“There is nothing wonderful to be done,” said the jockey, “without a good deal of preparation, as I know myself. Folks stare and wonder at certain things which they would only laugh at if they knew how they were done; and to prove what I say is true, I will give you one or two examples. Can either of you lend me a handkerchief? That won’t do,” said he, as I presented him with a silk one. “I wish for a delicate white handkerchief. That’s just the kind of thing,” said he, as the Hungarian offered him a fine white cambric handkerchief, beautifully worked with gold at the hems; “now you shall see me set this handkerchief on fire.” “Don’t let him do so by any means,” said the Hungarian, speaking to me in German, “it is the gift of a lady whom I highly admire, and I would not have it burnt for the world.” “He has no occasion to be under any apprehension,” said the jockey, after I had interpreted to him what the Hungarian had said, “I will restore it to him uninjured, or my name is not Jack Dale.” Then sticking the handkerchief carelessly into the left side of his bosom, he took the candle, which by this time had burnt very low, and holding his head back, he applied the flame to the handkerchief, which instantly seemed to catch fire. “What do you think of that?” said he to the Hungarian. “Why, that you have ruined me,” said the latter. “No harm done, I assure you,” said the jockey, who presently, clapping his hand on his bosom, extinguished the fire, and returned the handkerchief to the Hungarian, asking him if it was burnt. “I see no burn upon it,” said the Hungarian; “but in the name of Gott, how could you set it on fire without burning it?” “I never set it on fire at all,” said the jockey; “I set this on fire,” showing us a piece of half-burnt calico. “I placed this calico above it, and lighted not the handkerchief, but the rag. Now I will show you something else. I have a magic shilling in my pocket, which I can make run up along my arm. But, first of all, I would gladly know whether either of you can do the like.” Thereupon the Hungarian and myself, putting our hands into our pockets, took out shillings, and endeavoured to make them run up our arms, but utterly failed; both shillings, after we had made two or three attempts, falling to the ground. “What noncomposses you both are,” said the jockey; and placing a shilling on the end of the fingers of his right hand he made strange faces to it, drawing back his head, whereupon the shilling instantly began to run up his arm, occasionally hopping and jumping as if it were bewitched, always endeavouring to make towards the head of the jockey.
“How do I do that?” said he, addressing himself to me. “I really do not know,” said I, “unless it is by the motion of your arm.” “The motion of my nonsense,” said the jockey, and, making a dreadful grimace, the shilling hopped upon his knee, and began to run up his thigh and to climb up his breast. “How is that done?” said he again. “By witchcraft, I suppose,” said I. “There you are right,” said the jockey; “by the witchcraft of one of Miss Berners’ hairs; the end of one of her long hairs is tied to that shilling by means of a hole in it, and the other end goes round my neck by means of a loop; so that, when I draw back my head, the shilling follows it. I suppose you wish to know how I got the hair,” said he, grinning at me. “I will tell you. I once, in the course of my ridings, saw Miss Berners beneath a hedge, combing out her long hair, and, being rather a modest kind of person, what must I do but get off my horse, tie him to a gate, go up to her, and endeavour to enter into conversation with her. After giving her the sele of the day, and complimenting her on her hair, I asked her to give me one of the threads; whereupon she gave me such a look, and, calling me fellow, told me to take myself off. ‘I must have a hair first,’ said I, making a snatch at one. I believe I hurt her; but, whether I did or not, up she started, and, though her hair was unbound, gave me the only drubbing I ever had in my life. Lor! how, with her right hand, she fibbed me whilst she held me round the neck with her left arm; I was soon glad to beg her pardon on my knees, which she gave me in a moment, when she saw me in that condition, being the most placable creature in the world, and not only her pardon, but one of the hairs which I longed for, which I put through a shilling, with which I have on evenings after fairs, like this, frequently worked what seemed to those who looked on downright witchcraft, but which is nothing more than pleasant deception. And now, Mr. Romany Rye, to testify my regard for you, I give you the shilling and the hair. I think you have a kind of respect for Miss Berners; but whether you have or not, keep them as long as you can, and whenever you look at them think of the finest woman in England, and of John Dale, the jockey of Horncastle. I believe I have told you my history,” said he—“no, not quite; there is one circumstance I had passed over. I told you that I have thriven very well in business, and so I have, upon the whole; at any rate, I find myself comfortably off now. I have horses, money, and owe nobody a groat; at any rate, nothing but what I could pay to-morrow. Yet I have had my dreary day, ay, after I had obtained what I call a station in the world. All of a sudden, about five years ago, everything seemed to go wrong with me—horses became sick or died, people who owed me money broke or ran away, my house caught fire, in fact, everything went against me; and not from any mismanagement of my own. I looked round for help, but—what do you think?—nobody would help me. Somehow or other it had got abroad that I was in difficulties, and everybody seemed disposed to avoid me, as if I had got the plague. Those who were always offering me help when I wanted none, now, when they thought me in trouble, talked of arresting me. Yes; two particular friends of mine, who had always been offering me their purses when my own was stuffed full, now talked of arresting me, though I only owed the scoundrels a hundred pounds each; and they would have done so, provided I had not paid them what I owed them; and how did I do that? Why, I was able to do it because I found a friend—and who was that friend? Why, a man who has since been hung, of whom everybody has heard, and of whom everybody for the next hundred years will occasionally talk.
“One day, whilst in trouble, I was visited by a person I had occasionally met at sporting-dinners. He came to look after a Suffolk Punch, the best horse, by the bye, that anybody can purchase to drive, it being the only animal of the horse kind in England that will pull twice at a dead weight. I told him that I had none at that time that I could recommend; in fact, that every horse in my stable was sick. He then invited me to dine with him at an inn close by, and I was glad to go with him, in the hope of getting rid of unpleasant thoughts. After dinner, during which he talked nothing but slang, observing I looked very melancholy, he asked me what was the matter with me, and I, my heart being opened by the wine he had made me drink, told him my circumstances without reserve. With an oath or two for not having treated him at first like a friend, he said he would soon set me all right; and pulling out two hundred pounds, told me to pay him when I could. I felt as I never felt before; however, I took his notes, paid my sneaks, and in less than three months was right again, and had returned him his money. On paying it to him, I said that I had now a Punch which would just suit him, saying that I would give it to him—a free gift—for nothing. He swore at me;—telling me to keep my Punch, for that he was suited already. I begged him to tell me how I could requite him for his kindness, whereupon, with the most dreadful oath I ever heard, he bade me come and see him hanged when his time was come. I wrung his hand, and told him I would, and I kept my word. The night before the day he was hanged at H---, I harnessed a Suffolk Punch to my light gig, the same Punch which I had offered to him, which I have ever since kept, and which brought me and this short young man to Horncastle, and in eleven hours I drove that Punch one hundred and ten miles. I arrived at H--- just in the nick of time. There was the ugly jail—the scaffold—and there upon it stood the only friend I ever had in the world. Driving my Punch, which was all in a foam, into the midst of the crowd, which made way for me as if it knew what I came for, I stood up in my gig, took off my hat, and shouted, ‘God Almighty bless you, Jack!’ The dying man turned his pale grim face towards me—for his face was always somewhat grim, do you see—nodded and said, or I thought I heard him say, ‘All right, old chap.’ The next moment—my eyes water. He had a high heart, got into a scrape whilst in the marines, lost his half-pay, took to the turf, ring, gambling, and at last cut the throat of a villain who had robbed him of nearly all he had. But he had good qualities, and I know for certain that he never did half the bad things laid to his charge; for example, he never bribed Tom Oliver to fight cross, as it was said he did on the day of the awful thunder-storm. Ned Flatnose fairly beat Tom Oliver, for though Ned was not what’s called a good fighter, he had a particular blow, which if he could put in he was sure to win. His right shoulder, do you see, was two inches farther back than it ought to have been, and consequently his right fist generally fell short; but if he could swing himself round, and put in a blow with that right arm, he could kill or take away the senses of anybody in the world. It was by putting in that blow in his second fight with Spring that he beat noble Tom. Spring beat him like a sack in the first battle, but in the second Ned Painter—for that was his real name—contrived to put in his blow, and took the senses out of Spring; and in like manner he took the senses out of Tom Oliver.
“Well, some are born to be hanged, and some are not; and many of those who are not hanged are much worse than those who are. Jack, with many a good quality, is hanged, whilst that fellow of a lord, who wanted to get the horse from you at about two-thirds of his value, without a single good quality in the world, is not hanged, and probably will remain so. You ask the reason why, perhaps. I’ll tell you; the lack of a certain quality called courage, which Jack possessed in abundance, will preserve him; from the love which he bears his own neck he will do nothing which can bring him to the gallows. In my rough way I’ll draw their characters from their childhood, and then ask whether Jack was not the best character of the two. Jack was a rough, audacious boy, fond of fighting, going a birds’-nesting, but I never heard he did anything particularly cruel save once, I believe, tying a canister to a butcher’s dog’s tail; whilst this fellow of a lord was by nature a savage beast, and when a boy would in winter pluck poor fowls naked, and set them running on the ice and in the snow, and was particularly fond of burning cats alive in the fire. Jack, when a lad, gets a commission on board a ship as an officer of horse marines, and in two or three engagements behaves quite up to the mark—at least of a marine; the marines having no particular character for courage, you know—never having run to the guns and fired them like madmen after the blue jackets had had more than enough. Oh, dear me, no! My lord gets into the valorous British army, where cowardice—Oh, dear me!—is a thing almost entirely unknown; and being on the field of Waterloo the day before the battle, falls off his horse, and, pretending to be hurt in the back, gets himself put on the sick list—a pretty excuse—hurting his back—for not being present at such a fight. Old Benbow, after part of both his legs had been shot away in a sea-fight, made the carpenter make him a cradle to hold his bloody stumps, and continued on deck, cheering his men till he died. Jack returns home, and gets into trouble, and having nothing to subsist by but his wits, gets his living by the ring and the turf, doing many an odd kind of thing, I dare say, but not half those laid to his charge. My lord does much the same without the excuse for doing so which Jack had, for he had plenty of means, is a leg, and a black, only in a more polished way, and with more cunning, and I may say success, having done many a rascally thing never laid to his charge. Jack at last cuts the throat of a villain who had cheated him of all he had in the world, and who, I am told, was in many points the counterpart of this screw and white feather, is taken up, tried, and executed; and certainly taking away a man’s life is a dreadful thing; but is there nothing as bad? Whitefeather will cut no person’s throat—I will not say who has cheated him, for, being a cheat himself, he will take good care that nobody cheats him, but he’ll do something quite as bad; out of envy to a person who never injured him, and whom he hates for being more clever and respected than himself, he will do all he possibly can, by backbiting and every unfair means, to do that person a mortal injury. But Jack is hanged, and my lord it not. Is that right? My wife, Mary Fulcher—I beg her pardon, Mary Dale—who is a Methodist, and has heard the mighty preacher, Peter Williams, says some people are preserved from hanging by the grace of God. With her I differs, and says it is from want of courage. This Whitefeather, with one particle of Jack’s courage, and with one tithe of his good qualities, would have been hanged long ago, for he has ten times Jack’s malignity. Jack was hanged because, along with his bad qualities, he had courage and generosity; this fellow is not, because with all Jack’s bad qualities, and many more, amongst which is cunning, he has neither courage nor generosity. Think of a fellow like that putting down two hundred pounds to relieve a distressed fellow-creature; why he would rob, but for the law and the fear it fills him with, a workhouse child of its breakfast, as the saying is—and has been heard to say that he would not trust his own father for sixpence, and he can’t imagine why such a thing as credit should be ever given. I never heard a person give him a good word—stay, stay, yes! I once heard an old parson, to whom I sold a Punch, say that he had the art of receiving company gracefully and dismissing them without refreshment. I don’t wish to be too hard with him, and so let him make the most of that compliment. Well! he manages to get on, whilst Jack is hanged; not quite enviably, however; he has had his rubs, and pretty hard ones—everybody knows he slunk from Waterloo, and occasionally checks him with so doing; whilst he has been rejected by a woman—what a mortification to the low pride of which the scoundrel has plenty! There’s a song about both circumstances, which may, perhaps, ring in his ears on a dying bed. It’s a funny kind of song, set to the old tune of the Lord-Lieutenant or Deputy, and with it I will conclude my discourse, for I really think it’s past one.” The jockey then, with a very tolerable voice, sung the following song:—
THE JOCKEY’S SONG.
Now list to a ditty both funny and true!—
Merrily moves the dance along—
A ditty that tells of a coward and screw,
My Lord-Lieutenant so free and young.Sir Plume, though not liking a bullet at all,—
Merrily moves the dance along—
Had yet resolution to go to a ball,
My Lord-Lieutenant so free and young.“Woulez wous danser, mademoiselle?”—
Merrily moves the dance along;—
Said she, “Sir, to dance I should like very well,”
My Lord-Lieutenant so free and young.They danc’d to the left, and they danc’d to the right,—
Merrily moves the dance along;—
And her troth the fair damsel bestow’d on the knight,
My Lord-Lieutenant so free and young.“Now what shall I fetch you, mademoiselle?”—
Merrily moves the dance along;—
Said she, “Sir, an ice I should like very well,”
My Lord-Lieutenant so free and young.But the ice, when he’d got it, he instantly ate,—
Merrily moves the dance along;—
Although his poor partner was all in a fret,
My Lord-Lieutenant so free and young.He ate up the ice like a prudent young lord,—
Merrily moves the dance along;—
For he saw ’t was the very last ice on the board,—
My Lord-Lieutenant so free and young.“Now, when shall we marry?” the gentleman cried;—
Merrily moves the dance along;—
“Sir, get you to Jordan,” the damsel replied,
My Lord-Lieutenant so free and young.“I never will wed with the pitiful elf”—
Merrily moves the dance along—
“Who ate up the ice which I wanted myself,”
My Lord-Lieutenant so free and young.“I’d pardon your backing from red Waterloo,”—
Merrily moves the dance along—
“But I never will wed with a coward and screw,”
My Lord-Lieutenant so free and young.
CHAPTER XLIII
The Church.
The next morning I began to think of departing; I had sewed up the money which I had received for the horse in a portion of my clothing, where I entertained no fears for its safety, with the exception of a small sum in notes, gold, and silver, which I carried in my pocket. Ere departing, however, I determined to stroll about and examine the town, and observe more particularly the humours of the fair than I had hitherto an opportunity of doing. The town, when I examined it, offered no object worthy of attention but its church—an edifice of some antiquity; under the guidance of an old man, who officiated as sexton, I inspected its interior attentively, occasionally conversing with my guide, who, however, seemed much more disposed to talk about horses than the church. “No good horses in the fair this time, measter,” said he; “none but one brought hither by a chap whom nobody knows, and bought by a foreigneering man, who came here with Jack Dale. The horse fetched a good swinging price, which is said, however, to be much less than its worth; for the horse is a regular clipper; not such a one, ’tis said, has been seen in the fair for several summers. Lord Whitefeather says that he believes the fellow who brought him to be a highwayman, and talks of having him taken up, but Lord Whitefeather is only in a rage because he could not get him for himself. The chap would not sell it to un; Lord Screw wanted to beat him down, and the chap took huff, said he wouldn’t sell it to him at no price, and accepted the offer of the foreigneering man, or of Jack, who was his ’terpreter, and who scorned to higgle about such a hanimal, because Jack is a gentleman, though bred a dickey-boy, whilst t’other, though bred a lord, is a screw and a whitefeather. Every one says the cove was right, and I says so too; I likes spirit, and if the cove were here, and in your place, measter, I would invite him to drink a pint of beer. Good horses are scarce now, measter, ay, and so are good men, quite a different set from what there were when I was young; that was the time for men and horses. Lord bless you, I know all the breeders about here; they are not a bad set, and they breed a very fairish set of horses, but they are not like what their fathers were, nor are their horses like their fathers’ horses. Now there is Mr. --- the great breeder, a very fairish man, with very fairish horses; but, Lord bless you, he’s nothing to what his father was, nor his steeds to his father’s; I ought to know, for I was at the school here with his father, and afterwards for many a year helped him to get up his horses; that was when I was young, measter—those were the days. You look at that monument, measter,” said he, as I stopped and looked attentively at a monument on the southern side of the church near the altar; “that was put up for a rector of this church, who lived a long time ago, in Oliver’s time, and was ill-treated and imprisoned by Oliver and his men; you will see all about it on the monument. There was a grand battle fought nigh this place, between Oliver’s men and the Royal party, and the Royal party had the worst of it, as I’m told they generally had; and Oliver’s men came into the town, and did a great deal of damage, and ill-treated the people. I can’t remember anything about the matter myself, for it happened just one hundred years before I was born, but my father was acquainted with an old countryman, who lived not many miles from here, who said he remembered perfectly well the day of the battle; that he was a boy at the time, and was working in a field near the place where the battle was fought; and heard shouting, and noise of firearms, and also the sound of several balls, which fell in the field near him. Come this way, measter, and I will show you some remains of that day’s field.” Leaving the monument, on which was inscribed an account of the life and sufferings of the Royalist Rector of Horncastle, I followed the sexton to the western end of the church, where, hanging against the wall, were a number of scythes stuck in the ends of poles. “Those are the weapons, measter,” said the sexton, “which the great people put into the hands of the country folks, in order that they might use them against Oliver’s men; ugly weapons enough; however, Oliver’s men won, and Sir Jacob Ashley and his party were beat. And a rare time Oliver and his men had of it, till Oliver died, when the other party got the better, not by fighting, ’tis said, but through a General Monk, who turned sides. Ah, the old fellow that my father knew, said he well remembered the time when General Monk went over and proclaimed Charles the Second. Bonfires were lighted everywhere, oxen roasted, and beer drunk by pailfuls; the country folks were drunk with joy, and something else; sung scurvy songs about Oliver to the tune of Barney Banks, and pelted his men, wherever they found them, with stones and dirt.” “The more ungrateful scoundrels they,” said I. “Oliver and his men fought the battle of English independence against a wretched king and corrupt lords. Had I been living at the time, I should have been proud to be a trooper of Oliver.” “You would, measter, would you? Well, I never quarrels with the opinions of people who come to look at the church, and certainly independence is a fine thing. I like to see a chap of an independent spirit, and if I were now to see the cove that refused to sell his horse to my Lord Screw and Whitefeather, and let Jack Dale have him, I would offer to treat him to a pint of beer—e’es, I would, verily. Well, measter, you have now seen the church, and all there’s in it worth seeing—so I’ll just lock up, and go and finish digging the grave I was about when you came, after which I must go into the fair to see how matters are going on. Thank ye, measter,” said he, as I put something into his hand; “thank ye kindly; ’tis not every one who gives me a shilling now-a-days who comes to see the church, but times are very different from what they were when I was young; I was not sexton then, but something better; helped Mr. --- with his horses, and got many a broad crown. Those were the days, measter, both for men and horses—and I say, measter, if men and horses were so much better when I was young than they are now, what, I wonder, must they have been in the time of Oliver and his men?”