Page:History of Gardner, Massachusetts (1860) - Glazier.djvu/82

78 be a compound of arsenic and antimony, so deleterious that a single grain would extinguish the lives of a thousand. The numbers of the afflicted increased with frightful rapidity, and the symptoms grew more fearful. It was suddenly recollected that the sugar used in their beverage had been purchased from a respectable merchant of the town, whose attachment to government was well known, and the sickness around was deemed proof conclusive that it had been adulterated for their destruction. A file of soldiers seized the seller, and brought him to answer for the supposed attempt to murder the levies of rebellion. As he entered the house, the cry of indignation rose strong. Fortunately for his safety, Dr. Green, of Ward, an intelligent practitioner of medicine, arrived, and the execution of vengeance was deferred until his opinion of its propriety could be obtained. After careful inspection of the suspected substance, and subjecting it to the test of different senses, he declared, that to the best of his knowledge, it was genuine, yellow, Scotch snuff. The reputed dying raised their heads from the floor: the slightly affected recovered: the gloom which had settled heavily on the supposed victims of mortal disease was dispelled, and the illness soon vanished. Strict inquiry furnished a reasonable explanation: a clerk in the store of the merchant had opened a package of the fragrant commodity in the vicinity of the sugar barrel, and a portion of the odoriferous leaf, bad, inadvertently been scattered from the counter into its uncovered head. A keg of spirit was accepted in full satisfaction for the panic occasioned by the decoction of tobacco so innocently administered.

Bodies of militia, anxious to testify their reviving zeal, were toiling through the deep snow drifts. Gen. Warner,