ON THE DOWN GRADE.
A short time after their marriage Richard inherited the business
and property of his father, whose health had been failing for
years, and who died quite unexpectedly. His mother never recovered
from the shock, but in a short time followed her loved husband to
the grave. So the son was left with a good business and ample
means, seeming to be on the road to opulence.
As the years rolled on business prospered, and the prattle of
children's voices gladdened their home. First a boy came, with the
fair hair and large dreamy eyes of the mother; then, two years
later, a girl with the dark eyes and the raven black hair of the
father, and their cup of bliss seemed full to overflowing.
Circumstances, however, had already occurred which caused Ruth
very much uneasiness of mind, and sometimes when a friend called
she had to absent herself for a short time until she had removed
the traces of her tears.
Richard had joined the "Liberal Club," and as he threw his whole
soul into anything which he deemed worthy of his attention, his
wife soon had grave fears that it absorbed too much of his time.
Hours which should have been devoted to business were spent in
discussing the political issues of the day, and she felt they
suffered serious loss, for there were left to his employees
important transactions which should have had his undivided
attention; and the course he had pursued had alienated some of his
best customers. The Liberal Club of which he was a member was
composed of the most ultra of the Radicals in that section of
country--in fact a great many of its members had been participants
in the Chartist agitation, and, a short time after Ashton joined,
they invited Henry Vincent, the celebrated agitator, to deliver an
address, he, while he remained in town, being the guest of Ashton.
This gave great offence to many of his best customers--not only to
those who were ultratories, but also to the whigs, and, as a
consequence, many of them left him and gave their patronage to
rival establishments.
This, however, was not the worst feature of the case; there was
another and a stronger motive power to accelerate his already
rapid descent. He, with many more of the prominent members of the
"Liberal Club," was also among those who are called liberals in
their religious views. This could not be tolerated for a moment by
those among his customers who were decided in their religious
convictions, for they were fully convinced that a person who held
such opinions was a dangerous man in any community. They therefore
withdrew their patronage, which completed the ruin of his formerly
prosperous business, for it did not afterwards pay running
expenses.
This state of things greatly alarmed Ruth, and was the source of
much sorrow. But there were greater sorrows to follow.
When we are struggling with difficulties and environed by
circumstances which have a tendency to make us miserable, we must
not imagine that we have sounded the deepest depths of the abyss
of woe, for if we do we may discover there are depths we have not
yet fathomed. This Ruth Ashton soon bitterly realized, for her
husband had of late frequently returned from the Club so much
under the influence of liquor as to be thick in his speech and
wild, extravagant and foolish in his actions, which caused her
many hours of unutterable anguish.
When he first began to drink she was not seriously alarmed, it
being the custom in England, at their convivial parties, to pledge
each other in wine; and since on such occasions it frequently
happened that they imbibed, enough, not only to make them a little
exuberant but also quite intoxicated, she thought she must not
expect her husband to be different from other men in this respect,
as it was at most only a venial offence. But now when his troubles
thickened, and his friends one after another left him, and he
began to drink more deeply to drown his cares and to stimulate him
to meet his difficulties, her partial anxiety deepened into agony,
strong and intense. She made loving remonstrance, appealing to him
if he loved wife and children to leave the "Club," and not destroy
his business and thus involve them all in ruin. Also, frequently,
when the children were fast asleep in their little cot, as she
looked with a mother's tenderness and pride upon them, thinking
what a picture of innocence and beauty they presented as their
heads nestled lovingly together on the pillow--the raven-black and
gold mingling in beautiful confusion--she would kneel beside them,
and as the deepest, holiest feelings of her heart were stirred,
she would pray that the one who was so dear to them all might be
redeemed from evil and become again a loving husband, a kind
father, and a child of God.
Richard at first received her gentle remonstrance with good-natured
banter, and generally turned it off with a playful witticism. He asked
her if she had not enough confidence in him to believe he was
sufficiently master of himself to take a glass with a friend without
degenerating into a sot, and he used very strong expletives when
speaking of those who were so weak as not to be able to take a glass
without making fools of themselves.
But he would not allow even Ruth to influence him in regard to his
political predilections, for, when she tried to persuade him to
take a more moderate course, he sternly replied he would not
desist from exercising what he believed to be his right, not even
for her, much as he loved her. He said it was his proud boast that
he was a Briton, and as such he would be free--free not only to
hold his opinions, but to act upon his convictions, and any man
who would withdraw his support from him because he would not be a
slave was a petty tyrant, and if such an one was not a Nero it was
because he lacked the power, not the spirit.
So matters went from bad to worse with Richard Ashton, not only in
regard to the moral, but, also, in the financial aspect of the
case. In fact he had soon to draw so largely on his banker that
the money his father had left him, outside of the business, began
to be seriously diminished. Josh Billings says, "When a man begins
to slide down hill he finds it greased for the occasion." And
certainly the case of Richard Ashton illustrated the truth of the
aphorism, for when he once began to go down hill his descent was
so rapid that he soon reached the bottom; and became bankrupt in
capital and character. He now began to talk of selling out and
going to America: "There," he said, with much emphasis, "I shall
be free."