The Silver Bottle; or, The Adventures of Little Marlboro in Search of His Father

by J. H. Ingraham

  * * *

  The Silver Bottle; or, The Adventures of Little Marlboro in Search of His Father

  J. H. Ingraham

  This page copyright © 2002 Blackmask Online.

  http://www.blackmask.com

  PART I

  CHAPTER I.

  CHAPTER II.

  CHAPTER III.

  CHAPTER IV.

  CHAPTER V.

  CHAPTER VI.

  CHAPTER VII.

  CHAPTER VIII.

  CHAPTER IX.

  CHAPTER X.

  CHAPTER XI.

  PART II

  CHAPTER I.

  CHAPTER II.

  CHAPTER III.

  CHAPTER IV.

  CHAPTER V.

  CHAPTER VI.

  CHAPTER VII.

  CHAPTER VIII.

  CHAPTER IX.

  PART I

  CHAPTER I.

  My name and parentage—How Dame Darwell kept a famous Inn—Description of the Inn and of Dame Darwell—How she happened to be left a widow— Dame Darwell, like other folks has a hobby—Comes to the resolution to change the sign of the Quart Mug—How a certain carriage arrives and ends the chapter.

  I AM `Little Marlboro'.' That is my name, I may as well say at once. I dare say there are better names, and I dare say there are much worse names; but good or bad my name is Little Marlboro', and neither more nor less than Little Marlboro'! But let me begin at the beginning! for as I intend to write a true and veracious history of my life, I wish to start fair with my reader, giving and taking no advantage in the outset.

  As my memory does not extend farther back than my third year, I must, in common with all my readers, take the tradition of others touching the circumstances of my birth and infancy. But it will be very soon seen, that, in reference to my birth, I am fully as much in the dark as an anxious son would care to be respecting such a personal matter; as I am not able, with any certainty, to fix upon any progenitors until I reach my father Adam and my mother Eve, who are the only parents I can positively lay claim to.

  But the reader shall know all that I know touching this interesting matter of my parentage. The knowledge came to me through the good woman, Dame Darwell, who is to be hereafter mentioned, and to whom I owe all the cares and duties, which should have been mine from the hands and heart of a mother. I will begin the narrative of my earlier years after the fashion of story writers; though so far from writing a story I am penning a veritable history, in which there may, nevertheless, be discovered before the end no little romance.

  There stands on the road-side not far from the Third Turnpike Gate on the old Providence and Boston stage road a small but neat Inn. It has nothing particular to attract attention but an indefinable air of snugness and comfort. The practised traveller as he came near could see from its well swept stone step, the glimpse of its sanded tap-room floor, its dimity curtained windows, with a pot of geranium on the sill, and the shrub rose bush beneath, and the woodbine creeping above the humble portal, that there were to be had within, clean, well-aired beds, abundant and well cooked viands, and home-like welcome; and his expectations were not disappointed. The Inn was situated close by the way side, and few travellers passed it by without giving Dame Darwell a call. Her apple pies, her pumpkin pies, her peach sauce, her golden butter, her rich cream and snow-white cakes long dwelt in the memories of those who had once had the happiness of being her guests. Although she lived but nine miles from Boston, where travellers might be supposed to be best provided for, those who `knew her fame,' in journeying in chaise or on horseback (for rail-roads were not in those days) from Boston, would delay their breakfast till they reached `The Silver Bottle;' or if going into the city, take their supper earlier than usual to get it served up by the tidy and hospitable hostess of this popular Inn. The house was a long, rambling edifice of one story, with every room on one floor; it had a large garden half encircling it, and spacious barns in the rear; two elms of great age and majesty grew before the door completely covering the Inn with shade and green leaves. A red pump of icy cold water stood at one corner, beneath the spout of which was a huge watering rough known to every horse and hoof for half a mile around. The cattle seemed to love the pump at `The Silver Bottle' as much as traveller's loved the entertainment within. Pleasant fields and green meadow with woodlands and sparkling streams were in sight from the ever open door of the Inn, and the birds loved the trees and the shrubbery about Dame Darwell's house better than any other; for there were more robins' nests and grey wrens' nests and yellow birds' nests in her trees than in those of any body else; and from earlier spring till the last leaf of autumn fell, the song of birds was heard around her doors and windows. Dame Darwell had no need to keep birds in cages.

  Such was the Silver Bottle Inn at the time of which I write. Dame Darwell, as Hetty Caton, at eighteen had reigned a rustic belle; when bluff George Darwell won her heart and hand from many competitors. George was the only son of a substantial Inn-keeper and heir to all his father's possessions, and after Hetty became his wife he took her home and made her landlady of the Inn. It had, in his father's time, been called the `Quart Mug;' and George retained the old sign and style. But Hetty, his young bride, who had certain refined ideas very execusable in a belle, good natured and sensible too, as she was, did not like the name and did not hesitate to tell George as much. But George could not see the matter with her eyes and very kindly and very firmly refused to change it.

  `My father enriched me, dear wife, under this old sign of the `Quart Mug,' and placed me in a situation to wed the best and fairest of all the maidens my eyes ever looked upon! But for that `Quart Mug,' Hetty, I should not have had the happiness of calling you my wife and making you the mistress of this comfortable house!'

  Hetty could not utter a word in reply to such arguments as these, and so the old sign board with its picture of a quart mug was suffered to swing as of old beneath the branches of the old elm that overshadowed the pump.

  But although these reasons given by George were conclusive, they did not wholly set to rest the matter in the mind of his loving wife. She, however, said no more about it, resolved to yield her own notions to her husband's wishes.

  For six years this happy couple lived together in the most perfect harmony, the idea of the vulgarity in the sound of `The Quart Mug,' gradually fading from Mrs. Darwell's mind. With years she had grown less fastidious; yet in heart, if she could have had her way she would have yet taken down the old sign and replaced it by a new one with a more pleasing sound. The sixth anniversary of their marriage had arrived and George rode into Boston to purchase his wife a gift of affection, as had each year been his custom. But when Hetty's eyes beheld him in prideful joy ride gallantly away from the stoop, mounted on a noble, high spirited horse he had just bought, they looked upon him alive for the last time! That evening he was brought back to the Inn, he had left in the morning with such buoyant feelings, a corpse. His horse had been suddenly affrighted by the explosion of rocks near town, and becoming unmanageable had dashed off with him at full speed and turning a corner hurled his rider to the ground and fell upon him. The unfortunate man was taken up insensible, but never breathed again!

  I will pass over the grief—the anguish of sorrow—which overwhelmed the bereaved widow. For many days she refused all consolation; for her heart was bound up in her love for her dead husband! But time which heals all wounds of the heart, gradually restored tranquility to her mind; but a shade of tender melancholy, I can remember, was never banished from her fine features. Good,
benevolent, and noble woman! how shall I ever recal thee without tender emotions—without tears of gratitude? I now sympathise with thy widowed sorrows, though then God had not given me being. I will do thee justice, thou kind of heart and true; for I am about to speak much of thee and of thy goodness to me! At thy few failings the reader shall smile! for thy virtues he shall praise thee!

  For five years the widow of George Darwell remained hostess of the Quart Mug. During this time, more than once had she been tempted to make a change in the name of the Inn: but the memory of George withheld the act; though still the idea grew none the less prominent in her thoughts. At length as years passed by, and she gradually separated her identity with the dead, as the living, and particularly widows, in time naturally do, she thought less of George's wishes and more of her own. Dame Darwell, as she was now generally designated, was in her thirty-fifth year, buxome, handsome, good natured, and the very soul of kindness and benevolence. She had got the reputation of her house spread wide for its neatness, good taste, and comfortable entertainment, and the `best company of the land,' as she often used to say stopped to dine or sleep there. Five Governor's, and a score of Judges at least, and Councellors without number, going to and from the Capital and the Courts, had been entertained by her. For the sake of this respectable order of her guests, the name of the Inn troubled her very much. The idea of changing it was her hobby. We all have a hobby of some kind or other, and this was Dame Darwell's hobby.

  One pleasant afternoon in June, the good lady was sitting in the front door of the Inn knitting a very shapely stocking out of blue and white yarn. The air was warm and balmy with the breath of flowers; the windows of the tap and the little parlor were all up; the birds were twittering in the cool shadows of the branches; the water trickled from the end of the spile of the pump into the trough; the fields in front were green and waving; the sky was without a cloud, save a little group in the west sleeping upon the horizon like a pile of pillows. The cook was seated in the kitchen door dressed up and mending her Sunday gown; the cat was crouched on the stone step; the poultry were lazily picking about the door; the cows stood in the coolest shadow of the barn; the hostler and his boy were lying idly and half asleep upon a heap of hay in the sun, by the stable door: the old dog was drowsing on the grass in front; and peace and quiet—the sweet tranquility of a summer afternoon reigned around. Dame Darwell's heart was at peace also; and her soul reflected all the serene beauty of the hour.

  She sat so, that, as she occasionally lifted her eyes from her stocking (for she was `closing the heel,' which was an operation that demanded a little more attention than usual) she could not only see some distance from the road, but was also in full view of the old sign of `The Quart Mug.' In every earthly Paradise there is a temptation! The old sign was the apple in this. That very day, Dame Darwell's cousin, Mariah, an old maid, who being homeless had kindly been given a home by the benevolent hostess, knowing the widow's foible, and having similar tastidious notions of her own about the matter, had been hinting to good Dame Darwell as plainly as she dared, `how much more respectable it would be to have another name for the Inn.' Mariah and her aunt Keezy, another protege of the charitable widow who also made the Inn her home, were out that afternoon to attend a sewing-circle for sending clothes to the naked little heathen, letting the naked little heathen in the streets go naked, in the name of missionary charity! Dame Darwell preferred staying at home and clothing the Christian beggar whom Providence might send by her door!

  The sign, as we have said, was in full sight of the good Dame as she sat in her porch, and she could not help looking up to it very often, especially as a robin with a worm dangling from his yellow bill, had perched himself upon it, to rest a moment before he should fly across the `Inn yard' to his nest in the old apple tree by the corner of the kitchen. Every time she looked up she thought the old sign was more and more vulgar; and at length it took such hold of her mind that it appeared to her, as if there could not be found in the whole English language, two words so unsightly and so low in their meaning. The good dame's hobby had at length fairly taken the bit in its teeth.

  `Well, I declare it is a very vulgar name for a genteel Inn,' said Dame Darwell laying her stocking down upon her knee and looking very positively at the obnoxious words! `It might have done very well in old Captain Darwell's time, and even when George was alive! But things are different now! Inn's are out of fashion even in some places and every thing is called `Hotel!' But whatever change I make, I will always have this an Inn! It means comfort and a home. But there is no need in having such a name for it. `The Quart Mug!' How coarse it sounds! I wonder how I could bear it so long. George wont feel it now, and besides the sign is getting old and will soon fall down, and I must have a new one! Yes, I must get a new sign that is a certain. '

  Here the good dame's countenance lighted up with pleasure. She had hit upon a new idea! She must have a NEW sign, and that would be an excuse far putting on a new name. Her satisfaction at having hit upon this idea was plaudy visible in her face.

  `Yes, it is settled,' she said with emphasis. `I will have a new sign within three days.'

  It chanced that at this moment John Blake the carpenter from the next village came by carrying a saw in one hand and a window sash and some pieces of board in the other. She instantly called to him, and in five minutes had bargained for a new sign of precisely the dimensions of the old one, to be completed the next day.

  `And shall I give it to Brown when it is done, to paint the old mug on it, ma'm?'

  `No: tell Brown to paint it sky-blue, as the old one was before it got so rusty, and then I will call and let him know what I am to have on it.'

  The carpenter went his way, and Dame Darwell resumed her knitting with an air of peculiar satisfaction on her features; every little while as she would knit a needle off she would glance up to the old sign with a sort of triumphant air; yet not without feeling a sort of guilty sense of being about to do a very wrong thing in taking down the sign under which she and her husband and her husband's father had so long prospered. But she defended herself against her conscience with the reflection that the sign was ready to fall, and a new one must take the place of it. While she was thus employed in her thoughts and with her fingers, a four-wheeled chaise with two horses attached appeared on the pike in the direction of Providonce, and as it was advancing at very fast speed, it, the next moment, drove up before the porch of `The Quart Mug.'

  CHAPTER II.

  How a gentleman and lady alighted at the Inn—Dame Darwell's curiosity defeated— The gentleman orders a strange beverage—The guest and Dame Darwell converse together—The departure of the guests .

  The old mahogany clock in the tap struck four precisely as the carriage drew up before the little vine-covered porch of the Inn, in the doorway of which Dame Darwell was seated knitting, and busily engaged in her thoughts in inventing a new and agreeable sounding name for the sign she had ordered John Blake to make for her. The carriage, as she relates the story, and as I have heard her tell it, at least three hundred and one times, was a sort of baroache, painted yellow and lined with drab; a very genteel, convenient traveling chaise for two persons. The horses were well-fed bays, but came up white with foam; and the harness was brass mounted, with a gilt eagle treading upon a serpent on the blinders. Of this Dame Darwell was positive. They were driven by a black man, who had a black cockade in his hat, and was dressed in a blue coat in gilt buttons, with an eagle on them, white waistcoat with flaps and drab breeches, He was a very black man, and also very much of a gentleman in his manners, said Dame Darwell. He wore yellow gloves also, and had a white pocket handkerchief, the good Dame noticed. But the horses, the harness, the gilt eagle on the blinders, the yellow barouche, the black driver in his gloves and cockade, were all a secondary matter, and only for a moment diverted the attention of the critical eye of the worthy hostess from the occupants of the chaise.

  These were a gentleman and lady. The gentleman were a black cloak
, and was dressed in mourning, and the lady wore a deep mourning veil which concealed her face. They both seemed young. Dame Darwell judging that the gentleman, whom she never failed to say was `remarkably handsome and civil-like, and very acrostick in his manner,' could not have been above eight and twenty. On the boot was a large round topped trunk of buff leather firmly strapped to the foot board, and in the carriage at their feet, a large traveling basket with a cover.

  Dame Darwell, long practised to judge of her guests at a single glance, observed all that I have described, while the black driver was letting down the steps of the barouche. The gentleman sprang out first, and bowing to the good dame as she stood in the door with her knitting, asked,

  `Are you the hostess, madam?'

  `Yes, sir,' answered Dame Darwell, with a smile of welcome that never failed to detain all comers, if not to a lodging at least to a meal,

  `Can I be accommodated here to-night, with my horses?'

  `Certainly, sir, with pleasure. I have nice, pleasant rooms, and sweet beds. It is many a gentleman, and lady I have had the happiness of entertaining, and they were sure to come a second time, though I say it, sir, that perhaps shouldn't. And the good hostess smiled so pleasantly, that the gentleman smiled too, and said he would like to be her guest until the next morning.

  `It is your lady, I presume air?' said Dame Darwell, who was very particular in some things.

  The gentleman colored, glanced at the lady who still sat in the carriage veiled, and then nodded to Dame Darwell very slightly, as much as to say that it was a thing of course. Dame Darwell was satisfied by the nod and invited them in.

  `The lady will at once go to a room,' said the gentleman, as he handed her from the carriage, Dame Darwell now saw that she was elegant in person, and her air very lady-like.