IN WHICH MISFORTUNE EMPTIES HER LAST VIAL UPON THE HEAD OF MR.
SCHNACKENBERGER.
Exhausted by the misfortunes of the day, towards evening Mr. Jeremiah
was reposing at his length, and smoking in the window-seat of his room.
Solemn clouds of smoke expressed the gloomy vapours which rested on his
brain. The hours of Juno's life, it seemed to him, were numbered; every
soul in B----was her sworn foe--bipeds and quadrupeds, men, women, dogs,
cats, children, kittens, deputy-recorders, rabbits, cooks,
legs-of-mutton, to say nothing of goose-livers, sausages, haunches of
venison, and 'quilts.'--If he were to take country-lodgings for her, and
to send her out of B----, what awaited her there? Whither could she go,
but some butcher--some butterwoman--some rough-rider or other had a
private account to settle with her?--'Unhappy creature!' ejaculated the
student, 'torment of my life!'
At this moment Mr. Schnackenberger's anxious ruminations were further
enforced by the appearance of the town-crier under his window: inert as
the town-council were in giving effect to their own resolutions, on this
occasion it was clear that they viewed the matter as no joke; and were
bent on rigorously following up their sentence. For the crier proclaimed
the decree by beat of drum; explained the provisos of the twelve hours'
truce, and enjoined all good citizens, and worthy patriots, at the
expiration of that period, to put the public enemy to the sword,
wherever she should be found, and even to rise _en masse_, if that
should be necessary, for the extermination of the national robber--as
they valued their own private welfare, or the honour and dignity of the
state.
'English fiend!' said Mr. Schnackenberger, 'will nothing reclaim thee?
Now that I am rid of my German plague, must I be martyred by my English
plague?' For be it mentioned that, on our hero's return from the
council, he had received some little comfort in his afflictions from
hearing that Mrs. Sweetbread had, upon her return to B----, testified
her satisfaction with the zealous leader of the butchers' boys, by
forthwith bestowing upon him her widowed hand and heart, together with
the Sow and its appurtenances. 'English fiend!' resumed Mr.
Schnackenberger, 'most _e_dacious and _au_dacious of quadrupeds! can
nothing be done for thee? Is it impossible to save thy life?' And again
he stopped to ruminate. For her _meta_physics it was hopeless to cure;
but could nothing be done for her _physics_? At the university of X----
she had lived two years next door neighbour to the Professor of Moral
Philosophy, and had besides attended many of his lectures without any
sort of benefit to her morals, which still continued of the very worst
description. 'But could no course of medical treatment,' thought her
master, 'correct her inextinguishable voracity? Could not her pulse be
lowered? Might not her appetite, or her courage, be tamed? Would a
course of tonics be of service to her? Suppose I were to take her to
England to try the effect of her native air; would any of the great
English surgeons or physicians be able to prescribe for her effectually?
Would opium cure her? Yet there was a case of bulimy at Toulouse, where
the French surgeons caught the patient and saturated him with opium; but
it was of no use; for he ate[26] as many children after it as before.
Would Mr. Abernethy, with his blue pill and his Rufus pill, be of any
service to her? Or the acid bath--or the sulphate of zinc--or the white
oxide of bismuth?--or soda-water? For, perhaps, her liver may be
affected. But, lord! what talk I of her liver? Her liver's as sound as
mine. It's her disposition that's in fault; it's her moral principles
that are relaxed; and something must be done to brace them. Let me
consider.'
[26] This man, whose case I have read in some French Medical Memoirs,
was a desperate fellow: he cared no more for an ounce of opium, than for
a stone of beef, or half a bushel of potatoes: all three would not have
made him a breakfast. As to children, he denied in the most tranquil
manner that he ate them. ''Pon my honour,' he sometimes said, 'between
ourselves, I never _do_ eat children.' However, it was generally agreed,
that he was pædophagous, or infantivorous. Some said that he first
drowned them; whence I sometimes called him the pædobaptist. Certain it
is, that wherever he appeared, a sudden scarcity of children
prevailed.--_Note of the Translator._
At this moment a cry of 'murder, murder!' drew the student's eyes to
the street below him; and there, to afflict his heart, stood his
graceless Juno, having just upset the servant of a cook's shop, in the
very act of rifling her basket; the sound of the drum was yet ringing
through the streets; the crowd collected to hear it had not yet
withdrawn from the spot; and in this way was Juno expressing her
reverence for the proclamation of the town-council of B----.
'Fiend of perdition!' said Mr. Schnackenberger, flinging his darling
pipe at her head, in the anguish of his wrath, and hastening down to
seize her. On arriving below, however, there lay his beautiful sea-foam
pipe in fragments upon the stones; but Juno had vanished--to reappear no
more in B----.