For John's Sake Part 9

"Of course I'll do that; but I must be quick, for two of my mates are going to call and see if I'm coming. I can tell you it's made quite a sensation among the men to-day."

"I dare say it has," said Susan, bustling about, and hurrying her husband's tea.

That evening she waited, with the supper-cloth laid, for an hour past the usual time; and then, wondering what had kept her husband, took her post at the street door. Soon she caught sight of three men coming down the road, and at first thought she recognised George's figure in the moonlight; but hearing from the trio noisy s.n.a.t.c.hes of song and loud laughing, she smiled at the absurdity of her mistake. But yet, as they came nearer, the tones sounded strangely familiar. Her heart sank as they halted before her, and her husband separated from them, and entered the house, pus.h.i.+ng past his wife, and shouting: "Well, good night, mates; we've not signed the pledge, as our friend Tim advised, and don't intend to at present."

"George, where have you been all this time?" said Susan, as she followed him in.

"In the right place for a Briton who never means to be a slave--to be a slave," he answered thickly.

"If this is what temperance meetings do for you, George, I think you'd better stay at home," said his wife in displeased tones.

"Don't be high and mighty, my dear; we weren't going to hear Tim Morris declare that the public-house wasn't a fit place for a respectable man to put his nose inside, without showing him that he'd made a confounded teetotaler's mistake; and being three respectable men, we went in, and took our supper beer there, instead of in our own homes. That's all right, isn't it?" he asked defiantly.

"If you had stopped at your own supper beer it might have been; but it looks more than likely that you drank your own and your wife's share too, judging from appearances," answered Susan bitterly, for she had been feeling the want of her usual stimulant for some time past.

"You can fetch yours, my dear; I've no objection, I'm sure."

"No objection!" Susan felt outraged. If he had been sober, such a word could not have fallen from his lips, for he never would permit her to enter the door of a public-house. There was no help for it now; she must go, for she could not do without her customary gla.s.s, and she dared not ask George to go, lest he should be tempted to imbibe still more freely than he had done.

Putting on her bonnet, and seizing a jug, she hurried down the road to the corner where there were four public-houses blazing with light. She chose the quietest; and entering the jug and bottle department, found herself alone, and screened from all eyes, save those of the barmaid, who stepped forward to take her jug.

"Half a pint, please," said Susan.

Suddenly a thought struck her. If she took her ale home George would be sure to want some; and she knew that he had already exceeded by far his usual limit; why should she not stand and drink hers there? There was no one to see her; no one would ever be the wiser. It would only be just for once, she told herself, to put temptation out of her husband's way.

"If you'll kindly bring me a gla.s.s, I'll drink it here," she said to the barmaid.

"Certainly, ma'am;" and Susan rapidly drained her gla.s.s, and walked home with her empty jug.

If that night the heavy curtain which shrouded the unknown future could have been lifted, and to George and Susan Dixon there could have been revealed their unwritten history, with what shuddering awe would each have turned from the sin-darkened record, and cried with one of old: "Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?"

FOOTNOTE:

[A] Reprinted, by permission, from "The Opposite House," published by T.

Woolmer, 2 Castle Street, E.C.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER II.

ITS RESULTS.

"WHERE'S mother, Mrs. Warren?" inquired a girl of about seven or eight years of age, with pallid face, and dress hanging in tatters about her bare feet, as she slowly dragged up the broken stairs to the one room where her father and mother, herself, and four younger children lived and slept.

"You needn't ask me, child. She's locked her door, and the little uns are inside; and here's the key. I 'spect she's off on a spree." The child took the key, and sighing heavily, proceeded on her way. Two of the children were screaming loudly, but ceased their cries as she entered the room, and began, one to crawl, and the other to toddle, towards the only being in their little world who never struck or kicked them, but tended them with the love and gentleness which, but for her, they would never have known.

"Mammie's left us all alone, Mattie; and Fan and baby has been crying all the morning, and Bob and me's been doing all we can, and they won't do nothing but scream," exclaimed the eldest of the four children in wearied tones.

"That's right, Melie; you're good children; but I've come home, and 'll look after the lot of you. What's for dinner? Did mammie say?"

"There's some crusts left up on the mantel," answered Melie.

"Bob, you just climb up and fetch 'em down, and I'll nurse the baby, and, Fan, you come right away and sit by me." Mattie picked up the dirty, tear-stained baby, and seated herself on the only chair in the room. She had been to school all the morning, and, while ostensibly puzzling her little brain with the mysteries of "the three R's," her heart had been full of fear for those little ones in the house. What if her mother should leave them with the door unlocked, and Fan and baby should find their way headlong down those dark, steep stairs? Or, suppose the window in their room should by any means become unfastened, and one of them should fall to the pavement beneath; for Mattie remembered that, only the week before, a drunken mother had let her baby drop from her arms out of the window at the top of the house into the court below, from whence it had been picked up a shapeless, bleeding ma.s.s. So she was greatly relieved that everything had gone well in her absence. As for Fan's and baby's crying, that was to be expected while she was away.

"I shan't go to school this afternoon; 'taint to be expected as I can, although teacher'll be just mad, being as it's near 'xamination time,"

declared Mattie.

"That's prime, Mattie! What'll we do? Not stay up here all the time?"

cried Bob.

"In course not. We'll have our dinner, and then we'll just get a breath of air in the park. It'll do baby good; won't it, darling?" said Mattie, stooping over her puny charge as fondly as if he were the bonniest baby in the land, instead of a feeble, wan-faced infant, upon whom, as indeed upon each of the group which surrounded him, there was stamped the unmistakable imprint of an inherited curse.

"I'm glad mammie's out, Mattie. I wish you was our mammie, and could take us clean away," said Bob, hanging about Mattie's chair.

"When I get bigger and can earn money, that's what I'm going to do, you know, Bob. Me, and Melie, and you'll just work and keep the children, and we won't have 'em knocked about, poor little mites, will we?"

"No, we won't, but I wish we was big enough now," sighed Bob, to whom the tempting prospect was sufficiently familiar and delightful to help him to bear bravely the privation of his daily lot.

"Well, we ain't, so it's no use wis.h.i.+ng we was," responded matter-of-fact Mattie; "but I'll tell you what I do wish, and that is as mammie and daddie'd just turn over a new leaf, and stop the drinking.

Then we'd never need to be talking of running away and leaving 'em; for I tell you, we'd all pretty soon know the difference."

"Tell us what a nice home we'd have afore long, and what jolly things we'd get to eat," said Bob.

"Don't you be so greedy, Bob. 'Tain't the want of good things to eat as troubles me so much. It's the rows, and the swearing, and the kicking, and beating, as takes the life out of one," and Mattie's face grew dark as she spoke.

"Mattie," asked Melie, as she munched away at her crust; "do all mammies get drunk like ourn?"

"They do about here, I b'lieve," answered Mattie, somewhat dubiously; "but lor, no, child, in course they don't. There's the lady in the shop where we buy our penn'orths of bread, as allers is as kind and pleasant spoken to her little uns as--as--"

A comparison was not speedily forthcoming, but Bob finished his sister's sentence by saying: "Like you are to all of us, Mattie."

"I'd hate to speak cross to bits of things like you," answered Mattie loftily, but with a little glow at her heart because of the spontaneous tribute to her sisterly care. "We'd better be off, I'm thinking," she said presently, and tying an old rag under the baby's chin by way of head-gear, she pa.s.sed her own battered straw hat to Melie, saying:

"You can wear it this afternoon; I'll be quite hot enough carrying baby, without putting anything on, I guess."

As for Bob and little Fan, the lack of outdoor apparel troubled them not at all; indeed, the trouble would have been if any such unusual and uncomfortable addition to their scanty wardrobe had been forthcoming.

Rejoicing in their liberty, and strong in the protection of the elder sister, they slowly threaded their way through crowded thoroughfares, until they came to the outskirts of the great manufacturing town, where the park of which Mattie had spoken was situated.

"That's right! we've got here at last! But you're real heavy, baby, I do declare," said Mattie, as she sank exhausted on the first seat with her burden; and although any one else would have considered that, judging from the said baby's appearance, such a statement was decidedly unfounded, Mattie being small for her own not very advanced age, might, for obvious reasons, have been excused for making the rash charge.