full of talent and of promise, and singularly attractive in manner,--in
whose veins, too, ran some of the same blood that filled his own, and
whose features were moulded after the best ancestral type,--his dormant
affections quickly awakened to fasten themselves pertinaciously around
the timely object. His thoughts began industriously to shape out for
himself a new future, which should embrace, as a setting its
appropriate jewel, a brilliant and prosperous career for this young
hope of his house. The unsuspected strength of these feelings now made
itself clearly visible, both in the hearty grasp which he gave his
nephew's hand, and in a sudden affectionateness of eyes, mouth, voice,
gesture, and every indescribable manifestation, that Bergan had never
seen in him before. Naturally enough, the young man shrank from the
utterance of words certain to drive back on itself this outgush of the
inestimable tenderness of a stern nature, to bring back the old
sharpness and severity to eyes that now lay so soft and deep under
their shaggy brows.
Moreover, he felt that his own resolution was wavering. Bergan Hall
had grown strangely dear to him during his solitary occupation of its
silent, but suggestive precincts. He might have been proof against
every temptation that it could have offered in its grandeur and its
prosperity; but in its loneliness and decay there was a pathetic appeal
to much that was best and noblest in his nature. To this influence, a
stronger one, even, was now added. Seeing the strength of his uncle's
new-born affection, and its softening effect upon his face and manner,
Bergan began to question within himself whether a still better and
nobler work than the restoration of the ancestral home, might not here
call for his hand--even the restoration of a human life. Those woful
habits of intoxication and profanity, far worse than the dry-rot that
gnawed at the timbers of the old Hall; that roughness and sordidness
which had gathered over the once promising character, far sadder to
behold than the mould and the dust that dimmed the ancestral
grandeur;--were there not moral instruments available for the cure of
the one, as there were artisan's tools able to remove all traces of the
other.
To young minds there is always a strong fascination in the prospect of
exerting a good influence upon others. Older heads--seeing how little
is often effected by the best and most persistent endeavors, and sadly
cognizant of the fact that influences are received as well as exerted
(a long deterioration in one's self being sometimes the price of a
little, brief improvement in another)--are not so ready to take upon
themselves the responsibility of acting upon any human soul, nor so
sanguine of success. But Bergan had none of this late wisdom,--if
wisdom it be. Through his quiet character there ran the golden vein of
a noble enthusiasm. He believed that it was his part and duty to make
the world better for having lived therein. Still susceptible to
influences himself, he had no conception of the iron bands, the
indestructible tendencies, of evil habits indulged for years. He stood
ready, at any time, and anywhere, to throw himself into the long
conflict between Right and Wrong, and doubted not that the issue of the
fray would turn upon his single sword.
Half-buried in thought, half-listening to his uncle's talk, he rode
mechanically onward. On one side of his path, flowed the smooth,
shining waters of the creek; on the other ran the Bergan estate, with
its odd aspect of mingled thrift and neglect. He had often wondered at
the singular blending, in his uncle's character, of the sturdy English
energy inherited from that indefatigable Briton, Sir Harry, with the
indifference and impromptitude induced by the climate. It was
especially curious to note how these diverse qualities displayed
themselves in different directions. With human beings, his laborers
and dependents, and even with his animals, he was prompt, energetic,
and exacting, accepting no excuses, and showing no indulgence; with
inanimate things, he was often careless, negligent, and unobservant.
On this portion of the estate, which seemed but little cultivated,
fences were down or dilapidated, gates swung unwillingly on their
hinges, and outbuildings seemed ready to fall with their own weight.
Soon, too, these things were made more noticeable by contrast, as a
long line of neatly-kept grounds and well ordered fences came into
view. Shortly after, a pleasant cottage, amply provided with broad,
cool, vine-draped piazzas, appeared on the right; standing a little
apart from the road, in the midst of a group of live-oak trees scarcely
less grand and venerable than those which flung their heavy shadow over
Bergan Hall. At sight of it, the Major's face grew dark again;
especially as Bergan, pleased with its neat and cheerful aspect, turned
to give it a second look.
"Yes," he burst forth bitterly, with a fearful oath, "that is where my
brother, the hardware merchant, lives! I tell you what, Harry, the
very first thing that you are to do, as soon as you get a chance (if I
don't live to do it myself), is to buy out his heirs, and raze that
impertinent shanty to the ground. Just recollect that, will you? if I
should happen to forget to put it into my will."
Bergan forebore to reply. He was learning that it was his wisest
course--at least, so he thought--to take no notice of his uncle's
bitter wrath and prejudice, since he could not sympathize with them.
If his growing wish to possess Bergan Hall lay at the bottom of this
silence, he was as yet unconscious of it.
His uncle,--accepting his forbearance as a sign of acquiescence to his
wishes,--now, for the first time, really exerted himself for his
entertainment. He talked with vivacity, humor, intelligence, and much
of the tone and manner of his earlier days. His better self revived,
for a time; and Bergan recognized something of the refined, cultured,
accomplished gentleman, of his mother's descriptions, whose lightsome
flow of spirits, gay sparkle of wit, and frank, cordial address, had
made him the life and soul of the circle wherein he moved. It was
mournful to see him under this pleasant transformation, and think of
him in his usual aspect. Bergan could not but wonder how he had ever
fallen to that lower level. He had not seen the easy descent from
gayety to dissipation of his younger days; nor could he understand how
naturally, with years, drinking in frivolous companionship had been
exchanged for drinking alone, lavishness for parsimony, the gay,
aimless life of a man of the world for the steady, energetic pursuit of
one selfish, isolated, exclusive object.
They now reached the village. As they rode through its principal
street, which was wide and handsomely shaded, the Major pointed to one
and another of the houses along its sides, and quietly named men and
women that had occupied them in years agone; either forgetting, or
unaware, that most of them were now tenanting that one earthly house,
of whose narrow accommodations every mortal must needs have some
experience,--namely, the grave.
Bergan, meanwhile, felt himself quite at home among names so often
heard from his mother's lips; and momentarily expected that his uncle
would stop at some one of these friendly dwellings, for the renewal of
his own acquaintance, and the introduction of his nephew. But to his
extreme surprise, the Major rode straight through the village, and
dismounted, before a tavern, at its extreme end.
VII.
A BITTER DRAUGHT.
It needed but a glance to show Bergan that the tavern was of the lower
sort. It was dingy and dilapidated without, and from its open windows
were wafted sounds of hoarse voices, shouts of laughter, the jingling
of glasses, and a strong odor of tobacco, betokening a corresponding
amount of moral dinginess and dilapidation within. Bergan turned to
his uncle with a disgust that he hardly attempted to conceal,--the
natural disgust of a healthy body and mind for things coarse, foul,
noisy, and vulgar,--and inquired;--
"Do you intend to stop here long?"
"Quite long enough for you to get off and stretch yourself," replied
the Major, carelessly. "This is an old halting-place of mine, and
looks as natural as possible, though it is a year or more since I have
set eyes on it. No doubt I shall find some old acquaintances here.
Come! don't sit there gaping at the outside, like a man trying to guess
at the purport of a letter from the looks of the envelope, when the
inside would tell him what he wants to know, in a jiffy; get off your
horse, and come in."
Bergan obeyed, but with a manifest reluctance that brought a cloud to
the Major's brow. Muttering something between his teeth, which had the
tone and bitterness of a curse, but was unintelligible, the latter led
the way to the bar-room.
Several varieties of the genus loafer, both of the genteel and vulgar
species, were leaning over the counter, or seated in tilted-up chairs,
puffing out tobacco smoke, and discussing matters of local interest.
The appearance of the Major was greeted with enthusiasm,--all the more,
that his first words, after a "How d'y" of very general application,
were an order to the landlord to make a stiff bowl of punch, on a scale
commensurate with the numbers of the party.
"This is my nephew, gentlemen," he went on, addressing the delighted
audience,--"Harry Bergan Arling, as he now calls himself, or Harry
Bergan, of Bergan Hall, as he is to be, in good time,--a real chip of
the old family block, as you can see at a glance. I expect that you
will all do me the honor of drinking his health in a bowl of the best
punch that Gregg can concoct. Hurry up, Gregg! you know how I like
it,--not too strongly flavored with our two days' drizzle;--was there
ever a nastier spell of weather?"
"Never knew the sky so leaky in all my life," responded a languid
loafer of the genteeler sort, too lazy to furnish his sentences with
nominatives. "Begun to think, with Father Miller, 'twas getting worn
out."
"It will last our time, I reckon," returned the Major. "And 'after us
the deluge,' of course. I would not mind taking a swim in it myself,
if it were of punch such as Gregg, there, is mixing. It looks like the
real thing! Now, gentlemen, step forward and take your glasses.
Here's to the health of my nephew,--Harry Bergan,--and may he unite in
his single person all the virtues of all the Harrys of the line, from
Sir Harry down;--yes, and all the vices, too, they are good Bergan
stock, every one of them!"
A toast so perfectly in harmony with the corrupt atmosphere of the
bar-room could but be received and drunk with acclamation. Bergan,
perforce, lifted his glass to his lips, but the fiery draught, prepared
with a single eye to the requirements of his uncle's sophisticated
palate, was so little suited to his own purer taste, that he set it
down with its contents very little diminished. Observing this, Major
Bergan's face grew dark.
"That will never do, Harry," he growled, aside. "Don't disgrace me
here, whatever you may do at home! I insist upon your emptying your
glass like a man, and doing your part towards making things pleasant.
Now, then, gentlemen," he continued, aloud, "be pleased to make ready
for toast the second. We will drink success to my nephew's future
proprietorship of Bergan Hall;--may it come late, and last long!"
The cords of conventionalism--even the conventionalism of a
bar-room--are strong; and Bergan was somewhat young for complete
independence of character. Nevertheless, he was quite capable of
turning his back on the whole company of tipplers, both genteel and
vulgar, indifferent alike to their wonder, censure, or scorn, had it
not been for his uncle; whose wishes, in his double character of host
and relative, seemed entitled to some degree of respect. Yet both
instinct and principle revolted from the certain intoxication of the
distasteful glass in his hand. By a quick and dexterous motion, he
sent half its contents flying out of the window near which he stood,
and supplied their place with water from a convenient pitcher.
Flattering himself that he had done this unobserved, he tried to
swallow his disgust at the place and the companionship in which he
found himself with the diluted draught.
"That's pretty fair stuff," said the Major, setting down his empty
glass; "it has just about the right snap in it. Is there enough for
another round, Gregg?"
"Plenty, sir, and another one on the end of that. I knew you didn't
like to see the bottom of the bowl, in a hurry, Major."
"You are another Solon, Gregg. Your wisdom is only to be equalled by
your disinterestedness. Come, gentlemen, fill your glasses again!
Harry, is your glass filled?"
As he spoke, the Major drew near, and fixed a keen eye on Bergan's
glass, in a way which led the latter to suspect that his late manoeuvre
had not been so successful as he had imagined. At any rate, it would
not be easy to repeat it. Well, what matter? He had submitted to his
uncle's tyranny long enough; he might as well free himself first as
last. He would try to do so in the way least likely to give offence.
"Uncle," he pleaded, with a graceful frankness and courtesy that could
scarcely have failed to reach the Major's better self, if it had been
less under the vitiating influence of strong drink,--"uncle, I really
must beg your kind indulgence. I am not accustomed to potations so
many nor so strong; and whatever I may be able to do, in time, under
your skilful guidance, I must now use a little discretion. Pray excuse
me from taking any more at present."
"I'll be hanged if I do!" said the Major, bluntly. "If you don't know
how to drink like a gentleman and a Bergan, it is high time you should
learn. Fill up his glass, Gregg; he _shall_ drink!"
Scarcely were the insulting words spoken ere Bergan felt, with a thrill
of dismay, a hot tingling sensation in all his veins, as if the blood
in them had suddenly been turned to fire. Too well he knew what it
meant. The "black Bergan temper," which had been the one, great sorrow
and struggle of his life, thus far, and which he had believed to be
completely tamed, was stirring within him in a way to show that, if it
were not instantly controlled, it would carry him, in its headlong
fury, he knew not whither. Every other feeling, every other thought,
were, for the moment, swallowed up in the instinct of
self-preservation. He would submit to his uncle's imperious dictation,
not that he either prized his love or feared his anger, but because
that treacherous demon within must at once feel a firm foot upon its
neck, and be shown that it could expect no indulgence, and no quarter.
At this moment, there was a slight bustle at the door, occasioned by an
arrival; under cover of which he again turned to the friendly water
pitcher, to make sure that, while fleeing from one fatal influence he
was not running blindly into the leashes of another.
"_Dimidium plus toto_, I see," observed a well-remembered voice at his
elbow, in a tone of good-natured sarcasm. "But you make a slight
mistake in your practical translation; it is a 'half,' not a quarter
(or I might say, an eighth) which is 'better than the whole.' And
anyway, I doubt if old Hesiod meant his maxim to apply to punch."
Glad of anything that promised to create a diversion, Bergan turned and
gave the hand of Richard Causton a much more cordial grasp than he
would have been likely to do, under other circumstances. The old man,
better accustomed to the cold shoulder from all reputable acquaintance,
returned it with tears in his blear eyes, and for once, had no proverb
at command wherein to do justice to his feelings. Before he could find
one, Major Bergan came up, with a sly gleam of humor or of mischief, on
his face. "What! you know Harry!" he exclaimed. "Oh! yes, I
remember,--you helped him on his way to Bergan Hall. So much the
better. You will be glad to know that it was my nephew to whom you
showed that courtesy, and to drink to your better acquaintance. All
ready?"
Bergan turned round for his glass, which he had left standing on the
window-sill, and, the sooner to be done with the distasteful business,
swallowed at a gulp what, it seemed to him, the next moment, must have
been liquid fire. A loud laugh from his uncle told him to whom he was
indebted for the substitution of raw spirit for weak punch. The
passion which he had so promptly smothered, doubly inflamed by the
consciousness of being betrayed and the instantaneous action of the
potent draught, blazed up with sudden, ungovernable fury. Feeling that
he was losing control of temper and reason together, he rushed toward
the door. At a sign from the Major, two or three of the bystanders
threw themselves in his way. They were instantly sent reeling right
and left by two powerful blows. Dick Causton, catching hold of him
with the friendly design of preventing him from doing more mischief and
provoking more enmity, was shaken off with a violence that threw him in
a disordered heap on the floor; over which Bergan strode wrathfully
towards his uncle, who had planted himself in the doorway. The
spectators held their breath to witness the expected encounter between
uncle and nephew,--Bergan against Bergan, the blood of both up, the
hereditary frenzy blazing in each pair of dark eyes.
But Bergan was not quite so mad as that. Seeing who it was that
impeded his way, he turned and darted through a window close at hand,
jumped over the piazza railing, sprang upon his horse, and was off
before the bystanders had well recovered their breath, or Dick had
picked himself up, with the caustic observation,--
"_Perit quod facis ingrato_,--'Save a thief from hanging, and he will
cut your throat.'"
Poor Vic!--never in all her life had she been urged to such mad and
merciless speed as on that ill-starred day. Protesting, at first, by
various plunges and rearings, she finally fell in with her master's
wild humor, and sped through the village at a pace that sent the
foot-passengers to the fences in terror, and crowded the doors and
windows with wondering gazers. Whether he were fleeing from
destruction, or riding straight to it, was no affair of hers; in either
case, she would do her best to meet his wishes. The village was
quickly left behind; house after house, and field after field, slid by
in a swift panorama; already they were turning the corner, toward the
Hall, when Bergan's scattered senses were suddenly recalled by a stern
"Halloo! what are you about?" mingled with a faint cry of alarm. To
his horror, he saw himself to be on the point of riding down a young
lady equestrian, who was on her way to the village, accompanied by her
father. There was not an instant to lose, not a moment for reflection;
the heads of the two horses were almost in contact. Putting his whole
strength into one sudden, ill-considered jerk, Vic was thrown back on
her haunches, and he and she rolled over in the mud together.
Fortunately, neither was much hurt, and both sprang to their feet
considerably sobered by the shock. Bergan was deeply humiliated, also;
he would gladly have compounded with his mortification for almost any
amount of physical pain. No bodily injury could have made him writhe
with so sharp a pang, as the conviction that he had flawed his claim to
the title of gentleman. To have nearly ridden over a lady, in a blind
frenzy of rage and semi-intoxication, was a disgrace that he could
never forget. He would gladly have buried himself in the mud with
which he was already tolerably well coated. Since he could not do
that, he took off his hat to the horseman,--he dared neither address
nor look at the lady,--and said, in a tone that trembled with shame and
regret,--
"I beg your pardon, sir."
"You would have done better to look where you were going," replied the
gentleman, with the unreasoning anger that often follows upon the
reaction from fear and anxiety. "No thanks to you that my daughter is
not maimed or killed!"
"I think you mistake, father," quickly interposed the young lady, in a
low, sweet voice, tremulous from the recent shock to her nerves;--"did
you not see how promptly the gentleman sacrificed himself to save me,
as soon as he saw the danger? I hope you are not hurt, sir," she
added, courteously, turning to Bergan.
"Thank you; not half so much as I deserve to be," replied he, only the
more remorseful on account of the delicate consideration that she
showed for him, while her cheek was still blanched, and her lips
trembling, at her own narrow escape from danger caused by his rashness.
And, feeling wholly unworthy to say another word to anything so pure
and sweet, so utterly incompatible with the vile place and scene which
he had just quitted, he stood aside, with uncovered head, to let her
pass.
Apparently, she would have lingered long enough to make sure that he
was really uninjured; but her father, who had been eyeing him keenly,
hurried her away. "Do you not see," he inquired, sharply, as they rode
on, "that the fellow is drunk?"
"Impossible, father! He had such a fine, noble countenance!"
"It will not be noble long," replied the father. "Neither will it be
the first noble countenance that has been spoiled by drunkenness," he
added, with a sigh.
Left alone, Bergan remounted Vic, though not without difficulty. The
bewildering effect of his potent draught, which had momentarily been
overcome by the excitement of his late adventure, now made itself felt
again. As he rode along, his head began to swim; a deadly nausea
seized him; his limbs seemed paralyzed. Arrived within the gates of
his uncle's domain, he suffered himself to slide slowly from the saddle
to the ground; and almost immediately, consciousness forsook him.
VIII.
AS A DREAM WHEN ONE AWAKETH.
When, in due course of time, Bergan came partially to himself, he found
that he was lying on his own bed, with the twilight shadows gathering
duskily in its hangings. But his mind was too dull and confused to
trouble itself with the question how he came there, notwithstanding
that his ears seemed still to retain the sound of low voices, and his
limbs the pressure of careful hands. Scarcely had he unclosed his
heavy eyes, ere he was glad to shut them again, and to sink anew into
slumber.
But this time, it was not, as before, a profound stupor, a deaf, blind,
torpid, state of nothingness. Though it lasted some hours, he never
quite lost an oppressive sense of overhanging trouble, imperfectly as
its nature was apprehended. Moreover, he was harassed by dreams of
that most trying character, wherein varying images revolve around one
fixed idea; combining the misery of continual change with that of
ceaseless iteration into one intolerable horror.
Breaking, at length, from the teasing spell of these phantasms, he saw
that it was past midnight. Through the opposite window, he beheld a
pale, waning moon, and, by its light, a gray, dimly-outlined
landscape,--a faint and lifeless sketch, as it were, of a once bright,
breathing world. While he looked, over it came the black shadow of a
wind-driven cloud, blurring the lines, here and there, into still
grayer indistinctness, sweeping across the lawn, mounting the steps of
Bergan Hall, and laying, at last, its thin, light hand over his own
brow and eyes.
With it, as if by right of near kinship, a deep gloom fell upon his
heart. Till now, it had not occurred to him why his head ached so
heavily, nor what weary weight it was that burdened his mind. Yet he
did not--as too many would have done, after a brief flush of shame, and
a momentary feeling of regret--seek to throw off this burden by telling
himself that his late aberration was, after all, a matter of small
moment, since it was only what hundreds like him had done before, were
now doing, and would continue to do till the end of time. Not of any
such weak stuff, incapable of looking his own acts squarely in the
face, and judging them according to their merits, was Bergan made. On
the contrary, he felt as much humiliated as if he had been the first,
last, only intoxicated young man in the universe.