Stories of Comedy, - [ebook reader wifi .TXT] 📗
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Johnny was, indeed, severely punished. For nearly twelve months he was confined to the house, and never did his indomitable and masterful spirit exhibit itself so strongly and characteristically as during this time. He was a most troublesome subject in the house. As he sate in his bed, he ordered, scolded, and ruled with a rod of iron all the women, including his wife and daughter, so that they would have thought the leg and the confinement nothing to what they had to suffer.
He at length had himself conveyed to the sitting-room or the kitchen, as he pleased, in a great easy-chair; but as he did not satisfy himself that he was sufficiently obeyed, he one day sent the servant-girl to fetch him the longest scarlet-bean stick that she could find in the garden. Armed with this, he now declared that he would have his own way,—he could reach them now! And, accordingly, there he sate, ordering and scolding, and, if not promptly obeyed in his most extravagant commands, not sparing to inflict substantial knocks with his pea-prick, as he called it. This succeeded so well that he would next have his chair carried to the door, and survey the state of things without.
"Ay, he knew they were going on prettily. There was fine management, he was sure, when he was thus laid up. He should be ruined, that was certain. O, if he could but see the ploughing and the crops,—to see how they were going on would make the heart of a stone ache, he expected."
His son was a steady young fellow, and, it must be known, was all the while farming, and carrying on the business much better than he himself had ever done.
"But he would be with them one of these days, and for the present he would see his stock at all events."
He accordingly ordered the whole of his stock, his horses, his cows, his bullocks, his sheep, his calves, his pigs, and poultry, to be all, every head of them, driven past as he sate at the door. It was like another naming of the beasts by Adam, or another going up into the Ark. There he sate, swaying his long stick, now talking to this horse, and now to that cow. To the old bull he addressed a long speech; and every now and then he broke off to rate the farm-servants for their neglect of things. "What a bag of bones was this heifer! What a skeleton was that horse! Why, they must have been fairly starved on purpose; nay, they must have been in the pinfold all the time he had been laid up. But he would teach the lazy rogues a different lesson as soon as he could get about."
And the next thing was to get about in his cart with his bed laid in it. In this he rode over his farm; and it would have made a fine scene for Fielding or Goldsmith, to have seen all his proceedings, and heard all his exclamations and remarks, as he surveyed field after field.
"What ploughing! what sowing! Why, they must have had a crooked plough, and a set of bandy-legged horses, to plough such ploughing. There was no more straightness in their furrows than in a dog's hind leg. And then where had the man flung the seed to? Here was a bit come up, and there never a bit. It was his belief that they must go to Jericho to find half of his corn that had been flung away. What! had they picked the windiest day of all the year to scatter his corn on the air in? And then the drains were all stopped; the land was drowning, was starving to death; and where were the hedges all gone to? Hedges he left, but now he only saw gaps!"
So he went round the farm, and for many a day did it furnish him with a theme of scolding in the house.
Such was Johnny Darbyshire; and thus he lived for many years. We sketch no imaginary character, we relate no invented story. Perhaps a more perfect specimen of the shrewd and clever man converted into the local and domestic tyrant, by having too much of his own humor, never was beheld; but the genus to which Johnny Darbyshire belonged is far from extinct. In the nooks of England there are not a few of them yet to be found in all their froward glory; and in the most busy cities, though the great prominences of their eccentricities are rubbed off by daily concussion with men as hard-headed as themselves, we see glimpses beneath the polished surface of what they would be in ruder and custom-freer scenes. The Johnny Darbyshires may be said to be instances of English independence run to seed.
CERTAIN old gentleman in the west of Ireland, whose love of the ridiculous quite equalled his taste for claret and fox-hunting, was wont, upon festive occasions, when opportunity offered, to amuse his friends by drawing out one of his servants, exceedingly fond of what he termed his "thravels," and in whom, a good deal of whim, some queer stories, and perhaps, more than all, long and faithful services, had established a right of loquacity. He was one of those few trusty and privileged domestics, who, if his master unheedingly uttered a rash thing in a fit of passion, would venture to set him right. If the squire said, "I'll turn that rascal off," my friend Pat would say, "Troth you won't, sir"; and Pat was always right, for if any altercation arose upon the "subject-matter in hand," he was sure to throw in some good reason, either from former services,—general good conduct,—or the delinquent's "wife and children," that always turned the scale.
But I am digressing: on such merry meetings as I have alluded to, the master, after making certain "approaches," as a military man would say, as the preparatory steps in laying siege to some extravaganza of his servant, might, perchance, assail Pat thus: "By the by, Sir John (addressing a distinguished guest), Pat has a very curious story, which something you told me to-day reminds me of. You remember, Pat (turning to the man, evidently pleased at the notice thus paid to himself),—you remember that queer adventure you had in France?"
"Troth I do, sir," grins forth Pat.
"What!" exclaims Sir John, in feigned surprise, "was Pat ever in France?"
"Indeed he was," cries mine host; and Pat adds, "Ay, and farther, plaze your honor."
"I assure you, Sir John," continues my host, "Pat told me a story once that surprised me very much, respecting the ignorance of the French."
"Indeed!" rejoined the baronet; "really, I always supposed the French to be a most accomplished people."
"Troth, then, they're not, sir," interrupts Pat.
"O, by no means," adds mine host, shaking his head emphatically.
"I believe, Pat, 'twas when you were crossing the Atlantic?" says the master, turning to Pat with a seductive air, and leading into the "full and true account"—(for Pat had thought fit to visit North Amerikay, for "a raison he had," in the autumn of the year ninety-eight).
"Yes, sir," says Pat, "the broad Atlantic,"—a favorite phrase of his, which he gave with a brogue as broad, almost, as the Atlantic itself.
"It was the time I was lost in crassin' the broad Atlantic, a comin' home," began Pat, decoyed into the recital; "whin the winds began to blow, and the sae to rowl, that you'd think the Colleen Dhas (that was her name), would not have a mast left but what would rowl out of her.
"Well, sure enough, the masts went by the board, at last, and the pumps were choked (divil choke them for that same), and av coorse the water gained an us; and troth, to be filled with water is neither good for man or baste; and she was sinkin' fast, settlin' down, as the sailors call it; and faith I never was good at settlin' down in my life, and I liked it then less nor ever; accordingly we prepared for the worst and put out the boat and got a sack o' bishkits and a cask o' pork, and a kag o' wather, and a thrifle o' rum aboord, and any other little matthers we could think iv in the mortial hurry we wor in,—and faith there was no time to be lost, for, my darlint, the Colleen Dhas went down like a lump o' lead, afore we wor many sthrokes o' the oar away from her.
"Well, we dhrifted away all that night, and next mornin' we put up a blanket an the end av a pole as well as we could, and then we sailed iligant; for we darn't show a stitch o' canvas the night before, bekase it was blowin' like bloody murther, savin' your presence, and sure it's the wondher of the world we worn't swally'd alive by the ragin' sae.
"Well, away we wint, for more nor a week, and nothin' before our two good-lookin' eyes but the canophy iv heaven, and the wide ocean—the broad Atlantic—not a thing was to be seen but the sae and the sky; and though the sae and the sky is mighty purty things in themselves, throth they're no great things when you've nothin' else to look at for a week together,—and the barest rock in the world, so it was land, would be more welkim. And then, soon enough, throth, our provisions began to run low, the bishkits, and the wather, and the rum—throth that was gone first of all—God help uz—and oh! it was thin that starvation began to stare us in the face,—'O, murther, murther, Captain darlint,' says I, 'I wish we could land anywhere,' says I.
"'More power to your elbow, Paddy, my boy,' says he, 'for sitch a good wish, and throth it's myself wishes the same.'
"'Och,' says I, 'that it may plaze you, sweet queen iv heaven, supposing it was only a dissolute island,' says I, 'inhabited wid Turks, sure they wouldn't be such bad Christians as to refuse us a bit and a sup.'
"'Whisht, whisht, Paddy,' says the captain, 'don't be talking bad of any one,' says he; 'you don't know how soon you may want a good word put in for yourself, if you should be called to quarthers in th' other world all of a suddint,' says he.
"'Thrue for you, Captain darlint,' says I—I called him darlint, and made free with him, you see, bekase disthress makes us all equal,—'thrue for you, Captain jewel,'—God betune uz and harm, I owe no man any spite,—and throth that was only thruth. Well, the last bishkit was sarved out, and by gor the wather itself was all gone at last, and we passed the night mighty cowld; well, at the brake o' day the sun riz most beautifully out o' the waves, that was as bright as silver and as clear as chrystal. But it was only the more cruel upon us, for we wor beginnin' to feel terrible hungry; when all at wanst I thought I spied the land,—by gor, I thought I felt my heart up in my throat in a minit, and 'Thunder an' turf, Captain,' says I, 'look to leeward,' says I.
"'What for?' says he.
"'I think I see the land,' says I. So he ups with his bring-'em-near (that's what the sailors call a spy-glass, sir), and looks out, and, sure enough, it was.
"'Hurra!' says
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