GUSTAVUS FALLS UPON ANOTHER INGENIOUS DEVICE.
Thus did matters continue for a long period of time; and all the
efforts, and threats, and devices of Gustavus had no more effect
in preventing Julia from taking her pleasure, than the restraint
of a husband generally has over the irregularities of a wife of
true courage, who knows her inalienable rights derived from the
just laws of a free land. If his brain seemed to be exhausted in
devising remedies, his patience fell a victim before his continued
wretchedness—and no marvel either, when it is considered that
while other men only bring in the means of supporting a drunken
wife, whom the equitable and wise ordinances of the country will
not allow him to get quit of except for a crime not a tithe so bad
as that of Julia M’Iver, he kept her in means, and cooked for and
dressed for her, and nursed her, and all the good he got out of her
was the liberty of doing these things for her benefit. By a happy
chance, however, Gustavus’ brains were not yet exhausted. Space
and time he had taken to ruminate upon his evils, and to hit upon
one expedient more for the envied cure; and he resolved to carry
his Julia off to the country, where, in some secluded cottage, he
might exercise such an authority over her as would prevent her
from following her usual courses. So accordingly he did just as
he had resolved; and, in a small domicile in a part of the north,
he took up his habitation, for no other purpose in the world than
to cure Julia of her heart-engrained propensity. The place he had
chosen seemed the very choicest that could have been found in all
Scotland—ay, or England or Ireland either; for there was no house
where a gossip might live, or a whisky-vender hang board, for
miles; while a carrier that passed daily brought him everything
that was necessary for human sustenance; and he himself could cook
and wash unseen by the eyes of mortal.
For six weeks was Julia M’Iver as sober as the Chief Justice of
England, or the President of the Supreme Court, and it was manifest
that never a drop of anything stronger than river water had got
beyond her parched lips.
Now, Gustavus triumphed as no man ever triumphed under less than
an ovation itself; and Julia was forced to be contented with the
limited tyranny of making him continue his domestic duties; for
the more sober she was kept, the less she would do, and her time
was chiefly occupied in reading novels, which Gustavus was glad
to give her as an inadequate surrogation for whisky. But all this
was too good to last, though how it should be interrupted, no man
with less than the spirit of one _Davo versatior_ could possibly
tell. Jove’s greatness is, however, no less true, than the fact
that Gustavus came in one night and found, and staggered with
perfect amazement as he found, Mrs Julia M’Iver lying on the floor,
more perfectly obnubilated, speechless, and senseless, from the
effects of the liquid enemy, than he had ever seen her in his
life. Yet there was no one near; the carrier had not called for a
week; she could not have been absent from the house for more than
half-an-hour; and he himself had been out stalking for exercise,
and rejoicing in his triumph for no more than three full quarters.
The matter seemed a mystery as deep as any that ever was covered
by the Eleusinian veil; and having put her to bed, as he had done
a thousand times before, he set about an investigation and search
through all the premises, which ended in a look of gaunt amazement,
and an ineffectual striding backwards and forwards, till he threw
himself on a seat, and gave up the task in despair. Nor, after
he had nursed her into sobriety, could he make a jot more of the
inexplicable subject; for Julia had too much good sense to tell
where she got the treasure, and only smiled at him as his heavy
lips twisted themselves into a question, where, in the name of
the author of all evil himself, she had fallen upon that infernal
element.
No light was to be thrown upon the subject from any of the
quarters from which evidence could have been looked for, and the
circumstance might have remained as one of those mystical wonders
that have perplexed mankind from the beginning of the world, and
been passed over in despair, if Julia had afterwards remained
sober, but she had scarcely recovered, and Gustavus had only begun
to hope once more, when she was found again in the same state; and,
every two days, or at farthest three, she repeated the habit, till
at last she was as bad, if not worse, than she had ever been in
the midst of dram shops in the city of Edinburgh. Never a word of
explanation would she give on the subject; the carrier was watched,
and found to deposit nothing; the inhabitants at the distance of
miles were interrogated in vain; the house was again searched—no
one had been seen to call, and all was as obscure as the numbers of
Pythagoras, the Bæotic enigma, or the poems of Carcinus; the deuce
a beam of light could Gustavus get for love or money, to clear up
the dark mystery.