The gods do bear and will allow in kings
The things which they abhor in rascal routes.
--Buckhurst's Tragedy of Ferrex and Porrex
About twelve o'clock, one night in the month of October, and
during the chivalrous reign of the third Edward, two seamen
belonging to the crew of the Free and Easy, a trading schooner
plying between Sluys and the Thames, and then at anchor in that
river, were much astonished to find themselves seated in the tap-
room of an ale-house in the parish of St Andrews, London--which
ale-house bore for sign the portraiture of a 'Jolly Tar'.
The room, although ill-contrived, smoke-blackened, low-
pitched, and in every other respect agreeing with the general
character of such places of the period--was nevertheless, in the
opinion of the grotesque groups scattered here and there within
it, sufficiently well adapted to its purpose.
Of these groups our two seamen formed, I think,the most
interesting, if not the most conspicuous.
The one who appeared to be the elder, and whom his companion
addressed by the characteristic appellation of 'Legs', was at the
same time much the taller of the two. He might have measured six
feet and a half, and an habitual stoop in the shoulders seemed to
have been the necessary consequence of an altitude so enormous.
Superfluities in height were, however, more than accounted for by
deficiencies in other respects. He was exceedingly thin; and
might, as his associates asserted, have answered, when drunk, for
a pennant at the mast-head, or, when sober, have served for a
jib-boom. But these jests, and others of a similar nature, had
evidently produced, at no time, any effect upon the cachinnatory
muscles of the tar. With high cheek-bones, a large hawk-nose,
retreating chin, fallen under-jaw, and huge protruding white
eyes, the expression of his countenance, although tinged with a
species of dogged indifference to matters and things in general,
was not the less utterly solemn and serious beyond all attempts
at imitation or description.
The younger seaman was, in all outward appearance, the
converse of his companion. His stature could not have exceeded
four feet. A pair of stumpy bow legs supported his squat,
unwieldy figure, while his unusually short and thick arms, with
no ordinary fists at their extremities, swung off dangling from
his sides like the fins of a sea-turtle. Small eyes, of no
particular colour, twinkled far back in his head. His nose
remained buried in the mass of flesh which enveloped his round,
full, and purple face; and his thick upper-lip rested upon the
still thicker one beneath with an air of complacent self-
satisfaction, much heightened by the owner's habit of licking
them at intervals. He evidently regarded his tall shipmate with
a feeling half-wondrous half-quizzical; and stared up
occasionally in his face as the red setting sun stares up at the
crags of Ben Nevis.
Various and eventful, however, had been the peregrinations
of the worthy couple in and about the different tap-houses of the
neighbourhood during the earlier hours of the night. Funds, even
the most ample, are not always everlasting; and it was with empty
pockets our friends had ventured upon the present hostelrie.
At the precise period, then, when this history properly
commences, Legs, and his fellow, Hugh Tarpaulin, sat, each with
both elbows resting upon the large oak table in the middle of the
floor, and with a hand upon either cheek. They were eyeing, from
behind a huge flagon of unpaid-for 'humming-stuff', the
portentous words, 'No Chalk', which to their indignation and
astonishment were scored over the door-way by means of that very
mineral whose presence they purported to deny. Not that the gift
of deciphering written characters--a gift among the commonalty of
that day considered little less cabalistical than the art of
inditing--could, in strict justice, have been laid to the charge
of either disciple of the sea; but there was, to say the truth, a
certain twist in the formation of the letters--an indescribable
lee-lurch about the whole--which foreboded, in the opinion of
both seamen, a long run of dirty weather; and determined them at
once, in the allegorical words of Legs himself, to 'clew up all
sail, and scud before the wind'.
Having accordingly disposed of what remained of the ale, and
looped up the points of their short doublets, they finally made a
bolt for the street. Although Tarpaulin rolled twice into the
fireplace, mistaking it for the door, yet their escape was at
length happily effected--and half after twelve o'clock found our
heroes ripe for mischief, and running for life down a dark alley
in the direction of St Andrew's Stair, hotly pursued by the
landlady of the 'Jolly Tar'.
At the epoch of this eventful tale, and periodically, for
many years before and after, all England, but more especially the
metropolis, resounded with the fearful cry of 'Plague!' The city
was in a great measure depopulated--and in those horrible
regions, in the vicinity of the Thames, where, amid the dark,
narrow, and filthy lanes and alleys, the Demon of Disease was
supposed to have had his nativity, Awe, Terror, and Superstition
were alone to be found stalking abroad.
By authority of the king such districts were placed under
ban, and all persons forbidden, under pain of death, to intrude
upon their dismal solitude. Yet neither the mandate of the
monarch, nor the huge barriers erected at the entrances of the
streets, nor the prospect of that loathsome death which, with
almost absolute certainty, overwhelmed the wretch whom no peril
could deter from the adventure, prevented the unfurnished and
untenanted dwellings from being stripped, by the hand of nightly
rapine, of every article, such as iron, brass, or lead-work,
which could in any manner be turned to a profitable account.
Above all, it was usually found, upon the annual winter
opening of the barriers, that locks, bolts, and secret cellars
had proved but slender protection to those rich stores of wines
and liquors which, in consideration of the risk and trouble of
removal, many of the numerous dealers having shops in the
neighbourhood had consented to trust, during the period of exile,
to so insufficient security.
But there were very few of the terror-stricken people who
attributed these doings to the agency of human hands. Pest-
spirits, plague-goblins, and fever-demons were the popular imps
of mischief; and tales so blood-chilling were hourly told, that
the whole mass of forbidden buildings was, at length, enveloped
in terror as in a shroud, and the plunderer himself was often
scared away by the horrors his own depredations had created;
leaving the entire vast circuit of prohibited district to gloom,
silence, pestilence, and death.
It was by one of the terrific barriers already mentioned,
and which indicated the region beyond to be under the Pest-ban,
that, in scrambling down an alley, Legs and the worthy Hugh
Tarpaulin found their progress suddenly impeded. To return was
out of the question, and no time was to be lost, as their
pursuers were close upon their heels. With thorough-bred seamen
to clamber up the roughly fashioned plank-work was a trifle; and
maddened with the twofold excitement of exercise and liquor, they
leaped unhesitatingly down within the enclosure, and holding on
their drunken course with shouts and yellings, were soon
bewildered in its noisome and intricate recesses.
Had they not, indeed, been intoxicated beyond moral sense,
their reeling footsteps must have been palsied by the horrors of
their situation. The air was cold and misty. The paving-stones,
loosened from their beds, lay in wild disorder amid the tall,
rank grass, which sprang up around the feet and ankles. Fallen
houses choked up the streets. The most fetid and poisonous
smells everywhere prevailed: and by the aid of that ghastly light
which, even at midnight, never fails to emanate from a vapoury
and pestilential atmosphere, might be discerned lying in the by-
paths and alleys, or rotting in the windowless habitations, the
carcass of many a nocturnal plunderer arrested by the hand of the
plague in the very perpetration of his robbery.
But it lay not in the power of the images, or sensations, or
impediments such as these, to stay the course of men who,
naturally brave, and at that time especially, brimful of courage
and of 'humming-stuff', would have reeled, as straight as their
condition might have permitted, undauntedly into the very jaws of
Death. Onward--still onward stalked the grim Legs, making the
desolate solemnity echo and re-echo with yells like the terrific
war-whoop of the Indian; and onward, still onward rolled the
dumpy Tarpaulin, hanging on to the doublet of his more active
companion, and far surpassing the latter's most strenuous
exertions in the way of vocal music, by bull-roarings in basso,
from the profundity of his stentorian lungs.
They had now evidently reached the stronghold of the
pestilence. Their way at every step or plunge grew more noisome
and more horrible--the paths more narrow and more intricate.
Huge stones and beams falling momently from the decaying roofs
above them, gave evidence, by their sullen and heavy descent, of
the vast height of the surrounding houses; and while actual
exertion became necessary to force a passage through frequent
heaps of rubbish, it was by no means seldom that the hand fell
upon a skeleton or rested upon a more fleshy corpse.
Suddenly, as the seamen stumbled against the entrance of a
tall and ghastly-looking building, a yell more than usually
shrill from the throat of the excited Legs, was replied to from
within, in a rapid succession of wild, laughter-like, and
fiendish shrieks. Nothing daunted at sounds which, of such a
nature, at such a time, and in such a place, might have curdled
the very blood in hearts less irrevocably on fire, the drunken
couple rushed headlong against the door, burst it open, and
staggered into the midst of things with a volley of curses.
The room within which they found themselves proved to be the
shop of an undertaker; but an open trap-door, in the corner of
the floor near the entrance, looked down upon a long range of
wine-cellars, whose depths the occasional sound of bursting
bottles proclaimed to be well stored with their appropriate
contents. In the middle of the room stood a table--in the centre
of which again arose a huge tub of what appeared to be punch.
Bottles of various wines and cordials, together with jugs,
pitchers, and flagons of every shape and quality, were scattered
profusely upon the board. Around it, upon coffin-tressels, was
seated a company of six. This company I will endeavour to
delineate one by one.
Fronting the entrance, and elevated a little above his
companions, sat a personage who appeared to be the president of
the table. His stature was gaunt and tall, and Legs was
confounded to behold in him a figure more emaciated than himself.
His face was as yellow as saffron--but no feature excepting one
alone, was sufficiently marked to merit a particular description.
This one consisted in a forehead so unusually and hideously
lofty, as to have the appearance of a bonnet or crown of flesh
superadded upon the natural head. His mouth was puckered and
dimpled into an expression of ghastly affability, and his eyes,
as indeed the eyes of all at table, were glazed over with the
fumes of intoxication. This gentleman was clothed from head to
foot in a richly-embroidered black silk-velvet pall, wrapped
negligently around his form after the fashion of a Spanish cloak.
His head was stuck full of sable hearse-plumes, which he nodded
to and fro with a jaunty and knowing air; and, in his right hand,
he held a huge human thigh-bone, with which he appeared to have
been just knocking down some member of the company for a song.
Opposite him, and with her back to the door, was a lady of
no whit less extraordinary character. Although quite as tall as
the person just described, she had no right to complain of his
unnatural emaciation. She was evidently in the last stage of a
dropsy; and her figure resembled nearly that of the huge puncheon
of October beer which stood, with the head driven in, close by
her side, in a corner of the chamber. Her face was exceedingly
round, red, and full; and the same peculiarity, or rather want of
peculiarity, attached itself to her countenance, which I before
mentioned in the case of the president--that is to say, only one
feature of her face was sufficiently distinguished to need a
separate characterization: indeed the acute Tarpaulin immediately
observed that the same remark might have applied to each
individual person of the party, every one of whom seemed to
possess a monopoly of some particular portion of physiognomy.
With the lady in question this portion proved to be the mouth.
Commencing at the right ear, it swept with a terrific chasm to
the left--the short pendants which she wore in either auricle
continually bobbing into the aperture. She made, however, every
exertion to keep her mouth closed and look dignified, in a dress
consisting of a newly-starched and ironed shroud coming up close
under her chin, with a crimpled ruffle of cambric muslin.
At her right hand sat a diminutive young lady whom she
appeared to patronize. This delicate little creature, in the
trembling of her wasted fingers, in the livid hue of her lips,
and in the slight hectic spot which tinged her otherwise leaden
complexion, gave evident indications of a galloping consumption.
An air of extreme haut ton, however, pervaded her whole
appearance; she wore, in a graceful and degage manner, a large
and beautiful winding-sheet of the finest India lawn; her hair
hung in ringlets over her neck; a soft smile played about her
mouth; but her nose, extremely long, thin, sinuous, flexible, and
pimpled, hung down far below her under-lip, and, in spite of the
delicate manner in which she now and then moved it to one side or
the other with her tongue, gave to her countenance a somewhat
equivocal expression.
Over against her, and upon the left of the dropsical lady,
was seated a little puffy, wheezing, and gouty old man, whose
cheeks reposed upon the shoulders of their owner, like two huge
bladders of Oporto wine. With his arms folded, and with one
bandaged leg deposited upon the table, he seemed to think himself
entitled to some consideration. He evidently prided himself much
upon every inch of his personal appearance, but took more
especial delight in calling attention to his gaudy-colored
surtout. This, to say the truth, must have cost him no little
money, and was made to fit him exceedingly well--being fashioned
from one of the curiously embroidered silken covers appertaining
to those glorious escutcheons which, in England and elsewhere,
are customarily hung up, in some conspicuous place, upon the
dwellings of departed aristocracy.
Next to him, and at the right hand of the president, was a
gentleman in long white hose and cotton drawers. His frame
shook, in a ridiculous manner, with a fit of what Tarpaulin
called 'the horrors'. His jaws, which had been newly shaved,
were tightly tied up by a bandage of muslin; and his arms being
fastened in a similar way at the wrists, prevented him from
helping himself too freely to the liquors upon the table; a
precaution rendered necessary, in the opinion of Legs, by the
peculiarly sottish and wine-bibbing cast of his visage. A pair
of prodigious ears, nevertheless, which it was no doubt found
impossible to confine, towered away into the atmosphere of the
apartment, and were occasionally pricked up in a spasm at the
sound of the drawing of a cork.
Fronting him, sixthly and lastly, was situated a singularly
stiff-looking personage, who, being afflicted with paralysis,
must, to speak seriously, have felt very ill at ease in his
unaccommodating habiliments. He was habited, somewhat uniquely,
in a new and handsome mahogany coffin. Its top or head-piece
pressed upon the skull of the wearer, and extended over it in the
fashion of a hood, giving to the entire face an air of
indescribable interest. Arm-holes had been cut in the sides for
the sake not more of elegance than of convenience; but the dress,
nevertheless, prevented its proprietor from sitting as erect as
his associates; and as he lay reclining against his tressel, at
an angle of forty-five degrees, a pair of huge goggle eyes rolled
up their awful whites towards the ceiling in absolute amazement
at their own enormity.
Before each of the party lay a portion of a skull, which was
used as a drinking-cup. Overhead was suspended a human skeleton,
by means of a rope tied round one of the legs and fastened to a
ring in the ceiling. The other limb, confined by no such fetter,
stuck off from the body at right angles, causing the whole loose
and rattling frame to dangle and twirl about at the caprice of
every occasional puff of wind which found its way into the
apartment. In the cranium of this hideous thing lay a quantity
of ignited charcoal, which threw a fitful but vivid light over
the entire scene; while coffins, and other wares appertaining to
the shop of an undertaker, were piled high up around the room,
and against the windows, preventing any ray escaping into the
street.
At sight of this extraordinary assembly, and of their still
more extraordinary paraphernalia, our two seamen did not conduct
themselves with that degree of decorum which might have been
expected. Legs, leaning against the wall near which he happened
to be standing, dropped his lower jaw still lower than usual, and
spread open his eyes to their fullest extent; while Hugh
Tarpaulin, stooping down so as to bring his nose upon a level
with the table, and spreading out a palm upon either knee, burst
into a long, loud, and obstreperous roar of very ill-timed and
immoderate laughter.
Without, however, taking offence at behaviour so excessively
rude, the tall president smiled very graciously upon the
intruders--nodded to them in a dignified manner with his head of
sable plumes--and, arising, took each by the arm, and led him to
a seat which some others of the company had placed in the
meantime for his accommodation. Legs to all this offered not the
slightest resistance, but sat down as he was directed; while the
gallant Hugh, removing his coffin-tressel from its station near
the head of the table, to the vicinity of the little consumptive
lady in the winding-sheet, plumped down by her side in high glee,
and pouring out a skull of red wine, quaffed it to their better
acquaintance. But at this presumption the stiff gentleman in the
coffin seemed exceedingly nettled; and serious consequences might
have ensued, had not the president, rapping upon the table with
his truncheon, diverted the attention of all present to the
following speech:
'It becomes our duty upon the present happy occasion--'
'Avast there!' interrupted Legs, looking very serious,
'avast there a bit, I say, and tell us who the devil ye all are,
and what business ye have here, rigged off like the foul fiends,
and swilling the snug blue ruin stowed away for the winter by my
honest shipmate, Will Wimble, the undertaker!'
At this unpardonable piece of ill-breeding, all the original
company half-started to their feet, and uttered the same rapid
succession of wild fiendish shrieks which had before caught the
attention of the seamen. The president, however, was the first
to recover his composure, and at length, turning to Legs with
great dignity, recommenced:
'Most willingly will we gratify any reasonable curiosity on
the part of guests so illustrious, unbidden though they be. Know
then that in these dominions I am monarch, and here rule with
undivided empire under the title of "King Pest the First".
'This apartment, which you no doubt profanely suppose to be
the shop of Will Wimble the undertaker--a man whom we know not,
and whose plebeian appellation has never before this night
thwarted our royal ears--this apartment, I say, is the Dais-
Chamber of our Palace, devoted to the councils of our kingdom,
and to other sacred and lofty purposes.
'The noble lady who sits opposite is Queen Pest, our Serene
Consort. The other exalted personages whom you behold are all of
our family, and wear the insignia of the blood royal under the
respective titles of "His Grace the Arch Duke Pest-Iferous"--"His
Grace the Duke Pest-Ilential"--"His Grace the Duke Tem-Pest"--and
"Her Serene Highness the Arch Duchess Ana-Pest".
'As regards,' continued he, 'your demand of the business
upon which we sit here in council, we might be pardoned for
replying that it concerns, and concerns alone, our own private
and regal interest, and is in no manner important to any other
than ourself. But in consideration of those rights to which as
guests and strangers you may feel yourselves entitled, we will
furthermore explain that we are here this night, prepared by deep
research and accurate investigation, to examine, analyse, and
thoroughly determine the indefinable spirit--the incomprehensible
qualities and nature--of those inestimable treasures of the
palate, the wines, ales, and liqueurs of this goodly metropolis:
by so doing to advance not more our own designs than the true
welfare of that unearthly sovereign whose reign is over us all,
whose dominions are unlimited, and whose name is "Death".'
'Whose name is Davy Jones!' ejaculated Tarpaulin, helping
the lady by his side to a skull of liqueur, and pouring out a
second for himself.
'Profane varlet!' said the president, now turning his
attention to the worthy Hugh, 'profane and execrable wretch!--we
have said, that in consideration of those rights which, even in
thy filthy person, we feel no inclination to violate, we have
condescended to make reply to thy rude and unreasonable
inquiries. We nevertheless, for your unhallowed intrusion upon
our councils, believe it our duty to mulct thee and thy companion
in each a gallon of Black Strap--having imbibed which to the
prosperity of our kingdom--at a single draught--and upon your
bended knees--ye shall be forthwith free either to proceed upon
your way, or remain and be admitted to the privileges of our
table, according to your respective and individual pleasures.'
'It would be a matter of utter impossibility,' replied Legs,
whom the assumptions and dignity of King Pest the First had
evidently inspired with some feelings of respect, and who arose
and steadied himself by the table as he spoke--'it would, please
your majesty, be a matter of utter impossibility to stow away in
my hold even one-fourth party of that same liquor which your
majesty has just mentioned. To say nothing of the stuffs placed
on board in the forenoon by way of ballast, and not to mention
the various ales and liqueurs shipped this evening at various
seaports, I have, at present, a full cargo of "humming-stuff"
taken in and duly paid for at the sign of the "Jolly Tar". You
will, therefore, please your majesty, be so good as to take the
will for the deed--for by no manner of means either can I or will
I swallow another drop--least of all a drop of that villainous
bilge-water that answers to the name of "Black Strap".'
'Belay that,' interrupted Tarpaulin, astonished not more at
the length of his companion's speech than at the nature of his
refusal--'Belay that, you lubber!--and I say, Legs, none of your
palaver. My hull is still light, although I confess you yourself
seem to be a little top-heavy; and as far as the matter of your
share of the cargo, why rather than raise a squall I would find
stowage-room for it myself, but--'
'This proceeding,' interposed the president, 'is by no means
in accordance with the terms of the mulct or sentence, which is
in its nature Median, and not to be altered or recalled. The
conditions we have imposed must be fulfilled to the letter, and
that without a moment's hesitation--in failure of which
fulfilment we decree that you do here be tied neck and heels
together, and duly drowned as rebels in yon hogshead of October
beer!'
'A sentence!--a sentence!--a righteous and just sentence!--a
glorious decree!--a most worthy and upright and holy
condemnation!' shouted the Pest family together. The king
elevated his forehead into innumerable wrinkles; the gouty little
old man puffed like a pair of bellows; the lady of the winding-
sheet waved her nose to and fro; the gentleman in the cotton
drawers pricked up his ears; she of the shroud gasped like a
dying fish; and he of the coffin looked stiff and rolled up his
eyes.
'Ugh! ugh! ugh!' chuckled Tarpaulin, without heeding the
general excitation, 'ugh! ugh! ugh!--ugh! ugh! ugh! ugh!--ugh!
ugh! ugh!--I was saying,' said he--'I was saying when Mr. King
Pest poked in his marlinspike, that as for the matter of two or
three gallons more or less of Black Strap, it was a trifle to a
tight sea-boat like myself not overstowed--but when it comes to
drinking the health of the Devil (whom God assoilzie) and going
down upon my marrow-bones to his ill-favoured majesty there, whom
I know, as well as I know myself to be a sinner, to be nobody in
the whole world but Tim Hurlygurly the stage-player!--why! it's
quite another guess sort of a thing, and utterly and altogether
past my comprehension.'
He was not allowed to finish this speech in tranquility. At
the name of Tim Hurlygurly the whole assembly leaped from their
seats.
'Treason!' shouted his Majesty King Pest the First.
'Treason!' said the little man with the gout.
'Treason!' screamed the Arch Duchess Ana-Pest.
'Treason!' muttered the gentleman with his jaws tied up.
'Treason!' growled he of the coffin.
'Treason! treason!' shrieked her majesty of the mouth, and,
seizing by the hinder part of his breeches the unfortunate
Tarpaulin, who had just commenced pouring out for himself a skull
of liqueur, she lifted him high into the air, and let him fall
without ceremony into the huge open puncheon of his beloved ale.
Bobbing up and down, for a few seconds, like an apple in a bowl
of toddy, he, at length, finally disappeared amid the whirlpool
of foam which, in the already effervescent liquor, his struggles
easily succeeded in creating.
Not tamely, however, did the tall seaman behold the
discomfiture of his companion. Jostling King Pest through the
open trap, the valiant Legs slammed the door down upon him with
an oath, and strode towards the centre of the room. Here tearing
down the skeleton which swung over the table, he laid it about
him with so much energy and good-will that, as the last glimpses
of light died away within the apartment, he succeeded in knocking
out the brains of the little gentleman with the gout. Rushing
then with all his force against the fatal hogshead full of
October ale and Hugh Tarpaulin, he rolled it over and over in an
instant. Out poured a deluge of liquor so fierce--so impetuous--
so overwhelming--that the room was flooded from wall to wall--the
loaded table was overturned--the tressels were thrown upon their
backs--the tub of punch into the fire-place--and the ladies into
hysterics. Piles of death-furniture floundered about. Jugs,
pitchers, and carboys mingled promiscuously in the melee, and
wicker flagons encountered desperately with bottles of junk. The
man with the horrors was drowned upon the spot--the little stiff
gentleman floated off in his coffin--and the victorious Legs,
seizing by the waist the fat lady in the shroud, rushed out with
her into the street, and made a bee-line for the Free and Easy,
followed under easy sail by the redoubtable Hugh Tarpaulin, who,
having sneezed three or four times, panted and puffed after him
with the Arch Duchess Ana-Pest.
