‘Drowned! who says so?’ repeated the colonel.
‘Cluffe—everybody.’
‘Why, there it is!’ replied the colonel,
with a great oath, breaking through all his customary
reserve and stiffness, and flinging his cocked-hat
on the middle of the table, piteously, ’A fellow
that can’t swim a yard will go by way
of saving a great—a large gentleman, like
Captain Cluffe, from drowning, and he’s pulled
in himself; and so—bless my soul! what’s
to be done?’
So the colonel broke into a lamentation, and a fury,
and a wonder. ’Cluffe and Puddock, the
two steadiest officers in the corps! He had a
devilish good mind to put Cluffe under arrest—the
idiots—Puddock—he was devilish
sorry. There wasn’t a more honourable’—et
cetera. In fact, a very angry and pathetic
funeral oration, during which, accompanied by Doctor
Toole, Lieutenant Puddock, in person, entered; and
the colonel stopped short with his eyes and mouth very
wide open, and said the colonel very sternly.
’I—I’m glad to see, Sir, you’re
safe: and—and—I suppose,
I shall hear now that Cluffe’s drowned?’
and he stamped the emphasis on the floor.
While all this was going on, some of the soldiers
had actually got into Dublin. The tide was in,
and the water very high at ‘Bloody Bridge.’
A hat, near the corner, was whisking round and round,
always trying to get under the arch, and always, when
on the point, twirled round again into the corner—an
image of the ‘Flying Dutchman’ and hope
deferred. A watchman’s crozier hooked the
giddy thing. It was not a military hat; but they
brought it back, and the captive was laid in the guard-room—mentioned
by me because we’ve seen that identical hat
before.
HOW CHARLES NUTTER’S TEA, PIPE, AND TOBACCO-BOX
WERE ALL SET OUT FOR HIM IN THE SMALL PARLOUR AT THE
MILLS; AND HOW THAT NIGHT WAS PASSED IN THE HOUSE
BY THE CHURCH-YARD.
Mrs. Nutter and Mrs. Sturk, the wives of the two men
who most hated one another within the vicinage of
Chapelizod—natural enemies, holding aloof
one from another, and each regarding the other in a
puzzled way, with a sort of apprehension and horror,
as the familiar of that worst and most formidable
of men—her husband—were this
night stricken with a common fear and sorrow.
Darkness descended on the Mills and the river—a
darkness deepened by the umbrageous trees that grouped
about the old gray house in which poor Mrs. Nutter
lay so ill at ease. Moggy carried the jingling
tray of tea-things into Nutter’s little study,
and lighted his candles, and set the silver snuffers
in the dish, and thought she heard him coming, and
ran back again, and returned with the singing ‘tea-kitchen,’
and then away again, for the thin buttered toast under
its china cover, which our ancestors loved.
Then she listened—but ’twas a mistake—it
was the Widow Macan’s step, who carried the
ten pailfuls of water up from the river to fill the
butt in the backyard every Tuesday and Friday, for
a shilling a week, and ’a cup o’ tay with
the girls in the kitchen.’
