Chap. IV The Transmigration of Master Stephen Churl Into the Body of a Little Cur
In the next apartment we entered, we saw a little snarling cur, who immediately saluted us with a surly grin, and barked and yelped as if he would have torn the house down. He was indeed very securely chained to a small kennel; but my daughter Betsey happening to venture too near him, he snapped at her and tore her apron. “Take care, miss, said Mr. Wiseman, and keep out of his reach; for though he is but a cur, he is very mischievous. His body is the contemptible residence of the soul of the late Master Churl. Poor miserable youth! he was a wrangler from his infancy; and his litigious temper gave him as just a title to the name of Churl as his birth. Even when he was a child in arms, he was such a peevish and noisy little brat, that his mamma could not find a woman who would undertake the trouble of nursing him; and as soon as he was able to speak and run alone, he began to wrangle with his brothers and sisters, upon the most trifling occasions, and seldom forgot to support his argument by exerting his little hands and heels with the most malicious activity; so that to mortify his pride, and give a check to his ill nature, they bestowed upon him the disgraceful title of young Kick and Cuff. Poor Stephen, however bid defiance to all their ridicule, and was so far from being reclaimed by it, that his turbulence increased in proportion to his strength and stature. He was afterwards as quarrelsome at school as he had been at home; and in every party at taw, or trap ball, or any other innocent diversion in which he happened to be engaged, he was always remarkable for disturbing the game by his frivolous disputes: Nay, when he was only a looker on, he would betray his wrangling impertinent temper, by calling out, such a one does not play fairly; such a one counts too many; and such a one goes in before his turn. The usual reward he received for his trouble was, a handsome drubbing, sometimes from his master, but more frequently from his school fellows. He was equally notorious for his great forwardness to give a challenge, upon the slightest provocation, and very often from mere wantonness; and sometimes he would very unfairly begin an engagement without giving any previous notice, that he might make sure of the first blow. But his strength and skill being unequal to his pretensions, the many mortifying defeats he received, soon taught him the despicable cunning of assaulting none but those, who, he believed, were either too weak to contend with him, or too cowardly to stand in their own defence. The speedy consequence of such a dirty conduct was, that the bigger boys despised and laughed at him, and those who were less than himself, carefully shunned his company; so that at last poor wrangling Stephen, for want of play-fellows, had no other diversion left for him, but to take a solitary ramble through the fields. His parents being informed of the disagreeable situation into which he had brought himself, and what a shy reception he met with from all the boys in the neighbourhood, thought it adviseable, after giving him a strict caution to behave in a more peaceable manner for the future, to remove him to a genteel boarding school, at a distance from home. If he had thought proper to follow their advice, and make a diligent use of the excellentTwo men fighting instructions he received from his new teachers, he might afterwards have cut a shining figure in the world; but, as what is bred in the bone, seldom gets out of the flesh, so it fared with Stephen Churl. Though he was a little reserved at first, as being entirely among strangers, a short acquaintance with them made him very familiar—the affability and good nature with which they listened to every thing he said, soon encouraged him to be pert; and from pertness he proceeded to open rudeness and ill manners—until at last happening to be very mildly reprimanded by one of the young gentlemen, whose tenderness he misconstrued into cowardice, he commenced hostilities, as usual, by giving him an unexpected blow on the face. But his antagonist being possessed of as much spirit as politeness, returned the compliment in an instant; and conducted the engagement on his side with such vigour and activity, that our hero soon retired from the field of battle heartily drubbed, to make his complaint to the master, who, after a minute inquiry into all the circumstances of the fray, thought proper to reward him for the unnecessary trouble he had given himself, with the severest flogging he had ever received in his life time. Thus mortified and disgraced, the unfortunate Stephen resolved upon an elopement; but, being ashamed to return to his parents, he rambled through the fields and woods, and scrambled over hedges and ditches, A man standing, a man lying on the ground, and a seated womanuntil at length having torn his clothes to rags, and being almost ready to perish with hunger, he eagerly listed himself into a gang of gypsies, and supped very heartily upon the remains of a roasted cat. The intolerable hardships he suffered, and the coarse fare he was obliged to put up with in this new situation, together with the frequent bangs and thumps which he received from the younger part of his strolling comrades, who were as quarrelsome and mischievous as himself, but abundantly more robust, soon broke his heart; so that he died in a barn, and was buried, like a beggar, at the expense of a little country parish.” While the Bramin was concluding the history of Master Churl, my son Jackey, whose temper was rather too fiery, looked very sheepish; which his sister Betsey observing, and easily guessing the cause of it, she desired him with a good natured smile, when we were leaving the room, to think on poor Stephen, and be sure to take warning.