Paul Clifford — Complete
Mrs. Lobkins's answer, couched in the same key, appeared to satisfy
Dunnaker, for with a look of great contempt he chucked up his head and
said, “Oho! that be all, be it!”
Paul here reappeared with the pipe; and the dame, having filled the
tube, leaned forward, and lighted the Virginian weed from the blower of
Mr. Dunnaker. As in this interesting occupation the heads of the hostess
and the guest approached each other, the glowing light playing cheerily
on the countenance of each, there was an honest simplicity in the
picture that would have merited the racy and vigorous genius of a
Cruikshank. As soon as the Promethean spark had been fully communicated
to the lady's tube, Mrs. Lobkins, still possessed by the gloomy idea she
had conjured up, repeated,--
“Ah, Dummie, if little Paul should be scragged!”
Dummie, withdrawing the pipe from his mouth, heaved a sympathizing puff,
but remained silent; and Mrs. Lobkins, turning to Paul, who stood with
mouth open and ears erect at this boding ejaculation, said,--
“Dost think, Paul, they'd have the heart to hang thee?”
“I think they'd have the rope, dame!” returned the youth.
“But you need not go for to run your neck into the noose!” said the
matron; and then, inspired by the spirit of moralizing, she turned round
to the youth, and gazing upon his attentive countenance, accosted him
with the following admonitions:--
“Mind thy kittychism, child, and reverence old age. Never steal,
'specially when any one be in the way. Never go snacks with them as be
older than you,--'cause why? The older a cove be, the more he cares for
hisself, and the less for his partner. At twenty, we diddles the public;
at forty, we diddles our cronies! Be modest, Paul, and stick to your
sitivation in life. Go not with fine tobymen, who burn out like a candle
wot has a thief in it,--all flare, and gone in a whiffy! Leave liquor to
the aged, who can't do without it. Tape often proves a halter, and there
be's no ruin like blue ruin! Read your Bible, and talk like a pious 'un.
People goes more by your words than your actions. If you wants what is
not your own, try and do without it; and if you cannot do without it,
take it away by insinivation, not bluster. They as swindles does more
and risks less than they as robs; and if you cheats toppingly, you may
laugh at the topping cheat [Gallows]. And now go play.”
Paul seized his hat, but lingered; and the dame, guessing at the
signification of the pause, drew forth and placed in the boy's hand the
sum of five halfpence and one farthing.
“There, boy,” quoth she, and she stroked his head fondly when she spoke,
“you does right not to play for nothing,--it's loss of time; but play
with those as be less than yoursel', and then you can go for to beat 'em
if they says you go for to cheat!”
Paul vanished; and the dame, laying her hand on Dummie's shoulder,
said,--
“There be nothing like a friend in need, Dummie; and somehow or other, I
thinks as how you knows more of the horigin of that 'ere lad than any of
us!”
“Me, dame!” exclaimed Dummie, with a broad gaze of astonishment.
“Ah, you! you knows as how the mother saw more of you just afore she
died than she did of 'ere one of us. Noar, now, noar, now! Tell us all
about 'un. Did she steal 'un, think ye?”
“Lauk, Mother Margery, dost think I knows? Vot put such a crotchet in
your 'ead?”
“Well!” said the dame, with a disappointed sigh, “I always thought as
how you were more knowing about it than you owns. Dear, dear, I shall
never forgit the night when Judith brought the poor cretur here,--you
knows she had been some months in my house afore ever I see'd the
urchin; and when she brought it, she looked so pale and ghostly that
I had not the heart to say a word, so I stared at the brat, and it
stretched out its wee little hands to me. And the mother frowned at it,
and throwed it into my lap.”
“Ah! she was a hawful voman, that 'ere!” said Dummie, shaking his head.
“But howsomever, the hurchin fell into good 'ands; for I be's sure you
'as been a better mother to 'un than the raal 'un!”
“I was always a fool about childer,” rejoined Mrs. Lobkins; “and I
thinks as how little Paul was sent to be a comfort to my latter end!
Fill the glass, Dummie.”
“I 'as heard as 'ow Judith was once blowen to a great lord!” said
Dummie.
“Like enough!” returned Mrs. Lobkins,--“like enough! She was always a
favourite of mine, for she had a spuret [spirit] as big as my own; and
she paid her rint like a decent body, for all she was out of her sinses,
or 'nation like it.”
“Ay, I knows as how you liked her,--'cause vy? 'T is not your vay to let
a room to a voman! You says as how 't is not respectable, and you only
likes men to wisit the Mug!”
“And I doesn't like all of them as comes here!” answered the
dame,--“'specially for Paul's sake; but what can a lone 'oman do? Many's
the gentleman highwayman wot comes here, whose money is as good as the
clerk's of the parish. And when a bob [shilling] is in my hand, what
does it sinnify whose hand it was in afore?”
“That's what I call being sinsible and practical,” said Dummie,
approvingly. “And after all, though you 'as a mixture like, I does not
know a halehouse where a cove is better entertained, nor meets of a
Sunday more illegant company, than the Mug!”
Here the conversation, which the reader must know had been sustained
in a key inaudible to a third person, received a check from Mr. Peter
MacGrawler, who, having finished his revery and his tankard, now rose
to depart. First, however, approaching Mrs. Lobkins, he observed that he
had gone on credit for some days, and demanded the amount of his bill.
Glancing towards certain chalk hieroglyphics inscribed on the wall at
the other side of the fireplace, the dame answered that Mr. MacGrawler
was indebted to her for the sum of one shilling and ninepence three
farthings.
After a short preparatory search in his waistcoat pockets, the critic
hunted into one corner a solitary half-crown, and having caught it
between his finger and thumb, he gave it to Mrs. Lobkins and requested
change.
As soon as the matron felt her hand anointed with what has been called
by some ingenious Johnson of St. Giles's “the oil of palms,” her
countenance softened into a complacent smile; and when she gave the
required change to Mr. MacGrawler, she graciously hoped as how he would
recommend the Mug to the public.
“That you may be sure of,” said the editor of “The Asinaeum.” “There is
not a place where I am so much at home.”
With that the learned Scotsman buttoned his coat and went his way.
“How spiteful the world be!” said Mrs. Lobkins, after a pause,
“'specially if a 'oman keeps a fashionable sort of a public! When Judith
died, Joe, the dog's-meat man, said I war all the better for it, and
that she left I a treasure to bring up the urchin. One would think a
thumper makes a man richer,--'cause why? Every man thumps! I got nothing
more than a watch and ten guineas when Judy died, and sure that scarce
paid for the burrel [burial].”
“You forgits the two quids [Guineas] I giv' you for the hold box of
rags,--much of a treasure I found there!” said Dummie, with sycophantic
archness.
“Ay,” cried the dame, laughing, “I fancies you war not pleased with the
bargain. I thought you war too old a ragmerchant to be so free with the
blunt; howsomever, I supposes it war the tinsel petticoat as took you
in!”
“As it has mony a viser man than the like of I,” rejoined Dummie, who
to his various secret professions added the ostensible one of a
rag-merchant and dealer in broken glass.
The recollection of her good bargain in the box of rags opened our
landlady's heart.
“Drink, Dummie,” said she, good-humouredly,--“drink; I scorns to score
lush to a friend.”
Dummie expressed his gratitude, refilled his glass, and the hospitable
matron, knocking out from her pipe the dying ashes, thus proceeded:
“You sees, Dummie, though I often beats the boy, I loves him as much as
if I war his raal mother,--I wants to make him an honour to his country,
and an ixciption to my family!”
“Who all flashed their ivories at Surgeons' Hall!” added the
metaphorical Dummie.
“True!” said the lady; “they died game, and I be n't ashamed of 'em. But
I owes a duty to Paul's mother, and I wants Paul to have a long life. I
would send him to school, but you knows as how the boys only corrupt one
another. And so, I should like to meet with some decent man, as a tutor,
to teach the lad Latin and vartue!”
“My eyes!” cried Dummie; aghast at the grandeur of this desire.
“The boy is 'cute enough, and he loves reading,” continued the dame;
“but I does not think the books he gets hold of will teach him the way
to grow old.”
“And 'ow came he to read, anyhows?”
“Ranting Rob, the strolling player, taught him his letters, and said
he'd a deal of janius.”
“And why should not Ranting Rob tache the boy Latin and vartue?”
“'Cause Ranting Rob, poor fellow, was lagged [Transported for burglary]
for doing a panny!” answered the dame, despondently.
There was a long silence; it was broken by Mr. Dummie. Slapping his
thigh with the gesticulatory vehemence of a Ugo Foscolo, that gentleman
exclaimed,--
“I 'as it,--I 'as thought of a tutor for leetle Paul!”
“Who's that? You quite frightens me; you 'as no marcy on my narves,”
said the dame, fretfully.
“Vy, it be the gemman vot writes,” said Dummie, putting his finger to
his nose,--“the gemman vot paid you so flashly!”
“What! the Scotch gemman?”
“The werry same!” returned Dummie.
The dame turned in her chair and refilled her pipe. It was evident from
her manner that Mr. Dunnaker's suggestion had made an impression on her.
But she recognized two doubts as to its feasibility: one, whether the
gentleman proposed would be adequate to the task; the other, whether he
would be willing to undertake it.
In the midst of her meditations on this matter, the dame was interrupted
by the entrance of certain claimants on her hospitality; and Dummie soon
after taking his leave, the suspense of Mrs. Lobkins's mind touching
the education of little Paul remained the whole of that day and night
utterly unrelieved.
CHAPTER III.
I own that I am envious of the pleasure you will have in finding yourself
more learned than other boys,--even those who are older than yourself.
What honour this will do you! What distinctions, what applauses will
follow wherever you go!
--LORD CHESTERFIELD: Letters to his Son.
Example, my boy,--example is worth a thousand precepts.
--MAXIMILIAN SOLEMN.
Tarpeia was crushed beneath the weight of ornaments. The language of the
vulgar is a sort of Tarpeia. We have therefore relieved it of as many
gems as we were able, and in the foregoing scene presented it to the
gaze of our readers simplex munditiis. Nevertheless, we could timidly
imagine some gentler beings of the softer sex rather displeased with the
tone of the dialogue we have given, did we not recollect how delighted
they are with the provincial barbarities of the sister kingdom, whenever
they meet them poured over the pages of some Scottish story-teller. As,
unhappily for mankind, broad Scotch is not yet the universal language of
Europe, we suppose our countrywomen will not be much more unacquainted
with the dialect of their own lower orders than with that which breathes
nasal melodies over the paradise of the North.
It was the next day, at the hour of twilight, when Mrs. Margery Lobkins,
after a satisfactory tete-a-tete with Mr. MacGrawler, had the happiness
of thinking that she had provided a tutor for little Paul. The critic
having recited to her a considerable portion of Propria qum Maribus, the
good lady had no longer a doubt of his capacities for teaching; and