Фредерик Марриет - Japhet in Search of a Father

He of the rubicund hair had retreated, because so violent was the blow he could not help so doing, and we all must yield to fate. But it was not from fear. Seizing a vile potation that was labelled “To be taken immediately,” and hurling it with demoniacal force right on the chops of the courageous Timothy, “Take that!” cried he with a rancorous yell. This missile, well-directed as the spears of Homer’s heroes, came full upon the bridge of Timothy’s nose, and the fragile glass shivering, inflicted divers wounds upon his physiognomy, and at the same time poured forth a dark burnt-sienna-coloured balsam, to heal them, giving pain unutterable. Timothy, disdaining to lament the agony of his wounds, followed the example of his antagonist, and hastily seizing a similar bottle of much larger dimensions, threw it with such force that it split between the eyes of his opponent. Thus with these dreadful weapons did they commence the mortal strife.

The lovers of good order , or at least of fair play, gathered round the combatants, forming an almost impregnable ring, yet of sufficient dimensions to avoid the missiles. “ Go it, red-head !” “ Bravo! white-apron !” resounded on every side. Draughts now met draughts in their passage through the circumambient air, and exploded like shells over a besieged town. Bolusses were fired with the precision of cannon shot, pill-boxes were thrown with such force that they burst like grape and cannister, while acids and alkalies hissed, as they neutralised each other’s power, with all the venom of expiring snakes. “Bravo! white-apron!” “Red-head for ever!” resounded on every side as the conflict continued with unabated vigour. The ammunition was fast expending on both sides, when Mr Ebenezer Pleggit, hearing the noise, and perhaps smelling his own drugs, was so unfortunately rash and so unwisely foolhardy as to break through the sacred ring, advancing from behind with uplifted cane to fell the redoubtable Timothy, when a mixture of his own, hurled by his own red-haired champion, caught him in his open mouth, breaking against his only two remaining front teeth, extracting them as the discharged liquid ran down his throat, and turning him as sick as a dog. He fell, was taken away on a shutter, and it was some days before he was again to be seen in his shop, dispensing those medicines which, on this fatal occasion, he would but too gladly have dispensed with.

Reader, have you not elsewhere read in the mortal fray between knights, when the casque has been beaten off, the shield lost, and the sword shivered, how they have resorted to closer and more deadly strife, with their daggers raised on high? Thus it was with Timothy: his means had failed, and disdaining any longer to wage a distant combat, he closed vigorously with his panting enemy, overthrew him in the first struggle, seizing from his basket the only weapons which remained, one single vial, and one single box of pills. As he sat upon his prostrate foe, first he forced the box of pills into his gasping mouth, and then with the lower end of the vial he drove it down his throat, as a gunner rams home the wad and shot into a thirty-two pound carronade. Choked with the box, the fallen knight held up his hands for quarter; but Timothy continued until the end of the vial, breaking out the top and bottom of the pasteboard receptacle, forty-and-eight of antibilious pills rolled in haste down Red-head’s throat. Timothy then seized his basket, and amid the shouts of triumph, walked away. His fallen-crested adversary coughed up the remnants of the pasteboard, once more breathed, and was led disconsolate to the neighbouring pump; while Timothy regained our shop with his blushing honours thick upon him.

But I must drop the vein heroical. Mr Cophagus, who was at home when Timothy returned, was at first very much inclined to be wroth at the loss of so much medicine; but when he heard the story, and the finale, he was so pleased at Tim’s double victory over Mr Pleggit and his messenger, that he actually put his hand in his pocket, and pulled out half-a-crown.

Mr Pleggit, on the contrary, was anything but pleased; he went to a lawyer, and commenced an action for assault and battery, and all the neighbourhood did nothing but talk about the affray which had taken place, and the action at law which it was said would take place in the ensuing term.

But with the exception of this fracas, which ended in the action not holding good, whereby the animosity was increased, I have little to recount during the remainder of the time I served under Mr Cophagus. I had been more than three years with him when my confinement became insupportable. I had but one idea, which performed an everlasting cycle in my brain—Who was my father? And I should have abandoned the profession to search the world in the hope of finding my progenitor, had it not been that I was without the means. Latterly, I had hoarded up all I could collect; but the sum was small, much too small for the proposed expedition. I became melancholy, indifferent to the business, and slovenly in my appearance, when a circumstance occurred which put an end to my further dispensing medicines, and left me a free agent.

Looking out for Business not exactly minding your own Business—The Loss of the Scales occasions the Loss of Place to Timothy and me, who when weighed in other Scales were found wanting—We bundle off with our Bundles on.

It happened one market-day that there was an overdriven, infuriated beast, which was making sad havoc. Crowds of people were running past our shop in one direction, and the cries of “Mad bull!” were re-echoed in every quarter.

Mr Cophagus, who was in the shop, and to whom, as I have before observed, a mad bull was a source of great profit, very naturally looked out of the shop to ascertain whether the animal was near to us. In most other countries, when people hear of any danger, they generally avoid it by increasing their distance, but in England, it is too often the case, that they are so fond of indulging their curiosity, that they run to the danger. Mr Cophagus, who perceived the people running one way, naturally supposed, not being aware of the extreme proximity of the animal, that the people were running to see what was the matter, and turned his eyes in that direction, walking out on the pavement that he might have a fairer view. He was just observing, “Can’t say—fear—um—rascal Pleggit—close to him—get all the custom—wounds—contusions—and—” when the animal came suddenly round the corner upon Mr Cophagus, who had his eyes the other way, and before he could escape tossed him through his own shop windows, and landed him on the counter. Not satisfied with this, the beast followed him into the shop. Timothy and I pulled Mr Cophagus over towards us, and he dropped inside the counter, where we also crouched, frightened out of our wits. To our great horror the bull made one or two attempts to leap the counter; but not succeeding, and being now attacked by the dogs and butcher boys, he charged at them through the door, carrying away our best scales on his horns as a trophy, as he galloped out of the shop in pursuit of his persecutors. When the shouts and hallooes were at some little distance, Timothy and I raised our heads and looked round us; and perceiving that all was safe, we proceeded to help Mr Cophagus, who remained on the floor bleeding, and in a state of insensibility. We carried him into the back parlour and laid him on the sofa. I desired Timothy to run for surgical aid as fast as he could, while I opened a vein; and in a few minutes he returned with our opponent, Mr Ebenezer Pleggit. We stripped Mr Cophagus, and proceeded to examine him. “Bad case this—very bad case, indeed, Mr Newland—dislocation of the os humeri—severe contusion on the os frontis—and I’m very much afraid there is some intercostal injury. Very sorry, very sorry, indeed, for my brother Cophagus.” But Mr Pleggit did not appear to be sorry; on the contrary, he appeared to perform his surgical duties with the greatest glee.