The knight Sir Launcelot, and the novice Crowe, retreated with equal
order and expedition to the distance of half a league from the field of
battle, where the former, halting, proposed to make a lodgment in a very
decent house of entertainment, distinguished by the sign of St. George of
Cappadocia encountering the dragon, an achievement in which temporal and
spiritual chivalry were happily reconciled. Two such figures alighting
at the inn gate did not pass through the yard unnoticed and unadmired by
the guests and attendants, some of whom fairly took to their heels, on
the supposition that these outlandish creatures were the avant-couriers
or heralds of a French invasion. The fears and doubts, however, of those
who ventured to stay were soon dispelled, when our hero accosted them in
the English tongue, and with the most courteous demeanour desired to be
shown into an apartment.
Had Captain Crowe been spokesman, perhaps their suspicions would not have
so quickly subsided, for he was, in reality, a very extraordinary novice,
not only in chivalry, but also in his external appearance, and
particularly in those dialects of the English language which are used by
the terrestrial animals of this kingdom. He desired the ostler to take
his horse in tow, and bring him to his moorings in a safe riding. He
ordered the waiter, who showed them into a parlour, to bear a hand, ship
his oars, mind his helm, and bring alongside a short allowance of brandy
or grog, that he might cant a slug into his bread-room, for there was
such a heaving and pitching, that he believed he should shift his
ballast. The fellow understood no part of this address but the word
brandy, at mention of which he disappeared. Then Crowe, throwing himself
into an elbow chair, “Stop my hawse-holes,” cried he, “I can’t think
what’s the matter, brother; but, egad, my head sings and simmers like a
pot of chowder. My eyesight yaws to and again, d’ye see; then there’s
such a walloping and whushing in my hold--smite me--Lord have mercy upon
us. Here, you swab, ne’er mind the glass, hand me the noggin.”
The latter part of this address was directed to the waiter, who had
returned with a quartern of brandy, which Crowe, snatching eagerly,
started into his bread-room at one cant. Indeed, there was no time to be
lost, inasmuch as he seemed to be on the verge of fainting away when he
swallowed this cordial, by which he was instantaneously revived.
He then desired the servant to unbuckle the straps of his helmet, but
this was a task which the drawer could not perform, even though assisted
with the good offices of Sir Launcelot, for the head and jaws were so
much swelled with the discipline they had undergone, that the straps and
buckles lay buried, as it were, in pits formed by the tumefaction of the
adjacent parts.
Fortunately for the novice, a neighbouring surgeon passed by the door on
horseback, a circumstance which the waiter, who saw him from the window,
no sooner disclosed, than the knight had recourse to his assistance.
This practitioner having viewed the whole figure, and more particularly
the head of Crowe, in silent wonder, proceeded to feel his pulse, and
then declared, that as the inflammation was very great, and going on with
violence to its acme, it would be necessary to begin with copious
phlebotomy, and then to empty the intestinal canal. So saying, he began
to strip the arm of the captain, who perceiving his aim, “Avast,
brother,” cried he, “you go the wrong way to work; you may as well
rummage the afterhold when the damage is in the forecastle; I shall right
again when my jaws are unhooped.”
With these words he drew a clasp-knife from his pocket, and, advancing to
a glass, applied it so vigorously to the leathern straps of his
headpiece, that the gordian knot was cut, without any other damage to his
face than a moderate scarification, which, added to the tumefaction of
features naturally strong, and a whole week’s growth of a very bushy
beard, produced on the whole a most hideous caricatura. After all, there
was a necessity for the administration of the surgeon, who found divers
contusions on different parts of the skull, which even the tin cap had
not been able to protect from the weapons of the rustics.
These being shaved and dressed secundum artem, and the operator dismissed
with a proper acknowledgment, our knight detached one of the post-boys to
the field of action for intelligence concerning Mr. Clarke and squire
Timothy, and, in the interim, desired to know the particulars of Crowe’s
adventures since he parted from him at the White Hart.
A connected relation, in plain English, was what he had little reason to
expect from the novice, who, nevertheless, exerted his faculties to the
uttermost for his satisfaction. He give him to understand, that in
steering his course to Birmingham, where he thought of fitting himself
with tackle, he had fallen in, by accident, at a public-house, with an
itinerant tinker, in the very act of mending a kettle; that, seeing him
do his business like an able workman, he had applied to him for advice,
and the tinker, after having considered the subject, had undertaken to
make him such a suit of armour as neither sword nor lance should
penetrate; that they adjourned to the next town, where the leather coat,
the plates of tinned iron, the lance, and the broadsword, were purchased,
together with a copper saucepan, which the artist was now at work upon in
converting it to a shield; but in the meantime, the captain, being
impatient to begin his career of chivalry, had accommodated himself with
a pot-lid, and taken to the highway, notwithstanding all the entreaties,
tears, and remonstrances of his nephew, Tom Clarke, who could not however
be prevailed upon to leave him in the dangerous voyage he had undertaken.
That this being but the second day of his journey, he descried five or
six men on horseback bearing up full in his teeth, upon which he threw
his sails aback, and prepared for action; that he hailed them at a
considerable distance, and bade them bring to; when they came alongside,
notwithstanding his hail, he ordered them to clew up their courses, and
furl their topsails, otherwise he would be foul of their quarters; that,
hearing this salute, they luffed all at once, till their cloth shook in
the wind; then he hallooed in a loud voice, that his sweetheart, Besselia
Mizzen, were the broad pendant of beauty, to which they must strike their
topsails on pain of being sent to the bottom; that, after having eyed him
for some time with astonishment, they clapped on all their sails, some of
them running under his stern, and others athwart his forefoot, and got
clear off; that, not satisfied with running ahead, they all of a sudden
tacked about, and one of them boarding him on the lee-quarter, gave him
such a drubbing about his upper works, that the lights danced in his
lanterns; that he returned the salute with his hop-pole so effectually
that his aggressor broached to in the twinkling of a handspike, and then
he was engaged with all the rest of the enemy, except one, who sheered
off, and soon returned with a mosquito fleet of small craft, who had done
him considerable damage, and, in all probability, would have made prize
of him, had n’t he been brought off by the knight’s gallantry. He said,
that in the beginning of the conflict Tom Clarke rode up to the foremost
of the enemy, as he did suppose in order to prevent hostilities, but
before he got up to him near enough to hold discourse, he was pooped with
a sea that almost sent him to the bottom, and then towed off he knew not
whither.
Crowe had scarce finished his narration, which consisted of broken hints
and unconnected explosions of sea terms, when a gentleman of the
neighbourhood, who acted in the commission of the peace, arrived at the
gate, attended by a constable, who had in custody the bodies of Thomas
Clarke and Timothy Crabshaw, surrounded by five men on horseback, and an
innumerable posse of men, women, and children, on foot. The captain, who
always kept a good look-out, no sooner descried this cavalcade and
procession, than he gave notice to Sir Launcelot, and advised that they
should crowd away with all the cloth they could carry. Our adventurer
was of another opinion, and determined, at any rate, to procure the
enlargement of the prisoners.
The justice, ordering his attendants to stay without the gate, sent his
compliments to Sir Launcelot Greaves, and desired to speak with him for a
few minutes. He was immediately admitted, and could not help staring at
sight of Crowe, who, by this time, had no remains of the human
physiognomy, so much was the swelling increased and the skin discoloured.
The gentleman, whose name was Mr. Elmy, having made a polite apology for
the liberty he had taken, proceeded to unfold his business. He said,
information had been lodged with him, as a justice of the peace, against
two armed men on horseback, who had stopped five farmers on the king’s
highway, put them in fear and danger of their lives, and even assaulted,
maimed, and wounded divers persons, contrary to the king’s peace, and in
violation of the statute; that, by the description, he supposed the
knight and his companion to be the persons against whom the complaint had
been lodged; and, understanding his quality from Mr. Clarke, whom he had
known in London, he was come to wait upon him, and, if possible, effect
an accommodation.
Our adventurer having thanked him for the polite and obliging manner in
which he proceeded, frankly told him the whole story, as it had been just
related by the captain; and Mr. Elmy had no reason to doubt the truth of
the narrative, as it confirmed every circumstance which Clarke had before
reported. Indeed, Tom had been very communicative to this gentleman, and
made him acquainted with the whole history of Sir Launcelot Greaves, as
well as with the whimsical resolution of his uncle, Captain Crowe. Mr.
Elmy now told the knight, that the persons whom the captain had stopped
were farmers, returning from a neighbouring market, a set of people
naturally boorish, and at that time elevated with ale to an uncommon
pitch of insolence; that one of them, in particular, called Prickle, was
the most quarrelsome fellow in the whole county; and so litigious, that
he had maintained above thirty lawsuits, in eight-and-twenty of which he
had been condemned in costs. He said the others might be easily
influenced in the way of admonition; but there was no way of dealing with
Prickle, except by the form and authority of the law. He therefore
proposed to hear evidence in a judicial capacity, and his clerk being in
attendance, the court was immediately opened in the knight’s apartment.
By this time Mr. Clarke had made such good use of his time in explaining
the law to his audience, and displaying the great wealth and unbounded
liberality of Sir Launcelot Greaves, that he had actually brought over to
his sentiments the constable and the commonalty, tag-rag, and bob-tail,
and even staggered the majority of the farmers, who, at first, had
breathed nothing but defiance and revenge. Farmer Stake being first
called to the bar, and sworn touching the identity of Sir Launcelot
Greaves and Captain Crowe, declared, that the said Crowe had stopped him
on the king’s highway, and put him in bodily fear; that he afterwards saw
the said Crowe with a pole or weapon, value threepence, breaking the
king’s peace, by committing assault and battery against the heads and
shoulders of his majesty’s liege subjects, Geoffrey Prickle, Hodge Dolt,
Richard Bumpkin, Mary Fang, Catherine Rubble, and Margery Litter; and
that he saw Sir Launcelot Greaves, Baronet, aiding, assisting, and
comforting the said Crowe, contrary to the king’s peace, and against the
form of the statute.
Being asked if the defendant, when he stopped them, demanded their money,
or threatened violence, he answered he could not say, inasmuch as the
defendant spoke in an unknown language. Being interrogated if the
defendant did not allow them to pass without using any violence, and if
they did not pass unmolested, the deponent replied in the affirmative.
Being required to tell for what reason they returned, and if the
defendant Crowe was not assaulted before he began to use his weapon, the
deponent made no answer. The depositions of farmer Bumpkin and Muggins,
as well as of Madge Litter and Mary Fang, were taken to much the same
purpose; and his worship earnestly exhorted them to an accommodation,
observing, that they themselves were in fact the aggressors, and that
Captain Crowe had done no more than exerted himself in his own defence.
They were all pretty well disposed to follow his advice, except farmer
Prickle, who, entering the court with a bloody handkerchief about his
head, declared that the law should determine it at next ‘size; and in the
meantime insisted that the defendants should find immediate bail, or go
to prison, or be set in the stocks. He affirmed that they had been
guilty of an affray, in appearing with armour and weapons not usually
worn, to the terror of others, which is in itself a breach of the peace;
but that they had, moreover, with force of arms, that is to say, with
swords, staves, and other warlike instruments, by turns, made an assault
and affray, to the terror and disturbance of him and divers subjects of
our lord the King, then and there being, and to the evil and pernicious
example of the liege people of the said lord the King, and against the
peace of our said lord the King, his crown and dignity.
The peasant had purchased a few law terms at a considerable expense, and
he thought he had a right to turn his knowledge to the annoyance of all
his neighbours. Mr. Elmy, finding him obstinately deaf to all proposals
of accommodation, held the defendants to very moderate bail, the landlord
and the curate of the parish freely offering themselves as sureties. Mr.
Clarke, with Timothy Crabshaw, against whom nothing appeared, were now
set at liberty; when the former, advancing to his worship, gave
information against Geoffrey Prickle, and declared upon oath that he had
seen him assault Captain Crowe without any provocation; and when he, the
deponent, interposed to prevent further mischief, the said Prickle had
likewise assaulted and wounded him, the deponent, and detained him for
some time in false imprisonment, without warrant or authority.
In consequence of this information, which was corroborated by divers
evidences, selected from the mob at the gate, the tables were turned upon
farmer Prickle, who was given to understand, that he must either find
bail, or be forthwith imprisoned. This honest boor, who was in opulent
circumstances, had made such popular use of the benefits he possessed,
that there was not a housekeeper in the parish who would not have
rejoiced to see him hanged. His dealings and connexions, however, were
such, that none of the other four would have refused to bail him, had not
Clarke given them to understand that, if they did, he would make them all
principals and parties, and have two separate actions against each.
Prickle happened to be at variance with the innkeeper, and the curate
durst not disoblige the vicar, who at that very time was suing the farmer
for the small tithes. He offered to deposit a sum equal to the
recognisance of the knight’s bail; but this was rejected, as an expedient
contrary to the practice of the courts. He sent for the attorney of the
village, to whom he had been a good customer; but the lawyer was hunting
evidence in another county. The exciseman presented himself as a surety;
but he not being an housekeeper, was not accepted. Divers cottagers, who
depended on farmer Prickle, were successively refused, because they could
not prove that they had paid scot and lot, and parish taxes.
The farmer, finding himself thus forlorn, and in imminent danger of
visiting the inside of a prison, was seized with a paroxysm of rage,
during which he inveighed against the bench, reviled the two adventurers
errant, declared that he believed, and would lay a wager of twenty
guineas, that he had more money in his pocket than e’er a man in the
company; and in the space of a quarter of an hour swore forty oaths,
which the justice did not fail to number. “Before we proceed to other
matters,” said Mr. Elmy, “I order you to pay forty shillings for the
oaths you have sworn, otherwise I will cause you to be set in the stocks
without further ceremony.”
Prickle, throwing down a couple of guineas, with two execrations more to
make up the sum, declared that he could afford to pay for swearing as
well as e’er a justice in the county, and repeated his challenge of the
wager, which our adventurer now accepted, protesting, at the same time,
that it was not a step taken from any motive of pride, but entirely with
a view to punish an insolent plebeian, who could not otherwise be
chastised without a breach of the peace. Twenty guineas being deposited
on each side in the hands of Mr. Elmy, Prickle, with equal confidence and
despatch, produced a canvas bag, containing two hundred and seventy
pounds, which, being spread upon the table, made a very formidable show,
that dazzled the eyes of the beholders, and induced many of them to
believe he had ensured his conquest.
Our adventurer, asking if he had anything further to offer, and being
answered in the negative, drew forth, with great deliberation, a
pocket-book, in which there was a considerable parcel of bank-notes,
from which he selected three of one hundred pounds each, and exhibited
them upon the table, to the astonishment of all present. Prickle, mad
with his overthrow and loss, said, it might be necessary to make him
prove the notes were honestly come by; and Sir Launcelot started up, in
order to take vengeance upon him for this insult, but was withheld by the
arms and remonstrances of Mr. Elmy, who assured him that Prickle desired
nothing so much as another broken head, to lay the foundation of a new
prosecution.
The knight, calmed by this interposition, turned to the audience, saying,
with the most affable deportment, “Good people, do not imagine that I
intend to pocket the spoils of such a contemptible rascal. I shall beg
the favour of this worthy gentleman to take up these twenty guineas, and
distribute them as he shall think proper among the poor of the parish;
but, by this benefaction, I do not hold myself acquitted for the share I
had in the bruises some of you have received in this unlucky fray, and
therefore I give the other twenty guineas to be divided among the
sufferers, to each according to the damage he or she shall appear to have
sustained; and I shall consider it as an additional obligation, if Mr.
Elmy will likewise superintend this retribution.”
At the close of this address, the whole yard and gateway rung with
acclamation, while honest Crowe, whose generosity was not inferior even
to that of the accomplished Greaves, pulled out his purse, and declared,
that, as he had begun the engagement, he would at least go share and
share alike in new caulking their seams, and repairing their timbers.
The knight, rather than enter into a dispute with his novice, told him he
considered the twenty guineas as given by them both in conjunction, and
that they would confer together on that subject hereafter.
This point being adjusted, Mr. Elmy assumed all the solemnity of the
magistrate, and addressed himself to Prickle in these words: “Farmer
Prickle, I am both sorry and ashamed to see a man of your years and
circumstances so little respected, that you cannot find sufficient bail
for forty pounds; a sure testimony that you have neither cultivated the
friendship, nor deserved the goodwill of your neighbours. I have heard
of your quarrels and your riots, your insolence and litigious
disposition, and often wished for an opportunity of giving you a proper
taste of the law’s correction. That opportunity now offers; you have, in
the hearing of all these people, poured forth a torrent of abuse against
me, both in the character of a gentleman and of a magistrate. Your
abusing me personally perhaps I should have overlooked with the contempt
it deserves, but I should ill vindicate the dignity of my office as a
magistrate, by suffering you to insult the bench with impunity. I shall
therefore imprison you for contempt, and you shall remain in jail until
you can find bail on the other prosecutions.”
Prickle, the first transports of his anger having subsided, began to be
pricked with the thorns of compunction; he was indeed extremely mortified
at the prospect of being sent to jail so disgracefully. His countenance
fell; and, after a hard internal struggle, while the clerk was employed
in writing the mittimus, he said he hoped his worship would not send him
to prison. He begged pardon of him, and our adventurers, for having
abused them in his passion; and observed, that, as he had received a
broken head, and paid two-and-twenty guineas for his folly, he could not
be said to have escaped altogether without punishment, even if the
plaintiff should agree to exchange releases.
Sir Launcelot, seeing this stubborn rustic effectually humbled, became an
advocate in his favour with Mr. Elmy, and Tom Clarke, who forgave him at
his request; and a mutual release being executed, the farmer was
permitted to depart. The populace were regaled at our adventurer’s
expense; and the men, women, and children, who had been wounded or
bruised in the battle, to the number of ten or a dozen, were desired to
wait upon Mr. Elmy in the morning, to receive the knight’s bounty. The
justice was prevailed upon to spend the evening with Sir Launcelot and
his two companions, for whom supper was bespoke; but the first thing the
cook prepared was a poultice for Crowe’s head, which was now enlarged to
a monstrous exhibition. Our knight, who was all kindness and
complacency, shook Mr. Clarke by the hand, expressing his satisfaction at
meeting with his old friends again; and told him softly, that he had
compliments for him from Mrs. Dolly Cowslip, who now lived with his
Aurelia.
Clarke was confounded at this intelligence, and, after some hesitation,
“Lord bless my soul!” cried he, “I’ll be shot, then, if the pretended
Miss Meadows wa’n’t the same as Miss Darnel!” He then declared himself
extremely glad that poor Dolly had got into such an agreeable situation,
passed many warm encomiums on her goodness of heart and virtuous
inclinations, and concluded with appealing to the knight, whether she did
not look very pretty in her green joseph. In the meantime, he procured a
plaster for his own head, and helped to apply the poultice to that of his
uncle, who was sent to bed betimes with a moderate dose of sack-whey, to
promote perspiration. The other three passed the evening to their mutual
satisfaction; and the justice, in particular, grew enamoured of the
knight’s character, dashed as it was with extravagance.
Let us now leave them to the enjoyment of a sober and rational
conversation, and give some account of other guests, who arrived late in
the evening, and here fixed their night quarters. But as we have already
trespassed on the reader’s patience, we shall give him a short respite,
until the next chapter makes its appearance.