 | BUCKTHORNE,
OR THE
YOUNG MAN OF GREAT EXPECTATIONS. Tales of a traveller |  |
BUCKTHORNE,
OR THE
YOUNG MAN OF GREAT EXPECTATIONS.
I was born to very little property, but to great
expectations; which is perhaps one of the most
unlucky fortunes that a man can be born to. My
father was a country gentleman, the last of a
very ancient and honourable but decayed family,
and resided in an old hunting lodge in Warwickshire.
He was a keen sportsman and lived
to the extent of his moderate income, so that I
had little to expect from that quarter; but then
I had a rich uncle by the mother's side, a penurious
accumulating curmudgeon, who it was confidently
expected would make me his heir; because
he was an old bachelor; because I was
named after him, and because he hated all the
world except myself.
He was, in fact, an inveterate hater, a miser
even in misanthropy, and hoarded up a grudge
as he did a guinea. Thus, though my mother
was an only sister, he had never forgiven her
marriage with my father, against whom he had
a cold, still, immoveable pique, which had lain
at the bottom of his heart, like a stone in a well,
ever since they had been school boys together.
My mother, however, considered me as the intermediate
being that was to bring every thing
again into harmony, for she looked upon me as
a prodigy—God bless her! My heart overflows
whenever I recall her tenderness: she was the
most excellent, the most indulgent of mothers.
I was her only child, it was a pity she had no
more, for she had fondness of heart enough to
have spoiled a dozen!
I was sent, at an early age to a public school
sorely against my mother's wishes, but my
father insisted that it was the only way to make
boys hardy. The school was kept by a conscientious
prig of the ancient system, who did
his duty by the boys intrusted to his care; that is
get our lessons. We were put into classes and thus
flogged on in droves along the highways of
knowledge, in much the same manner as cattle
are driven to market, where those that are heavy
in gait or short in leg have to suffer for the superior
alertness or longer limbs of their companions.
For my part, I confess it with shame, I was
an incorrigible laggard. I have always had the
poetical feeling, that is to say, I have always
been an idle fellow and prone to play the vagabond.
I used to get away from my books
and school whenever I could, and ramble about
the fields. I was surrounded by seductions for
such a temperament. The school house was
an old fashioned white-washed mansion of wood
and plaister, standing on the skirts of a beautiful
village. Close by it was the venerable
church with a tall Gothic spire. Before it
spread a lovely green valley, with a little stream
glistening along through willow groves; while
a line of blue hills that bounded the landscape
fairy land that lay beyond.
In spite of all the scourgings I suffered at that
school to make me love my book, I cannot but
look back upon the place with fondness. Indeed,
I considered this frequent flaggellation as the
common lot of humanity, and the regular mode
in which scholars were made. My kind mother
used to lament over my details of the sore
trials I underwent in the cause of learning; but
my father turned a deaf ear to her expostulations.
He had been flogged through school himself, and
swore there was no other way of making a man
of parts; though, let me speak it with all due reverence,
my father was but an indifferent illustration
of his own theory, for he was considered
a grievous blockhead.
My poetical temperament evinced itself at a very
early period. The village church was attended
every Sunday by a neighbouring squire—the
lord of the manor, whose park stretched quite
to the village, and whose spacious country seat
seemed to take the church under its protection.
been consecrated to him instead of to the Deity.
The parish clerk bowed low before him, and the
vergers humbled themselves into the dust in his
presence. He always entered a little late and
with some stir, striking his cane emphatically
on the ground; swaying his hat in his hand,
and looking loftily to the right and left, as he
walked slowly up the aisle, and the parson, who
always ate his Sunday dinner with him, never
commenced service until he appeared. He sat
with his family in a large pew gorgeously lined,
humbling himself devoutly on velvet cushions, and
reading lessons of meekness and lowliness of
spirit out of splended gold and morocco prayer
books. Whenever the parson spoke of the difficulty
of a rich man's entering the kingdom of
heaven, the eyes of the congregation would turn
towards the “grand pew,” and I thought the
squire seemed pleased with the application.
The pomp of this pew and the aristocratical
air of the family struck my imagination wonderfully,
and I fell desperately in love with a little
age This freak of fancy made me more truant
from my studies than ever. I used to stroll
about the squire's park, and would lurk near the
house, to catch glimpses of this little damsel at
the windows, or playing about the lawns, or
walking out with her governess.
I had not enterprize, or impudence enough to
venture from my concealment; indeed, I felt like
an arrant poacher, until I read one or two of
Ovid's Metamorphoses, when I pictured myself
as some sylvan deity, and she a coy wood
nymph of whom I was in pursuit. There is
something extremely delicious in these early
awakenings of the tender passion. I can feel
even at this moment, the thrilling of my boyish
bosom, whenever by chance I caught a
glimpse of her white frock fluttering among the
shrubbery. I now began to read poetry. I carried
about in my bosom a volume of Waller,
which I had purloined from my mother's library;
and I applied to my little fair one all the compliments
lavished upon Sacharissa.
At length I danced with her at a school ball.
I was so awkward a booby, that I dared scarcely
speak to her; I was filled with awe and embarrassment
in her presence; but I was so inspired
that my poetical temperament for the first time
broke out in verse; and I fabricated some glowing
lines, in which I berhymed the little lady
under the favourite name of Sacharissa. I slipped
the verses, trembling and blushing, into her
hand the next Sunday as she came out of church.
The little prude handed them to her mamma;
the mamma handed them to the squire; the
squire, who had no soul for poetry, sent them in
dudgeon to the school master; and the school
master, with a barbarity worthy of the dark ages,
gave me a sound and peculiarly humiliating flogging
for thus trespassing upon Parnassus.
This was a sad outset for a votary of the muse.
It ought to have cured me of my passion for
poetry; but it only confirmed it, for I felt the
spirit of a martyr rising within me. What was
as well, perhaps, it cured me of my passion for
the young lady; for I felt so indignant at the ignominious
her charms, that I could not hold up my head in
church.
Fortunately for my wounded sensibility, the
midsummer holydays came on, and I returned
home. My mother, as usual, inquired into all
my school concerns, my little pleasures, and cares,
and sorrows; for boyhood has its share of the
one as well as of the others. I told her all, and
she was indignant at the treatment I had experienced.
She fired up at the arrogance of the
squire, and the prudery of the daughter; and as to
the school masters, she wondered where was the
use of having school masters, and why boys could
not remain at home and be educated by tutors,
under the eye of their mothers. She asked to
see the verses I had written, and she was delighted
with them; for to confess the truth, she
had a pretty taste in poetry. She even showed
them to the parson's wife, who protested they
were charming, and the parson's three daughters
insisted on each having a copy of them.
All this was exceedingly balsamic, and I was
young ladies, who were the blue stockings of the
neighbourhood, and had read Dr. Johnson's lives
quite through, assured my mother that great genuises
never studied, but were always idle; upon
which I began to surmise that I was myself
something out of the common run. My father,
however, was of a very different opinion, for
when my mother, in the pride of her heart, showed
him my copy of verses, he threw them out of
the window, asking her “if she meant to make a
ballad monger of the boy.” But he was a careless,
common thinking man, and I cannot say that
I ever loved him much; my mother absorbed all
my filial affection.
I used occasionally, during holydays, to be
sent on short visits to the uncle, who was to make
me his heir; they thought it would keep me in
his mind, and render him fond of me. He was
a withered, anxious looking old fellow, and
lived in a desolate old country seat, which he
suffered to go to ruin from absolute niggardliness.
He kept but one man servant, who had
woman was allowed to sleep in the house. A
daughter of the old servant lived by the gate, in
what had been a porter's lodge, and was permitted
to come into the house about an hour each
day, to make the beds, and cook a morsel of provisions.
The park that surrounded the house was all
run wild; the trees grown out of shape; the fish
ponds stagnant; the urns and statues fallen from
their pedestals and buried among the rank grass.
The hares and pheasants were so little molested,
except by poachers, that they bred in great abundance,
and sported about the rough lawns and
weedy avenues. To guard the premises and
frighten off robbers, of whom he was somewhat
apprehensive, and visiters, whom he held in almost
equal awe, my uncle kept two or three
blood hounds, who were always prowling round
the house, and were the dread of the neighbouring
peasantry. They were gaunt and half-starved,
seemed ready to devour one from mere hunger,
approach to this wizard castle.
Such was my uncle's house, which I used to
visit now and then during the holydays. I was,
as I have before said, the old man's favourite; that
is to say, he did not hate me so much as he did
the rest of the world. I had been apprised of his
character, and cautioned to cultivate his good
will; but I was too young and careless to be a
courtier; and indeed have never been sufficiently
studious of my interests to let them govern my
feelings. However, we seemed to jog on very
well together; and as my visits cost him almost
nothing, they did not seem to be very unwelcome.
I brought with me my gun and fishing rod, and
half supplied the table from the park and the fish
ponds.
Our meals were solitary and unsocial. My uncle
rarely spoke; he pointed for whatever he
wanted, and the servant perfectly understood
him. Indeed, his man John, or Iron John, as he
was called in the neighbourhood, was a counter-part
of his master. He was a tall bony old fellow,
tail, and a face as tough as though it had been
made of bull's hide. He was generally clad in a
long, patched livery coat, taken out of the wardrobe
of the house; and which bagged loosely
about him, having evidently belonged to some
corpulent predecessor, in the more plenteous days
of the mansion. From long habits of taciturnity,
the hinges of his jaws seemed to have grown
absolutely rusty, and it cost him as much effort
to set them ajar, and to let out a tolerable sentence,
as it would have done to set open the iron
gates of the park, and let out the old family carriage
that was dropping to pieces in the coach
house.
I cannot say, however, but that I was for some
time amused with my uncle's peculiarities. Even
the very desolateness of the establishment had
something in it that hit my fancy. When the
weather was fine I used to amuse myself, in a solitary
way, by rambling about the park, and coursing
like a colt across its lawns. The hares and
pheasants seemed to stare with surprise, to see a
by day-light. Sometimes I amused myself by
jerking stones, or shooting at birds with a bow
and arrows; for to have used a gun would have
been treason. Now and then my path was crossed
by a little red-headed ragged-tailed urchin,
the son of the woman at the lodge, who ran wild
about the premises. I tried to draw him into familiarity,
and to make a companion of him; but
he seemed to have imbibed the strange unsocial
character of every thing around him; and always
kept aloof; so I considered him as another Orson,
and amused myself with shooting at him
with my bow and arrows, and he would hold up
his breeches with one hand, and scamper away
like a deer.
There was something in all this loneliness
and wildness strangely pleasing to me. The
great stables, empty and weather-broken, with
the names of favourite horses over the vacant
stalls; the windows bricked and boarded up;
the broken roofs, garrisoned by rooks and jackdaws;
all had a singularly forlorn appearance:
uninhabited, were it not for a little thread
of blue smoke, which now and then curled up
like a corkscrew, from the centre of one of the
wide chimneys, when my uncle's starveling meal
was cooking.
My uncle's room was in a remote corner of
the building, strongly secured and generally
locked. I was never admitted into this strong
hold, where the old man would remain for
the greater part of the time, drawn up like a
veteran spider in the citadel of his web. The
rest of the mansion, however, was open to me,
and I sauntered about it, unconstrained. The
damp and rain which beat in through the broken
windows, crumbled the paper from the walls;
mouldered the pictures, and gradually destroyed
the furniture. I loved to rove about the wide
waste chambers in bad weather, and listen to
the howling of the wind, and the banging about
of the doors and window shutters. I pleased
myself with the idea how completely, when I
came to the estate, I would renovate all things,
till it was astonished at its own jocundity.
The chamber which I occupied on these visits
was the same that had been my mother's, when
a girl. There was still the toilet table of her
own adorning; the landscapes of her own drawing.
She had never seen it since her marriage,
but would often ask me if every thing was still
the same. All was just the same; for I loved
that chamber on her account, and had taken
pains to put every thing in order, and to mend
all the flaws in the windows with my own hands.
I anticipated the time when I should once more
welcome her to the house of her fathers, and restore
her to this little nestling place of her childhood.
At length my evil genius, or, what perhaps is
the same thing, the muse inspired me with the
notion of rhyming again. My uncle, who never
went to church, used on Sundays to read chapters
out of the bible; and Iron John, the woman
from the lodge, and myself, were his congregation.
It seemed to be all one to him what he read, so
long as it was something from the bible: sometimes,
and this withered anatomy would read
about being “stayed with flaggons and comforted
with apples, for he was sick of love.”
Sometimes he would hobble, with spectacle on
nose, through whole chapters of hard Hebrew
names in Deuteronomy; at which the poor woman
would sigh and groan as if wonderfully
moved. His favourite book, however, was “The
Pilgrim's Progress;” and when he came to that
part which treats of Doubting Castle and Giant
Despair, I thought invariably of him and his desolate
old country seat. So much did the idea
amuse me, that I took to scribbling about it under
the trees in the park; and in a few days had
made some progress in a poem, in which I had
given a description of the place, under the name
of Doubting Castle, and personified my uncle as
Giant Despair.
I lost my poem somewhere about the house,
and I soon suspected that my uncle had found it;
as he harshly intimated to me that I could return
again until he should send for me.
Just about this time my mother died.—I cannot
dwell upon the circumstance; my heart,
careless and wayworn as it is, gushes with the
recollection. Her death was an event, that perhaps
gave a turn to all my after fortunes. With
her died all that made home attractive, for my
father was harsh, as I have before said, and had
never treated me with kindness. Not that he
exerted any unusual severity towards me, but it
was his way. I do not complain of him. In
fact, I have never been much of a complaining
disposition. I seem born to be buffetted by
friends and fortune, and nature has made me a
careless endurer of buffettings.
I now, however, began to grow very impatient
of remaining at school, to be flogged for things
that I did not like. I longed for variety, especially
now that I had not my uncle's to resort to,
by way of diversifying the dullness of school
with the dreariness of his country seat. I was
now turned of sixteen; tall for my age, and full
desire to see different kinds of life, and different
orders of society; and this vagrant humour had
been fostered in me by Tom Dribble, the prime
wag and great genius of the school, who had all
the rambling propensities of a poet.
I used to set at my desk in the school, on a fine
summer's day, and instead of studying the book
which lay open before me, my eye was gazing
through the window on the green fields and
blue hills. How I envied the happy groups
seated on the tops of stage coaches, chatting,
and joking, and laughing, as they were whirled
by the school house, on their way to the metropolis.
Even the waggoners trudging along beside
their ponderous teams, and traversing the
kingdom, from one end to the other, were objects
of envy to me. I fancied to myself what adventures
they must experience, and what odd
scenes of life they must witness. All this was,
doubtless, the poetical temperament working
within me, and tempting me forth into a world
of its own creation, which I mistook for the
world of real life.
While my mother lived this strong propensity
to rove was counteracted by the stronger attractions
of home, and by the powerful ties of affection,
which drew me to her side; but now that
she was gone, the attractions had ceased; the
ties were severed. I had no longer an anchorage
ground for my heart; but was at the mercy
of every vagrant impulse. Nothing but the narrow
allowance on which my father kept me, and
the consequent penury of my purse, prevented
me from mounting the top of a stage coach and
launching myself adrift on the great ocean of
life.
Just about this time the village was agitated for
a day or two, by the passing through of several
caravans, containing wild beasts, and other spectacles
for a great fair annually held at a neighbouring
town.
I had never seen a fair of any consequence,
and my curiosity was powerfully awakened by
this bustle of preparation. I gazed with respect
and wonder at the vagrant personages who
accompanied these caravans. I loitered about
to the slang talk and cant jokes of the
showmen and their followers; and I felt an
eager desire to witness this fair, which my fancy
decked out as something wonderfully fine.
A holyday afternoon presented, when I could
be absent from the school from noon until evening.
A waggon was going from the village to
the fair. I could not resist the temptation, nor
the eloquence of Tom Dribble, who was a truant
to the very heart's core. We hired seats, and
sat off full of boyish expectation. I promised
myself that I would but take a peep at the land
of promise, and hasten back again before my absence
should be noticed.
Heavens! how happy I was on arriving at
the fair! How I was enchanted with the world
of fun and pageantry around me! The humours
of Punch; the feats of the equestrians;
the magical tricks of the conjurors! But what
principally caught my attention was—an itinerant
t heatre; where a tragedy, pantomine and
farce were all acted in the course of half an
than at either Drury Lane or Covent Garden
in a whole evening. I have since seen many a
play performed by the best actors in the world,
but never have I derived half the delight from
any that I did from this first representation.
There was a ferocious tyrant in a skull cap
like an inverted porringer, and a dress of red
baize, magnificently embroidered with gilt leather;
with his face so be-whiskered and his eyebrows
so knit and expanded with burnt cork,
that he made my heart quake within me as he
stamped about the little stage. I was enraptured
too with the surpassing beauty of a distressed
damsel, in faded pink silk, and dirty white muslin,
whom he held in cruel captivity by way of
gaining her affections; and who wept and wrung
her hands and flourished a ragged pocket handkerchief
from the top of an impregnable tower,
of the size of a band-box.
Even after I had come out from the play, I
could not tear myself from the vicinity of the
theatre; but lingered, gazing, and wondering,
performed their antics, or danced upon a stage
in front of the booth, to decoy a new set of spectators.
I was so bewildered by the scene, and so lost
in the crowd of sensations that kept swarming
upon me, that I was like one entranced. I lost
my companion Tom Dribble, in a tumult and
scuffle that took place near one of the shows,
but I was too much occupied in mind to think
long about him. I strolled about until dark,
when the fair was lighted up, and a new scene
of magic opened upon me. The illumination
of the tents and booths; the brilliant effect of
the stages decorated with lamps, with dramatic
groups flaunting about them in gaudy dresses,
contrasted splendidly with the surrounding darkness;
while the uproar of drums, trumpets, fiddles,
hautboys and cymbals, mingled with the
harangues of the showmen, the squeaking of
Punch, and the shouts and laughter of the
crowd, all united to complete my giddy distraction.
Time flew without my perceiving it. When I
came to myself and thought of the school, I hastened
to return. I inquired for the waggon in
which I had come: it had been gone for hours.
I asked the time: it was almost midnight! A
sudden quaking seized me. How was I to get
back to school? I was too weary to make the
journey on foot, and I knew not where to apply
for a conveyance. Even if I should find one,
could I venture to disturb the school house long
after midnight? to arouse that sleeping lion the
usher, in the very midst of his night's rest? The
idea was too dreadful for a delinquent schoolboy.
All the horrors of return rushed upon me
—my absence must long before this have been
remarked—and absent for a whole night!—a
deed of darkness not easily to be expiated. The
rod of the pedagogue budded forth into tenfold
terrors before my affrighted fancy. I pictured to
myself punishment and humiliation in every variety
of form; and my heart sickened at the picture.
Alas! how often are the petty ills of boy-hood
sterner evils of manhood to our robuster minds.
I wandered about among the booths, and I
might have derived a lesson from my actual feelings,
how much the charms of this world depend
upon ourselves; for I no longer saw any thing gay
or delightful in the revelry around me. At length
I lay down, wearied and perplexed, behind one
of the large tents, and covering myself with the
margin of the tent cloth, to keep off the night
chill, I soon fell asleep.
I had not slept long, when I was awakened by
the noise of merriment within an adjoining
booth. It was the itinerant theatre, rudely constructed
of boards and canvas. I peeped through
an aperture, and saw the whole dramatis personæ,
tragedy, comedy, and pantomime, all refreshing
themselves after the final dismissal of
their auditors. They were merry and gamesome,
and made their flimsy theatre ring with their
laughter. I was astonished to see the tragedy
tyrant in red baize and fierce whiskers, who had
made my heart quake as he strutted about the
fellow; the beaming porringer laid aside
from his brow, and his jolly face washed from
all the terrors of burnt cork. I was delighted,
too, to see the distressed damsel, in faded silk
and dirty muslin, who had trembled under his
tyranny, and afflicted me so much by her sorrows;
now seated familiarly on his knee, and
quaffing from the same tankard. Harlequin lay
asleep on one of the benches; and monks, satyrs,
and vestal virgins were grouped together, laughing
outrageously at a broad story, told by an unhappy
count, who had been barbarously murdered
in the tragedy.
This was, indeed, novelty to me. It was a
peep into another planet. I gazed and listened
with intense curiosity and enjoyment. They
had a thousand odd stories and jokes about the
events of the day, and burlesque descriptions and
mimickings of the spectators, who had been admiring
them. Their conversation was full of
allusions to their adventures at different places,
where they had exhibited; the characters they
difficulties in which they had occasionally
been involved. All past cares and troubles
were now turned by these thoughtless beings
into matter of merriment; and made to contribute
to the gayety of the moment. They
had been moving from fair to fair about the
kingdom, and were the next morning to set out
on their way to London.
My resolution was taken. I crept from my
nest, and scrambled through a hedge into a
neighbouring field, where I went to work to
make a tatterdemalion of myself. I tore my
clothes; soiled them with dirt; begrimed my
face and hands; and, crawling near one of the
booths, purloined an old hat, and left my new
one in its place. It was an honest theft, and I
hope may not hereafter rise up in judgment
against me.
I now ventured to the scene of merrymaking,
and, presenting myself before the dramatic corps,
offered myself as a volunteer. I felt terribly
agitated and abashed, for “never before stood
to the manager of the company. He was a fat
man dressed in dirty white; with a red sash
fringed with tinsel, swathed round his body.
His face was smeared with paint, and a majestic
plume towered from an old spangled black bonnet.
He was the Jupiter tonans of this Olympus,
and was surrounded by the inferior gods
and goddesses of his court. He sat on the end
of a bench, by a table, with one arm akimbo and
the other extended to the handle of a tankard,
which he had slowly set down from his lips, as
he surveyed me from head to foot. It was a
moment of awful scrutiny, and I fancied the
groups around all watching us in silent suspense,
and waiting for the imperial nod.
He questioned me as to who I was; what were
my qualifications; and what terms I expected. I
passed myself off for a discharged servant from a
gentleman's family; and as, happily, one does
not require a special recommendation to get admitted
into bad company, the questions on that
head were easily satisfied. As to my accomplishments,
several scenes of plays, which I had learnt at
school exhibitions. I could dance—, that
was enough; no farther questions were asked
me as to accomplishments; it was the very thing
they wanted; and, as I asked no wages, but
merely meat and drink, and safe conduct about
the world, a bargain was struck in a moment.
Behold me, therefore, transformed of a sudden,
from a gentleman student to a dancing buffoon;
for such, in fact, was the character in which
I made my debut. I was one of those who
formed the groupes in the dramas, and were principally
employed on the stage in front of the
booth, to attract company. I was equipped as
a satyr, in a dress of drab frize that fitted to my
shape; with a great laughing mask, ornamented
with huge ears and short horns. I was pleased
with the disguise, because it kept me from the
danger of being discovered, whilst we were in
that part of the country; and, as I had merely
to dance and make antics, the character was favourable
to a debutant, being almost on a par
nothing but roaring.
I cannot tell you how happy I was at this sudden
change in my situation. I felt no degradation,
for I had seen too little of society to be
thoughtful about the differences of rank; and a
boy of sixteen is seldom aristocratical. I had
given up no friend; for there seemed to be no
one in the world that cared for me, now my poor
mother was dead. I had given up no pleasure;
for my pleasure was to ramble about and indulge
the flow of a poetical imagination; and I now
enjoyed it in perfection. There is no life so
truly poetical as that of a dancing buffoon.
It may be said that all this argued grovelling
inclinations. I do not think so; not that I mean
to vindicate myself in any great degree; I know
too well what a whimsical compound I am. But
in this instance I was seduced by no love of low
company, nor disposition to indulge in low vices.
I have always despised the brutally vulgar; and
I have always had a disgust at vice, whether in
high or low life. I was governed merely by a
of resorting to this profession as a mode of life;
or of attaching myself to these people, as my future
class of society. I thought merely of a temporary
gratification of my curiosity, and an indulgence
of my humours. I had already a strong
relish for the peculiarities of character and the
varieties of situation, and I have always been
fond of the comedy of life, and desirous of seeing
it through all its shifting scenes.
In mingling, therefore, among mountebanks
and buffoons I was protected by the very vivacity
of imagination which had led me among
them. I moved about enveloped, as it were, in
a protecting delusion, which my fancy spread
around me. I assimilated to these people only
as they struck me poetically; their whimsical
ways and a certain picturesqueness in their mode
of life entertained me; but I was neither amused
nor corrupted by their vices. In short, I mingled
among them, as Prince Hal did among
his graceless associates, merely to gratify my
humour.
I did not investigate my motives in this manner,
at the time, for I was too careless and
thoughtless to reason about the matter; but I do
so now, when I look back with trembling to
think of the ordeal to which I unthinkingly exposed
myself, and the manner in which I passed
through it. Nothing, I am convinced, but the
poetical temperament, that hurried me into the
scrape, brought me out of it without my becoming
an arrant vagabond.
Full of the enjoyment of the moment, giddy
with the wildness of animal spirits, so rapturous
in a boy, I capered, I danced, I played at housand
fantastic tricks about the stage, in the villages
in which we exhibited; and I was universally
pronounced the most agreeable monster that had
ever been seen in those parts. My disappearance
from school had awakened my father's anxiety;
for I one day heard a description of myself cried
before the very booth in which I was exhibiting;
with the offer of a reward for any intelligence of
me. I had no great scruple about letting my father
suffer a little uneasiness on my account; it
make him value me the more when he found me
again. I have wondered that some of my comrades
did not recognize in me the stray sheep
that was cried; but they were all, no doubt, occupied
by their own concerns. They were all labouring
seriously in their antic vocations, for folly
was a mere trade with most of them, and they
often grinned and capered with heavy hearts.
With me, on the contrary, it was all real. I acted
con amore, and rattled and laughed from the irrepressible
gayety of my spirits. It is true that,
now and then, I started and looked grave on receiving
a sudden thwack from the wooden sword
of Harlequin, in the course of my gambols; as it
brought to mind the birch of my schoolmaster.
But I soon got accustomed to it; and bore all the
cuffing, and kicking, and tumbling about, that
form the practical wit of your itinerant pantomime,
with a good humour that made me a prodigious
favourite.
The country campaign of the troop was soon
at an end, and we set off for the metropolis, to
The greater part of our theatrical property was
sent on direct, to be in a state of preparation for
the opening of the fairs; while a detachment of
the company travelled slowly on, foraging among
the villages. I was amused with the desultory,
hap-hazard kind of life we led; here to-day, and
gone to-morrow. Sometimes revelling in ale
houses; sometimes feasting under hedges in the
green fields. When audiences were crowded
and business profitable, we fared well, and when
otherwise, we fared scantily, and consoled ourselves
with anticipations of the next day's success.
At length the increasing frequency of coaches
hurrying past us, covered with passengers; the
increasing number of carriages, carts, wagons,
gigs, droves of cattle and flocks of sheep, all
thronging the road; the snug country boxes with
trim flower gardens twelve feet square, and their
trees twelve feet high, all powdered with dust;
and the innumerable seminaries for young ladies
and gentlemen, situated along the road, for the
benefit of country air and rural retirement; all
was at hand. The hurry, and the crowd, and
the bustle, and the noise, and the dust, increased
as we proceeded, until I saw the great cloud of
smoke hanging in the air, like a canopy of state,
over this queen of cities.
In this way, then, did I enter the metropolis; a
strolling vagabond; on the top of a caravan with
a crew of vagabonds about me; but I was as happy
as a prince, for, like Prince Hal, I felt myself
superior to my situation, and knew that I could
at any time cast it off and emerge into my proper
sphere.
How my eyes sparkled as we passed Hyde-park
corner, and I saw splendid equipages rolling
by, with powdered footmen behind, in rich
liveries, and fine nosegays, and gold-headed
canes; and with lovely women within, so
sumptuously dressed and so surpassingly fair. I
was always extremely sensible to female beauty;
and here I saw it in all its fascination, for, whatever
may be said of “beauty unadorned,” there
is something almost awful in female loveliness
encircled with diamonds; the raven locks, clustered
with pearls; the ruby glowing on the snowy
bosom, are objects that I could never contemplate
without emotion; and a dazzling white arm
clasped with bracelets, and taper transparent fingers
laden with sparkling rings, are to me irresistible.
My very eyes ached as I gazed at the
high and courtly beauty that passed before me.
It surpassed all that my imagination had conceived
of the sex. I shrunk, for a moment, into shame
at the company in which I was placed, and repined
at the vast distance that seemed to intervene
between me and these magnificent beings.
I forbear to give a detail of the happy life which
I led about the skirts of the metropolis, playing
at the various fairs, held there during the latter
part of spring and the beginning of summer.
This continual change from place to place, and
scene to scene, fed my imagination with novelties,
and kept my spirits in a perpetual state of
excitement.
As I was tall of my age I aspired, at one time,
trials, I was pronounced, by the manager, totally
unfit for the line; and our first tragic actress,
who was a large woman, and held a small hero
in abhorrence, confirmed his decision.
The fact is, I had attempted to give point to
language which had no point, and nature to
scenes which had no nature. They said I did
not fill out my characters; and they were right.
The characters had all been prepared for a different
sort of man. Our tragedy hero was a
round robustious fellow, with an amazing voice;
who stamped and slapped his breast until his
wig shook again; and who roared and bellowed
out his bombast, until every phrase swelled upon
the ear like the sound of a kettle-drum. I might
as well have attempted to fill out his clothes as
his characters. When we had a dialogue together,
I was nothing before him, with my slender
voice and discriminating manner. I might
as well have attempted to parry a cudgel with
a small sword. If he found me in any way
gaining ground upon him, he would take refuge
of thunder at me, until they were drowned in
the still louder thunders of applause from the
audience.
To tell the truth, I suspect that I was not
shown fair play, and that there was management
at the bottom; for without vanity, I think I was
a better actor than he. As I had not embarked
in the vagabond line through ambition, I did not
repine at lack of preferment; but I was grieved
to find that a vagrant life was not without its
cares and anxieties, and that jealousies, intrigues
and mad ambition were to be found even among
vagabonds.
Indeed, as I became more familiar with my
situation, and the delusions of fancy began to
fade away, I discovered that my associates were
not the happy careless creatures I had at first
imagined them. They were jealous of each
other's talents; they quarrelled about parts, the
same as the actors on the grand theatres; they
quarrelled about dresses; and there was one robe
of yellow silk, trimmed with red, and a headdress
were continually setting the ladies of the company
by the ears. Even those who had attained
the highest honours were not more happy than
the rest; for Mr. Flimsey himself, our first tragedian,
and apparently a jovial good humoured
fellow, confessed to me one day, in the fullness
of his heart, that he was a miserable man. He
had a brother-in-law, a relative by marriage,
though not by blood, who was manager of a
theatre in a small country town. And this same
brother, (“a little more than kin, but less than
kind,”) looked down upon him, and treated him
with contumely, because forsooth he was but a
strolling player. I tried to console him with the
thoughts of the vast applause he daily received, but
it was all in vain. He declared that it gave him
no delight, and that he should never be a happy
man until the name of Flimsey rivalled the name
of Crimp.
How little do those before the scenes know
of what passes behind; how little can they judge,
from the countenances of actors, of what is passing
quarrel like cats behind the scenes, who were,
the moment after, to fly into each other's embraces.
And I have dreaded, when our Belvidera
was to take her farewell kiss of her Jaffier,
lest she should bite a piece out of his cheek.
Our tragedian was a rough joker off the stage;
our prime clown the most peevish mortal living.
The latter used to go about snapping and snarling,
with a broad laugh painted on his countenance;
and I can assure you that, whatever may
be said of the gravity of a monkey, or the melancholy
of a gibed cat, there is no more melancholy
creature in existence than a mountebank
off duty.
The only thing in which all parties agreed
was to backbite the manager, and cabal against
his regulations. This, however, I have since
discovered to be a common trait of human nature,
and to take place in all communities. It
would seem to be the main business of man to
repine at government. In all situations of life into
which I have looked, I have found mankind
and those who are ridden. The great struggle
of life seems to be which shall keep in the saddle.
This, it appears to me, is the fundamental
principle of politics, whether in great or little
life. However, I do not mean to moralize; but
one cannot always sink the philosopher.
Well then, to return to myself. It was determined,
as I said, that I was not fit for tragedy,
and, unluckily, as my study was bad, having a
very poor memory, I was pronounced unfit for
comedy also: besides, the line of young gentlemen
was already engrossed by an actor with
whom I could not pretend to enter into competition,
he having filled it for almost half a century.
I came down again therefore to pantomime.
In consequence, however, of the good
offices of the manager's lady, who had taken a
liking to me, I was promoted from the part of the
satyr to that of the lover; and with my face
patched and painted; a huge cravat of paper; a
steeple crowned hat, and dangling long-skirted,
sky blue coat, was metamorphosed into the
much of the tender and sentimental. I had
merely to pursue the fugitive fair one; to have
a door now and then slammed in my face; to
run my head occasionally against a post; to
tumble and roll about with Pantaloon and the
clown; and to endure the hearty thwacks of
Harlequin's wooden sword.
As ill luck would have it, my poetical temperament
began to ferment within me, and to work
out new troubles. The inflammatory air of a
great metropolis, added to the rural scenes in
which the fairs were held; such as Greenwich
Park; Epping Forest; and the lovely valley of
West End, had a powerful effect upon me. While
in Greenwich Park I was witness to the old holyday
games of running down hill; and kissing
in the ring; and then the firmament of blooming
faces and blue eyes, that would be turned towards
me, as I was playing antics on the stage;
all these set my young blood, and my poetical
vein, in full flow. In short, I played my character
to the life, and became desperately enamoured
tempting girl; with a roguish dimpling face, and
fine chesnut hair clustering all about it. The moment
I got fairly smitten, there was an end to
all playing. I was such a creature of fancy and
feeling, that I could not put on a pretended, when
I was powerfully affected by a real emotion. I
could not sport with a fiction that came so near
to the fact. I became too natural in my acting to
succeed. And then; what a situation for a lover!
I was a mere stripling, and she played with my
passion; for girls soon grow more adroit and
knowing in these matters, than your awkward
youngsters. What agonies had I to suffer. Every
time that she danced in front of the booth, and
made such liberal displays of her charms, I was
in torment. To complete my misery, I had a
real rival in Harlequin; an active, vigorous,
knowing varlet of six-and-twenty. What had a
raw inexperienced youngster like me to hope
from such a competition.
I had still, however, some advantages in my
favour. In spite of my change of life, I retained
the gentleman; that something which
dwells in a man's air and deportment, and not in
his clothes; and which it is as difficult for a gentleman
to put off, as for a vulgar fellow to put
on. The company generally felt it, and used to
call me little gentleman Jack. The girl felt it
too; and in spite of her predilection for my powerful
rival, she liked to flirt with me. This only
aggravated my troubles, by increasing my passion,
and awakening the jealousy of her particoloured
lover.
Alas! think what I suffered, at being obliged
to keep up an ineffectual chase after my Columbine
through whole pantomimes; to see her carried
off in the vigorous arms of the happy Harlequin;
and to be obliged instead of snatching
her from him, to tumble sprawling with Pantaloon
and the clown; and bear the infernal and
degrading thwacks of my rival's weapon of lath;
which, may heaven confound him! (excuse my
passion) the villain laid on with a malicious good
will; nay, I could absolutely hear him chuckle
pardon for growing a little warm in my narration.
I wish to be cool, but these recollections
will sometimes agitate me. I have heard and
read of many desperate and deplorable situations
of lovers; but none I think in which true love
was ever exposed to so severe and peculiar a
trial.
This could not last long. Flesh and blood, at
least such flesh and blood as mine, could not bear
it. I had repeated heart-burnings and quarrels
with my rival, in which he treated me with the
mortifying forbearance of a man towards a child.
Had he quarrelled outright with me, I could have
stomached it; at least I should have known what
part to take; but to be humoured and treated as
a child in the presence of my mistress, when I
felt all the bantam spirit of a little man swelling
within me—gods, it was insufferable!
At length we were exhibiting one day at West
End fair, which was at that time a very fashionable
resort, and often beleaguered by gay equipages
from town. Among the spectators that filled
afternoon, when I had to figure in a pantomime,
was a party of young ladies from a boarding-school,
with their governess. Guess my confusion,
when, in the midst of my antics, I beheld
among the number my quondam flame; her whom
I had berhymed at school; her for whose charms
I had smarted so severely; the cruel Sacharissa!
What was worse, I fancied she recollected me;
and was repeating the story of my humiliating
flagellation, for I saw her whispering her companions
and her governess. I lost all consciousness
of the part I was acting, and of the place
where I was. I felt shrunk to nothing, and could
have crept into a rat-hole—unluckily, none was
open to receive me. Before I could recover from
my confusion, I was tumbled over by Pantaloon
and the clown; and I felt the sword of Harlequin
making vigorous assaults, in a manner most degrading
to my dignity.
Heaven and earth! was I again to suffer martyrdom
in this ignominious manner, in the knowledge,
and even before the very eyes of this most
my long-smothered wrath broke out at once;
the dormant feelings of the gentleman arose within
me; stung to the quick by intolerable mortification.
I sprang on my feet in an instant;
leaped upon Harlequin like a young tiger; tore
off his mask; buffetted him in the face, and soon
shed more blood on the stage than had been spilt
upon it during a whole tragic campaign of battles
and murders.
As soon as Harlequin recovered from his surprise
he returned my assault with interest. I was
nothing in his hands. I was game to be sure,
for I was a gentleman; but he had the clownish
advantages of bone and muscle. I felt as if
I could have fought even unto the death; and I
was likely to do so; for he was, according to
the vulgar phrase, “putting my head into Chancery,”
when the gentle Columbine flew to my
assistance. God bless the women; they are
always on the side of the weak and the oppressed.
The battle now became general; the dramatis
personæ ranged on either side. The manager
black bonnet and towering white feathers seen
whisking about, and nodding, and bobbing, in the
thickest of the fight. Warriors, ladies, priests,
satyrs, kings, queens, gods and goddesses, all
joined pell-mell in the fray. Never, since the
conflict under the walls of Troy, had there been
such a chance medley warfare of combatants,
human and divine. The audience applauded,
the ladies shrieked, and fled from the theatre,
and a scene of discord ensued that baffles all description.
Nothing but the interference of the peace officers
restored some degree of order. The havoc,
however, that had been made among dresses and
decorations put an end to all farther acting for
that day. The battle over, the next thing was
to inquire why it was begun; a common question
among politicians, after a bloody and unprofitable
war; and one not always easy to be answered.
It was soon traced to me, and my unaccountable
transport of passion, which they could
only attribute to my having run a muck. The
the bargain, and in such cases justice is always
speedily administered. He came out of the fight
as sublime a wreck as the Santissima Trinidada.
His gallant plumes, which once towered aloft,
were drooping about his ears. His robe of state
hung in ribbands from his back, and but ill concealed
the ravages he had suffered in the rear.
He had received kicks and cuffs from all sides,
during the tumult; for every one took the opportunity
of slyly gratifying some lurking grudge
on his fat carcass. He was a discreet man, and
did not choose to declare war with all his company;
so he swore all those kicks and cuffs had
been given by me, and I let him enjoy the opinion.
Some wounds he bore, however, which
were the incontestible traces of a woman's warfare.
His sleek rosy cheek was scored by trickling
furrows, which were ascribed to the nails of
my intrepid and devoted Columbine. The ire of
the monarch was not to be appeased. He had
suffered in his person, and he had suffered in his
purse; his dignity too had been insulted, and that
irascible the more petty the potentate. He
wreaked his wrath upon the beginners of the affray,
and Columbine and myself were discharged,
at once, from the company.
Figure me, then, to yourself, a stripling of little
more than sixteen; a gentleman by birth; a
vagabond by trade; turned adrift upon the world;
making the best of my way through the crowd of
West End fair; my mountebank dress fluttering
in rags about me; the weeping Columbine hanging
upon my arm, in splendid, but tattered finery;
the tears coursing one by one down her face;
carrying off the red paint in torrents, and literally
“preying upon her damask cheek.”
The crowd made way for us as we passed and
hooted in our rear. I felt the ridicule of my situation,
but had too much gallantry to desert this
fair one, who had sacrificed every thing for me.
Having wandered through the fair, we emerged,
like another Adam and Eve, into unknown regions,
and “had the world before us where to
choose.” Never was a more disconsolate pair
Columbine cast back many a lingering look
at the fair, which seemed to put on a more than
usual splendour; its tents, and booths, and parti-coloured
groups, all brightening in the sunshine,
and gleaming among the trees; and its gay flags
and streamers playing and fluttering in the light
summer airs. With a heavy sigh she would lean
on my arm and proceed. I had no hope or consolation
to give her; but she had linked herself
to my fortunes, and she was too much of a woman
to desert me.
Pensive and silent, then, we traversed the beautiful
fields that lie behind Hempstead, and wandered
on, until the fiddle, and the hautboy, and
the shout, and the laugh, were swallowed up in
the deep sound of the big bass drum, and even
that died away into a distant rumble. We passed
along the pleasant sequestered walk of Nightingale
lane. For a pair of lovers what scene
could be more propitious?—But such a pair of
lovers! Not a nightingale sang to soothe us:
the very gypsies who were encamped there during
such an ill-omened couple, whose fortunes, I
suppose, they thought too legibly written to need
an interpreter; and the gypsey children crawled
into their cabins and peeped out fearfully at us
as we went by. For a moment I paused, and
was almost tempted to turn gypsey, but the
poetical feeling for the present was fully satisfied,
and I passed on. Thus we travelled, and travelled,
like a prince and princess in nursery chronicle,
until we had traversed a part of Hempstead
Heath and arrived in the vicinity of Jack Straw's
castle.
Here, wearied and dispirited we seated ourselves
on the margin of the hill, hard by the very
mile stone where Whittington of yore heard the
Bow bells ring out the presage of his future greatness.
Alas! no bell rung an invitation to us, as
we looked disconsolately upon the distant city.
Old London seemed to wrap itself up unsociably
in its mantle of brown smoke, and to offer no encouragement
to such a couple of tatterdemalions.
For once at least the usual course of the pantomime
the lover had carried off Columbine in good earnest.
But what was I to do with her? I had
never contemplated such a dilemma; and I now
felt that even a fortunate lover may be embarrassed
by his good fortune. I really knew not
what was to become of me; for I had still the
boyish fear of returning home; standing in awe
of the stern temper of my father, and dreading
the ready arm of the pedagogue. And even if I
were to venture home, what was I to do with
Columbine? I could not take her in my hand,
and throw myself on my knees, and crave his
forgiveness and his blessing according to dramatic
usage. The very dogs would have chased
such a draggle-tailed beauty from the grounds.
In the midst of my doleful dumps, some one
tapped me on the shoulder, and looking up I saw
a couple of rough sturdy fellows standing behind
me. Not knowing what to expect I jumped on
my legs, and was preparing again to make battle;
but I was tripped up and secured in a twinkling.
“Come, come, young master,” said one of the
fellows in a gruff, but good humoured tone,
“don't let's have any of your tantrums; one would
have thought you had had swing enough for this
bout. Come, it's high time to leave off harle-quinading,
and go home to your father.”
In fact I had a couple of Bow street officers
hold of me. The cruel Sacharissa had proclaimed
who I was, and that a reward had been offered
throughout the country for any tidings of
me; and they had seen a description of me which
had been forwarded to the police office in town.
Those harpies, therefore, for the mere sake of
filthy lucre, were resolved to deliver me over
into the hands of my father and the clutches of
my pedagogue.
It was in vain that I swore I would not leave
my faithful and afflicted Columbine. It was
in vain that I tore myself from their grasp, and
flew to her; and vowed to protect her; and
wiped the tears from her cheek, and with them
a whole blush that might have vied with the
carnation for brilliancy. My persecutors were
and to enjoy this theatrical display of
dirt, and finery, and tribulation. I was carried
off in despair, leaving my Columbine destitute
in the wide world; but many a look of agony
did I cast back at her, as she stood gazing piteously
after me from the brink of Hempstead
Hill; so forlorn, so fine, so ragged, so bedraggled,
yet so beautiful.
Thus ended my first peep into the world. I
returned home, rich in good-for-nothing experience,
and dreading the reward I was to receive
for my improvement. My reception, however,
was quite different from what I had expected.
My father had a spice of the devil in him, and
did not seem to like me the worse for my freak,
which he termed “sewing my wild oats.” He
happened to have several of his sporting friends
to dine with him the very day of my return; they
made me tell some of my adventures, and laughed
heartily at them. One old fellow, with an
outrageously red nose, took to me hugely. I
heard him whisper to my father that I was a lad
which my father replied that “I had good points,
but was an ill broken whelp, and required a
great deal of the whip.” Perhaps this very conversation
raised me a little in his esteem, for I
found the red-nosed old gentleman was a veteran
fox hunter of the neighbourhood, for whose
opinion my father had vast deference. Indeed,
I believe he would have pardoned any thing in
me more readily than poetry; which he called a
cursed, sneaking, puling, housekeeping employment,
the bane of all true manhood. He swore it
was unworthy of a youngster of my expectations,
who was one day to have so great an estate, and
would be able to keep horses and hounds and
hire poets to write songs for him into the bargain.
I had now satisfied, for a time, my roving propensity.
I had exhausted the poetical feeling.
I had been heartily buffeted out of my love for
theatrical display. I felt humiliated by my exposure,
and was willing to hide my head any
where for a season; so that I might be out of the
folks not altogether so indulgent abroad, as they
were at my father's table. I could not stay at
home; the house was intolerably doleful now
that my mother was no longer there to cherish
me. Every thing around spoke mournfully of
her. The little flower-garden in which she delighted,
was all in disorder and overrun with
weeds. I attempted, for a day or two, to arrange
it, but my heart grew heavier and heavier
as I laboured. Every little broken down flower,
that I had seen her rear so tenderly, seemed to
plead in mute eloquence to my feelings. There
was a favourite honeysuckle which I had seen
her often training with assiduity, and had heard
her say it should be the pride of her garden. I
found it grovelling along the ground, tangled and
wild, and twining round every worthless weed,
and it struck me as an emblem of myself: a mere
scatterling, running to waste and uselessness. I
could work no longer in the garden.
My father sent me to pay a visit to my uncle,
by way of keeping the old gentleman in mind of
of discontent; which we always considered
equivalent to a hearty welcome. Whether
he had ever heard of my strolling freak or not I
could not discover; he and his man were both so
taciturn. I spent a day or two roaming about
the dreary mansion and neglected park; and
felt at one time, I believe, a touch of poetry, for
I was tempted to drown myself in a fish-pond;
I rebuked the evil spirit, however, and it left me.
I found the same red-headed boy running wild
about the park, but I felt in no humour to hunt
him at present. On the contrary, I tried to coax
him to me, and to make friends with him, but the
young savage was untameable.
When I returned from my uncle's I remained
at home for some time, for my father was disposed,
he said, to make a man of me. He took me
out hunting with him, and I became a great favourite
of the red-nosed squire, because I rode at
every thing; never refused the boldest leap, and
was always sure to be in at the death. I used
often, however, to offend my father at hunting
My father was amazingly ignorant—so ignorant
in fact, as not to know that he knew nothing.
He was staunch, however, to church and king,
and full of old-fashioned prejudices. Now, I had
picked up a little knowledge in politics and religion,
during my rambles with the strollers, and
found myself capable of setting him right as to
many of his antiquated notions. I felt it my duty
to do so; we were apt, therefore, to differ occasionally
in the political discussions that sometimes
arose at these hunting dinners.
I was at that age when a man knows least and
is most vain of his knowledge; and when he is
extremely tenacious in defending his opinion upon
subjects about which he knows nothing. My
father was a hard man for any one to argue with,
for he never knew when he was refuted. I
sometimes posed him a little, but then he had one
argument that always settled the question; he
would threaten to knock me down. I believe
he at last grew tired of me, because I both out-talked
and outrode him. The red-nosed squire,
of the chase, I rode over him one day as he and
his horse lay sprawling in the dirt. My father,
therefore, thought it high time to send me to college;
and accordingly to Trinity College at Oxford
was I sent.
I had lost my habits of study while at home;
and I was not likely to find them again at college.
I found that study was not the fashion at
college, and that a lad of spirit only ate his terms;
and grew wise by dint of knife and fork. I was
always prone to follow the fashions of the company
into which I fell; so I threw by my books,
and became a man of spirit. As my father made
me a tolerable allowance, notwithstanding the
narrowness of his income, having an eye always
to my great expectations, I was enabled to appear
to advantage among my fellow students. I cultivated
all kinds of sports and exercises. I was
one of the most expert oarsmen that rowed on
the Isis. I boxed, and fenced. I was a keen
huntsman, and my chambers in college were always
decorated with whips of all kinds, spurs,
breeches would seem to be throwing one leg out
of the half open drawers, and empty bottles lumbered
the bottom of every closet.
I soon grew tired of this; and relapsed into
my vein of mere poetical indulgence. I was
charmed with Oxford, for it was full of poetry
to me. I thought I should never grow tired of
wandering about its courts and cloisters; and
visiting the different college halls. I used to
love to get in places surrounded by the colleges,
where all modern buildings were screened from
the sight; and to walk about them in twilight,
and see the professors and students sweeping
along in the dusk in their caps and gowns.
There was complete delusion in the scene. It
seemed to transport me among the edifices and
the people of old times. It was a great luxury,
too, for me to attend the evening service in the
new college chapel, and to hear the fine organ
and the choir swelling an anthem in that solemn
building; where painting and music and architecture
seem to combine their grandest effects.
I became a loiterer, also, about the Bodleian
library, and a great dipper into books; but too
idle to follow any course of study or vein of research.
One of my favourite haunts was the
beautiful walk, bordered by lofty elms, along
the Isis, under the old gray walls of Magdalen
College, which goes by the name of Addison's
Walk; and was his resort when a student at the
college. I used to take a volume of poetry in
my hand, and stroll up and down this walk for
hours.
My father came to see me at college. He asked
me how I came on with my studies; and
what kind of hunting there was in the neighbourhood.
He examined my sporting apparatus;
wanted to know if any of the professors were
fox hunters; and whether they were generally
good shots; for he suspected this reading so
much was rather hurtful to the sight. Such was
the only person to whom I was responsible for
my improvement: is it matter of wonder, therefore,
that I became a confirmed idler?
I do not know how it is, but I cannot be idle
smitten with a shopkeeper's daughter in the high
street; who in fact was the admiration of many
of the students. I wrote several sonnets in praise
of her, and spent half of my pocket money at
the shop, in buying articles which I did not want,
that I might have an opportunity of speaking to
her. Her father, a severe looking old gentleman,
with bright silver buckles and a crisp curled wig,
kept a strict guard on her; as the fathers generally
do upon their daughters in Oxford; and
well they may. I tried to get into his good graces,
and to be sociable with him; but in vain.
I said several good things in his shop, but he
never laughed; he had no relish for wit and humour.
He was one of those dry old gentlemen
who keep youngsters at bay. He had already
brought up two or three daughters, and was experienced
in the ways of students. He was as
knowing and wary as a gray old badger that has
often been hunted. To see him on Sunday, so
stiff and starched in his demeanour; so precise
in his dress; with his daughter under his arm,
enough to deter all graceless youngsters from
approaching.
I managed, however, in spite of his vigilance,
to have several conversations with the daughter,
as I cheapened articles in the shop. I made
terrible long bargains, and examined the articles
over and over, before I purchased. In the mean
time, I would convey a sonnet or an acrostic
under cover of a piece of cambric, or slipped
into a pair of stockings; I would whisper soft
nonsense into her ear as I haggled about the
price; and would squeeze her hand tenderly as
I received my halfpence of change, in a bit of
whity-brown paper. Let this serve as a hint to
all haberdashers, who have pretty daughters for
shop girls, and young students for customers. I
do not know whether my words and looks were
very eloquent; but my poetry was irresistible;
for, to tell the truth, the girl had some literary
taste, and was seldom without a book from the
circulating library.
By the divine power of poetry, therefore,
subdue the heart of this fair little haberdasher.
We carried on a sentimental correspondence for
a time across the counter, and I supplied her
with rhyme by the stocking full. At length I
prevailed on her to grant me an assignation.
But how was it to be effected? Her father kept
her always under his eye; she never walked out
alone; and the house was locked up the moment
that the shop was shut. All these difficulties
served but to give zest to the adventure. I proposed
that the assignation should be in her own
chamber, into which I would climb at night.
The plan was irresistible. A cruel father, a
secret lover, and a clandestine meeting! All the
little girl's studies from the circulating library
seemed about to be realized. But what had I
in view in making this assignation? Indeed I
know not. I had no evil intentions; nor can I
say that I had any good ones. I liked the girl,
and wanted to have an opportunity of seeing
more of her; and the assignation was made, as
I have done many things else, heedlessly and
of the kind, after all my arrangements were
made; but the answers were very unsatisfactory.
“Am I to ruin this poor thoughtless girl?” said
I to myself. “No!” was the prompt and indignant
answer. “Am I to run away with her?”
“Whither—and to what purpose?” “Well, then,
am I to marry her?”—“Pah! a man of my
expectations marry a shopkeeper's daughter!”
“What then am I to do with her?” “Hum—
why—Let me get into her chamber first, and
then consider”—and so the self examination
ended.
Well, sir, “come what come might,” I stole
under cover of the darkness to the dwelling of
my dulcinea. All was quiet. At the concerted
signal her window was gently opened. It was
just above the projecting bow window of her father's
shop, which assisted me in mounting. The
house was low, and I was enabled to scale the
fortress with tolerable ease. I clambered with a
beating heart; I reached the casement; I hoisted
my body half into the chamber and was welcomed,
one, but by the grasp of the crabbed-looking old
father in the crisp curled wig.
I extricated myself from his clutches and endeavoured
to make my retreat; but I was confounded
by his cries of thieves! and robbers!
I was bothered too by his Sunday cane; which
was amazingly busy about my head as I descended;
and against which my hat was but a poor
protection. Never before had I an idea of the
activity of an old man's arm, and hardness of the
knob of an ivory-headed cane. In my hurry and
confusion I missed my footing, and fell sprawling
on the pavement. I was immediately surrounded
by myrmidons, who I doubt not were on the
watch for me. Indeed, I was in no situation to
escape, for I had sprained my ankle in the fall,
and could not stand. I was seized as a house-breaker;
and to exonerate myself from a greater
crime I had to accuse myself of a less. I made
known who I was, and why I came there. Alas!
the varlets knew it already, and were only amusing
themselves at my expense. My perfidious
tricks. The old curmudgeon of a father had
found my sonnets and acrostics hid away in holes
and corners of his shop; he had no taste for
poetry like his daughter, and had instituted a
rigorous though silent observation. He had
moused upon our letters; detected the ladder of
ropes, and prepared every thing for my reception.
Thus was I ever doomed to be led into scrapes
by the muse. Let no man henceforth carry on
a secret amour in poetry!
The old man's ire was in some measure appeased
by the pummelling of my head, and the
anguish of my sprain; so he did not put me to
death on the spot. He was even humane enough
to furnish a shutter, on which I was carried back
to college like a wounded warrior. The porter
was roused to admit me; the college gate was
thrown open for my entry; the affair was blazed
abroad the next morning, and became the joke
of the college from the buttery to the hall.
I had leisure to repent during several weeks
confinement by my sprain, which I passed in
I received a most tender and ill-spelled letter from
my mistress, who had been sent to a relation in
Coventry. She protested her innocence of my
misfortunes, and vowed to be true to me “till
death.” I took no notice of the letter, for I was
cured, for the present, both of love and poetry.
Women, however, are more constant in their attachments
than men, whatever philosophers may
say to the contrary. I am assured that she actually
remained faithful to her vow for several
months; but she had to deal with a cruel father
whose heart was as hard as the knob of his cane.
He was not to be touched by tears or poetry;
but absolutely compelled her to marry a reputable
young tradesman; who made her a happy
woman in spite of herself, and of all the rules of
romance; and what is more, the mother of several
children. They are at this very day a thriving
couple, and keep a snug corner shop, just
opposite the figure of Peeping Tom at Coventry.
I will not fatigue you by any more details of
my studies at Oxford, though they were not always
as dear for my lessons. People may say what
they please, a studious life has its charms, and
there are many places more gloomy than the
cloisters of a university.
To be brief, then, I lived on in my usual miscellaneous
manner, gradually getting a knowledge
of good and evil, until I had attained my twenty-first
year. I had scarcely come of age when I
heard of the sudden death of my father. The
shock was severe, for though he had never treated
me with kindness, still he was my father, and
at his death I felt myself alone in the world.
I returned home to act as chief mourner at
his funeral. It was attended by many of the
sportsmen of the county; for he was an important
member of their fraternity. According to his
request his favourite hunter was led after the
hearse. The red-nosed fox hunter, who had
taken a little too much wine at the house, made
a maudlin eulogy of the deceased, and wished to
give the view halloo over the grave; but he was
rebuked by the rest of the company. They all
things to me, and invited me to become
a member of the hunt in my father's place.
When I found myself alone in my paternal
home, a crowd of gloomy feelings came thronging
upon me. It was a place that always seemed
to sober me, and bring me to reflection.
Now especially, it looked so deserted and melancholy;
the furniture displaced about the room;
the chairs in groups, as their departed occupants
had sat, either in whispering tête-à-têtes, or
gossipping clusters; the bottles and decanters and
wine glasses, half emptied, and scattered about
the tables—all dreary traces of a funeral festival.
I entered the little breakfasting room. There
were my father's whip and spurs hanging by
the fire-place, and his favourite pointer lying on
the hearth rug. The poor animal came fondling
about me, and licked my hand, though he had
never before noticed me; and then he looked
round the room, and whined, and wagged his
tail slightly, and gazed wistfully in my face. I
felt the full force of the appeal. “Poor Dash!”
nobody to care for us, and we'll take care of one
another.” The dog never quitted me afterwards.
I could not go into my mother's room: my
heart swelled when I passed within sight of the
door. Her portrait hung in the parlour, just
over the place where she used to sit. As I cast
my eyes on it I thought it looked at me with tenderness,
and I burst into tears. My heart had
long been seared by living in public schools, and
buffetting about among strangers who cared
nothing for me; but the recollection of a mother's
tenderness was overcoming.
I was not of an age or a temperament to be
long depressed. There was a reaction in my
system that always brought me up again after
every pressure; and indeed my spirits were
most buoyant after a temporary prostration. I
settled the concerns of the estate as soon as possible;
realized my property, which was not very
considerable; but which appeared a vast deal to
me, having a poetical eye that magnified every
months, free of all farther business or restraint,
I determined to go to London and enjoy myself.
Why should not I?—I was young, animated,
joyous; had plenty of funds for present pleasures,
and my uncle's estate in the perspective.
Let those mope at college and pore over books,
thought I, who have their way to make in the
world; it would be ridiculous drudgery in a
youth of my expectations.
Well, sir, away to London I rattled in a tandem,
determined to take the town gayly. I
passed through several of the villages where I
had played the jack-pudding a few years before;
and I visited the scenes of many of my adventures
and follies, merely from that feeling of melancholy
pleasure which we have in stepping
again in the footprints of foregone existence, even
when they have passed among weeds and briars.
I made a circuit in the latter part of my journey,
so as to take in West End and Hempstead, the
scenes of my last dramatic exploit, and of the
battle royal of the booth. As I drove along
castle, I paused at the spot where Columbine
and I had sat down so disconsolately in our ragged
finery, and looked dubiously upon London.
I almost expected to see her again, standing on
the hill's brink, “like Niobe all tears;”—mournful
as Babylon in ruins!
“Poor Columbine!” said I, with a heavy sigh,
“thou wert a gallant, generous girl—a true woman,
faithful to the distressed, and ready to sacrifice
thyself in the cause of worthless man!”
I tried to whistle off the recollection of her;
for there was always something of self-reproach
with it. I drove gayly along the road, enjoying
the stare of hostlers and stable boys as I managed
my horses knowingly down the steep street of
Hempstead; when, just at the skirts of the village,
one of the traces of my leader came loose.
I pulled up; and as the animal was restive and
my servant a bungler, I called for assistance to
the robustious master of a snug ale house, who
stood at his door with a tankard in his hand. He
came readily to assist me, followed by his wife
and two more at her heels. I stared for a moment
as if doubting my eyes. I could not be
mistaken; in the fat beer-blown landlord of the
ale house I recognized my old rival Harlequin,
and in his slattern spouse, the once trim and
dimpling Columbine.
The change of my looks, from youth to manhood,
and the change of my circumstances, prevented
them from recognizing me. They could
not suspect, in the dashing young buck, fashionably
dressed, and driving his own equipage, their
former comrade, the painted beau, with old
peaked hat and long, flimsy, sky blue coat.
My heart yearned with kindness towards Columbine,
and I was glad to see her establishment a
thriving one. As soon as the harness was adjusted
I tossed a small purse of gold into her
ample bosom; and then, pretending to give my
horses a hearty cut of the whip, I made the lash
curl with a whistling about the sleek sides of
ancient Harlequin. The horses dashed off like
lightning, and I was whirled out of sight, before
at my liberal donations. I have always considered
this as one of the greatest proofs of my poetical
genius. It was distributing poetical justice
in perfection.
I now entered London en cavalier, and became
a blood upon town. I took fashionable
lodgings in the West End; employed the first
tailor; frequented the regular lounges; gambled
a little; lost my money good humouredly,
and gained a number of fashionable good-for-nothing
acquaintances. Had I had more industry
and ambition in my nature, I might have
worked my way to the very height of fashion,
as I saw many laborious gentlemen doing around
me. But it is a toilsome, an anxious, and an
unhappy life; there are few beings so sleepless
and miserable as your cultivators of fashionable
smiles.
I was quite content with that kind of society
which forms the frontiers of fashion, and may
be easily taken possession of. I found it a light,
easy, productive soil. I had but to go about and
of invitations. Indeed, my figure and address
were by no means against me. It was whispered,
too, among the young ladies, that I was prodigiously
clever, and wrote poetry; and the old
ladies had ascertained that I was a young gentleman
of good family, handsome fortune, and
“great expectations.”
I now was carried away by the hurry of gay
life, so intoxicating to a young man; and which
a man of poetical temperament enjoys so highly
on his first tasting of it. That rapid variety of
sensations; that whirl of brilliant objects; that
succession of pungent pleasures. I had no time
for thought; I only felt. I never attempted to
write poetry; my poetry seemed all to go off by
transpiration. I lived poetry; it was all a poetical
dream to me. A mere sensualist knows nothing
of the delights of a splendid metropolis. He
lives in a round of animal gratifications and
heartless habits. But to a young man of poetical
feelings it is an ideal world; a scene of enchantment
and delusion; his imagination is in
to every pleasure.
A season of town life somewhat sobered me
of my intoxication; or rather I was rendered
more serious by one of my old complaints—I fell
in love. It was with a very pretty, though a
very haughty fair one, who had come to London
under the care of an old maiden aunt, to enjoy the
pleasures of a winter in town, and to get married.
There was not a doubt of her commanding a
choice of lovers; for she had long been the belle
of a little cathedral town; and one of the prebendaries
had absolutely celebrated her beauty in
a copy of Latin verses.
I paid my court to her, and was favourably received
both by her and her aunt. Nay, I had a
marked preference shown me over the younger
son of a needy Baronet, and a captain of dragoons
on half pay. I did not absolutely take the
field in form, for I was determined not to be precipitate;
but I drove my equipage frequently
through the street in which she lived, and was
always sure to see her at the window, generally
at rhyming, and sent her a long copy of verses;
anonymously to be sure; but she knew my hand
writing. They displayed, however, the most delightful
ignorance on the subject. The young
lady showed them to me; wondered who they
could be written by; and declared there was nothing
in this world she loved so much as poetry:
while the maiden aunt would put her pinching
spectacles on her nose, and read them, with blunders
in sense and sound, that were excruciating
to an author's ears; protesting there was nothing
equal to them in the whole elegant extracts.
The fashionable season closed without my adventuring
to make a declaration, though I certainly
had encouragement. I was not perfectly
sure that I had effected a lodgement in the young
ladies heart; and, to tell the truth, the aunt overdid
her part, and was a little too extravagant in
her liking of me. I knew that maiden aunts
were not apt to be captivated by the mere personal
merits of their nieces' admirers, and I
wanted to ascertain how much of all this favour
great expectations.
I had received many hints how charming their
native town was during the summer months;
what pleasant society they had; and what beautiful
drives about the neighbourhood. They had
not, therefore, returned home long, before I made
my appearance in dashing style, driving down
the principal street. It is an easy thing to put a
little quiet cathedral town in a buzz. The very
next morning I was seen at prayers, seated in
the pew of the reigning belle. All the congregation
was in a flutter. The prebends eyed me
from their stalls; questions were whispered about
the aisles after service, “who is he?” and “what
is he?” and the replies were as usual—“A young
gentleman of good family and fortune, and great
expectations.”
I was pleased with the peculiarities of a cathedral
town, where I found I was a personage
of some consequence. I was quite a brilliant
acquisition to the young ladies of the cathedral
circle, who were glad to have a beau that was
know that there was a vast distinction between
the classes of society of the town. As it was a
place of some trade there were many wealthy
inhabitants among the commercial and manufacturing
classes, who lived in style and gave
many entertainments. Nothing of trade, however,
was admitted into the cathedral circle—
faugh! the thing could not be thought of. The
cathedral circle, therefore, was apt to be very
select, very dignified, and very dull. They had
evening parties, at which the old ladies played
cards with the prebends, and the young ladies
sat and looked on, and shifted from one chair
to another about the room, until it was time to
go home.
It was difficult to get up a ball, from the want
of partners, the cathedral circle being very deficient
in dancers; and on those occasions, there
was an occasional drafting among the dancing
men of the other circle, who, however, were
generally regarded with great reserve and condescension
by the gentlemen in powdered wigs.
that they had often looked with a wistful
eye at the gayety of the other circle, where
there was such plenty of young beaux, and where
they all seemed to enjoy themselves so merrily;
but that it would be degradation to think of descending
from their sphere.
I admired the degree of old fashioned ceremony,
and superannuated courtesy that prevailed
in this little place. The bowings and curtseyings
that would take place about the cathedral
porch after morning service, where knots of old
gentlemen and ladies would collect together to
ask after each other's health, and settle the card
party for the evening. The little presents of
fruit and delicacies, and the thousand petty messages
that would pass from house to house; for
in a tranquil community like this, living entirely
at ease, and having little to do, little duties and
little civilities and little amusements, fill up the
day. I have smiled, as I looked from my window
on a quiet street near the cathedral, in the
middle of a warm summer day, to see a corpulent
small tart on a large silver salver. A dainty tit-bit,
sent, no doubt, by some worthy old dowager,
to top off the dinner of her favourite prebend.
Nothing could be more delectable, also, than
the breaking up of one of their evening card parties.
Such shakings of hand; such mobbing up
in cloaks and tippets! There were two or three
old sedan chairs that did the duty of the whole
place; though the greater part made their exit
in clogs or pattens, with a footman or waiting
maid carrying a lanthorn in advance; and at a
certain hour of the night the clank of pattens and
the gleam of these jack lanthorns, here and
there, about the quiet little town, gave notice
that the cathedral card party had dissolved, and
the luminaries were severally seeking their
homes. To such a community, therefore, or
at least to the female part of it, the accession of
a gay, dashing young beau was a matter of some
importance. The old ladies eyed me with complacency
through their spectacles, and the young
ladies pronounced me divine. Every body received
who had written the Latin verses on the belle.—
Not that he was jealous of my success with the
lady, for he had no pretensions to her; but he
heard my verses praised wherever he went, and
he could not endure a rival with the muse.
I was thus carrying every thing before me. I
was the Adonis of the cathedral circle; when
one evening there was a public ball which was
attended likewise by the gentry of the neighbourhood.
I took great pains with my toilet
on the occasion, and I had never looked better.
I had determined that night to make my grand
assault on the heart of the young lady, to batter
it with all my forces, and the next morning to
demand a surrender in due form.
I entered the ball room amidst a buzz and
flutter, which generally took place among the
young ladies on my appearance. I was in fine
spirits; for to tell the truth, I had exhilarated
myself by a cheerful glass of wine on the occasion.
I talked, and rattled, and said a thousand
silly things, slap dash, with all the confidence of
its effect.
In the midst of my triumph I observed a little
knot gathering together in the upper part of the
room. By degrees it increased. A tittering broke
out there; and glances were cast round at
me, and then there would be fresh tittering.
Some of the young ladies would hurry away to
distant parts of the room, and whisper to their
friends: wherever they went there was still this
tittering and glancing at me. I did not know
what to make of all this: I looked at myself
from head to foot; and peeped at my back in a
glass, to see if any thing was odd about my person;
any awkward exposure; any whimsical
tag hanging out—no—every thing was right. I
was a perfect picture.
I determined that it must be some choice saying
of mine, that was bandied about in this knot
of merry beauties, and I determined to enjoy one
of my good things in the rebound.
I stepped gently, therefore, up the room, smiling
at every one as I passed, who I must say all
group, smirking and perking my chin, like a man
who is full of pleasant feeling, and sure of being
well received. The cluster of little belles opened
as I advanced.
Heavens and earth! whom should I perceive in
the midst of them, but my early and tormenting
flame, the everlasting Sacharissa! She was
grown up, it is true, into the full beauty of womanhood,
but showed by the provoking merriment
of her countenance, that she perfectly recollected
me, and the ridiculous flagellations of
which she had twice been the cause.
I saw at once the exterminating cloud of ridicule
that was bursting over me. My crest fell.
The flame of love went suddenly out in my bosom;
or was extinguished by overwhelming
shame. How I got down the room I know not;
I fancied every one tittering at me. Just as I
reached the door, I caught a glance of my mistress
and her aunt listening to the whispers of my
poetic rival; the old lady raising her hands and
eyes, and the face of the young one lighted up
but made two steps from the top of the stairs to
the bottom. The next morning, before sunrise,
I beat a retreat; and did not feel the blushes cool
from my tingling cheeks, until I had lost sight of
the old towers of the cathedral.
I now returned to town thoughtful and crestfallen.
My money was nearly spent, for I had
lived freely and without calculation. The dream
of love was over, and the reign of pleasure at an
end. I determined to retrench while I had yet
a trifle left; so selling my equipage and horses
for half their value, I quietly put the money in
my pocket, and turned pedestrian. I had not a
doubt that, with my great expectations, I could
at any time raise funds, either on usury or by borrowing;
but I was principled against both one
and the other; and resolved, by strict economy,
to make my slender purse hold out, until my uncle
should give up the ghost; or rather, the estate.
I staid at home, therefore, and read, and would
have written; but I had already suffered too
much from my poetical productions, which had
I gradually acquired a rusty look, and had a
straightened, money-borrowing air, upon which
the world began to shy me. I have never felt
disposed to quarrel with the world for its conduct.
It has always used me well. When I have been
flush, and gay, and disposed for society, it has
caressed me; and when I have been pinched,
and reduced, and wished to be alone, why, it has
left me alone; and what more could a man desire?—Take
my word for it, this world is a more
obliging world than people generally represent it.
Well, sir, in the midst of my retrenchment, my
retirement and my studiousness, I received news
that my uncle was dangerously ill. I hastened
on the wings of an heir's affections to receive his
dying breath and his last testament. I found
him attended by his faithful valet old Iron John;
by the woman who occasionally worked about
the house; and by the foxy-headed boy young
Orson, whom I had occasionally hunted about
the park.
Iron John gasped a kind of asthmatical salutation
something almost like a smile of welcome. The
woman sat blubbering at the foot of the bed; and
the foxy headed Orson, who had now grown up
to be a lubberly lout, stood gazing in stupid vacancy
at a distance.
My uncle lay stretched upon his back. The
chamber was without fire, or any of the comforts
of a sick room. The cobwebs flaunted from the
ceiling. The tester was covered with dust, and
the curtains were tattered. From underneath
the bed peeped out one end of his strong box.
Against the wainscot were suspended rusty blunderbusses,
horse pistols, and a cut-and-thrust
sword, with which he had fortified his room to
defend his life and treasure. He had employed
no physician during his illness, and from the
scanty relics lying on the table, seemed almost
to have denied himself the assistance of a cook.
When I entered the room he was lying motionless;
his eyes fixed and his mouth open; at
the first look I thought him a corpse. The
noise of my entrance made him turn his head.
face, and his glazing eye gleamed with satisfaction.
It was the only smile he had ever given
me, and it went to my heart. “Poor old man!”
thought I, “why would you not let me love
you?—Why would you force me to leave you
thus desolate, when I see that my presence has
the power to cheer you?”
“Nephew,” said he, after several efforts, and
in a low gasping voice—“I am glad you are
come. I shall now die with satisfaction. Look,”
said he, raising his withered hand and pointing—“look—in
that box on the table you will
find that I have not forgotten you,”
I pressed his hand to my heart, and the tears
stood in my eyes. I sat down by his bed side,
and watched him, but he never spoke again.
My presence, however, gave him evident satisfaction—for
every now and then, as he looked
at me, a vague smile would come over his visage,
and he would feebly point to the sealed box on
the table. As the day wore away his life seemed
to wear away with it. Towards sun set, his
eyes grew glazed; his mouth remained open, and
thus he gradually died.
I could not but feel shocked at this absolute
extinction of my kindred. I dropped a tear of
real sorrow over this strange old man, who had
thus reserved his smile of kindness to his death
bed; like an evening sun after a gloomy day,
just shining out to set in darkness. Leaving the
corpse in charge of the domestics, I retired for
the night.
It was a rough night. The winds seemed as
if singing my uncle's requiem about the mansion;
and the bloodhounds howled without as if they
knew of the death of their old master. Iron
John almost grudged me the tallow candle to
burn in my apartment and light up its dreariness;
so accustomed had he been to starveling economy.
I could not sleep. The recollection of my uncle's
dying scene and the dreary sounds about the
house, affected my mind. These, however, were
succeeded by plans for the future, and I lay awake
the greater part of the night, indulging the poetical
old walls ring with cheerful life, and restore the
hospitality of my mother's ancestors.
My uncle's funeral was decent, but private. I
knew there was nobody that respected his memory;
and I was determined that none should
be summoned to sneer over his funeral wines, and
make merry at his grave. He was buried in the
church of the neighbouring village, though it was
not the burying place of his race; but he had
expressly enjoined that he should not be buried
with his family; he had quarrelled with the most
of them when living, and he carried his resentments
even into the grave.
I defrayed the expenses of the funeral out of
my own purse, that I might have done with the
undertakers at once, and clear the ill-omened
birds from the premises. I invited the parson of
the parish, and the lawyer from the village to attend
at the house the next morning and hear the
reading of the will. I treated them to an excellent
breakfast, a profusion that had not been seen
at the house for many a year. As soon as the
John, the woman, and the boy, for I was particular
in having every one present and proceeding
regularly. The box was placed on the table.
All was silence. I broke the seal; raised the
lid; and beheld—not the will, but my accursed
poem of Doubting Castle and Giant Despair!
Could any mortal have conceived that this old
withered man; so taciturn, and apparently lost
to feeling, could have treasured up for years the
thoughtless pleasantry of a boy, to punish him
with such cruel ingenuity? I now could account
for his dying smile, the only one he had ever
given me. He had been a grave man all his
life; it was strange that he should die in the enjoyment
of a joke; and it was hard that that
joke should be at my expense.
The lawyer and the parson seemed at a loss to
comprehend the matter. “Here must be some
mistake,” said the lawyer, “there is no will
here.”
“Oh,” said Iron John, creaking forth his rusty.
I can find one.”
He retired with the same singular smile with
which he had greeted me on my arrival, and
which I now apprehended boded me no good.
In a little while he returned with a will perfect
at all points, properly signed and sealed and witnessed;
worded with horrible correctness; in
which he left large legacies to Iron John and
his daughter, and the residue of his fortune
to the foxy-headed boy; who, to my utter
astonishment, was his son by this very woman;
he having married her privately; and, as
I verily believe, for no other purpose than to have
an heir, and so baulk my father and his issue of
the inheritance. There was one little proviso,
in which he mentioned that having discovered
his nephew to have a pretty turn for poetry, he
presumed he had no occasion for wealth: he recommended
him, however, to the patronage of his
heir; and requested that he might have a garret,
rent free, in Doubting Castle.
| BUCKTHORNE,
OR THE
YOUNG MAN OF GREAT EXPECTATIONS. Tales of a traveller | |