Mornings at Bow Street — Page 109-121

A SUNDAY'S RIDE.

Mr. Lester, a respectable elderly man of considerable property, residing at Battersea-rise, applied to the magistrate for an assault warrant against a person whom he described as a high-flying linen-draper, carrying on business in Parliament-street.

The warrant was granted upon his affidavit, and Mr. Highflyer was shortly after brought up in custody; but as the magistrate had been called from the bench for a few minutes, he seized that opportunity of making an _atonement_ for his misconduct to the party complaining, and so escaped the Sessions, though the assault and outrage he had committed were certainly most sessionable.

[20] It appeared that this Mr. Highflyer had determined on taking his spouse for a ride in a gig--we beg his pardon, in a _tilbury_,--one Sunday, and that they did take a ride in a tilbury accordingly.

They trotted gaily along in connubial comfort till they had almost reached Battersea-rise;

but there all the connubial comfort evaporated: for--whether it was that the motion of the tilbury swung away Mr. Highflyer's ordinary notions of connubial concord, or whether the expansion of prospect around him produced a corresponding expansion of the amatory principle within him, we know not--but so it was, that about a quarter of a mile on this side Battersea-rise, he bowed very gallantly to a pretty young woman who was passing; and she familiarly nodded in return.

Now this might be all very innocent, but his wife thought otherwise; and she took so much umbrage at it, that high words ensued.

In short the "green-eyed monster" took possession of all her perceptions; and Mr. Highflyer, in the buoyancy of his heart and tilbury, carried it with such a high hand--so cavalierly as it were, that his lady declared she would not ride another inch with such a faithless creature, and insisted upon his setting her down directly.

And cruel Mr. Highflyer did set her down _instanter_;--instead of trying to pacify her, and convince her of her error, he coolly set her down and drove on without her.

This was nearly opposite Mr. Lester's house on Battersea-rise; and as Mr. Lester looked through his window he saw the lady sitting on a low wall by the road-side, weeping and sobbing most piteously.

Mr. Lester, though as sturdy a John Bull as ever thrust carver into smoking sirloin, has much of the spirit of chivalry in his composition, and seeing a lady in such a distressing situation, he sallied forth and offered her a temporary asylum in his hospitable little parlour.

The weeping lady thankfully accepted his offer; but he had no sooner seated her carefully on his sofa than she fell into hysterics, and it required all the skill of his wife, his daughters, and his handmaidens, to bring her to her senses again.

She did recover, however, but it was only to renew her sighs and tears; and neither Mr. Lester nor his wife knew what to make of it, when a thundering rap at the door nearly shook all the glass out of the windows, and in the next moment Mr. Highflyer stalked loftily into the parlour.

At the sight of him Mrs. Highflyer went off into hysterics again, and Mr. Highflyer, in his endeavours to recover her from the fit, conducted himself so _at-homeishly_, that Mr. Lester did not half like it.

--He called about him for all sorts of things, tore the sofa cover, threw the cushions about the room, upset the china tea things, and broke the pole of the fire screen!

At length Mr. Lester's anger got the better of his hospitality, and he reminded Mr. Highflyer that he was not in his own house.

"Damn the house!"

exclaimed Mr. Highflyer, "what the devil do I care whose house it is?

I am a gentleman and nothing else, and I shall do what I like--here or anywhere else!"

"No, Sir!"

said the astonished Mr. Lester, "No, Sir, you shall not, and no _gentleman_ would have done as you have done already."

I'faith this was enough--the words had scarcely passed Mr. Lester's teeth, when three of those teeth were loosened to their very foundation by a blow from the gentlemanly fist of Mr. Highflyer.

"Take that, Sir!"

said he, "and if you don't like it, I'll fight you with either sword or pistols!"

The astonished Mr. Lester was still more astonished at this treatment; but being no match in _thews_ and _sinews_ for Mr. Highflyer, he flew to the poker, and had it not been for the interference of the ladies, Mr. Highflyer would doubtless have been laid low.

As it was, the affair went off in a clamorous palaver; after which Mr. and Mrs. Highflyer returned to town in the tilbury, highly dissatisfied with their day's pleasure; and Mr. Lester went to bed, wondering that there should be such queer people in the world.

It was reported among the officers that the peace-offering for all this was _ten sovereigns_; and if so, Mr. Highflyer got off cheaply.

DISAPPOINTED LOVE.

Mr. Owen M'Carthy appeared in custody before the Bench, to answer the complaint of Mrs. Margaret Reading, spinster.

Mr. Owen M'Carthy is five feet two without his shoes, and sixty-seven years old; but--as he himself observed--"sound as the big bell of St. Paul's, both in mind and body."

The lady has seen sixty-five winters pass away; and in all that time she has so conducted herself that no living creature can say, "black is the white of her eye"--at least that is her opinion; and surely she ought to know.

It appeared by her evidence that Mr. Owen M'Carthy and she reside under the same roof, and have for many years been upon the most friendly terms;

till, in evil hour, Mr. Owen M'Carthy, who was then a widower, took unto himself a second love--a second _wife_ he called her; but Mrs. Margaret Reading declared it was no such thing.

Well, this second wife, or mistress, be it which it will, according to Mrs. Margaret Reading's account, is "a born devil;" and takes every opportunity of treating Mrs. Margaret Reading in the most ridiculous manner--such as calling her a frumpish old fool, spitting at her as she goes up and downstairs, &c. , and in all this Mr. Owen M'Carthy, forgetting the kindness that formerly existed between them, encourages her.

One day Mrs. Margaret Reading went up to their apartment, determined to give them the telling of some of their faults; but she had scarcely opened her mouth, when Mr. Owen M'Carthy bounced up from his chair, and gave her such a push, that she tumbled down, rolled on to the landing-place, and it was God's mercy she did not trundle downstairs.

This was the assault complained of, and she called upon the magistrate to punish him _sewerely_.

Mr. Owen M'Carthy in his defence said, "May it plase your honour, when the wife that I had twenty-seven years died, this ould woman and another was living in the place, and they both made love to me extramely.

But I thought to myself, thinks I, your honour, sure and what would I do with two ould women at one and the same time?

Well, then, your wortchip, says I, in that case I'll ounly have one of 'em, and that will be Judy M'Craw;

bekase, your wortchip, she was the comlier one of the two, and I larnt she'd the best carackter for peaceableness; and I married her; and, saving your wortchip's presence, she's my lawful wife at this same time, and like to be, sure enough, to the end of it.

Well, your honour, bekase of this, Mrs. Reading bother'd me exsaadingly, and wouldn't be quiet for her jealousy, and was always making _corruptions_ between me and Mrs. Owen M'Carthy that is; and so, when she comed up with her phillaloo botheration, about nothing in the world but I wouldn't have her, I put my hand out, and 'go along wid you, Misthress Margaret,' says I; and with that she laade herself clane down o' the floor, and rolled herself out of it just in no time, your honour, at all."

Mrs. Margaret had nothing to say against this, and she was non-suited.

TOM CRIB AND THE COPPERSMITHS.

The Champion of England--not he who, gallantly armed, rode proudly through ranks of assembled chivalry, and challenged the world in defence of his sovereign; but the champion of England's prouder pugilism--the belted hero of the prize ring--the man whose fist is fate--the--in a word, honest Tom Crib, entered the office covered with mud, and holding, in his giant grasp, a little, well-bemudded, wriggling coppersmith, named William Bull.

--"And please your worships," said the Champion, "this here little rascal (_shaking him_) comes into my tap-room, with two or three dirty chaps of the same sort, and got so sweet upon themselves with drinking beer, that they must needs go into the parlour to drink grog amongst the gentlemen, your worships!

and because I wouldn't stand that, this here little rascal (_shaking him again_) smashes two panes of glass to shivers, and then tried to bolt, but it wouldn't do."

[Illustration] The Champion was desired to loose his hold upon the coppersmith, which he did instantly; but he still regarded him with a look of angry indignation, whilst the saucy little coppersmith, adjusting his disordered jacket, exclaimed, "My eyes, Mister Tommy!

let us ever catch you at Bristol again, and we'll _zarve_ you out for this!"

Mr. Bull--Bill Bull, he called himself--was ordered to be quiet, on pain of being instantly locked up; and other witnesses of the affair were examined, by whose evidence the Champion's account of it was fully substantiated, with an additional circumstance or two, which he, with his usual modesty, had omitted to mention, viz.

that he, with his own right arm, cleared his house of three coxcombical coppersmiths in a minute, and that when the fourth, Mr. Bill Bull, milled the glaze and bolted, the Champion himself pursued with the fleetness of a wild elephant, caught the scampering coppersmith by the "_scuff_ of the neck," and falling with him to the earth, they rolled over and over in the mud, till the impetus of their fall was spent, and then they got up again; and this was the way in which they came to be so muddily encased.

[Illustration] The coppersmith had nothing to say for himself except that he thought himself "as good a man as Mister Tommy _any day_," and that he had as much right to drink grog in a parlour, as any _other_ gentleman.

The magistrate commended the Champion's conduct; told him he should be protected from insult and outrage in his business; and ordered the pot-valiant coppersmith to be locked up until he should pay for the windows he had demolished.

SOLOMON AND DESDEMONA.

An elderly man, brown as a fresh-roasted coffee-berry, a poll that bespoke him of the race of wandering gipsies, and "the darkness of whose Oriental eye accorded with his _gipsy_ origin," advanced towards the table, bowing at every step, and said, "May it please your vorship's honour, I'm Mister Lovell, your vorship (_another bow_), knife-grinder and chair-bottomer, your vorship."

Having so said, he smiled and bowed again; and then, shading the lower part of his brown shining visage with his rusty hat, he stood smiling and bowing, and bowing and smiling; but whatever else he had to say, refused to be said.

At length, seemingly to his great relief, the magistrate asked him what he wanted.

"Your vorship, I am Mister Lovell, the knife-grinder, your vorship, and I _vantz_ you to give me a little bit of 'sistance to get me back my _vife_, _vot_ I _vere_ lawfully married to last Monday _vere_ a _veek_, at _Soreditch_ Church:--that's _vot_ I _vantz_, your vorship."

"Yours is a very unusual application, indeed, friend," said the magistrate; "I am frequently requested to _part_ man and wife, but I do not recollect that I was ever once asked to bring them together."

"Vell, your vorship," replied Mr. Lovell, "but mine's a werry hard case--a werry hard case, indeed!

Here's the certifykit, your vorship."

His worship told Mr. Lovell he wanted no voucher in proof of what he said.

He opened the certificate, however, and found it fairly set forth therein, that on a certain day specified, "Solomon Lovell, bachelor, and Desdemona Cocks, spinster," were duly married by banns in Shoreditch Church.

"And pray, what is become of the 'gentle Desdemona?'

" asked his worship, as he returned the certificate to Mr. Lovell, who instantly crammed it back again into the sow-skin purse from which he had taken it; and then having deposited it safely in the very bottom of his left-hand breast-pocket, he proceeded to lay open his entire grievance.

It was a lengthy, and rather unconnected narrative, but we gathered from it that Mr. Solomon Lovell absolutely loved the gentle Desdemona; and but for that, "he would not his _unhoused_ free condition have put into circumscription and confine,"--"not on no account whatever."

But the friends of Desdemona, who were in the _costermongering_ line, thought the match too _low_ for her; and they had not been united more than three happy days, when those friends cruelly contrived to _inwiggle_ her _away_ from his arms, and shut her up in a garret in Charles Street, Drury Lane, where they still continued to detain her, in spite of her unceasing tears, and his most earnest remonstrances.

"Of what age is the lady?"

asked the magistrate.

"Your vorship, she'll be _forty-three_ come a fortnight a'ter next Bart'lemy fair."

"Then she is no _chicken_!

and she certainly could come to you, if she was inclined to do so."

"No, your vorship, she's no chicken, but she's desperate tender, though;

and they'd kill and murder her, if she vasn't to keep herself quiet."

"Is she very disconsolate under her bereavement?"

"_Anan_, your vorship," said Solomon.

"Does she grieve much?"

"Oh!

desperately, as your vorship may natt'rully suppose, when ve'd only come together three days."

"Is she very handsome?"

This was a question which seemed rather to bother the love-lorn Solomon.

He simpered and sighed, and looked down and looked up, and nibbled the edge of his hat; and when the question had been repeated the third time, he replied, "I don't know 'xactly, your vorship--she's reckoned so.

And I reckon--I reckon I vouldn't a married her if I didn't think so, your vorship!"

After some further question and reply, in which he earnestly entreated that an officer might be sent with him to enforce his claim, and get the gentle Desdemona out of the garret by force of arms, the magistrate told him he could do nothing for him; whereupon he gathered up his features into a frown, put the lid upon his knowledge-box, and stalked out of the office, exclaiming, "Then by goles, I'll go to Marlborough-street!

for I vont be diddled out of my vife in this ere manner, howsomever."