From Wealth to Poverty | Page 8

of his employees who were capable and industrious,
raised his salary to an amount which not only enabled them to live
respectably, but also to deposit something in the savings-bank each
week, preparatory for a rainy day.
Ruth's face began to wear the old radiant look of calm peace, if not
exuberant joy, which shone in her eye in the days of yore, and she, for
two years, was able to send home to her friends in the old home land
"glad tidings of great joy." But, alas! the dream was short as it was
blissful. He met one day an old companion of his, with whom he had
associated in his native town, and was induced by him, after much
persuasion, to join in a friendly glass for the sake of "Auld Lang Syne."
He met Ruth when she ran to the gate to welcome him that night with
what seemed to her loving heart a cold repulse, for he was drunk--yes,
my dear reader-- crazily, brutally drunk. His poor wife was as much
stunned as if he had been brought home dead. She stood pale as death,
with lips tightly pressed, with wide open eyes staring wildly. Poor little
Eddie and Allie ran to their mother and nestled close to her for
protection, as birdlings run to the cover of the mother in seasons of
danger. And even poor little Mamie, for they had been blessed by a
little girl, whom they had thus named, shortly after they arrived in
Rochester, cuddled her head more closely to her mother's bosom, and
clung to her as if in mortal terror of one whom she usually greeted with
the fondest tokens of welcome.

From that time forward his descent to Avernus was very rapid. He soon
lost his situation and was unable to secure another. He also became
dissatisfied with the country. It is generally men who are their own
worst enemies, who become agitators against the existing order of
things.
The time of which I am writing was immediately after the American
War, and, at that period, there was a great deal of dissatisfaction felt
and expressed against England, because there were so many of her
citizens who sympathized with the Southern cause. And if any of the
more ignorant discovered a man to be an Englishman, he was almost
certain to seize the opportunity to rail against his country. Ashton had
to endure a great deal of this; for, in the hotels he met a great many
returned soldiers, among whom there was a large percentage of the
Fenian element; for the majority of the rank and file of these miscreants
were tavern loafers. Their denunciation of England was not only strong,
but blatant and couched in language both blasphemous and obscene.
This Ashton felt he could not endure, this land of freedom was far too
free for him. He said he loved liberty, but not license, and, therefore,
stimulated by the spirit of patriotism, and by another spirit, which in his
case was far the more potent, he resolved to move to Canada, to shelter
again under the protecting folds of the "Union Jack." I have already
given the reader to understand, in another chapter, that he acted upon
that resolution.
CHAPTER V.
GOOD RESOLUTIONS; A TEMPTER, AND A FALL.
On the morning we introduced him to the reader he took the train to
Charlotte and secured a berth on the steamer Corinthian for a port on
the Canadian side, and as it would not start for an hour after he arrived,
he thought he would endeavor to compose his perturbed mind by a
quiet walk up the river. For in his sober moments he suffered intensely
from the "pricks of an outraged conscience," and more than once he
had been tempted to take his own life, but the thought of wife and
children had restrained him from the rash and cowardly act. It may be,

there was intermingled with that the thought, as Shakespeare says--
"Which makes cowards of us all, And makes us rather bear those ills
we have Than fly to others that we know not of."
He now resolved, God helping him, he would never drink again, but he
would establish a home in the strange land whither he was journeying,
and live a sober, industrious life. But even as he made these resolves
his craving, burning appetite came tempting him; and as he strove
against it, he shut his teeth and knit his brow, and involuntarily
clenched his hand as if about to struggle with a mortal foe, and stamped
his foot as he hissed through his clenched teeth, "I will be free." Ah,
Richard! don't begin to boast before you have gained the victory,
depend more upon God than self, you surely need