Year: 1870

THE DRUNKARD'S DEATH.


BY CHARLES DICKENS.


IIf such 8 thing is possible. MIR. Dickens
death will 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 a then un.
practiced hand.


We will be bold to say that there is scarce
ly man in the constant habit of walking,
day after day, through any of the crowded
throughfares of London, who cannot recol-
leet among the people whom he knows by
sight" 10 use a familiar phrase. some be-
ing of sbject and wretched appearance,
whom he remembers to have seen in a very
different condition, whom he has observed
sicaing 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. Is there any man
who has mixed much with society, or whose
ayocations have caused him to mingle, at
one tinIe or other, with great number of
people, who cannot call to mind the time
when some shabby, miserable wretch, in
rags and filth, who shufies past tim now
in all the squalor of disease and poverty,
was a respectable tradesman, or a clerk or
a man following some thriving pursuit,
with good prospects and decent means? or
cannot any of our readers call to mind from
among the list of their quorsddm 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? Alasi
such cases are of too frequent occurrence
to be rare items in any mans experience;
and but too often arise from one cause
drunkenness-thatf fierce rage for the slow,
sure poison that oversteps every other con-
sideration; that casts aside wife, children,
friends. happiness. and station, end hur-
ries it's victims madly ON to 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
expectations. the death ofthose they loved,
the sorrow that slowly consumes. but will
not break the heart, has driven them wild;
and they present the hideous 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 il





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 meanly 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 for
many a weary year An elderly female
with her face bathed IL tears, was support
ing the lead of the dying woman-her
daughter-on her arm. But 1t 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 slovenly
and disordered, his face inflamed, his eyes
bloodshot and heavy. He had been sum-
moned from some wild bebauch to the bed
Of sorrow and death.


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 still ness of death was in
the chamber. A watch hung over the man.
.el-shelf; IT, low ticking was the only sound
that brokethe profound quiet, but it was a
solemn one, for wen they knew who heard
ii. that tefore it had recorded the passing
of another hour, it would beat the knell of
a departed spirit


It Is a dreadful thing to wait and watch
for the approach of death; to know that
hope is gone, and recovery impossible; and
TO cit and count the dreary hours through
long, long nights-such nights as only
watchers by the bed of sickness knows 1t
chills the blood to hear the dearest secrets
of the heart-the pent-up. hidden secrets
of many years-poured forth by the uncon-
scious helpless being before you; and to
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 person s
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 man
wav


But no such rawlings were to be heard at
the bedside by which the children knelt.-
Their half-stified sobs and meanings alone
broke the silence of the lonely chamber
And when at last the mothers grasp relax
ed. and, turning onS look from the chH-
dren 10 their father, she vainly strove to
speak, and fell backward on the pillow, all
was so calm and tranquil that she seemed
to sink TO sleep. They leaned over her
they called upon her name, softly at first,
and then in the loud and piercing tones oi
desperation. But there was no reply
They listened for her breath but no sound
came They felt for the palpitation of the
heart, but no faint throb responded to the
touch. That heart was broken. and she
was deadi


The husband sunk into chair by the
bedside and elapsed his hands upon his
burning forehead. He gazed from child to
child, but when weeping eye met his he
quailed beneath its lock No word of com.
kindness lighted on his face. An shrunk
from and avoided him; and when at las,
he staggered from the room, no one sought
to follow or console the widower.


The time had been when many a friend
would have crowded round him in his
affection, and many heartfelt coincidence
would have met him in his grief. Where
were they now? One by one, friends, rela
tions, the commonest acquaintance even.
had fallen of and deserted the drunkard
His wife alone had clung to him in good
aud evil, il sickness and poverty, and how
had he rewarded her? He had reeledfrom
the tavern to her bedside. in time TO see hel
die


He rushed from the house, and walked
swiftly through the streets. Remorse, fear
shame, all crowded on his mind. Stupfed
with drink, and bewildered with the scene
be had just witnessed, he re-entered the
tavern he had quilted shortly before. Glass
succeeded glass. His blood mounted, and
his brain whirled round. Death! Every
one must die, and why not shes She was
too good Ior him; her relations had often
k1Il k.xxx O1~ooo ~ khox,l Had fhax