Resisting, however, all these importunities, though we could not resist glancing at the advertisements of such things in the windows, such as, "Without Imposition. Weddings performed cheap here"; or, "The Old and True Register. Without Imposition. Weddings performed by a clergyman educated at the University of Oxford, chaplain to a nobleman," we went along and so, at last, we came to Tower Hill.
"And now," said Oliver, "let's see for the abode. The number is twenty-seven, this is fourteen--it cannot be afar. Wil't come in Gerald and show thyself to my friend, who will surely gape for wonder at seeing a real lord; or go into the tavern? Or, stay, yonder seems a decent coffeehouse where, doubtless, you may read a journal or so; or what?"
I was about to say I would go with him and, because I was in a merry mood, exclaimed that I would treat his friend to so gay a sight as a real Irish lord when, alas! my boyish attention was attracted by a raree-show fellow who came along, followed by a mob of children of all ages, many grown-up men and women, and his servant or assistant. This latter bore upon his back the long box in which his master kept his stock-in-trade and apparatus, and, as they drew near, was cursing vehemently the crowd who wished them to exhibit their tricks and wonders. "What," he muttered, "show you the fleas that run at tilt when there is not so much as a groat amongst you all, or the hedgehog that can divine the stars, or the wonderful snake, for which we paid twenty Dutch ducatoons at Antwerp--and without payment, the devil take you all!"
But here, while still the children screamed at him and his master and the elders jeered, his eyes fell on me standing at the hither end of the street after Oliver had gone in to the house he wanted, and, advancing down it, he said: "Now here is a young gentleman of quality or I ne'er saw one, whose purse is lined with many a fat piece I warrant. Noble, sir," addressing me, and speaking most volubly, "will you not pay to see our show? We can exhibit you the wonderful snake and divining hedgehog, the five-legged sheep and six-clawed lobster, the dolls who dance to the bagpipes' merry squeak and the ape who scratched the Cardinal's nose in Rome. Or my master will knock you a knife in at one cheek and out at t'other without pain or bleeding, swallow dull cotton and blow out fire or make a meal of burning coals, or by dexterity of hand fill your hat full of guineas from an empty bottle. And then again, noble sir, we have pills that are good against an earthquake, so that the worst cannot disturb you; or, again, an elixir which shall prevent the lightning from harming you even tho' it strike you fair, or still again----"
But here I interrupted him, crying, "Nay! nay! I want not your pills or elixir, but I have ten minutes to await a friend, so show me your curious beasts and I will give you a shilling."
"And let us see, too," the mob cried. "We must see, too."
"Ay," said the master of the raree-show taking the word up while he opened his box to earn my shilling, "Ay, you must see, too, though devil a fadge have you got to pay. Yet, ere long, will I hire a booth where none can see who pay not. I'll lead this dog's out-o'-door life no longer."
Yet neither was it foredoomed for me or any of the vagrant crew around to see the mountebank's treasures. For as he produced his snake, a poor huddled up little thing that looked as though it had neither life nor venom in it, we heard a shouting and bawling at the top end of the street and the screams of women; and presently saw advancing down it about fifteen sailors fighting their way along, while still the women howled at them and they endeavoured to secure all the men around them.
"The Press! The Press!" called out the raree men and our crowd together, while all fled helter-skelter, leaving me the only one standing there all by myself, so that, in a moment, I was surrounded by the press-gang, for such I soon knew it to be. "Your age, name and calling," said a man to me who seemed to be the leader and was, as I later learned, the lieutenant in command. He was a poor-looking fellow very much unlike all ideas I had conceived of His Majesty's naval officers, and, unlike the officers of the army, had no uniform to wear. Therefore, since he was one of those poor creatures who are officers in the navy without money or interest and with mighty little pay, it was not strange that his clothes were shabby, his boots burst out, and his hat a thing that would not have done credit to a scarecrow, though it had a gold cockade, much tarnished, in it.
"That is my affair," I retorted, "and none of yours. Pass on and leave me."