SACK AND SUGAR.
The task of getting the desired guests, as Munro had assured him, was by
no means difficult, and our pedler was not long in reporting progress.
Tongs, a confirmed toper, was easily persuaded to anything that
guarantied hard drinking. He luxuriated in the very idea of a debauch.
Brooks, his brother-in-law, was a somewhat better and less pregnable
person; but he was a widower, had been a good deal with Tongs, and, what
with the accustomed loneliness of the office which he held, and the
gloomy dwelling in which it required he should live, he found it not
such an easy matter to resist the temptation of social enjoyment, and
all the pleasant associations of that good-fellowship, which Bunce had
taken care to depict before the minds of both parties. The attractions
of Bunce himself, by-the-way, tended, not less than the whiskey and
cigars, to persuade the jailer, and to neutralize most of the existing
prejudices current among those around him against his tribe. He had
travelled much, and was no random observer. He had seen a great deal, as
well of human nature as of places; could tell a good story, in good
spirit; and was endowed with a dry, sneaking humor, that came out
unawares upon his hearers, and made them laugh frequently in spite of
themselves.
Bunce had been now sufficiently long in the village to enable those
about him to come at a knowledge of his parts; and his accomplishments,
in the several respects referred to, were by this time generally well
understood. The inducement was sufficiently strong with the jailer; and,
at length, having secured the main entrance of the jail carefully, he
strapped the key to a leathern girdle, which he wore about him, lodging
it in the breast-pocket of his coat, where he conceived it perfectly
safe, he prepared to go along with his worthy brother-in-law. Nor was
the younger Brooks forgotten. Being a tall, good-looking lad of sixteen,
Tongs insisted it was high time he should appear among men; and the
invitation of the pedler was opportune, as affording a happy occasion
for his initiation into some of those practices, esteemed, by a liberal
courtesy, significant of manliness.
With everything in proper trim, Bunce stood at the entrance of his
lodge, ready to receive them. The preliminaries were soon despatched,
and we behold them accordingly, all four, comfortably seated around a
huge oaken table in the centre of the apartment. There was the jug, and
there the glasses--the sugar, the peppermint, the nutmegs--the pipes and
tobacco--all convenient, and sufficiently tempting for the unscrupulous.
The pedler did the honors with no little skill, and Tongs plunged
headlong into the debauch. The whiskey was never better, and found, for
this reason, anything but security where it stood. Glass after glass,
emptied only to be replenished, attested the industrious hospitality of
the host, not less than its own excellence. Tongs, averaging three
draughts to one of his companion's, was soon fairly under way in his
progress to that state of mental self-glorification in which the world
ceases to have vicissitudes, and the animal realizes the abstractions of
an ancient philosophy, and denies all pain to life.
Brooks, however, though not averse to the overcoming element, had more
of that vulgar quality of prudence than his brother-in-law, and far
more than was thought amiable in the opinion of the pedler. For some
time, therefore, he drank with measured scrupulousness; and it was
with no small degree of anxiety that Bunce plied him with the
bottle--complaining of his unsociableness, and watching, with the
intensity of any other experimentalist, the progress of his scheme upon
him. As for the lad--the younger Brooks--it was soon evident that, once
permitted, and even encouraged to drink, as he had been, by his
superiors, he would not, after a little while, give much if any
inconvenience to the conspirators. The design of the pedler was
considerably advanced by Tongs, who, once intoxicated himself, was not
slow in the endeavor to bring all around him under the same influence.
"Drink, Brooks--drink, old fellow," he exclaimed; "as you are a true
man, drink, and don't fight shy of the critter! Whiskey, my boy--old
Monongahely like this, I say--whiskey is wife and children--house and
horse--lands and niggers--liberty and [hiccup] plenty to live on! Don't
you see how I drive ahead, and don't care for the hind wheels? It's all
owing to whiskey! Grog, I say--Hark ye, Mr. Pedler--grog, I say, is the
wheels of life: it carries a man _for'ad_. Why don't men go _for'ad_ in
the world? What's the reason now? I'll tell you. They're afeared. Well,
now, who's afeared when he's got a broadside of whiskey in him?
Nobody--nobody's afeared but you--you, Ben Brooks, you're a d----d
crick--crick--you're always afeared of something, or nothing; for, after
all, whenever you're afeared of something, it turns out to be nothing!
All 'cause you don't drink like a man. That's his cha-cha-_rack_-ter,
Mr. Bunce; and it's all owing 'cause he won't drink!"
"Guess there's no sparing of reason in that bit of argument, now, I tell
you, Mr. Tongs. Bless my heart--it's no use talking, no how, but I'd a
been clean done up, dead as a door-nail, if it hadn't been for drink.
Strong drink makes strong. Many's the time, and the freezing cold, and
the hard travelling in bad roads, and other dreadful fixins I've seed,
would soon ha' settled me up, if it hadn't been for that same good stuff
there, that Master Brooks does look as if he was afeared on. Now, don't
be afeared, Master Brooks. There's no teeth in whiskey, and it never
bites nobody."
"No," said Brooks, with the utmost simplicity; "only when they take too
much."
"How?" said the pedler, looking as if the sentence contained some
mysterious meaning. Brooks might have explained, but for Tongs, who
dashed in after this fashion:--
"And who takes too much? You don't mean to say I takes too much, Ben
Brooks. I'd like to hear the two-legged critter, now, who'd say I takes
more of the stuff than does me good. I drinks in reason, for the benefit
of my health; and jest, you see, as a sort of medicine, Mr. Bunce; and,
Brooks, you knows I never takes a drop more than is needful."
"Sometimes--sometimes, Tongs, you know you ain't altogether right under
it--now and then you take a leetle too much for your good," was the mild
response of Brooks, to the almost fierce speech of his less scrupulous
brother-in-law. The latter, thus encountered, changed his ground with
singular rapidity.
"Well, by dogs!--and what of that?--and who is it says I shan't, if it's
my notion? I'd like now to see the boy that'll stand up agin me and make
such a speech. Who says I shan't take what I likes--and that I takes
more than is good for me? Does you say so, Mr. Bunce?"
"No, thank ye, no. How should I say what ain't true? You don't take half
enough, now, it's my idee, neither on you. It's all talk and no cider,
and that I call monstrous dry work. Come, pass round the bottle. Here's
to you, Master Tongs--Master Brooks, I drink your very good health. But
fill up, fill up--you ain't got nothing in your tumbler."
"No, he's a sneak--you're a sneak, Brooks, if you don't fill up to the
hub. Go the whole hog, boy, and don't twist your mouth as if the stuff
was physic. It's what I call nation good, now; no mistake in it, I tell
you."
"Hah! that's a true word--there's no mistake in this stuff. It is jest
now what I calls ginywine."
"True Monongahely, Master Bunce. Whoever reckoned to find a Yankee
pedler with a _raal_ good taste for Monongahely? Give us your fist, Mr.
Bunce; I see you know's what's what. You ain't been among us for
nothing. You've larned something by travelling; and, by dogs! you'll
come to be something yit, if you live long enough--if so be you can only
keep clear of the _old range_."
The pedler winced under the equivocal compliments of his companion, but
did not suffer anything of this description to interfere with the
vigorous prosecution of his design. He had the satisfaction to perceive
that Brooks had gradually accommodated himself not a little to the
element in which his brother-in-law, Tongs, was already floating
happily; and the boy, his son, already wore the features of one over
whose senses the strong liquor was momentarily obtaining the mastery.
But these signs did not persuade him into any relaxation of his labors;
on the contrary, encouraged by success, he plied the draughts more
frequently and freely than before, and with additional evidence of the
influence of the potation upon those who drank, when he found that he
was enabled, unperceived, to deposit the contents of his own tumbler, in
most instances, under the table around which they gathered. In the cloud
of smoke encircling them, and sent up from their several pipes, Bunce
could perceive the face of his colleague in the conspiracy peering in
occasionally upon the assembly, and at length, on some slight pretence,
he approached the aperture agreeably to the given signal, and received
from the hands of the landlord a vial containing a strong infusion of
opium, which he placed cautiously in his bosom, and awaited the moment
of more increased stupefaction to employ it. So favorably had the liquor
operated by this time upon the faculties of all, that the elder Brooks
grew garrulous and full of jest at the expense of his son--who now,
completely overcome, had sunk down with his head upon the table in a
profound slumber. The pedler joined, as well as Tongs, in the
merriment--this latter personage, by the way, having now put himself
completely under the control of the ardent spirit, and exhibiting all
the appearance of a happy madness. He howled like the wolf, imitated
sundry animals, broke out into catches of song, which he invariably
failed to finish, and, at length, grappling his brother-in-law, Brooks,
around the neck, with both arms, as he sat beside him, he swore by all
that was strong in _Monongahely_, he should give them a song.
"That's jest my idee, now, Master Tongs. A song is a main fine thing,
now, to fill up the chinks. First a glass, then a puff or two, and then
a song."
Brooks, who, in backwood parlance, was "considerably up a stump"--that
is to say, half drunk--after a few shows of resistance, and the
utterance of some feeble scruples, which were all rapidly set aside by
his companions, proceeded to pour forth the rude melody which follows:--
THE HOW-D'YE-DO BOY.
"For a how-d'ye-do boy, 'tis pleasure enough
To have a sup of such goodly stuff--
To float away in a sky of fog,
And swim the while in a sea of grog;
So, high or low,
Let the world go,
The how-d'ye-do boy don't care for it--no--no--no--no."
Tonga, who seemed to be familiar with the uncouth dithyrambic, joined in
the chorus, with a tumultuous discord, producing a most admirable
effect; the pedler dashing in at the conclusion, and shouting the
_finale_ with prodigious compass of voice. The song proceeded:--
"For a how-d'ye-do boy, who smokes and drinks,
He does not care who cares or thinks;
Would Grief deny him to laugh and sing,
He knocks her down with a single sling--
So, high or low,
Let the world go,
The how-d'ye-do boy don't care for it--no--no--no--no.
"The how-d'ye-do boy is a boy of the night--
It brings no cold, and it does not fright;
He buttons his coat and laughs at the shower,
And he has a song for the darkest hour--
So, high or low,
Let the world go,
The how-d'ye-do boy don't care for it--no--no--no--no."
The song gave no little delight to all parties. Tongs shouted, the
pedler roared applause, and such was the general satisfaction, that it
was no difficult thing to persuade Brooks to the demolition of a bumper,
which Bunce adroitly proposed to the singer's own health. It was while
the hilarity thus produced was at its loudest, that the pedler seized
the chance to pour a moderate portion of the narcotic into the several
glasses of his companions, while a second time filling them; but,
unfortunately for himself, not less than the design in view, just at
this moment Brooks grew awkwardly conscious of his own increasing
weakness, having just reason enough left to feel that he had already
drunk too much. With a considerable show of resolution, therefore, he
thrust away the glass so drugged for his benefit, and declared his
determination to do no more of that business. He withstood all the
suggestions of the pedler on the subject, and the affair began to look
something less than hopeless when he proceeded to the waking up of his
son, who, overcome by the liquor, was busily employed in a profound
sleep, with his head upon the table.
Tongs, who had lost nearly all the powers of action, though retaining
not a few of his parts of speech, now came in fortunately to the aid of
the rather-discomfited pedler. Pouring forth a volley of oaths, in which
his more temperate brother-in-law was denounced as a mean-spirited
critter, who couldn't drink with his friend or fight with his enemy, he
made an ineffectual effort to grapple furiously with the offender, while
he more effectually arrested his endeavor to waken up his son. It is
well, perhaps, that his animal man lacked something of its accustomed
efficiency, and resolutely refused all co-operation with his mood; or,
it is more than probable, such was his wrath, that his more staid
brother-in-law would have been subjected to some few personal tests of
blow and buffet. The proceedings throughout suggested to the mind of the
pedler a mode of executing his design, by proposing a bumper all round,
with the view of healing the breach between the parties, and as a final
draught preparatory to breaking up.
A suggestion so reasonable could not well be resisted; and, with the
best disposition in the world toward sobriety, Brooks was persuaded to
assent to the measure. Unhappily, however, for the pedler, the measure
was so grateful to Tongs, that, before the former could officiate, the
latter, with a desperate effort, reached forward, and, possessing
himself of his own glass, he thrust another, which happened to be the
only undrugged one, and which Bunce had filled for himself, into the
grasp of the jailer. The glass designed for Brooks was now in the
pedler's own hands, and no time was permitted him for reflection. With a
doubt as to whether he had not got hold of the posset meant for his
neighbor, Bunce was yet unable to avoid the difficulty; and, in a
moment, in good faith, the contents of the several glasses were fairly
emptied by their holders. There was a pause of considerable duration;
the several parties sank back quietly into their seats; and, supposing
from appearances that the effect of the drug had been complete, the
pedler, though feeling excessively stupid and strange, had yet
recollection enough to give the signal to his comrade. A moment only
elapsed, when Munro entered the apartment, seemingly unperceived by all
but the individual who had called him; and, as an air of considerable
vacancy and repose overspread all the company he naturally enough
concluded the potion had taken due hold of the senses of the one whom it
was his chief object to overcome. Without hesitation, therefore, and
certainly asking no leave, he thrust one hand into the bosom of the
worthy jailer, while the other was employed in taking a sure hold of his
collar. To his great surprise, however, he found that his man suffered
from no lethargy, though severely bitten by the drink. Brooks made
fierce resistance; though nothing at such a time, or indeed at any time,
in the hands of one so powerfully built as Munro.
"Hello! now--who are you, I say? Hands off!--Tongs! Tongs!--Hands
off!--Tongs, I say--"
But Tongs heard not, or heeded not, any of the rapid exclamations of the
jailer, who continued to struggle. Munro gave a single glance to the
pedler, whose countenance singularly contrasted with the expression
which, in the performance of such a duty, and at such a time, it might
have been supposed proper for it to have worn. There was a look from his
eyes of most vacant and elevated beatitude; a simper sat upon his lips,
which parted ineffectually with the speech that he endeavored to make. A
still lingering consciousness of something to be done, prompted him to
rise, however, and stumble toward the landlord, who, while scuffling
with the jailer, thus addressed him:--
"Why, Bunce, it's but half done!--you've bungled. See, he's too sober by
half!"
"Sober? no, no--guess he's drunk--drunk as a gentleman. I say, now--what
must I do?"
"Do?" muttered the landlord, between his teeth, and pointing to Tongs,
who reeled and raved in his seat, "do as I do!" And, at the word, with a
single blow of his fist, he felled the still refractory jailer with as
much ease as if he had been an infant in his hands. The pedler, only
half conscious, turned nevertheless to the half-sleeping Tongs, and
resolutely drove his fist into his face.
It was at that moment that the nostrum, having taken its full effect,
deprived him of the proper force which alone could have made the blow
available for the design which he had manfully enough undertaken. The
only result of the effort was to precipitate him, with an impetus not
his own, though deriving much of its effect from his own weight, upon
the person of the enfeebled Tongs: the toper clasped him round with a
corresponding spirit, and they both rolled upon the floor in utter
imbecility, carrying with them the table around which they had been
seated, and tumbling into the general mass of bottles, pipes, and
glasses, the slumbering youth, who, till that moment, lay altogether
ignorant of the catastrophe.
Munro, in the meanwhile, had possessed himself of the desired keys; and
throwing a sack, with which he had taken care to provide himself, over
the head of the still struggling but rather stupified jailer, he bound
the mouth of it with cords closely around his body, and left him
rolling, with more elasticity and far less comfort than the rest of the
party, around the floor of the apartment.
He now proceeded to look at the pedler; and seeing his condition, though
much wondering at his falling so readily into his own temptation--never
dreaming of the mistake which he had made--he did not waste time to
rouse him up, as he plainly saw he could get no further service out of
him. A moment's reflection taught him, that, as the condition of Bunce
himself would most probably free him from any suspicion of design, the
affair told as well for his purpose as if the original arrangement had
succeeded. Without more pause, therefore, he left the house, carefully
locking the doors on the outside, so as to delay egress, and hastened
immediately to the release of the prisoner.