Paul Clifford

by Edward Bulwer-Lytton

‘If, therefore, – mark me! – one, two, or three men stop your horses, and I find that the use of your whips and spurs are ineffectual in releasing the animals from the hold of the robbers, I intend with these pistols – you observe them! – to shoot at the gentlemen who detain you; but as, though I am generally a dead shot, my eyesight wavers a little in the dark, I think it very possible that I may have the misfortune to shoot you, gentlemen, instead of the robbers! You see the rascals will be close by you, sufficiently so to put you in jeopardy, unless, indeed, you knock them down with the butt-end of your whips. I merely mention this, that you may be prepared. Should such a mistake occur, you need not be uneasy beforehand, for I will take every possible care of your widows; should it not, and should we reach Salthill in safety, I intend to testify my sense of the excellence of your driving by a present of ten guineas a-piece! Gentlemen, I have done with you. I give you my honour, that I am serious in what I have said to you. Do me the favour to mount.’

  Mauleverer then called his favourite servant, who sat in the dickey in front (rumble-tumbles not being then in use).

  ‘Smoothson,’ said he, ‘the last time we were attacked on this very road, you behaved damnably. See that you do better this time, or it may be the worse for you. You have pistols tonight about you, eh? Well! That’s right! And you are sure they’re loaded? Very well! Now, then, if we are stopped, don’t lose a moment. Jump down, and fire one of your pistols at the first robber. Keep the other for a sure aim. One shot is to intimidate, the second to slay. You comprehend? My pistols are in excellent order, I suppose. Lend me the ramrod. So, so! No trick this time!’

  ‘They would kill a fly, my lord, provided your lordship fired straight upon it.’

  ‘I do not doubt you,’ said Mauleverer. ‘Light the lanterns, and tell the postboys to drive on.’

  It was a frosty and tolerably clear night. The dusk of the twilight had melted away beneath the moon which had just risen, and the hoary rime glittered from the bushes and the sward, breaking into a thousand diamonds as it caught the rays of the stars. On went the horses briskly, their breath steaming against the fresh air, and their hoofs sounding cheerily on the hard ground. The rapid motion of the carriage – the bracing coolness of the night – and the excitement occasioned by anxiety and the forethought of danger, all conspired to stir the languid blood of Lord Mauleverer into a vigorous and exhilarated sensation, natural in youth to his character, but utterly contrary to the nature he had imbibed from the customs of his manhood.

  He felt his pistols, and his hands trembled a little as he did so: – not the least from fear, but from that restlessness and eagerness peculiar to nervous persons placed in a new situation.

  ‘In this country,’ said he to himself, ‘I have been only once robbed in the course of my life. It was then a little my fault; for before I took to my pistols, I should have been certain they were loaded. Tonight, I shall be sure to avoid a similar blunder; and my pistols have an eloquence in their barrels which is exceedingly moving. Humph, another milestone! These fellows drive well; but we are entering a pretty-looking spot for Messieurs the disciples of Robin Hood!’

  It was, indeed, a picturesque spot by which the carriage was now rapidly whirling. A few miles from Maidenhead, on the Henley Road, our readers will probably remember a small tract of forestlike land, lying on either side of the road. To the left, the green waste bears away among trees and bushes; and one skilled in the country may pass from that spot, through a landscape as little tenanted as green Sherwood was formerly, into the chains of wild common and deep beech-woods which border a certain portion of Oxfordshire, and contrast so beautifully the general characteristics of that county.

  At the time we speak of, the country was even far wilder than it is now; and just on that point where the Henley and the Reading roads unite was a spot (communicating then with the waste land we have described), than which, perhaps, few places could be more adapted to the purposes of such true men as have recourse to the primary law of nature. Certain it was that at this part of the road Mauleverer looked more anxiously from his window than he had hitherto done, and apparently the increased earnestness of his survey was not altogether without meeting its reward.

  About a hundred yards to the left, three dark objects were just discernible in the shade; a moment more, and the objects emerging grew into the forms of three men, well mounted, and riding at a brisk trot.

  ‘Only three!’ thought Mauleverer, ‘that is well.’ And leaning from the front-window with a pistol in either hand, Mauleverer cried out to the postboys in a stern tone, ‘Drive on, and recollect what I told you! – Remember!’ he added to his servant. The postboys scarcely looked round; but their spurs were buried in their horses, and the animals flew on like lightning.

  The three strangers made a halt, as if in conference: their decision was prompt. Two wheeled round from their comrade, and darted at full gallop by the carriage. Mauleverer’s pistol was already protruded from the front-window, when to his astonishment, and to the utter baffling of his ingenious admonition to his drivers, he beheld the two postboys knocked from their horses one after the other with a celerity that scarcely allowed him an exclamation; and before he had recovered his self-possession, the horses taking fright (and their fright being skilfully taken advantage of by the highwaymen), the carriage was fairly whirled into a ditch on the right side of the road, and upset. Meanwhile, Smoothson had leaped from his station in the front; and having fired, though without effect, at the third robber, who approached menacingly towards him, he gained the time to open the carriage door, and extricate his master.

  The moment Mauleverer found himself on terra firma, he prepared his courage for offensive measures, and he and Smoothson standing side by side in front of the unfortunate vehicle, presented no unformidable aspect to the enemy. The two robbers who had so decisively rid themselves of the postboys acted with no less determination towards the horses. One of them dismounted, cut the traces, and suffered the plunging quadrupeds to go whither they listed. This measure was not, however, allowed to be taken with impunity; a ball from Mauleverer’s pistol passed through the hat of the highwayman with an aim so slightly erring, that it whizzed among the locks of the astounded hero with a sound that sent a terror to his heart, no less from a love of his head than from anxiety for his hair. The shock staggered him for a moment; and a second shot from the hands of Mauleverer would have probably finished his earthly career, had not the third robber, who had hitherto remained almost inactive, thrown himself from his horse, which, tutored to such docility, remained perfectly still, and advancing with a bold step and a levelled pistol toward Mauleverer and his servant, said in a resolute voice, ‘Gentlemen, it is useless to struggle; we are well armed, and resolved on effecting our purpose: your persons shall be safe if you lay down your arms, and also such part of your property as you may particularly wish to retain. But if you resist, I cannot answer for your lives!’

  Mauleverer had listened patiently to this speech in order that he might have more time for adjusting his aim: his reply was a bullet, which grazed the side of the speaker and tore away the skin, without inflicting any more dangerous wound. Muttering a curse upon the error of his aim, and resolute to the last when his blood was once up, Mauleverer backed one pace, drew his sword, and threw himself into the attitude of a champion well skilled in the use of the instrument he wore.

  But that incomparable personage was in a fair way of ascertaining what happiness in the world to come is reserved for a man who has spared no pains to make himself comfortable in this. For the two first and most active robbers having finished the achievement of the horses, now approached Mauleverer, and the taller of them, still indignant at the late peril to his hair, cried out in a stentorian voice, –

  ‘By Jove! You old fool, if you don’t throw down your toasting-fork, I’ll be the death of you!’

  The speaker suited the action to the word, by cocking an immense pistol. Mauleverer stood his ground; but Smoothson retreated, and s
tumbling against the wheel of the carriage fell backward; the next instant, the second highwayman had possessed himself of the valet’s pistols, and, quietly seated on the fallen man’s stomach, amused himself by inspecting the contents of the domestic’s pockets. Mauleverer was now alone, and his stubbornness so enraged the tall bully that his hand was already on his trigger, when the third robber, whose side Mauleverer’s bullet had grazed, thrust himself between the two. – ‘Hold, Ned!’ said he, pushing back his comrade’s pistol. – ‘And you, my lord, whose rashness ought to cost you your life, learn that men can rob generously.’ So saying, with one dexterous stroke from the robber’s riding-whip, Mauleverer’s sword flew upwards, and alighted at the distance of ten yards from its owner.

  ‘Approach now,’ said the victor to his comrades. ‘Rifle the carriage, and with all despatch!’

  The tall highwayman hastened to execute this order; and the lesser one having satisfactorily finished the inquisition into Mr Smoothson’s pockets, drew forth from his own pouch a tolerably thick rope; with this he tied the hands of the prostrate valet, moralizing as he wound the rope round and round the wrists of the fallen man, in the following edifying strain: –

  ‘Lie still, sir – lie still, I beseech you! All wise men are fatalists; and no proverb is more pithy than that which says, “what can’t be cured must be endured.” Lie still, I tell you! Little, perhaps, do you think that you are performing one of the noblest functions of humanity; yes, sir, you are filling the pockets of the destitute; and by my present action I am securing you from any weakness of the flesh likely to impede so praiseworthy an end, and so hazard the excellence of your action. There, sir, your hands are tight, – lie still and reflect.’

  As he said this, with three gentle applications of his feet, the moralist rolled Mr Smoothson into the ditch, and hastened to join his lengthy comrade in his pleasing occupation.

  In the interim, Mauleverer and the third robber (who, in the true spirit of government, remained dignified and inactive while his followers plundered what he certainly designed to share, if not to monopolize) stood within a few feet of each other, face to face.

  Mauleverer had now convinced himself that all endeavour to save his property was hopeless, and he had also the consolation of thinking he had done his best to defend it. He, therefore, bade all his thoughts return to the care of his person. He adjusted his fur collar around his neck with great sang froid, drew on his gloves, and, patting his terrified poodle, who sat shivering on its haunches with one paw raised, and nervously trembling, he said, –

  ‘You, sir, seem to be a civil person, and I really should have felt quite sorry if I had had the misfortune to wound you. You are not hurt, I trust. Pray, if I may inquire, how am I to proceed? My carriage is in the ditch, and my horses by this time are probably at the end of the world.’

  ‘As for that matter,’ said the robber, whose face, like those of his comrades, was closely masked in the approved fashion of highwaymen of that day, ‘I believe you will have to walk to Maidenhead – it is not far, and the night is fine!’

  ‘A very trifling hardship, indeed!’ said Mauleverer, ironically; but his new acquaintance made no reply, nor did he appear at all desirous of entering into any farther conversation with Mauleverer.

  The earl, therefore, after watching the operations of the other robbers for some moments, turned on his heel, and remained humming an opera tune with dignified indifference until the pair had finished rifling the carriage, and, seizing Mauleverer, proceeded to rifle him.

  With a curled lip and a raised brow, that supreme personage suffered himself to be, as the taller robber expressed it, ‘cleaned out.’ His watch, his rings, his purse, and his snuffbox, all went. It was long since the rascals had captured such a booty.

  They had scarcely finished when the postboys, who had now begun to look about them, uttered a simultaneous cry, and at some distance a waggon was seen heavily approaching. Mauleverer really wanted his money, to say nothing of his diamonds; and so soon as he perceived assistance at hand, a new hope darted within him. His sword still lay on the ground; he sprang towards it – seized it, uttered a shout for help, and threw himself fiercely on the highwayman who had disarmed him; but the robber, warding off the blade with his whip, retreated to his saddle, which he managed, despite of Mauleverer’s lunges, to regain with impunity.

  The other two had already mounted, and within a minute afterwards not a vestige of the trio was visible. ‘This is what may fairly be called single blessedness!’ said Mauleverer, as, dropping his useless sword, he thrust his hands into his pockets.

  Leaving our peerless peer to find his way to Maidenhead on foot, accompanied (to say nothing of the poodle) by one waggoner, two postboys, and the released Mr Smoothson, all four charming him with their condolences, we follow with our story the steps of the three alieni appetentes.

  Chapter XXVI

  The rogues were very merry on their booty. They said a thousand things that showed the wickedness of their morals.

  Gil Blas

  They fixed on a spot where they made a cave, which was large enough to receive them and their horses. This cave was enclosed within a sort of thicket of bushes and brambles. From this station they used to issue, &c.

  Memoirs of Richard Turpin

  It was not for several minutes after their flight had commenced that any conversation passed between the robbers. Their horses flew on like wind, and the country through which they rode presented to their speed no other obstacle than an occasional hedge, or a short cut through the thicknesses of some leafless beechwood. The stars lent them a merry light, and the spirits of two of them at least were fully in sympathy with the exhilaration of the pace and the air. Perhaps, in the third, a certain presentiment that the present adventure would end less merrily than it had begun, conspired, with other causes of gloom, to check that exaltation of the blood which generally follows a successful exploit.

  The path which the robbers took wound by the sides of long woods, or across large tracts of uncultivated land. Nor did they encounter anything living by the road, save now and then a solitary owl, wheeling its grey body around the skirts of the bare woods, or occasionally troops of ponies, pursuing their sports and enjoying their midnight food in the fields.

  ‘Heavens!’ cried the tall robber, whose incognito we need no longer preserve, and who, as our readers are doubtless aware, answered to the name of Pepper. – ‘Heavens!’ cried he, looking upward at the starry skies in a sort of ecstasy, ‘what a jolly life this is! Some fellows like hunting; d— it! what hunting is like the road? If there be sport in hunting down a nasty fox, how much more is there in hunting down a nice clean nobleman’s carriage! If there be joy in getting a brush, how much more is there in getting a purse! If it be pleasant to fly over a hedge in the broad daylight, hang me if it be not ten times finer sport to skim it by night, – here goes! Look how the hedges run away from us! And the silly old moon dances about, as if the sight of us put the good lady in spirits! Those old maids are always glad to have an eye upon such fine dashing young fellows.’

  ‘Ay,’ cried the more erudite and sententious Augustus Tomlinson, roused by success from his usual philosophical sobriety; ‘no work is so pleasant as night-work, and the witches our ancestors burnt were in the right to ride out on their broomsticks, with the owls and the stars. We are their successors now, Ned. We are your true fly-by-nights!’

  ‘Only,’ quoth Ned, ‘we are a cursed deal more clever than they were; for they played their game without being a bit the richer for it, and we – I say, Tomlinson, where the devil did you put that red morocco case?’

  ‘Experience never enlightens the foolish!’ said Tomlinson; ‘or you would have known, without asking, that I had put it in the very safest pocket in my coat. ’Gad, how heavy it is!’

  ‘Well!’ cried Pepper, ‘I can’t say I wish it were lighter! Only think of our robbing my lord twice, and on the same road too!’

  ‘I say, Lovett,’ exclaimed Tomlin
son, ‘was it not odd that we should have stumbled upon our Bath friend so unceremoniously? Lucky for us that we are so strict in robbing in masks! He would not have thought the better of Bath company if he had seen our faces.’

  Lovett, or rather Clifford, had hitherto been silent. He now turned slowly in his saddle, and said, – ‘As it was, the poor devil was very nearly despatched. Long Ned was making short work with him – if I had not interposed!’

  ‘And why did you?’ said Ned.

  ‘Because I will have no killing: it is the curse of the noble art of our profession to have passionate professors like thee.’

  ‘Passionate!’ repeated Ned. ‘Well, I am a little choleric, I own it; but that is not so great a fault on the road as it would be in house-breaking. I don’t know a thing that requires so much coolness and self-possession as cleaning out a house from top to bottom – quietly and civilly, mind you!’

  ‘That is the reason, I suppose, then,’ said Augustus, ‘that you altogether renounced that career. Your first adventure was house-breaking, I think I have heard you say. I confess it was a vulgar début – not worthy of you!’

  ‘No! – Harry Cook seduced me; but the specimen I saw that night disgusted me of picking locks; it brings one in contact with such low companions: only think, there was a merchant – a rag-merchant, one of the party!’

  ‘Faugh!’ said Tomlinson, in solemn disgust.

  ‘Ay, you may well turn up your lip; I never broke into a house again.’

  ‘Who were your other companions?’ asked Augustus.

  ‘Only Harry Cook,* and a very singular woman –’

  Here Ned’s narrative was interrupted by a dark defile through a wood, allowing room for only one horseman at a time. They continued this gloomy path for several minutes, until at length it brought them to the brink of a large dell, overgrown with bushes, and spreading around somewhat in the form of a rude semicircle. Here the robbers dismounted, and led their reeking horses down the descent. Long Ned, who went first, paused at a cluster of bushes, which seemed so thick as to defy intrusion, but which yielding, on either side, to the experienced hand of the robber, presented what appeared the mouth of a cavern. A few steps along the passage of this gulf brought them to a door, which, even seen by torch-light, would have appeared so exactly similar in colour and material to the rude walls on either side, as to have deceived any unsuspecting eye, and which, in the customary darkness brooding over it, might have remained for centuries undiscovered. Touching a secret latch, the door opened, and the robbers were in the secure precincts of the ‘Red Cave!’ It may be remembered that among the early studies of our exemplary hero, the memoirs of Richard Turpin had formed a conspicuous portion; and it may also be remembered that, in the miscellaneous adventures of that gentleman, nothing had more delighted the juvenile imagination of the student than the description of the forest cave in which the gallant Turpin had been accustomed to conceal himself, his friend, his horse, ‘and that sweet saint who lay by Turpin’s side;’ or, to speak more domestically, the respectable Mrs Turpin. So strong a hold, indeed, had that early reminiscence fixed upon our hero’s mind, that, no sooner had he risen to eminence among his friends, than he had put the project of his childhood into execution. He had selected for the scene of his ingenuity an admirable spot. In a thinly peopled country, surrounded by commons and woods, and yet (as Mr Robins would say, if he had to dispose of it by auction) ‘within an easy ride’ of populous and well-frequented roads, it possessed all the advantages of secrecy for itself, and convenience for depredation. Very few of the gang, and those only who had been employed in its construction, were made acquainted with the secret of this cavern; and as our adventurers rarely visited it, and only on occasions of urgent want or secure concealment, it had continued for more than two years undiscovered and unsuspected.