“And who may poor Jacob be?”
“Why, as nice, and steady, and hearty a lad as ever I set eyes on, Mr Graves. He was master’s first groom and gardener. He came out in the same ship with master and Mr Hubert Oliphant. Mr Frank saved Jacob from being drowned, and the young man stayed with him here, and worked for him with all his heart till the drink drove him away, for he was a teetotaller, as he used to say of himself, to the back-bone.”
“Well, Mrs Watson,” said Graves, “it isn’t for me to be contradicting you, but, for my part, I never could abide these teetottallers. What with their tea and their coffee, their lemonade and ginger beer, and other wishy-washy, sour stuffs—why, the very thought of them’s enough to cause an involution of one’s suggestive organs.”
But what was he to do? Drink there was none in the house, and he was too crafty to make any direct request for its introduction; but, “as sure as my name’s Juniper,” he said to himself, “Mr Frank shall break off this nonsense afore I’m a month older; it won’t suit him, I know, and I’m certain sure it won’t suit me.”
So he submitted to the unfermented beverages of the establishment with as good a grace as he could, turning over in his mind how he should accomplish his object. He had not to wait long. The drunken cottager who had formerly supplied Frank with spirits, was of course not best pleased to lose so good a customer, for he had taken care to make a very handsome profit on the liquors which he had supplied. It so happened that this man lighted on Juniper one day near his master’s house, and a very few minutes’ conversation made the groom acquainted with the former connection between this cottager and Frank Oldfield.
“Ho, ho!” laughed Juniper to himself. “I have it now. Good-bye to teetottalism. We’ll soon put an end to him.”
So bidding his new acquaintance keep himself out of sight and hold his tongue, for he’d soon manage to get back his master’s custom to him, Juniper purchased a few bottles of spirits on his own account, and stowed them safely away in his sleeping-place. A few days after this transaction, Frank bid his groom prepare himself for a ride of some length. It was a blazing hot day, and when they had gone some fifteen miles or more, principally in the open, across trackless plains, they struck up suddenly into a wooded pass, and Frank, giving the bridle to Juniper, threw himself on to the ground, under some trees, and lay panting with the excessive heat.
“Stiff work this, Juniper,” he said. “Just hang the bridles somewhere, and come and get a little shade. It’s like being roasted alive.”
“Ay, sir,” replied the other, “it’s hot work, and thirsty work too; only you see, sir, total abstainers ain’t at liberty to quench their thirst like ordinary mortals.”
“Why not?” asked his master, laughing. “I hear the sound of water not far-off; and I don’t doubt there’s enough to quench the thirst of all the teetotallers in the colony.”