Delphi Complete Works of the Brontes Charlotte, Emily, Anne Brontë (Illustrated) (441 page)

“Well my fellow warriors Brother Percy has just given you a screed of sound doctrine but it’s too fine my lads — Its too fine — We poor sinners want a good scouring out ere we are clean — A point lace towel won’t do for us — rough horse hair and brooms instead of brushes are the real remedy for our accumulated monstrosities upon case hardened consciences. Now I have here two real horse combs made of cast iron and ready as cheese maggots to jump where Jesus calls them (You perhaps have never yet seen maggots spang off a knife into your mouth but I have) Well these two have been the biggest scamps that ever donned a shirt, and they now are the holiest saints that ever gave orders for a pair of wings — They are sure to have them my brethren — when they leave this misguided world — They are ready for them in heaven’s warehouse — full feathered, and every quill tipped with gold. Think of the difference between their hopes and yours if you do not alter — pinions like Archangel Michael’s for
them
— Hoofs like Archangel Lucifer’s for
you
— Alter then my lads — make no gingerbread matter of it — Never did worse devils live than the two brothers who will now address you, and if they have passed the verge of Jordan why may not you?

Look to the lord my lads — fight the great enemy, though he had as many lives as a cat, and let me introduce to you — Captain Arthur O’ Connor — once too worthless to have a coal wasted in roasting him and now galloping toward heaven as fast as Baalam’s ass can carry him”

At the conclusion of this eloquent speech the Barrister took a pinch of snuff — hid his face to conceal indecent laugher which was working within him
 
like beer in a barrel, and motioned O’ Connor to rise.

With a very reluctant movement and a very irreligious curse the wild eyed, red haired sea officer obeyed the signal — the more quickly from seeing Percy squint — He stood irresolute with perspiring cheeks for a minute and then as if his mind were made up he struck both fists on the front rail of the platform and dashed at once “in medias res” —

Its no use my friends — I am a man unlearned in Godliness, and I have known the old one better than ever I knew my own father or Mother — I have never been worthy of conversion but I have been tumbled into Salvation — Neck and heels you percieve my friends — Glory be to God! Well I suppose I must tell you a bit of my experience — I came from a rich Irish family living at the rate of not more than £ per ann above their income but being an elder son I saddled the estate privately with some few debts to be paid off — interest meanwhile to accumulate — when the old Governor should die. Glory be to God, he lived to see me cut my creditors and take to the high seas — Oh had I but taken to salvation!” (Here tremendous groans for some time interrupted the orator) “Well thats a hit any how! Now then my lads — I mean my Christian brethren — I landed on the Gold Coast with a soul blacker than the body of any devil incarnate that ever bartered mans flesh for a fifteen shilling musket! I did by (“stop stop’ said Montmorency sotto voce.) Well, never mind — I’ll let you into the secrets of life before that clock strikes eight — I spent all my first capital in buying slaves, and as King Boy of old Calabar — You knew King Boy Quashia?”

“Aye that I did Arthur! The old De — I mean brute would have diddled me out of as fine a lot of real Bambarra niggers as ever were thrust under hatches merely because no more than two out of thirty of my best s Birmingham muskets would go off at the first fire. I told him it was the climate, to which they were not yet seasoned, but the Old boy was not to be done.”

A dreadful squint from the Revd. A. Percy placed a padlock on the Moor’s tongue, and the Revd. A. O’ Connor continued —

“Well — my lads — that is — my dearest bretheren — this King Boy said that if I would “dash him” he would trust me for a ton or so of elephants teeth I consented to visit his majesty — Now, mind you, ‘dashing’ means oiling the palm — and the best dash is an anker of brandy or a keg of new rum — Well I dashed his majesty with two big calabashes of as fine red raw rum as ever scalded a mans entrails — It was beautiful to see his white eyes rolling, and his black paws patting his pursy paunch (there’s alliteration for you Hector!) as he gradually stowed his hold with the leeward-Island stuff till he had got as good a cargo on board as a man need wish to leave port with. “Golly massa” he sputtered “Me no hab done dis while — Me spew, and den see what me do!” Well the old fellow being sick at the stomach essayed to leave the hut — beg pardon — I mean palace — and as his vessel lurched, and tacked as if against a head wind I
 
thought it my duty to take him in tow as a steam tug would a dismasted tub of a collier. Hang me but when I touched him the graceless unrepentant sinner gave me a right handed lunge which would have sent me sharply over the streams of Jordan had not a New Testament which I had in my waistcoat pocket saved me — Yes my blessed Bretheren — My Testament saved me! May it save you too!”

The tumultous groans of joy which broke from the hitherto bewildered congregation made Percy aware that one other word from his eloquent colleague would only spoil the good hit he had made, so hastily stepping forward he said loudly —

“My Christian friends, the hour waxes late, me day is far spent — perhaps to some among us the night may be at hand — My brother O’ Connor is exhausted with previous labour — I introduce to relieve him — my dear brother Quashia Quamina.”

The copper-coloured gentleman advanced to the front of the platform with precisely the same aspect as would have been assumed by him if taking a last look on this weary world from the elevation of Newgate scaffold.

“Blasted bitches and brothers — confound you Hector, don’t kick my shins so — I mean Ladies and Gentlemen — now that’s too bad Hector — well, Christian friends, then — Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking, and I’ll be most cruelly expliflicated if I ever stood on any platform save the deck, before, I will try to enlighten the gentiles and give them some insight into the goings on in our business; I mean — d’ye mind me — what
was
our business
once
— Well — where was I — Percy, you unhanged villain I won’t be trailed by
you
any longer!”

Furiously turning to the Revd A Percy, the irascible Moor muttered an oath and resumed his seat, but the cheif actor in the evening’s farce, without noticing his colleague’s eccentricity, stepped forward and addressed the audience with a forehead like an Indian ocean in a summer calm.

“My dear friends and fellow Christians the zeal of my fellow labourers has eaten them up, and I much fear that the affecting disclosures which their experience would compell them to make would be painful to their tender feelings as well as to your own: I shall therefore adjourn this meeting till a future evening, and may
He
protect you all from the burning hill that was ready to fall upon Christian — from the stones that struck the vital breath out of holy Stephen — from the gridiron that fried St. Lawrence — from the crucifixion, head downwards, that gave apoplexy to St Peter — from the roasting of Polycarp — from the impetuous pride of Tertullian — from the vanity of Athanasius — from the laughing atheism of Lucian — from the humbugs of Plato, the treachery of Judas, the plagiarisms of Virgil, the repetitions of Homer,”

“Halt,” cried Montmorency “What on this earth are you driving at?” But Percy nothing heeding ‘drifted on his path’ and certainly ‘with silence deep as death’ him —

“Yes, from the fate of Alcibiades’ dog’s tail from the fate of Prynne’s ears, from the fate of Charles the first’s head and of Oliver Cromwell’s nose from the falsehood of Psalmanazer and Jacob, from the impudence of Colonel Blood, and Joab, from the vanity of Absalom and the young Pretender, the go and come virginity of my Ancestress Queen Elizabeth, the death of my pretty Queen Mary, the hard heartedness of Brutus, the clemency of Titus that crucified fifty Jews round the walls of their city, the charity of Inquisitors general — Malay pirates, Slave drivers — I do not allude to my two regenerated fellow labourers present — From the tender mercies of Henry VIIIth and George IVth, of Henry VIIth and old Elwes, of Prince Rupert and the Marquis of Waterford, of Chateaubriand and Robert Montgomery — of Prince Marshal Blucher and Bernard Barton, from all these terrors, Good Lord deliver us!”

As the Revd Alexander Percy concluded with a look of which canvass could give no transcript — Mr Montmorency took his hand gave out a hymn, led the dismayed congregation through the last round of their dance of enthusiasm and all left the chapel impressed with the idea that the Revd. A. Percy was a very
 
odd but very apostolic saint.

Percy departed without another word for his mind did not happen to be under the roof which sheltered his body. O’ Connor and Quamina sat stroking their hair from their foreheads, and Mr H.M.M. Montmorency enjoyed the happiness which a warhorse may have while galloping over the dying and the dead.

In a while O’ Connor wiping the perspiration from his face sighed forth —

“Well, Quashia, what the deuce are we to do now? That accursed Daguerreotype of Lucifer has got his Barometer up to ° in the shade, and you know how little we liked that pitch when we had scarce a hand left to handle a rope off that pompous peice of Portuguese humbug. Fort Elmina, and that regular mantrap ‘Cabo Corso’ castle.”

“I’de rather hang out the red flag within range of Cape Coast Castle guns than sit where I am doing Arthur.”

“Now my lads” broke in the Irish Banister with a glorious chuckle “I move that “plase the pigs’ you —

— “Dont go home till morning;
Till daylight doth appear.”

for then Alexander the great, seeing your red eyes and pallid cheeks, will deem you repentant, and in his tender mercy forgive you.”

“E’gad it’s a good suggestion!” exclaimed the culprits in a breath — though Quashia remarked with an oath that if Percy shewed any tender mercies he must have borrowed them at heavy interest from Simpson, for he was sure he had not a farthing’ s worth of his own.

“Never you mind where he gets his mercies more than he does where he gets his lasses so long as they are there.” said Hector.

“And Echo answers — where?” replied Quashia.

The lamps in the emptied Chapel were flickering amid the smell of their approaching dissolution — the stars seen through the windows were fast outvying them, and shewed that Heaven is seen more distinctly as Earthly light declines.

Montmorency led his legion into the still crowded streets and what they
 
did during the ‘sma’ hours’ of that night — “Is it not written in the books of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel?!

The first visitor to the Coffee room of the Hotel, next morning, was the Hero of the previous night, who entered with a look, half quizzical — half serious — and rang the bell which was answered by Fanny.

“Fanny — what do they think of me in these parts?”

Fanny blushed, giggled and replied

“Why Sir, they say you are a very nice looking gentleman.”

“Ah, but that is not to the point — It’s the
Soul
, Fanny, that I’m thinking of! What do they say about my soul?”

“Well — really — Sir — Why we do not know what to think — We think you are a great gentleman and a clever one — and you pay well — and people say Sir — people say — ”

“What — Fanny?”

“Well — do excuse me Sir — They say you have behaved ill to women often.”

“Ah! My girl — remember that the tongue though it be a little member can work great mischeif! I’m as innocent as a new born babe — Get me a cup of coffee — four poached eggs, and a ‘demi tasse’ of Cogniac for breakfast.”

“What is that last order Sir?”

“It means as much Brandy as you please my girl — I thought you understood the Chaldaic dialect of the Hebrew — But you perhaps understand that language.” said Mr Percy — impressing an unmistakeable kiss on the pink cheek of the young woman, who left the room to execute his orders in a rather flurried and hesitating manner.

As she closed the door his eyes wandered to the window through which beyond the houses could be seen the purple summits of the moorland hills. A long line of fir plantations marked the spot wherein his feelings anchored, and as soon as he had dispatched a hasty breakfast, to that spot he wended his way.

The mild but rather misty air of the uplands for a while diverted his mind from the follies of the previous night. The cattle quietly lying in their mornings rest among the dew spangled grass and half opened daisies, the mountain sheep with shackled limbs still contentedly making their breakfast on the produce of an ungrateful soil, all spoke of calm and contentment — sincere, though perhaps forced, and shewn by objects humble enough in the scale of Creation.