Mr Weston's Good Wine by T. F. Powys

Author:T. F. Powys [Powys, T. F.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780099503743
Google: zmLCFrlck1YC
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2006-05-14T14:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 22

A Pretty Beast

BESIDE a little copse of willows that was reached by one of the prettiest of the Folly Down lanes, and close to a pleasant well of clear spring water, there lived Mr. Luke Bird.

Luke Bird’s hut had more the appearance of an arbour than a cottage, and was the very place, no doubt, where good Christian lost his roll, and no arbour upon earth could have been more suited to meditation, that blessed handmaid of all true religion, than Mr. Bird’s.

There is no kind of bush growing in the fields that can give more gentle feelings to man, or move more tender and gracious thoughts in his heart, than the willow tree. ‘The moon owns it. The leaves, bruised and boiled in wine, subdue lust in men and women. The flowers have an admirable faculty in drying up humours, being a medicine without any sharpness or corrosion; you may boil them in red wine and drink freely. It is a fine cooling tree.’

No one, and least of all so sensitive a young man as Luke Bird, could dwell in such a place without soon finding himself in perfect harmony with his surroundings. The gentle shade of the cool willows in summer, their kindly shelter against the north wind in the winter, informed Luke Bird that God was kind.

Luke had been unfortunate in his life, for he had once been a clerk in a brewery. But that, though bad enough, is not the worst that we have to tell of him. He had also tried to bring the hearts of the people of a little village called Dodder to God. And even that is not all. He had wished to marry Rose Pring, and he had tried to marry Winnie. But in nothing, neither in religion nor in love, nor in his clerkship, had he been a success.

Luke Bird had been turned away from his work because he had once had the courage to preach a little sermon in office time to Sir James Hop, the rich owner of the brewery, upon the evils of drink. Sir James, who was a member of Parliament, and should at that very moment have been addressing a meeting of his supporters in the Maidenbridge town hall, listened with extreme politeness to Luke, and as soon as the young man had finished, he was kind enough to explain to him, in the mildest tone—whereas Luke had used the warmest—that far the greater part of the liquid called beer is made of pure water, and that, if simple-minded people liked to buy water at sixpence a pint, the drinking of it could do no harm to themselves, but a great deal of good to the firm that sold it.

Sir James also explained that man is a free agent, moving here or there in his own time as he chooses, and dwelling as a rule in a house where, if there isn’t a tap in the back kitchen, there is usually a well in the garden.

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