ISAAC OGDEN AGAIN.
As the lieutenant of the Grenadier Company, Mr. Isaac Ogden was appointed to do captain's work at Whittlecup in the place of Philip Stanburne.
For many weeks Mr. Ogden had displayed a strength of resolution that astonished his most intimate friends. Without meanly taking refuge in the practice of total abstinence, he had kept strictly within the bounds of what in Shayton is considered moderation.
The customs of the mess at Sootythorn were not likely to place him in the power of his old enemy again; for although the officers were not severely abstinent, their utmost conviviality scarcely extended beyond the daily habits of the very soberest of Shaytonians.
Viewing the matter, therefore, from the standpoint of his personal experience, Dr. Bardly looked upon Ogden as now the most temperate of men. It is true that as a militia officer he could not follow a new rule of his about not entering inns, for the business of the regiment required him to visit a dozen inns every day, and to eat and sleep in one for a month together; and it is obvious that the other good rule about not drinking spirits at Twistle Farm could not be very advantageous to him just now, seeing that, although it was always in force, it was practically efficacious only during his residence under his own roof. It seems a pity that he did not legislate for himself anew, so as to meet his altered circumstances; but the labors of regimental duty appeared so onerous that extraordinary stimulation seemed necessary to meet this extraordinary fatigue, and it would have appeared imprudent to confine himself within rigidly fixed limits which necessity might compel him to transgress. So in point of fact Mr. Ogden was a free agent again.
Whilst Philip Stanburne had remained at the Blue Bell, Lieutenant Ogden had been in all respects a model of good behavior. He had watched by Philip's bedside in the evenings, sometimes far into the night, and the utmost extent of his conviviality had been a glass of grog with the Whittlecup doctor. But the day Philip Stanburne was removed, Lieutenant Ogden, after having dined and inspected his billets, began to feel the weight of his loneliness, and he felt it none the less for being accustomed to loneliness at the Farm. Captain Stanburne's illness, and the regular evening talk with the Whittlecup doctor, had hitherto given an interest to Isaac Ogden's life at the Blue Bell, and this interest had been suddenly removed. Something must be found to supply its place; it became necessary to cultivate the acquaintance of somebody in the parlor.
It is needless to trouble the reader with details about the men of Whittlecup whom Mr. Ogden found there, because they have no connection with the progress of this history. But he found somebody else too, namely, Jeremiah Smethurst, a true Shaytonian, and one of the brightest ornaments of the little society that met at the Red Lion. When Jerry saw his old friend Isaac Ogden, whom he had missed for many weeks, his greeting was so very cordial, so expressive of good-fellowship, that it was not possible to negative his proposition that they should "take a glass together."
Now the keeper of the Blue Bell Inn knew Jerry Smethurst. He knew that Jerry drank more than half a bottle of brandy every night before he went to bed, and without giving Mr. Ogden credit for equal powers, he had heard that he came from Shayton, which is a good recommendation to a vendor of spirituous liquors. He therefore, instead of bringing a glass of brandy for each of the Shayton gentlemen, uncorked a fresh bottle and placed it between them, remarking that they might take what they pleased—that there was 'ot warter on the 'arth, for the kettle was just bylin, an' there was shugger in the shugger-basin.
The reader foresees the consequences. After two or three glasses with his old friend, Isaac Ogden fell under the dominion of the old Shayton associations. Jerry Smethurst talked the dear old Shayton talk, such as Isaac Ogden had not heard in perfection for many a day. For men like the Doctor and Jacob Ogden were, by reason of their extreme temperance, isolated beings—beings cut off from the heartiest and most genial society of the place—and Isaac had been an isolated being also since he had kept out of the Red Lion and the White Hart.
"Why should a man desire in any way
To vary from the kindly race of men?"
That abandonment of the Red Lion had been a moral gain—a moral victory—but an intellectual loss. Was such a fellow as Parson Prigley any compensation for Jerry Smethurst? And there were half-a-dozen at the Red Lion as good as Jerry. He was short of stature—so short, that when he sat in a rocking-chair he had a difficulty in giving the proper impetus with his toes; and he had a great round belly, and a face which, if not equally great and round, seemed so by reason of all the light and warmth that radiated from it. It was enough to cure anybody of hypochondria to look at Jerry Smethurst's face. I have seen the moon look rather like it sometimes, rising warm and mellow on a summer's night; but though anybody may see that the moon has a nose and eyes, she certainly lacks expression. It was pleasant to Isaac Ogden to see the friendly old visage before him once again. Genial and kind thoughts rose in his mind. Tennyson had not yet written "Tithonus," and if he had, no Shaytonian would have read it—but the thoughts in Ogden's mind were these:—
"Why should a man desire in any way
To vary from the kindly race of men,
Or pass beyond the goal of ordinance,
Where all should pause, as is most meet for all?"
The "goal of ordinance," at Shayton, being death from delirium tremens.
Mr. Smethurst would have been much surprised if anybody had told him that he was inducing Ogden to drink more than was good for him. It seemed so natural to drink a bottle of brandy! And Jerry, too, in his way, was a temperate man—a man capable of self-control—a man who had made a resolution and kept it for many years. Jerry's resolution had been never to drink more than one bottle of spirits in an evening; and, as he said sometimes, it was "all howin' to that as he enjy'd sich gud 'ealth." Therefore, when Mr. Simpson had placed the bottle between them, Mr. Smethurst made a little mental calculation. He was strong in mental arithmetic. "I've 'ad three glasses afore Hogden coom, so when I've powered him out three glasses, the remainder 'll be my 'lowance." Therefore, when Isaac had mixed his third tumbler, Jerry Smethurst rang the bell.
"Another bottle o' brandy."
Mr. Simpson stood aghast at this demand, and his eyes naturally reverted to the bottle upon the table. "You've not finished that yet, gentlemen," he ventured to observe.
"What's left in it is my 'lowance," said Mr. Smethurst. "Mr. Hogden shalln't 'ave none on 't."
"Well, that is a whimmy gent," said Mr. Simpson to himself—but he fetched another bottle.
They made a regular Red Lion evening of it, those two. A little before midnight Mr. Smethurst rose and said Good night. He had finished his bottle, and his law of temperance, always so faithfully observed, forbade him one drop more. The reader probably expects that Mr. Smethurst was intoxicated; but his genial nature was only yet more genial. He lighted his bed-candle with perfect steadiness, shook Ogden's hand affectionately, and mounted the stair step by step. When he got into his bedroom he undressed himself in a methodical manner, laid his clothes neatly on a chair, wound his watch up, and when he had assumed his white cotton night-cap, looked at himself in the glass. He put his tongue out, and held the candle close to it. The result of the examination was satisfactory, and he proceeded to pull down the corners of his eyes. This he did every night. The bugbear of his life was dread of a coming fit, and he fancied he might thus detect the premonitory symptoms.
Meanwhile Mr. Ogden, left by himself, took up the "Sootythorn Gazette," and when Mr. Simpson entered he found him reading, apparently. "Beg pardon, sir," said Mr. Simpson, "but it's the rule to turn the gas out at twelve, and it's a few minutes past. I'll light you your bed-candle, sir, and you can sit up a bit later if you like. You'll find your way to your room."
Ogden was too far gone to have any power of controlling himself now. The type danced before his eyes, the sentences ran into one another, and the sense of the phrases was a mystery to him. He kept drinking mechanically; and when at length he attempted to reach the door, the candlestick slipped from his hand, and the light was instantly extinguished.
A man who is quite drunk cannot find the door of a dark room—he cannot even walk in the dark; his only chance of walking in broad daylight is to fix his eye steadily on some object, and when it loses its hold of that, to fasten it upon some other, and so on. Ogden stumbled against the furniture and fell. The deep insensibility of advanced drunkenness supervened, and he lay all night upon the floor. The servant-girl found him there the next morning when she came to clean the room.
He could not go to Sootythorn that day, and the true reason for his absence soon became known to Dr. Bardly, who asked leave to drive over to Shayton to see a patient of his own. He drove directly to Milend.
"Well, Mrs. Ogden," said the Doctor, "I've come wi' bad news for you this time. Your Isaac's made a beast of himself once more. He lay all night last night dead drunk upo' th' parlor-floor o' th' Blue Bell Inn i' Whittlecup."
"Why—you don't say so, Dr. Bardly! Now, really, this is provokin', and 'im as was quite reformed, as one may say. I could like to whip him—I could."
"Well, I wish you'd just go to Whittlecup and take care of him while he stops there. If he'd nobbut stopped at Sootythorn I could have minded him a bit mysen, but there's nout like his mother for managin' him."
Little Jacob was staying at Milend during his father's military career, and so Mrs. Ogden objected—"But what's to become o' th' childt?"
"Take him with ye—take him with ye. It'll do him a power o' good, and it'll amuse him rarely. He'll see the chaps with their red jackets, and his father with a sword, and a fine scarlet coat on Sundays, and he'll be as fain as fain."
So it was immediately decided that Mrs. Ogden and little Jacob should leave for Whittlecup as soon as they possibly could. A fly was sent for, and Mrs. Ogden hastily filled two large wooden boxes, which were her portmanteaus. Little Jacob was at the parsonage with the youthful Prigleys, and had to be sent for. Mrs. Ogden took the decanters from the corner cupboard, and drank two glasses of port to sustain her in the hurry of the occasion. "Well, who would have thought," she said to herself, as she ate a piece of cake—"who would have thought that I should go and stop at Whittlecup? I wonder how soon Mary Ridge will have finished my new black satin."