The Lights and Shadows of Real Life. Arthur Timothy Shay
story was ended. "No business to have acted so. Do as you are told, and mind your work, and you'll escape flogging. Otherwise, I don't care how often you get it. You've been spoiled at home, and it'll do you good to toe the mark. Did your master know you were coming home to-night?"
"No, sir," replied the boy, with trembling lips, and a choking voice.
"Then what did you come for? To get pitied? Do right and you'll need no pity."
"Oh, James, don't speak so to the child!" said Mrs. Warren, unable to keep silence.
This was answered by an angry look.
"You must go back to your master, boy," said the father, after a pause. "When you wish to come home, ask his consent."
"He doesn't object to my coming home," said Willy, his voice still quivering.
"Go back, I tell you! Take your hat, there, and go back. Don't come here any more with your tales!"
The boy glanced towards his mother, and read pity and sympathy in her countenance, but she did not countermand the order; for she knew that if she did so, a scene of violence would follow.
"Ask to come home in the morning," said she to her boy, as she held his hand tightly in hers at the door. He gave her a look of tender thankfulness, and then went forth into the darkness, feeling so sad and wretched that he could not repress his tears.
Seven years. And was only this time required to effect such a change! Ah! rum is a demon! How quickly does it transform the tender husband and parent into a cruel beast! Look upon these two pictures, ye who tarry long at the wine! Look at them, but do not say they are overdrawn! They have in them only the sober hues and subdued colors of truth.
BRANDY AS A PREVENTIVE
THE cholera had made its appearance in New York, and many deaths were occurring daily. Among those who weakly permitted themselves to feel an alarm amounting almost to terror, was a Mr. Hobart, who, from the moment the disease manifested itself, became infested with the idea that he would be one of its victims.
"Doctor," said he to his family physician, meeting him one day in the street, "is there nothing which a man can take that will act as a preventive to cholera?"
"I'll tell you what I do," replied the doctor.
"Well, what is it?"
"I take a glass of good brandy twice a day. One in the morning and the other after dinner."
"Indeed! And do you think brandy useful in preventing the disease?"
"I think it a protection," said the doctor. "It keeps the system slightly stimulated; and is, besides, a good astringent."
"A very simple agent," remarked Mr. Hobart.
"Yes, the most simple that we can adopt. And what is better, the use of it leaves no after bad consequences, as is too often the case with medicines, which act upon the system as poisons."
"Sometimes very bad consequences arise from the use of brandy," remarked Mr. Hobart. "I have seen them in my time."
"Drunkenness, you mean."
"Yes."
"People who are likely to make beasts of themselves had better let it alone," said the doctor, contemptuously. "If they should take the cholera and die, it will be no great loss to the world."
"And you really think a little good brandy, taken daily, fortifies the system against the cholera?"
"Seriously I do," replied the doctor. "I have adopted this course from the first, and have not been troubled with a symptom of the disease."
"I feel very nervous on the subject. From the first I have been impressed with the idea that I would get the disease and die."
"That is a weakness, Mr. Hobart."
"I know it is, still I cannot help it. And you would advise me to take a little good brandy?"
"Yes, every day."
"I am a Son of Temperance."
"No matter; you can take it as medicine under my prescription. I know a dozen Sons of Temperance who have used brandy every day since the disease appeared in New York. It will be no violation of your contract. Life is of too much value to be put in jeopardy on a mere idea."
"I agree with you there. I'd drink any thing if I thought it would give me an immunity against this dreadful disease."
"You'll be safer with the brandy than without it."
"Very well. If you think so, I will use it."
On parting with the doctor, Mr. Hobart went to a liquor store and ordered half a gallon of brandy sent home. He did not feel altogether right in doing so, for it must be understood, that, in years gone by, Mr. Hobart had fallen into the evil habit of intemperance, which clung to him until he run through a handsome estate and beggared his family. In this low condition he was found by the Sons of Temperance, who induced him to abandon a course whose end was death and destruction, and to come into their Order. From that time all was changed. Sobriety and industry were returned to him in many of the good things of this world which he had lost, and he was still in the upward movement at the time when the fatal pestilence appeared.
On going home at dinner time, Hobart's wife said to him, with a serious face—
"A demijohn, with some kind of liquor in it, was sent here to-day."
"Oh, yes," he replied, it is brandy that Doctor L—ordered me to take as a cholera preventive."
"Brandy!" ejaculated Mrs. Hobart, with an expression of painful surprise in her voice and on her countenance, that rather annoyed her husband.
"Yes. He says that he takes it every day as a preventive, and directed me to do the same."
"I wouldn't touch it if I were you. Indeed I wouldn't," said Mrs.
Hobart, earnestly.
"Why wouldn't you?"
"You will violate your contract with the Sons of Temperance."
"Not at all. Brandy may be used as a medicine under the prescription of a physician. I wouldn't have thought of touching it had not Doctor L—ordered me to do so."
"You are not sick, Edward."
"But there is death in the very air I breathe. At any moment I am liable to be struck down by an arrow sent from an unseen bow, unless a shield be interposed. Such a shield has been placed in my hands. Shall I not use it?"
Mrs. Hobart knew her husband well enough to be satisfied that remonstrance and argument would be of no avail, now that his mind was m de up to use the brandy; and yet so distressed did she feel, that she couldn't help saying, with tears in her eyes—
"Eaward,(sic) let me beg of you not to touch it."
"Would you rather see me in my coffin?" replied Mr. Hobart, with some bitterness. "Death may seem a light thing to you, but it is not so to me."
"You are not sick," still urged the wife.
"But I am liable, as I said just now, to take the disease every moment."
"You will be more liable, with your system stimulated and disturbed by brandy. Let well enough alone. Be thankful for the health you have, and do not invite disease."
"The doctor ought to know. He understands the matter better than you or I. He recommends brandy as a preventive. He takes it himself."
"Because he likes it, no doubt."
"It is silly for you to talk in that way," replied the husband, with much impatience. "He isn't rendered more liable to the disease by taking a little pure brandy, for he says that it keeps him perfectly well."
"A glass of brandy every day may have been his usual custom," urged Mrs. Hobart. "In that case, in its continuance, no change was produced. But your system has been untouched by the fiery liquid for nearly five years, and its sudden introduction must create disturbance. It is reasonable."
"The doctor ought to know best," was replied to this. "He has prescribed it, and I must take it. Life is too serious a matter to be trifled with.