Читать книгу A Whim, and Its Consequences - G. P. R. James - Страница 11

About two o'clock in the day, Chandos sat in the cottage, which was destined to be his future abode for some time, with the gipsey-boy Tim seated on a chair beside him. The old General had gone up to the house to send off a servant to the village surgeon; and the two young ladies had accompanied their uncle, promising to dispatch the housekeeper immediately to aid Chandos in his task. The boy bore the pain, which he undoubtedly suffered, exceedingly well. He neither winced nor cried; but remained quite still in the chair, and only repeated, from time to time, that he should like to go to his mother. Chandos soothed and quieted him with great kindness, and was in the midst of a story, which seemed completely to engage the little man's attention, when the door suddenly opened; and a tall, thin old man entered, whose whole dress and appearance, showed him at once to be an oddity. His head was covered with what much better deserved the name of a tile, than that which sometimes obtains it, in our good city of London. It was a hat with enormous brims, and the smallest possible portion of crown, so that it was almost self-evident that the organs of hope and veneration, if the old gentleman had any, must be somewhat pressed upon by the top of the shallow box into which he put them. From underneath the shelter of this wide-spreading beaver, floated away a thin wavy pigtail of white hair, bound with black ribbon, which, as all things have their prejudices, had a decided leaning to his left shoulder in preference to his right. He had on a coat of black, large, easy, and wrinkled, but spotless and glossy, showing that its original conception must have been vast, and that the disproportion between its extent, and the meagre limbs it covered, was not occasioned by those limbs having shrunk away from the garment, with which they were endued. The breeches fitted better: and, indeed, in some parts must have been positively tight; for a long line of snow-white cambric purfled up, like the slashings of a Spanish sleeve, which appeared between the top of the breeches and the remote silk waistcoat, showed that the covering of his nether man maintained itself in position by the grasp of the waistband round his loins. An Alderney cow can never be considered perfect, unless the herd can hang his hat on her haunch-bone, while he makes love to Molly, milking her; and the haunch-bones of worthy Mr. Alexander Woodyard, Surgeon, &c. were as favourable to the sustentation of his culottes, without the aid of other suspenders. Waistcoat and breeches were both black; and so, also, were the stockings and the shoes, of course. These shoes were tied with a string, which was inharmonious; for the composition of the whole man denoted buckles. Round his neck, without the slightest appearance of collar, was wound tight, a snowy white handkerchief of Indian muslin. In fact, with the exception of his face and hands, the whole colouring of Sandy Woodyard, as the people improperly called him, was either black or white. His face, though thin and sharp as a ferret's, was somewhat rubicund. Indeed, if any blood ever got up there, it could not well get out again, with that neckcloth tied round his throat, like a tourniquet: and the hands themselves were also reddish; but by no means fat, showing large blue veins, standing out, like whipcord in a tangle.

To gaze upon him, he was a very awful looking person; to hear him talk, one would have supposed him an embodied storm; so fierce were his denunciations, so brutal his objurgations. But he had several good qualities, with a few bad ones. He was an exceedingly good surgeon, a very learned man, and the most sincere man upon earth--except when he was abusing a patient or a friend, to their face. Then, indeed, he said a great deal that he did not mean; for he often told the former, when refractory, that they would die and he hoped they would, when he knew they would not, and would have given his right-hand to save them; and, the latter, he not unfrequently called fools and blackguards, where, if they had been the one or the other, they would not have been his friends at all.

When Mr. Alexander Woodyard entered the room, in the head-gardener's cottage, he gazed, first at the boy, and then at Chandos, demanding, in a most irate tone, "What the devil have I been sent here for?--Who is ill?--What's the matter, that I should be disturbed in the very midst of the dissection of a field-mouse in a state of torpidity?"

"If you are the surgeon, Sir," replied Chandos, "I suppose it was to see this little boy that you were disturbed. He has--"

"Don't tell me what he has," replied Mr. Woodyard. "Do you suppose I don't know what he has better than you. Boy, put out your tongue.--Does your head ache?--Let me feel your pulse."

The boy did not seem to comprehend him at all; neither put out his tongue, nor his wrist, and gazed at the old man with big eyes, full of terror.

"There, don't be a fool, little man," said the surgeon, taking him by the arm, and making him shrink with pain. "Oh, oh! that's it, is it? So, you have luxated your shoulder. We'll soon put it in, my dear. Don't be afraid! You are a brave boy, I dare say."

"That he is," answered Chandos; "for it was in endeavouring to defend General Tracy from a bull, which had knocked him down, that he got tossed and hurt."

"Plague light upon that old fool!" cried the uncourteous doctor; "he's always getting himself, or some one else, into a scrape. It is just two years ago I had to cut four holes in his leg, where he had been bit by a mad dog, because he was as mad as the dog himself, and insisted that the beast was quite sane, contrary to the opinion of the whole village. When doggy bit his best friend, however, he became convinced he was mad--though, if biting one's friends were a sign of madness, we should have to cage the whole world. I had my revenge, however, for I cut away deep enough--deep enough, till the old fool writhed. He wouldn't roar, as I wished; but never a bullet went into his old carcase, (nor ever will,) that made a larger hole than either of the four that I made.--And now he has had to do with a mad bull! I will answer for it, he went up and patted its head, and called it a curly-pated old coxcomb--Didn't he, boy?"

"No," replied little Tim, boldly, "he didn't. He knocked at farmer Thorpe's big bull with his stick, when it ran after the ladies; and the bull poked him down; for it did not get him on his horns, like it did me."

"That's a good boy--that's a good boy," replied the old man; "always tell the truth, whoever says the contrary. Now, master what's your name, we'll have his jacket off; for, though there seems but little of it, still it may be in the way. You look strong enough, and can help, I dare say; though I don't know who the devil you are--but mind, you must do exactly what I tell you, neither more nor less. If you do, I'll break your head, and not mend it. Put your arms round the boy's waist."

Chandos did as he was directed, after having taken the little fellow's jacket off; and the worthy surgeon then proceeded to replace the dislocated arm in the socket, an operation which required more corporal strength than his spare frame seemed to promise. He effected it skilfully and powerfully, however, giving the poor boy as little pain as possible; but, nevertheless, making him cry out lustily.

"Ay, that's right; roar!" cried the doctor. "That's the very best thing you can do. It eases the diaphragm, my lad, and keeps the lungs in play. I never saw any good come of a silent patient, who lets you cut him up without saying a word. They all die; but your roarer is sure to get well. There--there, it's in! Now, give me that bandage, my man; we must keep it down tight, for the muscles have had an awful wrench. It's all over, my dear--it's quite done, and you shall have a shilling for bellowing so handsomely. You're a good little man for not kicking me in the stomach, as a great lubber once did, who should have known better. How do you feel now?"

"Oh, quite comfortable since it went snack," answered the boy.

The old gentleman laughed, saying, "Ay, 'snack' is a pleasant sound in a case of dislocation. You see it is when the round end of the bone--;" and he was going on to explain to Tim and Chandos the whole process and causes of going 'snack,' which is very different, it would seem, in the plural and singular number, when a voice was heard without, exclaiming "Where's my boy?--What has happened to my boy?", and the gipsey woman who had sat next to Chandos when he was at the encampment in the lane rushed in, with her glittering black eyes flashing like stars with excitement and agitation. "Where's my boy?" she screamed again, before she had time to look around; and then, seeing the little fellow in the chair, she exclaimed, "Oh, Tim, what are they doing to you?" and was running forward to catch him to her heart, when Mr. Woodyard waved her back with his left hand, while he held the last fold of the bandage with his right. "Keep back, you tawny baggage," he cried, "If you come near him till I've done, I'll bruise you. Sit still, you little infernal bit of Egypt, or I'll strangle you with the end of this thing. Hold him tight, young man, or he'll have the joint out again, by--!" And the old gentleman, who had been a naval surgeon in his day, added a very fierce nautical oath: one of those which were unfortunately current in all mouths on board ships of war in his youthful years.

The gipsey woman stopped at once, and made a sign to the boy, who was instantly as still as a ruin; but the old surgeon continued to abuse her most atrociously, till he had finished bandaging the arm, calling her every bad name that a fertile imagination and a copious vocabulary could supply. It is wonderful, however, how quick is sometimes the conception of character amongst the lower classes, especially those who are subject to any kind of persecution. The poor woman stood perfectly calm; a faint smile crossed her lip at the old man's terrible abuse, as if a feeling of amusement at his affected violence crossed the deeper emotions which filled her large black eyes with tears. She said not a word in reply; she showed no sign of anger; and when at length all was done, and, patting the boy's head with his broad skinny hand, Mr. Woodyard said, in another voice, "There, you little dog, you may go to your mammy now," she started forward, and kissed the surgeon's hand--even before she embraced her child. She had understood him in a moment.

A short time was passed by mother and son in tenderness, wild and strange, but striking; she kissed his eyes and his lips, and held him first at a distance, then close to her heart; she put her hands upon his curly head, and raised her look upwards, where hope and thankfulness seek Heaven. Then she asked all that had happened; and with simple prattle the boy told her how he had seen the bull attack the old General, and had run to frighten it. And the woman laughed and cried at her child's courage and his folly. But when he went on to say--after relating how he had found himself flying in the air,--"Then that man came up, and caught him by the tail, and whacked him till he tumbled down," she turned to Chandos, and kissed his hand too.

"But the best of it all, mammy," cried the boy, who entered into the spirit of his own story, "was when farmer Thorpe came up, and bullied the two men as they were looking at me; and how that one told him he would whack him as he had whacked the bull, if he did not cut his quids."

"So farmer Thorpe bullied, did he?" cried the woman, "He's a tiger: but snakes even bite tigers." And she added something in a low voice, which sounded to Chandos's ear, "Let him look to his farm-yard."

Certain it is that the next night passed distressfully to the poultry of farmer Thorpe. When he looked in the morning, where many a turkey had been fattening for Christmas, and capons and fowls strutted proud, he found feathers but not fowls. The geese, indeed, were spared, Heaven only knows why; but from the imperial black bubblyjock down to Dame Partlet's youngest daughter, all the rest were gone. Yet there was a large fierce dog in the yard, as fierce as his master or his master's bull. There are, however, always in this world moyens de parvenir; and the fierce dog was found to have made himself very comfortable during the cold wintry night with feathers which must have been plucked off his tender flock under his nose. What a picture of

"A faithless guardian of a charge too good!"

However, putting the morality of the thing out of the question, the fact is curious, as the first recorded instance of a dog using a feather-bed.

The whole of the last paragraph is a huge parenthesis; and as it is not easy to get back again after such an inordinate digression without a jump or an hiatus, we will take the latter, and end the chapter here.