Book: Paul Clifford, Volume 2.

E >> Edward Bulwer Lytton >> Paul Clifford, Volume 2.




"My master was furious, made the strictest inquiry, found me out, and
turned me out too!

"A Whig not in place has an excuse for disliking the Constitution.
My distress almost made me a republican; but, true to my creed, I must
confess that I would only have levelled upwards. I especially
disaffected the inequality of riches; I looked moodily on every carriage
that passed; I even frowned like a second Catiline at the steam of a
gentle man's kitchen! My last situation had not been lucrative; I had
neglected my perquisites, in my ardour for politics. My master, too,
refused to give me a character: who would take me without one?

"I was asking myself this melancholy question one morning, when I
suddenly encountered one of the fine friends I had picked up at my old
haunt, the ordinary, in St. James's. His name was Pepper."

"Pepper!" cried Paul.

Without heeding the exclamation, Tomlinson continued:--"We went to a
tavern and drank a bottle together. Wine made me communicative; it also
opened my comrade's heart. He asked me to take a ride with him that
night towards Hounslow. I did so, and found a purse."

"How fortunate! Where?"

"In a gentleman's pocket. I was so pleased with my luck that I went the
same road twice a week, in order to see if I could pick up any more
purses. Fate favoured me, and I lived for a long time the life of the
blessed. Oh, Paul, you know not--you know not what a glorious life is
that of a highwayman; but you shall taste it one of these days,--you
shall, on my honour.

"I now lived with a club of honest fellows. We called ourselves 'The
Exclusives,'--for we were mighty reserved in our associates, and only
those who did business on a grand scale were admitted into our set. For
my part, with all my love for my profession, I liked ingenuity still
better than force, and preferred what the vulgar call swindling, even to
the highroad. On an expedition of this sort, I rode once into a country
town, and saw a crowd assembled in one corner; I joined it, and my
feelings!--beheld my poor friend Viscount Dunshunner just about to be
hanged! I rode off as fast as I could,--I thought I saw Jack Ketch at my
heels. My horse threw me at a hedge, and I broke my collar-bone. In the
confinement that ensued gloomy ideas floated before me. I did not like
to be hanged; so I reasoned against my errors, and repented. I recovered
slowly, returned to town, and repaired to my cousin the bookseller. To
say truth, I had played him a little trick: collected some debts of his
by a mistake,--very natural in the confusion incident on my distresses.
However, he was extremely unkind about it; and the mistake, natural as it
was, had cost me his acquaintance.

"I went now to him with the penitential aspect of the prodigal son; and,
faith, he would have not made a bad representation of the fatted calf
about to be killed on my return,--so corpulent looked he, and so
dejected! 'Graceless reprobate!' he began, 'your poor father is dead!'
I was exceedingly shocked; but--never fear, Paul, I am not about to be
pathetic. My father had divided his fortune among all his children; my
share was L500. The possession of this soon made my penitence seem much
more sincere in the eyes of my good cousin; and after a very pathetic
scene, he took me once more into favour. I now consulted with him as to
the best method of laying out my capital and recovering my character. We
could not devise any scheme at the first conference; but the second time
I saw him, my cousin said with a cheerful countenance: 'Cheer up,
Augustus, I have got thee a situation. Mr. Asgrave the banker will take
thee as a clerk. He is a most worthy man; and having a vast deal of
learning, he will respect thee for thy acquirements.' The same day I was
introduced to Mr. Asgrave, who was a little man with a fine, bald,
benevolent head; and after a long conversation which he was pleased to
hold with me, I became one of his quill-drivers. I don't know how it
was, but by little and little I rose in my master's good graces. I
propitiated him, I fancy, by disposing of my L500 according to his
advice; he laid it out for me, on what he said was famous security, on a
landed estate. Mr. Asgrave was of social habits,--he had a capital house
and excellent wines. As he was not very particular in his company, nor
ambitious of visiting the great, he often suffered me to make one of his
table, and was pleased to hold long arguments with me about the ancients.
I soon found out that my master was a great moral philosopher; and being
myself in weak health, sated with the ordinary pursuits of the world, in
which my experience had forestalled my years, and naturally of a
contemplative temperament, I turned my attention to the moral studies
which so fascinated my employer. I read through nine shelves full of
metaphysicians, and knew exactly the points in which those illustrious
thinkers quarrelled with each other, to the great advance of the science.
My master and I used to hold many a long discussion about the nature of
good and evil; as, by help of his benevolent forehead and a clear dogged
voice, he always seemed to our audience to be the wiser and better man of
the two, he was very well pleased with our disputes. This gentleman had
an only daughter,--an awful shrew, with a face like a hatchet but
philosophers overcome personal defects; and thinking only of the good her
wealth might enable me to do to my fellow-creatures, I secretly made love
to her. You will say that was playing my master but a scurvy trick for
his kindness. Not at all; my master himself had convinced me that there
was no such virtue as gratitude. It was an error of vulgar moralists. I
yielded to his arguments, and at length privately espoused his daughter.
The day after this took place, he summoned me to his study. 'So,
Augustus,' said he, very mildly, 'you have married my daughter: nay,
never look confused; I saw a long time ago that you were resolved to do
so, and I was very glad of it.'

"I attempted to falter out something like thanks. 'Never interrupt me!'
said he. 'I had two reasons for being glad,--first, because my daughter
was the plague of my life, and I wanted some one to take her off my
hands; secondly, because I required your assistance on a particular
point, and I could not venture to ask it of any one but my son-in-law.
In fine, I wish to take you into partnership!'

"'Partnership!' cried I, falling on my knees. 'Noble, generous man!'

"'Stay a bit,' continued my father-in-law. 'What funds do you think
requisite for carrying on a bank? You look puzzled! Not a shilling!
You will put in just as much as I do. You will put in rather more; for
you once put in L500, which has been spent long ago. I don't put in a
shilling of my own. I live on my clients, and I very willingly offer you
half of them!'

"Imagine, dear Paul, my astonishment, my dismay! I saw myself married to
a hideous shrew,--son-in-law to a penniless scoundrel, and cheated out of
my whole fortune! Compare this view of the question with that which had
blazed on me when I contemplated being son-in-law to the rich Mr.
Asgrave. I stormed at first. Mr. Asgrave took up Bacon 'On the
Advancement of Learning,' and made no reply till I was cooled by
explosion. You will perceive that when passion subsided, I necessarily
saw that nothing was left for me but adopting my father-in-law's
proposal. Thus, by the fatality which attended me at the very time I
meant to reform, I was forced into scoundrelism, and I was driven into
defrauding a vast number of persons by the accident of being son-in-law
to a great moralist. As Mr. Asgrave was an indolent man, who passed his
mornings in speculations on virtue, I was made the active partner. I
spent the day at the counting-house; and when I came home for recreation,
my wife scratched my eyes out."

"But were you never recognized as 'the stranger' or 'the adventurer' in
your new capacity?"

"No; for of course I assumed, in all my changes, both aliases and
disguises. And, to tell you the truth, my marriage so altered me that,
what with a snuff-coloured coat and a brown scratch wig, with a pen in my
right ear, I looked the very picture of staid respectability. My face
grew an inch longer every day. Nothing is so respectable as a long face;
and a subdued expression of countenance is the surest sign of commercial
prosperity. Well, we went on splendidly enough for about a year.
Meanwhile I was wonderfully improved in philosophy. You have no idea how
a scolding wife sublimes and rarefies one's intellect. Thunder clears
the air, you know! At length, unhappily for my fame (for I contemplated
a magnificent moral history of man, which, had she lived a year longer,
I should have completed), my wife died in child-bed. My father-in-law
and I were talking over the event, and finding fault with civilization
for the enervating habits by which women die of their children instead of
bringing them forth without being even conscious of the circumstance,
when a bit of paper, sealed awry, was given to my partner. He looked
over it, finished the discussion, and then told me our bank had stopped
payment. 'Now, Augustus,' said he, lighting his pipe with the bit of
paper, 'you see the good of having nothing to lose.'

"We did not pay quite sixpence in the pound; but my partner was thought
so unfortunate that the British public raised a subscription for him, and
he retired on an annuity, greatly respected and very much compassionated.
As I had not been so well known as a moralist, and had not the
prepossessing advantage of a bald, benevolent head, nothing was done for
me, and I was turned once more on the wide world, to moralize on the
vicissitudes of fortune. My cousin the bookseller was no more, and his
son cut me. I took a garret in Warwick Court, and with a few books, my
only consolation, I endeavoured to nerve my mind to the future. It was
at this time, Paul, that my studies really availed me. I meditated much,
and I became a true philosopher, namely, a practical one. My actions
were henceforth regulated by principle; and at some time or other, I will
convince you that the road of true morals never avoids the pockets of
your neighbour. So soon as my mind had made the grand discovery which
Mr. Asgrave had made before me, that one should live according to a
system,--for if you do wrong, it is then your system that errs, not you,
--I took to the road, without any of those stings of conscience which had
hitherto annoyed me in such adventures. I formed one of a capital knot
of 'Free Agents,' whom I will introduce to you some day or other, and I
soon rose to distinction among them. But about six weeks ago, not less
than formerly preferring byways to highways, I attempted to possess
myself of a carriage, and sell it at discount. I was acquitted on the
felony, but sent hither by Justice Burnflat on the misdemeanour. Thus
far, my young friend, hath as yet proceeded the life of Augustus
Tomlinson." The history of this gentleman made a deep impression on
Paul. The impression was strengthened by the conversations subsequently
holden with Augustus. That worthy was a dangerous and subtle persuader.
He had really read a good deal of history, and something of morals; and
he had an ingenious way of defending his rascally practices by syllogisms
from the latter, and examples from the former. These theories he
clenched, as it were, by a reference to the existing politics of the day.
Cheaters of the public, on false pretences, he was pleased to term
"moderate Whigs;" bullying demanders of your purse were "high Tories;"
and thieving in gangs was "the effect of the spirit of party." There was
this difference between Augustus Tomlinson and Long Ned,--Ned was the
acting knave, Augustus the reasoning one; and we may see therefore, by a
little reflection, that Tomlinson was a far more perilous companion than
Pepper,--for showy theories are always more seductive to the young and
clever than suasive examples, and the vanity of the youthful makes them
better pleased by being convinced of a thing than by being enticed to it.

A day or two after the narrative of Mr. Tomlinson, Paul was again visited
by Mrs. Lobkins,--for the regulations against frequent visitors were not
then so strictly enforced as we understand them to be now; and the good
dame came to deplore the ill-success of her interview with Justice
Burnflat.

We spare the tender-hearted reader a detail of the affecting interview
that ensued. Indeed, it was but a repetition of the one we have before
narrated. We shall only say, as a proof of Paul's tenderness of heart,
that when he took leave of the good matron, and bade "God bless her," his
voice faltered, and the tears stood in his eyes,--just as they were wont
to do in the eyes of George the Third, when that excellent monarch was
pleased graciously to encore "God save the King!"

"I'll be hanged," soliloquized our hero, as he slowly bent his course
towards the subtle Augustus,--"I'll be hanged (humph! the denunciation is
prophetic), if I don't feel as grateful to the old lady for her care of
me as if she had never ill-used me. As for my parents, I believe I have
little to be grateful for or proud of in that quarter. My poor mother,
by all accounts, seems scarcely to have had even the brute virtue of
maternal tenderness; and in all human likelihood I shall never know
whether I had one father or fifty. But what matters it? I rather like
the better to be independent; and, after all, what do nine tenths of us
ever get from our parents but an ugly name, and advice which, if we
follow, we are wretched, and if we neglect, we are disinherited?"

Comforting himself with these thoughts, which perhaps took their
philosophical complexion from the conversations he had lately held with
Augustus, and which broke off into the muttered air of--

"Why should we quarrel for riches?"

Paul repaired to his customary avocations.

In the third week of our hero's captivity Tomlinson communicated to him a
plan of escape that had occurred to his sagacious brain. In the yard
appropriated to the amusements of the gentlemen "misdemeaning," there was
a water-pipe that, skirting the wall, passed over the door through which
every morning the pious captives passed in their way to the chapel. By
this Tomlinson proposed to escape; for to the pipe which reached from the
door to the wall, in a slanting and easy direction, there was a sort of
skirting-board; and a dexterous and nimble man might readily, by the help
of this board, convey himself along the pipe, until the progress of that
useful conductor (which was happily very brief) was stopped by the summit
of the wall, where it found a sequel in another pipe, that descended to
the ground on the opposite side of the wall. Now, on this opposite side
was the garden of the prison; in this garden was a watchman, and this
watchman was the hobgoblin of Tomlinson's scheme,--"For suppose us safe
in the garden," said he, "what shall we do with this confounded fellow?"

"But that is not all," added Paul; "for even were there no watchman,
there is a terrible wall, which I noted especially last week, when we
were set to work in the garden, and which has no pipe, save a
perpendicular one, that a man must have the legs of a fly to be able to
climb!"

"Nonsense!" returned Tomlinson; "I will show you how to climb the
stubbornest wall in Christendom, if one has but the coast clear. It is
the watchman, the watchman, we must--"

"What?" asked Paul, observing his comrade did not conclude the sentence.

It was some time before the sage Augustus replied; he then said in a
musing tone,--

"I have been thinking, Paul, whether it would be consistent with virtue,
and that strict code of morals by which all my actions are regulated,
to--slay the watchman!"

"Good heavens!" cried Paul, horror-stricken.

"And I have decided," continued Augustus, solemnly, without regard to the
exclamation, "that the action would be perfectly justifiable!"

"Villain!" exclaimed Paul, recoiling to the other end of the stone box--
for it was night--in which they were cooped.

"But," pursued Augustus, who seemed soliloquizing, and whose voice,
sounding calm and thoughtful, like Young's in the famous monologue in
"Hamlet," denoted that he heeded not the uncourteous interruption,--"but
opinion does not always influence conduct; and although it may be
virtuous to murder the watchman, I have not the heart to do it. I trust
in my future history I shall not by discerning moralists be too severely
censured for a weakness for which my physical temperament is alone to
blame!"

Despite the turn of the soliloquy, it was a long time before Paul could
be reconciled to further conversation with Augustus; and it was only from
the belief that the moralist had leaned to the jesting vein that he at
length resumed the consultation.

The conspirators did not, however, bring their scheme that night to any
ultimate decision. The next day Augustus, Paul, and some others of the
company were set to work in the garden; and Paul then observed that his
friend, wheeling a barrow close by the spot where the watchman stood,
overturned its contents. The watchman was good-natured enough to assist
him in refilling the barrow; and Tomlinson profited so well by the
occasion that that night he informed Paul that they would have nothing to
dread from the watchman's vigilance. "He has promised," said Augustus,
"for certain consi-de-ra-tions, to allow me to knock him down; he has
also promised to be so much hurt as not to be able to move until we are
over the wall. Our main difficulty now, then, is the first step,--
namely, to climb the pipe unperceived!"

"As to that," said Paul, who developed, through the whole of the scheme,
organs of sagacity, boldness, and invention which charmed his friend, and
certainly promised well for his future career,--"as to that, I think we
may manage the first ascent with less danger than you imagine. The
mornings of late have been very foggy; they are almost dark at the hour
we go to chapel. Let you and I close the file: the pipe passes just
above the door; our hands, as we have tried, can reach it; and a spring
of no great agility will enable us to raise ourselves up to a footing on
the pipe and the skirting-board.

"The climbing then is easy; and what with the dense fog and our own
quickness, I think we shall have little difficulty in gaining the garden.
The only precautions we need use are, to wait for a very dark morning,
and to be sure that we are the last of the file, so that no one behind
may give the alarm--"

"Or attempt to follow our example, and spoil the pie by a superfluous
plum!" added Augustus. "You counsel admirably; and one of these days, if
you are not hung in the mean while, will, I venture to auger, be a great
logician."

The next morning was clear and frosty; but the day after was, to use
Tomlinson's simile, "as dark as if all the negroes of Africa had been
stewed down into air." "You might have cut the fog with a knife," as the
proverb says. Paul and Augustus could not even see how significantly
each looked at the other.

It was a remarkable trait of the daring temperament of the former, that,
young as he was, it was fixed that he should lead the attempt. At the
hour, then, for chapel the prisoners passed as usual through the door.
When it came to Paul's turn he drew himself by his hands to the pipe, and
then creeping along its sinuous course, gained the wall before he had
even fetched his breath. Rather more clumsily, Augustus followed his
friend's example. Once his foot slipped, and he was all but over. He
extended his hands involuntarily, and caught Paul by the leg. Happily
our hero had then gained the wall, to which he was clinging; and for once
in a way, one rogue raised himself without throwing over another. Behold
Tomlinson and Paul now seated for an instant on the wall to recover
breath; the latter then,--the descent to the ground was not very great,
--letting his body down by his hands, dropped into the garden.

"Hurt?" asked the prudent Augustus, in a hoarse whisper, before he
descended from his "bad eminence," being even willing--

"To bear those ills he had,
Than fly to others that he knew not of"

"No!" without taking every previous precaution in his power, was the
answer in the same voice, and Augustus dropped.

So soon as this latter worthy had recovered the shock of his fall, he
lost not a moment in running to the other end of the garden. Paul
followed. By the way Tomlinson stopped at a heap of rubbish, and picked
up an immense stone. When they came to the part of the wall they had
agreed to scale, they found the watchman,--about whom they needed not, by
the by, to have concerned themselves; for had it not been arranged that
he was to have met them, the deep fog would have effectually prevented
him from seeing them. This faithful guardian Augustus knocked down, not
with a stone, but with ten guineas; he then drew forth from his dress a
thickish cord, which he procured some days before from the turnkey, and
fastening the stone firmly to one end, threw that end over the wall. Now
the wall had (as walls of great strength mostly have) an overhanging sort
of battlement on either side; and the stone, when flung over and drawn to
the tether of the cord to which it was attached, necessarily hitched
against this projection; and thus the cord was as it were fastened to the
wall, and Tomlinson was enabled by it to draw himself up to the top of
the barrier. He performed this feat with gymnastic address, like one who
had often practised it; albeit the discreet adventurer had not mentioned
in his narrative to Paul any previous occasion for the practice. As soon
as he had gained the top of the wall, he threw down the cord to his
companion, and, in consideration of Paul's inexperience in that manner of
climbing, gave the fastening of the rope an additional security by
holding it himself. With slowness and labour Paul hoisted himself up;
and then, by transferring the stone to the other side of the wall, where
it made of course a similar hitch, our two adventurers were enabled
successively to slide down, and consummate their escape from the House of
Correction.

"Follow me now!" said Augustus, as he took to his heels; and Paul pursued
him through a labyrinth of alleys and lanes, through which he shot and
dodged with a variable and shifting celerity that, had not Paul kept
close upon him, would very soon, combined with the fog, have snatched him
from the eyes of his young ally. Happily the immaturity of the morning,
the obscurity of the streets passed through, and above all, the extreme
darkness of the atmosphere, prevented that detection and arrest which
their prisoner's garb would otherwise have insured them. At length they
found themselves in the fields; and skulking along hedges, and diligently
avoiding the highroad, they continued to fly onward, until they had
advanced several miles into "the bowels of the land." At that time "the
bowels" of Augustus Tomlinson began to remind him of their demands; and
he accordingly suggested the desirability of their seizing the first
peasant they encountered, and causing him to exchange clothes with one of
the fugitives, who would thus be enabled to enter a public-house and
provide for their mutual necessities. Paul agreed to this proposition,
and accordingly they watched their opportunity and caught a ploughman.
Augustus stripped him of his frock, hat, and worsted stockings; and Paul,
hardened by necessity and companionship, helped to tie the poor ploughman
to a tree. They then continued their progress for about an hour, and, as
the shades of evening fell around them, they discovered a public-house.
Augustus entered, and returned in a few minutes laden with bread and
cheese, and a bottle of beer. Prison fare cures a man of daintiness,
and the two fugitives dined on these homely viands with considerable
complacency. They then resumed their journey, and at length, wearied
with exertion, they arrived at a lonely haystack, where they resolved to
repose for an hour or two.




CHAPTER X.

Unlike the ribald, whose licentious jest
Pollutes his banquet, and insults his guest,
From wealth and grandeur easy to descend,
Thou joy'st to lose the master in the friend.
We round thy board the cheerful menials see, Gay--
with the smile of bland equality;
No social care the gracious lord disdains;
Love prompts to love, and reverence reverence gains.

Translation of LUCAN to Paso,
Prefixed to the Twelfth Paper of "The Rambler."

Coyly shone down the bashful stars upon our adventurers, as, after a
short nap behind the haystack, they stretched themselves, and looking at
each other, burst into an involuntary and hilarious laugh at the
prosperous termination of their exploit.

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