Pelham — Complete

“I pity that man even more than I admire him,” said Vincent to me, one night when we were walking home from Glanville’s house. “His is, indeed, the disease nulla medicabilis herba. Whether it is the past or the present that afflicts him—whether it is the memory of past evil, or the satiety of present good, he has taken to his heart the bitterest philosophy of life. He does not reject its blessings—he gathers them around him, but as a stone gathers moss—cold, hard, unsoftened by the freshness and the greenness which surround it. As a circle can only touch a circle in one place, every thing that life presents to him, wherever it comes from—to whatever portion of his soul it is applied—can find but one point of contact; and that is the soreness of affliction: whether it is the oblivio or the otium that he requires, he finds equally that he is for ever in want of one treasure:—‘neque gemmis neque purpura venale nec auro.’”

CHAPTER XLVIII

Mons. Jourdain. Etes-vous fou de l'aller quereller' lui qui entend la tierce et la quarte, et qui sait tuer un homme par raison demonstrative?

Le Maitre a Danser. Je me moque de sa raison demonstrative, et de sa tierce et de sa quarte.

    —Moliere.

“Hollo, my good friend; how are you?—d—d glad to see you in England,” vociferated a loud, clear, good-humoured voice, one cold morning, as I was shivering down Brook-street, into Bond-street. I turned, and beheld Lord Dartmore, of Rocher de Cancale memory. I returned his greeting with the same cordiality with which it was given: and I was forthwith saddled with Dartmore’s arm, and dragged up Bond-street, into that borough of all noisy, riotous, unrefined, good fellows—yclept—‘s Hotel.

Here we were soon plunged into a small, low apartment, which Dartmore informed me was his room. It was crowded with a score of masculine looking youths, at whose very appearance my gentler frame shuddered from head to foot. However, I put as good a face on the matter as I possibly could, and affected a freedom and frankness of manner, correspondent with the unsophisticated tempers with which I was so unexpectedly brought into contact.

Dartmore was still gloriously redolent of Oxford: his companions were all extracts from Christchurch; and his favourite occupations were boxing and hunting—scenes at the Fives’ Court—nights in the Cider Cellar—and mornings at Bowstreet. Figure to yourself a fitter companion for the hero and writer of these adventures! The table was covered with boxing gloves, single sticks, two ponderous pair of dumb bells, a large pewter pot of porter, and four foils; one snapped in the middle.

“Well,” cried Dartmore, to two strapping youths, with their coats off, “which was the conqueror?”

“Oh, it is not yet decided,” was the answer; and forthwith the bigger one hit the lesser a blow, with his boxing glove, heavy enough to have felled Ulysses, who, if I recollect aright, was rather ‘a game blood’ in such encounters.

This slight salute was forthwith the prelude to an encounter, which the whole train crowded round to witness. I, among the rest, pretending an equal ardour, and an equal interest, and hiding, like many persons in a similar predicament, a most trembling spirit beneath a most valorous exterior.

When the match (which terminated in favour of the lesser champion) was over, “Come, Pelham,” said Dartmore, “let me take up the gloves with you?”

“You are too good!” said I, for the first time using my drawing-room drawl. A wink and a grin went round the room.

“Well, then, will you fence with Staunton, or play at single sticks with me?” said the short, thick, bullying, impudent, vulgar Earl of Calton.

“Why,” answered I, “I am a poor hand at the foils, and a still worse at the sticks; but I have no objection to exchange a cut or two at the latter with Lord Calton.”

“No, no!” said the good-natured Dartmore;—“no, Calton is the best stick-player I ever knew;” and then, whispering me, he added, “and the hardest hitter—and he never spares, either.”

“Really,” said I aloud, in my most affected tone, “it is a great pity, for I am excessively delicate; but as I said I would engage him, I don’t like to retract. Pray let me look at the hilt: I hope the basket is strong: I would not have my knuckles rapped for the world—now for it. I’m in a deuced fright, Dartmore;” and so saying, and inwardly chuckling at the universal pleasure depicted in the countenances of Calton and the by-standers, who were all rejoiced at the idea of the “dandy being drubbed,” I took the stick, and pretended great awkwardness, and lack of grace in the position I chose.

Calton placed himself in the most scientific attitude, assuming at the same time an air of hauteur and nonchalance, which seemed to call for the admiration it met.

“Do we make hard hitting?” said I.

“Oh! by all means,” answered Calton, eagerly.

“Well,” said I, settling on my own chapeau, “had not you better put on your hat?”

“Oh, no,” answered Calton, imperiously; “I can take pretty good care of my head;” and with these words we commenced.

I remained at first nearly upright, not availing myself in the least of my superiority in height, and only acting on the defensive. Calton played well enough for a gentleman; but he was no match for one who had, at the age of thirteen, beat the Life Guardsmen at Angelo’s. Suddenly, when I had excited a general laugh at the clumsy success with which I warded off a most rapid attack of Calton’s, I changed my position, and keeping Calton at arm’s length till I had driven him towards a corner, I took advantage of a haughty imprudence on his part, and by a common enough move in the game, drew back from a stroke aimed at my limbs, and suffered the whole weight of my weapon to fall so heavily upon his head, that I felled him to the ground in an instant.

I was sorry for the severity of the stroke, the moment after it was inflicted; but never was punishment more deserved. We picked up the discomfited hero, and placed him on a chair to recover his senses; meanwhile I received the congratulations of the conclave with a frank alteration of manner which delighted them; and I found it impossible to get away, till I had promised to dine with Dartmore, and spend the rest of the evening in the society of his friends.

CHAPTER XLIX

Heroes mischievously gay,
Lords of the street and terrors of the way,
Flush'd as they are with folly, youth, and wine.

    —Johnson's London.

Hol. Novi hominem tanquam te—his humour is lofty, his discourse peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye ambitious, his gait majestical, and his general behaviour vain, ridiculous, and thrasonical.

    —Shakspeare.

I went a little after seven o’clock to keep my dinner engagement at—-’s; for very young men are seldom unpunctual at dinner. We sat down, six in number, to a repast at once incredibly bad, and ridiculously extravagant; turtle without fat—venison without flavour—champagne with the taste of a gooseberry, and hock with the properties of a pomegranate. [Note: Pomum valde purgatorium.] Such is the constant habit of young men: they think any thing expensive is necessarily good, and they purchase poison at a dearer rate than the most medicine-loving hypochondriac in England.

Of course, all the knot declared the dinner was superb; called in the master to eulogize him in person, and made him, to his infinite dismay, swallow a bumper of his own hock. Poor man, they mistook his reluctance for his diffidence, and forced him to wash it away in another potation. With many a wry face of grateful humility, he left the room, and we then proceeded to pass the bottle with the suicidal determination of defeated Romans. You may imagine that we were not long in arriving at the devoutly wished for consummation of comfortable inebriety; and with our eyes reeling, our cheeks burning, and our brave spirits full ripe for a quarrel, we sallied out at eleven o’clock, vowing death, dread, and destruction to all the sober portion of his majesty’s subjects.

We came to a dead halt in Arlington-street, which, as it was the quietest spot in the neighbourhood, we deemed a fitting place for the arrangement of our forces. Dartmore, Staunton, (a tall, thin, well formed, silly youth,) and myself, marched first, and the remaining three followed. We gave each other the most judicious admonitions as to propriety of conduct, and then, with a shout that alarmed the whole street, we renewed our way. We passed on safely enough till we got to Charing-Cross, having only been thrice upbraided by the watchmen, and once threatened by two carmen of prodigious size, to whose wives or sweethearts we had, to our infinite peril, made some gentle overtures. When, however, we had just passed the Opera Colonnade, we were accosted by a bevy of buxom Cyprians, as merry and as drunk as ourselves. We halted for a few minutes in the midst of the kennel, to confabulate with our new friends, and a very amicable and intellectual conversation ensued. Dartmore was an adept in the art of slang, and he found himself fairly matched, by more than one of the fair and gentle creatures by whom we were surrounded. Just, however, as we were all in high glee, Staunton made a trifling discovery, which turned the merriment of the whole scene into strife, war, and confusion. A bouncing lass, whose hands were as ready as her charms, had quietly helped herself to a watch which Staunton wore, a la mode, in his waistcoat pocket. Drunken as the youth was at that time, and dull as he was at all others, he was not without the instinctive penetration with which all human bipeds watch over their individual goods and chattels. He sprung aside from the endearments of the syren, grasped her arm, and in a voice of querulous indignation, accused her of the theft.

“Then rose the cry of women—shrill As shriek of gosshawk on the hill.”

Never were my ears so stunned. The angry authors in the adventures of Gil Blas, were nothing to the disputants in the kennel at Charing Cross; we rowed, swore, slanged with a Christian meekness and forbearance, which would have rejoiced Mr. Wilberforce to the heart, and we were already preparing ourselves for a more striking engagement, when we were most unwelcomely interrupted by the presence of three watchmen.

“Take away this—this—d—d woman,” hiccuped out Staunton, “She has sto—len—(hiccup)—my watch”—(hiccup.)

“No such thing, watchman,” hallooed out the accused, “the b—counter-skipper never had any watch! he only filched a twopenny-halfpenny gilt chain out of his master, Levi, the pawnbroker’s window, and stuck it in his eel-skin to make a show: ye did, ye pitiful, lanky-chopped son of a dog-fish, ye did.”

“Come, come,” said the watchman, “move on, move on.”

“You be d—d, for a Charley!” said one of our gang.

“Ho! ho! master jackanapes, I shall give you a cooling in the watch-house, if you tips us any of your jaw. I dare say the young oman here, is quite right about ye, and ye never had any watch at all, at all.”

“You are a d—d liar,” cried Staunton; “and you are all in with each other, like a pack of rogues as you are.”

“I’ll tell ye what, young gemman,” said another watchman, who was a more potent, grave, and reverend senior than his comrades, “if you do not move on instantly, and let those decent young omen alone, I’ll take you all up before Sir Richard.”

“Charley, my boy,” said Dartmore, “did you ever get thrashed for impertinence?”

The last mentioned watchman took upon himself the reply to this interrogatory by a very summary proceeding: he collared Dartmore, and his companions did the same kind office to us. This action was not committed with impunity: in an instant two of the moon’s minions, staffs, lanterns, and all, were measuring their length at the foot of their namesake of royal memory; the remaining Dogberry was, however, a tougher assailant; he held Staunton so firmly in his gripe, that the poor youth could scarcely breathe out a faint and feeble d—ye of defiance, and with his disengaged hand he made such an admirable use of his rattle, that we were surrounded in a trice.

As when an ant-hill is invaded, from every quarter and crevice of the mound arise and pour out an angry host, of whose previous existence the unwary assailant had not dreamt; so from every lane, and alley, and street, and crossing, came fast and far the champions of the night.

“Gentlemen,” said Dartmore, “we must fly—sauve qui peut.” We wanted no stronger admonition, and, accordingly, all of us who were able, set off with the utmost velocity with which God had gifted us. I have some faint recollection that I myself headed the flight. I remember well that I dashed up the Strand, and dashed down a singular little shed, from which emanated the steam of tea, and a sharp, querulous scream of “All hot—all hot! a penny a pint.” I see, now, by the dim light of retrospection, a vision of an old woman in the kennel, and a pewter pot of mysterious ingredients precipitated into a greengrocer’s shop, “te virides inter lauros,” as Vincent would have said. On we went, faster and faster, as the rattle rung in our ears, and the tramp of the enemy echoed after us in hot pursuit.

“The devil take the hindmost,” said Dartmore, breathlessly (as he kept up with me).

“The watchman has saved his majesty the trouble,” answered I, looking back and seeing one of our friends in the clutch of the pursuers.

“On, on!” was Dartmore’s only reply.

At last, after innumerable perils, and various immersements into back passages, and courts, and alleys, which, like the chicaneries of law, preserved and befriended us, in spite of all the efforts of justice, we fairly found ourselves in safety in the midst of a great square.