CHAPTER V.

GUSTAVUS FALLS UPON ANOTHER INGENIOUS DEVICE.

Thus did matters continue for a long period of time; and all the efforts, and threats, and devices of Gustavus had no more effect in preventing Julia from taking her pleasure, than the restraint of a husband generally has over the irregularities of a wife of true courage, who knows her inalienable rights derived from the just laws of a free land. If his brain seemed to be exhausted in devising remedies, his patience fell a victim before his continued wretchedness—and no marvel either, when it is considered that while other men only bring in the means of supporting a drunken wife, whom the equitable and wise ordinances of the country will not allow him to get quit of except for a crime not a tithe so bad as that of Julia M’Iver, he kept her in means, and cooked for and dressed for her, and nursed her, and all the good he got out of her was the liberty of doing these things for her benefit. By a happy chance, however, Gustavus’ brains were not yet exhausted. Space and time he had taken to ruminate upon his evils, and to hit upon one expedient more for the envied cure; and he resolved to carry his Julia off to the country, where, in some secluded cottage, he might exercise such an authority over her as would prevent her from following her usual courses. So accordingly he did just as he had resolved; and, in a small domicile in a part of the north, he took up his habitation, for no other purpose in the world than to cure Julia of her heart-engrained propensity. The place he had chosen seemed the very choicest that could have been found in all Scotland—ay, or England or Ireland either; for there was no house where a gossip might live, or a whisky-vender hang board, for miles; while a carrier that passed daily brought him everything that was necessary for human sustenance; and he himself could cook and wash unseen by the eyes of mortal.

For six weeks was Julia M’Iver as sober as the Chief Justice of England, or the President of the Supreme Court, and it was manifest that never a drop of anything stronger than river water had got beyond her parched lips.

Now, Gustavus triumphed as no man ever triumphed under less than an ovation itself; and Julia was forced to be contented with the limited tyranny of making him continue his domestic duties; for the more sober she was kept, the less she would do, and her time was chiefly occupied in reading novels, which Gustavus was glad to give her as an inadequate surrogation for whisky. But all this was too good to last, though how it should be interrupted, no man with less than the spirit of one _Davo versatior_ could possibly tell. Jove’s greatness is, however, no less true, than the fact that Gustavus came in one night and found, and staggered with perfect amazement as he found, Mrs Julia M’Iver lying on the floor, more perfectly obnubilated, speechless, and senseless, from the effects of the liquid enemy, than he had ever seen her in his life. Yet there was no one near; the carrier had not called for a week; she could not have been absent from the house for more than half-an-hour; and he himself had been out stalking for exercise, and rejoicing in his triumph for no more than three full quarters. The matter seemed a mystery as deep as any that ever was covered by the Eleusinian veil; and having put her to bed, as he had done a thousand times before, he set about an investigation and search through all the premises, which ended in a look of gaunt amazement, and an ineffectual striding backwards and forwards, till he threw himself on a seat, and gave up the task in despair. Nor, after he had nursed her into sobriety, could he make a jot more of the inexplicable subject; for Julia had too much good sense to tell where she got the treasure, and only smiled at him as his heavy lips twisted themselves into a question, where, in the name of the author of all evil himself, she had fallen upon that infernal element.

No light was to be thrown upon the subject from any of the quarters from which evidence could have been looked for, and the circumstance might have remained as one of those mystical wonders that have perplexed mankind from the beginning of the world, and been passed over in despair, if Julia had afterwards remained sober, but she had scarcely recovered, and Gustavus had only begun to hope once more, when she was found again in the same state; and, every two days, or at farthest three, she repeated the habit, till at last she was as bad, if not worse, than she had ever been in the midst of dram shops in the city of Edinburgh. Never a word of explanation would she give on the subject; the carrier was watched, and found to deposit nothing; the inhabitants at the distance of miles were interrogated in vain; the house was again searched—no one had been seen to call, and all was as obscure as the numbers of Pythagoras, the Bæotic enigma, or the poems of Carcinus; the deuce a beam of light could Gustavus get for love or money, to clear up the dark mystery.