The Soldier's Wife — page 188: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE SOLDIER'S WIFE. penalties of kis intemperate habits, he heard himself pronounced ‘ incorrigible.” And Lucy toiled on—toiled on as much as she was able; that is to say, whenever she could obtain work. But poverty was stealing into the little home,—stealing insidiously, but steadily and surely, as poverty does steal: for it seldom strikes one down of a sudden. In- stead of pouncing upon its victim at once, it circles round and round about—plays with its object—ancles with its.feelings—tortures it as a cat does amouse—but gradually and gradual- ly hems it around into a narrower compass, till it begins to compress it as the snake does She writhing victim it has enfolded in its loath- some coils. Thus does poverty proceed by tneans of slow tortures: but each successive one is more keenly felt than its predecessor— as the nearer one approaches to the horrid re- gions of the North, the sharper and more potg- nant is felt each gust of the ice-wind. Alas! szd were the privations which Lucy had begun to experience, but which she kept as much as possible as her own share,—still providing ty the utmost of ker power for her well beioved boy. Though work was fluctuating and pre- carious, she could have still managed—she eould have rubbed on—she could have eked out the slender means it produced, were it not for the constant demands her husband made upon her scanty purse. As delicately as she eould, did she make him aware of the difficulty of maintaining her little home: but he did not choose to understand her, so long as there was a shilling or sixpence forthcoming to be spent at the canteen. Sometimes he wonld take from her even the last small coin upon which she had reckoned wherewith to purchase bread for her son; and then she would. have to go and im- plore credit at the baker’s or else part with a garment at the pawnbroker’s. But even this was not the sum of poor Lucy’s sorrows; it was not the total of her afflictions. The time came when she was forced to tell her husband that she had no money. Then he de- manded savagely whethershe was growing lazy and did not work? She replied, with the tears streaming down her cheeks, that she had been a week without work, as the warehouse had none to give her. Lonsdale insisted that she should go and demand back the deposit of twce pounds which she had left. Now for the first time in her life—or at least towards her hyesband—did Lucy manifest a certain degree of spirit: she positively refused to withdraw that deposit—it was the only condition on which she could hope for work again; and work had been promised her for the ensuing week. The deposit was, so to speak, the little capiial that supplied herself and her child with bread. Lonsdale grew furious, and rushed out of the house. He himself went straight to Lucy’s employers and demanded the return of the money; but they, having heard things to his disparagement, declined to hand the amount over, without a written order from his wife. He sped back to the lodging, and at first be- pought her to sign such a paper. No: much as it pained her to refuse, she cotld not—she dared not. He grew violent: she fell upon Ler 12 eee a a sc eee 167 knees, beseeching him not tc press her. He had recourse to coaxing agaii.; half of the money would do—but. still Lucy would not. Ten shillings, then—tfive shillings—any portion of the money: but Lucy knew that it would be utter ruitimhopeless misery—starvation—and finally the poor house; and still she refused, Lonsdale burst away from her in a violar.t pas- sion; and for the rest of that day the unfortu- nate woman remained plunged in a depth of erief from which not even the affectionate en- dearments of the boy would raise her. This violent scene was speedily followed by others of a similar character. Lonsdale would eagerly watch when his wife had work, know: ing that as Saturday came round he would ob- tain the means for a debauch. He would even waylay her as she returned from the warehouse, and would compel her to hand him over a con- siderable part of her earnings. He thought not of the long weary hours which poor Lucy had toiled and ‘toiled to obtain that pittamce where- of he plundered her in so large a part. He thought not of the privations that she and their son would have to endure for want of the shillmes that he expended indrink. Hemarked not that the face whose beauty had once heen to him the object of pride, and love, and joy, had become pinched, and care-worn, and hag- eard—that the fine contours of that form which he had been wont to admire, were suffering and shrinking from the same causes—that his poor wife was losing the strength as well as the robustness and the hues of health, beneath the weight of oppressive toil and merciless po- verty. Nor did he observe that the boy who had once been his solace and delight—the ob ject of his tenderest care--whom he had dane died upon his knee—and who had been accus: tomed to fly into his arms, was hkewise grow- ing pale and losing the joyous spirits natural ti: his age, and that he shrank back in fear and trembling whenever the much altered father entered the room. All this Lonsdale saw not: or if he saw it, he recked not for it; and it failed to make a salutary impression on him. And now as time wore on, sadder scenes took place in that little lodging. Again did the brutal husband—for such indeed he had now become—renew the demand that the de- posit should be withdrawn from the war2horvsa Again did Lucy resist. Lonsdale, craving for liquor—ready to sacrifice everything in order to obtain it—cared not what might happen for the morrow so that he could obtain money for the day. He threatened—he stormed—he menace@ —he made use of languagesuch as Lucy had never heard issue from his lps before, and which she shuddered to reflect upon after he was gone. but she would not consent to de- prive her son of bread in order that the father might have drink. The scene was terrible— and, Ah! terrible too in its close: for the in- furiate Lonsdale struck his amiable and excel- lent wife. She sank down upon a seat like one annihilated: she could not believe the evidence of her own senses. He had struck her—Oh! after all she had done for him—after all the love she had cherished towards him, he had struck her! and in the presence too of the boy, CORNIELOOOKS (C(O)