Much better would it have been for me, had I gone straight off my Head and had been sent to howl in Bedlam, than that I should have married that same thievish catamaran, Madam Taffetas. Surely never Madman deserved a Dark House and a Whip more than I did for that most foolishly contracted union. I defy Calumny to prove that I ever used anything approaching false Representations in this matter. I told her plainly that my Hand, Sword, and Deep Devotion were all I had to offer, and that for mere vile pounds, shillings, and pence, and other Mercantile Arrangements, I must look to her. Absolutely I borrowed ten pieces, although I was then at a very Low Ebb, to defray the expenses of the wedding Treat, which was done most handsomely at the Bible and Crown, in Pope's Head Alley, Cornhill. "Now then," I said to myself, as we came home towards the Strand (for we were resolved to have no foolish honeymooning in the Country, but to remain in town and keep an eye to Business)—"now then, Jack Dangerous, thou art at last Married and Settled, and need trouble thyself no more about the cares and anxieties of money-grubbing and bread-getting. Thou art tiled-in handsomely, Jack; thatched and fenced, and girt about with Comfort and Respectability. Thy hat is on, and thy house is covered." Alas, poor fool! alas, triply distilled zany and egregiously doting idiot! No sooner did a Hackney coach set us down at the Leghorn Warehouse in the broad part of the Strand, than we found Margery the maid and Tom the shopboy in a great confusion of tears on the threshold; and immediately afterwards we heard that during our absence to get married, Bailiffs had made their entrance, and seized all the Merchandise for a bill owing by Madam Taffetas to her Factor of Seven Hundred Pounds. The false Quean that I was wedded to was hopelessly bankrupt, and with the greatest impudence in the world she calls upon me to pay the Money; the Bailiffs adding, with a grin, that to their knowledge she owed much more than their Execution stood for, and that no doubt, so soon as it was bruited abroad that I was her Husband, the Sheriff of Middlesex would have something to say to me in the way of a capias against my person. In vain did I Rave and Swear, and endeavour to show that I could in no way be held liable for Debts which I had never contracted. Such, I was told, was the Law; and such it remains to this day, to the Great Scandal of justice, and the detriment of Gentlemen cavalieros who may be entrapped into marrying vulgar Adventuresses whom they deem Gentlewomen of Property, and who turn out instead to be not worth two-pence-halfpenny in the world. Nor were words wanting to add dire Insult to this astounding Injury; for Madam Taffetas, now Dangerous, as I groaningly remembered, must needs call me Mercenary Rascal, Shuffling Pickthank, Low-minded Fortune-hunter, and the like unkind names.
Madam Dangerous indeed! But I am thankful to Providence that the title she assumed very soon fell away from her, and that I was once more left free and Independent. For whilst we were in the very midst of Hot Dispute and violent Recrimination comes a great noise at the door as though some one were striving to Batter it down. And then Margery the maid and Tom the shop-lad began to howl and yelp again, crying out Murder and thieves, and that they were undone, the Bailiffs smoking their Pipes and drinking their Beer meanwhile, as though they enjoyed the Humours of the Scene hugely, and my wicked wife now pretending to faint, and now making at me with the avowed Design of tearing my eyes out. Presently comes lurching and staggering into the room a Great Hulking Brute of a Man that was attired like a Sea Captain; and this Roystering Tarpaulin makes up without more ado to my Precious Partner, gives her two sounding Busses on either side of her cheeks, and salutes her as his wife.
"Your wife!" I cried, starting up; "why, she's my wife! I married her this very morning, and to my sorrow, before Parson Hodge, the Couple-Beggar, at the Fleet."
"That may be, Brother," answers the Sea Captain, with drunken gravity; "but she's my wife, for all that. You married her this morning, you say. I married her five years ago, at Horsleydown, and in the Parish church. I've got the 'Stifficate to prove it; and though I say it that shouldn't, there's not a Finer woman, with a neater ankle and such a Devil of a temper, to be found 'twixt Beachy Head and Cape Horn."
"A fig for both of you," bellows Madam Taffetas, who had gone into one of her Sham Faints in the arm-chair, but was now conveniently recovered again. "If I'm married to both of you—to you, you pitiless Grampus" (this was to the Sea Captain), "and to you, Ruffian, Bully, and Stabster" (this was to me), "I'm married to somebody else, and my real Husband is a Gentleman, who, if he were here, would quoit the pair of you into the street from Exeter Change to the Fox under the Hill."
She said this in one Scream, and then Fainted, or pretended to Faint again.
"Brother," said the Sea Captain to me, staggering a little (for he confessed to having much mixed punch under hatches), but still very grave,—"brother, I think as how it's clear that we're both of us d—d fools, and d—d lucky fellows at the same time."
"Amen!" cries one of the Bailiffs, with a guffaw.
"You belay," remarked the Captain, turning towards the vermin of Law with profound disdain. "Brother" (turning to me), "is the Press out?"
"What do you mean?" I inquired. "You know that there's no warrant for press-gangs in this part of the Liberties of Westminster."