"Don't know but I will," she said, and helped herself to a dram.
The cork was replaced; silence fell upon the pair. Henry Deans and his wife had partaken of the closest communion they knew. Mrs. Deans left her rags presently to go out to superintend the placing of some new chicken-coops, and Mr. Deans dozed off into a pleasurable reverie, evoked by the death of Dan Follett.
Around the name of Dan Follett clustered the recollections of Mr. Deans' happiest achievement—for, using Dan Follett as an unworthy instrument, he had purged Jamestown of malt and spirituous liquors and brought the village within the temperance fold.
It was thus: Dan Follett had come to "keep tavern" in the old Black Horse Inn. This was a quaint brick building that stood at the corner of the Front Street nearest the lake. It had but a narrow frontage on the Front Street, but stretched back, a long building, on the side street. From the corner of the inn hung a sign-board, depending from an iron rod. The sign was a jet black horse, rampant, with the legend, "Black Horse Inn." The front of the inn, rising abruptly, as it did, from the side-walk, was more quaint than inviting, but the side view was very hospitable, for all along the side street a veranda (floored with oak and roofed by the second story of the inn, which overhung it) extended, approached by broad, generous steps. It was an old, old building, with queer nooks and corners in it, quaint brass newel-posts in the stairway, odd sideboards built into the walls, and dark, hardwood floors. It was by far the oldest building in Jamestown, and the huge, untidy willow tree before the door had grown from a switch thrown down by one of the soldiers, when he and his comrades departed after their long billet in Jamestown.
Jamestown was not called Jamestown in those days, but Kingsville. Times had changed with the village, and its name with them; but the Black Horse Inn remained unchanged—only the bricks had reddened the mortar between them, so that its walls were all one dark, rich red. "Many a summer's silent fingering" had wrought a green lace-work of ivy over the front and at the corners, and about the chimneys a vivid green stain showed the minute mosses that were gathering there. It was having indeed a green old age; and if the second story was beginning to sag a little between the centre-posts, it conveyed no hint of decay, or lack of safety. The droop only showed a kindly and protective attitude towards the open-armed chairs that stood on the veranda beneath.
In the little garden behind the inn, long neglected and overrun, were bushes of acrid wormwood, stray wisps of thyme, straggling roots of rosemary, and bushes of flowering currants. In the spring, from among its springing grasses came whiffs of perfume; for the English violets, planted long, long ago, had spread through and through the tangle of weeds, unkempt grass, and untrimmed bushes.
The one ambition that had lived in Jed Holder's saddened breast after he came to Jamestown was to be able to rent the Black Horse Inn. But it was only a vague, purposeless wish to possess the right of that little square garden, amid whose desolation he discerned the traces of an English hand. Like so many of Jed's dreams, this one never materialized.
To this house, then, came Dan Follett—displayed his license to sell "wine, beer, malt and other spirituous liquors," set out some hospitable armchairs, erected a horse-trough before the door, and, having assumed a huge and glistening white apron, strode about, a jolly, good-natured, guardian spirit. His rubicund face was always beaming, his little eyes always blinking away tears of laughter. There was but little trade in Jamestown, but Follet managed to make ends meet, for the lake was noted for its fishing, and parties of fishermen were right glad to find a place where they could leave their horses and refresh themselves. But Dan Follett and Dan Follett's business were sore rocks of offence in the eyes of the Jamestown brethren.
At "after meeting" many plans were discussed for the discomfiture of Dan Follett, and, incidentally, the devil. Many a "class meeting" evolved an indignation caucus which dealt with the enormity of Dan Follett's calling, which was cited, with many epithets, as the cause of every evil under the sun. But of all this righteous indignation jolly Dan Follett took no heed, and was as ready to lend his stout brown horse to Mr. Deans or Mr. White when their own "odd" horse was busy as he was to hire it to the few fishermen who fancied a ride along the lake shore.
Henry Deans brooded long over this unholy thing in their midst, and finally hit upon a plan to put the devil, in the person of Dan Follett, to some discomfiture. Mr. Deans was senior deacon in the Methodist Church and, as such, took it upon himself to provide the bread and wine for sacramental purposes. One Saturday, the day before the spring communion, Mrs. Deans stood admiring her bread.