A Knight of the Nineteenth Century. Edward Payson Roe
she had found her airy drawing-room a welcome change from the apartment heavy with the odor of anaesthetics. Two students from the university had aided in beguiling the early part of the evening, and then Laura had commenced reading aloud an interesting tale, which had suspended the consciousness of time. But as the marble clock on the mantel chimed out the hour of twelve, Mrs. Arnot rose hastily from the sofa, exclaiming:
"What am I thinking of, to keep you up so late! If your mother knew that you were out of your bed she would hesitate to trust you with me again."
"One more chapter, dear auntie, please?"
"Yes, dear, several more—to-morrow; but to bed now, instanter. Come, kiss your remorseful aunt good-night. I'll remain here a while longer, for either your foolish story or the after effects of my wretched headache make me a trifle morbid and wakeful to-night. Oh, how that bell startles me! what can it mean so late?"
The loud ring at the door remained unanswered a few moments, for the servants had all retired. But the applicant without did not wait long before repeating the summons still more emphatically.
Then they heard the library door open, and Mr. Arnot's heavy step in the hall, as he went himself to learn the nature of the untimely call. His wife's nervous timidity vanished at once, and she stepped forward to join her husband, while Laura stood looking out from the parlor entrance with a pale and frightened face. "Can it be bad news from home?" she thought.
"Who is there?" demanded Mr. Arnot, sternly.
"Me and Misther Haldane," answered a voice without in broadest brogue.
"Mr. Haldane!" exclaimed Mr. Arnot excitedly; "what can this mean? Who is me?" he next asked loudly.
"Me is Pat M'Cabe, sure; the same as tidies up the office and does yer irrinds. Mr. Haldane's had a bad turn, and I've brought him home."
As Mr. Arnot swung open the door, a man, who seemingly had been leaning against it, fell prone within the hall. Laura gave a slight scream, and Mrs. Arnot was much alarmed, thinking that Haldane was suffering from some sudden and alarming attack. Thoughts of at once telegraphing to his mother were entering her mind, when the object of her solicitude tried to rise, and mumbled in the thick utterance of intoxication:
"This isn't home. Take me to mother's."
Mrs. Arnot's eyes turned questioningly to her husband, and she saw that his face was dark with anger and disgust.
"He is drunk," he said, turning to Pat, who stood in the door, cap in hand.
"Faix, sur, it looks moighty loike it. But it's not for a dacent sober man loike meself to spake sartainly o' sich matters."
"Few words and to the point, sir," said Mr. Arnot harshly; "your breath tells where you have been. But where did you find this—and how came you to find him?"
Either Mr. Arnot was at a loss for a term which would express his estimation of the young man, who had slowly and unsteadily risen, and was supporting himself by holding fast the hatrack, or he was restrained in his utterance by the presence of his wife.
"Well, sur," said Pat, with as ingenuous and candid an air as if he were telling the truth, "the wife o' a neighbor o' mine was taken on a suddint, and I went for the docther, and as I was a comin' home, who shud I see sittin' on a doorsthep but Misther Haldane, and I thought it me duty to bring him home to yees."
"You have done right. Was it on the doorstep of a drinking-place you found him?"
"I'm athinkin' it was, sur; it had that sort o' look."
Mr. Arnot turned to his wife and said coldly, "You now see how it works. But this is not a fit object for you and Laura to look upon; so please retire. I will see that he gets safely to his room. I suppose he must go there, though the station-house is the more proper place for him."
"He certainly must go to his own room," said Mrs. Arnot, firmly but quietly.
"Well, then, steady him along up the stairs, Pat. I will show you where to put the—" and Mr. Arnot again seemed to hesitate for a term, but the blank was more expressive of his contempt than any epithet could be, since his tone and manner suggested the worst.
Returning to the parlor, Mrs. Arnot found Laura's face expressive of the deepest alarm and distress.
"O auntie, what does all this mean? Am I in any way to blame? He said he would go to ruin if I didn't—but how could I?"
"No, my dear, you are not in the slightest degree to blame. Mr. Haldane seems both bad and foolish. I feel to-night that he is not worthy to speak to you; much less is he fit to be intrusted with that which you will eventually give, I hope, only to one who is pre-eminently noble and good. Come with me to your room, my child. I am very sorry I permitted you to stay up to-night."
But Laura was sleepless and deeply troubled; she had never seen a laborer—much less one of her own acquaintances—in Haldane's condition before; and to her young, innocent mind the event had almost the character of a tragedy. Although conscious of entire blamelessness, she supposed that she was more directly the cause of Haldane's behavior than was true, and that he was carrying out his threat to destroy himself by reckless dissipation. She did not know that he had been beguiled into his miserable condition through bad habits of long standing, and that he had fallen into the clutches of those who always infest public haunts, and live by preying upon the fast, foolish, and unwary. Haldane, from his character and associations, was liable to such an experience whenever circumstances combined to make it possible. Young men with no more principle than he possessed are never safe from disaster, and they who trust them trust rather to the chances of their not meeting the peculiar temptations and tests to which they would prove unequal. Laura could not then know how little she had to do with the tremendous downfall of her premature lover. The same conditions given, he would probably have met with the same experience upon any occasion. After his first glass of punch the small degree of discretion that he had learned thus far in life began to desert him; and every man as he becomes intoxicated is first a fool, and then the victim of every one who chooses to take advantage of his voluntary helplessness and degradation.
But innocent Laura saw a romantic and tragic element in the painful event, and she fell asleep with some vague womanly thoughts about saving a fellow-creature by the sacrifice of herself. However, the morning light, the truth concerning Haldane, and her own good sense, would banish such morbid fancies. Indeed the worst possible way in which a young woman can set about reforming a bad man is to marry him. The usual result is greatly increased guilt on the part of the husband, and lifelong, hopeless wretchedness for the wife.
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