Pelham — Complete

Here we paused, and after ascertaining our individual safeties, we looked round to ascertain the sum total of the general loss. Alas! we were wofully fully shorn of our beams—we were reduced onehalf: only three out of the six survived the conflict and the flight.

“Half,” (said the companion of Dartmore and myself, whose name was Tringle, and who was a dabbler in science, of which he was not a little vain) “half is less worthy than the whole; but the half is more worthy than nonentity.”

“An axiom,” said I, “not to be disputed; but now that we are safe, and have time to think about it, are you not slightly of opinion that we behaved somewhat scurvily to our better half, in leaving it so quietly in the hands of the Philistines?”

“By no means,” answered Dartmore. “In a party, whose members make no pretensions to sobriety, it would be too hard to expect that persons who are scarcely capable of taking care of themselves, should take care of other people. No; we have, in all these exploits, only the one maxim of self-preservation.”

“Allow me,” said Tringle, seizing me by the coat, “to explain it to you on scientific principles. You will find, in hydrostatics, that the attraction of cohesion is far less powerful in fluids than in solids; viz. that persons who have been converting their ‘solid flesh’ into wine skins, cannot stick so close to one another as when they are sober.”

“Bravo, Tringle!” cried Dartmore; “and now, Pelham, I hope your delicate scruples are, after so luminous an eclaircissement, set at rest for ever.”

“You have convinced me,” said I; “let us leave the unfortunates to their fate, and Sir Richard. What is now to be done?”

“Why, in the first place,” answered Dartmore, “let us reconnoitre. Does any one know this spot?”

“Not I,” said both of us. We inquired of an old fellow, who was tottering home under the same Bacchanalian auspices as ourselves, and found we were in Lincoln’s Inn Fields.

“Which shall we do?” asked I, “stroll home; or parade the streets, visit the Cider-Cellar, and the Finish, and kiss the first lass we meet in the morning bringing her charms and carrots to Covent Garden Market?”

“The latter,” cried Dartmore and Tringle, “without doubt.”

“Come, then,” said I, “let us investigate Holborn, and dip into St. Giles’s, and then find our way into some more known corner of the globe.”

“Amen!” said Dartmore, and accordingly we renewed our march. We wound along a narrow lane, tolerably well known, I imagine, to the gentlemen of the quill, and entered Holborn. There was a beautiful still moon above us, which cast its light over a drowsy stand of hackney coaches, and shed a ‘silver sadness’ over the thin visages and sombre vestments of two guardians of the night, who regarded us, we thought, with a very ominous aspect of suspicion.

We strolled along, leisurely enough, till we were interrupted by a miserable-looking crowd, assembled round a dull, dingy, melancholy shop, from which gleamed a solitary candle, whose long, spinster-like wick was flirting away with an east wind, at a most unconscionable rate. Upon the haggard and worn countenances of the by-standers, was depicted one general and sympathizing expression of eager, envious, wistful anxiety, which predominated so far over the various characters of each, as to communicate something of a likeness to all. It was an impress of such a seal as you might imagine, not the arch-fiend, but one of his subordinate shepherds, would have set upon each of his flock.

Amid this crowd, I recognized more than one face which I had often seen in my equestrian lounges through town, peering from the shoulders of some intrusive, ragamuffin, wagesless lackey, and squealing out of its wretched, unpampered mouth, the everlasting query of “Want your oss held, Sir?” The rest were made up of unfortunate women of the vilest and most ragged description, aged itinerants, with features seared with famine, bleared eyes, dropping jaws, shivering limbs, and all the mortal signs of hopeless and aidless, and, worst of all, breadless infirmity. Here and there an Irish accent broke out in the oaths of national impatience, and was answered by the shrill, broken voice of some decrepit but indefatigable votaress of pleasure—(Pleasure! good God!) but the chief character of the meeting was silence;—silence, eager, heavy, engrossing; and, above them all, shone out the quiet moon, so calm, so holy, so breathing of still happiness and unpolluted glory, as if it never looked upon the traces of human passion, and misery, and sin. We stood for some moments contemplating the group before us, and then, following the steps of an old, withered crone, who, with a cracked cup in her hand, was pushing her way through the throng, we found ourselves in that dreary pandaemonium, at once the origin and the refuge of humble vices—a Gin-shop.

“Poor devils,” said Dartmore, to two or three of the nearest and eagerest among the crowd, “come in, and I will treat you.”

The invitation was received with a promptness which must have been the most gratifying compliment to the inviter; and thus Want, which is the mother of Invention, does not object, now and then, to a bantling by Politeness.

We stood by the counter while our proteges were served, in silent observation. In low vice, to me, there is always something too gloomy, almost too fearful for light mirth; the contortions of the madman are stranger than those of the fool, but one does not laugh at them; the sympathy is for the cause—not the effect.

Leaning against the counter at one corner, and fixing his eyes deliberately and unmovingly upon us, was a man about the age of fifty, dressed in a costume of singular fashion, apparently pretending to an antiquity of taste, correspondent with that of the material. This person wore a large cocked-hat, set rather jauntily on one side,—a black coat, which seemed an omnium gatherum of all abominations that had come in its way for the last ten years, and which appeared to advance equal claims (from the manner it was made and worn), to the several dignities of the art military and civil, the arma and the toga:—from the neck of the wearer hung a blue ribbon of amazing breadth, and of a very surprising assumption of newness and splendour, by no means in harmony with the other parts of the tout ensemble; this was the guardian of an eye-glass of block tin, and of dimensions correspondent with the size of the ribbon. Stuck under the right arm, and shaped fearfully like a sword, peeped out the hilt of a very large and sturdy looking stick, “in war a weapon, in peace a support.”

The features of the man were in keeping with his garb; they betokened an equal mixture of the traces of poverty, and the assumption of the dignities reminiscent of a better day. Two small, light-blue eyes were shaded by bushy, and rather imperious brows, which lowered from under the hat, like Cerberus out of his den. These, at present, wore the dull, fixed stare of habitual intoxication, though we were not long in discovering that they had not yet forgotten to sparkle with all the quickness, and more than the roguery of youth. His nose was large, prominent, and aristocratic; nor would it have been ill formed, had not some unknown cause pushed it a little nearer towards the left ear, than would have been thought, by an equitable judge of beauty, fair to the pretensions of the right. The lines in the countenance were marked as if in iron, and had the face been perfectly composed, must have given to it a remarkably stern and sinister appearance; but at that moment, there was an arch leer about the mouth, which softened, or at least altered, the expression the features habitually wore.

“Sir,” said he, (after a few minutes of silence,) “Sir,” said he, approaching me, “will you do me the honour to take a pinch of snuff?” and so saying, he tapped a curious copper box, with a picture of his late majesty upon it.

“With great pleasure,” answered I, bowing low, “since the act is a prelude to the pleasure of your acquaintance.”

My gentleman of the gin-shop opened his box with an air, as he replied—“It is but seldom that I meet, in places of this description, gentlemen of the exterior of yourself and your friends. I am not a person very easily deceived by the outward man. Horace, Sir, could not have included me, when he said, specie decipimur. I perceive that you are surprised at hearing me quote Latin. Alas! Sir, in my wandering and various manner of life, I may say, with Cicero and Pliny, that the study of letters has proved my greatest consolation. ‘Gaudium mihi,’ says the latter author, ‘et solatium in literis: nihil tam laete quod his non laetius, nihil tam triste quid non per hos sit minus triste.’ God d—n ye, you scoundrel, give me my gin! ar’n’t you ashamed of keeping a gentleman of my fashion so long waiting?” This was said to the sleepy dispenser of the spirituous potations, who looked up for a moment with a dull stare, and then replied, “Your money first, Mr. Gordon—you owe us seven-pence halfpenny already.”

“Blood and confusion! speakest thou to me of halfpence! Know that thou art a mercenary varlet; yes, knave, mark that, a mercenary varlet.” The sleepy Ganymede replied not, and the wrath of Mr. Gordon subsided into a low, interrupted, internal muttering of strange oaths, which rolled and grumbled, and rattled in his throat, like distant thunder.

At length he cheered up a little—“Sir,” said he, addressing Dartmore, “it is a sad thing to be dependant on these low persons; the wise among the ancients were never so wrong as when they panegyrized poverty: it is the wicked man’s tempter, the good man’s perdition, the proud man’s curse, the melancholy man’s halter.”

“You are a strange old cock,” said the unsophisticated Dartmore, eyeing him from head to foot; “there’s half a sovereign for you.”

The blunt blue eyes of Mr. Gordon sharpened up in an instant; he seized the treasure with an avidity, of which the minute after, he seemed somewhat ashamed; for he said, playing with the coin, in an idle, indifferent manner—“Sir, you show a consideration, and, let me add, Sir, a delicacy of feeling, unusual at your years. Sir, I shall repay you at my earliest leisure, and in the meanwhile allow me to say, that I shall be proud of the honour of your acquaintance.”

“Thank-ye, old boy,” said Dartmore, putting on his glove before he accepted the offered hand of his new friend, which, though it was tendered with great grace and dignity, was of a marvellously dingy and soapless aspect.

“Harkye! you d—d son of a gun!” cried Mr. Gordon, abruptly turning from Dartmore, after a hearty shake of the hand, to the man at the counter—“Harkye! give me change for this half sovereign, and be d—d to you—and then tip us a double gill of your best; you whey-faced, liverdrenched, pence-griping, belly-griping, paupercheating, sleepy-souled Arismanes of bad spirits. Come, gentlemen, if you have nothing better to do, I’ll take you to my club; we are a rare knot of us, there—all choice spirits; some of them are a little uncouth, it is true, but we are not all born Chesterfields. Sir, allow me to ask the favour of your name?”

“Dartmore.”

“Mr. Dartmore, you are a gentleman. Hollo! you Liquorpond-street of a scoundrel—having nothing of liquor but the name, you narrow, nasty, pitiful alley of a fellow, with a kennel for a body, and a sink for a soul; give me my change and my gin, you scoundrel! Humph, is that all right, you Procrustes of the counter, chopping our lawful appetites down to your rascally standard of seven-pence half-penny? Why don’t you take a motto, you Paynim dog? Here’s one for you—‘Measure for measure, and the devil to pay!’ Humph, you pitiful toadstool of a trader, you have no more spirit than an empty water-bottle; and when you go to h—ll, they’ll use you to cool the bellows. I say, you rascal, why are you worse off than the devil in a hip bath of brimstone?—because, you knave, the devil then would only be half d—d, and you are d—d all over! Come, gentlemen, I am at your service.”

CHAPTER L

The history of a philosophical vagabond, pursuing novelty, and losing content.

    —Vicar of Wakefield.

We followed our strange friend through the crowd at the door, which he elbowed on either side with the most aristocratic disdain, perfectly regardless of their jokes at his dress and manner; he no sooner got through the throng, than he stopped short (though in the midst of the kennel) and offered us his arm. This was an honour of which we were by no means desirous; for, to say nothing of the shabbiness of Mr. Gordon’s exterior, there was a certain odour in his garments which was possibly less displeasing to the wearer than to his acquaintance. Accordingly, we pretended not to notice this invitation, and merely said, we would follow his guidance.

He turned up a narrow street, and after passing some of the most ill favoured alleys I ever had the happiness of beholding, he stopped at a low door; here he knocked twice, and was at last admitted by a slip-shod, yawning wench, with red arms, and a profusion of sandy hair. This Hebe, Mr. Gordon greeted with a loving kiss, which the kissee resented in a very unequivocal strain of disgustful reproach.

“Hush! my Queen of Clubs; my Sultana Sootina!” said Mr. Gordon; “hush! or these gentlemen will think you in earnest. I have brought three new customers to the club.”

This speech somewhat softened the incensed Houri of Mr. Gordon’s Paradise, and she very civilly asked us to enter.

“Stop!” said Mr. Gordon with an air of importance, “I must just step in and ask the gentlemen to admit you;—merely a form—for a word from me will be quite sufficient.” And so saying, he vanished for about five minutes.

On his return, he said, with a cheerful countenance, that we were free of the house, but that we must pay a shilling each as the customary fee. This sum was soon collected, and quietly inserted in the waistcoat pocket of our chaperon, who then conducted us up the passage into a small back room, where were sitting about seven or eight men, enveloped in smoke, and moistening the fever of the Virginian plant with various preparations of malt. On entering, I observed Mr. Gordon deposit, at a sort of bar, the sum of three-pence, by which I shrewdly surmised he had gained the sum of two and nine-pence by our admission. With a very arrogant air, he proceeded to the head of the table, sat himself down with a swagger, and called out, like a lusty royster of the true kidney, for a pint of purl and a pipe. Not to be out of fashion, we ordered the same articles of luxury.

After we had all commenced a couple of puffs at our pipes, I looked round at our fellow guests; they seemed in a very poor state of body, as might naturally be supposed; and, in order to ascertain how far the condition of the mind was suited to that of the frame, I turned round to Mr. Gordon, and asked him in a whisper to give us a few hints as to the genus and characteristics of the individual components of his club. Mr. Gordon declared himself delighted with the proposal, and we all adjourned to a separate table at the corner of the room, where Mr. Gordon, after a deep draught at the purl, thus began:—“You observe yon thin, meagre, cadaverous animal, with rather an intelligent and melancholy expression of countenance—his name is Chitterling Crabtree: his father was an eminent coal-merchant, and left him L10,000. Crabtree turned politician. When fate wishes to ruin a man of moderate abilities and moderate fortune, she makes him an orator. Mr. Chitterling Crabtree attended all the meetings at the Crown and Anchor—subscribed to the aid of the suffering friends of freedom—harangued, argued, sweated, wrote—was fined and imprisoned—regained his liberty, and married—his wife loved a community of goods no less than her spouse, and ran off with one citizen, while he was running on to the others. Chitterling dried his tears; and contented himself with the reflection, that, in ‘a proper state of things,’ such an event could not have occurred.

“Mr. Crabtree’s money and life were now half gone. One does not subscribe to the friends of freedom and spout at their dinners for nothing. But the worst drop was yet in the cup. An undertaking, of the most spirited and promising nature, was conceived by the chief of the friends, and the dearest familiar of Mr. Chitterling Crabtree. Our worthy embarked his fortune in a speculation so certain of success;—crash went the speculation, and off went the friend—Mr. Crabtree was ruined. He was not, however, a man to despair at trifles. What were bread, meat, and beer, to the champion of equality! He went to the meeting that very night: he said he gloried in his losses—they were for the cause: the whole conclave rang with shouts of applause, and Mr. Chitterling Crabtree went to bed happier than ever. I need not pursue his history farther; you see him here—verbum sat. He spouts at the ‘Ciceronian,’ for half a crown a night, and to this day subscribes sixpence a week to the cause of ‘liberty and enlightenment all over the world.’”

“By Heaven!” cried Dartmore, “he is a fine fellow, and my father shall do something for him.”

Gordon pricked up his ears, and continued,—“Now, for the second person, gentlemen, whom I am about to describe to you. You see that middle-sized, stout man, with a slight squint, and a restless, lowering, cunning expression?”

“What! him in the kerseymere breeches and green jacket?” said I.

“The same,” answered Gordon. “His real name, when he does not travel with an alias, is Job Jonson. He is one of the most remarkable rogues in Christendom; he is so noted a cheat, that there is not a pick-pocket in England who would keep company with him if he had anything to lose. He was the favourite of his father, who intended to leave him all his fortune, which was tolerably large. He robbed him one day on the high road; his father discovered it, and disinherited him. He was placed at a merchant’s office, and rose, step by step, to be head clerk, and intended son-in-law. Three nights before his marriage, he broke open the till, and was turned out of doors the next morning. If you were going to do him the greatest favour in the world, he could not keep his hands out of your pocket till you had done it. In short, he has rogued himself out of a dozen fortunes, and a hundred friends, and managed, with incredible dexterity and success, to cheat himself into beggary and a pot of beer.”

“I beg your pardon,” said I, “but I think a sketch of your own life must be more amusing than that of any one else: am I impertinent in asking for it?”

“Not at all,” replied Mr. Gordon; “you shall have it in as few words as possible.”

“I was born a gentleman, and educated with some pains; they told me I was a genius, and it was not very hard to persuade me of the truth of the assertion. I wrote verses to a wonder—robbed orchards according to military tactics—never played at marbles, without explaining to my competitors the theory of attraction—and was the best informed, mischievous, little rascal in the whole school. My family were in great doubt what to do with so prodigious a wonder; one said the law, another the church, a third talked of diplomacy, and a fourth assured my mother, that if I could but be introduced at court, I should be lord chamberlain in a twelvemonth. While my friends were deliberating, I took the liberty of deciding; I enlisted, in a fit of loyal valour, in a marching regiment; my friends made the best of a bad job, and bought me an ensigncy.

“I recollect I read Plato the night before I went to battle; the next morning they told me I ran away. I am sure it was a malicious invention, for if I had, I should have recollected it; whereas I was in such a confusion that I cannot remember a single thing that happened in the whole course of that day. About six months afterwards, I found myself out of the army, and in gaol; and no sooner had my relations released me from the latter predicament, than I set off on my travels. At Dublin, I lost my heart to a rich widow (as I thought); I married her, and found her as poor as myself. God knows what would have become of me, if I had not taken to drinking; my wife scorned to be outdone by me in any thing; she followed my example, and at the end of a year I followed her to the grave. Since then I have taken warning, and been scrupulously sober.—Betty, my love, another pint of purl.