Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845. Various

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ burst out into a violent fit of laughter, as who would not have done at the sight of a young giant of seven-and-twenty, with cheeks as red as poppies, shoulders that seemed made like those of Atlas to support a world; pair of dark blue-grey eyes with a laughing devil dancing in them, and a little moist just now from the effects of the toddy, and the man dying of love! He measured five feet thirteen inches in his stockings, with legs that might have belonged to an elephant, and fists calculated to frighten a buffalo.

      "Be d — d to your laughing!" cried Doughby — "Steward, another glass — d'ye hear, you cursed neger, where are you hidden? Don't you hear when a gentleman speaks to you? D'ye want me to tattoo your black brainpan? You laugh," he continued to Richards and myself, relapsing into his whimpering tones; "but if you only knew — none of the women will have me — this is the seventh who has packed me off."

      "The seventh!" cried I laughing, "what, only the seventh, Doughby? Pshaw! that's nothing; during my bachelor's life I had at least two dozen refusals, and I am only a year older than yourself."

      "You be hanged with your two dozen! Steward, the toddy is only fit for old women — too much water in it; you don't know how to make toddy. Tell your captain to come here. I'll have you sent to the devil. No, I tell you my heart is so full, it feels as if it would burst. She won't hear of me. I will tell you all about it, boys — but who is that?" interrupted he, pointing to Vergennes, who was standing near us, and looking on in great wonderment. "Ah, Monshur Tonson! happy to see you, Monshur Tonson! Parleh vouh English? Prenez un seat, et un glass de Madeira. Nous parlerons hansamble le Franseh. Neger, a bottle of Madeira; and let it be good, or you'll get the bottle across your crooked shins. A bottle of Irish for me, d'ye hear, real Irish whisky, or if you haven't any, Scotch will do. No, boys, I tell you I am a gone man. Dismissed, sent away, packed off with a flea in my ear, as they say."

      And so saying, he threw himself on a sofa with a violence that made it crack again; the steward brought the Madeira and the whisky, and we drew round the table to condole with the love-stricken Kentuckian. A few minutes passed in the composition of the toddy, which was evidently destined to play the chief part in the way of a consoler; and when Doughby had got a large beer-glass of the comfortable mixture before him, he began his narrative.

      Chapter II

The Race

      "I will tell you how it all happened, and how it was that Miss Lambton — in short you shall hear it all — it's the first time I have spoken about it, but now it shall out; you shall judge and decide between us, by Jove you shall! You recollect it was in the beginning of June that we left your house, Richards, to go up the Mississippi — it was a Friday, a day that I hate. All seamen and hunters do hate it; it's an unlucky day. All the bad luck I ever had, came to me on Fridays. I had a feeling that something would go wrong when we went on board the Helen M'Gregor. I thought Miss Lambton looked shy upon me, and the old gentleman stiffer than ever. I followed the Miss, however, wherever she went, so close, that once or twice I trod the fringe off her petticoats."

      "That was bad manners, Doughby."

      "Pshaw! What did it matter? I told her not to bother her head about it, that when we got to New York, or even to Cincinnati or Louisville, I would buy her a whole shopful of dresses. She made no answer to that; but when I had the misfortune to tear her third flounce, she said, that if I went on in that way she would not have a whole gown left when she got to Louisville. 'With a whole one or none at all, Miss,' said I, 'you'll always be a charming creature.' That now was as pretty a compliment as ever was paid in Kentucky, but she did not seen to hear it.

      "On the third day we were just passing St Helena, when old Lambton came up to me. 'Mister Doughby,' said he, quite confidential like, 'pardon me, my dear good Mister Doughby, but don't you think that you sometimes take rather too much ardent spirits, and thereby injure your health as well as give a bad example to your fellow-citizens, which, on the part of a respectable man like yourself, is very much to be regretted?'

      "'Bad example!' says I — 'to be regretted, Mister Lambton! — I take too much ardent spirits! I certainly am not of that opinion, Mister Lambton, and if you are I can only say you are very much mistaken. You shall see yourself,' said I, 'how much ballast an old Kentuckian can take in without sinking under it: devil a diving duck ever swallowed more water than a Kentucky man can rum.'

      "I thought to let the old squaretoes see that he had a man before him, not one of his spindleshanked tallow-chopped Yankees, who go sneaking about the meeting-house from morning till night, or moping in their rooms, and calculating and speculating how they can best take in honest warm-blooded South and Westlanders. 'You shall see,' said I — but he shook his head and walked away, and I looked after him, and shook my head too. Pah! I found out afterwards that he was president of a temperance society, the devil take them all! Temperance societies! What is rum for, if it isn't to be drank?"

      Doughby was rapidly warming with his subject.

      "He is a queer old fellow, that Mister Lambton, as stiff and as cold as an icicle on a water-butt. Of a morning he was scarcely out of bed when he knocked at the door of the ladies' cabin in his brocade dressing-gown, and Miss Lambton must come out and hear him read the whole morning service of the Episcopal Church, and make the responses, and so on, for a full hour. Then the whole day he walked about as grave and solemn as the chief-justice of the district court. Before dinner he said a grace which lasted a full quarter of an hour. The soup was often cold, and half the dinner eaten up from under our noses, while this was going on. Sometimes most of the other passengers had done their dinner, and were gone to the bar to take a glass, and he still praying. I was often ready to jump out of my skin with impatience."

      "The praying was all well enough, if it had not lasted so long," said I, laughing.

      "Pah! I hate people who are always wanting to be a shining light to their fellow-citizens. There's a deal of pride, a deal of arrogance and presumption in it. If a man wishes to pray, let him do so, and I do it myself; but people don't want to be reminded of those things. I tell you I have always found pride behind that sort of piety. The Yankees think we are heathens, and that they are the elect who are to enlighten us. Pshaw! I hate such humbug."

      "Not so badly reasoned," observed Richards.

      "However," continued Doughby, "I soon saw that, with one thing or another, I was getting out of the old gentleman's good books. He became more and more stiff and silent. That wouldn't have annoyed me much; but one morning the captain came to me and said, in a sort of apologising manner, that the ladies had desired him to beg me not to pay so many visits to their cabin, particularly of a morning, when some of them had not quite finished their toilet, but that I should always ask leave first and have myself announced, as it is set down in the regulations."

      "'What!' says I, 'have myself announced when I go to see my own wife, that is to be? What do the other ladies matter to me, whether they've got on silk gowns or cotton ones? I only go to see Miss Lambton.'

      "'Miss Lambton was present,' said the captain, 'when the ladies gave me the commission; and she and Mr Lambton most particularly requested me to have the regulations enforced.'

      "'Miss Lambton!' said I; 'that's a lie now, captain. She never could have done that.'

      "'Mister Doughby,' said he, 'it is no lie; and if another than yourself had said such a thing, I would have struck him down like a mad dog. And I must beg of you to retract your words, and ascertain to your own satisfaction that what I have said is a fact.'

      "So I ran off and asked Miss Lambton and Mr Lambton, and they answered me as dry as fagots, and said the captain had spoken the truth. I was a'most raving mad when I heard this, СКАЧАТЬ