pour
out her rage in a torrent of furious abuse, when Johnson rose from his
seat, and looking her steadily in the face, said in a moderately loud
and very determined voice,--

"Alice, sit you down and hearken to me."

There was something in his manner which forced her to obey. She dropped
into a chair by the fire, and burst into a hurricane of tears. He let
her spend herself, and then, himself sitting down, he said,--

"Alice, you've known me long enough to be sure that I'm not the sort of
man to be turned from my purpose. You and I have lived together many
years now, and all on 'em's been spent in the service of the devil. I'm
not laying the blame more on you nor on myself. I've been the worse, it
may be, of the two. But I can't go on as I have done. The Lord has
been very merciful to me, or I shouldn't be here now. I've served the
old lad too long by the half, and I mean now to serve a better Mayster,
and to serve him gradely too, if he'll only help me--and our Betty says
she's sure he will, for the Book says so. Now, if I'm to be a gradely
servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, I must be an honest man--I must pay my
way if I can; but I can't pay at all if my brass is to go for the
drink--and you know, Alice, you can't deny it, that you'd spend the
brass in drink if I gave it yourself. But, more nor that, if I'd as
much brass as'd fill the coal-pit, shaft and all, I'd not give my
consent to any on it's going for the drink. I know that you can do
without the drink if you've a mind. I know you'll be all the better by
being without it. I know, and you know yourself, that it's swallowed up
the clothes from your own back, and starved and beggared us all. If
you'll give it up, and live without it like a Christian woman should,
you'll never have an afterthought; and as soon as I see that you can be
trusted with the brass, I'll give it you again with all my heart. Come,
Alice, there's a good wench; you mustn't think me hard. I've been a
hard husband, and fayther too, for years, but I must be different now;
and I'll try and do my duty by you all, and folks may just say what they
please."

Alice did not reply a word; her passion had cooled, and she sat rocking
herself backwards and forwards, with her apron to her eyes, sobbing
bitterly. She knew her husband too well to think of deliberately
attempting to make him change his purpose, yet she was equally resolved
that the drink she would and must have. At last s