"I pa.s.sed her in the street; and the sight of her made my heart ache.
Ah, my friend! if you have been wronged, deeply is the wrong repaid!
Such a wreck! I could scarcely believe my eyes. Ellis! I read at a single glance her countenance, marred by long suffering, and found in it only the sad evidences of patient endurance. She is changed. I am bold to say that. If she erred, she has repented."
"But not atoned for a wrong that is irreparable," said Ellis in a dogged tone, while his heavy brows contracted.
"Ah! how changed you are, Ellis: once so kind-hearted, so forgiving and forbearing!"
"And what changed me? Answer me that, John Wilkinson! Yes, I am changed--changed from a man into--into--yes, let me say the word--into a devil! And who held the enchanter"s wand? Who? The wife of my bosom!"
Wilkinson felt a shudder creeping along his nerves as he looked at the excited man, and heard his words.
"Cara never acts toward you, now, other than with kindness," said he.
But Ellis made no answer to this.
"Let the past suffice, my friend," added Wilkinson. "Both have suffered enough. Resolve, in the strength of G.o.d and your own manhood, to rise out of the horrible pit and miry clay into which you have fallen."
"That is impossible. So we won"t talk about it," said Ellis, impatiently. "Lend me half a dollar, won"t you?"
The hand of Wilkinson went instinctively to his pocket. But he withdrew it, without the coin he had designed, from the moment"s impulse, to give. Shaking his head, he replied to the application,
"I can"t give you money, Ellis."
"You can"t?"
"No; for that would be no real kindness. But, if you will reform your life; if you will abandon drink, and become a sober, industrious man, I will pledge myself to procure you a good situation as clerk. In a few years you may regain all that has been lost."
"Bah!" muttered Ellis, grinding his teeth as he spoke. "All good talk!"
and, turning away, he pa.s.sed from the store of his old friend. Without a cent in his pocket, and burning with a desire for drink, he had conquered all reluctance and shame, and applied, as we have seen, to an old friend, for money. Two or three other ineffectual attempts were made to get small sums, but they proved fruitless. For some time he wandered about the streets; then he entered one of the lower cla.s.s of taverns, and boldly called for a gla.s.s of liquor. But the keeper of this den, grown suspicious by experience, saw in the face or manner of Ellis that he had no money, and coolly demanded pay before setting forth his bottle. It was just at this untimely crisis that Henry came in, and, taking hold of his father"s arm, urged him to come home. The cruel rebuff he received is known.
The blow was no sooner given by Ellis than repented of; and this motion of regret prompted him to express his sorrow for the hasty act, but when he turned to speak to the lad, he was gone. Almost maddened by thirst and excitement, the poor wretch caught up from the counter a pitcher of ice water, and, placing it to his lips, took therefrom a long deep draught. Then slowly turning away, he sought a chair in a far corner of the room; where he seated himself, crossed his arms on a table, and buried his face therein.
The pure cold water allayed the fever that burned along the drunkard"s veins. Gradually a deep calm pervaded his mind, and then thought became active amid thronging memories of the past. He had once loved his home and his children; and the image of Henry, when a bright-eyed, curly-headed, happy child, came up so vividly before him, that it was only by an effort that he kept the tears from gushing over his face.
For years he had cherished, in mere self-justification, the bitterest feeling towards his wife; and hundreds of times had he given expression to these feelings in words that smote the heart of Cara with crushing force. Only a little while before he had spoken of her, in the presence of Wilkinson, in a hard and unforgiving spirit; but now he thought of her more kindly. He remembered how patiently she had borne with him; how uncomplainingly she had met and struggled with her hard lot; how many times she had tried to smile upon him, even through tears that could not be restrained. Never was he met, on his return home, with coldness or neglect. Wife and children all sought his comfort; yet he cared nothing for them, and even filled their paths through life with thorns. And his boy, Henry, whom he had just repulsed in so cruel a manner, to his labour was he indebted, mainly, for the food that was daily set before him. How this thought smote him! How it filled his heart with shame and repentance!
Musing thus, the unhappy man remained, until, gradually, his thoughts became confused. The temporary excitement of feeling died away, and sleep overcame him. In his sleep he dreamed, and his dream was vivid as reality. Not as of old did he find himself; but, in the vision that came to him, he was still in bondage and degradation, with a horribly distinct realization of his condition. His vile companions were around him, but greatly changed; for they appeared more like monsters of evil than men, and were malignant in their efforts to do harm. Against him they seemed to feel an especial hatred. Some glared and gleamed upon him with the fire of murder in their eyes; some pointed to a cheerless apartment, in which he saw his wife and children cowering and shivering over a few dying embers, and they said--"It is your work! It is your work!" They were devils in distorted human shapes, and he was terribly afraid. Suddenly he was set upon by one, who caught him by the throat and dragged him into what seemed the cell of a prison, where he was cast upon a heap of straw, and left shuddering with cold and fear.
Alone, for days and weeks he remained in this prison, until despair seemed to dry up the very blood in his veins, and, after a desperate struggle to break through the bars of his narrow house, he sank down exhausted and ready to die. Then came a new horror. He had died, to all outward appearance, and was in his coffin. He felt his body compressed, and gasped and panted for air in his narrow house of boards. It was an awful moment. Suddenly a voice came to his ear: "Father! father!" It was the voice of his child--of Kate. How its tones thrilled through him! How his heart leaped with the hope of deliverance! "Father! dear father!"--The call was renewed, but he could make no answer, for his tongue was powerless. Again and again the call was repeated, yet he could utter no sound--could make no sign. Farther off, then, he heard his name called. Horror! she had failed to discover him, and was about departing. In the agony of the moment he awoke. There was a hand laid gently upon him, and a voice said--"Father! dear father! come!"
It was the voice of his child; the same voice that had penetrated his dreaming ear.
"Oh, Kate!" he exclaimed, eagerly; "is it indeed you?"
"Yes, father," she answered; "and won"t you come home with me?"
The wretched man did not answer in words but arose immediately and went out with his daughter.
"Oh, what a dream I had, Kate!" said Mr. Ellis, as he left the door of the tavern; "and you came to me in my dream."
His feelings were much excited, and he spoke with emotion.
"Did I, father?" replied the girl. "And how did I come? As a good angel to save you?"
"Waking, you have come to me as such," answered the father after a brief silence, speaking more calmly, and as if to himself.
How wild a thrill shot through the frame of Kate at these words, so full of meaning to her; but she dared not trust herself to make an answer, lest she should do harm rather than good. And so they walked, in silence, all the way home; Henry, who had accompanied his sister, keeping a short distance behind them, so that his father had no indication of his presence.
CHAPTER XXII.
How the hearts of the mother and her two oldest children trembled with hope and fear! A marked change was apparent in Mr. Ellis when he came home with Kate. He was sober, and very serious, but said nothing; and Mrs. Ellis deemed it prudent to say nothing to him.
On the next morning, he did not rise early. Henry had eaten his breakfast and was away to his work, and Kate had gone to market to get something for dinner, when he got up and dressed himself. Mrs. Ellis was ready for him with a good cup of coffee, a piece of hot toast, some broiled steak, and a couple of eggs. She said little, but her tones were subdued and very kind. Noticing that his hand trembled so that he spilled his coffee in raising his cup to his lips, (his custom was to get a gla.s.s of liquor before breakfast to steady his nerves,) she came and stood beside him, saying, as she did so--"Let me hold your cup for you."
Ellis acquiesced; and so his wife held the cup to his lips while he drank.
"Oh, dear! This is a dreadful state to be in Cara!"
The exclamation was spontaneous. Had Ellis thought a moment, his pride would have caused him to repress it.
Mrs. Ellis did not reply, for she was afraid to trust herself to speak, lest her words or voice should express something that would check the better feelings that were in the heart of her husband. But, ere she could repress it, a tear fell upon his hand. Almost with a start, Ellis turned and looked up into her face. It was calm, yet sorrowful. The pale and wasted condition of that face had never so struck him before.
"Ah, Cara," said he, dropping his knife and fork, "it is dreadful to live in this way. Dreadful! dreadful!"
The poor, almost heart-broken wife could command herself no longer; and she laid her face down upon her husband and sobbed--the more convulsively from her efforts to regain self-possession.
"Oh, Henry!" she at length murmured, "if the past were only ours! If we could but live over our lives, with some of the experience that living gives, how differently should we act! But, surely, hope is not clean gone for ever! Is there not yet a better and a brighter day for even us?"
"There is, Cara! There is!" replied Ellis, in tones of confidence. "It has been a long, long night, Cara; a cold and cheerless night. But the morning breaks. There is not much strength left in this poor arm," and he extended his right hand, that trembled like an aspen leaf--"but it can yet do something. It shall not be with us as it has been any longer. In the sight of Heaven, and in the hope of strength from above, I promise that, Cara. Will you help me to keep my promise?"
"Yes--yes--yes," was the emphatic response. "If there is in me a particle of strength, it is yours, and you may lean on it confidently.
Oh, Henry! trust in me. The lessons of the past have not been learned in vain."
"I am very weak, Cara; the pressure of a child"s hand might throw me over. Do not forget this. Never forget it! If you will keep close to my side, if you will help me, and love me,"--his voice quivered, and he paused, but regained himself in a few moments--"I think all will be well with us again. G.o.d helping me, I will try."
"Oh, my husband!" sobbed Mrs. Ellis, drawing her arms lovingly about him--"it will be well with us, for G.o.d will help you, I will help you, all will help you. Forget? Oh, no! I can never forget. Have we not all been thoughtful of you, and kind to you in the night that is pa.s.sing away?"
"Yes, Cara, yes."
"And will we not be kinder and more loving in the brighter future? We will! we will, Henry! Oh! how my glad heart runs over!"
"I saw Mr. Wilkinson yesterday," said Ellis, after both had grown calmer; "and he said that he could and would get me a situation as clerk. I am now going to see him, and, if he be as good as his word, this desert place"--and he glanced about the room--"will soon brighten as the rose."
The entrance of Kate closed the interview. In a little while, Ellis, after shaving himself, and in every possible way improving his appearance, left the house and went direct to the store of Wilkinson.
"Henry! Is it possible!" exclaimed the latter, in surprise, when Ellis stood before him.