 CHAPTER X CLUB OF QUEER FELLOWS I think it was, but the very next evening, that in coming out of Covent Garden Theatre, with my eccentric friend Buckthorn, he proposed to give me another peep at life and character, finding me willing for any research of the kind. He took me through a variety of the narrow courts and lanes about Covent Garden, until we stopped before a tavern, from which we heard the bursts of merriment of a jovial party. There would be a loud peel of laughter after, then an interval, then another peel, as if a prime wag were telling a story. After a little while there was a song, and at the close of each stanza a hearty roar and a vehement thumping on the table. This is the place, whispered Buckthorn. It is the club of queer fellows, a great resort of the small wits, third-rate actors, and newspaper critics of the theatres. Anyone can go in, paying a shilling, at the bar for the use of the club. We entered, therefore, without ceremony, and took our seats at a lone table, in a dusky corner of the room. The club was assembled round a table, on which stood beverages of various kinds, according to the taste of the individual. The members were a set of queer fellows indeed. But what was my surprise in recognizing, in the prime wits of the meeting, the poor devil-author, whom I had remarked at the book-sellers' dinner, for his promising face, and his complete test-eternity. Matters, however, were entirely changed with him. There he was a mere cipher. Here he was lord of the ascendant, the choice spirit, the dominant genius. He sat at the head of the table with his hat on, and an eye beaming even more luminously than his nose. He had a quiz and a philip for every one, and a good thing on every occasion. Nothing could be said or done without eliciting a spark from him. And I saw him lead the eclair. I've heard much worse wits even from noblemen. His jokes, it must be confessed, were rather wet. But they suited the circle in which he presided. The company were in that maudlin mood, when a little wit goes a great way. Every time he opened his lips there was short to be a roar, and sometimes before he had time to speak. We were fortunate enough to enter in time for a glee composed by him expressly for the club, in which he sang with two boon-companions who would have been worthy subjects for Hogarth's pencil. As they were provided with a written copy, I was enabled to procure the reading of it. Merrily, merrily, pushed round the glass, and merrily trolled the glee, for he who won't drink till he wink is an ass, so neighbor I drink to thee. Merrily, merrily, puddle thy nose, until it right rosy shall be. For a jolly red nose, I speak under the rose, is a sign of good company. We waited until the party broke up, and no one but the wit remained. He sat at the table with his leg stretched under it, and wide apart, his hands and his breeches' pockets. His head drooped upon his breast, engaging with lackluster continence on an empty tankard. His gait he was gone, his fire completely quenched. My companion approached and startled him from his fit of brown study, introducing himself on the strength of their having dined together at the book-sellers. "'By the way,' said he, "'it seems to me I have seen you before. Your face is surely the face of an old acquaintance, though for the life of me I cannot tell where I have known you.' "'Very likely,' said he with a smile, "'many of my old friends have forgotten me. Though to tell the truth, my memory on this instance is as bad as your own. If, however, it will assist your recollection in any way, my name is Thomas Dribble at your service.' "'What?' Tom Dribble, who was at our old Birchell School, and Warwickshire?' "'The same,' said the other, coolly. "'Why, and we are old schoolmates. Though it's no wonder you don't recollect me. I was your junior by several years. Don't you recollect little Jack Buckthorn?' Here then ensued a scene of school-fellow recognition, and a world of talk about old school times and school pranks. Mr. Dribble ended by observing with a heavy sigh. "'Ah, the times were sadly changed since those days.' "'Faith, Mr. Dribble,' said I, "'you seem quite a different man here from what you were at dinner. I had no idea that you had so much stuff in you. There you were all silence. But here you absolutely keep the table in a roar.' "'Ah, my dear sir,' replied he, with a shake of the head and a shrug of the shoulder, "'I'm a mere glowworm. I never shine by daylight. Besides, it's a hard thing for a poor devil of an author to shine at the table of a rich bookseller. Who do you think would laugh at anything I could say? And I had some of the current wits of the day about me. But here, though a poor devil, I am among still poorer devils than myself. Men who look up to me as a man of letters, and a bell aspirate, and all my jokes pass as sterling gold from the mint. "'You surely do yourself injustice, sir,' said I. "'I have certainly heard more good things from you this evening than from any of those bow aspirates by whom you appeared to have been so daunted. "'Ah, sir, but they have luck on their side. They are in the fashion. There's nothing like being in fashion. A man that has once got his character up for a wit is always sure of a laugh. Say what he may. He may utter as much nonsense as he pleases, and all will pass current. No one stops to question the coin of a rich man. But a poor devil cannot pass off either a joke or a guinea that it's being examined on both sides. Wits and coin are always dotted with a threadbare coat. "'For my part,' continued he, giving his hat a twitch a little more on one side. "'For my part, I hate your fine dinners. There's nothing sir like the freedom of a chap-house. I'd rather, any time, have my steak and tankard among my own set, than drink claret and eat venison with your cursed civil, elegant company, who never laugh at a good joke from a poor devil, for fear of it's being vulgar. A good joke grows in a wet soil. It flourishes in low places. But withers on your D. high, dry grounds. I once kept high company, sir, until I nearly ruined myself. I grew so dull and vapid and genteel. Nothing saved me but being arrested by my landlady, and thrown into prison, where a course of catch clubs, eight penny ale, and poor devil company, maneuvered my mind and brought it back to itself again. As it was now growing late, we parted for the evening, though I felt anxious to know more of this practical philosopher. I was glad, therefore, when Buckthorn proposed to have another meeting to talk over old school times and inquire to schoolmate's address. The latter seemed at first a little shy of naming his lodgings. But suddenly, assuming an air of hardyhood, Green Arbor Court, sir, exclaimed he, number, blank, in Green Arbor Court, you must know the place. Classic grounds, sir, classic ground. It was there, Goldsmith, wrote his Vicar of Wakefield. I always liked to live in literary haunts. I was amused with his whimsical apology for shabby quarters. On our way homewards, Buckthorn assured me that this dribble had been the prime wit and great wag of the school in their boyish days, and one of those unlucky urchins denominated bright geniuses. As he perceived me curious respecting his old schoolmate, he promised to take me with him in his proposed visit to Green Arbor Court. A few mornings afterwards he called upon me, and we sat forth on our expedition. He led me through a variety of singular alleys and courts and blind passages. For he appeared to be profoundly versed in all the intricate geography of the metropolis. At length he came upon Fleet Street, and, reversing it, turned up a narrow street to the bottom of a long steep flight of stone steps, named Breakneck Stairs. These, he told me, led up to Green Arbor Court, and at down them poor Goldsmith might many a time have risked his neck. When we entered the court I could not but smile to think in what out of the way corners genius produces her bantlings. And the muses, those capricious dames, who, forsooth, so often refused to visit palaces, and deny a single smile to votaries in splendid studies and gilded drawing-rooms. What holes and burrows will they frequent to lavish their favors on some ragged disciple? This Green Arbor Court I found to be a small square of tall and miserable houses, and very intense tines of which seemed turned inside out, to judge from the old garments and frippery, that fluttered from every window. It appeared to be a region of washer-women and lines were stretched about the little square, in which clothes were dangling to dry. Just as we entered the square a scuffle took place between two varagos about a disputed right to a wash-tub, and immediately the whole community was in a hub-up. Heads and mop-caps popped out of every window, and such a clamor of tongues ensued that I was feigned to stop my ears. Every Amazon took part with one or other of the disputants, and brandished her arms tripping with soap suds, and fired away from her window as from the embrasure of a fortress, while the swarms of children nestled and cradled in every procreate chamber of this hive, waking with a noise, set up their shrill pipes to swell the general concert. Poor Goldsmith, what a time must he have had of it, with his quiet disposition and nervous habits, penned up in this den of noise and vulgarity. How strange that while every sight and sound was sufficient to embitter the heart and fill it with misanthropy, his pen should be dropping the honey of Hyda. Yet it is more than probable that he drew many of his inimitable pictures of low life from the scenes which surrounded him in the sabote. The circumstance of Mrs. Tibbs being obliged to wash her husband's two shirts in a neighbor's house, who refused to lend her wash tub, may have been no sport of fancy, but a fact passing under his own eye. His landlady may have sat for the picture, and Bo Tibbs' scanty wardrobe had been effect similarly of his own. It was with some difficulty that we found our way to Dribble's lodgings. They were up to a pair of stairs, in her room that looked upon the court. And when we entered, he was seated on the edge of his bed, riding at a broken table. He received us, however, with a free, open, poor devil air that was irresistible. It is true he did at first appear slightly confused, but ended up his waistcoat a little higher and tucked in a stray, a frill of linen. He recollected himself in an instant, gave a half-swagger, half-leer, as he stepped forth to receive us, drew a three-legged stool for Mr. Buckthorn, pointed me to a lumbering old, demasked chair that looked like a dethroned monarch in exile, and made us welcome to his garret. We soon got engaged in conversation. Buckthorn and he had much to say about early school scenes, and as nothing opened the man's heart within recollections of the kind, he soon drew from him a brief outline of his literary career. I began life unluckily by being the wag and bright fellow at school, and I had the farther misfortune of becoming the great genius of my native village. My father was a country attorney, and intended that I should succeed him in business. But I had too much genius to study, and he was too fond of my genius to force it into the houses. So I fell into bad company, and took to bad habits. Do not mistake me. I mean that I fell into the company of village literati, and village blues, and took to writing village poetry. It was quite the fashion in the village to be literary. We had a little nod of choice spirits, who assembled frequently together, formed ourselves into a literary scientific and philosophical activity, and fancied ourselves the most learned phelos in existence. Every one had a great character assigned to him, suggested by some casual habit or affectation. When heavy fellow drank an enormous quantity of tea, rolled in his armchair, talked centeniously, pronounced dogmatically, and was considered a second Dr. Johnson. Another, who happened to be a curate, uttered coarse jokes, wrote doggerel rhymes, and was the swift of our association. Thus we had also our popes, and goldsmiths, and adissons, and a blue-stocking lady, whose drawing-room we frequented, who corresponded about nothing with all the world, and wrote letters, with the stiffness and formality of a printed book. Was cried up as another Mrs. Montague. I was by common consent the juvenile prodigy, the poetical youth, the great genius, the pride and hope of the village, through whom it was to become one day, as celebrated as Stratford on Avon. My father died and left me his blessing and his business. His blessing brought no money into my pocket, and as to his business it soon deserted me, for I was busy writing poetry, and could not attend to law, and my clients, though they had great respect for my talents, had no faith in a poetical attorney. I lost my business, therefore, spent my money and finished my poem. It was the pleasures of melancholy, and was cried up to the skies by the whole circle, the pleasures of imagination, the pleasures of hope, and the pleasures of memory, though each had placed its author in the first rank of poets, were blank prose and comparison. Our Mrs. Montague would cry over it from beginning to end. It was pronounced by all the members of the literary, scientific, and philosophical society, the greatest poem of the age, and all anticipated the noise it would make in the great world. There was not a doubt, but the London booksellers would be mad after it, and the only fear of my friends was that I would make a sacrifice by selling it too cheap. Every time they talked the matter over, they increased the price. They reckoned up the great sums given for the poems of certain popular writers, and determined that mine was worth more than all put together, and ought to be paid for accordingly. For my part I was modest in my expectations, and determined that I would be satisfied with a thousand guineas. So put my poem in my pocket, and set off for London. My journey was joyous, my heart was light as my purse, and my head full of anticipations of fame and fortune, with what swelling pride that I cast my eyes upon old London from the heights of Highgate. I was like a general looking down upon a place he expects to conquer. The great metropolis lay stretched before me, buried under a homemade cloud of murky smoke, that wrapped it from the brightness of a sunny day, and formed for it a kind of artificial bad weather. At the outskirts of the city, away to the west, the smoke gradually decreased until all was clear and sunny, and the view stretched uninterrupted to the blue line of the Kentish Hills. My eye turned fondly toward the mighty cupola of St. Paul's, swelled dimly through this misty chaos. And I pictured to myself the solemn realm of learning that lies about its base. How soon should the pleasures of melancholy throw this world of book cellars and printers into a bustle of business and delight? How soon should I hear my name repeated by printer's devils throughout Pattern Oster Rowe, and Angel Court, and Ava Maria Lane, until a men-corner should echo back the sound. Arrived in town, I repaired at once to the most fashionable publisher. Every new author patronizes him, of course. In fact, it had been determined in the village circle that he should be the fortunate man. It cannot tell you how vain gloriously I walked the streets. My head was in the clouds. I felt the airs of heaven playing about it, and fancied it already encircled by a halo of literary glory. As I passed by the windows of bookshops, I anticipated the time when my work would be shining among the hot-pressed wonders of the day, and my face, scratched on copper or cut in wood, figuring in fellowship with those of Scott and Byron and more. When I applied at the publisher's house, there was something in the loftiness of my air, and the ninjiness of my dress that struck the clerks with reverence. They doubtless took me for some person of consequence. Probably a digger of Greek roots, or a penetrator of pyramids. A proud man in a dirty shirt is always an imposing character in the world of letters. One must feel intellectually secure before he can venture to dress shabbily. Done but a great scholar or a great genius dares to be dirty. So I was ushered at once to the sanctum sanctorum of this High Priest of Minerva. The publishing of books is a very different affair nowadays from what it was in the time of Bernard Littop. I found the publisher a fashionably dressed man in an elegant drawing-room, furnished with sofas and portraits of celebrated authors in cases of splendidly bound books. He was writing letters in an elegant table. This was transacting business in style. The play seemed suited to the magnificent publications that issued from it. I rejoiced at the choice I had made of a publisher, for I always liked to encourage men of taste and spirit. I stepped up to the table with the lofty poetical port that I had been accustomed to maintain in our village circle. Though I threw in it something of a patronizing air, such as one feels when about to make a man's fortune. The publisher paused with his pen in his hand, and seemed waiting in mute suspense to know what it was to be announced by so singular an apparition. I put him at his ease in a moment, for I felt that I had but to come, see, and conquer. I made known my name in the name of my poem. I made known my name in the name of my poem. I produced my precious roll of blotted manuscript, laid it on the table with an emphasis, and told him at once to save time and come directly to the point. The price was one thousand guineas. I had given him no time to speak, nor did he seem so inclined. He continued looking at me for a moment with an air of whimsical perplexity. Then me from head to foot, looked down at the manuscript, then up again at me, and pointed to a chair, and whistling softly to himself, went on writing his letter. I sat for some time waiting his reply, supposing he was making up his mind, but he only paused occasionally to take a fresh dip of ink, to stroke his chin or the tip of his nose, and then resumed his writing. It was evident that his mind was intently occupied upon some other subject. But I had no idea that any other subject should be attended to, and my poem lie unnoticed on the table. I had supposed that everything would make way for the pleasures of melancholy. My gorgeant length rose within me. I took out my manuscript, thrust it into my pocket, and walked out of the room, making some noise as I went, to let my departure be heard. The publisher, however, was too much busy and minor concerned to notice it. I was suffered to walk downstairs without being called back. I salad forth into the street, but no clerk was sent after me, nor did the publisher call after me from the drawing-room window. I have been told since that he considered me either a madman or a fool. I leave you to judge how much he was in the wrong, in his opinion. When I turned the corner my crest fell. I cooled down in my pride, in my expectations, and reduced my terms to the next bookseller to whom I applied. I had no better success, nor with a third, nor with a fourth. I then desired the booksellers to make an offer themselves. But the deuce and offer would they make. They told me poetry was a mere drug. Everybody wrote poetry. The market was overstocked with it. And then, they said, the title of my poem was not taking. The pleasures of all kinds were worn thread-bearer. Nothing but horrors did, nowadays, and even these were almost worn out. Tales of pirates, robbers, and bloody turks might answer tolerably well. But then they must come from some established well-known name, or the public will not look at them. At last I offered to leave my poem with the bookseller to read it and judge for himself. Why, really, my dear Mr.—I forget your name, said he, cutting an eye at my rusty coat in shabby gators. Really, sir, we are so pressed with business just now, and have so many manuscripts on hand to read, that we have not time to look at any new production. But if you can call again in a week or two, or say the middle of next month, we may be able to look over your writings and give you an answer. Don't forget, the month after next. Good morning, sir. Happy to see you any time you are passing this way. So, saying, he bowed me out in the civilest way imaginable. In short, sir, instead of an eager competition to secure my poem, I could not even get it read. In the meantime, I was harassed by letters from my friends, wanting to know when the work was to appear, who was to be my publisher, but above all things, warning me not to let it go too cheap. There was but one alternative left. I determined to publish the poem myself, and to have my triumph over the booksellers. When it should become the fashion of the day, I accordingly published the pleasures of melancholy and ruined myself. Accepting the copies sent to the reviews and to my friends in the country, not one, I believe, ever left the booksellers' warehouse. The printer's bill drained my purse, and the only notice that was taken of my work was contained in the advertisements paid for by myself. I could have borne all this, and have attributed it, as usual, to the mismanagement of the publisher, or the want of taste in the public, and could have made the usual appeal to posterity. But my village friends would now let me rest in quiet. They were picturing me to themselves, feasting with the great, communing with the literary, and in the high course of fortune and renown. Every little while, someone came to me with a letter of introduction from the village circle, recommending him to my attention, and requesting that I would make him known in society, with the hint that an introduction to the house of a celebrated literary nobleman would be extremely agreeable. I determined, therefore, to change my lodgings, drop my correspondence, and disappear altogether from the view of my village and my errors. Besides, I was anxious to make one more poetic attempt. I was by no means disheartened by the failure of my first. My poem was evidently too didactic. The public was wise enough, yet no longer it read for instruction. Quote, they want horrors, do they? said I. In faith, then they shall have enough of them. So I looked out for some quiet, retired place, where I might be out of reach of my friends, and have leisure to cook up some delectable dish of poetical hell-broth. I had some difficulty in finding a place to my mind, when chanced through me in the way of Kenanbury Castle. It is an ancient brick tower, hard by Mary Islington, the remains of a hunting-seat of Queen Elizabeth, where she took the pleasures of the country, when the neighborhood was all woodland. What gave a particular interest in my eyes was the circumstance that it had been the residence of a poet. It was here Goldsmith resided when he wrote his deserted village. I was shown the very apartment. It was a relic of the original style of the castle, with penult wainskets and gothic windows. I was pleased with its air of antiquity, and with its having been the residence of poor Goldie. Quote, Goldsmith was a pretty poet, said I to myself. A very pretty poet, though rather of the old school. He did not think and feel so strongly, as is the fashion nowadays, but had he lived in these times of hot hearts and hot heads, he would have written quite differently. In a few days I was quietly established in my new quarters. My books all arranged, my writing desk, placed by a window, looking out into the field, and I felt as snug as Robinson Crusoe, when he had finished his bower. For several days I enjoyed all the novelty of change, and the charms which graced a new lodging before one has found out their defects. I rambled about the fields where a fancy Goldsmith had rambled. I explored Mary Islington, ate my solitary dinner at the Black Bull, which according to tradition was a country seat of Sir Walter Ralee, and would sit and sip my wine, and muse on old times, and acquaint old room, where many a council had been held. All this did very well for a few days. I was stimulated by novelty, inspired by the associations awakened in my mind, by these curious haunts, and began to think I felt the spirit of composition stirring within me. But Sunday came, and with it the whole city world, swarming about Cannonbury Castle. I could not open my windows, but I was stunned with shouts and noises from the cricket-ground. The late, quiet road beneath my window was alive with the tread of feet, and a clack of tongues, and to complete my misery I found that my quiet retreat was absolutely a show-house, the tower and its contents being shown to strangers at six pence ahead. There was a perpetual tramping upstairs of citizens and their families to look about the country from the top of the tower, and to take a peep at the city, through the telescope, to try if they could discern their own chimneys, and then, in the midst of a vein of thought or a moment of inspiration, I was interrupted, and all my ideas put to flight, by my intolerable landlady's tapping at the door, and asking me if I would, quote, just please to let a lady and gentleman come in to take a look at Mr. Goldsmith's room, end quote. If you know anything what an author's study is, and what an author is himself, you must note there was no standing thus. I put a positive interdict on my room's being exhibited. But then it was shown when I was absent, and my papers put in confusion, and on returning home one day I absolutely found a cursed tradesman and his daughters gaping over my manuscripts, and my landlady in a panic in my appearance. I tried to make out a little longer by taking the key in my pocket, but it would not do. I overheard my hostess one day telling some of her customers on the stairs that the room was occupied by an author, who was always in a tantrum if interrupted, and I immediately perceived, by a slight noise at the door, that they were peeping at me through the keyhole. By the head of Apollo, but this was quite too much, with all my eagerness for fame, and my ambition of the stare of the million, I had no idea of being exhibited by retail at six pence ahead. End that through a keyhole. So I bated due to Cannonberry Castle, Mary Islington, and the haunts of poor Goldsmith, without having advanced a single line in my labours. My next quarters were at a small, white-washed cottage, which stands not far from Hempstead, just on the brow of a hill, looking over Chalk Farm, and Camden Town, remarkable for the rival houses of Mother Redcap and Mother Blackcap, and so across Crux Skull, common to the distant city. The cottage is no wise remarkable in itself, but I regarded it with reverence, for it had been the asylum of a persecuted author. Hither poor steel had retreated, and lain perdu when persecuted by creditors and bailiffs. Those immemorial plagues of authors and free-spirited gentlemen. And here he had written many numbers of the spectator. It was from hence, too, that he had dispatched those little notes to his lady, so full of affection and whimsicality, in which the fond husband, the careless gentleman, and the shifting spin-thrift, were so oddly blended, I thought, as I first eyed the window of his apartment, that could sit within it and write volumes. No such thing. It was hay-making season, and, as ill luck would have it, immediately opposite the cottage was a little ale-house, with the sign of a load of hay. Whether it was there in steel's time or not, I cannot say, but it set all attempt at conception or inspiration at defiance. It was the resort of all the Irish haymakers, whom owe the broad fields in the neighborhood, and of drovers and teamsters who travel that road. Here would they gather in the endless summer twilight, by the light of the harvest moon, and sit round a table at the door, and tipple and laugh and quarrel and fight, and sing drowsy songs, and dawdle away the hours, until the deep solemn notes of St. Paul's clock would warn the violets home. In the daytime I was still less able to write. It was broad summer. The haymakers were at work in the fields, and the perfume of the new moan, hey, brought with it the recollection of my native fields. So instead of remaining in my room to write, I went wandering about Primrose Hill, and Hampstead Heights and Shepard's Field, and all those Arcadian scenes so celebrated by London Bards. I cannot tell you how many delicious hours I have passed, lying on the cocks of New Moan Hay, on the pleasant slopes of some of those hills, inhaling the fragrance of the fields, while the summer fly buzzed above me, or the grasshopper leaped into my bosom, and how I have gazed with half shut eye upon the smoky mass of London, and listened to the distant sound of its population, and pitted the poor suns of earth, toiling in its bowels, like gnomes in the dark gold mine. People may say what they please about cockney pastorals, but after all, there is a vast deal of rural beauty about the western vicinity of London, and any one that's looked down upon the valley of West End, with its soft bosom of green pastorage, lying open to the south, and dotted with cattle, the steeple of Hempstead rising among rich groves on the brow of the hill, an alerted height of harrow in the distance. We'll confess that never has he seen a more absolutely rural landscape in the vicinity of a great metropolis. Still, however, I found myself not a witt the better off for my frequent change of lodgings, and I began to discover that in literature, as in trade, the old proverb holds good, quote, a rolling stone gathers no moss, end quote. The tranquil beauty of the country played the very vengeance with me. I could not mount my fancy into the termigent vein. I could not conceive, amidst the smiling landscape, a scene of blood and murder, and the smug citizens and breeches and gators, but all ideas of heroes and bandits out of my reign. I could think of nothing but dulcet subjects, quote, the pleasures of spring, the pleasures of solitude, the pleasures of tranquility, the pleasures of sentiment, end quote, nothing but pleasures, and I had the painful experience of the, quote, pleasures of melancholy, end quote, too strongly in my recollection, to be beguiled by them. Chance at length befriended me. I had frequently, in my ramblings, loitered about Hempstead Hill, which is a kind of parnassus of metropolis, at such times that it occasionally took my dinner at Jack Straw's Castle. It is a country in, so named. The very spot where that notorious rebel and his followers held their council of war. It is a favorite resort of the citizens, when ruraly inclined, as it commands fine fresh air and a good view of the city. I sat one day in the public room of the Sin, ruminating over a beef steak in a pint of port, when my imagination kindled up with ancient and heroic images. I had long wanted a theme and a motto. Both suddenly broke upon my mind. I determined to write a poem on the history of Jack Straw. I was so full of my subject that I was fearful of being anticipated. I wondered that none of the poets of the day, in their researches after Ruffian heroes, had ever thought of Jack Straw. I went to work pal mel, blotted several sheets of paper with choice-floating thoughts and battles and descriptions, to be ready in a moment's warning. In a few days time I sketched out the skeleton of my poem. And nothing was wanting but to give it flesh and blood. I used to take my manuscript and stroll about Cain Wood, and read aloud, and would dine at the castle by way of keeping up the vein of thought. I was taking a meal there one day, at a rather late hour, in the public room. There was no other company but one man, who sat enjoying his pint of port on a window, and noticing the passers-by. He was dressed in a green shooting-coat. His countenance was strongly marked. He had a hooked nose, a romantic eye, accepting that it had something of a squint, and altogether, as I thought, a poetical style of hand. I was quite taken with the man, for you must know that I am a little of a physi-nomist. I set him down at once, for either a poet or a philosopher. As I like to make new acquaintances, considering every man a volume of human nature, I soon fell into conversation with the stranger. Who, I was pleased to find, was by no means difficult of access. After I had dined, I joined him at the window, and would became so sociable that I proposed a bottle of wine together, to which he most cheerfully assented. I was too full of my poem to keep long quiet on the subject. I began to talk about the origin of the tavern, and the history of Jack Straw. I found my new acquaintance to be perfectly at home on the topic, and to jump exactly with my humor in every respect. I became elevated by the wine and the conversation, and the fullness of an author's feelings. I told him of my projected poem, and repeated some passages, and he was in raptures. He was evidently of a strong, poetical turn. Sir, said he, filling my glass at the same time, our poets don't look at home. I don't see why we need to go out of Old England for robbers and rebels to write about. I like your Jack Straw, sir. He's a homemade hero. I like him, sir. I like him exceedingly. He's English to the backbone. Damn! Give me honest Old England, after all. Dems my sentiments, sir. I honour your sentiments! cried I zealously. They are exactly my own. An English Ruffian for poetry is as good a Ruffian for poetry as any in Italy or Germany, by the archipelago. But it's hard to make our poets think so. More shame for them! replied the man in green. What a plague would they have! What have we to do with their archipelagoes of Italy and Germany? Haven't we heaths and commons and highways on our own little island? I, and stout fellows, to pad the hoof over them too. Come, sir, my service to you. I agree with you perfectly. Poets in old times had write notions on this subject, continued I. Witness the fine old ballads about Robin Hood, Alan Idael, and other staunch blades of yore. Right, sir, right! Interrupted he. Robin Hood! He was the lad to Christ and, to a man and never flinch. Ah, sir! said I. Dave had famous bands of robbers in the good old times. Those were glorious, poetical days. The merry crew sure would forest, who lived such a roving picturesque life, under the greenwood tree. I have often wished to visit their haunts, and tread the scenes of the exploits of Fryer Tuck, and Climb of the Clough, and Sir William of Cowsley. Hey, sir, to the gentleman in green. We have had several very pretty gang since their day. Those gallant dogs that kept about the great heaths in the neighborhood of London, about bagshot, and hounslow, and black heath, for instance. Come, sir, my service to you. You don't drink. I suppose, said I, emptying my glass. I suppose you have heard of the famous Turpin, who was born in his very village of Hempstead, and who used to lurk with his gang in Epping Forest about a hundred years since. Have I, cried he, to be sure I have. A hearty old blade that, sound as pitch. Hold Turpentine, as we used to call him, a famous fine fellow, sir. Well, sir, continued I. I have visited Waltham Abbey, and Chinkford Church, merely from the stories I heard, when a boy of his exploits there, and I have searched Epping Forest for the cavern, where he used to conceal himself. Must know, added I. Then I am a sort of amateur of highwaymen. They were dashing, daring fellows. The last apologies that we had for the night errands of your. Ah, sir, the country has been sinking gradually into tameness and commonplace. We are losing the old English spirit. The bold knights of the post have all dwindled down into lurking foot-pads and sneaking pickpockets. There's no such thing as a dashing gentleman-like robbery committed nowadays on the King's Highway. A man may roll from one end of England to the other and a drowsy coach, or jingling, post-chase, without any other adventure than that of being occasionally overturned, sleeping in damp sheets, or having an ill-cooked dinner. We hear no more of public coaches being stopped and robbed by a well-mounted gang of resolute fellows, with pistols in their hands and crepes over their faces. What a pretty poetical incident was it, for example, in domestic life, for a family carriage, on its way to a country seat, to be attacked about dusk. The old gentleman eased of his purse and watch, the ladies of their necklaces and earrings, by a politely-spoken highwayman on the blood mare, who afterwards leaped a hedge and galloped across the country to the admiration of Miss Carolina, the daughter, who would write a long and romantic account of the adventure to her friend Miss Juliana in town. Ah, sir, we meet with nothing of such incidents nowadays. That, sir, said my companion, taking advantage of a pause, when I stopped to recover breath and to take a glass of wine, which she had just poured. That, sir, craving your pardon, is not owing to any want of old English pluck. It is the effect of this cursed system of banking. People do not travel with bags of gold as they did formerly. They have a post-notes and drafts on bankers. To rob a coach is like catching a crow, where you have nothing but carry and flesh and feathers for your pains. But a coach in old time, sir, was as rich as a Spanish galleon. It turned out the yellow boys bravely, and their private carriage was a cool hundred or two at least. I cannot express how much I was delighted with the sallies of my new acquaintance. He told me that he often frequented the castle. I will be glad to know more of me, and I promised myself, many a pleasant afternoon with him, when I should read him my poem, as it proceeded, and benefit by his remarks. For it was evident he had the true, poetical feeling. Come, sir! said he, pushing the bottle. Damn, I like you. You're a man after my own heart. I'm cursed at slow in making new acquaintances in general. One must stand on the reserve, you know. But when I meet with a man of your kidney, damn, my heart jumps at once to them. Damn's my sentiment, sir. Come, sir, here's Jack Strauss' health. I presume one can drink it nowadays without treason. With all my heart, said I gaily, it dick-terpens into the bargain. Ah, sir, said the man in green. Those are the kind of men for poetry. The New Gate calendar, sir. The New Gate calendar is your only reading. There's the place to look for bold deeds and dashing fellows. We were so much pleased with each other, that we sat until a late hour. I insisted on paying the bill, both my purse and my heart were full. And I agreed that he should pay the score at our next meeting. As the coaches had all gone that run between Hampstead and London, he had to return on foot. He was so delighted with the idea of my poem, that he could talk of nothing else. He made me repeat such passages as I could remember. And though I did it in a very mangled manner, having a wretched memory, yet he was in raptures. Every now and then he would break out with some scrap, which he would, misquote, most terribly, but would rub his hands and exclaim, By Jupiter, that's fine. That's noble. Damn, sir, if I could conceive how you hid upon such ideas. I must confess I did not always relish his misquotations, which sometimes made absolute nonsense of the passages. But what author stands upon trifles when he is praised? Never had I spent a more delightful evening. I did not perceive how the time flew. I could not bear to separate, but continued walking on, arm in arm with him, past my lodgings, through Cantom Town and across Crack Skull Common, talking in the whole way about my poem. When we were halfway across the Common, he interrupted me in the midst of a quotation, by telling me that this had been a famous place for foot-pads, and was still occasionally infested by them, and that a man had recently been shot there in attempting to defend himself. The more full he, cried I, that man is an idiot to risk life or even limb to save a paltry purse of money. It's quite a different case from that of a duel, where one's honor is concerned. For my part, added I, I should never think of making resistance against one of those desperados. Say you so? cried my friend in green, turning suddenly upon me, and putting a pistol to my breast. Why then have at you, my lad? Come, disperse, empty, unsack! In a word I found that the muse had played me another of her tricks, and had betrayed me into the hands of a foot-pad. There was no time to parlay. He made me turn my pockets inside out, and during the sound of distant footsteps he made one fell swoop upon purse, watch and all. Gave me a thwack over my unlucky pate that laid me sprawling on the ground, and scampered away with his booty. I saw no more of my friend in green until a year or two afterwards, when I caught a sight of his poetical countenance among a crew of scapegraces, heavily ironed, who were on their way for transportation. He recognized me at once, tipped me an imprudent wink, and asked me how I came on with the history of Jack Straw's castle. The catastrophe at Crack Skull Common put an end to my summer's campaign. I was cured of my poetical enthusiasm for rebels, robbers, and highwaymen. I was put out of conceit of my subject. From what was worse, I was lightened of my purse, in which it was almost every farthing I had in this world. So I abandoned Sir Richard Steele's cottage in despair, and crept into less celebrated, than no less poetical, and eerie lodgings in a garret in town. I see you are growing weary, so I will not detain you with any more of my luckless attempts to get astride of Pegasus. Still I could not consent to give up the trial, and abandon those dreams of renown, in which I had indulged. How should I ever be able to look, the literary circle of my native village in the face, if I were so completely to falsify their predictions? For some time longer, therefore, I continued to write, for fame, and of course, was the most miserable dog in existence, besides being in continued risk of starvation. I have many a time strolled sorrowfully along, with a sad heart, and an empty stomach about five o'clock, and looked wistfully down the areas in the west end of the town, and seen through the kitchen windows the fires gleaming, and the joints of meat turning on the spits, and dripping with gravy, and the cookmaids beating up puddings, or trussing turkeys, and have felt for the moment that if I could but have the run of one of those kitchens, Apollo and the Muses might have the hungry heights of Parnassus for me. Oh, sir, talk of meditations among the tombs. There are nothing so melancholy as the meditations of a poor devil without penny and pouch, along a line of kitchen windows, towards dinner time. At length, when almost reduced to famine and despair, the idea all at once entered my head, that perhaps I was not so clever a fellow as the village and myself had supposed. It was the salvation of me. The moment the idea popped into my brain, it brought conviction and comfort with it. I awoke as from a dream. I gave up immortal fame to those who could live on air, took to writing from mere bread, and have ever since led a very tolerable life of it. There is no man of letters, so much at his ease, sir, as he that is no character to gain or lose. I had to train myself to it, a little, however, and to clip my wings short at first, or they would have carried me up into poetry in spite of myself. So I continued to begin, by the opposite extreme, and amending the higher regions of the craft, I became plump down to the lowest, and turned creeper. Creeper, interrupted I, and pray, what is that? Oh, sir, I see you are ignorant of the language of the craft. A creeper is one who furnishes the newspapers with paragraphs, so much a line, one that goes about in quest of misfortunes, attends the both street offices, the courts of justice, and every other den of mischief and nicpity. We are paid the rate of a penny a line. As we can sell the same paragraph to almost every paper, we sometimes pick up a very decent day's work. Now and then the muse is unkind, or the day uncommonly quiet, and then we rather starve, and sometimes the unconscionable editors will clip over paragraphs, when they are a little too rhetorical, or snip off two pence or three pence at a go. I have many a time, had my pot of porter snipped off of my dinner in this way, and have had to dine with dry lips. However, I cannot complain. I rose gradually in the lower ranks of the craft, and am now, I think, in the most comfortable region of literature. And pray, said I, would may you be at present? At present, said he, I am a regular job writer, and turn my hand to anything. I work up the writings of others at so much a sheet, turn off translations, write second-rate articles to fill up reviews and magazines, compile travels and voyages, and furnish theatrical criticism for the newspapers. All this authorship you perceive is anonymous. He gives no reputation, except among the trade, where I am considered an author of all work, and am always sure of employ. That's the only reputation I want. I sleep soundly, without dread, of duns or critics, and leave immortal fame to those that choose to fret and fight about it. Take my word for it. The only happy author in this world is he who is below the care of reputation. The preceding anecdotes of Buckthorn's early schoolmate and a variety of peculiarities, which I had remarked in himself, gave me a strong curiosity to know something of his own history. There was a dash of careless, good humor about him that pleased me exceedingly, and at times whimsical tinge of melancholy ran through his humor that gave it an additional relish. It had evidently been a little chilled and buffeted by fortune, without being soured thereby. As some fruits became mellower and sweeter from having been bruised or frostbitten, he smiled when I expressed my desire. I have no great story, said he, to relate, in mere tissue of errors and follies. But, such as it is, you shall have one epic of it, that which you may judge of the rest. And so, without any further prelude, he gave me the following anecdote of his early adventures. CHAPTER XIII. OF TAILS OF A TRAVELER, BY WASHINGTON NERVING. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. I was born to very little property, but to great expectations, which is perhaps one of the most unlucky fortunes that a man can be born to. My father was a country gentleman, the last of a very ancient and honorable, but decayed family, and resided in an old hunting lodge in Warwickshire. He was a keen sportsman, and lived to the extent of his moderate income, so that I had little to expect from that quarter. But then I had a rich uncle by the mother's side. A penorious accumulating curmudgeon, who it was confidently expected, would make me his heir. Because he was an old bachelor. Because I was named after him, and because he hated all the world except myself. He was, in fact, an inveterate hater, a miser even in misanthropy, and hoarded up a grudge as he did a guinea. Thus, though my mother was an only sister, he had never forgiven her marriage with my father. Against whom he had a cold, still, immovable peak, which had lain at the bottom of his heart, like a stone in a well, ever since they had been schoolboys together. My mother, however, considered me as the intermediate being that was to bring everything again into harmony. For she looked upon me as a prodigy, God bless her. My heart overflows whenever I recall her tenderness. She was the most excellent, the most indulgent of mothers. I was her only child. It was a pity she had no more, for she had fondness of heart enough to have spoiled a dozen. I was sent, at an early age, to a public school, sorely against my mother's wishes. But my father insisted that it was the only way to make a boy's hearty. The school was kept by a conscientious prig of the ancient system, who did his duty by the boys entrusted to his care. That is to say, we were flogged soundly when we did not get our lessons. We were put into classes and thus flogged on in droves along the highways of knowledge, in the same manner as cattle are driven to market, where those that are heavy in gate or shortened leg have to suffer for the superior alertness or longer limbs of their companions. For my part I confess it was shame. I was an incorrigible laggard. I have always had the poetical feeling. That is to say, I have always been an idle fellow and prone to play the vagabond. I used to get away from my books and school whenever I could and ramble about the fields. I was surrounded by seductions for such a temperament. The school house was an old fashioned, whitewashed mansion of wood and plaster, standing on the skirts of a beautiful village. Closed by it was the venerable church with a tall gothic spire. Before it spread a lovely green valley, with a little stream glistening along through willow groves, while a line of blue hills that bounded the landscape gave rise to many a summer day dream as to the fairy land that lay beyond. And despite of all the scourgings I suffered at that school to make me love my book, I cannot but look back upon the place with fondness. Indeed, I considered this frequent flagellation as the common lot of humanity and the regular mode in which scholars were made. My kind mother used to lament over my details of the sore trials I underwent in the cause of learning. But my father turned a deaf ear to her expostulations. He had been flogged through school himself, and swore there was no other way of making a man of parts. Though, let me speak it with all due reverence. My father was but an indifferent illustration of his own theory. For he was considered a grievous blockhead. My poetical temperament in Vince itself had a very early period. The village church was attended every Sunday by neighboring squire, the Lord of the Manor, whose park stretched quite to the village, and whose spacious country seat seemed to take the church under his protection. Indeed, you would have thought the church had been consecrated to him instead of to the deity. The parish clerk bowed low before him, and the vergers humbled themselves into the dust in his presence. He always entered a little late and with some stir, striking his cane emphatically on the ground, swaying his hat in his hand and looking loftily to the right and left as he walked slowly up the aisle. And the parson, who always ate at Sunday dinner with him, never commenced service until he appeared. He sat with his family in a large pew, gorgeously lined, humbling himself devoutly on velvet cushions, and reading lessons of meekness and lowliness of spirit out of splendid gold and Morocco prayer-books. Whenever the parson spoke of the difficulty of the rich man's entering the kingdom of heaven, the eyes of the congregation would turn towards the grand pew, and I thought the squire seemed pleased with the application. The pomp of this pew and the aristocratical air of the family struck my imagination wonderfully, and I felt desperately in love with a little daughter of the squires about twelve years of age. This freak of fancy made me more truant from my studies than ever. I used to stroll about the squire's park, and would lurk near the house to catch glimpses of this little damsel at the windows, or playing about the lawns, or walking out with her governess. I had not enterpised her impudence enough to venture from my concealment. Indeed, I felt like an errant poacher, until I read one or two of Ovid's metamorphoses, when I pictured myself as some sylvan deity, and she a coy wood nymph of whom I was in pursuit. There is something extremely delicious in his early awakenings of the tender passion. I can feel, even at this moment, the thrilling of my boyish bosom, whenever by chance I caught a glimpse of her white frock fluttering among the shrubbery. I now began to read poetry. I carried about in my bosom a volume of waller, which I had perloined from my mother's library, and I applied to my little fair one all the compliments lavished upon Sakharisa. At length I danced with her at a school-ball. I was so awkward a booby that I dared scarcely speak to her. I was filled with awe and embarrassment in her presence. But I was so inspired that my poetical temperament for the first time broke out in verse, and I fabricated some glowing lines, in which I be rhymed the little lady under the favourite name of Sakharisa. I slipped the verses, trembling and blushing, into her hand the next Sunday as she came out of church. The little prune handed them to her mama. The mama handed them to the squire. The squire, who had no soul for poetry, sent them in dudgeon to the schoolmaster. And the schoolmaster, with the barbarity worthy of the dark ages, gave me a sound and peculiarly humiliating flogging for this trespassing upon Parnassus. This was a sad outset for a votary of the muse. It ought to have cured me of my passion for poetry, but it only confirmed it, for I felt the spirit of a martyr rising within me. What was as well, perhaps, it cured me of my passion for the young lady. For I felt so indignant at the ignimonious horsing I had incurred in celebrating her charms, that I could not hold up my head in church. Fortunately for my wounded sensibility, the mid-summer holy days came on, and I returned home. My mother, as usual, inquired into all my school concerns, my little pleasures and cares and sorrows, for boyhood has its share of the one as well as of the others. I told her all, and she was indignant at the treatment I had experienced. She fired up at the arrogance of the squire, and the prudery of the daughter, and as to the schoolmaster. She wondered where was the use of having schoolmasters, and why boys could not remain at home and be educated by tutors under the eye of their mothers. She asked to see the verses I had written, and she was delighted with them, for to confess the truth she had a pretty taste in poetry. She even showed to them, to the parson's wife, who protested they were charming, and the parson's three daughters insisted on each having a copy of them. All this was exceedingly balsamic, and I was still more consoled and encouraged, when the young ladies, who were the blue stockings of the neighborhood, and had read Dr. Johnson's lives quite through, assured my mother that great geniuses never studied but were always idle, upon which I began to surmise that I was myself something out of the common run. My father, however, was of a very different opinion, for when my mother, in the pride of her heart, showed him my copy of verses, he threw them out of the window, asking her, quote, if she meant to make a valid monger of the boy, end quote. But he was a careless, common-thinking man, and I cannot say that I ever loved him much. My mother absorbed all my filial affection. I used occasionally, during holy days, to be sent on short visits to the uncle, who was to make me his heir. They thought it would keep me in his mind, and render him fond of me. He was a withered, anxious-looking old fellow, and lived in a desolate old country seat, which he suffered to go to ruin, from absolute niggerliness. He kept but one manservant, who had lived, or rather starved, with him for years. No woman was allowed to sleep in the house. A daughter of the old servant lived by the gate in what had been a porter's lodge, and was permitted to come into the house about an hour each day, to make the beds, and cook a morsel of provisions. The park that surrounded the house was all run wild, the trees grown out of shape, the fish-pond stagnant, the urns and statues fallen from their pedestals and buried among the rank grass. The hairs and pheasants were so little molested, except by poachers, that they bred in great abundance, and sported about the rough lawns and weedy avenues, to guard the premises and frighten off robbers, of whom he was somewhat apprehensive, and visitors whom he held in almost equal awe. My uncle kept two or three bloodhounds, who were always prowling round the house, and were the dread of the neighboring peasantry. They were gaunt and half-starved, seemed ready to devour one from mere hunger, and were an effectual check on any stranger's approach to this wizard castle. Such was my uncle's house, which I used to visit now and then during the holy days. I was, as I have before said, the old man's favorite. That is to say, he did not hate me so much, as he did the rest of the world. I had been apprised of his character, and cautioned to cultivate his good will. But I was too young and careless to be a courtier, and indeed have never been sufficiently studious of my interests, to let them govern my feelings. However, we seemed to jog on very well together. And as my visits cost him almost nothing, they did not seem to be very unwelcome. I brought with me my gun and fishing-rod, and half supplied the table from the park and the fishponds. Our meals were solitary and unsocial. My uncle rarely spoke. He pointed for whatever he wanted, and the servant perfectly understood him. Indeed, his man John, or iron John as he was called in the neighborhood, was a counterpart of his master. He was a tall, lonely old fellow, with a dry wig that seemed made of cow's tail, and a face as tough as though it had been made of bull's hide. He was generally clad in the long patched livery coat, taken out of the wardrobe of the house, in which bagged loosely about him, having evidently belonged to some corpulent predecessor in the more plentious days of the mansion. From long habits of taciturnity the hinges of his jaws seemed to have grown absolutely rusty, and it cost him as much effort to set them ajar and to let out a tolerable sentence, as it would have done to set open the iron gates of a park, and let out the family carriage that was dropping to pieces in the coach house. I cannot say, however, but that I was for some time amused with my uncle's peculiarities. Even the very desolateness of the establishment had something in it that hit my fancy. When the weather was fine, I used to amuse myself, in a solitary way, by rambling about the park, and coursing like a colt across its lawns. The hairs and pheasants seemed to stare with surprise, to see a human being walking these forbidden grounds by daylight. Sometimes I amused myself by jerking stones or shooting at birds with a bow and arrows, for to have used a gun would have been treason. Now and then my path was crossed by a little red-headed, rag-tailed urchin, the son of the woman at the lodge, who ran wild about the premises. I tried to draw him into familiarity and to make a companion of him, but he seemed to have imbibed the strange, and social character of everything around him, and always kept a loof. So I considered him as another orson, and amused myself with shooting at him with my bow and arrows, and he would hold up his breeches with one hand, and scamper away like a deer. There is something in all this loneliness and wildness strangely pleasing to me. The great stables, empty and weather-broken, with the names of favorite horses over the vacant stalls, the windows bricked and boarded up, the broken roofs garrisoned by rooks and jack-daws, all had a singularly forlorn appearance, one would have concluded the house to be totally uninhabited, were it not for a little thread of blue smoke, which now and then curled up like a corkscrew, from the center of one of the wide chimneys, when my uncle's starvelling meal was cooking. My uncle's room was in a remote corner of the building, strongly secured and generally locked. I was never admitted into the stronghold, where the old man would remain for the greater part of the time, drawn up like a veteran spider in the citadel of his web. The rest of the mansion, however, was open to me, and I sauntered about it unconstrained. The damp and rain which beat in through the broken windows, crumbled the paper from the walls, moldered the pictures and gradually destroyed the furniture. I loved to rove about the wide waste chambers in bad weather, and listened to the howling of the wind, and the banging about of the doors and windows shutters. I pleased myself with the idea how completely, when I came to the estate, I would renovate all things, and make the old building ring with merriment, to lose astonished at its own jacundity. The chamber which I occupied on these visits was the same that had been my mother's, when a girl. There was still the toilet-table of her own adorning, the landscapes of her own drawing. She had never seen it since her marriage, but would often ask me if everything was still the same. All was just the same, for I loved that chamber on her account, and had taken pains to put everything in order, and to mend all the flaws in the windows with my own hands. I anticipated the time when I should once more welcome her to the house of her father's, and restore her to this little nestling place of her childhood. At length my evil genius, or what perhaps is the same thing, the muse, inspired me with the notion of rhyming again. My uncle, who never went to church, used on Sundays to read chapters out of the Bible, and Iron John, the woman from the lodge, and myself, were his congregation. It seemed to be all one to him what he read, so long as it was something from the Bible. Sometimes, therefore, it would be the song of Solomon, and this withered anatomy would read about being, but stayed with flagans and comforted with apples, for he was sick of love. Sometimes he would hobble with spectacle on his nose, through a whole chapters of hard Hebrew names and Deuteronomy, at which the poor woman would sigh and groan as if wonderfully moved. His favorite book, however, was The Pilgrim's Progress, and when he came to that part which treats a doubting castle and giant despair, I thought invariably of him and his desolate old country seat. So much did the idea amuse me that I took to scribbling about it under the trees in the park, and in a few days had made some progress in a poem, which I had given a description of the place under the name of Doubting Castle, and personified my uncle as giant despair. I lost my poem somewhere about the house, and I soon suspected that my uncle had found it, as he harshly intimated to me that I could return home, and that need not come and see him again until he should send for me. Just about this time my mother died. I cannot dwell upon this circumstance. My heart, careless and way-worn as it is, gushes with the recollection. Her death was an event that perhaps gave a turn to all my after-fortunes. With her died all that made home attractive, for my father was harsh, as I have before said, and it never treated me with kindness. Not that he exerted any unusual severity towards me. But it was his way. I do not complain of him. In fact, I have never been of a complaining disposition. I seem born debuffeted by friends and fortune, and nature has made me a careless endure of buffonings. And now, however, began to grow very impatient of remaining at school, to be flogged for things that I did not like. I longed for variety, especially now that I had not my uncles to resort to, by way of diversifying the dullness of school with the dreariness of his country-seats. I was now turned of sixteen, tall for my age and full of idle fancies. I had a roving, inextinguishable desire to see different kinds of life and different orders of society. And this vagrant humor had been fostered in me by Tom Dribble, the prime wag and great genius of the school, who had all the rambling propensities of a poet. I used to set at my desk in the school on a fine summer's day. And instead of studying the book which lay open before me, my eye was gazing through the window on the green fields and blue hills. How I envied the happy groups seated on the tops of stagecoaches, chatting and joking and laughing as they were whirled by the schoolhouse on their way to the metropolis. Even the wagoners trudging along beside their ponderous teams and traversing the kingdom from one end to the other were objects of envy to me. I fancied to myself what adventures they must experience and what odd scenes of life they must witness. All this was doubtless the poetical temperament working within me and tempting me forth into a world of its own creation which I mistook for the world of real life. While my mother lived, the strange propensity to roam was counteracted by the stronger attractions of home and by the powerful ties of affection which drew me to her side. But now that she was gone, the attractions had ceased, the ties were severed. I had no longer an anchorage ground from my heart, but was at the mercy of every vagrant impulse. Nothing but the narrow allowance in which my father kept me and the consequent purinary of my purse prevented me from mounting the top of a stagecoach and launching myself adrift on the great ocean of life. Just about this time the village was agitated for a day or two by the passing through of several caravans containing wild beasts and other spectacles for great fair annually held at a neighboring town. I had never seen a fair of any consequence and my curiosity was powerfully awakened by this bustle of preparation. I gazed with respect and wonder at the vagrant personages who accompanied these caravans. I loitered about the village in, listening with curiosity and delight to the slaying talk and can't jokes of the showmen and their followers, and I felt an eager desire to witness this fair which my fancy decked out as something wonderfully fine. A holy day afternoon presented when I could be absent from the school from noon until evening. A wagon was going from the village to the fair. I could not resist the temptation, nor the eloquence of Tom Dribble, who was a truant to the very heart's core. We hired seats and set off full of boyish expectation. I promised myself that I would but take a peep at the land of promise, and hasten back again before my absence should be noted. Heavens, how happy I was on arriving at the fair! How I was enchanted with the world of fun and pageantry around me, the humours of punch, the feats of the equestrians, the magical tricks of the conjurers. But what principally caught my attention was an itinerant theatre where a tragedy, pantomime, and farce were all acted in the course of half an hour, and more of the dramatis persone murdered than at either Drury Lane or Covent Garden in a whole evening. I have seen many a play performed by the best actors in the world, but never have I derived half the delight from any that I did from his first representation. There was a ferocious tyrant in a skull-cap, like an inverted poringer, and a dress of red bays, magnificently embroidered with gilt leather. With his face so be whiskered in his eyebrows so knit and expanded with burnt cork, that he made my heart quake within me, as he stamped about the little stage. I was enraptured too, with the surpassing beauty of a distressed damsel and faded pink silk and dirty white muslin, whom he held in cruel captivity by way of gaining her affections, and who wept among her hands and flourished a ragged pocket-hankerchief from the top of an impregnable tower of the size of a band-box. Even after I come out from the play I could not tear myself from the vicinity of the theatre, but lingered gazing and wondering and laughing at the dramatic personae as they performed their antics, or danced upon a stage in front of the booth, to decoy a new set of spectators. I was so bewildered by the scene, and so lost in the crowd of sensations that kept swarming upon me, that I was like one entranced. I lost my companion Tom Dribble in a tumult and scuffle that took place near one of the shows, but I was too much occupied in mind to think long about him. I strolled about until dark, when the fair was lighted up, and a new scene of magic opened upon me. The illumination of the tents and booths, the brilliant effect of the stages decorated with lamps, with dramatic groups flaunting about them in gaudy dresses, contrasted splendidly with the surrounding darkness, while the uproar of drums, trumpets, fiddles, hot boys and cymbals, mingled with the harangs of the showmen, the squeaking of punch in the shouts and laughter of the crowd, all united to complete my giddy distraction. Time flew without my perceiving it. When I came to myself and thought of the school, I hastened to return. I inquired for the wagon in which I had come. It had been gone for hours. I asked the time. It was almost midnight. A sudden quaking seized me. How was I to get back to school? I was too weary to make the journey on foot, and I knew not where to apply for a conveyance. Even if I should find one, could I venture to disturb the schoolhouse long after midnight, to arouse that sleeping lion, the usher, in the very midst of his night's rest? The idea was too dreadful for a delinquent schoolboy. All the horrors of return rushed upon me. My absence must long before this had been remarked. An absent for a whole night? A deed of darkness not easily to be expiated. The rod of the pedagogue butted forth into tenfold terrors before my affrighted fancy. I pictured to myself punishment and humiliation in every variety of form, in my heart sickened at the picture. Alas! how often are the petty ills of boyhood as painful to our tender natures as are the sterner evils of manhood to our robuster minds. I wandered about among the booths, and I might have derived a lesson from my actual feelings. How much the charms of this world depend upon ourselves, for I no longer saw anything gay or delightful in the revelry around me. Had length I lay down, we read and perplexed behind one of the large tents. And covering myself with the margin of the tent-cloth, to keep off the night-chill, I soon fell fast asleep. CHAPTER XIII I had not slept long when I was awakened by the noise of merriment within an adjoining booth. It was the itinerant theatre, rudely constructed of boards and canvas. I peeped through an aperture and saw the whole, dramatic personae, tragedy, comedy, pantomime, all refreshing themselves after the final dismissal of their auditors. They were a merry and gamesome, and made their flimsy theatre ring with laughter. I was astonished to see the tragedy tyrant and red bays and fierce whiskers who had made my heart quake as he strutted about the boards, now transformed into a fat, good-humoured fellow. The beaming poringer laid aside from his brow and his jolly face washed from all the terrors of Burnt Quark. I was delighted, too, to see the distressed damsel in faded silk and dirty muslin, who had trembled under his tyranny and afflicted me so much by her sorrows. Now seated familiarly on his knee and quaffing from the same tankard. Harlequin lay asleep on one of the benches and monks, satyrs, and vestal virgins were grouped together, laughing outrageously at a broad story told by an unhappy count, who had been barbarously murdered in the tragedy. This was, indeed, novelty to me. It was a peep into another planet. I gazed and listened with intense curiosity and enjoyment. They had a thousand odd stories and jokes about the events of the day, and burlesque descriptions and mimikings of the spectators who had been admiring them. Their conversation was full of allusions to their adventures at different places, where they had exhibited the characters they had met with in different villages, and the ludicrous difficulties in which they had occasionally been involved. All past cares and troubles were now turned by these thoughtless beings into matter of merriment, and made to contribute to the gaiety of the moment. They had been moving from fair to fair about the kingdom, and were the next morning to set out on their way to London. My resolution was taken. I crept from my nest and scrambled through a hedge into a neighbouring field. When I went to work to make a tender malleant of myself, I tore my clothes, soiled them with dirt, begried my face in hands, and crawling near one of the booths, perloined an old hat, and left my new one in its place. It was an honest theft, and I hope may not hereafter rise up in judgment against me. I now ventured to the scene of merry-making, and presenting myself before the dramatic core offered myself as a volunteer. I felt terribly agitated and abashed, for never before stood I in such a presence. I had addressed myself to the manager of the company. He was a fat man, dressed in dirty white, with a red sash fringed with tinsel, swathed around his body. His face was smeared with paint, and a majestic plume towered from an old, spangled, black bonnet. He was the Jupiter-tonus of his Olympus, and was surrounded by the interior guides and goddesses of his court. He sat on the end of a bench, by a table, with one arm a Kimbo, and the other extended to the handle of a tankard, which he had slowly set down from his lips, as he surveyed me from head to foot. It was a moment of awful scrutiny, and I fancied the groups around all watching us in silent suspense, and waiting for the imperial nod. He questioned me as to who I was, but were my qualifications, and what terms I expected. I passed off for a discharged servant from a gentleman's family, and, as happily one does not require a special recommendation to get admitted into bad company, the questions on that head were easily satisfied. As to my accomplishments, I would spout a little poetry, and knew several scenes of plays, which I had learnt at school exhibitions. I could dance, that was enough, and the further the questions were asked me as to accomplishments. It was the very thing they wanted, and as I asked no wages, but merely meat and drink, and safe conduct about the world, a bargain was struck in a moment. To hold me there for transformed of a sudden from a gentleman student to a dancing buffoon. For such, in fact, was the character in which I made my debut. I was one of those who formed the groups in the dramas, and were principally employed on the stage in front of the booth to attract company. I was equipped as a satyr and address of drab-freeze that fitted to my shape, with a great laughing-mask ornamented with huge ears and short horns. I was pleased with the disguise, because it kept me from the danger of being discovered, whilst we were in that part of the country. As I had merely to dance and make antics, the character was favourable to a debutante, being almost on a par with Simon Snug's part of the lion, which required nothing but roaring. I cannot tell you how happy I was at the sudden change in my situation. I felt no degradation, for I had seen too little of society to be thoughtful about the differences of rank, and a boy of sixteen had seldom aristocratical. I had given up no friend, for there seemed to be no one in the world that cared for me. Now my poor mother was dead. I had given up no pleasure, for my pleasure was to ramble about and indulge the flow of the poetical imagination, and I now enjoyed it in perfection. There is no life so truly poetical as that of a dancing buffoon. It may be said that all this argued groveling inclinations. I do not think so. Not that I mean to vindicate myself in any great degree. I know too well what a whimsical compound I am. But in this instance I was seduced by no love of low company, nor disposition to indulge in low vices. I have always despised the brutally vulgar, and I have always had a disgust at vice, whether in high or low life. I was governed merely by a sudden and thoughtless impulse. I had no idea of resorting to this profession as a mode of life, or of attaching myself to these people as my future class of society. I thought merely of a temporary gratification of my curiosity, and an indulgence of my humours. I had already a strong relish for the peculiarities of character and the varieties of situation, and I have always been fond of the comedy of life, and desirous of seeing it through in all its shifting scenes. In mingling, therefore, among mountain banks and buffoons, I was protected by the very vivacity of imagination which had led me among them. I moved about and vellipped, as it were, in a protecting delusion which my fancy spread around me. I assimilated to these people only as they struck me poetically. The whimsical ways and a certain picturesqueness in their mode of life entertained me. But I was neither amused nor corrupted by their vices. In short, I mingled among them as Prince Hal did among his graceless associates merely to gratify my humour. I did not investigate my motives in this manner at the time for I was too careless and thoughtless to reason about the matter. But I do so now when I look back with trembling to think of the ordeal to which I unthinkingly exposed myself, and the manner in which I passed through it. Nothing. I am convinced, but the poetical temperament that hurried me into the scrape brought me out of it without my becoming an errant vagabond. Full of the enjoyment of the moment, giddy with the wildness of animal spirits, so rapturous and a boy, I capered, I danced, I played a thousand fantastic tricks about the stage, in which the villagers in which we exhibited, and I was universally pronounced the most agreeable monster that had ever been seen in those parts. My disappearance from school had awakened my father's anxiety. For I one day heard description of myself cry before the very booth in which I was exhibiting, with the offer of a reward for any intelligence of me. I had no great scruple about letting my father suffer a little uneasiness on my account. He would punish him for the past indifference, and would make him value me more when he found me again. I have wondered that some of my comrades did not recognize in me the stray sheep that was cried. But they were all, no doubt, occupied by their own concerns. They were all laboring seriously in their gigantic vocations, for folly was a mere trade with the most of them, and they often grinned and capered with heavy hearts. With me on the contrary, it was all real. I acted calm and more and rattled and laughed from the irrepressible gaiety of my spirits. It is true that, now and then, I started and looked grave on receiving a sudden thwack from the wooden sword of Harlequin in the course of my gambles, as they're brought to mind the birch of my school master. But I soon got accustomed to it, and wore all the cuffing and kicking and tumbling about that formed the practical wit of your itinerant pantomime, with a good humor that made me a prodigious favorite. The country campaign of the troop was soon at an end, and we set off for the metropolis to perform at the fairs which are held in its vicinity. The greater part of our theatrical property was sent on direct to be in a state of preparation for the opening of the fairs, while a detachment of the company traveled slowly on, forging among the villages. I was amused with the desultory, haphazard kind of life we led, here to-day and gone to-morrow. Sometimes reveling in ale-houses, sometimes feasting under the hedges in the green fields. When audiences were crowded and business profitable, we fared well, and when otherwise we fared scantily, and consoled ourselves with anticipation of the next day's success. At length, the increasing frequency of coaches hurrying past us, covered with passengers, the increasing number of carriages, carts, wagons, gigs, droves of cattle and flocks of sheep, all thronging the road, the snug country boxes, trimmed flower gardens, twelve feet square, and their trees twelve feet high, all powdered with dust and the innumerable seminaries for young ladies and gentlemen, situated along the road, for the benefit of country air and rural retirement. All these Asynia announced that the mighty London was at hand. The hurry and the crowd and the bustle and the noise and the dust increased as we proceeded, until I saw the great cloud of smoke hanging in the air, a canopy of state over this queen of cities. In this way, then, did I enter the metropolis, a strolling vagabond on the top of a caravan with a crew of vagabonds about me. But I was as happy as a prince. For, like Prince Howe, I felt myself superior to my situation, and knew that I could at any time cast it off and emerge into my proper sphere. How my eyes sparkled as we passed Hyde Park Corner, and I saw splendid eclopages rolling by, with powdered footmen behind, and rich liveries and fine nose gaze and gold-headed canes, and with lovely women within, so sumptuously dressed and so surpassingly fair. I was always extremely sensible to female beauty. Here I saw it, in all its fascination. For, whatever may be said of, beauty unadorned, there is something almost awful in female loveliness decked out in jeweled state. The swan-like neck encircled with diamonds, the raven locks clustered with pearls, the ruby glowing on the snowy bosom, are objects that I could never contemplate without emotion. And a dazzling white arm clasped with bracelets and taper transparent fingers laden with sparkling rings are, to me, irresistible. My very eyes ached as I gazed at the high and courtly beauty that passed before me. It surpassed all that my imagination had conceived of the sex. I shrunk for a moment into shame at the company in which I was placed, and repined the vast distance that seemed to intervene between me and these magnificent beings. I forebeared to give a detail of the happy life which I led about the skirts of the metropolis, playing at the various fairs, held there during the latter part of spring and the beginning of summer. This continual change from place to place and scene to scene fed my imagination with novelties and kept my spirits in a perpetual state of excitement. As I was tall of my age, I aspired, at one time, to play heroes in tragedy. But after two or three trials I was pronounced by the manager, totally unfit for the line. And our first tragic actress, who was a large woman and held a small hero in abhorrence, confirmed his decision. The fact is, I had attempted to give point to language which had no point, in nature to scenes which had no nature. They said I did not fill out my characters, and they were right. The characters had all been prepared for a different sort of man. Our tragedy hero was a round, robustous fellow, with an amazing voice, who stamped and slapped his breast until his wig shook again, and who roared and bellowed out his bombast, until every phrase swelled upon the ear like the sound of a kettle drum. I might as well have attempted to fill out his clothes as his characters. When we had a dialogue together, I was nothing before him, with my slender voice in discriminating manner. I might as well have attempted to parry a cudgel with a small sword. If he found me in any way, getting ground upon him, he would take refuge in his mighty voice, and throw his tones like peels of thunder at me, until they were drowned in the still louder thunders of applause from the audience. To tell the truth, I suspect that I was not shown fair play, and that there was management at the bottom. For without vanity I think I was a better actor than he. As I had not embarked in the vagabond line through ambition, I did not repine that lack of performance. But I was grieved to find that the vagrant life was not without its cares and anxieties, and the jealousies, intrigues, and mad ambition were to be found even among vagabonds. Indeed, as I had become more familiar with my situation, and the delusions of fancy began to fade away, I discovered that my associates were not the happy, careless creatures. I had at first imagined them. They were jealous of each other's talents. They quarreled about parts, the same as the actors on the grand theatres. They quarreled about dresses, and there was one robe of yellow silk, trimmed with red, and a headdress of three rumpled ostrich feathers, which were continually setting the ladies of the company by the ears. Even those who had attained the highest honors were not more happy than the rest. Mr. Flimsy himself, our first tragedy, and apparently a jovial, good-humored fellow, confessed to me one day, in the fullness of his heart, that he was a miserable man. He had a brother-in-law, a relative by marriage, though not by blood, who was manager of a theatre in a small country town, and the same brother, a little more than kin, but less than kind, looked down upon him, and treated him with continually, because, forsooth, he was but a strolling player. I tried to console him with the thoughts of the vast applause he daily received, but it was all in vain. He declared that it gave him no delight, and that he should never be a happy man, until the name of Flimsy rivaled the name of Grimp. How little did those before the scenes know of what passes behind. How little can they judge, from the countenances of actors, of what is passing in their hearts. I have known two lovers quarrel like cats behind the scenes, who were, the moment after, ready to fly into each other's embraces. And I have dreaded, when our Belvedere was to take her a feral kiss of her jaffer, lest she should bite a peace out of his cheek. Our tragedyan was a rough joker off the stage, our prime clown, the most peevish mortal living. The latter used to go about snapping and snarling, with a broad laugh painted on his countenance. And I can assure you that, whatever may be said of the gravity of a monkey, or the melancholy of a gibbed cat, there is no more melancholy creature in existence than a mount-a-bank off duty. The only thing in which all parties agreed was to backbite the manager, and cabal against his regulations. This, however, I have since discovered to be a common trait of human nature, and to take place in all communities. It would seem to be the main business of man to repine a government. In all situations of life into which I have looked, I have found mankind divided into two grand parties, those who ride and those who are ridden. The great struggle of life seems to be which shall keep in the saddle. This, it appears to me, is the fundamental principle of politics, whether in great or little life. However, I do not mean to moralize, but one cannot always sink the philosopher. Well then, to return to myself, it was determined, as I said, that I was not fit for tragedy, and a muckily, as my study was bad, having a very poor memory, I was pronounced unfit for comedy also. Besides, the line of young gentlemen was already engrossed by an actor who I could not pretend to enter into competition, he having filled it for almost half a century. I came down again therefore to pantomime, and consequence, however, of the good offices of the manager's lady, who had taken a liking to me. I promoted from the part of the sader to that of the lover, and with my face patched and painted, a huge cravat of paper, a steeple crowned hat, and dangling, long-skirted, sky-blue coat, was metamorphosed into the lover of Columbine. My part did not call for much of the tender and sentimental. I had merely to pursue the fugitive fair one, to have a door now and then slammed in my face, to run my head occasionally against the post, to tumble and roll about with pantaloon and the clown, and to endure the hearty thwacks of Harlequin's wooden sword. As ill luck would have it, my poetical temperament began to ferment within me, and to work out new troubles. The inflammatory air of a great metropolis added to the rural scenes in which the fairs were held, such as Greenwich Park, Epping Forest, and the lovely valley of the West End, had a powerful effect upon me. While in Greenwich Park I was witness to the old holiday games of running downhill, and kissing in the ring, and then the ferment of blooming faces and blue eyes that would be turned towards me as I was playing antics on the stage. All these set my young blood in my poetical vein in full flow. In short, I played my character to the life, and became desperately enamored of Columbine. She was a trim, well-made, tempting girl, with a roguish, dimpling face, and fine, chestnut hair clustering all about it. The moment I got fairly smitten, there was an end to all playing. I was such a creature of fancy and feeling, that I could not put on a pretended, when I was powerfully affected by a real emotion. I could not sport with a fiction that came so near to the fact. I became too natural in my acting to succeed. And then, what a situation for a lover! I was a mere stripling, and she played with my passion. For girls soon grow more adroit in knowing, in these than your awkward youngsters. What agonies I had to suffer! Every time that she danced in front of the booth, and made such liberal displays of her charms, I was in torment. To complete my misery I had a real rival in Harlequin, an act of vigorous knowing violet of six and twenty, what had a raw, inexperienced youngster like me to hope from such a competition. I had still, however, some advantages in my favor. In spite of my change of life, I retained that indescribable something which always distinguishes the gentleman, that something which dwells in a man's air and deportment, and not in his clothes, and which is as difficult for a gentleman to put off as for a vulgar fellow to put on. The company generally felt it, and used to call me little gentleman Jack. The girl felt it too, and in spite of her predilection for my powerful rival, she liked to flirt with me, as only aggravated in my troubles, by increasing my passion and awakening the jealousy of her party-colored lover. Alas, think what I suffered of being obliged to keep up an infectious chase after my Columbine through whole pantomimes, to see her carried off in the vigorous arms of the happy Harlequin, and to be obliged, instead of snatching her from him, to tumble sprawling with pantaloon in the clown, and bear the infernal and degrading thwacks of my rival's weapon of life, which may heaven confound him, excuse my passion, the villain laid on with the malicious goodwill. Nay, I could absolutely hear him chuckle and laugh beneath his accursed mask, and beg pardon for growing a little warm in my narration. I wished to be cool, but these recollections will sometimes agitate me. I have heard and read of many desperate and deplorable situations of lovers, but none I think in which true love was ever exposed to so severe and peculiar a trial. This could not last long. Flesh and blood, at least, such flesh and blood as mine, could not bear it. I had repeated heart-burnings and quarrels with my rival, in which he treated me with the mortifying forbearance of a man toward a child. Had he quarrelled outright with me, I could have stomached it, at least I should have known what part to take, but to be humored and treated as a child in the presence of my mistress, when I felt all the bantam spirit of a little man swallowing within me, God's it was insufferable.