Joseph Grimaldi

1809.

His Adventure on Highgate Hill, and its consequences.

It was a fine, clear night; there was no moon, but the stars were shining brightly; the air was soft and fresh, and very pleasant after the heat of the day. Grimaldi drove on at a quicker pace than usual, fearing that they might be alarmed at home by his being so late, and having just heard some distant clock strike the three quarters after eleven. Suddenly the horse stopped.

Near the spot was a ridge across the road for the purpose of draining the fields on the higher side, forming a little hollow, which in the summer was dry, and in the winter generally full of mud. The horse knew it well, being accustomed to pause there for a minute, to cross the ditch slowly, and then to resume his usual trot. Bending forward to assure himself that he had arrived at this part of the road, Grimaldi heard a low whistle, and immediately afterwards three men darted out of a hedge. One seized the horse's bridle, and the two others rushed up, one to each side of the gig; then, presenting pistols, they demanded his money.

Grimaldi sat for a moment quite incapable of speaking, the surprise had come so suddenly upon him; but hearing the cocking of a pistol close beside him, he roused himself, and seeing that he had no chance against three armed men, cried,

"Mercy, gentlemen, mercy!"

"You wont be hurt," said the man on his left, "so long as you give your money directly."

"No, no," said the man at the horse's head, "you wont be hurt. Your money is what we want."

"You shall have it," he answered; "but I expect you not to injure me." He fumbled at his pocket for his purse, and while doing so looked narrowly at the persons by whom he was attacked. They all wore black crape over their faces, so that not a feature was discernible, and were clad in very large black frocks. The disguises were complete: it was impossible to make out anything of their appearance.

"Look sharp!" said the left-hand man; "the money!—come, we can't stay here."

Grimaldi extricated the purse, and handed it to the speaker. The man at the horse's head looked sharply on, and cried,

"Tom, what has he given you?"

"His purse," was the reply.

"That wont do," said the man. "You have more money about you; I know you have: come, hand over, will ye?"

"I have not, indeed," replied Grimaldi. "Sometimes I carry a little in my pocket-book; but to-night I forgot to bring it with me."

"You have more money with you, and you know it," said the man who held the bridle: "you have got a bank-note in your left-hand waistcoat pocket."

The circumstance had really escaped Grimaldi's memory; but, being reminded of it, he drew forth the note, and delivered it to the man to whom he had resigned his purse.

"It's all right, Tom," said the man on his right; "we had better be off now."

As the man spoke, he moved round the back of the gig, as if with the intention of going away. It was the first time he had uttered a word, and his voice struck Grimaldi as being a familiar one, though he could not, in his confusion, recollect where or when he had heard it. He had no time to reflect on the matter, for the man at the horse's head demanded of the man on his left whether he had got his watch.

"No," said the fellow, "I forgot his watch. Give it here!" With these words he again raised his pistol, which had been all this time, and still was, on full cock.

Grimaldi gave it up, but not without a sigh, for it was the very watch which had been presented to him with his own portrait on the dial-plate. As he put it into the man's hand, he said,

"If you knew who I am, you would not treat me in this manner."

"Oh, we know you well enough, Mr. Grimaldi," said the man at the reins; "we have been waiting for you these three nights, and began to think you would not come to-night."

The other men laughed, and the man whose voice had struck him, recommended his companion to give the watch back again.

"Oh yes, I dare say!" said the man, with a sneer, who held the horse.

"Well, I don't know," said the fellow who had been addressed as Tom; "I don't think it's worth a couple of pounds."

"No, no, it is not; and besides, I say he shall have it again," cried the man, whose voice, familiar at first, now seemed perfectly well known to Grimaldi. "Here!" He snatched the watch from his comrade's hand, who made no effort to retain it, and handed it into the gig. Grimaldi gladly received it back; but, in the act of doing so, he saw that the hand from which he took it had, or appeared to have, but two fingers upon it.

The watch was no sooner returned than the robbers made off with great rapidity, and he was once again alone, in a far greater state of alarm and trepidation than when the robbers surrounded him. The revulsion of feeling was so great, that he felt as if his existence depended upon instant flight, and that his flight would be far more speedy if he ran than if he rode. Acting upon the impulse of his disordered nerves, he sprang at once out of the gig, but, not jumping sufficiently high to clear it, was thrown, into the road, head foremost, with great force, and struck his temple heavily against a flint. The blow and the previous fright quite bewildered him, but did not render him insensible; he was up again directly, and found himself, at the expiration of some ten minutes, stopped by the patrol, to whom he was well known. He had no recollection of running, but he had run for a long distance, and the first thing he was conscious of, was the being half-supported by this man, and receiving many eager inquiries what had befallen him.

Grimaldi spoke as plainly as his agitation would permit, and related what had passed.

"Just what I have expected to happen to somebody for these many nights past," said the patrol. "Sir, I have watched those three men repeatedly; it was only last night I warned 'em that I did not like to see them loitering about my beat, and that if anything wrong happened I should suspect them. Make your mind easy, sir; I know where they are to be found, and I'll lay my life that in less than two hours I have them safe."

"And what am I to do?" Grimaldi inquired.

"Nothing to-night, sir," was the patrol's reply; "I would only recommend you to get home as fast as you can. At twelve o'clock to-morrow, you attend at Bow Street; and if I don't show you the men, I shall be as much surprised as you have been to-night."

The horse came up just then, having trotted on very composedly, with the gig at his heels: taking the patrol's advice, Grimaldi got in, and having promised to meet him next morning, made the best of his way home, which he reached without further hindrance or interruption.

Grimaldi found his wife, as he had expected, very much terrified at his being so late; nor were her fears allayed by his wild demeanour and the appearance of the blow on his temple. To her hurried inquiries he gave the best answers that occurred to him, and being unwilling to give her any unnecessary alarm, merely remarked, that he had a fall from his gig, which had made him giddy and uncomfortable. The pains he afterwards took to keep the real truth from coming to her knowledge were infinite. Every newspaper that came into the house he carefully searched, to ascertain that it contained no paragraph relative to the robbery; and so successful were his precautions, that she had not the least inkling of the circumstance until more than two years afterwards, upon their giving up the cottage at Finchley, and returning to town; when her first exclamation was, "Oh, Joe, if I had only known this at the time, I never could have slept another night in Finchley!"

This was exactly what Grimaldi had supposed, and he was not a little delighted to find that he had been enabled to remain during the whole of that time in a place to which he was very much attached, and where, in the society of his wife and child, he had spent some of the happiest hours of his existence.

Grimaldi got very little sleep after the robbery, his thoughts turning all night upon the distressing consequences it seemed likely to involve. That Hamilton was one of the men, he felt pretty well sure: the voice and defect in the left hand were strong proofs against him. Added to this, there was other evidence, circumstantial, it is true, but still very weighty. It was plain, from the knowledge which one of the thieves possessed relative to the note, that he or some one connected with him had been at the tavern in the earlier part of the night, and had there closely watched his actions. The doubtful character of Archer, and his suspicious looks and manner, had struck him often; the thieves had been waiting three nights, and for three nights Hamilton had been absent from his usual place of resort. The more he thought of these things, the more sure he felt that Hamilton was a highwayman: then came the reflection, that if, upon his evidence, he was sentenced to death, it would most probably involve the fate of his young wife, of whose meekness and gentleness he had seen so many tokens. He tossed and tumbled through the night, meditating upon these things over and over again; he rose the following morning feverish and dejected, trusting the thieves might escape rather than that he should be the means of bringing any of his fellow-creatures to a violent death, or dooming others to living and hopeless wretchedness.

Pleading an early call to rehearsal as the reason for his going so early to town, he left Finchley immediately after breakfast, and drove to Bow-street, where he found the patrol already waiting. The moment he caught sight of the man and observed the air with which he approached to receive him, all the hopes which he had involuntarily nourished evaporated, and he felt terrified at the thought that a capital prosecution at the Old Bailey was certainly reserved for him.

"Well, sir," said the man, as he helped him out of the gig, "it's all right. I have got three men, and I have no doubt they are the fellows."

Grimaldi's distress was redoubled, and he inquired, trembling, whether any of the stolen property had been found upon them.

The man replied, with evident chagrin, he had not succeeded so far, and therefore supposed they had got rid of the booty before he found them; but if they were sworn to, they would be committed at once; and that when it was known among their companions, he had little doubt but that he should be able to trace out some evidence relative to the note. With this brief preparation, he led Grimaldi at once into the presence of the magistrate, to whom he recounted the particulars of the robbery, hinting that as he had not been personally injured by the thieves, he had no wish to prosecute if it could be avoided; an intimation to which the patrol listened in high dudgeon, and which the magistrate appeared to regard with some doubt, merely observing that the circumstance might possibly be taken into consideration with a view to the mitigation of punishment, but could not be urged or recognised at all, in that stage of the proceedings.

The patrol was then examined, and, after stating in effect what he had stated to Grimaldi on the previous night, deposed that he had taken the prisoners into custody at a place which he named. The magistrate inquired whether any of the stolen property had been found upon them or traced, whether any such disguises as Mr. Grimaldi had described were discovered in their possession, and whether any suspicious implements, offensive or defensive, had been found upon them. To all these questions, the patrol answered in the negative, and the magistrate then ordered that Grimaldi should be taken to view the prisoners. He also inquired if Grimaldi thought he should recognise them; who replied that he had no doubt he should know one of the men.

Grimaldi was taken into another room, and the first person he saw was, as he expected, George Hamilton himself: the other two prisoners were perfect strangers to him. They had described themselves to the magistrate as gentlemen; but he might have exclaimed, with young Mirabel, "For gentlemen they have the most cut-throat appearance I ever saw."

Hamilton behaved himself with great coolness and self-possession; he advanced without the least appearance of agitation, and said,

"How do you do, Mr. Grimaldi? It is an odd circumstance, is it not, that I should be charged with robbing an old friend like you? But strange coincidences happen to all of us."

Composed as the man's manner was, if Grimaldi had entered the room with any doubt of his guilt, it was at once and entirely dispelled. The practised eye of an old actor was not so easily deceived. He had evidently made a desperate effort to assume an easy confidence of manner, knowing that upon the success with which he did so, depended his only chance of escape from the gallows.

"Why, what's this!" said the gaoler, or turnkey, or whoever had accompanied them to the room. "Do you know him, sir?"

"Yes," said Grimaldi, looking hard at Hamilton, "I know him very well."

"Well, then, sir, of course you can tell, whether he is one of the men who robbed you?"

The pause which ensued was of not more than two or three seconds' duration, but it was a trying one to two of the parties present. Hamilton looked as if he awaited the reply without fear, and acted the innocent man boldly. The turnkey and constable turned away for an instant to speak to each other; and as they did so, Grimaldi held up his left hand, turning down two of the fingers in imitation of Hamilton's, and shook his head gravely. The man instantly understood his meaning, and saw that he was known. All his assumed fortitude forsook him; his face became ashy pale, and his whole frame trembled with inward agitation. It appeared as if he would have fallen on the floor, but he rallied a little; and after bestowing a look of intense supplication upon Grimaldi, laid his finger on his lip, and fixed his eyes on the ground.

"Well, sir," said the patrol, "there they are; can you swear to them all, or to any of them?"

A thousand thoughts crowded through Grimaldi's brain, but one was uppermost the desire to save this young man, whom he strongly suspected to be but a beginner in crime. After a moment's pause, he replied, that he could not swear to any one of them.

"Then," said the turnkey to the patrol, with a meaning look, "either you have gone upon a wrong scent altogether, or these chaps have had a very narrow escape."

After informing the magistrate that it was not in his power to identify the prisoners, Grimaldi hurried away. The men were discharged in the course of the afternoon, and thus terminated the interview at the police-office.

A day or two afterwards, Hamilton called at Grimaldi's house, and, in a conversation with him, humbly acknowledged that he was one of the men who had robbed him; that he had been incited to the act, partly by an anxiety to acquire money faster than he could make it in trade, and partly by the persuasions of his friend Archer; but that it was his first attempt at crime, and should be his last. He thanked his benefactor in the warmest and most grateful manner for his clemency; and Grimaldi then acquainted him with the designs of Archer upon his wife, severely reprobating the vicious habits which had led him to abandon one by whose means he might have been rendered happy and respectable, and saved from his guilty career, and leaving her exposed to the insults of men inured to every species of villany and crime. Hamilton assured him that neither his information nor his advice was ill bestowed, and after a long interview they parted, he pouring forth his thanks and promises of reformation, and Grimaldi repeating his forgiveness and his admonitions.

Grimaldi had reason to hope that Hamilton kept his promise, and shrunk from his old associates, for he resided nearly twenty years after that period in Clerkenwell, carrying on a good business, and bearing the reputation of an honest man.

At this time Grimaldi was in the habit of taking three benefits every year; that is to say, two at Sadler's Wells, and one at Covent Garden. Regularly on the morning of each of these occasions, for very many years, some person called at his house for ten box-tickets, always paying for them at the time, in exactly the amount required, and leaving the house immediately, as if anxious to avoid notice. He was in the constant habit of receiving anonymous remittances for tickets, and therefore did not attach much importance to this circumstance, although it struck him as being singular in one respect, inasmuch as the greater part of his friends who took tickets for his Sadler's Wells benefits, did not take them on his Covent Garden nights, and vice versÂ. The family became at last so used to it, that when they were sorting tickets on the night before one of his benefits, his wife would regularly say, "Don't forget to put ten on the mantelpiece for the gentleman who calls early in the morning." This continued for perhaps twelve years or more, when one day, as his servant was giving him the money, paid as usual by the unknown person for his admissions, he casually inquired of the girl what kind of person in appearance this gentleman was.

"Oh, I really don't know, sir," she replied; "there is nothing particular about him, except—"

"Well, except what?"

"Except, sir, that he has only got two fingers on his left hand."

The mystery was explained.

The fate of this man was truly pitiable. A neighbour's house having taken fire, and being in imminent hazard of destruction, Hamilton rushed in with several others to save some children who were in danger of perishing in the flames. He darted up stairs through the smoke and reached the second story. The instant he set his feet upon it, the whole flooring gave way, and sank with him into the mass of glowing fire below, from which his body, burnt to a cinder, was dug out some days afterwards.