#Old tavern keeper sci fi license#

The summer had been an unusually hot and dry one, and this August ending had seen no relief. Preserve my son, I pray.Īround him on its heights and marshes the city of Bristol swam in a sea of gritty smoke, the spires of its many churches wellnigh hidden. For Thy wrath so often seems to fall upon those who have not offended Thee. I wish, God, said Richard to that invisible Being, that Thou wert not so cruel. If a man paid his bills on time, he could always get special terms from his wholesalers. Mag was a splendid cook of plain food, and all the petty regulations dating from the time of Good Queen Bess which hedged a Bristol tavern-keeper around - no bread to be baked on the premises, no animals killed to avoid buying from a butcher - were, thought Dick Morgan, actually benefits. A tavern on Broad Street! Why, even after paying the Corporation £21 a year in rent, the proprietor of a tavern on Broad Street could not help but see a profit of £100 a year! It had answered well, as the Morgan family was not afraid of hard work, Dick Morgan never watered down his rum and gin, and the food available at dinner time (around noon) and supper time (around six) was excellent.

#Old tavern keeper sci fi license#

When the license of the Cooper's Arms around the corner on Broad Street had come up last year, Dick Morgan had leaped at it. It must be added that Cousin James-the-druggist had a splendid shop for local retail on Corn Street he made most of his money, however, in manufacturing and exporting drugs and chemical compounds from corrosive sublimate of mercury (used to treat syphilitic chancres) to laudanum and other opiates. It was in Bell Lane and part of the tortuous complex of tenements, warehouses and underground chambers in control of Cousin James-the-druggist, who shared the south side of the narrow alley with the equally rambling premises of the American woolbrokering firm of Lewsley & Co. They had run the Bell then, Dick's first tavern of his own. Little Mary was over two years old before Peg commenced to wean her. Though not prone to espouse women's ideas, Dick Morgan, veteran of forty years in the tavern business, heartily concurred. Those babes put to it too young, said Peg the farmer's daughter (echoed by Mag), always grew up to be drunkards. No water for a Bristol child, any more than for a London one! There was not much intoxicant in small beer, but it did have some. Nor did Peg stint her milk, terrified of the day when Mary would have to be weaned from the breast on to small beer.

Thus his new trade of victualler suited Richard far more than gunsmithing now that he had a child a tavern was a family business, a place wherein he could constantly be with his daughter, see her with her mother, watch the miracle of Peg's beautiful breast serve as a cushion for the babe's head while the tiny mouth worked at getting milk.