



Produced by Stephen Hope, David Edwards, Sankar Viswanathan,
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                        NICK BABA'S LAST DRINK

                                 AND

                           OTHER SKETCHES.



                                  BY

                            GEO. P. GOFF.


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             Pro captu lectoris habent sua fata libelli.

       *       *       *       *       *

                             ILLUSTRATED.

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                          LANCASTER, PENNA.:

               INQUIRER PRINTING AND PUBLISHING COMPANY

                                1879.


Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1879, by

GEO. P. GOFF,

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, Washington, D. C.




TO THE

"RAYMOND HALL" SHOOTING CLUB,

THIS

VOLUME IS INSCRIBED.




PREFACE.


THE KIND PARTIALITY OF INDULGENT FRIENDS HAVING INDUCED ME TO GATHER
TOGETHER THESE SCATTERED FRAGMENTS, INDITED AS A RECREATION FOR MY
LEISURE MOMENTS, I GIVE THEM THUS COLLECTED, WITH THE HOPE THAT THE
SAME FAVOR WILL BE EXTENDED TO THEIR IMPERFECTIONS AS HAS SO OFTEN
BEEN SHOWN TO THEIR AUTHOR.




CONTENTS.


NICK BABA'S LAST DRINK.

TRIP TO CURRITUCK--ILLUSTRATED.

HAUNTED ISLAND.

LEGEND OF BERKELEY SPRINGS--ILLUSTRATED.




NICK BABA'S LAST DRINK,

AND OTHER SKETCHES.




NICK BABA'S LAST DRINK.


It was Christmas Eve, and the one narrow main street of a small
country town was ablaze. Extra lights were glowing in all the little
shops; yet all this illumination served only to make more apparent the
untidy condition of the six-by-nine window panes, as well as the goods
therein. Men and women were hastening homeward with well-filled
baskets which they had provided for the festive morrow. All the
ragged, dirty urchins of the village were gathered about the dingy
shop windows admiring, with distended eyes and gaping mouths, the
several displays of toys and sweetmeats.

Their arms buried quite to their elbows in capacious but empty
pockets, they cast longing looks and wondered, as they had no
stockings, where Santa Claus could put their presents when he had
brought them. To all this show and preparation there was one
exception: one place shrouded in total darkness--it was the shop of
Nick Baba, the village shoemaker. That was for the time deserted; left
to its dust, its collection of worn-out soles, its curtains of
cobwebs, and its compound of bad, unwholesome odors. This darkness and
neglect was about to end, however, and give place to a glimmer of
light.

Nick now came hurrying in and, quickly striking a light, placed
between himself and a flickering oil lamp a small glass globe filled
with water. He sat down upon his bench and commenced work in earnest
on an unfinished pair of shoes. He hammered, and pulled, and
stretched, and pegged, and sewed, and all this time, had there been
any one present, they might have observed that, though Nick worked so
diligently, he was unhappy, and a prey to the bitterest reflections.
All in the village had commenced their merry-making, while he sat
there alone, forgotten, and in despair. His neighbors had plenty--he
was penniless, and could take nothing to his home but regrets for the
past. The rickety old door now creaked on its rusty, worn-out hinges,
and admitted a creature as strange looking as it was unexpected. It
moved straight toward Nick, and perched itself upon a three-legged
stool close beside him. This mysterious thing could not be pronounced
supernatural, and yet it was as unlike anything human as is possible
to imagine. It was more like some fantastic figure seen in a
dream--the creation of a disordered brain. It may be that it was a
goblin--Nick thought it one. It was only about two feet high; a mass
of dark-brown hair streamed down its back, partially concealing a
great hump, and thence flowed down to its heels. Its head was round as
a ball and topped out by a velvet cap of curious shape and
workmanship, with a broad projecting front which shaded a pair of
lustrous red eyes, set far back beneath the forehead--almost lost
there. Its breast was sunken, and the head settled down between the
shoulders, created an impression of weakness, as if, for example, it
should speak, that a small piping voice would come struggling up from
below. Baba looked up with alarm, but the goblin greeted him with a
smile, and said, "Merry Christmas, Nick," in a deep, strong and not
unmusical voice, which came boldly up and out from its parted lips.

"How do you know my name?" inquired the cobbler, "and why do you mock
me by such a greeting?"

"Baba, my friend," replied the Goblin, "I was just thinking that if
all the acts of your life had been as good and as humane as your
mechanical skill is perfect, you would not now be floundering in the
meshes of vice and dissipation. You are making a good pair of shoes
there."

The shoemaker worked away without raising his head, but responded
spitefully, "Where is the use of making them good?--I get no pay for
them."

"Why, who," inquired the occupant of the three-legged stool, "is so
ungenerous as to want such shoes without paying for them?"

"They are," answered the busy workman, "for the owner of this
miserable shanty, and he complains because I am only six months behind
with my rent--a most unreasonable man. If he does not get his shoes
to-morrow, he will turn me out; I must have some place to work, and so
am forced to do the bidding of this grasping landlord."

"Ah, it is you who are unreasoning," exclaimed Baba's visitor,
sorrowfully; "it is you who are in fault. If you would but remain away
from the tavern and the vile associates whom you meet there, all would
be well with you, you might redeem yourself."

Nick felt this rebuke so very keenly that he turned savagely toward
the one who had dared to tell him so plainly of his degradation, and
demanded. "Who are you, and why have you disturbed the quiet of this
mean hovel to insult me in my misery?"

"Because I wish to serve you," answered it of the waving brown hair.

"You cannot serve me. I will drive you out," threatened the now
infuriated cobbler; "I will throw you from the window--I will kill
you."

The red eyes of the Goblin danced and twinkled in their caverns; a
merry, careless laugh came bubbling forth as it answered, "I will not
leave your shop, nor will you throw me from the window, nor yet kill
me, Nick Baba. Why, you silly fellow, the sharpest tool on your bench
cannot draw blood from me, and that blackened lapstone, if driven with
all the force of your great arm through my seeming substance, would
leave me sitting here still, not to mock, but to try and save you."

The baffled and stricken shoemaker looked up and muttered. "Then you
are not human, you are a demon. But, after all," added Nick,
softening, "whether you are of this world or of some other, you are
right in what you say."

The Goblin made no reply, and Nick continued, "I have sunk very low,
indeed, but I cannot shake this habit; it clings to me so firmly, that
I have not only forfeited the regard of my neighbors and friends, but
I even loathe myself."

"Why not make an effort, Nick? You can if you will."

"Yes, yes," responded Nick, "it is easy enough to say give it up, but
you have never felt this accursed appetite for strong drink; this
constant craving for more; this inward sinking sensation, as if the
parts of the body were about to separate, impelling the victim on in a
career of sin and shame. You know nothing of all this."

"No, I confess I do not," acknowledged the Goblin, "but I think any
man may resist it, if he will make the trial."

"Ah, you might as soon expect," pursued Nick, "to see the starving man
cast bread from him, as to hope for the drunkard to resist liquor when
the frenzy of this appetite is on him."

"But you have not tried, Nick."

"Yes, I have tried and failed, and tried again and then failed."

"Keep on trying," said velvet cap.

"A glass of liquor," resumed Baba, "is a trifling thing, and it is
very easy, you think, to cast it into the gutter. But I tell you,
whoever and whatever you are, that this sparkling and seductive drink
is the pygmy that binds the giant to the post with a thread, and
lashes him with thongs of fire.

"Try again," urged the Goblin, "I am sure you can regain all that you
have lost."

"No, no," moaned Nick, "I am too low down; I am an absolute slave to
rum."

"Baba," commanded the Goblin, "take up the shoe you have nearly
finished, look into the sole and tell me what you see there. It is a
mirror of the past."

Nick took the shoe from the floor and gazed at it intently for a few
seconds. He was agitated, and his powerful breast heaved as only a
strong man may be moved--he wept.

"What do you see? Speak!" said his tormentor.

"I see," responded Nick, mechanically, "a scene of seven years ago. It
is the image of a fair-haired, blue-eyed girl before the altar in her
wedding garments. I am there also, vowing to protect her; to stand up
and battle with the world for her; to be a barrier between her and
want. But I