562
POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OP
Mr. Stiggins, encouraged by this sound, which he understood to be- token remorse or repentance, looked about him, rubbed his hands, wept, smiled, wept again, and then, walking softly across the room to a well-remembered shelf in one corner, took down a tumbler, and, with great deliberation, put four lumps of sugar in it. Having got thus far, he looked about him again and sighed grievously ; with that he walked softly into the bar, and presently returning with the tumbler half full of pine-apple rum, advanced to the kettle which was singing gaily on the hob, mixed his grog, stirred it, sipped it, sat down, and taking a long and hearty pull at the rum and water, stopped for breath.
The elder Mr. Weller, who still continued to make various strange and uncouth attempts to appear asleep, offered not a single word during these proceedings, but when Mr. Stiggins stopped for breath, he darted upon him, and snatching the tumbler from his hand, threw the re- mainder of the rum and water in his face, and the glass itself into the grate. Then, seizing the reverend gentleman firmly by the collar, he suddenly fell to kicking him most furiously, accompanying every application of his top-boot to Mr. Stiggins's person with sundry violent and incoherent anathemas upon his limbs, eyes, and body.
- ' Sammy," said Mr. Weller, '^put my hat on tight for me."]
Sam dutifully adjusted the hat with the long hatband more firmly on his father^s head, and the old gentleman, resuming his kicking with greater agility than before, tumbled with Mr. Stiggins through the bar, and through the passage, out at the front door, and so into the street; — the kicking continuing the whole way, and increasing in vehemence, rather than diminishing, every time the top-boot was lifted
It was a beautiful and exhilarating sight to see the red-nosed man writhing in Mr. Weller's grasp, and his whole frame quivering with anguish as kick followed kick in rapid succession ; it was a still more exciting spectacle to behold Mr. Weller, after a powerful struggle, immersing Mr. ^Stiggins's head in a horse-trough full of water, and holding it there, till he was all but suffocated.
" There," said Mr. Weller, throwing all his energy into one most complicated kick, as he at length permitted Mr. Stiggins to with- draw his head from the trough, *' send any vun o' them lazy shepherds here, and I'll pound him to a jelly first, and drownd him artervards. Sammy, help me in, and fill me a small glass of brandy. I'm out o' breath, my boy."
