The History of John Bull Part 7

JOHN BULL.--"Try what you can do with your left hand."

LEWIS.--"That's impossible; it will make such a scrawl that it will not be legible."

As they were talking of this matter, in came Esquire South, all dressed up in feathers and ribbons, stark staring mad, brandishing his sword, as if he would have cut off their heads, crying "Room, room, boys, for the grand esquire of the world! the flower of esquires! What! covered in my presence? I'll crush your souls, and crack you like lice!" With that he had like to have struck John Bull's hat into the fire; but John, who was pretty strong-fisted, gave him such a squeeze as made his eyes water.

He went on still in his mad pranks: "When I am lord of the universe, the sun shall prostrate and adore me! Thou, Frog, shalt be my bailiff; Lewis my tailor; and thou, John Bull, shalt be my fool!"

All this while Frog laughed in his sleeve, gave the esquire the other noggan of brandy, and clapped him on the back, which made him ten times madder.

Poor John stood in amaze, talking thus to himself: "Well, John, thou art got into rare company! One has a dumb devil, the other a mad devil, and the third a spirit of infirmity. An honest man has a fine time on it amongst such rogues. What art thou asking of them after all? Some mighty boon one would think! only to sit quietly at thy own fireside. What have I to do with such fellows? John Bull, after all his losses and crosses, can live better without them than they can without him. Would I lived a thousand leagues off them! but the devil's in it; John Bull is in, and John Bull must get out as well as he can."

As he was talking to himself, he observed Frog and old Lewis edging towards one another to whisper,* so that John was forced to sit with his arms akimbo, to keep them asunder.

* Some attempts of secret negotiation between the French and the Dutch.

Some people advised John to bleed Frog under the tongue, or take away his bread-and-b.u.t.ter, which would certainly make him speak; to give Esquire South h.e.l.lebore; as for Lewis, some were for emollient poultices, others for opening his arm with an incision knife.

CHAPTER XI.* The apprehending, examination, and imprisonment of Jack for suspicion of poisoning.

* The four following chapters contain the history of pa.s.sing the Bill against Occasional Conformity, and of the Whigs agreeing to it.

The attentive reader cannot have forgot that the story of Van Ptschirnsooker's powder was interrupted by a message from Frog. I have a natural compa.s.sion for curiosity, being much troubled with the distemper myself; therefore to gratify that uneasy itching sensation in my reader, I have procured the following account of that matter.

Van Ptschirnsooker came off (as rogues usually do upon such occasions) by peaching his partner; and being extremely forward to bring him to the gallows, Jack* was accused as the contriver of all the roguery. And, indeed, it happened unfortunately for the poor fellow, that he was known to bear a most inveterate spite against the old gentlewoman; and, consequently, that never any ill accident happened to her but he was suspected to be at the bottom of it. If she p.r.i.c.ked her finger, Jack, to be sure, laid the pin in the way; if some noise in the street disturbed her rest, who could it be but Jack in some of his nocturnal rambles?

If a servant ran away, Jack had debauched him. Every idle t.i.ttle-tattle that went about, Jack was always suspected for the author of it.

However, all was nothing to this last affair of the temperating, moderating powder.

* All the misfortunes of the Church charged upon the Puritan party.

The hue and cry went after Jack to apprehend him dead or alive, wherever he could be found. The constables looked out for him in all his usual haunts; but to no purpose. Where d'ye think they found him at last? Even smoking his pipe, very quietly, at his brother Martin's; from whence he was carried with a vast mob at his heels, before the worshipful Mr.

Justice Overdo. Several of his neighbours made oath,* that of late, the prisoner had been observed to lead a very dissolute life, renouncing even his usual hypocrisy and pretences to sobriety; that he frequented taverns and eating-houses, and had been often guilty of drunkenness and gluttony at my Lord Mayor's table; that he had been seen in the company of lewd women; that he had transferred his usual care of the engrossed copy of his father's will to bank bills, orders for tallies, and debentures:** these he now affirmed, with more literal truth, to be meat, drink, and cloth, the philosopher's stone, and the universal medicine;*** that he was so far from showing his customary reverence to the will, that he kept company with those that called his father a cheating rogue, and his will a forgery; that he not only sat quietly and heard his father railed at, but often chimed in with the discourse, and hugged the authors as his bosom friends;**** that instead of asking for blows at the corners of the streets, he now bestowed them as plentifully as he begged them before.*** In short, that he was grown a mere rake; and had nothing left in him of old Jack except his spite to John Bull's mother.

* The manners of the Dissenters changed from their former strictness.

** Dealing much in stock-jobbing.

*** "Tale of a Tub."

**** Herding with deists and atheists.

Another witness made oath, that Jack had been overheard bragging of a trick* he had found out to manage the "old formal jade," as he used to call her. "Hang this numb-skull of mine," quoth he, "that I could not light on it sooner. As long as I go in this ragged tattered coat, I am so well known, that I am hunted away from the old woman's door by every barking cur about the house; they bid me defiance. There's no doing mischief as an open enemy; I must find some way or other of getting within doors, and then I shall have better opportunities of playing my pranks, besides the benefit of good keeping."

* Getting into places and Church preferments by occasional conformity.

Two witnesses swore* that several years ago, there came to their mistress's door a young fellow in a tattered coat, that went by the name of Timothy Trim, whom they did in their conscience believe to be the very prisoner, resembling him in shape, stature, and the features of his countenance. That the said Timothy Trim being taken into the family, clapped their mistress's livery over his own tattered coat; that the said Timothy was extremely officious about their mistress's person, endeavouring by flattery and tale-bearing to set her against the rest of the servants: n.o.body was so ready to fetch anything that was wanted, to reach what was dropped. That he used to shove and elbow his fellow-servants to get near his mistress, especially when money was a paying or receiving--then he was never out of the way; that he was extremely diligent about everybody's business but his own. That the said Timothy, while he was in the family, used to be playing roguish tricks; when his mistress's back was turned, he would loll out his tongue, make mouths, and laugh at her, walking behind her like Harlequin, ridiculing her motions and gestures; but if his mistress looked about, he put on a grave, demure countenance, as if he had been in a fit of devotion; that he used often to trip up-stairs so smoothly that you could not hear him tread, and put all things out of order; that he would pinch the children and servants, when he met them in the dark, so hard, that he left the print of his forefingers and his thumb in black and blue, and then slink into a corner, as if n.o.body had done it. Out of the same malicious design he used to lay chairs and joint-stools in their way, that they might break their noses by falling over them. The more young and inexperienced he used to teach to talk saucily, and call names. During his stay in the family there was much plate missing; being caught with a couple of silver spoons in his pocket, with their handles wrenched off, he said he was only going to carry them to the goldsmiths to be mended: that the said Timothy was hated by all the honest servants, for his ill-conditioned, splenetic tricks, but especially for his slanderous tongue; traducing them to their mistress as drunkards and thieves: that the said Timothy, by lying stories, used to set all the family together by the ears, taking delight to make them fight and quarrel; **particularly one day sitting at table, he spoke words to this effect: "I am of opinion," quoth he, "that little short fellows, such as we are, have better hearts, and could beat the tall fellows; I wish it came to a fair trial; I believe these long fellows, as sightly as they are, should find their jackets well thwacked."

* Betraying the interests of the Church when got into preferments.

** The original of the distinction in the names of Low Churchmen and High Churchmen.

A parcel of tall fellows, who thought themselves affronted by the discourse, took up the quarrel, and to it they went, the tall men and the low men, which continues still a faction in the family, to the great disorder of our mistress's affairs. The said Timothy carried this frolic so far, that he proposed to his mistress that she should entertain no servant that was above four feet seven inches high, and for that purpose had prepared a gauge, by which they were to be measured. The good old gentlewoman was not so simple as to go into his projects--she began to smell a rat. "This Trim," quoth she, "is an odd sort of a fellow; methinks he makes a strange figure with that ragged, tattered coat appearing under his livery; can't he go spruce and clean, like the rest of the servants? The fellow has a roguish leer with him which I don't like by any means; besides, he has such a tw.a.n.g in his discourse, and an ungraceful way of speaking through the nose, that one can hardly understand him; I wish the fellow be not tainted with some bad disease."

The witnesses further made oath, that the said Timothy lay out a-nights, and went abroad often at unseasonable hours; and it was credibly reported he did business in another family: that he pretended to have a squeamish stomach, and could not eat at table with the rest of the servants, though this was but a pretence to provide some nice bit for himself; that he refused to dine upon salt fish, only to have an opportunity to eat a calf's head (his favourite dish) in private; that for all his tender stomach, when he was got by himself, he could devour capons, turkeys, and sirloins of beef, like a cormorant.

Two other witnesses gave the following evidence: That in his officious attendance upon his mistress, he had tried to slip a powder into her drink, and that he was once caught endeavouring to stifle her with a pillow as she was asleep; that he and Ptschirnsooker were often in close conference, and that they used to drink together at the "Rose," where it seems he was well enough known by his true name of Jack.

The prisoner had little to say in his defence; he endeavoured to prove himself alibi, so that the trial turned upon this single question, whether the said Timothy Trim and Jack were the same person; which was proved by such plain tokens, and particularly by a mole under the left pap, that there was no withstanding the evidence; therefore the worshipful Mr. Justice committed him, in order to his trial.

CHAPTER XII. How Jack's friends came to visit him in prison, and what advice they gave him.

Jack hitherto had pa.s.sed in the world for a poor, simple, well-meaning, half-witted, crack-brained fellow. People were strangely surprised to find him in such a roguery--that he should disguise himself under a false name, hire himself out for a servant to an old gentlewoman, only for an opportunity to poison her. They said that it was more generous to profess open enmity than under a profound dissimulation to be guilty of such a scandalous breach of trust, and of the sacred rights of hospitality; in short, the action was universally condemned by his best friends. They told him in plain terms that this was come as a judgment upon him for his loose life, his gluttony, drunkenness, and avarice; for laying aside his father's will in an old mouldy trunk, and turning stock-jobber, newsmonger, and busybody, meddling with other people's affairs, shaking off his old serious friends, and keeping company with buffoons and pickpockets, his father's sworn enemies; that he had best throw himself upon the mercy of the court, repent, and change his manners. To say truth, Jack heard these discourses with some compunction; however, he resolved to try what his new acquaintance would do for him. They sent Habakkuk Slyboots,* who delivered him the following message, as the peremptory commands of his trusty companions:--

* Habakkuk Slyboots, a certain great man who persuaded the Dissenters to consent to the Bill against Occasional Conformity as being for their interest.

HABAKKUK.--Dear Jack, I am sorry for thy misfortune: matters have not been carried on with due secrecy; however, we must make the best of a bad bargain. Thou art in the utmost jeopardy, that's certain; hang, draw, and quarter, are the gentlest things they talk of. However, thy faithful friends, ever watchful for thy security, bid me tell thee that they have one infallible expedient left to save thy life. Thou must know we have got into some understanding with the enemy by the means of Don Diego;* he a.s.sures us there is no mercy for thee, and that there is only one way left to escape. It is, indeed, somewhat out of the common road; however, be a.s.sured it is the result of most mature deliberation.

* A n.o.ble Tory lord.

JACK.--Prithee tell me quickly, for my heart is sunk down in the very bottom of my belly.

HAB.--It is the unanimous opinion of your friends that you make as if you hanged yourself;* they will give it out that you are quite dead, and convey your body out of prison in a bier; and John Bull, being busied with his lawsuit, will not inquire further into the matter.

* Consent to the Bill against Occasional Conformity.

JACK.--How d'ye mean, make as if I hanged myself?

HAB.--Nay, you must really hang yourself up in a true genuine rope, that there may appear no trick in it, and leave the rest to your friends.

JACK.--Truly this is a matter of some concern, and my friends, I hope, won't take it ill if I inquire a little into the means by which they intend to deliver me. A rope and a noose are no jesting matters!

HAB.--Why so mistrustful? hast thou ever found us false to thee? I tell thee there is one ready to cut thee down.

JACK.--May I presume to ask who it is that is entrusted with so important an office?

HAB.--Is there no end of thy hows and thy whys? That's a secret.

JACK.--A secret, perhaps, that I may be safely trusted with, for I am not like to tell it again. I tell you plainly it is no strange thing for a man before he hangs himself up to inquire who is to cut him down.

HAB.--Thou suspicious creature! if thou must needs know it, I tell thee it is Sir Roger;* he has been in tears ever since thy misfortune. Don Diego and we have laid it so that he is to be in the next room, and before the rope is well about thy neck, rest satisfied he will break in and cut thee down. Fear not, old boy; we'll do it, I'll warrant thee.

* It was given out that the Earl of Oxford would oppose the occasional Bill, and so lose his credit with the Tories; and the Dissenters did believe he would not suffer it to pa.s.s.

JACK.--So I must hang myself up upon hopes that Sir Roger will cut me down, and all this upon the credit of Don Diego. A fine stratagem, indeed, to save my life, that depends upon hanging, Don Diego, and Sir Roger!

HAB.--I tell thee there is a mystery in all this, my friend, a piece of profound policy; if thou knew what good this will do to the common cause, thy heart would leap for joy. I am sure thou wouldst not delay the experiment one moment.