The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey Volume II Part 14

'But no!' thought Mr. Mayor: 'better let a rogue escape, than keep a man within my doors that may commit a murder on my body.' So he a.s.sured Mr.

Schnackenberger--that he had accounted in the most satisfactory manner for being found in possession of the dreadnought; took down the name of the old clothesman from whom it was hired; and lighting down his now discharged prisoner, he declared, with a rueful attempt at smiling, that it gave him the liveliest gratification on so disagreeable an occasion to have made so very agreeable an acquaintance.

CHAPTER XVIII.

MISERY ACQUAINTS MR. SCHNACKENBERGER WITH STRANGE BEDFELLOWS.

When Mr. Schnackenberger returned home from his persecutions, he found the door of the Double-barrelled Gun standing wide open: and, as he had observed a light in his own room, he walked right up-stairs without disturbing the sleeping waiter. But to his great astonishment, two gigantic fellows were posted outside the door; who, upon his affirming that he must be allowed to enter his own room, seemed in some foreign and unintelligible language to support the negative of that proposition.

Without further scruple or regard to their menacing gestures, he pressed forwards to the chamber door; but immediately after felt himself laid hold of by the two fellows--one at his legs, the other at his head--and, spite of his most indignant protests, carried down-stairs into the yard.

There he was tumbled into a little _depot_ for certain four-footed animals--with whose golden representative he had so recently formed an acquaintance no less intimate;--and, the height of the building not allowing of his standing upright, he was disposed to look back with sorrow to the paradise lost of his station upon the back of the quiet animal whom he had ridden on the preceding day. Even the dungeon appeared an elysium in comparison with his present lodgings, where he felt the truth of the proverb brought home to him--that it is better to be alone than in bad company.

Unfortunately, the door being fastened on the outside, there remained nothing else for him to do than to draw people to the spot by a vehement howling. But the swine being disturbed by this unusual outcry, and a general uproar taking place among the inhabitants of the stye, Mr.

Schnackenberger's single voice, suffocated by rage, was over-powered by the swinish accompaniment. Some little attention was, however, drawn to the noise amongst those who slept near to the yard: but on the waiter's a.s.suring them that it was 'only a great pig who would soon be quiet,'

that the key could not be found, and no locksmith was in the way at that time of night, the remonstrants were obliged to betake themselves to the same remedy of patience, which by this time seemed to Mr. Jeremiah also the sole remedy left to himself.

CHAPTER XIX.

WHOSE END RECONCILES OUR HERO WITH ITS BEGINNING.

Mr. Schnackenberger's howling had (as the waiter predicted) gradually died away, and he was grimly meditating on his own miseries, to which he had now lost all hope of seeing an end before daylight, when the sudden rattling of a key at the yard door awakened flattering hopes in his breast. It proved to be the waiter, who came to make a gaol delivery--and on letting him out said, 'I am commissioned by the gentlemen to secure your silence;' at the same time putting into his hand a piece of gold.

'The d----l take your gold!' said Mr. Schnackenberger: 'is this the practice at your house--first to abuse your guests, and then have the audacity to offer them money?'

'Lord, protect us!' said the waiter, now examining his face, 'is it you?

but who would ever have looked for you in such a dress as this? The gentlemen took you for one of the police. Lord! to think what a trouble you'll have had!'

And it now came out, that a party of foreigners had pitched upon Mr.

Jeremiah's room as a convenient one for playing at hazard and some other forbidden games; and to prevent all disturbance from the police, had posted their servants, who spoke not a word of German, as sentinels at the door.

'But how came you to let my room for such a purpose?'

'Because we never expected to see you to-night; we had heard that the gentleman in the dreadnought had been taken up at the theatre, and committed. But the gentlemen are all gone now; and the room's quite at your service.'

Mr. Schnackenberger, however, who had lost the first part of the night's sleep from suffering, was destined to lose the second from pleasure: for the waiter now put into his hands the following billet: 'No doubt you must have waited for me to no purpose in the pa.s.sages of the theatre: but alas! our firmest resolutions we have it not always in our power to execute; and on this occasion, I found it quite impossible consistently with decorum to separate myself from my attendants. Will you therefore attend the hunt to-morrow morning? there I hope a better opportunity will offer.'

It added to his happiness on this occasion that the princess had manifestly not detected him as the man in the dreadnought.

CHAPTER XX.

IN WHICH MR. SCHNACKENBERGER ACTS UPON THE AMBITIOUS FEELINGS OF A MAN IN OFFICE FOR AN AMIABLE PURPOSE.

Next morning, when the Provost-marshal came to fetch back the appointments of the military wig-maker, it struck our good-natured student that he had very probably brought the poor fellow into an unpleasant sc.r.a.pe. He felt, therefore, called upon as a gentleman, to wait upon the Mayor, and do his best to beg him off. In fact, he arrived just in time: for all the arrangements were complete for demonstrating to the poor wig-maker, by an _a posteriori_ line of argument, the importance of valour in his new employment.

Mr. Schnackenberger entreated the Mayor to be lenient: courage, he said, was not every man's business: as a wig-maker, the prisoner could have had little practice in that virtue: the best of wigs were often made by cowards: 'and even as a soldier,' said he, 'it's odds if there should be such another alarm for the next hundred years.' But all in vain: his judge was too much incensed: 'Such a scandalous dereliction of duty!'

said he; 'No, no: I must make an example of him.'

Hereupon, Mr. Jeremiah observed, that wig-makers were not the only people who sometimes failed in the point of courage: 'Nay,' said he, 'I have known even mayors who by no means shone in that department of duty: and in particular, I am acquainted with some who would look exceedingly blue, aye d----lish blue indeed, if a student whom I have the honour to know should take it into his head to bring before the public a little incident in which they figured, embellished with wood-cuts, representing a retreat by forced marches towards a bell in the background.'

Mr. Mayor changed colour; and pausing a little to think, at length he said--'Sir, you are in the right; every man has his weak moments. But it would be unhandsome to expose them to the scoffs of the public.'

'Why, yes, upon certain conditions.'

'Which conditions I comply with,' said his wors.h.i.+p; and forthwith he commuted the punishment for a reprimand and a short confinement.

On these terms Mr. Schnackenberger a.s.sured him of his entire silence with respect to all that had pa.s.sed.

CHAPTER XXI.

IN WHICH THE HOPES OF TWO LOVERS ARE WRECKED AT ONCE.

'Beg your pardon, Sir, are you Mr. Schnackenberger?' said a young man to our hero, as he was riding out of the city gate.

'Yes, Sir, I'm the man; what would you have with me?' and, at the same time looking earnestly at him, he remembered his face amongst the footmen on the birth-night.

'At the Forester's house--about eleven o'clock,' whispered the man mysteriously.

'Very good,' said Mr. Schnackenberger, nodding significantly; and forthwith, upon the wings of rapturous antic.i.p.ation, he flew to the place of rendezvous.

On riding into the Forester's court-yard, among several other open carriages, he observed one lined with celestial blue, which, with a strange grossness of taste, exhibited upon the cus.h.i.+ons a medley of hams, sausages, &c. On entering the house, he was at no loss to discover the owner of the carriage; for in a window-seat of the bar sate the landlady of the Golden Sow, no longer in widow's weeds, but arrayed in colours brighter than a bed of tulips.

Mr. Schnackenberger was congratulating himself on his quarrel with her, which he flattered himself must preclude all amicable intercourse, when she saw him, and to his horror approached with a smiling countenance.

Some overtures towards reconciliation he saw were in the wind: but, as these could not be listened to except on one condition, he determined to meet her with a test question: accordingly, as she drew near, simpering and languis.h.i.+ng,

'Have you executed?' said he abruptly, 'Have you executed?'

'Have I what?' said Mrs. Sweetbread.

'Executed? Have you executed the release?'

'Oh! you bad man! But come now: I know----'

At this moment, however, up came some acquaintances of Mrs.