Эдвард Бульвер-Литтон - Paul Clifford — Complete

“Well, now, prithee forgive me,” said Long Ned, composing his features, “and just tell me what you have been doing the last two months.”

“Slashing and plastering!” said Paul, with conscious pride.

“Slashing and what? The boy’s mad. What do you mean, Paul?”

“In other words,” said our hero, speaking very slowly, “know, O very Long Ned! that I have been critic to ‘The Asinaeum.’”

If Paul’s comrade laughed at first, he now laughed ten times more merrily than ever. He threw his full length of limb upon a neighbouring sofa, and literally rolled with cachinnatory convulsions; nor did his risible emotions subside until the entrance of the hung-beef restored him to recollection. Seeing, then, that a cloud lowered over Paul’s countenance, he went up to him with something like gravity, begged his pardon for his want of politeness, and desired him to wash away all unkindness in a bumper of port. Paul, whose excellent dispositions we have before had occasion to remark, was not impervious to his friend’s apologies. He assured Long Ned that he quite forgave him for his ridicule of the high situation he (Paul) had enjoyed in the literary world; that it was the duty of a public censor to bear no malice, and that he should be very glad to take his share in the interment of the hung-beef.

The pair now sat down to their repast; and Paul, who had fared but meagerly in that Temple of Athena over which MacGrawler presided, did ample justice to the viands before him. By degrees, as he ate and drank, his heart opened to his companion; and laying aside that Asinaeum dignity which he had at first thought it incumbent on him to assume, he entertained Pepper with all the particulars of the life he had lately passed. He narrated to him his breach with Dame Lobkins, his agreement with MacGrawler, the glory he had acquired, and the wrongs he had sustained; and he concluded, as now the second bottle made its appearance, by stating his desire of exchanging for some more active profession that sedentary career which he had so promisingly begun.

This last part of Paul’s confessions secretly delighted the soul of Long Ned; for that experienced collector of the highways—Ned was, indeed, of no less noble a profession—had long fixed an eye upon our hero, as one whom he thought likely to be an honour to that enterprising calling which he espoused, and an useful assistant to himself. He had not, in his earlier acquaintance with Paul, when the youth was under the roof and the surveillance of the practised and wary Mrs. Lobkins, deemed it prudent to expose the exact nature of his own pursuits, and had contented himself by gradually ripening the mind and the finances of Paul into that state when the proposition of a leap from a hedge would not be likely greatly to revolt the person to whom it was made. He now thought that time near at hand; and filling our hero’s glass up to the brim, thus artfully addressed him:—

“Courage, my friend! Your narration has given me a sensible pleasure; for curse me if it has not strengthened my favourite opinion,—that everything is for the best. If it had not been for the meanness of that pitiful fellow, MacGrawler, you might still be inspired with the paltry ambition of earning a few shillings a week and vilifying a parcel of poor devils in the what-d’ye-call it, with a hard name; whereas now, my good Paul, I trust I shall be able to open to your genius a new career, in which guineas are had for the asking,—in which you may wear fine clothes, and ogle the ladies at Ranelagh; and when you are tired of glory and liberty, Paul, why, you have only to make your bow to an heiress, or a widow with a spanking jointure, and quit the hum of men like a Cincinnatus!”

Though Paul’s perception into the abstruser branches of morals was not very acute,—and at that time the port wine had considerably confused the few notions he possessed upon “the beauty of virtue,”—yet he could not but perceive that Mr. Pepper’s insinuated proposition was far from being one which the bench of bishops or a synod of moralists would conscientiously have approved. He consequently remained silent; and Long Ned, after a pause, continued:—

“You know my genealogy, my good fellow? I was the son of Lawyer Pepper, a shrewd old dog, but as hot as Calcutta; and the grandson of Sexton Pepper, a great author, who wrote verses on tombstones, and kept a stall of religious tracts in Carlisle. My grandfather, the sexton, was the best temper of the family; for all of us are a little inclined to be hot in the mouth. Well, my fine fellow, my father left me his blessing, and this devilish good head of hair. I lived for some years on my own resources. I found it a particularly inconvenient mode of life, and of late I have taken to live on the public. My father and grandfather did it before me, though in a different line. ‘T is the pleasantest plan in the world. Follow my example, and your coat shall be as spruce as my own. Master Paul, your health!”

“But, O longest of mortals!” said Paul, refilling his glass, “though the public may allow you to eat your mutton off their backs for a short time, they will kick up at last, and upset you and your banquet; in other words (pardon my metaphor, dear Ned, in remembrance of the part I have lately maintained in ‘The Asinaeum,’ that most magnificent and metaphorical of journals!),—in other words, the police will nab thee at last; and thou wilt have the distinguished fate, as thou already hast the distinguishing characteristic, of Absalom!”

“You mean that I shall be hanged,” said Long Ned, “that may or may not be; but he who fears death never enjoys life. Consider, Paul, that though hanging is a bad fate, starving is a worse; wherefore fill your glass, and let us drink to the health of that great donkey, the people, and may we never want saddles to ride it!”

“To the great donkey,” cried Paul, tossing off his bumper; “may your (y)ears be as long! But I own to you, my friend, that I cannot enter into your plans. And, as a token of my resolution, I shall drink no more, for my eyes already begin to dance in the air; and if I listen longer to your resistless eloquence, my feet may share the same fate!”

So saying, Paul rose; nor could any entreaty, on the part of his entertainer, persuade him to resume his seat.

“Nay, as you will,” said Pepper, affecting a nonchalant tone, and arranging his cravat before the glass,—“nay, as you will. Ned Pepper requires no man’s companionship against his liking; and if the noble spark of ambition be not in your bosom, ‘t is no use spending my breath in blowing at what only existed in my too flattering opinion of your qualities. So then, you propose to return to MacGrawler (the scurvy old cheat!), and pass the inglorious remainder of your life in the mangling of authors and the murder of grammar? Go, my good fellow, go! scribble again and forever for MacGrawler, and let him live upon thy brains instead of suffering thy brains to—”

“Hold!” cried Paul. “Although I may have some scruples which prevent my adoption of that rising line of life you have proposed to me, yet you are very much mistaken if you imagine me so spiritless as any longer to subject myself to the frauds of that rascal MacGrawler. No! My present intention is to pay my old nurse a visit. It appears to me passing strange that though I have left her so many weeks, she has never relented enough to track me out, which one would think would have been no difficult matter; and now, you see, that I am pretty well off, having five guineas and four shillings all my own, and she can scarcely think I want her money, my heart melts to her, and I shall go and ask pardon for my haste!”

“Pshaw! sentimental,” cried Long Ned, a little alarmed at the thought of Paul’s gliding from those clutches which he thought had now so firmly closed upon him. “Why, you surely don’t mean, after having once tasted the joys of independence, to go back to the boozing-ken, and bear all Mother Lobkins’s drunken tantrums! Better have stayed with MacGrawler, of the two!”