Paul Clifford — Complete
recover breath; the latter then,--the descent to the ground was not very
great,--letting his body down by his hands, dropped into the garden.
“Hurt?” asked the prudent Augustus, in a hoarse whisper, before he
descended from his “bad eminence,” being even willing--
“To bear those ills he had,
Than fly to others that he knew not of”
“No!” without taking every previous precaution in his power, was the
answer in the same voice, and Augustus dropped.
So soon as this latter worthy had recovered the shock of his fall,
he lost not a moment in running to the other end of the garden. Paul
followed. By the way Tomlinson stopped at a heap of rubbish, and picked
up an immense stone. When they came to the part of the wall they had
agreed to scale, they found the watchman,--about whom they needed not,
by the by, to have concerned themselves; for had it not been arranged
that he was to have met them, the deep fog would have effectually
prevented him from seeing them. This faithful guardian Augustus knocked
down, not with a stone, but with ten guineas; he then drew forth from
his dress a thickish cord, which he procured some days before from the
turnkey, and fastening the stone firmly to one end, threw that end over
the wall. Now the wall had (as walls of great strength mostly have) an
overhanging sort of battlement on either side; and the stone, when
flung over and drawn to the tether of the cord to which it was attached,
necessarily hitched against this projection; and thus the cord was as
it were fastened to the wall, and Tomlinson was enabled by it to draw
himself up to the top of the barrier. He performed this feat with
gymnastic address, like one who had often practised it; albeit the
discreet adventurer had not mentioned in his narrative to Paul any
previous occasion for the practice. As soon as he had gained the top of
the wall, he threw down the cord to his companion, and, in consideration
of Paul's inexperience in that manner of climbing, gave the fastening of
the rope an additional security by holding it himself. With slowness and
labour Paul hoisted himself up; and then, by transferring the stone to
the other side of the wall, where it made of course a similar hitch, our
two adventurers were enabled successively to slide down, and consummate
their escape from the House of Correction.
“Follow me now!” said Augustus, as he took to his heels; and Paul
pursued him through a labyrinth of alleys and lanes, through which he
shot and dodged with a variable and shifting celerity that, had not
Paul kept close upon him, would very soon, combined with the fog, have
snatched him from the eyes of his young ally. Happily the immaturity of
the morning, the obscurity of the streets passed through, and above all,
the extreme darkness of the atmosphere, prevented that detection and
arrest which their prisoner's garb would otherwise have insured them. At
length they found themselves in the fields; and skulking along hedges,
and diligently avoiding the highroad, they continued to fly onward,
until they had advanced several miles into “the bowels of the land.”
At that time “the bowels” of Augustus Tomlinson began to remind him of
their demands; and he accordingly suggested the desirability of their
seizing the first peasant they encountered, and causing him to exchange
clothes with one of the fugitives, who would thus be enabled to enter
a public-house and provide for their mutual necessities. Paul agreed
to this proposition, and accordingly they watched their opportunity and
caught a ploughman. Augustus stripped him of his frock, hat, and worsted
stockings; and Paul, hardened by necessity and companionship, helped to
tie the poor ploughman to a tree. They then continued their progress
for about an hour, and, as the shades of evening fell around them,
they discovered a public-house. Augustus entered, and returned in a few
minutes laden with bread and cheese, and a bottle of beer. Prison fare
cures a man of daintiness, and the two fugitives dined on these homely
viands with considerable complacency. They then resumed their journey,
and at length, wearied with exertion, they arrived at a lonely haystack,
where they resolved to repose for an hour or two.
CHAPTER X.
Unlike the ribald, whose licentious jest
Pollutes his banquet, and insults his guest,
From wealth and grandeur easy to descend,
Thou joy'st to lose the master in the friend.
We round thy board the cheerful menials see, Gay--
with the smile of bland equality;
No social care the gracious lord disdains;
Love prompts to love, and reverence reverence gains.
Translation of LUCAN to Paso,
Prefixed to the Twelfth Paper of “The Rambler.”
Coyly shone down the bashful stars upon our adventurers, as, after a
short nap behind the haystack, they stretched themselves, and looking
at each other, burst into an involuntary and hilarious laugh at the
prosperous termination of their exploit.
Hitherto they had been too occupied, first by their flight, then by
hunger, then by fatigue, for self-gratulation; now they rubbed their
hands, and joked like runaway schoolboys at their escape.
By degrees their thoughts turned from the past to the future; and “Tell
me, my dear fellow,” said Augustus, “what you intend to do. I trust I
have long ago convinced you that it is no sin 'to serve our friends'
and to 'be true to our party;' and therefore, I suppose, you will decide
upon taking to the road.”
“It is very odd,” answered Paul, “that I should have any scruples left
after your lectures on the subject; but I own to you frankly that,
somehow or other, I have doubts whether thieving be really the honestest
profession I could follow.”
“Listen to me, Paul,” answered Augustus; and his reply is not unworthy
of notice. “All crime and all excellence depend upon a good choice of
words. I see you look puzzled; I will explain. If you take money from
the public, and say you have robbed, you have indubitably committed a
great crime; but if you do the same, and say you have been relieving
the necessities of the poor, you have done an excellent action. If, in
afterwards dividing this money with your companions, you say you have
been sharing booty, you have committed an offence against the laws of
your country; but if you observe that you have been sharing with your
friends the gains of your industry, you have been performing one of
the noblest actions of humanity. To knock a man on the head is neither
virtuous nor guilty, but it depends upon the language applied to the
action to make it murder or glory. Why not say, then, that you have
testified the courage of a hero, rather than the atrocity of a ruffian?
This is perfectly clear, is it not?”
[We observe in a paragraph from an American paper, copied without
comment into the “Morning Chronicle,” a singular proof of the truth
of Tomlinson's philosophy! “Mr. Rowland Stephenson,” so runs the
extract, “the celebrated English banker, has just purchased a
considerable tract of land,” etc. Most philosophical of
paragraphists! “Celebrated English banker!”--that sentence is a
better illustration of verbal fallacies than all Ben tham's
treatises put together. “Celebrated!” O Mercury, what a dexterous
epithet!]
“It seems so,” answered Paul.
“It is so self-evident that it is the way all governments are carried
on. Wherefore, my good Paul, we only do what all other legislators do.
We are never rogues so long as we call ourselves honest fellows, and we
never commit a crime so long as we can term it a virtue. What say you
now?”
Paul smiled, and was silent a few moments before he replied: “There is
very little doubt but that you are wrong; yet if you are, so are all
the rest of the world. It is of no use to be the only white sheep of the
flock. Wherefore, my dear Tomlinson, I will in future be an excellent
citizen, relieve the necessities of the poor, and share the gains of my
industry with my friends.”
“Bravo!” cried Tomlinson. “And now that that is settled, the sooner you
are inaugurated the better. Since the starlight has shone forth, I see
that I am in a place I ought to be very well acquainted with; or, if you
like to be suspicious, you may believe that I have brought you purposely
in this direction. But first let me ask if you feel any great desire to
pass the night by this haystack, or whether you would like a song and
the punchbowl almost as much as the open air, with the chance of being
eaten up in a pinch of hay by some strolling cow.”
“You may conceive my choice,” answered Paul.
“Well, then, there is an excellent fellow near here, who keeps a
public-house, and is a firm ally and generous patron of the lads of the
cross. At certain periods they hold weekly meetings at his house: this
is one of the nights. What say you? Shall I introduce you to the club?”
“I shall be very glad if they will admit me,” returned Paul, whom many
and conflicting thoughts rendered laconic.
“Oh! no fear of that, under my auspices. To tell you the truth, though
we are a tolerant set, we welcome every new proselyte with enthusiasm.
But are you tired?”
“A little; the house is not far, you say?”
“About a mile off,” answered Tomlinson. “Lean on me.”
Our wanderers now, leaving the haystack, struck across part of Finchley
Common; for the abode of the worthy publican was felicitously situated,
and the scene in which his guests celebrated their festivities was close
by that on which they often performed their exploits.
As they proceeded, Paul questioned his friend touching the name and
character of “mine host;” and the all-knowing Augustus Tomlinson
answered him, Quaker-like, by a question,--
“Have you never heard of Gentleman George?”
“What! the noted head of a flash public-house in the country? To be
sure I have, often; my poor nurse, Dame Lobkins, used to say he was the
best-spoken man in the trade!”
“Ay, so he is still. In his youth, George was a very handsome fellow,
but a little too fond of his lass and his bottle to please his
father,--a very staid old gentleman, who walked about on Sundays in
a bob-wig and a gold-headed cane, and was a much better farmer on
week-days than he was head of a public-house. George used to be a
remarkably smart-dressed fellow, and so he is to this day. He has a
great deal of wit, is a very good whist-player, has a capital cellar,
and is so fond of seeing his friends drunk, that he bought some time ago
a large pewter measure in which six men can stand upright. The girls, or
rather the old women, to which last he used to be much more civil of the
two, always liked him; they say nothing is so fine as his fine speeches,
and they give him the title of 'Gentleman George.' He is a nice,
kind-hearted man in many things. Pray Heaven we shall have no cause to
miss him when he departs! But, to tell you the truth, he takes more than
his share of our common purse.”
“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