Part 2 (1/2)
Harley made no objection, and the stranger showed him the way into the parlour.
He was placed, by the courtesy of his introductor, in an arm-chair that stood at one side of the fire. Over against him was seated a man of a grave considering aspect, with that look of sober prudence which indicates what is commonly called a warm man. He wore a pretty large wig, which had once been white, but was now of a brownish yellow; his coat was one of those modest-coloured drabs which mock the injuries of dust and dirt; two jack-boots concealed, in part, the well-mended knees of an old pair of buckskin breeches; while the spotted handkerchief round his neck preserved at once its owner from catching cold and his neck-cloth from being dirtied.
Next him sat another man, with a tankard in his hand and a quid of tobacco in his cheek, whose eye was rather more vivacious, and whose dress was something smarter.
The first-mentioned gentleman took notice that the room had been so lately washed, as not to have had time to dry, and remarked that wet lodging was unwholesome for man or beast. He looked round at the same time for a poker to stir the fire with, which, he at last observed to the company, the people of the house had removed in order to save their coals. This difficulty, however, he overcame by the help of Harley's stick, saying, ”that as they should, no doubt, pay for their fire in some shape or other, he saw no reason why they should not have the use of it while they sat.”
The door was now opened for the admission of dinner. ”I don't know how it is with you, gentlemen,” said Harley's new acquaintance, ”but I am afraid I shall not be able to get down a morsel at this horrid mechanical hour of dining.” He sat down, however, and did not show any want of appet.i.te by his eating. He took upon him the carving of the meat, and criticised on the goodness of the pudding.
When the table-cloth was removed, he proposed calling for some punch, which was readily agreed to; he seemed at first inclined to make it himself, but afterwards changed his mind, and left that province to the waiter, telling him to have it pure West Indian, or he could not taste a drop of it.
When the punch was brought he undertook to fill the gla.s.ses and call the toasts. ”The King.”--The toast naturally produced politics. It is the privilege of Englishmen to drink the king's health, and to talk of his conduct. The man who sat opposite to Harley (and who by this time, partly from himself, and partly from his acquaintance on his left hand, was discovered to be a grazier) observed, ”That it was a shame for so many pensioners to be allowed to take the bread out of the mouth of the poor.”
”Ay, and provisions,” said his friend, ”were never so dear in the memory of man; I wish the king and his counsellors would look to that.”
”As for the matter of provisions, neighbour Wrightson,” he replied, ”I am sure the prices of cattle--”
A dispute would have probably ensued, but it was prevented by the spruce toastmaster, who gave a sentiment, and turning to the two politicians, ”Pray, gentlemen,” said he, ”let us have done with these musty politics: I would always leave them to the beer-suckers in Butcher Row. Come, let us have something of the fine arts. That was a d.a.m.n'd hard match between Joe the Nailor and Tim Bucket. The knowing ones were cursedly taken in there! I lost a cool hundred myself, faith.”
At mention of the cool hundred, the grazier threw his eyes aslant, with a mingled look of doubt and surprise; while the man at his elbow looked arch, and gave a short emphatical sort of cough.
Both seemed to be silenced, however, by this intelligence; and while the remainder of the punch lasted the conversation was wholly engrossed by the gentleman with the fine waistcoat, who told a great many ”immense comical stories” and ”confounded smart things,” as he termed them, acted and spoken by lords, ladies, and young bucks of quality, of his acquaintance. At last, the grazier, pulling out a watch, of a very unusual size, and telling the hour, said that he had an appointment.
”Is it so late?” said the young gentleman; ”then I am afraid I have missed an appointment already; but the truth is, I am cursedly given to missing of appointments.”
When the grazier and he were gone, Harley turned to the remaining personage, and asked him if he knew that young gentleman. ”A gentleman!” said he; ”ay, he is one of your gentlemen at the top of an affidavit. I knew him, some years ago, in the quality of a footman; and I believe he had some times the honour to be a pimp.
At last, some of the great folks, to whom he had been serviceable in both capacities, had him made a gauger; in which station he remains, and has the a.s.surance to pretend an acquaintance with men of quality. The impudent dog! with a few s.h.i.+llings in his pocket, he will talk you three times as much as my friend Mundy there, who is worth nine thousand if he's worth a farthing. But I know the rascal, and despise him, as he deserves.”
Harley began to despise him too, and to conceive some indignation at having sat with patience to hear such a fellow speak nonsense. But he corrected himself by reflecting that he was perhaps as well entertained, and instructed too, by this same modest gauger, as he should have been by such a man as he had thought proper to personate. And surely the fault may more properly be imputed to that rank where the futility is real than where it is feigned: to that rank whose opportunities for n.o.bler accomplishments have only served to rear a fabric of folly which the untutored hand of affectation, even among the meanest of mankind, can imitate with success.
CHAPTER XX--HE VISITS BEDLAM.--THE DISTRESSES OF A DAUGHTER
Or those things called Sights in London, which every stranger is supposed desirous to see, Bedlam is one. To that place, therefore, an acquaintance of Harley's, after having accompanied him to several other shows, proposed a visit. Harley objected to it, ”because,”
said he, ”I think it an inhuman practice to expose the greatest misery with which our nature is afflicted to every idle visitant who can afford a trifling perquisite to the keeper; especially as it is a distress which the humane must see, with the painful reflection, that it is not in their power to alleviate it.” He was overpowered, however, by the solicitations of his friend and the other persons of the party (amongst whom were several ladies); and they went in a body to Moorfields.
Their conductor led them first to the dismal mansions of those who are in the most horrid state of incurable madness. The clanking of chains, the wildness of their cries, and the imprecations which some of them uttered, formed a scene inexpressibly shocking. Harley and his companions, especially the female part of them, begged their guide to return; he seemed surprised at their uneasiness, and was with difficulty prevailed on to leave that part of the house without showing them some others: who, as he expressed it in the phrase of those that keep wild beasts for show, were much better worth seeing than any they had pa.s.sed, being ten times more fierce and unmanageable.
He led them next to that quarter where those reside who, as they are not dangerous to themselves or others, enjoy a certain degree of freedom, according to the state of their distemper.
Harley had fallen behind his companions, looking at a man who was making pendulums with bits of thread and little b.a.l.l.s of clay. He had delineated a segment of a circle on the wall with chalk, and marked their different vibrations by intersecting it with cross lines. A decent-looking man came up, and smiling at the maniac, turned to Harley, and told him that gentleman had once been a very celebrated mathematician. ”He fell a sacrifice,” said he, ”to the theory of comets; for having, with infinite labour, formed a table on the conjectures of Sir Isaac Newton, he was disappointed in the return of one of those luminaries, and was very soon after obliged to be placed here by his friends. If you please to follow me, sir,”
continued the stranger, ”I believe I shall be able to give you a more satisfactory account of the unfortunate people you see here than the man who attends your companions.”
Harley bowed, and accepted his offer.
The next person they came up to had scrawled a variety of figures on a piece of slate. Harley had the curiosity to take a nearer view of them. They consisted of different columns, on the top of which were marked South-sea annuities, India-stock, and Three per cent.