Chapter XXIII: Shipwrecked

HAD he been aware how suddenly at last his darling was to be removed to "the better land," Mr. Hill would have risked even Jane's precarious state, that she might see her child again. But the fear of a relapse before she was able to bear the sight of the wasted little form made him conceal the truth, only replying, when she inquired, that Daisy was still very ill, and must be kept quiet as possible until Jane should be able to nurse and tend her herself.

But Jane had not deserved a mother's privilege, she had no right to complain now that other hands ministered to the little sick one, that another bosom supported the drooping head, and other voices whispered the baby's hymns, and taught of the loving Saviour who was calling His lamb to the eternal fold. But she became impatient and jealous beyond endurance, and resolved on the first opportunity to assert her right and take her place.

There was a bright, pleasant morning on which Mrs. Field came and sat by her bedside earlier than usual, and persevered in keeping the room-door shut. Jane had slept late, and declared that she felt greatly better, and would no longer be waited on and kept useless in her own house.

Suddenly Mrs. Field was called downstairs; something was wanted that she only could find or do, and she left the room, carefully shutting the door behind her.

She had not been gone many minutes, when it struck Mrs. Hill that she would fasten her out, dress herself, and astonish them all.

So she crept from her bed, astonishing herself first with the giddy sensation in her head and the consciousness of extreme weakness; but she managed to reach the window, and looked out once more into the street.

Startled and amazed, she stared wildly down upon what was to be seen at that moment. Matthew Hill and Benjamin Field were passing from the house, both dressed in black hatbands tied with white, and bearing between them a small coffin covered with a black pall bordered with white. Some flowers lay on the top, and little Josy, also in a suit of black, followed them, beside himself with a strange mixture of surprise, sorrow, and excitement.

Jane comprehended it all in a moment. Conscience and right feeling would have soon justified the concealment that had been, as her kind friend thought, unavoidable. She did not faint or cry out, resentment was the strongest feeling in her heart, and seemed to strengthen her for anything. She fastened the door, took no notice of Mrs. Field's gentle knock, and hurried on some clothes, shivering and tottering as she did so, and in spite of herself, compelled to see a large card which hung over the looking-glass, exhibiting one of Matthew's favourite texts, and which she guessed truly was intended for her, when she should so sadly need it.

"Cast thy burden on the Lord, and He shall sustain thee."

Yes, Jane knew that text as well as any of them, but she was not going to do anything of the kind. Neither would she bear it herself, she would get rid of it somehow.

She wanted a shawl and bonnet, and remembered that her large comfortable shawl was—where it ought not to be; and she mechanically opened the drawer where it used to lie. But to her astonishment, there lay the shawl neatly folded.

"How did they get hold of the ticket?" thought she.

And notwithstanding her anger, she felt for a moment with what tender forbearance and persevering kindness she had been treated; but pride and jealousy returned with the thought of her child nursed by someone else, and carried out of her house without her knowledge. No, she could never forgive that. And as for Matthew, if he had not gone away, such things never would have happened, and all the troubles ought to be at his door at last.

Thus fortified, she stole cautiously downstairs and slipped out unobserved, while Mrs. Field was busy with some household work at the back of the house.

She was not long away, and returning to her room, lay down upon the bed again, maintaining obstinate silence when poor Ellen, greatly troubled and blaming herself for carelessness, found that she had at least attempted to go out.

But Jane had accomplished her purpose, and very soon a mysterious change for the worse was plainly visible in her. She listened with stupid indifference to her husband when he endeavoured affectionately to relate to her all that had occurred to himself during his long absence, which he scrupled not to call most wicked and cruel; described Mr. and Mrs. Taylor, and their happy home, and asked her to help him to make one like it. And when he ventured to ask if he might read a chapter in the Bible to her, she only said,—

"I know all that's in the Bible, and I know there's no heaven for drunkards."

Matthew could not tell whether it was with reference to herself or to him that she said this, but decided to take it to himself.

"I have wanted to show you by actions and not by words, dear Jane, that I am, by God's great mercy, a drunkard no more," said he, gently.

"Ah, well, then we've changed characters, I suppose," said she, fiercely. "Look here!"

And snatching a bottle from behind the head of her bed, she put it to her lips, and gulped down a terrible draught. How had she procured it? She went out in the nice shawl, she had returned without it.

A most fearful relapse very soon took place. All the nursing, and restraint, and care had to be gone through again, and many a time poor Matthew thought his trouble was greater than he could bear. His Bible, and little Josy, and Mr. and Mrs. Field were, however, blessings spared to him still, and he tried to take comfort.

There soon came to be serious cause for alarm in the turn the illness was taking. And at last, the doctor gave his opinion that Mrs. Hill would not recover.

This was a great shock. Matthew had so fondly hoped that some day—he would not mind waiting a long time for it—but that some day he might once more have a happy home, where the love and service of God should be the ruling principle.

Now all hope was dashed down, and there was to be no home for the widower and his motherless boy.

Mrs. Hill had been favoured with a fair beginning in domestic life, and she had herself put out its tender light. She had been trusted with opportunity to be as a ministering angel to a penitent heart, and she had scorned the holy mission. She had adopted a vice that once she loathed, and had become herself an exhibition of her weakness and its power. Through all she had neglected and insulted God, and now—what of it?

Why "now," even "now," by the lips of the husband she had despised, came messages of pity and promises of help from the God she had so dishonoured. Nigh or far off, obstinate and vicious, or yielding and chastened, the call floats over the wide waste of sin and ruin, and does its merciful work.

"Turn ye, turn ye; why will ye die? Oh! Israel, thou hast destroyed
thyself; but in Me is thine help."

"Look unto Me and be ye saved."

Oh, look. Terrible is the bite of the fiery serpent you have cherished in your bosom, potent is the poison that has corrupted your blood; but more potent than the poison is the purifier—

"Where sin abounds grace does 'much more' abound."

Oh, lover of drink, as well of any other sin, before it is too late, "Look!" and "Live!"

But poor unhappy Jane fretted, and chafed, and tormented herself and everybody else in the house. She knew all the texts that shut out hope, and gave herself up for lost. It was not penitence, but a yielding to some incomprehensible tyrant which she called "fate," and sometimes it seemed as if the spirit of temper and love of her own way were behind the scene, prompting the opposition she made to the gospel of peace.

Mrs. Oakland came and talked and read and prayed. A minister came and did the same. Prayer was offered by Matthew and his Christian friends, and still the hard woman seemed unmoved. At times, when conscious, she would say, that God had forsaken her; but she forgot that she had not sought Him, nor cared for the knowledge of His ways. There are awful hints of the consequence of refusing to hear Him when He speaks in love, and He must be heard and heeded sometimes.

Matthew was sitting alone by her bed one night when after a long time of apparent unconsciousness, she began to talk to herself.

"Yes," said she, "I know it; I did drive him away, but I'll never acknowledge it. My poor baby. Yes, of course I gave her that horrid drug, and it sent her to heaven. But I didn't mean that; and the arm—I didn't know I put it out when I threw the child into bed; but that did it, and she's gone too. And do they talk to me of heaven? What have I to do with heaven? I don't want to go to heaven! Everything there is against me. Oh, that I could disbelieve in such things."

Thus she muttered long and bitterly, and memory seemed to be casting up before her the things that but for her own fault would never have been. Was not a bad temper at the beginning of them all? A little season of softening there did seem just before the last, but it was expressed in anguish so terrible, fear so distracting, cries so piercing, that when, after a paroxysm that seemed to rend her frame, she implored them to save her from everlasting burnings and to pray to Jesus for her, she sank back in their arms a corpse, the sudden cessation of noise and distraction, after being wrought up to such a state of excitement, overpowered poor Matthew so far that he nearly fainted on the floor.

Mr. Field had taken his weeping Ellen downstairs, and kneeling down by her, with drops of perspiration standing on his brow, deeply and fervently blessed God, who had saved him from dying a drunkard's death.

All the requisite attention was paid to the poor remains in solemn silence. No one spoke of Jane for many a day; even Mrs. Swinden heard of her without a remark as she took her appointed place at the prison work to which her misdeeds had at last brought her.

Matthew was sadly unsettled; the care of a house was too much for him, and indeed it was not required for himself and his one only treasure left to provide for. So he determined at last to accept the kind offer that had been made to him by Messrs. Carver and Davis, and he would go and reside somewhere near to his friend Robert Taylor, for whom he had conceived a warm respect and affection. Benjamin Field would gladly have kept him nearer, but his judgment went with the plan, and preparations were made for early departure.

"Before you go to bed, my boy, I want you to have a walk with me," said Matthew to his little son on the last evening before the journey.

"Yes, father," said the boy, "I know. I want to see it once more too; and I've got some roots of violets and forget-me-nots that Mr. Field gave me, and I'm going to plant them there."

Matthew looked earnestly at the child, and drew him to his bosom. He felt that he had done wrong to bury all his feelings in his own heart and to leave his boy to do the same. Josy had needed comfort, for his darling sister had been the companion and friend of his short life, and the parting must have been very grievous to him: he had sat quiet and said nothing, but he never wanted to play now. To be with his father and watch him seemed all he cared for. He looked pale and thin still, and Matthew hoped that the total change would do him good.

Hand in hand they went together to the churchyard, where lay the mother and her two little girls. A head-stone had been placed by the graves with nothing but the names and dates inscribed upon it. They stood in silence some time, until the little boy's sobs startled Matthew, and he saw the child throw himself passionately on his sister's grave, and try to clasp it in his arms.

"Oh, Daisy!" he sobbed. "Where are you? Do you ever love me now?"

"He wants love," thought Matthew. "Yes, I have something to live for still."

"Listen to me, Josy," he said, lifting the boy in his arm's and sitting on a gravestone close by. "I wanted you here, in this spot, to promise before God and me that you will never drink anything that can make you tipsy! But for drink, those dear ones would have been with us now. It was drink that made me go away from home, and brought all our troubles."

"Oh! Father," said Josy, clasping him round the neck, "you are good now, Daisy said so."

"God has been very gracious to me, Josy," said the poor father, with tears flowing fast. "Will you promise?"

"Yes, father, I will. I shall never drink such things, I know I shan't, for Daisy hated them."

What Daisy knew about them, Matthew dared not ask.

Then they planted the violets and forget-me-nots on the little grave. Josy patted the turf lovingly round them, and hand in hand the tearful pair left the graveyard.

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