Part 26 (2/2)
”Not as bad as that, surely,” returned the other with his wry smile.
”I walked from the station to save a cab, and I'm only a little chilled.”
”A warm drink!” cried Crabbe, from the depths of his new and hospitable instincts. ”Say the word, and I'll order it. By heaven, Ringfield,--you look poorly, and I've wanted one myself all day.” His hand was on the bell.
”No, no! Don't make a fuss over me. I shall be all right after a while. Besides I never take anything of the kind you mean, I fancy.
Some camphor--if you had that, or a cup of boiling hot tea. I'll go downstairs and ask for that. Or coffee.”
”Tea! Good Lord! Tea, to a man sickening with pneumonia!”
”But I'm not--really I'm not. I'm feeling warmer already.”
”I know better. 'A hot Scotch,'” he said. ”Oh for some of the Clairville brandy now, eh? By the way, her brother's dead.”
Ringfield s.h.i.+vered, but not this time on account of the cold. Some strange sensation always attacked him when Crabbe spoke of Pauline.
”Yes. I did not hear of it until she returned.”
”She went to see him, then?”
”Yes.”
”That must have been after I left. Poor girl! Well, was she very knocked up? Have you seen her?”
Ringfield shook his head and the guide attributed the action more to cold than to sympathy. His mind was made up; Ringfield must take something, must be warmed up and made fit, and whisky was the only means known to the Englishman, who did not own a ”Manual of h.o.m.oeopathy”. Whisky it must be. Again his hand went to the bell, and again Ringfield remonstrated, but his _gauche_ utterances were of no avail in face of Crabbe's decision of character and natural lording of it. The boy appeared, the order was dispatched, and as Ringfield noticed the growing exaltation in the guide's manner, a sort of sickness stole upon him. Here, thrust into his hand, was the greatest opportunity yet given to him to preserve a human soul and to save the woman he loved, but he looked on, dazed, uncomfortable, half guilty.
”If this works you harm,” he said, ”it will be through me, through me.
I'd rather not, Crabbe; I'd rather not.”
But the word of the guide prevailed, and in three minutes a couple of hot strong gla.s.ses were on the table. Crabbe for his part was really curious. Could it be that this man, his visitor, had never tasted spirituous liquor? Wine, of course, he must have taken, being a clergyman. This thought immediately attracted him, and with a sense of its literary value he sought to question Ringfield as to the effect of the Communion wine upon a teetotal community. By this time there was no doubt the minister had suffered a severe chill and the temptation became very strong to try the hot gla.s.s that stood in front of him.
Crabbe jeered.
”What do you suppose will happen to you if you taste it, even if you drain it? What can one gla.s.s do? Nonsense. I've taken a whole bottle of Glenlivet in an evening--then you might talk!”
His hand played with the gla.s.ses, and watching him, Ringfield felt all the awful responsibility of his office. Once before he had shattered a hateful bottle, once he had lifted up his voice in self-righteous denunciation of the sin of drink and the black fruit thereof, but now he appeared helpless, paralyzed.
At what moment the evil finally entered into him and conquered him does not signify; horrible visions of Pauline and this man going away together, laughing and chatting, embracing and caressing, swam before his jaundiced eyes. To delay, to prevent the marriage had been his dream for weeks, and now he saw one way to accomplish this wished-for hindrance to their union. Should Crabbe be made drunk, should he yield again after so long abstinence from liquor, who could say what the consequences might prove? A shred only of common compunction animated him as he said: ”I tell you frankly I'm afraid of the stuff. And I'm afraid for you.”
Yet all this time he was watching the guide's expression.
Already the steaming fumes were working upon him; the familiar, comforting, stimulating odour was there, his hand was clasping the gla.s.s, in another moment he would drain it, then what would happen!
”Afraid! Afraid? Of one gla.s.s! Ringfield--you're a fool, a prig, and a baby. Besides, the spirit is all burnt out by this time, evaporated, flown thence. Come--I'll set you the example. Drink first and preach afterwards.”
And with the peculiar gloating eye, the expressively working, watering mouth that the drunkard sometimes shows, the Englishman led off. It was a long, hot drink, but he threw his head back and never paused till he had drained the last drop, and once again tipped the gla.s.s towards his throat. Ringfield, alarmed, fascinated, deeply brooding, watched the proceeding in silence, his nature so changed that there was no impulse to seize the offending gla.s.s, dash it on the ground or pour the contents on the floor, watched ardently, hungrily, for the sequel.
Would Crabbe remain as he had been after the enlivening draught, or would he by rapid and violent stages decline to the low being of former days? While Ringfield thus watched the guide the latter stared back, broadly smiling.
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