“Not ’e, not ’e,” agreed the landlord, taking in the prospect with as little poetical refreshment as his companion.
They were very proud of being able to converse with intimate knowledge of the gentlefolk living hard by, and conducted their conversation like inferior actors, casting side glances at their audience to watch the effect of the performance. Their audience was myself, seated on the wooden bench on the other side of the doorway and regaling myself with cold beef and pickles. Vanity has always kept me from drinking alcohol in any form, otherwise I verily believe I might have been a drunkard. I think, perhaps, that being unaccustomed to spirits, a glass of strong brandy on a certain grim morning that draws nearer and nearer will not be amiss.
But for this great matter of vanity, how many more drunkards would there not be! Not many with a weakness for the bottle are restrained by the immorality of voluntarily surrendering the gift of reason, or the prospect of declining in the scale of prosperity. The first objection appeals to them not at all, and the second is not sufficiently apparent in its immediate effects for it to act as a deterrent. An immediate coarsening of the features and a general degradation of appearance are different matters. Few people care about being repulsive, and to the real drunkard this fact soon becomes apparent.
The two old men found the Gascoyne topic most absorbing, and talked incessantly, till the crimson light behind the pines changed to a faint opal, and the stars were alight in the heavens.
“ ’Is feyther, ’e never done no work,” said the landlord.
“That be true,” said the other, as if he were bearing witness to some virtue of the late Mr. Gascoyne.
“ ’E spent a deal of money too,” said the landlord.
“ ’E wur generous with ’is money,” answered the other.
“And none ’ave cause to know that better’n we.”
“That’s true enough.”