“Why, Ellen, wife, it’s Pete,--Mr. Tinder! Why, man, where did you come
from? What has happened?”
“Ah, it’s many a year since anyone has called me _Mr._ Tinder--‘Old
Pete’--that’s the name I answer to _now-a-days_. I don’t live
anywhere,--I just wander till I find someone that’ll take me in for the
night.”
While Ellen Darcy prepared a cup of hot milk and a large sandwich, “Old
Pete” continued:--
“I heard you lived here, and that you were a Christian, Tom, and
I reckoned you’d not turn me out to-night, though I never did you
anything but evil,--I took the ‘kernel’ and you kept the ‘husk’ a long
time, but things have turned about now. My wife died directly after we
had left the old place, and then people began to say that “Old Pete”
was his own best customer.
“I drank and drank until everything was gone. I often thought about the
‘husk’ and the ‘kernel,’ but I _must have the drink, Tom_, as long as I
live, and that won’t be long, please God.”
Tom Darcy and his good wife made the poor wretch as comfortable as
possible for the night, and entreated him to reform. But it was too
late. “Old Pete” had fed upon “husks” too long. Like the prisoner of
Chillon he had learned to love the very chains which bound him.
As the wretched man started off toward the nearest saloon in the
village, Tom Darcy watched him with a strange fascination until the
fluttering rags had passed around the corner.
“But for the grace of God, Ellen,” he said, humbly, “I would be in his
condition to-day, while you and the children--”