Mr. Lester, a respectable elderly man of considerable property, residing at Battersea-rise, applied to the magistrate for an assault warrant against a person whom he described as a high-flying linen-draper, carrying on business in Parliament-street. The warrant was granted upon his affidavit, and Mr. Highflyer was shortly after brought up in custody; but as the magistrate had been called from the bench for a few minutes, he seized that opportunity of making an atonement for his misconduct to the party complaining, and so escaped the Sessions, though the assault and outrage he had committed were certainly most sessionable.[20]
It appeared that this Mr. Highflyer had determined on taking his spouse for a ride in a gig—we beg his pardon, in a tilbury,—one Sunday, and that they did take a ride in a tilbury accordingly. They trotted gaily along in connubial comfort till they had almost reached Battersea-rise; but there all the connubial comfort evaporated: for—whether it was that the motion of the tilbury swung away Mr. Highflyer's ordinary notions of connubial concord, or whether the expansion of prospect around him produced a corresponding expansion of the amatory principle within him, we know not—but so it was, that about a quarter of a mile on this side Battersea-rise, he bowed very gallantly to a pretty young woman who was passing; and she familiarly nodded in return. Now this might be all very innocent, but his wife thought otherwise; and she took so much umbrage at it, that high words ensued. In short the "green-eyed monster" took possession of all her perceptions; and Mr. Highflyer, in the buoyancy of his heart and tilbury, carried it with such a high hand—so cavalierly as it were, that his lady declared she would not ride another inch with such a faithless creature, and insisted upon his setting her down directly. And cruel Mr. Highflyer did set her down instanter;—instead of trying to pacify her, and convince her of her error, he coolly set her down and drove on without her. This was nearly opposite Mr. Lester's house on Battersea-rise; and as Mr. Lester looked through his window he saw the lady sitting on a low wall by the road-side, weeping and sobbing most piteously. Mr. Lester, though as sturdy a John Bull as ever thrust carver into smoking sirloin, has much of the spirit of chivalry in his composition, and seeing a lady in such a distressing situation, he sallied forth and offered her a temporary asylum in his hospitable little parlour. The weeping lady thankfully accepted his offer; but he had no sooner seated her carefully on his sofa than she fell into hysterics, and it required all the skill of his wife, his daughters, and his handmaidens, to bring her to her senses again. She did recover, however, but it was only to renew her sighs and tears; and neither Mr. Lester nor his wife knew what to make of it, when a thundering rap at the door nearly shook all the glass out of the windows, and in the next moment Mr. Highflyer stalked loftily into the parlour. At the sight of him Mrs. Highflyer went off into hysterics again, and Mr. Highflyer, in his endeavours to recover her from the fit, conducted himself so at-homeishly, that Mr. Lester did not half like it.—He called about him for all sorts of things, tore the sofa cover, threw the cushions about the room, upset the china tea things, and broke the pole of the fire screen! At length Mr. Lester's anger got the better of his hospitality, and he reminded Mr. Highflyer that he was not in his own house. "Damn the house!" exclaimed Mr. Highflyer, "what the devil do I care whose house it is? I am a gentleman and nothing else, and I shall do what I like—here or anywhere else!" "No, Sir!" said the astonished Mr. Lester, "No, Sir, you shall not, and no gentleman would have done as you have done already." I'faith this was enough—the words had scarcely passed Mr. Lester's teeth, when three of those teeth were loosened to their very foundation by a blow from the gentlemanly fist of Mr. Highflyer. "Take that, Sir!" said he, "and if you don't like it, I'll fight you with either sword or pistols!" The astonished Mr. Lester was still more astonished at this treatment; but being no match in thews and sinews for Mr. Highflyer, he flew to the poker, and had it not been for the interference of the ladies, Mr. Highflyer would doubtless have been laid low.
As it was, the affair went off in a clamorous palaver; after which Mr. and Mrs. Highflyer returned to town in the tilbury, highly dissatisfied with their day's pleasure; and Mr. Lester went to bed, wondering that there should be such queer people in the world.
It was reported among the officers that the peace-offering for all this was ten sovereigns; and if so, Mr. Highflyer got off cheaply.
DISAPPOINTED LOVE.
Mr. Owen M'Carthy appeared in custody before the Bench, to answer the complaint of Mrs. Margaret Reading, spinster. Mr. Owen M'Carthy is five feet two without his shoes, and sixty-seven years old; but—as he himself observed—"sound as the big bell of St. Paul's, both in mind and body." The lady has seen sixty-five winters pass away; and in all that time she has so conducted herself that no living creature can say, "black is the white of her eye"—at least that is her opinion; and surely she ought to know.
It appeared by her evidence that Mr. Owen M'Carthy and she reside under the same roof, and have for many years been upon the most friendly terms; till, in evil hour, Mr. Owen M'Carthy, who was then a widower, took unto himself a second love—a second wife he called her; but Mrs. Margaret Reading declared it was no such thing. Well, this second wife, or mistress, be it which it will, according to Mrs. Margaret Reading's account, is "a born devil;" and takes every opportunity of treating Mrs. Margaret Reading in the most ridiculous manner—such as calling her a frumpish old fool, spitting at her as she goes up and downstairs, &c., and in all this Mr. Owen M'Carthy, forgetting the kindness that formerly existed between them, encourages her. One day Mrs. Margaret Reading went up to their apartment, determined to give them the telling of some of their faults; but she had scarcely opened her mouth, when Mr. Owen M'Carthy bounced up from his chair, and gave her such a push, that she tumbled down, rolled on to the landing-place, and it was God's mercy she did not trundle downstairs.
This was the assault complained of, and she called upon the magistrate to punish him sewerely.
Mr. Owen M'Carthy in his defence said, "May it plase your honour, when the wife that I had twenty-seven years died, this ould woman and another was living in the place, and they both made love to me extramely. But I thought to myself, thinks I, your honour, sure and what would I do with two ould women at one and the same time? Well, then, your wortchip, says I, in that case I'll ounly have one of 'em, and that will be Judy M'Craw; bekase, your wortchip, she was the comlier one of the two, and I larnt she'd the best carackter for peaceableness; and I married her; and, saving your wortchip's presence, she's my lawful wife at this same time, and like to be, sure enough, to the end of it. Well, your honour, bekase of this, Mrs. Reading bother'd me exsaadingly, and wouldn't be quiet for her jealousy, and was always making corruptions between me and Mrs. Owen M'Carthy that is; and so, when she comed up with her phillaloo botheration, about nothing in the world but I wouldn't have her, I put my hand out, and 'go along wid you, Misthress Margaret,' says I; and with that she laade herself clane down o' the floor, and rolled herself out of it just in no time, your honour, at all."