From Wealth to Poverty Part 22

"Where am I, mother?" he enquired. "What is the matter? What is the doctor doing here?"

"Never mind now, Harry dear," she said; "you have been hurt, and if you are very quiet we will tell you after a while."

Having shut his eyes as if he were satisfied, or as if he were too weak to pursue the enquiry any further, the doctor felt his pulse again, and remarked: "He will be all right in a short time." He then gave them instructions as to how they should proceed in case of contingencies, and turning to Morris said: "I believe you have signed the pledge more than once, and a few moments ago you remarked you would never drink again. Did you mean it?"

"I did, and, G.o.d helping me, liquor shall never enter my lips again."

"Here is a pledge," and the doctor produced one. "Will you sign it? I always carry one with me to use on such occasions as this."

"I will, sir. And I am thankful to you for your interest in me.

Pray for me, that I may receive strength to keep it."

Morris signed the pledge with trembling hand, and no sooner had he done so than his wife, throwing her arms around his neck, kissed him. "Thank G.o.d," she said, and then, casting her eyes heavenward, she prayed: "O, my Father, aid him to keep his promise."

"You kept sober," said the doctor, "for several weeks after the Act came in force, and then you were, with several others, tempted to drink."

"Yes," said Morris, "I was coaxed to drink by the sheriff, though I was weak and foolish to listen to him."

"It was a vile conspiracy," continued the doctor, indignantly, "and I am certain that some of those in the county who are now infamously degrading the most important offices in the gift of the Crown are among the conspirators. I am personally acquainted with numbers who were seduced to their ruin by this devilish conspiracy, entailing an amount of misery that it is impossible to estimate."

Before the doctor had finished speaking, Jim, who had been sent to have a prescription filled out, came running in with a look of horror on his face. "They are looking for you, doctor," he said, "to go down to Flatt's. They say Tom has murdered his wife."

"Another victim," said the doctor sententiously, and then he hurried away.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

TOM FLATT'S HUT--A DESCRIPTION OF THE SCENE IN WHICH HE MURDERS HIS WIFE.

When Flatt arrived at the hovel where his wife and children burrowed (for they could scarcely be said to live) he found them in the most abject misery. But I will ask my reader to accompany me to it.

Imagine a log shanty, twelve by sixteen in dimensions, roofed by troughs, or what appeared to be halves of hollow logs. The back of the shanty on the outside was not originally more than six feet high; but as the logs which formed the sides, and ends had so rotted that by their own weight they had settled considerably, it was now much lower. The shanty contained two windows, which were ornamented by having two or three old hats used as subst.i.tutes for panes of gla.s.s, and the panes which were not broken were so cracked and splintered that they were in eminent peril of being blown out at every violent gust of wind.

But the exterior of the shanty, dilapidated-looking though it was, gave no conception of the squalor and wretchedness which its walls confined. I will introduce my readers to the inmates.

Mrs. Flatt was an undersized, dark-complexioned little woman, who at one time possessed considerable personal beauty; but she had been so worn by toil, hard usage, and insufficient food, that she now appeared little else than skin and bone; in fact, she as much resembled a mummy as a being through whose veins throbbed the blood of life.

In different att.i.tudes--on the clay floor, on the two miserable beds, and on the old broken chairs and benches of the hut--were distributed six children. They, if possible, were more squalid and wretched-looking than their mother; for though it was midwinter, not one of them was so fortunate as to possess a pair of shoes, but they had frequently to run out from the hut into the deep snow in their poor little bare feet, which were red, cracked, and bleeding from the cold. The miserable rags in which they were clothed did not serve to cover their nakedness; and their blue, pinched faces pathetically spoke of want and neglect.

The youngest of the number was a babe, some five or six months old; she was lying in a creaky old cradle, which squeaked when rocked as if uttering a discordant protest. She was a poor, pallid, little thing, that scarcely seemed to have strength to utter her low moan of pain, as she lay famishing for the nourishment which the now starved mother was unable to supply.

The next older was barely able to toddle round on the clay floor; and they ranged up from that until the eldest of the six was reached, who was a bare-footed, bare-legged girl of eight. She was, however, so dwarfed through rough usage, insufficient food, and exposure, as to be little larger than an ordinary child of six.

"Mamma! I want a piece. I'se so hungry!" cried the third child from the youngest--a little boy, about four years of age. "Oh, mamma! I do want a piece."

"And so do I, mother," cried the next, a little girl of five. "Oh!

why don't dad come with the bread?"

"Piece, mamma, piece!" whined out little Katie, the next to the youngest. "Piece, mamma, piece!" she cried out again piteously, as she toddled over to her mother, and, hanging on to the skirts of her dress, looked up with a famished longing that made the latter sob convulsively.

"Oh, children!" she said, "mother would give her darlings bread if she had any, but there is not a crumb in the house; no, dears, not one poor crumb, so I can't give my children any now; but I hope your father will come home and bring some bread with him; and if he does, then you shall all have some. Don't cry, now--you make mother feel so bad."

"Mamma," said Nannie, the eldest girl, "I wish father was dead."

"Hush, child," said the mother sharply; "you must not talk so."

But in the mother's reproof there was an utter want of the emotion of horror at the astounding and unnatural wish of the child. It seemed as if she was reproved for giving utterance to her thoughts--not for entertaining them. In fact, the mother had often in her heart entertained similar sentiments, and wished that her drunken, brutal husband were dead.

When they were first married, Flatt had treated his wife well for a time, and they lived as comfortably as people of their means and limited stock of intelligence generally do. But he began to indulge in drink, and from that period until after the Dunkin Act became law, he seemed to be predominated with the instincts of a brute. He worked but little at his trade, which was that of a brickmaker, and the small amount that was earned by him was mostly squandered in drink. Mrs. Flatt tried to keep her children from starving by taking in washing; and very frequently the brutal husband and father would return from his drunken orgies to eat the scanty meal she had toiled so hard, with weary body and reeling brain, to procure for her children. If, under such provocation, she ventured to protest, she would be answered by blows, and many a time she had been beaten black and blue by the brutal monster.

After the Act came in force he had remained sober for several weeks, and there was comparative cheerfulness and comfort in the hut where he resided; the children, during that brief period, had plenty to eat, and they did not dread his coming home for fear of a beating. But it was not long before he was brought again under the force of his old habits. He was, in fact, met by those who had been appointed to induce him to drink; and they were as successful in his case as they had been in the other instances which we have mentioned. From that period, the life of Mrs. Flatt and her children had been utterly wretched.

Is it strange she had lost all affection for the brutal ruffian who had the right, by law, to call her his wife? or that his neglect of both her, and their children, his kicks and blows, had driven out even the last vestige of respect, and that now detestation--yes, even intense hatred--had taken full possession of her soul? And once, or twice, as he lay in his drunken slumber, utterly in her power, the awful thought had possessed her that she could, in a few short minutes, revenge herself for all his abuse by taking the life which had so utterly cursed and blighted her own. And then, when, coming to her better self, she meditated upon the sin of harboring such thoughts, a feeling of horror crept over her and chilled, her blood; when, throwing herself impulsively on her knees, the cry had gone up from her heart:

"Oh, my Father! save me from temptation."

The reader, after this explanation, can easily understand how it was she rebuked her child for giving expression to her thoughts rather than for entertaining them.

"But, mother, I do often wish dad was dead, and I might as well say it as think it," said Nancy.

"And so do I," boldly chimed in little Jack, a precocious and manly little fellow of seven, who very much resembled his mother; "for if he was dead he could not beat you and thump us until we were black and blue, mother. And he would not eat up everything from us, and drive us all out into the snow."

The mother sternly rebuked the children for talking in that manner. "No matter how bad he is," she said, "he is your dad, and it is very sinful to be talking after that style.

"Hush, children!" she whispered; "I guess here he comes!"

In a moment the only noise which could be heard in the shanty was the low moan of the baby, as it lay in the cradle, while from the outside could be heard the heavy, uneven thud of advancing footsteps.

"Drunk as usual!" whispered little Jack; "now look out for thumps and bruises. Oh!" he whispered through his clenched teeth, "I wish I were a man, then he wouldn't beat us like he does now, for I wouldn't let 'un do it."

"Take the baby, mother, and run over to Tremaine's," said Nannie; "I'm afraid he'll kill you."

"No, Nannie, I'll not run; if he kills me I can't help it; I'll not run away any more. I'm afraid it will come to that some day, but I will stay and take care of you all, no matter what happens."

The children had just managed to crawl under the two dilapidated beds when their father lifted the latch and stumbled into the room.

"Oh! what's the matter, Tom?" said his wife, as at a glance she took in his disfigured face.

"What's that to you?" he replied with an oath. "If you'd get me something to eat, it 'ud show more sense than asking what's none of your business."

"There is not a bit in the house," she replied, and then, stung into reckless madness by his asking for food when he had spent for whiskey the money with which he had promised to procure it, she continued bitterly: "The children have been crying for something to eat for the last two hours, in tones that would melt the heart of a stone, and I hadn't a crumb to give 'um, and you, who have been spending on drink what should have bought it for them, have the brazen impudence to come home drunk, demanding food. Go to the cupboard and get you some, if you think there is any there."

"Now, Nance, I don't want any of your chin music, but I wants you to get me suthin' to eat. You can't fool me; I knows you has got it in the house."

"G.o.d knows, Tom, there isn't a bit. Do you suppose if there was any I would let the children be crying for it and not give it to them? If you think so, you don't know me yet; for I can tell you it would have been given to them two hours ago, and not saved for one who allows his own flesh and blood to starve, while he spends that which would furnish them with bread for rum in a rum-shop."

The reader might be ready to a.s.sert, after reading this connubial wrangle, that the fault was not all on one side, but that Nancy's sharp tongue was in some measure responsible for Tom's drinking; that, in fact, if she had not been such a termagant he might, at least, have been an average husband. But if you have so concluded, I will endeavour to disabuse your mind; for Nancy, before she married Tom Flatt, was a smart, good-tempered la.s.s, but his continued neglect and abuse had vinegared all her sweetness, and she was not of that temperament which could bear ill-treatment without giving expression to her feelings. If, in her youth, she had been surrounded by different a.s.sociations, and then married to a man who could have appreciated her, she might have developed into an intelligent, loving woman; but the terrible wretchedness of her life, brought about by the faults of her husband, had turned all her nature into bitterness.