Catherine: A Story

Catherine: A Story
by William Makepeace Thackeray

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 Catherine: A Story

Contents
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1. Introducing to the reader the chief personages of this narrative.
2. In which are depicted the pleasures of a sentimental attachment.
3. In which a narcotic is administered, and a great deal of genteel
society depicted.
4. In which Mrs. Catherine becomes an honest woman again.
5. Contains Mr. Brock's autobiography, and other matter.
6. The adventures of the ambassador, Mr. MacShane.
7. Which embraces a period of seven years.
8. Enumerates the accomplishments of Master Thomas Billings--
introduces Brock as Doctor Wood--and announces the execution of Ensign
MacShane.
9. Interview between Count Galgenstein and Master Thomas Billings,
when he informs the Count of his parentage.
10. Showing how Galgenstein and Mrs. Cat recognise each other in
Marylebone Gardens--and how the Count drives her home in his carrige.
11. Of some domestic quarrels, and the consequence thereof.
12. Treats of love, and prepares for death.
13. Being a preparation for the end.
Chapter the Last.
Another Last Chapter.

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ADVERTISEMENT

The story of "Catherine," which appeared in Fraser's Magazine in

1839-40, was written by Mr. Thackeray, under the name of Ikey Solomons,
Jun., to counteract the injurious influence of some popular fictions of that
day, which made heroes of highwaymen and burglars, and created a false
sympathy for the vicious and criminal.
With this purpose, the author chose for the subject of his story a
woman named Catherine Hayes, who was burned at Tyburn, in 1726, for
the deliberate murder of her husband, under very revolting circumstances.
Mr. Thackeray's aim obviously was to describe the career of this wretched
woman and her associates with such fidelity to truth as to exhibit the
danger and folly of investing such persons with heroic and romantic
qualities.

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CHAPTER I. Introducing to the

reader the chief personages of this
narrative.

At that famous period of history, when the seventeenth century (after a

deal of quarrelling, king-killing, reforming, republicanising, restoring, re-
restoring, play-writing, sermon- writing, Oliver-Cromwellising,
Stuartising, and Orangising, to be sure) had sunk into its grave, giving
place to the lusty eighteenth; when Mr. Isaac Newton was a tutor of Trinity,
and Mr. Joseph Addison Commissioner of Appeals; when the presiding
genius that watched over the destinies of the French nation had played out
all the best cards in his hand, and his adversaries began to pour in their
trumps; when there were two kings in Spain employed perpetually in
running away from one another; when there was a queen in England, with
such rogues for Ministers as have never been seen, no, not in our own day;
and a General, of whom it may be severely argued, whether he was the
meanest miser or the greatest hero in the world; when Mrs. Masham had
not yet put Madam Marlborough's nose out of joint; when people had their
ears cut off for writing very meek political pamphlets; and very large full-
bottomed wigs were just beginning to be worn with powder; and the face
of Louis the Great, as his was handed in to him behind the bed-curtains,
was, when issuing thence, observed to look longer, older, and more dismal
daily. . . .
About the year One thousand seven hundred and five, that is, in the
glorious reign of Queen Anne, there existed certain characters, and befell a
series of adventures, which, since they are strictly in accordance with the
present fashionable style and taste; since they have been already partly
described in the "Newgate Calendar;" since they are (as shall be seen anon)
agreeably low, delightfully disgusting, and at the same time eminently
pleasing and pathetic, may properly be set down here.
And though it may be said, with some considerable show of reason,

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that agreeably low and delightfully disgusting characters have already

been treated, both copiously and ably, by some eminent writers of the
present (and, indeed, of future) ages; though to tread in the footsteps of the
immortal FAGIN requires a genius of inordinate stride, and to go a-
robbing after the late though deathless TURPIN, the renowned JACK
SHEPPARD, or the embryo DUVAL, may be impossible, and not an
infringement, but a wasteful indication of ill-will towards the eighth
commandment; though it may, on the one hand, be asserted that only vain
coxcombs would dare to write on subjects already described by men really
and deservedly eminent; on the other hand, that these subjects have been
described so fully, that nothing more can be said about them; on the third
hand (allowing, for the sake of argument, three hands to one figure of
speech), that the public has heard so much of them, as to be quite tired of
rogues, thieves, cutthroats, and Newgate altogether;--though all these
objections may be urged, and each is excellent, yet we intend to take a few
more pages from the "Old Bailey Calendar," to bless the public with one
more draught from the Stone Jug:*--yet awhile to listen, hurdle-mounted,
and riding down the Oxford Road, to the bland conversation of Jack Ketch,
and to hang with him round the neck of his patient, at the end of our and
his history. We give the reader fair notice, that we shall tickle him with a
few such scenes of villainy, throat-cutting, and bodily suffering in general,
as are not to be found, no, not in--; never mind comparisons, for such are
odious.
* This, as your Ladyship is aware, is the polite name for Her Majesty's
Prison of Newgate.
In the year 1705, then, whether it was that the Queen of England did
feel seriously alarmed at the notion that a French prince should occupy the
Spanish throne; or whether she was tenderly attached to the Emperor of
Germany; or whether she was obliged to fight out the quarrel of William
of Orange, who made us pay and fight for his Dutch provinces; or whether
poor old Louis Quatorze did really frighten her; or whether Sarah Jennings
and her husband wanted to make a fight, knowing how much they should
gain by it;--whatever the reason was, it was evident that the war was to
continue, and there was almost as much soldiering and recruiting, parading,

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pike and gun-exercising, flag-flying, drum-beating, powder-blazing, and

military enthusiasm, as we can all remember in the year 1801, what time
the Corsican upstart menaced our shores. A recruiting-party and captain of
Cutts's regiment (which had been so mangled at Blenheim the year before)
were now in Warwickshire; and having their depot at Warwick, the captain
and his attendant, the corporal, were used to travel through the country,
seeking for heroes to fill up the gaps in Cutts's corps,--and for adventures
to pass away the weary time of a country life.
Our Captain Plume and Sergeant Kite (it was at this time, by the way,
that those famous recruiting-officers were playing their pranks in
Shrewsbury) were occupied very much in the same manner with
Farquhar's heroes. They roamed from Warwick to Stratford, and from
Stratford to Birmingham, persuading the swains of Warwickshire to leave
the plough for the Pike, and despatching, from time to time, small
detachments of recruits to extend Marlborough's lines, and to act as food
for the hungry cannon at Ramillies and Malplaquet.
Of those two gentlemen who are about to act a very important part in
our history, one only was probably a native of Britain,--we say probably,
because the individual in question was himself quite uncertain, and, it
must be added, entirely indifferent about his birthplace; but speaking the
English language, and having been during the course of his life pretty
generally engaged in the British service, he had a tolerably fair claim to
the majestic title of Briton. His name was Peter Brock, otherwise Corporal
Brock, of Lord Cutts's regiment of dragoons; he was of age about fifty-
seven (even that point has never been ascertained); in height about five
feet six inches; in weight, nearly thirteen stone; with a chest that the
celebrated Leitch himself might envy; an arm that was like an opera-
dancer's leg; a stomach so elastic that it would accommodate itself to any
given or stolen quantity of food; a great aptitude for strong liquors; a
considerable skill in singing chansons de table of not the most delicate
kind; he was a lover of jokes, of which he made many, and passably bad;
when pleased, simply coarse, boisterous, and jovial; when angry, a perfect
demon: bullying, cursing, storming, fighting, as is sometimes the wont
with gentlemen of his cloth and education.

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Mr. Brock was strictly, what the Marquis of Rodil styled himself in a
proclamation to his soldiers after running away, a hijo de la guerra--a child
of war. Not seven cities, but one or two regiments, might contend for the
honour of giving him birth; for his mother, whose name he took, had acted
as camp-follower to a Royalist regiment; had then obeyed the
Parliamentarians; died in Scotland when Monk was commanding in that
country; and the first appearance of Mr. Brock in a public capacity
displayed him as a fifer in the General's own regiment of Coldstreamers,
when they marched from Scotland to London, and from a republic at once
into a monarchy. Since that period, Brock had been always with the army,
he had had, too, some promotion, for he spake of having a command at the
battle of the Boyne; though probably (as he never mentioned the fact)
upon the losing side. The very year before this narrative commences, he
had been one of Mordaunt's forlorn hope at Schellenberg, for which
service he was promised a pair of colours; he lost them, however, and was
almost shot (but fate did not ordain that his career should close in that way)
for drunkenness and insubordination immediately after the battle; but
having in some measure reinstated himself by a display of much gallantry
at Blenheim, it was found advisable to send him to England for the
purposes of recruiting, and remove him altogether from the regiment
where his gallantry only rendered the example of his riot more dangerous.
Mr. Brock's commander was a slim young gentleman of twenty-six,
about whom there was likewise a history, if one would take the trouble to
inquire. He was a Bavarian by birth (his mother being an English lady),
and enjoyed along with a dozen other brothers the title of count: eleven of
these, of course, were penniless; one or two were priests, one a monk, six
or seven in various military services, and the elder at home at Schloss
Galgenstein breeding horses, hunting wild boars, swindling tenants, living
in a great house with small means; obliged to be sordid at home all the
year, to be splendid for a month at the capital, as is the way with many
other noblemen. Our young count, Count Gustavus Adolphus Maximilian
von Galgenstein, had been in the service of the French as page to a
nobleman; then of His Majesty's gardes du corps; then a lieutenant and
captain in the Bavarian service; and when, after the battle of Blenheim,

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two regiments of Germans came over to the winning side, Gustavus

Adolphus Maximilian found himself among them; and at the epoch when
this story commences, had enjoyed English pay for a year or more. It is
unnecessary to say how he exchanged into his present regiment; how it
appeared that, before her marriage, handsome John Churchill had known
the young gentleman's mother, when they were both penniless hangers-on
at Charles the Second's court;--it is, we say, quite useless to repeat all the
scandal of which we are perfectly masters, and to trace step by step the
events of his history. Here, however, was Gustavus Adolphus, in a small
inn, in a small village of Warwickshire, on an autumn evening in the year
1705; and at the very moment when this history begins, he and Mr. Brock,
his corporal and friend, were seated at a round table before the kitchen-fire
while a small groom of the establishment was leading up and down on the
village green, before the inn door, two black, glossy, long-tailed, barrel-
bellied, thick-flanked, arch-necked, Roman-nosed Flanders horses, which
were the property of the two gentlemen now taking their ease at the
"Bugle Inn." The two gentlemen were seated at their ease at the inn table,
drinking mountain-wine; and if the reader fancies from the sketch which
we have given of their lives, or from his own blindness and belief in the
perfectibility of human nature, that the sun of that autumn evening shone
upon any two men in county or city, at desk or harvest, at Court or at
Newgate, drunk or sober, who were greater rascals than Count Gustavus
Galgenstein and Corporal Peter Brock, he is egregiously mistaken, and his
knowledge of human nature is not worth a fig. If they had not been two
prominent scoundrels, what earthly business should we have in detailing
their histories? What would the public care for them? Who would meddle
with dull virtue, humdrum sentiment, or stupid innocence, when vice,
agreeable vice, is the only thing which the readers of romances care to
hear?
The little horse-boy, who was leading the two black Flanders horses up
and down the green, might have put them in the stable for any good that
the horses got by the gentle exercise which they were now taking in the
cool evening air, as their owners had not ridden very far or very hard, and
there was not a hair turned of their sleek shining coats; but the lad had

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been especially ordered so to walk the horses about until he received

further commands from the gentlemen reposing in the "Bugle" kitchen;
and the idlers of the village seemed so pleased with the beasts, and their
smart saddles and shining bridles, that it would have been a pity to deprive
them of the pleasure of contemplating such an innocent spectacle. Over
the Count's horse was thrown a fine red cloth, richly embroidered in
yellow worsted, a very large count's coronet and a cipher at the four
corners of the covering; and under this might be seen a pair of gorgeous
silver stirrups, and above it, a couple of silver-mounted pistols reposing in
bearskin holsters; the bit was silver too, and the horse's head was
decorated with many smart ribbons. Of the Corporal's steed, suffice it to
say, that the ornaments were in brass, as bright, though not perhaps so
valuable, as those which decorated the Captain's animal. The boys, who
had been at play on the green, first paused and entered into conversation
with the horse-boy; then the village matrons followed; and afterwards,
sauntering by ones and twos, came the village maidens, who love soldiers
as flies love treacle; presently the males began to arrive, and lo! the parson
of the parish, taking his evening walk with Mrs. Dobbs, and the four
children his offspring, at length joined himself to his flock.
To this audience the little ostler explained that the animals belonged to
two gentlemen now reposing at the "Bugle:" one young with gold hair, the
other old with grizzled locks; both in red coats; both in jack-boots; putting
the house into a bustle, and calling for the best. He then discoursed to
some of his own companions regarding the merits of the horses; and the
parson, a learned man, explained to the villagers, that one of the travellers
must be a count, or at least had a count's horsecloth; pronounced that the
stirrups were of real silver, and checked the impetuosity of his son,
William Nassau Dobbs, who was for mounting the animals, and who
expressed a longing to fire off one of the pistols in the holsters.
As this family discussion was taking place, the gentlemen whose
appearance had created so much attention came to the door of the inn, and
the elder and stouter was seen to smile at his companion; after which he
strolled leisurely over the green, and seemed to examine with much
benevolent satisfaction the assemblage of villagers who were staring at

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him and the quadrupeds.

Mr. Brock, when he saw the parson's band and cassock, took off his
beaver reverently, and saluted the divine: "I hope your reverence won't
baulk the little fellow," said he; "I think I heard him calling out for a ride,
and whether he should like my horse, or his Lordship's horse, I am sure it
is all one. Don't be afraid, sir! the horses are not tired; we have only come
seventy mile to-day, and Prince Eugene once rode a matter of fifty-two
leagues (a hundred and fifty miles), sir, upon that horse, between sunrise
and sunset."
"Gracious powers! on which horse?" said Doctor Dobbs, very
solemnly.
"On THIS, sir,--on mine, Corporal Brock of Cutts's black gelding,
'William of Nassau.' The Prince, sir, gave it me after Blenheim fight, for I
had my own legs carried away by a cannon-ball, just as I cut down two of
Sauerkrauter's regiment, who had made the Prince prisoner."
"Your own legs, sir!" said the Doctor. "Gracious goodness! this is more
and more astonishing!"
"No, no, not my own legs, my horse's I mean, sir; and the Prince gave
me 'William of Nassau' that very day."
To this no direct reply was made; but the Doctor looked at Mrs. Dobbs,
and Mrs. Dobbs and the rest of the children at her eldest son, who grinned
and said, "Isn't it wonderful?" The Corporal to this answered nothing, but,
resuming his account, pointed to the other horse and said, "THAT horse,
sir--good as mine is--that horse, with the silver stirrups, is his Excellency's
horse, Captain Count Maximilian Gustavus Adolphus von Galgenstein,
captain of horse and of the Holy Roman Empire" (he lifted here his hat
with much gravity, and all the crowd, even to the parson, did likewise).
"We call him 'George of Denmark,' sir, in compliment to Her Majesty's
husband: he is Blenheim too, sir; Marshal Tallard rode him on that day,
and you know how HE was taken prisoner by the Count."
"George of Denmark, Marshal Tallard, William of Nassau! this is
strange indeed, most wonderful! Why, sir, little are you aware that there
are before you, AT THIS MOMENT, two other living beings who bear
these venerated names! My boys, stand forward! Look here, sir: these

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children have been respectively named after our late sovereign and the
husband of our present Queen."
"And very good names too, sir; ay, and very noble little fellows too;
and I propose that, with your reverence and your ladyship's leave, William
Nassau here shall ride on George of Denmark, and George of Denmark
shall ride on William of Nassau."
When this speech of the Corporal's was made, the whole crowd set up
a loyal hurrah; and, with much gravity, the two little boys were lifted up
into the saddles; and the Corporal leading one, entrusted the other to the
horse-boy, and so together marched stately up and down the green.
The popularity which Mr. Brock gained by this manoeuvre was very
great; but with regard to the names of the horses and children, which
coincided so extraordinarily, it is but fair to state, that the christening of
the quadrupeds had only taken place about two minutes before the
dragoon's appearance on the green. For if the fact must be confessed, he,
while seated near the inn window, had kept a pretty wistful eye upon all
going on without; and the horses marching thus to and fro for the
wonderment of the village, were only placards or advertisements for the
riders.
There was, besides the boy now occupied with the horses, and the
landlord and landlady of the "Bugle Inn," another person connected with
that establishment--a very smart, handsome, vain, giggling servant-girl,
about the age of sixteen, who went by the familiar name of Cat, and
attended upon the gentlemen in the parlour, while the landlady was
employed in cooking their supper in the kitchen. This young person had
been educated in the village poor-house, and having been pronounced by
Doctor Dobbs and the schoolmaster the idlest, dirtiest, and most
passionate little minx with whom either had ever had to do, she was, after
receiving a very small portion of literary instruction (indeed it must be
stated that the young lady did not know her letters), bound apprentice at
the age of nine years to Mrs. Score, her relative, and landlady of the
"Bugle Inn."
If Miss Cat, or Catherine Hall, was a slattern and a minx, Mrs. Score
was a far superior shrew; and for the seven years of her apprenticeship the

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girl was completely at her mistress's mercy. Yet though wondrously stingy,
jealous, and violent, while her maid was idle and extravagant, and her
husband seemed to abet the girl, Mrs. Score put up with the wench's airs,
idleness, and caprices, without ever wishing to dismiss her from the
"Bugle." The fact is, that Miss Catherine was a great beauty, and for about
two years, since her fame had begun to spread, the custom of the inn had
also increased vastly. When there was a debate whether the farmers, on
their way from market, would take t'other pot, Catherine, by appearing
with it, would straightway cause the liquor to be swallowed and paid for;
and when the traveller who proposed riding that night and sleeping at
Coventry or Birmingham, was asked by Miss Catherine whether he would
like a fire in his bedroom, he generally was induced to occupy it, although
he might before have vowed to Mrs. Score that he would not for a
thousand guineas be absent from home that night. The girl had, too, half-a-
dozen lovers in the village; and these were bound in honour to spend their
pence at the alehouse she inhabited. O woman, lovely woman! what strong
resolves canst thou twist round thy little finger! what gunpowder passions
canst thou kindle with a single sparkle of thine eye! what lies and fribble
nonsense canst thou make us listen to, as they were gospel truth or
splendid wit! above all what bad liquor canst thou make us swallow when
thou puttest a kiss within the cup--and we are content to call the poison
wine!
The mountain-wine at the "Bugle" was, in fact, execrable; but Mrs. Cat,
who served it to the two soldiers, made it so agreeable to them, that they
found it a passable, even a pleasant task, to swallow the contents of a
second bottle. The miracle had been wrought instantaneously on her
appearance: for whereas at that very moment the Count was employed in
cursing the wine, the landlady, the wine-grower, and the English nation
generally, when the young woman entered and (choosing so to interpret
the oaths) said, "Coming, your honour; I think your honour called"--
Gustavus Adolphus whistled, stared at her very hard, and seeming quite
dumb-stricken by her appearance, contented himself by swallowing a
whole glass of mountain by way of reply.
Mr. Brock was, however, by no means so confounded as his captain:

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he was thirty years older than the latter, and in the course of fifty years of
military life had learned to look on the most dangerous enemy, or the most
beautiful woman, with the like daring, devil-may-care determination to
conquer.
"My dear Mary," then said that gentleman, "his honour is a lord; as
good as a lord, that is; for all he allows such humble fellows as I am to
drink with him."
Catherine dropped a low curtsey, and said, "Well, I don't know if you
are joking a poor country girl, as all you soldier gentlemen do; but his
honour LOOKS like a lord: though I never see one, to be sure."
"Then," said the Captain, gathering courage, "how do you know I look
like one, pretty Mary?"
"Pretty Catherine: I mean Catherine, if you please, sir."
Here Mr. Brock burst into a roar of laughter, and shouting with many
oaths that she was right at first, invited her to give him what he called a
buss.
Pretty Catherine turned away from him at this request, and muttered
something about "Keep your distance, low fellow! buss indeed; poor
country girl," etc. etc., placing herself, as if for protection, on the side of
the Captain. That gentleman looked also very angry; but whether at the
sight of innocence so outraged, or the insolence of the Corporal for daring
to help himself first, we cannot say. "Hark ye, Mr. Brock," he cried very
fiercely, "I will suffer no such liberties in my presence: remember, it is
only my condescension which permits you to share my bottle in this way;
take care I don't give you instead a taste of my cane." So saying, he, in a
protecting manner, placed one hand round Mrs. Catherine's waist, holding
the other clenched very near to the Corporal's nose.
Mrs. Catherine, for HER share of this action of the Count's, dropped
another curtsey and said, "Thank you, my Lord." But Galgenstein's threat
did not appear to make any impression on Mr. Brock, as indeed there was
no reason that it should; for the Corporal, at a combat of fisticuffs, could
have pounded his commander into a jelly in ten minutes; so he contented
himself by saying, "Well, noble Captain, there's no harm done; it IS an
honour for poor old Peter Brock to be at table with you, and I AM sorry,

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sure enough."
"In truth, Peter, I believe thou art; thou hast good reason, eh, Peter?
But never fear, man; had I struck thee, I never would have hurt thee."
"I KNOW you would not," replied Brock, laying his hand on his heart
with much gravity; and so peace was made, and healths were drunk. Miss
Catherine condescended to put her lips to the Captain's glass; who swore
that the wine was thus converted into nectar; and although the girl had not
previously heard of that liquor, she received the compliment as a
compliment, and smiled and simpered in return.
The poor thing had never before seen anybody so handsome, or so
finely dressed as the Count; and, in the simplicity of her coquetry, allowed
her satisfaction to be quite visible. Nothing could be more clumsy than the
gentleman's mode of complimenting her; but for this, perhaps, his
speeches were more effective than others more delicate would have been;
and though she said to each, "Oh, now, my Lord," and "La, Captain, how
can you flatter one so?" and "Your honour's laughing at me," and made
such polite speeches as are used on these occasions, it was manifest from
the flutter and blush, and the grin of satisfaction which lighted up the
buxom features of the little country beauty, that the Count's first
operations had been highly successful. When following up his attack, he
produced from his neck a small locket (which had been given him by a
Dutch lady at the Brill), and begged Miss Catherine to wear it for his sake,
and chucked her under the chin and called her his little rosebud, it was
pretty clear how things would go: anybody who could see the expression
of Mr. Brock's countenance at this event might judge of the progress of the
irresistible High-Dutch conqueror.
Being of a very vain communicative turn, our fair barmaid gave her
two companions, not only a pretty long account of herself, but of many
other persons in the village, whom she could perceive from the window
opposite to which she stood. "Yes, your honour," said she-- "my Lord, I
mean; sixteen last March, though there's a many girl in the village that at
my age is quite chits. There's Polly Randall now, that red-haired girl along
with Thomas Curtis: she's seventeen if she's a day, though he is the very
first sweetheart she has had. Well, as I am saying, I was bred up here in the

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village--father and mother died very young, and I was left a poor orphan--
well, bless us! if Thomas haven't kissed her!--to the care of Mrs. Score,
my aunt, who has been a mother to me--a stepmother, you know;--and I've
been to Stratford fair, and to Warwick many a time; and there's two people
who have offered to marry me, and ever so many who want to, and I won't
have none--only a gentleman, as I've always said; not a poor clodpole, like
Tom there with the red waistcoat (he was one that asked me), nor a
drunken fellow like Sam Blacksmith yonder, him whose wife has got the
black eye, but a real gentleman, like--"
"Like whom, my dear?" said the Captain, encouraged.
"La, sir, how can you? Why, like our squire, Sir John, who rides in
such a mortal fine gold coach; or, at least, like the parson, Doctor Dobbs--
that's he, in the black gown, walking with Madam Dobbs in red."
"And are those his children?"
"Yes: two girls and two boys; and only think, he calls one William
Nassau, and one George Denmark--isn't it odd?" And from the parson, Mrs.
Catherine went on to speak of several humble personages of the village
community, who, as they are not necessary to our story, need not be
described at full length. It was when, from the window, Corporal Brock
saw the altercation between the worthy divine and his son, respecting the
latter's ride, that he judged it a fitting time to step out on the green, and to
bestow on the two horses those famous historical names which we have
just heard applied to them.
Mr. Brock's diplomacy was, as we have stated, quite successful; for,
when the parson's boys had ridden and retired along with their mamma
and papa, other young gentlemen of humbler rank in the village were
placed upon "George of Denmark" and "William of Nassau;" the Corporal
joking and laughing with all the grown-up people. The women, in spite of
Mr. Brock's age, his red nose, and a certain squint of his eye, vowed the
Corporal was a jewel of a man; and among the men his popularity was
equally great.
"How much dost thee get, Thomas Clodpole?" said Mr. Brock to a
countryman (he was the man whom Mrs. Catherine had described as her
suitor), who had laughed loudest at some of his jokes: "how much dost

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thee get for a week's work, now?"

Mr. Clodpole, whose name was really Bullock, stated that his wages
amounted to "three shillings and a puddn."
"Three shillings and a puddn!--monstrous!--and for this you toil like a
galley-slave, as I have seen them in Turkey and America,--ay, gentlemen,
and in the country of Prester John! You shiver out of bed on icy winter
mornings, to break the ice for Ball and Dapple to drink."
"Yes, indeed," said the person addressed, who seemed astounded at the
extent of the Corporal's information.
"Or you clean pigsty, and take dung down to meadow; or you act
watchdog and tend sheep; or you sweep a scythe over a great field of grass;
and when the sun has scorched the eyes out of your head, and sweated the
flesh off your bones, and well-nigh fried the soul out of your body, you go
home, to what?--three shillings a week and a puddn! Do you get pudding
every day?"
"No; only Sundays."
"Do you get money enough?"
"No, sure."
"Do you get beer enough?"
"Oh no, NEVER!" said Mr. Bullock quite resolutely.
"Worthy Clodpole, give us thy hand: it shall have beer enough this day,
or my name's not Corporal Brock. Here's the money, boy! there are twenty
pieces in this purse: and how do you think I got 'em? and how do you
think I shall get others when these are gone?--by serving Her Sacred
Majesty, to be sure: long life to her, and down with the French King!"
Bullock, a few of the men, and two or three of the boys, piped out an
hurrah, in compliment to this speech of the Corporal's: but it was remarked
that the greater part of the crowd drew back--the women whispering
ominously to them and looking at the Corporal.
"I see, ladies, what it is," said he. "You are frightened, and think I am a
crimp come to steal your sweethearts away. What! call Peter Brock a
double-dealer? I tell you what, boys, Jack Churchill himself has shaken
this hand, and drunk a pot with me: do you think he'd shake hands with a
rogue? Here's Tummas Clodpole has never had beer enough, and here am I

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 Catherine: A Story

will stand treat to him and any other gentleman: am I good enough
company for him? I have money, look you, and like to spend it: what
should _I_ be doing dirty actions for--hay, Tummas?"
A satisfactory reply to this query was not, of course, expected by the
Corporal nor uttered by Mr. Bullock; and the end of the dispute was, that
he and three or four of the rustic bystanders were quite convinced of the
good intentions of their new friend, and accompanied him back to the
"Bugle," to regale upon the promised beer. Among the Corporal's guests
was one young fellow whose dress would show that he was somewhat
better to do in the world than Clodpole and the rest of the sunburnt ragged
troop, who were marching towards the alehouse. This man was the only
one of his hearers who, perhaps, was sceptical as to the truth of his stories;
but as soon as Bullock accepted the invitation to drink, John Hayes, the
carpenter (for such was his name and profession), said, "Well, Thomas, if
thou goest, I will go too."
"I know thee wilt," said Thomas: "thou'lt goo anywhere Catty Hall is,
provided thou canst goo for nothing."
"Nay, I have a penny to spend as good as the Corporal here."
"A penny to KEEP, you mean: for all your love for the lass at the
'Bugle,' did thee ever spend a shilling in the house? Thee wouldn't go now,
but that I am going too, and the Captain here stands treat."
"Come, come, gentlemen, no quarrelling," said Mr. Brock. "If this
pretty fellow will join us, amen say I: there's lots of liquor, and plenty of
money to pay the score. Comrade Tummas, give us thy arm. Mr. Hayes,
you're a hearty cock, I make no doubt, and all such are welcome. Come
along, my gentleman farmers, Mr. Brock shall have the honour to pay for
you all." And with this, Corporal Brock, accompanied by Messrs. Hayes,
Bullock, Blacksmith, Baker's-boy, Butcher, and one or two others,
adjourned to the inn; the horses being, at the same time, conducted to the
stable.
Although we have, in this quiet way, and without any flourishing of
trumpets, or beginning of chapters, introduced Mr. Hayes to the public;
and although, at first sight, a sneaking carpenter's boy may seem hardly
worthy of the notice of an intelligent reader, who looks for a good cut-

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 Catherine: A Story

throat or highwayman for a hero, or a pickpocket at the very least: this

gentleman's words and actions should be carefully studied by the public,
as he is destined to appear before them under very polite and curious
circumstances during the course of this history. The speech of the rustic
Juvenal, Mr. Clodpole, had seemed to infer that Hayes was at once careful
of his money and a warm admirer of Mrs. Catherine of the "Bugle:" and
both the charges were perfectly true. Hayes's father was reported to be a
man of some substance; and young John, who was performing his
apprenticeship in the village, did not fail to talk very big of his pretensions
to fortune--of his entering, at the close of his indentures, into partnership
with his father--and of the comfortable farm and house over which Mrs.
John Hayes, whoever she might be, would one day preside. Thus, next to
the barber and butcher, and above even his own master, Mr. Hayes took
rank in the village: and it must not be concealed that his representation of
wealth had made some impression upon Mrs. Hall toward whom the
young gentleman had cast the eyes of affection. If he had been tolerably
well-looking, and not pale, rickety, and feeble as he was; if even he had
been ugly, but withal a man of spirit, it is probable the girl's kindness for
him would have been much more decided. But he was a poor weak
creature, not to compare with honest Thomas Bullock, by at least nine
inches; and so notoriously timid, selfish, and stingy, that there was a kind
of shame in receiving his addresses openly; and what encouragement Mrs.
Catherine gave him could only be in secret.
But no mortal is wise at all times: and the fact was, that Hayes, who
cared for himself intensely, had set his heart upon winning Catherine; and
loved her with a desperate greedy eagerness and desire of possession,
which makes passions for women often so fierce and unreasonable among
very cold and selfish men. His parents (whose frugality he had inherited)
had tried in vain to wean him from this passion, and had made many
fruitless attempts to engage him with women who possessed money and
desired husbands; but Hayes was, for a wonder, quite proof against their
attractions; and, though quite ready to acknowledge the absurdity of his
love for a penniless alehouse servant-girl, nevertheless persisted in it
doggedly. "I know I'm a fool," said he; "and what's more, the girl does not

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 Catherine: A Story

care for me; but marry her I must, or I think I shall just die: and marry her
I will." For very much to the credit of Miss Catherine's modesty, she had
declared that marriage was with her a sine qua non, and had dismissed,
with the loudest scorn and indignation, all propositions of a less proper
nature.
Poor Thomas Bullock was another of her admirers, and had offered to
marry her; but three shillings a week and a puddn was not to the girl's taste,
and Thomas had been scornfully rejected. Hayes had also made her a
direct proposal. Catherine did not say no: she was too prudent: but she was
young and could wait; she did not care for Mr. Hayes yet enough to marry
him--(it did not seem, indeed, in the young woman's nature to care for
anybody)--and she gave her adorer flatteringly to understand that, if
nobody better appeared in the course of a few years, she might be induced
to become Mrs. Hayes. It was a dismal prospect for the poor fellow to live
upon the hope of being one day Mrs. Catherine's pis-aller.
In the meantime she considered herself free as the wind, and permitted
herself all the innocent gaieties which that "chartered libertine," a coquette,
can take. She flirted with all the bachelors, widowers, and married men, in
a manner which did extraordinary credit to her years: and let not the reader
fancy such pastimes unnatural at her early age. The ladies--Heaven bless
them!--are, as a general rule, coquettes from babyhood upwards. Little
SHE'S of three years old play little airs and graces upon small heroes of
five; simpering misses of nine make attacks upon young gentlemen of
twelve; and at sixteen, a well-grown girl, under encouraging
circumstances--say, she is pretty, in a family of ugly elder sisters, or an
only child and heiress, or a humble wench at a country inn, like our fair
Catherine--is at the very pink and prime of her coquetry: they will jilt you
at that age with an ease and arch infantine simplicity that never can be
surpassed in maturer years.
Miss Catherine, then, was a franche coquette, and Mr. John Hayes was
miserable. His life was passed in a storm of mean passions and bitter
jealousies, and desperate attacks upon the indifference-rock of Mrs.
Catherine's heart, which not all his tempest of love could beat down. O
cruel cruel pangs of love unrequited! Mean rogues feel them as well as

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 Catherine: A Story

great heroes. Lives there the man in Europe who has not felt them many
times?--who has not knelt, and fawned, and supplicated, and wept, and
cursed, and raved, all in vain; and passed long wakeful nights with ghosts
of dead hopes for company; shadows of buried remembrances that glide
out of their graves of nights, and whisper, "We are dead now, but we
WERE once; and we made you happy, and we come now to mock you:--
despair, O lover, despair, and die"?--O cruel pangs!--dismal nights!--Now
a sly demon creeps under your nightcap, and drops into your ear those soft
hope-breathing sweet words, uttered on the well-remembered evening:
there, in the drawer of your dressing-table (along with the razors, and
Macassar oil), lies the dead flower that Lady Amelia Wilhelmina wore in
her bosom on the night of a certain ball--the corpse of a glorious hope that
seemed once as if it would live for ever, so strong was it, so full of joy and
sunshine: there, in your writing-desk, among a crowd of unpaid bills, is
the dirty scrap of paper, thimble-sealed, which came in company with a
pair of muffetees of her knitting (she was a butcher's daughter, and did all
she could, poor thing!), begging "you would ware them at collidge, and
think of her who"--married a public-house three weeks afterwards, and
cares for you no more now than she does for the pot-boy. But why
multiply instances, or seek to depict the agony of poor mean-spirited John
Hayes? No mistake can be greater than that of fancying such great
emotions of love are only felt by virtuous or exalted men: depend upon it,
Love, like Death, plays havoc among the pauperum tabernas, and sports
with rich and poor, wicked and virtuous, alike. I have often fancied, for
instance, on seeing the haggard pale young old-clothesman, who wakes
the echoes of our street with his nasal cry of "Clo'!"--I have often, I said,
fancied that, besides the load of exuvial coats and breeches under which
he staggers, there is another weight on him--an atrior cura at his tail--and
while his unshorn lips and nose together are performing that mocking,
boisterous, Jack-indifferent cry of "Clo', clo'!" who knows what woeful
utterances are crying from the heart within? There he is, chaffering with
the footman at No. 7 about an old dressing-gown: you think his whole soul
is bent only on the contest about the garment. Psha! there is, perhaps,
some faithless girl in Holywell Street who fills up his heart; and that

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 Catherine: A Story

desultory Jew-boy is a peripatetic hell! Take another instance:--take the

man in the beef-shop in Saint Martin's Court. There he is, to all
appearances quite calm: before the same round of beef--from morning till
sundown--for hundreds of years very likely. Perhaps when the shutters are
closed, and all the world tired and silent, there is HE silent, but untired--
cutting, cutting, cutting. You enter, you get your meat to your liking, you
depart; and, quite unmoved, on, on he goes, reaping ceaselessly the Great
Harvest of Beef. You would fancy that if Passion ever failed to conquer, it
had in vain assailed the calm bosom of THAT MAN. I doubt it, and would
give much to know his history.
Who knows what furious Aetna-flames are raging underneath the
surface of that calm flesh-mountain--who can tell me that that calmness
itself is not DESPAIR?
***
The reader, if he does not now understand why it was that Mr. Hayes
agreed to drink the Corporal's proffered beer, had better just read the
foregoing remarks over again, and if he does not understand THEN, why,
small praise to his brains. Hayes could not bear that Mr. Bullock should
have a chance of seeing, and perhaps making love to Mrs. Catherine in his
absence; and though the young woman never diminished her coquetries,
but, on the contrary, rather increased them in his presence, it was still a
kind of dismal satisfaction to be miserable in her company.
On this occasion, the disconsolate lover could be wretched to his
heart's content; for Catherine had not a word or a look for him, but
bestowed all her smiles upon the handsome stranger who owned the black
horse. As for poor Tummas Bullock, his passion was never violent; and he
was content in the present instance to sigh and drink beer. He sighed and
drank, sighed and drank, and drank again, until he had swallowed so much
of the Corporal's liquor, as to be induced to accept a guinea from his purse
also; and found himself, on returning to reason and sobriety, a soldier of
Queen Anne's.
But oh! fancy the agonies of Mr. Hayes when, seated with the
Corporal's friends at one end of the kitchen, he saw the Captain at the
place of honour, and the smiles which the fair maid bestowed upon him;

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when, as she lightly whisked past him with the Captain's supper, she,
pointing to the locket that once reposed on the breast of the Dutch lady at
the Brill, looked archly on Hayes and said, "See, John, what his Lordship
has given me;" and when John's face became green and purple with rage
and jealousy, Mrs. Catherine laughed ten times louder, and cried "Coming,
my Lord," in a voice of shrill triumph, that bored through the soul of Mr.
John Hayes and left him gasping for breath.
On Catherine's other lover, Mr. Thomas, this coquetry had no effect:
he, and two comrades of his, had by this time quite fallen under the spell
of the Corporal; and hope, glory, strong beer, Prince Eugene, pair of
colours, more strong beer, her blessed Majesty, plenty more strong beer,
and such subjects, martial and bacchic, whirled through their dizzy brains
at a railroad pace.
And now, if there had been a couple of experienced reporters present
at the "Bugle Inn," they might have taken down a conversation on love
and war--the two themes discussed by the two parties occupying the
kitchen--which, as the parts were sung together, duetwise, formed together
some very curious harmonies. Thus, while the Captain was whispering the
softest nothings, the Corporal was shouting the fiercest combats of the war;
and, like the gentleman at Penelope's table, on it exiguo pinxit praelia tota
bero. For example:
CAPTAIN. What do you say to a silver trimming, pretty Catherine?
Don't you think a scarlet riding-cloak, handsomely laced, would become
you wonderfully well?--and a grey hat with a blue feather-- and a pretty
nag to ride on--and all the soldiers to present arms as you pass, and say,
"There goes the Captain's lady"? What do you think of a side-box at
Lincoln's Inn playhouse, or of standing up to a minuet with my Lord
Marquis at--?
CORPORAL. The ball, sir, ran right up his elbow, and was found the
next day by Surgeon Splinter of ours,--where do you think, sir?-- upon my
honour as a gentleman it came out of the nape of his--
CAPTAIN. Necklace--and a sweet pair of diamond earrings, mayhap--
and a little shower of patches, which ornament a lady's face wondrously--
and a leetle rouge--though, egad! such peach-cheeks as yours don't want

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 Catherine: A Story

it;--fie! Mrs. Catherine, I should think the birds must come and peck at
them as if they were fruit--
CORPORAL. Over the wall; and three-and-twenty of our fellows
jumped after me. By the Pope of Rome, friend Tummas, that was a day!--
Had you seen how the Mounseers looked when four-and-twenty
rampaging he-devils, sword and pistol, cut and thrust, pell-mell came
tumbling into the redoubt! Why, sir, we left in three minutes as many
artillerymen's heads as there were cannon-balls. It was, "Ah sacre!" "D----
- you, take that!" "O mon Dieu!" "Run him through!" "Ventrebleu!" and it
WAS ventrebleu with him, I warrant you; for bleu, in the French language,
means "through;" and ventre--why, you see, ventre means--
CAPTAIN. Waists, which are worn now excessive long; and for the
hoops, if you COULD but see them--stap my vitals, my dear, but there
was a lady at Warwick's Assembly (she came in one of my Lord's coaches)
who had a hoop as big as a tent: you might have dined under it
comfortably;--ha! ha! 'pon my faith, now--
CORPORAL. And there we found the Duke of Marlborough seated
along with Marshal Tallard, who was endeavouring to drown his sorrow
over a cup of Johannisberger wine; and a good drink too, my lads, only not
to compare to Warwick beer. "Who was the man who has done this?" said
our noble General. I stepped up. "How many heads was it," says he, "that
you cut off?" "Nineteen," says I, "besides wounding several." When he
heard it (Mr. Hayes, you don't drink) I'm blest if he didn't burst into tears!
"Noble noble fellow," says he. "Marshal, you must excuse me if I am
pleased to hear of the destruction of your countrymen. Noble noble
fellow!--here's a hundred guineas for you." Which sum he placed in my
hand. "Nay," says the Marshal "the man has done his duty:" and, pulling
out a magnificent gold diamond-hilted snuff-box, he gave me--
MR. BULLOCK. What, a goold snuff-box? Wauns, but thee WAST in
luck, Corporal!
CORPORAL. No, not the snuff-box, but--A PINCH OF SNUFF,--ha!
ha!--run me through the body if he didn't. Could you but have seen the
smile on Jack Churchill's grave face at this piece of generosity! So,
beckoning Colonel Cadogan up to him, he pinched his Ear and whispered-

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-
CAPTAIN. "May I have the honour to dance a minuet with your
Ladyship?" The whole room was in titters at Jack's blunder; for, as you
know very well, poor Lady Susan HAS A WOODEN LEG. Ha! ha! fancy
a minuet and a wooden leg, hey, my dear?--
MRS. CATHERINE. Giggle--giggle--giggle: he! he! he! Oh, Captain,
you rogue, you--
SECOND TABLE. Haw! haw! haw! Well you be a foony mon,
Sergeant, zure enoff.
***
This little specimen of the conversation must be sufficient. It will show
pretty clearly that EACH of the two military commanders was conducting
his operations with perfect success. Three of the detachment of five
attacked by the Corporal surrendered to him: Mr. Bullock, namely, who
gave in at a very early stage of the evening, and ignominiously laid down
his arms under the table, after standing not more than a dozen volleys of
beer; Mr. Blacksmith's boy, and a labourer whose name we have not been
able to learn. Mr. Butcher himself was on the point of yielding, when he
was rescued by the furious charge of a detachment that marched to his
relief: his wife namely, who, with two squalling children, rushed into the
"Bugle," boxed Butcher's ears, and kept up such a tremendous fire of oaths
and screams upon the Corporal, that he was obliged to retreat. Fixing then
her claws into Mr. Butcher's hair, she proceeded to drag him out of the
premises; and thus Mr. Brock was overcome. His attack upon John Hayes
was a still greater failure; for that young man seemed to be invincible by
drink, if not by love: and at the end of the drinking-bout was a great deal
more cool than the Corporal himself; to whom he wished a very polite
good-evening, as calmly he took his hat to depart. He turned to look at
Catherine, to be sure, and then he was not quite so calm: but Catherine did
not give any reply to his good-night. She was seated at the Captain's table
playing at cribbage with him; and though Count Gustavus Maximilian lost
every game, he won more than he lost,--sly fellow!--and Mrs. Catherine
was no match for him.
It is to be presumed that Hayes gave some information to Mrs. Score,

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 Catherine: A Story

the landlady: for, on leaving the kitchen, he was seen to linger for a
moment in the bar; and very soon after Mrs. Catherine was called away
from her attendance on the Count, who, when he asked for a sack and toast,
was furnished with those articles by the landlady herself: and, during the
half-hour in which he was employed in consuming this drink, Monsieur de
Galgenstein looked very much disturbed and out of humour, and cast his
eyes to the door perpetually; but no Catherine came. At last, very sulkily,
he desired to be shown to bed, and walked as well as he could (for, to say
truth, the noble Count was by this time somewhat unsteady on his legs) to
his chamber. It was Mrs. Score who showed him to it, and closed the
curtains, and pointed triumphantly to the whiteness of the sheets.
"It's a very comfortable room," said she, "though not the best in the
house; which belong of right to your Lordship's worship; but our best
room has two beds, and Mr. Corporal is in that, locked and double-locked,
with his three tipsy recruits. But your honour will find this here bed
comfortable and well-aired; I've slept in it myself this eighteen years."
"What, my good woman, you are going to sit up, eh? It's cruel hard on
you, madam."
"Sit up, my Lord? bless you, no! I shall have half of our Cat's bed; as I
always do when there's company." And with this Mrs. Score curtseyed and
retired.
Very early the next morning the active landlady and her bustling
attendant had prepared the ale and bacon for the Corporal and his three
converts, and had set a nice white cloth for the Captain's breakfast. The
young blacksmith did not eat with much satisfaction; but Mr. Bullock and
his friend betrayed no sign of discontent, except such as may be
consequent upon an evening's carouse. They walked very contentedly to
be registered before Doctor Dobbs, who was also justice of the peace, and
went in search of their slender bundles, and took leave of their few
acquaintances without much regret: for the gentlemen had been bred in the
workhouse, and had not, therefore, a large circle of friends.
It wanted only an hour of noon, and the noble Count had not
descended. The men were waiting for him, and spent much of the Queen's
money (earned by the sale of their bodies overnight) while thus expecting

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him. Perhaps Mrs. Catherine expected him too, for she had offered many
times to run up--with my Lord's boots--with the hot water--to show Mr.
Brock the way; who sometimes condescended to officiate as barber. But
on all these occasions Mrs. Score had prevented her; not scolding, but with
much gentleness and smiling. At last, more gentle and smiling than ever,
she came downstairs and said, "Catherine darling, his honour the Count is
mighty hungry this morning, and vows he could pick the wing of a fowl.
Run down, child, to Farmer Brigg's and get one: pluck it before you bring
it, you know, and we will make his Lordship a pretty breakfast."
Catherine took up her basket, and away she went by the back-yard,
through the stables. There she heard the little horse-boy whistling and
hissing after the manner of horseboys; and there she learned that Mrs.
Score had been inventing an ingenious story to have her out of the way.
The ostler said he was just going to lead the two horses round to the door.
The Corporal had been, and they were about to start on the instant for
Stratford.
The fact was that Count Gustavus Adolphus, far from wishing to pick
the wing of a fowl, had risen with a horror and loathing for everything in
the shape of food, and for any liquor stronger than small beer. Of this he
had drunk a cup, and said he should ride immediately to Stratford; and
when, on ordering his horses, he had asked politely of the landlady "why
the d---- SHE always came up, and why she did not send the girl," Mrs.
Score informed the Count that her Catherine was gone out for a walk
along with the young man to whom she was to be married, and would not
be visible that day. On hearing this the Captain ordered his horses that
moment, and abused the wine, the bed, the house, the landlady, and
everything connected with the "Bugle Inn."
Out the horses came: the little boys of the village gathered round; the
recruits, with bunches of ribands in their beavers, appeared presently;
Corporal Brock came swaggering out, and, slapping the pleased
blacksmith on the back, bade him mount his horse; while the boys hurrah'd.
Then the Captain came out, gloomy and majestic; to him Mr. Brock made
a military salute, which clumsily, and with much grinning, the recruits
imitated. "I shall walk on with these brave fellows, your honour, and meet

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you at Stratford," said the Corporal. "Good," said the Captain, as he

mounted. The landlady curtseyed; the children hurrah'd more; the little
horse-boy, who held the bridle with one hand and the stirrup with the other,
and expected a crown-piece from such a noble gentleman, got only a kick
and a curse, as Count von Galgenstein shouted, "D----- you all, get out of
the way!" and galloped off; and John Hayes, who had been sneaking about
the inn all the morning, felt a weight off his heart when he saw the Captain
ride off alone.
O foolish Mrs. Score! O dolt of a John Hayes! If the landlady had
allowed the Captain and the maid to have their way, and meet but for a
minute before recruits, sergeant, and all, it is probable that no harm would
have been done, and that this history would never have been written.
When Count von Galgenstein had ridden half a mile on the Stratford
road, looking as black and dismal as Napoleon galloping from the
romantic village of Waterloo, he espied, a few score yards onwards, at the
turn of the road, a certain object which caused him to check his horse
suddenly, brought a tingling red into his cheeks, and made his heart to go
thump--thump! against his side. A young lass was sauntering slowly along
the footpath, with a basket swinging from one hand, and a bunch of hedge-
flowers in the other. She stopped once or twice to add a fresh one to her
nosegay, and might have seen him, the Captain thought; but no, she never
looked directly towards him, and still walked on. Sweet innocent! she was
singing as if none were near; her voice went soaring up to the clear sky,
and the Captain put his horse on the grass, that the sound of the hoofs
might not disturb the music.
"When the kine had given a pailful, And the sheep came bleating
home, Poll, who knew it would be healthful, Went a-walking out with Tom.
Hand in hand, sir, on the land, sir, As they walked to and fro, Tom made
jolly love to Polly, But was answered no, no, no."
The Captain had put his horse on the grass, that the sound of his hoofs
might not disturb the music; and now he pushed its head on to the bank,
where straightway "George of Denmark" began chewing of such a salad as
grew there. And now the Captain slid off stealthily; and smiling comically,
and hitching up his great jack-boots, and moving forward with a jerking

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tiptoe step, he, just as she was trilling the last o-o-o of the last no in the
above poem of Tom D'Urfey, came up to her, and touching her lightly on
the waist, said,
"My dear, your very humble servant."
Mrs. Catherine (you know you have found her out long ago!) gave a
scream and a start, and would have turned pale if she could. As it was, she
only shook all over, and said,
"Oh, sir, how you DID frighten me!"
"Frighten you, my rosebud! why, run me through, I'd die rather than
frighten you. Gad, child, tell me now, am I so VERY frightful?"
"Oh no, your honour, I didn't mean that; only I wasn't thinking to meet
you here, or that you would ride so early at all: for, if you please, sir, I was
going to fetch a chicken for your Lordship's breakfast, as my mistress said
you would like one; and I thought, instead of going to Farmer Brigg's,
down Birmingham way, as she told me, I'd go to Farmer Bird's, where the
chickens is better, sir,--my Lord, I mean."
"Said I'd like a chicken for breakfast, the old cat! why, I told her I
would not eat a morsel to save me--I was so dru--I mean I ate such a good
supper last night--and I bade her to send me a pot of small beer, and to tell
you to bring it; and the wretch said you were gone out with your
sweetheart--"
"What! John Hayes, the creature? Oh, what a naughty story-telling
woman!"
"--You had walked out with your sweetheart, and I was not to see you
any more; and I was mad with rage, and ready to kill myself; I was, my
dear."
"Oh, sir! pray, PRAY don't."
"For your sake, my sweet angel?"
"Yes, for my sake, if such a poor girl as me can persuade noble
gentlemen."
"Well, then, for YOUR sake, I won't; no, I'll live; but why live? Hell
and fury, if I do live I'm miserable without you; I am,--you know I am,--
you adorable, beautiful, cruel, wicked Catherine!"
Catherine's reply to this was "La, bless me! I do believe your horse is

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running away." And so he was! for having finished his meal in the hedge,
he first looked towards his master and paused, as it were, irresolutely; then,
by a sudden impulse, flinging up his tail and his hind legs, he scampered
down the road.
Mrs. Hall ran lightly after the horse, and the Captain after Mrs. Hall;
and the horse ran quicker and quicker every moment, and might have led
them a long chase,--when lo! debouching from a twist in the road, came
the detachment of cavalry and infantry under Mr. Brock. The moment he
was out of sight of the village, that gentleman had desired the blacksmith
to dismount, and had himself jumped into the saddle, maintaining the
subordination of his army by drawing a pistol and swearing that he would
blow out the brains of any person who attempted to run. When the
Captain's horse came near the detachment he paused, and suffered himself
to be caught by Tummas Bullock, who held him until the owner and Mrs.
Catherine came up.
Mr. Bullock looked comically grave when he saw the pair; but the
Corporal graciously saluted Mrs. Catherine, and said it was a fine day for
walking.
"La, sir, and so it is," said she, panting in a very pretty and distressing
way, "but not for RUNNING. I do protest--ha!--and vow that I really can
scarcely stand. I'm so tired of running after that naughty naughty horse!"
"How do, Cattern?" said Thomas. "Zee, I be going a zouldiering
because thee wouldn't have me." And here Mr. Bullock grinned. Mrs.
Catherine made no sort of reply, but protested once more she should die of
running. If the truth were told, she was somewhat vexed at the arrival of
the Corporal's detachment, and had had very serious thoughts of finding
herself quite tired just as he came in sight.
A sudden thought brought a smile of bright satisfaction in the
Captain's eyes. He mounted the horse which Tummas still held. "TIRED,
Mrs Catherine," said he, "and for my sake? By heavens! you shan't walk a
step farther. No, you shall ride back with a guard of honour! Back to the
village, gentlemen!--rightabout face! Show those fellows, Corporal, how
to rightabout face. Now, my dear, mount behind me on Snowball; he's easy
as a sedan. Put your dear little foot on the toe of my boot. There now,--

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up!--jump! hurrah!"
"THAT'S not the way, Captain," shouted out Thomas, still holding on
to the rein as the horse began to move. "Thee woan't goo with him, will
thee, Catty?"
But Mrs. Catherine, though she turned away her head, never let go her
hold round the Captain's waist; and he, swearing a dreadful oath at
Thomas, struck him across the face and hands with his riding whip. The
poor fellow, who at the first cut still held on to the rein, dropped it at the
second, and as the pair galloped off, sat down on the roadside and fairly
began to weep.
"MARCH, you dog!" shouted out the Corporal a minute after. And so
he did: and when next he saw Mrs. Catherine she WAS the Captain's lady
sure enough, and wore a grey hat, with a blue feather, and red riding-coat
trimmed with silverlace. But Thomas was then on a bare-backed horse,
which Corporal Brock was flanking round a ring, and he was so occupied
looking between his horse's ears that he had no time to cry then, and at
length got the better of his attachment.
***
This being a good opportunity for closing Chapter I, we ought, perhaps,
to make some apologies to the public for introducing them to characters
that are so utterly worthless; as we confess all our heroes, with the
exception of Mr. Bullock, to be. In this we have consulted nature and
history, rather than the prevailing taste and the general manner of authors.
The amusing novel of "Ernest Maltravers," for instance, opens with a
seduction; but then it is performed by people of the strictest virtue on both
sides: and there is so much religion and philosophy in the heart of the
seducer, so much tender innocence in the soul of the seduced, that-- bless
the little dears!--their very peccadilloes make one interested in them; and
their naughtiness becomes quite sacred, so deliciously is it described. Now,
if we ARE to be interested by rascally actions, let us have them with plain
faces, and let them be performed, not by virtuous philosophers, but by
rascals. Another clever class of novelists adopt the contrary system, and
create interest by making their rascals perform virtuous actions. Against
these popular plans we here solemnly appeal. We say, let your rogues in

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 Catherine: A Story

novels act like rogues, and your honest men like honest men; don't let us
have any juggling and thimble-rigging with virtue and vice, so that, at the
end of three volumes, the bewildered reader shall not know which is
which; don't let us find ourselves kindling at the generous qualities of
thieves, and sympathising with the rascalities of noble hearts. For our own
part, we know what the public likes, and have chosen rogues for our
characters, and have taken a story from the "Newgate Calendar," which we
hope to follow out to edification. Among the rogues, at least, we will have
nothing that shall be mistaken for virtues. And if the British public (after
calling for three or four editions) shall give up, not only our rascals, but
the rascals of all other authors, we shall be content:--we shall apply to
Government for a pension, and think that our duty is done.

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 Catherine: A Story

CHAPTER II. IN WHICH ARE

DEPICTED THE PLEASURES OF
A SENTIMENTAL ATTACHMENT.

It will not be necessary, for the purpose of this history, to follow out
very closely all the adventures which occurred to Mrs. Catherine from the
period when she quitted the "Bugle" and became the Captain's lady; for
although it would be just as easy to show as not, that the young woman, by
following the man of her heart, had only yielded to an innocent impulse,
and by remaining with him for a certain period, had proved the depth and
strength of her affection for him,--although we might make very tender
and eloquent apologies for the error of both parties, the reader might
possibly be disgusted at such descriptions and such arguments: which,
besides, are already done to his hand in the novel of "Ernest Maltravers"
before mentioned.
From the gentleman's manner towards Mrs. Catherine, and from his
brilliant and immediate success, the reader will doubtless have concluded,
in the first place, that Gustavus Adolphus had not a very violent affection
for Mrs. Cat; in the second place, that he was a professional lady-killer,
and therefore likely at some period to resume his profession; thirdly, and
to conclude, that a connection so begun, must, in the nature of things, be
likely to end speedily.
And so, to do the Count justice, it would, if he had been allowed to
follow his own inclination entirely; for (as many young gentlemen will,
and yet no praise to them) in about a week he began to be indifferent, in a
month to be weary, in two months to be angry, in three to proceed to blows
and curses; and, in short, to repent most bitterly the hour when he had ever
been induced to present Mrs. Catherine the toe of his boot, for the purpose
of lifting her on to his horse.
"Egad!" said he to the Corporal one day, when confiding his griefs to
Mr. Brock, "I wish my toe had been cut off before ever it served as a

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ladder to this little vixen."

"Or perhaps your honour would wish to kick her downstairs with it?"
delicately suggested Mr. Brock.
"Kick her! why, the wench would hold so fast by the banisters that I
COULD not kick her down, Mr. Brock. To tell you a bit of a secret, I
HAVE tried as much--not to kick her--no, no, not kick her, certainly: that's
ungentlemanly--but to INDUCE her to go back to that cursed pot-house
where we fell in with her. I have given her many hints--"
"Oh, yes, I saw your honour give her one yesterday--with a mug of
beer. By the laws, as the ale run all down her face, and she clutched a
knife to run at you, I don't think I ever saw such a she-devil! That woman
will do for your honour some day, if you provoke her."
"Do for ME? No, hang it, Mr. Brock, never! She loves every hair of
my head, sir: she worships me, Corporal. Egad, yes! she worships me; and
would much sooner apply a knife to her own weasand than scratch my
little finger!"
"I think she does," said Mr. Brock.
"I'm sure of it," said the Captain. "Women, look you, are like dogs,
they like to be ill-treated: they like it, sir; I know they do. I never had
anything to do with a woman in my life but I ill-treated her, and she liked
me the better."
"Mrs. Hall ought to be VERY fond of you then, sure enough!" said Mr.
Corporal.
"Very fond;--ha, ha! Corporal, you wag you--and so she IS very fond.
Yesterday, after the knife-and-beer scene--no wonder I threw the liquor in
her face: it was so dev'lish flat that no gentleman could drink it: and I told
her never to draw it till dinner-time--"
"Oh, it was enough to put an angel in a fury!" said Brock.
"Well, yesterday, after the knife business, when you had got the carver
out of her hand, off she flings to her bedroom, will not eat a bit of dinner
forsooth, and remains locked up for a couple of hours. At two o'clock
afternoon (I was over a tankard), out comes the little she-devil, her face
pale, her eyes bleared, and the tip of her nose as red as fire with sniffling
and weeping. Making for my hand, 'Max,' says she, 'will you forgive me?'

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'What!' says I. 'Forgive a murderess?' says I. 'No, curse me, never!' 'Your
cruelty will kill me,' sobbed she. 'Cruelty be hanged!' says I; 'didn't you
draw that beer an hour before dinner?' She could say nothing to THIS, you
know, and I swore that every time she did so, I would fling it into her face
again. Whereupon back she flounced to her chamber, where she wept and
stormed until night-time."
"When you forgave her?"
"I DID forgive her, that's positive. You see I had supped at the 'Rose'
along with Tom Trippet and half-a-dozen pretty fellows; and I had eased a
great fat-headed Warwickshire landjunker--what d'ye call him?--squire, of
forty pieces; and I'm dev'lish good-humoured when I've won, and so Cat
and I made it up: but I've taught her never to bring me stale beer again--ha,
ha!"
This conversation will explain, a great deal better than any description
of ours, however eloquent, the state of things as between Count
Maximilian and Mrs. Catherine, and the feelings which they entertained
for each other. The woman loved him, that was the fact. And, as we have
shown in the previous chapter how John Hayes, a mean-spirited fellow as
ever breathed, in respect of all other passions a pigmy, was in the passion
of love a giant, and followed Mrs. Catherine with a furious longing which
might seem at the first to be foreign to his nature; in the like manner, and
playing at cross-purposes, Mrs. Hall had become smitten of the Captain;
and, as he said truly, only liked him the better for the brutality which she
received at his hands. For it is my opinion, madam, that love is a bodily
infirmity, from which humankind can no more escape than from small-pox;
and which attacks every one of us, from the first duke in the Peerage down
to Jack Ketch inclusive: which has no respect for rank, virtue, or roguery
in man, but sets each in his turn in a fever; which breaks out the deuce
knows how or why, and, raging its appointed time, fills each individual of
the one sex with a blind fury and longing for some one of the other (who
may be pure, gentle, blue-eyed, beautiful, and good; or vile, shrewish,
squinting, hunchbacked, and hideous, according to circumstances and
luck); which dies away, perhaps, in the natural course, if left to have its
way, but which contradiction causes to rage more furiously than ever. Is

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not history, from the Trojan war upwards and downwards, full of instances
of such strange inexplicable passions? Was not Helen, by the most
moderate calculation, ninety years of age when she went off with His
Royal Highness Prince Paris of Troy? Was not Madame La Valliere ill-
made, blear-eyed, tallow-complexioned, scraggy, and with hair like tow?
Was not Wilkes the ugliest, charmingest, most successful man in the world?
Such instances might be carried out so as to fill a volume; but cui bono?
Love is fate, and not will; its origin not to be explained, its progress
irresistible: and the best proof of this may be had at Bow Street any day,
where if you ask any officer of the establishment how they take most
thieves, he will tell you at the houses of the women. They must see the
dear creatures though they hang for it; they will love, though they have
their necks in the halter. And with regard to the other position, that ill-
usage on the part of the man does not destroy the affection of the woman,
have we not numberless police-reports, showing how, when a bystander
would beat a husband for beating his wife, man and wife fall together on
the interloper and punish him for his meddling?
These points, then, being settled to the satisfaction of all parties, the
reader will not be disposed to question the assertion that Mrs. Hall had a
real affection for the gallant Count, and grew, as Mr. Brock was pleased to
say, like a beefsteak, more tender as she was thumped. Poor thing, poor
thing! his flashy airs and smart looks had overcome her in a single hour;
and no more is wanted to plunge into love over head and ears; no more is
wanted to make a first love with--and a woman's first love lasts FOR
EVER (a man's twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth is perhaps the best): you
can't kill it, do what you will; it takes root, and lives and even grows,
never mind what the soil may be in which it is planted, or the bitter
weather it must bear--often as one has seen a wallflower grow--out of a
stone.
In the first weeks of their union, the Count had at least been liberal to
her: she had a horse and fine clothes, and received abroad some of those
flattering attentions which she held at such high price. He had, however,
some ill-luck at play, or had been forced to pay some bills, or had some
other satisfactory reason for being poor, and his establishment was very

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speedily diminished. He argued that, as Mrs. Catherine had been

accustomed to wait on others all her life, she might now wait upon herself
and him; and when the incident of the beer arose, she had been for some
time employed as the Count's housekeeper, with unlimited
superintendence over his comfort, his cellar, his linen, and such matters as
bachelors are delighted to make over to active female hands. To do the
poor wretch justice, she actually kept the man's menage in the best order;
nor was there any point of extravagance with which she could be charged,
except a little extravagance of dress displayed on the very few occasions
when he condescended to walk abroad with her, and extravagance of
language and passion in the frequent quarrels they had together. Perhaps in
such a connection as subsisted between this precious couple, these faults
are inevitable on the part of the woman. She must be silly and vain, and
will pretty surely therefore be fond of dress; and she must, disguise it as
she will, be perpetually miserable and brooding over her fall, which will
cause her to be violent and quarrelsome.
Such, at least, was Mrs. Hall; and very early did the poor vain
misguided wretch begin to reap what she had sown.
For a man, remorse under these circumstances is perhaps uncommon.
No stigma affixes on HIM for betraying a woman; no bitter pangs of
mortified vanity; no insulting looks of superiority from his neighbour, and
no sentence of contemptuous banishment is read against him; these all fall
on the tempted, and not on the tempter, who is permitted to go free. The
chief thing that a man learns after having successfully practised on a
woman is to despise the poor wretch whom he has won. The game, in fact,
and the glory, such as it is, is all his, and the punishment alone falls upon
her. Consider this, ladies, when charming young gentlemen come to woo
you with soft speeches. You have nothing to win, except wretchedness,
and scorn, and desertion. Consider this, and be thankful to your Solomons
for telling it.
It came to pass, then, that the Count had come to have a perfect
contempt and indifference for Mrs. Hall;--how should he not for a young
person who had given herself up to him so easily?--and would have been
quite glad of any opportunity of parting with her. But there was a certain

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lingering shame about the man, which prevented him from saying at once
and abruptly, "Go!" and the poor thing did not choose to take such hints as
fell out in the course of their conversation and quarrels. And so they kept
on together, he treating her with simple insult, and she hanging on
desperately, by whatever feeble twig she could find, to the rock beyond
which all was naught, or death, to her.
Well, after the night with Tom Trippet and the pretty fellows at the
"Rose," to which we have heard the Count allude in the conversation just
recorded, Fortune smiled on him a good deal; for the Warwickshire squire,
who had lost forty pieces on that occasion, insisted on having his revenge
the night after; when, strange to say, a hundred and fifty more found their
way into the pouch of his Excellency the Count. Such a sum as this quite
set the young nobleman afloat again, and brought back a pleasing
equanimity to his mind, which had been a good deal disturbed in the
former difficult circumstances; and in this, for a little and to a certain
extent, poor Cat had the happiness to share. He did not alter the style of
his establishment, which consisted, as before, of herself and a small person
who acted as scourer, kitchen-wench, and scullion; Mrs. Catherine always
putting her hand to the principal pieces of the dinner; but he treated his
mistress with tolerable good-humour; or, to speak more correctly, with
such bearable brutality as might be expected from a man like him to a
woman in her condition. Besides, a certain event was about to take place,
which not unusually occurs in circumstances of this nature, and Mrs.
Catherine was expecting soon to lie in.
The Captain, distrusting naturally the strength of his own paternal
feelings, had kindly endeavoured to provide a parent for the coming infant;
and to this end had opened a negotiation with our friend Mr. Thomas
Bullock, declaring that Mrs. Cat should have a fortune of twenty guineas,
and reminding Tummas of his ancient flame for her: but Mr. Tummas,
when this proposition was made to him, declined it, with many oaths, and
vowed that he was perfectly satisfied with his present bachelor condition.
In this dilemma, Mr. Brock stepped forward, who declared himself very
ready to accept Mrs. Catherine and her fortune: and might possibly have
become the possessor of both, had not Mrs. Cat, the moment she heard of

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the proposed arrangement, with fire in her eyes, and rage--oh, how bitter!-
-in her heart, prevented the success of the measure by proceeding
incontinently to the first justice of the peace, and there swearing before his
worship who was the father of the coming child.
This proceeding, which she had expected would cause not a little
indignation on the part of her lord and master, was received by him,
strangely enough, with considerable good-humour: he swore that the
wench had served him a good trick, and was rather amused at the anger,
the outbreak of fierce rage and contumely, and the wretched wretched
tears of heartsick desperation, which followed her announcement of this
step to him. For Mr. Brock, she repelled his offer with scorn and loathing,
and treated the notion of a union with Mr. Bullock with yet fiercer
contempt. Marry him indeed! a workhouse pauper carrying a brown-bess!
She would have died sooner, she said, or robbed on the highway. And so,
to do her justice, she would: for the little minx was one of the vainest
creatures in existence, and vanity (as I presume everybody knows)
becomes THE principle in certain women's hearts--their moral spectacles,
their conscience, their meat and drink, their only rule of right and wrong.
As for Mr. Tummas, he, as we have seen, was quite unfriendly to the
proposition as she could be; and the Corporal, with a good deal of comical
gravity, vowed that, as he could not be satisfied in his dearest wishes, he
would take to drinking for a consolation: which he straightway did.
"Come, Tummas," said he to Mr. Bullock "since we CAN'T have the
girl of our hearts, why, hang it, Tummas, let's drink her health!" To which
Bullock had no objection. And so strongly did the disappointment weigh
upon honest Corporal Brock, that even when, after unheard-of quantities
of beer, he could scarcely utter a word, he was seen absolutely to weep,
and, in accents almost unintelligible, to curse his confounded ill-luck at
being deprived, not of a wife, but of a child: he wanted one so, he said, to
comfort him in his old age.
The time of Mrs. Catherine's couche drew near, arrived, and was gone
through safely. She presented to the world a chopping boy, who might use,
if he liked, the Galgenstein arms with a bar-sinister; and in her new cares
and duties had not so many opportunities as usual of quarrelling with the

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Count: who, perhaps, respected her situation, or, at least, was so properly
aware of the necessity of quiet to her, that he absented himself from home
morning, noon, and night.
The Captain had, it must be confessed, turned these continued
absences to a considerable worldly profit, for he played incessantly; and,
since his first victory over the Warwickshire Squire, Fortune had been so
favourable to him, that he had at various intervals amassed a sum of nearly
a thousand pounds, which he used to bring home as he won; and which he
deposited in a strong iron chest, cunningly screwed down by himself under
his own bed. This Mrs. Catherine regularly made, and the treasure
underneath it could be no secret to her. However, the noble Count kept the
key, and bound her by many solemn oaths (that he discharged at her
himself) not to reveal to any other person the existence of the chest and its
contents.
But it is not in a woman's nature to keep such secrets; and the Captain,
who left her for days and days, did not reflect that she would seek for
confidants elsewhere. For want of a female companion, she was compelled
to bestow her sympathies upon Mr. Brock; who, as the Count's corporal,
was much in his lodgings, and who did manage to survive the
disappointment which he had experienced by Mrs. Catherine's refusal of
him.
About two months after the infant's birth, the Captain, who was
annoyed by its squalling, put it abroad to nurse, and dismissed its attendant.
Mrs. Catherine now resumed her household duties, and was, as before, at
once mistress and servant of the establishment. As such, she had the keys
of the beer, and was pretty sure of the attentions of the Corporal; who
became, as we have said, in the Count's absence, his lady's chief friend
and companion. After the manner of ladies, she very speedily confided to
him all her domestic secrets; the causes of her former discontent; the
Count's ill- treatment of her; the wicked names he called her; the prices
that all her gowns had cost her; how he beat her; how much money he won
and lost at play; how she had once pawned a coat for him; how he had four
new ones, laced, and paid for; what was the best way of cleaning and
keeping gold-lace, of making cherry-brandy, pickling salmon, etc., etc.

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Her confidences upon all these subjects used to follow each other in rapid
succession; and Mr. Brock became, ere long, quite as well acquainted with
the Captain's history for the last year as the Count himself:--for he was
careless, and forgot things; women never do. They chronicle all the lover's
small actions, his words, his headaches, the dresses he has worn, the things
he has liked for dinner on certain days;--all which circumstances
commonly are expunged from the male brain immediately after they have
occurred, but remain fixed with the female.
To Brock, then, and to Brock only (for she knew no other soul), Mrs.
Cat breathed, in strictest confidence, the history of the Count's winnings,
and his way of disposing of them; how he kept his money screwed down
in an iron chest in their room; and a very lucky fellow did Brock consider
his officer for having such a large sum. He and Cat looked at the chest: it
was small, but mighty strong, sure enough, and would defy picklocks and
thieves. Well, if any man deserved money, the Captain did ("though he
might buy me a few yards of that lace I love so," interrupted Cat),--if any
man deserved money, he did, for he spent it like a prince, and his hand was
always in his pocket.
It must now be stated that Monsieur de Galgenstein had, during Cat's
seclusion, cast his eyes upon a young lady of good fortune, who
frequented the Assembly at Birmingham, and who was not a little smitten
by his title and person. The "four new coats, laced, and paid for," as Cat
said, had been purchased, most probably, by his Excellency for the
purpose of dazzling the heiress; and he and the coats had succeeded so far
as to win from the young woman an actual profession of love, and a
promise of marriage provided Pa would consent. This was obtained,--for
Pa was a tradesman; and I suppose every one of my readers has remarked
how great an effect a title has on the lower classes. Yes, thank Heaven!
there is about a freeborn Briton a cringing baseness, and lickspittle awe of
rank, which does not exist under any tyranny in Europe, and is only to be
found here and in America.
All these negotiations had been going on quite unknown to Cat; and,
as the Captain had determined, before two months were out, to fling that
young woman on the pave, he was kind to her in the meanwhile: people

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always are when they are swindling you, or meditating an injury against
you.
The poor girl had much too high an opinion of her own charms to
suspect that the Count could be unfaithful to them, and had no notion of
the plot that was formed against her. But Mr. Brock had: for he had seen
many times a gilt coach with a pair of fat white horses ambling in the
neighbourhood of the town, and the Captain on his black steed caracolling
majestically by its side; and he had remarked a fat, pudgy, pale-haired
woman treading heavily down the stairs of the Assembly, leaning on the
Captain's arm: all these Mr. Brock had seen, not without reflection. Indeed,
the Count one day, in great good-humour, had slapped him on the shoulder
and told him that he was about speedily to purchase a regiment; when, by
his great gods, Mr. Brock should have a pair of colours. Perhaps this
promise occasioned his silence to Mrs. Catherine hitherto; perhaps he
never would have peached at all; and perhaps, therefore, this history
would never have been written, but for a small circumstance which
occurred at this period.
"What can you want with that drunken old Corporal always about your
quarters?" said Mr. Trippet to the Count one day, as they sat over their
wine, in the midst of a merry company, at the Captain's rooms.
"What!" said he. "Old Brock? The old thief has been more useful to
me than many a better man. He is as brave in a row as a lion, as cunning in
intrigue as a fox; he can nose a dun at an inconceivable distance, and scent
out a pretty woman be she behind ever so many stone walls. If a
gentleman wants a good rascal now, I can recommend him. I am going to
reform, you know, and must turn him out of my service."
"And pretty Mrs. Cat?"
"Oh, curse pretty Mrs. Cat! she may go too."
"And the brat?"
"Why, you have parishes, and what not, here in England. Egad! if a
gentleman were called upon to keep all his children, there would be no
living: no, stap my vitals! Croesus couldn't stand it."
"No, indeed," said Mr. Trippet: "you are right; and when a gentleman
marries, he is bound in honour to give up such low connections as are

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useful when he is a bachelor."

"Of course; and give them up I will, when the sweet Mrs. Dripping is
mine. As for the girl, you can have her, Tom Trippet, if you take a fancy to
her; and as for the Corporal, he may be handed over to my successor in
Cutts's:--for I will have a regiment to myself, that's poz; and to take with
me such a swindling, pimping, thieving, brandy-faced rascal as this Brock
will never do. Egad! he's a disgrace to the service. As it is, I've often a
mind to have the superannuated vagabond drummed out of the corps."
Although this resume of Mr. Brock's character and accomplishments
was very just, it came perhaps with an ill grace from Count Gustavus
Adolphus Maximilian, who had profited by all his qualities, and who
certainly would never have given this opinion of them had he known that
the door of his dining-parlour was open, and that the gallant Corporal, who
was in the passage, could hear every syllable that fell from the lips of his
commanding officer. We shall not say, after the fashion of the story-books,
that Mr. Brock listened with a flashing eye and a distended nostril; that his
chest heaved tumultuously, and that his hand fell down mechanically to his
side, where it played with the brass handle of his sword. Mr. Kean would
have gone through most of these bodily exercises had he been acting the
part of a villain enraged and disappointed like Corporal Brock; but that
gentleman walked away without any gestures of any kind, and as gently as
possible. "He'll turn me out of the regiment, will he?" says he, quite piano;
and then added (con molta espressione), "I'll do for him."
And it is to be remarked how generally, in cases of this nature,
gentlemen stick to their word.

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CHAPTER III. IN WHICH A

NARCOTIC IS ADMINISTERED,
AND A GREAT DEAL OF
GENTEEL SOCIETY DEPICTED.

When the Corporal, who had retreated to the street-door immediately

on hearing the above conversation, returned to the Captain's lodgings and
paid his respects to Mrs. Catherine, he found that lady in high good-
humour. The Count had been with her, she said, along with a friend of his,
Mr. Trippet; had promised her twelve yards of the lace she coveted so
much; had vowed that the child should have as much more for a cloak; and
had not left her until he had sat with her for an hour, or more, over a bowl
of punch, which he made on purpose for her. Mr. Trippet stayed too. "A
mighty pleasant man," said she; "only not very wise, and seemingly a
good deal in liquor."
"A good deal indeed!" said the Corporal. "He was so tipsy just now
that he could hardly stand. He and his honour were talking to Nan Fantail
in the market-place; and she pulled Trippet's wig off, for wanting to kiss
her."
"The nasty fellow!" said Mrs. Cat, "to demean himself with such low
people as Nan Fantail, indeed! Why, upon my conscience now, Corporal, it
was but an hour ago that Mr. Trippet swore he never saw such a pair of
eyes as mine, and would like to cut the Captain's throat for the love of me.
Nan Fantail, indeed!"
"Nan's an honest girl, Madam Catherine, and was a great favourite of
the Captain's before someone else came in his way. No one can say a word
against her--not a word."
"And pray, Corporal, who ever did?" said Mrs. Cat, rather offended.
"A nasty, ugly slut! I wonder what the men can see in her?"
"She has got a smart way with her, sure enough; it's what amuses the
men, and--"

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 Catherine: A Story

"And what? You don't mean to say that my Max is fond of her NOW?"
said Mrs. Catherine, looking very fierce.
"Oh, no; not at all: not of HER;--that is--"
"Not of HER!" screamed she. "Of whom, then?"
"Oh, psha! nonsense! Of you, my dear, to be sure; who else should he
care for? And, besides, what business is it of mine?" And herewith the
Corporal began whistling, as if he would have no more of the conversation.
But Mrs. Cat was not to be satisfied,--not she,--and carried on her cross-
questions.
"Why, look you," said the Corporal, after parrying many of these,--
"Why, look you, I'm an old fool, Catherine, and I must blab. That man has
been the best friend I ever had, and so I was quiet; but I can't keep it in any
longer,--no, hang me if I can! It's my belief he's acting like a rascal by you:
he deceives you, Catherine; he's a scoundrel, Mrs. Hall, that's the truth
on't."
Catherine prayed him to tell all he knew; and he resumed.
"He wants you off his hands; he's sick of you, and so brought here that
fool Tom Trippet, who has taken a fancy to you. He has not the courage to
turn you out of doors like a man; though indoors he can treat you like a
beast. But I'll tell you what he'll do. In a month he will go to Coventry, or
pretend to go there, on recruiting business. No such thing, Mrs. Hall; he's
going on MARRIAGE business; and he'll leave you without a farthing, to
starve or to rot, for him. It's all arranged, I tell you: in a month, you are to
be starved into becoming Tom Trippet's mistress; and his honour is to
marry rich Miss Dripping, the twenty-thousand-pounder from London;
and to purchase a regiment;--and to get old Brock drummed out of Cutts's
too," said the Corporal, under his breath. But he might have spoken out, if
he chose; for the poor young woman had sunk on the ground in a real
honest fit.
"I thought I should give it her," said Mr. Brock as he procured a glass
of water; and, lifting her on to a sofa, sprinkled the same over her. "Hang
it! how pretty she is."
***
When Mrs. Catherine came to herself again, Brock's tone with her was

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kind, and almost feeling. Nor did the poor wench herself indulge in any
subsequent shiverings and hysterics, such as usually follow the fainting-
fits of persons of higher degree. She pressed him for further explanations,
which he gave, and to which she listened with a great deal of calmness;
nor did many tears, sobs, sighs, or exclamations of sorrow or anger escape
from her: only when the Corporal was taking his leave, and said to her
point-blank,--" Well, Mrs. Catherine, and what do you intend to do?" she
did not reply a word; but gave a look which made him exclaim, on leaving
the room,--
"By heavens! the woman means murder! I would not be the
Holofernes to lie by the side of such a Judith as that--not I!" And he went
his way, immersed in deep thought. When the Captain returned at night,
she did not speak to him; and when he swore at her for being sulky, she
only said she had a headache, and was dreadfully ill; with which excuse
Gustavus Adolphus seemed satisfied, and left her to herself.
He saw her the next morning for a moment: he was going a-shooting.
Catherine had no friend, as is usual in tragedies and romances,--no
mysterious sorceress of her acquaintance to whom she could apply for
poison,--so she went simply to the apothecaries, pretending at each that
she had a dreadful toothache, and procuring from them as much laudanum
as she thought would suit her purpose.
When she went home again she seemed almost gay. Mr. Brock
complimented her upon the alteration in her appearance; and she was
enabled to receive the Captain at his return from shooting in such a
manner as made him remark that she had got rid of her sulks of the
morning, and might sup with them, if she chose to keep her good- humour.
The supper was got ready, and the gentlemen had the punch-bowl when
the cloth was cleared,--Mrs. Catherine, with her delicate hands, preparing
the liquor.
It is useless to describe the conversation that took place, or to reckon
the number of bowls that were emptied; or to tell how Mr. Trippet, who
was one of the guests, and declined to play at cards when some of the
others began, chose to remain by Mrs. Catherine's side, and make violent
love to her. All this might be told, and the account, however faithful,

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would not be very pleasing. No, indeed! And here, though we are only in
the third chapter of this history, we feel almost sick of the characters that
appear in it, and the adventures which they are called upon to go through.
But how can we help ourselves? The public will hear of nothing but
rogues; and the only way in which poor authors, who must live, can act
honestly by the public and themselves, is to paint such thieves as they are:
not, dandy, poetical, rose-water thieves; but real downright scoundrels,
leading scoundrelly lives, drunken, profligate, dissolute, low; as
scoundrels will be. They don't quote Plato, like Eugene Aram; or live like
gentlemen, and sing the pleasantest ballads in the world, like jolly Dick
Turpin; or prate eternally about "to kalon,"* like that precious canting
Maltravers, whom we all of us have read about and pitied; or die
whitewashed saints, like poor "Biss Dadsy" in "Oliver Twist." No, my dear
madam, you and your daughters have no right to admire and sympathise
with any such persons, fictitious or real: you ought to be made cordially to
detest, scorn, loathe, abhor, and abominate all people of this kidney. Men
of genius like those whose works we have above alluded to, have no
business to make these characters interesting or agreeable; to be feeding
your morbid fancies, or indulging their own, with such monstrous food.
For our parts, young ladies, we beg you to bottle up your tears, and not
waste a single drop of them on any one of the heroes or heroines in this
history: they are all rascals, every soul of them, and behave "as sich."
Keep your sympathy for those who deserve it: don't carry it, for preference,
to the Old Bailey, and grow maudlin over the company assembled there.
* Anglicised version of the author's original Greek text.
Just, then, have the kindness to fancy that the conversation which took
place over the bowls of punch which Mrs. Catherine prepared, was such as
might be expected to take place where the host was a dissolute, dare-devil,
libertine captain of dragoons, the guests for the most part of the same class,
and the hostess a young woman originally from a country alehouse, and
for the present mistress to the entertainer of the society. They talked, and
they drank, and they grew tipsy; and very little worth hearing occurred
during the course of the whole evening. Mr. Brock officiated, half as the
servant, half as the companion of the society. Mr. Thomas Trippet made

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violent love to Mrs. Catherine, while her lord and master was playing at
dice with the other gentlemen: and on this night, strange to say, the
Captain's fortune seemed to desert him. The Warwickshire Squire, from
whom he had won so much, had an amazing run of good luck. The
Captain called perpetually for more drink, and higher stakes, and lost
almost every throw. Three hundred, four hundred, six hundred--all his
winnings of the previous months were swallowed up in the course of a few
hours. The Corporal looked on; and, to do him justice, seemed very grave
as, sum by sum, the Squire scored down the Count's losses on the paper
before him.
Most of the company had taken their hats and staggered off. The
Squire and Mr. Trippet were the only two that remained, the latter still
lingering by Mrs. Catherine's sofa and table; and as she, as we have stated,
had been employed all the evening in mixing the liquor for the gamesters,
he was at the headquarters of love and drink, and had swallowed so much
of each as hardly to be able to speak.
The dice went rattling on; the candles were burning dim, with great
long wicks. Mr. Trippet could hardly see the Captain, and thought, as far
as his muzzy reason would let him, that the Captain could not see him: so
he rose from his chair as well as he could, and fell down on Mrs.
Catherine's sofa. His eyes were fixed, his face was pale, his jaw hung
down; and he flung out his arms and said, in a maudlin voice, "Oh, you
byoo-oo-oo-tifile Cathrine, I must have a kick-kick-iss."
"Beast!" said Mrs. Catherine, and pushed him away. The drunken
wretch fell off the sofa, and on to the floor, where he stayed; and, after
snorting out some unintelligible sounds, went to sleep.
The dice went rattling on; the candles were burning dim, with great
long wicks.
"Seven's the main," cried the Count. "Four. Three to two against the
caster."
"Ponies," said the Warwickshire Squire.
Rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, clatter, NINE. Clap, clap, clap, clap,
ELEVEN. Clutter, clutter, clutter, clutter: "Seven it is," says the
Warwickshire Squire. "That makes eight hundred, Count."

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 Catherine: A Story

"One throw for two hundred," said the Count. "But stop! Cat, give us
some more punch."
Mrs. Cat came forward; she looked a little pale, and her hand trembled
somewhat. "Here is the punch, Max," said she. It was steaming hot, in a
large glass. "Don't drink it all," said she; "leave me some."
"How dark it is!" said the Count, eyeing it.
"It's the brandy," said Cat.
"Well, here goes! Squire, curse you! here's your health, and bad luck to
you!" and he gulped off more than half the liquor at a draught. But
presently he put down the glass and cried, "What infernal poison is this,
Cat?"
"Poison!" said she. "It's no poison. Give me the glass." And she
pledged Max, and drank a little of it. "'Tis good punch, Max, and of my
brewing; I don't think you will ever get any better." And she went back to
the sofa again, and sat down, and looked at the players.
Mr. Brock looked at her white face and fixed eyes with a grim kind of
curiosity. The Count sputtered, and cursed the horrid taste of the punch
still; but he presently took the box, and made his threatened throw.
As before, the Squire beat him; and having booked his winnings, rose
from table as well as he might and besought to lead him downstairs; which
Mr. Brock did.
Liquor had evidently stupefied the Count: he sat with his head between
his hands, muttering wildly about ill-luck, seven's the main, bad punch,
and so on. The street-door banged to; and the steps of Brock and the
Squire were heard, until they could be heard no more.
"Max," said she; but he did not answer. "Max," said she again, laying
her hand on his shoulder.
"Curse you," said that gentleman, "keep off, and don't be laying your
paws upon me. Go to bed, you jade, or to--,for what I care; and give me
first some more punch--a gallon more punch, do you hear?"
The gentleman, by the curses at the commencement of this little
speech, and the request contained at the end of it, showed that his losses
vexed him, and that he was anxious to forget them temporarily.
"Oh, Max!" whimpered Mrs. Cat, "you--don't--want any more punch?"

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"Don't! Shan't I be drunk in my own house, you cursed whimpering

jade, you? Get out!" and with this the Captain proceeded to administer a
blow upon Mrs. Catherine's cheek.
Contrary to her custom, she did not avenge it, or seek to do so, as on
the many former occasions when disputes of this nature had arisen
between the Count and her; but now Mrs. Catherine fell on her knees and,
clasping her hands and looking pitifully in the Count's face, cried, "Oh,
Count, forgive me, forgive me!"
"Forgive you! What for? Because I slapped your face? Ha, ha! I'll
forgive you again, if you don't mind."
"Oh, no, no, no!" said she, wringing her hands. "It isn't that. Max, dear
Max, will you forgive me? It isn't the blow--I don't mind that; it's--"
"It's what, you--maudlin fool?"
"IT'S THE PUNCH!"
The Count, who was more than half seas over, here assumed an air of
much tipsy gravity. "The punch! No, I never will forgive you that last
glass of punch. Of all the foul, beastly drinks I ever tasted, that was the
worst. No, I never will forgive you that punch."
"Oh, it isn't that, it isn't that!" said she.
"I tell you it is that,--you! That punch, I say that punch was no better
than paw--aw-oison." And here the Count's head sank back, and he fell to
snore.
"IT WAS POISON!" said she.
"WHAT!" screamed he, waking up at once, and spurning her away
from him. "What, you infernal murderess, have you killed me?"
"Oh, Max!--don't kill me, Max! It was laudanum--indeed it was. You
were going to be married, and I was furious, and I went and got--"
"Hold your tongue, you fiend," roared out the Count; and with more
presence of mind than politeness, he flung the remainder of the liquor (and,
indeed, the glass with it) at the head of Mrs. Catherine. But the poisoned
chalice missed its mark, and fell right on the nose of Mr. Tom Trippet, who
was left asleep and unobserved under the table.
Bleeding, staggering, swearing, indeed a ghastly sight, up sprang Mr.
Trippet, and drew his rapier. "Come on," says he; "never say die! What's

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the row? I'm ready for a dozen of you." And he made many blind and
furious passes about the room.
"Curse you, we'll die together!" shouted the Count, as he too pulled
out his toledo, and sprang at Mrs. Catherine.
"Help! murder! thieves!" shrieked she. "Save me, Mr. Trippet, save
me!" and she placed that gentleman between herself and the Count, and
then made for the door of the bedroom, and gained it, and bolted it.
"Out of the way, Trippet," roared the Count--"out of the way, you
drunken beast! I'll murder her, I will--I'll have the devil's life." And here he
gave a swinging cut at Mr. Trippet's sword: it sent the weapon whirling
clean out of his hand, and through a window into the street.
"Take my life, then," said Mr. Trippet: "I'm drunk, but I'm a man, and,
damme! will never say die."
"I don't want your life, you stupid fool. Hark you, Trippet, wake and
be sober, if you can. That woman has heard of my marriage with Miss
Dripping."
"Twenty thousand pound," ejaculated Trippet. "She has been jealous, I
tell you, and POISONED us. She has put laudanum into the punch."
"What, in MY punch?" said Trippet, growing quite sober and losing
his courage. "O Lord! O Lord!"
"Don't stand howling there, but run for a doctor; 'tis our only chance."
And away ran Mr. Trippet, as if the deuce were at his heels.
The Count had forgotten his murderous intentions regarding his
mistress, or had deferred them at least, under the consciousness of his own
pressing danger. And it must be said, in the praise of a man who had
fought for and against Marlborough and Tallard, that his courage in this
trying and novel predicament never for a moment deserted him, but that he
showed the greatest daring, as well as ingenuity, in meeting and averting
the danger. He flew to the sideboard, where were the relics of a supper,
and seizing the mustard and salt pots, and a bottle of oil, he emptied them
all into a jug, into which he further poured a vast quantity of hot water.
This pleasing mixture he then, without a moment's hesitation, placed to his
lips, and swallowed as much of it as nature would allow him. But when he
had imbibed about a quart, the anticipated effect was produced, and he

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 Catherine: A Story

was enabled, by the power of this ingenious extemporaneous emetic, to

get rid of much of the poison which Mrs. Catherine had administered to
him.
He was employed in these efforts when the doctor entered, along with
Mr. Brock and Mr. Trippet; who was not a little pleased to hear that the
poisoned punch had not in all probability been given to him. He was
recommended to take some of the Count's mixture, as a precautionary
measure; but this he refused, and retired home, leaving the Count under
charge of the physician and his faithful corporal.
It is not necessary to say what further remedies were employed by
them to restore the Captain to health; but after some time the doctor,
pronouncing that the danger was, he hoped, averted, recommended that his
patient should be put to bed, and that somebody should sit by him; which
Brock promised to do.
"That she-devil will murder me, if you don't," gasped the poor Count.
"You must turn her out of the bedroom; or break open the door, if she
refuses to let you in."
And this step was found to be necessary; for, after shouting many
times, and in vain, Mr. Brock found a small iron bar (indeed, he had the
instrument for many days in his pocket), and forced the lock. The room
was empty, the window was open: the pretty barmaid of the "Bugle" had
fled.
"The chest," said the Count--"is the chest safe?"
The Corporal flew to the bed, under which it was screwed, and looked,
and said, "It IS safe, thank Heaven!" The window was closed. The Captain,
who was too weak to stand without help, was undressed and put to bed.
The Corporal sat down by his side; slumber stole over the eyes of the
patient; and his wakeful nurse marked with satisfaction the progress of the
beneficent restorer of health.
When the Captain awoke, as he did some time afterwards, he found,
very much to his surprise, that a gag had been placed in his mouth, and
that the Corporal was in the act of wheeling his bed to another part of the
room. He attempted to move, and gave utterance to such unintelligible
sounds as could issue through a silk handkerchief.

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"If your honour stirs or cries out in the least, I will cut your honour's
throat," said the Corporal.
And then, having recourse to his iron bar (the reader will now see why
he was provided with such an implement, for he had been meditating this
coup for some days), he proceeded first to attempt to burst the lock of the
little iron chest in which the Count kept his treasure, and, failing in this, to
unscrew it from the ground; which operation he performed satisfactorily.
"You see, Count," said he, calmly, "when rogues fall out there's the
deuce to pay. You'll have me drummed out of the regiment, will you? I'm
going to leave it of my own accord, look you, and to live like a gentleman
for the rest of my days. Schlafen Sie wohl, noble Captain: bon repos. The
Squire will be with you pretty early in the morning, to ask for the money
you owe him."
With these sarcastic observations Mr. Brock departed; not by the
window, as Mrs. Catherine had done, but by the door, quietly, and so into
the street. And when, the next morning, the doctor came to visit his patient,
he brought with him a story how, at the dead of night, Mr. Brock had
roused the ostler at the stables where the Captain's horses were kept--had
told him that Mrs. Catherine had poisoned the Count, and had run off with
a thousand pounds; and how he and all lovers of justice ought to scour the
country in pursuit of the criminal. For this end Mr. Brock mounted the
Count's best horse--that very animal on which he had carried away Mrs.
Catherine: and thus, on a single night, Count Maximilian had lost his
mistress, his money, his horse, his corporal, and was very near losing his
life.

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CHAPTER IV. IN WHICH MRS.

CATHERINE BECOMES AN
HONEST WOMAN AGAIN.

In this woeful plight, moneyless, wifeless, horseless, corporalless, with

a gag in his mouth and a rope round his body, are we compelled to leave
the gallant Galgenstein, until his friends and the progress of this history
shall deliver him from his durance. Mr. Brock's adventures on the
Captain's horse must likewise be pretermitted; for it is our business to
follow Mrs. Catherine through the window by which she made her escape,
and among the various chances that befell her.
She had one cause to congratulate herself,--that she had not her baby at
her back; for the infant was safely housed under the care of a nurse, to
whom the Captain was answerable. Beyond this her prospects were but
dismal: no home to fly to, but a few shillings in her pocket, and a whole
heap of injuries and dark revengeful thoughts in her bosom: it was a sad
task to her to look either backwards or forwards. Whither was she to fly?
How to live? What good chance was to befriend her? There was an angel
watching over the steps of Mrs. Cat--not a good one, I think, but one of
those from that unnameable place, who have their many subjects here on
earth, and often are pleased to extricate them from worse perplexities.
Mrs. Cat, now, had not committed murder, but as bad as murder; and
as she felt not the smallest repentance in her heart--as she had, in the
course of her life and connection with the Captain, performed and gloried
in a number of wicked coquetries, idlenesses, vanities, lies, fits of anger,
slanders, foul abuses, and what not--she was fairly bound over to this dark
angel whom we have alluded to; and he dealt with her, and aided her, as
one of his own children.
I do not mean to say that, in this strait, he appeared to her in the
likeness of a gentleman in black, and made her sign her name in blood to a
document conveying over to him her soul, in exchange for certain

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conditions to be performed by him. Such diabolical bargains have always

appeared to me unworthy of the astute personage who is supposed to be
one of the parties to them; and who would scarcely be fool enough to pay
dearly for that which he can have in a few years for nothing. It is not, then,
to be supposed that a demon of darkness appeared to Mrs. Cat, and led her
into a flaming chariot harnessed by dragons, and careering through air at
the rate of a thousand leagues a minute. No such thing; the vehicle that
was sent to aid her was one of a much more vulgar description.
The "Liverpool carryvan," then, which in the year 1706 used to
perform the journey between London and that place in ten days, left
Birmingham about an hour after Mrs. Catherine had quitted that town; and
as she sat weeping on a hillside, and plunged in bitter meditation, the
lumbering, jingling vehicle overtook her. The coachman was marching by
the side of his horses, and encouraging them to maintain their pace of two
miles an hour; the passengers had some of them left the vehicle, in order
to walk up the hill; and the carriage had arrived at the top of it, and,
meditating a brisk trot down the declivity, waited there until the lagging
passengers should arrive: when Jehu, casting a good-natured glance upon
Mrs. Catherine, asked the pretty maid whence she was come, and whether
she would like a ride in his carriage. To the latter of which questions Mrs.
Catherine replied truly yes; to the former, her answer was that she had
come from Stratford; whereas, as we very well know, she had lately
quitted Birmingham.
"Hast thee seen a woman pass this way, on a black horse, with a large
bag of goold over the saddle?" said Jehu, preparing to mount upon the roof
of his coach.
"No, indeed," said Mrs. Cat.
"Nor a trooper on another horse after her--no? Well, there be a mortal
row down Birmingham way about sich a one. She have killed, they say,
nine gentlemen at supper, and have strangled a German prince in bed. She
have robbed him of twenty thousand guineas, and have rode away on a
black horse."
"That can't be I," said Mrs. Cat, naively, "for I have but three shillings
and a groat."

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"No, it can't be thee, truly, for where's your bag of goold? and, besides,
thee hast got too pretty a face to do such wicked things as to kill nine
gentlemen and strangle a German prince."
"Law, coachman," said Mrs. Cat, blushing archly--",Law, coachman,
DO you think so?" The girl would have been pleased with a compliment
even on her way to be hanged; and the parley ended by Mrs. Catherine
stepping into the carriage, where there was room for eight people at least,
and where two or three individuals had already taken their places. For
these Mrs. Catherine had in the first place to make a story, which she did;
and a very glib one for a person of her years and education. Being asked
whither she was bound, and how she came to be alone of a morning sitting
by a road-side, she invented a neat history suitable to the occasion, which
elicited much interest from her fellow-passengers: one in particular, a
young man, who had caught a glimpse of her face under her hood, was
very tender in his attentions to her.
But whether it was that she had been too much fatigued by the
occurrences of the past day and sleepless night, or whether the little
laudanum which she had drunk a few hours previously now began to act
upon her, certain it is that Mrs. Cat now suddenly grew sick, feverish, and
extraordinarily sleepy; and in this state she continued for many hours, to
the pity of all her fellow-travellers. At length the "carryvan" reached the
inn, where horses and passengers were accustomed to rest for a few hours,
and to dine; and Mrs. Catherine was somewhat awakened by the stir of the
passengers, and the friendly voice of the inn-servant welcoming them to
dinner. The gentleman who had been smitten by her beauty now urged her
very politely to descend; which, taking the protection of his arm, she
accordingly did.
He made some very gallant speeches to her as she stepped out; and she
must have been very much occupied by them, or wrapt up in her own
thoughts, or stupefied by sleep, fever, and opium, for she did not take any
heed of the place into which she was going: which, had she done, she
would probably have preferred remaining in the coach, dinnerless and ill.
Indeed, the inn into which she was about to make her entrance was no
other than the "Bugle," from which she set forth at the commencement of

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this history; and which then, as now, was kept by her relative, the thrifty
Mrs. Score. That good landlady, seeing a lady, in a smart hood and cloak,
leaning, as if faint, upon the arm of a gentleman of good appearance,
concluded them to be man and wife, and folks of quality too; and with
much discrimination, as well as sympathy, led them through the public
kitchen to her own private parlour, or bar, where she handed the lady an
armchair, and asked what she would like to drink. By this time, and indeed
at the very moment she heard her aunt's voice, Mrs. Catherine was aware
of her situation; and when her companion retired, and the landlady, with
much officiousness, insisted on removing her hood, she was quite
prepared for the screech of surprise which Mrs. Score gave on dropping it,
exclaiming, "Why, law bless us, it's our Catherine!"
"I'm very ill, and tired, aunt," said Cat; "and would give the world for
a few hours' sleep."
"A few hours and welcome, my love, and a sack-posset too. You do
look sadly tired and poorly, sure enough. Ah, Cat, Cat! you great ladies are
sad rakes, I do believe. I wager now, that with all your balls, and carriages,
and fine clothes, you are neither so happy nor so well as when you lived
with your poor old aunt, who used to love you so." And with these gentle
words, and an embrace or two, which Mrs. Catherine wondered at, and
permitted, she was conducted to that very bed which the Count had
occupied a year previously, and undressed, and laid in it, and
affectionately tucked up by her aunt, who marvelled at the fineness of her
clothes, as she removed them piece by piece; and when she saw that in
Mrs. Catherine's pocket there was only the sum of three and fourpence,
said, archly, "There was no need of money, for the Captain took care of
that."
Mrs. Cat did not undeceive her; and deceived Mrs. Score certainly
was,--for she imagined the well-dressed gentleman who led Cat from the
carriage was no other than the Count; and, as she had heard, from time to
time, exaggerated reports of the splendour of the establishment which he
kept up, she was induced to look upon her niece with the very highest
respect, and to treat her as if she were a fine lady. "And so she IS a fine
lady," Mrs. Score had said months ago, when some of these flattering

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stories reached her, and she had overcome her first fury at Catherine's
elopement. "The girl was very cruel to leave me; but we must recollect
that she is as good as married to a nobleman, and must all forget and
forgive, you know."
This speech had been made to Doctor Dobbs, who was in the habit of
taking a pipe and a tankard at the "Bugle," and it had been roundly
reprobated by the worthy divine; who told Mrs. Score, that the crime of
Catherine was only the more heinous, if it had been committed from
interested motives; and protested that, were she a princess, he would never
speak to her again. Mrs. Score thought and pronounced the Doctor's
opinion to be very bigoted; indeed, she was one of those persons who have
a marvellous respect for prosperity, and a corresponding scorn for ill-
fortune. When, therefore, she returned to the public room, she went
graciously to the gentleman who had led Mrs. Catherine from the carriage,
and with a knowing curtsey welcomed him to the "Bugle;" told him that
his lady would not come to dinner, but bade her say, with her best love to
his Lordship, that the ride had fatigued her, and that she would lie in bed
for an hour or two.
This speech was received with much wonder by his Lordship; who
was, indeed, no other than a Liverpool tailor going to London to learn
fashions; but he only smiled, and did not undeceive the landlady, who
herself went off, smilingly, to bustle about dinner.
The two or three hours allotted to that meal by the liberal
coachmasters of those days passed away, and Mr. Coachman, declaring
that his horses were now rested enough, and that they had twelve miles to
ride, put the steeds to, and summoned the passengers. Mrs. Score, who had
seen with much satisfaction that her niece was really ill, and her fever
more violent, and hoped to have her for many days an inmate in her house,
now came forward, and casting upon the Liverpool tailor a look of
profound but respectful melancholy, said, "My Lord (for I recollect your
Lordship quite well), the lady upstairs is so ill, that it would be a sin to
move her: had I not better tell coachman to take down your Lordship's
trunks, and the lady's, and make you a bed in the next room?"
Very much to her surprise, this proposition was received with a roar of

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laughter. "Madam," said the person addressed, "I'm not a lord, but a tailor
and draper; and as for that young woman, before to-day I never set eyes on
her."
"WHAT!" screamed out Mrs. Score. "Are not you the Count? Do you
mean to say that you a'n't Cat's--? DO you mean to say that you didn't
order her bed, and that you won't pay this here little bill?" And with this
she produced a document, by which the Count's lady was made her debtor
in a sum of half-a-guinea.
These passionate words excited more and more laughter. "Pay it, my
Lord," said the coachman; "and then come along, for time presses." "Our
respects to her Ladyship," said one passenger. "Tell her my Lord can't
wait," said another; and with much merriment one and all quitted the hotel,
entered the coach, and rattled off.
Dumb--pale with terror and rage--bill in hand, Mrs. Score had
followed the company; but when the coach disappeared, her senses
returned. Back she flew into the inn, overturning the ostler, not deigning to
answer Doctor Dobbs (who, from behind soft tobacco-fumes, mildly asked
the reason of her disturbance), and, bounding upstairs like a fury, she
rushed into the room where Catherine lay.
"Well, madam!" said she, in her highest key, "do you mean that you
have come into this here house to swindle me? Do you dare for to come
with your airs here, and call yourself a nobleman's lady, and sleep in the
best bed, when you're no better nor a common tramper? I'll thank you,
ma'am, to get out, ma'am. I'll have no sick paupers in this house, ma'am.
You know your way to the workhouse, ma'am, and there I'll trouble you
for to go." And here Mrs. Score proceeded quickly to pull off the
bedclothes; and poor Cat arose, shivering with fright and fever.
She had no spirit to answer, as she would have done the day before,
when an oath from any human being would have brought half-a-dozen
from her in return; or a knife, or a plate, or a leg of mutton, if such had
been to her hand. She had no spirit left for such repartees; but in reply to
the above words of Mrs. Score, and a great many more of the same kind--
which are not necessary for our history, but which that lady uttered with
inconceivable shrillness and volubility, the poor wench could say little,--

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only sob and shiver, and gather up the clothes again, crying, "Oh, aunt,
don't speak unkind to me! I'm very unhappy, and very ill!"
"Ill, you strumpet! ill, be hanged! Ill is as ill does; and if you are ill, it's
only what you merit. Get out! dress yourself--tramp! Get to the workhouse,
and don't come to cheat me any more! Dress yourself--do you hear? Satin
petticoat forsooth, and lace to her smock!"
Poor, wretched, chattering, burning, shivering Catherine huddled on
her clothes as well she might: she seemed hardly to know or see what she
was doing, and did not reply a single word to the many that the landlady
let fall. Cat tottered down the narrow stairs, and through the kitchen, and
to the door; which she caught hold of, and paused awhile, and looked into
Mrs. Score's face, as for one more chance. "Get out, you nasty trull!" said
that lady, sternly, with arms akimbo; and poor Catherine, with a most
piteous scream and outgush of tears, let go of the door-post and staggered
away into the road.
***
"Why, no--yes--no--it is poor Catherine Hall, as I live!" said somebody,
starting up, shoving aside Mrs. Score very rudely, and running into the
road, wig off and pipe in hand. It was honest Doctor Dobbs; and the result
of his interview with Mrs. Cat was, that he gave up for ever smoking his
pipe at the "Bugle;" and that she lay sick of a fever for some weeks in his
house.
***
Over this part of Mrs. Cat's history we shall be as brief as possible; for,
to tell the truth, nothing immoral occurred during her whole stay at the
good Doctor's house; and we are not going to insult the reader by offering
him silly pictures of piety, cheerfulness, good sense, and simplicity; which
are milk-and-water virtues after all, and have no relish with them like a
good strong vice, highly peppered. Well, to be short: Doctor Dobbs,
though a profound theologian, was a very simple gentleman; and before
Mrs. Cat had been a month in the house, he had learned to look upon her
as one of the most injured and repentant characters in the world; and had,
with Mrs. Dobbs, resolved many plans for the future welfare of the young
Magdalen. "She was but sixteen, my love, recollect," said the Doctor; "she

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was carried off, not by her own wish either. The Count swore he would
marry her; and, though she did not leave him until that monster tried to
poison her, yet think what a fine Christian spirit the poor girl has shown!
she forgives him as heartily--more heartily, I am sure, than I do Mrs. Score
for turning her adrift in that wicked way." The reader will perceive some
difference in the Doctor's statement and ours, which we assure him is the
true one; but the fact is, the honest rector had had his tale from Mrs. Cat,
and it was not in his nature to doubt, if she had told him a history ten times
more wonderful.
The reverend gentleman and his wife then laid their heads together;
and, recollecting something of John Hayes's former attachment to Mrs.
Cat, thought that it might be advantageously renewed, should Hayes be
still constant. Having very adroitly sounded Catherine (so adroitly, indeed,
as to ask her "whether she would like to marry John Hayes?"), that young
woman had replied, "No. She had loved John Hayes--he had been her
early, only love; but she was fallen now, and not good enough for him."
And this made the Dobbs family admire her more and more, and cast
about for means to bring the marriage to pass.
Hayes was away from the village when Mrs. Cat had arrived there; but
he did not fail to hear of her illness, and how her aunt had deserted her,
and the good Doctor taken her in. The worthy Doctor himself met Mr.
Hayes on the green; and, telling him that some repairs were wanting in his
kitchen begged him to step in and examine them. Hayes first said no,
plump, and then no, gently; and then pished, and then psha'd; and then,
trembling very much, went in: and there sat Mrs. Catherine, trembling
very much too.
What passed between them? If your Ladyship is anxious to know,
think of that morning when Sir John himself popped the question. Could
there be anything more stupid than the conversation which took place?
Such stuff is not worth repeating: no, not when uttered by people in the
very genteelest of company; as for the amorous dialogue of a carpenter
and an ex-barmaid, it is worse still. Suffice it to say, that Mr. Hayes, who
had had a year to recover from his passion, and had, to all appearances,
quelled it, was over head and ears again the very moment he saw Mrs. Cat,

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and had all his work to do again.

Whether the Doctor knew what was going on, I can't say; but this
matter is certain, that every evening Hayes was now in the rectory kitchen,
or else walking abroad with Mrs. Catherine: and whether she ran away
with him, or he with her, I shall not make it my business to inquire; but
certainly at the end of three months (which must be crowded up into this
one little sentence), another elopement took place in the village. "I should
have prevented it, certainly," said Doctor Dobbs--whereat his wife smiled;
"but the young people kept the matter a secret from me." And so he would,
had he known it; but though Mrs. Dobbs had made several attempts to
acquaint him with the precise hour and method of the intended elopement,
he peremptorily ordered her to hold her tongue. The fact is, that the matter
had been discussed by the rector's lady many times. "Young Hayes,"
would she say "has a pretty little fortune and trade of his own; he is an
only son, and may marry as he likes; and, though not specially handsome,
generous, or amiable, has an undeniable love for Cat (who, you know,
must not be particular), and the sooner she marries him, I think, the better.
They can't be married at our church you know, and--" "Well," said the
Doctor, "if they are married elsewhere, I can't help it, and know nothing
about it, look you." And upon this hint the elopement took place: which,
indeed, was peaceably performed early one Sunday morning about a
month after; Mrs. Hall getting behind Mr. Hayes on a pillion, and all the
children of the parsonage giggling behind the window-blinds to see the
pair go off.
During this month Mr. Hayes had caused the banns to be published at
the town of Worcester; judging rightly that in a great town they would
cause no such remark as in a solitary village, and thither he conducted his
lady. O ill-starred John Hayes! whither do the dark Fates lead you? O
foolish Doctor Dobbs, to forget that young people ought to honour their
parents, and to yield to silly Mrs. Dobbs's ardent propensity for making
matches!
***
The London Gazette of the 1st April, 1706, contains a proclamation by
the Queen for putting into execution an Act of Parliament for the

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encouragement and increase of seamen, and for the better and speedier
manning of Her Majesty's fleet, which authorises all justices to issue
warrants to constables, petty constables, headboroughs, and tything-men,
to enter and, if need be, to break open the doors of any houses where they
shall believe deserting seamen to be; and for the further increase and
encouragement of the navy, to take able-bodied landsmen when seamen
fail. This Act, which occupies four columns of the Gazette, and another of
similar length and meaning for pressing men into the army, need not be
quoted at length here; but caused a mighty stir throughout the kingdom at
the time when it was in force.
As one has seen or heard, after the march of a great army, a number of
rogues and loose characters bring up the rear; in like manner, at the tail of
a great measure of State, follow many roguish personal interests, which
are protected by the main body. The great measure of Reform, for instance,
carried along with it much private jobbing and swindling--as could be
shown were we not inclined to deal mildly with the Whigs; and this
Enlistment Act, which, in order to maintain the British glories in Flanders,
dealt most cruelly with the British people in England (it is not the first
time that a man has been pinched at home to make a fine appearance
abroad), created a great company of rascals and informers throughout the
land, who lived upon it; or upon extortion from those who were subject to
it, or not being subject to it were frightened into the belief that they were.
When Mr. Hayes and his lady had gone through the marriage
ceremony at Worcester, the former, concluding that at such a place lodging
and food might be procured at a cheaper rate, looked about carefully for
the meanest public-house in the town, where he might deposit his bride.
In the kitchen of this inn, a party of men were drinking; and, as Mrs.
Hayes declined, with a proper sense of her superiority, to eat in company
with such low fellows, the landlady showed her and her husband to an
inner apartment, where they might be served in private.
The kitchen party seemed, indeed, not such as a lady would choose to
join. There was one huge lanky fellow, that looked like a soldier, and had a
halberd; another was habited in a sailor's costume, with a fascinating patch
over one eye; and a third, who seemed the leader of the gang, was a stout

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man in a sailor's frock and a horseman's jack-boots, whom one might

fancy, if he were anything, to be a horse-marine.
Of one of these worthies, Mrs. Hayes thought she knew the figure and
voice; and she found her conjectures were true, when, all of sudden, three
people, without "With your leave," or "By your leave," burst into the room,
into which she and her spouse had retired. At their head was no other than
her old friend, Mr. Peter Brock; he had his sword drawn, and his finger to
his lips, enjoining silence, as it were, to Mrs. Catherine. He with the patch
on his eye seized incontinently on Mr. Hayes; the tall man with the halberd
kept the door; two or three heroes supported the one-eyed man; who, with
a loud voice, exclaimed, "Down with your arms--no resistance! you are
my prisoner, in the Queen's name!"
And here, at this lock, we shall leave the whole company until the next
chapter; which may possibly explain what they were.

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CHAPTER V. CONTAINS MR.

BROCK'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY,
AND OTHER MATTERS.

"You don't sure believe these men?" said Mrs. Hayes, as soon as the
first alarm caused by the irruption of Mr. Brock and his companions had
subsided. "These are no magistrate's men: it is but a trick to rob you of
your money, John."
"I will never give up a farthing of it!" screamed Hayes.
"Yonder fellow," continued Mrs. Catherine, "I know, for all his drawn
sword and fierce looks; his name is---"
"Wood, madam, at your service!" said Mr. Brock. "I am follower to Mr.
Justice Gobble, of this town: a'n't I, Tim?" said Mr. Brock to the tall
halberdman who was keeping the door.
"Yes indeed," said Tim, archly; "we're all followers of his honour
Justice Gobble."
"Certainly!" said the one-eyed man.
"Of course!" cried the man in the nightcap.
"I suppose, madam, you're satisfied NOW?" continued Mr. Brock,
alias Wood. "You can't deny the testimony of gentlemen like these; and
our commission is to apprehend all able-bodied male persons who can
give no good account of themselves, and enrol them in the service of Her
Majesty. Look at this Mr. Hayes" (who stood trembling in his shoes). "Can
there be a bolder, properer, straighter gentleman? We'll have him for a
grenadier before the day's over!"
"Take heart, John--don't be frightened. Psha! I tell you I know the
man" cried out Mrs. Hayes: "he is only here to extort money."
"Oh, for that matter, I DO think I recollect the lady. Let me see; where
was it? At Birmingham, I think,--ay, at Birmingham,--about the time when
they tried to murder Count Gal--"
"Oh, sir!" here cried Madam Hayes, dropping her voice at once from a

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tone of scorn to one of gentlest entreaty, "what is it you want with my

husband? I know not, indeed, if ever I saw you before. For what do you
seize him? How much will you take to release him, and let us go? Name
the sum; he is rich, and--"
"RICH, Catherine!" cried Hayes. "Rich!--O heavens! Sir, I have
nothing but my hands to support me: I am a poor carpenter, sir, working
under my father!"
"He can give twenty guineas to be free; I know he can!" said Mrs. Cat.
"I have but a guinea to carry me home," sighed out Hayes.
"But you have twenty at home, John," said his wife. "Give these brave
gentlemen a writing to your mother, and she will pay; and you will let us
free then, gentlemen--won't you?"
"When the money's paid, yes," said the leader, Mr. Brock.
"Oh, in course," echoed the tall man with the halberd. "What's a
thrifling detintion, my dear?" continued he, addressing Hayes. "We'll
amuse you in your absence, and drink to the health of your pretty wife
here."
This promise, to do the halberdier justice, he fulfilled. He called upon
the landlady to produce the desired liquor; and when Mr. Hayes flung
himself at that lady's feet, demanding succour from her, and asking
whether there was no law in the land--
"There's no law at the 'Three Rooks' except THIS!" said Mr. Brock in
reply, holding up a horse-pistol. To which the hostess, grinning, assented,
and silently went her way.
After some further solicitations, John Hayes drew out the necessary
letter to his father, stating that he was pressed, and would not be set free
under a sum of twenty guineas; and that it would be of no use to detain the
bearer of the letter, inasmuch as the gentlemen who had possession of him
vowed that they would murder him should any harm befall their comrade.
As a further proof of the authenticity of the letter, a token was added: a
ring that Hayes wore, and that his mother had given him.
The missives were, after some consultation, entrusted to the care of the
tall halberdier, who seemed to rank as second in command of the forces
that marched under Corporal Brock. This gentleman was called

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indifferently Ensign, Mr., or even Captain Macshane; his intimates

occasionally in sport called him Nosey, from the prominence of that
feature in his countenance; or Spindleshins, for the very reason which
brought on the first Edward a similar nickname. Mr. Macshane then
quitted Worcester, mounted on Hayes's horse; leaving all parties at the
"Three Rooks" not a little anxious for his return.
This was not to be expected until the next morning; and a weary nuit
de noces did Mr. Hayes pass. Dinner was served, and, according to
promise, Mr. Brock and his two friends enjoyed the meal along with the
bride and bridegroom. Punch followed, and this was taken in company;
then came supper. Mr. Brock alone partook of this, the other two
gentlemen preferring the society of their pipes and the landlady in the
kitchen.
"It is a sorry entertainment, I confess," said the ex-corporal, "and a
dismal way for a gentleman to spend his bridal night; but somebody must
stay with you, my dears: for who knows but you might take a fancy to
scream out of window, and then there would be murder, and the deuce and
all to pay. One of us must stay, and my friends love a pipe, so you must
put up with my company until they can relieve guard."
The reader will not, of course, expect that three people who were to
pass the night, however unwillingly, together in an inn-room, should sit
there dumb and moody, and without any personal communication; on the
contrary, Mr. Brock, as an old soldier, entertained his prisoners with the
utmost courtesy, and did all that lay in his power, by the help of liquor and
conversation, to render their durance tolerable. On the bridegroom his
attentions were a good deal thrown away: Mr. Hayes consented to drink
copiously, but could not be made to talk much; and, in fact, the fright of
the seizure, the fate hanging over him should his parents refuse a ransom,
and the tremendous outlay of money which would take place should they
accede to it, weighed altogether on his mind so much as utterly to unman
it.
As for Mrs. Cat, I don't think she was at all sorry in her heart to see the
old Corporal: for he had been a friend of old times--dear times to her; she
had had from him, too, and felt for him, not a little kindness; and there was

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really a very tender, innocent friendship subsisting between this pair of

rascals, who relished much a night's conversation together.
The Corporal, after treating his prisoners to punch in great quantities,
proposed the amusement of cards: over which Mr. Hayes had not been
occupied more than an hour, when he found himself so excessively sleepy
as to be persuaded to fling himself down on the bed dressed as he was, and
there to snore away until morning.
Mrs. Catherine had no inclination for sleep; and the Corporal, equally
wakeful, plied incessantly the bottle, and held with her a great deal of
conversation. The sleep, which was equivalent to the absence, of John
Hayes took all restraint from their talk. She explained to Brock the
circumstances of her marriage, which we have already described; they
wondered at the chance which had brought them together at the "Three
Rooks;" nor did Brock at all hesitate to tell her at once that his calling was
quite illegal, and that his intention was simply to extort money. The
worthy Corporal had not the slightest shame regarding his own profession,
and cut many jokes with Mrs. Cat about her late one; her attempt to
murder the Count, and her future prospects as a wife.
And here, having brought him upon the scene again, we may as well
shortly narrate some of the principal circumstances which befell him after
his sudden departure from Birmingham; and which he narrated with much
candour to Mrs. Catherine.
He rode the Captain's horse to Oxford (having exchanged his military
dress for a civil costume on the road), and at Oxford he disposed of
"George of Denmark," a great bargain, to one of the heads of colleges. As
soon as Mr. Brock, who took on himself the style and title of Captain
Wood, had sufficiently examined the curiosities of the University, he
proceeded at once to the capital: the only place for a gentleman of his
fortune and figure.
Here he read, with a great deal of philosophical indifference, in the
Daily Post, the Courant, the Observator, the Gazette, and the chief journals
of those days, which he made a point of examining at "Button's" and
"Will's," an accurate description of his person, his clothes, and the horse
he rode, and a promise of fifty guineas' reward to any person who would

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give an account of him (so that he might be captured) to Captain Count

Galgenstein at Birmingham, to Mr. Murfey at the "Golden Ball" in the
Savoy, or Mr. Bates at the "Blew Anchor in Pickadilly." But Captain Wood,
in an enormous full-bottomed periwig that cost him sixty pounds,* with
high red heels to his shoes, a silver sword, and a gold snuff-box, and a
large wound (obtained, he said, at the siege of Barcelona), which
disfigured much of his countenance, and caused him to cover one eye, was
in small danger, he thought, of being mistaken for Corporal Brock, the
deserter of Cutts's; and strutted along the Mall with as grave an air as the
very best nobleman who appeared there. He was generally, indeed, voted
to be very good company; and as his expenses were unlimited ("A few
convent candlesticks," my dear, he used to whisper, "melt into a vast
number of doubloons"), he commanded as good society as he chose to ask
for: and it was speedily known as a fact throughout town, that Captain
Wood, who had served under His Majesty Charles III. of Spain, had
carried off the diamond petticoat of Our Lady of Compostella, and lived
upon the proceeds of the fraud. People were good Protestants in those days,
and many a one longed to have been his partner in the pious plunder.
* In the ingenious contemporary history of Moll Flanders, a periwig is
mentioned as costing that sum.
All surmises concerning his wealth, Captain Wood, with much
discretion, encouraged. He contradicted no report, but was quite ready to
confirm all; and when two different rumours were positively put to him,
he used only to laugh, and say, "My dear sir, _I_ don't make the stories;
but I'm not called upon to deny them; and I give you fair warning, that I
shall assent to every one of them; so you may believe them or not, as you
please." And so he had the reputation of being a gentleman, not only
wealthy, but discreet. In truth, it was almost a pity that worthy Brock had
not been a gentleman born; in which case, doubtless, he would have lived
and died as became his station; for he spent his money like a gentleman,
he loved women like a gentleman, he would fight like a gentleman, he
gambled and got drunk like a gentleman. What did he want else? Only a
matter of six descents, a little money, and an estate, to render him the
equal of St. John or Harley. "Ah, those were merry days!" would Mr.

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Brock say,--for he loved, in a good old age, to recount the story of his
London fashionable campaign;--"and when I think how near I was to
become a great man, and to die perhaps a general, I can't but marvel at the
wicked obstinacy of my ill-luck."
"I will tell you what I did, my dear: I had lodgings in Piccadilly, as if I
were a lord; I had two large periwigs, and three suits of laced clothes; I
kept a little black dressed out like a Turk; I walked daily in the Mall; I
dined at the politest ordinary in Covent Garden; I frequented the best of
coffee-houses, and knew all the pretty fellows of the town; I cracked a
bottle with Mr. Addison, and lent many a piece to Dick Steele (a sad
debauched rogue, my dear); and, above all, I'll tell you what I did--the
noblest stroke that sure ever a gentleman performed in my situation.
"One day, going into 'Will's,' I saw a crowd of gentlemen gathered
together, and heard one of them say, 'Captain Wood! I don't know the man;
but there was a Captain Wood in Southwell's regiment.' Egad, it was my
Lord Peterborough himself who was talking about me. So, putting off my
hat, I made a most gracious conge to my Lord, and said I knew HIM, and
rode behind him at Barcelona on our entry into that town.
"'No doubt you did, Captain Wood,' says my Lord, taking my hand;
'and no doubt you know me: for many more know Tom Fool, than Tom
Fool knows.' And with this, at which all of us laughed, my Lord called for
a bottle, and he and I sat down and drank it together.
"Well, he was in disgrace, as you know, but he grew mighty fond of
me, and--would you believe it?--nothing would satisfy him but presenting
me at Court! Yes, to Her Sacred Majesty the Queen, and my Lady
Marlborough, who was in high feather. Ay, truly, the sentinels on duty used
to salute me as if I were Corporal John himself! I was on the high road to
fortune. Charley Mordaunt used to call me Jack, and drink canary at my
chambers; I used to make one at my Lord Treasurer's levee; I had even got
Mr. Army-Secretary Walpole to take a hundred guineas as a compliment:
and he had promised me a majority: when bad luck turned, and all my fine
hopes were overthrown in a twinkling. "You see, my dear, that after we
had left that gaby, Galgenstein,--ha, ha--with a gag in his mouth, and
twopence- halfpenny in his pocket, the honest Count was in the sorriest

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plight in the world; owing money here and there to tradesmen, a cool
thousand to the Warwickshire Squire: and all this on eighty pounds a year!
Well, for a little time the tradesmen held their hands; while the jolly Count
moved heaven and earth to catch hold of his dear Corporal and his dear
money-bags over again, and placarded every town from London to
Liverpool with descriptions of my pretty person. The bird was flown,
however,--the money clean gone,--and when there was no hope of
regaining it, what did the creditors do but clap my gay gentleman into
Shrewsbury gaol: where I wish he had rotted, for my part.
"But no such luck for honest Peter Brock, or Captain Wood, as he was
in those days. One blessed Monday I went to wait on Mr. Secretary, and he
squeezed my hand and whispered to me that I was to be Major of a
regiment in Virginia--the very thing: for you see, my dear, I didn't care
about joining my Lord Duke in Flanders; being pretty well known to the
army there. The Secretary squeezed my hand (it had a fifty-pound bill in it)
and wished me joy, and called me Major, and bowed me out of his closet
into the ante-room; and, as gay as may be, I went off to the 'Tilt-yard
Coffee-house' in Whitehall, which is much frequented by gentlemen of our
profession, where I bragged not a little of my good luck.
"Amongst the company were several of my acquaintance, and amongst
them a gentleman I did not much care to see, look you! I saw a uniform
that I knew--red and yellow facings--Cutts's, my dear; and the wearer of
this was no other than his Excellency Gustavus Adolphus Maximilian,
whom we all know of!
"He stared me full in the face, right into my eye (t'other one was
patched, you know), and after standing stock-still with his mouth open,
gave a step back, and then a step forward, and then screeched out, 'It's
Brock!'
"'I beg your pardon, sir,' says I; 'did you speak to me?'
"'I'll SWEAR it's Brock,' cries Gal, as soon as he hears my voice, and
laid hold of my cuff (a pretty bit of Mechlin as ever you saw, by the way).
"'Sirrah!' says I, drawing it back, and giving my Lord a little touch of
the fist (just at the last button of the waistcoat, my dear,--a rare place if
you wish to prevent a man from speaking too much: it sent him reeling to

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the other end of the room). 'Ruffian!' says I. 'Dog!' says I. 'Insolent puppy
and coxcomb! what do you mean by laying your hand on me?'
"'Faith, Major, you giv him his BILLYFUL,' roared out a long Irish
unattached ensign, that I had treated with many a glass of Nantz at the
tavern. And so, indeed, I had; for the wretch could not speak for some
minutes, and all the officers stood laughing at him, as he writhed and
wriggled hideously.
"'Gentlemen, this is a monstrous scandal,' says one officer. 'Men of
rank and honour at fists like a parcel of carters!'
"'Men of honour!' says the Count, who had fetched up his breath by
this time. (I made for the door, but Macshane held me and said, 'Major,
you are not going to shirk him, sure?' Whereupon I gripped his hand and
vowed I would have the dog's life.)
"'Men of honour!' says the Count. 'I tell you the man is a deserter, a
thief, and a swindler! He was my corporal, and ran away with a thou--'
"'Dog, you lie!' I roared out, and made another cut at him with my
cane; but the gentlemen rushed between us.
"'O bluthanowns!' says honest Macshane, 'the lying scounthrel this
fellow is! Gentlemen, I swear be me honour that Captain Wood was
wounded at Barcelona; and that I saw him there; and that he and I ran
away together at the battle of Almanza, and bad luck to us.'
"You see, my dear, that these Irish have the strongest imaginations in
the world; and that I had actually persuaded poor Mac that he and I were
friends in Spain. Everybody knew Mac, who was a character in his way,
and believed him.
"'Strike a gentleman,' says I. 'I'll have your blood, I will.'
"'This instant,' says the Count, who was boiling with fury; 'and where
you like.'
"'Montague House,' says I. 'Good,' says he. And off we went. In good
time too, for the constables came in at the thought of such a disturbance,
and wanted to take us in charge.
"But the gentlemen present, being military men, would not hear of this.
Out came Mac's rapier, and that of half-a-dozen others; and the constables
were then told to do their duty if they liked, or to take a crown-piece, and

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leave us to ourselves. Off they went; and presently, in a couple of coaches,

the Count and his friends, I and mine, drove off to the fields behind
Montague House. Oh that vile coffee-house! why did I enter it?
"We came to the ground. Honest Macshane was my second, and much
disappointed because the second on the other side would not make a fight
of it, and exchange a few passes with him; but he was an old major, a cool
old hand, as brave as steel, and no fool. Well, the swords are measured,
Galgenstein strips off his doublet, and I my handsome cut-velvet in like
fashion. Galgenstein flings off his hat, and I handed mine over--the lace on
it cost me twenty pounds. I longed to be at him, for--curse him!--I hate
him, and know that he has no chance with me at sword's-play.
"'You'll not fight in that periwig, sure?' says Macshane. 'Of course not,'
says I, and took it off.
"May all barbers be roasted in flames; may all periwigs, bobwigs,
scratchwigs, and Ramillies cocks, frizzle in purgatory from this day forth
to the end of time! Mine was the ruin of me: what might I not have been
now but for that wig!
"I gave it over to Ensign Macshane, and with it went what I had quite
forgotten, the large patch which I wore over one eye, which popped out
fierce, staring, and lively as was ever any eye in the world.
"'Come on!' says I, and made a lunge at my Count; but he sprang back
(the dog was as active as a hare, and knew, from old times, that I was his
master with the small-sword), and his second, wondering, struck up my
blade.
"'I will not fight that man,' says he, looking mighty pale. 'I swear upon
my honour that his name is Peter Brock: he was for two years my corporal,
and deserted, running away with a thousand pounds of my moneys. Look
at the fellow! What is the matter with his eye? why did he wear a patch
over it? But stop!' says he. 'I have more proof. Hand me my pocket-book.'
And from it, sure enough, he produced the infernal proclamation
announcing my desertion! 'See if the fellow has a scar across his left ear'
(and I can't say, my dear, but what I have: it was done by a cursed
Dutchman at the Boyne). 'Tell me if he has not got C.R. in blue upon his
right arm' (and there it is sure enough). 'Yonder swaggering Irishman may

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be his accomplice for what I know; but I will have no dealings with Mr.
Brock, save with a constable for a second.'
"'This is an odd story, Captain Wood,' said the old Major who acted for
the Count.
"'A scounthrelly falsehood regarding me and my friend!' shouted out
Mr. Macshane; 'and the Count shall answer for it.'
"'Stop, stop!' says the Major. 'Captain Wood is too gallant a gentleman,
I am sure, not to satisfy the Count; and will show us that he has no such
mark on his arm as only private soldiers put there.'
"'Captain Wood,' says I, 'will do no such thing, Major. I'll fight that
scoundrel Galgenstein, or you, or any of you, like a man of honour; but I
won't submit to be searched like a thief!'
"'No, in coorse,' said Macshane.
"'I must take my man off the ground,' says the Major.
"'Well, take him, sir,' says I, in a rage; 'and just let me have the
pleasure of telling him that he's a coward and a liar; and that my lodgings
are in Piccadilly, where, if ever he finds courage to meet me, he may hear
of me!'
"'Faugh! I shpit on ye all,' cries my gallant ally Macshane. And sure
enough he kept his word, or all but--suiting the action to it at any rate.
"And so we gathered up our clothes, and went back in our separate
coaches, and no blood spilt.
"'And is it thrue now,' said Mr. Macshane, when we were alone--'is it
thrue now, all these divvles have been saying?' 'Ensign,' says I, 'you're a
man of the world?'
"''Deed and I am, and insign these twenty-two years.'
"'Perhaps you'd like a few pieces?' says I.
"'Faith and I should; for to tell you the secred thrut, I've not tasted
mate these four days.'
"'Well then, Ensign, it IS true,' says I; 'and as for meat, you shall have
some at the first cook-shop.' I bade the coach stop until he bought a
plateful, which he ate in the carriage, for my time was precious. I just told
him the whole story: at which he laughed, and swore that it was the best
piece of GENERALSHIP he ever heard on. When his belly was full, I took

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out a couple of guineas and gave them to him. Mr. Macshane began to cry
at this, and kissed me, and swore he never would desert me: as, indeed, my
dear, I don't think he will; for we have been the best of friends ever since,
and he's the only man I ever could trust, I think.
"I don't know what put it into my head, but I had a scent of some
mischief in the wind; so stopped the coach a little before I got home, and,
turning into a tavern, begged Macshane to go before me to my lodging,
and see if the coast was clear: which he did; and came back to me as pale
as death, saying that the house was full of constables. The cursed quarrel
at the Tilt-yard had, I suppose, set the beaks upon me; and a pretty sweep
they made of it. Ah, my dear! five hundred pounds in money, five suits of
laced clothes, three periwigs, besides laced shirts, swords, canes, and
snuff-boxes; and all to go back to that scoundrel Count.
"It was all over with me, I saw--no more being a gentleman for me;
and if I remained to be caught, only a choice between Tyburn and a file of
grenadiers. My love, under such circumstances, a gentleman can't be
particular, and must be prompt; the livery-stable was hard by where I used
to hire my coach to go to Court,--ha! ha!--and was known as a man of
substance. Thither I went immediately. 'Mr. Warmmash,' says I, 'my
gallant friend here and I have a mind for a ride and a supper at
Twickenham, so you must lend us a pair of your best horses.' Which he did
in a twinkling, and off we rode.
"We did not go into the Park, but turned off and cantered smartly up
towards Kilburn; and, when we got into the country, galloped as if the
devil were at our heels. Bless you, my love, it was all done in a minute:
and the Ensign and I found ourselves regular knights of the road, before
we knew where we were almost. Only think of our finding you and your
new husband at the 'Three Rooks'! There's not a greater fence than the
landlady in all the country. It was she that put us on seizing your husband,
and introduced us to the other two gentlemen, whose names I don't know
any more than the dead."
"And what became of the horses?" said Mrs. Catherine to Mr. Brock,
when his tale was finished.
"Rips, madam," said he; "mere rips. We sold them at Stourbridge fair,

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and got but thirteen guineas for the two."

"And--and--the Count, Max; where is he, Brock?" sighed she.
"Whew!" whistled Mr. Brock. "What, hankering after him still? My
dear, he is off to Flanders with his regiment; and, I make no doubt, there
have been twenty Countesses of Galgenstein since your time."
"I don't believe any such thing, sir," said Mrs. Catherine, starting up
very angrily.
"If you did, I suppose you'd laudanum him; wouldn't you?"
"Leave the room, fellow," said the lady. But she recollected herself
speedily again; and, clasping her hands, and looking very wretched at
Brock, at the ceiling, at the floor, at her husband (from whom she violently
turned away her head), she began to cry piteously: to which tears the
Corporal set up a gentle accompaniment of whistling, as they trickled one
after another down her nose.
I don't think they were tears of repentance; but of regret for the time
when she had her first love, and her fine clothes, and her white hat and
blue feather. Of the two, the Corporal's whistle was much more innocent
than the girl's sobbing: he was a rogue; but a good-natured old fellow
when his humour was not crossed. Surely our novel-writers make a great
mistake in divesting their rascals of all gentle human qualities: they have
such--and the only sad point to think of is, in all private concerns of life,
abstract feelings, and dealings with friends, and so on, how dreadfully like
a rascal is to an honest man. The man who murdered the Italian boy, set
him first to play with his children whom he loved, and who doubtless
deplored his loss.

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CHAPTER VI. ADVENTURES OF

THE AMBASSADOR, MR.
MACSHANE.

If we had not been obliged to follow history in all respects, it is

probable that we should have left out the last adventure of Mrs. Catherine
and her husband, at the inn at Worcester, altogether; for, in truth, very little
came of it, and it is not very romantic or striking. But we are bound to
stick closely, above all, by THE TRUTH--the truth, though it be not
particularly pleasant to read of or to tell. As anybody may read in the
"Newgate Calendar," Mr. and Mrs. Hayes were taken at an inn at
Worcester; were confined there; were swindled by persons who pretended
to impress the bridegroom for military service. What is one to do after that?
Had we been writing novels instead of authentic histories, we might have
carried them anywhere else we chose: and we had a great mind to make
Hayes philosophising with Bolingbroke, like a certain Devereux; and Mrs.
Catherine maitresse en titre to Mr. Alexander Pope, Doctor Sacheverel, Sir
John Reade the oculist, Dean Swift, or Marshal Tallard; as the very
commonest romancer would under such circumstances. But alas and alas!
truth must be spoken, whatever else is in the wind; and the excellent
"Newgate Calendar," which contains the biographies and thanatographies
of Hayes and his wife, does not say a word of their connections with any
of the leading literary or military heroes of the time of Her Majesty Queen
Anne. The "Calendar" says, in so many words, that Hayes was obliged to
send to his father in Warwickshire for money to get him out of the scrape,
and that the old gentleman came down to his aid. By this truth must we
stick; and not for the sake of the most brilliant episode,--no, not for a bribe
of twenty extra guineas per sheet, would we depart from it.
Mr. Brock's account of his adventure in London has given the reader
some short notice of his friend, Mr Macshane. Neither the wits nor the
principles of that worthy Ensign were particularly firm: for drink, poverty,

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and a crack on the skull at the battle of Steenkirk had served to injure the
former; and the Ensign was not in his best days possessed of any share of
the latter. He had really, at one period, held such a rank in the army, but
pawned his half-pay for drink and play; and for many years past had lived,
one of the hundred thousand miracles of our city, upon nothing that
anybody knew of, or of which he himself could give any account. Who
has not a catalogue of these men in his list? who can tell whence comes
the occasional clean shirt, who supplies the continual means of
drunkenness, who wards off the daily-impending starvation? Their life is a
wonder from day to day: their breakfast a wonder; their dinner a miracle;
their bed an interposition of Providence. If you and I, my dear sir, want a
shilling tomorrow, who will give it us? Will OUR butchers give us
mutton-chops? will OUR laundresses clothe us in clean linen?--not a bone
or a rag. Standing as we do (may it be ever so) somewhat removed from
want,* is there one of us who does not shudder at the thought of
descending into the lists to combat with it, and expect anything but to be
utterly crushed in the encounter?
* The author, it must be remembered, has his lodgings and food
provided for him by the government of his country.
Not a bit of it, my dear sir. It takes much more than you think for to
starve a man. Starvation is very little when you are used to it. Some people
I know even, who live on it quite comfortably, and make their daily bread
by it. It had been our friend Macshane's sole profession for many years;
and he did not fail to draw from it such a livelihood as was sufficient, and
perhaps too good, for him. He managed to dine upon it a certain or rather
uncertain number of days in the week, to sleep somewhere, and to get
drunk at least three hundred times a year. He was known to one or two
noblemen who occasionally helped him with a few pieces, and whom he
helped in turn--never mind how. He had other acquaintances whom he
pestered undauntedly; and from whom he occasionally extracted a dinner,
or a crown, or mayhap, by mistake, a goldheaded cane, which found its
way to the pawnbroker's. When flush of cash, he would appear at the
coffee-house; when low in funds, the deuce knows into what mystic caves
and dens he slunk for food and lodging. He was perfectly ready with his

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sword, and when sober, or better still, a very little tipsy, was a complete
master of it; in the art of boasting and lying he had hardly any equals; in
shoes he stood six feet five inches; and here is his complete signalement. It
was a fact that he had been in Spain as a volunteer, where he had shown
some gallantry, had had a brain-fever, and was sent home to starve as
before.
Mr. Macshane had, however, like Mr. Conrad, the Corsair, one virtue
in the midst of a thousand crimes,--he was faithful to his employer for the
time being: and a story is told of him, which may or may not be to his
credit, viz. that being hired on one occasion by a certain lord to inflict a
punishment upon a roturier who had crossed his lordship in his amours, he,
Macshane, did actually refuse from the person to be belaboured, and who
entreated his forbearance, a larger sum of money than the nobleman gave
him for the beating; which he performed punctually, as bound in honour
and friendship. This tale would the Ensign himself relate, with much self-
satisfaction; and when, after the sudden flight from London, he and Brock
took to their roving occupation, he cheerfully submitted to the latter as his
commanding officer, called him always Major, and, bating blunders and
drunkenness, was perfectly true to his leader. He had a notion--and, indeed,
I don't know that it was a wrong one--that his profession was now, as
before, strictly military, and according to the rules of honour. Robbing he
called plundering the enemy; and hanging was, in his idea, a dastardly and
cruel advantage that the latter took, and that called for the sternest
reprisals.
The other gentlemen concerned were strangers to Mr. Brock, who felt
little inclined to trust either of them upon such a message, or with such a
large sum to bring back. They had, strange to say, a similar mistrust on
their side; but Mr. Brock lugged out five guineas, which he placed in the
landlady's hand as security for his comrade's return; and Ensign Macshane,
being mounted on poor Hayes's own horse, set off to visit the parents of
that unhappy young man. It was a gallant sight to behold our thieves'
ambassador, in a faded sky-blue suit with orange facings, in a pair of huge
jack-boots unconscious of blacking, with a mighty basket-hilted sword by
his side, and a little shabby beaver cocked over a large tow-periwig, ride

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out from the inn of the "Three Rooks" on his mission to Hayes's paternal
village.
It was eighteen miles distant from Worcester; but Mr. Macshane
performed the distance in safety, and in sobriety moreover (for such had
been his instructions), and had no difficulty in discovering the house of
old Hayes: towards which, indeed, John's horse trotted incontinently. Mrs.
Hayes, who was knitting at the house-door, was not a little surprised at the
appearance of the well-known grey gelding, and of the stranger mounted
upon it.
Flinging himself off the steed with much agility, Mr. Macshane, as
soon as his feet reached the ground, brought them rapidly together, in
order to make a profound and elegant bow to Mrs. Hayes; and slapping his
greasy beaver against his heart, and poking his periwig almost into the
nose of the old lady, demanded whether he had the "shooprame honour of
adthressing Misthriss Hees?"
Having been answered in the affirmative, he then proceeded to ask
whether there was a blackguard boy in the house who would take "the
horse to the steeble;" whether "he could have a dthrink of small-beer or
buthermilk, being, faith, uncommon dthry;" and whether, finally, "he could
be feevored with a few minutes' private conversation with her and Mr.
Hees, on a matther of consitherable impartance." All these preliminaries
were to be complied with before Mr. Macshane would enter at all into the
subject of his visit. The horse and man were cared for; Mr. Hayes was
called in; and not a little anxious did Mrs. Hayes grow, in the meanwhile,
with regard to the fate of her darling son. "Where is he? How is he? Is he
dead?" said the old lady. "Oh yes, I'm sure he's dead !"
"Indeed, madam, and you're misteeken intirely: the young man is
perfectly well in health."
"Oh, praised be Heaven!"
"But mighty cast down in sperrits. To misfortunes, madam, look you,
the best of us are subject; and a trifling one has fell upon your son."
And herewith Mr. Macshane produced a letter in the handwriting of
young Hayes, of which we have had the good luck to procure a copy. It
ran thus:--

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"HONORED FATHER AND MOTHER,--The bearer of this is a kind

gentleman, who has left me in a great deal of trouble. Yesterday, at this
towne, I fell in with some gentlemen of the queene's servas; after drinking
with whom, I accepted her Majesty's mony to enliste. Repenting thereof, I
did endeavour to escape; and, in so doing, had the misfortune to strike my
superior officer, whereby I made myself liable to Death, according to the
rules of warr. If, however, I pay twenty ginnys, all will be wel. You must
give the same to the barer, els I shall be shott without fail on Tewsday
morning. And so no more from your loving son,
"JOHN HAYES.
"From my prison at Bristol, this unhappy Monday."
When Mrs. Hayes read this pathetic missive, its success with her was
complete, and she was for going immediately to the cupboard, and
producing the money necessary for her darling son's release. But the
carpenter Hayes was much more suspicious. "I don't know you, sir," said
he to the ambassador.
"Do you doubt my honour, sir?" said the Ensign, very fiercely.
"Why, sir," replied Mr. Hayes "I know little about it one way or other,
but shall take it for granted, if you will explain a little more of this
business."
"I sildom condescind to explean," said Mr. Macshane, "for it's not the
custom in my rank; but I'll explean anything in reason."
"Pray, will you tell me in what regiment my son is enlisted?"
"In coorse. In Colonel Wood's fut, my dear; and a gallant corps it is as
any in the army."
"And you left him?"
"On me soul, only three hours ago, having rid like a horse-jockey ever
since; as in the sacred cause of humanity, curse me, every man should."
As Hayes's house was seventy miles from Bristol, the old gentleman
thought this was marvellous quick riding, and so, cut the conversation
short. "You have said quite enough, sir," said he, "to show me there is
some roguery in the matter, and that the whole story is false from
beginning to end."
At this abrupt charge the Ensign looked somewhat puzzled, and then

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spoke with much gravity. "Roguery," said he, "Misthur Hees, is a sthrong
term; and which, in consideration of my friendship for your family, I shall
pass over. You doubt your son's honour, as there wrote by him in black and
white?"
"You have forced him to write," said Mr. Hayes.
"The sly old divvle's right," muttered Mr. Macshane, aside. "Well, sir,
to make a clean breast of it, he HAS been forced to write it. The story
about the enlistment is a pretty fib, if you will, from beginning to end. And
what then, my dear? Do you think your son's any better off for that?"
"Oh, where is he?" screamed Mrs. Hayes, plumping down on her
knees. "We WILL give him the money, won't we, John?"
"I know you will, madam, when I tell you where he is. He is in the
hands of some gentlemen of my acquaintance, who are at war with the
present government, and no more care about cutting a man's throat than
they do a chicken's. He is a prisoner, madam, of our sword and spear. If
you choose to ransom him, well and good; if not, peace be with him! for
never more shall you see him."
"And how do I know you won't come back to-morrow for more
money?" asked Mr. Hayes.
"Sir, you have my honour; and I'd as lieve break my neck as my
word," said Mr. Macshane, gravely. "Twenty guineas is the bargain. Take
ten minutes to talk of it--take it then, or leave it; it's all the same to me, my
dear." And it must be said of our friend the Ensign, that he meant every
word he said, and that he considered the embassy on which he had come
as perfectly honourable and regular.
"And pray, what prevents us," said Mr. Hayes, starting up in a rage,
"from taking hold of you, as a surety for him?"
"You wouldn't fire on a flag of truce, would ye, you dishonourable
ould civilian?" replied Mr. Macshane. "Besides," says he, "there's more
reasons to prevent you: the first is this," pointing to his sword; "here are
two more"--and these were pistols; "and the last and the best of all is, that
you might hang me and dthraw me and quarther me, an yet never see so
much as the tip of your son's nose again. Look you, sir, we run mighty
risks in our profession--it's not all play, I can tell you. We're obliged to be

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punctual, too, or it's all up with the thrade. If I promise that your son will
die as sure as fate to-morrow morning, unless I return home safe, our
people MUST keep my promise; or else what chance is there for me? You
would be down upon me in a moment with a posse of constables, and have
me swinging before Warwick gaol. Pooh, my dear! you never would
sacrifice a darling boy like John Hayes, let alone his lady, for the sake of
my long carcass. One or two of our gentlemen have been taken that way
already, because parents and guardians would not believe them."
"AND WHAT BECAME OF THE POOR CHILDREN?" said Mrs.
Hayes, who began to perceive the gist of the argument, and to grow
dreadfully frightened.
"Don't let's talk of them, ma'am: humanity shudthers at the thought!"
And herewith Mr. Macshane drew his finger across his throat in such a
dreadful way as to make the two parents tremble. "It's the way of war,
madam, look you. The service I have the honour to belong to is not paid
by the Queen; and so we're obliged to make our prisoners pay, according
to established military practice."
No lawyer could have argued his case better than Mr. Macshane so far;
and he completely succeeded in convincing Mr. and Mrs. Hayes of the
necessity of ransoming their son. Promising that the young man should be
restored to them next morning, along with his beautiful lady, he
courteously took leave of the old couple, and made the best of his way
back to Worcester again. The elder Hayes wondered who the lady could be
of whom the ambassador had spoken, for their son's elopement was
altogether unknown to them; but anger or doubt about this subject was
overwhelmed by their fears for their darling John's safety. Away rode the
gallant Macshane with the money necessary to effect this; and it must be
mentioned, as highly to his credit, that he never once thought of
appropriating the sum to himself, or of deserting his comrades in any way.
His ride from Worcester had been a long one. He had left that city at
noon, but before his return thither the sun had gone down; and the
landscape, which had been dressed like a prodigal, in purple and gold,
now appeared like a Quaker, in dusky grey; and the trees by the road-side
grew black as undertakers or physicians, and, bending their solemn heads

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to each other, whispered ominously among themselves; and the mists hung
on the common; and the cottage lights went out one by one; and the earth
and heaven grew black, but for some twinkling useless stars, which
freckled the ebon countenance of the latter; and the air grew colder; and
about two o'clock the moon appeared, a dismal pale-faced rake, walking
solitary through the deserted sky; and about four, mayhap, the Dawn
(wretched 'prentice-boy!) opened in the east the shutters of the Day:--in
other words, more than a dozen hours had passed. Corporal Brock had
been relieved by Mr. Redcap, the latter by Mr. Sicklop, the one-eyed
gentleman; Mrs. John Hayes, in spite of her sorrows and bashfulness, had
followed the example of her husband, and fallen asleep by his side--slept
for many hours--and awakened still under the guardianship of Mr. Brock's
troop; and all parties began anxiously to expect the return of the
ambassador, Mr. Macshane.
That officer, who had performed the first part of his journey with such
distinguished prudence and success, found the night, on his journey
homewards, was growing mighty cold and dark; and as he was thirsty and
hungry, had money in his purse, and saw no cause to hurry, he determined
to take refuge at an alehouse for the night, and to make for Worcester by
dawn the next morning. He accordingly alighted at the first inn on his road,
consigned his horse to the stable, and, entering the kitchen, called for the
best liquor in the house.
A small company was assembled at the inn, among whom Mr.
Macshane took his place with a great deal of dignity; and, having a
considerable sum of money in his pocket, felt a mighty contempt for his
society, and soon let them know the contempt he felt for them. After a
third flagon of ale, he discovered that the liquor was sour, and emptied,
with much spluttering and grimaces, the remainder of the beer into the fire.
This process so offended the parson of the parish (who in those good old
times did not disdain to take the post of honour in the chimney-nook), that
he left his corner, looking wrathfully at the offender; who without any
more ado instantly occupied it. It was a fine thing to hear the jingling of
the twenty pieces in his pocket, the oaths which he distributed between the
landlord, the guests, and the liquor--to remark the sprawl of his mighty

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jack-boots, before the sweep of which the timid guests edged farther and
farther away; and the languishing leers which he cast on the landlady, as
with wide-spread arms he attempted to seize upon her.
When the ostler had done his duties in the stable, he entered the inn,
and whispered the landlord that "the stranger was riding John Hayes's
horse:" of which fact the host soon convinced himself, and did not fail to
have some suspicions of his guest. Had he not thought that times were
unquiet, horses might be sold, and one man's money was as good as
another's, he probably would have arrested the Ensign immediately, and so
lost all the profit of the score which the latter was causing every moment
to be enlarged.
In a couple of hours, with that happy facility which one may have
often remarked in men of the gallant Ensign's nation, he had managed to
disgust every one of the landlord's other guests, and scare them from the
kitchen. Frightened by his addresses, the landlady too had taken flight; and
the host was the only person left in the apartment; who there stayed for
interest's sake merely, and listened moodily to his tipsy guest's
conversation. In an hour more, the whole house was awakened by a
violent noise of howling, curses, and pots clattering to and fro. Forth
issued Mrs. Landlady in her night-gear, out came John Ostler with his
pitchfork, downstairs tumbled Mrs. Cook and one or two guests, and
found the landlord and ensign on the kitchen-floor--the wig of the latter
lying, much singed and emitting strange odours, in the fireplace, his face
hideously distorted, and a great quantity of his natural hair in the partial
occupation of the landlord; who had drawn it and the head down towards
him, in order that he might have the benefit of pummelling the latter more
at his ease. In revenge, the landlord was undermost, and the Ensign's arms
were working up and down his face and body like the flaps of a paddle-
wheel: the man of war had clearly the best of it.
The combatants were separated as soon as possible; but, as soon as the
excitement of the fight was over, Ensign Macshane was found to have no
further powers of speech, sense, or locomotion, and was carried by his late
antagonist to bed. His sword and pistols, which had been placed at his side
at the commencement of the evening, were carefully put by, and his pocket

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visited. Twenty guineas in gold, a large knife--used, probably, for the

cutting of bread-and-cheese--some crumbs of those delicacies and a paper
of tobacco found in the breeches-pockets, and in the bosom of the sky-
blue coat, the leg of a cold fowl and half of a raw onion, constituted his
whole property.
These articles were not very suspicious; but the beating which the
landlord had received tended greatly to confirm his own and his wife's
doubts about their guest; and it was determined to send off in the early
morning to Mr. Hayes, informing him how a person had lain at their inn
who had ridden thither mounted upon young Hayes's horse. Off set John
Ostler at earliest dawn; but on his way he woke up Mr. Justice's clerk, and
communicated his suspicions to him; and Mr. Clerk consulted with the
village baker, who was always up early; and the clerk, the baker, the
butcher with his cleaver, and two gentlemen who were going to work, all
adjourned to the inn.
Accordingly, when Ensign Macshane was in a truckle-bed, plunged in
that deep slumber which only innocence and drunkenness enjoy in this
world, and charming the ears of morn by the regular and melodious music
of his nose, a vile plot was laid against him; and when about seven of the
clock he woke, he found, on sitting up in his bed, three gentlemen on each
side of it, armed, and looking ominous. One held a constable's staff, and
albeit unprovided with a warrant, would take upon himself the
responsibility of seizing Mr. Macshane and of carrying him before his
worship at the hall.
"Taranouns, man!" said the Ensign, springing up in bed, and abruptly
breaking off a loud sonorous yawn, with which he had opened the
business of the day, "you won't deteen a gentleman who's on life and death?
I give ye my word, an affair of honour."
"How came you by that there horse?" said the baker.
"How came you by these here fifteen guineas?" said the landlord, in
whose hands, by some process, five of the gold pieces had disappeared.
"What is this here idolatrous string of beads?" said the clerk.
Mr. Macshane, the fact is, was a Catholic, but did not care to own it:
for in those days his religion was not popular.

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"Baids? Holy Mother of saints! give me back them baids," said Mr.
Macshane, clasping his hands. "They were blest, I tell you, by his holiness
the po--psha! I mane they belong to a darling little daughter I had that's in
heaven now: and as for the money and the horse, I should like to know
how a gentleman is to travel in this counthry without them."
"Why, you see, he may travel in the country to GIT 'em," here
shrewdly remarked the constable; "and it's our belief that neither horse nor
money is honestly come by. If his worship is satisfied, why so, in course,
shall we be; but there is highwaymen abroad, look you; and, to our notion,
you have very much the cut of one."
Further remonstrances or threats on the part of Mr. Macshane were
useless. Although he vowed that he was first cousin to the Duke of
Leinster, an officer in Her Majesty's service, and the dearest friend Lord
Marlborough had, his impudent captors would not believe a word of his
statement (which, further, was garnished with a tremendous number of
oaths); and he was, about eight o'clock, carried up to the house of Squire
Ballance, the neighbouring justice of the peace.
When the worthy magistrate asked the crime of which the prisoner had
been guilty, the captors looked somewhat puzzled for the moment; since,
in truth, it could not be shown that the Ensign had committed any crime at
all; and if he had confined himself to simple silence, and thrown upon
them the onus of proving his misdemeanours, Justice Ballance must have
let him loose, and soundly rated his clerk and the landlord for detaining an
honest gentleman on so frivolous a charge.
But this caution was not in the Ensign's disposition; and though his
accusers produced no satisfactory charge against him, his own words were
quite enough to show how suspicious his character was. When asked his
name, he gave it in as Captain Geraldine, on his way to Ireland, by Bristol,
on a visit to his cousin the Duke of Leinster. He swore solemnly that his
friends, the Duke of Marlborough and Lord Peterborough, under both of
whom he had served, should hear of the manner in which he had been
treated; and when the justice,--a sly old gentleman, and one that read the
Gazettes, asked him at what battles he had been present, the gallant Ensign
pitched on a couple in Spain and in Flanders, which had been fought

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within a week of each other, and vowed that he had been desperately
wounded at both; so that, at the end of his examination, which had been
taken down by the clerk, he had been made to acknowledge as follows:--
Captain Geraldine, six feet four inches in height; thin, with a very long red
nose, and red hair; grey eyes, and speaks with a strong Irish accent; is the
first-cousin of the Duke of Leinster, and in constant communication with
him: does not know whether his Grace has any children; does not know
whereabouts he lives in London; cannot say what sort of a looking man his
Grace is: is acquainted with the Duke of Marlborough, and served in the
dragoons at the battle of Ramillies; at which time he was with my Lord
Peterborough before Barcelona. Borrowed the horse which he rides from a
friend in London, three weeks since. Peter Hobbs, ostler, swears that it
was in his master's stable four days ago, and is the property of John Hayes,
carpenter. Cannot account for the fifteen guineas found on him by the
landlord; says there were twenty; says he won them at cards, a fortnight
since, at Edinburgh; says he is riding about the country for his amusement:
afterwards says he is on a matter of life and death, and going to Bristol;
declared last night, in the hearing of several witnesses, that he was going
to York; says he is a man of independent property, and has large estates in
Ireland, and a hundred thousand pounds in the Bank of England. Has no
shirt or stockings, and the coat he wears is marked "S.S." In his boots is
written "Thomas Rodgers," and in his hat is the name of the "Rev. Doctor
Snoffler."
Doctor Snoffler lived at Worcester, and had lately advertised in the
Hue and Cry a number of articles taken from his house. Mr. Macshane
said, in reply to this, that his hat had been changed at the inn, and he was
ready to take his oath that he came thither in a gold-laced one. But this fact
was disproved by the oaths of many persons who had seen him at the inn.
And he was about to be imprisoned for the thefts which he had not
committed (the fact about the hat being, that he had purchased it from a
gentleman at the "Three Rooks" for two pints of beer)--he was about to be
remanded, when, behold, Mrs. Hayes the elder made her appearance; and
to her it was that the Ensign was indebted for his freedom.
Old Hayes had gone to work before the ostler arrived; but when his

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wife heard the lad's message, she instantly caused her pillion to be placed
behind the saddle, and mounting the grey horse, urged the stable-boy to
gallop as hard as ever he could to the justice's house.
She entered panting and alarmed. "Oh, what is your honour going to
do to this honest gentleman?" said she. "In the name of Heaven, let him go!
His time is precious--he has important business--business of life and
death."
"I tould the jidge so," said the Ensign, "but he refused to take my
word--the sacred wurrd of honour of Captain Geraldine."
Macshane was good at a single lie, though easily flustered on an
examination; and this was a very creditable stratagem to acquaint Mrs.
Hayes with the name that he bore.
"What! you know Captain Geraldine?" said Mr. Ballance, who was
perfectly well acquainted with the carpenter's wife.
"In coorse she does. Hasn't she known me these tin years? Are we not
related? Didn't she give me the very horse which I rode, and, to make
belave, tould you I'd bought in London?"
"Let her tell her own story. Are you related to Captain Geraldine, Mrs.
Hayes?"
"Yes--oh, yes!"
"A very elegant connection! And you gave him the horse, did you, of
your own free-will?"
"Oh yes! of my own will--I would give him anything. Do, do, your
honour, let him go! His child is dying," said the old lady, bursting into
tears. "It may be dead before he gets to--before he gets there. Oh, your
honour, your honour, pray, pray, don't detain him!"
The justice did not seem to understand this excessive sympathy on the
part of Mrs. Hayes; nor did the father himself appear to be nearly so
affected by his child's probable fate as the honest woman who interested
herself for him. On the contrary, when she made this passionate speech,
Captain Geraldine only grinned, and said, "Niver mind, my dear. If his
honour will keep an honest gentleman for doing nothing, why, let him--the
law must settle between us; and as for the child, poor thing, the Lord
deliver it!"

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At this, Mrs. Hayes fell to entreating more loudly than ever; and as
there was really no charge against him, Mr. Ballance was constrained to let
him go.
The landlord and his friends were making off, rather confused, when
Ensign Macshane called upon the former in a thundering voice to stop,
and refund the five guineas which he had stolen from him. Again the host
swore there were but fifteen in his pocket. But when, on the Bible, the
Ensign solemnly vowed that he had twenty, and called upon Mrs. Hayes to
say whether yesterday, half-an-hour before he entered the inn, she had not
seen him with twenty guineas, and that lady expressed herself ready to
swear that she had, Mr. Landlord looked more crestfallen than ever, and
said that he had not counted the money when he took it; and though he did
in his soul believe that there were only fifteen guineas, rather than be
suspected of a shabby action, he would pay the five guineas out of his own
pocket: which he did, and with the Ensign's, or rather Mrs. Hayes's, own
coin.
As soon as they were out of the justice's house, Mr. Macshane, in the
fulness of his gratitude, could not help bestowing an embrace upon Mrs.
Hayes. And when she implored him to let her ride behind him to her
darling son, he yielded with a very good grace, and off the pair set on John
Hayes's grey.
"Who has Nosey brought with him now?" said Mr. Sicklop, Brock's
one-eyed confederate, who, about three hours after the above adventure,
was lolling in the yard of the "Three Rooks." It was our Ensign, with the
mother of his captive. They had not met with any accident in their ride.
"I shall now have the shooprame bliss," said Mr. Macshane, with much
feeling, as he lifted Mrs. Hayes from the saddle---"the shooprame bliss of
intwining two harrts that are mead for one another. Ours, my dear, is a
dismal profession; but ah! don't moments like this make aminds for years
of pain? This way, my dear. Turn to your right, then to your left--mind the
stip--and the third door round the corner."
All these precautions were attended to; and after giving his concerted
knock, Mr. Macshane was admitted into an apartment, which he entered
holding his gold pieces in the one hand, and a lady by the other.

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We shall not describe the meeting which took place between mother
and son. The old lady wept copiously; the young man was really glad to
see his relative, for he deemed that his troubles were over. Mrs. Cat bit her
lips, and stood aside, looking somewhat foolish; Mr. Brock counted the
money; and Mr. Macshane took a large dose of strong waters, as a
pleasing solace for his labours, dangers, and fatigue.
When the maternal feelings were somewhat calmed, the old lady had
leisure to look about her, and really felt a kind of friendship and goodwill
for the company of thieves in which she found herself. It seemed to her
that they had conferred an actual favour on her, in robbing her of twenty
guineas, threatening her son's life, and finally letting him go.
"Who is that droll old gentleman?" said she; and being told that it was
Captain Wood, she dropped him a curtsey, and said, with much respect,
"Captain, your very humble servant;" which compliment Mr. Brock
acknowledged by a gracious smile and bow. "And who is this pretty young
lady?" continued Mrs. Hayes.
"Why--hum--oh--mother, you must give her your blessing. She is Mrs.
John Hayes." And herewith Mr. Hayes brought forward his interesting
lady, to introduce her to his mamma.
The news did not at all please the old lady; who received Mrs.
Catherine's embrace with a very sour face indeed. However, the mischief
was done; and she was too glad to get back her son to be, on such an
occasion, very angry with him. So, after a proper rebuke, she told Mrs.
John Hayes that though she never approved of her son's attachment, and
thought he married below his condition, yet as the evil was done, it was
their duty to make the best of it; and she, for her part, would receive her
into her house, and make her as comfortable there as she could. "I wonder
whether she has any more money in that house?" whispered Mr. Sicklop to
Mr. Redcap; who, with the landlady, had come to the door of the room,
and had been amusing themselves by the contemplation of this sentimental
scene.
"What a fool that wild Hirishman was not to bleed her for more!" said
the landlady; "but he's a poor ignorant Papist. I'm sure my man" (this
gentleman had been hanged), "wouldn't have come away with such a

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beggarly sum."
"Suppose we have some more out of 'em?" said Mr. Redcap. "What
prevents us? We have got the old mare, and the colt too,--ha! ha!-- and the
pair of 'em ought to be worth at least a hundred to us."
This conversation was carried on sotto voce; and I don't know whether
Mr. Brock had any notion of the plot which was arranged by the three
worthies. The landlady began it. "Which punch, madam, will you take?"
says she. "You must have something for the good of the house, now you
are in it."
"In coorse," said the Ensign.
"Certainly," said the other three. But the old lady said she was anxious
to leave the place; and putting down a crown-piece, requested the hostess
to treat the gentlemen in her absence. "Good-bye, Captain," said the old
lady.
"Ajew!" cried the Ensign, "and long life to you, my dear. You got me
out of a scrape at the justice's yonder; and, split me! but Insign Macshane
will remimber it as long as he lives."
And now Hayes and the two ladies made for the door; but the landlady
placed herself against it, and Mr. Sicklop said, "No, no, my pretty madams,
you ain't a-going off so cheap as that neither; you are not going out for a
beggarly twenty guineas, look you,--we must have more."
Mr. Hayes starting back, and cursing his fate, fairly burst into tears; the
two women screamed; and Mr. Brock looked as if the proposition both
amused and had been expected by him: but not so Ensign Macshane.
"Major!" said he, clawing fiercely hold of Brock's arms.
"Ensign," said Mr. Brock, smiling.
"Arr we, or arr we not, men of honour?"
"Oh, in coorse," said Brock, laughing, and using Macshane's favourite
expression.
"If we ARR men of honour, we are bound to stick to our word; and,
hark ye, you dirty one-eyed scoundrel, if you don't immadiately make way
for these leedies, and this lily-livered young jontleman who's crying so,
the Meejor here and I will lug out and force you." And so saying, he drew
his great sword and made a pass at Mr. Sicklop; which that gentleman

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avoided, and which caused him and his companion to retreat from the door.
The landlady still kept her position at it, and with a storm of oaths against
the Ensign, and against two Englishmen who ran away from a wild
Hirishman, swore she would not budge a foot, and would stand there until
her dying day.
"Faith, then, needs must," said the Ensign, and made a lunge at the
hostess, which passed so near the wretch's throat, that she screamed, sank
on her knees, and at last opened the door.
Down the stairs, then, with great state, Mr. Macshane led the elder
lady, the married couple following; and having seen them to the street,
took an affectionate farewell of the party, whom he vowed that he would
come and see. "You can walk the eighteen miles aisy, between this and
nightfall," said he.
"WALK!" exclaimed Mr. Hayes. "Why, haven't we got Ball, and shall
ride and tie all the way?"
"Madam!" cried Macshane, in a stern voice, "honour before everything.
Did you not, in the presence of his worship, vow and declare that you gave
me that horse, and now d'ye talk of taking it back again? Let me tell you,
madam, that such paltry thricks ill become a person of your years and
respectability, and ought never to be played with Insign Timothy
Macshane."
He waved his hat and strutted down the street; and Mrs. Catherine
Hayes, along with her bridegroom and mother-in-law, made the best of
their way homeward on foot.

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CHAPTER VII. WHICH

EMBRACES A PERIOD OF SEVEN
YEARS.

The recovery of so considerable a portion of his property from the

clutches of Brock was, as may be imagined, no trifling source of joy to
that excellent young man, Count Gustavus Adolphus de Galgenstein; and
he was often known to say, with much archness, and a proper feeling of
gratitude to the Fate which had ordained things so, that the robbery was, in
reality, one of the best things that could have happened to him: for, in
event of Mr. Brock's NOT stealing the money, his Excellency the Count
would have had to pay the whole to the Warwickshire Squire, who had
won it from him at play. He was enabled, in the present instance, to plead
his notorious poverty as an excuse; and the Warwickshire conqueror got
off with nothing, except a very badly written autograph of the Count's,
simply acknowledging the debt.
This point his Excellency conceded with the greatest candour; but (as,
doubtless, the reader may have remarked in the course of his experience)
to owe is not quite the same thing as to pay; and from the day of his
winning the money until the day of his death the Warwickshire Squire did
never, by any chance, touch a single bob, tizzy, tester, moidore, maravedi,
doubloon, tomaun, or rupee, of the sum which Monsieur de Galgenstein
had lost to him.
That young nobleman was, as Mr. Brock hinted in the little
autobiographical sketch which we gave in a former chapter, incarcerated
for a certain period, and for certain other debts, in the donjons of
Shrewsbury; but he released himself from them by that noble and
consolatory method of whitewashing which the law has provided for
gentlemen in his oppressed condition; and he had not been a week in
London, when he fell in with, and overcame, or put to flight, Captain
Wood, alias Brock, and immediately seized upon the remainder of his

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property. After receiving this, the Count, with commendable discretion,

disappeared from England altogether for a while; nor are we at all
authorised to state that any of his debts to his tradesmen were discharged,
any more than his debts of honour, as they are pleasantly called.
Having thus settled with his creditors, the gallant Count had interest
enough with some of the great folk to procure for himself a post abroad,
and was absent in Holland for some time. It was here that he became
acquainted with the lovely Madam Silverkoop, the widow of a deceased
gentleman of Leyden; and although the lady was not at that age at which
tender passions are usually inspired--being sixty--and though she could
not, like Mademoiselle Ninon de l'Enclos, then at Paris, boast of charms
which defied the progress of time,--for Mrs. Silverkoop was as red as a
boiled lobster, and as unwieldy as a porpoise; and although her mental
attractions did by no means make up for her personal deficiencies,--for she
was jealous, violent, vulgar, drunken, and stingy to a miracle: yet her
charms had an immediate effect on Monsieur de Galgenstein; and hence,
perhaps, the reader (the rogue! how well he knows the world!) will be led
to conclude that the honest widow was RICH.
Such, indeed, she was; and Count Gustavus, despising the difference
between his twenty quarterings and her twenty thousand pounds, laid the
most desperate siege to her, and finished by causing her to capitulate; as I
do believe, after a reasonable degree of pressing, any woman will do to
any man: such, at least, has been MY experience in the matter.
The Count then married; and it was curious to see how he--who, as we
have seen in the case of Mrs. Cat, had been as great a tiger and domestic
bully as any extant--now, by degrees, fell into a quiet submission towards
his enormous Countess; who ordered him up and down as a lady orders
her footman, who permitted him speedily not to have a will of his own,
and who did not allow him a shilling of her money without receiving for
the same an accurate account.
How was it that he, the abject slave of Madam Silverkoop, had been
victorious over Mrs. Cat? The first blow is, I believe, the decisive one in
these cases, and the Countess had stricken it a week after their marriage;--
establishing a supremacy which the Count never afterwards attempted to

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question.
We have alluded to his Excellency's marriage, as in duty bound,
because it will be necessary to account for his appearance hereafter in a
more splendid fashion than that under which he has hitherto been known
to us; and just comforting the reader by the knowledge that the union,
though prosperous in a worldly point of view, was, in reality, extremely
unhappy, we must say no more from this time forth of the fat and
legitimate Madam de Galgenstein. Our darling is Mrs. Catherine, who had
formerly acted in her stead; and only in so much as the fat Countess did
influence in any way the destinies of our heroine, or those wise and
virtuous persons who have appeared and are to follow her to her end, shall
we in any degree allow her name to figure here. It is an awful thing to get
a glimpse, as one sometimes does, when the time is past, of some little
little wheel which works the whole mighty machinery of FATE, and see
how our destinies turn on a minute's delay or advance, or on the turning of
a street, or on somebody else's turning of a street, or on somebody else's
doing of something else in Downing Street or in Timbuctoo, now or a
thousand years ago. Thus, for instance, if Miss Poots, in the year 1695,
had never been the lovely inmate of a Spielhaus at Amsterdam, Mr. Van
Silverkoop would never have seen her; if the day had not been
extraordinarily hot, the worthy merchant would never have gone thither; if
he had not been fond of Rhenish wine and sugar, he never would have
called for any such delicacies; if he had not called for them, Miss Ottilia
Poots would never have brought them, and partaken of them; if he had not
been rich, she would certainly have rejected all the advances made to her
by Silverkoop; if he had not been so fond of Rhenish and sugar, he never
would have died; and Mrs. Silverkoop would have been neither rich nor a
widow, nor a wife to Count von Galgenstein. Nay, nor would this history
have ever been written; for if Count Galgenstein had not married the rich
widow, Mrs. Catherine would never have--
Oh, my dear madam! you thought we were going to tell you. Pooh!
nonsense!--no such thing! not for two or three and seventy pages or so,--
when, perhaps, you MAY know what Mrs. Catherine never would have
done.

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The reader will remember, in the second chapter of these Memoirs, the
announcement that Mrs. Catherine had given to the world a child, who
might bear, if he chose, the arms of Galgenstein, with the further
adornment of a bar-sinister. This child had been put out to nurse some time
before its mother's elopement from the Count; and as that nobleman was
in funds at the time (having had that success at play which we duly
chronicled), he paid a sum of no less than twenty guineas, which was to be
the yearly reward of the nurse into whose charge the boy was put. The
woman grew fond of the brat; and when, after the first year, she had no
further news or remittances from father or mother, she determined, for a
while at least, to maintain the infant at her own expense; for, when
rebuked by her neighbours on this score, she stoutly swore that no parents
could ever desert their children, and that some day or other she should not
fail to be rewarded for her trouble with this one.
Under this strange mental hallucination poor Goody Billings, who had
five children and a husband of her own, continued to give food and shelter
to little Tom for a period of no less than seven years; and though it must be
acknowledged that the young gentleman did not in the slightest degree
merit the kindnesses shown to him, Goody Billings, who was of a very
soft and pitiful disposition, continued to bestow them upon him: because,
she said, he was lonely and unprotected, and deserved them more than
other children who had fathers and mothers to look after them. If, then,
any difference was made between Tom's treatment and that of her own
brood, it was considerably in favour of the former; to whom the largest
proportions of treacle were allotted for his bread, and the handsomest
supplies of hasty pudding. Besides, to do Mrs. Billings justice, there WAS
a party against him; and that consisted not only of her husband and her
five children, but of every single person in the neighbourhood who had an
opportunity of seeing and becoming acquainted with Master Tom.
A celebrated philosopher--I think Miss Edgeworth--has broached the
consolatory doctrine, that in intellect and disposition all human beings are
entirely equal, and that circumstance and education are the causes of the
distinctions and divisions which afterwards unhappily take place among
them. Not to argue this question, which places Jack Howard and Jack

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Thurtell on an exact level,--which would have us to believe that Lord

Melbourne is by natural gifts and excellences a man as honest, brave, and
far-sighted as the Duke of Wellington,--which would make out that Lord
Lyndhurst is, in point of principle, eloquence, and political honesty, no
better than Mr. O'Connell,--not, I say, arguing this doctrine, let us simply
state that Master Thomas Billings (for, having no other, he took the name
of the worthy people who adopted him) was in his long-coats fearfully
passionate, screaming and roaring perpetually, and showing all the ill that
he COULD show. At the age of two, when his strength enabled him to
toddle abroad, his favourite resort was the coal-hole or the dung-heap: his
roarings had not diminished in the least, and he had added to his former
virtues two new ones,--a love of fighting and stealing; both which amiable
qualities he had many opportunities of exercising every day. He fought his
little adoptive brothers and sisters; he kicked and cuffed his father and
mother; he fought the cat, stamped upon the kittens, was worsted in a
severe battle with the hen in the backyard; but, in revenge, nearly beat a
little sucking-pig to death, whom he caught alone and rambling near his
favourite haunt, the dung-hill. As for stealing, he stole the eggs, which he
perforated and emptied; the butter, which he ate with or without bread, as
he could find it; the sugar, which he cunningly secreted in the leaves of a
"Baker's Chronicle," that nobody in the establishment could read; and thus
from the pages of history he used to suck in all he knew--thieving and
lying namely; in which, for his years, he made wonderful progress. If any
followers of Miss Edgeworth and the philosophers are inclined to
disbelieve this statement, or to set it down as overcharged and distorted,
let them be assured that just this very picture was, of all the pictures in the
world, taken from nature. I, Ikey Solomons, once had a dear little brother
who could steal before he could walk (and this not from encouragement,--
for, if you know the world, you must know that in families of our
profession the point of honour is sacred at home,--but from pure nature)--
who could steal, I say, before he could walk, and lie before he could speak;
and who, at four and a half years of age, having attacked my sister
Rebecca on some question of lollipops, had smitten her on the elbow with
a fire-shovel, apologising to us by saying simply, "---- her, I wish it had

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been her head!" Dear, dear Aminadab! I think of you, and laugh these
philosophers to scorn. Nature made you for that career which you fulfilled:
you were from your birth to your dying a scoundrel; you COULDN'T have
been anything else, however your lot was cast; and blessed it was that you
were born among the prigs,- -for had you been of any other profession,
alas! alas! what ills might you have done! As I have heard the author of
"Richelieu," "Siamese Twins," etc. say "Poeta nascitur non fit," which
means that though he had tried ever so much to be a poet, it was all
moonshine: in the like manner, I say, "ROAGUS nascitur, non fit." We
have it from nature, and so a fig for Miss Edgeworth.
In this manner, then, while his father, blessed with a wealthy wife, was
leading, in a fine house, the life of a galley-slave; while his mother,
married to Mr. Hayes, and made an honest women of, as the saying is, was
passing her time respectably in Warwickshire, Mr. Thomas Billings was
inhabiting the same county, not cared for by either of them; but ordained
by Fate to join them one day, and have a mighty influence upon the
fortunes of both. For, as it has often happened to the traveller in the York
or the Exeter coach to fall snugly asleep in his corner, and on awaking
suddenly to find himself sixty or seventy miles from the place where
Somnus first visited him: as, we say, although you sit still, Time, poor
wretch, keeps perpetually running on, and so must run day and night, with
never a pause or a halt of five minutes to get a drink, until his dying day;
let the reader imagine that since he left Mrs. Hayes and all the other
worthy personages of this history, in the last chapter, seven years have
sped away; during which, all our heroes and heroines have been
accomplishing their destinies.
Seven years of country carpentering, or rather trading, on the part of a
husband, of ceaseless scolding, violence, and discontent on the part of a
wife, are not pleasant to describe: so we shall omit altogether any account
of the early married life of Mr. and Mrs. John Hayes. The "Newgate
Calendar" (to which excellent compilation we and the OTHER popular
novelists of the day can never be sufficiently grateful) states that Hayes
left his house three or four times during this period, and, urged by the
restless humours of his wife, tried several professions: returning, however,

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as he grew weary of each, to his wife and his paternal home. After a
certain time his parents died, and by their demise he succeeded to a small
property, and the carpentering business, which he for some time followed.
What, then, in the meanwhile, had become of Captain Wood, or Brock,
and Ensign Macshane?--the only persons now to be accounted for in our
catalogue. For about six months after their capture and release of Mr.
Hayes, those noble gentlemen had followed, with much prudence and
success, that trade which the celebrated and polite Duval, the ingenious
Sheppard, the dauntless Turpin, and indeed many other heroes of our most
popular novels, had pursued,--or were pursuing, in their time. And so
considerable were said to be Captain Wood's gains, that reports were
abroad of his having somewhere a buried treasure; to which he might have
added more, had not Fate suddenly cut short his career as a prig. He and
the Ensign were--shame to say--transported for stealing three pewter-pots
off a railing at Exeter; and not being known in the town, which they had
only reached that morning, they were detained by no further charges, but
simply condemned on this one. For this misdemeanour, Her Majesty's
Government vindictively sent them for seven years beyond the sea; and, as
the fashion then was, sold the use of their bodies to Virginian planters
during that space of time. It is thus, alas! that the strong are always used to
deal with the weak, and many an honest fellow has been led to rue his
unfortunate difference with the law.
Thus, then, we have settled all scores. The Count is in Holland with his
wife; Mrs. Cat in Warwickshire along with her excellent husband; Master
Thomas Billings with his adoptive parents in the same county; and the two
military gentlemen watching the progress and cultivation of the tobacco
and cotton plant in the New World. All these things having passed between
the acts, dingaring-a-dingaring-a-dingledingleding, the drop draws up, and
the next act begins. By the way, the play ENDS with a drop: but that is
neither here nor there.
***
(Here, as in a theatre, the orchestra is supposed to play something
melodious. The people get up, shake themselves, yawn, and settle down in
their seats again. "Porter, ale, ginger-beer, cider," comes round, squeezing

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through the legs of the gentlemen in the pit. Nobody takes anything, as
usual; and lo! the curtain rises again. "Sh, 'shsh, 'shshshhh! Hats off!" says
everybody.)
***
Mrs. Hayes had now been for six years the adored wife of Mr. Hayes,
and no offspring had arisen to bless their loves and perpetuate their name.
She had obtained a complete mastery over her lord and master; and having
had, as far as was in that gentleman's power, every single wish gratified
that she could demand, in the way of dress, treats to Coventry and
Birmingham, drink, and what not--for, though a hard man, John Hayes had
learned to spend his money pretty freely on himself and her--having had
all her wishes gratified, it was natural that she should begin to find out
some more; and the next whim she hit upon was to be restored to her child.
It may be as well to state that she had never informed her husband of the
existence of that phenomenon, although he was aware of his wife's former
connection with the Count,--Mrs. Hayes, in their matrimonial quarrels,
invariably taunting him with accounts of her former splendour and
happiness, and with his own meanness of taste in condescending to take
up with his Excellency's leavings.
She determined, then (but as yet had not confided her determination to
her husband), she would have her boy; although in her seven years'
residence within twenty miles of him she had never once thought of seeing
him: and the kind reader knows that when his excellent lady determines on
a thing--a shawl, or an opera-box, or a new carriage, or twenty-four
singing-lessons from Tamburini, or a night at the "Eagle Tavern," City
Road, or a ride in a 'bus to Richmond and tea and brandy-and-water at
"Rose Cottage Hotel"--the reader, high or low, knows that when Mrs.
Reader desires a thing have it she will; you may just as well talk of
avoiding her as of avoiding gout, bills, or grey hairs--and that, you know,
is impossible. I, for my part, have had all three--ay, and a wife too.
I say that when a woman is resolved on a thing, happen it will; if
husbands refuse, Fate will interfere (flectere si nequeo, etc.; but quotations
are odious). And some hidden power was working in the case of Mrs.
Hayes, and, for its own awful purposes, lending her its aid. Who has not

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felt how he works--the dreadful conquering Spirit of Ill? Who cannot see,
in the circle of his own society, the fated and foredoomed to woe and evil?
Some call the doctrine of destiny a dark creed; but, for me, I would fain
try and think it a consolatory one. It is better, with all one's sins upon one's
head, to deem oneself in the hands of Fate, than to think--with our fierce
passions and weak repentances; with our resolves so loud, so vain, so
ludicrously, despicably weak and frail; with our dim, wavering, wretched
conceits about virtue, and our irresistible propensity to wrong,--that we are
the workers of our future sorrow or happiness. If we depend on our
strength, what is it against mighty circumstance? If we look to ourselves,
what hope have we? Look back at the whole of your life, and see how Fate
has mastered you and it. Think of your disappointments and your
successes. Has YOUR striving influenced one or the other? A fit of
indigestion puts itself between you and honours and reputation; an apple
plops on your nose and makes you a world's wonder and glory; a fit of
poverty makes a rascal of you, who were, and are still, an honest man;
clubs, trumps, or six lucky mains at dice, make an honest man for life of
you, who ever were, will be, and are a rascal. Who sends the illness? who
causes the apple to fall? who deprives you of your worldly goods? or who
shuffles the cards, and brings trumps, honour, virtue, and prosperity back
again? You call it chance; ay, and so it is chance that when the floor gives
way, and the rope stretches tight, the poor wretch before St. Sepulchre's
clock dies. Only with us, clear-sighted mortals as we are, we can't SEE the
rope by which we hang, and know not when or how the drop may fall.
But revenons a nos moutons: let us return to that sweet lamb Master
Thomas, and the milk-white ewe Mrs. Cat. Seven years had passed away,
and she began to think that she should very much like to see her child once
more. It was written that she should; and you shall hear how, soon after,
without any great exertions of hers, back he came to her.
In the month of July, in the year 1715, there came down a road about
ten miles from the city of Worcester, two gentlemen; not mounted,
Templar-like, upon one horse, but having a horse between them--a sorry
bay, with a sorry saddle, and a large pack behind it; on which each by turn
took a ride. Of the two, one was a man of excessive stature, with red hair,

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a very prominent nose, and a faded military dress; while the other, an old
weather-beaten, sober-looking personage, wore the costume of a civilian--
both man and dress appearing to have reached the autumnal, or seedy state.
However, the pair seemed, in spite of their apparent poverty, to be
passably merry. The old gentleman rode the horse; and had, in the course
of their journey, ridden him two miles at least in every three. The tall one
walked with immense strides by his side; and seemed, indeed, as if he
could have quickly outstripped the four-footed animal, had he chosen to
exert his speed, or had not affection for his comrade retained him at his
stirrup.
A short time previously the horse had cast a shoe; and this the tall man
on foot had gathered up, and was holding in his hand: it having been voted
that the first blacksmith to whose shop they should come should be called
upon to fit it again upon the bay horse.
"Do you remimber this counthry, Meejor?" said the tall man, who was
looking about him very much pleased, and sucking a flower. "I think thim
green cornfields is prettier looking at than the d----- tobacky out yondther,
and bad lack to it!"
"I recollect the place right well, and some queer pranks we played here
seven years agone," responded the gentleman addressed as Major. "You
remember that man and his wife, whom we took in pawn at the 'Three
Rooks'?"
"And the landlady only hung last Michaelmas?" said the tall man,
parenthetically.
"Hang the landlady!--we've got all we ever would out of HER, you
know. But about the man and woman. You went after the chap's mother,
and, like a jackass, as you are, let him loose. Well, the woman was that
Catherine that you've often heard me talk about. I like the wench, ---- her,
for I almost brought her up; and she was for a year or two along with that
scoundrel Galgenstein, who has been the cause of my ruin."
"The inferrnal blackguard and ruffian!" said the tall man; who, with
his companion, has no doubt been recognised by the reader.
"Well, this Catherine had a child by Galgenstein; and somewhere here
hard by the woman lived to whom we carried the brat to nurse. She was

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the wife of a blacksmith, one Billings: it won't be out of the way to get our
horse shod at his house, if he is alive still, and we may learn something
about the little beast. I should be glad to see the mother well enough."
"Do I remimber her?" said the Ensign. "Do I remimber whisky? Sure I
do, and the snivelling sneak her husband, and the stout old lady her
mother-in-law, and the dirty one-eyed ruffian who sold me the parson's hat
that had so nearly brought me into trouble. Oh but it was a rare rise we got
out of them chaps, and the old landlady that's hanged too!" And here both
Ensign Macshane and Major Brock, or Wood, grinned, and showed much
satisfaction.
It will be necessary to explain the reason of it. We gave the British
public to understand that the landlady of the "Three Rooks," at Worcester,
was a notorious fence, or banker of thieves; that is, a purchaser of their
merchandise. In her hands Mr. Brock and his companion had left property
to the amount of sixty or seventy pounds, which was secreted in a cunning
recess in a chamber of the "Three Rooks" known only to the landlady and
the gentlemen who banked with her; and in this place, Mr. Sicklop, the
one-eyed man who had joined in the Hayes adventure, his comrade, and
one or two of the topping prigs of the county, were free. Mr. Sicklop had
been shot dead in a night attack near Bath: the landlady had been suddenly
hanged, as an accomplice in another case of robbery; and when, on their
return from Virginia, our two heroes, whose hopes of livelihood depended
upon it, had bent their steps towards Worcester, they were not a little
frightened to hear of the cruel fate of the hostess and many of the amiable
frequenters of the "Three Rooks." All the goodly company were separated;
the house was no longer an inn. Was the money gone too? At least it was
worth while to look-- which Messrs. Brock and Macshane determined to
do.
The house being now a private one, Mr. Brock, with a genius that was
above his station, visited its owner, with a huge portfolio under his arm,
and, in the character of a painter, requested permission to take a particular
sketch from a particular window. The Ensign followed with the artist's
materials (consisting simply of a screwdriver and a crowbar); and it is
hardly necessary to say that, when admission was granted to them, they

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opened the well-known door, and to their inexpressible satisfaction

discovered, not their own peculiar savings exactly, for these had been
appropriated instantly, on hearing of their transportation, but stores of
money and goods to the amount of near three hundred pounds: to which
Mr. Macshane said they had as just and honourable a right as anybody else.
And so they had as just a right as anybody--except the original owners: but
who was to discover them?
With this booty they set out on their journey--anywhere, for they knew
not whither; and it so chanced that when their horse's shoe came off, they
were within a few furlongs of the cottage of Mr. Billings, the blacksmith.
As they came near, they were saluted by tremendous roars issuing from
the smithy. A small boy was held across the bellows, two or three children
of smaller and larger growth were holding him down, and many others of
the village were gazing in at the window, while a man, half-naked, was
lashing the little boy with a whip, and occasioning the cries heard by the
travellers. As the horse drew up, the operator looked at the new- comers
for a moment, and then proceeded incontinently with his work;
belabouring the child more fiercely than ever.
When he had done, he turned round to the new-comers and asked how
he could serve them? whereupon Mr. Wood (for such was the name he
adopted, and by such we shall call him to the end) wittily remarked that
however he might wish to serve THEM, he seemed mightily inclined to
serve that young gentleman first.
"It's no joking matter," said the blacksmith: "if I don't serve him so
now, he'll be worse off in his old age. He'll come to the gallows, as sure as
his name is Bill---never mind what his name is." And so saying, he gave
the urchin another cut; which elicited, of course, another scream.
"Oh! his name is Bill?" said Captain Wood.
"His name's NOT Bill!" said the blacksmith, sulkily. "He's no name;
and no heart, neither. My wife took the brat in, seven years ago, from a
beggarly French chap to nurse, and she kept him, for she was a good soul"
(here his eyes began to wink), "and she's--she's gone now" (here he began
fairly to blubber). "And d--- him, out of love for her, I kept him too, and
the scoundrel is a liar and a thief. This blessed day, merely to vex me and

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my boys here, he spoke ill of her, he did, and I'll--cut--his--life--out--I--

will!" and with each word honest Mulciber applied a whack on the body of
little Tom Billings; who, by shrill shrieks, and oaths in treble,
acknowledged the receipt of the blows.
"Come, come," said Mr. Wood, "set the boy down, and the bellows a-
going; my horse wants shoeing, and the poor lad has had strapping
enough."
The blacksmith obeyed, and cast poor Master Thomas loose. As he
staggered away and looked back at his tormentor, his countenance
assumed an expression which made Mr. Wood say, grasping hold of
Macshane's arm, "It's the boy, it's the boy! When his mother gave
Galgenstein the laudanum, she had the self-same look with her!"
"Had she really now?" said Mr. Macshane. "And pree, Meejor, who
WAS his mother?"
"Mrs. Cat, you fool!" answered Wood.
"Then, upon my secred word of honour, she has a mighty fine
KITTEN anyhow, my dear. Aha!"
"They don't DROWN such kittens," said Mr. Wood, archly; and
Macshane, taking the allusion, clapped his finger to his nose in token of
perfect approbation of his commander's sentiment.
While the blacksmith was shoeing the horse, Mr. Wood asked him
many questions concerning the lad whom he had just been chastising, and
succeeded, beyond a doubt, in establishing his identity with the child
whom Catherine Hall had brought into the world seven years since.
Billings told him of all the virtues of his wife, and the manifold crimes of
the lad: how he stole, and fought, and lied, and swore; and though the
youngest under his roof, exercised the most baneful influence over all the
rest of his family. He was determined at last, he said, to put him to the
parish, for he did not dare to keep him.
"He's a fine whelp, and would fetch ten pieces in Virginny," sighed the
Ensign.
"Crimp, of Bristol, would give five for him," said Mr. Wood,
ruminating.
"Why not take him?" said the Ensign.

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"Faith, why not?" said Mr. Wood. "His keep, meanwhile, will not be
sixpence a day." Then turning round to the blacksmith, "Mr. Billings," said
he, "you will be surprised, perhaps, to hear that I know everything
regarding that poor lad's history. His mother was an unfortunate lady of
high family, now no more; his father a German nobleman, Count de
Galgenstein by name."
"The very man!" said Billings: "a young, fair-haired man, who came
here with the child, and a dragoon sergeant."
"Count de Galgenstein by name, who, on the point of death,
recommended the infant to me."
"And did he pay you seven years' boarding?" said Mr. Billings, who
was quite alive at the very idea.
"Alas, sir, not a jot! He died, sir, six hundred pounds in my debt; didn't
he, Ensign?"
"Six hundred, upon my secred honour! I remember when he got into
the house along with the poli--"
"Psha! what matters it?" here broke out Mr. Wood, looking fiercely at
the Ensign. "Six hundred pounds he owes me: how was he to pay you? But
he told me to take charge of this boy, if I found him; and found him I have,
and WILL take charge of him, if you will hand him over."
"Send our Tom!" cried Billings. And when that youth appeared,
scowling, and yet trembling, and prepared, as it seemed, for another
castigation, his father, to his surprise, asked him if he was willing to go
along with those gentlemen, or whether he would be a good lad and stay
with him.
Mr. Tom replied immediately, "I won't be a good lad, and I'd rather go
to ---- than stay with you!"
"Will you leave your brothers and sisters?" said Billings, looking very
dismal.
"Hang my brothers and sisters--I hate 'em; and, besides, I haven't got
any!"
"But you had a good mother, hadn't you, Tom?"
Tom paused for a moment.
"Mother's gone," said he, "and you flog me, and I'll go with these

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men."
"Well, then, go thy ways," said Billings, starting up in a passion: "go
thy ways for a graceless reprobate; and if this gentleman will take you, he
may do so."
After some further parley, the conversation ended, and the next
morning Mr. Wood's party consisted of three: a little boy being mounted
upon the bay horse, in addition to the Ensign or himself; and the whole
company went journeying towards Bristol.
***
We have said that Mrs. Hayes had, on a sudden, taken a fit of maternal
affection, and was bent upon being restored to her child; and that benign
destiny which watched over the life of this lucky lady instantly set about
gratifying her wish, and, without cost to herself of coach-hire or saddle-
horse, sent the young gentleman very quickly to her arms. The village in
which the Hayeses dwelt was but a very few miles out of the road from
Bristol; whither, on the benevolent mission above, hinted at, our party of
worthies were bound: and coming, towards the afternoon, in sight of the
house of that very Justice Ballance who had been so nearly the ruin of
Ensign Macshane, that officer narrated, for the hundredth time, and with
much glee, the circumstances which had then befallen him, and the
manner in which Mrs. Hayes the elder had come forward to his rescue.
"Suppose we go and see the old girl?" suggested Mr. Wood. "No harm
can come to us now." And his comrade always assenting, they wound their
way towards the village, and reached it as the evening came on. In the
public-house where they rested, Wood made inquiries concerning the
Hayes family; was informed of the death of the old couple, of the
establishment of John Hayes and his wife in their place, and of the kind of
life that these latter led together. When all these points had been imparted
to him, he ruminated much: an expression of sublime triumph and
exultation at length lighted up his features. "I think, Tim," said he at last,
"that we can make more than five pieces of that boy."
"Oh, in coorse!" said Timothy Macshane, Esquire; who always agreed
with his "Meejor."
"In coorse, you fool! and how? I'll tell you how. This Hayes is well to

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do in the world, and--"

"And we'll nab him again--ha, ha!" roared out Macshane. "By my
secred honour, Meejor, there never was a gineral like you at a strathyjam!"
"Peace, you bellowing donkey, and don't wake the child. The man is
well to do, his wife rules him, and they have no children. Now, either she
will be very glad to have the boy back again, and pay for the finding of
him, or else she has said nothing about him, and will pay us for being
silent too: or, at any rate, Hayes himself will be ashamed at finding his
wife the mother of a child a year older than his marriage, and will pay for
the keeping of the brat away. There's profit, my dear, in any one of the
cases, or my name's not Peter Brock."
When the Ensign understood this wondrous argument, he would fain
have fallen on his knees and worshipped his friend and guide. They began
operations, almost immediately, by an attack on Mrs. Hayes. On hearing,
as she did in private interview with the ex-corporal the next morning, that
her son was found, she was agitated by both of the passions which Wood
attributed to her. She longed to have the boy back, and would give any
reasonable sum to see him; but she dreaded exposure, and would pay
equally to avoid that. How could she gain the one point and escape the
other?
Mrs. Hayes hit upon an expedient which, I am given to understand, is
not uncommon nowadays. She suddenly discovered that she had a dear
brother, who had been obliged to fly the country in consequence of having
joined the Pretender, and had died in France, leaving behind him an only
son. This boy her brother had, with his last breath, recommended to her
protection, and had confided him to the charge of a brother officer who
was now in the country, and would speedily make his appearance; and, to
put the story beyond a doubt, Mr. Wood wrote the letter from her brother
stating all these particulars, and Ensign Macshane received full
instructions how to perform the part of the "brother officer." What
consideration Mr. Wood received for his services, we cannot say; only it is
well known that Mr. Hayes caused to be committed to gaol a young
apprentice in his service, charged with having broken open a cupboard in
which Mr. Hayes had forty guineas in gold and silver, and to which none

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but he and his wife had access.

Having made these arrangements, the Corporal and his little party
decamped to a short distance, and Mrs. Catherine was left to prepare her
husband for a speedy addition to his family, in the shape of this darling
nephew. John Hayes received the news with anything but pleasure. He had
never heard of any brother of Catherine's; she had been bred at the
workhouse, and nobody ever hinted that she had relatives: but it is easy for
a lady of moderate genius to invent circumstances; and with lies, tears,
threats, coaxings, oaths, and other blandishments, she compelled him to
submit.
Two days afterwards, as Mr. Hayes was working in his shop with his
lady seated beside him, the trampling of a horse was heard in his courtyard,
and a gentleman, of huge stature, descended from it, and strode into the
shop. His figure was wrapped in a large cloak; but Mr. Hayes could not
help fancying that he had somewhere seen his face before.
"This, I preshoom," said the gentleman, "is Misther Hayes, that I have
come so many miles to see, and this is his amiable lady? I was the most
intimate frind, madam, of your laminted brother, who died in King Lewis's
service, and whose last touching letthers I despatched to you two days ago.
I have with me a further precious token of my dear friend, Captain Hall--it
is HERE."
And so saying, the military gentleman, with one arm, removed his
cloak, and stretching forward the other into Hayes's face almost, stretched
likewise forward a little boy, grinning and sprawling in the air, and
prevented only from falling to the ground by the hold which the Ensign
kept of the waistband of his little coat and breeches.
"Isn't he a pretty boy?" said Mrs. Hayes, sidling up to her husband
tenderly, and pressing one of Mr. Hayes's hands.
***
About the lad's beauty it is needless to say what the carpenter thought;
but that night, and for many many nights after, the lad stayed at Mr.
Hayes's.

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CHAPTER VIII. ENUMERATES

THE ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF
MASTER THOMAS BILLINGS--
INTRODUCES BROCK AS
DOCTOR WOOD--AND
ANNOUNCES THE EXECUTION
OF ENSIGN MACSHANE.

We are obliged, in recording this history, to follow accurately that

great authority, the "Calendarium Newgaticum Roagorumque
Registerium," of which every lover of literature, in the present day knows
the value; and as that remarkable work totally discards all the unities in its
narratives, and reckons the life of its heroes only by their actions, and not
by periods of time, we must follow in the wake of this mighty ark--a
humble cock-boat. When it pauses, we pause; when it runs ten knots an
hour, we run with the same celerity; and as, in order to carry the reader
from the penultimate chapter of this work unto the last chapter, we were
compelled to make him leap over a gap of seven blank years, ten years
more must likewise be granted to us before we are at liberty to resume our
history.
During that period, Master Thomas Billings had been under the
especial care of his mother; and, as may be imagined, he rather increased
than diminished the accomplishments for which he had been remarkable
while under the roof of his foster-father. And with this advantage, that
while at the blacksmith's, and only three or four years of age, his virtues
were necessarily appreciated only in his family circle and among those
few acquaintances of his own time of life whom a youth of three can be
expected to meet in the alleys or over the gutters of a small country
hamlet,--in his mothers residence, his circle extended with his own growth,

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and he began to give proofs of those powers of which in infancy there had
been only encouraging indications. Thus it was nowise remarkable that a
child of four years should not know his letters, and should have had a
great disinclination to learn them; but when a young man of fifteen
showed the same creditable ignorance, the same undeviating dislike, it was
easy to see that he possessed much resolution and perseverance. When it
was remarked, too, that, in case of any difference, he not only beat the
usher, but by no means disdained to torment and bully the very smallest
boys of the school, it was easy to see that his mind was comprehensive
and careful, as well as courageous and grasping. As it was said of the
Duke of Wellington, in the Peninsula, that he had a thought for everybody-
-from Lord Hill to the smallest drummer in the army--in like manner Tom
Billings bestowed HIS attention on high and low; but in the shape of
blows: he would fight the strongest and kick the smallest, and was always
at work with one or the other. At thirteen, when he was removed from the
establishment whither he had been sent, he was the cock of the school out
of doors, and the very last boy in. He used to let the little boys and new-
comers pass him by, and laugh; but he always belaboured them
unmercifully afterwards; and then it was, he said, HIS turn to laugh. With
such a pugnacious turn, Tom Billings ought to have been made a soldier,
and might have died a marshal; but, by an unlucky ordinance of fate, he
was made a tailor, and died a--never mind what for the present; suffice it
to say, that he was suddenly cut off, at a very early period of his existence,
by a disease which has exercised considerable ravages among the British
youth.
By consulting the authority above mentioned, we find that Hayes did
not confine himself to the profession of a carpenter, or remain long
established in the country; but was induced, by the eager spirit of Mrs.
Catherine most probably, to try his fortune in the metropolis; where he
lived, flourished, and died. Oxford Road, Saint Giles's, and Tottenham
Court were, at various periods of his residence in town, inhabited by him.
At one place he carried on the business of greengrocer and small-coalman;
in another, he was carpenter, undertaker, and lender of money to the poor;
finally, he was a lodging-house keeper in the Oxford or Tyburn Road; but

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continued to exercise the last-named charitable profession.

Lending as he did upon pledges, and carrying on a pretty large trade, it
was not for him, of course, to inquire into the pedigree of all the pieces of
plate, the bales of cloth, swords, watches, wigs, shoe-buckles, etc. that
were confided by his friends to his keeping; but it is clear that his friends
had the requisite confidence in him, and that he enjoyed the esteem of a
class of characters who still live in history, and are admired unto this very
day. The mind loves to think that, perhaps, in Mr. Hayes's back parlour the
gallant Turpin might have hob-and-nobbed with Mrs. Catherine; that here,
perhaps, the noble Sheppard might have cracked his joke, or quaffed his
pint of rum. Who knows but that Macheath and Paul Clifford may have
crossed legs under Hayes's dinner-table? But why pause to speculate on
things that might have been? why desert reality for fond imagination, or
call up from their honoured graves the sacred dead? I know not: and yet,
in sooth, I can never pass Cumberland Gate without a sigh, as I think of
the gallant cavaliers who traversed that road in old time. Pious priests
accompanied their triumphs; their chariots were surrounded by hosts of
glittering javelin-men. As the slave at the car of the Roman conqueror
shouted, "Remember thou art mortal!", before the eyes of the British
warrior rode the undertaker and his coffin, telling him that he too must die!
Mark well the spot! A hundred years ago Albion Street (where comic
Power dwelt, Milesia's darling son)- -Albion Street was a desert. The
square of Connaught was without its penultimate, and, strictly speaking,
NAUGHT. The Edgware Road was then a road, 'tis true; with tinkling
waggons passing now and then, and fragrant walls of snowy hawthorn
blossoms. The ploughman whistled over Nutford Place; down the green
solitudes of Sovereign Street the merry milkmaid led the lowing kine.
Here, then, in the midst of green fields and sweet air--before ever
omnibuses were, and when Pineapple Turnpike and Terrace were alike
unknown--here stood Tyburn: and on the road towards it, perhaps to enjoy
the prospect, stood, in the year 1725, the habitation of Mr. John Hayes.
One fine morning in the year 1725, Mrs. Hayes, who had been abroad
in her best hat and riding-hood; Mr. Hayes, who for a wonder had
accompanied her; and Mrs. Springatt, a lodger, who for a remuneration

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had the honour of sharing Mrs. Hayes's friendship and table: all returned,
smiling and rosy, at about half-past ten o'clock, from a walk which they
had taken to Bayswater. Many thousands of people were likewise seen
flocking down the Oxford Road; and you would rather have thought, from
the smartness of their appearance and the pleasure depicted in their
countenances, that they were just issuing from a sermon, than quitting the
ceremony which they had been to attend.
The fact is, that they had just been to see a gentleman hanged,--a cheap
pleasure, which the Hayes family never denied themselves; and they
returned home with a good appetite to breakfast, braced by the walk, and
tickled into hunger, as it were, by the spectacle. I can recollect, when I was
a gyp at Cambridge, that the "men" used to have breakfast-parties for the
very same purpose; and the exhibition of the morning acted infallibly upon
the stomach, and caused the young students to eat with much voracity.
Well, Mrs. Catherine, a handsome, well-dressed, plump, rosy woman
of three or four and thirty (and when, my dear, is a woman handsomer
than at that age?), came in quite merrily from her walk, and entered the
back-parlour, which looked into a pleasant yard, or garden, whereon the
sun was shining very gaily; and where, at a table covered with a nice white
cloth, laid out with some silver mugs, too, and knives, all with different
crests and patterns, sat an old gentleman reading in an old book.
"Here we are at last, Doctor," said Mrs. Hayes, "and here's his speech."
She produced the little halfpenny tract, which to this day is sold at the
gallows-foot upon the death of every offender. "I've seen a many men
turned off, to be sure; but I never did see one who bore it more like a man
than he did."
"My dear," said the gentleman addressed as Doctor, "he was as cool
and as brave as steel, and no more minded hanging than tooth-drawing."
"It was the drink that ruined him," said Mrs. Cat.
"Drink, and bad company. I warned him, my dear,--I warned him years
ago: and directly he got into Wild's gang, I knew that he had not a year to
run. Ah, why, my love, will men continue such dangerous courses,"
continued the Doctor, with a sigh, "and jeopardy their lives for a miserable
watch or a snuff-box, of which Mr. Wild takes three-fourths of the produce?

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But here comes the breakfast; and, egad, I am as hungry as a lad of

twenty."
Indeed, at this moment Mrs. Hayes's servant appeared with a smoking
dish of bacon and greens; and Mr. Hayes himself ascended from the cellar
(of which he kept the key), bearing with him a tolerably large jug of small-
beer. To this repast the Doctor, Mrs. Springatt (the other lodger), and Mr.
and Mrs. Hayes, proceeded with great alacrity. A fifth cover was laid, but
not used; the company remarking that "Tom had very likely found some
acquaintances at Tyburn, with whom he might choose to pass the
morning."
Tom was Master Thomas Billings, now of the age of sixteen: slim,
smart, five feet ten inches in height, handsome, sallow in complexion,
black-eyed and black-haired. Mr. Billings was apprentice to a tailor, of
tolerable practice, who was to take him into partnership at the end of his
term. It was supposed, and with reason, that Tom would not fail to make a
fortune in this business; of which the present head was one Beinkleider, a
German. Beinkleider was skilful in his trade (after the manner of his
nation, which in breeches and metaphysics--in inexpressibles and
incomprehensibles--may instruct all Europe), but too fond of his pleasure.
Some promissory notes of his had found their way into Hayes's hands, and
had given him the means not only of providing Master Billings with a
cheap apprenticeship, and a cheap partnership afterwards; but would
empower him, in one or two years after the young partner had joined the
firm, to eject the old one altogether. So that there was every prospect that,
when Mr. Billings was twenty-one years of age, poor Beinkleider would
have to act, not as his master, but his journeyman.
Tom was a very precocious youth; was supplied by a doting mother
with plenty of pocket-money, and spent it with a number of lively
companions of both sexes, at plays, bull-baitings, fairs, jolly parties on the
river, and such-like innocent amusements. He could throw a main, too, as
well as his elders; had pinked his man, in a row at Madam King's in the
Piazza; and was much respected at the Roundhouse.
Mr. Hayes was not very fond of this promising young gentleman;
indeed, he had the baseness to bear malice, because, in a quarrel which

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occurred about two years previously, he, Hayes, being desirous to chastise
Mr. Billings, had found himself not only quite incompetent, but actually at
the mercy of the boy; who struck him over the head with a joint-stool,
felled him to the ground, and swore he would have his life. The Doctor,
who was then also a lodger at Mr. Hayes's, interposed, and restored the
combatants, not to friendship, but to peace. Hayes never afterwards
attempted to lift his hand to the young man, but contented himself with
hating him profoundly. In this sentiment Mr. Billings participated cordially;
and, quite unlike Mr. Hayes, who never dared to show his dislike, used on
every occasion when they met, by actions, looks, words, sneers, and curses,
to let his stepfather know the opinion which he had of him. Why did not
Hayes discard the boy altogether? Because, if he did so, he was really
afraid of his life, and because he trembled before Mrs. Hayes, his lady, as
the leaf trembles before the tempest in October. His breath was not his
own, but hers; his money, too, had been chiefly of her getting,--for though
he was as stingy and mean as mortal man can be, and so likely to save
much, he had not the genius for GETTING which Mrs. Hayes possessed.
She kept his books (for she had learned to read and write by this time), she
made his bargains, and she directed the operations of the poor-spirited
little capitalist. When bills became due, and debtors pressed for time, then
she brought Hayes's own professional merits into play. The man was as
deaf and cold as a rock; never did poor tradesmen gain a penny from him;
never were the bailiffs delayed one single minute from their prey. The
Beinkleider business, for instance, showed pretty well the genius of the
two. Hayes was for closing with him at once; but his wife saw the vast
profits which might be drawn out of him, and arranged the apprenticeship
and the partnership before alluded to. The woman heartily scorned and spit
upon her husband, who fawned upon her like a spaniel. She loved good
cheer; she did not want for a certain kind of generosity. The only feeling
that Hayes had for anyone except himself was for his wife, whom he held
in a cowardly awe and attachment: he liked drink, too, which made him
chirping and merry, and accepted willingly any treats that his
acquaintances might offer him; but he would suffer agonies when his wife
brought or ordered from the cellar a bottle of wine.

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And now for the Doctor. He was about seventy years of age. He had
been much abroad; he was of a sober, cheerful aspect; he dressed
handsomely and quietly in a broad hat and cassock; but saw no company
except the few friends whom he met at the coffee-house. He had an
income of about one hundred pounds, which he promised to leave to
young Billings. He was amused with the lad, and fond of his mother, and
had boarded with them for some years past. The Doctor, in fact, was our
old friend Corporal Brock, the Reverend Doctor Wood now, as he had
been Major Wood fifteen years back.
Anyone who has read the former part of this history must have seen
that we have spoken throughout with invariable respect of Mr. Brock; and
that in every circumstance in which he has appeared, he has acted not only
with prudence, but often with genius. The early obstacle to Mr. Brock's
success was want of conduct simply. Drink, women, play--how many a
brave fellow have they ruined!--had pulled Brock down as often as his
merit had carried him up. When a man's passion for play has brought him
to be a scoundrel, it at once ceases to be hurtful to him in a worldly point
of view; he cheats, and wins. It is only for the idle and luxurious that
women retain their fascinations to a very late period; and Brock's passions
had been whipped out of him in Virginia; where much ill-health, ill-
treatment, hard labour, and hard food, speedily put an end to them. He
forgot there even how to drink; rum or wine made this poor declining
gentleman so ill that he could indulge in them no longer; and so his three
vices were cured.
Had he been ambitious, there is little doubt but that Mr. Brock, on his
return from transportation, might have risen in the world; but he was old
and a philosopher: he did not care about rising. Living was cheaper in
those days, and interest for money higher: when he had amassed about six
hundred pounds, he purchased an annuity of seventy-two pounds, and
gave out--why should he not?--that he had the capital as well as the
interest. After leaving the Hayes family in the country, he found them
again in London: he took up his abode with them, and was attached to the
mother and the son. Do you suppose that rascals have not affections like
other people? hearts, madam--ay, hearts--and family ties which they

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cherish? As the Doctor lived on with this charming family he began to

regret that he had sunk all his money in annuities, and could not, as he
repeatedly vowed he would, leave his savings to his adopted children.
He felt an indescribable pleasure ("suave mari magno," etc.) in
watching the storms and tempests of the Hayes menage. He used to
encourage Mrs. Catherine into anger when, haply, that lady's fits of calm
would last too long; he used to warm up the disputes between wife and
husband, mother and son, and enjoy them beyond expression: they served
him for daily amusement; and he used to laugh until the tears ran down his
venerable cheeks at the accounts which young Tom continually brought
him of his pranks abroad, among watchmen and constables, at taverns or
elsewhere.
When, therefore, as the party were discussing their bacon and cabbage,
before which the Reverend Doctor with much gravity said grace, Master
Tom entered. Doctor Wood, who had before been rather gloomy,
immediately brightened up, and made a place for Billings between himself
and Mrs. Catherine.
"How do, old cock?" said that young gentleman familiarly. "How goes
it, mother?" And so saying, he seized eagerly upon the jug of beer which
Mr. Hayes had drawn, and from which the latter was about to help himself,
and poured down his throat exactly one quart.
"Ah!" said Mr. Billings, drawing breath after a draught which he had
learned accurately to gauge from the habit of drinking out of pewter
measures which held precisely that quantity.--" Ah!" said Mr. Billings,
drawing breath, and wiping his mouth with his sleeves, "this is very thin
stuff, old Squaretoes; but my coppers have been red-hot since last night,
and they wanted a sluicing."
"Should you like some ale, dear?" said Mrs. Hayes, that fond and
judicious parent.
"A quart of brandy, Tom?" said Doctor Wood. "Your papa will run
down to the cellar for it in a minute."
"I'll see him hanged first!" cried Mr. Hayes, quite frightened.
"Oh, fie, now, you unnatural father!" said the Doctor.
The very name of father used to put Mr. Hayes in a fury. "I'm not his

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father, thank Heaven!" said he.

"No, nor nobody else's," said Tom.
Mr. Hayes only muttered "Base-born brat!"
"His father was a gentleman,--that's more than you ever were!"
screamed Mrs. Hayes. "His father was a man of spirit; no cowardly sneak
of a carpenter, Mr Hayes! Tom has noble blood in his veins, for all he has
a tailor's appearance; and if his mother had had her right, she would be
now in a coach-and-six."
"I wish I could find my father," said Tom; "for I think Polly Briggs and
I would look mighty well in a coach-and-six." Tom fancied that if his
father was a count at the time of his birth, he must be a prince now; and,
indeed, went among his companions by the latter august title.
"Ay, Tom, that you would," cried his mother, looking at him fondly.
"With a sword by my side, and a hat and feather there's never a lord at
St. James's would cut a finer figure."
After a little more of this talk, in which Mrs. Hayes let the company
know her high opinion of her son--who, as usual, took care to show his
extreme contempt for his stepfather--the latter retired to his occupations;
the lodger, Mrs. Springatt, who had never said a word all this time, retired
to her apartment on the second floor; and, pulling out their pipes and
tobacco, the old gentleman and the young one solaced themselves with
half-an-hour's more talk and smoking; while the thrifty Mrs. Hayes,
opposite to them, was busy with her books.
"What's in the confessions?" said Mr. Billings to Doctor Wood. "There
were six of 'em besides Mac: two for sheep, four housebreakers; but
nothing of consequence, I fancy."
"There's the paper," said Wood, archly. "Read for yourself, Tom."
Mr. Tom looked at the same time very fierce and very foolish; for,
though he could drink, swear, and fight as well as any lad of his inches in
England, reading was not among his accomplishments. "I tell you what,
Doctor," said he, "---- you! have no bantering with me,--for I'm not the
man that will bear it,-- me!" and he threw a tremendous swaggering look
across the table.
"I want you to learn to read, Tommy dear. Look at your mother there

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over her books: she keeps them as neat as a scrivener now, and at twenty
she could make never a stroke."
"Your godfather speaks for your good, child; and for me, thou knowest
that I have promised thee a gold-headed cane and periwig on the first day
that thou canst read me a column of the Flying Post."
"Hang the periwig!" said Mr. Tom, testily. "Let my godfather read the
paper himself, if he has a liking for it."
Whereupon the old gentleman put on his spectacles, and glanced over
the sheet of whity-brown paper, which, ornamented with a picture of a
gallows at the top, contained the biographies of the seven unlucky
individuals who had that morning suffered the penalty of the law. With the
six heroes who came first in the list we have nothing to do; but have
before us a copy of the paper containing the life of No. 7, and which the
Doctor read in an audible voice.
"CAPTAIN MACSHANE.
"The seventh victim to his own crimes was the famous highwayman,
Captain Macshane, so well known as the Irish Fire-eater.
"The Captain came to the ground in a fine white lawn shirt and
nightcap; and, being a Papist in his religion, was attended by Father
O'Flaherty, Popish priest, and chaplain to the Bavarian Envoy.
"Captain Macshane was born of respectable parents, in the town of
Clonakilty, in Ireland, being descended from most of the kings in that
country. He had the honour of serving their Majesties King William and
Queen Mary, and Her Majesty Queen Anne, in Flanders and Spain, and
obtained much credit from my Lords Marlborough and Peterborough for
his valour.
"But being placed on half-pay at the end of the war, Ensign Macshane
took to evil courses; and, frequenting the bagnios and dice-houses, was
speedily brought to ruin.
"Being at this pass, he fell in with the notorious Captain Wood, and
they two together committed many atrocious robberies in the inland
counties; but these being too hot to hold them, they went into the west,
where they were unknown. Here, however, the day of retribution arrived;
for, having stolen three pewter-pots from a public-house, they, under false

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names, were tried at Exeter, and transported for seven years beyond the
sea. Thus it is seen that Justice never sleeps; but, sooner or latter, is sure to
overtake the criminal.
"On their return from Virginia, a quarrel about booty arose between
these two, and Macshane killed Wood in a combat that took place between
them near to the town of Bristol; but a waggon coming up, Macshane was
obliged to fly without the ill-gotten wealth: so true is it, that wickedness
never prospers.
"Two days afterwards, Macshane met the coach of Miss Macraw, a
Scotch lady and heiress, going, for lumbago and gout, to the Bath. He at
first would have robbed this lady; but such were his arts, that he induced
her to marry him; and they lived together for seven years in the town of
Eddenboro, in Scotland,--he passing under the name of Colonel Geraldine.
The lady dying, and Macshane having expended all her wealth, he was
obliged to resume his former evil courses, in order to save himself from
starvation; whereupon he robbed a Scotch lord, by name the Lord of
Whistlebinkie, of a mull of snuff; for which crime he was condemned to
the Tolbooth prison at Eddenboro, in Scotland, and whipped many times in
publick.
"These deserved punishments did not at all alter Captain Macshane's
disposition; and on the 17th of February last, he stopped the Bavarian
Envoy's coach on Blackheath, coming from Dover, and robbed his
Excellency and his chaplain; taking from the former his money, watches,
star, a fur-cloak, his sword (a very valuable one); and from the latter a
Romish missal, out of which he was then reading, and a case-bottle."
"The Bavarian Envoy!" said Tom parenthetically. "My master,
Beinkleider, was his Lordship's regimental tailor in Germany, and is now
making a Court suit for him. It will be a matter of a hundred pounds to
him, I warrant."
Doctor Wood resumed his reading. "Hum--hum! A Romish missal, out
of which he was reading, and a case-bottle.
"By means of the famous Mr. Wild, this notorious criminal was
brought to justice, and the case-bottle and missal have been restored to
Father O'Flaherty.

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"During his confinement in Newgate, Mr. Macshane could not be

brought to express any contrition for his crimes, except that of having
killed his commanding officer. For this Wood he pretended an excessive
sorrow, and vowed that usquebaugh had been the cause of his death,--
indeed, in prison he partook of no other liquor, and drunk a bottle of it on
the day before his death.
"He was visited by several of the clergy and gentry in his cell; among
others, by the Popish priest whom he had robbed, Father O'FIaherty,
before mentioned, who attended him likewise in his last moments (if that
idolatrous worship may be called attention), and likewise by the Father's
patron, the Bavarian Ambassador, his Excellency Count Maximilian de
Galgenstein."
As old Wood came to these words, he paused to give them utterance.
"What! Max?" screamed Mrs. Hayes, letting her ink-bottle fall over
her ledgers.
"Why, be hanged if it ben't my father!" said Mr. Billings.
"Your father, sure enough, unless there be others of his name, and
unless the scoundrel is hanged," said the Doctor--sinking his voice,
however, at the end of the sentence.
Mr. Billings broke his pipe in an agony of joy. "I think we'll have the
coach now, Mother," says he; "and I'm blessed if Polly Briggs shall not
look as fine as a duchess."
"Polly Briggs is a low slut, Tom, and not fit for the likes of you, his
Excellency's son. Oh, fie! You must be a gentleman now, sirrah; and I
doubt whether I shan't take you away from that odious tailor's shop
altogether."
To this proposition Mr. Billings objected altogether; for, besides Mrs.
Briggs before alluded to, the young gentleman was much attached to his
master's daughter, Mrs. Margaret Gretel, or Gretchen Beinkleider.
"No," says he. "There will be time to think of that hereafter, ma'am. If
my pa makes a man of me, why, of course, the shop may go to the deuce,
for what I care; but we had better wait, look you, for something certain
before we give up such a pretty bird in the hand as this."
"He speaks like Solomon," said the Doctor.

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"I always said he would be a credit to his old mother, didn't I, Brock?"
cried Mrs. Cat, embracing her son very affectionately. "A credit to her; ay,
I warrant, a real blessing! And dost thou want any money, Tom? for a
lord's son must not go about without a few pieces in his pocket. And I tell
thee, Tommy, thou must go and see his Lordship; and thou shalt have a
piece of brocade for a waistcoat, thou shalt; ay, and the silver-hilted sword
I told thee of; but oh, Tommy, Tommy! have a care, and don't be a-
drawing of it in naughty company at the gaming-houses, or at the--"
"A drawing of fiddlesticks, Mother! If I go to see my father, I must
have a reason for it; and instead of going with a sword in my hand, I shall
take something else in it."
"The lad IS a lad of nous," cried Doctor Wood, "although his mother
does spoil him so cruelly. Look you, Madam Cat: did you not hear what he
said about Beinkleider and the clothes? Tommy will just wait on the Count
with his Lordship's breeches. A man may learn a deal of news in the trying
on of a pair of breeches."
And so it was agreed that in this manner the son should at first make
his appearance before his father. Mrs. Cat gave him the piece of brocade,
which, in the course of the day, was fashioned into a smart waistcoat (for
Beinkleider's shop was close by, in Cavendish Square). Mrs. Gretel, with
many blushes, tied a fine blue riband round his neck; and, in a pair of silk
stockings, with gold buckles to his shoes, Master Billings looked a very
proper young gentleman.
"And, Tommy," said his mother, blushing and hesitating, "should Max-
-should his Lordship ask after your--want to know if your mother is alive,
you can say she is, and well, and often talks of old times. And, Tommy"
(after another pause), "you needn't say anything about Mr. Hayes; only say
I'm quite well."
Mrs. Hayes looked at him as he marched down the street, a long long
way. Tom was proud and gay in his new costume, and was not unlike his
father. As she looked, lo! Oxford Street disappeared, and she saw a green
common, and a village, and a little inn. There was a soldier leading a pair
of horses about on the green common; and in the inn sat a cavalier, so
young, so merry, so beautiful! Oh, what slim white hands he had; and

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winning words, and tender, gentle blue eyes! Was it not an honour to a
country lass that such a noble gentleman should look at her for a moment?
Had he not some charm about him that she must needs obey when he
whispered in her ear, "Come, follow me!" As she walked towards the lane
that morning, how well she remembered each spot as she passed it, and the
look it wore for the last time! How the smoke was rising from the pastures,
how the fish were jumping and plashing in the mill-stream! There was the
church, with all its windows lighted up with gold, and yonder were the
reapers sweeping down the brown corn. She tried to sing as she went up
the hill--what was it? She could not remember; but oh, how well she
remembered the sound of the horse's hoofs, as they came quicker, quicker-
-nearer, nearer! How noble he looked on his great horse! Was he thinking
of her, or were they all silly words which he spoke last night, merely to
pass away the time and deceive poor girls with? Would he remember
them,--would he?
"Cat my dear," here cried Mr. Brock, alias Captain, alias Doctor Wood,
"here's the meat a-getting cold, and I am longing for my breakfast."
As they went in he looked her hard in the face. "What, still at it, you
silly girl? I've been watching you these five minutes, Cat; and be hanged
but I think a word from Galgenstein, and you would follow him as a fly
does a treacle-pot!"
They went in to breakfast; but though there was a hot shoulder of
mutton and onion-sauce--Mrs. Catherine's favourite dish--she never
touched a morsel of it.
In the meanwhile Mr. Thomas Billings, in his new clothes which his
mamma had given him, in his new riband which the fair Miss Beinkleider
had tied round his neck, and having his Excellency's breeches wrapped in
a silk handkerchief in his right hand, turned down in the direction of
Whitehall, where the Bavarian Envoy lodged. But, before he waited on
him, Mr. Billings, being excessively pleased with his personal appearance,
made an early visit to Mrs. Briggs, who lived in the neighbourhood of
Swallow Street; and who, after expressing herself with much enthusiasm
regarding her Tommy's good looks, immediately asked him what he would
stand to drink? Raspberry gin being suggested, a pint of that liquor was

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sent for; and so great was the confidence and intimacy subsisting between
these two young people, that the reader will be glad to hear that Mrs. Polly
accepted every shilling of the money which Tom Billings had received
from his mamma the day before; nay, could with difficulty be prevented
from seizing upon the cut-velvet breeches which he was carrying to the
nobleman for whom they were made. Having paid his adieux to Mrs. Polly,
Mr. Billings departed to visit his father.

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CHAPTER IX. INTERVIEW

BETWEEN COUNT
GALGENSTEIN AND MASTER
THOMAS BILLINGS, WHEN HE
INFORMS THE COUNT OF HIS
PARENTAGE.

I don't know in all this miserable world a more miserable spectacle

than that of a young fellow of five or six and forty. The British army, that
nursery of valour, turns out many of the young fellows I mean: who,
having flaunted in dragoon uniforms from seventeen to six-and-thirty;
having bought, sold, or swapped during that period some two hundred
horses; having played, say, fifteen thousand games at billiards; having
drunk some six thousand bottles of wine; having consumed a reasonable
number of Nugee coats, split many dozen pairs of high-heeled Hoby boots,
and read the newspaper and the army-list duly, retire from the service
when they have attained their eighth lustre, and saunter through the world,
trailing from London to Cheltenham, and from Boulogne to Paris, and
from Paris to Baden, their idleness, their ill-health, and their ennui. "In the
morning of youth," and when seen along with whole troops of their
companions, these flowers look gaudy and brilliant enough; but there is no
object more dismal than one of them alone, and in its autumnal, or seedy
state. My friend, Captain Popjoy, is one who has arrived at this condition,
and whom everybody knows by his title of Father Pop. A kinder, simpler,
more empty-headed fellow does not exist. He is forty-seven years old, and
appears a young, good-looking man of sixty. At the time of the Army of
Occupation he really was as good-looking a man as any in the Dragoons.
He now uses all sorts of stratagems to cover the bald place on his head, by
combing certain thin grey sidelocks over it. He has, in revenge, a pair of
enormous moustaches, which he dyes of the richest blue-black. His nose is
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a good deal larger and redder than it used to be; his eyelids have grown
flat and heavy; and a little pair of red, watery eyeballs float in the midst of
them: it seems as if the light which was once in those sickly green pupils
had extravasated into the white part of the eye. If Pop's legs are not so firm
and muscular as they used to be in those days when he took such leaps
into White's buckskins, in revenge his waist is much larger. He wears a
very good coat, however, and a waistband, which he lets out after dinner.
Before ladies he blushes, and is as silent as a schoolboy. He calls them
"modest women." His society is chiefly among young lads belonging to
his former profession. He knows the best wine to be had at each tavern or
cafe, and the waiters treat him with much respectful familiarity. He knows
the names of every one of them; and shouts out, "Send Markwell here!" or,
"Tell Cuttriss to give us a bottle of the yellow seal!" or, "Dizzy voo,
Monsure Borrel, noo donny shampang frappy," etc. He always makes the
salad or the punch, and dines out three hundred days in the year: the other
days you see him in a two-franc eating-house at Paris, or prowling about
Rupert Street, or St. Martin's Court, where you get a capital cut of meat for
eightpence. He has decent lodgings and scrupulously clean linen; his
animal functions are still tolerably well preserved, his spiritual have
evaporated long since; he sleeps well, has no conscience, believes himself
to be a respectable fellow, and is tolerably happy on the days when he is
asked out to dinner.
Poor Pop is not very high in the scale of created beings; but, if you
fancy there is none lower, you are in egregious error. There was once a
man who had a mysterious exhibition of an animal, quite unknown to
naturalists, called "the wusser." Those curious individuals who desired to
see the wusser were introduced into an apartment where appeared before
them nothing more than a little lean shrivelled hideous blear-eyed mangy
pig. Everyone cried out "Swindle!" and "Shame!" "Patience, gentlemen,
be heasy," said the showman: "look at that there hanimal; it's a perfect
phenomaly of hugliness: I engage you never see such a pig." Nobody ever
had seen. "Now, gentlemen," said he, "I'll keep my promise, has per bill;
and bad as that there pig is, look at this here" (he showed another). "Look
at this here, and you'll see at once that it's A WUSSER." In like manner the

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Popjoy breed is bad enough, but it serves only to show off the Galgenstein
race; which is WUSSER.
Galgenstein had led a very gay life, as the saying is, for the last fifteen
years; such a gay one, that he had lost all capacity of enjoyment by this
time, and only possessed inclinations without powers of gratifying them.
He had grown to be exquisitely curious and fastidious about meat and
drink, for instance, and all that he wanted was an appetite. He carried
about with him a French cook, who could not make him eat; a doctor, who
could not make him well; a mistress, of whom he was heartily sick after
two days; a priest, who had been a favourite of the exemplary Dubois, and
by turns used to tickle him by the imposition of penance, or by the
repetition of a tale from the recueil of Noce, or La Fare. All his appetites
were wasted and worn; only some monstrosity would galvanise them into
momentary action. He was in that effete state to which many noblemen of
his time had arrived; who were ready to believe in ghost-raising or in
gold-making, or to retire into monasteries and wear hair-shirts, or to
dabble in conspiracies, or to die in love with little cook-maids of fifteen,
or to pine for the smiles or at the frowns of a prince of the blood, or to go
mad at the refusal of a chamberlain's key. The last gratification he
remembered to have enjoyed was that of riding bareheaded in a soaking
rain for three hours by the side of his Grand Duke's mistress's coach;
taking the pas of Count Krahwinkel, who challenged him, and was run
through the body for this very dispute. Galgenstein gained a rheumatic
gout by it, which put him to tortures for many months; and was further
gratified with the post of English Envoy. He had a fortune, he asked no
salary, and could look the envoy very well. Father O'Flaherty did all the
duties, and furthermore acted as a spy over the ambassador--a sinecure
post, for the man had no feelings, wishes, or opinions--absolutely none.
"Upon my life, father," said this worthy man, "I care for nothing. You
have been talking for an hour about the Regent's death, and the Duchess of
Phalaris, and sly old Fleury, and what not; and I care just as much as if you
told me that one of my bauers at Galgenstein had killed a pig; or as if my
lacquey, La Rose yonder, had made love to my mistress."
"He does!" said the reverend gentleman.

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"Ah, Monsieur l'Abbe!" said La Rose, who was arranging his master's
enormous Court periwig, "you are, helas! wrong. Monsieur le Comte will
not be angry at my saying that I wish the accusation were true."
The Count did not take the slightest notice of La Rose's wit, but
continued his own complaints.
"I tell you, Abbe, I care for nothing. I lost a thousand guineas t'other
night at basset; I wish to my heart I could have been vexed about it. Egad!
I remember the day when to lose a hundred made me half mad for a month.
Well, next day I had my revenge at dice, and threw thirteen mains. There
was some delay; a call for fresh bones, I think; and would you believe it?--
I fell asleep with the box in my hand!"
"A desperate case, indeed," said the Abbe.
"If it had not been for Krahwinkel, I should have been a dead man,
that's positive. That pinking him saved me."
"I make no doubt of it," said the Abbe. "Had your Excellency not run
him through, he, without a doubt, would have done the same for you."
"Psha! you mistake my words, Monsieur l'Abbe" (yawning). "I mean--
what cursed chocolate!--that I was dying for want of excitement. Not that I
cared for dying; no, d---- me if I do!"
"WHEN you do, your Excellency means," said the Abbe, a fat grey-
haired Irishman, from the Irlandois College at Paris.
His Excellency did not laugh, nor understand jokes of any kind; he
was of an undeviating stupidity, and only replied, "Sir, I mean what I say. I
don't care for living: no, nor for dying either; but I can speak as well as
another, and I'll thank you not to be correcting my phrases as if I were one
of your cursed schoolboys, and not a gentleman of fortune and blood."
Herewith the Count, who had uttered four sentences about himself (he
never spoke of anything else), sunk back on his pillows again, quite
exhausted by his eloquence. The Abbe, who had a seat and a table by the
bedside, resumed the labours which had brought him into the room in the
morning, and busied himself with papers, which occasionally he handed
over to his superior for approval.
Presently Monsieur la Rose appeared.
"Here is a person with clothes from Mr. Beinkleider's. Will your

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Excellency see him, or shall I bid him leave the clothes?"

The Count was very much fatigued by this time; he had signed three
papers, and read the first half-a-dozen lines of a pair of them.
"Bid the fellow come in, La Rose; and, hark ye, give me my wig: one
must show one's self to be a gentleman before these scoundrels." And he
therefore mounted a large chestnut-coloured, orange-scented pyramid of
horsehair, which was to awe the new-comer.
He was a lad of about seventeen, in a smart waistcoat and a blue
riband: our friend Tom Billings, indeed. He carried under his arm the
Count's destined breeches. He did not seem in the least awed, however, by
his Excellency's appearance, but looked at him with a great degree of
curiosity and boldness. In the same manner he surveyed the chaplain, and
then nodded to him with a kind look of recognition.
"Where have I seen the lad?" said the father. "Oh, I have it! My good
friend, you were at the hanging yesterday, I think?"
Mr. Billings gave a very significant nod with his head. "I never miss,"
said he.
"What a young Turk! And pray, sir, do you go for pleasure, or for
business?"
"Business! what do you mean by business?"
"Oh, I did not know whether you might be brought up to the trade, or
your relations be undergoing the operation."
"My relations," said Mr. Billings, proudly, and staring the Count full in
the face, "was not made for no such thing. I'm a tailor now, but I'm a
gentleman's son: as good a man, ay, as his lordship there: for YOU a'n't his
lordship--you're the Popish priest you are; and we were very near giving
you a touch of a few Protestant stones, master."
The Count began to be a little amused: he was pleased to see the Abbe
look alarmed, or even foolish.
"Egad, Abbe," said he, "you turn as white as a sheet."
"I don't fancy being murdered, my Lord," said the Abbe, hastily; "and
murdered for a good work. It was but to be useful to yonder poor Irishman,
who saved me as a prisoner in Flanders, when Marlborough would have
hung me up like poor Macshane himself was yesterday."

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"Ah!" said the Count, bursting out with some energy, "I was thinking
who the fellow could be, ever since he robbed me on the Heath. I recollect
the scoundrel now: he was a second in a duel I had here in the year six."
"Along with Major Wood, behind Montague House," said Mr. Billings.
"I'VE heard on it." And here he looked more knowing than ever.
"YOU!" cried the Count, more and more surprised. "And pray who the
devil ARE you?"
"My name's Billings."
"Billings?" said the Count.
"I come out of Warwickshire," said Mr. Billings.
"Indeed!"
"I was born at Birmingham town."
"Were you, really!"
"My mother's name was Hayes," continued Billings, in a solemn voice.
"I was put out to a nurse along with John Billings, a blacksmith; and my
father run away. NOW do you know who I am?"
"Why, upon honour, now," said the Count, who was amused,--"upon
honour, Mr. Billings, I have not that advantage."
"Well, then, my Lord, YOU'RE MY FATHER!"
Mr. Billings when he said this came forward to the Count with a
theatrical air; and, flinging down the breeches of which he was the bearer,
held out his arms and stared, having very little doubt but that his Lordship
would forthwith spring out of bed and hug him to his heart. A similar piece
of naivete many fathers of families have, I have no doubt, remarked in
their children; who, not caring for their parents a single doit, conceive,
nevertheless, that the latter are bound to show all sorts of affection for
them. His lordship did move, but backwards towards the wall, and began
pulling at the bell-rope with an expression of the most intense alarm.
"Keep back, sirrah!--keep back! Suppose I AM your father, do you
want to murder me? Good heavens! how the boy smells of gin and tobacco!
Don't turn away, my lad; sit down there at a proper distance. And, La Rose,
give him some eau-de-Cologne, and get a cup of coffee. Well, now, go on
with your story. Egad, my dear Abbe, I think it is very likely that what the
lad says is true."

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"If it is a family conversation," said the Abbe, "I had better leave you."
"Oh, for Heaven's sake, no! I could not stand the boy alone. Now,
Mister ah!--What's-your-name? Have the goodness to tell your story."
Mr. Billings was woefully disconcerted; for his mother and he had
agreed that as soon as his father saw him he would be recognised at once,
and, mayhap, made heir to the estates and title; in which being
disappointed, he very sulkily went on with his narrative, and detailed
many of those events with which the reader has already been made
acquainted. The Count asked the boy's mother's Christian name, and being
told it, his memory at once returned to him.
"What! are you little Cat's son?" said his Excellency. "By heavens,
mon cher Abbe, a charming creature, but a tigress--positively a tigress. I
recollect the whole affair now. She's a little fresh black-haired woman,
a'n't she? with a sharp nose and thick eyebrows, ay? Ah yes, yes!" went on
my Lord, "I recollect her, I recollect her. It was at Birmingham I first met
her: she was my Lady Trippet's woman, wasn't she?"
"She was no such thing," said Mr. Billings, hotly. "Her aunt kept the
'Bugle Inn' on Waltham Green, and your Lordship seduced her."
"Seduced her! Oh, 'gad, so I did. Stap me, now, I did. Yes, I made her
jump on my black horse, and bore her off like--like Aeneas bore his wife
away from the siege of Rome! hey, l'Abbe?"
"The events were precisely similar," said the Abbe. "It is wonderful
what a memory you have!"
"I was always remarkable for it," continued his Excellency. "Well,
where was I,--at the black horse? Yes, at the black horse. Well, I mounted
her on the black horse, and rode her en croupe, egad--ha, ha!--to
Birmingham; and there we billed and cooed together like a pair of turtle-
doves: yes--ha!--that we did!"
"And this, I suppose, is the end of some of the BILLINGS?" said the
Abbe, pointing to Mr. Tom.
"Billings! what do you mean? Yes--oh--ah--a pun, a calembourg. Fi
donc, M. l'Abbe." And then, after the wont of very stupid people, M. de
Galgenstein went on to explain to the Abbe his own pun. "Well, but to
proceed," cries he. "We lived together at Birmingham, and I was going to

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be married to a rich heiress, egad! when what do you think this little Cat
does? She murders me, egad! and makes me manquer the marriage.
Twenty thousand, I think it was; and I wanted the money in those days.
Now, wasn't she an abominable monster, that mother of yours, hey, Mr. a--
What's-your-name?"
"She served you right!" said Mr. Billings, with a great oath, starting up
out of all patience.
"Fellow!" said his Excellency, quite aghast, "do you know to whom
you speak?--to a nobleman of seventy-eight descents; a count of the Holy
Roman Empire; a representative of a sovereign? Ha, egad! Don't stamp,
fellow, if you hope for my protection."
"D--n your protection!" said Mr. Billings, in a fury. "Curse you and
your protection too! I'm a free-born Briton, and no ---- French Papist! And
any man who insults my mother--ay, or calls me feller-- had better look to
himself and the two eyes in his head, I can tell him!" And with this Mr.
Billings put himself into the most approved attitude of the Cockpit, and
invited his father, the reverend gentleman, and Monsieur la Rose the valet,
to engage with him in a pugilistic encounter. The two latter, the Abbe
especially, seemed dreadfully frightened; but the Count now looked on
with much interest; and, giving utterance to a feeble kind of chuckle,
which lasted for about half a minute, said,--
"Paws off, Pompey! You young hangdog, you--egad, yes, aha! 'pon
honour, you're a lad of spirit; some of your father's spunk in you, hey? I
know him by that oath. Why, sir, when I was sixteen, I used to swear--to
swear, egad, like a Thames waterman, and exactly in this fellow's way!
Buss me, my lad; no, kiss my hand. That will do"--and he held out a very
lean yellow hand, peering from a pair of yellow ruffles. It shook very
much, and the shaking made all the rings upon it shine only the more.
"Well," says Mr. Billings, "if you wasn't a-going to abuse me nor
mother, I don't care if I shake hands with you. I ain't proud!"
The Abbe laughed with great glee; and that very evening sent off to his
Court a most ludicrous spicy description of the whole scene of meeting
between this amiable father and child; in which he said that young Billings
was the eleve favori of M. Kitch, Ecuyer, le bourreau de Londres, and

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which made the Duke's mistress laugh so much that she vowed that the
Abbe should have a bishopric on his return: for, with such store of wisdom,
look you, my son, was the world governed in those days.
The Count and his offspring meanwhile conversed with some
cordiality. The former informed the latter of all the diseases to which he
was subject, his manner of curing them, his great consideration as
chamberlain to the Duke of Bavaria; how he wore his Court suits, and of a
particular powder which he had invented for the hair; how, when he was
seventeen, he had run away with a canoness, egad! who was afterwards
locked up in a convent, and grew to be sixteen stone in weight; how he
remembered the time when ladies did not wear patches; and how the
Duchess of Marlborough boxed his ears when he was so high, because he
wanted to kiss her.
All these important anecdotes took some time in the telling, and were
accompanied by many profound moral remarks; such as, "I can't abide
garlic, nor white-wine, stap me! nor Sauerkraut, though his Highness eats
half a bushel per day. I ate it the first time at Court; but when they brought
it me a second time, I refused--refused, split me and grill me if I didn't!
Everybody stared; his Highness looked as fierce as a Turk; and that
infernal Krahwinkel (my dear, I did for him afterwards)--that cursed
Krahwinkel, I say, looked as pleased as possible, and whispered to
Countess Fritsch, 'Blitzchen, Frau Grafinn,' says he, 'it's all over with
Galgenstein.' What did I do? I had the entree, and demanded it. 'Altesse,'
says I, falling on one knee, 'I ate no kraut at dinner to-day. You remarked it:
I saw your Highness remark it.'
"'I did, M. le Comte,' said his Highness, gravely.
"I had almost tears in my eyes; but it was necessary to come to a
resolution, you know. 'Sir,' said I, 'I speak with deep grief to your
Highness, who are my benefactor, my friend, my father; but of this I am
resolved, I WILL NEVER EAT SAUERKRAUT MORE: it don't agree
with me. After being laid up for four weeks by the last dish of Sauerkraut
of which I partook, I may say with confidence--IT DON'T agree with me.
By impairing my health, it impairs my intellect, and weakens my strength;
and both I would keep for your Highness's service.'

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"'Tut, tut!' said his Highness. 'Tut, tut, tut!' Those were his very words.
"'Give me my sword or my pen,' said I. 'Give me my sword or my pen,
and with these Maximilian de Galgenstein is ready to serve you; but sure,-
-sure, a great prince will pity the weak health of a faithful subject, who
does not know how to eat Sauerkraut?' His Highness was walking about
the room: I was still on my knees, and stretched forward my hand to seize
his coat.
"'GEHT ZUM TEUFEL, Sir!' said he, in a loud voice (it means 'Go to
the deuce,' my dear),--'Geht zum Teufel, and eat what you like!' With this
he went out of the room abruptly; leaving in my hand one of his buttons,
which I keep to this day. As soon as I was alone, amazed by his great
goodness and bounty, I sobbed aloud--cried like a child" (the Count's eyes
filled and winked at the very recollection), "and when I went back into the
card-room, stepping up to Krahwinkel, 'Count,' says I, 'who looks foolish
now?'--Hey there, La Rose, give me the diamond-- Yes, that was the very
pun I made, and very good it was thought. 'Krahwinkel,' says I, 'WHO
LOOKS FOOLISH NOW?' and from that day to this I was never at a
Court-day asked to eat Sauerkraut--NEVER!"
"Hey there, La Rose! Bring me that diamond snuff-box in the drawer
of my secretaire;" and the snuff-box was brought. "Look at it, my dear,"
said the Count, "for I saw you seemed to doubt. There is the button--the
very one that came off his Grace's coat."
Mr. Billings received it, and twisted it about with a stupid air. The
story had quite mystified him; for he did not dare yet to think his father
was a fool--his respect for the aristocracy prevented him.
When the Count's communications had ceased, which they did as soon
as the story of the Sauerkraut was finished, a silence of some minutes
ensued. Mr. Billings was trying to comprehend the circumstances above
narrated; his Lordship was exhausted; the chaplain had quitted the room
directly the word Sauerkraut was mentioned--he knew what was coming.
His Lordship looked for some time at his son; who returned the gaze with
his mouth wide open. "Well," said the Count--"well, sir? What are you
sitting there for? If you have nothing to say, sir, you had better go. I had
you here to amuse me--split me--and not to sit there staring!"

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Mr. Billings rose in a fury.

"Hark ye, my lad," said the Count, "tell La Rose to give thee five
guineas, and, ah--come again some morning. A nice well-grown young
lad," mused the Count, as Master Tommy walked wondering out of the
apartment; "a pretty fellow enough, and intelligent too."
"Well, he IS an odd fellow, my father," thought Mr. Billings, as he
walked out, having received the sum offered to him. And he immediately
went to call upon his friend Polly Briggs, from whom he had separated in
the morning.
What was the result of their interview is not at all necessary to the
progress of this history. Having made her, however, acquainted with the
particulars of his visit to his father, he went to his mother's, and related to
her all that had occurred.
Poor thing, she was very differently interested in the issue of it!

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CHAPTER X. SHOWING HOW

GALGENSTEIN AND MRS. CAT
RECOGNISE EACH OTHER IN
MARYLEBONE GARDENS--AND
HOW THE COUNT DRIVES HER
HOME IN HIS CARRIAGE.

About a month after the touching conversation above related, there

was given, at Marylebone Gardens, a grand concert and entertainment, at
which the celebrated Madame Amenaide, a dancer of the theatre at Paris,
was to perform, under the patronage of several English and foreign
noblemen; among whom was his Excellency the Bavarian Envoy. Madame
Amenaide was, in fact, no other than the maitresse en titre of the Monsieur
de Galgenstein, who had her a great bargain from the Duke de Rohan-
Chabot at Paris.
It is not our purpose to make a great and learned display here,
otherwise the costumes of the company assembled at this fete might afford
scope for at least half-a-dozen pages of fine writing; and we might give, if
need were, specimens of the very songs and music sung on the occasion.
Does not the Burney collection of music, at the British Museum, afford
one an ample store of songs from which to choose? Are there not the
memoirs of Colley Cibber? those of Mrs. Clark, the daughter of Colley? Is
there not Congreve, and Farquhar--nay, and at a pinch, the "Dramatic
Biography," or even the Spectator, from which the observant genius might
borrow passages, and construct pretty antiquarian figments? Leave we
these trifles to meaner souls! Our business is not with the breeches and
periwigs, with the hoops and patches, but with the divine hearts of men,
and the passions which agitate them. What need, therefore, have we to say
that on this evening, after the dancing, the music, and the fireworks,
Monsieur de Galgenstein felt the strange and welcome pangs of appetite,
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and was picking a cold chicken, along with some other friends in an
arbour--a cold chicken, with an accompaniment of a bottle of champagne--
when he was led to remark that a very handsome plump little person, in a
gorgeous stiff damask gown and petticoat, was sauntering up and down
the walk running opposite his supping-place, and bestowing continual
glances towards his Excellency. The lady, whoever she was, was in a mask,
such as ladies of high and low fashion wore at public places in those days,
and had a male companion. He was a lad of only seventeen, marvellously
well dressed--indeed, no other than the Count's own son, Mr. Thomas
Billings; who had at length received from his mother the silver-hilted
sword, and the wig, which that affectionate parent had promised to him.
In the course of the month which had elapsed since the interview that
has been described in the former chapter, Mr. Billings had several times
had occasion to wait on his father; but though he had, according to her
wishes, frequently alluded to the existence of his mother, the Count had
never at any time expressed the slightest wish to renew his acquaintance
with that lady; who, if she had seen him, had only seen him by stealth.
The fact is, that after Billings had related to her the particulars of his
first meeting with his Excellency; which ended, like many of the latter
visits, in nothing at all; Mrs. Hayes had found some pressing business,
which continually took her to Whitehall, and had been prowling from day
to day about Monsieur de Galgenstein's lodgings. Four or five times in the
week, as his Excellency stepped into his coach, he might have remarked,
had he chosen, a woman in a black hood, who was looking most eagerly
into his eyes: but those eyes had long since left off the practice of
observing; and Madam Catherine's visits had so far gone for nothing.
On this night, however, inspired by gaiety and drink, the Count had
been amazingly stricken by the gait and ogling of the lady in the mask.
The Reverend O'Flaherty, who was with him, and had observed the figure
in the black cloak, recognised, or thought he recognised, her. "It is the
woman who dogs your Excellency every day," said he. "She is with that
tailor lad who loves to see people hanged--your Excellency's son, I mean."
And he was just about to warn the Count of a conspiracy evidently made
against him, and that the son had brought, most likely, the mother to play

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her arts upon him--he was just about, I say, to show to the Count the folly
and danger of renewing an old liaison with a woman such as he had
described Mrs. Cat to be, when his Excellency, starting up, and
interrupting his ghostly adviser at the very beginning of his sentence, said,
"Egad, l'Abbe, you are right--it IS my son, and a mighty smart-looking
creature with him. Hey! Mr. What's-your-name--Tom, you rogue, don't
you know your own father?" And so saying, and cocking his beaver on
one side, Monsieur de Galgenstein strutted jauntily after Mr. Billings and
the lady.
It was the first time that the Count had formally recognised his son.
"Tom, you rogue," stopped at this, and the Count came up. He had a
white velvet suit, covered over with stars and orders, a neat modest wig
and bag, and peach-coloured silk-stockings with silver clasps. The lady in
the mask gave a start as his Excellency came forward. "Law, mother, don't
squeege so," said Tom. The poor woman was trembling in every limb, but
she had presence of mind to "squeege" Tom a great deal harder; and the
latter took the hint, I suppose, and was silent.
The splendid Count came up. Ye gods, how his embroidery glittered in
the lamps! What a royal exhalation of musk and bergamot came from his
wig, his handkerchief, and his grand lace ruffles and frills! A broad yellow
riband passed across his breast, and ended at his hip in a shining diamond
cross--a diamond cross, and a diamond sword-hilt! Was anything ever seen
so beautiful? And might not a poor woman tremble when such a noble
creature drew near to her, and deigned, from the height of his rank and
splendour, to look down upon her? As Jove came down to Semele in state,
in his habits of ceremony, with all the grand cordons of his orders blazing
about his imperial person--thus dazzling, magnificent, triumphant, the
great Galgenstein descended towards Mrs. Catherine. Her cheeks glowed
red-hot under her coy velvet mask, her heart thumped against the
whalebone prison of her stays. What a delicious storm of vanity was
raging in her bosom! What a rush of long-pent recollections burst forth at
the sound of that enchanting voice!
As you wind up a hundred-guinea chronometer with a twopenny
watch-key--as by means of a dirty wooden plug you set all the waters of

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Versailles a-raging, and splashing, and storming--in like manner, and by

like humble agents, were Mrs. Catherine's tumultuous passions set going.
The Count, we have said, slipped up to his son, and merely saying, "How
do, Tom?" cut the young gentleman altogether, and passing round to the
lady's side, said, "Madam, 'tis a charming evening--egad it is!" She almost
fainted: it was the old voice. There he was, after seventeen years, once
more at her side!
Now I know what I could have done. I can turn out a quotation from
Sophocles (by looking to the index) as well as another: I can throw off a
bit of fine writing too, with passion, similes, and a moral at the end. What,
pray, is the last sentence but one but the very finest writing? Suppose, for
example, I had made Maximilian, as he stood by the side of Catherine,
look up towards the clouds, and exclaim, in the words of the voluptuous
Cornelius Nepos,
'Aenaoi nephelai 'Arthoomen phanerai Droseran phusin euageetoi,
k.t.l. *
* Anglicised version of the author's original Greek text.
Or suppose, again, I had said, in a style still more popular:--
The Count advanced towards the maiden. They both were mute for a
while; and only the beating of her heart interrupted that thrilling and
passionate silence. Ah, what years of buried joys and fears, hopes and
disappointments, arose from their graves in the far past, and in those brief
moments flitted before the united ones! How sad was that delicious
retrospect, and oh, how sweet! The tears that rolled down the cheek of
each were bubbles from the choked and moss-grown wells of youth; the
sigh that heaved each bosom had some lurking odours in it--memories of
the fragrance of boyhood, echoes of the hymns of the young heart! Thus is
it ever--for these blessed recollections the soul always has a place; and
while crime perishes, and sorrow is forgotten, the beautiful alone is
eternal.
"O golden legends, written in the skies!" mused De Galgenstein, "ye
shine as ye did in the olden days! WE change, but YE speak ever the same
language. Gazing in your abysmal depths, the feeble ratioci--"
*****

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There, now, are six columns* of the best writing to be found in this or
any other book. Galgenstein has quoted Euripides thrice, Plato once,
Lycophron nine times, besides extracts from the Latin syntax and the
minor Greek poets. Catherine's passionate embreathings are of the most
fashionable order; and I call upon the ingenious critic of the X----
newspaper to say whether they do not possess the real impress of the
giants of the olden time--the real Platonic smack, in a word? Not that I
want in the least to show off; but it is as well, every now and then, to show
the public what one CAN do.
(* There WERE six columns, as mentioned by the accurate Mr.
Solomons; but we have withdrawn two pages and three-quarters, because,
although our correspondent has been excessively eloquent, according to
custom, we were anxious to come to the facts of the story.
Mr. Solomons, by sending to our office, may have the cancelled
passages.--O.Y.)
Instead, however, of all this rant and nonsense, how much finer is the
speech that the Count really did make! "It is a very fine evening,--egad it
is!" The "egad" did the whole business: Mrs. Cat was as much in love with
him now as ever she had been; and, gathering up all her energies, she said,
"It is dreadful hot too, I think;" and with this she made a curtsey.
"Stifling, split me!" added his Excellency. "What do you say, madam,
to a rest in an arbour, and a drink of something cool?"
"Sir!" said the lady, drawing back.
"Oh, a drink--a drink by all means," exclaimed Mr. Billings, who was
troubled with a perpetual thirst. "Come, mo--, Mrs. Jones, I mean. you're
fond of a glass of cold punch, you know; and the rum here is prime, I can
tell you."
The lady in the mask consented with some difficulty to the proposal of
Mr. Billings, and was led by the two gentlemen into an arbour, where she
was seated between them; and some wax-candles being lighted, punch was
brought.
She drank one or two glasses very eagerly, and so did her two
companions; although it was evident to see, from the flushed looks of both
of them, that they had little need of any such stimulus. The Count, in the

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midst of his champagne, it must be said, had been amazingly stricken and
scandalised by the appearance of such a youth as Billings in a public place
with a lady under his arm. He was, the reader will therefore understand, in
the moral stage of liquor; and when he issued out, it was not merely with
the intention of examining Mr. Billings's female companion, but of
administering to him some sound correction for venturing, at his early
period of life, to form any such acquaintances. On joining Billings, his
Excellency's first step was naturally to examine the lady. After they had
been sitting for a while over their punch, he bethought him of his original
purpose, and began to address a number of moral remarks to his son.
We have already given some specimens of Monsieur de Galgenstein's
sober conversation; and it is hardly necessary to trouble the reader with
any further reports of his speeches. They were intolerably stupid and dull;
as egotistical as his morning lecture had been, and a hundred times more
rambling and prosy. If Cat had been in the possession of her sober senses,
she would have seen in five minutes that her ancient lover was a ninny,
and have left him with scorn; but she was under the charm of old
recollections, and the sound of that silly voice was to her magical. As for
Mr. Billings, he allowed his Excellency to continue his prattle; only
frowning, yawning, cursing occasionally, but drinking continually.
So the Count descanted at length upon the enormity of young
Billings's early liaisons; and then he told his own, in the year four, with a
burgomaster's daughter at Ratisbon, when he was in the Elector of
Bavaria's service--then, after Blenheim, when he had come over to the
Duke of Marlborough, when a physician's wife at Bonn poisoned herself
for him, etc. etc.; of a piece with the story of the canoness, which has been
recorded before. All the tales were true. A clever, ugly man every now and
then is successful with the ladies; but a handsome fool is irresistible. Mrs.
Cat listened and listened. Good heavens! she had heard all these tales
before, and recollected the place and the time--how she was hemming a
handkerchief for Max; who came round and kissed her, vowing that the
physician's wife was nothing compared to her--how he was tired, and lying
on the sofa, just come home from shooting. How handsome he looked! Cat
thought he was only the handsomer now; and looked more grave and

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thoughtful, the dear fellow!

The garden was filled with a vast deal of company of all kinds, and
parties were passing every moment before the arbour where our trio sat.
About half-an-hour after his Excellency had quitted his own box and party,
the Rev. Mr. O'Flaherty came discreetly round, to examine the proceedings
of his diplomatical chef. The lady in the mask was listening with all her
might; Mr. Billings was drawing figures on the table with punch; and the
Count talking incessantly. The Father Confessor listened for a moment;
and then, with something resembling an oath, walked away to the entry of
the gardens, where his Excellency's gilt coach, with three footmen, was
waiting to carry him back to London. "Get me a chair, Joseph," said his
Reverence, who infinitely preferred a seat gratis in the coach. "That fool,"
muttered he, "will not move for this hour." The reverend gentleman knew
that, when the Count was on the subject of the physician's wife, his
discourses were intolerably long; and took upon himself, therefore, to
disappear, along with the rest of the Count's party; who procured other
conveyances, and returned to their homes.
After this quiet shadow had passed before the Count's box, many
groups of persons passed and repassed; and among them was no other than
Mrs. Polly Briggs, to whom we have been already introduced. Mrs. Polly
was in company with one or two other ladies, and leaning on the arm of a
gentleman with large shoulders and calves, a fierce cock to his hat, and a
shabby genteel air. His name was Mr. Moffat, and his present occupation
was that of doorkeeper at a gambling- house in Covent Garden; where,
though he saw many thousands pass daily under his eyes, his own salary
amounted to no more than four-and-sixpence weekly,--a sum quite
insufficient to maintain him in the rank which he held.
Mr. Moffat had, however, received some funds--amounting indeed, to
a matter of twelve guineas--within the last month, and was treating Mrs.
Briggs very generously to the concert. It may be as well to say that every
one of the twelve guineas had come out of Mrs. Polly's own pocket; who,
in return, had received them from Mr. Billings. And as the reader may
remember that, on the day of Tommy's first interview with his father, he
had previously paid a visit to Mrs. Briggs, having under his arm a pair of

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breeches, which Mrs. Briggs coveted--he should now be informed that she
desired these breeches, not for pincushions, but for Mr. Moffat, who had
long been in want of a pair. Having thus episodically narrated Mr. Moffat's
history, let us state that he, his lady, and their friends, passed before the
Count's arbour, joining in a melodious chorus to a song which one of the
society, an actor of Betterton's, was singing:
"'Tis my will, when I'm dead, that no tear shall be shed, No 'Hic jacet'
be graved on my stone; But pour o'er my ashes a bottle of red, And say a
good fellow is gone, My brave boys! And say a good fellow is gone."
"My brave boys" was given with vast emphasis by the party; Mr.
Moffat growling it in a rich bass, and Mrs. Briggs in a soaring treble. As to
the notes, when quavering up to the skies, they excited various emotions
among the people in the gardens. "Silence them blackguards!" shouted a
barber, who was taking a pint of small beer along with his lady. "Stop that
there infernal screeching!" said a couple of ladies, who were sipping
ratafia in company with two pretty fellows.
"Dang it, it's Polly!" said Mr. Tom Billings, bolting out of the box, and
rushing towards the sweet-voiced Mrs. Briggs. When he reached her,
which he did quickly, and made his arrival known by tipping Mrs. Briggs
slightly on the waist, and suddenly bouncing down before her and her
friend, both of the latter drew back somewhat startled.
"Law, Mr. Billings!" says Mrs. Polly, rather coolly, "is it you? Who
thought of seeing you here?"
"Who's this here young feller?" says towering Mr. Moffat, with his
bass voice.
"It's Mr. Billings, cousin, a friend of mine," said Mrs. Polly,
beseechingly.
"Oh, cousin, if it's a friend of yours, he should know better how to
conduct himself, that's all. Har you a dancing-master, young feller, that
you cut them there capers before gentlemen?" growled Mr. Moffat; who
hated Mr. Billings, for the excellent reason that he lived upon him.
"Dancing-master be hanged!" said Mr. Billings, with becoming spirit:
"if you call me dancing-master, I'll pull your nose."
"What!" roared Mr. Moffat, "pull my nose? MY NOSE! I'll tell you

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what, my lad, if you durst move me, I'll cut your throat, curse me!"
"Oh, Moffy--cousin, I mean--'tis a shame to treat the poor boy so. Go
away, Tommy; do go away; my cousin's in liquor," whimpered Madam
Briggs, who really thought that the great doorkeeper would put his threat
into execution.
"Tommy!" said Mr. Moffat, frowning horribly; "Tommy to me too?
Dog, get out of my ssss---" SIGHT was the word which Mr. Moffat
intended to utter; but he was interrupted; for, to the astonishment of his
friends and himself, Mr. Billings did actually make a spring at the
monster's nose, and caught it so firmly, that the latter could not finish his
sentence.
The operation was performed with amazing celerity; and, having
concluded it, Mr. Billings sprang back, and whisked from out its sheath
that new silver-hilted sword which his mamma had given him. "Now,"
said he, with a fierce kind of calmness, "now for the throat-cutting, cousin:
I'm your man!"
How the brawl might have ended, no one can say, had the two
gentlemen actually crossed swords; but Mrs. Polly, with a wonderful
presence of mind, restored peace by exclaiming, "Hush, hush! the beaks,
the beaks!" Upon which, with one common instinct, the whole party made
a rush for the garden gates, and disappeared into the fields. Mrs. Briggs
knew her company: there was something in the very name of a constable
which sent them all a-flying.
After running a reasonable time, Mr. Billings stopped. But the great
Moffat was nowhere to be seen, and Polly Briggs had likewise vanished.
Then Tom bethought him that he would go back to his mother; but,
arriving at the gate of the gardens, was refused admittance, as he had not a
shilling in his pocket. "I've left," says Tommy, giving himself the airs of a
gentleman, "some friends in the gardens. I'm with his Excellency the
Bavarian henvy."
"Then you had better go away with him," said the gate people.
"But I tell you I left him there, in the grand circle, with a lady; and,
what's more, in the dark walk, I have left a silver-hilted sword."
"Oh, my Lord, I'll go and tell him then," cried one of the porters, "if

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you will wait."

Mr. Billings seated himself on a post near the gate, and there
consented to remain until the return of his messenger. The latter went
straight to the dark walk, and found the sword, sure enough. But, instead
of returning it to its owner this discourteous knight broke the trenchant
blade at the hilt; and flinging the steel away, pocketed the baser silver
metal, and lurked off by the private door consecrated to the waiters and
fiddlers.
In the meantime, Mr. Billings waited and waited. And what was the
conversation of his worthy parents inside the garden? I cannot say; but one
of the waiters declared that he had served the great foreign Count with two
bowls of rack-punch, and some biscuits, in No. 3: that in the box with him
were first a young gentleman, who went away, and a lady, splendidly
dressed and masked: that when the lady and his Lordship were alone, she
edged away to the further end of the table, and they had much talk: that at
last, when his Grace had pressed her very much, she took off her mask and
said, "Don't you know me now, Max?" that he cried out, "My own
Catherine, thou art more beautiful than ever!" and wanted to kneel down
and vow eternal love to her; but she begged him not to do so in a place
where all the world would see: that then his Highness paid, and they left
the gardens, the lady putting on her mask again.
When they issued from the gardens, "Ho! Joseph la Rose, my coach!"
shouted his Excellency, in rather a husky voice; and the men who had been
waiting came up with the carriage. A young gentleman, who was dosing
on one of the posts at the entry, woke up suddenly at the blaze of the
torches and the noise of the footmen. The Count gave his arm to the lady
in the mask, who slipped in; and he was whispering La Rose, when the lad
who had been sleeping hit his Excellency on the shoulder, and said, "I say,
Count, you can give ME a cast home too," and jumped into the coach.
When Catherine saw her son, she threw herself into his arms, and
kissed him with a burst of hysterical tears; of which Mr. Billings was at a
loss to understand the meaning. The Count joined them, looking not a little
disconcerted; and the pair were landed at their own door, where stood Mr.
Hayes, in his nightcap, ready to receive them, and astounded at the

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splendour of the equipage in which his wife returned to him.

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CHAPTER XI. OF SOME

DOMESTIC QUARRELS, AND
THE CONSEQUENCE THEREOF.

An ingenious magazine-writer, who lived in the time of Mr. Brock and

the Duke of Marlborough, compared the latter gentleman's conduct in
battle, when he
"In peaceful thought the field of death surveyed, To fainting
squadrons lent the timely aid; Inspired repulsed battalions to engage, And
taught the doubtful battle where to rage"--
Mr. Joseph Addison, I say, compared the Duke of Marlborough to an
angel, who is sent by Divine command to chastise a guilty people--
"And pleased his Master's orders to perform, Rides on the whirlwind,
and directs the storm."
The first four of these novel lines touch off the Duke's disposition and
genius to a tittle. He had a love for such scenes of strife: in the midst of
them his spirit rose calm and supreme, soaring (like an angel or not, but
anyway the compliment is a very pretty one) on the battle-clouds majestic,
and causing to ebb or to flow the mighty tide of war.
But as this famous simile might apply with equal propriety--to a bad
angel as to a good one, it may in like manner be employed to illustrate
small quarrels as well as great--a little family squabble, in which two or
three people are engaged, as well as a vast national dispute, argued on
each side by the roaring throats of five hundred angry cannon. The poet
means, in fact, that the Duke of Marlborough had an immense genius for
mischief.
Our friend Brock, or Wood (whose actions we love to illustrate by the
very handsomest similes), possessed this genius in common with his
Grace; and was never so happy, or seen to so much advantage, as when he
was employed in setting people by the ears. His spirits, usually dull, then
rose into the utmost gaiety and good-humour. When the doubtful battle

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flagged, he by his art would instantly restore it. When, for instance, Tom's
repulsed battalions of rhetoric fled from his mamma's fire, a few words of
apt sneer or encouragement on Wood's part would bring the fight round
again; or when Mr. Hayes's fainting squadrons of abuse broke upon the
stubborn squares of Tom's bristling obstinacy, it was Wood's delight to
rally the former, and bring him once more to the charge. A great share had
this man in making those bad people worse. Many fierce words and bad
passions, many falsehoods and knaveries on Tom's part, much bitterness,
scorn, and jealousy on the part of Hayes and Catherine, might be attributed
to this hoary old tempter, whose joy and occupation it was to raise and
direct the domestic storms and whirlwinds of the family of which he was a
member. And do not let us be accused of an undue propensity to use
sounding words, because we compare three scoundrels in the Tyburn Road
to so many armies, and Mr. Wood to a mighty field-marshal. My dear sir,
when you have well studied the world--how supremely great the meanest
thing in this world is, and how infinitely mean the greatest--I am mistaken
if you do not make a strange and proper jumble of the sublime and the
ridiculous, the lofty and the low. I have looked at the world, for my part,
and come to the conclusion that I know not which is which.
Well, then, on the night when Mrs Hayes, as recorded by us, had been
to the Marylebone Gardens, Mr. Wood had found the sincerest enjoyment
in plying her husband with drink; so that, when Catherine arrived at home,
Mr. Hayes came forward to meet her in a manner which showed he was
not only surly, but drunk. Tom stepped out of the coach first; and Hayes
asked him, with an oath, where he had been? The oath Mr. Billings sternly
flung back again (with another in its company), and at the same time
refused to give his stepfather any sort of answer to his query.
"The old man is drunk, mother," said he to Mrs. Hayes, as he handed
that lady out of the coach (before leaving which she had to withdraw her
hand rather violently from the grasp of the Count, who was inside). Hayes
instantly showed the correctness of his surmise by slamming the door
courageously in Tom's face, when he attempted to enter the house with his
mother. And when Mrs. Catherine remonstrated, according to her wont, in
a very angry and supercilious tone, Mr. Hayes replied with equal

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haughtiness, and a regular quarrel ensued.

People were accustomed in those days to use much more simple and
expressive terms of language than are now thought polite; and it would be
dangerous to give, in this present year 1840, the exact words of reproach
which passed between Hayes and his wife in 1726. Mr. Wood sat near,
laughing his sides out. Mr. Hayes swore that his wife should not go abroad
to tea-gardens in search of vile Popish noblemen; to which Mrs. Hayes
replied, that Mr. Hayes was a pitiful, lying, sneaking cur, and that she
would go where she pleased. Mr. Hayes rejoined that if she said much
more he would take a stick to her. Mr. Wood whispered, "And serve her
right." Mrs. Hayes thereupon swore she had stood his cowardly blows
once or twice before, but that if ever he did so again, as sure as she was
born, she would stab him. Mr. Wood said, "Curse me, but I like her spirit."
Mr. Hayes took another line of argument, and said, "The neighbours
would talk, madam."
"Ay, that they will, no doubt," said Mr. Wood.
"Then let them," said Catherine. "What do we care about the
neighbours? Didn't the neighbours talk when you sent Widow Wilkins to
gaol? Didn't the neighbours talk when you levied on poor old Thomson?
You didn't mind THEN, Mr, Hayes."
"Business, ma'am, is business; and if I did distrain on Thomson, and
lock up Wilkins, I think you knew about it as much as I."
"I'faith, I believe you're a pair," said Mr. Wood.
"Pray, sir, keep your tongue to yourself. Your opinion isn't asked
anyhow--no, nor your company wanted neither," cried Mrs. Catherine,
with proper spirit.
At which remark Mr. Wood only whistled.
"I have asked this here gentleman to pass this evening along with me.
We've been drinking together, ma'am."
"That we have", said Mr. Wood, looking at Mrs. Cat with the most
perfect good-humour.
"I say, ma'am, that we've been a-drinking together; and when we've
been a-drinking together, I say that a man is my friend. Doctor Wood is
my friend, madam--the Reverend Doctor Wood. We've passed the evening

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in company, talking about politics, madam--politics and riddle-iddle-igion.

We've not been flaunting in tea-gardens, and ogling the men."
"It's a lie!" shrieked Mrs. Hayes. "I went with Tom--you know I did:
the boy wouldn't let me rest till I promised to go."
"Hang him, I hate him," said Mr. Hayes: "he's always in my way."
"He's the only friend I have in the world, and the only being I care a
pin for," said Catherine.
"He's an impudent idle good-for-nothing scoundrel, and I hope to see
him hanged!" shouted Mr. Hayes. "And pray, madam, whose carriage was
that as you came home in? I warrant you paid something for the ride--ha,
ha!"
"Another lie!" screamed Cat, and clutched hold of a supper-knife. "Say
it again, John Hayes, and, by ------ I'll do for you."
"Do for me? Hang me," said Mr. Hayes, flourishing a stick, and
perfectly pot-valiant, "do you think I care for a bastard and a--?"
He did not finish the sentence, for the woman ran at him like a savage,
knife in hand. He bounded back, flinging his arms about wildly, and struck
her with his staff sharply across the forehead. The woman went down
instantly. A lucky blow was it for Hayes and her: it saved him from death,
perhaps, and her from murder.
All this scene--a very important one of our drama--might have been
described at much greater length; but, in truth, the author has a natural
horror of dwelling too long upon such hideous spectacles: nor would the
reader be much edified by a full and accurate knowledge of what took
place. The quarrel, however, though not more violent than many that had
previously taken place between Hayes and his wife, was about to cause
vast changes in the condition of this unhappy pair.
Hayes was at the first moment of his victory very much alarmed; he
feared that he had killed the woman; and Wood started up rather anxiously
too, with the same fancy. But she soon began to recover. Water was
brought; her head was raised and bound up; and in a short time Mrs.
Catherine gave vent to a copious fit of tears, which relieved her somewhat.
These did not affect Hayes much--they rather pleased him, for he saw he
had got the better; and although Cat fiercely turned upon him when he

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made some small attempt towards reconciliation, he did not heed her anger,
but smiled and winked in a self-satisfied way at Wood. The coward was
quite proud of his victory; and finding Catherine asleep, or apparently so,
when he followed her to bed, speedily gave himself up to slumber too, and
had some pleasant dreams to his portion.
Mr. Wood also went sniggering and happy upstairs to his chamber. The
quarrel had been a real treat to him; it excited the old man- -tickled him
into good-humour; and he promised himself a rare continuation of the fun
when Tom should be made acquainted with the circumstances of the
dispute. As for his Excellency the Count, the ride from Marylebone
Gardens, and a tender squeeze of the hand, which Catherine permitted to
him on parting, had so inflamed the passions of the nobleman, that, after
sleeping for nine hours, and taking his chocolate as usual the next morning,
he actually delayed to read the newspaper, and kept waiting a toy-shop
lady from Cornhill (with the sweetest bargain of Mechlin lace), in order to
discourse to his chaplain on the charms of Mrs. Hayes.
She, poor thing, never closed her lids, except when she would have
had Mr. Hayes imagine that she slumbered; but lay beside him, tossing and
tumbling, with hot eyes wide open and heart thumping, and pulse of a
hundred and ten, and heard the heavy hours tolling; and at last the day
came peering, haggard, through the window-curtains, and found her still
wakeful and wretched.
Mrs. Hayes had never been, as we have seen, especially fond of her
lord; but now, as the day made visible to her the sleeping figure and
countenance of that gentleman, she looked at him with a contempt and
loathing such as she had never felt even in all the years of her wedded life.
Mr. Hayes was snoring profoundly: by his bedside, on his ledger, stood a
large greasy tin candlestick, containing a lank tallow-candle, turned down
in the shaft; and in the lower part, his keys, purse, and tobacco-pipe; his
feet were huddled up in his greasy threadbare clothes; his head and half
his sallow face muffled up in a red woollen nightcap; his beard was of
several days' growth; his mouth was wide open, and he was snoring
profoundly: on a more despicable little creature the sun never shone. And
to this sordid wretch was Catherine united for ever. What a pretty rascal

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history might be read in yonder greasy day-book, which never left the
miser!--he never read in any other. Of what a treasure were yonder keys
and purse the keepers! not a shilling they guarded but was picked from the
pocket of necessity, plundered from needy wantonness, or pitilessly
squeezed from starvation. "A fool, a miser, and a coward! Why was I
bound to this wretch?" thought Catherine: "I, who am high-spirited and
beautiful (did not HE tell me so?); I who, born a beggar, have raised
myself to competence, and might have mounted--who knows whither?--if
cursed Fortune had not baulked me!"
As Mrs. Cat did not utter these sentiments, but only thought them, we
have a right to clothe her thoughts in the genteelest possible language; and,
to the best of our power, have done so. If the reader examines Mrs.
Hayes's train of reasoning, he will not, we should think, fail to perceive
how ingeniously she managed to fix all the wrong upon her husband, and
yet to twist out some consolatory arguments for her own vanity. This
perverse argumentation we have all of us, no doubt, employed in our time.
How often have we,--we poets, politicians, philosophers, family-men,--
found charming excuses for our own rascalities in the monstrous
wickedness of the world about us; how loudly have we abused the times
and our neighbours! All this devil's logic did Mrs. Catherine, lying
wakeful in her bed on the night of the Marylebone fete, exert in gloomy
triumph.
It must, however, be confessed, that nothing could be more just than
Mrs. Hayes's sense of her husband's scoundrelism and meanness; for if we
have not proved these in the course of this history, we have proved nothing.
Mrs. Cat had a shrewd observing mind; and if she wanted for proofs
against Hayes, she had but to look before and about her to find them. This
amiable pair were lying in a large walnut-bed, with faded silk furniture,
which had been taken from under a respectable old invalid widow, who
had become security for a prodigal son; the room was hung round with an
antique tapestry (representing Rebecca at the Well, Bathsheba Bathing,
Judith and Holofernes, and other subjects from Holy Writ), which had
been many score times sold for fifty pounds, and bought back by Mr.
Hayes for two, in those accommodating bargains which he made with

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young gentlemen, who received fifty pounds of money and fifty of

tapestry in consideration of their hundred-pound bills. Against this tapestry,
and just cutting off Holofernes's head, stood an enormous ominous black
clock, the spoil of some other usurious transaction. Some chairs, and a
dismal old black cabinet, completed the furniture of this apartment: it
wanted but a ghost to render its gloom complete.
Mrs. Hayes sat up in the bed sternly regarding her husband. There is,
be sure, a strong magnetic influence in wakeful eyes so examining a
sleeping person (do not you, as a boy, remember waking of bright summer
mornings and finding your mother looking over you? had not the gaze of
her tender eyes stolen into your senses long before you woke, and cast
over your slumbering spirit a sweet spell of peace, and love, and fresh
springing joy?) Some such influence had Catherine's looks upon her
husband: for, as he slept under them, the man began to writhe about
uneasily, and to burrow his head in the pillow, and to utter quick, strange
moans and cries, such as have often jarred one's ear while watching at the
bed of the feverish sleeper. It was just upon six, and presently the clock
began to utter those dismal grinding sounds, which issue from clocks at
such periods, and which sound like the death-rattle of the departing hour.
Then the bell struck the knell of it; and with this Mr. Hayes awoke, and
looked up, and saw Catherine gazing at him.
Their eyes met for an instant, and Catherine turned away, burning red,
and looking as if she had been caught in the commission of a crime.
A kind of blank terror seized upon old Hayes's soul: a horrible icy fear,
and presentiment of coming evil; and yet the woman had but looked at
him. He thought rapidly over the occurrences of the last night, the quarrel,
and the end of it. He had often struck her before when angry, and heaped
all kinds of bitter words upon her; but, in the morning, she bore no malice,
and the previous quarrel was forgotten, or, at least, passed over. Why
should the last night's dispute not have the same end? Hayes calculated all
this, and tried to smile.
"I hope we're friends, Cat?" said he. "You know I was in liquor last
night, and sadly put out by the loss of that fifty pound. They'll ruin me,
dear--I know they will."

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Mrs. Hayes did not answer.

"I should like to see the country again, dear," said he, in his most
wheedling way. "I've a mind, do you know, to call in all our money? It's
you who've made every farthing of it, that's sure; and it's a matter of two
thousand pound by this time. Suppose we go into Warwickshire, Cat, and
buy a farm, and live genteel. Shouldn't you like to live a lady in your own
county again? How they'd stare at Birmingham! hey, Cat?"
And with this Mr. Hayes made a motion as if he would seize his wife's
hand, but she flung his back again.
"Coward!" said she, "you want liquor to give you courage, and then
you've only heart enough to strike women."
"It was only in self-defence, my dear," said Hayes, whose courage had
all gone. "You tried, you know, to--to--"
"To STAB you, and I wish I had!" said Mrs. Hayes, setting her teeth,
and glaring at him like a demon; and so saying she sprung out of bed.
There was a great stain of blood on her pillow. "Look at it," said she. "That
blood's of your shedding!" and at this Hayes fairly began to weep, so
utterly downcast and frightened was the miserable man. The wretch's tears
only inspired his wife with a still greater rage and loathing; she cared not
so much for the blow, but she hated the man: the man to whom she was
tied for ever--for ever! The bar between her and wealth, happiness, love,
rank perhaps. "If I were free," thought Mrs. Hayes (the thought had been
sitting at her pillow all night, and whispering ceaselessly into her ear)--,"If
I were free, Max would marry me; I know he would:--he said so
yesterday!"
***
As if by a kind of intuition, old Wood seemed to read all this woman's
thoughts; for he said that day with a sneer, that he would wager she was
thinking how much better it would be to be a Count's lady than a poor
miser's wife. "And faith," said he, "a Count and a chariot-and-six is better
than an old skinflint with a cudgel." And then he asked her if her head was
better, and supposed that she was used to beating; and cut sundry other
jokes, which made the poor wretch's wounds of mind and body feel a
thousand times sorer.

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Tom, too, was made acquainted with the dispute, and swore his
accustomed vengeance against his stepfather. Such feelings, Wood, with a
dexterous malice, would never let rest; it was his joy, at first quite a
disinterested one, to goad Catherine and to frighten Hayes: though, in truth,
that unfortunate creature had no occasion for incitements from without to
keep up the dreadful state of terror and depression into which he had
fallen.
For, from the morning after the quarrel, the horrible words and looks
of Catherine never left Hayes's memory; but a cold fear followed him--a
dreadful prescience. He strove to overcome this fate as a coward would--to
kneel to it for compassion--to coax and wheedle it into forgiveness. He
was slavishly gentle to Catherine, and bore her fierce taunts with mean
resignation. He trembled before young Billings, who was now established
in the house (his mother said, to protect her against the violence of her
husband), and suffered his brutal language and conduct without venturing
to resist.
The young man and his mother lorded over the house: Hayes hardly
dared to speak in their presence; seldom sat with the family except at
meals; but slipped away to his chamber (he slept apart now from his wife)
or passed the evening at the public-house, where he was constrained to
drink--to spend some of his beloved sixpences for drink!
And, of course, the neighbours began to say, "John Hayes neglects his
wife." "He tyrannises over her, and beats her." "Always at the public-
house, leaving an honest woman alone at home!"
The unfortunate wretch did NOT hate his wife. He was used to her--
fond of her as much as he could be fond--sighed to be friends with her
again--repeatedly would creep, whimpering, to Wood's room, when the
latter was alone, and begged him to bring about a reconciliation. They
WERE reconciled, as much as ever they could be. The woman looked at
him, thought what she might be but for him, and scorned and loathed him
with a feeling that almost amounted to insanity. What nights she lay awake,
weeping, and cursing herself and him! His humility and beseeching looks
only made him more despicable and hateful to her.
If Hayes did not hate the mother, however, he hated the boy--hated and

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feared him dreadfully. He would have poisoned him if he had had the
courage; but he dared not: he dared not even look at him as he sat there,
the master of the house, in insolent triumph. O God! how the lad's brutal
laughter rung in Hayes's ears; and how the stare of his fierce bold black
eyes pursued him! Of a truth, if Mr. Wood loved mischief, as he did,
honestly and purely for mischief's sake, he had enough here. There was
mean malice, and fierce scorn, and black revenge, and sinful desire,
boiling up in the hearts of these wretched people, enough to content Mr.
Wood's great master himself.
Hayes's business, as we have said, was nominally that of a carpenter;
but since, for the last few years, he had added to it that of a lender of
money, the carpenter's trade had been neglected altogether for one so
much more profitable. Mrs. Hayes had exerted herself, with much benefit
to her husband, in his usurious business. She was a resolute, clear-sighted,
keen woman, that did not love money, but loved to be rich and push her
way in the world. She would have nothing to do with the trade now,
however, and told her husband to manage it himself. She felt that she was
separated from him for ever, and could no more be brought to consider her
interests as connected with his own.
The man was well fitted for the creeping and niggling of his dastardly
trade; and gathered his moneys, and busied himself with his lawyer, and
acted as his own bookkeeper and clerk, not without satisfaction. His wife's
speculations, when they worked in concert, used often to frighten him. He
never sent out his capital without a pang, and only because he dared not
question her superior judgment and will. He began now to lend no more:
he could not let the money out of his sight. His sole pleasure was to creep
up into his room, and count and recount it. When Billings came into the
house, Hayes had taken a room next to that of Wood. It was a protection to
him; for Wood would often rebuke the lad for using Hayes ill: and both
Catherine and Tom treated the old man with deference.
At last--it was after he had collected a good deal of his money-- Hayes
began to reason with himself, "Why should I stay?--stay to be insulted by
that boy, or murdered by him? He is ready for any crime." He determined
to fly. He would send Catherine money every year. No--she had the

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furniture; let her let lodgings--that would support her. He would go, and
live away, abroad in some cheap place--away from that boy and his
horrible threats. The idea of freedom was agreeable to the poor wretch;
and he began to wind up his affairs as quickly as he could.
Hayes would now allow no one to make his bed or enter his room; and
Wood could hear him through the panels fidgeting perpetually to and fro,
opening and shutting of chests, and clinking of coin. At the least sound he
would start up, and would go to Billings's door and listen. Wood used to
hear him creeping through the passages, and returning stealthily to his own
chamber.
One day the woman and her son had been angrily taunting him in the
presence of a neighbour. The neighbour retired soon; and Hayes, who had
gone with him to the door, heard, on returning, the voice of Wood in the
parlour. The old man laughed in his usual saturnine way, and said, "Have a
care, Mrs. Cat; for if Hayes were to die suddenly, by the laws, the
neighbours would accuse thee of his death."
Hayes started as if he had been shot. "He too is in the plot," thought he.
"They are all leagued against me: they WILL kill me: they are only biding
their time." Fear seized him, and he thought of flying that instant and
leaving all; and he stole into his room and gathered his money together.
But only a half of it was there: in a few weeks all would have come in. He
had not the heart to go. But that night Wood heard Hayes pause at HIS
door, before he went to listen at Mrs. Catherine's. "What is the man
thinking of?" said Wood. "He is gathering his money together. Has he a
hoard yonder unknown to us all?"
Wood thought he would watch him. There was a closet between the
two rooms: Wood bored a hole in the panel, and peeped through. Hayes
had a brace of pistols, and four or five little bags before him on the table.
One of these he opened, and placed, one by one, five-and-twenty guineas
into it. Such a sum had been due that day--Catherine spoke of it only in the
morning; for the debtor's name had by chance been mentioned in the
conversation. Hayes commonly kept but a few guineas in the house. For
what was he amassing all these? The next day, Wood asked for change for
a twenty-pound bill. Hayes said he had but three guineas. And, when

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asked by Catherine where the money was that was paid the day before,
said that it was at the banker's. "The man is going to fly," said Wood; "that
is sure: if he does, I know him--he will leave his wife without a shilling."
He watched him for several days regularly: two or three more bags
were added to the former number. "They are pretty things, guineas,"
thought Wood, "and tell no tales, like bank-bills." And he thought over the
days when he and Macshane used to ride abroad in search of them.
I don't know what thoughts entered into Mr. Wood's brain; but the next
day, after seeing young Billings, to whom he actually made a present of a
guinea, that young man, in conversing with his mother, said, "Do you
know, mother, that if you were free, and married the Count, I should be a
lord? It's the German law, Mr. Wood says; and you know he was in them
countries with Marlborough."
"Ay, that he would," said Mr. Wood, "in Germany: but Germany isn't
England; and it's no use talking of such things."
"Hush, child!" said Mrs. Hayes, quite eagerly: "how can _I_ marry the
Count? Besides, a'n't I married, and isn't he too great a lord for me?"
"Too great a lord?--not a whit, mother. If it wasn't for Hayes, I might
be a lord now. He gave me five guineas only last week; but curse the
skinflint who never will part with a shilling."
"It's not so bad as his striking your mother, Tom. I had my stick up,
and was ready to fell him t'other night," added Mr. Wood. And herewith he
smiled, and looked steadily in Mrs. Catherine's face. She dared not look
again; but she felt that the old man knew a secret that she had been trying
to hide from herself. Fool! he knew it; and Hayes knew it dimly: and never,
never, since that day of the gala, had it left her, sleeping or waking. When
Hayes, in his fear, had proposed to sleep away from her, she started with
joy: she had been afraid that she might talk in her sleep, and so let slip her
horrible confession.
Old Wood knew all her history since the period of the Marylebone fete.
He had wormed it out of her, day by day; he had counselled her how to act;
warned her not to yield; to procure, at least, a certain provision for her son,
and a handsome settlement for herself, if she determined on quitting her
husband. The old man looked on the business in a proper philosophical

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light, told her bluntly that he saw she was bent upon going off with the
Count, and bade her take precautions: else she might be left as she had
been before.
Catherine denied all these charges; but she saw the Count daily,
notwithstanding, and took all the measures which Wood had
recommended to her. They were very prudent ones. Galgenstein grew
hourly more in love: never had he felt such a flame; not in the best days of
his youth; not for the fairest princess, countess, or actress, from Vienna to
Paris.
At length--it was the night after he had seen Hayes counting his
money-bags--old Wood spoke to Mrs. Hayes very seriously. "That
husband of yours, Cat," said he, "meditates some treason; ay, and fancies
we are about such. He listens nightly at your door and at mine: he is going
to leave you, be sure on't; and if he leaves you, he leaves you to starve."
"I can be rich elsewhere," said Mrs. Cat.
"What, with Max?"
"Ay, with Max: and why not?" said Mrs. Hayes.
"Why not, fool! Do you recollect Birmingham? Do you think that
Galgenstein, who is so tender now because he HASN'T won you, will be
faithful because he HAS? Psha, woman, men are not made so! Don't go to
him until you are sure: if you were a widow now, he would marry you; but
never leave yourself at his mercy: if you were to leave your husband to go
to him, he would desert you in a fortnight!"
She might have been a Countess! she knew she might, but for this
cursed barrier between her and her fortune. Wood knew what she was
thinking of, and smiled grimly.
"Besides," he continued, "remember Tom. As sure as you leave Hayes
without some security from Max, the boy's ruined: he who might be a lord,
if his mother had but--Psha! never mind: that boy will go on the road, as
sure as my name's Wood. He's a Turpin cock in his eye, my dear,--a
regular Tyburn look. He knows too many of that sort already; and is too
fond of a bottle and a girl to resist and be honest when it comes to the
pinch."
"It's all true," said Mrs. Hayes. "Tom's a high mettlesome fellow, and

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would no more mind a ride on Hounslow Heath than he does a walk now
in the Mall."
"Do you want him hanged, my dear?" said Wood.
"Ah, Doctor!"
"It IS a pity, and that's sure," concluded Mr. Wood, knocking the ashes
out of his pipe, and closing this interesting conversation. "It is a pity that
that old skinflint should be in the way of both your fortunes; and he about
to fling you over, too!"
Mrs. Catherine retired musing, as Mr. Billings had previously done; a
sweet smile of contentment lighted up the venerable features of Doctor
Wood, and he walked abroad into the streets as happy a fellow as any in
London.

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CHAPTER XII. TREATS OF

LOVE, AND PREPARES FOR
DEATH.

And to begin this chapter, we cannot do better than quote a part of a

letter from M. l'Abbe O'Flaherty to Madame la Comtesse de X----- at
Paris:
"MADAM,--The little Arouet de Voltaire, who hath come 'hither to
take a turn in England,' as I see by the Post of this morning, hath brought
me a charming pacquet from your Ladyship's hands, which ought to
render a reasonable man happy; but, alas! makes your slave miserable. I
think of dear Paris (and something more dear than all Paris, of which,
Madam, I may not venture to speak further)--I think of dear Paris, and find
myself in this dismal Vitehall, where, when the fog clears up, I can catch a
glimpse of muddy Thames, and of that fatal palace which the kings of
England have been obliged to exchange for your noble castle of Saint
Germains, that stands so stately by silver Seine. Truly, no bad bargain. For
my part, I would give my grand ambassadorial saloons, hangings, gildings,
feasts, valets, ambassadors and all, for a bicoque in sight of the Thuilleries'
towers, or my little cell in the Irlandois.
"My last sheets have given you a pretty notion of our ambassador's
public doings; now for a pretty piece of private scandal respecting that
great man. Figure to yourself, Madam, his Excellency is in love; actually
in love, talking day and night about a certain fair one whom he hath
picked out of a gutter; who is well nigh forty years old; who was his
mistress when he was in England a captain of dragoons, some sixty,
seventy, or a hundred years since; who hath had a son by him, moreover, a
sprightly lad, apprentice to a tailor of eminence that has the honour of
making his Excellency's breeches.
"Since one fatal night when he met this fair creature at a certain place
of publique resort, called Marylebone Gardens, our Cyrus hath been an

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altered creature. Love hath mastered this brainless ambassador, and his
antics afford me food for perpetual mirth. He sits now opposite to me at a
table inditing a letter to his Catherine, and copying it from--what do you
think?--from the 'Grand Cyrus.' 'I swear, madam, that my happiness would
be to offer you this hand, as I have my heart long ago, and I beg you to
bear in mind this declaration.' I have just dictated to him the above tender
words; for our Envoy, I need not tell you, is not strong at writing or
thinking.
"The fair Catherine, I must tell you, is no less than a carpenter's wife, a
well-to-do bourgeois, living at the Tyburn, or Gallows Road. She found
out her ancient lover very soon after our arrival, and hath a marvellous
hankering to be a Count's lady. A pretty little creature is this Madam
Catherine. Billets, breakfasts, pretty walks, presents of silks and satins,
pass daily between the pair; but, strange to say, the lady is as virtuous as
Diana, and hath resisted all my Count's cajoleries hitherto. The poor
fellow told me, with tears in his eyes, that he believed he should have
carried her by storm on the very first night of their meeting, but that her
son stepped into the way; and he or somebody else hath been in the way
ever since. Madam will never appear alone. I believe it is this wondrous
chastity of the lady that has elicited this wondrous constancy of the
gentleman. She is holding out for a settlement; who knows if not for a
marriage? Her husband, she says, is ailing; her lover is fool enough, and
she herself conducts her negotiations, as I must honestly own, with a
pretty notion of diplomacy."
***
This is the only part of the reverend gentleman's letter that directly
affects this history. The rest contains some scandal concerning greater
personages about the Court, a great share of abuse of the Elector of
Hanover, and a pretty description of a boxing-match at Mr. Figg's
amphitheatre in Oxford Road, where John Wells, of Edmund Bury (as by
the papers may be seen), master of the noble science of self-defence, did
engage with Edward Sutton, of Gravesend, master of the said science; and
the issue of the combat.
"N. B."--adds the Father, in a postscript--"Monsieur Figue gives a hat

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to be cudgelled for before the Master mount; and the whole of this
fashionable information hath been given me by Monseigneur's son,
Monsieur Billings, garcon-tailleur, Chevalier de Galgenstein."
Mr. Billings was, in fact, a frequent visitor at the Ambassador's house;
to whose presence he, by a general order, was always admitted. As for the
connection between Mrs. Catherine and her former admirer, the Abbe's
history of it is perfectly correct; nor can it be said that this wretched
woman, whose tale now begins to wear a darker hue, was, in anything but
SOUL, faithless to her husband. But she hated him, longed to leave him,
and loved another: the end was coming quickly, and every one of our
unknowing actors and actresses were to be implicated, more or less, in the
catastrophe.
It will be seen that Mrs. Cat had followed pretty closely the injunctions
of Mr. Wood in regard to her dealings with the Count; who grew more
heart-stricken and tender daily, as the completion of his wishes was
delayed, and his desires goaded by contradiction. The Abbe has quoted
one portion of a letter written by him; here is the entire performance,
extracted, as the holy father said, chiefly from the romance of the "Grand
Cyrus".
"Unhappy Maximilian unto unjust Catherina.
"MADAM,--It must needs be that I love you better than any ever did,
since, notwithstanding your injustice in calling me perfidious, I love you
no less than I did before. On the contrary, my passion is so violent, and
your unjust accusation makes me so sensible of it, that if you did but know
the resentments of my soule, you would confess your selfe the most cruell
and unjust woman in the world. You shall, ere long, Madam, see me at
your feete; and as you were my first passion, so you will be my last.
"On my knees I will tell you, at the first handsom opportunity, that the
grandure of my passion can only be equalled by your beauty; it hath
driven me to such a fatall necessity, as that I cannot hide the misery which
you have caused. Sure, the hostil goddes have, to plague me, ordayned that
fatal marridge, by which you are bound to one so infinitly below you in
degree. Were that bond of ill-omind Hymen cut in twayn witch binds you,
I swear, Madam, that my happiniss woulde be to offer you this hande, as I

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have my harte long agoe. And I praye you to beare in minde this
declaracion, which I here sign with my hande, and witch I pray you may
one day be called upon to prove the truth on. Beleave me, Madam, that
there is none in the World who doth more honor to your vertue than
myselfe, nor who wishes your happinesse with more zeal than--
MAXIMILIAN.
"From my lodgings in Whitehall, this 25th of February.
"To the incomparable Catherina, these, with a scarlet satten petticoat."
The Count had debated about the sentence promising marriage in
event of Hayes's death; but the honest Abbe cut these scruples very short,
by saying, justly, that, because he wrote in that manner, there was no need
for him to act so; that he had better not sign and address the note in full;
and that he presumed his Excellency was not quite so timid as to fancy
that the woman would follow him all the way to Germany, when his
diplomatic duties would be ended; as they would soon.
The receipt of this billet caused such a flush of joy and exultation to
unhappy happy Mrs. Catherine, that Wood did not fail to remark it, and
speedily learned the contents of the letter. Wood had no need to bid the
poor wretch guard it very carefully: it never from that day forth left her; it
was her title of nobility,--her pass to rank, wealth, happiness. She began to
look down on her neighbours; her manner to her husband grew more than
ordinarily scornful; the poor vain wretch longed to tell her secret, and to
take her place openly in the world. She a Countess, and Tom a Count's son!
She felt that she should royally become the title!
About this time--and Hayes was very much frightened at the
prevalence of the rumour--it suddenly began to be about in his quarter that
he was going to quit the country. The story was in everybody's mouth;
people used to sneer when he turned pale, and wept, and passionately
denied it.
It was said, too, that Mrs. Hayes was not his wife, but his mistress--
everybody had this story--his mistress, whom he treated most cruelly, and
was about to desert. The tale of the blow which had felled her to the
ground was known in all quarters. When he declared that the woman tried
to stab him, nobody believed him: the women said he would have been

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served right if she had done so. How had these stories gone abroad?
"Three days more, and I WILL fly," thought Hayes; "and the world may
say what it pleases."
Ay, fool, fly--away so swiftly that Fate cannot overtake thee: hide so
cunningly that Death shall not find thy place of refuge!

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CHAPTER XIII. BEING A

PREPARATION FOR THE END.

The reader, doubtless, doth now partly understand what dark acts of
conspiracy are beginning to gather around Mr. Hayes; and possibly hath
comprehended--
1. That if the rumour was universally credited which declared that Mrs.
Catherine was only Hayes's mistress, and not his wife,
She might, if she so inclined, marry another person; and thereby not
injure her fame and excite wonderment, but actually add to her reputation.
2. That if all the world did steadfastly believe that Mr. Hayes intended
to desert this woman, after having cruelly maltreated her,
The direction which his journey might take would be of no
consequence; and he might go to Highgate, to Edinburgh, to
Constantinople, nay, down a well, and no soul would care to ask whither
he had gone.
These points Mr. Hayes had not considered duly. The latter case had
been put to him, and annoyed him, as we have seen; the former had
actually been pressed upon him by Mrs. Hayes herself; who, in almost the
only communication she had had with him since their last quarrel, had
asked him, angrily, in the presence of Wood and her son, whether he had
dared to utter such lies, and how it came to pass that the neighbours
looked scornfully at her, and avoided her?
To this charge Mr. Hayes pleaded, very meekly, that he was not guilty;
and young Billings, taking him by the collar, and clinching his fist in his
face, swore a dreadful oath that he would have the life of him if he dared
abuse his mother. Mrs. Hayes then spoke of the general report abroad, that
he was going to desert her; which, if he attempted to do, Mr. Billings
vowed that he would follow him to Jerusalem and have his blood. These
threats, and the insolent language of young Billings, rather calmed Hayes
than agitated him: he longed to be on his journey; but he began to hope
that no obstacle would be placed in the way of it. For the first time since

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many days, he began to enjoy a feeling something akin to security, and

could look with tolerable confidence towards a comfortable completion of
his own schemes of treason.
These points being duly settled, we are now arrived, O public, at a
point for which the author's soul hath been yearning ever since this history
commenced. We are now come, O critic, to a stage of the work when this
tale begins to assume an appearance so interestingly horrific, that you
must have a heart of stone if you are not interested by it. O candid and
discerning reader, who art sick of the hideous scenes of brutal bloodshed
which have of late come forth from pens of certain eminent wits,* if you
turn away disgusted from the book, remember that this passage hath not
been written for you, or such as you, who have taste to know and hate the
style in which it hath been composed; but for the public, which hath no
such taste:--for the public, which can patronise four different
representations of Jack Sheppard,--for the public whom its literary
providers have gorged with blood and foul Newgate garbage,--and to
whom we poor creatures, humbly following at the tail of our great high-
priests and prophets of the press, may, as in duty bound, offer some small
gift of our own: a little mite truly, but given with good-will. Come up, then,
fair Catherine and brave Count;--appear, gallant Brock, and faultless
Billings;--hasten hither, honest John Hayes: the former chapters are but
flowers in which we have been decking you for the sacrifice. Ascend to
the altar, ye innocent lambs, and prepare for the final act: lo! the knife is
sharpened, and the sacrificer ready! Stretch your throats, sweet ones,--for
the public is thirsty, and must have blood!
* This was written in 1840.

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CHAPTER THE LAST.

That Mr. Hayes had some notion of the attachment of Monsieur de

Galgenstein for his wife is very certain: the man could not but perceive
that she was more gaily dressed, and more frequently absent than usual;
and must have been quite aware that from the day of the quarrel until the
present period, Catherine had never asked him for a shilling for the house
expenses. He had not the heart to offer, however; nor, in truth, did she
seem to remember that money was due.
She received, in fact, many sums from the tender Count. Tom was
likewise liberally provided by the same personage; who was, moreover,
continually sending presents of various kinds to the person on whom his
affections were centred.
One of these gifts was a hamper of choice mountain-wine, which had
been some weeks in the house, and excited the longing of Mr. Hayes, who
loved wine very much. This liquor was generally drunk by Wood and
Billings, who applauded it greatly; and many times, in passing through the
back-parlour,--which he had to traverse in order to reach the stair, Hayes
had cast a tender eye towards the drink; of which, had he dared, he would
have partaken.
On the 1st of March, in the year 1726, Mr. Hayes had gathered
together almost the whole sum with which he intended to decamp; and
having on that very day recovered the amount of a bill which he thought
almost hopeless, he returned home in tolerable good-humour; and feeling,
so near was his period of departure, something like security. Nobody had
attempted the least violence on him: besides, he was armed with pistols,
had his money in bills in a belt about his person, and really reasoned with
himself that there was no danger for him to apprehend.
He entered the house about dusk, at five o'clock. Mrs. Hayes was
absent with Mr. Billings; only Mr. Wood was smoking, according to his
wont, in the little back-parlour; and as Mr. Hayes passed, the old
gentleman addressed him in a friendly voice, and, wondering that he had
been such a stranger, invited him to sit and take a glass of wine. There was
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a light and a foreman in the shop; Mr. Hayes gave his injunctions to that
person, and saw no objection to Mr. Wood's invitation.
The conversation, at first a little stiff between the two gentlemen,
began speedily to grow more easy and confidential: and so particularly
bland and good-humoured was Mr., or Doctor Wood, that his companion
was quite caught, and softened by the charm of his manner; and the pair
became as good friends as in the former days of their intercourse.
"I wish you would come down sometimes of evenings," quoth Doctor
Wood; "for, though no book-learned man, Mr. Hayes, look you, you are a
man of the world, and I can't abide the society of boys. There's Tom, now,
since this tiff with Mrs. Cat, the scoundrel plays the Grank Turk here! The
pair of 'em, betwixt them, have completely gotten the upper hand of you.
Confess that you are beaten, Master Hayes, and don't like the boy?"
"No more I do," said Hayes; "and that's the truth on't. A man doth not
like to have his wife's sins flung in his face, nor to be perpetually bullied
in his own house by such a fiery sprig as that."
"Mischief, sir,--mischief only," said Wood: "'tis the fun of youth, sir,
and will go off as age comes to the lad. Bad as you may think him--and he
is as skittish and fierce, sure enough, as a young colt---there is good stuff
in him; and though he hath, or fancies he hath, the right to abuse every one,
by the Lord he will let none others do so! Last week, now, didn't he tell
Mrs. Cat that you served her right in the last beating matter? and weren't
they coming to knives, just as in your case? By my faith, they were. Ay,
and at the "Braund's Head," when some fellow said that you were a bloody
Bluebeard, and would murder your wife, stab me if Tom wasn't up in an
instant and knocked the fellow down for abusing of you!"
The first of these stories was quite true; the second was only a
charitable invention of Mr. Wood, and employed, doubtless, for the
amiable purpose of bringing the old and young men together. The scheme
partially succeeded; for, though Hayes was not so far mollified towards
Tom as to entertain any affection for a young man whom he had cordially
detested ever since he knew him, yet he felt more at ease and cheerful
regarding himself: and surely not without reason. While indulging in these
benevolent sentiments, Mrs. Catherine and her son arrived, and found,

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somewhat to their astonishment, Mr. Hayes seated in the back-parlour, as

in former times; and they were invited by Mr. Wood to sit down and drink.
We have said that certain bottles of mountain-wine were presented by
the Count to Mrs. Catherine: these were, at Mr. Wood's suggestion,
produced; and Hayes, who had long been coveting them, was charmed to
have an opportunity to drink his fill. He forthwith began bragging of his
great powers as a drinker, and vowed that he could manage eight bottles
without becoming intoxicated.
Mr. Wood grinned strangely, and looked in a peculiar way at Tom
Billings, who grinned too. Mrs. Cat's eyes were turned towards the ground:
but her face was deadly pale.
The party began drinking. Hayes kept up his reputation as a toper, and
swallowed one, two, three bottles without wincing. He grew talkative and
merry, and began to sing songs and to cut jokes; at which Wood laughed
hugely, and Billings after him. Mrs. Cat could not laugh; but sat silent.
What ailed her? Was she thinking of the Count? She had been with
Max that day, and had promised him, for the next night at ten, an interview
near his lodgings at Whitehall. It was the first time that she would see him
alone. They were to meet (not a very cheerful place for a love-tryst) at St.
Margaret's churchyard, near Westminster Abbey. Of this, no doubt, Cat
was thinking; but what could she mean by whispering to Wood, "No, no!
for God's sake, not tonight!"
"She means we are to have no more liquor," said Wood to Mr. Hayes;
who heard this sentence, and seemed rather alarmed.
"That's it,--no more liquor," said Catherine eagerly; "you have had
enough to-night. Go to bed, and lock your door, and sleep, Mr. Hayes."
"But I say I've NOT had enough drink!" screamed Hayes; "I'm good
for five bottles more, and wager I will drink them too."
"Done, for a guinea!" said Wood.
"Done, and done!" said Billings.
"Be YOU quiet!" growled Hayes, scowling at the lad. "I will drink
what I please, and ask no counsel of yours." And he muttered some more
curses against young Billings, which showed what his feelings were
towards his wife's son; and which the latter, for a wonder, only received

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with a scornful smile, and a knowing look at Wood.

Well! the five extra bottles were brought, and drunk by Mr. Hayes; and
seasoned by many songs from the recueil of Mr. Thomas d'Urfey and
others. The chief part of the talk and merriment was on Hayes's part; as,
indeed, was natural,--for, while he drank bottle after bottle of wine, the
other two gentlemen confined themselves to small beer,--both pleading
illness as an excuse for their sobriety.
And now might we depict, with much accuracy, the course of Mr.
Hayes's intoxication, as it rose from the merriment of the three-bottle point
to the madness of the four--from the uproarious quarrelsomeness of the
sixth bottle to the sickly stupidity of the seventh; but we are desirous of
bringing this tale to a conclusion, and must pretermit all consideration of a
subject so curious, so instructive, and so delightful. Suffice it to say, as a
matter of history, that Mr. Hayes did actually drink seven bottles of
mountain-wine; and that Mr. Thomas Billings went to the "Braund's
Head," in Bond Street, and purchased another, which Hayes likewise
drank.
"That'll do," said Mr. Wood to young Billings; and they led Hayes up
to bed, whither, in truth, he was unable to walk himself.
***
Mrs. Springatt, the lodger, came down to ask what the noise was. "'Tis
only Tom Billings making merry with some friends from the country,"
answered Mrs. Hayes; whereupon Springatt retired, and the house was
quiet.
***
Some scuffling and stamping was heard about eleven o'clock.
***
After they had seen Mr. Hayes to bed, Billings remembered that he
had a parcel to carry to some person in the neighbourhood of the Strand;
and, as the night was remarkably fine, he and Mr. Wood agreed to walk
together, and set forth accordingly.
(Here follows a description of the THAMES AT MIDNIGHT, in a fine
historical style; with an account of Lambeth, Westminster, the Savoy,
Baynard's Castle, Arundel House, the Temple; of Old London Bridge, with

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its twenty arches, "on which be houses builded, so that it seemeth rather a
continuall street than a bridge;"--of Bankside, and the "Globe" and the
"Fortune" Theatres; of the ferries across the river, and of the pirates who
infest the same--namely, tinklermen, petermen, hebbermen, trawlermen; of
the fleet of barges that lay at the Savoy steps; and of the long lines of slim
wherries sleeping on the river banks and basking and shining in the
moonbeams. A combat on the river is described, that takes place between
the crews of a tinklerman's boat and the water-bailiffs. Shouting his war-
cry, "St. Mary Overy a la rescousse!" the water-bailiff sprung at the throat
of the tinklerman captain. The crews of both vessels, as if aware that the
struggle of their chiefs would decide the contest, ceased hostilities, and
awaited on their respective poops the issue of the death-shock. It was not
long coming. "Yield, dog!" said the water-bailiff. The tinklerman could
not answer--for his throat was grasped too tight in the iron clench of the
city champion; but drawing his snickersnee, he plunged it seven times in
the bailiff's chest: still the latter fell not. The death-rattle gurgled in the
throat of his opponent; his arms fell heavily to his side. Foot to foot, each
standing at the side of his boat, stood the brave men--THEY WERE
BOTH DEAD! "In the name of St. Clement Danes," said the master, "give
way, my men!" and, thrusting forward his halberd (seven feet long, richly
decorated with velvet and brass nails, and having the city arms, argent, a
cross gules, and in the first quarter a dagger displayed of the second), he
thrust the tinklerman's boat away from his own; and at once the bodies of
the captains plunged down, down, down, down in the unfathomable
waters.
After this follows another episode. Two masked ladies quarrel at the
door of a tavern overlooking the Thames: they turn out to be Stella and
Vanessa, who have followed Swift thither; who is in the act of reading
"Gulliver's Travels" to Gay, Arbuthnot, Bolingbroke, and Pope. Two
fellows are sitting shuddering under a doorway; to one of them Tom
Billings flung a sixpence. He little knew that the names of those two
young men were--Samuel Johnson and Richard Savage.)

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ANOTHER LAST CHAPTER.

Mr. Hayes did not join the family the next day; and it appears that the
previous night's reconciliation was not very durable; for when Mrs.
Springatt asked Wood for Hayes, Mr. Wood stated that Hayes had gone
away without saying whither he was bound, or how long he might be
absent. He only said, in rather a sulky tone, that he should probably pass
the night at a friend's house. "For my part, I know of no friend he hath,"
added Mr. Wood; "and pray Heaven that he may not think of deserting his
poor wife, whom he hath beaten and ill-used so already!" In this prayer
Mrs. Springatt joined; and so these two worthy people parted.
What business Billings was about cannot be said; but he was this night
bound towards Marylebone Fields, as he was the night before for the
Strand and Westminster; and, although the night was very stormy and
rainy, as the previous evening had been fine, old Wood good-naturedly
resolved upon accompanying him; and forth they sallied together.
Mrs. Catherine, too, had HER business, as we have seen; but this was
of a very delicate nature. At nine o'clock, she had an appointment with the
Count; and faithfully, by that hour, had found her way to Saint Margaret's
churchyard, near Westminster Abbey, where she awaited Monsieur de
Galgenstein.
The spot was convenient, being very lonely, and at the same time close
to the Count's lodgings at Whitehall. His Excellency came, but somewhat
after the hour; for, to say the truth, being a freethinker, he had the most
firm belief in ghosts and demons, and did not care to pace a churchyard
alone. He was comforted, therefore, when he saw a woman muffled in a
cloak, who held out her hand to him at the gate, and said, "Is that you?"
He took her hand,--it was very clammy and cold; and at her desire he bade
his confidential footman, who had attended him with a torch, to retire, and
leave him to himself.
The torch-bearer retired, and left them quite in darkness; and the pair
entered the little cemetery, cautiously threading their way among the
tombs. They sat down on one, underneath a tree it seemed to be; the wind
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was very cold, and its piteous howling was the only noise that broke the
silence of the place. Catherine's teeth were chattering, for all her wraps;
and when Max drew her close to him, and encircled her waist with one
arm, and pressed her hand, she did not repulse him, but rather came close
to him, and with her own damp fingers feebly returned his pressure.
The poor thing was very wretched and weeping. She confided to Max
the cause of her grief. She was alone in the world,--alone and penniless.
Her husband had left her; she had that very day received a letter from him
which confirmed all that she had suspected so long. He had left her,
carried away all his property, and would not return!
If we say that a selfish joy filled the breast of Monsieur de Galgenstein,
the reader will not be astonished. A heartless libertine, he felt glad at the
prospect of Catherine's ruin; for he hoped that necessity would make her
his own. He clasped the poor thing to his heart, and vowed that he would
replace the husband she had lost, and that his fortune should be hers.
"Will you replace him?" said she.
"Yes, truly, in everything but the name, dear Catherine; and when he
dies, I swear you shall be Countess of Galgenstein."
"Will you swear?" she cried, eagerly.
"By everything that is most sacred: were you free now, I would" (and
here he swore a terrific oath) "at once make you mine."
We have seen before that it cost Monsieur de Galgenstein nothing to
make these vows. Hayes was likely, too, to live as long as Catherine--as
long, at least, as the Count's connection with her; but he was caught in his
own snare.
She took his hand and kissed it repeatedly, and bathed it in her tears,
and pressed it to her bosom. "Max," she said, "I AM FREE! Be mine, and
I will love you as I have done for years and years."
Max started back. "What, is he dead?" he said.
"No, no, not dead: but he never was my husband."
He let go her hand, and, interrupting her, said sharply, "Indeed, madam,
if this carpenter never was your husband, I see no cause why _I_ should be.
If a lady, who hath been for twenty years the mistress of a miserable
country boor, cannot find it in her heart to put up with the protection of a

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nobleman--a sovereign's representative--she may seek a husband

elsewhere!"
"I was no man's mistress except yours," sobbed Catherine, wringing
her hands and sobbing wildly; "but, O Heaven! I deserved this. Because I
was a child, and you saw, and ruined, and left me--because, in my sorrow
and repentance, I wished to repair my crime, and was touched by that
man's love, and married him--because he too deceives and leaves me--
because, after loving you--madly loving you for twenty years--I will not
now forfeit your respect, and degrade myself by yielding to your will, you
too must scorn me! It is too much--too much--O Heaven!" And the
wretched woman fell back almost fainting.
Max was almost frightened by this burst of sorrow on her part, and
was coming forward to support her; but she motioned him away, and,
taking from her bosom a letter, said, "If it were light, you could see, Max,
how cruelly I have been betrayed by that man who called himself my
husband. Long before he married me, he was married to another. This
woman is still living, he says; and he says he leaves me for ever."
At this moment the moon, which had been hidden behind Westminster
Abbey, rose above the vast black mass of that edifice, and poured a flood
of silver light upon the little church of St. Margaret's, and the spot where
the lovers stood. Max was at a little distance from Catherine, pacing
gloomily up and down the flags. She remained at her old position at the
tombstone under the tree, or pillar, as it seemed to be, as the moon got up.
She was leaning against the pillar, and holding out to Max, with an arm
beautifully white and rounded, the letter she had received from her
husband: "Read it, Max," she said: "I asked for light, and here is Heaven's
own, by which you may read."
But Max did not come forward to receive it. On a sudden his face
assumed a look of the most dreadful surprise and agony. He stood still,
and stared with wild eyes starting from their sockets; he stared upwards, at
a point seemingly above Catherine's head. At last he raised up his finger
slowly and said, "Look, Cat--THE HEAD--THE HEAD!" Then uttering a
horrible laugh, he fell down grovelling among the stones, gibbering and
writhing in a fit of epilepsy.

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Catherine started forward and looked up. She had been standing
against a post, not a tree--the moon was shining full on it now; and on the
summit strangely distinct, and smiling ghastly, was a livid human head.
The wretched woman fled--she dared look no more. And some hours
afterwards, when, alarmed by the Count's continued absence, his
confidential servant came back to seek for him in the churchyard, he was
found sitting on the flags, staring full at the head, and laughing, and
talking to it wildly, and nodding at it. He was taken up a hopeless idiot,
and so lived for years and years; clanking the chain, and moaning under
the lash, and howling through long nights when the moon peered through
the bars of his solitary cell, and he buried his face in the straw.
***
There--the murder is out! And having indulged himself in a chapter of
the very finest writing, the author begs the attention of the British public
towards it; humbly conceiving that it possesses some of those peculiar
merits which have rendered the fine writing in other chapters of the works
of other authors so famous.
Without bragging at all, let us just point out the chief claims of the
above pleasing piece of composition. In the first place, it is perfectly
stilted and unnatural; the dialogue and the sentiments being artfully
arranged, so as to be as strong and majestic as possible. Our dear Cat is
but a poor illiterate country wench, who has come from cutting her
husband's throat; and yet, see! she talks and looks like a tragedy princess,
who is suffering in the most virtuous blank verse. This is the proper end of
fiction, and one of the greatest triumphs that a novelist can achieve: for to
make people sympathise with virtue is a vulgar trick that any common
fellow can do; but it is not everybody who can take a scoundrel, and cause
us to weep and whimper over him as though he were a very saint. Give a
young lady of five years old a skein of silk and a brace of netting-needles,
and she will in a short time turn you out a decent silk purse--anybody can;
but try her with a sow's ear, and see whether she can make a silk purse out
of THAT. That is the work for your real great artist; and pleasant it is to
see how many have succeeded in these latter days.
The subject is strictly historical, as anyone may see by referring to the

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Daily Post of March 3, 1726, which contains the following paragraph:

"Yesterday morning, early, a man's head, that by the freshness of it
seemed to have been newly cut off from the body, having its own hair on,
was found by the river's side, near Millbank, Westminster, and was
afterwards exposed to public view in St. Margaret's churchyard, where
thousands of people have seen it; but none could tell who the unhappy
person was, much less who committed such a horrid and barbarous action.
There are various conjectures relating to the deceased; but there being
nothing certain, we omit them. The head was much hacked and mangled in
the cutting off."
The head which caused such an impression upon Monsieur de
Galgenstein was, indeed, once on the shoulders of Mr. John Hayes, who
lost it under the following circumstances. We have seen how Mr. Hayes
was induced to drink. Mr. Hayes having been encouraged in drinking the
wine, and growing very merry therewith, he sang and danced about the
room; but his wife, fearing the quantity he had drunk would not have the
wished-for effect on him, she sent away for another bottle, of which he
drank also. This effectually answered their expectations; and Mr. Hayes
became thereby intoxicated, and deprived of his understanding.
He, however, made shift to get into the other room, and, throwing
himself upon the bed, fell asleep; upon which Mrs. Hayes reminded them
of the affair in hand, and told them that was the most proper juncture to
finish the business. *
***
* The description of the murder and the execution of the culprits,
which here follows in the original, was taken from the newspapers of the
day. Coming from such a source they have, as may be imagined, no
literary merit whatever. The details of the crime are simply horrible,
without one touch of even that sort of romance which sometimes gives a
little dignity to murder. As such they precisely suited Mr. Thackeray's
purpose at the time--which was to show the real manners and customs of
the Sheppards and Turpins who were then the popular heroes of fiction.
But nowadays there is no such purpose to serve, and therefore these too
literal details are omitted.

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***
Ring, ding, ding! the gloomy green curtain drops, the dramatis
personae are duly disposed of, the nimble candle snuffers put out the lights,
and the audience goeth pondering home. If the critic take the pains to ask
why the author, who hath been so diffuse in describing the early and
fabulous acts of Mrs. Catherine's existence, should so hurry off the
catastrophe where a deal of the very finest writing might have been
employed, Solomons replies that the "ordinary" narrative is far more
emphatic than any composition of his own could be, with all the rhetorical
graces which he might employ. Mr. Aram's trial, as taken by the penny-a-
liners of those days, had always interested him more than the lengthened
and poetical report which an eminent novelist has given of the same. Mr.
Turpin's adventures are more instructive and agreeable to him in the
account of the Newgate Plutarch, than in the learned Ainsworth's
Biographical Dictionary. And as he believes that the professional
gentlemen who are employed to invest such heroes with the rewards that
their great actions merit, will go through the ceremony of the grand cordon
with much more accuracy and despatch than can be shown by the most
distinguished amateur; in like manner he thinks that the history of such
investitures should be written by people directly concerned, and not by
admiring persons without, who must be ignorant of many of the secrets of
Ketchcraft. We very much doubt if Milton himself could make a
description of an execution half so horrible as the simple lines in the Daily
Post of a hundred and ten years since, that now lies before us--"herrlich
wie am ersten Tag,"--as bright and clean as on the day of publication.
Think of it! it has been read by Belinda at her toilet, scanned at "Button's"
and "Will's," sneered at by wits, talked of in palaces and cottages, by a
busy race in wigs, red heels, hoops, patches, and rags of all variety--a busy
race that hath long since plunged and vanished in the unfathomable gulf
towards which we march so briskly.
Where are they? "Afflavit Deus"--and they are gone! Hark! is not the
same wind roaring still that shall sweep us down? and yonder stands the
compositor at his types who shall put up a pretty paragraph some day to
say how, "Yesterday, at his house in Grosvenor Square," or "At Botany

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Bay, universally regretted," died So-and-So. Into what profound moralities

is the paragraph concerning Mrs. Catherine's burning leading us!
Ay, truly, and to that very point have we wished to come; for, having
finished our delectable meal, it behoves us to say a word or two by way of
grace at its conclusion, and be heartily thankful that it is over. It has been
the writer's object carefully to exclude from his drama (except in two very
insignificant instances--mere walking-gentlemen parts), any characters but
those of scoundrels of the very highest degree. That he has not altogether
failed in the object he had in view, is evident from some newspaper
critiques which he has had the good fortune to see; and which abuse the
tale of "Catherine" as one of the dullest, most vulgar, and immoral works
extant. It is highly gratifying to the author to find that such opinions are
abroad, as they convince him that the taste for Newgate literature is on the
wane, and that when the public critic has right down undisguised
immorality set before him, the honest creature is shocked at it, as he
should be, and can declare his indignation in good round terms of abuse.
The characters of the tale ARE immoral, and no doubt of it; but the writer
humbly hopes the end is not so. The public was, in our notion, dosed and
poisoned by the prevailing style of literary practice, and it was necessary
to administer some medicine that would produce a wholesome nausea, and
afterwards bring about a more healthy habit.
And, thank Heaven, this effect HAS been produced in very many
instances, and that the "Catherine" cathartic has acted most efficaciously.
The author has been pleased at the disgust which his work has excited, and
has watched with benevolent carefulness the wry faces that have been
made by many of the patients who have swallowed the dose. Solomons
remembers, at the establishment in Birchin Lane where he had the honour
of receiving his education, there used to be administered to the boys a
certain cough-medicine, which was so excessively agreeable that all the
lads longed to have colds in order to partake of the remedy. Some of our
popular novelists have compounded their drugs in a similar way, and made
them so palatable that a public, once healthy and honest, has been well-
nigh poisoned by their wares. Solomons defies anyone to say the like of
himself--that his doses have been as pleasant as champagne, and his pills

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as sweet as barley-sugar;--it has been his attempt to make vice to appear

entirely vicious; and in those instances where he hath occasionally
introduced something like virtue, to make the sham as evident as possible,
and not allow the meanest capacity a single chance to mistake it.
And what has been the consequence? That wholesome nausea which it
has been his good fortune to create wherever he has been allowed to
practise in his humble circle.
Has anyone thrown away a halfpennyworth of sympathy upon any
person mentioned in this history? Surely no. But abler and more famous
men than Solomons have taken a different plan; and it becomes every man
in his vocation to cry out against such, and expose their errors as best he
may.
Labouring under such ideas, Mr. Isaac Solomons, junior, produced the
romance of Mrs. Cat, and confesses himself completely happy to have
brought it to a conclusion. His poem may be dull--ay, and probably is. The
great Blackmore, the great Dennis, the great Sprat, the great Pomfret, not
to mention great men of our own time--have they not also been dull, and
had pretty reputations too? Be it granted Solomons IS dull; but don't attack
his morality; he humbly submits that, in his poem, no man shall mistake
virtue for vice, no man shall allow a single sentiment of pity or admiration
to enter his bosom for any character of the piece: it being, from beginning
to end, a scene of unmixed rascality performed by persons who never
deviate into good feeling. And although he doth not pretend to equal the
great modern authors, whom he hath mentioned, in wit or descriptive
power; yet, in the point of moral, he meekly believes that he has been their
superior; feeling the greatest disgust for the characters he describes, and
using his humble endeavour to cause the public also to hate them.
Horsemonger Lane: January 1840.

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