Paul Clifford — Complete
libations, and from beneath the curtain of his pallid eyelashes his
large and rotund orbs gleamed dazzlingly on the new comers. Such, O
reader! was the aspect and the occupation of the venerable man whom we
have long since taught thee to admire; such, alas for the mutabilities
of earth! was--A new chapter only can contain the name.
CHAPTER XXVII.
Caliban. Hast thou not dropped from heaven?
Tempest.
PETER MacGRAWLER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
CHAPTER XXVIII.
God bless our King and Parliament,
And send he may make such knaves repent!
Loyal Songs against the Rump Parliament.
Ho, treachery! my guards, my cimeter!
BYRON.
When the irreverent Mr. Pepper had warmed his hands sufficiently to be
able to transfer them from the fire, he lifted the right palm, and with
an indecent jocularity of spirits, accosted the ci-devant ornament of
“The Asinaeum” with a sounding slap on his back, or some such part of
his conformation.
“Ah, old boy!” said he, “is this the way you keep house for us? A fire
not large enough to roast a nit, and a supper too small to fatten him
beforehand! But how the deuce should you know how to provender for
gentlemen? You thought you were in Scotland, I'll be bound!”
“Perhaps he did when he looked upon you, Ned!” said Tomlinson, gravely;
“'t is but rarely out of Scotland that a man can see so big a rogue in
so little a compass!”
Mr. MacGrawler, into whose eyes the palmistry of Long Ned had brought
tears of sincere feeling, and who had hitherto been rubbing the
afflicted part, now grumbled forth,--
“You may say what you please, Mr. Pepper, but it is not often in my
country that men of genius are seen performing the part of cook to
robbers!”
“No!” quoth Tomlinson, “they are performing the more profitable part of
robbers to cooks, eh!”
“Damme, you're out,” cried Long Ned,--“for in that country there are
either no robbers, because there is nothing to rob; or the inhabitants
are all robbers, who have plundered one another, and made away with the
booty!”
“May the de'il catch thee!” said MacGrawler, stung to the quick,--for,
like all Scots, he was a patriot; much on the same principle as a woman
who has the worst children makes the best mother.
“The de'il,” said Ned, mimicking the “silver sound,” as Sir W. Scott
had been pleased facetiously to call the “mountain tongue” (the Scots
in general seem to think it is silver, they keep it so carefully)
“the de'il,--MacDeil, you mean, sure, the gentleman must have been a
Scotchman!”
The sage grinned in spite; but remembering the patience of Epictetus
when a slave, and mindful also of the strong arm of Long Ned, he curbed
his temper, and turned the beefsteaks with his fork.
“Well, Ned,” said Augustus, throwing himself into a chair, which he drew
to the fire, while he gently patted the huge limbs of Mr. Pepper, as if
to admonish him that they were not so transparent as glass, “let us look
at the fire; and, by the by, it is your turn to see to the horses.”
“Plague on it!” cried Ned; “it is always my turn, I think. Holla, you
Scot of the pot! can't you prove that I groomed the beasts last? I'll
give you a crown to do it.”
The wise MacGrawler pricked up his ears.
“A crown!” said he,--“a crown! Do you mean to insult me, Mr. Pepper?
But, to be sure, you did see to the horses last; and this worthy
gentleman, Mr. Tomlinson, must remember it too.”
“How!” cried Augustus; “you are mistaken, and I'll give you half a
guinea to prove it.”
MacGrawler opened his eyes larger and larger, even as you may see
a small circle in the water widen into enormity, if you disturb the
equanimity of the surface by the obtrusion of a foreign substance.
“Half a guinea!” said he; “nay, nay, you joke. I'm not mercenary. You
think I am! Pooh, pooh! you are mistaken; I'm a man who means weel,
a man of veracity, and will speak the truth in spite of all the
half-guineas in the world. But certainly, now I begin to think of it,
Mr. Tomlinson did see to the creatures last; and, Mr. Pepper, it is your
turn.”
“A very Daniel!” said Tomlinson, chuckling in his usual dry manner.
“Ned, don't you hear the horses neigh?”
“Oh, hang the horses!” said the volatile Pepper, forgetting everything
else, as he thrust his hands in his pockets, and felt the gains of the
night; “let us first look to our winnings!”
So saying, he marched towards the table, and emptied his pockets
thereon. Tomlinson, nothing loath, followed the example. Heavens! what
exclamations of delight issued from the scoundrels' lips, as, one by
one, they inspected their new acquisitions!
“Here's a magnificent creature!” cried Ned, handling that superb watch
studded with jewels which the poor earl had once before unavailingly
redeemed,--“a repeater, by Jove!”
“I hope not,” said the phlegmatic Augustus; “repeaters will not tell
well for your conversation, Ned! But, powers that be! look at this
ring,--a diamond of the first water!”
“Oh, the sparkler! it makes one's mouth water as much as itself.
'Sdeath, here's a precious box for a sneezer,--a picture inside, and
rubies outside! The old fellow had excellent taste; it would charm him
to see how pleased we are with his choice of jewelry!”
“Talking of jewelry,” said Tomlinson, “I had almost forgotten the
morocco case. Between you and me, I imagine we have a prize there; it
looks like a jewel casket!”
So saying, the robber opened that case which on many a gala day had lent
lustre to the polished person of Mauleverer. Oh, reader, the burst of
rapture that ensued! Imagine it! we cannot express it. Like the Grecian
painter, we drop a veil over emotions too deep for words.
“But here,” said Pepper, when they had almost exhausted their transports
at sight of the diamonds,--“here's a purse,--fifty guineas! And what's
this? Notes, by Jupiter! We must change them to-morrow before they are
stopped. Curse those fellows at the Bank! they are always imitating us,
we stop their money, and they don't lose a moment in stopping it too.
Three hundred pounds! Captain, what say you to our luck?” Clifford had
sat gloomily looking on during the operations of the robbers; he now,
assuming a correspondent cheerfulness of manner, made a suitable reply,
and after some general conversation the work of division took place.
“We are the best arithmeticians in the world,” said Augustus, as he
pouched his share; “addition, subtraction, division, reduction,--we have
them all as pat as 'The Tutor's Assistant;' and, what is better, we make
them all applicable to the Rule of Three.”
“You have left out multiplication!” said Clifford, smiling. “Ah! because
that works differently. The other rules apply to the specie-s of the
kingdom; but as for multiplication, we multiply, I fear, no species but
our own!”
“Fie, gentlemen!” said MacGrawler, austerely,--for there is a wonderful
decorum in your true Scotsmen. “Actions are trifles; nothing can be
cleaner than their words!”
“Oh, you thrust in your wisdom, do you?” said Ned. “I suppose you want
your part of the booty!”
“Part!” said the subtilizing Tomlinson. “He has nine times as many parts
as we have already. Is he not a critic, and has he not the parts of
speech at his fingers' end?”
“Nonsense!” said MacGrawler, instinctively holding up his hands, with
the fork dropping between the outstretched fingers of the right palm.
“Nonsense yourself,” cried Ned; “you have a share in what you never
took! A pretty fellow, truly! Mind your business, Mr. Scot, and fork
nothing but the beefsteaks!”
With this Ned turned to the stables, and soon disappeared among the
horses; but Clifford, eying the disappointed and eager face of the
culinary sage, took ten guineas from his own share, and pushed them
towards his quondam tutor.
“There!” said he, emphatically.
“Nay, nay,” grunted MacGrawler; “I don't want the money,--it is my way
to scorn such dross!” So saying, he pocketed the coins, and turned,
muttering to himself, to the renewal of his festive preparations.
Meanwhile a whispered conversation took place between Augustus and the
captain, and continued till Ned returned.
“And the night's viands smoked along the board!”
Souls of Don Raphael and Ambrose Lamela, what a charming thing it is to
be a rogue for a little time! How merry men are when they have cheated
their brethren! Your innocent milksops never made so jolly a supper
as did our heroes of the way. Clifford, perhaps acted a part, but
the hilarity of his comrades was unfeigned. It was a delicious
contrast,--the boisterous “ha, ha!” of Long Ned, and the secret, dry,
calculating chuckle of Augustus Tomlinson. It was Rabelais against
Voltaire. They united only in the objects of their jests, and foremost
of those objects (wisdom is ever the but of the frivolous!) was the
great Peter MacGrawler.
The graceless dogs were especially merry upon the subject of the sage's
former occupation.
“Come, Mac, you carve this ham,” said Ned; “you have had practice in
cutting up.”
The learned man whose name was thus disrespectfully abbreviated
proceeded to perform what he was bid. He was about to sit down for that
purpose, when Tomlinson slyly subtracted his chair,--the sage fell.
“No jests at MacGrawler,” said the malicious Augustus; “whatever be his
faults as a critic, you see that he is well grounded, and he gets at
once to the bottom of a subject. Mac, suppose your next work be entitled
a Tail of Woe!”
Men who have great minds are rarely flexible,--they do not take a jest
readily; so it was with MacGrawler. He rose in a violent rage; and had
the robbers been more penetrating than they condescended to be, they
might have noticed something dangerous in his eye. As it was, Clifford,
who had often before been the protector of his tutor, interposed in his
behalf, drew the sage a seat near to himself, and filled his plate for
him. It was interesting to see this deference from Power to Learning! It
was Alexander doing homage to Aristotle!
“There is only one thing I regret,” cried Ned, with his mouth full,
“about the old lord,--it was a thousand pities we did not make him
dance! I remember the day, Captain, when you would have insisted on
it. What a merry fellow you were once! Do you recollect, one bright
moonlight night, just like the present, for instance, when we were doing
duty near Staines, how you swore every person we stopped, above fifty
years old, should dance a minuet with you?”
“Ay!” added Augustus, “and the first was a bishop in a white wig. Faith,
how stiffly his lordship jigged it! And how gravely Lovett bowed to him,
with his hat off, when it was all over, and returned him his watch and
ten guineas,--it was worth the sacrifice!”
“And the next was an old maid of quality,” said Ned, “as lean as a
lawyer. Don't you remember how she curvetted?”
“To be sure,” said Tomlinson; “and you very wittily called her a
hop-pole!”
“How delighted she was with the captain's suavity! When he gave her back
her earrings and aigrette, she bade him with a tender sigh keep them for
her sake,--ha! ha!”
“And the third was a beau!” cried Augustus; “and Lovett surrendered his
right of partnership to me. Do you recollect how I danced his beauship
into the ditch? Ah! we were mad fellows then; but we get sated--blases,
as the French say--as we grow older!”
“We look only to the main chance now,” said Ned. “Avarice supersedes
enterprise,” added the sententious Augustus.
“And our captain takes to wine with an h after the w!” continued the