Paul Clifford — Complete

“What! is he avaricious?”

“Quite the reverse; but he’s so cursedly fond of building, he invests all his money (and wants us to invest all ours) in houses; and there’s one confounded dog of a bricklayer who runs him up terrible bills,—a fellow called ‘Cunning Nat,’ who is equally adroit in spoiling ground and improving ground rent.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ah! thereby hangs a tale. But we are near the place now; you will see a curious set.”

As Tomlinson said this, the pair approached a house standing alone, and seemingly without any other abode in the vicinity. It was of curious and grotesque shape, painted white, with a Gothic chimney, a Chinese sign-post (on which was depicted a gentleman fishing, with the words “The Jolly Angler” written beneath), and a porch that would have been Grecian if it had not been Dutch. It stood in a little field, with a hedge behind it, and the common in front. Augustus stopped at the door; and while he paused, bursts of laughter rang cheerily within.

“Ah, the merry boys!” he muttered; “I long to be with them;” and then with his clenched fist he knocked four times on the door. There was a sudden silence which lasted about a minute, and was broken by a voice within, asking who was there. Tomlinson answered by some cabalistic word; the door was opened, and a little boy presented himself.

“Well, my lad,” said Augustus, “and how is your master? Stout and hearty, if I may judge by his voice.”

“Ay, Master Tommy, ay, he’s boosing away at a fine rate, in the back-parlour, with Mr. Pepper and Fighting Attie, and half-a-score more of them. He’ll be woundy glad to see you, I’ll be bound.”

“Show this gentleman into the bar,” rejoined Augustus, “while I go and pay my respects to honest Geordie.”

The boy made a sort of a bow, and leading our hero into the bar, consigned him to the care of Sal, a buxom barmaid, who reflected credit on the taste of the landlord, and who received Paul with marked distinction and a gill of brandy.

Paul had not long to play the amiable, before Tomlinson rejoined him with the information that Gentleman George would be most happy to see him in the back-parlour, and that he would there find an old friend in the person of Mr. Pepper.

“What! is he here?” cried Paul. “The sorry knave, to let me be caged in his stead!”

“Gently, gently; no misapplication of terms!” said Augustus. “That was not knavery; that was prudence, the greatest of all virtues, and the rarest. But come along, and Pepper shall explain to-morrow.”

Threading a gallery or passage, Augustus preceded our hero, opened a door, and introduced him into a long low apartment, where sat, round a table spread with pipes and liquor, some ten or a dozen men, while at the top of the table, in an armchair, presided Gentleman George. That dignitary was a portly and comely gentleman, with a knowing look, and a Welsh wig, worn, as the “Morning Chronicle” says of his Majesty’s hat, “in a degage manner, on one side.” Being afflicted with the gout, his left foot reclined on a stool; and the attitude developed, despite of a lamb’s-wool stocking, the remains of an exceedingly good leg.

As Gentleman George was a person of majestic dignity among the Knights of the Cross, we trust we shall not be thought irreverent in applying a few of the words by which the aforesaid “Morning Chronicle” depicted his Majesty on the day he laid the first stone of his father’s monument to the description of Gentleman George.

“He had on a handsome blue coat and a white waistcoat;” moreover, “he laughed most good-humouredly,” as, turning to Augustus Tomlinson, he saluted him with,—

“So this is the youngster you present to us? Welcome to the Jolly Angler! Give us thy hand, young sir; I shall be happy to blow a cloud with thee.”

“With all due submission,” said Mr. Tomlinson, “I think it may first be as well to introduce my pupil and friend to his future companions.”

“You speak like a leary cove,” cried Gentleman George, still squeezing our hero’s hand; and turning round in his elbow-chair, he pointed to each member, as he severally introduced his guests to Paul.

“Here,” said he,—“here’s a fine chap at my right hand” (the person thus designated was a thin military-looking figure, in a shabby riding-frock, and with a commanding, bold, aquiline countenance, a little the worse for wear),—“here’s a fine chap for you! Fighting Attie we calls him; he’s a devil on the road. ‘Halt,—deliver,—must and shall,—can’t and sha’ n’t,—do as I bid you, or go to the devil!’ That’s all Fighting Attie’s palaver; and, ‘Sdeath, it has a wonderful way of coming to the point! A famous cull is my friend Attie,—an old soldier,—has seen the world, and knows what is what; has lots of gumption, and devil a bit of blarney. Howsomever, the highflyers does n’t like him; and when he takes people’s money, he need not be quite so cross about it. Attie, let me introduce a new pal to you.” Paul made his bow.

“Stand at ease, man!” quoth the veteran, without taking the pipe from his mouth.

Gentleman George then continued; and after pointing out four or five of the company (among whom our hero discovered, to his surprise, his old friends Mr. Eustace Fitzherbert and Mr. William Howard Russell), came, at length, to one with a very red face and a lusty frame of body. “That gentleman,” said he, “is Scarlet Jem; a dangerous fellow for a press, though he says he likes robbing alone now, for a general press is not half such a good thing as it used to be formerly. You have no idea what a hand at disguising himself Scarlet Jem is. He has an old wig which he generally does business in; and you would not go for to know him again when he conceals himself under the wig. Oh, he’s a precious rogue, is Scarlet Jem! As for the cove on t’ other side,” continued the host of the Jolly Angler, pointing to Long Ned, “all I can say of him, good, bad, or indifferent, is that he has an unkimmon fine head of hair; and now, youngster, as you knows him, s’pose you goes and sits by him, and he’ll introduce you to the rest; for, split my wig!” (Gentleman George was a bit of a swearer) “if I be n’t tired; and so here’s to your health; and if so be as your name’s Paul, may you always rob Peter [a portmanteau] in order to pay Paul!”

This witticism of mine host’s being exceedingly well received, Paul went, amidst the general laughter, to take possession of the vacant seat beside Long Ned. That tall gentleman, who had hitherto been cloud-compelling (as Homer calls Jupiter) in profound silence, now turned to Paul with the warmest cordiality, declared himself overjoyed to meet his old friend once more, and congratulated him alike on his escape from Bridewell and his admission to the councils of Gentleman George. But Paul, mindful of that exertion of “prudence” on the part of Mr. Pepper by which he had been left to his fate and the mercy of Justice Burnflat, received his advances very sullenly. This coolness so incensed Ned, who was naturally choleric, that he turned his back on our hero, and being of an aristocratic spirit, muttered something about “upstart, and vulgar clyfakers being admitted to the company of swell tobymen.” This murmur called all Paul’s blood into his cheek; for though he had been punished as a clyfaker (or pickpocket), nobody knew better than Long Ned whether or not he was innocent; and a reproach from him came therefore with double injustice and severity. In his wrath he seized Mr. Pepper by the ear, and telling him he was a shabby scoundrel, challenged him to fight.

So pleasing an invitation not being announced sotto voce, but in a tone suited to the importance of the proposition, every one around heard it; and before Long Ned could answer, the full voice of Gentleman George thundered forth,—

“Keep the peace there, you youngster! What! are you just admitted into our merry-makings, and must you be wrangling already? Harkye, gemmen, I have been plagued enough with your quarrels before now; and the first cove as breaks the present quiet of the Jolly Angler shall be turned out neck and crop,—sha’ n’t he, Attie?”

“Right about, march!” said the hero.

“Ay, that’s the word, Attie,” said Gentleman George. “And now, Mr. Pepper, if there be any ill blood ‘twixt you and the lad there, wash it away in a bumper of bingo, and let’s hear no more whatsomever about it.”

“I’m willing,” cried Long Ned, with the deferential air of a courtier, and holding out his hand to Paul. Our hero, being somewhat abashed by the novelty of his situation and the rebuke of Gentleman George, accepted, though with some reluctance, the proffered courtesy.

Order being thus restored, the conversation of the convivialists began to assume a most fascinating bias. They talked with infinite gout of the sums they had levied on the public, and the peculations they had committed for what one called the good of the community, and another, the established order,—meaning themselves. It was easy to see in what school the discerning Augustus Tomlinson had learned the value of words.

There was something edifying in hearing the rascals! So nice was their language, and so honest their enthusiasm for their own interests, you might have imagined you were listening to a coterie of cabinet ministers conferring on taxes or debating on perquisites.

“Long may the Commons flourish!” cried punning Georgie, filling his glass; “it is by the commons we’re fed, and may they never know cultivation!”

“Three times three!” shouted Long Ned; and the toast was drunk as Mr. Pepper proposed.

“A little moderate cultivation of the commons, to speak frankly,” said Augustus Tomlinson, modestly, “might not be amiss; for it would decoy people into the belief that they might travel safely; and, after all, a hedge or a barley-field is as good for us as a barren heath, where we have no shelter if once pursued!”

“You talks nonsense, you spooney!” cried a robber of note, called Bagshot; who, being aged and having been a lawyer’s footboy, was sometimes denominated “Old Bags.” “You talks nonsense; these innowating ploughs are the ruin of us. Every blade of corn in a common is an encroachment on the constitution and rights of the gemmen highwaymen. I’m old, and may n’t live to see these things; but, mark my words, a time will come when a man may go from Lunnun to Johnny Groat’s without losing a penny by one of us; when Hounslow will be safe, and Finchley secure. My eyes, what a sad thing for us that’ll be!”

The venerable old man became suddenly silent, and the tears started to his eyes. Gentleman George had a great horror of blue devils, and particularly disliked all disagreeable subjects.

“Thunder and oons, Old Bags!” quoth mine host of the Jolly Angler, “this will never do; we’re all met here to be merry, and not to listen to your mullancolly taratarantarums. I says, Ned Pepper, s’pose you tips us a song, and I’ll beat time with my knuckles.”

Long Ned, taking the pipe from his mouth, attempted, like Walter Scott’s Lady Heron, one or two pretty excuses; these being drowned by a universal shout, the handsome purloiner gave the following song, to the tune of “Time has not thinned my flowing hair.”

LONG NED’S SONG                     Oh, if my hands adhere to cash,                     My gloves at least are clean,                     And rarely have the gentry flash                     In sprucer clothes been seen.                     Sweet Public, since your coffers must                     Afford our wants relief,                     Oh!  soothes it not to yield the dust                     To such a charming thief?

“‘And John may laugh at mine,’—excellent!” cried Gentleman George, lighting his pipe, and winking at Attie; “I hears as how you be a famous fellow with the lasses.”

Ned smiled and answered, “No man should boast; but—” Pepper paused significantly, and then glancing at Attie, said, “Talking of lasses, it is my turn to knock down a gentleman for a song, and I knock down Fighting Attie.”

“I never sing,” said the warrior.

“Treason, treason!” cried Pepper. “It is the law, and you must obey the law; so begin.”

“It is true, Attie,” said Gentleman George.

There was no appeal from the honest publican’s fiat; so, in a quick and laconic manner, it being Attie’s favourite dogma that the least said is the soonest mended, the warrior sung as follows:—

FIGHTING ATTIE’S SONG                     Air: “He was famed for deeds of arms.”                     I never robbed a single coach                     But with a lover’s air;                     And though you might my course reproach,                     You never could my hair.                     Rise at six, dine at two,                     Rob your man without ado,                     Such my maxims; if you doubt                     Their wisdom, to the right-about!

( Signing to a sallow gentleman on the same side of the table to send up the brandy bowl.)

                    Pass round the bingo,—of a gun,                     You musty, dusky, husky son!                     John Bull, who loves a harmless joke,                     Is apt at me to grin;                     But why be cross with laughing folk,                     Unless they laugh and win?                     John Bull has money in his box;                     And though his wit’s divine,                     Yet let me laugh at Johnny’s locks,                     And John may laugh at mine

[Much of whatever amusement might be occasioned by the not (we trust) ill-natured travesties of certain eminent characters in this part of our work when first published, like all political allusions, loses point and becomes obscure as the applications cease to be familiar.  It is already necessary, perhaps, to say that Fighting Attie herein typifies or illustrates the Duke of Wellington’s abrupt dismissal of Mr. Huskisson.]

THE SALLOW GENTLEMAN (in a hoarse voice)                   Attie, the bingo’s now with me;                   I can’t resign it yet, d’ ye see! ATTIE (seizing the bowl)                   Resign, resign it,—cease your dust!     (Wresting it away and fiercely regarding the sallow gentleman.)                   You have resigned it, and you must. CHORUS                   You have resigned it, and you must.

While the chorus, laughing at the discomfited tippler, yelled forth the emphatic words of the heroic Attie, that personage emptied the brandy at a draught, resumed his pipe, and in as few words as possible called on Bagshot for a song. The excellent old highwayman, with great diffidence, obeyed the request, cleared his throat, and struck off with a ditty somewhat to the tune of “The Old Woman.”

OLD BAGS’S SONG                Are the days then gone, when on Hounslow Heath                We flashed our nags,                When the stoutest bosoms quailed beneath                The voice of Bags?                Ne’er was my work half undone, lest I should be nabbed                Slow was old Bags, but he never ceased                Till the whole was grabbed.                CHORUS.  Till the whole was grabbed.                When the slow coach paused, and the gemmen stormed,                I bore the brunt;                And the only sound which my grave lips formed                Was “blunt,”—still “blunt”!                Oh, those jovial days are ne’er forgot!                But the tape lags—                When I be’s dead, you’ll drink one pot                To poor old Bags!                CHORUS.  To poor old Bags!

“Ay, that we will, my dear Bagshot,” cried Gentleman George, affectionately; but observing a tear in the fine old fellow’s eye, he added: “Cheer up! What, ho! cheer up! Times will improve, and Providence may yet send us one good year, when you shall be as well off as ever. You shakes your poll. Well, don’t be humdurgeoned, but knock down a gemman.”

Dashing away the drop of sensibility, the veteran knocked down Gentleman George himself.

“Oh, dang it!” said George, with an air of dignity, “I ought to skip, since I finds the lush; but howsomever here goes.”

GENTLEMAN GEORGE’S SONG                     Air: “Old King Cole.”                     I be’s the cove, the merry old cove,                     Of whose max all the rufflers sing;                     And a lushing cove, I thinks, by Jove,                     Is as great as a sober king!                     CHORUS. Is as great as a sober king!                     Whatever the noise as is made by the boys                     At the bar as they lush away,                     The devil a noise my peace alloys                     As long as the rascals pay!                     CHORUS.  As long as the rascals pay!                     What if I sticks my stones and my bricks                     With mortar I takes from the snobbish?                     All who can feel for the public weal                     Likes the public-house to be bobbish.                     CHORUS.  Likes the public-house to be bobbish.

“There, gemmen!” said the publican, stopping short, “that’s the pith of the matter, and split my wig but I’m short of breath now. So send round the brandy, Augustus; you sly dog, you keeps it all to yourself.”

By this time the whole conclave were more than half-seas over, or, as Augustus Tomlinson expressed it, “their more austere qualities were relaxed by a pleasing and innocent indulgence.” Paul’s eyes reeled, and his tongue ran loose. By degrees the room swam round, the faces of his comrades altered, the countenance of Old Bags assumed an awful and menacing air. He thought Long Ned insulted him, and that Old Bags took the part of the assailant, doubled his fist, and threatened to put the plaintiff’s nob into chancery if he disturbed the peace of the meeting. Various other imaginary evils beset him. He thought he had robbed a mail-coach in company with Pepper; that Tomlinson informed against him, and that Gentleman George ordered him to be hanged; in short, he laboured under a temporary delirium, occasioned by a sudden reverse of fortune,—from water to brandy; and the last thing of which he retained any recollection, before he sank under the table, in company with Long Ned, Scarlet Jem, and Old Bags, was the bearing his part in the burden of what appeared to him a chorus of last dying speeches and confessions, but what in reality was a song made in honour of Gentleman George, and sung by his grateful guests as a finale of the festivities. It ran thus:—

THE ROBBER’S GRAND TOAST           A tumbler of blue ruin, fill, fill for me!           Red tape those as likes it may drain;           But whatever the lush, it a bumper must be,           If we ne’er drinks a bumper again!           Now—now in the crib, where a ruffler may lie,           Without fear that the traps should distress him,           With a drop in the mouth, and a drop in the eye,           Here’s to Gentleman George,—God bless him!           God bless him, God bless him!           Here’s to Gentleman George,—God bless him!           ‘Mong the pals of the prince I have heard it’s the go,           Before they have tippled enough,           To smarten their punch with the best curagoa,           More conish to render the stuff.           I boast not such lush; but whoever his glass           Does not like, I’ll be hanged if I press him!           Upstanding, my kiddies,—round, round let it pass!           Here’s to Gentleman George,—God bless him!           God bless him, God bless him!           Here’s to Gentleman George,-God bless him!           See, see, the fine fellow grows weak on his stumps;           Assist him, ye rascals, to stand!           Why, ye stir not a peg!  Are you all in the dumps?           Fighting Attie, go, lend him a hand!

(The robbers crowd around Gentleman George, each, under pretence of supporting him, pulling him first one way and then another.)

          Come, lean upon me,—at your service I am!           Get away from his elbow, you whelp!  him           You’ll only upset,—them ‘ere fellows but sham!           Here’s to Gentleman George,—God help him!           God help him, God help him!           Here’s to Gentleman George, God help him!

CHAPTER XI

I boast no song in magic wonders rife; But yet, O Nature! is there nought to prize, Familiar in thy bosom scenes of life? And dwells in daylight truth’s salubrious skies No form with which the soul may sympathize? Young, innocent, on whose sweet forehead mild The parted ringlet shone in simplest guise, An inmate in the home of Albert smiled, Or blessed his noonday walk,—she was his only child. Gertrude of Wyoming.

O time, thou hast played strange tricks with us; and we bless the stars that made us a novelist, and permit us now to retaliate. Leaving Paul to the instructions of Augustus Tomlinson and the festivities of the Jolly Angler, and suffering him, by slow but sure degrees, to acquire the graces and the reputation of the accomplished and perfect appropriator of other men’s possessions, we shall pass over the lapse of years with the same heedless rapidity with which they have glided over us, and summon our reader to a very different scene from those which would be likely to greet his eyes, were he following the adventures of our new Telemachus. Nor wilt thou, dear reader, whom we make the umpire between ourself and those who never read,—the critics; thou who hast, in the true spirit of gentle breeding, gone with us among places where the novelty of the scene has, we fear, scarcely atoned for the coarseness, not giving thyself the airs of a dainty abigail,—not prating, lacquey-like, on the low company thou has met,—nor wilt thou, dear and friendly reader, have cause to dread that we shall weary thy patience by a “damnable iteration” of the same localities. Pausing for a moment to glance over the divisions of our story, which lies before us like a map, we feel that we may promise in future to conduct thee among aspects of society more familiar to thy habits; where events flow to their allotted gulf through landscapes of more pleasing variety and among tribes of a more luxurious civilization.

Upon the banks of one of fair England’s fairest rivers, and about fifty miles distant from London, still stands an old-fashioned abode, which we shall here term Warlock Manorhouse. It is a building of brick, varied by stone copings, and covered in great part with ivy and jasmine. Around it lie the ruins of the elder part of the fabric; and these are sufficiently numerous in extent and important in appearance to testify that the mansion was once not without pretensions to the magnificent. These remains of power, some of which bear date as far back as the reign of Henry the Third, are sanctioned by the character of the country immediately in the vicinity of the old manor-house. A vast tract of waste land, interspersed with groves of antique pollards, and here and there irregular and sinuous ridges of green mound, betoken to the experienced eye the evidence of a dismantled chase or park, which must originally have been of no common dimensions. On one side of the house the lawn slopes towards the river, divided from a terrace, which forms the most important embellishment of the pleasure-grounds, by that fence to which has been given the ingenious and significant name of “ha-ha!” A few scattered trees of giant growth are the sole obstacles that break the view of the river, which has often seemed to us, at that particular passage of its course, to glide with unusual calmness and serenity. On the opposite side of the stream there is a range of steep hills, celebrated for nothing more romantic than their property of imparting to the flocks that browse upon that short and seemingly stinted herbage a flavour peculiarly grateful to the lovers of that pastoral animal which changes its name into mutton after its decease. Upon these hills the vestige of human habitation is not visible; and at times, when no boat defaces the lonely smoothness of the river, and the evening has stilled the sounds of labour and of life, we know few scenes so utterly tranquil, so steeped in quiet, as that which is presented by the old, quaint-fashioned house and its antique grounds,—the smooth lawn, the silent, and (to speak truly, though disparagingly) the somewhat sluggish river, together with the large hills (to which we know, from simple though metaphysical causes, how entire an idea of quiet and immovability peculiarly attaches itself), and the white flocks,—those most peaceful of God’s creatures,—that in fleecy clusters stud the ascent.