CHAPTER XX
FIVE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING
It was the custom with some of the high flyers, or the bucks, as they were called, when the card room was closed, to go off together to a tavern, there to finish the evening drinking, singing, gambling, and rioting the whole night through and long after daylight. Truly the town of Lynn witnessed more profligacy and wickedness during this summer than all its long and ancient history had contained or could relate.
The assembly was held twice a week—on Tuesday and on Friday. It was on Tuesday night that a certain statement was made in a drunken conversation which might have awakened suspicion of some dark design had it been recorded. A small company of the said high flyers, among whom were Colonel Lanyon and the young man named Tom Rising, marched off to the tavern most frequented by them, after the closing of the rooms, and called for punch, cards, and candles. Then they sat down to play, with the ungodly and profane discourse which they affected. They played and drank, the young men drinking fast and hard, the colonel, after his custom, keeping his head cool.
The night in May is short; the daylight presently began to show through the red curtains of the tavern window; then the sun rose; the players went on, regardless of the dawn and of the sun. One of them pulled back the curtains and blew out the candles. But they went on noisily. One of them fell off his chair, and lay like a log; the rest drew close, and continued to drink and to play. Among them no one played higher or more recklessly than Tom Rising. It was a game in which one holds the bank and takes the bets of the players. Colonel Lanyon held the bank, and took Tom's bets, which were high, as readily as those of the others which were low.
At five in the morning he laid down the cards.
"Gentlemen," he said, "we have played enough, and taken more than enough, I fear. Let us stop the game at this point."
"You want to stop," said Tom Rising, whose face was flushed and his speech thick, "because you've been winning. I want my revenge—I will have my revenge."
"Sir," said the colonel, "any man who says that I refuse revenge attacks my honour. No, sir. To-morrow, that is to say, this evening, or any time you please except the present, you shall have your revenge, and as much as you please. I appeal to the company. Gentlemen, it is now five o'clock, and outside broad daylight. The market bells have already begun. Are we drunk or sober?"
"Drunk, colonel, drunk," said the man on the floor.
"If we are drunk we are no longer in a condition fit for play. Let us therefore adjourn until the evening. Is this fair, gentlemen, or is it not? I will go on if you please."