We are not worst at once--the course of evil
Begins so slowly, and from such slight source,
An infant's hand might stem its breach with clay;
But let the stream get deeper, and philosophy--
Ay, and religion too--shall strive in vain
To turn the headlong torrent.
_Old Play._
The Templars had been regaled by our friend Richie Moniplies in a
private chamber at Beaujeu's, where he might be considered as good
company; for he had exchanged his serving-man's cloak and jerkin for
a grave yet handsome suit of clothes, in the fashion of the times, but
such as might have befitted an older man than himself. He had positively
declined presenting himself at the ordinary, a point to which his
companions were very desirous to have brought him, for it will be
easily believed that such wags as Lowestoffe and his companion were not
indisposed to a little merriment at the expense of the raw and pedantic
Scotsman; besides the chance of easing him of a few pieces, of which
he appeared to have acquired considerable command. But not even a
succession of measures of sparkling sack, in which the little brilliant
atoms circulated like motes in the sun's rays, had the least effect
on Richie's sense of decorum. He retained the gravity of a judge, even
while he drank like a fish, partly from his own natural inclination to
good liquor, partly in the way of good fellowship towards his guests.
When the wine began to make some innovation on their heads, Master
Lowestoffe, tired, perhaps, of the humours of Richie, who began to
become yet more stoically contradictory and dogmatical than even in the
earlier part of the entertainment, proposed to his friend to break up
their debauch and join the gamesters.
The drawer was called accordingly, and Richie discharged the reckoning
of the party, with a generous remuneration to the attendants, which was
received with cap and knee, and many assurances of--"Kindly welcome,
gentlemen."
"I grieve we should part so soon, gentlemen," said Richie to his
companions,--"and I would you had cracked another quart ere you went, or
stayed to take some slight matter of supper, and a glass of Rhenish. I
thank you, however, for having graced my poor collation thus far; and
I commend you to fortune, in your own courses, for the ordinary neither
was, is, nor shall be, an element of mine."
"Fare thee well, then," said Lowestoffe, "most sapient and sententious
Master Moniplies. May you soon have another mortgage to redeem, and may
I be there to witness it; and may you play the good fellow, as heartily
as you have done this day."
"Nay, gentlemen, it is merely of your grace to say so--but, if you
would but hear me speak a few words of admonition respecting this wicked
ordinary--"
"Reserve the lesson, most honourable Richie," said Lowestoffe, "until
I have lost all my money," showing, at the same time, a purse
indifferently well provided, "and then the lecture is likely to have
some weight."
"And keep my share of it, Richie," said the other Templar, showing an
almost empty purse, in his turn, "till this be full again, and then I
will promise to hear you with some patience."
"Ay, ay, gallants," said Richie, "the full and the empty gang a' ae
gate, and that is a grey one--but the time will come."
"Nay, it is come already," said Lowestoffe; "they have set out the
hazard table. Since you will peremptorily not go with us, why, farewell,
Richie."
"And farewell, gentlemen," said Richie, and left the house, into which
they had returned.
Moniplies was not many steps from the door, when a person, whom, lost
in his reflections on gaming, ordinaries, and the manners of the age,
he had not observed, and who had been as negligent on his part, ran
full against him; and, when Richie desired to know whether he meant "ony
incivility," replied by a curse on Scotland, and all that belonged to
it. A less round reflection on his country would, at any time, have
provoked Richie, but more especially when he had a double quart of
Canary and better in his pate. He was about to give a very rough answer,
and to second his word by action, when a closer view of his antagonist
changed his purpose.
"You are the vera lad in the warld," said Richie, "whom I most wished to
meet."
"And you," answered the stranger, "or any of your beggarly countrymen,
are the last sight I should ever wish to see. You Scots are ever fair
and false, and an honest man cannot thrive within eyeshot of you."
"As to our poverty, friend," replied Richie, "that is as Heaven pleases;
but touching our falset, I'll prove to you that a Scotsman bears as leal
and true a heart to his friend as ever beat in English doublet."
"I care not whether he does or not," said the gallant. "Let me go--why
keep you hold of my cloak? Let me go, or I will thrust you into the
kennel."
"I believe I could forgie ye, for you did me a good turn once, in
plucking me out of it," said the Scot.
"Beshrew my fingers, then, if they did so," replied the stranger. "I
would your whole country lay there, along with you; and Heaven's curse
blight the hand that helped to raise them!--Why do you stop my way?" he
added, fiercely.
"Because it is a bad one, Master Jenkin," said Richie. "Nay, never start
about it, man--you see you are known. Alack-a-day! that an honest man's
son should live to start at hearing himself called by his own name!"
Jenkin struck his brow violently with his clenched fist.
"Come, come," said Richie, "this passion availeth nothing. Tell me what
gate go you?"
"To the devil!" answered Jin Vin.
"That is a black gate, if you speak according to the letter," answered
Richie; "but if metaphorically, there are worse places in this great
city than the Devil Tavern; and I care not if I go thither with you, and
bestow a pottle of burnt sack on you--it will correct the crudities of
my stomach, and form a gentle preparative for the leg of a cold pullet."
"I pray you, in good fashion, to let me go," said Jenkin. "You may mean
me kindly, and I wish you to have no wrong at my hand; but I am in the
humour to be dangerous to myself, or any one."
"I will abide the risk," said the Scot, "if you will but come with me;
and here is a place convenient, a howff nearer than the Devil, whilk
is but an ill-omened drouthy name for a tavern. This other of the Saint
Andrew is a quiet place, where I have ta'en my whetter now and
then, when I lodged in the neighbourhood of the Temple with Lord
Glenvarloch.--What the deil's the matter wi' the man, garr'd him gie sic
a spang as that, and almaist brought himself and me on the causeway?"
"Do not name that false Scot's name to me," said Jin Vin, "if you would
not have me go mad!--I was happy before I saw him--he has been the cause
of all the ill that has befallen me--he has made a knave and a madman of
me!"
"If you are a knave," said Richie, "you have met an officer--if you are
daft, you have met a keeper; but a gentle officer and a kind keeper.
Look you, my gude friend, there has been twenty things said about this
same lord, in which there is no more truth than in the leasings of
Mahound. The warst they can say of him is, that he is not always so
amenable to good advice as I would pray him, you, and every young man to
be. Come wi' me--just come ye wi' me; and, if a little spell of siller
and a great deal of excellent counsel can relieve your occasions, all
I can say is, you have had the luck to meet one capable of giving you
both, and maist willing to bestow them."
The pertinacity of the Scot prevailed over the sullenness of Vincent,
who was indeed in a state of agitation and incapacity to think for
himself, which led him to yield the more readily to the suggestions of
another. He suffered himself to be dragged into the small tavern which
Richie recommended, and where they soon found themselves seated in a
snug niche, with a reeking pottle of burnt sack, and a paper of sugar
betwixt them. Pipes and tobacco were also provided, but were only used
by Richie, who had adopted the custom of late, as adding considerably to
the gravity and importance of his manner, and affording, as it were,
a bland and pleasant accompaniment to the words of wisdom which flowed
from his tongue. After they had filled their glasses and drank them in
silence, Richie repeated the question, whither his guest was going when
they met so fortunately.
"I told you," said Jenkin, "I was going to destruction--I mean to the
gaming-house. I am resolved to hazard these two or three pieces, to get
as much as will pay for a passage with Captain Sharker, whose ship lies
at Gravesend, bound for America--and so Eastward, ho!--I met one devil
in the way already, who would have tempted me from my purpose, but I
spurned him from me--you may be another for what I know.--What degree
of damnation do you propose for me," he added wildly, "and what is the
price of it?"
"I would have you to know," answered Richie, "that I deal in no such
commodities, whether as buyer or seller. But if you will tell me
honestly the cause of your distress, I will do what is in my power to
help you out of it,--not being, however, prodigal of promises, until
I know the case; as a learned physician only gives advice when he has
observed the diagnostics."
"No one has any thing to do with my affairs," said the poor lad; and
folding his arms on the table, he laid his head upon them, with the
sullen dejection of the overburdened lama, when it throws itself down to
die in desperation.
Richard Moniplies, like most folk who have a good opinion of themselves,
was fond of the task of consolation, which at once displayed his
superiority, (for the consoler is necessarily, for the time at least,
superior to the afflicted person,) and indulged his love of talking.
He inflicted on the poor penitenta harangue of pitiless length, stuffed
full of the usual topics of the mutability of human affairs--the eminent
advantages of patience under affliction--the folly of grieving for what
hath no remedy--the necessity of taking more care for the future, and
some gentle rebukes on account of the past, which acid he threw in to
assist in subduing the patient's obstinacy, as Hannibal used vinegar in
cutting his way through rocks. It was not in human nature to endure this
flood of commonplace eloquence in silence; and Jin Vin, whether desirous
of stopping the flow of words--crammed thus into his ear, "against the
stomach of his sense," or whether confiding in Richie's protestations
of friendship, which the wretched, says Fielding, are ever so ready to
believe, or whether merely to give his sorrows vent in words, raised his
head, and turning his red and swollen eyes to Richie--
"Cocksbones, man, only hold thy tongue, and thou shall know all about
it,--and then all I ask of thee is to shake hands and part.--This
Margaret Ramsay,--you have seen her, man?"
"Once," said Richie, "once, at Master George Heriot's in Lombard
Street--I was in the room when they dined."
"Ay, you helped to shift their trenchers, I remember," said Jin Vin.
"Well, that same pretty girl--and I will uphold her the prettiest
betwixt Paul's and the Bar--she is to be wedded to your Lord
Glenvarloch, with a pestilence on him!"
"That is impossible," said Richie; "it is raving nonsense, man--they
make April gouks of you cockneys every month in the year--The Lord
Glenvarloch marry the daughter of a Lonnon mechanic! I would as soon
believe the great Prester John would marry the daughter of a Jew
packman."
"Hark ye, brother," said Jin Vin, "I will allow no one to speak
disregardfully of the city, for all I am in trouble."
"I crave your pardon, man--I meant no offence," said Richie; "but as to
the marriage, it is a thing simply impossible."
"It is a thing that will take place, though, for the Duke and the
Prince, and all of them, have a finger in it; and especially the old
fool of a king, that makes her out to be some great woman in her own
country, as all the Scots pretend to be, you know."
"Master Vincent, but that you are under affliction," said the consoler,
offended on his part, "I would hear no national reflections."
The afflicted youth apologised in his turns, but asserted, "it was true
that the king said Peg-a-Ramsay was some far-off sort of noblewoman; and
that he had taken a great interest in the match, and had run about like
an old gander, cackling about Peggie ever since he had seen her in hose
and doublet--and no wonder," added poor Vin, with a deep sigh.
"This may be all true," said Richie, "though it sounds strange in my
ears; but, man, you should not speak evil of dignities---Curse not the
king, Jenkin; not even in thy bed-chamber--stone walls have ears--no one
has a right to know better than I."
"I do not curse the foolish old man," said Jenkin; "but I would have
them carry things a peg lower.--If they were to see on a plain field
thirty thousand such pikes as I have seen in the artillery gardens,
it would not be their long-haired courtiers would help them, I trow."
[Footnote: Clarendon remarks, that the importance of the military
exercise of the citizens was severely felt by the cavaliers during the
civil war, notwithstanding the ridicule that had been showered upon it
by the dramatic poets of the day. Nothing less than habitual practice
could, at the battle of Newbury and elsewhere, have enabled the
Londoners to keep their ranks as pikemen, in spite of the repeated
charge of the fiery Prince Rupert and his gallant cavaliers.]
"Hout tout, man," said Richie, "mind where the Stewarts come frae, and
never think they would want spears or claymores either; but leaving sic
matters, whilk are perilous to speak on, I say once more, what is your
concern in all this matter?"
"What is it?" said Jenkin; "why, have I not fixed on Peg-a-Ramsay to be
my true love, from the day I came to her old father's shop? and have I
not carried her pattens and her chopines for three years, and borne her
prayer-book to church, and brushed the cushion for her to kneel down
upon, and did she ever say me nay?"
"I see no cause she had," said Richie, "if the like of such small
services were all that ye proffered. Ah, man! there are few--very few,
either of fools or of wise men, ken how to guide a woman."
"Why, did I not serve her at the risk of my freedom, and very nigh at
the risk of my neck? Did she not--no, it was not her neither, but that
accursed beldam whom she caused to work upon me--persuade me like a fool
to turn myself into a waterman to help my lord, and a plague to him,
down to Scotland? and instead of going peaceably down to the ship at
Gravesend, did not he rant and bully, and show his pistols, and make
me land him at Greenwich, where he played some swaggering pranks, that
helped both him and me into the Tower?"
"Aha!" said Richie, throwing more than his usual wisdom into his looks,
"so you were the green-jacketed waterman that rowed Lord Glenvarloch
down the river?"
"The more fool I, that did not souse him in the Thames," said Jenkin;
"and I was the lad who would not confess one word of who and what I
was, though they threatened to make me hug the Duke of Exeter's
daughter."[Footnote: A particular species of rack, used at the Tower of
London, was so called.]
"Wha is she, man?" said Richie; "she must be an ill-fashioned piece, if
you're so much afraid of her, and she come of such high kin."
"I mean the rack--the rack, man," said Jenkin. "Where were you bred
that never heard of the Duke of Exeter's daughter? But all the dukes and
duchesses in England could have got nothing out of me--so the truth came
out some other way, and I was set free.--Home I ran, thinking myself
one of the cleverest and happiest fellows in the ward. And she--she--she
wanted to pay me with _money_ for all my true service! and she spoke so
sweetly and so coldly at the same time, I wished myself in the deepest
dungeon of the Tower--I wish they had racked me to death before I heard
this Scottishman was to chouse me out of my sweetheart!"
"But are ye sure ye have lost her?" said Richie; "it sounds strange
in my ears that my Lord Glenvarloch should marry the daughter of a
dealer,--though there are uncouth marriages made in London, I'll allow
that."
"Why, I tell you this lord was no sooner clear of the Tower, than he and
Master George Heriot comes to make proposals for her, with the king's
assent, and what not; and fine fair-day prospects of Court favour for
this lord, for he hath not an acre of land."
"Well, and what said the auld watch-maker?" said Richie; "was he not, as
might weel beseem him, ready to loop out of his skin-case for very joy?"
"He multiplied six figures progressively, and reported the product--then
gave his consent."
"And what did you do?"
"I rushed into the streets," said the poor lad, "with a burning heart
and a blood-shot eye--and where did I first find myself, but with that
beldam, Mother Suddlechop--and what did she propose to me, but to take
the road?"
"Take the road, man? in what sense?" said Richie.
"Even as a clerk to Saint Nicholas--as a highwayman, like Poins and
Peto, and the good fellows in the play--and who think you was to be my
captain?--for she had the whole out ere I could speak to her--I fancy
she took silence for consent, and thought me damned too unutterably
to have one thought left that savoured of redemption--who was to be my
captain, but the knave that you saw me cudgel at the ordinary when you
waited on Lord Glenvarloch, a cowardly, sharking, thievish bully about
town here, whom they call Colepepper."
"Colepepper--umph--I know somewhat of that smaik," said Richie; "ken ye
by ony chance where he may be heard of, Master Jenkin?--ye wad do me a
sincere service to tell me."
"Why, he lives something obscurely," answered the apprentice, "on
account of suspicion of some villainy--I believe that horrid murder in
Whitefriars, or some such matter. But I might have heard all about him
from Dame Suddlechop, for she spoke of my meeting him at Enfield Chase,
with some other good fellows, to do a robbery on one that goes northward
with a store of treasure."
"And you did not agree to this fine project?" said Moniplies.
"I cursed her for a hag, and came away about my business," answered
Jenkin.
"Ay, and what said she to that, man? That would startle her," said
Richie.
"Not a whit. She laughed, and said she was in jest," answered Jenkin;
"but I know the she-devil's jest from her earnest too well to be taken
in that way. But she knows I would never betray her.'
"Betray her! No," replied Richie; "but are ye in any shape bound to this
birkie Peppercull, or Colepepper, or whatever they call him, that ye
suld let him do a robbery on the honest gentleman that is travelling to
the north, and may be a kindly Scot, for what we know?"
"Ay--going home with a load of English money," said Jenkin. "But be he
who he will, they may rob the whole world an they list, for I am robbed
and ruined."
Richie filled his friend's cup up to the brim, and insisted that he
should drink what he called "clean caup out." "This love," he said,
"is but a bairnly matter for a brisk young fellow like yourself, Master
Jenkin. And if ye must needs have a whimsy, though I think it would be
safer to venture on a staid womanly body, why, here be as bonny lasses
in London as this Peg-a-Ramsay. You need not sigh sae deeply, for it is
very true--there is as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it. Now
wherefore should you, who are as brisk and trig a young fellow of your
inches as the sun needs to shine on--wherefore need you sit moping this
way, and not try some bold way to better your fortune?"
"I tell you, Master Moniplies," said Jenkin, "I am as poor as any
Scot among you--I have broke my indenture, and I think of running my
country."
"A-well-a-day!" said Richie; "but that maunna be, man--I ken weel, by
sad experience, that poortith takes away pith, and the man sits full
still that has a rent in his breeks. [Footnote: This elegant speech was
made by the Earl of Douglas, called Tineman after being wounded and made
prisoner at the battle of Shrewsbury, where
"His well labouring sword
Had three times slain the semblance of the king,"]
But courage, man; you have served me heretofore, and I will serve you
now. If you will but bring me to speech of this same captain, it will be
the best day's work you ever did."
"I guess where you are, Master Richard--you would save your countryman's
long purse," said Jenkin. "I cannot see how that should advantage me,
but I reck not if I should bear a hand. I hate that braggart, that
bloody-minded, cowardly bully. If you can get me mounted I care not if I
show you where the dame told me I should meet him--but you must stand
to the risk, for though he is a coward himself, I know he will have more
than one stout fellow with him."
"We'll have a warrant, man," said Richie, "and the hue and cry, to
boot."
"We will have no such thing," said Jenkin, "if I am to go with you. I
am not the lad to betray any one to the harmanbeck. You must do it by
manhood if I am to go with you. I am sworn to cutter's law, and will
sell no man's blood."
"Aweel," said Richie, "a wilful man must have his way; ye must think
that I was born and bred where cracked crowns were plentier than whole
ones. Besides, I have two noble friends here, Master Lowestoffe of the
Temple, and his cousin Master Ringwood, that will blithely be of so
gallant a party."
"Lowestoffe and Ringwood!" said Jenkin; "they are both brave
gallants--they will be sure company. Know you where they are to be
found?"
"Ay, marry do I," replied Richie. "They are fast at the cards and dice,
till the sma' hours, I warrant them."
"They are gentlemen of trust and honour," said Jenkin, "and, if they
advise it, I will try the adventure. Go, try if you can bring them
hither, since you have so much to say with, them. We must not be seen
abroad together.--I know not how it is, Master Moniplies," continued he,
as his countenance brightened up, and while, in his turn, he filled the
cups, "but I feel my heart something lighter since I have thought of
this matter."
"Thus it is to have counsellors, Master Jenkin," said Richie; "and truly
I hope to hear you say that your heart is as light as a lavrock's, and
that before you are many days aulder. Never smile and shake your head,
but mind what I tell you--and bide here in the meanwhile, till I go to
seek these gallants. I warrant you, cart-ropes would not hold them back
from such a ploy as I shall propose to them."