From Wealth to Poverty Part 23

And let me ask any of my gentle readers if, under similar circ.u.mstances, honeyed words would have been uttered by you? If you had suffered such treatment, and not only you but your children, who were bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh, do you not think you would protest? If you were being dragged down into the slough of poverty, disgrace, and wretchedness, and you knew that he who was thus dragging you down could, if he were a true husband and father, place you in a position of comfort and respectability, but who was devouring from you and your children food that you had earned by the most menial drudgery--by the sweat of body and brain--and leaving you all to nearly famish for bread, would you not remonstrate? Nay, would not feelings of outraged confidence, of soul-anguish, sorrow, and shame coin themselves into bitter chiding words which you would be powerless to repress?

How many thousands of sweet, pure souls, who, in their innocent maiden days, were the embodiment of gentleness and affection, have, after marriage to some brute in human shape, been brought, by years of neglect and abuse, to become that which is among the most maligned and despised of all creatures--a scolding wife.

We must, in all fairness, admit that such Nancy Flatt had become.

Her nature, as we have said, was intense, and she had endured a great deal in her early married life. At first she would gently remonstrate, but as years rolled on and she had not only to suffer neglect and abuse herself, but her helpless little ones also, her remonstrances became tinged with the acidity of her soured nature; and finally as toil, neglect, and hunger reduced her to the haggard, dejected creature we have presented to the reader, she would meet Tom's oaths and blows with her only weapon of defence, and pour out sharp, rasping words from her woman's tongue.

"I tell you what it is, Nance," said Tom, in answer to her chiding; "I want you to shut that jaw of thine and get me some grub, or I'll make you wish you had never been born."

"You have made me wish that a thousand times, Tom," she answered with pa.s.sionate bitterness. "See that wasted arm," and suiting the action to her words she stripped up her sleeve; "look at my fleshless face--what has brought me to this but starvation and drudgery? Hear the moaning of that helpless babe in the cradle, crying for nurse that starvation has dried up. Oh, Tom! how can you spend your money in whiskey when you know we are starving at home? You knew when you left this morning there was not a morsel of food in the house, nor money to buy it, for you have not brought in a cent for weeks, and you promised when you left to come right back with bread, but instead of that you have spent the day in drinking whiskey and fighting with great hulking loafers like yourself, and now you come home to abuse your wife and children. You are worse than a brute; for brutes do provide for their own flesh and blood, while you have nothing better than oaths and blows for yours."

With fearful oaths Flatt sprang forward to answer his wife's pa.s.sionate arraignment of his conduct by the method he usually adopted on such occasions--that was, by the irresistible logic of his ponderous fist. As she saw he was about to make the rush, her first impulse was to open the door and run for safety, for well she knew, from a terrible experience, that when he was aroused he had the ferocity of a brute with the temper of a demon. But as she was about to do so she saw he did not heed the cradle which lay in his way. The danger of her child caused the mother to be heedless of her own, and, with the wild cry, "Look out for the babe, Tom!"

she sprang forward and s.n.a.t.c.hed it from the cradle, thus bringing herself into the power of the furious brute. In his mad rage he picked up a trowel which, unfortunately, lay near him, and, as his wife was rising with her babe, he struck her with terrific force upon the head, the sharp corner of the instrument cutting through the flesh and imbedding itself deep into the skull, carrying the hair with it.

"Oh, Tom! you have killed me!" she groaned, as she fell forward on her face, covering her babe as she fell. But even in that terrible moment she must have had some thought of it, for she managed to s.h.i.+ft over on her side, clasping it to her breast as she did so.

All the ferocity in Tom's brutal nature seemed to be aroused, and the sight of his wife's blood running down over her forehead and dyeing with red the pallid face of his child, which one would think might have moved even a demon to pity, only seemed to arouse the latent tiger within him, for he struck the prostrate woman again and again, until she settled heavily on to the floor and was limp and still. This act in the tragedy was complete, for Nancy Flatt was dead, and her infant lay clasped in her arms bespattered with the life-blood of its dead mother.

The children, who had been cowering under the beds, witnessed the terrible scene, and though they were frightened at their father's and mother's jangling, as they thought it would result in the latter being beaten--which was usually the case--at first they kept perfectly still, for fear of what the result might be to themselves if they drew their father's attention. But when he struck their mother with the trowel and she fell forward with her face bathed in blood, they gave vent to their terror in wild and frantic screams.

"Oh, dad!" cried little Jack, almost fiercely, "you've killed our mamma." And as he thus spoke he stepped boldly out and faced his father, seeming to have lost all fear in the presence of the calamity that had befallen them; and then he and Nanny escaped from the house and ran over to Tremaine's. When they reached there Nannie, who had outrun her brother, burst into the door and said in a ghastly whisper, which appeared all the more horrible because of her pallid face, over which her hair was streaming in tangled ma.s.ses, giving her a ghost-like appearance:

"Oh, Mr. Tremaine, dad has murdered mother! Run quick, sir, and see!"

Just then little Jack came up with face as pallid as Nannie's, and though panting for want of breath managed to say:

"Dad struck mother with the trowel!--and cut an awful gash in her head!--and her face is all covered with blood--and I think she is dead."

Tremaine, who was really a n.o.ble fellow, though he unfortunately did indulge in strong drink, immediately ran over to the shanty, and when he arrived there he found the children's fears were well founded, for a spectacle so ghastley in its details met his view that, strong man as he was, he stood for a moment as if bereft of motion, and even thought.

Nancy Flatt was lying stark dead on the floor, and her babe, which was yet muttering its low moan of hunger, was clasped close in the arms of its dead mother, and was dabbling in the blood which had flowed from the wounds in her head and face.

Tom was not to be found. He had evidently realized, when it was too late, what would be the consequence of his terrible crime, and had fled to escape the Nemesis, in the form of avenging justice, which he knew would soon be on his track.

I will not, however, enter into the details of his capture, imprisonment, trial and execution; for Tom Flatt was executed for the murder of Nancy, his wife; and on the scaffold he, as thousands of others in similar circ.u.mstances have done, blamed his wife's murder, his own sad fate, and his children's orphanage, to love for strong drink.

Reader, was Tom Flatt alone responsible for the murder of his wife, or were there not others who, at least to some extent, shared with him that responsibility? Could the man who sold him the liquor, or he who manufactured it, or the Government who drew revenue--which to all intents and purposes was blood money--from its sale, or the intelligent electors who, in the exercise of their franchise and by their sympathy, endorsed that legislation, escape all responsibility? My dear reader, ponder this question, for great issues are involved in your conclusion.

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

JOHN, JUN.'S WEDDING--BARTON'S MURDER--LUELLA SEALY'S SUICIDE-- GINSLING'S TRAGICAL DEATH.

The truth of the aphorism of Solomon--"Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein"--is verified by multiplied examples the wide world over every day of the year, and it received a very striking verification in the events which we shall chronicle in this chapter.

The reader will recollect that the leading mind among the conspirators was John Sealy, Esq. He was the one who suggested the infamous scheme, which was afterwards adopted, of leading as many poor unfortunates as possible to drink. He did not calculate that into the pit which was thus dug for others he himself, or some member of his family, might possibly fall. But we antic.i.p.ate.

His only son, John, jun., had been a.s.sociating with low companions and conducting himself in a manner that was not at all satisfactory to him, John, sen., or to Mrs. and Miss Sealy; and, to crown all, they had every reason to believe he was actually paying his address to Miss Angelina Porter, a daughter of Old Joe Porter, who kept the groggery. This, of course, was very distasteful even to Mr.

and Miss Sealy; but language would fail us in any attempt we might make to delineate the utter consternation of the high-toned Mrs. Sealy when she became satisfied that the rumor was founded on fact.

She had again and again remonstrated with him, but without effect, as he had treated her remonstrances with good-natured contempt; and when she resorted to harsher means and applied contumelious epithets to his intended, he returned a Roland for her Oliver, so that she, finding it was useless to try to influence him, sulkily retired from the encounter.

But though baffled in that direction she was determined not to give up; for she thought if she could not accomplish her object by one method she would resort to another, and thus she might possibly succeed. She, in fact, determined to address a letter to Miss Porter, to see if she could not influence her. Acting upon this impulse, the vain and foolish woman sent her a very insulting epistle, such a one in fact as could only emanate from a coa.r.s.e and vulgar mind.

Miss Porter treated it with the contempt it merited, and did not even mention to John, jun., that she had received it; and he might have remained in blissful ignorance of his mother's folly had she not in her insane fury spitefully said to him: "I have sent the low, designing thing a letter, giving her to understand what we think of her, and what she may expect if her schemes are successful and she entraps you into marrying her."

That information drew the retort from the dutiful and affectionate son that Angelina Porter was his mother's equal in every respect, and that she need not "take on such airs" and make such a fuss, because the former's father kept "a low groggery," as she termed it, when she knew that her own father (that was his own maternal grandfather) made all his money at the same business; "and you know, mother," he added, "grandfather was not a bit superior in any respect to Joe Porter, though you so affect to despise the latter."

"You know you are saying what is not only false, but also insulting to your own mother," she answered; and now she was weeping bitterly. "I knew you had become low in your aims since you had a.s.sociated with the set you now think so much of, but I did not think you had become so abandoned as to scandalize your own dead grandfather."

"But, mother, you forget you are scandalizing one who is nearer to me than grandfather was to you, and that you sent her a low, scurrilous letter, full of bitter taunts and insults, which you intended should annoy her."

"If she gets you," his mother answered, with a sneer, "I guess she'll forget it. I want to inform you," she added, and she had reserved this broadside for her final effort, "if you marry that low creature I'll disown you, and I know your father will cut you off with a s.h.i.+lling, and let you go to her and her low, drunken sot of a father to find a living."

"You and father can do as you please and so shall I," he almost savagely retorted; "but dad had better sweep his own doorstep before he complains about his neighbor's being dirty, for he is not very select in his own company; and if he does not keep a groggery, those which are kept in this town have few more attentive customers. I only know of one who can claim to excel him in this respect, and that is he whom you have, by your schemes, almost compelled poor Lou to accept as her affianced husband. I mean that distinguished member of the bloatocracy, Stanley Ginsling. Consistency is a jewel, mother, you know and if you are consistent, you will not come down on me for marrying one whose father you term 'a sot,' and at the same time scheme to ally your daughter to one who is a perambulating whiskey barrel."

Mrs. Sealy did not try to answer her son; she felt, in fact, if she were to attempt it, she could not possibly do justice to the subject; so she gave him what she intended for a withering look, gathered up the skirts of her dress, and swept majestically from the room.

That evening she had a long consultation with her husband in regard to the matter, the result of which was a very stormy interview between the father and son, when the latter, having been threatened with disinheritance if he did not break off from all a.s.sociation with the Porter family, gave the father to understand as it was a matter that more especially concerned himself, he should observe his own mind in regard to it, and his father might dispose of his property as it pleased him.

The climax was reached when the residents of Bay View--for that was the name of their villa--heard that John, jun., and Angelina Porter were married. He had, in fact, the license in his pocket at the time he held his interview with his father, and had gone directly after to the groggery of his intended father-in-law, and having secured the services of the Rev. John Turnwell, the ceremony was privately performed.

Porter and his son-in-law celebrated the wedding by getting gloriously drunk. This caused the young bride intense pain; for though she had been long accustomed to such scenes, it came closer to her when her own husband was involved.

John, jun., did not go near his father's residence, nor indeed take any steps towards reconciliation, for, he said, "the old man will come around all right after awhile." He, for the time being, kept bar for Joe Porter, and was one of his most bibulous, though not one of his most profitable, customers. In fact, he was generally intoxicated each day by noon, and before night was stupidly drunk.

His father, who really thought as much of his boy as it was possible for a man with such a nature as his to think of any one, heard he was going rapidly to destruction, and felt some effort must be made to save him. He had a conversation with his wife in regard to the matter, and though she declared she would never forgive her son for marrying into such a low family, as she knew it would subject her to the cynical and sneering remarks of some of the set with whom she a.s.sociated, yet she concluded it was better to make the best of the matter, and not, by a course of coldness, drive him utterly to destruction; so she agreed with her husband when he said he thought he had better go and see him, and, if possible, wean him from his present debauch.

Mr. Sealy owned a farm of two hundred acres, which was situated on the sh.o.r.es of the bay, about two miles east of Bayton. It had been the old homestead, and he had always intended to will it to his son; but since the memorable interview, when the latter had spoken so defiantly, and then followed up his words by forming the alliance against which his father had warned him, Mr. Sealy, in his anger, determined to carry out his threat, and cut his son off without a cent. But when he found he was likely, if left much longer with his present surroundings, to degenerate into a dissipated loafer, he relented, and now determined to offer it to him if he would settle there immediately.

The fact was, that now the evil effects of drink was brought home to him, and his only son was one of its victims, he suffered very keenly indeed, and was willing to humiliate himself and make considerable sacrifice to save him.

With this end in view, he went to Porter's quite early one morning, for he was almost certain he would have to be there before his son had an opportunity to indulge to any extent, if he expected to find him sober.

When he arrived at the groggery Old Joe had just opened up, and was taking his morning drink, which his trembling hand indicated he sadly needed.

"Good morning, Joe," he said.

"Morning," replied Joe, gruffly, in answer to the salutation.

"Where is John, Mr. Porter?" This question was asked in Mr.

Sealy's blandest tones, for he was sufficiently acquainted with human nature to perceive nothing would be gained by being cross.

"He hasn't come down yet."

"Will you kindly tell him I would like to see him?"