extraordinary occasions such as that of to-night. What the living is
like, you have seen. The best of fish, flesh, and fowl, and plenty of
it. As to your Clothes and your Wages, we will hold discourse of that in
the morning; for 'twill take your Master half the morning to beat you
down a penny a Month, and quarrel with the Tailor about the cheapest
kind of serge for your Livery. Leave it to me, however, and I'll engage
that you have no reason to complain either of one or the other. What did
you say your name was, friend? As for Recommendations, you have none to
Give, and I seek not any from you. I will be content to take your
character from your Face and Speech."
I began to stammer and bow and thank his Honour's Reverence for his good
opinion.
"Don't thank me before you're asked," answers Mr. Hodge, with a grin.
"The academy of compliments is not held here. By your speech you have
given every sign of being a very Saucy Fellow, and, to judge from your
face, you have all the elements in you of a complete Scoundrel."
I bowed, and was silent.
"But your name," he pursued, "that has escaped me."
I answered Respectfully that I had used to be called John Dangerous.
"Tut, tut!" Mr. Hodge cried out hastily. "Fie upon the name! John is all
very well; but Dangerous will never do. Why, our Patron would think
directly he heard it that you were bent on cutting his throat, or
running away with his valise."
I submitted, again with much respect, that it was the only name I had.
"Well, thou art a straightforward youth," said the Chaplain
good-humouredly, "and I will not press thee to take up an alias. John
will serve excellently well for the present; and, if more be wanted,
thou shalt be John D. But understand that the name of Dangerous is to
remain a secret between me and thee and the Post."
"With all my heart," I cried, "so long as the Post be not a gallows."
"Well said, John D.," murmured Mr. Hodge, upon whom by this time the
punch had taken some little effect. "A good Lad, John. And now thou
mayst help me up to bed."
And so I did, for his Reverence had begun to stagger. Then a pallet was
found for me high up in the Roof of the Inn of the Three Archduchesses.
I forbore to grumble, for I had been used from my first going out into
the world to Hard Lodging. And that night I slept very soundly, and
dreamt that I was in the Great Four-post Bed at my Grandmother's in
Hanover Square.
Never had a Man, I suppose, in this Mortal World, ever so droll a master
as this Bartholomew Pinchin, of Hampstead, Esquire. 'Tis Tame, and may
be Offensive, for me to be so continually telling that he wrote himself
down _Armiger_, after my Promise to forego for the future such
recapitulation of his Title; but Mr. Pinchin was himself never tired of
dubbing himself Esquire, and you could scarcely be five Minutes in his
company without hearing of his Estate, and his Mamma, and his Right to
bear Arms. I, who was by birth a Gentleman of Long Descent, could not
forbear Smiling from time to time (in my Sleeve, be it understood, since
I was a Servant at Wages to him) at his ridiculous Assumptions. And
there are few things more Contemptible, I take it, than for a Man of
really good Belongings, and whose Lineage is as old as Stonehenge
(albeit, for Reasons best known to Himself, he permits his Pedigree to
lie Perdu), to hear an Upstart of Yesterday Bragging and Swelling that
he is come from this or from that, when we, who are of the true Good
Stock, know very well, but that we are not so ill-mannered as to say so,
that he is sprung from Nothing at all. I think that if the Heralds were
to make their Journeys now, as of Yore, among the Country Churchyards,
and hack out from the Headstones the sculptured cognizances of those
having no manner of Right to them, the Stone-Masons about Hyde Park
Corner would all make Fortunes from the orders that would be given to
them for fresh Tombs. Not a mealy-mouthed Burgess now, whose
great-grandfather sold stocking hose to my Lord Duke of Northumberland,
but sets himself up for a Percy; not a supercilious Cit, whose Uncle
married a cast-off waiting-woman from Arundel Castle, but vaunts himself
on his alliance with the noble house of Howard; not a starveling
Scrivener, whose ancestor, as the playwright has it, got his Skull
cracked by John of Gaunt for crowding among the Marshalmen in the Tilt
Yard, but must pertly Wink and Snigger, and say that the Dukedom of
Lancaster would not be found extinct if the Right Heir chose to come
Forward. Since that poor young Lord of the Lakes was attainted for his
part in the Troubles of the 'Fifteen, and lost his head on Tower Hill
(his vast Estates going to Greenwich Hospital), I am given to understand
that every man in Cumberland or Westmoreland whose name happens to be
Ratcliffe (I knew the late Mr. Charles Ratcliffe, that Suffered with a
Red Feather in his Hat, very well), must give himself out to be titular
Earl of Derwentwater, and Importune the Government to reverse the
Attainder, and restore him the Lands of which the Greenwich
Commissioners have gotten such a tight Hold; and as for Grandchildren of
the by-blows of King Charles II., good lack! to hear them talk of the
"Merry Monarch," and to see them draw up their Eyebrows into the Stuart
Frown, one would think that every Player-Woman at the King's or the
Duke's House had been as favoured in her time as Madam Eleanour Gwyn.
Thus do I no more believe that Mr. Bartholomew Pinchin was cousin to
Lady Betty Heeltap, or in any manner connected with the family of my
Lord Poddle (and he was only one of the Revolution Peers, that got his
coronet for Ratting at the right moment to King William III.), than that
he was the Great Mogul's Grandmother. His gentlemanly extraction was
with him all a Vain Pretence and silly outward show. It did no very
great Harm, however. When the French adventurer Poirier asked King
Augustus the Strong to make him a Count, what said his Majesty of Warsaw
and Luneville? "That I cannot do," quoth he; "but there is nothing under
the sun to prevent thee from calling thyself a Count, if the humour so
please thee." And Count Poirier, by Self-Creation, he straightway
became, and as Count Poirier was knouted to Death at Moscow for Forging
of Rubles Assignats. Pinchin was palpably a Plebeian; but it suited him
to be called and to call himself an Esquire; and who should gainsay
him? At the Three Archduchesses at Ostend, indeed, they had an exceeding
sensible Plan regarding Titles and Precedence for Strangers, which was
found to answer admirably well. He who took the Grand Suite, looking
upon the courtyard, was always held to be an English Lord. The tenant of
the floor above him was duly esteemed by the Drawers and Chamberlains to
be a Count of the Holy Roman Empire; a quiet gentleman, who would pay a
Louis a day for his charges, but was content to dine at the Public
Table, was put down as a Baron or a Chevalier; those who occupied the
rooms running round the galleries were saluted Merchants, or if they
chose it, Captains; but, in the gardens behind the Inn, there stood a
separate Building, called a Pavilion, most sumptuously appointed, and
the Great Room hung with the Story of Susannah and the Elders in Arras
Tapestry; and he who would pay enough for this Pavilion might have been
hailed as an Ambassador Plenipotentiary, as a Duke and Peer of France,
or even as a Sovereign Prince travelling incognito, had he been so
minded. For what will not Money do? Take our English Army, for instance,
which is surely the Bravest and the Worst Managed in the whole World. My
Lord buys a pair of colours for the Valet that has married his Leman,
and forthwith Mr. Jackanapes struts forth an Ensign. But for his own Son
and Heir my Lord will purchase a whole troop of Horse: and a Beardless
Boy, that a month agone was Birched at Eton for flaws in his Grammar,
will Vapour it about on the Mall with a Queue a la Rosbach, and a Long
Sword trailing behind him as a full-blown Captain of Dragoons.
I believe Pinchin's father to have been a Tailor. There is no harm in
the Craft, honestly exercised; but since the world first Began nine
Tailors have made a Man; and you cannot well see a knight of the shears
without asking in your own mind where he has left his Eight brethren.
Bartholomew Pinchin looked like a Tailor, talked like a Tailor, and
thought like a Tailor. Let it not, however, be surmised that I have any
mind to Malign the Useful Churls who make our Clothes. Many a time have
I been beholden to the strong Faith and Generous Belief of a Tailor when
I have stood in need of new Apparel, and have been under momentary
Famine of Funds for the Payment thereof. Those who are so ready to sneer
at a Snip, and to cast Cabbage in his teeth, would do well to remember
that there are Seasons in Life when the Goose (or rather he that wields
it) may save, not only the Capitol, but the Soldier who stands on Guard
within. How doubly Agonising is Death when you are in doubt as to whence
that Full Suit of Black needed on the Funeral Night will arrive! What a
tremor comes over you when you remember that this Day Week you are to be
Married, and that your Wedding Garment is by no means a certainty! What
a dreadful Shipwreck to your Fortune menaces you when you are bidden to
wait on a Great Man who has Places to give away, and you find that your
Velvet Coat shows the Cord! 'Tis in these Emergencies that the brave
Confidence of the Tailor is distilled over us like the Blessed Dew from
Heaven; for Trust, when it is really needed, and opportunely comes, is
Real Mercy and a Holy Thing.
About my master's Wealth there was no doubt. Lord Poddle, although a
questionable cousin of his, would have been glad to possess his spurious
kinsman's acres. I should put down the young Esquire's income as at
least Twenty Hundred Pounds a year. His Father had been, it cannot be
questioned, a Warm Man; but I should like to know, if he was veritably,
as his Son essayed to make out, a Gentleman, how he came to live in
Honey-Lane Market, hard by Cheapside. Gentlemen don't live in Honey-Lane
Market. 'Tis in Bloomsbury, or Soho, or Lincoln's Inn, or in the parish
of St. George, Hanover Square, that the real Quality have their
habitations. I shall be told next that Gentlefolks should have their
mansions by the Bun-House at Pimlico, or in the Purlieus of Tyburn
Turnpike. No; 'twas at the sign of the Sleeveboard, in Honey-Lane
Market, that our Patrician Squire made his money. The estate at
Hampstead was a very fair one, lying on the North side, Highgate way.
Mr. Pinchin's Mamma, a Rare City Dame, had a Life Interest in the
property, and, under the old Gentleman's will, had a Right to a Whole
Sum of Ten Thousand Pounds if she married again. Thus it was that young
Bartholomew was always in an agony of Terror to learn that his mamma had
been seen walking on a Sunday afternoon in Gray's-Inn Gardens, or taking
Powdered Beef and Ratafia at the tavern in Flask Walk, or drinking of
Syllabubs at Bellasise; and by every post he expected to hear the
dreadful intelligence that Madam Pinchin had been picked up as a City
Fortune by some ruffling Student of the Inns of Court, some Irish
Captain, or some smart Draper that, on the strength of a new Periwig and
a lacquered hilt to his Sword, passes for a Macarony. 'Tis not very
romantic to relate, but 'tis no less a fact, that the Son and the Mother
hated one another. You who have gone through the World and watched it,
know that these sad unnatural loathings between Parents and Children,
after the latter are grown up, are by no means uncommon. To me it seems
almost impossible that Estrangement and Dislike--nay, absolute
Aversion--should ever engender between the Mother and the Daughter, that
as a Babe hath hung on her Paps (or should have been so Nurtured, for
too many of our Fashionable Fine Dames are given to the cruelly
Pernicious Practice of sending their Infants to Nurse almost the very
next Week after they are Born, thus Divorcing themselves from the Joys
of Tender Affection, and drying up the very Source and Fontinel of
Natural Endearments; from which I draw the cause of many of the harsh
cold Humours and Uncivil Vapours that do reign between the Great and
their children). You may cry Haro upon me for a Cynic or Doggish
Philosopher; but I relate my Experiences, and the Things that have
stricken my Mind and Sense. I do know Ladies of Quality that hate their
Daughters, and would willingly Whip them, did they dare do so, Grown
Women as they are, for Spite. I do know Fathers, Men of Parts and Rank,
forsooth, jealous of their Sons, and that have kept the Youngsters in
the Background, and even striven to Obscure their Minds that they might
not cross the Paternal Orbit. And has it not almost passed into a
proverb, that my Lord Duke's Natural and most Inveterate Enemy is my
Lord Marquis, who is his Heir? But not to the World of Gold and Purple
are these Jealousies and Evil Feelings confined. You shall find them to
the full as Venomous in hovels, where pewter Platters are on the
shelves, and where Fustian and Homespun are the only wear. Down in the
West of England, where a worthy Friend of mine has an Estate, I know a
Shepherd tending his flocks from sunrise--ay, and before the Sun gets
up--until sundown. The honest man has but half-a-dozen shillings a week,
and has begotten Fourteen Children. He is old now, and feeble, and is
despised by his Progeny. He leads at Home the sorriest of Lives. They
take his wages from him, and, were it not for a lump of fat Bacon which
my friend's Servants give him now and again for Charity's sake, he would
have nothing better to eat from Week's End to Week's End than the hunch
of Bread and the morsel of Cheese that are doled forth to him every
morning when he goes to his labour. Only the other day, his sixth
daughter, a comely Piece enough, was Married. The poor old Shepherd begs
a Holiday, granted to him easily enough, and goes home at Midday instead
of Even, thinking to have some part in the Wedding Rejoicings, the which
his last week's wages have gone some way to furnish forth. I promise you
that 'tis a fine Family Feast that he comes across. What but ribs of
Beef and Strong Ale--none of your Harvest Clink--and old Cyder and
Plum-pudding galore! But his Family will have none of his company, and
set the poor old Shepherd apart, giving him but an extra lump of Bread
and Cheese to regale himself withal. 'Twas he who told the Story to my
Friend, from whom I heard it. What, think you, was his simple complaint,
his sole Protest against so much Cruelty and Injustice? He did not rush
into the Feasting Room and curse these Ingrates; he did not trample on
this Brood that he had nurtured, and that had turned out worse in their
Unthankfulness than Vipers; no, he just sat apart, wringing of his
Hands, and meekly wailing, "What, a weddin', and narrer a bit o'
puddin'--narrer a bit, a bit o' puddin'!" The poor soul had set his head
on a slice of dough with raisins in it, and even this crumb from their
Table was denied him by his Cubs. 'Tis a brave thing, is it not,
Neighbour, to be come to Threescore Years, and to have had Fruitful
Loins, and to be Mocked and Misused by those thou hast begotten? How
infinitely better do we deem ourselves than the Cat and Dog, and yet how
often do we imitate those Dumb Beasts in our own degree! fondling them
indeed when they are Kittens and Puppies, but fighting Tooth and Nail
with them when they be full grown. But there is as much to be said on
the one side as on the other; and for every poor old Lear wandering up
and down, pursued by the spite of Goneril and Regan, shall you find a
Cordelia whose heart is broken by her Sire's Cruelty.
We did not long abide in Ostend. Presently my master grew tired of the
Town, as he did of most Things, and longed for change. He had no better
words for the Innkeepers, Merchants, and others who attended him, than
to call them a parcel of Extortionate Thieves, and to vow that they were
all in a conspiracy for robbing and bringing him to the Poor House. He
often did us the honour to accuse us of being in the Plot; and many a
time I felt inclined to resent his Impertinence, and to cudgel the
abusive little man soundly; but I was wise, and held my Tongue and my
Hand as well. Following the Chaplain's advice, and humouring this little
Man-monkey in all his caprices, I found that he was not so bad a master
after all, and that when he was Drunk, which was almost always, he could
be generous enough. When he was sober and bewailed his excessive
Expenditure, our policy was to be Mum, or else to Flatter him; and so no
bones were broken, and I was well clad and fed, and always had a piece
of gold in my pouch, and so began to Feel my Feet.
We visited most of the towns in the Low Countries, then under the
Austrian rule, enjoying ourselves with but little occasion for repining.
Now our travelling was done on Horseback, and now, when there was a
Canal Route, by one of those heavy, lumbering, jovial old boats called
Treyckshuyts. I know not whether I spell the word correctly, for in the
Languages, albeit fluent enough, I could never be accurate; but of the
pleasant old vessels themselves I shall ever preserve a lively
recollection. You made a bargain with the Master before starting, giving
him so many guilders for a journey, say between Ghent and Bruges, the
charge amounting generally to about a Guinea a day for each Gentleman
passenger, and half the sum for a servant. And the Domestic's place on
the fore-deck and in the fore-cabin was by no means an unpleasant one;
for there he was sure to meet good store of comely Fraus, and Jungfraus
comelier still, with their clean white caps, Linsey-woolsey petticoats,
wooden shoes, and little gold crosses about their necks. Farmers and
labouring men and pedlars, with now and then a fat, smirking Priest or
two, who tried Hard to Convert you, if by any means he discovered you to
be a Heretic, made up the complement of passengers forward; but I, as a
servant, was often called aft, and had the pick of both companies, with
but light duties, and faring always like a Fighting Cock. For no sooner
was our Passage-Money paid than it became my Duty to lay in a Great
Stock of Provisions for the voyage, my master disdaining to put up with
the ordinary country Fare of dried fish, salted beef, pickled cabbage,
hard-boiled eggs, faro-Beer, Schiedam, and so forth, and instructing me,
under Mr. Hodge's direction, to purchase Game, Venison, Fruit,
Vegetables, Preserves, Cheeses, and other condiments, with a sufficient
number of flasks of choice wine, and a little keg of strong cordial, for
fear of Accidents. And aboard the Treyckshuyt it was all Singing and
Dancing and Carding and drinking of Toasts. The quantity of Tobacco that
the country people took was alarming, and the fumes thereof at first
highly displeasing to Mr. Pinchin; but I, from my sea education, and
the Time I had passed in the Western Indies, was a seasoned vessel as to
tobacco; and often when my Master had gone to his cabin for the night
was permitted to partake of a Puff on deck with the Reverend Mr. Hodge,
who dearly loved his Pipe of Virginia. The Chaplain always called me
John D.; and indeed by this time I seemed to be fast losing the
character as well as the name of Dangerous. My life was passed in the
Plenitude of Fatness; and I may say almost that I was at Grass with
Nebuchadnezzar, and had one Life with the beasts of the field; for my
days were given up to earthly indulgences, and I was no better than a
stalled ox. But the old perils and troubles of my career were only
Dormant, and ere long I was to become Jack Dangerous again.
A year passed away in this eating and drinking, dozy, lazy kind of life.
I was past seventeen years of age, and it was the autumn of the year
'29. We were resting for a time--not that Master, Chaplain, or Man ever
did much to entitle them to repose--at the famous watering-place of Spa,
close to the German Frontier. We put up at the Silver Stag, where we
were entertained in very Handsome Style. Spa, or the Spaw, as it was
sometimes called, was then one of the most Renowned Baths in Europe, and
was attended by the very Grandest company. Here, when we arrived, was my
Lord Duke of Tantivy, an English nobleman of the very Highest Figure,
accompanied by my Lady Duchess, the Lord Marquis of Newmarket, his
Grace's Son and Heir, who made Rare Work at the gaming tables, with
which the place abounded; the Ladies Kitty and Bell Jockeymore, his
daughters; and attended by a Numerous and sumptuous suite. Here also did
I see the famous French Prince de Noisy-Gevres, then somewhat out of
favour at the French Court, for writing of a Lampoon on one of his
Eminence the Cardinal Minister's Lady Favourites; the Great Muscovite
Boyard Stchigakoff, who had been here ever since the Czar Peter his
master had honoured the Spaw with his presence; and any number of
Foreign Notabilities, of the most Illustrious Rank, and of either sex.
Money was the great Master of the Ceremonies, however, and he who had
the Longest Purse was bidden to the Bravest Entertainments. The English
of Quality, indeed (as is their custom, which makes 'em so Hated by
Foreigners), kept themselves very much to themselves, and my Lord Duke
of Tantivy's party, with the exception of the Marquis of Newmarket, who
was good enough to Borrow a score of gold pieces from us, and to Rook us
at cards now and then, took not the slightest notice of my poor little
Master, who was dying to be introduced into Polite Society, and spread
abroad those fictions of his cousinage to Lady Betty Heeltap and my Lord
Poddle everywhere he went; but the French and German Magnificoes were
less Haughty, and were glad to receive an English Traveller who, when
his Vanity was concerned, would spend his cash without stint. We drank a
great deal of the Water of the Spaw, and uncommonly nasty it was, making
it a Thing of vital necessity to take the Taste of it out of our Mouths
as soon as might be with Wine and Strong Waters.
From the Spaw we went by easy Stages to Cologne, a dirty, foul-smelling
place, but very Handsome in Buildings, and saw all that was to be seen,
that is to say, the churches, which Abound Greatly. The Jesuits' Church
is the neatest, and this was shown us in a very complaisant manner,
although 'tis not the custom to allow Protestants to enter it. Our
Cicerone was a bouncing young Jesuit, with a Face as Rosy as the sunny
side of a Katherine Pear; but it shocked me to hear how he indulged in
Drolleries and Raileries in the very edifice itself. He quizzed both the
Magnificence and Tawdriness of the Altars, the Images of the Saints, the
Rich Framing of the Relics, and all he came across, seeming no more
impressed by their solemnity than the Verger Fellow in Westminster Abbey
when he shows the Waxwork to a knot of Yokels at sixpence a head.
"Surely," I thought, "there must be something wrong in a Faith whose
Professors make so light of its ceremonies, and turn Buffoons in the
very Temples;" nor could I help murmuring inwardly at that profusion of
Pearls, Diamonds, and Rubies bestowed on the adornment of a parcel of
old Bones, decayed Teeth, and dirty Rags. A Fine English Lady, all paint
and Furbelows, who was in the church with us, honestly owned that she
coveted St. Ursula's great Pearl Necklace, and, says she, "'Tis no sin,
and not coveting one's neighbour's goods, for neither St. Ursula nor the
Jesuits are any Neighbours of mine;" and as for my Master, he stared at
a Great St. Christopher, mighty fine in Silver, and said that it would
have looked very well as an Ornament for a Cistern in his garden at
Hampstead.
From Cologne to Nuremberg was five days, travelling post from Frankfort;
and here we observed the difference between the Free Towns of Germany
and those under the government of petty Absolute Princes. The streets of
Nuremberg are well built, and full of People; the shops are loaded with
Merchandise, and commonly Clean and Cheerful. In Cologne and Wurtsburg
there was but a sort of shabby finery: a number of dirty People of
Quality sauntered out: narrow nasty streets out of repair; and above
half of the common Sort asking Alms. Mr. Hodge, who would have his jest,
compared a Free Town to a handsome, clean Dutch Burgher's wife, and a
Petty Prince's capital to a poor Town Lady of Pleasure, painted and
ribboned out in her Head-dress, with tarnished Silver-lace shoes, and a
ragged Under Petticoat--a miserable mixture of Vice and Poverty.