The mystery was easily cleared up, and I mounted my horse and was soon on the road through the sides of the mountain. It was wild and unfrequented; nay, it was, in places, almost impassable, especially in the night. Mr. Judkins, the father of the sick man, not only resided quite beyond my usual range of practice, but almost out of the range of everybody else, squirrels and rabbits and wild fowls excepted.
In passing along, I made many inquiries with regard to the particular condition of the young man, in order to prepare myself for a more rapid investigation of his case whenever I should arrive. But I sought in vain. The messenger's lips were almost wholly sealed. The cause, at that time, I did not at all understand; but I had, subsequently, great reason to believe he was silent and reserved by the special command of the patient's friends. All I could obtain from my guide, was that Hezekiah had an ill turn; that he was occasionally subject to ill turns, and that the family were greatly alarmed about him.
On my arrival, I found a group of friends large enough, almost, for a train band, gathered so closely round the bed of the young man that he could hardly breathe. There was, also, a monstrous fire in the chimney, sufficient to heat well the whole house, had the heat been properly distributed. The air was, at best, greatly confined; but it was particularly so to the poor patient, who lay panting as if in a dying condition.
Yet I soon saw, and, as it were, instinctively, that he was not likely to die immediately. Some adventitious cause was evidently operating to throw his brain and nervous system into an abnormal condition, nor was I long in determining what it was. The father was a farmer. He possessed immense orchards, and made great quantities of cider, and one of his neighbors owned a distillery. For every barrel of cider Mr. J. carried to the distillery, he received in return a certain amount of cider-brandy; and at the time when I was called to see Hezekiah, he had more than two barrels of this "precious commodity" in his cellar. At the close of autumn he had had three barrels.
Why this deposit of an article so doubtful? And what had become of the one barrel which had disappeared? Not a member of the family would touch it, but Mr. J. himself, and Hezekiah. The women and children did, indeed, sometimes taste a little molasses toddy, as it was called. Mr. J. would prepare it and pass it round in the morning just before breakfast, in the hope and expectation that all would taste it; and they usually did so. It was not, however, quite a voluntary thing on their part, but a species of moral compulsion. Left entirely to themselves, they never would have tasted it.