The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 379: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE MYSTERIES that the pugilistic encounter was abruptly brought to an amicable close by the twocombatants shaking hands at the instigation of the landlord of the public-house, who came forth thus to act as me- diator ; so that in a few moments the court was cleared of the uproarious rabble, who plunged back again through the portals of the boozing-ken. Almost immediately afterwards the lodging-house keeper re-appeared, followed by the mountebank, who was now dressed in plain clothes of a very poor and shabby aspect. On pereceiving our hero, he made a profound salutation; and Christian, drawing him out into the court, said, “I have no doubt you are surprised that I should seek you here—but to come to the point at once, I think you can do me a service—and I need scarcely add that you will be liberally recompensed.” The mountebank joyously expressed his willing- ness to serve our young hero,—who, having en- joined him to observe the strictest secrecy and discretion, explained the nature of the object which he had in view. ‘The mountebank cheerfully un- dertook it; and they separated,—our young hero’s last words being, “ You will be sure, therefore, to come to the hotel in the morning for the note.” Having delivered this parting instruction, Chris- tian sped back to rejoin his friend*Edgar Beverley, to whom he explained the arrangements which he had just settled with theitinerant performer. The young lieutenant was well pleased with our hero’s plan; and he thanked him warmly for the generous interest he was thus exhibiting on his behalf. He penned a letter for Laura, so that it might be ready when the mountebank should call for it in the morning ; and when he and Christian had de- liberated some little while longer upon the project which was thus settled, they retired to rest. It was about noon on the following day that the mountebanks might have been seen march- ing upon their stilts through the fields in the neighbourhood of Verner House. In proportion as their forms were exalted into the air, so had their spirits seemed to rise: for they were laugh- ing and joking merrily amongst themselves,—one of them every now and then cutting some extraor- dinary caper—or perhaps pausing to play off a practical joke upon poor Baron Raggidbak, who was toiling en with his huge drum slung behind him and his mouth-organ stuck in his buttoned-up coat, ready for melodious use at any moment. The ex-Groom of the Stole—never a good-tempered man in the best of times—had been still more soured and embittered by vicissitude and adver- sity: and thus, when one of the mountebanks, lifting up a stilt, knocked his hat over his eyes— or when another knocked it off—or when a third, still more mischievously inclined, inflicted a smart blow with a stilt against the Baron’s spindle shanks, —he gave vent to his rage in low but deeply uttered German imprecations, and cursed the ne- cessity which held him in such companionship. But perhaps the reader would like to be in- formed how it wasthat his lordship had fallen from his high estate as Groom of the Stole, and had sunk down into the beater of a drum and the player of a set of pandean pipes in the train of a troop of mountebanks. It cannot have been for- gotten that though performing the part of the Grand Duke’s Groom of the Stole in the English ractropolis, and there enjoying the style and dis- nn SR a aaa OF THE COURT. 373 tinction of Baron Raggidbak,—yet when at home in his native city of Quotha (if a city the trumpery place deserved to be called) the worthy German was nothing more than a stable-groom, and his patrician title became lost amidst all other wild and preposterous fictions. But Raggidbak—for this was really his surname—had so managed by hook and by crook to eat and to drink of the best when in the British metropolis, that he found it somewhat difficult to accommodate himself, on his return to Quotha, to the filthy sour-crout and the beer of choleraic acidity which constituted the staple refreshments in the servants’ hall at the ducal palace of Quotha—and not merely in the servants’ hall, but now and then in the ducal dining-room itself, when cash was short through non-arrival of subsidies from England. Raggidbak therefore missed the wine and the ale, tho fat capons and the substantial steaks, which he had enjoyed at Mivart’s; and in order to supply him- self with creature comforts more to his taste than the crout and beer which vied with each other in sourness, he made away with some of the stable. gear and harness belonging to his ducal master. It being perceived that Raggidbak was very often drunk—and the Grand Duke well knowing that his dependant had no honest nor legitimate means of thus disguising himself in liquor—ordered an inquiry to take place; and behold! the once illus- trious Baron Raggidbak, who had been addressed as “ my lord” in England, was suddenly discovered and proclaimed to be a petty larcenist. His igno- minious dismissal from the ducal service was the immediate consequence; and with an equally un- fecling abruptness—as he considered it to be—he was ordered to betake himself beyond the frontier of the Grand Duchy. This latter part of the sentence was however no real hardship, inasmuch as a comparatively pleasant walk taken in any direction from the ducal capital, would bring an individual to the frontier of that paltry little State. To be brief, it was urder these circumstances that the injured and ill-used Raggidbak quitted his native city and the ducal service, and made his way into Belgium. But having no regular and formal passports in his possession, and being looked upon in the common light of a rogue and vaga- bond, he received a hint from the police-authorities that he had better leave the countrys and on ar- riving at Ostend, he was provided with a free passage across to Dover. Thus, on arriving in England, this worthy gentleman of broken for- tunes was only too glad to accept employment in the company of the mountebanks. Returning from our digression, we take up the thread of our narrative. It was about noon, as we have said, when the itinerant performers—at- tended by the German who was alike their musi- cian and their butt—were passing through the fields in the neighbourhood of Verner House. On reaching the front of that mansion, Baron Raggid- bak began to beat his drum and to blow away at the pandean pipes: while his stilted companions commenced their wonted antics—dancing, capering, and waving wands with ribbons attached to them. At first Sir John Steward was seized with indigna- tion at the idea of a set of persons, whom he re- garded as thieves and vagabonds, daring to show off in front of his mansion,—the more so inasmuch as they had presumed to open the carriage-gate G 0)(0)(0)