_The singular meeting of Colin and Palethorpe.--A jolly night, and the
results of it, with one of the most remarkable discoveries on record._
On the last afternoon of his intended stay in town, Mr. Palethorpe
rambled as far as Regent's Park, and into the Zoological Gardens, where
he amused himself some time by tempting the bears with a bit of bun,
without allowing them to get near enough to lay hold of it; a piece of
dexterity on his own part which made him laugh heartily twenty times
over; for the cleverness of it seemed to him excellent.
[Illustration: 208]
When weary of that, he repaired to the monkey-cage, in anticipation of
some excellent sport; but there he found many much more able fellows
than himself; and, in endeavouring to outwit a great baboon with a
walnut, got one of his ears nearly twinged off, highly to the delight
of a whole company of boys who stood by, and whose laughter and jeers
eventually caused him to beat a retreat out of the gardens.
Having taken a pretty accurate survey of the West End, he descended
Regent Street in the evening, and about nine o'clock might have been
seen wending his way with indecisive step down Coventry Street, from
the Piccadilly end, with a considerable amount of Barclay and Perkins's
stout in his head,--porter being such a rarity to him, that he thought
it as well to make the best of it while he enjoyed the opportunity.
On the right hand side of Coventry Street he accidentally espied a
fishmonger's shop. Palethorpe always enjoyed a good appetite for oysters
whenever he could get them, and, as he had fixed his eyes upon a leaden
tank full, he walked into the shop aforesaid, and requested the man
to open him a lot. As fast as he opened them, Mr. Palethorpe swallowed
them; while, as long as he continued to swallow, the man continued to
open, keeping silent count of the number taken all the while, until in
a loud voice he at last proclaimed a numerical amount of five dozen.
Mr. Palethorpe then bid him desist, and, with great reluctance at the
moment, paid the demand of a crown for his supper. Somehow, however,
his stomach raised certain very cogent objections against thus
suddenly being converted into an oyster bed, and demanded the instant
administration of a dram. This, however, he could not procure there, but
was invited to walk into the room behind, where he might take wine at
his leisure. Although Palethorpe did not much relish the notion, he did
not feel in the best possible condition for quitting the shop and going
elsewhere; and therefore, almost as a matter of necessity, adopted the
waiter's suggestion. Pushing open a door, therefore, with an oval
glass in it, he found himself all at once in one of the finest public
apartments he had yet entered.
At first he felt almost doubtful whether he had not made a mistake,
and walked into a chapel,--the gallery round the walls and the pew-like
seats very strongly favouring the idea. This notion was, however,
very soon put to the rout by an individual, whom he had mistaken for a
pew-opener, approaching him with the polite inquiry, what wine would he
please to take.
“Oh, ony'll do. One sort is just the same as another to me, for I know
no difference,” replied Palethorpe.
“Pint of sherry, perhaps, sir? Very well, sir.” And before the
Yorkshireman could find time to express either his acquiescence or his
dissent, the waiter had disappeared to execute the order of his own
suggestion.
When he returned, Palethorpe took the wine in silent dudgeon. Of
course he had the appearance of an animal too remarkable not to attract
attention anywhere in London, but especially so in the particular region
where fortune had now condescended to cast him.
As far as he could discern anything of the matter, the company appeared
of the highest respectability, if not, in fact, almost too good for him.
But then, as everybody conducted themselves in the most free and easy
manner possible, he was not long in making himself perfectly at home.
The ladies, who were beautifully dressed, and decorated with various
sorts of flowers, struck him with particular admiration. All that
disagreeable crust of reserve, in which country people are so very prone
to encase themselves, was here worn quite clean off; and he found no
more trouble in entering into conversation with these ladies than he
did at home in talking to his horses. Two of them politely invited
themselves to his wine, and, without waiting permission, drank it off to
his good health, and suggested to him to call for more. They playfully
tweaked his nose, put his hat on their own heads, and invited him to
partake of his own drink so very kindly and pressingly, that at last it
would scarcely have been known whether they or he had in reality paid
for it.
About midnight, and at the particular request of a young lady who was
taking leave, Palethorpe was prevailed on to escort her home; a piece of
politeness which he felt most competent to discharge by calling a cab,
as his own legs had by this time in great part lost the faculty of
carrying the superstructure of his body writh that precise degree of
perpendicularity which is commonly considered essential to personal
comfort and safety.
From that moment up to the occurrence of the following incident, his
history is wrapped in the most profound and mysterious darkness.
On this eventful night, the intended last night of all Mr. Palethorpe's
experiences in the metropolis, as fortune would have it, Colin had
treated himself with a sight of Vauxhall Gardens; and, as he remained to
see the fireworks at the conclusion, he did not get away very early. Add
to this the time necessarily occupied in taking refreshment, and walking
all the way from the Gardens towards London Bridge, and we shall not
expect to find him at the top of Newington Road, on his way home,
earlier than between one and two in the morning. As our hero walked
rapidly down Blackman Street, he observed a man, clothed in a short,
square-lapped coat, of a broad country-cut, staggering along before him
very much as though he meditated going head foremost at every object
that presented itself on either side of the road. Occasionally he came
to a full stop, and see-saw'd his body backwards and forwards, until the
impetus gained one way either compelled him to recede a few paces, or
plunged him again desperately forwards. Now he seized a lamp-post,
as though it were some dear, newly-recognised friend; and then made
a furious sally to reach some advanced point of the wall on the other
hand. Altogether his motions were so whimsical “that Colin slackened
his pace in order to keep behind, and thus enjoy the fun. The street was
perfectly silent; not a soul besides themselves was about, and he had
the farcical performer therefore altogether to himself. He did not enjoy
the spectacle, however, very long. Scarcely had the man staggered a
hundred yards farther before he went down on all fours; and, as he found
himself incapable of rising again, he seemed by his actions, as though
he finally submitted to fate, and made up his mind to nestle there for
the remainder of the night. Since, however, Colin never was the lad to
leave a fellow-creature helpless, without offering his assistance, he
hastened forwards, and taking him by the shoulder, bade him get up and
go home.
“Where's meesis?” demanded the sot. “I want a posset, and a posset I 'll
have, or be dang'd to me!”
Colin immediately recognised the voice. Bursting into a loud laugh,
he raised the prostrate man's face towards the light, and beheld the
features of his old and inveterate enemy, Palethorpe. What in the world
could have brought him to town? Although Colin more than half suspected
the real occasion, he determined to ascertain the truth.
“And, where have you come from, my man?” demanded Colin.
“Come from!” repeated Sammy. “I'll tell you where I come from. I
co--co--come from Whinmoor--Whinmoor, I say, in Yorkshire. Miss
Zowerzoft's my meesis--and a very good meesis she is, I am happy to say.
She knows me very well, and I know her. I wish she were here!”
“Well--well!” cried Colin; “but what have you come to London about?”
“Why, what do you think, now?” asked Palethorpe, with a peculiarly
knowing look. “What _do_ you think? Just guess. I'll bet a shilling you
can't guess, if you guess all night. No--no; no man knows my bizziness
but myself. My name's Palethorpe, and I know two of that. Can you tell
me, do you know anybody named Colin Clink here i' Lunnun?”
“I do,” said our hero. “I know him well.”
“You do!” exclaimed Samuel, trying to start up and stare in his face,
but sinking again in the effort; “then yo 're my man! Gis hold on your
hand, my lad. Dang his carcase! I 'll kill him as sure as iver I touch
him! I will--I tell you. I 'll kill him dead on th' spot.”
“But you mean to catch him first,” said Colin, “don't you?”
“What do you mean? Catch him! I mean to catch him! Be civil, my lad, or
else I shall put a spur in _your_ sides afore you go.”
“You brute!” exclaimed Colin, seizing him by the collar on each side of
his neck, and holding his head stiff up with his knuckles,--“look at me.
I am Colin Clink. Now, you cowardly, drunken scoundrel, what have you
not deserved at my hands?”
“Oh! what, you are he, are you?” gurgled
Mr. Palethorpe. “Just let me go a minnit, and I 'll show you!”
“Come, then!” said Colin, and he pulled the said Mr. Palethorpe to the
edge of the causeway. In the next moment he deposited him in the middle
of a large dam which had been made in the gutter close by for the
convenience of some bricklayers, who were repairing an adjoining house,
telling him to “sit there, and sober himself; and the next time he tried
to catch Colin Clink, to thank his stars if he came off no worse.” So
saying, he left him to the enjoyment of his “new patent water-bed,” and
his meditations.
Near the Borough town-hall Colin met a policeman, whom he informed of
the hapless condition of a poor drunken countryman some distance down
the street, and requested him to go to his assistance. He then made
off at the best speed he could, and soon baffled all pursuit amidst the
intricate turnings of the city. True, he lost his way; still he reached
his lodgings before four o'clock.
To return to Mr. Palethorpe. He had not yet seen even a tithe of his
troubles. The sequel of this last adventure proved richer than all the
rest. Between two and three o'clock in the afternoon of the following
day he crept very stealthily into the parlour of his inn, as “down
in the mouth” as a beaten dog. He called for writing materials, and
addressed a strange scrawl to the Commercial Bank in Leeds, where it was
known he had deposited about three hundred pounds. He afterwards retired
to his bed-room, from which in a short time he issued with a bundle
in his hand; and, after making certain confidential inquiries of the
shoe-black, walked forth in the direction of Rosemary Lane. It seems
pretty certain that John Boots directed him thither as one of the most
eligible places in the City for the disposal of all sorts of worn-out
or superfluous wearing-apparel, and one to which poor gentlemen in
difficulties not unfrequently resorted. However that may be, the fact
itself is positive, that on the evening of the second Saturday after his
arrival, Mr. Palethorpe was seen in a very dejected mood, pacing along
Rosemary Lane, towards Cable Street, with a bundle tied up in a blue and
white cotton handkerchief, under his arm.
As his eyes wandered from one side of the street to the other, he
observed, idling at doors, or along the footway, a generation of low,
dark men, who, by the peculiar cut of their countenances might readily
have been mistaken--especially by lamplight--for lineal and legitimate
descendants of the old race of Grecian satyrs. Inhabiting places in
which no other description of person could breathe, and carrying on
their congenial trades in “Clo'--old clo'!” these people, with their
families, live and thrive on the filth of all the other parts of the
unapproachable city. Nothing comes amiss to them: the oldest garment
has some profit in it, and the merest shred its fractional value. Their
delight seems to be in a life amidst black bags, and the rags of every
other portion of the great community; while the aspect of the region
they inhabit--as if to keep all the rest from being put out of
countenance--is desolate, dark, slimy, and enveloped in an atmosphere of
eternal smoke. The very air seems pregnant with melancholy reminiscences
of the faded glory of by-gone men, women, and times. The tarnished
embroidery, the sooty red suits, the flabby old silks, the vamped-up
hessians, what spectres do they not evoke as they dangle (ghostly
mementos of departed greatness) beside the never-washed windows; or flap
like an old arras, with every gust of wind against the besmeared and
noxious walls! Where, perhaps, the legs of some gallant captain once
found a local habitation, there the dirty Israelite now passing along
feels ambitious to encase his own. The handkerchief of a bishop invites
a “shopb'y's” nose; the last rejected beaver of the Lord Mayor awaits
the acceptance of some rascally cranium, which the Lord Mayor would give
half his dignity to “nab,” and “pop in quod.” Even some vanished great
one's walking-stick, now sticks in the black corner of the Jew's shop,
waiting to be once again shaken by the handle, even though it be but
during a brief proud hour on Sunday, by the lad who yesterday hawked
cedar pencils through the streets at a halfpenny a piece.
“Buy, sir?--buy?--buy?” Mr. Pale-thorpe replied in the negative to a
man who thus addressed him, but volunteered to sell. He produced the
contents of his handkerchief; and before ten minutes, more had elapsed
his best blue coat with gilt buttons, and a second pair of corduroys,
became the property of the Jew, at one-third less than their value. The
reason of this strange proceeding was that during the preceding
night's glorification the Yorkshireman had,--in some way totally
incomprehensible to himself,--been eased of absolutely every farthing he
possessed. He had, therefore, no alternative but to raise a little ready
cash upon his clothes, until he could receive from the bank in Leeds,
where he had deposited his scrapings, enough to set himself straight
again and pay his passage home.
Several times had the sun rolled over the head of this side of the world
after the scene above-described, when, one rainy evening, about dusk, as
Miss Sowersoft was casting a weary and longing eye across the soddened
fields which lay between Snitterton Lodge and the high road, to
her inexpressible pleasure she beheld the well-known figure of Mr.
Palethorpe making its way towards the house.
“Well, here you are again!” she exclaimed, as he flung down his
top-coat, and demanded a jack to get his boots off. “How have you gone
on? I see you hav'n't brought him with you, at all events.”
Although Miss Sowersoft had made an inquiry the moment Mr. Palethorpe
entered the house, she now refused to hear him talk until he had
satisfied his appetite. This achievement occupied, of course,
considerable time. He then, in the midst of an open-mouthed and anxious
rural audience, consisting of every individual, man, maid, and boy,
upon the farm, related--_not_ his own adventures, but the imaginary
adventures of some person very closely resembling himself, who never
lived, and whose peregrinations had only existed in the very little
world of his own brain.
His expedition had been most successful; for, although he had not
exactly succeeded in discovering Colin's retreat,--a mishap attributable
to the enormous extent of London, and not to his own want of
sagacity,--yet he had astonished the natives there by such specimens of
country talent as they were very little prepared for. He pulled out a
new watch. “Look there,” said he. “I got that through parting with the
old 'un, and a better than that niver went on wheels. I bought some
handkerchers for about half-price, and see'd more of Lunnun in ten days
than many folks that have been agate there all their lives.”
“Then you went 'top o' th' Moniment?” demanded old George.
“To be sure I did!” exclaimed Palethorpe, “and St. Paul's Cathedral as
well.”
“I hope you did not get dropped on, anyhow,” remarked Miss Sowersoft,
inquiringly; for she really burned to know whether any of the fears she
had expressed at his setting out had been realised.
“No, dang it! not I,” replied Palethorpe, in a misgiving tone, though
with a great assumption of bravery. Yet upon that subject, somehow, he
could not expatiate. He felt tongue-tied in spite of himself; and then,
as if desirous of escaping any farther explanation touching what he had
individually done or not done, he got up and went to the pocket of his
great-coat, from which he drew a Sunday newspaper that he had purchased
as the coach was starting, and presenting it to Miss Sowersoft--“Here,”
said he, “I've brought you th' latest news I could lay my hands on, just
to let you see what sort of things they do i' th' big town. I hav'n't
look'd at it myself yet, so you 've the first peep, meesis.”
Miss Sowersoft took the newspaper very graciously, and opened it.
Strange news indeed she very soon found there. While Palethorpe was yet
maintaining all the dignity of a hero, and stuffing his audience with
marvellous accounts of his own exploits, Miss Sowersoft's eye fell
upon a report under the head of “Police Intelligence,” entitled, “A
Yorkshireman in London.” She read it; but with such avidity and such
a sombre expression of countenance, that the eyes of every one present
were irresistibly attracted towards her, and even Mr. Palethorpe's
efforts to speak passed almost unobserved. At length Miss Sower-soft
uttered a loud hysterical shriek, and fell back in her chair.
Palethorpe instinctively snatched at the newspaper; but, as Abel had
seized it before him, only a portion of it reached the fire, into
which it was instantly hurled. The part remaining in the grasp of the
farming-man contained the awful cause of Miss Sowersoft's calamity. A
fight might have ensued for the possession of that fragment also, had
not Abel dexterously slipped round the table before Palethorpe could
reach him, and, snatching up a lighted lantern that stood on the
dresser, escaped into a hayloft; where, having drawn the ladder up after
him, he sat down on a truss, and, while Palethorpe bawled and threatened
vainly from beneath, deliberately read as follows:--
“A Yorkshireman in London.--Yesterday a stupid-looking 'son of the soil'
from Yorkshire, whose legs appeared to have been tied across a barrel
during the previous part of his life, and who gave his name Samuel
Palethorpe, was brought before their worships, charged by policeman
G. 95, with having been found dead drunk in Blackman Street, Borough,
between one and two o'clock that morning. When found he was sitting
bolt-upright in a pool of lime-water about twelve inches deep, which
had been made in the gutter by some bricklayer's labourers employed
in mixing mortar near the spot. His hat was crushed into the form of
a pancake, and was floating beside him; while he was calling in a
stentorian voice for assistance. From the very deplorable statement he
made, with tears in his eyes, it appeared that, after rambling about
town the greater part of the previous day, in search of the 'lions'
of London, during which time he had imbibed an immense quantity of
heavy-wet, he repaired to a well-known house in the neighbourhood of
the Haymarket, and regaled himself until midnight with wine and cigars.
While there he picked up an acquaintance in the person of a 'lady,' (as
he described her,) 'with a plum-coloured silk gown on, and one of the
handsomest shawls he ever saw in his life.' As the 'lady' was very
communicative, and was very polite, and told him that she wished to
marry, he naturally concluded she might entertain no very deeply-rooted,
objection to himself. In order, therefore, to make a beginning in his
courtship, he eventually consented to accompany her home. He believed
her to be what she appeared, 'a lady,' and was over-persuaded by the
hope of marrying a good fortune. One of the magistrates here expressed
his astonishment that any man arrived at the age of the prisoner, (he
appeared nearly forty-five,) even though brought up in the veriest wild
in England, could possibly be such a fool as the individual before him
represented himself. Mr. Palethorpe replied that he had several times
read of ladies falling in love with cavaliers, and he thought such a
thing might happen to him as well as to anybody else. (Laughter.)
“'And what happened afterwards?' asked the magistrate.
“Mr. Palethorpe.--'I don't know very well, for I'd a sup too much. I
ar'n't used to drink sich strong wine: but we went over a bridge, I
think, becos I remember seeing some lights dance about; but where we
went to I know no more than this man here' (pointing to the policeman).
“'How much money did you spend?'
“'Whoy, unfortinately, I 've lost every farthing I had.'
“'And how much had you about your person when you set out?'
“'Please, sir, I had seven pounds in goold, and about twelve shillin's
in shillin's, besides some ha'pence.'
“'Do you think you've been robbed, or did you spend it on the lady?'
“'I don't know, sir,--but it's all gone.'
“'Well, as you seem to have paid pretty dearly for your pleasure, I
shall not fine you this time, but I should advise you to take better
care the next time you come to London.'
“The prisoner left the court very chop-fallen, while one of the
spectators as he passed whistled in his ear the tune of
'When first in London I arrived, on a visit--on a visit!'”
Before Abel had perused half the above extract he was in ecstasies: and
when he had done he cut it out of the paper with his pocket-knife, in
order the easier to preserve it for future use. The story soon became
known throughout the country side, as Abel made a point of reading it
aloud at every public-house he called at, and on every occasion when the
hero of it chanced to displease him.
The gist of the joke, however, seemed, in the general opinion, to
consist in the fact that Mr. Palethorpe himself had unwittingly brought
it all the way from London in his own pocket, for the edification and
amusement of the community. In fact, from that day until the end of his
life, that worthy never heard the last of his expedition to London.
But, how did he settle matters with his mistress? That question may be
solved when other events of greater importance have been described.