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THE BLACK LION INN

By Alfred Henry Lewis

Illustrated By Frederic Remington

New York: R. H. Russell

1903


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CHAPTER I.--HOW I CAME TO THE INN.

Years ago, I came upon an old and hoary tavern when I as a fashion of
refugee was flying from strong drink. Its name, as shown on the creaking
sign-board, was The Black Lion Inn. My coming was the fruit of no plan;
the hostelry was strange to me, and my arrival, casual and desultory,
one of those accidents which belong with the experiences of folk who,
whipped of a bad appetite and running from rum, are seeking only to be
solitary and win a vacation for their selfrespect. This latter commodity
in my own poor case had been sadly overworked, and called for rest and
an opportunity of recuperation. Wherefore, going quietly and without
word from the great city, I found this ancient inn with a purpose to
turn presently sober. Also by remaining secluded for a space I would
permit the memory of those recent dubious exploits of the cup to become
a bit dimmed in the bosom of my discouraged relatives.

It turned a most fortunate blunder, this blundering discovery of the
aged inn, for it was here I met the Jolly Doctor who, by saving me from
my fate of a drunkard, a fate to which I was hopelessly surrendered,
will dwell ever in my thoughts as a greatest benefactor.

There is that about an appetite for alcohol I can not understand. In my
personal instance there is reason to believe it was inherited. And yet
my own father never touched a drop and lived and died the uncompromising
enemy of the bowl. It was from my grandsire, doubtless, I had any
hankering after rum, for I have heard a sigh or two of how that dashing
military gentleman so devoted himself to it that he fairly perished for
very faithfulness as far away as eighty odd long years.

Once when my father and I were roaming the snow-filled woods with our
guns--I was a lad of twelve--having heard little of that ancestor, I
asked him what malady carried off my grandsire. My father did not reply
at once, but stalked silently ahead, rifle caught under arm, the snow
crunching beneath his heavy boots. Then he flung a sentence over his
shoulder.

“Poor whiskey more than anything else,” said my father.

Even at the unripe age of twelve I could tell how the subject was
unpleasant to my parent and did not press it. I saved my curiosity until
evening when my mother and I were alone. My mother, to whom I re-put the
query, informed me in whispers how she had been told--for she never met
him, he being dead and gone before her day--my grandsire threw away his
existence upon the bottle.

The taste for strong waters so developed in my grandsire would seem like
a quartz-ledge to have “dipped” beneath my father to strike the family
surface with all its old-time richness in myself. I state this the more
secure of its truth because I was instantly and completely a drunkard,
waiving every preliminary stage as a novice, from the moment of my first
glass.

It was my first day of the tavern when I met the Jolly Doctor. The
tavern was his home--for he lived a perilous bachelor--and had been
many years; and when, being in a shaken state, I sent down from the
apartments I had taken and requested the presence of a physician, he
came up to me. He had me right and on my feet in the course of a
few hours, and then I began to look him in the face and make his
acquaintance.

As I abode in the tavern for a considerable space, we put in many
friendly hours together. The Jolly Doctor was a round, strong, active
body of a man, virile and with an atmosphere almost hypnotic. His
forehead was good, his jaw hard, his nose arched, while his gray-blue
eyes, half sour, half humorous and deeply wise of the world, gleamed in
his head with the shine of beads.

One evening while we were together about the fireplace of my parlor, I
was for having up a bottle of sherry.

“Before you give the order,” said the Jolly Doctor, restraining me with
a friendly yet semiprofessional gesture, “let me say a word. Let me ask
whether you have an intention or even a hope of one day--no matter how
distant--quitting alcohol?” Without pausing for my answer, the Jolly
Doctor went on. “You are yet a young man; I suppose you have seen thirty
years. It has been my experience, albeit I’m but fifteen years your
senior and not therefore as old as a hill, that no man uproots a habit
after he has reached middle age. While climbing, mentally, physically,
nervously, the <DW72> of his years and adding to, not taking from,
his strength, a man may so far re-draw himself as to make or break an
appetite--the appetite of strong drink--if you will. But let him attain
the summit of his strength, reach as it were the crest of his days and
begin to travel down the easy long descent toward the grave, and every
chance of change has perished beyond his reach. You are thirty; and to
make it short, my friend, you must, considering what bottle tendencies
lie latent within you, stop now and stop hard, or you are lost forever.”

To say I was impressed is not to exaggerate. I was frank enough to
confess, however, that privately I held no hope of change. Several years
before, I