Chapter 29

A SAD END OF A MISPENT LIFE.

In one of the numerous public-houses in the town of St. Peter-Port, surrounded by a gang of "roughs," a man, still young, sat on a stool.

His face was terribly emaciated, and on it, one could discern all the traces of that demon, _alcohol_.

In one of his agitated hands, he held a half-filled glass, in the other, a short, blackened clay-pipe.

His glassy eyes had a strange look.

He made an effort to carry the tumbler which he was holding to his lips, but his nerves and muscles refused to act.

Here, we may as well say that this man's name was Tom Soher.

"What's the matter, Tom?" said one of the men.

"Nothing," responded he, making use of a very old form of lie.

At this reassuring statement, the company resumed their conversation, and their drink.

But Tom, after placing his glass on the counter, retired to one corner of the room, sat himself on an empty barrel and was soon fast asleep.

It was a profound sleep, and, from time to time, the young man trembled convulsively. He opened a gaping mouth, he muttered some unintelligible words, but his "pals" noticed it not.

They were accustomed to such scenes,--the sight of man, who is no more man; an animal, lower in many respects than the brute.

The sleeper was dreaming. He dreamt that he saw the same public-house in which he now was. But, instead of being built of granite,--as it really was,--its walls were one mass of human beings, piled one on top of the other.

He could recognize some former companions who now were deceased.

Their bodies served instead of stones, and their souls he discerned, placed in lieu of windows.

Amidst the horrible mass of human flesh, he saw his father's body, crushed and terribly mangled; his face wore an expression of suffering, his whole body seemed borne down by a heavy and oppressive weight.

Tom Soher looked at his father. The latter cast a sad and troubled look at his son.

All at once, the drunken man saw himself seated upon his father's back. So this was the load that crushed him. He gazed upon his resemblance; a mere shadow of his former self.

As he contemplated this sad picture, he saw, issuing out of his mouth--his soul.

An inexpressible fear and a sense of suffocation seized him.

He tried to explain to himself this curious vision. "Bah! 'tis but a dream," he muttered; "ah! someone is grasping my throat. I am dying." He lifted his eyes towards heaven. They encountered the ceiling.

As he sought in vain to rouse himself from that awful state of lethargy, something within him whispered: "This house is built with the price of bodies and of souls."

He listened eagerly. The voice was silent.

Then the awful interpretation of this strange vision dawned upon his troubled mind. "Is it possible that I have given both my body and my soul in exchange for drink. My soul! Alas!"

He struggled to shake himself free. Another fit of suffocation seized him in its deathly embrace. He tried to shout or to entreat mercy, but his tongue refused to utter a sound and his heart was as hard and as cold as the stones over which the vehicle in which he was lying rolled.

For Tom Soher was in a closed carriage. When closing time came, the owner of the public-house had him placed in a conveyance and sent home.

He realised this, as a dull, but deep-seated pain, caused him to open his eyes. He looked wildly round.

The carriage rattled over the newly macadamized road, and he was dying, unable to cry for help, incapable of articulating a single sound.

He struck his fist frantically out, intending to smash the window, but his blow fell an inch short of its intended mark.

Then all his past life seemed to roll before his eyes, a mispent, futile, licentious life, in which the bad passions had predominated, and finally hustled him to his doom. A dreadful sense of fear seized him. He raised himself upon one of his elbows, his eyes were wide open, and in them, there was not the expression that is seen in those of a dying beast, which seems to say "It is finished;" his eyes expressed a conviction of something yonder, coupled with a look of blank despair.

The elbow upon which he was supporting himself gave way, and he fell back--dead.

As the driver approached the "Prenoms," he whistled gaily. He little dreamt of the surprise which awaited him. He drove straight through the open gate into the farmyard.

When Mrs. Soher heard the sound of the carriage wheels, she went to the door of the house, opened it and said: "Here he comes again, the poor inebriate."

"Now, ma'am, here's your son; he's had a glass too much, but he'll be right enough after a bit o' sleep;" and so saying, the driver opened the carriage door while Mrs. Soher approached, lantern in hand. Her daughter followed her.

They came close to the driver, who stood stock-still, his mouth half open, his whole body trembling like an aspen leaf. At last, he recovered himself sufficiently to speak. "Jerusalem--he's dead," he muttered in a hoarse and frightened tone.

The dead man's mother let fall the lantern which she was holding, her legs gave way under her, and she fell down and fainted.

Her daughter was also greatly moved. She began to sob.

"What must we do?" questioned the man.

"Oh, I don't know," she answered, crying; then, after a few moments' pause, she said: "Call the neighbours."

The man gave a shout. Two men from the house on the other side of the road appeared at the door.

"This way, please, be quick;" shouted the driver.

The men precipitated themselves towards the spot. Mrs. Soher was carried to her room upstairs and left to the care of her daughter who applied restoratives.

The corpse was carried into another room and laid upon a bed. The eyes remained wide open.

The neighbours sent away the carriage and its owner; one of them remained in the house while the other went for a doctor.

Mrs. Soher regained consciousness, and as her senses returned to her, she cried bitterly: "My poor son, my dear son."

At this stage, Mr. Soher came home. He was surprised to find his neighbour seated near the fire in the kitchen. His surprise was changed into anguish, when the neighbour, in a few words, informed him of Tom's sad fate.

Mr. Soher was horrified. With a blanched face and tottering steps he ascended the stairs and entered the room in which lay his wife. Upon seeing him, his wife uttered heart-rending cries: "Oh, Thomas, what are we going to do; our only son." Her sobs choked her.

Her husband did not say a word. He turned on his heels, closed the door after him, and entered the room in which lay his son's corpse.

As he glanced at those dilated eyes, a chill ran through his frame. "Great God; is it possible?" he exclaimed, raising his eyes to heaven; "my son, my son."

He paced up and down the room with feverish steps, a prey to the most poignant grief. His conscience upbraided him loudly. It said:

"Behold your son whose education you have overlooked; behold him whom you have left to grow in vice, without an effort worth the name to save him from the ruinous bent of his bad passions."

"I know it; 'tis all my fault," exclaimed the grief and conscience-stricken man. "I have not done half of what I might have done for him.

"Animated by a false pride, I desired to shine among my fellow-worshippers, and have been continually away from home, neglecting my duty there, to satisfy my ambition. Miserable man that I am."

He cast his eyes towards the lifeless body of which the eyes met his and seemed to reproach him for having shirked his duty.

"Oh, God! wilt thou ever forgive me?" he cried in wild despair; "what can I do to atone? If one half, if a tenth part of the energy which I have displayed elsewhere had been employed in bringing up my son as I ought to have done, this would not be."

He continued thus to soliloquize, now and then stopping abruptly in his nervous walk to gaze upon those reproachful eyes, then resuming his wanderings, blaming himself continually.

He was in the midst of his peregrinations when his daughter entered the room.

"Father," she said, "a woman who is downstairs wishes to speak with you."

The troubled man did not answer. What was this to him; what was all the world to him compared with his grief?

"She says her daughter, who is dying, wishes to see you," continued the young woman.

"Tell her I am coming," said Mr. Soher.

A dying woman wishing to see him. How could he refuse that? Perhaps he would be the means of doing some good to this person. If he could thus begin to atone for his want of dutifulness towards his son.

He went downstairs.

"My daughter wishes to see you now," said his visitor. "You will come, Sir; you will not refuse a dying woman's request?"

"Refuse; certainly not," he said, and he immediately accompanied his visitor.

They walked the whole distance which separated the two houses without a word being exchanged between them.

Mr. Soher's thoughts were with the dead; his companion was already grieving for the daughter which she felt sure she was about to lose.

Mr. Soher was ushered near the dying woman's bed. The latter was raving, but directly she perceived him she fixed her gaze upon him, her wild, rambling talk ceased, her mind seemed to regain its lucidity. She exclaimed: "I have not found it, therefore I am lost for ever."

"What have you not found?" he said kindly.

"Listen," said she. "Some time ago, I entered a small place of worship in which a man was delivering an address, or, as he called it, a testimonial.

"He said that when he had been converted, he had felt a heavenly ray of light flooding his very soul. He said he felt as if an electric battery had come in contact with his entrails. At the same time, he heard a voice clearly saying: 'My son, thy sins are forgiven thee.'

"This man, who was no other than you, Sir, said that if his hearers had not clearly heard this divine voice and experienced this shock, they were doomed. He exhorted the congregation to seek for these blessings.

"I went home impressed. I decided to seek for these things of which you spoke. I prayed, I hoped, I waited, but I have never felt half of what you promised your audience they would find.

"Now, I am then to understand that I am rejected.

"Rejected! oh Heaven."

The poor woman burst into tears and uttered a wail of despair.

Mr. Soher tried to soothe her.

"No," she said, "you are trying to deceive me, you are not speaking the truth."

He protested. "It was then, that I did not speak the truth," he said. "I was exalted, I went too far."

"Is it true?" said the dying woman.

"Oh yes, do believe me."

"I believe you," she said sneeringly.

The fever was again coming upon her. She began to wander in her speech.

Mr. Soher, at a sign from the mother, who had followed him into the room, withdrew.

His brain was on fire. His heart was full of the deepest and keenest anguish.

"What have I done?" he muttered. "I wanted to be thought a saint. Not being one, I acted the hypocrite. Now, here I am, maimed, afflicted, weighed down with grief."

He reached his home--a wreck.

A few days afterwards, poor Tom's body was buried in the churchyard.

From that day, life at the "Prenoms" was completely changed.

Mr. Soher examined himself and his surroundings.

He saw that he was drifting towards bankruptcy. He resolved--he did more--he went to work, to try and avert the catastrophe. He succeeded in all that he undertook, for he worked with a will.

His lost son was not brought back to life, neither was the land which he had sold redeemed, but he managed to supply his wants and those of his family, besides putting something by for a rainy day.