Part 70 (1/2)
The Squire having occasion to call at a banker's in Fleet Street, the two friends entered at the moment when a countryman with a most rueful expression of countenance, stood transfixed to the floor, like the statue of Despair, incapable either of speech or motion. After an absorption of mental faculty of several minutes duration, he burst out into the incoherent exclamations of
”Murrian take un, zay I!--Icod, I'ze in a voine pickle! I ha brought my pigs to market wi a vengeance! O luord! O luord! whoa would ha thought en't?”
He then began exercising his feet by stamping each alternately on the floor, with a violence that shook the room to its foundation; and this vehement thunder he accompanied by correspondent energy of gesticulation; distorting his visage, and casting about his arms with the action of an infuriated maniac. The place was thrown into alarm, and business was suspended. Dashall now addressing himself to the presumed lunatic, begged him to compose himself, and endeavour briefly to state what had happened, that if he had sustained an injury, redress might be obtained.
After several fruitless attempts at narration, he at length told his story; and that it may lose nothing of its originality, we shall give it in the first person.
”I'ze cuom zur, frae Zumersetzs.h.i.+re to Lunnon, first time o' my loife, by coach, where it putt en at a pleace called the two Gooses necks, and zo having a cheque on this house for Fifty Pounds, and not knowing the way, I axed a vera civil gentleman whom I met wi' hovering about Inn-yard; and telling him my business, Pze go with you, zaid he, vera kindly, and help thee to take care o! thy money, vor there be a desperate set o' sharp fellows in Lunnon ready to take every advantage of a stranger; ~92~~ and zoa we came along, and just avore we gotten into house here, he said to I, zays he, I'ze take thy money and zee that all's right, vor there be a vast many bad sovereigns about.--Well, zur, zoa he did; and just as I wur looking about, it seems he had taen himself off wi'the money, vor when I looked round he wur no where to be zeen; and zoa zur, I have lost Fifty good Pounds to my sorrow. Who would ha thought it!--I wish the murrian had ha hold on me avore I had come to this wicked world o' Lunnon!”
Here the countryman concluded his narrative, exciting the amus.e.m.e.nt of some and the sympathy of others of his auditory.--The banker dispatched one of his clerks with the unlucky wight to one of the Public Offices, for the purpose of describing the depredator, altho' with very small chance of recovering the property.{1}
Eliminating on the folly of this credulous countryman, our perambulators now proceeded down Fleet Street, where casting a look into Bolt Court--”Here,” said Dashall, ”lived and died the colossus of English literature, Doctor Samuel Johnson,{2} a man whose like the world may
1 In all the Coach and Waggon yards in London there are fellows loitering about with the view of plunder; they frequently are taken by the unwary countryman, for domestics of the Inn, and as such are entrusted with property with which they immediately decamp, and by many other artful manouvres secure their spoil.
2 The most trivial circ.u.mstance in the life of a great man, carries with it a certain somewhat of importance, infinitely more agreeable to the generality of readers than the long details which history usually presents. Amongst the numerous anecdotes of Doctor Johnson, perhaps the following is not the least amusing.--When the Doctor first became acquainted with David Mallet, they once went, with some other gentlemen, to laugh away an hour at South-wark-fair. At one of the booths where wild beasts were exhibited to the wondering crowd, was a very large bear, which the showman a.s.sured them was ”cotched” in the undiscovered deserts of the remotest Russia. The bear was muzzled, and might therefore be approached with safety; but to all the company, except Johnson, was very surly and ill tempered. Of the philosopher he appeared extremely fond, rubbed against him, and displayed every mark of awkward partiality, and ursine kindness. ”How is it, (said one of the company,) that; this savage animal is so attached to Mr. Johnson?” From a very natural cause, replied Mallet: ”the bear is a Russian philosopher, and he knows that Linnaeus would have placed him in the same cla.s.s with the English moralist. They are two barbarous animals of one species.”--Johnson disliked Mallet for his tendency to infidelity, and this sarcasm turned his dislike into downright hatred. He never spoke to him afterwards, but has gibbeted him in his octavo dictionary, under the article ”Alias.”
~93~~perhaps never see again; yet with all his vast erudition he had his prejudices and superst.i.tions; he believed in apparitions, and he despised all countries save his own.--The Scotch and Irish he affected particularly to dislike.--In his poem of ”London,” in imitation of Juvenal, he says,--
For who unbrib'd would leave Hibernia's land, Or change the rocks of Scotland for the Strand?-- There none are swept by sudden death away, But all whom Hunger spares, with age decay!
But, with all his foibles, (and who is there without human infirmity?) Doctor Samuel Johnson was the most highly talented writer of any age or nation.”
Facing the Obelisk, ”let us stroll down the market,” said Dashall, ”considered the cheapest in London.--Flesh, fish and fowl, fruits, roots and vegetables, are here abundantly attainable, and at moderate prices.”
Amongst the various venders, our two observers pa.s.sed on, unmolestedly, excepting the annoyance and importunity of ”What d'ye buy? what d'ye buy, buy, buy?” from” barking butchers, who instinctively reiterated the phrase as the casual pa.s.senger approached, like so many parrots, unconscious of its import being unproductive in effect; for who would be induced to purchase by the clamorous invitation universally in use by these vociferous butchers of the metropolis?--”My fine fellow,” observed Tallyho to one who annoyed him, ”good wine, they say, needs no bush, neither does good meat require a barker.”
”Bad luck to my mother's own daughter, and that is myself, sure,”
exclaimed a retail venderess of vegetables, to her opponent in trade, ”if I wouldn't for the value of a tester, or for the value of nothing at all at all, give you freely just what you ask for my jewel.--Arrah now, is it law that you want of me! Faith and troth then you shall have it, _club-law_, when and where you plase, my darling!”
”Dirty end,” rejoined the other lady, ”to the girl who fear* you!--Here am I, Kate, of the Maclusky's of Ballymena, in the county of Antrim, long life to it! and it would be a hard case, and a shameful one to boot, if a well educated northern la.s.s should suffer her own self to be disgraced by a Munster-woman.”
~94~~ ”The devil fly away with Ballymena, and the Macluskys along with it!” retorted the other; ”and is it Munster and heddication that you are bothering about? Whillaloe graraachree! my sweet one! and did you begin your larning in Ballymena, and come to finish it in Fleet-market? By my conscience, Kate Maclusky, if you are not very much belied, you know more than you ought to do.”
”And what would you 'sinuate by that?” demanded Kate;--”What do you 'sinuate by that, Ma'am?--I acknowledge that I'm both a wh.o.r.e and a thief--what then? Bating that I defy you to say, black is the white of my eye!”
Here Mrs. Maclusky with arms a-kimbo, and a visage strongly expressing exasperation and defiance, advanced towards the Munster-woman.
”Let us step aside,” said Dashall, ”hostilities are about to commence.”
He was right; a few more irritable preliminaries, and the heroines came in contact, in due order of battle.
”Two to one on the Munster-woman.” ”Done! Ulster for ever! go it Kate!--handle your dawdles, my girl;--s.h.i.+ver her ivory;--darken her skylights;--flatten her sneizer;--foul, foul,--ah you Munster b----ch!”
”Fair, fair;--arrah, now for the honor of Munster;--dig away;--mind your hits;--rattle her bread basket;--set her claret-spout a-going;--stand firm on your pegs;--what, down!”
Thus ended round the first; the amazons had, in the fray, reduced each other from the waist upwards to nearly a state of nudity. On either side the partisans were numerous, the combatants eager to renew the fight, and the spectators, the majority of whom were of Irish distraction, anxious for the result, when the officious interposition of official authority, terminated the ”tug of war,” and the honor of the two provinces remained undecided.--
”Success to the land that gave Patrick his birth.” Tranquillity thus restored, a new scene in the drama of Fleet-market attracted the attention of the two visitants.
A rabbit pole-woman pa.s.sing through the market, was accosted by a lady, who enquiring the price of the Rabbits, purchased a couple, in front of the shop of a similar exhibitant.--This was considered by the rabbit-dealers of the market, a gross breach of privilege, more particularly as the obnoxious female had presumed to undersell them, even with a superior article. Not willing, however, from ~95~~prudential reasons, to appear in avowed personal hostility against the object of their vengeance, and that, too, a woman, who had inadvertently incurred the displeasure of their high mightinesses, the subordinate agency of boys was deputed for the purpose of wrecking summary retribution; and the juvenile deputation quickly overthrew in the apparent wantonness of mischief, the whole of the poor girl's day-property, and scrambling for the spoil, disseminated themselves in different directions, leaving not the vestige of a rabbit behind!