The Parenticide Club | Page 6

This, however, did not fit him; it was too short and much wider than he;
so I bent his legs, forced his knees up against his breast and got him
into it that way, tying the sack above his head. He was a heavy man and
I had all that I could do to get him on my back, but I staggered along
for some distance until I came to a swing that some of the children had
suspended to the branch of an oak. Here I laid him down and sat upon
him to rest, and the sight of the rope gave me a happy inspiration. In
twenty minutes my uncle, still in the sack, swung free to the sport of
the wind.
"I had taken down the rope, tied one end tightly about the mouth of the
bag, thrown the other across the limb and hauled him up about five feet
from the ground. Fastening the other end of the rope also about the
mouth of the sack, I had the satisfaction to see my uncle converted into
a large, fine pendulum. I must add that he was not himself entirely

aware of the nature of the change that he had undergone in his relation
to the exterior world, though in justice to a good man's memory I ought
to say that I do not think he would in any case have wasted much of my
time in vain remonstrance.
"Uncle William had a ram that was famous in all that region as a fighter.
It was in a state of chronic constitutional indignation. Some deep
disappointment in early life had soured its disposition and it had
declared war upon the whole world. To say that it would butt anything
accessible is but faintly to express the nature and scope of its military
activity: the universe was its antagonist; its methods that of a projectile.
It fought like the angels and devils, in mid-air, cleaving the atmosphere
like a bird, describing a parabolic curve and descending upon its victim
at just the exact angle of incidence to make the most of its velocity and
weight. Its momentum, calculated in foot-tons, was something
incredible. It had been seen to destroy a four year old bull by a single
impact upon that animal's gnarly forehead. No stone wall had ever been
known to resist its downward swoop; there were no trees tough enough
to stay it; it would splinter them into matchwood and defile their leafy
honors in the dust. This irascible and implacable brute--this incarnate
thunderbolt--this monster of the upper deep, I had seen reposing in the
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 I
suspended its master in the manner described.
"Having completed my preparations, I imparted to the avuncular
pendulum a gentle oscillation, and retiring to cover behind a contiguous
rock, lifted up my voice in a long rasping cry whose diminishing final
note was drowned in a noise like that of a swearing cat, which
emanated from the sack. Instantly that formidable sheep was upon its
feet and had taken in the military situation at a glance. In a few
moments it had approached, stamping, to within fifty yards of the
swinging foeman, who, now retreating and anon advancing, seemed to
invite the fray. Suddenly I saw the beast's head drop earthward as if
depressed by the weight of its enormous horns; then a dim, white, wavy
streak of sheep prolonged itself from that spot in a generally horizontal
direction to within about four yards of a point immediately beneath the
enemy. There it struck sharply upward, and before it had faded from
my gaze at the place whence it had set out I heard a horrid thump and a

piercing scream, and my poor uncle shot forward, with a slack rope
higher than the limb to which he was attached. Here the rope tautened
with a jerk, arresting his flight, and back he swung in a breathless curve
to the other end of his arc. The ram had fallen, a heap of
indistinguishable legs, wool and horns, but pulling itself together and
dodging as its antagonist swept downward it retired at random,
alternately shaking its head and stamping its fore-feet. When it had
backed about the same distance as that from which it had delivered the
assault it paused again, bowed its head as if in prayer for victory and
again shot forward, dimly visible as before--a prolonging white streak
with monstrous undulations, ending with a sharp ascension. Its course
this time was at a right angle to its former one, and its impatience so
great that it struck the enemy before he had nearly reached the lowest