His mother-in-law consenting to take charge of his only daughter, and once more in a manner a single man, with his eighty-five pounds in his pocket, again did the desire of appearing the gay fine gentleman obtrude itself upon his mind, and his old project of marrying a rich fortune engrossed all his faculties. For this purpose, Mr. Maclaine, who but a few weeks before was not ashamed to appear in a patched coat, or to carry a halfpenny-worth of coal or sand to his customers, now hired handsome apartments near Soho square, and resumed his laced clothes, and a hat and feather.
But, however unreasonable to others this sudden transition from the grub to the butterfly might appear, Mr. Maclaine had very good private reasons for his actions. It appears that during his wife’s last illness, she had been attended by one Plunket, as a surgeon and apothecary; this Plunket, after the decease of the poor woman, opened his mind to Maclaine, saying, that though the latter had lost a good wife, yet, seeing that she was gone, it was of no use to despond or to repine, particularly as it might eventually turn out the most lucky circumstance in his life. He added at the same time, that if Maclaine would agree to share the fortune with him, he could help him to a lady with ten thousand pounds at least in her own right.
This motion was too agreeable to Mr. Maclaine to be rejected. It is hardly necessary to detail with what zeal this affair was followed up, or how often they flattered themselves with the deceitful prospects of success. The young lady having been taken to Wells, Maclaine followed her, passing for a man of fortune, and in every part of his dress and equipage appearing in that character. Plunket acted as his partner, and was a sort of under agent, while Maclaine himself was ogling, dancing, and flirting with the young lady. But an ill-timed quarrel with an apothecary, one evening, in the public room, placed a quietus upon his hopes for ever; for the disciple of Galen enlisting a “gallant son of Mars” in his quarrel, the latter had the effrontery to kick our adventurer down stairs, declaring publicly that he knew the rascal a footman a few years ago. This statement, which was believed by every body present, amongst whom was his mistress, whose credulity he had ascertained before, and was therefore not in a situation to doubt, compelled him and his footman Plunket to decamp without the ceremony of leave-taking, and, indeed, without any ceremony at all.
Returning to town from this woeful expedition, and examining the state of their cash, these faithful friends discovered that five guineas were the whole that remained,—a sum too little to support them, or to enter into any new project, or to keep up their assumed grandeur. Maclaine now found himself in a worse plight than he had brought himself to for some years past, without any visible hope of a supply, and yet engaged in a mode of life highly expensive, which it went to his heart either to retrench or relinquish. He now thought seriously of embarking for Jamaica, where he hoped to find employment as an accountant, and flattered himself that his person might be turned to account amongst the rich planters’ daughters or widows. But no money was forthcoming for this purpose, nor could he think of any possible scheme whereby it might be raised.
Certainly, never had man less cause to complain of Fortune than Maclaine, and it would seem throughout his life, that she had determined to make his ruin entirely the work of his own hand, and leave him at last utterly without excuse or palliation; for meeting on ’Change with a gentleman, a countryman of his own, to whom he had formerly related his hopes of making a fortune in the manner we have related, he told him his situation at the present moment, adding that he was now undone, that he had spent his all in that unhappy project, and had not wherewithal to subsist on here, or to carry him from a place in which he felt he was cutting a very ridiculous figure. Hereupon the gentleman spoke in his behalf to some others of his countrymen; and as his conduct heretofore, according the notions of the age, had been rather imprudent than vicious, they actually raised sixty guineas to fit him out for Jamaica, which they gave him, promising him letters of recommendation from some merchants of respectability to their own correspondents. Here, then, was a prospect at once opened to him of future happiness and prosperity. Let us see how it terminated.
He had agreed for the passage, paid part of the money in advance, and bespoken some necessaries fitted for the climate, when, unhappily for the infatuated man, he was prompted to go to a masquerade, to take leave, as he said, for the last time, of the bewitching pleasures of London, and to bid a final farewell to this species of enjoyment, which he should have no hope of partaking in the West Indies. He went with the whole of his money in his pocket. The strange appearance of the place and of the company amused him for a while, but the noise of the gamesters drew his attention to the gaming-table, where the quick transition of large sums from one hand to another awakened his avarice, and lulled his prudence asleep. In short, he ventured, and in half an hour had possessed himself of a hundred guineas, with which he resolved, according to their phrase, “to tie up;” but avarice had now attacked him; and after taking a turn or two round the room, he again returned, and in a few minutes was stripped to the last guinea.
It is needless to describe his agony on this occasion. His money gone, his expedition utterly disconcerted, and his friends lost past redemption! What was now to be done?
In this extremity, his evil genius, now in the ascendant, prompted him to send to Plunket to advise with and from that moment his ruin commenced. This was the favorable moment for Plunket. Himself a man of no honor, an utter stranger to all ties or principles of religion or honesty, an old sharper, and a daring fellow into the bargain, this was an opportunity, when his friend was agitated almost to madness, to propose, at first by distant hints, and at last in plain English, going on the highway.
Had he approached him in a calm hour, it is more than probable that his proposal had been rejected with horror; but the former strongly represented the necessity of a speedy supply before his friends could discover that his money was gone, which, he said, would expose him to universal scorn and contempt. A strange infatuation, the dread of shame—the shame of appearing a fool, diminished the horror of being a villain, and decided him to recruit his losses by means the most hazardous and wicked.
Having agreed upon a plan of copartnership, and hired two horses, Plunket furnishing the pistols, for this was not his first entrance upon business of that nature, they set out on the evening after the masquerade, to lie in wait for passengers coming from Smithfield market. They met on Hounslow heath with a grazier, next morning about four o’clock, from whom they took, without opposition, between sixty and seventy pounds.