And first the widow, with a sorrowful countenance, though half-veiled,
pitying her daughter more than herself. The people, the women
especially, who on this occasion will be five-sixths of the spectators,
reproaching her--You'd have the conscience, would you, to have five such
brave gentlemen as these hanged for you know not what?
Next comes the poor maid--who, perhaps, has been ravished twenty times
before; and had not appeared now, but for company-sake; mincing,
simpering, weeping, by turns; not knowing whether she should be sorry
or glad.
But every eye dwells upon Miss!--See, see, the handsome gentleman bows to
her!
To the very ground, to be sure, I shall bow; and kiss my hand.
See her confusion! see! she turns from him!--Ay! that's because it is in
open court, cries an arch one!--While others admire her--Ay! that's a
girl worth venturing one's neck for!
Then we shall be praised--even the judges, and the whole crowded bench,
will acquit us in their hearts! and every single man wish he had been me!
--the women, all the time, disclaiming prosecution, were the case to be
their own. To be sure, Belford, the sufferers cannot put half so good a
face upon the matter as we.
Then what a noise will this matter make!--Is it not enough, suppose us
moving from the prison to the sessions-house,* to make a noble heart
thump it away most gloriously, when such an one finds himself attended to
his trial by a parade of guards and officers, of miens and aspects
warlike and unwarlike; himself of their whole care, and their business!
weapons in their hands, some bright, some rusty, equally venerable for
their antiquity and inoffensiveness! others of more authoritative
demeanour, strutting before with fine painted staves! shoals of people
following, with a Which is he whom the young lady appears against?--
Then, let us look down, look up, look round, which way we will, we shall
see all the doors, the shops, the windows, the sign-irons, and balconies,
(garrets, gutters, and chimney-tops included,) all white-capt, black-
hooded, and periwigg'd, or crop-ear'd up by the immobile vulgus: while
the floating street-swarmers, who have seen us pass by at one place, run
with stretched-out necks, and strained eye-balls, a roundabout way, and
elbow and shoulder themselves into places by which we have not passed, in
order to obtain another sight of us; every street continuing to pour out
its swarms of late-comers, to add to the gathering snowball; who are
content to take descriptions of our persons, behaviour, and countenances,
from those who had the good fortune to have been in time to see us.
* Within these few years past, a passage has been made from the prison to
the sessions-house, whereby malefactors are carried into court without
going through the street. Lovelace's triumph on their supposed march
shows the wisdom of this alteration.
Let me tell thee, Jack, I see not why (to judge according to our
principles and practices) we should not be as much elated in our march,
were this to happen to us, as others may be upon any other the most mob-
attracting occasion--suppose a lord-mayor on his gawdy--suppose a
victorious general, or ambassador, on his public entry--suppose (as I
began with the lowest) the grandest parade that can be supposed, a
coronation--for, in all these, do not the royal guard, the heroic
trained-bands, the pendent, clinging throngs of spectators, with their
waving heads rolling to-and-fro from house-tops to house-bottoms and
street-ways, as I have above described, make the principal part of the
raree-show?
And let me ask thee, if thou dost not think, that either the mayor, the
ambassador, or the general would not make very pitiful figures on their
galas, did not the trumpets and tabrets call together the canaille to
gaze at them?--Nor perhaps should we be the most guilty heroes neither:
for who knows how the magistrate may have obtained his gold chain? while
the general probably returns from cutting of throats, and from murders,
sanctified by custom only.--Caesar, we are told,* had won, at the age of
fifty-six, when he was assassinated, fifty pitched battles, had taken by
assault above a thousand towns, and slain near 1,200,000 men; I suppose
exclusive of those who fell on his own side in slaying them. Are not you
and I, Jack, innocent men, and babes in swaddling-clothes, compared to
Caesar, and to his predecessor in heroism, Alexander, dubbed, for murders
and depredation, Magnus?
* Pliny gives this account, putting the number of men slain at 1,100,092.
See also Lipsius de Constandia.
The principal difference that strikes me in the comparison between us and
the mayor, the ambassador, the general, on their gawdies, is, that the
mob make a greater noise, a louder huzzaing, in the one case than the
other, which is called acclamation, and ends frequently in higher taste,
by throwing dead animals at one another, before they disperse; in which
they have as much joy, as in the former part of the triumph: while they
will attend us with all the marks of an awful or silent (at most only a
whispering) respect; their mouths distended, as if set open with gags,
and their voices generally lost in goggle-ey'd admiration.
Well, but suppose, after all, we are convicted; what have we to do, but
in time make over our estates, that the sheriffs may not revel in our
spoils?--There is no fear of being hanged for such a crime as this, while
we have money or friends.--And suppose even the worst, that two or three
were to die, have we not a chance, each man of us, to escape? The
devil's in them, if they'll hang five for ravishing three!
I know I shall get off for one--were it but for family sake: and being a
handsome fellow, I shall have a dozen or two young maidens, all dressed
in white, go to court to beg my life--and what a pretty show they will
make, with their white hoods, white gowns, white petticoats, white
scarves, white gloves, kneeling for me, with their white handkerchiefs
at their eyes, in two pretty rows, as his Majesty walks through them and
nods my pardon for their sakes!--And, if once pardoned, all is over: for,
Jack, in a crime of this nature there lies no appeal, as in a murder.
So thou seest the worst that can happen, should we not make the grand
tour upon this occasion, but stay and take our trials. But it is most
likely, that they will not prosecute at all. If not, no risque on our
side will be run; only taking our pleasure abroad, at the worst; leaving
friends tired of us, in order, after a time, to return to the same
friends endeared to us, as we to them, by absence.
This, Jack, is my scheme, at the first running. I know it is capable of
improvement--for example: I can land these ladies in France; whip over
before they can get a passage back, or before Hickman can have recovered
his fright; and so find means to entrap my beloved on board--and then all
will be right; and I need not care if I were never to return to England.
Memorandum, To be considered of--Whether, in order to complete my
vengeance, I cannot contrive to kidnap away either James Harlowe or
Solmes? or both? A man, Jack, would not go into exile for nothing.