Volume III Part 1 (1/2)
The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous
Vol 3
by George Augustus Sala
CHAPTER THE FIRST
I SEE MUCH OF THE INSIDE OF THE WORLD, AND THEN GO RIGHT ROUND IT
1748 I was not yet Forty years of age, Hale and Stout, Coh,--so said Mistress Prue and many other damsels,--with a Military Education, an approved reputation for Valour, and very little else besides A gentleh as slender as an ell-wand, and as wobegone as a dried eel-skin But I was never one that wantedno Friends in the world, was of a most Contented Disposition
Some trouble, indeed, -Maid--sure, I did the girl no Har a little soft nonsense in her ear now and then But she must needs have a succession of Hysterical Fits after my departure from the Tower, and writeto throw herself into Rosamond's Pond in St
Ja-Place for Disconsolate Lovers), with many other nonsensical Menaces But I was firm to my Determination to do her no har any of her letters She did not break her heart; but (being resolved to wed one that wore the King's cloth) she married Miles Bandolier about three months after my Departure, and broke his head, ere the Honeymoon was over, with a Bed-staff Aout of the Tower, I took lodgings for a season in Great Ryder Street, St James's, and set up for a Person of Pleasure There were many Military Officers of my Acquaintance who honoured me with their company over a Bottle, for even as a Tower Warder I had been a kind of a Gentleree They laughed somewhat at my Brevet rank of Captain, and soio too far, when I would th of ed to, but what Mettle I was of By favour of some of my Martial Friends, I was introduced to a favourite Coffee-House, the ”Rahter's, in St Martin's Lane, now, that the Soldier-Officers do most use); and there we had ame at cards; at the which, thanks to the tuition of Mr
Hodge, when I was in Mr Pinchin's service, I was a passable adept, being able to hold my own and More, in almost every Ga did result, not only to mutual pleasure, but to my especial Profit; for I was very lucky But I declare that I always played fair; and if any , there was then, as there is now, , however, on Ga Somehow or another the Money you win at Cards--I would never touch Dice, which are too chancy, liable to be Sophisticated, and, besides, sure to lead to Brawling, Stabbing, and cracking of Crowns--this Money, gotten over Old Nick's back, I say, never seeo; and the Store of Gold Pieces that glitter so bravely when you sweep thereen cloth seems, in a couple of days afterwards, to have turned to dry leaves, like the Magician's in the Fairy Tale Excepting Major Panton, who built the Street and the Square which bear his naht's Profit at the Pharoah table, can you tell me of one habitual Ga substantial out of his Winnings? No, no; a Hand at Cards is all very well, and 'tis pleasant to win enough to pay one's Reckoning, give a Supper to the Loser, and have a Frisk upon Town afterwards; but I do abhor your steady, syste lips, hair bristling under their wigs, and twitching fingers, as they watch the Game Of course, when Cards are played, youfor Love, I would as soon play for nutshells or cheese-parings But the whole business is too feverish and exciting for a Man of war hen your Bed and Raiment, your Dinner and your Flask, depend on the turn up of a card And so I very speedily abandoned this line of life
'Twas necessary, nevertheless, for so Grist to the Mill About this time it was a very common practice for Great noblemen--notably those ere in any way addicted to pleasure, and ours was a hty Gay nobility thirty or forty years since--to entertain Men of Honour, Daring, and Ability, cunning in the use of their Swords, and exceedingly discreet in their conversations, to attend them upon their private affairs, and render to thee One or two Duels in Hyde Park and behind Montagu House, in which I had the honour to be concerned as Second,--and in one of which I engaged the Second of my Patron's Adversary, and succeeded, by two dexterous side slices, in Quincing his face as neatly as a houseould slice Fruit for a Devonshi+re Squab Pie,--gained hest nobility, to whom I was otherwise recommended by the easiness ofEarl of Modesley did in particular affect me, and I was of Service to his Lordshi+p on many most momentous and delicate Occasions For upwards of Six Months I was sumptuously entertained in his Lordshi+p's Mansion in Red Lion Square;--a Kind of Hospitality, indeed, which he wasat the saer, a Newmarket Horse-Jockey, and a Do of cocks and drinking of Cider with clowns at his Vicarage; but to whom the Earl of Modesley was always a fast friend Unfortunate Young noblenon, just before attaining his Thirtieth Year! His intentions towardspleased to say that I was a good-looking Fellow enough, and coe when it behoved me to be settled in Life, proposed that I should enter in the bonds of Wedlock with one Miss Jenny Lightfoot, that had formerly been a Milliner in Liquorpond Street, but hen his Lordshi+p introduced s under the Piazza, Covent Garden, and gave the handso nobility that ever were seen So Boundless was his Lordshi+p's generosity that he offered to bestow a portion of Five Hundred Pounds on Miss Lightfoot if she would becoerous--said portion to be atLease at a Peppercorn Rent of a Far I was not yet disposed to surrender htfoot, while the Treaty of Alliance between us was being discussed, did not augur very favourably for our felicity in the Matriue, Gambler, Bully, Led Captain, and many other uncivil names She snapped off the silver hilt of ht the Second in Hyde Park), and obstinately refused to restore that ge to iven it to her Landlady (one Mother Bishopsbib, a monstrous Fat Woman, that was afterwards Carted, and stood in the Pillory in Spring Gardens, for evil practices) in part pay Moreover, she wilfully spoilta Chocolate Mill thereupon; and otherwise so misconducted herself that I bade her a respectful Farewell,--she leaving theGift,--and told on as this Terht about a Rupture between h to talk about ratitude, to tell ht and paid for with his Money, and to threaten to have me kicked out of doors by two of his Tall Lacqueys But I speedily let hi up to hi my face full in his, ”you will be pleased to know that I am a Gentleman, whose ancestors were ennobled centuries before your rascally grandfather got his peerage for turning against the true King”
He began to(as many have done before when”a Jacobite”
”I'll Jacobite your jacket for you, you Jackadandy!” I retorted ”You have most foully insulted me I know your Lordshi+p's ell If I sent you a cartel, you and your whippersnapper Friends would sneer at it, because I aht with a poor Gentleman of the Sword I aive you the private Stab, as you deserve; but so sure as you are your father's son, if you don't el you till there is not a whole bone in your body”
The young Ruffian--he was not such a coward as Squire Pinchin, but rather ht up a quarter-staff that lay handy (for ere always exercising ourselves at athletic arasp, and hit hiht him down upon hisup his hands ”Foul! foul!”
”Foul be hanged!” I answered ”I'ht, but to Beat You;”
and I rushed upon hi the Staff, and would have belaboured hiainst John Dangerous, and very huised as I had Demanded, and lent me Twenty Guineas, and we parted on the , to dothat I had used hiross Treachery, and the like Falsehoods, until I was obliged to send hie to this purport: that unless he desisted, I should be obliged to keep el Upon which he presently surceased So e up a pretended debt of nineteen guineas against me as for money lent, for the which I was arrested by bailiffs and conveyed--being taken at Jonathan's--to a vile spunging-house in Little Bell Alley, Moorfields; but the keeper of the House stood my friend, and procured a Bail for me in the shape of an Honest Gentleman, as to be seen every day about Westminster Hall with a straw in his shoe, and for a crown and a dinner at the eating-house would suddenly become worth five hundred a year, or at least swear himself black in the face that such was his estate:--which was all that was required And when it caes, what so easy as to hire a suit of clothes in Monmouth Street, and send hientleman?
However, there was no occasion for this, for on the very night ofvery Bold to uineas toto what lawyer I should pay the cost of suit, and whether I should wait upon him at his Levee for a receipt On the which he, still with the fear of a cudgelling before his eyes, sends ing me to trouble myself in no way about the lawyer; which, I promise you, I did not And so an end of this troublesoh to me while it lasted As for Miss Jenny, her Behaviour soon becaot into trouble about a Spanish Merchant that was flung down stairs and nigh killed, and that but for the Favour of Justice Cogwell, who had a hankering for her, 'twould have been a Court-Job Afterwards I learnt that she had been seen beating Hemp in Bridewell in a satin sack laced with silver; and I warrant that she was fain to cry, ”Knock! oh, good Sir Robert, knock!” many a tieing of her
There are certain periods in the life even of the most fortunate man when his Luck is at a desperately low ebb,--when everything see that he can turn his hand to prospers,--when friends desert him, and the co made better use of his opportunities,--when, Do what he will, he cannot avert the Black Stor, and Catastrophe is on the cards,--when he is Down, in a word, and the despiteful are getting ready to gibe at him in his Misfortune, and to administer unto him the last Kick These times of Trial and Bitter Travail ofttie,--the Halfway-House of Life; and then, 'tis the merest chance in the world whether he will be enabled to pick hiain, or be condemned for evermore to poverty and contumely,--to the portion of weeds and out-worn faces I do confess that about this period of rievously hard-driven, not alone tothat could have its ending in a Meal of Victuals I have heard that soreatest Prelates, Statesmen, Painters, Captains, and Merchants--I speak not of Poets, for it is their eternal portion, seely, to be born, to live, and to Die Poor--have suffered the like straits at some time or another of their lives Many ties, that Despair and I were never Bedfellows As for Suicide, I do condemn it, and abhor it utterly, as the most cowardly, Dishonest, and unworthy Method to which a Man can resort that he may rid himself of his Difficulties To make a loathsome unhandsome corpse of yourself, and deny yourself Christian Burial, nay, run the risk of crowner's quest, and inter of four cross-roads with a Stake driven through your Heart Oh, 'tis sha yourself, forsooth! why should you spend money in threepenny cord, when Jack Ketch, if you deserve it, will hang you for nothing, and the County find the rope?
Take poison! why, you are squea physic froood Why, then, should you s a vile mess which you are _certain_ must do you harm? Fall upon your sword, as Tully--I mean Brutus--or some of those old Romans, ont to do when the Game was up! In the first place, I should like to see the man, howsoever expert a fencer, who could so tumble on his own blade and kill himself 'Tis easier to sord than to fall upon one, and the first is quite as much a Mountebank's Trick as t'other Blow your brains out! A hty fine climax truly, to hbours out of their wits, besides, as a waggish friend ofyourself stone-deaf for life
If it coe would much sooner blow out somebody else's Brains instead of his own
I did not, I a this my time of ill luck; and I never parted with erous oundily pushed, and had to adopt aged ue, an Irish, Master of the noble Art of Self-Defence, at his Theatre of Arht hand side of the Oxford Road, near Ada was, as is well known, the very Atlas of the Sword; and Mr O'Teague's body was a very Mass of Scars and Cicatrices gotten in hand-to-hand conflicts with the broadsword on the public stage He had once presu of the ti been honourably vanquished by hi of his crown in sundry places, and the scoring of his body as though it had been a Loin of Pork for the Bakehouse, he was taken into his service, and becaladiatorial encounters, at wages of forty shi+llings a week and his ood at backsword as at broadsword, at quarter-staff as at foil, and at fisticuffs as any one of the,--I saw hiet him There was a Majesty blazed in his countenance and shone in all his actions beyond all I ever beheld His right leg bold and firave hies he so often proved, and struck his Adversary with Despair and Panic He had that peculiar way of stepping in, in a Parry, which belongs to the Grand School alone; he knew his ar; put a firm faith in that, and never let his foe escape a parry He was just as reater judge of tiht in his Amphitheatre, to send round to a select nu combat, and seldom failed of half-a-dozen of superfine Holland fro nobility and Gentry made it a part of their education to march under his warlike banner Most of his Scholars were at every battle, and were sure to exult at their greathe saw the wounds his shi+rt received
Then Mr Figg would take an opportunity to inform his Lenders of the charar you, keep it” A eous person, and iue, Will Holhton, Sutton, and the like
Many good bouts with all kinds of weapons did we have at Mr O'Teague's theatre, which was down a Stable-yard behind Newport Market, not far from Orator Henley's chapel The shi+rtsuccess; but we found it in the end ireater part of ere Butchers; and I am fain to adht as well as we Then Mr O'Teague was , and in his potations quarrelsoe for profit, and with the chance of applause, a clean shi+rt, and perchance a Right Good Supper given to us by our ad Tavern; but I never could see the hu, and without occasion; and as my Employer was somewhat too prompt to call in cold iron when his Head was so Hot, I shook hands with him, and bade hiue that was afterwards so unfortunate as to be hanged at Tyburn for devalising a gentleman at Roehampton Great interest was made to save him, his very prosecutor (who knew not at the first his assailant, or that he had been driven to the road by hard tinatures to a petition for him But 'twas all in vain He ed; and his funeral was attended by soallant set-to afterwards for the benefit of his'Tis sad to think of the numbers of brave ed
About this tily; and although numbers of brilliant offers were made to me, I could not be persuaded to try the sock and buskin Hard as were the names by which my eneue and Vagabond, and such, by Act of Parliament, was the player at that time No, I said, whatever straits I aerous to the last