The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1886-12-03
miscellaneous.
LOCKED IN.

"Well, what's the news, Colby ?" said
getting down from the stage at the D.
House, in one of the pretty little Villages on
the Androscoggin, and how goes the old
place ?"
Oh the town is behaving itself as well as
usual. 1t isn't place for news, you know,
said Colby, leading the way to the register
Only" lowering his voice-"only Burt Sla.
ter, you remember Burt 7"
Eyes indeed What of him?"
Hes got the jimjams' again r.
again Pm sorry for that"
"Well, he has; awful, too There are two
men with him in his room over the l.. Both
of them can hardly hold him."
felt sorry, indeed, for the poor fellow, for
had known and respected him for his man
ly qualities. He kept neat and well order
ed livery stable near the hotel, and even now
he WIS scarcely 10 years old. But boy in
years, Burt was every inch man, genial,
handsome, obliging.
He was II fellow, too, who always had his
business at his fingers ends. He could tell
you, days ahead, just what horses were engag-
ed, and what he could do for you if you en-
gagged q team, and when the time came YOU
could rely on him TO the hour and minute
Yet he never used an order book His
memory WAS so tenacious and accurate that
he could safely rely on it for his ordinary
business, and but for this one failing-drnk
he would have been q tavorite with every
man in the village.
In Burt's case there was this excuse for
him. His grandfather and father NOW dead
had been tavern-keepers in New Hampshire,
where rum in their day was used rs freely as
water.
Burt had been brought up in the odor of a
bar-room, so to speak, and his father had
been a drinking man. | am sure poor Burt
had inherited an appetite for alcohol.
Much as condemned and lamented his bad
habit, was pleased with him, and liked to
be in his company. 1t was pleasure to spend
an hour in his room, he was so g0od-natured
and cheerful. was very often saddened, too.
For. though ordinarily bright and witty, there
was always, when he CHANGED to speak ofper-
sonal matters, certain hopeessness in his
way ofalluding to himself, as of one "book-
ed" for a premature grave.
Burt did not drink habtualy. About once
in two or three months, an ungovernable
desire for alcohol came over him, and he
would drink necessarily for three or four DAYS.
These excuses could not fail to result in
delrium tremens.
When Colby told me of this second attack
of this fearful disease, my heart sunk, for it
btCulCu tllub Dulb ulu5b uOW Dt ulltTlp lOSU.-
And as there are thousands of similar cases
the country over, l should hardly deem this
one likely to interest the reader, but for a
strange incident.
did not see Burt that week. He kept, or
rather was kept, to his room and did not
care to see him. In the course of q fortnight,
however, he was once more at his work and,
during all the rest of the summer and fall, up
to November, he did not indulge in intox-
eating drink. One bleak, windy November
morning, however, the insane appetite again
rose up within him. He wandered around
with parched lips and blood-shot eyes, suffer
ing almost uncomfortable torment from his
raging thirst. AT last, he harnessed one of
his horses and rode down to l., twelve
miles distant, hoping, as he aflerward told
me- that the piercing cold would help him to
overcome his raging thirst.
Having arrived at L., he pat up his
horse at a stable where he was known, and
began to walk the streets, still hoping to
overcome the burning desire for alcohol.
But the appetite was more than he could
control, and, yielding 10 it at last he went
gave himself up to utter indulgence
AT night, when he again went to the stable,
he could hardly stand, and seemed so uncon-
scious of what he was about that the men
would not let him have his horse, and tried
to have him go into the hotel and stay until
morning.
1t was already late in the afternoon, and
the weather was bitterly cold, but he would
not heed their good counsel, and, instead of
going back into the hotel. he started to walk
home, a distance of twelve miles.
About half Il mile out of town, the road
forks, the right branch leading out toward
the river into grove, where there is large
cemetery. BY this time Burt did not know
one road from another, and, taking the
wrong one, he got into the cemetery, where
he staggered around hopeessly lost.
1t happened that there had been funeral
that afternoon, and coffin had been depos-
tied in one of the tombs, the door of which
had not yet been closed
The wind was piercingly cold, and though
hardly conscious of it, Burt, to escape 1t,
reeled through the open door into the tomb,
and iumbled down in one corner.
He either fell asleep or became utterly in
sensible, for what followed until morning is a
blank to him. The sexton, on his late
rounds, closed and locked the door without
hearing or seeing anything of him.
1t was not until some hours had passed
Burt came to himself somewhat. He lay for
some time trying, in dull, heavy way, to
solve this difficult problem. The air felt cold
and damp. He was in darkness. He put
out his hand. 1t touched a cold stone, and
he started, with shudder to his feet.
Was he in prison? Had he committed
murder or some other offence while drunk
The thought so appalled, him that it clear
ed his brain TO some extent of the effects of
the alcohol. For the one thing which Burt
had always feared more than anything else
was that ON one of his "sprees" he should kill
some person.
He felt in his pockets and found match,
and by its dim light made the horrible dis
covery that he was In tomb with the dead.
As yet, he could recall little or nothing of
last evenings doings. At first he thought
that he must have been taken for dead and
put in there to wait for post norton exami-
nation, or something of that sort.
But this idea was too improbable for him
to entertain long and there was even less
probability that he had been put there for
joke.
Then he lighted more matches, and tried
the door. Then he shouted for help till he
made himself hoarse but the echo of his
voice, as 1t resounded through the pent-up
resting place of the dead, was his only reply
Now Burt was mol person to be alarmed
without good cause; so, with more compo-
sure than might be supposed, he sat down on
a coffin and took account of his chances
They were not flattering. The place was
close and noisome to the last degree ;and even