Читать книгу The Bunsby Papers (second series): Irish Echoes - John Brougham - Страница 9

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"Oft do we envy those whose lot, if known,

Would prove to be less kindly than our own."

The change accomplished by the embodied wishes of the two discontented mortals was, to all appearance, perfect. They bore, indeed, the outward semblance each of the other, but yet retained their own individual thoughts, feelings, and inclinations; and manifold, as may be imagined, were the embarrassments and annoyances consequent upon this strange duality, to the great mystification of their respective households.

The morning after the singular compact was made, the more than usually outrageous conduct of the supposed Bulworthy placed the establishment in the greatest possible uproar, for the nerves and sinews of the imprisoned Dan, wholly unacquainted, ere this, with any ailment other than the emptiness of hunger, or the occasional headache whisky purchased, now twisted and stretched with the sharper agonies laid up by his predecessor, lashed him into an absolute hurricane of fury. Unable to move his nether extremities, he gnashed his teeth, venting his rage by smashing everything that he could reach.

This terrible turmoil reached the ears of the domestics, filling them with apprehension.

"Be good to us," said Mary. "What is it now?"

"Ora, don't ax me," replied Barney, who had just come down from the caged lion. "It's fairly bewildhered I am, out an' out; I wouldn't wondher av it was burn the house about our ears he would, in one of his tanthrums."

"What's worryin' him now?"

"Faix, the misthress is at the head ov it, an' the gout's at the feet, an', between the two, I wouldn't be surprised av his thrunk was imptied afore long."

Up stairs the tempest raged with undiminished fury.

"I tell you I won't, I won't," roared the impatient patient. "I never could taste a dhrop of physic in my life."

"Oh, my! what a fib," said his consoler, the sweet-voiced Mrs. Bulworthy. "Why, you've swallowed enough to kill a regiment of decent people. Indeed, I don't know what's come over you to day, at all; you're not a bit like yourself."

"The devil I'm not," said the other, somewhat alarmed; but a glance at his swathed extremities, accompanied by a spasm of pain, gave him uncomfortable assurance that he was still in the Squire's skin. "Bedad, ma'm," he went on, "if you and the gout ain't enough to drive a man out of himself, I don't know what would; get out, I tell you, and leave me alone; one at a time's enough."

"Will you promise to read this tract, then?"

"It's a mighty fine time to talk about readin'. How much money am I worth?"

"You surely don't forget that, Pether?"

"Well, indeed, what with the pain and other little matters, it has slipped my memory."

"Just eight thousand six hundred pounds."

"As much as that? murdher alive! you don't say so; then let us pack up and be off," cried he, with an injudicious bound of pleasure that brought the corkscrew into his joints with redoubled acuteness.

"Go, where?" inquired Mrs. Bulworthy, as coolly as though she were enjoying the agony which revelled through his racked frame.

"Anywhere," screamed he. "Anywhere out of this vagabone neighborhood. Ah! tear an aiges av I thought I was going to be massacreed in this way, I'd a stayed as I was; it's to the very marrow of my bones that I'm sorry for it now."

"Sorry for what, Pether?" said Mrs. Bulworthy; "what in the name of gracious are you raving about?"

"Nothing," replied he, "only it's ravin' with the hunger I am; I feel as if I hadn't had anything to eat for six weeks or more."

"Sure, won't you have something in a few minutes," said she. "There's the turtle soup and curried lobster you ordered for lunch getting ready as fast as it can."

"You don't tell me that; may-be I won't astonish it then," said he, smacking his lips at the delicious anticipation of devouring dishes that, to him, were hitherto apocryphal things.

"Is there anything else you want before I go?"

"Nothing in the world, except, may-be, you might just run over the way and see how Mrs. Duff and the babby is."

"Heigh-day!" screamed Mrs. Bulworthy, bestowing upon him one of her most indignant glances. "I'd like to know what business you have to be thinking of Mrs. Duff and her babby!"

"Would you, really, ma'm? then, if your curiosity is anyway tickled, I'll have you to understand that it's a mighty high regard I entertain for them two people," replied he.

"You do, do you? why, then, it's a face you have to say that same to me, you dirty, miserable, money-scrapin' ignoramus; me, that took such care of your body and sowl for so many years."

"Read one of your papers, ma'm; practice what you preach," suggested the fictitious Bulworthy.

"How would you look if I was to say that I had a regard for the cobbler himself, since you're so mightily interested in his wife?" said she, with an injured-woman air and look.

"Say, ma'm! Bedad, I'd say that the cobbler isn't such a fool as to return the compliment," replied the other, in a provoking tone, that made the eyes of Mrs. Bulworthy flash green like those of a cat in the dark.

"I'm not so sure of that," she retorted, with a meaning toss of her fallacious curls, that implied unspeakable things.

"But I am, you see, strange as it may appear, ma'm," he went on, with a jolly laugh, strangled suddenly by a gouty pang that made him roar again.

"Serve you right, you ungrateful reprobate; I saw you this morning flinging your good-for-nothing eyes at the jade; but I'll serve you out for it, see if I don't; you shall have a blessed time, if ever a man had in the world, you vile, deceitful, double-faced old porcupine; after the years we've been together, too, slavin' and working to scrape up the bit of money to be the comfort of our old age," she continued, diverging into the sentimental, and dropping a few hard tears, that fell from her cold eyes like pellets of hail. "You want to break my heart, you do, you murderer, that you may follow your wicked coorses without hendrance. Mrs. Duff and her babby; indeed, her babby! how do I know who's babby it is?" and she looked green-eyed monsters at the supposititious Squire, who heightened her fiery temper up to explosion-point, by replying, with a chuckle.

"Faix, the babby's mine, I b'leeve."

Now be it understood that, for the instant, his disputable identity was forgotten, and it was all Dan that spoke:

"Yours," shrieked the now infuriated female, making a threatening demonstration towards him.

"Yes—no—I mean—oh, murdher, I forgot I was ould Bulworthy for a minnit. It's a rise I was takin' out of you, that's all," he went on, "just for the fun of the thing."

The further discussion of this delicate subject was put a stop to by the entrance of Barney and Mary with the Squire's lunch; a very gratifying and timely interruption to the stormy tête-à-tête, in the opinion of one of the party, at all events.

The delicious condiments being duly served, from which arose an appetizing odor, stimulating Dan's appetite into ravenous hunger, "Won't you sit down, ma'm," said he, "and take a mouthful?"

"Indeed, and it's polite you are, all of a sudden. You never asked the like before, but was always glad enough to get me out of sight that you might gormandize to your heart's content," replied she, acrimoniously. "But it's a sure sign that you are guilty of something wrong somewhere, with somebody, or you wouldn't be so extra accommodating."

"Sit down, and howld yer prate," cried the other, anxious to attack the tempting viands.

"I won't, you ould sinner. I know you don't want me, it's only your conscience that's giving you no rest. I'll leave you to stuff and cram, and I only wish it was pison, that I do." With this pleasant observation, hissed viperously through her closed teeth, she flounced out of the room, giving the door a parting bang that sent an electric shock of pain through poor Dan's nervous system.

"Oh! milliah murdher," groaned he, "an' this is the agreeable speciment of a walkin' vinegar-cruet, that I left my scanty but comfortable home, and the angel that made a heaven of it, for. Well, the fools ain't all gone yet—but, never mind, isn't there the money and the eatin'; so, here goes to have a feed that 'ud take the concate out of a hungry elephant."

So saying, he lifted off the cover, and plunged the ladle into the steaming tureen, when, to his enormous surprise, instead of the savory mess he anticipated, he fished up and deposited upon his plate, the identical little jockey before described, spurs and all.

"How are you, Mr. Duff?" said he, touching his cap in true stable style, as he seated himself upon the raised edge of the soup-plate.

"You have the advantage of me, sir," replied Dan, reverentially, for he was a firm believer in "the good people," that is to say, the fairies, and dreaded the immensity of their power.

"We haven't met before, to be sure," said the little fellow, "but you see I know who you are, in spite of that fleshy stuffing you have got into."

"Bedad, there's no mistake about that, sir," replied Dan. "Would it be too great a liberty to ax what it is I'm indebted to for the honor of your company at this particular time?"

"Certainly not, Dan. The fact is, between you and me, I'm always present where there's such good cheer to be found as I see before me."

"Indeed, sir, an' would it inconvenience you much to sit somewhere else, for I'm mortial hungry at this present minit, an' I'm afeard I'd be splashin' your boots with the gravy."

"Anything to oblige," said the other, jumping over the edge of the plate, like a four-year old.

"Thank you, sir. I'll do as much for you, provided it's in my power," observed the hungry cobbler, drawing nearer a huge dish of curried lobster, the spice-laden steam from which would create a new appetite in repletion's self. Heaping up his plate, while his mouth filled with water at the glorious sight, he was just about to shovel a vast quantity into his capacious mouth, when a sharp

"Stop, Dan!" from the little jockey, arrested his hand mid-way.

"Do you know the result of your eating that mouthful?"

"Never a bit of me, sir," said Dan, making another movement towards his head.

"Ha! wait till I tell you," cried the other.

Dan stopped again. "This is wonderful tantalizin' to an impty Christian," said he.

"Listen, Dan. I have a sort of regard for you, and so I'll give you this warning: If you swallow that stuff that's overloading your knife"—Dan wasn't genteel in his eating—"I'll have to ride a hurdle race upon your big toe, and I'll be bail that I'll make it beat all the rest of your anatomy in the way of jumping."

"You don't mean that?" cried Dan, dropping knife and all into the plate before him.

"Every word of it," said the little fellow.

"Oh, get out! you're not in airnest?"

"May-be you'd like to try?"

"Be the mortial o' war, I don't b'leeve you, anyway the hungriness is drivin' all consequences out of me reckonin', so, here goes, jump or no jump." So, with a desperate recklessness, Dan rushed greedily at the eatables, and never in his life did he eat the tithe part of what he demolished upon this occasion. Everything on the table disappeared before his all-devouring appetite, like smoke, and as the materials were handy, he topped all up with a "screechin' hot" tumbler of whisky-punch, stiff enough to poke courage into any man's heart.

In the meantime, wholly absorbed in his prodigious banquet, he had quite lost sight of his friend, the jockey; but now, as with a sigh of intense satisfaction, he reclined back in the cushioned chair, he became sensible of a sort of fidgetiness about his foot, and on looking down, what should he see but the little chap, very busy indeed, with his whip in his mouth, saddling up his big toe, as gingerly as you please. He was just giving the girth a last pull, which he accompanied with the usual jerking expression, making Dan wince a little, from a sense of tightness in the nag.

The business-like manner of the chap, however, soon banished the uncomfortable feeling, and so excited Dan's risibilities, that the tears rolled down his cheeks with uncontrollable laughter. It is astonishing how very near the surface the leverage of a good dinner and a warm "tod," lifts up one's jolly feelings.

Dan was now in a condition to sign a treaty of perpetual amity with all mankind.

Delusive tranquillity!

"Mount," cried the little rider, jumping into his saddle. "Hurrah! off we go! heigh!"

The first slash of the whip and dig of the spur changed the nature of Dan's emotions most effectually. He roared, he raged, he twisted about like an eel on a spear. Still fiercely and unmercifully the little jockey plied the lash and the goad. Still he shouted, "Hurrah! jump, you devil, jump!"

Now, Dan swore like a rapparee; now, he called upon every saint in the calendar; but there was no cessation to his torture. In the extremity of his fury, he flung the whisky-bottle at the little rider's head; but as it struck his own foot, it only augmented the terrible agony.

From praying and swearing he fell to weeping, but the stony-hearted little tyrant was not assailable by tears or entreaties. Promises of amendment were equally useless; until, at last, happening to recollect what a horror all supernaturals have of the pure element, he seized a tumbler of water, and nearly drowned his tormentor with its contents. This had the desired effect. The little vagabond dismounted with a shrill cry of annoyance, and rushed over towards the fire-place, to dry his soaked garments.

"Ha, ha! you thief of the world, I know what'll settle your hash now—wather!" said Dan, instantly relieved from pain; "and, wid a blessin', you shall have enough of that same, if ever you venture to come hurdle-racin' on any toes o' mine.

"Stick to that Dan, my hero," said the little fellow, as he shook the drops off his drenched jacket; "stick to that, and you may depend upon it that I'll never trouble you any more."

And so, having got rid of his enemy, Dan snuggled himself back into the comfortable easy-chair, and very soon forgot himself and all the real world, in the perplexities and comic horrors of a dyspeptic dream.