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THE DOWNDRICH

Downdraught by destiny.

The fortune of Miss Farney

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school, in which she taught female children the elements of reading, writing, and sewing. The striking infelicity of her fate, joined to her own well-known taste and industrious habits, in time obtained for her considerable patronage in this humble occupation; and she would eventually have been restored to something like comfort, but for the unhallowed wretch whose fate had become identified with her own. Where this fellow went, or how he subsisted, for the three years during which he was absent, no one ever knew. He was heard to talk of the smugglers in the Isle of Man, and of the United Irishmen of the sister isle; but it can only be surmised that he joined these respectable corps. One day, as Mrs Dempster sat in the midst of her little flock of pupils, the door was opened, and in crawled her prodigal husband, emaciated, travelworn, and beggar-like, with a large black spot upon one of his cheeks, the result of some unimaginably low and scoundrelly brawl. The moment she recognised him, she fainted in her chair; the children dispersed and fled from the house, like a flock of chickens at sight of the impending hawk; and when the unfortunate woman recovered, she found herself alone with this transcendant wretch, the breaker of the peace of her family, the murderer of her mother. He accosted her in the coolest manner possible, said he was glad to see her so comfortably situated, and expressed an anxiety for food and liquor. She went with tottering steps to purvey what he wanted; and while she was busied in her little kitchen, he sat down by her parlour fire, and commenced smoking from a nasty black pipe, after the manner of the lowest mendicants. When food and drink were set before him, he partook of both with voracious appetite. Mrs Dempster sat looking on in despair, for she saw that the presence of this being must entirely blight the pleasant scene which her industry had created around her. She afterwards said, however, that she could have perhaps overlooked all, and even again loved this deplorable wretch, if he had inquired for his child, or expressed a desire to see him. He did neither; he seemed altogether bent on satisfying his own

gross appetites. After spending a few hours in sulky unintermitted smoking and drinking, he was conveyed to a pallet in the garret, there to sleep off his debauch.

It were needless to go through all the distressing details of what ensued. Dempster henceforth became a Downdraught on his wife. This forlorn woman often confessed to her friends that she was perfectly willing to support her husband, provided he would be but content with the plain fare she could offer him, and just walk about and do nothing. But he was not of a temper to endure this listlessness. He required excitement. Instead of quietly spending his forenoons in the arbour, called the Cage, in the Meadows, among decayed military pensioners and other harmless old men, he prowled about the crowded, mean thoroughfares, drinking where he could get liquor for nothing, and roistering in companies of the most debased description. He incurred debts in all directions on the strength of his wife's character, and she was necessarily compelled to liquidate them. The struggles which she at this time made were very great. Like the mother of Gray the poet, she endured all kinds of ill-usage, and persevered under every difficulty to give her son a respectable education, in order that he might have an opportunity of wiping away the stains of his father's vices, and be a comfort to his mother in the decline of life. To do this, and at the same time continue paying the vile debts of her profligate husband, was altogether impossible. She exhausted the beneficence, and even tired the pity of her friends. It need hardly be mentioned, that the creditors of a husband have an undeniable claim upon the effects of his wife. It unfortunately happened that the wretches with whom Dempster contracted his debts were as worthless as himself. draining every resource which his wife could command, he summed up his villainy by giving a promissory-note for fifteen pounds to one of his lowest associates. It is supposed that he struck the bargain for a couple of guineas, for with this sum he again absconded from Edinburgh, and, taking his way to Greenock, shipped

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After

himself on board of a vessel for America. At first, his wife was thankful for the relief; she again breathed freely; but her joy was soon turned into mourning. The promissory-note made its appearance; she had just scraped up and paid her rent; she had not, therefore, a farthing in the world. In a fortnight, the whole of her effects were sold upon distraint. She was turned to the street a second time, almost bent to the dust with the burden of her miseries. The first night she received shelter in the house of a respectable 'much-tried' widow, who was the only person she could freely speak to about her destitute condition. Next day, by the advice of this good woman, she took a room in the neighbourhood, and endeavoured to gather together her pupils, who, it seems, did not desert her, but took a deep interest in her misfortunes. She had also the good-fortune to get her boy into one of the educational hospitals, and she, therefore, expressed herself thankful for the mercies she still received.

An interval of many years now occurs in the story of Mrs Dempster, during which she heard nothing of her husband, except a rumour that he was drowned on a lumbering excursion in the rapids of the St Lawrence. Through the influence of her pitiable tale and real merit, she obtained the situation of superintendent of a large public seminary for young ladies in a country town. Here she lived in peace, comfort, and honour, for some years, till she had almost forgot that ever such a wretch as Dempster existed. What was her horror one day, when, as she was entertaining a large party of respectable people at tea, the demon of her fate stood once more before her, not the mere squalid beggar which he formerly appeared, but a concentration of blackguardism and shabbiness, of utterly ruined and broken-down humanity, such as was never perhaps surpassed even in the sinks of London and Parisian vice. There was now more than mendicancy in his aspect: there was robbery, murder, and every kind of desperate deed. The wan face, blackened and battered with bruises and wounds; the troubled eye, bespeaking the troubled spirit; the ropy,

sooty attire, through which peeped the hardly whiter skin; the feet bare and ulcerated with walking; everything told but one tale of unutterable sin and misery. The guests shrunk aghast from this hideous spectre, and the hostess shrieked outright. Little regarding the alarm which he had occasioned, he exclaimed, in a hollow and scarcely earthly voice: 'Give me meat; give me drink; give me clothing; I am destitute of all. There you sit in enjoyment of every luxury, while your husband, who is flesh of your flesh, has not known what it is to eat heartily, or to be covered from the piercing wind, for weeks and months! Do not shrink from me. Wretched as I seem, I am still your husband. Nothing on earth can break that tie. Meat, I say-drink! I am in my own house, and will be obeyed. For you, gentles, get you gone; your company is not now agreeable.' The company dispersed without further ceremony, leaving the unhappy woman alone with her husband.

Next day, the stranger appeared abroad in a decent suit of clothes, and Mrs Dempster seemed to have recovered a little of her equanimity. Every sacrifice, however, which she could make for this wretch, was in vain, or only encouraged him to demand greater indulgences. An unlimited supply of liquor in his own house would not satisfy him. He required large sums wherewith to treat all the canaille of the town. Entreaties, indulgences, everything that could be devised to gratify him, were unavailing to impress him with a sense of his wife's situation. He intruded his unhallowed front into her school, and insulted her before her pupils. Those who laughed at his antics, he would seize by the shoulders, and turn out of doors. He had also a most perverse desire of pushing himself into her presence, whenever he thought she was conversing with any of her employers, before whom an observance of propriety and decorum was most particularly necessary. Indeed, he just delighted to do exactly what his wife wished him not to do; the grand object of his low mind being to shew how much he had her comfort and welfare in his power. At length, with

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