To-morrow Dick would be off to the girl in Vermont--
The clock struck twelve. The rural world was wrapped in slumber.
Above-stairs Dick was sleeping the sound, dreamless sleep of healthy
weariness, and most likely dreaming of the girl by the brook. A
cleansed body and a cleansed mind, thank God! So had he slept for
nights while the inexorable master of his days, with no companion but
his flute, drank and drank until dawn, climbing up to bed at
cockcrow--sometimes drunk and morose, sometimes a grim and conscious
master of the bottle.
Carl had been drinking wildly, heavily for months. That in
flagellating Wherry's body day by day he spared not himself, was
characteristic of the man and of his will. That he preached and
dragged a man from the depths of hell by day and deliberately descended
into infernal abysses by night, was but another revelation of the wild,
inconsistent humors which tore his soul, Youth and indomitable physique
gave him as yet clear eyes and muscles of iron, for all he abused them,
but the humors of his soul from day to day grew blacker.
Kronberg, a new servant Carl had brought with him to the Glade for
personal attendance, presently brought in his nightly tray of whiskey.
Carl glanced at the bottle and frowned.
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