King Pest the First: a Tale Containing an Allegory [pp. 757-761]

SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER.
757
For the Southern Literary Messenger.
KI%lG PEST THE PIRST.,
A TALE CONTAINING AN ALLEGORY-BY
The Gods do bear and well allow in kings
The things which they abhor in rascal routes.
Buckhurst's Tragedy of Ferrex and Porrex.
About twelve o'clock, one sultry night, in the month
of August, 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, it is needless to say, although ill-contrived,
smoke-blackened, low-pitched, and in every other respect agreeing with the general charactersof such places
at the period-was, nevertheless, in the opinion of the
grotesque groups scattered here and there within it,
sufficiently well adapted for 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 also much the most ill-favored,
and, at the same time, much the taller of the two. He
might have measured six feet nine inches, and an habitual stoop in the shoulders seemed to have been the
necessary consequence of an altitude so enormous.
Superfluities in height were, however, mnore than accounted for by deficiencies in other respects. He was
exceedingly, wofully, awfully thin; and might, as his
associates asserted, have answered, when sober, for a
pennant at the mast-head, or, when stiff with liquor,
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 leaden 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 antipodes 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 ship-mate 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 neighborhood during the earlier hours
of the night. Funds even the most ample, are not al VoL. 1.-96
ways 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-'.cr "humminsg-stuff," the portentous words "No Chalk," which to their indignation
and astonishment were scored over the door-way by
means of that very identical mineral whose presence they
purported to deny. Not that the gift of decyphering
written charac',ters-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 wholewhich foreboded, in the opinion of both seamen, a
long run of dirty weather; and determined them at
once, in the pithy words of Legs himself, to "pump
ship, clew up all sail, and scud before the wind."
Having accordingly drank up what remained of the
ale, and looped up the points of their short doublets,
they finally made a bolt lor the street. Although Tarpaulin rolled twice i M o 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 landlord and 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
" Pest! Pest! Pest! " 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
tender 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 fiom 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 neighborhood 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