been! Could he really
find any satisfaction in it? Yes, birds that love carrion flock
together, and there was plenty of moral carrion here. A long deal table
occupied the middle of the room, a smaller round one stood under the
window and supported a tray loaded with glasses and pipes, with a tall
black bottle in the midst of them. The glasses were turned upside down
for the present, a pity it should not have been for the future too; they
looked with the bottle in the centre like a little congregation
surrounding a preacher. Oh! What a sermon of woe that bottle might
have preached to them! But it didn't speak; it was to set on fire the
tongues of other speakers. There was a coloured print over the
mantelpiece of Moses smiting the rock. What a solemn contrast to the
streams of fire-water soon about to flow! John Gubbins sat at the top
of the table, looking fat and anxious, half shy and half foolish; the
man with the false hair and ornaments placed himself next to him. Three
other strangers were present, a mixture of sham gentility and swagger,
of whom it would be difficult to say which had descended into the lowest
depths of blackguardism. And now business was begun; the glasses were
transferred to the larger table, the bottle uncorked, lemons and sugar
produced, and the poor kettle, made for better things, forced to defile
its healthful contents by mixture with liquid madness, in the shape of
whisky; then out came cards and dice. But what sound was that? Three
very faint trembling whistles, followed by four equally feeble taps at
the door? Another madman, who was he? Could it really be Jim Forbes,
the footman, that respectable, steady-looking young man, who waited
daily at the dining tables? Alas! It was indeed. Jim was the son of a
poor widow, whose husband, a small farmer, had died of fever, leaving
behind him a large family, a small cottage, smaller savings, and a good
character; Jim was the eldest sort, and next to him was a poor crippled
sister, whose patient hands added a little to the common stock by
sewing; Jim, however, had been his widowed mother's mainstay since his
father's death, and a willing, loving helper he was: ay, he _had_ been,
but was he still? Jim had got a place at "The Firs"; first of all as a
general helper, then as a footman, in which latter capacity he enjoyed
the very questionable privilege of waiting at table, and hearing what
was said at meals by Mr and Mrs Rothwell, their