"Yes, indeed, I owe you, my dear sir, a debt of gratitude I can never
repay. You say the truth--I _have_ seen better days. I was sought
after in good society once, little as you might think it."
"I can believe it," said the rector, quietly. "But do not distress
yourself by referring to the past, if it gives you pain."
"As to that," replied the other, "it matters to me little now what I
once was; but it may interest you to know, and may serve as a warning.
I was a popular preacher once. I was an ordained minister of the Church
of England. Crowds flocked to my church. I threw all my energies into
my preaching. I was a free man then; at least I believed myself so.
While I proclaimed the love of God to sinners, I also preached
vehemently against sin. I never felt myself more at home than when I
was painting the miserable bondage of those whom Satan held in his
chains. I could speak with withering scorn of such as made a profession
while they were living in any known wickedness. I was specially severe
upon the drunkard's sin. But preaching such as mine, and in a large
church, was very exhausting. I found that I wanted support; so I began
with an egg beaten up with brandy, and took it just before going into
the pulpit. This made me doubly fervent; some of my hearers thought me
almost inspired. But the exhaustion was terrible at the end; so I added
another glass of egg and spirits after the sermon. Then I found that,
somehow or other, I could not preach in the evening after taking much
solid food; so I substituted liquids for solids, and lived on Sundays
almost entirely on malt liquors and spirits. When these failed to keep
me up to the mark, I had to increase the quantity. At last I saw that
my churchwarden began to look a little strangely and suspiciously at me;
ugly sayings reached my ears; the congregation began to thin. At last I
received a letter from a Christian man of my flock, telling me that
himself and many others were pained with the fear that I was beginning
to exceed the bounds of strict temperance: he urged total abstinence at
once; he was a total abstainer himself. I was startled--prostrated--
humbled to the very dust. I reflected on the quantity of intoxicants I
was now taking _daily_, and I shuddered. I thanked my friendly adviser
with tears, and promised to return to strict moderation. Total
abstinence I would not hear of; it was quite out of the question. I
could no more do without alcoholic stimulants then than I can do now."
He paused, and fixed a peculiar look on Mr Oliphant; who, however, did
not, or would not, understand it. So he went on:--
"I tried moderation; but it would not do. I prayed for strength to be
moderate; but I know _now_ that I never really desired what I prayed
for. It was too late to be moderate; my lust had got the bit between
its teeth, and I might as well have pulled at the wind. I went from bad
to worse. Desertion, disgrace, ruin, all followed. Everything has
gone--church, home, money, books, clothes--the drink has had them all,
and would have them again if they were mine at this moment. For some
years past I have been a roaming beggar, such as you found me when you
picked me up in the road."
He said all this with very little emotion; and then lay back, wearied
with his exertions in speaking.
"And have you any--" The rector did not know how to finish the sentence
which he had begun after a long pause.
"Have I any family? you would ask," said the other. "I had once. I had
a wife and little child; my only child--a little girl. Well, I suppose
she's better off. She pined and pined when there was next to nothing to
eat in the house; and they tell me--for I was not at home when she
died--that she said at the last, `I'm going to Jesus; they are not
hungry where he is.' Poor thing!"
"And your wife?" exclaimed Bernard, his blood running cold at the tone
of indifference in which this account was given.
"Oh, my wife? Ah, we did not see much of one another after our child's
death! I was often from home; and once, when I returned, I found that
she was gone: they had buried her in my absence. She died--so they
said--of a broken heart. Poor thing! it is not unlikely."
Mr Oliphant hid his head in his hands, and groaned aloud. He had never
before conceived it possible--what he now found to be too true--that
long habits of drunkenness can so utterly unhumanise a man as to reduce
him to a mere callous self, looking upon all things outside self as
dreamy and devoid of interest, with but one passion left--the passion
for the poison which has ruined him.