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Edgar Allan Poe: King Pest
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Poe
KING PEST
A Tale Containing an Allegory
by Edgar Allan Poe
1835
The gods do bear and will allow in kings
The things which they
abhor in rascal routes.
Buckhurst's Tragedy of Ferrex and
Porrex.
ABOUT twelve o'clock, one night in the month of October, and during the
chivalrous reign of the third Edward, two seamen belonging to the crew of
the "Free and Easy," a trading schooner plying between Sluys and the Thames,
and then at anchor in that river, were much astonished to find themselves
seated in the tap-room of an ale-house in the parish of St. Andrews, London
--which ale-house bore for sign the portraiture of a "Jolly Tar."
The room, although ill-contrived, smoke-blackened, low-pitched, and in
every other respect agreeing with the general character of such places at
the period --was, nevertheless, in the opinion of the grotesque groups
scattered here and there within it, sufficiently well adapted to its
purpose.
Of these groups our two seamen formed, I think, the most interesting, if
not the most conspicuous.
The one who appeared to be the elder, and whom his companion addressed by
the characteristic appellation of "Legs," was at the same time much the
taller of the two. He might have measured six feet and a half, and an
habitual stoop in the shoulders seemed to have been the necessary
consequence of an altitude so enormous.--Superfluities in height were,
however, more than accounted for by deficiencies in other respects. He was
exceedingly thin; and might, as his associates asserted, have answered, when
drunk, for a pennant at the mast-head, or, when sober, have served for a
jib-boom. But these jests, and others of a similar nature, had evidently
produced, at no time, any effect upon the cachinnatory muscles of the tar.
With high cheek-bones, a large hawk-nose, retreating chin, fAllan under-jaw,
and huge protruding white eyes, the expression of his countenance, although
tinged with a species of dogged indifference to matters and things in
general, was not the less utterly solemn and serious beyond all attempts at
imitation or description.
The younger seaman was, in all outward appearance, the converse of his
companion. His stature could not have exceeded four feet. A pair of stumpy
bow-legs supported his squat, unwieldy figure, while his unusually short and
thick arms, with no ordinary fists at their extremities, swung off dangling
from his sides like the fins of a sea-turtle. Small eyes, of no particular
color, twinkled far back in his head. His nose remained buried in the mass
of flesh which enveloped his round, full, and purple face; and his thick
upper-lip rested upon the still thicker one beneath with an air of
complacent self-satisfaction, much heightened by the owner's habit of
licking them at intervals. He evidently regarded his tall shipmate with a
feeling half-wondrous, half-quizzical; and stared up occasionally in his
face as the red setting sun stares up at the crags of Ben Nevis.
Various and eventful, however, had been the peregrinations of the worthy
couple in and about the different tap-houses of the neighbourhood during the
earlier hours of the night. Funds even the most ample, are not always
everlasting: and it was with empty pockets our friends had ventured upon the
present hostelrie.
At the precise period, then, when this history properly commences, Legs,
and his fellow Hugh Tarpaulin, sat, each with both elbows resting upon the
large oaken table in the middle of the floor, and with a hand upon either
cheek. They were eyeing, from behind a huge flagon of unpaid-for
"humming-stuff," the portentous words, "No Chalk," which to their
indignation and astonishment were scored over the doorway by means of that
very mineral whose presence they purported to deny. Not that the gift of
decyphering written characters --a gift among the commonalty of that day
considered little less cabalistical than the art of inditing --could, in
strict justice, have been laid to the charge of either disciple of the sea;
but there was, to say the truth, a certain twist in the formation of the
letters --an indescribable lee-lurch about the whole ---which foreboded, in
the opinion of both seamen, a long run of dirty weather; and determined them
at once, in the allegorical words of Legs himself, to "pump ship, clew up
all sail, and scud before the wind."
Having accordingly disposed of what remained of the ale, and looped up
the points of their short doublets, they finally made a bolt for the street.
Although Tarpaulin rolled twice into the fire-place, mistaking it for the
door, yet their escape was at length happily effected --and half after
twelve o'clock found our heroes ripe for mischief, and running for life down
a dark alley in the direction of St. Andrew's Stair, hotly pursued by the
landlady of the "Jolly Tar."
At the epoch of this eventful tale, and periodically, for many years
before and after, all England, but more especially the metropolis, resounded
with the fearful cry of "Plague!" The city was in a great measure
depopulated --and in those horrible regions, in the vicinity of the Thames,
where amid the dark, narrow, and filthy lanes and alleys, the Demon of
Disease was supposed to have had his nativity, Awe, Terror, and Superstition
were alone to be found stalking abroad.
By authority of the king such districts were placed under ban, and all
persons forbidden, under pain of death, to intrude upon their dismal
solitude. Yet neither the mandate of the monarch, nor the huge barriers
erected at the entrances of the streets, nor the prospect of that loathsome
death which, with almost absolute certainty, overwhelmed the wretch whom no
peril could deter from the adventure, prevented the unfurnished and
untenanted dwellings from being stripped, by the hand of nightly rapine, of
every article, such as iron, brass, or lead-work, which could in any manner
be turned to a profitable account.
Above all, it was usually found, upon the annual winter opening of the
barriers, that locks, bolts, and secret cellars, had proved but slender
protection to those rich stores of wines and liquors which, in consideration
of the risk and trouble of removal, many of the numerous dealers having
shops in the neighbourhood had consented to trust, during the period of
exile, to so insufficient a security.
But there were very few of the terror-stricken people who attributed
these doings to the agency of human hands. Pest-spirits, plague-goblins, and
fever-demons, were the popular imps of mischief; and tales so blood-chilling
were hourly told, that the whole mass of forbidden buildings was, at length,
enveloped in terror as in a shroud, and the plunderer himself was often
scared away by the horrors his own depreciations had created; leaving the
entire vast circuit of prohibited district to gloom, silence, pestilence,
and death.
It was by one of the terrific barriers already mentioned, and which
indicated the region beyond to be under the Pest-ban, that, in scrambling
down an alley, Legs and the worthy Hugh Tarpaulin found their progress
suddenly impeded. To return was out of the question, and no time was to be
lost, as their pursuers were close upon their heels. With thorough-bred
seamen to clamber up the roughly fashioned plank-work was a trifle; and,
maddened with the twofold excitement of exercise and liquor, they leaped
unhesitatingly down within the enclosure, and holding on their drunken
course with shouts and yellings, were soon bewildered in its noisome and
intricate recesses.
Had they not, indeed, been intoxicated beyond moral sense, their reeling
footsteps must have been palsied by the horrors of their situation. The air
was cold and misty. The paving-stones, loosened from their beds, lay in wild
disorder amid the tall, rank grass, which sprang up around the feet and
ankles. FAllan houses choked up the streets. The most fetid and poisonous
smells everywhere prevailed; --and by the aid of that ghastly light which,
even at midnight, never fails to emanate from a vapory and pestilential at
atmosphere, might be discerned lying in the by-paths and alleys, or rotting
in the windowless habitations, the carcass of many a nocturnal plunderer
arrested by the hand of the plague in the very perpetration of his
robbery.
--But it lay not in the power of images, or sensations, or impediments
such as these, to stay the course of men who, naturally brave, and at that
time especially, brimful of courage and of "humming-stuff!" would have
reeled, as straight as their condition might have permitted, undauntedly
into the very jaws of Death. Onward --still onward stalked the grim Legs,
making the desolate solemnity echo and re-echo with yells like the terrific
war-whoop of the Indian: and onward, still onward rolled the dumpy
Tarpaulin, hanging on to the doublet of his more active companion, and far
surpassing the latter's most strenuous exertions in the way of vocal music,
by bull-roarings in basso, from the profundity of his stentorian lungs.
They had now evidently reached the strong hold of the pestilence. Their
way at every step or plunge grew more noisome and more horrible --the paths
more narrow and more intricate. Huge stones and beams falling momently from
the decaying roofs above them, gave evidence, by their sullen and heavy
descent, of the vast height of the surrounding houses; and while actual
exertion became necessary to force a passage through frequent heaps of
rubbish, it was by no means seldom that the hand fell upon a skeleton or
rested upon a more fleshly corpse.
Suddenly, as the seamen stumbled against the entrance of a tall and
ghastly-looking building, a yell more than usually shrill from the throat of
the excited Legs, was replied to from within, in a rapid succession of wild,
laughter-like, and fiendish shrieks. Nothing daunted at sounds which, of
such a nature, at such a time, and in such a place, might have curdled the
very blood in hearts less irrevocably on fire, the drunken couple rushed
headlong against the door, burst it open, and staggered into the midst of
things with a volley of curses.
The room within which they found themselves proved to be the shop of an
undertaker; but an open trap-door, in a corner of the floor near the
entrance, looked down upon a long range of wine-cellars, whose depths the
occasional sound of bursting bottles proclaimed to be well stored with their
appropriate contents. In the middle of the room stood a table --in the
centre of which again arose a huge tub of what appeared to be punch. Bottles
of various wines and cordials, together with jugs, pitchers, and flagons of
every shape and quality, were scattered profusely upon the board. Around it,
upon coffin-tressels, was seated a company of six. This company I will
endeavor to delineate one by one.
Fronting the entrance, and elevated a little above his companions, sat a
personage who appeared to be the president of the table. His stature was
gaunt and tall, and Legs was confounded to behold in him a figure more
emaciated than himself. His face was as yellow as saffron --but no feature
excepting one alone, was sufficiently marked to merit a particular
description. This one consisted in a forehead so unusually and hideously
lofty, as to have the appearance of a bonnet or crown of flesh superadded
upon the natural head. His mouth was puckered and dimpled into an expression
of ghastly affability, and his eyes, as indeed the eyes of all at table,
were glazed over with the fumes of intoxication. This gentleman was clothed
from head to foot in a richly-embroidered black silk-velvet pall, wrapped
negligently around his form after the fashion of a Spanish cloak. --His head
was stuck full of sable hearse-plumes, which he nodded to and fro with a
jaunty and knowing air; and, in his right hand, he held a huge human
thigh-bone, with which he appeared to have been just knocking down some
member of the company for a song.
Opposite him, and with her back to the door, was a lady of no whit the
less extraordinary character. Although quite as tall as the person just
described, she had no right to complain of his unnatural emaciation. She was
evidently in the last stage of a dropsy; and her figure resembled nearly
that of the huge puncheon of October beer which stood, with the head driven
in, close by her side, in a corner of the chamber. Her face was exceedingly
round, red, and full; and the same peculiarity, or rather want of
peculiarity, attached itself to her countenance, which I before mentioned in
the case of the president --that is to say, only one feature of her face was
sufficiently distinguished to need a separate characterization: indeed the
acute Tarpaulin immediately observed that the same remark might have applied
to each individual person of the party; every one of whom seemed to possess
a monopoly of some particular portion of physiognomy. With the lady in
question this portion proved to be the mouth. Commencing at the right ear,
it swept with a terrific chasm to the left --the short pendants which she
wore in either auricle continually bobbing into the aperture. She made,
however, every exertion to keep her mouth closed and look dignified, in a
dress consisting of a newly starched and ironed shroud coming up close under
her chin, with a crimpled ruffle of cambric muslin.
At her right hand sat a diminutive young lady whom she appeared to
patronise. This delicate little creature, in the trembling of her wasted
fingers, in the livid hue of her lips, and in the slight hectic spot which
tinged her otherwise leaden complexion, gave evident indications of a
galloping consumption. An air of gave extreme haut ton, however, pervaded
her whole appearance; she wore in a graceful and degage manner, a large and
beautiful winding-sheet of the finest India lawn; her hair hung in ringlets
over her neck; a soft smile played about her mouth; but her nose, extremely
long, thin, sinuous, flexible and pimpled, hung down far below her under
lip, and in spite of the delicate manner in which she now and then moved it
to one side or the other with her tongue, gave to her countenance a somewhat
equivocal expression.
Over against her, and upon the left of the dropsical lady, was seated a
little puffy, wheezing, and gouty old man, whose cheeks reposed upon the
shoulders of their owner, like two huge bladders of Oporto wine. With his
arms folded, and with one bandaged leg deposited upon the table, he seemed
to think himself entitled to some consideration. He evidently prided himself
much upon every inch of his personal appearance, but took more especial
delight in calling attention to his gaudy-colored surtout. This, to say the
truth, must have cost him no little money, and was made to fit him
exceedingly well --being fashioned from one of the curiously embroidered
silken covers appertaining to those glorious escutcheons which, in England
and elsewhere, are customarily hung up, in some conspicuous place, upon the
dwellings of departed aristocracy.
Next to him, and at the right hand of the president, was a gentleman in
long white hose and cotton drawers. His frame shook, in a ridiculous manner,
with a fit of what Tarpaulin called "the horrors." His jaws, which had been
newly shaved, were tightly tied up by a bandage of muslin; and his arms
being fastened in a similar way at the wrists, I I prevented him from
helping himself too freely to the liquors upon the table; a precaution
rendered necessary, in the opinion of Legs, by the peculiarly sottish and
wine-bibbing cast of his visage. A pair of prodigious ears, nevertheless,
which it was no doubt found impossible to confine, towered away into the
atmosphere of the apartment, and were occasionally pricked up in a spasm, at
the sound of the drawing of a cork.
Fronting him, sixthly and lastly, was situated a singularly stiff-looking
personage, who, being afflicted with paralysis, must, to speak seriously,
have felt very ill at ease in his unaccommodating habiliments. He was
habited, somewhat uniquely, in a new and handsome mahogany coffin. Its top
or head-piece pressed upon the skull of the wearer, and extended over it in
the fashion of a hood, giving to the entire face an air of indescribable
interest. Arm-holes had been cut in the sides, for the sake not more of
elegance than of convenience; but the dress, nevertheless, prevented its
proprietor from sitting as erect as his associates; and as he lay reclining
against his tressel, at an angle of forty-five degrees, a pair of huge
goggle eyes rolled up their awful whites towards the celling in absolute
amazement at their own enormity.
Before each of the party lay a portion of a skull, which was used as a
drinking cup. Overhead was suspended a human skeleton, by means of a rope
tied round one of the legs and fastened to a ring in the ceiling. The other
limb, confined by no such fetter, stuck off from the body at right angles,
causing the whole loose and rattling frame to dangle and twirl about at the
caprice of every occasional puff of wind which found its way into the
apartment. In the cranium of this hideous thing lay quantity of ignited
charcoal, which threw a fitful but vivid light over the entire scene; while
coffins, and other wares appertaining to the shop of an undertaker, were
piled high up around the room, and against the windows, preventing any ray
from escaping into the street.
At sight of this extraordinary assembly, and of their still more
extraordinary paraphernalia, our two seamen did not conduct themselves with
that degree of decorum which might have been expected. Legs, leaning against
the wall near which he happened to be standing, dropped his lower jaw still
lower than usual, and spread open his eyes to their fullest extent: while
Hugh Tarpaulin, stooping down so as to bring his nose upon a level with the
table, and spreading out a palm upon either knee, burst into a long, loud,
and obstreperous roar of very ill-timed and immoderate laughter.
Without, however, taking offence at behaviour so excessively rude, the
tall president smiled very graciously upon the intruders --nodded to them in
a dignified manner with his head of sable plumes --and, arising, took each
by an arm, and led him to a seat which some others of the company had placed
in the meantime for his accommodation. Legs to all this offered not the
slightest resistance, but sat down as he was directed; while tile gallant
Hugh, removing his coffin tressel from its station near the head of the
table, to the vicinity of the little consumptive lady in the winding sheet,
plumped down by her side in high glee, and pouring out a skull of red wine,
quaffed it to their better acquaintance. But at this presumption the stiff
gentleman in the coffin seemed exceedingly nettled; and serious consequences
might have ensued, had not the president, rapping upon the table with his
truncheon, diverted the attention of all present to the following
speech:
"It becomes our duty upon the present happy occasion"--
"Avast there!" interrupted Legs, looking very serious, "avast there a
bit, I say, and tell us who the devil ye all are, and what business ye have
here, rigged off like the foul fiends, and swilling the snug blue ruin
stowed away for the winter by my honest shipmate, Will Wimble the
undertaker!"
At this unpardonable piece of ill-breeding, all the original company half
started to their feet, and uttered the same rapid succession of wild
fiendish shrieks which had before caught the attention of the seamen. The
president, however, was the first to recover his composure, and at length,
turning to Legs with great dignity, recommenced:
"Most willingly will we gratify any reasonable curiosity on the part of
guests so illustrious, unbidden though they be. Know then that in these
dominions I am monarch, and here rule with undivided empire under the title
of 'King Pest the First.'
"This apartment, which you no doubt profanely suppose to be the shop of
Will Wimble the undertaker --a man whom we know not, and whose plebeian
appellation has never before this night thwarted our royal ears --this
apartment, I say, is the Dais-Chamber of our Palace, devoted to the councils
of our kingdom, and to other sacred and lofty purposes.
"The noble lady who sits opposite is Queen Pest, our Serene Consort. The
other exalted personages whom you behold are all of our family, and wear the
insignia of the blood royal under the respective titles of 'His Grace the
Arch Duke Pest-Iferous' --'His Grace the Duke Pest-Ilential' --'His Grace
the Duke Tem-Pest' --and 'Her Serene Highness the Arch Duchess
Ana-Pest.'
"As regards," continued he, "your demand of the business upon which we
sit here in council, we might be pardoned for replying that it concerns, and
concerns alone, our own private and regal interest, and is in no manner
important to any other than ourself. But in consideration of those rights to
which as guests and strangers you may feel yourselves entitled, we will
furthermore explain that we are here this night, prepared by deep research
and accurate investigation, to examine, analyze, and thoroughly determine
the indefinable spirit --the incomprehensible qualities and nature --of
those inestimable treasures of the palate, the wines, ales, and liqueurs of
this goodly metropolis: by so doing to advance not more our own designs than
the true welfare of that unearthly sovereign whose reign is over us all,
whose dominions are unlimited, and whose name is 'Death.'
"Whose name is Davy Jones!" ejaculated Tarpaulin, helping the lady by his
side to a skull of liqueur, and pouring out a second for himself.
"Profane varlet!" said the president, now turning his attention to the
worthy Hugh, "profane and execrable wretch! --we have said, that in
consideration of those rights which, even in thy filthy person, we feel no
inclination to violate, we have condescended to make reply to thy rude and
unseasonable inquiries. We nevertheless, for your unhallowed intrusion upon
our councils, believe it our duty to mulct thee and thy companion in each a
gallon of Black Strap --having imbibed which to the prosperity of our
kingdom --at a single draught --and upon your bended knees --ye shall be
forthwith free either to proceed upon your way, or remain and be admitted to
the privileges of our table, according to your respective and individual
pleasures."
"It would be a matter of utter impossibility," replied Legs, whom the
assumptions and dignity of King Pest the First had evidently inspired some
feelings of respect, and who arose and steadied himself by the table as he
spoke --"It would, please your majesty, be a matter of utter impossibility
to stow away in my hold even one-fourth part of the same liquor which your
majesty has just mentioned. To say nothing of the stuffs placed on board in
the forenoon by way of ballast, and not to mention the various ales and
liqueurs shipped this evening at different sea-ports, I have, at present, a
full cargo of 'humming stuff' taken in and duly paid for at the sign of the
'Jolly Tar.' You will, therefore, please your majesty, be so good as to take
the will for the deed --for by no manner of means either can I or will I
swallow another drop --least of all a drop of that villainous bilge-water
that answers to the hall of 'Black Strap.'"
"Belay that!" interrupted Tarpaulin, astonished not more at the length of
his companion's speech than at the nature of his refusal --"Belay that you
tubber! --and I say, Legs, none of your palaver! My hull is still light,
although I confess you yourself seem to be a little top-heavy; and as for
the matter of your share of the cargo, why rather than raise a squall I
would find stowageroom for it myself, but" --
"This proceeding," interposed the president, "is by no means in
accordance with the terms of the mulct or sentence, which is in its nature
Median, and not to be altered or recalled. The conditions we have imposed
must be fulfilled to the letter, and that without a moment's hesitation --in
failure of which fulfilment we decree that you do here be tied neck and
heels together, and duly drowned as rebels in yon hogshead of October
beer!"
"A sentence! --a sentence! --a righteous and just sentence! --a glorious
decree! --a most worthy and upright, and holy condemnation!" shouted the
Pest family altogether. The king elevated his forehead into innumerable
wrinkles; the gouty little old man puffed like a pair of bellows; the lady
of the winding sheet waved her nose to and fro; the gentleman in the cotton
drawers pricked up his ears; she of the shroud gasped like a dying fish; and
he of the coffin looked stiff and rolled up his eyes.
"Ugh! ugh! ugh!" chuckled Tarpaulin without heeding the general
excitation, "ugh! ugh! ugh! --ugh! ugh! ugh! --ugh! ugh! ugh! --I was
saying," said he, "I was saying when Mr. King Pest poked in his
marlin-spike, that as for the matter of two or three gallons more or less of
Black Strap, it was a trifle to a tight sea-boat like myself not overstowed
--but when it comes to drinking the health of the Devil (whom God assoilzie)
and going down upon my marrow bones to his ill-favored majesty there, whom I
know, as well as I know myself to be a sinner, to be nobody in the whole
world, but Tim Hurlygurly the stage-player --why! it's quite another guess
sort of a thing, and utterly and altogether past my comprehension."
He was not allowed to finish this speech in tranquillity. At the name Tim
Hurlygurly the whole assembly leaped from their name seats.
"Treason!" shouted his Majesty King Pest the First.
"Treason!" said the little man with the gout.
"Treason!" screamed the Arch Duchess Ana-Pest.
"Treason!" muttered the gentleman with his jaws tied up.
"Treason!" growled he of the coffin.
"Treason! treason!" shrieked her majesty of the mouth; and, seizing by
the hinder part of his breeches the unfortunate Tarpaulin, who had just
commenced pouring out for himself a skull of liqueur, she lifted him high
into the air, and let him fall without ceremony into the huge open puncheon
of his beloved ale. Bobbing up and down, for a few seconds, like an apple in
a bowl of toddy, he, at length, finally disappeared amid the whirlpool of
foam which, in the already effervescent liquor, his struggles easily
succeeded in creating.
Not tamely, however, did the tall seaman behold the discomfiture of his
companion. Jostling King Pest through the open trap, the valiant Legs
slammed the door down upon him with an oath, and strode towards the centre
of the room. Here tearing down the skeleton which swung over the table, he
laid it about him with so much energy and good will, that, as the last
glimpses of light died away within the apartment, he succeeded in knocking
out the brains of the little gentleman with the gout. Rushing then with all
his force against the fatal hogshead full of October ale and Hugh Tarpaulin,
he rolled it over and over in an instant. Out burst a deluge of liquor so
fierce --so impetuous --so overwhelming --that the room was flooded from
wall to wall --the loaded table was overturned --the tressels were thrown
upon their backs --the tub of punch into the fire-place --and the ladies
into hysterics. Piles of death-furniture floundered about. Jugs, pitchers,
and carboys mingled promiscuously in the melee, and wicker flagons
encountered desperately with bottles of junk. The man with the horrors was
drowned upon the spot-the little stiff gentleman floated off in his coffin
--and the victorious Legs, seizing by the waist the fat lady in the shroud,
rushed out with her into the street, and made a bee-line for the "Free and
Easy," followed under easy sail by the redoubtable Hugh Tarpaulin, who,
having sneezed three or four times, panted and puffed after him with the
Arch Duchess Ana-Pest.
THE END
Edgar Allan Poe: King Pest
Up to the EServer | The Complete Works of Edgar Allan
Poe
KING PEST
A Tale Containing an Allegory
by Edgar Allan Poe
1835
The gods do bear and will allow in kings
The things which they
abhor in rascal routes.
Buckhurst's Tragedy of Ferrex and
Porrex.
ABOUT twelve o'clock, one night in the month of October, and during the
chivalrous reign of the third Edward, two seamen belonging to the crew of
the "Free and Easy," a trading schooner plying between Sluys and the Thames,
and then at anchor in that river, were much astonished to find themselves
seated in the tap-room of an ale-house in the parish of St. Andrews, London
--which ale-house bore for sign the portraiture of a "Jolly Tar."
The room, although ill-contrived, smoke-blackened, low-pitched, and in
every other respect agreeing with the general character of such places at
the period --was, nevertheless, in the opinion of the grotesque groups
scattered here and there within it, sufficiently well adapted to its
purpose.
Of these groups our two seamen formed, I think, the most interesting, if
not the most conspicuous.
The one who appeared to be the elder, and whom his companion addressed by
the characteristic appellation of "Legs," was at the same time much the
taller of the two. He might have measured six feet and a half, and an
habitual stoop in the shoulders seemed to have been the necessary
consequence of an altitude so enormous.--Superfluities in height were,
however, more than accounted for by deficiencies in other respects. He was
exceedingly thin; and might, as his associates asserted, have answered, when
drunk, for a pennant at the mast-head, or, when sober, have served for a
jib-boom. But these jests, and others of a similar nature, had evidently
produced, at no time, any effect upon the cachinnatory muscles of the tar.
With high cheek-bones, a large hawk-nose, retreating chin, fAllan under-jaw,
and huge protruding white eyes, the expression of his countenance, although
tinged with a species of dogged indifference to matters and things in
general, was not the less utterly solemn and serious beyond all attempts at
imitation or description.
The younger seaman was, in all outward appearance, the converse of his
companion. His stature could not have exceeded four feet. A pair of stumpy
bow-legs supported his squat, unwieldy figure, while his unusually short and
thick arms, with no ordinary fists at their extremities, swung off dangling
from his sides like the fins of a sea-turtle. Small eyes, of no particular
color, twinkled far back in his head. His nose remained buried in the mass
of flesh which enveloped his round, full, and purple face; and his thick
upper-lip rested upon the still thicker one beneath with an air of
complacent self-satisfaction, much heightened by the owner's habit of
licking them at intervals. He evidently regarded his tall shipmate with a
feeling half-wondrous, half-quizzical; and stared up occasionally in his
face as the red setting sun stares up at the crags of Ben Nevis.
Various and eventful, however, had been the peregrinations of the worthy
couple in and about the different tap-houses of the neighbourhood during the
earlier hours of the night. Funds even the most ample, are not always
everlasting: and it was with empty pockets our friends had ventured upon the
present hostelrie.
At the precise period, then, when this history properly commences, Legs,
and his fellow Hugh Tarpaulin, sat, each with both elbows resting upon the
large oaken table in the middle of the floor, and with a hand upon either
cheek. They were eyeing, from behind a huge flagon of unpaid-for
"humming-stuff," the portentous words, "No Chalk," which to their
indignation and astonishment were scored over the doorway by means of that
very mineral whose presence they purported to deny. Not that the gift of
decyphering written characters --a gift among the commonalty of that day
considered little less cabalistical than the art of inditing --could, in
strict justice, have been laid to the charge of either disciple of the sea;
but there was, to say the truth, a certain twist in the formation of the
letters --an indescribable lee-lurch about the whole ---which foreboded, in
the opinion of both seamen, a long run of dirty weather; and determined them
at once, in the allegorical words of Legs himself, to "pump ship, clew up
all sail, and scud before the wind."
Having accordingly disposed of what remained of the ale, and looped up
the points of their short doublets, they finally made a bolt for the street.
Although Tarpaulin rolled twice into the fire-place, mistaking it for the
door, yet their escape was at length happily effected --and half after
twelve o'clock found our heroes ripe for mischief, and running for life down
a dark alley in the direction of St. Andrew's Stair, hotly pursued by the
landlady of the "Jolly Tar."
At the epoch of this eventful tale, and periodically, for many years
before and after, all England, but more especially the metropolis, resounded
with the fearful cry of "Plague!" The city was in a great measure
depopulated --and in those horrible regions, in the vicinity of the Thames,
where amid the dark, narrow, and filthy lanes and alleys, the Demon of
Disease was supposed to have had his nativity, Awe, Terror, and Superstition
were alone to be found stalking abroad.
By authority of the king such districts were placed under ban, and all
persons forbidden, under pain of death, to intrude upon their dismal
solitude. Yet neither the mandate of the monarch, nor the huge barriers
erected at the entrances of the streets, nor the prospect of that loathsome
death which, with almost absolute certainty, overwhelmed the wretch whom no
peril could deter from the adventure, prevented the unfurnished and
untenanted dwellings from being stripped, by the hand of nightly rapine, of
every article, such as iron, brass, or lead-work, which could in any manner
be turned to a profitable account.
Above all, it was usually found, upon the annual winter opening of the
barriers, that locks, bolts, and secret cellars, had proved but slender
protection to those rich stores of wines and liquors which, in consideration
of the risk and trouble of removal, many of the numerous dealers having
shops in the neighbourhood had consented to trust, during the period of
exile, to so insufficient a security.
But there were very few of the terror-stricken people who attributed
these doings to the agency of human hands. Pest-spirits, plague-goblins, and
fever-demons, were the popular imps of mischief; and tales so blood-chilling
were hourly told, that the whole mass of forbidden buildings was, at length,
enveloped in terror as in a shroud, and the plunderer himself was often
scared away by the horrors his own depreciations had created; leaving the
entire vast circuit of prohibited district to gloom, silence, pestilence,
and death.
It was by one of the terrific barriers already mentioned, and which
indicated the region beyond to be under the Pest-ban, that, in scrambling
down an alley, Legs and the worthy Hugh Tarpaulin found their progress
suddenly impeded. To return was out of the question, and no time was to be
lost, as their pursuers were close upon their heels. With thorough-bred
seamen to clamber up the roughly fashioned plank-work was a trifle; and,
maddened with the twofold excitement of exercise and liquor, they leaped
unhesitatingly down within the enclosure, and holding on their drunken
course with shouts and yellings, were soon bewildered in its noisome and
intricate recesses.
Had they not, indeed, been intoxicated beyond moral sense, their reeling
footsteps must have been palsied by the horrors of their situation. The air
was cold and misty. The paving-stones, loosened from their beds, lay in wild
disorder amid the tall, rank grass, which sprang up around the feet and
ankles. FAllan houses choked up the streets. The most fetid and poisonous
smells everywhere prevailed; --and by the aid of that ghastly light which,
even at midnight, never fails to emanate from a vapory and pestilential at
atmosphere, might be discerned lying in the by-paths and alleys, or rotting
in the windowless habitations, the carcass of many a nocturnal plunderer
arrested by the hand of the plague in the very perpetration of his
robbery.
--But it lay not in the power of images, or sensations, or impediments
such as these, to stay the course of men who, naturally brave, and at that
time especially, brimful of courage and of "humming-stuff!" would have
reeled, as straight as their condition might have permitted, undauntedly
into the very jaws of Death. Onward --still onward stalked the grim Legs,
making the desolate solemnity echo and re-echo with yells like the terrific
war-whoop of the Indian: and onward, still onward rolled the dumpy
Tarpaulin, hanging on to the doublet of his more active companion, and far
surpassing the latter's most strenuous exertions in the way of vocal music,
by bull-roarings in basso, from the profundity of his stentorian lungs.
They had now evidently reached the strong hold of the pestilence. Their
way at every step or plunge grew more noisome and more horrible --the paths
more narrow and more intricate. Huge stones and beams falling momently from
the decaying roofs above them, gave evidence, by their sullen and heavy
descent, of the vast height of the surrounding houses; and while actual
exertion became necessary to force a passage through frequent heaps of
rubbish, it was by no means seldom that the hand fell upon a skeleton or
rested upon a more fleshly corpse.
Suddenly, as the seamen stumbled against the entrance of a tall and
ghastly-looking building, a yell more than usually shrill from the throat of
the excited Legs, was replied to from within, in a rapid succession of wild,
laughter-like, and fiendish shrieks. Nothing daunted at sounds which, of
such a nature, at such a time, and in such a place, might have curdled the
very blood in hearts less irrevocably on fire, the drunken couple rushed
headlong against the door, burst it open, and staggered into the midst of
things with a volley of curses.
The room within which they found themselves proved to be the shop of an
undertaker; but an open trap-door, in a corner of the floor near the
entrance, looked down upon a long range of wine-cellars, whose depths the
occasional sound of bursting bottles proclaimed to be well stored with their
appropriate contents. In the middle of the room stood a table --in the
centre of which again arose a huge tub of what appeared to be punch. Bottles
of various wines and cordials, together with jugs, pitchers, and flagons of
every shape and quality, were scattered profusely upon the board. Around it,
upon coffin-tressels, was seated a company of six. This company I will
endeavor to delineate one by one.
Fronting the entrance, and elevated a little above his companions, sat a
personage who appeared to be the president of the table. His stature was
gaunt and tall, and Legs was confounded to behold in him a figure more
emaciated than himself. His face was as yellow as saffron --but no feature
excepting one alone, was sufficiently marked to merit a particular
description. This one consisted in a forehead so unusually and hideously
lofty, as to have the appearance of a bonnet or crown of flesh superadded
upon the natural head. His mouth was puckered and dimpled into an expression
of ghastly affability, and his eyes, as indeed the eyes of all at table,
were glazed over with the fumes of intoxication. This gentleman was clothed
from head to foot in a richly-embroidered black silk-velvet pall, wrapped
negligently around his form after the fashion of a Spanish cloak. --His head
was stuck full of sable hearse-plumes, which he nodded to and fro with a
jaunty and knowing air; and, in his right hand, he held a huge human
thigh-bone, with which he appeared to have been just knocking down some
member of the company for a song.
Opposite him, and with her back to the door, was a lady of no whit the
less extraordinary character. Although quite as tall as the person just
described, she had no right to complain of his unnatural emaciation. She was
evidently in the last stage of a dropsy; and her figure resembled nearly
that of the huge puncheon of October beer which stood, with the head driven
in, close by her side, in a corner of the chamber. Her face was exceedingly
round, red, and full; and the same peculiarity, or rather want of
peculiarity, attached itself to her countenance, which I before mentioned in
the case of the president --that is to say, only one feature of her face was
sufficiently distinguished to need a separate characterization: indeed the
acute Tarpaulin immediately observed that the same remark might have applied
to each individual person of the party; every one of whom seemed to possess
a monopoly of some particular portion of physiognomy. With the lady in
question this portion proved to be the mouth. Commencing at the right ear,
it swept with a terrific chasm to the left --the short pendants which she
wore in either auricle continually bobbing into the aperture. She made,
however, every exertion to keep her mouth closed and look dignified, in a
dress consisting of a newly starched and ironed shroud coming up close under
her chin, with a crimpled ruffle of cambric muslin.
At her right hand sat a diminutive young lady whom she appeared to
patronise. This delicate little creature, in the trembling of her wasted
fingers, in the livid hue of her lips, and in the slight hectic spot which
tinged her otherwise leaden complexion, gave evident indications of a
galloping consumption. An air of gave extreme haut ton, however, pervaded
her whole appearance; she wore in a graceful and degage manner, a large and
beautiful winding-sheet of the finest India lawn; her hair hung in ringlets
over her neck; a soft smile played about her mouth; but her nose, extremely
long, thin, sinuous, flexible and pimpled, hung down far below her under
lip, and in spite of the delicate manner in which she now and then moved it
to one side or the other with her tongue, gave to her countenance a somewhat
equivocal expression.
Over against her, and upon the left of the dropsical lady, was seated a
little puffy, wheezing, and gouty old man, whose cheeks reposed upon the
shoulders of their owner, like two huge bladders of Oporto wine. With his
arms folded, and with one bandaged leg deposited upon the table, he seemed
to think himself entitled to some consideration. He evidently prided himself
much upon every inch of his personal appearance, but took more especial
delight in calling attention to his gaudy-colored surtout. This, to say the
truth, must have cost him no little money, and was made to fit him
exceedingly well --being fashioned from one of the curiously embroidered
silken covers appertaining to those glorious escutcheons which, in England
and elsewhere, are customarily hung up, in some conspicuous place, upon the
dwellings of departed aristocracy.
Next to him, and at the right hand of the president, was a gentleman in
long white hose and cotton drawers. His frame shook, in a ridiculous manner,
with a fit of what Tarpaulin called "the horrors." His jaws, which had been
newly shaved, were tightly tied up by a bandage of muslin; and his arms
being fastened in a similar way at the wrists, I I prevented him from
helping himself too freely to the liquors upon the table; a precaution
rendered necessary, in the opinion of Legs, by the peculiarly sottish and
wine-bibbing cast of his visage. A pair of prodigious ears, nevertheless,
which it was no doubt found impossible to confine, towered away into the
atmosphere of the apartment, and were occasionally pricked up in a spasm, at
the sound of the drawing of a cork.
Fronting him, sixthly and lastly, was situated a singularly stiff-looking
personage, who, being afflicted with paralysis, must, to speak seriously,
have felt very ill at ease in his unaccommodating habiliments. He was
habited, somewhat uniquely, in a new and handsome mahogany coffin. Its top
or head-piece pressed upon the skull of the wearer, and extended over it in
the fashion of a hood, giving to the entire face an air of indescribable
interest. Arm-holes had been cut in the sides, for the sake not more of
elegance than of convenience; but the dress, nevertheless, prevented its
proprietor from sitting as erect as his associates; and as he lay reclining
against his tressel, at an angle of forty-five degrees, a pair of huge
goggle eyes rolled up their awful whites towards the celling in absolute
amazement at their own enormity.
Before each of the party lay a portion of a skull, which was used as a
drinking cup. Overhead was suspended a human skeleton, by means of a rope
tied round one of the legs and fastened to a ring in the ceiling. The other
limb, confined by no such fetter, stuck off from the body at right angles,
causing the whole loose and rattling frame to dangle and twirl about at the
caprice of every occasional puff of wind which found its way into the
apartment. In the cranium of this hideous thing lay quantity of ignited
charcoal, which threw a fitful but vivid light over the entire scene; while
coffins, and other wares appertaining to the shop of an undertaker, were
piled high up around the room, and against the windows, preventing any ray
from escaping into the street.
At sight of this extraordinary assembly, and of their still more
extraordinary paraphernalia, our two seamen did not conduct themselves with
that degree of decorum which might have been expected. Legs, leaning against
the wall near which he happened to be standing, dropped his lower jaw still
lower than usual, and spread open his eyes to their fullest extent: while
Hugh Tarpaulin, stooping down so as to bring his nose upon a level with the
table, and spreading out a palm upon either knee, burst into a long, loud,
and obstreperous roar of very ill-timed and immoderate laughter.
Without, however, taking offence at behaviour so excessively rude, the
tall president smiled very graciously upon the intruders --nodded to them in
a dignified manner with his head of sable plumes --and, arising, took each
by an arm, and led him to a seat which some others of the company had placed
in the meantime for his accommodation. Legs to all this offered not the
slightest resistance, but sat down as he was directed; while tile gallant
Hugh, removing his coffin tressel from its station near the head of the
table, to the vicinity of the little consumptive lady in the winding sheet,
plumped down by her side in high glee, and pouring out a skull of red wine,
quaffed it to their better acquaintance. But at this presumption the stiff
gentleman in the coffin seemed exceedingly nettled; and serious consequences
might have ensued, had not the president, rapping upon the table with his
truncheon, diverted the attention of all present to the following
speech:
"It becomes our duty upon the present happy occasion"--
"Avast there!" interrupted Legs, looking very serious, "avast there a
bit, I say, and tell us who the devil ye all are, and what business ye have
here, rigged off like the foul fiends, and swilling the snug blue ruin
stowed away for the winter by my honest shipmate, Will Wimble the
undertaker!"
At this unpardonable piece of ill-breeding, all the original company half
started to their feet, and uttered the same rapid succession of wild
fiendish shrieks which had before caught the attention of the seamen. The
president, however, was the first to recover his composure, and at length,
turning to Legs with great dignity, recommenced:
"Most willingly will we gratify any reasonable curiosity on the part of
guests so illustrious, unbidden though they be. Know then that in these
dominions I am monarch, and here rule with undivided empire under the title
of 'King Pest the First.'
"This apartment, which you no doubt profanely suppose to be the shop of
Will Wimble the undertaker --a man whom we know not, and whose plebeian
appellation has never before this night thwarted our royal ears --this
apartment, I say, is the Dais-Chamber of our Palace, devoted to the councils
of our kingdom, and to other sacred and lofty purposes.
"The noble lady who sits opposite is Queen Pest, our Serene Consort. The
other exalted personages whom you behold are all of our family, and wear the
insignia of the blood royal under the respective titles of 'His Grace the
Arch Duke Pest-Iferous' --'His Grace the Duke Pest-Ilential' --'His Grace
the Duke Tem-Pest' --and 'Her Serene Highness the Arch Duchess
Ana-Pest.'
"As regards," continued he, "your demand of the business upon which we
sit here in council, we might be pardoned for replying that it concerns, and
concerns alone, our own private and regal interest, and is in no manner
important to any other than ourself. But in consideration of those rights to
which as guests and strangers you may feel yourselves entitled, we will
furthermore explain that we are here this night, prepared by deep research
and accurate investigation, to examine, analyze, and thoroughly determine
the indefinable spirit --the incomprehensible qualities and nature --of
those inestimable treasures of the palate, the wines, ales, and liqueurs of
this goodly metropolis: by so doing to advance not more our own designs than
the true welfare of that unearthly sovereign whose reign is over us all,
whose dominions are unlimited, and whose name is 'Death.'
"Whose name is Davy Jones!" ejaculated Tarpaulin, helping the lady by his
side to a skull of liqueur, and pouring out a second for himself.
"Profane varlet!" said the president, now turning his attention to the
worthy Hugh, "profane and execrable wretch! --we have said, that in
consideration of those rights which, even in thy filthy person, we feel no
inclination to violate, we have condescended to make reply to thy rude and
unseasonable inquiries. We nevertheless, for your unhallowed intrusion upon
our councils, believe it our duty to mulct thee and thy companion in each a
gallon of Black Strap --having imbibed which to the prosperity of our
kingdom --at a single draught --and upon your bended knees --ye shall be
forthwith free either to proceed upon your way, or remain and be admitted to
the privileges of our table, according to your respective and individual
pleasures."
"It would be a matter of utter impossibility," replied Legs, whom the
assumptions and dignity of King Pest the First had evidently inspired some
feelings of respect, and who arose and steadied himself by the table as he
spoke --"It would, please your majesty, be a matter of utter impossibility
to stow away in my hold even one-fourth part of the same liquor which your
majesty has just mentioned. To say nothing of the stuffs placed on board in
the forenoon by way of ballast, and not to mention the various ales and
liqueurs shipped this evening at different sea-ports, I have, at present, a
full cargo of 'humming stuff' taken in and duly paid for at the sign of the
'Jolly Tar.' You will, therefore, please your majesty, be so good as to take
the will for the deed --for by no manner of means either can I or will I
swallow another drop --least of all a drop of that villainous bilge-water
that answers to the hall of 'Black Strap.'"
"Belay that!" interrupted Tarpaulin, astonished not more at the length of
his companion's speech than at the nature of his refusal --"Belay that you
tubber! --and I say, Legs, none of your palaver! My hull is still light,
although I confess you yourself seem to be a little top-heavy; and as for
the matter of your share of the cargo, why rather than raise a squall I
would find stowageroom for it myself, but" --
"This proceeding," interposed the president, "is by no means in
accordance with the terms of the mulct or sentence, which is in its nature
Median, and not to be altered or recalled. The conditions we have imposed
must be fulfilled to the letter, and that without a moment's hesitation --in
failure of which fulfilment we decree that you do here be tied neck and
heels together, and duly drowned as rebels in yon hogshead of October
beer!"
"A sentence! --a sentence! --a righteous and just sentence! --a glorious
decree! --a most worthy and upright, and holy condemnation!" shouted the
Pest family altogether. The king elevated his forehead into innumerable
wrinkles; the gouty little old man puffed like a pair of bellows; the lady
of the winding sheet waved her nose to and fro; the gentleman in the cotton
drawers pricked up his ears; she of the shroud gasped like a dying fish; and
he of the coffin looked stiff and rolled up his eyes.
"Ugh! ugh! ugh!" chuckled Tarpaulin without heeding the general
excitation, "ugh! ugh! ugh! --ugh! ugh! ugh! --ugh! ugh! ugh! --I was
saying," said he, "I was saying when Mr. King Pest poked in his
marlin-spike, that as for the matter of two or three gallons more or less of
Black Strap, it was a trifle to a tight sea-boat like myself not overstowed
--but when it comes to drinking the health of the Devil (whom God assoilzie)
and going down upon my marrow bones to his ill-favored majesty there, whom I
know, as well as I know myself to be a sinner, to be nobody in the whole
world, but Tim Hurlygurly the stage-player --why! it's quite another guess
sort of a thing, and utterly and altogether past my comprehension."
He was not allowed to finish this speech in tranquillity. At the name Tim
Hurlygurly the whole assembly leaped from their name seats.
"Treason!" shouted his Majesty King Pest the First.
"Treason!" said the little man with the gout.
"Treason!" screamed the Arch Duchess Ana-Pest.
"Treason!" muttered the gentleman with his jaws tied up.
"Treason!" growled he of the coffin.
"Treason! treason!" shrieked her majesty of the mouth; and, seizing by
the hinder part of his breeches the unfortunate Tarpaulin, who had just
commenced pouring out for himself a skull of liqueur, she lifted him high
into the air, and let him fall without ceremony into the huge open puncheon
of his beloved ale. Bobbing up and down, for a few seconds, like an apple in
a bowl of toddy, he, at length, finally disappeared amid the whirlpool of
foam which, in the already effervescent liquor, his struggles easily
succeeded in creating.
Not tamely, however, did the tall seaman behold the discomfiture of his
companion. Jostling King Pest through the open trap, the valiant Legs
slammed the door down upon him with an oath, and strode towards the centre
of the room. Here tearing down the skeleton which swung over the table, he
laid it about him with so much energy and good will, that, as the last
glimpses of light died away within the apartment, he succeeded in knocking
out the brains of the little gentleman with the gout. Rushing then with all
his force against the fatal hogshead full of October ale and Hugh Tarpaulin,
he rolled it over and over in an instant. Out burst a deluge of liquor so
fierce --so impetuous --so overwhelming --that the room was flooded from
wall to wall --the loaded table was overturned --the tressels were thrown
upon their backs --the tub of punch into the fire-place --and the ladies
into hysterics. Piles of death-furniture floundered about. Jugs, pitchers,
and carboys mingled promiscuously in the melee, and wicker flagons
encountered desperately with bottles of junk. The man with the horrors was
drowned upon the spot-the little stiff gentleman floated off in his coffin
--and the victorious Legs, seizing by the waist the fat lady in the shroud,
rushed out with her into the street, and made a bee-line for the "Free and
Easy," followed under easy sail by the redoubtable Hugh Tarpaulin, who,
having sneezed three or four times, panted and puffed after him with the
Arch Duchess Ana-Pest.
THE END
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