CHAPTER LXXX.
K. Henry. Lord Say, Jack Cade hath sworn to have thy head.
Say. Ay, but I hope your Highness shall have his.--2nd Part of HenryIV.
Punctual to his appointment, the next morning came Mr. Job Jonson. I hadbeen on the rack of expectation for the last three hours previous tohis arrival, and the warmth of my welcome must have removed any littlediffidence with which so shame-faced a gentleman might possibly havebeen troubled.
At my request, he sat himself down, and seeing that my breakfast thingswere on the table, remarked what a famous appetite the fresh airalways gave him. I took the hint, and pushed the rolls towards him. Heimmediately fell to work, and for the next quarter of an hour, his mouthwas far too well occupied for the intrusive impertinence of words. Atlast the things were removed, and Mr. Jonson began.
"I have thought well over the matter, your honour, and I believe we canmanage to trounce the rascals--for I agree with you, that there is nota doubt that Thornton and Dawson are the real criminals; but the affair,Sir, is one of the greatest difficulty and importance--nay, of thegreatest personal danger. My life may be the forfeit of my desire toserve you--you will not, therefore, be surprised at my accepting yourliberal offer of three hundred a year, should I be successful; althoughI do assure you, Sir, that it was my original intention to reject allrecompence, for I am naturally benevolent, and love doing a goodaction. Indeed, Sir, if I were alone in the world, I should scorn anyremuneration, for virtue is its own reward; but a real moralist, yourhonour, must not forget his duties on any consideration, and I have alittle family to whom my loss would be an irreparable injury; this,upon my honour, is my only inducement for taking advantage of yourgenerosity;" and as the moralist ceased, he took out of his waistcoatpocket a paper, which he handed to me with his usual bow of deference.
I glanced over it--it was a bond, apparently drawn up in all the legalformalities, pledging myself, in case Job Jonson, before the expirationof three days, gave that information which should lead to the detectionand punishment of the true murderers of Sir John Tyrrell, deceased,to ensure to the said Job Jonson the yearly annuity of three hundredpounds.
"It is with much pleasure that I shall sign this paper," said I; "butallow me (par parenthese) to observe, that since you only accept theannuity for the sake of benefiting your little family, in case of yourdeath, this annuity, ceasing with your life, will leave your children aspennyless as at present."
"Pardon me, your honour," rejoined Job, not a whit daunted at the truthof my remark, "I can insure!"
"I forgot that," said I, signing, and restoring the paper; "and now tobusiness."
Jonson gravely and carefully looked over the interesting document Ireturned to him, and carefully lapping it in three envelopes, insertedit in a huge red pocket-book, which he thrust into an innermost pocketin his waistcoat.
"Right, Sir," said he, slowly, "to business. Before I begin, you must,however, promise me, upon your honour as a gentleman, the strictestsecrecy, as to my communications."
I readily agreed to this, so far as that secrecy did not impede mypresent object; and Job being content with this condition, resumed.
"You must forgive me, if, in order to arrive at the point in question, Iset out from one which may seem to you a little distant."
I nodded my assent, and Job continued.
"I have known Dawson for some years; my acquaintance with him commencedat Newmarket, for I have always had a slight tendency to the turf. Hewas a wild, foolish fellow, easily led into any mischief, but ever thefirst to sneak out of it; in short, when he became one of us, whichhis extravagance soon compelled him to do, we considered him as a veryserviceable tool, but one, that while he was quite wicked enough tobegin a bad action, was much too weak to go through with it; accordinglyhe was often employed, but never trusted. By the word us, which I seehas excited your curiosity, I merely mean a body corporate, establishedfurtively, and restricted solely to exploits on the turf. I think itright to mention this, because I have the honour to belong to many othersocieties to which Dawson could never have been admitted. Well, Sir, ourclub was at last broken up, and Dawson was left to shift for himself.His father was still alive, and the young hopeful having quarrelled withhim, was in the greatest distress. He came to me with a pitiful story,and a more pitiful face; so I took compassion upon the poor devil, andprocured him, by dint of great interest, admission into a knot of goodfellows, whom I visited, by the way, last night. Here I took himunder my especial care; and as far as I could, with such a dull-headeddromedary, taught him some of the most elegant arts of my profession.However, the ungrateful dog soon stole back to his old courses, androbbed me of half my share of a booty to which I had helped him myself.I hate treachery and ingratitude, your honour; they are so terriblyungentlemanlike.
"I then lost sight of him, till between two and three months ago, whenhe returned to town, and attended our meetings with Tom Thornton, whohad been chosen a member of the club some months before. Since we hadmet, Dawson's father had died, and I thought his flash appearance intown arose from his new inheritance. I was mistaken: old Dawson had tiedup the property so tightly, that the young one could not scrape enoughto pay his debts; accordingly, before he came to town, he gave up hislife interest in the property to his creditors. However that be, MasterDawson seemed at the top of Fortune's wheel. He kept his horses, andsported the set to champagne and venison; in short, there would havebeen no end to his extravagance, had not Thornton sucked him like aleech.
"It was about that time, that I asked Dawson for a trifle to keep mefrom jail; for I was ill in bed, and could not help myself. Will youbelieve, Sir, that the rascal told me to go and be d--d, and Thorntonsaid amen? I did not forget the ingratitude of my protege, though whenI recovered I appeared entirely to do so. No sooner could I walk about,than I relieved all my necessities. He is but a fool who starves, withall London before him. In proportion as my finances increased, Dawson'svisibly decayed. With them, decreased also his spirits. He becamepensive and downcast; never joined any of our parties, and graduallygrew quite a useless member of the corporation. To add to hismelancholy, he was one morning present at the execution of anunfortunate associate of ours: this made a deep impression upon him;from that moment, he became thoroughly moody and despondent. He wasfrequently heard talking to himself, could not endure to be left alonein the dark, and began rapidly to pine away.
"One night, when he and I were seated together, he asked me if I neverrepented of my sins, and then added, with a groan, that I had nevercommitted the heinous crime he had. I pressed him to confess, but hewould not. However, I coupled that half avowal with his sudden richesand the mysterious circumstances of Sir John Tyrrell's death, and darksuspicions came into my mind. At that time, and indeed ever since Dawsonre-appeared, we were often in the habit of discussing the notoriousmurder which then engrossed public attention; and as Dawson and Thorntonhad been witnesses on the inquest, we frequently referred to themrespecting it. Dawson always turned pale, and avoided the subject;Thornton, on the contrary, brazened it out with his usual impudence.Dawson's aversion to the mention of the murder now came into myremembrance with double weight to strengthen my suspicions; and, onconversing with one or two of our comrades, I found that my doubtswere more than shared, and that Dawson had frequently, when unusuallyoppressed with his hypochondria, hinted at his committal of somedreadful crime, and at his unceasing remorse for it.
"By degrees, Dawson grew worse and worse--his health decayed, he startedat a shadow--drank deeply, and spoke, in his intoxication, words thatmade the hairs of our green men stand on end.
"We must not suffer this," said Thornton, whose hardy effrontery enabledhim to lord it over the jolly boys, as if he were their dimber-damber;"his ravings and humdurgeon will unman all our youngsters." And so,under this pretence, Thornton had the unhappy man conveyed away to asecret asylum, known only to the chiefs of the gang, and appropriatedto the reception of persons who, from the same weakness as Dawson, werelikely t
o endanger others, or themselves. There many a poor wretchhas been secretly immured, and never suffered to revisit the light ofHeaven. The moon's minions, as well as the monarch's, must have theirstate prisoners, and their state victims.
"Well, Sir, I shall not detain you much longer. Last night, after yourobliging confidence, I repaired to the meeting; Thornton was there, andvery much out of humour. When our messmates dropped off, and we werealone, at one corner of the room, I began talking to him carelesslyabout his accusation of your friend, whom I have since learnt is SirReginald Glanville--an old friend of mine too; aye, you may look, Sir,but I can stake my life to having picked his pocket one night at theOpera. Thornton was greatly surprised at my early intelligence of afact, hitherto kept so profound a secret; however, I explained itaway by a boast of my skill in acquiring information: and he thenincautiously let out, that he was exceedingly vexed with himself for thecharge he had made against the prisoner, and very uneasy at the urgentinquiries set on foot for Dawson. More and more convinced of his guilt,I quitted the meeting, and went to Dawson's retreat.
"For fear of his escape, Thornton had had him closely confined to one ofthe most secret rooms in the house. His solitude and the darkness ofthe place, combined with his remorse, had worked upon a mind, nevertoo strong, almost to insanity. He was writhing with the most acute andmorbid pangs of conscience that my experience, which has been prettyample, ever witnessed. The old hag, who is the Hecate (you see, Sir, Ihave had a classical education) of the place, was very loth to admitme to him, for Thornton had bullied her into a great fear of theconsequences of disobeying his instructions; but she did not dareto resist my orders. Accordingly I had a long interview with theunfortunate man; he firmly believes that Thornton intends to murder him;and says, that if he could escape from his dungeon, he would surrenderhimself up to the first magistrate he could find.
"I told him that an innocent man had been apprehended for the crime ofwhich I knew he and Thornton were guilty; and then taking upon myselfthe office of a preacher, I exhorted him to atone, as far as possible,for his past crime, by a full and faithful confession; that woulddeliver the innocent, and punish the guilty. I held out to him the hopethat this confession might perhaps serve the purpose of king's evidence,and obtain him a pardon for his crime; and I promised to use my utmostzeal and diligence to promote his escape from his present den.
"He said, in answer, that he did not wish to live; that he suffered thegreatest tortures of mind; and that the only comfort earth held out tohim would be to ease his remorse by a full acknowledgment of his crime,and to hope for future mercy by expiating his offence on the scaffold;all this, and much more, to the same purpose, the hen-hearted fellowtold me with sighs and groans. I would fain have taken his confession onthe spot, and carried it away with me, but he refused to give it to me,or to any one but a parson, whose services he implored me to procurehim. I told him, at first, that the thing was impossible; but, moved byhis distress and remorse, I promised, at last, to bring one tonight,who should both administer spiritual comfort to him and receive hisdeposition. My idea at the moment was to disguise myself in the dress ofthe pater cove, [Note: A parson, or minister--but generally applied toa priest of the lowest order.] and perform the double job--since then Ihave thought of a better scheme.
"As my character, you see, your honour, is not so highly prized by themagistrates as it ought to be, any confession made to me might not be ofthe same value as if it were made to any one else--to a gentleman likeyou, for instance; and, moreover, it will not do for me to appear inevidence against any of the fraternity; and for two reasons: first,because I have taken a solemn oath never to do so; and, secondly,because I have a very fair chance of joining Sir John Tyrrell in kingdomcome if I do. My present plan, therefore, if it meets your concurrence,would be to introduce your honour as the parson, and for you to receivethe confession, which, indeed, you might take down in writing. Thisplan, I candidly confess, is not without great difficulty and somedanger; for I have not only to impose you upon Dawson as a priest, butalso upon Brimstone Bess as one of our jolly boys; for I need not tellyou that any real parson might knock a long time at her door before itcould be opened to him. You must, therefore, be as mum as a mole, unlessshe cants to you, and your answers must then be such as I shall dictate,otherwise she may detect you, and, should any of the true men be in thehouse, we should both come off worse than we went in."
"My dear Mr. Job," replied I, "there appears to me to be a much easierplan than all this; and that is, simply to tell the Bow-street officerswhere Dawson may be found, and I think they would be able to carry himaway from the arms of Mrs. Brimstone Bess without any great difficultyor danger."
Jonson smiled.
"I should not long enjoy my annuity, your honour, if I were to set therunners upon our best hive. I should be stung to death before the weekwas out. Even you, should you accompany me to-night, will never knowwhere the spot is situated, nor would you discover it again if yousearched all London, with the whole police at your back. Besides, Dawsonis not the only person in the house for whom the law is hunting--thereare a score others whom I have no desire to give up to the gallows--hidamong the odds and ends of the house, as snug as plums in a pudding. Godforbid that I should betray them, and for nothing too! No, your honour,the only plan I can think of is the one I proposed; if you do notapprove of it, and it certainly is open to exception, I must devise someother: but that may require delay."
"No, my good Job," replied I, "I am ready to attend you: but couldwe not manage to release Dawson, as well as take his deposition?--hispersonal evidence is worth all the written ones in the world."
"Very true," answered Job, "and if it be possible to give Bess the slip,we will. However, let us not lose what we may get by grasping at what wemay not; let us have the confession first, and we'll try for the releaseafterwards. I have another reason for this, Sir, which, if you knew asmuch of penitent prigs as I do, you would easily understand. However, itmay be explained by the old proverb, of 'the devil was sick,' As longas Dawson is stowed away in a dark hole, and fancies devils in everycorner, he may be very anxious to make confessions, which, in broadday-light, might not seem to him so desirable. Darkness and solitude arestrange stimulants to the conscience, and we may as well not lose anyadvantage they give us."
"You are an admirable reasoner," cried I, "and I am impatient toaccompany you--at what hour shall it be?"
"Not much before midnight," answered Jonson, "but your honour mustgo back to school and learn lessons before then. Suppose Bess wereto address you thus: 'Well you parish bull prig, are you for lushingjackey, or pattering in the hum box?' [Note: Well, you parson thief, areyou for drinking gin, or talking in the pulpit?] I'll be bound you wouldnot know how to answer."
"I am afraid you are right, Mr. Jonson," said I, in a tone ofself-humiliation.
"Never mind," replied the compassionate Job, "we are all bornignorant--knowledge is not learnt in a day. A few of the most common andnecessary words in our St. Giles's Greek, I shall be able to teach youbefore night; and I will, beforehand, prepare the old lady for seeing ayoung hand in the profession. As I must disguise you before we go, andthat cannot well be done here, suppose you dine with me at my lodgings."
"I shall be too happy," said I, not a little surprised at the offer.
"I am in Charlotte-street, Bloomsbury, No.--. You must ask for me bythe name of Captain Douglas," said Job, with dignity, "and we'll dine atfive, in order to have time for your preliminary initiation."
"With all my heart," said I; and Mr. Job Jonson then rose, and remindingme of my promise of secrecy, took his departure.
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