Complete Fictional Works of Washington Irving (Illustrated) (98 page)

Sir, the whole community flew to arms! The banker’s wife felt her Dignity grievously insulted at not having the preference; her husband being high bailiff, and the richest man in the place. She immediately issued invitations for a large party, for the night of the performance, and asked many a lady to it whom she never had noticed before. The fashionable world had long groaned under the tyranny of the Fantadlins, and were glad to make a common cause against this new instance of assumption. — Presume to patronize the theatre! insufferable! Those, too, who had never before been noticed by the banker’s lady, were ready to enlist in any quarrel, for the honor of her acquaintance. All minor feuds were therefore forgotten. The doctor’s lady and the lawyer’s lady met together; and the manufacturer’s lady and the shopkeeper’s lady kissed each other, and all, headed by the banker’s lady, voted the theatre a
bore
, and determined to encourage nothing but the Indian Jugglers, and Mr. Walker’s Eidonianeon.

Alas for poor Pillgarlick! I little knew the mischief that was brewing against me. My box book remained blank. The evening arrived, but no audience. The music struck up to a tolerable pit and gallery, but no fashionables! I peeped anxiously from behind the curtain, but the time passed away; the play was retarded until pit and gallery became furious; and I had to raise the curtain, and play my greatest part in tragedy to “a beggarly account of empty boxes.”

It is true the Fantadlins came late, as was their custom, and entered like a tempest, with a flutter of feathers and red shawls; but they were evidently disconcerted at finding they had no one to admire and envy them, and were enraged at this glaring defection of their fashionable followers. All the beau-monde were engaged at the banker’s lady’s rout. They remained for some time in solitary and uncomfortable state, and though they had the theatre almost to themselves, yet, for the first time, they talked in whispers. They left the house at the end of the first piece, and I never saw them afterwards.

Such was the rock on which I split. I never got over the patronage of the Fantadlin family. It became the vogue to abuse the theatre and declare the performers shocking. An equestrian troupe opened a circus in the town about the same time, and rose on my ruins. My house was deserted; my actors grew discontented because they were ill paid; my door became a hammering-place for every bailiff in the county; and my wife became more and more shrewish and tormenting, the more I wanted comfort.

The establishment now became a scene of confusion and peculation. I Was considered a ruined man, and of course fair game for every one to pluck at, as every one plunders a sinking ship. Day after day some of the troupe deserted, and like deserting soldiers, carried off their arms and accoutrements with them. In this manner my wardrobe took legs and walked away; my finery strolled all over the country; my swords and daggers glittered in every barn; until at last my tailor made “one fell swoop,” and carried off three dress coats, half a dozen doublets, and nineteen pair of flesh-colored pantaloons.

This was the “be all and the end all” of my fortune. I no longer hesitated what to do. Egad, thought I, since stealing is the order of the day, I’ll steal too. So I secretly gathered together the jewels of my wardrobe; packed up a hero’s dress in a handkerchief, slung it on the end of a tragedy sword, and quietly stole off at dead of night—”the bell then beating one,” — leaving my queen and kingdom to the mercy of my rebellious subjects, and my merciless foes, the bumbailiffs.

Such, sir, was the “end of all my greatness.” I was heartily cured of All passion for governing, and returned once more into the ranks. I had for some time the usual run of an actor’s life. I played in various country theatres, at fairs, and in barns; sometimes hard pushed; sometimes flush, until on one occasion I came within an ace of making my fortune, and becoming one of the wonders of the age.

I was playing the part of Richard the Third in a country barn, and Absolutely “out-Heroding Herod.” An agent of one of the great London theatres was present. He was on the lookout for something that might be got up as a prodigy. The theatre, it seems, was in desperate condition — nothing but a miracle could save it. He pitched upon me for that miracle. I had a remarkable bluster in my style, and swagger in my gait, and having taken to drink a little during my troubles, my voice was somewhat cracked; so that it seemed like two voices run into one. The thought struck the agent to bring me out as a theatrical wonder; as the restorer of natural and legitimate acting; as the only one who could understand and act Shakespeare rightly. He waited upon me the next morning, and opened his plan. I shrunk from it with becoming modesty; for well as I thought of myself, I felt myself unworthy of such praise.

“‘Sblood, man!” said he, “no praise at all. You don’t imagine that I think you all this. I only want the public to think so. Nothing so easy as gulling the public if you only set up a prodigy. You need not try to act well, you must only act furiously. No matter what you do, or how you act, so that it be but odd and strange. We will have all the pit packed, and the newspapers hired. Whatever you do different from famous actors, it shall be insisted that you are right and they were wrong. If you rant, it shall be pure passion; if you are vulgar, it shall be a touch of nature. Every one shall be prepared to fall into raptures, and shout and yell, at certain points which you shall make. If you do but escape pelting the first night, your fortune and the fortune of the theatre is made.”

I set off for London, therefore, full of new hopes. I was to be the restorer of Shakespeare and nature, and the legitimate drama; my very swagger was to be heroic, and my cracked voice the standard of elocution. Alas, sir! my usual luck attended me. Before I arrived in the metropolis, a rival wonder had appeared. A woman who could dance the slack rope, and run up a cord from the stage to the gallery with fireworks all round her. She was seized on by the management with avidity; she was the saving of the great national theatre for the season. Nothing was talked of but Madame Saqui’s fireworks and flame-colored pantaloons; and nature, Shakespeare, the legitimate drama, and poor Pillgarlick were completely left in the lurch.

However, as the manager was in honor bound to provide for me, he kept his word. It had been a turn-up of a die whether I should be Alexander the Great or Alexander the coppersmith; the latter carried it. I could not be put at the head of the drama, so I was put at the tail. In other words, I was enrolled among the number of what are called useful men; who, let me tell you, are the only comfortable actors on the stage. We are safe from hisses and below the hope of applause. We fear not the success of rivals, nor dread the critic’s pen. So long as we get the words of our parts, and they are not often many, it is all we care for. We have our own merriment, our own friends, and our own admirers; for every actor has his friends and admirers, from the highest to the lowest. The first-rate actor dines with the noble amateur, and entertains a fashionable table with scraps and songs and theatrical slip-slop. The second-rate actors have their second-rate friends and admirers, with whom they likewise spout tragedy and talk slip-slop; and so down even to us; who have our friends and admirers among spruce clerks and aspiring apprentices, who treat us to a dinner now and then, and enjoy at tenth hand the same scraps and songs and slip-slop that have been served up by our more fortunate brethren at the tables of the great.

I now, for the first time in my theatrical life, knew what true pleasure is. I have known enough of notoriety to pity the poor devils who are called favorites of the public. I would rather be a kitten in the arms of a spoiled child, to be one moment petted and pampered, and the next moment thumped over the head with the spoon. I smile, too, to see our leading actors, fretting themselves with envy and jealousy about a trumpery renown, questionable in its quality and uncertain in its duration. I laugh, too, though of course in my sleeve, at the bustle and importance and trouble and perplexities of our manager, who is harassing himself to death in the hopeless effort to please every body.

I have found among my fellow subalterns two or three quondam managers, who, like myself, have wielded the sceptres of country theatres; and we have many a sly joke together at the expense of the manager and the public. Sometimes, too, we meet like deposed and exiled kings, talk over the events of our respective reigns; moralize over a tankard of ale, and laugh at the humbug of the great and little world; which, I take it, is the very essence of practical philosophy.

Thus end the anecdotes of Buckthorne and his friends. A few mornings after our hearing the history of the ex-manager, he bounced into my room before I was out of bed.

“Give me joy! give me joy!” said he, rubbing his hands with the utmost glee, “my great expectations are realized!”

I stared at him with a look of wonder and inquiry. “My booby cousin is dead!” cried he, “may he rest in peace! He nearly broke his neck in a fall from his horse in a fox-chase. By good luck he lived long enough to make his will. He has made me his heir, partly out of an odd feeling of retributive justice, and partly because, as he says, none of his own family or friends know how to enjoy such an estate. I’m off to the country to take possession. I’ve done with authorship. — That for the critics!” said he, snapping his fingers. “Come down to Doubting Castle when I get settled, and egad! I’ll give you a rouse.” So saying he shook me heartily by the hand and bounded off in high spirits.

A long time elapsed before I heard from him again. Indeed, it was but a short time since that I received a letter written in the happiest of moods. He was getting the estate into fine order, everything went to his wishes, and what was more, he was married to Sacharissa: who, it seems, had always entertained an ardent though secret attachment for him, which he fortunately discovered just after coming to his estate.

“I find,” said he, “you are a little given to the sin of authorship which I renounce. If the anecdotes I have given you of my story are of any interest, you may make use of them; but come down to Doubting Castle and see how we live, and I’ll give you my whole London life over a social glass; and a rattling history it shall be about authors and reviewers.”

If ever I visit Doubting Castle, and get the history he promises, the
Public shall be sure to hear of it.

PART THIRD. THE ITALIAN BANDITTI
.

THE INN AT TERRACINA
.

Crack! crack! crack! crack! crack!

“Here comes the estafette from Naples,” said mine host of the inn at
Terracina, “bring out the relay.”

The estafette came as usual galloping up the road, brandishing over his head a short-handled whip, with a long knotted lash; every smack of which made a report like a pistol. He was a tight square-set young fellow, in the customary uniform — a smart blue coat, ornamented with facings and gold lace, but so short behind as to reach scarcely below his waistband, and cocked up not unlike the tail of a wren. A cocked hat, edged with gold lace; a pair of stiff riding boots; but instead of the usual leathern breeches he had a fragment of a pair of drawers that scarcely furnished an apology for modesty to hide behind.

The estafette galloped up to the door and jumped from his horse.

“A glass of rosolio, a fresh horse, and a pair of breeches,” said he, “and quickly — I am behind my time, and must be off.”

“San Genaro!” replied the host, “why, where hast thou left thy garment?”

“Among the robbers between this and Fondi.”

“What! rob an estafette! I never heard of such folly. What could they hope to get from thee?”

“My leather breeches!” replied the estafette. “They were bran new, and shone like gold, and hit the fancy of the captain.”

“Well, these fellows grow worse and worse. To meddle with an estafette!
And that merely for the sake of a pair of leather breeches!”

The robbing of a government messenger seemed to strike the host with More astonishment than any other enormity that had taken place on the road; and indeed it was the first time so wanton an outrage had been committed; the robbers generally taking care not to meddle with any thing belonging to government.

The estafette was by this time equipped; for he had not lost an instant in making his preparations while talking. The relay was ready: the rosolio tossed off. He grasped the reins and the stirrup.

“Were there many robbers in the band?” said a handsome, dark young man, stepping forward from the door of the inn.

“As formidable a band as ever I saw,” said the estafette, springing into the saddle.

“Are they cruel to travellers?” said a beautiful young Venetian lady, who had been hanging on the gentleman’s arm.

“Cruel, signora!” echoed the estafette, giving a glance at the lady as he put spurs to his horse. “
Corpo del Bacco!
they stiletto all the men, and as to the women—”

Crack! crack! crack! crack! crack! — the last words were drowned in the smacking of the whip, and away galloped the estafette along the road to the Pontine marshes.

“Holy Virgin!” ejaculated the fair Venetian, “what will become of us!”

The inn of Terracina stands just outside of the walls of the old town of that name, on the frontiers of the Roman territory. A little, lazy, Italian town, the inhabitants of which, apparently heedless and listless, are said to be little better than the brigands which surround them, and indeed are half of them supposed to be in some way or other connected with the robbers. A vast, rocky height rises perpendicularly above it, with the ruins of the castle of Theodoric the Goth, crowning its summit; before it spreads the wide bosom of the Mediterranean, that sea without flux or reflux. There seems an idle pause in every thing about this place. The port is without a sail, excepting that once in a while a solitary felucca may be seen, disgorging its holy cargo of baccala, the meagre provision for the Quaresima or Lent. The naked watch towers, rising here and there along the coast, speak of pirates and corsairs which hover about these shores: while the low huts, as stations for soldiers, which dot the distant road, as it winds through an olive grove, intimate that in the ascent there is danger for the traveller and facility for the bandit.

Indeed, it is between this town and Fondi that the road to Naples is Mostly infested by banditti. It winds among rocky and solitary places, where the robbers are enabled to see the traveller from a distance from the brows of hills or impending precipices, and to lie in wait for him, at the lonely and difficult passes.

At the time that the estafette made this sudden appearance, almost in
cuerpo
, the audacity of the robbers had risen to an unparalleled height. They had their spies and emissaries in every town, village, and osteria, to give them notice of the quality and movements of travellers. They did not scruple to send messages into the country towns and villas, demanding certain sums of money, or articles of dress and luxury; with menaces of vengeance in case of refusal. They had plundered carriages; carried people of rank and fortune into the mountains and obliged them to write for heavy ransoms; and had committed outrages on females who had fallen in their power.

The police exerted its rigor in vain. The brigands were too numerous And powerful for a weak police. They were countenanced and cherished by several of the villages; and though now and then the limbs of malefactors hung blackening in the trees near which they had committed some atrocity; or their heads stuck upon posts in iron cages made some dreary part of the road still more dreary, still they seemed to strike dismay into no bosom but that of the traveller.

The dark, handsome young man; and the Venetian lady, whom I have mentioned, had arrived early that afternoon in a private carriage, drawn by mules and attended by a single servant. They had been recently married, were spending the honeymoon in travelling through these delicious countries, and were on their way to visit a rich aunt of the young lady’s at Naples.

The lady was young, and tender and timid. The stories she had heard along the road had filled her with apprehension, not more for herself than for her husband; for though she had been married almost a month, she still loved him almost to idolatry. When she reached Terracina the rumors of the road had increased to an alarming magnitude; and the sight of two robbers’ skulls grinning in iron cages on each side of the old gateway of the town brought her to a pause. Her husband had tried in vain to reassure her. They had lingered all the afternoon at the inn, until it was too late to think of starting that evening, and the parting words of the estafette completed her affright.

“Let us return to Rome,” said she, putting her arm within her husband’s, and drawing towards him as if for protection—”let us return to Rome and give up this visit to Naples.”

“And give up the visit to your aunt, too,” said the husband.

“Nay — what is my aunt in comparison with your safety,” said she, looking up tenderly in his face.

There was something in her tone and manner that showed she really was Thinking more of her husband’s safety at that moment than of her own; and being recently married, and a match of pure affection, too, it is very possible that she was. At least her husband thought so. Indeed, any one who has heard the sweet, musical tone of a Venetian voice, and the melting tenderness of a Venetian phrase, and felt the soft witchery of a Venetian eye, would not wonder at the husband’s believing whatever they professed.

He clasped the white hand that had been laid within his, put his arm round her slender waist, and drawing her fondly to his bosom—”This night at least,” said he, “we’ll pass at Terracina.”

Crack! crack! crack! crack! crack!

Another apparition of the road attracted the attention of mine host and his guests. From the road across the Pontine marshes, a carriage drawn by half a dozen horses, came driving at a furious pace — the postillions smacking their whips like mad, as is the case when conscious of the greatness or the munificence of their fare. It was a landaulet, with a servant mounted on the dickey. The compact, highly finished, yet proudly simple construction of the carriage; the quantity of neat, well-arranged trunks and conveniences; the loads of box coats and upper benjamins on the dickey — and the fresh, burly, gruff-looking face at the window, proclaimed at once that it was the equipage of an Englishman.

“Fresh horses to Fondi,” said the Englishman, as the landlord came bowing to the carriage door.

“Would not his Excellenza alight and take some refreshment?”

“No — he did not mean to eat until he got to Fondi!”

“But the horses will be some time in getting ready—”

“Ah. — that’s always the case — nothing but delay in this cursed country.”

“If his Excellenza would only walk into the house—”

“No, no, no! — I tell you no! — I want nothing but horses, and as quick as possible. John! see that the horses are got ready, and don’t let us be kept here an hour or two. Tell him if we’re delayed over the time, I’ll lodge a complaint with the postmaster.”

John touched his hat, and set off to obey his master’s orders, with the taciturn obedience of an English servant. He was a ruddy, round-faced fellow, with hair cropped close; a short coat, drab breeches, and long gaiters; and appeared to have almost as much contempt as his master for everything around him.

In the mean time the Englishman got out of the carriage and walked up and down before the inn, with his hands in his pockets: taking no notice of the crowd of idlers who were gazing at him and his equipage. He was tall, stout, and well made; dressed with neatness and precision, wore a travelling-cap of the color of gingerbread, and had rather an unhappy expression about the corners of his mouth; partly from not having yet made his dinner, and partly from not having been able to get on at a greater rate than seven miles an hour. Not that he had any other cause for haste than an Englishman’s usual hurry to get to the end of a journey; or, to use the regular phrase, “to get on.”

After some time the servant returned from the stable with as sour a look as his master.

“Are the horses ready, John?”

“No, sir — I never saw such a place. There’s no getting anything done. I think your honor had better step into the house and get something to eat; it will be a long while before we get to Fundy.”

“D — n the house — it’s a mere trick — I’ll not eat anything, just to spite them,” said the Englishman, still more crusty at the prospect of being so long without his dinner.

“They say your honor’s very wrong,” said John, “to set off at this late hour. The road’s full of highwaymen.”

“Mere tales to get custom.”

“The estafette which passed us was stopped by a whole gang,” said John, increasing his emphasis with each additional piece of information.

“I don’t believe a word of it.”

“They robbed him of his breeches,” said John, giving at the same time a hitch to his own waistband.

“All humbug!”

Here the dark, handsome young man stepped forward and addressing the Englishman very politely in broken English, invited him to partake of a repast he was about to make. “Thank’ee,” said the Englishman, thrusting his hands deeper into his pockets, and casting a slight side glance of suspicion at the young man, as if he thought from his civility he must have a design upon his purse.

“We shall be most happy if you will do us that favor,” said the lady, in her soft Venetian dialect. There was a sweetness in her accents that was most persuasive. The Englishman cast a look upon her countenance; her beauty was still more eloquent. His features instantly relaxed. He made an attempt at a civil bow. “With great pleasure, signora,” said he.

In short, the eagerness to “get on” was suddenly slackened; the determination to famish himself as far as Fondi by way of punishing the landlord was abandoned; John chose the best apartment in the inn for his master’s reception, and preparations were made to remain there until morning.

The carriage was unpacked of such of its contents as were indispensable for the night. There was the usual parade of trunks and writing-desks, and portfolios, and dressing-boxes, and those other oppressive conveniences which burden a comfortable man. The observant loiterers about the inn door, wrapped up in great dirt-colored cloaks, with only a hawk’s eye uncovered, made many remarks to each other on this quantity of luggage that seemed enough for an army. And the domestics of the inn talked with wonder of the splendid dressing-case, with its gold and silver furniture that was spread out on the toilette table, and the bag of gold that chinked as it was taken out of the trunk. The strange “Milor’s” wealth, and the treasures he carried about him, were the talk, that evening, over all Terracina.

The Englishman took some time to make his ablutions and arrange his dress for table, and after considerable labor and effort in putting himself at his ease, made his appearance, with stiff white cravat, his clothes free from the least speck of dust, and adjusted with precision. He made a formal bow on entering, which no doubt he meant to be cordial, but which any one else would have considered cool, and took his seat.

The supper, as it was termed by the Italian, or dinner, as the Englishman called it, was now served. Heaven and earth, and the waters under the earth, had been moved to furnish it, for there were birds of the air and beasts of the earth and fish of the sea. The Englishman’s servant, too, had turned the kitchen topsy-turvy in his zeal to cook his master a beefsteak; and made his appearance loaded with ketchup, and soy, and Cayenne pepper, and Harvey sauce, and a bottle of port wine, from that warehouse, the carriage, in which his master seemed desirous of carrying England about the world with him. Every thing, however, according to the Englishman, was execrable. The tureen of soup was a black sea, with livers and limbs and fragments of all kinds of birds and beasts, floating like wrecks about it. A meagre winged animal, which my host called a delicate chicken, was too delicate for his stomach, for it had evidently died of a consumption. The macaroni was smoked. The beefsteak was tough buffalo’s flesh, and the countenance of mine host confirmed the assertion. Nothing seemed to hit his palate but a dish of stewed eels, of which he ate with great relish, but had nearly refunded them when told that they were vipers, caught among the rocks of Terracina, and esteemed a great delicacy.