"Lift up!" was ejaculated as a signal! and click! went the glasses in
the hands of a party of tipsy men, drinking one night at the bar of one
of the middling order of taverns. And many a wild gibe was utter'd, and
many a terrible blasphemy, and many an impure phrase sounded out the
pollution of the hearts of these half-crazed creatures, as they toss'd
down their liquor, and made the walls echo with their uproar. The first
and foremost in recklessness was a girlish-faced, fair-hair'd fellow of
twenty-two or three years. They called him Mike. He seem'd to be look'd
upon by the others as a sort of prompter, from whom they were to take
cue. And if the brazen wickedness evinced by him in a hundred freaks
and remarks to his companions, during their stay in that place, were any
test of his capacity--there might hardly be one more fit to go forward
as a guide on the road of destruction. From the conversation of the
party, it appear'd that they had been spending the early part of the
evening in a gambling house.
A second, third and fourth time were the glasses fill'd; and the effect
thereof began to be perceiv'd in a still higher degree of noise and
loquacity among the revellers. One of the serving-men came in at this
moment, and whisper'd the barkeeper, who went out, and in a moment
return'd again. "A person," he said, "wish'd to speak with Mr. Michael.
He waited on the walk in front."
The individual whose name was mention'd, made his excuses to the others,
telling them he would be back in a moment, and left the room. As he shut
the door behind him, and stepp'd into the open air, he saw one of his
brothers--his elder by eight or ten years--pacing to and fro with rapid
and uneven steps. As the man turn'd in his walk, and the glare of the
street lamp fell upon his face, the youth, half-benumb'd as his senses
were, was somewhat startled at its paleness and evident perturbation.
"Come with me!" said the elder brother, hurriedly, "the illness of our
little Jane is worse, and I have been sent for you."
"Poh!" answered the young drunkard, very composedly, "is that all? I
shall be home by-and-by," and he turn'd back again.
"But, brother, she is worse than ever before. Perhaps when you arrive
she may be dead."
The tipsy one paus'd in his retreat, perhaps alarm'd at the utterance
of that dread word, which seldom fails to shoot a chill to the hearts of
mortals. But he soon calm'd himself, and waving his hand to the other:
"Why, see," said he, "a score of times at least, have I been call'd away
to the last sickness of our good little sister; and each time it proves
to be nothing worse than some whim of the nurse or physician. Three
years has the girl been able to live very heartily under her disease;
and I'll be bound she'll stay on earth three years longer."
And as he concluded this wicked and most brutal reply, the speaker
open'd the door and went into the bar-room. But in his intoxication,
during the hour that follow'd, Mike was far from being at ease. At
the end of that hour, the words, "perhaps when you arrive she may be
_dead_?" were not effaced from his hearing yet, and he started for home.
The elder brother had wended his way back in sorrow.
Let me go before the younger one, awhile, to a room in that home. A
little girl lay there dying. She had been ill a long time; so it was no
sudden thing for her parents, and her brethren and sisters, to be called
for the witness of the death agony. The girl was not what might be
called beautiful. And yet, there is a solemn kind of loveliness that
always surrounds a sick child. The sympathy for the weak and helpless
sufferer, perhaps, increases it in our own ideas. The ashiness and the
moisture on the brow, and the film over the eyeballs--what man can look
upon the sight, and not feel his heart awed within him? Children, I have
sometimes fancied too, increase in beauty as their illness deepens.
Besides the nearest relatives of little Jane, standing round her
bedside, was the family doctor. He had just laid her wrist down upon the
coverlet, and the look he gave the mother, was a look in which there was
no hope. "My child!" she cried, in uncontrollable agony, "O! my child!"
And the father, and the sons and daughters, were bowed down in grief,
and thick tears rippled between the fingers held before their eyes.
Then there was silence awhile. During the hour just by-gone, Jane had,
in her childish way, bestow'd a little gift upon each of her kindred,
as a remembrancer when she should be dead and buried in the grave.
And there was one of these simple tokens which had not reach'd
its destination. She held it in her hand now. It was a very small
much-thumbed book--a religious story for infants, given her by her
mother when she had first learn'd to read.
While they were all keeping this solemn stillness-broken only by the
suppress'd sobs of those who stood and watch'd for the passing away of
the girl's soul--a confusion of some one entering rudely, and speaking
in a turbulent voice, was heard in an adjoining apartment. Again the
voice roughly sounded out; it was the voice of the drunkard Mike, and
the father bade one of his sons go and quiet the intruder "If nought
else will do," said he sternly, "put him forth by strength. We want no
tipsy brawlers here, to disturb such a scene as this." For what moved
the sick girl uneasily on her pillow, and raised her neck, and motion'd
to her mother? She would that Mike should be brought to her side. And
it was enjoin'd on him whom the father had bade to eject the noisy one,
that he should tell Mike his sister's request, and beg him to come to
her.
He came. The inebriate--his mind sober'd by the deep solemnity of the
scene--stood there, and leaned over to catch the last accounts of one
who soon was to be with the spirits of heaven. All was the silence of
the deepest night. The dying child held the young man's hand in one of
hers; with the other she slowly lifted the trifling memorial she had
assigned especially for him, aloft in the air. Her arm shook--her eyes,
now becoming glassy with the death-damps, were cast toward her brother's
face. She smiled pleasantly, and as an indistinct gurgle came from
her throat, the uplifted hand fell suddenly into the open palm of her
brother's, depositing the tiny volume there. Little Jane was dead.
From that night, the young man stepped no more in his wild courses, but
was reform'd.