The success of our adventurer, which we have particularised in the last
chapter, could not fail of enhancing his character, not only among those
who knew him, but also among the people of the town to whom he was not an
utter stranger. The populace surrounded the house, and testified their
approbation in loud huzzas. Captain Crowe was more than ever inspired
with veneration for his admired patron, and more than ever determined to
pursue his footsteps in the road of chivalry. Fillet and his friend the
lawyer could not help conceiving an affection, and even a profound
esteem for the exalted virtue, the person, and accomplishments of the
knight, dashed as they were with a mixture of extravagance and insanity.
Even Sir Launcelot himself was elevated to an extraordinary degree of
self-complacency on the fortunate issue of his adventure, and became more
and more persuaded that a knight-errant’s profession might be exercised,
even in England, to the advantage of the community. The only person of
the company who seemed unanimated with the general satisfaction was Mr.
Thomas Clarke. He had, not without good reason, laid it down as a maxim,
that knight-errantry and madness were synonymous terms; and that madness,
though exhibited in the most advantageous and agreeable light, could not
change its nature, but must continue a perversion of sense to the end of
the chapter. He perceived the additional impression which the brain of
his uncle had sustained, from the happy manner in which the benevolence
of Sir Launcelot had so lately operated; and began to fear it would be in
a little time quite necessary to have recourse to a commission of lunacy,
which might not only disgrace the family of the Crowes, but also tend to
invalidate the settlement which the captain had already made in favour of
our young lawyer.
Perplexed with these cogitations, Mr. Clarke appealed to our adventurer’s
own reflection. He expatiated upon the bad consequences that would
attend his uncle’s perseverance in the execution of a scheme so foreign
to his faculties; and entreated him, for the love of God, to divert him
from his purpose, either by arguments or authority; as, of all mankind,
the knight alone had gained such an ascendency over his spirits, that he
would listen to his exhortations with respect and submission.
Our adventurer was not so mad, but that he saw and owned the rationality
of these remarks. He readily undertook to employ all his influence with
Crowe, to dissuade him from his extravagant design; and seized the first
opportunity of being alone with the captain, to signify his sentiments on
this subject. “Captain Crowe,” said he, “you are then determined to
proceed in the course of knight-errantry?” “I am,” replied the seaman,
“with God’s help, d’ye see, and the assistance of wind and weather”--
“What dost thou talk of wind and weather?” cried the knight, in an
elevated tone of affected transport; “without the help of Heaven, indeed,
we are all vanity, imbecility, weakness, and wretchedness; but if thou
art resolved to embrace the life of an errant, let me not hear thee so
much as whisper a doubt, a wish, a hope, or sentiment with respect to any
other obstacle, which wind or weather, fire or water, sword or famine,
danger or disappointment, may throw in the way of thy career. When the
duty of thy profession calls, thou must singly rush upon innumerable
hosts of armed men. Thou must storm the breach in the mouth of batteries
loaded with death and destruction, while, every step thou movest, thou
art exposed to the horrible explosion of subterranean mines, which, being
sprung, will whirl thee aloft in air, a mangled corse, to feed the fowls
of heaven. Thou must leap into the abyss of dreadful caves and caverns,
replete with poisonous toads and hissing serpents; thou must plunge into
seas of burning sulphur; thou must launch upon the ocean in a crazy bark,
when the foaming billows roll mountains high--when the lightning flashes,
the thunder roars, and the howling tempest blows, as if it would commix
the jarring elements of air and water, earth and fire, and reduce all
nature to the original anarchy of chaos. Thus involved, thou must turn
thy prow full against the fury of the storm, and stem the boisterous
surge to thy destined port, though at the distance of a thousand leagues;
thou must”----
“Avast, avast, brother,” exclaimed the impatient Crowe, “you’ve got into
the high latitudes, d’ye see. If so be as you spank it away at that
rate, adad, I can’t continue in tow--we must cast off the rope, or ‘ware
timbers. As for your ‘osts and breeches, and hurling aloft, d’ye see--
your caves and caverns, whistling tuods and serpents, burning brimstone
and foaming billows, we must take our hap--I value ‘em not a rotten
ratline; but as for sailing in the wind’s eye, brother, you must give me
leave--no offence, I hope--I pretend to be a thoroughbred seaman, d’ye
see--and I’ll be d--ned if you, or e’er an arrant that broke biscuit,
ever sailed in a three-mast vessel within five points of the wind,
allowing for variation and lee-way. No, no, brother, none of your tricks
upon travellers--I an’t now to learn my compass.” “Tricks!” cried the
knight, starting up, and laying his hand on the pummel of his sword,
“what! suspect my honour?”
Crowe, supposing him to be really incensed, interrupted him with great
earnestness, saying, “Nay, don’t--what apize!--adds-buntlines!--I didn’t
go to give you the lie, brother, smite my limbs; I only said as how to
sail in the wind’s eye was impossible.” “And I say unto thee,” resumed
the knight, “nothing is impossible to a true knight-errant, inspired and
animated by love.” “And I say unto thee,” hallooed Crowe, “if so be as
how love pretends to turn his hawse-holes to the wind, he’s no seaman,
d’ye see, but a snotty-nosed lubberly boy, that knows not a cat from a
capstan--a don’t.”
“He that does not believe that love is an infallible pilot, must not
embark upon the voyage of chivalry; for, next to the protection of
Heaven, it is from love that the knight derives all his prowess and
glory. The bare name of his mistress invigorates his arm; the
remembrance of her beauty infuses into his breast the most heroic
sentiments of courage, while the idea of her chastity hedges him round
like a charm, and renders him invulnerable to the sword of his
antagonist. A knight without a mistress is a mere nonentity, or, at
least, a monster in nature--a pilot without a compass, a ship without
rudder, and must be driven to and fro upon the waves of discomfiture and
disgrace.”
“An that be all,” replied the sailor, “I told you before as how I’ve got
a sweetheart, as true a hearted girl as ever swung in canvas. What thof
she may have started a hoop in rolling, that signifies nothing; I’ll
warrant her tight as a nut-shell.”
“She must, in your opinion, be a paragon either of beauty or virtue.
Now, as you have given up the last, you must uphold her charms
unequalled, and her person without a parallel.” “I do, I do uphold she
will sail upon a parallel as well as e’er a frigate that was rigged to
the northward of fifty.”
“At that rate, she must rival the attractions of her whom I adore; but
that I say is impossible. The perfections of my Aurelia are altogether
supernatural; and as two suns cannot shine together in the same sphere
with equal splendour, so I affirm, and will prove with my body, that your
mistress, in comparison with mine, is as a glow-worm to the meridian sun,
a rushlight to the full moon, or a stale mackerel’s eye to a pearl of
orient.” “Harkee, brother, you might give good words, however. An we
once fall a-jawing, d’ye see, I can heave out as much bilgewater as
another; and since you besmear my sweetheart, Besselia, I can as well
bedaub your mistress Aurelia, whom I value no more than old junk, pork
slush, or stinking stock-fish.”
“Enough, enough!--such blasphemy shall not pass unchastised. In
consideration of our having fed from the same table, and maintained
together a friendly, though short intercourse, I will not demand the
combat before you are duly prepared. Proceed to the first great town,
where you can be furnished with horse and harnessing, with arms offensive
and defensive; provide a trusty squire, assume a motto and device,
declare yourself a son of chivalry, and proclaim the excellence of her
who rules your heart. I shall fetch a compass; and wheresoever we may
chance to meet, let us engage with equal arms in mortal combat, that
shall decide and determine this dispute.”
So saying, our adventurer stalked with great solemnity into another
apartment; while Crowe, being sufficiently irritated, snapped his fingers
in token of defiance. Honest Crowe thought himself scurvily used by a
man whom he had cultivated with such humility and veneration; and, after
an incoherent ejaculation of sea oaths, went in quest of his nephew, in
order to make him acquainted with this unlucky transaction.
In the meantime, Sir Launcelot, having ordered supper, retired into his
own chamber, and gave a loose to the most tender emotions of his heart.
He recollected all the fond ideas which had been excited in the course of
his correspondence with the charming Aurelia. He remembered, with
horror, the cruel letter he had received from that young lady, containing
a formal renunciation of his attachment, so unsuitable to the whole tenor
of her character and conduct. He revolved the late adventure of the
coach, and the declaration of Mr. Clarke, with equal eagerness and
astonishment; and was seized with the most ardent desire of unravelling a
mystery so interesting to the predominant passion of his heart. All
these mingled considerations produced a kind of ferment in the economy of
his mind, which subsided into a profound reverie, compounded of hope and
perplexity.
From this trance he was waked by the arrival of his squire, who entered
the room with the blood trickling over his nose, and stood before him
without speaking. When the knight asked whose livery was that he wore?
he replied, “‘T is your honour’s own livery; I received it on your
account, and hope as you will quit the score.” Then he proceeded to
inform his master, that two officers of the army having come into the
kitchen, insisted upon having for their supper the victuals which Sir
Launcelot had bespoke; and that he, the squire, objecting to the
proposal, one of them had seized the poker, and basted him with his own
blood; that when he told them he belonged to a knight-errant, and
threatened them with the vengeance of his master, they cursed and abused
him, calling him Sancho Panza, and such dog’s names; and bade him tell
his master, Don Quicksot, that, if he made any noise, they would confine
him to his cage, and lie with his mistress, Dulcinea. “To be sure, sir,”
said he, “they thought you as great a nincompoop as your squire-trimtram,
like master, like man; but I hope as how you will give them a Rowland for
their Oliver.”
“Miscreant!” cried the knight, “you have provoked the gentlemen with your
impertinence, and they have chastised you as you deserve. I tell thee,
Crabshaw, they have saved me the trouble of punishing thee with my own
hands; and well it is for thee, sinner as thou art, that they themselves
have performed the office, for, had they complained to me of thy
insolence and rusticity, by Heaven! I would have made thee an example to
all the impudent squires upon the face of the earth. Hence, then!
avaunt, caitiff! let his majesty’s officers, who perhaps are fatigued
with hard duty in the service of their country, comfort themselves with
the supper which was intended for me, and leave me undisturbed to my own
meditations.”
Timothy did not require a repetition of this command, which he forthwith
obeyed, growling within himself, that thenceforward he should let every
cuckold wear his own horns; but he could not help entertaining some
doubts with respect to the courage of his master, who, he supposed, was
one of those hectors who have their fighting days, but are not at all
times equally prepared for the combat.
The knight having taken a slight repast, retired to his repose, and had
for some time enjoyed a very agreeable slumber, when he was startled by a
knocking at his chamber door. “I beg your honour’s pardon,” said the
landlady, “but there are two uncivil persons in the kitchen who have
well-nigh turned my whole house topsy-turvy. Not content with laying
violent hands on your honour’s supper, they want to be rude to two young
ladies who are just arrived, and have called for a post-chaise to go on.
They are afraid to open their chamber door to get out, and the young
lawyer is like to be murdered for taking the ladies’ part.”
Sir Launcelot, though he refused to take notice of the insult which had
been offered to himself, no sooner heard of the distress of the ladies
than he started up, huddled on his clothes, and girding his sword to his
loins, advanced with a deliberate pace to the kitchen, where he perceived
Thomas Clarke warmly engaged in altercation with a couple of young men
dressed in regimentals, who, with a peculiar air of arrogance and
ferocity, treated him with great insolence and contempt. Tom was
endeavouring to persuade them, that, in the constitution of England, the
military was always subservient to the civil power, and that their
behaviour to a couple of helpless young women was not only unbecoming
gentlemen, but expressly contrary to the law, inasmuch as they might be
sued for an assault on an action of damages.
To this remonstrance the two heroes in red replied by a volley of
dreadful oaths, intermingled with threats, which put the lawyer in some
pain for his ears.
While one thus endeavoured to intimidate honest Tom Clarke, the other
thundered at the door of the apartment to which the ladies had retired,
demanding admittance, but received no other answer than a loud shriek.
Our adventurer advancing to this uncivil champion, accosted him thus, in
a grave and solemn tone: “Assuredly I could not have believed, except
upon the evidence of my own senses, that persons who have the appearance
of gentlemen, and bear his majesty’s honourable commission in the army,
could behave so wide of the decorum due to society, of a proper respect
to the laws, of that humanity which we owe to our fellow-creatures, and
that delicate regard for the fair sex which ought to prevail in the
breast of every gentleman, and which in particular dignifies the
character of a soldier. To whom shall that weaker, though more amiable
part of the creation, fly for protection, if they are insulted and
outraged by those whose more immediate duty it is to afford them security
and defence from injury and violence? What right have you, or any man
upon earth, to excite riot in a public inn, which may be deemed a temple
sacred to hospitality; to disturb the quiet of your fellow-guests, some
of them perhaps exhausted by fatigue, some of them invaded by distemper;
to interrupt the king’s lieges in their course of journeying upon their
lawful occasions? Above all, what motive but wanton barbarity could
prompt you to violate the apartment, and terrify the tender hearts of two
helpless young ladies, travelling, no doubt, upon some cruel emergency,
which compels them, unattended, to encounter in the night the dangers of
the highway?”
“Hearkye, Don Bethlem,” said the captain, strutting up, and cocking
his hat in the face of our adventurer, “you may be mad as ever a
straw-crowned monarch in Moorfields, for aught I care, but damme! don’t
you be saucy, otherwise I shall dub your worship with a good stick across
your shoulders.” “How! petulant boy,” cried the knight, “since you are
so ignorant of urbanity, I will give you a lesson that you shall not
easily forget.” So saying, he unsheathed his sword, and called upon the
soldier to draw in his defence.
The reader may have seen the physiognomy of a stockholder at Jonathan’s
when the rebels were at Derby, or the features of a bard when accosted by
a bailiff, or the countenance of an alderman when his banker stops
payment; if he has seen either of these phenomena, he may conceive the
appearance that was now exhibited by the visage of the ferocious captain,
when the naked sword of Sir Launcelot glanced before his eyes; far from
attempting to produce his own, which was of unconscionable length, he
stood motionless as a statue, staring with the most ghastly look of
terror and astonishment. His companion, who partook of his panic, seeing
matters brought to a very serious crisis, interposed with a crest-fallen
countenance, assuring Sir Launcelot they had no intention to quarrel, and
what they had done was entirely for the sake of the frolic.
“By such frolics,” cried the knight, “you become nuisances to society,
bring yourselves into contempt, and disgrace the corps to which you
belong. I now perceive the truth of the observation, that cruelty always
resides with cowardice. My contempt is changed into compassion, and as
you are probably of good families, I must insist upon this young man’s
drawing his sword, and acquitting himself in such a manner as may screen
him from the most infamous censure which an officer can undergo.”
“Lack-a-day, sir,” said the other, “we are no officers, but prentices
to two London haberdashers, travellers for orders; Captain is a good
travelling name, and we have dressed ourselves like officers to procure
more respect upon the road.”
The knight said he was very glad, for the honour of the service, to find
they were impostors, though they deserved to be chastised for arrogating
to themselves an honourable character which they had not spirit to
sustain.
These words were scarce pronounced, when Mr. Clarke approaching one of
the bravadoes, who had threatened to crop his ears, bestowed such a
benediction on his jaw, as he could not receive without immediate
humiliation; while Timothy Crabshaw, smarting from his broken head and
his want of supper, saluted the other with a Yorkshire hug, that laid him
across the body of his companion. In a word, the two pseudo-officers
were very roughly handled, for their presumption in pretending to act
characters for which they were so ill qualified.
While Clarke and Crabshaw were thus laudably employed, the two young
ladies passed through the kitchen so suddenly, that the knight had only a
transient glimpse of their backs, and they disappeared before he could
possibly make a tender of his services. The truth is, they dreaded
nothing so much as their being discovered, and took the first opportunity
of gliding into the chaise, which had been for some time waiting in the
passage.
Mr. Clarke was much more disconcerted than our adventurer by their
sudden escape. He ran with great eagerness to the door, and, perceiving
they were flown, returned to Sir Launcelot, saying, “Lord bless my soul,
sir, didn’t you see who it was?” “Ha! how!” exclaimed the knight,
reddening with alarm, “who was it?” “One of them,” replied the lawyer,
“was Dolly, our old landlady’s daughter at the Black Lion. I knew her
when first she ‘lighted, notwithstanding her being neatly dressed in a
green joseph, which, I’ll assure you, sir, becomes her remarkably well.
--I’d never desire to see a prettier creature. As for the other, she’s a
very genteel woman, but whether old or young, ugly or handsome, I can’t
pretend to say, for she was masked. I had just time to salute Dolly, and
ask a few questions; but all she could tell me was, that the masked
lady’s name was Miss Meadows; and that she, Dolly, was hired as her
waiting-woman.”
When the name of Meadows was mentioned, Sir Launcelot, whose spirits had
been in violent commotion, became suddenly calm and serene, and he began
to communicate to Clarke the dialogue which had passed between him and
Captain Crowe, when the hostess, addressing herself to our errant,
“Well,” said she, “I have had the honour to accommodate many ladies of
the first fashion at the White Hart, both young and old, proud and lowly,
ordinary and handsome; but such a miracle as Miss Meadows I never yet did
see.--Lord, let me never thrive but I think she is of something more than
a human creature!--Oh! had your honour but set eyes on her, you would
have said it was a vision from heaven, a cherubim of beauty:--For my
part, I can hardly think it was anything but a dream--then so meek, so
mild, so good-natured and generous! I say, blessed is the young woman
who tends upon such a heavenly creature:--And, poor dear young lady! she
seems to be under grief and affliction, for the tears stole down her
lovely cheeks, and looked for all the world like orient pearl.”
Sir Launcelot listened attentively to the description, which reminded him
of his dear Aurelia, and sighing bitterly, withdrew to his own apartment.