"O Frank, Frank, my darling boy," she cried, with a bitter outburst of weeping; "look at me, speak to me; I'm your own mother. Don't you know me? I'm come to take you home."
He suddenly sat up, and jerked the clothes from him. His eyes glittered with an unnatural light, his cheeks were deeply flushed with fever heat; his hair, that mother's pride in former days, waved wildly over his forehead. How fair, how beautiful he looked even then!
"Ah, poor young creetur," croaked the old woman; "it's a pity he's come to this. I knowed he were not used to sich a life--more's the shame to them as led him into it."
Ay, shame to them, indeed! But oh, how sad, how grievous that the young hand, which might have raised to untainted lips none but those pure draughts which neither heat the brain nor warp the sense of right, should ever learn to grasp the cup that gives a passing brightness to the eye and glitter to the tongue, but clouds at length the intellect, fires the brain, and leaves a multitude of wretched victims cast ashore as shattered moral wrecks. To such results, though from the smallest beginnings, does the drink _tend_ in its very nature. Oh, happy they who are altogether free from its toils!
The wretched young man stared wildly at his mother.
"Who are you?" he cried. "I don't know you. More brandy--where's the bottle? `Here's a health to all good lasses; pledge it merrily, fill your glasses.' Shuffle the cards well; now then, nothing wenture nothing win. Spades are trumps."
"Oh, my boy, my boy," cried the agonised mother, "can nothing be done for you? Has a doctor been sent for?" she cried suddenly, turning to the old woman.
"Doctor!" was the reply. "No, ma'am; who's to pay for a doctor? The young gent's been and popped all his things for the play and the drink; and I haven't myself so much as a brass farden to get a mouthful o' meat with."
"Oh, will any one run for a doctor?" implored the miserable mother. "Here, my good woman," taking out a shilling, "give this to somebody to fetch a doctor; quick--oh, don't lose a moment."
"Ay, ay, I'll see about it," mumbled the old woman; "that'll fetch a doctor quick enough, you may be sure."
She made her way slowly and painfully down the creaking stairs, and after a while returned.