"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."
"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."
"It is worse than the mere abstraction of money," I remarked; "he
corrupts his victims, at the same time that he robs them."
"True."
"Willy Hammond may not be his only victim," I suggested.
"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."
"Why does Slade go out with these young men?" I inquired. "Do you think
he gambles also?"
"If he isn't a kind of a stool-pigeon for Harvey Green, then I'm
mistaken again."
"Hardly. He cannot, already, have become so utterly unprincipled."
"It's a bad school, sir, this tavern-keeping," said the man.
"I readily grant you that."
"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."
"True."
"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."
"And intemperate, also?" I suggested.
"He's beginning to take a little too much," was answered.
"In that case, he'll scarcely be as well off five years hence as he is
now."
"He's at the top of the wheel, some of us think."
"What has led to this opinion?"
"He's beginning to neglect his house, for one thing."
"A bad sign."
"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."
"How came that?" I inquired.
"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."
"What do you think of it?"
"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."
"Ah! you think so?"
"I do; and if I conjecture rightly, Simon Slade will be a poorer man,
in a year from this time, than he is now."
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.
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.
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.
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."
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."
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.
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.
"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."
"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."
"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?"
"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."
"What! Going to turn the poor wretches out to starve?" said one.
"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!"
"You're a trump!" returned Judge Lyman, with low familiarity. "Never
fear about the Poor-house and Uncle Josh. They're all safe."
"But look here, judge," resumed the man. "It isn't only the Poor-house,
the jail is to go next."
"Indeed!"
"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)?"
But the judge answered nothing.
"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!"
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.
"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."
"Rum and ruin (hic). Are they not cause and effect?" asked Grimes.
"Sometimes they are," was the half extorted answer.
"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.
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.
"Have you seen anything of Hammond this evening?" asked Judge Lyman.
"I saw him an hour or two ago," answered Green.
"How does he like his new horse?"
"He's delighted with him."
"What was the price?"
"Three hundred dollars."
"Indeed!"
The judge had already arisen, and he and Green were now walking side by
side across the bar-room floor.
"I want to speak a word with you," I heard Lyman say.
And then the two went out together. I saw no more of them during the
evening.
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.
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.
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.
"What's the matter with Willy Hammond tonight?" asked some one of the
bar-keeper. "Who's he after in such a hurry?"
"He wants to see Judge Lyman," replied Matthew.
"Oh!"
"I guess they're after no good," was remarked.
"Not much, I'm afraid."
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.
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.
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.
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.