veins are hot and rife with fever—her aching head is filled with images of despair and horror—she is calling for her husband—her young and manly husband—and says she will not be parted from him—she is also calling for her children, and demands to have them. The love of the mother and of the wife is now furious; but, thank God, the fury that stimulates it is that of disease, and not of insanity. The trials and privations which could not overcome her noble heart, overcame her physical frame, and on the day succeeding that woful night she was seized with a heavy fever, and through the interference of some respectable inhabitants of the town, was conveyed to the fever hospital, where she now lies in a state of delirium.
And Frank Maguire—the firm, the industrious, and independent—where is he? Unable to bear the shame of his brother's degradation, he gave up his partnership, and went to America, where he now is; but not without having left in the hands of a friend something for his unfortunate brother to remember him by; and it was this timely aid which for the last three quarters of a year has been the sole means of keeping life in his brother's family.
Thus have we followed Art Maguire from his youth up to the present stage of his life, attempting, as well as we could, to lay open to our readers his good principles and his bad, together with the errors and ignorances of those who had the first formation of his character—we mean his parents and family. We have endeavored to trace, with as strict an adherence to truth and nature as possible, the first struggles of a heart naturally generous and good, with the evil habit which beset him, as well as with the weaknesses by which that habit was set to work upon his temperament. Whether we have done this so clearly and naturally as to bring home conviction of its truth to such of our readers as may resemble him in the materials which formed his moral constitution, and consequently, to hold him up as an example to be avoided, it is not for ourselves to say. If our readers think so, or rather feel so, then we shall rest satisfied of having performed our task as we ought.
Our task, however, is not accomplished. It is true, we have accompanied him with pain and pity to penury, rags, and beggary—unreformed, unrepenting, hardened, shameless, desperate. Do our readers now suppose that there is anything in the man, or any principle external to him, capable of regenerating and elevating a heart so utterly lost as his?
But hush! what is this? How dark the moral clouds that have been hanging over the country for a period far beyond the memory of man! how black that dismal canopy which is only lit by fires that carry and shed around them disease, famine, crime, madness, bloodshed, and death. How hot, sultry, and enervating to the whole constitution of man, physically and mentally, is the atmosphere we have been breathing so long! The miasma of the swamp, the simoom of the desert, the merciless sirocco, are healthful when compared to such an atmosphere. And, hark! what formidable being is that who, with black expanded wings, flies about from place to place, and from person to person, with a cup of fire in his hands, which he applies to their eager lips? And what spell or charm lies in that burning cup, which, no sooner do they taste than they shout, clap their hands with exultation, and cry out, “We are happy! we are happy!” Hark; he proclaims himself, and shouteth still louder than they do; but they stop their ears, and will not listen; they shut their eyes and will not see. What sayeth he? “I am the Angel of Intemperance, Discord, and Destruction, who oppose myself to God and all his laws—to man, and all that has been made for his good; my delight is in misery and unhappiness, in crime, desolation, ruin, murder, and death in a thousand shapes of vice and destitution. Such I am, such I shall be, for behold, my dominion shall last forever!”