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The principal chimney-sweep of that fashionable quarter lived at the blind end of Mews Street; and the same corner contained an establishment much frequented about early morning and twilight for the purchase of wine-bottles and kitchen-stuff.
I offered him more drink, which he took eagerly, and I then returned for a further supply. I filled two of the wine-bottles with water and a small drop of spirits as before, and went back to where he lay. I found him more recovered, and I had hopes that he might still do well, and I told him so. "No, no," replied he; "I have but a few hours to live I feel that. Let me die here, and die in peace."
Thus were we occupied at intervals during the whole day, for Jackson would not allow me to try my voice too much at first. As the evening fell, he again asked me to fetch some liquor, and as I had three quart wine-bottles, as I before mentioned, which I had found in the chest, I took them down to fill, as it would save me many trips, and be more convenient in every respect.
He did help; and together we got a heap of sawdust and hundreds of empty wine-bottles; and these we built up at the end of the arched entrance between the cellars from floor to ceiling, just as if it had been a wine-bin, till the farther cellar was quite shut off with empty bottles.
Thence we passed into the chapter-house, but, before that, we went through a small room, in which Melville opened a cupboard, and discovered a dozen or two of wine-bottles; but our guide told us that they were now empty, and never were meant for jollity, having held only sacramental wine. In the chapter-house, we saw the library, some of the volumes of which were antique folios.
If traces of two persons drinking had been found in the room, the question naturally would have arisen, Who was the second? Besides, the wine-bottles might have been identified as belonging to me. The laudanum I poured out to account for its presence in his stomach, in case of post-mortem examination.
From such scenes we may safely infer that the plan of the Creator comprehends something more than material utility, that beauty is its own vindictator and interpreter, that sawmills were not the ultimate cause of mountain streams, nor wine-bottles of cork-trees. We had determined upon dining at Mölk the next day.
And then, if he didn't make me move the new sherry that had just come in and treat that the same, building up full bottles in front of the empty ones till the ceiling was reached once more, and the way in to the chests of gold plate shut up with wine-bottles two deep, one stack full, the other empty.
Any one who does not know obsidian may imagine great masses of bottle-glass, such as our orthodox ugly wine-bottles are made of, very hard, very brittle, and if one breaks it with any ordinary implement going, as glass does, in every direction but the right one.
How supremely dismal the rooms looked in their emptiness, with the litter of packing lying about! old boots and shoes in one corner; a broken parasol in another; battered fragments of toys everywhere; empty colour-tubes; old newspapers and magazines; a regiment of empty oil-flasks and wine-bottles in the den of a kitchen into which Mr. Fairfax peered curiously, out of very weariness.
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