The Conservative. (M'connelsville, Ohio) 1866-1871, 1870-08-12
Seleeteo aaiseeIIanu.
THE DRUNKARD's DEATH.
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- = ! By CHARLES DICKENS. S'~'
IIf such thing is possible, Mr.. Dickens
death viii heighten the interest which at
taches TO everything from his pen. The
following is one of his earlier and Least
known papers-and it shows the familiar
manner, although written by then un
practiced hand.
We win be bold to say that there is scarce
" man in the constant habit of walking,
day after day, through any of the crowded
throughfares of London, who cannot recol-
lect among the people whom he :'knows by
sight, to use familiar phrase some be
ing Of abject and wretched appearance,
whom he remembers TO have seen in q very
different condition, whom he has observed
sinking lower and lower, by almost imper-
ceptible degrees, and the shabbiness and
utter destitution of whose appearance at
last, strikes forcibly and painfully upon
him as he passes by. =Ls there any~aman
who has mixed much with society, or whose
avocations have caused him to mingle, at
one time or other, with a great number OF
people, who cannot call to mind the time
when some shabby, miserable wretchS IN
rags and filth, who shut1es past him now
IN all the squalor of disease and poverty,
was respectable tradesman, or a clerk or
a-pan following some thriving pursuit,
with good prospects and decent means? or
cannot any of ourreaders call to mind from
among the list OF their -gstenddm acquaint-
ance, some fallen and degraded man, who
fingers about the pavement in hungry mis-
ery-from whom every one turns coldly
away, and who preserves himself from
sheer starvation nobody knows how? AIasl
such cases are of too frequent occurrence
to-be rare items In anyman's experience;
and but too often arise from cne cause-
drunkenness-th fierce rage tor the slow,
sure poison that oversteps every other con-
sideration; that casts aside wife, children,
friends, happiness, and-station, and hur-
ries its victims madly onto degradation
and death.
Some of these men have been impelled
by misfortune and misery, to the vice that
has degraded them. The ruin of worldly
E expectations, the death ofthose they loved,
the sorrow that slowly consumer. but will
not break the heart, has driven them wild:
and they present the hideeus spectacle of
madmen, slowly dying By their own hands.
But by far the greater part have willfully,
and with open eyes, plunged into the gulf
from which the man who once enters If
never rises more, but into which he sinks
deeper and deeper down until recovery is
hopeless.
Such man as this once stood by the bed
side of his dying wife, while his children
knelt around and mingled low bursts OF
grief with their innocent prayers. The
room was scantily and neanly furnished,
and it needed but a glance at the pale form
from which the light of life was fast passing
away. to know that grief, and want, and
anxious care had been busy at the heart foI
many a weary year. An elderly female
with her face bathed in tears, was support
ing the head of the dying weman-heI
daughter-on her arm. But it was not to.
ward her that the wan. face turned; it was
not her hand that the cold and trembling
fingers 'clasped; they pressed the husbands
arm; the eyes so soon to be closed in death
rested on his face, and the man shook be.
meath their gaze. His dress was sloYenly
and disordered, his face infamed, his eyes
bloodshot and heavy. He had been sum-
moned from some wild bebauch to the bed
of sorrow and death. - s.r-
A shaded lamp by the bedside cast dim
light on the figures around, and left the re-
mainder of the room in thick, deep shad-
ow. The silence of night prevailed without
the house, and the stiffness of death was in
the chamber. "A watch hung over the man
stel-shelf; its low ticking was the only sound
lldI DIOko lHC pEOAOuuO NuAOt3 D0b IL WAS q
solemn one, for well they knew who heard
ii. that tefore it had recorded the passing
of another hour, it would beat the knell o.
departed spirit. ftc ctts
ID 1t is dreadful thing to wait and watch
for the approach of death; to know thai
hope is gone, and recovery impossible; and
20 sit and count the dreary hours through
long. long nights-such nights as only
watchers by the bed ofsickness knows Il
chills the blood to hear the dearest secrets
of the heert-the pent-up, hidden secrets
of many years-poured forth by the uncon
scious helpless being before you; and tc
think how little the reserve and cunning
of whole life will avail, when fever and
delirium tears off the mask at last. Strange
tales have been told in the wanderings OF
dying men; tales SO full of guilt and crime,
that those who stood by the sick persons
couch have fed in horror and alright lest
they should be scared to madness by what
they heard and saw; and many a wretch
has died alone, raving of deeds the very
name of which has driven the boldest mar
wav
But no such rawlings were to be heard a
the bedside by which the children knelt.-
Their half-stihed sobs and meanings alone
broke the silence of the lonely chamber
ana Nu6u III ldSG grasp IO4dA
ed, and, turning one look from the chill
dren to their father, she vainly strove tC
speak, and fell backward on the pillow, al
was so calm and tranquil that she seemed
10 sink to sleep. They leaned over her
they called upon her name, softly at first
and then in theleud and piercing tones O
desperation. But there was no reply
They listened for her breath but no sounC
came. They felt for the palpitation of tn,
heart, but no faint throb responded to tn
touch. That heart was broken, and sh
was deadl
The husband sunk into chair by tn
bedside and elapsed his hands upon hi
burning forehead He gazed from child Il
child, but when weeping eye met his b
quailed beneath its look. Noword of com
tort was Whispered in his ear, no look @
kindness lighted on his face. All shrunl
from and avoided him; and when at las
he staggered from the room, no one sough
to follow or console the widower.
The time had been when many frien,
would have crowded round him in hi
afdiction. and many heartfelt condolenc
would have met him in his grief. Wher
were they now? One by one, friends, rela
tions, the eommonest acquaintance even
had fallen of and deserted the drunkard
His wife alone had clung to him IN goo'
and evfi, in sickness and poverty, and HOY
had he rewarded her? He had reeled from
the ta=ern to her bedside, in time to see he
die. .'i-
He rushed from the house. and walket
swiftly through the streets. Remerse, fear
ssllane, all crowded on his mind. Stupfiet
with drink, and bewildered with the seen,
F, he had Just witnessed, he re-entered tn
tavern he had quilted shortly before. Gls.s
succeeded glass. His blood mounted. ant
his brain Whirled round. Deathl Ever
one must die, and why not she! She Wa
too good Ior him; her relations mad ottel
told him so. Gnrses on theml Had the