Chapter 7 A BITTER DRAUGHT.

It needed but a glance to show Bergan that the tavern was of the lower sort. It was dingy and dilapidated without, and from its open windows were wafted sounds of hoarse voices, shouts of laughter, the jingling of glasses, and a strong odor of tobacco, betokening a corresponding amount of moral dinginess and dilapidation within. Bergan turned to his uncle with a disgust that he hardly attempted to conceal,—the natural disgust of a healthy body and mind for things coarse, foul, noisy, and vulgar,—and inquired;—

"Do you intend to stop here long?"

"Quite long enough for you to get off and stretch yourself," replied the Major, carelessly. "This is an old halting-place of mine, and looks as natural as possible, though it is a year or more since I have set eyes on it. No doubt I shall find some old acquaintances here. Come! don't sit there gaping at the outside, like a man trying to guess at the purport of a letter from the looks of the envelope, when the inside would tell him what he wants to know, in a jiffy; get off your horse, and come in."

Bergan obeyed, but with a manifest reluctance that brought a cloud to the Major's brow. Muttering something between his teeth, which had the tone and bitterness of a curse, but was unintelligible, the latter led the way to the bar-room.

Several varieties of the genus loafer, both of the genteel and vulgar species, were leaning over the counter, or seated in tilted-up chairs, puffing out tobacco smoke, and discussing matters of local interest. The appearance of the Major was greeted with enthusiasm,—all the more, that his first words, after a "How d'y" of very general application, were an order to the landlord to make a stiff bowl of punch, on a scale commensurate with the numbers of the party.

"This is my nephew, gentlemen," he went on, addressing the delighted audience,—"Harry Bergan Arling, as he now calls himself, or Harry Bergan, of Bergan Hall, as he is to be, in good time,—a real chip of the old family block, as you can see at a glance. I expect that you will all do me the honor of drinking his health in a bowl of the best punch that Gregg can concoct. Hurry up, Gregg! you know how I like it,—not too strongly flavored with our two days' drizzle;—was there ever a nastier spell of weather?"

"Never knew the sky so leaky in all my life," responded a languid loafer of the genteeler sort, too lazy to furnish his sentences with nominatives. "Begun to think, with Father Miller, 'twas getting worn out."

"It will last our time, I reckon," returned the Major. "And 'after us the deluge,' of course. I would not mind taking a swim in it myself, if it were of punch such as Gregg, there, is mixing. It looks like the real thing! Now, gentlemen, step forward and take your glasses. Here's to the health of my nephew,—Harry Bergan,—and may he unite in his single person all the virtues of all the Harrys of the line, from Sir Harry down;—yes, and all the vices, too, they are good Bergan stock, every one of them!"

A toast so perfectly in harmony with the corrupt atmosphere of the bar-room could but be received and drunk with acclamation. Bergan, perforce, lifted his glass to his lips, but the fiery draught, prepared with a single eye to the requirements of his uncle's sophisticated palate, was so little suited to his own purer taste, that he set it down with its contents very little diminished. Observing this, Major Bergan's face grew dark.

"That will never do, Harry," he growled, aside. "Don't disgrace me here, whatever you may do at home! I insist upon your emptying your glass like a man, and doing your part towards making things pleasant. Now, then, gentlemen," he continued, aloud, "be pleased to make ready for toast the second. We will drink success to my nephew's future proprietorship of Bergan Hall;—may it come late, and last long!"

The cords of conventionalism—even the conventionalism of a bar-room—are strong; and Bergan was somewhat young for complete independence of character. Nevertheless, he was quite capable of turning his back on the whole company of tipplers, both genteel and vulgar, indifferent alike to their wonder, censure, or scorn, had it not been for his uncle; whose wishes, in his double character of host and relative, seemed entitled to some degree of respect. Yet both instinct and principle revolted from the certain intoxication of the distasteful glass in his hand. By a quick and dexterous motion, he sent half its contents flying out of the window near which he stood, and supplied their place with water from a convenient pitcher. Flattering himself that he had done this unobserved, he tried to swallow his disgust at the place and the companionship in which he found himself with the diluted draught.

"That's pretty fair stuff," said the Major, setting down his empty glass; "it has just about the right snap in it. Is there enough for another round, Gregg?"

"Plenty, sir, and another one on the end of that. I knew you didn't like to see the bottom of the bowl, in a hurry, Major."

"You are another Solon, Gregg. Your wisdom is only to be equalled by your disinterestedness. Come, gentlemen, fill your glasses again! Harry, is your glass filled?"

As he spoke, the Major drew near, and fixed a keen eye on Bergan's glass, in a way which led the latter to suspect that his late manoeuvre had not been so successful as he had imagined. At any rate, it would not be easy to repeat it. Well, what matter? He had submitted to his uncle's tyranny long enough; he might as well free himself first as last. He would try to do so in the way least likely to give offence.

"Uncle," he pleaded, with a graceful frankness and courtesy that could scarcely have failed to reach the Major's better self, if it had been less under the vitiating influence of strong drink,—"uncle, I really must beg your kind indulgence. I am not accustomed to potations so many nor so strong; and whatever I may be able to do, in time, under your skilful guidance, I must now use a little discretion. Pray excuse me from taking any more at present."

"I'll be hanged if I do!" said the Major, bluntly. "If you don't know how to drink like a gentleman and a Bergan, it is high time you should learn. Fill up his glass, Gregg; he shall drink!"

Scarcely were the insulting words spoken ere Bergan felt, with a thrill of dismay, a hot tingling sensation in all his veins, as if the blood in them had suddenly been turned to fire. Too well he knew what it meant. The "black Bergan temper," which had been the one, great sorrow and struggle of his life, thus far, and which he had believed to be completely tamed, was stirring within him in a way to show that, if it were not instantly controlled, it would carry him, in its headlong fury, he knew not whither. Every other feeling, every other thought, were, for the moment, swallowed up in the instinct of self-preservation. He would submit to his uncle's imperious dictation, not that he either prized his love or feared his anger, but because that treacherous demon within must at once feel a firm foot upon its neck, and be shown that it could expect no indulgence, and no quarter.

At this moment, there was a slight bustle at the door, occasioned by an arrival; under cover of which he again turned to the friendly water pitcher, to make sure that, while fleeing from one fatal influence he was not running blindly into the leashes of another.

"Dimidium plus toto, I see," observed a well-remembered voice at his elbow, in a tone of good-natured sarcasm. "But you make a slight mistake in your practical translation; it is a 'half,' not a quarter (or I might say, an eighth) which is 'better than the whole.' And anyway, I doubt if old Hesiod meant his maxim to apply to punch."

Glad of anything that promised to create a diversion, Bergan turned and gave the hand of Richard Causton a much more cordial grasp than he would have been likely to do, under other circumstances. The old man, better accustomed to the cold shoulder from all reputable acquaintance, returned it with tears in his blear eyes, and for once, had no proverb at command wherein to do justice to his feelings. Before he could find one, Major Bergan came up, with a sly gleam of humor or of mischief, on his face. "What! you know Harry!" he exclaimed. "Oh! yes, I remember,—you helped him on his way to Bergan Hall. So much the better. You will be glad to know that it was my nephew to whom you showed that courtesy, and to drink to your better acquaintance. All ready?"

Bergan turned round for his glass, which he had left standing on the window-sill, and, the sooner to be done with the distasteful business, swallowed at a gulp what, it seemed to him, the next moment, must have been liquid fire. A loud laugh from his uncle told him to whom he was indebted for the substitution of raw spirit for weak punch. The passion which he had so promptly smothered, doubly inflamed by the consciousness of being betrayed and the instantaneous action of the potent draught, blazed up with sudden, ungovernable fury. Feeling that he was losing control of temper and reason together, he rushed toward the door. At a sign from the Major, two or three of the bystanders threw themselves in his way. They were instantly sent reeling right and left by two powerful blows. Dick Causton, catching hold of him with the friendly design of preventing him from doing more mischief and provoking more enmity, was shaken off with a violence that threw him in a disordered heap on the floor; over which Bergan strode wrathfully towards his uncle, who had planted himself in the doorway. The spectators held their breath to witness the expected encounter between uncle and nephew,—Bergan against Bergan, the blood of both up, the hereditary frenzy blazing in each pair of dark eyes.

But Bergan was not quite so mad as that. Seeing who it was that impeded his way, he turned and darted through a window close at hand, jumped over the piazza railing, sprang upon his horse, and was off before the bystanders had well recovered their breath, or Dick had picked himself up, with the caustic observation,—

"Perit quod facis ingrato,—'Save a thief from hanging, and he will cut your throat.'"

Poor Vic!—never in all her life had she been urged to such mad and merciless speed as on that ill-starred day. Protesting, at first, by various plunges and rearings, she finally fell in with her master's wild humor, and sped through the village at a pace that sent the foot-passengers to the fences in terror, and crowded the doors and windows with wondering gazers. Whether he were fleeing from destruction, or riding straight to it, was no affair of hers; in either case, she would do her best to meet his wishes. The village was quickly left behind; house after house, and field after field, slid by in a swift panorama; already they were turning the corner, toward the Hall, when Bergan's scattered senses were suddenly recalled by a stern "Halloo! what are you about?" mingled with a faint cry of alarm. To his horror, he saw himself to be on the point of riding down a young lady equestrian, who was on her way to the village, accompanied by her father. There was not an instant to lose, not a moment for reflection; the heads of the two horses were almost in contact. Putting his whole strength into one sudden, ill-considered jerk, Vic was thrown back on her haunches, and he and she rolled over in the mud together.

Fortunately, neither was much hurt, and both sprang to their feet considerably sobered by the shock. Bergan was deeply humiliated, also; he would gladly have compounded with his mortification for almost any amount of physical pain. No bodily injury could have made him writhe with so sharp a pang, as the conviction that he had flawed his claim to the title of gentleman. To have nearly ridden over a lady, in a blind frenzy of rage and semi-intoxication, was a disgrace that he could never forget. He would gladly have buried himself in the mud with which he was already tolerably well coated. Since he could not do that, he took off his hat to the horseman,—he dared neither address nor look at the lady,—and said, in a tone that trembled with shame and regret,—

"I beg your pardon, sir."

"You would have done better to look where you were going," replied the gentleman, with the unreasoning anger that often follows upon the reaction from fear and anxiety. "No thanks to you that my daughter is not maimed or killed!"

"I think you mistake, father," quickly interposed the young lady, in a low, sweet voice, tremulous from the recent shock to her nerves;—"did you not see how promptly the gentleman sacrificed himself to save me, as soon as he saw the danger? I hope you are not hurt, sir," she added, courteously, turning to Bergan.

"Thank you; not half so much as I deserve to be," replied he, only the more remorseful on account of the delicate consideration that she showed for him, while her cheek was still blanched, and her lips trembling, at her own narrow escape from danger caused by his rashness. And, feeling wholly unworthy to say another word to anything so pure and sweet, so utterly incompatible with the vile place and scene which he had just quitted, he stood aside, with uncovered head, to let her pass.

Apparently, she would have lingered long enough to make sure that he was really uninjured; but her father, who had been eyeing him keenly, hurried her away. "Do you not see," he inquired, sharply, as they rode on, "that the fellow is drunk?"

"Impossible, father! He had such a fine, noble countenance!"

"It will not be noble long," replied the father. "Neither will it be the first noble countenance that has been spoiled by drunkenness," he added, with a sigh.

Left alone, Bergan remounted Vic, though not without difficulty. The bewildering effect of his potent draught, which had momentarily been overcome by the excitement of his late adventure, now made itself felt again. As he rode along, his head began to swim; a deadly nausea seized him; his limbs seemed paralyzed. Arrived within the gates of his uncle's domain, he suffered himself to slide slowly from the saddle to the ground; and almost immediately, consciousness forsook him.