Three whole days had our adventurer prosecuted his inquiry about the
amiable Aurelia, whom he sought in every place of public and of private
entertainment or resort, without obtaining the least satisfactory
intelligence, when he received one evening, from the hands of a porter,
who instantly vanished, the following billet:
“If you would learn the particulars of Miss Darnel’s fate fail not to be
in the fields by the Foundling Hospital, precisely at seven o’clock this
evening, when you shall be met by a person who will give you the
satisfaction you desire, together with his reason for addressing you in
this mysterious manner.”
Had this intimation concerned any other subject, perhaps the knight would
have deliberated with himself in what manner he should take a hint so
darkly communicated. But his eagerness to retrieve the jewel he had lost
divested him of all his caution; the time of assignation was already at
hand, and neither the captain nor his nephew could be found to accompany
him, had he been disposed to make use of their attendance. He therefore,
after a moment’s hesitation, repaired to the place appointed, in the
utmost agitation and anxiety, lest the hour should be elapsed before his
arrival.
Crowe was one of those defective spirits who cannot subsist for any
length of time on their own bottoms. He wanted a familiar prop, upon
which he could disburden his cares, his doubts, and his humours; an
humble friend who would endure his caprices, and with whom he could
communicate, free of all reserve and restraint. Though he loved his
nephew’s person, and admired his parts, he considered him often as a
little petulant jackanapes, who presumed upon his superior understanding;
and as for Sir Launcelot, there was something in his character that
overawed the seaman, and kept him at a disagreeable distance. He had, in
this dilemma, cast his eyes upon Timothy Crabshaw, and admitted him to a
considerable share of familiarity and fellowship. These companions had
been employed in smoking a social pipe at an alehouse in the
neighbourhood, when the knight made his excursion; and returning to the
house about supper-time, found Mr. Clarke in waiting.
The young lawyer was alarmed when he heard the hour of ten, without
seeing our adventurer, who had been used to be extremely regular in his
economy; and the captain and he supped in profound silence. Finding,
upon inquiry among the servants, that the knight went out abruptly, in
consequence of having received a billet, Tom began to be visited with the
apprehension of a duel, and sat the best part of the night by his uncle,
sweating with the expectation of seeing our hero brought home a
breathless corpse. But no tidings of him arriving, he, about two in the
morning, repaired to his own lodging, resolved to publish a description
of Sir Launcelot in the newspapers, if he should not appear next day.
Crowe did not pass the time without uneasiness. He was extremely
concerned at the thought of some mischief having befallen his friend and
patron; and he was terrified with the apprehensions, that, in case Sir
Launcelot was murdered, his spirit might come and give him notice of his
fate. Now he had an insuperable aversion to all correspondence with the
dead; and taking it for granted that the spirit of his departed friend
could not appear to him except when he should be alone, and a-bed in the
dark, he determined to pass the remainder of the night without going to
bed. For this purpose, his first care was to visit the garret, in which
Timothy Crabshaw lay fast asleep, snoring with his mouth wide open. Him
the captain with difficulty roused, by dint of promising to regale him
with a bowl of rum punch in the kitchen, where the fire, which had been
extinguished, was soon rekindled. The ingredients were fetched from a
public-house in the neighbourhood; for the captain was too proud to use
his interest in the knight’s family, especially at these hours, when all
the rest of the servants had retired to their repose; and he and Timothy
drank together until daybreak, the conversation turning upon hobgoblins,
and God’s revenge against murder.
The cookmaid lay in a little apartment contiguous to the kitchen; and
whether disturbed by these horrible tales of apparitions, or titillated
by the savoury steams that issued from the punch-bowl, she made a virtue
of necessity, or appetite, and dressing herself in the dark, suddenly
appeared before them to the no small perturbation of both. Timothy, in
particular, was so startled, that, in his endeavours to make a hasty
retreat towards the chimney-corner, he overturned the table; the liquor
was spilt, but the bowl was saved by falling on a heap of ashes. Mrs.
Cook having reprimanded him for his foolish fear, declared, she had got
up betimes, in order to scour her saucepans; and the captain proposed to
have the bowl replenished, if materials could be procured. This
difficulty was overcome by Crabshaw; and they sat down with their new
associate to discuss the second edition.
The knight’s sudden disappearing being brought upon the carpet, their
female companion gave it as her opinion, that nothing would be so likely
to bring this affair to light, as going to a cunning man, whom she had
lately consulted about a silver spoon that was mislaid, and who told her
all the things that she ever did, and ever would happen to her through
the whole course of her life.
Her two companions pricked up their ears at this intelligence; and Crowe
asked if the spoon had been found. She answered in the affirmative; and
said the cunning man described to a hair the person that should be her
true lover, and her wedded husband; that he was a seafaring man; that he
was pretty well stricken in years--a little passionate or so; and that he
went with his fingers clinched like, as it were. The captain began to
sweat at this description, and mechanically thrust his hands into his
pockets; while Crabshaw pointing to him, told her he believed she had got
the right sow by the ear. Crowe grumbled, that mayhap for all that he
should not be brought up by such a grappling neither. Then he asked if
this cunning man dealt with the devil, declaring, in that case, he would
keep clear of him; for why? because he must have sold himself to Old
Scratch; and, being a servant of the devil, how could he be a good
subject to his majesty? Mrs. Cook assured him, the conjurer was a good
Christian; and that he gained all his knowledge by conversing with the
stars and planets. Thus satisfied, the two friends resolved to consult
him as soon as it should be light; and being directed to the place of his
habitation, set out for it by seven in the morning.
They found the house forsaken, and had already reached the end of the
lane in their return, when they were accosted by an old woman, who gave
them to understand, that if they had occasion for the advice of a
fortune-teller, as she did suppose they had, from their stopping at the
house where Dr. Grubble lived, she would conduct them to a person of much
more eminence in that profession; at the same time she informed them,
that the said Grubble had been lately sent to Bridewell; a circumstance
which, with all his art, he had not been able to foresee. The captain,
without any scruple, put himself and his companion under convoy of this
beldame, who, through many windings and turnings, brought them to the
door of a ruinous house, standing in a blind alley; which door having
opened with a key drawn from her pocket, she introduced them into a
parlour, where they saw no other furniture than a naked bench, and some
frightful figures on the bare walls, drawn or rather scrawled with
charcoal.
Here she left them locked in, until she should give the doctor notice of
their arrival; and they amused themselves with decyphering these
characters and hieroglyphics. The first figure that engaged their
attention was that of a man hanging upon a gibbet, which both considered
as an unfavourable omen, and each endeavoured to avert from his own
person. Crabshaw observed, that the figure so suspended was clothed in a
sailor’s jacket and trowsers; a truth which the captain could not deny,
but, on the other hand, he affirmed, that the said figure exhibited the
very nose and chin of Timothy, together with the hump on one shoulder. A
warm dispute ensued, and being maintained with much acrimonious
altercation, might have dissolved the new-cemented friendship of those
two originals, had it not been interrupted by the old sibyl, who, coming
into the parlour, intimated that the doctor waited for them above. She
likewise told them, that he never admitted more than one at a time. This
hint occasioned a fresh contest. The captain insisted upon Crabshaw’s
making sail a-head, in order to look out afore; but Timothy persisted in
refusing this honour, declaring he did not pretend to lead, but he would
follow, as in duty bound. The old gentlewoman abridged the ceremony by
leading out Crabshaw with one hand, and locking up Crowe with the other.
The former was dragged upstairs like a bear to the stake, not without
reluctance and terror, which did not at all abate at sight of the
conjurer, with whom he was immediately shut up by his conductress, after
she had told him in a whisper, that he must deposit a shilling in a
little black coffin, supported by a human skull and thigh-bones crossed,
on a stool covered with black baize, that stood in one corner of the
apartment. The squire, having made this offer with fear and trembling,
ventured to survey the objects around him, which were very well
calculated to augment his confusion. He saw divers skeletons hung by the
head, the stuffed skin of a young alligator, a calf with two heads, and
several snakes suspended from the ceiling, with the jaws of a shark, and
a starved weasel. On another funeral table he beheld two spheres,
between which lay a book open, exhibiting outlandish characters, and
mathematical diagrams. On one side stood an ink-standish with paper; and
behind this desk appeared the conjurer himself, in sable vestments, his
head so overshadowed with hair, that, far from contemplating his
features, Timothy could distinguish nothing but a long white beard,
which, for aught he knew, might have belonged to a four-legged goat, as
well as to a two-legged astrologer.
This apparition, which the squire did not eye without manifest
discomposure, extending a white wand, made certain evolutions over the
head of Timothy, and having muttered an ejaculation, commanded him, in a
hollow tone, to come forward and declare his name. Crabshaw, thus
adjured, advanced to the altar; and, whether from design, or (which is
more probable) from confusion, answered, “Samuel Crowe.” The conjurer
taking up the pen, and making a few scratches on the paper, exclaimed, in
a terrific accent, “How! miscreant! attempt to impose upon the stars?--
You look more like a crab than a crow, and was born under the sign of
Cancer.” The squire, almost annihilated by this exclamation, fell upon
his knees, crying, “I pray yaw, my lord conjurer’s worship, pardon my
ignorance, and down’t go to baind me over to the Red Sea like--I’se a
poor Yorkshire tyke, and would no more cheat the stars, than I’d cheat my
own vather, as the saying is--a must be a good hand at trapping, that
catches the stars a napping--but as your honour’s worship observed, my
name is Tim Crabshaw, of the East Raiding, groom and squair to Sir
Launcelot Greaves, baron knaight, and arrant-knaight, who ran mad for a
wench, as your worship’s conjuration well knoweth. The person below is
Captain Crowe; and we coom by Margery Cook’s recommendation, to seek
after my master, who is gone away, or made away, the Lord he knows how
and where.”
Here he was interrupted by the conjurer, who exhorted him to sit down and
compose himself till he should cast a figure; then he scrawled the paper,
and waving his wand, repeated abundance of gibberish concerning the
number, the names, the houses, and revolutions of the planets, with their
conjunctions, oppositions, signs, circles; cycles, trines, and trigons.
When he perceived that this artifice had its proper effect in disturbing
the brain of Crabshaw, he proceeded to tell him from the stars, that his
name was Crabshaw, or Crabscaw; that he was born in the East Riding of
Yorkshire, of poor, yet honest parents, and had some skill in horses; and
that he served a gentleman whose name began with the letter G--, which
gentleman had run mad for love, and left his family; but whether he would
return alive or dead, the stars had not yet determined.
Poor Timothy was thunderstruck to find the conjurer acquainted with all
these circumstances, and begged to know if he might be so bauld as to ax
a question or two about his own fortune. The astrologer pointing to the
little coffin, our squire understood the hint, and deposited another
shilling. The sage had recourse to his book, erected another scheme,
performed once more his airy evolutions with the wand, and having recited
another mystical preamble, expounded the book of fate in these words:
“You shall neither die by war nor water, by hunger or by thirst, nor be
brought to the grave by old age or distemper; but, let me see--ay, the
stars will have it so--you shall be--exalted--hah!--ay, that is--hanged
for horse-stealing.”--“O good my lord conjurer!” roared the squire, “I’d
as lief give forty shillings as be hanged.”--“Peace, sirrah!” cried the
other; “would you contradict or reverse the immutable decrees of fate?
Hanging is your destiny, and hanged you shall be--and comfort yourself
with the reflection, that as you are not the first, so neither will you
be the last to swing on Tyburn tree.” This comfortable assurance
composed the mind of Timothy, and in a great measure reconciled him to
the prediction. He now proceeded in a whining tone, to ask whether he
should suffer for the first fact; whether it would be for a horse or a
mare, and of what colour, that he might know when his hour was come. The
conjurer gravely answered, that he would steal a dappled gelding on a
Wednesday, be cast at the Old Bailey on Thursday, and suffer on a Friday;
and he strenuously recommended it to him to appear in the cart with a
nosegay in one hand, and the Whole Duty of Man in the other. “But if in
case it should be in the winter,” said the squire, “when a nosegay can’t
be had?”--“Why, then,” replied the conjurer, “an orange will do as well.”
These material points being adjusted to the entire satisfaction of
Timothy, he declared he would bestow another shilling to know the fortune
of an old companion, who truly did not deserve so much at his hands, but
he could not help loving him better than e’er a friend he had in the
world. So saying, he dropped a third offering in the coffin, and desired
to know the fate of his horse Gilbert. The astrologer having again
consulted his art, pronounced that Gilbert would die of the staggers, and
his carcase be given to the hounds; a sentence which made a much deeper
impression upon Crabshaw’s mind, than did the prediction of his own
untimely and disgraceful fate. He shed a plenteous shower of tears, and
his grief broke forth in some passionate expressions of tenderness. At
length he told the astrologer he would go and send up the captain, who
wanted to consult him about Margery Cook, because as how she had informed
him that Dr. Grubble had described just such another man as the captain
for her true love; and he had no great stomach to the match, if so be as
the stars were not bent upon their coming together.
Accordingly the squire being dismissed by the conjurer, descended to the
parlour with a rueful length of face, which being perceived by the
captain, he demanded, “What cheer, ho?” with some signs of apprehension.
Crabshaw making no return to this salute, he asked if the conjurer had
taken an observation, and told him anything. Then the other replied, he
had told him more than he desired to know. “Why, an that be the case,”
said the seaman, “I have no occasion to go aloft this trip, brother.”
This evasion would not serve his turn. Old Tisiphone was at hand, and
led him up growling into the hall of audience, which he did not examine
without trepidation. Having been directed to the coffin, where he
presented half a crown, in hope of rendering the fates more propitious,
the usual ceremony was performed, and the doctor addressed him in these
words: “Approach, Raven.” The captain advancing, “You an’t much
mistaken, brother,” said he, “heave your eye into the binnacle, and box
your compass, you’ll find I’m a Crowe, not a Raven, thof indeed they be
both fowls of a feather, as the saying is.”--“I know it,” cried the
conjurer, “thou art a northern crow,--a sea-crow; not a crow of prey, but
a crow to be preyed upon;--a crow to be plucked,--to be flayed,--to be
basted,--to be broiled by Margery upon the gridiron of matrimony.” The
novice changing colour at this denunciation, “I do understand your
signals, brother,” said he, “and if it be set down in the log-book of
fate that we must grapple, why then ‘ware timbers. But as I know how the
land lies, d’ye see, and the current of my inclination sets me off, I
shall haul up close to the wind, and mayhap we shall clear Cape Margery.
But howsomever, we shall leave that reef in the fore top-sail.--I was
bound upon another voyage, d’ye see--to look and to see, and to know if
so be as how I could pick up any intelligence along shore concerning my
friend Sir Launcelot, who slipped his cable last night, and has lost
company, d’ye see.”
“What!” exclaimed the cunning man; “art thou a crow, and canst not smell
carrion? If thou wouldst grieve for Greaves, behold his naked carcase
lies unburied, to feed the kites, the crows, the gulls, the rooks, and
ravens.”--“What! broach’d to?” “Dead as a boil’d lobster.”--“Odd’s
heart, friend, these are the heaviest tidings I have heard these seven
long years--there must have been deadly odds when he lowered his
top-sails--smite my eyes! I had rather the Mufti had foundered at sea,
with myself and all my generation on board--well fare thy soul, flower of
the world! had honest Sam Crowe been within hail--but what signifies
palavering?” Here the tears of unaffected sorrow flowed plentifully down
the furrows of the seaman’s cheeks;--then his grief giving way to his
indignation, “Hark ye, brother conjurer,” said he, “you can spy foul
weather before it comes, d--n your eyes! why did not you give us warning
of this here squall? B--st my limbs! I’ll make you give an account of
this here d--ned, horrid, confounded murder, d’ye see--mayhap you
yourself was concerned, d’ye see.--For my own part, brother, I put my
trust in God, and steer by the compass, and I value not your paw-wawing
and your conjuration of a rope’s end, d’ye see.”
The conjurer was by no means pleased, either with the matter or the
manner of this address. He therefore began to soothe the captain’s
choler, by representing that he did not pretend to omniscience, which was
the attribute of God alone; that human art was fallible and imperfect;
and all that it could perform was to discover certain partial
circumstances of any particular object to which its inquiries were
directed. That being questioned by the other man concerning the cause of
his master’s disappearing, he had exercised his skill upon the subject,
and found reason to believe that Sir Launcelot was assassinated; that he
should think himself happy in being the instrument of bringing the
murderers to justice, though he foresaw they would of themselves save him
that trouble; for they would quarrel about dividing the spoil, and one
would give information against the other.
The prospect of this satisfaction appeased the resentment, and, in some
measure, mitigated the grief of Captain Crowe, who took his leave without
much ceremony; and, being joined by Crabshaw, proceeded with a heavy
heart to the house of Sir Launcelot, where they found the domestics at
breakfast, without exhibiting the least symptom of concern for their
absent master. Crowe had been wise enough to conceal from Crabshaw what
he had learned of the knight’s fate. This fatal intelligence he reserved
for the ear of his nephew, Mr. Clarke, who did not fail to attend him in
the forenoon.
As for the squire, he did nothing but ruminate in rueful silence upon the
dappled gelding, the nosegay, and the predicted fate of Gilbert. Him he
forthwith visited in the stable, and saluted with the kiss of peace.
Then he bemoaned his fortune with tears, and by the sound of his own
lamentation was lulled asleep among the litter.