The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle

Tom, thus cautioned, proceeded with his charge, and, being naturally taciturn, opened not his lips, until he had performed the best half of his journey. But Thomas, notwithstanding his irony appearance, was in reality composed of flesh and blood. His desire being titillated by the contact of a buxom wench, whose right arm embraced his middle as he rode, his thoughts began to mutiny against his master, and he found it almost impossible to withstand the temptation of making love. Nevertheless, he wrestled with these rebellious suggestions with all the reason that Heaven had enabled him to exert; and that being totally overcome, his victorious passion suddenly broke out in this address:

“‘Sblood! I believe master thinks I have no more stuff in my body than a dried haddock, to turn me adrift in the dark with such a spanker. D’ye think he don’t, my dear?” To this question his fellow-traveller replied, “Swanker anan!” And the lover resumed his suit, saying, “Oons! how you tickle my timber! Something shoots from your arm, through my stowage, to the very keelstone. Han’t you got quicksilver in your hand?”—“Quicksilver!” said the lady, “d—n the silver that has crossed my hand this month; d’ye think, if I had silver, I shouldn’t buy me a smock?”—“Adsooks! you baggage,” cried the lover, “you shouldn’t want a smock nor a petticoat neither, if you could have a kindness for a true-hearted sailor, as sound and strong as a nine-inch cable, that would keep all clear above board, and everything snug under the hatches.”—“Curse your gum!” said the charmer, “what’s your gay balls and your hatches to me?”—“Do but let us bring-to a little,” answered the wooer, whose appetite was by this time whetted to a most ravenous degree, “and I’ll teach you to box the compass, my dear. Ah! you strapper, what a jolly b— you are!”—“B—!” exclaimed this modern dulcinea, incensed at the opprobrious term; “such a b— as your mother, you dog! D— you, I’ve a good mind to box your jaws instead of your comepiss. I’ll let you know, as how I am meat for your master, you saucy blackguard. You are worse than a dog, you old flinty-faced, flea-bitten scrub. A dog wears his own coat, but you wear your master’s.”

Such a torrent of disgraceful epithets from a person who had no clothes at all, converted the gallant’s love into choler, and he threatened to dismount and seize her to a tree, when she should have a taste of his cat-o’-nine-tails athwart her quarters; but, instead of being intimidated by his menaces, she set him at defiance, and held forth with such a flow of eloquence, as would have entitled her to a considerable share of reputation, even among the nymphs of Billingsgate; for this young lady, over and above a natural genius for altercation, had her talents cultivated among the venerable society of weeders, podders, and hoppers, with whom she had associated from her tender years. No wonder, then, that she soon obtained a complete victory over Pipes, who, as the reader may have observed, was very little addicted to the exercise of speech. Indeed, he was utterly disconcerted by her volubility of tongue; and, being altogether unfurnished with answers to the distinct periods of her discourse, very wisely chose to save himself the expense of breath and argument, by giving her a full swing of cable, so that she might bring herself up; while he rode onwards, in silent composure, without taking any more notice of his fair fellow-traveller, than if she had been his master’s cloak-bag.

In spite of all the despatch he could make, it was late before he arrived at the garrison, where he delivered the letter and the lady to the lieutenant, who no sooner understood the intention of his friend, than he ordered all the tubs in the house to be carried into the hall, and filled with water. Tom having provided himself with swabs and brushes, divested the fair stranger of her variegated drapery, which was immediately committed to the flames, and performed upon her soft and sleek person the ceremony of scrubbing, as it is practised on board of the king’s ships of war. Yet the nymph herself did not submit to this purification without repining. She cursed the director, who was upon the spot, with many abusive allusions to his wooden leg; and as for Pipes the operator, she employed her talons so effectually upon his face, that the blood ran over his nose in sundry streams; and next morning, when those rivulets were dry, his countenance resembled the rough bark of a plum-tree, plastered with gum. Nevertheless, he did his duty with great perseverance, cut off her hair close to the scalp, handled his brushes with dexterity, applied his swabs of different magnitude and texture, as the case required; and, lastly, rinsed the whole body with a dozen pails of cold water, discharged upon her head.

These ablutions being executed, he dried her with towels, accommodated her with a clean shift, and, acting the part of a valet-de-chambre, clothed her from head to foot, in clean and decent apparel which had belonged to Mrs. Hatchway; by which means her appearance was altered so much for the better, that when Peregrine arrived next day, he could scarce believe his own eyes. He was, for that reason, extremely well pleased with his purchase, and now resolved to indulge a whim, which seized him at the very instant of his arrival.

He had, as I believe the reader will readily allow, made considerable progress in the study of character, from the highest rank to the most humble station of life, and found it diversified in the same manner, through every degree of subordination and precedency: nay, he moreover observed, that the conversation of those who are dignified with the appellation of polite company, is neither more edifying nor entertaining than that which is met with among the lower classes of mankind; and that the only essential difference, in point of demeanour, is the form of an education, which the meanest capacity can acquire, without much study or application. Possessed of this notion, he determined to take the young mendicant under his own tutorage and instruction. In consequence of which, he hoped he should, in a few weeks, be able to produce her in company, as an accomplished young lady of uncommon wit, and an excellent understanding.

This extravagant plan he forthwith began to execute with great eagerness and industry; and his endeavours succeeded even beyond his expectation. The obstacle, in surmounting of which he found the greatest difficulty, was an inveterate habit of swearing, which had been indulged from her infancy, and confirmed by the example of those among whom she had lived. However, she had the rudiments of good sense from nature, which taught her to listen to wholesome advice, and was so docile as to comprehend and retain the lessons which her governor recommended to her attention; insomuch, that he ventured, in a few days, to present her at table, among a set of country squires, to whom she was introduced as niece to the lieutenant. In that capacity she sat with becoming easiness of mien, for she was as void of the mauvaise honte as any duchess in the land; bowed very graciously to the compliments of the gentlemen; and though she said little or nothing, because she was previously cautioned on that score, she more than once gave way to laughter, and her mirth happened to be pretty well timed. In a word, she attracted the applause and admiration of the guests, who, after she was withdrawn, complimented Mr. Hatchway upon the beauty, breeding, and good-humour of his kinswoman.

But what contributed more than any other circumstance to her speedy improvement, was some small insight into the primer, which she had acquired at a day-school, during the life of her father, who was a day-labourer in the country. Upon this foundation did Peregrine build a most elegant superstructure; he culled out choice sentences from Shakespeare, Otway, and Pope, and taught her to repeat them with an emphasis and theatrical cadence. He then instructed her in the names and epithets of the most celebrated players, which he directed her to pronounce occasionally, with an air of careless familiarity; and, perceiving that her voice was naturally clear, he enriched it with remnants of opera tunes, to be hummed during a pause in conversation, which is generally supplied with a circulation of a pinch of snuff. By means of this cultivation she became a wonderful proficient in the polite graces of the age; she, with great facility, comprehended the scheme of whist, though cribbage was her favourite game, with which she had amused herself in her vacant hours, from her first entrance into the profession of hopping; and brag soon grew familiar to her practice and conception.

Thus prepared, she was exposed to the company of her own sex, being first of all visited by the parson’s daughter, who could not avoid showing that civility to Mr. Hatchway’s niece, after she had made her public appearance at church. Mrs. Clover, who had a great share of penetration, could not help entertaining some doubts about this same relation, whose name she had never heard the uncle mention, during the whole term of her residence at the garrison. But as the young lady was treated in that character, she would not refuse her acquaintance; and, after having seen her at the castle, actually invited Miss Hatchway to her house. In short, she made a progress through almost all the families in the neighbourhood; and by dint of her quotations, which, by the bye, were not always judiciously used, she passed for a sprightly young lady, of uncommon learning and taste.

Peregrine having in this manner initiated her in the beau monde of the country, conducted her to London, where she was provided with private lodgings and a female attendant; and put her immediately under the tuition of his valet-de-chambre, who had orders to instruct her in dancing, and the French language. He attended her to plays and concerts three or four times a week; and when our hero thought her sufficiently accustomed to the sight of great company, he squired her in person to a public assembly, and danced with her among all the gay ladies of fashion; not but that there was still an evident air of rusticity and awkwardness in her demeanour, which was interpreted into an agreeable wildness of spirit, superior to the forms of common breeding. He afterwards found means to make her acquainted with some distinguished patterns of her own sex, by whom she was admitted into the most elegant parties, and continued to make good her pretensions to gentility, with great circumspection. But one evening, being at cards with a certain lady whom she detected in the very fact of unfair conveyance, she taxed her roundly with the fraud, and brought upon herself such a torrent of sarcastic reproof, as overbore all her maxims of caution, and burst open the floodgates of her own natural repartee, twanged off with the appellation of b— and w—, which she repeated with great vehemence, in an attitude of manual defiance, to the terror of her antagonist, and the astonishment of all present; nay, to such an unguarded pitch was she provoked, that, starting up, she snapped her fingers, in testimony of disdain, and, as she quitted the room, applied her hand to that part which was the last of her that disappeared, inviting the company to kiss it by one of its coarsest denominations.

Peregrine was a little disconcerted at this oversight in her behaviour, which, by the demon of intelligence, was in a moment conveyed to all the private companies in town; so that she was absolutely excluded from all polite communication, and Peregrine, for the present, disgraced among the modest part of his female acquaintance, many of whom not only forbade him their houses, on account of the impudent insult he had committed upon their honour, as well as understanding, in palming a common trull upon them, as a young lady of birth and education; but also aspersed his family, by affirming that she was actually his own cousin-german, whom he had precipitately raised from the most abject state of humility and contempt. In revenge for this calumny, our young gentleman explained the whole mystery of her promotion, together with the motives that induced him to bring her into the fashionable world; and repeated among his companions the extravagant encomiums which had been bestowed upon her by the most discerning matrons of the age.

Meanwhile, the infanta herself being rebuked by her benefactor for this instance of misbehaviour, promised faithfully to keep a stricter guard for the future over her conduct, and applied herself with great assiduity to the studies, in which she was assisted by the Swiss, who gradually lost the freedom of his heart, while she was profiting by his instruction. In other words, she made a conquest of her preceptor, who yielding to the instigations of the flesh, chose a proper opportunity to declare his passion, which was powerfully recommended by his personal qualifications; and his intentions being honourable, she listened to his proposals of espousing her in private. In consequence of this agreement, they made an elopement together; and, being buckled at the Fleet, consummated their nuptials in private lodgings, by the Seven Dials, from which the husband next morning sent a letter to our hero begging forgiveness for the clandestine step he had taken, which he solemnly protested was not owing to any abatement in his inviolable regard for his master, whom he should always honour and esteem to his latest breath, but entirely to the irresistible charms of the young lady, to whom he was now so happy as to be joined in the silken bonds of marriage.

Peregrine, though at first offended at his valet’s presumption, was, upon second thoughts, reconciled to the event by which he was delivered from an encumbrance; for by this time he had performed his frolic, and began to be tired of his acquisition. He reflected upon the former fidelity of the Swiss, which had been manifested in a long course of service and attachment; and, thinking it would be cruelly severe to abandon him to poverty and distress for one venial trespass, he resolved to pardon what he had done, and enable him in some shape to provide for the family which he had entailed upon himself.

With these sentiments, he sent a favourable answer to the delinquent, desiring to see him as soon as his passion should permit him to leave the arms of his spouse for an hour or two; and Hadgi, in obedience to this intimation, repaired immediately to the lodgings of his master, before whom he appeared with a most penitential aspect. Peregrine, though he could scarce help laughing at his rueful length of face, reprimanded him sharply, for his disrespect and ingratitude in taking that by stealth which he might have had for asking. The culprit assured him, that next to the vengeance of God, his master’s displeasure was that which of all evils he dreaded to incur; but that love had distracted his brain in such a manner, as to banish every other consideration but that of gratifying his desire; and he owned, that he should not have been able to preserve his fidelity and duty to his own father, had they interfered with the interest of his passion. He then appealed to his master’s own heart for the remission of his guilt, alluding to certain circumstances of our hero’s conduct, which evinced the desperate effects of love. In short, he made such an apology as extorted a smile from his offended judge, who not only forgave his transgression, but also promised to put him in some fair way of earning a comfortable subsistence.

The Swiss was so much affected with this instance of generosity, that he fell upon his knees, and kissed his hand, praying to heaven, with great fervour, to make him worthy of such goodness and condescension. His scheme, he said, was to open a coffee-house and tavern in some creditable part of the town, in hopes of being favoured with the custom of a numerous acquaintance he had made among upper servants and reputable tradesmen, not doubting that his wife would be an ornament to his bar, and a careful manager of his affairs. Peregrine approved of the plan, towards the execution of which he made him and his wife a present of five hundred pounds, together with a promise of erecting a weekly club among his friends, for the reputation and advantage of the house.

Hadgi was so transported with his good fortune, that he ran to Pipes, who was in the room, and having hugged him with great cordiality, and made his obeisance to his master, hied him home to his bride, to communicate his happiness, cutting capers, and talking to himself all the way.

CHAPTER LXXXVIII

He is visited by Pallet—Contracts an Intimacy with a Newmarket Nobleman, and is by the Knowing Ones taken in.

This affair being settled, and our adventurer, for the present, free of all female connections, he returned to his former course of fast living among the bucks of the town, and performed innumerable exploits among whores, bullies, rooks, constables, and justices of the peace. In the midst of these occupations, he was one morning visited by his old fellow-traveller, Pallet, whose appearance gave him equal surprise and concern. Though the weather was severe, he was clothed in the thin summer dress which he had worn at Paris, and was now, not only threadbare, but, in some parts, actually patched; his stockings, by a repetition of that practice known among economists by the term of coaxing, hung like pudding-bags about his ankles; his shirt, though new washed, was of the saffron hue, and, in divers places, appeared through the crannies of his breeches; he had exchanged his own hair for a smoke-dried tie-periwig, which all the flour in his dredging-box had not been able to whiten; his eyes were sunk, his jaws lengthened beyond their usual extension; and he seemed twenty years older than he looked when he and our hero parted at Rotterdam. In spite of all these evidences of decay, he accosted him with a meagre affectation of content and good-humour, struggled piteously to appear gay and unconcerned, professed his joy at seeing him in England, excused himself for having delayed so long to come and present his respects; alleging that, since his return, he had been a mere slave to the satisfaction of some persons of quality and taste, who had insisted upon his finishing some pieces with the utmost expedition.

Peregrine received him with that compassion and complaisance which was natural to his disposition; inquired about the health of Mrs. Pallet and his family, and asked if his friend, the doctor, was in town. The painter seemed to have resumed his resentment against that gentleman, of whom he spoke in contemptuous terms. “The doctor,” said he, “is so much overshadowed with presumption and self-conceit, that his merit has no relief. It does not rise. There is no keeping in the picture, my dear sir. All the same as if I were to represent the moon under a cloud; there will be nothing but a deep mass of shade, with a little tiny speck of light in the middle, which would only serve to make, as it were, the darkness visible. You understand me. Had he taken my advice, it might have been better for him; but he is bigoted to his own opinion. You must know, Mr. Pickle, upon our return to England, I counselled him to compose a little smart, clever ode upon my Cleopatra. As Gad shall judge me, I thought it would have been of some service, in helping him out of obscurity; for you know, as Sir Richard observes,

“Soon will that die, which adds thy fame to mine;Let me then live, join’d to a work of thine.”

“By the bye, there is a most picturesque contrast in these lines, of thy and me, living and dying, and thine and mine. Ah! a prize upon it! Dick, after all, was the man. Ecod! he rounded it off. But, to return to this unhappy young man, would you believe it, he tossed up his nose at my friendly proposal, and gabbled something in Greek, which is not worth repeating. The case was this, my dear sir, he was out of humour at the neglect of the world. He thought the poets of the age were jealous of his genius, and strove to crush it accordingly, while the rest of mankind wanted taste sufficient to discern it. For my own part, I profess myself one of these; and, as the clown in Billy Shakespeare says of the courtier’s oath, had I sworn by the doctor’s genius, that the pancakes were naught, they might have been for all that very good, yet shouldn’t I have been forsworn. Let that be as it will, he retired from town in great dudgeon, and set up his rest near a hill in Derbyshire, with two tops, resembling Parnassus, and a well at the bottom, which he had christened Hyp-o’-the-Green. Egad! if he stays in that habitation, ‘tis my opinion he’ll soon grow green with the hip indeed. He’ll be glad of an opportunity to return to the fleshpots of Egypt, and pay his court to the slighted Queen Cleopatra. Ha! well remembered, by this light! you shall know, my good sir, that this same Egyptian princess has been courted by so many gallants of taste, that, as I hope to live, I found myself in some sort of dilemma, because in parting with her to one, I should have disobliged all his rivals. Now a man would not choose to give offence to his friends, at least I lay it down as a maxim to avoid the smallest appearance of ingratitude. Perhaps I may be in the wrong. But every man has his way. For this reason, I proposed to all the candidates, that a lottery or raffle should be set on foot, by which every individual would have an equal chance for her good graces, and the prize be left to the decision of fortune. The scheme was mightily relished, and the terms being such a trifle as half a guinea, the whole town crowded into my house, in order to subscribe. But there I was their humble servant. ‘Gentlemen, you must have a little patience till my own particular friends are served.’ Among that number, I do myself the honour to consider Mr. Pickle. Here is a copy of the proposals; and, if the list should be adorned with his name, I hope, notwithstanding his merited success among the young ladies, he will for once be shunned by that little vixen called Miss Fortune! he, he, he!”

So saying, he bowed with a thousand apish congees, and presented his paper to Peregrine, who, seeing the number of subscribers was limited to one hundred, said he thought him too moderate in his expectations, as he did not doubt that his picture would be a cheap purchase at five hundred, instead of fifty pounds, at which the price was fixed. To this unexpected remark Pallet answered, that among the connoisseurs he would not pretend to appraise his picture; but that, in valuing his works, he was obliged to have an eye to the Gothic ignorance of the age in which he lived. Our adventurer saw at once into the nature of this raffle, which was no other than a begging shift to dispose of a paltry piece, that he could not otherwise have sold for twenty shillings. However, far from shocking the poor man in distress, by dropping the least hint of his conjecture, he desired to be favoured with six chances, if the circumstances of his plan would indulge him so far; and the painter, after some hesitation, condescended to comply with his request, out of pure friendship and veneration; though he observed, that, in so doing, he must exclude some of his most intimate companions. Having received the money he gave Pickle his address, desiring he would, with his convenience, visit the princess, who, he was sure, would display her most engaging attractions, in order to captivate his fancy; and took his leave extremely well pleased with the success of his application.

Though Peregrine was tempted with the curiosity of seeing this portrait, which he imagined must contain some analogy to the ridiculous oddity of the painter, he would not expose himself to the disagreeable alternative of applauding the performance, contrary to the dictates of conscience and common sense, or of condemning it, to the unspeakable mortification of the miserable author; and therefore never dreamt of returning the painter’s visit. Nor did he ever hear of the lottery’s being drawn. About this time he was invited to spend a few weeks at the country seat of a certain nobleman, with whom he had contracted an acquaintance, in the course of his debauches, which we have already described. His lordship being remarkable for his skill and success in horse-racing, his house was continually filled with the connoisseurs and admirers of that sport, upon which the whole conversation turned, insomuch that Peregrine gradually imbibed some knowledge in horse-flesh, and the diversions of the course; for the whole occupation of the day, exclusive of eating and drinking, consisted in viewing, managing, and exercising his lordship’s stud.