CHAPTER XLI
THE JOCKEY'S TALE--THIEVES' LATIN--LIBERTIES WITH COIN--THE SMASHER INPRISON--OLD FULCHER--EVERY ONE HAS HIS GIFT--FASHION OF THE ENGLISH
'My grandfather was a shorter, and my father was a smasher; the one wasscragg'd, and the other lagg'd.'
I here interrupted the jockey by observing that his discourse was, forthe greater part, unintelligible to me.
'I do not understand much English,' said the Hungarian, who, havingreplenished and resumed his mighty pipe, was now smoking away; 'but, byIsten, I believe it is the gibberish which that great ignorant ValtherScott puts into the mouth of the folks he calls gypsies.'
'Something like it, I confess,' said I, 'though this sounds more genuinethan his dialect, which he picked up out of the canting vocabulary at theend of the "English Rogue," {252} a book which, however despised, waswritten by a remarkable genius. What do you call the speech you wereusing?' said I, addressing myself to the jockey.
'Latin,' said the jockey, very coolly, 'that is, that dialect of it whichis used by the light-fingered gentry.'
'He is right,' said the Hungarian; 'it is what the Germans callRoth-Welsch: they call it so because there are a great many Latin wordsin it, introduced by the priests, who, at the time of the Reformation,being too lazy to work, and too stupid to preach, joined the bands ofthieves and robbers who prowled about the county. Italy, as you areaware, is called by the Germans Welschland, or the land of the Welschers;and I may add that Wallachia derives its name from a colony of Welscherswhich Trajan sent there. Welsch and Wallack being one and the same word,and tantamount to Latin.'
'I dare say you are right,' said I; 'but why was Italy termedWelschland?'
'I do not know,' said the Hungarian.
'Then I think I can tell you,' said I; 'it was called so because theoriginal inhabitants were a Cimbric tribe, who were called Gwyltiad, thatis, a race of wild people, living in coverts, who were of the same blood,and spoke the same language as the present inhabitants of Wales. Welshseems merely a modification of Gwyltiad. Pray continue your history,'said I to the jockey, 'only please to do so in a language which we canunderstand, and first of all interpret the sentence with which you beganit.'
'I told you that my grandfather was a shorter,' said the jockey, 'bywhich is meant a gentleman who shortens or reduces the current coin ofthese realms, for which practice he was scragged, that is, hung by thescrag of the neck. And when I said that my father was a smasher, I meantone who passes forged notes, thereby doing his best to smash the Bank ofEngland; by being lagg'd, I meant he was laid fast, that is, had a chainput round his leg and then transported.'
'Your explanations are perfectly satisfactory,' said I; 'the three firstwords are metaphorical, and the fourth, lagg'd, is the old genuine Norseterm, lagda, which signifies laid, whether in durance, or in bed hasnothing to do with the matter. What you have told me confirms me in anopinion which I have long entertained, that thieves' Latin is a strangemysterious speech, formed of metaphorical terms, and words derived fromvarious ancient languages. Pray tell me, now, how the gentleman, yourgrandfather, contrived to shorten the coin of these realms?'
'You shall hear,' said the jockey; 'but I have one thing to beg of you,which is, that when I have once begun my history you will not interruptme with questions; I don't like them, they stops one, and puts one out ofone's tale, and are not wanted. For anything which I think can't beunderstood, I should myself explain, without being asked. My grandfatherreduced or shortened the coin of this country by three processes. Byaquafortis, by clipping, and by filing. Filing and clipping he employedin reducing all kinds of coin, whether gold or silver; but aquafortis heused merely in reducing gold coin, whether guineas, jacobuses, orPortugal pieces, otherwise called moidores, which were at one time ascurrent as guineas. By laying a guinea in aquafortis for twelve hours hecould filch from it to the value of ninepence, and by letting it remainthere for twenty-four, to the value of eighteenpence, the aquafortiseating the gold away, and leaving it like a sediment in the vessel. Hewas generally satisfied with taking the value of ninepence from a guinea,of eighteenpence from a jacobus or moidore, or half-a-crown from a broadSpanish piece, whether he reduced them by aquafortis, filing, orclipping. From a five-shilling piece, which is called a bull in Latin,because it is round like a bull's head, he would file or clip to thevalue of five-pence, and from lesser coin in proportion. He wasconnected with a numerous gang, or set, of people, who had given up theirminds and talents entirely to shortening.'
Here I interrupted the jockey. 'How singular,' said I, 'is the fall anddebasement of words; you talk of a gang, or set of shorters; you are,perhaps, not aware that gang and set were, a thousand years ago, onlyconnected with the great and Divine: they are ancient Norse words, whichmay be found in the heroic poems of the north, and in the Edda, acollection of mythologic and heroic songs. In these poems we read thatsuch and such a king invaded Norway with a gang of heroes, or so andso--for example, Erik Bloodaxe--was admitted to the set of gods; but atpresent gang and set are merely applied to the vilest of the vile, andthe lowest of the low. We say a gang of thieves and shorters, or a setof authors. How touching is this debasement of words in the course oftime! It puts me in mind of the decay of old houses and names. I haveknown a Mortimer who was a hedger and ditcher, a Berners who was born ina workhouse, and a descendant of the De Burghs, who bore the falcon,mending old kettles, and making horse and pony shoes in a dingle.'
'Odd enough,' said the jockey; 'but you were saying you knew oneBerners--man or woman? I would ask.'
'A woman,' said I.
'What might her Christian name be?' said the jockey.
'It is not to be mentioned lightly,' said I, with a sigh.
'I shouldn't wonder if it were Isopel,' said the jockey, with an archglance of his one brilliant eye.
'It was Isopel,' said I. 'Did you know Isopel Berners?'
'Ay, and have reason to know her,' said the jockey, putting his hand intohis left waistcoat-pocket, as if to feel for something, 'for she gave mewhat I believe few men could do--a most confounded wapping. But now, Mr.Romany Rye, I have again to tell you that I don't like to be interruptedwhen I'm speaking, and to add that if you break in upon me a third time,you and I shall quarrel.'
'Pray proceed with your story,' said I; 'I will not interrupt you again.'
'Good!' said the jockey. 'Where was I? Oh, with a set of people who hadgiven up their minds to shortening! Reducing the coin, though rather alucrative, was a very dangerous, trade. Coin filed felt rough to thetouch; coin clipped could be easily detected by the eye; and as for coinreduced by aquafortis, it was generally so discoloured that, unless agreat deal of pains was used to polish it, people were apt to stare at itin a strange manner, and to say, "What have they been doing to this heregold?" My grandfather, as I said before, was connected with a gang ofshorters, and sometimes shortened money, and at other times passed offwhat had been shortened by other gentry.
'Passing off what had been shortened by others was his ruin; for once, intrying to pass off a broad piece which had been laid in aquafortis forfour-and-twenty hours, and was very black, not having been properlyrectified, he was stopped and searched, and other reduced coins beingfound about him and in his lodgings, he was committed to prison, tried,and executed. He was offered his life, provided he would betray hiscomrades, but he told the big-wigs, who wanted him to do so, that hewould see them farther first, and died at Tyburn, amidst the cheers ofthe populace, leaving my grandmother and father, to whom he had alwaysbeen a kind husband and parent--for, setting aside the crime for which hesuffered, he was a moral man--leaving them, I say, to bewail hisirreparable loss.
''Tis said that misfortune never comes alone; this is, however, notalways the case. Shortly after my grandfather's misfortune, as mygrandmother and her son were living in great misery in Spitalfields, heronly relation--a brother from whom she had been estranged some years, onaccount of her marriage with my grandfather, who had been in
an inferiorstation to herself--died, leaving all his property to her and the child.This property consisted of a farm of about a hundred acres, with itsstock and some money besides. My grandmother, who knew something ofbusiness, instantly went into the country, where she farmed the propertyfor her own benefit and that of her son, to whom she gave an educationsuitable to a person in his condition, till he was old enough to managethe farm himself. Shortly after the young man came of age, mygrandmother died, and my father, in about a year, married the daughter ofa farmer, from whom he expected some little fortune, but who very muchdeceived him, becoming a bankrupt almost immediately after the marriageof his daughter, and himself and family going to the workhouse.
'My mother, however, made my father an excellent wife; and if my fatherin the long run did not do well, it was no fault of hers. My father wasnot a bad man by nature, he was of an easy, generous temper--the mostunfortunate temper, by-the-by, for success in this life that any personcan be possessed of, as those who have it are almost sure to be madedupes of by the designing. But, though easy and generous, he wasanything but a fool; he had a quick and witty tongue of his own when hechose to exert it, and woe be to those who insulted him openly, for therewas not a better boxer in the whole country round. My parents weremarried several years before I came into the world, who was their firstand only child. I may be called an unfortunate creature; I was born withthis beam or scale on my left eye, which does not allow me to see withit; and though I can see tolerably sharply with the other, indeed morethan most people can with both of theirs, it is a great misfortune not tohave two eyes like other people. Moreover, setting aside the affair ofmy eye, I had a very ugly countenance; my mouth being slightly wrungaside, and my complexion rather swarthy. In fact, I looked so queer thatthe gossips and neighbours, when they first saw me, swore I was achangeling--perhaps it would have been well if I had never been born; formy poor father, who had been particularly anxious to have a son, nosooner saw me than he turned away, went to the neighbouring town, and didnot return for two days. I am by no means certain that I was not thecause of his ruin, for till I came into the world he was fond of hishome, and attended much to business, but afterwards he went frequentlyinto company, and did not seem to care much about his affairs: he was,however, a kind man, and when his wife gave him advice never struck her,nor do I ever remember that he kicked me when I came in his way, or somuch as cursed my ugly face, though it was easy to see that he didn'tover like me. When I was six years old I was sent to the village-school,where I was soon booked for a dunce, because the master found itimpossible to teach me either to read or write. Before I had been atschool two years, however, I had beaten boys four years older thanmyself, and could fling a stone with my left hand (for if I am right-eyedI am left-handed) higher and farther than any one in the parish.Moreover, no boy could equal me at riding, and no people ride so well ordesperately as boys. I could ride a donkey--a thing far more difficultto ride than a horse--at full gallop over hedges and ditches, seated orrather floating upon his hinder part,--so though anything but clever, asthis here Romany Rye would say, I was yet able to do things which fewother people could do. By the time I was ten my father's affairs had gotinto a very desperate condition, for he had taken to gambling andhorse-racing, and, being unsuccessful, had sold his stock, mortgaged hisestate, and incurred very serious debts. The upshot was, that within alittle time all he had was seized, himself imprisoned, and my mother andmyself put into a cottage belonging to the parish, which, being very coldand damp, was the cause of her catching a fever, which speedily carriedher off. I was then bound apprentice to a farmer, in whose service Iunderwent much coarse treatment, cold and hunger.
'After lying in prison near two years, my father was liberated by an Actfor the benefit of insolvent debtors; he was then lost sight of for sometime, at last, however, he made his appearance in the neighbourhooddressed like a gentleman, and seemingly possessed of plenty of money. Hecame to see me, took me into a field, and asked me how I was getting on.I told him I was dreadfully used, and begged him to take me away withhim; he refused, and told me to be satisfied with my condition, for thathe could do nothing for me. I had a great love for my father, andlikewise a great admiration for him on account of his character as aboxer, the only character which boys in general regard, so I wished muchto be with him, independently of the dog's life I was leading where Iwas; I therefore said if he would not take me with him, I would followhim; he replied that I must do no such thing, for that if I did, it wouldbe my ruin. I asked him what he meant, but he made no reply, only sayingthat he would go and speak to the farmer. Then taking me with him hewent to the farmer and in a very civil manner said that he understood Ihad not been very kindly treated by him, but he hoped that in future Ishould be used better. The farmer answered in a surly tone, that I hadbeen only too well treated, for that I was a worthless young scoundrel;high words ensued, and the farmer, forgetting the kind of man he had todeal with, checked him with my grandsire's misfortune, and said hedeserved to be hanged like his father. In a moment my father knocked himdown, and on his getting up gave him a terrible beating, then taking meby the hand he hastened away; as we were going down a lane he said wewere now both done for: "I don't care a straw for that, father," said I,"provided I be with you." My father took me to the neighbouring town,and going into the yard of a small inn, he ordered out a pony and lightcart which belonged to him, then paying his bill, he told me to mountupon the seat, and getting up drove away like lightning; we drove for atleast six hours without stopping, till we came to a cottage by the sideof a heath; we put the pony and cart into a shed and went into thecottage, my father unlocking the door with a key which he took out of hispocket; there was nobody in the cottage when we arrived, but shortlyafter there came a man and woman, and then some more people, and by teno'clock at night there were a dozen of us in the cottage. The peoplewere companions of my father. My father began talking to them in Latin,but I did not understand much of the discourse, though I believe it wasabout myself, as their eyes were frequently turned to me. Someobjections appeared to be made to what he said; however, all at lastseemed to be settled, and we all sat down to some food. After that allthe people got up and went away, with the exception of the woman, whoremained with my father and me. The next day my father also departed,leaving me with the woman, telling me before he went that she would teachme some things which it behoved me to know. I remained with her in thecottage upwards of a week; several of those who had been there coming andgoing. The woman, after making me take an oath to be faithful, told methat the people whom I had seen were a gang who got their livelihood bypassing forged notes, and that my father was a principal man amongstthem, adding, that I must do my best to assist them. I was a poorignorant child at that time, and I made no objection, thinking thatwhatever my father did must be right; the woman then gave me someinstructions in the smasher's dialect of the Latin language. I madegreat progress, because for the first time in my life, I paid greatattention to my lessons. At last my father returned, and, after someconversation with the woman, took me away in his cart. I shall be veryshort about what happened to my father and myself during two years. Myfather did his best to smash the Bank of England by passing forged notes,and I did my best to assist him. We attended races and fairs in allkinds of disguises; my father was a first-rate hand at a disguise, andcould appear of all ages from twenty to fourscore; he was, however,grabbed at last. He had said, as I have told you, that he should be myruin, but I was the cause of his, and all owing to the misfortune of thishere eye of mine. We came to this very place of Horncastle, where myfather purchased two horses of a young man, paying for them with threeforged notes, purporting to be Bank of Englanders of fifty pounds each,and got the young man to change another of the like amount; he at thattime appeared as a respectable dealer, and I as his son, as I really was.
'As soon as we had got the horses, we conveyed them to one of the placesof call belonging to our gang, of which there were several. The
re theywere delivered into the hands of one of our companions, who speedily soldthem in a distant part of the country. The sum which they fetched--forthe gang kept very regular accounts--formed an important item on the nextday of sharing, of which there were twelve in the year. The young man,whom my father had paid for the horses with his smashing notes, was soonin trouble about them, and ran some risk, as I have heard, of beingexecuted; but he bore a good character, told a plain story, and, aboveall, had friends, and was admitted to bail; to one of his friends hedescribed my father and myself. This person happened to be at an inn inYorkshire, where my father, disguised as a Quaker, attempted to pass aforged note. The note was shown to this individual, who pronounced it aforgery, it being exactly similar to those for which the young man hadbeen in trouble, and which he had seen. My father, however, beingsupposed a respectable man, because he was dressed as a Quaker--the veryreason, by-the-by, why anybody who knew aught of the Quakers would havesuspected him to be a rogue--would have been let go, had I not made myappearance, dressed as his footboy. The friend of the young man lookedat my eye, and seized hold of my father, who made a desperate resistance,I assisting him, as in duty bound. Being, however, overpowered bynumbers, he bade me by a look, and a word or two in Latin, to make myselfscarce. Though my heart was fit to break, I obeyed my father, who wasspeedily committed. I followed him to the county town in which he waslodged, where shortly after I saw him tried, convicted, and condemned. Ithen, having made friends with the jailor's wife, visited him in hiscell, where I found him very much cast down. He said, that my mother hadappeared to him in a dream, and talked to him about a resurrection andChrist Jesus; there was a Bible before him, and he told me the chaplainhad just been praying with him. He reproached himself much, saying, hewas afraid he had been my ruin, by teaching me bad habits. I told himnot to say any such thing, for that I had been the cause of his, owing tothe misfortune of my eye. He begged me to give over all unlawfulpursuits, saying, that if persisted in, they were sure of bringing aperson to destruction. I advised him to try and make his escape;proposing, that when the turnkey came to let me out, he should knock himdown, and fight his way out, offering to assist him; showing him a smallsaw, with which one of our companions, who was in the neighbourhood, hadprovided me, and with which he could have cut through his fetters in fiveminutes; but he told me he had no wish to escape, and was quite willingto die. I was rather hard at that time; I am not very soft now; and Ifelt rather ashamed of my father's want of what I called spirit. He wasnot executed after all; for the chaplain, who was connected with a greatfamily, stood his friend, and got his sentence commuted, as they call it,to transportation; and in order to make the matter easy, he induced myfather to make some valuable disclosures with respect to the smasher'ssystem. I confess that I would have been hanged before I would have doneso, after having reaped the profit of it; that is, I think so now, seatedcomfortably in my inn, with my bottle of champagne before me. He,however, did not show himself carrion; he would not betray hiscompanions, who had behaved very handsomely to him, having given the sonof a lord, a great barrister, not a hundred-pound forged bill, but ahundred hard guineas, to plead his cause, and another ten, to induce him,after pleading, to put his hand to his breast, and say, that, upon hishonour, he believed the prisoner at the bar to be an honest and injuredman. No: I am glad to be able to say, that my father did not showhimself exactly carrion, though I could almost have wished he had lethimself--. However, I am here with my bottle of champagne and the RomanyRye, and he was in his cell, with bread and water and the prisonchaplain. He took an affectionate leave of me before he was sent away,giving me three out of five guineas, all the money he had left. He was akind man, but not exactly fitted to fill my grandfather's shoes. Iafterwards learned that he died of fever, as he was being carried acrossthe sea.
'During the 'sizes, I had made acquaintance with old Fulcher. I was inthe town on my father's account, and he was there on his son's, who,having committed a small larceny, was in trouble. Young Fulcher,however, unlike my father, got off, though he did not give the son of alord a hundred guineas to speak for him, and ten more to pledge hissacred honour for his honesty, but gave Counsellor P--- one-and-twentyshillings to defend him, who so frightened the principal evidence, aplain honest farming man, that he flatly contradicted what he had firstsaid, and at last acknowledged himself to be all the rogues in the world,and, amongst other things, a perjured villain. Old Fulcher, before heleft the town with his son--and here it will be well to say that he andhis son left it in a kind of triumph, the base drummer of a militiaregiment, to whom they had given half-a-crown, beating his drum beforethem--old Fulcher, I say, asked me to go and visit him, telling me where,at such a time, I might find him and his caravan and family; offering, ifI thought fit, to teach me basket-making: so, after my father had beensent off, I went and found up old Fulcher, and became his apprentice inthe basket-making line. I stayed with him till the time of his death,which happened in about three months, travelling about with him and hisfamily, and living in green lanes, where we saw gypsies and trampers, andall kinds of strange characters. Old Fulcher, besides being anindustrious basket-maker, was an out and out thief, as was also his son,and, indeed, every member of his family. They used to make basketsduring the day, and thieve during a great part of the night. I had notbeen with them twelve hours, before old Fulcher told me that I mustthieve as well as the rest. I demurred at first, for I remembered thefate of my father, and what he had told me about leaving off bad courses,but soon allowed myself to be over-persuaded; more especially as thefirst robbery I was asked to do was a fruit robbery. I was to go withyoung Fulcher, and steal some fine Morell cherries, which grew against awall in a gentleman's garden; so young Fulcher and I went and stole thecherries, one half of which we ate, and gave the rest to the old man, whosold them to a fruiterer ten miles off from the place where we had stolenthem. The next night old Fulcher took me out with himself. He was agreat thief, though in a small way. He used to say, that they werefools, who did not always manage to keep the rope below their shoulders,by which he meant, that it was not advisable to commit a robbery or doanything which could bring you to the gallows. He was all for pettylarceny, and knew where to put his hand upon any little thing in England,which it was possible to steal. I submit it to the better judgment ofthe Romany Rye, who I see is a great hand for words and names, whether heought not to have been called old Filcher, instead of Fulcher. I shan'tgive a regular account of the larcenies which he committed during theshort time I knew him, either alone by himself, or with me and his son.I shall merely relate the last.
'A melancholy gentleman, who lived a very solitary life, had a large carpin a shady pond in a meadow close to his house: he was exceedingly fondof it, and used to feed it with his own hand, the creature being so tamethat it would put its snout out of the water to be fed when it waswhistled to; feeding and looking at his carp were the only pleasures thepoor melancholy gentleman possessed. Old Fulcher--being in theneighbourhood, and having an order from a fishmonger for a large fish,which was wanted at a great city dinner, at which His Majesty was to bepresent--swore he would steal the carp, and asked me to go with him. Ihad heard of the gentleman's fondness for his creature, and begged him tolet it be, advising him to go and steal some other fish; but old Fulcherswore, and said he would have the carp, although its master should hanghimself; I told him he might go by himself, but he took his son and stolethe carp, which weighed seventeen pounds. Old Fulcher got thirtyshillings for the carp, which I afterwards heard was much admired andrelished by His Majesty. The master, however, of the carp, on losing hisfavourite, became more melancholy than ever, and in a little time hangedhimself. "What's sport for one, is death to another," I once heard atthe village-school read out of a copy-book.
'This was the last larceny old Fulcher ever committed. He could keep hisneck always out of the noose, but he could not always keep his leg out ofthe trap. A few nights after, having removed to a distance, he
went toan osier car in order to steal some osiers for his basket-making, for henever bought any. I followed a little way behind. Old Fulcher hadfrequently stolen osiers out of the car, whilst in the neighbourhood, butduring his absence the property, of which the car was part, had been letto a young gentleman, a great hand for preserving game. Old Fulcher hadnot got far into the car before he put his foot into a man-trap. Hearingold Fulcher shriek, I ran up, and found him in a dreadful condition.Putting a large stick which I carried into the jaws of the trap, Icontrived to prize them open, and get old Fulcher's leg out, but the legwas broken. So I ran to the caravan, and told young Fulcher of what hadhappened, and he and I went and helped his father home. A doctor wassent for, who said that it was necessary to take the leg off, but oldFulcher, being very much afraid of pain, said it should not be taken off,and the doctor went away, but after some days, old Fulcher becomingworse, ordered the doctor to be sent for, who came and took off his leg,but it was then too late, mortification had come on, and in a little timeold Fulcher died.
'Thus perished old Fulcher; he was succeeded in his business by his son,young Fulcher, who, immediately after the death of his father, was calledold Fulcher, it being our English custom to call everybody old, as soonas their fathers are buried; young Fulcher--I mean he who had been calledyoung, but was now old Fulcher--wanted me to go out and commit larcenieswith him; but I told him that I would have nothing more to do withthieving, having seen the ill effects of it, and that I should leave themin the morning. Old Fulcher begged me to think better of it, and hismother joined with him. They offered, if I would stay, to give me MaryFulcher as a mort, {264} till she and I were old enough to be regularlymarried, she being the daughter of the one, and the sister of the other.I liked the girl very well, for she had been always civil to me, and hada fair complexion and nice red hair, both of which I like, being a bit ofa black myself; but I refused, being determined to see something more ofthe world than I could hope to do with the Fulchers, and, moreover, tolive honestly, which I could never do along with them. So the nextmorning I left them: I was, as I said before, quite determined upon anhonest livelihood, and I soon found one. He is a great fool who is everdishonest in England. Any person who has any natural gift, and everybodyhas some natural gift, is sure of finding encouragement in this noblecountry of ours, provided he will but exhibit it. I had not walked morethan three miles before I came to a wonderfully high church steeple,which stood close by the road; I looked at the steeple, and going to aheap of smooth pebbles which lay by the roadside, I took up some, andthen went into the churchyard, and placing myself just below the tower,my right foot resting on a ledge, about two foot from the ground, I, withmy left hand--being a left-handed person do you see--flung or chucked upa stone, which lighting on the top of the steeple, which was at least ahundred and fifty feet high, did there remain. After repeating this feattwo or three times, I "hulled" up a stone, which went clean over thetower, and then one, my right foot still on the ledge, which rising atleast five yards above the steeple, did fall down just at my feet.Without knowing it, I was showing off my gift to others besides myself,doing what, perhaps, not five men in England could do. Two men, who werepassing by, stopped and looked at my proceedings, and when I had doneflinging came into the churchyard, and, after paying me a compliment onwhat they had seen me do, proposed that I should join company with them;I asked them who they were, and they told me. The one was Hopping Ned,and the other Biting Giles. Both had their gifts, by which they gottheir livelihood; Ned could hop a hundred yards with any man in England,and Giles could lift up with his teeth any dresser or kitchen-table inthe country, and, standing erect, hold it dangling in his jaws. There'smany a big oak table and dresser, in certain districts of England, whichbear the marks of Giles's teeth; and I make no doubt that, a hundred ortwo years hence, there'll be strange stories about those marks, and thatpeople will point them out as a proof that there were giants in bygonetime, and that many a dentist will moralize on the decays which humanteeth have undergone.
'They wanted me to go about with them, and exhibit my gift occasionally,as they did theirs, promising that the money that was got by theexhibitions should be honestly divided. I consented, and we set offtogether, and that evening coming to a village, and putting up at theale-house, all the grand folks of the village being there smoking theirpipes, we contrived to introduce the subject of hopping--the upshot beingthat Ned hopped against the schoolmaster for a pound, and beat himhollow; shortly after, Giles, for a wager, took up the kitchen table inhis jaws, though he had to pay a shilling to the landlady for the markshe left, whose grandchildren will perhaps get money by exhibiting them.As for myself, I did nothing that day, but the next, on which mycompanions did nothing, I showed off at hulling stones against a cripple,the crack man for stone throwing, of a small town, a few miles fartheron. Bets were made to the tune of some pounds; I contrived to beat thecripple, and just contrived; for to do him justice I must acknowledge hewas a first-rate hand at stones, though he had a game hip, and wentsideways; his head, when he walked--if his movements could be calledwalking--not being above three feet above the ground. So we travelled, Iand my companions, showing off our gifts, Giles and I occasionally for agathering, but Ned never hopping unless against somebody for a wager. Welived honestly and comfortably, making no little money by our naturalendowments, and were known over a great part of England as "Hopping Ned,""Biting Giles," and "Hull over the head Jack," which was my name, itbeing the blackguard fashion of the English, do you see, to--'
Here I interrupted the jockey, 'You may call it a blackguard fashion,'said I, 'and I dare say it is, or it would scarcely be English; but it isan immensely ancient one, and is handed down to us from our northernancestry, especially the Danes, who were in the habit of giving peoplesurnames, or rather nicknames, from some quality of body or mind, butgenerally from some disadvantageous peculiarity of feature; for there isno denying that the English, Norse, or whatever we may please to callthem, are an envious depreciatory set of people, who not only give theirpoor comrades contemptuous surnames, but their great people also. Theydidn't call you the matchless Hurler, because, by doing so, they wouldhave paid you a compliment, but Hull over the head Jack, as much as tosay that after all you were a scrub: so, in ancient time, instead ofcalling Regner the great conqueror, the Nation Tamer, they surnamed himLodbrog, which signifies Rough or Hairy Breeks--lod or loddin signifyingrough or hairy; and instead of complimenting Halgerdr, the wife of Gunnarof Hlitharend, the great champion of Iceland, upon her majestic presence,by calling her Halgerdr, the stately or tall; what must they do but termher Ha-brokr, or High Breeks, it being the fashion in old times forNorthern ladies to wear breeks, or breeches, which English ladies of thepresent day never think of doing; and just, as of old, they calledHalgerdr Long-breeks, so this very day a fellow of Horncastle called, inmy hearing, our noble-looking Hungarian friend here, Long-stockings. Oh,I could give you a hundred instances, both ancient and modern, of thisunseemly propensity of our illustrious race, though I will only troubleyou with a few more ancient ones; they not only nicknamed Regner, but hissons also, who were all kings, and distinguished men: one, whose name wasBiorn, they nicknamed Ironsides; another Sigurd, Snake in the Eye;another, White Sark, or White Shirt--I wonder they did not call him DirtyShirt, and Ivarr, another, who was King of Northumberland, they calledBeinlausi, or the Legless, because he was spindle-shanked, had no sap inhis bones, and consequently no children. He was a great king, it istrue, and very wise, nevertheless his blackguard countrymen, alwaysaverse, as their descendants are, to give credit to anybody, for anyvaluable quality or possession, must needs lay hold, do you see--'
But before I could say any more, the jockey, having laid down his pipe,rose, and having taken off his coat, advanced towards me.
The Romany Rye Page 46
