in the very lobby of Death, and eating of cold meats and drinking of
sweet wine in the parlour, after the breath was out of the body of their
patient and patroness, it passes me to say; as well should a player
tarry upon the Stage long after the epilogue has been spoken, the
curtain lowered, and the lights all put out. Yet were Pall Mall and
Warwick Lane faithful, not only unto the death, but beyond it, to
Hanover Square. A coachful of these grave gentlemen were bidden to the
burial, although it was probable that words would run so high among them
as for wigs to be tossed out of the windows. And although it is but ill
fighting and base fence to draw upon a foe in a coach, I think (so
bitter are our Physicians against one another) that they would make but
little ado in breaking their blades in halves and stabbing at one
another crosswise as they sat, with their handkerchiefs for hilts.
It was on the eighth night after her demise, and at half-past nine of
the clock, that my Grandmother was Buried. I was dressed early in the
afternoon in a suit of black, full trimmed, falling bands of white
cambric, edged, and a little mourning sword with a crape knot, and
slings of black velvet. Then Mrs. Talmash knotted round my neck a
mourning-cloak that was about eight-times too large for me, and with no
gentle hand flattened on my head a hat bordered by heavy sable plumes.
On the left shoulder of my cloak there was embroidered in gold and
coloured silks a little escocheon of arms; and with this, in my
child-like way, my fingers hankered to play; but with threats that to me
were dreadful, and not without sundry nips and pinches, and sly clouts,
I was bidden to be still, and stir not from a certain stool apportioned
to me in the great Withdrawing-room. Not on this side of the tomb shall
I forget the weary, dreary sense of desolation that came over me when,
thus equipped, or rather swaddled and hampered in garments strange to
me, and of which I scarcely knew the meaning, I was left alone for many
hours in a dismal room, whose ancient splendour was now all under the
eclipse wrought by the undertakers. And I pray that few children may so
cruelly and suddenly have their happiness taken away from them, and from
pampered darlings become all at once despised and friendless outcasts.
By and by the house began to fill with company; and one that was acting
as Groom of the Chambers, and marshalling the guests to their places, I
heard whisper to the Harbinger, who first called out the names at the
Stair-head, that Clarencieux king-at-arms (who was then wont to attend
the funerals of the Quality, and to be gratified with heavy fees for
his office; although in our days 'tis only public noblemen, generals,
ambassadors, and the like, who are so honoured at their interment, only
undertaker's pageantry being permitted to the private sort)--that
Clarencieux himself might have attended to marshal the following, and
proclaim the Style of the Departed; but that it was ordered by authority
that, as in her life her name and honours had been kept secret, so
likewise in her death she was to remain an Unknown Lady. How such a
reticence was found to jump with the dictates of the law, which required
a registry of all dead persons in the parish-books, I know not; but in
that time there were many things suffered to the Great which to the
meaner kind would have been sternly denied; and, indeed, I have since
heard tell that sufferance even went beyond the concealment of her Name,
and that she was not even buried in woollen,--a thing then very strictly
insisted upon, in order to encourage the staple manufactures of
Lancashire and the North,--and that, either by a Faculty from the
Arches Court, or a winking and conniving of Authority, she was placed in
her coffin in the same garb in which she had lain in state. Of such
sorry mocks and sneers as to the velvet of her funeral coffer being
nearer Purple than Crimson in its hue, and of my mourning cloak being
edged with a narrow strip of a Violet tinge,--as though to hint in some
wise that my Grandmother was foregathered, either by descent or by
marital alliance, with Royalty,--I take little account. 'Tis not every
one who is sprung from the loins of a King who cares to publish the
particulars of his lineage, and John Dangerous may perchance be one of
such discreet men.
The doctors had been so long in the house that their names and their
faces were familiar to me, not indeed as friends, but as that kind of
acquaintance one may see every day for twenty years, and be not very
grieved some morning if news comes that they are dead. Such an
eye-acquaintance passes my windows every morning. I know his face, his
form, his hat and coat, the very tie of his wig and the fashion of his
shoe-buckle; but he is no more to me than I am haply to him, and there
would be scant weeping, I opine, between us if either of us were to die.
So I knew these doctors and regarded them little, wondering only why
they ate and drank so much, and could so ill conceal their hatred as to
be calling foul names, and well-nigh threatening fisticuffs, while the
corpse of my Grandmother was in the house. But of the body of those who
were bidden to this sad ceremony, I had no knowledge whatsoever. For
aught I knew, they might have been players or bullies and Piccadilly
captains, or mere undertaker's men dressed up in fine clothes; yet,
believe me, it is no foolish pride, or a dead vanity, that prompts me to
surmise that there were those who came to my Grandmother's funeral who
had a Claim to be reckoned amongst the very noblest and proudest in the
land. Beneath the great mourning cloaks and scarves, I could see
diamond stars glistening, and the brave sheen of green and crimson
ribbons. I desire in this particularity to confine myself strictly to
the Truth, and therefore make no vain boast of a Blue Ribbon being seen
there, thus denoting the presence of a Knight of the most noble Order of
the Garter. I leave it to mine enemies to lie, and to cowardly Jacks to
boast of their own exploits. This brave gathering was not void of women;
but they were closely veiled and impenetrably shrouded in their mourning
weeds, so that of their faces and their figures I am not qualified to
speak; and if you would ask me that which I remember chiefly of the
noble gentlemen who were present, I can say with conscience, that beyond
their stars and ribbons, I was only stricken by their monstrous and
portentous Periwigs, which towered in the candle-light like so many
great tufts of plumage atop of the Pope's Baldaquin, which I have seen
so many times staggering through the great aisles of St. Peter's at
Rome.
Your humble servant, and truly humble and forlorn he was that night, was
placed at the coffin's head; it being part of that black night's sport
to hold me as chief mourner; and, indeed, poor wretch, I had much to
mourn for. The great plumed hat they had put upon me flapped and swaled
over my eyes so as almost to blind me. My foot was for ever catching in
my great mourning cloak, and I on the verge of tripping myself up; and
there was a hot smoke sweltering from the tapers, and a dreadful smell
of new black cloth and sawdust and beeswax, that was like to have
suffocated me. Infinite was the relief when two of the ladies attired in
black, who had sat on either side of me, as though to guard me from
running away, lifted me gently each under an armpit, and held me up so
that I could see the writing on the coffin-plate, which was of embossed
silver and very brave to view.
"Can you read it out, my little man?" a deep rich voice as of a lady
sounded in mine ears.
I said, with much trembling, "that I thought I could spell out the
words, if time and patience were accorded me."
"There is little need, child," the voice resumed. "I will read it to
thee;" and a black-gloved hand came from beneath her robe, and she took
my hand, and holding my forefinger not ungently made me trace the
writing on the silver. But I declare that I can remember little of that
Legend now, although I am impressed with the belief that my kinswoman's
married name was not mentioned. That it was merely set forth that she
was the Lady D----, whose maiden name was A. G., and that she died in
London in the 90th year of her age, King George I. being king of
England. And then the smoke of the tapers, the smell of the cloth and
the wax, and the remembrance of my Desolation, were too much for me, and
I broke out into a loud wail, and was so carried fainting from the
room; being speedily, however, sufficiently recovered to take my place
in the coach that was to bear us Eastward.
We rode in sorrowful solemnity till nigh three o'clock that morning; but
where my Grandmother was buried I never knew. From some odd hints that I
afterwards treasured up, it seems to me that the coaches parted company
with the Hearse somewhere on the road to Harwich; but of this, as I have
averred, I have no certain knowledge. In sheer fatigue I fell asleep,
and woke in broad daylight in the great state-bed at Hanover Square.
FOOTNOTES:
[D] The Austrian, not the Prussian Trenck.--ED.
[E] This does not precisely tally with the Captain's disclaimer of
feeling any apprehension when passing Execution Dock.--ED.
[F] I do not find it in the memoirs of his adventures, but in an old
volume of the _Annual Register_ I find that, in the year 1778, one
Captain Dangerous gave important evidence for the crown against poor Mr.
Tremenheere, who suffered at Tyburn, for fetching and carrying between
the French King and some malcontents in this country, notably for giving
information as to the condition of our dockyards.--ED.
[G] Captain Dangerous was, unconsciously, of the same mind with Samuel
Taylor Coleridge.--ED.
CHAPTER THE FIFTH.
I AM BARBAROUSLY ABUSED BY THOSE WHO HAVE CHARGE OF ME, AND FLYING INTO
CHARLWOOD CHASE, JOIN THE "BLACKS."
IN the morning, the wicked people into whose power I was now delivered,
came and dragged me from my bed with fierce thumps, and giving me coarse
and rude apparel, forced me to dress myself like a beggar boy. I had a
wretched little frock and breeches of grey frieze, ribbed woollen hose
and clouted shoes, and a cap that was fitter for a chimney-sweep than a
young gentleman of quality. I was to go away in the Wagon, they told me,
forthwith to School; for my Grandmother--if I was indeed any body's
Grandson--had left me nothing, not even a name. Henceforth, I was to be
little Scrub, little Ragamuffin, little boy Jack. All the unknown Lady's
property, they said, was left to Charities and to deserving Servants.
There was not a penny for me, not even to pay for my schooling; but, in
Christian mercy, Mrs. Talmash was about to have me taught some things
suitable for my new degree, and in due time have me apprenticed to some
rough Trade, in which I might haply--if I were not hanged, as she hinted
pretty plainly, and more than once--earn an honest livelihood. Meanwhile
I was to be taken away in the Wagon, as though I were a Malefactor going
in a Cart to Tyburn.
I was taken down-stairs, arrayed in my new garments of poverty and
disgrace, and drank in a last long look at my dear and old and splendid
Home. How little did I think that I should ever come to look upon it
again, and that it would be my own House--mine, a prosperous and
honoured old man! The undertaker's men were busied in taking down the
rich hangings, and guzzling and gorging, as was their wont, on what
fragments remained of the banquetings and carousals of Death, which had
lasted for eight whole days. All wretched as I was, I should--so easily
are the griefs of childhood assuaged by cates and dainties--have been
grateful for the wing of a chicken or a glass of Canary: but this was
not to be. John a'Nokes or John a'Styles were now more considered than I
was, and I was pushed and bandied about by fustian knaves and base
mechanics, and made to wait for full half an hour in the hall, as though
I had been the by-blow of a Running Footman promoted into carrying of a
link.
'Twas Dick the Groom that took me to the Wagon. Many a time he had
walked by the side of my little pony, trotting up the Oxford Road. He
was a gross unlettered churl, but not unkind; and I think remembered
with something like compunction the many pieces of silver he had had
from his Little Master.
"It's mortal hard," he said, as he took my hand, and began lugging me
along, "that your grandam should have died and left you nothing. 'Tis
all clear as Bexley ale in a yard-glass. Lawyers ha' been reading the
will to the gentlefolks, and there's nothing for thee, poor castaway."
I began to cry, not because my Grandmother had disinherited me, but
because this common horse-lout called me a "castaway," and because I
knew myself to be one.
"Don't fret," the groom continued; "there'll be greet enough for thee
when thou'rt older; for thou'lt have a hard time on't, or my name's not
Dick Snaffle."
We had a long way to reach the Wagon, which started from a Tavern called
the "Pillars of Hercules," right on the other side of Hyde Park. I was
desperately tired when we came thither, and craved leave to sit on a
bench before the door, between the Sign-post and the Horse-trough. So
low was I fallen. A beggar came alongside of me, and as I dozed tried to
pick my pocket. There was nothing in it--not even a crust; and he hit me
a savage blow over the mouth because I had nothing to be robbed of. Anon
comes Dick Snaffle, who, telling me that the Saddler of Bawtry was
hanged for leaving his liquor, and that he had no mind for a halter
while good ale was to be drunk, had been comforting himself within the
tavern; and he finding me all blubbered with grief at the blow I had
gotten from the beggar, fetches him a sound kick; and so the two fell to
fighting, till out comes the tapster, raving at Tom Ostler to duck the
cutpurse cadger in the Horse-trough. There was much more sport out of
doors in my young days than now.
At last the Wagon, for which we had another good hour to wait, came
lumbering up to the Pillars of Hercules; and after the Wagoner had
fought with a Grenadier, who wanted to go to Brentford for fourpence,
and would have stabbed the man with his bayonet had not his hand been
stayed, the Groom took me up, and put me on the straw inside. He paid
the Wagoner some money for me, and also gave into his keeping a little
bundle, containing, I suppose, some change of raiment for me, saying
that more would be sent after me when needed; and so, handing him too a
letter, he bade me Godd'en, and went on his way with the Grenadier, a
Sweep, and a Gipsy woman, who was importunate that he should cross her
hand with silver, in order that he might know all about the great
Fortune that he was to wed, as Tom Philbrick did in the ballad. And this
was the way in which the Servants of the Quality spent their forenoons
when I was young.
As the great rumbling chariot creaked away westward, there came across
my child-heart a kind of consciousness that I had been Wronged, and
Cheated out of my inheritance. Why was I all clad in laces and velvet
but yesterday, and to-day apparelled like a tramping pedlar's
foster-brat? Why was I, who was used to ride in coaches, and on
ponyback, and on the shoulder of my own body-servant, and was called
"Little Master," and made much of, to be carted away in a vile dray like
this? But what is a child of eight years old to do? and how is he to
make head against those who are older and wickeder than he? I knew
nothing about lawyers, or wills, or the Rogueries of domestics. I only
knew that I had been foully and shamefully Abused since my dear
Grandparent's death; and in that wagon, I think, as I lay tumbling and
sobbing on that straw, were first planted in me those seeds of a Wild,
and sometimes Savage, disposition that have not made my name to be
called "Dangerous" in vain.
We were a small and not a very merry company under the wagon tilt. There
was a Tinker, with all his accoutrements of pots and kettles about him,
who was lazy, as most Tinkers are when not at hard work, and lay on his
back chewing straw, and cursing me fiercely whenever I moved. There was
a Welsh gentleman, very ragged and dirty, with a wife raggeder and
dirtier than he. He was addressed as Captain, and was bound, he said,
for Bristol, to raise soldiers for the King's Service. He beat his wife
now and then, before we came to Hounslow. There was the tinker's dog, a
great terror to me; for although he feigned to sleep, and to snore as
much as a Dog can snore, he always kept one little red eye fixed upon
me, and gave a growl and made a Snap whenever I turned on the straw.
There was the Wagoner's child that was sickly, and continually cried for
its mammy; and lastly there was a buxom servant-maid, with a little
straw hat and cherry ribbons over a Luton lace mob, and a pretty
flowered gown pulled through the placket-holes, and a quilted petticoat,
and silver buckles in her shoes, and black mits, who was going home to
see her Grandmother at Stoke Pogis,--so she told me, and made me
bitterly remember that I had now no Grandmother,--and was as clean and
bright and smiling as a new pin, or the milkmaids on May morning dancing
round the brave Garlands that they have gotten from the silversmiths in
Cranbourn Alley. She sat prettily crouched up on her box in a corner;
and so, with the Tinker among his pots and kettles, the Welsh Captain
and his lady on sundry bundles of rags, the sickly child in a basket,
the Tinker's dog curled up in his Master's hat, I tossing on the straw,
and a great rout of crates of crockery, rolls of cloth, tea and sugar,
and other London merchandize, which the wagoner was taking down West, as
a return cargo for the eggs, poultry, butcher's meat, and green stuff
that he had brought up, made altogether such a higgledypiggledy that you
do not often see in these days, when Servant-maids come up by Coach--my
service to them!--and disdain the Wagon, and his Worship the Captain
wears a fine laced coat and a cockade in his hat,--who but he!--and
travels post.
The maid who was bound on a visit to her Grandmother was, I rejoice to
admit, most tenderly kind to me. She combed my hair, and wiped away the
tears that besmirched my face. When the Wagon halted at the King's Arms,
Kensington, she tripped down and brought me a flagon of new milk with
some peppermint in it; and she told me stories all the way to Hounslow,
and bade me mind my book, and be a good child, and that Angels would
love me. Likewise that she was being courted by a Pewterer in Panyer
Alley, who had parted a bright sixpence with her--she showed me her
token, drawn from her modest bodice, and who had passed his word to Wed,
if he had to take to the Road for the price of the Ring--but that was
only his funning, she said,--or if she were forced even to run away from
her Mistress, and make a Fleet Match of it. It was little, in good
sooth, that I knew about courtships or Love-tokens or Fleet Matches; but
I believe that a woman, for want of a better gossip, would open her
Love-budget to a Baby or a Blind Puppy, and I listened so well that she
kissed me ere we parted, and gave me a pocketful of cheese-cakes.
It was quite night, and far beyond Hounslow, when I was dozing off into
happy sleep again, that the Wagon came to a dead stop, and I awoke in
great fright at the sound of a harsh voice asking if the Boy Jack was
there. I was the "Boy Jack:" and the Wagoner, coming to the after-part
of the tilt with his lantern, pulled me from among the straw with far
less ado than if I had been the Tinker's dog.
I was set down on the ground before a tall man with a long face and an
ugly little scratch wig, who had large boots with straps over his thighs
like a Farmer, and swayed about him with a long whip.
"Oh, this is the boy, is it?" said the long man. "A rare lump to lick
into shape, upon my word."
I was too frightened to say aught; but the Wagoner muttered something in
the long man's ear, and gave him my bundle and money and the letter;
and then I was clapped up on a pillion behind the long man, who had
clomb up to the saddle of a vicious horse that went sideways; and he,
bidding me hold on tight to his belt, for a mangy young whelp as I was,
began jolting me to the dreadful place of Torture and Infernal cruelty
which for six intolerable months was to be my home.
This man's name was Gnawbit, and he was my Schoolmaster. I was delivered
over to him, bound hand and foot, as it were, by those hard-hearted folk
(who should have been most tender to me, a desolate orphan) in Hanover
Square. His name was Gnawbit, and he lived hard by West Drayton.
We are told in Good Books about the Devil and his Angels; but sure I
think that the Devil must come to earth sometimes, and marry and have
children: whence the Gnawbit race. I don't believe that the man had one
Spark of Human Feeling in him. I don't believe that any tale of Man or
Woman's Woe would ever have wrung one tear from that cold eye, or drawn
a pang from that hard heart. I believe that he was a perfectly
senseless, pitiless Brute and Beast, suffered, for some unknown purpose,
to dwell here above, instead of being everlastingly kept down below, for
the purpose of Tormenting. I was always a Dangerous, but I was never a
Revengeful man. I have given mine enemy to eat when he was a-hungered,
and to drink when he was athirst. I have returned Good for Evil very
many times in this Troubled Life of mine, exposed as it has been always
to the very sorest of temptations; but I honestly aver, that were I to
meet this Tyrant of mine, now, on a solitary island, I would mash his
Hands with a Club or with my Feet, if he strove to grub up roots; that
were I Alone with him, wrecked, in a shallop, and there were one Keg of
Fresh Water between us, I would stave it, and let the Stream of Life
waste itself in the gunwales while I held his head down into the Sea,
and forced him to swallow the brine that should drive him Raving Mad.
But this is unchristian, and I must go consult Doctor Dubiety.
Flesh and Blood! Have you never thought upon the Wrongs your Pedagogue
has wrought upon you, and longed to meet that Wretch, and wheal his
flesh with the same instrument with which he whealed you, and make the
Ruffian howl for mercy? Mercy, quotha! did he ever show you any? A
pretty equal match it was, surely! You a poor, weak starveling of a
child shivering in your shoes, and ill-nurtured by the coarse food he
gave you, and he a great, hulking, muscular villain, tall and
long-limbed, and all-powerful in his wretched Empire; while you were so
ignorant as not to know that the Law, were he discovered (but who was to
denounce him?), might trounce him for his barbarity. Ah! brother
Gnawbit, if I had ever caught you on board a good ship of mine! Aha!
knave, if John Dangerous would not have dubbed himself the sheerest of
asses, had he not made your back acquainted with nine good tails of
three-strand cord, with triple knots in each, and the brine-tub
afterwards. I will find out this Gnawbit yet, and cudgel him to the
death. But, alas, I rave. He must have been full five-and-forty-years
old when I first knew him, and that is nigh sixty years agone. And at a
hundred and five the cruellest Tyrant is past cudgelling.
This man had one of the prettiest houses that was to be seen in the
prettiest part of England. The place was all draped in ivy, and roses,
and eglantine, with a blooming flower-garden in front, and a luscious
orchard behind. He had a wife too who was Fair to see,--a mild little
woman, with blue eyes, who used to sit in a corner of her parlour, and
shudder as she heard the boys shrieking in the schoolroom. There was an
old infirm Gentleman that lodged with them, that had been a Captain
under the renowned Sir Cloudesley Shovel and Admiral Russell, and could
even, so it was said, remember, as a sea-boy, the Dutch being in the
Medway, in King Charles's time. This Old Gentleman seemed the only
person that Gnawbit was afraid of. He never interfered to dissuade him
from his brutalities, nay, seemed rather to encourage him therein,
crying out as the sounds of torture reached him, "Bear it! bear it! Good
again! Make 'em holloa! Make 'em dance! Cross the cuts! Dig it in! Rub
in the brine! Oho! Bear it, brave boys; there's nothing like it!" Yet
was there something jeering and sarcastic in his voice that made Gnawbit
prefer to torture his unhappy scholars when the Old Gentleman was
asleep,--and even then he would sometimes wake up and cry out, "Bear
it!" from the attic, or when he was being wheeled about the
neighbourhood in a sick man's chair.
The first morning I saw the Old Gentleman he shook his crutch at me, and
cried, "Aha! another of 'em! Another morsel for Gnawbit. More meat for
his market. Is he plump? is he tender? Will he bear it? Will he dance?
Oho! King Solomon for ever." And then he burst into such a fit of
wheezing laughter that Mrs. Gnawbit had to come and pat him on the back
and bring him cordials; and my Master, looking very discomposed, sternly
bade me betake myself to the schoolroom.
After that, the Old Gentleman never saw me without shaking his crutch
and asking me if I liked it, if I could bear it, and if Gnawbit made my
flesh quiver. Of a truth he did.