put in a word in my behalf, and told the Deacon that Tom's misbehavior
did all grow out of the keeping of strong liquors for sale, and that he
was wrong to beat him so cruelly, seeing that he did himself place the
temptation before him. Thereupon the Deacon rose up angrily, bidding
uncle look well to his forward household. "Nay, girls," quoth mine
uncle, after his neighbor had left the house, "you have angered the good
man sorely."--"Never heed," said Rebecca, laughing and clapping her
hands, "be hath got something to think of more profitable, I trow, than
Cousin Margaret's hair or looks in meeting. He has been tything of mint
and anise and cummin long enough, and 't is high time for him to look
after the weightier matters of the law."

The selling of beer and strong liquors, Mr. Ewall says, hath much
increased since the troubles of the Colony and the great Indian war.
The General Court do take some care to grant licenses only to discreet
persons; but much liquor is sold without warrant. For mine own part, I
think old Chaucer hath it right in his Pardoner's Tale:--

"A likerous thing is wine, and drunkenness
Is full of striving and of wretchedness.
O drunken man! disfigured is thy face,
Sour is thy breath, foul art then to embrace;
Thy tongue is lost, and all thine honest care,
For drunkenness is very sepulture
Of man's wit and his discretion."



AGAMENTICUS, August 18.