Nearly Lost but Dearly Won | Page 8

the
originators, and had pressed Mary Franklin to join the party. Mrs
Franklin had at first declined for her daughter. She increasingly dreaded
any intimacy between her and Mark, whose habits she feared were
getting more and more self-indulgent; and Mary herself was by no
means anxious to go, but Mark's father had been particularly pressing
on the subject, more so than Mrs Franklin could exactly understand, so
she yielded to the joint importunity of father and son, though with
much reluctance. Mary had seen Mark occasionally since the night of
the 6th of January, and still liked him, without a thought of going
beyond this; but she was grieved to see how strongly her mother felt
against him, and was inclined to think her 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.