Pelham Part 58

We came to a stand of coaches. Jonson selected one, and gave the coachman an order; he took care it should not reach my ears. During the half hour we pa.s.sed in this vehicle, Job examined and reexamined me in my "canting catechism," as he termed it. He expressed himself much pleased with the quickness of my parts, and honoured me with an a.s.surance that in less than three months he would engage to make me as complete a ruffler as ever nailed a swell.

To this gratifying compliment I made the best return in my power.

"You must not suppose," said Jonson--some minutes afterwards, "from our use of this language, that our club consists of the lower order of thieves--quite the contrary: we are a knot of gentlemen adventurers who wear the best clothes, ride the best hacks, frequent the best gaming houses, as well as the genteelest haunts, and sometimes keep the first company in London. We are limited in number: we have nothing in common with ordinary prigs, and should my own little private amus.e.m.e.nts (as you appropriately term them) be known in the set, I should have a very fair chance of being expelled for ungentlemanlike practices. We rarely condescend to speak 'flash' to each other in our ordinary meetings, but we find it necessary, for many shifts to which fortune sometimes drives us. The house you are going this night to visit, is a sort of colony we have established for whatever persons amongst us are in danger of blood-money. [Rewards for the apprehension of thieves.] There they sometimes lie concealed for weeks together, and are at last shipped off for the continent, or enter the world under a new alias. To this refuge of the distressed we also send any of the mess, who, like Dawson, are troubled with qualms of conscience, which are likely to endanger the commonwealth; there they remain, as in a hospital, till death, or a cure, in short, we put the house, like its inmates, to any purposes likely to frustrate our enemies, and serve ourselves. Old Brimstone Bess, to whom I shall introduce you, is, as I before said, the guardian of the place; and the language that respectable lady chiefly indulges in, is the one into which you have just acquired so good an insight.

Partly in compliment to her, and partly from inclination, the dialect adopted in her house, is almost entirely 'flash;' and you, therefore, perceive the necessity of appearing not utterly ignorant of a tongue, which is not only the language of the country, but one with which no true boy, however high in his profession, is ever unacquainted."

By the time Jonson had finished this speech, the coach stopped--I looked eagerly out--Jonson observed the motion: "We have not got half-way yet, your honour," said he. We left the coach, which Jonson requested me to pay, and walked on.

"Tell me frankly, Sir," said Job, "do you know where you are?"

"Not in the least," replied I, looking wistfully up a long, dull, ill-lighted street.

Job rolled his sinister eye towards me with a searching look, and then turning abruptly to the right, penetrated into a sort of covered lane, or court, which terminated in an alley, that brought us suddenly to a stand of three coaches; one of these Job hailed--we entered it--a secret direction was given, and we drove furiously on, faster than I should think the crazy body of hackney chariot ever drove before. I observed, that we had now entered a part of the town, which was singularly strange to me; the houses were old, and for the most part of the meanest description; we appeared to me to be threading a labyrinth of alleys; once, I imagined that I caught, through a sudden opening, a glimpse of the river, but we pa.s.sed so rapidly, that my eye might have deceived me. At length we stopped: the coachman was again dismissed, and I again walked onwards, under the guidance, and almost at the mercy of my honest companion.

Jonson did not address me--he was silent and absorbed, and I had therefore full leisure to consider my present situation. Though (thanks to my physical const.i.tution) I am as callous to fear as most men, a few chilling apprehensions, certainly flitted across my mind, when I looked round at the dim and dreary sheds--houses they were not--which were on either side of our path; only here and there, a single lamp shed a sickly light upon the dismal and intersecting lanes (though lane is too lofty a word), through which our footsteps woke a solitary sound.

Sometimes this feeble light was altogether withheld, and I could scarcely catch even the outline of my companion's muscular frame.

However, he strode on through the darkness, with the mechanical rapidity of one to whom every stone is familiar. I listened eagerly for the sound of the watchman's voice, in vain--that note was never heard in those desolate recesses. My ear drank in nothing but the sound of our own footsteps, or the occasional burst of obscene and unholy merriment from some half-closed hovel, where infamy and vice were holding revels.

Now and then, a wretched thing, in the vilest extreme of want, and loathsomeness, and rags, loitered by the unfrequent lamps, and interrupted our progress with solicitations, which made my blood run cold. By degrees even these tokens of life ceased--the last lamp was entirely shut from our view--we were in utter darkness.

"We are near our journey's end now," whispered Jonson

At these words a thousand unwelcome reflections forced themselves voluntarily on my mind: I was about to plunge into the most secret retreat of men whose long habits of villany and desperate abandonment, had hardened into a nature which had scarcely a sympathy with my own; unarmed and defenceless, I was going to penetrate a concealment upon which their lives perhaps depended; what could I antic.i.p.ate from their vengeance, but the sure hand and the deadly knife, which their self-preservation would more than justify to such lawless reasoners. And who was my companion? One, who literally gloried in the perfection of his nefarious practices; and who, if he had stopped short of the worst enormities, seemed neither to disown the principle upon which they were committed, nor to balance for a moment between his interest and his conscience.

Nor did he attempt to conceal from me the danger to which I was exposed; much as his daring habits of life, and the good fortune which had attended him, must have hardened his nerves, even he, seemed fully sensible of the peril he incurred--a peril certainly considerably less than that which attended my temerity. Bitterly did I repent, as these reflections rapidly pa.s.sed my mind, my negligence in not providing myself with a single weapon in case of need: the worst pang of death, is the falling without a struggle.

However, it was no moment for the indulgence of fear, it was rather one of those eventful periods which so rarely occur in the monotony of common life, when our minds are sounded to their utmost depths: and energies of which we dreamt not, when at rest in their secret retreats, arise like spirits at the summons of the wizard, and bring to the invoking mind, an unlooked for and preternatural aid.

There was something too in the disposition of my guide, which gave me a confidence in him, not warranted by the occupations of his life; an easy and frank boldness, an ingenuous vanity of abilities, skilfully, though dishonestly exerted, which had nothing of the meanness and mystery of an ordinary villain, and which being equally prominent with the rascality they adorned, prevented the attention from dwelling only upon the darker shades of his character. Besides, I had so closely entwined his interest with my own, that I felt there could be no possible ground either for suspecting him of any deceit towards me, or of omitting any art or exertion which could conduce to our mutual safety or our common end.

Forcing myself to dwell solely upon the more encouraging side of the enterprise I had undertaken, we continued to move on, silent and in darkness, for some minutes longer--Jonson then halted.

"Are you quite prepared, Sir?" said he, in a whisper: "if your heart fails, in G.o.d's name let us turn back: the least evident terror will be as much as your life is worth."

My thoughts were upon Sir Reginald and Ellen, as I replied--

"You have told and convinced me that I may trust is you, and I have no fears; my present object is one as strong to me as life."

"I would we had a glim," rejoined Job, musingly; "I should like to see your face: but will you give me your hand, Sir?"

I did, and Jonson held it in his own for more than a minute.

"'Fore Heaven, Sir," said he, at last, "I would you were one of us. You would live a brave man and die a game one. Your pulse is like iron; and your hand does not sway--no--not so much as to wave a dove's feather; it would be a burning shame if harm came to so stout a heart." Job moved on a few steps. "Now, Sir," he whispered, "remember your flash; do exactly as I may have occasion to tell you; and be sure to sit away from the light, should we be in company."

With these words he stopped. I perceived by the touch, for it was too dark to see, that he was leaning down, apparently in a listening att.i.tude; presently, he tapped five times at what I supposed was a door, though I afterwards discovered it was the shutter to a window; upon this, a faint light broke through the crevices of the boards, and a low voice uttered some sound, which my ear did not catch. Job replied, in the same key, and in words which were perfectly unintelligible to me; the light disappeared; Job moved round, as if turning a corner. I heard the heavy bolts and bars of a door slowly withdraw; and in a few moments, a harsh voice said, in the thieves' dialect,

"Ruffling Job, my prince of prigs, is that you? are you come to the ken alone, or do you carry double?"

"Ah, Bess, my covess, strike me blind if my sees don't tout your bingo muns in spite of the darkmans. Egad, you carry a bane blink aloft. Come to the ken alone--no! my blowen; did not I tell you I should bring a pater cove, to chop up the whiners for Dawson?"

"Stubble it, you ben, you deserve to cly the jerk for your patter; come in, and be d--d to you."

Upon this invitation, Jonson, seizing me by the arm, pushed me into the house, and followed. "Go for a glim, Bess, to light in the parish bull with proper respect. I'll close the gig of the crib."

At this order, delivered in an authoritative tone, the old woman, mumbling "strange oaths" to herself, moved away; when she was out of hearing, Job whispered,

"Mark, I shall leave the bolts undrawn, the door opens with a latch, which you press thus--do not forget the spring; it is easy, but peculiar; should you be forced to run for it, you will also remember, above all, when you are out of the door, to turn to the right and go straight forwards."

The old woman now reappeared with a light, and Jonson ceased, and moved hastily towards her: I followed. The old woman asked whether the door had been carefully closed, and Jonson, with an oath at her doubts of such a matter, answered in the affirmative.

We proceeded onwards, through a long and very narrow pa.s.sage, till Bess opened a small door to the left, and introduced us into a large room, which, to my great dismay, I found already occupied by four men, who were sitting, half immersed in smoke, by an oak table, with a capacious bowl of hot liquor before them. At the back ground of this room, which resembled the kitchen of a public house, was an enormous skreen, of antique fashion; a low fire burnt sullenly in the grate, and beside it was one of those high-backed chairs, seem frequently in old houses, and old pictures. A clock stood in one corner, and in the opposite nook were a flight of narrow stairs, which led downwards, probably to a cellar.

On a row of shelves, were various bottles of the different liquors generally in request among the "flash" gentry, together with an old-fashioned fiddle, two bridles, and some strange looking tools, probably of more use to true boys than honest men.

Brimstone Bess was a woman about the middle size, but with bones and sinews which would not have disgraced a prize-fighter; a cap, that might have been cleaner, was rather thrown than put on the back of her head, developing, to full advantage, the few scanty locks of grizzled ebon which adorned her countenance. Her eyes large, black, and prominent, sparkled with a fire half vivacious, half vixen. The nasal feature was broad and fungous, and, as well as the whole of her capacious physiognomy, blushed with the deepest scarlet: it was evident to see that many a full bottle of "British compounds" had contributed to the feeding of that burning and phosphoric illumination, which was, indeed, "the outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace."

The expression of the countenance was not wholly bad. Amidst the deep traces of searing vice and unrestrained pa.s.sion; amidst all that was bold, and unfeminine, and fierce, and crafty, there was a latent look of coa.r.s.e good humour, a twinkle of the eye that bespoke a tendency to mirth and drollery, and an upward curve of the lip that shewed, however the human creature might be debased, it still cherished its grand characteristic--the propensity to laughter.

The garb of this dame Leonarda was by no means of that humble nature which one might have supposed. A gown of crimson silk, flounced and furbelowed to the knees, was tastefully relieved by a bright yellow shawl; and a pair of heavy pendants glittered in her ears, which were of the size proper to receive "the big words" they were in the habit of hearing. Probably this finery had its origin in the policy of her guests, who had seen enough of life to know that age, which tames all other pa.s.sions, never tames the pa.s.sion of dress in a woman's mind.

No sooner did the four revellers set their eyes upon me than they all rose.

"Zounds, Bess!" cried the tallest of them, "what cull's this? Is this a bowsing ken for every cove to shove his trunk in?"

"What ho, my kiddy," cried Job, "don't be glimflashy: why you'd cry beef on a blater; the cove is a bob cull, and a pal of my own; and, moreover, is as pretty a Tyburn blossom as ever was brought up to ride a horse foaled by an acorn."

Upon this commendatory introduction I was forthwith surrounded, and one of the four proposed that I should be immediately "elected."

This motion, which was probably no gratifying ceremony, Job negatived with a dictatorial air, and reminded his comrades that however they might find it convenient to lower themselves occasionally, yet that they were gentlemen sharpers, and not vulgar cracksmen and cly-fakers, and that, therefore, they ought to welcome me with the good breeding appropriate to their station.

Upon this hint, which was received with mingled laughter and deference, for Job seemed to be a man of might among these Philistines, the tallest of the set, who bore the euphonious appellation of Spider-shanks, politely asked me if I would "blow a cloud with him?" and, upon my a.s.sent--for I thought such an occupation would be the best excuse for silence--he presented me with a pipe of tobacco, to which dame Brimstone applied a light, and I soon lent my best endeavours to darken still further the atmosphere around us.

Mr. Job Jonson then began artfully to turn the conversation away from me to the elder confederates of his crew; these were all spoken of under certain singular appellations which might well baffle impertinent curiosity. The name of one was "the Gimblet," another "Crack Crib," a third, the "Magician," a fourth, "Cherry coloured Jowl." The tallest of the present company was called (as I before said) "Spider-shanks," and the shortest "Fib Fakescrew;" Job himself was honoured by the venerabile nomen of "Guinea Pig." At last Job explained the cause of my appearance; viz. his wish to pacify Dawson's conscience by dressing up one of the pals, whom the sinner could not recognize, as an "autem bawler," and so obtaining him the benefit of the clergy without endangering the gang by his confession. This detail was received with great good humour, and Job, watching his opportunity, soon after rose, and, turning to me, said,

"Toddle, my bob cull. We must track up the dancers and tout the sinner."

I wanted no other hint to leave my present situation.

"The ruffian cly thee, Guinea Pig, for stashing the lush," said Spider-shanks, helping himself out of the bowl, which was nearly empty.

"Stash the lush!" cried Mrs. Brimstone, "aye, and toddle off to Ruggins.

Why, you would not be boosing till lightman's in a square crib like mine, as if you were in a flash panny."

"That's bang up, mort!" cried Fib. "A square crib, indeed! aye, square as Mr. Newman's courtyard--ding boys on three sides, and the c.r.a.p on the fourth!"

This characteristic witticism was received with great applause; and Jonson, taking a candlestick from the fair fingers of the exasperated Mrs. Brimstone, the hand thus conveniently released, immediately transferred itself to Fib's cheeks, with so hearty a concussion, that it almost brought the rash jester to the ground. Jonson and I lost not a moment in taking advantage of the confusion this gentle remonstrance appeared to occasion; but instantly left the room and closed the door.