A SORROWFUL FACT.
IT was not long before the time came when Rodney was never really
sober. When he could not stagger along the narrow streets to the
spirit-vaults, he sent Nelly, as scores and hundreds of little children
are sent in our Christian country; and he drank himself dead drunk in
the room where his wife had died. At last there was neither shame, nor
sorrow, nor a consciousness of sin in his soul; only the one absorbing,
insatiable craving for drink. A seven-fold possession had taken fast
hold of him, and Bessie lost all hope.
It was quite dark one evening, and Rodney was lying prostrate, unable
to stir, upon the low bed, with a bottle near him which he had lately
drained, but without power to fumble with his nerveless fingers for any
more pence which might possibly remain in his possession. His eyes were
open, and in a state of drunken lethargy he was watching Nelly going
softly to and fro about the room, casting terrified glances at him from
time to time. He saw her bent almost double under the weight of the
old iron-kettle, which she was lifting with both her little arms on to
the fire; and lying there, powerless and speechless, he saw the thin,
ragged frock, with its torn and faded flounces, catch the flame between
the bars, and kindle rapidly into a blazing light about her.
An extreme agony came upon him. With all the might of his will, he
struggled to raise himself up to save her; but he could not move. He
had no more power over his own limbs than the mother's corpse would
have had, if it had been lying there. For a moment, his little girl
stretched out her arms to him with a scream for help; and then she
sprang past him to the door, and he heard the street ring and echo with
her cries, and the shrieks of frightened women and children. But still
he could not stir. He lay there like a log, while great drops of terror
and anguish gathered on his face.
How long it was he did not know—it might have been years of
torment—before the door was flung open, and a woman's face looked in
upon him, white and haggard with fear.
"She's burned to death!" she cried, "and you'll have to answer for it.
I'm not sorry; I'm glad. She'll be better off now; and I hope they 'll
hang you for it. You'll have to answer for the child's death."
She drew the door to again sharply, and left him in his miserable and
helpless loneliness. Nelly was dead then; burned to death through his
sin! The intolerable agony of his spirit gave him a little strength,
and he crawled upon his hands and knees to the door, and succeeded in
opening it. Down in the street below the people were talking of it, the
women calling to one another to tell the horrible news; he could hear
many of the words they said, with his name sometimes, and sometimes
Nelly's. Dead! Was it possible that his little Nelly could be dead? Why
did they not bring her home? But then a great shuddering of horror fell
upon him. He could not bear to see her again, his dead child; burned to
death with him lying by, too drunk to save her.
By and by his limbs gathered more power, and with pain and toil he
raised himself to his feet. The tumult in the streets was subsiding,
and the people were retiring to their houses. Some of them, who lived
on the same flat, kicked at his door with loud and angry curses; but he
had locked it as soon as his fingers could turn the key, and he kept
a silence like the grave. All was quiet after a while, and the clocks
of the town struck eleven. If he could only steal away now, there
would be no one to stop him and ask him what he was about to do, or
whither he was going. The streets were almost deserted, except about
the gin-palaces. He cursed them bitterly as he went by. There was now
only one purpose, one idea in his tormented brain: if his miserable
feet would but carry him to the river, all should soon be ended for
him. Nothing in the world to come could be worse than the hell of his
own sin. The only plea Bessie herself could urge—that he should live to
make amends to Nelly—had no longer an existence.
It was slow and weary work, creeping, creeping down to the river side.
He saw it long before he reached it, with the lights glimmering across
it from the opposite shore. He was obliged to lean often against the
walls and the lamp-posts to gain breath and power to take a few more
footsteps towards his grave. He was drunk no longer. His mind was
terribly clear. He knew distinctly what had happened, and what was
about to happen to him if his strength would only take him down to the
edge of yonder black water. His conscience raised no voice against his
purpose. There was a certain feeling, almost of satisfaction, that in a
little while the tide would be carrying him out to sea.
He had almost gained a spot where a single effort would plunge him
into the cooling waters; there were but few persons about, and they
at some distance away, far enough not to hear the splash as he fell
into the basin, when his unsteady foot caught upon the curb-stone, and
he fell forward, dashing his head violently upon the pavement. Before
many minutes had passed, a policeman was conveying him in a cab to the
infirmary; and he was laid, unconscious and delirious, upon a bed in
one of the wards there.
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