CHAPTER I.

"THIS IS THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT."

THERE it stood, at the corner of the street, the finest public-house in the populous neighbourhood of this London suburb. There it stood, with its plate-glass windows, and grand swinging doors, and brilliant lights at night, and the air of warmth and welcome and cheer, that, like the will-o'-the-wisp of the treacherous marsh, lured many a foolish wayfarer to ruin.

The place was kept by a man called John Drinkrow, to whom it had been bequeathed by his father, who had borne the same name. For a period of thirty years, John Drinkrow, the elder, had successfully carried on the business; then he died, leaving a considerable fortune, as well as the public-house itself, to his only son. During his long life, thrifty Jack (as he had been familiarly named) had laid claim to a sort of respectability upon which he had prided himself not a little. He had always gone to church once every Sunday, had paid his way punctually, and, though so much drinking went on under his very eyes, he himself was known to be very abstemious. He put his son to a good school, and it was not until the lad was sixteen that he suffered him to return home and join him in the daily work of the "business," as he complacently termed it.

John the younger, grew up resembling his father in some things. Like him he was perfectly sober, and proud of his respectability; but the thriftiness that had characterised old Jack had turned to miserliness in the son, and the passion for hoarding had increased with every year, until at the time that our story commences, it was the ruling motive of the man's life. He had married at an early age; but after four years his wife had died, leaving two little boys, with just a year's difference between them.

The children grew up with but little care from any one; the elder, Tom, taking after his father in quietness, steadiness, and love of hoarding; the younger, Ratcliffe, turning out wild and dissipated, with many good impulses, but also with a passionate love of excitement and pleasure which led him into bad companionship and into various forms of self-indulgence. Though often absent during many hours, for which he never accounted, he was still supposed to be living at home; but his father's anger and threats had lately become more frequent, and Ratcliffe knew that, sooner or later, unless he reformed, he would have to quit the parental roof. In the fear of this, he often resolved to mend his ways; but mere resolutions with no principle to back them are weak things at best, and generally a pressing invitation from some boon companion, or a few words of ridicule, were sufficient to tempt him back to old haunts and old sins, and the resolutions would be broken.

John Drinkrow's hoarding propensities had prevented his educating his sons in a proper manner. Tom, however, had managed to pick up some knowledge by reading and study in over-hours; but poor Ratcliffe could do little more than read and write, and add up the score of the customers at the bar. Thus he was despised and sneered at by his better informed brother; and this state of feeling between the two young men added not a little to the family trouble and discord.

One evening John Drinkrow was busy with his accounts in the little back parlour. His elder son was serving the customers; the younger was out. The gaslight shone full upon the old man as he bent with passionate intentness over his work; it shone on the hard-worn face with its deep lines and furrows, on the keen watchful eye gloating over the week's gains—gains not a few, as the long column of figures plainly testified.

Suddenly the door opened and Ratcliffe entered, his face flushed, his gait somewhat unsteady. His father looked up, with no welcome but a frown on his dark countenance.

"Father," said the young man, approaching the table and laying one hand upon it as though to steady himself; "father, it's some time since you gave me anything, and I'm hard up."

John did not even glance at his son as the latter spoke; he went on adding up his figures and counting his gains.

Ratcliffe waited a moment; then he said—

"Father, did you hear what I said?"

This time the publican looked up, cold, hard, contemptuous.

"Yes, I did hear," replied he, in the unsympathetic, metallic voice which might have been borrowed from the chink of his beloved coin; "yes, I hear well enough; what of it?"

Ratcliffe's face flushed more deeply. "Why, father," he said, "it's ever so long since I came to you for tin; I think you might give me some without all this business. I'm sure you've got heaps and needn't grudge it. I wouldn't grudge a child of mine a sov. over and above his wages now and then, if I'd a strong-room and bags and bags full like you."

Now Ratcliffe was excited with drink and vexation, or he would never have dared to say all this; for if anything angered John Drinkrow, it was an allusion to his truly miserly and very unwise habit of keeping his money in coin stowed away in a strong box, in a little room expressly arranged for this purpose, and next to his own bedroom.

The words had hardly gone out of Ratcliffe's mouth before his father rose and pointed to the door. His menacing wrath was terrible to witness, and Ratcliffe, sobered by the sight, his momentary boldness gene, staggered away from the table as though struck by a sudden blow.

"Go," said the father; "you have long been a disgrace to your brother and me; and I'll bear the burden of a spendthrift no longer. Get you gone—where you will; living or dying, I'll have none of you! Get you gone!"

"But, father!" cried the young man, with a wild gesture of despair. "Father, if you only knew! Oh, 'do' hear me! Hear me out!"

John interrupted him. "No more, I'll hear no more—get you gone!"

"Only one minute, father—God knows I'm—"

The old man's face grew livid with anger; his eyes were ablaze with unholy fire. In his excitement he rose and advanced a step with his arm outstretched. The son recoiled once more, gave his father one look, half of dread, half of defiance, then opened the door and was gone; and this was the beginning of great troubles for Ratcliffe himself, and also for the master of "the house that Jack built."

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