: The Black Lion Inn by Lewis Alfred Henry Remington Frederic Illustrator - Short stories American; American fiction 20th century

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Illustrator: Frederic Remington

THE BLACK LION INN

New York: R. H. Russell

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.

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