Array Коллектив авторов - 30 лучших рассказов британских писателей / 30 Best British Short Stories

‘Compensation?’ suggested the vice.

‘That’s it,’ said the chairman. ‘Compensation. They didn’t give it him, though, and then he got very fond of his country all at once, and went about saying that gas was a death-blow to his native land, and that it was a plot of the radicals to ruin the country and destroy the oil and cotton trade for ever, and that the whales would go and kill themselves privately, out of sheer spite and vexation at not being caught. At last he got right-down cracked; called his tobacco-pipe a gas-pipe; thought his tears were lamp-oil; and went on with all manner of nonsense of that sort, till one night he hung himself on a lamp-iron in Saint Martin’s Lane, and there was an end of HIM.

‘Tom loved him, gentlemen, but he survived it. He shed a tear over his grave, got very drunk, spoke a funeral oration that night in the watch-house, and was fined five shillings for it, in the morning. Some men are none the worse for this sort of thing. Tom was one of ‘em. He went that very afternoon on a new beat: as clear in his head, and as free from fever as Father Mathew himself.

‘Tom’s new beat, gentlemen, was – I can’t exactly say where, for that he’d never tell; but I know it was in a quiet part of town, where there were some queer old houses. I have always had it in my head that it must have been somewhere near Canonbury Tower in Islington, but that’s a matter of opinion. Wherever it was, he went upon it, with a bran-new ladder, a white hat, a brown holland jacket and trousers, a blue neck-kerchief, and a sprig of full-blown double wall-flower in his button-hole. Tom was always genteel in his appearance, and I have heard from the best judges, that if he had left his ladder at home that afternoon, you might have took him for a lord.

‘He was always merry, was Tom, and such a singer, that if there was any encouragement for native talent, he’d have been at the opera. He was on his ladder, lighting his first lamp, and singing to himself in a manner more easily to be conceived than described, when he hears the clock strike five, and suddenly sees an old gentleman with a telescope in his hand, throw up a window and look at him very hard.

‘Tom didn’t know what could be passing in this old gentleman’s mind. He thought it likely enough that he might be saying within himself, ‘Here’s a new lamplighter – a good-looking young fellow – shall I stand something to drink?’ Thinking this possible, he keeps quite still, pretending to be very particular about the wick, and looks at the old gentleman sideways, seeming to take no notice of him.

‘Gentlemen, he was one of the strangest and most mysterious-looking files that ever Tom clapped his eyes on. He was dressed all slovenly and untidy, in a great gown of a kind of bed-furniture pattern, with a cap of the same on his head; and a long old flapped waistcoat; with no braces, no strings, very few buttons – in short, with hardly any of those artificial contrivances that hold society together. Tom knew by these signs, and by his not being shaved, and by his not being over-clean, and by a sort of wisdom not quite awake, in his face, that he was a scientific old gentleman. He often told me that if he could have conceived the possibility of the whole Royal Society being boiled down into one man, he should have said the old gentleman’s body was that Body.

‘The old gentleman claps the telescope to his eye, looks all round, sees nobody else in sight, stares at Tom again, and cries out very loud:

‘“Hal-loa!”

‘“Halloa, Sir,” says Tom from the ladder; “and halloa again, if you come to that.”

‘“Here’s an extraordinary fulfilment,” says the old gentleman, “of a prediction of the planets.”

‘“Is there?”says Tom. “I’m very glad to hear it.”

‘“Young man,” says the old gentleman, “you don’t know me.”

‘“Sir,” says Tom, “I have not that honour; but I shall be happy to drink your health, notwithstanding.”

‘“I read,” cries the old gentleman, without taking any notice of this politeness on Tom’s part – “I read what’s going to happen, in the stars.”

‘Tom thanked him for the information, and begged to know if anything particular was going to happen in the stars, in the course of a week or so; but the old gentleman, correcting him, explained that he read in the stars what was going to happen on dry land, and that he was acquainted with all the celestial bodies.

‘“I hope they’re all well, Sir,” says Tom, – “everybody.”

‘“Hush!” cries the old gentleman. “I have consulted the book of Fate with rare and wonderful success. I am versed in the great sciences of astrology and astronomy. In my house here, I have every description of apparatus for observing the course and motion of the planets. Six months ago, I derived from this source, the knowledge that precisely as the clock struck five this afternoon a stranger would present himself – the destined husband of my young and lovely niece – in reality of illustrious and high descent, but whose birth would be enveloped in uncertainty and mystery. Don’t tell me yours isn’t,” says the old gentleman, who was in such a hurry to speak that he couldn’t get the words out fast enough, “for I know better.”

‘Gentlemen, Tom was so astonished when he heard him say this, that he could hardly keep his footing on the ladder, and found it necessary to hold on by the lamp-post. There WAS a mystery about his birth. His mother had always admitted it. Tom had never known who was his father, and some people had gone so far as to say that even SHE was in doubt.

‘While he was in this state of amazement, the old gentleman leaves the window, bursts out of the house-door, shakes the ladder, and Tom, like a ripe pumpkin, comes sliding down into his arms.

‘“Let me embrace you,” he says, folding his arms about him, and nearly lighting up his old bed-furniture gown at Tom’s link. “You’re a man of noble aspect. Everything combines to prove the accuracy of my observations. You have had mysterious promptings within you,” he says; “I know you have had whisperings of greatness, eh?” he says.

‘“I think I have,” says Tom – Tom was one of those who can persuade themselves to anything they like – “I’ve often thought I wasn’t the small beer I was taken for.”

‘“You were right,” cries the old gentleman, hugging him again. “Come in. My niece awaits us.”

‘“Is the young lady tolerable good-looking, Sir?” says Tom, hanging fire rather, as he thought of her playing the piano, and knowing French, and being up to all manner of accomplishments.

‘“She’s beautiful!” cries the old gentleman, who was in such a terrible bustle that he was all in a perspiration. “She has a graceful carriage, an exquisite shape, a sweet voice, a countenance beaming with animation and expression; and the eye,” he says, rubbing his hands, “of a startled fawn.”

‘Tom supposed this might mean, what was called among his circle of acquaintance, “a game eye;” and, with a view to this defect, inquired whether the young lady had any cash.

‘“She has five thousand pounds,” cries the old gentleman. “But what of that? what of that? A word in your ear. I’m in search of the philosopher’s stone. I have very nearly found it – not quite. It turns everything to gold; that’s its property.”

‘Tom naturally thought it must have a deal of property; and said that when the old gentleman did get it, he hoped he’d be careful to keep it in the family.

‘“Certainly,” he says, “of course. Five thousand pounds! What’s five thousand pounds to us? What’s five million?” he says. “What’s five thousand million? Money will be nothing to us. We shall never be able to spend it fast enough.”