Paul Clifford — Complete
onward, caring not a minnow for the numerous charming young ladies
who have thought proper to drown themselves in those merciless waves,
thereby depriving many a good mistress of an excellent housemaid or an
invaluable cook, and many a treacherous Phaon of letters beginning with
“Parjured Villen,” and ending with “Your affectionot but melancholy
Molly.”
While thus musing, he was suddenly accosted by a gentleman in boots and
spurs, having a riding-whip in one hand, and the other hand stuck in the
pocket of his inexpressibles. The hat of the gallant was gracefully and
carefully put on, so as to derange as little as possible a profusion of
dark curls, which, streaming with unguents, fell low not only on either
side of the face, but on the neck and even the shoulders of the owner.
The face was saturnine and strongly marked, but handsome and
striking. There was a mixture of frippery and sternness in its
expression,--something between Madame Vestries and T. P. Cooke, or
between “lovely Sally” and a “Captain bold of Halifax.” The stature of
this personage was remarkably tall, and his figure was stout, muscular,
and well knit. In fine, to complete his portrait, and give our readers
of the present day an exact idea of this hero of the past, we shall add
that he was altogether that sort of gentleman one sees swaggering in
the Burlington Arcade, with his hair and hat on one side, and a military
cloak thrown over his shoulders; or prowling in Regent Street, towards
the evening, whiskered and cigarred.
Laying his hand on the shoulder of our hero, this gentleman said, with
an affected intonation of voice,--
“How dost, my fine fellow? Long since I saw you! Damme, but you look the
worse for wear. What hast thou been doing with thyself?”
“Ha!” cried our hero, returning the salutation of the stranger, “and is
it Long Ned whom I behold? I am indeed glad to meet you; and I say, my
friend, I hope what I heard of you is not true!”
“Hist!” said Long Ned, looking round fearfully, and sinking his voice;
“never talk of what you hear of gentlemen, except you wish to bring them
to their last dying speech and confession. But come with me, my lad;
there is a tavern hard by, and we may as well discuss matters over a
pint of wine. You look cursed seedy, to be sure; but I can tell Bill the
waiter--famous fellow, that Bill!--that you are one of my tenants, come
to complain of my steward, who has just distrained you for rent, you
dog! No wonder you look so worn in the rigging. Come, follow me. I can't
walk with thee. It would look too like Northumberland House and the
butcher's abode next door taking a stroll together.”
“Really, Mr. Pepper,” said our hero, colouring, and by no means pleased
with the ingenious comparison of his friend, “if you are ashamed of my
clothes, which I own might be newer, I will not wound you with my--”
“Pooh! my lad, pooh!” cried Long Ned, interrupting him; “never take
offence. I never do. I never take anything but money, except, indeed,
watches. I don't mean to hurt your feelings; all of us have been poor
once. 'Gad, I remember when I had not a dud to my back; and now, you see
me,--you see me, Paul! But come, 't is only through the streets you need
separate from me. Keep a little behind, very little; that will do. Ay,
that will do,” repeated Long Ned, mutteringly to himself; “they'll take
him for a bailiff. It looks handsome nowadays to be so attended; it
shows one had credit once!”
Meanwhile Paul, though by no means pleased with the contempt expressed
for his personal appearance by his lengthy associate, and impressed with
a keener sense than ever of the crimes of his coat and the vices of
his other garment,--“Oh, breathe not its name!”--followed doggedly
and sullenly the strutting steps of the coxcombical Mr. Pepper. That
personage arrived at last at a small tavern, and arresting a waiter
who was running across the passage into the coffee-room with a dish of
hung-beef, demanded (no doubt from a pleasing anticipation of a similar
pendulous catastrophe) a plate of the same excellent cheer, to be
carried, in company with a bottle of port, into a private apartment. No
sooner did he find himself alone with Paul than, bursting into a
loud laugh, Mr. Ned surveyed his comrade from head to foot through an
eyeglass which he wore fastened to his button-hole by a piece of blue
ribbon.
“Well, 'gad now,” said he, stopping ever and anon, as if to laugh the
more heartily, “stab my vitals, but you are a comical quiz. I wonder
what the women would say, if they saw the dashing Edward Pepper,
Esquire, walking arm in arm with thee at Ranelagh or Vauxhall! Nay, man,
never be downcast; if I laugh at thee, it is only to make thee look
a little merrier thyself. Why, thou lookest like a book of my
grandfather's called Burton's 'Anatomy of Melancholy;' and faith, a
shabbier bound copy of it I never saw.”
“These jests are a little hard,” said Paul, struggling between anger
and an attempt to smile; and then recollecting his late literary
occupations, and the many extracts he had taken from “Gleanings of the
Belles Lettres,” in order to impart elegance to his criticisms, he threw
out his hand theatrically, and spouted with a solemn face,--
“'Of all the griefs that harass the distrest,
Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest!'”
“Well, now, prithee forgive me,” said Long Ned, composing his features,
“and just tell me what you have been doing the last two months.”
“Slashing and plastering!” said Paul, with conscious pride.
“Slashing and what? The boy's mad. What do you mean, Paul?”
“In other words,” said our hero, speaking very slowly, “know, O very
Long Ned! that I have been critic to 'The Asinaeum.'”
If Paul's comrade laughed at first, he now laughed ten times more
merrily than ever. He threw his full length of limb upon a neighbouring
sofa, and literally rolled with cachinnatory convulsions; nor did his
risible emotions subside until the entrance of the hung-beef restored
him to recollection. Seeing, then, that a cloud lowered over Paul's
countenance, he went up to him with something like gravity, begged his
pardon for his want of politeness, and desired him to wash away all
unkindness in a bumper of port. Paul, whose excellent dispositions we
have before had occasion to remark, was not impervious to his friend's
apologies. He assured Long Ned that he quite forgave him for his
ridicule of the high situation he (Paul) had enjoyed in the literary
world; that it was the duty of a public censor to bear no malice, and
that he should be very glad to take his share in the interment of the
hung-beef.
The pair now sat down to their repast; and Paul, who had fared but
meagerly in that Temple of Athena over which MacGrawler presided, did
ample justice to the viands before him. By degrees, as he ate and
drank, his heart opened to his companion; and laying aside that Asinaeum
dignity which he had at first thought it incumbent on him to assume, he
entertained Pepper with all the particulars of the life he had lately
passed. He narrated to him his breach with Dame Lobkins, his agreement
with MacGrawler, the glory he had acquired, and the wrongs he had
sustained; and he concluded, as now the second bottle made its
appearance, by stating his desire of exchanging for some more active
profession that sedentary career which he had so promisingly begun.
This last part of Paul's confessions secretly delighted the soul of Long
Ned; for that experienced collector of the highways--Ned was, indeed, of
no less noble a profession--had long fixed an eye upon our hero, as
one whom he thought likely to be an honour to that enterprising calling
which he espoused, and an useful assistant to himself. He had not, in
his earlier acquaintance with Paul, when the youth was under the roof
and the surveillance of the practised and wary Mrs. Lobkins, deemed
it prudent to expose the exact nature of his own pursuits, and had
contented himself by gradually ripening the mind and the finances of
Paul into that state when the proposition of a leap from a hedge would
not be likely greatly to revolt the person to whom it was made. He now
thought that time near at hand; and filling our hero's glass up to the
brim, thus artfully addressed him:--
“Courage, my friend! Your narration has given me a sensible pleasure;
for curse me if it has not strengthened my favourite opinion,--that
everything is for the best. If it had not been for the meanness of that
pitiful fellow, MacGrawler, you might still be inspired with the paltry
ambition of earning a few shillings a week and vilifying a parcel of
poor devils in the what-d'ye-call it, with a hard name; whereas now, my
good Paul, I trust I shall be able to open to your genius a new career,
in which guineas are had for the asking,--in which you may wear fine
clothes, and ogle the ladies at Ranelagh; and when you are tired of
glory and liberty, Paul, why, you have only to make your bow to an
heiress, or a widow with a spanking jointure, and quit the hum of men
like a Cincinnatus!”
Though Paul's perception into the abstruser branches of morals was not
very acute,--and at that time the port wine had considerably confused
the few notions he possessed upon “the beauty of virtue,”--yet he could
not but perceive that Mr. Pepper's insinuated proposition was far from
being one which the bench of bishops or a synod of moralists would
conscientiously have approved. He consequently remained silent; and Long
Ned, after a pause, continued:--
“You know my genealogy, my good fellow? I was the son of Lawyer Pepper,
a shrewd old dog, but as hot as Calcutta; and the grandson of Sexton
Pepper, a great author, who wrote verses on tombstones, and kept a stall
of religious tracts in Carlisle. My grandfather, the sexton, was the
best temper of the family; for all of us are a little inclined to be hot
in the mouth. Well, my fine fellow, my father left me his blessing,
and this devilish good head of hair. I lived for some years on my own
resources. I found it a particularly inconvenient mode of life, and of
late I have taken to live on the public. My father and grandfather did
it before me, though in a different line. 'T is the pleasantest plan
in the world. Follow my example, and your coat shall be as spruce as my
own. Master Paul, your health!”
“But, O longest of mortals!” said Paul, refilling his glass, “though
the public may allow you to eat your mutton off their backs for a short
time, they will kick up at last, and upset you and your banquet; in
other words (pardon my metaphor, dear Ned, in remembrance of the part
I have lately maintained in 'The Asinaeum,' that most magnificent and
metaphorical of journals!),--in other words, the police will nab thee
at last; and thou wilt have the distinguished fate, as thou already hast
the distinguishing characteristic, of Absalom!”
“You mean that I shall be hanged,” said Long Ned, “that may or may
not be; but he who fears death never enjoys life. Consider, Paul, that
though hanging is a bad fate, starving is a worse; wherefore fill your
glass, and let us drink to the health of that great donkey, the people,
and may we never want saddles to ride it!”
“To the great donkey,” cried Paul, tossing off his bumper; “may your
(y)ears be as long! But I own to you, my friend, that I cannot enter
into your plans. And, as a token of my resolution, I shall drink no
more, for my eyes already begin to dance in the air; and if I listen
longer to your resistless eloquence, my feet may share the same fate!”
So saying, Paul rose; nor could any entreaty, on the part of his
entertainer, persuade him to resume his seat.
“Nay, as you will,” said Pepper, affecting a nonchalant tone, and
arranging his cravat before the glass,--“nay, as you will. Ned Pepper