Before the knight would take any resolution for extricating himself from
his present embarrassment, he desired to be better acquainted with the
character and circumstances of the justice by whom he had been confined,
and likewise to understand the meaning of his own detention. To be
informed in this last particular, he renewed his dialogue with the
turnkey, who told him through the grate, that Ferret no sooner perceived
him in the jail without his offensive arms, which he had left below, than
he desired to be carried before the justice, where he had given
information against the knight, as a violator of the public peace, who
strolled about the country with unlawful arms, rendering the highways
unsafe, encroaching upon the freedom of elections, putting his majesty’s
liege subjects in fear of their lives, and, in all probability,
harbouring more dangerous designs under an affected cloak of lunacy.
Ferret, upon this information, had been released, and entertained as an
evidence for the King; and Crabshaw was put into the stocks, as an idle
stroller.
Sir Launcelot, being satisfied in these particulars, addressed himself to
his fellow-prisoners, and begged they would communicate what they knew
respecting the worthy magistrate, who had been so premature in the
execution of his office. This request was no sooner signified, than a
crew of naked wretches crowded around him, and, like a congregation of
rooks, opened their throats all at once, in accusation of Justice Gobble.
The knight was moved at this scene, which he could not help comparing, in
his own mind, to what would appear upon a much more awful occasion, when
the cries of the widow and the orphan, the injured and oppressed, would
be uttered at the tribunal of an unerring Judge, against the villanous
and insolent authors of their calamity.
When he had, with some difficulty, quieted their clamours, and confined
his interrogation to one person of a tolerably decent appearance, he
learned, that Justice Gobble, whose father was a tailor, had for some
time served as a journeyman hosier in London, where he had picked up some
law terms, by conversing with hackney writers and attorneys’ clerks of
the lowest order; that, upon the death of his master, he had insinuated
himself into the good graces of the widow, who took him for her husband,
so that he became a person of some consideration, and saved money apace;
that his pride, increasing with his substance, was reinforced by the
vanity of his wife, who persuaded him to retire from business, that they
might live genteelly in the country; that his father dying, and leaving a
couple of houses in this town, Mr. Gobble had come down with his lady to
take possession, and liked the place so well, as to make a more
considerable purchase in the neighbourhood; that a certain peer being
indebted to him in the large way of his business, and either unable or
unwilling to pay the money, had compounded the debt, by inserting his
name in the commission; since which period his own insolence, and his
wife’s ostentation, had exceeded all bounds; that, in the execution of
his authority, he had committed a thousand acts of cruelty and injustice
against the poorer sort of people, who were unable to call him to a
proper account; that his wife domineered with a more ridiculous, though
less pernicious usurpation, among the females of the place; that, in a
word, she was the subject of continual mirth, and he the object of
universal detestation.
Our adventurer, though extremely well disposed to believe what was said
to the prejudice of Gobble, would not give entire credit to this
description, without first inquiring into the particulars of his conduct.
He therefore asked the speaker, what was the cause of his particular
complaint. “For my own part, sir,” said he, “I lived in repute, and kept
a shop in this here town, well furnished with a great variety of
articles. All the people in the place were my customers; but what I and
many others chiefly depended upon, was the extraordinary sale at two
annual customary fairs, to which all the country people in the
neighbourhood resorted to lay out their money. I had employed all my
stock, and even engaged my credit, to procure a large assortment of goods
for the Lammas market; but, having given my vote in the election of a
vestry-clerk, contrary to the interest of Justice Gobble, he resolved to
work my ruin. He suppressed the annual fairs, by which a great many
people, especially publicans, earned the best part of their subsistence.
The country people resorted to another town. I was overstocked with a
load of perishable commodities, and found myself deprived of the best
part of my home customers, by the ill-nature and revenge of the justice,
who employed all his influence among the common people, making use of
threats and promises, to make them desert my shop, and give their custom
to another person, whom he settled in the same business under my nose.
Being thus disabled from making punctual payments, my commodities
spoiling, and my wife breaking her heart, I grew negligent and careless,
took to drinking, and my affairs went to wreck. Being one day in liquor,
and provoked by the fleers and taunts of the man who had set up against
me, I struck him at his own door; upon which I was carried before the
justice, who treated me with such insolence, that I became desperate, and
not only abused him in the execution of his office, but also made an
attempt to lay violent hands upon his person. You know, sir, when a man
is both drunk and desperate, he cannot be supposed to have any command of
himself. I was sent hither to jail. My creditors immediately seized my
effects; and, as they were not sufficient to discharge my debts, a
statute of bankruptcy was taken out against me; so that here I must lie,
until they think proper to sign my certificate, or the parliament shall
please to pass an act for the relief of insolvent debtors.”
The next person who presented himself in the crowd of accusers was a
meagre figure, with a green apron, who told the knight that he had kept a
public-house in town for a dozen years, and enjoyed a good trade, which
was in a great measure owing to a skittle-ground, in which the best
people of the place diverted themselves occasionally. That Justice
Gobble, being disobliged at his refusing to part with a gelding which he
had bred for his own use, first of all shut up the skittle-ground; but,
finding the publican still kept his house open, he took care that he
should be deprived of his licence, on pretence that the number of
ale-houses was too great, and that this man had been bred to another
employment. The poor publican being thus deprived of his bread, was
obliged to try the staymaking business, to which he had served an
apprenticeship; but being very ill qualified for this profession, he soon
fell to decay and contracted debts, in consequence of which he was now in
prison, where he had no other support but what arose from the labour of
his wife, who had gone to service.
The next prisoner who preferred his complaint against the unrighteous
judge was a poacher, at whose practices Justice Gobble had for some years
connived, so as even to screen him from punishment, in consideration of
being supplied with game gratis, till at length he was disappointed by
accident. His lady had invited guests to an entertainment, and bespoke a
hare, which the poacher undertook to furnish. He laid his snares
accordingly overnight, but they were discovered, and taken away by the
gamekeeper of the gentleman to whom the ground belonged. All the excuses
the poacher could make proved ineffectual in appeasing the resentment of
the justice and his wife at being thus disconcerted. Measures were taken
to detect the delinquent in the exercise of his illicit occupation; he
was committed to safe custody, and his wife, with five bantlings, was
passed to her husband’s settlement in a different part of the country.
A stout squat fellow, rattling with chains, had just taken up the ball of
accusation, when Sir Launcelot was startled with the appearance of a
woman, whose looks and equipage indicated the most piteous distress. She
seemed to be turned of the middle age, was of a lofty carriage, tall,
thin, weather-beaten, and wretchedly attired; her eyes were inflamed with
weeping, and her looks displayed that wildness and peculiarity which
denote distraction. Advancing to Sir Launcelot, she fell upon her knees,
and, clasping her hands together, uttered the following rhapsody in the
most vehement tone of affliction:--
“Thrice potent, generous, and august emperor; here let my knees cleave to
the earth, until thou shalt do me justice on that inhuman caitiff Gobble.
Let him disgorge my substance which he hath devoured; let him restore to
my widowed arms my child, my boy, the delight of my eyes, the prop of my
life, the staff of my sustenance, whom he hath torn from my embrace,
stolen, betrayed, sent into captivity, and murdered! Behold these
bleeding wounds upon his lovely breast! see how they mangle his lifeless
corse! Horror! give me my child, barbarians! his head shall lie upon his
Suky’s bosom--she will embalm him with her tears. Ha! plunge him in the
deep!--shall my boy then float in a watery tomb? Justice, most mighty
emperor! justice upon the villain who hath ruined us all! May Heaven’s
dreadful vengeance overtake him! may the keen storm of adversity strip
him of all his leaves and fruit! may peace forsake his mind, and rest be
banished from his pillow, so that all his days shall be filled with
reproach and sorrow, and all his nights be haunted with horror and
remorse! may he be stung by jealousy without cause, and maddened by
revenge without the means of execution! may all his offspring be blighted
and consumed, like the mildewed ears of corn, except one that shall grow
up to curse his old age, and bring his hoary head with sorrow to the
grave, as he himself has proved a curse to me and mine!”
The rest of the prisoners, perceiving the knight extremely shocked at her
misery and horrid imprecation, removed her by force from his presence,
and conveyed her to another room; while our adventurer underwent a
violent agitation, and could not for some minutes compose himself so well
as to inquire into the nature of this wretched creature’s calamity.
The shopkeeper, of whom he demanded this satisfaction, gave him to
understand that she was born a gentlewoman, and had been well educated;
that she married a curate, who did not long survive his nuptials, and
afterwards became the wife of one Oakley, a farmer in opulent
circumstances. That after twenty years’ cohabitation with her husband,
he sustained such losses by the distemper among the cattle, as he could
not repair; and that this reverse of fortune was supposed to have
hastened his death. That the widow, being a woman of spirit, determined
to keep up and manage the farm, with the assistance of an only son, a
very promising youth, who was already contracted in marriage with the
daughter of another wealthy farmer. Thus the mother had a prospect of
retrieving the affairs of her family, when all her hopes were dashed and
destroyed by a ridiculous pique which Mrs. Gobble conceived against the
young farmer’s sweetheart, Mrs. Susan Sedgemoor.
This young woman chancing to be at a country assembly, where the
gravedigger of the parish acted as master of the ceremonies, was called
out to dance before Miss Gobble, who happened to be there present also
with her mother. The circumstance was construed into an unpardonable
affront by the justice’s lady, who abused the director in the most
opprobrious terms for his insolence and ill manners; and retiring in a
storm of passion, vowed revenge against the saucy minx who had presumed
to vie in gentility with Miss Gobble. The justice entered into her
resentment. The gravedigger lost his place; and Suky’s lover, young
Oakley, was pressed for a soldier. Before his mother could take any
steps for his discharge, he was hurried away to the East Indies, by the
industry and contrivance of the justice. Poor Suky wept and pined until
she fell into a consumption. The forlorn widow, being thus deprived of
her son, was overwhelmed with grief to such a degree, that she could no
longer manage her concerns. Everything went backwards; she ran in
arrears with her landlord; and the prospect of bankruptcy aggravated her
affliction, while it added to her incapacity. In the midst of these
disastrous circumstances, news arrived that her son Greaves had lost his
life in a sea engagement with the enemy; and these tidings almost
instantly deprived her of reason. Then the landlord seized for his rent,
and she was arrested at the suit of Justice Gobble, who had bought up one
of her debts in order to distress her, and now pretended that her madness
was feigned.
When the name of Greaves was mentioned, our adventurer started and
changed colour; and, now the story was ended, asked, with marks of eager
emotion, if the name of the woman’s first husband was not Wilford. When
the prisoner answered in the affirmative, he rose up, and striking his
breast, “Good heaven!” cried he, “the very woman who watched over my
infancy, and even nourished me with her milk! She was my mother’s humble
friend. Alas! poor Dorothy! how would your old mistress grieve to see
her favourite in this miserable condition.” While he pronounced these
words, to the astonishment of the hearers, a tear stole softly down each
cheek. Then he desired to know if the poor lunatic had any intervals of
reason; and was given to understand that she was always quiet, and
generally supposed to have the use of her senses, except when she was
disturbed by some extraordinary noise, or when any person touched upon
her misfortune, or mentioned the name of her oppressor, in all which
cases she started out into extravagance and frenzy. They likewise
imputed great part of the disorder to the want of quiet, proper food, and
necessaries, with which she was but poorly supplied by the cold hand of
chance charity. Our adventurer was exceedingly affected by the distress
of this woman, whom he resolved to relieve; and in proportion as his
commiseration was excited, his resentment rose against the miscreant, who
seemed to have insinuated himself into the commission of the peace on
purpose to harass and oppress his fellow-creatures.
Thus animated, he entered into consultation with Mr. Thomas Clarke
concerning the steps he should take, first for their deliverance, and
then for prosecuting and punishing the justice. In result of this
conference, the knight called aloud for the jailor, and demanded to see a
copy of his commitment, that he might know the cause of his imprisonment,
and offer bail; or, in case that he should be refused, move for a writ of
Habeas Corpus. The jailor told him the copy of the writ should be
forthcoming. But after he had waited some time, and repeated the demand
before witnesses, it was not yet produced. Mr. Clarke then, in a solemn
tone, gave the jailor to understand, that an officer refusing to deliver
a true copy of the commitment warrant was liable to the forfeiture of one
hundred pounds for the first offence, and for the second to a forfeiture
of twice that sum, besides being disabled from executing his office.
Indeed, it was no easy matter to comply with Sir Launcelot’s demand; for
no warrant had been granted, nor was it now in the power of the justice
to remedy this defect, as Mr. Ferret had taken himself away privately,
without having communicated the name and designation of the prisoner. A
circumstance the more mortifying to the jailor, as he perceived the
extraordinary respect which Mr. Clarke and the captain paid to the
knight, and was now fully convinced that he would be dealt with according
to law. Disordered with these reflections, he imparted them to the
justice, who had in vain caused search to be made for Ferret, and was now
extremely well inclined to set the knight and his friends at liberty,
though he did not at all suspect the quality and importance of our
adventurer. He could not, however, resist the temptation of displaying
the authority of his office, and therefore ordered the prisoners to be
brought before his tribunal, that, in the capacity of a magistrate, he
might give them a severe reproof, and proper caution with respect to
their future behaviour.
They were accordingly led through the street in procession, guarded by
the constable and his gang, followed by Crabshaw, who had by this time
been released from the stocks, and surrounded by a crowd of people,
attracted by curiosity. When they arrived at the justice’s house, they
were detained for some time in the passage; then a voice was heard,
commanding the constable to bring in the prisoners, and they were
introduced to the hall of audience, where Mr. Gobble sat in judgment,
with a crimson velvet night-cap on his head; and on his right hand
appeared his lady, puffed up with the pride and insolence of her
husband’s office, fat, frouzy, and not over-clean, well stricken in
years, without the least vestige of an agreeable feature, having a
rubicund nose, ferret eyes, and imperious aspect. The justice himself
was a little, affected, pert prig, who endeavoured to solemnise his
countenance by assuming an air of consequence, in which pride, impudence,
and folly were strangely blended. He aspired at nothing so much as the
character of an able spokesman; and took all opportunities of holding
forth at vestry and quarter sessions, as well as in the administration of
his office in private. He would not, therefore, let slip this occasion
of exciting the admiration of his hearers, and, in an authoritative tone,
thus addressed our adventurer:--
“The laws of this land has provided--I says as how provision is made by
the laws of this here land, in reverence to delinquems and malefactors,
whereby the king’s peace is upholden by we magistrates, who represents
his majesty’s person, better than in e’er a contagious nation under the
sun; but, howsomever, that there king’s peace, and this here magistrate’s
authority cannot be adequably and identically upheld, if so be as how
criminals escapes unpunished. Now, friend, you must be confidentious in
your own mind, as you are a notorious criminal, who have trespassed again
the laws on divers occasions and importunities; if I had a mind to
exercise the rigour of the law, according to the authority wherewith I am
wested, you and your companions in iniquity would be sewerely punished by
the statue; but we magistrates has a power to litigate the sewerity of
justice, and so I am contented that you should be mercifully dealt
withal, and even dismissed.”
To this harangue the knight replied, with a solemn and deliberate accent,
“If I understand your meaning aright, I am accused of being a notorious
criminal; but nevertheless you are contented to let me escape with
impunity. If I am a notorious criminal, it is the duty of you, as a
magistrate, to bring me to condign punishment; and if you allow a
criminal to escape unpunished, you are not only unworthy of a place in
the commission, but become accessory to his guilt, and, to all intents
and purposes, socius criminis. With respect to your proffered mercy, I
shall decline the favour; nor do I deserve any indulgence at your hands,
for, depend upon it, I shall show no mercy to you in the steps I intend
to take for bringing you to justice. I understand that you have been
long hackneyed in the ways of oppression, and I have seen some living
monuments of your inhumanity--of that hereafter. I myself have been
detained in prison, without cause assigned. I have been treated with
indignity, and insulted by jailors and constables; led through the
streets like a felon, as a spectacle to the multitude; obliged to dance
attendance in your passage, and afterwards branded with the name of
notorious criminal.--I now demand to see the information in consequence
of which I was detained in prison, the copy of the warrant of commitment
or detainer, and the face of the person by whom I was accused. I insist
upon a compliance with these demands, as the privileges of a British
subject; and if it is refused, I shall seek redress before a higher
tribunal.”
The justice seemed to be not a little disturbed at this peremptory
declaration; which, however, had no other effect upon his wife, but that
of enraging her choler, and inflaming her countenance. “Sirrah! sirrah!”
cried she, “do you dares to insult a worshipful magistrate on the bench?
--Can you deny that you are a vagram, and a dilatory sort of a person?
Han’t the man with the satchel made an affidavy of it?--If I was my
husband, I’d lay you fast by the heels for your resumption, and ferk you
with a priminery into the bargain, unless you could give a better account
of yourself--I would.”
Gobble, encouraged by this fillip, resumed his petulance, and proceeded
in this manner:--“Hark ye, friend, I might, as Mrs. Gobble very justly
observes, trounce you for your audacious behaviour; but I scorn to take
such advantages. Howsomever, I shall make you give an account of
yourself and your companions; for I believes as how you are in a gang,
and all in a story, and perhaps you may be found one day in a cord.--What
are you, friend? What is your station and degree?”--“I am a gentleman,”
replied the knight.--“Ay, that is English for a sorry fellow,” said the
justice. “Every idle vagabond, who has neither home nor habitation,
trade nor profession, designs himself a gentleman. But I must know how
you live?”--“Upon my means.”--“What are your means?”--“My estate.”
“Whence does it arise?”--“From inheritance.”--“Your estate lies in brass,
and that you have inherited from nature; but do you inherit lands and
tenements?”--“Yes.”--“But they are neither here nor there, I doubt.
Come, come, friend, I shall bring you about presently.” Here the
examination was interrupted by the arrival of Mr. Fillet the surgeon, who
chancing to pass, and seeing a crowd about the door, went in to satisfy
his curiosity.