The Elephant Keeper by Chris Nicholson

Author:Chris Nicholson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2009-06-18T16:00:00+00:00

July 4th

A letter comes this morning: not from the Earl of Ancaster, but from my mother. Who wrote it for her, I do not know. It is the first letter from her for upwards of a year and tells me that my brother, Jim, has given up his work as a gardener and is gone to sea on one of Mr. Harrington’s ships. He left for Bristol in February, and she is full of gloom. Now with your Father gone and Jim at Sea and you with your Ellyfents I have no one else in the World and am very desolet and do not expect to live many Months so fare thee well my son Tom. This is such nonsense and I have written back to tell her so, though the news about Jim is astonishing. He was always so shy and timid, with his head-aches, that to think of him now, travelling the world like Gulliver, and seeing porpoises, mermaids, whales, and I don’t know what else—for, by now, he may be half-way to Africa—it is scarcely believable.

The letter also contains a supposedly infallible cure for the Gout, given to my mother by Mrs. Perry; and for that reason—Mrs. Perry, I mean—I resolve not to mention it to his Lordship. However, when I see him this afternoon he is in such pain that I change my mind.

“An infallible cure, hey? Well, I should be very glad to hear of it, Tom, though I hope it does not involve cupping, or purging?”

“No, my Lord.”

“No hot baths, or cold baths? And it is not one of Dr. James’s Powders?”

“No, my Lord, at least—it is a matter of”—I bring this out with a certain shame-facedness—“the flesh of a viper.”

Despite his pain, Lord Bidborough laughs more than I think I have ever known. Tears spring in his eyes. “Indeed? A viper? Pray, is the viper dead, or alive?”

“O, it is dead, my Lord.”

“Do I have to hang it round my neck?”

“No, my Lord. I am told that a portion of raw flesh should be rubbed on the affected joint, twice a day.”

His Lordship continues to laugh. “Well, Tom, I have tried so many remedies, none of which has done the slightest good, that I am now at the stage where viper’s flesh may be my only chance. You are sure it will not bring me bad luck?”

“No, my Lord—that is, yes, my Lord, so long as it is fresh.”

“Ha! What if it is not fresh?”

I am silent.

“You know,” he says, “I foresee one problem with this cure—I do not have a ready stock of fresh vipers.”

I promise to look for one.

“Thank you, Tom. Viper’s flesh, hey? And if it does not work, I shall cut off my big toe, and have done with it!”

When the sun comes out I go a viper-hunting. I find my viper easily enough, basking on a grass bank, and beat it to death with a stone. As I return, I meet Isaac the Hermit; he is bathing below the Cascade, in a deep pool thick with white foam, but clambers out and limps toward me.

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