Фредерик Марриет - The Poacher; Or, Joseph Rushbrook

“By the head of Saint Patrick, but that was an escape!”

“Yes, indeed, the she-devil with six children, and 80 pounds a year; it’s a wicked world this, O’Donahue. Well, I kept clear of such cunning articles, and only looked after youth and innocence in the city. At last I discovered the only daughter of a German sugar-baker in the Minories, a young thing about seventeen, but very little for her age. She went to a dancing-school, and I contrived, by bribing the maid, to carry on the affair most successfully, and she agreed to run away with me: everything was ready, the postchaise was at the corner of the street, she came with her bundle in her hand. I thrust it into the chaise, and was just tossing her in after it, when she cried out that she had forgotten something, and must go back for it; and away she went, slipping through my fingers. Well, I waited most impatiently for her appearance, and at last saw her coming; and what d’ye think she’d gone back for? By the powers, for her doll , which she held in her hand! And just as she came to the chaise, who should come round the corner but her father, who had walked from Mincing Lane. He caught my mincing Miss by the arm, with her doll and her bundle, and bundled her home, leaving me and the postchaise, looking like two fools. I never could see her again, or her confounded doll either.”

“You have been out of luck, McShane.”

“I’m not sure of that, as the affair has ended. Now comes another adventure, in which I turned the tables, anyhow. I fell in with a very pretty girl, the daughter of a lawyer in Chancery Lane, who was said to have, and (I paid a shilling at Doctors’ Commons, and read the will) it was true enough, an independent fortune from her grandmother. She was always laughing full of mischief and practical jokes. She pretended to be pleased, the hussey, with my addresses, and at last she consented, as I thought, to run away with me. I imagined that I had clinched the business at last, when one dark night I handed her into a chaise, wrapped up in a cloak, and crying. However, I got her in, and away we went as if the devil was behind us. I coaxed her and soothed her, and promised to make her happy; but she still kept her handkerchief up to her eyes, and would not permit me a chaste salute—even pushed me away when I would put my arm round her waist; all which I ascribed to the extra shame and modesty which a woman feels when she is doing wrong. At last, when about fifteen miles from town, there was a burst of laughter, and ‘I think we have gone far enough, Major McShane.’ By all the saints in the calendar, it was her scamp of a brother that had taken her place. ‘My young gentleman,’ said I, ‘I think you have not only gone far enough, but, as I shall prove to you, perhaps a little too far,’ for I was in no fool of a passion. So I set to, beat him to a mummy, broke his nose, blackened both his eyes, and knocked half his teeth down his throat; and when he was half dead, I opened the chaise door as it whirled along, and kicked him out to take his chance of the wheels, or any other wheels which the wheel of fortune might turn up for him. So he went home and told his sister what a capital joke it was, I’ve no doubt. I’ll be bound the young gentleman has never run away with an Irishman since that: however, I never heard any more about him, or his lovely sister.”

“Now, then, for the wind up, McShane.”

“Courting’s very expensive, especially when you order postchaises for nothing at all, and I was very nearly at the end of my rhino; so I said to myself, ‘McShane, you must retrench.’ And I did so; instead of dining at the coffee-house, I determined to go to an eating-house, and walked into one in Holborn, where I sat down to a plate of good beef and potatoes, and a large lump of plum-pudding, paid 1 shilling and 6 pence, and never was better pleased in my life; so I went there again, and became a regular customer; and the girls who waited laughed with me, and the lady who kept the house was very gracious. Now, the lady was good-looking, but she was rather too fat; there was an amiable look about her, even when she was carving beef; and by degrees we became intimate, and I found her a very worthy creature, and as simple-minded as a child, although she could look sharp after her customers. It was, and is now, a most thriving establishment—nearly two hundred people dine there every day. I don’t know how it was, but I suppose I first fell in love with her beef; and then with her fair self; and finding myself well received at all times, I one day, as she was carving a beefsteak-pie which might have tempted a king for its fragrance, put the question to her, as to how she would like to marry again. She blushed, and fixed her eyes down upon the hole she had made in the pie, and then I observed that if there was a hole in my side as big as there was in the pie before her, she would see her image in my heart. This pretty simile did the business for me, and in a month we were married; and I never shall want a dinner as long as I live, either for myself or friend. I will put you on the free list, O’Donahue, if you can condescend to a cook’s shop: and I can assure you that I think I have done a very wise thing, for I don’t want to present any wife at Court, and I have a very comfortable home.”

“You have done a wise thing, in my opinion, McShane—you have a wife who makes money, instead of one who spends it.”

“And, moreover, I have found my bargain better that I anticipated, which is seldom the case in this world of treachery and deceit. She has plenty of money, and is putting by more every year.”

“Which you have the control of, at your disposition, do you mean to say?”

“Why, yes, I may say that now; but, O’Donahue, that is owing to my circumspection and delicacy. At first starting, I determined that she should not think that it was only her money that I wanted; so, after we were married, I continued to find myself, which, paying nothing for board and lodging and washing, I could easily do upon my half-pay; and I have done so ever since, until just now.”

“I had not been married a week before I saw that she expected I would make inquiries into the state of her finances, but I would not. At last, finding that I would not enter into the business, she did, and told me that she had 17,000 pounds Consols laid by, and that the business was worth 1,000 pounds per annum (you may fish at Cheltenham a long while, O’Donahue, before you get such a haul as that). So I told her I was very glad she was well off, and then I pretended to go fast asleep, as I never interfered with her, and never asked for money. At last she didn’t like it, and offered it to me; but I told her I had enough, and did not want it; since which she has been quite annoyed at my not spending money; and when I told her this morning that there was a brother officer of mine arrived in town, to whom I had owed some money for a long while, she insisted upon my taking money to pay it, put a pile of bank-notes in my had, and was quite mortified when she found I only wanted 20 pounds. Now you see, O’Donahue, I have done this from principle. She earns the money, and therefore she shall have the control of it as long as we are good friends; and upon my honour, I really think I love her better than I ever thought I could love any woman in the world for she has the temper, the kindness, and the charity of an angel, although not precisely the figure; but one can’t have everything in this world; and so now you have the whole of my story, and what do you think of it?”

“You must present me to your wife, McShane.”

“That I will with pleasure. She’s like her rounds of beef—it’s cut and come again; but her heart is a beauty, and so is her beefsteak-pie—when you taste it.”