"Oh! Jack, Jack," cried Dame Hearty, despairingly, "I knew how it would be. Don't, don't; you'll break my heart."
"What the —— does it matter to you?" demanded her husband, "'s long 's I leave you alone (hic)."
Here some altercation took place between the two which we will not record; as, in such moods, our landlord was rarely very choice in his language. It was with considerable difficulty that Dame Hearty succeeded at length in getting her worse half upstairs and to bed.
We grieve to be obliged to record that on the following night there was a repetition of this painful scene, and the night after that, too. In spite of his poor wife's prayers and entreaties, he grew from bad to worse. Jack Hearty had become a confirmed drunkard. When in his cups his nature appeared completely changed. He who, up to the present, had enjoyed the reputation of being the kindest and most loving of husbands, the most genial of men, had now become morose, coarse, blasphemous, cantankerous, and cruel. His poor wife was in despair, and could do nothing but cry or go into hysterics.
It was one stormy night, when our host of the "Headless Lady" had dragged himself upstairs more intoxicated than ever, that he let fall the candle, which immediately set fire to the bed curtains, and in an instant the room was in flames. Our host was so dazed as to be incapable of saving himself, and if it had not been for Dame Hearty's presence of mind, who managed to drag her husband downstairs in time, both might have perished in the flames.
The position of the inn, as we know, was isolated. Before help could be procured the fine old hostel, that had stood for centuries, and whose walls had resounded so long with the mirth and laughter of our jovial members, was now a charred and shapeless ruin.
"Well, Jack, I hope you're satisfied now," said his better-half, as the loving couple tucked themselves into a spare bed at the house of a neighbour, who had taken them in out of charity.
Our host was now quite sober, having had to walk a mile at least through the bleak wind and driving snow, so he turned, in a humbled and penitent manner, towards his wife, crying, "Oh, Molly, Molly, how can you ever forgive me? Oh! what a fool I have been! If I had only listened to you at first. But, there—it's the drink—the cursed drink—that makes a beast of a man. I vow I will never touch a drop of drink again as long as I live."
"Dear Jack, I believe you," replied his spouse. "Be your old self again," and with one loving kiss all past troubles were forgotten.