Coffle

“ For this purpose he called for a cup, and while filling it with water, pretended to mix poison with the Cobbler's antidote, and commanded him to drink it, on the promise of a reward. The Cobbler, under the fear of death, confessed that he had no knowledge of medicine, and was only made famous by the stupid clamours of the crowd. The Governor called a public assembly, and thus addressed the citizens: "Of what folly have you been guilty? You have not hesitated to entrust your heads to a man whom no one could employ to make even the shoes for their feet." ”

“ I HAD slept but two nights at King's Cobb, when I saw distinctly that the novel with which I was to revolutionize society and my own fortunes, and with the purpose of writing which in an unvexed seclusion I had buried myself in this expedient hamlet on the South Coast, was withered in the bud beyond redemption. To this lamentable canker of a seedling hope the eternal harmony of the sea was a principal contributor; but Miss Whiffle confirmed the blight. ”

“ Here the small servant had another cough.
'Very remarkable!' thought Mr Swiveller. 'I never dreamt such a real cough as that before. I don't know, indeed, that I ever dreamt either a cough or a sneeze. Perhaps it's part of the philosophy of dreams that one never does. ”

“ Ho, by your leave, master Cobbler.
STRUMBO.
You are welcome, gentleman. What will you? any old shoes or buskins? or will you have your shoes clouted? I will do them as well as any Cobbler in Cathnes whatsoever.
CAPTAIN.
[Showing him press money.]
O master Cobbler, you are far deceived in me, for don you see this? I come not to buy any shoes, but to buy yourself; come, sir, you must be a soldier in the king’s cause.
STRUMBO.
Why, but hear you, sir; has your king any commission to take any man against his will. ”

“ This was the beginning to me of an interest apart from that which had brought me to King's Cobb. A real nutshell drama had usurped the place of that fictitious one that had as yet failed to mark an epoch by so much as a scratch. I accepted the former as some solace for the intolerable wrong inflicted upon me by the sea and Miss Whiffle. ”

“ Few of our wild flowers give intenser pleasure than the cowslip, yet perhaps there is scarcely any whose peculiar beauty depends so much upon locality and surroundings. There is a homely simplicity about the cowslip, much like that of the daisy, though more pensive,—the quiet, sober look of an unpretending country girl, not strikingly beautiful in feature or attire, but clean and fresh as if new bathed in milk and carrying us away to thoughts of daisies, flocks and pasturage and the manners of a simple, primitive time, some golden age of shepherd-life long since gone by. ”

“ This done, she goes on till she came to a market town, and it [197] being market day, the people smelt a stink, and seeing such a mangy face, all fled but a poor cobbler, who not long before had mended the shoes of an old hermit, who, having no money, gave him a box of ointment for the cure of the leprosy, and a bottle of spirits for a stinking breath. Now the cobbler having a mind to do an act of charity, was minded to try an experiment; so going up to her, asked her who she was? "I am," said she, "the king of Colchester's daughter-in-law." ”

“ A shell of some new and particularly devilish variety had burst near him and the fumes which it generated in bursting had dyed him green. Every man would have, tied about his neck or to one of his buttonholes, the German field-doctor's card telling of the nature of his hurt and the place where he had sustained it; and the uniform of nearly every one would be discolored with dried blood, and where the coat gaped open you marked that the harsh, white cambric lining was made harsher still by stiff, brownish- red streakings. ”

“ It came nearer and became plainer—tonk-tonk-tonk; then the tonks all running together briskly.
A cowbell—that was it; but why did it seem to come from overhead, from up in the sky, like? And why did it shift so abruptly from one quarter to another—from left to right and back again to left? And how was it that the clapper seemed to strike so fast? Not even the breachiest of breachy young heifers could be expected to tinkle a cowbell with such briskness. The squire's eye searched the earth and the sky, his troubled mind giving to his eye a quick and flashing scrutiny. ”

“ Her eyes, alight with an inscrutable expression, looked into mine; her cheeks became diffused with the crimsoned glow of righteous indignation; her form was convulsed; she quivered from head to feet. For a moment this scene endured. Then ere my lips, but lately contracted for the chaste but unbidden [269] salute, could frame the first stammered syllable of an apology, she buried her ensanguined face in her hands, and hysteria assailed her—a hysteria so acute and so violent that not tears but an outburst resembling laughter—laughter wild, startling and most distressing to hear—came from her. ”

“ All your safety and the jewels themselves hinge on your obedience.” He laid the hypodermic needle on the table, padding it round with his own handkerchief.
“Now listen. You will be interested too, O’Brien. I want plenty of time for an alibi, but not too much time. I want to start at dawn instead of tomorrow night, as dear Mr. O’Brien planned. It is now twelve o’clock. How the hours do fly when we are in pleasant company! At exactly three one of you will administer this little dose in the left forearm. ”

“ He has a great big body that's strong and well-proportioned; but his features are so insignificant—a small mouth, a small nose, small ears, eyes, forehead, small head. And there, in the very worst place—just where the part ought to be—was the cowlick I'd noticed in his photograph. ”

“ It was a man who emerged from the hallway entrance; a stockily built man wearing his hat well over one ear and with his ulster opened and flung back exposing a broad chest to the wintry air. He was whistling a sprightly air.
Just as this individual came opposite the lumber pile the first dedicatory sneeze of a whole subsequent series of sneezes which had been burgeoning somewhere in the top of Mr. Leary's head, and which that [Pg 30] unhappy gentleman had been mechanically endeavouring to suppress, burst from captivity with a vast moist report. ”

“ A Cough.—A man coughs. In explanation the Ute philosopher would tell us that an unupits—a pygmy spirit of evil—had entered the poor man's stomach, and he would charge the invalid with having whistled at night; for in their philosophy it is taught that if a man whistles at night, when the pygmy spirits are abroad, one is sure to go through the open door into the stomach, and the evidence of this disaster is found in the cough which the unupits causes. ”

“ Can you imagine that a man could stand calmly and hear himself charged with having a phlegmy cough? And before a lovely woman, too! Before a little marchioness, who—who—In a word, I could not stand it!"
"Really!"
"The military men, you see, are always sensitive. My seconds went, the day before yesterday, to try and obtain some explanation from those of the duke. I put the matter perfectly straight,—a duel or an ample apology."
"An ample apology for what?"
"For the phlegmy cough, pardieu!—the phlegmy cough that he fastened on me."
The notary shrugged his shoulders. ”

“ And now they all heard what he had heard first—they heard the tonk-tonk-tonk of a cowbell, coming near and nearer toward them along the hallway without. It was as though the sound floated along. There was no creak of footsteps upon the loose, bare boards—and the bell jangled faster than it would dangling from a cow's neck. The sound came right to the door and Squire Gathers wallowed among the chair legs. ”

“ He had been plashing through the streets of Louisville. He had scraped off the thickest of the mud. There he sat, the right foot thrown across the left knee, with as much (p. 069) complacency as it is possible for a mortal to manifest. In his own estimation he was all right, although there was a gap between his pants and vest of about six inches,—a yellowish tawny streak of shirt. He sat in unconcerned silence, or stalked through the saloon with his hands in his pockets, or stretched himself at full length upon the sofa and took a comfortable snooze. ”

“ Are we really to believe that you have in that case an animal undergoing the treatment you have spoken of?”
“Gentlemen,” answered Cobb, with a feeling of pride, “you have guessed it. One year ago to-night, at twelve o’clock, I caused this poor animal to become insensible; then placing it in this case, with its mouth and nostrils covered, with bandages of nourishment about its loins, with a cup of stronetic acid at its head, and crystals of ozone surrounding the body, I hermetically sealed the case. ”

“ Later he developed into a sunny-tempered, middle-aged barrister with a strong vein of humor and a heart so full of warm, human sympathy that there was hardly room for the customary supply of cockles that always go with that sort of a heart ”

“ It will be remembered how, as an illustration of the general inconsistency and unexpectedness of things, "The cobbler's wife is the worst shod." "She goeth broken shoone and torne hoses," says a mediæval bard, "but," as may be expected from the general unaccountableness of such matters, "Who is worse shod than the shoemaker's wife, With shops full of new shooes all the days of her life?" Cobblers pursue a steady and somewhat monotonous business which seems to favour reflection, and the followers of the craft have supplied from their ranks not a few famous men. ”

“ With this the cobbler applied the remedies, and they made her well in a few weeks; after which they were married, and so set forward for the Court at Colchester. When the queen found that her daughter had married nothing but a poor cobbler she hanged herself in wrath. The death of the queen
so pleased the king, who was glad to get rid of her so soon, that he gave the cobbler a hundred pounds, to quit the Court with his lady, and take to a remote part of the kingdom, where he lived many years mending shoes, his wife spinning the thread for him. ”

“ It is much commended against the cough, to expectorate rough phlegm. It much eases pains in the head, and procures sleep; being put into the nostrils it procures sneezing, and thereby purges the head of phlegm. ”

“ Mrs. Gribble coughed again to see. After five coughs she said she thought it was her chest.
“You'd better not go out o' doors to-day, then,” said Mr. Gribble. “Don't stand about in draughts; and I'll fetch you in a bottle of cough mixture when I go out. What about a lay-down on the sofa?” ”

“ You find, generally speaking, cobblers happily employed in cobbling shoes, women gossipping cheerfully over the washtub on the spot where a hundred years ago, according to the guide-book, a thousand men dressed in blue and a thousand men dressed in red rushed together like quarrelsome fox-terriers, and worried each other to death. ”

“ Cobb was widely known as a comforter of the sick, the dying, and the bereaved. She ever lived consciously with God, and those she visited in the hour of trial and sorrow ever felt through her his presence. ”

“ The only patient that effectually baffled his skill, or rather discouraged any attempt at relief, was an antiquated squaw with a churchyard cough, and one leg in the grave; it being shrunk and rendered useless by a rheumatic affection. ”

“ The transom gave under the strain, moving upward and inward upon its hinges, disclosing an oblong gap above the jamb. With a splendid wriggle the fugitive vaulted up, thrusting his person into the clear space thus provided. Balanced across the opening upon his stomach, half in and half out, for one moment he remained there, his legs kicking wildly as though for a purchase against something more solid than air. ”

“ One day on the main street he hailed an impressionable youth from the country.
“Billy,” he said, “how’s your daddy?”
“Oh,” said the youth, “paw’s mighty bad off. He’s been porely all spring. Now he’s down flat in bed and ailin’ stiddy. We’re feared paw’s powerful sick. He’s feared, too.”
“Nonsense,” snorted the older man. “Your father isn’t sick—he only thinks he’s sick. Tell him I said so.”
“Yessir, I will.”
A fortnight later the same pair met again in the same place.
“Billy,” said the citizen cheerily, “how’s your father now?”
The youngster heaved a deep sigh:
“He thinks he’s dead.” ”

“ We marched awhile, then put the Pope and the devil into the stocks, Nancy in the pillory, tied Byng to the whipping-post and gave him a flogging, then kindled a bonfire in King Street, pitched the effigies into it, and went into the Tun and Bacchus, Bunch of Grapes, and Admiral Vernon, and drank flip, egg-nogg, punch, and black strap.” [5]
Mr. Bushwick chuckled merrily, and took a fresh quid of tobacco. Robert also laughed at the vivacious description. ”

“ They both went the whole hog. Mr. Green lay senseless on the road, in a pool of blood, arising from the severity of the blow, which tore away the whole scalp of the forehead, together with the entire wart or excrescence which grew thereupon. His Rosenante affrighted, returned to Birmingham,—was soon recognized,—and Mr. Green was soon carried insensible to the hospital. ”

“ He carried a brandy flask in his pocket, brandy being then considered a remedy, and he drank freely, but imagined himself worse. He was about to rush indoors and tell Mrs. Cobb to send for the surgeon, when the Rector passed.
“Ah, Mr. Cobb! I was just about to call on you; glad to see you looking so well when there’s so much sickness. We shall want you on the School Committee this evening,” and then he explained some business which was to be discussed. Mr. Cobb afterwards was fond of telling the story of this interview. ”