Locked Into A Tomb

"Well, whafs the news, Colby?" said I, getting down from the stage at the D House, in one of the pretty little villages on the Androseoggin, "and how goes the old place ? " "Oh, the town is behaving itself as ! well as usual. It isn't a place for news, ' you know," said Colby, leading the way to the register. "Only," lowering his voice - " only Burt Slater, you remember Burt?" "Yes, indeed ! What of him ? " "He's got the ' jim-jams' again!" " Again ! I'm 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." I feit sorry, indeed, for the poor fellow, for I had known and respected hini for his manly qualities. He kept a neat 1 and well-ordered livery-stable near the hotel, and even now he was scarcely 19 years old. But, though a boy in years, Btirt was every inch a man, genial, handsome, obliging. He was a fellow, too, who always had his business at his fingers' ends. He could tll you, ilays ahead, just what horses were engaged, and what he could j do for you if you wished to engage a , team, and, when the time carne, you j 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 upon it for his i ordinary business, and but for this one failing - drink - he would have been a favorite with every man in the village. In Burt's case there was this excuse ; for him. His grandfather and father I (now dead) had been tavern-keepers in i New Hampshire, where rum, in their day, was used as freely as water. Burt had been brought up in the j odor of a bar-room, so to speak, and j his father had been a drinking man. I am sure that poor Burt had inherited I an appetite for alcohol. Muoh as I condemned and lamented his bad habit, I was pleased with him, ! and liked to be in his company. It was a pleasure to spend an hour in his room, he was so good natured and cheerful. I was very often saddened, too. Por, though ordinarily bright and witty, there was always, when we chanced to speak of personal matters, a certain ; hopelessness in his way of alluding to ' himself, as of one "booked " for a ■ premature grave. Burt did not drink habitually. About once in three or four months, an j ungovernable desire for alcohol carne í over him, and he would drink i sautly for three or four days. These excesses could not fail to result in ! lirium tremens. When Colby told me of this second attack of this fearful disease, my heart j sunk, for it seemed that Burt must now I be utterly lost. And as there are thousands of similar cases, the country over, , I should hardly deem this one likely to interest the reader, but for a strange incident that led Burt Slater to rise from a condition that is ordinarily as hopeless j as death itself. I did not see Burt that week. He kept, or rather was kept, to his room, and I did not care to see him. In the conree of a fortnight, however, he was once more at his work ; and, during all the rest of the nummer and fall, up to November' he did not indulge in cating drink. One bleak, windy i vember morning, however, the insane i appetite again rnse up within him. He wandered round with parched lips and blood-shot eyes, suffering almost ' durable torment from his raging thirst. ! At last, he hamessed one of his horses and rode down to L , twelve miles distant, hoping, as he afterward told j me, that the piercing cold would help him to overeóme his raging thirst. Having arrived at L , he put up his horse at a stable where he was I known, and begin to walk the streets, ! still hoping to overeóme the burning desire for alcohol. But the appetitt' was more than he j eould control, and, yielding to it at last, he went into a saloon, and, after taking j j one glass, he gave himself up to utter j indulgence. At night, when he again went to the : stable, he could scarcely stand, and seemed so uneonscious of what he was ' about that the men would not let him have his horse, and tried to havo him go into the hotel and stay until i ing. It was already late in the afternoon, ! and the weather was bitterly cold, but he would not heed their good counsel, I and, instead of going back into the ■ tel, he started to walk home, twelve miles distant. About half a mile out of the town, ; the road forks, the right branch leading out toward the river into a grove, where there is a large cemetery. By this time Burt did not know one road from anotlier, and, taking the wrong one, he got into the cemetery, where he staggered round hopelessíy lost. r ' í It happened that tliere liad been a ! funeral that afternoon, and a cofíin liad been deposited in one of the tombs, the door of which had not yet been closed. It was late when tho funeral procession left the cemetery, and the gate still stood open ; otherwise Bnrt would not have entered it. The wind was piercingly cold, and, though hardly conscious of it, Buit, to escape it, reeled through the open door into the tomb, and tumbled down in one corner. He either feil asleep orbecame utterly insensible from the liquor he had drank, for what followed till toward morning is j a blank to him. He must have been very quiet, too, for the sexton, on his late rounds, closed and locked the door of the tomb without seeimg or hearing amthing of him. It was not until some hotrrs had passed Burt came to hiniseif, somewhat, andbegan to wonder where he was. He lay for some time, trying, in a dull, heavy way, to solve this diflicuit problem. The air feit cold and damp. He was in darkness. He put out his hand. It touehed a cold stone. Upon this, he started, with a shudder, to his feet, though he was so benumbed that he staggered and feil back against the wall of the tomb. Was he in prison? Had he committed murder or some other criminal ofl'ense while he was drunk? The thought so appalled him that it cleared his brain to some extent of the ! effects of the alcohol. For the one j i thing which Burt had always feared more than anything else was that on one of his " sprees" he should kill some person. He feit in his pockets, found a match, and lighted it. By its dim light, he made the horrible discovery that he was in a tomb along with th dead. As yet, he cernid recall little or nothing of last evening's doings. How lie had got there, or who had put him there, or for what puipose, was more than he could divine. At first, he thought that he must have been taken for dead, and put in there to wait for a post-mortem examination, or something of that sort. But this idea was too improbable for him to entertain long; and there was even less probability that lie had been put there for a joke. Then he lighted more matches, and tried the door. It was a heavy iron - door, and securely bolted ; for he could not move it. Then he shouted for help till he made himself hoarse ; but the echo of his own voice, as it resounded througli the pentup resting-place of the dead, was his only reply. Now Burt was not a person to balarmed without good cause ; so, with . more composure than might be supposed, he sat down on a coffin and took account of his chances. They were not ' flattering. The only thing that he could be sure of was the faot that. he was in a tomb, with the door locked, and with a very poor prospect, so far as he could see, of getting out. The place was close and noisome to the last degree ; and, even il' not suffocated, he might have to remain there till he would be starved or frozen to death. He had a lDaded revolver in hisundercoat pocket. He took it out, thinking whether it would not be better to use it and end his life. For, even if he should live to get out of this horrible place, his fate, with his present habit, was only a question of time. That bullet would in one ipstant end it all. "Fora moment," sohe afterward told me, "it was a toss-up whichl should do, die then and there, or live on, if I could, and face temptation again." Then there came better thoughts. Ho thought of his business ; thought of what he might make it if it were not for ] his bad habits. He thought, too, of a dear lady friend who had never quite lust faith in him ; and then, by contrast, of what he was, and where he was at that moment ; bis life, too, and his duty to other people, as well as to himself, came to his mind in new lights. "What a fooi I've been ! " he said. " Worse than that, a weakling and a coward ! " There was ampie scope here for thought, certainly, and Burt did more i serions thinking then than he had ever done in his life before. The result was that he put his pistol in his pocket, and, in a better frame of mind, lookedhigher i than his own rash arm for aid. " I had never prayed, nor been taught to pray," he said to me, " but I honestly said aloud, that if God would give me one chance more I would try to be a better man, and lead a decent and honorable life." And the Great Father of all, hearing Burt Slater say tkese words, knew that he meant them. Having done this, he sat back and j waited his fate with a certain fortitude and stoicism which those who know his character would understand better than i a stranger. Morning came, but no cheery light found its way into the : tomb where he sat. The day dragged on. The place was stifling and i torably noxious. Benumbed and faint, and poisoned by the unhealthy gases, Buit at last feil asleep - a sleep, perhaps, from which he might never have waked on earth. Meantime Colby, at the D House, was anxious about him ; he had watched ' him drive off the previous morning, and feared it was uot for a good purpose. After dinncr that day, as Burt did not come back, he took Burt's hostler with ! him and drove down to L - - . The watch-dog at the stable, " Old Beave," went along with them. They went to the boarding-stable where Burt had put up his horse. They found the animal still there, and i learned what they could regarding him. The hostler took Burt's driving-gloves i out of the carriage and threw them down to the dog, then told him to "find Burt." Beave ran about the table, then up i to the hotel, and after a while he ran oft' along the D road. Colby and the hostler foïlowed as fast i aa they could run, and suw the dog go into the cemetery. When they carne i up he was at the tomb snufting at the ! door. " Oh, come away from there, you fooi ! " exclaimed Colby. " Not too fast, now," said the hostler. i " That dog is nobody'H fooi ! " They went up to the tomb door. " Burt ! " Colby shouted, incredulonsly. There was no answer, though the cali i had partly ïoused Burt from liis sleep. " Burt, you "ain't in there, are ye? " Yes, I am," came faintly through the heavy door. Both men uttered an exclamation of , surprise, Colby a very forcible one. I The hostlcr triad the door, and then ran to find the sexton, and in a short time they liad Burt out of the tomb. " Well, how'd ye get in there ? " asked Colby. "I don't now quite recollect," replied Burt, gravely. The two men looked steadily but expressively at each other a moment ; then Colby said : "Burfc, I wouldn't drink any more if I wfire you." "Ipn not going to," said Burt, quietly. The hostler gvinned. The astonished sexton locked the tomb again, and the three young men returned to their homes. These events oceurred more than three years ago. Young Slater has kept his word thus far, and has proved himself a capable, honest business man. His craving for Btiinulants is not yet wholly quenched. At times he experiences it ; but it is loss strong, and is slowly but surely growing weaker. If this man can reform, I believe it is in the power of every drunkard cursed by an appetite for intoxicating liquorto throw it off and beeome master of self.-