[1] Perhaps roturiers. Rooterers is, however, good America French —Printer's Devil.
[2] Here Sheppard Lee seems to have had in his eye a very ingenious loafer of Pearl Slip, or thereabouts who, some years since, was seized with the whim of travelling, and bamboozling the politic, especially the learned part thereof. By the aid of little dog-Latin, horribly anglicized in idiom and pronunciation, a stock of Gothamic impudence, and features truly Yankee and vernacular, he convinced the cognoscenti of one or more learned institutions that he was a highly unlucky son of a Turk, born all the way off at Damascus.
[CHAPTER IX.]
THE AUTHOR GROWS WEARY OF HIS WIFE, AND MISTAKES THE SCHUYLKILL FOR THE RIVER LETHE.—THE TRAGICAL ADVENTURE THAT BEFELL A YOUNG GENTLEMAN IN THAT ROMANTIC TIDE, WITH ITS EFFECTS UPON THE DESTINIES OF SHEPPARD LEE.
It may be supposed, since I was able to amuse my mind with such observations, that they detracted from the miseries of my condition, or at least assuaged in some measure my pangs. But as well might one believe that the condemned malefactor, who looks out from his cart on the volunteer companies escorting him to the gallows, and admires the splendid incoherence of their trappings—their infantry coats and horsemen's hats, their republican faces and imperial colours—feels thereby less dissatisfaction with his shroud and coffin, and the rope coiled so inelegantly round his neck. My observations were made only at intervals that were both brief and rare. My wife was the most attentive creature that ever set a husband distracted; and under the plea of nursing me, gave me so much of her company, that I was gradually driven to desperation. In course of time I was happily able to get into my barouche, and thus, for a short hour or two, escape my tormentor. Had that period been deferred a week later, I should certainly have taken an ounce of arsenic that I found lying in a closet, though I knew it was awful bad stuff to swallow.
As soon as I found myself once more at liberty, I began to con over a project I had formed of deserting my dear Margaret altogether; and this I resolved to put into execution the moment my foot should be well enough for travelling. But, oh horror! just as the doctor pronounced me cured, I was seized with a second paroxysm, and beheld nothing before me but eternal captivity and unmitigated wife!
This attack was brought on by the mere triumph of restoration. The afternoon before, I drove out upon the Schuylkill, with Tim and another friend; and several other jolly dogs meeting us, we stopped together at a well-known house of entertainment on the banks of that river, and resolved to enjoy ourselves. I declare in all sincerity that I was very moderate both in eating and drinking; but having sat at the table until after nightfall, and being well content to tarry longer, I made a sudden and rash resolution not to return that night at all, nor upon the following day either, if I could avoid it. But as it was necessary to account for my absence to my wife, I instructed Tim to tell her I had contracted a sudden fit of podagra, which made it proper I should not expose myself to the night-air. With this fib in his mouth, Tim, who considered the whole thing a capital joke, as indeed he did every other of my devising, returned to the city, whither he was followed by the others before midnight.
Now whether it was that the immoderate satisfaction I indulged in, at enjoying even a few hours of quiet, was an excess capable of bringing on a paroxysm of gout,—whether it was the unwholesome night-air of the Schuylkill, so famous for its agues and bilious fevers, or whether indeed it was not the lie I had invented, which was punished upon me in the reality of the affliction I had assumed,—it is certain that I woke up the next morning in quite a feverish condition, and with all the symptoms of returning podagra, though I did not immediately suspect it. It was not until towards nightfall that I understood my situation.