Presently they all return, and wait for him to become
conscious that they will all be glad to get rid of
him. Some clothes are got together for him to
wear, his own being saturated with water, and his present
dress being composed of blankets.
Becoming more and more uncomfortable, as though the
prevalent dislike were finding him out somewhere in
his sleep and expressing itself to him, the patient
at last opens his eyes wide, and is assisted by his
daughter to sit up in bed.
‘Well, Riderhood,’ says the doctor, ‘how
do you feel?’
He replies gruffly, ‘Nothing to boast on.’
Having, in fact, returned to life in an uncommonly
sulky state.
‘I don’t mean to preach; but I hope,’
says the doctor, gravely shaking his head, ‘that
this escape may have a good effect upon you, Riderhood.’
The patient’s discontented growl of a reply
is not intelligible; his daughter, however, could
interpret, if she would, that what he says is, he
‘don’t want no Poll-Parroting’.
Mr Riderhood next demands his shirt; and draws it
on over his head (with his daughter’s help)
exactly as if he had just had a Fight.
‘Warn’t it a steamer?’ he pauses
to ask her.
‘Yes, father.’
‘I’ll have the law on her, bust her! and
make her pay for it.’
He then buttons his linen very moodily, twice or thrice
stopping to examine his arms and hands, as if to see
what punishment he has received in the Fight.
He then doggedly demands his other garments, and slowly
gets them on, with an appearance of great malevolence
towards his late opponent and all the spectators.
He has an impression that his nose is bleeding, and
several times draws the back of his hand across it,
and looks for the result, in a pugilistic manner,
greatly strengthening that incongruous resemblance.
‘Where’s my fur cap?’ he asks in
a surly voice, when he has shuffled his clothes on.
‘In the river,’ somebody rejoins.
‘And warn’t there no honest man to pick
it up? O’ course there was though, and
to cut off with it arterwards. You are a rare
lot, all on you!’
Thus, Mr Riderhood: taking from the hands of
his daughter, with special ill-will, a lent cap, and
grumbling as he pulls it down over his ears.
Then, getting on his unsteady legs, leaning heavily
upon her, and growling, ’Hold still, can’t
you? What! You must be a staggering next,
must you?’ he takes his departure out of the
ring in which he has had that little turn-up with
Death.
A HAPPY RETURN OF THE DAY
Mr and Mrs Wilfer had seen a full quarter of a hundred
more anniversaries of their wedding day than Mr and
Mrs Lammle had seen of theirs, but they still celebrated
the occasion in the bosom of their family. Not
that these celebrations ever resulted in anything
particularly agreeable, or that the family was ever
disappointed by that circumstance on account of having
looked forward to the return of the auspicious day
with sanguine anticipations of enjoyment. It was
kept morally, rather as a Fast than a Feast, enabling
Mrs Wilfer to hold a sombre darkling state, which
exhibited that impressive woman in her choicest colours.
