The Parenticide Club Read online

above his head.He was a heavy man and I had all that I could do to get him on myback, but I staggered along for some distance until I came to a swingthat some of the children had suspended to the branch of an oak. HereI laid him down and sat upon him to rest, and the sight of the ropegave me a happy inspiration. In twenty minutes my uncle, still in thesack, swung free to the sport of the wind.

  "I had taken down the rope, tied one end tightly about the mouth ofthe bag, thrown the other across the limb and hauled him up about fivefeet from the ground. Fastening the other end of the rope also aboutthe mouth of the sack, I had the satisfaction to see my uncleconverted into a large, fine pendulum. I must add that he was nothimself entirely aware of the nature of the change that he hadundergone in his relation to the exterior world, though in justice toa good man's memory I ought to say that I do not think he would in anycase have wasted much of my time in vain remonstrance.

  "Uncle William had a ram that was famous in all that region as afighter. It was in a state of chronic constitutional indignation.Some deep disappointment in early life had soured its disposition andit had declared war upon the whole world. To say that it would buttanything accessible is but faintly to express the nature and scope ofits military activity: the universe was its antagonist; its methodsthat of a projectile. It fought like the angels and devils, inmid-air, cleaving the atmosphere like a bird, describing a paraboliccurve and descending upon its victim at just the exact angle ofincidence to make the most of its velocity and weight. Its momentum,calculated in foot-tons, was something incredible. It had been seento destroy a four year old bull by a single impact upon that animal'sgnarly forehead. No stone wall had ever been known to resist itsdownward swoop; there were no trees tough enough to stay it; it wouldsplinter them into matchwood and defile their leafy honors in thedust. This irascible and implacable brute--this incarnatethunderbolt--this monster of the upper deep, I had seen reposing inthe shade of an adjacent tree, dreaming dreams of conquest and glory.It was with a view to summoning it forth to the field of honor that Isuspended its master in the manner described.

  "Having completed my preparations, I imparted to the avuncularpendulum a gentle oscillation, and retiring to cover behind acontiguous rock, lifted up my voice in a long rasping cry whosediminishing final note was drowned in a noise like that of a swearingcat, which emanated from the sack. Instantly that formidable sheepwas upon its feet and had taken in the military situation at a glance.In a few moments it had approached, stamping, to within fifty yardsof the swinging foeman, who, now retreating and anon advancing, seemedto invite the fray. Suddenly I saw the beast's head drop earthward asif depressed by the weight of its enormous horns; then a dim, white,wavy streak of sheep prolonged itself from that spot in a generallyhorizontal direction to within about four yards of a point immediatelybeneath the enemy. There it struck sharply upward, and before it hadfaded from my gaze at the place whence it had set out I heard a horridthump and a piercing scream, and my poor uncle shot forward, with aslack rope higher than the limb to which he was attached. Here therope tautened with a jerk, arresting his flight, and back he swung ina breathless curve to the other end of his arc. The ram had fallen, aheap of indistinguishable legs, wool and horns, but pulling itselftogether and dodging as its antagonist swept downward it retired atrandom, alternately shaking its head and stamping its fore-feet. Whenit had backed about the same distance as that from which it haddelivered the assault it paused again, bowed its head as if in prayerfor victory and again shot forward, dimly visible as before--aprolonging white streak with monstrous undulations, ending with asharp ascension. Its course this time was at a right angle to itsformer one, and its impatience so great that it struck the enemybefore he had nearly reached the lowest point of his arc. Inconsequence he went flying round and round in a horizontal circlewhose radius was about equal to half the length of the rope, which Iforgot to say was nearly twenty feet long. His shrieks, _crescendo_in approach and _diminuendo_ in recession, made the rapidity of hisrevolution more obvious to the ear than to the eye. He had evidentlynot yet been struck in a vital spot. His posture in the sack and thedistance from the ground at which he hung compelled the ram to operateupon his lower extremities and the end of his back. Like a plant thathas struck its root into some poisonous mineral, my poor uncle wasdying slowly upward.

  "After delivering its second blow the ram had not again retired. Thefever of battle burned hot in its heart; its brain was intoxicatedwith the wine of strife. Like a pugilist who in his rage forgets hisskill and fights ineffectively at half-arm's length, the angry beastendeavored to reach its fleeting foe by awkward vertical leaps as hepassed overhead, sometimes, indeed, succeeding in striking him feebly,but more frequently overthrown by its own misguided eagerness. But asthe impetus was exhausted and the man's circles narrowed in scope anddiminished in speed, bringing him nearer to the ground, these tacticsproduced better results, eliciting a superior quality of screams,which I greatly enjoyed.

  "Suddenly, as if the bugles had sung truce, the ram suspendedhostilities and walked away, thoughtfully wrinkling and smoothing itsgreat aquiline nose, and occasionally cropping a bunch of grass andslowly munching it. It seemed to have tired of war's alarms andresolved to beat the sword into a plowshare and cultivate the arts ofpeace. Steadily it held its course away from the field of fame untilit had gained a distance of nearly a quarter of a mile. There itstopped and stood with its rear to the foe, chewing its cud andapparently half asleep. I observed, however, an occasional slightturn of its head, as if its apathy were more affected than real.

  "Meantime Uncle William's shrieks had abated with his motion, andnothing was heard from him but long, low moans, and at long intervalsmy name, uttered in pleading tones exceedingly grateful to my ear.Evidently the man had not the faintest notion of what was being doneto him, and was inexpressibly terrified. When Death comes cloaked inmystery he is terrible indeed. Little by little my uncle'soscillations diminished, and finally he hung motionless. I went tohim and was about to give him the _coup de grace_, when I heard andfelt a succession of smart shocks which shook the ground like a seriesof light earthquakes, and turning in the direction of the ram, saw along cloud of dust approaching me with inconceivable rapidity andalarming effect! At a distance of some thirty yards away it stoppedshort, and from the near end of it rose into the air what I at firstthought a great white bird. Its ascent was so smooth and easy andregular that I could not realize its extraordinary celerity, and waslost in admiration of its grace. To this day the impression remainsthat it was a slow, deliberate movement, the ram--for it was thatanimal--being upborne by some power other than its own impetus, andsupported through the successive stages of its flight with infinitetenderness and care. My eyes followed its progress through the airwith unspeakable pleasure, all the greater by contrast with my formerterror of its approach by land. Onward and upward the noble animalsailed, its head bent down almost between its knees, its fore-feetthrown back, its hinder legs trailing to rear like the legs of asoaring heron.

  "At a height of forty or fifty feet, as fond recollection presents itto view, it attained its zenith and appeared to remain an instantstationary; then, tilting suddenly forward without altering therelative position of its parts, it shot downward on a steeper andsteeper course with augmenting velocity, passed immediately above mewith a noise like the rush of a cannon shot and struck my poor unclealmost squarely on the top of the head! So frightful was the impactthat not only the man's neck was broken, but the rope too; and thebody of the deceased, forced against the earth, was crushed to pulpbeneath the awful front of that meteoric sheep! The concussionstopped all the clocks between Lone Hand and Dutch Dan's, andProfessor Davidson, a distinguished authority in matters seismic, whohappened to be in the vicinity, promptly explained that the vibrationswere from north to southwest.

  "Altogether, I cannot help thinking that in point of artistic atrocitymy murder of Uncle William has seldom been excelled."