diff options
| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:24:05 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:24:05 -0700 |
| commit | e161f4a5af591cff7e32bb754a785f23f7ae3df8 (patch) | |
| tree | e5db77c58eed851647dd83d640e7a1fc5874d836 /4744-h | |
Diffstat (limited to '4744-h')
| -rw-r--r-- | 4744-h/4744-h.htm | 10604 |
1 files changed, 10604 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/4744-h/4744-h.htm b/4744-h/4744-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d740941 --- /dev/null +++ b/4744-h/4744-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,10604 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<HTML> +<HEAD> + +<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> + +<TITLE> +The Project Gutenberg E-text of Ten Nights in a Bar Room, by T. S. Arthur +</TITLE> + +<STYLE TYPE="text/css"> +BODY { color: Black; + background: White; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; + text-align: justify } + +P {text-indent: 4% } + +P.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +P.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: small } + +P.letter {text-indent: 0%; + font-size: small ; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +P.footnote {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +P.transnote {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +P.intro {font-size: medium ; + text-indent: -5% ; + margin-left: 5% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +P.finis { font-size: larger ; + text-align: center ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +</STYLE> + +</HEAD> + +<BODY> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ten Nights in a Bar Room, by T. S. Arthur + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Ten Nights in a Bar Room + +Author: T. S. Arthur + +Posting Date: September 11, 2009 [EBook #4744] +Release Date: December, 2003 +First Posted: March 12, 2002 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TEN NIGHTS IN A BAR ROOM *** + + + + +Produced by Robert Rowe, Charles Franks and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +TEN NIGHTS IN A BAR ROOM +</H1> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +BY +</H3> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +T. S. ARTHUR +</H2> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +CONTENTS +</H2> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> + NIGHT THE FIRST—<A HREF="#chap01">THE "SICKLE AND SHEAF."</A><BR> + NIGHT THE SECOND—<A HREF="#chap02">THE CHANGES OF A YEAR.</A><BR> + NIGHT THE THIRD—<A HREF="#chap03">JOE MORGAN'S CHILD.</A><BR> + NIGHT THE FOURTH—<A HREF="#chap04">DEATH OF LITTLE MARY MORGAN.</A><BR> + NIGHT THE FIFTH—<A HREF="#chap05">SOME OF THE CONSEQUENCES OF TAVERN-KEEPING.</A><BR> + NIGHT THE SIXTH—<A HREF="#chap06">MORE CONSEQUENCES.</A><BR> + NIGHT THE SEVENTH—<A HREF="#chap07">SOWING THE WIND.</A><BR> + NIGHT THE EIGHTH—<A HREF="#chap08">REAPING THE WHIRLWIND.</A><BR> + NIGHT THE NINTH—<A HREF="#chap09">A FEARFUL CONSUMMATION.</A><BR> + NIGHT THE TENTH—<A HREF="#chap10">THE CLOSING SCENE AT THE "SICKLE AND SHEAF."</A><BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap01"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +NIGHT THE FIRST. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE "SICKLE AND SHEAF." +</H3> + +<P> +Ten years ago, business required me to pass a day in Cedarville. It was +late in the afternoon when the stage set me down at the "Sickle and +Sheaf," a new tavern, just opened by a new landlord, in a new house, +built with the special end of providing "accommodations for man and +beast." As I stepped from the dusty old vehicle in which I had been +jolted along a rough road for some thirty miles, feeling tired and +hungry, the good-natured face of Simon Slade, the landlord, beaming as +it did with a hearty welcome, was really a pleasant sight to see, and +the grasp of his hand was like that of a true friend. +</P> + +<P> +I felt as I entered the new and neatly furnished sitting-room adjoining +the bar, that I had indeed found a comfortable resting-place after my +wearisome journey. +</P> + +<P> +"All as nice as a new pin," said I, approvingly, as I glanced around +the room, up to the ceiling—white as the driven snow—and over the +handsomely carpeted floor. "Haven't seen anything so inviting as this. +How long have you been open?" +</P> + +<P> +"Only a few months," answered the gratified landlord. "But we are not +yet in good going order. It takes time, you know, to bring everything +into the right shape. Have you dined yet?" +</P> + +<P> +"No. Everything looked so dirty at the stage-house, where we stopped to +get dinner, that I couldn't venture upon the experiment of eating. How +long before your supper will be ready?" +</P> + +<P> +"In an hour," replied the landlord. +</P> + +<P> +"That will do. Let me have a nice piece of tender steak, and the loss +of dinner will soon be forgotten." +</P> + +<P> +"You shall have that, cooked fit for an alderman," said the landlord. +"I call my wife the best cook in Cedarville." +</P> + +<P> +As he spoke, a neatly dressed girl, about sixteen years of age, with +rather an attractive countenance, passed through the room. +</P> + +<P> +"My daughter," said the landlord, as she vanished through the door. +There was a sparkle of pride in the father's eyes, and a certain +tenderness in the tones of his voice, as he said "My daughter" that +told me she was very dear to him. +</P> + +<P> +"You are a happy man to have so fair a child," said I, speaking more in +compliment than with a careful choice of words. +</P> + +<P> +"I am a happy man," was the landlord's smiling answer; his fair, round +face, unwrinkled by a line of care or trouble, beaming with +self-satisfaction. "I have always been a happy man, and always expect +to be. Simon Slade takes the world as it comes, and takes it easy. My +son, sir," he added, as a boy, in his twelfth year, came in. "Speak to +the gentleman." +</P> + +<P> +The boy lifted to mine a pair of deep blue eyes, from which innocence +beamed, as he offered me his hand, and said, respectfully—"How do you +do, sir?" I could not but remark the girl-like beauty of his face, in +which the hardier firmness of the boy's character was already visible. +</P> + +<P> +"What is your name?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Frank, sir." +</P> + +<P> +"Frank is his name," said the landlord—"we called him after his uncle. +Frank and Flora—the names sound pleasant to the ears. But you know +parents are apt to be a little partial and over fond." +</P> + +<P> +"Better that extreme than its opposite," I remarked. +</P> + +<P> +"Just what I always say. Frank, my son,"—the landlord spoke to the +boy—"there's some one in the bar. You can wait on him as well as I +can." +</P> + +<P> +The lad glided from the room in ready obedience. +</P> + +<P> +"A handy boy that, sir; a very handy boy. Almost as good, in the bar as +a man. He mixes a toddy or a punch just as well as I can." +</P> + +<P> +"But," I suggested, "are you not a little afraid of placing one so +young in the way of temptation?" +</P> + +<P> +"Temptation!" The open brows of Simon Slade contracted a little. "No, +sir!" he replied, emphatically. "The till is safer under his care than +it would be in that of one man in ten. The boy comes, sir, of honest +parents. Simon Slade never wronged anybody out of a farthing." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," said I, quickly, "you altogether misapprehend me. I had no +reference to the till, but to the bottle." +</P> + +<P> +The landlord's brows were instantly unbent, and a broad smile circled +over his good-humored face. +</P> + +<P> +"Is that all? Nothing to fear, I can assure you. Frank has no taste for +liquor, and might pour it out for mouths without a drop finding its way +to his lips. Nothing to apprehend there, sir—nothing." +</P> + +<P> +I saw that further suggestions of danger would be useless, and so +remained silent. The arrival of a traveler called away the landlord, +and I was left alone for observation and reflection. The bar adjoined +the neat sitting-room, and I could see, through the open door, the +customer upon whom the lad was attending. He was a well-dressed young +man—or rather boy, for he did not appear to be over nineteen years of +age—with a fine, intelligent face, that was already slightly marred by +sensual indulgence. He raised the glass to his lips, with a quick, +almost eager motion, and drained it at a single draught. +</P> + +<P> +"Just right," said he, tossing a sixpence to the young bar-tender. "You +are first rate at a brandy-toddy. Never drank a better in my life." +</P> + +<P> +The lad's smiling face told that he was gratified by the compliment. To +me the sight was painful, for I saw that this youthful tippler was on +dangerous ground. +</P> + +<P> +"Who is that young man in the bar?" I asked, a few minutes afterward, +on being rejoined by the landlord. +</P> + +<P> +Simon Slade stepped to the door and looked into the bar for a moment. +</P> + +<P> +Two or three men were there by this time; but he was at no loss in +answering my question. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, that's a son of Judge Hammond, who lives in the large brick house +as you enter the village. Willy Hammond, as everybody familiarly calls +him, is about the finest young man in our neighborhood. There is +nothing proud or put-on about him—nothing—even if his father is a +judge, and rich into the bargain. Every one, gentle or simple, likes +Willy Hammond. And then he is such good company. Always so cheerful, +and always with a pleasant story on his tongue. And he's so +high-spirited withal, and so honorable. Willy Hammond would lose his +right hand rather than be guilty of a mean action." +</P> + +<P> +"Landlord!" The voice came loud from the road in front of the house, +and Simon Slade again left me to answer the demands of some new-comer. +I went into the bar-room, in order to take a closer observation of +Willy Hammond, in whom an interest, not unmingled with concern, had +already been awakened in my mind. I found him engaged in a pleasant +conversation with a plain-looking farmer, whose homely, terse, common +sense was quite as conspicuous as his fine play of words and lively +fancy. The farmer was a substantial conservative, and young Hammond a +warm admirer of new ideas and the quicker adaptation of means to ends. +I soon saw that his mental powers were developed beyond his years, +while his personal qualities were strongly attractive. I understood +better, after being a silent listener and observer for ten minutes, why +the landlord had spoken of him so warmly. +</P> + +<P> +"Take a brandy-toddy, Mr. H—?" said Hammond, after the discussion +closed, good humoredly. "Frank, our junior bar-keeper here, beats his +father, in that line." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't care if I do," returned the farmer; and the two passed up to +the bar. +</P> + +<P> +"Now, Frank, my boy, don't belie my praises," said the young man; "do +your handsomest." +</P> + +<P> +"Two brandy-toddies, did you say?" Frank made inquiry with quite a +professional air. +</P> + +<P> +"Just what I did say; and let them be equal to Jove's nectar." +</P> + +<P> +Pleased at this familiarity, the boy went briskly to his work of mixing +the tempting compound, while Hammond looked on with an approving smile. +</P> + +<P> +"There," said the latter, as Frank passed the glasses across the +counter, "if you don't call that first-rate, you're no judge." And he +handed one of them to the farmer, who tasted the agreeable draught, and +praised its flavor. As before, I noticed that Hammond drank eagerly, +like one athirst—emptying his glass without once taking it from his +lips. +</P> + +<P> +Soon after the bar-room was empty; and then I walked around the +premises, in company with the landlord, and listened to his praise of +everything and his plans and purposes for the future. The house, yard, +garden, and out-buildings were in the most perfect order; presenting, +in the whole, a model of a village tavern. +</P> + +<P> +"Whatever I do, sir," said the talkative Simon Slade, "I like to do +well. I wasn't just raised to tavern-keeping, you must know; but I am +one who can turn his hand to almost any thing." +</P> + +<P> +"What was your business?" I inquired. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm a miller, sir, by trade," he answered—"and a better miller, +though I say it myself, is not to be found in Bolton county. I've +followed milling these twenty years, and made some little money. But I +got tired of hard work, and determined to lead an easier life. So I +sold my mill, and built this house with the money. I always thought I'd +like tavern-keeping. It's an easy life; and, if rightly seen after, one +in which a man is sure to make money." +</P> + +<P> +"You were still doing a fair business with your mill?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes. Whatever I do, I do right. Last year, I put by a thousand +dollars above all expenses, which is not bad, I can assure you, for a +mere grist mill. If the present owner comes out even, he'll do well!" +</P> + +<P> +"How is that?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, he's no miller. Give him the best wheat that is grown, and he'll +ruin it in grinding. He takes the life out of every grain. I don't +believe he'll keep half the custom that I transferred with the mill." +</P> + +<P> +"A thousand dollars, clear profit, in so useful a business, ought to +have satisfied you," said I. +</P> + +<P> +"There you and I differ," answered the landlord. "Every man desires to +make as much money as possible, and with the least labor. I hope to +make two or three thousand dollars a year, over and above all expenses, +at tavern-keeping. My bar alone ought to yield me that sum. A man with +a wife and children very naturally tries to do as well by them as +possible." +</P> + +<P> +"Very true; but," I ventured to suggest, "will this be doing as well by +them as if you had kept on at the mill?" +</P> + +<P> +"Two or three thousand dollars a year against one thousand! Where are +your figures, man?" +</P> + +<P> +"There may be something beyond money to take into the account," said I. +</P> + +<P> +"What?" inquired Slade, with a kind of half credulity. +</P> + +<P> +"Consider the different influences of the two callings in life—that of +a miller and a tavern-keeper." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, say on." +</P> + +<P> +"Will your children be as safe from temptation here as in their former +home?" +</P> + +<P> +"Just as safe," was the unhesitating answer. "Why not?" +</P> + +<P> +I was about to speak of the alluring glass in the case of Frank, but +remembering that I had already expressed a fear in that direction, felt +that to do so again would be useless, and so kept silent. +</P> + +<P> +"A tavern-keeper," said Slade, "is just as respectable as a miller—in +fact, the very people who used to call me 'Simon' or 'Neighbor +Dustycoat,' now say 'Landlord,' or 'Mr. Slade,' and treat me in every +way more as if I were an equal than ever they did before." +</P> + +<P> +"The change," said I, "may be due to the fact of your giving evidence +of possessing some means. Men are very apt to be courteous to those who +have property. The building of the tavern has, without doubt, +contributed to the new estimation in which you are held." +</P> + +<P> +"That isn't all," replied the landlord. "It is because I am keeping a +good tavern, and thus materially advancing the interests of Cedarville, +that some of our best people look at me with different eyes." +</P> + +<P> +"Advancing the interests of Cedarville! In what way?" I did not +apprehend his meaning. +</P> + +<P> +"A good tavern always draws people to a place, while a miserable old +tumble-down of an affair, badly kept, such as we have had for years, as +surely repels them. You can generally tell something about the +condition of a town by looking at its taverns. If they are well kept, +and doing a good business, you will hardly be wrong in the conclusion +that the place is thriving. Why, already, since I built and opened the +'Sickle and Sheaf,' property has advanced over twenty per cent along +the whole street, and not less than five new houses have been +commenced." +</P> + +<P> +"Other causes, besides the simple opening of a new tavern, may have +contributed to this result," said I. +</P> + +<P> +"None of which I am aware. I was talking with Judge Hammond only +yesterday—he owns a great deal of ground on the street—and he did not +hesitate to say, that the building and opening of a good tavern here +had increased the value of his property at least five thousand dollars. +He said, moreover, that he thought the people of Cedarville ought to +present me with a silver pitcher; and that, for one, he would +contribute ten dollars for that purpose." +</P> + +<P> +The ringing of the supper bell interrupted further conversation; and +with the best of appetites, I took my way to the room, where a +plentiful meal was spread. As I entered, I met the wife of Simon Slade, +just passing out, after seeing that every thing was in order. I had not +observed her before; and now could not help remarking that she had a +flushed, excited countenance, as if she had been over a hot fire, and +was both worried and fatigued. And there was, moreover, a peculiar +expression of the mouth, never observed in one whose mind is entirely +at ease—an expression that once seen is never forgotten. The face +stamped itself instantly on my memory; and I can even now recall it +with almost the original distinctness. How strongly it contrasted with +that of her smiling, self-satisfied husband, who took his place at the +head of his table with an air of conscious importance. I was too hungry +to talk much, and so found greater enjoyment in eating than in +conversation. The landlord had a more chatty guest by his side, and I +left them to entertain each other, while I did ample justice to the +excellent food with which the table was liberally provided. +</P> + +<P> +After supper I went to the sitting-room, and remained there until the +lamps were lighted. A newspaper occupied my time for perhaps half an +hour; then the buzz of voices from the adjoining bar-room, which had +been increasing for some time, attracted my attention, and I went in +there to see and hear what was passing. The first person upon whom my +eyes rested was young Hammond, who sat talking with a man older than +himself by several years. At a glance, I saw that this man could only +associate himself with Willy Hammond as a tempter. Unscrupulous +selfishness was written all over his sinister countenance; and I +wondered that it did not strike every one, as it did me, with instant +repulsion. There could not be, I felt certain, any common ground of +association, for two such persons, but the dead level of a village +bar-room. I afterward learned, during the evening, that this man's name +was Harvey Green, and that he was an occasional visitor at Cedarville, +remaining a few days, or a few weeks at a time, as appeared to suit his +fancy, and having no ostensible business or special acquaintance with +anybody in the village. +</P> + +<P> +"There is one thing about him," remarked Simon Slade, in answering some +question that I put in reference to the man, "that I don't object to; +he has plenty of money, and is not at all niggardly in spending it. He +used to come here, so he told me, about once in five or six months; but +his stay at the miserably kept tavern, the only one then in Cedarville, +was so uncomfortable, that he had pretty well made up his mind never to +visit us again. Now, however, he has engaged one of my best rooms, for +which he pays me by the year, and I am to charge him full board for the +time he occupies it. He says that there is something about Cedarville +that always attracts him; and that his health is better while here than +it is anywhere except South during the winter season. He'll never leave +less than two or three hundred dollars a year in our village—there is +one item, for you, of advantage to a place in having a good tavern." +</P> + +<P> +"What is his business?" I asked. "Is he engaged in any trading +operations?" +</P> + +<P> +The landlord shrugged his shoulders, and looked slightly mysterious, as +he answered: +</P> + +<P> +"I never inquire about the business of a guest. My calling is to +entertain strangers. If they are pleased with my house, and pay my +bills on presentation, I have no right to seek further. As a miller, I +never asked a customer, whether he raised, bought, or stole his wheat. +It was my business to grind it, and I took care to do it well. Beyond +that, it was all his own affair. And so it will be in my new calling. I +shall mind my own business and keep my own place." +</P> + +<P> +Besides young Hammond and this Harvey Green, there were in the +bar-room, when I entered, four others besides the landlord. Among these +was a Judge Lyman—so he was addressed—a man between forty and fifty +years of age, who had a few weeks before received the Democratic +nomination for member of Congress. He was very talkative and very +affable, and soon formed a kind of centre of attraction to the bar-room +circle. Among other topics of conversation that came up was the new +tavern, introduced by the landlord, in whose mind it was, very +naturally, the uppermost thought. +</P> + +<P> +"The only wonder to me is," said Judge Lyman, "that nobody had wit +enough to see the advantage of a good tavern in Cedarville ten years +ago, or enterprise enough to start one. I give our friend Slade the +credit of being a shrewd, far-seeing man; and, mark my word for it, in +ten years from to-day he will be the richest man in the county." +</P> + +<P> +"Nonsense—Ho! ho!" Simon Slade laughed outright. "The richest man! You +forget Judge Hammond." +</P> + +<P> +"No, not even Judge Hammond, with all deference for our clever friend +Willy," and Judge Lyman smiled pleasantly on the young man. +</P> + +<P> +"If he gets richer, somebody will be poorer!" The individual who +tittered these words had not spoken before, and I turned to look at him +more closely. A glance showed him to be one of a class seen in all +bar-rooms; a poor, broken-down inebriate, with the inward power of +resistance gone—conscious of having no man's respect, and giving +respect to none. There was a shrewd twinkle in his eyes, as he fixed +them on Slade, that gave added force to the peculiar tone in which his +brief but telling sentence was uttered. I noticed a slight contraction +on the landlord's ample forehead, the first evidence I had yet seen of +ruffled feelings. The remark, thrown in so untimely (or timely, some +will say), and with a kind of prophetic malice, produced a temporary +pause in the conversation. No one answered or questioned the intruder, +who, I could perceive, silently enjoyed the effect of his words. But +soon the obstructed current ran on again. +</P> + +<P> +"If our excellent friend, Mr. Slade," said Harvey Green, "is not the +richest man in Cedarville at the end of ten years, he will at least +enjoy the satisfaction of having made his town richer." +</P> + +<P> +"A true word that," replied Judge Lyman—"as true a word as ever was +spoken. What a dead-and-alive place this has been until within the last +few months. All vigorous growth had stopped, and we were actually going +to seed." +</P> + +<P> +"And the graveyard, too," muttered the individual who had before +disturbed the self-satisfied harmony of the company, remarking upon the +closing sentence of Harvey Green. "Come, landlord," he added, as he +strode across to the bar, speaking in a changed, reckless sort of a +way, "fix me up a good hot whisky-punch, and do it right; and here's +another sixpence toward the fortune you are bound to make. It's the +last one left—not a copper more in my pockets," and he turned them +inside-out, with a half-solemn, half-ludicrous air. "I send it to keep +company in your till with four others that have found their way into +that snug place since morning, and which will be lonesome without their +little friend." +</P> + +<P> +I looked at Simon Slade; his eyes rested on mine for a moment or two, +and then sunk beneath my earnest gaze. I saw that his countenance +flushed, and that his motions were slightly confused. The incident, it +was plain, did not awaken agreeable thoughts. Once I saw his hand move +toward the sixpence that lay upon the counter; but whether to push it +back or draw it toward the till, I could not determine. The +whisky-punch was in due time ready, and with it the man retired to a +table across the room, and sat down to enjoy the tempting beverage. As +he did so, the landlord quietly swept the poor unfortunate's last +sixpence into his drawer. The influence of this strong potation was to +render the man a little more talkative. To the free conversation +passing around him he lent an attentive ear, dropping in a word, now +and then, that always told upon the company like a well-directed blow. +At last, Slade lost all patience with him, and said, a little fretfully: +</P> + +<P> +"Look here, Joe Morgan, if you will be ill-natured, pray go somewhere +else, and not interrupt good feeling among gentlemen." +</P> + +<P> +"Got my last sixpence," retorted Joe, turning his pockets inside-out +again. "No more use for me here to-night. That's the way of the world. +How apt a scholar is our good friend Dustycoat, in this new school! +Well, he was a good miller—no one ever disputed that—and it's plain +to see that he is going to make a good landlord. I thought his heart +was a little too soft; but the indurating process has begun, and, in +less than ten years, if it isn't as hard as one of his old mill-stones, +Joe Morgan is no prophet. Oh, you needn't knit your brows so, friend +Simon, we're old friends; and friends are privileged to speak plain." +</P> + +<P> +"I wish you'd go home. You're not yourself tonight," said the landlord, +a little coaxingly, for he saw that nothing was to be gained by +quarreling with Morgan. "Maybe my heart is growing harder," he added, +with affected good-humor; "and it is time, perhaps. One of my +weaknesses, I have heard even you say, was being too woman-hearted." +</P> + +<P> +"No danger of that now," retorted Joe Morgan. "I've known a good many +landlords in my time, but can't remember one that was troubled with the +disease that once afflicted you." +</P> + +<P> +Just at this moment the outer door was pushed open with a slow, +hesitating motion; then a little pale face peered in, and a pair of +soft blue eyes went searching about the room. Conversation was +instantly hushed, and every face, excited with interest, turned toward +the child, who had now stepped through the door. She was not over ten +years of age; but it moved the heart to look upon the saddened +expression of her young countenance, and the forced bravery therein, +that scarcely overcame the native timidity so touchingly visible. +</P> + +<P> +"Father!" I have never heard this word spoken in a voice that sent such +a thrill along every nerve. It was full of sorrowful love—full of a +tender concern that had its origin too deep for the heart of a child. +As she spoke, the little one sprang across the room, and laying her +hands upon the arm of Joe Morgan, lifted her eyes, that were ready to +gush over with tears, to his face. +</P> + +<P> +"Come father! won't you come home?" I hear that low, pleading voice +even now, and my heart gives a quicker throb. Poor child! Darkly +shadowed was the sky that bent gloomily over thy young life. +</P> + +<P> +Morgan arose, and suffered the child to lead him from the room. He +seemed passive in her hands. I noticed that he thrust his fingers +nervously into his pocket, and that a troubled look went over his face +as they were withdrawn. His last sixpence was in the till of Simon +Slade! +</P> + +<P> +The first man who spoke was Harvey Green, and this not for a minute +after the father and his child had vanished through the door. +</P> + +<P> +"If I was in your place, landlord"—his voice was cold and +unfeeling—"I'd pitch that fellow out of the bar-room the next time he +stepped through the door. He's no business here, in the first place; +and, in the second, he doesn't know how to behave himself. There's no +telling how much a vagabond like him injures a respectable house." +</P> + +<P> +"I wish he would stay away," said Simon, with a perplexed air. +</P> + +<P> +"I'd make him stay away," answered Green. +</P> + +<P> +"That may be easier said than done," remarked Judge Lyman. "Our friend +keeps a public-house, and can't just say who shall or shall not come +into it." +</P> + +<P> +"But such a fellow has no business here. He's a good-for-nothing sot. +If I kept a tavern, I'd refuse to sell him liquor." +</P> + +<P> +"That you might do," said Judge Lyman; "and I presume your hint will +not be lost on our friend Slade." +</P> + +<P> +"He will have liquor, so long as he can get a cent to buy it with," +remarked one of the company; "and I don't see why our landlord here, +who has gone to so much expense to fit up a tavern, shouldn't have the +sale of it as well as anybody else. Joe talks a little freely +sometimes; but no one can say that he is quarrelsome. You've got to +take him as he is, that's all." +</P> + +<P> +"I am one," retorted Harvey Green, with a slightly ruffled manner, "who +is never disposed to take people as they are when they choose to render +themselves disagreeable. If I was Mr. Slade, as I remarked in the +beginning, I'd pitch that fellow into the road the next time he put his +foot over my door step." +</P> + +<P> +"Not if I were present," remarked the other, coolly. +</P> + +<P> +Green was on his feet in a moment, and I saw, from the flash of his +eyes, that he was a man of evil passions. Moving a pace or two in the +direction of the other, he said sharply. +</P> + +<P> +"What is that, sir?" +</P> + +<P> +The individual against whom his anger was so suddenly aroused was +dressed plainly, and had the appearance of a working man. He was stout +and muscular. +</P> + +<P> +"I presume you heard my words. They were spoken distinctly," he +replied, not moving from where he sat, nor seeming to be in the least +disturbed. But there was a cool defiance in the tones of his voice and +in the steady look of his eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"You're an impertinent fellow, and I'm half tempted to chastise you." +</P> + +<P> +Green had scarcely finished the sentence, ere he was lying full length +upon the floor. The other had sprung upon him like a tiger, and with +one blow from his heavy fist, struck him down as if he had been a +child. For a moment or two, Green lay stunned and bewildered—then, +starting up with a savage cry, that sounded more bestial than human, he +drew a long knife from a concealed sheath, and attempted to stab his +assailant, but the murderous purpose was not accomplished, for the +other man, who had superior strength and coolness, saw the design, and +with a well directed blow almost broke the arm of Green, causing the +knife to leave his hand and glide far across the room. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm half tempted to wring your neck off," exclaimed the man, whose +name was Lyon, now much excited, and seizing Green by the throat, he +strangled him until his face grew black. "Draw a knife on me, ha! You +murdering villain!" And he gripped him tighter. +</P> + +<P> +Judge Lyman and the landlord now interfered, and rescued Green from the +hands of his fully aroused antagonist. For some time they stood +growling at each other, like two parted dogs struggling to get free, in +order to renew the conflict, but gradually cooled off. In a little +while Judge Lyman drew Green aside, and the two men left the bar-room +to other. In the door, as they were retiring, the former slightly +nodded to Willy Hammond, who soon followed them, going into the sitting +room, and from thence, as I could perceive, upstairs to an apartment +above. +</P> + +<P> +"Not after much good," I heard Lyon mutter to himself. "If Judge +Hammond don't look a little closer after that boy of his, he'll be +sorry for it, that's all." +</P> + +<P> +"Who is this Green?" I asked of Lyon, finding myself alone with him in +the bar-room soon after. +</P> + +<P> +"A blackleg, I take it," was his unhesitating answer. +</P> + +<P> +"Does Judge Lyman suspect his real character?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know anything about that, but I wouldn't be afraid to bet ten +dollars, that if you could look in upon them now, you would find cards +in their hands." +</P> + +<P> +"What a school, and what teachers for the youth who just went with +them!" I could not help remarking. +</P> + +<P> +"Willy Hammond?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +"You may well say that. What can his father be thinking about to leave +him exposed to such influences!" +</P> + +<P> +"He's one of the few who are in raptures about this tavern, because its +erection has slightly increased the value of his property about here, +but if he is not the loser of fifty per cent for every one gained, +before ten years go by, I'm very much in error." +</P> + +<P> +"How so?" +</P> + +<P> +"It will prove, I fear, the open door to ruin to his son." +</P> + +<P> +"That's bad," said I. +</P> + +<P> +"Bad! It is awful to think of. There is not a finer young man in the +country, nor one with better mind and heart, than Willy Hammond. So +much the sadder will be his destruction. Ah, sir! this tavern-keeping +is a curse to any place." +</P> + +<P> +"But I thought, just now, that you spoke in favor of letting even the +poor drunkard's money go into the landlord's till, in order to +encourage his commendable enterprise in opening so good a tavern." +</P> + +<P> +"We all speak with covert irony sometimes," answered the man, "as I did +then. Poor Joe Morgan! He is an old and early friend of Simon Slade. +They were boys together, and worked as millers under the same roof for +many years. In fact, Joe's father owned the mill, and the two learned +their trade with him. When old Morgan died, the mill came into Joe's +hands. It was in rather a worn-out condition, and Joe went in debt for +some pretty thorough repairs and additions of machinery. By and by, +Simon Slade, who was hired by Joe to run the mill, received a couple of +thousand dollars at the death of an aunt. This sum enabled him to buy a +share in the mill, which Morgan was very glad to sell in order to get +clear of his debt. Time passed on, and Joe left his milling interest +almost entirely in the care of Slade, who, it must be said in his +favor, did not neglect the business. But it somehow happened—I will +not say unfairly—that at the end of ten years, Joe Morgan no longer +owned a share in the mill. The whole property was in the hands of +Slade. People did not much wonder at this; for while Slade was always +to be found at the mill, industrious, active, and attentive to +customers, Morgan was rarely seen on the premises. You would oftener +find him in the woods, with a gun over his shoulder, or sitting by a +trout brook, or lounging at the tavern. And yet everybody liked Joe, +for he was companionable, quick-witted, and very kind-hearted. He would +say sharp things, sometimes, when people manifested little meannesses; +but there was so much honey in his gall, that bitterness rarely +predominated. +</P> + +<P> +"A year or two before his ownership in the mill ceased, Morgan married +one of the sweetest girls in our town—Fanny Ellis, that was her name, +and she could have had her pick of the young men. Everybody affected to +wonder at her choice; and yet nobody really did wonder, for Joe was an +attractive young man, take him as you would, and just the one to win +the heart of a girl like Fanny. What if he had been seen, now and then, +a little the worse for drink! What if he showed more fondness for +pleasure than for business! Fanny did not look into the future with +doubt or fear. She believed that her love was strong enough to win him +from all evil allurements: and, as for this world's goods, they were +matters in which her maiden fancies rarely busied themselves. +</P> + +<P> +"Well. Dark days came for her, poor soul! And yet, in all the darkness +of her earthly lot, she has never, it is said, been anything but a +loving, forbearing, self-denying wife to Morgan. And he—fallen as he +is, and powerless in the grasp of the monster intemperance—has never, +I am sure, hurt her with a cruel word. Had he added these, her heart +would, long ere this, have broken. Poor Joe Morgan! Poor Fanny! Oh, +what a curse is this drink!" +</P> + +<P> +The man, warming with his theme, had spoken with an eloquence I had not +expected from his lips. Slightly overmastered by his feelings, he +paused for a moment or two, and then added: +</P> + +<P> +"It was unfortunate for Joe, at least, that Slade sold his mill, and +became a tavern-keeper; for Joe had a sure berth, and wages regularly +paid. He didn't always stick to his work, but would go off on a spree +every now and then; but Slade bore with all this, and worked harder +himself to make up for his hand's shortcoming. And no matter what +deficiency the little store-room at home might show, Fanny Morgan never +found her meal barrel empty without knowing where to get it replenished. +</P> + +<P> +"But, after Slade sold his mill, a sad change took place. The new owner +was little disposed to pay wages to a hand who would not give him all +his time during working hours; and in less than two weeks from the day +he took possession, Morgan was discharged. Since then, he has been +working about at one odd job and another, earning scarcely enough to +buy the liquor it requires to feed the inordinate thirst that is +consuming him. I am not disposed to blame Simon Slade for the +wrong-doing of Morgan; but here is a simple fact in the case—if he had +kept on at the useful calling of a miller, he would have saved this +man's family from want, suffering, and a lower deep of misery than that +into which they have already fallen. I merely state it, and you can +draw your own conclusions. It is one of the many facts, on the other +side of this tavern question, which it will do no harm to mention. I +have noted a good many facts besides, and one is, that before Slade +opened the 'Sickle and Sheaf,' he did all in his power to save his +early friend from the curse of intemperance; now he has become his +tempter. Heretofore, it was his hand that provided the means for his +family to live in some small degree of comfort; now he takes the poor +pittance the wretched man earns, and dropping it in his till, forgets +the wife and children at home who are hungry for the bread this money +should have purchased. +</P> + +<P> +"Joe Morgan, fallen as he is, sir, is no fool. His mind sees quickly +yet; and he rarely utters a sentiment that is not full of meaning. When +he spoke of Blade's heart growing as hard in ten years as one of his +old mill-stones, he was not uttering words at random, nor merely +indulging in a harsh sentiment, little caring whether it were closely +applicable or not. That the indurating process had begun, he, alas! was +too sadly conscious." +</P> + +<P> +The landlord had been absent from the room for some time. He left soon +after Judge Lyman, Harvey Green, and Willy Hammond withdrew, and I did +not see him again during the evening. His son Frank was left to attend +at the bar; no very hard task, for not more than half a dozen called in +to drink from the time Morgan left until the bar was closed. +</P> + +<P> +While Mr. Lyon was giving me the brief history just recorded, I noticed +a little incident that caused a troubled feeling to pervade my mind. +After a man, for whom the landlord's son had prepared a fancy drink, +had nearly emptied his glass, he set it down upon the counter and went +out. A tablespoonful or two remained in the glass, and I noticed Frank, +after smelling at it two or three times, put the glass to his lips and +sip the sweetened liquor. The flavor proved agreeable; for, after +tasting it, he raised the glass again and drained every drop. +</P> + +<P> +"Frank!" I heard a low voice, in a warning tone, pronounce the name, +and glancing toward a door partly open, that led from the inside of the +bar to the yard, I saw the face of Mrs. Slade. It had the same troubled +expression I had noticed before, but now blended with anxiety. +</P> + +<P> +The boy went out at the call of his mother; and when a new customer +entered, I noticed that Flora, the daughter, came in to wait upon him. +I noticed, too, that while she poured out the liquor, there was a +heightened color on her face, in which I fancied that I saw a tinge of +shame. It is certain that she was not in the least gracious to the +person on whom she was waiting; and that there was little heart in her +manner of performing the task. +</P> + +<P> +Ten o'clock found me alone and musing in the barroom over the +occurrences of the evening. Of all the incidents, that of the entrance +of Joe Morgan's child kept the most prominent place in my thoughts. The +picture of that mournful little face was ever before me; and I seemed +all the while to hear the word "Father," uttered so touchingly, and yet +with such a world of childish tenderness. And the man, who would have +opposed the most stubborn resistance to his fellow-men, had they sought +to force him from the room, going passively, almost meekly out, led by +that little child—I could not, for a time, turn my thoughts from the +image thereof! And then thought bore me to the wretched home, back to +which the gentle, loving child had taken her father, and my heart grew +faint in me as imagination busied itself with all the misery there. +</P> + +<P> +And Willy Hammond. The little that I had heard and seen of him greatly +interested me in his favor. Ah! upon what dangerous ground was he +treading. How many pitfalls awaited his feet—how near they were to the +brink of a fearful precipice, down which to fall was certain +destruction. How beautiful had been his life-promise! How fair the +opening day of his existence! Alas! the clouds were gathering already, +and the low rumble of the distant thunder presaged the coming of a +fearful tempest. Was there none to warn him of the danger? Alas! all +might now come too late, for so few who enter the path in which his +steps were treading will hearken to friendly counsel, or heed the +solemn warning. Where was he now? This question recurred over and over +again. He had left the bar-room with Judge Lyman and Green early in the +evening, and had not made his appearance since. Who and what was Green? +And Judge Lyman, was he a man of principle? One with whom it was safe +to trust a youth like Willy Hammond? +</P> + +<P> +While I mused thus, the bar-room door opened, and a man past the prime +of life, with a somewhat florid face, which gave a strong relief to the +gray, almost white hair that, suffered to grow freely, was pushed back, +and lay in heavy masses on his coat collar, entered with a hasty step. +He was almost venerable in appearance; yet there was in his dark, quick +eyes the brightness of unquenched loves, the fires of which were +kindled at the altars of selfishness and sensuality. This I saw at a +glance. There was a look of concern on his face, as he threw his eyes +around the bar-room; and he seemed disappointed, I thought, at finding +it empty. +</P> + +<P> +"Is Simon Slade here?" +</P> + +<P> +As I answered in the negative, Mrs. Slade entered through the door that +opened from the yard, and stood behind the counter. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, Mrs. Slade! Good evening, madam!" he said. +</P> + +<P> +"Good evening, Judge Hammond." +</P> + +<P> +"Is your husband at home?" +</P> + +<P> +"I believe he is," answered Mrs. Slade. "I think he is somewhere about +the house." +</P> + +<P> +"Ask him to step here, will you?" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Slade went out. Nearly five minutes went by, during which time +Judge Hammond paced the floor of the bar-room uneasily. Then the +landlord made his appearance. The free, open, manly, self-satisfied +expression of his countenance, which I had remarked on alighting from +the stage in the afternoon, was gone. I noticed at once the change, for +it was striking. He did not look steadily into the face of Judge +Hammond, who asked him, in a low voice, if his son had been there +during the evening. +</P> + +<P> +"He was here," said Slade. +</P> + +<P> +"When?" +</P> + +<P> +"He came in some time after dark and stayed, maybe, an hour." +</P> + +<P> +"And hasn't been here since?" +</P> + +<P> +"It's nearly two hours since he left the bar-room," replied the +landlord. +</P> + +<P> +Judge Hammond seemed perplexed. There was a degree of evasion in +Slade's manner that he could hardly help noticing. To me it was all +apparent, for I had lively suspicions that made my observation acute. +</P> + +<P> +Judge Hammond crossed his arms behind him, and took three or four +strides about the floor. +</P> + +<P> +"Was Judge Lyman here to-night?" he then asked. +</P> + +<P> +"He was," answered Slade. +</P> + +<P> +"Did he and Willy go out together?" +</P> + +<P> +The question seemed an unexpected one for the landlord. Slade appeared +slightly confused, and did not answer promptly. +</P> + +<P> +"I—I rather think they did," he said, after a brief hesitation. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, well! Perhaps he is at Judge Lyman's. I will call over there." +</P> + +<P> +And Judge Hammond left the bar-room. +</P> + +<P> +"Would you like to retire, sir?" said the landlord, now turning to me, +with a forced smile—I saw that it was forced. +</P> + +<P> +"If you please," I answered. +</P> + +<P> +He lit a candle and conducted me to my room, where, overwearied with +the day's exertion, I soon fell asleep, and did not awake until the sun +was shining brightly into my windows. +</P> + +<P> +I remained at the village a portion of the day, but saw nothing of the +parties in whom the incidents of the previous evening had awakened a +lively interest. At four o'clock I left in the stage, and did not visit +Cedarville again for a year. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap02"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +NIGHT THE SECOND. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE CHANGES OF A YEAR. +</H3> + +<P> +A cordial grasp of the hand and a few words of hearty welcome greeted +me as I alighted from the stage at the "Sickle and Sheaf," on my next +visit to Cedarville. At the first glance, I saw no change in the +countenance, manner, or general bearing of Simon Slade, the landlord. +With him, the year seemed to have passed like a pleasant summer day. +His face was round, and full, and rosy, and his eyes sparkled with that +good humor which flows from intense self-satisfaction. Everything about +him seemed to say—"All 'right with myself and the world." +</P> + +<P> +I had scarcely expected this. From what I saw during my last brief +sojourn at the "Sickle and Sheaf," the inference was natural, that +elements had been called into activity, which must produce changes +adverse to those pleasant states of mind that threw an almost perpetual +sunshine over the landlord's countenance. How many hundreds of times +had I thought of Tom Morgan and Willy Hammond—of Frank, and the +temptations to which a bar-room exposed him. The heart of Slade must, +indeed, be as hard as one of his old mill-stones, if he could remain an +unmoved witness of the corruption and degradation of these. +</P> + +<P> +"My fears have outrun the actual progress of things," said I to myself, +with a sense of relief, as I mused alone in the still neatly arranged +sitting-room, after the landlord, who sat and chatted for a few +minutes, had left me. "There is, I am willing to believe, a basis of +good in this man's character, which has led him to remove, as far as +possible, the more palpable evils that ever attach themselves to a +house of public entertainment. He had but entered on the business last +year. There was much to be learned, pondered, and corrected. +Experience, I doubt not, has led to many important changes in the +manner of conducting the establishment, and especially in what pertains +to the bar." +</P> + +<P> +As I thought thus, my eyes glanced through the half-open door, and +rested on the face of Simon Slade. He was standing behind his +bar—evidently alone in the room—with his head bent in a musing +attitude. At first I was in some doubt as to the identity of the +singularly changed countenance. Two deep perpendicular seams lay +sharply defined on his forehead—the arch of his eyebrows was gone, and +from each corner of his compressed lips, lines were seen reaching +half-way to the chin. Blending with a slightly troubled expression, was +a strongly marked selfishness, evidently brooding over the consummation +of its purpose. For some moments I sat gazing on his face, half +doubting at times if it were really that of Simon Slade. Suddenly a +gleam flashed over it—an ejaculation was uttered, and one clenched +hand brought down, with a sharp stroke, into the open palm of the +other. The landlord's mind had reached a conclusion, and was resolved +upon action. There were no warm rays in the gleam of light that +irradiated his countenance—at least none for my heart, which felt +under them an almost icy coldness. +</P> + +<P> +"Just the man I was thinking about." I heard the landlord say, as some +one entered the bar, while his whole manner underwent a sudden change. +</P> + +<P> +"The old saying is true," was answered in a voice, the tones of which +were familiar to my ears. +</P> + +<P> +"Thinking of the old Harry?" said Slade. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +"True, literally, in the present case," I heard the landlord remark, +though in a much lower tone; "for, if you are not the devil himself, +you can't be farther removed than a second cousin." +</P> + +<P> +A low, gurgling laugh met this little sally. There was something in it +so unlike a human laugh, that it caused my blood to trickle, for a +moment, coldly along my veins. +</P> + +<P> +I heard nothing more except the murmur of voices in the bar, for a hand +shut the partly opened door that led from the sitting room. +</P> + +<P> +Whose was that voice? I recalled its tones, and tried to fix in my +thought the person to whom it belonged, but was unable to do so. I was +not very long in doubt, for on stepping out on the porch in front of +the tavern, the well remembered face of Harvey Green presented itself. +He stood in the bar-room door, and was talking earnestly to Slade, +whose back was toward me. I saw that he recognized me, although I had +not passed a word with him on the occasion of my former visit, and +there was a lighting up of his countenance as if about to speak—but I +withdrew my eyes from his face to avoid the unwelcome greeting. When I +looked at him again, I saw that he was regarding me with a sinister +glance, which was instantly withdrawn. In what broad, black characters +was the word TEMPTER written on his face! How was it possible for +anyone to look thereon, and not read the warning inscription! +</P> + +<P> +Soon after, he withdrew into the bar-room and the landlord came and +took a seat near me on the porch. +</P> + +<P> +"How is the 'Sickle and Sheaf' coming on?" I inquired. +</P> + +<P> +"First rate," was the answer—"First rate." +</P> + +<P> +"As well as you expected?" +</P> + +<P> +"Better." +</P> + +<P> +"Satisfied with your experiment?" +</P> + +<P> +"Perfectly. Couldn't get me back to the rumbling old mill again, if you +were to make me a present of it." +</P> + +<P> +"What of the mill?" I asked. "How does the new owner come on?" +</P> + +<P> +"About as I thought it would be." +</P> + +<P> +"Not doing very well?" +</P> + +<P> +"How could it be expected when he didn't know enough of the milling +business to grind a bushel of wheat right? He lost half of the custom I +transferred to him in less than three months. Then he broke his main +shaft, and it took over three weeks to get in a new one. Half of his +remaining customers discovered by this time, that they could get far +better meal from their grain at Harwood's mill near Lynwood, and so did +not care to trouble him any more. The upshot of the whole matter is, he +broke down next, and had to sell the mill at a heavy loss." +</P> + +<P> +"Who has it now?" +</P> + +<P> +"Judge Hammond is the purchaser." +</P> + +<P> +"He is going to rent it, I suppose?" +</P> + +<P> +"No; I believe he means to turn it into some kind of a factory—and, I +rather think, will connect therewith a distillery. This is a fine +grain-growing country, as you know. If he does set up a distillery +he'll make a fine thing of it. Grain has been too low in this section +for some years; this all the farmers have felt, and they are very much +pleased at the idea. It will help them wonderfully. I always thought my +mill a great thing for the farmers; but what I did for them was a mere +song compared to the advantage of an extensive distillery." +</P> + +<P> +"Judge Hammond is one of your richest men?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes—the richest in the county. And what is more, he's a shrewd, +far-seeing man, and knows how to multiply his riches." +</P> + +<P> +"How is his son Willy coming on?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! first-rate." +</P> + +<P> +The landlord's eyes fell under the searching look I bent upon him. +</P> + +<P> +"How old is he now?" +</P> + +<P> +"Just twenty." +</P> + +<P> +"A critical age," I remarked. +</P> + +<P> +"So people say; but I didn't find it so," answered Slade, a little +distantly. +</P> + +<P> +"The impulses within and the temptations without, are the measure of +its dangers. At his age, you were, no doubt, daily employed at hard +work." +</P> + +<P> +"I was, and no mistake." +</P> + +<P> +"Thousands and hundreds of thousands are indebted to useful work, +occupying many hours through each day, and leaving them with wearied +bodies at night, for their safe passage from yielding youth to firm, +resisting manhood. It might not be with you as it is now, had leisure +and freedom to go in and out when you pleased been offered at the age +of nineteen." +</P> + +<P> +"I can't tell as to that," said the landlord, shrugging his shoulders. +"But I don't see that Willy Hammond is in any especial danger. He is a +young man with many admirable qualities—is social-liberal—generous +almost to a fault—but has good common sense, and wit enough, I take +it, to keep out of harm's way." +</P> + +<P> +A man passing the house at the moment, gave Simon Slade an opportunity +to break off a conversation that was not, I could see, altogether +agreeable. As he left me, I arose and stepped into the bar-room. Frank, +the landlord's son, was behind the bar. He had grown considerably in +the year—and from a rather delicate, innocent-looking boy, to a stout, +bold lad. His face was rounder, and had a gross, sensual expression, +that showed itself particularly about the mouth. The man Green was +standing beside the bar talking to him, and I noticed that Frank +laughed heartily, at some low, half obscene remarks that he was making. +In the midst of these, Flora, the sister of Frank, a really beautiful +girl, came in to get something from the bar. Green spoke to her +familiarly, and Flora answered him with a perceptibly heightening color. +</P> + +<P> +I glanced toward Frank, half expecting to see an indignant flush on his +young face. But no—he looked on with a smile! "Ah!" thought I, "have +the boy's pure impulses so soon died out in this fatal atmosphere? Can +he bear to see those evil eyes—he knows they are evil—rest upon the +face of his sister? or to hear those lips, only a moment since polluted +with vile words, address her with the familiarity of a friend?" +</P> + +<P> +"Fine girl, that sister of yours, Frank! Fine girl!" said Green, after +Flora had withdrawn—speaking of her with about as much respect in his +voice as if he were praising a fleet racer or a favorite hound. +</P> + +<P> +The boy smiled, with a pleased air. +</P> + +<P> +"I must try and find her a good husband, Frank. I wonder if she +wouldn't have me?" +</P> + +<P> +"You'd better ask her," said the boy, laughing. +</P> + +<P> +"I would if I thought there was any chance for me." +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing like trying. Faint heart never won fair lady," returned Frank, +more with the air of a man than a boy. How fast he was growing old! +</P> + +<P> +"A banter, by George!" exclaimed Green, slapping his hands together. +"You're a great boy, Frank! a great boy! I shall have to talk to your +father about you. Coming on too fast. Have to be put back in your +lessons—hey!" +</P> + +<P> +And Green winked at the boy, and shook his finger at him. Frank laughed +in a pleased way, as he replied: "I guess I'll do." +</P> + +<P> +"I guess you will," said Green, as, satisfied with his colloquy, he +turned off and left the bar-room. +</P> + +<P> +"Have something to drink, sir?" inquired Frank, addressing me in a +bold, free way. +</P> + +<P> +I shook my head. +</P> + +<P> +"Here's a newspaper," he added. +</P> + +<P> +I took the paper and sat down—not to read, but to observe. Two or +three men soon came in, and spoke in a very familiar way to Frank, who +was presently busy setting out the liquors they had called for. Their +conversation, interlarded with much that was profane and vulgar, was of +horses, horse-racing, gunning, and the like, to all of which the young +bar-tender lent an attentive ear, putting in a word now and then, and +showing an intelligence in such matters quite beyond his age. In the +midst thereof, Mr. Slade made his appearance. His presence caused a +marked change in Frank, who retired from his place among the men, a +step or two outside of the bar, and did not make a remark while his +father remained. It was plain from this, that Mr. Slade was not only +aware of Frank's dangerous precocity, but had already marked his +forwardness by rebuke. +</P> + +<P> +So far, all that I had seen and heard impressed me unfavorably, +notwithstanding the declaration of Simon Slade, that everything about +the "Sickle and Sheaf" was coming on "first-rate," and that he was +"perfectly satisfied" with his experiment. Why, even if the man had +gained, in money, fifty thousand dollars by tavern-keeping in a year, +he had lost a jewel in the innocence of his boy that was beyond all +valuation. "Perfectly satisfied?" Impossible! He was not perfectly +satisfied. How could he be? The look thrown upon Frank when he entered +the bar-room, and saw him "hale fellow, well met," with three or four +idle, profane, drinking customers, contradicted that assertion. +</P> + +<P> +After supper, I took a seat in the bar-room, to see how life moved on +in that place of rendezvous for the surface-population of Cedarville. +Interest enough in the characters I had met there a year before +remained for me to choose this way of spending the time, instead of +visiting at the house of a gentleman who had kindly invited me to pass +an evening with his family. +</P> + +<P> +The bar-room custom, I soon found, had largely increased in a year. It +now required, for a good part of the time, the active services of both +the landlord and his son to meet the calls for liquor. What pained me +most, was to see the large number of lads and young men who came in to +lounge and drink; and there was scarcely one of them whose face did not +show marks of sensuality, or whose language was not marred by +obscenity, profanity, or vulgar slang. The subjects of conversation +were varied enough, though politics was the most prominent. In regard +to politics I heard nothing in the least instructive; but only abuse of +individuals and dogmatism on public measures. They were all exceedingly +confident in assertion; but I listened in vain for exposition, or even +for demonstrative facts. He who asseverated in the most positive +manner, and swore the hardest, carried the day in the petty contests. +</P> + +<P> +I noticed, early in the evening, and at a time when all the inmates of +the room were in the best possible humor with themselves, the entrance +of an elderly man, on whose face I instantly read a deep concern. It +was one of those mild, yet strongly marked faces, that strike you at a +glance. The forehead was broad, the eyes large and far back in their +sockets, the lips full but firm. You saw evidences of a strong, but +well-balanced character. As he came in, I noticed a look of +intelligence pass from one to another; and then the eyes of two or +three were fixed upon a young man who was seated not far from me, with +his back to the entrance, playing at dominoes. He had a glass of ale by +his side. The old man searched about the room for some moments, before +his glance rested upon the individual I have mentioned. My eyes were +full upon his face, as he advanced toward him, as yet unseen. Upon it +was not a sign of angry excitement, but a most touching sorrow. +</P> + +<P> +"Edward!" he said, as he laid his hand gently on the young man's +shoulder. The latter started at the voice, and crimsoned deeply. A few +moments he sat irresolute. +</P> + +<P> +"Edward, my son!" It would have been a cold, hard heart indeed that +softened not under the melting tenderness of these tones. The call was +irresistible, and obedience a necessity. The powers of evil had, yet, +too feeble a grasp on the young man's heart to hold him in thrall. +Rising with a half-reluctant manner, and with a shamefacedness that it +was impossible to conceal, he retired as quietly as possible. The +notice of only a few in the bar-room was attracted by the incident. +</P> + +<P> +"I can tell you what," I heard the individual, with whom the young man +had been playing at dominoes, remark—himself not twenty years of +age—"if my old man were to make a fool of himself in this +way—sneaking around after me in bar-rooms-he'd get only his trouble +for his pains. I'd like to see him try it, though! There'd be a nice +time of it, I guess. Wouldn't I creep off with him, as meek as a lamb! +Ho! ho!" +</P> + +<P> +"Who is that old gentleman who came in just now?" I inquired of the +person who thus commented on the incident which had just occurred. +</P> + +<P> +"Mr. Hargrove is his name." +</P> + +<P> +"And that was his son?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes; and I'm only sorry he doesn't possess a little more spirit." +</P> + +<P> +"How old is he?" +</P> + +<P> +"About twenty." +</P> + +<P> +"Not of legal age, then?" +</P> + +<P> +"He's old enough to be his own master." +</P> + +<P> +"The law says differently," I suggested. +</P> + +<P> +In answer, the young man cursed the law, snapping his fingers in its +imaginary face as he did so. +</P> + +<P> +"At least you will admit," said I, "that Edward Hargrove, in the use of +a liberty to go where he pleases, and do what he pleases, exhibits but +small discretion." +</P> + +<P> +"I will admit no such thing. What harm is there, I would like to know, +in a social little game such as we were playing? There were no +stakes—we were not gambling." +</P> + +<P> +I pointed to the half-emptied glass of ale left by young Hargrove. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! oh!" half sneered, half laughed a man, twice the age of the one I +had addressed, who sat near by, listening to our conversation. I looked +at him for a moment, and then said: +</P> + +<P> +"The great danger lies there, without doubt. If it were only a glass of +ale and a game of dominoes—but it doesn't stop there, and well the +young man's father knows it." +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps he does," was answered. "I remember him in his younger days; +and a pretty high boy he was. He didn't stop at a glass of ale and a +game of dominoes; not he! I've seen him as drunk as a lord many a time; +and many a time at a horse-race, or cock-fight, betting with the +bravest. I was only a boy, though a pretty old boy; but I can tell you, +Hargrove was no saint." +</P> + +<P> +"I wonder not, then, that he is so anxious for his son," was my remark. +"He knows well the lurking dangers in the path he seems inclined to +enter." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't see that they have done him much harm. He sowed his wild +oats—then got married, and settled down into a good, substantial +citizen. A little too religious and pharisaical, I always thought; but +upright in his dealings. He had his pleasures in early life, as was +befitting the season of youth—why not let his son taste of the same +agreeable fruit? He's wrong, sir—wrong! And I've said as much to Ned. +I only wish the boy had shown the right spunk this evening, and told +the old man to go home about his business." +</P> + +<P> +"So do I," chimed in the young disciple in this bad school. "It's what +I'd say to my old man, in double quick time, if he was to come hunting +after me." +</P> + +<P> +"He knows better than to do that," said the other, in a way that let me +deeper into the young man's character. +</P> + +<P> +"Indeed he does. He's tried his hand on me once or twice during the +last year, but found it wouldn't do, no how; Tom Peters is out of his +leading-strings." +</P> + +<P> +"And can drink his glass with any one, and not be a grain the worse for +it." +</P> + +<P> +"Exactly, old boy!" said Peters, slapping his preceptor on the knee. +"Exactly! I'm not one of your weak-headed ones. Oh no!" +</P> + +<P> +"Look here, Joe Morgan!"—the half-angry voice of Simon Slade now rung +through the bar-room,—"just take yourself off home!" +</P> + +<P> +I had not observed the entrance of this person. He was standing at the +bar, with an emptied glass in his hand. A year had made no improvement +in his appearance. On the contrary, his clothes were more worn and +tattered; his countenance more sadly marred. What he had said to +irritate the landlord, I know not; but Slade's face was fiery with +passion, and his eyes glared threateningly at the poor besotted one, +who showed not the least inclination to obey. +</P> + +<P> +"Off with you, I say! And never show your face here again. I won't have +such low vagabonds as you are about my house. If you can't keep decent +and stay decent, don't intrude yourself here." +</P> + +<P> +"A rum-seller talk of decency!" retorted Morgan. "Pah! You were a +decent man once, and a good miller into the bargain. But that time's +past and gone. Decency died out when you exchanged the pick and +facing-hammer for the glass and muddler. Decency! Pah! How you talk! As +if it were any more decent to sell rum than to drink it." +</P> + +<P> +There was so much of biting contempt in the tones, as well as the words +of the half-intoxicated man, that Slade, who had himself been drinking +rather more freely than usual, was angered beyond self-control. +Catching up an empty glass from the counter, he hurled it with all his +strength at the head of Joe Morgan. The missive just grazed one of his +temples, and flew by on its dangerous course. The quick sharp cry of a +child startled the air, followed by exclamations of alarm and horror +from many voices. +</P> + +<P> +"It's Joe Morgan's child!" "He's killed her!" "Good heavens!" Such were +the exclamations that rang through the room. I was among the first to +reach the spot where a little girl, just gliding in through the door, +had been struck on the forehead by the glass, which had cut a deep +gash, and stunned her into insensibility. The blood flowed instantly +from the wound, and covered her face, which presented a shocking +appearance. As I lifted her from the floor, upon which she had fallen, +Morgan, into whose very soul the piercing cry of his child had +penetrated, stood by my side, and grappled his arms around her +insensible form, uttering as he did so heart-touching moans and +lamentations. +</P> + +<P> +"What's the matter? Oh, what's the matter?" It was a woman's voice, +speaking in frightened tones. +</P> + +<P> +"It's nothing! Just go out, will you, Ann?" I heard the landlord say. +</P> + +<P> +But his wife—it was Mrs. Slade—having heard the shrieks of pain and +terror uttered by Morgan's child, had come running into the +bar-room—heeded not his words, but pressed forward into the little +group that stood around the bleeding girl. +</P> + +<P> +"Run for Doctor Green, Frank," she cried in an imperative voice, the +moment her eyes rested on the little one's bloody face. +</P> + +<P> +Frank came around from behind the bar, in obedience to the word; but +his father gave a partial countermand, and he stood still. Upon +observing which, his mother repeated the order, even more emphatically. +</P> + +<P> +"Why don't you jump, you young rascal!" exclaimed Harvey Green. "The +child may be dead before the doctor can get here." +</P> + +<P> +Frank hesitated no longer, but disappeared instantly through the door. +</P> + +<P> +"Poor, poor child!" almost sobbed Mrs. Slade, as she lifted the +insensible form from my arms. "How did it happen? Who struck her?" +</P> + +<P> +"Who? Curse him! Who but Simon Slade?" answered Joe Morgan, through his +clenched teeth. +</P> + +<P> +The look of anguish, mingled with bitter reproach, instantly thrown +upon the landlord by his wife, can hardly be forgotten by any who saw +it that night. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Simon! Simon! And has it come to this already?" What a world of +bitter memories, and sad forebodings of evil, did that little sentence +express. "To this already"—Ah! In the downward way, how rapidly the +steps do tread—how fast the progress! +</P> + +<P> +"Bring me a basin of water, and a towel, quickly!" she now exclaimed. +</P> + +<P> +The water was brought, and in a little while the face of the child lay +pure and as white as snow against her bosom. The wound from which the +blood had flowed so freely was found on the upper part of the forehead, +a little to the side, and extending several inches back, along the top +of the head. As soon as the blood stains were wiped away, and the +effusion partially stopped, Mrs. Slade carried the still insensible +body into the next room, whither the distressed, and now completely +sobered father, accompanied her. I went with them, but Slade remained +behind. +</P> + +<P> +The arrival of the doctor was soon followed by the restoration of life +to the inanimate body. He happened to be at home, and came instantly. +He had just taken the last stitch in the wound, which required to be +drawn together, and was applying strips of adhesive plaster, when the +hurried entrance of some one caused me to look up. What an apparition +met my eyes! A woman stood in the door, with a face in which maternal +anxiety and terror blended fearfully. Her countenance was like +ashes—her eyes straining wildly—her lips apart, while the panting +breath almost hissed through them. +</P> + +<P> +"Joe! Joe! What is it? Where is Mary? Is she dead?" were her eager +inquiries. +</P> + +<P> +"No, Fanny," answered Joe Morgan, starting up from where he was +actually kneeling by the side of the reviving little one, and going +quickly to his wife. "She's better now. It's a bad hurt, but the doctor +says it's nothing dangerous. Poor, dear child!" +</P> + +<P> +The pale face of the mother grew paler—she gasped—caught for breath +two or three times—a low shudder ran through her frame—and then she +lay white and pulseless in the arms of her husband. As the doctor +applied restoratives, I had opportunity to note more particularly the +appearance of Mrs. Morgan. Her person was very slender, and her face so +attenuated that it might almost be called shadowy. Her hair, which was +a rich chestnut brown, with a slight golden lustre, had fallen from her +comb, and now lay all over her neck and bosom in beautiful luxuriance. +Back from her full temples it had been smoothed away by the hand of +Morgan, that all the while moved over her brow and temples with a +caressing motion that I saw was unconscious, and which revealed the +tenderness of feeling with which, debased as he was, he regarded the +wife of his youth, and the long suffering companion of his later and +evil days. Her dress was plain and coarse, but clean and well fitting; +and about her whole person was an air of neatness and taste. She could +not now be called beautiful; yet in her marred features—marred by +suffering and grief—were many lineaments of beauty; and much that told +of a true, pure woman's heart beating in her bosom. Life came slowly +back to the stilled heart, and it was nearly half an hour before the +circle of motion was fully restored. +</P> + +<P> +Then, the twain, with their child, tenderly borne in the arms of her +father, went sadly homeward, leaving more than one heart heavier for +their visit. +</P> + +<P> +I saw more of the landlord's wife on this occasion than before. She had +acted with a promptness and humanity that impressed me very favorably. +It was plain, from her exclamations on learning that her husband's hand +inflicted the blow that came so near destroying the child's life, that +her faith for good in the tavern-keeping experiment had never been +strong. I had already inferred as much. Her face, the few times I had +seen her, wore a troubled look; and I could never forget its +expression, nor her anxious, warning voice, when she discovered Frank +sipping the dregs from a glass in the bar-room. +</P> + +<P> +It is rarely, I believe, that wives consent freely to the opening of +taverns by their husbands; and the determination on the part of the +latter to do so, is not unfrequently attended with a breach of +confidence and good feeling never afterward fully healed. Men look +close to the money result; women to the moral consequences. I doubt if +there be one dram-seller in ten, between whom and his wife there exists +a good understanding—to say nothing of genuine affection. And, in the +exceptional cases, it will generally be found that the wife is as +mercenary, or careless of the public good, as her husband. I have known +some women to set up grog-shops; but they were women of bad principles +and worse hearts. I remember one case, where a woman, with a sober, +church-going husband, opened a dram-shop. The husband opposed, +remonstrated, begged, threatened—but all to no purpose. The wife, by +working for the clothing stores, had earned and saved about three +hundred dollars. The love of money, in the slow process of +accumulation, had been awakened; and, in ministering to the depraved +appetites of men who loved drink and neglected their families, she saw +a quicker mode of acquiring the gold she coveted. And so the dram-shop +was opened. And what was the result? The husband quit going to church. +He had no heart for that; for, even on the Sabbath day, the fiery +stream was stayed not in his house. Next he began to tipple. Soon, +alas! the subtle poison so pervaded his system that morbid desire came; +and then he moved along quick-footed in the way of ruin. In less than +three years, I think, from the time the grog-shop was opened by his +wife, he was in a drunkard's grave. A year or two more, and the pit +that was digged for others by the hands of the wife, she fell into +herself. After breathing an atmosphere poisoned by the fumes of liquor, +the love of tasting it was gradually formed, and she, too, in the end, +became a slave to the Demon Drink. She died at last, poor as a beggar +in the street. Ah! this liquor-selling is the way to ruin; and they who +open the gates, as well as those who enter the downward path, alike go +to destruction. But this is digressing. +</P> + +<P> +After Joe Morgan and his wife left the "Sickle and Sheaf," with that +gentle child, who, as I afterward learned, had not, for a year or more, +laid her little head to sleep until her father returned home and who, +if he stayed out beyond a certain hour, would go for him, and lead him +back, a very angel of love and patience—I re-entered the bar-room, to +see how life was passing there. Not one of all I had left in the room +remained. The incident which had occurred was of so painful a nature, +that no further unalloyed pleasure was to be had there during the +evening, and so each had retired. In his little kingdom the landlord +sat alone, his head resting on his hand, and his face shaded from the +light. The whole aspect of the man was that of one in self-humiliation. +As I entered he raised his head, and turned his face toward me. Its +expression was painful. +</P> + +<P> +"Rather an unfortunate affair," said he. "I'm angry with myself, and +sorry for the poor child. But she'd no business here. As for Joe +Morgan, it would take a saint to bear his tongue when once set a-going +by liquor. I wish he'd stay away from the house. Nobody wants his +company. Oh, dear!" +</P> + +<P> +The ejaculation, or rather groan, that closed the sentence showed how +little Slade was satisfied with himself, notwithstanding this feeble +attempt at self-justification. +</P> + +<P> +"His thirst for liquor draws him hither," I remarked. "The attraction +of your bar to his appetite is like that of the magnet to the needle. +He cannot stay away." +</P> + +<P> +"He MUST stay away!" exclaimed the landlord, with some vehemence of +tone, striking his fist upon the table by which he sat. "He MUST stay +away! There is scarcely an evening that he does not ruffle my temper, +and mar good feelings in all the company. Just see what he provoked me +to do this evening. I might have killed the child. It makes my blood +run cold to think of it! Yes, sir—he must stay away. If no better can +be done, I'll hire a man to stand at the door and keep him out." +</P> + +<P> +"He never troubled you at the mill," said I. "No man was required at +the mill door?" +</P> + +<P> +"No!" And the landlord gave emphasis to the word by an oath, ejaculated +with a heartiness that almost startled me. I had not heard him swear +before. "No; the great trouble was to get him and keep him there, the +good-for-nothing, idle fellow!" +</P> + +<P> +"I am afraid," I ventured to suggest, "that things don't go on quite so +smoothly here as they did at the mill. Your customers are of a +different class." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know about that; why not?" He did not just relish my remark. +</P> + +<P> +"Between quiet, thrifty, substantial farmers, and drinking bar-room +loungers, are many degrees of comparison." +</P> + +<P> +"Excuse me, sir!" Simon Slade elevated his person. "The men who visit +my bar-room, as a general thing, are quite as respectable, moral, and +substantial as any who came to the mill—and I believe more so. The +first people in the place, sir, are to be found here. Judge Lyman and +Judge Hammond; Lawyer Wilks and Doctor Maynard; Mr. Grand and Mr. Lee; +and dozens of others—all our first people. No, sir; you mustn't judge +all by vagabonds like Joe Morgan." +</P> + +<P> +There was a testy spirit manifested that I did not care to provoke. I +could have met his assertion with facts and inferences of a character +to startle any one occupying his position, who was in a calm, +reflective state; but to argue with him then would have been worse than +idle; and so I let him talk on until the excitement occasioned by my +words died out for want of new fuel. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap03"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +NIGHT THE THIRD. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +JOE MORGAN'S CHILD. +</H3> + +<P> +"I don't see anything of your very particular friend, Joe Morgan, this +evening," said Harvey Green, leaning on the bar and speaking to Slade. +It was the night succeeding that on which the painful and exciting +scene with the child had occurred. +</P> + +<P> +"No," was answered—and to the word was added a profane imprecation. +"No; and if he'll just keep away from here, he may go to—on a +hard-trotting horse and a porcupine saddle as fast as he pleases. He's +tried my patience beyond endurance, and my mind is made up that he gets +no more drams at this bar. I've borne his vile tongue and seen my +company annoyed by him just as long as I mean to stand it. Last night +decided me. Suppose I'd killed that child?" +</P> + +<P> +"You'd have had trouble then, and no mistake." +</P> + +<P> +"Wouldn't I? Blast her little picture! What business has she creeping +in here every night?" +</P> + +<P> +"She must have a nice kind of a mother," remarked Green, with a cold +sneer. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know what she is now," said Slade, a slight touch of feeling +in his voice—"heart-broken, I suppose. I couldn't look at her last +night; it made me sick. But there was a time when Fanny Morgan was the +loveliest and best woman in Cedarville. I'll say that for her. Oh, +dear! What a life her miserable husband has caused her to lead." +</P> + +<P> +"Better that he were dead and out of the way." +</P> + +<P> +"Better a thousand times," answered Slade. "If he'd only fall down some +night and break his neck, it would be a blessing to his family." +</P> + +<P> +"And to you in particular," laughed Green. +</P> + +<P> +"You may be sure it wouldn't cost me a large sum for mourning," was the +unfeeling response. +</P> + +<P> +Let us leave the bar-room of the "Sickle and Sheaf," and its +cold-hearted inmates, and look in upon the family of Joe Morgan, and +see how it is in the home of the poor inebriate. We will pass by a +quick transition. +</P> + +<P> +"Joe!" The thin white hand of Mrs. Morgan clasps the arm of her +husband, who has arisen up suddenly, and now stands by the partly +opened door. "Don't go out to-night, Joe. Please, don't go out." +</P> + +<P> +"Father!" A feeble voice calls from the corner of an old settee, where +little Mary lies with her head bandaged. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I won't then!" is replied—not angrily, nor even fretfully—but +in a kind voice. +</P> + +<P> +"Come and sit by me, father." How tenderly, yet how full of concern is +that low, sweet voice. "Come, won't you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, dear." +</P> + +<P> +"Now hold my hand, father." +</P> + +<P> +Joe takes the hand of little Mary, that instantly tightens upon his. +</P> + +<P> +"You won't go away and leave me to-night, will you, father? Say you +won't." +</P> + +<P> +"How very hot your hand is, dear. Does your head ache?" +</P> + +<P> +"A little; but it will soon feel better." +</P> + +<P> +Up into the swollen and disfigured face of the fallen father, the +large, earnest blue eyes of the child are raised. She does not see the +marred lineaments; but only the beloved countenance of her parent. +</P> + +<P> +"Dear father!" +</P> + +<P> +"What, love?" +</P> + +<P> +"I wish you'd promise me something." +</P> + +<P> +"What, dear?" +</P> + +<P> +"Will you promise?" +</P> + +<P> +"I can't say until I hear your request. If I can promise, I will." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, you can promise—you can, father!" +</P> + +<P> +How the large blue eyes dance and sparkle! +</P> + +<P> +"What is it, love?" +</P> + +<P> +"That you will never go into Simon Slade's bar any more." +</P> + +<P> +The child raises herself, evidently with a painful effort; and leans +nearer to her father. +</P> + +<P> +Joe shakes his head, and poor Mary drops back upon her pillow with a +sigh. Her lids fall, and the long lashes lie strongly relieved on her +colorless cheeks. +</P> + +<P> +"I won't go there to-night, dear. So let your heart be at rest." +</P> + +<P> +Mary's lids unclose, and two round drops, released from their clasp, +glide slowly over her face. +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you, father—thank you. Mother will be so glad." +</P> + +<P> +The eyes closed again; and the father moved uneasily. His heart is +touched. There is a struggle within him. It is on his lips to say that +he will never drink at the "Sickle and Sheaf" again; but resolution +just lacks the force of utterance. +</P> + +<P> +"Father!" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, dear?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't, think I'll be well enough to go out in two or three days. You +know the doctor said that I would have to keep very still, for I had a +great deal of fever." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, poor child." +</P> + +<P> +"Now, won't you promise me one thing?" +</P> + +<P> +"What is it, dear?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not to go out in the evening until I get well." +</P> + +<P> +Joe Morgan hesitated. +</P> + +<P> +"Just promise me that, father. It won't be long; I shall be up again in +a little while." +</P> + +<P> +How well the father knows what is in the heart of his child. Her fears +are all for him. Who is to go up after her poor father, and lead him +home when the darkness of inebriety is on his spirit, and external +perception so dulled that not skill enough remains to shun the harm +that lies in his path? +</P> + +<P> +"Do promise just that, father, dear." +</P> + +<P> +He cannot resist the pleading voice and look. "I promise it, Mary; so +shut your eyes now and go to sleep. I'm afraid this fever will +increase." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! I'm so glad—so glad!" +</P> + +<P> +Mary does not clasp her hands, nor show strong external signs of +pleasure; but how full of a pure, unselfish joy is that low-murmured +ejaculation, spoken in the depths of her spirit, as well as syllabled +by her tongue! +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Morgan has been no unconcerned witness of all this; but knowing +the child's influence over her father, she has not ventured a word. +More was to be gained, she was sure, by silence on her part; and so she +kept silent. Now she comes nearer to them, and says, as she lets a hand +rest on the shoulder of her husband: +</P> + +<P> +"You feel better for that promise already; I know you do." +</P> + +<P> +He looks up to her, and smiles faintly. He does feel better, but is +hardly willing to acknowledge it. +</P> + +<P> +Soon after Mary is sleeping. It does not escape the observation of Mrs. +Morgan that her husband grows restless; for he gets up suddenly, every +now and then, and walks quickly across the room, as if in search of +something. Then sits down, listlessly—sighs—stretches himself, and +says, "Oh dear!" What shall she do for him? How is the want of his +accustomed evening stimulus to be met? She thinks, and questions, and +grieves inwardly. Poor Joe Morgan! His wife understands his case, and +pities him from her heart. But what can she do? Go out and get him +something to drink? "Oh, no! no! no! never!" She answered the thought +audibly almost, in the excitement of her feelings. An hour has +passed—Joe's restlessness has increased instead of diminishing. What +is to be done? Now Mrs. Morgan has left the room. She has resolved upon +something, for the case must be met. Ah! here she comes, after an +absence of five minutes, bearing in her hand a cup of strong coffee. +</P> + +<P> +"It was kind and thoughtful in you, Fanny," says Morgan, as with a +gratified look he takes the cup. But his hand trembles, and he spills a +portion of the contents as ho tries to raise it to his lips. How +dreadfully his nerves are shattered! Unnatural stimulants have been +applied so long, that all true vitality seems lost. And now the hand of +his wife is holding the cup to his lips, and he drinks eagerly. +</P> + +<P> +"This is dreadful—dreadful! Where will it end? What is to be done?" +</P> + +<P> +Fanny suppresses a sob, as she thus gives vent to her troubled +feelings. Twice, already, has her husband been seized with the +drunkard's madness; and, in the nervous prostration consequent upon +even a brief withdrawal of his usual strong stimulants, she sees the +fearful precursor of another attack of this dreadful and dangerous +malady. In the hope of supplying the needed tone she has given him +strong coffee; and this for the time, produces the effect desired. The +restlessness is allayed, and a quiet state of body and mind succeeds. +It needs but a suggestion to induce him to retire for the night. After +being a few minutes in bed, sleep steals over him, and his heavy +breathing tells that he is in the world of dreams. +</P> + +<P> +And now there comes a tap at the door. +</P> + +<P> +"Come in," is answered. +</P> + +<P> +The latch is lifted, the door swings open, and a woman enters. +</P> + +<P> +"Mrs. Slade!" The name is uttered in a tone of surprise. +</P> + +<P> +"Fanny, how are you this evening?" Kindly, yet half sadly, the words +are said. +</P> + +<P> +"Tolerable, I thank you." +</P> + +<P> +The hands of the two women are clasped, and for a few moments they gaze +into each other's face. What a world of tender commiseration is in that +of Mrs. Slade! +</P> + +<P> +"How is little Mary to-night?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not so well, I'm afraid. She has a good deal of fever." +</P> + +<P> +"Indeed! Oh, I'm sorry! Poor child! what a dreadful thing it was! Oh! +Fanny! you don't know how it has troubled me. I've been intending to +come around all day to see how she was, but couldn't get off until now." +</P> + +<P> +"It came near killing her," said Mrs. Morgan. +</P> + +<P> +"It's in God's mercy she escaped. The thought of it curdles the very +blood in my veins. Poor child! is this her on the settee?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Slade takes a chair, and sitting by the sleeping child, gazes long +upon her pale sweet face. Now the lips of Mary part—words are +murmured—what is she saying? +</P> + +<P> +"No, no, mother; I can't go to bed yet. Father isn't home. And it's so +dark. There's no one to lead him over the bridge. I'm not afraid. +Don't—don't cry so, mother—I'm not afraid! Nothing will hurt me." +</P> + +<P> +The child's face flushes. She moans, and throws her arms about +uneasily. Hark again. +</P> + +<P> +"I wish Mr. Slade wouldn't look so cross at me. He never did when I +went to the mill. He doesn't take me on his knee now, and stroke my +hair. Oh, dear! I wish father wouldn't go there any more. Don't, don't, +Mr. Slade. Oh! oh!"—the ejaculation prolonged into a frightened cry, +"My head! my head!" +</P> + +<P> +A few choking sobs are followed by low moans; and then the child +breathes easily again. But the flush does not leave her cheek; and when +Mrs. Slade, from whose eyes the tears come forth drop by drop, and roll +down her face, touches it lightly, she finds it hot with fever. +</P> + +<P> +"Has the doctor seen her to-day, Fanny?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, ma'am." +</P> + +<P> +"He should see her at once. I will go for him"; and Mrs. Slade starts +up and goes quickly from the room. In a little while she returns with +Doctor Green, who sits down and looks at the child for some moments +with a sober, thoughtful face. Then he lays his fingers on her pulse +and times its beat by his watch—shakes his head, and looks graver +still. +</P> + +<P> +"How long has she had fever?" he asks. +</P> + +<P> +"All day." +</P> + +<P> +"You should have sent for me earlier." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, doctor! She is not dangerous, I hope?" Mrs. Morgan looks +frightened. +</P> + +<P> +"She's a sick child, madam." +</P> + +<P> +"You've promised, father."—The dreamer is speaking again.—"I'm not +well enough yet. Oh, don't go, father; don't! There! He's gone! Well, +well! I'll try and walk there—I can sit down and rest by the way. Oh, +dear! How tired I am! Father! Father!" +</P> + +<P> +The child starts up and looks about her wildly. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, mother, is it you?" And she sinks back upon her pillow, looking +now inquiringly from face to face. +</P> + +<P> +"Father—where is father?" she asks. +</P> + +<P> +"Asleep, dear." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! Is he? I'm glad." +</P> + +<P> +Her eyes close wearily. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you feel any pain, Mary?" inquired the doctor. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, sir—in my head. It aches and beats so." +</P> + +<P> +The cry of "Father" had reached the ears of Morgan, who is sleeping in +the next room, and roused him into consciousness. He knows the doctor's +voice. Why is he here at this late hour? "Do you feel any pain, Mary?" +The question he hears distinctly, and the faintly uttered reply also. +He is sober enough to have all his fears instantly excited. There is +nothing in the world that he loves as he loves that child. And so he +gets up and dresses himself as quickly as possible; the stimulus of +anxiety giving tension to his relaxed nerves. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, father!" The quick ears of Mary detect his entrance first, and a +pleasant smile welcomes him. +</P> + +<P> +"Is she very sick, doctor?" he asks, in a voice full of anxiety. +</P> + +<P> +"She's a sick child, sir; you should have sent for me earlier." The +doctor speaks rather sternly, and with a purpose to rebuke. +</P> + +<P> +The reply stirs Morgan, and he seems to cower half timidly under the +words, as if they were blows. Mary has already grasped her father's +hand, and holds on to it tightly. +</P> + +<P> +After examining the case a little more closely, the doctor prepares +some medicine, and, promising to call early in the morning, goes away. +Mrs. Slade follows soon after; but, in parting with Mrs. Morgan, leaves +something in her hand, which, to the surprise of the latter, proves to +be a ten-dollar bill. The tears start to her eyes; and she conceals the +money in her bosom—murmuring a fervent "God bless her!" +</P> + +<P> +A simple act of restitution is this on the part of Mrs. Slade, prompted +as well by humanity as a sense of justice. With one hand her husband +has taken the bread from the family of his old friend, and thus with +the other she restores it. +</P> + +<P> +And now Morgan and his wife are alone with their sick child. Higher the +fever rises, and partial delirium seizes upon her over-excited brain. +She talks for a time almost incessantly. All her trouble is about her +father; and she is constantly referring to his promise not to go out in +the evening until she gets well. How tenderly and touchingly she +appeals to him; now looking up into his face in partial recognition; +and now calling anxiously after him, as if he had left her and was +going away. +</P> + +<P> +"You'll not forget your promise, will you, father?" she says, speaking +so calmly, that he thinks her mind has ceased to wander. +</P> + +<P> +"No, dear; I will not forget it," he answers, smoothing her hair gently +with his hand. +</P> + +<P> +"You'll not go out in the evening again, until I get well?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, dear." +</P> + +<P> +"Father!" +</P> + +<P> +"What, love?" +</P> + +<P> +"Stoop down closer; I don't want mother to hear; it will make her feel +so bad." +</P> + +<P> +The father bends his ear close to the lips of Mary. How he starts and +shudders! What has she said?—only these brief words: +</P> + +<P> +"I shall not get well, father; I'm going to die." +</P> + +<P> +The groans, impossible to repress, that issued through the lips of Joe +Morgan, startled the ears of his wife, and she came quickly to the +bedside. +</P> + +<P> +"What is it? What is the matter, Joe?" she inquired, with a look of +anxiety. +</P> + +<P> +"Hush, father. Don't tell her. I only said it to you." And Mary put a +finger on her lips, and looked mysterious. "There, mother—you go away; +you've got trouble enough, any how. Don't tell her, father." +</P> + +<P> +But the words, which came to him like a prophecy, awoke such pangs of +fear and remorse in the heart of Joe Morgan, that it was impossible for +him to repress the signs of pain. For some moments he gazed at his +wife—then stooping forward, suddenly, he buried his face in the +bed-clothes, and sobbed bitterly. +</P> + +<P> +A suggestion of the truth now flashed through the mind of Mrs. Morgan, +sending a thrill of pain along every nerve. Ere she had time to recover +herself, the low, sweet voice of Mary broke upon the hushed air of the +room, and she sung: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "Jesus can make a dying bed<BR> + Feel soft as downy pillows are,<BR> + While on His breast I lean my head,<BR> + And breathe my life out, sweetly, there."<BR> +</P> + +<P> +It was impossible for Mrs. Morgan longer to repress her feelings. As +the softly breathed strain died away, her sobs broke forth, and for a +time she wept violently. +</P> + +<P> +"There," said the child,—"I didn't mean to tell you. I only told +father, because—because he promised not to go to the tavern any more +until I got well; and I'm not going to get well. So, you see, mother, +he'll never go again—never—never—never. Oh, dear! how my head pains. +Mr. Slade threw it so hard. But it didn't strike father; and I'm so +glad. How it would have hurt him—poor father! But he'll never go there +any more; and that will be so good, won't it, mother?" +</P> + +<P> +A light broke over her face; but seeing that her mother still wept, she +said: +</P> + +<P> +"Don't cry. Maybe I'll be better." +</P> + +<P> +And then her eyes closed heavily, and she slept again. +</P> + +<P> +"Joe," said Mrs. Morgan, after she had in a measure recovered +herself—she spoke firmly—"Joe, did you hear what she said?" +</P> + +<P> +Morgan only answered with a groan. +</P> + +<P> +"Her mind wanders; and yet she may have spoken only the truth." +</P> + +<P> +He groaned again. +</P> + +<P> +"If she should die, Joe—" +</P> + +<P> +"Don't; oh, don't talk so, Fanny. She's not going to die. It's only +because she's a little light-headed." +</P> + +<P> +"Why is she light-headed, Joe?" +</P> + +<P> +"It's the fever—only the fever, Fanny." +</P> + +<P> +"It was the blow, and the wound on her head, that caused the fever. How +do we know the extent of injury on the brain? Doctor Green looked very +serious. I'm afraid, husband, that the worst is before us. I've borne +and suffered a great deal—only God knows how much—I pray that I may +have strength to bear this trial also. Dear child! She is better fitted +for heaven than for earth, and it may be that God is about to take her +to Himself. She's been a great comfort to me—and to you, Joe, more +like a guardian angel than a child." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Morgan had tried to speak very firmly; but as sentence followed +sentence, her voice lost more and more of its even tone. With the +closing words all self-control vanished; and she wept bitterly. What +could her feeble, erring husband do, but weep with her? +</P> + +<P> +"Joe,"—Mrs. Morgan aroused herself as quickly as possible, for she had +that to say which she feared she might not have the heart to +utter—"Joe, if Mary dies, you cannot forget the cause of her death." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Fanny! Fanny!" +</P> + +<P> +"Nor the hand that struck the cruel blow." +</P> + +<P> +"Forget it? Never! And if I forgive Simon Slade—" +</P> + +<P> +"Nor the place where the blow was dealt," said Mrs. Morgan, +interrupting him. +</P> + +<P> +"Poor—poor child!" moaned the conscience-stricken man. +</P> + +<P> +"Nor your promise, Joe—nor your promise given to our dying child." +</P> + +<P> +"Father! Father! Dear father!" Mary's eyes suddenly unclosed, as she +called her father eagerly. +</P> + +<P> +"Here I am, love. What is it?" And Joe Morgan pressed up to the bedside. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! it's you, father! I dreamed that you had gone out, and—and—but +you won't will you, dear father?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, love—no." +</P> + +<P> +"Never any more until I get well?" +</P> + +<P> +"I must go out to work, you know, Mary." +</P> + +<P> +"At night, father. That's what I mean. You won't, will you?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, dear, no." +</P> + +<P> +A soft smile trembled over the child's face; her eyelids drooped +wearily, and she fell off into slumber again. She seemed not so +restless as before—did not moan, nor throw herself about in her sleep. +</P> + +<P> +"She's better, I think," said Morgan, as he bent over her, and listened +to her softer breathing. +</P> + +<P> +"It seems so," replied his wife. "And now, Joe, you must go to bed +again. I will lie down here with Mary, and be ready to do any thing for +her that she may want." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't feel sleepy. I'm sure I couldn't close my eyes. So let me sit +up with Mary. You are tired and worn out." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Morgan looked earnestly into her husband's face. His eyes were +unusually bright, and she noticed a slight nervous restlessness about +his lips. She laid one of her hands on his, and perceived a slight +tremor. +</P> + +<P> +"You must go to bed," she spoke firmly. "I shall not let you sit up +with Mary. So go at once." And she drew him almost by force into the +next room. +</P> + +<P> +"It's no use, Fanny. There's not a wink of sleep in my eyes. I shall +lie awake anyhow. So do you get a little rest." Even as he spoke there +were nervous twitchings of his arms and shoulders; and as he entered +the chamber, impelled by his wife, he stopped suddenly and said: +</P> + +<P> +"What is that?" +</P> + +<P> +"Where?" asked Mrs. Morgan. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, it's nothing—I see. Only one of my old boots. I thought it a +great black cat." +</P> + +<P> +Oh! what a shudder of despair seized upon the heart of the wretched +wife. Too well she knew the fearful signs of that terrible madness from +which, twice before, he had suffered. She could have looked on calmly +and seen him die—but, "Not this—not this! Oh, Father in heaven!" she +murmured, with such a heart-sinking that it seemed as if life itself +would go out. +</P> + +<P> +"Get into bed, Joe; get into bed as quickly as possible." +</P> + +<P> +Morgan was now passive in the hands of his wife, and obeyed her almost +like a child. He had turned down the bed-clothes, and was about getting +in, when he started back, with a look of disgust and alarm. +</P> + +<P> +"There's nothing there, Joe. What's the matter with you?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sure I don't know, Fanny," and his teeth rattled together, as he +spoke. "I thought there was a great toad under the clothes." +</P> + +<P> +"How foolish you are!"—yet tears were blinding her eyes as she said +this. "It's only fancy. Get into bed and shut your eyes. I'll make you +another cup of strong coffee. Perhaps that will do you good. You're +only a little nervous. Mary's sickness has disturbed you." +</P> + +<P> +Joe looked cautiously under the bedclothes, as he lifted them up still +farther, and peered beneath. +</P> + +<P> +"You know there's nothing in your bed, see!" +</P> + +<P> +And Mrs. Morgan threw with a single jerk all the clothes upon the floor. +</P> + +<P> +"There now! look for yourself. Now shut your eyes," she continued as +she spread the sheet and quilt over him after his head was on the +pillow. "Shut them tight and keep them so until I boil the water and +make a cup of coffee You know as well as I do that it's nothing but +fancy." +</P> + +<P> +Morgan closed his eyes firmly, and drew the clothes over his head. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll be back in a few minutes" said his wife going hurriedly to the +door. Ere leaving, however she partly turned her head and glanced back. +There sat her husband upright and staring fearfully. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't Fanny! don't go away!" he cried in a frightened voice. +</P> + +<P> +Joe! Joe! why will you be so foolish? It's nothing but imagination. Now +do lie down and shut your eyes. Keep them shut. There now. +</P> + +<P> +And she laid a hand over his eyes and pressed it down tightly. +</P> + +<P> +"I wish Doctor Green was here," said the wretched man. "He could give +me something." +</P> + +<P> +"Shall I go for him?" +</P> + +<P> +"Go Fanny! Run over right quickly" +</P> + +<P> +"But you won't keep in bed" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes I will. There, now" And he drew the clothes over his face "There +I'll lie just so until you come back. Now run Fanny, and don't stay a +minute." +</P> + +<P> +Scarcely stopping to think Mrs. Morgan went hurriedly from the room and +drawing an old shawl over her head started with swift feet for the +residence of Doctor Green which was not very far away. The kind doctor +understood at a word the sad condition of her husband and promised to +attend him immediately. Back she flew at even a wilder speed her heart +throbbing with vague apprehension. Oh! what a fearful cry was that +which smote her ears as she came within a few paces of home. She knew +the voice, changed as it was by terror, and a shudder almost palsied +her heart. At a single bound she cleared the intervening space and in +the next moment was in the room where she had left her husband. But he +was not there! With suspended breath, and feet that scarcely obeyed her +will, she passed into the chamber where little Mary lay. Not here! +</P> + +<P> +"Joe! husband!" she called in a faint voice. +</P> + +<P> +"Here he is, mother." And now she saw that Joe had crept into the bed +behind the sick child and that her arm was drawn tightly around his +neck. +</P> + +<P> +"You won't let them hurt me, will you dear?" said the pool frightened +victim of a terrible mania. +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing will hurt you father," answered Mary, in a voice that showed +her mind to be clear, and fully conscious of her parent's true +condition. +</P> + +<P> +She had seen him thus before. Ah! what an experience for a child! +</P> + +<P> +"You're an angel—my good angel, Mary," he murmured, in a voice yet +trembling with fear "Pray for me, my child. Oh ask your father in +heaven to save me from these dreadful creatures. There now!" he cried, +rising up suddenly and looking toward the door. "Keep out! Go away! You +can't come in here. This is Mary's room, and she's an angel. Ah, ha! I +knew you wouldn't dare come in here— +</P> + +<P> + "A single saint can put to flight<BR> + Ten thousand blustering sons of night"<BR> +</P> + +<P> +He added in a half wandering way yet with an assured voice, as he laid +himself back upon his pillow and drew the clothes over his head. +</P> + +<P> +"Poor father!" sighed the child as she gathered both arms about his +neck! "I will be your good angel. Nothing shall hurt you here." +</P> + +<P> +"I knew I would be safe where you were," he whispered—"I knew it, and +so I came. Kiss me, love." +</P> + +<P> +How pure and fervent was the kiss laid instantly upon his lips! There +was a power in it to remand the evil influences that were surrounding +and pressing in upon him like a flood. All was quiet now, and Mrs. +Morgan neither by word nor movement disturbed the solemn stillness that +reigned in the apartment. In a few minutes the deepened breathing of +her husband gave a blessed intimation that he was sinking into sleep. +Oh, sleep! sleep! How tearfully, in times past, had she prayed that he +might sleep; and yet no sleep came for hours and days—even though +powerful opiates were given—until exhausted nature yielded, and then +sleep had a long, long struggle with death. Now the sphere of his +loving, innocent child seemed to have overcome, at least for the time, +the evil influences that were getting possession even of his external +senses. Yes, yes, he was sleeping! Oh, what a fervent "Thank God!" went +up from the heart of his stricken wife. +</P> + +<P> +Soon the quick ears of Mrs. Morgan detected the doctor's approaching +footsteps, and she met him at the door with a finger on her lips. A +whispered word or two explained the better aspect of affairs, and the +doctor said, encouragingly: +</P> + +<P> +"That's good, if he will only sleep on." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you think he will, doctor?" was asked anxiously. +</P> + +<P> +"He may. But we cannot hope too strongly. It would be something very +unusual." +</P> + +<P> +Both passed noiselessly into the chamber. Morgan still slept, and by +his deep breathing it was plain that he slept soundly. And Mary, too, +was sleeping, her face now laid against her father's, and her arms +still about his neck. The sight touched even the doctor's heart and +moistened his eyes. For nearly half an hour he remained; and then, as +Morgan continued to sleep, he left medicine to be given immediately, +and went home, promising to call early in the morning. +</P> + +<P> +It is now past midnight, and we leave the lonely, sad-hearted watcher +with her sick ones. +</P> + +<P> +I was sitting, with a newspaper in my hand—not reading, but musing—at +the "Sickle and Sheaf," late in the evening marked by the incidents +just detailed. +</P> + +<P> +"Where's your mother?" I heard Simon Slade inquire. He had just entered +an adjoining room. +</P> + +<P> +"She's gone out somewhere," was answered by his daughter Flora. +</P> + +<P> +"Where?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know." +</P> + +<P> +"How long has she been away?" +</P> + +<P> +"More than an hour." +</P> + +<P> +"And you don't know where she went to?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, sir." +</P> + +<P> +Nothing more was said, but I heard the landlord's heavy feet moving +backward and forward across the room for some minutes. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, Ann! where have you been?" The door of the next room had opened +and shut. +</P> + +<P> +"Where I wish you had been with me," was answered in a very firm voice. +</P> + +<P> +"Where?" +</P> + +<P> +"To Joe Morgan's." +</P> + +<P> +"Humph!" Only this ejaculation met my ears. But something was said in a +low voice, to which Mrs. Slade replied with some warmth: +</P> + +<P> +"If you don't have his child's blood clinging for life to your +garments, you may be thankful." +</P> + +<P> +"What do you mean?" he asked, quickly. +</P> + +<P> +"All that my words indicate. Little Mary is very ill!" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, what of it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Much. The doctor thinks her in great danger. The cut on her head has +thrown her into a violent fever, and she is delirious. Oh, Simon! if +you had heard what I heard to-night." +</P> + +<P> +"What?" was asked in a growling tone. +</P> + +<P> +"She is out of her mind, as I said, and talks a great deal. She talked +about you." +</P> + +<P> +"Of me! Well, what had she to say?" +</P> + +<P> +"She said—so pitifully—'I wish Mr. Slade wouldn't look so cross at +me. He never did when I went to the mill. He doesn't take me on his +knee now, and stroke my hair. Oh, dear!' Poor child! She was always so +good." +</P> + +<P> +"Did she say that?" Slade seemed touched. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, and a great deal more. Once she screamed out, 'Oh, don't! don't, +Mr. Slade! don't! My head! my head!' It made my very heart ache. I can +never forget her pale, frightened face, nor her cry of fear. Simon—if +she should die!" +</P> + +<P> +There was a long silence. +</P> + +<P> +"If we were only back to the mill." It was Mrs. Slade's voice. +</P> + +<P> +"There, now! I don't want to hear that again," quickly spoke out the +landlord. "I made a slave of myself long enough." +</P> + +<P> +"You had at least a clear conscience," his wife answered. +</P> + +<P> +"Do hush, will you?" Slade was now angry. "One would think, by the way +you talk sometimes, that I had broken every command of the Decalogue." +</P> + +<P> +"You will break hearts as well as commandments, if you keep on for a +few years as you have begun—and ruin souls as well as fortunes." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Slade spoke calmly, but with marked severity of tone. Her husband +answered with an oath, and then left the room, banging the door after +him. In the hush that followed I retired to my chamber, and lay for an +hour awake, pondering on all I had just heard. What a revelation was in +that brief passage of words between the landlord and his excited +companion! +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap04"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +NIGHT THE FOURTH. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +DEATH OF LITTLE MARY MORGAN. +</H3> + +<P> +"Where are you going, Ann?" It was the landlord's voice. Time—a little +after dark. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm going over to see Mrs. Morgan," answered his wife. +</P> + +<P> +"What for?" +</P> + +<P> +"I wish to go," was replied. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I don't wish you to go," said Slade, in a very decided way. +</P> + +<P> +"I can't help that, Simon. Mary, I'm told, is dying, and Joe is in a +dreadful way. I'm needed there—and so are you, as to that matter. +There was a time when, if word came to you that Morgan or his family +were in trouble—" +</P> + +<P> +"Do hush, will you!" exclaimed the landlord, angrily. "I won't be +preached to in this way any longer." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, well; then don't interfere with my movements, Simon; that's all I +have to say. I'm needed over there, as I just said, and I'm going." +</P> + +<P> +There were considerable odds against him, and Slade, perceiving this, +turned off, muttering something that his wife did not hear, and she +went on her way. A hurried walk brought her to the wretched home of the +poor drunkard, whose wife met her at the door. +</P> + +<P> +"How is Mary?" was the visitor's earnest inquiry. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Morgan tried to answer the question; but, though her lips moved, +no sounds issued therefrom. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Slade pressed her hands tightly in both of hers; and then passed +in with her to the room where the child lay. A stance sufficed to tell +Mrs. Slade that death had already laid his icy fingers upon her brow. +</P> + +<P> +"How are you, dear?" she asked, as she bent over and kissed her. +</P> + +<P> +"Better, I thank you!" replied Mary, in a low whisper. +</P> + +<P> +Then she fixed her eyes upon her mother's face with a look of inquiry. +</P> + +<P> +"What is it, love?" +</P> + +<P> +"Hasn't father waked up yet?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, dear." +</P> + +<P> +"Won't he wake up soon?" +</P> + +<P> +"He's sleeping very soundly. I wouldn't like to disturb him." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, no; don't disturb him. I thought, maybe, he was awake." +</P> + +<P> +And the child's lids drooped languidly, until the long lashes lay close +against her cheeks. +</P> + +<P> +There was silence for a little while, and then Mrs. Morgan said in a +half-whisper to Mrs. Slade: +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, we've had such a dreadful time with poor Joe. He got in that +terrible way again last night. I had to go for Doctor Green and leave +him all alone. When I came back, he was in bed with Mary; and she, dear +child, had her arms around his neck, and was trying to comfort him; and +would you believe it, he went off to sleep, and slept in that way for a +long time. The doctor came, and when he saw how it was, left some +medicine for him, and went away. I was in such hopes that he would +sleep it all off. But about twelve o'clock he started up, and sprung +out of bed with an awful scream. Poor Mary! she too had fallen asleep. +The cry wakened her, and frightened her dreadfully. She's been getting +worse ever since, Mrs. Slade. +</P> + +<P> +"Just as he was rushing out of the room, I caught him by the arm, and +it took all my strength to hold him. +</P> + +<P> +"'Father! father!' Mary called after him as soon as she was awake +enough to understand what was the matter—'Don't go out, father; +there's nothing here.' +</P> + +<P> +"He looked back toward the bed, in a frightful way. +</P> + +<P> +"'See, father!' and the dear child turned down the quilt and sheet, in +order to convince him that nothing was in the bed. 'I'm here,' she +added. 'I'm not afraid. Come, father. If there's nothing here to hurt +me, there's nothing to hurt you.' +</P> + +<P> +"There was something so assuring in this, that Joe took a step or two +toward the bed, looking sharply into it as he did so. From the bed his +eyes wandered up to the ceiling, and the old look of terror came into +his face. +</P> + +<P> +"'There it is now! Jump out of bed, quick! Jump out, Mary!' he cried. +'See! it's right over your head.' +</P> + +<P> +"Mary showed no sign of fear as she lifted her eyes to the ceiling, and +gazed steadily for a few moments in that direction. +</P> + +<P> +"'There's nothing there, father,' said she, in a confident voice. +</P> + +<P> +"'It's gone now,' Joe spoke in a tone of relief. 'Your angel-look drove +it away. Aha! There it is now, creeping along the floor!' he suddenly +exclaimed, fearfully; starting away from where he stood. +</P> + +<P> +"'Here, father'! Here!' Mary called to him, and he sprung into the bed +again; while she gathered her arms about him tightly, saying in a low, +soothing voice, 'Nothing can harm you here, father.' +</P> + +<P> +"Without a moment's delay, I gave him the morphine left by Doctor +Green. He took it eagerly, and then crouched down in the bed, while +Mary continued to assure him of perfect safety. So long as he was +clearly conscious as to where he was, he remained perfectly still. But, +as soon as partial slumber came, he would scream out, and spring from +the bed in terror and then it would take us several minutes to quiet +him again. Six times during the night did this occur; and as often, +Mary coaxed him back. The morphine I continued to give as the doctor +had directed. By morning, the opiates had done their work, and he was +sleeping soundly. When the doctor came, we removed him to his own bed. +He is still asleep; and I begin to feel uneasy, lest he should never +awake again. I have heard of this happening." +</P> + +<P> +"See if father isn't awake," said Mary, raising her head from the +pillow. She had not heard what passed between her mother and Mrs. +Slade, for the conversation was carried on in low voices. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Morgan stepped to the door, and looked into the room where her +husband lay. +</P> + +<P> +"He is still asleep, dear," she remarked, coming back to the bed. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! I wish he was awake. I want to see him so much. Won't you call +him, mother?" +</P> + +<P> +"I have called him a good many times. But you know the doctor gave him +opium. He can't wake up yet." +</P> + +<P> +"He's been sleeping a very long time; don't you think so, mother?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, dear, it does seem a long time. But it is best for him. He'll be +better when he wakes." +</P> + +<P> +Mary closed her eyes, wearily. How deathly white was her face—how +sunken her eyes—how sharply contracted her features! +</P> + +<P> +"I've given her up, Mrs. Slade," said Mrs. Morgan, in a low, rough, +choking whisper, as she leaned nearer to her friend. "I've given her +up! The worst is over; but, oh! it seemed as though my heart would +break in the struggle. Dear child! In all the darkness of my way, she +has helped and comforted me. Without her, it would have been the +blackness of darkness." +</P> + +<P> +"Father! father!" The voice of Mary broke out with a startling +quickness. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Morgan turned to the bed, and laying her hand on Mary's arm said: +</P> + +<P> +"He's still sound asleep, dear." +</P> + +<P> +"No, he isn't, mother. I heard him move. Won't you go in and see if he +is awake?" +</P> + +<P> +In order to satisfy the child, her mother left the room. To her +surprise, she met the eyes of her husband as she entered the chamber +where he lay. He looked at her calmly. +</P> + +<P> +"What does Mary want with me?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"She wishes to see you. She's called you so many times. Shall I bring +her in here?" +</P> + +<P> +"No. I'll get up and dress myself." +</P> + +<P> +"I wouldn't do that. You've been sick." +</P> + +<P> +"Father! father!" The clear, earnest voice of Mary was heard calling. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm coming, dear," answered Morgan. +</P> + +<P> +"Come quick, father, won't you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, love." And Morgan got up and dressed himself—but with unsteady +hands, and every sign of nervous prostration. In a little while, with +the assistance of his wife, he was ready, and supported by her, came +tottering into the room where Mary was lying. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, father!"—What a light broke over her countenance.—"I've been +waiting for you so long. I thought you were never going to wake up. +Kiss me, father." +</P> + +<P> +"What can I do for you, Mary?" asked Morgan, tenderly, as he laid his +face down upon the pillow beside her. +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing, father. I don't wish for anything. I only wanted to see you." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm here now, love." +</P> + +<P> +"Dear father!" How earnestly, yet tenderly she spoke, laying her small +hand upon his face. "You've always been good to me, father." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, no. I've never been good to anybody," sobbed the weak, +broken-spirited man, as he raised himself from the pillow. +</P> + +<P> +How deeply touched was Mrs. Slade, as she sat, the silent witness of +this scene! +</P> + +<P> +"You haven't been good to yourself, father—but you've always been good +to us." +</P> + +<P> +"Don't, Mary! don't say anything about that," interrupted Morgan. "Say +that I've been very bad—very wicked. Oh, Mary, dear! I only wish that +I was as good as you are; I'd like to die, then, and go right away from +this evil world. I wish there was no liquor to drink—no taverns—no +bar-rooms. Oh, dear! Oh, dear! I wish I was dead." +</P> + +<P> +And the weak, trembling, half-palsied man laid his face again upon the +pillow beside his child, and sobbed aloud. +</P> + +<P> +What an oppressive silence reigned for a time through the room! +</P> + +<P> +"Father." The stillness was broken by Mary. Her voice was clear and +even. "Father, I want to tell you something." +</P> + +<P> +"What is it, Mary?" +</P> + +<P> +"There'll be nobody to go for you, father." The child's lips now +quivered, and tears filled into her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't talk about that, Mary. I'm not going out in the evening any more +until you get well. Don't you remember I promised?" +</P> + +<P> +"But, father"—She hesitated. +</P> + +<P> +"What, dear?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm going away to leave you and mother." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, no—no—no, Mary! Don't say that."—The poor man's voice was +broken.—"Don't say that! We can't let you go, dear." +</P> + +<P> +"God has called me." The child's voice had a solemn tone, and her eyes +turned reverently upward. +</P> + +<P> +"I wish He would call me! Oh, I wish He would call me!" groaned Morgan, +hiding his face in his hands. "What shall I do when you are gone? Oh, +dear! Oh. dear!" +</P> + +<P> +"Father!" Mary spoke calmly again. "You are not ready to go yet. God +will let you live here longer, that you may get ready." +</P> + +<P> +"How can I get ready without you to help me, Mary? My angel child!" +</P> + +<P> +"Haven't I tried to help you, father, oh, so many times?" said Mary. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes—yes—you've always tried." +</P> + +<P> +"But it wasn't any use. You would go out—you would go to the tavern. +It seemed most as if you couldn't help it." +</P> + +<P> +Morgan groaned in spirit. +</P> + +<P> +"Maybe I can help you better, father, after I die. I love you so much, +that I am sure God will let me come to you, and stay with you always, +and be your angel. Don't you think he will, mother?" +</P> + +<P> +But Mrs. Morgan's heart was too full. She did not even try to answer, +but sat, with streaming eyes, gazing upon her child's face. +</P> + +<P> +"Father. I dreamed something about you, while I slept to-day." Mary +again turned to her father. +</P> + +<P> +"What was it, dear?" +</P> + +<P> +"I thought it was night, and that I was still sick. You promised not to +go out again until I was well. But you did go out; and I thought you +went over to Mr. Slade's tavern. When I knew this, I felt as strong as +when I was well, and I got up and dressed myself, and started out after +you. But I hadn't gone far, before I met Mr. Slade's great bull-dog, +Nero, and he growled at me so dreadfully that I was frightened and ran +back home. Then I started again, and went away round by Mr. Mason's. +But there was Nero in the road, and this time he caught my dress in his +mouth and tore a great piece out of the skirt. I ran back again, and he +chased me all the way home. Just as I got to the door. I looked around, +and there was Mr. Slade, setting Nero on me. As soon as I saw Mr. +Slade, though he looked at me very wicked, I lost all my fear, and +turning around, I walked past Nero, who showed his teeth, and growled +as fiercely as ever, but didn't touch me. Then Mr. Slade tried to stop +me. But I didn't mind him, and kept right on, until I came to the +tavern, and there you stood in the door. And you were dressed so nice. +You had on a new hat and a new coat; and your boots were new, and +polished just like Judge Hammond's. I said: 'Oh father! is this you?' +And then you took me up in your arms and kissed me, and said: 'Yes, +Mary, I am your real father. Not old Joe Morgan—but Mr. Morgan now.' +It seemed all so strange, that I looked into the bar-room to see who +was there. But it wasn't a bar-room any longer; but a store full of +goods. The sign of the 'Sickle and Sheaf' was taken down; and over the +door I now read your name, father. Oh! I was so glad, that I awoke—and +then I cried all to myself, for it was only a dream." +</P> + +<P> +The last words were said very mournfully, and with a drooping of Mary's +lids, until the tear-gemmed lashes lay close upon her cheeks. Another +period of deep silence followed—for the oppressed listeners gave no +utterance to what was in their hearts. Feeling was too strong for +speech. Nearly five minutes glided away, and then Mary whispered the +name of her father, but without opening her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +Morgan answered, and bent down his ear. +</P> + +<P> +"You will only have mother left," she said—"only mother. And she cries +so much when you are away." +</P> + +<P> +"I won't leave her, Mary, only when I go to work," said Morgan, +whispering back to the child. "And I'll never go out at night any more." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes; you promised me that." +</P> + +<P> +"And I'll promise more." +</P> + +<P> +"What, father?" +</P> + +<P> +"Never to go into a tavern again." +</P> + +<P> +"Never!" +</P> + +<P> +"No, never. And I'll promise still more." +</P> + +<P> +"Father?" +</P> + +<P> +"Never to drink a drop of liquor as long as I live." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, father! dear, dear father!" And with a cry of joy Mary started up +and flung herself upon his breast. Morgan drew his arms tightly around +her, and sat for a long time, with his lips pressed to her cheek—while +she lay against his bosom as still as death. As death? Yes: for when +the father unclasped his arms, the spirit of his child was with the +angels of the resurrection! +</P> + +<P> +It was my fourth evening in the bar-room of the 'Sickle and Sheaf'. The +company was not large, nor in very gay spirits. All had heard of little +Mary's illness; which followed so quickly on the blow from the tumbler, +that none hesitated about connecting the one with the other. So regular +had been the child's visits, and so gently excited, yet powerful her +influence over her father, that most of the frequenters at the 'Sickle +and Sheaf' had felt for her a more than common interest; which the +cruel treatment she received, and the subsequent illness, materially +heightened. +</P> + +<P> +"Joe Morgan hasn't turned up this evening," remarked some one. +</P> + +<P> +"And isn't likely to for a while" was answered. +</P> + +<P> +"Why not?" inquired the first speaker. +</P> + +<P> +"They say the man with the poker is after him." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, dear that's dreadful. Its the second or third chase, isn't it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +"He'll be likely to catch him this time." +</P> + +<P> +"I shouldn't wonder." +</P> + +<P> +"Poor devil! It won't be much matter. His family will be a great deal +better without him." +</P> + +<P> +"It will be a blessing to them if he dies." +</P> + +<P> +"Miserable, drunken wretch!" muttered Harvey Green who was present. +"He's only in the way of everybody. The sooner he's off, the better." +</P> + +<P> +The landlord said nothing. He stood leaning across the bar, looking +more sober than usual. +</P> + +<P> +"That was rather an unlucky affair of yours Simon. They say the child +is going to die." +</P> + +<P> +"Who says so?" Slade started, scowled and threw a quick glance upon the +speaker. +</P> + +<P> +"Doctor Green." +</P> + +<P> +"Nonsense! Doctor Green never said any such thing." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, he did though." +</P> + +<P> +"Who heard him?" +</P> + +<P> +"I did." +</P> + +<P> +"You did?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +"He wasn't in earnest?" A slight paleness overspread the countenance of +the landlord. "He was, though. They had an awful time there last night." +</P> + +<P> +"Where?" +</P> + +<P> +"At Joe Morgan's. Joe has the mania, and Mrs. Morgan was alone with him +and her sick girl all night." +</P> + +<P> +"He deserves to have it; that's all I've got to say." Slade tried to +speak with a kind of rough indifference. +</P> + +<P> +"That's pretty hard talk," said one of the company. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't care if it is. It's the truth. What else could he expect?" +</P> + +<P> +"A man like Joe is to be pitied," remarked the other. +</P> + +<P> +"I pity his family," said Slade. +</P> + +<P> +"Especially little Mary." The words were uttered tauntingly, and +produced murmurs of satisfaction throughout the room. +</P> + +<P> +Slade started back from where he stood, in an impatient manner, saying +something that I did not hear. +</P> + +<P> +"Look here, Simon, I heard some strong suggestions over at Lawyer +Phillips' office to-day." +</P> + +<P> +Slade turned his eyes upon the speaker. +</P> + +<P> +"If that child should die, you'll probably have to stand a trial for +man-slaughter." +</P> + +<P> +"No—girl-slaughter," said Harvey Green, with a cold, inhuman chuckle. +</P> + +<P> +"But I'm in earnest." said the other. "Mr. Phillips said that a case +could be made out of it." +</P> + +<P> +"It was only an accident, and all the lawyers in Christendom can't make +anything more of it," remarked Green, taking the side of the landlord, +and speaking with more gravity than before. +</P> + +<P> +"Hardly an accident," was replied. +</P> + +<P> +"He didn't throw at the girl." +</P> + +<P> +"No matter. He threw a heavy tumbler at her father's head. The +intention was to do an injury; and the law will not stop to make any +nice discriminations in regard to the individual upon whom the injury +was wrought. Moreover, who is prepared to say that he didn't aim at the +girl?" +</P> + +<P> +"Any man who intimates such a thing is a cursed liar!" exclaimed the +landlord, half maddened by the suggestion. +</P> + +<P> +"I won't throw a tumbler at your head," coolly remarked the individual +whose plain speaking had so irritated Simon Slade, "Throwing tumblers I +never thought a very creditable kind of argument—though with some men, +when cornered, it is a favorite mode of settling a question. Now, as +for our friend the landlord, I am sorry to say that his new business +doesn't seem to have improved his manners or his temper a great deal. +As a miller, he was one of the best-tempered men in the world, and +wouldn't have harmed a kitten. But, now, he can swear, and bluster, and +throw glasses at people's heads, and all that sort of thing, with the +best of brawling rowdies. I'm afraid he's taking lessons in a bad +school—I am." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't think you have any right to insult a man in his own house," +answered Slade, in a voice dropped to a lower key than the one in which +he had before spoken. +</P> + +<P> +"I had no intention to insult you," said the other. "I was only +speaking supposititiously, and in view of your position on a trial for +manslaughter, when I suggested that no one could prove, or say that you +didn't mean to strike little Mary, when you threw the tumbler." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I didn't mean to strike her: and I don't believe there is a man +in this bar-room who thinks that I did—not one." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sure I do not," said the individual with whom he was in +controversy. "Nor I"—"Nor I" went round the room. +</P> + +<P> +"But, as I wished to set forth," was continued, "the case will not be +so plain a one when it finds its way into court, and twelve men, to +each of whom you may be a stranger, come to sit in judgment upon the +act. The slightest twist in the evidence, the prepossessions of a +witness, or the bad tact of the prosecution, may cause things to look +so dark on your side as to leave you but little chance. For my part, if +the child should die, I think your chances for a term in the state's +prison are as eight to ten; and I should call that pretty close +cutting." +</P> + +<P> +I looked attentively at the man who said this, all the while he was +speaking, but could not clearly make out whether he were altogether in +earnest, or merely trying to worry the mind of Slade. That he was +successful in accomplishing the latter, was very plain; for the +landlord's countenance steadily lost color, and became overcast with +alarm. With that evil delight which some men take in giving pain, +others, seeing Slade's anxious looks, joined in the persecution, and +soon made the landlord's case look black enough; and the landlord +himself almost as frightened as a criminal just under arrest. +</P> + +<P> +"It's bad business, and no mistake," said one. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, bad enough. I wouldn't be in his shoes for his coat," remarked +another. +</P> + +<P> +"For his coat? No, not for his whole wardrobe," said a third. +</P> + +<P> +"Nor for the 'Sickle and Sheaf thrown into the bargain," added a fourth. +</P> + +<P> +"It will be a clear case of manslaughter, and no mistake. What is the +penalty?" +</P> + +<P> +"From two to ten years in the penitentiary," was readily answered. +</P> + +<P> +"They'll give him five. I reckon." +</P> + +<P> +"No—not more than two. It will be hard to prove malicious intention." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know that. I've heard him curse the girl and threaten her many +a time. Haven't you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes"—"Yes"—"I have, often," ran round the bar-room. +</P> + +<P> +"You'd better hang me at once," said Slade, affecting to laugh. +</P> + +<P> +At this moment, the door behind Slade opened, and I saw his wife's +anxious face thrust in for a moment. She said something to her husband, +who uttered a low ejaculation of surprise, and went out quickly. +</P> + +<P> +"What's the matter now?" asked one of another. +</P> + +<P> +"I shouldn't wonder if little Mary Morgan was dead," was suggested. +</P> + +<P> +"I heard her say dead," remarked one who was standing near the bar. +</P> + +<P> +"What's the matter, Frank?" inquired several voices, as the landlord's +son came in through the door out of which his father had passed. +</P> + +<P> +"Mary Morgan is dead," answered the boy. +</P> + +<P> +"Poor child! Poor child!" sighed one, in genuine regret at the not +unlooked for intelligence. "Her trouble is over." +</P> + +<P> +And there was not one present, but Harvey Green, who did not utter some +word of pity or sympathy. He shrugged his shoulders, and looked as much +of contempt and indifference as he thought it prudent to express. +</P> + +<P> +"See here, boys," spoke out one of the company, "can't we do something +for poor Mrs. Morgan? Can't we make up a purse for her?" +</P> + +<P> +"That's it," was quickly responded; "I'm good for three dollars; and +there they are," drawing out the money and laying it upon the counter. +</P> + +<P> +"And here are five to go with them," said I, quickly stepping forward, +and placing a five-dollar bill along side of the first contribution. +</P> + +<P> +"Here are five more," added a third individual. And so it went on, +until thirty dollars were paid down for the benefit of Mrs. Morgan. +</P> + +<P> +"Into whose hands shall this be placed?" was next asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Let me suggest Mrs. Slade," said I. "To my certain knowledge, she has +been with Mrs. Morgan to-night. I know that she feels in her a true +woman's interest." +</P> + +<P> +"Just the person," was answered. "Frank, tell your mother we would like +to see her. Ask her to step into the sitting-room." +</P> + +<P> +In a few moments the boy came back, and said that his mother would see +us in the next room, into which we all passed. Mrs. Slade stood near +the table, on which burned a lamp. I noticed that her eyes were red, +and that there was on her countenance a troubled and sorrowful +expression. +</P> + +<P> +"We have just heard," said one of the company, "that little Mary Morgan +is dead." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes—it is too true," answered Mrs. Slade, mournfully. "I have just +left there. Poor child! she has passed from an evil world." +</P> + +<P> +"Evil it has indeed been to her," was remarked. +</P> + +<P> +"You may well say that. And yet, amid all the evil, she been an angel +of mercy. Her last thought in dying was of her miserable father. For +him, at any time, she would have laid down her life willingly." +</P> + +<P> +"Her mother must be nearly broken-hearted. Mary is the last of her +children." +</P> + +<P> +"And yet the child's death may prove a blessing to her." +</P> + +<P> +"How so?" +</P> + +<P> +"Her father promised Mary, just at the last moment—solemnly promised +her—that, henceforth, he would never taste liquor. That was all her +trouble. That was the thorn in her dying pillow. But he plucked it out, +and she went to sleep, lying against his heart. Oh, gentlemen! it was +the most touching sight I ever saw." +</P> + +<P> +All present seemed deeply moved. +</P> + +<P> +"They are very poor and wretched." was said. +</P> + +<P> +"Poor and miserable enough," answered Mrs.' Slade. +</P> + +<P> +"We have just been taking up a collection for Mrs. Morgan. Here is the +money, Mrs. Slade—thirty dollars—we place it in your hands for her +benefit. Do with it, for her, as you may see best." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, gentlemen!" What a quick gleam went over the face of Mrs. Slade. +"I thank you, from my heart, in the name of that unhappy one, for this +act of true benevolence. To you the sacrifice has been small, to her +the benefit will be great indeed. A new life will, I trust be commenced +by her husband, and this timely aid will be something to rest upon, +until he can get into better employment than he now has. Oh, gentlemen! +let me urge on you, one and all, to make common cause in favor of Joe +Morgan. His purposes are good now, he means to keep his promise to his +dying child—means to reform his life. Let good impulses that led to +that act of relief further prompt you to watch over him and, if you see +him about going astray, to lead him kindly back into the right path. +Never—oh' never encourage him to drink, but rather take the glass from +his hand, if his own appetite lead him aside and by all the persuasive +influence you possess, induce him to go out from the place of +temptation. +</P> + +<P> +"Pardon my boldness in saying so much" added Mrs. Slade, recollecting +herself and coloring deeply as she did so "My feelings have led me +away." +</P> + +<P> +And she took the money from the table where it had been placed, and +retired toward the door. +</P> + +<P> +"You have spoken well madam" was answered "And we thank you for +reminding us of our duty." +</P> + +<P> +"One word more—and forgive the earnest heart from which it +comes"—said Mrs. Slade in a voice that trembled on the words she +uttered "I cannot help speaking, gentlemen! Think if some of you be not +entering the road wherein Joe Morgan has so long been walking. Save him +in heaven's name! but see that ye do not yourselves become castaways!" +</P> + +<P> +As she said this she glided through the door and it closed after her. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know what her husband would say to that," was remarked after a +few moments of surprised silence. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't care what HE would say, but I'll tell you what <I>I</I> will say" +spoke out a man whom I had several times noticed as a rather a free +tippler "The old lady has given us capital advice, and I mean to take +it, for one. I'm going to try to save Joe Morgan, and—myself too. I've +already entered the road she referred to; but I'm going to turn back. +So good-night to you all; and if Simon Slade gets no more of my +sixpences, he may thank his wife for it—God bless her!" +</P> + +<P> +And the man drew his hat with a jerk over his forehead, and left +immediately. +</P> + +<P> +This seemed the signal for dispersion, and all retired—not by way of +the bar-room, but out into the hall, and through the door leading upon +the porch that ran along in front of the house. Soon after the bar was +closed, and a dead silence reigned throughout the house. I saw no more +of Slade that night. Early in the morning, I left Cedarville; the +landlord looked very sober when he bade me good-bye through the +stage-door, and wished me a pleasant journey. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap05"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +NIGHT THE FIFTH. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +SOME OF THE CONSEQUENCES OF TAVERN-KEEPING. +</H3> + +<P> +Nearly five years glided away before business again called me to +Cedarville. I knew little of what passed there in the interval, except +that Simon Slade had actually been indicted for manslaughter, in +causing the death of Morgan's child. He did not stand a trial, however, +Judge Lyman having used his influence, successfully, in getting the +indictment quashed. The judge, some people said, interested himself in +Slade more than was just seemly—especially, as he had, on several +occasions, in the discharge of his official duties, displayed what +seemed an over-righteous indignation against individuals arraigned for +petty offences. The impression made upon me by Judge Lyman had not been +favorable. He seemed a cold, selfish, scheming man of the world. That +he was an unscrupulous politician, was plain to me, in a single +evening's observation of his sayings and doings among the common herd +of a village bar-room. +</P> + +<P> +As the stage rolled, with a gay flourish of our driver's bugle, into +the village, I noted here and there familiar objects, and marked the +varied evidences of change. Our way was past the elegant residence and +grounds of Judge Hammond, the most beautiful and highly cultivated in +Cedarville. At least, such it was regarded at the time of my previous +visit. But, the moment my eyes rested upon the dwelling and its various +surroundings, I perceived an altered aspect. Was it the simple work of +time? or, had familiarity with other and more elegantly arranged +suburban homes, marred this in my eyes by involuntary contrast? Or had +the hand of cultivation really been stayed, and the marring fingers of +neglect suffered undisturbed to trace on every thing disfiguring +characters? +</P> + +<P> +Such questions were in my thoughts, when I saw a man in the large +portico of the dwelling, the ample columns of which, capped in rich +Corinthian, gave the edifice the aspect of a Grecian temple. He stood +leaning against one of the columns—his hat off, and his long gray hair +thrown back and resting lightly on his neck and shoulders. His head was +bent down upon his breast, and he seemed in deep abstraction. Just as +the coach swept by, he looked up, and in the changed features I +recognized Judge Hammond. His complexion was still florid, but his face +had grown thin, and his eyes were sunken. Trouble was written in every +lineament. Trouble? How inadequately does the word express my meaning! +Ah! at a single glance, what a volume of suffering was opened to the +gazer's eye. Not lightly had the foot of time rested there, as if +treading on odorous flowers, but heavily, and with iron-shod heel. This +I saw at a glance; and then, only the image of the man was present to +my inner vision, for the swiftly rolling stage-coach had borne me +onward past the altered home of the wealthiest denizen of Cedarville. +In a few minutes our driver reined up before the "Sickle and Sheaf," +and as I stepped to the ground, a rotund, coarse, red-faced man, whom I +failed to recognize as Simon Slade until he spoke, grasped my hand, and +pronounced my name. I could not but contrast, in thought, his +appearance with what it was when I first saw him, some six years +previously; nor help saying to myself: +</P> + +<P> +"So much for tavern-keeping!" +</P> + +<P> +As marked a change was visible everywhere in and around the "Sickle and +Sheaf." It, too, had grown larger by additions of wings and rooms; but +it had also grown coarser in growing larger. When built, all the doors +were painted white, and the shutters green, giving to the house a neat, +even tasteful appearance. But the white and green had given place to a +dark, dirty brown, that to my eyes was particularly unattractive. The +bar-room had been extended, and now a polished brass rod, or railing, +embellished the counter, and sundry ornamental attractions had been +given to the shelving behind the bar—such as mirrors, gilding, etc. +Pictures, too, were hung upon the walls, or more accurately speaking; +coarse colored lithographs, the subjects of which, if not really +obscene, were flashing, or vulgar. In the sitting-room, next to the +bar, I noticed little change of objects, but much in their condition. +The carpet, chairs, and tables were the same in fact, but far from +being the same in appearance. The room had a close, greasy odor, and +looked as if it had not been thoroughly swept and dusted for a week. +</P> + +<P> +A smart young Irishman was in the bar, and handed me the book in which +passenger's names were registered. After I had recorded mine, he +directed my trunk to be carried to the room designated as the one I was +to occupy. I followed the porter, who conducted me to the chamber which +had been mine at previous visits. Here, too, were evidences of change; +but not for the better. Then the room was as sweet and clean as it +could be; the sheets and pillow-cases as white as snow, and the +furniture shining with polish. Now all was dusty and dingy, the air +foul, and the bed-linen scarcely whiter than tow. No curtain made +softer the light as it came through the window; nor would the shutters +entirely keep out the glare, for several of the slats were broken. A +feeling of disgust came over me, at the close smell and foul appearance +of everything; so, after washing my hands and face, and brushing the +dust from my clothes, I went down stairs. The sitting-room was scarcely +more attractive than my chamber; so I went out upon the porch and took +a chair. Several loungers were here; hearty, strong-looking, but lazy +fellows, who, if they had anything to do, liked idling better than +working. One of them leaned his chair back against the wall of the +house, and was swinging his legs with a half circular motion, and +humming "Old Folks at Home." Another sat astride of a chair, with his +face turned toward, and his chin resting upon, the back. He was in too +lazy a condition of body and mind for motion or singing. A third had +slidden down in his chair, until he sat on his back, while his feet +were elevated above his head, and rested against one of the pillars +that supported the porch; while a fourth lay stretched out on a bench, +sleeping, his hat over his face to protect him from buzzing and biting +flies. +</P> + +<P> +Though all but the sleeping man eyed me inquisitively, as I took my +place among them, not one changed his position. The rolling of +eye-balls cost but little exertion; and with that effort they were +contented. +</P> + +<P> +"Hallo! who's that?" one of these loungers suddenly exclaimed, as a man +went swiftly by in a light sulky; and he started up, and gazed down the +road, seeking to penetrate the cloud of dust which the fleet rider had +swept up with hoofs and wheels. +</P> + +<P> +"I didn't see." The sleeping man aroused himself, rubbed his eyes, and +gazed along the road. +</P> + +<P> +"Who was it, Matthew?" The Irish bar-keeper now stood in the door. +</P> + +<P> +"Willy Hammond," was answered by Matthew. +</P> + +<P> +"Indeed! Is that his new three hundred dollar horse?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +"My! but he's a screamer!" +</P> + +<P> +"Isn't he! Most as fast as his young master." +</P> + +<P> +"Hardly," said one of the men, laughing. "I don't think anything in +creation can beat Hammond. He goes it with a perfect rush." +</P> + +<P> +"Doesn't he! Well; you may say what you please of him, he's as +good-hearted a fellow as ever walked; and generous to a fault." +</P> + +<P> +"His old dad will agree with you in the last remark," said Matthew. +</P> + +<P> +"No doubt of that, for he has to stand the bills," was answered. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, whether he will or no, for I rather think Willy has, somehow or +other, got the upper hand of him." +</P> + +<P> +"In what way?" +</P> + +<P> +"It's Hammond and Son, over at the mill and distillery." +</P> + +<P> +"I know; but what of that!" +</P> + +<P> +"Willy was made the business man—ostensibly—in order, as the old man +thought, to get him to feel the responsibility of the new position, and +thus tame him down." +</P> + +<P> +"Tame HIM down! Oh, dear! It will take more than business to do that. +The curb was applied too late." +</P> + +<P> +"As the old gentleman has already discovered, I'm thinking, to his +sorrow." +</P> + +<P> +"He never comes here any more; does he, Matthew?" +</P> + +<P> +"Who?" +</P> + +<P> +"Judge Hammond." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, dear, no. He and Slade had all sorts of a quarrel about a year +ago, and he's never darkened our doors since." +</P> + +<P> +"It was something about Willy and—." The speaker did not mention any +name, but winked knowingly and tossed his head toward the entrance of +the house, to indicate some member of Slade's family. +</P> + +<P> +"I believe so." +</P> + +<P> +"D'ye think Willy really likes her?" +</P> + +<P> +Matthew shrugged his shoulders, but made no answer. +</P> + +<P> +"She's a nice girl," was remarked in an under tone, "and good enough +for Hammond's son any day; though, if she were my daughter, I'd rather +see her in Jericho than fond of his company." +</P> + +<P> +"He'll have plenty of money to give her. She can live like a queen." +</P> + +<P> +"For how long?" +</P> + +<P> +"Hush!" came from the lips of Matthew. "There she is now." +</P> + +<P> +I looked up, and saw at a short distance from the house, and +approaching, a young lady, in whose sweet, modest face, I at once +recognized Flora Slade, Five years had developed her into a beautiful +woman. In her alone, of all that appertained to Simon Slade, there was +no deterioration. Her eyes were as mild and pure as when first I met +her at gentle sixteen, and her father said "My daughter," with such a +mingling of pride and affection in his tone. She passed near where I +was sitting, and entered the house. A closer view showed me some marks +of thought and suffering; but they only heightened the attraction of +her face. I failed not to observe the air of respect with which all +returned her slight nod and smile of recognition. +</P> + +<P> +"She's a nice girl, and no mistake—the flower of this flock," was +said, as soon as she passed into the house. +</P> + +<P> +"Too good for Willy Hammond, in my opinion," said Matthew. "Clever and +generous as people call him." +</P> + +<P> +"Just my opinion," was responded. "She's as pure and good, almost, as +an angel; and he?—I can tell you what—he's not the clean thing. He +knows a little too much of the world—on its bad side, I mean." +</P> + +<P> +The appearance of Slade put an end to this conversation. A second +observation of his person and countenance did not remove the first +unfavorable impression. His face had grown decidedly bad in expression, +as well as gross and sensual. The odor of his breath, as he took a +chair close to where I was sitting, was that of one who drank +habitually and freely; and the red, swimming eyes evidenced, too +surely, a rapid progress toward the sad condition of a confirmed +inebriate. There was, too, a certain thickness of speech, that gave +another corroborating sign of evil progress. +</P> + +<P> +"Have you seen anything of Frank this afternoon?" he inquired of +Matthew, after we had passed a few words. +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing," was the bar-keeper's answer. +</P> + +<P> +"I saw him with Tom Wilkins as I came over," said one of the men who +was sitting in the porch. +</P> + +<P> +"What was he doing with Tom Wilkins?" said Slade, in a fretted tone of +voice. "He doesn't seem very choice in his company." +</P> + +<P> +"They were gunning." +</P> + +<P> +"Gunning!" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. They both had fowling-pieces. I wasn't near enough to ask where +they were going." +</P> + +<P> +This information disturbed Slade a good deal. After muttering to +himself a little while, he started up and went into the house. +</P> + +<P> +"And I could have told him a little more, had I been so inclined," said +the individual who mentioned the fact that Frank was with Tom Wilkins. +</P> + +<P> +"What more?" inquired Matthew. +</P> + +<P> +"There was a buggy in the case; and a champagne basket. What the latter +contained you can easily guess." +</P> + +<P> +"Whose buggy?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know anything about the buggy; but if 'Lightfoot' doesn't sink +in value a hundred dollars or so before sundown, call me a false +prophet." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, no," said Matthew, incredulously. "Frank wouldn't do an outrageous +thing like that. Lightfoot won't be in a condition to drive for a month +to come." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't care. She's out now; and the way she was putting it down when +I saw her, would have made a locomotive look cloudy." +</P> + +<P> +"Where did he get her?" was inquired. +</P> + +<P> +"She's been in the six-acre field, over by Mason's Bridge, for the last +week or so," Matthew answered. "Well; all I have to say," he added, "is +that Frank ought to be slung up and well horse-whipped. I never saw +such a young rascal. He cares for no good, and fears no evil. He's the +worst boy I ever saw." +</P> + +<P> +"It would hardly do for you to call him a boy to his face," said one of +the men, laughing. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't have much to say to him in any way," replied Matthew, "for I +know very well that if we ever do get into a regular quarrel, there'll +be a hard time of it. The same house will not hold us afterward—that's +certain. So I steer clear of the young reprobate." +</P> + +<P> +"I wonder his father don't put him to some business," was remarked. +"The idle life he now leads will be his ruin." +</P> + +<P> +"He was behind the bar for a year or two." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes; and was smart at mixing a glass—but—" +</P> + +<P> +"Was himself becoming too good a customer?" +</P> + +<P> +"Precisely. He got drunk as a fool before reaching his fifteenth year." +</P> + +<P> +"Good gracious!" I exclaimed, involuntarily. +</P> + +<P> +"It's true, sir," said the last speaker, turning to me, "I never saw +anything like it. And this wasn't all bar-room talk, which, as you may +know, isn't the most refined and virtuous in the world. I wouldn't like +my son to hear much of it. Frank was always an eager listener to +everything that was said, and in a very short time became an adept in +slang and profanity. I'm no saint myself; but it's often made my blood +run cold to hear him swear." +</P> + +<P> +"I pity his mother," said I; for my thought turned naturally to Mrs. +Slade. +</P> + +<P> +"You may well do that," was answered. "I doubt if Cedarville holds a +sadder heart. It was a dark day for her, let me tell you, when Simon +Slade sold his mill and built this tavern. She was opposed to it at the +beginning." +</P> + +<P> +"I have inferred as much." +</P> + +<P> +"I know it," said the man. "My wife has been intimate with her for +years. Indeed, they have always been like sisters. I remember very well +her coming to our house, about the time the mill was sold, and crying +about it as if her heart would break. She saw nothing but sorrow and +trouble ahead. Tavern-keeping she had always regarded as a low +business, and the change from a respectable miller to a lazy +tavern-keeper, as she expressed it, was presented to her mind as +something disgraceful. I remember, very well, trying to argue the point +with her—assuming that it was quite as respectable to keep tavern as +to do anything else; but I might as well have talked to the wind. She +was always a pleasant, hopeful, cheerful woman before that time, but, +really, I don't think I've seen a true smile on her face since." +</P> + +<P> +"That was a great deal for a man to lose," said I. +</P> + +<P> +"What?" he inquired, not clearly understanding me. +</P> + +<P> +"The cheerfull face of his wife." +</P> + +<P> +"The face was but an index of her heart," said he. +</P> + +<P> +"So much the worse." +</P> + +<P> +"True enough for that. Yes, it was a great deal to lose. +</P> + +<P> +"What has he gained that will make up for this?" +</P> + +<P> +The man shrugged his shoulders. +</P> + +<P> +"What has he gained?" I repeated. "Can you figure it up?" +</P> + +<P> +"He's a richer man, for one thing." +</P> + +<P> +"Happier?" +</P> + +<P> +There was another shrug of the shoulders. "I wouldn't like to say that." +</P> + +<P> +"How much richer?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, a great deal. Somebody was saying, only yesterday, that he +couldn't be worth less than thirty thousand dollars." +</P> + +<P> +"Indeed? So much." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +"How has he managed to accumulate so rapidly?" +</P> + +<P> +"His bar has a large run of custom. And, you know, that pays +wonderfully." +</P> + +<P> +"He must have sold a great deal of liquor in six years." +</P> + +<P> +"And he has. I don't think I'm wrong in saying that in the six years +which have gone by since the 'Sickle and Sheaf' was opened, more liquor +has been drank than in the previous twenty years." +</P> + +<P> +"Say forty," remarked a man who had been a listener to what we said. +</P> + +<P> +"Let it be forty then," was the according answer. +</P> + +<P> +"How comes this?" I inquired. "You had a tavern here before the 'Sickle +and Sheaf' was opened." +</P> + +<P> +"I know we had, and several places besides, where liquor was sold. But, +everybody far and near knew Simon Slade the miller, and everybody liked +him. He was a good miller, and a cheerful, social, chatty sort of man +putting everybody in a good humor who came near him. So it became the +talk everywhere, when he built this house, which he fitted up nicer +than anything that had been seen in these parts. Judge Hammond, Judge +Lyman, Lawyer Wilson, and all the big bugs of the place at once +patronized the new tavern, and of course, everybody else did the same. +So, you can easily see how he got such a run." +</P> + +<P> +"It was thought, in the beginning," said I, "that the new tavern was +going to do wonders for Cedarville." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," answered the man laughing, "and so it has." +</P> + +<P> +"In what respect?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, in many. It has made some men richer, and some poorer." +</P> + +<P> +"Who has it made poorer?" +</P> + +<P> +"Dozens of people. You may always take it for granted, when you see a +tavern-keeper who has a good run at his bar, getting rich, that a great +many people are getting poor." +</P> + +<P> +"How so?" I wished to hear in what way the man who was himself, as was +plain to see, a good customer at somebody's bar, reasoned on the +subject. +</P> + +<P> +"He does not add to the general wealth. He produces nothing. He takes +money from his customers, but gives them no article of value in +return—nothing that can be called property, personal or real. He is +just so much richer and they just so much poorer for the exchange. Is +it not so?" +</P> + +<P> +I readily assented to the position as true, and then said— +</P> + +<P> +"Who, in particular, is poorer?" +</P> + +<P> +"Judge Hammond, for one." +</P> + +<P> +"Indeed! I thought the advance in his property, in consequence of the +building of this tavern, was so great, that he was reaping a rich +pecuniary harvest." +</P> + +<P> +"There was a slight advance in property along the street after the +'Sickle and Sheaf' was opened, and Judge Hammond was benefited thereby. +Interested parties made a good deal of noise about it; but it didn't +amount to much, I believe." +</P> + +<P> +"What has caused the judge to grow poorer?" +</P> + +<P> +"The opening of this tavern, as I just said." +</P> + +<P> +"In what way did it affect him?" +</P> + +<P> +"He was among Slade's warmest supporters, as soon as he felt the +advance in the price of building lots, called him one of the most +enterprising men in Cedarville—a real benefactor to the place—and all +that stuff. To set a good example of patronage, he came over every day +and took his glass of brandy, and encouraged everybody else that he +could influence to do the same. Among those who followed his example +was his son Willy. There was not, let me tell you, in all the country +for twenty miles around, a finer young man than Willy, nor one of so +much promise, when this man-trap"—he let his voice fall, and glanced +around, as he thus designated Slade's tavern—"was opened; and now, +there is not one dashing more recklessly along the road to ruin. When +too late, his father saw that his son was corrupted, and that the +company he kept was of a dangerous character. Two reasons led him to +purchase Slade's old mill, and turn it into a factory and a distillery. +Of course, he had to make a heavy outlay for additional buildings, +machinery, and distilling apparatus. The reasons influencing him were +the prospect of realizing a large amount of money, especially in +distilling, and the hope of saving Willy, by getting him closely +engaged and interested in business. To accomplish, more certainly, the +latter end, he unwisely transferred to his son, as his own capital, +twenty thousand dollars, and then formed with him a regular +copartnership—giving Willy an active business control. +</P> + +<P> +"But the experiment, sir," added the man, emphatically, "has proved a +failure. I heard yesterday, that both mill and distillery were to be +shut up, and offered for sale." +</P> + +<P> +"They did not prove as money-making as was anticipated?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, not under Willy Hammond's management. He had made too many bad +acquaintances—men who clung to him because he had plenty of money at +his command, and spent it as freely as water. One-half of his time he +was away from the mill, and while there, didn't half attend to +business. I've heard it said—and I don't much doubt its truth—that +he's squandered his twenty thousand dollars, and a great deal more +besides." +</P> + +<P> +"How is that possible?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well; people talk, and not always at random. There's been a man +staying here, most of his time, for the last four or five years, named +Green. He does not do anything, and don't seem to have any friends in +the neighborhood. Nobody knows where he came from, and he is not at all +communicative on that head himself. Well, this man became acquainted +with young Hammond after Willy got to visiting the bar here, and +attached himself to him at once. They have, to all appearance, been +fast friends ever since; riding about, or going off on gunning or +fishing excursions almost every day, and secluding themselves somewhere +nearly every evening. That man, Green, sir, it is whispered, is a +gambler; and I believe it. Granted, and there is no longer a mystery as +to what Willy does with his own and his father's money." +</P> + +<P> +I readily assented to this view of the case. +</P> + +<P> +"And so assuming that Green is a gambler," said I, "he has grown +richer, in consequence of the opening of a new and more attractive +tavern in Cedarville." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, and Cedarville is so much the poorer for all his gains; for I've +never heard of his buying a foot of ground, or in any way encouraging +productive industry. He's only a blood-sucker." +</P> + +<P> +"It is worse than the mere abstraction of money," I remarked; "he +corrupts his victims, at the same time that he robs them." +</P> + +<P> +"True." +</P> + +<P> +"Willy Hammond may not be his only victim," I suggested. +</P> + +<P> +"Nor is he, in my opinion. I've been coming to this bar, nightly, for a +good many years—a sorry confession for a man to make, I must own," he +added, with a slight tinge of shame; "but so it is. Well, as I was +saying, I've been coming to this bar, nightly, for a good many years, +and I generally see all that is going on around me. Among the regular +visitors are at least half a dozen young men, belonging to our best +families—who have been raised with care, and well educated. That their +presence here is unknown to their friends, I am quite certain—or, at +least, unknown and unsuspected by some of them. They do not drink a +great deal yet; but all try a glass or two. Toward nine o'clock, often +at an earlier hour, you will see one and another of them go quietly out +of the bar, through the sitting-room, preceded, or soon followed, by +Green and Slade. At any hour of the night, up to one or two, and +sometimes three o'clock, you can see light streaming through the rent +in a curtain drawn before a particular window, which I know to be in +the room of Harvey Green. These are facts, sir; and you can draw your +own conclusion. I think it a very serious matter." +</P> + +<P> +"Why does Slade go out with these young men?" I inquired. "Do you think +he gambles also?" +</P> + +<P> +"If he isn't a kind of a stool-pigeon for Harvey Green, then I'm +mistaken again." +</P> + +<P> +"Hardly. He cannot, already, have become so utterly unprincipled." +</P> + +<P> +"It's a bad school, sir, this tavern-keeping," said the man. +</P> + +<P> +"I readily grant you that." +</P> + +<P> +"And it's nearly seven years since he commenced to take lessons. A +great deal may be learned, sir, of good or evil, in seven years, +especially if any interest be taken in the studies." +</P> + +<P> +"True." +</P> + +<P> +"And it's true in this case, you may depend upon it. Simon Slade is not +the man he was, seven years ago. Anybody with half an eye can see that. +He's grown selfish, grasping, unscrupulous, and passionate. There could +hardly be a greater difference between men than exists between Simon +Slade the tavern-keeper, and Simon Slade the miller." +</P> + +<P> +"And intemperate, also?" I suggested. +</P> + +<P> +"He's beginning to take a little too much," was answered. +</P> + +<P> +"In that case, he'll scarcely be as well off five years hence as he is +now." +</P> + +<P> +"He's at the top of the wheel, some of us think." +</P> + +<P> +"What has led to this opinion?" +</P> + +<P> +"He's beginning to neglect his house, for one thing." +</P> + +<P> +"A bad sign." +</P> + +<P> +"And there is another sign. Heretofore, he has always been on hand, +with the cash, when desirable property went off, under forced sale, at +a bargain. In the last three or four months, several great sacrifices +have been made, but Simon Slade showed no inclination to buy. Put this +fact against another,—week before last, he sold a house and lot in the +town for five hundred dollars less than he paid for them, a year +ago—and for just that sum less than their true value." +</P> + +<P> +"How came that?" I inquired. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah! there's the question! He wanted money; though for what purpose he +has not intimated to any one, as far as I can learn." +</P> + +<P> +"What do you think of it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Just this. He and Green have been hunting together in times past; but +the professed gambler's instincts are too strong to let him spare even +his friend in evil. They have commenced playing one against the other." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah! you think so?" +</P> + +<P> +"I do; and if I conjecture rightly, Simon Slade will be a poorer man, +in a year from this time, than he is now." +</P> + +<P> +Here our conversation was interrupted. Some one asked my talkative +friend to go and take a drink, and he, nothing loath, left me without +ceremony. +</P> + +<P> +Very differently served was the supper I partook of on that evening, +from the one set before me on the occasion of my first visit to the +"Sickle and Sheaf." The table-cloth was not merely soiled, but +offensively dirty; the plates, cups, and saucers, dingy and sticky; the +knives and forks unpolished; and the food of a character to satisfy the +appetite with a very few mouthfuls. Two greasy-looking Irish girls +waited on the table, at which neither landlord nor landlady presided. I +was really hungry when the supper-bell rang; but the craving of my +stomach soon ceased in the atmosphere of the dining-room, and I was the +first to leave the table. +</P> + +<P> +Soon after the lamps were lighted, company began to assemble in the +spacious bar-room, where were comfortable seats, with tables, +newspapers, backgammon boards, dominoes, etc. The first act of nearly +every one who came in was to call for a glass of liquor; and sometimes +the same individual drank two or three times in the course of half an +hour, on the invitation of new comers who were convivially inclined. +</P> + +<P> +Most of those who came in were strangers to me. I was looking from face +to face to see if any of the old company were present, when one +countenance struck me as familiar. I was studying it, in order, if +possible, to identify the person, when some one addressed him as +"Judge." +</P> + +<P> +Changed as the face was, I now recognized it as that of Judge Lyman. +Five years had marred that face terribly. It seemed twice the former +size; and all its bright expression was gone. The thickened and +protruding eyelids half closed the leaden eyes, and the swollen lips +and cheeks gave to his countenance a look of all predominating +sensuality. True manliness had bowed itself in debasing submission to +the bestial. He talked loudly, and with a pompous dogmatism—mainly on +political subjects—but talked only from memory; for any one could see, +that thought came into but feeble activity. And yet, derationalized, so +to speak, as he was, through drink, he had been chosen a representative +in Congress, at the previous election, on the anti-temperance ticket, +and by a very handsome majority. He was the rum candidate; and the rum +interest, aided by the easily swayed "indifferents," swept aside the +claims of law, order, temperance, and good morals; and the district +from which he was chosen as a National Legislator sent him up to the +National Councils, and said in the act—"Look upon him we have chosen +as our representative, and see in him a type of our principles, our +quality, and our condition, as a community." +</P> + +<P> +Judge Lyman, around whom a little circle soon gathered, was very severe +on the temperance party, which, for two years, had opposed his +election, and which, at the last struggle, showed itself to be a +rapidly growing organization. During the canvass, a paper was published +by this party, in which his personal habits, character, and moral +principles were discussed in the freest manner, and certainly not in a +way to elevate him in the estimation of men whose opinion was of any +value. +</P> + +<P> +It was not much to be wondered at, that he assumed to think temperance +issues at the polls were false issues; and that when temperance men +sought to tamper with elections, the liberties of the people were in +danger; nor that he pronounced the whole body of temperance men as +selfish schemers and canting hypocrites. +</P> + +<P> +"The next thing we will have," he exclaimed, warming with his theme, +and speaking so loud that his voice sounded throughout the room, and +arrested every one's attention, "will be laws to fine any man who takes +a chew of tobacco, or lights a cigar. Touch the liberties of the people +in the smallest particular, and all guarantees are gone. The Stamp Act, +against which our noble forefathers rebelled, was a light measure of +oppression to that contemplated by these worse than fanatics." +</P> + +<P> +"You are right there, judge; right for once in your life, if you (hic) +were never right before!" exclaimed a battered-looking specimen of +humanity, who stood near the speaker, slapping Judge Lyman on the +shoulder familiarly as he spoke. "There's no telling what they will do. +There's (hic) my old uncle Josh Wilson, who's been keeper of the +Poor-house these ten years. Well, they're going to turn him out, if +ever they get the upper hand in Bolton county." +</P> + +<P> +"If? That word involves a great deal, Harry!" said Lyman. "We mus'n't +let them get the upper hand. Every man has a duty to perform to his +country in this matter, and every one must do his duty. But what have +they got against your Uncle Joshua? What has he been doing to offend +this righteous party?" +</P> + +<P> +"They've nothing against him, (hic) I believe. Only, they say, they're +not going to have a Poor-house in the county at all." +</P> + +<P> +"What! Going to turn the poor wretches out to starve?" said one. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh no! (hic)," and the fellow grinned, half shrewdly and half +maliciously, as he answered—"no, not that. But, when they carry the +day, there'll be no need of Poor-houses. At least, that's their +talk—and I guess maybe there's something in it, for I never knew a man +to go to the Poor-house, who hadn't (hic) rum to blame for his poverty. +But, you see, I'm interested in this matter. I go for keeping up the +Poor-house (hic); for I guess I'm travelling that road, and I shouldn't +like to get to the last milestone (hic) and find no snug quarters—no +Uncle Josh. You're safe for one vote, any how, old chap, on next +election day!" And the man's broad hand slapped the member's shoulder +again. "Huzza for the rummies! That's (hic) the ticket! Harry Grimes +never deserts his friends. True as steel!" +</P> + +<P> +"You're a trump!" returned Judge Lyman, with low familiarity. "Never +fear about the Poor-house and Uncle Josh. They're all safe." +</P> + +<P> +"But look here, judge," resumed the man. "It isn't only the Poor-house, +the jail is to go next." +</P> + +<P> +"Indeed!" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, that's their talk; and I guess they ain't far out of the way, +neither. What takes men to jail? You can tell us something about that, +judge, for you've jugged a good many in your time. Didn't pretty much +all of 'em drink rum (hic)?" +</P> + +<P> +But the judge answered nothing. +</P> + +<P> +"Silence (hic) gives consent," resumed Grimes. "And they say more; once +give 'em the upper hand—and they're confident of beating us—and the +Courthouse will be to let. As for judges and lawyers, they'll starve, +or go into some better business. So you see, (hic) judge, your +liberties are in danger. But fight hard, old fellow; and if you must +die, (hic) die game!" +</P> + +<P> +How well Judge Lyman relished this mode of presenting the case, was not +very apparent; he was too good a politician and office-seeker, to show +any feeling on the subject, and thus endanger a vote. Harry Grimes' +vote counted one, and a single vote sometimes gained or lost an +election. +</P> + +<P> +"One of their gags," he said, laughing. "But I'm too old a stager not +to see the flimsiness of such pretensions. Poverty and crime have their +origin in the corrupt heart, and their foundations are laid long and +long before the first step is taken on the road to inebriety. It is +easy to promise results; for only the few look at causes, and trace +them to their effects." +</P> + +<P> +"Rum and ruin (hic). Are they not cause and effect?" asked Grimes. +</P> + +<P> +"Sometimes they are," was the half extorted answer. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Green, is that you?" exclaimed the judge, as Harvey Green came in +with a soft cat-like step. He was, evidently, glad of a chance to get +rid of his familiar friend and elector. +</P> + +<P> +I turned my eyes upon the man, and read his face closely. It was +unchanged. The same cold, sinister eye; the same chiselled mouth, so +firm now, and now yielding so elastically; the same smile "from the +teeth outward"—the same lines that revealed his heart's deep, dark +selfishness. If he had indulged in drink during the five intervening +years, it had not corrupted his blood, nor added thereto a single +degree of heat. +</P> + +<P> +"Have you seen anything of Hammond this evening?" asked Judge Lyman. +</P> + +<P> +"I saw him an hour or two ago," answered Green. +</P> + +<P> +"How does he like his new horse?" +</P> + +<P> +"He's delighted with him." +</P> + +<P> +"What was the price?" +</P> + +<P> +"Three hundred dollars." +</P> + +<P> +"Indeed!" +</P> + +<P> +The judge had already arisen, and he and Green were now walking side by +side across the bar-room floor. +</P> + +<P> +"I want to speak a word with you," I heard Lyman say. +</P> + +<P> +And then the two went out together. I saw no more of them during the +evening. +</P> + +<P> +Not long afterward, Willy Hammond came in. Ah! there was a sad change +here; a change that in no way belied the words of Matthew the +bar-keeper. He went up to the bar, and I heard him ask for Judge Lyman. +The answer was in so low a voice that it did not reach my ear. +</P> + +<P> +With a quick, nervous motion, Hammond threw his hand toward a row of +decanters on the shelf behind the bar-keeper, who immediately set one +of them containing brandy before him. From this he poured a tumbler +half full, and drank it off at a single draught, unmixed with water. +</P> + +<P> +He then asked some further question, which I could not hear, +manifesting, as it appeared, considerable excitement of mind. In +answering him, Matthew glanced his eyes upward, as if indicating some +room in the house. The young man then retired, hurriedly, through the +sitting-room. +</P> + +<P> +"What's the matter with Willy Hammond tonight?" asked some one of the +bar-keeper. "Who's he after in such a hurry?" +</P> + +<P> +"He wants to see Judge Lyman," replied Matthew. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!" +</P> + +<P> +"I guess they're after no good," was remarked. +</P> + +<P> +"Not much, I'm afraid." +</P> + +<P> +Two young men, well dressed, and with faces marked by intelligence, +came in at the moment, drank at the bar, chatted a little while +familiarly with the bar-keeper, and then quietly disappeared through +the door leading into the sitting-room. I met the eyes of the man with +whom I had talked during the afternoon, and his knowing wink brought to +mind his suggestion, that in one of the upper rooms gambling went on +nightly, and that some of the most promising young men of the town had +been drawn, through the bar attraction, into this vortex of ruin. I +felt a shudder creeping along my nerves. +</P> + +<P> +The conversation that now went on among the company was of such an +obscene and profane character that, in disgust, I went out. The night +was clear, the air soft, and the moon shining down brightly. I walked +for some time in the porch, musing on what I had seen and heard; while +a constant stream of visitors came pouring into the bar-room. Only a +few of these remained. The larger portion went in quickly, took their +glass, and then left, as if to avoid observation as much as possible. +</P> + +<P> +Soon after I commenced walking in the porch, I noticed an elderly lady +go slowly by, who, in passing, slightly paused, and evidently tried to +look through the bar-room door. The pause was but for an instant. In +less than ten minutes she came back, again stopped—this time +longer—and again moved off slowly, until she passed out of sight. I +was yet thinking about her, when, on lifting my eyes from the ground, +she was advancing along the road, but a few rods distant. I almost +started at seeing her, for there no longer remained a doubt on my mind, +that she was some trembling, heartsick woman, in search of an erring +son, whose feet were in dangerous paths. Seeing me, she kept on, though +lingeringly. She went but a short distance before returning; and this +time, she moved in closer to the house, and reached a position that +enabled her eyes to range through a large portion of the bar-room. A +nearer inspection appeared to satisfy her. She retired with quicker +steps; and did not again return during the evening. +</P> + +<P> +Ah! what a commentary upon the uses of an attractive tavern was here! +My heart ached, as I thought of all that unknown mother had suffered, +and was doomed to suffer. I could not shut out the image of her +drooping form as I lay upon my pillow that night; she even haunted me +in my dreams. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap06"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +NIGHT THE SIXTH. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +MORE CONSEQUENCES. +</H3> + +<P> +The landlord did not make his appearance on the next morning until +nearly ten o'clock; and then he looked like a man who had been on a +debauch. It was eleven before Harvey Green came down. Nothing about him +indicated the smallest deviation from the most orderly habit. Clean +shaved, with fresh linen, and a face, every line of which was smoothed +into calmness, he looked as if he had slept soundly on a quiet +conscience, and now hailed the new day with a tranquil spirit. +</P> + +<P> +The first act of Slade was to go behind the bar and take a stiff glass +of brandy and water; the first act of Green, to order beefsteak and +coffee for his breakfast. I noticed the meeting between the two men, on +the appearance of Green. There was a slight reserve on the part of +Green, and an uneasy embarrassment on the part of Slade. Not even the +ghost of a smile was visible in either countenance. They spoke a few +words together, and then separated as if from a sphere of mutual +repulsion. I did not observe them again in company during the day. +</P> + +<P> +"There's trouble over at the mill," was remarked by a gentleman with +whom I had some business transactions in the afternoon. He spoke to a +person who sat in his office. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah! what's the matter?" said the other. +</P> + +<P> +"All the hands were discharged at noon, and the mill shut down." +</P> + +<P> +"How comes that?" +</P> + +<P> +"They've been losing money from the start." +</P> + +<P> +"Rather bad practice, I should say." +</P> + +<P> +"It involves some bad practices, no doubt." +</P> + +<P> +"On Willy's part?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. He is reported to have squandered the means placed in his hands, +after a shameless fashion." +</P> + +<P> +"Is the loss heavy?" +</P> + +<P> +"So it is said." +</P> + +<P> +"How much?" +</P> + +<P> +"Reaching to thirty or forty thousand dollars. But this is rumor, and, +of course, an exaggeration." +</P> + +<P> +"Of course. No such loss as that could have been made. But what was +done with the money? How could Willy have spent it? He dashes about a +great deal; buys fast horses, drinks rather freely, and all that; but +thirty or forty thousand dollars couldn't escape in this way." +</P> + +<P> +At the moment a swift trotting horse, bearing a light sulky and a man, +went by. +</P> + +<P> +"There goes young Hammond's three hundred dollar animal," said the last +speaker. +</P> + +<P> +"It was Willy Hammond's yesterday. But there has been a change of +ownership since then; I happen to know." +</P> + +<P> +"Indeed." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. The man Green, who has been loafing about Cedarville for the last +few years—after no good, I can well believe—came into possession +to-day." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah! Willy must be very fickle-minded. Does the possession of a coveted +object so soon bring satiety?" +</P> + +<P> +"There is something not clearly understood about the transaction. I saw +Mr. Hammond during the forenoon, and he looked terribly distressed." +</P> + +<P> +"The embarrassed condition of things at the mill readily accounts for +this." +</P> + +<P> +"True; but I think there are causes of trouble beyond the mere +embarrassments." +</P> + +<P> +"The dissolute, spendthrift habits of his son," was suggested. "These +are sufficient to weigh down the father's spirits,—to bow him to the +very dust." +</P> + +<P> +"To speak out plainly," said the other, "I am afraid that the young man +adds another vice to that of drinking and idleness." +</P> + +<P> +"What?" +</P> + +<P> +"Gaining." +</P> + +<P> +"No!" +</P> + +<P> +"There is little doubt of it in my mind. And it is further my opinion, +that his fine horse, for which he paid three hundred dollars only a few +days ago, has passed into the hands of this man Green, in payment of a +debt contracted at the gaming table." +</P> + +<P> +"You shock me. Surely, there can be no grounds for such a belief." +</P> + +<P> +"I have, I am sorry to say, the gravest reasons for what I allege. That +Green is a professional gambler, who was attracted here by the +excellent company that assembled at the 'Sickle and Sheaf' in the +beginning of the lazy miller's pauper-making experiment, I do not in +the least question. Grant this, and take into account the fact that +young Hammond has been much in his company, and you have sufficient +cause for the most disastrous effects." +</P> + +<P> +"If this be really so," observed the gentleman, over whose face a +shadow of concern darkened, "then Willy Hammond may not be his only +victim." +</P> + +<P> +"And is not, you may rest assured. If rumor be true, other of our +promising young men are being drawn into the whirling circles that +narrow toward a vortex of ruin." +</P> + +<P> +In corroboration of this, I mentioned the conversation I had held with +one of the frequenters of Slade's bar room, on this very subject; and +also what I had myself observed on the previous evening. +</P> + +<P> +The man, who had until now been sitting quietly in a chair, started up, +exclaiming as he did so— +</P> + +<P> +"Merciful heaven! I never dreamed of this! Whose sons are safe?" +</P> + +<P> +"No man's," was the answer of the gentleman in whose office we were +sitting—"No man's—while there are such open doors to ruin as you may +find at the 'Sickle and Sheaf.' Did not you vote the anti-temperance +ticket at the last election?" +</P> + +<P> +"I did," was the answer; "and from principle." +</P> + +<P> +"On what were your principles based?" was inquired. +</P> + +<P> +"On the broad foundations of civil liberty." +</P> + +<P> +"The liberty to do good or evil, just as the individual may choose?" +</P> + +<P> +"I would not like to say that. There are certain evils against which +there can be no legislation that would not do harm. No civil power in +this country has the right to say what a citizen shall eat or drink." +</P> + +<P> +"But may not the people, in any community, pass laws, through their +delegated law-makers, restraining evil-minded persons from injuring the +common good?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, certainly—certainly." +</P> + +<P> +"And are you prepared to affirm, that a drinking-shop, where young men +are corrupted, aye, destroyed, body and soul—does not work an injury +to the common good?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah! but there must be houses of public entertainment." +</P> + +<P> +"No one denies this. But can that be a really Christian community which +provides for the moral debasement of strangers, at the same time that +it entertains them? Is it necessary that, in giving rest and +entertainment to the traveler, we also lead him into temptation?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes—but—but—it is going too far to legislate on what we are to eat +and drink. It is opening too wide a door for fanatical oppression. We +must inculcate temperance as a right principle. We must teach our +children the evils of intemperance, and send them out into the world as +practical teachers of order, virtue and sobriety. If we do this, the +reform becomes radical, and in a few years there will be no bar-rooms, +for none will crave the fiery poison." +</P> + +<P> +"Of little value, my friend, will be, in far too many cases, your +precepts, if temptation invites our sons at almost every step of their +way through life. Thousands have fallen, and thousands are now +tottering, soon to fall. Your sons are not safe; nor are mine. We +cannot tell the day nor the hour when they may weakly yield to the +solicitation of some companion, and enter the wide open door of ruin. +And are we wise and good citizens to commission men to do the evil work +of enticement—to encourage them to get gain in corrupting and +destroying our children? To hesitate over some vague ideal of human +liberty when the sword is among us, slaying our best and dearest? Sir! +while you hold back from the work of staying the flood that is +desolating our fairest homes, the black waters are approaching your own +doors." +</P> + +<P> +There was a startling emphasis in the tones with which this last +sentence was uttered; and I do not wonder at the look of anxious alarm +that it called to the face of him whose fears it was meant to excite. +</P> + +<P> +"What do you mean, sir?" was inquired. +</P> + +<P> +"Simply, that your sons are in equal danger with others." +</P> + +<P> +"And is that all?" +</P> + +<P> +"They have been seen, of late, in the bar-room of the 'Sickle and +Sheaf.'" +</P> + +<P> +"Who says so?" +</P> + +<P> +"Twice within a week I have seen them going there," was answered. +</P> + +<P> +"Good heavens! No!" +</P> + +<P> +"It is true, my friend. But who is safe? If we dig pits, and conceal +them from view, what marvel if our own children fall therein?" +</P> + +<P> +"My sons going to a tavern?" The man seemed utterly confounded. "How +CAN I believe it? You must be in error, sir." +</P> + +<P> +"No. What I tell you is the simple truth. And if they go there—" +</P> + +<P> +The man paused not to hear the conclusion of the sentence, but went +hastily from the office. +</P> + +<P> +"We are beginning to reap as we have sown," remarked the gentleman, +turning to me as his agitated friend left the office. "As I told them +in the commencement it would be, so it is happening. The want of a good +tavern in Cedarville was over and over again alleged as one of the +chief causes of our want of thrift, and when Slade opened the 'Sickle +and Sheaf,' the man was almost glorified. The gentleman who has just +left us failed not in laudation of the enterprising landlord; the more +particularly, as the building of the new tavern advanced the price of +ground on the street, and made him a few hundred dollars richer. +Really, for a time, one might have thought, from the way people went +on, that Simon Slade was going to make every man's fortune in +Cedarville. But all that has been gained by a small advance in +property, is as a grain of sand to a mountain, compared with the +fearful demoralization that has followed." +</P> + +<P> +I readily assented to this, for I had myself seen enough to justify the +conclusion. +</P> + +<P> +As I sat in the bar-room of the "Sickle and Sheaf" that evening, I +noticed, soon after the lamps were lighted, the gentleman referred to +in the above conversation, whose sons were represented as visitors to +the bar, come in quietly, and look anxiously about the room. He spoke +to no one, and, after satisfying himself that those he sought were not +there, went out. +</P> + +<P> +"What sent him here, I wonder?" muttered Slade, speaking partly to +himself, and partly aside to Matthew, the bar-keeper. +</P> + +<P> +"After the boys, I suppose," was answered. +</P> + +<P> +"I guess the boys are old enough to take care of themselves." +</P> + +<P> +"They ought to be," returned Matthew. +</P> + +<P> +"And are," said Slade. "Have they been here this evening?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, not yet." +</P> + +<P> +While they yet talked together, two young men whom I had seen on the +night before, and noticed particularly as showing signs of intelligence +and respectability beyond the ordinary visitors at a bar-room, came in. +</P> + +<P> +"John," I heard Slade say, in a low, confidential voice, to one of +them, "your old man was here just now." +</P> + +<P> +"No!" The young man looked startled—almost confounded. +</P> + +<P> +"It's a fact. So you'd better keep shady." +</P> + +<P> +"What did he want?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know." +</P> + +<P> +"What did he say?" +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing. He just came in, looked around, and then went out." +</P> + +<P> +"His face was as dark as a thunder-cloud," remarked Matthew. +</P> + +<P> +"Is No. 4 vacant?" inquired one of the young men. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +"Send us up a bottle of wine and some cigars. And when Bill Harding and +Harry Lee come in, tell them where they can find us." +</P> + +<P> +"All right," said Matthew. "And now, take a friend's advice and make +yourselves scarce." +</P> + +<P> +The young men left the room hastily. Scarcely had they departed, ere I +saw the same gentleman come in, whose anxious face had, a little while +before, thrown its shadow over the apartment. He was the father in +search of his sons. Again he glanced around nervously; and this time +appeared to be disappointed. As he entered, Slade went out. +</P> + +<P> +"Have John and Wilson been here this evening?" he asked, coming up to +the bar and addressing Matthew. +</P> + +<P> +"They are not here;" replied Matthew, evasively. +</P> + +<P> +"But haven't they been here?" +</P> + +<P> +"They may have been here; I only came in from my supper a little while +ago." +</P> + +<P> +"I thought I saw them entering, only a moment or two ago." +</P> + +<P> +"They're not here, sir." Matthew shook his head and spoke firmly. +</P> + +<P> +"Where is Mr. Slade?" +</P> + +<P> +"In the house, somewhere." +</P> + +<P> +"I wish you would ask him to step here." +</P> + +<P> +Matthew went out, but in a little while came back with word that the +landlord was not to be found. +</P> + +<P> +"You are sure the boys are not here?" said the man, with a doubting, +dissatisfied manner. +</P> + +<P> +"See for yourself, Mr. Harrison!" +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps they are in the parlor?" +</P> + +<P> +"Step in, sir," coolly returned Matthew. The man went through the door +into the sitting-room, but came back immediately. +</P> + +<P> +"Not there?" said Matthew. The man shook his head. "I don't think +you'll find them about here," added the bar-keeper. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Harrison—this was the name by which Matthew addressed him—stood +musing and irresolute for some minutes. He could not be mistaken about +the entrance of his sons, and yet they were not there. His manner was +much perplexed. At length he took a seat, in a far corner of the +bar-room, somewhat beyond the line of observation, evidently with the +purpose of waiting to see if those he sought would come in. He had not +been there long, before two young men entered, whose appearance at once +excited his interest. They went up to the bar and called for liquor. As +Matthew set the decanter before them, he leaned over the counter, and +said something in a whisper. +</P> + +<P> +"Where?" was instantly ejaculated, in surprise, and both of the young +men glanced uneasily about the room. They met the eyes of Mr. Harrison, +fixed intently upon them. I do not think, from the way they swallowed +their brandy and water, that it was enjoyed very much. +</P> + +<P> +"What the deuce is he doing here?" I heard one of them say, in a low +voice. +</P> + +<P> +"After the boys, of course." +</P> + +<P> +"Have they come yet?" +</P> + +<P> +Matthew winked as he answered, "All safe." +</P> + +<P> +"In No. 4?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. And the wine and cigars all waiting for you." +</P> + +<P> +"Good." +</P> + +<P> +"You'd better not go through the parlor. Their old man's not at all +satisfied. He half suspects they're in the house. Better go off down +the street, and come back and enter through the passage." +</P> + +<P> +The young men, acting on this hint, at once retired, the eyes of +Harrison following them out. +</P> + +<P> +For nearly an hour Mr. Harrison kept his position, a close observer of +all that transpired. I am very much in error, if, before leaving that +sink of iniquity, he was not fully satisfied as to the propriety of +legislating on the liquor question. Nay, I incline to the opinion, +that, if the power of suppression had rested in his hands, there would +not have been, in the whole state, at the expiration of an hour, a +single dram-selling establishment. The goring of his ox had opened his +eyes to the true merits of the question. While he was yet in the +bar-room, young Hammond made his appearance. His look was wild and +excited. First he called for brandy, and drank with the eagerness of a +man long athirst. +</P> + +<P> +"Where is Green?" I heard him inquire, as he set his glass upon the +counter. +</P> + +<P> +"Haven't seen anything of him since supper," was answered by Matthew. +</P> + +<P> +"Is he in his room?" +</P> + +<P> +"I think it probable." +</P> + +<P> +"Has Judge Lyman been about here tonight?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. He spouted here for half an hour against the temperance party, as +usual, and then"—Matthew tossed his head toward the door leading to +the sitting-room. +</P> + +<P> +Hammond was moving toward this door, when, in glancing around the room, +he encountered the fixed gaze of Mr. Harrison—a gaze that instantly +checked his progress. Returning to the bar, and leaning over the +counter, he said to Matthew: +</P> + +<P> +"What has sent him here?" +</P> + +<P> +Matthew winked knowingly. +</P> + +<P> +"After the boys?" inquired Hammond. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +"Where are they?" +</P> + +<P> +"Up-stairs." +</P> + +<P> +"Does he suspect this?" +</P> + +<P> +"I can't tell. If he doesn't think them here now, he is looking for +them to come in." +</P> + +<P> +"Do they know he is after them?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes." +</P> + +<P> +"All safe then?" +</P> + +<P> +"As an iron chest. If you want to see them, just rap at No. 4." +</P> + +<P> +Hammond stood for some minutes leaning on the bar, and then, not once +again looking toward that part of the room where Mr. Harrison was +seated, passed out through the door leading to the street. Soon +afterward Mr. Harrison departed. +</P> + +<P> +Disgusted as on the night before, with the unceasing flow of vile, +obscene, and profane language, I left my place of observation in the +bar-room and sought the open air. The sky was unobscured by a single +cloud, and the moon, almost at the full, shone abroad with more than +common brightness. I had not been sitting long in the porch, when the +same lady, whose movements had attracted my attention, came in sight, +walking very slowly—the deliberate pace assumed, evidently, for the +purpose of better observation. On coming opposite the tavern, she +slightly paused, as on the evening before, and then kept on, passing +down the street until she was beyond observation. +</P> + +<P> +"Poor mother!" I was still repeating to myself, when her form again met +my eyes. Slowly she advanced, and now came in nearer to the house. The +interest excited in my mind was so strong, that I could not repress the +desire I felt to address her, and so stepped from the shadow of the +porch. She seemed startled, and retreated backward several paces. +</P> + +<P> +"Are you in search of any one?" I inquired, respectfully. +</P> + +<P> +The woman now stood in a position that let the moon shine full upon her +face, revealing every feature. She was far past the meridian of life; +and there were lines of suffering and sorrow on her fine countenance. I +saw that her lips moved, but it was some time before I distinguished +the words. +</P> + +<P> +"Have you seen my son to-night? They say he comes here." +</P> + +<P> +The manner in which this was said caused a cold thrill to run over me. +I perceived that the woman's mind wandered. I answered: +</P> + +<P> +"No, ma'am; I haven't seen any thing of him." +</P> + +<P> +My tone of voice seemed to inspire her with confidence, for she came up +close to me, and bent her face toward mine. +</P> + +<P> +"It is a dreadful place," she whispered, huskily. "And they say he +comes here. Poor boy! He isn't what he used to be." +</P> + +<P> +"It is a very bad place," said I. "Come"—and I moved a step or two in +the direction from which I had seen her approaching—"come, you'd +better go away as quickly as possible." +</P> + +<P> +"But if he's here," she answered, not moving from where she stood, "I +might save him, you know." +</P> + +<P> +"I am sure you won't find him, ma'am," I urged. "Perhaps he is home, +now." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, no! no!" And she shook her head mournfully. "He never comes home +until long after midnight. I wish I could see inside of the bar-room. +I'm sure he must be there." +</P> + +<P> +"If you will tell me his name, I will go in and search for him." +</P> + +<P> +After a moment of hesitation she answered: +</P> + +<P> +"His name is Willy Hammond." +</P> + +<P> +How the name, uttered so sadly, and yet with such moving tenderness by +the mother's lips, caused me to start—almost to tremble. +</P> + +<P> +"If he is in the house, ma'am," said I, firmly, "I will see him for +you." And I left her and went into the bar. +</P> + +<P> +"In what room do you think I will find young Hammond?" I asked of the +bar-keeper. He looked at me curiously, but did not answer. The question +had come upon him unanticipated. +</P> + +<P> +"In Harvey Green's room?" I pursued. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know, I am sure. He isn't in the house to my knowledge. I saw +him go out about half an hour since." +</P> + +<P> +"Green's room is No.——?" +</P> + +<P> +"Eleven," he answered. +</P> + +<P> +"In the front part of the house?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +I asked no further question, but went to No. 11, and tapped on the +door. But no one answered the summons. I listened, but could not +distinguish the slightest sound within. Again I knocked; but louder. If +my ears did not deceive me, the chink of coin was heard. Still there +was neither voice nor movement. +</P> + +<P> +I was disappointed. That the room had inmates, I felt sure. +Remembering, now, what I had heard about light being seen in this room +through a rent in the curtain, I went down-stairs, and out into the +street. A short distance beyond the house, I saw, dimly, the woman's +form. She had only just passed in her movement to and fro. Glancing up +at the window, which I now knew to be the one in Green's room, light +through the torn curtain was plainly visible. Back into the house I +went, and up to No. 11. This time I knocked imperatively; and this time +made myself heard. +</P> + +<P> +"What's wanted?" came from within. I knew the voice to be that of +Harvey Green. +</P> + +<P> +I only knocked louder. A hurried movement and the low murmur of voices +was heard for some moments; then the door was unlocked and held partly +open by Green, whose body so filled the narrow aperture that I could +not look into the room. Seeing me, a dark scowl fell upon his +countenance. +</P> + +<P> +"What d'ye want?" he inquired, sharply. +</P> + +<P> +"Is Mr. Hammond here? If so, he is wanted downstairs." +</P> + +<P> +"No, he's not," was the quick answer. "What sent you here for him, hey?" +</P> + +<P> +"The fact that I expected to find him in your room," was my firm answer. +</P> + +<P> +Green was about shutting the door in my face, when some one placed a +hand on his shoulder, and said something to him that I could not hear. +</P> + +<P> +"Who wants to see him?" he inquired of me. +</P> + +<P> +Satisfied, now, that Hammond was in the room, I said, slightly +elevating my voice: +</P> + +<P> +"His mother." +</P> + +<P> +The words were an "open sesame" to the room. The door was suddenly +jerked open, and with a blanching face, the young man confronted me. +</P> + +<P> +"Who says my mother is down-stairs?" he demanded. +</P> + +<P> +"I come from her in search of you," I said. "You will find her in the +road, walking up and down in front of the tavern." +</P> + +<P> +Almost with a bound he swept by me, and descended the stairway at two +or three long strides. As the door swung open, I saw besides Green and +Hammond, the landlord and Judge Lyman. It needed not the loose cards on +the table near which the latter were sitting to tell me of their +business in that room. +</P> + +<P> +As quickly as seemed decorous, I followed Hammond. On the porch I met +him, coming in from the road. +</P> + +<P> +"You have deceived me, sir," said he, sternly—almost menacingly. +</P> + +<P> +"No, sir!" I replied. "What I told you was but too true. Look! There +she is now." +</P> + +<P> +The young man sprung around, and stood before the woman, a few paces +distant. +</P> + +<P> +"Mother! oh, mother! what HAS brought you here?" he exclaimed, in an +under tone, as he caught her arm, and moved away. He spoke—not +roughly, nor angrily—but with respect—half reproachfulness—and an +unmistakable tenderness. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Willy! Willy!" I heard her answer. "Somebody said you came here at +night, and I couldn't rest. Oh, dear. They'll murder you! I know they +will. Don't, oh!—" +</P> + +<P> +My ears took in the sense no further, though her pleading voice still +reached my ears. A few moments, and they were out of sight. +</P> + +<P> +Nearly two hours afterward, as I was ascending to my chamber, a man +brushed quickly by me. I glanced after him, and recognized the person +of young Hammond. He was going to the room of Harvey Green! +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap07"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +NIGHT THE SEVENTH. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +SOWING THE WIND. +</H3> + +<P> +The state of affairs in Cedarville, it was plain, from the partial +glimpses I had received, was rather desperate. Desperate, I mean, as +regarded the various parties brought before my observation. An eating +cancer was on the community, and so far as the eye could mark its +destructive progress, the ravages were tearful. That its roots were +striking deep, and penetrating, concealed from view, in many +unsuspected directions, there could be no doubt. What appeared on the +surface was but a milder form of the disease, compared with its hidden, +more vital, and more dangerous advances. +</P> + +<P> +I could not but feel a strong interest in some of these parties. The +case of young Hammond had, from the first, awakened concern; and now a +new element was added in the unlooked-for appearance of his mother on +the stage, in a state that seemed one of partial derangement. The +gentleman at whose office I met Mr. Harrison on the day before—the +reader will remember Mr. H. as having come to the "Sickle and Sheath" +in search of his son—was thoroughly conversant with the affairs of the +village, and I called upon him early in the day in order to make some +inquiries about Mrs. Hammond. My first question, as to whether he knew +the lady, was answered by the remark: +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes. She is one of my earliest friends." +</P> + +<P> +The allusion to her did not seem to awaken agreeable states of mind. A +slight shade obscured his face, and I noticed that he sighed +involuntarily. +</P> + +<P> +"Is Willy her only child?" +</P> + +<P> +"Her only living child. She had four; another son, and two daughters; +but she lost all but Willy when they were quite young. And," he added, +after a pause,—"it would have been better for her, and for Willy, too, +if he had gone to a better land with them." +</P> + +<P> +"His course of life must be to her a terrible affliction." said I. +</P> + +<P> +"It is destroying her reason," he replied, with emphasis, "He was her +idol. No mother ever loved a son with more self-devotion than Mrs. +Hammond loved her beautiful, fine-spirited, intelligent, affectionate +boy. To say that she was proud of him, is but a tame expression. +Intense love—almost idolatry—was the strong passion of her heart. How +tender, how watchful was her love! Except when at school, he was +scarcely ever separated from her. In order to keep him by her side, she +gave up her thoughts to the suggestion and maturing of plans for +keeping his mind active and interested in her society—and her success +was perfect. Up to the age of sixteen or seventeen, I do not think he +had a desire for other companionship than that of his mother. But this, +you know, could not last. The boy's maturing thought must go beyond the +home and social circle. The great world, that he was soon to enter, was +before him; and through loopholes that opened here and there he +obtained partial glimpses of what was beyond. To step forth into this +world, where he was soon to be a busy actor and worker, and to step +forth alone, next came in the natural order of progress. How his mother +trembled with anxiety, as she saw him leave her side! Of the dangers +that would surround his path, she knew too well; and these were +magnified by her fears—at least so I often said to her. Alas! how far +the sad reality has outrun her most fearful anticipations. +</P> + +<P> +"When Willy was eighteen—he was then reading law—I think I never saw +a young man of fairer promise. As I have often heard it remarked of +him, he did not appear to have a single fault. But he had a dangerous +gift—rare conversational powers, united with great urbanity of manner. +Every one who made his acquaintance became charmed with his society; +and he soon found himself surrounded by a circle of young men, some of +whom were not the best companions he might have chosen. Still, his own +pure instincts and honorable principles were his safeguard; and I never +have believed that any social allurements would have drawn him away +from the right path, if this accursed tavern had not been opened by +Slade." +</P> + +<P> +"There was a tavern here before the 'Sickle and Sheaf' was opened?" +said I. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes. But it was badly kept, and the bar-room visitors were of the +lowest class. No respectable young man in Cedarville would have been +seen there. It offered no temptations to one moving in Willy's circle. +But the opening of the 'Sickle and Sheaf' formed a new era. Judge +Hammond—himself not the purest man in the world, I'm afraid—gave his +countenance to the establishment, and talked of Simon Slade as an +enterprising man who ought to be encouraged. Judge Lyman and other men +of position in Cedarville followed his bad example; and the bar-room of +the 'Sickle and Sheaf' was at once voted respectable. At all times of +the day and evening you could see the flower of our young men going in +and out, sitting in front of the bar-room, or talking hand-and-glove +with the landlord, who, from a worthy miller, regarded as well enough +in his place, was suddenly elevated into a man of importance, whom the +best in the village were delighted to honor. +</P> + +<P> +"In the beginning, Willy went with the tide, and, in an incredibly +short period, was acquiring a fondness for drink that startled and +alarmed his friends. In going in through Slade's open door, he entered +the downward way, and has been moving onward with fleet footsteps ever +since. The fiery poison inflamed his mind, at the same time that it +dimmed his noble perceptions. Fondness for mere pleasure followed, and +this led him into various sensual indulgences, and exciting modes of +passing the time. Every one liked him—he was so free, so +companionable, and so generous—and almost every one encouraged, rather +than repressed, his dangerous proclivities. Even his father, for a +time, treated the matter lightly, as only the first flush of young +life. 'I commenced sowing my wild oats at quite as early an age,' I +have heard him say. 'He'll cool off, and do well enough. Never fear.' +But his mother was in a state of painful alarm from the beginning. Her +truer instincts, made doubly acute by her yearning love, perceived the +imminent danger, and in all possible ways did she seek to lure him from +the path in which he was moving at so rapid a pace. Willy was always +very much attached to his mother, and her influence over him was +strong; but in this case he regarded her fears as chimerical. The way +in which he walked was, to him, so pleasant, and the companions of his +journey so delightful, that he could not believe in the prophesied +evil; and when his mother talked to him in her warning voice, and with +a sad countenance, he smiled at her concern, and made light of her +fears. +</P> + +<P> +"And so it went on, month after month, and year after year, until the +young man's sad declensions were the town talk. In order to throw his +mind into a new channel—to awaken, if possible, a new and better +interest in life—his father ventured upon the doubtful experiment we +spoke of yesterday; that of placing capital in his hands, and making +him an equal partner in the business of distilling and cotton-spinning. +The disastrous—I might say disgraceful—result you know. The young man +squandered his own capital and heavily embarrassed his father. +</P> + +<P> +"The effect of all this upon Mrs. Hammond has been painful in the +extreme. We can only dimly imagine the terrible suffering through which +she has passed. Her present aberration was first visible after a long +period of sleeplessness, occasioned by distress of mind. During the +whole of two weeks, I am told, she did not close her eyes; the most of +that time walking the floor of her chamber, and weeping. Powerful +anodynes, frequently repeated, at length brought relief. But, when she +awoke from a prolonged period of unconsciousness, the brightness of her +reason was gone. Since then, she has never been clearly conscious of +what was passing around her, and well for her, I have sometimes thought +it was, for even obscurity of intellect is a blessing in her case. Ah, +me! I always get the heart-ache, when I think of her." +</P> + +<P> +"Did not this event startle the young man from his fatal dream, if I +may so call his mad infatuation?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +"No. He loved his mother, and was deeply afflicted by the calamity; but +it seemed as if he could not stop. Some terrible necessity appeared to +be impelling him onward. If he formed good resolutions—and I doubt not +that he did—they were blown away like threads of gossamer, the moment +he came within the sphere of old associations. His way to the mill was +by the 'Sickle and Sheaf'; and it was not easy for him to pass there +without being drawn into the bar, either by his own desire for drink, +or through the invitation of some pleasant companion, who was lounging +in front of the tavern." +</P> + +<P> +"There may have been something even more impelling than his love of +drink," said I. +</P> + +<P> +"What?" +</P> + +<P> +I related, briefly, the occurrences of the preceding night. +</P> + +<P> +"I feared—nay, I was certain—that he was in the toils of this man! +And yet your confirmation of the fact startles and confounds me," said +he, moving about his office in a disturbed manner. "If my mind has +questioned and doubted in regard to young Hammond, it questions and +doubts no longer. The word 'mystery' is not now written over the door +of his habitation. Great Father! and is it thus that our young men are +led into temptation? Thus that their ruin is premeditated, secured? +Thus that the fowler is permitted to spread his net in the open day, +and the destroyer licensed to work ruin in darkness? It is awful to +contemplate!" The man was strongly excited. +</P> + +<P> +"Thus it is," he continued; "and we who see the whole extent, origin, +and downward rushing force of a widely sweeping desolation, lift our +voices of warning almost in vain. Men who have everything at +stake—sons to be corrupted, and daughters to become the wives of young +men exposed to corrupting influences—stand aloof, questioning and +doubting as to the expediency of protecting the innocent from the +wolfish designs of bad men; who, to compass their own selfish ends, +would destroy them body and soul. We are called fanatics, ultraists, +designing, and all that, because we ask our law-makers to stay the +fiery ruin. Oh, no! we must not touch the traffic. All the dearest and +best interests of society may suffer; but the rum-seller must be +protected. He must be allowed to get gain, if the jails and poorhouses +are filled, and the graveyards made fat with the bodies of young men +stricken down in the flower of their years, and of wives and mothers +who have died of broken hearts. Reform, we are told, must commence at +home. We must rear temperate children, and then we shall have temperate +men. That when there are none to desire liquor, the rum-seller's +traffic will cease. And all the while society's true benefactors are +engaged in doing this, the weak, the unsuspecting, and the erring must +be left an easy prey, even if the work requires for its accomplishment +a hundred years. Sir! a human soul destroyed through the rum-seller's +infernal agency, is a sacrifice priceless in value. No considerations +of worldly gain can, for an instant, be placed in comparison therewith. +And yet souls are destroyed by thousands every year; and they will fall +by tens of thousands ere society awakens from its fatal indifference, +and lays its strong hand of power on the corrupt men who are scattering +disease, ruin, and death, broadcast over the land! +</P> + +<P> +"I always get warm on this subject," he added, repressing his +enthusiasm. "And who that observes and reflects can help growing +excited? The evil is appalling; and the indifference of the community +one of the strangest facts of the day." +</P> + +<P> +While he was yet speaking, the elder Mr. Hammond came in. He looked +wretched. The redness and humidity of his eyes showed want of sleep, +and the relaxed muscles of his face exhaustion from weariness and +suffering. He drew the person with whom I had been talking aside, and +continued an earnest conversation with him for many minutes—often +gesticulating violently. I could see his face, though I heard nothing +of what he said. The play of his features was painful to look upon, for +every changing muscle showed a new phase of mental suffering. +</P> + +<P> +"Try and see him, will you not?" he said, as he turned, at length, to +leave the office. +</P> + +<P> +"I will go there immediately," was answered. +</P> + +<P> +"Bring him home, if possible." +</P> + +<P> +"My very best efforts shall be made." +</P> + +<P> +Judge Hammond bowed and went out hurriedly. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you know the number of the room occupied by the man Green?" asked +the gentleman, as soon as his visitor had retired. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. It is No. 11." +</P> + +<P> +"Willy has not been home since last night. His father, at this late +day, suspects Green to be a gambler. The truth flashed upon him only +yesterday; and this, added to his other sources of trouble, is driving +him, so he says, almost mad. As a friend, he wishes me to go to the +'Sickle and Sheaf,' and try and find Willy. Have you seen any thing of +him this morning?" +</P> + +<P> +I answered in the negative. +</P> + +<P> +"Nor of Green?" +</P> + +<P> +"No." +</P> + +<P> +"Was Slade about when you left the tavern?" +</P> + +<P> +"I saw nothing of him." +</P> + +<P> +"What Judge Hammond fears may be all too true—that, in the present +condition of Willy's affairs, which have reached the point of disaster, +his tempter means to secure the largest possible share of property yet +in his power to pledge or transfer,—to squeeze from his victim the +last drop of blood that remains, and then fling him, ruthlessly, from +his hands." +</P> + +<P> +"The young man must have been rendered almost desperate, or he would +never have returned, as he did, last night. Did you mention this to his +father?" +</P> + +<P> +"No. It would have distressed him the more, without effecting any good. +He is wretched enough. But time passes, and none is to be lost now. +Will you go with me?" +</P> + +<P> +I walked to the tavern with him; and we went into the bar together. Two +or three men were at the counter, drinking. +</P> + +<P> +"Is Mr. Green about this morning?" was asked by the person who had come +in search of young Hammond. +</P> + +<P> +"Haven't seen any thing of him." +</P> + +<P> +"Is he in his room?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know." +</P> + +<P> +"Will you ascertain for me?" +</P> + +<P> +"Certainly. Frank,"—and he spoke to the landlord's son, who was +lounging on a settee,—"I wish you would see if Mr. Green is in his +room." +</P> + +<P> +"Go and see yourself. I'm not your waiter," was growled back, in an +ill-natured voice. +</P> + +<P> +"In a moment I'll ascertain for you," said Matthew, politely. +</P> + +<P> +After waiting on some new customers, who were just entering, Matthew +went up-stairs to obtain the desired information. As he left the +bar-room, Frank got up and went behind the counter, where he mixed +himself a glass of liquor, and drank it off, evidently with real +enjoyment. +</P> + +<P> +"Rather a dangerous business for one so young as you are," remarked the +gentleman with whom I had come, as Frank stepped out of the bar, and +passed near where we were standing. The only answer to this was an +ill-natured frown, and an expression of face which said almost as +plainly as words, "It is none of your business." +</P> + +<P> +"Not there," said Matthew, now coming in. +</P> + +<P> +"Are you certain?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, sir." +</P> + +<P> +But there was a certain involuntary hesitation in the bar-keeper's +manner, which led to a suspicion that his answer was not in accordance +with the truth. We walked out together, conferring on the subject, and +both concluded that his word was not to be relied upon. +</P> + +<P> +"What is to be done?" was asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Go to Green's room," I replied, "and knock at the door. If he is +there, he may answer, not suspecting your errand." +</P> + +<P> +"Show me the room." +</P> + +<P> +I went up with him, and pointed out No. 11. He knocked lightly, but +there came no sound from within. He repeated the knock; all was silent. +Again and again he knocked, but there came back only a hollow +reverberation. +</P> + +<P> +"There's no one there," said he, returning to where I stood, and we +walked down-stairs together. On the landing, as we reached the lower +passage, we met Mrs. Slade. I had not, during this visit at Cedarville, +stood face to face with her before. Oh! what a wreck she presented, +with her pale, shrunken countenance, hollow, lustreless eyes, and bent, +feeble body. I almost shuddered as I looked at her. What a haunting and +sternly rebuking spectre she must have moved, daily, before the eyes of +her husband. +</P> + +<P> +"Have you noticed Mr. Green about this morning?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +"He hasn't come down from his room yet," she replied. +</P> + +<P> +"Are you certain?" said my companion. "I knocked several times at the +door just now, but received no answer." +</P> + +<P> +"What do you want with him?" asked Mrs. Slade, fixing her eyes upon us. +</P> + +<P> +"We are in search of Willy Hammond; and it has been suggested that he +was with Green." +</P> + +<P> +"Knock twice lightly, and then three times more firmly," said Mrs. +Slade; and as she spoke, she glided past us with noiseless tread. +</P> + +<P> +"Shall we go up together?" +</P> + +<P> +I did not object; for, although I had no delegated right of intrusion, +my feelings were so much excited in the case, that I went forward, +scarcely reflecting on the propriety of so doing. +</P> + +<P> +The signal knock found instant answer. The door was softly opened, and +the unshaven face of Simon Slade presented itself. +</P> + +<P> +"Mr. Jacobs!" he said, with surprise in his tones. "Do you wish to see +me?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, sir; I wish to see Mr. Green," and with a quick, firm pressure +against the door, he pushed it wide open. The same party was there that +I had seen on the night before,—Green, young Hammond, Judge Lyman, and +Slade. On the table at which the three former were sitting, were cards, +slips of paper, an ink-stand and pens, and a pile of bank-notes. On a +side-table, or, rather, butler's tray, were bottles, decanters, and +glasses. +</P> + +<P> +"Judge Lyman! Is it possible?" exclaimed Mr. Jacobs, the name of my +companion. "I did not expect to find you here." +</P> + +<P> +Green instantly swept his hands over the table to secure the money and +bills it contained; but, ere he had accomplished his purpose, young +Hammond grappled three or four narrow strips of paper, and hastily tore +them into shreds. +</P> + +<P> +"You're a cheating scoundrel!" cried Green, fiercely, thrusting his +hand into his bosom as if to draw from thence a weapon; but the words +were scarcely uttered, ere Hammond sprung upon him with the fierceness +of a tiger, bearing him down upon the floor. Both hands were already +about the gambler's neck, and, ere the bewildered spectators could +interfere, and drag him off. Green was purple in the face, and nearly +strangled. +</P> + +<P> +"Call me a cheating scoundrel!" said Hammond, foaming at the mouth, as +he spoke,—"Me, whom you have followed like a thirsty blood-hound. Me! +whom you have robbed, and cheated, and debased from the beginning! Oh! +for a pistol to rid the earth of the blackest-hearted villain that +walks its surface. Let me go, gentlemen! I have nothing left in the +world to care for,—there is no consequence I fear. Let me do society +one good service before I die!" +</P> + +<P> +And, with one vigorous effort, he swept himself clear of the hands that +were pinioning him, and sprung again upon the gambler with the fierce +energy of a savage beast. By this time, Green had got his knife free +from its sheath, and, as Hammond was closing upon him in his blind +rage, plunged it into his side. Quick almost as lightning, the knife +was withdrawn, and two more stabs inflicted ere we could seize and +disarm the murderer. As we did so, Willy Hammond fell over with a deep +groan, the blood flowing from his side. +</P> + +<P> +In the terror and excitement that followed, Green rushed from the room. +The doctor, who was instantly summoned, after carefully examining the +wound, and the condition of the unhappy young man, gave it as his +opinion that he was fatally injured. +</P> + +<P> +Oh! the anguish of the father, who had quickly heard of the dreadful +occurrence, when this announcement was made. I never saw such fearful +agony in any human countenance. The calmest of all the anxious group +was Willy himself. On his father's face his eyes were fixed as if by a +kind of fascination. +</P> + +<P> +"Are you in much pain, my poor boy!" sobbed the old man, stooping over +him, until his long white hair mingled with the damp locks of the +sufferer. +</P> + +<P> +"Not much, father," was the whispered reply. "Don't speak of this to +mother, yet. I'm afraid it will kill her." +</P> + +<P> +What could the father answer? Nothing! And he was silent. +</P> + +<P> +"Does she know of it?" A shadow went over his face. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Hammond shook his head. +</P> + +<P> +Yet, even as he spoke, a wild cry of distress was heard below. Some +indiscreet person had borne to the ears of the mother the fearful news +about her son, and she had come wildly flying toward the tavern, and +was just entering. +</P> + +<P> +"It is my poor mother," said Willy, a flush coming into his pale face. +"Who could have told her of this?" +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Hammond started for the door, but ere he had reached it, the +distracted mother entered. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! Willy, my boy! my boy!" she exclaimed, in tones of anguish that +made the heart shudder. And she crouched down on the floor, the moment +she reached the bed whereon he lay, and pressed her lips—oh, so +tenderly and lovingly!—to his. +</P> + +<P> +"Dear mother! Sweet mother! Best of mothers!" He even smiled as he said +this; and, into the face now bent over him, looked up with glances of +unutterable fondness. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Willy! Willy! Willy! my son, my son!" And again her lips were laid +closely to his. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Hammond now interfered, and endeavored to remove his wife, fearing +for the consequence upon his son. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't, father!" said Willy; "let her remain. I am not excited nor +disturbed. I am glad that she is here, now. It will be best for us +both." +</P> + +<P> +"You must not excite him, dear," said Mr. Hammond—"he is very weak." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll not excite him," answered the mother. "I'll not speak a word. +There, love"—and she laid her fingers softly upon the lips of her +son—"don't speak a single word." +</P> + +<P> +For only a few moments did she sit with the quiet formality of a nurse, +who feels how much depends on the repose of her patient. Then she began +weeping, moaning, and wringing her hands. +</P> + +<P> +"Mother!" The feeble voice of Willy stilled, instantly, the tempest of +feeling. "Mother, kiss me!" +</P> + +<P> +She bent down and kissed him. +</P> + +<P> +"Are you there, mother?" His eyes moved about, with a straining motion. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, love, here I am." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't see you, mother. It's getting so dark. Oh, mother! mother!" he +shouted suddenly, starting up and throwing himself forward upon her +bosom—"save me! save me!" +</P> + +<P> +How quickly did the mother clasp her arms around him—how eagerly did +she strain him to her bosom! The doctor, fearing the worst +consequences, now came forward, and endeavored to release the arms of +Mrs. Hammond, but she resisted every attempt to do so. +</P> + +<P> +"I will save you, my son," she murmured in the ear of the young man. +"Your mother will protect you. Oh! if you had never left her side, +nothing on earth could have done you harm." +</P> + +<P> +"He is dead!" I heard the doctor whisper; and a thrill of horror went +through me. The words reached the ears of Mr. Hammond, and his groan +was one of almost mortal agony. +</P> + +<P> +"Who says he is dead?" came sharply from the lips of the mother, as she +pressed the form of her child back upon the bed from which he had +sprung to her arms, and looked wildly upon his face. One long scream of +horror told of her convictions, and she fell, lifeless, across the body +of her dead son! +</P> + +<P> +All in the room believed that Mrs. Hammond had only fainted. But the +doctor's perplexed, troubled countenance, as he ordered her carried +into another apartment, and the ghastliness of her face when it was +upturned to the light, suggested to every one what proved to be true. +Even to her obscured perceptions, the consciousness that her son was +dead came with a terrible vividness—so terrible, that it extinguished +her life. +</P> + +<P> +Like fire among dry stubble ran the news of this fearful event through +Cedarville. The whole town was wild with excitement. The prominent +fact, that Willy Hammond had been murdered by Green, whose real +profession was known by many, and now declared to all, was on every +tongue; but a hundred different and exaggerated stories as to the cause +and the particulars of the event were in circulation. By the time +preparations to remove the dead bodies of mother and son from the +"Sickle and Sheaf" to the residence of Mr. Hammond were completed, +hundreds of people, men, women, and children, were assembled around the +tavern and many voices were clamorous for Green; while some called out +for Judge Lyman, whose name, it thus appeared, had become associated in +the minds of the people with the murderous affair. The appearance, in +the midst of this excitement, of the two dead bodies, borne forth on +settees, did not tend to allay the feverish state of indignation that +prevailed. From more than one voice, I heard the words, "Lynch the +scoundrel!" +</P> + +<P> +A part of the crowd followed the sad procession, while the greater +portion, consisting of men, remained about the tavern. All bodies, no +matter for what purpose assembled, quickly find leading spirits who, +feeling the great moving impulse, give it voice and direction. It was +so in this case. Intense indignation against Green was firing every +bosom; and when a man elevated himself a few feet above the agitated +mass of humanity, and cried out: +</P> + +<P> +"The murderer must not escape!" +</P> + +<P> +A wild responding shout, terrible in its fierceness, made the air +quiver. +</P> + +<P> +"Let ten men be chosen to search the house and premises," said the +leading spirit. +</P> + +<P> +"Ay! ay! Choose them! Name them!" was quickly answered. +</P> + +<P> +Ten men were called by name, who instantly stepped in front of the +crowd. +</P> + +<P> +"Search everywhere; from garret to cellar; from hayloft to dog-kennel. +Everywhere! everywhere!" cried the man. +</P> + +<P> +And instantly the ten men entered the house. For nearly a quarter of an +hour, the crowd waited with increasing signs of impatience. These +delegates at length appeared, with the announcement that Green was +nowhere about the premises. It was received with a groan. +</P> + +<P> +"Let no man in Cedarville do a stroke of work until the murderer is +found," now shouted the individual who still occupied his elevated +position. +</P> + +<P> +"Agreed! agreed! No work in Cedarville until the murderer is found," +rang out fiercely. +</P> + +<P> +"Let all who have horses saddle and bridle them as quickly as possible, +and assemble, mounted, at the Court House." +</P> + +<P> +About fifty men left the crowd hastily. +</P> + +<P> +"Let the crowd part in the centre, up and down the road, starting from +a line in front of me." +</P> + +<P> +This order was obeyed. +</P> + +<P> +"Separate again, taking the centre of the road for a line." +</P> + +<P> +Four distinct bodies of men stood now in front of the tavern. +</P> + +<P> +"Now search for the murderer in every nook and corner, for a distance +of three miles from this spot; each party keeping to its own section; +the road being one dividing line, and a line through the centre of this +tavern the other. The horsemen will pursue the wretch to a greater +distance." +</P> + +<P> +More than a hundred acquiescing voices responded to this, as the man +sprung down from his elevation and mingled with the crowd, which began +instantly to move away on its appointed mission. +</P> + +<P> +As the hours went by, one, and another, and another, of the searching +party returned to the village, wearied with their efforts, or confident +that the murderer had made good his escape. The horsemen, too, began to +come in, during the afternoon, and by sundown, the last of them, worn +out and disappointed, made their appearance. +</P> + +<P> +For hours after the exciting events of the forenoon, there were but few +visitors at the "Sickle and Sheaf." Slade, who did not show himself +among the crowd, came down soon after its dispersion. He had shaved and +put on clean linen; but still bore many evidences of a night spent +without sleep. His eyes were red and heavy and the eyelids swollen; +while his skin was relaxed and colorless. As he descended the stairs, I +was walking in the passage. He looked shy at me, and merely nodded. +Guilt was written plainly on his countenance; and with it was blended +anxiety and alarm. That he might be involved in trouble, he had reason +to fear; for he was one of the party engaged in gambling in Green's +room, as both Mr. Jacobs and I had witnessed. +</P> + +<P> +"This is dreadful business," said he, as we met, face to face, half an +hour afterward. He did not look me steadily in the eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"It is horrible!" I answered. "To corrupt and ruin a young man, and +then murder him! There are few deeds in the catalogue of crime blacker +than this!" +</P> + +<P> +"It was done in the heat of passion," said the landlord, with something +of an apology in his manner. "Green never meant to kill him." +</P> + +<P> +"In peaceful intercourse with his fellow-men, why did he carry a deadly +weapon? There was murder in his heart, sir." +</P> + +<P> +"That is speaking very strongly." +</P> + +<P> +"Not stronger than the facts will warrant," I replied. "That Green is a +murderer in heart, it needed not this awful consummation to show. With +a cool, deliberate purpose, he has sought, from the beginning, to +destroy young Hammond." +</P> + +<P> +"It is hardly fair," answered Slade, "in the present feverish +excitement against Green, to assume such a questionable position. It +may do him a great wrong." +</P> + +<P> +"Did Willy Hammond speak only idle words, when he accused Green of +having followed him like a thirsty bloodhound?—of having robbed, and +cheated, and debased him from the beginning?" +</P> + +<P> +"He was terribly excited at the moment." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said I, "no ear that heard his words could for an instant doubt +that they were truthful utterances, wrung from a maddened heart." +</P> + +<P> +My earnest, positive manner had its effect upon Slade. He knew that +what I asserted, the whole history of Green's intercourse with young +Hammond would prove; and he had, moreover, the guilty consciousness of +being a party to the young man's ruin. His eyes cowered beneath the +steady gaze I fixed upon him. I thought of him as one implicated in the +murder, and my thoughts must have been visible in my face. +</P> + +<P> +"One murder will not justify another," said he. +</P> + +<P> +"There is no justification for murder on any plea," was my response. +</P> + +<P> +"And yet, if these infuriated men find Green, they will murder him." +</P> + +<P> +"I hope not. Indignation at a horrible crime has fearfully excited the +people. But I think their sense of justice is strong enough to prevent +the consequences you apprehend." +</P> + +<P> +"I would not like to be in Green's shoes," said the landlord, with an +uneasy movement. +</P> + +<P> +I looked him closely in the face. It was the punishment of the man's +crime that seemed so fearful in his eyes; not the crime itself. Alas! +how the corrupting traffic had debased him. +</P> + +<P> +My words were so little relished by Slade, that he found some ready +excuse to leave me. I saw little more of him during the day. +</P> + +<P> +As evening began to fall, the gambler's unsuccessful pursuers, one +after another, found their way to the tavern, and by the time night had +fairly closed in, the bar-room was crowded with excited and angry men, +chafing over their disappointment, and loud in their threats of +vengeance. That Green had made good his escape, was now the general +belief; and the stronger this conviction became, the more steadily did +the current of passion begin to set in a new direction. It had become +known to every one that, besides Green and young Hammond, Judge Lyman +and Slade were in the room engaged in playing cards. The merest +suggestion as to the complicity of these two men with Green in ruining +Hammond, and thus driving him mad, was enough to excite strong feelings +against them; and now that the mob had been cheated out of its victim, +its pent-up indignation sought eagerly some new channel. +</P> + +<P> +"Where's Slade?" some one asked, in a loud voice, from the centre of +the crowded bar-room. "Why does he keep himself out of sight?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes; where's the landlord?" half a dozen voices responded. +</P> + +<P> +"Did he go on the hunt?" some one inquired. +</P> + +<P> +"No!" "No!" "No!" ran around the room. "Not he." +</P> + +<P> +"And yet, the murder was committed in his own house, and before his own +eyes!" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, before his own eyes!" repeated one and another, indignantly. +</P> + +<P> +"Where's Slade? Where's the landlord? Has anybody seen him tonight? +Matthew, where's Simon Slade?" +</P> + +<P> +From lip to lip passed these interrogations; while the crowd of men +became agitated, and swayed to and fro. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't think he's home," answered the bar-keeper, in a hesitating +manner, and with visible alarm. +</P> + +<P> +"How long since he was here?" +</P> + +<P> +"I haven't seen him for a couple of hours." +</P> + +<P> +"That's a lie!" was sharply said. +</P> + +<P> +"Who says it's a lie?" Matthew affected to be strongly indignant. +</P> + +<P> +"I do!" And a rough, fierce-looking man confronted him. +</P> + +<P> +"What right have you to say so?" asked Matthew, cooling off +considerably. +</P> + +<P> +"Because you lie!" said the man, boldly. "You've seen him within a less +time than half an hour, and well you know it. Now, if you wish to keep +yourself out of this trouble, answer truly. We are in no mood to deal +with liars or equivocators. Where is Simon Slade?" +</P> + +<P> +"I do not know," replied Matthew, firmly. +</P> + +<P> +"Is he in the house?" +</P> + +<P> +"He may be, or he may not be. I am just as ignorant of his exact +whereabouts as you are." +</P> + +<P> +"Will you look for him?" +</P> + +<P> +Matthew stepped to the door, opening from behind the bar, and called +the name of Frank. +</P> + +<P> +"What's wanted?" growled the boy. +</P> + +<P> +"Is your father in the house?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know, nor don't care," was responded in the same ungracious +manner. +</P> + +<P> +"Someone bring him into the bar-room, and we'll see if we can't make +him care a little." +</P> + +<P> +The suggestion was no sooner made, than two men glided behind the bar, +and passed into the room from whence the voice of Frank had issued. A +moment after they reappeared, each grasping an arm of the boy, and +bearing him like a weak child between them. He looked thoroughly +frightened at this unlooked-for invasion of his liberty. +</P> + +<P> +"See here, young man." One of the leading spirits of the crowd +addressed him, as soon as he was brought in front of the counter. "If +you wish to keep out of trouble, answer our questions at once, and to +the point. We are in no mood for trifling. Where's your father?" +</P> + +<P> +"Somewhere about the house, I believe," Frank replied, in an humble +tone. He was no little scared at the summary manner with which he had +been treated. +</P> + +<P> +"How long since you saw him?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not long ago." +</P> + +<P> +"Ten minutes." +</P> + +<P> +"No; nearly half an hour." +</P> + +<P> +"Where was he then?" +</P> + +<P> +"He was going up-stairs." +</P> + +<P> +"Very well, we want him. See him, and tell him so." +</P> + +<P> +Frank went into the house, but came back into the bar-room after an +absence of nearly five minutes, and said that he could not find his +father anywhere. +</P> + +<P> +"Where is he then?" was angrily demanded. +</P> + +<P> +"Indeed, gentlemen, I don't know." Frank's anxious look and frightened +manner showed that he spoke truly. +</P> + +<P> +"There's something wrong about this—something wrong—wrong," said one +of the men. "Why should he be absent now? Why has he taken no steps to +secure the man who committed a murder in his own house, and before his +own eyes? +</P> + +<P> +"I shouldn't wonder if he aided him to escape," said another, making +this serious charge with a restlessness and want of evidence that +illustrated the reckless and unjust spirit by which the mob is ever +governed. +</P> + +<P> +"No doubt of it in the least!" was the quick and positive response. And +at once this erroneous conviction seized upon every one. Not a single +fact was presented. The simple, bold assertion, that no doubt existed +in the mind of one man as to Slade's having aided Green to escape, was +sufficient for the unreflecting mob. +</P> + +<P> +"Where is he? Where is he? Let us find him. He knows where Green is, +and he shall reveal the secret." +</P> + +<P> +This was enough. The passions of the crowd were at fever heat again. +Two or three men were chosen to search the house and premises, while +others dispersed to take a wider range. One of the men who volunteered +to go over the house was a person named Lyon, with whom I had formed +some acquaintance, and several times conversed with on the state of +affairs in Cedarville. He still remained too good a customer at the +bar. I left the bar at the same time that he did, and went up to my +room. We walked side by side, and parted at my door, I going in, and he +continuing on to make his searches. I felt, of course, anxious and much +excited, as well in consequence of the events of the day, as the +present aspect of things. My head was aching violently, and in the hope +of getting relief, I laid myself down. I had already lighted a candle, +and turned the key in my door to prevent intrusion. Only for a short +time did I lie, listening to the hum of voices that came with a hoarse +murmur from below, to the sound of feet moving along the passages, and +to the continual opening and shutting of doors, when something like +suppressed breathing reached my ears, I started up instantly, and +listened; but my quickened pulses were now audible to my own sense, and +obscured what was external. +</P> + +<P> +"It is only imagination," I said to myself. Still, I sat upright, +listening. +</P> + +<P> +Satisfied, at length, that all was mere fancy, I laid myself back on +the pillow, and tried to turn my thoughts away from the suggested idea +that some one was in the room. Scarcely had I succeeded in this, when +my heart gave a new impulse, as a sound like a movement fell upon my +ears. +</P> + +<P> +"Mere fancy!" I said to myself, as some one went past the door at the +moment. "My mind is overexcited." +</P> + +<P> +Still I raised my head, supporting it with my hand, and listened, +directing my attention inside, and not outside of the room. I was about +letting my head fall back upon the pillow, when a slight cough, so +distinct as not to be mistaken, caused me to spring to the floor, and +look under the bed. The mystery was explained. A pair of eyes glittered +in the candlelight. The fugitive, Green, was under my bed. For some +moments I stood looking at him, so astonished that I had neither +utterance nor decision; while he glared at me with a fierce defiance. I +saw that he was clutching a revolver. +</P> + +<P> +"Understand!" he said, in a grating whisper, "that I am not to be taken +alive." +</P> + +<P> +I let the blanket, which had concealed him from view, fall from my +hand, and then tried to collect my thoughts. +</P> + +<P> +"Escape is impossible," said I, again lifting the temporary curtain by +which he was hid. "The whole town is armed, and on the search; and +should you fall into the hands of the mob, in its present state of +exasperation, your life would not be safe an instant. Remain, then, +quiet, where you are, until I can see the sheriff, to whom you had +better resign yourself, for there's little chance for you except under +his protection." +</P> + +<P> +After a brief parley he consented that things should take this course, +and I went out, locking the room door after me, and started in search +of the sheriff. On the information I gave, the sheriff acted promptly. +With five officers, fully armed for defence, in case an effort were +made to get the prisoner out of their hands, he repaired immediately to +the "Sickle and Sheaf." I had given the key of my room into his +possession. +</P> + +<P> +The appearance of the sheriff, with his posse, was sufficient to start +the suggestion that Green was somewhere concealed in the house; and a +suggestion was only needed to cause the fact to be assumed, and +unhesitatingly declared. Intelligence went through the reassembling +crowd like an electric current, and ere the sheriff could manacle and +lead forth his prisoner, the stairway down which he had to come was +packed with bodies, and echoing with oaths and maledictions. +</P> + +<P> +"Gentlemen, clear the way!" cried the sheriff, as he appeared with the +white and trembling culprit at the head of the stairs. "The murderer is +now in the hands of the law, and will meet the sure consequences of his +crime." +</P> + +<P> +A shout of execration rent the air; but not a single individual stirred. +</P> + +<P> +"Give way, there! Give way!" And the sheriff took a step or two +forward, but the prisoner held back. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, the murdering villain! The cursed blackleg! Where's Willy +Hammond?" was heard distinctly above the confused mingling of voices. +</P> + +<P> +"Gentlemen! the law must have its course; and no good citizen will +oppose the law. It is made for your protection—for mine—and for that +of the prisoner." +</P> + +<P> +"Lynch law is good enough for him," shouted a savage voice. "Hand him +over to us, sheriff, and we'll save you the trouble of hanging him, and +the county the cost of the gallows. We'll do the business right." +</P> + +<P> +Five men, each armed with a revolver, now ranged themselves around the +sheriff, and the latter said firmly: +</P> + +<P> +"It is my duty to see this man safely conveyed to prison; and I'm going +to do my duty. If there is any more blood shed here, the blame will +rest with you." And the body of officers pressed forward, the mob +slowly retreating before them. +</P> + +<P> +Green, overwhelmed with terror, held back. I was standing where I could +see his face. It was ghastly with mortal fear. Grasping his pinioned +arms, the sheriff forced him onward. After contending with the crowd +for nearly ten minutes, the officers gained the passage below; but the +mob was denser here, and blocking up the door, resolutely maintained +their position. +</P> + +<P> +Again and again the sheriff appealed to the good sense and justice of +the people. +</P> + +<P> +"The prisoner will have to stand a trial and the law will execute sure +vengeance." +</P> + +<P> +"No, it won't!" was sternly responded. +</P> + +<P> +"Who'll be judge in the case?" was asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, Judge Lyman!" was contemptuously answered. +</P> + +<P> +"A blackleg himself!" was shouted by two or three voices. +</P> + +<P> +"Blackleg judge, and blackleg lawyers! Oh, yes! The law will execute +sure vengeance! Who was in the room gambling with Green and Hammond?" +</P> + +<P> +"Judge Lyman!" "Judge Lyman!" was answered back. +</P> + +<P> +"It won't do, sheriff! There's no law in the country to reach the case +but Lynch law; and that the scoundrel must have. Give him to us!" +</P> + +<P> +"Never! On, men, with the prisoner!" cried the sheriff resolutely, and +the posse made a rush toward the door, bearing back the resisting and +now infuriated crowd. Shouts, cries, oaths, and savage imprecations +blended in wild discord; in the midst of which my blood was chilled by +the sharp crack of a pistol. Another and another shot followed; and +then, as a cry of pain thrilled the air, the fierce storm hushed its +fury in an instant. +</P> + +<P> +"Who's shot? Is he killed?" +</P> + +<P> +There was a breathless eagerness for the answer. +</P> + +<P> +"It's the gambler!" was replied. "Somebody has shot Green." +</P> + +<P> +A low muttered invective against the victim was heard here and there; +but the announcement was not received with a shout of exultation, +though there was scarcely a heart that did not feel pleasure at the +sacrifice of Harvey Green's life. +</P> + +<P> +It was true as had been declared. Whether the shot were aimed +deliberately, or guided by an unseen hand to the heart of the gambler, +was never known; nor did the most careful examination, instituted +afterward by the county, elicit any information that even directed +suspicion toward the individual who became the agent of his death. +</P> + +<P> +At the coroner's inquest, held over the dead body of Harvey Green, +Simon Slade was present. Where he had concealed himself while the mob +were in search of him, was not known. He looked haggard; and his eyes +were anxious and restless. Two murders in his house, occurring in a +single day, were quite enough to darken his spirits; and the more so, +as his relations with both the victims were not of a character to +awaken any thing but self-accusation. +</P> + +<P> +As for the mob, in the death of Green its eager thirst for vengeance +was satisfied. Nothing more was said against Slade, as a participator +in the ruin and death of young Hammond. The popular feeling was one of +pity rather than indignation toward the landlord; for it was seen that +he was deeply troubled. +</P> + +<P> +One thing I noticed, and it was that the drinking at the bar was not +suspended for a moment. A large proportion of those who made up the +crowd of Green's angry pursuers were excited by drink as well as +indignation, and I am very sure that, but for the maddening effects of +liquor, the fatal shot would never have been fired. After the fearful +catastrophe, and when every mind was sobered, or ought to have been +sobered, the crowd returned to the bar-room, where the drinking was +renewed. So rapid were the calls for liquor, that both Matthew and +Frank, the landlord's son, were kept busy mixing the various compounds +demanded by the thirsty customers. +</P> + +<P> +From the constant stream of human beings that flowed toward the "Sickle +and Sheaf," after the news of Green's discovery and death went forth, +it seemed as if every man and boy within a distance of two or three +miles had received intelligence of the event. Few, very, of those who +came, but went first into the bar-room; and nearly all who entered the +bar-room called for liquor. In an hour after the death of Green, the +fact that his dead body was laid out in the room immediately adjoining, +seemed utterly to pass from the consciousness of every one in the bar. +The calls for liquor were incessant; and, as the excitement of drink +increased, voices grew louder, and oaths more plentiful, while the +sounds of laughter ceased not for an instant. +</P> + +<P> +"They're giving him a regular Irish wake," I heard remarked, with a +brutal laugh. +</P> + +<P> +I turned to the speaker, and, to my great surprise, saw that it was +Judge Lyman, more under the influence of drink than I remembered to +have seen him. He was about the last man I expected to find here. If he +knew of the strong indignation expressed toward him a little while +before, by some of the very men now excited with liquor, his own free +drinking had extinguished fear. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, curse him!" was the answer. "If they have a particularly hot +corner 'away down below,' I hope he's made its acquaintance before +this." +</P> + +<P> +"Most likely he's smelled brimstone," chuckled the judge. +</P> + +<P> +"Smelled it! If old Clubfoot hasn't treated him with a brimstone-bath +long before this, he hasn't done his duty. If I thought as much, I'd +vote for sending his majesty a remonstrance forthwith." +</P> + +<P> +"Ha! ha!" laughed the judge. "You're warm on the subject." +</P> + +<P> +"Ain't I? The blackleg scoundrel! Hell's too good for him." +</P> + +<P> +"H-u-s-h! Don't let your indignation run into profanity," said Judge +Lyman, trying to assume a serious air; but the muscles of his face but +feebly obeyed his will's feeble effort. +</P> + +<P> +"Profanity! Poh! I don't call that profanity. It's only speaking out in +meeting, as they say,—it's only calling black, black—and white, +white. You believe in a hell, don't you, judge?" +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose there is one; though I don't know very certain." +</P> + +<P> +"You'd better be certain!" said the other, meaningly. +</P> + +<P> +"Why so?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! because if there is one, and you don't cut your cards a little +differently, you'll be apt to find it at the end of your journey." +</P> + +<P> +"What do you mean by that?" asked the judge, retreating somewhat into +himself, and trying to look dignified. +</P> + +<P> +"Just what I say," was unhesitatingly answered. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you mean to insinuate any thing?" asked the judge, whose brows were +beginning to knit themselves. +</P> + +<P> +"Nobody thinks you a saint," replied the man, roughly. +</P> + +<P> +"I never professed to be." +</P> + +<P> +"And it is said"—the man fixed his gaze almost insultingly upon Judge +Lyman's face—"that you'll get about as hot a corner in the lower +regions as is to be found there, whenever you make the journey in that +direction." +</P> + +<P> +"You are insolent!" exclaimed the judge, his face becoming inflamed. +</P> + +<P> +"Take care what you say, sir!" The man spoke threateningly. +</P> + +<P> +"You'd better take care what YOU say." +</P> + +<P> +"So I will," replied the other. "But—" +</P> + +<P> +"What's to pay here?" inquired a third party, coming up at the moment, +and interrupting the speaker. +</P> + +<P> +"The devil will be to pay," said Judge Lyman, "if somebody don't look +out sharp." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you mean that for me, ha?" The man, between whom and himself this +slight contention had so quickly sprung up, began stripping back his +coat sleeves, like one about to commence boxing. +</P> + +<P> +"I mean it for anybody who presumes to offer me an insult." +</P> + +<P> +The raised voices of the two men now drew toward them the attention of +every one in the bar-room. +</P> + +<P> +"The devil! There's Judge Lyman!" I heard some one exclaim, in a tone +of surprise. +</P> + +<P> +"Wasn't he in the room with Green when Willy Hammond was murdered?" +asked another. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, he was; and what's more, it is said he had been playing against +him all night, he and Green sharing the plunder." +</P> + +<P> +This last remark came distinctly to the ears of Lyman, who started to +his feet instantly, exclaiming fiercely: +</P> + +<P> +"Whoever says that is a cursed liar!" +</P> + +<P> +The words were scarcely out of his mouth, before a blow staggered him +against the wall, near which he was standing. Another blow felled him, +and then his assailant sprang over his prostrate body, kicking him, and +stamping upon his face and breast in the most brutal, shocking manner. +</P> + +<P> +"Kill him! He's worse than Green!" somebody cried out, in a voice so +full of cruelty and murder that it made my blood curdle. "Remember +Willy Hammond!" +</P> + +<P> +The terrible scene that followed, in which were heard a confused +mingling of blows, cries, yells, and horrible oaths, continued for +several minutes, and ceased only when the words—"Don't, don't strike +him any more! He's dead!" were repeated several times. Then the wild +strife subsided. As the crowd parted from around the body of Judge +Lyman, and gave way, I caught a single glance at his face. It was +covered with blood, and every feature seemed to have been literally +trampled down, until all was a level surface! Sickened at the sight, I +passed hastily from the room into the open air, and caught my breath +several times, before respiration again went on freely. As I stood in +front of the tavern, the body of Judge Lyman was borne out by three or +four men, and carried off in the direction of his dwelling. +</P> + +<P> +"Is he dead?" I inquired of those who had him in charge. +</P> + +<P> +"No," was the answer. "He's not dead, but terribly beaten," and they +passed on. +</P> + +<P> +Again the loud voices of men in angry strife arose in the bar-room. I +did not return there to learn the cause, or to witness the fiend-like +conduct of the men, all whose worst passions were stimulated by drink +into the wildest fervor. As I was entering my room, the thought flashed +through my mind that, as Green was found there, it needed only the bare +suggestion that I had aided in his concealment, to direct toward me the +insane fury of the drunken mob. +</P> + +<P> +"It is not safe to remain here." I said this to myself, with the +emphasis of a strong internal conviction. +</P> + +<P> +Against this, my mind opposed a few feeble arguments; but the more I +thought of the matter, the more clearly did I become satisfied, that to +attempt to pass the night in that room was to me a risk it was not +prudent to assume. +</P> + +<P> +So I went in search of Mrs. Slade, to ask her to have another room +prepared for me. But she was not in the house; and I learned, upon +inquiry, that since the murder of young Hammond, she had been suffering +from repeated hysterical and fainting fits, and was now, with her +daughter, at the house of a relative, whither she had been carried +early in the afternoon. +</P> + +<P> +It was on my lip to request the chambermaid to give me another room; +but this I felt to be scarcely prudent, for if the popular indignation +should happen to turn toward me, the servant would be the one +questioned, most likely, as to where I had removed my quarters. +</P> + +<P> +"It isn't safe to stay in the house," said I, speaking to myself. "Two, +perhaps three, murders have been committed already. The tiger's thirst +for blood has been stimulated, and who can tell how quickly he may +spring again, or in what direction?" +</P> + +<P> +Even while I said this, there came up from the bar-room louder and +madder shouts. Then blows were heard, mingled with cries and oaths. A +shuddering sense of danger oppressed me, and I went hastily +down-stairs, and out into the street. As I gained the passage, I looked +into the sitting-room, where the body of Green was laid out. Just then, +the bar-room door was burst open by a fighting party, who had been +thrown, in their fierce contention, against it. I paused only for a +moment or two; and even in that brief period of time, saw blows +exchanged over the dead body of the gambler! +</P> + +<P> +"This is no place for me," I said, almost aloud, and hurried from the +house, and took my way to the residence of a gentleman who had shown me +many kindnesses during my visits at Cedarville. There was needed +scarcely a word of representation on my part, to secure the cordial +tender of a bed. +</P> + +<P> +What a change! It seemed almost like a passage from Pandemonium to a +heavenly region, as I seated myself alone in the quiet chamber a +cheerful hospitality had assigned me, and mused on the exciting and +terrible incidents of the day. They that sow the wind shall reap the +whirlwind. How marked had been the realization of this prophecy, +couched in such strong but beautiful imagery! +</P> + +<P> +On the next day I was to leave Cedarville. Early in the morning I +repaired to the "Sickle and Sheaf." The storm was over, and all was +calm and silent as desolation. Hours before, the tempest had subsided; +but the evidences left behind of its ravaging fury were fearful to look +upon. Doors, chairs, windows, and table's were broken, and even the +strong brass rod that ornamented the bar had been partially wrenched +from its fastenings by strong hands, under an impulse of murder, that +only lacked a weapon to execute its fiendish purpose. Stains of blood, +in drops, marks, and even dried-up pools, were to be seen all over the +bar-room and passage floors, and in many places on the porch. +</P> + +<P> +In the sitting-room still lay the body of Green. Here, too, were many +signs to indicate a fierce struggle. The looking-glass was smashed to a +hundred pieces, and the shivered fragments lay yet untouched upon the +floor. A chair, which it was plain had been used as a weapon of +assault, had two of its legs broken short off, and was thrown into a +corner. And even the bearers on which the dead man lay were pushed from +their true position, showing that even in its mortal sleep, the body of +Green had felt the jarring strife of elements he had himself helped to +awaken into mad activity. From his face, the sheet had been drawn +aside; but no hand ventured to replace it; and there it lay, in its +ghastly paleness, exposed to the light, and covered with restless +flies, attracted by the first faint odors of putridity. With gaze +averted, I approached the body, and drew the covering decently over it. +</P> + +<P> +No person was in the bar. I went out into the stable-yard, where I met +the hostler with his head bound up. There was a dark blue circle around +one of his eyes, and an ugly-looking red scar on his cheek. +</P> + +<P> +"Where is Mr. Slade?" I inquired. +</P> + +<P> +"In bed, and likely to keep it for a week," was answered. +</P> + +<P> +"How comes that?" +</P> + +<P> +"Naturally enough. There was fighting all around last night, and he had +to come in for a share. The fool! If he'd just held his tongue, he +might have come out of it with a whole skin. But, when the rum is in, +the wit is out, with him. It's cost me a black eye and a broken head; +for how could I stand by and see him murdered outright?" +</P> + +<P> +"Is he very badly injured?" +</P> + +<P> +"I rather think he is. One eye is clean gone." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, shocking!" +</P> + +<P> +"It's shocking enough, and no mistake." +</P> + +<P> +"Lost an eye?" +</P> + +<P> +"Too true, sir. The doctor saw him this morning, and says the eye was +fairly gouged out, and broken up. In fact, when we carried him upstairs +for dead, last night, his eye was lying upon his cheek. I pushed it +back with my own hand!" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, horrible!" The relation made me sick. "Is he otherwise much +injured?" +</P> + +<P> +"The doctor thinks there are some bad hurts inside. Why, they kicked +and trampled upon him, as if he had been a wild beast! I never saw such +a pack of blood-thirsty devils in my life!" +</P> + +<P> +"So much for rum," said I. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, sir; so much for rum," was the emphatic response. "It was the +rum, and nothing else. Why, some of the very men who acted the most +like tigers and devils, are as harmless persons as you will find in +Cedarville when sober. Yes, sir; it was the rum, and nothing else. Rum +gave me this broken head and black eye." +</P> + +<P> +"So you had been drinking also?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes. There's no use in denying that." +</P> + +<P> +"Liquor does you harm." +</P> + +<P> +"Nobody knows that better than I do." +</P> + +<P> +"Why do you drink, then?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, just because it comes in the way. Liquor is under my eyes and nose +all the time, and it's as natural as breathing to take a little now and +then. And when I don't think of it myself, somebody will think of it +for me, and say—'Come, Sam, let's take something.' So, you see, for a +body such as I am, there isn't much help for it." +</P> + +<P> +"But ain't you afraid to go on in this way? Don't you know where it +will all end?" +</P> + +<P> +"Just as well as anybody. It will make an end of me or—of all that is +good in me. Rum and ruin, you know, sir. They go together like twin +brothers." +</P> + +<P> +"Why don't you get out of the way of temptation?" said I. +</P> + +<P> +"It's easy enough to ask that question, sir; but how am I to get out of +the way of temptation? Where shall I go, and not find a bar in my road, +and somebody to say—'Come, Sam, let's take a drink'? It can't be done, +sir, nohow. I'm a hostler, and I don't know how to be anything else." +</P> + +<P> +"Can't you work on a farm?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes; I can do something in that way. But, when there are taverns and +bar-rooms, as many as three or four in every mile all over the country, +how are you to keep clear of them? Figure me out that." +</P> + +<P> +"I think you'd better vote on the Maine Law side at next election," +said I. +</P> + +<P> +"Faith, and I did it last time!" replied the man, with a brightening +face—"and if I'm spared, I'll go the same ticket next year." +</P> + +<P> +"What do you think of the Law?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Think of it! Bless your heart! if I was a praying man, which I'm sorry +to say I ain't—my mother was a pious woman, sir"—his voice fell and +slightly trembled—"if I was a praying man, sir, I'd pray, night and +morning, and twenty times every day of my life, for God to put it into +the hearts of the people to give us that Law. I'd have some hope then. +But I haven't much as it is. There's no use in trying to let liquor +alone." +</P> + +<P> +"Do many drinking men think as you do?" +</P> + +<P> +"I can count up a dozen or two myself. It isn't the drinking men who +are so much opposed to the Maine Law as your politicians. They throw +dust in the people's eyes about it, and make a great many, who know +nothing at all of the evils of drinking in themselves, believe some +bugbear story about trampling on the rights of I don't know who, nor +they either. As for rum-sellers' rights, I never could see any right +they had to get rich by ruining poor devils such as I am. I think, +though, that we have some right to be protected against them." +</P> + +<P> +The ringing of a bell here announced the arrival of some traveler, and +the hostler left me. +</P> + +<P> +I learned, during the morning, that Matthew, the bar-keeper, and also +the son of Mr. Slade, were both considerably hurt during the affrays in +the bar-room, and were confined, temporarily, to their beds. Mrs. Slade +still continued in a distressing and dangerous state. Judge Lyman, +though shockingly injured, was not thought to be in a critical +condition. +</P> + +<P> +A busy day the sheriff had of it, making arrests of various parties +engaged in the last night's affairs. Even Slade, unable as he was to +lift his head from his pillow, was required to give heavy bail for his +appearance at court. Happily, I escaped the inconvenience of being held +to appear as a witness, and early in the afternoon had the satisfaction +of finding myself rapidly borne away in the stage-coach. It was two +years before I entered the pleasant village of Cedarville again. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap08"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +NIGHT THE EIGHTH. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +REAPING THE WHIRLWIND. +</H3> + +<P> +I was in Washington City during the succeeding month. It was the short, +or closing session, of a regular Congressional term. The implication of +Judge Lyman in the affair of Green and young Hammond had brought him +into such bad odor in Cedarville and the whole district from which he +had been chosen, that his party deemed it wise to set him aside, and +take up a candidate less likely to meet with so strong and, it might +be, successful an opposition. By so doing, they were able to secure the +election, once more, against the growing temperance party, which +succeeded, however, in getting a Maine Law man into the State +Legislature. It was, therefore, Judge Lyman's last winter at the +Federal Capital. +</P> + +<P> +While seated in the reading-room at Fuller's Hotel, about noon, on the +day after my arrival in Washington, I noticed an individual, whose face +looked familiar, come in and glance about, as if in search of some one. +While yet questioning my mind who he could be, I heard a man remark to +a person with whom he had been conversing: +</P> + +<P> +"There's that vagabond member away from his place in the House, again." +</P> + +<P> +"Who?" inquired the other. +</P> + +<P> +"Why. Judge Lyman," was answered. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!" said the other, indifferently; "it isn't of much consequence. +Precious little wisdom does he add to that intelligent body." +</P> + +<P> +"His vote is worth something, at least, when important questions are at +stake." +</P> + +<P> +"What does he charge for it?" was coolly inquired. +</P> + +<P> +There was a shrug of the shoulders, and an arching of the eyebrows, but +no answer. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm in earnest, though, in the question," said the last speaker. +</P> + +<P> +"Not in saying that Lyman will sell his vote to the highest bidders?" +</P> + +<P> +"That will depend altogether upon whom the bidders may be. They must be +men who have something to lose as well as gain—men not at all likely +to bruit the matter, and in serving whose personal interests no +abandonment of party is required. Judge Lyman is always on good terms +with the lobby members, and may be found in company with some of them +daily. Doubtless, his absence from the House, now, is for the purpose +of a special meeting with gentlemen who are ready to pay well for votes +in favor of some bill making appropriations of public money for private +or corporate benefit." +</P> + +<P> +"You certainly can not mean all you say to be taken in its broadest +sense," was replied to this. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes; in its very broadest. Into just this deep of moral and political +degradation has this man fallen, disgracing his constituents, and +dishonoring his country." +</P> + +<P> +"His presence at Washington doesn't speak very highly in favor of the +community he represents." +</P> + +<P> +"No; still, as things are now, we cannot judge of the moral worth of a +community by the man sent from it to Congress. Representatives show +merely the strength of parties. The candidate chosen in party primary +meetings is not selected because he is the best man they have, and the +one fittest to legislate wisely in national affairs; but he who happens +to have the strongest personal friends among those who nominate, or who +is most likely to poll the highest vote. This is why we find,' in +Congress, such a large preponderance of tenth-rate men." +</P> + +<P> +"A man such as you represent Judge Lyman to be would sell his country, +like another Arnold." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes; if the bid were high enough." +</P> + +<P> +"Does he gamble?" +</P> + +<P> +"Gambling, I might say, is a part of his profession. Very few nights +pass, I am told, without finding him at the gaming-table." +</P> + +<P> +I heard no more. At all this, I was not in the least surprised; for my +knowledge of the man's antecedents had prepared me for allegations +quite as bad as these. +</P> + +<P> +During the week I spent at the Federal Capital, I had several +opportunities of seeing Judge Lyman, in the House and out of it,—in +the House only when the yeas and nays were called on some important +measure, or a vote taken on a bill granting special privileges. In the +latter case, his vote, as I noticed, was generally cast on the +affirmative side. Several times I saw him staggering on the Avenue, and +once brought into the House for the purpose of voting, in so drunken a +state, that he had to be supported to his seat. And even worse than +this—when his name was called, he was asleep, and had to be shaken +several times before he was sufficiently aroused to give his vote! +</P> + +<P> +Happily, for the good of his country, it was his last winter in +Washington. At the next session, a better man took his place. +</P> + +<P> +Two years from the period of my last visit to Cedarville, I found +myself approaching that quiet village again. As the church-spire came +in view, and house after house became visible, here and there, standing +out in pleasant relief against the green background of woods and +fields, all the exciting events which rendered my last visit so +memorable, came up fresh in my mind. I was yet thinking of Willy +Hammond's dreadful death, and of his broken-hearted mother, whose life +went out with his, when the stage rolled by their old homestead. Oh, +what a change was here! Neglect, decay, and dilapidation were visible, +let the eye fall where it would. The fences were down, here and there; +the hedges, once so green and nicely trimmed, had grown rankly in some +places, but were stunted and dying in others; all the beautiful walks +were weedy and grass-grown, and the box-borders dead; the garden, +rainbow-hued in its wealth of choice and beautiful flowers when I first +saw it, was lying waste,—a rooting-ground for hogs. A glance at the +house showed a broken chimney, the bricks unremoved from the spot where +they struck the ground; a moss grown roof, with a large limb from a +lightning-rent tree lying almost balanced over the eaves, and +threatening to fall at the touch of the first wind-storm that swept +over. Half of the vines that clambered about the portico were dead, and +the rest, untrained, twined themselves in wild disorder, or fell +groveling to the earth. One of the pillars of the portico was broken, +as were, also, two of the steps that went up to it. The windows of the +house were closed, but the door stood open, and, as the stage went +past, my eyes rested, for a moment, upon an old man seated in the hall. +He was not near enough to the door for me to get a view of his face; +but the white flowing hair left me in no doubt as to his identity. It +was Judge Hammond. +</P> + +<P> +The "Sickle and Sheaf" was yet the stage-house of Cedarville, and +there, a few minutes afterward, I found myself. The hand of change had +been here also. The first object that attracted my attention was the +sign-post, which at my earlier arrival, some eight or nine years +before, stood up in its new white garment of paint, as straight as a +plummet-line, bearing proudly aloft the golden sheaf and gleaming +sickle. Now, the post, dingy and shattered and worn from the frequent +contact of wheels, and gnawing of restless horses, leaned from its trim +perpendicular at an angle of many degrees, as if ashamed of the faded, +weather-worn, lying symbol it bore aloft in the sunshine. Around the +post was a filthy mud-pool, in which a hog lay grunting out its sense +of enjoyment. Two or three old empty whisky barrels lumbered up the +dirty porch, on which a coarse, bloated, vulgar-looking man sat leaning +against the wall—his chair tipped back on its hind legs—squinting at +me from one eye, as I left the stage and came forward toward the house. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah! is this you?" said he, as I came near to him, speaking thickly, +and getting up with a heavy motion. I now recognized the altered person +of Simon Slade. On looking at him closer, I saw that the eye which I +had thought only shut was in fact destroyed. How vividly, now, uprose +in imagination the scenes I had witnessed during my last night in his +bar-room; the night when a brutal mob, whom he had inebriated with +liquor, came near murdering him. +</P> + +<P> +"Glad to see you once more, my boy! Glad to see you! I—I—I'm not +just—you see. How are you? How are you?" +</P> + +<P> +And he shook my hand with a drunken show of cordiality. +</P> + +<P> +I felt shocked and disgusted. Wretched man! down the crumbling sides of +the pit he had digged for other feet, he was himself sliding, while not +enough strength remained even to struggle with his fate. +</P> + +<P> +I tried for a few minutes to talk with him; but his mind was altogether +beclouded, and his questions and answers incoherent; so I left him, and +entered the bar-room. +</P> + +<P> +"Can I get accommodations here for a couple of days?" I inquired of a +stupid, sleepy-looking man, who was sitting in a chair behind the bar. +</P> + +<P> +"I reckon so," he answered, but did not rise. +</P> + +<P> +I turned, and walked a few paces toward the door, and then walked back +again. +</P> + +<P> +"I'd like to get a room," said I. +</P> + +<P> +The man got up slowly, and going to a desk, fumbled about it for a +while. At length he brought out an old, dilapidated bank-book, and +throwing it open on the counter, asked me, with an indifferent manner, +to write down my name. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll take a pen, if you please." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes!" And he hunted about again in the desk, from which, after a +while, he brought forth the blackened stump of a quill, and pushed it +toward me across the counter. +</P> + +<P> +"Ink," said I—fixing my eyes upon him with a look of displeasure. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't believe there is any," he muttered. "Frank," and he called the +landlord's son, going to the door behind the bar as he did so. +</P> + +<P> +"What d'ye want?" a rough, ill-natured voice answered. +</P> + +<P> +"Where's the ink?" +</P> + +<P> +"Don't know anything about it." +</P> + +<P> +"You had it last. What did you do with it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing!" was growled back. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I wish you'd find it." +</P> + +<P> +"Find it yourself, and—" I cannot repeat the profane language he used. +</P> + +<P> +"Never mind," said I. "A pencil will do just as well." And I drew one +from my pocket. The attempt to write with this, on the begrimed and +greasy page of the register, was only partially successful. It would +have puzzled almost any one to make out the name. From the date of the +last entry, it appeared that mine was the first arrival, for over a +week, of any person desiring a room. +</P> + +<P> +As I finished writing my name, Frank came stalking in, with a cigar in +his mouth, and a cloud of smoke around his head. He had grown into a +stout man—though his face presented little that was manly, in the true +sense of the word. He was disgustingly sensual. On seeing me, a slight +flush tinged his cheeks. +</P> + +<P> +"How do you do?" he said, offering me his hand. "Peter,"—he turned to +the lazy-looking bar-keeper—"tell Jane to have No. 11 put in order for +a gentleman immediately, and tell her to be sure and change the bed +linen." +</P> + +<P> +"Things look rather dull here," I remarked, as the bar-keeper went out +to do as he had been directed. +</P> + +<P> +"Rather; it's a dull place, anyhow." +</P> + +<P> +"How is your mother?" I inquired. +</P> + +<P> +A slight, troubled look came into his face, as he answered: +</P> + +<P> +"No better." +</P> + +<P> +"She's sick, then?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes; she's been sick a good while; and I'm afraid will never be much +better." His manner was not altogether cold and indifferent, but there +was a want of feeling in his voice. +</P> + +<P> +"Is she at home?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, sir." +</P> + +<P> +As he showed no inclination to say more on the subject, I asked no +further questions, and he soon found occasion to leave me. +</P> + +<P> +The bar room had undergone no material change, so far as its furniture +and arrangements were concerned; but a very great change was apparent +in the condition of these. The brass rod around the bar, which, at my +last visit was brightly polished, was now a greenish-black, and there +came from it an unpleasant odor of verdigris. The walls were fairly +coated with dust, smoke, and fly-specks, and the windows let in the +light but feebly through the dirt-obscured glass. The floor was filthy. +Behind the bar, on the shelves designed for a display of liquors, was a +confused mingling of empty or half-filled decanters, cigar-boxes, +lemons and lemon-peel, old newspapers, glasses, a broken pitcher, a +hat, a soiled vest, and a pair of blacking brushes, with other +incongruous things, not now remembered. The air of the room was loaded +with offensive vapors. +</P> + +<P> +Disgusted with every thing about the bar, I went into the sitting-room. +Here, there was some order in the arrangement of the dingy furniture; +but you might have written your name in dust on the looking-glass and +table. The smell of the torpid atmosphere was even worse than that of +the bar-room. So I did not linger here, but passed through the hall, +and out upon the porch, to get a draught of pure air. +</P> + +<P> +Slade still sat leaning against the wall. +</P> + +<P> +"Fine day this," said he, speaking in a mumbling kind of voice. +</P> + +<P> +"Very fine," I answered. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, very fine." +</P> + +<P> +"Not doing so well as you were a few years ago," said I. +</P> + +<P> +"No—you see—these—these 'ere blamed temperance people are ruining +everything." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah! Is that so?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. Cedarville isn't what it was when you first came to the 'Sickle +and Sheaf.' I—I—you see. Curse the temperance people! They've ruined +every thing, you see. Every thing! Ruined—" +</P> + +<P> +And he muttered and mouthed his words in such a way, that I could +understand but little he said; and, in that little, there was scarcely +any coherency. So I left him, with a feeling of pity in my heart for +the wreck he had become, and went into the town to call upon one or two +gentlemen with whom I had business. +</P> + +<P> +In the course of the afternoon, I learned that Mrs. Slade was in an +insane asylum, about five miles from Cedarville. The terrible events of +the day on which young Hammond was murdered completed the work of +mental ruin, begun at the time her husband abandoned the quiet, +honorable calling of a miller, and became a tavern-keeper. Reason could +hold its position no longer. When word came to her that Willy and his +mother were both dead, she uttered a wild shriek, and fell down in a +fainting fit. From that period the balance of her mind was destroyed. +Long before this, her friends saw that reason wavered. Frank had been +her idol. A pure, bright, affectionate boy he was, when she removed +with him from their pleasant cottage-home, where all the surrounding +influences were good, into a tavern, where an angel could scarcely +remain without corruption. From the moment this change was decided on +by her husband, a shadow fell upon her heart. She saw, before her +husband, her children, and herself, a yawning pit, and felt that, in a +very few years, all of them must plunge down into its fearful darkness. +</P> + +<P> +Alas! how quickly began the realization of her worst fears in the +corruption of her worshipped boy! And how vain proved all effort and +remonstrance, looking to his safety, whether made with himself or his +father! From the day the tavern was opened, and Frank drew into his +lungs full draughts of the changed atmosphere by which he was now +surrounded, the work of moral deterioration commenced. The very smell +of the liquor exhilarated him unnaturally; while the subjects of +conversation, so new to him, that found discussion in the bar-room, +soon came to occupy a prominent place in his imagination, to the +exclusion of those humane, child-like, tender, and heavenly thoughts +and impressions it had been the mother's care to impart and awaken. Ah! +with what an eager zest does the heart drink in of evil. And how almost +hopeless is the case of a boy, surrounded, as Frank was, by the +corrupting, debasing associations of a bar-room! Had his father +meditated his ruin, he could not have more surely laid his plans for +the fearful consummation; and he reaped as he had sown. With a selfish +desire to get gain, he embarked in the trade of corruption, ruin, and +death, weakly believing that he and his could pass through the fire +harmless. How sadly a few years demonstrated his error, we have seen. +</P> + +<P> +Flora, I learned, was with her mother, devoting her life to her. The +dreadful death of Willy Hammond, for whom she had conceived a strong +attachment, came near depriving her of reason also. Since the day on +which that awful tragedy occurred, she had never even looked upon her +old home. She went away with her unconscious mother, and ever since had +remained with her—devoting her life to her comfort. Long before this, +all her own and mother's influence over her brother had come to an end. +It mattered not how she sought to stay his feet, so swiftly moving +along the downward way, whether by gentle entreaty, earnest +remonstrance, or tears; in either case, wounds for her own heart were +the sure consequences, while his steps never lingered a moment. A swift +destiny seemed hurrying him on to ruin. The change in her father—once +so tender, so cheerful in his tone, so proud of and loving toward his +daughter—was another source of deep grief to her pure young spirit. +Over him, as well as over her brother, all her power was lost; and he +even avoided her, as though her presence were an offense to him. And +so, when she went out from her unhappy home, she took with her no +desire to return. Even when imagination bore her back to the "Sickle +and Sheaf," she felt an intense, heart-sickening repulsion toward the +place where she had first felt the poisoned arrows of life; and in the +depths of her spirit she prayed that her eyes might never look upon it +again. In her almost cloister-like seclusion, she sought to gather the +mantle of oblivion about her heart. +</P> + +<P> +Had not her mother's condition made Flora's duty a plain one, the true, +unselfish instincts of her heart would have doubtless led her back to +the polluted home she had left, there, in a kind of living death, to +minister as best she could to the comfort of a debased father and +brother. But she was spared that trial—that fruitless sacrifice. +</P> + +<P> +Evening found me once more in the bar-room of the "Sickle and Sheaf." +The sleepy, indifferent bar-keeper, was now more in his element—looked +brighter, and had quicker motions. Slade, who had partially recovered +from the stupefying effects of the heavy draughts of ale with which he +washed down his dinner, was also in a better condition, though not +inclined to talk. He was sitting at a table, alone, with his eyes +wandering about the room. Whether his thoughts were agreeable or +disagreeable, it was not easy to determine. Frank was there, the centre +of a noisy group of coarse fellows, whose vulgar sayings and profane +expletives continually rung through the room. The noisiest, coarsest, +and most profane was Frank Slade; yet did not the incessant volume of +bad language that flowed from his tongue appear in the least to disturb +his father. +</P> + +<P> +Outraged, at length, by this disgusting exhibition, that had not even +the excuse of an exciting cause, I was leaving the bar-room, when I +heard some one remark to a young man who had just come in: "What! you +here again, Ned? Ain't you afraid your old man will be after you, as +usual?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," answered the person addressed, chuckling inwardly, "he's gone to +a prayer-meeting." +</P> + +<P> +"You'll at least have the benefit of his prayers," was lightly remarked. +</P> + +<P> +I turned to observe the young man more closely. His face I remembered, +though I could not identify him at first. But, when I heard him +addressed soon after as Ned Hargrove, I had a vivid recollection of a +little incident that occurred some years before, and which then made a +strong impression. The reader has hardly forgotten the visit of Mr. +Hargrove to the bar-room of the "Sickle and Sheaf," and the +conversation among some of its inmates, which his withdrawal, in +company with his son, then occasioned. The father's watchfulness over +his boy, and his efforts to save him from the allurements and +temptations of a bar-room, had proved, as now appeared, unavailing. The +son was several years older; but it was sadly evident, from the +expression of his face, that he had been growing older in evil faster +than in years. +</P> + +<P> +The few words that I have mentioned as passing between this young man +and another inmate of the bar-room, caused me to turn back from the +door, through which I was about passing, and take a chair near to where +Hargrove had seated himself. As I did so, the eyes of Simon Slade +rested on the last-named individual. +</P> + +<P> +"Ned Hargrove!" he said, speaking roughly—"if you want a drink, you'd +better get it, and make yourself scarce." +</P> + +<P> +"Don't trouble yourself," retorted the young man, "you'll get your +money for the drink in good time." +</P> + +<P> +This irritated the landlord, who swore at Hargrove violently, and said +something about not wanting boys about his place who couldn't stir from +home without having "daddy or mammy running after them." +</P> + +<P> +"Never fear!" cried out the person who had first addressed +Hargrove—"his old man's gone to a prayer-meeting. We shan't have the +light of his pious countenance here to-night." +</P> + +<P> +I fixed my eyes upon the young man to see what effect this coarse and +irreverent allusion to his father would have. A slight tinge of shame +was in his face; but I saw that he had not sufficient moral courage to +resent the shameful desecration of a parent's name. How should he, when +he was himself the first to desecrate that name? +</P> + +<P> +"If he were forty fathoms deep in the infernal regions," answered +Slade, "he'd find out that Ned was here, and get half an hour's leave +of absence to come after him. The fact is, I'm tired of seeing his +solemn, sanctimonious face here every night. If the boy hasn't spirit +enough to tell him to mind his own business, as I have done more than +fifty times, why, let the boy stay away himself." +</P> + +<P> +"Why don't you send him off with a flea in his ear, Ned?" said one of +the company, a young man scarcely his own age. "My old man tried that +game with me, but he soon found that I could hold the winning cards." +</P> + +<P> +"Just what I'm going to do the very next time he comes after me." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes! So you've said twenty times," remarked Frank Slade, in a +sneering, insolent manner. +</P> + +<P> +Edward Hargrove had not the spirit to resent this; he only answered: +</P> + +<P> +"Just let him show himself here to-night, and you will see." +</P> + +<P> +"No, we won't see," sneered Frank. +</P> + +<P> +"Wouldn't it be fun!" was exclaimed. "I hope to be on hand, should it +ever come off." +</P> + +<P> +"He's as 'fraid as death of the old chap," laughed a sottish-looking +man, whose age ought to have inspired him with some respect for the +relation between father and son, and doubtless would, had not a long +course of drinking and familiarity with debasing associates blunted his +moral sense. +</P> + +<P> +"Now for it!" I heard uttered, in a quick, delighted voice. "Now for +fun! Spunk up to him, Ned! Never say die!" +</P> + +<P> +I turned toward the door, and there stood the father of Edward +Hargrove. How well I remembered the broad, fine forehead, the steady, +yet mild eyes, the firm lips, the elevated, superior bearing of the man +I had once before seen in that place, and on a like errand. His form +was slightly bent now; his hair was whiter; his eyes farther back in +his head; his face thinner and marked with deeper lines; and there was +in the whole expression of his face a touching sadness. Yet, superior +to the marks of time and suffering, an unflinching resolution was +visible in his countenance, that gave to it a dignity, and extorted +involuntary respect. He stood still, after advancing a few paces, and +then, his searching eyes having discovered his son, he said mildly, yet +firmly, and with such a strength of parental love in his voice that +resistance was scarcely possible: +</P> + +<P> +"Edward! Edward! Come, my son." +</P> + +<P> +"Don't go." The words were spoken in an undertone, and he who uttered +them turned his face away from Mr. Hargrove, so that the old man could +not see the motion of his lips. A little while before, he had spoken +bravely against the father of Edward; now, he could not stand up in his +presence. +</P> + +<P> +I looked at Edward. He did not move from where he was sitting, and yet +I saw that to resist his father cost him no light struggle. +</P> + +<P> +"Edward." There was nothing imperative—nothing stern—nothing +commanding in the father's voice; but its great, its almost +irresistible power, lay in its expression of the father's belief that +his son would instantly leave the place. And it was this power that +prevailed. Edward arose, and, with eyes cast upon the floor, was moving +away from his companions, when Frank Slade exclaimed: +</P> + +<P> +"Poor, weak fool!" +</P> + +<P> +It was a lightning flash of indignation, rather than a mere glance from +the human eye, that Mr. Hargrove threw instantly upon Frank; while his +fine form sprung up erect. He did not speak, but merely transfixed him +with a look. Frank curled his lip impotently, as he tried to return the +old man's withering glances. +</P> + +<P> +"Now look here!" said Simon Slade, in some wrath, "there's been just +about enough of this. I'm getting tired of it. Why don't you keep Ned +at home? Nobody wants him here." +</P> + +<P> +"Refuse to sell him liquor," returned Mr. Hargrove. +</P> + +<P> +"It's my trade to sell liquor," answered Slade, boldly. +</P> + +<P> +"I wish you had a more honorable calling," said Hargrove, almost +mournfully. +</P> + +<P> +"If you insult my father, I'll strike you down!" exclaimed Frank Slade, +starting up and assuming a threatening aspect. +</P> + +<P> +"I respect filial devotion, meet it where I will," calmly replied Mr. +Hargrove,—"I only wish it had a better foundation in this case. I only +wish the father had merited——" +</P> + +<P> +I will not stain my page with the fearful oath that Frank Slade yelled, +rather than uttered, as, with clenched fist, he sprung toward Mr. +Hargrove. But ere he had reached the unruffled old man—who stood +looking at him as one would look into the eyes of a wild beast, +confident that he could not stand the gaze—a firm hand grasped his +arm, and a rough voice said: +</P> + +<P> +"Avast, there, young man! Touch a hair of that white head, and I'll +wring your neck off." +</P> + +<P> +"Lyon!" As Frank uttered the man's name, he raised his fist to strike +him. A moment the clenched hand remained poised in the air; then it +fell slowly to his side, and he contented himself with an oath and a +vile epithet. +</P> + +<P> +"You can swear to your heart's content. It will do nobody any harm but +yourself," coolly replied Mr. Lyon, whom I now recognized as the person +with whom I had held several conversations during previous visits. +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you, Mr. Lyon," said Mr. Hargrove, "for this manly interference. +It is no more than I should have expected from you." +</P> + +<P> +"I never suffer a young man to strike an old man," said Lyon firmly. +"Apart from that, Mr. Hargrove, there are other reasons why your person +must be free from violence where I am." +</P> + +<P> +"This is a bad place for you, Lyon," said Mr. Hargrove; "and I've said +so to you a good many times." He spoke in rattier an undertone. "Why +WILL you come here?" +</P> + +<P> +"It's a bad place, I know," replied Lyon, speaking out boldly, "and we +all know it. But habit, Mr. Hargrove—habit. That's the cursed thing! +If the bar-rooms were all shut up, there would be another story to +tell. Get us the Maine law, and there will be some chance for us." +</P> + +<P> +"Why don't you vote the temperance ticket?" asked Mr. Hargrove. +</P> + +<P> +"Why did I? you'd better ask," said Lyon. +</P> + +<P> +"I thought you voted against us." +</P> + +<P> +"Not I. Ain't quite so blind to my own interest as that. And, if the +truth were known, I should not at all wonder if every man in this room, +except Slade and his son, voted on your side of the house." +</P> + +<P> +"It's a little strange, then," said Mr. Hargrove, "that with the +drinking men on our side, we failed to secure the election." +</P> + +<P> +"You must blame that on your moderate men, who see no danger and go +blind with their party," answered Lyon. "We have looked the evil in the +face, and know its direful quality." +</P> + +<P> +"Come! I would like to talk with you, Mr. Lyon." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Hargrove, his son, and Mr. Lyon went out together. As they left the +room, Frank Slade said: +</P> + +<P> +"What a cursed liar and hypocrite he is!" +</P> + +<P> +"Who?" was asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, Lyon," answered Frank, boldly. +</P> + +<P> +"You'd better say that to his face." +</P> + +<P> +"It wouldn't be good for him," remarked one of the company. +</P> + +<P> +At this Frank started to his feet, stalked about the room, and put on +all the disgusting airs of a drunken braggart. Even his father saw the +ridiculous figure he cut, and growled out: +</P> + +<P> +"There, Frank, that'll do. Don't make a miserable fool of yourself!" +</P> + +<P> +At which Frank retorted, with so much of insolence that his father flew +into a towering passion, and ordered him to leave the bar-room. +</P> + +<P> +"You can go out yourself if you don't like the company. I'm very well +satisfied," answered Frank. +</P> + +<P> +"Leave this room, you impudent young scoundrel!" +</P> + +<P> +"Can't go, my amiable friend," said Frank, with a cool self-possession +that maddened his father, who got up hastily, and moved across the +bar-room to the place where he was standing. +</P> + +<P> +"Go out, I tell you!" Slade spoke resolutely. +</P> + +<P> +"Would be happy to oblige you," Frank said, in a taunting voice; "but, +'pon my word, it isn't at all convenient." +</P> + +<P> +Half intoxicated as he was, and already nearly blind with passion, +Slade lifted his hand to strike his son. And the blow would have fallen +had not some one caught his arm, and held him back from the meditated +violence. Even the debased visitors of this bar-room could not stand by +and see nature outraged in a bloody strife between father and son; for +it was plain from the face and quickly assumed attitude of Frank, that +if his father had laid his hand upon him, he would have struck him in +return. +</P> + +<P> +I could not remain to hear the awful imprecations that father and son, +in their impotent rage, called down from heaven upon each other's +heads. It was the most shocking exhibition of depraved human nature +that I had ever seen. And so I left the bar-room, glad to escape from +its stifling atmosphere and revolting scenes. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap09"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +NIGHT THE NINTH. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +A FEARFUL CONSUMMATION. +</H3> + +<P> +Neither Slade nor his son was present at the breakfast-table on the +next morning. As for myself, I did not eat with much appetite. Whether +this defect arose from the state of my mind, or the state of the food +set before me, I did not stop to inquire; but left the stifling, +offensive atmosphere of the dining-room in a very few moments after +entering that usually attractive place for a hungry man. +</P> + +<P> +A few early drinkers were already in the bar-room—men with shattered +nerves and cadaverous faces, who could not begin the day's work without +the stimulus of brandy or whisky. They came in, with gliding footsteps, +asked for what they wanted in low voices, drank in silence, and +departed. It was a melancholy sight to look upon. +</P> + +<P> +About nine o'clock the landlord made his appearance. He, too, came +gliding into the bar-room, and his first act was to seize upon a brandy +decanter, pour out nearly half a pint of the fiery liquid, and drink it +off. How badly his hand shook—so badly that he spilled the brandy both +in pouring it out and in lifting the glass to his lips! What a +shattered wreck he was! He looked really worse now than he did on the +day before, when drink gave an artificial vitality to his system, a +tension to his muscles, and light to his countenance. The miller of ten +years ago, and the tavern-keeper of today! Who could have identified +them as one? +</P> + +<P> +Slade was turning from the bar, when a man? came in. I noticed an +instant change in the landlord's countenance. He looked startled; +almost frightened. The man drew a small package from his pocket, and +after selecting a paper therefrom, presented it to Slade, who received +it with a nervous reluctance, opened, and let his eye fall upon the +writing within. I was observing him closely at the time, and saw his +countenance flush deeply. In a moment or two it became pale +again—paler even than before. +</P> + +<P> +"Very well—all right. I'll attend to it," said the landlord, trying to +recover himself, yet swallowing with every sentence. +</P> + +<P> +The man who was no other than a sheriff's deputy, and who gave him a +sober, professional look, then went out with a firm step, and an air of +importance. As he passed through the outer door, Slade retired from the +bar-room. +</P> + +<P> +"Trouble coming," I heard the bar-keeper remark, speaking partly to +himself and partly with the view, as was evident from his manner, of +leading me to question him. But this I did not feel that it was right +to do. +</P> + +<P> +"Got the sheriff on him at last," added the bar-keeper. +</P> + +<P> +"What's the matter, Bill?" inquired a man who now came in with a +bustling, important air, and leaned familiarly over the bar. "Who was +Jenkins after?" +</P> + +<P> +"The old man," replied the bar-keeper, in a voice that showed pleasure +rather than regret. +</P> + +<P> +"No!" +</P> + +<P> +"It's a fact." Bill, the bar-keeper, actually smiled. +</P> + +<P> +"What's to pay?" said the man. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't know, and don't care much." "Did he serve a summons or an +execution?" +</P> + +<P> +"Can't tell." +</P> + +<P> +"Judge Lyman's suit went against him." +</P> + +<P> +"Did it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes; and I heard Judge Lyman swear, that if he got him on the hip, +he'd sell him out, bag and basket. And he's the man to keep his word." +</P> + +<P> +"I never could just make out," said the bar-keeper, "how he ever came +to owe Judge Lyman so much. I've never known of any business +transactions between them." +</P> + +<P> +"It's been dog eat dog, I rather guess," said the man. +</P> + +<P> +"What do you mean by that?" inquired the bar-keeper. +</P> + +<P> +"You've heard of dogs hunting in pairs?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, since Harvey Green got his deserts, the business of fleecing our +silly young fellows, who happened to have more money than wit or +discretion, has been in the hands of Judge Lyman and Slade. They hunted +together, Slade holding the game, while the judge acted as +blood-sucker. But that business was interrupted about a year ago; and +game got so scarce that, as I suggested, dog began to eat dog. And here +comes the end of the matter, if I'm not mistaken. So mix us a stiff +toddy. I want one more good drink at the 'Sickle and Sheaf,' before the +colors are struck." +</P> + +<P> +And the man chuckled at his witty effort. +</P> + +<P> +During the day, I learned that affairs stood pretty much as this man +had conjectured. Lyman's suits had been on sundry notes payable on +demand; but nobody knew of any property transactions between him and +Slade. On the part of Slade, no defense had been made—the suit going +by default. The visit of the sheriff's officer was for the purpose of +serving an execution. +</P> + +<P> +As I walked through Cedarville on that day, the whole aspect of the +place seemed changed. I questioned with myself, often, whether this +were really so, or only the effect of imagination. The change was from +cheerfulness and thrift, to gloom and neglect. There was, to me, a +brooding silence in the air; a pause in the life-movement; a folding of +the hands, so to speak, because hope had failed from the heart. The +residence of Mr. Harrison, who, some two years before, had suddenly +awakened to a lively sense of the evil of rum-selling, because his own +sons were discovered to be in danger, had been one of the most tasteful +in Cedarville. I had often stopped to admire the beautiful shrubbery +and flowers with which it was surrounded; the walks so clear—the +borders so fresh and even—the arbors so cool and inviting. There was +not a spot upon which the eye could rest, that did not show the hand of +taste. When I now came opposite to this house, I was not longer in +doubt as to the actuality of a change. There were no marked evidences +of neglect; but the high cultivation and nice regard for the small +details were lacking. The walks were cleanly swept; but the box-borders +were not so carefully trimmed. The vines and bushes that in former +times were cut and tied so evenly, could hardly have felt the keen +touch of the pruning-knife for months. +</P> + +<P> +As I paused to note the change, a lady, somewhat beyond the middle age, +came from the house. I was struck by the deep gloom that overshadowed +her countenance. Ah! said I to myself, as I passed on, how many dear +hopes, that once lived in that heart, must have been scattered to the +winds. As I conjectured, this was Mrs. Harrison, and I was not +unprepared to hear, as I did a few hours afterward, that her two sons +had fallen into drinking habits; and, not only this, had been enticed +to the gaming-table. Unhappy mother! What a life-time of wretchedness +was compressed for thee into a few short years! +</P> + +<P> +I walked on, noting, here and there, changes even more marked than +appeared about the residence of Mr. Harrison. Judge Lyman's beautiful +place showed utter neglect; and so did one or two others that, on my +first visit to Cedarville, charmed me with their order, neatness, and +cultivation. In every instance, I learned, on inquiring, that the +owners of these, or some members of their families, were, or had been, +visitors at the "Sickle and Sheaf"; and that the ruin, in progress or +completed, began after the establishment of that point of attraction in +the village. +</P> + +<P> +Something of a morbid curiosity, excited by what I saw, led me on to +take a closer view of the residence of Judge Hammond than I had +obtained on the day before. The first thing that I noticed, on +approaching the old, decaying mansion, were handbills, posted on the +gate, the front-door, and on one of the windows. A nearer inspection +revealed their import. The property had been seized, and was now +offered at sheriff's sale! +</P> + +<P> +Ten years before, Judge Hammond was known as the richest man in +Cedarville; and now, the homestead which he had once so loved to +beautify—where all that was dearest to him in life once +gathered—worn, disfigured, and in ruins, was about to be wrested from +him. I paused at the gate, and leaning over it, looked in with saddened +feelings upon the dreary waste within. No sign of life was visible. The +door was shut—the windows closed—not the faintest wreath of smoke was +seen above the blackened chimney-tops. How vividly did imagination +restore the life, and beauty, and happiness, that made their home there +only a few years before,—the mother and her noble boy, one looking +with trembling hope, the other with joyous confidence, into the +future,—the father, proud of his household treasures, but not their +wise and jealous guardian. +</P> + +<P> +Ah! that his hands should have unbarred the door, and thrown it wide, +for the wolf to enter that precious fold! I saw them all in their sunny +life before me; yet, even as I looked upon them, their sky began to +darken. I heard the distant mutterings of the storm, and soon the +desolating tempest swept down fearfully upon them. I shuddered as it +passed away, to look upon the wrecks left scattered around. What a +change! +</P> + +<P> +"And all this," said I, "that one man, tired of being useful, and eager +to get gain, might gather in accursed gold!" +</P> + +<P> +Pushing open the gate, I entered the yard, and walked around the +dwelling, my footsteps echoing in the hushed solitude of the deserted +place. Hark! was that a human voice? +</P> + +<P> +I paused to listen. +</P> + +<P> +The sound came, once more, distinctly to my ears, I looked around, +above, everywhere, but perceived no living sign. For nearly a minute I +stood still, listening. Yes; there it was again—a low, moaning voice, +as of one in pain or grief. I stepped onward a few paces; and now saw +one of the doors standing ajar. As I pushed this door wide open, the +moan was repeated. Following the direction from which the sound came, I +entered one of the large drawing-rooms. The atmosphere was stifling, +and all as dark as if it were midnight. Groping my way to a window, I +drew back the bolt and threw open the shutter. Broadly the light fell +across the dusty, uncarpeted floor, and on the dingy furniture of the +room. As it did so, the moaning voice which had drawn me thither +swelled on the air again; and now I saw, lying upon an old sofa, the +form of a man. It needed no second glance to tell me that this was +Judge Hammond. I put my hand upon him, and uttered his name; but he +answered not. I spoke more firmly, and slightly shook him; but only a +piteous moan was returned. +</P> + +<P> +"Judge Hammond!" I now called aloud, and somewhat imperatively. +</P> + +<P> +But it availed nothing. The poor old man aroused not from the stupor in +which mind and body were enshrouded. +</P> + +<P> +"He is dying!" thought I; and instantly left the house in search of +some friends to take charge of him in his last, sad extremity. The +first person to whom I made known the fact shrugged his shoulders, and +said it was no affair of his, and that I must find somebody whose +business it was to attend to him. My next application was met in the +same spirit; and no better success attended my reference of the matter +to a third party. No one to whom I spoke seemed to have any sympathy +for the broken-down old man. Shocked by this indifference, I went to +one of the county officers, who, on learning the condition of Judge +Hammond, took immediate steps to have him removed to the Alms-house, +some miles distant. +</P> + +<P> +"But why to the Alms-house?" I inquired, on learning his purpose. "He +has property." +</P> + +<P> +"Everything has been seized for debt," was the reply. +</P> + +<P> +"Will there be nothing left after his creditors are satisfied?" +</P> + +<P> +"Very few, if any, will be satisfied," he answered. "There will not be +enough to pay half the judgments against him." +</P> + +<P> +"And is there no friend to take him in,—no one, of all who moved by +his side in the days of prosperity, to give a few hours' shelter, and +soothe the last moments of his unhappy life?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why did you make application here?" was the officer's significant +question. +</P> + +<P> +I was silent. +</P> + +<P> +"Your earnest appeals for the poor old man met with no words of +sympathy?" +</P> + +<P> +"None." +</P> + +<P> +"He has, indeed, fallen low. In the days of his prosperity, he had many +friends, so called. Adversity has shaken them all like dead leaves from +sapless branches." +</P> + +<P> +"But why? This is not always so." +</P> + +<P> +"Judge Hammond was a selfish, worldly man. People never liked him much. +His favoring, so strongly, the tavern of Slade, and his distillery +operations, turned from him some of his best friends. The corruption +and terrible fate of his son—and the insanity and death of his +wife—all were charged upon him in people's minds, and every one seemed +to turn from him instinctively after the fearful tragedy was completed. +He never held tip his head afterward. Neighbors shunned him as they +would a criminal. And here has come the end at last. He will be taken +to the poorhouse, to die there—a pauper!" +</P> + +<P> +"And all," said I, partly speaking to myself, "because a man, too lazy +to work at an honest calling, must needs go to rum-selling." +</P> + +<P> +"The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth," remarked the +officer with emphasis, as he turned from me to see that his directions +touching the removal of Mr. Hammond to the poor-house were promptly +executed. +</P> + +<P> +In my wanderings about Cedarville during that day, I noticed a small +but very neat cottage, a little way from the centre of the village. +There was not around it a great profusion of flowers and shrubbery; but +the few vines, flowers, and bushes that grew green and flourishing +about the door, and along the clean walks, added to the air of taste +and comfort that so peculiarly marked the dwelling. +</P> + +<P> +"Who lives in that pleasant little spot?" I asked of a man whom I had +frequently seen in Blade's bar-room. He happened to be passing the +house at the same time that I was. +</P> + +<P> +"Joe Morgan," was answered. +</P> + +<P> +"Indeed!" I spoke in some surprise. "And what of Morgan? How is he +doing?" +</P> + +<P> +"Very well." +</P> + +<P> +"Doesn't he drink?" +</P> + +<P> +"No. Since the death of his child, he has never taken a drop. That +event sobered him, and he has remained sober ever since." +</P> + +<P> +"What is he doing?" +</P> + +<P> +"Working at his old trade." +</P> + +<P> +"That of a miller?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. After Judge Hammond broke down, the distillery apparatus and +cotton spinning machinery were all sold and removed from Cedarville. +The purchaser of what remained, having something of the fear of God, as +well as regard for man, in his heart, set himself to the restoration of +the old order of things, and in due time the revolving mill-wheel was +at its old and better work of grinding corn and wheat for bread. The +only two men in Cedarville competent to take charge of the mill were +Simon Slade and Joe Morgan. The first could not be had, and the second +came in as a matter of course." +</P> + +<P> +"And he remains sober and industrious?" +</P> + +<P> +"As any man in the village," was the answer. +</P> + +<P> +I saw but little of Slade or his son during the day. But both were in +the bar-room at night, and both in a condition sorrowful to look upon. +Their presence, together, in the bar-room, half intoxicated as they +were, seemed to revive the unhappy temper of the previous evening, as +freshly as if the sun had not risen and set upon their anger. +</P> + +<P> +During the early part of the evening, considerable company was present, +though not of a very select class. A large proportion were young men. +To most of them the fact that Slade had fallen into the sheriff's hands +was known; and I gathered from some aside conversation which reached my +ears, that Frank's idle, spendthrift habits had hastened the present +crisis in his father's affairs. He, too, was in debt to Judge Lyman—on +what account, it was not hard to infer. +</P> + +<P> +It was after nine o'clock, and there were not half a dozen persons in +the room, when I noticed Frank Slade go behind the bar for the third or +fourth time. He was just lifting a decanter of brandy, when his father, +who was considerably under the influence of drink, started forward, and +laid his hand upon that of his son. Instantly a fierce light gleamed +from the eyes of the young man. +</P> + +<P> +"Let go of my hand!" he exclaimed. +</P> + +<P> +"No, I won't. Put up that brandy bottle—you're drunk now." +</P> + +<P> +"Don't meddle with me, old man!" angrily retorted Frank. "I'm not in +the mood to bear anything more from YOU." +</P> + +<P> +"You're drunk as a fool now," returned Slade, who had seized the +decanter. "Let go the bottle." +</P> + +<P> +For only an instant did the young man hesitate. Then he drove his +half-clenched hand against the breast of his father, who went +staggering several paces from the counter. Recovering himself, and now +almost furious, the landlord rushed forward upon his son, his hand +raised to strike him. +</P> + +<P> +"Keep off!" cried Frank. "Keep off! If you touch me, I'll strike you +down!" At the same time raising the half-filled bottle threateningly. +</P> + +<P> +But his father was in too maddened a state to fear any consequences, +and so pressed forward upon his son, striking him in the face the +moment he came near enough to do so. +</P> + +<P> +Instantly, the young man, infuriated by drink and evil passions, threw +the bottle at his father's head. The dangerous missile fell, crashing +upon one of his temples, shivering it into a hundred pieces. A heavy, +jarring fall too surely marked the fearful consequences of the blow. +When we gathered around the fallen man, and made an effort to lift him +from the floor, a thrill of horror went through every heart. A mortal +paleness was already on his marred face, and the death-gurgle in his +throat! In three minutes from the time the blow was struck, his spirit +had gone upward to give an account of the deeds done in the body. +</P> + +<P> +"Frank Slade! you have murdered your father!" +</P> + +<P> +Sternly were these terrible words uttered. It was some time before the +young man seemed to comprehend their meaning. But the moment he +realized the awful truth, he uttered an exclamation of horror. Almost +at the same instant, a pistol-shot came sharply on the ear. But the +meditated self-destruction was not accomplished. The aim was not surely +taken; and the ball struck harmlessly against the ceiling. +</P> + +<P> +Half an hour afterward, and Frank Slade was a lonely prisoner in the +county jail! +</P> + +<P> +Does the reader need a word of comment on this fearful consummation? +No; and we will offer none. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap10"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +NIGHT THE TENTH. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE CLOSING SCENE AT THE "SICKLE AND SHEAF." +</H3> + +<P> +On the day that succeeded the evening of this fearful tragedy, placards +were to be seen all over the village, announcing a mass meeting at the +"Sickle and Sheaf" that night. +</P> + +<P> +By early twilight, the people commenced assembling. The bar, which had +been closed all day, was now thrown open, and lighted; and in this +room, where so much of evil had been originated, encouraged and +consummated, a crowd of earnest-looking men were soon gathered. Among +them I saw the fine person of Mr. Hargrove. Joe Morgan—or rather, Mr. +Morgan—was also one of the number. The latter I would scarcely have +recognized, had not some one near me called him by name. He was well +dressed, stood erect, and though there were many deep lines on his +thoughtful countenance, all traces of his former habits were gone. +While I was observing him, he arose, and addressing a few words to the +assemblage, nominated Mr. Hargrove as chairman of the meeting. To this +a unanimous assent was given. +</P> + +<P> +On taking the chair, Mr. Hargrove made a brief address, something to +this effect. +</P> + +<P> +"Ten years ago," said he, his voice evincing a slight unsteadiness as +he began, but growing firmer as he proceeded, "there was not a happier +spot in Bolton county than Cedarville. Now, the marks of ruin are +everywhere. Ten years ago, there was a kind-hearted, industrious miller +in Cedarville, liked by every one, and as harmless as a little child. +Now, his bloated, disfigured body lies in that room. His death was +violent, and by the hand of his own son!" +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Hargrove's words fell slowly, distinctly, and marked by the most +forcible emphasis. There was scarcely one present who did not feel a +low shudder run along his nerves, as the last words were spoken in a +husky whisper. +</P> + +<P> +"Ten years ago," he proceeded, "the miller had a happy wife, and two +innocent, glad-hearted children. Now, his wife, bereft of reason, is in +a mad-house, and his son the occupant of a felon's cell, charged with +the awful crime of parricide!" +</P> + +<P> +Briefly he paused, while his audience stood gazing upon him with +half-suspended respiration. +</P> + +<P> +"Ten years ago," he went on, "Judge Hammond was accounted the richest +man in Cedarville. Yesterday he was carried, a friendless pauper, to +the Alms-house; and to-day he is the unmourned occupant of a pauper's +grave! Ten years ago, his wife was the proud, hopeful, loving mother of +a most promising son. I need not describe what Willy Hammond was. All +here knew him well. Ah! what shattered the fine intellect of that +noble-minded woman? Why did her heart break? Where is she? Where is +Willy Hammond?" +</P> + +<P> +A low, half-repressed groan answered the speaker. +</P> + +<P> +"Ten years ago, you, sir," pointing to a sad-looking old man, and +calling him by name, "had two sons—generous, promising, manly-hearted +boys. What are they now? You need not answer the question. Too well is +their history and your sorrow known. Ten years ago, I had a +son,—amiable, kind, loving, but weak. Heaven knows how I sought to +guard and protect him! But he fell also. The arrows of destruction +darkened the very air of our once secure and happy village. And who is +safe? Not mine, nor yours! +</P> + +<P> +"Shall I go on? Shall I call up and pass in review before you, one +after another, all the wretched victims who have fallen in Cedarville +during the last ten years? Time does not permit. It would take hours +for the enumeration! No; I will not throw additional darkness into the +picture. Heaven knows it is black enough already! But what is the root +of this great evil? Where lies the fearful secret? Who understands the +disease? A direful pestilence is in the air—it walketh in darkness, +and wasteth at noonday. It is slaying the first-born in our houses, and +the cry of anguish is swelling on every gale. Is there no remedy?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes! yes! There is a remedy!" was the spontaneous answer from many +voices. +</P> + +<P> +"Be it our task, then, to find and apply it this night," answered the +chairman, as he took his seat. +</P> + +<P> +"And there is but one remedy," said Morgan, as Mr. Hargrove sat down. +"The accursed traffic must cease among us. You must cut off the +fountain, if you would dry up the stream. If you would save the young, +the weak, and the innocent—on you God has laid the solemn duty of +their protection—you must cover them from the tempter. Evil is strong, +wily, fierce, and active in the pursuit of its ends. The young, the +weak, and the innocent can no more resist its assaults, than the lamb +can resist the wolf. They are helpless, if you abandon them to the +powers of evil. Men and brethren! as one who has himself been well-nigh +lost—as one who, daily, feels and trembles at the dangers that beset +his path—I do conjure you to stay the fiery stream that is bearing +every thing good and beautiful among you to destruction. Fathers! for +the sake of your young children, be up now and doing. Think of Willy +Hammond, Frank Slade, and a dozen more whose names I could repeat, and +hesitate no longer! Let us resolve, this night, that from henceforth +the traffic shall cease in Cedarville. Is there not a large majority of +citizens in favor of such a measure? And whose rights or interests can +be affected by such a restriction? Who, in fact, has any right to sow +disease and death in our community? The liberty, under sufferance, to +do so, wrongs the individual who uses it, as well as those who become +his victims. Do you want proof of this? Look at Simon Slade, the happy, +kind-hearted miller; and at Simon Slade, the tavern-keeper. Was he +benefited by the liberty to work harm to his neighbor? No! no! In +heaven's name, then, let the traffic cease! To this end, I offer these +resolutions:— +</P> + +<P> +"Be it resolved by the inhabitants of Cedarville, That from this day +henceforth, no more intoxicating drink shall be sold within the limits +of the corporation. +</P> + +<P> +"Resolved, further, That all the liquors in the 'Sickle and Sheaf' be +forthwith destroyed, and that a fund be raised to pay the creditors of +Simon Slade therefor, should they demand compensation. +</P> + +<P> +"Resolved, That in closing up all other places where liquor is sold, +regard shall be had to the right of property which the law secures to +every man. +</P> + +<P> +"Resolved, That with the consent of the legal authorities, all the +liquor for sale in Cedarville be destroyed, provided the owners thereof +be paid its full value out of a fund specially raised for that purpose." +</P> + +<P> +But for the calm yet resolute opposition of one or two men, these +resolutions would have passed by acclamation. A little sober argument +showed the excited company that no good end is ever secured by the +adoption of wrong means. +</P> + +<P> +There were, in Cedarville, regularly constituted authorities, which +alone had the power to determine public measures, or to say what +business might or might not be pursued by individuals. And through +these authorities they must act in an orderly way. +</P> + +<P> +There was some little chafing at this view of the case. But good sense +and reason prevailed. Somewhat modified, the resolutions passed, and +the more ultra-inclined contented themselves with carrying out the +second resolution, to destroy forthwith all the liquor to be found on +the premises; which was immediately done. After which the people +dispersed to their homes, each with a lighter heart, and better hopes +for the future of their village. +</P> + +<P> +On the next day, as I entered the stage that was to bear me from +Cedarville, I saw a man strike his sharp axe into the worn, faded, and +leaning post that had, for so many years, borne aloft the "Sickle and +Sheaf"; and, just as the driver gave word to his horses, the false +emblem which had invited so many to enter the way of destruction, fell +crashing to the earth. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="finis"> +THE END. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Ten Nights in a Bar Room, by T. S. Arthur + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TEN NIGHTS IN A BAR ROOM *** + +***** This file should be named 4744-h.htm or 4744-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/4/7/4/4744/ + +Produced by Robert Rowe, Charles Franks and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. HTML version by Al Haines. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + + +</pre> + +</BODY> + +</HTML> + + |