Paul Clifford — Complete

They had scarcely finished when the postboys, who had now begun to look about them, uttered a simultaneous cry, and at some distance a wagon was seen heavily approaching. Mauleverer really wanted his money, to say nothing of his diamonds; and so soon as he perceived assistance at hand, a new hope darted within him. His sword still lay on the ground; he sprang towards it, seized it, uttered a shout for help, and threw himself fiercely on the highwayman who had disarmed him; but the robber, warding off the blade with his whip, retreated to his saddle, which he managed, despite of Mauleverer’s lunges, to regain with impunity.

The other two had already mounted, and within a minute afterwards not a vestige of the trio was visible. “This is what may fairly be called single blessedness!” said Mauleverer, as, dropping his useless sword, he thrust his hands into his pockets.

Leaving our peerless peer to find his way to Maidenhead on foot, accompanied (to say nothing of the poodle) by one wagoner, two postboys, and the released Mr. Smoothson, all four charming him with their condolences, we follow with our story the steps of the three alieni appetentes.

CHAPTER XXVI

The rogues were very merry on their booty.  They said a thousand things that showed the wickedness of their morals.

—Gil Bias.

They fixed on a spot where they made a cave, which was large enough to receive them and their horses.  This cave was inclosed within a sort of thicket of bushes and brambles.  From this station they used to issue, etc.

—Memoirs of Richard Turpin.

It was not for several minutes after their flight had commenced that any conversation passed between the robbers. Their horses flew on like wind; and the country through which they rode presented to their speed no other obstacle than an occasional hedge, or a short cut through the thicknesses of some leafless beechwood. The stars lent them a merry light, and the spirits of two of them at least were fully in sympathy with the exhilaration of the pace and the air. Perhaps, in the third, a certain presentiment that the present adventure would end less merrily than it had begun, conspired, with other causes of gloom, to check that exaltation of the blood which generally follows a successful exploit.

The path which the robbers took wound by the sides of long woods or across large tracts of uncultivated land; nor did they encounter anything living by the road, save now and then a solitary owl, wheeling its gray body around the skirts of the bare woods, or occasionally troops of conies, pursuing their sports and enjoying their midnight food in the fields.

“Heavens!” cried the tall robber, whose incognito we need no longer preserve, and who, as our readers are doubtless aware, answered to the name of Pepper,—“heavens!” cried he, looking upward at the starry skies in a sort of ecstasy, “what a jolly life this is! Some fellows like hunting; d—-it! what hunting is like the road? If there be sport in hunting down a nasty fox, how much more is there in hunting down a nice, clean nobleman’s carriage! If there be joy in getting a brush, how much more is there in getting a purse! If it be pleasant to fly over a hedge in the broad daylight, hang me if it be not ten times finer sport to skim it by night,—here goes! Look how the hedges run away from us! and the silly old moon dances about, as if the sight of us put the good lady in spirits! Those old maids are always glad to have an eye upon such fine, dashing young fellows.”

“Ay,” cried the more erudite and sententious Augustus Tomlinson, roused by success from his usual philosophical sobriety; “no work is so pleasant as night-work, and the witches our ancestors burned were in the right to ride out on their broomsticks with the awls and the stars. We are their successors now, Ned. We are your true fly-by-nights!”

“Only,” quoth Ned, “we are a cursed deal more clever than they were; for they played their game without being a bit the richer for it, and we—I say, Tomlinson, where the devil did you put that red morocco case?”

“Experience never enlightens the foolish,” said Tomlinson, “or you would have known, without asking, that I had put it in the very safest pocket in my coat. ‘Gad, how heavy it is!

“Well,” cried Pepper, “I can’t say I wish it were lighter! Only think of our robbing my lord twice, and on the same road too!”

“I say, Lovett,” exclaimed Tomlinson, “was it not odd that we should have stumbled upon our Bath friend so unceremoniously? Lucky for us that we are so strict in robbing in masks! He would not have thought the better of Bath company if he had seen our faces.”

Lovett, or rather Clifford, had hitherto been silent. He now turned slowly in his saddle, and said: “As it was, the poor devil was very nearly despatched. Long Ned was making short work with him, if I had not interposed!”

“And why did you?” said Ned.

“Because I will have no killing; it is the curse of the noble art of our profession to have passionate professors like thee.”

“Passionate!” repeated Ned. “Well, I am a little choleric, I own it; but that is not so great a fault on the road as it would be in housebreaking. I don’t know a thing that requires so much coolness and self-possession as cleaning out a house from top to bottom,—quietly and civilly, mind you!”

“That is the reason, I suppose, then,” said Augustus, “that you altogether renounced that career. Your first adventure was house breaking, I think I have heard you say. I confess it was a vulgar debut,—not worthy of you!”

“No! Harry Cook seduced me; but the specimen I saw that night disgusted me of picking locks; it brings one in contact with such low companions. Only think, there was a merchant, a rag-merchant, one of the party!”

“Faugh!” said Tomlinson, in solemn disgust.

“Ay, you may well turn up your lip; I never broke into a house again.”

“Who were your other companions?” asked Augustus. “Only Harry Cook,—[A noted highwayman.]—and a very singular woman—”

Here Ned’s narrative was interrupted by a dark defile through a wood, allowing room for only one horseman at a time. They continued this gloomy path for several minutes, until at length it brought them to the brink of a large dell, overgrown with bushes, and spreading around somewhat in the form of a rude semicircle. Here the robbers dismounted, and led their reeking horses down the descent. Long Ned, who went first, paused at a cluster of bushes, which seemed so thick as to defy intrusion, but which, yielding on either side to the experienced hand of the robber, presented what appeared the mouth of a cavern. A few steps along the passage of this gulf brought them to a door, which, even seen by torchlight, would have appeared so exactly similar in colour and material to the rude walls on either side as to have deceived any unsuspecting eye, and which, in the customary darkness brooding over it, might have remained for centuries undiscovered. Touching a secret latch, the door opened, and the robbers were in the secure precincts of the “Red Cave.” It may be remembered that among the early studies of our exemplary hero the memoirs of Richard Turpin had formed a conspicuous portion; and it may also be remembered that in the miscellaneous adventures of that gentleman nothing had more delighted the juvenile imagination of the student than the description of the forest cave in which the gallant Turpin had been accustomed to conceal himself, his friend, his horse,

“And that sweet saint who lay by Turpin’s side;”

or, to speak more domestically, the respectable Mrs. Turpin. So strong a hold, indeed, had that early reminiscence fixed upon our hero’s mind, that no sooner had he risen to eminence among his friends than he had put the project of his childhood into execution. He had selected for the scene of his ingenuity an admirable spot. In a thinly peopled country, surrounded by commons and woods, and yet, as Mr. Robins would say if he had to dispose of it by auction, “within an easy ride” of populous and well-frequented roads, it possessed all the advantages of secrecy for itself and convenience for depredation. Very few of the gang, and those only who had been employed in its construction, were made acquainted with the secret of this cavern; and as our adventurers rarely visited it, and only on occasions of urgent want or secure concealment, it had continued for more than two years undiscovered and unsuspected.

The cavern, originally hollowed by nature, owed but little to the decorations of art; nevertheless, the roughness of the walls was concealed by a rude but comfortable arras of matting; four or five of such seats as the robbers themselves could construct were drawn around a small but bright wood-fire, which, as there was no chimney, spread a thin volume of smoke over the apartment. The height of the cave, added to the universal reconciler (custom), prevented, however, this evil from being seriously unpleasant; and, indeed, like the tenants of an Irish cabin, perhaps the inmates attached a degree of comfort to a circumstance which was coupled with their dearest household associations. A table, formed of a board coarsely planed, and supported by four legs of irregular size, made equal by the introduction of blocks or wedges between the legs and the floor, stood warming its uncouth self by the fire. At one corner a covered cart made a conspicuous article of furniture, no doubt useful either in conveying plunder or provisions; beside the wheels were carelessly thrown two or three coarse carpenter’s tools, and the more warlike utilities of a blunderbuss, a rifle, and two broadswords. In the other corner was an open cupboard, containing rows of pewter platters, mugs, etc. Opposite the fireplace, which was to the left of the entrance, an excavation had been turned into a dormitory; and fronting the entrance was a pair of broad, strong wooden steps, ascending to a large hollow about eight feet from the ground. This was the entrance to the stables; and as soon as their owners released the reins of the horses, the docile animals proceeded one by one leisurely up the steps, in the manner of quadrupeds educated at the public seminary of Astley’s, and disappeared within the aperture.

These steps, when drawn up,—which, however, from their extreme clumsiness, required the united strength of two ordinary men, and was not that instantaneous work which it should have been,—made the place above a tolerably strong hold; for the wall was perfectly perpendicular and level, and it was only by placing his hands upon the ledge, and so lifting himself gymnastically upward, that an active assailant could have reached the eminence,—a work which defenders equally active, it may easily be supposed, would not be likely to allow.

This upper cave—for our robbers paid more attention to their horses than themselves, as the nobler animals of the two species—was evidently fitted up with some labour. The stalls were rudely divided, the litter of dry fern was clean, troughs were filled with oats, and a large tub had been supplied from a pond at a little distance. A cart-harness and some old wagoners’ frocks were fixed on pegs to the wall; while at the far end of these singular stables was a door strongly barred, and only just large enough to admit the body of a man. The confederates had made it an express law never to enter their domain by this door, or to use it, except for the purpose of escape, should the cave ever be attacked; in which case, while one or two defended the entrance from the inner cave, another might unbar the door, and as it opened upon the thickest part of the wood, through which with great ingenuity a labyrinthine path had been cut, not easily tracked by ignorant pursuers, these precautions of the highwaymen had provided a fair hope of at least a temporary escape from any invading enemies.

Such were the domestic arrangements of the Red Cave; and it will be conceded that at least some skill had been shown in the choice of the spot, if there were a lack of taste in its adornments.

While the horses were performing their nightly ascent, our three heroes, after securing the door, made at once to the fire. And there, O reader! they were greeted in welcome by one—an old and revered acquaintance of thine—whom in such a scene it will equally astound and wound thee to re-behold.

Know, then—But first we will describe to thee the occupation and the garb of the August personage to whom we allude. Bending over a large gridiron, daintily bespread with steaks of the fatted rump, the INDIVIDUAL stood, with his right arm bared above the elbow, and his right hand grasping that mimic trident known unto gastronomers by the monosyllable “fork.” His wigless head was adorned with a cotton nightcap. His upper vestment was discarded, and a whitish apron flowed gracefully down his middle man. His stockings were ungartered, and permitted between the knee and the calf interesting glances of the rude carnal. One list shoe and one of leathern manufacture cased his ample feet. Enterprise, or the noble glow of his present culinary profession, spread a yet rosier blush over a countenance early tinged by generous libations, and from beneath the curtain of his pallid eyelashes his large and rotund orbs gleamed dazzlingly on the new comers. Such, O reader! was the aspect and the occupation of the venerable man whom we have long since taught thee to admire; such, alas for the mutabilities of earth! was—A new chapter only can contain the name.

CHAPTER XXVII

Caliban.  Hast thou not dropped from heaven?

Tempest.

PETER MacGRAWLER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

CHAPTER XXVIII

God bless our King and Parliament, And send he may make such knaves repent! Loyal Songs against the Rump Parliament. Ho, treachery! my guards, my cimeter! BYRON.

When the irreverent Mr. Pepper had warmed his hands sufficiently to be able to transfer them from the fire, he lifted the right palm, and with an indecent jocularity of spirits, accosted the ci-devant ornament of “The Asinaeum” with a sounding slap on his back, or some such part of his conformation.

“Ah, old boy!” said he, “is this the way you keep house for us? A fire not large enough to roast a nit, and a supper too small to fatten him beforehand! But how the deuce should you know how to provender for gentlemen? You thought you were in Scotland, I’ll be bound!”

“Perhaps he did when he looked upon you, Ned!” said Tomlinson, gravely; “‘t is but rarely out of Scotland that a man can see so big a rogue in so little a compass!”

Mr. MacGrawler, into whose eyes the palmistry of Long Ned had brought tears of sincere feeling, and who had hitherto been rubbing the afflicted part, now grumbled forth,—

“You may say what you please, Mr. Pepper, but it is not often in my country that men of genius are seen performing the part of cook to robbers!”

“No!” quoth Tomlinson, “they are performing the more profitable part of robbers to cooks, eh!”

“Damme, you’re out,” cried Long Ned,—“for in that country there are either no robbers, because there is nothing to rob; or the inhabitants are all robbers, who have plundered one another, and made away with the booty!”

“May the de’il catch thee!” said MacGrawler, stung to the quick,—for, like all Scots, he was a patriot; much on the same principle as a woman who has the worst children makes the best mother.

“The de’il,” said Ned, mimicking the “silver sound,” as Sir W. Scott had been pleased facetiously to call the “mountain tongue” (the Scots in general seem to think it is silver, they keep it so carefully) “the de’il,—MacDeil, you mean, sure, the gentleman must have been a Scotchman!”

The sage grinned in spite; but remembering the patience of Epictetus when a slave, and mindful also of the strong arm of Long Ned, he curbed his temper, and turned the beefsteaks with his fork.

“Well, Ned,” said Augustus, throwing himself into a chair, which he drew to the fire, while he gently patted the huge limbs of Mr. Pepper, as if to admonish him that they were not so transparent as glass, “let us look at the fire; and, by the by, it is your turn to see to the horses.”

“Plague on it!” cried Ned; “it is always my turn, I think. Holla, you Scot of the pot! can’t you prove that I groomed the beasts last? I’ll give you a crown to do it.”

The wise MacGrawler pricked up his ears.

“A crown!” said he,—“a crown! Do you mean to insult me, Mr. Pepper? But, to be sure, you did see to the horses last; and this worthy gentleman, Mr. Tomlinson, must remember it too.”

“How!” cried Augustus; “you are mistaken, and I’ll give you half a guinea to prove it.”

MacGrawler opened his eyes larger and larger, even as you may see a small circle in the water widen into enormity, if you disturb the equanimity of the surface by the obtrusion of a foreign substance.

“Half a guinea!” said he; “nay, nay, you joke. I’m not mercenary. You think I am! Pooh, pooh! you are mistaken; I’m a man who means weel, a man of veracity, and will speak the truth in spite of all the half-guineas in the world. But certainly, now I begin to think of it, Mr. Tomlinson did see to the creatures last; and, Mr. Pepper, it is your turn.”

“A very Daniel!” said Tomlinson, chuckling in his usual dry manner. “Ned, don’t you hear the horses neigh?”

“Oh, hang the horses!” said the volatile Pepper, forgetting everything else, as he thrust his hands in his pockets, and felt the gains of the night; “let us first look to our winnings!”

So saying, he marched towards the table, and emptied his pockets thereon. Tomlinson, nothing loath, followed the example. Heavens! what exclamations of delight issued from the scoundrels’ lips, as, one by one, they inspected their new acquisitions!

“Here’s a magnificent creature!” cried Ned, handling that superb watch studded with jewels which the poor earl had once before unavailingly redeemed,—“a repeater, by Jove!”

“I hope not,” said the phlegmatic Augustus; “repeaters will not tell well for your conversation, Ned! But, powers that be! look at this ring,—a diamond of the first water!”

“Oh, the sparkler! it makes one’s mouth water as much as itself. ‘Sdeath, here’s a precious box for a sneezer,—a picture inside, and rubies outside! The old fellow had excellent taste; it would charm him to see how pleased we are with his choice of jewelry!”

“Talking of jewelry,” said Tomlinson, “I had almost forgotten the morocco case. Between you and me, I imagine we have a prize there; it looks like a jewel casket!”

So saying, the robber opened that case which on many a gala day had lent lustre to the polished person of Mauleverer. Oh, reader, the burst of rapture that ensued! Imagine it! we cannot express it. Like the Grecian painter, we drop a veil over emotions too deep for words.

“But here,” said Pepper, when they had almost exhausted their transports at sight of the diamonds,—“here’s a purse,—fifty guineas! And what’s this? Notes, by Jupiter! We must change them to-morrow before they are stopped. Curse those fellows at the Bank! they are always imitating us, we stop their money, and they don’t lose a moment in stopping it too. Three hundred pounds! Captain, what say you to our luck?” Clifford had sat gloomily looking on during the operations of the robbers; he now, assuming a correspondent cheerfulness of manner, made a suitable reply, and after some general conversation the work of division took place.

“We are the best arithmeticians in the world,” said Augustus, as he pouched his share; “addition, subtraction, division, reduction,—we have them all as pat as ‘The Tutor’s Assistant;’ and, what is better, we make them all applicable to the Rule of Three.”

“You have left out multiplication!” said Clifford, smiling. “Ah! because that works differently. The other rules apply to the specie-s of the kingdom; but as for multiplication, we multiply, I fear, no species but our own!”

“Fie, gentlemen!” said MacGrawler, austerely,—for there is a wonderful decorum in your true Scotsmen. “Actions are trifles; nothing can be cleaner than their words!”

“Oh, you thrust in your wisdom, do you?” said Ned. “I suppose you want your part of the booty!”

“Part!” said the subtilizing Tomlinson. “He has nine times as many parts as we have already. Is he not a critic, and has he not the parts of speech at his fingers’ end?”

“Nonsense!” said MacGrawler, instinctively holding up his hands, with the fork dropping between the outstretched fingers of the right palm.

“Nonsense yourself,” cried Ned; “you have a share in what you never took! A pretty fellow, truly! Mind your business, Mr. Scot, and fork nothing but the beefsteaks!”

With this Ned turned to the stables, and soon disappeared among the horses; but Clifford, eying the disappointed and eager face of the culinary sage, took ten guineas from his own share, and pushed them towards his quondam tutor.

“There!” said he, emphatically.

“Nay, nay,” grunted MacGrawler; “I don’t want the money,—it is my way to scorn such dross!” So saying, he pocketed the coins, and turned, muttering to himself, to the renewal of his festive preparations.

Meanwhile a whispered conversation took place between Augustus and the captain, and continued till Ned returned.

“And the night’s viands smoked along the board!”

Souls of Don Raphael and Ambrose Lamela, what a charming thing it is to be a rogue for a little time! How merry men are when they have cheated their brethren! Your innocent milksops never made so jolly a supper as did our heroes of the way. Clifford, perhaps acted a part, but the hilarity of his comrades was unfeigned. It was a delicious contrast,—the boisterous “ha, ha!” of Long Ned, and the secret, dry, calculating chuckle of Augustus Tomlinson. It was Rabelais against Voltaire. They united only in the objects of their jests, and foremost of those objects (wisdom is ever the but of the frivolous!) was the great Peter MacGrawler.

The graceless dogs were especially merry upon the subject of the sage’s former occupation.

“Come, Mac, you carve this ham,” said Ned; “you have had practice in cutting up.”

The learned man whose name was thus disrespectfully abbreviated proceeded to perform what he was bid. He was about to sit down for that purpose, when Tomlinson slyly subtracted his chair,—the sage fell.

“No jests at MacGrawler,” said the malicious Augustus; “whatever be his faults as a critic, you see that he is well grounded, and he gets at once to the bottom of a subject. Mac, suppose your next work be entitled a Tail of Woe!”

Men who have great minds are rarely flexible,—they do not take a jest readily; so it was with MacGrawler. He rose in a violent rage; and had the robbers been more penetrating than they condescended to be, they might have noticed something dangerous in his eye. As it was, Clifford, who had often before been the protector of his tutor, interposed in his behalf, drew the sage a seat near to himself, and filled his plate for him. It was interesting to see this deference from Power to Learning! It was Alexander doing homage to Aristotle!

“There is only one thing I regret,” cried Ned, with his mouth full, “about the old lord,—it was a thousand pities we did not make him dance! I remember the day, Captain, when you would have insisted on it. What a merry fellow you were once! Do you recollect, one bright moonlight night, just like the present, for instance, when we were doing duty near Staines, how you swore every person we stopped, above fifty years old, should dance a minuet with you?”

“Ay!” added Augustus, “and the first was a bishop in a white wig. Faith, how stiffly his lordship jigged it! And how gravely Lovett bowed to him, with his hat off, when it was all over, and returned him his watch and ten guineas,—it was worth the sacrifice!”