Jackson, I perceived, drank considerably, as if incited thereto by compressed savageness. The pretty young wife would not taste a drop, but tears frequently filled her eyes, and bitterness pointed her words as she vainly implored her husband to leave the place and go home with her. To all her remonstrances the maudlin drunkard replied only by foolery, varied occasionally by an attempt at a line or two of the song of "The Thorn." "But you _will_ plant thorns, Henry," rejoined the provoked wife in a louder and angrier tone than she ought perhaps to have used--"not only in my bosom, but your own, if you go on in this sottish, disgraceful way." "Always quarreling, always quarreling!" remarked Jackson, pointedly, towards the bystanders--"_always_ quarreling!" "Who is always quarreling?" demanded the young wife sharply. "Do you mean me and Henry?" "I was only saying, my dear, that you don't like your husband to be so generous and free-hearted--that's all," replied Jackson, with a confidential wink at the persons near him. "Free-hearted and generous! Fool-hearted and crazy, you mean!" rejoined the wife, who was much excited. "And you ought to be ashamed of yourself to give him money for such brutish purposes." "Always quarreling, always quarreling!" iterated Jackson, but this time unheard by Mrs. Rogers--"_always_, perpetually quarreling!" I could not quite comprehend all this. If so large a sum as £1500 was really coming to the young man, why should Jackson wince as he did at disbursing small amounts which he could repay himself with abundant interest? If otherwise--and it was probable he should not be repaid--what meant his eternal, "fine generous lad!" "spirited young man!" and so on? What, above all, meant that look of diabolical hate which shot out from his cavernous eyes towards Henry Rogers when he thought himself unobserved, just after satisfying a fresh claim on his purse? Much practice in reading the faces and deportment of such men made it pretty clear to me that Jackson's course of action respecting the young man and his money was not yet decided upon in his own mind; that he was still perplexed and irresolute; and hence the apparent contradiction in his words and acts. Henry Rogers at length dropped asleep with his head upon one of the settle-tables; Jackson sank into sullen silence; the noisy room grew quiet; and I came away.