"Relate at large, my godlike guest," she said,
"The Grecian stratagems,--the town betrayed!"
DRYDEN: Virgil, AEneid, book ii.
Descending thence, they 'scaped!--Ibid.
A great improvement had taken place in the character of Augustus
Tomlinson since Paul had last encountered that illustrious man. Then
Augustus had affected the man of pleasure, the learned lounger about
town, the all-accomplished Pericles of the papers, gayly quoting Horace,
gravely flanking a fly from the leader of Lord Dunshunner. Now a more
serious yet not a less supercilious air had settled upon his features;
the pretence of fashion had given way to the pretence of wisdom; and from
the man of pleasure Augustus Tomlinson had grown to the philosopher.
With this elevation alone, too, he was not content: he united the
philosopher with the politician; and the ingenious rascal was pleased
especially to pique himself upon being "a moderate Whig"!
"Paul," he was wont to observe, "believe me, moderate Whiggism is a most
excellent creed. It adapts itself to every possible change, to every
conceivable variety of circumstance. It is the only politics for us who
are the aristocrats of that free body who rebel against tyrannical laws;
for, hang it, I am none of your democrats. Let there be dungeons and
turnkeys for the low rascals who whip clothes from the hedge where they
hang to dry, or steal down an area in quest of a silver spoon; but houses
of correction are not made for men who have received an enlightened
education,--who abhor your petty thefts as much as a justice of peace.
can do,--who ought never to be termed dishonest in their dealings, but,
if they are found out, 'unlucky in their speculations'! A pretty thing,
indeed, that there should be distinctions of rank among other members of
the community, and none among us! Where's your boasted British
Constitution, I should like to know, where are your privileges of
aristocracy, if I, who am a gentleman born, know Latin, and have lived in
the best society, should be thrust into this abominable place with a
dirty fellow who was born in a cellar, and could never earn more at a
time than would purchase a sausage? No, no! none of your levelling
principles for me! I am liberal, Paul, and love liberty; but, thank
Heaven, I despise your democracies!"
Thus, half in earnest, half veiling a natural turn to sarcasm, would this
moderate Whig run on for the hour together during those long nights,
commencing at half-past four, in which he and Paul bore each other
company.
One evening, when Tomlinson was so bitterly disposed to be prolix that
Paul felt himself somewhat wearied by his eloquence, our hero, desirous
of a change in the conversation, reminded Augustus of his promise to
communicate his history; and the philosophical Whig, nothing loath to
speak of himself, cleared his throat, and began.
"Never mind who was my father, nor what was my native place! My first
ancestor was Tommy Linn (his heir became Tom Linn's son),--you have heard
the ballad made in his praise,
"'Tommy Linn is a Scotchman born,
His head is bald and his beard is shorn;
He had a cap made of a hare skin,
An elder man is Tommy Limn!'
"There was a sort of prophecy respecting my ancestor's descendants darkly
insinuated in the concluding stanza of this ballad:--
"'Tommy Linn, and his wife, and his wife's mother,
They all fell into the fire together;
They that lay undermost got a hot skin,--
"We are not enough!" said Tommy Linn.'"
"You see the prophecy: it is applicable both to gentlemen rogues and to
moderate Whigs; for both are undermost in the world, and both are
perpetually bawling out, 'We are not enough!'
"I shall begin my own history by saying, I went to a North Country
school, where I was noted for my aptness in learning; and my skill at
'prisoner's base,'--upon my word I purposed no pun! I was intended for
the Church. Wishing, betimes, to instruct myself in its ceremonies, I
persuaded my schoolmaster's maidservant to assist me towards promoting a
christening. My father did not like this premature love for the sacred
rites. He took me home; and wishing to give my clerical ardour a
different turn, prepared me for writing sermons by reading me a dozen a
day. I grew tired of this, strange as it may seem to you. 'Father,'
said I, one morning, 'it is no use talking; I will not go into the
Church,--that's positive. Give me your blessing and a hundred pounds,
and I'll go up to London and get a living instead of a curacy.' My
father stormed; but I got the better at last. I talked of becoming a
private tutor; swore I had heard nothing was so easy,--the only things
wanted were pupils; and the only way to get them was to go to London and
let my learning be known. My poor father,--well, he's gone, and I am
glad of it now!" The speaker's voice faltered. "I got the better, I
say, and I came to town, where I had a relation a bookseller. Through
his interest, I wrote a book of Travels in Ethiopia for an earl's son,
who wanted to become a lion; and a Treatise on the Greek Particle,
dedicated to the prime minister, for a dean, who wanted to become a
bishop,--Greek being, next to interest, the best road to the mitre.
These two achievements were liberally paid; so I took a lodging in a
first floor, and resolved to make a bold stroke for a wife. What do you
think I did?--nay, never guess; it would be hopeless. First, I went to
the best tailor, and had my clothes sewn on my back; secondly, I got the
peerage and its genealogies by heart; thirdly, I marched one night, with
the coolest deliberation possible, into the house of a duchess, who was
giving an immense rout! The newspapers had inspired me with this idea.
I had read of the vast crowds which a lady 'at home' sought to win to her
house. I had read of staircases impassable, and ladies carried out in a
fit; and common-sense told me how impossible it was that the fair
receiver should be acquainted with the legality of every importation.
I therefore resolved to try my chance, and--entered the body of Augustus
Tomlinson, as a piece of stolen goods. Faith! the first night I was
shy,--I stuck to the staircase, and ogled an old maid of quality, whom I
had heard announced as Lady Margaret Sinclair. Doubtless she had never
been ogled before; and she was evidently enraptured with my glances. The
next night I read of a ball at the Countess of -------'s. My heart beat
as if I were going to be whipped; but I plucked up courage, and repaired
to her ladyship's. There I again beheld the divine Lady Margaret; and
observing that she turned yellow, by way of a blush, when she saw me, I
profited by the port I had drunk as an encouragement to my entree, and
lounging up in the most modish way possible, I reminded her ladyship of
an introduction with which I said I had once been honoured at the Duke of
Dashwell's, and requested her hand for the next cotillion. Oh, Paul,
fancy my triumph! The old damsel said, with a sigh, she remembered me
very well, ha, ha, ha!--and I carried her off to the cotillion like
another Theseus bearing away a second Ariadne. Not to be prolix on this
part of my life, I went night after night to balls and routs, for
admission to which half the fine gentlemen in London would have given
their ears. And I improved my time so well with Lady Margaret, who was
her own mistress and had L5,000,--a devilish bad portion for some, but
not to be laughed at by me,--that I began to think when the happy day
should be fixed. Meanwhile, as Lady Margaret introduced me to some of
her friends, and my lodgings were in a good situation, I had been
honoured with some real invitations. The only two questions I ever was
asked were (carelessly), "Was I the only son?" and on my veritable answer
'Yes!' 'What' (this was more warmly put),--'what was my county?'
Luckily my county was a wide one,--Yorkshire; and any of its inhabitants
whom the fair interrogators might have questioned about me could only
have answered, I was not in their part of it.
"Well, Paul, I grew so bold by success that the devil one day put it into
my head to go to a great dinner-party at the Duke of Dashwell's. I went,
dined,--nothing happened; I came away, and the next morning I read in the
papers,--
"'Mysterious affair--person lately going about--first bouses--most
fashionable parties--nobody knows--Duke of Dashwell's yesterday. Duke
not like to make disturbance--as royalty present."
"The journal dropped from my hands. At that moment the girl of the house
gave me a note from Lady Margaret,--alluded to the paragraph; wondered
who was 'The Stranger;' hoped to see me that night at Lord A-----'s,
to whose party I said I had been asked; speak then more fully on those
matters I had touched on!--in short, dear Paul, a tender epistle! All
great men are fatalists,--I am one now; fate made me a madman. In the
very face of this ominous paragraph I mustered up courage, and went that
night to Lord A-----'s. The fact is, my affairs were in confusion,--I
was greatly in debt. I knew it was necessary to finish my conquest over
Lady Margaret as soon as possible; and Lord A-----'s seemed the best
place for the purpose. Nay, I thought delay so dangerous, after the
cursed paragraph, that a day might unmask me, and it would be better
therefore not to lose an hour in finishing the play of 'The Stranger'
with the farce of 'The Honey Moon.' Behold me then at Lord A-----'s,
leading off Lady Margaret to the dance. Behold me whispering the
sweetest of things in her ear. Imagine her approving my suit, and gently
chiding me for talking of Gretna Green. Conceive all this, my dear
fellow, and just at the height of my triumph, dilate the eyes of your
imagination, and behold the stately form of Lord A-----, my noble host,
marching up to me, while a voice that, though low and quiet as an evening
breeze, made my heart sink into my shoes, said, 'I believe, sir, you have
received no invitation from Lady A-----?'
"Not a word could I utter, Paul,--not a word. Had it been the highroad
instead of a ballroom, I could have talked loudly enough; but I was under
a spell. 'Ehem!' I faltered at last,--'e-h-e-m! Some mis-take, I--
I--' There I stopped.
"'Sir,' said the earl, regarding me with a grave sternness, 'you had
better withdraw.'
"'Bless me! what's all this?' cried Lady Margaret, dropping my palsied
arm, and gazing on me as if she expected me to talk like a hero.
"'Oh,' said I, 'eh-e-m, eh-e-m,--I will exp--lain to-morrow,--ehem,
e-h-e-m.' I made to the door; all the eyes in the room seemed turned
into burning-glasses, and blistered the very skin on my face. I heard a
gentle shriek, as I left the apartment,--Lady Margaret fainting, I
suppose! There ended my courtship and my adventures in 'the best
society.'
"I felt melancholy at the ill-success of my scheme. You must allow it was
a magnificent project. What moral courage! I admire myself when I think
of it. Without an introduction, without knowing a soul, to become, all
by my own resolution, free of the finest houses in London, dancing with
earls' daughters, and all but carrying off an earl's daughter myself as
my wife. If I had, the friends must have done something for me; and Lady
Margaret Tomlinson might perhaps have introduced the youthful genius of
her Augustus to parliament or the ministry. Oh, what a fall was there!
Yet, faith, ha, ha, ha! I could not help laughing, despite of my
chagrin, when I remembered that for three months I had imposed on these
'delicate exclusives,' and been literally invited by many of them, who
would not have asked the younger sons of their own cousins, merely
because I lived in a good street, avowed myself an only child, and talked
of my property in Yorkshire! Ha, ha! how bitter the mercenary dupes must
have felt when the discovery was made! What a pill for the good matrons
who had coupled my image with that of some filial Mary or Jane,--ha, ha,
ha! The triumph was almost worth the mortification. However, as I said
before, I fell melancholy on it, especially as my duns became menacing.
So I went to consult with my cousin the bookseller. He recommended me to
compose for the journals, and obtained me an offer. I went to work very
patiently for a short time, and contracted some agreeable friendships
with gentlemen whom I met at an ordinary in St. James's. Still, my duns,
though I paid them by driblets, were the plague of my life. I confessed
as much to one of my new friends. 'Come to Bath with me,' quoth he, 'for
a week, and you shall return as rich as a Jew.' I accepted the offer, and
went to Bath in my friend's chariot. He took the name of Lord
Dunshunner, an Irish peer who had never been out of Tipperary, and was
not therefore likely to be known at Bath. He took also a house for a
year; filled it with wines, books, and a sideboard of plate. As he
talked vaguely of setting up his younger brother to stand for the town at
the next parliament, he bought these goods of the townspeople, in order
to encourage their trade. I managed secretly to transport them to London
and sell them; and as we disposed of them fifty per cent under cost
price, our customers, the pawnbrokers, were not very inquisitive. We
lived a jolly life at Bath for a couple of months, and departed one
night, leaving our housekeeper to answer all interrogatories. We had
taken the precaution to wear disguises, stuffed ourselves out, and
changed the hues of our hair. My noble friend was an adept in these
transformations; and though the police did not sleep on the business,
they never stumbled on us. I am especially glad we were not discovered,
for I liked Bath excessively; and I intend to return there some of these
days, and retire from the world--on an heiress!
"Well, Paul, shortly after this adventure I made your acquaintance. I
continued ostensibly my literary profession, but only as a mask for the
labours I did not profess. A circumstance obliged me to leave London
rather precipitately. Lord Dunshunner joined me in Edinburgh. D---it,
instead of doing anything there, we were done! The veriest urchin that
ever crept through the High Street is more than a match for the most
scientific of Englishmen. With us it is art; with the Scotch it is
nature. They pick your pockets without using their fingers for it; and
they prevent reprisal by having nothing for you to pick.
"We left Edinburgh with very long faces, and at Carlisle we found it
necessary to separate. For my part, I went as a valet to a nobleman who
had just lost his last servant at Carlisle by a fever; my friend gave me
the best of characters! My new master was a very clever man. He
astonished people at dinner by the impromptus he prepared at breakfast;
in a word, he was a wit. He soon saw, for he was learned himself, that
I had received a classical education, and he employed me in the
confidential capacity of finding quotations for him. I classed these
alphabetically and under three heads,--'Parliamentary, Literary, Dining-
out.' These were again subdivided into 'Fine,' 'Learned,' and 'Jocular;'
so that my master knew at once where to refer for genius, wisdom, and
wit. He was delighted with my management of his intellects. In
compliment to him, I paid more attention to politics than I had done
before; for he was a 'great Whig,' and uncommonly liberal in everything--
but money! Hence, Paul, the origin of my political principles; and I
thank Heaven there is not now a rogue in England who is a better--that is
to say, more of a moderate-Whig than your humble servant! I continued
with him nearly a year. He discharged me for a fault worthy of my
genius: other servants may lose the watch or the coat of their master; I
went at nobler game, and lost him--his private character!"
"How do you mean?"
"Why, I was enamoured of a lady who would not have looked at me as Mr.
Tomlinson; so I took my master's clothes and occasionally his carriage,
and made love to my nymph as Lord. Her vanity made her indiscreet. The
Tory papers got hold of it; and my master, in a change of ministers, was
declared by George the Third to be 'too gay for a Chancellor of the
Exchequer.' An old gentleman who had had fifteen children by a wife like
a Gorgon, was chosen instead of my master; and although the new minister
was a fool in his public capacity, the moral public were perfectly
content with him, because of his private virtues!
"My master was furious, made the strictest inquiry, found me out, and
turned me out too!
"A Whig not in place has an excuse for disliking the Constitution.
My distress almost made me a republican; but, true to my creed, I must
confess that I would only have levelled upwards. I especially
disaffected the inequality of riches; I looked moodily on every carriage
that passed; I even frowned like a second Catiline at the steam of a
gentle man's kitchen! My last situation had not been lucrative; I had
neglected my perquisites, in my ardour for politics. My master, too,
refused to give me a character: who would take me without one?
"I was asking myself this melancholy question one morning, when I
suddenly encountered one of the fine friends I had picked up at my old
haunt, the ordinary, in St. James's. His name was Pepper."
"Pepper!" cried Paul.
Without heeding the exclamation, Tomlinson continued:--"We went to a
tavern and drank a bottle together. Wine made me communicative; it also
opened my comrade's heart. He asked me to take a ride with him that
night towards Hounslow. I did so, and found a purse."
"How fortunate! Where?"
"In a gentleman's pocket. I was so pleased with my luck that I went the
same road twice a week, in order to see if I could pick up any more
purses. Fate favoured me, and I lived for a long time the life of the
blessed. Oh, Paul, you know not--you know not what a glorious life is
that of a highwayman; but you shall taste it one of these days,--you
shall, on my honour.
"I now lived with a club of honest fellows. We called ourselves 'The
Exclusives,'--for we were mighty reserved in our associates, and only
those who did business on a grand scale were admitted into our set. For
my part, with all my love for my profession, I liked ingenuity still
better than force, and preferred what the vulgar call swindling, even to
the highroad. On an expedition of this sort, I rode once into a country
town, and saw a crowd assembled in one corner; I joined it, and my
feelings!--beheld my poor friend Viscount Dunshunner just about to be
hanged! I rode off as fast as I could,--I thought I saw Jack Ketch at my
heels. My horse threw me at a hedge, and I broke my collar-bone. In the
confinement that ensued gloomy ideas floated before me. I did not like
to be hanged; so I reasoned against my errors, and repented. I recovered
slowly, returned to town, and repaired to my cousin the bookseller. To
say truth, I had played him a little trick: collected some debts of his
by a mistake,--very natural in the confusion incident on my distresses.
However, he was extremely unkind about it; and the mistake, natural as it
was, had cost me his acquaintance.
"I went now to him with the penitential aspect of the prodigal son; and,
faith, he would have not made a bad representation of the fatted calf
about to be killed on my return,--so corpulent looked he, and so
dejected! 'Graceless reprobate!' he began, 'your poor father is dead!'
I was exceedingly shocked; but--never fear, Paul, I am not about to be
pathetic. My father had divided his fortune among all his children; my
share was L500. The possession of this soon made my penitence seem much
more sincere in the eyes of my good cousin; and after a very pathetic
scene, he took me once more into favour. I now consulted with him as to
the best method of laying out my capital and recovering my character. We
could not devise any scheme at the first conference; but the second time
I saw him, my cousin said with a cheerful countenance: 'Cheer up,
Augustus, I have got thee a situation. Mr. Asgrave the banker will take
thee as a clerk. He is a most worthy man; and having a vast deal of
learning, he will respect thee for thy acquirements.' The same day I was
introduced to Mr. Asgrave, who was a little man with a fine, bald,
benevolent head; and after a long conversation which he was pleased to
hold with me, I became one of his quill-drivers. I don't know how it
was, but by little and little I rose in my master's good graces. I
propitiated him, I fancy, by disposing of my L500 according to his
advice; he laid it out for me, on what he said was famous security, on a
landed estate. Mr. Asgrave was of social habits,--he had a capital house
and excellent wines. As he was not very particular in his company, nor
ambitious of visiting the great, he often suffered me to make one of his
table, and was pleased to hold long arguments with me about the ancients.
I soon found out that my master was a great moral philosopher; and being
myself in weak health, sated with the ordinary pursuits of the world, in
which my experience had forestalled my years, and naturally of a
contemplative temperament, I turned my attention to the moral studies
which so fascinated my employer. I read through nine shelves full of
metaphysicians, and knew exactly the points in which those illustrious
thinkers quarrelled with each other, to the great advance of the science.
My master and I used to hold many a long discussion about the nature of
good and evil; as, by help of his benevolent forehead and a clear dogged
voice, he always seemed to our audience to be the wiser and better man of
the two, he was very well pleased with our disputes. This gentleman had
an only daughter,--an awful shrew, with a face like a hatchet but
philosophers overcome personal defects; and thinking only of the good her
wealth might enable me to do to my fellow-creatures, I secretly made love
to her. You will say that was playing my master but a scurvy trick for
his kindness. Not at all; my master himself had convinced me that there
was no such virtue as gratitude. It was an error of vulgar moralists. I
yielded to his arguments, and at length privately espoused his daughter.
The day after this took place, he summoned me to his study. 'So,
Augustus,' said he, very mildly, 'you have married my daughter: nay,
never look confused; I saw a long time ago that you were resolved to do
so, and I was very glad of it.'
"I attempted to falter out something like thanks. 'Never interrupt me!'
said he. 'I had two reasons for being glad,--first, because my daughter
was the plague of my life, and I wanted some one to take her off my
hands; secondly, because I required your assistance on a particular
point, and I could not venture to ask it of any one but my son-in-law.
In fine, I wish to take you into partnership!'
"'Partnership!' cried I, falling on my knees. 'Noble, generous man!'
"'Stay a bit,' continued my father-in-law. 'What funds do you think
requisite for carrying on a bank? You look puzzled! Not a shilling!
You will put in just as much as I do. You will put in rather more; for
you once put in L500, which has been spent long ago. I don't put in a
shilling of my own. I live on my clients, and I very willingly offer you
half of them!'
"Imagine, dear Paul, my astonishment, my dismay! I saw myself married to
a hideous shrew,--son-in-law to a penniless scoundrel, and cheated out of
my whole fortune! Compare this view of the question with that which had
blazed on me when I contemplated being son-in-law to the rich Mr.
Asgrave. I stormed at first. Mr. Asgrave took up Bacon 'On the
Advancement of Learning,' and made no reply till I was cooled by
explosion. You will perceive that when passion subsided, I necessarily
saw that nothing was left for me but adopting my father-in-law's
proposal. Thus, by the fatality which attended me at the very time I
meant to reform, I was forced into scoundrelism, and I was driven into
defrauding a vast number of persons by the accident of being son-in-law
to a great moralist. As Mr. Asgrave was an indolent man, who passed his
mornings in speculations on virtue, I was made the active partner. I
spent the day at the counting-house; and when I came home for recreation,
my wife scratched my eyes out."
"But were you never recognized as 'the stranger' or 'the adventurer' in
your new capacity?"
"No; for of course I assumed, in all my changes, both aliases and
disguises. And, to tell you the truth, my marriage so altered me that,
what with a snuff-coloured coat and a brown scratch wig, with a pen in my
right ear, I looked the very picture of staid respectability. My face
grew an inch longer every day. Nothing is so respectable as a long face;
and a subdued expression of countenance is the surest sign of commercial
prosperity. Well, we went on splendidly enough for about a year.
Meanwhile I was wonderfully improved in philosophy. You have no idea how
a scolding wife sublimes and rarefies one's intellect. Thunder clears
the air, you know! At length, unhappily for my fame (for I contemplated
a magnificent moral history of man, which, had she lived a year longer,
I should have completed), my wife died in child-bed. My father-in-law
and I were talking over the event, and finding fault with civilization
for the enervating habits by which women die of their children instead of
bringing them forth without being even conscious of the circumstance,
when a bit of paper, sealed awry, was given to my partner. He looked
over it, finished the discussion, and then told me our bank had stopped
payment. 'Now, Augustus,' said he, lighting his pipe with the bit of
paper, 'you see the good of having nothing to lose.'
"We did not pay quite sixpence in the pound; but my partner was thought
so unfortunate that the British public raised a subscription for him, and
he retired on an annuity, greatly respected and very much compassionated.
As I had not been so well known as a moralist, and had not the
prepossessing advantage of a bald, benevolent head, nothing was done for
me, and I was turned once more on the wide world, to moralize on the
vicissitudes of fortune. My cousin the bookseller was no more, and his
son cut me. I took a garret in Warwick Court, and with a few books, my
only consolation, I endeavoured to nerve my mind to the future. It was
at this time, Paul, that my studies really availed me. I meditated much,
and I became a true philosopher, namely, a practical one. My actions
were henceforth regulated by principle; and at some time or other, I will
convince you that the road of true morals never avoids the pockets of
your neighbour. So soon as my mind had made the grand discovery which
Mr. Asgrave had made before me, that one should live according to a
system,--for if you do wrong, it is then your system that errs, not you,
--I took to the road, without any of those stings of conscience which had
hitherto annoyed me in such adventures. I formed one of a capital knot
of 'Free Agents,' whom I will introduce to you some day or other, and I
soon rose to distinction among them. But about six weeks ago, not less
than formerly preferring byways to highways, I attempted to possess
myself of a carriage, and sell it at discount. I was acquitted on the
felony, but sent hither by Justice Burnflat on the misdemeanour. Thus
far, my young friend, hath as yet proceeded the life of Augustus
Tomlinson." The history of this gentleman made a deep impression on
Paul. The impression was strengthened by the conversations subsequently
holden with Augustus. That worthy was a dangerous and subtle persuader.
He had really read a good deal of history, and something of morals; and
he had an ingenious way of defending his rascally practices by syllogisms
from the latter, and examples from the former. These theories he
clenched, as it were, by a reference to the existing politics of the day.
Cheaters of the public, on false pretences, he was pleased to term
"moderate Whigs;" bullying demanders of your purse were "high Tories;"
and thieving in gangs was "the effect of the spirit of party." There was
this difference between Augustus Tomlinson and Long Ned,--Ned was the
acting knave, Augustus the reasoning one; and we may see therefore, by a
little reflection, that Tomlinson was a far more perilous companion than
Pepper,--for showy theories are always more seductive to the young and
clever than suasive examples, and the vanity of the youthful makes them
better pleased by being convinced of a thing than by being enticed to it.
A day or two after the narrative of Mr. Tomlinson, Paul was again visited
by Mrs. Lobkins,--for the regulations against frequent visitors were not
then so strictly enforced as we understand them to be now; and the good
dame came to deplore the ill-success of her interview with Justice
Burnflat.
We spare the tender-hearted reader a detail of the affecting interview
that ensued. Indeed, it was but a repetition of the one we have before
narrated. We shall only say, as a proof of Paul's tenderness of heart,
that when he took leave of the good matron, and bade "God bless her," his
voice faltered, and the tears stood in his eyes,--just as they were wont
to do in the eyes of George the Third, when that excellent monarch was
pleased graciously to encore "God save the King!"
"I'll be hanged," soliloquized our hero, as he slowly bent his course
towards the subtle Augustus,--"I'll be hanged (humph! the denunciation is
prophetic), if I don't feel as grateful to the old lady for her care of
me as if she had never ill-used me. As for my parents, I believe I have
little to be grateful for or proud of in that quarter. My poor mother,
by all accounts, seems scarcely to have had even the brute virtue of
maternal tenderness; and in all human likelihood I shall never know
whether I had one father or fifty. But what matters it? I rather like
the better to be independent; and, after all, what do nine tenths of us
ever get from our parents but an ugly name, and advice which, if we
follow, we are wretched, and if we neglect, we are disinherited?"
Comforting himself with these thoughts, which perhaps took their
philosophical complexion from the conversations he had lately held with
Augustus, and which broke off into the muttered air of--
"Why should we quarrel for riches?"
Paul repaired to his customary avocations.
In the third week of our hero's captivity Tomlinson communicated to him a
plan of escape that had occurred to his sagacious brain. In the yard
appropriated to the amusements of the gentlemen "misdemeaning," there was
a water-pipe that, skirting the wall, passed over the door through which
every morning the pious captives passed in their way to the chapel. By
this Tomlinson proposed to escape; for to the pipe which reached from the
door to the wall, in a slanting and easy direction, there was a sort of
skirting-board; and a dexterous and nimble man might readily, by the help
of this board, convey himself along the pipe, until the progress of that
useful conductor (which was happily very brief) was stopped by the summit
of the wall, where it found a sequel in another pipe, that descended to
the ground on the opposite side of the wall. Now, on this opposite side
was the garden of the prison; in this garden was a watchman, and this
watchman was the hobgoblin of Tomlinson's scheme,--"For suppose us safe
in the garden," said he, "what shall we do with this confounded fellow?"
"But that is not all," added Paul; "for even were there no watchman,
there is a terrible wall, which I noted especially last week, when we
were set to work in the garden, and which has no pipe, save a
perpendicular one, that a man must have the legs of a fly to be able to
climb!"
"Nonsense!" returned Tomlinson; "I will show you how to climb the
stubbornest wall in Christendom, if one has but the coast clear. It is
the watchman, the watchman, we must--"
"What?" asked Paul, observing his comrade did not conclude the sentence.
It was some time before the sage Augustus replied; he then said in a
musing tone,--
"I have been thinking, Paul, whether it would be consistent with virtue,
and that strict code of morals by which all my actions are regulated,
to--slay the watchman!"
"Good heavens!" cried Paul, horror-stricken.
"And I have decided," continued Augustus, solemnly, without regard to the
exclamation, "that the action would be perfectly justifiable!"
"Villain!" exclaimed Paul, recoiling to the other end of the stone box--
for it was night--in which they were cooped.
"But," pursued Augustus, who seemed soliloquizing, and whose voice,
sounding calm and thoughtful, like Young's in the famous monologue in
"Hamlet," denoted that he heeded not the uncourteous interruption,--"but
opinion does not always influence conduct; and although it may be
virtuous to murder the watchman, I have not the heart to do it. I trust
in my future history I shall not by discerning moralists be too severely
censured for a weakness for which my physical temperament is alone to
blame!"
Despite the turn of the soliloquy, it was a long time before Paul could
be reconciled to further conversation with Augustus; and it was only from
the belief that the moralist had leaned to the jesting vein that he at
length resumed the consultation.
The conspirators did not, however, bring their scheme that night to any
ultimate decision. The next day Augustus, Paul, and some others of the
company were set to work in the garden; and Paul then observed that his
friend, wheeling a barrow close by the spot where the watchman stood,
overturned its contents. The watchman was good-natured enough to assist
him in refilling the barrow; and Tomlinson profited so well by the
occasion that that night he informed Paul that they would have nothing to
dread from the watchman's vigilance. "He has promised," said Augustus,
"for certain consi-de-ra-tions, to allow me to knock him down; he has
also promised to be so much hurt as not to be able to move until we are
over the wall. Our main difficulty now, then, is the first step,--
namely, to climb the pipe unperceived!"
"As to that," said Paul, who developed, through the whole of the scheme,
organs of sagacity, boldness, and invention which charmed his friend, and
certainly promised well for his future career,--"as to that, I think we
may manage the first ascent with less danger than you imagine. The
mornings of late have been very foggy; they are almost dark at the hour
we go to chapel. Let you and I close the file: the pipe passes just
above the door; our hands, as we have tried, can reach it; and a spring
of no great agility will enable us to raise ourselves up to a footing on
the pipe and the skirting-board.
"The climbing then is easy; and what with the dense fog and our own
quickness, I think we shall have little difficulty in gaining the garden.
The only precautions we need use are, to wait for a very dark morning,
and to be sure that we are the last of the file, so that no one behind
may give the alarm--"
"Or attempt to follow our example, and spoil the pie by a superfluous
plum!" added Augustus. "You counsel admirably; and one of these days, if
you are not hung in the mean while, will, I venture to auger, be a great
logician."
The next morning was clear and frosty; but the day after was, to use
Tomlinson's simile, "as dark as if all the negroes of Africa had been
stewed down into air." "You might have cut the fog with a knife," as the
proverb says. Paul and Augustus could not even see how significantly
each looked at the other.
It was a remarkable trait of the daring temperament of the former, that,
young as he was, it was fixed that he should lead the attempt. At the
hour, then, for chapel the prisoners passed as usual through the door.
When it came to Paul's turn he drew himself by his hands to the pipe, and
then creeping along its sinuous course, gained the wall before he had
even fetched his breath. Rather more clumsily, Augustus followed his
friend's example. Once his foot slipped, and he was all but over. He
extended his hands involuntarily, and caught Paul by the leg. Happily
our hero had then gained the wall, to which he was clinging; and for once
in a way, one rogue raised himself without throwing over another. Behold
Tomlinson and Paul now seated for an instant on the wall to recover
breath; the latter then,--the descent to the ground was not very great,
--letting his body down by his hands, dropped into the garden.
"Hurt?" asked the prudent Augustus, in a hoarse whisper, before he
descended from his "bad eminence," being even willing--
"To bear those ills he had,
Than fly to others that he knew not of"
"No!" without taking every previous precaution in his power, was the
answer in the same voice, and Augustus dropped.
So soon as this latter worthy had recovered the shock of his fall, he
lost not a moment in running to the other end of the garden. Paul
followed. By the way Tomlinson stopped at a heap of rubbish, and picked
up an immense stone. When they came to the part of the wall they had
agreed to scale, they found the watchman,--about whom they needed not, by
the by, to have concerned themselves; for had it not been arranged that
he was to have met them, the deep fog would have effectually prevented
him from seeing them. This faithful guardian Augustus knocked down, not
with a stone, but with ten guineas; he then drew forth from his dress a
thickish cord, which he procured some days before from the turnkey, and
fastening the stone firmly to one end, threw that end over the wall. Now
the wall had (as walls of great strength mostly have) an overhanging sort
of battlement on either side; and the stone, when flung over and drawn to
the tether of the cord to which it was attached, necessarily hitched
against this projection; and thus the cord was as it were fastened to the
wall, and Tomlinson was enabled by it to draw himself up to the top of
the barrier. He performed this feat with gymnastic address, like one who
had often practised it; albeit the discreet adventurer had not mentioned
in his narrative to Paul any previous occasion for the practice. As soon
as he had gained the top of the wall, he threw down the cord to his
companion, and, in consideration of Paul's inexperience in that manner of
climbing, gave the fastening of the rope an additional security by
holding it himself. With slowness and labour Paul hoisted himself up;
and then, by transferring the stone to the other side of the wall, where
it made of course a similar hitch, our two adventurers were enabled
successively to slide down, and consummate their escape from the House of
Correction.
"Follow me now!" said Augustus, as he took to his heels; and Paul pursued
him through a labyrinth of alleys and lanes, through which he shot and
dodged with a variable and shifting celerity that, had not Paul kept
close upon him, would very soon, combined with the fog, have snatched him
from the eyes of his young ally. Happily the immaturity of the morning,
the obscurity of the streets passed through, and above all, the extreme
darkness of the atmosphere, prevented that detection and arrest which
their prisoner's garb would otherwise have insured them. At length they
found themselves in the fields; and skulking along hedges, and diligently
avoiding the highroad, they continued to fly onward, until they had
advanced several miles into "the bowels of the land." At that time "the
bowels" of Augustus Tomlinson began to remind him of their demands; and
he accordingly suggested the desirability of their seizing the first
peasant they encountered, and causing him to exchange clothes with one of
the fugitives, who would thus be enabled to enter a public-house and
provide for their mutual necessities. Paul agreed to this proposition,
and accordingly they watched their opportunity and caught a ploughman.
Augustus stripped him of his frock, hat, and worsted stockings; and Paul,
hardened by necessity and companionship, helped to tie the poor ploughman
to a tree. They then continued their progress for about an hour, and, as
the shades of evening fell around them, they discovered a public-house.
Augustus entered, and returned in a few minutes laden with bread and
cheese, and a bottle of beer. Prison fare cures a man of daintiness,
and the two fugitives dined on these homely viands with considerable
complacency. They then resumed their journey, and at length, wearied
with exertion, they arrived at a lonely haystack, where they resolved to
repose for an hour or two.