The Soldier's Wife — page 161: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

142 glass when the ale was passed round a second time: and then his heart appeared to be bounding within him, He began to refleet that he had been a fool to suffer himself to be ppirit-crushed by the abuse of Sergeant Lang- Jey: he ought to have treated it with indiffer- ence—to have let the rufian bully go on as he liked without taking any notice of him: it was perfectly ridiculous to make himself miserable for such trifles! After all, there was more comfort in-a good glass of ale than he had ImMagmied ; and if it cheered his spirits, why shoud he not take it? Luey was no doubt an excellent woman—he loved her dearly —and he always would love her: but it would be going a little too far for her to object to his drinking a social glass with his comrades, especially When it did him good. Besides, he was not to remain atiached to his wife’s apron-sirings. — It was all very well in the honeymoon of their youthful love + but by this time the fervour of that heart-worship, reciprocally felt, ought to have mellowed down into a more sober and rational feeling, And then too, how was she to know that he took his glass? If she objected to if, he need not tell her: there was no use in making her unhappy. So he could keep her in THE SOLDIER'S WIIE. felt in his life before. Te was not exactly tipsy : but he was not sober. He knew perfeetly well what he was about, and had a complete come mand over his words and actions: he was even sufficiently prudent to refuse the “surth glass of ale when the ean went round again, notwiths standing his mouth watered to imbibe it. But ihere was a devil-me-care sort of recklessness about him, as if he had taken a resolve not to allow the troubles of the world to affeet him any more, but to meet them with a supervilious indifference, to sustain which an artificial stimu. lant might be derived from a glass of good liquor, Soon after ten o’clock Sergeant Langley and Captain Redburn entered the guard-house, Ge- rald had been ordered by the Colonel to make the round of the barracks with the Serjeant Major for some particular reason which we need not here specify: and hence this visit. The soldiers all immediately stood up ina respec! ful manner: but the cans and glasses had not been so successfully put out of sight as to be unob- served by Redburn and Langley, “Hallo, my men!’ said Gerald, who having been bantered as usual at the mess-table, was In an exeecrable humor: “you seem to have the dark on the subject, and yet indulge himself; been having a regular orgie here? I don’t mind in a jiitie Innocent recieation all the same, But)a glass of beer a-piece ; no one would object to moderation—only mouderation!—he felt con-| that; but by the size and number of those tin- vinced he never could be a drunkard! Jt was not in the moderate use of the good things of this world that any evil lay—but in the abuse thereof; and he was quite sure of being enabled to adhere to moderation and avoid plunging into excess, Such was the reasoning with which Frede- rick Lonsdale endeavored to quiet the qualms of conscience as he accepted the third glass of strong ale which was passed round; and yet all that time he was endeavoring to cheat his own good sense and delude his intellect with this wretched strain of sophistry, he felt the effects of the second glass working in his brain; and though while thinking of moderation, and plu. ming himself so confidently upon his fortitude to avoid excess, he was already by taking that third glass overstepping the boundary which svparated the one from -he other, The ground of moderation itse!f is a dangerous one for even the strongest-minded man to tread upon, when once he begins to feel that it is necessary to gatisfy his own scruples by means of argument. All drunkards have first of all been moderate driukers; and when moderate drinkers, they were as satisfied as our hero Lonsdale, that they could never by any accident or chance fall into an extreme. It 18 this overweening confti- cans you must have had six times that quan- tity.” Now, be it observed that Captain Redburn himself had only imbibed that evening one hot- tle of sherry, a pint of port, and a bottle of» claret—to say nothing of three or four glasses of soda-water and brandy during the day, and some bottled ale at lunch. He did not stand with exceeding steadiness on his legs; there was a certain thickness as well as hiecuping hesitation in his speech ; and as he was leaving the mess-table new roars of laughter had burst forth when Lieutenant Payet had whispered loud enough for every one to hear, “ that Reb- burn was more than half-seas over.” But what au officer may do with wine, a private soldier must not think of domg with beer; that is, te say, drink too much. An officer may get drunk every evening of his life, aud ten to one he will be set down by his comrades as a capital, jo- vial-hearted fellow,—save and except in such a case as Redburn’s where there are grounds for personal dishke ; but even in this instance, the inebriety of the individual will only serve to make him a laughing-stock, or furnish another arrow for the bow of sarcasm, How different is it with the private soldier! If he only be- comes the least thing inebriated, instead of bee dence in one’s self that proves the ruin of mil- ling set down as a capital, jovial-hearted fellow, lions. The Enemy of Mankind never Jaid a) he is at once denounced as a drunken dog and more successful snare in the pathway of the hu-;a good-for-nothing scoundrel. aan race, than this arrogant. self-sufhiciency which makes the presumptuous mortal boast that he is standing in security upon a rock at the very moment when his feet ae shipping over the edge of a precipice. But to return to our narrative. The third glass of ale was drunk; and now Lonsdale ex- perienced a greater degree of exhilaration from the eflects of strong jiquor than he had ever ‘l'o resume our story, When Captain Red- burn, standing unsteadily and with a tipsy hie cup, remonstrated with the soldiers on the quantity of ale which they had evidently drunk, they all endeavored to look as demure and so- ber as they possibly could. Indeed, none of them were much the worse for what they had ‘taken, in the common acceptance of the term. choo unless it were Lonsdale, witose