SIN, AND ITS - -CONSEQUENCES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2690, 4 October 1905, Page 87

SIN, AND ITS - - CONSEQUENCES.

By H,

(For the "Witness.)

There are many filthy lanes and alleys in BlackwalL where human beings live, where children play, and babies crawl on all fours. iSeldom does the sun shine on the pavements of these alleys for more than an hour during the day, and the children who crawl about them grow like flowers in the shade — pale, weak, and unhealthy. They congregate in groups at the corners, boys and girls, and gaze, half afraid, at the busy streets. Here they pass many hours by throwing a chip of wood out into the roadway when one runs out to get it, and with a pleased expression playing upon his or her features, accompanied with a shout of joy, returns to the* group, having accomplished a feat which^to them is one to be proud of. In this simple amusement, unknown to themselves, -they are being initiated into the mysteries and dangers of the city's thoroughfares, which they afterwards enter alone and uncared for.

In one of these alleys, which leaves the street on one side of Brown's restaurant, and, running around the back of the building, returns to the same street on the other side of it, lived a miserable, dejected woman. She occupied one room on the second floor of- a mean, dirty-look-ing -building, which served her as a living and sTeeping place. The floor was gained' by a narrow, . dirty flight of stairs, which were used by all who lived on that and' the above landings. A window, which had its lower -panes broken and a piece of rag doing justice for glass, looked out into the 'dark, evil-smelling alley. The room itself was dark and damp, and its atmosphere close and suffocating. The w-alls and! floor were stained with grease marks, and were filthy. Standing against a wall close to a dirty rusted stove was a large packing case, which was used in place of a tahle, upon which lay uncleaned plates and mugs, while round about the floor stood three empty oil cases — a substitute for chairs. In a corner, almost beneath the window, lay an ordinary sack with a small quantity of straw stuffed into it, and a torn, thin blanket on top of it. On a large straw mattress at the other end of the room lay a woman, covered with a faded, coloured blanket. She was the tenant of this miserable place, and her life was drawing to an end. She coughed piteously and groaned in agony when she tried to turn over in order to relieve the aching limb she had been lying on. Her face, wasted and dirty, was covered witli scars and dark crimson blotches, and she lay breathing in short, panting gasps, tossing her limbs about restlessly. She was not nore than 36 years ,of age, but the abandoned life she had led since her husband's death, and the disease that had overcome her, made her appear much older.

She had been a bright, handsome woman in her youthful days, but the remembrance of those happy times was buried in the bottom of her heart and was seldom recalled. She had been a good woman during her married life, and was greatly attached to her husband, who, unfortunately for her, was killed by an accident in. the docks* where he -worked. He had

been dead for seven years past, and it was during this period that sho had become the miserable, dejected being that she was. At first she tried hard to earn an ' honest living so as to keep her home ! together, but her work was hard and the 1 hours long, and sho become weary and dissatisfied. She gradually fell from the paths of virtue, and eventually gave way to drink and dissipation. As she tossed about on her wretched bod the door softly opened, and a barefooted, ragged child, a boy of eight year*., quietly entered the room, closing the door gently behind him. He glanced with p look of fear at the woman, and slunk, half afraid, to the suck of straw, -which rustled as he sank upon it. Though dirty, ragged, and half-starved, lie was a pretty child. His countenance was dark, and his features expressed great determination. His rough, unkept hair was black, ,«o were his large, hand&ome eyes and eyebrows. His nose was slightly snubbed, and the lower lip of his wellshaped mouth pressed firmly against the upper one. Once on the sack, which had served him as a bed for the last' two years, the feeling of fear he entertained towards the woman left him, and he amused himself, os he had done before for many an hour, tracing the pictures or the stained wall. As he discovered something new in his imagined pictures he would point joyfully at it with his finger and pout his lips and turn his little toes about as if a great feeling of satis-^ faction was passing through him. There, in the stains upon the wall, he found horses, ships, trees, animals, and a thousand other things that he had seen in real life, but he magnified them here until the imagined men in the tracings were giants and the houses their castles. As his mind lent itself thus to his imagination he forgot all about his surroundings, and the pictures floating before his gaze, changing and turning into all kinds of shapes, made his little heart glad. Suddenly all these imagined things vanished like a flash of lightning, as with a quick jerk of the body he sat upright. "Kid !" "Yes. mum." "Come her© How long have you been in;" It was the woman who had called him. and she coughed violently as she asked the question. "Not very long, mum," replied the chli'ld, getting up and nervously crossing the room until he stood beside the mattress, looking dowa at her. "Don't be afraid of me, Kid. for I ain't going to hurt you. No, no, I love you too much for that. Yes, I love you. Kid, I love you." As she said this her dull eyes brightened with a beam of love and regret that seemed to tell the child that she really did love him, and that he had nothing to fear, for he sat down on the mattress beside her and replied in <a cheerful voice,

"Mum, I ain't afraid."

"No, no, you are not afraid of poor Liz. No, no, Liz is not going to hurt her poor little Kid. Is she, Kiddie?"' As she spoke thus, gentl}" stroking his hand, the child felt as if something very strange were going to happen. He recalled a time — which was very vague in his remembrance — when she used 1 to speak tenderly to him, in the same soft strain as she was speaking in now, but in the interval she had abused and neglected him so cruelly that be wac at a loss to understand what it all meant.

"Perhaps, Kid, I should tell you all about how you come to be my boy, and perhaps it would be better not to. AnyI way, when God first brought you in my I way I loved you dearei than anything. You were my life to me, and " Here she burst into a fit of coughing, and the tears ran down her cheeks. The child, who was very nervous, was glad, for it seemed to break a spell that was vgradually creeping over him. "And — ob. deary me, I'm going clown with the sun, Kid. See, the shadows are beginning to creep into the room, and they aro "creeping into me too. I've been so wicked and so very cruel to you. Kid : I know 'it now, but I didn't then. Had I been a better woman we'd both have been better now." Her speech was interrupted several times by her cough, and the child wondered what it all meant. , "Well, Kid, one foggy morning Bill— you'll hardly remember Bill, for you were only a Baby when he was killed : he was my husband, and a real good husband he was— Bill found you lying on your dead mother's breast beneath the dock gates, and he brought you home to me, for we had no children 'of our own, and •" As she coughed the child could hardly believe he had heard her say these things. He had always looked upon her as his mother, but as he was only an infant when the man whom he had always understood to be his lather died, he of course could not recall him to mind. He pictured in his mind a dead woman lying with a child upon her breast beneath the dock gates, and he tried hard to considei that child as himself, but it was beyond him to do so, and he puzzled his little brain in trying to place the matter as he thought it 'should be. "But you are my real mum though, ain't you, mum?' he eagerly asked. "Ko\ Kid, I'm. cot your mum. Youve always thought I ras "though, for IV© had voii since you Avas about a week old.' " It was with great difficulty that the woman icplied, for her breathing was ex ceedinffly painful. The sun was slowly descendling to the horizon, and the shadows wra\> fast creeping into the room, carrying with them the messenger of Death. < "Is my real mum in heaven, mum?" tho child asked anxiously. "Yes, Kid, she must — be. She — was only a girl. She — couldn't haye — been j wicked. She must haye — been — God's own child. I'iiere, these. — deary — deary — don't cry." The tears were gathering in the rhiia s eyes. He tried hard to keep them back, but the glistening beads overflowed his eyelids and. rolled down, his cheeks. He

had loved this woman with ail his childish love, cruel as she had been to him. He had no one else to love, and it seemeci to him as if his precious love had all been wasted, and the thought grieved him. He thought of his mother in heaven, -nhitn, tw him, was a huge city in the clouds, and he wondciccl if be would go there. "Mum, will I go there too?" he asked, "Maybe, Kid. If you pray— to God— and bo gcod— hc'li — hc'l'l take you, — for Lc loved — such as you ;— yes>, he'll take you." "Will he tjko you theie tno, mumV "He don't like — such a.s me — Xid — fo 1 I been a— fearfully wicked — -woman. But, Xid — I've piM} cd — prayed hird far you — i-nd me, Kid, but lie never — listens to jiie." "Will ho listen to me, mum?" "Maybe he will. Kid, but — you haven't — been taught to pray. You don't knowhow to." "But I can learn, mum. and if He listens to me T can pray fcr you and mo. and + ben He'll take you 1 to heaven too. Won't Hi. mum?"

Tins child, simll as his little mind" was regarding spiiitual affairs, felt that his present life decided hi,s future welfare in tho next world. Tc< him n nas a mat lor of dying and living forever afterwards in happiness or dyiiiig unclaimed as a brute to to forgotten. He felt as if something great, something mighty, in the heavens was watching every movement that lie made. He thought this great something 1-n-ed him, and to hir; imagination it :q:perre'd in this way to be possible- iar thi& lonely dying woman to be loved also. "Maybe He would— Kid. Bat I've— been so — so Avicked that there isn't — no use."

The child was perplexed. He could not understand why this woman slioiiTd consider heiself to very wicked. Why was fdie worse than others? be thought; but the question remained unanswered, for most of the women he knew were such a& &he.

The woman coughed, and the phlegm gargled in her throat, almost choking her. The sum was near its goal, and the shadows of death were fast entering the woman's body. For a few minutes neither spoke, and the silence, broken only ■ by the woman's panting gasps, together with the darkness which made the room dim, fright emed the child. "Mum," he softly whispered, leaning towards the woman as if he feared someone else would hoar. "Mum."

He received no answer, and sat gazing in fear at thx* face before hmr. Her eyes wero staring fixedly at the ceiling, a.nd in tho dimness they appeared to him to be sKfting about her face, uniting with one another, and making one eye. He was overcome with fear, and wanted to get up and run away, but he wa.s helpless and umble to do so. At eveiy movement of the woman his little body trembled violently, and a cold clammy feeling crept over him.

"Mum, speak to me. Mum !" he cried in fear, a.t the same time laying his treinblins hand on the woman's breast. "Yes, Kid. Don't be afraid, Kiddie. I'm " The woman's voice gargled distressingly, and her eyes were staring with a fearful look of dread. "Yes, mum. But don't — don't look so ; you make me frightened. Let us go away, mum. Let -us go to — ~-" nis voice broke down, and he sobbed as if his little heart would break. "Pray foi me — Kid. Pray— for me." "Tell me. mvm — tell me what to say, and I'll pray to God, for He will listen to me." He felt confident that what he said was true, and as he- crossed his little hands before his breast he allowed nis eyes to follow the woman's gaze to the veiling. "Lighten our — darkness." — "Lighten our darkness." _ Between the voies there was a striking difference — the woman's gruff and abrupt, with pain, the child's soft and pleading. "We beseech — Thee." — "We beseech Thee." "Oh, Lmd!"— "Oh. Lord!" The sun had almost set ! "And" — "And."' "By Thy " An agonising groan burst from the woman's throat, causing ihe cihikl to start' violently with fright. She seemed to almost bury her head between her shoulders, and she bit her lips until the blood ran down aross her neck on to. the mattress. " Her eyes shone with a ghastly, supernatural light, and the muscles of her bedy contracted and relaxed with violent spasmodic jerks.

"No, no," she cried loudly. "It's a lie! It's all a miserable he. No, Kid " She struggled to get the words out, and as they cams the tone rose higher until fib© fairly screamed. Her muscles tightened, paralysing her speech, until they almost burst through her wasted bkin. Her body arched up until she rested only on her feet and head, and her arms pressed down on tha mattirees with a strain they had never kcown before. At that moment two halfdrunkeo. women -n ere passing the door of th'o room. "Hark at Liz !" said one. "She's got 'em again."' "The dirty wretch !" replied the other. "She deserves all "she's got." And they went along to their respective rooms. Suddenly the muscles relaxed, and the woman's body fell with a heavy thud upon the mattress, followed by a groan. The sun had set, and following its last ray of light' a released spirit fled from the dreadful place, leaving the child lyinghuddled up on tlio edge of Hie mattress with his face buried in Lis hands, his mind dazed with fear — alone in the darkening room v ith the corpse of the woman who had been supposed to be his mother.