Chapter One.

An Old Story.

Stephen Grattan had been a drunkard, and was now a reformed man. John Morely had been a drunkard, and was trying to reform. His father, though not a total abstainer, had lived and died a temperate man. But John Morely was not like his father. He had in him, the neighbours said, “the makings” of a better or a worse man than ever his father had been; and when, after his mother’s death, the young builder brought home the pretty and good Alice Lambton as his wife, a “better man” they all declared he was to be; for they believed that now he would not be in danger from his one temptation. But as his business increased, his temptation increased. He was an intelligent man, and a good fellow besides; and his society was much sought after by men who were lovers of pleasure. Some of them were men who occupied a higher position than his; and, flattered by their notice, he yielded to the temptations which they placed before him.

He did not yield without a struggle. He sinned, and repented, and promised amendment often and often; but still he went away again, “like an ox to the slaughter; like a fool to the correction of the stocks.”

Of course ruin and disgrace were the only ending to such a life as this. There was but one chance for him, they told his wife, who, through poverty, neglect, and shame, had still hoped against hope. If he could be made to break away from his old companions, if he could begin anew, and start fair in life again, he might retrieve the past.

It almost broke her heart to think of leaving their native land—of leaving behind all hope of ever seeing again her father or her mother, or the home among the hills where her happy girlhood had passed. But, for his sake, for the sake of the hope that gleamed in the future, she could do it. So, with their six little children, they removed from the States to Montreal in Canada, to begin again.

At first he struggled bravely with his temptation, though it everywhere met him; but, added to the old wretched craving for strong drink, was the misery of finding himself in a strange land without friends or a good name. If some kind hand had been held out to him at this time it might have been different with him. He might, with help, have stood firm against temptation. But, before work came, he had yielded to his old enemy; and his acknowledged skill as a workman availed him little, when, after days of absence, he would come to his work with a pallid face and trembling hands.

I have no heart to enter into the sad details of the family life at this time. It is enough to say that the miseries of Alice Morely’s former home were renewed and deepened now. Here she was friendless. Here she could not fall back on the farm-house, as a home to some of her little ones “when the worst should come to the worst” with them. She struggled through some unhappy months, and then they moved again and came to Littleton, and there the same tale was told over again, with even more bitter emphasis, and then something happened.

It was something very terrible. Their child most tenderly cared for, the dearest one of all to his father’s-heart,—a sickly little lad of seven,—was injured severely, fatally injured, in one of his fits of drunkenness. It was quite by accident. John would have given his own life gladly to save the little moaning creature; but the child never recovered. He died with his little wasted cheek laid close against his father’s, and his arms clasped round his neck. There was not much said about it. No one but Stephen Grattan and his wife, who were very kind to them in their troubles, ever knew that any accident had happened to the child.

Things went better with them for a while. John got work, and took his family to a little log-house a mile or two from the village; and Alice began to hope that the better days so much longed for were coming now. But then came sickness, and then work failed, and—there was no help for it—the husband must go in search of it, that he might get bread for his starving family. So, with heavy hearts, they bade one another good-bye. The wife stayed with her children in the little log-house on the hill, while the husband went away alone.

He was very wretched. The thirst for strong drink, which he had begun to think was allayed, came upon him in all its strength, in the double misery of parting with his family, and going away knowing that he left his wife with more fear than hope in her heart with regard to him. How could she hope that he would resist temptation,—he who had yielded to it so many times? Physically and morally he felt himself unfit for the battle that lay before him; and there was no one to help him—no one who cared to help him—he said bitterly to himself, as one after another passed by him without word or look.

It did not help him to know that the fault was altogether his own. It was all the worse to bear for that. He had had his chance in life, and lost it. What was the use of struggling for what could never be regained? If it were not for the wife and babies at home! And yet might it not be better even for them if they never were to see him more?

He had come down from his log-house on the hill with a few articles of wearing apparel made up into a bundle, had bought and paid for a cask of flour to be sent up to his family, and was now wandering about in a sad desponding state of mind when Stephen Grattan met him. Stephen spoke a few cheery words of comfort and courage to the poor broken-spirited fellow, begged him to be steadfast in his newly-begun purpose of reformation, and told him of the loving Saviour who would give him all needful help; who, if he looked to Him, would give him the grace of His Holy Spirit to enable him to overcome in the hour of temptation. Morely having thanked him heartily for his kindness, asked him to see that Smith at the provision shop sent up the flour to his wife next day, or the family would be in want of food. This Stephen readily promised to do, and added that he would look after them whilst he was away. The cheery words of his friend gave him a ray of hope and courage for a while.

But when Stephen left him at the corner of the street, it was with a heavy heart that he took his way to the hotel from which the stage was to start. The public room into which Morely stepped was large and lofty and brilliantly lighted. There were plenty of respectable people there at that moment. There was not the same temptation here as at the low tavern at which he had so often degraded himself below the level of the beast.

There was the bar, to be sure, with its shining array of decanters and glasses. But the respectable landlord, the gentlemanly bar-keeper, would never put the cup to his lips, or taunt him into treating others, for the sake of the “fool’s pence,” as Bigby, the low tavern-keeper, would have done. There were here no hidden corners where the night’s debauch might be slept off, no secret chambers where deeds of iniquity might be planned and executed. No; it was a bright, clean, respectable house—altogether too respectable for such a shrinking, shivering figure, in such shabby garments as his, Morely thought. And the landlord evidently thought so too; for when he had told him that the stage had not yet arrived, and that it was quite uncertain when it might come, he looked so much as if he expected him to go, that Morely took up his bundle and went without a word.

So Morely was turned out to wander up and down the street with his bundle in his hand; for he had nowhere else to go. It was not very cold, fortunately, he said to himself; but the snow was moist and penetrating, and his threadbare garments were but an insufficient protection against it. He went back once or twice within the hour to see if