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Books: The Lights and Shadows of Real Life

T >> T.S. Arthur >> The Lights and Shadows of Real Life




"But Everett is said to be a good shot."

"So much the worse for me. That is all."

"You have the liberty of choosing some other weapon. One with which
you are familiar."

"I am familiar with no kind of deadly weapons."

"Then you will stand a poor chance, my friend; unless you name the
day of meeting next week, and practise a good deal in the meantime."

"I shall do no such thing. Do you suppose, that if I fight with
Everett, I shall try to kill him? No. I would not hurt a hair of his
head. I am no murderer!"

"Then you go out under the existence of a fatal inequality."

"I cannot help that. It is my misfortune. I did not send the
challenge."

"That is no reason why you should not make an effort to preserve
your own life."

"If we both fire at once, and both of our balls take effect, the
fact that my ball strikes him will not benefit me any. And suppose
he should be killed, and I survive, do you think I could ever know a
single hour's happiness? No--no--I choose the least of two evils. I
must fight. But I will not kill."

"In this you are determined?"

"I certainly am. I have weighed the matter well, and come to a
positive decision."

"You choose pistols, then?"

"Yes. Let the weapons be pistols."

"When shall the meeting take place?"

"Let it be to-morrow morning, at sunrise. The quicker it is over,
the better."

This determined upon, the friend went again to the second of
Everett, and completed all necessary arrangements for the duel.

It was midnight, and young doctor Lane sat alone in his chamber,
beside a table, upon which were ink and paper. He had, evidently,
made several attempts to write; and each time failed from some cause
to accomplish his task. Several sheets of paper had been written
upon, and thrown aside. Each of these bore the following words:--

"_My Dear Parents:--_When these lines are read by you, the hand
that penned them will be cold and nerveless--"

Thus far the unhappy young man could go, but no farther. Imagination
pictured too vividly the heart-stricken father who had so often
looked down upon him when a boy with pride and pleasure, and the
tender, but now agonized mother, as that appalling announcement met
their eyes.

Again, for the fifth time, he took up his pen, murmuring in a low
tone, yet with a resolute air,

"It must be done!"

He had again written the words:--

"My Dear Parents--"

When his ear caught the sound of steps, strangely familiar to his
ear, ascending the stairs, and approaching his chamber. He paused,
and listened with a heart almost stilled in its pulsations. In a
brief space, the door of his room opened, and a grey-haired, feeble
old man came slowly in.

"My father!" exclaimed Harvey, starting to his feet in
astonishment--scarcely, for the moment, being able to realize
whether it were indeed his father, or, only an apparition.

"Thank heaven! that I have found my son alive--" ejaculated the old
man, uncovering his head, and lifting his eyes upward. "O, Harvey,
my child!" he then said, with an earnest pathos, that touched the
young man's heart--"how could you so far forget us as to think even
for a single moment of the dreadful act you are preparing to
commit?"

"I had hoped to be spared this severest trial of all," the young man
said, rising and grasping the hand of his father, while the tears
sprang to his eyes. "What officious friend has taken the pains to
disturb both your peace and mine--dragging you thus away from your
home, in the vain effort to prevent an act that must take place."

"Speak not so rashly, my son! It cannot, it must not, it shall not
take place!"

"I have no power to prevent it, father."

"You are a free agent."

"Not to do a deed of dishonour,--or, rather, I am not free to suffer
dishonour."

"There is no honour in wantonly risking or taking life, Harvey."

"I insulted a friend, in the grossest manner."

"_That_ was dishonourable. But why did you insult him?"

"I was _flushed with wine_."

The old man shook his head, sadly.

"I know it was wrong, father. But it can't be helped now. Well, as I
said; I insulted him, and he has demanded satisfaction. Can I do
less than give it to him?"

"If you insulted him, you can apologize. And, from what I know of
James Everett, he will at once forgive."

"I cannot do that now, father. He threw a bottle of wine at my head,
and then precipitately challenged me. I owe at least something to
myself."

"And something, I should think, to your mother, if not to me,"
replied the old man, bitterly. "How, think you she will receive the
news of your death, if the combat should terminate fatally for you?
Or, how, if your hands should become stained with the blood of your
friend?"

"Talk not thus, father! Talk not thus!" ejaculated the young man,
rising up quickly, and beginning to pace the floor of his chamber
with hurried steps. "Is not my situation dreadful enough viewed in
any light? Then why seek to agonize my heart with what I would
gladly forget? I am already racked with tortures that can scarcely
be endured--why seek to run my cup of misery over?"

"I seek but to save you, my child," the father replied, in a voice
that suddenly became low and tremulous.

"It is a vain effort. There is but one course for me, and that is to
go on, and meet whatever consequences ensue. The result may not be
so bad as feared."

"Harvey!" old Mr. Lane said, in a voice that had somewhat regained
its steadiness of tone. "This meeting must not take place. If you
persist in going out tomorrow morning, I must take measures to
prevent it."

"And thus dishonour your son."

"All dishonour that will appertain to you, Harvey, appertains to you
now. You insulted your friend. Neither your death nor his can atone
for that offence. If reparation be truly made, it will come in some
other form."

"It is vain to urge that matter with me," was the reply to this. "I
must give James Everett the satisfaction he requires to-morrow
morning. And now, father, if I should fall, which heaven forbid for
others' sakes more than my own," and the young man's voice quivered,
"break the matter to my mother as gently as possible--tell her, that
my last thoughts were of her, and my last prayer that she might be
given strength from above to bear this heavy affliction."

It was a damp, drizzly morning, just at break of day, when Harvey
Lane, accompanied by his friend, and a young physician, entered a
close carriage, and started for the duelling-ground, which had been
selected, some four miles from the city. Two neat mahogany cases
were taken along, one containing a pair of duelling pistols, and the
other a set of surgical instruments. As these were handed in, the
eye of Lane rested upon them for a moment. They conjured up in his
mind no very pleasant thoughts. He was very pale, and silent. Nor
did his companions seem in much better condition, or much better
spirits. A rapid drive of nearly three quarters of an hour brought
them upon the ground. The other party had not yet arrived, but came
up in a few minutes afterwards. Then commenced the formal
preparations. The ground was measured off--ten paces. The seconds
prepared the deadly weapons which were to heal the honour that had
been so dreadfully wounded, and arranged all the minor provisions of
the duel.

During all this time, neither of the young men looked towards each
other, but each paced rapidly over a little space of ground,
backwards and forwards, with agitated steps--though evidently with
an effort to seem composed.

"Ready," said Lane's second, at length, close to his ear.

The young man started, and his cheek blanched to a pale hue. He had
been thinking of his father and mother. With almost the vividness of
reality had he seen them before him, and heard their earnest;
tearful pleadings with him to forbear for their sakes, if not for
his own. But he took the deadly weapon in his hand mechanically, and
moved to the position that had been assigned him. The arrangement
was, that the seconds should give the words--one--two--three--in
slow succession, and that the parties should fire as soon after
"three" was uttered, as they chose.

Their positions taken, the young men's eyes met for the first
time--and for the first time they looked again upon each other's
faces. The word one had been given, at which each raised his
pistol,--_two_ was uttered--and then another individual was
suddenly, and unexpectedly added to the party, who threw himself in
front of Harvey Lane, in range of both the deadly weapons. Turning,
then, towards Everett, he said, lifting his hat, and letting his
thin grey hairs fall about his forehead--

"We cannot spare our son, yet, James! We are growing old, and he is
our only child. If he were taken thus away from us, we should not be
able to bear it. For our sakes, then, James, if he has injured you,
forgive him."

Already had the face of his old and long-tried friend, as he met its
familiar expression, softened in some degree the feelings of
Everett, and modified the angry vindictiveness which he still
continued to cherish. The apparition of the father, and his
unexpected appeal, completely conquered him, and he threw, with a
sudden effort, his pistol away some twenty yards.

"I am satisfied!" he said, in a low tone, advancing, and taking the
old man's hand. "You have conquered the vindictive pride of a
foolish heart."

"I know that I grossly insulted you, James"--Harvey Lane said,
coming quickly forward, and offering his hand. "But would I, could I
have done it, if I had been myself?"

"No, Harvey, you could not! And I was mad and blind that I would not
see this"--Everett replied, grasping the hand of his friend. "We
were both _flushed with wine_, and that made both of us fools.
Surely, Harvey, we have had warning enough, of the evil of drinking.
Within the last two weeks, it has seriously marred our prospects in
life, and now it has brought us out here with the deliberate intent
of taking each other's lives."

"From this hour, I solemnly declare, that I will never again touch,
taste, or handle the accursed thing!" Lane said, with strong
emphasis.

"In that resolution I join you," replied Everett, with a like
earnest manner. "And let this resolution be the sealing bond of our
perpetual friendship."

"Amen!" ejaculated Harvey Lane, solemnly,--and, "Amen!" responded
the old man, fervently, lifting his eyes to Heaven.






SWEARING OFF.





"JOHN," said a sweet-faced girl, laying her hand familiarly upon the
shoulder of a young man who was seated, near a window in deep
abstraction of mind. There was something sad in her voice,--and her
countenance, though, lovely, wore an expression of pain.

"What do you want, sister?" the young man replied, without lifting
his eyes from the floor.

"You are not happy, brother."

To this, there was no reply, and an embarrassing pause of some
moments ensued.

"May I speak a word with you, brother?"--the young girl at length
said, with a tone and manner that showed her to be compelling
herself to the performance of a painful and repugnant task.

"On what subject, Alice?" the brother asked, looking up with a
doubting expression.

This question brought the colour to Alice's cheeks, and the moisture
to her eyes.

"You know what I would say, John," she at length made out to utter,
in a voice that slightly trembled.

"How should I know, sister?"

"You were not yourself last night, John."

"Alice!"

"Forgive me, brother, for what I now say," the maiden rejoined. "It
is a painful trial, indeed; and were it not that I loved you so
well--were it not that, besides you, there is no one else in the
wide world to whom I can look up, I might shrink from a sister's
duty. But I feel that it would be wrong for me not to whisper in
your ear one warning word--wrong not to try a sister's power over
you."

"I will forgive you this time, on one condition," the brother said,
in a tone of rebuke, and with a grave expression of countenance.

"What is that?" asked Alice.

"On condition that you never again, directly or indirectly, allude
to this subject. It is not in your province to do so. A sister
should not look out for her brother's faults."

A sudden gush of tears followed this cold, half-angry repulse; and
then the maiden turned slowly away and left the room.

John Barclay's anger towards his only sister, who had no one, as she
had feelingly said, in the wide world to look up to and love, but
him, subsided the moment he saw how deeply his rebuke had wounded
her. But he could not speak to her, nor recall his words--for the
subject she had introduced was one so painful and mortifying, that
he could not bear an allusion to it.

From long indulgence, the habit of drinking had become confirmed in
the young man to such a degree that he had almost ceased to resist
an inclination that was gaining a dangerous power over him. And yet
there was in his mind an abiding resolution one day to break away
from this habit. He did not intend to become a drunkard. Oh, no! The
condition of a drunkard was too low and degrading. He could never
sink to that! After awhile, he intended to "swear off," as he called
it, and be done with the seductive poison altogether; but he had not
yet been able to bring so good a resolution into present activity.
This being his state of mind--conscious of danger, and yet unwilling
to fly from that danger, he could not bear any allusion to the
subject.

Half an hour, passed in troubled thought, elapsed after this brief
interview between the brother and sister, when the young man left
the house and took his way, scarcely reflecting upon where he was
going, to one of his accustomed places of resort--a fashionable
drinking house, where every device that ingenuity could invent, was
displayed to attract custom. Splendid mirrors and pictures hung
against the walls, affecting the mind with pleasing thoughts--and
tempting to self-indulgence. There were lounges, where one might
recline at ease, while he sipped the delicious compounds the richly
furnished bar afforded, never once dreaming that a serpent lay
concealed in the cup that he held to his lips--a serpent that one
day would sting him, perhaps unto death!

"Regular as clock-work,"--said an old man, a friend of Barclay's
father, who had been dead several years, meeting the young man as he
was about to enter the attractive establishment just alluded to.

"How?" asked Barclay in a tone of enquiry.

"Six times a day, John, is too often for you to be seen going into
the same drinking-house,"--said the old man, with plain-spoken
honesty.

"You must not talk to me in that way, Mr. Gray," the other rejoined
sternly.

"My respect and regard for the father, will ever cause me to speak
plainly to the son when I think him in danger," was Mr. Gray's calm
reply.

"In danger of what, Mr. Gray?"

"In danger of--shall I utter the word in speaking o' the son of my
old friend, Mr. Barclay? Yes; in danger of--drunkenness!"

"Mr. Gray, I cannot permit any one to speak to me thus."

"Be not offended at me, John. I utter but the truth."

"I will not stand to be insulted by any one!" was the young man's
angry reply, as he turned suddenly away from his aged friend, and
entered the drinking-house. He did not go up at once to the bar, as
had been his habit, but threw himself down upon one of the lounges,
took up a newspaper, and commenced; or rather, appeared to commence
reading, though he did not, in fact, see a letter.

"What will you have, Mr. Barclay?" asked an officious attendant,
coming up, a few moments after he had entered.

"Nothing just now," was the reply, made in a low tone, while his
eyes were not lifted from the newspaper. No very pleasant
reflections were those that passed through his mind as he sat there.
At last he rose up quickly, as if a resolution, had been suddenly
formed, and left the place where clustered so many temptations, with
a hurried step.

"I want you to administer an oath," he said, entering the office of
an Alderman, a few minutes after.

"Very well, sir. I am ready," replied the Alderman. "What is its
nature?"

"I will give you the form."

"Well?"

"I, John Barclay, do solemnly swear, that for six months from this
hour, I will not taste a drop of any kind of liquor that
intoxicates."

"I wouldn't take that oath, young man," the Alderman said.

"Why not?"

"You had better go and join a temperance society. Signing the pledge
will be of as much avail."

"No--I will not sign a pledge never to drink again. I'm not going to
make a mere slave of myself. I'll swear off for six months."

"Why not swear off perpetually, then?"

"Because, as I said, I am not going to make a slave of myself. Six
months of total-abstinence will give me a control over myself that I
do not now possess."

"I very much fear, sir," urged the Alderman, notwithstanding he
perceived that the young man was growing impatient--"and you must
pardon my freedom in saying so, that you will find yourself in
error. If you are already so much the slave of drink as to feel
yourself compelled to have recourse to the solemnities of an oath to
break away from its bewitching power, depend upon it, that no
temporary expedient of this kind will be of any avail. You will, no
doubt, keep your oath religiously, but when its influence is
withdrawn, you will find the strength of an unsupported resolution
as weak as ever."

"I do not believe the position you take to be a true one," argued
young Barclay--"All I want is to get rid of present temptation, and
to be freed from present associations. Six months will place me
beyond the reach of these, and then I shall be able to do right from
an internal principle, and not from mere external restraint."

"I see the view you take, and would not urge a word against it, did
I not know so many instances of individuals who have vainly opposed
their resolutions against the power of habit. When once an appetite
for intoxicating drinks has been formed, there is only one way of
safety--that of taking a perpetual pledge of total-abstinence. That,
and that alone is the wall of sure protection. Without it, you are
exposed to temptations on every hand. The manly and determined
effort to be free will not always avail. In some weak and
unsuspecting moment, the tempter will steal quietly in, and all will
be again lost."

"It is useless, sir, to argue the point with me," Barclay replied to
this. "I will not now take the pledge--that is settled. I will take
an oath of abstinence for six months. If I can keep to it that long,
I can keep from drinking always."

Seeing that further argument would be useless, the Alderman said no
more, but proceeded to administer the oath. The young man then paid
the required fee and turned from the office in silence.

When Alice left the room in tears, stung by the cutting rebuke of
her brother, she retired to her chamber with an oppressed and aching
heart. She loved him tenderly. They were, sister and brother, alone
in the world, and, therefore, her affections clung the closer to
him. The struggle had been a hard one in bringing herself to perform
the duty which had called down upon her the anger of one for whom
she would almost have given her life; and, therefore, the result was
doubly painful, more particularly, as it had effected nothing,
apparently, towards a change in his habits.

"But perhaps it will cause him to reflect.--If so, I will cheerfully
bear his anger," was the consoling thought that passed through her
mind, after the passage of an hour, spent under the influence of
most painful feelings.

"O, if he will only be more on his guard," she went on, in
thought--"if he will only give up that habit, how glad I should be!"

Just then she heard him enter, and marked the sound of his footsteps
as he ascended to his own room, with a fluttering heart. In the
course of fifteen or twenty minutes, he went down again, and she
listened to observe if he were going out. But he entered the
parlours, and then all was, again, quiet.

For some time Alice debated with herself whether she should go down
to him or not, and make the effort to dispel the anger that she had
aroused against her; but she could not make up her mind how to act,
for she could not tell in what mood she might find him. One repulse
was as much, she felt, as she could bear. At last, however, her
feelings became so wrought up, that she determined to go down and
seek to be reconciled. Her brother's anger was more than she could
bear.

When she entered the parlours, with her usual quiet step, she found
him seated near the window, reading. He lifted his head as she came
in, and she saw at a glance that all his angry feelings were gone.
How lightly did her heart bound as she sprang forward!

"Will you forgive me, brother?" she said, laying her hand upon his
shoulder as she stood by his side, and bent her face down until her
fair cheek almost touched his own.

"Rather let me say, will you forgive me, sister?" was his reply, as
he kissed her affectionately--"for the unkind repulse I gave you,
when to say what you did must have caused you a most painful
sacrifice of feeling?"

"Painful indeed it was, brother. But it is past now and all
forgiven."

"Since then, Alice," he said, after a pause, "I have taken a solemn
oath, administered by an Alderman, not to touch any kind of
intoxicating drink for six months."

"O, I am so glad, John!" the sister said, a joyful smile lighting up
her beautiful young face. "But why did you say six months? Why not
for life?"

"Because, Alice, I do not wish to bind myself down to a kind of
perpetual slavery. I wish to be free, and act right in freedom from
a true principle of right. Six months of entire abstinence from all
kinds of liquor will destroy that appetite for it which has caused
me, of late, to seek it far too often. And then I will, as a free
man, remain free."

"I shall now be so happy again, John!" Alice said, fully satisfied
with her brother's reason.

"So you have not been happy then of late?"

"O, no, brother. Far from it."

"And has the fact of my using wine so freely been the cause of your
unhappiness?"

"Solely."

"Its effects upon me have not been so visible as often to attract
your attention, Alice?"

"O, yes, they have. Scarcely a day has gone by for three or four
months past, that I could not see that your mind was obscured, and
often your actions sensibly affected."

"I did not dream that it was so, Alice.'

"Are you not sensible, that at Mr. Weston's, last night you were by
no means yourself?"

"Yes, Alice, I am sensible of that, and deeply has it mortified me.
I was suffering acutely from the recollection of the exposure which
I made of myself on that occasion, especially before Helen, when you
alluded to the subject. That was the reason that I could not bear
your allusion to it. But tell me, Alice, did you perceive that my
situation attracted Helen's attention particularly?"

"Yes. She noticed, evidently, that you were not as you ought to have
been."

"How did it affect her, Alice?" asked the young man.

"She seemed much pained, and, I thought, mortified."

"Mortified?"

"Yes."

A pause of some moments ensued, when Barclay asked, in a tone of
interest,

"Do you think it has prejudiced her against me?"

"It has evidently pained her very much, but I do not think that it
has created in her mind any prejudice against you."

"From what do you infer this, Alice?"

"From the fact, that, while we were alone in her chamber, on my
going up stairs to put on my bonnet and shawl, she said to me, and
her eyes were moist as well as my own, 'Alice, you ought to speak to
your brother, and caution him against this free indulgence in wine;
it may grow on him, unawares. If he were as near to me as he is to
you, I should not feel that my conscience was clear unless I warned
him of his danger.'"

"Did she say that, sister?"

"Yes, those were her very words."

"And you did warn me, faithfully."

"Yes. But the task is one I pray that I may never again have to
perform."

"Amen," was the fervent response.

"How do you like Helen?" the young man asked, in a livelier tone,
after a silence of nearly a minute.

"I have always been attached to her, John. You know that we have
been together since we were little girls, until now we seem almost
like sisters."

"And a sister, truly, I hope she may one day become," the brother
said, with a meaning smile.

"Most affectionately will I receive her as such," was the reply of
Alice. "Than Helen Weston, there is no one whom I had rather see the
wife of my dear brother."

As she said this, she drew her arm around his neck, and kissed him
affectionately.

"It shall not be my fault, then, Alice, if she do not become your
sister--" was the brother's response.

Rigidly true to his pledge, John Barclay soon gained the honourable
estimation in the social circle through which he moved, that he had
held, before wine, the mocker, had seduced him from the ways of true
sobriety, and caused even his best friends to regard him with
changed feelings. Possessing a competence, which a father's patient
industry had accumulated, he had not, hitherto, thought of entering
upon any business. Now, however, he began to see the propriety of
doing so, and as he had plenty of capital, he proposed to a young
man of industrious habits and thorough knowledge of business to
enter into a co-partnership with him. This offer was accepted, and
the two young men commenced the world with the fairest prospects.