Part 71 (2/2)
Amongst these sons and daughters of misery, happy is the one who, after partially satisfying the cravings of hunger, possesses two-pence, the price of a shake down for the night, in Rainbridge or Buckeridge-street, St. Giles's!--The upright is a wretched semblance of a bed, at the rate of three-pence or four-pence; but the lofty aspirant to genteel accommodation, must put down a tester. In this way there are frequently beds to the number of seventy in one house, made up for nocturnal visitants!
Palestine in London, or the Holy Land, includes that portion of the parish of St. Giles, Bloomsbury, inhabited by the lower Irish, with whom it seems a favorite place of residence. The Squire having expressed to his friend a desire of perambulating these boundaries, they proceeded, by the way of George street, to explore the sanctified labyrinths, the scenes of diurnal clamour, and hebdomadary conflict.
”Arrah now,” exclaimed a voice of maternity, in the person of a legitimate daughter of Erin,--”Arrah now, you brat of the devil's own begetting, be after bowling along to your fader: bad luck to him, and be sure that you bring him home wid you, by the token that the murphies are cracking, the salt-herrings scalding, and the apple-dumplings tumbling about the pot,--d'ye mind me, you tief of the world, tell him that his dinner waits upon him.”--”I'll be after doing that same, moder;”
and forth from the ground floor of a mean looking house in Buckeridge-street, sprang an urchin without hat, shoe or stocking, and the scanty tattered habiliment he wore, fluttering in ~105~~various hues, like pennants in the wind, with such heedless velocity, urged no doubt by the antic.i.p.ated delicacies of the dinner-pot, that he came in furious, unexpected, and irresistible contact with Squire Tallyho, who borne forward by the shock, was precipitated into a stagnant collection of mud and water, to the total disfigurement of his Boots, which had that morning received the ”matchlessly brilliant polish of Warren's inestimable Jet blacking.” Not like many others in London, who will run you down and leave you to your fate, the heir of his fader's whimsicalities stopped short in the inauspicious set-out of his rapid career; and ”dirty end,” he exclaimed, ”to the scavenger that didn't think of the gentleman's boots!” And at the same time the mother of this hopeful representative of the Mac Dermott family, made her appearance with the genuine warmth of Irish hospitality; and inviting the two strangers to walk in, consoled the bespattered Squire with the prospect of speedy and effectual reparation, for ”fait and troth, (said she) his dinner is all of a heap in the pot there, praaties, salt-herrings, and apple-dumplings,{1} and that is my husband Thady Mac Dermott, who is neither more nor less than a bricklayer's laborer, is after amusing himself and obliging his neighbours, at a small outlay, of a Sunday morning, by claning their boots and shoes; so it is an ill wind that blows n.o.body good, they say.” The accommodating hostess then producing a bottle of blacking, with the requisite brus.h.i.+ng implements, applied herself a.s.siduously to the operation of claning the Squire's boots, and restored them, in a few minutes, to the splendour of their pristine brilliancy.
Scarcely had this important operation been performed, when entered Thady Mac Dermott and his son, the origin of the accident. ”The devil burn your trampers, you imp of the Mac Dermotts,” cried the father: ”couldn't you run against the gentleman without dirtying his boots? Never mind it at all at all; I'll be after giving you a walloping for it, any how.”
1 The fastidious delicacy of English cookery, when contrasted with that of Irish culinary preparation in the Holy-land, is surprising. The wife of an Irish laborer who is desirous of giving her husband a delectable meal, and of various description, bodders not her brain with a diversity of utensils; but from the same pot or pan will produce, as if by enchantment, potatoes, (without which an Irishman cannot possibly make a dinner,) salt-herrings, and apple- dumplings; nor, does this extraordinary union of opposites affect the appet.i.te of those partaking the oglio.
~106~~ The first instrument of attack that comes to hand is an Irishman's weapon.--Thady brandished in _terrorem_ a red hot poker, and his son with the agility of a cat took sanctuary under the bed, but at the intercession of the Squire was allowed to emerge with impunity, and admitted to a partic.i.p.ation of the salt-herrings and apple-dumplings.
The two friends declining an invitation to taste of these dainties, now departed, Tallyho not forgetting the ”outlay, and the ill-wind that blows n.o.body good.”
Winding the mazes of the holy land, which may not unaptly be considered a colony of Irish emigrants, our perambulators without further occurrence worthy of notice, threaded their way through streets, lanes, and alleys, until they emerged at the bottom of Tottenham-court Road, close by the extensive brewery of Read and Co. Entering the premises, they were gratified with a view of every thing interesting in the establishment; and the Squire, to whom the spectacle was entirely new, stood wrapt in wonder at the vast magnitude of its immense vats and boilers, containing, as he observed, of the fluid of Sir John Barleycorn, a sufficiency to inundate the whole neighbourhood! ”Such a circ.u.mstance,” said the attendant, ”actually occurred a few years ago, when the vat burst, and an ocean of beer rushed forth, with such impetuous force as to bear down, in its resistless progress, the side of a house, and fill, to the imminent hazard of drowning the astonished and alarmed occupants, all the cellars in the vicinity.”{1}
1 Scarcely any thing contributes so much to characterize the enterprising spirit of the present age, as the vast scale on which many branches of manufacture are carried on in this country. Every one has heard of the celebrated tun of Heidelberg, but that monument of idle vanity is rivalled by the vessels now employed in the breweries of this metropolis.
Having seen all that is remarkable in this s.p.a.cious concern, the two a.s.sociates turned into Oxford Street, where their attention was directed to a gay female in an elegant equipage, pair in hand, das.h.i.+ng along, in the manner of royal celerity.
”Observe that lady,” said Dashall, ”She is the celebrated Mrs. C*r*y, the favourite sultana of a certain Commander in Chief, and I shall give you her history in a few words.”
~107~~ ”Sutherland, a bombadier at Woolwich, obtained a commission, but was less successful in securing the fidelity of his wife, who eloped with an officer to Gibraltar; the produce of this intercourse was the amoroso whom we observed _en pa.s.sant_; in process of time she married C*r*y, an officer in a veteran battalion, but shortly afterwards getting tired of the connection, she adopted the laudable example set by her respectable mamma, deserted her husband and came to England, under the protection of a surgeon in the army, whose embraces she relinquished for those of her present ill.u.s.trious possessor. How long she may keep him in captivation, is a surmise of rather equivocal import; however ardent at present, his attachment, Mrs. C*r*y must be aware of the versatile propensities of his R*y*l H*ghn*ss of Y**k, and sans doubt like her predecessor, Mary Ann C***ke, will make the most of a favourable opportunity.”
”London exhibits Real Life in all its forms and gradations, from the hireling of royalty in a curricle, to the pa.s.sive spouse of all the town, on the pavement; from the splendour of affluence to the miseries of penury; even Mendicity itself has its shades of variety, its success being less frequently derived from the acuteness of distress than the caprice of Nature, in having gifted the mendicant with some peculiar eccentricity of person or character, to attract attention and sympathy.
He who is without these endowments pa.s.ses unnoticed; but the diminutive and deformed creature, seated on a child's cart, who with the help of crutches shoves himself along the street, and whose whole height, including his machine, does not exceed two feet; this minikin, _ecce h.o.m.o_, is gazed at by the casual pa.s.senger as a prodigy, and seldom fails to benefit by the excitation of curiosity.”--
Approaching the tiny personage alluded to,--”Well, Mr. Andrew Whiston,”
said Dashall, ”what important business brings you so far westward? I thought that your migrations from Bankside had never extended beyond the precincts of Temple-bar.”
”I wot weel, your honor, that I have strayed far frae hame, and to little purpose,--better fortune has not lit on me this wearisome day, than meeting wi' your honor, for G.o.d bless you many a time has the poor dwarfish body tasted your bounty.”
During this colloquy, Tallyho gazed on the poor dwarfish body with commiseration, intermixed with no small portion of surprise, at this fresh display of general knowledge by his intelligent and amusing coz, to whom all of interest and curiosity in the metropolis, animate and inanimate, seemed perfectly familiar.
~108~~ ”And whither away now, Master Whiston; do you mean to look in at the rendezvous to night?”{1}
”Faith no, sir,--I got a fright there some few years since, and I shall be very cautious of getting into the like disaster a second time.”
The conversation had so far proceeded, to the entertainment of congregated pa.s.sengers, when the auditory getting rather inconveniently numerous, the two friends left each his mite of benevolence with Maister Andrew Whiston, gaining home without further incident or interruption.{2}
1 Recurring to the holy land, the rendezvous is a noted house in St. Giles's, where, after the labors of the day, the mendicant fraternity a.s.semble, enjoy the comfort of a good supper; amongst other items, not unfrequently an alderman in chains, alias a roast turkey, garnished with pork-sausages; elect their chairman, and spend the night as jolly beggars ought to do, in mirth and revelry.
2 Andrew Whiston was born at Dundee in Scotland, February 10th, 1770, and has, during the last twenty-eight years, resided in London. The person of this man is well known to the perambulators of the metropolis. He forms altogether a disgusting little figure, pus.h.i.+ng himself about on a small cart, which moves upon wheels, and wearing an ap.r.o.n to conceal the deformity of his legs. His whole height, including his vehicle, does not exceed two feet. To avoid the penalties attached to begging and vagrancy, he carries a few pens stuck between his coat and waistcoat, and declares that the dealing in those articles is the only trade to which he has been brought up. It is not improbable, that by means of this, and other arts and mysteries which he exercises, Andrew has been enabled to procure something more than salt to his porridge. It cannot be supposed that his person is calculated to excite the tender pa.s.sion; it must therefore be to the idea of his having acc.u.mulated wealth, that we are to attribute the following circ.u.mstance. A short time since, Andrew began to think seriously of taking unto himself a wife, and having looked round among his female acquaint-ance for a desirable partner, he fixed his choice on a Mrs. Marshall, the widow of a waterman, who follows the trade of a retail dealer in fish, at the corner of Spiller's public-house, on that side of the Surrey Road which he usually frequents. This fair lady, who might perhaps have been dead as a roach to his addresses, if he had possessed nothing but his deformed person to offer, proved leaping alive, ho! at the thought of Andrew's little h.o.a.rd, of which she hoped to become mistress. Several presents attested the seriousness of the lover's proposals, and his charmer was all compliance to his wishes, till he had actually sent the money to pay for publis.h.i.+ng the banns at Christ Church, when the ridicule of all her acquaintance urged her to abandon the design of so preposterous a match.
CHAPTER VII
Gae him strong drink until he wink, That's sinking in despair; And liquor guid to fire his bluid, That's prest wi' grief and care;-- Then let him boose and deep carouse, Wi' b.u.mpers flowing o'er; 'Till he forgets his fears and debts, And minds his ills no more.
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