“O Harry!” I cried, “what do I care about Thyrsis and absent nymphs? You have promised to bring me back in a year. Very well, then, I shall expect you. Of course you can tell Sir Robert whatever you please. It is nothing to me what you tell Sir Robert or my lady.”
“She is cold as Diana,” said Harry, with a prodigious sigh; but I broke from him, and would hear no more such nonsense. Sighing shepherds and cruel nymphs were for ever on Harry Temple’s lips.
As for Will, of course he wanted to have an explanation too. He followed Harry, and, in his rustic way, begged to say a word or two.
“Pray go on, Will,” I said.
“I promised a twelvemonth,” he explained. “I’ll not go back upon my word. I did say a twelvemonth.”
“A twelvemonth? Oh yes. You said the same as Harry, I remember.”
“I don’t know what Harry said, but I’ll swear, whatever Harry said, I said just the clean contrary. Now, then, liberty’s sweet, my girl. Come, let us say fifteen months. Lord! when a man is twenty-one he don’t want to be tied by the heels all at once. Let’s both have our run first. You are but a filly yet—ay—a six months’ puppy, so to say.”
“You said a twelvemonth, Will,” I replied, little thinking of what he meant. How, indeed, could I know? “I shall expect you in a twelvemonth.”
“Very good, then. A twelvemonth it must be, I suppose. Shan’t tell my father yet, Kitty. Don’t you tell un neyther, there’s a good girl. Gad! there will be a pretty storm with my lady when she hears it! Ho! ho!”
Then he went off chuckling and shaking himself. How could a courtly gentleman like Sir Robert and a gentlewoman like her ladyship have a son who was so great a clown in his manner and his talk? But the sons do not always take after their parents. A stable and a kennel, when they take the place of a nursery and a school, are apt to breed such bumpkins even out of gentle blood.
In the morning at five I was to start in the cart which would take us across the country to the stage-coach.
Nancy got up with me, and we had a fine farewell kissing. The boys were up too; Harry out of compliment to me, dressed in a nightcap and a flowered morning-gown; and Will out of compliment to his kennel, for whose sake he always rose at daybreak. He was dressed in his old scarlet coat, he carried a whip in one hand, and half-a-dozen dogs followed at his heels.
“Remember, sweet Kitty,” whispered Harry, with a ceremonious bow, “it is but for a twelvemonth.”
“Only a year,” said Will. “Heart up, my pretty!”
They heard what each had said, and they were looking at each other puzzled when I drove away.
“What did you mean, Will?” asked Harry, when the cart was out of sight, “by saying only a year?”
“I meant what I meant,” he replied doggedly. “Perhaps you know, and perhaps you don’t.”
“Of course I know,” said Harry. “The question is, how do you know?”
“Well,” replied Will, “that is a pretty odd question, to be sure. How could I help knowing?”
“I think,” said Harry, red in the face, “that some one has been injudicious in telling any one.”
Will laughed.
“She ought not to have told, that’s a fact. But we will keep it secret, Harry; don’t tell her ladyship.”
So that each thought that the other knew of his engagement with Kitty.
Little heed gave I to them and their promises. It was pleasant, perhaps, though I soon forgot to think about it at all, to remember that Harry and Will after a twelvemonth would come to carry me home again, and that I should never leave the old place again. But just then I was too sad to remember this. I was going away, Heaven knew where, amongst strangers, to people who knew me not; and I mounted the cart in which we were to begin our journey crying as sadly as if it had been the dreadful cart which goes to Tyburn Tree. The best thing to cure a crying fit is a good jolting. It is impossible to weep comfortably when you are shaken and rolled about in a country cart among the deep, hard ruts of last winter. So I presently put up my handkerchief, dried my eyes, and thought of nothing but of clinging to Mrs. Gambit when the wheels sank deeper than usual. The way lay along the lanes which I knew so well, arched over with trees and lofty hedges, then in their beautiful spring dressing. It led past the churchyard, where the sun was striking full upon my father’s new-made grave. I tried to think of him, but the cart jolted so terribly that I was fain to remember only how I carried his last admonitions in my bosom, and the money in two bags sewn to my petticoats.
Presently the lane led on to the high-road, which was not quite so rough, and here we came to the roadside inn where the stage-coach changed horses. We waited an hour or so, until at length we saw it coming slowly up the hill, piled with packages and crowded with passengers. But there was room for two more, and we mounted to our places outside. Presently the machine moved slowly along again. It was so heavily-laden and the roads were so rough, that we rolled as if every moment we were going to roll over into the ditch, where we should all be killed. Mrs. Gambit loudly declared that nothing should ever again take her out of London, where a body could ride in a coach without the fear of being upset and the breaking of necks. On this journey, however, no necks were broken, because the coach did not upset. When the rolling was very bad, Mrs. Gambit clutched me with one hand and her right hand neighbour with the other. I, in my turn, seized her with one hand and my right hand neighbour with the other. Then we both shrieked, until presently, finding that we did not actually go over, I began to laugh.
My neighbour was a clergyman of grave and studious aspect. He wore a full wig, which had certainly been a second-hand one when it was bought, so shabby, was it now; his gown was also shabby, and his stockings were of grey worsted. Clearly a country clergyman of humble means. His face, however, looked young. When I caught him by the arm, he laid hold of my hand with both of his, saying gravely, “Now, madam, I hold you so tightly that you cannot fall.” This was very kind of him. And, presently, he wanted to lay his arm round my waist for my better protection. But this was taking more trouble than I would consent to.
There was, however, a worse danger than that of upsetting. This year, England suffered from a plague of highway-robbers, the like of which was never before known. The roads were crowded with them. They were mostly disbanded soldiers, who, being either disinclined to return to their old trades, or being unable to find employment, roamed about the country either singly or in pairs, or in bands, rogues and vagabonds, ready to rob, steal, plunder, or even murder as occasion offered. They were sometimes so bold that they would attack a whole coachful of passengers, and take from them whatever they carried, unless, as sometimes happened, there were one or two valiant men on the coach ready to give them a warm reception with guns, pistols, swords, or even stout cudgels. They were said seldom to show much fight (being conscious of the gallows awaiting them if they were wounded or captured), and would generally make off. But it was not always that passengers were found ready to risk the fight, and in most cases they sat still and delivered.
With this danger before us, it was not surprising that the conversation should turn upon highwaymen whenever the road became a little smooth, and I listened with terror to the tales I heard. Most of them were related by a man who sat opposite to me. He wore a scratch wig (probably his second-best), and had his hat flapped and tied about his ears as if it were winter. He was, I suppose, a merchant of some kind, because he talked a great deal about prices, and stocks, and markets, with other things, Greek and Hebrew to me. Also, he looked so uneasy, and kept watching the road with so anxious an air, that I felt sure he must be carrying a great parcel of money like me, and I longed to advise him to imitate my prudence; and at the next town we got down to sew it within his coat. He continually lamented, as we went along, the desperate wickedness of the highway-robbers: he spoke of it as if he were entirely disinterested, and regarded not at all the peril to his own fortune, but only the danger of their own souls, liable to be wretchedly lost and thrown away by their dreadful courses. And he talked so feelingly on this subject that one began to feel as if good words were being spoken to the edification of the soul. As for their suppression, he said that, in their own interests, strong measures would be necessary. Trade would never flourish, and therefore men would not be induced to follow a respectable trade until ships could sail the seas without fear of pirates, and honest merchants carry their property up and down the king’s highway without fear of highwaymen. Here we came in sight of a man on horseback, and we all kept silence for an anxious space, till we discovered, by his great wig and black coat, that it was nothing but a country surgeon riding out to see a patient. Then the merchant went on to say that since the gallows did not terrify these evil-doers, he, for one, was for trying how they would like the French wheel.
At this there was a terrible outcry: the clergyman, especially, asking if he wished to introduce French barbarities.
“Such things,” he said solemnly, “are the natural accompaniment of Popery. Pray, sir, remember Smithfield.”
“Sir,” said the merchant, “I hope I am as good a Protestant as my neighbours. I call that, however, not barbarity but justice and mercy which punishes the guilty and deters the weak. As for barbarities, are we Protestants better than our neighbours? Is it not barbarous to flog our soldiers and sailors for insubordination; to flog our rogues at the cart-tail; to lash the backs of women in Bridewell; to cut and scourge the pickpockets so long as the alderman chooses to hold up the hammer? Do we not hack the limbs of our traitors, and stick them up on Temple Bar? Truly the world would come to a pretty pass if we were to ask our cut-throats what punishment would hurt them least.”
“I like not the breaking of legs on wheels,” cried Mrs. Gambit. “But to call the flogging of Bridewell hussies barbarous! Fie, sir! You might as well call bull-baiting barbarous.”
No one wanted to encourage highway-robbers, yet none but this merchant from foreign parts would allow than an Englishman, however wicked, should cruelly have his limbs broken and crushed by a rod of iron.
“As for the gentlemen of the road,” said Mrs. Gambit, “I, for one, fear them not. They may take the butter and eggs in my basket, but they won’t find my money, for that is in my shoe.”
“Nor mine,” said I, taking courage and thinking to show my cleverness; “for it is all sewn safe inside my petticoats.”
“Hush, silly women!” cried the merchant. “You know not but there is a highwayman sitting in disguise on the coach beside you. I beg pardon, sir,” he turned to the clergyman beside me—“no offence, sir—though I have heard of a thief who robbed a coach after travelling in it dressed as a gentleman of your cloth.”
“None, sir, none,” replied his reverence. “Yet am I not a highwayman, I do assure you for your comfort. Nor have I any money in my pocket or my shoe. I am but a simple clergyman, going to look at a benefice which hath been graciously bestowed upon me.”
“That, sir,” said the merchant, “is satisfactory, and I hope that no other ears have heard what these ladies have disclosed. Shoes? petticoats? Oh, the things that I have seen and heard!”
The clergyman then told us that he had a wife and six daughters, and that the preferment (two hundred pounds a year!) would make a man of him, who had as yet been little better than a slave with sixty pounds for all his income. The Christian year, he told us, was a long Lent for him, save that sometimes, as at Christmas and Eastertide, he was able to taste meat given to him. Yet he looked fat and hearty.
“My drink,” he said, “is from the spring, which costs nothing; and my bread is but oatmeal-porridge, potatoes, or barley-meal.”
Then he pressed my hand in his, said I resembled his wife in her younger days, and declared that he already felt to me like a father.
There sat next to the merchant a young gentleman of about seventeen or eighteen, brave in scarlet, for he had just received a commission as ensign in a regiment of the line, and was on his way to join his colours, as he told us with pride. Directly highway robbers were mentioned he assumed, being a young man with rosy and blushing cheek, fitter for a game of cricket on the green than for war’s alarms, a fierce and warlike mien, and assured us that we ladies should not want protection while he was on the coach. And he made a great show of loosening his sword in the scabbard to ensure its quick and ready use, should the occasion rise. The merchant received these professions of courage with undisguised contempt; the clergyman smiled; Mrs. Gambit nodded her head and laughed, as if he was a boy whose talk meant nothing. I neither laughed at him nor scowled at him. In fact I was thinking, girl-like, what a handsome boy he was, and hoping that he would some day become a great general. As the country seems at the present juncture sadly in want of great generals, I fear he has been killed in action.
When we stopped for dinner, at one o’clock—I remember that I never before saw so prodigious a piece of roast beef upon the table—our host must needs spoil all enjoyment of the meal by asking us, just as we were sat down, sharp-set by the air, if we had met or seen anything of a certain “Black Will,” who seemed to be very well known by all. The very name caused our poor merchant to push back his plate untasted, and the young officer to rise from the table and hasten to assure himself that his sword was loose in the scabbard.
“Because,” said the landlord, “it is right for you to know that Black Will is reported in this neighbourhood with all his crew: a bloody lot, gentlemen. I hope you have no valuables to speak of upon you. However, perhaps they will not meet you on the road. They murdered a man last year, a young gentleman like you, sir,” nodding to the ensign, “because he offered resistance and drew his sword. What is a little toothpick like that, compared with a quarterstaff in the hands of a sturdy rogue? So they beat his brains out for him. Then they gagged and used most unmercifully, kicking him till he was senseless, an honest gentleman like yourself, sir”—he nodded to our merchant—“who gave them the trouble of taking off his boots, where, for greater safety, as the poor wretch thought, he had bestowed his money——”
“God bless my soul!” cried the merchant, changing colour, so that I for one felt quite certain that his was there too, and that his courage was down in his boots as well, to keep the money company. “Bless my soul! hanging, mere hanging, is too good for such villains.”
“It is indeed,” replied the landlord, shaking his head. “There was a young lady, too”—I started, because he looked at me—“who had her money sewn in a bag inside her frock.” I blushed red, knowing where mine was. “They made her take it off and dance a minuet with one of them in her petticoats. But indeed there is no end to their wickedness. Come, gentlemen, let me carve faster; spare not the beef; don’t let Black Will spoil your appetites. Cut and come again. He may be twenty miles away. A noble sirloin, upon my word! To be sure, he may be waiting on the hill there in the wood.”
“A glass of brandy, landlord,” cried the merchant, who surely was a dreadful coward. “Tell me, would he be alone?”
“Not likely.” The landlord, I thought, took a pleasure in making us uneasy. “He would have two or three with him. Perhaps six. With pistols. Do take some more beef. And blunderbusses. Ah! a desperate wicked gang.”
In such cheerful discourse we took our dinner, and then, with trepidation, mounted to our places and drove away.
We got up the hill safely, and met no Black Will. During the next stage we all kept an anxious look up and down the road. The coach seemed to crawl, and the way was rough. The sight of a man on horseback made our hearts beat; if we saw two, we gave ourselves up for lost. But I was pleased all the time to mark the gallant and resolute behaviour of the boy, who, with his hand upon the hilt of his sword, sat pale but determined; and when he caught my eye, smiled with the courage of one who would defend us to the death, as I am sure he would, like the gallant young knight he was.
Towards the evening we caught sight of the tower of Canterbury Cathedral, and soon afterwards we rolled through the streets of that ancient city, and got down at the Crown Inn, where we were to rest for the night.
I pass over, as unworthy of record, my own wonder at so great and beautiful a city. This was the first town I had ever seen; these the first shops; and this the first, and still the grandest, to my mind, of great cathedral churches. We walked through the great church at sunset, where there was something truly awful in the lofty arches mounting heavenwards, and the gloom of the roof. Outside there were Gothic ruins; rooks were calling to each other in the trees, and swifts were flying about the tower.
At supper we had more talk about highway-robbers, but we were assured that there was less danger now, because between Canterbury and London the road is more frequented, and therefore robbers, who are by nature a timorous folk, hesitate to attack a coach. Moreover, the landlord told us that we should have with us two or three honest citizens of Canterbury, substantial tradesmen, who travelled to London together for mutual protection, taking money with them, and pistols with which to defend themselves.
“One of them,” he added, “is a lieutenant in the train-band, and a draper in the city: a more resolute fellow never handled a yard-measure.”
The gentlemen ordered a bowl of punch after supper, and we retired. As we left the room, the clergyman followed us. Outside the door, Mrs. Gambit having already begun to go upstairs, he said he would give me his benediction, which he did, kissing me on the cheeks and lips with much (and undeserved) affection. He was good enough to say that I greatly resembled his youngest sister, the beautiful one, and he desired closer acquaintance. Nor could I understand why Mrs. Gambit spoke scornfully of this act of kindness, which was entirely unexpected by me. “Kindness, quotha!” she cried. “A pious man indeed, to love to kiss a pretty maid! I like not such piety.”
In the morning the train-band lieutenant, with his two friends, came swaggering to the inn. He carried his pistols openly, and made more display of them, I thought, than was necessary, considering his character for resolution and desperate bravery. Then we started, our little soldier still ready with his sword.
The road was smoother; it ran for the most part along enclosures and gentlemen’s parks. It was broad and straight, having been made, we were told by the draper, in the time of the Romans; and as we drew near to London, the villages became more frequent, and the road was covered with carts, waggons, and carriages of every kind, all moving towards London. Was London bigger than Canterbury? I asked. They laughed at my innocence, and began to tell me that you might take the whole of Canterbury out of London and not miss it much: also that he or she who had not seen London had not seen the greatest marvel and wonder of the world.
“There are fine buildings,” said the merchant, “in Paris, though the streets are foul; but in London there are buildings as fine, with streets that are broader: and there is the trade. Aha!”—he smacked his lips—“Paris hath no trade. One has to see the ships in the Pool, and the Custom House, and the wharves, before one can understand how great and rich a city is London. And one should also—but that, young lady, you cannot ever do, live as long as you will, being only a woman—feast at one of the great City Companies to understand how nobly they can use their wealth.”
We were still anxious about highwaymen, but our fears were greatly lessened by the presence of the brave draper of Canterbury. The clergyman kept up a flow of anecdotes, which showed strange acquaintance with the wickedness of the world, on highwaymen, footpads, robbers of all kinds, deceivers of strangers, and practisers on innocence. The merchant listened eagerly, and together they bemoaned the credulity of the ignorant, and the subtlety of the designing.
Our spirits grew higher as we neared the end of our journey. Now, indeed, there was but little fear. The coach travels from Canterbury to London in a single day; we should arrive before nightfall.
“Ha! ha!” said the merchant, rubbing his hands, “we who travel encounter many dangers. In London one can go to bed without fearing to be murdered in one’s sleep, and walk abroad without looking to be brained and murderously treated for the sake of a purse and a watch. There may be pickpockets, shoplifters, and such petty rogues: there may be footpads about St. Pancras or Lincoln’s Inn Fields, but small villains all compared with these desperate rogues of highwaymen.”
“Desperate indeed,” said the clergyman. “Dear sir, we should be grateful for our preservation.”
It was already past seven when we arrived at the Talbot Inn. The merchant fetched a deep sigh, and thanked Providence aloud for keeping us safe from the danger of “Stand and deliver!” The clergyman said, “Amen,” but gently reproved the merchant for not allowing him, as an ordained minister, to take the lead in every devotional exercise. When they got down they entered the house together. The young ensign pulled off his hat to me, and said that no doubt the rogues had got wind of an officer’s presence on the stage. Then he tapped his sword-hilt significantly, and got down, and I saw him no more. The gallant draper, getting down slowly, lamented that he must still be carrying loaded pistols, with never an opportunity for using them upon the road, and uncocked his weapons with as much ostentatious care as he had shown in loading them. For my own part, I had no taste for fighting, or for seeing fights, and was only too glad to escape the hands of men who, if tales were true, did not even respect a girl’s frocks. The clergyman bestowed a final benediction upon me, saying that he craved my name with a view to a closer friendship; and would have kissed me again had not Mrs. Gambit pushed him away with great roughness.
The thing I am now about to relate will doubtless seem incredible. Yet it is true. I learned it some time after, when Black Will was hanged, and his last Dying Speech and Confession was cried in the streets.
The merchant and the clergyman entered the Talbot Inn to drink together a bowl of punch at the former’s expense before separating. The latter, out of respect for his cloth, called for a private room, whither the punch was presently brought.
Now, when they had taken a glass or two each, both being very merry, they were disturbed by the entrance of two tall and ill-favoured fellows, who walked into the room and sat down, one on each side of the merchant.
“Gentlemen!” he cried, “this is a private room, ordered by his reverence here and myself for the peaceful drinking of a thanksgiving glass.”
“No,” replied the clergyman, rising and locking the door; “I find, dear sir, that this room had been already bespoke by these gentlemen, who are friends of mine own, and that we have very urgent business which particularly concerns yourself.”
At these words the merchant turned pale, being, as you may imagine, horribly frightened, and perceiving that he had fallen into a nest of hornets. Whereupon he sprang to his feet, and would have rushed to the door, but that two of the villains seized him and pushed him back into the chair, while the third drew a knife and held it at his throat, informing him that his weasand would most certainly be cut across did he but move a finger or utter a sigh. At this dreadful threat the poor man gave himself up for lost, and said no more, only the tears of despair rolled down his face as he thought of what was going to happen to him.
The good clergyman then, with smiles and a polite bow, informed him that in this world things are not always what they seemed to be. “Honest tradesmen,” he said, “often turn out to be common cheats, and substantial citizens become bankrupts. Therefore, it is not surprising if a reverend minister of the Established Church should occasionally bear a hand in a little scheme in which good acting and dexterity are essentials necessary for success. In fact,” he went on, drinking up all the punch meanwhile, “though to you and to many good friends I am a pious divine, among my particular intimates and these gentlemen of the road”—here he pointed to the two villains—“I am no other than Black Will, at your service! Nay, do not faint, dear sir. Although you would break me on the wheel, had you the power, I assure you I shall do you no harm in the world. Wherefore, kick off your boots!”
Alas! in his boots was the money which the poor man was bringing home from France. They took it all. They tied him to his chair, and that to the table. They gagged him; they put his wig on the table, tied a handkerchief over his head, so that he should seem to be asleep; and then they left him, telling the waiter that the gentleman in the blue room was tired after his journey, and would like to be undisturbed for an hour or two.
To think that this villain (who was but twenty-four when he was hanged, a year or so later) should dare to feel towards me like a father, and to give me his blessing—on the lips!
It was past seven in the evening when we arrived at the Talbot Inn of Southwark, and too late to begin our search after my uncle that evening. Mrs. Gambit, therefore, after conference with a young man of eight-and-twenty or so, dressed in broadcloth, very kindly offered me a bed at her own lodging for the night. This, she told me, was in a quiet and most respectable neighbourhood, viz., Fore Street, which she begged me not to confound with Houndsditch. I readily assured her that I would preserve separate the ideas of the two streets, which was easy to one who knew neither.
She then informed me that the young man was no other than her husband, foreman of works to a builder, and that, to save the expense of a porter, he would himself carry my box. Mr. Gambit upon this touched his hat respectfully, grinned, shouldered the box, and led the way, pushing through the crowd around us, and elbowing them to right and left without a word of excuse, as if they were so many ninepins.
I learned afterwards that it is customary with the mechanical tradesmen of London thus to assert their right of passage, and as it is not every one who gives way, the porter’s burden is not unfrequently lowered while he stops to fight one who disputes his path. In evidence of these street fights, most of the London carters, coachmen, chairmen, porters, and labourers, bear continually upon their faces the scars, recent or ancient, of many such encounters. As for the gentlemen, it seems right that they should not disdain to strip and take a turn with their fists against some burly ruffian who would thrust his unmannerly body past his betters, confident in his superior strength.
Mr. Gambit looked round from time to time to see if we were following, and it gave me pain to observe how my box, which was long in shape, became the constant cause of sad accidents; for with it Mr. Gambit either knocked off a hat, or deranged a wig, or struck violently some peaceful person on the back of his head, or gave an inoffensive citizen a black eye, or caused profane passengers to swear. He was, however, so big, strong, and careless about these reproaches, that no one cared to stop him or offered to fight him until he was well on ahead.
“It’s a royal supper,” he turned and nodded pleasantly, shouting these words to his wife: the box thus brought at right angles to the road, barred the way while he spoke, except to the very short. “Tripe—fried tripe!—with onions and carrots and potatoes. Will be done to a turn at eight. Make haste!”
What crowds! what rushing to and fro! what jostling, pushing, and crowding! What hurrying, and what wicked language! Sure something dreadful must have happened, nor could I believe Mrs. Gambit when she assured me that this was the usual crowd of London.
Then we came to London Bridge: and I saw the ships in the river and the Tower of London. Oh, the forests of masts! And beyond the river, the steeples of the great city shining bright in the evening sunshine. Which of them was my uncle’s church?
We crossed the bridge; we walked up Gracechurch Street to Cornhill; we passed through a labyrinth of narrow and winding lanes, crowded like the wider streets. Mr. Gambit hurried along, thinking, I suppose, of his supper, and using my box as a kind of battering-ram with which to force a way. Presently we came to a broad street, which was, in fact, Fore Street, where was Mrs. Gambit’s lodging.
“Eight o’clock,” said Mr. Gambit, as we reached the top of the stairs. “Now for supper.”
There was such a noise in the street below that we could hardly hear the church bells as they struck the hour. Yet there were churches all round us. But their bells clanging together only added somewhat to the general tumult.
“Eight o’clock, wife—good time!”
He dropped my box upon the floor, and hastened down the stairs.
It was a comfortable lodging of two rooms, in one of which a cloth was laid for supper, which Mr. Gambit speedily brought from a cookshop, and we had a royal supper indeed, with two quarts at least of the nauseous black beer of London, to which such men are extravagantly addicted.
Supper ended, Mr. Gambit lit a pipe of tobacco and began to smoke, begging me not to mind him. His wife told him of the farm and her brother, and I tried to listen through the dreadful noise of the street below. It was a warm evening and our window was thrown open; people were passing up and down, talking, singing, whistling, shouting, and swearing. I could hear nothing else; but the good man seemed as if he was deaf to the roar of the street, and listened to his wife as quietly as if we were in the fields. I asked him presently, with a shout, what was the cause of a dreadful riot and tumult? He laughed, and said that it was always the same. It was a pity, I said, that London being so rich, could not keep the streets quiet.
“Ay, but,” said he, “there are plenty of poor people as well, and you must first ask what they think about having their mouth shut.”
The strangeness of the place and the noise in the streets kept me awake nearly all that night, so that, when Mrs. Gambit called me in the morning, I was still tired. But it was time to be up and seeking for my uncle.
We got everything ready: my father’s last will and testament; my bags of money, which Mrs. Gambit carried for me in her basket, and tied the basket to her arm; and my box of clothes. Then, because Mrs. Gambit said that a young lady should not walk with her box carried by a porter, like a servant wench, we hired a coach and told him to drive us to St. Paul’s Coffee-house.
It is not far from Fore Street to St. Paul’s Churchyard, but the crowd in the streets, the waggons and carts, and the dreadful practice of London drivers to quarrel and then to stop while they abuse each other, delayed us a great deal, so that it was already half-past nine when we came to the Coffee-house.
We got down, leaving the coach at the door.
It was a place the like of which I had never dreamed of. To be sure, everything was new to me just then, and my poor rustic brain was turning with the novelty. There was a long room which smelt of tobacco, rum-punch, coffee, chocolate, and tea; it was already filled with gentlemen, sitting on the benches before small tables, at which some were taking pipes of tobacco, some were talking, some were writing, and some were reading the newspapers. Running along one side of the room was a counter covered with coffee-pots, bottles of Nantz, Jamaica rum, Hollands, and Geneva: there were also chocolate-dishes, sugar, lemons, spices, and punch-bowls. Behind the counter sat a young woman, of grave aspect, knitting, but holding herself in readiness to serve the customers.
The gentlemen raised their heads and stared at me; some of them whispered and laughed; all gazed as if a woman had no more business there than in the inner precincts of the Temple. That was what occurred to me instantly, because they were, I observed, all of them clergymen.
They were not, certainly, clergymen who appeared to have risen in the world, nor did their appearance speak so much in their favour as their calling. They were mostly, in fact, clad in tattered gowns, with disordered or shabby wigs, and bands whose whiteness might have been restored by the laundress, but had changed long since into a crumpled yellow. I heard afterwards that the house was the resort of those “tattered crapes,” as they are irreverently called, who come to be hired by the rectors, vicars, and beneficed clergy of London, for an occasional sermon, burial, or christening, and have no regular cure of souls.
On such chance employment and odd jobs these reverend ministers contrive to live. They even vie with each other and underbid their neighbours for such work; and some, who have not the means to spend a sixpence at the Coffee-house, will, it is said, walk up and down the street, ready to catch a customer outside. One fears that there must be other reasons besides lack of interest for the ill success of these men. Surely, a godly life and zeal for religion should be, even in this country of patronage, better rewarded than by this old age of penury and dependence. Surely, too, those tattered gowns speak a tale of improvidence, and those red noses tell of a mistaken calling.
This, however, I did not then know, and I naturally thought there must be some great ecclesiastical function in preparation, a confirming on a large scale, about to be celebrated in the great cathedral close beside, whose vastness was such as amazed and confounded me. These clergymen, whose poverty was no doubt dignified by their virtues, were probably preparing for the sacred function after the manner practised by my father, namely, by an hour’s meditation. Perhaps my uncle would be among them.
Seeing me standing there helpless, and I daresay showing, by my face, what I immediately manifested in speech, my rusticity, the young woman behind the counter came to my assistance, and asked me, very civilly, what I lacked.
“I was told,” I stammered, “to inquire at the St. Paul’s Coffee-house for the present lodging of my uncle.” As if there was but one uncle in all London!
“Certainly, madam,” said the woman, “if you will tell me your uncle’s name.”
“I was told that you knew, at this house, the residence of every London clergyman.”
“Yes, madam, that is true; and of a good many country clergymen. If you will let me know his name, we will do what we can to assist you.”
“He is named” (I said this with a little pride, because I thought that perhaps, from my own rusticity and the homeliness of my companion, she might not have thought me so highly connected), “he is the Reverend Gregory Shovel, Doctor of Divinity.”
“Lord save us!” she cried, starting back and holding up her hands, while she dropped her knitting-needle. Why did she stare, smile, and then look upon me with a sort of pity and wonder? “Dr. Shovel is your uncle, madam?”
“Yes,” I said. “My father, who was also a clergyman, and is but lately dead, bade me come to London and seek him out.”
She shook her head at this news, and called for one William. There came from the other end of the room a short-legged man, with the palest cheeks and the reddest nose I had ever seen. They spoke together for a few minutes. William grinned as she spoke, and scratched his head, under the scantiest wig I had ever seen.
“Can you tell me?” I began, when she returned. I observed that William, when he left her, ran quickly up the room, whispering to the gentlemen, who had ceased to stare at me, and that, as soon as he had whispered, they all, with one consent, put down their pipes, or their papers, or their coffee, stayed their conversation, and turned their clerical faces to gaze upon me, with a universal grin, which seemed ill-bred, if one might so speak of the clergy. “Can you tell me?”
“I can, madam; and will,” she replied. “What, did your father not know the present residence of Dr. Shovel? I fear it will not be quite such as a young lady of your breeding, madam, had a right to expect. But doubtless you have other and better friends.”
“She has, indeed,” said Miss Gambit, “if his honour Sir Robert Levett, Justice of the Peace, is to be called a good friend. But if you please, tell us quickly, madam, because our coach waits at the door, and waiting is money in London. The country for me, where a man will sit on a stile the whole day long, and do nothing, content with his daily wage. And the sooner we get away from these reverend gentlemen, who stare as if they had never seen a young lady from the country before, the better.”
“Then,” the young woman went on, “tell your man to drive you down Ludgate Hill and up the Fleet Market on the prison side; he may stop at the next house to the third Pen and Hand. You will find the doctor’s name written on a card in the window.”
We thanked her, and got into the coach. When we told the coachman where to go, he smacked his leg with his hand, and burst out laughing.
“I thought as much,” cried the impudent rascal. “Ah, Mother Slylips! wouldn’t the doctor serve your turn, but you must needs look out for one in the Coffee-house? I warrant the doctor is good enough for the likes of you!”
He cracked his whip, and we drove off slowly.
Now, which was really extraordinary, all the reverend gentlemen of the coffee-room had left their places and were crowded round the door, some of them almost pushing their wigs into the coach windows in their eagerness to look at us. This seemed most unseemly conduct on the part of a collection of divines; nor did I imagine that curiosity so undignified, and so unworthy a sacred profession, could be called forth by the simple appearance of a young girl in the coffee-room.
The faces formed a curious picture. Some of the clergymen were stooping, some standing, some mounting on chairs, the better to see, so that the doorway of the Coffee-house seemed a pyramid of faces. They were old, young, fat, thin, red, pale, of every appearance and every age; they were mostly disagreeable to look at, because their possessors were men who had been unsuccessful, either through misfortune or through fault; and they all wore, as they stared, a look of delighted curiosity, as if here was something, indeed, to make Londoners talk—nothing less, if you please, than a girl of seventeen, just come up from the country.
“Bless us!” cried Mrs. Gambit, “are the men gone mad? London is a wicked place indeed, when even clergymen come trooping out merely to see a pretty girl! Fie for shame, sir, and be off with you!”
These last words were addressed to one old clergyman with an immense wig, who was actually thrusting his face through the coach window. He drew it back on this reprimand, and we went on our way.
I looked round once more. The young woman of the counter was still in the doorway, and with her William, with the scrubby wig and the red nose; round them were the clergymen, and they were all talking about me, and looking after me. Some of them wagged their heads, some shook theirs, some nodded, some were holding their heads on one side, and some were hanging theirs. Some were laughing, some smiling, some were grave. What did it mean?
“If,” said Mrs. Gambit, “they were not clergymen, I should say they were all tomfools. And this for a pretty girl—for you are pretty, Miss Kitty, with your rosy cheeks and the bright eyes which were never yet spoiled by the London smoke. But there must be plenty other pretty girls in London. And them to call themselves clergymen!”
“Perhaps they were looking at you, Mrs. Gambit.”
The idea did not seem to displease her. She smiled, smoothed the folds of her gown, and pulled down the ends of her neckerchief.
“Five years ago, child, they might. But I doubt it is too late. Set them up, indeed! As if nothing would suit them to look at but the wife of a respectable builder’s foreman. They must go into the country, must they, after the pretty faces?”
But oh, the noise and tumult of the streets! For as we came to the west front of St. Paul’s, we found Ludgate Hill crowded with such a throng as I had never before believed possible. The chairmen jostled each other up and down the way. The carts, coaches, drays, barrows, waggons, trucks, going up the hill, met those going down, and there was such a crush of carriages, as, it seemed, would never be cleared. All the drivers were swearing at each other at the top of their voices.
“Shut your ears, child!” cried Mrs. Gambit. But, immediately afterwards: “There! it’s no use; they could be heard through my grandfather’s nightcap! Oh, this London wickedness!”
There are many kinds of wickedness in London; but the worst, as I have always thought, because I have seen and heard so much of it, is the great and terrible vice of blasphemy and profane swearing, so that, if you listen to the ragamuffin boys or to the porters, or to the chair and coach men, it would seem as if it were impossible for them to utter three words without two, at least, being part of an oath.
Then some of the drivers fought with each other; the people in the coaches looked out of the windows—swore, if they were men; if they were ladies, they shrieked. Most of those who were walking up and down the hill took no manner of notice of the confusion; they pushed on their way, bearing parcels and bundles, looking neither to the right nor to the left, but straight in front, as if they had not a moment to spare, and must push on or lose their chance of fortune. Some there were, it is true, who lingered, looking at the crush in the road and the men fighting; or, if they were women, stopping before the shops, in the windows of which were hoods, cardinals, sashes, pinners, and shawls, would make the mouth of any girl to water only to look at them. At the doors stood shopmen, bravely habited in full-dressed wigs with broad ribbon ties behind, who bowed and invited the gazers to enter. And there were a few who loitered as they went. These carried their hats beneath their arms, and dangled canes in their right hands.
There was plenty of time for us to notice all that passed, because the block in the way took fully half an hour to clear away. We were delayed ten minutes of this time through the obstinacy of a drayman, who, after exchanging with a carter oaths which clashed, and clanged, and echoed in the air like the bombshells at the siege of Mans, declared that he could not possibly go away satisfied until he had fought his man. The mob willingly met his views, applauding so delicate a sense of honour. They made a ring, and we presently heard the shouts of those who encouraged the combatants, but happily could not see them, by reason of the press. Mrs. Gambit would fain have witnessed the fight; and, indeed, few country people there are who do not love to see two sturdy fellows thwack and belabour each other with quarterstaff, singlestick, or fists. But I was glad that we could not see the battle, being, I hope, better taught. My father, indeed, and Lady Levett were agreed that in these things we English were little better than the poor pagan Romans, who crowded to see gladiators do battle to the death, or prisoners fight till they fell, cruelly torn and mangled by the lions; and no better at all than the poor Spanish papists who flock to a circus where men fight with bulls. It is hard to think that Roman gentlewomen and Spanish ladies would go to see such sights, whatever men may do. Yet in this eighteenth century, when we have left behind us, as we flatter ourselves, the Gothic barbarisms of our ancestors, we still run after such cruelties and cruel sports as fights with fists, sticks, or swords, baitings of bull, bear, and badger, throwing stones at cocks, killing of rats by dogs and ferrets, fights of cocks, dogs, cats, and whatever other animals can be persuaded to fight and kill each other.
When the fight was over, and one man defeated—I know not which, but both were horribly bruised and stained with blood—the carts cleared away rapidly, and we were able to go on. Is it not strange to think that the honour of such a common fellow should be “satisfied” when he hath gotten black eyes, bloody nose, and teeth knocked down his throat?
We got to the bottom of the hill, and passed without further adventure through the old gate of Lud, with its narrow arch and the stately effigy of Queen Elizabeth looking across the Fleet Bridge. Pity it is that the old gate has since been removed. For my own part, I think the monuments of old times should be carefully guarded, and kept, not taken away to suit the convenience of draymen and coaches. What would Fleet Street be without its bar? or the Thames without its river-gates? Outside, there was a broad space before us. The Fleet river ran, filthy and muddy, to the left, the road crossing it by a broad and handsome stone bridge, where the way was impeded by the stalls of those who sold hot furmety and medicines warranted to cure every disease. On the right, the Fleet had been recently covered in, and was now built over with a long row of booths and stalls. On either side the market were rows of houses.
“Fleet Market,” said the driver, looking round. “Patience, young lady. Five minutes, and we are there.”
There was another delay here of two or three minutes. The crowd was denser, and I saw among them two or three men with eager faces, who wore white aprons, and ran about whispering in the ears of the people, especially of young people. I saw one couple, a young man and a girl, whom they all, one after the other, addressed, whispering, pointing, and inviting. The girl blushed and turned away her head, and the young man, though he marched on stoutly, seemed not ill pleased with their proposals. Presently one of them came to our coach, and put his head in at the window. It was as impudent and ugly a head as ever I saw. He squinted, one eye rolling about by itself, as if having quarrelled with the other; he had had the bridge of his nose crushed in some fight; some of his teeth stuck out like fangs, but most were broken; his chin was bristly with a three days’ beard; his voice was thick and hoarse; and when he began to speak, his hearers began to think of rum.
“Pity it is,” he said, “that so pretty a pair cannot find gallant husbands. Now, ladies, if you will come with me I warrant that in half an hour the doctor will bestow you upon a couple of the young noblemen whom he most always keeps in readiness.”
Here the driver roughly bade him begone about his business for an ass, for the young lady was on her way to the doctor’s. At this the fellow laughed and nodded his head.
“Aha!” he said, “no doubt we shall find the gentleman waiting. Your ladyship will remember that I spoke to you first. The fees of us messengers are but half-a-crown, even at the doctor’s, where alone the work is secure.”
“What means the fellow?” cried Mrs. Gambit. “What have we to do with gentlemen?”
“All right, mother,” he replied, with another laugh. Then he mounted the door-step, and continued to talk while the coach slowly made its way.
We were now driving along the city side of the Fleet Market, that side on which stands the prison. The market was crowded with buyers and sellers, the smell of the meat, the poultry, and the fruit, all together, being strong rather than delicate.
“This,” said Mrs. Gambit, “is not quite like the smell of the honeysuckle in the Kentish hedges.”
The houses on our right seemed to consist of nothing but taverns, where signs where hoisted up before the doors. At the corner, close to the ditch was the Rainbow, and four doors higher up was the Hand and Pen, next to that the Bull and Garter, then another Hand and Pen, then the Bishop Blaize, a third Hand and Pen, the Fighting Cocks, and the Naked Boy. One called the White Horse had a verse written up under the sign: