CHAPTER XXVIII.
God bless our King and Parliament,
And send he may make such knaves repent!
Loyal Songs against the Rump Parliament.
Ho, treachery! my guards, my cimeter!
BYRON.
When the irreverent Mr. Pepper had warmed his hands sufficiently to be
able to transfer them from the fire, he lifted the right palm, and with
an indecent jocularity of spirits, accosted the _ci-devant_ ornament of
"The Asinaeum" with a sounding slap on his back, or some such part of his
conformation.
"Ah, old boy!" said he, "is this the way you keep house for us? A fire
not large enough to roast a nit, and a supper too small to fatten him
beforehand! But how the deuce should you know how to provender for
gentlemen? You thought you were in Scotland, I'll be bound!"
"Perhaps he did when he looked upon you, Ned!" said Tomlinson, gravely;
"'t is but rarely out of Scotland that a man can see so big a rogue in so
little a compass!"
Mr. MacGrawler, into whose eyes the palmistry of Long Ned had brought
tears of sincere feeling, and who had hitherto been rubbing the afflicted
part, now grumbled forth,--
"You may say what you please, Mr. Pepper, but it is not often in my
country that men of genius are seen performing the part of cook to
robbers!"
"No!" quoth Tomlinson, "they are performing the more profitable part of
robbers to cooks, eh!"
"Damme, you're out," cried Long Ned,--"for in that country there are
either no robbers, because there is nothing to rob; or the inhabitants
are all robbers, who have plundered one another, and made away with the
booty!"
"May the de'il catch thee!" said MacGrawler, stung to the quick,--for,
like all Scots, he was a patriot; much on the same principle as a woman
who has the worst children makes the best mother.
"The de'il," said Ned, mimicking the "silver sound," as Sir W. Scott had
been pleased facetiously to call the "mountain tongue" (the Scots in
general seem to think it is silver, they keep it so carefully) "the
de'il,--_MacDeil_, you mean, sure, the gentleman must have been a
Scotchman!"
The sage grinned in spite; but remembering the patience of Epictetus when
a slave, and mindful also of the strong arm of Long Ned, he curbed his
temper, and turned the beefsteaks with his fork.
"Well, Ned," said Augustus, throwing himself into a chair, which he drew
to the fire, while he gently patted the huge limbs of Mr. Pepper, as if
to admonish him that they were not so transparent as glass, "let us look
at the fire; and, by the by, it is your turn to see to the horses."
"Plague on it!" cried Ned; "it is always my turn, I think. Holla, you
Scot of the pot! can't you prove that I groomed the beasts last? I'll
give you a crown to do it."
The wise MacGrawler pricked up his ears.
"A crown!" said he,--"a crown! Do you mean to insult me, Mr. Pepper?
But, to be sure, you did see to the horses last; and this worthy
gentleman, Mr. Tomlinson, must remember it too."
"How!" cried Augustus; "you are mistaken, and I'll give you half a guinea
to prove it."
MacGrawler opened his eyes larger and larger, even as you may see a small
circle in the water widen into enormity, if you disturb the equanimity of
the surface by the obtrusion of a foreign substance.
"Half a guinea!" said he; "nay, nay, you joke. I'm not mercenary. You
think I am! Pooh, pooh! you are mistaken; I'm a man who means weel, a
man of veracity, and will speak the truth in spite of all the half-
guineas in the world. But certainly, now I begin to think of it, Mr.
Tomlinson did see to the creatures last; and, Mr. Pepper, it is your
turn."
"A very Daniel!" said Tomlinson, chuckling in his usual dry manner.
"Ned, don't you hear the horses neigh?"
"Oh, hang the horses!" said the volatile Pepper, forgetting everything
else, as he thrust his hands in his pockets, and felt the gains of the
night; "let us first look to our winnings!"
So saying, he marched towards the table, and emptied his pockets thereon.
Tomlinson, nothing loath, followed the example. Heavens! what
exclamations of delight issued from the scoundrels' lips, as, one by one,
they inspected their new acquisitions!
"Here's a magnificent creature!" cried Ned, handling that superb watch
studded with jewels which the poor earl had once before unavailingly
redeemed,--"a repeater, by Jove!"
"I hope not," said the phlegmatic Augustus; "repeaters will not tell well
for your conversation, Ned! But, powers that be! look at this ring,--a
diamond of the first water!"
"Oh, the sparkler! it makes one's mouth water as much as itself.
'Sdeath, here's a precious box for a sneezer,--a picture inside, and
rubies outside! The old fellow had excellent taste; it would charm him
to see how pleased we are with his choice of jewelry!"
"Talking of jewelry," said Tomlinson, "I had almost forgotten the morocco
case. Between you and me, I imagine we have a prize there; it looks like
a jewel casket!"
So saying, the robber opened that case which on many a gala day had lent
lustre to the polished person of Mauleverer. Oh, reader, the burst of
rapture that ensued! Imagine it! we cannot express it. Like the Grecian
painter, we drop a veil over emotions too deep for words.
"But here," said Pepper, when they had almost exhausted their transports
at sight of the diamonds,--"here's a purse,--fifty guineas! And what's
this? Notes, by Jupiter! We must change them to-morrow before they are
stopped. Curse those fellows at the Bank! they are always imitating us,
we stop their money, and they don't lose a moment in stopping it too.
Three hundred pounds! Captain, what say you to our luck?" Clifford had
sat gloomily looking on during the operations of the robbers; he now,
assuming a correspondent cheerfulness of manner, made a suitable reply,
and after some general conversation the work of division took place.
"We are the best arithmeticians in the world," said Augustus, as he
pouched his share; "addition, subtraction, division, reduction,--we have
them all as pat as 'The Tutor's Assistant;' and, what is better, we make
them all applicable to the _Rule of Three_."
"You have left out multiplication!" said Clifford, smiling. "Ah!
because that works differently. The other rules apply to the specie-s of
the kingdom; but as for multiplication, we multiply, I fear, no species
but our own!"
"Fie, gentlemen!" said MacGrawler, austerely,--for there is a wonderful
decorum in your true Scotsmen. "Actions are trifles; nothing can be
cleaner than their words!"
"Oh, you thrust in your wisdom, do you?" said Ned. "I suppose you want
your part of the booty!"
"Part!" said the subtilizing Tomlinson. "He has nine times as many parts
as we have already. Is he not a critic, and has he not the parts of
speech at his fingers' end?"
"Nonsense!" said MacGrawler, instinctively holding up his hands, with the
fork dropping between the outstretched fingers of the right palm.
"Nonsense yourself," cried Ned; "you have a share in what you never took!
A pretty fellow, truly! Mind your business, Mr. Scot, and fork nothing
but the beefsteaks!"
With this Ned turned to the stables, and soon disappeared among the
horses; but Clifford, eying the disappointed and eager face of the
culinary sage, took ten guineas from his own share, and pushed them
towards his quondam tutor.
"There!" said he, emphatically.
"Nay, nay," grunted MacGrawler; "I don't want the money,--it is my way
to scorn such dross!" So saying, he pocketed the coins, and turned,
muttering to himself, to the renewal of his festive preparations.
Meanwhile a whispered conversation took place between Augustus and the
captain, and continued till Ned returned.
"And the night's viands smoked along the board!"
Souls of Don Raphael and Ambrose Lamela, what a charming thing it is to
be a rogue for a little time! How merry men are when they have cheated
their brethren! Your innocent milksops never made so jolly a supper as
did our heroes of the way. Clifford, perhaps acted a part, but the
hilarity of his comrades was unfeigned. It was a delicious contrast,--
the boisterous "ha, ha!" of Long Ned, and the secret, dry, calculating
chuckle of Augustus Tomlinson. It was Rabelais against Voltaire. They
united only in the objects of their jests, and foremost of those objects
(wisdom is ever the but of the frivolous!) was the great Peter
MacGrawler.
The graceless dogs were especially merry upon the subject of the sage's
former occupation.
"Come, Mac, you carve this ham," said Ned; "you have had practice in
cutting up."
The learned man whose name was thus disrespectfully abbreviated proceeded
to perform what he was bid. He was about to sit down for that purpose,
when Tomlinson slyly subtracted his chair,--the sage fell.
"No jests at MacGrawler," said the malicious Augustus; "whatever be his
faults as a critic, you see that he is well grounded, and he gets at once
to the bottom of a subject. Mac, suppose your next work be entitled a
Tail of Woe!"
Men who have great minds are rarely flexible,--they do not take a jest
readily; so it was with MacGrawler. He rose in a violent rage; and had
the robbers been more penetrating than they condescended to be, they
might have noticed something dangerous in his eye. As it was, Clifford,
who had often before been the protector of his tutor, interposed in his
behalf, drew the sage a seat near to himself, and filled his plate for
him. It was interesting to see this deference from Power to Learning!
It was Alexander doing homage to Aristotle!
"There is only one thing I regret," cried Ned, with his mouth full,
"about the old lord,--it was a thousand pities we did not make him dance!
I remember the day, Captain, when you would have insisted on it. What a
merry fellow you were once! Do you recollect, one bright moonlight
night, just like the present, for instance, when we were doing duty near
Staines, how you swore every person we stopped, above fifty years old,
should dance a minuet with you?"
"Ay!" added Augustus, "and the first was a bishop in a white wig. Faith,
how stiffly his lordship jigged it! And how gravely Lovett bowed to him,
with his hat off, when it was all over, and returned him his watch and
ten guineas,--it was worth the sacrifice!"
"And the next was an old maid of quality," said Ned, "as lean as a
lawyer. Don't you remember how she curvetted?"
"To be sure," said Tomlinson; "and you very wittily called her a hop-
pole!"
"How delighted she was with the captain's suavity! When he gave her back
her earrings and aigrette, she bade him with a tender sigh keep them for
her sake,--ha! ha!"
"And the third was a beau!" cried Augustus; "and Lovett surrendered his
right of partnership to me. Do you recollect how I danced his beauship
into the ditch? Ah! we were mad fellows then; but we get sated--
_blases_, as the French say--as we grow older!"
"We look only to the main chance now," said Ned. "Avarice supersedes
enterprise," added the sententious Augustus.
"And our captain takes to wine with an _h_ after the _w_!" continued the
metaphorical Ned.
"Come, we are melancholy," said Tomlinson, tossing off a bumper.
"Methinks we are really growing old, we shall repent soon, and the next
step will be-hanging!"
"'Fore Gad!" said Ned, helping himself, "don't be so croaking. There are
two classes of maligned gentry, who should always be particular to avoid
certain colours in dressing; I hate to see a true boy in black, or a
devil in blue. But here's my last glass to-night! I am confoundedly
sleepy, and we rise early to-morrow."
"Right, Ned," said Tomlinson; "give us a song before you retire, and let
it be that one which Lovett composed the last time we were here."
Ned, always pleased with an opportunity of displaying himself, cleared
his voice and complied.
A DITTY FROM SHERWOOD.
I.
Laugh with us at the prince and the palace,
In the wild wood-life there is better cheer;
Would you board your mirth from your neighbour's malice,
Gather it up in our garners here.
Some kings their wealth from their subjects wring,
While by their foes they the poorer wax;
Free go the men of the wise wood-king,
And it is only our foes we tax.
Leave the cheats of trade to the shrewd gude-wife
Let the old be knaves at ease;
Away with the tide of that dashing life
Which is stirred by a constant breeze!
II.
Laugh with us when you hear deceiving
And solemn rogues tell you what knaves we be
Commerce and law have a method of thieving
Worse than a stand at the outlaw's tree.
Say, will the maiden we love despise
Gallants at least to each other true?
I grant that we trample on legal ties,
But I have heard that Love scorns them too,
Courage, then,--courage, ye jolly boys,
Whom the fool with the knavish rates
Oh! who that is loved by the world enjoys
Half as much as the man it hates?
"Bravissimo, Ned!" cried Tomlinson, rapping the table; "bravissimo! Your
voice is superb to-night, and your song admirable. Really, Lovett, it
does your poetical genius great credit; quite philosophical, upon my
honour."
"Bravissimo!" said MacGrawler, nodding his head awfully. "Mr. Pepper's
voice is as sweet as a bagpipe! Ah! such a song would have been
invaluable to 'The Asinaeum,' when I had the honour to--"
"Be Vicar of _Bray_ to that establishment," interrupted Tomlinson.
"Pray, MacGrawler, why do they call Edinburgh the Modern Athens?"
"Because of the learned and great men it produces," returned MacGrawler,
with conscious pride.
"Pooh! pooh!--you are thinking of ancient Athens. Your city is called
the modern Athens because you are all so like the modern Athenians,--the
greatest scoundrels imaginable, unless travellers belie them."
"Nay," interrupted Ned, who was softened by the applause of the critic,
"Mac is a good fellow, spare him. Gentlemen, your health. I am going to
bed, and I suppose you will not tarry long behind me."
"Trust us for that," answered Tomlinson; "the captain and I will consult
on the business of the morrow, and join you in the twinkling of a
bedpost, as it has been shrewdly expressed."
Ned yawned his last "good-night," and disappeared within the dormitory.
MacGrawler, yawning also, but with a graver yawn, as became his wisdom,
betook himself to the duty of removing the supper paraphernalia: after
bustling soberly about for some minutes, he let down a press-bed in the
corner of the cave (for he did not sleep in the robbers' apartment), and
undressing himself, soon appeared buried in the bosom of Morpheus. But
the chief and Tomlinson, drawing their seats nearer to the dying embers,
defied the slothful god, and entered with low tones into a close and
anxious commune.
"So, then," said Augustus, "now that you have realized sufficient funds
for your purpose, you will really desert us? Have you well weighed the
pros and cons? Remember that nothing is so dangerous to our state as
reform; the moment a man grows honest, the gang forsake him; the
magistrate misses his fee; the informer peaches; and the recusant hangs."
"I have well weighed all this," answered Clifford, "and have decided on
my course. I have only tarried till my means could assist my will. With
my share of our present and late booty, I shall betake myself to the
Continent. Prussia gives easy trust and ready promotion to all who will
enlist in her service. But this language, my dear friend, seems strange
from your lips. Surely you will join me in my separation from the corps?
What! you shake your head! Are you not the same Tomlinson who at Bath
agreed with me that we were in danger from the envy of our comrades, and
that retreat had become necessary to our safety? Nay, was not this your
main argument for our matrimonial expedition?"
"Why, look you, dear Lovett," said Augustus, "we are all blocks of
matter, formed from the atoms of custom; in other words, we are a
mechanism, to which habit is the spring. What could I do in an honest
career? I am many years older than you. I have lived as a rogue till I
have no other nature than roguery. I doubt if I should not be a coward
were I to turn soldier. I am sure I should be the most consummate of
rascals were I to affect to be honest. No: I mistook myself when I
talked of separation. I must e'en jog on with my old comrades, and in my
old ways; till I jog into the noose hempen or--melancholy alternative!--
the noose matrimonial."
"This is mere folly," said Clifford, from whose nervous and masculine
mind habits were easily shaken. "We have not for so many years discarded
all the servile laws of others, to be the abject slaves of our own
weaknesses. Come, my dear fellow, rouse yourself. Heaven knows, were I
to succumb to the feebleness of my own heart, I should be lost indeed.
And perhaps, wrestle I ever so stoutly, I do not wrestle away that which
clings within me, and will kill me, though by inches. But let us not be
cravens, and suffer fate to drown us rather than swim. In a word, fly
with me ere it be too late. A smuggler's vessel waits me off the coast
of Dorset: in three days from this I sail. Be my companion. We can both
rein a fiery horse, and wield a good sword. As long as men make war one
against another, those accomplishments will prevent their owner from
starving, or--"
"If employed in the field, not the road," interrupted Tomlinson, with a
smile,--"from hanging. But it cannot be! I wish you all joy, all
success in your career. You are young, bold, and able; and you always
had a loftier spirit than I have. Knave I am, and knave I must be to the
end of the chapter!"
"As you will," said Clifford, who was not a man of many words, but he
spoke with reluctance: "if so, I must seek my fortune alone."
"When do you leave us?" asked Tomlinson.
"To-morrow, before noon. I shall visit London for a few hours, and then
start at once for the coast."
"London!" exclaimed Tomlinson; "what, the very den of danger? Pooh! you
do not know what you say: or do you think it filial to caress Mother
Lobkins before you depart?"
"Not that," answered Clifford. "I have already ascertained that she is
above the reach of all want; and her days, poor soul! cannot, I fear, be
many. In all probability she would scarcely recognize me; for her habits
cannot much have improved her memory. Would I could say as much for her
neighbours! Were I to be seen in the purlieus of low thievery, you know,
as well as I do, that some stealer of kerchiefs would turn informer
against the notorious Captain Lovett."
"What, then, takes you to town? Ah! you turn away your face. I guess!
Well, Love has ruined many a hero before; may you not be the worse for
his godship!"
Clifford did not answer, and the conversation made a sudden and long
pause; Tomlinson broke it.
"Do you know, Lovett," said he, "though I have as little heart as most
men, yet I feel for you more than I could have thought it possible.
I would fain join you; there is devilish good tobacco in Germany,
I believe; and, after all, there is not so much difference between
the life of a thief and of a soldier."
"Do profit by so sensible a remark," said Clifford. "Reflect! how
certain of destruction is the path you now tread; the gallows and the
hulks are the only goals!"
"The prospects are not pleasing, I allow," said Tomlinson; "nor is it
desirable to be preserved for another century in the immortality of a
glass case in Surgeons' Hall, grinning from ear to ear, as if one had
made the merriest finale imaginable. Well! I will sleep on it, and you
shall have my answer tomorrow; but poor Ned?"
"Would he not join us?"
"Certainly not; his neck is made for a rope, and his mind for the Old
Bailey. There is no hope for him; yet he is an excellent fellow. We
must not even tell him of our meditated desertion."
"By no means. I shall leave a letter to our London chief; it will
explain all. And now to bed. I look to your companionship as settled."
"Humph!" said Augustus Tomlinson.
So ended the conference of the robbers. About an hour after it had
ceased, and when no sound save the heavy breath of Long Ned broke the
stillness of the night, the intelligent countenance of Peter MacGrawler
slowly elevated itself from the lonely pillow on which it had reclined.
By degrees the back of the sage stiffened into perpendicularity, and he
sat for a few moments erect on his seat of honour, apparently in
listening deliberation. Satisfied with the deep silence that, save the
solitary interruption we have specified, reigned around, the learned
disciple of Vatel rose gently from the bed, hurried on his clothes, stole
on tiptoe to the door, unbarred it with a noiseless hand, and vanished.
Sweet reader! while thou art wondering at his absence, suppose we account
for his appearance.
One evening Clifford and his companion Augustus had been enjoying the
rational amusement at Ranelagh, and were just leaving that celebrated
place when they were arrested by a crowd at the entrance. That crowd was
assembled round a pickpocket; and that pickpocket--O virtue, O wisdom,
O Asinaeum!--was Peter MacGrawler! We have before said that Clifford was
possessed of a good mien and an imposing manner, and these advantages
were at that time especially effectual in preserving our Orbilius from
the pump. No sooner did Clifford recognize the magisterial face of the
sapient Scot, than he boldly thrust himself into the middle of the crowd,
and collaring the enterprising citizen who had collared MacGrawler,
declared himself ready to vouch for the honesty of the very respectable
person whose identity had evidently been so grossly mistaken. Augustus,
probably foreseeing some ingenious ruse, of his companion, instantly
seconded the defence. The mob, who never descry any difference between
impudence and truth, gave way; a constable came up, took part with the
friend of two gentlemen so unexceptionally dressed; our friends walked
off; the crowd repented of their precipitation, and by way of amends
ducked the gentleman whose pockets had been picked. It was in vain for
him to defend himself, for he had an impediment in his speech; and
Messieurs the mob, having ducked him once for his guilt, ducked him a
second time for his embarrassment.
In the interim Clifford had withdrawn his quondam Mentor to the asylum of
a coffee-house; and while MacGrawler's soul expanded itself by wine, he
narrated the causes of his dilemma. It seems that that incomparable
journal "The Asinaeum," despite a series of most popular articles upon
the writings of "Aulus Prudentius," to which were added an exquisite
string of dialogues, written in a tone of broad humour, namely, broad
Scotch (with Scotchmen it is all the same thing), despite these
invaluable miscellanies, to say nothing of some glorious political
articles, in which it was clearly proved to the satisfaction of the rich,
that the less poor devils eat the better for their constitutions,--
despite, we say, these great acquisitions to British literature, "The
Asinaeum" tottered, fell, buried its bookseller, and crushed its author.
MacGrawler only,--escaping, like Theodore from the enormous helmet of
Otranto,--MacGrawler only survived. "Love," says Sir Philip Sidney.
"makes a man see better than a pair of spectacles." Love of life has a
very different effect on the optics,--it makes a man wofully dim of
inspection, and sometimes causes him to see his own property in another
man's purse! This _deceptio visus_, did it impose upon Peter MacGrawler?
He went to Ranelagh. Reader, thou knowest the rest!
Wine and the ingenuity of the robbers having extorted this narrative from
MacGrawler, the barriers of superfluous delicacy were easily done away
with.
Our heroes offered to the sage an introduction to their club; the offer
was accepted; and MacGrawler, having been first made drunk, was next made
a robber. The gang engaged him in various little matters, in which we
grieve to relate that though his intentions were excellent, his success
was so ill as thoroughly to enrage his employers; nay, they were about at
one time, when they wanted to propitiate justice, to hand him over to the
secular power, when Clifford interposed in his behalf. From a robber the
sage dwindled into a drudge; menial offices (the robbers, the lying
rascals, declared that such offices were best fitted to the genius of his
country!) succeeded to noble exploits, and the worst of robbers became
the best of cooks. How vain is all wisdom but that of long experience!
Though Clifford was a sensible, and keen man, though he knew our sage to
be a knave, he never dreamed he could be a traitor. He thought him too
indolent to be malicious, and--short-sighted humanity!--too silly to be
dangerous. He trusted the sage with the secret of the cavern; and
Augustus, who was a bit of an epicure, submitted, though forebodingly,
to the choice, because of the Scotchman's skill in broiling.
But MacGrawler, like Brutus, concealed a scheming heart under a stolid
guise. The apprehension of the noted Lovett had become a matter of
serious desire; the police was no longer to be bribed, nay, they were now
eager to bribe. MacGrawler had watched his time, sold his chief, and was
now on the road to Reading to meet and to guide to the cavern Mr. Nabbem
of Bow Street and four of his attendants.
Having thus, as rapidly as we were able, traced the causes which brought
so startlingly before your notice the most incomparable of critics, we
now, reader, return to our robbers.
"Hist, Lovett!" said Tomlinson, half asleep, "methought I heard something
in the outer cave."
"It is the Scot, I suppose," answered Clifford: "you saw, of course, to
the door?"
"To be sure!" muttered Tomlinson, and in two minutes more he was asleep.
Not so Clifford: many and anxious thoughts kept him waking. At one
while, when he anticipated the opening to a new career, somewhat of the
stirring and high spirit which still moved amidst the guilty and confused
habits of his mind made his pulse feverish and his limbs restless; at
another time, an agonizing remembrance,--the remembrance of Lucy in all
her charms, her beauty, her love, her tender and innocent heart,--Lucy
all perfect, and lost to him forever,--banished every other reflection,
and only left him the sick sensation of despondency and despair. "What
avails my struggle for a better name?" he thought. "Whatever my future
lot, she can never share it. My punishment is fixed,--it is worse than a
death of shame; it is a life without hope! Every moment I feel, and
shall feel to the last, the pressure of a chain that may never be broken
or loosened! And yet, fool that I am! I cannot leave this country
without seeing her again, without telling her that I have really looked
my last. But have I not twice told her that? Strange fatality! But
twice have I spoken to her of love, and each time it was to tear myself
from her at the moment of my confession. And even now something that I
have no power to resist compels me to the same idle and weak indulgence.
Does destiny urge me? Ay, perhaps to my destruction! Every hour a
thousand deaths encompass me. I have now obtained all for which I seemed
to linger. I have won, by a new crime, enough to bear me to another
land, and to provide me there a soldier's destiny. I should not lose an
hour in flight, yet I rush into the nest of my enemies, only for one
unavailing word with her; and this, too, after I have already bade her
farewell! Is this fate? If it be so, what matters it? I no longer care
for a life which, after all, I should reform in vain if I could not
reform it for her; yet--yet, selfish and lost that I am! will it be
nothing to think hereafter that I have redeemed her from the disgrace of
having loved an outcast and a felon? If I can obtain honour, will it
not, in my own heart at least,--will it not reflect, however dimly and
distantly, upon her?"
Such, bewildered, unsatisfactory, yet still steeped in the colours of
that true love which raises even the lowest, were the midnight
meditations of Clifford; they terminated, towards the morning, in an
uneasy and fitful slumber. From this he was awakened by a loud yawn from
the throat of Long Ned, who was always the earliest riser of his set.
"Hullo!" said he, "it is almost daybreak; and if we want to cash our
notes and to move the old lord's jewels, we should already be on the
start."
"A plague on you!" said Tomlinson, from under cover of his woollen
nightcap; "it was but this instant that I was dreaming you were going to
be hanged, and now you wake me in the pleasantest part of the dream!"
"You be shot!" said Ned, turning one leg out of bed; "by the by, you took
more than your share last night, for you owed me three guineas for our
last game at cribbage! You'll please to pay me before we part to-day:
short accounts make long friends!"
"However true that maxim may be," returned Tomlinson, "I know one much
truer,--namely, long friends will make short accounts! You must ask Jack
Ketch this day month if I'm wrong!"
"That's what you call wit, I suppose!" retorted Ned, as he now,
struggling into his inexpressibles, felt his way into the outer cave.
"What, ho, Mac!" cried he, as he went, "stir those bobbins of thine,
which thou art pleased to call legs; strike a light, and be d---d to
you!"
"A light for you," said Tomlinson, profanely, as he reluctantly left his
couch, "will indeed be a 'light to lighten the Gentiles!'"
"Why, Mac, Mac!" shouted Ned, "why don't you answer? faith, I think the
Scot's dead!"
"Seize your men!--Yield, sirs!" cried a stern, sudden voice from the
gloom; and at that instant two dark lanterns were turned, and their light
streamed full upon the astounded forms of Tomlinson and his gaunt
comrade! In the dark shade of the background four or five forms were
also indistinctly visible; and the ray of the lanterns glimmered on the
blades of cutlasses and the barrels of weapons still less easily
resisted.
Tomlinson was the first to recover his self-possession. The light just
gleamed upon the first step of the stairs leading to the stables, leaving
the rest in shadow. He made one stride to the place beside the cart,
where, we have said, lay some of the robbers' weapons; he had been
anticipated,--the weapons were gone. The next moment Tomlinson had
sprung up the steps.
"Lovett! Lovett! Lovett!" shouted he.
The captain, who had followed his comrades into the cavern, was already
in the grasp of two men. From few ordinary mortals, however, could any
two be selected as fearful odds against such a man as Clifford,--a man in
whom a much larger share of sinews and muscle than is usually the lot
even of the strong had been hardened, by perpetual exercise, into a
consistency and iron firmness which linked power and activity into a
union scarcely less remarkable than that immortalized in the glorious
beauty of the sculptured gladiator. His right hand is upon the throat of
one assailant; his left locks, as in a vice, the wrist of the other; you
have scarcely time to breathe! The former is on the ground, the pistol
of the latter is wrenched from his grip, Clifford is on the step; a ball
--another--whizzes by him; he is by the side of the faithful Augustus!
"Open the secret door!" whispered Clifford to his friend; "I will draw up
the steps alone."
Scarcely had he spoken, before the steps were already, but slowly,
ascending beneath the desperate strength of the robber. Meanwhile Ned
was struggling, as he best might, with two sturdy officers, who appeared
loath to use their weapons without an absolute necessity, and who
endeavoured, by main strength, to capture and detain their antagonist.
"Look well to the door!" cried the voice of the principal officer, "and
hang out more light!"
Two or three additional lanterns were speedily brought forward; and over
the whole interior of the cavern a dim but sufficient light now rapidly
circled, giving to the scene and to the combatants a picturesque and wild
appearance.
The quick eye of the head-officer descried in an instant the rise of the
steps, and the advantage the robbers were thereby acquiring. He and two
of his men threw themselves forward, seized the ladder, if so it may be
called, dragged it once more to the ground, and ascended. But Clifford,
grasping with both hands the broken shaft of a cart that lay in reach,
received the foremost invader with a salute that sent him prostrate and
senseless back among his companions. The second shared the same fate;
and the stout leader of the enemy, who, like a true general, had kept
himself in the rear, paused now in the middle of the steps, dismayed
alike by the reception of his friends and the athletic form towering
above, with raised weapons and menacing attitude. Perhaps that moment
seemed to the judicious Mr. Nabbem more favourable to parley than to
conflict. He cleared his throat, and thus addressed the foe:
"You, sir, Captain Lovett, alias Howard, alias Jackson, alias Cavendish,
alias Solomons, alias Devil,--for I knows you well, and could swear to
you with half an eye, in your clothes or without,--you lay down your club
there, and let me come alongside of you, and you'll find me as gentle as
a lamb; for I've been used to gemmen all my life, and I knows how to
treat 'em when I has 'em!"
"But if I will not let you 'come alongside of me,' what then?"
"Why, I must send one of these here pops through your skull, that's all!"
"Nay, Mr. Nabbem, that would be too cruel! You surely would not harm one
who has such an esteem for you? Don't you remember the manner in which I
brought you off from Justice Burnflat, when you were accused, you know
whether justly or--"
"You're a liar, Captain!" cried Nabbem, furiously, fearful that something
not meet for the ears of his companions should transpire. "You knows you
are! Come down, or let me mount; otherwise I won't be 'sponsible for the
consequences!"
Clifford cast a look over his shoulder. A gleam of the gray daylight
already glimmered through a chink in the secret door, which Tomlinson had
now unbarred and was about to open.
"Listen to me, Mr. Nabbem," said he, "and perhaps I may grant what you
require! What would you do with me if you had me?"
"You speaks like a sensible man now," answered Nabbem; "and that's after
my own heart. Why, you sees, Captain, your time is come, and you can't
shilly-shally any longer. You have had your full swing; your years are
up, and you must die like a man! But I gives you my honour as a gemman,
that if you surrenders, I'll take you to the justice folks as tenderly as
if you were made of cotton."
"Give way one moment," said Clifford, "that I may plant the steps firmer
for you."
Nabbem retreated to the ground; and Clifford, who had, good-naturedly
enough, been unwilling unnecessarily to damage so valuable a functionary,
lost not the opportunity now afforded him. Down thundered the steps,
clattering heavily among the other officers, and falling like an
avalanche on the shoulder of one of the arresters of Long Ned.
Meanwhile Clifford sprang after Tomlinson through the aperture, and found
himself--in the presence of four officers, conducted by the shrewd
MacGrawler. A blow from a bludgeon on the right cheek and temple of
Augustus felled that hero. But Clifford bounded over his comrade's body,
dodged from the stroke aimed at himself, caught the blow aimed by another
assailant in his open hand, wrested the bludgeon from the officer, struck
him to the ground with his own weapon, and darting onward through the
labyrinth of the wood, commenced his escape with a step too fleet to
allow the hope of a successful pursuit.
