in a blue shag frock laced with silver, a yellow waistcoat bound with
black velvet, green paduasoy breeches, red stockings, gold buckles, an
ivory hilt to his sword, and a white feather in his hat. I have no mind
to write out Taylor's accompts, but I do declare this to be the exact
Schedule of his Equipment. Under the hat, which had a kind of Sunday
Marylabonne cock to it, there bulged forth a mighty White Periwig of
fleecy curls, for all the world like the coat of a Bologna Poodle Dog,
and in the middle of his Wig there peeped out a little hatchet face with
lantern jaws, and blue gills, and a pair of great black eyebrows, under
which glistened a pair of inflamed eyes. He was not above five feet
three inches, and his fingers, very long and skinny, went to and fro
under his Point ruffles like a Lobster's Feelers. The Chaplain, who
waited upon him as a Maid would on a lardy-dardy woman of Fashion,
handed my Gentleman a very tall stick with a golden knob at the end
on't, and with this, and a laced handkerchief and a long cravat, which
he had likely bought at Mechlin, and a Snuff-box in the lean little Paw
that held not the cane, he looked for all the world like one of my
Grandmother's Footmen who had run away and turned Dancing Master.
"This, young man," said the Chaplain, making a low bow as he spoke to
the comical Image before him, "is Bartholomew Pinchin, Esquire, of
Hampstead. Make your reverence, sirrah!"
"Make a reverence to a Rag-doll!" I answered, with a sneer. "He hath
left his twin brother beyond sea. I know him, and he is a Barbary Ape."
"The rogue is insolent," says B. Pinchin, Esq., clutching tighter at
his tall cane, but turning very white the while. "I must batoon him into
better manners."
"WHAT!" I cried in a great voice, making a step towards him, for my
blood was up. I would but have tweaked the little creature's Ears; but
he, for a surety, thought I had a mind to Murder him. I do aver that he
fell upon his knees, and with most piteous Accents and Protestations
entreated me, for the sake of his Mamma, to spare his life, and he would
give me all I asked.
I was quite bewildered, and turning towards the Parson, asked if his
master was Mad; to which he made answer with some Heat, that he was no
Master of his, but his Honoured Friend and Gracious Patron; whereupon
the little Spark must go up to him, whimpering and cuddling about him,
and beseeching him to save him from the Tall Rogue, meaning me.
"Body o' me, man," I exclaimed, scarcely able to keep from laughing, "I
mean you no harm. I am a young Englishman, lately come from the
Plantations, and seeking employment. I see you struggling yonder, and
likely to give up the ghost, and I pull you out; and then you call me
Rogue and charge me with striking of you. Was it cramp or cowardice that
made you bawl so? Give me something to drink better manners to you, and
I will leave you and this reverend gentleman alone."
The Parson bowed his head with a pleased look when I called him Reverend
and a Gentleman, and, in an under-tone, told his Patron that I was a
civilly behaved youth, after all. But the Poltroon with the white wig
was not out of his Pother yet. He had risen to his feet with a patch of
sand on each knee, and as the Chaplain wiped it off with a kerchief, he
blubbered out that I wanted to rob him.
The Clergyman whispered in his ear--perhaps that I was a Dangerous
looking Fellow, and might lose my temper anon to some tune: for my
Whippersnapper approaches me, and, in a manner Civil enough, tells me
that he is much obliged for what I had done for him. "And you will take
this," says he. I will be shot if he did not give me an English groat.
"You can readily get English coin changed in the town," he observed with
a smirk, as in sheer bewilderment I gazed upon this paltry doit.
I was desperately minded to Fling it at him, knock him and the Chaplain
down, and leave the precious pair to pick themselves up again, but I
forebore. "Well," I said, "if that's the value you put upon your life, I
can't grumble at your Guerdon. I suppose that shrivelled little carcass
of yours isn't worth more than fourpence. I'll e'en change it in town,
and buy fourpennyworth of Dutch cheese, and you shall have the parings
for nothing to send to your Mamma as a gift from foreign parts. Good
morning to you, my noble Captain." And so saying I walked away in a Fume
of Wrath and Contempt.
I was idling, that same afternoon, along the Main street of Ostend very
much in the Dumps, and thinking of going down to the Port to seek a
cook's place from some Ship Master, for I was not yet Qualified to
engage as an Able-bodied Mariner, when I met the Chaplain again, this
time alone, and coming out of a pastryman's shop. I would have passed
him, as holding both him and his master in Disdain, but he Arrested me,
and beckoned me into an Entry, there to have some Speech.
"My Patron is somewhat quick and hasty, and was uncommonly flustered by
his mischance this morning," quoth the Rev. Mr. Hodge. "Nor perhaps did
he use you as liberally as he should have done. Here is a golden guilder
for you, honest man."
I thanked him, and as I pouched it told him that I would have taken no
Money at all for a service which every man is bound to render to his
Fellow-creature, but that I was sorely pressed for Money. On this, he
asked my name and belongings. The name I gave him, at the which he
winced somewhat; but of my history I did not care to enlighten him
further beyond broadly stating that I had come from the Plantations,
where I had been used to keep Accompts, and that I was an Orphan, and
had no friends in England, even if I possessed the means to return
thither.
"I think I can find you a place," the chaplain replied, when I had
finished. "'Twill not be a very handsome one, but the work is little and
light. Would it meet your purpose, now, to attend on a gentleman?"
"It depends," I replied, "on what kind of a Gentleman he is."
"A Gentleman of landed Estate," quoth the parson, quite pat. "An English
gentleman, now travelling for his Diversion, but will, in good time,
settle down in England, to live on his Acres in a Handsome manner, and
be a justice of peace, and of the Quorum."
"Do you mean your Squire of Hampstead, yonder?" I answered, pointing my
thumb over my shoulder, as though in the direction where I had met his
Reverence and his Patron that morning.
"I do," responds Mr. Hodge.
"Bartholomew Pinchin, of Hampstead, Esquire, eh?" I continued.
"Exactly so."
"Then," I went on, raising my voice, and giving a furious glance at my
companion, "I'll see Bartholomew Pinchin boiled, and I'll see
Bartholomew Pinchin baked, and his Esquireship to boot, before I'll be
his servant. He, a mean, skulking, pinchbeck hound! Tell him I'm meat
for his master, and that he has no service, body or lip, of mine."
"Tut, tut, you foolish lad," said Mr. Hodge, not in the least offended.
"What a wild young colt it is, and how impatient! For all your strapping
figure, now, I doubt whether you are twenty years of age."
I answered, with something like a Blush, that I was not yet seventeen.
"There it is,--there it is," the Chaplain took me, chuckling. "As I
thought. A mere boy. A very lad. Not come to years of discretion yet,
and never will, if he goes on raging in this manner. Hearken to me,
youngster. Don't be such a fool as to throw away a good chance."
"I don't see where it is yet," I observed sulkily yet sheepishly; for
there was a Good-natured air about the Chaplain that overcame me.
"But I do," he rejoined. "The good chance you have is of getting a
comfortable place, with a smart livery--"
"I won't wear a livery," I cried, in a heat. "I'll be no man's lacquey;
I'm a gentleman."
"So was Adam," retorted Mr. Hodge, "and the very first of the breed; but
he had to wear a livery of fig-leaves for all that, and so had his wife,
Eve. Come, 'tis better to don a land-jerkin, and a hat with a ribbon to
't, and be a Gentleman's Gentleman, with regular Wages and Vails, and
plenty of good Victuals every day, than to be starving and in rags about
the streets of a Flemish town."
"I'm not starving; I'm not in rags," I protested, with my Proud stomach.
"But you will be the day after to-morrow. The two things always go
together. Come, my young friend, I'll own that Bartholomew Pinchin,
Esquire, is not generous."
"Generous!" I exclaimed; "why, he's the meanest little hunks that ever
lanced a paving stone to find blood for black puddings in it. Didn't he
give me fourpence this morning for saving his life?"
"And didn't you tell him that his life wasn't worth more than a groat?"
asked the Chaplain, with a sly grin; "besides insulting him on the
question of Dutch cheese (to which he has an exquisite aversion), into
the bargain?"
"That's true," I replied, vanquished by the Parson's logic.
"There, then," his Reverence went on. "Bartholomew Pinchin Esquire's
more easily managed than you think for. Do you prove a good servant, and
it shall be my duty to make him show himself a good master to you. But I
must have no further parley with you here, else these Papistical
Ostenders will think that you are some Flemish lad (for indeed you have
somewhat of a foreign air), and I a Lutheran Minister striving to
convert you. Get you back to your Inn, good youth. Pay your score, if
you have one, and if you have not, e'en spend your guilder in treating
of your companions, and come to me at nine of the clock this evening at
the Inn of the Three Archduchesses. Till then, fare you well."
It must be owned that his Reverence's proposals were fair, and that his
conversation was very civil. As I watched him trotting up the Main
Street, his Cassock bulging out behind, I agreed with myself that
perhaps the most prudent thing I could do just at present would be to
put my gentility in my pocket till better times came round. There was a
Spanish Don, I believe, once upon a time, who did very nearly the same
thing with his sword.
At the appointed time I duly found myself at the sign of the Three
Archduchesses, which was the bravest Hostelry in all Ostend, and the one
where all the Quality put up. I asked for Bartholomew Pinchin, Esquire,
in the best French that I could muster; whereupon the drawer, who was a
Fleming, and, I think, spoke even worse French than I did, asked me if I
meant the English Lord who had the grand suite of apartments looking on
the courtyard. I was fit to die of laughing at first to hear the
trumpery little Hampstead squire spoken of as a lord; but Prudence came
to my aid again, and I answered that such was the personage I came to
seek; and, after not much delay, I was ushered into the presence of Mr.
Pinchin, whose Esquiredom--and proud enough he was of it--I may now as
well Drop. I found him in a very handsome apartment, richly furnished,
drinking Burgundy with his chaplain, and with a pack of cards alongside
the bottles, and two great wax candles in sconces on either side. But,
as he drank his Burgundy, he ceased not to scream and whimper at the
expense he was being put to in having such a costly liquor at his table,
and scolded Mr. Hodge very sorely because he had not ordered some thin
Bordeaux, or light Rhine wine. "I'm drinking guineas," he moaned, as he
gulped down his Goblets; "it'll be the ruin of me. A dozen of this is as
bad as a Mortgage upon my Titmouse Farm. What'll my mamma say? I shall
die in the poor-house." But all this time he kept on drinking; and it
was not glass and glass about with him, I promise you, for he took at
least three bumpers full to his Chaplain's one, and eyed that reverend
personage grudgingly as he seized his opportunity, and brimmed up the
generous Red Liquor in his tall-stemmed glass. Yet the Chaplain seemed
in no way discountenanced by his scanty allowance, and I thought that,
perchance, his Reverence liked not wine of Burgundy.
They were playing a hand of piquet when I was introduced; and they being
Gentlefolks, and I a poor humble Serving Man that was to be, I was
bidden to wait, which I did very patiently in the embrasure of a window,
admiring the great dark tapestried curtains as they loomed in indistinct
gorgeousness among the shadows. The hand of piquet was over at last,
and Mr. Pinchin found that he had lost three shillings and sixpence.
"I can't pay it, I can't pay it," he said, making a most rueful
countenance. "I'm eaten out of house and home, and sharped at cards
besides. It's a shame for a Parson to play foul,--I say foul, Mr. Hodge.
It's a disgrace to the cloth to bring your wicked card-cheating
practices to devalise an English gentleman who is travelling for his
diversion."
"We'll play the game over again, if you choose, Worthy Sir," the
Chaplain answers quite quietly.
"Yes, and then you'll win seven shillings of me. You've sworn to bring
me to beggary and ruin. I know you swore it when my mamma sent you
abroad with me. Oh, why did I come to foreign parts with a wicked,
guzzling, gambling, chambering Chaplain, that's in league with the very
host and the drawers of this thieving inn against me--that burns me a
guinea a night in wax candles, and has had a freehold farm out of me in
Burgundy wine."
"I've have had but two glasses the entire evening," the Chaplain
pleaded, in a voice truly that was meek; but I thought that, even at the
distance I stood from him, I could see the colour rising in his cheek.
"Oh, you have, you have," went on Squire Bartholomew, who, if not half
Mad, was certainly more than three parts Muzzy; "you've ruined me, Mr.
Hodge, with your cards and your candles and your Burgundy, and Goodness
only knows what else besides."
The Chaplain could stand it no longer; and rose in a Rage.
"I wish all the candles and the cards were down your throat," he cried;
"nearly all the wine is there already. I wish they'd choke you. I wish
they were all in the pit of your stomach, and turned to hot burning
coals. What shall I do with you, you cadaverous little jackanapes? The
Lout did well this morning--" (I was the Lout, by your leave) "to--to
liken thee to one, for thou art more monkey than man. But for fear of
staining my cassock, I'd--I'd--"
He advanced towards him with a vengeful air, clenching his fist, as well
as I could see, as he approached. Surely there never was such a comical
character as this Bartholomew Pinchin. 'Tis the bare truth, that, as the
enraged parson came at him, this Gentleman of broad acres drops down
again on his marrowbones, just as I had seen him on the sands in the
morning; and lifting up his little skinny hands towards the ceiling,
begins yelling and bawling out louder than ever.
"Spare my life! spare my life!" he cried, "Take my watch and trinkets.
Take my Gold Medal of the Pearl of Brunswick Club. Take the diamond
solitaire I wear in my great Steenkirk on Sundays. Go to my Bankers, and
draw every penny I've got in the world. Turn me out a naked, naked
Pauper; but oh, Mr. Hodge spare my life. I'm young. I've been a sinner.
I want to give a hundred Pounds to Lady Wackerbarth's charity school. I
want to do every body good. Take my gold, but spare my life. Oh, you
tall young man in the corner there, come and help an English gentleman
out of the hands of a murtherous Chaplain."
"Why, you craven cur, you," puts in the Chaplain, bending over him with
half-poised fist, yet with a kind of half-amusement in his features,
"don't you know that the Tall young Man, as you call him, is the poor
English lad who saved your worthless little carcass from drowning this
morning, and whom you offered to recompense with a Scurvy Groat."
"I'll give him forty pound, I will," blubbered Mr. Pinchin, still on his
knees. "I'll give him fifty pound when my Midsummer rents come in, only
let him rescue me from the jaws of the roaring lion. Oh, my Mamma! my
mamma!"
"Come forward, then, young man," cried the Chaplain, with a smile of
disdain on his good-humoured countenance, "and help this worthy and
courageous gentleman to his legs. Don't be afraid, Squire Barty. _He_
won't murder you."
I advanced in obedience to the summons, and putting a hand under either
armpit of the Squire, helped him on to his feet. Then, at a nod of
approval, I set him in the great arm-chair of Utrecht velvet. Then I
pointed to the bottle on the table, and looked at Mr. Hodge, as though
to ask whether he thought a glass of Burgundy would do the patient good.
"No," said the Chaplain. "He's had enough Burgundy. He'd better have a
flask of champagne to give him some spirits. Will you drink a flask of
champagne, Squire?" he continued, addressing his patron in a strangely
authoritative voice.
"Yes," quoth the little man, whose periwig was all Awry, and who looked,
on the whole, a most doleful figure,--"yes, if you please, Mr. Hodge."
"Vastly pretty! And what am I to have? _I_ think I should like some
Burgundy."
"Any thing," murmured the discomfited Squire; "only spare my--"
"Tush! your life's in no danger. _We'll_ take good care of it. And this
most obliging English youth,--will your Honour offer him no refreshment?
What is he to have?"
"Can he drink beer?" asked the Squire, in a faint voice, and averting
his head, as though the having to treat me was too much for him.
"Can you drink beer?" echoed the Chaplain, looking at me, but shaking
his head meanwhile, as if to warn me not to consent to partake of so
cheap a beverage.
"It's very cheap," added Mr. Pinchin, very plaintively. "It isn't a
farthing a glass; and when you get used to it, it's better for the
inwards than burnt brandy. Have a glass of beer, good youth. Kind Mr.
Hodge, let them bring him a glass of Faro."
"Hang your faro! I don't like it," I said, bluntly.
"What will you have, then?" asked the Squire, with a gasp of agony, and
his head still buried in the chair-cushion.
It seemed that the Chaplain's lips, as he looked at me, were mutely
forming the letters W I N E. So I put a bold front upon it, and said,
"Why, I should like, master, to drink your health in a bumper of right
Burgundy with this good Gentleman here."
"He will have Burgundy," whimpered Mr. Pinchin, half to the
chair-cushion, and half to his periwig. "He will have Burgundy. The
ragged, tall young man will have Burgundy at eight livres ten sols the
flask. Oh, let him have it, and let me die! for he and the Parson have
sworn to my Mamma to murder me and have my blood, and leave me among
Smugglers, and Papistry, and Landlords who have sworn to ruin me in
waxen candles."
There was something at once so ludicrous, and yet so Pathetic, in the
little man's lamentations, that I scarcely knew whether to laugh or to
cry. His feelings seemed so very acute, and he himself so perfectly
sincere in his moanings and groanings, that it was almost Barbarity to
jeer at him. The Chaplain, however, was, to all appearance, accustomed
to these little Comedies; for, whispering to me that it was all Mr.
Pinchin's manner, and that the young Gentleman meant no harm, he bade
me bestir myself and hurry up the servants of the House to serve supper.
So not only were the champagne and the Burgundy put on table,--and of
the which there was put behind a screen a demiflask of the same true
vintage for my own private drinking. ("And the Squire will be pleased,
when he comes to Audit the score, to find that you have been content
with Half a bottle. 'Twill seem like something saved out of the Fire,"
whispers the Chaplain to me, as I helped to lay the cloth),--not only
were Strong Waters and sweet Liquors and cordials provided, especially
that renowned stomachic the Maraschyno, of which the Hollanders and
Flemings are so outrageously fond, and which is made to such perfection
in the Batavian settlements in Asia, but a substantial Repast likewise
made its appearance, comprising Fowl, both wild and tame, and hot and
cold, a mighty pasty of veal and eggs, baked in a Standing Crust, some
curious fresh sallets, and one of potatoes and salted herrings flavoured
with garlic--to me most villanously nasty, but much affected in these
amphibious Low Countries. So, the little Squire being brought to with a
copious draught of champagne,--and he was the most weazened little
Bacchus I ever knew, moistening his ever-dry throttle from morn until
night,--he and the chaplain sate down to supper, and remained feasting
until long past midnight. So far as the Parson's part went, it might
have been called a Carouse as well as a Feast, for his Reverence took
his Liquor, and plenty of it, with a joviality of Countenance the which
it would have done your Heart good to see, drinking "Church and King,"
and then "King and Church," so that neither Institution should have
cause to grumble, and then giving the Army, the Navy, the Courts of
Quarter Sessions throughout England, Newmarket and the horses, not
forgetting the Jockeys, the pious memory of Dr. Sacheverell, at which
the Squire winced somewhat, for he was a bitter Whig, with many other
elegant and appropriate sentiments. In fact, it was easy to see that his
reverence had known the very best of company, and when at one of the
clock he called for a Bowl of Punch, which he had taught the Woman of
the House very well how to brew, I put him down as one who had sate with
Lords,--ay and of the Council too, over their Potations. But the
Behaviour of Bartholomew Pinchin, Esquire, was, from the beginning unto
the end of the Regale, of a piece with his former extraordinary and
Grotesque conduct. After the champagne, he essayed to sing a song to the
tune of "Cold and Raw," but, failing therein, he began to cry. Then did
he accuse me of having secreted the Liver Wing of a Capon, which, I
declare, I had seen him devour not Five Minutes before. Then he had more
Drink, and proposed successively as Toasts his Cousin Lady Betty
Heeltap, daughter to my Lord Poddle; a certain Madame Van Foorst, whom I
afterwards discovered to be the keeper of a dancing Ridotto on the Port
at Antwerp; then the Jungfrau, or serving wench that waited upon us, who
had for name Babette; and lastly his Mamma, whom, ten minutes
afterwards, he began to load with Abuse, declaring that she wished to
have her Barty shut up in a madhouse, in order that she might enjoy his
Lands and Revenues. And then he fell to computing the cost of the
supper, swearing that it would Ruin him, and making his old complaints
about those eternal wax candles. Then, espying me out, he asks who I am,
challenges me to fight with him for a Crown, vows that he will delate me
to the English Resident at Brussels for a Jacobite spy, tells me that I
am an Honest Fellow, and, next to Mr. Hodge, the best friend he ever had
in the world, and falls down at last stupefied. Whereupon, with the
assistance of the Flemish Drawer, I carried my new master up to bed.
CHAPTER THE FOURTH.
I MAKE THE GRAND TOUR, AND ACQUIRE SOME KNOWLEDGE
OF THE POLITE WORLD.
FOR I had decided that he was to be my Master. "I can bear with his
strange ways," I said to myself. "John Dangerous has seen stranger,
young as he is; and it will go hard if this droll creature does not
furnish forth some sport, ay and some Profit too, before long." For now
that I had put my Gentility in my pocket, I began to remember that Hay
is a very pleasant and toothsome thing for Fodder, to say nothing of its
having a most pleasant odour, and that the best time to make hay was
while the sun did shine.
After I had assisted in conveying the Little Man to bed, I came down
again to the Saloon, finding there Mr. Hodge, who was comforting
himself with a last bumper of punch before seeking bed.
"Well, Youth," he accosts me, "have you thought better of your surly,
huffing manner of this morning and this afternoon?"
I told him that I had, and that I desired nothing better than to enter
forthwith into the service of Bartholomew Pinchin, Esquire, of
Hampstead.
"That's well," said his Reverence, nodding at me over his punch. "You've
had your supper behind yon screen, haven't you?"
I answered, "Yes, and my Burgundy likewise."