WHO’S got a copper for poor Peter? I’ll stand on my head! or give you a dance! or sing you a comic song, for a ha’ penny, or a penny, or a drop o’ beer.
“Now, who’s going to throw the first copper into the old hat, towards getting a dinner for poor Peter?”
So spoke a man of middle height and middle age, who had seen better days, to a company of working-men who were taking their mid-day meal in a public-house in the northern district of London. The liquid red lips, and bloated face, denoted spirit-drinking.
Hungering and despised, weary and sick at heart―yet “no man gave unto him.” Some looked upon him with a half smile of pitying forbearance, regarding him as scarcely a responsible being; others, especially the younger men, made no attempt to hide their anger and disgust at his presence, but openly bade him go and leave them to eat in peace the dinner they had earned.
Amid all he stood, ―bearing, with a sickly attempt at laughter, the hard words directed against him, until he left the place.
But as the evening drew on, and night came, his gains both in liquor and in money were slightly increased; until the last song was sung, the last house was closing, and there was only the choice between the damp, chilly streets and his miserable home.
Peter was in his ordinary condition of dull intoxication as he entered his dwelling; his step was steady, his strength firm; but there was brooding within him a fierce, caged devil―greatly feared by his wife and children, because easily aroused by a word or a look―a devil that had oftentimes broken out upon them, and driven them forth amid oaths and curses, blows and tears.
Without a word of greeting he sat down, ignorant and careless whether his wife and children had been fed during his absence; and he began to prepare for rest.
His toil-worn wife glanced keenly from under her bent brow, and then timidly said―
“There’s a bad message concerning Nellie, Peter; she must have caught the fever when she came here last week. I went down to see her this afternoon; but a boy came late this evening to say she was very bad, and wanted you to go and see her.” As the poor wife spoke, she looked up fearfully, as if uncertain in what manner such unwelcome intelligence would be received.
He made no reply, but replaced his worn shoes upon his weary feet, and went forth into the sharp night. Shivering with cold, as the bleak wind met him, he steadily and for a time silently held upon his way. At length he began muttering, ―
“Nellie! Nellie! down with the fever! I’d sooner it had been all the others together.”
Poor Peter’s one lamb, the despised drunkard’s last hold and hope in life.
“Nellie down! pleasant faced, bright eyed Nellie! I wish I knew there was a God! I’d pray to Him and ask Him to spare me Nellie: but I haven’t believed in any God for years; if I had, I shouldn’t be as I am now! But Nellie always loved me. When all the rest ran away afraid, Nellie never did; she came the closer, and looked up, wandering what mad devil had got into father, but certain it would not hurt her. And I never did beat little Nellie, drunk or sober. Haven’t I gone hungry myself many a time, with little Nellie’s halfpenny loaf safe in my pocket? And I know I drank harder, because I missed her so, when she went away from me to service. Why didn’t I, why couldn’t I keep sober, and have little Nellie with me at home?”
The nurse laid her finger on her lip, as he entered Nellie’s room, and sank upon a chair close to the bedside. Laying his shoes aside, and removing his wet coat, he looked attentively at his sick daughter. Nellie was lying as if exhausted, her face colorless, lips black and swollen, and her breathing hard and difficult.
As he looked upon her, a dull, faint heart-sinking within him told him that hope was over―that his darling was passing away. A low, wild cry that he could not repress broke from him, and then his face was covered by his hands, as he fell upon his knees by the bedside.
The sound roused the dying girl; she looked wildly and unconsciously around, until her eyes met the shrinking figure by the bedside. Then thought and the old love returned to her; she gently raised the bowed head until it rested upon her hot, laboring bosom, and his arms were flung around her, with an intensity that said he knew not how to let her go.
“Leave me alone with father a little while, nurse, dear,” said Nellie; “I have something I must say to him before I go.” The woman left the room silently; and they were alone.
“Father! darling father!” she said, her arms clinging lovingly round his neck, “I am dying.”
A low groan, that seemed wrung from the depths of a breaking heart, was the only reply he was able to give; but it caused the fever-glittering eyes to fix more intently upon him, and the hot arms to tighten around him as she spoke again. “I want you to think of our old home, father, when you used to twine my hair round your fingers as I climbed upon your knee, and to remember how you always loved Nellie! I wish such times to come again, though I shall not be with you: and so I ask you to pray for me and for yourself too.”
“I cannot, I dare not, Nellie,” he said; “I would if I could―if only because you asked me, but I cannot, and it would be useless. I have sinned beyond forgiveness; He would not hear me.”
“No, no, father!” she replied, “Jesus ‘is able to save to the uttermost,’ and He came to do it, and He can and will save you. If you have been a great sinner, the greater honor to Him in saving you. God says: ‘Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.’ ‘For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting life.’ Father, I shall soon be in heaven; but I want you to come there too.”
Closer and more clingingly yet, as though in her entreaty she would grow to him, as in the old happy time, Nellie twined her arms around him. She was fast passing away; but it seemed as if she could not go until her striving spirit was gladdened by some words from her father’s lips, and she renewed her effort.
At last, with an outburst of sobs and tears, that shook the dying girl as a leaf in the autumn wind, her father, for the first time in a long life, uttered words of earnest petition to God. He gasped forth, “God in heaven, have mercy upon my darling and upon me!” The barriers once broken down, the pent-up deluge burst forth. With his daughter’s arms around him, her hot breath upon his tearstained cheek, there the poor drunkard pleaded earnestly for mercy; and though the words were labored and interrupted, they were earnest and heartfelt―and they were heard. “For while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
“Amen!” responded Nellie, and then continued, “I am’ going to be with Jesus, ―seeing Him always; and I want your promise to love and serve Him too.”
“I will, Nellie,” he said, “indeed I will! if He will have a poor, broken-down wretch like me!”
“Let me pray now, father,” she said; and with her last strength she poured forth humble, earnest entreaties for her father, and her mother, and the other children. Then, still clinging closely round his neck, she faltered, “Father, one more promise; don’t ever drink any more!”
“I won’t, Nellie!” he gasped, “I never will, God helping me: I never will touch strong drink again.” A glad smile lit up her face, as the promise fell upon her ear, and she faintly murmured, “I am going, father.” Then the loving arms unclasped, the head fell back, and Nellie “was gone.”
A few days, and what had been Nellie was laid in a green spot, until the great awakening, and Peter had to return to daily life without his darling. Oftentimes every limb seemed to quiver for the accustomed stimulants. But God helped him. He went to an old employer, saying, “My Nellie is dead. Before she died she made me promise never to drink more, and, by God’s help, if I die for it, I will not. If you will kindly lend me money to redeem my tools, I will work steadily for you till all is repaid.” He fought hard—and in God’s strength conquered; clinging to his work, to Nellie’s Bible, and to prayer; and he goes upon his way, speaking of Jesus and of Nellie; himself a living message to the drunkard, a breathing proof of the infinite willingness of the Son of God to rescue and to save even a drunkard.
C. J. W.