Volume II Part 10 (1/2)
'Fire and furies!' exclaimed Mr. Schnackenberger, as Juno broke out into uproarious barking about midnight: the door was opened from the outside; and in stepped the landlady, arrayed in a night-dress that improved her charms into a rivalry with those of her sign at the street-door; accompanied by a fellow, who, by way of salutation, cracked an immense hunting-whip.
'So it's here that I'm to get my own again?' cried the fellow: and forthwith Mr. Jeremiah stepped out of bed, and hauled him up to the light of the lamp which the landlady carried.
'Yes, Sir,' said, the rough-rider, 'it's I, sure enough;' and, to judge by the countenance of his female conductor, every accent of his anger was music of the spheres to her unquenchable wrath: 'I'm the man, sure enough, whose horse you rode away with; and _that_ you'll find to be a true bill.'
'Rode away with!' cried Mr. Jeremiah: 'Now, may the sweetest of all thunderbolts----But, rascal, this instant what's to pay? then take thy carrion out of the stable, and be off.' So saying, Mr. Schnackenberger strode to the bed for his well-filled purse.
On these signs of solvency, however, the horse-dealer turned up the gentle phasis of his character, and said, 'Nay, nay; since things are so, why it's all right; and, in the Lord's name, keep the horse as long as you want him.'
'Dog! in the first place, and firstly, tell me what's your demand? in the second place, and secondly, go to the d----l.'
But whilst the rough-rider continued with low bows to decline the first offer, being satisfied, as it seemed, with the second, the choleric Mr.
Schnackenberger cried out, 'Seize him, Juno!' And straightway Juno leaped upon him, and executed the arrest so punctually--that the trembling equestrian, without further regard to ceremony, made out his charge.
Forthwith Mr. Jeremiah paid down the demand upon the table, throwing in something extra, with the words, '_That_ for the fright.' The dealer in horse-flesh returned him a thousand thanks; hoped for his honour's further patronage; and then, upon being civilly a.s.sured by Mr. Jeremiah, that if he did not in one instant _walk_ down the stairs, he would, to his certain knowledge, have to _fly_ down them; the rough-rider, in company with the landlady, took a rapid and polite leave of Mr.
Schnackenberger; who was too much irritated by the affront to compose himself again to sleep.
CHAPTER IV.
HOW MR. SCHNACKENBERGER AND JUNO CONDUCT THEMSELVES WHEN THE HOUSE BECOMES TOO HOT TO HOLD THEM.
Day was beginning to dawn, when a smoke, which forced its way through the door, and which grew every instant thicker and more oppressive, a second time summoned Mr. Schnackenberger from his bed. As he threw open the door, such a volume of flames rolled in from the staircase--which was already on fire from top to bottom--that he saw there was no time to be lost: so he took his pipe, loaded it as quickly as possible, lighted it from the flames of the staircase, began smoking, and then, drawing on his pea-green coat and buckling on his sword, he put his head out of the window to see if there were any means of escape. To leap right down upon the pavement seemed too hazardous; and the most judicious course, it struck him, would be to let himself down upon the Golden Sow, which was at no great depth below his window, and from this station to give the alarm. Even this, however, could not be reached without a leap: Mr.
Schnackenberger attempted it; and, by means of his great talents for equilibristic exercises, he hit the mark so well, that he planted himself in the very saddle, as it were, upon the back of this respectable brute. Unluckily, however, there was no house opposite; and Mrs. Sweetbread with her people slept at the back. Hence it was, that for a very considerable s.p.a.ce of time he was obliged to continue riding the sign of the Golden Sow; whilst Juno, for whom he could not possibly make room behind him, looked out of the window, and accompanied her master's text of occasional clamours for a.s.sistance, with a very appropriate commentary of howls.
Some Poles at length pa.s.sed by: but, not understanding one word of German--and seeing a man thus betimes in the morning mounted on the golden sow, smoking very leisurely, and occasionally hallooing, as if for his private amus.e.m.e.nt, they naturally took Mr. Schnackenberger for a maniac: until, at length, the universal language of fire, which now began to burst out of the window, threw some light upon the darkness of their Polish understandings. Immediately they ran for a.s.sistance, which about the same moment the alarm-bells began to summon.
However, the fire-engines arrived on the ground before the ladders: these last were the particular objects of Mr. Jeremiah's wishes: meantime, in default of those, and as the second best thing that could happen, the engines played with such a well-directed stream of water upon the window--upon the Golden Sow--and upon Mr. Jeremiah Schnackenberger, that for one while they were severally rendered tolerably fire-proof. When at length the ladders arrived, and the people were on the point of applying them to the Golden Sow, he earnestly begged that they would, first of all, attend to a case of more urgent necessity: for himself, he was well mounted--as they saw; could a.s.sure them that he was by no means in a combustible state; and, if they would be so good as to be a little more parsimonious with their water, he didn't care if he continued to pursue his morning's ride a little longer. On the other hand, Juno at the window to the right was reduced every moment to greater extremities, as was pretty plainly indicated by the increasing violence of her howling.
But the people took it ill that they should be desired to rescue a four-legged animal; and peremptorily refused.
'My good lads,' said the man upon the sow, 'for heaven's sake don't delay any longer: one heaven, as Pfeffel observes, is over all good creatures that are pilgrims on this earth--let their travelling coat (which by the way is none of their own choosing) be what it may;--smooth like yours and mine, or s.h.a.ggy like Juno's.'
But all to no purpose: not Pfeffel himself _in propria persona_ could have converted them from the belief that to take any trouble about such a brute was derogatory to the honour of the very respectable citizens of B----.
However, when Mr. Jeremiah drew his purse-strings, and offered a golden ducat to him that would render this service to his dog, instantly so many were the compet.i.tors for the honour of delivering the excellent pilgrim in the s.h.a.ggy coat, that none of them would resign a ladder to any of the rest: and thus, in this too violent zeal for her safety, possibly Juno would have perished--but for a huge Brunswick sausage, which, happening to go past in the mouth of a spaniel, violently irritated the appet.i.te of Juno, and gave her courage for the _salto mortale_ down to the pavement.
'G.o.d bless my soul,' said Mr. Schnackenberger, to the men who stood mourning over the golden soap-bubble that had just burst before their eyes, 'what's to be done now?' and, without delay, he offered the ducat to him that would instantly give chase to Juno, who had already given chase to the sausage round the street corner, and would restore her to him upon the spot. And such was the agitation of Mr. Schnackenberger's mind, that for a few moments he seemed as if rising in his stirrups--and on the point of clapping spurs to the Golden Sow for the purpose of joining in the chase.
CHAPTER V.
FROM WHICH MAY BE DESCRIED THE OBJECT OF MR. SCHNACKENBERGER'S JOURNEY TO B----, AND A PROSPECT OF AN INTRODUCTION TO HIGH LIFE.
Mr. Schnackenberger's consternation was, in fact, not without very rational grounds. The case was this. Juno was an English b.i.t.c.h--infamous for her voracious appet.i.te in all the villages, far and wide, about the university--and, indeed, in all respects, without a peer throughout the whole country. Of course, Mr. Schnackenberger was much envied on her account by a mult.i.tude of fellow students; and very large offers were made him for the dog. To all such overtures, however, the young man had turned a deaf ear for a long time, and even under the heaviest pecuniary distresses; though he could not but acknowledge to himself that Juno brought him nothing but trouble and vexation. For not only did this brute (generally called the monster) make a practice of visiting other people's kitchens, and appropriating all unguarded dainties--but she went even to the length of disputing the t.i.tle to their own property with he-cooks and she-cooks, butchers, and butchers' wives, &c.; and whosoever had once made acquaintance with the fore-paws of this ravenous lady, allowed her thenceforwards, without resistance, to carry off all sausages or hams which she might choose to sequestrate, and directly presented a bill to her master; in which bill it commonly happened that indemnification for the fright, if not expressly charged as one of the items, had a blank s.p.a.ce, however, left for its consideration beneath the sum total. At length, matters came to that pa.s.s, that the reimburs.e.m.e.nt of Juno's annual outrages amounted to a far larger sum than Mr. Schnackenberger's own--not very frugal expenditure. On a day, therefore, when Juno had made an entire clearance of the larder appropriated to a whole establishment of day-labourers--and Mr.