Democratic Sentinel, Volume 5, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 June 1881 — ONLY ONE FAULT. [ARTICLE]

ONLY ONE FAULT.

You may wic it in Greenwood cemetery. A splendid tombstone with a woman’s name upon it. Not Ruth Holly —though that is the name under which you shall know her—but a prouder name, and one you may have heard. Flowers grow about her tomb, and the turf lies softly over it. You would scarcely guess her life and its sad end ns you stood there. Rather would you' fancy that love and tenderness surrounded one Over whom such piles of sculptured marble rears itself from her birth unto her death. It is a story such as I seldom write—this life of hers—one that can not be ended by haripy reunions and the sweet sound of marriage bells; but there are too many such stories in the world to be quietly passed over, haply there be any warning in them. The lives of others are, if we read them rightly, the best sermons ever preached, and this of Ruth Holly’s is only too true. Yet it began very sweetly, like some old pastoral poem. She loved and was beloved again, and the man she loved had only one fault. He was young, he was brave, he was witty, he was handsome, he was generous; his love was devotion, his friendship no lukewarm thing of words; he had great talent and great power. His eloquence had thrilled many an audience worth the thrilling. What he wrote touched the soul to the very quick. He was an amateur painter and musician find everywhere was loved and honored and admired. He had only one fault in the world —he drank too much wine at times. When he did so he turned, so said convivial friends, into a very demigod. It was wrong, but not so bad as might have been, and he would sow his wild oats some day, they said, loving him as his friends all loved him; and so Ruth thought. Sweet, loving, beautiful Ruth,,to whom he had plighted his troth and wooed in verse and song and with his most eloquent eyes long before he put his passion into words; but so did not think Ruth Holly’s father. This one fault of Edward Holly’s overshadowed his virtue in his eyes, and he refused him his daughter’s hand, giving him the reason why plainly and not kindly.

‘"You’ll be a drunkard yet, Ned Holly,” said the old man, shaking his head, earnestly. “I’ve seen men of genius go the same road before. I’ve often said I’d rather have no talent in my family, since it seems to lead so surely to dissipation. My sons are not too brilliant to bje sober men, thank heaven, and as for my daughter, only a sober man shall have her for a wife; you’d break her heart, Ned Holly.” So the dashing man of letters felt himself insulted and retorted hotly, and the two were enemies. Ruth suffered bitterly. She loved her father, and she loved Edward. To disobey her parent, or to break her lover’s heart, seemed the only choice offered her. She bad other lovers, she had seen much society, and had been introduced to the highest circles in France as well as in England, but amongst all the men she Lad known none pleased her as Edward Holly did. Not what one styles an intellectual woman herself, she reverenced intellect, and her affections were intense. The struggle iu her heart was terrible. She met with her lover by stealth, against her father’s will, but for a long while she resented his entreaties to marry him in defiance of her father’s refusal. At last, angered by her persistence in obedience, Edward accused her of fearing to share the fortunes of one comparatively poor—one who must carve his own way up life’s steep hill without assistance. The unmerited reproach sunk deeply into her warm heart, and in a sudden impulse of tenderness and sympathy she gave him the promise he had so long sought in vain. They were married that evening, and before morning were upon their way to a faroff city, where Edward, sanguine and conscious of power, believed ’ that he should make for himself a name and position of which any woman might be proud. To her father Ruth wrote a long letter, imploring his forgiveness, but the answer crushed all hope within her bosom.

“As you now sow, so must you reap,” were the words her father wrote. “I have no longer a daughter,” and Ruth knew that henceforth (for she had been motherless for years) she had in all the world only the husband for whom she had sacrificed fortune, and what is worth far more, the tender protection of a father. In those early days Edward did his best to make amends for all, and she was so proud of him and so fond of him that she soon forgot to grieve. She heard his name uttered in praise by all. She knew that he had but to keep steadily on, to mount to the proudest seat in fame’s high temple, and for a year she had no fear of his faltering. Now and then a feverish something in his voice and manner, a strange light in his eyes, a, greater flow of eloquence in his talk, a more passionate demonstration of love for her than usual, told that he was under the influence of wine, but the fact only seemed to enhance his power of fascination. Never was he so brilliant, never so handsome. Almost could Ruth have laughed at the sermons preached by the temperance folks of the harm sure to follow wine-drinking. If the story could end here, the true story of Ruth Holly’s life, it would be almost a happy one, but alas, the sunny slope adown which it seemed so easy to slide, daily grew darker as the years flew on. How they began to tell her the fate before her, Ruth hardly knew. A little flush of shame came first when his step was unsteady and his voice too loud. Then a grieved tear or two when he was unreasonable. Then a sorrow that kept her heart aching night and day, for the man who first won inspir'ation from the glass now lost it in its depths; lectures to be delivered were not given to the expectant public because “of the illness of the lecturer.”

Ruth knew what that illness meant, and tried to hide it. Literary work was neglected also. Money was lost that might have been easily won. Debts grew and credits lessened, the handsome suite of rooms was exchanged for one quite shabby. Ruth’s dress became ppyerty-strioken, her husband wm out

at the elbows and at the toes —he was intoxicated from morning until night, and yet she loved him and citing to him, and in his sober moments he loved her as fondly as ever. Sometimes the old strength and the old hope would be aroused in him and he would struggle to regain his lost position, but it was all in Vain, rum triumphed, and in five years from her wedding day Ruth found herself with her one remaining child, the first having died within a year of its birth, in the dingiest of wretched tenement houses, in a state bordering upon beggary. Edward had been more madly intoxicated than ever before; he had even given her a blow, and now, as the night wore on, he, muttered ftnd tftved. and called for brandy, and cursed her and himself until she trembled with fear. At last, as the clock struck 10, he started to his feet and staggered out of the room, vowing to get drunk somewhere.

Poor Ruth stood where he had left her for a few moments. The memory of the past was strong on her that night. Just at this hour five years before they had fled from her father’s home together. How tender he was, how loving, how gentle! How he vowed that she would never regret that night, and how had ne kept those promises ? He had broken every vow—he neither cherished nor protected her. His worldly goods he had given to the ravenous demon, drink, his love had become a something scarcely worth having, and yet she loved him and clung to him. She tried to feel cold and hard toward him, but she could not; she strove to remember the blow he had given her, the oaths he had uttered, but she answered herself as she did so, “It was not him who did it—it was rum.” She listened to the uncertain, reeling footsteps iirthe street below and burst into tears.

“My poor darling,” she whispered, as she thought some grievous calamity had smitten him into the thing he was, and he had not himself “put an enemy in his month to steal away his brain,” unmindful of her pleading, unmindful of her woe and of her shame. She thought of him reeling helplessly along the street, and feared that some harm would come to him. He might fall in some out-of-the-way place and lie there undiscovered and so freeze to death that bitter night, and in her agony of terror poor Ruth could not restrain herself from following him.

Her poor weakly baby slept; she wrapped it in a blanket and laid it in its poor cradle. Then she threw her warm shawl over her head, and hastened down the street, busy this late Saturday night with market-going people of the poorer classes.

A little way before her reeled the handsome, broad-shouldered figure of her husband, and she, a lady bred and born, fastidious, elegant, accomplished, reared in luxury, heard poor laborers’ wives warn their children to beware of the “drunken fellow.”

She heard course laughs at his expense, and under the shadow of her shawl her cheek burnt hotly, but for all that she never thought of going back and leaving him to himself, As soon as she could she gained his side and called to him by name; “Edward! Edward! He turned and stood unsteadily looking at her in a bewildered way. “You?” he said. “You ought to be at home this time of night.” “So ought Xve both,” said Ruth. “Come, dear.” He threw her hand off. “I’m my own master,” he said. "I’m not tied to any woman’s apron string!” and staggered away again, Ruth following through the long streets with every face turned toward them as they passed —some laughing, some contemptuous, some terrified; out at last upon the wharves, and there the besotted man sat down more stupefied by the liquor he had swallowed, in that fresh, cold air. Ruth was thinly clad—the chill o£ the sea-blast seemed to reach her very heart. She thought of the babe at home and tears cou.»T-e*l down her cheeks. Again and again she pled with the mad man at her side. Again and again she tried to bring to his mind pomft lingering memory of the pa«t days when his love and protection had been hers. In vain. Wild fancies filled his brain, demons born of the fumes of rum held possession of his senses. Sometimes he thrust her from him, sometime*! h'e gave her a maudlin embrace, and bade her bring him moce liquor, but go home he would not The distant hum of the city died out at last, all was still with the strange stillness of a city night. The frosty stars twinkled overhead. Now and then a night boat passed up the river, with measured beat and throb. Once a ruf-fianly-looking fellow sauntered past them on the pier, but though he flung her an insolent word and yet more insolent laugh, and went away singing yet more insolently, he did not approach them. So benumbed had Ruth grown, so cold to the very heart was she, that the power of motion had almost deserted her, when at last, as the church clock not far away tolled the hour of four, the degraded man staggered to his feet and reeled homeward. She followed feebly, and only by clinging to the balustrade could she mount the wretched stairs. It was bitter cold within as without, but she was glad to find herself at last under shelter. Her babe still slumbered and she did not waken it. Her frozen bosom could only have chilled the little creature. There were a few bits of broken wood in one corner, and with these she made a fire in the old stove, and crouched over it, striving to gain some little warmth, while her husband slumbered heavily upon the bed in the corner, to which he had staggered on his entrance.

Thus an passed by, and Ruth also fell asleep. The silence, the pleasant warmth at her feet, the fancy that all herfltrouble was ovteri for the night, lulled her to dreams. From them she was awakened by the loud ringing of the factory bell and by the sound of cries and shouts in the street below. She cast her eyes toward the bed—her husband was not there ? toward the cradle—it was empty. She flew to the window—the street was full of factory boys with their tin kettles. Some great jest amused them mightily. They roared, they danced, they tossed their ragged caps on high, they shrieked in unmusical laughter, and the object of all this mad mirth was only too evident. On the steps of the liquor store opposite stood Edward Holly, holding his child in his arms and exhibiting for the benefit of the delighted crowd all those antics of which an intoxicated man alone is capable. He called on the grinning master of the gin-cellar to “give this child (some brandy;” and turned the screaming infant about in a manner that left no doubt that he would end by dropping it upon the broken pavement.

Wild with terror Ruth rushed out into the street, and made her way through the crowd to the spot where her husband stood, but before she reached him the scene had changed. Some boy more brutal than the rest had thrown a handful of mud into Edward Holly’s face, and he, reeling and blaspheming, had dashed forward to revenge the act. The child had been flung away at the first step, but fortunately had been caught by an old woman who, though a degraded creature herself, had enough of the woman remaining to save an infant from injury.

And now the whole horde of boys beset the drunken man, pelting him with sticks and stones and decayed vegetables from the kennel, and reveling in the brutal delight with which such a scene always seem to inspire boys of the lower classes.

Ruth mw that her babe w» safe and

that her husband was in danger, and, forgetful of all else, flew toward him. She cared nothing for the jeers of the mob; before them all she flung her tons about him and interposed her beautiful person between him and his assailants. The head that had carried itself a little proudly in the presence of the highest of the land—that had seemed more queenlike than that of the Empress herself at the court of France —that had awakened the envy of titled English women when the young American woman dwelt among them—dropped itself low Upon the bosom of the drunken Wretch who was the jeer and scorn of a lb# ifiob, and only in love And sfty, hot in anger, did she speak to him: “Come home, Edward! They’ll hurt you, my poor love! come home with me.” Mad as he was—filled with the demon of drink, to the exclusion of the soul God had given him—the soft, sweet voice, the fond touch of the white fingers, awakened some memory of the past in the man’s breast. “Go you home, girl!” he whispered. ‘Til kill them? Don’t fret. I’ll kill ’em, and—” “Come home, darling,” she whispered again, and he stopped and gave her a kiss. At that the boys yelled derisively, and flung more mud and stones at them. One threw a stone—a heavy stone, sharppointed and jagged. Whether he ever intended to strike the man is doubtful, but the missile flew fiercely through the air and crashed against the golden head of the devoted wife. A stream of blood gushed from the white temple and poured down upon the bosom where it dropped never to lift itself again—never, never more. jOnly with a quivering shudder of pain she felt for the face of the man who had sworn to love aud cherish her, and had broken that vow so utterly while hers had been so truly kept. “Good-by, Edward,” she whispered. “I can’t see you now—kiss me. Oh, be good to baby! Be good to baby!” and no word more. The crowd was hushed to silence. A sobered man bent over the dead woman, whose hands had dropped away from his breast, and the love and truth and tenderness of her heart were all manifest to him in that terrible moment —manifest in vain, for repentence could not restore her to life, nor blot out the love which had crushed her heart through all those weary days of her sad married life. _ “What is the matter here?” cried a voice, as a portly man forded his way through the crowd. “A woman hurt?” ‘‘ A woman killed, ” said the policeman, “ and that brute is the cause of all,” and the gentleman bent forward and started back with a cry of anguish. “It is Ruth ?” he said. “My Ruth! ” and fell back into the policeman’s arms in a deathlike swoon. Forgiveness and repentence had come alike too late for poor Ruth Holly. Her father could give her nothing but a grave. The child born amidst want and penury, nourished by a half-starving mother, pined away and died in the luxurious home to which its grandfather bore it; and now, as the old man site alone in his splendid home, he sometimes hears a strange, wild cry in the streets outside, through which a drunken creature reels and staggers, howling ever and anon, “Ruth! Ruth! Ruth!” It is Edward Holly, who CVer in his drunken madness searches for his murdered wife. It is the fcfitif’dl, horrible, heart-breaking wreck of the once splen-didly-beautiful man of talent, who had only one fault.— Mary Kyle Dallas.