“And Peter Goodwin was in the habit of frequenting your house privately, to indulge this propensity.”
“I’m almost ashamed to own that he did—perhaps it was sinful in us to let him; but a body must carry out the idee of trade—our trade is tavern-keeping, and it’s our business to mix liquors, though Minister Watch says, almost every Sabbath, that professors should do nothing out of sight that they wouldn’t do before the whole congregation. I don’t hold to that, however; for it would soon break up tavern-keeping altogether. Yes, Peter did drink awfully, in a corner.”
“To intoxication, do you mean, Mrs. Horton?”
“To delirrum tremus, sir—yes, full up to that. His way was to come down to the village on the pretence of business, and to come right to our house, where I’ve known him to take three juleps in the first half-hour. Sometimes he’d pretend to go to town to see his sister, when he would stay two or three days upstairs in a room that Horton keeps for what he calls his cases—he has given the room the name of his ward—hospital-ward he means.”
“Is the worthy Mr. Horton a member of the meeting also, my good landlady?”
Mrs. Horton had the grace to colour; but she answered without stammering, habit fortifying us in moral discrepancies much more serious than even this.
“He was, and I don’t know but I may say he is yet; though he hasn’t attended, now, for more than two years. The question got to be between meetin’ and the bar; and the bar carried the day, so far as Horton is concerned. I’ve held out better, I hope, and expect to gain a victory. It’s quite enough to have one backslider in a family, I tell my husband, ’Squire.”
“A sufficient supply, ma’am—quite a sufficiency. So Peter Goodwin lay in your house drunk, days at a time?”
“I’m sorry to say he did. He was here a week once, with delirrum tremus on him; but Horton carried him through by the use of juleps; for that’s the time to take ’em, everybody says; and we got him home without old Dolly’s knowing that he hadn’t been with his sister the whole time. That turn satisfied Peter for three good months.”
“Did Peter pay as he went, or did you keep a score?”