Page:The dream, or, The true history of Deacon Giles's distillery, and Deacon Jones's brewery.djvu/16

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Deacon Jones, from early life, had been a distiller of New England rum. He entered on the business when everybody thought it was a calling as honest as the miller's, and he grew rich by it. But the nature of his occupation, and the wealth he was gaining, sadly seared his conscience. Of seven promising sons, three had died drunkards, two were lost at sea in a vessel whose cargo was rum from the Deacon's own distillery, and two were living at home, idle and dissipated. Yet it never occurred to the father that he himself had been the cause of all this misery to his own family; he was even wont to converse with great resignation on the subject of his trials, declaring that he found comfort in the passage that reads that "whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth." His business was very extensive, and he plied the trade of death with unremitting assiduity.

When the Temperance Reformation commenced, Deacon Jones took ground against it. He declared it was a great piece of fanaticism. He was once heard to say, that if the bones of his ancestors could rattle in their graves, it would be to hear the business of distilling denounced as productive of death to men's bodies, and damnation to their souls. The progress of the reformation was so rapid, that at length he began to see that it must, in the end. greatly injure his business, and curtail his profits. Moreover, he did not feel easy on the score of conscience, and when the members of the Church proceeded to excommunicate a dramseller, who kept his grog-shop open on the Sabbath, and had been in the habit of procuring all his supplies at the Deacon's distillery, he trembled, lest his brethren should take it into their heads that the business of distilling was the foundation of the whole evil. It was said that he was much disturbed by an article in the newspaper which came strongly under his notice, descriptive of the immorality of the business of the distiller, and ending with these words: "I think I see hell and damnation, and he the proprietor" For a long time the Deacon could not enter his distillery, without thinking of those dreadful words; he considered them so profane, that he thought the article ought to be presented as a nuisance by the Grand Jury.

At length the perplexities of conscience, and the fears of self-interest, drove him to think seriously of emitting the business. One afternoon, as he was sitting at home, absorbed in thought, a loud, impetuous knock at the door of the apartment, startled him, and in walked one of the most singular personages he ever remembered to have seen. It was a man apparently about fifty years of age, very short of stature and sturdy in bulk, with a countenance that indicated uncommon shrewdness, and an eye of preternatural brilliancy and power. Yet his features were extremely irregular, and so evidently marked with strong but compressed passion, as to put one in mind of the crater of a hushed volcano; in fact, his face, in some positions, almost wore the aspect of a fiend escaped from the infernal regions. With all this, he could assume, if he chose, a strange, incongruous appearance of humor; his countenance had that expression when he entered the room where the Deacon was meditating.

He had on a coat of blue broadcloth, of the fashion of Queen Anne's age, a white satin waistcoat with enormous flaps covered with figures of dancing satyrs wrought in crimson silk, and pantaloons of red velvet, over which was drawn a pair of white topped boots, that reached nearly to his knees, with feet of extraordinary magnitude. On his head was a three-cornered adjutant's hat, which lie raised with an easy bow as he entered. His salutation to the Deacon was kindly expressed, though in a very deep, startling voice, that seemed as if it came almost from the centre of the earth. He told the Deacon he was happy to see him, and knowing that he was somewhat troubled in mind, he had called to help him out