Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 19th century; London (England) -- Description and travel
Now, the dark twin had had her suspicions much increased by the filing of
the Captain’s teeth, and again by the house-lamb joke. Putting all
things together when he gave out that her sister was dead, she divined
the truth, and determined to be revenged. So, she went up to Captain
Murderer’s house, and knocked at the knocker and pulled at the bell, and
when the Captain came to the door, said: ‘Dear Captain Murderer, marry me
next, for I always loved you and was jealous of my sister.’ The Captain
took it as a compliment, and made a polite answer, and the marriage was
quickly arranged. On the night before it, the bride again climbed to his
window, and again saw him having his teeth filed sharp. At this sight
she laughed such a terrible laugh at the chink in the shutter, that the
Captain’s blood curdled, and he said: ‘I hope nothing has disagreed with
me!’ At that, she laughed again, a still more terrible laugh, and the
shutter was opened and search made, but she was nimbly gone, and there
was no one. Next day they went to church in a coach and twelve, and were
married. And that day month, she rolled the pie-crust out, and Captain
Murderer cut her head off, and chopped her in pieces, and peppered her,
and salted her, and put her in the pie, and sent it to the baker’s, and
ate it all, and picked the bones.
But before she began to roll out the paste she had taken a deadly poison
of a most awful character, distilled from toads’ eyes and spiders’ knees;
and Captain Murderer had hardly picked her last bone, when he began to
swell, and to turn blue, and to be all over spots, and to scream. And he
went on swelling and turning bluer, and being more all over spots and
screaming, until he reached from floor to ceiling and from wall to wall;
and then, at one o’clock in the morning, he blew up with a loud
explosion. At the sound of it, all the milk-white horses in the stables
broke their halters and went mad, and then they galloped over everybody
in Captain Murderer’s house (beginning with the family blacksmith who had
filed his teeth) until the whole were dead, and then they galloped away.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account