‘Come, we are melancholy,’ said Tomlinson, tossing off a bumper. ‘Methinks we are really growing old, we shall repent soon, and the next step will be – hanging!’
‘’Fore Gad!’ said Ned, helping himself, ‘don’t be so croaking. There are two classes of maligned gentry, who should always be particular to avoid certain colours in dressing: I hate to see a true boy in black, or a devil in blue. But here’s my last glass tonight! I am confoundedly sleepy, and we rise early tomorrow.’
‘Right, Ned,’ said Tomlinson, ‘give us a song before you retire, and let it be that one which Lovett composed the last time we were here.’
Ned, always pleased with an opportunity of displaying himself, cleared his voice and complied: –
A DITTY FROM SHERWOOD
I
Laugh with us at the prince and the palace,
In the wild wood-life there is better cheer;
Would you hoard your mirth from your neighbour’s malice,
Gather it up in our garners here.
Some kings their wealth from their subjects wring,
While by their foes they the poorer wax;
Free go the men of the wise wood-king,
And it is only our foes we tax.
Leave the cheats of trade to the shrewd gude-wife:
Let the old be knaves at ease;
Away with the tide of that dashing life
Which is stirred by a constant breeze!
II
Laugh with us when you hear deceiving
And solemn rogues tell you what knaves we be;
Commerce and law have a method of thieving
Worse than a stand at the outlaw’s tree.
Say, will the maiden we love despise
Gallants at least to each other true?
I grant that we trample on legal ties,
But I have heard that Love scorns them too.
Courage, then, – courage, ye jolly boys,
Whom the fool with the knavish rates:
Oh! Who that is loved by the world enjoys
Half as much as the man it hates?
‘Bravissimo, Ned!’ cried Tomlinson, rapping the table. ‘Bravissimo! Your voice is superb tonight, and your song admirable. Really, Lovett, it does your poetical genius great credit; quite philosophical, upon my honour.’
‘Bravissimo!’ said Mac Grawler, nodding his head awfully. ‘Mr Pepper’s voice is as sweet as a bagpipe! – Ah! such a song would have been invaluable to the Asinæum, when I had the honour to –’
‘Be Vicar of Bray to that establishment,’ interrupted Tomlinson. ‘Pray, Mac Grawler, why do they call Edinburgh the Modern Athens?’
‘Because of the learned and great men it produces,’ returned Mac Grawler, with conscious pride.
‘Pooh! Pooh! – You are thinking of ancient Athens. Your city is called the modern Athens, because you are all so like the modern Athenians, – the greatest scoundrels imaginable, unless travellers belie them.’
‘Nay,’ interrupted Ned, who was softened by the applause of the critic, ‘Mac is a good fellow, spare him. Gentlemen, your health. I am going to bed, and I suppose you will not tarry long behind me.’
‘Trust us for that,’ answered Tomlinson. ‘The captain and I will consult on the business of the morrow, and join you in the twinkling of a bedpost, as it has been shrewdly expressed.’
Ned yawned his last ‘good night,’ and disappeared within the dormitory. Mac Grawler yawning also, but with a graver yawn, as became his wisdom, betook himself to the duty of removing the supper paraphernalia: after bustling soberly about for some minutes, he let down a press-bed in the corner of the cave (for he did not sleep in the robbers’ apartment), and undressing himself, soon appeared buried in the bosom of Morpheus. But the chief and Tomlinson, drawing their seats nearer to the dying embers, defied the slothful god, and entered with low tones into a close and anxious commune.
‘So, then,’ said Augustus, ‘now that you have realized sufficient funds for your purpose, you will really desert us, – have you well weighed the pros and cons? Remember, that nothing is so dangerous to our state as reform; the moment a man grows honest, the gang forsake him; the magistrate misses his fee; the informer peaches; and the recusant hangs.’
‘I have well weighed all this,’ answered Clifford, ‘and have decided on my course. I have only tarried till my means could assist my will. With my share of our present and late booty, I shall betake myself to the Continent. Prussia gives easy trust, and ready promotion, to all who will enlist in her service. But this language, my dear friend, seems strange from your lips. Surely you will join me in my separation from the corps? What! You shake your head! Are you not the same Tomlinson who at Bath agreed with me that we were in danger from the envy of our comrades, and that retreat had become necessary to our safety? Nay, was not this your main argument for our matrimonial expedition?’
‘Why, look you, dear Lovett,’ said Augustus, ‘we are all blocks of matter, formed from the atoms of custom; – in other words, we are a mechanism, to which habit is the spring. What could I do in an honest career? I am many years older than you. I have lived as a rogue till I have no other nature than roguery. I doubt if I should not be a coward were I to turn soldier. I am sure I should be the most consummate of rascals were I to affect to be honest. No: I mistook myself when I talked of separation. I must e’en jog on with my old comrades, and in my old ways, till I jog into the noose hempen – or, melancholy alternative, the noose matrimonial!’
‘This is mere folly,’ said Clifford, from whose nervous and masculine mind habits were easily shaken. ‘We have not for so many years discarded all the servile laws of others, to be the abject slaves of our own weaknesses. Come, my dear fellow, rouse yourself. Heaven knows, were I to succumb to the feebleness of my own heart, I should be lost indeed. And perhaps, wrestle I ever so stoutly, I do not wrestle away that which clings within me, and will kill me, though by inches. But let us not be cravens, and suffer fate to drown us rather than swim. In a word, fly with me ere it be too late. A smuggler’s vessel waits me off the coast of Dorset: in three days from this I sail. Be my companion. We can both rein a fiery horse, and wield a good sword. As long as men make war one against another, those accomplishments will prevent their owner from starving, or –’
‘If employed in the field, not the road,’ interrupted Tomlinson, with a smile, – ‘from hanging. But it cannot be! I wish you all joy – all success in your career: you are young, bold, and able; and you always had a loftier spirit than I have! Knave I am, and knave I must be to the end of the chapter!’
‘As you will,’ said Clifford, who was not a man of many words, but he spoke with reluctance. ‘If so, I must seek my fortune alone.’
‘When do you leave us?’ asked Tomlinson.
‘Tomorrow, before noon. I shall visit London for a few hours, and then start at once for the coast!’
‘London!’ exclaimed Tomlinson. ‘What, the very den of danger? – Pooh! You do not know what you say: or, do you think it filial to caress Mother Lobkins before you depart?’
‘Not that,’ answered Clifford. ‘I have already ascertained that she is above the reach of all want; and her days, poor soul, cannot, I fear, be many! In all probability, she would scarcely recognize me; for her habits cannot much have improved her memory. Would I could say as much for her neighbours! Were I to be seen in the purlieus of low thievery, you know, as well as I do, that some stealer of kerchiefs would turn informer against the notorious Captain Lovett.’
‘What, then, takes you to town? Ah! – You turn away your face. – I guess! Well, Love has ruined many a hero before; may you not be the worse for his godship!’
Clifford did not answer, and the conversation made a sudden and long pause; Tomlinson broke it.
‘Do you know, Lovett,’ said he, ‘though I have as little heart as most men, yet I feel for you more than I could have thought it possible. I would fain join you; there is devilish good tobacco in Germany, I be
lieve; and, after all, there is not so much difference between the life of a thief and of a soldier!’
‘Do profit by so sensible a remark,’ said Clifford. ‘Reflect how certain of destruction is the path you now tread: the gallows and the hulks are the only goals!’
‘The prospects are not pleasing, I allow,’ said Tomlinson, ‘nor is it desirable to be preserved for another century in the immortality of a glass case in Surgeons’ Hall, grinning from ear to ear, as if one had made the merriest finale imaginable. – Well! I will sleep on it, and you shall have my answer tomorrow; – but poor Ned?’
‘Would he not join us?’
‘Certainly not: his neck is made for a rope, and his mind for the Old Bailey. There is no hope for him; yet he is an excellent fellow. We must not even tell him of our meditated desertion.’
‘By no means. I shall leave a letter to our London chief: it will explain all. And now to bed; – I look to your companionship as settled.’
‘Humph!’ said Augustus Tomlinson.
So ended the conference of the robbers. About an hour after it had ceased, and when no sound save the heavy breath of Long Ned broke the stillness of the night, the intelligent countenance of Peter Mac Grawler slowly elevated itself from the lonely pillow on which it had reclined.
By degrees the back of the sage stiffened into perpendicularity, and he sat for a few moments erect on his seat of honour, apparently in listening deliberation. Satisfied with the deep silence that, save the solitary interruption we have specified, reigned around, the learned disciple of Vatel rose gently from the bed, – hurried on his clothes, – stole on tiptoe to the door, – unbarred it with a noiseless hand, – and vanished. Sweet reader! While thou art wondering at his absence, suppose we account for his appearance.
One evening, Clifford and his companion Augustus had been enjoying the rational amusement of Ranelagh, and were just leaving that celebrated place when they were arrested by a crowd at the entrance. That crowd was assembled round a pickpocket; and that pickpocket – O virtue! – O wisdom, – O Asinæum, – was Peter Mac Grawler! We have before said that Clifford was possessed of a good mien and an imposing manner, and these advantages were at that time especially effectual in preserving our Orbilius from the pump. No sooner did Clifford recognize the magisterial face of the sapient Scot, than he boldly thrust himself into the middle of the crowd, and collaring the enterprising citizen who had collared Mac Grawler, declared himself ready to vouch for the honesty of the very respectable person whose identity had evidently been so grossly mistaken. Augustus, probably foreseeing some ingenious ruse of his companion’s, instantly seconded the defence. The mob, who never descry any difference between impudence and truth, gave way; a constable came up – took part with the friend of two gentlemen so unexceptionably dressed – our friends walked off – the crowd repented of their precipitation, and, by way of amends, ducked the gentleman whose pockets had been picked. It was in vain for him to defend himself, for he had an impediment in his speech; and Messieurs the mob, having ducked him once for his guilt, ducked him a second time for his embarrassment.
In the interim, Clifford had withdrawn his quondam Mentor to the asylum of a coffee-house; and while Mac Grawler’s soul expanded itself by wine, he narrated the causes of his dilemma. It seems that that incomparable journal the Asinæum, despite a series of most popular articles upon the writings of ‘Aulus Prudentius,’ to which were added an exquisite string of dialogues, written in a tone of broad humour, viz., broad Scotch (with Scotchmen it is all the same thing), despite these invaluable miscellanies, to say nothing of some glorious political articles, in which it was clearly proved to the satisfaction of the rich, that the less poor devils eat, the better for their constitutions, – despite, we say, these great acquisitions to British literature, the Asinæum tottered, fell, buried its bookseller, and crushed its author: Mac Grawler only – escaping, like Theodore from the enormous helmet of Otranto – Mac Grawler only survived. ‘Love,’ says Sir Philip Sidney, ‘makes a man see better than a pair of spectacles.’ Love of life has a very different effect on the optics, – it makes a man woefully dim of inspection, and sometimes causes him to see his own property in another man’s purse! This deceptio visûs, did it impose upon Peter Mac Grawler? He went to Ranelagh. Reader, thou knowest the rest!
Wine and the ingenuity of the robbers having extorted this narrative from Mac Grawler, the barriers of superfluous delicacy were easily done away with.
Our heroes offered to the sage an introduction to their club; the offer was accepted; and Mac Grawler, having been first made drunk, was next made a robber. The gang engaged him in various little matters, in which we grieve to relate that, though his intentions were excellent, his success was so ill as thoroughly to enrage his employers; nay, they were about at one time, when they wanted to propitiate justice, to hand him over to the secular power, when Clifford interposed in his behalf. From a robber the sage dwindled into a drudge; menial offices (the robbers, the lying rascals, declared that such offices were best fitted to the genius of his country!) succeeded to noble exploits, and the worst of robbers became the best of cooks. How vain is all wisdom but that of long experience! Though Clifford was a sensible and keen man, – though he knew our sage to be a knave, he never dreamed he could be a traitor. He thought him too indolent to be malicious, and – short-sighted humanity! – too silly to be dangerous. He trusted the sage with the secret of the cavern, and Augustus, who was a bit of an epicure submitted, though fore-bodingly, to the choice, because of the Scotchman’s skill in broiling.
But Mac Grawler, like Brutus, concealed a scheming heart under a stolid guise; the apprehension of the noted Lovett had become a matter of serious desire; the police was no longer to be bribed: nay, they were now eager to bribe; – Mac Grawler had watched his time – sold his chief, and was now on the road to Reading to meet and to guide to the cavern Mr Nabbem of Bow Street and four of his attendants.
Having thus, as rapidly as we were able, traced the causes which brought so startlingly before your notice the most incomparable of critics, we now, reader, return to our robbers.
‘Hist, Lovett!’ said Tomlinson, half-asleep. ‘Methought I heard something in the outer cave.’
‘It is the Scot, I suppose,’ answered Clifford. ‘You saw, of course, to the door?’
‘To be sure!’ muttered Tomlinson, and in two minutes more he was asleep.
Not so Clifford: many and anxious thoughts kept him waking. At one while, when he anticipated the opening to a new career, somewhat of the stirring and high spirit which still moved amidst the guilty and confused habits of his mind made his pulse feverish, and his limbs restless: at another time, an agonizing remembrance – the remembrance of Lucy in all her charms, her beauty, her love, her tender and innocent heart, – Lucy all perfect, and lost to him for ever, banished every other reflection, and only left him the sick sensation of despondency and despair. ‘What avails my struggle for a better name!’ he thought. ‘Whatever my future lot, she can never share it. My punishment is fixed, – it is worse than a death of shame; it is a life without hope! Every moment I feel, and shall feel to the last, the pressure of a chain that may never be broken or loosened! And yet, fool that I am! I cannot leave this country without seeing her again, without telling her that I have really looked my last. But have I not twice told her that? Strange fatality! But twice have I spoken to her of love, and each time it was to tear myself from her at the moment of my confession. And even now something that I have no power to resist compels me to the same idle and weak indulgence. Does destiny urge me? Ay, perhaps to my destruction! Every hour a thousand deaths encompass me. I have now obtained all for which I seemed to linger. I have won, by a new crime, enough to bear me to another land, and to provide me there a soldier’s destiny. I should not lose an hour in flight, yet I rush into the nest of my enemies, only for one unavailing word with her; and this, too, after I have already bade her farewell! Is this fate? If it be so, what matters it? I no
longer care for a life which, after all, I should reform in vain, if I could not reform it for her: yet – yet, selfish, and lost that I am! will it be nothing to think hereafter that I have redeemed her from the disgrace of having loved an outcast and a felon? If I can obtain honour, will it not, in my own heart at least, – will it not reflect, however dimly and distantly, upon her?’
Such, bewildered, unsatisfactory, yet still steeped in the colours of that true love which raises even the lowest, were the midnight meditations of Clifford: they terminated, towards the morning, in an uneasy and fitful slumber. From this he was awakened by a loud yawn from the throat of Long Ned, who was always the earliest riser of his set.
‘Holloa!’ said he, ‘it is almost daybreak, and if we want to cash our notes, and to move the old lord’s jewels, we should already be on the start.’
‘A plague on you!’ said Tomlinson, from under cover of his woollen nightcap. ‘It was but this instant that I was dreaming you were going to be hanged, and now you wake me in the pleasantest part of the dream!’
‘You be shot!’ said Ned, turning one leg out of bed. ‘By the by, you took more than your share last night, for you owed me three guineas for our last game at cribbage! You’ll please to pay me before we part today: short accounts make long friends!’
‘However true that maxim may be,’ returned Tomlinson, ‘I know one much truer, namely – long friends will make short accounts! You must ask Jack Ketch this day month if I’m wrong!’
‘That’s what you call wit, I suppose!’ retorted Ned, as he now, struggling into his inexpressibles, felt his way into the outer cave.
‘What, ho! Mac!’ cried he, as he went, ‘stir those bobbins of thine, which thou art pleased to call legs; – strike a light, and be d—d to you!’
‘A light for you,’ said Tomlinson, profanely, as he reluctantly left his couch, ‘will indeed be “a light to lighten the Gentiles!”’
‘Why, Mac – Mac!’ shouted Ned, ‘why don’t you answer? – Faith, I think the Scot’s dead!’
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