"Thou Art The Man" - читать интересную книгу автора (Poe Edgar Allan)

1850
"THOU ART THE MAN"
by Edgar Allan Poe

I WILL now play the Oedipus to the Rattleborough enigma. I will
expound to you- as I alone can- the secret of the enginery that
effected the Rattleborough miracle- the one, the true, the admitted,
the undisputed, the indisputable miracle, which put a definite end
to infidelity among the Rattleburghers and converted to the
orthodoxy of the grandames all the carnal-minded who had ventured to
be sceptical before.
This event- which I should be sorry to discuss in a tone of
unsuitable levity- occurred in the summer of 18-. Mr. Barnabas
Shuttleworthy- one of the wealthiest and most respectable citizens
of the borough- had been missing for several days under
circumstances which gave rise to suspicion of foul play. Mr.
Shuttleworthy had set out from Rattleborough very early one Saturday
morning, on horseback, with the avowed intention of proceeding to
the city of-, about fifteen miles distant, and of returning the
night of the same day. Two hours after his departure, however, his
horse returned without him, and without the saddle-bags which had been
strapped on his back at starting. The animal was wounded, too, and
covered with mud. These circumstances naturally gave rise to much
alarm among the friends of the missing man; and when it was found,
on Sunday morning, that he had not yet made his appearance, the