THE GREEN DWARF. Шарлотта Бронте

      PREFACE

       Table of Contents

      I am informed that the world is beginning to express in low, discontented grumblings its surprise at my long, profound, & (I must say) very ominous silence. What says the reading publick as she stands in the market place with gray cap & ragged petticoat the exact image of a modern blue “What is the matter with lord Charles?” “is he expifli-cated by the literary captains lash? have his good genius & his scribbling mania forsaken him both at once?” “Rides he now on Man-back through the mountains of the moon or mournful thought lies he helpless on a sick-bed of pain?”

      the last conjecture I am sorry to say is or rather was true. I have been sick, most sick, I have suffered dreadful indescribable tortures arising chiefly from the terrible remedies which were made use of to effect my restoration.’ One of these was boiling alive in what was called a hot-bath, another roasting before a slow fire, & a third a most rigid system of starvation, for proof of these assertions apply to Mrs Cook, back of Waterloo Palace situated in the suburbs of Verdopolis. How I managed to survive such a mode of treatment, or what the strength of my victorious constitution must be wiser men than I am would fail in explaining.

      Certain it is however that I did at length get better or to speak more elegantly become convalescent but long after my cadaverous cheek had begun to reassume a little of its wonted freshness I was kept penned up in a corner of the Housekeepers parlour, forbid the use of pen, ink & paper, prohibited setting foot into the open air & dieted on rice-gruel, sago, snail soup panado, stewed cock-chaffers, milk-broth & roasted mice. I will not say what was my delight when first Mrs Cook deigned to inform me about two o’clock on a fine summer afternoon that as it was a mild warm day I might take a short walk out if I pleased, ten minutes sufficed for arraying my person in a new suit of very handsome clothes & washing the accumulated dirt of seven diurnal revolutions of the earth from my face & hands.

      as soon as these necessary operations were performed I sallied out in plumed hat & cavalier mantle. Never before had I been fully sensible of the delights of liberty, the suffocating atmosphere which filled the hot, flinty street was to me as delicious as the dew-cooled & balm-breathing air of the freshest twilight in the wildest solitude, there was not a single tree to throw its sheltering branches between me & that fiery sun but I felt no want of such a screen as with slow but not faltering step I crept along in the shadow of shops and houses. At a sudden turn the flowing ever-cool sea burst unexpectedly on me. I felt like those poor wretches do who are victims to the disease called a calenture. the green waves looked like widespread plains covered with foam - white flowers & tender spring grass & the thickly clustered masts of vessels my excited fancy transformed into groves of tall, graceful trees, while the smaller craft took the form of cattle reposing in their shade. I passed on with something of that springing step which is natural to me, but soon my feeble knees began to totter under the frame which they should have supported, unable to go further without rest I looked round for some place where I might sit down till my strength should be un peu retabli. I was in that ancient & dilapidated court, called (pompously enough) Quaxmina Square, where Bud, Gifford, Love-dust, & about twenty other cracked old antiquarians reside. I determined to take refuge in the house of the first mentioned as well because he is my most intimate friend as because it is in the best condition.

      Buds’ mansion is indeed far from being either incommodious or unseemly, the outside is venerable & has been very judiciously repaired by modern masons (a step by the bye which brought down the censure of almost all his neighbours) & the inside is well & comfortably furnished. I knocked at the door, it was opened by an old footman with a reverend grey head. on asking if his master were at home he showed me upstairs into a small but handsome room. Here I found Bud seated at a table surrounded by torn parchments & rubbish & descanting copiously on some rusty knee-buckles which he held in his hand to the Marquis of Douro & another puppy who very politely were standing before him with their backs to the fire.

      “What’s been to do with my darling?” said the kind old gentleman as I entered “what’s made it look so pale & sickly, I hope not chagrin at Trees superannuated drivel”

      “Bless us” said Arthur before I could speak a word “What a little chalky spoon he looks! the whipping I bestowed on him has stuck to his small body right well.^f hey Charley any soreness yet?”

      “Fratricide” said I “how dare you speak thus lightly to your half murdered brother, how dare you demand whether the tortures you have inflicted continue yet to writhe his agonized frame?”

      he answered this appeal with a laugh intended I have no doubt to display his white teeth & a sneer designed to set of his keen wit & at the same instant he gently touched his riding-wand.

      “Nay my lord” said Bud who noticed this significant manoeuvre, “let us have no more of such rough play - you’ll kill the lad in earnest if you don’t mind”

      ^“I’m not going to meddle with him yet” said he “he’s not at present in a condition to show game but let him offend me again as he has done & I’ll hardly leave a strip of skin on his carcase”

      What brutal threats he would have uttered besides I know not but at this moment he was interrupted by the entrance of dinner.

      “My lord & Colonel Morton” said Bud “I hope you’ll stay & take a bit of dinner with me, if you don’t think my plain fare too coarse for your dainty palates”

      “On my honour Captain” replied Arthur “your bachelor’s meal looks very nice & I should really feel tempted to partake of it had it been more than two hours since I breakfasted, last night or rather this morning I went to bed at six & so it was twelve before I rose, therefore dining you know is out of the question till seven or eight o’clock in the evening”

      Morton excused himself on some similar pretext