Eddie, in the meanwhile, had gone for the doctor, and in a few minutes returning with him the latter proceeded to examine Mr. Ashton. He found him very seriously, if not fatally injured. He had been first struck on the temple by a cane or club. This blow of itself was sufficient to do him very grave injury, but it had been followed by brutal kicks on the prostrate man's body. The doctor pronounced two of his ribs broken and his spine seriously injured. "Will he recover, doctor?" asked Mrs. Ashton. "I would like you to give me your honest opinion as to what you think the result will be." "We must leave results with God," Mrs. Ashton. "He has been brutally beaten, and what I fear most is the shock to his nervous system. His constitution was so seriously impaired previous to this attack that I have the gravest fears as to the issue." He never arose from his bed; though he lingered for several days, and gave his wife and family the sweet consolation of knowing his whole trust was in Christ, through whose merits and intercession he expected to have an abundant entrance into His kingdom. Before he died his ante-mortem statement was taken, when he said he just had a glimpse of the person who struck him, and he believed his assailant was Joe Porter. He remained conscious to the last, and the parting with his wife and family was very affecting. He asked Eddie to be faithful to his mother, which he promised to be. "Oh, Ruth," he said, "I have been a very unfaithful husband. Rum has been our curse, but I know you forgive me, darling." He then kissed them each; asking them to meet him in heaven, and in a few moments after quietly departed. Thus died Richard Ashton, in the flower of his manhood, a victim of the drink curse; for rum had broken his constitution, robbed him of his intellectual vigor, reduced him and his family almost to beggary, and he was finally murdered by one of its vendors. He was endowed by his Maker with a bright intellect and a loving heart. In his early manhood he fell heir to an ample fortune, and was blessed with as good a wife as God ever gave to man; but rum, "cursed rum," had blighted all his prospects, made life a failure, and was instrumental in bringing him to an untimely grave. They buried him by the side of little Mamie in the beautiful Bayton cemetery, "Dust to dust, ashes to ashes, to wait the resurrection of the just." Joe Porter was arrested and tried for the crime, but, as several of his creatures swore he was present in his bar until after ten o'clock that night he was acquitted; though the public believed he was the criminal, and he was despised and shunned by all but the lowest dregs of the populace. CHAPTER XXXIX. MR. GURNEY SPEAKS HIS MIND--DEATHS OF DR. DALTON AND AUNT DEBIE.