Читать книгу: «Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 726», страница 4

The histories of those world-famous diamonds the Sancy, the Regent, the Koh-i-noor, the Blue (or Hope) diamond, and others, have been related before, and history and romance have dealt with the misery and crime, the evil passions and the mystic fancies, involved in the stories of some of these. In a few lines Mr Streeter gives a sketch of the Brazilian contribution to this many-chaptered story, which is not generally known. 'The discovery of these precious stones in 1746,' he says, 'proved a great curse to the poor inhabitants of the banks of the diamond rivers. Scarcely had the news of the discovery reached the government, ere they tried to secure the riches of these rivers for the crown. To effect this, the inhabitants were driven away from their houses to wild far-away places, and deprived of their little possessions. Nature itself seemed to take part against them: a dreadful drought, succeeded by a violent earthquake, increased their distress. Many of them perished; but those who lived to return on the 18th May 1805, were benevolently reinstated in their rightful possessions. Strange to say, on their return the earth seemed strewn with diamonds. Often the little ones would bring in between three and four carats of diamonds.'

Next to the diamond comes the oriental ruby, and in former days it was more prized than the gem, which has a genus all to itself. The ancients gave immense sums for fine specimens of the ruby variety of 'corundum,' or aluminous stone. In Benvenuto Cellini's time a perfect ruby of a carat weight cost eight hundred crowns, whilst a diamond of like weight cost only one hundred. The two most important rubies ever known in Europe were brought to England in 1875. One was a dark-coloured stone, cushion-shape, weighing thirty-seven carats; the other a blunt drop-shape of 47¹/₁₆ carats. Mr Streeter thinks that the London market would never have seen these truly royal gems but for the poverty of the Burmese government; and adds an interesting account of the estimation in which rubies are held in the distant Land of the White Elephant. The sale of the two rubies caused such excitement that a military guard had to escort the persons who conveyed the precious packet to the vessel. No regalia in Europe contains two such rubies. The smaller was sold abroad for ten thousand pounds; the larger has also found a purchaser, but Mr Streeter does not tell us at what price. The great ruby of the kings of Burmah is said to be as large as a pigeon's egg, and of wondrous quality; but is a treasure which no European eye has ever seen. Very few rubies pass out of the country; the king is excessively fond of these gems, and prohibits the export of them. The Burmese have strange notions about rubies; 'they believe that they ripen in the earth; that they are at first colourless and crude, and gradually become yellow, green, blue, and last of all red– this being considered the highest point of beauty and ripeness.'

The sapphire, the emerald, and the opal (the last erroneously supposed to exist in India, whereas it is found almost entirely in Hungary), the turquoise, and the cat's-eye (a rare variety of the chrysoberyl, and inferior in hardness to the diamond and sapphire only), are, each in its turn, the subjects of Mr Streeter's lucid and learned exposition; after which he passes to the less valuable classes, pearls, onyx, and the gems used for engraving and other purposes. The increasing estimation in which the true Ceylonese cat's-eye is held (it is one of the most fashionable gems at present, and there are specimens in the market worth upwards of one thousand pounds), renders the following particularly interesting: 'In India the cat's-eye has always been much prized, and is held in peculiar veneration as a charm against witchcraft. It is the last jewel a Cingalese will part with. The specimens most esteemed by the Indians are those of a dark olive colour, having the ray so bright on each edge as to appear double. It is indeed wonderfully beautiful with its soft deep colour and mysterious gleaming streak, ever shifting, like a restless spirit, from side to side as the stone is moved; now glowing at one spot, now at another. No wonder that an imaginative and superstitious people regard it with awe and wonder, and believing it to be the abode of some "genius" or djinn, dedicate it to their gods as a sacred stone.'

THE INN AT BOLTON

When I was a little boy – I am now an old man of sixty – 'Aunt Oliver,' as we used to call my father's widowed sister, was in the habit of paying long visits at my father's house. She had not long been a widow; and though past the meridian of life, was still a beautiful woman. But what made her so exceedingly popular with all my father's children was her repeated kindnesses, displayed to us in the shape of various useful and ornamental gifts, carefully chosen to suit our several ages and characters; but above all, her wonderful condescension in giving up her own pursuits on many a winter's night, that she might recount to us, as we sat grouped around the nursery fire, some of the incidents of her varied and eventful life. She had been a great traveller in her day, having been to Rome, and even visited the Holy Land; and what is more, she had written a book of travels! a circumstance which caused us to regard her with a strange curiosity almost amounting to awe; a feeling on our part which, but for her uniform kindness, might have detracted from that universal love we one and all bore towards her. One of my aunt's adventures made a strong impression on my youthful mind, and is even now, after a lapse of half a century, still fresh in my recollection. Thinking it might serve to divert those who have a fancy for the humorous, I have gathered up the threads of the story from the storehouse of my memory, and now present it in narrative form, under the foregoing title.

My uncle, Mr Oliver Brown, was in the iron trade; and in connection with his business, which was a very large one, was in the habit of paying periodical visits to the manufacturing town of Bolton, near to which his principal iron-works were situated. He usually paid these visits alone; but on the occasion of which I am about to speak he was accompanied by my aunt, who deemed it her duty to be with her husband, as it was winter-time and he had only just recovered from a severe illness. It was late in the evening of a bleak November day that the coach which conveyed Mr and Mrs Oliver Brown from their comfortable country-seat, distant some fifty miles from Bolton, entered the noisy ill-paved streets of that bustling town, and proceeded to what at that period was the principal inn of the place. Both travellers were tired by their journey, and after a hasty dinner, were glad to retire to rest.

'Did you say number twenty-seven, second floor?' inquired Mrs Oliver, addressing the lady at the bar, as she took a chamber candlestick from her hand and proceeded to mount the stairs.

'Twenty-seven, second floor,' responded the landlady with an affirmative nod and a gracious smile.

'Twenty-seven, second floor,' repeated my uncle as he followed in the wake of his more active and enterprising helpmate, who, threading her way up the spiral staircase and along a labyrinth of corridors and passages, had already arrived at the dormitory in question. Mr and Mrs Oliver were soon in bed; and there we will leave them, whilst we look in at number twenty-nine on the same floor, and make the acquaintance of Mr and Mrs Wormwood Scrubbs, the occupants of that apartment. They, like their neighbours at number twenty-seven, were in comfortable circumstances, and like the latter, not much given to travelling for pleasure's sake on a cold raw day in November; but an affair of business which demanded their presence at Bolton had compelled them to sacrifice their ease and comfort, and come to that town on this bleak November day. Mr Scrubbs had long been subject to attacks of gout in the foot; and as he had heard of this disease having a tendency sometimes to shift its seat to the brain or the stomach, when it was apt to assume a more serious type, he had made it a rule to carry about his person in the daytime, and to place under his pillow at night, a certain medicine which an eminent physician had assured him would speedily arrest any such erratic tendency on the part of the malady from which he suffered.

Now, on this particular night, whether from over-exertion, exposure to cold, or some other cause I know not, Mr Scrubbs happened to be visited with certain premonitory symptoms of an approaching attack of gout, whereupon he instinctively felt under his pillow for the valuable specific I have referred to. He then remembered he had inadvertently left it in the pocket of his greatcoat, which he had thrown upon the sofa in the private sitting-room into which Mrs Scrubbs and himself had been ushered on their arrival at the inn; whereupon, being unwilling to disturb his better-half, who was in a profound sleep, he let himself quietly out of bed, and throwing his dressing-gown over his shoulders, proceeded to light his candle. Having done this, he gently opened the door and sallied forth, leaving the door slightly ajar, in order that he might the more easily find the room on his return.

It so chanced just about the time Mr Wormwood Scrubbs was proceeding on the above mission, that Mrs Oliver Brown, who was too fatigued to sleep, suddenly recollected that she had left her reticule with her purse inside it on the table in the room where she and Mr Brown had had their dinner; and wisely considering that it would not be prudent to leave it there till morning, she resolved to descend to the sitting-room and recover the bag at once; accordingly slipping out of bed, she struck a light, and opening the bedroom door, stepped into the corridor into which it led. She then proceeded to assure herself by a reference to certain figures that were painted over the door-frames of the several dormitories that the room she had just quitted was number twenty-seven and no other; and having satisfied her mind on this point, she left the door ajar, and gliding swiftly along the different passages and down the cork-screw-shaped staircase, soon reached the sitting-room, whence, having found the bag she was in search of, she retraced her steps in the same rapid way, exercising her memory as she went along by repeating the number of the room to which she was returning.

Now Mrs Oliver Brown, who, by the way, had an undoubted bump for localities, had formed an idea – and a very correct idea it was – that number twenty-seven was the second room on the left-hand side of the corridor; but on her return, finding the door of this chamber closed, whilst that of the one adjoining it was open, she not unnaturally supposed she might have made a mistake in regard to the position of number twenty-seven; but in order to set all doubt at rest upon this point, she was about to refer to the number on the door-frame, when a sudden gust of wind sweeping along the whole length of the passage extinguished the candle, leaving her in utter darkness. Thus situated, Mrs Oliver Brown did what most ladies (and gentlemen also, I think) would have done under the circumstances: she groped her way along the passage till she came to the open door of number twenty-nine, went softly in, shut the door in the same quiet way, and got into bed, where, being greatly fatigued with all she had undergone, she soon fell fast asleep.

In the meantime, Mr Wormwood Scrubbs having repossessed himself of his gout mixture, had also returned to the corridor, where seeing a door ajar precisely as he had left his own, he at once went in, closed the door, blew out his candle, and popped into bed, where my excellent uncle was still sleeping as peacefully as a baby, and utterly unconscious of the recent migratory movements of Mrs Brown, which were destined to produce such an unlooked-for disturbance in the domestic arrangements of the two families occupying respectively numbers twenty-seven and twenty-nine.

Mr Wormwood Scrubbs, however, though now quite easy both in body and mind, was unable to sleep, and lay awake, first thinking of one thing and then of another, till he was suddenly recalled to the stern realities of life by hearing his wife's voice proceeding apparently from the adjoining room. In a state of immense perplexity, he struck out with his sound leg in the direction of the sleeping figure at his side, when having come in contact with a plump warm body corresponding to that of his amiable helpmate, he paused, and suspending all further investigation for the present, calmly awaited the issue of events. Nor had he very long to wait.

Mrs Wormwood Scrubbs was a lady of a highly nervous and excitable temperament, with whom, when once roused, it would be about as useless and dangerous an experiment to attempt to argue as with a tigress surrounded by a litter of famished cubs. She had just waked up from her first sleep, when happening to put her hand upon that part of the connubial couch where her Wormwood's head was wont to rest, she found it brought in contact with a lace nightcap, and a profusion of long curls that had escaped from beneath it.

'Why, what's this, Scrubbs? What tomfoolery's this you're after? What's this, I say?' tagging, as she spoke, at the head-dress of her supposed husband. 'Why, goodness gracious, it isn't Scrubbs after all!' – as starting up in bed, my aunt in gentle but startled accents implored her to be quiet.

'But who are you? and what are you doing in number twenty-nine?'

'Number twenty-nine! Surely this is not twenty-nine, but twenty-seven,' doubtingly returned my aunt, as the idea suddenly flashed upon her that she might have mistaken the one room for the other. 'I think I can explain it all.'

'Explain it all! Of course you'll explain it all, and something more than that, before I've done with you, you good-for-nothing impudent hussy that you are!'

'For heaven's sake, be calm, my good woman, or you'll rouse the whole house,' expostulated my aunt in the gentlest manner possible.

'Don't "good-woman" me!' shouted Mrs Scrubbs at the top of her voice, as springing from the bed, she seized the bell-rope and pulled at it with a violence that threatened to carry everything with it. Amid this terrific uproar, Mr Scrubbs and his bedfellow Mr Brown, who had been vainly trying to make themselves heard from the adjoining room, suddenly appeared candle in hand upon the scene.

As oil cast upon the troubled sea will instantly reduce that element to a state of the profoundest calm, so did the sudden appearance of Mr Scrubbs act as if by a charm to allay in one moment all the angry feelings of Bella Scrubbs, and where only a few moments before all was violence and discord, there now reigned perfect peace and good-will.

The mutual explanations that ensued, it is needless to say, were perfectly satisfactory to all the parties concerned; and after a readjustment of partners, the two families once more took possession of their respective chambers, where I need hardly say they were not again molested during the remaining part of that memorable November night.