The Romany Rye

by George Borrow

  CHAPTER XXIV

  AN INN OF TIMES GONE BY--A FIRST-RATE PUBLICAN--HAY ANDCORN--OLD-FASHIONED OSTLER--HIGHWAYMEN--MOUNTED POLICE--GROOMING

  The inn of which I had become an inhabitant was a place of infinite lifeand bustle. Travellers of all descriptions, from all the cardinalpoints, were continually stopping at it: and to attend to their wants,and minister to their convenience, an army of servants, of onedescription or other, was kept--waiters, chambermaids, grooms,postillions, shoe-blacks, cooks, scullions, and what not, for there was abarber and hair-dresser, who had been at Paris, and talked French with acockney accent, the French sounding all the better, as no accent is somelodious as the cockney. Jacks creaked in the kitchens turning roundspits, on which large joints of meat piped and smoked before the greatbig fires. There was running up and down stairs, and along galleries,slamming of doors, cries of 'Coming, sir,' and 'Please to step this way,ma'am,' during eighteen hours of the four-and-twenty. Truly a very greatplace for life and bustle was this inn. And often in after life, whenlonely and melancholy, I have called up the time I spent there, and neverfailed to become cheerful from the recollection.

  I found the master of the house a very kind and civil person. Beforebeing an innkeeper he had been in some other line of business, but, onthe death of the former proprietor of the inn had married his widow, whowas still alive, but being somewhat infirm, lived in a retired part ofthe house. I have said that he was kind and civil; he was, however, notone of those people who suffer themselves to be made fools of by anybody;he knew his customers, and had a calm clear eye, which would look througha man without seeming to do so. The accommodation of his house was ofthe very best description; his wines were good, his viands equally so,and his charges not immoderate; though he very properly took care ofhimself. He was no vulgar innkeeper, had a host of friends, and deservedthem all. During the time I lived with him, he was presented, by a largeassemblage of his friends and customers, with a dinner at his own house,which was very costly, and at which the best of wines were sported, andafter the dinner with a piece of plate, estimated at fifty guineas. Hereceived the plate, made a neat speech of thanks, and when the bill wascalled for, made another neat speech, in which he refused to receive onefarthing for the entertainment, ordering in at the same time two dozenmore of the best champagne, and sitting down amidst uproarious applause,and cries of 'You shall be no loser by it!' Nothing very wonderful insuch conduct, some people will say; I don't say there is, nor have I anyintention to endeavour to persuade the reader that the landlord was aCarlo Borromeo; he merely gave a quid pro quo; but it is not every personwho will give you a quid pro quo. Had he been a vulgar publican, hewould have sent in a swinging bill after receiving the plate; 'but thenno vulgar publican would have been presented with plate;' perhaps not,but many a vulgar public character has been presented with plate, whoseadmirers never received a quid pro quo, except in the shape of a swingingbill.

  I found my duties of distributing hay and corn, and keeping an accountthereof, anything but disagreeable, particularly after I had acquired thegood-will of the old ostler, who at first looked upon me with rather anevil eye, considering me somewhat in the light of one who had usurped anoffice which belonged to himself by the right of succession; but therewas little gall in the old fellow, and, by speaking kindly to him, nevergiving myself any airs of assumption; but above all, by frequentlyreading the newspapers to him--for, though passionately fond of news andpolitics, he was unable to read--I soon succeeded in placing myself onexcellent terms with him. A regular character was that old ostler; hewas a Yorkshireman by birth, but had seen a great deal of life in thevicinity of London, to which, on the death of his parents, who were verypoor people, he went at a very early age. Amongst other places where hehad served as ostler was a small inn at Hounslow, much frequented byhighwaymen, whose exploits he was fond of narrating, especially those ofJerry Abershaw, {146} who, he said, was a capital rider; and on hearinghis accounts of that worthy I half regretted that the old fellow had notbeen in London, and I had not formed his acquaintance about the time Iwas thinking of writing the life of the said Abershaw, not doubting thatwith his assistance I could have produced a book at least as remarkableas the life and adventures of that entirely imaginary personage, JosephSell; perhaps, however, I was mistaken; and whenever Abershaw's lifeshall appear before the public--and my publisher credibly informs me thatit has not yet appeared--I beg and entreat the public to state which itlikes best, the life of Abershaw, or that of Sell, for which latter workI am informed that during the last few months there has been a prodigiousdemand. {147a} My old friend, however, after talking of Abershaw, wouldfrequently add, that, good rider as Abershaw certainly was, he wasdecidedly inferior to Richard Ferguson, {147b} generally called GallopingDick, who was a pal of Abershaw's, and had enjoyed a career as long, andnearly as remarkable, as his own. I learned from him that both werecapital customers at the Hounslow inn, and that he had frequently drankwith them in the corn-room. He said that no man could desire more jollyor entertaining companions over a glass of 'summat'; but that upon theroad it was anything but desirable to meet them; there they wereterrible, cursing and swearing, and thrusting the muzzles of theirpistols into people's mouths; and at this part of his locution the oldman winked, and said, in a somewhat lower voice, that upon the whole theywere right in doing so, and that when a person had once made up his mindto become a highwayman, his best policy was to go the whole hog, fearingnothing, but making everybody afraid of him; that people never thought ofresisting a savage-faced, foul-mouthed highwayman, and if he were taken,were afraid to bear witness against him, lest he should get off and cuttheir throats some time or other upon the roads; whereas people wouldresist being robbed by a sneaking, pale-visaged rascal, and would swearbodily against him on the first opportunity; adding, that Abershaw andFerguson, two most awful fellows, had enjoyed a long career, whereas twodisbanded officers of the army, who wished to rob a coach like gentlemen,had begged the passengers' pardon, and talked of hard necessity, had beenset upon by the passengers themselves, amongst whom were three women,pulled from their horses, conducted to Maidstone, and hanged with aslittle pity as such contemptible fellows deserved. 'There is nothinglike going the whole hog,' he repeated, 'and if ever I had been ahighwayman, I would have done so; I should have thought myself all themore safe; and, moreover, shouldn't have despised myself. To curryfavour with those you are robbing, sometimes at the expense of your owncomrades, as I have known fellows do, why it is the greatest--'

  'So it is,' interposed my friend the postillion, who chanced to bepresent at a considerable part of the old ostler's discourse; 'it is, asyou say, the greatest of humbug, and merely, after all, gets a fellowinto trouble; but no regular bred highwayman would do it. I say, George,catch the Pope of Rome trying to curry favour with anybody he robs; catchold Mumbo Jumbo currying favour with the Archbishop of Canterbury and theDean and Chapter, should he meet them in a stage-coach; it would be withhim, Bricconi Abbasso, as he knocked their teeth out with the butt of histrombone, and the old regular-built ruffian would be all the safer forit, as Bill would say, as ten to one the Archbishop and Chapter, aftersuch a spice of his quality, would be afraid to swear against him, and tohang him, even if he were in their power, though that would be the properway; for, if it is the greatest of all humbug for a highwayman to curryfavour with those he robs, the next greatest is to try to curry favourwith a highwayman when you have got him, by letting him off.'

  Finding the old man so well acquainted with the history of highwaymen,and taking considerable interest in the subject, having myself edited abook {148} containing the lives of many remarkable people who had figuredon the highway, I forthwith asked him how it was that the trade ofhighwayman had become extinct in England, as at present we never heard ofanyone following it. Whereupon he told me that many causes hadcontributed to bring about that result; the principal of which were thefollowing: the refusal to license houses which were known to affordshelter to highwaym
en, which, amongst many others, had caused the inn atHounslow to be closed; the inclosure of many a wild heath in the country,on which they were in the habit of lurking, and particularly theestablishing in the neighbourhood of London of a well-armed mountedpatrol, who rode the highwaymen down, and delivered them up to justice,which hanged them without ceremony.

  'And that would be the way to deal with Mumbo Jumbo and his gang,' saidthe postillion, 'should they show their visages in these realms; and Ihear by the newspapers that they are becoming every day more desperate.Take away the license from their public-houses, cut down the rookeriesand shadowy old avenues in which they are fond of lying in wait, in orderto sally out upon people as they pass in the roads; but, above all,establish a good mounted police to ride after the ruffians and drag themby the scruff of the neck to the next clink, {149} where they might lietill they could be properly dealt with by law; instead of which, theGovernment are repealing the wise old laws enacted against suchcharacters, giving fresh licenses every day to their public-houses, andsaying that it would be a pity to cut down their rookeries and thickets,because they look so very picturesque; and, in fact, giving them all kindof encouragement; why, if such behaviour is not enough to drive an honestman mad, I know not what is. It is of no use talking, I only wish thepower were in my hands, and if I did not make short work of them, might Ibe a mere jackass postillion all the remainder of my life.'

  Besides acquiring from the ancient ostler a great deal of curiousinformation respecting the ways and habits of the heroes of the road,with whom he had come in contact in the early portion of his life, Ipicked up from him many excellent hints relating to the art of groominghorses. Whilst at the inn, I frequently groomed the stage andpost-horses, and those driven up by travellers in their gigs: I was notcompelled, nor indeed expected, to do so; but I took pleasure in theoccupation; and I remember at that period one of the principal objects ofmy ambition was to be a first-rate groom, and to make the skins of thecreatures I took in hand look sleek and glossy like those of moles. Ihave said that I derived valuable hints from the old man, and, indeed,became a very tolerable groom, but there was a certain finishing touchwhich I could never learn from him, though he possessed it himself, andwhich I could never attain to by my own endeavours; though my want ofsuccess certainly did not proceed from want of application, for I haverubbed the horses down, purring and buzzing all the time, after thegenuine ostler fashion, until the perspiration fell in heavy drops uponmy shoes, and when I had done my best, and asked the old fellow what hethought of my work, I could never extract from him more than a kind ofgrunt, which might be translated: 'Not so very bad, but I have seen ahorse groomed much better,' which leads me to suppose that a person, inorder to be a first-rate groom, must have something in him when he isborn which I had not, and, indeed, which many other people have not whopretend to be grooms. What does the reader think?