ISAAC OGDEN BECOMES A BACKSLIDER.
About a month later in the year, when December reigned in all its
dreariness over Shayton, and the wild moors were sprinkled with a thin
scattering of snow, little Jacob began to be very miserable.
His grandmother had gone to stay a fortnight with some old friends of
hers beyond Manchester, and his father had declared that for the next
two Sundays he should remain at Twistle, and not "go bothering his uncle
at Milend." Mr. Prigley had walked up to the farm, and kindly offered to
receive little Jacob at the parsonage during Mrs. Ogden's absence; but
Mr. Isaac had declined the proposal rather curtly, and, as Mr. Prigley
thought, in a manner that did not sufficiently acknowledge the kindness
of his intention. Indeed, the clergyman had not been quite satisfied
with his reception; for although Mr. Isaac had shown him the pond, and
given him something to eat, there had been, Mr. Prigley thought,
symptoms of secret annoyance or suppressed irritation. Little Jacob's
loneliness was rendered still more complete by the continued absence of
his friend the Doctor, who, in consequence of a disease then very
prevalent in the neighborhood, found his whole time absorbed by pressing
professional duties, so that the claims of friendship, and even the
anxious interest which he took in Mr. Isaac's moral and physical
condition, had for the time to be considered in abeyance. We have
already observed that Mr. Jacob Ogden of Milend never came to Twistle
Farm at all, so that his absence was a matter of course; and as he was
not in the habit of writing any letters except about business, there was
an entire cessation of intercourse with Milend.
It had been a part of Mr. Isaac's plan of reformation not to keep
spirits of any kind at the farm, but he had quite enough ale and wine to
get drunk upon in case his resolution gave way. He had received such a
lecture from the Doctor after that evening at the parsonage as had
thoroughly frightened him. He had been told, with the most serious air
that a doctor knows how to assume, that his nervous system was already
shattered, that his stomach was fast becoming worthless, and that, if he
continued his present habits, his life would terminate in eighteen
months. Communications of this kind are never agreeable, but they are
especially difficult to bear with equanimity when the object of them has
lost much of the combative and recuperative powers which belong to a
mind in health; and the Doctor's terrible sermon produced in Mr. Isaac
_not_ a manly strength of purpose that subdues and surmounts evil, and
passes victoriously beyond it, but an abject terror of its consequences,
and especially a nervous dread of the Red Lion. He would enter that
place no more, he was firmly resolved upon _that_. He would stay quietly
at Twistle Farm and occupy himself,--he would try to read,--he had often
regretted that business and pleasure had together prevented him from
cultivating his mind by reading, and now that the opportunity was come,
he would seize it and make the most of it. He would qualify himself to
direct little Jacob's studies, at least so far as English literature
went. As for Latin, the little he ever knew had been forgotten many
years ago, but he might learn enough to judge of his boy's progress, and
perhaps help him a little. He knew no modern language, and had not even
that pretension to read French which is so common in England, and which
is more injurious to the character of the nation than perfect ignorance,
whilst it is equally unprofitable to its intellect. If Mr. Isaac were
an ignorant man, he had at least the great advantage of clearly knowing
that he was so, but it might not even yet be too late to improve
himself. Had he not perfect leisure? could he not study six hours a day,
if he were so minded? This would be better than destroying himself in
eighteen months in the parlor at the Red Lion.
There were not many books at Twistle, but there _were_ books. Mr. Isaac
differed from his brother Jacob, and from the other men in Shayton, in
having long felt a hankering after various kinds of knowledge, though he
had never possessed the leisure or the resolution to acquire it. There
was a bookseller's shop in St. Ann's Square, in Manchester, which he
used to pass when he was in the cotton business on his way from the
exchange to a certain oyster-shop where it was his custom to
refresh himself; and he had been occasionally tempted to make
purchases,--amongst the rest, the works of Charles Dickens and Sir
Walter Scott, and the 'Encyclopædia Britannica.' He had also bought
Macaulay's 'History of England,' and subscribed to a library edition of
the British poets in forty volumes, and a biographical work containing
lives of eminent Englishmen, scarcely less voluminous. These, with
several minor purchases, constituted the whole collection,--which,
though not extensive, had hitherto much more than sufficed for the
moderate wants of its possessor. He had read all the works of Dickens,
having been enticed thereto by the pleasant merriment in 'Pickwick;' but
the Waverley Novels had proved less attractive, and the forty volumes of
British poets reposed uncut upon the shelf which they adorned. Even
Macaulay's History, though certainly not less readable than any novel,
had not yet been honored with a first perusal; and, as Mr. Ogden kept
his books in a bookcase with glass doors, the copy was still technically
a new one.
He resolved now that all these books should be _read_, all except
perhaps the 'Encyclopædia Britannica;' for Mr. Ogden was not then aware
of the fact, which a successful man has recently communicated to his
species, that a steady reading of that work according to its
alphabetical arrangement _may_ be a road to fortune, though it must be
admitted to be an arduous one. He would begin with Macaulay's History;
and he _did_ begin one evening in the parlor at Twistle Farm after Sarah
had removed the tea-things. He took down the first volume, and began to
cut the leaves; then he read a page or two, but, in spite of the lucid
and engaging style of the historian, he felt a difficulty in fixing his
attention,--the difficulty common to all who are not accustomed to
reading, and which in Mr. Ogden's case was perhaps augmented by the
peculiar condition of his nervous system. So he read the page over
again, but could not compel his mind to follow the ideas of the author:
it _would_ wander to matters of everyday interest and habit, and then
there came an unutterable sense of blankness and dulness, and a
craving--yes, an all but irresistible craving--for the stimulus of
drink. There could be no harm in drinking a glass of wine,--everybody,
even ladies, might do that,--and he had always allowed himself wine at
Twistle Farm. He would see whether there was any in the decanters. What!
not a drop? No port in the port decanter, and in the sherry decanter
nothing but a shallow stratum of liquid which would not fill a glass,
and was not worth drinking. He would go and fill both decanters himself:
there ought always to be wine ready in case any one should come. Mr.
Prigley might walk up any day, or the Doctor might come, and he always
liked a glass or two of port.
There was a nice little cellar at Twistle Farm, for no inhabitant of
Shayton ever neglects that when he builds himself a new house; and Mr.
Ogden had wine in it to the value of three hundred pounds. Some friends
of his near Manchester, who came to see him in the shooting season and
help him to kill his grouse, were connoisseurs in port, and he had been
careful to "lay down" a quantity of the finest he could get. He was less
delicate in the gratification of his own palate, and contented himself
with a compound of no particular vintage, which had the advantage of
being exceedingly strong, and therefore allowed a sort of disguised
dram-drinking. It need therefore excite little surprise in the mind of
the reader to be informed that, when Mr. Isaac had drunk a few glasses
of this port of his, the nervous system began to feel more comfortable,
and at the same time tempted him to a still warmer appreciation of the
qualities of the beverage. His mind was clearer and brighter, and he
read Macaulay with a sort of interest, which, perhaps, is as much as
most authors may hope for or expect; that is, his mind kept up a sort of
double action, following the words of the historian, and even grasping
the meaning of his sentences, and feeling their literary power, whilst
at the same time it ran upon many subjects of personal concern which
could not be altogether excluded or suppressed. Mr. Ogden was not very
delicate in any of his tastes; but it seemed to him, nevertheless, that
clay tobacco-pipes consorted better with gin-and-water than with the
juice of the grape; and he took from a cupboard in the corner a large
box of full-flavored havannas, which, like the expensive port in the
cellar, he kept for the gratification of his friends.
Now, although the first five or six glasses had indeed done no more than
give a beneficial stimulus to Mr. Ogden's brain, it is not to be
inferred, as Mr. Ogden himself appeared to infer, that the continuation
of the process would be equally salutary. He went on, however, reading
and sipping, at the rate of about a glass to a page, smoking at the same
time those full-flavored havannas, till after eleven at night. Little
Jacob and the servants had long since gone to bed; both decanters had
been on the table all the evening, and both had been in equal
requisition, for Mr. Ogden had been varying his pleasures by drinking
port and sherry alternately. At last the eloquence of Macaulay became
no longer intelligible, for though his sentences had no doubt been
constructed originally in a perfectly workmanlike manner, they now
seemed quite out of order, and no longer capable of holding together.
Mr. Ogden put the book down and tried to read the Manchester paper, but
the makers of articles and the penny-a-liners did not seem to have
succeeded better than Macaulay, for their sentences were equally
disjointed. The reader rose from his chair in some discouragement and
looked at his watch, and put his slippers on, and began to think about
going to bed, but the worst of it was he felt so thirsty that he must
have something to drink. The decanters were empty, and wine would not
quench thirst; a glass of beer might, perhaps--but how much better and
more efficacious would be a tall glass of brandy-and-soda-water! Alas!
he had no brandy, neither had he any soda-water, at least he thought
not, but he would go down into the cellar and see. He took a candle very
deliberately, and walked down the cellar-steps with a steady tread,
never staggering or swerving in the least. "Am I drunk?" he thought;
"no, it is impossible that I should be drunk, I walk so well and so
steadily. I'm not afraid of walking down these stone steps, and yet if I
were to fall I might hit my forehead against their sharp edges, sharp
edges--yes, they have very sharp edges; they are very new steps, cut by
masons; and so are these walls new--good ashlar stones; and that arched
roof--that arch is well made: there isn't a better cellar in Shayton."
There was no soda-water, but there were bottles whose round, swollen
knobs of corks were covered with silvery foil, that glittered as Mr.
Ogden's candle approached them. The glitter caught his eye, and he
pulled one of the bottles out. It wasn't exactly soda-water, but it
would fizz; and just now Mr. Ogden had a morbid, passionate longing for
something that would "fizz," as he expressed it in his muttered
soliloquy. So he marched upstairs with his prize, in that stately and
deliberate manner which marks his particular stage of intoxication.
"It's good slekk!"[4] said Mr. Ogden, as he swallowed a tumblerful of
the sparkling wine, "and it _can_ do me no harm--it's only a lady's
wine." He held it up between his eye and the candle, and thought that
really it looked very nice and pretty. How the little bubbles kept
rising and sparkling! how very clear and transparent it was! Then he sat
down in his large arm-chair, and thought he might as well have another
cigar. He had smoked a good many already, perhaps it would be better
not; and whilst his mind was resolving not to smoke another, his fingers
were fumbling in the box, and making a sort of pretence at selection. At
last, for some reason as mysterious as that which decides the famous
donkey between two equidistant haystacks, the fingers came to a
decision, and the cigar, after the point had been duly amputated with a
penknife, was inserted between the teeth. After this the will made no
further attempt at resistance, and the hand poured out champagne into
the tumbler, and carried the tumbler to the lips, with unconscious and
instinctive regularity.
Mr. Isaac was now drunk, but it was not yet proved to him that he was
drunk. His expedition to the cellar had been perfectly successful; he
had walked in the most unexceptionable manner, and even descended those
dangerous stone steps. He looked at his watch--it was half-past twelve;
he read the hour upon the dial, though not just at first, and he
replaced the watch in his fob. He would go to bed--it was time to go to
bed; and the force of habits acquired at the Red Lion, where he usually
went to bed drunk at midnight, aided him in this resolution. But when he
stood upon his legs this project did not seem quite so easy of
realization as it had done when viewed in theory from the arm-chair.
"Go to bed!" said Mr. Isaac; "but how are we to manage it?"
There were two candles burning on the table. He blew one of them out,
and took the other in his hand. He took up the volume of Macaulay, with
an idea that it ought to be put somewhere, but his mind did not
successfully apply itself to the solution of this difficulty, and he
laid the book down again with an air of slight disappointment, and a
certain sense of failure. He staggered towards the doorway, steadied
himself with an effort, and made a shot at it with triumphant success,
for he found himself now in the little entrance-hall. The staircase was
a narrow one, and closed by a door, and the door of the cellar was next
to it. Instead of taking the door that led up to his bedroom, Mr. Ogden
took that of the cellar, descended a step or two, discovered his
mistake, and, in the attempt to turn round, fell backwards heavily down
the stone stair, and lay at last on the cold pavement, motionless, and
in total darkness.
He might have remained there all night, but there was a sharp little
Scotch terrier dog that belonged to little Jacob, and was domiciled in a
snug kennel in the kitchen. The watchful animal had been perfectly aware
that Mr. Ogden was crossing the entrance on his way to his bedroom, but
if Feo made any reflections on the subject they were probably confined
to wonder that the master of the house should go to bed so unusually
late. When, however, the heavy _thud_ of Mr. Ogden's body on the
staircase and the loud, sharp clatter of the falling candlestick came
simultaneously to her ears, Feo quitted her lair at a bound, and, guided
by her sure scent, was down in the dark cellar in an instant. A less
intelligent dog than Feorach (for that was her Gaelic name in the far
Highlands where she was born) would have known that something was wrong,
and that the cold floor of the cellar was not a suitable bed for a
gentleman; and no sooner had Feorach ascertained the state of affairs
than she rushed to the upper regions.
Feorach went to the door of little Jacob's chamber, and there set up
such a barking and scratching as awoke even _him_ from the sound sleep
of childhood. Old Sarah came into the passage with a lighted candle,
where Jim joined her, rubbing his eyes, still heavy with interrupted
sleep. "There's summat wrong," said old Sarah; "I'm feared there's
summat wrong."
"Stop you here," said Jim, "I'll wake master: he's gotten loaded pistols
in his room. If it's thieves, it willn't do to feight 'em wi' talk and a
tallow candle."
Jim knocked at his master's door, and, having waited in vain a second or
two for an answer, determined to open it. There was no one in the room,
and the bed had not been slept upon.
"Hod thy din, dog," said Jim to Feorach; and then, with a grave, pale
face, said, "It isn't thieves; it's summat 'at's happened to our
master."
Now Lancashire people of the class to which Jim and Sarah belonged
never, or hardly ever, use the verb _to die_, but in the place of it
employ the periphrase of something happening; and, as he chanced to use
this expression now, the idea conveyed to Sarah's mind was the idea of
death, and she believed that Jim had seen a corpse in the room. He
perceived this, and drew her away, whispering, "He isn't there: you stop
wi' little Jacob." So the man took the candle, and left Sarah in the
dark with the child, both trembling and wondering.
Feorach led Jim down into the cellar, and he saw the dark inert mass at
the bottom of the steps. A chill shudder seized him as he recognized the
white, inanimate face. One of Mr. Ogden's hands lay upon the floor; Jim
ventured to touch it, and found it deadly cold. A little blood oozed
from the back of the head, and had matted the abundant brown hair.
Perhaps the hand may have been cold simply from contact with the stone
flag, but Jim did not reflect about this, and concluded that Mr. Ogden
was dead. He went hastily back to old Sarah. "Master Jacob," he said,
"you must go to bed."
"No, I won't go to bed, Jim!"
"My lad," said old Sarah, "just come into your room, and I'll light you
a candle." So she lighted a candle, and then left the child, and Jim
quietly locked the door upon him. The lock was well oiled, and Jacob did
not know that he was a prisoner.
"Now what is't?" said old Sarah, in a whisper.
"Master's deead: he's fallen down th' cellar-steps and killed hisself."
Old Sarah had been fully prepared for some terrible communication of
this kind, and did not utter a syllable. She simply followed the man,
and between them they lifted Mr. Ogden, and carried him, not without
difficulty, up the cellar-steps. Sarah carried the head, and Jim the
legs and feet, and old Sarah's bed-gown was stained with a broad patch
of blood.
It is one of the most serious inconveniences attending a residence in
the country that on occasions of emergency it is not possible to procure
prompt medical help; and Twistle Farm was one of those places where this
inconvenience is felt to the uttermost. When they had got Mr. Ogden on
the bed, Jim said, "I mun go an' fetch Dr. Bardly, though I reckon it's
o' no use;" and he left Sarah alone with the body.
The poor woman anticipated nothing but a dreary watch of several hours
by the side of a corpse, and went and dressed herself, and lighted a
fire in Mr. Ogden's room. Old Sarah was not by any means a woman of a
pusillanimous disposition; but it may be doubted whether, if she had had
any choice in the matter, a solitary watch of this kind would have been
exactly to her taste. However, when the fire was burning briskly, she
drew a rocking-chair up to it, and, in order to keep up her courage
through the remainder of the night, fetched a certain physic-bottle from
the kitchen, and her heavy lead tobacco-pot, for like many old women
about Shayton she enjoyed the solace of a pipe. She did not attempt to
lay out the body, being under the impression that the coroner might be
angry with her for having done so when the inquest came to be held.
The physic-bottle was full of rum, and Sarah made herself a glass of
grog, and lighted her pipe, and looked into the fire. She had drawn the
curtains all round Mr. Ogden's bed; ample curtains of pale-brown damask,
with an elaborate looped valance, from whose deep festoons hung
multitudes of little pendants of turned wood covered with flossy silk.
The movement communicated to these pendants by the act of drawing the
curtains lasted a very long time, and Sarah was startled more than once
when on looking round from her arm-chair she saw them swinging and
knocking against each other still. As soon as the first shock of alarm
was past, the softer emotions claimed their turn, and the old woman
began to cry, repeating to herself incessantly, "And quite yoong too,
quite yoong, quite a yoong man!"
Suddenly she was aware of a movement in the room. Was it the little dog?
No; Feorach had elected to stay with his young master, and both little
Jacob and his dog were fast asleep in another room. She ventured to look
at the great awful curtained bed. The multitudinous pendants had not
ceased to swing and vibrate, and yet it was now a long time since Sarah
had touched the curtains. She wished they would give up and be still;
but whilst she was looking at them and thinking this, a little sharp
shock ran round the whole valance, and the pendants rattled against each
other with the low dull sound which was all that their muffling of silk
permitted; a low sound, but an audible one,--audible especially to ears
in high excitement; a stronger shock, a visible agitation, not only of
the tremulous pendants, but even of the heavy curtain-folds themselves.
Then they open, and Mr. Ogden's pale face appears.
"Well, Sarah, I hope you've made yourself comfortable, you damned old
rum-drinking thief! D'ye think I can't smell rum? Give me that bottle."
Sarah was much too agitated to say or do any thing whatever. She had
risen from her chair, and stood looking at the bed in speechless
amazement. Mr. Ogden got up, and walked towards the fire with an
unsteady pace. Then he possessed himself of the rum-bottle, and, putting
it to his lips, began to swallow the contents. This brought Sarah to
herself.
"Nay, nay, master: you said as you wouldn't drink no sperrits at Twistle
Farm upo' no 'count."
But the rum had been tasted, and the resolution broken. It had been
broken before as to the intention and meaning of it, and was now broken
even as to the letter. Isaac Ogden had got drunk at Twistle Farm; and
now he was drinking spirits there, not even diluting them with water.
After emptying old Sarah's bottle, which fortunately did not contain
enough to endanger, for the present, his existence, Mr. Ogden staggered
back to his bed, and fell into a drunken sleep, which lasted until Dr.
Bardly's arrival. The Doctor found the wound at the back of the head
exceedingly slight; there was abrasure of the skin and a swelling, but
nothing more. The blood had ceased to flow soon after the accident; and
there would be no worse results from it than the temporary
insensibility, from which the patient had already recovered. The most
serious results of what had passed were likely, for the present, to be
rather moral than physical. Dr. Bardly greatly dreaded the moral
depression which must result from the breaking down of the only
resolution which stood between his friend and an utter abandonment to
his propensity. Twistle Farm would no longer be a refuge for him against
the demon, for the demon had been admitted, had crossed the threshold,
had taken possession.
Mr. Ogden was not in a condition to be advised, for he was not yet
sober, and, if he had been, the Doctor felt that advice was not likely
to be of any use: he had given enough of it already. The parson might
try, if he liked, but it seemed to the Doctor that the case had now
become one of those incurable cases which yield neither to the desire of
self-preservation nor to the fear of hell; and that if the warnings of
science were disregarded by a man intelligent enough to appreciate the
certainty of the data on which they were founded, those of religion were
not likely to have better success.