Short Stories, vol 13 | Page 7

not know what to do, and he felt inclined to strangle her when he saw her. He hated her with a ferocious, cunning hatred, the hatred of a peasant who has been robbed, and began to cast about for some means of getting rid of her.
One day he came to see her again, rubbing his hands as he did the first time he proposed the bargain, and, after having chatted for a few minutes, he said:
"Why do you never come and have a bit of dinner at my place when you are in Spreville? The people are talking about it, and saying we are not on friendly terms, and that pains me. You know it will cost you nothing if you come, for I don't look at the price of a dinner. Come whenever you feel inclined; I shall be very glad to see you."
Old Mother Magloire did not need to be asked twice, and the next day but one, as she had to go to the town in any case, it being market day, she let her man drive her to Chicot's place, where the buggy was put in the barn while she went into the house to get her dinner.
The innkeeper was delighted and treated her like a lady, giving her roast fowl, black pudding, leg of mutton and bacon and cabbage. But she ate next to nothing. She had always been a small eater, and had generally lived on a little soup and a crust of bread and butter.
Chicot was disappointed and pressed her to eat more, but she refused, and she would drink little, and declined coffee, so he asked her:
"But surely you will take a little drop of brandy or liqueur?"
"Well, as to that, I don't know that I will refuse." Whereupon he shouted out:
"Rosalie, bring the superfine brandy--the special--you know."
The servant appeared, carrying a long bottle ornamented with a paper vine-leaf, and he filled two liqueur glasses.
"Just try that; you will find it first rate."
The good woman drank it slowly in sips, so as to make the pleasure last all the longer, and when she had finished her glass, she said:
"Yes, that is first rate!"
Almost before she had said it Chicot had poured her out another glassful. She wished to refuse, but it was too late, and she drank it very slowly, as she had done the first, and he asked her to have a third. She objected, but he persisted.
"It is as mild as milk, you know; I can drink ten or a dozen glasses without any ill effects; it goes down like sugar and does not go to the head; one would think that it evaporated on the tongue: It is the most wholesome thing you can drink."
She took it, for she really enjoyed it, but she left half the glass.
Then Chicot, in an excess of generosity, said:
"Look here, as it is so much to your taste, I will give you a small keg of it, just to show that you and I are still excellent friends." So she took one away with her, feeling slightly overcome by the effects of what she had drunk.
The next day the innkeeper drove into her yard and took a little iron- hooped keg out of his gig. He insisted on her tasting the contents, to make sure it was the same delicious article, and, when they had each of them drunk three more glasses, he said as he was going away:
"Well, you know when it is all gone there is more left; don't be modest, for I shall not mind. The sooner it is finished the better pleased I shall be."
Four days later he came again. The old woman was outside her door cutting up the bread for her soup.
He went up to her and put his face close to hers, so that he might smell her breath; and when he smelt the alcohol he felt pleased.
"I suppose you will give me a glass of the Special?" he said. And they had three glasses each.
Soon, however, it began to be whispered abroad that Mother Magloire was in the habit of getting drunk all by herself. She was picked up in her kitchen, then in her yard, then in the roads in the neighborhood, and she was often brought home like a log.
The innkeeper did not go near her any more, and, when people spoke to him about her, he used to say, putting on a distressed look:
"It is a great pity that she should have taken to drink at her age, but when people get old there is no remedy. It will be the death of her in the long run."
And it certainly was the death of her. She died the next winter. About Christmas time she fell down, unconscious, in the snow, and was