Paul Clifford

by Edward Bulwer-Lytton

  Paul and his companion silently, and each with very different motives from the other, followed them. They were now at the door of the theatre.

  A servant stepped forward and informed the gentleman that his carriage was a few paces distant, but that it might be some time before it could drive up to the theatre.

  ‘Can you walk to the carriage, my dear,’ said the gentleman to his young charge; and she answering in the affirmative, they both left the house, preceded by the servant.

  ‘Come on!’ said Long Ned, hastily, and walking in the same direction which the strangers had taken. Paul readily agreed: they soon overtook the strangers. Long Ned walked the nearest to the gentleman, and brushed by him in passing. Presently a voice cried, ‘Stop thief!’ and Long Ned saying to Paul, ‘Shift for yourself – run!’ darted from our hero’s side into the crowd, and vanished in a twinkling. Before Paul could recover his amaze, he found himself suddenly seized by the collar; he turned abruptly, and saw the dark face of the young lady’s companion.

  ‘Rascal!’ cried the gentleman, ‘my watch!’

  ‘Watch!’ repeated Paul, bewildered; and only for the sake of the young lady refraining from knocking down his arrester. – ‘Watch!’

  ‘Ay, young man!’ cried a fellow in a great coat, who now suddenly appeared on the other side of Paul; ‘this gentleman’s watch, please your honour (addressing the complainant), I be a watch too, – shall I take up this chap?’

  ‘By all means,’ cried the gentleman; ‘I would not have lost my watch for twice its value. I can swear I saw this fellow’s companion snatch it from my fob. The thief’s gone; but we have at least the accomplice. I give him in strict charge to you, watchman; take the consequences if you let him escape.’

  The watchman answered, sullenly, that he did not want to be threatened, and he knew how to discharge his duty.

  ‘Don’t answer me, fellow!’ said the gentleman, haughtily; ‘do as I tell you!’ And, after a little colloquy, Paul found himself suddenly marched off between two tall fellows, who looked prodigiously inclined to eat him. By this time he had recovered his surprise and dismay: he did not want the penetration to see that his companion had really committed the offence for which he was charged; and he also foresaw that the circumstance might be attended with disagreeable consequences to himself. Under all the features of the case, he thought that an attempt to escape would not be an imprudent proceeding on his part; accordingly, after moving a few paces very quietly and very passively, he watched his opportunity, wrenched himself from the grip of the gentleman on his left, and brought the hand thus released against the cheek of the gentleman on his right with so hearty a good will as to cause him to relinquish his hold, and retreat several paces towards the areas in a slanting position. But that roundabout sort of blow with the left fist is very unfavourable towards the preservation of a firm balance; and before Paul had recovered sufficiently to make an effectual ‘bolt,’ he was prostrated to the earth by a blow from the other and undamaged watchman, which utterly deprived him of his senses; and when he recovered those useful possessions (which a man may reasonably boast of losing, since it is only the minority who have them to lose), he found himself stretched on a bench in the watchhouse.

  Chapter VII

  Begirt with many a gallant slave,

  Apparell’d as becomes the brave,

  Old Giaffir sat in his divan:…

  ‘Much I misdoubt this wayward boy

  Will one day work me more annoy.’

  Bride of Abydos

  The learned and ingenious John Schweighæuser (a name facile to spell and mellifluous to pronounce) hath been pleased, in that Appendix continens particulam doctrinæ de mente humanâ, which closeth the volume of his Opuscula Academica, to observe (we translate from memory) that, ‘in the infinite variety of things which in the theatre of the world occur to a man’s survey, or in some manner or another affect his body or his mind, by far the greater part are so contrived as to bring to him rather some sense of pleasure than of pain or discomfort.’ Assuming that this holds generally good in well-constituted frames, we point out a notable example in the case of the incarcerated Paul; for, although that youth was in no agreeable situation at the time present, and although nothing very encouraging smiled upon him from the prospects of the future, yet, as soon as he had recovered his consciousness, and given himself a rousing shake, he found an immediate source of pleasure in discovering, first, that several ladies and gentlemen bore him company in his imprisonment; and, secondly, in perceiving a huge jug of water within his reach, which, as his awaking sensation was that of burning thirst, he delightedly emptied at a draught. He then, stretching himself, looked around with a wistful earnestness, and discovered a back turned towards him, and recumbent on the floor, which, at the very first glance, appeared to him familiar. ‘Surely,’ thought he, ‘I know that frieze coat, and the peculiar turn of those narrow shoulders.’ Thus soliloquizing, he raised himself, and, putting out his leg, he gently kicked the reclining form. ‘Muttering strange oaths,’ the form turned round, and, raising itself upon that inhospitable part of the body in which the introduction of foreign feet is considered anything but an honour, it fixed its dull blue eyes upon the face of the disturber of its slumbers, gradually opening them wider and wider, until they seemed to have enlarged themselves into proportions fit for the swallowing of the important truth that burst upon them, and then from the mouth of the creature issued –

  ‘Queer my glims, if that ben’t little Paul!’

  ‘Ay, Dummie, here I am! – Not been long without being laid by the heels, you see! – Life is short; we must make the best use of our time!’

  Upon this, Mr Dunnaker (it was no less respectable a person) scrambled up from the floor, and seating himself on the bench beside Paul, said, in a pitying tone, –

  ‘Vy, laus-a-me! If you ben’t knocked o’ the head! – Your poll’s as bloody as Murphy’s face* ven his throat’s cut!’

  ‘’Tis only the fortune of war, Dummie, and a mere trifle: the heads manufactured at Thames Court are not easily put out of order. But tell me, how come you here?’

  ‘Vy, I had been lushing heavy vet –

  ’ ‘Till you grew light in the head, eh? And fell into the kennel.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Mine is a worse business than that, I fear,’ and therewith Paul, in a lower voice, related to the trusty Dummie the train of accidents which had conducted him to his present asylum. Dummie’s face elongated as he listened: however, when the narrative was over, he endeavoured such consolatory palliatives as occurred to him. He represented, first, the possibility that the gentleman might not take the trouble to appear; secondly, the certainty that no watch was found about Paul’s person; thirdly, the fact that, even by the gentleman’s confession, Paul had not been the actual offender; fourthly, if the worst came to the worst, what were a few weeks’, or even months’, imprisonment?

  ‘Blow me tight!’ said Dummie, ‘if it ben’t as good a vay of passing the time as a cove as is fond of snuggery need desire!’

  This observation had no comfort for Paul, who recoiled, with all the maiden coyness of one to whom such unions are unfamiliar, from a matrimonial alliance with the snuggery of the House of Correction. He rather trusted to another source for consolation. In a word, he encouraged the flattering belief, that Long Ned, finding that Paul had been caught instead of himself, would have the generosity to come forward and exculpate him from the charge. On hinting this idea to Dummie, that accomplished ‘man about town’ could not for some time believe that any simpleton could be so thoroughly unacquainted with the world as seriously to entertain so ridiculous a notion; and, indeed, it is somewhat remarkable that such a hope should ever have told its flattering tale to one brought up in the house of Mrs Margaret Lobkins. But Paul, we have seen, had formed many of his notions from books; and he had the same fine theories of your ‘moral rogue,’ that possess the minds of young patriots when they first leave college for the House of
Commons, and think integrity a prettier thing than office.

  Mr Dunnaker urged Paul, seriously, to dismiss so vague and childish a fancy from his breast, and rather to think of what line of defence it would be best for him to pursue. This subject being at length exhausted, Paul recurred to Mrs Lobkins, and inquired whether Dummie had lately honoured that lady with a visit.

  Mr Dunnaker replied that he had, though with much difficulty, appeased her anger against him for his supposed abetment of Paul’s excesses, and that of late she had held sundry conversations with Dummie respecting our hero himself. Upon questioning Dummie further, Paul learned the good matron’s reasons for not evincing that solicitude for his return which our hero had reasonably anticipated. The fact was, that she, having no confidence whatsoever in his own resources independent of her, had not been sorry of an opportunity effectually, as she hoped, to humble that pride which had so revolted her; and she pleased her vanity by anticipating the time when Paul, starved into submission, would gladly and penitently re-seek the shelter of her roof, and, tamed as it were by experience, would never again kick against the yoke which her matronly prudence thought it fitting to impose upon him. She contented herself, then, with obtaining from Dummie the intelligence that our hero was under Mac Grawler’s roof, and, therefore, out of all positive danger to life and limb; and, as she could not foresee the ingenious exertions of intellect by which Paul had converted himself into the ‘Nobilitas’ of the Asinæum, and thereby saved himself from utter penury, she was perfectly convinced, from her knowledge of character, that the illustrious Mac Grawler would not long continue that protection to the rebellious protégé, which, in her opinion, was his only preservative from picking pockets or famishing. To the former decent alternative she knew Paul’s great and jejune aversion, and she consequently had little fear for his morals or his safety, in thus abandoning him for a while to chance. Any anxiety, too, that she might otherwise have keenly experienced was deadened by the habitual intoxication now increasing upon the good lady with age, and which, though at times she could be excited to all her characteristic vehemence, kept her senses for the most part plunged into a Læthean stupor; or to speak more courteously, into a poetical abstraction from the things of the external world.

  ‘But,’ said Dummie, as by degrees he imparted the solution of the dame’s conduct to the listening ear of his companion – ‘But I hopes as how ven you be out of this ere scrape, leetle Paul, you vill take varning, and drop Meester Pepper’s acquaintance (vich, I must say, I vas alvays a sorry to see you hencourage), and go home to the Mug, and fam grasp the old mort, for she has not been like the same cretur ever since you vent. She’s a delicate-arted ’oman, that Piggy Lob!’

  So appropriate a panegyric on Mrs Margaret Lobkins might, at another time, have excited Paul’s risible muscles; but at that moment he really felt compunction for the unceremonious manner in which he had left her, and the softness of regretful affection imbued in its hallowing colours even the image of Piggy Lob.

  In conversation of this intellectual and domestic description, the night and ensuing morning passed away, till Paul found himself in the awful presence of Justice Burnflat. Several cases were disposed of before his own, and among others Mr Dummie Dunnaker obtained his release, though not without a severe reprimand for his sin of inebriety, which no doubt sensibly affected the ingenious spirit of that noble character. At length Paul’s turn came. He heard, as he took his station, a general buzz. At first he imagined it was at his own interesting appearance; but, raising his eyes, he perceived that it was at the entrance of the gentleman who was to become his accuser.

  ‘Hush,’ said someone near him, ‘’tis Lawyer Brandon. Ah, he’s a ’cute fellow! It will go hard with the person he complains of.’

  There was a happy fund of elasticity of spirit about our hero; and though he had not the good fortune to have ‘a blighted heart,’ a circumstance which, by the poets and philosophers of the present day, is supposed to inspire a man with wonderful courage, and make him impervious to all misfortunes; yet he bore himself up with wonderful courage under his present trying situation, and was far from overwhelmed, though he was certainly a little damped, by the observation he had just heard.

  Mr Brandon was, indeed, a barrister of considerable reputation, and in high esteem in the world, not only for talent, but also for a great austerity of manners, which, though a little mingled with sternness and acerbity for the errors of other men, was naturally thought the more praiseworthy on that account; there being, as persons of experience are doubtless aware, two divisions in the first class of morality: imprimis, a great hatred for the vices of one’s neighbour; secondly, the possession of virtues in one’s self.

  Mr Brandon was received with great courtesy by Justice Burnflat, and as he came, watch in hand (a borrowed watch), saying that his time was worth five guineas a moment, the justice proceeded immediately to business.

  Nothing could be clearer, shorter, or more satisfactory, than the evidence of Mr Brandon. The corroborative testimony of the watchman followed; and then Paul was called upon for his defence. This was equally brief with the charge; – but, alas! It was not equally satisfactory. It consisted in a firm declaration of his innocence. His comrade, he confessed, might have stolen the watch, but he humbly suggested that that was exactly the very reason why he had not stolen it.

  ‘How long, fellow,’ asked Justice Burnflat, ‘have you known your companion?’

  ‘About half a year!’

  ‘And what is his name and calling?’

  Paul hesitated, and declined to answer.

  ‘A sad piece of business!’ said the justice, in a melancholy tone, and shaking his head portentously.

  The lawyer acquiesced in the aphorism; but with great magnanimity observed, that he did not wish to be hard upon the young man. His youth was in his favour, and his offence was probably the consequence of evil company. He suggested, therefore, that as he must be perfectly aware of the address of his friend, he should receive a full pardon if he would immediately favour the magistrate with that information. He concluded by remarking, with singular philanthropy, that it was not the punishment of the youth, but the recovery of his watch, that he desired.

  Justice Burnflat, having duly impressed upon our hero’s mind the disinterested and Christian mercy of the complainant, and the everlasting obligation Paul was under to him for its display, now repeated, with double solemnity, those queries respecting the habitation and name of Long Ned, which our hero had before declined to answer.

  Grieved are we to confess that Paul, ungrateful for, and wholly untouched by, the beautiful benignity of Lawyer Brandon, continued firm in his stubborn denial to betray his comrade, and with equal obduracy he continued to insist upon his own innocence and unblemished respectability of character.

  ‘Your name, young man?’ quoth the justice. ‘Your name, you say, is Paul – Paul what? You have many an alias, I’ll be bound.’

  Here the young gentleman again hesitated: at length he replied, –

  ‘Paul Lobkins, your worship.’

  ‘Lobkins!’ repeated the judge. ‘Lobkins! Come hither, Saunders: have not we that name down in our black books?’

  ‘So, please your worship,’ quoth a little stout man, very useful in many respects to the Festus of the police, ‘there is one Peggy Lobkins, who keeps a public-house, a sort of flash ken, called the Mug, in Thames Court, not exactly in our beat, your worship.’

  ‘Ho, ho!’ said Justice Burnflat, winking at Mr Brandon, ‘we must sift this a little. Pray, Mr Paul Lobkins, what relation is the good landlady of the Mug, in Thames Court, to yourself?’

  ‘None at all, sir,’ said Paul, hastily, – ‘she’s only a friend!’

  Upon this there was a laugh in the court.

  ‘Silence,’ cried the justice, ‘and I dare say, Mr Paul Lobkins, that this friend of yours will vouch for the respectability of your character, upon which you are pleased to value yourself?’

  ‘I have not a
doubt of it, sir,’ answered Paul; and there was another laugh.

  ‘And is there any other equally weighty and praiseworthy friend of yours who will do you the like kindness?’

  Paul hesitated; and at that moment, to the surprise of the court, but, above all, to the utter and astounding surprise of himself, two gentlemen, dressed in the height of the fashion, pushed forward, and, bowing to the justice, declared themselves ready to vouch for the thorough respectability and unimpeachable character of Mr Paul Lobkins, whom they had known, they said, for many years, and for whom they had the greatest respect. While Paul was surveying the persons of these kind friends, whom he never remembered to have seen before in the course of his life, the lawyer, who was a very sharp fellow, whispered to the magistrate; and that dignitary nodding as in assent, and eyeing the new comers, inquired the names of Mr Lobkins’s witnesses.

  ‘Mr Eustace Fitzherbert, and Mr William Howard Russell,’ were the several replies.

  Names so aristocratic produced a general sensation. But the impenetrable justice, calling the same Mr Saunders he had addressed before, asked him to examine well the countenances of Mr Lobkins’s friends.

  As the alguazil eyed the features of the memorable Don Raphael and the illustrious Manuel Morales, when the former of those accomplished personages thought it convenient to assume the travelling dignity of an Italian prince, son of the sovereign of the valleys which lie between Switzerland, the Milanese, and Savoy, while the latter was contented with being servant to Monseigneur le Prince; even so, with far more earnestness than respect did Mr Saunders eye the features of those high-born gentlemen, Messrs Eustace Fitzherbert and William Howard Russell; but, after a long survey, he withdrew his eyes, made an unsatisfactory and unrecognizing gesture to the magistrate, and said, – ‘Please your worship, they are none of my flock; but Bill Troutling knows more of this sort of genteel chaps than I does.’