"Doctor! how is James Cole now?" inquired a gentleman who met him some three or four weeks after the fatal night of drunkenness.
"His case is hopeless," answered the doctor. "He has a hard cough, and to all appearance is in a quick consumption."
"Do you consider it the consequence of his exposure on that night?"
"Certainly, it can be nothing else. If it had been a very cold night he would have been frozen to death in the morning. I did not know that he had become so much of a drunkard until this happened."
"I did," replied the gentleman. "I have seen a good deal of him, and have known something of his habits. I was satisfied, when he was but sixteen or eighteen years of age, that he had an appetite for liquor, and I am not surprised at the result."
"The poor fellow will soon know the worst," added the doctor. "He can't live many weeks at the longest."
"I hope it will prove a warning to the young here," said the gentleman. "The fact is, I wonder sometimes that we do not have more of such cases when the temptations to drink are so common. But _one_ ought to be sufficient to move the whole town on the subject."
Not quite twelve weeks have elapsed since the foregoing incident occurred. The bell tolls out its solemn death-knell, and the sable hearse is moving slowly on to the grave-yard. Sad, tearful mourners follow, to lay all that remains of James Cole--the son, and brother--in the silent "narrow house." For the demon-vice has done its worst, and loosed the silver chord, and his youthful spirit has gone before the drunkard's offended God. Alas! what painful memories throng the minds of beholders at the sight of the long, mournful procession on its way to the tomb! Never did a hearse convey more blasted hopes or wasted powers, more abused and withered ties, or dishonored members, to the house of the dead. Within that coffin is the bright promise of youth, the strength of early manhood, parental expectations and love--all blighted by the breath of the destroyer, and laid in as sad a winding-sheet as ever wrapped a tenant of the grave. Oh! how great the woes of intemperance appear, when these appalling realities dash earthly hopes, and send the wretched victim away to that world "from whose bourne no traveller returns!" So thought many as the lifeless form of James Cole was consigned to its kindred dust.