"
"Ah," said he, shaking his head, "they might interest you more than
you suppose. But I had better be silent, Mr. Coverdale. If this
good wine,--though claret, I suppose, is not apt to play such a trick,--
but if it should make my tongue run too freely, I could never look
you in the face again."
"You never did look me in the face, Mr. Moodie," I replied, "until
this very moment."
"Ah!" sighed old Moodie.
It was wonderful, however, what an effect the mild grape-juice
wrought upon him. It was not in the wine, but in the associations
which it seemed to bring up. Instead of the mean, slouching, furtive,
painfully depressed air of an old city vagabond, more like a gray
kennel-rat than any other living thing, he began to take the aspect
of a decayed gentleman. Even his garments--especially after I had
myself quaffed a glass or two--looked less shabby than when we first
sat down. There was, by and by, a certain exuberance and
elaborateness of gesture and manner, oddly in contrast with all that
I had hitherto seen of him. Anon, with hardly any impulse from me,
old Moodie began to talk. His communications referred exclusively to
a long-past and more fortunate period of his life, with only a few
unavoidable allusions to the circumstances that had reduced him to
his present state. But, having once got the clew, my subsequent
researches acquainted me with the main facts of the following
narrative; although, in writing it out, my pen has perhaps allowed
itself a trifle of romantic and legendary license, worthier of a
small poet than of a grave biographer.
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