Three Courses and a Dessert: Comprising Three Sets of Tales, West Country, Irish, and Legal; and a MelangeClarke, William
General
Three Courses and a Dessert: Comprising Three Sets of Tales, West Country, Irish, and Legal; and a Melange
Clarke, William
Ireland -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Legal stories, English; West Country (England) -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
Harry was very different in person, but not a jot more beautiful than
Ralph. His body was broader and more robust than that of a Blake, when
the family was in a flourishing state; but it was remarkably short, and
shapeless as a log. His head seemed to be squeezed into his shoulders
by some giant hand, and his light but well-proportioned Hickory legs
exhibited a striking contrast to the clumsy bulk of his huge trunk. The
butcher said, that Harry would resemble his big block, with a calf's
head on its surface, only that it stood on three legs, and Harry
possessed but two. His arms were thick, bony and stunted; and his hands
of such an immense size, that he was often called “Molepaw” by his
competitors in the wrestling ring. Harry had the large blue eyes of the
Blake family, and a thick, short, snub nose; which, the good gossips
said, could be traced to nobody. There was a striking resemblance in his
other features to the by-gone Hickories: his mouth and chin were really
handsome; but an unmeaning smile usually played about his lips; and
he had a vacant sort of look, that betokened good humour allied to
silliness. But when Harry's blood was warmed by an angry word or two
and an extra cup of drink, though he did not “look daggers,” he frowned
furiously, and looked, as well as talked, broomsticks, cudgels, kicks on
the shin-bone, and various other “chimeras dire.” In such a mood, Harry
was dangerous to deal with, and avoided by all those who were peaceably
disposed.
In this particular, Ralph was his counterpart There was not a more kind
or sociable being in three counties than Ralph Hickory, when he was
sober; but liquor made him quarrelsome and rash; it whetted his appetite
to give and receive kicks and bruises; and if he could not rouse any
one, by insults and taunting, to wrestle, fight, or play a bout at
back-sword, or cudgels with him,--he lashed himself up into a fury,
attacked, and either scattered those who were about him like chaff, or
got felled by a sturdy thwack of fist or cudgel, and fastened down until
reason returned hand-in-hand with shame and remorse. To both of the
cousins liquor was pure Lethe; they never remembered any thing that
occurred, from the time of their passing the rubicon of intoxication,
until the moment of their waking the next day.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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