In one of those admirable tales which Mrs Hall is now publishing with
the praiseworthy object of the melioration of the Irish character, the
ordinary effects of a too faint resistance to the fascinations of strong
drink are faithfully detailed. The moral which our generous countrywoman
intended to convey is undoubtedly of universal application, but I am
afraid that the circumstances I am about to relate will convey no moral.
It is the simple and true record of an appalling calamity which befell
the subjects of my story, with all the melancholy unaccountableness and
fatality of lunacy. No one would warn his fellow-creatures against the
danger of madness--against any unforeseen dispensation of God’s wrath:
it is in this sense, then, that I am afraid I have no moral to convey in
narrating an event of which I was all but a spectator.
It must have struck every observer of human character that there are two
classes of drunkards in this country. One class is composed of those
persons, who, at first being well enough disposed to be temperate in all
things, are insensibly led on by the charm of good fellowship to create
for themselves an artificial want, which in the end leaves them the
helpless victims of a miserable disease: they begin with a little--they
continue the draught under the self-deceiving sophism “it’s only a
drop”--they fall into excess--they lose all sense of decorum and proper
spirit--they become mean and unbashful in their craving after spirituous
liquor, which condition unfits them for an upright and honourable course
of thought and action in any of the details of daily existence--a mental
dissipation accompanies the bodily languor: while the hand trembles, the
brain wanders, and the last scene of the tragedy is delirium tremens.
But there is another class of drunkards--God forbid that I should
attribute any thing to the decrees of Providence inconsistent with
mercy and justice--but I am almost tempted to designate this class the
drunkards by _necessity_. However worldly condition, education, or other
causes, may modify the result in individual cases, it is not the less
certain that there are persons--very many of them--who appear to have
come into the world predisposed to an inordinate desire for intoxicating
liquors. These wretched people do not begin with thimblesful, and end
with gills--the stroke seizes them like a thief in the night--sometimes
in the prime of manhood--sometimes in the flush of youth--sometimes
(it is a fearful truth) in the thoughtlessness of boyhood. It is a
passion with them--a madness. You may know one of these unhappy beings,
especially if he be a very young man, by the sullen and dogged air with
which, early in the morning, he enters the public house, and sits down
in solitude and silence to his double-shotted measure of undiluted
whisky--whisky is the only drink for one of this calibre--alas! the worst
and fiercest stuff that can be made is the most acceptable to him--his
palate is too long palled to distinguish between tastes and flavours--it
is the _liquid fire_ he wants; you may know him at other times by the
pitiable imbecility which prompts him in his awful craving to reach his
tumbler to his lips with both his hands, till he finishes the draught
with all the apparent eagerness of intense thirst; you may know such a
one by his frightful sleeps, begun, continued, and closed in terrific
dreams! The wife and family of the progressive or occasional drunkard are
wretched enough as every body knows; but, oh! who can possibly estimate
the amount of misery which the wife and children of a madman like this
are destined to endure.
I have not overdrawn the picture in the abstract--take an individual
instance:--
In the spring of 18-- I was living, on a visit with a friend, in the
neighbourhood of a small country town in one of the most fertile and
prosperous districts of the island. The population was almost entirely
free from that abject and squalid poverty which is the lot of the
Irish peasantry beyond that of all other descriptions of civilized
people. I remarked particularly of this neighbourhood that it had a
larger proportion of respectable farmers and of that species of country
gentlemen called _squireens_, than any other part of the country I had
ever lived in. To this latter class belonged the heads of two branches
of the same family, both of whom resided in the immediate vicinity of my
friend’s house. Their names were Peter and James Kavanagh. Peter was by
many years the elder of the two; his family consisted of three grown-up
sons and one daughter. Peter had married in early life, and his wife died
in giving birth to a fifth child, which did not long survive its mother.
James had a large family of young children. Peter’s only daughter, Alice,
had been brought up in her uncle’s house in order that she might receive
the education and care which a girl of her tender age, without a mother,
might expect from the kindness of her nearest female relative.
The family of Peter Kavanagh, then, consisted of himself, his three sons,
and a single in-door servant as housekeeper, who was already an old woman
and of indolent habits. The household of a widower in the middle and
humbler ranks of life is rarely ordered with regularity and decorum, and
Peter’s was no exception to the general case. Every room had an aspect
of untidiness and discomfort. Seldom were the boards of the floors or
staircase washed or swept--seldom were the window panes cleansed, or the
hearth-flag whitened, or the tables rubbed, or the chairs dusted. Things
soiled were never cleaned--things broken were never mended--things lost
were never replaced. Each of the family felt in turn the inconvenience of
this state of things, but one threw the blame upon the other, and nothing
was done to remedy the evil. Every one thought it strange that such a
good practical farmer and shrewd man-of-the-world as Peter Kavanagh
should care so little about the comforts or conveniences of every-day
existence--but so it was.
Peter, however, had or thought he had one especial household virtue to
be proud of. Very early in life he had narrowly escaped disgrace and
ruin by severing himself from a parcel of dissipated associates, who had
led him step by step into all the labyrinths of premature debauchery. He
receded before it was quite too late, and the recollection of what he
suffered (for he _did_ suffer) was sufficient to make him resolve that
_his_ sons should never be tempted in a similar manner. The eldest of
these, Richard, was now one-and-twenty, the second, Matthew, nineteen,
and the youngest, Gerald, fifteen years of age, at the time I lived near
P----, and they had never yet partaken of any spirituous liquor at their
father’s table. That father, however, was by no means so abstemious as
he had compelled his boys to be. Every day since they had first learned
the taste of whisky toddy had they been tantalised with the sight of the
“materials” for their father’s favourite beverage. Peter Kavanagh was
indeed a temperate man, but he was not a generous man. He was not one of
those kind parents who cannot bear to gratify their appetite with any
delicacy, whether much or little, dear or cheap, while their children
are looking on with wistful eyes and watering mouths in vain expectancy.
He had his reward. One day the two eldest lads, Dick and Matt, were
carried home from a neighbouring fair, stupidly drunk. It was the first
time they had ever been so, and the quantity they had taken was perhaps
trifling; but the father was thenceforward more watchful than ever to
prevent them from repeating the excess. In his usual manner to his sons
Peter Kavanagh was not particularly harsh, but the least evasion of his
strict commands in respect of drink was sure to be visited with great
severity. How wretchedly inconsistent was this man’s practice! Other
misdemeanours of infinitely a greater degree of moral crime were winked
at, nay encouraged, by him. The young men were not naturally vicious; but
when they found that they could with impunity curse and swear in their
father’s hearing--when they found that even some of the graver offences
against society could be committed without their father’s reprehension,
was it any wonder that they should soon grow ripe in wickedness? Matt
and Dick, in their personal appearance, showed every token of the
accomplished village scamp--battered hats jauntily carried on one side
of the head--rusty shooting coats of bottle green, with an amazing
plurality of pockets--knee-breeches of once-white corduroy insufficiently
buttoned over coarse worsted stockings, and heavy brogues with nails like
the rivets of a steam-boiler. These were the hardiest betters of the
ball-alley, the keenest lads at the roulette-table--the deadest shots
at a mark over all the country side. Plenty of money had they, and who
dared to ask them how they came by it? Their father had lots of cash
lying by, and selfish as he was, and knowing as he was, many a heavy
handful of hard silver was he relieved of by his dutiful sons. Hence
the dashing “bit of blood” which carried Dick and Matt alternately over
the stubbles--hence the couple of spaniels and the leash of greyhounds,
which had the reputation of being the best noses or the fleetest feet
in the county--hence the double-barrelled “Rigby” belonging to Dick,
which was the admiration and envy of his acquaintances. As they grew
up, and cared less for the anger of their father, vicious habits became
more settled-looking and systematic with them. They drank to frightful
excess whenever they had the slightest opportunity. No one ever saw
them for twenty minutes at a time without having full proof that they
were slaves to as odious and disgusting a tyranny as ever the depraved
tastes of human creatures created for mankind--I mean, no one ever saw
them for so long a time without a tobacco pipe between their teeth, and
surrounded by every one of the usual nastinesses which accompany the
practice when carried to a hateful extent; and yet, even as they were,
the county could not boast of two manlier looking fellows than Richard
and Matt Kavanagh when dressed for Sunday mass, which they still attended
with a punctuality which would be more praiseworthy if it sprang from
anything but a motive of vanity and pride. Under different culture they
might have become excellent members of society. They had still some faint
pretensions to generosity and spirit, and many a pretty girl of the
neighbourhood would have trusted to her sole powers of persuasion for
their reclamation.
Gerald Kavanagh, the youth of fifteen, was a lad of different stamp. He
was open-featured and open-hearted both. _He_ was never seen with a pipe
in his mouth, or a tattered “racing calendar” sticking out of his pocket;
and while his brothers were out upon their sporting expeditions, or
amusing themselves in a less innocent way, it was poor Gerald’s pleasure
to scamper across the fields to his uncle James’s garden, and walk, or
talk, or read, or play with his pretty little sister Alley, or romp with
his pretty little cousins Bill and Bess, and Peter and Dick, after school
hours--the time _he_ knew he would find most company looking out for
him. Alley and he were as fond as they could be of each other, and not
the less so because they did not live entirely together. “Absence makes
the heart grow fonder,” is as true a line as ever was penned, whether we
apply it to the lover and his mistress, or the brother and his distant
sister. Many of us, with sighs and tears, can testify this. It was a
lovely sight to see that affectionate boy and his fond sister sauntering
along the borheens in the wild-strawberry season, with their arms around
each other’s necks in the intervals of their fruit-finding, until they
bade each other good-bye for another day, and returned, “with lingering
steps and slow,” to homes, alas, how different!
Such were these three youths when Peter Kavanagh, after a short illness,
died, and left his property, such as it was, to be equally divided
between his children.
I may venture to say that Richard and Matt were not sorry for their
father’s loss. On the night of the grand “wake” they collected all the
idle and profligate young men of their acquaintance together at the
house, and dreadful was the depth of drunkenness to which they sank, as
might be expected. Every more prudent person present saw how it was--saw
that the previous restraint was about to be amply atoned for, and many a
shake of the head was intended to be prophetic of coming calamity.
On that same night--early in the night too--little Alley perceived
that all was not right with her brother Gerald. She had seen Richard
plying him with liquor, which he at first refused, but afterwards
accepted--stealthily, however, and with an abashed and crimsoning face as
he met the first reproachful glance of Alice. Gradually the temptation
worked, and again and again the draught was repeated with less hesitation
at the request of his brothers, who seemed happy in the idea of making
their innocent companion as guilty as themselves. The devil surely has
those in his clutches who find comfort and consolation in the visible
abandonment of the fair and innocent to the miserable pleasures for
which _they_ have sold their own souls. At length she was frightened to
perceive that Gerald had grown hardy and boastful of his feat--he _had
asked_ for more whisky, and had been given it by Dick, who, half drunk
himself already, was determined to make Gerald drunk for once in his
life. The boy was now in the condition wished for by his brother; he had
slunk behind Matt’s chair; Alice could see his head hanging upon one
shoulder, while his eyes were closing in the stupor of intoxication--he
was about to fall to the ground. Quietly she stole to his side, and
leaning her head upon his shoulder she whispered,
“Gerald, darling, I didn’t think _you_ would drink so much--why did you
do it?”
“Don’t tell uncle James, Alley, if he hasn’t seen me this way, and I’ll
never drink so much again.”
“Hold up your head for another bucket, you dog,” said Matt, with sundry
drunken hiccupings, as he heard the boy speaking behind his chair, and
proffering at the same time a fresh bumper. “Come, Gerald, my boy, it
will do you no harm--sorrow’s dry, they say, and Lord knows but you’ve
blubbered enough all day for a little fellow.”
“Matt, dear Matt, don’t ask him,” said Alice.
Matt, however, was not to be thwarted: with a brutal cuff he struck his
little sister to the ground, and tried to force the liquor upon Gerald’s
acceptance. In the attempt the glass fell from his hand, and Alice rose
and drew her brother softly from the room.
The funeral took place, and there was another carouse more disgraceful
than the first, and another, and another, and another! until the week
was out. When Gerald’s uncle saw how completely besotted his nephews
had become, he took Gerald to live with him, but not until it had
become too painfully evident that the boy had acquired a liking for the
liquor which had turned his two brothers into human beasts. Poor little
Alice wept over the change. There was no more reading, or playing, or
wandering through the country together. He sat sulky and silent in the
house all day, more like a poor relation on charitable allowance than the
joint-heir of the largest farm in the parish. But this was to have an end!
A month had passed away since the death of Peter Kavanagh, and the
zeal of the eldest heirs had by this time drunk up his entire stock
of “mountain dew,” when in some out-of-the-way nook or other they
discovered five gallons of malt whisky, which perhaps had lain there
forgotten for twenty years. It was on a Saturday morning this was found,
and one of the Kavanaghs was heard to swear that he would never quit
it till the last drop was drained. It was to be the last bout before
they set off for Australia, whither they intended to emigrate that very
spring, having, with their uncle’s consent on behalf of the two younger
orphans, converted their land into money for the purpose. One or two
choice spirits had been invited to join them, but these begged to be
excused--even these were appalled at the dreadful excesses of their boon
companions. Towards evening Gerald had been missing from his uncle’s
house. James Kavanagh guessed how it was, and with little Alice in his
hand repaired to the brothers’ dwelling. The door was locked on the
inside, and on asking for Gerald he was told that he was all safe there,
with the saucy addition that “there wasn’t any admission for any d----
teetotaller.” Shocked and grieved, James Kavanagh went away with his
dejected niece.
The next day was Easter Sunday. The festival had occurred that year
unusually late in the spring, and there was already a foretaste of summer
in the air. A lovely noon it was when James Kavanagh, his wife, Alice,
and the children, walked out in Sunday trim to the parish chapel. The
sky was fretted with light silver clouds--the fields were already green
with the new growth of the grass--the hawthorn bushes were almost visibly
bursting their buds--the whin braes were in a blaze of golden beauty--the
birds, especially the red-breast, were chirping away with intense glee,
being, in the glorious language of the poet Shelley,
“Many a voice of one delight!”
They continued to walk on, and now the bells of the neighbouring church
struck out their Easter jubilee with such exquisite sweetness as we might
fancy arrested the sceptical purpose of the despairing Faust in Goëthe’s
surpassing drama, when the heart-touched metaphysician exclaimed,
“Oh, those deep sounds--those voices, rich and heavenly--
Proud bells! and do your peals already ring
To greet the joyous dawn of Easter morn?
And ye, rejoicing choristers! already
Flows forth your solemn song of consolation--
That song, which once from angels’ lips resounding
Around the midnight of the grave, was heard--
The pledge and proof of a new covenant.”
Yes! indeed, those bells almost distinctly said to the heart as they
swung in the soft air of that delicious noon, “Christ our passover is
sacrificed for us; therefore let us keep the feast!” They passed the
church--groups of joyous children were playing in the graveyard--five or
six immense chestnuts towered, coeval and almost coequal with the ancient
steeple, and in these there was a rookery, now in full din--the voices of
the children and the cawing of the rooks, disturbed by the sudden peal
of the bells, mingled with the chime without discord to the ear. Alice’s
eyes glistened for a moment when she recognised her youthful playmates;
but she suddenly felt she could not laugh with them--her heart was heavy.
At length they stood before the door of the brothers’ house. No signs of
wakefulness had it yet exhibited.
“Let us go in, uncle, and tell them to get up,” said the little Alice.
“Let them sleep it out, the scoundrels!” was the indignant reply of James
Kavanagh.
They passed on to the place of worship.
In about an hour and a half from this time the same group were on their
way homewards, with hearts elevated by the imposing service which they
had just been witnessing. A gloom was, notwithstanding, perceptible
upon the face of James Kavanagh and of his little niece, as they walked
along in company with their happy and smiling neighbours. None of the
three sons of Peter Kavanagh had ever before been known to have absented
himself from Sunday mass, and their absence on that most holy day was of
course a subject of much wonder.
“I could not have thought it possible,” said James Kavanagh gravely,
“that they could become so wicked all at once--God forgive them! God help
them!”
“Oh, uncle!” cried Alice, as they came in view of the house of guilt once
more, “they are not up yet! See, the shutters are still closed!”
They were now in front of the house. “Dear uncle,” said Alice
entreatingly, “go into them--do, dear uncle, bring out poor Gerald to eat
his Easter dinner with us.”
A thought struck James--he knocked loudly at the door. There was no
answer. Another loud knock, and a long pause; and still no sound within
the house.
Alice’s little heart echoed the last unsuccessful knock--it almost said.
“Wake, Gerald, with the knocking.”
She could endure the suspense no longer, and, running to the gripe at the
road-side, she took up a heavy stone, with which she battered the panels
of the hall-door as long as her strength permitted her. When she was
obliged to desist, her screams might be heard afar off, and still there
was no sound in the house.
James Kavanagh had dispatched one of his little boys to a neighbouring
cottage for a crow-bar. The boy quickly returned with one, and James,
assisted by the crowd who gathered near, was not long in forcing the door.
“Good people,” said he to the anxious company outside, “don’t come in
till I tell you--there’s no use in further exposing the shame of my
brother’s house.”
He and Alice, with one or two particular friends, entered the hall with
faltering steps, and they closed the door behind them.
The first object which met their eyes was Peggy, the old housekeeper,
lying on the mat at the foot of the staircase, in a trance of
intoxication: she had evidently fallen down stairs in her attempt to
reach the door, and had been for hours perhaps insensible. Alice jumped
over her, and darted up stairs with the speed of lightning. James and
his companions, after a vain attempt at arousing the housekeeper, slowly
followed her.
They entered the room which fronted them on the landing. The thick stench
of tobacco-smoke, mingled with the fumes of ale and whisky, almost
overpowered them. The room would have been quite dark had it not been for
the flickering remnants of two candles, which still glared in the heated
sockets of a large old-fashioned branch candlestick. James went to the
window, opened the shutters, and let down the sash. The glorious sunshine
streamed into the reeking apartment, with the blessed air of the Sabbath.
How strange--how painful was the paling glimmer of those expiring candles
in that holy light! The three young men were lying on the floor at some
distance from each other, around the legs of a crazy table in the centre
of the room. On the table were huddled together the fragments of salt
herrings, the parings of cheese, broken glasses, half-emptied decanters,
and the other usual paraphernalia of a low debauch. The whole meaning of
the scene was taken in at a glance by James Kavanagh, as soon as he had
opened the window. He stooped over one of the prostrate forms--it was
that of Richard. He turned up the face--great God! it was the face of a
livid corpse! A smothered groan burst from James: he rushed towards the
next--Matt Kavanagh was dead also, quite dead and stiff! James and his
friends looked at each other solemnly, and without speaking a word. They
turned their glance simultaneously to the place where Gerald was lying.
They moved or rather tottered to the spot. There he lay, with Alice in a
swoon beside him, his eyes glazed, the skin of his face tightened over
his nose and cheek-bones, his lips covered with viscid froth, and his
beautiful brown hair tossed backwards from his damp forehead, glistening
in a streak of sunshine which came full upon it from the window. “He is
alive still!” they all three exclaimed: “he may yet be saved!”
One of them ran to the window and made a sign to the neighbours to come
in. The room was soon full of horrified spectators.
They parted Alice from her dying brother, and both were brought out into
the open air as quickly as possible.
Amidst the cries and lamentations of the bystanders Alice recovered. She
sat for a while on the grass, trying to recall her scattered senses. The
sight of Gerald lying near her, as the crowd opened to admit the air
to his face with a freer freshness, brought the whole terrible truth
to her mind. She rose with difficulty, but, gathering strength with
recollection, she succeeded in breaking from the woman who had her in
charge, and in a moment the head of Gerald was pillowed upon her bosom.
The soft cooling breeze had restored the unfortunate boy to a momentary
consciousness. He was barely able to turn his head towards Alice in
recognition of their presence. A faint pleasure was expressed in his
glassy eyes as he did so.
“Won’t you speak to me, Gerald? Won’t you speak to your own Alley?”
The boy shook with a convulsive shudder, but could not utter a syllable.
“Don’t die, dear Gerald; don’t leave poor Alley all alone in the world!
Och, och, och!” said the little girl in the very agony of childish
despair, “he’ll never be the same again--he’ll never speak to me again!”
The boy made an effort to bring Alice’s ear to his clammy lips; she
strove to hear the almost inarticulate whisper which hovered upon them.
“Is--uncle James--here?” gasped the dying lad; “tell
him--I--couldn’t--help it! Oh! Alley! oh!”
Gradually the groan, extorted by the last pang of dissolution, died away,
and with it the spirit of poor Gerald Kavanagh.
Alice perceived what had happened as soon as any of the bystanders, but
high and shrill _her_ scream mounted over the wailing which arose from
the others, ere she once more sank down in the swoon which the excess of
her anguish had so mercifully caused.
On the following day a coroner’s inquest was held upon the bodies of the
three sons of Peter Kavanagh, in a public-house not far distant from the
scene of this fatal debauch. A surmise had been afloat that poison had
somehow or other been the cause of their death, and an examination of one
of the bodies was considered needful. I will not shock my readers with a
description of the fearful chamber where this most loathsome operation
was performed. The result was a verdict to the effect that the three
Kavanaghs had died “from the excessive use of ardent spirits.”
I commenced by saying I feared that this narrative might fail in pointing
a moral. It has a moral--a moral to selfish and ill-judging parents,
and equally ill-judging societies, who lay the flattering unction to
their souls that _coercion_ will have a better effect than a fair and
_consistent example_. Verily, the Spartan nobles, who exhibited the
drunken slave before their children, and then placed the wine-cup within
their reach, had a better knowledge of human nature than the Irish father
who would exorcise the demon of alcohol out of his children by pledges of
abstinence, or threats of punishment, while, in the security of his own
experience, he feels _he_ can temperately enjoy the luxury of spirituous
drink.[1]