A Madeira Party Read online

set by eachguest. Meantime the talk continued, while Chestnut looked on, muchamused at the gravity which of a sudden fell upon the party.

  "Olives?"

  "No," said Wilmington, declining. "Nothing cleans the palate likebread. For red wines, a peach helps one's taste. Your table isperfect, Hamilton;" and, turning to the servant, "It does you credit,Uncle John. How many a fellow must have rolled under it when it wasyoung! Ah, your old decanters and those coasters could tell some queertales."

  "A pretty word, 'coaster,'" remarked Chestnut. "Coasters deliveringwine at the human harbors around the table."

  "It is not in the dictionaries," said Francis.

  "Odd, that," returned Hamilton. "You may like to know, Chestnut, that atthis table Washington, Lafayette, and Franklin have dined."

  "All Madeira men, I doubt not," said Wilmington; "that accounts for agood deal."

  "Perhaps," said the host, smiling. "Ah, I see you glancing at thecigars, Chestnut. But, alas! they are forbidden until the Madeira hasbeen tasted."

  "Cigars!" exclaimed Wilmington. "The mere odor in a room destroys thepalate."

  "I have never held to this belief," said Francis, addressing Chestnut."But it is common among the lovers of wine. I would like to putWilmington on oath as to this strange opinion. At least he will permitme to ask him if he believes that smoking affects the taste of allwines?"

  "There is but one wine," returned Wilmington.

  "And his name is Madeira, of course," laughed Francis. "But there areother juices of the grape which cannot be quite set aside as bastards."

  "I might give a little corner of esteem to the highest grades ofBurgundy," said the old gentleman. "No other, not even the finestclaret, but is underbred compared to this aristocrat."

  "I can't go quite so far as that," said Francis. "Ah, me! Do youremember, Hamilton, that gay day at Dijon, long years ago, in the HotelJura, and the way that old innkeeper fell in love with you, and lavishedon us a varied harem of wines ever better and better, until at last youadmitted, as to a famous Beaune, that it was equal to any Madeira--"

  "What--what--I, sir? No, sir! My judgment must have been disturbed."

  "Oh, it is true."

  "Well, maybe; but--it is not so to-day," said Wilmington. "There is butone wine. I loved it when I was young; no new mistress can disturb myaffections. I never touch it now without a thought of the friends atwhom I have smiled a health across it in days long past. For the fool,a wine is wine and nothing more."

  "True, true," said Francis. "For me too, it is a magician. I never liftto my lips a glass of this noble wine without seeing faces that aregone, and hearing the voices and the laughter and the jests that are nomore."

  "Wine makes poets of us all!" exclaimed Hamilton. "Once I askedWilmington what he saw, for he was staring down into his glass, and hesaid he saw memories. By George! we were all as still as mice for amoment. But he is right; there is but one wine, and that, like tobacco,is an American discovery."

  "I can talk tobacco with you all day," said Chestnut. "Wine is anothermatter. We should have a monument to that unknown Indian brave whoevolved the pipe. How did he do it? There is the simplicity of geniusabout it. I can understand the discovery of America, and the inventionof printing; but what human want, what instinct, led up to tobacco?Imagine intuitive genius capturing this noble idea from the odors of aprairie fire! Surely, Lamb's roast pig was nothing to the discovery ofthe gentle joy of a wholesome pipe."

  "What a droll fancy!" said Francis. "I envy that fellow his firstsmoke--the first pipe of man."

  "My envy," said Chestnut, "is reserved for that medieval priest who byhappy chance invented champagne. His first night in the conventwine-cellar with the delicious results of his genius must have been--Iwonder no poet has dwelt on this theme."

  "We were talking about Madeira," remarked Wilmington, impatiently. "Youwere about to say, Hamilton,--"

  "Only that I am not quite so clear as to our credit for discoveringMadeira," said their host.

  "No? It is all in Smith's 'Wealth of Nations.' Great Britain allowedno trade with France or Spain; but as to what were called non-enumeratedarticles we were permitted to trade with the Canary and Madeiras. Wetook staves and salt fish thither, and fetched back wines. It sohappened that the decisive changes of weather our winter and summerafford did more to ripen this wine than its native climate. The Englishofficers during the French war found our Madeiras so good that they tookthe taste to England."

  "And yet," said Chestnut, "Madeira is never good in England. Is itclimate, or that they do not know how to keep it?"

  "Both--both," returned Wilmington. "They bottle all wines, and that issimply fatal. Madeira was never meant to be retailed. It improves inits own society, as greatness is apt to do."

  "I myself fancy," said the host, "that despite English usage, even portis better for the larger liberty of a five-gallon demijohn. I triedthis once with excellent result. The wine became pale and delicate likean old Madeira."

  "How all this lost lore comes back to me as I used to hear it at myfather's table!" said Chestnut. "I recall the prejudice against wine inbottle."

  "Prejudice, sir?" retorted Wilmington, testily. "Your demijohn has onecork; your five gallons in bottles, a dozen or two of corks, and thecorks give an acrid taste. Some wise old Quaker found this out, sir.That is why there is so little good wine in Charleston and Boston. Theybottle their wine. Incredible as it may seem, sir, they bottle theirwine."

  "That is sad," returned Chestnut, gravely.

  "Keep it in demijohns in moderate darkness under the roof," returnedFrancis. "Then it accumulates virtue like a hermit. I once had achallenge from the Madeira Club in Charleston to test our local theory.They sent me two dozen bottles of their finest Madeira. When we came tomake a trial of them, we were puzzled at finding the corks entire, butnot a drop of wine in any of the bottles. At last I discovered thatsome appreciative colored person had emptied them by the clever deviceof driving a nail through the hollow at the base of the bottles. Ifound, on experiment, that it could easily be done. A letter from myfriends forced me to tell the story. I fancy that ingenious servant mayhave suffered for his too refined taste."

  "But he had the Madeira," said Wilmington grimly, glancing at the oldservant. "I have no doubt Uncle John here has a good notion ofMadeira."

  The old black grinned responsively, and said, with the familiarity of anancient retainer, "It's de smell ob it, sar. Ye gets to know 'em by desmell, sar."

  "That is it, no doubt," laughed Francis. "By and by we shall all haveto be content with the smell. It is becoming dearer every year."

  "I found yesterday," said Hamilton, "an invoice of fifty-eight pipes ofMadeira, of the date of 1760. The wine is set down as costing onedollar and four cents a gallon. I should have thought it might havebeen less, but then it is spoken of as very fine."

  "My father," returned Wilmington, "used to say that the newer wines inhis day were not much dearer than good old cider. They drank them bythe mugful."

  "I remember," said Francis, "that Graydon speaks of it in his'Memoirs.'"

  "Who? What?" cried Wilmington, who was a little deaf. "Oh!Graydon--yes, I know the man and the book, of course, but I do notrecall the passage."

  "He says: 'Our company'--this was in 1774--'our company was called "TheSilk-Stocking Company." The place of rendezvous was the house of ourcaptain,[#] where capacious demijohns of Madeira were constantly set outin the yard, where we formed for regular refreshment before marching outto exercise.' He was most amusing, too, as to why the captain was soliberal of his wine: but I can't quite recall it, and I hate to spoil aquotation. You would find the book entertaining, Chestnut."

  [#] Afterward General John Cadwalader.

  "How delightful!" exclaimed Chestnut. "Capacious demijohns in the yard,and the descendants of Penn's Quakers--anti-vinous, anti-pugnaciousQuakers--drilling for the coming war! By George! one can see it. Oneguesses that it was not out
of such fairy glasses as these they drankthe captain's Madeira."

  "I am reminded," cried Hamilton, "that I have a letter of the captain'sbrother, Colonel Lambert Cadwalader, to Jasper Yeates, at Lancaster, in1776. It is interesting. Wait a moment; I will get it." And so saying,he left the table, and presently returning said, "I will read only thebit about the wine. It shows how