The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey Volume II Part 10

'Fire and furies!' exclaimed Mr. Schnackenberger, as Juno broke out into uproarious barking about midnight: the door was opened from the outside; and in stepped the landlady, arrayed in a night-dress that improved her charms into a rivalry with those of her sign at the street-door; accompanied by a fellow, who, by way of salutation, cracked an immense hunting-whip.

'So it's here that I'm to get my own again?' cried the fellow: and forthwith Mr. Jeremiah stepped out of bed, and hauled him up to the light of the lamp which the landlady carried.

'Yes, Sir,' said, the rough-rider, 'it's I, sure enough;' and, to judge by the countenance of his female conductor, every accent of his anger was music of the spheres to her unquenchable wrath: 'I'm the man, sure enough, whose horse you rode away with; and _that_ you'll find to be a true bill.'

'Rode away with!' cried Mr. Jeremiah: 'Now, may the sweetest of all thunderbolts----But, rascal, this instant what's to pay? then take thy carrion out of the stable, and be off.' So saying, Mr. Schnackenberger strode to the bed for his well-filled purse.

On these signs of solvency, however, the horse-dealer turned up the gentle phasis of his character, and said, 'Nay, nay; since things are so, why it's all right; and, in the Lord's name, keep the horse as long as you want him.'

'Dog! in the first place, and firstly, tell me what's your demand? in the second place, and secondly, go to the d----l.'

But whilst the rough-rider continued with low bows to decline the first offer, being satisfied, as it seemed, with the second, the choleric Mr.

Schnackenberger cried out, 'Seize him, Juno!' And straightway Juno leaped upon him, and executed the arrest so punctually--that the trembling equestrian, without further regard to ceremony, made out his charge.

Forthwith Mr. Jeremiah paid down the demand upon the table, throwing in something extra, with the words, '_That_ for the fright.' The dealer in horse-flesh returned him a thousand thanks; hoped for his honour's further patronage; and then, upon being civilly a.s.sured by Mr. Jeremiah, that if he did not in one instant _walk_ down the stairs, he would, to his certain knowledge, have to _fly_ down them; the rough-rider, in company with the landlady, took a rapid and polite leave of Mr.

Schnackenberger; who was too much irritated by the affront to compose himself again to sleep.

CHAPTER IV.

HOW MR. SCHNACKENBERGER AND JUNO CONDUCT THEMSELVES WHEN THE HOUSE BECOMES TOO HOT TO HOLD THEM.

Day was beginning to dawn, when a smoke, which forced its way through the door, and which grew every instant thicker and more oppressive, a second time summoned Mr. Schnackenberger from his bed. As he threw open the door, such a volume of flames rolled in from the staircase--which was already on fire from top to bottom--that he saw there was no time to be lost: so he took his pipe, loaded it as quickly as possible, lighted it from the flames of the staircase, began smoking, and then, drawing on his pea-green coat and buckling on his sword, he put his head out of the window to see if there were any means of escape. To leap right down upon the pavement seemed too hazardous; and the most judicious course, it struck him, would be to let himself down upon the Golden Sow, which was at no great depth below his window, and from this station to give the alarm. Even this, however, could not be reached without a leap: Mr.

Schnackenberger attempted it; and, by means of his great talents for equilibristic exercises, he hit the mark so well, that he planted himself in the very saddle, as it were, upon the back of this respectable brute. Unluckily, however, there was no house opposite; and Mrs. Sweetbread with her people slept at the back. Hence it was, that for a very considerable s.p.a.ce of time he was obliged to continue riding the sign of the Golden Sow; whilst Juno, for whom he could not possibly make room behind him, looked out of the window, and accompanied her master's text of occasional clamours for a.s.sistance, with a very appropriate commentary of howls.

Some Poles at length pa.s.sed by: but, not understanding one word of German--and seeing a man thus betimes in the morning mounted on the golden sow, smoking very leisurely, and occasionally hallooing, as if for his private amus.e.m.e.nt, they naturally took Mr. Schnackenberger for a maniac: until, at length, the universal language of fire, which now began to burst out of the window, threw some light upon the darkness of their Polish understandings. Immediately they ran for a.s.sistance, which about the same moment the alarm-bells began to summon.

However, the fire-engines arrived on the ground before the ladders: these last were the particular objects of Mr. Jeremiah's wishes: meantime, in default of those, and as the second best thing that could happen, the engines played with such a well-directed stream of water upon the window--upon the Golden Sow--and upon Mr. Jeremiah Schnackenberger, that for one while they were severally rendered tolerably fire-proof. When at length the ladders arrived, and the people were on the point of applying them to the Golden Sow, he earnestly begged that they would, first of all, attend to a case of more urgent necessity: for himself, he was well mounted--as they saw; could a.s.sure them that he was by no means in a combustible state; and, if they would be so good as to be a little more parsimonious with their water, he didn't care if he continued to pursue his morning's ride a little longer. On the other hand, Juno at the window to the right was reduced every moment to greater extremities, as was pretty plainly indicated by the increasing violence of her howling.

But the people took it ill that they should be desired to rescue a four-legged animal; and peremptorily refused.

'My good lads,' said the man upon the sow, 'for heaven's sake don't delay any longer: one heaven, as Pfeffel observes, is over all good creatures that are pilgrims on this earth--let their travelling coat (which by the way is none of their own choosing) be what it may;--smooth like yours and mine, or s.h.a.ggy like Juno's.'

But all to no purpose: not Pfeffel himself _in propria persona_ could have converted them from the belief that to take any trouble about such a brute was derogatory to the honour of the very respectable citizens of B----.

However, when Mr. Jeremiah drew his purse-strings, and offered a golden ducat to him that would render this service to his dog, instantly so many were the compet.i.tors for the honour of delivering the excellent pilgrim in the s.h.a.ggy coat, that none of them would resign a ladder to any of the rest: and thus, in this too violent zeal for her safety, possibly Juno would have perished--but for a huge Brunswick sausage, which, happening to go past in the mouth of a spaniel, violently irritated the appet.i.te of Juno, and gave her courage for the _salto mortale_ down to the pavement.

'G.o.d bless my soul,' said Mr. Schnackenberger, to the men who stood mourning over the golden soap-bubble that had just burst before their eyes, 'what's to be done now?' and, without delay, he offered the ducat to him that would instantly give chase to Juno, who had already given chase to the sausage round the street corner, and would restore her to him upon the spot. And such was the agitation of Mr. Schnackenberger's mind, that for a few moments he seemed as if rising in his stirrups--and on the point of clapping spurs to the Golden Sow for the purpose of joining in the chase.

CHAPTER V.

FROM WHICH MAY BE DESCRIED THE OBJECT OF MR. SCHNACKENBERGER'S JOURNEY TO B----, AND A PROSPECT OF AN INTRODUCTION TO HIGH LIFE.

Mr. Schnackenberger's consternation was, in fact, not without very rational grounds. The case was this. Juno was an English b.i.t.c.h--infamous for her voracious appet.i.te in all the villages, far and wide, about the university--and, indeed, in all respects, without a peer throughout the whole country. Of course, Mr. Schnackenberger was much envied on her account by a mult.i.tude of fellow students; and very large offers were made him for the dog. To all such overtures, however, the young man had turned a deaf ear for a long time, and even under the heaviest pecuniary distresses; though he could not but acknowledge to himself that Juno brought him nothing but trouble and vexation. For not only did this brute (generally called the monster) make a practice of visiting other people's kitchens, and appropriating all unguarded dainties--but she went even to the length of disputing the t.i.tle to their own property with he-cooks and she-cooks, butchers, and butchers' wives, &c.; and whosoever had once made acquaintance with the fore-paws of this ravenous lady, allowed her thenceforwards, without resistance, to carry off all sausages or hams which she might choose to sequestrate, and directly presented a bill to her master; in which bill it commonly happened that indemnification for the fright, if not expressly charged as one of the items, had a blank s.p.a.ce, however, left for its consideration beneath the sum total. At length, matters came to that pa.s.s, that the reimburs.e.m.e.nt of Juno's annual outrages amounted to a far larger sum than Mr. Schnackenberger's own--not very frugal expenditure. On a day, therefore, when Juno had made an entire clearance of the larder appropriated to a whole establishment of day-labourers--and Mr.

Schnackenberger had, in consequence, been brought into great trouble in the university courts, in his first moments of irritation he asked his friend Mr. Fabian Sebastian, who had previously made him a large offer for the dog, whether he were still disposed to take her on those terms.

'Undoubtedly,' said Mr. Sebastian--promising, at the same time, to lay down the purchase money on that day se'nnight, upon delivery of the article.

Delivery of the article would, no question, have been made upon the spot, had not the vendor repented of his bargain the next moment after it was concluded: on that account he still kept the dog in his own possession, and endeavoured, during the week's respite, to dispose his friend's mind to the cancelling of the contract. He, however, insisted on the punctual fulfilment of the treaty--letter and spirit. Never had Mr. Schnackenberger been so much disturbed in mind as at this period.

Simply with the view of chasing away the nervous horrors which possessed his spirits, he had mounted his scare-crow and ridden abroad into the country. A remittance, which he had lately received from home, was still in his purse; and, said he to himself, suppose I were just to ride off to the baths at B---- about fifteen miles distant! n.o.body would know me there; and I might at any rate keep Juno a fortnight longer! And exactly in this way it had happened that Mr. Schnackenberger had come to B----.

At this instant, he was indebted to a lucky accident for a momentary diversion of his thoughts from the danger which threatened him in regard to Juno. Amongst other visitors to the baths, who were pa.s.sing by at this early hour, happened to be the Princess of * *. Her carriage drew up at the very moment when Mr. Jeremiah, having dismounted from the sow, was descending the ladder: with her usual gracious manner, she congratulated the student upon his happy deliverance; and, finding that he was a countryman of her own, she invited him to a ball which she gave on the evening of that day, in honour of the King's birthday.

Now it must be acknowledged that a ball-room was not exactly the stage on which Mr. Schnackenberger's habits of life had qualified him for shining: however, the pleasure of a nearer acquaintance with the interesting princess--held out too flattering a prospect to allow of his declining her invitation. Just at this moment Juno returned.

Meantime the fire (occasioned probably by a spark falling from the landlady's lamp amongst the straw under the staircase) had been extinguished: and Mrs. Sweetbread, who had at length been roused at the back, now made her appearance; and with many expressions of regret for what had happened to Mr. Schnackenberger, who had entirely re-established himself in her esteem by his gold-laden purse, and also by what she called his 'very handsome behaviour' to the horse-dealer, she requested that he would be pleased to step into one of her back rooms; at the same time, offering to reinstate his clothes in wearable condition by drying them as rapidly as possible: a necessity which was too clamorously urgent for immediate attention--to allow of the dripping student's rejecting her offer.

CHAPTER VI.

IN WHAT MANNER MR. JEREMIAH PREPARED HIMSELF FOR THE BALL.

As Mr. Jeremiah stood looking out of the window for the purpose of whiling away a tedious forenoon, it first struck his mind--upon the sight of a number of men dressed very differently from himself--that his wardrobe would scarcely match with the festal splendour of the _fete_ at which he was to be present in the evening. Even if it had been possible to overlook the tarnished l.u.s.tre of his coat, not much embellished by its late watery trials upon the golden sow, yet he could not possibly make his appearance in a surtout. He sent therefore to one tailor after another: but all a.s.sured him that they had their hands much too full of business to undertake the conversion of his surtout into a dress coat against the evening; still less could they undertake to make a new one. Just as vainly did he look about for shoes: many were on sale; but none of them with premises s.p.a.cious enough to accommodate his very respectable feet.

All this put him into no little perplexity. True it was, that Mrs.

Sweetbread had spontaneously thrown open to his inspection the wardrobe of her deceased husband. But even _he_ had contrived to go through this world in shoes of considerably smaller dimensions than Mr. Jeremiah demanded. And from a pretty large choice of coats there was not one which he could turn to account. For, to say nothing of their being one and all too short by a good half ell, even in the very best of them he looked precisely as that man looks who has lately slaughtered a hog, or as that man looks who designs to slaughter a hog.

Now, then, when all his plans for meeting the exigencies of his case had turned out abortive, suddenly a bold idea struck him. In a sort of inspiration he seized a pair of scissors, for the purpose of converting with his own untutored hand of genius his pea-green surtout into a pea-green frock. This operation having, in his own judgment, succeeded to a marvel, he no longer hesitated to cut out a pair of ball shoes from his neat's-leather 'field-pieces.' Whatever equipments were still wanting could be had for money, with the exception of a shirt; and, as to _that_, the wedding shirt of the late Mr. Sweetbread would answer the purpose very pa.s.sably.

What provoked our hero most of all were the new patent shoe-buckles, the fine points of which would not take firm hold of the coa.r.s.e leather shoes, but on every bold step burst asunder--so that he was obliged to keep his eye warily upon them, and in consideration of their tender condition, to set his feet down to the ground very gently.

The hostess had just sunk pretty deep into her customary failing of intoxication, when he went to her and asked how he looked in his gala dress.

'Look!' said she; 'why, like a king baked in gingerbread. Ah! now, such a man as you is the man for my money:--stout, and resolute, and active, and a man that----'

'Basta! sufficit, my dear.'

'To be sure, for his professional merit, I mustn't say anything against the late Mr. Sweetbread: No, n.o.body must say anything against _that_: he was the man for slaughtering of swine; Oh! he slaughtered them, that it was beautiful to see! pigs in particular, and pigs in general, were what he understood. Ah! lord! to my dying day I shall never forget the great sow that he presented to our gracious princess when she was at the baths, two years come Michaelmas. Says her Highness to him, says she,--"Master," says she, "one may see by your look that you understand how to fatten: anybody," says she, "may see it in his face: a child may see it by the very look on him. Ah!" says her Highness, "he's the man for swine: he was born to converse with hogs: he's a heaven-born curer of bacon."--Lord! Mr. Schnackenberger, you'll not believe how these gracious words revived my very heart! The tears came into my eyes, and I couldn't speak for joy. But, when all's said and done, what's fame?

what's glory? say I. A man like you is the man for me: but for such another lazy old night-cap as the late Mr. Sweetbread----'

'Bah! sufficit, sweetheart;' at the same time squeezing her hand, which she took as an intimation that she ought not to trouble herself with the past, but rather look forward to a joyous futurity.

As the hour drew near for presenting himself in the circle of the princess, Mr. Jeremiah recommended to her the most vigilant care of Juno, from whom he very unwillingly separated himself in these last days of their connection--and not until he had satisfied himself that it was absolutely impossible to take her with him to the ball. Another favourite, namely, his pipe, ought also, he feared, in strict propriety to be left behind. But in the first place, 'who knows,' thought he, 'but there may be one room reserved for such ladies and gentlemen as choose to smoke?' And, secondly, let _that_ be as it might, he considered that the great _meerschaum_[22] head of his pipe--over which he watched as over the apple of his eye--could nowhere be so safely preserved as in his own pocket: as to any protuberance that it might occasion, _that_ he valued not at a rush. Just as little did he care for the grotesque appearance of the mouth-piece, which in true journeyman's fashion stuck out from the opening of his capacious pocket to a considerable distance.

[22] '_Meerschaum_:' I believe a particular kind of clay, called 'sea-spray,' from its fineness and lightness, from which the boles of pipes are made in Turkey--often at enormous prices, and much imported into Germany, where they are in great request. Such is the extent of _my_ knowledge on the subject; or perhaps of my ignorance. But, in fact, I know nothing about it.

'And now don't you go and forget some people in the midst of all this show of powdered puppies,' cried the landlady after him.