Nor Did He Seem To Make The
Least Distinction Between These Extremes, But Would Cheerily Follow
Up 'Tom Bowling' With 'Around Her Splendid Form.'
The father, an old, cheery, small piece of man-hood, could do
everything connected with tinwork from one end of the process to
the other, use almost every carpenter's tool, and make picture
frames to boot.
'I sat down with silver plate every Sunday,' said
he, 'and pictures on the wall. I have made enough money to be
rolling in my carriage. But, sir,' looking at me unsteadily with
his bright rheumy eyes, 'I was troubled with a drunken wife.' He
took a hostile view of matrimony in consequence. 'It's an old
saying,' he remarked: 'God made 'em, and the devil he mixed 'em.'
I think he was justified by his experience. It was a dreary story.
He would bring home three pounds on Saturday, and on Monday all the
clothes would be in pawn. Sick of the useless struggle, he gave up
a paying contract, and contented himself with small and ill-paid
jobs. 'A bad job was as good as a good job for me,' he said; 'it
all went the same way.' Once the wife showed signs of amendment;
she kept steady for weeks on end; it was again worth while to
labour and to do one's best. The husband found a good situation
some distance from home, and, to make a little upon every hand,
started the wife in a cook-shop; the children were here and there,
busy as mice; savings began to grow together in the bank, and the
golden age of hope had returned again to that unhappy family. But
one week my old acquaintance, getting earlier through with his
work, came home on the Friday instead of the Saturday, and there
was his wife to receive him reeling drunk. He 'took and gave her a
pair o' black eyes,' for which I pardon him, nailed up the cook-
shop door, gave up his situation, and resigned himself to a life of
poverty, with the workhouse at the end. As the children came to
their full age they fled the house, and established themselves in
other countries; some did well, some not so well; but the father
remained at home alone with his drunken wife, all his sound-hearted
pluck and varied accomplishments depressed and negatived.
Was she dead now? or, after all these years, had he broken the
chain, and run from home like a schoolboy? I could not discover
which; but here at least he was out on the adventure, and still one
of the bravest and most youthful men on board.
'Now, I suppose, I must put my old bones to work again,' said he;
'but I can do a turn yet.'
And the son to whom he was going, I asked, was he not able to
support him?
'Oh yes,' he replied. 'But I'm never happy without a job on hand.
And I'm stout; I can eat a'most anything.
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