Nearly Lost but Dearly Won | Page 8

a little hard. True, he had been betrayed into an excess on Twelfth night; but, then, he was no drunkard. So she argued to herself, and so too many argue; but how strange it is that people should argue so differently about the sin of drunkenness from what they argue about other sins! If a man lies to us now and then, do we call him habitually truthful? If a man steals now and then, do we call him habitually honest? Surely not; yet if a man is only now and then drunken, his fault is winked at; he is considered by many as habitually a sober man; and yet, assuredly, if there be one sin more than another which from the guilt and misery that it causes deserves little indulgence, it is the sin of drunkenness. Mary took the common view, and could not think of Mark as being otherwise than habitually sober, because he was only now and then the worse for strong drink.
It was, as we have said, a lovely September morning, and all the members of the picnic party were in high spirits. An omnibus had been hired expressly for the occasion. Mark sat by the driver, and acted as presiding genius. The common meeting-place was an old oak, above a mile out of the town, and thither by ten o'clock all the providers and their provisions had made their way. No one could look more bright than Mark Rothwell, no one more peacefully lovely than Mary Franklin. All being seated, off they started at an uproarious signal from Mark. Away they went, along level road, through pebbly lane, its banks gorgeous with foxgloves and fragrant with honeysuckles, over wild heath, and then up grassy slopes. There were fourteen in the party: Mr Rothwell, Mark and his three sisters, and a lady neighbour; Mrs Franklin and her daughter, with a female friend; and five young gentlemen who were or seemed to be cousins, more or less, to everybody. Five miles were soon passed, and then the road was crossed by a little stream. Cautiously the lumbering vehicle made its way down the shelving gravel, plunged into the sparkling water, fouling it with thick eddies of liquid mud, and then, with some slight prancings on the part of the willing horses, gained the opposite bank. The other five miles were soon accomplished, all feeling the exhilarating effect of drinking in copious draughts of mountain air--God's pure and unadulterated stimulant to strengthen the nerves, string up the muscles, and clear the brain, free from every drop of spirit except the glowing spirit of health. And now the omnibus was abandoned by a little roadside inn to the care of a hostler, who took the horses (poor dumb brutes!) to feast on corn and water, God's truly "good creatures," unspoilt by the perverse hand of self-indulgent man!
The driver, with the rest of the party, toiled up the hill-side, and all, on gaining the summit, gazed with admiration across one of those lovely scenes which may well make us feel that the stamp of God's hand is there, however much man may have marred what his Creator has made: wood and lane, cornfields red-ripe, turnip fields in squares of dazzling green, were spread out before them in rich embroidery with belts of silver stream flashing like diamonds on the robe of beauty with which Almighty love had clothed the earth. Oh! To think that sin should defile so fair a prospect! Yet sin was there, though unseen by those delighted gazers. Ay, and thickly sown among those sweet hills and dales were drunkards' houses, where hearts were withering, and beings made for immortality were destroying body and soul by a lingering suicide.
An hour passed quickly by, and there came a summons to luncheon. Under a tall rock, affording an unbroken view of the magnificent landscape outspread below, the tablecloth was laid and secured at the corners by large stones. Pies both savoury and sweet were abundant, bread sufficient, salt scanty, and water absent altogether. Bottles were plentiful--bottles of ale, of porter, of wines heavy and light. Corks popped, champagne fizzed, ale sparkled. Mark surrendered the eatables into other hands, and threw his whole energies into the joint consumption and distribution of strong drink. He seemed in this matter, at least, to act upon the rule that "Example is better than precept": if he pressed others to drink, he led the way by taking copious draughts himself. The driver, too, was not forgotten; the poor man was getting a chance of rising a little above his daily plodding as he looked out on the lovely scenery before him: but he was not to be left to God's teachings; ale, porter, champagne, he must taste them all. Mark insisted on it; so