Nearly Lost but Dearly Won Part 2

"Oh! Yes, dear mamma, that it will. Thank you, Mark, all the same."

"Good, very good, very good," cried Mr Tankardew, in a low voice, and beating one hand gently on the other; "keep to that, my child, keep to that."

Mark retired with a very bad grace, and Mary, slipping away from her mother's side, gathered a company around her of the tinier sort, with glowing cheeks and very wide eyes, who were rather scared by the more boisterous proceedings of those somewhat older; she amused them in a quiet way, raising many a little happy laugh, and fairly winning their hearts.

"G.o.d bless her," muttered Mr Tankardew, when he had watched her for some time very attentively; "very good, that will do, very good indeed; keep her to it, Mrs Franklin, keep her to it."

"She's a dear, good child," said her mother.

"Very true, madam; yes, dear and good; some are dear and bad--dear at any price. I see some now."

Wine and negus were soon handed round; the tray was presented to Mary.

Mr Tankardew lent forward and bent a piercing look at her. She declined, not at all knowing that he was watching her.

"Good again; very good, good girl, wise girl, prudent girl," he murmured to himself.

The tray now came to Mrs Franklin. She took a gla.s.s of sherry. Mr Tankardew's brow clouded. "Ah!" he exclaimed, and moved restlessly on his chair. The servant then approached him and offered the contents of the tray, but he waved it off with an imperious gesture of his hand, and did not vouchsafe a word.

The more boisterous party in the other room now became conscious of the presence of the wine and negus, and rushed in, surrounding the maid who was bringing in a fresh supply. Mark was at the head of them, and tossed down two gla.s.ses in rapid succession. The rest clamoured for the strong drink with eager hands and outstretched arms. "Give me some, give me some," was uttered on all sides. Self reigned paramount.

Mr Tankardew's tall form rose high above the edge of the struggling crowd, which he had approached.

"Poor things, poor things, poor things!" he said gloomily.

"A pleasant sight, these little ones enjoying themselves," said Mr Rothwell, coming up.

Mr Tankardew seemed scarcely to hear him, and returned to his place by Mrs Franklin.

"Enjoying themselves!" he exclaimed, in an undertone, "call it pampering the flesh, killing the soul, and courting the devil."

"Rather hard upon the poor dear children," laughingly remarked a lady, who overheard him: "why, surely you wouldn't deny _them_, their share of the enjoyment of G.o.d's good creatures?"

"G.o.d's good creatures, madam! Are the wine and negus G.o.d's good creatures?"

"Certainly they are," was the reply: "G.o.d has permitted man to manufacture them out of the fruits of the earth, and to make them the means of pleasurable excitement, and therefore surely we may take them and give them as His good creatures."

Mr Tankardew made no answer, but striding up to Mary, where she sat with a circle of little interesting faces round her, eagerly intent on some simple story she was telling them, he said, "Miss Franklin, will you favour me by bringing me a few of your young friends here. There, now, my dear," (speaking to one of the little girls), "just hand me that empty negus gla.s.s." The child did so, and Mr Tankardew, producing from his coat pocket a considerable sized bottle, turned to the lady who had addressed him, and said:

"Madam, will you help me to dispense some of the contents of this bottle to these little children?"

"Gladly," she replied. "I suppose it is something very good, such as little folks like."

"It is one of G.o.d's good creatures, madam:" saying which, he turned towards the other's astonished gaze the broad label on which was printed in great black letters, "Laudanum--Poison."

"My dear sir, what do you mean?"

"I mean, madam, that the liquid in this bottle is made from the poppy, which is one of the fruits of the earth; therefore it is one of G.o.d's good creatures, just as the wine and negus are. It produces very pleasurable sensations, too, if you take it, just as _they_ do; therefore it is right to indulge in it, and give it to others, just as it is right for the same reasons to indulge in wine and negus and spirits, and to give them to others."

"I really don't understand you, sir."

"Don't you, madam? I think you won't be able to pick a hole in my argument."

"Ah! But this liquid is poison!"

"So is alcohol, madam, only it is not labelled so: more's the pity, for it has killed thousands and tens of thousands, where laudanum has only killed units. There, my child," he added, turning to Mary, and taking an elegant little packet from his pocket, "give these _bonbons_ to the little ones. I didn't mean to disappoint them."

While this dialogue was going on, the rest of the party was too full of noisy mirth to notice what was pa.s.sing. Mark's voice was getting very wild and conspicuous; and now he made his way with flushed face and sparkling eyes to Mary, who was sitting quietly between her mother and Mr Tankardew. He carried a jug in one hand, and a gla.s.s in the other, and, without noticing the elder people, exclaimed, "It is an hour yet to supper time, and you'll be dead with thirst; I am sure I am. You must take some of this, it is capital stuff; our butler made it: I have just had a tumbler--it is punch. Come, Mary, you must," and he thrust the gla.s.s into her hand: "you must, I say; you shall; never mind old Tanky,"

he added, in what he meant to be a whisper. Then he raised the jug with unsteady fingers, but, before a drop could reach the tumbler, Mr Tankardew had risen, and with one sweep of his hand dashed it out of Mary's grasp on the ground. Few heard the crash, amidst the din of the general merriment, and those who noticed it supposed it to be an accident. "Nearly lost!" whispered Mr Tankardew in Mary's ear; then he said, in a louder voice, "Faugh! The atmosphere of this place does not suit me. I must retire. Mrs Franklin, pray make an old man's excuses to our host and hostess."

He was _gone_!

CHAPTER THREE.

THE SWOLLEN STREAM.

It is the morning after the juvenile party at "The Firs." A clear, bright frost still: everything _outside_ the house fresh and vigorous: half-a-dozen labourers' little children running to school with faces like peonies; jumping, racing, sliding, puffing out clouds of steaming breath as they shout out again and again for very excess of health and spirits.

Everything _inside_ the house limp, languid, and lugubrious; the fires are sulky and won't burn; the maids are sulkier still. Mr Rothwell breakfasts alone, feeling warm in nothing but his temper: the grate sends forth little white jets of smoke from a wall of black coal, instead of presenting a cheery surface of glowing heat: the toast is black at the corners and white in the middle: the eggs look so truly new laid that they seem to have come at once from the henhouse to the table, without pa.s.sing through the saucepan: the coffee is feeble and the milk smoked: the news in the daily papers is flat, and the state of affairs in country and county peculiarly depressing. Upstairs, Mrs Rothwell tosses about with a sick headache, unable to rest and unwilling to rise.

The young ladies are dawdling in dressing-gowns over a bedroom breakfast, and exchanging mutual sarcasms and recriminations, blended with gall and bitterness flung back on last night's party. Poor Mark has the worst of it, nausea and splitting headache, with a shameful sense of having made both a fool and a beast of himself. So much for the delights of "lots of negus, wine, and punch!" He has also a humbling remembrance of having been rude to Mr Tankardew. A knock at his door. "Come in."

"Please, sir, there's a hamper come for you," says the butler; "shall I bring it in?"

"Yes, if you like."

The hamper is brought in and opened; it is only a small one. In the midst of a deep bed of straw lies a hard substance; it is taken out and the paper wrapped round it unfolded; only a gla.s.s tumbler! There is a paper in it on which is written, "To Mr Mark Rothwell, from Mr Esau Tankardew, to replace what he broke last night: keep it empty, my boy; keep it empty."

Nine o'clock at "The Shrubbery." Mary and her mother are seated at breakfast, both a little dull and disinclined to speak. At last Mary breaks the silence by a profound sigh. Mrs Franklin smiles, and says:

"You seem rather burdened with care, my child."

"Well, I don't know, dear mamma; I don't think it is exactly care, but I'm dissatisfied or disappointed that I don't feel happier for last night's party."

"You don't think there was much real enjoyment in it?"

"Not to _me_, mamma; and I don't imagine very much to anybody--except, perhaps, to some of the very little ones. There was a hollowness and emptiness about the whole thing; plenty of excitement and a great deal of selfishness, but nothing to make me feel really brighter and happier."

"No, my child; I quite agree with you: and I was specially sorry for old Mr Tankardew. I can't quite understand what induced him to come: his conduct was very strange, and yet there is something very amiable about him in the midst of his eccentricities."

"What a horror he seems to have of wine and negus and suchlike things, mamma."

"Yes; and I'm sure what he saw last night would not make him any fonder of them. Poor Mark Rothwell quite forgot himself. I was truly glad to get away early."

"Oh! So was I, mamma; it was terrible. I wish he wouldn't touch such things; I'm sure he'll do himself harm if he does."

"Yes, indeed, Mary; harm in body, and character, and soul. Those are fearful words, 'No drunkard shall inherit the kingdom of G.o.d.'"