THE JOCKEY'S TALE--THIEVES' LATIN--LIBERTIES WITH COIN--THE SMASHER IN
PRISON--OLD FULCHER--EVERY ONE HAS HIS GIFT--FASHION OF THE ENGLISH
'My grandfather was a shorter, and my father was a smasher; the one was
scragg'd, and the other lagg'd.'
I here interrupted the jockey by observing that his discourse was, for
the greater part, unintelligible to me.
'I do not understand much English,' said the Hungarian, who, having
replenished and resumed his mighty pipe, was now smoking away; 'but, by
Isten, I believe it is the gibberish which that great ignorant Valther
Scott puts into the mouth of the folks he calls gypsies.'
'Something like it, I confess,' said I, 'though this sounds more genuine
than his dialect, which he picked up out of the canting vocabulary at the
end of the "English Rogue," {252} a book which, however despised, was
written by a remarkable genius. What do you call the speech you were
using?' said I, addressing myself to the jockey.
'Latin,' said the jockey, very coolly, 'that is, that dialect of it which
is used by the light-fingered gentry.'
'He is right,' said the Hungarian; 'it is what the Germans call
Roth-Welsch: they call it so because there are a great many Latin words
in it, introduced by the priests, who, at the time of the Reformation,
being too lazy to work, and too stupid to preach, joined the bands of
thieves and robbers who prowled about the county. Italy, as you are
aware, is called by the Germans Welschland, or the land of the Welschers;
and I may add that Wallachia derives its name from a colony of Welschers
which Trajan sent there. Welsch and Wallack being one and the same word,
and tantamount to Latin.'
'I dare say you are right,' said I; 'but why was Italy termed
Welschland?'
'I do not know,' said the Hungarian.
'Then I think I can tell you,' said I; 'it was called so because the
original inhabitants were a Cimbric tribe, who were called Gwyltiad, that
is, a race of wild people, living in coverts, who were of the same blood,
and spoke the same language as the present inhabitants of Wales. Welsh
seems merely a modification of Gwyltiad. Pray continue your history,'
said I to the jockey, 'only please to do so in a language which we can
understand, and first of all interpret the sentence with which you began
it.'
'I told you that my grandfather was a shorter,' said the jockey, 'by
which is meant a gentleman who shortens or reduces the current coin of
these realms, for which practice he was scragged, that is, hung by the
scrag of the neck. And when I said that my father was a smasher, I meant
one who passes forged notes, thereby doing his best to smash the Bank of
England; by being lagg'd, I meant he was laid fast, that is, had a chain
put round his leg and then transported.'
'Your explanations are perfectly satisfactory,' said I; 'the three first
words are metaphorical, and the fourth, lagg'd, is the old genuine Norse
term, lagda, which signifies laid, whether in durance, or in bed has
nothing to do with the matter. What you have told me confirms me in an
opinion which I have long entertained, that thieves' Latin is a strange
mysterious speech, formed of metaphorical terms, and words derived from
various ancient languages. Pray tell me, now, how the gentleman, your
grandfather, contrived to shorten the coin of these realms?'
'You shall hear,' said the jockey; 'but I have one thing to beg of you,
which is, that when I have once begun my history you will not interrupt
me with questions; I don't like them, they stops one, and puts one out of
one's tale, and are not wanted. For anything which I think can't be
understood, I should myself explain, without being asked. My grandfather
reduced or shortened the coin of this country by three processes. By
aquafortis, by clipping, and by filing. Filing and clipping he employed
in reducing all kinds of coin, whether gold or silver; but aquafortis he
used merely in reducing gold coin, whether guineas, jacobuses, or
Portugal pieces, otherwise called moidores, which were at one time as
current as guineas. By laying a guinea in aquafortis for twelve hours he
could filch from it to the value of ninepence, and by letting it remain
there for twenty-four, to the value of eighteenpence, the aquafortis
eating the gold away, and leaving it like a sediment in the vessel. He
was generally satisfied with taking the value of ninepence from a guinea,
of eighteenpence from a jacobus or moidore, or half-a-crown from a broad
Spanish piece, whether he reduced them by aquafortis, filing, or
clipping. From a five-shilling piece, which is called a bull in Latin,
because it is round like a bull's head, he would file or clip to the
value of five-pence, and from lesser coin in proportion. He was
connected with a numerous gang, or set, of people, who had given up their
minds and talents entirely to shortening.'
Here I interrupted the jockey. 'How singular,' said I, 'is the fall and
debasement of words; you talk of a gang, or set of shorters; you are,
perhaps, not aware that gang and set were, a thousand years ago, only
connected with the great and Divine: they are ancient Norse words, which
may be found in the heroic poems of the north, and in the Edda, a
collection of mythologic and heroic songs. In these poems we read that
such and such a king invaded Norway with a gang of heroes, or so and
so--for example, Erik Bloodaxe--was admitted to the set of gods; but at
present gang and set are merely applied to the vilest of the vile, and
the lowest of the low. We say a gang of thieves and shorters, or a set
of authors. How touching is this debasement of words in the course of
time! It puts me in mind of the decay of old houses and names. I have
known a Mortimer who was a hedger and ditcher, a Berners who was born in
a workhouse, and a descendant of the De Burghs, who bore the falcon,
mending old kettles, and making horse and pony shoes in a dingle.'
'Odd enough,' said the jockey; 'but you were saying you knew one
Berners--man or woman? I would ask.'
'A woman,' said I.
'What might her Christian name be?' said the jockey.
'It is not to be mentioned lightly,' said I, with a sigh.
'I shouldn't wonder if it were Isopel,' said the jockey, with an arch
glance of his one brilliant eye.
'It was Isopel,' said I. 'Did you know Isopel Berners?'
'Ay, and have reason to know her,' said the jockey, putting his hand into
his left waistcoat-pocket, as if to feel for something, 'for she gave me
what I believe few men could do--a most confounded wapping. But now, Mr.
Romany Rye, I have again to tell you that I don't like to be interrupted
when I'm speaking, and to add that if you break in upon me a third time,
you and I shall quarrel.'
'Pray proceed with your story,' said I; 'I will not interrupt you again.'
'Good!' said the jockey. 'Where was I? Oh, with a set of people who had
given up their minds to shortening! Reducing the coin, though rather a
lucrative, was a very dangerous, trade. Coin filed felt rough to the
touch; coin clipped could be easily detected by the eye; and as for coin
reduced by aquafortis, it was generally so discoloured that, unless a
great deal of pains was used to polish it, people were apt to stare at it
in a strange manner, and to say, "What have they been doing to this here
gold?" My grandfather, as I said before, was connected with a gang of
shorters, and sometimes shortened money, and at other times passed off
what had been shortened by other gentry.
'Passing off what had been shortened by others was his ruin; for once, in
trying to pass off a broad piece which had been laid in aquafortis for
four-and-twenty hours, and was very black, not having been properly
rectified, he was stopped and searched, and other reduced coins being
found about him and in his lodgings, he was committed to prison, tried,
and executed. He was offered his life, provided he would betray his
comrades, but he told the big-wigs, who wanted him to do so, that he
would see them farther first, and died at Tyburn, amidst the cheers of
the populace, leaving my grandmother and father, to whom he had always
been a kind husband and parent--for, setting aside the crime for which he
suffered, he was a moral man--leaving them, I say, to bewail his
irreparable loss.
''Tis said that misfortune never comes alone; this is, however, not
always the case. Shortly after my grandfather's misfortune, as my
grandmother and her son were living in great misery in Spitalfields, her
only relation--a brother from whom she had been estranged some years, on
account of her marriage with my grandfather, who had been in an inferior
station to herself--died, leaving all his property to her and the child.
This property consisted of a farm of about a hundred acres, with its
stock and some money besides. My grandmother, who knew something of
business, instantly went into the country, where she farmed the property
for her own benefit and that of her son, to whom she gave an education
suitable to a person in his condition, till he was old enough to manage
the farm himself. Shortly after the young man came of age, my
grandmother died, and my father, in about a year, married the daughter of
a farmer, from whom he expected some little fortune, but who very much
deceived him, becoming a bankrupt almost immediately after the marriage
of his daughter, and himself and family going to the workhouse.
'My mother, however, made my father an excellent wife; and if my father
in the long run did not do well, it was no fault of hers. My father was
not a bad man by nature, he was of an easy, generous temper--the most
unfortunate temper, by-the-by, for success in this life that any person
can be possessed of, as those who have it are almost sure to be made
dupes of by the designing. But, though easy and generous, he was
anything but a fool; he had a quick and witty tongue of his own when he
chose to exert it, and woe be to those who insulted him openly, for there
was not a better boxer in the whole country round. My parents were
married several years before I came into the world, who was their first
and only child. I may be called an unfortunate creature; I was born with
this beam or scale on my left eye, which does not allow me to see with
it; and though I can see tolerably sharply with the other, indeed more
than most people can with both of theirs, it is a great misfortune not to
have two eyes like other people. Moreover, setting aside the affair of
my eye, I had a very ugly countenance; my mouth being slightly wrung
aside, and my complexion rather swarthy. In fact, I looked so queer that
the gossips and neighbours, when they first saw me, swore I was a
changeling--perhaps it would have been well if I had never been born; for
my poor father, who had been particularly anxious to have a son, no
sooner saw me than he turned away, went to the neighbouring town, and did
not return for two days. I am by no means certain that I was not the
cause of his ruin, for till I came into the world he was fond of his
home, and attended much to business, but afterwards he went frequently
into company, and did not seem to care much about his affairs: he was,
however, a kind man, and when his wife gave him advice never struck her,
nor do I ever remember that he kicked me when I came in his way, or so
much as cursed my ugly face, though it was easy to see that he didn't
over like me. When I was six years old I was sent to the village-school,
where I was soon booked for a dunce, because the master found it
impossible to teach me either to read or write. Before I had been at
school two years, however, I had beaten boys four years older than
myself, and could fling a stone with my left hand (for if I am right-eyed
I am left-handed) higher and farther than any one in the parish.
Moreover, no boy could equal me at riding, and no people ride so well or
desperately as boys. I could ride a donkey--a thing far more difficult
to ride than a horse--at full gallop over hedges and ditches, seated or
rather floating upon his hinder part,--so though anything but clever, as
this here Romany Rye would say, I was yet able to do things which few
other people could do. By the time I was ten my father's affairs had got
into a very desperate condition, for he had taken to gambling and
horse-racing, and, being unsuccessful, had sold his stock, mortgaged his
estate, and incurred very serious debts. The upshot was, that within a
little time all he had was seized, himself imprisoned, and my mother and
myself put into a cottage belonging to the parish, which, being very cold
and damp, was the cause of her catching a fever, which speedily carried
her off. I was then bound apprentice to a farmer, in whose service I
underwent much coarse treatment, cold and hunger.
'After lying in prison near two years, my father was liberated by an Act
for the benefit of insolvent debtors; he was then lost sight of for some
time, at last, however, he made his appearance in the neighbourhood
dressed like a gentleman, and seemingly possessed of plenty of money. He
came to see me, took me into a field, and asked me how I was getting on.
I told him I was dreadfully used, and begged him to take me away with
him; he refused, and told me to be satisfied with my condition, for that
he could do nothing for me. I had a great love for my father, and
likewise a great admiration for him on account of his character as a
boxer, the only character which boys in general regard, so I wished much
to be with him, independently of the dog's life I was leading where I
was; I therefore said if he would not take me with him, I would follow
him; he replied that I must do no such thing, for that if I did, it would
be my ruin. I asked him what he meant, but he made no reply, only saying
that he would go and speak to the farmer. Then taking me with him he
went to the farmer and in a very civil manner said that he understood I
had not been very kindly treated by him, but he hoped that in future I
should be used better. The farmer answered in a surly tone, that I had
been only too well treated, for that I was a worthless young scoundrel;
high words ensued, and the farmer, forgetting the kind of man he had to
deal with, checked him with my grandsire's misfortune, and said he
deserved to be hanged like his father. In a moment my father knocked him
down, and on his getting up gave him a terrible beating, then taking me
by the hand he hastened away; as we were going down a lane he said we
were now both done for: "I don't care a straw for that, father," said I,
"provided I be with you." My father took me to the neighbouring town,
and going into the yard of a small inn, he ordered out a pony and light
cart which belonged to him, then paying his bill, he told me to mount
upon the seat, and getting up drove away like lightning; we drove for at
least six hours without stopping, till we came to a cottage by the side
of a heath; we put the pony and cart into a shed and went into the
cottage, my father unlocking the door with a key which he took out of his
pocket; there was nobody in the cottage when we arrived, but shortly
after there came a man and woman, and then some more people, and by ten
o'clock at night there were a dozen of us in the cottage. The people
were companions of my father. My father began talking to them in Latin,
but I did not understand much of the discourse, though I believe it was
about myself, as their eyes were frequently turned to me. Some
objections appeared to be made to what he said; however, all at last
seemed to be settled, and we all sat down to some food. After that all
the people got up and went away, with the exception of the woman, who
remained with my father and me. The next day my father also departed,
leaving me with the woman, telling me before he went that she would teach
me some things which it behoved me to know. I remained with her in the
cottage upwards of a week; several of those who had been there coming and
going. The woman, after making me take an oath to be faithful, told me
that the people whom I had seen were a gang who got their livelihood by
passing forged notes, and that my father was a principal man amongst
them, adding, that I must do my best to assist them. I was a poor
ignorant child at that time, and I made no objection, thinking that
whatever my father did must be right; the woman then gave me some
instructions in the smasher's dialect of the Latin language. I made
great progress, because for the first time in my life, I paid great
attention to my lessons. At last my father returned, and, after some
conversation with the woman, took me away in his cart. I shall be very
short about what happened to my father and myself during two years. My
father did his best to smash the Bank of England by passing forged notes,
and I did my best to assist him. We attended races and fairs in all
kinds of disguises; my father was a first-rate hand at a disguise, and
could appear of all ages from twenty to fourscore; he was, however,
grabbed at last. He had said, as I have told you, that he should be my
ruin, but I was the cause of his, and all owing to the misfortune of this
here eye of mine. We came to this very place of Horncastle, where my
father purchased two horses of a young man, paying for them with three
forged notes, purporting to be Bank of Englanders of fifty pounds each,
and got the young man to change another of the like amount; he at that
time appeared as a respectable dealer, and I as his son, as I really was.
'As soon as we had got the horses, we conveyed them to one of the places
of call belonging to our gang, of which there were several. There they
were delivered into the hands of one of our companions, who speedily sold
them in a distant part of the country. The sum which they fetched--for
the gang kept very regular accounts--formed an important item on the next
day of sharing, of which there were twelve in the year. The young man,
whom my father had paid for the horses with his smashing notes, was soon
in trouble about them, and ran some risk, as I have heard, of being
executed; but he bore a good character, told a plain story, and, above
all, had friends, and was admitted to bail; to one of his friends he
described my father and myself. This person happened to be at an inn in
Yorkshire, where my father, disguised as a Quaker, attempted to pass a
forged note. The note was shown to this individual, who pronounced it a
forgery, it being exactly similar to those for which the young man had
been in trouble, and which he had seen. My father, however, being
supposed a respectable man, because he was dressed as a Quaker--the very
reason, by-the-by, why anybody who knew aught of the Quakers would have
suspected him to be a rogue--would have been let go, had I not made my
appearance, dressed as his footboy. The friend of the young man looked
at my eye, and seized hold of my father, who made a desperate resistance,
I assisting him, as in duty bound. Being, however, overpowered by
numbers, he bade me by a look, and a word or two in Latin, to make myself
scarce. Though my heart was fit to break, I obeyed my father, who was
speedily committed. I followed him to the county town in which he was
lodged, where shortly after I saw him tried, convicted, and condemned. I
then, having made friends with the jailor's wife, visited him in his
cell, where I found him very much cast down. He said, that my mother had
appeared to him in a dream, and talked to him about a resurrection and
Christ Jesus; there was a Bible before him, and he told me the chaplain
had just been praying with him. He reproached himself much, saying, he
was afraid he had been my ruin, by teaching me bad habits. I told him
not to say any such thing, for that I had been the cause of his, owing to
the misfortune of my eye. He begged me to give over all unlawful
pursuits, saying, that if persisted in, they were sure of bringing a
person to destruction. I advised him to try and make his escape;
proposing, that when the turnkey came to let me out, he should knock him
down, and fight his way out, offering to assist him; showing him a small
saw, with which one of our companions, who was in the neighbourhood, had
provided me, and with which he could have cut through his fetters in five
minutes; but he told me he had no wish to escape, and was quite willing
to die. I was rather hard at that time; I am not very soft now; and I
felt rather ashamed of my father's want of what I called spirit. He was
not executed after all; for the chaplain, who was connected with a great
family, stood his friend, and got his sentence commuted, as they call it,
to transportation; and in order to make the matter easy, he induced my
father to make some valuable disclosures with respect to the smasher's
system. I confess that I would have been hanged before I would have done
so, after having reaped the profit of it; that is, I think so now, seated
comfortably in my inn, with my bottle of champagne before me. He,
however, did not show himself carrion; he would not betray his
companions, who had behaved very handsomely to him, having given the son
of a lord, a great barrister, not a hundred-pound forged bill, but a
hundred hard guineas, to plead his cause, and another ten, to induce him,
after pleading, to put his hand to his breast, and say, that, upon his
honour, he believed the prisoner at the bar to be an honest and injured
man. No: I am glad to be able to say, that my father did not show
himself exactly carrion, though I could almost have wished he had let
himself--. However, I am here with my bottle of champagne and the Romany
Rye, and he was in his cell, with bread and water and the prison
chaplain. He took an affectionate leave of me before he was sent away,
giving me three out of five guineas, all the money he had left. He was a
kind man, but not exactly fitted to fill my grandfather's shoes. I
afterwards learned that he died of fever, as he was being carried across
the sea.
'During the 'sizes, I had made acquaintance with old Fulcher. I was in
the town on my father's account, and he was there on his son's, who,
having committed a small larceny, was in trouble. Young Fulcher,
however, unlike my father, got off, though he did not give the son of a
lord a hundred guineas to speak for him, and ten more to pledge his
sacred honour for his honesty, but gave Counsellor P--- one-and-twenty
shillings to defend him, who so frightened the principal evidence, a
plain honest farming man, that he flatly contradicted what he had first
said, and at last acknowledged himself to be all the rogues in the world,
and, amongst other things, a perjured villain. Old Fulcher, before he
left the town with his son--and here it will be well to say that he and
his son left it in a kind of triumph, the base drummer of a militia
regiment, to whom they had given half-a-crown, beating his drum before
them--old Fulcher, I say, asked me to go and visit him, telling me where,
at such a time, I might find him and his caravan and family; offering, if
I thought fit, to teach me basket-making: so, after my father had been
sent off, I went and found up old Fulcher, and became his apprentice in
the basket-making line. I stayed with him till the time of his death,
which happened in about three months, travelling about with him and his
family, and living in green lanes, where we saw gypsies and trampers, and
all kinds of strange characters. Old Fulcher, besides being an
industrious basket-maker, was an out and out thief, as was also his son,
and, indeed, every member of his family. They used to make baskets
during the day, and thieve during a great part of the night. I had not
been with them twelve hours, before old Fulcher told me that I must
thieve as well as the rest. I demurred at first, for I remembered the
fate of my father, and what he had told me about leaving off bad courses,
but soon allowed myself to be over-persuaded; more especially as the
first robbery I was asked to do was a fruit robbery. I was to go with
young Fulcher, and steal some fine Morell cherries, which grew against a
wall in a gentleman's garden; so young Fulcher and I went and stole the
cherries, one half of which we ate, and gave the rest to the old man, who
sold them to a fruiterer ten miles off from the place where we had stolen
them. The next night old Fulcher took me out with himself. He was a
great thief, though in a small way. He used to say, that they were
fools, who did not always manage to keep the rope below their shoulders,
by which he meant, that it was not advisable to commit a robbery or do
anything which could bring you to the gallows. He was all for petty
larceny, and knew where to put his hand upon any little thing in England,
which it was possible to steal. I submit it to the better judgment of
the Romany Rye, who I see is a great hand for words and names, whether he
ought not to have been called old Filcher, instead of Fulcher. I shan't
give a regular account of the larcenies which he committed during the
short time I knew him, either alone by himself, or with me and his son.
I shall merely relate the last.
'A melancholy gentleman, who lived a very solitary life, had a large carp
in a shady pond in a meadow close to his house: he was exceedingly fond
of it, and used to feed it with his own hand, the creature being so tame
that it would put its snout out of the water to be fed when it was
whistled to; feeding and looking at his carp were the only pleasures the
poor melancholy gentleman possessed. Old Fulcher--being in the
neighbourhood, and having an order from a fishmonger for a large fish,
which was wanted at a great city dinner, at which His Majesty was to be
present--swore he would steal the carp, and asked me to go with him. I
had heard of the gentleman's fondness for his creature, and begged him to
let it be, advising him to go and steal some other fish; but old Fulcher
swore, and said he would have the carp, although its master should hang
himself; I told him he might go by himself, but he took his son and stole
the carp, which weighed seventeen pounds. Old Fulcher got thirty
shillings for the carp, which I afterwards heard was much admired and
relished by His Majesty. The master, however, of the carp, on losing his
favourite, became more melancholy than ever, and in a little time hanged
himself. "What's sport for one, is death to another," I once heard at
the village-school read out of a copy-book.
'This was the last larceny old Fulcher ever committed. He could keep his
neck always out of the noose, but he could not always keep his leg out of
the trap. A few nights after, having removed to a distance, he went to
an osier car in order to steal some osiers for his basket-making, for he
never bought any. I followed a little way behind. Old Fulcher had
frequently stolen osiers out of the car, whilst in the neighbourhood, but
during his absence the property, of which the car was part, had been let
to a young gentleman, a great hand for preserving game. Old Fulcher had
not got far into the car before he put his foot into a man-trap. Hearing
old Fulcher shriek, I ran up, and found him in a dreadful condition.
Putting a large stick which I carried into the jaws of the trap, I
contrived to prize them open, and get old Fulcher's leg out, but the leg
was broken. So I ran to the caravan, and told young Fulcher of what had
happened, and he and I went and helped his father home. A doctor was
sent for, who said that it was necessary to take the leg off, but old
Fulcher, being very much afraid of pain, said it should not be taken off,
and the doctor went away, but after some days, old Fulcher becoming
worse, ordered the doctor to be sent for, who came and took off his leg,
but it was then too late, mortification had come on, and in a little time
old Fulcher died.
'Thus perished old Fulcher; he was succeeded in his business by his son,
young Fulcher, who, immediately after the death of his father, was called
old Fulcher, it being our English custom to call everybody old, as soon
as their fathers are buried; young Fulcher--I mean he who had been called
young, but was now old Fulcher--wanted me to go out and commit larcenies
with him; but I told him that I would have nothing more to do with
thieving, having seen the ill effects of it, and that I should leave them
in the morning. Old Fulcher begged me to think better of it, and his
mother joined with him. They offered, if I would stay, to give me Mary
Fulcher as a mort, {264} till she and I were old enough to be regularly
married, she being the daughter of the one, and the sister of the other.
I liked the girl very well, for she had been always civil to me, and had
a fair complexion and nice red hair, both of which I like, being a bit of
a black myself; but I refused, being determined to see something more of
the world than I could hope to do with the Fulchers, and, moreover, to
live honestly, which I could never do along with them. So the next
morning I left them: I was, as I said before, quite determined upon an
honest livelihood, and I soon found one. He is a great fool who is ever
dishonest in England. Any person who has any natural gift, and everybody
has some natural gift, is sure of finding encouragement in this noble
country of ours, provided he will but exhibit it. I had not walked more
than three miles before I came to a wonderfully high church steeple,
which stood close by the road; I looked at the steeple, and going to a
heap of smooth pebbles which lay by the roadside, I took up some, and
then went into the churchyard, and placing myself just below the tower,
my right foot resting on a ledge, about two foot from the ground, I, with
my left hand--being a left-handed person do you see--flung or chucked up
a stone, which lighting on the top of the steeple, which was at least a
hundred and fifty feet high, did there remain. After repeating this feat
two or three times, I "hulled" up a stone, which went clean over the
tower, and then one, my right foot still on the ledge, which rising at
least five yards above the steeple, did fall down just at my feet.
Without knowing it, I was showing off my gift to others besides myself,
doing what, perhaps, not five men in England could do. Two men, who were
passing by, stopped and looked at my proceedings, and when I had done
flinging came into the churchyard, and, after paying me a compliment on
what they had seen me do, proposed that I should join company with them;
I asked them who they were, and they told me. The one was Hopping Ned,
and the other Biting Giles. Both had their gifts, by which they got
their livelihood; Ned could hop a hundred yards with any man in England,
and Giles could lift up with his teeth any dresser or kitchen-table in
the country, and, standing erect, hold it dangling in his jaws. There's
many a big oak table and dresser, in certain districts of England, which
bear the marks of Giles's teeth; and I make no doubt that, a hundred or
two years hence, there'll be strange stories about those marks, and that
people will point them out as a proof that there were giants in bygone
time, and that many a dentist will moralize on the decays which human
teeth have undergone.
'They wanted me to go about with them, and exhibit my gift occasionally,
as they did theirs, promising that the money that was got by the
exhibitions should be honestly divided. I consented, and we set off
together, and that evening coming to a village, and putting up at the
ale-house, all the grand folks of the village being there smoking their
pipes, we contrived to introduce the subject of hopping--the upshot being
that Ned hopped against the schoolmaster for a pound, and beat him
hollow; shortly after, Giles, for a wager, took up the kitchen table in
his jaws, though he had to pay a shilling to the landlady for the marks
he left, whose grandchildren will perhaps get money by exhibiting them.
As for myself, I did nothing that day, but the next, on which my
companions did nothing, I showed off at hulling stones against a cripple,
the crack man for stone throwing, of a small town, a few miles farther
on. Bets were made to the tune of some pounds; I contrived to beat the
cripple, and just contrived; for to do him justice I must acknowledge he
was a first-rate hand at stones, though he had a game hip, and went
sideways; his head, when he walked--if his movements could be called
walking--not being above three feet above the ground. So we travelled, I
and my companions, showing off our gifts, Giles and I occasionally for a
gathering, but Ned never hopping unless against somebody for a wager. We
lived honestly and comfortably, making no little money by our natural
endowments, and were known over a great part of England as "Hopping Ned,"
"Biting Giles," and "Hull over the head Jack," which was my name, it
being the blackguard fashion of the English, do you see, to--'
Here I interrupted the jockey, 'You may call it a blackguard fashion,'
said I, 'and I dare say it is, or it would scarcely be English; but it is
an immensely ancient one, and is handed down to us from our northern
ancestry, especially the Danes, who were in the habit of giving people
surnames, or rather nicknames, from some quality of body or mind, but
generally from some disadvantageous peculiarity of feature; for there is
no denying that the English, Norse, or whatever we may please to call
them, are an envious depreciatory set of people, who not only give their
poor comrades contemptuous surnames, but their great people also. They
didn't call you the matchless Hurler, because, by doing so, they would
have paid you a compliment, but Hull over the head Jack, as much as to
say that after all you were a scrub: so, in ancient time, instead of
calling Regner the great conqueror, the Nation Tamer, they surnamed him
Lodbrog, which signifies Rough or Hairy Breeks--lod or loddin signifying
rough or hairy; and instead of complimenting Halgerdr, the wife of Gunnar
of Hlitharend, the great champion of Iceland, upon her majestic presence,
by calling her Halgerdr, the stately or tall; what must they do but term
her Ha-brokr, or High Breeks, it being the fashion in old times for
Northern ladies to wear breeks, or breeches, which English ladies of the
present day never think of doing; and just, as of old, they called
Halgerdr Long-breeks, so this very day a fellow of Horncastle called, in
my hearing, our noble-looking Hungarian friend here, Long-stockings. Oh,
I could give you a hundred instances, both ancient and modern, of this
unseemly propensity of our illustrious race, though I will only trouble
you with a few more ancient ones; they not only nicknamed Regner, but his
sons also, who were all kings, and distinguished men: one, whose name was
Biorn, they nicknamed Ironsides; another Sigurd, Snake in the Eye;
another, White Sark, or White Shirt--I wonder they did not call him Dirty
Shirt, and Ivarr, another, who was King of Northumberland, they called
Beinlausi, or the Legless, because he was spindle-shanked, had no sap in
his bones, and consequently no children. He was a great king, it is
true, and very wise, nevertheless his blackguard countrymen, always
averse, as their descendants are, to give credit to anybody, for any
valuable quality or possession, must needs lay hold, do you see--'
But before I could say any more, the jockey, having laid down his pipe,
rose, and having taken off his coat, advanced towards me.