Tom Tufton walked through Bishopsgate, and along the crowded dirty
thoroughfare towards the Poultry, with a jaunty air of unconcern
that did credit to his powers of dissimulation.
It was Captain Jack's parting word to him to dissemble all outward
signs of astonishment at what he might see when he entered the
city; to walk on without stopping to stare or gape, to look as
though such sights were of everyday occurrence in his life, and to
bear himself with a bold and self-sufficient air, as much as to
tell the world at large that he was very well able to take care of
himself, and that roisterers and bullies had better let him alone.
Tom acted his part with considerable acumen; but within he was
consumed by astonished bewilderment, which increased as he turned
westward towards Cheapside, and approached the still fashionable
regions of Holborn and its environments.
The streets appeared to the country-bred youth to teem with life.
Everything he set eyes on was strange and wonderful. The shops with
their wares displayed, and noisy apprentices crying out to buyers,
or exchanging fisticuffs with each other by way of interlude; the
coaches carrying fine ladies hither and thither, tightly laced,
swelled out with hoops, their hair so towering in its lace and
powder as to provoke the query as to how it had ever attained such
gigantic proportions; the gay gallants in their enormous perukes of
powdered hair, and their wonderful flowered vests and gold-laced
coats--all these things provoked the keenest wonder and amazement
in Tom's breast; albeit he walked on without pausing to examine one
more than another, or to exchange a word with any save some
honest-looking shopman, of whom he would ask the way to Master
Cale's shop just off Holborn.
If Tom had lost on the way to London his servant and both his
horses, he had at least gained some information which might be of
more value to him than all the rest of his possessions; for Captain
Jack had told him to go to Master Cale's and lodge with him,
telling him who had sent him, and had added that he would put him
in the way of becoming a proper gentleman of fashion, without
fleecing him and rooking him, as would inevitably be the case if he
fell into the clutches of those birds of prey always on the lookout
for young squires from the country coming up to learn the ways of
the world, with a plentiful supply of guineas and inexperience.
Master Cale seemed to be well known, and he was directed to his
house in almost the same words by each person he asked. Master Cale
was a perruquier of no small popularity, who had risen through
honesty and ingenuity to be one of the most fashionable tradesmen
of the day. He also sold vests or waistcoats, lace-edged neck
cloths, gloves, sword scarfs and girdles, generally of his own
design; yet though his shop was regularly crowded with gallants and
courtiers, the man himself managed to preserve much of the honesty
and simplicity which had been his making in the days gone by.
Everybody liked and trusted Master Cale, and he was said to be the
best-informed man in London town on matters connected with the
court and its fashionable throng of hangers on.
As Tom walked onwards he realized for the first time in his life
what a rustic-looking fellow he must appear. He had felt himself
smart enough at home in his leather breeches, brown frieze
double-breasted coat, scarlet vest, and riding boots, his hair tied
behind with a scarlet riband to match the vest. But as he beheld
the fine gentlemen lounging arm in arm along the streets in their
huge curled wigs, gorgeous waistcoats reaching sometimes to the
knees, gold embroidered coats, with huge cuffs turned back almost
to the elbows, and scarfs of every hue of the rainbow supporting
their swords, he felt himself a mere boor and bumpkin, and wondered
much whether Master Cale would ever be able to turn him out a fine
gentleman, fit to associate with those he saw in the streets.
As he pursued his way westward, he met parties of young rakes and
roisterers setting out for the theatres, the play being then an
earlier function than it has become of late years.
These men were swaggering along arm in arm, exchanging ribald jests
with each other, and insulting the inoffensive passers by with
coarse remarks interlarded with oaths, and, whenever occasion
offered, tripping them up with their swords or canes and landing
them in the gutter.
Some of these worthies wore cockades or badges, and later on Tom
learned to know them as Darby captains, Tash captains, or
Cock-and-bottle captains, according to the special sort of
marauding which they favoured. He met one party of the dreaded
Mohocks, or Mohawks, reeling along half intoxicated already, and
ripe for any offensive mischief, which later in the day they were
certain to perpetrate. They eyed the young rustic askance as it
was, and Tom heard a whisper go through their ranks:
"Pity 'tis so early i' the day, or we'd sweat him rarely."
But he held his head high, and swaggered along as though he felt
himself a match for all and any who might attack him. Yet inwardly
he felt that he would never go abroad in town without a sword at
his girdle. What the "sweating" might be, he knew not; but he was
assured that it was some sort of assault upon his person.
At length he reached his destination, which was a shop of fine
appearance in Drury Lane, just off the main thoroughfare of
Holborn. It was then a street of some pretensions, albeit a narrow
one, and Tom's eyes soon espied the name he was in search of over
the door of a shop round which a score or more of gallants were
lounging. In the doorway itself stood a very fine youth, at least
he was fine as to his raiment, although he wore no wig and was but
an apprentice of better figure and deportment than most. He was
displaying to the admiring crowd a mighty fine waistcoat of
embroidered satin, worked in gold and colours very cunningly, and
trimmed with a frosted-gold cord of new design and workmanship. It
was this waistcoat, which the young man called the Blenheim vest,
that had attracted the crowd, and Tom could not at first get near
the door, so much chaffering and laughing and rough play was going
on round it.
So he filled up the time by seeking to understand the extraordinary
jargon which was spoken by the young dandies, in which he was not
particularly successful (for in addition to a marvellous assortment
of oaths, they talked a mixture of bad English, worse French, and
vilest Latin), and in examining the signboard which hung out over
the doorway of Master Cale's abode.
This sign had been painted to the perruquier's own design, at a
time when there threatened to be a reaction in favour of natural
hair in place of the monstrous perukes so long worn. The picture
represented a young man clad in all the finery of a fop of Charles
the Second's court, save only the peruke, hanging by his hair from
the limb of a giant oak, with three javelins in his heart, whilst
below sat weeping a man in royal crown and robes; and below this
picture there ran the following legend:
"O Absalom! O Absalom!
O Absalom! my son,
If thou hadst worn a periwig
Thou hadst not been undone."
In the window of the shop was set out an array of the most
wonderfully curled wigs, perfect marvels of the perruquier's art;
and, indeed, the size of the young dandies' heads was a study in
extravagance quite as wonderful in its way as the towers upon the
heads of the ladies.
When presently the group had moved away, and the apprentice in the
fine vest had a moment's leisure, Tom came forward and asked if
Master Cale were within.
The youth regarded him with some insolence of manner, but as he
might be addressing a future customer from the country, he replied
with a show of civility that Master Cale was in the room behind the
shop, curling the perukes of some gentlemen, but that Tom could go
inside and wait if he liked. This he accordingly did, and soon the
apprentice was surrounded by another crowd, and was taking orders
thick and fast for the Blenheim vest.
The talk bewildered Tom, who, however, needs must listen, and
presently he was attracted towards the inner room, where half a
dozen young men, with heads almost as bald as those of infants,
were arguing and laughing about the curl and fashion and set of
their wigs, which were all standing in a row upon the blocks, and
being cleverly and carefully manipulated by the deft hands of a
small and dapper man, in a neat but not inelegant suit of brown
cloth, ornamented by rather large silver buttons, whom Tom saw at a
glance must be Master Cale the perruquier, although all his
customers called him "Curley."
Heads were turned upon Tom's entrance, but the gentlemen only
vouchsafed him a haughty stare, whilst the perruquier bid him be
seated till he had leisure to attend to him. He then adjusted upon
each head its own wig, amid much jesting and gossiping that was all
Greek to Tom; after which the gallants filed out with much noise
and laughter, and the little man turned to his unknown customer.
"What can I do for you, young sir?" and his eyes instinctively
sought the head of the rustic youth, which was crowned with his own
fairly abundant locks of dark brown.
"I come to you, Master Cale, with a few words in writing from one
calling himself Captain Jack, whom I met in Epping Forest, and who
told me I should be fleeced and beggared in a week if I fell into
the hands of the sharpers of London town; but that if I sought
lodging and counsel from you, I might learn my lesson without being
ruined thereby. Here is the note he sent to you."
The shrewd face of the little perruquier had taken an almost eager
look as the name of Captain Jack passed Tom's lips. His eyes
scanned the youth from head to foot, and when Tom took out and
handed him the note which had been given him, he seized it and read
it eagerly, after which he turned to his new client, and said:
"This billet, young sir, would be enough to secure you a welcome
from me. Tell me of my good friend Captain Jack. Ah! if he could
have but stuck to honest trade, he and I might have made our
fortunes together ere now. Never was such a figure for showing off
coat or vest or sash, or a head upon which a peruke sat with a
daintier grace. But come, let us sit down together and quaff a cup
of wine, and you shall tell me all your history."
Dusk was falling between the high walls of the houses, and business
was over for the day. Cale led his guest into a room on the
basement floor, where a simple but substantial refection had been
laid out. He called out to his apprentice to get his supper in the
kitchen; and when the door was shut upon the pair, he listened with
interest whilst Tom gave a very fairly accurate history of his own
life up till the present moment.
Then the little man shook his head with an air of wisdom.
"The best advice I could give you, my young friend, is that you
should go home to your mother and your friends in Essex, and seek
to learn no more of the wickedness of the world than you know
already. But I suppose no words of mine would induce you to take
that course."
"Certes no," answered Tom with a short laugh. "I am sick of the
country. I have come forth to see the world, and see it I will, or
know the reason why."
"Ah yes, so says every moth that flutters round the candle, till
his wings be burnt away, and he left the shattered remnant of what
he erstwhile was," responded Cale, with a wise shake of the head.
"But no man ever yet was found wise enough to take experience at
second hand. So if you are bent on seeing the world--which, let me
tell you, is an evil thing at best--I will try, for the love I bear
to Captain Jack, and indeed to all honest youths, to put you in the
way of seeing it with as little hurt to yourself as may be. And so
you are thinking of foreign travel?"
"I was, till I saw what London was like," answered Tom; "but, i'
faith, I am in no haste to quit it till I have seen its sights and
tasted of its pleasures. Methinks I might go far, and spend much
good gold, and not find the half of the diversion which the streets
of London afford."
"Oh, if it be diversion you seek--"
"It is," answered Tom frankly; "diversion, and the game of life as
it is played elsewhere than in the lanes of Essex. I have seen
enough in one afternoon to excite a thirst which can only be
allayed by drinking from the same fountain. So no more talk of
Essex, or even of lands beyond the seas. I will e'en get you to
write a letter to my mother, telling her that I am safely arrived
in London town; and knowing that, she must make herself easy, for I
was never one who could easily wield a pen. I was always readier
with the sword or the quarterstaff."
"There will be fine doings in London town, too," remarked Cale,
rubbing his nose reflectively, "when the Duke lands, and is
welcomed by all the town as the great victor of Blenheim. Yes,
certainly, you should stay to witness that sight. Afterwards we can
talk of what you had better do. They are always wanting fine-grown
young fellows for the army. Perhaps when your store of guineas is
gone, London will not hold you so fast."
"My store will last a long while," answered Tom, confidently
slapping his inner pocket where the bag of gold rested. "I have
five hundred golden guineas, the legacy of my father; and to that
my mother added another hundred, to fit me out with all things
needful for my travels, which things could not well be purchased in
Essex. Now Captain Jack bid me at once hand over to you my money,
which, he said, would melt in my pocket like snow, if it were not
filched away by thieves and rogues. He bid me place one hundred
guineas with you for my board and outfit, and trust that you would
do honestly by me; and the rest was to be put into your keeping, to
be doled out to me as I should have need. It seems a strange thing
to be taking the counsel of a highway robber in such matters. But I
like you, Master Cale; and I am just wise enough to know that my
guineas would not long remain mine were I to walk the streets with
them. So here I give them into your keeping; I trust you with my
all."
"I will give you a receipt for the amount, my friend. Many men have
made me their banker before now, and have not regretted it. You
shall have a comfortable room above stairs, and you can either be
served with your meals there, or take them with me, or at some
coffee house, as best pleases you; and as for the outfit--why, it
will be a pleasure to clothe a pretty fellow of your inches in
fitting raiment. But be advised by me; seek not to be too fine.
Quiet elegance will better befit your figure. I would have you
avoid equally the foppery of the court beaux and the swaggering
self-importance of those they call the bully beaux, with whom you
are certain to make acquaintance ere long."
Tom was willing to listen to advice in these matters, and the
little perruquier soon threw himself almost with enthusiasm into
the subject of the young man's outfit. They spent above two hours
looking over cloths and satins and scarfs, trying effects, and
fitting on perukes. Tom had never before imagined how important and
engrossing a matter dress could be, nor how many articles of attire
were necessary to a man who wished to cut a good figure.
But at last he grew weary of the subject, and said he would fain
take a stroll in the streets, and breathe the outer air again. He
felt the stifling presence of encircling walls, and longed to get
out into the starlit night.
"The streets are none too safe at night for peaceful citizens,"
remarked Master Cale, with a shake of the head. "But I have a
peruke to take to a client who lives hard by Snowe Hill. If you
needs must go, let us go together; and gird on yonder sword ere you
start. For if men walk unarmed in the streets of a night, they are
thought fair game for all the rogues and bullies who prowl from
tavern to tavern seeking for diversion. They do not often attack an
armed man; but a quiet citizen who has left his sword behind him
seldom escapes without a sweating, if nothing worse befall him."
"And what is this sweating?" asked Tom, as the pair sallied forth
into the darkness of the streets.
Here and there an oil lamp shed a sickly glow for a short distance;
but, for the most part, the streets were very dim and dark. Lights
gleamed in a good many upper windows still; but below--where the
shutters were all up--darkness and silence reigned.
"Sweating," answered Cale, "is a favourite pastime with the bullies
of London streets. A dozen or more with drawn swords surround a
hapless and unarmed passer by. They will close upon him in a
circle, the points of their swords towards him, and then one will
prick him in the rear, causing him to turn quickly round, whereupon
another will give him a dig in the same region, and again he will
jump and face about; and so they will keep the poor fellow spinning
round and round, like a cockchafer on a pin, until the sweat pours
off him, and they themselves are weary of the sport. But, hist! I
hear a band of them coming. Slip we into this archway, and let them
pass by. I would not have my wig box snatched away; and there is no
limit to the audacity of those bully beaux when they have drunk
enough to give them Dutch courage. Discretion is sometimes better
than valour."
So saying, he pulled Tom into a dark recess, and in a few minutes
more there swaggered past about six or eight young roisterers--
singing, swearing, joking, threatening--more or less intoxicated
every one of them, and boasting themselves loudly of the valiant
deeds they could and would do.
They did not see the two figures in the archway. Indeed, the
greatest safety of the belated citizen was that these bullies were
generally too drunk to be very observant, and that a person in
hiding could generally escape notice. After they had passed by,
Cale continued his way quietly enough, following the noisy party at
a safe distance, as they too seemed bound towards Snowe Hill.
They were approaching the top of the hill when a sudden sound of
shrieking met their ears, mixed with the loud laughter and
half-drunken shouts of the roisterers. Tom caught his companion's
arm and pulled him along.
"That is a woman's voice!" he cried quickly. "She is crying for
help. Come!"
"Beshrew me if I ever again walk abroad with a peruke at night!"
grumbled Cale, as he let himself be hurried along by the eager Tom.
"I am not a watchman. Why should I risk my goods for every silly
wench who should know better than to be abroad of a night alone?
Come, come, my young friend, my legs are not as long as yours; I
shall have no wind for fighting if you drag me along at this pace!"
It was the urgency of the cries that spurred Tom to the top of his
speed. The laughter was loud and ceaseless, but the shrieks were
becoming faint and stifled. Tom's blood was boiling. He pictured to
himself a foul murder done. A few seconds before they reached the
spot a new sound greeted their ears--a sort of rattling, bounding
noise--which provoked another peal of uncontrollable laughter.
Then a voice was heard shouting:
"The watch! the watch! or some fellows with swords!"
Immediately the whole band broke up and rushed helter-skelter in
all directions. Not that the bullies feared the watch one whit. The
watchmen were mostly poor, old, worn-out men, who could do little
or nothing to impose order upon these young braggarts. Indeed, they
were so often maltreated themselves, that they just as often as not
kept carefully away when cries were raised for help. But, having
had their fun, the roisterers were ready to disperse themselves;
for some of the citizens would rise in a white heat of rage, and
take law into their own hands, in which case it happened that the
disturbers of the peace came off second best. One of them had seen
Tom's tall figure and the sword in his hand as he ran beneath a
lamp, and had fancied that some more determined rescue than that
afforded by the watch was to be given. So the band dispersed
shouting and hooting; and Tom and Cale found them scattered ere
they came up to them.
"But where is the woman?" asked Tom, looking round; "they have not
surely carried her off?"
"Oh no--only sent her rolling down the hill in a barrel!" panted
Cale; "it is a favourite pastime with the youths of London town.
One party will put a barrel ready in yon doorway on purpose, and if
it be not removed, it will like enough be used ere morning. We had
best go in search of the poor creature; for ofttimes they are sore
put to it to get free from the cask--if they be stout in person at
least."
And, indeed, as they neared the foot of the hill, they heard a
groaning and stifled crying for help; and, sure enough, they found
a buxom woman, the wife of a respectable citizen, tightly wedged
into the cask, and much shaken and bruised by her rapid transit
down the hill, although, when released with some difficulty, she
was able to walk home, escorted by her rescuers, and bitterly
inveighing against the wickedness of the world in general and
London's young bullies in particular.
"The best thing, good dame, is not to be abroad at such an hour
alone," advised Cale.
"Yes, truly; and yet it was but the matter of a few streets; and it
seems hard a woman may not sit beside a sick neighbour for a while
without being served so on her way back. My husband was to have
come for me; but must have been detained. Pray heaven he has not
fallen in with a band of Mohocks, and had the nose of him split
open--to say nothing of worse!"
"Are men really served so bad as that?" asked Tom, as the two
turned back from the citizen's house whither they had escorted
their grateful protegee.
"Worse sometimes," answered Cale, with a shake of the head. "Those
Mohocks should be wiped out without mercy by the arm of the law;
for mercy they show none. They have read of the horrid cruelties
practised by the Indians whose name they bear, and they seek to do
the like to the hapless victims whom ill-fortune casts in their
way. There be men whose eyes they have gouged out, and whose noses
have been cut off, whose brains have been turned by the terror and
agony they have been through. And yet these men go free; and
law-abiding citizens are allowed to quake in their beds at the
sound of their voices in the street, or the sight of their badges
even in broad daylight. I call it a sin and a shame that such
things can be. Well, well, well, let us hope that, when the great
Duke comes home, he may be able to put a stop to these things. Even
in warfare, men say, he is merciful, and will permit no extortion
and no cruelty. We citizens of London will give him a right royal
welcome; perchance we may be able to crave a boon of him in return.
He--or, rather, his wife--is all-powerful with our good Queen Anne;
and she would not wish a hair of a man's head hurt could she but
have her way."
"By the Duke you mean the great Duke of Marlborough, who has done
such great things in the war? But what is the war about? Can you
tell me that, for I have never rightly understood?"
Cale was a great politician in his own eyes, and was well versed in
the politics of the day. He strove hard to make Tom understand the
intricacies of the Spanish succession, the danger of allowing Spain
to be ruled by one of the Bourbons, and the fear of the
all-powerful French king, who seemed like to rule Europe, if the
allied powers could not make head against him. Tom did his best to
understand, and got a rather clearer view of the situation than he
had before; but what interested him most was the information that
the Duke would come over to England shortly, and that a magnificent
reception was to be given to him.
Whigs and Tories had alike grown proud of the victorious general,
and the war had become popular from success, though the drain on
the country was great. The Queen was personally liked, although she
was but a small power in the kingdom; and for the time being
Jacobite plots were in abeyance. So long as she lived, nobody was
likely seriously to desire the return of the banished Stuarts; but,
of course, there was the future to think for. Anne had no child to
succeed her; and the thought of the Hanoverian succession was by no
means universally approved. Still for the moment the Jacobite
agitation was in abeyance, and all England rejoiced in the
humiliation of so dangerous a foe as the great monarch of France.
Cale was full of stories of court gossip respecting the Queen and
the Duchess of Marlborough, whose affection for one another was a
byword throughout the realm. The Duke and Duchess were also most
tenderly attached; and the private lives of Anne and her Prince
George, and of the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough, presented a
bright contrast to the general laxity of morals prevailing at the
time. The rather austere rule of William and Mary had not really
purged the court of vicious habits, though such had been steadily
discouraged. Anne had not the force of character to impose her will
upon her subjects; and extravagance, frivolity, and foppery
flourished amazingly.
Tom felt his head in a perfect whirl as Cale chatted on of this
thing and that, passing from politics to court life, and then to
the doings of the wealthy classes, of which he had an intimate
knowledge.
"By my faith, London must be a marvellous place to live in!" quoth
Tom, when at last he had been shown to the chamber prepared for his
reception. "I feel as though I had been a year away from
Gablehurst. Prithee, bestir to get my clothes ready, good Master
Cale; for I shall know no rest till I have been abroad myself, and
have seen these gay doings with mine own eyes!"