And yet, in his way of handling the glass, in his preliminary snuff at
the aroma, in his first cautious sip of the wine, and the gustatory
skill with which he gave his palate the full advantage of it, it was
impossible not to recognize the connoisseur.
"I fancy, Mr. Moodie," said I, "you are a much better judge of wines
than I have yet learned to be. Tell me fairly,--did you never drink it
where the grape grows?"
"How should that have been, Mr. Coverdale?" answered old Moodie shyly;
but then he took courage, as it were, and uttered a feeble little
laugh. "The flavor of this wine," added he, "and its perfume still
more than its taste, makes me remember that I was once a young man."
"I wish, Mr. Moodie," suggested I,--not that I greatly cared about it,
however, but was only anxious to draw him into some talk about
Priscilla and Zenobia,--"I wish, while we sit over our wine, you would
favor me with a few of those youthful reminiscences."
"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.