by Edgar Allan Poe
(1835)
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
celling 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 tile 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.