Nearly Lost but Dearly Won | Page 6

Self reigned paramount.
Mr Tankardew's tall form rose high above the edge of the struggling crowd, which he had approached.
"Poor things, poor things, poor things!" he said gloomily.
"A pleasant sight, these little ones enjoying themselves," said Mr Rothwell, coming up.
Mr Tankardew seemed scarcely to hear him, and returned to his place by Mrs Franklin.
"Enjoying themselves!" he exclaimed, in an undertone, "call it pampering the flesh, killing the soul, and courting the devil."
"Rather hard upon the poor dear children," laughingly remarked a lady, who overheard him: "why, surely you wouldn't deny them, their share of the enjoyment of God's good creatures?"
"God's good creatures, madam! Are the wine and negus God's good creatures?"
"Certainly they are," was the reply: "God has permitted man to manufacture them out of the fruits of the earth, and to make them the means of pleasurable excitement, and therefore surely we may take them and give them as His good creatures."
Mr Tankardew made no answer, but striding up to Mary, where she sat with a circle of little interesting faces round her, eagerly intent on some simple story she was telling them, he said, "Miss Franklin, will you favour me by bringing me a few of your young friends here. There, now, my dear," (speaking to one of the little girls), "just hand me that empty negus glass." The child did so, and Mr Tankardew, producing from his coat pocket a considerable sized bottle, turned to the lady who had addressed him, and said:
"Madam, will you help me to dispense some of the contents of this bottle to these little children?"
"Gladly," she replied. "I suppose it is something very good, such as little folks like."
"It is one of God's good creatures, madam:" saying which, he turned towards the other's astonished gaze the broad label on which was printed in great black letters, "Laudanum--Poison."
"My dear sir, what do you mean?"
"I mean, madam, that the liquid in this bottle is made from the poppy, which is one of the fruits of the earth; therefore it is one of God's good creatures, just as the wine and negus are. It produces very pleasurable sensations, too, if you take it, just as they do; therefore it is right to indulge in it, and give it to others, just as it is right for the same reasons to indulge in wine and negus and spirits, and to give them to others."
"I really don't understand you, sir."
"Don't you, madam? I think you won't be able to pick a hole in my argument."
"Ah! But this liquid is poison!"
"So is alcohol, madam, only it is not labelled so: more's the pity, for it has killed thousands and tens of thousands, where laudanum has only killed units. There, my child," he added, turning to Mary, and taking an elegant little packet from his pocket, "give these bonbons to the little ones. I didn't mean to disappoint them."
While this dialogue was going on, the rest of the party was too full of noisy mirth to notice what was passing. Mark's voice was getting very wild and conspicuous; and now he made his way with flushed face and sparkling eyes to Mary, who was sitting quietly between her mother and Mr Tankardew. He carried a jug in one hand, and a glass in the other, and, without noticing the elder people, exclaimed, "It is an hour yet to supper time, and you'll be dead with thirst; I am sure I am. You must take some of this, it is capital stuff; our butler made it: I have just had a tumbler--it is punch. Come, Mary, you must," and he thrust the glass into her hand: "you must, I say; you shall; never mind old Tanky," he added, in what he meant to be a whisper. Then he raised the jug with unsteady fingers, but, before a drop could reach the tumbler, Mr Tankardew had risen, and with one sweep of his hand dashed it out of Mary's grasp on the ground. Few heard the crash, amidst the din of the general merriment, and those who noticed it supposed it to be an accident. "Nearly lost!" whispered Mr Tankardew in Mary's ear; then he said, in a louder voice, "Faugh! The atmosphere of this place does not suit me. I must retire. Mrs Franklin, pray make an old man's excuses to our host and hostess."
He was gone!
CHAPTER THREE.
THE SWOLLEN STREAM.
It is the morning after the juvenile party at "The Firs." A clear, bright frost still: everything outside the house fresh and vigorous: half-a-dozen labourers' little children running to school with faces like peonies; jumping, racing, sliding, puffing out clouds of steaming breath as they shout out again and again for very excess of health and spirits.
Everything inside the house limp, languid, and lugubrious; the fires are sulky and won't burn; the