CHAPTER XIII.
"UP AND DOWN IN LONDON TOWN."
The young gentlemen proceeded the same afternoon to Maidenhead, andpassed the night as guests of Pennyston Powney, Esquire, a friend ofLord George's, at his fine seat south of that place. The next day theyproceeded slowly, in order to enjoy the beautiful prospects along theThames; Dick marking his progress Londonward by each milestone,beginning at Maidenhead Bridge with the twenty-fifth.
In Buckinghamshire the road became more and more alive with coaches. AtSlough, Dick would have liked to turn southward to Windsor Castle andEton College, of which edifices he had enjoyed the splendid view fromSalt Hill; or northward to Stoke Pogis churchyard, where Gray composedhis Elegy and was buried; but his lordship desired to arrive in Londonthat evening. So Dick was content with what glimpses he got of the highwhite Castle, along a good part of the road. Into Middlesex rolled thechaise, crossing Hounslow Heath and passing there many sheep but nohighwaymen; on by noble parks and residences, to Brentford, Dickfeasting his eyes on what he could see of distant Richmond with its hilland terrace, and of Kew with its royal gardens and its favorite palaceof George III., then reigning.
The numerous carriages, the stage-coaches with passengers inside and ontop, and the other signs of nearness to a great city, increased as theybowled through Turnham Green and Hammersmith, whence there were houseson both sides all the way to Kensington. A great smoky mass ahead hadnow resolved itself distinctly into towers, domes, and spires, and, forwatching each feature as it separately disclosed itself, Dick well nighmissed the verdant charms of Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park, on theleft. At last they were rattling along Piccadilly, passing Green Park onthe right, and getting a partial view of St. James's and the otherordinary-looking palaces in that direction. And presently, as LordGeorge wished his arrival in London to be for a day unknown, and as hishouse in Berkeley Square was occupied by his uncle's family, they turnedthrough the Haymarket to Charing Cross, and thence into the Strand,where they were finally set down at the White Hart Inn, near the newchurch of St. Mary-le-Strand and the site of the bygone May-pole.
After supper, while his lordship kept indoors, Dick went outsightseeing; strode blithely up the lamp-lit Strand, with its countlessshops lettered all over with tradesmen's signs; through Temple Bar, andalong Fleet Street, with its taverns, coffee-houses, courts, andtributary streets; up Ludgate Hill to St. Paul's, which he walkedaround; returning over his route, and then making a shorter excursion,to see the theatres of Drury Lane and Covent Garden; all this with noadventure that need here be related.
The next day, his lordship took fine lodgings in Bond Street, nearHanover Square, and insisted that Dick remain his guest until the lattershould hear from Cumberland,--Dick allowing his lordship to remain underthe belief that the Cumberland from which he came was of England, andthat he had been a great loser of valuables and money by the supposeddefection of his servant at the time he was left for dead in the road.
Dick's second evening in London was passed at Covent Garden Theatre,where he saw, and was dazzled by, "The Duenna," that brilliant comicopera of serenading lovers in Seville, by the clever young Mr. Sheridan,which, first brought out in the previous November, was still the mostpopular piece in the company's list. The next day, Sunday, going forthat purpose to the church of St. Clement Danes, Dick saw the great andbulky Doctor Johnson himself, and was duly impressed.
On Monday he took what he had left of his Bath winnings to a tailor'sshop, and spent the greater part of them for a new black suit for fulldress; and that evening he went with Lord George to a ridotto, in thevicinity of St. James's, Lord George having previously got tickets.
Not choosing to venture in a minuet, Dick imitated many of the impudentyoung beaux of the splendid company, walking through the gaily decoratedroom, and staring unreservedly at whatever lady's face, beneath itscushioned tower of powdered hair, attracted him. By the time thecountry-dances had begun, he had made up his mind which one of all thefaces most rivalled the blazing candle-lights themselves. Its possessorwas young, tall, well filled out, and of a dashing and frivolouscountenance. Having learned by observation that the custom in Londondiffered not from that in Bath, Dick went confidently up and begged tohave the honor of dancing with her.
She flashed on him a quick, all-comprehensive look of scrutiny, thenbowed with a gracious smile, and gave him her hand. During the dance,Dick made use of every possible occasion to comment jocularly uponpassing incidents and persons, and the lady invariably answered with asmile or a merry remark, so that Dick was soon vastly pleased with hispartner and himself.
After the dance, having led her to a seat, and as she would have norefreshments brought, he stood chatting with her. Lord George came upand greeted both, and continued talking to them familiarly, assuming,from the fact of her having granted Dick a dance in a public assembly,that they already knew each other. In the course of the talk, LordGeorge frequently addressed Dick by his name, and the lady by hers, sothat, before long, Mr. Wetheral and Miss Mallby were so addressing oneanother. It developed, through Lord George's inquiries after her family,that her father was Sir Charles Mallby, of Kent, whose town house was inGrosvenor Square.
While the three were talking, Dick noticed an elegantly dressed younggentleman standing near, who regarded them with a peculiarly sullenexpression.
"Why does that gentleman look at us so sourly?" asked Dick, innocently,of Lord George.
"La!" said Miss Mallby, smiling, and coloring. "Tis Lord Alderby."
Lord George smiled, and proposed that Dick should come with him to meetsomebody or other; whereupon the two gentlemen, one of them veryreluctantly, left Miss Mallby, who was then immediately joined by thesurly-looking Lord Alderby.
"They've had a lovers' quarrel," explained Lord George to Dick, "whichaccounts for her comporting herself so amiably to us. Her gaiety withother gentlemen this evening has turned Alderby quite green withjealousy. Now that we have left the way open for him, he'll humiliatehimself as abjectly as he must, for a reconciliation. Egad, what a thingit is to be the slave of an heiress!"
"Why," said Dick, his spirits suddenly damped, "I flattered myself heramiability to me was on my own account."
"Oh," said his lordship, with an amused look that escaped Dick, "sothat's how the wind blows! Well, who knows but you are right? She mayhave tired of Alderby's sulks. 'Tis a rich prize, by Jove,--the Lordknows how many thousand a year! We shall certainly call at GrosvenorSquare to-morrow."
What young man can honestly blame Dick for clinging to the belief thatthe radiant Miss Mallby's graciousness to him had another cause than thewish to pique Lord Alderby; or for supposing himself equal to the roleof a lord's rival for the love of a great heiress? The romantic notionthat love levels all, was no new one in Dick's time, and had often beenexemplified. To win fortune by marriage was then held to be an entirelyhonorable act, calling for no reproach. Dick had no intention ofdeceiving the lady. But he would wait until her love was certainly his,before disclosing who and what he was. Once his, her love would not bealtered by the unimportant circumstances that he was an American andpenniless. Splendid was the future of which Dick dreamed that night,--afuture of fair estates and great city residences, of coaches andfootmen, of fine clothes, card playing, music, and dancing.
He went with Lord George in the latter's coach, the next afternoon, tothe Grosvenor Square house; was graciously received by Miss Mallby'smother, on his lordship's account; met a great number of young beaux anda few modish ladies, drank tea, won some money at one of the cardtables, and departed with his friend, having had very little of theheiress's society to himself.
As they were entering their own coach, they saw Lord Alderby get downfrom his; he bowed to Lord George, but bestowed on Dick a swift look ofpretended contempt, though it showed real hostility.
"Miss Mallby must have praised you to Alderby last night," said LordGeorge, lightly.
That evening Wetheral and Lord George stayed late at a fashionabletavern in Pall M
all, their party having increased to a numerous andmerry one. Finally it was joined by no other than Lord Alderby himself,with whom came a thin, middle-aged Irish gentleman addressed as captainand wearing a cockade in his hat. Neither of these newcomers had much tosay for awhile. Presently the talk fell upon the American war, and anargument arose as to whether General Howe's evacuation of Boston was tobe accounted a British defeat. The name of cowards being applied to theAmericans, Dick broke out with the assertion that, to his personalknowledge, Americans had given as convincing proofs of courage as he hadever seen or heard of as coming from Englishmen.
"Courage is like many other things," put in Lord Alderby, not looking atDick, yet speaking with a quiet sneer; "people are apt to set up asjudges of if, who never practise it themselves."
A surprised silence fell over the company.
"If you mean that remark for me, sir," said Dick, as soon as he couldcommand his voice, "I am ready to let you judge of my practice, wheneverand wherever you choose!"
"Without knowing very well who you are, sir," replied Lord Alderby, whowas thickly built and below middle height, but all the more arrogant inhis tone for that, "I believe there is a difference in rank between us,which forbids my giving your courage an opportunity."
"Perhaps there is a difference of courage itself, as well!" snapped outDick.
"I take that, gintlemen," put in the Irish captain, who, it was plain,had been brought in by Lord Alderby for precisely what he now proceededto do, "as a reflection on the opinion of ivery man that knows what myLord Alderby's courage is. And, as I'm one of thim min, and seeingthere's no difference of rank bechune this gintleman and me, I offerhim here ivery opportunity he may require for the dishplay of courage."
"And I take your offer," cried Dick instantly. "I've no scruples aboutdifference in rank, and I'm willing to fight anybody, high or low,--evena hired lickspittle that takes up gentlemen's quarrels for pay! LordAlderby can tell you where I lodge; he knows where he can find thatout!"
Lord Alderby indeed found that out,--not from Miss Mallby, but throughhis valet, who knew Lord George Winston's. And next day, to Bond Street,came Captain Delahenty's challenge in regular form. Lord George, whonever concerned himself about his rank, or let it affect his doings,readily consented to serve Dick in the business; and so, on thefollowing morning, at dawn, Dick found himself in Hyde Park, about toundertake his first duel.
He had chosen to fight with swords, the blade being the weapon in whoseuse he most desired practice. In his shirt-sleeves, with that acquiredserenity which comes of the mind's forcing itself not to contemplate theperil at hand, he stood under a tree at one end of a clear space, whilehis antagonist, seconded by an old faded beau, emerged from a hackneycoach and got himself ready. The men fought in the centre of the clearspace. Dick began defensively, but he had not parried more than threeof the captain's thrusts, till he perceived that the enemy was shakywith liquor. Dick therefore waited only until the other's pantingindicated failing wind. Then he suddenly pressed matters, with suchaccuracy and persistence that the whole thing was over in aminute,--Dick putting on his waistcoat and frock, with Lord George'sassistance, and Captain Delahenty on the ground with a wounded shoulderthat the surgeon was pronouncing likely to heal in a month or six weeks.Dick drove back to Bond Street in great elation, eager for more duels.
Lord Alderby's state of mind towards Dick was not sweetened by thisoccurrence, as was shown by his lordship's ill-sustained pretence ofignoring Dick's presence when next the two were in the same company.This happened to be in a clubhouse in St. James's Street, Dick's namehaving been written down there by Lord George, to whom he hadsatisfactorily accounted for his ignorance of London and of Londonsociety. Chance brought Lord Alderby and Dick to the same card table,and not as partners. His lordship soon had his revenge, and a fargreater one than he thought it to be, for Dick, playing on after firstlosses, in the confidence that fortune would serve him as usually, losthis every guinea. He would have staked the few loose shillings he stillhad left, but that the largeness of the bets would have made such aproposition ridiculous. He went home to Bond Street in a kind ofconsternation, faced by the reality that he was a pauper in London, andthat luck had turned against him. Now that he had tasted the life ofpleasure, poverty seemed not again endurable. Yet he braced himself toconsider what was to be done.
Now that he had no money worth mentioning, the hospitality he receivedfrom Lord George was to Dick nothing else than charity. To continueaccepting it would make his situation soon insupportable. He quicklytook his resolution. He must fall back to a lower sphere, where ashilling was worth something, and recoup himself; that done, he wouldemerge again into the world to which Lord George had introduced him.
So, the next morning, pretending he had found at a lawyer's office inChancery Lane a letter from his people, Dick told Lord George he mustleave London immediately. Then, having sent for a hackney coach andtaken a very friendly farewell of his lordship, he was driven to thestarting-place of the Manchester stage. Being set down there, hehastened afoot, with his baggage, in search of cheap lodgings. These hepresently found at a widow's house in George Street, which ran from theStrand towards the Thames. He engaged a room at sixteen shillings aweek.
The widow had a grown-up son employed by a mercer in the Strand, andfrom him Dick learned where to dispose of clothes most profitably, theson giving the name of a salesman in Monmouth Street, and adding, "Besure, tell him 'twas I recommended you to him." Dick parted first withthe new black suit he had so recently bought, and so found himselfcomparatively well in fund for his present station.
Not finding his landlady's son a companion to his taste, and not makingany acquaintances in the various coffee-houses, taverns, andeating-houses that he now frequented in and about Fleet Street and theStrand, he became afflicted with loneliness. A mere unnoticed mite amongthousands, and utterly ignored by the hastening multitude, he sent histhoughts from the vast and crowded city, back to the bleak Mainewilderness, and he had a kind of homesick longing for the heartycomradeship of the time of freezing and starving there.
One evening, determined to enliven himself and have another fling atpleasure at any cost, he went to Westminster Bridge afoot, and thence byboat up the Thames, to Vauxhall. He had no sooner paid his shilling, onentering the garden, than his spirits began to rise. The sound of theorchestra and of singers, heard while he passed by the little groves andthe statues, brought back his zest for gay life, and this was redoubledas he came into the brilliantly lighted space around the orchestra,where the small boxes on either side were filled with people who sateating or drinking at the tables, and where the walks were thronged withpleasure-seekers of every rank. He sat down on an empty bench in one ofthe boxes, thinking to drink a bottle of wine and listen to the music.
Before the waiter had brought the wine, a gaily dressed young woman,handsome enough in her powder and paint, came with almost a rush to thevacant place at his side, and said, with a bold smile, "My dear sir, Ican't endure to see so pretty a gentleman drink alone! I'm going to keepyou company."
Dick, having inspected the amiable creature in a glance, was nothingloath. So the waiter, having brought the wine, was sent for anadditional glass, and then again for eatables. Dick's companion provedso agreeable that he soon ordered more wine and presently forgot themusic in contemplating her charms, her air of piquant impudence, heraffectations, and the shallow smartness of her talk. He was soentertained by her that, when the night was late, on arriving with herat Westminster Bridge, he took a hackney coach and accompanied herto her lodgings, which, to his astonishment, were in the quiterespectable-looking house of a hosier in High Holborn.
At his frank expression of surprise, she seemed huffed; wondered whyshe should not be supposed to live like any other lady, and said it wasnobody's business if she chose now and then to go out for an evening ofpleasure in a free and easy manner. Her ruffled feelings were soonsmoothed down, however, and when Dick left her it was with anappointment to take her to the n
ext Hampstead Assembly.
This Vauxhall incident cost Dick so much of the money got from the saleof his new suit that he was soon fain to visit the Monmouth Streetdealer again, this time carrying the gamekeeper's suit and wearing thatbestowed on him by the whimsical gentleman met at Taunton. For boththese suits, the shopkeeper gave him a sum of money and a very plainblue frock, a worn white waistcoat, and a pair of mended black breeches.Thus Dick left the shop in vastly different attire from that in which hehad entered it, and when he returned to his lodging the change made hislandlady's son gape with wonder.
Before Dick had made up his mind as to how he should rebuild hisfortunes, he received one afternoon a visitor in a hackney coach, whowas none other than the companionable young lady of Vauxhall, to whom hehad made known his place of residence. Her errand now was to learn whyhe had failed to keep his engagement for the Hampstead Assembly. Shedid not stay long to reproach him, for no sooner had she taken note ofhis cheapened appearance, and made sure that it came from necessity,than she swept out of his room and back to the coach, on the pretence ofbeing offended at the broken appointment.
On leaving the house, she was seen by the landlady's son, who came toDick presently, with a grin, and remarked that Sukey Green had become agreat lady since she had ceased to walk the Strand of nights. Oninquiring, Dick learned that his visitor was well known by sight to thelandlady's son as having been, not many weeks before, one of thecountless frail damsels infesting the sidewalks of the town afternightfall. Some turn of fortune had taken her from her rags and a holein Butcher Row to the fine clothes and comfortable lodgings she nowpossessed, instead of to the Bridewell or the river or a pauper's grave,as another turn might have done. Perhaps she had but returned to thecondition from which she had fallen.
Dick soon had fallen fortunes of his own to think of. He knew not how toattempt to make his money multiply; or rather he devised in his mind somany methods that he could not confine his thoughts to any one of them.Thus rendered inert by his very versatility, he saw his money go formere necessities, and at last he had to seek still cheaper lodgings,which he found in Green Arbor Court, a place redeemed in his eyes by thefact that Oliver Goldsmith had once lived there.
It was not a locality designed to increase his cheerfulness. He had anarrow, bare room, high up in a dirty, squalid house; from his window hecould see old clothes flying from countless windows and lines; and thesounds most common to his ears were the voices of washerwomen laughingor quarrelling and of children shouting or squalling. Not far in onedirection was Newgate Prison, and not far in another was that of theFleet.
In going to Fleet Street, he had to descend Breakneck Stairs,--whichnumbered thirty-two and were in two steep flights and led him to theedge of Fleet Ditch,--traverse a narrow street, and go through FleetMarket. This was a route that Dick often took, for he preferred still todine in and about Fleet Street, though no longer at the GrecianCoffee-house or Dick's or the Mitre Tavern, to all which places hehad resorted while lodging in George Street, but at the cheaperplaces,--Clifton's Eating-house, in Butcher Row, for one. Sometimes hismeal consisted solely of a pot of beer at the Goat Ale House in ShireLane. He fell at last to the down-stairs eating-houses, where histable-mates were hackney coachmen, servants poorly paid or unemployed,and poverty-stricken devils and unsuccessful rascals of every sort. Itwas here that his fortune took an upward course again.
Appealed to, one day, in a low tavern, to settle a card dispute betweentwo bloated, sore-faced fellows who had come to the point of accusingeach other of being, one a footpad and the other a grave robber, Dickacted the umpire to the satisfaction of both, and then went on to do afew astonishing things with their cards. Others in the tavern gatheredround him, until presently, seeing the crowd and the interest bothincreasing, Dick observed that his time was valuable and that he couldnot afford to show any more skill for nothing. But the body-stealerrefused to receive the dirty cards handed back to him by Dick, and thefootpad speedily took up a collection, with such a "money-or-your-life"air that a hatful of greasy coins was soon raised to induce Dick to goon with his tricks. As many of these tricks were of old Tom's invention,they differed from those with which the London scamps were familiar.
The footpad and the resurrectionist now persuaded Dick to go to anothertavern, where they opened the way for his apparently extemporaneousperformances, and where they raised good sums for him. He wondered atfirst at the zeal with which they worked to enrich him, but he presentlysaw that they, pretending to be chance observers, were quietly makingbets with other spectators on the results of certain of his cardmanipulations. He thereupon left off, and escaped from this undesiredpartnership. But he now engaged an honest, impoverished hack writer,whom he met in an eating-cellar, to sit at tavern tables with him andappear an interested observer of his card tricks, enlist the crowd'sattention, and suggest the inevitable passing around of the hat. Thiscombination continued for a week, during which time the low taverns werevisited in succession, from Whitefriars to St. Catherine's, fromCripplegate to Southwark. Dick's earnings consisted only of what thespectators willingly gave for their amusement, but at the week's endthat amount sufficed for the purchase of a good suit of clothes at atailor's in the Strand, and for another purpose besides, which Dick,once more clad like a gentleman, speedily set out upon.
He went boldly back to Pall Mall, ran across several acquaintances towhom Lord George Winston had made him known, and got one of them tointroduce him to a certain respectable-looking house in Covent Garden;and in that house, whose interior showed an activity not promised by itsoutside, he won at faro an amount that filled every other player at thetable with resentful envy. When he left, he felt himself again a mademan; his pockets were heavy with money.
The night was well advanced when he issued from the gambling-house,enjoying the relief and the fresh air after the excitement and heat ofthe rooms. He walked to the Strand and turned towards Temple Bar,intending to sup at the Turk's Head Coffee-house. When he reached theStrand end of Catherine Street, he was accosted, with more than ordinaryimportunity, by one of the most miserable-looking of the frail creaturesthat walked the street there. As he was in the act of avoiding her, shecalled out his name in sudden recognition, and he then knew her as thegay young woman of High Holborn whom he had met at Vauxhall.
Struck with pity to see in so sad a plight a person recently soprosperous, he could not but walk along with her to hear her story. Shehad lost the means of support that had enabled her to live in a goodneighborhood and flaunt her finery at Vauxhall, Ranelagh, and theHampstead Assembly. She lodged no longer in High Holborn, nor even inButcher's Row; in fact, she knew not where she was to pass that night.She showed, through all her cast-down demeanor, a decided reawakening ofregard for Dick, and even hinted, after they had talked for some time,that her loss of favor had arisen from her acceptance of his escort fromVauxhall. So Dick gave her a few shillings for her immediatenecessities, and told her to call at his lodging in Green Arbor Court onthe morrow, when they would discuss what might be done for her. It wasat her own suggestion that his residence was selected as the place ofmeeting.
But, on the morrow, she did not call at the appointed time. So Dick wentout to attend to business of pressing importance, which was no otherthan to buy a new black suit and other necessaries. In the afternoon hewent to Pall Mall and renewed acquaintances, saying he had returned toLondon the day before yesterday. Pumping a young gentleman whom he knewto be on close terms with the Mallby family, he learned that thedazzling heiress was still in town and that a place had been taken forher for that night's performance at the little theatre in the Haymarket.Dick hastened to secure a seat as near as possible to the box in whichMiss Mallby was to be.
In the evening, which was that of Wednesday, July 10, attired in hisbest, Dick occupied a seat in the pit, in the midst of a crowdedaudience, and had the satisfaction of seeing not only the heiress, butalso their Majesties, George III. and Queen Charlotte, who both laughedimmoderately at Mr. Foote as "Lady Pentw
eazle,"--especially when heappeared under a vast head-dress filled with feathers, in exaggerationof the reigning mode.
It was some time before Dick's admiring gaze held the attention of MissMallby, which it caught while she scanned the crowded house from herbox; and some time after that before she recalled who he was. But whenshe did recognize him, it was with a smile so radiant that Lord Alderby,then standing at her side, turned quite red and pale successively, andglared at Dick with a most deadly expression. In response to a slightmovement of her fan, Dick forced his way to her, between acts, and had abrief chat about the audience, the weather, his supposed absence fromtown, Lord George Winston, and such matters, which in themselvescertainly contained nothing to warrant the mischievous smiles on herpart, and the languishing glances on his, that accompanied the talk.
Any one but Dick and Lord Alderby could have seen that the lady's solemotive was a desire to keep his lordship jealous. But Dick took allsigns as they appeared on the surface, and when he left the playhouse itwas with a flattering delusion that her hopes of seeing him soon againwere from the heart. He did not observe that Lord Alderby, beforehanding Miss Mallby into her coach, pointed him out to a footman andhurriedly whispered some instructions.
Dick went on air to his room in Green Arbor Court,--for he intended toretain his lodging there until he should find a residence perfectly tohis taste. He laughed to think of a gentleman of his figure coming hometo Green Arbor Court, and wondered whether such contrast was typical ofany one's else career, as it was of his.
The next day, to his astonishment,--for he supposed the Vauxhall girl tobe the only outside person knowing where he lived,--he received in hiswretched room a visit from a man dressed like a servant but evidentlyhorrified at the rickety surroundings. This person, being assured byDick that the latter was Mr. Richard Wetheral, handed him a letter, andfled forthwith. The letter, on clean plain paper, and in an ill-formedbut fine feminine hand, read thus:
"HOUNERD SIR:
"I mak bolde to tell you for heavings sak taike outher lodgings and do not go neer them wch you now live att--tis a qestchun of life or Deth and sure do not go neer them at nite, this nite above all--do not waite a minute but take outher wons att wonse--from Won that noes and wch deesirs you noe harm yr respeckfull an dutyfull servt."
Dick was completely puzzled. What danger could he be in, throughremaining at his present abode? Who could be his unknown warner? Not theVauxhall girl, for she had written her name for him on a card, and thiswas not her handwriting. The quality and cleanliness of the paperindicated a person living in good case,--perhaps a maid-servant in somefine house. Then he recalled the face of the man who had brought theletter, and whom, at the moment, he had thought he had seen somewherebefore. Recollecting singly each incident of his life in London, he atlast located the man's face. It was that of a footman at the Mallbys'house in Grosvenor Square. But what maid-servant in that house couldhave noticed Dick? Indeed, what person in that house had done so butMiss Mallby herself? So the heiress, to avoid discovery in the matter,might have caused her maid to send the warning. Now what possible dangerto Dick could Miss Mallby be aware of, save one that Lord Alderby mighthave threatened or planned? But would Lord Alderby have informed her ofsuch plans? Perhaps so, in a moment of anger, as men will anticipate thepleasure of revenge, by announcing that revenge in advance; perhaps not.If not, one or two of his lordship's servants would probably have beenin his confidence, and thus the cat might have been let out of the bagto one of Miss Mallby's maids. So Dick concluded that, if he was in anydanger, it must be from Lord Alderby, his only powerful enemy. But heresolved to disdain the warning, nevertheless, and he went forth to lookin a leisurely way for suitable lodgings, as he had intended to do,though he would not move into them for two or three days.
But he wasted the day in riding about London, viewing things he had notseen before. In the evening the whim seized him to go to Ranelagh. Itwas not until late at night, when he turned from Fleet Street, throughthe market, that he thought of the morning's warning. He felt amomentary tremor, so dark and deserted was the narrow street leading toBreakneck Stairs. But he braced himself within, and strode along withapparent blitheness; yet he could not help thinking that BreakneckStairs would be an excellent place for an attack by his enemies. Peeringforward in the darkness, he turned from the border of Fleet Ditch, andmounted the first steps. At the side of the stairs, there ascended a rowof houses, all now in deep shadow.
He had reached the landing between the two flights, without incident,when suddenly from the shadow at the side a dark lantern was flashedupon his face, and out rushed three or four burly figures. "Heave thespalpeen down the shtairs!" cried a voice from the shadow,--a voice thatDick instantly recognized as Captain Delahenty's, and from which he knewthe attack was indeed at Lord Alderby's instigation.
The men were armed with bludgeons, and three rushed upon Dick at once.But he had no mind to make his bed in Fleet Ditch; hence he met themiddle rascal with a violent kick in the belly, and, getting instantlybetween the other two, shot out both arms simultaneously, clutching attheir throats. But now the captain and one other man rushed out fromthe shadow, and Dick thought all was up.
Suddenly there came a cry from the top of the stairs, "Hold off, thatman belongs to us!" There followed a flashing of other lanterns, and ascuffle of footsteps down from the top. In another moment, Dick's firstassailants were resisting this new force, who had fallen upon them withbludgeons. A sharp, quick fight, in which Dick himself took no partwhatever, left the newcomers in possession of the landing and of him,while Captain Delahenty and his gang were carrying their broken headsrapidly down the stairs and off towards Fleet Market.
"I thank you for the rescue," said Dick to the stalwart leader of thevictorious party, as that leader held up a lantern before Dick's face.
"You may call it a rescue, if you like," growled the leader, "but somewould rather die in a street brawl than swing at Tyburn. Edward Lawson,otherwise known as Captain Ted," and the man, who had pronounced thesenames in an official manner, waited as if for Dick to answer to them.
"If you mean that you take me for a person of that name," said Dick, "Ihave to tell you that you are disappointed."
"Oho!" was the answer. "That game ain't worthy of you, captain! But ifyou wish to play it out, you can play it out in Bow Street, and at theOld Bailey after that. I arrest you, Edward Lawson, commonly calledCaptain Ted, on a charge of highway robbery. Here's the warrant, whichGod knows I've carried around long enough! You know the usual formality,captain."
And at this the bewildered Dick unresistingly saw himself seized byhis arms, while another of the constables--for constables thesewere--adorned him with a pair of handcuffs. He was then marched back toFleet Street--for it appeared he was no common prisoner, for the nearestroundhouse--and thence, by way of the Strand and other familiarthoroughfares, to a building in Bow Street, celebrated for the fact thatFielding wrote "Tom Jones" therein.
But another Fielding presided there now. Dick received free lodging tillmorning, and then he was escorted to the court-room close at hand, totake his turn as one among a crowd of anxious wretches of both sexes,who stood in a railed enclosure at one side of a vacant space, beforethe table at which sat the grave magistrate in all the vestments andsolemnity of his office. To Dick's amazement, he beheld in an oppositerailed space certain faces with which he was acquainted,--those of hisGeorge Street landlady's son, the Monmouth Street shopman to whom he hadsold the clothes, and the Vauxhall girl. Dick wondered what the wholebusiness meant, and what it would lead to. At last his turn came.
The magistrate glanced at him indifferently, and addressed him coldly,in a few words whose meaning Dick did not take pains to gather. Then aclerk at the table read monotonously a long document, wherein itappeared that a number of people had sworn to certain occurrences,which, as far as Dick could see, did not concern him in the least;namely, that Moreton Charteris, gentleman, of Bloomsbury Square, hadbeen robbed of mone
y, valuables, and wardrobe, early in the previousFebruary, by a highwayman who had stopped his coach near Turnham Green;that a woman who had quarrelled at Reading with one Edward Lawson, knownas Captain Ted, knew the said Lawson to have been the robber of Mr.Charteris, and, on her threatening to inform against him, to have fledtowards Bath in one of the stolen suits of clothes; and that Mr.Charteris's servant had, in June, recognized one of the stolen suits ina Monmouth Street shop.
And now the shopkeeper in the witness box identified that suit as theone so recognized, and Dick as the man who had sold it; and from furthertestimony Dick could infer that the servant's discovery had sent BowStreet runners to the shopman, who had referred them for informationregarding Dick's whereabouts to the landlady's son, who in turn hadsent them to the Vauxhall girl; and that through her treachery they hadlearned his place of lodging. In fact, that grateful creature had stoodin wait with the constables at the head of Breakneck Stairs, andannounced, when his first assailants' lantern had lit up his features,that he was the man the constables wanted. She had, though, kept out ofhis sight, from a greater sense of shame than many of her class wouldhave shown. As for the attack by the Delahenty party, it had been asgreat a surprise to the waiting constables as to Dick.
And now Dick was hastily identified by two bold-looking women, as theaforesaid Edward Lawson, otherwise Captain Ted. He remembered that thewhimsical gentleman met at Taunton had resembled him, and he perceivednow, considering the danger of being betrayed by the woman quarrelledwith, and of being far sought by the Bow Street men, why that gentlemanhad taken the caprice of exchanging good clothes for bad. In puttingthis and that together, as he stood in the dock, Dick lost track of thecourt's proceedings, and it came like a sudden blow when he saw Sir JohnFielding gaze hard upon him, and heard Sir John Fielding commit him, asEdward Lawson, to the jail of Newgate, there to be kept in custody untilhe should be brought forth to stand his trial!
To Newgate, to await trial for highway robbery, the penalty of whichwas death by hanging; readily identified as the guilty man by those whowould stick to their oath; unable to prove by any person in England thathe was not that man, for all his acquaintances had been made since theexchange of clothes,--a pleasant series of thoughts to keep theadventurous Master Dick company in the hackney coach that rattledhim swiftly away from the Bow Street court to the great, vile,many-chambered stone cage where such gallows-birds as Master JackSheppard and Monsieur Claude Duval had lodged before him! And if thosethoughts were not enough, there was that of the cart-ride out Holborn toTyburn tree, a picturesque ending for a journey over so many hills andso far away!