The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle. T. SmollettЧитать онлайн книгу.
very courteously for his invitation, which he said he could not immediately accept; but promised, if he would favour him with a letter, and fix the time at which he proposed to set out for France, he would endeavour to visit him at the commodore's habitation, and from thence give him a convoy to Dover. This new treaty being settled, and a dossil of lint, with a snip of plaster, applied to our adventurer's wound, he parted from the brother of his dear Emilia, to whom and his friend Sophy he sent his kindest wishes; and having lodged one night upon the road, arrived next day in the afternoon at the garrison, where he found all his friends in good health, and overjoyed at his return.
The commodore, who was by this time turned of seventy, and altogether crippled by the gout, seldom went abroad; and as his conversation was not very entertaining, had but little company within doors; so that his spirits must have quite stagnated, had not they been kept in motion by the conversation of Hatchway, and received at different times a wholesome fillip from the discipline of his spouse, who, by the force of pride, religion, and Cognac, had erected a most terrible tyranny in the house. There was such a quick circulation of domestics in the family, that every suit of livery had been worn by figures of all dimensions. Trunnion himself had long before this time yielded to the torrent of her arbitrary sway, though not without divers obstinate efforts to maintain his liberty; and now, that he was disabled by his infirmities, when he used to bear his empress singing the loud Orthyan song among the servants below, he would often in whispers communicate to the lieutenant hints of what he would do if so be as how he was not deprived of the use of his precious limbs. Hatchway was the only person whom the temper of Mrs. Trunnion respected, either because she dreaded his ridicule, or looked upon his person with eyes of affection. This being the situation of things in the garrison, it is not to be doubted that the old gentleman highly enjoyed the presence of Peregrine, who found means to ingratiate himself so effectually with his aunt, that while he remained at home, she seemed to have exchanged the disposition of a tigress for that of a gentle kid; but he found his own mother as implacable, and his father as much henpecked, as ever.
Gamaliel, who now very seldom enjoyed the conversation of his old friend the commodore, had some time ago entered into an amicable society, consisting of the barber, apothecary, attorney, and exciseman of the parish, among whom he used to spend the evening at Tunley's, and listen to their disputes upon philosophy and politics with great comfort and edification, while his sovereign lady domineered at home as usual, visited with pomp in the neighbourhood, and employed her chief care in the education of her darling son Gam, who was now in the fifteenth year of his age, and so remarkable for his perverse disposition, that, in spite of his mother's influence and authority, he was not only hated, but also despised, both at home and abroad. She had put him under the tuition of the curate, who lived in the family, and was obliged to attend him in all his exercises and excursions. This governor was a low-bred fellow, who had neither experience nor ingenuity, but possessed a large fund of adulation and servile complaisance, by which he had gained the good graces of Mrs. Pickle, and presided over all her deliberations in the same manner as his superior managed those of Mrs. Trunnion.
He had one day rode out to take the air with his pupil, who, as I have already observed, was odious to the poor people, for having killed their dogs and broken their inclosures, and, on account of his hump, distinguished by the title of My Lord, when in a narrow lane they chanced to meet Peregrine on horseback. The young squire no sooner perceived his elder brother, for whom he had been instructed to entertain the most inveterate grudge, than he resolved to insult him en passant, and actually rode against him from gallop. Our hero, guessing his aim, fixed himself in his stirrups, and by a dexterous management of the reins avoided the shock in such a manner as that their legs only should encounter; by which means my lord was tilted out of his saddle, and in a twinkling laid sprawling in the dirt. The governor, enraged at the disgrace of his charge, advanced with great insolence and fury, and struck at Peregrine with his whip. Nothing could be more agreeable to our young gentleman than this assault, which furnished him with an opportunity of chastising an officious wretch, whose petulance and malice he had longed to punish. He therefore, spurring up his horse towards his antagonist, overthrew him in the middle of a hedge. Before he had time to recollect himself from the confusion of the fall, Pickle alighted in a trice, and exercised his horsewhip with such agility about the curate's face and ears, that he was fain to prostrate himself before his enraged conqueror, and implore his forbearance in the most abject terms. While Peregrine was thus employed, his brother Gam had made shift to rise and attack him in the rear; for which reason, when the tutor was quelled, the victor faced about, snatched the weapon out of his hand, and having broken it to pieces, remounted his horse and rode off, without deigning to honour him with any other notice.
The condition in which they returned produced infinite clamour against the conqueror, who was represented as a ruffian who had lain in ambush to make away with his brother, in whose defence the curate was said to have received those cruel stripes that hindered him from appearing for three whole weeks in the performance of his duty at church. Complaints were made to the commodore, who, having inquired into the circumstances of the affair, approved of what his nephew had done, adding, with many oaths, that provided Peregrine had been out of the scrape, he wished Crook-back had broken his neck in the fall.
CHAPTER XXIX.
He projects a plan of Revenge, which is executed against the Curate.
Our hero, exasperated at the villainy of the curate, in the treacherous misrepresentation he had made of this encounter, determined to rise upon him a method of revenge, which should be not only effectual but also unattended any bad consequence to himself. For this purpose he and Hatchway, to whom he imparted his plan, went to the ale-house one evening, and called for an empty room, knowing there was no other but that which they had chosen for the scene of action. This apartment was a sort of a parlour that fronted the kitchen, with a window towards the yard, where after they had sat some time, the lieutenant found means to amuse the landlord in discourse, while Peregrine, stepping out into the yard, by the talent of mimickry, which he possessed in a surprising degree, counterfeited a dialogue between the curate and Tunley's wife. This reaching the ears of the publican, for whose hearing it was calculated, inflamed his naturally jealous disposition to such a degree, that he could not conceal his emotion, but made a hundred efforts to quit the room; while the lieutenant, smoking his pipe with great gravity, as if he neither heard what passed nor took notice of the landlord's disorder, detained him on the spot by a succession of questions, which he could not refuse to answer, though he stood sweating with agony all the time, stretching his neck every instant towards the window through which the voices were conveyed, scratching his head, and exhibiting sundry other symptoms of impatience and agitation. At length the supposed conversation came to such a pitch of amorous complaisance, that the husband, quite frantic with his imaginary disgrace, rushed out of the door crying, “Coming, sir;” but as he was obliged to make a circuit round one-half of the house, Peregrine had got in by the window before Tunley arrived in the yard.
According to the feigned intelligence he had received, he ran directly to the barn, in expectation of making some very extraordinary discovery; and having employed some minutes in rummaging the straw to no purpose, returned in a state of distraction to the kitchen, just as his wife chanced to enter at the other door. The circumstance of her appearance confirmed him in the opinion that the deed was done. As the disease of being henpecked was epidemic in the parish, he durst not express the least hint of his uneasiness to her, but resolved to take vengeance on the libidinous priest, who he imagined had corrupted the chastity of his spouse.
The two confederates, in order to be certified that their scheme had taken effect, as well as to blow up the flame which they had kindled, called for Tunley, in whose countenance they could easily discern his confusion. Peregrine, desiring him to sit down and drink a glass with them, began to interrogate him about his family, and, among other things, asked him how long he had been married to that handsome wife. This question, which was put with an arch significance of look, alarmed the publican, who began to fear that Pickle had overheard his dishonour; and this suspicion was not at all removed when the lieutenant, with a sly regard, pronounced