The Surprise of Mr. Milberry and other novels / Сюрприз мистера Милберри и другие новеллы. Книга для чтения на английском языке

On the second afternoon the plumbers came to do a little job to the kitchen boiler. The dog, being engaged at the time in the front of the house, driving away the postman, did not notice their arrival. He was broken-hearted at finding them there when he got downstairs, and evidently blamed himself most bitterly. Still, there they were, all owing to his carelessness, and the only thing to be done now was to see that they did not escape.

There were three plumbers (it always takes three plumbers to do a job; the first man comes on ahead to tell you that the second man will be there soon, the second man comes to say that he can’t stop, and the third man follows to ask if the first man has been there); and that faithful, dumb animal kept them pinned up in the kitchen – fancy wanting to keep plumbers in a house longer than is absolutely necessary! – for five hours, until my uncle came home; and the bill ran: “Self and two men engaged six hours, repairing boiler-tap, 18s.[45]; material, 2d.[46]; total 18s. 2d.”

He took a dislike to the cook from the very first[47]. We did not blame him for this. She was a disagreeable old woman, and we did not think much of her ourselves. But when it came to keeping her out of the kitchen, so that she could not do her work, and my aunt and uncle had to cook the dinner themselves, assisted by the housemaid – a willing-enough girl, but necessarily inexperienced – we felt that the woman was being subject to persecution.

My uncle, after this, decided that the dog’s training must be no longer neglected. The man next door but one always talked as if he knew a lot about sporting matters, and to him my uncle went for advice as to how to set about it.

“Oh, yes,” said the man, cheerfully, “very simple thing, training a bull-dog. Wants patience, that’s all.”

“Oh, that will be all right,” said my uncle; “it can’t want much more than living in the same house with him before he’s trained does. How do you start?”

“Well, I’ll tell you,” said next-door-but-one. “You take him up into a room where there’s not much furniture, and you shut the door and bolt it.”

“I see,” said my uncle.

“Then you place him on the floor in the middle of the room, and you go down on your knees in front of him, and begin to irritate him.”

“Oh!”

“Yes – and you go on irritating him until you have made him quite savage[48].”

“Which, from what I know of the dog, won’t take long,” observed my uncle thoughtfully.

“So much the better. The moment he gets savage he will fly at you.”

My uncle agreed that the idea seemed plausible.

“He will fly at your throat,” continued the next-door-but-one man, “and this is where you will have to be careful. As he springs toward you, and before he gets hold of you, you must hit him a fair straight blow on his nose, and knock him down.”

“Yes, I see what you mean.”

“Quite so – well, the moment you have knocked him down, he will jump up and go for you again. You must knock him down again; and you must keep on doing this, until the dog is thoroughly cowed and exhausted. Once he is thoroughly cowed, the thing’s done – dog’s as gentle as a lamb after that.”

“Oh!” says my uncle, rising from his chair, “you think that a good way, do you?”

“Certainly,” replied the next-door-but-one man; “it never fails[49].”

“Oh! I wasn’t doubting it,” said my uncle; “only it’s just occurred to me that as you understand the knack of these things, perhaps you’d like to come in and try your hand on the dog? We can give you a room quite to yourselves; and I’ll undertake that nobody comes near to interfere with you. And if – if,” continued my uncle, with that kindly thoughtfulness which ever distinguished his treatment of others, “if, by any chance, you should miss hitting the dog at the proper critical moment, or, if you should get cowed and exhausted first, instead of the dog – why, I shall only be too pleased to take the whole burden of the funeral expenses on my own shoulders; and I hope you know me well enough to feel sure that the arrangements will be tasteful, and, at the same time, unostentatious!”

And out my uncle walked.

We next consulted the butcher, who agreed that the prize-ring method was absurd, especially when recommended to a short-winded, elderly family man, and who recommended, instead, plenty of outdoor exercise for the dog, under my uncle’s strict supervision and control.

“Get a fairly long chain for him,” said the butcher, “and take him out for a good stiff run every evening. Never let him get away from you; make him mind you, and bring him home always thoroughly exhausted. You stick to that for a month or two, regular, and you’ll have him like a little child.”

“Um! – seems to me that I’m going to get more training over his job than anybody else,” muttered my uncle, as he thanked the man and left the shop; “but I suppose it’s got to be done. Wish I’d never had the d – dog now![50]”

So, religiously, every evening, my uncle would fasten a long chain to that poor dog, and drag him away from his happy home with the idea of exhausting him; and the dog would come back as fresh as paint, my uncle behind him, panting and clamoring for brandy.

My uncle said he should never have dreamed there could have been such stirring times in this prosaic nineteenth century as he had, training that dog.

Oh, the wild, wild scamperings over the breezy common – the dog trying to catch a swallow, and my uncle, unable to hold him back, following at the other end of the chain!

Oh, the merry frolics in the fields, when the dog wanted to kill a cow, and the cow wanted to kill the dog, and they each dodged round my uncle, trying to do it!

And, oh, the pleasant chats with the old ladies when the dog wound the chain into a knot around their legs, and upset them, and my uncle had to sit down in the road beside them, and untie them before they could get up again!

But a crisis came at last. It was a Saturday afternoon – uncle being exercised by dog in the usual way – nervous children playing in road, see dog, scream, and run – playful young dog thinks it a game, jerks chain out of uncle’s grasp, and flies after them – uncle flies after dog, calling it names – fond parent in front garden, seeing beloved children chased by savage dog, followed by careless owner, flies after uncle, calling him names – householders come to doors and cry, “Shame![51]” – also throw things at dog – things don’t hit dog, hit uncle – things that don’t hit uncle, hit fond parent – through the village and up the hill, over the bridge and round by the green – grand run, mile and a half without a break! Children sink exhausted – dog gambols up among them – children go into fits – fond parent and uncle come up together, both breathless.

“Why don’t you call your dog off, you wicked old man?”

“Because I can’t recollect his name, you old fool, you!”

Fond parent accuses uncle of having set dog on – uncle, indignant, reviles fond parent – exasperated fond parent attacks uncle – uncle retaliates with umbrella – faithful dog comes to assistance of uncle, and inflicts great injury on fond parent – arrival of police – dog attacks police – uncle and fond parent both taken into custody[52] – uncle fined five pounds and costs for keeping a ferocious dog at large – uncle fined five pounds and costs for assault on fond parent – uncle fined five pounds and cost for assault on police!

My uncle gave the dog away soon after that. He did not waste him. He gave him as a wedding-present to a near relation.

But the saddest story I ever heard in connection with a bull-dog, was one told by my aunt herself.

Now you can rely upon this story, because it is not one of mine, it is one of my aunt’s, and she would scorn to tell a lie. This is a story you could tell to the heathen, and feel that you were teaching them the truth and doing them good. They give this story out at all the Sunday-schools in our part of the country, and draw moral lessons from it. It is a story that a little child can believe.

It happened in the old crinoline days[53]. My aunt, who was then living in a country-town, had gone out shopping one morning, and was standing in the High Street, talking to a lady friend, a Mrs. Gumworthy, the doctor’s wife. She (my aunt) had on a new crinoline that morning, in which, to use her own expression, she rather fancied herself. It was a tremendously big one, as stiff as a wire-fence; and it “set” beautifully.

They were standing in front of Jenkins’, the draper’s; and my aunt thinks that it – the crinoline – must have got caught up in something, and an opening thus left between it and the ground. However this may be, certain it is that an absurdly large and powerful bull-dog, who was fooling round about there at the time, managed, somehow or other, to squirm in under my aunt’s crinoline, and effectually imprison himself beneath it.

Finding himself suddenly in a dark and gloomy chamber, the dog, naturally enough, got frightened, and made frantic rushes to get out. But whichever way he charged, there was the crinoline in front of him. As he flew, he, of course, carried it before him, and with the crinoline, of course, went my aunt.

But nobody knew the explanation. My aunt herself did not know what had happened. Nobody had seen the dog creep inside the crinoline. All that the people did see was a staid and eminently respectable middle-aged lady suddenly, and without any apparent reason, throw her umbrella down in the road, fly up the High Street at the rate of ten miles an hour, rush across it at the imminent risk of her life, dart down it again on the other side, rush sideways, like an excited crab, into a grocer’s shop, run three times round the shop, upsetting the whole stock-in-trade[54], come out of the shop backward and knock down a postman, dash into the roadway and spin round twice, hover for a moment, undecided, on the curb, and then away up the hill again, as if she had only just started, all the while screaming out at the top of her voice for somebody to stop her!

Of course, everybody thought she was mad. The people flew before her like chaff before the wind. In less than five seconds the High Street was a desert. The townsfolk scampered into their shops and houses and barricaded the doors. Brave men dashed out and caught up little children and bore them to places of safety amid cheers. Carts and carriages were abandoned, while the drivers climbed up lampposts!

What would have happened had the affair gone on much longer – whether my aunt would have been shot, or the fire-engine brought into requisition against her – it is impossible, having regard to the terrified state of the crowd, to say. Fortunately for her, she became exhausted. With one despairing shriek she gave way, and sat down on the dog; and peace reigned once again in that sweet rural town.

The Man Who Would Manage

(From Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green, 1893)

It has been told me by those in a position to know – and I can believe it – that at nineteen months of age he wept because his grandmother would not allow him to feed her with a spoon, and that at three and a half he was fished, in an exhausted condition, out of the water-butt, whither he had climbed for the purpose of teaching a frog to swim.

Two years later he permanently injured his left eye, showing the cat how to carry kittens without hurting them, and about the same period was dangerously stung by a bee while conveying it from a flower where, as it seemed to him, it was only wasting its time, to one more rich in honey-making properties.

His desire was always to help others. He would spend whole mornings explaining to elderly hens how to hatch eggs, and would give up an afternoon’s black-berrying to sit at home and crack nuts for his pet squirrel. Before he was seven he would argue with his mother upon the management of children, and reprove his father for the way he was bringing him up.

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Примечания

1

Названия, не являющиеся авторскими, заключены в квадратные скобки.

2

Things do go so contrary-like with me. – (разг.) Вечно у меня все наоборот.

3

took my word for it – (разг.) поверили мне на слово

4

used to be all the rage – (разг.) были популярны

5

always in the wrong – (разг.) всегда виновата

6

out of place and in the way – (разг.) неуместна и всем мешает

7

Mr. Mantalini – Манталини, персонаж романа Ч. Диккенса «Николас Никлби», малограмотный франт, бездельник, строящий из себя светского человека

8

it wounds me to the quick – (разг.) уязвляет меня до глубины души

9

That decided me. – (разг.) И я решился.

10

until the second helping – (разг.) пока не попросили добавки

11

It all comes of being so attractive – (разг.) А нечего было быть такой привлекательной (красота – это страшный магнит)

12

everybody is so disagreeable – (разг.) у всех скандальное настроение

13

it does not know its own mind five minutes together – (разг.) (погода) и сама не знает, какой будет через пять минут

14

ha’porth-of-all-sorts kind – (метеорол.) ветер средней силы будет дуть с разных направлений

15

then there is the wild chase after it – (ирон.) затем следует бешеная погоня за ней

16

spring is not a success in cities – (разг.) весна не приводит горожан в восторг

17

seeking to grasp we know not what – (уст.) стараясь ухватить неизвестно что

18

but it is certainly worth trying – (разг.) но все-таки попробовать стоит

19

but was never seen coming out of it – (разг.) но никто не видел, как он уходит

20

be fit to play an air again – (разг.) сможет сыграть хоть что-нибудь (какой-нибудь мотивчик)

21

my memory is not what it was – (разг.) память у меня уже не та

22

as regards myself in particular – (разг.) что же касается в частности меня

23

Never! – (разг.) Ни за что!

24

foolhardy enterprise – (разг.) дурацкая затея

25

in a body – (разг.) всей толпой

26

wishing to put it pleasantly – (разг.) желая сказать ему что-нибудь приятное

27

every little helped – (разг.) с чего-то же надо начинать

28

To which one may you be alluding? – (уст.) О ком именно вы спрашиваете? (Кого конкретно вы имеете в виду?)

29

I would join him in a pipe – (разг.) я тоже, пожалуй, закурю за компанию

30

so as to save expense – (разг.) так выходило дешевле

31

your hair doesn’t stand on end – (разг.) у вас волосы не встают дыбом

32

a water-rate collector – (разг.) служащий, снимающий показания счетчиков воды

33

that’s the sort of thing we have to put up with – (разг.) вот с чем приходится мириться

34

I think I ought to know – (разг.) думаю, мне виднее 38

35

clearing my character from injurious suspicion – (разг.) очистить мое имя от незаслуженных обвинений

36

The sweetness of his disposition would not strike the casual observer at first glance. – (уст.) Его благорасположенность не бросается в глаза с первого взгляда.

37

in tones implying that the question could admit of no negative – (ирон.) тоном, не допускающим отрицательного ответа

38

with the air of a long-bafled connoisseur – (разг.) с видом знатока

39

especially if you are not used to it – (разг.) особенно с непривычки

40

confound foolhardiness with courage – (разг.) путать безрассудство с храбростью

41

he wouldn’t hurt a worm – (разг.) да он и мухи не обидит

42

Can’t we hush it up? – (разг.) А мы не можем это как-нибудь замять?

43

to keep the animal carefully confined to the house – (уст.) держать зверя взаперти

44

that conception he insisted on living up to with – (разг.) он собирался отстаивать эти свои жизненные принципы

45

s. – сокр. от shillings

46

d. – сокр. от dēnārius, penny

47

from the very first – (разг.) с первого же взгляда

48

until you have made him quite savage – (разг.) пока вы не доведете его до белого каления

49

it never fails – (разг.) это всегда срабатывает

50

Wish I’d never had the d – dog now! – (разг.) Черт меня дернул связаться с этакой скотиной!

51

Shame! – (воскл.) Как не стыдно!

52

both taken into custody – (разг.) обоих сажают в каталажку

53

in the old crinoline days – (разг.) в стародавние времена

54

upsetting the whole stock-in-trade – (разг.) перевернув вверх дном весь магазин