The Catholic World Volume Iii Part 12

"I might. But I haven't time to attend to him, Margaret. Business is business, and cannot be interrupted."

Mrs. Green sighed, and then remarked:

"I wish you would call on Mr. Elden and have a talk with him about John."

"I will, if you think it best."

"Do so, by all means. And beside, I would give more time to John in the evenings. If, for instance, you devoted an evening to him once a week, it would enable you to understand how he is progressing, and give you a control over him not now possessed."

"You are right in this, no doubt, Margaret."

But reform went not beyond this acknowledgment. Mr. Green could never find time to see John's teacher, nor feel himself sufficiently at leisure, or in the right mood of mind, to devote to the boy even a single evening.

And thus it went on from day to day, from month to month, and from year to year, until, finally, John was sent home from school by Mr.

Elden with a note to his father, in which idleness, disorderly conduct, and vicious habits were charged upon him in the broadest terms.

The unhappy Mr. Green called immediately upon the teacher, who gave him a more particular account of his son's bad conduct, and concluded by saying that he was unwilling to receive him back into his school.

Strange as it may seem, it was four months before Mr. Green "found time" to see about another school, and to get John entered therein; during which long period the boy had full liberty to go pretty much where he pleased, and to a.s.sociate with whom he liked. It is hardly to be supposed that he grew any better for this.

By the time John was seventeen years of age, Mr. Green's business had become greatly enlarged, and his mind more absorbed therein. With him gain was the primary thing; and, as a consequence, his family held a secondary place in his thoughts. If money were needed, he was ever ready to supply the demand; that done, he felt that his duty to them was, mainly, discharged. To the mother of his children he left the work of their wise direction in the paths of life--their government and education; but she was inadequate to the task imposed.

From the second school at which John was entered he was dismissed within three months, for bad conduct. He was then sent to school in a distant city, where, removed from all parental restraint and admonition, he made viler a.s.sociates than any he had hitherto known, and took thus a lower step in vice. He was just seventeen, when a letter from the princ.i.p.al of this school conveyed to Mr. Green such unhappy intelligence of his son that he immediately resolved, as a last resort, to send him to sea, before the mast--and this was done, spite of all the mother's tearful remonstrances, and the boy's threats that he would {95} escape from the vessel on the very first opportunity.

And yet, for all this sad result of parental neglect, Mr. Green devoted no more time nor care to his children. Business absorbed the whole man. He was a merchant, both body and soul. His responsibilities were not felt as extending beyond his counting-house, further than to provide for the worldly well-being of his family. Is it any cause of wonder that, with his views and practice, it should not turn out well with his children; or, at least, with some of them?

At the end of a year John came home from sea, a rough, cigar-smoking, dram-drinking, overgrown boy of eighteen, with all his sensual desires and animal pa.s.sions more active than when he went away, while his intellectual faculties and moral feelings were in a worse condition than at his separation from home. Grief at the change oppressed the hearts of his parents; but their grief was unavailing. Various efforts were made to get him into some business, but he remained only a short time in any of the places where his father had him introduced.

Finally, he was sent to sea again. But he never returned to his friends. In a drunken street-brawl, that occurred while on sh.o.r.e at Valparaiso, he was stabbed by a Spaniard, and died shortly afterward.

On the very day this tragic event took place, Mr. Green was rejoicing over a successful speculation, from which he had come out the gainer by two thousand pounds. In the pleasure this circ.u.mstance occasioned, all thoughts of the absent one, ruined by his neglect, were swallowed up.

Several months elapsed. Mr. Green had returned home, well satisfied with his day's business. In his pocket was the afternoon paper, which, after the younger children were in bed, and the older ones out of his way, he sat down to read. His eyes turned to the foreign intelligence, and almost the first sentence he read was the intelligence of his son's death. The paper dropped from his hands, while he uttered an expression of surprise and grief that caused the cheeks of his wife, who was in the room, to turn deadly pale. She had not power to ask the cause of her husband's sudden exclamation; but her heart, that ever yearned toward her absent boy, instinctively divined the truth.

"John is dead!" said Mr. Green, at length, speaking in a tremulous tone of voice.

There was from the mother no wild burst of anguish. The boy had been dying to her daily for years, and she had suffered for him worse than the pangs of death. Burying her face in her hands, she wept silently, yet hopelessly.

"If we were only blameless of the poor child's death!" said Mrs.

Green, lifting her tearful eyes, after the lapse of nearly ten minutes, and speaking in a sad, self-rebuking tone of voice.

When those with whom we are in close relationship die, how quickly is that page in memory's book turned on which lies the record of unkindness or neglect! Already had this page been turned for Mr.

Green, and conscience was sweeping therefrom the dust that well-nigh obscured the handwriting. He inwardly trembled as he read the condemning sentences that charged him with his son's ruin.

"If we were only blameless of the poor child's death!"

How these words of the grieving mother smote upon his heart. He did not respond to them. How could he do so at that moment?

"Where is Edward?" he inquired, at length.

"I don't know," sobbed the mother. "He is out somewhere almost every evening. Oh! I wish you would look to him a little more closely. He is past my control."

"I must do so," returned Mr. Green, speaking from a strong conviction of the necessity of doing as his wife suggested; "if I only had a little more time----"

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He checked himself. It was the old excuse--the rock upon which all his best hopes for his first-born had been fearfully wrecked. His lips closed, his head was bowed, and, in the bitterness of unavailing sorrow, he mused on the past, while every moment the conviction of wrong toward his child, now irreparable, grew stronger and stronger.

After that, Mr. Green made an effort to exercise more control over his children; but he had left the reins loose so long that his tighter grasp produced restiveness and rebellion. He persevered, however; and, though Edward followed too closely the footsteps of John, yet the younger children were brought under salutary restraints. The old excuse--want of time--was frequently used by Mr. Green to justify neglect of parental duties; but a recurrence of his thoughts to the sad ruin of his eldest boy had, in most cases, the right effect; and in the end he ceased to give utterance to the words--"I haven't time."

However, frequently he fell into neglect, from believing that business demanded his undivided attention.

------ [ORIGINAL.]

THE SONG OF THE Sh.e.l.l.

WRITTEN ON THE FIELD OF BATTLE.

There's a music aloft in the air As if devils were singing a song; There's a shriek like the shriek of despair.

And a crash which the echoes prolong.

There's a voice like the voice of the gale, When it strikes a tall ship on the sea; There's a rift like the rent of her sail.

As she helplessly drifts to the lee.

There's a rush like the rushing of fiends.

Compelled by an horrible spell; There's a flame like the flaming of brands, s.n.a.t.c.hed in rage from the furnace of h.e.l.l.

There's a wreath like the foam on the wave, There's a silence unbroke by a breath; There's a thud like the clod in a grave, There are writhings, and moanings, and death!

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From The Lamp.

ALL-HALLOW EVE; OR, THE TEST OF FUTURITY.

BY ROBERT CURTIS.

CHAPTER XXVI.

The chief was well aware of the reputation which the priest had obtained through the parish for medical skill, and was himself convinced of how well he deserved it. Indeed, had the alternative rested in any case between Father Farrell and the dispensary doctor, there was not a parishioner who would not have preferred his pastor's medical as well as spiritual aid.

The chief, instead of ordering off the dispensary doctor to see young Lennon upon a rumor that he was worse, went quietly to Father Farrell, who must know the truth, and be able to give good advice as to what steps, if any, were necessary to adopt.

The matter turned out to be another black-crow story. Father Farrell had also heard it in its exaggerated form, and had not lost a moment in proceeding to the spot. Young Lennon had gone out to a.s.sist his father in planting some potatoes--so far the rumor was correct. But he had been premature in his own opinion of his convalescence. The very first stoop he made he felt quite giddy; and although he did not fall forward on his face, he was obliged to lean upon his father for support for a few moments. This little experiment served to keep him quiet for a while longer; but Father Farrell a.s.sured the chief that matters were no worse than they had been--he might make his mind easy; there was no injury beyond the flesh, which, of course, had become much sorer, and must do so for a few days still.