“Davy Jones” by Cruikshank. (Reproduced from Illustrations of Smollett, Fielding, and Goldsmith, in a Series of Forty-one Plates [London, 1832], Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.)
The shafts of their wit were now directed against the commander himself, whom they teized and terrified almost out of his senses. One day while he was at dinner, Pipes came and told him that there was a person below that wanted to speak with him immediately about an affair of the greatest importance, that would admit of no delay; upon which he ordered the stranger to be told that he was engaged, and that he must send up his name and business. To this demand he received for answer a message, importing that the person’s name was unknown to him, and his business of such a nature, that it could not be disclosed to any one but the commodore himself, whom he earnestly desired to see without loss of time.
Trunnion, surprised at this importunity, got up with great reluctance in the middle of his meal, and descending to a parlour where the stranger was, asked in a surly tone what he wanted with him in such a damned hurry, that he could not wait till he had made an end of his mess. The other, not at all disconcerted at this rough address, advanced close up to him on his tiptoes, and with a look of confidence and conceit, laying his mouth to one side of the commodore’s head, whispered softly in his ear, “Sir, I am the attorney whom you wanted to converse with in private.” “The attorney!” cried Trunnion, stareing and half choaked with choler. “Yes, Sir, at your service,” replied this retainer to the law, “and if you please, the sooner we dispatch the affair the better; for ’tis an old observation, that delay breeds danger.”1 “Truly, brother,” said the commodore, who could no longer contain himself, “I do confess that I am very much of your way of thinking, d’ye see; and therefore you shall be dispatched in a trice”; so saying, he lifted up his walking staff, which was something between a crutch and a cudgel, and discharged it with such energy on the seat of the attorney’s understanding, that if there had been any thing but solid bone, the contents of his skull must have been evacuated.
Fortified as he was by nature against all such assaults, he could not withstand the momentum of the blow, which in an instant laid him flat on the floor, deprived of all sense and motion; and Trunnion hopped up stairs to dinner, applauding himself in ejaculations all the way for the vengeance he had taken on such an impudent pettifogging miscreant.
The attorney no sooner awakened from this trance, into which he had been so unexpectedly lulled, than he cast his eyes around in quest of evidence, by which he might be enabled the more easily to prove the injury he had sustained; but not a soul appearing, he made shift to get upon his legs again, and with the blood trickling over his nose, followed one of the servants into the dining-room, resolved to come to an explanation with the assailant, and either extort money from him by way of satisfaction, or provoke him to a second application before witnesses. With this view he entered the room in a peal of clamour, to the amazement of all present, and the terror of Mrs. Trunnion, who shrieked at the appearance of such a spectacle; and addressing himself to the commodore, “I’ll tell you what, Sir,” said he, “if there be law in England, I’ll make you smart for this here assault; you think you have screened yourself from a prosecution, by sending all your servants out of the way, but that circumstance will appear upon trial to be a plain proof of the malice propense2 with which the fact was committed; especially when corroborated by the evidence of this here letter, under your own hand, whereby I am desired to come to your own house to transact an affair of consequence”; so saying, he produced the writing, and read the contents in these words.
Mr. ROGER RAVINE.3
Sir,
Being in a manner prisoner in my own house, I desire you will give me a call precisely at three o’clock in the afternoon, and insist upon seeing myself, as I have an affair of great consequence, in which your particular advice is wanted by your humble servant
HAWSER TRUNNION.
The one-eyed commander who had been satisfied with the chastisement he had already bestowed upon the plaintiff, hearing him read this audacious piece of forgery, which he considered as the effect of his own villany, started up from table, and seizing a huge turkey that lay in a dish before him, would have applied it sauce and all by way of poultice to his wound,4 had he not been restrained by Hatchway, who laid fast hold on both his arms, and fixed him to his chair again, advising the attorney to sheer off with what he had got. Far from following this salutary counsel, he redoubled his threats, and set Trunnion at defiance, telling him he was not a man of true courage, although he had commanded a ship of war, or else he would not have attacked any person in such a cowardly and clandestine manner. This provocation would have answered his purpose effectually, had not his adversary’s indignation been repressed by the suggestions of the lieutenant who desired his friend in a whisper to be easy, for he would take care to have the attorney tossed in a blanket for his presumption. This proposal, which he received with great approbation, pacified him in a moment; he wiped the sweat from his forehead, and his features relaxed into a grim smile.
Hatchway disappeared, and Ravine proceeded with great fluency of abuse, until he was interrupted by the arrival of Pipes, who, without any expostulation, led him out by the hand, and conducted him to the yard, where he was put into a carpet, and in a twinkling sent into the air by the strength and dexterity of five stout operators, whom the lieutenant had selected from the number of domesticks for that singular spell of duty.
In vain did the astonished vaulter beg for the love of God and passion of Christ, that they would take pity upon him, and put an end to his involuntary gambols; they were deaf to his prayers and protestations, even when he swore in the most solemn manner, that if they would cease tormenting him, he would forget and forgive what was passed, and depart in peace to his own habitation; and continued the game till they were fatigued with the exercise.
Ravine being dismissed in a most melancholy plight, brought an action of assault and battery against the commodore,5 and subpœna’d all the servants as evidences in the cause; but as none of them had seen what happened, he did not find his account in the prosecution, though he himself examined all the witnesses, and among other questions, asked whether they had not seen him come in like another man? and whether they had ever seen any other man in such a condition as that in which he had crawled off? But this last interrogation they were not obliged to answer, because it had reference to the second discipline he had undergone, in which they, and they only were concerned; and no person is bound to give testimony against himself.
In short, the attorney was nonsuited,6 to the satisfaction of all who knew him, and found himself under the necessity of proving that he had received in course of post, the letter which was declared in court a scandalous forgery, in order to prevent an indictment with which he was threatened by the commodore, who little dreamt that the whole affair had been planned and executed by Peregrine and his associates.
The next enterprize in which this triumvirate engaged, was a scheme to frighten Trunnion with an apparition, which they prepared and exhibited in this manner. To the hide of a large ox Pipes fitted a leathern vizor of a most terrible appearance, stretched on the jaws of a shark which he had brought from sea, and accommodated with a couple of broad glasses instead of eyes. On the inside of these he placed two rush lights, and with a composition of sulphur and salt-petre, made a pretty large fuse, which he fixed between two rows of the teeth. This equipage being finished, he, one dark night chosen for the purpose, put it on, and following the commodore into a long passage in which he was preceded by Perry with a light in his hand, kindled his firework with a match, and began to bellow like a bull. The boy, as it was concerted, looking behind him, screamed aloud, and dropped the light, which was extinguished in the fall: when Trunnion alarmed at his nephew’s consternation, exclaimed, “Zounds! what’s the matter?” And turning about to see the cause of his dismay, beheld a hideous phantom vomiting blue flame, which aggravated the horrors of its aspect. He was instantly seized with an agony of fear, which divested him of his reason; nevertheless, he, as it were mechanically, raised his trusty supporter in his own defence, and the apparition advancing towards him, aimed it at this dreadful annoyance with such a convulsive exertion of strength, that had not the blow chanced to light upon one of the horns, Mr. Pipes would have had no cause to value himself upon his invention. Misapplied as it was, he did not fail to stagger at the shock, and dreading another such salutation, closed with the commodore, and having tripped up his heels, retreated with great expedition.
It was then that Peregrine, pretending to recollect himself a little, ran with all the marks of disturbance and affright, and called up the servants to the assistance of their master, whom they found in a cold sweat upon the floor, his features betokening horror and confusion. Hatchway raised him up, and having comforted him with a cup of Nantz,7 began to inquire into the cause of his disorder: but he could not extract one word of answer from his friend, who, after a considerable pause, during which he seemed to be wrapped up in profound contemplation, pronounced aloud, “By the Lord! Jack, you may say what you wool; but I’ll be damned if it was not Davy Jones himself: I know him by his saucer-eyes, his three rows of teeth, his horns and tail, and the blue smoak that came out of his nostrils. What does the black-guard, hell’s baby want with me? I’m sure I never committed murder, nor wronged any man whatsom-ever, since I first went to sea.” This same Davy Jones, according to the mythology of sailors, is the fiend that presides over all the evil spirits of the deep,8 and is often seen in various shapes, perching among the rigging on the eve of hurricanes, shipwrecks, and other disasters, to which a sea-faring life is exposed; warning the devoted wretch of death and woe.9 No wonder then that Trunnion was disturbed by a supposed visit of this dæmon, which, in his opinion, foreboded some dreadful calamity.