New Temperance Tales. No. 1: The Son of My Friend | Page 5

for him in the parlors," Mr. Martindale answered.
"I will call him for you," I said, coming forward.
"Oh, do if you please," my friend replied. There was a husky tremor in her voice.
I went to the supper-room. All the ladies had retired, and the door was shut. What a scene for a gentleman's house presented itself! Cigars had been lighted, and the air was thick with smoke. As I pushed open the door, my ear was fairly stunned by the confusion of sounds. There was a hush of voices, and I saw bottles from many hands set quickly upon the table, and glasses removed from lips already too deeply stained with wine. With three or four exceptions, all of this company were young men and boys. Near the door was the person I sought.
"Albert!" I called; and the young man came forward. His face was darkly flushed, and his eyes red and glittering.
"Albert, your mother is going," I said.
"Give her my compliments," he answered, with an air of mock courtesy, "and tell her that she has my gracious permission."
"Come!" I urged; "she is waiting for you."
He shook his head resolutely. "I'm not going for an hour, Mrs. Carleton. Tell mother not to trouble herself. I'll be home in good time."
I urged him, but in vain.
"Tell him that he must come!" Mrs. Martindale turned on her husband an appealing look of distress, when I gave her Albert's reply.
But the father did not care to assert an authority which might not be heeded, and answered, "Let him enjoy himself with the rest. Young blood beats quicker than old."
The flush of excited feeling went out of Mrs. Martindale's face. I saw it but for an instant after this reply from her husband; but like a sun-painting, its whole expression was transferred to a leaf of memory, where it is as painfully vivid now as on that never-to-be-forgotten evening. It was pale and convulsed, and the eyes full of despair. A dark presentiment of something terrible had fallen upon her--the shadow of an approaching woe that was to burden all her life.
My friend passed out from my door, and left me so wretched that I could with difficulty rally my feelings to give other parting guests a pleasant word. Mrs. Gordon had to leave in her carriage without her sons, who gave no heed to the repeated messages she sent to them.
At last, all the ladies were gone; but there still remained a dozen young men in the supper-room, from whence came to my ears a sickening sound of carousal. I sought my chamber, and partly disrobing threw myself on a bed. Here I remained in a state of wretchedness impossible to describe for over an hour, when my husband came in.
"Are they all gone?" I asked, rising.
"All, thank God!" he answered, with a sigh of relief. Then, after a moment's pause, he said--"If I live a thousand years, Agnes, the scene of to-night shall never be repeated in my house! I feel not only a sense of disgrace, but worse--a sense of guilt! What have we been doing? Giving our influence and our money to help in the works of elevating and refining society? or in the work of corrupting and debasing it? Are the young men who left our house a little while ago, as strong for good as when they came in? Alas! alas! that we must answer, No! What if Albert Martindale were our son?"
This last sentence pierced me as if it had been a knife.
"He went out just now," continued Mr. Carleton, "so much intoxicated that he walked straight only by an effort."
"Why did you let him go?" I asked, fear laying suddenly its cold hand on my heart. "What if harm should come to him?"
"The worst harm will be a night at the station house, should he happen to get into a drunken brawl on his way home," my husband replied.
I shivered as I murmured, "His poor mother!"
"I thought of her," replied Mr. Carleton, "as I saw him depart just now, and said to myself bitterly, 'To think of sending home from my house to his mother a son in that condition!' And he was not the only one!"
We were silent after that. Our hearts were so heavy that we could not talk. It was near daylight before I slept, and then my dreams were of so wild and strange a character that slumber was brief and unrefreshing.
The light came dimly in through half-drawn curtains on the next morning when a servant knocked at my door.
"What is wanted?" I asked.
"Did Mr. Albert Martindale sleep here last night?"
I sprang from my bed, strangely agitated, and partly opening the chamber door, said, in a voice whose unsteadiness I could not control, "Why do you ask, Katy? Who wants to know?"
"Mrs. Martindale