Lillyman was at home, and came.
’Puddock’s drowned, my dear Lillyman,
and I’m little better. The ferry boat broke
away with us. Do go down to the adjutant—they
ought to raise the salmon nets—I’m
very ill myself—very ill, indeed—else
I’d have assisted; but you know me, Lillyman.
Poor Puddock—’tis a sad business—but
lose no time.’
‘And can’t he swim?’ asked Lillyman,
aghast.
’Swim?—ay, like a stone, poor fellow!
If he had only thrown himself out, and held by me,
hang it, I’d have brought him to shore; but poor
Puddock, he lost his head. And I—you
see me here—don’t forget to tell
them the condition you found me in, and—and—now
don’t lose a moment.’
So off went Lillyman to give the alarm at the barrack.
TREATING OF SOME CONFUSION, IN CONSEQUENCE, IN THE
CLUB-ROOM OF THE PHOENIX AND ELSEWHERE, AND OF A HAT
THAT WAS PICKED UP.
When Cluffe sprang out of the boat, he was very near
capsizing it and finishing Puddock off-hand, but she
righted and shot away swiftly towards the very centre
of the weir, over which, in a sheet of white foam,
she swept, and continued her route toward Dublin—bottom
upward, leaving little Puddock, however, safe and
sound, clinging to a post, at top, and standing upon
a rough sort of plank, which afforded a very unpleasant
footing, by which the nets were visited from time to
time.
‘Hallo! are you safe, Cluffe?’ cried the
little lieutenant, quite firm, though a little dizzy,
on his narrow stand, with the sheets of foam whizzing
under his feet; what had become of his musical companion
he had not the faintest notion, and when he saw the
boat hurled over near the sluice, and drive along
the stream upside down, he nearly despaired.
But when the captain’s military cloak, which
he took for Cluffe himself, followed in the track
of the boat, whisking, sprawling, and tumbling, in
what Puddock supposed to be the agonies of drowning,
and went over the weir and disappeared from view,
returning no answer to his screams of ‘Strike
out, Cluffe! to your right, Cluffe. Hollo! to
your right,’ he quite gave the captain over.
‘Surrendhur, you thievin’ villain, or
I’ll put the contints iv this gun into yir carcass,’
shouted an awful voice from the right bank, and Puddock
saw the outline of a gigantic marksman, preparing to
fire into his corresponding flank.
‘What do you mean, Sir?’ shouted Puddock,
in extreme wrath and discomfort.
‘Robbin’ the nets, you spalpeen; if you
throw them salmon you’re hidin’ undher
your coat into the wather, be the tare-o-war—’
‘What salmon, Sir?’ interrupted the lieutenant.
’Why, salmon’s not in season, Sir.’
‘None iv yer flummery, you schamin’ scoundrel;
but jest come here and give yourself up, for so sure
as you don’t, or dar to stir an inch from that
spot, I’ll blow you to smithereens!’
