PERDITUS MUTTON; WHO BOUGHT A “CAUL.”

BY DOUGLAS JERROLD.

CHAP. I.

PERDITUS MUTTON sat in his solitary chamber, with serious eyes bent upon the " London Post "-the journal of the day; the day being the fifth of November, in the year of our regeneration, seventeen hundred and sixty.

"A Child's Caul.

"To be disposed of, a Child's Caul: price five guineas. Apply to Miriam Birdseye, Hog Lane, Shoreditch."

Such, reader, were the golden tidings suddenly beaming on the delighted orbs of Perditus Mutton. Now, be it known, that Perditus Mutton had long thought to become a voyager. He had read the marvels of Mandeville and Purchas-of Hakluyt and Coryate; and he had no wife to hold him in her white arms-no children to tug at his coatskirts-no fire-side gods to fix him at his hearth. He would therefore cross the perilous sea : he would, with his proper ears, listen to the singing of the mermaids; and, sauntering on Asiatic plains, with his own eyes behold the grazing unicorns. All here was dull, cold, faded-all there was luscious, genial, radiant. Perditus had brought an unsuspecting mind-a credulous heart--to the narrations of his darling travellers; they had been to him oracles of truth; their wonders dwelt in his brain, writ with an iron pen in rock. He had given himself a bondsman to those high-priests of fairy-land, the old travellers; the grave tellers of unknown glories; the dreamers, cum privilegio, of rosy dreams. Rare Marco Polo-glorious Mendez Pinto! authorized necromancers-lawful magicians-makers of innocent griffins- guileless dragons! Men, who have seen the phoenix waste in her odoriferous nest, and have watched the birth of the young pullet!

Yes, to Perditus Mutton, the old traveller was truth itself on a pilgrimage. Perditus had sworn fealty to the happy man who had heard the syrens sing-who had beheld armies of pigmies mounted on cranes -who had known the ostrich to hatch her eggs by the heat of her eyes ----who had seen a king stared to death by a basilisk-a porcupine transfix a roaring lion by a quill shot dexterously through and through its heart. He would have travelled round the globe to kiss the feet of the good bishop Pontoppidan, the worthy ecclesiastic, who, musing on the coast of Norway, did behold a merman rise from the sea, who sang for two hours" and more." For a long time Perditus had determined upon setting forth a traveller. Yet, in his highest hopes, he would feel a pang that brought him to the earth again. England was, unhappily, an island; and qualms came upon his heart as he thought of the weltering main. At least three times a-year, for ten years past, had he dreamt of storm and shipwreck, and had awakened with the sea gurgling in his wind-pipe-singing in his ears. "A child's caul! five guineas!" He would straightway go to Hog Lane, Shoreditch, and so defy even destiny. That he had never before thought of that amulet against sinking,

seemed to him more than an accident. It was evident that his evil genius-that morning happily off its guard-had all along left him insensible of the human virtues, the tried and approved qualities of a caul. He had, however, at length triumphed over the enemy, and he would lose no time in seeking the treasure.

Perditus rose and approached the window; the rain came in torrents from a brown-paper coloured sky, and although Perditus looked from the third story of the house of a pains-taking barber in the Strand, he could see no coach. He turned upon his heel, and one step brought him to the fire-place. He had resolved to defer his journey to Hog Lane until fairer weather, when looking up, his eye rested on, we fear, an apocryphal likeness of Prester John. As he gazed, Mutton thought he beheld the awful brows of the mysterious potentate knit in condemnation of delay :-there would, doubtless, be many bidders for the caul-he felt ashamed of his effeminacy-he took his hat-his old roquelaure and descended into the deluge.

Now is, we think, the time to say a few words in description of our adventurous hero. He had not a relative in the world: he inherited eighty pounds a-year from an aunt who had brought him up almost from infancy; and, at the time of our story, he was a bachelor of two-and-thirty; though, from a premature baldness, and certain natural scarlet streaks about his visage, a jury of matrons would, doubtless, have found him guilty of upwards of two score. His face was not expressive of the sterner passions; indeed, Perditus Mutton, once peering his hooked nose from out his narrow casement into the street below, had by an indecent passenger been likened to a huge turkey looking from a coop for his dinner.

For his moral man, it was distinguished by extreme credulity and more than even womanly gentleness. Frugal and sober, he was quoted as a proverb to the riotous and intemperate. Often have the neighbours exclaimed to Mrs. Beard, wife of Nathaniel Beard, the barber, that she "was blessed in such a lodger." The gossips gave Perditus no more than his due; mice might have been heard in the house, but not Mutton. And was this a man-we think we hear our readers exclaim-to travel? This a man to make his way among the anthropophagi? But how often do we meet with such afflicting contradictions!

Perditus walked manfully on, and received it as a happy omen that he was scarcely wet to the skin when the rain ceased. There were now fifty coaches; but no, he would walk himself dry with this determination, he strode onward. The rain had discontinued, but it was November, and a good substantial fog, thick as a wool-pack, descended upon the city. Perditus felt his way through the mist, and though blinded and well nigh suffocated by the fetid vapours, the torches of the link-boys were to his imagination the fire-flies of Hindostan, and he snuffed the gales from the Moluccas. His heart was in the East as he struggled on towards Shoreditch.

Perditus, with all the unconquerable energy of an early traveller, had reached Cheapside. He had thought it impossible that the fog could increase; he had very ignorantly undervalued its capabilities. He stood still and gasped. A link," cried a child in a piping voice-" a link, your honour?" and by the yellow flare of the link, Perditus saw two rolling black eyes, and the grinning mouth of a boy, who seemed

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like a little imp to revel in the mire, the stench, and darkness about him. "A link, your honour!" he crowed shrilly for the third time, and cut a caper in the air, and shook his torch, and whooped his delight. Perditus was confounded by the savage enjoyment of the little leaper.

"My dear," said Mutton-and he would have used the same words had he addressed a baboon-" my dear," he repeated in his voice of one note—“ my dear," and he coughed until he was almost strangled by the fog.

"They call me Pups," said the boy, with a sneering impatience of Mutton's tenderness. "Pups!" and again he jumped and waved his torch.

"Do you know the way to Shoreditch, my dear ?" asked Perditus. "Go it backwards and sideways, which way you will," said the accommodating Pups.

"An extraordinary child," thought Mutton. "Go on, my dear;" and Mutton walked on, the boy rocking from side to side, and dancing short steps before him. "What's your father, my dear?" asked Perditus, after a little pause.

"Can't tell," said Pups; and he began to whistle like a canary. "Can't tell! Why, what is his business?-what does he at present do? Eh my dear ?" and Mutton spoke quite caressingly. "Couldn't take it on myself to say," answered Pups.

Why not, my child ?"

"Father's dead," replied Pups; and again he burst into full whistle, and danced with new vivacity. A slight tremor shook the tender Perditus at the filial indifference of young Pups. "Poor little fellow! perhaps, like myself, he never knew the blessing of a father." Such was the charity of our hero. "And how do you get your bread ?"

"Why, I pick it up in winter in the fogs only there a'n't such fogs now as there used to be; when my grandmother was a little one, there was a fog of three weeks; but some folks you know is born to luck. That was the time, she says: there warn't a gentleman who wouldn't been ashamed to own he hadn't lost a watch-it was so dark."

Mutton instinctively put his hand to his watch-chain, and then meekly observed, "Indeed!"

"But now, business isn't worth doing. The navy ruins us link-boys," said Pups, despondingly.

"The navy, my boy! Why, how?" inquired Mutton.

"So many ships-makes pitch so dear. And then hemp goes up every day," complained the urchin.

Really; and do you know the reason of that, my love?"

"A friend of mine says 'cause the sessions gets so heavy. If things go on in this manner, we must take to wax candles."

"Do you know Hog Lane, Shoreditch, my dear ?" asked Mutton. "'Specially at dinner-time," answered Pups; and again he danced as at the recollection of that happy hour.

Why at dinner-time ?" inquired Perditus. "You don't live there?" No-only take my meals: I live at the West-end. Do you want to go to Hog Lane ?"

"That is my destination; I hope you know the right road ?”

"If I was blind, I could tell it by the feel of the mud," said the unerring guide; and there was a pause of some minutes, Mutton musing

on the desolate lot of little Pups, and little Pups casting backward glances at Mutton's watch-chain.

"Do you know a woman in Hog Lane called Birdseye?" asked Mutton.

"Many years," was the brief reply.

Many years!-why, you haven't many, my dear?" "Can't help that-but she's my grandmother."

"Your grandmother!"

"And here's her house," said young Pups, halting, with Perditus Mutton, before a hovel, the abode of Miriam Birdseye, possessor of the caul. Mutton was about to knock at the door, when Pups stood before it, and lowering his torch, that the light might fall with full effect upon his open palm, looked speakingly up in the face of Mutton. "We mayn't meet again, your honour," said Pups; whereupon Mutton, drawing sixpence from his pocket, with a pitying sigh for the forlorn state of the ragged, shoeless urchin, laid the coin in his hand, and was about to enhance the gift with wise and kind advice, when the sagacious young one bit the silver with his teeth, winked a knowing approval of its metallic flavour, and instantly vanished. Mutton looked around him; all was dark. He raised his knuckles to smite the door, but stood with lifted hand, made motionless by a cracked voice, half-chanting, halfpreaching, within. He listened, but could distinguish no words; and then suddenly the sound ceased. Was he at the threshold of some wicked beldam-some squalid witch anointing for "the sabbath?" He heard footsteps: no, it was his own heart thumping in the darkness. He was for again plunging into the fog, when he was fixed to the threshold by an inquiry from the cabin. "Who's there?" was asked, as Mutton thought, in hospitable tones, and ere he could reply, the door was opened.

CHAP. II.

"Come in," said a little old woman. "As well as I can see, you look a gentleman; come in." Mutton, encouraged by the civility paid to his appearance, entered the wretched hovel. A fire burned redly on the hearth, and a rushlight flickered through the gloom. "Take a seat, Sir ;" and the old woman handed to Perditus a bottomless chair. Mutton obediently seated himself within the frame, and put his hat upon the ground. As he sat, his face was quite on a level with the face of the old woman standing before him. Perditus never looked more rosy; his face, shone upon by the flame, glowed like the cheeks of a mandril: the countenance of the old woman was pale as meal; and there was a lustre in her full black eye, which made our hero wince as he met it." She has seen better days," thought Perditus, as the old dame, like a dwarf queen, stood composedly before him. There was silence for a minute, each party scrutinizing the appearance of the other. Mutton, shifting in his uneasy seat, said, at length, "I read the 'London Post.'

دوو

The old woman, with a comprehensive gesture, but without a word, quitted Perditus, going behind a curtain that hung midway across the hovel. Our hero looked anxiously around. Had the old woman been chanting, talking to herself? There was not even a cat upon the

hearth. The woman came from behind the curtain. She approached Perditus, and placing a small packet in his hand, said "Five guineas." "It can be warranted?" asked Mutton, as he unwrapt the treasure from its many coverings.

"It's very cheap," remarked the woman, disdaining to meet a doubt of its purity.

Mutton again wrapped up his prize, put it in his pocket, and took out his purse. "One-two-three-four-five," and Mutton counted the guineas into the lean hand of the old woman. As he gave the last guinea, there was a knocking at the door. In an instant, a tall, spare man, with grisly hair, and clay-coloured face, entered the hut.

"How is it to be ?" asked the visiter of the old woman, taking no more notice of Mutton, than of the bottomless chair he had just quitted. "How is it to be ?" The old woman, raising her finger, glided behind the curtain, and was followed by the stranger. Perditus heard whispering, and then, as he thought, the tinkling of money. The woman and man again appeared. "Remember, everything the best," said the old woman; and the man, doggedly nodding assent, without a word, departed. The woman held the door open, and looked at Perditus Mutton our hero took his hat, and with a new spirit, quitted the hut, carrying with him the purchased caul.

Now Mutton had been remarkable, among his other virtues, for the gravity of his walk. The statue of Don Guzman had not a more regular, a more majestic gait. How strange then did it appear even unto himself, that he should caper down Hog Lane with the unseemly agility of a morris-dancer! It appeared to him that he had lost the command of his members; for, spite of himself, he still went toe-andheeling it down the lane, snapping his fingers, and, to his own astonishment, essaying fragments of songs by no means naturalized in good society; it was very strange-extremely strange; and yet there was a fascination in the license not altogether unpleasing. At length, behold Mutton in Cheapside; and the fog that had somewhat cleared off, was again congregating its pestilent vapours. A man with a lighted torch approached our hero. "Do you want a link, your honour?"

"You be-!" exclaimed Mutton, and, to his own surprise, dealt a half-playful blow upon the hat of the querist-a blow that sent the rim - of his beaver down to his neck. Having accomplished this, Mutton chuckled and capered, despite a latent sense of the impropriety of the feat. As Mutton entered St. Paul's Churchyard, he became unusually grave; with every step a deeper sadness came upon him. Was he overcome by a contemplation of the works of man as triumphantly displayed in the cathedral; did his spirit pay instinctive homage to the genius of Sir Christopher? We think not, for he could not withhold sundry furtive glances at the windows of a silversmith; and more than once, with feeling akin to envy, lingered near a gentleman, impru dently handling his gold snuff-box in the fog. Now Mutton had always hated snuff; nay, he still hated it; but he knew not how it was it almost seemed to him that he had taken a liking to the box. Mutton crept cautiously as a cat down Ludgate-hill, and every moment-perhaps it was the fog-he felt it more difficult to breathe. As he passed the Old Bailey, he thought he should absolutely be choked; he pressed onward into Fleet-street, and, to his astonishment,