Читать книгу Judge Haliburton's Yankee Stories (Part 1 of 2) - Thomas Chandler Haliburton - Страница 11

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Did you ever heer tell of Abernethy, a British doctor? said the Clockmaker. Frequently, said I, he was an eminent man, and had a most extensive practice. Well, I reckon he was a vulgar critter that, he replied, he treated the hon’ble Alden Gobble, secretary to our legation at London, dreadful bad once; and I guess if it had been me he had used that way, I’d a fixed his flint for him, so that he’d think twice afore he’d fire such another shot as that are again. I’d make him make tracks, I guess, as quick as a dog does a hog from a potatoe field. He’d a found his way out of the hole in the fence a plagy sight quicker than he came in, I reckon.

His manner, said I, was certainly rather unceremonious at times, but he was so honest and so straightforward, that no person was, I believe, ever seriously offended at him. It was his way. Then his way was so plaguy rough, continued the Clockmaker, that he’d been the better, if it had been hammered and mauled down smoother. I’d a levelled him as flat as a flounder. Pray what was his offence? said I. Bad enough you may depend.

The hon’ble Alden Gobble was dyspeptic, and he suffered great oneasiness arter eatin, so he goes to Abernethy for advice. What’s the matter with you? said the Doctor, jist that way, without even passing the time o’day with him—what’s the matter with you? said he. Why, says Alden, I presume I have the dyspepsy. Ah! said he, I see; a Yankee swallowed more dollars and cents than he can digest. I am an American citizen, says Alden, with great dignity; I am Secretary to our Legation at the Court of St. James. The devil you are, said Abernethy; then you’ll soon get rid of your dyspepsy. I don’t see that are inference, said Alden; it don’t follow from what you predicate at all—it aint a natural consequence, I guess, that a man should cease to be ill, because he is called by the voice of a free and enlightened people to fill an important office. (The truth is, you could no more trap Alden than you could an Indian. He could see other folks’ trail, and made none himself: he was a real diplomatist, and I believe our diplomatists are allowed to be the best in the world.) But I tell you it does follow, said the Doctor; for in the company you’ll have to keep, you’ll have to eat like a Christian.

It was an everlasting pity Alden contradicted him, for he broke out like one ravin distracted mad. I’ll be d——d, said he, if ever I saw a Yankee that didn’t bolt his food whole like a Boa Constrictor. How the devil can you expect to digest food, that you neither take the trouble to dissect, nor time to masticate? It’s no wonder you lose your teeth, for you never use them; nor your digestion, for you overload it; nor your saliva, for you expend it on the carpets, instead of your food. Its disgusting, its beastly. You Yankees load your stomachs as a Devonshire man does his cart, as full as it can hold, and as fast as he can pitch it with a dung fork, and drive off; and then you complain that such a load of compost is too heavy for you. Dyspepsy, eh! infernal guzzling you mean. I’ll tell you what, Mr. Secretary of Legation, take half the time to eat, that you do to drawl out your words, chew your food half as much as you do your filthy tobacco, and you’ll be well in a month.

I don’t understand such language, said Alden, (for he was fairly ryled and got his dander up, and when he shows clear grit, he looks wicked ugly, I tell you,) I don’t understand such language, Sir; I came here to consult you professionally, and not to be——. Don’t understand! said the Doctor, why its plain English; but here, read my book—and he shoved a book into his hands and left him in an instant, standing alone in the middle of the room.

If the hon’ble Alden Gobble had gone right away and demanded his passports, and returned home with the Legation, in one of our first class frigates, (I guess the English would as soon see pyson as one o’ them are Serpents) to Washington, the President and the people would have sustained him in it, I guess, until an apology was offered for the insult to the nation. I guess if it had been me, said Mr. Slick, I’d a headed him afore he slipt out o’ the door, and pinned him up agin the wall, and made him bolt his words agin, as quick as he throw’d ’em up, for I never see’d an Englishman that didn’t cut his words as short as he does his horse’s tail, close up to the stump.

It certainly was very coarse and vulgar language, and I think, said I, that your Secretary had just cause to be offended at such an ungentlemanlike attack, although he showed his good sense in treating it with the contempt it deserved. It was plagy lucky for the doctor, I tell you, that he cut his stick as he did, and made himself scarce, for Alden was an ugly customer, he’d a gin him a proper scalding—he’d a taken the brissles off his hide, as clean as the skin of a spring shote of a pig killed at Christmas.

The Clockmaker was evidently excited by his own story, and to indemnify himself for these remarks on his countrymen, he indulged for some time in ridiculing the Nova Scotians.

Do you see that are flock of colts, said he, (as we passed one of those beautiful prairies that render the vallies of Nova Scotia so verdant and so fertile,) well, I guess they keep too much of that are stock. I heerd an Indian one day ax a tavern keeper for some rum; why, Joe Spawdeeck, said he, I reckon you have got too much already. Too much of any thing, said Joe, is not good, but too much rum is jist enough. I guess these blue-noses think so bout their horses, they are fairly eat up by them, out of house and home, and they are no good neither. They beant good saddle horses, and they beant good draft beasts—they are jist neither one thing nor tother. They are like the drink of our Connecticut folks. At mowing time they use molasses and water, nasty stuff, only fit to catch flies—it spiles good water and makes bad beer. No wonder the folks are poor. Look at them are great dykes; well, they all go to feed horses; and look at their grain fields on the upland; well, they are all sowed with oats to feed horses, and they buy their bread from us: so we feed the asses and they feed the horses. If I had them critters on that are marsh, on a location of mine, I’d jist take my rifle and shoot every one on them; the nasty yo necked, cat hammed, heavy headed, flat eared, crooked shanked, long legged, narrow chested, good for nothin brutes; they aint worth their keep one winter. I vow, I wish one of these blue-noses, with his go-to-meetin clothes on, coat tails pinned up behind like a leather blind of a shay, an old spur on one heel, and pipe stuck through his hat band, mounted on one of these limber timbered critters, that moves its hind legs like a hen scratchin gravel, was sot down in Broadway, in New York, for a sight. Lord! I think I hear the West Point cadets a larfin at him. Who brought that are scarecrow out of standin corn and stuck him here? I guess that are citizen came from away down east out of the Notch of the White Mountains. Here comes the Cholera doctor, from Canada—not from Canada, I guess, neither, for he don’t look as if he had ever been among the rapids. If they wouldn’t poke fun at him its a pity.

If they’d keep less horses, and more sheep, they’d have food and clothing, too, instead of buying both. I vow I’ve larfed afore now till I have fairly wet myself a cryin’, to see one of these folks catch a horse: may be he has to go two or three miles of an arrand. Well, down he goes on the dyke, with a bridle in one hand, and an old tin pan in another, full of oats, to catch his beast. First he goes to one flock of horses, and then to another, to see if he can find his own critter. At last he gets sight on him, and goes softly up to him, shakin of his oats, and a coaxin him, and jist as he goes to put his hand on him, away he starts all head and tail, and the rest with him; that starts another flock, and they set a third off, and at last every troop on ’em goes, as if Old Nick was arter them, till they amount to two or three hundred in a drove. Well, he chases them clear across the Tantramer marsh, seven miles good, over ditches, creeks, mire holes, and flag ponds, and then they turn and take a fair chase for it back again seven miles more. By this time, I presume they are all pretty considerably well tired, and Blue Nose, he goes and gets up all the men folks in the neighbourhood, and catches his beast, as they do a moose arter he is fairly run down; so he runs fourteen miles, to ride two, because he is in a tarnation hurry. It’s e’en a most equal to eatin soup with a fork, when you are short of time. It puts me in mind of catching birds by sprinkling salt on their tails; its only one horse a man can ride out of half a dozen, arter all. One has no shoes, tother has a colt, one arnt broke, another has a sore back, while a fifth is so etarnal cunnin, all Cumberland couldn’t catch him, till winter drives him up to the barn for food.

Most of them are dyke marshes have what they call ‘honey pots’ in ’em; that is a deep hole all full of squash, where you can’t find no bottom. Well, every now and then, when a feller goes to look for his horse, he sees his tail a stickin right out an eend, from one of these honey pots, and wavin like a head of broom corn; and sometimes you see two or three trapped there, e’en a most smothered, everlastin’ tired, half swimmin, half wadin, like rats in a molasses cask. When they find ’em in that are pickle, they go and get ropes, and tie ’em tight round their necks, and half hang ’em to make ’em float, and then haul ’em out. Awful looking critters they be, you may depend, when they do come out; for all the world like half drowned kittens—all slinkey slimey—with their great long tails glued up like a swab of oakum dipped in tar. If they don’t look foolish its a pity! Well, they have to nurse these critters all winter, with hot mashes, warm covering, and what not, and when spring comes, they mostly die, and if they don’t they are never no good arter. I wish with all my heart half the horses in the country were barrelled up in these here “honey pots,” and then there’d be near about one half too many left for profit. Jist look at one of these barn yards in the spring—half a dozen half-starved colts, with their hair looking a thousand ways for Sunday, and their coats hangin in tatters, and half a dozen good for nothin old horses, a crowdin out the cows and sheep.

Can you wonder that people who keep such an unprofitable stock, come out of the small eend of the horn in the long run?