Part 1 (2/2)

”Alice, what's all this?” said Johnson, for that was the father's name, turning fiercely on his wife.

She repeated her story. Johnson was staggered. Samuel was a quiet lad of fourteen, who had borne with moderate patience many a hard word and harder blow from both parents. He had worked steadily for them, even beyond his strength, and had seen the wages which ought to have found him sufficiency of food and clothing squandered in drink by both father and mother. Johnson was staggered, because he knew that Samuel _could_ have a will of his own; he had felt a force in his son's character which he could not thoroughly understand; he had seen at times a decision which showed that, boy as he was, he could break sooner than bend.

Samuel, moreover, was an only son, and his father loved him as dearly as a drunkard's selfishness would let him love anything. His very heart sickened at his wife's story, and not without cause. They had but two children, Samuel and Betty. Samuel worked in the pits; his sister, who was a year younger, was employed at the factory. Poor children! their lot had been a sad one indeed. As a neighbour said, ”yon lad and wench of Johnson's haven't been _brought_ up, they've been _dragged_ up.” It was too true; half fed and worse clothed, a good const.i.tution struggled up against neglect and bad usage; no prayer was ever taught them by a mother's lips; they never knew the wholesome stimulant of a sober father's smile; their scanty stock of learning had been picked up chiefly at a night-school; in the Sunday school they had learned to read their Bibles, though but imperfectly, and were never more happy than when singing with their companions the hymns which they had practised together. They were specially dear to one another; and in one thing had ever been in the strictest agreement, they would never taste that drink which had made their own home so miserable and desolate.

About a fortnight before our story opens, Langhurst had been placarded with bills announcing that an able and well-known total abstinence advocate would give an address in the parish schoolroom. Many went to hear, and among them Samuel and Betty Johnson. Young and old were urged to sign the pledge. The speaker pictured powerfully a drunkard's home-- he showed how the drink enticed its victims to their ruin like a cheating fiend plucking the sword of resistance from their grasp while it smiled upon them. He urged the young to begin at once, to put the barrier of the pledge between themselves and the peculiar and subtle array of tempters and temptations which hedged them in on all sides. In the pledge they had something to point to which could serve as an answer to those who could not or would not hear reason. He showed the _joy_ of a home into which the drink had never found an entrance--total abstinence was safety--”never to taste” was ”never to crave.” He painted the vigour of a mind unclouded from earliest years by alcoholic stimulants; he pointed to the blessing under G.o.d of a child's steady practical protest, as a Christian abstainer, against the fearful sin which deluged our land with misery and crime, and swept away every spark of joy and peace from the hearthstones of thousands of English homes.

Every word went deep into the hearts of Samuel and his sister: the drunkard's home was their own, the drink was ever before their eyes, the daily sin and misery that it caused they knew by sharp experience--time after time had they been urged to take the drink by those very parents whose substance, whose strength, whose peace had all withered down to the very ground under its fatal poison. How hard had been the struggle to resist! but now, if they became pledged abstainers, they would have something more to say which could give additional strength to their refusal.

The speaker stood pen in hand when he had closed his address.

”Come--which of you young people will sign?”

Samuel made his way to the table.

”I don't mind if _I_ do,” he said; and then turning to Betty, when he had written his name, ”come, Betty,” he cried, ”you'll sign too--come, stick to the pen.”

”Well, I might do worse, I reckon,” said Betty, and she also signed. A few more followed, and shortly afterwards the meeting broke up.

But a storm was now brewing, which the brother and sister had not calculated for. Johnson and three or four kindred spirits were sitting round a neighbour's fire smoking and drinking while the meeting was going on. A short time after it had closed, a man thrust open the door of the house where Johnson was sitting, and peeping round, said with a grin,--

”I say, Tommy Jacky,” (the nickname by which Johnson was familiarly known), ”your Sammul and Betty have just been signing Teetottal Pledge.”

”Eh! what do you say?” exclaimed Johnson in a furious tone, and springing to his feet; ”signed the pledge! I'll see about that;” and hurrying out of the house, he half ran half staggered to his own miserable dwelling. He was tolerably sobered when he got there. Samuel was sitting by the fire near his mother, who was frying some bacon for supper. Betty had just thrown aside on to the couch the handkerchief which she had used instead of a bonnet, and was preparing to help her mother. Johnson sat down in the old rickety rocking-chair at the opposite side of the fire to Samuel, and stooping down, unbuckled his clogs, which he kicked off savagely; then he looked up at his son, and said in a voice of suppressed pa.s.sion,--

”So, my lad, you've been and signed teetottal.”

”Yes, I have,” was the reply.

”And _you've_ signed too,” he cried in a louder voice, turning fiercely upon Betty.

”Ay, fayther, I have,” said Betty, quietly.

”Well, now,” said Johnson, clenching his teeth, ”you just mind _me_, I'll have nothing of the sort in _my_ house. I hate your nasty, mean, sneaking teetottallers--we'll have none of that sort here. D'ye hear?”

he shouted.

Neither Samuel nor Betty spoke.

”Hush, hush, Tom,” broke in his wife; ”you mustn't scold the childer so.

I'm no fonder nor you of the teetottallers, but childer will not be driven. Come, Sammul--come, Betty, you mustn't be obstinate; you know fayther means what he says.”

”Ay that I do,” said her husband. ”And now, you listen: I'd sooner see you both in your graves, nor have you sticking up your pledge cards about the house, and turning up the whites of your eyes at your own fayther and mother, as if we were not good enough for the likes of you.

Me and mine have ever loved our pipe and our pot, the whole brood of us, and we ne'er said 'no' to a chap when he asked for a drop of drink--it shall never be said of me or mine, 'They give 'em nothing in yon house but tea and cold water!'”

”Ay, ay; you're light, Thomas,” said his wife; ”I'm not for seeing our bairns beginning of such newfangled ways. Come, childer, just clap the foolish bits of papper behind the fire, and sit ye down to your supper.”

”Mother,” said Betty, in a sad but decided voice, ”we have seen enough in _this_ house to make us rue that ever a drop of the drink crossed our door-step. We've toiled hard early and late for you and fayther, but the drink has taken it all. You may scold us if you will, but Sammul and I _must_ keep our pledge, and keep it gradely too.”

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