Paul Clifford Part 6

To this soliloquy succeeded a misanthropical revery upon the faithlessness of friends; and the meditation ended in Paul's making up a little bundle of such clothes, etc., as Dummie had succeeded in removing from the Mug, and which Paul had taken from the rag-merchant's abode one morning when Dummie was abroad.

When this easy task was concluded, Paul wrote a short and upbraiding note to his ill.u.s.trious preceptor, and left it unsealed on the table.

He then, upsetting the ink-bottle on MacGrawler's sleeping countenance, departed from the house, and strolled away he cared not whither.

The evening was gradually closing as Paul, chewing the cud of his bitter fancies, found himself on London Bridge. He paused there, and leaning over the bridge, gazed wistfully on the gloomy waters that rolled onward, caring not a minnow for the numerous charming young ladies who have thought proper to drown themselves in those merciless waves, thereby depriving many a good mistress of an excellent housemaid or an invaluable cook, and many a treacherous Phaon of letters beginning with "Parjured Villen," and ending with "Your affectionot but melancholy Molly."

While thus musing, he was suddenly accosted by a gentleman in boots and spurs, having a riding-whip in one hand, and the other hand stuck in the pocket of his inexpressibles. The hat of the gallant was gracefully and carefully put on, so as to derange as little as possible a profusion of dark curls, which, streaming with unguents, fell low not only on either side of the face, but on the neck and even the shoulders of the owner.

The face was saturnine and strongly marked, but handsome and striking. There was a mixture of frippery and sternness in its expression,--something between Madame Vestries and T. P. Cooke, or between "lovely Sally" and a "Captain bold of Halifax." The stature of this personage was remarkably tall, and his figure was stout, muscular, and well knit. In fine, to complete his portrait, and give our readers of the present day an exact idea of this hero of the past, we shall add that he was altogether that sort of gentleman one sees swaggering in the Burlington Arcade, with his hair and hat on one side, and a military cloak thrown over his shoulders; or prowling in Regent Street, towards the evening, whiskered and cigarred.

Laying his hand on the shoulder of our hero, this gentleman said, with an affected intonation of voice,--

"How dost, my fine fellow? Long since I saw you! Damme, but you look the worse for wear. What hast thou been doing with thyself?"

"Ha!" cried our hero, returning the salutation of the stranger, "and is it Long Ned whom I behold? I am indeed glad to meet you; and I say, my friend, I hope what I heard of you is not true!"

"Hist!" said Long Ned, looking round fearfully, and sinking his voice; "never talk of what you hear of gentlemen, except you wish to bring them to their last dying speech and confession. But come with me, my lad; there is a tavern hard by, and we may as well discuss matters over a pint of wine. You look cursed seedy, to be sure; but I can tell Bill the waiter--famous fellow, that Bill!--that you are one of my tenants, come to complain of my steward, who has just distrained you for rent, you dog! No wonder you look so worn in the rigging. Come, follow me. I can't walk with thee. It would look too like Northumberland House and the butcher's abode next door taking a stroll together."

"Really, Mr. Pepper," said our hero, colouring, and by no means pleased with the ingenious comparison of his friend, "if you are ashamed of my clothes, which I own might be newer, I will not wound you with my--"

"Pooh! my lad, pooh!" cried Long Ned, interrupting him; "never take offence. I never do. I never take anything but money, except, indeed, watches. I don't mean to hurt your feelings; all of us have been poor once. 'Gad, I remember when I had not a dud to my back; and now, you see me,--you see me, Paul! But come, 't is only through the streets you need separate from me. Keep a little behind, very little; that will do. Ay, that will do," repeated Long Ned, mutteringly to himself; "they'll take him for a bailiff. It looks handsome nowadays to be so attended; it shows one had credit once!"

Meanwhile Paul, though by no means pleased with the contempt expressed for his personal appearance by his lengthy a.s.sociate, and impressed with a keener sense than ever of the crimes of his coat and the vices of his other garment,--"Oh, breathe not its name!"--followed doggedly and sullenly the strutting steps of the c.o.xcombical Mr. Pepper. That personage arrived at last at a small tavern, and arresting a waiter who was running across the pa.s.sage into the coffee-room with a dish of hung-beef, demanded (no doubt from a pleasing antic.i.p.ation of a similar pendulous catastrophe) a plate of the same excellent cheer, to be carried, in company with a bottle of port, into a private apartment. No sooner did he find himself alone with Paul than, bursting into a loud laugh, Mr. Ned surveyed his comrade from head to foot through an eyegla.s.s which he wore fastened to his b.u.t.ton-hole by a piece of blue ribbon.

"Well, 'gad now," said he, stopping ever and anon, as if to laugh the more heartily, "stab my vitals, but you are a comical quiz. I wonder what the women would say, if they saw the dashing Edward Pepper, Esquire, walking arm in arm with thee at Ranelagh or Vauxhall! Nay, man, never be downcast; if I laugh at thee, it is only to make thee look a little merrier thyself. Why, thou lookest like a book of my grandfather's called Burton's ''Anatomy of Melancholy;' and faith, a shabbier bound copy of it I never saw."

"These jests are a little hard," said Paul, struggling between anger and an attempt to smile; and then recollecting his late literary occupations, and the many extracts he had taken from "Gleanings of the Belles Lettres," in order to impart elegance to his criticisms, he threw out his hand theatrically, and spouted with a solemn face,--

"'Of all the griefs that hara.s.s the distrest, Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest!'"

"Well, now, prithee forgive me," said Long Ned, composing his features, "and just tell me what you have been doing the last two months."

"Slashing and plastering!" said Paul, with conscious pride.

"Slashing and what? The boy's mad. What do you mean, Paul?"

"In other words," said our hero, speaking very slowly, "know, O very Long Ned! that I have been critic to 'The Asinaeum.'"

If Paul's comrade laughed at first, he now laughed ten times more merrily than ever. He threw his full length of limb upon a neighbouring sofa, and literally rolled with cachinnatory convulsions; nor did his risible emotions subside until the entrance of the hung-beef restored him to recollection. Seeing, then, that a cloud lowered over Paul's countenance, he went up to him with something like gravity, begged his pardon for his want of politeness, and desired him to wash away all unkindness in a b.u.mper of port. Paul, whose excellent dispositions we have before had occasion to remark, was not impervious to his friend's apologies. He a.s.sured Long Ned that he quite forgave him for his ridicule of the high situation he (Paul) had enjoyed in the literary world; that it was the duty of a public censor to bear no malice, and that he should be very glad to take his share in the interment of the hung-beef.

The pair now sat down to their repast; and Paul, who had fared but meagerly in that Temple of Athena over which MacGrawler presided, did ample justice to the viands before him. By degrees, as he ate and drank, his heart opened to his companion; and laying aside that Asinaeum dignity which he had at first thought it inc.u.mbent on him to a.s.sume, he entertained Pepper with all the particulars of the life he had lately pa.s.sed. He narrated to him his breach with Dame Lobkins, his agreement with MacGrawler, the glory he had acquired, and the wrongs he had sustained; and he concluded, as now the second bottle made its appearance, by stating his desire of exchanging for some more active profession that sedentary career which he had so promisingly begun.

This last part of Paul's confessions secretly delighted the soul of Long Ned; for that experienced collector of the highways--Ned was, indeed, of no less n.o.ble a profession--had long fixed an eye upon our hero, as one whom he thought likely to be an honour to that enterprising calling which he espoused, and an useful a.s.sistant to himself. He had not, in his earlier acquaintance with Paul, when the youth was under the roof and the surveillance of the practised and wary Mrs. Lobkins, deemed it prudent to expose the exact nature of his own pursuits, and had contented himself by gradually ripening the mind and the finances of Paul into that state when the proposition of a leap from a hedge would not be likely greatly to revolt the person to whom it was made. He now thought that time near at hand; and filling our hero's gla.s.s up to the brim, thus artfully addressed him:--

"Courage, my friend! Your narration has given me a sensible pleasure; for curse me if it has not strengthened my favourite opinion,--that everything is for the best. If it had not been for the meanness of that pitiful fellow, MacGrawler, you might still be inspired with the paltry ambition of earning a few shillings a week and vilifying a parcel of poor devils in the what-d'ye-call it, with a hard name; whereas now, my good Paul, I trust I shall be able to open to your genius a new career, in which guineas are had for the asking,--in which you may wear fine clothes, and ogle the ladies at Ranelagh; and when you are tired of glory and liberty, Paul, why, you have only to make your bow to an heiress, or a widow with a spanking jointure, and quit the hum of men like a Cincinnatus!"

Though Paul's perception into the abstruser branches of morals was not very acute,--and at that time the port wine had considerably confused the few notions he possessed upon "the beauty of virtue,"--yet he could not but perceive that Mr. Pepper's insinuated proposition was far from being one which the bench of bishops or a synod of moralists would conscientiously have approved. He consequently remained silent; and Long Ned, after a pause, continued:--

"You know my genealogy, my good fellow? I was the son of Lawyer Pepper, a shrewd old dog, but as hot as Calcutta; and the grandson of s.e.xton Pepper, a great author, who wrote verses on tombstones, and kept a stall of religious tracts in Carlisle. My grandfather, the s.e.xton, was the best temper of the family; for all of us are a little inclined to be hot in the mouth. Well, my fine fellow, my father left me his blessing, and this devilish good head of hair. I lived for some years on my own resources. I found it a particularly inconvenient mode of life, and of late I have taken to live on the public. My father and grandfather did it before me, though in a different line. 'T is the pleasantest plan in the world. Follow my example, and your coat shall be as spruce as my own. Master Paul, your health!"

"But, O longest of mortals!" said Paul, refilling his gla.s.s, "though the public may allow you to eat your mutton off their backs for a short time, they will kick up at last, and upset you and your banquet; in other words (pardon my metaphor, dear Ned, in remembrance of the part I have lately maintained in 'The Asinaeum,' that most magnificent and metaphorical of journals!),--in other words, the police will nab thee at last; and thou wilt have the distinguished fate, as thou already hast the distinguishing characteristic, of Absalom!"

"You mean that I shall be hanged," said Long Ned, "that may or may not be; but he who fears death never enjoys life. Consider, Paul, that though hanging is a bad fate, starving is a worse; wherefore fill your gla.s.s, and let us drink to the health of that great donkey, the people, and may we never want saddles to ride it!"

"To the great donkey," cried Paul, tossing off his b.u.mper; "may your (y)ears be as long! But I own to you, my friend, that I cannot enter into your plans. And, as a token of my resolution, I shall drink no more, for my eyes already begin to dance in the air; and if I listen longer to your resistless eloquence, my feet may share the same fate!"

So saying, Paul rose; nor could any entreaty, on the part of his entertainer, persuade him to resume his seat.

"Nay, as you will," said Pepper, affecting a nonchalant tone, and arranging his cravat before the gla.s.s,--"nay, as you will. Ned Pepper requires no man's companionship against his liking; and if the n.o.ble spark of ambition be not in your bosom, 't is no use spending my breath in blowing at what only existed in my too flattering opinion of your qualities. So then, you propose to return to MacGrawler (the scurvy old cheat!), and pa.s.s the inglorious remainder of your life in the mangling of authors and the murder of grammar? Go, my good fellow, go! scribble again and forever for MacGrawler, and let him live upon thy brains instead of suffering thy brains to--"

"Hold!" cried Paul. "Although I may have some scruples which prevent my adoption of that rising line of life you have proposed to me, yet you are very much mistaken if you imagine me so spiritless as any longer to subject myself to the frauds of that rascal MacGrawler. No! My present intention is to pay my old nurse a visit. It appears to me pa.s.sing strange that though I have left her so many weeks, she has never relented enough to track me out, which one would think would have been no difficult matter; and now, you see, that I am pretty well off, having five guineas and four shillings all my own, and she can scarcely think I want her money, my heart melts to her, and I shall go and ask pardon for my haste!"

"Pshaw! sentimental," cried Long Ned, a little alarmed at the thought of Paul's gliding from those clutches which he thought had now so firmly closed upon him. "Why, you surely don't mean, after having once tasted the joys of independence, to go back to the boozing-ken, and bear all Mother Lobkins's drunken tantrums! Better have stayed with MacGrawler, of the two!"

"You mistake me," answered Paul; "I mean solely to make it up with her, and get her permission to see the world. My ultimate intention is--to travel."

"Right," cried Ned, "on the high-road,--and on horseback, I hope."

"No, my Colossus of Roads! no. I am in doubt whether or not I shall enlist in a marching regiment, or--Give me your advice on it! I fancy I have a great turn for the stage, ever since I saw Garrick in 'Richard.'

Shall I turn stroller? It must be a merry life."

"Oh, the devil!" cried Ned. "I myself once did Ca.s.sio in a barn, and every one swore I enacted the drunken scene to perfection; but you have no notion what a lamentable life it is to a man of any susceptibility.

No, my friend, no! There is only one line in all the old plays worthy thy attention,--

"'Toby [The highway] or not toby, that is the question.'

"I forget the rest!"

"Well," said our hero, answering in the same jocular vein, "I confess I have 'the actor's high ambition.' It is astonishing how my heart beat when Richard cried out, 'Come bustle, bustle!' Yes, Pepper, avaunt!--

"'A thousand hearts are great within my bosom.'"

"Well, well," said Long Ned, stretching himself, "since you are so fond of the play, what say you to an excursion thither to-night? Garrick acts."

"Done!" cried Paul.

"Done!" echoed lazily Long Ned, rising with that blase air which distinguishes the matured man of the world from the enthusiastic tyro,-"done! and we will adjourn afterwards to the White Horse."

"But stay a moment," said Paul; "if you remember, I owed you a guinea when I last saw you,--here it is!"

"Nonsense," exclaimed Long Ned, refusing the money,--"nonsense! You want the money at present; pay me when you are richer. Nay, never be coy about it; debts of honour are not paid now as they used to be. We lads of the Fish Lane Club have changed all that. Well, well, if I must!"

And Long Ned, seeing that Paul insisted, pocketed the guinea. When this delicate matter had been arranged,--"Come," said Pepper, "come, get your hat; but, bless me! I have forgotten one thing."

"What?"

"Why, my fine Paul, consider. The play is a bang-up sort of a place; look at your coat and your waistcoat, that's all!"

Our hero was struck dumb with this arqumentum ad hominem. But Long Ned, after enjoying his perplexity, relieved him of it by telling him that he knew of an honest tradesman who kept a ready-made shop just by the theatre, and who could fit him out in a moment.