So no more Hope for me from that quarter. The skipper of The Protestant Pledge would have retained me on board for a Carouse; but I had too much care for my Head and my Liver for such pranks, and went back, as dolefully as might be, to keep Maum Buckey's washing-books. I chafed at the thought that I could do no more. I told her the grim news I had heard of her brother-in-law, whereat she wept somewhat; for where Whites were concerned she was not a hard-hearted woman. But she cheered up speedily, saying that Sam had come to as sorry an end, and that she supposed there was but one way with the Handsells, Rum and Riot being generally their Ruin.
As it is one of the failings of youth not to know when it is well off, and to grow A-weary even of continued prosperity, I admit that the life I led palled upon me, and that I longed to change it. But it was not, all things considered, so very unpleasant a one. True, the employment was a sorry one, and utterly beneath the dignity of a Gentleman, such as bearing fardels in the streets or unloading casks and bales at the wharf, for instance. But it is in man's nature never to be satisfied, and when he is well to long to be better, and so, by force of striving, to tumble into a Hole, where indeed he is at the Best, for he is Dead. At this distance of time, though I have many comforts around me,—Worldly Goods, a Reputable name, my Child, and her Husband,—I still look back on my old life in Jamaica, and confess that Providence dealt very mercifully with me in those bygone days. For I had enough to eat and to drink, and a Mistress who, although Passionate and Quarrelsome enough by times, was not unkind. If she would swear, she would also tender gentle Language upon occasion; and if she would throw things, she was not backward in giving one a dollar to heal one's pate. An odd life it was, truly. There was very little of that magnificence about the town of Port Royal in my days which I have heard the Creoles to boast about. It may have been handsome enough in the Spaniard's Reign, or in King Charles the Second's; but I have heard that its most comely parts had been swallowed up by an Earthquake, and, when I remember it, the Main thoroughfare was like nothing half so much as the Fag End of Kent Street in the Borough, where the Broom-men live. As for public scavengers—humane at least—there were none; for that salutary practice of putting rebellious Blacks into chain-gangs, and making them sweep the streets,—which might be well done in London with Pickpockets and the like trash, to their souls' health and the benefit of the Body politic,—did not then obtain. The only way of clearing the offal was by the obscene birds that flew down from the hills; Messieurs the landcrabs, who were assuredly the best scavengers of all, not stirring beyond the Palisadoes. Some things were very cheap, but others inordinately dear. Veal was at a prodigious price; and 'twas a common saying, that you could buy Four children in England cheaper than you could one calf in Jamaica. But for the products and dishes of the colony, which I have elsewhere hinted at, all was as low-priced as it was abundant. What droll names did they give, too, unto their fish and flesh and fowl! How often have you in England heard of Crampos, Bonettas, Ringrays, Albacoras, and Sea-adders, among fish; of Noddies and Boobies and Pitternells and Sheerwaters among birds? And Calialou Soup, and Pepperpot to break your Fast withal in the morning, and make you feel, ere you get accustomed to that Fiery victual, like a Salamander for some hours afterwards!
Now and then also, with some other young white folks with whom I had stricken up acquaintance,—clerks, storekeepers, and the like,—would we seek out the dusky beauties of the town in their own quarters, and shake a leg at their Dignity Routs, Blackamoor Drums, and Pumpkin-Faced Assemblies, or by what other name the poor Black wretches might choose to call their uproarious merrymakings. There, in some shed, all hustled together as a Moorfields Sweetener does luck in a bag, would be a mob of men and women Negroes, all dressed in their bravest finery, although little of it was to be seen either on their Backs or their Feet; the Head being the part of their Bodies which they chiefly delight to ornament. Such ribbons and owches, such gay-coloured rags and blazing tatters, would they assume, and to the Trips and Rounds played to them by some Varlet of a black fiddler, with his hat at a prodigious cock, and mounted on a Tub, like unto the sign of the Indian Bacchus at the Tobacconist's, would they dance and stamp and foot it merrily—with plenty of fruit, salt fish, pork, roasted plantain, and so forth, to regale themselves withal, not forgetting punch and sangaree—quite forgetful, poor mercurial wretches, for the time being of Fetters and the Scourge and the Driver that would hurry them to their dire labour the morrow morn. Surely there never did exist so volatile, light-spirited, feather-brained a race as these same Negro Blacks. They will whistle and crack nuts, ay and dance and sing to the music of the Fiddle or the Banjar an hour after the skin has been half flayed off their backs. They seem to bear no particular Malice to their Tormentors, so long as their weekly rations of plantain, yam, or salt fish, be not denied them, and that they have Osnaburgs enow to make them shirts and petticoats to cover themselves. Give them but these, and their dance at Christmas time, with a kind word thrown to them now and again, just as you would fling a marrow-bone to a dog, and they will get along well enough in slavery, almost grinning at its Horrors and making light of its unutterable Woes. I never saw so droll a people in my life. Nor is it the less astonishing thing about them that, beneath all this seeming lightheartedness and jollity, there often lies smouldering a Fire of the Fiercest passion and blackest revenge. The dark-skinned fellow who may be flapping the flies away from you in the morning, and bearing your kicks and cuffs as though they were so many cates and caresses, may, in the evening, make one in a circle of Heathen monsters joined together to listen to the Devilish Incantations of the Obeah man,—to mingle in ceremonies most hideous and abominable, and of which perhaps that of swearing eternal Hatred to the White Race over a calabash that is made out of the skull of a new-born Babe, and filled with Dirt, Rum, and Blood mixed together, is perchance the least horrid. And yet I don't think the unhappy creatures are by nature either treacherous, malicious, or cruel. 'Tis only when the fit seizes them. Like the Elephants, the idea suddenly comes over them that they are wronged—that 'tis the White Man who has wrought them all these evils, and that they are bound to Trample him to bleeding mud without more ado. But 'tis all done in a capricious cobweb-headed manner; and on the morrow they are as quiet and good-tempered as may be. Then, just as suddenly, will come over them a fit of despondency, or dark, dull, brooding Melancholy. If they are at sea, they will cast themselves into the waves and swim right toward the sharks, whose jaws are yawning to devour them. If they are on dry land, they will, for days together, refuse all food, or worse still, go dirt-eating, stuffing themselves with clay till they have the mal d'estomac, and so die: this mal, of which our English stomach-ache gives no valid translation (which must prove my excuse for placing here a foreign word), being, with the Yaws, their most frequent and fatal complaint. Of a less perplexing nature also are their fits of the Sulks, when, for more than a week at a time, they will remain wholly mute and intractably obstinate, folding their arms or squatting on their hams, and refusing either to move or speak, whatsoever threats may be uttered or enforced against them, and setting no more store by the deep furrowing cuts of the Cowhide whip (that will make marks in a deal board, if well laid on, the which I have often seen) than by the buzzings of a Shambles Fly. They had many ways of treating these fits of the sulks, in my time all of them cruel, and none of them successful. One was, to set the poor wretches in the stocks, or the bilboes, rubbing chillies into the eyes to keep them from going to sleep. Another was a dose of the Fire-cane, as it was called, which was just a long paddle, or slender oar, pierced with holes at the broadest part, with the which the patient being belaboured, a blister on the fish rose to each hole of the Paddle. A curious method, and one much followed; but the Negroes sulked all the more for it. There was a Dutch woman from Surinam, who had brought with her from that plantation of the Hollanders that highly Ingenious Mode of Torment known as the "Spanso Bocko."[C] The manner of it was this. You took your Negro and tied him wrists and ankles, so bending him into a neat curve. Then, if his spine did not crack the while, you thrust a stake between his legs, and having thus comfortably Trussed him, pullet fashion, you laid him on the ground one side upwards, and at your leisure scarified him from one cheek to one heel with any instrument of Torture that came handy. Then he (or she, it did not at all matter in the Dutchwoman's esteem), being one gore of welts and gashes, was thought to be Done enough on one side, and consequently required Doing t'other. So one that stood by to help just took hold of the stake and turned the Human Pullet over, and then he was so thoroughly basted as sometimes to be Done a little too much, often dying on the spot from that Rib wasting. Oh, it was rare sport! I wonder whereabouts in the nethermost Hell the cunning Dutchman is now who first devised this torment; also the Dutchwoman who practised it? I can fancy Signor Beelzebub and his Imps taking a keen delight in their application of the Spanso Bocko. The which I never knew it cure a Negro of the sulks. They would force back their tongues into their gullets while the torment was going on, determined not so much as to utter a moan, and, having a peculiar Art that way, brought by them from their own country, would often contrive to suffocate themselves and Expire. Their own country! That is what one of the miserable beings said when, being threatened with torment of a peculiar, outrageous nature, he flung himself into a cauldron of boiling sugar, and was scalded to death on the instant. Let me not omit to mention while I am on this chapter of Brutality—wreaked by Christian men upon poor Heathen savages, for many of them were not many weeks from Guinea and Old Calabar, where they had been worshiping Mumbo Jumbo, and making war upon one another in their own Pagan fashion—that I have known Planters even more refined in their cruelty. They would make their slaves drink salt water, and then set them out in the hot sun tied to the outside posts of the Piazza. The end of that was, that they went Raving Mad, gnawing their Tongues and poor blubberous Lips to pieces[D] before they died. Another genius, who was a proficient in his Humanities, and quite of a classic frame of mind in his cruelties, bethought himself of a mode of Torture much practised among the Ancient Persians, and so must needs smear the body of an unhappy Negro all over with molasses. Then, binding him fast to a stake in the open, the flies and mosquitoes got at him,—for he was kept there from one morning until the next,—and he presently gave up the Ghost. But nothing that I ever saw or heard of during the time of my living in the Western Indies, could equal the Romantic Torture, not so much invented as imported, by a Gentleman Merchant who had lived among the islands of the Grecian Archipelago, and whose jocose humour it was to imprison his women slaves in loose garments of leather, very tightly secured, however, at the wrists, neck, and ankles. In the same garments, before fastening round the limbs of the victim, one or more Infuriated cats were introduced; the which ferocious animals, playfully disporting themselves in their attempt to find a point of egress, would so up and tear, and mangle, and lacerate, with their Terrible claws, the flesh of the sufferers, that not all the Brine-washing or pepper-pod-rubbing in the world, afterwards humanely resorted to on their release from their leathern sepulchre, would save them from mortification. There was a completeness and gusto about this Performance that always made me think my Gentleman Merchant from the Greek Islands a very Great Mind. The mere vulgar imitations of his Process which, in times more Modern, I have heard of—such as taking an angry cat by the tail and drawing its claws all abroad down the back of a Negro strapped on to a plank, so making a map of all the rivers in Tartarus from his neck to his loins—are, in my holding, beneath contempt. There is positive Genius in that idea of shutting up the cats in a hide-bound prison, and so letting them work their own wills on the inner walls; and I hope my Gentleman Merchant has as warm a niche in Signor Beelzebub's Temple of Fame, as the Great Dutch Philosopher who first dreamt of the Spanso Bocko.
Before I left the island of Jamaica, there befell me an adventure which I may briefly narrate. It being the sickly season and very few ships in port, Maum Buckey's business was somewhat at a stand-still, and with little difficulty I obtained from her a fortnight's holiday. I might have spent it with no small pleasure, and even profit, at one of her up-country plantations, or at the Estate of some other Planter; for I had friends and to spare among the white Overseers and Bookkeepers; and although the Gentry—that is to say, the Enriched Adventurers, who deemed themselves such—were of course too High and Mighty to associate with one of my Mean Station, I was at no loss for companions among those of my own degree. So bent upon a frolic, and being by this time a good Rider and a capital shot, I joined a band of wild young Slips like myself, to go up the country hunting the miserable Negroes that had Marooned, as it was called. These Maroons were runaway slaves who had bid a sudden good-by to bolts and shackles, whips and rods, and shown their Tyrants a clean pair of heels, finding their covert in the dense jungles that covered the mountain slopes, where they lived on the wild animals and birds they could shoot or snare, and sometimes making descents to the nearest plantations, thence to carry off cattle, ponies, or pigs, or whatever else they could lay their felonious hands upon. These were the Blacks again, you will say, with a vengeance, and at many Thousand Miles' distance from Charlwood Chase: but those poor varlets of Deerstealers in England never dreamt of taking Human Life, save when defending their own, in a fair stand-up Fight; whereas the Maroons had no such scruples, and spared neither age, nor sex, nor Degree—that had a white skin—in their bloodthirsty frenzy. The Savage Indians in the American plantations, who will swoop down on some peaceful English settlement, slaying, scalping, and Burning up men, women, and children,—with other Horrors and Outrages not to be described in decent terms,—are just on a par with these black Maroons. Now and again would be found among them some Household Runaways, or Field Hands born into slavery on the Plantations,—and these were most useful in acting as spies or scouts; but as a rule the Head Men and Boldest Villains among the Maroons were Savage Negroes, just fresh from Africa, on whom the bonds of servitude had sate but for a short time, and who in the jungle were as much at Home as though they were in their native wilds again. Of great stature, of prodigious strength, amazing Agility, and astounding natural cunning, these creatures were as ferocious as Wild Baboons that had lived among civilized mankind just long enough to learn the Art of firing off a Gun and wielding a cutlass, instead of brandishing a Tree-branch or heaving a Cocoa-nut. They were without Pity; they were without knowledge that theirs was a cut-throat, nay, a cannibal trade. The white man had made war on them, and torn them from their Homes, where they were happy enough in their Dirt and Grease, their War-paint, and their idolatrous worship of Obeah and Bungey. 'Twas these Men-monsters that we went to hunt. The Planters themselves were somewhat chary of dealing with them; for the cruelty which the Maroons inflicted on those who fell into their power were Awful alone to contemplate, much more so to Endure; but they were glad enough when any gang of young Desperadoes of the meaner white sort—which, speaking not for myself, I am inclined to believe the Meanest and most Despicable of any sort or condition of Humanity—would volunteer to go on a Maroon Hunt. We were to have a Handsome Recompense, whether our enterprise succeeded or failed; but were likewise stimulated to increased exertion by the covenanted promise of so many dollars—I forget how many now—for every head of a Maroon that we brought at our saddlebows to the place of Rendezvous. And so we started one summer morning, some twenty strong, all young, valiant, and not overscrupulous, armed, I need scarcely say, to the teeth, and mounted on the rough but fleet ponies of the country.
A train of Negroes on whom we could Depend—that is, by the strict application of the law of Fear, not Kindness, and who stood in such Terror of us, and of our ever-ready Thongs, Halters, Pistols, and Cutlasses, as scarcely to dare call their souls their own—followed us with Sumpter mules well laden with provisions, kegs of drink, both of water and ardent, and additional ammunition. I was full of glee at the prospects of this Foray, vowed that it was a hundred times pleasanter than making out Maum Buckey's washing-books, and hearing her scold her laundry-wenches; and longed to prove to my companions that the Prowess I had shown at twelve—ay, and before that age, when I brained the Grenadier with the Demijohn—had not degenerated now that I was turned sixteen, and far away from my own country. So we rode and rode, who but we, and dined gaily under spreading trees, boasting of the brave deeds we would do when we had tracked the black Marooning vagabonds to their lair. At which those Negro servants upon whom we could depend grinned from ear to ear, and told us in their lingo that they "oped we would soon Dam black negar tief out, and burn his Fader like canebrake." "'Tis strange," I thought, "that these creatures have not more compassion for their fellows whom we are hunting." To be sure, they were mostly of the Household breed, between whom and the fresh-imported Negroes held to field-service there is little sympathy. It escaped me to tell you that we had with us yet more powerful and Trustworthy auxiliaries than either our arms, our Horses, or our servants; being none other than nine couples of ferocious Bloodhounds, of a breed now extinct in Jamaica, and to be found only at this present moment, I believe, in the island of Cuba. These animals, which were of a terrible Ferocity and exquisitely keen scent, were kept specially for the purpose of hunting Maroons,—such are the Engines which Tyrannical Slavery is compelled to have recourse to,—and were purposely deprived of food beyond that necessary for their bare sustenance, that they might more fully relish the Recompense that awaited them when they had hunted down their prey.
Gaily we went on our Road rejoicing, now by mere bridle-paths, and now plunging our hardy little steeds right through the bristling underwood, when there burst upon us one of those terrible Tornadoes, or Tempests of wind and rain, so common in the Western Indies. The water came down in great solid sheets, drenching us to the skin in a moment; the sky was lit up for hundreds of miles round by huge blasts of lurid fire; the wind tore great branches off trees, and hurled them across the bows of our saddles, or battered our faces with their soaked leaves or sharp prickles. The very Dogs were blinded and baffled by this tremendous protest of nature; and in the very midst of the storm there broke from an ambuscade a band of Maroons, three times as strong as our own, who fell upon us like incarnate Demons as they were. Our hounds had found their scent long before,—just after dinner, indeed,—and we had been following it for some two hours;—even now it was Reeking close upon us, but we little deemed how Near. I suppose that those Negro Rascals, whom we had trusted so implicitly, and on whom we thought that we could Depend so thoroughly, had Betrayed us. This was the second time in my short Life that I fallen into an Ambuscade; and Lo! each time the "Blacks" had been mixed up with my misadventure.
These naked Maroons cared nothing about the Storm, whose torrents ran off their well-oiled carcasses like water off a Duck's back. There was a very Devil of a fight. 'Twas every one for himself, and the Tempest for us all. The Runaways were well armed, and besides could use their teeth and nails to better advantage than many a doughty Fighting man can use his weapons, and clawed and tore at us like Wild Beasts. I doubt not we should have got the worst of it, but that we were Mounted,—and a Man on horseback is three times a Footman in a Hand-to-Hand encounter; and again, that our good friends the bloodhounds, that had been scared somewhat at the outset, recovered their self-possession, and proceeded each to pin his Maroon, and to rend him to pieces with great deliberation. In the end, that is to say, after about twenty-seven minutes' sharp tussling, Dogs, Horses, and Men were victorious; and, as we surveyed the scene of our Triumph, the storm had spent its fury. The black clouds cleared away as suddenly as they had darkled upon us; the Golden Sun came out, and the dreadful scene was lit up in Splendour. Above, indeed, it was all Beauty and Peace for Nature cannot be long Angry. The trees all seemed stemmed and sprayed with glistering jewels; the moisture that rose had the tints of an hundred Rainbows; the long grass flashed and waved; the many birds in the boughs began to sing Hymns of Thankfulness and Joy. But below, ah, me! what a Dreadful scene of blood and Carnage, and Demoniac revenge, there was shown! Of our band we had lost three Killed; five more were badly Wounded; and there was not one of us but had some Hurt of greater or lesser seriousness. We had killed a many of the Maroons; and the two or three that had escaped with Life, albeit most grievously gashed, were speedily put out of their misery. Had we been seeking for Runaway house-servants, we might have taken prisoners; but with a wild African Maroon this is not serviceable. The only thing that you can do with him, when you catch him, is to kill him.
The Dead Bodies of our unfortunate companions were laid across the sumpter mule's back; but when we came to look for our train of dependable Negroes, we found that all save three had fled. These did so very strongly protest their Innocence, and plead their abiding by us as a proof thereof, that I felt half inclined to hold them blameless. There were those among us, however, who were of a far different opinion, and were for lighting a fire of branches and Roasting them into confession. But there was a Scotch gentleman among us by the name of MacSawby, who, being of a Practical turn (as most of his countrymen are, and, indeed, Edinborough in Scotland is about the most Practical town that ever I was in), pointed out that we were all very Tired, and needed Refreshment and Repose; that the task of Torturing Negroes gave much trouble and consumed more time ("Aiblins it's douce wark," quoth the Scotch gentleman); that all the wood about was sopped with wet (and a "Dry Roast's best," said the Scotch Gentleman); and finally, that the thing could be much better done at home, where we had proper Engines and Instruments for inflicting Exquisite Agony, and proper Slaves to administer the same. So that for the nonce, and for our own Convenience, we were Merciful, and promised to defer making necessary Inquisition, by means of Cowhide, Tamarind-bush, and Fire-cane, until our return to the Rendezvous.
I should tell you that I got a Hurt in my hand from a kind of short Chopper or Tommyhawk that one of the Savages carried. 'Twas fortunately my left hand, and seeming but a mere scratch, I thought little or nothing about it. But at the end of the second day it began to swell and swell to a most alarming size and tumorous discoloration, the inflammation extending right up my arm, even to my shoulder. Then it was agreed on all sides that the blade of the Tommyhawk with which I had been stricken must have been anointed with some subtle and deadly Poison, of the which not only the Maroons but the common Household and Town Negroes have many, preparing them themselves, and obstinately refusing, whether by hope of Reward or fear of punishment, to reveal the secret of their components to the Whites. I had to rest at the nearest Plantation to our battle-field; and the Planter—who had been a captain in the Chevalier de St. George's service (the old one), that had come out here, after the troubles of 1715, a Banished man, but had since been pardoned, and had taken to Planting, and grown Rich—was kind enough to permit me to be taken into his house and laid in one of his own Guest-chambers, where I was not only tended by his own Domestics, but was sometimes favoured with the Attention and sympathy of his angelic Wife, a young woman of most charming countenance and lively manners, most cheerful, pious, and Humane, taking great care of her slaves, physicking them frequently, reading to them little books written by persons of the Nonconforming persuasion,—a kind of doctrine that I never could abide,—and never suffering them to be whipped upon a Sunday. However, I grew worse; whereupon one Mr. Sprague, that set up for surgeon, but was more like a Boatswain turned landsman than that, or than a Horse, came to me, and was for cutting off my arm, to prevent mortification. There were two obstacles in the way of this operation's performance; the first being that Mr. Sprague had no proper instruments by him beyond a fleam and a syringe, with which, and with however good a will, you can scarcely sever a Man's limb from his Body; and the next that Mr. Sprague was not sober. Love for a young widow had driven him to drinking, it was said; but I think that it was more the Love of Liquor to which his bibulous backslidings were owing. 'Twas lucky for me that he had nor saw nor tourniquet with him. It is true that he departed in quest of some Carpenter's Tools, which he declared would do the job quite as well; but, again to my good luck, the carpenter was as Rare a pottlepot as he; and they two took to boiling rum in a calabash and drinking of it, and smoking of Tobacco, and playing at Skimming Dish Hob, Spie the Market, Shove-halfpenny, Brag, Put, and Dilly Dally, and other games that reminded them of the old country, for days and nights together so that the old Negro woman that belonged to the carpenter, seeing them gambling and drinking in the morning just as she had left them drinking and gambling the overnight, stared with amazement like a Mouse in a Throwster's mill. And by the time they had finished their Rouse I was, through Heaven's kindness and the segacity of a Negro nurse named Cubjack, cured. This woman, it is probable knew the secret of the Poison from the bitter effects of which I was suffering. At all events, she took me in hand, and by warm fomentations and bathings, and some outward applications of herbs and anointed bandages, reduced the swelling and restored my hand to its proper Form and Hue. At the end of the week I was quite cured, and able to resume my journey back to Kingston. I did not fail to express my gratitude to the hospitable Planter and his Lady, and I gave the Nurse Cubjack half a dollar and a silver tobacco-stopper that had been presented to me by Maum Buckey.
As a perverse destiny would have it, this Tobacco-stopper, this harmless trinket, was the very means of my losing my situation, and parting in anger from my Pumpkin-faced Patroness. Although I was, even at the present dating, but a raw lad, she took it into her head to be jealous of me, and all about this silver pipe-stopper. She vowed I had given it away to some Quadroon lass up country; she would not hearken to my protests of having bestowed it upon the nurse who had saved my life; and indeed when, at my instance, inquiries were made, Cubjack's replies did not in any way bear out my statement. The unhappy creature, who had probably sold my Tobacco-stopper for a few joes, or been deluded out of it by the Obeah Man, and was afraid of being flogged if discovery were made thereof, positively denied that I had given her anything beyond the half-dollar. You see that these Negroes have no more idea of the pernicious quality of the Sin of Lying, than has a white European shopkeeper deluding a Lady into buying of a lustring or a paduasoy; and see what similar vices there are engendered among savages and Christian folks by opposite causes.
We had a fearful war of words together, Maum Buckey and myself. She was a bitter woman when vexed, and called me "beggar buckra," "poor white trash," "tam lily thief," and the like. Whereat I told her plainly that I had no liking for her lackered countenance, and that she was a mahogany-coloured, slave-driving, old curmudgeon, that in England would be shown about at the fairs for a penny a peep. At the which she screamed with rage, and threw at me a jug of sangaree. Heavy enough it was; but the old lady had not so good an Aim as I had when I brained the Grenadier with the demijohn.
We had little converse after that. There were some wages due, and these she paid me, telling me that I might "go to de Debble," and that if she ever saw me again, she hoped it would be to see me hanged. I could have got Employment, I doubt not, in Jamaica, or in some other of the islands; but I was for the time sick of the Western Indies, and was resolved, come what might, to tempt my fortune in Europe. A desire to return to England first came over me; nor am I ashamed to confess that, mingled with my wish to see my own country once more, was a Hope that I might meet the Traitorous Villain Hopwood, and tell him to his teeth what a false Deceiver I took him to be. You see how bold a lad can be when he has turned the corner of sixteen; but it was always so with John Dangerous.
Some difficulty, nay, considerable obstacles, I encountered in obtaining a ship to carry me to Europe. The vindictive yellow woman, with whom (through no fault of my own, I declare) I was in disfavour, did so pursue me with her Animosity as to prejudice one Sea Captain after another against me; and it was long ere any would consent to treat with me, even as a Passenger. To those of my own nation did she in particular speak against me with such virulence, that in sheer despite I abandoned for the time my intention of going to England, and determined upon making for some other part of Europe, where I might push my fortune. And there being in port early in the winter a Holland ship, named the Gebrüder, which was bound for Ostend, I struck a bargain with the skipper of her, a decent man, whose name was Van Ganderdrom, and prepared to leave the colony in which I had passed over four years of my Eventful Life. Some friends who took an interest in me,—the "bright English lad," as they called me,—and who thought I had been treated by Maum Buckey with some unnecessary degree of Harshness, made up a purse of money for me, by which I was enabled to pay my Passage Money in advance, and lay in a stock of Provisions for the voyage; for, save in the way of Schnapps, Cheeses, and Herrings, the Holland ships were at that time but indifferently well Found. When every thing was paid, I found that I had indeed but a very small Surplus remaining; but there was no other way, and I bade adieu to the island of Jamaica, as I thought, for ever.
The Shipmaster recommended me to a very cleanly Tavern, by the sign of the Red Goose, kept in the Ganz-Straet by a widow-woman named Giessens. 'Twas Goose here, Goose there, and Goose every where, so it seemed with this good Frau; for she served Schiedam at the sign of the Goose, and she lived in Goose Street. She had herself a long neck and a round body and flat feet, going waddling and hissing about the house, a-scolding of her maids, like any Michaelmas matron among the stubble; not to forget her children, of whom she had a flock, waddling and hissing in their little way too, and who were all as like goslings as Sherris is like Sack. Little would have lacked for her to give me hot roast goose to my dinner, and goose-pie for supper, and some unguent of goose-grease to anoint my Pate with, had it chanced to be broken; and truly if I had lived under the sign of the Goose for many days, I might have taken to waddling and hissing too in my own Generation, and have been in time as brave a goose as any of them. Here there was a civil enough company of Seafaring men, Mates, Pilots, Supercargoes, and the like, with some Holland traders, and, if I mistake not, a few Smugglers that had contraband dealings in Cambrics, Steenkirks, Strong waters, and Point of Bruxelles. These last worthies did I carefully avoid; for since my Boyish Mischances I had imbibed a wholesome fear of hurting the King's Revenue, or meddling in any way with his Prerogative. "Well out of it, Jack Dangerous," I said. "Touch not His Majesty's Deer, nor His Majesty's Customs, and there shall be no sense of a tickling in thy windpipe when thou passest a post that is like unto the sign of the Tyburn Tavern." 'Tis astonishing how gingerly a man will walk who has once been within an ace of dancing upon nothing.
There is a mighty quantity of Sand and good store of Mud at Ostend, and a very comforting smell of fish; and so the High Dutch gentry, who, poor souls, know very little about the sea, and see no more salt water from Life's beginning unto its end than is contained within the compass of a pickling-tub, do use the place much for Bathing, and brag about their Dips and Flounderings, crying out, Die Zee ist mein Lust, in their plat Deutsch, as though they had all been born so many Porpoises. I would walk upon a morning much upon the Ramping-Parts, or Fortifications of the Town, watching whole caravans of Bathers, both of High and Low Dutch Gentry, coming to be dipped, borne into the Sea by sturdy Fellows that carried them like so many Sacks of Coals, and who would Discharge them into shallows with little more Ceremony than they would use in shooting such a cargo of Fuel into a cellar. "When my Money is gone," thought I, "I may earn a crust by the like labour." But then I bethought me that I was a Stranger among them; that they might be Jealous of me; and, indeed, when I imparted my design to the Widow-woman Giessens, who was beholden to me, she said, for that I had warned her how poor a guest I was growing, she told me that much interest was needed to obtain one of these Bather's places—almost as much, forsooth, as is wanted to get the berth of a Tide-waiter in England,—and these rascals were always waiting for the tide. Something like a Patent had to be humbly sued for, and fat fees paid to Syndics and Burgomasters, for the fine Privilege of sousing the gentry in the Brine. The good woman offered me Credit till I should find employment, and did so vehemently press a couple of Guilders upon me to defray my present charges, that I had not the heart to refuse, although I took care to avise her that my prospects of being able to repay her were as far off as the Cape of Good Hope.
It chanced one morning that I was walking out of the Town by the side of the Sea below the fortified parts to the Norrard. 'Twas fine and calm enough, and there was not so much Swell as to take a Puppy off his swimming legs; but suddenly I heard a great Outcry and Hubbub, and perceived, some ten feet from me in the Water the head of a Man convulsed with Terror, and who was crying out with all his might that he was Drowning, that he should never see his dear Mamma again, and that all his Estate would go to the Heir-at-Law, whom, as well as he could, for screeching and spluttering, he Cursed heartily in the English tongue. I wondered how he could be in such a Pother, seeing that he was so close to shore, and that moreover there were those nigh unto him who could have helped him if they had had a Mind to it. Close upon him was a Fat gentleman in a clergyman's cassock and a prodigious Fluster, who kept crying out, "Save him! Save him!" but budged not a foot to come to his assistance himself; and, but a dozen yards or so, was a Flemish Fellow, one of the Bathers, who, so far as I could make out from his shaking his head and crying out, "nicht" and "Geld,"—the rest of his lingo was Greek to me,—did refuse to save the Gentleman unless he had more Money given him. For these Bathing-men were a most Mercenary Pack. In a much shorter time than it has taken me to put this on Paper I had off coat and vest, kicked off my shoes, and struck into the water. 'Twas of the shallowest, and I had but to wade towards him who struggled. When I came anigh him, he must even catch hold of me, clinging like Grim Death or a Barnacle to the bottom of a Barge, very nearly dragging me down. But I was happily strong; and so, giving him with my disengaged arm a sound Cuff under the ear, the better to Preserve his Life, I seized him by the waist with the other, and so dragged him up high, if not dry, unto the Sandy Shore. And a pretty sight he looked there, dripping and Shivering, although the sun shone Brightly, and he well nigh Blue with Fright.
What do you think the first words were that my Gentleman uttered so soon as he had got his tongue clear of Salt and Seaweed?
"You villain!" he cries to me, "you have assaulted me. Take witness, Gentlemen, he hath stricken me under the Ear. I will have him in the King's Bench for Battery. Mr. Hodge, you saw it; and you leave me this day week for allowing your Patron to be within an inch of Drowning."
I was always of a Hot Temper, and this cavalier treatment of me after my Services threw me into a Rage.
"Why, you little half-boiled Shrimp," I bawled out, "I have a mind to clout your under t'other Ear, that Brothers may not complain of Favour, and e'en carry you to where I found you."
The Gentleman in the cassock began to break out in excuses, saying that his Patron would reward me, and that he was glad that an Englishman had been by to rescue a Person of Quality from such great Peril, when that Flanders Oaf younger—the extortionate villain—would not stir a finger to help him unless he had half a guilder over and above his fee.
"Let him dry and dress himself," I said, in Dudgeon; "and if he be not civil to a Countryman, who is as good as he, I will kick him back to his Inn, and you too."
"A desperate youth!" murmured the Clergyman, as he handed his Patron a great bundle of towels; "and very meanly clad."
I walked away a few paces while the gentleman dried and dressed himself. Had I obeyed the Promptings of Pride, I should have gone on my ways and left him to his likings; but I was exceedingly Poor, and thought it Foolish to throw away the chance of receiving what his Generosity might bestow upon me. The Bathing-Man, who had been already paid his Fee, had the impudence to come up and ask for more "Geld,"—for minding the gentleman's clothes, as I gathered from the speech of the clergyman, who understood Flemish. He was, however, indignantly refused, and, not relishing, perchance, the likelihood of a scuffle with three Englishmen, straightway decamped.
By and by the Gentleman was dressed, and a very smart appearance he made in a blue shag frock laced with silver, a yellow waistcoat bound with black velvet, green paduasoy breeches, red stockings, gold buckles, an ivory hilt to his sword, and a white feather in his hat. I have no mind to write out Taylor's accompts, but I do declare this to be the exact Schedule of his Equipment. Under the hat, which had a kind of Sunday Marylabonne cock to it, there bulged forth a mighty White Periwig of fleecy curls, for all the world like the coat of a Bologna Poodle Dog, and in the middle of his Wig there peeped out a little hatchet face with lantern jaws, and blue gills, and a pair of great black eyebrows, under which glistened a pair of inflamed eyes. He was not above five feet three inches, and his fingers, very long and skinny, went to and fro under his Point ruffles like a Lobster's Feelers. The Chaplain, who waited upon him as a Maid would on a lardy-dardy woman of Fashion, handed my Gentleman a very tall stick with a golden knob at the end on't, and with this, and a laced handkerchief and a long cravat, which he had likely bought at Mechlin, and a Snuff-box in the lean little Paw that held not the cane, he looked for all the world like one of my Grandmother's Footmen who had run away and turned Dancing Master.
"This, young man," said the Chaplain, making a low bow as he spoke to the comical Image before him, "is Bartholomew Pinchin, Esquire, of Hampstead. Make your reverence, sirrah!"
"Make a reverence to a Rag-doll!" I answered, with a sneer. "He hath left his twin brother beyond sea. I know him, and he is a Barbary Ape."
"The rogue is insolent," says B. Pinchin, Esq., clutching tighter at his tall cane, but turning very white the while. "I must batoon him into better manners."
"What!" I cried in a great voice, making a step towards him, for my blood was up. I would but have tweaked the little creature's Ears; but he, for a surety, thought I had a mind to Murder him. I do aver that he fell upon his knees, and with most piteous Accents and Protestations entreated me, for the sake of his Mamma, to spare his life, and he would give me all I asked.
I was quite bewildered, and turning towards the Parson, asked if his master was Mad; to which he made answer with some Heat, that he was no Master of his, but his Honoured Friend and Gracious Patron; whereupon the little Spark must go up to him, whimpering and cuddling about him, and beseeching him to save him from the Tall Rogue, meaning me.
"Body o' me, man," I exclaimed, scarcely able to keep from laughing, "I mean you no harm. I am a young Englishman, lately come from the Plantations, and seeking employment. I see you struggling yonder, and likely to give up the ghost, and I pull you out; and then you call me Rogue and charge me with striking of you. Was it cramp or cowardice that made you bawl so? Give me something to drink better manners to you, and I will leave you and this reverend gentleman alone."
The Parson bowed his head with a pleased look when I called him Reverend and a Gentleman, and, in an under-tone, told his Patron that I was a civilly behaved youth, after all. But the Poltroon with the white wig was not out of his Pother yet. He had risen to his feet with a patch of sand on each knee, and as the Chaplain wiped it off with a kerchief, he blubbered out that I wanted to rob him.
The Clergyman whispered in his ear—perhaps that I was a Dangerous looking Fellow, and might lose my temper anon to some tune: for my Whippersnapper approaches me, and, in a manner Civil enough, tells me that he is much obliged for what I had done for him. "And you will take this," says he. I will be shot if he did not give me an English groat.
"You can readily get English coin changed in the town," he observed with a smirk, as in sheer bewilderment I gazed upon this paltry doit.
I was desperately minded to Fling it at him, knock him and the Chaplain down, and leave the precious pair to pick themselves up again, but I forebore. "Well," I said, "if that's the value you put upon your life, I can't grumble at your Guerdon. I suppose that shrivelled little carcass of yours isn't worth more than fourpence. I'll e'en change it in town, and buy fourpennyworth of Dutch cheese, and you shall have the parings for nothing to send to your Mamma as a gift from foreign parts. Good morning to you, my noble Captain." And so saying I walked away in a Fume of Wrath and Contempt.
I was idling, that same afternoon, along the Main street of Ostend very much in the Dumps, and thinking of going down to the Port to seek a cook's place from some Ship Master, for I was not yet Qualified to engage as an Able-bodied Mariner, when I met the Chaplain again, this time alone, and coming out of a pastryman's shop. I would have passed him, as holding both him and his master in Disdain, but he Arrested me, and beckoned me into an Entry, there to have some Speech.
"My Patron is somewhat quick and hasty, and was uncommonly flustered by his mischance this morning," quoth the Rev. Mr. Hodge. "Nor perhaps did he use you as liberally as he should have done. Here is a golden guilder for you, honest man."
I thanked him, and as I pouched it told him that I would have taken no Money at all for a service which every man is bound to render to his Fellow-creature, but that I was sorely pressed for Money. On this, he asked my name and belongings. The name I gave him, at the which he winced somewhat; but of my history I did not care to enlighten him further beyond broadly stating that I had come from the Plantations, where I had been used to keep Accompts, and that I was an Orphan, and had no friends in England, even if I possessed the means to return thither.
"I think I can find you a place," the chaplain replied, when I had finished. "'Twill not be a very handsome one, but the work is little and light. Would it meet your purpose, now, to attend on a gentleman?"
"It depends," I replied, "on what kind of a Gentleman he is."
"A Gentleman of landed Estate," quoth the parson, quite pat. "An English gentleman, now travelling for his Diversion, but will, in good time, settle down in England, to live on his Acres in a Handsome manner, and be a justice of peace, and of the Quorum."
"Do you mean your Squire of Hampstead, yonder?" I answered, pointing my thumb over my shoulder, as though in the direction where I had met his Reverence and his Patron that morning.
"Bartholomew Pinchin, of Hampstead, Esquire, eh?" I continued.
"Exactly so."
"Then," I went on, raising my voice, and giving a furious glance at my companion, "I'll see Bartholomew Pinchin boiled, and I'll see Bartholomew Pinchin baked, and his Esquireship to boot, before I'll be his servant. He, a mean, skulking, pinchbeck hound! Tell him I'm meat for his master, and that he has no service, body or lip, of mine."
"Tut, tut, you foolish lad," said Mr. Hodge, not in the least offended. "What a wild young colt it is, and how impatient! For all your strapping figure, now, I doubt whether you are twenty years of age."
I answered, with something like a Blush, that I was not yet seventeen.
"There it is,—there it is," the Chaplain took me, chuckling. "As I thought. A mere boy. A very lad. Not come to years of discretion yet, and never will, if he goes on raging in this manner. Hearken to me, youngster. Don't be such a fool as to throw away a good chance."
"I don't see where it is yet," I observed sulkily yet sheepishly; for there was a Good-natured air about the Chaplain that overcame me.
"But I do," he rejoined. "The good chance you have is of getting a comfortable place, with a smart livery—"
"I won't wear a livery," I cried, in a heat. "I'll be no man's lacquey; I'm a gentleman."
"So was Adam," retorted Mr. Hodge, "and the very first of the breed; but he had to wear a livery of fig-leaves for all that, and so had his wife, Eve. Come, 'tis better to don a land-jerkin, and a hat with a ribbon to 't, and be a Gentleman's Gentleman, with regular Wages and Vails, and plenty of good Victuals every day, than to be starving and in rags about the streets of a Flemish town."
"I'm not starving; I'm not in rags," I protested, with my Proud stomach.
"But you will be the day after to-morrow. The two things always go together. Come, my young friend, I'll own that Bartholomew Pinchin, Esquire, is not generous."
"Generous!" I exclaimed; "why, he's the meanest little hunks that ever lanced a paving stone to find blood for black puddings in it. Didn't he give me fourpence this morning for saving his life?"
"And didn't you tell him that his life wasn't worth more than a groat?" asked the Chaplain, with a sly grin; "besides insulting him on the question of Dutch cheese (to which he has an exquisite aversion), into the bargain?"
"That's true," I replied, vanquished by the Parson's logic.
"There, then," his Reverence went on. "Bartholomew Pinchin Esquire's more easily managed than you think for. Do you prove a good servant, and it shall be my duty to make him show himself a good master to you. But I must have no further parley with you here, else these Papistical Ostenders will think that you are some Flemish lad (for indeed you have somewhat of a foreign air), and I a Lutheran Minister striving to convert you. Get you back to your Inn, good youth. Pay your score, if you have one, and if you have not, e'en spend your guilder in treating of your companions, and come to me at nine of the clock this evening at the Inn of the Three Archduchesses. Till then, fare you well."
It must be owned that his Reverence's proposals were fair, and that his conversation was very civil. As I watched him trotting up the Main Street, his Cassock bulging out behind, I agreed with myself that perhaps the most prudent thing I could do just at present would be to put my gentility in my pocket till better times came round. There was a Spanish Don, I believe, once upon a time, who did very nearly the same thing with his sword.
At the appointed time I duly found myself at the sign of the Three Archduchesses, which was the bravest Hostelry in all Ostend, and the one where all the Quality put up. I asked for Bartholomew Pinchin, Esquire, in the best French that I could muster; whereupon the drawer, who was a Fleming, and, I think, spoke even worse French than I did, asked me if I meant the English Lord who had the grand suite of apartments looking on the courtyard. I was fit to die of laughing at first to hear the trumpery little Hampstead squire spoken of as a lord; but Prudence came to my aid again, and I answered that such was the personage I came to seek; and, after not much delay, I was ushered into the presence of Mr. Pinchin, whose Esquiredom—and proud enough he was of it—I may now as well Drop. I found him in a very handsome apartment, richly furnished, drinking Burgundy with his chaplain, and with a pack of cards alongside the bottles, and two great wax candles in sconces on either side. But, as he drank his Burgundy, he ceased not to scream and whimper at the expense he was being put to in having such a costly liquor at his table, and scolded Mr. Hodge very sorely because he had not ordered some thin Bordeaux, or light Rhine wine. "I'm drinking guineas," he moaned, as he gulped down his Goblets; "it'll be the ruin of me. A dozen of this is as bad as a Mortgage upon my Titmouse Farm. What'll my mamma say? I shall die in the poor-house." But all this time he kept on drinking; and it was not glass and glass about with him, I promise you, for he took at least three bumpers full to his Chaplain's one, and eyed that reverend personage grudgingly as he seized his opportunity, and brimmed up the generous Red Liquor in his tall-stemmed glass. Yet the Chaplain seemed in no way discountenanced by his scanty allowance, and I thought that, perchance, his Reverence liked not wine of Burgundy.
They were playing a hand of piquet when I was introduced; and they being Gentlefolks, and I a poor humble Serving Man that was to be, I was bidden to wait, which I did very patiently in the embrasure of a window, admiring the great dark tapestried curtains as they loomed in indistinct gorgeousness among the shadows. The hand of piquet was over at last, and Mr. Pinchin found that he had lost three shillings and sixpence.
"I can't pay it, I can't pay it," he said, making a most rueful countenance. "I'm eaten out of house and home, and sharped at cards besides. It's a shame for a Parson to play foul,—I say foul, Mr. Hodge. It's a disgrace to the cloth to bring your wicked card-cheating practices to devalise an English gentleman who is travelling for his diversion."
"We'll play the game over again, if you choose, Worthy Sir," the Chaplain answers quite quietly.
"Yes, and then you'll win seven shillings of me. You've sworn to bring me to beggary and ruin. I know you swore it when my mamma sent you abroad with me. Oh, why did I come to foreign parts with a wicked, guzzling, gambling, chambering Chaplain, that's in league with the very host and the drawers of this thieving inn against me—that burns me a guinea a night in wax candles, and has had a freehold farm out of me in Burgundy wine."
"I've have had but two glasses the entire evening," the Chaplain pleaded, in a voice truly that was meek; but I thought that, even at the distance I stood from him, I could see the colour rising in his cheek.
"Oh, you have, you have," went on Squire Bartholomew, who, if not half Mad, was certainly more than three parts Muzzy; "you've ruined me, Mr. Hodge, with your cards and your candles and your Burgundy, and Goodness only knows what else besides."
The Chaplain could stand it no longer; and rose in a Rage.
"I wish all the candles and the cards were down your throat," he cried; "nearly all the wine is there already. I wish they'd choke you. I wish they were all in the pit of your stomach, and turned to hot burning coals. What shall I do with you, you cadaverous little jackanapes? The Lout did well this morning—"(I was the Lout, by your leave) "to—to liken thee to one, for thou art more monkey than man. But for fear of staining my cassock, I'd—I'd—"
He advanced towards him with a vengeful air, clenching his fist, as well as I could see, as he approached. Surely there never was such a comical character as this Bartholomew Pinchin. 'Tis the bare truth, that, as the enraged parson came at him, this Gentleman of broad acres drops down again on his marrowbones, just as I had seen him on the sands in the morning; and lifting up his little skinny hands towards the ceiling, begins yelling and bawling out louder than ever.
"Spare my life! spare my life!" he cried, "Take my watch and trinkets. Take my Gold Medal of the Pearl of Brunswick Club. Take the diamond solitaire I wear in my great Steenkirk on Sundays. Go to my Bankers, and draw every penny I've got in the world. Turn me out a naked, naked Pauper; but oh, Mr. Hodge spare my life. I'm young. I've been a sinner. I want to give a hundred Pounds to Lady Wackerbarth's charity school. I want to do every body good. Take my gold, but spare my life. Oh, you tall young man in the corner there, come and help an English gentleman out of the hands of a murtherous Chaplain."
"Why, you craven cur, you," puts in the Chaplain, bending over him with half-poised fist, yet with a kind of half-amusement in his features, "don't you know that the Tall young Man, as you call him, is the poor English lad who saved your worthless little carcass from drowning this morning, and whom you offered to recompense with a Scurvy Groat."
"I'll give him forty pound, I will," blubbered Mr. Pinchin, still on his knees. "I'll give him fifty pound when my Midsummer rents come in, only let him rescue me from the jaws of the roaring lion. Oh, my Mamma! my mamma!"
"Come forward, then, young man," cried the Chaplain, with a smile of disdain on his good-humoured countenance, "and help this worthy and courageous gentleman to his legs. Don't be afraid, Squire Barty. He won't murder you."
I advanced in obedience to the summons, and putting a hand under either armpit of the Squire, helped him on to his feet. Then, at a nod of approval, I set him in the great arm-chair of Utrecht velvet. Then I pointed to the bottle on the table, and looked at Mr. Hodge, as though to ask whether he thought a glass of Burgundy would do the patient good.
"No," said the Chaplain. "He's had enough Burgundy. He'd better have a flask of champagne to give him some spirits. Will you drink a flask of champagne, Squire?" he continued, addressing his patron in a strangely authoritative voice.
"Yes," quoth the little man, whose periwig was all Awry, and who looked, on the whole, a most doleful figure,—"yes, if you please, Mr. Hodge."
"Vastly pretty! And what am I to have? I think I should like some Burgundy."
"Any thing," murmured the discomfited Squire; "only spare my—"
"Tush! your life's in no danger. We'll take good care of it. And this most obliging English youth,—will your Honour offer him no refreshment? What is he to have?"
"Can he drink beer?" asked the Squire, in a faint voice, and averting his head, as though the having to treat me was too much for him.
"Can you drink beer?" echoed the Chaplain, looking at me, but shaking his head meanwhile, as if to warn me not to consent to partake of so cheap a beverage.
"It's very cheap," added Mr. Pinchin, very plaintively. "It isn't a farthing a glass; and when you get used to it, it's better for the inwards than burnt brandy. Have a glass of beer, good youth. Kind Mr. Hodge, let them bring him a glass of Faro."
"Hang your faro! I don't like it," I said, bluntly.
"What will you have, then?" asked the Squire, with a gasp of agony, and his head still buried in the chair-cushion.
It seemed that the Chaplain's lips, as he looked at me, were mutely forming the letters W I N E. So I put a bold front upon it, and said,
"Why, I should like, master, to drink your health in a bumper of right Burgundy with this good Gentleman here."
"He will have Burgundy," whimpered Mr. Pinchin, half to the chair-cushion, and half to his periwig. "He will have Burgundy. The ragged, tall young man will have Burgundy at eight livres ten sols the flask. Oh, let him have it, and let me die! for he and the Parson have sworn to my Mamma to murder me and have my blood, and leave me among Smugglers, and Papistry, and Landlords who have sworn to ruin me in waxen candles."
There was something at once so ludicrous, and yet so Pathetic, in the little man's lamentations, that I scarcely knew whether to laugh or to cry. His feelings seemed so very acute, and he himself so perfectly sincere in his moanings and groanings, that it was almost Barbarity to jeer at him. The Chaplain, however, was, to all appearance, accustomed to these little Comedies; for, whispering to me that it was all Mr. Pinchin's manner, and that the young Gentleman meant no harm, he bade me bestir myself and hurry up the servants of the House to serve supper. So not only were the champagne and the Burgundy put on table,—and of the which there was put behind a screen a demiflask of the same true vintage for my own private drinking. ("And the Squire will be pleased, when he comes to Audit the score, to find that you have been content with Half a bottle. 'Twill seem like something saved out of the Fire," whispers the Chaplain to me, as I helped to lay the cloth),—not only were Strong Waters and sweet Liquors and cordials provided, especially that renowned stomachic the Maraschyno, of which the Hollanders and Flemings are so outrageously fond, and which is made to such perfection in the Batavian settlements in Asia, but a substantial Repast likewise made its appearance, comprising Fowl, both wild and tame, and hot and cold, a mighty pasty of veal and eggs, baked in a Standing Crust, some curious fresh sallets, and one of potatoes and salted herrings flavoured with garlic—to me most villanously nasty, but much affected in these amphibious Low Countries. So, the little Squire being brought to with a copious draught of champagne,—and he was the most weazened little Bacchus I ever knew, moistening his ever-dry throttle from morn until night,—he and the chaplain sate down to supper, and remained feasting until long past midnight. So far as the Parson's part went, it might have been called a Carouse as well as a Feast, for his Reverence took his Liquor, and plenty of it, with a joviality of Countenance the which it would have done your Heart good to see, drinking "Church and King," and then "King and Church," so that neither Institution should have cause to grumble, and then giving the Army, the Navy, the Courts of Quarter Sessions throughout England, Newmarket and the horses, not forgetting the Jockeys, the pious memory of Dr. Sacheverell, at which the Squire winced somewhat, for he was a bitter Whig, with many other elegant and appropriate sentiments. In fact, it was easy to see that his reverence had known the very best of company, and when at one of the clock he called for a Bowl of Punch, which he had taught the Woman of the House very well how to brew, I put him down as one who had sate with Lords,—ay and of the Council too, over their Potations. But the Behaviour of Bartholomew Pinchin, Esquire, was, from the beginning unto the end of the Regale, of a piece with his former extraordinary and Grotesque conduct. After the champagne, he essayed to sing a song to the tune of "Cold and Raw," but, failing therein, he began to cry. Then did he accuse me of having secreted the Liver Wing of a Capon, which, I declare, I had seen him devour not Five Minutes before. Then he had more Drink, and proposed successively as Toasts his Cousin Lady Betty Heeltap, daughter to my Lord Poddle; a certain Madame Van Foorst, whom I afterwards discovered to be the keeper of a dancing Ridotto on the Port at Antwerp; then the Jungfrau, or serving wench that waited upon us, who had for name Babette; and lastly his Mamma, whom, ten minutes afterwards, he began to load with Abuse, declaring that she wished to have her Barty shut up in a madhouse, in order that she might enjoy his Lands and Revenues. And then he fell to computing the cost of the supper, swearing that it would Ruin him, and making his old complaints about those eternal wax candles. Then, espying me out, he asks who I am, challenges me to fight with him for a Crown, vows that he will delate me to the English Resident at Brussels for a Jacobite spy, tells me that I am an Honest Fellow, and, next to Mr. Hodge, the best friend he ever had in the world, and falls down at last stupefied. Whereupon, with the assistance of the Flemish Drawer, I carried my new master up to bed.