The House by the Churchyard / Дом у кладбища. Джозеф Шеридан Ле Фаню

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ and what it was made of even Puddock could not divine. O'Flaherty, that great Hibernian athlete, unconsciously winced and shuddered like a child at sight of it. Puddock stirred it with the tip of a tea-spoon, and looked into it with inquisitive disgust, and seemed to smell it from a distance, lost for a minute in inward conjecture, and then with a slight bow, pushed it ceremoniously toward his brother in arms.

      'There is not much the matter with me now – I feel well enough,' said O'Flaherty, mildly, and eyeing the mixture askance; and after a little while he looked at Puddock. That disciplinarian understood the look, and said, peremptorily, shaking up his little powdered head, and lisping vehemently —

      'Lieutenant O'Flaherty, Sir! I insist on your instantly taking that physic. How you may feel, Sir, has nothing to do with it. If you hesitate, I withdraw my sanction to your going to the field, Sir. There's no – there can be – no earthly excuse but a – a miserable objection to a – swallowing a – recipe, Sir – that isn't – that is may be – not intended to please the palate, but to save your life, Sir, – remember. Sir, you've swallowed a – you – you require, Sir – you don't think I fear to say it, Sir! – you have swallowed that you ought not to have swallowed, and don't, Sir – don't – for both our sakes – for Heaven's sake – I implore – and insist – don't trifle, Sir.'

      O'Flaherty felt himself passing under the chill and dismal shadow of death once more, such was the eloquence of Puddock, and so impressible his own nature, as he followed the appeal of his second. 'Life is sweet;' and, though the compound was nauseous, and a necessity upon him of swallowing it in horrid instalments, spoonful after spoonful, yet, though not without many interruptions, and many a shocking apostrophe, and even some sudden paroxysms of horror, which alarmed Puddock, he did contrive to get through it pretty well, except a little residuum in the bottom, which Puddock wisely connived at.

      The clink of a horse-shoe drew Puddock to the window. Sturk riding into town, reined in his generous beast, and called up to the little lieutenant.

      'Well, he's taken it, eh?'

      Puddock smiled a pleasant smile and nodded.

      'Walk him about, then, for an hour or so, and he'll do.'

      'Thank you, Sir,' said little Puddock, gaily.

      'Don't thank me, Sir, either of you, but remember the lesson you've got,' said the doctor, tartly, and away he plunged into a sharp trot, with a cling-clang and a cloud of dust. And Puddock followed that ungracious leech, with a stare of gratitude and admiration, almost with a benediction. And his anxiety relieved, he and his principal prepared forthwith to provide real work for the surgeons.

      Chapter XVI

      The Ordeal By Battle

      The chronicles of the small-sword and pistol are pregnant with horrid and absurd illustrations of certain great moral facts. Let them pass. A duel, we all know, is conceived in the spirit of 'Punch and Judy' – a farce of murder. Sterne's gallant father expired, or near it, with the point of a small-sword sticking out two feet between his shoulders, all about a goose-pie. I often wondered what the precise quarrel was. But these tragedies smell all over of goose-pie. Why – oh, why – brave Captain Sterne, as with saucy, flashing knife and fork you sported with the outworks of that fated structure, was there no augur at thine elbow, with a shake of his wintry beard, to warn thee that the birds of fate – thy fate – sat vigilant under that festive mask of crust? Beware, it is Pandora's pie! Madman! hold thy hand! The knife's point that seems to thee about to glide through that pasty is palpably levelled at thine own windpipe! But this time Mephistopheles leaves the revellers to use their own cutlery; and now the pie is opened; and now the birds begin to sing! Come along, then to the Fifteen Acres, and let us see what will come of it all.

      That flanking demi-bastion of the Magazine, crenelled for musketry, commands, with the aid of a couple of good field-glasses, an excellent and secret view of the arena on which the redoubted O'Flaherty and the grim Nutter were about to put their metal to the proof. General Chattesworth, who happened to have an appointment, as he told his sister at breakfast, in town about that hour, forgot it just as he reached the Magazine, gave his bridle to the groom, and stumped into the fortress, where he had a biscuit and a glass of sherry in the commandant's little parlour, and forth the two cronies sallied mysteriously side by side; the commandant, Colonel Bligh, being remarkably tall, slim, and straight, with an austere, mulberry-coloured face; the general stout and stumpy, and smiling plentifully, short of breath, and double chinned, they got into the sanctum I have just mentioned.

      I don't apologise to my readers, English-born and bred, for assuming them to be acquainted with the chief features of the 'Phœnix Park, near Dublin. Irish scenery is now as accessible as Welsh. Let them study the old problem, not in blue books, but in the green and brown ones of our fields and heaths, and mountains. If Ireland be no more than a great capability and a beautiful landscape, faintly visible in the blue haze, even from your own headlands, and separated by hardly four hours of water, and a ten-shilling fare, from your jetties, it is your own shame, not ours, if a nation of bold speculators and indefatigable tourists leave it unexplored.

      So I say, from this coigne of vantage, looking westward over the broad green level toward the thin smoke that rose from Chapelizod chimneys, lying so snugly in the lap of the hollow by the river, the famous Fifteen Acres, where so many heroes have measured swords, and so many bullies have bit the dust, was distinctly displayed in the near foreground. You all know the artillery butt. Well, that was the centre of a circular enclosure containing just fifteen acres, with broad entrances eastward and westward.

      The old fellows knew very well where to look.

      Father Roach was quite accidentally there, reading his breviary when the hostile parties came upon the ground – for except when an accident of this sort occurred, or the troops were being drilled, it was a sequestered spot enough – and he forthwith joined them, as usual, to reconcile the dread debate.

      Somehow, I think his arguments were not altogether judicious.

      'I don't ask particulars, my dear – I abominate all that concerns a quarrel; but Lieutenant O'Flaherty, jewel, supposin' the very worst – supposin', just for argument, that he has horse-whipped you —'

      'An' who dar' suppose it?' glared O'Flaherty.

      'Or, we'll take it that he spit in your face, honey. Well,' continued his reverence, not choosing to hear the shocking ejaculations which this hypothesis wrung from the lieutenant; 'what of that, my darlin'? Think of the indignities, insults, and disgraces that the blessed Saint Martellus suffered, without allowing, anything worse to cross his lips than an Ave Mary or a smile in resignation.'

      'Ordher the priest off the ground, Sorr,' said O'Flaherty, lividly, to little Puddock, who was too busy with Mr. Mahony to hear him; and Roach had already transferred his pious offices to Nutter, who speedily flushed up and became, to all appearances, in his own way just as angry as O'Flaherty.

      'Lieutenant O'Flaherty, a word in your ear,' once more droned the mellow voice of Father Roach; 'you're a young man, my dear, and here's Lieutenant Puddock by your side, a young man too; I'm as ould, my honeys, as the two of you put together, an' I advise you, for your good – don't shed human blood – don't even draw your swords – don't, my darlins; don't be led or said by them army-gentlemen, that's always standin' up for fightin' because the leedies admire fightin' men. They'll call you cowards, polthroons, curs, sneaks, turn-tails – let them!'

      'There's no standin' this any longer, Puddock,' said O'Flaherty, incensed indescribably by the odious names which his reverence was hypothetically accumulating; 'if you want to see the fightin', Father Roach —'

      'Apage, Sathanas!' murmured his СКАЧАТЬ