etottal afore this time to-
morrow, as I'm a living man."

He was gone, and was seen no more at home that night.

This scene occurred the evening before that on which our story
commences. We have seen that Johnson, miserable and abandoned drunkard
as he was, was utterly staggered at the flight of his son when coupled
with his parting gift to his mother. Was he really gone, and gone for
ever? Had his own father driven him, by his cruel threats, to
desperation, perhaps to self-destruction? Unhappy man! he stood the
very picture of dismay. At last he said,--

"Perhaps he mayn't have got very far. I'll just step over, Alice, to
your brother John's; maybe he'll have looked in there for a bit."

"Ay, do, Thomas," cried his wife; "and you must just tell him that he
mustn't heed what you said to him and Betty last night; it were only a
bit of a breeze. Oh, what'll our Betty say when she finds our Sammul
gone; she _will_ fret, poor thing. She just stepped out at the edge-o'-
dark, [see note 1] and she'll be back again just now. Make haste,
Thomas, and tell the poor lad he may please himself about the
teetottal."

"Ay, ay, Alice," said poor Johnson dejectedly; "that cursed drink'll be
the ruin of us both--body and soul," and he went on his sorrowful way.

Oh, what a crowd of thoughts came crushing into the heart of the
wretched man, as he hurried along the path which he supposed his son to
have taken. He thought of the day when he was married, and what a
bright creature his Alice was then; but even over _that_ day there hung
a cloud, for it was begun in intemperance and ended in riot. He thought
of the hour when he first looked on his boy, and had felt as proud as if
no other man had ever had a bonny bairn but he. He thought with
shuddering self-reproach of long years of base neglect and wrong towards
the children whose strength and peace his own words and deeds had
smitten down as with blows of iron. He thought of the days and years of
utter selfishness which had drained away every drop of comfort from the
cup which might have overflowed with domestic happiness. He thought how
he had ever been his own children's tempters beckoning them on towards
hell in every hour's example; and then he thought upon the life beyond
the grave, but recoiled with horror from that dark and lurid future, and
shuddered back to earth again. Oh, was there in all the world a more
miserable wretch than he! But on he went; anything w