Silas the Conjuror: his travels and perils

Chapter 1. In Which

A VERY WORTHY FELLOW APPEARS IN A FALSE CHARACTER. 0 my mind there are few less cheerful places than the parish of Edmonton, at the churchyard end. It is a perfectly decorous and proper parish, and a pretty enough place to pass through in the course of a sum \ nier-day ramble; but it is not good to linger there until the evening. The spirits of the inhabitants — of the churchyard end at least — seem to go down with the sun, and the gathering twilight invests the place with a melancholy shrouding like the weeds of a widow. This being Edmonton in high summer time, what is it like in winter — in the very worst part of winter — to wit, February — on a murky, drizzly, helplessly sad and leaden Friday afternoon ! It is a picture with the delineation of which I should prefer to have as little to do as possible.

Unluckily, however, the sketch has to be made — the picture to be painted — foreground, middle distance, background, figures, and all. For, boggy, foggy, wet, and wretched Friday afternoon as it is, the Fates decree that our story starts from the churchyard end of Edmonton, where, at the corner of Spitch cock Lane, already wait our coming two individuals with whom it is necessary that we should become immediately acquainted. Except that one is tall and burly, and the other little and slim, there is nothing very remarkable in the appearance of the two individuals in : 2 question. Seen at a distance, they would pass for just simply two per sons availing themselves of what shelter was afforded by the ivy crown ing the wall against which they stood ; but a nearer view disclosed that this was hardly the case, as they were evidently out on business of a sort that would naturally lead them to walls and palings.

If the pos session of implements of trade went for anything, they were bill-stickers, for one — the big man — carried a tin paste-can with a brush in it, and the other one a roll of paper. Evidently, too, they were master and man, for he of the paper roll, though the bearer of an umbrella capacious enough to shelter two, kept it greedily all to himself, while the man with the paste-can stood respectfully aloof, with his greatcoat collar turned as high up as the tips of his scarlet ears, the rain beating freely against his round, good-natured-looking face, saturating his hat and sopping his great red hands, and trickling down the sides of the tin can, drip, drip, on to his blucher-boots. According to the doctrine of " like to like,'' however, this order of things should have been exactly reversed.

The slim, sour-looking man was as like a cold and drizzly February afternoon as peas in a pod are alike. He was short, like it. Like it, he was uncompromisingly and hopelessly bleak. His blue-black, clean-shaven cheeks were of the leaden colour of rain-clouds, his hair was a black frost, his lean jaws were winter personified, and his voice was the deep bass of the rain blast growling in a chimney. He was like the genius of a February Friday abroad and minding his proper business, and it seemed a pity that he did not at once relinquish the protecting umbrella in favour of his companion, and avail himself to the fullest extent of the congenial elements by which he was surrounded. That the prevailing elements were not his favourite ones, however, the lean little man presently made manifest. He peered from under the edge of his umbrella up the road and down the road, and then above his head, and shrugged his shoulders with an air of deep dissatisfaction.

"This comes of taking a fool's advice," snarled he. "This comes of taking the advice of a parcel of weatherwise idiots who talk as their belly guides them. "Why, you are wet through, Mr Cobb." "lam dampish, sh*," returned the gentleman addressed, apologetically. " Dampish, sir ! Why, you are soaked to the skin, you know you are," said the little man, fiercely. " Now, what do you think of the weather, Mr Cobb ? We shall have a delightful evening, and a house crammed to the ceiling, shan't we ? The front row will be crowded, HIS TRA VELS AND PERILS. 3 and we shall be turning money away from the doors, I shouldn't wonder ! " All this, uttered in tones of most withering sarcasm, was directed full at the head of the paste can bearer, and would have raised the ire of any but the poorest dependant ; such it would seem Mr Cobb was, for, with all humility and meekness, he replied — " I should not like to prognosticate that we shall be compelled to turn money away from the door, sir ; but you will pardon me if I still, and in spite of the unpropitious aspect of the weather, adhere to my ori ginally - expressed opinion that the front row will fill, sir. It ain't often I 'm found to be wrong when I foretell a thing, Mr Horner."

" I ought to do well with a prophet as well as a magician and ventriloquist belonging to my establishment," sneered Mr Horner. " Not at all, sir," said Mr Cobb ; " it is hard fact I go on, and not guessing. It is many months — so I am told — since any one in our line made a pitch hereabout. What with that circumstance and the still more important one of our having a new piece, it seems hard if we can't draw our front row full, and something of a house as well, even though it rains cats and dogs, as the saying is." " Something of a house ! " growled Mr Horner, stamping his feet in the miry way to warm them, and seemingly quite oblivious of the fact that he thereby bespattered Mr Cobb to a degree that led that much enduring gentleman to withdraw a cotton handkerchief from his pocket and wipe his cheeks with it.

" Pray, what is the use of { something ' of a house to me, sir 1 " Something of a house might support a manager who was not weak enough to harbour a lot of drones unable to earn the salt that seasons their meat. That, however, is an advantage I am denied." SILAS TEE CONJURER : This was clearly another cruel stab at the humble dependant, although, to say truth, it did not appear to hurt him very much. Indeed, it seemed rather to amuse him than otherwise, for when, having delivered himself of the above recorded amiable sentiment, Mr Homer turned stagily on his heel with a spiteful snort, and plucked and chewed a stray ivy-leaf that hung uown from the top of the wall, the humble dependant took comfort in the fleetest of winks, and screwed up his lips as though to his secret knowledge there was something excessively funny in the whole business.

He, however, contrived to recover his habitual respectful countenance in good time, and quietly listened as Mr Horner turned about again, observing — "And now, sir, if you have stood here long enough soaking in the rain, perhaps you may find it convenient to reply to the question I put to you some minutes since — are we to announce for to-night or are we not?" Before he ventured to answer, Mr Cobb, with an air which plainly enough showed that he was labouring under great humiliation, unbut toned his reeking coat, and hauled from some secret recess in the neighbourhood of his waistband a big old-fashioned silver watch. " Yes," said he, " I certainly should advise it, Mr Horner. It is now barely half-past one o'clock, and we may easily finish the bill-sticking by two. That will leave me a good three hours to beat up the front-row people.

It promises to be a wretched night, but I '11 contrive to persuade a few of 'em, I '11 warrant. I get quite a dabster in the persuading line, Mr H. It comes easier to me every time I go at it. Of course you must have observed that, Mr H. No matter what part of the country we pitch on, or what the weather — hail, rain, snow, or wind — I manage to draw them somehow. He ! he ! they can't resist me, Mr H." Mr Horner was busy detaching a playbill from the roll preparatory to pasting it as Mr Cobb spoke, but when that gentleman arrived at the latter part of his last remark, the manager's amazement was so over powering that he paused in the midst of the operation, and his arms hung straight. " I beg your pardon, Benjamin," said he, with almost timid polite ness, " I did not catch your last observation.

I misunderstood you to say that you managed to draw them — the front-row folks, that is." "Well, don't I V answered Mr Cobb, evidently alive to the fact that he had somehow again " put his foot into it." " Don't he ? Ha ! ha ! ha !" laughed Mr Horner, tragically. " Ho ! ho ! upon my word, Mr Cobb, your impudence is enough to take one's breath away. You draw them ! Ho ! ho ! Give me the paste-brush • you really are a droll villain, Benjamin !" " Well, come, now," insisted Mr Cobb, tempering his obstinacy with the most good-natured chuckle in the world — " come now, Mr H., if I don't draw them when I go round in the afternoon and persuade them to take tickets — to buy them and pay for them on the nail — who does draw them ." " Who .'" repeated Mr Horner, evidently in the last stage of bewilderment.

"Ah, who?" replied the pertinacious Benjamin; "why, it is me, and nobody else. You are right, though, sir, when you say that it is droll. You would find how droll it was if you were to see me wheedling and coaxing them out of their eighteenpences." With the poster ready pasted and hanging limp from his finger and thumb, the tragedian seemed by a mighty gasp to recover his suspended breath, and then turning with withering severity on his humble depen dant, said he — " Enough of this, Benjamin Cobb ; you insult me, sir. Fortune may make sport of me, may flout and frown on me and cheat me of my honest deservings, but she cannot rob me of my raame. Hector Horner is that name. Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, have rung with it. In the city of Glasgow it is not strange ; it is familiar in the mouths of the drama's highest patrons in Dublin.

Yet you would insinuate, sir, that the name of Hector Horner m of such small account amongst the bump kin crew it is your duty to canvass, that you must needs resort to coaxing and persuasion to induce the clodhoppers to part with their paltry shillings. It is not true, sir. Think not that your miserable object is unknown to me. At the expense of my feelings you would impose on me the belief that your services are undervalued and underpaid for the base purpose of screwing an extra weekly half-crown out of my slender gains. I am ashamed of you, Benjamin Cobb. I rejoice that to-day is Friday, sir. Friday was the day on which you began your weekly em ployment. This night we part, sir. I will trouble you to stick the remainder of the posters, Mr Cobb, but I will spare you the task of soli citing patronage for this evening's entertainment.

As soon as you have finished the sticking, be good enough to consider your services with our company at an end." : 6 So saying, Mr Hector Horner handed Benjamin the roll of posters, and having with much dignity affixed the one already pasted against the wall, he prepared to stalk off. Mr Cobb, however, who, judging from the varying expressions of his countenance, had been suffering a martyr dom all the time his superior was so cruelly addressing him, caught him by a rearmost button. But there was no help for it. Mr Horner had addressed those parting words to his subordinate, and when he had finished he gave a jerk for ward, leaving the coat-tail button in Mr Cobb's hand. Cobb made no attempt to follow. There he stood in the drenching rain, with the paste can in one hand and the posters in the other, a distressful image of bewilderment.

Looking after the retreating figure with his eyes blinking and winking in a queer sort of way, he watched it until it turned the corner of Spitchcock Lane and vanished, and then he transferred his gaze to the poster against the wall, and read it as interestedly as a stranger might have done. (CJrtatri Jtmjal. (Trotman's Waste, adjoining the Last Load Tavern.) THIS EVENING Will be performed a New and Original Domestic Drama of Thrilling Interest, entitled, 1\i Hark •Bnrknr, OR, THE ENVELOPE OF CRIME. Jane the Black Borderer, {an Orphan, and honest though humble,) Miss A. HORNER. Bill Bludjon, (a Die-Sinker and a Black-hearted Villain,) Mr W. Phypps. Mr Sterling, (a Merchant of the Good Old School,) Mr HECTOR HORNER. Lieutenant Jewel, (a True British Tar,) Mr Silas. Jack Ricketts, (Jane's Brother, a Child of Misfortune,) Master Joblnson.

Dubhlerap, (a Kind-hearted Postman,) Mr Benjamin Cobb. After which, Mr S. HORNER Will at once delight and astonish the audience hy a display of his marvellous feats of LEGERDEMAIN AND VENTRILOQUISM, AS PERFORMED BY HIM BEFORE THE CROWNED HEADS OF EUROPE. Price of Admission— Front seats, Is. 6d. ; Second ditto, Is. ; Back ditto, 6d. "Back ditto, sixpence, indeed!" murmured he, with something approaching bitterness in his tone ; " if matters don't mend presently I shall begin to think that it was an unlucky evening when I became a 'back ditto' at his precious theatre. 'For the sake of screwing a few more paltry shillings out of him/ didn't he say ? I 'm glad he went away as he did • I 'm afraid I should have spoke up and let the cat out if he had stayed another minute. But there, he don't know any better, poor old chap. He is not himself this afternoon.

He never is himself two hours together. It is his business that does it, I suppose. He acts so many different people's ' parts' that he mixes make-believe with real, and fancies himself somebody else. ' Part to-night for ever,' eh ! I wonder what she '11 say to that ? She 's the true sort ; there 's no play-acting off the boards with her. If she was to say, ' We part this night for ever,' it would be a very dif ferent business. My precious eyes ! that would be a business. It would sew us all up, that's what it would do — the old chap, poor little ' Master Jobinson' — everybody. It would sew me up, I 'm mortally convinced." And judging from the agonised glance Mr Cobb for a few moments fixed on the wall before him, he drew there and then, with "fancy chalks," a heartrending picture of himself undergoing the sewing-up process.

"And why shouldn't she tell me so?" he presently fiercely demanded of himself ; " what does she know about me or the artfulness of my ways ? I am in her eyes what I have shown myself — a stage-struck idiot, willing to be jack-of-all-trades, bill-sticker, errand-boy, scene-shifter, and all the rest of it, for the sake of ten or twelve paltry shillings, as he rightly calls 'em, a week, and the privilege of making a fool of myself on the stage — to be Mr Dubblerap or any other donkey the piece may require to take the load off the heavy parts. If she thinks of me at all it is as a noodle. She 's quite right, I am a noodle ; the fact grows on me stronger and stronger every day. What is more, I mean to continue a noodle," broke out Mr Cobb, regarding the imaginary picture of the sewed-up one on the wall with ferocious defiance ; " she ain't going to want a comfortable meal, or a warm shawl, or weather-tight shoes, that I may make a show of being sensible.

I'll be a bigger noodle to-day than ever I was yet." So saying he shook his head spitefully at the sewed-up one, and stumped off with great determination to complete his job of bill-sticking. : 8 CHAPTEE II IN WHICH MR BENJAMIN COBB'S ACQUAINTANCE WITH THE THEATRE ROYAL IS ACCOUNTED FOR. ' "^^HU^fe si •^D now tliat tllc wort^v man is out os earsnot' (f°r> 1,li>rln[^'ii! m or<^er *° disabuse the reader's mind of any conm£j3$3$L\1\ trary impression that may have crept into it, it may "JBlÆ^tW fj be as well to state that Mr Benjamin Cobb is a worthy -J^A\\^ man,) it is necessary to throw some light on what at f[| present may seem mysterious, and first of all respecting ffis the lady whom Mr Cobb has vaguely alluded to as " she." j|l " She" was no other than Miss Adelaide Horner, the only daughter of Mr Hector Horner, the proprietor of the Theatre Royal ; and we have less hesitation in entering on an explanation because it involves nothing in the shape of nonsensical love-making; no, nor yet of simple sweethearting, for, as everybody knows, an odd sweetheart is the same useless sort of thing as an odd shoe — there must be a pair, or it goes for nothing.

Mr Cobb had a heart soft enough in all conscience, and sweet enough, I dare say ; so, in all probability, had Miss Horner, but that went for nothing, since, to all appearance, her heart and his were no more a pair than are a dancing-slipper and an "ankle-jack." When Mr Cobb so freely declared to himself (and there is nobody to whom a man is more candid) that Miss Horner had a perfect right to regard him merely as one of those harmless blockheads who are attracted to the stage as the moth to a candle-flame, he spoke what was quite true, since to folk not over and above discriminative Mr Cobb appeared as an individual afflicted with stage mania to a remarkable degree. As already hinted, it was six months since the commencement of his connexion with the Horner interest, to which event so many extraordinary circumstances are attached as to make them worth narration.

Six months before our opening, the Theatre Eoyal was pitched at Portsmouth, and was doing a wretched trade. For a long time it had been growing from bad to worse, until it seemed to have arrived at the very worst. Week by week the company had grown thinner and thinner, till at length it became so reduced as to render the representation of standard plays impossible, even though the actors played double and even treble j and the tragedian and Adelaide his daughter were reduced to the hard shift of writing their own dramas (" The Black Borderer" was one of these) as a means of accommodating the fashion of their gar ment to the capacity of their cloth. This was cruel work, and it would too often happen that whole scenes concocted by Mr Horner, whose knowledge of wardrobe affairs could not be expected to be so profound as that of his daughter, had to suffer utter excision for want of five shillings' worth of velvet or a few yards of cotton chintz.

But there was no help for it, and even with such shifts and contri vances as a long acquaintance with poverty had taught the Horner com pany the practice of, it was still by no means an easy matter to make both ends meet at the Theatre Boyal. It was not an extensive establishment, but it was one of the loose and shambling sort, and by no means easy of management. You see, a travelling theatre is a very different affair from one that is stationary, even supposing their means to be equal. In the case of a stationary theatre the actors and actresses pass the greater part of their time in private, and, if they are needy, may eke out their scanty salary by engaging in any sort of handicraft they may possess a knowledge of. The gentleman who this evening is to personate the rich Baron de Bulginkoffers may quietly in the course of the day earn half-a-crown at shoe-mending, and my lady Duxodi monds may insure the lily-white hand necessary to the enactment of the part by a few hours' application at the washtub ; but it is altogether different at a travelling theatre.

Rehearsing and acting are the sole businesses of the individuals concerned, and all the rest — at least, as far as the men folk are concerned — is profitless time-killing. As, for in stance, it was profitless for Mr Hector Horner to stroll off after rehearsal, and consume the afternoon in the solitary consumption of three-pen'orths of gin-and-water and melancholy broodings on the tyranny of fortune. It was profitless and a great deal worse for young Silas and Mr Phypps to adjourn after dinner to the most convenient skittle-alley, and there remain until they were summoned therefrom in the evening. Another check on the fatness of the Theatre Eoyal treasury was provided in the : person of " Master Jobinson," who, although really the brother of "Jane the Black Borderer," and a child of misfortune, was not " Master Jobin son" at all, but simply Job Horner, a pale little lad of ten years old, who had been shaky and "uncertain" since his mother's death had necessitated his being brought up by hand, and who cost no end of money for medical advice and stuff to strengthen him.

As for the ladies of the Horner company, (there was one other besides Miss Ade laide — Mr Phypps's wife,) making, and mending, and cooking, and "contriving" gave them always enough to do, you may depend. This, then, was the condition of affairs when on a certain evening an entirely new and agonising domestic drama was produced at the Theatre Eoyal, then, as before stated, camping at Portsmouth. It was the first night of the piece, and its leading features being judiciously cast in a nautical mould, the curiosity of the town was excited, and the booth tolerably well filled. There was always an eighteenpenny, and a shilling, and a sixpenny row at the Theatre Eoyal, and Mr Cobb had a place in the sixpenny row. Were it only on account of his broad shoulders and his jolly, good tempered face appearing above all others, he would have been remarkable ; but he otherwise and unmistakably distinguished himself.

Not one among that attentive audience evinced a tenth of the interest in the play that Mr Cobb did. Miss Adelaide Horner was the deeply-wronged heroine of the piece, and the amount of sympathy in her hair breadth 'scapes and her joys, in her hundred imminent perils and her equal number of triumphs, visible on the big man's face was a sight to behold. His tremendous " Bravos !" every time Miss Adelaide scorned or defied the titled ruffian into whose hands she had fallen might have been heard as far as the High Street, and he banged the palms of his broad hands together with a noise that made his near neighbour wink again. At other parts of the play, at pathetic and heart-wringing parts — as, for instance, where the rising curtain discloses the heroine pale and haggard from long deprivation of food and hair brushes, pining and chained in the hold of the blood-thirsty pirate, with the villain captain and chief himself jeering and mocking her at the hatchway — Mr Cobb's indignation became altogether too much for him, and he appealed from left to right of him if it was not a burning shame that it should be allowed to go on, and audibly expressed a yearning for Ihe gratification of holding the head of the pirate captain under his arm for the short space of five minutes ; and when the ema ciated captive, goaded to madness by the ruffian's ungentle behaviour, rent the chains from her arms and ankles, and blew out his brains with a loaded pistol she happened to have about her, Mr Cobb's enthusiasm knew no bounds.

He clapped his hands harder ihan ever, and even waved his cap. " That was good, my lass ! Lord, now ! that was good ! He 's got it now, the beggar, and serve him right ! " roared Mr Cobb. He stayed after the drama was brought to an end to see the conjuring ; but discovering in a very short time that Silas intended to go through his performance without female aid, he presently got up and took his departure. The next evening the enthusiastic stranger was early at the door of the Theatre Eoyal, though unless you had taken particular notice of him on the previous occasion, you might not have known him again, on account of the alteration in his attire and general appearance. Last night he was a man new from work, with stained hands, and wearing a cap and a working jacket. To-night, however, he was " dressed," and wore a beaver hat in place of a cap.

His attire partaking of that amphi bious character peculiar to the inhabitants of seaport towns, it was difficult to conjecture who the eccentric stranger might be. It was enough that he sufficiently proved himself a gentleman by buying an eighteenpenny ticket and taking his seat in the front row. The fact of the entertainment being exactly similar to that which had taken place on the preceding evening seemed in no way to detract from the eccentric stranger's enjoyment of it — in fact, he was observed to betray a depth of feeling that was very singular ; and though he did not manifest his interest in the play with quite so much ardour as previously, it was evident that it affected him even more, and as soon as the curtain fell he hurried away forthwith. The circumstance of a stranger patronising the Theatre Eoyal two evenings in succession was something to be talked of even at the actors' supper table.

They thought to be sure, however, that they had now seen the last of him, and they remarked, " Who was he, I wonder ? " not " Who is he ? " But, miracle of miracles ! they had not seen the last of him — nay, two of the Horner company had not to wait even until the next evening before they were cheered by his society. The two members in question were young Silas and Mr Phypps, who, according to their habit, had immediately after dining sought such amusement as was to be found in the " good dry ground " attached to the Neptune Tavern. How the stranger found them out was never known, but find them out he did. Mutual recognition was the immediate result, and the stranger proving affable and generous, a very pleasant afternoon ensued. It was only natural as they sat down to their pipes and grogs for the stranger to ask kindly after the lady whose acting had afforded him so much delight, and it was equally natural that young Silas should be proud to acknowledge his relationship to a person of such high dramatic powers.

This led to a conversation on theatres and things theatrical generally, and the Theatre Eoyal particularly, and such frequent replenishings of the grog glasses at the stranger's expense, that after an hour or so, Silas, who was a young man of some spirit, and had very little money, found excuse to take his departure. Mr Phypps, however, whose conscience was of a tougher sort, remained, and needed small persuasion to talk on a subject that seemed mightily to interest the stranger — the Theatre Eoyal and its fortunes and misfortunes — chiefly of the latter, for Mr Phypps was a man who never allowed an opportunity of increasing his worldly comforts to slip through his fingers. He fancied he saw such an opportunity now. A stranger so liberal with his grogs and tobacco was surely good to lend a friend the trifling sum of half-a-crown, and it was to this end that Mr Phypps shaped his discourse.

" A very pleasant young fellow indeed," observed the stranger in allusion to young Silas, " and as handsome and well-built a fellow as one would wish to meet; a much more jovial sort of gentleman than his father, if one might judge of a man as seen on the stage, which I suppose he must not," continued he, eyeing Mr Phypps's meagre and not particularly majestic form good-humouredly. " If any one had told me that in the course of a day or two the pirate captain of the ' Eeeking Blade' and myself would be sitting down to a friendly chat, I should have said he was a story-teller." Mr Phypps laughed and held out his hand to the stranger in the most cordial manner. " No," said he, " we are not always what we appear, my dear sir. It is a rule, however, which, like all others, is liable to exceptions.

That young man's father is an exception. He appears sour and de jected on the boards, and he appears sour and dejected off 'em. He is sour and de jected. And who can wonder 1 " "WeU, I can for one," said the stranger. "There seems no reason why he should not be happy enough. He has children any man should be proud of. He has a theatre of his own. What more can he desire ? " " Well, of course I can't say for certain," replied Mr Phypps, " but from my opportunities of observation I shouldn't wonder if he desired a little more money." " Poor, eh ? " asked the stranger, lifting his round eyes in astonish ment. "Wretchedly poor," replied Mr Phypps, in an emphatic whisper. " Never can depend on your salary, bless you." " That 's bad," observed the stranger, and in so kindly a tone that Mr Phypps resolved instantly to make the amount of the loan at least three and-sixpence instead of half-a-crown.