THE WINE CELLAR
A “MORALITY”
Stephen Curlew was a thrifty goldsmith in the reign of the Second Charles. His shop was a mine of metal: he worked for the Court, although, we fear, his name is not to be found in any record in the State-Paper Office. Stephen was a bachelor, and, what is strange, he never felt—that is, he never complained of—his loneliness. His chased ewers, his embossed goblets, his gold in bars, were to him wife and children. Midas was his only kinsman. He would creep among his treasures, like an old grey rat, and rub his hands, and smile, as if communing with the wealth about him. He had so long hugged gold to his heart that it beat for nothing else. Stephen was a practical philosopher; for he would meekly take the order—nay, consult the caprice—of the veriest popinjay with the humility of a pauper, when, at a word, he might have out-blazoned lords and earls. If this be not real philosophy, thought Stephen, as he walked slipshod at the heels of his customers, what is?
Stephen was a man of temperance; he was content to see venison carved on his hunting-cups; he cared not to have it in his larder. His eyes would melt at clustering grapes chased on banquet goblets, but no drop of the living juice passed the goldsmith’s lips. Stephen only gave audience to Bacchus when introduced by Plutus. Such was the frugality of Stephen to his sixty-fifth year; and then, or his name had not been eternised in this our page, temptation fell upon him.
It was eight o’clock on a raw spring evening, and Stephen sat alone in his back-room. There was no more fire upon the hearth than might have lain in a tinder-box, but Stephen held his parchment hands above it, and would not be cold. A small silver lamp, with a short wick—for the keen observation of Stephen had taught him the scientific truth, that the less the wick, the less the waste of oil—glowed, a yellow speck in the darkness. On the table lay a book, a treatise on precious stones; and on Stephen’s knee, Hermes, the True Philosopher. Stephen was startled from a waking dream by a loud and hasty knocking at the door. Mike, the boy, was out; but it could not be he. Stephen took up the lamp, and was creeping to the door, when his eye caught the silver, and he again placed it upon the table, and felt his way through the shop. Unbolting the five bolts of the door, but keeping fast the chain, Stephen demanded “who was there?”
“I bear a commission from Sir William Brouncker, and I’m in haste.”
“Stay you a minute—but a minute,” and Stephen hurried back for the lamp, then hastily returned, opened the door, and the visitor passed the threshold.
“Tis not Charles!” cried Stephen, alarmed at his mistake, for he believed he had heard the voice of Sir William’s man.
“No matter for that, Stephen; you work for men, and not for Christian names. Come, I have a job for you”; and the visitor, with the easy, assured air of a gallant, lounged into the back-parlour, followed by the tremulous Stephen.
“Sir William——” began the goldsmith.
“He bade me use his name; the work I’d have you do is for myself. Fear not: here’s money in advance,” and the stranger plucked from his pocket a purse, which in its ample length lay like a bloated snake upon the table.
Stephen smiled, and said, “Your business, sir?”
“See here,” and the stranger moved the lamp immediately between them, when, for the first time, Stephen clearly saw the countenance of his customer. His face was red as brick, and his eyes looked deep as the sea, and glowed with good humour. His mouth was large and frank, and his voice came as from the well of truth. His hair fell in curls behind his ears, and his moustache, black as coal, made a perfect crescent on his lip, the points upwards. Other men may be merely good fellows, the stranger seemed the best. “See here,” he repeated, and produced a drawing on a small piece of paper, “can you cut me this in a seal ring?”
“Humph!” and Stephen put on his spectacles; “the subject is——”
“Bacchus squeezing grape-juice into the cup of Death,” said the stranger.
“An odd conceit,” cried the goldsmith.
“We all have our whims, or woe to the sellers,” said the customer. “Well, can it be done?”
“Surely, sir, surely. On what shall it be cut?”
“An emerald, nothing less. It is the drinker’s stone. In a week, Master Curlew?”
“This day week, sir, if I live in health.”
The day came. Stephen was a tradesman of his word, and the stranger sat in the back-parlour, looking curiously into the ring.
“Per Bacco! Rarely done. Why, Master Curlew, thou hast caught the very chops of glorious Liber, his swimming eyes, and blessed mouth. Ha! ha! thou hast put thy heart into the work, Master Curlew; and how cunningly hast thou all but hid the dart of death behind the thyrsus of the god! How his life-giving hand clutches the pulpy cluster, and with what a gush comes down the purple rain, plashing into rubies in the cup of Mors!”
“It was my wish to satisfy, most noble sir,” said Stephen, meekly, somewhat confounded by the loud praises of the speaker.
“May you never be choked with a grape-stone, Master Curlew, for this goodly work. Ha!” and the speaker looked archly at the withered goldsmith; “it hath cost thee many a headache ere thou couldst do this.”
“If I may say it, I have laboured hard at the craft—have been a thrifty, sober man,” said Stephen.
“Sober! Ha! ha! ha!” shouted the speaker, and his face glowed redder, and his eyes melted; “sober! why, thou wast begot in a wine cask, and suckled by a bottle, or thou hadst never done this. By the thigh of Jupiter! he who touched this,” and the stranger held up the ring to his eye, and laughed again, “he who touched this hath never known water. Tut! man, were I to pink thee with a sword thou’dst bleed wine!”
“I,” cried Stephen, “I bleed,” and he glanced fearfully towards the door, and then at the stranger, who continued to look at the ring.
“The skin of the sorriest goat shall sometimes hold the choicest liquor,” said the stranger, looking into the dry face of the goldsmith. “Come, confess, art thou not a sly roysterer? Or art thou a hermit over thy drops, and dost count flasks alone? Ay! ay! well, to thy cellar, man; and—yes—thine arms are long enough—bring up ten bottles of thy choicest Malaga.”
“I!—my cellar!—Malaga!” stammered Stephen.
“Surely thou hast a cellar?” and the stranger put his hat upon the table with the air of a man set in for a carouse.
“For forty years, but it hath never known wine,” cried the goldsmith. “I—I have never known wine.” The stranger said nothing; but, turning full upon Stephen, and, placing his hands upon his knees, he blew out his flushing cheeks like a bagpipe, and sat with his eyes blazing upon the heretic. “No, never!” gasped Stephen, terrified, for a sense of his wickedness began to possess him.
“And thou dost repent?” asked the stranger, with a touch of mercy towards the sinner.
“I—humph! I’m a poor man,” cried Curlew; “yes, though I’m a goldsmith, and seem rich, I—I’m poor! poor!”
“Well, ’tis lucky I come provided,” and the stranger placed upon the table a couple of flasks. Whether he took them from under his cloak, or evoked them through the floor, Stephen knew not; but he started at them as they stood rebukingly upon his table, as if they had been two sheeted ghosts. “Come, glasses,” cried the giver of the wine.
“Glasses!” echoed Stephen, “in my house!”
“Right, glasses! No—cups, and let them be gold ones!” and the bacchanal, for it was plain he was such, waved his arm with an authority which Stephen attempted not to dispute, but rose and hobbled into the shop, and returned with two cups just as the first cork was drawn. “Come, there’s sunlight in that, eh?” cried the stranger, as he poured the wine into the vessels. “So, thou hast never drunk wine? Well, here’s to the baptism of thy heart!” And the stranger emptied the cup, and his lips smacked like a whip.
And Stephen Curlew tasted the wine, and looked around, below, above; and the oaken wainscot did not split in twain, nor did the floor yawn, nor the ceiling gape. Stephen tasted a second time; thrice did he drink, and he licked his mouth as a cat licks the cream from her whiskers, and, putting his left hand upon his belly, softly sighed.
“Ha! ha! another cup! I know thou wilt,” and Stephen took another, and another; and the two flasks were in brief time emptied. They were, however, speedily followed by two more, placed by the stranger on the table, Stephen opening his eyes and mouth at their mysterious appearance. The contents of these were duly swallowed, and lo! another two stood before the goldsmith, or, as he then thought, four.
“There never was such a Bacchus!” cried Stephen’s customer, eyeing the ring. “Why, a man may see his stomach fairly heave, and his cheek ripen with wine: yet, till this night, thou hadst never tasted the juice! What—what could have taught thee to carve the god so capitally?”
“Instinct—instinct,” called out the goldsmith, his lips turned to clay by too much wine.
“And yet,” said the stranger, “I care not so much for—— How old art thou, Stephen?”
“Sixty-five,” and Stephen hiccupped.
“I care not so much for thy Death, Stephen; instinct should have made thee a better hand at Death.”
“Tis a good Death,” cried the goldsmith, with unusual boldness, “a most sweet Death.”
“Tis too broad—the skeleton of an alderman with the flesh dried upon him. He hath not the true desolation, the ghastly nothingness, of the big bugbear. No matter; I’m content; but this I’ll say, though thou hast shown thyself a professor at Bacchus, thou art yet but a poor apprentice at Death.”
Stephen Curlew answered not with words, but he snored very audibly. How long he slept he could not well discover, but when he awoke he found himself alone; no, not alone, there stood upon the table an unopened flask of wine. In a moment the mystery broke upon him—and he sprang to his feet with a shriek, and rushed into the shop. No—he had not been drugged by thieves—all was as it should be. The stranger, like an honest and courteous man, had taken but his own; and, without disturbing the sleeper, had quitted the house. And Stephen Curlew, the wine glowing in his heart—yea, down to his very nails, stood and smiled at the unopened flask before him.
Stephen continued to eye the flask; and though its donor had shared with him he knew not how many bottles, Stephen was resolved that not one drop of the luscious juice before him should wet an alien throat. But how—where to secure it? For, in the new passion which seized upon the goldsmith, the one flask seemed to him more precious than the costly treasure in his shop—a thing to be guarded with more scrupulous affection—more jealous love. In what nook of his house to hide the glorious wealth—what corner, where it might escape the profane glances and itching fingers of his workmen? The thought fell in a golden flash upon him—the cellar—ay, the cellar! Who of his household ever thought of approaching the cellar? Stephen seized the flask and lamp, and paused. The cellar had no lock! No matter; he had a bag of three-inch nails and a stout hammer.
The next morning neighbours met at the closed door and windows of the goldsmith, and knocked and shouted, shouted and knocked. They were, however, reduced to a crowbar, and, at length, burst into the house. Every place was searched, but there was nowhere visible old Stephen Curlew. Days passed on, and strange stories filled the ears of men. One neighbour vowed that he had had a dream or a vision, he knew not which, wherein he saw the goldsmith whirled down the Strand in a chariot drawn by a lion and a tiger, and driven by a half-naked young man, wearing a panther skin, and on his head vine-leaves and ivy. An old woman swore that she had seen Stephen carried away by a dozen devils (very much in liquor), with red faces and goat legs. However, in less than a month, the goldsmith’s nephew, a scrivener’s clerk, took possession of Curlew’s wealth, and became a new-made butterfly with golden wings. As for Stephen, after various speculations, it was concluded, to the satisfaction of all parties, that he must have been carried away by Satan himself, and the nephew cared not to combat popular opinions. But such, in truth, was not the end of the goldsmith. Hear it.
Stephen, possessed by the thought of the cellar, with the one flask, a lamp, nails, and hammer, proceeded to the sacred crypt. He arrived in the vault, and having kissed the flask, reverently put it down, and straightway addressed himself to the work. Closing the door, he drove the first nail, the second, third; and borrowing new strength from the greatness of his purpose, he struck each nail upon the head with the force and precision of a Cyclops, burying it deep in the oak. With this new-found might he drove eleven nails; the twelfth was between his thumb and finger, when looking round—oh! sad mishap, heavy mischance! awful error!—he had driven the nails from the wrong side! In a word—and we tremble while we write it—he had nailed himself in! There he stood, and there stood the flask. He gasped with horror; his foot stumbled, struck the lamp, it fell over, and the light went out.
Shall we write further on the agony of Stephen Curlew? Shall we describe how he clawed and struck at the door, now in the hope to wrench a nail, and now to alarm the breathing men above? No; we will not dwell upon the horror; it is enough that the fate of the goldsmith was dimly shadowed forth in the following paragraph of last Saturday:—
“Some labourers, digging a foundation near”—no, we will not name the place, for the family of the Curlews is not yet extinct, and there may be descendants in the neighbourhood—“near——, found a skeleton. A hammer was beside it, with several long nails: a small wine flask was also found near the remains, which, it is considered, could not have been in the vault in which they were discovered less than a century and three-quarters!”
Oh, ye heads of families! and oh, ye thrifty, middle-aged bachelors, boarding with families, or growing mouldy by yourselves, never, while ye live, forget the terrible end of Stephen Curlew. And oh, ye heads of families—and oh, ye aforesaid bachelors, albeit ye have only one bottle left, never, NEVER NAIL UP THE WINE CELLAR!