An uncouth laugh, which went nearly round the company, at once evinced their sense of the facetiousness of this remark, and showed the feeling of indifference with which nearly all present regarded a remedy for tale-telling of the kind here suggested; but, in the mean time, the individual whose appearance in the house had elicited these remarks, had been conducted, with her young charge, into a small inner room, where we will leave her conversing with Mrs. Mallory, or preparing for very needful rest, as the case may be. Scarcely, however, had she passed out of hearing, before some inquiry was made by the ruffian who had first spoken, and whose name, it may be observed, was David Shaw, as to the family and genealogy of old Jerry Clink, “Because,” he observed, “this woman called herself a Clink; and, as Jerry will be here to-night, I thought they might be summut related.”
The explanation given by another of the company in reply, went on to state that at the time when Jerry was doing well in business he had two daughters, whom he brought up like two ladies: “But I thought there would soon be an end of that,” continued the speaker, “and so there was. The old man was getting on too fast by half; so that when his creditors came on him, and he'd all this finery to pay for, he found he'd been sailing in shallow water; and away he went off to prison. What became of the gals I don't know exactly; but, if my memory be right, one of 'em died; and t' other was obliged to take up with a place in a confectioner's shop. I don't know how true it is; but report said, after that, that Mrs. Longstaff here, the steward's wife at th' hall, persuaded her to go over as a sort of school-missis to her children; though, if that had been the case, she could not have been coming to such a house as this at twelve o'clock at night, and especially with two of th' children along wi' her. Thou mun be mistaken, David, i' th' name, I think.”
“Am I?” said David sourly; “then I think not.”
A signal-sound near the door, in imitation of the crowing of a pheasant, announced the arrival at this instant of old Jerry Clink. David drew the bolt without stay or question, and the individual named walked in. Below the middle height, and not remarkably elegant in shape, he still bore in his features and carriage some traces of the phantom of a long-vanished day of respectability. His habiliments, however, appeared, by their condition, cut, and colour, to have been gathered at various periods from as many corners of the empire, A huge snuff-coloured long coat, originally made for a man as big again as himself, and which stood round him like a sentry-box, matched very indifferently with a red plush waistcoat adorned with blue glass buttons, which scarcely kissed the band of his inexpressibles; while the latter, composed of broad-striped corduroy, not unlike the impression of a rake on a garden-path, hung upon his shrivelled legs in pleasing imitation of the hide of a rhinoceros. Blue worsted stockings, and quarter-boots laced tightly round his ankles with leathern thongs, completed the costume of the man.
Should the reader feel curious after a portrait of this gentleman, we refer him to a profile which he will find prefixed to Conyers Middleton's Life of Cicero, which bears no contemptible resemblance to Jerry, save that it lacks the heavy weight of animal faculties in the occipital region, which, in the head of our friend, seemed to toss the scale of humanities in front up into the air.
“Well, how are you to-night,—all on you together?” asked Jerry, in a tone of voice which Dr. Johnson himself might have envied, when he brow-beat the very worst of his opponents, at the same time assisting himself to about a drachm of snuff from a tin case drawn from his coat-pocket, the contents of which he applied to his nasal organ by the aid of a small ladle, turned out of a boar's tusk, much as a scavenger might shovel dust into a cart. A general answer having been returned that all were in good health.
“Well, well,” replied Jerry, “then tak' care to keep so, and mark I clap that injunction on you. What the dickens should you go to make yourselves badly for! Here, stand away.”
So saying, he pushed Mr. David Shaw on one side, and elbowed half a dozen more on the other, as he strode forward towards the fire with the sole but very important object of poking it. He then sat down upon a seat that had purposely been vacated for him near the fire, and inquired in the same surly tone, “What are you drinking?”
“Here's plenty of ale, Jerry,” replied David.
“Now, now,” objected Mr. Clink, “what are you going to insult me for? Talk of ale!—you know I've tasted none now these thirteen year, and shan't again, live as long as I will.—Mrs. Mallory, here, d 'ye hear! bring me a glass of gin; and then, David,” giving that amiable character a good-humoured poke under the right ribs, “you can pay for it if you like.”