The Devil

Candle-light showed in a window of the house next door to the saddler's, and Mavis thought of these neighbors--two sisters, old maids--who had a very, very little money of their own and who endeavored to add to what was barely enough for necessities by selling butterfly nets, children's fishing-rods, stamp albums, and picture post-cards. Two years ago the elder sister tumbled down-stairs and injured her spine; and since then she had been bedridden, lying in the upper room at the back of the house, with nothing to amuse her but a view of the graveyard behind the church. Mavis had been to see her one day this summer, had sat by the bed, and read her a chapter out of the New Testament and then the weekly instalment of a novel in the Rodhaven District Courier. Extremely sad.

Then livid-faced, matty-haired Emily Frayne passed by, carrying a brown-paper parcel. This poor overworked girl was the only daughter of Frayne the tailor, who was a confirmed drunkard. All day long she was kept toiling like a slave, cutting out, beginning and finishing gaiters, breeches, and stable-jackets, doing all the work that was ever done at Frayne's; and at night she went round trying to get orders, delivering the goods that she had completed, and being forced to support the impudence and familiarity of coachmen and grooms, who chucked her under the chin and said they'd give her a kiss for her pains because they weren't flush enough to stand her a drink. All painfully sad.

There was a dreadful lot of tippling at Rodchurch: in fact, one might say that drink was the prevailing fault of the village. The vicar publicly touched on the matter in his sermons, and privately he often said that Mr. Cope, the fat landlord of The Gauntlet Inn, was greatly to blame. The tradesmen had a little club at the Gauntlet, where Cope employed a horrid brazen barmaid who sometimes sang comic songs to the club members. Mrs. Cope felt strongly about the barmaid, and quite took the vicar's side in the dispute the day that Cope came out of the tap-room and was so rude and abusive to the reverend gentleman. Mrs. Cope said she'd be glad if Mr. Norton brought her husband to book before the magistrates and got his license taken away.

Dale openly expressed contempt for this boozing Gauntlet club, refused to take up his membership when elected, and had received a complimentary letter from the vicar thanking him for the fine example he had set for others. No, dear old Will, though he liked his glass of beer as well as anybody, would often go a whole week on tea and coffee; and she thought what a merit his sobriety had been. Merely considered as economy, it was a blessing. It is always the drink, and never the food, that runs away with one's household money.