A \ B \ C \ D \ E \ F \ G \ H \ I \ J \ K \ L \ M \ N \ O \ P \ R \ S \ T \ U \ V \ W \Z

Japhet, In Search Of A Father by Frederick Marryat

F >> Frederick Marryat >> Japhet, In Search Of A Father




"Mr Newland," said she, "I wish to--and I think I can entrust you with a
secret most important to me. Why I am obliged to do it, you will
perfectly comprehend when you have heard my story. Tell me, are you
attached to me?"

This was a home question to a forward lad of sixteen. I took her by the
hand, and when I looked down on it, I felt as if I was. I looked up into
her face, and felt that I was not. And, as I now was close to her, I
perceived that she must have some aromatic drug in her mouth, as it
smelt strongly--this gave me the supposition that the breath which drew
such melodious tones, was not equally sweet, and I felt a certain
increased degree of disgust.

"I am very grateful, Miss Judd," replied I; "I hope I shall prove that I
am attached when you confide in me."

"Swear then, by all that's sacred, you will not reveal what I do
confide."

"By all that's sacred I will not," replied I, kissing her hand with more
fervour than I expected from myself.

"Do me then the favour to excuse me one minute."

She left the room, and in a very short time, there returned, in the same
dress, and, in every other point the same person, but with a young and
lively face of not more, apparently, than twenty-two or twenty-three
years old. I started as if I had seen an apparation. "Yes," said she,
smiling, "you now see Aramathea Judd without disguise; and you are the
first who has seen that face for more than two years. Before I proceed
further, again I say, may I trust you--swear!"

"I do swear," replied I, and took her hand for the book, which this time
I kissed with pleasure, over and over again. Like a young jackass as I
was, I still retained her hand, throwing as much persuasion as I
possibly could in my eyes. In fact, I did enough to have softened the
hearts of three bonnet-makers. I began to feel most dreadfully in love,
and thought of marriage, and making my fortune, and I don't know what;
but all this was put an end to by one simple short sentence, delivered
in a very decided but soft voice, "Japhet, don't be silly."

I was crushed, and all my hopes crushed with me. I dropped her hand, and
sat like a fool.

"And now hear me. I am, as you must have already found out, an impostor;
that is, I am what is called a religious adventuress--a new term, I
grant, and perhaps only applicable to a very few. My aunt was
considered, by a certain sect, to be a great prophetess, which I hardly
need tell you, was all nonsense; nevertheless, there are hundreds who
believed in her, and do so now. Brought up with my aunt, I soon found
out what fools and dupes may be made of mankind by taking advantage of
their credulity. She had her religious inspirations, her trances, and
her convulsions, and I was always behind the scenes: she confided in me,
and I may say that I was her only confidant. You cannot, therefore,
wonder at my practising that deceit to which I have been brought up from
almost my infancy. In person I am the exact counterpart of what my aunt
was at my age, equally so in figure, although my figure is now disguised
to resemble that of a woman of her age. I often had dressed myself in my
aunt's clothes, put on her cap and front, and then the resemblance was
very striking. My aunt fell sick and died, but she promised the
disciples that she would re-appear to them, and they believed her. I did
not. She was buried, and by many her return was anxiously expected. It
occurred to me about a week afterwards that I might contrive to deceive
them. I dressed in my aunt's clothes, I painted and disguised my face as
you have seen, and the deception was complete, even to myself, as I
surveyed my countenance in the glass. I boldly set off in the evening to
the tabernacle, which I knew they still frequented--came into the midst
of them, and they fell down and worshipped me as a prophetess risen from
the dead; deceived, indeed, by my appearance, but still more deceived
by their own credulity. For two years I have been omnipotent with them;
but there is one difficulty which shakes the faith of the new converts,
and new converts I must have, Japhet, as the old ones die, or I should
not be able to fee my physician. It is this: by habit I can almost throw
myself into a stupor or a convulsion, but to do that effectually, to be
able to carry on the deception for so long a time, and to undergo the
severe fatigue attending such violent exertion, it is necessary that I
have recourse to stimulants--do you understand?"

"I do," replied I; "I have more than once thought you under the
influence of them towards the evening. I'm afraid that you take more
than is good for your health."

"Not more than I require for what I have to undergo to keep up the faith
of my disciples; but there are many who waver, some who doubt, and I
find that my movements are watched. I cannot trust the woman in this
house. I think she is a spy set upon me, but I cannot remove her, as
this house, and all which it contains, are not mine, but belong to the
disciples in general. There is another woman, not far off, who is my
rival; she calls me an impostor, and says that she is the true
prophetess, and that I am not one. This will be rather difficult for her
to prove," continued she, with a mocking smile. "Beset as I am, I
require your assistance, for you must be aware that it is rather
discreditable to a prophetess, who has risen from the dead, to be seen
all day at the gin-shop, yet without stimulants now, I could not exist."

"And how can I assist you?"

"By sending me, as medicine, that which I dare no longer procure in any
other way, and keeping the secret which I have imparted."

"I will do both with pleasure; but yet," said I, "is it not a pity, a
thousand pities, that one so young--and if you will allow me to add, so
lovely, should give herself up to ardent spirits? Why," continued I,
taking her small white hand, "why should you carry on the deception;
why sacrifice your health, and I may say your happiness--" What more I
might have said I know not, probably it might have been an offer of
marriage, but she cut me short.

"Why does everybody sacrifice their health, their happiness, their all,
but for ambition and the love of power? It is true, as long as this
little beauty lasts, I might be courted as a woman, but never should I
be worshipped as--I may say--a god.--No, no, there is something too
delightful in that adoration, something too pleasant in witnessing a
crowd of fools stare, and men of three times my age, falling down and
kissing the hem of my garment. This is, indeed, adoration! the delight
arising from it is so great, that all other passions are crushed by
it--it absorbs all other feelings, and has closed my heart even against
love, Japhet. I could not, I would not debase myself, sink so low in my
own estimation, as to allow so paltry a passion to have dominion over
me; and, indeed, now that I am so wedded to stimulants, even if I were
no longer a prophetess, it never could."

"But is not intoxication one of the most debasing of all habits?"

"I grant you, in itself, but with me and in my situation it is
different. I fall to rise again, and higher. I cannot be what I am
without I simulate--I cannot simulate without stimulants, therefore it
is but a means to a great and glorious ambition."

I had more conversation with her before I left, but nothing appeared to
move her resolution, and I left her lamenting, in the first place, that
she had abjured love, because, notwithstanding the orris root, which she
kept in her mouth to take away the smell of the spirits, I found myself
very much taken with such beauty of person, combined with so much vigour
of mind; and in the second, that one so young should carry on a system
of deceit and self-destruction. When I rose to go away she put five
guineas in my hand, to enable me to purchase what she required. "Add to
this one small favour," said I, "Aramathea--allow me a kiss."

"A kiss," replied she, with scorn; "no, Japhet, look upon me, for it is
the last time you will behold my youth; look upon me as a sepulchre,
fair without but unsavoury and rottenness within. Let me do you a
greater kindness, let me awaken your dormant energies, and plant that
ambition in your soul, which may lead to all that is great and good--a
better path and more worthy of a man than the one which I have partly
chosen, and partly destiny has decided for me. Look upon me as your
friend; although perhaps, you truly say, no friend unto myself.
Farewell--remember that to-morrow you will send the medicine which I
require."

I left her, and returned home: it was late. I went to bed, and having
disclosed as much to Timothy as I could safely venture to do, I fell
fast asleep, but her figure and her voice haunted me in my dreams. At
one time, she appeared before me in her painted, enamelled face, and
then the mask fell off, and I fell at her feet to worship her extreme
beauty; then her beauty would vanish, and she would appear an image of
loathsomeness and deformity, and I felt suffocated with the atmosphere
impregnated with the smell of liquor. I would wake and compose myself
again, glad to be rid of the horrid dream, but again would she appear,
with a hydra's tail, like Sin in Milton's Paradise Lost, wind herself
round me, her beautiful face gradually changing into that of a skeleton.
I cried out with terror, and awoke to sleep no more, and effectually
cured by my dream of the penchant which I felt towards Miss Aramathea
Judd.




Chapter VI

My prescriptions very effective and palatable, but I lose my
patient--The feud equal to that of the Montagues and the
Capulets--Results different--Mercutio comes off unhurt.


The next day I sent Timothy to purchase some highly rectified white
brandy, which I coloured with a blue tincture, and added to it a small
proportion of the essence of cinnamon, to disguise the smell; a dozen
large vials, carefully tied up and sealed, were despatched to her abode.
She now seldom called unless it was early in the morning; I made
repeated visits to her house to receive money, but no longer to make
love. One day I requested permission to be present at their meeting, and
to this she gave immediate consent; indeed we were on the most intimate
terms, and when she perceived that I no longer attempted to play the
fool, I was permitted to remain for hours with her in conversation. She
had, as she told me she intended, re-enamelled and painted her face, but
knowing what beauty was concealed underneath, I no longer felt any
disgust.

Timothy was very much pleased at his share of this arrangement, as he
seldom brought her the medicine without pocketing half-a-crown.

For two or three months every thing went on very satisfactorily; but one
evening, Timothy, who had been sent with the basket of vials for Miss
Judd's assistance, returned in great consternation, informing me that
the house was empty. He had inquired of the neighbours, and from the
accounts given, which were very contradictory, it appeared that the
rival prophetess had marched up at the head of her proselytes the
evening before, had obtained entrance, and that a desperate contention
had been the result. That the police had been called in, and all parties
had been lodged in the watch-house; that the whole affair was being
investigated by the magistrates, and that it was said that Miss Judd and
all her coadjutors would be sent to the Penitentiary. This was quite
enough to frighten two boys like us; for days afterwards we trembled
when people came into the shop, expecting to be summoned and imprisoned.
Gradually, however, our fears were dismissed, but I never from that time
heard any thing more of Miss Aramathea Judd.

After this affair, I adhered steadily to my business, and profiting by
the advice given me by that young person, improved rapidly in my
profession, as well as in general knowledge; but my thoughts, as usual,
were upon one subject--my parentage, and the mystery hanging over it. My
eternal reveries became at last so painful, that I had recourse to
reading to drive them away, and subscribing to a good circulating
library, I was seldom without a book in my hand. By this time I had been
nearly two years and a half with Mr Cophagus, when an adventure occurred
which I must attempt to describe with all the dignity with which it
ought to be invested.

This is a world of ambition, competition, and rivalry. Nation rivals
nation, and flies to arms, cutting the throats of a few thousands on
each side till one finds that it has the worst of it. Man rivals man,
and hence detraction, duels, and individual death. Woman rivals woman,
and hence loss of reputation and position in high, and loss of hair, and
fighting with pattens in low, life. Are we then to be surprised that
this universal passion, undeterred by the smell of drugs and poisonous
compounds, should enter into apothecaries' shops? But two streets--two
very short streets from our own--was situated the single-fronted shop of
Mr Ebenezer Pleggit. Thank heaven, it was only single-fronted; there, at
least, we had the ascendancy over them. Upon other points, our
advantages were more equally balanced. Mr Pleggit had two large coloured
bottles in his windows more than we had; but then we had two horses, and
he had only one. He tied over the corks of his bottles with red-coloured
paper; we covered up the lips of our vials with delicate blue. It
certainly was the case--for though an enemy, I'll do him justice--that,
after Mr Brookes had left us, Mr Pleggit had two shopmen, and Mr
Cophagus only one; but then that one was Mr Japhet Newland; besides, one
of his assistants had only one eye, and the other squinted horribly, so
if we measured by eyes, I think the advantage was actually on our side;
and, as far as ornament went, most decidedly; for who would not prefer
putting on his chimney-piece one handsome, elegant vase, than two
damaged, ill-looking pieces of crockery? Mr Pleggit had certainly a
gilt mortar and pestle over his door, which Mr Cophagus had omitted when
he furnished his shop; but then the mortar had a great crack down the
middle, and the pestle had lost its knob. And let me ask those who have
been accustomed to handle it, what is a pestle without a knob? On the
whole, I think, with the advantage of having two fronts, like Janus, we
certainly had the best of the comparison; but I shall leave the
impartial to decide.

All I can say is, that the feuds of the rival houses were most
bitter--the hate intense--the mutual scorn unmeasurable. Did Mr Ebenezer
Pleggit meet Mr Phineas Cophagus in the street, the former immediately
began to spit as if he had swallowed some of his own vile adulterated
drugs; and in rejoinder, Mr Cophagus immediately raised the cane from
his nose high above his forehead in so threatening an attitude as almost
to warrant the other swearing the peace against him, muttering, "Ugly
puppy--knows nothing--um--patients die--and so on."

It may be well supposed that this spirit of enmity extended through the
lower branches of the rival houses--the assistants and I were at deadly
feud; and this feud was even more deadly between the boys who carried
out the medicines, and whose baskets might, in some measure, have been
looked upon as the rival ensigns of the parties, they themselves
occupying the dangerous and honourable post of standard bearers.

Timothy, although the kindest-hearted fellow in the world, was as good a
hater as Dr Johnson himself could have wished to meet with; and when
sometimes his basket was not so well filled as usual, he would fill up
with empty bottles below, rather than that the credit of the house
should be suspected, and his deficiencies create a smile of scorn in the
mouth of his red-haired antagonist, when they happened to meet going
their rounds. As yet, no actual collision had taken place between either
the principals or the subordinates of the hostile factions; but it was
fated that this state of quiescence should no longer remain.

Homer has sung the battles of gods, demigods, and heroes; Milton the
strife of angels. Swift has been great in his Battle of the Books; but I
am not aware that the battle of the vials has as yet been sung; and it
requires a greater genius than was to be found in those who portrayed
the conflicts of heroes, demigods, gods, angels, or books, to do
adequate justice to the mortal strife which took place between the
lotions, potions, draughts, pills, and embrocations. I must tell the
story as well as I can, leaving it as an outline for a future epic.

Burning with all the hate which infuriated the breasts of the two houses
of Capulet and Montague, hate each day increasing from years of "biting
thumbs" at each other, and yet no excuse presenting itself for an
affray, Timothy Oldmixon--for on such an occasion it would be a sin to
omit his whole designation--Timothy Oldmixon, I say, burning with hate
and eager with haste, turning a corner of the street with his basket
well filled with medicines hanging on his left arm, encountered, equally
eager in his haste, and equally burning in his hate, the red-haired
Mercury of Mr Ebenezer Pleggit. Great was the concussion of the opposing
baskets, dire was the crash of many of the vials, and dreadful was the
mingled odour of the abominations which escaped, and poured through the
wicker interstices. Two ladies from Billingsgate, who were near,
indulging their rhetorical powers, stopped short. Two tom cats, who were
on an adjacent roof, just fixing their eyes of enmity, and about to fix
their claws, turned their eyes to the scene below. Two political
antagonists stopped their noisy arguments. Two dustmen ceased to ring
their bells; and two little urchins eating cherries from the crowns of
their hats, lost sight of their fruit, and stood aghast with fear. They
met, and met with such violence, that they each rebounded many paces;
but like stalwart knights, each kept his basket and his feet. A few
seconds to recover breath; one withering, fiery look from Timothy,
returned by his antagonist, one flash of the memory in each to tell them
that they each had the _la_ on their side, and "Take that!" was roared
by Timothy, planting a well-directed blow with his dexter and dexterous
hand upon the sinister and sinisterous eye of his opponent. "Take that!"
continued he, as his adversary reeled back; "take that, and be d----d to
you, for running against a _gentleman_."

He of the rubicund hair had retreated, because so violent was the blow
he could not help so doing, and we all must yield to fate. But it was
not from fear. Seizing a vile potation that was labelled "to be taken
immediately," and hurling it with demoniacal force right on the chops of
the courageous Timothy, "Take that!" cried he, with a rancorous yell.
This missile, well directed as the spears of Homer's heroes, came full
upon the bridge of Timothy's nose, and the fragile glass shivering,
inflicted divers wounds upon his physiognomy, and at the same time
poured forth a dark burnt-sienna coloured balsam, to heal them, giving
pain unutterable. Timothy, disdaining to lament the agony of his wounds,
followed the example of his antagonist, and hastily seizing a similar
bottle of much larger dimensions, threw it with such force that it split
between the eyes of his opponent. Thus with these dreadful weapons did
they commence the mortal strife.

The lovers of _good order_, or at least of fair play, gathered round the
combatants, forming an almost impregnable ring, yet of sufficient
dimensions to avoid the missiles. _"Go it, red-head!" "Bravo! white
apron!"_ resounded on every side. Draughts now met draughts in their
passage through the circumambient air, and exploded like shells over a
besieged town. Bolusses were fired with the precision of cannon shot,
pill-boxes were thrown with such force that they burst like grape and
canister, while acids and alkalies hissed, as they neutralised each
other's power, with all the venom of expiring snakes, "Bravo! white
apron!" "Red-head for ever!" resounded on every side as the conflict
continued with unabated vigour. The ammunition was fast expending on
both sides, when Mr Ebenezer Pleggit, hearing the noise, and perhaps
smelling his own drugs, was so unfortunately rash and so unwisely
foolhardy, as to break through the sacred ring, advancing from behind
with uplifted cane to fell the redoubtable Timothy, when a mixture of
his own, hurled by his own red-haired champion, caught him in his open
mouth, breaking against his only two remaining front teeth, extracting
them as the discharged liquid ran down his throat, and turning him as
sick as a dog. He fell, was taken away on a shutter, and it was some
days before he was again to be seen in his shop, dispensing those
medicines which, on this fatal occasion, he would but too gladly have
dispensed with.

Reader, have you not elsewhere read in the mortal fray between knights,
when the casque has been beaten off, the shield lost, and the sword
shivered, how they have resorted to closer and more deadly strife with
their daggers raised on high? Thus it was with Timothy: his means had
failed, and disdaining any longer to wage a distant combat, he closed
vigorously with his panting enemy, overthrew him in the first struggle,
seizing from his basket the only weapons which remained, one single
vial, and one single box of pills. As he sat upon his prostrate foe,
first he forced the box of pills into his gasping mouth, and then with
the lower end of the vial he drove it down his throat, as a gunner rams
home the wad and shot into a thirty-two pound carronade. Choked with the
box, the fallen knight held up his hands for quarter; but Timothy
continued until the end of the vial breaking out the top and bottom of
the pasteboard receptacle, forty-and-eight of antibilious pills rolled
in haste down Red-head's throat. Timothy then seized his basket, and
amid the shouts of triumph, walked away. His fallen-crested adversary
coughed up the remnants of the pasteboard, once more breathed, and was
led disconsolate to the neighbouring pump; while Timothy regained our
shop with his blushing honours thick upon him.

But I must drop the vein heroical. Mr Cophagus, who was at home when
Timothy returned, was at first very much inclined to be wroth at the
loss of so much medicine; but when he heard the story, and the finale,
he was so pleased at Tim's double victory over Mr Pleggit and his
messenger, that he actually put his hand in his pocket, and pulled out
half-a-crown.

Mr Pleggit, on the contrary, was any thing but pleased; he went to a
lawyer, and commenced an action for assault and battery, and all the
neighbourhood did nothing but talk about the affray which had taken
place, and the action at law which it was said would take place in the
ensuing term.

But with the exception of this fracas, which ended in the action not
holding good, whereby the animosity was increased, I have little to
recount during the remainder of the time I served under Mr Cophagus. I
had been more than three years with him when my confinement became
insupportable. I had but one idea, which performed an everlasting cycle
in my brain--Who was my father? And I should have abandoned the
profession to search the world in the hope of finding my progenitor, had
it not been that I was without the means. Latterly, I had hoarded up all
I could collect; but the sum was small, much too small for the proposed
expedition. I became melancholy, indifferent to the business, and
slovenly in my appearance, when a circumstance occurred which put an end
to my further dispensing medicines, and left me a free agent.




Chapter VII

Looking out for business not exactly minding your own business--The
loss of the scales occasions the loss of place to Timothy and me,
who when weighed in other scales were found wanting--We bundle off
with our bundles on.


It happened one market-day that there was an overdriven, infuriated
beast, which was making sad havoc. Crowds of people were running past
our shop in one direction, and the cries of "Mad bull!" were re-echoed
in every quarter. Mr Cophagus, who was in the shop, and to whom, as I
have before observed, a mad bull was a source of great profit, very
naturally looked out of the shop to ascertain whether the animal was
near to us. In most other countries, when people hear of any danger,
they generally avoid it by increasing their distance; but in England, it
is too often the case, that they are so fond of indulging their
curiosity, that they run to the danger. Mr Cophagus, who perceived the
people running one way, naturally supposed, not being aware of the
extreme proximity of the animal, that the people were running to see
what was the matter, and turned his eyes in that direction, walking out
on the pavement that he might have a fairer view. He was just observing,
"Can't say--fear--um--rascal Pleggit--close to him--get all the
custom--wounds--contusions--and"--when the animal came suddenly round
the corner upon Mr Cophagus, who had his eyes the other way, and before
he could escape, tossed him through his own shop windows, and landed him
on the counter. Not satisfied with this, the beast followed him into the
shop. Timothy and I pulled Mr Cophagus over towards us, and he dropped
inside the counter, where we also crouched, frightened out of our wits.
To our great horror the bull made one or two attempts to leap the
counter; but not succeeding, and being now attacked by the dogs and
butcher boys, he charged at them through the door, carrying away our
best scales on his horns as a trophy, as he galloped out of the shop in
pursuit of his persecutors. When the shouts and hallooes were at some
little distance, Timothy and I raised our heads and looked round us; and
perceiving that all was safe, we proceeded to help Mr Cophagus, who
remained on the floor bleeding, and in a state of insensibility. We
carried him into the back parlour and laid him on the sofa. I desired
Timothy to run for surgical aid as fast as he could, while I opened a
vein; and in a few minutes he returned with our opponent, Mr Ebenezer
Pleggit. We stripped Mr Cophagus, and proceeded to examine him. "Bad
case this--very bad case indeed, Mr Newland--dislocation of the os
humeri--severe contusion on the os frontis--and I'm very much afraid
there is some intercostal injury. Very sorry, very sorry, indeed, for my
brother Cophagus." But Mr Pleggit did not appear to be sorry; on the
contrary, he appeared to perform his surgical duties with the greatest
glee.

Copyright (c) 2007. bestextbooks.com. All rights reserved.

Hugo Muensterberg - "Psychology and Industrial Efficiency"

William Pittman Lett - "Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants"

W. F. Butler - "The Great Lone Land"

Various - "Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851"