Chapter XV: Part 15

“We are,” she replied, “thank the Giver of all good for it; may God continue it to us, and grant it to last!”

“Last! why wouldn't it last, woman alive? Well, begad, after all, 'tis not every other man, any way--”

“Whisht, now,” said Margaret, interrupting him, “you're beginnin' to praise yourself.”

“Well, I won't then; I'm going down the town to have a glass or two o' cordial wid young Tom Whiskey, in Barney Scaddhan's.”

“Art,” she replied, somewhat solemnly, “the very name of Barney Scaddhan sickens me. I know we ought to forgive every one, as we hope to be forgiven ourselves; but still, Art, if I was in your shoes, the sorra foot ever I'd put inside his door. Think of the way he trated you; ah, Art acushla, where's the pride of the ould blood now?”

“Hut, woman, divil a one o' me ever could keep in bad feelin' to any one. Troth, Barney of late's as civil a crature as there's alive; sure what you spake of was all my own fault and not his; I'll be back in an hour or so.”

“Well,” said his wife, “there's one thing, Art, that every one knows.”

“What is that, Margaret?”

“Why, that a man's never safe in bad company.”

“But sure, what harm can they do me, when we drink nothing that can injure us?”

“Well, then,” said she, “as that's the case, can't you as well stay with good company as bad?”

“I'll not be away more than an hour.”

“Then, since you will go, Art, listen to me; you'll be apt to meet Toal Finnigan there; now, as you love me and your childre, an' as you wish to avoid evil and misfortune, don't do any one thing that he proposes to you: I've often tould you that he's your bitterest enemy.”

“I know you did; but sure, wanst a woman takes a pick (pique) aginst a man she'll never forgive him. In about an hour mind.” He then went out.

The fact is, that some few of those who began to feel irksome under the Obligation--by which I mean the knaves and hypocrites, for it is not to be supposed that among such an incredible multitude as joined the movement there were none of this description--some few, I say, were in the habit of resorting to Barney Scaddhan's for the social purpose of taking a glass of the true Teetotal cordial together. This drinking of cordial was most earnestly promoted by the class of low and dishonest publicans whom we have already described, and no wonder that it was so; in the first place, it's sale is more profitable than that of whiskey itself, and, in the second place, these fellows know by experience that it is the worst enemy that teetolism has, very few having ever strongly addicted themselves to cordial, who do not ultimately break the pledge, and resume the use of intoxicating liquor. This fact was well known at the time, for Father Costelloe, who did every thing that man could do to extend and confirm the principle of temperance, had put his parishioners on their guard against the use of this deleterious trash. Consequently, very few of the Ballykeerin men, either in town or parish, would taste it; when they stood in need of anything to quench their thirst, or nourish them, they confined themselves to water, milk, or coffee. Scarcely any one, therefore, with the exception of the knaves and hypocrites, tampered with themselves by drinking it.

The crew whom Art went to meet on the night in question consisted of about half a dozen, who, when they had been in the habit of drinking whiskey, were hardened and unprincipled men--profligates in every sense--fellows that, like Toal Finnigan, now adhered to teetotalism from sordid motives only, or, in other words, because they thought they could improve their business by it. It is true, they were suspected and avoided by the honest teetotallers, who wondered very much that Art Maguire, after the treatment he had formerly received at their hands, should be mean enough, they said, ever “to be hail fellow well met” with them again. But Art, alas! in spite of all his dignity of old blood, and his rodomontade about the Fermanagh Maguires, was utterly deficient in that decent pride which makes a man respect himself, and prevents him from committing a mean action.

For a considerable time before his arrival, there were assembled in Barney Scaddhan's tap, Tom Whiskey, Jerry Shannon, Jack Mooney, Toal Finnigan, and the decoy duck, young Barney Scaddhan himself, who merely became a teetotaller that he might be able to lure his brethren in to spend their money in drinking cordial.

“I wondher Art's not here before now,” observed Tom Whiskey; “blood alive, didn't he get on well afther joinin' the 'totallers?”

“Faix, it's a miracle,” replied Jerry Shannon, “there's not a more 'spbnsible man in Ballykeerin, he has quite a Protestant look;--ha, ha, ha!”

“Divil a sich a pest ever this house had as the same Art when he was a blackguard,” said young Scaddhan; “there was no keepin' him out of it, but constantly spungin' upon the dacent people that wor dhrmkin' in it.”

“Many a good pound and penny he left you for all that, Barney, my lad,” said Mooney; “and purty tratement you gave him when his money was gone.”

“Ay, an' we'd give you the same,” returned Scaddhan, “if your's was gone, too; ha, ha, ha! it's not moneyless vagabones we want here.”

“No,” said Shannon, “you first make them moneyless vagabones, an' then you kick them out o' doors, as you did him.”

“Exactly,” said the hardened miscreant, “that's the way we live; when we get the skin off the cat, then we throw out the carcass.”

“Why, dang it, man,” said Whiskey, “would you expect honest Barney here, or his still honester ould rip of a father, bad as they are, to give us drink for nothing?”

“Now,” said Finnigan, who had not yet spoken, “yez are talkin' about Art Maguire, and I'll tell yez what I could do; I could bend my finger that way, an' make him folly me over the parish.”

“And how could you do that?” asked Whiskey.

“By soodherin' him--by ticklin' his empty pride--by dwellin' on the ould blood of Ireland, the great Fermanagh Maguires--or by tellin' him that he's betther than any one else, and could do what nobody else could.”

“Could you make him drunk to-night?” asked Shannon.

“Ay,” said Toal, “an' will, too, as ever you seen him in your lives; only whin I'm praisin' him do some of you oppose me, an' if I propose any thing to be done, do you all either support me in it, or go aginst me, accordin' as you see he may take it.”

“Well, then,” said Mooney, “in ordher to put you in spirits, go off, Barney, an' slip a glass o' whiskey a piece into this cordial, jist to tighten it a bit--ha, ha, ha!”

“Ay,” said Tom Whiskey, “till we dhrink success to teetotalism, ha, ha, ha!”

“Suppose you do him in the cordial,” said Shannon.

“Never mind,” replied Toal; “I'll first soften him a little on the cordial, and then make him tip the punch openly and before faces, like a man.”

“Troth, it's a sin,” observed Moonoy, who began to disrelish the project; “if it was only on account of his wife an' childre.”

Toal twisted his misshapen mouth into still greater deformity at this observation--

“Well,” said he, “no matter, it'll only be a good joke; Art is a dacent fellow, and afther this night we won't repate it. Maybe,” he continued “I may find it necessary to vex him, an' if I do, remember you won't let him get at me, or my bread's baked.”

This they all promised, and the words were scarcely concluded, when Art entered and joined them. As a great portion of their conversation did not bear upon the subject matter of this narrative, it is therefore unnecessary to record it. After about two hours, during which Art had unconsciously drunk at least three glasses of whiskey, disguised in cordial, the topic artfully introduced by Toal was the Temperance Movement.

“As for my part,” said he, “I'm half ashamed that I ever joined it. As I was never drunk, where was the use of it? Besides, it's an unmanly thing for any one to have it to say that he's not able to keep himself sober, barrin' he takes an oath, or the pledge.”

“And why did you take it then?” said Art.

“Bekaise I was a fool,” replied Toal; “devil a thing else.”

“It's many a good man's case,” observed Art in reply, “to take an oath against liquor, or a pledge aither, an' no disparagement to any man that does it.”

“He's a betther man that can keep himself sober widout it,” said Toal dryly.

“What do you mane by a betther man?” asked Art, somewhat significantly; “let us hear that first, Toal.”

“Don't be talking' about betther men here,” said Jerry Shannon; “I tell you, Toal, there's a man in this room, and when you get me a betther man in the town of Ballykeerin, I'll take a glass of punch wid you, or a pair o' them, in spite of all the pledges in Europe!”

“And who is that, Jerry,” said Toal.

“There he sits,” replied Jerry, putting his extended palm upon Art's shoulder and clapping it.

“May the divil fly away wid you,” replied Toal; “did you think me a manus, that I'd go to put Art Maguire wid any man that I know? Art Maguire indeed! Now, Jerry, my throoper, do you think I'm come to this time o' day, not to know that there's no man in Ballykeerin, or the parish it stands in--an' that's a bigger word--that could be called a betther man that Art Maguire?”

“Come, boys,” said Art, “none of your nonsense. Sich as I am, be the same good or bad, I'll stand the next trate, an' devilish fine strong cordial it is.”

“Why, then, I don't think myself it's so good,” replied young Scaddhan; “troth it's waiker than we usually have it; an' the taste somehow isn't exactly to my plaisin'.”

“Very well,” said Art; “if you have any that 'ill plaise yourself betther, get it; but in the mane time bring us a round o' this, an' we'll be satisfied.”

“Art Maguire,” Toal proceeded, “you were ever and always a man out o' the common coorse.”

“Now, Toal, you're beginnin',” said Art; “ha, ha, ha--well, any way, how is that!”

“Bekaise the divil a taste o' fear or terror ever was in your constitution. When Art, boys, was at school--sure he an' I wor schoolfellows--if he tuck a thing into his head, no matter what, jist out of a whim, he'd do it, if the divil was at the back door, or the whole world goin' to stop him.”

“Throth, Toal, I must say there's a great deal o' thruth in that. Divil a one livin' knows me betther than Toal Finigan, sure enough, boys.”

“Arra, Art, do you remember the day you crossed the weir, below Tom Booth's,” pursued Toal, “when the river was up, and the wather jist intherin' your mouth?”

“That was the day Peggy Booth fainted, when she thought I was gone; begad, an' I was near it.”

“The very day.”

“That may be all thrue enough,” observed Tom Whiskey; “still I think I know Art this many a year, and I can't say I ever seen any of these great doing's. I jist seen him as aisy put from a thing, and as much afeard of the tongues of the nabors, or of the world, as another.”

“He never cared a damn for either o' them, for all that,” returned Toal; “that is, mind, if he tuck a thing into his head; ay, an' I'll go farther--divil a rap ever he cared for them, one way or other. No, the man has no fear of any kind in him.”

“Why, Toal,” said Mooney, “whether he cares for them or not, I think is aisily decided; and whether he's the great man you make him. Let us hear what he says himself upon it, and then we'll know.”

“Very well, then,” replied Toal; “what do you say yourself, Art? Am I right, or am I wrong?”

“You're right, Toal, sure enough; if it went to that, I don't care a curse about the world, or all Ballykeerin along wid it. I've a good business, and can set the world at defiance. If the people didn't want me, they wouldn't come to me.”

“Come, Toal,” said Jerry; “here--I'll hould you a pound note”--and lie pulled out one as he spoke--“that I'll propose a thing he won't do.”

“Aha--thank you for nothing, my customer--I won't take that bait,” replied the other; “but listen--is it a thing that he can do?”

“It is,” replied Jerry; “and what's more, every man in the room can do it, as well as Art, if he wishes.”

“He can?”

“He can.”

“Here,” said Toal, clapping down his pound. “Jack Mooney, put these in your pocket till this matther's decided. Now, Jerry, let us hear it.”

“I will;--he won't drink two tumblers of punch, runnin'; that is, one afther the other.”

“No,” observed Art, “I will not; do you want me to break the pledge?”

“Sure,” said Jerry, “this is not breaking the pledge--it's only for a wager.”

“No matther,” said Art; “it's a thing I won't do.”

“I'll tell you what, Jerry,” said Toal, “I'll hould you another pound now, that I do a thing to-night that Art won't do; an' that, like your own wager, every one in the room can do.”

“Done,” said the other, taking out the pound note, and placing it in Mooney's hand--Toal following his example.

“Scaddhan,” said Toal, “go an' bring me two tumblers of good strong punch. I'm a Totaller as well as Art, boys. Be off, Scaddhan.”

“By Japers,” said Tom Whiskey, as if to himself--looking at the same time as if he were perfectly amazed at the circumstance--“the little fellow has more spunk than Maguire, ould blood an' all! Oh, holy Moses; afther that, what will the world come to!”

Art heard the soliloquy of Whiskey, and looked about him with an air of peculiar meaning. His pride--his shallow, weak, contemptible pride, was up, while the honest pride that is never separated from firmness and integrity, was cast aside and forgotten. Scaddhan came in, and placing the two tumblers before Toal, that worthy immediately emptied first one of them, and then the other.

“The last two pounds are yours,” said Jerry; “Mooney, give them to him.”

Art, whose heart was still smarting under the artful soliloquy of Tom Whiskey, now started to his feet, and exclaimed--

“No, Jerry, the money's not his yet. Barney, bring in two tumblers. What one may do another may do; and as Jerry says, why it's only for a wager. At any rate, for one o' my blood was never done out, and never will.”

“By Japers,” said Whiskey, “I knew he wouldn't let himself be bate. I knew when it came to the push he wouldn't.”

“Well, Barney,” said Toal, “don't make them strong for him, for they might get into his head; he hasn't a good head anyway--let them be rather wake, Barney.”

“No,” said Art, “let them be as strong as his, and stronger, Barney; and lose no time about it.”

“I had better color them,” said Barney, “an' the people about the place 'll think it's cordial still.”

“Color the devil,” replied Art; “put no colorin' on them. Do you think I'm afeard of any one, or any colors?”

“You afeard of any one,” exclaimed Tom Whiskey; “one o' the ould Maguires afeard! ha, ha, ha!--that 'ud be good!”

Art, when the tumblers came in, drank off first one, which he had no sooner emptied, than he shivered into pieces against the grate; he then emptied the other, which shared the same fate.

“Now,” said he to Barney, “bring me a third one; I'll let yez see what a Maguire is.”

The third, on making its appearance, was immediately drained, and shivered like the others--for the consciousness of acting-wrong, in spite of his own resolution, almost drove him mad. Of what occurred subsequently in the public house, it is not necessary to give any account, especially as we must follow Art home--simply premising, before we do so, that the fact of “Art Maguire having broken the pledge,” had been known that very night to almost all Ballykeerin--thanks to the industry of Toal Finnigan, and his other friends.

His unhappy wife, after their conversation that evening, experienced one of those strange, unaccountable presentiments or impressions which every one, more or less, has frequently felt. Until lately, he had not often gone out at night, because it was not until lately that the clique began to reassemble in Barney Scaddhan's. 'Tis true the feeling on her part was involuntary, but on that very account it was the more distressing; her principal apprehension of danger to him was occasioned by his intimacy with Toal Finnigan, who, in spite of all her warnings and admonitions, contrived, by the sweetness of his tongue, to hold his ground with him, and maintain his good opinion. Indeed, any one who could flatter, wheedle, and play upon his vanity successfully, was sure to do this; but nobody could do it with such adroitness as Toal Finnigan.

It is wonderful how impressions are caught by the young from those who are older and have more experience than themselves. Little Atty, who had heard the conversation already detailed, begged his mammy not to send him to bed that night until his father would come home, especially as Mat Mulrennan, an in-door apprentice, who had been permitted that evening to go to see his family, had not returned, and he wished, he said, to sit up and let him in. The mother was rather satisfied than otherwise, that the boy should sit up with her, especially as all the other children and the servants had gone to bed.

“Mammy,” said the boy, “isn't it a great comfort for us to be as we are now, and to know that my father can never get drunk again?”

“It is indeed, Atty;” and yet she said so; with a doubting, if not an apprehensive heart.

“He'll never beat you more, mammy, now?”

“No, darlin'; nor he never did, barrin' when he didn't know what he was doin'.”

“That is when he was drunk, mammy?”

“Yes, Atty dear.”

“Well, isn't it a great thing that he can never get drunk any more, mammy; and never beat you any more; and isn't it curious too, how he never bate me?”

“You, darlin'? oh, no, he would rather cut his arm off than rise it to you, Atty dear; and it's well that you are so good a boy as you are--for I'm afeard, Atty, that even if you deserved to be corrected, he wouldn't do it.”

“But what 'ud we all do widout my father, mammy? If anything happened to him I think I'd die. I'd like to die if he was to go.”

“Why, darlin'?”

“Bekase, you know, he'd go to heaven, and I'd like to be wid him; sure he'd miss me--his own Atty--wherever he'd be.”

“And so you'd lave me and your sisters, Atty, and go to heaven with your father!”

The boy seemed perplexed; he looked affectionately at his mother, and said--

“No, mammy, I wouldn't wish to lave you, for then you'd have no son at all; no, I wouldn't lave you--I don't know what I'd do--I'd like to stay wid you, and I'd like to go wid him, I'd--”

“Well, darlin', you won't be put to that trial this many a long day, I hope.”

Just then voices were heard at the door, which both recognized as those of Art and Mat Mulrennan the apprentice.

“Now, darlin',” said the mother, who observed that the child was pale and drowsy-looking, “you may go to bed, I see you are sleepy, Atty, not bein' accustomed to sit up so late; kiss me, an' good-night.” He then kissed her, and sought the room where he slept.

Margaret, after the boy had gone, listened a moment, and became deadly pale, but she uttered no exclamation; on the contrary, she set her teeth, and compressed her lips closely together, put her hand on the upper part of her forehead, and rose to go to the door. She was not yet certain, but a dreadful terror was over her--Could it be possible that he was drunk?--she opened it, and the next moment her husband, in a state of wild intoxication, different from any in which she had ever seen him, come in. He was furious, but his fury appeared to have been directed against the apprentice, in consequence of having returned home so late.

On witnessing with her own eyes the condition in which he returned, all her presentiments flashed on her, and her heart sank down into a state of instant hopelessness and misery.

“Savior of the world!” she exclaimed, “I and my childre are lost; now, indeed, are we hopeless--oh, never till now, never till now!” She wept bitterly.

“What are you cryin' for now?” said he; “what are you cryin' for, I say?” he repeated, stamping his feet madly as he spoke; “stop at wanst, I'll have no cry--cryin' what--at--somever.”

She instantly dried her eyes.

“Wha--what kep that blasted whelp, Mul--Mulrennan, out till now, I say?”

“I don't know indeed, Art.”

“You--you don't! you kno--know noth-in'; An' now I'll have a smash, by the--the holy man, I'll--I'll smash every thing in--in the house.”

He then took up a chair, which, by one blow against the floor, he crashed to pieces.

“Now,” said he, “tha--that's number one; whe--where's that whelp, Mul--Mulrennan, till I pay--pay him for stayin' out so--so late. Send him here, send the ska-min' sco--scoundrel here, I bid you.”. Margaret, naturally dreading violence, went to get little Atty to pacify him, as well as to intercede for the apprentice; she immediately returned, and told him the latter was coming. Art, in the mean time, stood a little beyond the fireplace, with a small beach chair in his hand which he had made for Atty, when the boy was only a couple of years old, but which had been given to the other children in succession. He had been first about to break it also, but on looking at it, he paused and said--

“Not this--this is Atty's, and I won't break it.”

At that moment Mulrennan entered the room, with Atty behind him, but he had scarcely done so, when Art with all his strength flung the hard beach chair at his head; the lad, naturally anxious to avoid it, started to one side out of its way, and Atty, while in the act of stretching out his arms to run to his father, received the blow which had been designed for the other. It struck him a little above the temple, and he fell, but was not cut. The mother, on witnessing the act, raised her arms and shrieked, but on hearing the heavy, but dull and terrible sound of the blow against the poor boy's head, the shriek was suspended when half uttered, and she stood, her arms still stretched out, and bent a little upwards, as if she would have supplicated heaven to avert it;--her mouth was half open--her eyes apparently enlarged, and starting as if it were out of their sockets; there she stood--for a short time so full of horror as to be incapable properly of comprehending what had taken place. At length this momentary paralysis of thought passed away, and with all the tender terrors of affection awakened in her heart, she rushed to the insensible boy. Oh, heavy and miserable night! What pen can portray, what language describe, or what imagination conceive, the anguish, the agony of that loving mother, when, on raising her sweet, and beautiful, and most affectionate boy from the ground whereon he lay, that fair head, with its flaxen locks like silk, fell utterly helpless now to this side, and now to that!

“Art Maguire,” she said, “fly, fly,”--and she gave him one look; but, great God! what an object presented itself to her at that moment. A man stood before her absolutely hideous with horror; his face but a minute ago so healthy and high-colored, now ghastly as that of a corpse, his hands held up and clenched, his eyes frightful, his lips drawn back, and his teeth locked with strong and convulsive agony. He uttered not a word, but stood with his wild and gleaming eyes riveted, as if by the force of some awful spell, upon his insensible son, his only one, if he was then even that. All at once he fell down without sense or motion, as if a bullet had gone through his heart or his brain, and there lay as insensible as the boy he had loved so well.

All this passed so rapidly that the apprentice, who seemed also to have been paralyzed, had not presence of mind to do any thing but look from one person to another with terror and alarm.

“Go,” said Margaret, at length, “wake up the girls, and then fly--oh, fly--for the doctor.”

The two servant maids, however, had heard enough in her own wild shriek to bring them to this woful scene. They entered as she spoke, and, aided by the apprentice, succeeded with some difficulty in laying their master on his bed, which was in a back room off the parlor.

“In God's name, what is all this?” asked one of them, on looking at the insensible bodies of the father and son.

“Help me,” Margaret replied, not heeding the question, “help me to lay the treasure of my heart--my breakin' heart--upon his own little bed within, he will not long use it--tendherly, Peggy, oh, Peggy dear, tendherly to the broken flower--broken--broken--broken, never to rise his fair head again; oh, he is dead,” she said, in a calm low voice, “my heart tells me that he is dead--see how his limbs hang, how lifeless they hang. My treasure--our treasure--our sweet, lovin', and only little man--our only son sure--our only son is dead--and where, oh, where, is the mother's pride out of him now--where is my pride out of him now?”

They laid him gently and tenderly--for even the servants loved him as if he had been a relation--upon the white counterpane of his own little crib, where he had slept many a sweet and innocent sleep, and played many a lightsome and innocent play with his little sisters. His mother felt for his pulse, but she could feel no pulse, she kissed his passive lips, and then--oh, woful alternative of affliction!--she turned to his equally insensible father.

“Oh, ma'am,” said one of the girls, who had gone over to look at Art; “oh, for God's sake, ma'am, come here--here is blood comin' out of the masther's mouth.”

She was at the bedside in an instant, and there, to deepen her sufferings almost beyond the power of human fortitude, she saw the blood oozing slowly out of his mouth. Both the servants were now weeping and sobbing as if their hearts would break.

“Oh, mistress dear,” one of them exclaimed, seizing her affectionately by both hands, and looking almost distractedly into her face, “oh, mistress dear, what did you ever do to desarve this?”

“I don't know, Peggy,” she replied, “unless it was settin' my father's commands, and my mother's at defiance; I disobeyed them both, and they died without blessin' either me or mine. But oh,” she said, clasping her hands, “how can one poor wake woman's heart stand all this--a double death--husband and son--son and husband--and I'm but one woman, one poor, feeble, weak woman--but sure,” she added, dropping on her knees, “the Lord will support me. I am punished, and I hope forgiven, and he will now support me.”

She then briefly, but distractedly, entreated the divine support, and rose once more with a heart, the fibres of which were pulled asunder, as it were, between husband and son, each of whose lips she kissed, having wiped the blood from those of her husband, with a singular blending together of tenderness, distraction and despair. She went from the one to the other, wringing her hands in dry agony, feeling for life in their hearts and pulses, and kissing their lips with an expression of hopelessness so pitiable and mournful, that the grief of the servants was occasioned more by her sufferings than by the double catastrophe that had occurred.

The doctor's house, as it happened, was not far from theirs, and in a very brief period he arrived.

“Heavens! Mrs. Maguire, what has happened?” said he, looking on the two apparently inanimate bodies with alarm.

“His father,” she said, pointing to the boy, “being in a state of drink, threw a little beech chair at the apprentice here, he stepped aside, as was natural, and the blow struck my treasure there,” she said, holding her hand over the spot where he was struck, but not on it; “but, doctor, look at his father, the blood is trickling out of his mouth.”

The doctor, after examining into the state of both, told her not to despair--

“Your husband,” said he, “who is only in a fit, has broken a blood-vessel, I think some small blood-vessel is broken; but as for the boy, I can as yet pronounce no certain opinion upon him. It will be a satisfaction to you, however, to know that he is not dead, but only in a heavy stupor occasioned by the blow.”

It was now that her tears began to flow, and copiously and bitterly they did flow; but as there was still hope, her grief, though bitter, was not that of despair. Ere many minutes, the doctor's opinion respecting one of them, at least, was verified. Art opened his eyes, looked wildly about him, and the doctor instantly signed to his wife to calm the violence of her sorrow, and she was calm.

“Margaret,” said he, “where's Atty? bring him to me--bring him to me!”

“Your son was hurt,” replied the doctor, “and has just gone to sleep.”

“He is dead,” said Art, “he is dead, he will never waken from that sleep--and it was I that killed him!”

“Don't disturb yourself,” said the doctor, “as you value your own life and his; you yourself have broken a blood-vessel, and there is nothing for you now but quiet and ease.”

“He is dead,” said his father, “he is dead, and it was I that killed him; or, if he's not dead, I must hear it from his mother's lips.”

“Art, darlin', he is not dead, but he is very much hurted,” she replied; “Art, as you love him, and me, and us all, be guided by the doctor.”

“He is not dead,” said the doctor; “severely hurt he is, but not dead. Of that you may rest assured.”

So far as regarded Art, the doctor was right; he had broken only a small blood vessel, and the moment the consequences of his fit had passed away, he was able to get up, and walk about with very little diminution of his strength.

To prevent him from seeing his son, or to conceal the boy's state from him, was impossible. He no sooner rose than with trembling hands, a frightful terror of what was before him, he went to the little bed on which the being dearest to him on earth lay. He stood for a moment, and looked down upon the boy's beautiful, but motionless face; he first stooped, and putting his mouth to the child's ear said--

“Atty, Atty”--he then shook his head; “you see,” he added, addressing those who stood about him, “that he doesn't hear me--no, he doesn't hear me--that ear was never deaf to me before, but it's deaf now;” he then seized his hand, and raised it, but it was insensible to his touch, and would have fallen on the bed had he let it go. “You see,” he proceeded, “that his hand doesn't know mine any longer! Oh, no, why should it? this is the hand that laid our flower low, so why should he acknowledge it? yet surely he would forgive his father, if he knew it--oh, he would forgive that father, that ever and always loved him--loved him--loved him, oh, that's a wake word, a poor wake word. Well,” he went on, “I will kiss his lips, his blessed lips--oh, many an' many a kiss, many a sweet and innocent kiss--did I get from them lips, Atty dear, with those little arms, that are now so helpless, clasped about my neck.” He then kissed him again and again, but the blessed child's lips did not return the embrace that had never been refused before. “Now,” said he, “you all see that--you all see that he won't kiss me again, and that is bekaise he can't do it; Atty, Atty,” he said, “won't you speak to me? it's I, Atty, sure it's I, Atty dear, your lovin' father, that's callin' you to spake to him. Atty dear, won't you spake to me--do you hear my voice, _asthore machree_--do you hear your father's voice, that's callin' on you to forgive him?” He paused for a short time, but the child lay insensible and still.

At this moment there was no dry eye present; the very doctor wept. Margaret's grief was loud; she felt every source of love and tenderness for their only boy opened in her unhappy and breaking heart, and was inconsolable: but then compassion for her husband was strong as her grief. She ran to Art, she flung her arms about his neck, and exclaimed--

“Oh, Art dear, Art dear, be consoled: take consolation if you can, or you will break my heart. Forgive you asthore! you, you that would shed your blood for him! don't you know he would forgive you? Sure, I forgive you--his mother, his poor, distracted, heart-broken mother forgives you--in his name I forgive you.” She then threw herself beside the body of their child, and shouted out--“Atty, our blessed treasure, I have forgiven your father for you--in your blessed name, and in the name of the merciful God that you are now with, I have forgiven your unhappy find heart-broken father--as you would do, if you could, our lost treasure, as you would do.”

“Oh,” said his father vehemently distracted with his horrible affliction; “if there was but any one fault of his that I could remimber now, any one failin' that our treasure had--if I could think of a single spot upon his little heart, it would relieve me; but, no, no, there's nothin' of that kind to renumber aginst him. Oh, if he wasn't what he was--if he wasn't what he was--we might have some little consolation; but now we've none; we've none--none!”

As he spoke and wept, which he did with the bitterest anguish of despair, his grief assumed a character that was fearful from the inward effusion of blood, which caused him from time to time to throw it up in red mouthfuls, and when remonstrated with by the doctor upon the danger of allowing himself to be overcome by such excitement--

“I don't care,” he shouted, “if it's my heart's blood, I would shed it at any time for him; I don't care about life now; what 'ud it be to me without my son? widout you, Atty dear, what is the world or all that's in it to me now! An' when I think of who it was that cut you down--cursed be the hand that gave you that unlucky blow, cursed may it be--cursed be them that tempted me to drink--cursed may the drink be that made me as I was, and cursed of God may I be that--”

“Art, Art,” exclaimed Margaret, “any thing but that, remember there's a God above--don't blasphame;--we have enough to suffer widout havin' to answer for that.”

He paused at her words, and as soon as the paroxysm was over, he sunk by fits into a gloomy silence, or walked from room to room, wringing his hands and beating his head, in a state of furious distraction, very nearly bordering on insanity.

The next morning, we need scarcely assure our readers, that, as the newspapers have it, a great and painful sensation had been produced through the town of Bally-keerin by the circumstances which we have related:--

“Art Maguire had broken the pledge, gone home drunk, and killed his only son by the blow of an iron bar on the, head; the crowner had been sent for, an' plaise God we'll have a full account of it all.”

In part of this, however, common fame, as she usually is, was mistaken; the boy was not killed, neither did he then die. On the third day, about eight o'clock in the evening, he opened his eyes, and his mother, who was scarcely ever a moment from his bedside, having observed the fact, approached him with hopes almost as deep as those of heaven itself in her heart, and in a voice soft and affectionate as ever melted into a human ear--

“Atty, treasure of my heart, how do you feel?”

The child made no reply, but as his eye had not met hers, and as she had whispered very low, it was likely, she thought, that he had not heard her.

“I will bring his father,” said she, “for if he will know or spake to any one, he will, spake to him.”

She found Art walking about, as he had done almost ever since the unhappy accident, and running to him with a gush of joyful tears, she threw her arms about his neck, and kissing him, said--

“Blessed be the Almighty, Art--” but she paused, “oh, great God, Art, what is this! merciful heaven, do I smell whiskey on you?”

“You do,” he replied, “it's in vain, I can't live--I'd die widout it; it's in vain, Margaret, to spake--if I don't get it to deaden my grief I'll die: but, what wor you goin' to tell me?” he added eagerly.

She burst into tears.

“Oh, Art,” said she, “how my heart has sunk in spite of the good news I have for you.”

“In God's name,” he asked, “what is it? is our darlin' betther?”

“He is,” she replied, “he has opened his eyes this minute, and I want you to spake to him.”

They both entered stealthily, and to their inexpressible delight heard the child's voice; they paused,--breathlessly paused,--and heard him utter, in a low sweet voice, the following words--

“Daddy, won't you come to bed wid me, wid your own Atty?”

This he repeated twice or thrice before they approached him, but when they did, although his eye turned from one to another, it was vacant, and betrayed no signs whatsoever of recognition.

Their hearts sank again, but the mother, whose hope was strong and active as her affection, said--

“Blessed be the Almighty that he is able even to spake but he's not well enough to know us yet.”

This was unhappily too true, for although they spoke to him, and placed themselves before him by turns, yet it was all in vain; the child knew neither them nor any one else. Such, in fact, was now their calamity, as a few weeks proved. The father by that unhappy blow did not kill his body, but he killed his mind; he arose from his bed a mild, placid, harmless idiot, silent and inoffensive--the only words he was almost heard to utter, with rare exceptions, being those which had been in his mind when he was dealt the woful blow:--“Daddy, won't you come to bed wid me, wid your own Atty?” And these he pronounced as correctly as ever, uttering them with the same emphasis of affection which had marked them before his early reason had been so unhappily destroyed. Now, even up to that period, and in spite of this great calamity, it was not too late for Art Maguire to retrieve himself, or still to maintain the position which he had regained. The misfortune which befell his child ought to have shocked him into an invincible detestation of all intoxicating liquors, as it would most men; instead of that, however, it drove him back to them. He had contracted a pernicious habit of diminishing the importance of first errors, because they appeared trivial in themselves; he had never permitted himself to reason against his propensities, unless through the indulgent medium of his own vanity, or an overweening presumption in the confidence of his moral strength, contrary to the impressive experience of his real weakness. His virtues were many, and his foibles few; yet few as they were, our readers perceive that, in consequence of his indulging them, they proved the bane of his life and happiness. They need not be surprised, then, to hear that from the want of any self-sustaining power in himself he fell into the use of liquor again; he said he could not live without it, but then he did not make the experiment; for he took every sophistry that appeared to make in his favor for granted. He lived, if it could be called life, for two years and a half after this melancholy accident, but without the spring or energy necessary to maintain his position, or conduct his business, which declined as rapidly as he did himself. He and his family were once more reduced to absolute beggary, until in the course of events they found a poorhouse to receive them. Art was seldom without a reason to justify his conduct, and it mattered not how feeble that reason might be, he always deemed it sufficiently strong to satisfy himself. For instance, he had often told his wife that if Atty had recovered, sound in body and mind, he had determined never again to taste liquor; “but,” said he, “when I seen my darlin's mind gone, I couldn't stand it widout the drop of drink to keep my heart an' spirits up.” He died of consumption in the workhouse of Ballykeerin, and there could not be a stronger proof of the fallacy with which he reasoned than the gratifying fact, that he had not been more than two months dead, when his son recovered his reason, to the inexpressible joy of his mother; so that had he followed up his own sense of what was right, he would have lived to see his most sanguine wishes, with regard to his son, accomplished, and perhaps have still been able to enjoy a comparatively long and happy life.

On the morning of the day on which he died, although not suffering much from pain, he seemed to feel an impression that his end was at hand. It is due to him to say here, that he had for months before his death been deeply and sincerely penitent, and that he was not only sensible of the vanity and errors which had occasioned his fall from integrity, and cut him off in the prime of life, but also felt his heart sustained by the divine consolations of religion. Father Costello was earnest and unremitting in his spiritual attentions to him, and certainly had the gratification of knowing that he felt death to be in his case not merely a release from all his cares and sorrows, but a passport into that life where the weary are at rest.

About twelve o'clock in the forenoon he asked to see his wife--his own Margaret--and his children, but, above all, his blessed Atty--for such was the epithet he had ever annexed to his name since the night of the melancholy accident. In a few minutes the sorrowful group appeared, his mother leading the unconscious boy by the hand, for he knew not where he was. Art lay, or rather reclined, on the bed, supported by two bolsters; his visage was pale, but the general expression of his face was calm, mild, and sorrowful; although his words were distinct, his voice was low and feeble, and every now and then impeded by a short catch--for to cough he was literally unable.

“Margaret,” said he, “come to me, come to me now,” and he feebly received her hand in his; “I feel that afther all the warfare of this poor life, afther all our love and our sorrow, I am goin' to part wid you and our childhre at last.”

“Oh, Art, darlin', I can think of nothing now, asthore, but our love,” she replied, bursting into a flood of tears, in which she was joined by the children--Atty, the unconscious Atty, only excepted.

“An' I can think of little else,” said he, “than our sorrows and sufferins, an' all the woful evil that I brought upon you and them.”

“Darlin',” she replied, “it's a consolation to yourself, as it is to us, that whatever your errors wor, you've repented for them; death is not frightful to you, glory be to God!”

“No,” said he, looking upwards, and clasping his worn hands; “I am resigned to the will of my good and merciful God, for in him is my hope an' trust. Christ, by his precious blood, has taken away my sins, for you know I have been a great sinner;” he then closed his eyes for a few minutes, but his lips were moving as if in prayer. “Yes, Margaret,” he again proceeded, “I am goin' to lave you all at last; I feel it--I can't say that I'll love you no more, for I think that even in heaven I couldn't forget you; but I'll never more lave you a sore heart, as I often did--I'll never bring the bitther tear to your eye--the hue of care to your face, or the pang of grief an' misery to your heart again--thank God I will not; all my follies, all my weaknesses, and all my crimes--”

“Art,” said his wife, wringing her hands, and sobbing as if her heart would break, “if you wish me to be firm, and to set our childre an example of courage, now that it's so much wanted, oh, don't spake as you do--my heart cannot stand it.”

“Well, no,” said he, “I won't; but when I think of what I might be this day, and of what I am--when I think of what you and our childre might be--an' when I see what you are--and all through my means--when I think of this, Margaret dear, an' that I'm torn away from you and them in the very prime of life--but,” he added, turning hastily from that view of his situation, “God is good an' merciful, an' that is my hope.”

“Let it be so, Art dear,” replied Margaret; “as for us, God will take care of us, and in him we will put our trust, too; remimber that he is the God and father of the widow an' the orphan.”

He here appeared to be getting very weak, but in a minute or two he rallied a little, and said, while his eye, which was now becoming heavy, sought about until it became fixed upon his son--

“Margaret, bring him to me.”

She took the boy by the hand, and led him over to the bedside.

“Put his hand in mine,” said he, “put his blessed hand in mine.”

She did so, and Art looked long and steadily upon the face of his child.

“Margaret,” said he, “you know that durin' all my wild and sinful coorses, I always wore the lock of hair you gave me when we wor young next my heart--my poor weak heart.”

Margaret buried her face in her hands, and for some time could not reply.

“I don't wish, darlin',” said he, “to cause you sorrow--you will have too much of that; but I ax it as a favor--the last from my lips--that you will now cut off a lock of his hair--his hair fair--an' put it along with your own upon my heart; it's all I'll have of you both in the grave where I'll sleep; and, Margaret, do it now--oh, do it soon.”

Margaret, who always carried scissors hanging by her pocket, took them out, and cutting a long abundant lock of the boy's hair, she tenderly placed it where he wished, in a little three-cornered bit of black silk that was suspended from his neck, and lay upon his heart.

“Is it done?” said he.

“It is done,” she replied as well as she could!

“This, you know, is to lie on my heart,” said he, “when I'm in my grave; you won't forget that!”

“No--oh, no, no; but, merciful God, support me! for Art, my husband, my life, I don't know how I'll part with you.”

“Well, may God bless you forever, my darlin' wife, and support you and my orphans! Bring them here.”

They were then brought over, and in a very feeble voice he blessed them also.

“Now, forgive me all,” said he, “forgive ME ALL!”

But, indeed, we cannot paint the tenderness and indescribable affliction of his wife and children while uttering their forgiveness of all his offences against them, as he himself termed it. In the meantime he kept his son close by him, nor would he suffer him to go one moment from his reach.

“Atty,” said he, in a low voice, which was rapidly sinking;--“put his cheek over to mine”--he added to his wife, “then raise my right arm, an' put it about his neck;--Atty,” he proceeded, “won't you give me one last word before I depart?”

His wife observed that as he spoke a large tear trickled down his cheek. Now, the boy was never in the habit of speaking when he was spoken to, or of speaking at all, with the exception of the words we have already given. On this occasion, however, whether the matter was a coincidence or not, it is difficult to say, he said in a quiet, low voice, as if imitating his father's--

“Daddy, won't you come to bed for me, for your own Atty?”

The reply was very low, but still quite audible--

“Yes, darlin', I--I will--I will for you, Atty.”

The child said no more, neither did his father, and when the sorrowing wife, struck by the stillness which for a minute or two succeeded the words, went to remove the boy, she found that his father's spirit had gone to that world where, we firmly trust, his errors, and follies, and sins have been forgiven. While taking the boy away, she looked upon her husband's face, and there still lay the large tear of love and repentance--she stooped down--she kissed it--and it was no longer there.

There is now little to be added, unless to inform those who may take an interest in the fate of his wife and children, that his son soon afterwards was perfectly restored to the use of his reason, and that in the month of last September he was apprenticed in the city of Dublin to a respectable trade, where he is conducting himself with steadiness and propriety; and we trust, that, should he ever read this truthful account of his unhappy father, he will imitate his virtues, and learn to avoid the vanities and weaknesses by which he brought his family to destitution and misery, and himself to a premature grave. With respect to his brother Frank, whom his irreclaimable dissipation drove out of the country, we are able to gratify our readers by saying that he got happily married in America, where he is now a wealthy man, in prosperous business and very highly respected.

Margaret, in consequence of her admirable character, was appointed to the situation of head nurse in the Ballykeerin Hospital, and it will not surprise our readers to hear that she gains and retains the respect and good-will of all who know her, and that the emoluments of her situation are sufficient, through her prudence and economy, to keep her children comfortable and happy.

Kind reader, is it necessary that we should recapitulate the moral we proposed to show' in this true but melancholy narrative? We trust not. If it be not sufficiently obvious, we can only say it was our earnest intention that it should be so. At all events, whether you be a Teetotaller, or a man carried away by the pernicious love of intoxicating liquors, think upon the fate of Art Maguire, and do not imitate the errors of his life, as you find them laid before you in this simple narrative of “The Broken Pledge.”