"A pretty picture you have drawn," laughed Frank. "I"m afraid there"s not much chance of making _you_ an abstainer."
"Nor you neither, Mr Frank, I hope. Why, I should be ashamed to see my cheerful, handsome young master, (you must forgive me, sir, for being so bold), turned into a sour-looking, turnip-faced, lantern-jawed, whining teetotaller."
"Why, I thought you said just now," said the other, "that they all take drink on the sly; if that"s the case, it can"t be total abstinence that spoils their beauty."
Juniper looked a little at fault, but immediately replied,--
"Well, sir, at any rate total abstinence will never do for you. Why, you"ll have no peace up at the hall, especially in the shooting season, if you mean to take up with them exotic notions. Be a man, sir, and a.s.severate your independence. Show that you can take too much or too little as you have a mind. I wouldn"t be a slave, sir. "Britons never shall be slaves.""
Here the conversation closed. The tempter had so far gained his end that he had made Frank disinclined to join himself at present to the body of stanch abstainers. He would wait and see--he preferred moderation, it was more manly, more self-reliant. Ah, there was his grievous mistake. Self-reliant! yes, but that self was blinded, cheated by Satan; it was already on the tempter"s side. So Frank put off, at any rate for the present, joining the abstainers. He was, however, very watchful over himself never openly to transgress. He loved Mary, and could not bear the thoughts of losing her, but in very deed he loved his own self-indulgence more. There was a constraint, however, when they met. He could not fully meet her deep truthful eyes with a steady gaze of his own. Her words would often lead him to prayer, but then he regarded iniquity in his heart--he did not wish to be taken at his prayer--he did not wish to be led into pledged abstinence, or even into undeviating moderation at all times--he wished to keep in reserve a right to fuller indulgence. Poor Mary! she was not happy; she felt there was something wrong. If she tried to draw out that something from Frank, his only reply was an a.s.surance of ardent affection and devotion.
There was no apparent evil on the surface of his life. He was regular at church, steady at home, moderate in what he drank at his father"s table and at other houses. She felt, indeed, that he had no real sympathy with her on the highest subjects, but he never refused to listen, only he turned away with evident relief from religious to other topics. Yet all this while he was getting more deeply entangled in the meshes of the net which the drink, in the skilful hands of Juniper Graves, was weaving round him. That cruel tempter was biding his time.
He saw with malicious delight that the period must arrive before very long when his young master"s drinking excesses would no longer be confined to the darkness and the night, but would break out in open daylight, and then, then for his revenge.
It was now between two and three years since the harvest-home which had ended so unhappily. Frank was twenty-one and Mary Oliphant eighteen.
This was in the year in which we first introduced them to our readers, the same year in which it was intended that Hubert Oliphant should join his uncle Abraham, at any rate for a time, in South Australia. For the last six months dim rumours, getting gradually more clear and decided, had found their way to the rectory that Frank Oldfield was occasionally drinking to excess. Mary grew heart-sick, and began to lose her health through anxiety and sorrow; yet there was nothing, so far, sufficiently definite to make her sure that Frank, since his promise to observe strict moderation, had ever over-pa.s.sed the bounds of sobriety. He never, of course, alluded to the subject himself; and when he could not help remarking on her altered looks, he would evade any questions she put to him on the painful subject, or meet them by an appeal to her whether she could prove anything against him; and by the observation that nothing was easier than to spread rumours against a person"s character. She was thus often silenced, but never satisfied.
June had come--a bright sky remained for days with scarce a cloud; the hay-makers were everywhere busy, and the fields were fragrant with the sweet perfume of the mown gra.s.s. It was on a quiet evening that Mary was returning home from a cottage where she had been to visit a sick parishioner of her father"s. Her way lay in part through a little plantation skirting a hay-field belonging to the Greymoor estate. She had just reached the edge of the plantation, and was about to climb over a stile into a lane, when she heard loud and discordant voices, which made her blood run cold; for one of them, she could not doubt, was Frank"s.
"This way, Mr Frank, this way," cried another voice, which she knew at once to be that of Juniper Graves.
"I tell you," replied the first voice, thickly, "I shan"t go that way; I shall go home, I shall. Let me alone, I tell you,"--then there followed a loud imprecation.
"No, no--this way, sir--there"s Miss Mary getting over the stile; she"s waiting for you, sir, to help her over."
"Very good, Juniper; you"re a regular brick," said the other voice, suddenly changing to a tone of maudlin affection; "where"s my dear Mary--ah, there she is!" and the speaker staggered towards the stile.
Mary saw him indistinctly through the hedge--she would have fled, but terror and misery chained her to the spot. A few moments after and Frank, in his shirt-sleeves, (he had been joining the hay-makers), made his way up to her. His face was flushed, his eyes inflamed and staring wildly, his hair disordered, and his whole appearance brutalised.
"Let me help--help--you, my beloved Mary, over shtile--ah, yes--here"s Juniper--jolly good fellow, Juniper--help her, Juniper--can"t keep shteady--for life of me."
He clutched at her dress; but now the spell was loosed, she sprang over the stile, and cast one look back. There stood her lover, holding out his arms with an exaggerated show of tenderness, and mumbling out words of half-articulate fondness; and behind him, a smile of triumphant malice on his features, which haunted her for years, was Graves, the tempter, the destroyer of his unhappy master. She cared to see no more, but, with a cry of bitter distress, she rushed away as though some spirit of evil were close behind her, and never stopped till she had gained the rectory.
CHAPTER EIGHT.
FAREWELL.
There are impressions cut deeper into the heart by the sudden stroke of some special trial than any made by the continuous pressure of afflictions, however heavy; impressions which nothing in this world can efface--wounds, like the three-cornered thrust of the bayonet, which will not heal up. Such was the keen, piercing sorrow which the sight of Frank in his drunkenness had stabbed deep into the soul of Mary Oliphant. The wound it had made would never heal. Oh, miserable drink!
which turns the bright, the n.o.ble, the intellectual creatures of G.o.d into worse than madmen; for the madman"s reason is gone--we pity, but we cannot blame him; but in the victim of strong drink reason is suspended but not destroyed, and in all the distortion, grimaces, reelings, babblings, ravings of the miserable wretch while his sin is on him, we see a self-inflicted insanity, and a degradation which is not a misfortune but a crime.
The day after that miserable meeting at the stile, Frank called at the rectory, the picture of wretchedness and despair. Mrs Oliphant came to him, and told him that Mary declined seeing him; indeed, that she was so utterly unnerved and ill, that she would have been unequal to an interview even had she thought it right to grant him one.
"Is there no hope for me, then?" he asked. "Have I quite sinned away even the possibility of forgiveness?"
"I cannot fully answer for Mary," replied Mrs Oliphant; "but I should be wrong if I said anything that could lead you to suppose that she can ever again look upon you as she once did."
"Is it really so?" he said gloomily. "Has this one transgression forfeited her love for ever? Is there no place for repentance? I do not justify myself. I do not attempt to make less of the fault. I can thoroughly understand her horror, her disgust. I loathe myself as a vile beast, and worse than a beast. But yet, can I by this one act have cut through _every_ cord that bound her heart to mine?"
"Excuse me, dear Frank," said the other; "but you mistake in speaking of _one_ transgression--one act. It is because poor Mary feels, as I feel too, that this act must be only one of many acts of the like kind, though the rest may have been concealed from us, that she dare not trust her happiness in your keeping."
"And who has any right," he asked warmly, "to say that I am in the habit of exceeding?"
"Do you deny yourself that it is so?" she inquired, looking steadily but sorrowfully at him.
His eyes dropped before hers, and then he said,--
"I do not see that any one has a right to put such a question to me."
"Not a right!" exclaimed Mrs Oliphant. "Have not _I_ a right, dear Frank, as Mary"s mother, to put such a question? I know that I have no right to turn inquisitor as regards your conduct and actions in general.
But oh, surely, when you know what has happened, when you remember your repeated promises, and how, alas! they have been broken; when you call to mind that Mary has expressly promised to me, and declared to you, that she will never marry a drunkard,--can you think that I, the mother whom G.o.d has appointed to guard the happiness of my darling daughter, have no right to ask you whether or no you are free from that habit which you cannot indulge in and at the same time honestly claim the hand of my beloved child?"
Frank for a long time made no answer; when he did reply, he still evaded the question.
"I have done wrong," he said; "grievously wrong. I acknowledge it. I could ask Mary"s pardon for it on my knees, and humble myself in the dust before her. I _might_ plead, in part excuse, or, at any rate, palliation of my fault, the heat of the weather and thirsty nature of the work I was engaged in, which led me into excess before I was aware of what I was doing. But I will not urge that. I will take every blame. I will throw myself entirely on her mercy; and surely human creatures should not be unmerciful since G.o.d is so merciful."
"I grieve, dear Frank, to hear you speak in this way," said Mrs Oliphant, very gravely and sadly; "you should go on your knees and humble yourself in the dust, not before poor sinners, such as I and my child are, but before Him who alone can pardon your sin. I think you are deceiving yourself. I fear so. It is not that Mary is void of pity. She does not take upon herself to condemn you--it is not her province; but that does not make her feel that she can look upon you as one who could really make her happy. Alas! it is one of the miserable things connected with the drink, that those who have become its slaves cannot be trusted. I may seem to speak harshly, but I _must_ speak out.
Your expressions of sorrow and penitence cannot secure your future moderation. You mean _now_ what you say; but what guarantee have we that you will not again transgress?"
"My own pledged word," replied Frank, proudly, "that henceforth I will be all that Mary would have me be."
"Except a pledged total abstainer," said Mrs Oliphant, quietly.
Frank remained silent for a few moments, then he said,--
"If I cannot control myself without a pledge, I shall never do so _with_ one."
"No, not by the pledge only, or chiefly. But it would be a help. It would be a check. It would be a something to appeal to, as being an open declaration of what you were resolved to keep to. But oh, I fear that you do not wish to put such a restraint upon yourself, as you must do, if you would really be what you would have us believe you mean to be. Were it otherwise, you would not hesitate--for Mary"s sake, for your own peace"s sake--to renounce at once, and for ever, and entirely, that drink which has already been to you, ay, and to us all, a source of so much misery. Dear Frank, I say it once for all, I never could allow my beloved child to cast in her lot for life with one of whom I have reason to fear that he is, or may become, the slave of that drink which has driven peace, and joy, and comfort out of thousands of English homes."
"But why should you fear this of me?" persisted Frank. "Within the last three years I have fallen twice. I do not deny it. But surely two falls in that long s.p.a.ce of time do not show a habit of excess. On each occasion I was overcome--taken off my guard. I have now learned, and thoroughly, I trust, the lesson to be watchful. I only ask for one more trial. I want to show Mary, I want to show you all, that I can still be strictly sober, strictly moderate, without total abstinence, without a pledge. And oh, do not let it be said that the mother and daughter of a minister of the gospel were less ready to pardon than their heavenly Master."
"Oh, Frank," cried Mrs Oliphant, "how grievously you mistake us!
Pardon! Yes; what are we that we should withhold pity or pardon? But surely it is one thing to forgive, and quite another thing to entrust one"s happiness, or the happiness of one"s child, into hands which we dare not hope can steadily maintain it. I can say no more. Write to Mary, and she will answer you calmly and fully by letter, as she could not do were she to meet you now."
Poor Frank! Why did he not renounce at once that enticing stimulant which had already worked him so much misery? Was it worth while letting so paltry an indulgence separate for ever between himself and one whom he so dearly loved? Why would he not pledge himself at once to total abstinence? There was a time when he would have done so--that time when he spoke on the subject to the rector, and made the attempt at his own home. But now a spell seemed to hold him back. He would not or could not see the necessity of relinquishing that which he had come to crave and love more than his daily food.
"I must use it," he said to himself; "but there is no reason why I should abuse it."
He wrote to Mary and told her so. He told her that he was now fully alive to his own weakness, and that she might depend on his watchfulness and moderation, imploring her to give him one, and but one, more trial.
He would watch, he would strive, he would pray to be strictly moderate.
She should never have cause to reproach him again.
She replied:--
"DEAR FRANK,--It would be cruelty in me were I to hold out any hope to you that I can ever again be more to you than one who must always take a deep interest in your welfare, and must feel truly grateful to you for having saved her life. That you _mean_ now to be all that you promise, I do not doubt; but that you really _will_ be so, I dare not hope. You have been seen by me twice in such a condition as made me shrink from you with terror and disgust. Were we to be married, and you should be betrayed into excess, the first time, you would be overwhelmed; the second time, you would be ashamed and pained; the third time, you would feel it, but not very acutely. You would get used, by degrees, to my witnessing such degradation; it would be killing me, but it would be making less and less impression upon you.
I dare not run the terrible risk. I dare not join myself to you in a bond which could never be severed, however aggravated might be my misery and your sin. Oh, Frank, my heart is well nigh broken! I have loved you, and do love you still. Let us be one in heaven, though we never can be so here. Pray, oh, pray for grace to resist your temptation! Ask to be made a true follower of the Lord Jesus, and you will be guided aright, and we _shall_ meet then in that bright land where all shall rejoice together who have, by grace, fought the fight and won the victory here.--Sincerely yours, MARY OLIPHANT."
Frank read this letter over and over again, and groaned in the fulness of his distress. She had not asked him to become an abstainer. Was it because she felt that it was hopeless? _He_ knew it to be so. He knew that if he signed the pledge he should only add a broken vow to his other sins. He felt that, dearly as he loved Mary, he could not forego all intoxicating drinks even for her sake. He dared not pray that he might be able to abstain, for he felt that he should not really wish for the accomplishment of such a prayer. Habitual indulgence had taken all the stiffness out of his will. And yet the thought of losing Mary was utter misery. He leaned his head on his hands, and gazed for a long time on her letter. At last there came a thought into his mind. All might not yet be lost. There was still one way of escape. He rose up comforted, and thrusting the letter into his pocket, sought out his mother. He found her alone. She looked at him with deep anxiety and pitying love, as well she might, when she marked the gloom that had settled down on his once happy face. Alas she knew its cause too well.
She knew that he was on the downward path of intemperance, and she knew how rapid was the descent. She was well aware that his sinful excess had been the cause of the breaking off of his engagement with the rector"s daughter. Oh, how her heart ached for him. She would have given all she possessed to see him what he once was. She was prepared for any sacrifice, if only he could be reclaimed before it should be too late.