The Dodd Family Abroad, Vol. I. Lynde Francis
Читать онлайн книгу.
head, and looking as drunk as ever I seen; and for half a franc apiece, Bakis pulled out the spiget, and gave you a glassful of the nicest drink ever was tasted, – warm wine, with nutmeg in it, and cloves, and a taste of mint. I was afeerd to do more nor sup, seein' the place and the croud; but indeed, Shusan, little as I took, it got into my head; and I sat down on the steps of the Temple, and begun to cry about home and Dodsborough; and something came over me that Mr. Francis did n't mane well; and so I told everybody that I was a poor Irish girl, and that he was a wicked blaguard; and then the polis came, and there was a shindy! I don't know how far my head was wrong all the time; and they said that I sung the "Croniawn Dhubh;" maybe I did; but I know that I bate off the polis; and at last they took me away home, when every stitch on me was in ribbins; my iligant bonnet with the green bows as flat as a halfpeny; and the bombazine the mistress gave me, all rags; one of my shoes, too, was lost; and except a handful of hair I tore out of the corporal's beard, 'twas all loss to me.
This wasn't the worst; for little Paddy Byrne, that was in bed for a baiting he got 'mong the hackney-coachmen, jumped up and flew at Mister Francis for the honor of ould Ireland; and they fit for twenty minutes in the pantry, and broke every bit of glass and chaney in the house, forbye three lamps and some alybastard figures that was put there for safety; and the end of it was, Mr. Francis was discharged, but would n't take his wages, if the master did n't pay him half a year in advance, with diet and washing, and his expenses home to Swisserland, wherever that is; and there it is now, and master is in a law-shute, that everybody says will go agin him; for there's one good thing abroad, Shusan dear, the coorts stands by poor sarvants, and won't see them wronged by any cruel masters; and maybe it would be taching ould Mister Dodd something, if they made him smart for this!
Ye may think, from all this, that I 'd be glad to be back again, and so it is. I cry all day and night, and sorrow stich I do for either the mistress or the young ladies, and maybe at last they 'll see 't is best to send me home. They needn't begrudge me the thrifle 'twould cost, for they're spending money like mad; and even the mistress, that would skin a flay in Ireland, thinks nothing of layin' out ten or fifteen pounds here of a day. Miss Mary Anne is as bad as the mother, and grown so proud and stand off that I never spake to her. Miss Caroline is what she used to be, barrin' the spirits; to be sure, she has no divarsion and no horse to ride, nor doesn't be out in the fields as she used, but for all that she bears it better than myself. Mister James is grown a young mau in three weeks, and never passes me on the stair without a wink or a look of the same kind; that's the way the Continent taches good manners! Mrs. Shusan! oh dear! oh dear! but 'tis wishing it I am, the day I come on this incontential tour. If I can't get back, – though it's not my fault if I don't, – send me the pair of strong shoes you 'll find in my hair trunk, and the two petticoats in the corner. If you could get a blade in the big scissors, send it too, and the two bits of dimity I want for mendin'. There was some Dandy Lion in a paper, I'd like; for there's none here, they say, has strength in it. You 'll be able to send me these by somebody coming this way, for I heerd mistress say everybody is travellin' these times. What was it Father Tom used to take for the redness in his nose? mine is tormentin' me dreadful, and though I'm poulticin' it every night with ash-bark, earthworms, and dragon's blood, I think it's only worse it's gettin'. Mr. Francis said that I must larn to sleep with my nose higher than my head, though how I'm to do it, the saints alone can tell! No time for more than to say your loving friend,
Betty Cobb.
LETTER IX. KENNY DODD TO THOMAS PURCELL, ESQ
Dear Tom, – It 's no use in talking; I can't go over to Ireland now, and you know that as well as myself. Besides, what 's the good of me taking a part in the elections? Who can tell which side will be uppermost, after all? And if one is "to enter, it's as well to ride the winning horse." Vickars has behaved so badly that I don't think I'd support him; but there's a fortnight yet before the elections, and perhaps he may see the errors of his ways before that!
I 've little heart or spirits for politics, for my life is fairly bothered out of me with domestic troubles. James is going on very slowly. There was a bit of glove-leather round the ball – a most inexcusable negligence on the part of his second – that has given much uneasiness; and he has a kind of night fever that keeps him low and weak. With that, too, he has too many doctors. Three of them come every morning, and never go away without a dispute.
It strikes me forcibly, Tom, that medical science is one of the things that makes little progress, considering all the advantages of our century. I don't mean to say that they don't know better what's inside of you, what your bones are made of, that they have n't more hard names for everything than formerly; but that when it comes to cure you of a toothache, or a colic, or a fit of the gout, my sure belief is they made just as good a hand of it two hundred years ago. I won't deny that they 'll whip off your leg, tie one of your arteries, or take your hip out of the socket quicker than they used long ago; but how few of us, thank God, have need of that kind of skill! and if we have, what signifies a quarter of a minute more or less? Tim Hackett, that was surgeon to our County Infirmary forty years, never used any other tools than an old razor and a pair of pincers, and I believe he was just as successful as Astley Cooper; and yet these fellows that come to see James cover the table every day with instruments that would puzzle the Royal Society, – things like patent corkscrews, scissors with teeth like a saw, and one little crankum for all the world like a landing-net: James is more afraid of that than all the rest When I saw it first, I thought it was a new contrivance for taking the fees in. The Pharmacopoeia – I hope I spell it right – is greater, to be sure, than long ago, but what's the advantage of that? We never discover a new kind of beast for food, and I see little benefit in multiplying what only disgusts you. 'T is with medicine as with law, Tom; the more precedents we have, the more confused we get; and where our ignorant ancestors saw their way clearly, we, with all our enlightenment, never can hit on the right track at all. The mill-owner and the engineer, the tanner, the dyer, the printer, ay, even the fanner, picks up something every day that helps him in his craft. It's only the learned professions that never learn anything; maybe that's how they got the name "lucus à non," Tom, as Dr. Bell would say.
You keep preaching to me about economy and making "both ends meet," and all that kind of balderdash; and if you only saw the way we 're living, you 'd be surprised at our cheapness. Whenever a five-pound note sees me through our bill for the day, I give myself a bottle of champagne at night out of gratitude! You remember all Mrs D.'s promises about thrift and saving; and, faith, I must say that so far as cutting "down the estimates" for the rest of the family, she 's worthy of the Manchester school; but whenever it touches herself, her liberality becomes boundless.
I believe it would be cheaper to give the milliner a room in the house than pay her coach-hire, for she 's here every morning, and generally in my room when I 'm shaving, sometimes before I 'm up. Not that this trifling circumstance ever disconcerted her. On my conscience, I believe she 'd have taken Eve's measure before Adam, without a blush at the situation! So far as I have seen of foreign life, Tom, shamelessness is the grand characteristic, and I grieve to say that one picks up the indecency much easier than the irregular verbs. I wish, however, I had nothing to complain of but this.
I told you in one of my late letters that I was getting into law here; the plot is thickening since that, and I have now, I believe, four actions – I hope it is not five – pending in four different courts; in some I 'm the plaintiff, in some the defendant, and in another I 'm something between the two; but what that may be, or what consequences it entails, I know as much as I do about calculating the next eclipse! Indeed, to distinguish between the several suits and the advocates I have engaged is no small difficulty, and a considerable part of every conference is occupied with purely introductory matter. These foreign lawyers have a mysterious kind of way with them, too, that always gives you the impression that a law-suit is something like the Gunpowder Plot! There's a fellow comes to me every morning for instructions, as he calls it, muffled up in a great cloak, and using as many precautions against being seen by the servants as if he were going to blow up the Government. I 'd not be so sensitive on the subject, if it had n't provoked a species of annoyance, at which, perhaps, you 'll be more disposed to laugh than sympathize.
For the last week Mrs. D. has adopted a kind of warfare at which she, I 'll be bound to say, has few equals and no superior, – a species of irregular