Chapter XIII: Part 13

“Take care of your business, and your business will take care of you,” is a good and a wholesome proverb, that cannot bo too strongly impressed on the minds of the working classes. Art began to feel surprised that his business was declining, but as yet his good sense was strong enough to point out to him the cause of it. His mind now became disturbed, for while he felt conscious that his own neglect and habits of dissipation occasioned it, he also felt that he was but a child in the strong grasp of his own propensities. This was anything but a consoling reflection, and so long as it lasted he was gloomy, morbid, and peevish; his excellent wife was the first to remark this, and, indeed, was the first that had occasion to remark it, for even in this stage of his life, the man who had never spoken to her, or turned his eye upon her, but with tenderness and affection, now began, especially when influenced by drink, to give manifestations of temper that grieved her to the heart. Abroad, however, he was the same good-humored fellow as ever, with a few rare exceptions--when he got quarrelsome and fought with his companions. His workmen all were perfectly aware of his accessibility to flattery, and some of them were not slow to avail themselves of it: these were the idle and unscrupulous, who, as they resembled himself, left nothing unsaid or undone to maintain his good opinion, and they succeeded. His business now declined so much, that he was obliged to dismiss some of them, and, as if he had been fated to ruin, the honest and independent, who scorned to flatter his weaknesses, were the very persons put out of his employment, because their conduct was a silent censure upon his habits, and the men he retained were those whom he himself had made drunken and profligate by his example; so true is it that a drunkard is his own enemy in a thousand ways.

Here, then, is our old friend Art falling fast away from the proverbial integrity of his family--his circumstances are rapidly declining--his business running to a point--his reputation sullied, and his temper becoming sharp and vehement; these are strong indications of mismanagement, neglect, and folly, or, in one word, of a propensity to drink.

About a year and a half has now elapsed, and Art, in spite of several most determined resolutions to reform, is getting still worse in every respect. It is not to be supposed, however, that during this period he has not had visitations of strong feeling--of repentance--remorse--or that love of drink had so easy a victory over him as one would imagine. No such thing. These internal struggles sometimes affected him even unto agony, and he has frequently wept bitter tears on finding himself the victim of this terrible habit. He had not, however, the courage to look into his own condition with a firm eye, or to examine the state of either his heart or his circumstances with the resolution of a man who knows that he must suffer pain by the inspection. Art could not bear the pain of such an examination, and, in order to avoid feeling it, he had recourse to the oblivion of drink; not reflecting that the adoption of every such remedy for care resembles the wisdom of the man, who, when raging under the tortures of thirst, attempted to allay them by drinking sea-water. Drink relieved him for a moment, but he soon found that in his case the remedy was only another name for the disease.

It is not necessary to assure our readers that during Art's unhappy progress hitherto, his admirable brother Frank felt wrung to the heart by his conduct. All that good advice, urged with good feeling and good sense, could do, was tried on him, but to no purpose; he ultimately lost his temper on being reasoned with, and flew into a passion with Frank, whom he abused for interfering, as he called it, in business which did not belong to him. Notwithstanding this bluster, however, there was no man whom he feared so much; in fact, he dreaded his very appearance, and would go any distance out of his way rather than come in contact with him. He felt Frank's moral ascendency too keenly, and was too bitterly sensible of the neglect with which he had treated his affectionate and friendly admonitions, to meet him with composure. Indeed, we must say, that, independently of his brother Frank, he was not left to his own impulses, without many a friendly and sincere advice. The man had been so highly respected--his name was so stainless--his conduct so good, so blameless; he stood forth such an admirable pattern of industry, punctuality, and sobriety, that his departure from all these virtues occasioned general regret and sorrow. Every friend hoped that he would pay attention to his advice, and every friend tried it, but, unfortunately, every friend failed. Art, now beyond the reach of reproof, acted as every man like him acts; he avoided those who, because they felt an interest in his welfare, took the friendly liberty of attempting to rescue him, and consequently associated only with those who drank with him, flattered him, skulked upon him, and laughed at him.

One friend, however, he had, who, above all others, first in place and in importance, we cannot overlook--that friend was his admirable and affectionate wife. Oh, in what language can we adequately describe her natural and simple eloquence, her sweetness of disposition, her tenderness, her delicacy of reproof, and her earnest struggles to win back her husband from the habits which were destroying him! And in the beginning she was often successful for a time, and many a tear of transient repentance has she occasioned him to shed, when she succeeded in touching his heart, and stirring his affection for her and for their children.

In circumstances similar to Art's, however, we first feel our own errors, we then feel grateful to those who have the honesty to reprove us for them: by and by, on finding that we are advancing on the wrong path, we begin to disrelish the advice, as being only an unnecessary infliction of pain; having got so far as to disrelish the advice, we soon begin to disrelish the adviser; and ultimately, we become so thoroughly wedded to our own selfish vices, as to hate every one who would take us out of their trammels.

When Art found that the world, as he said, was going against him, instead of rallying, as he might, and ought to have done, he began to abuse the world, and attribute to it all the misfortunes which he himself, and not the world, had occasioned him. The world, in fact, is nothing to any man but the reflex of himself; if you treat yourself well, and put yourself out of the power of the world, the world will treat you well, and respect you; but if you neglect yourself, do not at all be surprised that the world and your friends will neglect you also. So far the world acts with great justice and propriety, and takes its cue from your own conduct; you cannot, therefore, blame the world without first blaming yourself.

Two years had now elapsed, and Art's business was nearly gone; he had been obliged to discharge the drunken fellows we spoke of, but not until they had assisted in a great measure to complete his ruin. Two years of dissipation, neglect of business, and drunkenness, were quite sufficient to make Art feel that it is a much easier thing to fall into poverty and contempt, than to work a poor man's way, from early struggle and the tug of life, to ease and independence.

His establishment was now all but closed; the two apprentices had scarcely anything to do, and, indeed, generally amused themselves in the workshop by playing Spoil Five--a fact which was discovered by Art himself, who came on them unexpectedly one day when tipsy; but, as he happened to be in an extremely good humor, he sat down and took a hand along with them. This was a new element of enjoyment to him, and instead of reproving them for their dishonest conduct, he suffered himself to be drawn into the habit of gambling, and so strongly did this grow upon him, that from henceforth he refused to participate in any drinking bout unless the parties were to play for the liquor. For this he had now neither temper nor coolness; while drinking upon the ordinary plan with his companions, he almost uniformly paid the reckoning from sheer vanity; or, in other words, because they managed him; but now that it depended upon what he considered to be skill, nothing ever put him so completely out of temper as to be put in for it. This low gambling became a passion with him; but it was a passion that proved to be the fruitful cause of fights and quarrels without end. Being seldom either cool or sober, he was a mere dupe in the hands of his companions; but whether by fair play or foul, the moment he perceived that the game had gone against him, that moment he generally charged his opponents with dishonesty and fraud, and then commenced a fight. Many a time has he gone home, beaten and bruised, and black, and cut, and every way disfigured in these vile and blackguard contests; but so inveterately had this passion for card-playing--that is, gambling for liquor--worked itself upon him, that he could not suffer a single day to pass without indulging in it. Defeat of any kind was a thing he could never think of; but for a Maguire--one of the great Fermanagh Maguires--to be beaten at a rascally game of Spoil Five, was not to be endured; the matter was impossible, unless by foul play, and as there was only one method of treating those who could stoop to the practice of foul play, why he seldom lost any time in adopting it. This was to apply the fist, and as he had generally three or four against him, and as, in most instances, he was in a state of intoxication, it usually happened that he received most punishment.

Up to this moment we have not presented Art to our readers in any other light than that of an ordinary drunkard, seen tipsy and staggering in the streets, or singing as he frequently was, or fighting, or playing cards in the public-houses. Heretofore he was not before the world, and in everybody's eye; but he had now become so common a sight in the town of Ballykeerin, that his drunkenness was no longer a matter of surprise to its inhabitants. At the present stage of his life he could not bear to see his brother Frank; and his own Margaret, although unchanged and. loving as ever, was no longer to him the Margaret that she had been. He felt how much he had despised her advice, neglected her comfort, and forgotten the duties which both God and nature had imposed upon him, with respect to her and their children. These feelings coming upon him during short intervals of reflection, almost drove him mad, and he has often come home to her and them in a frightful and terrible consciousness that he had committed some great crime, and that she and their children were involved in its consequences.

“Margaret,” he would say, “Margaret, what is it I've done aginst you and the childre? I have done some great crime aginst you all, for surely if I didn't, you wouldn't look as you do--Margaret, asthore, where is the color that was in your cheeks? and my own Art here--that always pacifies me when nobody else can--even Art doesn't look what he used to be.”

“Well, sure he will, Art, dear,” she would reply; “now will you let me help you to bed? it's late; it's near three o'clock; Oh Art, dear, if you were----”

“I won't go to bed--I'll stop here where I am, wid my head on the table, till mornin'. Now do you know--come here, Margaret--let me hear you--do you know, and are you sensible of the man you're married to?”

“To be sure I am.”

“No, I tell you; I say you are not. There is but one person in the house that knows that.”

“You're right, Art darlin'--you're right. Come here, Atty; go to your father; you know what to say, avick.”

“Well, Art,” he would continue, “do you know who your father is?”

“Ay do I; he's one of the great Fermanagh Maguires--the greatest family in the kingdom. Isn't that it?”

“That's it, Atty darlin'--come an' kiss me for that; yes, I'm one of the great Fermanagh Maguires. Isn't that a glorious thin', Atty?”

“Now, Art, darlin', will you let me help you to bed--think of the hour it is.”

“I won't go, I tell you. I'll sit here wid my head on the table all night. Come here, Atty. Atty, it's wondherful how I love you--above all creatures livin' do I love you. Sure I never refuse to do any thing for you, Atty; do I now?”

“Well, then, will you come to bed for me?”

“To be sure I will, at wanst;” and the unhappy man instantly rose and staggered into his bedroom, aided and supported by his wife and child; for the latter lent whatever little assistance he could give to his drunken father, whom he tenderly loved.

His shop, however, is now closed, the apprentices are gone, and the last miserable source of their support no longer exists. Poverty now sets in, and want and destitution. He parts with his tools; but not for the purpose of meeting the demands of his wife and children at home; no; but for drink--drink--drink--drink. He is now in such a state that he cannot, dares not, reflect, and consequently, drink is more necessary to him than ever. His mind, however, is likely soon to be free from the pain of thinking; for it is becoming gradually debauched and brutified--is sinking, in fact, to the lowest and most pitiable state of degradation. It was then, indeed, that he felt how the world deals with a man who leaves himself depending on it.

His friends had now all abandoned him; decent people avoided him--he had fallen long ago below pity, and was now an object of contempt. His family at home were destitute; every day brought hunger--positive, absolute want of food wherewith to support nature. His clothes were reduced to tatters; so were those of his wife and children. His frame, once so strong and athletic, was now wasted away to half its wonted size; his hands were thin, tremulous, and flesh-less; his face pale and emaciated; and his eye dead and stupid. He was now nearly alone in the world. Low and profligate as were his drunken companions, yet even they shunned him; and so contemptuously did they treat him, now that he was no longer able to pay his way, or enable the scoundrels to swill at his expense, that whenever he happened to enter Barney Scaddhan's tap, while they were in it, they immediately expelled him without ceremony, or Barney did it for them. He now hated home; there was nothing there for him, but cold, naked, shivering destitution. The furniture had gone by degrees for liquor; tables, chairs, kitchen utensils, bed and bedding, with the exception of a miserable blanket for Margaret and the child, had all been disposed of for about one-tenth part of their value. Alas, what a change is this from comfort, industry, independence, and respectability, to famine, wretchedness, and the utmost degradation! Even Margaret, whose noble heart beat so often in sympathy with the distresses of the poor, has scarcely any one now who will feel sympathy with her own. Not that she was utterly abandoned by all. Many a time have the neighbors, in a stealthy way, brought a little relief in the shape of food, to her and her children. Sorry are we to say, however, that there were in the town of Ballykeerin, persons whom she had herself formerly relieved, and with whom the world went well since, who now shut their eyes against her misery, and refused to assist her. Her lot, indeed, was now a bitter one, and required all her patience, all her fortitude to enable her to bear up under it. Her husband was sunk down to a pitiable pitch, his mind consisting, as it were, only of two elements, stupidity and ill-temper. Up until the disposal of all the furniture, he had never raised his hand to her, or gone beyond verbal abuse; now, however, his temper became violent and brutal. All sense of shame--every pretext for decency--all notions of self-respect, were gone, and nothing was left to sustain or check him. He could not look in upon himself and find one spark of decent pride, or a single principle left that contained the germ of his redemption. He now gave himself over as utterly lost, and consequently felt no scruple to stoop to any act, no matter how mean or contemptible. In the midst of all this degradation, however, there was one recollection which he never gave up; but alas, to what different and shameless purposes did he now prostitute it! That which had been in his better days a principle of just pride, a spur to industry, an impulse to honor, and a safeguard to integrity, had now become the catchword of a mendicant--the cant or slang, as it were, of an impostor. He was not ashamed to beg in its name--to ask for whiskey in its name--and to sink, in its name, to the most sordid supplications.

“Will you stand the price of a glass? I'm Art Maguire; one of the great Maguires of Fermanagh! Think of the blood of the Maguires, and stand a glass. Barney Scaddhan won't trust me now; although many a pound and penny of good money I left him.”

“Ay,” the person accosted would reply, “an' so sign's on you; you would be a different man to-day, had you visited Barney Scaddhan's seldomer, or kept out of it altogether.”

“It's not a sarmon I want; will you stand the price of a glass?”

“Not a drop.”

“Go to blazes, then, if you won't. I'm a betther man than ever you wor, an' have betther blood in my veins. The great Fermanagh Maguires forever!”

But, hold--we must do the unfortunate man justice. Amidst all this degradation, and crime, and wretchedness, there yet shone undimmed one solitary virtue. This was an abstract but powerful affection for his children, especially for his eldest son; now a fine boy about eight or nine. In his worst and most outrageous moods--when all other influence failed--when the voice of his own Margaret, whom he once loved--oh how well! fell heedless upon his ears--when neither Frank, nor friend, nor neighbor could manage nor soothe him--let but the finger of his boy touch him, or a tone of his voice fall upon his ear, and he placed himself in his hands, and did whatever the child wished him.

One evening about this time, Margaret was sitting upon a small hassock of straw, that had been made for little Art, when he began to walk. It was winter, and there was no fire; a neighbor, however, had out of charity lent her a few dipped rushes, that they might not be in utter darkness. One of these was stuck against the wall, for they had no candlestick; and oh, what a pitiable and melancholy spectacle did its dim and feeble light present! There she sat, the young, virtuous, charitable, and lovely Margaret of the early portion of our narrative, surrounded by her almost naked children--herself with such thin and scanty covering as would wring any heart but to know it. Where now was her beauty? Where her mirth, cheerfulness, and all her lightness of heart? Where? Let her ask that husband who once loved her so well, but who loved his own vile excesses and headlong propensities better. There, however, she sat, with a tattered cap on, through the rents of which her raven hair, once so beautiful and glossy, came out in matted elf-locks, and hung down about her thin and wasted neck. Her face was pale and ghastly as death; her eyes were without fire--full of languor--full of sorrow; and alas, beneath one of them, was too visible, by its discoloration, the foul mark of her husband's brutality. To this had their love, their tenderness, their affection come; and by what? Alas! by the curse of liquor--the demon of drunkenness--and want of manly resolution. She sat, as we have said, upon the little hassock, while shivering on her bosom was a sickly-looking child, about a year old, to whom she was vainly endeavoring to communicate some of her own natural warmth. The others, three in number, were grouped together for the same reason; for poor little Atty--who, though so very young, was his mother's only support, and hope, and consolation--sat with an arm about each, in order, as well as he could, to keep off the cold--the night being stormy and bitter. Margaret sat rocking herself to and fro, as those do who indulge in sorrow, and crooning for her infant the sweet old air of “_Tha ma cullha's na dhuska me_,” or “I am asleep and don't waken me!”--a tender but melancholy air, which had something peculiarly touching in it on the occasion in question.

“Ah,” she said, “I am asleep and don't waken me; if it wasn't for your sakes, darlins, it's I that long to be in that sleep that we will never waken from; but sure, lost in misery as we are, what could yez do without me still?”

“What do you mane, mammy?” said Atty; “sure doesn't everybody that goes to sleep waken out of it?”

“No, darlin'; there's a sleep that nobody wakens from.”

“Dat quare sleep, mammy,” said a little one. “Oh, but me's could, mammy; will we eva have blankets?”

The question, though simple, opened up the cheerless, the terrible future to her view. She closed her eyes, put her hands on them, as if she strove to shut it out, and shivered as much at the apprehension of what was before her, as with the chilly blasts that swept through the windowless house.

“I hope so, dear,” she replied; “for God is good.”

“And will he get us blankets, mammy?”.

“Yes, darlin', I hope so.”

“Me id rady he'd get us sometin' to ait fust, mammy; I'm starvin' wid hungry;” and the poor child began to cry for food.

The disconsolate mother was now assailed by the clamorous outcries of nature's first want, that of food. She surveyed her beloved little brood in the feeble light, and saw in all its horror the fearful impress of famine stamped upon their emaciated features, and strangely lighting up their little heavy eyes. She wrung her hands, and looking up silently to heaven, wept aloud for some minutes.

“Childre,” she said at length, “have patience, poor things, an' you'll soon get something to eat. I sent over Nanny Hart to my sisther's, an' when she comes back yell get something;--so have patience, darlins, till then.”

“But, mother,” continued little Atty, who could not understand her allusion to the sleep from which there is no awakening; “what kind of sleep is it that people never waken from?”

“The sleep that's in the grave, Atty, dear; death is the sleep I mean.”

“An' would you wish to die, mother?”

“Only for your sake, Atty, and for the sake of the other darlins, if it was the will of God, I would; and,” she added, with a feeling of indescribable anguish, “what have I now to live for but to see you all about me in misery and sorrow!”

The tears as she spoke ran silently, but bitterly, down her cheeks.

“When I think of what your poor lost father was,” she added, “when we wor happy, and when he was good, and when I think of what he is now--oh, my God, my God,” she sobbed' out, “my manly young husband, what curse has come over you that has brought you down to this! Curse! oh, fareer gair, it's a curse that's too well known in the country--it's the curse that laves many an industrious man's house as ours is this bitther night--it's the curse that takes away good name and comfort, and honesty (that's the only thing it has left us)--that takes away the strength of both body and mind--that banishes dacency and shame--that laves many a widow and orphan to the marcy of an unfeelin' world--that fills the jail and the madhouse--that brings many a man an' woman to a disgraceful death--an' that tempts us to the commission of every evil;--that curse, darlins, is whiskey--drinkin' whiskey--an' it is drinkin' whiskey that has left us as we are, and that has ruined your father, and destroyed him forever.”

“Well, but there's no other curse over us, mother?”

The mother paused a moment--

“No, darlin',” she replied; “not a curse--but my father and mother both died, and did not give me their blessin'; but now, Atty, don't ask me anything more about that, bekase I can't tell you.” This she added from a feeling of delicacy to her unhappy husband, whom, through all his faults and vices, she constantly held up to her children as an object of respect, affection, and obedience.

Again the little ones were getting importunate for food, and their cries were enough to touch any heart, much less that of a tender and loving mother. Margaret herself felt that some unusual delay must have occurred, or the messenger she sent to her sister must have long since returned; just then a foot was heard outside the door, and there was an impatient cessation of the cries, in the hope that it was the return of Nanny Hart--the door opened, and Toal Finnigan entered this wretched abode of sorrow and destitution.

There was something peculiarly hateful about this man, but in the eyes of Margaret there was something intensely so. She knew right well that he had been the worst and most demoralizing companion her husband ever associated with, and she had, besides, every reason to believe that, were it not for his evil influence over the vain and wretched man, he might have overcome his fatal propensity to tipple. She had often told Art this; but little Toal's tongue was too sweet, when aided by his dupe's vanity. Many a time had she observed a devilish leer of satanic triumph in the misshapen little scoundrel's eye, when bringing home her husband in a state of beastly intoxication, and for this reason, independently of her knowledge of his vile and heartless disposition, and infamous character, she detested him. After entering, he looked about him, and even with the taint light of the rush she could mark that his unnatural and revolting features were lit up with a hellish triumph.

“Well, Margaret Murray,” said he, “I believe you are now nearly as badly off as you can be; your husband's past hope, and you are as low as a human bein' ever was. I'm now satisfied; you refused to marry me--you made a May-game of me--a laughin' stock of me, and your father tould my father that I had legs like reapin' hooks! Now, from the day you refused to marry me, I swore I'd never die till I'd have my revinge, and I have it; who has the laugh now, Margaret Murray?”

“You say,” she replied calmly, “that I am as low as a human bein' can be, but that's false, Toal Finnigan, for I thank God I have committed no crime, and my name is pure and good, which is more than any one can say for you; begone from my place.”

“I will,” he replied, “but before I go jist let me tell you, that I have the satisfaction to know that, if I'm not much mistaken, it was I that was the principal means of leavin' you as you are, and your respectable husband as he is; so my blessin' be wid you, an that's more than your father left you. Raipin' hooks, indeed!”

The little vile Brownie then disappeared.

Margaret, the moment he was gone, immediately turned round, and going to her knees, leaned, with her half-cold infant still in her arms, against a creaking chair, and prayed with as much earnestness as a distracted heart permitted her. The little ones, at her desire, also knelt, and in a few minutes afterwards, when her drunken husband came home, he found his miserable family, grouped as they were in their misery, worshipping God in their own simple and touching manner. His entrance disturbed them, for Margaret knew she must go through the usual ordeal to which his nightly return was certain to expose her.

“I want something to ait,” said he.

“Art, dear,” she replied--and this was the worst word she ever uttered against him--“Art, dear, I have nothing for you till by an' by; but I will then.”

“Have you any money?”

“Money, Art! oh, where would I get it? If I had money I wouldn't be without something' for you to eat, or the childre here that tasted nothin' since airly this mornin'.”

“Ah, you're a cursed useless wife,” he replied, “you brought nothin' but bad luck to me an' them; but how could you bring anything else, when you didn't get your father's blessin'.”

“But, Art, don't you remember,” she said meekly in reply, “you surely can't forget for whose sake I lost it.”

“Well, he's fizzin' now, the hard-hearted ould scoundrel, for keepin' it from you; he forgot who you wor married to, the extortin' ould vagabone--to one of the great Fermanagh Maguires, an' he' not fit to wipe their shoes. The curse o' heaven upon you an' him, wherever he is! It was an unlucky day to me I ever seen the face of one of you--here, Atty, I've some money; some strange fellow at the inn below stood to me for the price of a naggin, an' that blasted Barney Scaddhan wouldn't let me in, bekase, he said, I was a disgrace to his house, the scoundrel.”

“The same house was a black sight to you, Art.”

“Here, Atty, go off and, get me a naggin.”

“Wouldn't it be better for you to get something to eat, than to drink it, Art.”

“None of your prate, I say, go off an' bring me a naggin o' whiskey, an' don't let the grass grow under your feet.”

The children, whenever he came home, were awed into silence, but although they durst not speak, there was an impatient voracity visible in their poor features, and now wolfish little eyes, that was a terrible thing to witness. Art took the money, and went away to bring his father the whiskey.

“What's the reason,” said he, kindling into sudden fury, “that you didn't provide something for me to eat? Eh? What's the reason?” and he approached her in a menacing attitude. “You're a lazy, worthless vagabone. Why didn't you get me something to ait, I say? I can't stand this--I'm famished.”

“I sent to my sister's,” she replied, laying-down the child; for she feared that if he struck her and knocked her down, with the child in her arms, it might be injured, probably killed, by the fall; “when the messenger comes back from my sister's----”

“D--n yourself and your sister,” he replied, striking her a blow at the same time upon the temple. She fell, and in an instant her face was deluged with blood.

“Ay, lie there,” he continued, “the loss of the blood will cool you. Hould your tongues, you devils, or I'll throw yez out of the house,” he exclaimed to the children, who burst into an uproar of grief on seeing their “mammy,” as they called her, lying bleeding and insensible. “That's to taich her not to have something for me to ait. Ay,” he proceeded, with a hideous laugh--“ha, ha, ha! I'm a fine fellow--amn't I? There she lies now, and yet she was wanst Margaret Murray!--my own Margaret--that left them all for myself; but sure if she did, wasn't I one of the great Maguires of Fermanagh?--Get up, Margaret; here, I'll help you up, if the divil was in you!”

He raised her as he spoke, and perceived that consciousness was returning. The first thing she did was to put up her hand to her temple, where she felt the warm blood. She gave him one look of profound sorrow.

“Oh, Art dear,” she exclaimed, “Art dear--” her voice failed her, but the tears flowed in torrents down her cheeks.

“Margaret,” said he, “you needn't spake to me that way. You know any how I'm damned--damned--lol de rol lol--tol de rol lol! ha, ha, ha! I have no hope either here or hereafther--divil a morsel of hope. Isn't that comfortable? eh?--ha, ha, ha”--another hideous laugh. “Well, no matter; we'll dhrink it out, at all events. Where's Atty, wid the whiskey? Oh, here he is! That's a good boy, Atty.”

“Oh, mammy darlin',” exclaimed the child, on seeing the blood streaming from her temple--“mammy darlin', what happened you?”

“I fell, Atty dear,” she replied, “and was cut.”

“That's a lie, Atty; it was I, your fine chip of a father, that struck her. Here's her health, at all events! I'll make one dhrink of it; hoch! they may talk as they like, but I'll stick to Captain Whiskey.”

“Father,” said the child, “will you come over and lie down upon the straw, for your own me, for your own Atty; and then you'll fall into a sound sleep?”

“I will, Atty, for you--for you--I will, Atty; but mind, I wouldn't do it for e'er another livin'.”

One day wid Captain Whiskey I wrastled a fall, But, t'aix, I was no match for the Captain at all, Though the landlady's measures they wor damnably small--But I'll thry him to morrow when I'm sober.

“Come,” said the child, “lie down here on the straw; my poor mammy says we'll get clane straw to-morrow; and we'll be grand then.”

His father, who was now getting nearly helpless, went over and threw himself upon some straw--thin and scanty and cold it was--or rather, in stooping to throw himself on it he fell with what they call in the country a soss; that is, he fell down in a state of utter helplessness; his joints feeble and weak, and all his strength utterly prostrated. Margaret, who in the meantime was striving to stop the effusion of blood from her temple, by the application of cobwebs, of which there was no scarcity in the house, now went over, and loosening his cravat, she got together some old rags, of which she formed, as well as she could, a pillow to support his head, in order to avoid the danger of his being suffocated.

“Poor Art,” she exclaimed, “if you knew what you did, you would cut that hand off you sooner than raise it to your own Margaret, as you used to call me. It is pity that I feel for you, Art dear, but no anger; an' God, who sees my heart, knows that.”

Now that he was settled, and her own temple bound up, the children once more commenced their cry of famine; for nothing can suspend the stern cravings of hunger, especially when fanged by the bitter consciousness that there is no food to be had. Just then, however, the girl returned from her sister's, loaded with oatmeal--a circumstance which changed the cry of famine into one of joy.

But now, what was to be done for fire, there was none in the house.

“Here is half-a-crown,” said the girl, “that she sent you; but she put her hands acrass, and swore by the five crasses, that unless you left Art at wanst, they'd never give you a rap farden's worth of assistance agin, if you and they wor to die in the streets.”

“Leave him!” said Margaret; “oh never! When I took him, I took him for betther an' for worse, and I'm not goin' to neglect my duty to him now, because he's down. All the world has desarted him, but I'll never desart him. Whatever may happen, Art dear--poor, lost Art--whatever may happen, I'll live with you, beg with you, die with you; anything but desart you.”

She then, after wiping the tears which accompanied her words, sent out the girl, who bought some turf and milk, in order to provide a meal of wholesome food for the craving children.

“Now,” said she to the girl, “what is to be done? for if poor Art sees this meal in the morning, he will sell the best part of it to get whiskey; for I need scarcely tell you,” she added, striving to palliate his conduct, “that he cannot do without it, however he might contrive to do without his breakfast.” But, indeed, this was true. So thoroughly was he steeped in drunkenness--in the low, frequent, and insatiable appetite for whiskey--that, like tobacco or snuff, it became an essential portion of his life--a necessary-evil, without which he could scarcely exist. At all events, the poor children had one comfortable meal, which made them happy; the little stock that remained was stowed away in some nook or other, where Art was not likely to find it; the girl went home, and we were about to say that the rest of this miserable family went to bed; but, alas! they had no bed to go to, with the exception of a little straw, and a thin single blanket to cover them.

If Margaret's conduct during these severe and terrible trials was not noble and heroic, we know not what could be called so. The affection which she exhibited towards her husband overcame everything. When Art had got about half way in his mad and profligate career, her friends offered to support her, if she would take refuge with them and abandon him; but the admirable woman received the proposal as an insult; and the reply she gave is much the same as the reader has heard from her lips, with reference to the girl's message from her sister.

Subsequently, they offered to take her and the children; but this also she indignantly rejected. She could not leave him, she said, at the very time when it was so necessary that her hands should be about him. What might be the fate of such a man if he had none to take care of him? No, this almost unexampled woman, rather than desert him in such circumstances, voluntarily partook in all the wretchedness, destitution, and incredible misery which his conduct inflicted on her, and did so patiently, and without a murmur.

In a few days after the night we have described, a man covered with rags, without shoe, or stocking, or shirt, having on an old hat, through the broken crown of which his hair, wefted with bits of straw, stood out, his face shrunk and pale, his beard long and filthy, and his eyes rayless and stupid--a man of this description, we say, with one child in his arms, and two more accompanying him, might be seen begging through the streets of Ballykeerin; yes, and often in such a state of drunkenness as made it frightful to witness his staggering gait, lest he might tumble over upon the infant, or let it fair out of his arms. This man was Art Maguire; to such a destiny had he come, or rather had he brought himself at last; Art Maguire--one of the great Maguires of Fermanagh!

But where is she--the attached, the indomitable in love--the patient, the much enduring, the uncomplaining? Alas! she is at length separated from him and them; her throbbing veins are hot and rife with fever--her aching head is filled with images of despair and horror--she is calling for her husband--her young and manly husband--and says she will not be parted from him--she is also calling for her children, and demands to have them. The love of the mother and of the wife is now furious; but, thank God, the fury that stimulates it is that of disease, and not of insanity. The trials and privations which could not overcome her noble heart, overcame her physical frame, and on the day succeeding that woful night she was seized with a heavy fever, and through the interference of some respectable inhabitants of the town, was conveyed to the fever hospital, where she now lies in a state of delirium.

And Frank Maguire--the firm, the industrious, and independent--where is he? Unable to bear the shame of his brother's degradation, he gave up his partnership, and went to America, where he now is; but not without having left in the hands of a friend something for his unfortunate brother to remember him by; and it was this timely aid which for the last three quarters of a year has been the sole means of keeping life in his brother's family.

Thus have we followed Art Maguire from his youth up to the present stage of his life, attempting, as well as we could, to lay open to our readers his good principles and his bad, together with the errors and ignorances of those who had the first formation of his character--we mean his parents and family. We have endeavored to trace, with as strict an adherence to truth and nature as possible, the first struggles of a heart naturally generous and good, with the evil habit which beset him, as well as with the weaknesses by which that habit was set to work upon his temperament. Whether we have done this so clearly and naturally as to bring home conviction of its truth to such of our readers as may resemble him in the materials which formed his moral constitution, and consequently, to hold him up as an example to be avoided, it is not for ourselves to say. If our readers think so, or rather feel so, then we shall rest satisfied of having performed our task as we ought.

Our task, however, is not accomplished. It is true, we have accompanied him with pain and pity to penury, rags, and beggary--unreformed, unrepenting, hardened, shameless, desperate. Do our readers now suppose that there is anything in the man, or any principle external to him, capable of regenerating and elevating a heart so utterly lost as his?

But hush! what is this? How dark the moral clouds that have been hanging over the country for a period far beyond the memory of man! how black that dismal canopy which is only lit by fires that carry and shed around them disease, famine, crime, madness, bloodshed, and death. How hot, sultry, and enervating to the whole constitution of man, physically and mentally, is the atmosphere we have been breathing so long! The miasma of the swamp, the simoom of the desert, the merciless sirocco, are healthful when compared to such an atmosphere. And, hark! what formidable being is that who, with black expanded wings, flies about from place to place, and from person to person, with a cup of fire in his hands, which he applies to their eager lips? And what spell or charm lies in that burning cup, which, no sooner do they taste than they shout, clap their hands with exultation, and cry out, “We are happy! we are happy!” Hark; he proclaims himself, and shouteth still louder than they do; but they stop their ears, and will not listen; they shut their eyes and will not see. What sayeth he? “I am the Angel of Intemperance, Discord, and Destruction, who oppose myself to God and all his laws--to man, and all that has been made for his good; my delight is in misery and unhappiness, in crime, desolation, ruin, murder, and death in a thousand shapes of vice and destitution. Such I am, such I shall be, for behold, my dominion shall last forever!”

But hush again! Look towards the south! What faint but beautiful light is it, which, fairer than that of the morning, gradually breaketh upon that dark sky? See how gently, but how steadily, its lustre enlarges and expands! It is not the light of the sun, nor of the moon, nor of the stars, neither is it the morning twilight, which heralds the approach of day; no, but it is the serene effulgence which precedes and accompanies a messenger from God, who is sent to bear a new principle of happiness to man! This principle is itself an angelic spirit, and lo! how the sky brightens, and the darkness flees away like a guilty thing before it! Behold it on the verge of the horizon, which is now glowing with the rosy hues of heaven--it advances, it proclaims its mission:--hark!

“I am the Angel of Temperance, of Industry, of Peace! who oppose myself to the Spirit of Evil and all his laws--I am the friend of man, and conduct him to the true enjoyment of all that has been made for his good. My mission is to banish misery, unhappiness, and crime, to save mankind from desolation, ruin, murder, and death, in a thousand shapes of vice and destitution.”

And now see how he advances in beauty and power, attended by knowledge, health, and truth, while the harmonies of domestic life, of civil concord, and social duty, accompany him, and make music in his path. But where is the angel of intemperance, discord, and destruction? Hideous monster, behold him! No longer great nor terrible, he flies, or rather totters, from before his serene opponent--he shudders--he stutters and hiccups in his howlings--his limbs are tremulous--his hands shake as if with palsy--his eye is lustreless and bloodshot, and his ghastly countenance the exponent of death. He flies, but not unaccompanied; along with him are crime, poverty, hunger, idleness, his music the groan of the murderer, the clanking of the madman's chain, filled up by the report of the suicide's pistol, and the horrible yell of despair! And now he and his evil spirits are gone, the moral atmosphere is bright and unclouded, and the Angel of Temperance, Industry, and Peace goes abroad throughout the land, fulfilling his beneficent mission, and diffusing his own virtues into the hearts of a regenerated people!

Leaving allegory, however, to the poets, it is impossible that, treating of the subject which we have selected, we could, without seeming to undervalue it, neglect to say a few words upon the most extraordinary moral phenomenon, which, apart from the miraculous, the world ever saw; we allude to the wonderful Temperance Movement, as it is called, which, under the guiding hand of the Almighty, owes its visible power and progress to the zeal and incredible exertions of one pious and humble man--the Very Rev. Theobald Matthew, of Cork. When we consider the general, the proverbial character, which our countrymen have, during centuries, borne for love of drink, and their undeniable habits of intemperance, we cannot but feel that the change which has taken place is, indeed, surprising, to say the least of it. But, in addition to this, when we also consider the natural temperament of the Irishman--his social disposition--his wit, his humor, and his affection--all of which are lit up by liquor--when we just reflect upon the exhilaration of spirits produced by it--when we think upon the poverty, the distress, and the misery which too generally constitute his wretched lot, and which it will enable him, for a moment, to forget--and when we remember that all his bargains were made over it--that he courted his sweetheart over it--got married over it--wept for his dead over it--and generally fought his enemy of another faction, or the Orangeman of another creed, when under its influence:--when we pause over all these considerations, we can see how many temptations our countrymen had to overcome in renouncing it as they did; and we cannot help looking at it as a moral miracle, utterly without parallel in the history of man.

Now we are willing to give all possible credit, and praise, and honor to Father Matthew; but we do not hesitate to say, that even he would have failed in being, as he is, the great visible exponent of this admirable principle, unless there had been other kindred principles in the Irishman's heart, which recognized and clung to it. In other words it is unquestionable, that had the religious and moral feelings of the Irish people been neglected, the principle of temperance would never have taken such deep root in the heart of the nation as it has done. Nay, it could not; for does not every man of common sense know, that good moral principles seldom grow in a bad moral soil, until it is cultivated for their reception. It is, therefore, certainly a proof that the Roman Catholic priesthood of Ireland had not neglected the religious principles of the people. It may, I know, and it has been called a superstitious contagion; but however that may be, so long as we have such contagions among us, we will readily pardon the superstition. Let superstition always assume a shape of such beneficence and virtue to man, and we shall not quarrel with her for retaining the name. Such a contagion could never be found among any people in whom there did not exist predisposing qualities, ready to embrace and nurture the good which came with it.

Our argument, we know, may be met by saying that its chief influence was exerted on those whose habits of dissipation, immorality, and irreligion kept, them aloof from the religious instruction of the priest. But to those who know the Irish heart, it is not necessary to say that many a man addicted to drink is far from being free from the impressions of religion, or uninfluenced by many a generous and noble virtue. Neither does it follow that every such man has been neglected by his priest, or left unadmonished of the consequences which attended his evil habit. But how did it happen, according to that argument, that it was this very class of persons--the habitual, or the frequent, or the occasional drunkard--that first welcomed the spirit of temperance, and availed themselves of its blessings? If there had not been the buried seeds of neglected instruction lying in their hearts, it is very improbable that they would have welcomed and embraced the principle as they did. On the other hand, it is much more likely that they would have fled from, and avoided a spirit which deprived them of the gratification of their ruling and darling passion. Evil and good, we know, do not so readily associate.

Be this, however, as it may, we have only to state, in continuation of our narrative, that at the period of Art Maguire's most lamentable degradation, and while his admirable but unhappy wife was stretched upon the burning bed of fever, the far low sounds of the Temperance Movement were heard, and the pale but pure dawn of its distant light seen at Ballykeerin. That a singular and novel spirit accompanied it, is certain; and that it went about touching and healing with all the power of an angel, is a matter not of history, but of direct knowledge and immediate recollection. Nothing, indeed, was ever witnessed in any country similar to it. Whereever it went, joy, acclamation, ecstasy accompanied it; together with a sense of moral liberty, of perfect freedom from the restraint, as it were, of some familiar devil, that had kept its victims in its damnable bondage. Those who had sunk exhausted before the terrible Molpch of Intemperance, and given themselves over for lost, could now perceive that there was an ally at hand, that was able to bring them succor, and drag them back from degradation and despair, to peace and independence, from contempt and infamy, to respect and praise. Nor was this all. It was not merely into the heart of the sot and drunkard that it carried a refreshing consciousness of joy and deliverance, but into all those hearts which his criminal indulgence had filled with heaviness and sorrow. It had, to be sure, its dark side to some--ay, to thousands. Those who lived by the vices --the low indulgences and the ruinous excesses--of their fellow-creatures--trembled and became aghast at its approach. The vulgar and dishonest publican, who sold a _bona fide_ poison under a false name; the low tavern-keeper; the proprietor of the dram-shop; of the night-house; and the shebeen--all were struck with terror and dismay. Their occupation was doomed to go. No more in the dishonest avarice of gain where they to coax and jest with the foolish tradesman, until they confirmed him in the depraved habit, and led him on, at his own expense, and their profit, step by step, until the naked and shivering sot, now utterly ruined, was kicked out, like Art Maguire, to make room for those who were to tread in his steps, and share his fate.

No more was the purity and inexperience of youth to be corrupted by evil society, artfully introduced for the sordid purpose of making him spend his money, at the expense of health, honesty, and good name.