"What! Aren't you man enough to swallow a thimbleful?" he asked, with a laugh.His face was flushed, and the dust of the roads showed in streaks upon his forehead, where the crown of his straw hat had drawn a circle around his moist fair hair.The hand with which he touched the glass trembled slightly, and his eyes were so reckless that, after an instants' frightened silence.Peterkin cried out in alarm: "For the Lord's sake, Mr.Christopher, you're not yourself--it's the way his father went, you know!""What of it?" demanded Christopher, turning his dangerous look upon the little man."If there's a merrier way to go, I'd like to know it."Peterkin drew over to the table and laid a restraining hold on the boy's arm."Put that down, sonny," he said."I couldn't stand it, and you may be sure it'll do you no good.It will turn your stomach clean inside out.""He took it," replied the boy stubbornly, "and I'll drink it if he says so." He lifted the glass and stood looking inquiringly at the man across from him."Shall I drink it?" he asked, and waited with a boyish swagger.
Christopher gave a short nod."Oh, not if you're afraid of it,"he responded roughly; and then, as Will threw back his head and the whisky touched his lips, the other struck out suddenly and sent the glass shivering to the floor."Go home, you fool!" he cried, "and keep clear of me for good and all."A moment afterward he had passed from the room, through the store, and was out upon the road.
CHAPTER VIII.Between the Devil and the Deep Sea There was a cheerful blaze in the old lady's parlour, and she was sitting placidly in her Elizabethan chair, the yellow cat dozing at her footstool.Lila paced slowly up and down the room, her head bent a little sideways, as she listened to Tucker's cheerful voice reading the evening chapter from the family Bible.His crutch, still strapped to his right shoulder, trailed behind him on the floor, and the smoky oil lamp threw his eccentric shadow on the whitewashed wall, where it hung grimacing like a grotesque from early Gothic art.
"Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it," he read in his even tones; "if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be condemned."The old lady tapped the arm of her chair and turned her sightless eyes upon the Bible, as if Solomon in person stood there awaiting judgment.
"I always liked that verse, brother," she remarked, "though I am not sure that I consider it entirely proper reading for the young.Aren't you tired walking, Lila?""Oh, no, mother."
"Well, we mustn't take the Scriptures literally, you know, my child; if we did, I fear a great deal of trouble would come of it--and surely it is a pity to magnify the passion of love when so very many estimable persons get along quite comfortably without it.You remember my remarking how happy Miss Belinda Morrison always appeared to be, and so far as I know she never had a suitor in her life, though she lived to be upward of eighty.""Oh, mother! and yet you were so madly in love with father--you remember the fancy ball.""The fancy ball occupied only one night, my dear, and I've had almost seventy years.I married for love, as you certainly know--at my age, I suppose I might as well admit it--but the marriage happened to be also entirely suitable, and I hope that Ishould never have been guilty of anything so indelicate as to fall in love with a gentleman who wasn't a desirable match."Lila flushed and bit her lip.
"I don't care about stations in life, nor blood, nor anything like that," she protested.
The old lady sighed."We won't have any more of Solomon, Tucker, "she observed."I fear he will put notions into the child's head.
Not care about blood, indeed! What are we coming to, I wonder?
