The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves

Captain Crowe having listened to the story with uncommon attention, expressed his concern that an honest seaman should be so taken in stays; but he imputed all his calamities to the wife. “For why?” said he; “a seafaring man may have a sweetheart in every port; but he should steer clear of a wife, as he would avoid a quicksand.—You see, brother, how this here Clewline lags astern in the wake of a snivelling b–h; otherwise he would never make a weft in his ensign for the loss of a child—odds heart! he could have done no more if he had sprung a top-mast, or started a timber.”

The knight declaring that he would take another view of the prison in the afternoon, Mr. Felton insisted upon his doing him the honour to drink a dish of tea in his apartment, and Sir Launcelot accepted his invitation. Thither they, accordingly repaired, after having made another circuit of the jail, and the tea-things were produced by Mrs. Felton, when she was summoned to the door, and in a few minutes returning, communicated something in a whisper to her husband. He changed colour, and repaired to the staircase, where he was heard to talk aloud in an angry tone.

When he came back, he told the company he had been teased by a very importunate beggar. Addressing himself to our adventurer, “You took notice,” says he, “of a fine lady flaunting about our walk in all the frippery of the fashion. She was lately a gay young widow that made a great figure at the court-end of the town; she distinguished herself by her splendid equipage, her rich liveries, her brilliant assemblies, her numerous routs, and her elegant taste in dress and furniture. She is nearly related to some of the best families in England, and, it must be owned, mistress of many fine accomplishments. But being deficient in true delicacy, she endeavoured to hide that defect by affectation. She pretended to a thousand antipathies which did not belong to her nature. A breast of veal threw her into mortal agonies; if she saw a spider, she screamed; and at sight of a mouse she fainted away. She could not, without horror, behold an entire joint of meat; and nothing but fricassees and other made dishes were seen upon her table. She caused all her floors to be lined with green baize, that she might trip along there with more ease and pleasure. Her footmen wore clogs, which were deposited in the hall, and both they and her chairmen were laid under the strongest injunctions to avoid porter and tobacco. Her jointure amounted to eight hundred pounds per annum, and she made shift to spend four times that sum. At length it was mortgaged for nearly the entire value; but, far from retrenching, she seemed to increase in extravagance, until her effects were taken in execution, and her person here deposited in safe custody.

“When one considers the abrupt transition she underwent from her spacious apartments to an hovel scarce eight feet square; from sumptuous furniture to bare benches; from magnificence to meanness; from affluence to extreme poverty; one would imagine she must have been totally overwhelmed by such a sudden gush of misery. But this was not the case. She has, in fact, no delicate feelings. She forthwith accommodated herself to the exigency of her fortune; yet she still affects to keep state amidst the miseries of a jail; and this affectation is truly ridiculous. She lies a-bed till two o’clock in the afternoon. She maintains a female attendant for the sole purpose of dressing her person. Her cabin is the least cleanly in the whole prison; she has learned to eat bread and cheese and drink porter; but she always appears once a day dressed in the pink of the fashion. She has found means to run in debt at the chandler’s shop, the baker’s, and the tap-house, though there is nothing got in this place but with ready money. She has even borrowed small sums from divers prisoners, who were themselves on the brink of starving. She takes pleasure in being surrounded with duns, observing, that by such people a person of fashion is to be distinguished. She writes circular letters to her former friends and acquaintance, and by this method has raised pretty considerable contributions; for she writes in a most elegant and irresistible style. About a fortnight ago she received a supply of twenty guineas; when, instead of paying her little jail-debts, or withdrawing any part of her apparel from pawn, she laid out the whole sum in a fashionable suit and laces; and next day borrowed of me a shilling to purchase a neck of mutton for her dinner. She seems to think her rank in life entitles her to this kind of assistance. She talks very pompously of her family and connexions, by whom however she has been long renounced. She has no sympathy nor compassion for the distresses of her fellow-creatures; but she is perfectly well bred; she bears a repulse the best of any woman I ever knew; and her temper has never been once ruffled since her arrival at the King’s Bench. She now entreated me to lend her half-a-guinea, for which she said she had the most pressing occasion, and promised upon her honour it should be repaid to-morrow; but I lent a deaf ear to her request, and told her in plain terms that her honour was already bankrupt.”

Sir Launcelot, thrusting his hand mechanically into his pocket, pulled out a couple of guineas, and desired Felton to accommodate her with that trifle in his own name; but he declined the proposal, and refused to touch the money. “God forbid,” said he, “that I should attempt to thwart your charitable intention; but this, my good sir, is no object—she has many resources. Neither should we number the clamorous beggar among those who really feel distress; he is generally gorged with bounty misapplied. The liberal hand of charity should be extended to modest want that pines in silence, encountering cold, nakedness, and hunger, and every species of distress. Here you may find the wretch of keen sensations blasted by accident in the blossom of his fortune, shivering in the solitary recess of indigence, disdaining to beg, and even ashamed to let his misery be known. Here you may see the parent who has known happier times, surrounded by his tender offspring, naked and forlorn, demanding food, which his circumstances cannot afford.

“That man of decent appearance and melancholy aspect, who lifted his hat as you passed him in the yard, is a person of unblemished character. He was a reputable tradesman in the city, and failed through inevitable losses. A commission of bankruptcy was taken out against him by his sole creditor, a quaker, who refused to sign his certificate. He has lived three years in prison, with a wife and five small children. In a little time after his commitment, he had friends who offered to pay ten shillings in the pound of what he owed, and to give security for paying the remainder in three years by instalments. The honest quaker did not charge the bankrupt with any dishonest practices, but he rejected the proposal with the most mortifying indifference, declaring that he did not want his money. The mother repaired to his house, and kneeling before him with her five lovely children, implored mercy with tears and exclamations. He stood this scene unmoved, and even seemed to enjoy the prospect, wearing the looks of complacency, while his heart was steeled with rancour. ‘Woman,’ said he, ‘these be hopeful babes, if they were duly nurtured. Go thy ways in peace; I have taken my resolution.’ Her friends maintained the family for some time; but it is not in human charity to persevere; some of them died, some of them grew unfortunate, some of them fell off, and now the poor man is reduced to the extremity of indigence, from whence he has no prospect of being retrieved. The fourth part of what you would have bestowed upon the lady would make this poor man and his family sing with joy.”

He had scarce pronounced these words, when our hero desired the man might be called, and in a few minutes he entered the apartment with a low obeisance. “Mr. Coleby,” said the knight, “I have heard how cruelly you have been used by your creditor, and beg you will accept this trifling present, if it can be of any service to you in your distress.” So saying, he put five guineas into his hand. The poor man was so confounded at such an unlooked-for acquisition, that he stood motionless and silent, unable to thank the donor; and Mr. Felton conveyed him to the door, observing that his heart was too full for utterance. But in a little time his wife bursting into the room with her five children, looked around, and going up to Sir Launcelot without any direction, exclaimed, “This is the angel sent by Providence to succour me and my poor innocents.” Then falling at his feet, she pressed his hand and bathed it with her tears. He raised her up with that complacency which was natural to his disposition. He kissed all her children, who were remarkably handsome and neatly kept, though in homely apparel; and, giving her his direction, assured her she might always apply to him in her distress.

After her departure, he produced a bank-note of twenty pounds, and would have deposited it in the hands of Mr. Felton, to be distributed in charities among the objects of the place; but he desired it might be left with Mr. Norton, who was the proper person for managing his benevolence, and he promised to assist the deputy with his advice in laying it out.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

IN WHICH CAPTAIN CROWE IS SUBLIMED INTO THE REGIONS ON ASTROLOGY

Three whole days had our adventurer prosecuted his inquiry about the amiable Aurelia, whom he sought in every place of public and of private entertainment or resort, without obtaining the least satisfactory intelligence, when he received one evening, from the hands of a porter, who instantly vanished, the following billet:

“If you would learn the particulars of Miss Darnel’s fate fail not to be in the fields by the Foundling Hospital, precisely at seven o’clock this evening, when you shall be met by a person who will give you the satisfaction you desire, together with his reason for addressing you in this mysterious manner.”

Had this intimation concerned any other subject, perhaps the knight would have deliberated with himself in what manner he should take a hint so darkly communicated. But his eagerness to retrieve the jewel he had lost divested him of all his caution; the time of assignation was already at hand, and neither the captain nor his nephew could be found to accompany him, had he been disposed to make use of their attendance. He therefore, after a moment’s hesitation, repaired to the place appointed, in the utmost agitation and anxiety, lest the hour should be elapsed before his arrival.

Crowe was one of those defective spirits who cannot subsist for any length of time on their own bottoms. He wanted a familiar prop, upon which he could disburden his cares, his doubts, and his humours; an humble friend who would endure his caprices, and with whom he could communicate, free of all reserve and restraint. Though he loved his nephew’s person, and admired his parts, he considered him often as a little petulant jackanapes, who presumed upon his superior understanding; and as for Sir Launcelot, there was something in his character that overawed the seaman, and kept him at a disagreeable distance. He had, in this dilemma, cast his eyes upon Timothy Crabshaw, and admitted him to a considerable share of familiarity and fellowship. These companions had been employed in smoking a social pipe at an alehouse in the neighbourhood, when the knight made his excursion; and returning to the house about supper-time, found Mr. Clarke in waiting.

The young lawyer was alarmed when he heard the hour of ten, without seeing our adventurer, who had been used to be extremely regular in his economy; and the captain and he supped in profound silence. Finding, upon inquiry among the servants, that the knight went out abruptly, in consequence of having received a billet, Tom began to be visited with the apprehension of a duel, and sat the best part of the night by his uncle, sweating with the expectation of seeing our hero brought home a breathless corpse. But no tidings of him arriving, he, about two in the morning, repaired to his own lodging, resolved to publish a description of Sir Launcelot in the newspapers, if he should not appear next day.

Crowe did not pass the time without uneasiness. He was extremely concerned at the thought of some mischief having befallen his friend and patron; and he was terrified with the apprehensions, that, in case Sir Launcelot was murdered, his spirit might come and give him notice of his fate. Now he had an insuperable aversion to all correspondence with the dead; and taking it for granted that the spirit of his departed friend could not appear to him except when he should be alone, and a-bed in the dark, he determined to pass the remainder of the night without going to bed. For this purpose, his first care was to visit the garret, in which Timothy Crabshaw lay fast asleep, snoring with his mouth wide open. Him the captain with difficulty roused, by dint of promising to regale him with a bowl of rum punch in the kitchen, where the fire, which had been extinguished, was soon rekindled. The ingredients were fetched from a public-house in the neighbourhood; for the captain was too proud to use his interest in the knight’s family, especially at these hours, when all the rest of the servants had retired to their repose; and he and Timothy drank together until daybreak, the conversation turning upon hobgoblins, and God’s revenge against murder.

The cookmaid lay in a little apartment contiguous to the kitchen; and whether disturbed by these horrible tales of apparitions, or titillated by the savoury steams that issued from the punch-bowl, she made a virtue of necessity, or appetite, and dressing herself in the dark, suddenly appeared before them to the no small perturbation of both. Timothy, in particular, was so startled, that, in his endeavours to make a hasty retreat towards the chimney-corner, he overturned the table; the liquor was spilt, but the bowl was saved by falling on a heap of ashes. Mrs. Cook having reprimanded him for his foolish fear, declared, she had got up betimes, in order to scour her saucepans; and the captain proposed to have the bowl replenished, if materials could be procured. This difficulty was overcome by Crabshaw; and they sat down with their new associate to discuss the second edition.

The knight’s sudden disappearing being brought upon the carpet, their female companion gave it as her opinion, that nothing would be so likely to bring this affair to light, as going to a cunning man, whom she had lately consulted about a silver spoon that was mislaid, and who told her all the things that she ever did, and ever would happen to her through the whole course of her life.

Her two companions pricked up their ears at this intelligence; and Crowe asked if the spoon had been found. She answered in the affirmative; and said the cunning man described to a hair the person that should be her true lover, and her wedded husband; that he was a seafaring man; that he was pretty well stricken in years—a little passionate or so; and that he went with his fingers clinched like, as it were. The captain began to sweat at this description, and mechanically thrust his hands into his pockets; while Crabshaw pointing to him, told her he believed she had got the right sow by the ear. Crowe grumbled, that mayhap for all that he should not be brought up by such a grappling neither. Then he asked if this cunning man dealt with the devil, declaring, in that case, he would keep clear of him; for why? because he must have sold himself to Old Scratch; and, being a servant of the devil, how could he be a good subject to his majesty? Mrs. Cook assured him, the conjurer was a good Christian; and that he gained all his knowledge by conversing with the stars and planets. Thus satisfied, the two friends resolved to consult him as soon as it should be light; and being directed to the place of his habitation, set out for it by seven in the morning.

They found the house forsaken, and had already reached the end of the lane in their return, when they were accosted by an old woman, who gave them to understand, that if they had occasion for the advice of a fortune-teller, as she did suppose they had, from their stopping at the house where Dr. Grubble lived, she would conduct them to a person of much more eminence in that profession; at the same time she informed them, that the said Grubble had been lately sent to Bridewell; a circumstance which, with all his art, he had not been able to foresee. The captain, without any scruple, put himself and his companion under convoy of this beldame, who, through many windings and turnings, brought them to the door of a ruinous house, standing in a blind alley; which door having opened with a key drawn from her pocket, she introduced them into a parlour, where they saw no other furniture than a naked bench, and some frightful figures on the bare walls, drawn or rather scrawled with charcoal.

Here she left them locked in, until she should give the doctor notice of their arrival; and they amused themselves with decyphering these characters and hieroglyphics. The first figure that engaged their attention was that of a man hanging upon a gibbet, which both considered as an unfavourable omen, and each endeavoured to avert from his own person. Crabshaw observed, that the figure so suspended was clothed in a sailor’s jacket and trowsers; a truth which the captain could not deny, but, on the other hand, he affirmed, that the said figure exhibited the very nose and chin of Timothy, together with the hump on one shoulder. A warm dispute ensued, and being maintained with much acrimonious altercation, might have dissolved the new-cemented friendship of those two originals, had it not been interrupted by the old sibyl, who, coming into the parlour, intimated that the doctor waited for them above. She likewise told them, that he never admitted more than one at a time. This hint occasioned a fresh contest. The captain insisted upon Crabshaw’s making sail a-head, in order to look out afore; but Timothy persisted in refusing this honour, declaring he did not pretend to lead, but he would follow, as in duty bound. The old gentlewoman abridged the ceremony by leading out Crabshaw with one hand, and locking up Crowe with the other.

The former was dragged upstairs like a bear to the stake, not without reluctance and terror, which did not at all abate at sight of the conjurer, with whom he was immediately shut up by his conductress, after she had told him in a whisper, that he must deposit a shilling in a little black coffin, supported by a human skull and thigh-bones crossed, on a stool covered with black baize, that stood in one corner of the apartment. The squire, having made this offer with fear and trembling, ventured to survey the objects around him, which were very well calculated to augment his confusion. He saw divers skeletons hung by the head, the stuffed skin of a young alligator, a calf with two heads, and several snakes suspended from the ceiling, with the jaws of a shark, and a starved weasel. On another funeral table he beheld two spheres, between which lay a book open, exhibiting outlandish characters, and mathematical diagrams. On one side stood an ink-standish with paper; and behind this desk appeared the conjurer himself, in sable vestments, his head so overshadowed with hair, that, far from contemplating his features, Timothy could distinguish nothing but a long white beard, which, for aught he knew, might have belonged to a four-legged goat, as well as to a two-legged astrologer.

This apparition, which the squire did not eye without manifest discomposure, extending a white wand, made certain evolutions over the head of Timothy, and having muttered an ejaculation, commanded him, in a hollow tone, to come forward and declare his name. Crabshaw, thus adjured, advanced to the altar; and, whether from design, or (which is more probable) from confusion, answered, “Samuel Crowe.” The conjurer taking up the pen, and making a few scratches on the paper, exclaimed, in a terrific accent, “How! miscreant! attempt to impose upon the stars?– You look more like a crab than a crow, and was born under the sign of Cancer.” The squire, almost annihilated by this exclamation, fell upon his knees, crying, “I pray yaw, my lord conjurer’s worship, pardon my ignorance, and down’t go to baind me over to the Red Sea like—I’se a poor Yorkshire tyke, and would no more cheat the stars, than I’d cheat my own vather, as the saying is—a must be a good hand at trapping, that catches the stars a napping—but as your honour’s worship observed, my name is Tim Crabshaw, of the East Raiding, groom and squair to Sir Launcelot Greaves, baron knaight, and arrant-knaight, who ran mad for a wench, as your worship’s conjuration well knoweth. The person below is Captain Crowe; and we coom by Margery Cook’s recommendation, to seek after my master, who is gone away, or made away, the Lord he knows how and where.”

Here he was interrupted by the conjurer, who exhorted him to sit down and compose himself till he should cast a figure; then he scrawled the paper, and waving his wand, repeated abundance of gibberish concerning the number, the names, the houses, and revolutions of the planets, with their conjunctions, oppositions, signs, circles; cycles, trines, and trigons. When he perceived that this artifice had its proper effect in disturbing the brain of Crabshaw, he proceeded to tell him from the stars, that his name was Crabshaw, or Crabscaw; that he was born in the East Riding of Yorkshire, of poor, yet honest parents, and had some skill in horses; and that he served a gentleman whose name began with the letter G—, which gentleman had run mad for love, and left his family; but whether he would return alive or dead, the stars had not yet determined.

Poor Timothy was thunderstruck to find the conjurer acquainted with all these circumstances, and begged to know if he might be so bauld as to ax a question or two about his own fortune. The astrologer pointing to the little coffin, our squire understood the hint, and deposited another shilling. The sage had recourse to his book, erected another scheme, performed once more his airy evolutions with the wand, and having recited another mystical preamble, expounded the book of fate in these words: “You shall neither die by war nor water, by hunger or by thirst, nor be brought to the grave by old age or distemper; but, let me see—ay, the stars will have it so—you shall be—exalted—hah!—ay, that is—hanged for horse-stealing.”—“O good my lord conjurer!” roared the squire, “I’d as lief give forty shillings as be hanged.”—“Peace, sirrah!” cried the other; “would you contradict or reverse the immutable decrees of fate? Hanging is your destiny, and hanged you shall be—and comfort yourself with the reflection, that as you are not the first, so neither will you be the last to swing on Tyburn tree.” This comfortable assurance composed the mind of Timothy, and in a great measure reconciled him to the prediction. He now proceeded in a whining tone, to ask whether he should suffer for the first fact; whether it would be for a horse or a mare, and of what colour, that he might know when his hour was come. The conjurer gravely answered, that he would steal a dappled gelding on a Wednesday, be cast at the Old Bailey on Thursday, and suffer on a Friday; and he strenuously recommended it to him to appear in the cart with a nosegay in one hand, and the Whole Duty of Man in the other. “But if in case it should be in the winter,” said the squire, “when a nosegay can’t be had?”—“Why, then,” replied the conjurer, “an orange will do as well.”

These material points being adjusted to the entire satisfaction of Timothy, he declared he would bestow another shilling to know the fortune of an old companion, who truly did not deserve so much at his hands, but he could not help loving him better than e’er a friend he had in the world. So saying, he dropped a third offering in the coffin, and desired to know the fate of his horse Gilbert. The astrologer having again consulted his art, pronounced that Gilbert would die of the staggers, and his carcase be given to the hounds; a sentence which made a much deeper impression upon Crabshaw’s mind, than did the prediction of his own untimely and disgraceful fate. He shed a plenteous shower of tears, and his grief broke forth in some passionate expressions of tenderness. At length he told the astrologer he would go and send up the captain, who wanted to consult him about Margery Cook, because as how she had informed him that Dr. Grubble had described just such another man as the captain for her true love; and he had no great stomach to the match, if so be as the stars were not bent upon their coming together.