"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:
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"He knows better than to do that," said the other, in a way that let me
deeper into the young man's character.
"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."
"And can drink his glass with any one, and not be a grain the worse for
it."
"Exactly, old boy!" said Peters, slapping his preceptor on the knee.
"Exactly! I'm not one of your weak-headed ones. Oh no!"
"Look here, Joe Morgan!"--the half-angry voice of Simon Slade now rung
through the bar-room,--"just take yourself off home!"
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.
"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."
"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."
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.
"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.
"What's the matter? Oh, what's the matter?" It was a woman's voice,
speaking in frightened tones.
"It's nothing! Just go out, will you, Ann?" I heard the landlord say.
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.
"Run for Doctor Green, Frank," she cried in an imperative voice, the
moment her eyes rested on the little one's bloody face.
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.
"Why don't you jump, you young rascal!" exclaimed Harvey Green. "The
child may be dead before the doctor can get here."
Frank hesitated no longer, but disappeared instantly through the door.
"Poor, poor child!" almost sobbed Mrs. Slade, as she lifted the
insensible form from my arms. "How did it happen? Who struck her?"
"Who? Curse him! Who but Simon Slade?" answered Joe Morgan, through his
clenched teeth.
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.
"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!
"Bring me a basin of water, and a towel, quickly!" she now exclaimed.
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.
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.
"Joe! Joe! What is it? Where is Mary? Is she dead?" were her eager
inquiries.
"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!"
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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!"
The ejaculation, or rather groan, that closed the sentence showed how
little Slade was satisfied with himself, notwithstanding this feeble
attempt at self-justification.
"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."
"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."
"He never troubled you at the mill," said I. "No man was required at
the mill door?"
"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!"
"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."
"I don't know about that; why not?" He did not just relish my remark.
"Between quiet, thrifty, substantial farmers, and drinking bar-room
loungers, are many degrees of comparison."
"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."
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.