CHAPTER I
the reader is introduced to Captain Whitefeather’s relations
the reader is introduced to Captain Whitefeather’s relations
the reader is introduced to Captain Whitefeather’s relations
Itwas a favourite conviction of my late respected uncle and godfather, Barabbas Whitefeather—he fell in the very flower of his age, at only forty-five, a premature victim to the insalubrity of Bermuda, where he was stationed in a very public capacity by the British Government—it was, I say, a pet belief of the sagacious Barabbas that every man had within him what I think heathen philosophershave called a particle of divine gold; but which my uncle, in the fine simplicity of his nature, and at the same time humanely accommodating his language to the lowest understanding of his species, denominated “a bit of the swindler.”
Discriminating reader, Barabbas Whitefeather was a man of homespun wit, who chewed not his words until they had lost all their original form and vigour; no, he flung them from him with the air of a man who knows he is laying down a guinea of the best mint gold, and not timidly and sneakingly, like a passer of gilt copper.
“Every man has within him a bit of the swindler!”
The sentence fell upon me in the days of my earliest childhood; yes, it was in that ductile, happy, and susceptible season of life that the words of my uncle Barabbas—precious seed!—dropped into my infant heart, where—but let me not boast, let me rather indulge in the luxury of memory—yes, suffer me, complying reader, to carry you into the presence of my sainted uncle: bear with me whilst with affectionate reverence I call up from the abyss of time the interesting shadow of Barabbas Whitefeather.
It was my birthday—I was six years old. I had been promised that that day should be distinguished by a circumstance which, as we advance in life and become involved in the meshes of the world, is apt to be forgotten, albeit of the first importance at the time—I was to be breeched.I was not.I can only remember that a cloud seemed suddenly to have fallen upon our house—that my father would come home long after the lamb had lain down to rest, and would still leave the domestic roof before the rising of the lark, that his temper, generally rough, became much rougher; and that, only a few days before my birthday, on expressing my infantine delights at the trumpets blown before the newly-arrived judges, he rebuked me with unwonted emphasis, at the same time wishing the trumpets and the judges, as I then conceived, very oddlyincorporated with one another. I was then within a few days of six years old—I was a fine, tall, plump child, and on my birthday was to have been breeched. The neighbourhood called for it. I repeat it, my birthday came and passed, and found and left me still in coats.
That day, however, was ordained to be the most eventful of my life. It is that day which, if the world shall continue to remember the deeds of Captain Barabbas Whitefeather, must be held by posterity in especial respect. It is to that day that I owe everything; and what I owe, it would be the worst of affectation in the world to deny or to forget. To proceed with my history.
“Brab,”—it was thus my father was wont to tamper with the euphony of Barabbas,—“Brab, nunkey wants to see you; so you must toddle with me.”
Some weeks had elapsed since I had seen uncle Barabbas; and at his name visions of cakes and apples, peg-tops and whipping-tops, rose before me. Like Agesilaus, Socrates, Yorick, and other men whom I do not hesitate to call of his kidney, my uncle would chequer and ameliorate the labour of public life by sporting with little children. “He hath borne me on his back a thousand times.” I was of course delighted at the prospect of visiting my uncle; but was at the same time made to wonder at the preparation of my father, who carefully bound up one of his eyes, glued large whiskers on his cheeks, and otherwise so disguised himself that, although I saw him do it, I could scarcely believe it was he. However, I thought it was all to have some game with Uncle Barabbas—and in my childishness crowed with laughter at anticipation of the sport.
I walked with my father, and in about half-an-hour came to a very large house, a place I had never seen before: for my dear mother, always fuming about fevers and measles, kept me close at home. My father, suddenly walking verylame, knocked at the door, and through a cold that had come on him all in a minute, asked hoarsely enough for my uncle. The man let us in, and then another man went before us; and then I knew I was in a place where there were heaps of gold and diamonds, for the man unlocked and locked again at least a dozen doors. I give my childish impressions, which I entreat the reader not to smile at, but to remember the simplicity and ingenuousness of my age. Well, after a time, we were led into an open court, where some gentlemen were throwing up halfpence, and two on a bench were pushing straws; and there was one dancing, and one or two singing, and all as happy as birds.
I looked round the place and saw uncle Barabbas smoking in a corner. I was about to call him when my father gave my arm such a pull I thought it was broken; and so I resolved to say nothing, but to wait and see the fun that father would play off upon uncle. Sure enough Barabbas never knew him; and though my uncle patted me upon the head, he had, I thought, forgotten me, for he gave me nothing. My father and my uncle talked together for a long time; when—I see my uncle now—Barabbas suddenly brought himself up, and raising his head, and extending his right arm, the palm open, he said in a solemn voice:—
“Depend upon it, every man has within him a bit of the swindler.”
My father shook his head; whereupon my uncle, for he was very scholarly, and could talk for an hour without stopping, proceeded as follows:—I am perfectly certain as to the words, having subsequently found the whole written speech among other of my uncle’s papers; Barabbas, like some other wits and orators, carefully putting in pen and ink any brilliant thought that struck him—any argument that was a hobby with him, that he might at proper season extemporaneously bring it forth to the delight and astonishmentof his hearers. My father shook his head at the dogma of my uncle, who, without stop, continued:—
“Are you so ignorant as to believe in the deficiency of mankind in general—to imagine that nature is so partial a mother as to dower with her best gifts only a few of her children, leaving the multitude defenceless, unarmed? My dear sir,”—here my uncle lowered his voice,—“amend your ignorance—be just to nature. Do you see tigers whelped without claws—elephants calved that never have tusks—rattlesnakes hatched with no stings? Is nature so niggard—so partial—so unjust? No—philosophers and conquerors have made their marks, and signed their names to the fact—to swindle is to exhibit the peculiar attribute of the human animal; it is at once the triumph and distinguishing faculty of the race. But you will say, do all men swindle? and I ask, do all snakes sting—all elephants gore? There is, however, an unanswerable argument which proves that men, when gregarious, are inevitably swindlers; at least, if they are not, let not the failing be placed to their account; they would be, if they might. Let me put a case. You recollect Gloss, the retired merchant? What an excellent man was Gloss! A pattern man to make a whole generation by! Nobody could surpass him in what is called honesty, rectitude, moral propriety, and other gibberish. Well, Gloss joins a ‘Board’; he becomes one of a community; and, immediately, the latent feeling asserts itself: he is a backbone man with the rest of his brotherhood; and though as simple Gloss, and not a member of the ‘board,’ he is the same as ever, yet when acting with his fellows, when one of the body corporate, when he merges the man Gloss in the board member, the inherent faculty becomes active, and he gratifies the instinct, or the refined reason, or whatever men agree to call it—and complacently swindles with the rest. He cannot do otherwise: human nature is tested by theoccasion; and if, under the circumstances, he refuse to swindle, he ceases to be a man. Swindling, my dear sir”—and here my uncle spoke in a tremulous voice, and my father seemed touched by the emotion—“Swindling, my dear sir, has indeed a far more comprehensive meaning than that superficially awarded to it by, possibly, very respectable people. Good soldiers may fight, pillage, and violate under a banner, and yet, in truth, shall not be able to read and interpret the legend emblazoned on it.”
I could perceive that my father did not perfectly understand this. He, therefore, nodded assentingly, and my uncle, with new animation, proceeded:—
“When I reflect on the extensive and subtle operation of the faculty—when I perceive that, in this our best possible social state, it is, so to speak, the cement that keeps society together; the bond of union; the very salt of human government—it does, I confess it, irk me to find men ungraciously deny its existence, putting off its triumphs upon other motives, and depriving swindling of the glory of its deeds. Strange perversion of human intellect—laughable contradiction of moral purposes! Thus, the politician flutters at the very breath of swindler; thus, the stockbroker struts and swells, and lays his hand upon his waistcoat with a blank look of wondering innocence at the slightest allusion to the faculty that makes a man of him—to which he owes his carriage and country house, his conservatories and his pineries; and above all, the flattering hope of calling Lord Giggleton son-in-law; his lordship being over head, and, what is more, over ears in love with Arabella’s guineas. And yet, such is the base, the black ingratitude of human nature, that this man, this most adroit and lucky stockbroker, starts even at the name of swindler! He indignantly denies the slightest obligation to the higher faculty—themens diviniorof the cabinet, the mart, and the counting-house. Look at Sir Godfrey Measles, the illustrious pork contractor,in whom our brave and magnanimous sailors confide for dinners. Did he not in the most handsome way forfeit a fine to his king and country for having failed to supply swine’s flesh at so much per stone? And then, having paid his fine like a patriot and a man,—did he not, having before bought up all the pork to be had—did he not, with the gushing feelings of a philanthropist, offer it at three times the contract price? Now what was this? Men who veil their meaning in allegory may say that Sir Godfrey Measles ‘drove his pigs to a fine market.’ For myself, I elevate the homely phrase of pig-driver into the more ennobling name of swindler. Others may say that Sir Godfrey only traded—I stick to my belief; I say he swindled. More: I reverence him for the act; my only deep regret is, that he should have failed in an ingenuous gratitude, and denied the action of the higher principle. I have long looked upon the world, and, with sorrow, I say it, in nothing do the generations of successful men show so much cold and callous ingratitude as in their treatment of their guardian genius, that prettiest of Pucks, that best of Robin Goodfellows, that deftest of household fairies, hight Swindling!”
My father cast his one eye towards his eloquent brother with a look of speaking admiration; and, although there was a pause, did not presume to make any rejoinder. My uncle proceeded:—
“But why number examples? Why attempt to prove that which every man, if he would but consult the recesses of his own bosom, must truly know? Ask all the professions; demand of the lawyer, with yellow, studious cheek, wherefore he should coin gold out of little strips of paper, written over by youthful scribes at two or three shillings per diem. Request him to give you the philosophy of costs—the exquisite meaning of appearance and declaration, and reply and rejoinder, and all the thousand terms invented by the most cunning class of labourers, the overlookers atthe building of Babel. Ask the sleek practitioner to what he owes his fortune. To common-sense—to justice—to the fair and rational barter of labour for shillings? If he be a hypocrite—if he be resolved to clap in with the world, and carry on a profitable duplicity, he will swell like a bull-frog at the query, and, forgetful of his knuckles, will strike his heart, answering with the big-mouthed ‘Yes!’ But if at the end of a long practice there should by miracle remain in that attorney’s bosom a throb of truth, he will blandly, yet significantly smile at the words—the counters men play with—common-sense and justice, and magnanimously and unblushingly declare his debt to—swindling!
“Is it otherwise with the physician, who sells his guesses for truth, and doubts and doubts a patient into the grave, whilst his medicinal palm is open for the guinea? When the apothecary vends cinnamon and peppermint water forelixir vitæ, doth he practise a noble art? Yea; for, safely and successfully, he—swindles.
“When the tradesman—his housemaid at the time perhaps in Bridewell for petty larceny committed on the greasepot—when he, smiling across the counter at his victim, puts off knowingly the poorest commodity at the highest price, how stands he in relation to his captive handmaid? Why, Rebecca has robbed, but the tradesman has only driven his trade: the slut has for ever and for ever lost her character, with it seven poundsper annum, and, it may be, tea and sugar included—but for Mr Jackson, her master, he has turned the profit penny; he has—but all in the way of business—swindled.”
“It is very true,” exclaimed my father with an oath, “it is very true. When what is swindling isn’t swindling according to law, it’s a fortune to a man; but when it’s agin law, and found out——”
“The result I know,” cried my uncle, a slight tint of red suffusing his manly cheek. “All mankind may be dividedinto two classes: the swindlers according to custom and to law, and the swindlers according to the bent of their natural genius.”
“True agin,” cried my father, slapping his thigh.
“Still, the propensity,” said my uncle, “is universal: men only want temptation. It is extraordinary how, like a chain, the feeling runs from breast to breast. Jack Smasher was one of the prettiest hands at coining; and more, he was blessed with a wife born, I should say, with a genius for passing bad money. She took a crown—one of her husband’s base-begotten offspring—purchased with it three pennyworth of rhubarb from a Quaker chemist, who—undone man!—handed over four-and-ninepence change. Aminadab Straightback was, even among his brethren, the brightest child of truth. In due season Aminadab detected the guileful crown, and in his own clear breast resolved to destroy it. However, it remained by the strangest accident in his till, and by an accident still more extraordinary, was given in part of change for a guinea to a gentleman a little the worse for liquor, who on his way home to bed took the precaution of dropping into Straightback’s for a box of—his own patent—anti-bacchic pills. In the morning the vinous gentleman discovered the pocket-piece, but as he had changed more than one guinea, could not with certainty detect the giver of the counterfeit. No matter. It remained loose with other money in his pocket, and one day, to his own surprise, he found he had passed it. He had taken a journey, and it was very dark when, in the handsomest manner, he fee’d the coachman. The poor man who drove the Tally-ho did not realise more than £400 per annum, and could not afford to lose five shillings; hence Smasher’s crown became at a fitting opportunity the property of a sand-blind old gentlewoman, who, her loss discovered, lifted up her hands at the iniquity of theworld, and put aside the brassy wickedness. The good old soul never missed a charity sermon. The Reverend Mr Sulphurtongue made a sweet discourse in favour of the conversion of the Jews, and the churchwardens condescended to hold each a plate. To the great disgust of the discoverers, a bad crown was detected amongst the subscribed half-crowns and shillings. The beadle was directed to destroy it. He intended to do so, but, in pure forgetfulness, passed it one day for purl; the landlady of the ‘George’ having, as she said ‘taken it, was resolved not to lose it,’ and by some accident it was given to a pedlar, who, after a walk of twenty miles, entered an ale-house, took his supper of bread and cheese, went to bed, rose, and proffered for his account Jack Smasher’s pocket-piece. The pedlar was immediately given into the hands of a constable, taken before a magistrate, and ordered to be imprisoned and whipped as a passer of counterfeit coin.”
“See what luck is!” cried my father; “it’s the Quakerwhatshould have lost the dollar.”
“He couldn’t do it; for though he was a most respectable person, and lived and died with that character, he was but a man. He had been swindled—the link of the chain was touched, and it vibrated—you perceive, it vibrated?”
Again my father nodded.
“Yes,” exclaimed Barabbas Whitefeather, “I repeat it—the sympathy is universal. All men can, do, or might, swindle. Though with many the propensity be latent, it surely exists, and needs but the happy moment to be awakened into life. The proof is easy: take ten, twenty, thirty men—creatures of light; admirable, estimable, conscientious persons; by-words of excellence, proverbs of truth in their individual dealings; and yet, make of them a ‘board’—a ‘committee’—a ‘council’—a ‘company’—no matter what may be the collective name bywhich they may be known—and immediately every member will acknowledge the quickening of a feeling—a sudden growth of an indomitable lust to—swindle. What is this but a proof of the faculty—as I have said—dormant, but requiring only the necessary agent to awaken it? Oh! let no man perk himself up in the pride of his innocence—strut and pout, big with the prejudice of respectability! He knows not the mystery of his own nature; for though to his own eyes he shall be a saint, he will, when time and purpose shall see fit to call his better feelings into life, he will, he must, he cannot do otherwise than—swindle.”
My father, though a strong man, was much affected.
“As for you, my dear child,” said my uncle, taking me by the hand, kissing me, and looking benevolently upon me, “as for you, remember the words of Barabbas Whitefeather. At present you know not their worth, but a time will come when better than pearls or gold will be this my parting council to you. Throughout your life do nought but swindle. If you can, swindle on the right side of the statute, but at all events, my dear child,”—even now I feel the pressure of that wise man’s lip, the warm tear trickling down my cheeks,—“at all events, Barabbas, swindle!”
I am now in my nine-and-thirtieth year; and from my first day of discretion until this, the season of ripest manhood, I can, laying my hand upon my heart, most conscientiously declare that never for a moment have I forgotten the last injunction of the best of uncles. But why should I speak on this head? The world will do me justice.
My uncle shook my parent by the hand. “Good-bye,” he said; “we may never meet again, for I am now two-and-forty, and you know”—this I couldnotunderstand—“you knowit’s fourteen penn’orth.”
My father, choking with emotion, cried, “D—n ’em!” We quitted my uncle; and I trust I shall not be accused of adopting the language of hyperbole, when I state that we quitted him with feelings far more easy of conception than description.
Only a twelvemonth after this, I lost my excellent father. It may prove to the giddy and the vain the uncertainty of life, when I state that my worthy parent was in robust health one minute and dead the next. It may also prove that he had held some place in the world, when I assure the reader that crowds of people flocked to our house to pay honour to his cold remains; which, for the benefit of his widow and son, were exhibited at sixpence a head to grown persons, and half-price for children. I should be unjust to my parent’s memory were I to withhold another circumstance illustrative of the consequence of my father to the world at large: the night-cap in which he died was purchased by a gentleman, a lover of the fine arts, after a severe contest with other bidders, for two guineas.
And so much for my uncle and my father, both worthy of the name of Whitefeather.