Chapter XIV

Aunt Hannah and Celia had finished the last puzzling question, added up the final row of figures, and were peacefully sleeping in their beds. All the lights in the house were out, when there was heard a loud noise at the street door, as if some one was thrown, or threw himself, several times heavily against it. This was followed by voices talking loud and excitedly, and then in more muffled tones. The door knob was turned and rattled, and a latchkey clicked and half turned in the lock as if handled by clumsy or unacquainted fingers.

The minister heard the noise first, as his room was over the front of the house, and rising he opened his window and tried to speak and quiet the disturbance, but he received only curses for his interference, and he thought he recognized in one of the midnight revelers the form of one of the boarders. Closing his window, he dressed as rapidly as possible, that he might go down if his assistance was needed. By the time he was half-way down the stairs, however, and was just striking a match, the fumbling latchkey at last turned, and the door burst open, literally tumbling into the hall three young men just at Horace Stafford’s feet. Miss Grant and Celia, though they slept on the third floor, were near the stair landing and had at last heard the noise. They had slipped on wrappers and slippers and stood at the head of the stairs just above Mr. Stafford, as he struck the light.

“What does this mean?” said aunt Hannah, in as stern a voice as she could muster, with Celia, bewildered and trembling, clinging to her arm and begging her to come back.

But there was too much disturbance below for her to be heard, and she and Celia could but stand and watch.

The new boarder seemed to know what to do in the present emergency. He promptly lighted the gas, turning it up to its full strength, and then extricated the three young men, who seemed to be in a helplessly tangled condition on the floor at his feet. Two of them were promptly withdrawn from the hall by their comrades outside, and the one left stood miserably against the wall and looked about him.

It was hard to recognize in this dirty, rough fellow with bloodshot eyes and white face, the gay, bright young man who always looked so neat, and whom everybody liked and called “Harry.”

“Oh, auntie, that is Harry Knowles,” said Celia, in horrified tones, and then the young man looked up.

“Hulloa, Celia,” he called, in a pitifully gay voice, “is that you? Yes, I’m here all right, only I’ve been out on a lark and the lark’s gone to my head. Come down, and talk to a fellow a while, just fer a change, you know.”

Celia shrank back in dismay, as she saw the poor fellow stagger toward the stairs and heard him say, “Can’t you get down? Well, I’ll come up and get you. Awful shaky stairs, I know, but I’ll manage ’em yet, don’t you be afraid.”

And then a strong hand grasped his arm and a clear, commanding voice said,

“Stand right where you are! Don’t stir a step, and don’t speak another word to those ladies.” Then the minister turned to the frightened women and said in low tones,

“Don’t be afraid, go to your rooms and I will take care of him.”

Harry had sat stupidly down on the stairs saying meekly,

“All right, cap’n, jes’s you say. You’re boss, an’ I’m sleepy.”

Miss Hannah took assurance from the calm face and powerful frame of her new boarder and led Celia away, while the minister carefully and even tenderly helped the young man to his room and took care of him as if he had been his own brother.

Miss Hannah had her hands full with Celia. The young girl had thrown herself on the bed in a violent fit of weeping, and it required all her aunt’s persuasive powers to quiet her and try to soothe her to sleep. Celia had not been accustomed to young men who drank. Her cousins had been steady, whatever else they might not have been. She had never seen a man come home at night drunk, and she had never been spoken to by one.

The familiar tone and the vacant, silly stare with which the young man had looked up at her had given her a shock she could not forget. Whenever she tried to be quiet and sit up and listen to aunt Hannah, she would shudder again at the thought of the scene she had just witnessed. By and by, when she was calmer she wailed out,

“Now we shall have to give up the whole thing, auntie. We can’t have people getting drunk,” and she shuddered again.

“Now, child! Don’t get into your cellar of despair again. It’s like some people’s cyclone cellars out West, always there ready for you, and you fly down the stairs at sign of the first little cloud that appears in your sky. Can’t you remember we have a heavenly Father who is looking out for us? Get a little more trust, dear. No, of course we shall not have to give up, just for one boarder who has gone wrong. We are not obliged to keep him, you know, if he makes a disturbance. But I’d not be the first one to turn him out without another trial. What are we here for but to try to help such as he? Maybe he never was really drunk before. He is young and doesn’t look to be bad. He’ll be sorry enough for it all to-morrow, I’m sure, or I’ve mistaken the face of that picture of his mother on his bureau. A boy who has had a mother like that can’t go wrong all at once. We’ll do what we can for him. You have some work to do for him, dear, and you must try and forget to-night for Christ’s sake!”

“Oh, aunt Hannah!” groaned Celia, “how can I ever speak to him again, after his talking that way to me, and calling me by my name, too, as if I was a little girl? The idea of his taking the liberty of speaking that way. Oh, I feel as if I never could try to help anybody again.”

“Now, Celia!” said aunt Hannah, speaking rather sharply for her, “you must _not_ talk that way. That wasn’t Harry Knowles that spoke to you to-night. It was a demon that he had swallowed that had taken entire possession, and put out for a time the light of reason in him. You told me yourself that he has always been respectful, and he’s nothing but a boy in years, much younger than you. And Celia, he is very dear to your Saviour.”

Aunt Hannah’s heart had gone out to the poor motherless boy, and she longed to save him from the awful destruction that she saw yawning in front of the path he was treading. Celia knew her aunt was right, and by degrees she regained her composure, and began to mount up into the first story at least of her faith, and believe that everything was not gone to destruction yet. However, she went to the store the next morning with a heavy heart. She had so great a horror of drunkards and drunkenness, and so strong a belief in the power of appetite, that she felt little or no hope of trying to save any one from the awful end of a drunkard, who had once commenced to tread that downward path. She went about all day, feeling as deep sadness as if she had witnessed the terrible death of some friend.

Miss Hannah had spent a long time in prayer that night, after she heard once more the regular breathing of Celia, and knew she was asleep. She asked God’s grace to help her do what was best for this poor homeless boy, and if it might be that he would honor her with bearing the message of salvation to his soul, she would give God all the glory. Her soul longed for the soul of the boy whose feet were astray, and she was filled with a kind of divine compassion for him, such as Jesus would have us feel, such as he felt, for those for whom he died.

The minister, meantime, had put the poor boy to bed. He was docile enough, and almost grateful in a maudlin sort of way, for the help given him, and he sank at once into a deep sleep. Horace Stafford turned the gas low, and established himself by the bedside for some time, until he felt certain that there was nothing else the matter with the slumberer. Then he knelt beside the boy, and asked God’s mercy for him and went to his own room.

It was not until far into the afternoon that the sleeper roused. Horace Stafford had found out by judicious questioning, and without revealing his condition to the other boarders (who fortunately had none of them heard the disturbance in the night), where the young man worked. He had then gone himself to the store, and asked for the head of the firm, giving his own card and explaining that the young salesman was ill, and unable to come to work that day. The head of the firm had been very kind. He had recognized the name of the minister as well as that of the mission chapel which he mentioned in introducing himself, thinking the word of a minister might go further toward excusing the absence of the young man, and asked kindly how the work was getting on. He said he had meant to send in a contribution to that work, but had let it slip by without attention, and he handed the minister a crisp ten dollar bill. Then he promised to see that young Knowles’ place for the day was supplied, and asked to be notified if the illness should prove serious, and there was anything he could do for him. He said he liked the young man, though of course he knew but little of him, but he feared he had not good health, as he looked frail. When Horace Stafford left the store, he had a better opinion of employers than he had been led to hold from some reading he had been doing lately.

When Harry Knowles awoke that afternoon, he was conscious first of his physical condition. His head ached miserably, and he could not bear to stir. His throat burned as with fire, and all things seemed full of a ghastly horror. He opened his eyes, and the first thing he saw was his mother’s picture. It stood on the bureau opposite his bed. Miss Hannah had been softly going about the room that morning, putting things to rights, and putting a touch of home here and there where she could do it in a few minutes. She had wiped the dust from the velvet and polished the glass of the frame with a damp cloth, and the clear sweet eyes of Harry’s mother looked straight into his, so full of love and compassion and motherly tenderness, that Harry felt it all and suddenly realized his present condition and what had caused it. He could not bear his mother’s tender love. She seemed to be looking through into his very soul. He closed his eyes to shut hers out. As he did so, all his experiences of last night came swiftly and stood before him one by one, and passed before his mother’s eyes too. He seemed to know at every instant what she would be feeling about it all. He recalled his resolve to stay in, and how the boys called for him before he had settled down to doing anything, and asked him to just come out for a while; how they had coaxed him away from his resolves, and interested him in their plans for the evening. They had planned an evening at the theatre and a supper afterward, and they made him feel that he was being considered mean not to join in and help with the expenses, since they had taken his coming as a matter of course, and ordered a seat and a plate for him. They joked him unmercifully, and said they believed he had been going to Sunday-school again, and had promised his nice little teacher that he would be good. They called him a “dear little fellow,” and said they wouldn’t bother him any more, he should have a stick of pink and white candy so he should, and one of them actually bought it and presented it to him. He had knocked it into the street, and declared he had no intention of not joining them and bearing his share of the expense, and then they all seemed glad and turned his mind to enjoyment. “We didn’t really believe you were getting to be a sissy boy,” they said. His conscience had had no time to reproach him. They had not mentioned going in to any of their favorite haunts for a game—that game which he had begun to fear on account of the way it reduced his always scanty funds. They only seemed bent on having an innocent good time. Oh, they had known well how to get him into the thing. They knew they could touch something that he called his sense of honor, when they said he had left them in a tight place, as they had ordered supper for him, and if he didn’t pay for it they would have to do it. And they took him to a play that was _very_ funny. He enjoyed fun. There were one or two things toward the end that had brought a warm flush to his cheeks at the time, because he couldn’t help thinking how ashamed his mother would be to know he was listening to and laughing at such things. But he wouldn’t have had the fellows know that for anything. He had gone to that supper and been as jolly as any of them after it. But he had resolved, when he gave it to them, that he would not drink. That had been the great reason why he had tried to decline. When people offered him drink, he could always hear his mother’s voice saying, “Harry dear, mother hopes you will always have courage to say no, if you are ever asked to drink wine or any strong drink.” He tried to make it right with his conscience when he turned to go with the boys, by saying that he would not drink a drop. He knew they would ask him, and it would be uncomfortable to refuse, but he had done it heretofore, and he would do it to-night. After to-night, he would try to gradually drift away from that set. It would not do to break off all of a sudden, but he would try to do it gradually. Of course he could. Had he not stayed at home that evening when Miss Murray fixed the lamp, and then again last night? Both of these times he had promised to go with the boys. He felt strong with the sense of having conquered once before. He did not remember a Bible verse then that his mother used often to quote to him, “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall,” he only told himself that he had proved to himself that he was fully able to break off going with those boys whenever he chose, and therefore he had a right to go with them for a little innocent fun just once more.

Ah, but he did not know even now, as he lay here in his bed with shame in his heart, and the tears of repentance overflowing his eyes and trickling between the tightly closed lashes, that Satan had leagued against him last night, and that those boys had vowed to conquer his foolish protests once and for all, and get him gloriously drunk. Once let him break down that silly shame, they said, and he would be a jolly good fellow, for Harry was bright and quick-witted. Why they wanted to do it is not quite certain. Perhaps some of them were fiendish enough to want to drag him down as low as themselves, just for very love of deviltry. Others, perhaps, felt rebuked by his shrinking back at daring things which were proposed, and still others, older in their sin, liked him for his gay words and witty sayings, and were resolved to make of him a thoroughly good bad-fellow whom they could enjoy. Their experience had taught them that when one such once goes astray, he will dare more than some who never had any scruples.

Harry only knew that they had passed some cider first. They declared they had ordered it for his sake as they knew his temperance principles, and they laughed and nudged one another as it was passed and winked, and Harry felt goaded to do almost anything to prove that he was just as good, or as bad, as they were.

Now Harry was not fond of sweet cider. The few times he had tasted it, it had seemed insipid to him. He knew, indeed, that there were some people who went so far as to object to cider drinking. In a general way, he knew that there was a difference between sweet and hard cider, and it would have been well for him that night, if he had been possessed of a few decided opinions on the subject himself. He hesitated and then took some, but his hesitation was noticed and the boys had asked him if he were afraid of that too. He had flushed crimson and declared that he was not, and they had unmercifully passed his glass for more, and watched to see if he drank that. Then something else had been brought on, Harry did not just know what, whether wine or beer or something else. The cider had been by no means sweet and must have gone to his head. When they passed by his chair with the wine glasses, he had caught the whispered words and laughs of his companions over him, and turning quick without a thought for anything than to prove his—what?—cowardice? he ordered the waiter to give him some. A tremendous cheer had arisen from the boys, so loud it almost brought him to his senses. He drank that glass and another, and then he felt a feverish desire to swallow more, and they filled his glass again and again, he not asking or caring what it contained. That was the story. He did not know now, or stop to ask himself how he got here, to what he called home. He supposed it was in the same shameful way that some of the others were taken sometimes, the way that had hitherto been a strong barrier in the way of his joining in their drinking festivities. Whether any one saw or knew, he did not dare to ask. He only knew that he lay here, and that his mother’s eyes were over there, and that God always seemed to be near his mother, and that he did not dare to open his eyes again. He heard the soft movement of a woman’s dress, and a light step. It seemed like his mother’s. He could almost think as he lay here that this was his home once more, and his mother was nursing him from some dreadful illness. Only this bed was so hard. Oh, the shame and horror if this had happened at his dear old home with his mother in it. It would have killed her. He groaned aloud, and then he heard that soft step again and wondered. Was he dead? Was this the—where? the judgment seat—perhaps? For his mother surely was there and God! Oh!——