The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous Volume II Part 6

"Well, fresh-water fishermen, if you like," he went on, "that bait their hooks with salt worms. Will you please pay me my fare now, Master, since I am a Fellow forsooth, and Murphy's Murrain to you?"

What Murphy's Murrain was--except some term of waterside sculduddrey I did not know--but I paid the knave his s.h.i.+lling, whereupon he very importunately craved another sixpence to drink my health, saying that it might be a very long time before he saw me again. Now I happened only to have one and fourpence left in the world, and suspecting that I had already overpaid him, I resisted further extortion, upon which he became more and more clamorous for money, and finding that I was as obstinate as he, rested on his oars and declared that, burn him--with many other execrations too unseemly to transcribe--he would not pull a stroke further. This it seems was by no means an uncommon occurrence among the dishonest waterside knaves of those days, and it afforded vast sport to a mob of small craft that gathered round, and the people in which covered me with ridicule and abuse, calling me a Thames Bilk, and advising the waterman to hold me over the side of the boat by the scruff of the neck and give me a Ducking. I was in a great Quandary, and knew not what to do.

Meanwhile the heavy wherry, which had kept close in our offing, pulled almost on board of us, and the c.o.xswain hailed us to know what was the matter.

"Here's a Holiday Tailor that would seek to stump a poor waterman of his fare," quoth the false scoundrel who was striving to rob me.

"'Tis a base lie!" I cried out; "I gave him a s.h.i.+lling at Westminster stairs to row me to the Tower wharf."

"Fare's only fourpence. Shame! shame!" cried one part of the people in the small craft.

"He's a Bilk," yelled another part of 'em. "Duck him, Goodman Crabs, duck him."

"Stop," cries the c.o.xswain of the wherry, standing up. "It _is_ a shame.

The poor fellow shan't be put upon. Here, young man, step on board this, and we'll land you at the Tower wharf for nothing; and here, waterman, take this s.h.i.+lling and be d--d to you, and sheer off before you can cry Poor John."

The wherry by this time had got so close on our quarter that, thanking the blue-frocked gentlemen for their politeness, I was able to step on board the wherry without any difficulty. My thief of a waterman took the s.h.i.+lling which was flung to him, and again sticking his tongue in his cheek, and grinning in a more unblus.h.i.+ng manner than before, pulled away. The crowd in the small craft set up a cheer, that had more of derision than approbation in it, and I once more heard the cry of "Blue Bottles."

These Blue Bottles, however, were as good as their word, for five minutes afterwards I was landed safe and sound at the Tower wharf. I thanked them all very heartily; but, as I had not enough money to treat them all, made bold to confess the narrowness of my means to the c.o.xswain, begging that he, at least, would do me the honour to take a mug of flip--which could be had, double allowance, for fourpence. He clapped me, in reply, on the shoulder in the most friendly manner, and said, roast him, that he would not see me put upon; that I was evidently a lad of mettle and spirit, and that I should go with him to the "Admiral Benbow," on Little Tower Hill, close by, where he would himself stand treat for as many mugs of flip or Punch as ever I liked.

He would take no denial to his hospitable proposal, so that I accompanied him to the "Admiral Benbow," a snuggish little hostelry, about which some half a score more stout fellows in blue frocks were lounging. But these I noticed had broad leather belts round their waists, in which were stuck pistols, and to which hung cutla.s.ses.

When we had made ourselves comfortable in the little back parlour of the "Admiral Benbow" over a steaming jug and a Pipe of Tobacco, my companion began to ask me a few questions, to which, with the ingenuous candour of youth, I made full replies. I told him that I was a young man seeking my fortune, but had as yet come only on very scurvy luck; that I had spent all my money; that I had but recently come from foreign parts, and that, in despite of finding honest employment, I had made up my mind to list for a soldier that very night.

"Don't do that, boy?" cried my friend the c.o.xswain. "Curse pipeclay and red blanketing, and the life of a swaddy. The sea, the blue glorious sea's the place for a bold heart like you."

I answered that I knew not enough of seamans.h.i.+p to take the place of an officer, and that I considered the condition of a common sailor as too base for one of my bringing up.

"Ay, ay! you shall be an officer in time, my hearty," answered the c.o.xswain--"Lord High Admiral, for a certainty; but you must creep through the hawse-holes first. There's nothing like half-a-dozen cruises before the mast for taking the conceit out of a maple-faced hobbledehoy."

Whether I was maple-faced or not, I did not stay to argue; but there was something about the mahogany face of the c.o.xswain that misliked me much.

Now that I inspected him closely I recognised in him something of that mangonising or slave-dealing expression which is burnt in as with a Red-hot Iron upon the countenances of all those whose trade is kidnapping and man-stealing. So without more ado I rose to go, thanking him for his treat, and saying that if I went to sea it should be at my own pleasure and in my own way.

"Stop abit," he answered, rising with me, and putting his back against the door--"not so fast, my hearty! King George doesn't allow likely young blades to slip through his fingers in this fas.h.i.+on. As you're in such a deuce of a hurry, I think we'd better see the Mids.h.i.+pmite."

I measured him with my eye, but at once gave up all thoughts of mastering him if I attempted violence in leaving the room. He was taller than I, broader across the chest, older, his limbs better knit, and in every way the more powerful. He too, I saw, was taking stock of me, and marking from my Frame and my Mien that, although young, I was likely to prove an Ugly Customer, he outs with a pistol from under his jerkin, and holds it to my head with one hand, while with the other he blows a smart call upon a silver whistle suspended by a lanyard round his neck.

In a moment the room was full of blue-frocked ruffians; a dozen pistols were levelled at my head, a dozen cutla.s.ses drawn menacingly against me.

Before I knew where I was I was tripped up, knocked down from behind, a gag forced into my mouth, and a pair of handcuffs slipped on to my wrists.

"No offence, s.h.i.+pmate," said a big fellow with black whiskers, as he knelt on my chest and screwed the manacles on so tightly that I gave a scream of pain. "We always begin in this here way--we crimps our cod before we cooks it. To-morrow morning, when you've had your grog, you'll be as gentle as a lamb, and after your first cruise you'll be as ready as ere a one of us to come cub-hunting."

Upon this there entered the room he whom the c.o.xswain had spoken of as the Mids.h.i.+pmite, and who I rightly conjectured to be in authority over these dare-devils. He was a young man wearing his own hair, which was bright red. His face was all covered with pimples, and his mouth was harelipped from a sword cut. He had canvas bags and grey ribbed hose like a common sailor, but his hat was bound with a sc.r.a.p of dirty gold lace; he had a hanger at his side, and on his threadbare blue coat I could see the King's b.u.t.ton. Withal he was a very precise gentleman, and would listen to nothing but facts. He bade his men remove the gag from my mouth, and then addressed me.

"The fact of the matter is," says he, "that you've been kicking up a devil of a row, and that you'd much better have gone quietly with the c.o.xswain."

"Why am I kidnapped? why have you put these footpad bracelets on me?" I cried out, pa.s.sionately.

"The fact of the matter is that we always do it to save time and trouble," answered the Mids.h.i.+pmite--"Easy and quiet is the word at the 'Admiral Benbow.'"

"I'll have the law of you!" I exclaimed, in a rage.

"Exactly so," quoth the Mids.h.i.+pmite, quite politely. "May I ask if you're a free-man of the City of London?"

"I am not."

"Precisely so. Are you a waterman, duly entered at your Hall, and all arrears paid up, or an apprentice, carrying your indentures with you?"

"I am not, and I don't know what you mean."

"Then the fact of the matter is," said the Mids.h.i.+pmite, with a chuckle, "that we've got the law of _you_. The King, G.o.d bless him, wants stout and gallant hearts to man his fleet, and you're about the likeliest young fellow I've seen this week; so the best thing you can do is to go willingly on board the Tower Tender, of which I have the honour to be second in command. If you won't, the fact of the matter is that we must make you."

"But why should I go with you?" I urged.

"The fact of the matter is that you're Pressed," coolly answered the Mids.h.i.+pmite, or mids.h.i.+pman, "and if you want to see the warrant, you may ask Davy Jones for it, who keeps it under three seals in his locker to prevent accidents."

Between listing for a soldier and being pressed for a sailor there was not, I take it, much difference. Either way, the chance of a livelihood offered itself. But I did not like this violent way of doing things, and I told the mids.h.i.+pman so. He merely ordered his blue-frocks to take me away. Then I attempted to burst my bonds, and bit, kicked, and struggled, so that it took half-a-dozen men to drag me to the door.

"The fact of the matter is," remarked the mids.h.i.+pman, filling himself a gla.s.s of punch, "that there's always this hullabaloo at the first going off, and that you'd better give him One for peace and quietness."

Somebody immediately followed the officer's advice, and gave me One with the b.u.t.t end of a pistol, which nearly clove my skull in twain, and certainly made me peaceable and quietness, for it stunned me.

CHAPTER THE EIGHTH.

JOHN DANGEROUS IS IN THE SERVICE OF KING GEORGE.

IT now becomes expedient for me to pa.s.s over no less than Fifteen Years of my momentous Career. I am led to do this for divers cogent Reasons, two of which I will forthwith lay before my Reader. For the first, let me urge a Decent Prudence. It is not, Goodness knows, that I have any thing to be ashamed of which should hinder me from giving a Full, True, and Particular Account of all the Adventures that befell me in these same fifteen Years, with the same Minute Particularity which I bestowed upon my Unhappy Childhood, my varied Youth, and stormy Adolescence. I did dwell, perhaps, with a fonder circ.u.mspection and more scrupulous niceness upon those early days, inasmuch as the things we have first known and suffered are always more vividly presented to our mind when we strive to recall 'em, sitting as old men in the ingle-nook, than are the events of complete manhood. Yet do I a.s.sure those who have been at the pains to scan the chapters that have gone before, that it would be easy for me to sit down with the Fidelity of a Ledger-Keeper all the things that happened unto me from my eighteenth year, when I last bade them leave, and the year 1747, when I had come to be three-and-thirty years of age. I remember all: the Ups and Downs; the Crosses and the Runs of Luck; the Fortunes and Misfortunes; the Good and the Bad Feasts I sat me down to, during an ever-changing and Troublous Period. But, as I have said, I have been moved thus to skip over a vast tract of time through Prudence. There may have been certain items in my life upon which, now that I am respectable and prosperous, I no more care to think of. There may be whole pages, close-written and full of Stirring Matter, which I have chosen to cancel; there may be occurrences treated of which it is best, at this time of Day, to draw a Veil over. Finally, there may be Great Personages still Living who would have just cause to be Offended were I to tell all I know. The dead belong to all the World, and their Bones are oft-times Dug up and made use of by those who in the Flesh knew them not; but Famous Persons live to a very Great Age, and it is sometimes scandalous to recount what adventures one has had with 'em in the days of their hot and rash Youth. Had I permission to publish all I am acquainted with, the very Hair upon your Head might stand up in Amazement at some of the Matters I could relate:--how Mean and Base the Great and Powerful might become; how utterly Despisable some of the most Superb and Arrogant Creatures of this our Commonwealth might appear. But I am prudent and Hold my Tongue.

Again, and for the Second Reason, I am led to pa.s.s over these fifteen years through a feeling that is akin to Mercy and Forbearance towards my Reader. For I well know how desperately given is John Dangerous to a wordy Garrulity--how p.r.o.ne he is to make much of little things, and to elevate to the dignity of Important and Commanding Events that which is perchance only of the very slightest moment. By Prosing and Amplifying, by Moralizing and Digressing, by spinning of yarns and wearing of reflections threadbare, I might make a Great Book out of the pettiest and most uneventful career; but even in honestly transcribing my actual adventures, one by one,--the things I have done, and the Men and Women I have known,--I should imperceptibly swell a Narrative, which was at first meant to attain no great volume, to most deplorable dimensions.

And the World will no longer tolerate Huge Chronicles in Folio, whether they relate to History, to Love or Adventure, to Voyages and Travels, or even to Philosophy, Mechanics, or the Useful Arts. The world wants smart, dandy little volumes, as thin as a Herring, and just as Salt. For these two reasons, then, do I nerve myself to a sudden leap, and entreat you now to think no longer of John Dangerous as a raw youth of eighteen summers, but as a st.u.r.dy, well-set man of thirty-three.

Yet, lest mine Enemies and other vile Rascal Fellows that go about the town taking away the characters of honest people for mere Envy and Spitefulness' sake, lest these petty curmudgeons should, in their own sly saucy manner, Mop and Mow, and Grin and Whisper, that If I am silent as to Fifteen Years of my Sayings and Doings, I have good cause for holding my peace,--lest these scurril Slanderers should insinuate that during this time I lay in divers Gaols for offences which I dare not avow, that I was concerned in Desperate and Unlawful Enterprises which brought upon me many Indictments in the King's Courts, or that I was ever Pilloried, or held to Bail for contemptible misdemeanours,--I do here declare and affirm that for the whole of the time I so pa.s.s over I earned my bread in a perfectly Honest, Legal, and Honourable Manner, and that I never once went out of the limits of the United Kingdom. I have heard, indeed, a Ridiculous Tale setting forth that, finding myself Dest.i.tute in London after the Chaplain, Mr Pinchin, and I had parted company, and after escaping from the Pressgang, I enlisted in the Foot Guards. The preposterous Fable goes on to say that quickly mastering my Drill, and being a favourite with my officers, whom I much pleased with my Alacrity and Intelligence, although they were much given to laugh at my a.s.sumptions of superior Birth, and nicknamed me "Gentleman Jack,"--I was promoted to the rank of Corporal, and might have aspired to the dignity of a Sergeant's Halbert, but that in a Mad Frolic one night I betook myself to the road as a Footpad, and robbed a Gentleman, coming from the King's Arms, Kensington, towards the Weigh House at Knightsbridge, of fourteen spade guineas, a gold watch, and a bottle-screw. And that being taken by the Hue and Cry, and had before Justice de Veil then sitting at the Sun Tavern in Bow Street, I should have been committed to Newgate, tried, and most likely have swung for the robbery, but for the strong intercession of my Captain, who was a friend of the Gentleman robbed. That I was indeed enlarged, but was not suffered to go scot-free, inasmuch as, being tried by court-martial for absence without leave on the night of the gentleman's misfortune, I was sentenced to receive three hundred lashes at the halberts. Infamous and Absurd calumnies!

Behold me, then, in the beginning of the year 1747 in the Service of his Sacred Majesty King George the Second. Behold me, further, installed in no common Barrack, mean Guard-house, or paltry Garrison Town, but in one of the most famous of his Majesty's Royal Fortresses:--a place that had been at once and for centuries (ever since the days of Julius Caesar, as I am told) a Palace, a Citadel, and a Prison. In good sooth, I was one of the King's Warders, and the place where I was stationed was the Ancient and Honourable Tower of London.

Whether I had ever worn the King's uniform before, either in scarlet as a Soldier in his armies, or of blue and tarpaulin as a Sailor in his Fleets, or of brown as a Riding Officer in his customs,--under which guise a man may often have doughty encounters with smugglers that are trying to run their contraband cargoes, or to hide their goods in farmers' houses,--or of green, as a Keeper in one of the Royal Chases,--I absolutely refuse to say. Here I am, or rather here I was, a Warder and in the Tower.

I was bravely accoutred. A doublet of crimson cloth, with the crown, the Royal Cipher G. R., and a wreath of laurel embroidered in gold, both on its back and front; a linen ruff, well plaited, round my neck, sleeves puffed with black velvet, trunk-hose of scarlet, rosettes in my slashed shoes, and a flat hat with a border of the red and white roses of York and Lancaster in satin ribbon,--these made up my costume. There were forty of us in the Tower, mounting guard with drawn swords at the portcullis gate and at the entrances to the lodgings of such as were in hold, and otherwise attending upon unfortunate n.o.blemen and gentlemen who were in trouble. On state occasions, when taking prisoners by water from the Tower to Westminster, and in preceding the Lieutenant to the outward port, we carried Halberts or Partisans with ta.s.sels of gold and crimson thread. But although our dress was identical, as you may see from the prints, with that of the Beef-Eaters, we Tower Warders were of a very different kidney to the lazy hangers-on about St. James's. Those fellows were Anybodies, Parasites of Back-Stairs favourites, and spies and lacqueys, transformed serving-men, butlers past drawing corks, grooms and porters, even. They had nothing to do but loiter about the antechambers and staircases of St. James's, to walk by the side of his Majesty's coach when he went to the Houses of Parliament, or to fight with the Marshalmen at Royal Funerals for petty spoils of wax-candles or shreds of black hangings. The knaves actually wore wigs, and powdered them, as though they had been so many danglers on the Mall. They pa.s.sed their time, when not in requisition about the Court, smoking and card-playing in the taverns and mug-houses about Scotland Yard and Spring Gardens. They had the run of a few servant-wenches belonging to great people, but we did not envy them their sweethearts. Some of them, I verily believe, were sunk so low as, when they were not masquerading at court, to become tavern-drawers, or ushers and cryers in the courts of law about Westminster. A very mean people were these Beef-eaters, and they toiled not, neither did they spin, for the collops they ate.

But we brave boys of the Tower earned both our Beef and our Bread, and the abundant Beer and Strong Waters with which we washed our victuals down. We were military men, almost all. Some of us had fought at Blenheim or Ramilies--these were the veterans: the very juniors had made the French Maison du Roy scamper, or else crossed bayonets with the Irish Brigade (a brave body of men, but deplorably criminal in carrying arms against a Gracious and Clement Prince) in some of those well-fought German Fields, in which His Royal Highness the Duke and my Lord George Sackville (since Germaine, and my very good friend and Patron) covered themselves with immortal glory. Nay some of us, One of us at least, had fought and bled, to the amazement of his comrades and the admiration of his commanders,--never mind where. 'Tis not the luck of every soldier to have had his hand wrung by the Great Duke of c.u.mberland, or to have been presented with ten guineas to drink his health withal by Field-Marshal Wade. We would have thought it vile poltroonery and macaronism to have worn wigs--to say nothing of powder--unless, indeed, the peruke was a true Malplaquet club or Dettingen scratch.

Our duties were no trifling ones, let me a.s.sure you. The Tower, as a place of military strength, was well looked after by the Regiment of Foot Guards and the Companies of Artillery that did garrison duties on its ramparts and the foot of its drawbridges; but to us was confided a charge much more onerous, and the custody of things much more precious.

We had other matters to mind besides seeing that stray dogs did not venture on to the Tower Green, that dust did not get into the cannon's mouths, or that Grand Rounds received proper salutes. Was not the Imperial Crown of England in our keeping? Had we not to look after the Royal diadem, the orb, the sceptre, the Swords of Justice and of Mercy, and the great parcel-gilt Salt Cellar that is moulded in the likeness of the White Tower itself? Did it not behove us to keep up a constant care and watchfulness, lest among the curious strangers and country cousins who trudged to the Jewel House to see all that glittering and golden finery, and who gave us s.h.i.+llings to exhibit them, there might be lurking some Rogue as dishonest and as desperate as that Colonel Blood who so nearly succeeded in getting away with the crown and other valuables in King Charles the Second's time. Oh! I warrant you that we kept sharp eyes on the curious strangers and the country cousins, and allowed them not to go too near the grate behind which were those priceless baubles.