Swearing Off
by
“JOHN,” said a sweet-faced girl, laying her hand familiarly upon the shoulder of a young man who was seated, near a window in deep abstraction of mind. There was something sad in her voice,–and her countenance, though, lovely, wore an expression of pain.
“What do you want, sister?” the young man replied, without lifting his eyes from the floor.
“You are not happy, brother.”
To this, there was no reply, and an embarrassing pause of some moments ensued.
“May I speak a word with you, brother?”–the young girl at length said, with a tone and manner that showed her to be compelling herself to the performance of a painful and repugnant task.
“On what subject, Alice?” the brother asked, looking up with a doubting expression.
This question brought the colour to Alice’s cheeks, and the moisture to her eyes.
“You know what I would say, John,” she at length made out to utter, in a voice that slightly trembled.
“How should I know, sister?”
“You were not yourself last night, John.”
“Alice!”
“Forgive me, brother, for what I now say,” the maiden rejoined. “It is a painful trial, indeed; and were it not that I loved you so well–were it not that, besides you, there is no one else in the wide world to whom I can look up, I might shrink from a sister’s duty. But I feel that it would be wrong for me not to whisper in your ear one warning word–wrong not to try a sister’s power over you.”
“I will forgive you this time, on one condition,” the brother said, in a tone of rebuke, and with a grave expression of countenance.
“What is that?” asked Alice.
“On condition that you never again, directly or indirectly, allude to this subject. It is not in your province to do so. A sister should not look out for her brother’s faults.”
A sudden gush of tears followed this cold, half-angry repulse; and then the maiden turned slowly away and left the room.
John Barclay’s anger towards his only sister, who had no one, as she had feelingly said, in the wide world to look up to and love, but him, subsided the moment he saw how deeply his rebuke had wounded her. But he could not speak to her, nor recall his words–for the subject she had introduced was one so painful and mortifying, that he could not bear an allusion to it.
From long indulgence, the habit of drinking had become confirmed in the young man to such a degree that he had almost ceased to resist an inclination that was gaining a dangerous power over him. And yet there was in his mind an abiding resolution one day to break away from this habit. He did not intend to become a drunkard. Oh, no! The condition of a drunkard was too low and degrading. He could never sink to that! After awhile, he intended to “swear off,” as he called it, and be done with the seductive poison altogether; but he had not yet been able to bring so good a resolution into present activity. This being his state of mind–conscious of danger, and yet unwilling to fly from that danger, he could not bear any allusion to the subject.
Half an hour, passed in troubled thought, elapsed after this brief interview between the brother and sister, when the young man left the house and took his way, scarcely reflecting upon where he was going, to one of his accustomed places of resort–a fashionable drinking house, where every device that ingenuity could invent, was displayed to attract custom. Splendid mirrors and pictures hung against the walls, affecting the mind with pleasing thoughts–and tempting to self-indulgence. There were lounges, where one might recline at ease, while he sipped the delicious compounds the richly furnished bar afforded, never once dreaming that a serpent lay concealed in the cup that he held to his lips–a serpent that one day would sting him, perhaps unto death!