Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 74

Chapter II. — The Bereaved Parents

page break

Chapter II.

The Bereaved Parents.

The story of the accident, and the melancholy incidents connected with it, produced profound sensation in the community, and the deepest and most considerate sympathy was shown to the Websters, who were universally esteemed, and whose attachment to the only child of their old age was known to haw amounted to something verging on idolatry.

The wonder to everyone that knew the devoted care with which they had guarded her every movement, was that they should have allowed her away on a boating excursion without either accompanying her themselves or placing her in care of some responsible people in whom they had confidence. With Isafrel they had always considered her safe, and she had been an almost inseparable companion of Miss Chalmers when out of their sight, and she was becoming imbued with the principles which Isafrel seemed to have the power of instilling into everyone that came within the sphere of her influence. But Isafrel had had her own little engagement for the holiday, in which "Two was company and three was not," and Mrs. Webster had thought it hard that her daughter should be deprived of a liberty which other girls could have. And so when in the morning of the holiday, young Dickenson, to whom Miss Webster was engaged, called and urged that Josephine should join a little boating party of nice people that they had formed, and the invitation was backed up by the earnest entreaties of the girl, the mother and father reluctantly Consented, and Josephine, hurriedly making her preparations, had gone off in a high state of pleasurable excitement.

But it was an anxious day to Mrs. Webster; and the old man after wandering about the house and grounds half the day, unable to bear the uneasiness, had gone off with the idle purpose of sauntering along the shore on the chance of seeing something of the boat. It was on his return from this excursion shortly before sunset that Mrs. Webster met him at the garden gate and had the sorrowful duty of breaking the news to him; and taking him into poor Josephine's room, she showed him all that remained of their beloved child.

The day after the funeral, Isafrel drove over to the residence of the Websters. Owing to the preparations and other arrangements connected with the funeral, she had not had an opportunity of a page 15 quiet conversation with the bereaved mother, and she felt that they had much to say to one another about one whose memory was very dear to both.

She had loved Josey as she had never loved a girl in her life before, and though the ages of the two girls were nearly the same, there was a childish confidence and a deference to the stronger nature, in the bearing of Josephine towards her schoolmate and dearest friend, that had touched the heart of Isafrel with a singular tenderness for the clinging gentle nature of the young girl that seemed to look up to her for guidance and strength in every moment of her life.

Mrs. Webster had known this, and feeling that at her own age she could not wholly enter into the feelings and interests of a young girl's heart, she was very happy in seeing her under the influence of one so wise yet so tenderly gentle and sympathetic in her nature as Isafrel. More than this, she felt proud to see that the young woman who, in spite of her years, was exercising so commanding an influence in the promotion of the humane and benevolent objects in which the women of the city and district were engaged, who by common consent had been accepted as their guide and leader, and whose name was now in everyone's mouth because of her unvaried kindness to the suffering, as the "Angel Isafrel," should have singled out her child as her companion and dearest friend. So when Miss Chalmers alighted at the garden gate, she was received by the sorrowing mother in her arms as the sister of her lost child, and all the fountains of the depths of a mother's love were broken up afresh.

On going into the drawing-room she found that Mrs. Webster had been laying out Josephine's dresses on the table and folding them away as cherished relics, to be brought out from time to time in coming years as a means of communion with her lost child.

Isafrel knew the dresses, and had remembered the several occasions on which Josey had worn them, and every one of them had memories associated with incidents in the life of the girl that gave fresh occasion of grief to the two mourners.

From this their conversation wandered away to the incidents of the accident, and the mention of Moulton seemed to stir a new source of bitterness in the heart of the mother.

"Oh, Isafrel!" she said. "I have something to tell you, and it breaks my heart to have to say it. Do you know, dear, where it was he got the drink? It was at the Stilton Hotel, and we had voted 'license.'

Isafrel did not grasp at first the meaning of what she was aiming at, but the picture of the heartbroken mother wringing her hands, and, with a scared look and streaming eyes, gazing in her face, was such despair and agony, that she could not feel in her heart to ask the meaning of the words.

page 16

"Oh, Isafrel!" she went on, "the poor, dear child pleaded with us to not vote 'license,' and she told us that Isafrel said—for she was always talking about Isafrel, and Isafrel said this, and Isafrel said that and she told us that at the meeting of women you said, and I remember the very words, 'Oh, sisters, remember that though the ballot is secret it is no secret to God. When you go into the booth you may go alone, but God will be there, and while you mark out the words with the pencil, God's eye will be looking at you, and if you do not strike out the first line, but give your vote for license, God will require it at your hands.' Oh, Isafrel Isafrel I did not strike out the top line. I voted license, and God was there, and has required my child at my hands. Oh, Josey Josey! my lost, my darling child, I have murdered you, I have murdered you. Oh, Isafrel," she said, turning to the girl, "don't tell father. He doesn't know it, or he doesn't think it, or he doesn't remember; men are so stupid. It has never come to his mind that we both left the first line on the voting paper, and voted license, and if it ever comes to his mind it will kill him, too, for, oh, he worshipped Josey. We said to ourselves it would be a pity to take the bread from Mrs. Bradley's children's mouths; and comfortable in the thought that drunkenness could not touch our house, and careless of the homes of others, we voted license, and we didn't tell Josey, poor thing: she never asked us after. Oh, but it shoots far," she cried, as she wrung her hands, "and it shoots round the cornel's, when it went away down by Rangitoto channel to hit us here."

The whole thing now flashed on Isafrel's mind, but how was she to administer consolation to this stricken soul. The local hotel, it appeared, would have lost its license if the local option poll had gone against; and it was at this hotel that Moulton had bought the whisky that had led to the catastrophe.

"But, oh, Mrs. Webster," said Isafrel, ready in the pitying goodness of her soul to almost go back on herself and her principles, to comfort this poor mourner, "it might have got its license if you hadn't voted. Don't blame yourself for this, dear, as he could have got the whisky at some other place."

"No, no, Isafrel, there was no other place, and he got it when they were going to the boat, and they would have had to go away round to a distant place to get it if the Stilton had been closed. Oh, Isafrel, but it shoots far and shoots round the corners."

The quaint and somewhat uncouth metaphor appeared to have fixed itself in poor Mrs. Webster's mind, and as brought out at many a gathering afterwards, it was made familiar to people as her way of telling in what roundabout and unexpected ways the results of the traffic may come home like a boomerang.

page 17

Nothing would persuade her but that it was she and Webster that had got the license for the Stilton, and though others had helped in it, she said perhaps God was also requiring it at their hands as he had taken poor Josey from her.

But a severer ordeal had to be passed when shortly after Mr. Webster arrived from a lonely saunter round the fields.

Isafrel was shocked at the appearance of the old man. Worn and haggard as if he had aged ten years in the few days that had elapsed since the catastrophe, with his grey hairs hanging in tangled masses from his head, he took one pitiful look at Isafrel and sat down folding his hands before him without speaking a word.

For some minutes they sat in silence when, rising slowly and raising his blanched and withered hands towards heaven, he cried, "Oh, I am like an oak tree blasted by the fire of heaven. Why, oh ! why has God done this thing to me? What have I done that He should have punished me so? Why has this curse been brought home to us? Drop of drink never entered this home, it never touched the lips of my child. Why has He punished Josephine ?"

"God has not punished Josephine." said Isafrel tenderly, and she walked over and laid her hand gently on the old man's shoulder, and he sat down. "God has taken the dear child away from the evil to come," she went on, "and she is where no sorrow can ever touch her, and where the tears are for ever wiped away from the eyes. Mr. Webster, let me tell you what I saw last night, I was visiting an unhappy family in Newton. The poor wife was the daughter of a clergyman in England. She had been nurtured tenderly, and she told me she had been the idol of her father and mother. She married a man, a young man, full of promise, respected, well conducted, kind, and loving, high in position in a bank. He lost that situation—through drink. With true womanly instincts she clung to him, and would not leave him, and when he was sent out to this country by her friends in the hope that the change might give him new prospects and a new determination, she accompanied him. He found the same temptations here, and he fell again. My father, from a feeling of professional brotherhood, interested himself in him and got him employment, but it was no use. Position after position he lost, and he drifted to the gumfields. Broken in health, he came back to Auckland, but the demon of drink seized him again. We heard from them, and when I went last night, the three little children were crying with hunger. One of them was in her arms, sick. She had hardly clothing enough for decency, and she had not tasted food that day. The husband was out—drunk. She told me that when he was sick and off the drink, the old kindness returned, and they had as sweet and happy conversations as ever they had had in their page 18 lives. They talked of the dear old home far away, and of the pleasant times they had passed together when they had been married. He vowed he would reform, and wondered how he could have been such a fool. "When he got well he was drunk again—and he nearly killed her. She did not speak angrily of him. She did not seem to be angry with him. She said he really could not help it, and I believe her. But she was in terror of his return. Mr. Webster, Josephine might have been a drunkard's wife. God knows, and knowing it, He may have taken her away. So long as drink is here no man can look into his child's face and say she is safe. He can only know she is safe when she is in the grave. Keep it as far from you as you like, and it may strike you. You have kept it far away; your child, I know, never knew what it was; but it has struck you from far away, and it has struck you heavily. Yet that blow did not fall without God's permission. It was allowed in kindness. You suffer; but your child, whose happiness you wished far more than your own, does not suffer. God read your heart. He saw what you most wished. He has granted it. Your child is happy now and happy for ever."

"Thank you, dear Miss Chalmers," said the old man with deep feeling. " I will try to say, 'not my will, but Thine be done.'"

"Do, Mr. Webster," continued Isafrel. "Don't ask why it was that this thing came to you. Do not wonder why it came, while you did nothing to bring it on you. It is not those that take it who suffer most. Drunkards do not suffer half so much as others who have done nothing to deserve it. That is the cruel part of this cruel thing. If the drunkards only had to be considered—let them bear it. A ship goes out over the sea. There is a crash, and she grates and hangs on the jagged locks. A hundred people rush wildly On the deck. Under the dark canopy of midnight, death looks at them from every side out of the blackness—from the rugged rocks, from the pitiless waves. Terror stricken they are washed one by one into the boiling sea, the surging waves sing the requiem of hopes and joys and loves for ever laid to rest, and the young and the loving, and the brave and the beautiful, and the wise and the aged, are in one dread burial blent. They have not done anything to bring about that awful fate. They had not been drinking. But one man has been, and driving through the midnight darkness, and the trackless rayless seas, he has dashed them on the rocks. And that wail of despairing anguish that rang out in the midnight air, and those sobbing bosoms and broken hearts of bereaved relatives and friends scattered over many lands, came of that one man's drinking. And those passengers and their weeping friends, and the public who look on in grief and burning indignation, had no concern, nor any right to interfere, we are told, in that one man's grog. Dear Mr. Webster," the girl continued, "God moves in page 19 mysterious ways. It seems hard that He should bear with these things; but we have fixed it so that one has to bear the suffering for what others claim the right to do. But God can always take His children home, and there is no drinking there, no broken hearts, no blinding tears in heaven. You are suffering now, but Josephine is happy."

The old man bowed his head on the table and said with a broken voice, "Thy will be done."

decorative feature