'I remember now,' he said. 'My memory is not so good as it was. We drink that away as well. Yes, I remember—I crave your forgiveness, Doctor. You were yourself engaged with Monmouth. Your cousin told me as much. Naturally you love not this good Judge, who yet did nothing but what the King, his master, ordered him to do. I, Sir, have often had the honour of sitting over a bottle with his Lordship. When his infirmities allowed (though not yet old, he is grievously afflicted) he had no equal for a song or a jest, and would drink so long as any were left to keep him company. Ha! they have knocked him down—now they will kill him. No; he is again upon his feet; those who protect him close in. So—they have passed out of our sight. Doctor, shall we crack a flask together? I have no money, unhappily; but I will with pleasure drink at your expense.'
I remembered the man's face now, but not his name. 'Twas one of Ben's boon companions. Well; if hard drinking brings men so speedily to rags and poverty, even though it be a merry life (which I doubt), give me moderation.
'Pray, Sir,' I said coldly, 'to have me excused. I am no drinker.'
'Then, Doctor, you will perhaps lend me, until we meet again, a single guinea?'
I foolishly complied with this request.
'Doctor, I thank you,' he said. 'Will you now come and drink with me at my expense? Sir, I say plainly, you do not well to refuse a friendly glass. I could tell you many things, if you would but drink with me, concerning my Lord Jeffreys. There are things which would make you laugh. Come, Doctor; I love not to drink alone. Your cousin, now, was always ready to drink with any man, until he fell ill'—
'How? is my cousin ill?'
'Assuredly; he is sick unto death. Yesterday I went to visit him, thinking to drink a glass with him, and perhaps to borrow a guinea or two, but found him in bed and raving. If you will drink with me, Doctor, I can tell you many curious things about your cousin. And now I remember, you were sent to the Plantations; your cousin told me so. You have returned before your time. Well, the King hath run away; you are, doubtless, safe. Your cousin hath gotten his grandfather's estate. Lord Jeffreys, who loved him mightily, procured that grant for him. When your cousin wakes at night he swears that he sees his grandfather by his bedside looking at him reproachfully, so that he drinks the harder; 'tis a merry life. He hath also married a wife, and she ran away from him at the church door, and he now cannot hear of her or find her anywhere, so that he curses her and drinks the harder. Oh! 'tis always the jolliest dog. They say that he is not the lawyer that he was, and that his clients are leaving him. All mine have left me long since. Come and drink with me, Doctor.'
I broke away from the poor toper who had drunk up his wits as well as his money, and hurried to my cousin's chambers, into which I had not thought to enter save as one who brings reproaches—a useless burden.
Benjamin was lying in bed: an old crone sat by the fire, nodding. Beside her was a bottle, and she was, I found, half drunk. Her I quickly sent about her business. No one else had been attending him. Yet he was laid low, as I presently discovered, with that kind of fever which is bred in the villainous air of our prisons—the same fever which had carried off his grandfather.