y borne such miserable
fruits for himself and the guilty wretch just hurried into the presence
of his offended God. He had bought the spirits from Juniper at an
exorbitant price, but would he use them now, after what had happened?
The night after Juniper's awful death he sat in his cabin weeping.
Thoughts of home, of mother, father, Mary, crowded in upon his heart.
The days that once were, when he would have joined with real willingness
and hearty earnestness the band of abstainers, as he sat in all boyish
sincerity at Mr Bernard Oliphant's table, eager to make the trial and
bear the cross, were fresh upon his memory now. And all the bitter
past, with its shameful, degrading, sinful records, gathered its thick
shadows round his soul. What should he do? He sank upon his knees and
prayed--prayed to be forgiven, prayed that he might do better--and then
he rose, and was in part comforted. And now, what should he do with the
spirits which were still in his possession? He took them out and ranged
the flasks on his berth. His scuttle stood open. One minute and he
could have thrown them all into the sea. Conscience said, "Do it, and
do it at once." But another voice whispered, "Pity to waste so much
good stuff; drink these out, but only a moderate quantity at a time, and
then you can renounce the drink for ever." He listened to the second
voice, and conscience sighed itself to sleep.

Alas! alas! what fiend like the fiend of drink? It can steal away every
good resolution, drown the voice of conscience, and make a man cheat
himself into the belief that the indulgence of to-day is a warrant and
guarantee for the abstinence of to-morrow. Frank was satisfied; he felt
sure that it would be wiser to wean himself gradually from his drinking
habits; he would use the strictest moderation with his present little
stock, and then he should more readily forsake it altogether when this
was gone. And so he continued to drink, but more and more sparingly, as
he himself supposed, because he was really training himself to a gradual
surrender of the drink, but in reality because he dreaded to be left
altogether without it. And so the taste was kept up during the
remainder of the voyage, and Frank Oldfield landed on the shores of his
native country with the thirst strong upon him.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

HOMELESS AND HEARTLESS.

The _Sabrina_ was bound for Liverpool, and entered that port some two
years after the time when she