KING PEST.

A Tale Containing an Allegory.

 The gods do bear and will allow in
kings The things which they abhor in
rascal routes.

 Buckhurst's Tragedy of Ferrex and
Porrex.

ABOUT twelve o'clock, one night in the
month of October, and during the
chivalrous reign of the third Edward,
two seamen belonging to the crew of the
"Free and Easy," a trading schooner
plying between Sluys and the Thames, and
then at anchor in that river, were much
astonished to find themselves seated in
the tap-room of an ale-house in the
parish of St. Andrews, London--which
ale-house bore for sign the portraiture
of a "Jolly Tar."

The room, although ill-contrived,
smoke-blackened, low-pitched, and in
every other respect agreeing with the
general character of such places at the
period--was, nevertheless, in the
opinion of the grotesque groups
scattered here and there within it,
sufficiently well adapted to its
purpose.

Of these groups our two seamen formed, I
think, the most interesting, if not the
most conspicuous.

The one who appeared to be the elder,
and whom his companion addressed by the
characteristic appellation of "Legs,"
was at the same time much the taller of
the two. He might have measured six feet
and a half, and an habitual stoop in the
shoulders seemed to have been the
necessary consequence of an altitude so
enormous.--Superfluities in height were,
however, more than accounted for by
deficiencies in other respects. He was
exceedingly thin; and might, as his
associates asserted, have answered, when
drunk, for a pennant at the mast-head,
or, when sober, have served for a
jib-boom. But these jests, and others of
a similar nature, had evidently
produced, at no time, any effect upon
the cachinnatory muscles of the tar.
With high cheek-bones, a large
hawk-nose, retreating chin, fallen
under-jaw, and huge protruding white
eyes, the expression of his countenance,
although tinged with a species of dogged
indifference to matters and things in
general, was not the less utterly solemn
and serious beyond all attempts at
imitation or description.

The younger seaman was, in all outward
appearance, the converse of his
companion. His stature could not have
exceeded four feet. A pair of stumpy
bow-legs supported his squat, unwieldy
figure, while his unusually short and
thick arms, with no ordinary fists at
their extremities, swung off dangling
from his sides like the fins of a
sea-turtle. Small eyes, of no particular
color, twinkled far back in his head.
His nose remained buried in the mass of
flesh which enveloped his round, full,
and purple face; and his thick upper-lip
rested upon the still thicker one
beneath with an air of complacent
self-satisfaction, much heightened by
the owner's habit of licking them at
intervals. He evidently regarded his
tall shipmate with a feeling
half-wondrous, half-quizzical; and
stared up occasionally in his face as
the red setting sun stares up at the
crags of Ben Nevis.

Various and eventful, however, had been
the peregrinations of the worthy couple
in and about the different tap-houses of
the neighbourhood during the earlier
hours of the night. Funds even the most
ample, are not always everlasting: and
it was with empty pockets our friends
had ventured upon the present
hostelrie.

At the precise period, then, when this
history properly commences, Legs, and
his fellow Hugh Tarpaulin, sat, each
with both elbows resting upon the large
oaken table in the middle of the floor,
and with a hand upon either cheek. They
were eyeing, from behind a huge flagon
of unpaid-for "humming-stuff," the
portentous words, "No Chalk," which to
their indignation and astonishment were
scored over the doorway by means of that
very mineral whose presence they
purported to deny. Not that the gift of
decyphering written characters--a gift
among the commonalty of that day
considered little less cabalistical than
the art of inditing--could, in strict
justice, have been laid to the charge of
either disciple of the sea; but there
was, to say the truth, a certain twist
in the formation of the letters--an
indescribable lee-lurch about the
whole---which foreboded, in the opinion
of both seamen, a long run of dirty
weather; and determined them at once, in
the allegorical words of Legs himself,
to "pump ship, clew up all sail, and
scud before the wind."

Having accordingly disposed of what
remained of the ale, and looped up the
points of their short doublets, they
finally made a bolt for the street.
Although Tarpaulin rolled twice into the
fire-place, mistaking it for the door,
yet their escape was at length happily
effected--and half after twelve o'clock
found our heroes ripe for mischief, and
running for life down a dark alley in
the direction of St. Andrew's Stair,
hotly pursued by the landlady of the
"Jolly Tar."

At the epoch of this eventful tale, and
periodically, for many years before and
after, all England, but more especially
the metropolis, resounded with the
fearful cry of "Plague!" The city was in
a great measure depopulated--and in
those horrible regions, in the vicinity
of the Thames, where amid the dark,
narrow, and filthy lanes and alleys, the
Demon of Disease was supposed to have
had his nativity, Awe, Terror, and
Superstition were alone to be found
stalking abroad.

By authority of the king such districts
were placed under ban, and all persons
forbidden, under pain of death, to
intrude upon their dismal solitude. Yet
neither the mandate of the monarch, nor
the huge barriers erected at the
entrances of the streets, nor the
prospect of that loathsome death which,
with almost absolute certainty,
overwhelmed the wretch whom no peril
could deter from the adventure,
prevented the unfurnished and untenanted
dwellings from being stripped, by the
hand of nightly rapine, of every
article, such as iron, brass, or
lead-work, which could in any manner be
turned to a profitable account.

Above all, it was usually found, upon
the annual winter opening of the
barriers, that locks, bolts, and secret
cellars, had proved but slender
protection to those rich stores of wines
and liquors which, in consideration of
the risk and trouble of removal, many of
the numerous dealers having shops in the
neighbourhood had consented to trust,
during the period of exile, to so
insufficient a security.

But there were very few of the
terror-stricken people who attributed
these doings to the agency of human
hands. Pest-spirits, plague-goblins, and
fever-demons, were the popular imps of
mischief; and tales so blood-chilling
were hourly told, that the whole mass of
forbidden buildings was, at length,
enveloped in terror as in a shroud, and
the plunderer himself was often scared
away by the horrors his own
depreciations had created; leaving the
entire vast circuit of prohibited
district to gloom, silence, pestilence,
and death.

It was by one of the terrific barriers
already mentioned, and which indicated
the region beyond to be under the
Pest-ban, that, in scrambling down an
alley, Legs and the worthy Hugh
Tarpaulin found their progress suddenly
impeded. To return was out of the
question, and no time was to be lost, as
their pursuers were close upon their
heels. With thorough-bred seamen to
clamber up the roughly fashioned
plank-work was a trifle; and, maddened
with the twofold excitement of exercise
and liquor, they leaped unhesitatingly
down within the enclosure, and holding
on their drunken course with shouts and
yellings, were soon bewildered in its
noisome and intricate recesses.

Had they not, indeed, been intoxicated
beyond moral sense, their reeling
footsteps must have been palsied by the
horrors of their situation. The air was
cold and misty. The paving-stones,
loosened from their beds, lay in wild
disorder amid the tall, rank grass,
which sprang up around the feet and
ankles. Fallen houses choked up the
streets. The most fetid and poisonous
smells everywhere prevailed;--and by the
aid of that ghastly light which, even at
midnight, never fails to emanate from a
vapory and pestilential at atmosphere,
might be discerned lying in the by-paths
and alleys, or rotting in the windowless
habitations, the carcass of many a
nocturnal plunderer arrested by the hand
of the plague in the very perpetration
of his robbery.

--But it lay not in the power of images,
or sensations, or impediments such as
these, to stay the course of men who,
naturally brave, and at that time
especially, brimful of courage and of
"humming-stuff!" would have reeled, as
straight as their condition might have
permitted, undauntedly into the very
jaws of Death. Onward--still onward
stalked the grim Legs, making the
desolate solemnity echo and re-echo with
yells like the terrific war-whoop of the
Indian: and onward, still onward rolled
the dumpy Tarpaulin, hanging on to the
doublet of his more active companion,
and far surpassing the latter's most
strenuous exertions in the way of vocal
music, by bull-roarings in basso, from
the profundity of his stentorian
lungs.

They had now evidently reached the
strong hold of the pestilence. Their way
at every step or plunge grew more
noisome and more horrible--the paths
more narrow and more intricate. Huge
stones and beams falling momently from
the decaying roofs above them, gave
evidence, by their sullen and heavy
descent, of the vast height of the
surrounding houses; and while actual
exertion became necessary to force a
passage through frequent heaps of
rubbish, it was by no means seldom that
the hand fell upon a skeleton or rested
upon a more fleshly corpse.

Suddenly, as the seamen stumbled against
the entrance of a tall and
ghastly-looking building, a yell more
than usually shrill from the throat of
the excited Legs, was replied to from
within, in a rapid succession of wild,
laughter-like, and fiendish shrieks.
Nothing daunted at sounds which, of such
a nature, at such a time, and in such a
place, might have curdled the very blood
in hearts less irrevocably on fire, the
drunken couple rushed headlong against
the door, burst it open, and staggered
into the midst of things with a volley
of curses.

The room within which they found
themselves proved to be the shop of an
undertaker; but an open trap-door, in a
corner of the floor near the entrance,
looked down upon a long range of
wine-cellars, whose depths the
occasional sound of bursting bottles
proclaimed to be well stored with their
appropriate contents. In the middle of
the room stood a table--in the centre of
which again arose a huge tub of what
appeared to be punch. Bottles of various
wines and cordials, together with jugs,
pitchers, and flagons of every shape and
quality, were scattered profusely upon
the board. Around it, upon
coffin-tressels, was seated a company of
six. This company I will endeavor to
delineate one by one.

Fronting the entrance, and elevated a
little above his companions, sat a
personage who appeared to be the
president of the table. His stature was
gaunt and tall, and Legs was confounded
to behold in him a figure more emaciated
than himself. His face was as yellow as
saffron--but no feature excepting one
alone, was sufficiently marked to merit
a particular description. This one
consisted in a forehead so unusually and
hideously lofty, as to have the
appearance of a bonnet or crown of flesh
superadded upon the natural head. His
mouth was puckered and dimpled into an
expression of ghastly affability, and
his eyes, as indeed the eyes of all at
table, were glazed over with the fumes
of intoxication. This gentleman was
clothed from head to foot in a
richly-embroidered black silk-velvet
pall, wrapped negligently around his
form after the fashion of a Spanish
cloak.--His head was stuck full of sable
hearse-plumes, which he nodded to and
fro with a jaunty and knowing air; and,
in his right hand, he held a huge human
thigh-bone, with which he appeared to
have been just knocking down some member
of the company for a song.

Opposite him, and with her back to the
door, was a lady of no whit the less
extraordinary character. Although quite
as tall as the person just described,
she had no right to complain of his
unnatural emaciation. She was evidently
in the last stage of a dropsy; and her
figure resembled nearly that of the huge
puncheon of October beer which stood,
with the head driven in, close by her
side, in a corner of the chamber. Her
face was exceedingly round, red, and
full; and the same peculiarity, or
rather want of peculiarity, attached
itself to her countenance, which I
before mentioned in the case of the
president--that is to say, only one
feature of her face was sufficiently
distinguished to need a separate
characterization: indeed the acute
Tarpaulin immediately observed that the
same remark might have applied to each
individual person of the party; every
one of whom seemed to possess a monopoly
of some particular portion of
physiognomy. With the lady in question
this portion proved to be the mouth.
Commencing at the right ear, it swept
with a terrific chasm to the left--the
short pendants which she wore in either
auricle continually bobbing into the
aperture. She made, however, every
exertion to keep her mouth closed and
look dignified, in a dress consisting of
a newly starched and ironed shroud
coming up close under her chin, with a
crimpled ruffle of cambric muslin.

At her right hand sat a diminutive young
lady whom she appeared to patronise.
This delicate little creature, in the
trembling of her wasted fingers, in the
livid hue of her lips, and in the slight
hectic spot which tinged her otherwise
leaden complexion, gave evident
indications of a galloping consumption.
An air of gave extreme haut ton,
however, pervaded her whole appearance;
she wore in a graceful and degage
manner, a large and beautiful
winding-sheet of the finest India lawn;
her hair hung in ringlets over her neck;
a soft smile played about her mouth; but
her nose, extremely long, thin, sinuous,
flexible and pimpled, hung down far
below her under lip, and in spite of the
delicate manner in which she now and
then moved it to one side or the other
with her tongue, gave to her countenance
a somewhat equivocal expression.

Over against her, and upon the left of
the dropsical lady, was seated a little
puffy, wheezing, and gouty old man,
whose cheeks reposed upon the shoulders
of their owner, like two huge bladders
of Oporto wine. With his arms folded,
and with one bandaged leg deposited upon
the table, he seemed to think himself
entitled to some consideration. He
evidently prided himself much upon every
inch of his personal appearance, but
took more especial delight in calling
attention to his gaudy-colored surtout.
This, to say the truth, must have cost
him no little money, and was made to fit
him exceedingly well--being fashioned
from one of the curiously embroidered
silken covers appertaining to those
glorious escutcheons which, in England
and elsewhere, are customarily hung up,
in some conspicuous place, upon the
dwellings of departed aristocracy.

Next to him, and at the right hand of
the president, was a gentleman in long
white hose and cotton drawers. His frame
shook, in a ridiculous manner, with a
fit of what Tarpaulin called "the
horrors." His jaws, which had been newly
shaved, were tightly tied up by a
bandage of muslin; and his arms being
fastened in a similar way at the wrists,
I I prevented him from helping himself
too freely to the liquors upon the
table; a precaution rendered necessary,
in the opinion of Legs, by the
peculiarly sottish and wine-bibbing cast
of his visage. A pair of prodigious
ears, nevertheless, which it was no
doubt found impossible to confine,
towered away into the atmosphere of the
apartment, and were occasionally pricked
up in a spasm, at the sound of the
drawing of a cork.

Fronting him, sixthly and lastly, was
situated a singularly stiff-looking
personage, who, being afflicted with
paralysis, must, to speak seriously,
have felt very ill at ease in his
unaccommodating habiliments. He was
habited, somewhat uniquely, in a new and
handsome mahogany coffin. Its top or
head-piece pressed upon the skull of the
wearer, and extended over it in the
fashion of a hood, giving to the entire
face an air of indescribable interest.
Arm-holes had been cut in the sides, for
the sake not more of elegance than of
convenience; but the dress,
nevertheless, prevented its proprietor
from sitting as erect as his associates;
and as he lay reclining against his
tressel, at an angle of forty-five
degrees, a pair of huge goggle eyes
rolled up their awful whites towards the
ceiling in absolute amazement at their
own enormity.

Before each of the party lay a portion
of a skull, which was used as a drinking
cup. Overhead was suspended a human
skeleton, by means of a rope tied round
one of the legs and fastened to a ring
in the ceiling. The other limb, confined
by no such fetter, stuck off from the
body at right angles, causing the whole
loose and rattling frame to dangle and
twirl about at the caprice of every
occasional puff of wind which found its
way into the apartment. In the cranium
of this hideous thing lay quantity of
ignited charcoal, which threw a fitful
but vivid light over the entire scene;
while coffins, and other wares
appertaining to the shop of an
undertaker, were piled high up around
the room, and against the windows,
preventing any ray from escaping into
the street.

At sight of this extraordinary assembly,
and of their still more extraordinary
paraphernalia, our two seamen did not
conduct themselves with that degree of
decorum which might have been expected.
Legs, leaning against the wall near
which he happened to be standing,
dropped his lower jaw still lower than
usual, and spread open his eyes to their
fullest extent: while Hugh Tarpaulin,
stooping down so as to bring his nose
upon a level with the table, and
spreading out a palm upon either knee,
burst into a long, loud, and
obstreperous roar of very ill-timed and
immoderate laughter.

Without, however, taking offence at
behaviour so excessively rude, the tall
president smiled very graciously upon
the intruders--nodded to them in a
dignified manner with his head of sable
plumes--and, arising, took each by an
arm, and led him to a seat which some
others of the company had placed in the
meantime for his accommodation. Legs to
all this offered not the slightest
resistance, but sat down as he was
directed; while the gallant Hugh,
removing his coffin tressel from its
station near the head of the table, to
the vicinity of the little consumptive
lady in the winding sheet, plumped down
by her side in high glee, and pouring
out a skull of red wine, quaffed it to
their better acquaintance. But at this
presumption the stiff gentleman in the
coffin seemed exceedingly nettled; and
serious consequences might have ensued,
had not the president, rapping upon the
table with his truncheon, diverted the
attention of all present to the
following speech:

"It becomes our duty upon the present
happy occasion"--

"Avast there!" interrupted Legs, looking
very serious, "avast there a bit, I say,
and tell us who the devil ye all are,
and what business ye have here, rigged
off like the foul fiends, and swilling
the snug blue ruin stowed away for the
winter by my honest shipmate, Will
Wimble the undertaker!"

At this unpardonable piece of
ill-breeding, all the original company
half started to their feet, and uttered
the same rapid succession of wild
fiendish shrieks which had before caught
the attention of the seamen. The
president, however, was the first to
recover his composure, and at length,
turning to Legs with great dignity,
recommenced:

"Most willingly will we gratify any
reasonable curiosity on the part of
guests so illustrious, unbidden though
they be. Know then that in these
dominions I am monarch, and here rule
with undivided empire under the title of
'King Pest the First.'

"This apartment, which you no doubt
profanely suppose to be the shop of Will
Wimble the undertaker--a man whom we
know not, and whose plebeian appellation
has never before this night thwarted our
royal ears--this apartment, I say, is
the Dais-Chamber of our Palace, devoted
to the councils of our kingdom, and to
other sacred and lofty purposes.

"The noble lady who sits opposite is
Queen Pest, our Serene Consort. The
other exalted personages whom you behold
are all of our family, and wear the
insignia of the blood royal under the
respective titles of 'His Grace the Arch
Duke Pest-Iferous'--'His Grace the Duke
Pest-Ilential'--'His Grace the Duke
Tem-Pest'--and 'Her Serene Highness the
Arch Duchess Ana-Pest.'

"As regards," continued he, "your demand
of the business upon which we sit here
in council, we might be pardoned for
replying that it concerns, and concerns
alone, our own private and regal
interest, and is in no manner important
to any other than ourself. But in
consideration of those rights to which
as guests and strangers you may feel
yourselves entitled, we will furthermore
explain that we are here this night,
prepared by deep research and accurate
investigation, to examine, analyze, and
thoroughly determine the indefinable
spirit--the incomprehensible qualities
and nature--of those inestimable
treasures of the palate, the wines,
ales, and liqueurs of this goodly
metropolis: by so doing to advance not
more our own designs than the true
welfare of that unearthly sovereign
whose reign is over us all, whose
dominions are unlimited, and whose name
is 'Death.'

"Whose name is Davy Jones!" ejaculated
Tarpaulin, helping the lady by his side
to a skull of liqueur, and pouring out a
second for himself.

"Profane varlet!" said the president,
now turning his attention to the worthy
Hugh, "profane and execrable wretch!--we
have said, that in consideration of
those rights which, even in thy filthy
person, we feel no inclination to
violate, we have condescended to make
reply to thy rude and unseasonable
inquiries. We nevertheless, for your
unhallowed intrusion upon our councils,
believe it our duty to mulct thee and
thy companion in each a gallon of Black
Strap--having imbibed which to the
prosperity of our kingdom--at a single
draught--and upon your bended knees--ye
shall be forthwith free either to
proceed upon your way, or remain and be
admitted to the privileges of our table,
according to your respective and
individual pleasures."

"It would be a matter of utter
impossibility," replied Legs, whom the
assumptions and dignity of King Pest the
First had evidently inspired some
feelings of respect, and who arose and
steadied himself by the table as he
spoke--"It would, please your majesty,
be a matter of utter impossibility to
stow away in my hold even one-fourth
part of the same liquor which your
majesty has just mentioned. To say
nothing of the stuffs placed on board in
the forenoon by way of ballast, and not
to mention the various ales and liqueurs
shipped this evening at different
sea-ports, I have, at present, a full
cargo of 'humming stuff' taken in and
duly paid for at the sign of the 'Jolly
Tar.' You will, therefore, please your
majesty, be so good as to take the will
for the deed--for by no manner of means
either can I or will I swallow another
drop--least of all a drop of that
villainous bilge-water that answers to
the hall of 'Black Strap.'"

"Belay that!" interrupted Tarpaulin,
astonished not more at the length of his
companion's speech than at the nature of
his refusal--"Belay that you
tubber!--and I say, Legs, none of your
palaver! My hull is still light,
although I confess you yourself seem to
be a little top-heavy; and as for the
matter of your share of the cargo, why
rather than raise a squall I would find
stowageroom for it myself, but"--

"This proceeding," interposed the
president, "is by no means in accordance
with the terms of the mulct or sentence,
which is in its nature Median, and not
to be altered or recalled. The
conditions we have imposed must be
fulfilled to the letter, and that
without a moment's hesitation--in
failure of which fulfilment we decree
that you do here be tied neck and heels
together, and duly drowned as rebels in
yon hogshead of October beer!"

"A sentence!--a sentence!--a righteous
and just sentence!--a glorious
decree!--a most worthy and upright, and
holy condemnation!" shouted the Pest
family altogether. The king elevated his
forehead into innumerable wrinkles; the
gouty little old man puffed like a pair
of bellows; the lady of the winding
sheet waved her nose to and fro; the
gentleman in the cotton drawers pricked
up his ears; she of the shroud gasped
like a dying fish; and he of the coffin
looked stiff and rolled up his eyes.

"Ugh! ugh! ugh!" chuckled Tarpaulin
without heeding the general excitation,
"ugh! ugh! ugh!--ugh! ugh! ugh!--ugh!
ugh! ugh!--I was saying," said he, "I
was saying when Mr. King Pest poked in
his marlin-spike, that as for the matter
of two or three gallons more or less of
Black Strap, it was a trifle to a tight
sea-boat like myself not overstowed--but
when it comes to drinking the health of
the Devil (whom God assoilzie) and going
down upon my marrow bones to his
ill-favored majesty there, whom I know,
as well as I know myself to be a sinner,
to be nobody in the whole world, but Tim
Hurlygurly the stage-player--why! it's
quite another guess sort of a thing, and
utterly and altogether past my
comprehension."

He was not allowed to finish this speech
in tranquillity. At the name Tim
Hurlygurly the whole assembly leaped
from their name seats.

"Treason!" shouted his Majesty King Pest
the First.

"Treason!" said the little man with the
gout.

"Treason!" screamed the Arch Duchess
Ana-Pest.

"Treason!" muttered the gentleman with
his jaws tied up.

"Treason!" growled he of the coffin.

"Treason! treason!" shrieked her majesty
of the mouth; and, seizing by the hinder
part of his breeches the unfortunate
Tarpaulin, who had just commenced
pouring out for himself a skull of
liqueur, she lifted him high into the
air, and let him fall without ceremony
into the huge open puncheon of his
beloved ale. Bobbing up and down, for a
few seconds, like an apple in a bowl of
toddy, he, at length, finally
disappeared amid the whirlpool of foam
which, in the already effervescent
liquor, his struggles easily succeeded
in creating.

Not tamely, however, did the tall seaman
behold the discomfiture of his
companion. Jostling King Pest through
the open trap, the valiant Legs slammed
the door down upon him with an oath, and
strode towards the centre of the room.
Here tearing down the skeleton which
swung over the table, he laid it about
him with so much energy and good will,
that, as the last glimpses of light died
away within the apartment, he succeeded
in knocking out the brains of the little
gentleman with the gout. Rushing then
with all his force against the fatal
hogshead full of October ale and Hugh
Tarpaulin, he rolled it over and over in
an instant. Out burst a deluge of liquor
so fierce--so impetuous--so
overwhelming--that the room was flooded
from wall to wall--the loaded table was
overturned--the tressels were thrown
upon their backs--the tub of punch into
the fire-place--and the ladies into
hysterics. Piles of death-furniture
floundered about. Jugs, pitchers, and
carboys mingled promiscuously in the
melee, and wicker flagons encountered
desperately with bottles of junk. The
man with the horrors was drowned upon
the spot-the little stiff gentleman
floated off in his coffin--and the
victorious Legs, seizing by the waist
the fat lady in the shroud, rushed out
with her into the street, and made a
bee-line for the "Free and Easy,"
followed under easy sail by the
redoubtable Hugh Tarpaulin, who, having
sneezed three or four times, panted and
puffed after him with the Arch Duchess
Ana-Pest. 

THE END