On Murder (Oxford World's Classics)
Page 15
The world was wrong there, as it has been on some other questions. Toad-in-the-hole might be sleeping, but dead he was not; and of that we soon had ocular proof. One morning in 1812* an amateur surprised us with the news that he had seen Toad-in-the-hole brushing with hasty steps the dews away to meet the postman by the conduit side. * Even that was something: how much more, to hear that he had shaved his beard—had laid aside his sad-coloured clothes, and was adorned like a bridegroom of ancient days. What could be the meaning of all this? Was Toad-in-the-hole mad? or how? Soon after the secret was explained—in more than a figurative sense ‘the murder was out.’ For in came the London morning papers, by which it appeared that but three days before a murder, the most superb of the century by many degrees, had occurred in the heart of London. I need hardly say, that this was the great exterminating chef-d’oeuvre* of Williams at Mr Marr’s, No. 29, Ratcliffe Highway. That was the début of the artist; at least for anything the public knew. What occurred at Mr Williamson’s,* twelve nights afterwards—the second work turned out from the same chisel—some people pronounced even superior. But Toad-in-the-hole always ‘reclaimed’*—he was even angry at comparisons. ‘This vulgar gout de comparaison, as La Bruyère calls it,’* he would often remark, ‘will be our ruin; each work has its own separate characteristics—each in and for itself is incomparable. One, perhaps, might suggest the Iliad—the other the Odyssey:* what do you get by such comparisons? Neither ever was, or will be surpassed; and when you’ve talked for hours, you must still come back to that.’ Vain, however, as all criticism might be, he often said that volumes might be written on each case for itself; and he even proposed to publish in quarto on the subject.
Meantime, how had Toad-in-the-hole happened to hear of this great work of art so early in the morning? He had received an account by express, dispatched by a correspondent in London, who watched the progress of art on Toady’s behalf, with a general commission to send off a special express, at whatever cost, in the event of any estimable works appearing—how much more upon occasion of a ne plus ultra* in art! The express arrived in the night time; Toad-in-the-hole was then gone to bed; he had been muttering and grumbling for hours, but of course he was called up. On reading the account, he threw his arms round the express, called him his brother and his preserver; settled a pension upon him for three lives, and expressed his regret at not having it in his power to knight him. We, on our part—we amateurs, I mean—having heard that he was abroad, and therefore had not hanged himself, made sure of soon seeing him amongst us. Accordingly he soon arrived, knocked over the porter on his road to the reading-room; he seized every man’s hand as he passed him—wrung it almost frantically, and kept ejaculating, ‘Why, now, here’s something like a murder!—this is the real thing—this is genuine—this is what you can approve, can recommend to a friend: this—says every man, on reflection—this is the thing that ought to be!’ Then, looking at particular friends, he said—‘Why, Jack, how are you? Why, Tom, how are you?—bless me, you look ten years younger than when I last saw you.’ ‘No, sir,’ I replied, ‘it is you who look ten years younger.’ ‘Do I?—well, I shouldn’t wonder if I did; such works are enough to make us all young.’ And in fact the general opinion is, that Toad-in-the-hole would have died but for this regeneration of art, which he called a second age of Leo the Tenth;* and it was our duty, he said solemnly, to commemorate it. At present, and en attendant*—rather as an occasion for a public participation in public sympathy, than as in itself any commensurate testimony of our interest—he proposed that the Club should meet and dine together. A splendid public Dinner, therefore, was given by the Club; to which all amateurs were invited from a distance of 100 miles.
Of this Dinner there are ample short-hand notes amongst the archives of the Club. But they are not ‘extended,’ to speak diplomatically; and the reporter is missing—I believe, murdered. Meantime, in years long after that day, and on an occasion perhaps equally interesting, viz., the turning up of Thugs and Thuggism,* another Dinner was given. Of this I myself kept notes, for fear of another accident to the short-hand reporter. And I here subjoin them. Toad-in-the-hole, I must mention, was present at this Dinner. In fact, it was one of its sentimental incidents. Being as old as the valleys at the Dinner of 1812; naturally, he was as old as the hills at the Thug Dinner of 1838. He had taken to wearing his beard again; why, or with what view, it passes my persimmon* to tell you. But so it was. And his appearance was most benign and venerable. Nothing could equal the angelic radiance of his smile as he enquired after the unfortunate reporter, (whom, as a piece of private scandal, I should tell you that he was himself supposed to have murdered, in a rapture of creative art:) the answer was, with roars of laughter, from the under-sheriff of our county—‘non est inventus.’* Toad-in-the-hole laughed outrageously at this: in fact, we all thought he was choking; and, at the earnest request of the company, a musical composer furnished a most beautiful glee upon the occasion, which was sung five times after dinner, with universal applause and inextinguishable laughter, the words being these, (and the chorus so contrived, as most beautifully to mimic the peculiar laughter of Toad-in-the-hole:)—
Et interrogatum est à Toad-in-the-hole—Ubi est ille reporter?
Et responsum est cum cachinno—Non est inventus.
CHORUS
Deinde iteratum est ab omnibus, cum cachinnatione undulante—
Non est inventus.*
Toad-in-the-hole, I ought to mention, about nine years before, when an express from Edinburgh brought him the earliest intelligence of the Burke-and-Hare* revolution in the art, went mad upon the spot; and, instead of a pension to the express for even one life, or a knighthood, endeavoured to burke him; in consequence of which he was put into a strait waistcoat. And that was the reason we had no dinner then. But now all of us were alive and kicking, straitwaistcoaters and others; in fact, not one absentee was reported upon the entire roll. There were also many foreign amateurs present.
Dinner being over, and the cloth drawn, there was a general call made for the new glee of Non est inventus; but, as this would have interfered with the requisite gravity of the company during the earlier toasts, I overruled the call. After the national toasts had been given, the first official toast of the day was—The Old Man of the Mountains*—drunk in solemn silence.
Toad-in-the-hole returned thanks in a neat speech. He likened himself to the Old Man of the Mountains, in a few brief allusions, that made the company absolutely yell with laughter; and he concluded with giving the health of Mr Von Hammer,* with many thanks to him for his learned History of the Old Man and his subjects the Assassins.
Upon this I rose and said, that doubtless most of the company were aware of the distinguished place assigned by orientalists to the very learned Turkish scholar Von Hammer the Austrian; that he had made the profoundest researches into our art as connected with those early and eminent artists the Syrian assassins in the period of the Crusaders; that his work had been for several years deposited, as a rare treasure of art, in the library of the Club. Even the author’s name, gentlemen, pointed him out as the historian of our art—Von Hammer—
‘Yes, yes,’ interrupted Toad-in-the-hole, who never can sit still—‘Yes, yes, Von Hammer—he’s the man for a malleus haereticorum:* think rightly of our art, or he’s the man to tickle your catastrophes.* You all know what consideration Williams bestowed on the hammer, or the ship carpenter’s mallet,* which is the same thing. Gentlemen, I give you another great hammer—Charles the Hammer, the Marteau, or, in old French, the Martel*—he hammered the Saracens till they were all as dead as door-nails:—he did, believe me.’
‘Charles Martel, with all the honours.’
But the explosion of Toad-in-the-hole, together with the uproarious cheers for the grandpapa of Charlemagne,* had now made the company unmanageable. The orchestra was again challenged with shouts the stormiest for the new glee. I made again a powerful effort to overrule the challenge. I might as well have talked to the winds.
I foresaw a tempestuous evening; and I ordered myself to be strengthened with three waiters on each side; the vice-president with as many. Symptoms of unruly enthusiasm were beginning to show out; and I own that I myself was considerably excited as the orchestra opened with its storm of music, and the impassioned glee began—‘Et interrogatum est à Toad-in-the-hole—Ubi est ille Reporter?’ And the frenzy of the passion became absolutely convulsing, as the full chorus fell in—’Et iteratum est ab omnibus—Non est inventus.’
By this time I saw how things were going: wine and music were making most of the amateurs wild. Particularly Toad-in-the-hole, though considerably above a hundred years old, was getting as vicious as a young leopard. It was a fixed impression with the company that he had murdered the reporter in the year 1812; since which time (viz. twenty-six years) ‘ille reporter’ had been constantly reported ‘non est inventus.’ Consequently, the glee about himself, which of itself was most tumultuous and jubilant, carried him off his feet. Like the famous choral songs amongst the citizens of Abdera,* nobody could hear it without a contagious desire for falling back into the agitating music of ‘Et interrogatum est á Toad-in-the-hole,’ &c. I enjoined vigilance upon my assessors, and the business of the evening proceeded.
The next toast was—The Jewish Sicarii.*
Upon which I made the following explanation to the company: — ‘Gentlemen, I am sure it will interest you all to hear that the assassins, ancient as they were, had a race of predecessors in the very same country. All over Syria, but particularly in Palestine, during the early years of the Emperor Nero,* there was a band of murderers, who prosecuted their studies in a very novel manner. They did not practise in the night-time, or in lonely places; but justly considering that great crowds are in themselves a sort of darkness by means of the dense pressure and the impossibility of finding out who it was that gave the blow, they mingled with mobs everywhere; particularly at the great paschal feast in Jerusalem; where they actually had the audacity, as Josephus* assures us, to press into the temple,—and whom should they choose for operating upon but Jonathan himself, the Pontifex Maximus?* They murdered him, gentlemen, as beautifully as if they had had him alone on a moonless night in a dark lane. And when it was asked, who was the murderer, and where he was’—