“Most proud to serve you, my dear sir,” said the stout gentleman. “I have a large stock on hand; anything in the way of ale, porter, wine, or spirits, I flatter myself no one in Adelaide is better able to supply; perhaps you’ll kindly favour me with an order!”
“Certainly,” said Frank, and gave his address, and an order for ale, wine, and spirits to be sent over to his cottage the following day. And now, from his long previous abstinence, what he had already drunk had begun to tell upon him. He felt it, and rose to go, but his entertainers would not hear of his leaving them; for, under the excitement of the strong drink, he had been pouring forth anecdotes, and making himself in other ways so entertaining and agreeable, that his new friends were most anxious to detain him. So wine and brandy were added to his previous potations; and when at last, with assistance, he mounted his horse, it was with the greatest difficulty he could retain his seat in the saddle. And thus the whole party, singing, shouting, laughing, descended along the winding track, making God’s beautiful creation hideous by the jarring of their brutal mirth; for surely that mirth is brutal which springs, not from a heart filled with innocent rejoicing, but from lips that sputter out the frenzies of a brain on fire with the stimulants of alcohol. How Frank Oldfield got home he could not tell. His horse knew his road, and followed it; for, dumb brute as he was, his senses were not clouded by the unnatural stimulant which had stolen away the intellects of his rational master.
Darkness had settled down when horse and rider reached the slip-rail at the entrance of the field before Frank’s house. Jacob was there, for he had heard his master’s voice some ten minutes earlier singing snatches of songs in a wild exaggerated manner. Poor Jacob, he could hardly believe his ears, as he listened to “Rule Britannia” shouted out by those lips which, he had imagined, never allowed strong drink to pass them.
“Is that you, Jacob, my boy?” cried Frank thickly.
“Yes, sir,” said Jacob sorrowfully.
“Let down—shlip-rail—th–there’s—good lad,” added his master.
“It’s down,” replied the other shortly.
“Tchick—tchick, Roderick,” cried Frank, almost tumbling over his horse’s head. At last they reached the house door. Mrs Watson came out, candle in hand.
“How are you, Mrs Watson?” hiccupped her master. “Lend us a light—all right; that’s poetry, and no mistake—ha, ha, ha! capital, Jacob, my boy, ain’t it?” and he tumbled over one side of his horse, only saving himself from falling to the ground by catching hold of one of the posts of the verandah. But we need not follow him further. He slept the heavy drunkard’s sleep that night, and rose the next morning feverish, sick, thirsty, degraded, humbled, miserable. Poor Jacob’s face would have been a picture, could it have been taken as he looked upon his master staggering into the house by the light of Mrs Watson’s candle—a very picture it would have been of mingled astonishment, perplexity, distress, disgust.
“Well,” he said to himself moodily, “I thought the old lad had his hands full in the old country, but it’s like he’s not content with that; I’d as soon have thought of the Queen of England taking pick and Davy-lamp and going down to work in the pit, as of my young mayster coming home beastly drunk. My word, it’s awful; ’tis for sure.”