'A Dash of Bitter.' A temperance story

Chapter I

Jugford, situated in the northern part of England, is not a picturesque town. I never heard the most ardent native assert it was even interesting : it strikes a casual visitor as dull, dirty, and rich. Nor are its inhabitants specially eminent for intellectual enlightenment, though the guide books and the local papers tell a different tale. When a lecturer or public enter tainer comes down to favour the natives he is always moved to say that he never appeared before a more intelligent audience, and the sentiment is always applauded. To speak the truth, at the risk of being considered brutally candid, Jugford is sodden and soaked with beer : the muddy stream has filtered through generations of Jugford people, and the latest survivals look as if they had got the sediment : they are slow, morose, and bloated.

Before this century was born, vast, ugly, awful-looking struc tures had reared themselves to overshadow the town. Their noxious influence permeated the district : strange-looking pipes constantly belched forth volumes of steam : and the air was filled with that peculiar, sweet, sickly smell common to breweries. Jugford lived by beer, drank beer, and thought beer, for they sent two Tories to talk beer at Westminster, as narrow in their opinions as they were broad in their bodies. A Thirty years ago Dr. Bolton had come to the town in the hope of making a living, and bringing up a family by the practice of medicine. His had been a terrible experience : for the first few months patients flocked to him, for he was skilful and sympathetic, and what often goes further in the making of a practice, good-looking.

But he had one drawback which neutralized all his advantages, natural and acquired — he would not order alcohol except in extreme cases of utter collapse. He scouted the idea that beer was a necessary article of diet, and directed the attention of his patients to his own superb physique, built up entirely without the assistance of alcohol in any form. In short, Dr. Bolton was one of that gallant but despised band called teetotalers, who, about that time, were making themselves sufficiently prominent to be deemed worthy of persecution and ridicule. When people came to him suffering from complaints brought on through excessive indulgence in beer or spirits, this benighted doctor was so blind to his own interest as to tell them the plain truth, and suggest a removal of the cause of the trouble.

Such extraordinary con duct shook the faith of even his lady admirers, and the doctor's practice diminished. But was not every allowance to be made for these people ? The thin edge of the wedge is often a long time entering ; new ideas have a rough time in their infancy : eyes long accustomed to the darkness receive the light with pain. Belief in beer was almost religion at Jugford, and any man who attacked it was considered a pernicious fanatic, for whom nothing was too bad, not even starvation. The vicar, a noted three-bottle man, found any amount of passages in the holy scriptures which he said told directly against the new madness, and forced them upon the notice of his congregation with all the ability and eloquence which his university training had developed. In a similar spirit did not certain blasphemous preachers in the Scuthern States find BITTEF. 3 scriptural authority for negro slavery ? setting their own miser able finite judgment against everlasting truths.

None of these things could crush Dr. Bolton, he came of a hard-headed stock, and had in him a touch of the tenacity of the bull dog. He could die, but it would be at his post and fighting to the last. The people of Jugford found, that like the Colerado beetle, the crazy fanatic — as some of his brother professionals called him — had come to stay. He and his brave wife main tained the fight gallantly for years, and came through winners in the end. It was a great principle against the brute beast vested interest ; the truth against a colossal ignorance and pre judice that was the growth of ages. Schiller says, "against stupidity the very gods contend in vain," but a strong, brave man is greater than the gods, for Dr. Bolton fought on alone and unaided except by a few poor ignorant men not in society, and, as we know, not in vain.

No one ever knew how near the wolf was to the door, often and often in those early days, but it never quite entered, and the doctor showed a brave face to the world and asked help of no man. They worked on steadily and devotedly, this small band of obscure enthusiasts, they survived insult, ridicule, and even brutal violence at the hands of brewers' men and public-house loafers, yet they never flinched. Their speeches were not models of oratory, nor entirely correct in grammar sometimes, but in their illiterate jargon they brought out facts that the heaviest drayman could not knock down, and spoke truths that all the beer in Jugford could not drown. Great reforms are rarely germinated among schoolmen and pedants who generally reserve to themselves the luxury of sneering at new enthusiasms.

No early reformers are entirely logical, they are your one idea men who can stand being laughed at and are able to return blow for blow. Pioneers are rough very likely, but they are necessary, and they do the work. For years the work went on without much visible result, but the seed was sown, and some of the workers lived to see the promise of harvest. Dr. Bolton became the leading doctor at Jugford, and the president of one of the most active Temperance Societies in England. The Bolton Hall was an imposing building — a member of Parliament came down to open it — but it looked a sad pigmy beside the huge breweries : but then the Bastille came down at last, as the doctor often tells his followers, when they despair. They can hardly hope to oust the Tory members yet awhile, though they give them a breather at every election just to test the strength ofthe brew ing interest, and they make the Revising Barrister's life a weariness to him by their activity at the Revision Courts.

It was on one of those clear, mild, November days, so rare in England, that Dr. Bolton and his son Charles, a lad of little more than twenty, paced the platform of the Jugford Railway Station. Charles had passed through the ordeal of parting with his mother and sisters with the stoicism of a schoolboy, for he hardly realized yet what the separation meant. He had obtained, or rather his friends had obtained for him, a position in one of the banks in London, and he was only waiting for the train to pass away from his home life at Jugford into the strange ways of that world's puzzle, London. The doctor was a tall, broad-shouldered man, his handsome face almost hidden in a large, iron grey beard. He looked what he was, a man of action and full of intense energy. His customary genial expression was now tempered by a look of anxiety, Charles was a good-looking youth enough, with black hair, grey eyes, and a tall, well-knit figure.

He listened to the advice which his father poured into his ear with an expression of assumed list lessness. AU this talk about the evils of drinking seemed to him an old tale, a worn-out theme. He knew people got drunk too often, especially those of the lower orders, and did all kinds of foolish and desperate things — beat their wives, turned their children out of doors on frosty nights, and broke each others' heads ; but, thought Charles, with all the sapience of twenty years, they were low people who probably would do similar things when sober. Quite ignorant of alcoholic effect, he could not understand how a reasoning being could get drunk against his will. He admired his father's talents, but the doctor's tremendous force of character and tumultuous enthusiasm seemed to him a little superfluous ; he often said to himself: "There must be a great deal to be said en the other side ; all the people who drink can't be such utter fools as my friends would make out."

Dr. Bolton had remarked this languor, not only in his son, but in many other young men of his age, and had been heard to say, " The youth of this generation seem incapable of any higher enthusiasm than can be inspired by cricket and football ; they look on great moral movements as harmless fads created for the amusement of their fathers." The train was signalled. "I need not remind you again," the doctor went on hurriedly, " about keeping perfectly firm against even the pretence of drinking, Charles ; you know I trust implicitly to your honour. If ever you are tempted, think of your mother and me and all it would mean to us, that ought to keep you safe. You have never tasted, and if you never do you are practically free from temptation." " I shall not make a fool of myself, father, there's no danger at all.

I hope I shall never be cad enough to get drunk." " Of course you won't. Well, here's the train ; you'll write every week ? " "Yes ; good-bye." " Good-bye, Charles, and may God protect you," he added to himself as the train steamed out of the station. They were both thoroughly English, and parted in that cold, lifeless way so peculiarly national. A Frenchman or Italian would have thought two casual acquaintances were bidding each other farewell. Dr. Bolton returned to his multitudinous duties and found his attention often wandering and his thoughts fixed on the son who had gone into the fight. He knew the chances of the conflict — how hard it was to resist and how easy to fall. Life is hard at the best, the path of virtue is thorny and strewn with stones, and the road to ruin is often pleasant travelling — for a time.

London with its myriad possibilities for evil in dulgence, its false pride and ostentation, and its utter worldli ness would burst upon his son with the glamour of novelty. Why then, knowing all this, had he sent him into the midst of so much danger ? Because he had a few peculiar notions, he held that the virtue which has never been assailed and never survived the assault is hardly virtue at all ; that nothing but bitter conflict and trial can develope true manhood and heroism of character. So Charles Bolton departed to prove himself either worthy or unworthy of his father's trust, and Jugford saw him no more for many a long day.

Chapter II

As the train glided out of the station and the stalwart figure of the doctor was lost to view, Charles leant back luxuriously on the well-cushioned seat and drew a long breath of relief : at last childish things were put away, he stood on the threshold of manhood, manhood with its awful responsibilities. Life was a vast tract of country opening before him, but all undis covered ; many paths crossed and recrossed, leading in every direction, but they all ended in darkness. Which one would he take ? Every man can remember the thrill of delight he experienced when fairly started on his career, all the restraints of school or college were finally thrown aside. How high the hills we were going to climb and what pleasant places our journey would be through ! And how different has the reality proved ; not unlike a railway journey.

The train has rushed on inevitably on its predestined way quite unable to leave its appointed track. The beautiful scenes where we could linger lovingly, the cool shady woods and flowery meadows have been passed with a rush, and a cloud of smoke has blotted out the scene. The train only pulls up at very uninteresting places and is in no hurry to leave them. We are lucky, indeed, if we get through without a break-down in some dark tunnel into which we have been carried without any warning. And our fellow passengers, do not the most fascinating always get out at intermediate stations and the bores go on to the end ? Have we chosen a companion for the journey, we must put up with them for better or worse ; we may quarrel, relapse into sulky silence or into a novel, but there they sit, we must make the best of them.

And when the end comes and the train finally reaches the terminus, some are taken by surprise and wake with a start; ready or not they must get out, the train goes no further ; others are so tired they are only glad it is over. We, let us hope, have looked forward and taken heed ofthe risks of the journey and see our friends waiting ready to welcome us. Charles Bolton was as eager to join the fray as any knight of old to enter the lists. " And his spirit leaps within him to he gone before him then, Underneath the light he looks at, in among the throngs of men." These lines came to his recollection, for he loved the heroic verse of the Laureate. Charles was athletic, but this did not prevent him from patronizing the Muses ; he could wield the willow effectively and yet turn a couplet in praise of a pretty face.

Had he cultivated his small talent for verse with the same assiduity that he displayed in increasing the girth of his biceps the children of his brain might some day have achieved an entrance into the magazines and brought him some shillings a year. Literature is a proud mistress who will not be slighted, you must serve her faithfully and loyally or her favours will not be worth receiving. At present Charles had only been able to get a few small poems inserted in an obscure corner ofthe " Jugford Adver tiser," they were signed "Mordaunt." The talented editor said they were not so very bad, and as he was not called upon to pay anything and often found them useful in filling up, Charles was gratified and almost thought himself a youn°- Browning. He had been so busy with his own thoughts that he had scarcely noticed the other occupants of the carriage ; however he was roused from a deep reverie in which he pictured himself the editor of a leading magazine, and the companion and friend of successful novelists and poets, and recalled to the prosaic realities of the present.

" Will you take a drink, sir ? " The speaker was a stout, middle-aged man, dressed in what he fondly believed to be the height of fashion, though a person well informed on such matters could have told him his appearance was suggestive of anything but exclusive clubland. His rings glittered resplen dant, and his watchguard was as good as substantial bail : his face was round and altogether commonplace, but shrewd in expression and of a sanguine colour. His whiskers were cut in what is commonly called the mutton-chop fashion. There was no mistaking his occupation — a commercial traveller, whose confident manner and powers of persuasion were bringing him a rich harvest. He held a large case-bottle towards Charles and repeated his polite invitation, " Will you take a drink, sir ? " " No, thank you."

" Do, it's some of the best old Highland whisky you ever tasted." " Thanks, I don't care for any." The stranger applied the bottle to his own mouth and after a copious draught he smacked his lips and exclaimed, " Ah, you don't know what you refused." " That is obvious." " Don't you care for whisky ? " " I have never tasted it ; perhaps I should like it if I had the same knowledge of it that you have." " What! not tasted it," he looked amazed. It is strange the amount of ill-bred astonishment some people will assume when they meet others whose habits differ in any way from their own. " You don't mean to seriously tell me you have never tasted whisky ? ' " I do, though; but, pray, don't distress yourself in any way, I am perfectly well without it. It can't be a matter of any serious importance to you."

Charles did not quite like the stranger's tone. " Oh, of course not, it doesn't matter to me if people are foolish enough to refuse such tipple as this," and he slapped the bottle ; "as for being as well without it, that's rubbish ; you look pale, a little of this would set you up." " It might have a contrary effect," Charles replied, laughing. " Come now, what's your favourite poison? just say, and you shall have some at the next station," said the other with a burst of generosity. This generosity, by the way, will not always bear examination ; a man stands you a drink now in the full hope and expectation of a punctual return of the com pliment. Should you fail, it is more than probable he will feel deeply injured and utter dark hints about meanness and a want of good fellowship. " I may as well tell you, sir, though I don't see what business it is of yours, that I never take any intoxicants, I never have done so and I never mean to ; we had better change the subject."

I am afraid Charles spoke thus strongly, not so much from the love of temperance as resentment at the other's im pertinence. But the commercial was not to be choked off so easily, his self-respect was wounded, and he determined to assert himself. " Oh, I suppose you're one of those crack-pot teetotalers," he said, and laughed coarsely, sending his offensive breath into our friend's face. An elderly gentleman with a grey beard, the third occupant ofthe compartment, looked up angrily from his paper when he heard the last remark, but he said nothing. Charles felt a strong inclination to put in practice some of his knowledge of the noble art — as yet quite theoretical — and to test the hardness of his assailant's head ; at twenty we are quickly moved to strike. He suppressed the desire, however, and replied as calmly as he was able : " I don't require your opinion of teetotalers or of anything else ; be good enough to keep your remarks to yourself."

" Why, you young — " he was going to say puppy or some thing equally provocative, but he saw an expression in Charles' face he did not at all like, and stopped, satisfying himself with breaking into another hoarse laugh. The idea of a person having the impertinence to live and not drink spirits seemed to him the extreme of absurdity, he could not keep silence. " Of all the stupid crazes, this teetotalistn is the worst ; you people haven't got either the strength of mind or body your selves to stand drink in moderation, so you are obliged to go without altogether ; and not content with that, you want to stop sensible people from doing as they please." "Excuse me," interrupted Charles, "I think it's the other way about, I never said a word to prevent you from enjoying your bottle ; you tried to force it on me, and got angry because I refused."

" Well, perhaps I went too far, I beg your pardon. I didn't mean to offend you, but it does annoy me to see people so foolish. Just look at these teetotalers, what a miserable set they are, a lot of undersized weaklings. I don't say you are," he said, regarding the clean muscular limbs of the young man with envy, " of course there are exceptions." " Yes, a great many, I can tell you ; in the rowing club I belonged to at Jugford, the best fellows, those we put in the boat when our club was challenged, were all teetotalers." " Ah, perhaps the others took too much." "People who takeloomuch are never anygoodat allforrowing." " It may be as you say, but who are the men of the greatest endurance and strength ? why, the prize-fighters, and I should like you to point out a teetotal champion of England."

" You certainly would not find many teetotalers among the pugilists, but your argument does not go for much all the same ; you know very well that while they are in training for a fight they are practically abstainers, they may take half a pint or so of old ale in the day, but compare that with the quantity they drink when out of training. It appears that the more they give up the stronger they are." "That's all very well, you may get a few selected examples, but the strength of Englishmen as a race has been built up on beer." " Is that why you drink whiskey ? " " Oh, I drink beer enough besides that. Don't tell me," he went on in huge disdain, " where will you find a race as strong as the English, and what people in the world drink as much ? " Charles had heard such objections as these answered so often that he replied almost mechanically, and was rather surprised at the extent of his own knowledge on the subject ; he had been absorbing information unconsciously.

" There is no doubt," he said, " that they have been strong in spite of their drinking and not because of it. There is less drink consumed now proportionally than there was fifty years ago, and the result is that the average life is longer; many dis eases have become less virulent in their character, and ifyou turn to athletics you will find the records are improving year by year." "You seem to have it all at your finger ends," retorted the commercial, with a sneer ; " but you may talk as long as you like, you will never convince me that any good ever came out of teetotalism. I never saw a teetotaler yet who wasn't mean to the backbone. What do you say, sir?" he said, turning to the other passenger. " I," replied the grey-bearded gentleman, in measured tones, " say that your politeness is only equalled by your candour, and I can hardly respond to your remark respecting the meanness of teetotalers seeing that I am one myself."

" Sorry I spoke, you people ought to go about labelled like some of you do, with a piece of blue ribbon to warn anyone from wasting civilities on you." " It certainly is an omission, I shall take care to rectify it ; anything to ward of your — civilities," he said with perfect politeness. The commercial began to get angry, the supposed ally had proved another enemy and a dangerous one, for he possessed a cool temper and a bitter tongue. " This blue ribbon," he said, as if the words tasted bitter in his mouth, "seems to me to say, ' look at me, behold a narrow bigot, an enemy to all cheerful ness and everything that makes this wretched life bearable.' " " And suppose we were to answer you in a similar tone," said the old gentleman, " that is if we could so far forget our politeness, to say when we see a gentleman drinking spirits out of a bottle in a public vehicle he is labelled as a drunkard, he boasts of his outrageous excess and flaunts his degrading habit in our faces.

Suppose we assume him to be so weak that he cannot bear the exhaustion of a railway journey without fortify ing himself with stimulants. Don't be angry, my friend, I am only following your line of argument ; we don't say this, but we should, were we so bigoted as you assume us to be. You see your argument can be applied either way." He of the bottle looked rather crestfallen. " I am sorry I asked your opinion ; I gave you credit for more common sense," he said. " I shall always regret that I did not deserve your good opinion." Fortunately, at this point, the train arrived at the station where the commercial gent was bound ; the conversation could not have gone much further without becoming un pleasantly personal. He rose and gathered his belongings to gether, then turned to Charles Bolton and said, "You are young yet, my lad, you'll know a great deal better when you come to my age."

" Let us follow the argument out," interrupted the old gentleman, " you, sir, may be wiser when you have arrived at my years." " I wasn't addressing you, sir," returned the other with great dignity ; " you are too pig-headed ever to learn better." " Perhaps so ; but allow me to remark that I am quite sure you are not too pig-headed to learn, especially more of polite ness ; you have a vast field open before you, and you can begin quite at the beginning." No intelligible reply was vouchsafed to this; the red-faced commercial growled something that sounded very much like an anathema and departed. " I think you were rather hard upon him, sir," said Charles. " Not at all ; insolence should never go unpunished. He brought it on himself by attacking us in that brutally offensive manner." "Our ideas seemed to be quite new to him."

"Very likely; his intellect is one of those that are kept hermetically sealed, nothing comes out and nothing can go in ; you will meet many such about. The only knowledge they have is the remains of what some ardent schoolmaster drove into them with a ferrule. If you want them to absorb a new idea take a good thick stick." " I had no idea he had annoyed you so much, I thought you were only chaffing him." "No wonder I am angry, I do hate to hear such stale, ignorant cant talked. You stood to him well, though ; I should not have interfered if he had not appealed to me. You are a life abstainer, I think you said ? " "Yes, I am happy to say I am." " I don't often give advice, it doesn't do much good as a rule ; but remember this — beware of small beginnings, make no compromise with the enemy ; never be ashamed of your principles.

That's not a long sermon, is it ? " " I shall not forget, sir," replied Charles, rather amused at the old gentleman's earnestness and wondering how it was his enthusiasm had lasted out so well. " You come from Jugford, I think," he began again with ke;n interest. "Do you know a Dr. Bolton?" " He is my father." The stranger held out his hand and said : "Then allow an old friend of your father's to shake you by the hand. I fancied he was somewhere in this district and I just asked on the chance. I have not heard of him for years," he went on musingly ; " how could I ? knocking about the world as I have been; It must be nearly forty years since we were companions. Dear me, what strange tricks fortune plays us. I have been roaming about the world and Bolton's been vegetating all these years in that benighted town."

" He was on the platform when I got in here," said Charles, " you might have seen him." " So I might if I hadn't been so interested in the paper ; if I had though, I should hardly have known him. Are you going to settle in London?" "Yes, for a few years." " You must call and see me as soon as you are sairly settled, here is my card. Be sure, when you write home, to tell your father you have met his old friend, Paul Thurston ; perhaps he has not forgotten me." The conversa-ion then turned upon the Colonies, the States, and the wild free life in California. Charles was so intensely interested in his new friend he was quite sorry when the train steamed into Euston station. " Now, remember," said Mr. Thurston at parting, "when you find your evenings dull you must come up to Kensington." Charles, as he watched him getting into a neat brougham, determined that he would.

Chapter III

Strangers to London are often taken quite by surprise when turning aside from one of the great roaring thoroughfares they find themselves in a district as quiet and sleepy as a quarter of some old cathedral town. Such a district is Bloomsbury, only a little more than a stone's throw from teeming Oxford Street, with its jarring omnibuses, swiftly moving cabs, and countless myriads of pedestrians. Bloomsbury sleeps on, all unconscious. Some of its vast, echoing squares have stood since the time of good Queen Anne, and are likely to remain long after many houses built a hundred years later have crumbled away. The British Museum, like a grim old sentinel, stands keeping guard over the district, dreaming over its vast stores of learning, its slumbers lulled by the subdued hum of life's conflict raging in the distance.

This quarter, once so fashionable in the days when wigs and swords were worn, is now mainly occupied by physicians, lawyers, and well-to-do journalists. In its quiet side streets many artists pursue their calling : you may often see picturesque, Italian-looking men, and well-grown, dainty girls on their way to or from sittings. The trees in the squares are sad, languid looking things, whose greenery dies young : the leaves shrivel up like the dogs-eared corners of old law books. Everything is faded, dreary, dull, and eminently respectable. In one of the houses in Bloomsbury Square lived Dr. Wharton, a cousin of our friend, Dr. Bolton of Jugford. He had kindly consented to receive Charles into his house for B three months; if they agreed, Charles would continue in residence. If, at the end of the time, he preferred going into lodgings, he would be at liberty to do so.