“Yes, darlin', I--I will--I will for you, Atty.”
The child said no more, neither did his father, and when the sorrowing
wife, struck by the stillness which for a minute or two succeeded the
words, went to remove the boy, she found that his father's spirit had
gone to that world where, we firmly trust, his errors, and follies, and
sins have been forgiven. While taking the boy away, she looked upon
her husband's face, and there still lay the large tear of love and
repentance--she stooped down--she kissed it--and it was no longer there.
There is now little to be added, unless to inform those who may take
an interest in the fate of his wife and children, that his son soon
afterwards was perfectly restored to the use of his reason, and that in
the month of last September he was apprenticed in the city of Dublin to
a respectable trade, where he is conducting himself with steadiness and
propriety; and we trust, that, should he ever read this truthful account
of his unhappy father, he will imitate his virtues, and learn to
avoid the vanities and weaknesses by which he brought his family to
destitution and misery, and himself to a premature grave. With respect
to his brother Frank, whom his irreclaimable dissipation drove out of
the country, we are able to gratify our readers by saying that he got
happily married in America, where he is now a wealthy man, in prosperous
business and very highly respected.
Margaret, in consequence of her admirable character, was appointed to
the situation of head nurse in the Ballykeerin Hospital, and it will not
surprise our readers to hear that she gains and retains the respect and
good-will of all who know her, and that the emoluments of her situation
are sufficient, through her prudence and economy, to keep her children
comfortable and happy.
Kind reader, is it necessary that we should recapitulate the moral we
proposed to show' in this true but melancholy narrative? We trust not.
If it be not sufficiently obvious, we can only say it was our earnest
intention that it should be so. At all events, whether you be
a Teetotaller, or a man carried away by the pernicious love of
intoxicating liquors, think upon the fate of Art Maguire, and do not
imitate the errors of his life, as you find them laid before you in this
simple narrative of “The Broken Pledge.”