The Wolf Trail
9781465676313
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
To make a dogsnose, the publican explained, "you spices the ale, so. You laces it with a dash of rum, thus, then you proceeds to pour it into this yere metal cone, this way"—he crossed to the fireplace—"and shoves it in among the coals to mull." "A great comfort is dogsnose," added Mr. Fright, "especially of a Sunday after church. You clears the vimmen off to church, and then you has the dogsnose." Presently he took the cone from behind the bars of the grate, and filled the glasses with mulled beer, distributing the same to his guests. With rolled-up shirt sleeves exposing brawny arms, a portly waistcoat, leather breeches, and top boots, this publican might well have posed for a portrait of John Bull, and yet his tavern, "The Fox under the Hill," had other associations, accounting for the landlord's artful sideways grin and a certain glint of humorous foxiness. Moreover, a lifelong devotion to rum had made him more ruddy than sunburned, his nose inclined to blossom, his eyes to water, and his hands to tremble. "A short life, and a merry one!" so Mr. Fright pledged the company. His guests appeared to be pleased with the sentiment, excepting only his brother, Mr. James Fright, the bargee, who crouched drunk in his window corner. Brief life was his portion also, but a diet of gin, instead of making ruddy the face of man, turns his complexion blue. The stuff is called blue ruin. The bargee's only son, Bill, aged at that time eighteen, sat in the ingle. He had something of his father's short pugnacious nose, and chin thrust forward, but his hair was like wavy sunshine, and his eyes bright blue. He had a humorous twisty mouth, a freckled, weather-beaten ruddy skin, a sturdy strength, clean manliness, and amazing directness both of eyes and speech. His dress was a raggy blue jersey, torn slacks, and old sea boots; and he was busy mending one of them, making a workmanlike job with awl, waxed end, and bristles. Warming his tails at the fire stood a guest of the house, a tall man in pumps, seedy black tights, a frayed blue coat brass-buttoned, a black satin choker, and his head so large and of such effulgent baldness that he would have shone out remarkable in any company. He was a Mr. Wilkins wanted by the magistrates for stealing pocket handkerchiefs, and now awaiting a wherry which would convey him presently to a coal boat, bound for Newcastle. Of the company in the sanded bar parlor, perhaps only one other person need be mentioned, Mr. Brown, valet to Isaac Disraeli, Esquire, upon Adelphi Terrace. The emigrant spoke feelingly of dogsnose as about to become, if he might venture to say so, one of the tenderest and most endearing of those beverages which the forlorn and desolate exile would have to—ahem—go without, a reminder to the banished heart of that sacred homeland whose blessed liberties and hard-won—ahem. The remainder of the sentiment was confided with tears to a large red bandanna handkerchief. "Which liberties," said the publican sternly, crossing his bare forearms on the bar, "ain't what they're cracked up to be. Liberties! Liberties of the Fleet, the Marshalsea, and Newgate! "It's terventy-one year since me and my brother James there, what's sitting drunk in the winder, fought at Waterloo. It's nineteen year come Lammas I been 'ere. Nineteen year—so to speak—I been the Fox under the Hill which sees plentiful, 'ears much, smells a good deal, but doesn't have nothing votever to talk abart. Vile I keeps my mask shut, gennelmen, I saves my brush."
