"I was born, I think," quoth Mother Drum, "in the year 1660, being that of his happy Restoration to the throne of these Realms of his late Sacred Majesty King Charles the Second. My father was a small farmer, who fed his pigs and tended his potato gardens at the foot of the Wicklow Mountains, about twelve miles from the famous city of Dublin. His name was O' something, which it concerns you not to know, youngster, and he had the misfortune to be a Papist. I say the misfortune; for in those days, O well-a-day, as in these too, and more's the shame, to be a Papist meant being a poor, unfortunate creature continually Hunted up and down, Harassed and Harried far worse than any leathern-skinned Beast of Venery that the Gentlemen Blacks pursue in Charlwood Chase. He had suffered much under the iron rule" (these were not exactly Mother Drum's words, for her language was anything, as a rule, but well chosen; but I have polished up her style a little,) "of the cruel Usurper, Oliver Cromwell; that is to say the Redcoated Ironsides of that Bad Man had on three several occasions burnt his Shelling to the ground, stolen his Pigs, and grubbed up his potato ground. Once had they ran away with his wife, (my dear Mother), twice had they half-hanged him to a tree-branch, and at divers intervals had they tortured him by tying lighted matches between his fingers. When, however, His Sacred Majesty was happily restored there were hopes that the poor Romanists would enjoy a little Comfort and Tranquillity; but these Fond aspirations were speedily and cruelly dashed to the ground; for the Anglican Bishops and Clergy being put into possession of the Sees and Benefices of which they had been so long deprived, occupied themselves much more with Hounding Down those who did not live by the Thirty-nine Articles and the Liturgy, than in preaching Peace and Goodwill among all men. So the Papists had a worse time of it than ever. My Father, honest man, tried to temporise between the two parties, but was ever in danger of being shot by his own friends as a Traitor, even if he escaped half-hanging at the hands of the Protestants as a Recusant. Well, after all, Jack high or Jack low, the days must come to an end, and Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter must follow upon one another, and boys and girls were born to my father, and the pigs littered, and were sold at market, and the potatoes grew and were eaten whether Oliver Cromwell, or his son Dickon, or Charles Stuart—I beg pardon, His Sacred Majesty—was uppermost. Thus it was I came into the world in the Restoration year.
"I was a bold, strapping, fearless kind of a girl, much fonder of Romping and Horse-play of the Tomboy order than of the Pursuits and Pastimes of my own sex. The difference was more remarkable, as you know the Irish girls are distinguished above all other Maidens in creation by an extreme Delicacy and Coyness, not to say Prudishness of Demeanour. But Betty—I was christened Elizabeth—was always gammocking and tousling with the Lads instead of holding by her Mother's apron, or demurely sitting by her spinning-wheel, or singing plaintive ballads to herself to the music of the Irish Harp, which, in my time, almost every Farmer's Daughter could Play. Before I was seven years old I could feed the pigs and dig up the potato ground. Before I was ten, I could catch a colt and ride him, barebacked and without bridle, holding on by his mane, round the green in front of my Father's Homestead. Before I was twelve, I was a match for any Boy of my own age at a bout of fisticuffs, ay, and at swinging a blackthorn so as to bring it down with a thwack on the softest part of a gossoon's crown. I knew little of spinning, or playing, or harping; but I could land a trout, and make good play with a pike. I could brew a jug of Punch, and at a jig could dance down the lithest gambriler of those parts, Dan Meagher, the Blind Piper of Swords. Those who knew me used to call me 'Brimstone Betty;' and in my own family I went by the name of the 'Bold Dragoon,' much to the miscontentment of my father, who tried hard to bring me to a more feminine habit of Body and frame of mind, both by affectionate expostulation, and by assiduous larruping with a stirrup leather. But 'twas all of no use. At sixteen I was the greatest Tearcoat of the Country side; and Father Macanasser, the village priest, gave it as his opinion that I must either be married, or sent to Dublin into decent service, or go to Ruination.
"It chanced that one fine summer day, I was gammocking in a hayfield with another lass, a friend of mine, whom I had made almost as bold as myself. We had a cudgel apiece, and were playing at single-stick, in our mad-cap fashion, laughing and screaming like Bedlamites, meanwhile. Only a hedge separated us from the high-road to Dublin, which ran up hill, and by and by came toiling up the hill, sticking every other minute in a rut, or jolting into a hole—for the roads were in infamous condition about here, as, indeed, all over the kingdom of Ireland—a grand coach, all over painting and gilding, drawn by six grey horses, with flowing manes and tails. The two leading pair had postilions in liveries of blue and silver, and great badges of coats-of-arms, and the equipage was further attended by a couple of outriders or yeomen-prickers in the same rich livery, but with cutlasses at their sides, petronels in their holsters, and blunderbusses on their hips, to guard against Tories and Rapparees, who then infested the land, and cared little whether it was Daylight or Moonlight—whether it was in the Green tree or the Dry that they went about their thievish business. The personage to whom this grand coach belonged was a stout, Majestic old Gentleman with a monstrous black periwig, a bright star on his breast, and a broad blue ribbon crossing his plum-coloured velvet doublet. He had dismounted from his heavy coach, while the horses were fagging up hill, and by the help of a great crutch-staff of ebony, ornamented with silver, was toiling after them. Hearing our prattling and laughing, he looked over the hedge and saw us in the very thick of our mimic Combat. This seemed to divert him exceedingly; and although we, seeing so grand a gentleman looking at us, were for suspending our Tomfoolery, and stood, to say the truth, rather shamefaced than otherwise among the haycocks, he bade us with cheery and encouraging words to proceed, and laughed to see us so sparring at one another, till his sides shook again. But all the fire was taken out of our combat, by the presence of so unwonted a Spectator, and after a brief lapse we dropped cudgels, and stood staring and blushing, quite dashed and confused. Then he beckoned us towards him in a most affable manner, and we came awkwardly and timorously, yet still with great curiosity to know what was to follow, through a gap in the hedge, and so stood before him in the road. And then cries out one of the Yeomen-Prickers—'Wenches! drop your best curtsey to his Grace the Duke of O——.' It was, indeed, that famous nobleman, lately Lord Lieutenant, and still one of the highest, mightiest, and most puissant Princes in the Kingdom of Ireland. To be brief, he put a variety of questions to us, respecting our belongings, and at my answers seemed most condescendingly pleased, and at those of my playmate (whose name was Molly O'Flaherty, and who had red hair, and a cast in her eye), but moderately pleased. On her, therefore, he bestowed a gold piece, and so dismissed her; telling her to take care of what her Tom Boy pranks might lead her to. But to me, while conferring the like present, he was good enough to say that I was a spirited lass fit for better things, and that if my Father and Mother would bring me shortly to his House in Dublin, he would see what could be done, to the end of bettering my condition in life. Whereupon he was assisted to his seat by one of four running footmen that tramped by his side, and away he went in his coach and six, leaving me in great joy and contentment. In only a few minutes came after him, not toiling, but bursting up the hill, a whole plump of gallant cavaliers in buff coats, bright corslets, and embroidered bandoliers over them, wearing green plumes in their hats, and flourishing their broadswords in the sunshine. These were the gentlemen of his bodyguard. They questioned me as to my converse with his Grace, and when I told them, laughed and said that I was in luck.
"The Duke of O—— meant me no harm, and I am sure did me none; and yet, my dear, I must date all my misfortunes from the time I was introduced to his Grace. You see that these gentlefolks have so much to think of, and are not in the habit of troubling their heads much as to what becomes of a poor peasant girl, after the whim which may have led them to patronize her has once passed over. My mother made me a new linsey woolsey petticoat, and a snood of scarlet frieze, and I was as fine as ninepence, with the first pair of stockings on that ever I had worn in my life, when I was taken to Dublin to a grand house by the Quay side, to be presented to his Grace. He had almost forgotten who I was, when his Groom of the Chamber procured us an audience. Then he remembered how he had laughed at my gambols with Molly O'Flaherty in the hayfield, and how they amused him, and how he thought my Romping ways might divert My Lady Duchess his Consort, who was a pining, puling, melancholic Temperament, and much afflicted with the Vapours, for want of something to do. So he was pleased to smile upon me again, and to give my mother five pounds, and to promise that I should be well bestowed in his household as a waiting-woman, or Bower-maiden, or some such like capacity; and then he made me a present, as though I were a puppy-dog, to Her Grace the Duchess, and having affairs of state to attend to, thought no more about 'Brimstone Betty.' My sprightly ways and random talk amused her Grace for awhile; but she had too many gewgaws and playthings, and I found, after not many days, that my popularity was on the wane, and that I could not hope to maintain it against the attractions of a French waiting-maid, a monkey, a parrot, a poodle, and a little Dwarfish boy-attendant that was half fiddler and half buffoon. So my consequence faded and faded, and I was sneered at and flouted as a young Savage and a young Irish by the English lacqueys about the House, and I sank from my Lady's keeping-room to the antechamber, and thence to the servant's hall, and thence, after a very brief lapse, to the kitchen, where I was very little better than a Scullish and Plate-washer, and not half so well entreated as Cicely of the Cinders is here. I pined and fretted; but time went on, and to my misfortune I was growing taller and shapelier. I had a very clear skin, and very black hair and eyes, and, though I say it that shouldn't, as neat a leg and foot as you would wish to see in a summer's day, and the men folk told me that I was comely. They only told me so, the false perfidious hounds, for my destruction.
"Well, child, you are too young to understand these things; and I hope that when you grow up, you will not do to poor forlorn girls as I was done by. A dicing soldier fellow that was a hanger-on at my Lord Duke's house, and was called Captain, ran away with me. Of course I was at once discarded from the Great House as a good-for-nothing Light o' love, and was told that if ever I presumed to show my face on the Quay-side again I should be sent to the Spinning House, and whipped. They had better have taken care of me while I was with them. The Captain dressed me up in fine clothes for a month or so, and gave me paint and patches, and took me to the Playhouse with a mask on, and then he got stabbed in a broil after some gambling bout at a China House in Smock Alley, and I was left in the wide world with two satin sacques, a box of cosmetiques, a broken fan, two spade guineas, and little else besides what I stood upright in. Return to my Father and Mother I dared not; for I knew that the tidings of my misconduct had already been conveyed to them, and had half broken their hearts, and my offence was one that is unpardonable in the children of the poorest and humblest of the Irishry. There was Bitter Bread before me, if I chose to follow, as thousands of poor, cozened, betrayed creatures before me had done, a Naughty Life; but this, with unutterable Loathing and Scorn, I cast away from me; and having, from my Dare-devil Temper, a kind of Pride and High Stomach made me determine to earn my livelihood in a bold and original manner. They had taught me to read at the Great House (though I knew not great A from a bowl's foot when I came into it) and so one of the first things I had spelt out was a chap-book ballad of Mary Ambree, the female soldier, that was at the siege of Ghent, and went through all the wars in Flanders in Queen Bess's time. 'What woman has done, woman can do,' cries I to myself, surveying my bold and masculine lineaments, my flashing black eyes, and ruddy tint, my straight, stout limbs, and frank, dashing gait. Ah! I was very different to the fat, pursy, old ale-wife who discourses with you now—in the glass. Without more ado I cut off my long black hair close to my head, stained my hands with walnut juice, (for they had grown white and soft and plump from idling about in the Great House), and went off to a Crimp in the Liberty that was enlisting men (against the law, but here many things are done against both Law and Prophets), for the King of France's service.
"This was in the year '80, and I was twenty years of age. King Louis had then no especial Brigade of Irish Troops—that famous corps not being formed until after the Revolution—and his Scotch Guards, a pinchbeck, purse-proud set of beggarly cavaliers, would not have any Irishry among them. I scorned to deny my lineage, and indeed my tongue would have soon betrayed me, had I done so; and the name I listed under was that of James Moriarty. One name is as good as another when you are going to the wars; and no name is, perchance, the best of any. As James Moriarty, after perfecting myself in musket-drill, and the pike-exercise, in our winter quarters at Dunkirk, I was entered in the Gardes Français, a portion of the renowned Maison du Roy, or Household Troops, and as such went through the second Rhenish campaign, taking my share, and a liberal one too, in killing my fellow-Christians, burning villages, and stealing poultry. Nay, through excessive precaution, lest my sex should be discovered, I made more pretensions than the rest of my Comrades to be considered a lady-killer, and the Captain of my Company, Monsieur de la Ribaldiere, did me the honour to say that no Farmer's Daughter was safe from 'Le Bel Irlandais,' or Handsome Irishman, as they called me. Heaven help us! From whom are the Farmer's daughters, or the Farmers themselves safe in war time?
"When peace was declared, I found that I had risen to the dignity of Sergeant, and carried my Halberd with an assured strut and swagger, nobody dreaming that I was a wild Irish girl from the Wicklow Mountains. I might have risen, in time, to a commission and the Cross of St. Louis; but the piping times of peace turned all such brave grapes sour. I was glad enough, when the alternative was given me, of accompanying my Captain, Monsieur de la Ribaldiere, to Paris, as his Valet de Chambre, or of mouldering away, without hope of Promotion, in some country barrack, to choose the former, and led, for a year or two, a gay, easy life enough in the French Capital. But, alas! that which I had hidden from a whole army in the field, I could not keep a secret from one rubbishing, penniless, popinjay of a Captain in the Gardes Françaises. I told this miscreant, de la Ribaldiere, that I was a woman; for I was mad and vain enough to Love him. These are matters again, child, that you cannot understand; but I have said enough when I declare that if ever there was power in the Curse of Cromwell to blight a Wicked Man, that curse ought to light upon Henri de la Ribaldiere.
"I took a disgust to the male attire after this; but being yet in the prime of my womanhood, and as fond as ever of athletic diversions, I engaged myself to a French mountebank posture-master to dance Corantoes on the Tight and Slack Rope, accompanying myself meanwhile by reveilles on the Drum, an instrument in which I had become a proficient. The Posture Master, finding out afterwards that I was agile and Valiant, not only at Dancing but at Fighting, must needs have me wield the broadsword and the quarterstaff against all comers on a public platform; and, as the Irish Amazon, I achieved great success, and had my Employer not been a thief, should have gained much money. He was in the habit, not only of robbing his woman-performers, but of beating them; but I promise you the first time the villain offered to slash at me with his dog-whip, I had him under the jaw with my fist in the handsomest manner, and then tripping up his heels, and hurling him down on his own stage, and (having a right piece of ashplant in my grip) I did so curry his hide in sight of a full audience, that he howled for mercy, and the groundlings, who thought it part of the show, clapped their hands till they were sore and shouted till they were hoarse. Our engagement came to an end after this, and in a somewhat disagreeable manner for me; for the Posture-Master happened to be the by-blow of a Doctor of the Sorbonne, who was brother to an Abbé, who was brother to an opera-dancer, who had interest with a cardinal, who was uncle to a gentleman of the Chamber, who was one of Père la Chaise's pet penitents; and this Reverend Father, having the King's ear, denounced me to his Majesty as a Spy, a Heretic, a Jansenist, a Coureuse, and all sorts of things; and by a lettre de Cachet, as they call their warrants, I was sent off to the prison of the Madelonettes, there to diet on bread and water, to be herded with the vilest of my sex, to card wool, and to receive, morning and evening, the Discipline (as they call it) of Leathern thongs, ten to a handful, and three blood-knots in each. I grew sick of being tawed for offences I had never committed, and so made bold one morning to try and strangle the Mother of the Workroom, who sat over us with a rattan, while we carded wool. Upon which I was bound to a post, and received more stripes, my lad, in an hour than ever your Schoolmaster gave you in a week. That same night I tried to burn the prison down; and then they put me in the dark dungeon called La Grande Force, with six inches of water in it and any number of rats. I was threatened with prosecution at their old Bailey, or Chatelet, with the Question (that is, the torture) ordinary and extraordinary, with the galleys for life as a wind-up, even if I escaped the gibbet in the place de Grève. Luckily for me, at this time the Gentleman of the Chamber fell into disgrace with Father la Chaise for eating a Chicken Sausage in Lent; and to spite him and the Minister, and the Cardinal and the Opera Dancer, and the Abbé and the Doctor of the Sorbonne, and the Posture Master all together, His Reverence, having his Majesty's ear, moves the Most Christian King to Clemency, and a Royal warrant comes down to the Madelonettes, and I was sent about my business with strict injunctions not to show myself again in Paris, under penalty of the Pillory, branding on the cheek with a red-hot iron, and the galleys in perpetuity.
"I had been nearly ten years abroad, and having, by the charity of some Ladies of the Irish Convent in Paris, found means to quit France, landed one morning in the year '90 at Wapping, below London. I had never been in England before, and mighty little I thought of it when I became acquainted with that proud, belly-god country. I found that there was little enough to be done to make a poor Irishwoman able to earn her own living; and that there was besides a prejudice against natives of Ireland, both on account of their Extraction and their Religion, which made the high and mighty English unwilling to employ them, either as day-labourers or as domestic servants. For awhile, getting into loose company, I went about the country to wakes and Fairs, picking up a livelihood by Rope-dancing, back and broadsword fighting, and now and then sword swallowing and fire eating; but since my misadventure with the Posture Master I had taken a dislike to the Mountebank life, and could not settle down to it again. My old love for soldiering revived again, and being at Plymouth where a Recruiting Party was beating up for King William's service in his Irish wars, took a convenient opportunity of quitting my female apparel, resuming that of a man, and listing in Lord Millwood's Regiment of Foot as a private Fusilier. As I knew my drill, and made no secret of my having served in the Maison du Roy, I was looked upon rather as a good prize, for in war time 'tis Soldiers and Soldiers only that are of real value, and they may have served the very Devil himself so that they can trail a pike and cast a grenade: 'tis all one to the Recruiting Captain. He wants men—not loblolly boys—and so long as he gets them he cares not a doit where they come from.
"I suppose I fought as bravely as my neighbours throughout that last Irish Campaign, in which the unhappy King James made so desperate an effort to regain his crown. When King William and the Marshal Duke of Schomberg had made an end of him, and the poor dethroned Monarch had gotten away to St. Germains-en-Laye, there to eke out the remains of his days as a kind of Monk, Millwood's Foot was sent back to England, and put upon the Peace Establishment. That is to say the officers got half pay, and the private men were told that for the next eighteen months they should have sixpence a day, and that after that, unless another war came, they must shift for themselves. I preferred shifting for myself at once to having any of their measly doles after valiant and faithful service; and so, having gathered a very pretty penny out of Plunder while with King William's army, I became a woman again, and opened a Coffee House and Spirit Shop at Chelsea. My curious adventures had by this time come to be pretty well known; and setting up at the sign of the Amazon's Head, with a picture of myself, in full fighting dress splitting an Irish Rapparee with my bayonet, I grew into some renown. The Quality much frequented my house, and some of the book-making gentlemen about Grub Street were good enough to dish up my exploits in a shilling pamphlet, called 'The Life of Elizabeth O——, alias James Moriarty, the new Mary Ambree, or the Grenadier.' At Chelsea I remained until the year 1704, but lost much by trusting the Quality, and bad debts among the Gentlemen of the Army. Besides this, I was foolish enough to get married to a worthless, drunken fellow, my own countryman, who had been Fence Master in the Life-Guards, and he very speedily ate me out of House and Home, giving me continual Black Eyes, besides.
"Thus, when the Great War of the Succession broke out, and the English army, commanded by the Great Duke of Marlborough, being allied with the Imperialists under Prince Eugene, and the forces of their High Mightinesses the Dutchmen, went at it Hammer and Tongs about the Spanish succession with King Lewis of France, I, who had always been fond of the army, resolved to give up pot-walloping and take another turn under canvas. It was, however, too late in the day for me to think of again taking the part of a bold Grenadier. I had become somewhat of a Character, and (my old proficiency with the Sticks remaining by me) had earned among the Gentlemen of the Army the cant name of Mother Drum—that by which, to my sorrow, I am now known. And as Mother Drum, suttler and baggage-wagon woman in the train of the great John Churchill, I drank and swore, and sold aquavitæ, and plundered when I could, and was flogged when I was taken in the fact (for the Provost-Marshal is no respecter of sex), at Blenheim and Ramilies, and Malplaquet and Oudenarde, and throughout those glorious Campaigns of which I could talk to you till doomsday. I came back to England at the Peace of Utrecht, and set up another Tavern, and married another husband, more worthless and more drunken than the first one, and then went bankrupt and turned washerwoman, and then got into trouble about a gentleman's silver-hilted Rapier, for which I lay long in hold, and was sent for five years to the Plantations; and at last here I am, old and fat and good for nothing, but to throw to the crows as carrion—Mother Drum, God save us all! as bold as brass, and as tough as leather, and 'the miserablest old 'oman that ever stepped.'"
This last part of her adventures I have not polished up, and they are Mother Drum's own.
It was not, I will frankly admit, a very righteous beginning to a young life to be hail-fellow well-met with a Gang of Deerstealers, and to go careering about the King's Forest in quest of Venison which belonged to the Crown. Often have I felt remorseful for so having wronged his Majesty (whom Heaven preserve for the safety of these distraught kingdoms); but what was I, an' it please you, to do? Little Boy Jack was just Little Boy Beggar; and for want of proper Training he became Little Boy Thief. Not that I ever pilfered aught. I was no Candle-snuffer filcher, and, save in the matter of Fat Bucks, the rest of our gang were, indeed, passing honest. Part of the Venison we killed (mostly with a larger kind of Bird-Bolt, or Arbalist Crossbow, for through fear of the keepers we used as little powder and ball as possible) we ate for our Sustenance; for rogues must eat and drink as well as other folks. The greater portion, however, was discreetly conveyed, in carts covered over with garden-stuff, to the market-towns of Uxbridge, Windsor, and Reading, and sold, under the coat-tail as we called it, to Higglers who were in our secret. Sometimes our Merchandise was taken right into London, where we found a good Market with the Fishmongers dwelling about Lincoln's Inn, and who, as they did considerable traffic with the Nobility and Gentry, of whom they took Park Venison, giving them Fish in exchange, were not likely to be suspected of unlawful dealings, or at least were able to make a colourable pretext of Honest Trade to such Constables and Market Conners who had a right to question them about their barterings. From the Fishmongers we took sometimes money and sometimes rich apparel—the cast-off clothes, indeed, of the Nobility, birthday suits or the like, which were not good enough for the Players of Drury Lane and Lincoln's Inn, forsooth, to strut about in on their tragedy-boards, and which they had therefore bestowed upon their domestics to sell. For our Blacks loved to quit their bewrayed apparel at supper-time, and to dress themselves as bravely as when I first tasted their ill-gotten meat at the Stag o' Tyne. From the Higglers too, we would as willingly take Wine, Strong Waters, and Tobacco, in exchange for our fat and lean, as money; for the Currency of the Realm was then most wofully clipped and defaced, and our Brethren had a wholesome avoidance of meddling with Bank Bills. When, from time to time, one of us ventured to a Market-town, well made-up as a decent Yeoman or Merchant's Rider, 'twas always payment on the Nail and in sounding money for the reckoning. We ran no scores, and paid in no paper.
It was long ere I found out that the Wagon in which I had travelled from the Hercules' Pillars, to be delivered over to Gnawbit, was conducted by one of the most trusted Confederates of our Company; that he took Venison to town for them, and brought them back the Account in specie or needments as they required. And although I am loth to think that the pretty Servant Maid was altogether deceiving me when she told me she was going to see her Grandmother, I fancy that she knew Charlwood Chase, and the gentry that inhabited it, as well as she knew the Pewterer in Panyer Alley. He went a-pewtering no more, if ever he had been 'prentice or done journeywork for that trade, but was neither more nor less than one of the Blacks, and Mistress Slyboots, his Flame, kept him company. Although I hope, I am sure, that they were Married by the Chaplain; for, rough as I am, I had ever a Hatred of Unlawful Passions, and when I am summoned on a Jury, always listen to the King's Proclamation against Vice and Immorality with much gusto and savour.
I stayed with the Blacks in Charlwood Chase until I grew to be a sturdy lad of twelve years of age. I went out with them and followed their naughty courses, and have stricken down many a fat Buck in my time. Ours was the most jovial but the most perilous of lives. The Keepers were always on our track; and sometimes the Sheriff would call out the Posse Comitatis, and he and half the beef-fed tenant-farmers of the country-side would come horsing and hoofing it about the glades to catch us. For weeks together in each year we dared not keep our rendezvous at the Stag, but were fain to hide in Brakes and Hollow Trees, listening to the pursuit as it grew hot and heavy around us; and often with no better Victuals than Pig's-meat and Ditch-water. But then the search would begin to lag; and two or three of the great Squires round about being well terrified by letters written in a liquid designed to counterfeit Blood, with a great Skull and Cross-bones scrawled at the bottom, the whole signed "Captain Night," and telling them that if they dared to meddle with the Blacks their Lives should pay for it, we were left quiet for a season, and could return to our Haunt, there to feast and carouse according to custom. Nor am I slow to believe that some of the tolerance we met with was due to our being known to the County Gentry as stanch Tories, and as stanch detesters of the House of Hanover (I speak, of course, of my companions, for I was of years too tender to have any politics). We never killed a Deer but on the nearest tree some one of us out with his Jack-knife and carved on the bark of it, "Slain by King James's order;" or, if there were no time for so long a legend, or the Beast was stricken in the Open, a simple K. J. (which the Hanover Rats understood well enough, whether cut in the trunk or the turf) sufficed. The Country Gentlemen were then of a very furious way of thinking concerning the rights of the present Illustrious House to the Throne; but Times do alter, and so likewise do Men's Thoughts and Opinions, and I dare swear there is no Brunswicker or Church of England man more leal at this present writing than John Dangerous.
Captain Night, to whom I was a kind of Page or Henchman, used me with much tenderness. Whenever at supper the tongues grew too loosened, and wild talk, and of the wickedese, began to jingle among the bottles and glasses, he would bid me Withdraw, and go keep company for a time with Mistress Slyboots. Captain Night was a man of parts and even of letters; and I often wondered why he, who seemed so well fitted to Shine even among the Great, should pass his time among Rogues, and take the thing that was not his. He was often absent from us for many days, sometimes for nigh a month; and would return sunburnt and travel-stained, as though he had been journeying in Foreign Parts. He was always very thoughtful and reserved after these Gaddings about; and Mistress Slyboots, the Maid, used to say that he was in Love, and had been playing the gallant to some fine Madam. But I thought otherwise: for at this season it was his custom to bring back a Valise full to the very brim of letters and papers, the which he would take Days to read and re-read, noting and seemingly copying some, but burning the greater portion. At this season he would refrain from joining the Gang, and honourably forswore his share of their plunder, always giving Mother Drum a broad piece for each night's Supper, Bottle, and Bed. But when his pressing business was over, no man was keener in the chase, or brought down the quarry so skilfully as Captain Night. He loved to have me with him, to talk to and Question me; and it was one day, after I had told him that the Initial letter D was the only clue to my Grandmother's name, which I had seen graven on her Coffin-plate, he must needs tell me that if she were Madam (or rather Lady) D——, I must needs, as a Kinsman, be D—— too, and that he would piece out the name, and call me Dangerous. So that I was Little Boy Jack no more, and John Dangerous I have been from that day to this. Not but what my Ancestry and Belongings might warrant me in assuming another title, than which—so far as lineage counts—Bourbon or Nassau could not rank much higher. But the name of Dangerous has pleased me alway; it has stood me in stead in many a hard pass, and I am content to abide by it now that my locks are gray, and the walls of this my battered old tenement are crumbling into decay.
'Twas I alone that was privileged to stay with Captain Night when he was doing Secretary's work among his papers; for, save when Mistress Slyboots came up to him—discreetly tapping at the door first, you may be sure—with a cup of ale and a toast, he would abide no other company. And on such days I wore not my Black Disguisement, but the better clothes he had provided for me,—a little Riding Suit of red drugget, silver-laced, and a cock to my hat like a Military Officer,—and felt myself as grand as you please. I never dared speak to him until he spoke to me; but used to sit quietly enough sharpening bolts or twisting bowstrings, or cleaning his Pistols, or furbishing up his Hanger and Belt, or suchlike boyish pastime-labour. He was careful to burn every paper that he Discarded after taking it from the Valise; but once, and once only, a scrap remained unconsumed on the hearth, the which, with my ape-like curiosity of half-a-score summers, I must needs spell over, although I got small good therefrom. 'Twas but the top of a letter, and all the writing I could make out ran,
"My dear" ...
Whenever Captain Night went a hunting, I attended upon him; but when he was away, I was confided to the care of Jowler, who, albeit much given to babble in his liquor, was about the most discreet (the Chaplain always excepted) among the Gang. In the dead season, when Venison was not to be had, or was nothing worth for the Market if it had been killed, we lived mostly on dried meats and cured salmon; the first prepared by Mother Drum and her maid, the last furnished us by our good friends and Chapmen the Fishmongers about Lincoln's Inn. And during this same Dead Season, I am glad to say that my Master did not suffer me to remain idle; but, besides taking some pains in tutoring me himself, moved our Chaplain, all of whose humane letters had not been washed out by burnt Brandy or fumed out by Tobacco (to the use of which he was immoderately given), to put me through a course of daily instruction. I had had some Latin beaten into me by Gnawbit, when he had nothing of more moment to bestir himself about, and had attained a decent proficiency in reading and writing. Under the Chaplain of the Blacks, who swore at me grievously, but never, under the direst forbidding, laid finger on me, I became a current scholar enough of my own tongue, with just such a little smattering of the Latin as helped me at a pinch in some of the Secret Dealings of my later career. But Salt Water has done its work upon my Lily's Grammar; and although I yield to no man in the Faculty of saying what I mean, ay, and of writing it down in good plain English ('tis true that of your nominatives and genitives and stuff, I know nothing), I question if I could tell you the Latin for a pair of riding-boots.
There was a paltry parcel of books at the Stag o' Tyne, and these I read over and over again at my leisure. There was a History of the Persecutions undergone by the Quakers, and Bishop Sprat's Narrative of the Conspiracy of Blackhead and the others against him. There was Foxe's Martyrs, and God's Revenge against Murder (a very grim tome), and Mr. Daniel Defoe's Life of Moll Flanders, and Colonel Jack. These, with two or three Play-books, and a Novel of Mrs. Aphra Behn (very scurrilous), a few Ballads, and some ridiculous Chap-books about Knights and Fairies and Dragons, made up the tattered and torn library of our house in Charlwood Chase. 'Twas good enough, you may say, for a nest of Deerstealers. Well, there might have been a worse one; but these, I can aver, with English and Foreign newspapers and letters, and my Bible in later life, have been all the reading that John Dangerous can boast of. Which makes me so mad against your fine Scholars and Scribblers, who, because they can turn verse and make Te-to-tum into Greek, must needs sneer at me at the Coffee House, and make a butt of an honest man who has been from one end of the world to the other, and has fought his way through it to Fortune and Honour.
I was in the twelfth year of my age, when a great change overtook me in my career. Moved, as it would seem, to exceeding Anger and implacable Disgust by the carryings-on of Captain Night and his merry men in Charlwood Chase, the King's Ministers put forth a Proclamation against us, promising heavy Blood Money to any who would deliver us, or any one member of the Gang, into the hands of Authority. This Proclamation came at first to little. There was no sending a troop of horse into the Chase, and the husbandmen of the country-side were too good Friends of ours to play the Judas. We were not Highway Robbers. Not one of our band had ever taken to or been taken from the Road. Rascals of the Cartouche and Macheath kidney we Disdained. We were neither Foot-pads nor Cut-purses, nay, nor Smugglers nor Rick-burners. We were only Unfortunate Gentlemen, who much did need, and who had suffered much for our politics and our religion, and had no other means of earning a livelihood than by killing the King's Deer. Those peasants whom we came across Feared us, indeed, as they would the very Fiend, but bore us no malice; for we always treated them with civility, and not rarely gave them the Umbles and other inferior parts of the Deer, against their poor Christenings and Lyings-in. And through these means, and some small money presents our Captain would make to their wives and callow brats, it came to pass that Mother Drum had seldom cause to brew aught but the smallest beer, for morning Drinking; for though we had to pay for our Wine and Ardent Drinks, the cellar of the Stag o' Tyne was always handsomely furnished with barrels of strong ale, which Lobbin Clout or Colin Mayfly, the Hind or the Plough-churl, would bring us secretly by night in their Wains for gratitude. I know not where they got the malt from, but there was narrow a fault to find with the Brew. I recollect its savour now with a sweet tooth, condemned as I am to the inky Hog's-wash which the Londoners call Porter; and indeed it is fit for Porters to drink, but not for Gentlemen. These Peasants used to tremble all over with terror when they came to the Stag o' Tyne; but they were always hospitably made welcome, and sent away with full gizzards, ay, and with full heads too, and by potions to which the louts were but little used.
We had no fear of treachery from these Chawbacons, but we had Enemies in the Chase nevertheless. Here dwelt a vagabond tribe of Bastard Verderers and Charcoal-burners, savage, ignorant, brutish Wretches, as superstitious as the Manilla Creoles. They were one-half gipsies, and one half, or perhaps a quarter, trade-fallen whippers-in and keepers that had been stripped of their livery. They picked up their sorry crust by burning of charcoal, and carting of dead wood to farmers for to consume in their ingles. Now and again, when any of the Quality came to hunt in the Chase, the Head Keeper would make use of a score or so of them as beaters and rabble-prickers of the game; but nine months out of the twelve they rather starved than lived. These Charcoal-burners hated us Blacks, first, because in our sable disguise we rather imitated their own Beastly appearance—for the varlets never washed from Candlemas to Shrovetide; next, because we were Gentlemen; and lastly, because we would not suffer them to catch Deer for themselves in pitfalls and springes. Nay, a True Gentleman Black meeting a "Coaley," as we called the charcoal fellows, with so much as a hare, a rabbit, or a pheasant with him, let alone venison, would ofttimes give him a sackful of sore bones to carry as well as a game-bag. No "Coaley" was ever let to slake his thirst at the Stag o' Tyne. The poor wretches had a miserable hovel of an inn to their own part on the western outskirts of the Chase, a place by the sign of the Hand and Hatchet, where they ate their rye-bread and drank their sour Clink, when they could muster coppers enough for a twopenny carouse.
This Proclamation, of which at first we made light, was speedily followed by a real live Act of Parliament, which is yet, I have been told, Law, and is known as the "Black Act."[M] The most dreadful punishments were denounced against us by the Houses of Lords and Commons, and the Blood Money was doubled. One of the most noted Thief-takers of that day—almost as great a one as Jonathan Wild—comes down post, and sets up his Standard at Reading, as though he had been King William on the banks of the Boyne. With him he brings a mangy Rout of Constables and Bailiff's Followers, and other kennel-ranging vagabonds; and now nothing must serve him but to beg of the Commanding Officer at Windsor (my Lord Treherne) for a loan of two companies of the Foot Guards, who, nothing loth for field-sport and extra pay, were placed, with their captain and all—more shame for a Gentleman to mix in such Hangman's work!—under Mr. Thief-taker's orders. He and his Bandogs, ay, and his Grenadiers, might have hunted us through Charlwood Chase until Doomsday but for the treachery of the "Coaleys." 'Twas one of their number,—named, or rather nicknamed, "the Beau," because he washed his face on Sunday, and was therefore held to be of the first fashion,—who earned eighty pounds by revealing the hour when the whole Gang of Blacks might be pounced upon at the Stag o' Tyne. The infamous wretch goes to Aylesbury,—for our part of the Chase was in the county of Bucks,—and my Thief-taking gentleman from Reading meets him—a pretty couple; and he makes oath before Mr. Justice Cribfee (who should have set him in the Stocks, or delivered him over to the Beadle for a vagrant); and after a fine to-do of Sheriff's business and swearing in of special constables, the end of it was, that a whole Rout of them, Sheriff, Javelin-men, and Headboroughs and all, with the Grenadiers at their back, came upon us unawares one moonlight night as we were merrily supping at the Stag.
'Twas no use showing Fight perhaps, for we were undermanned, some of us being away on the scent, for we suspected some foul play. The constables and other clod-hopping Alguazils were all armed to the teeth with Bills and Blunderbusses, Pistols and Hangers; but had they worn all the weapons in the Horse Armoury in the Tower, it would not have saved them from shivering in their shoes when "Hard and sharp" was the word, and an encounter with the terrible Blacks had to be endured. We should have made mince-meat of them all, and perhaps hanged up one or two of them outside the inn as an extra signpost. But we were not only unarmed, we were overmatched, my hearties. There were the Redcoats, burn them! How many times in my life have I been foiled and baffled by those miscreated men-machines in scarlet blanketing! No use in a stout Heart, no use in a strong Hand, no use in a sharp Sword, or a pair of barkers with teeth that never fail, when you have to do with a Soldier. Do! What are you to do with him? There he is, with his shaven face and his hair powdered, as if he were going to a fourpenny fandango at Bagnigge Wells. There he is, as obstinate as a Pig, and as firm as a Rock, with his confounded bright firelock, bayonet, and crossbelts. There he is, immoveable and unconquerable, defying the boldest of Smugglers, the bravest of Gentlemen Rovers, and, by the Lord Harry, he eats you up. Always give the Redcoats a wide berth, my dear, and the Grenadiers more than all.
Unequal as were the odds, with all these Roaring Dragons in scarlet baize on our trail, we had still a most desperate fight for it. While the mob of Constables kept cowering in the bar-room down-stairs, crying out to us to surrender in the King's name,—I believe that one poor creature, the Justice of Peace, after getting himself well walled up in a corner with chairs and tables, began to quaver out the King's Proclamation against the Blacks,—the plaguy Soldiers came blundering up both pair of stairs, and fell upon us Billy Boys tooth and nail. 'Slid! my blood simmers when I think of it. Over went the tables and settles! Smash went trenchers and cups and glasses! Clink-a-clink went sword-blades and bayonets! "And don't fire, my lads!" cries out the Soldier-officer to his Grannies. "We want all these rogues to hang up at Aylesbury Gaol."
"Rogue yourself, and back to your Mother!" cries Captain Night, very pale; but I never saw him look Bolder or Handsomer. "Rogue in your Tripes, you Hanover Rat!" and he shortens his sword and rushes on the Soldier-officer.
The Grenadier Captain was brave enough, but he was but a smockfaced lad fresh from the Mall and St. James's Guard-room, and he had no chance against a steady practised Swordsman and Forest Blood, as Captain Night was. We all thought he would make short work of the Soldier-officer. He had him in a corner, and the Chaplain, a-top of whom was a Grenadier trying to throttle or capture him, or both, exclaims, "Give him the grace-blow, my dear; give it him under the fifth rib!" when Captain Night cries, "Go home to your mother, Milksop!" and he catches his own sword by the hilt, hits his Enemy a blow on the right wrist enough to numb it for a month, twists his fingers in his cravat, flings him on one side, and right into the middle of a punch-bowl, and then, upon my word, he himself jumps out of Window, shouting out, "Follow me, little Jack Dangerous!"
I wished for nothing better, and had already my leg on the sill, when two great hulking Grenadiers seized hold of me. 'Twas then, for the first time, that I earned a just claim and title to the name of Dangerous; for a little dirk I was armed with being wrested from me by Soldier number one, who eggs on his comrade to collar the young Fox-cub, as he calls me, I seize a heavy Stone Demijohn fall of brandy, and smash it goes on the head of Soldier number two. He falls with a dismal groan, the blood and brandy running in equal measure from his head, and the first Soldier runs his bayonet through me.
Luckily, 'twas but a flesh-wound in the flank, and no vital part was touched. It was enough for me, however, poor Urchin,—enough to make me tumble down in a dead faint; and when I came to myself, I found that I had been removed to the bar-room down-stairs, where I made one of nineteen Blacks, all prisoners to the King for stealing his Deer, and all bound hand and foot with Ropes.
"Never mind their hurting your wrists, young Hempseed," chuckled one of the scaldpated constable rogues who was guarding us. "You'll have enough to tighten your gullet after 'Sizes, as sure as eggs is eggs."
"Nay, brother Grimstock, the elf's too young to be hanged," puts in another constable, with somewhat of a charitable visage.
"Too young!" echoes he addressed as Grimstock. "'Twas bred in the bone in him, the varmint, and the Gallows Fever will come out in the flesh. Too young! he was weaned on rue, and rode between his Father's legs (that swung) i' the cart to Tyburn, and never sailed a cockboat but in Execution Dock. My tobacco-box to a tester an' he dance not on nothing if he comes to holding up his hand before Judge Blackcap, that never spared but one in the Calendar, and then 'twas by Mistake."
These were not very comfortable news for me, poor manacled wretch; and with a great bayonet-wound in my side to boot, that had been but clumsily dressed by a village Leech, who was, I suspect, a Farrier and Cow Doctor as well. But I have always found, in this life's whirligig, that when your Case is at the worst (unless a Man indeed Dies, when there is nothing more to be done), it is pretty sure to mend, if you lie quiet and let things take their chance. I could not be much worse off than I was, wounded and friendless, and a captive; and so I held my tongue, and let them use me as they would. Some scant comfort was it, however, to find, when the battle-field was gone over, that, besides the Grenadier whose crown I had cracked, another had been pistolled by Jowler, and and lay mortally wounded, and Groaning Dismally. Poor Jowler himself would never pistol Foe more. He was dead; for the Men of War, furious at our desperate Resistance, at the worsting of their fine-feathered officer (who was mumbling of his bruised hand as a down-trodden Hound would its paw, and cursing meanwhile, which Dogs use not to do), and driven to Mad Rage by the escape of Captain Night, had fired pell-mell into a Group of which Jowler made one, and so killed him. A bullet through his brain set him clean quit of all indictments under the Black Act, before our Sovereign Lord the King. Likewise was it a matter of rejoicing for our party that, after long seeking the Traitor Coaley, the wretched "Beau" was found duly strangled, and completely a corpse on the staircase. There was something curious about the manner of justice coming to this villain. The Deed had been done with no weapon more Lethal than an old Stocking; yet so tightly was it tied round his false neck, that it had to be cut off piecemeal, and even then the ribs of the worsted were found to be Imbedded, and to have made Furrows in his flesh. Now it is certain that we Blacks had not laid about us with old Wives' hose, any more than we had lunged at our enemies with knitting-needles. There, however, was Monsieur Judas, as dead as a Dolphin two hours on deck. Lord, what an ugly countenance had the losel when they came to wash the charcoal off him! As to who had forestalled the Hangman in his office, no certain testimony could be given. I have always found at Sea, when any doubts arise as to the why and the wherefore of a gentleman's death, that the best way to settle accounts is to fling him overboard; but on dry land your plaguy Dead Body is a sore Stumbling Block, and Impediment, always turning up when it is not Wanted, and bringing other Gentlemen into all kinds of trouble. Crowner's Quest was held on the "Beau;" and I only wonder that they did not bring it in murder against Me. The jury sat a long time without making up their minds, till the Parish constable ordered them in a bowl of Flip, upon which they proceeded to bring in a verdict of Wilful Murder against some person or persons unknown. I can scarcely, to this day, bring myself to suspect my pretty maid, that should have married the Pewterer, of such a bold Act, and the rather believe that it was the girl Grip and her Mistress that worked off the Spy and Traitor between them. Not that Mother Drum would have needed any assistance in the mere doing of the thing. She was a Mutton-fisted woman, and as strong in the forearm as a Bridewell correctioner.
Oh, the dreary journey we made that morning to Aylesbury! The Men Blacks were tied back to back, and thrown into such carts as could be pressed into the service from the farmsteads on the skirts of the Chase. One of the constables must needs offer, the Scoundrel, to take horse and go borrow a cartload of fetters from the gaoler at Reading; but he was overruled, and Ropes were thought strong enough to confine us. There was no chance, alas! of any rescue; for those of our comrades who had been fortunate enough through absence to avoid capture, had doubtless by this time scent of the Soldiers, and there was no kicking against those bright Firelocks and Bayonets. Yet had there been another escape. Cicely Grip and Mother Drum were taken, but the pretty maid I loved so for her kindness to me when I was Forlorn had shown a clean pair of heels, and was nowhere to be found. Good luck to her, I thought. Perchance she has met with Captain Night, and they are Safe and Sound by this time, and off to Foreign Parts. For in all this I declare I saw nothing Wrong, and held, in my baby logic, that we Blacks had all been very harshly entreated by the Constables and Redcoats, and that it was a shame to use us so. Mother Drum, the Wench, and my poor wounded Self, were put into one cart together, and through Humanity, a Sergeant (for the Constables would not have done it) bade his men litter down some straw for us to lie upon. There was a ragged Tilt too over the cart; and thinks I, in a Gruesome manner, "The first time you rode on straw under a Tilt, Jack, you were going to school, and now, 'ifegs, you are going to be Hanged." For it was settled on all sides, and even he with the Charitable Countenance came to be of that mind at last, that my fate was to die by the Cord.
"Why," says one, "you've half-brained Corporal Foss with the Demijohn; never did liquor get into a pretty man's head so soon and so deep. They'll stretch your neck for this, my poult,—they will."
The Sergeant interposing, said that perhaps, if interest were made for me, I might be spared an Indictment, and let to go and serve the King as a Drummer till I was old enough to carry a firelock. But at this the soldiers shook their heads; for Captain Poppingjay, their officer, was, it seems, still in a towering rage at having had his fine-lady's hand so wofully mauled by Captain Night, and vowed vengeance against the whole crew of poachers and their whelp, as he must needs be Polite enough to call me.
This Fine Gentleman had been provided with a Horse by the Sheriff, and, as he rode by the cart where I and Drum and the Girl were jogging on, he spies me under the Tilt, and in his cruel manner makes a cut at me with his riding wand, calling me a young spawn of Thievery and Rebellion.
"You coward," I cried in a passion; "you daren't a' done that if my hands were loose, and I hadn't this baggonet-wound in me."
"Shame to hit the boy," growled the charitable Constable, who was on horseback too.
The Soldier-officer turned round quickly to see who had spoken; but the Sergeant, who watched him, pointed with his halbert to the Constable, and he returned the Captain's glance with a sturdy mien. So my Fine Gentleman reins in his beast and lets us pass, eyeing his hand, which was all wrapped up in Bandages, and muttering that it was well none of his own fellows had given him this sauciness.
The day was a dreadful one. How many times our train halted to bait I know not; but this I know, that I fainted often from Agony of my wound and the uneasy motion of my carriage. It is a wonder that I ever came to my journey's end alive, and in all likelihood never should, but for the unceasing care and solicitude of the two poor women who were with me, Prisoners like myself, but full of merciful kindness for one who was in a sorer strait than they. By earnest pleading did Mother Drum persuade the Head Constable—who, the nearer we got to gaol the more authority he took, and the less he seemed to think of our soldier escort—to allow her hands to be unbound that she might minister unto me; and also did she obtain so much grace as for some of the Money belonging unto her, and which had been seized at the Stag o' Tyne, to be spent in buying of a bottle of brandy at one of our halting-places, with which she not only comforted herself and her afflicted Maid, but, mingling it with water, cooled my parched tongue and bathed my forehead.
Brandy was the only medicament this good soul knew; and more lives she averred, had been saved by Right Nantz than lost by bad B. W.; but still brandy was not precisely the kind of physic to give a Patient who before Sundown was in a Raging Fever. But 'twas all one to the Law; and coming at last to my journey's end, we were all, the wounded and the whole, flung into Gaol to answer for it at the 'Sizes.