Tom Tufton's Travels. Everett-Green Evelyn
Jack listened with a look of amusement.
"Clever fellow! clever fellow!" he muttered, "he will make one of the brotherhood one of these days!"
Tom began to realize, with a grim sense of humour, that he was aiding and abetting the mischievous schemes of some notorious highwayman, and that his father's two favourite young horses, by which he set such store, were destined to become the property of the gentlemen of the road!
At the limits of the forest Tom and his companion parted. He had been put upon the highroad, and given careful instructions as to the way he must take. Moreover, Captain Jack had given him a password, which, he said, would protect him from molestation; although a traveller on foot was not in the same danger as one who rode a fine horse.
It cost Tom a pang to turn his back on Wildfire; but he felt so certain that the horse would pine in London, or be stolen away, that he preferred to leave him in the hands of a kind master who would treat him well.
"Take your fill of life. Keep open eyes, and believe every man to be a rogue till he prove himself an honest fellow," was the parting advice of his companion, for whom he had already taken rather a strong liking; "and if ever town becomes too hot, come and join Captain Jack; and if ever you should chance to knock up against Lord Claud, tell him that his old master sends him greeting and felicitations, and is watching his career with admiration and delight."
With that the captain turned and galloped away; and Tom was left looking after him, wondering what the meaning of this last charge could be.
CHAPTER III. IN GAY LONDON TOWN
Tom Tufton walked through Bishopsgate, and along the crowded dirty thoroughfare towards the Poultry, with a jaunty air of unconcern that did credit to his powers of dissimulation.
It was Captain Jack's parting word to him to dissemble all outward signs of astonishment at what he might see when he entered the city; to walk on without stopping to stare or gape, to look as though such sights were of everyday occurrence in his life, and to bear himself with a bold and self-sufficient air, as much as to tell the world at large that he was very well able to take care of himself, and that roisterers and bullies had better let him alone.
Tom acted his part with considerable acumen; but within he was consumed by astonished bewilderment, which increased as he turned westward towards Cheapside, and approached the still fashionable regions of Holborn and its environments.
The streets appeared to the country-bred youth to teem with life. Everything he set eyes on was strange and wonderful. The shops with their wares displayed, and noisy apprentices crying out to buyers, or exchanging fisticuffs with each other by way of interlude; the coaches carrying fine ladies hither and thither, tightly laced, swelled out with hoops, their hair so towering in its lace and powder as to provoke the query as to how it had ever attained such gigantic proportions; the gay gallants in their enormous perukes of powdered hair, and their wonderful flowered vests and gold-laced coats-all these things provoked the keenest wonder and amazement in Tom's breast; albeit he walked on without pausing to examine one more than another, or to exchange a word with any save some honest-looking shopman, of whom he would ask the way to Master Cale's shop just off Holborn.
If Tom had lost on the way to London his servant and both his horses, he had at least gained some information which might be of more value to him than all the rest of his possessions; for Captain Jack had told him to go to Master Cale's and lodge with him, telling him who had sent him, and had added that he would put him in the way of becoming a proper gentleman of fashion, without fleecing him and rooking him, as would inevitably be the case if he fell into the clutches of those birds of prey always on the lookout for young squires from the country coming up to learn the ways of the world, with a plentiful supply of guineas and inexperience.
Master Cale seemed to be well known, and he was directed to his house in almost the same words by each person he asked. Master Cale was a perruquier of no small popularity, who had risen through honesty and ingenuity to be one of the most fashionable tradesmen of the day. He also sold vests or waistcoats, lace-edged neck cloths, gloves, sword scarfs and girdles, generally of his own design; yet though his shop was regularly crowded with gallants and courtiers, the man himself managed to preserve much of the honesty and simplicity which had been his making in the days gone by. Everybody liked and trusted Master Cale, and he was said to be the best-informed man in London town on matters connected with the court and its fashionable throng of hangers on.
As Tom walked onwards he realized for the first time in his life what a rustic-looking fellow he must appear. He had felt himself smart enough at home in his leather breeches, brown frieze double-breasted coat, scarlet vest, and riding boots, his hair tied behind with a scarlet riband to match the vest. But as he beheld the fine gentlemen lounging arm in arm along the streets in their huge curled wigs, gorgeous waistcoats reaching sometimes to the knees, gold embroidered coats, with huge cuffs turned back almost to the elbows, and scarfs of every hue of the rainbow supporting their swords, he felt himself a mere boor and bumpkin, and wondered much whether Master Cale would ever be able to turn him out a fine gentleman, fit to associate with those he saw in the streets.
As he pursued his way westward, he met parties of young rakes and roisterers setting out for the theatres, the play being then an earlier function than it has become of late years.
These men were swaggering along arm in arm, exchanging ribald jests with each other, and insulting the inoffensive passers by with coarse remarks interlarded with oaths, and, whenever occasion offered, tripping them up with their swords or canes and landing them in the gutter.
Some of these worthies wore cockades or badges, and later on Tom learned to know them as Darby captains, Tash captains, or Cock-and-bottle captains, according to the special sort of marauding which they favoured. He met one party of the dreaded Mohocks, or Mohawks, reeling along half intoxicated already, and ripe for any offensive mischief, which later in the day they were certain to perpetrate. They eyed the young rustic askance as it was, and Tom heard a whisper go through their ranks:
"Pity 'tis so early i' the day, or we'd sweat him rarely."
But he held his head high, and swaggered along as though he felt himself a match for all and any who might attack him. Yet inwardly he felt that he would never go abroad in town without a sword at his girdle. What the "sweating" might be, he knew not; but he was assured that it was some sort of assault upon his person.
At length he reached his destination, which was a shop of fine appearance in Drury Lane, just off the main thoroughfare of Holborn. It was then a street of some pretensions, albeit a narrow one, and Tom's eyes soon espied the name he was in search of over the door of a shop round which a score or more of gallants were lounging. In the doorway itself stood a very fine youth, at least he was fine as to his raiment, although he wore no wig and was but an apprentice of better figure and deportment than most. He was displaying to the admiring crowd a mighty fine waistcoat of embroidered satin, worked in gold and colours very cunningly, and trimmed with a frosted-gold cord of new design and workmanship. It was this waistcoat, which the young man called the Blenheim vest, that had attracted the crowd, and Tom could not at first get near the door, so much chaffering and laughing and rough play was going on round it.
So he filled up the time by seeking to understand the extraordinary jargon which was spoken by the young dandies, in which he was not particularly successful (for in addition to a marvellous assortment of oaths, they talked a mixture of bad English, worse French, and vilest Latin), and in examining the signboard which hung out over the doorway of Master Cale's abode.
This sign had been painted to the perruquier's own design, at a time when there threatened to be a reaction in favour of natural hair in place of the monstrous perukes so long worn. The picture represented a young man clad in all the finery of a fop of Charles the Second's court, save only the peruke, hanging by his hair from the limb of a giant oak, with three javelins in his heart, whilst below sat weeping a man in royal crown and robes; and below this picture there ran the following legend:
"O Absalom! O Absalom!
O Absalom! my son,
If thou hadst worn a periwig
Thou hadst not been undone."
In the