The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves

by T. Smollett

They found the house forsaken, and had already reached the end of the lane in their return, when they were accosted by an old woman, who gave them to understand, that if they had occasion for the advice of a fortune-teller, as she did suppose they had, from their stopping at the house where Dr. Grubble lived, she would conduct them to a person of much more eminence in that profession; at the same time she informed them, that the said Grubble had been lately sent to Bridewell; a circumstance which, with all his art, he had not been able to foresee. The captain, without any scruple, put himself and his companion under convoy of this beldame, who, through many windings and turnings, brought them to the door of a ruinous house, standing in a blind alley; which door having opened with a key drawn from her pocket, she introduced them into a parlour, where they saw no other furniture than a naked bench, and some frightful figures on the bare walls, drawn or rather scrawled with charcoal.

Here she left them locked in, until she should give the doctor notice of their arrival; and they amused themselves with decyphering these characters and hieroglyphics. The first figure that engaged their attention was that of a man hanging upon a gibbet, which both considered as an unfavourable omen, and each endeavoured to avert from his own person. Crabshaw observed, that the figure so suspended was clothed in a sailor’s jacket and trowsers; a truth which the captain could not deny, but, on the other hand, he affirmed, that the said figure exhibited the very nose and chin of Timothy, together with the hump on one shoulder. A warm dispute ensued, and being maintained with much acrimonious altercation, might have dissolved the new-cemented friendship of those two originals, had it not been interrupted by the old sibyl, who, coming into the parlour, intimated that the doctor waited for them above. She likewise told them, that he never admitted more than one at a time. This hint occasioned a fresh contest. The captain insisted upon Crabshaw’s making sail a-head, in order to look out afore; but Timothy persisted in refusing this honour, declaring he did not pretend to lead, but he would follow, as in duty bound. The old gentlewoman abridged the ceremony by leading out Crabshaw with one hand, and locking up Crowe with the other.

The former was dragged upstairs like a bear to the stake, not without reluctance and terror, which did not at all abate at sight of the conjurer, with whom he was immediately shut up by his conductress, after she had told him in a whisper, that he must deposit a shilling in a little black coffin, supported by a human skull and thigh-bones crossed, on a stool covered with black baize, that stood in one corner of the apartment. The squire, having made this offer with fear and trembling, ventured to survey the objects around him, which were very well calculated to augment his confusion. He saw divers skeletons hung by the head, the stuffed skin of a young alligator, a calf with two heads, and several snakes suspended from the ceiling, with the jaws of a shark, and a starved weasel. On another funeral table he beheld two spheres, between which lay a book open, exhibiting outlandish characters, and mathematical diagrams. On one side stood an ink-standish with paper; and behind this desk appeared the conjurer himself, in sable vestments, his head so overshadowed with hair, that, far from contemplating his features, Timothy could distinguish nothing but a long white beard, which, for aught he knew, might have belonged to a four-legged goat, as well as to a two-legged astrologer.

This apparition, which the squire did not eye without manifest discomposure, extending a white wand, made certain evolutions over the head of Timothy, and having muttered an ejaculation, commanded him, in a hollow tone, to come forward and declare his name. Crabshaw, thus adjured, advanced to the altar; and, whether from design, or (which is more probable) from confusion, answered, “Samuel Crowe.” The conjurer taking up the pen, and making a few scratches on the paper, exclaimed, in a terrific accent, “How! miscreant! attempt to impose upon the stars?— You look more like a crab than a crow, and was born under the sign of Cancer.” The squire, almost annihilated by this exclamation, fell upon his knees, crying, “I pray yaw, my lord conjurer’s worship, pardon my ignorance, and down’t go to baind me over to the Red Sea like—I’se a poor Yorkshire tyke, and would no more cheat the stars, than I’d cheat my own vather, as the saying is—a must be a good hand at trapping, that catches the stars a napping—but as your honour’s worship observed, my name is Tim Crabshaw, of the East Raiding, groom and squair to Sir Launcelot Greaves, baron knaight, and arrant-knaight, who ran mad for a wench, as your worship’s conjuration well knoweth. The person below is Captain Crowe; and we coom by Margery Cook’s recommendation, to seek after my master, who is gone away, or made away, the Lord he knows how and where.”

Here he was interrupted by the conjurer, who exhorted him to sit down and compose himself till he should cast a figure; then he scrawled the paper, and waving his wand, repeated abundance of gibberish concerning the number, the names, the houses, and revolutions of the planets, with their conjunctions, oppositions, signs, circles; cycles, trines, and trigons. When he perceived that this artifice had its proper effect in disturbing the brain of Crabshaw, he proceeded to tell him from the stars, that his name was Crabshaw, or Crabscaw; that he was born in the East Riding of Yorkshire, of poor, yet honest parents, and had some skill in horses; and that he served a gentleman whose name began with the letter G—, which gentleman had run mad for love, and left his family; but whether he would return alive or dead, the stars had not yet determined.

Poor Timothy was thunderstruck to find the conjurer acquainted with all these circumstances, and begged to know if he might be so bauld as to ax a question or two about his own fortune. The astrologer pointing to the little coffin, our squire understood the hint, and deposited another shilling. The sage had recourse to his book, erected another scheme, performed once more his airy evolutions with the wand, and having recited another mystical preamble, expounded the book of fate in these words: “You shall neither die by war nor water, by hunger or by thirst, nor be brought to the grave by old age or distemper; but, let me see—ay, the stars will have it so—you shall be—exalted—hah!—ay, that is—hanged for horse-stealing.”—“O good my lord conjurer!” roared the squire, “I’d as lief give forty shillings as be hanged.”—“Peace, sirrah!” cried the other; “would you contradict or reverse the immutable decrees of fate? Hanging is your destiny, and hanged you shall be—and comfort yourself with the reflection, that as you are not the first, so neither will you be the last to swing on Tyburn tree.” This comfortable assurance composed the mind of Timothy, and in a great measure reconciled him to the prediction. He now proceeded in a whining tone, to ask whether he should suffer for the first fact; whether it would be for a horse or a mare, and of what colour, that he might know when his hour was come. The conjurer gravely answered, that he would steal a dappled gelding on a Wednesday, be cast at the Old Bailey on Thursday, and suffer on a Friday; and he strenuously recommended it to him to appear in the cart with a nosegay in one hand, and the Whole Duty of Man in the other. “But if in case it should be in the winter,” said the squire, “when a nosegay can’t be had?”—“Why, then,” replied the conjurer, “an orange will do as well.”

These material points being adjusted to the entire satisfaction of Timothy, he declared he would bestow another shilling to know the fortune of an old companion, who truly did not deserve so much at his hands, but he could not help loving him better than e’er a friend he had in the world. So saying, he dropped a third offering in the coffin, and desired to know the fate of his horse Gilbert. The astrologer having again consulted his art, pronounced that Gilbert would die of the staggers, and his carcase be given to the hounds; a sentence which made a much deeper impression upon Crabshaw’s mind, than did the prediction of his own untimely and disgraceful fate. He shed a plenteous shower of tears, and his grief broke forth in some passionate expressions of tenderness. At length he told the astrologer he would go and send up the captain, who wanted to consult him about Margery Cook, because as how she had informed him that Dr. Grubble had described just such another man as the captain for her true love; and he had no great stomach to the match, if so be as the stars were not bent upon their coming together.

Accordingly the squire being dismissed by the conjurer, descended to the parlour with a rueful length of face, which being perceived by the captain, he demanded, “What cheer, ho?” with some signs of apprehension. Crabshaw making no return to this salute, he asked if the conjurer had taken an observation, and told him anything. Then the other replied, he had told him more than he desired to know. “Why, an that be the case,” said the seaman, “I have no occasion to go aloft this trip, brother.”

This evasion would not serve his turn. Old Tisiphone was at hand, and led him up growling into the hall of audience, which he did not examine without trepidation. Having been directed to the coffin, where he presented half a crown, in hope of rendering the fates more propitious, the usual ceremony was performed, and the doctor addressed him in these words: “Approach, Raven.” The captain advancing, “You an’t much mistaken, brother,” said he, “heave your eye into the binnacle, and box your compass, you’ll find I’m a Crowe, not a Raven, thof indeed they be both fowls of a feather, as the saying is.”—“I know it,” cried the conjurer, “thou art a northern crow,—a sea-crow; not a crow of prey, but a crow to be preyed upon;—a crow to be plucked,—to be flayed,—to be basted,—to be broiled by Margery upon the gridiron of matrimony.” The novice changing colour at this denunciation, “I do understand your signals, brother,” said he, “and if it be set down in the log-book of fate that we must grapple, why then ‘ware timbers. But as I know how the land lies, d’ye see, and the current of my inclination sets me off, I shall haul up close to the wind, and mayhap we shall clear Cape Margery. But howsomever, we shall leave that reef in the fore top-sail.—I was bound upon another voyage, d’ye see—to look and to see, and to know if so be as how I could pick up any intelligence along shore concerning my friend Sir Launcelot, who slipped his cable last night, and has lost company, d’ye see.”

“What!” exclaimed the cunning man; “art thou a crow, and canst not smell carrion? If thou wouldst grieve for Greaves, behold his naked carcase lies unburied, to feed the kites, the crows, the gulls, the rooks, and ravens.”—“What! broach’d to?” “Dead as a boil’d lobster.”—“Odd’s heart, friend, these are the heaviest tidings I have heard these seven long years—there must have been deadly odds when he lowered his top-sails—smite my eyes! I had rather the Mufti had foundered at sea, with myself and all my generation on board—well fare thy soul, flower of the world! had honest Sam Crowe been within hail—but what signifies palavering?” Here the tears of unaffected sorrow flowed plentifully down the furrows of the seaman’s cheeks;—then his grief giving way to his indignation, “Hark ye, brother conjurer,” said he, “you can spy foul weather before it comes, d—n your eyes! why did not you give us warning of this here squall? B—st my limbs! I’ll make you give an account of this here d—ned, horrid, confounded murder, d’ye see—mayhap you yourself was concerned, d’ye see.—For my own part, brother, I put my trust in God, and steer by the compass, and I value not your paw-wawing and your conjuration of a rope’s end, d’ye see.”