The singular meeting of Colin and Palethorpe.—A jolly night, and the results of it, with one of the most remarkable discoveries on record.

ON the last afternoon of his intended stay in town, Mr. Palethorpe rambled as far as Regent's Park, and into the Zoological Gardens, where he amused himself some time by tempting the bears with a bit of bun, without allowing them to get near enough to lay hold of it; a piece of dexterity on his own part which made him laugh heartily twenty times over; for the cleverness of it seemed to him excellent.

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When weary of that, he repaired to the monkey-cage, in anticipation of some excellent sport; but there he found many much more able fellows than himself; and, in endeavouring to outwit a great baboon with a walnut, got one of his ears nearly twinged off, highly to the delight of a whole company of boys who stood by, and whose laughter and jeers eventually caused him to beat a retreat out of the gardens.

Having taken a pretty accurate survey of the West End, he descended Regent Street in the evening, and about nine o'clock might have been seen wending his way with indecisive step down Coventry Street, from the Piccadilly end, with a considerable amount of Barclay and Perkins's stout in his head,—porter being such a rarity to him, that he thought it as well to make the best of it while he enjoyed the opportunity.

On the right hand side of Coventry Street he accidentally espied a fishmonger's shop. Palethorpe always enjoyed a good appetite for oysters whenever he could get them, and, as he had fixed his eyes upon a leaden tank full, he walked into the shop aforesaid, and requested the man to open him a lot. As fast as he opened them, Mr. Palethorpe swallowed them; while, as long as he continued to swallow, the man continued to open, keeping silent count of the number taken all the while, until in a loud voice he at last proclaimed a numerical amount of five dozen. Mr. Palethorpe then bid him desist, and, with great reluctance at the moment, paid the demand of a crown for his supper. Somehow, however, his stomach raised certain very cogent objections against thus suddenly being converted into an oyster bed, and demanded the instant administration of a dram. This, however, he could not procure there, but was invited to walk into the room behind, where he might take wine at his leisure. Although Palethorpe did not much relish the notion, he did not feel in the best possible condition for quitting the shop and going elsewhere; and therefore, almost as a matter of necessity, adopted the waiter's suggestion. Pushing open a door, therefore, with an oval glass in it, he found himself all at once in one of the finest public apartments he had yet entered.

At first he felt almost doubtful whether he had not made a mistake, and walked into a chapel,—the gallery round the walls and the pew-like seats very strongly favouring the idea. This notion was, however, very soon put to the rout by an individual, whom he had mistaken for a pew-opener, approaching him with the polite inquiry, what wine would he please to take.

“Oh, ony'll do. One sort is just the same as another to me, for I know no difference,” replied Palethorpe.

“Pint of sherry, perhaps, sir? Very well, sir.” And before the Yorkshireman could find time to express either his acquiescence or his dissent, the waiter had disappeared to execute the order of his own suggestion.

When he returned, Palethorpe took the wine in silent dudgeon. Of course he had the appearance of an animal too remarkable not to attract attention anywhere in London, but especially so in the particular region where fortune had now condescended to cast him.

As far as he could discern anything of the matter, the company appeared of the highest respectability, if not, in fact, almost too good for him. But then, as everybody conducted themselves in the most free and easy manner possible, he was not long in making himself perfectly at home. The ladies, who were beautifully dressed, and decorated with various sorts of flowers, struck him with particular admiration. All that disagreeable crust of reserve, in which country people are so very prone to encase themselves, was here worn quite clean off; and he found no more trouble in entering into conversation with these ladies than he did at home in talking to his horses. Two of them politely invited themselves to his wine, and, without waiting permission, drank it off to his good health, and suggested to him to call for more. They playfully tweaked his nose, put his hat on their own heads, and invited him to partake of his own drink so very kindly and pressingly, that at last it would scarcely have been known whether they or he had in reality paid for it.

About midnight, and at the particular request of a young lady who was taking leave, Palethorpe was prevailed on to escort her home; a piece of politeness which he felt most competent to discharge by calling a cab, as his own legs had by this time in great part lost the faculty of carrying the superstructure of his body writh that precise degree of perpendicularity which is commonly considered essential to personal comfort and safety.

From that moment up to the occurrence of the following incident, his history is wrapped in the most profound and mysterious darkness.

On this eventful night, the intended last night of all Mr. Palethorpe's experiences in the metropolis, as fortune would have it, Colin had treated himself with a sight of Vauxhall Gardens; and, as he remained to see the fireworks at the conclusion, he did not get away very early. Add to this the time necessarily occupied in taking refreshment, and walking all the way from the Gardens towards London Bridge, and we shall not expect to find him at the top of Newington Road, on his way home, earlier than between one and two in the morning. As our hero walked rapidly down Blackman Street, he observed a man, clothed in a short, square-lapped coat, of a broad country-cut, staggering along before him very much as though he meditated going head foremost at every object that presented itself on either side of the road. Occasionally he came to a full stop, and see-saw'd his body backwards and forwards, until the impetus gained one way either compelled him to recede a few paces, or plunged him again desperately forwards. Now he seized a lamp-post, as though it were some dear, newly-recognised friend; and then made a furious sally to reach some advanced point of the wall on the other hand. Altogether his motions were so whimsical “that Colin slackened his pace in order to keep behind, and thus enjoy the fun. The street was perfectly silent; not a soul besides themselves was about, and he had the farcical performer therefore altogether to himself. He did not enjoy the spectacle, however, very long. Scarcely had the man staggered a hundred yards farther before he went down on all fours; and, as he found himself incapable of rising again, he seemed by his actions, as though he finally submitted to fate, and made up his mind to nestle there for the remainder of the night. Since, however, Colin never was the lad to leave a fellow-creature helpless, without offering his assistance, he hastened forwards, and taking him by the shoulder, bade him get up and go home.

“Where's meesis?” demanded the sot. “I want a posset, and a posset I 'll have, or be dang'd to me!”

Colin immediately recognised the voice. Bursting into a loud laugh, he raised the prostrate man's face towards the light, and beheld the features of his old and inveterate enemy, Palethorpe. What in the world could have brought him to town? Although Colin more than half suspected the real occasion, he determined to ascertain the truth.

“And, where have you come from, my man?” demanded Colin.

“Come from!” repeated Sammy. “I'll tell you where I come from. I co—co—come from Whinmoor—Whinmoor, I say, in Yorkshire. Miss Zowerzoft's my meesis—and a very good meesis she is, I am happy to say. She knows me very well, and I know her. I wish she were here!”

“Well—well!” cried Colin; “but what have you come to London about?”

“Why, what do you think, now?” asked Palethorpe, with a peculiarly knowing look. “What do you think? Just guess. I'll bet a shilling you can't guess, if you guess all night. No—no; no man knows my bizziness but myself. My name's Palethorpe, and I know two of that. Can you tell me, do you know anybody named Colin Clink here i' Lunnun?”

“I do,” said our hero. “I know him well.”

“You do!” exclaimed Samuel, trying to start up and stare in his face, but sinking again in the effort; “then yo 're my man! Gis hold on your hand, my lad. Dang his carcase! I 'll kill him as sure as iver I touch him! I will—I tell you. I 'll kill him dead on th' spot.”

“But you mean to catch him first,” said Colin, “don't you?”

“What do you mean? Catch him! I mean to catch him! Be civil, my lad, or else I shall put a spur in your sides afore you go.”

“You brute!” exclaimed Colin, seizing him by the collar on each side of his neck, and holding his head stiff up with his knuckles,—“look at me. I am Colin Clink. Now, you cowardly, drunken scoundrel, what have you not deserved at my hands?”

“Oh! what, you are he, are you?” gurgled

Mr. Palethorpe. “Just let me go a minnit, and I 'll show you!”

“Come, then!” said Colin, and he pulled the said Mr. Palethorpe to the edge of the causeway. In the next moment he deposited him in the middle of a large dam which had been made in the gutter close by for the convenience of some bricklayers, who were repairing an adjoining house, telling him to “sit there, and sober himself; and the next time he tried to catch Colin Clink, to thank his stars if he came off no worse.” So saying, he left him to the enjoyment of his “new patent water-bed,” and his meditations.

Near the Borough town-hall Colin met a policeman, whom he informed of the hapless condition of a poor drunken countryman some distance down the street, and requested him to go to his assistance. He then made off at the best speed he could, and soon baffled all pursuit amidst the intricate turnings of the city. True, he lost his way; still he reached his lodgings before four o'clock.

To return to Mr. Palethorpe. He had not yet seen even a tithe of his troubles. The sequel of this last adventure proved richer than all the rest. Between two and three o'clock in the afternoon of the following day he crept very stealthily into the parlour of his inn, as “down in the mouth” as a beaten dog. He called for writing materials, and addressed a strange scrawl to the Commercial Bank in Leeds, where it was known he had deposited about three hundred pounds. He afterwards retired to his bed-room, from which in a short time he issued with a bundle in his hand; and, after making certain confidential inquiries of the shoe-black, walked forth in the direction of Rosemary Lane. It seems pretty certain that John Boots directed him thither as one of the most eligible places in the City for the disposal of all sorts of worn-out or superfluous wearing-apparel, and one to which poor gentlemen in difficulties not unfrequently resorted. However that may be, the fact itself is positive, that on the evening of the second Saturday after his arrival, Mr. Palethorpe was seen in a very dejected mood, pacing along Rosemary Lane, towards Cable Street, with a bundle tied up in a blue and white cotton handkerchief, under his arm.

As his eyes wandered from one side of the street to the other, he observed, idling at doors, or along the footway, a generation of low, dark men, who, by the peculiar cut of their countenances might readily have been mistaken—especially by lamplight—for lineal and legitimate descendants of the old race of Grecian satyrs. Inhabiting places in which no other description of person could breathe, and carrying on their congenial trades in “Clo'—old clo'!” these people, with their families, live and thrive on the filth of all the other parts of the unapproachable city. Nothing comes amiss to them: the oldest garment has some profit in it, and the merest shred its fractional value. Their delight seems to be in a life amidst black bags, and the rags of every other portion of the great community; while the aspect of the region they inhabit—as if to keep all the rest from being put out of countenance—is desolate, dark, slimy, and enveloped in an atmosphere of eternal smoke. The very air seems pregnant with melancholy reminiscences of the faded glory of by-gone men, women, and times. The tarnished embroidery, the sooty red suits, the flabby old silks, the vamped-up hessians, what spectres do they not evoke as they dangle (ghostly mementos of departed greatness) beside the never-washed windows; or flap like an old arras, with every gust of wind against the besmeared and noxious walls! Where, perhaps, the legs of some gallant captain once found a local habitation, there the dirty Israelite now passing along feels ambitious to encase his own. The handkerchief of a bishop invites a “shopb'y's” nose; the last rejected beaver of the Lord Mayor awaits the acceptance of some rascally cranium, which the Lord Mayor would give half his dignity to “nab,” and “pop in quod.” Even some vanished great one's walking-stick, now sticks in the black corner of the Jew's shop, waiting to be once again shaken by the handle, even though it be but during a brief proud hour on Sunday, by the lad who yesterday hawked cedar pencils through the streets at a halfpenny a piece.

“Buy, sir?—buy?—buy?” Mr. Pale-thorpe replied in the negative to a man who thus addressed him, but volunteered to sell. He produced the contents of his handkerchief; and before ten minutes, more had elapsed his best blue coat with gilt buttons, and a second pair of corduroys, became the property of the Jew, at one-third less than their value. The reason of this strange proceeding was that during the preceding night's glorification the Yorkshireman had,—in some way totally incomprehensible to himself,—been eased of absolutely every farthing he possessed. He had, therefore, no alternative but to raise a little ready cash upon his clothes, until he could receive from the bank in Leeds, where he had deposited his scrapings, enough to set himself straight again and pay his passage home.

Several times had the sun rolled over the head of this side of the world after the scene above-described, when, one rainy evening, about dusk, as Miss Sowersoft was casting a weary and longing eye across the soddened fields which lay between Snitterton Lodge and the high road, to her inexpressible pleasure she beheld the well-known figure of Mr. Palethorpe making its way towards the house.

“Well, here you are again!” she exclaimed, as he flung down his top-coat, and demanded a jack to get his boots off. “How have you gone on? I see you hav'n't brought him with you, at all events.”

Although Miss Sowersoft had made an inquiry the moment Mr. Palethorpe entered the house, she now refused to hear him talk until he had satisfied his appetite. This achievement occupied, of course, considerable time. He then, in the midst of an open-mouthed and anxious rural audience, consisting of every individual, man, maid, and boy, upon the farm, related—not his own adventures, but the imaginary adventures of some person very closely resembling himself, who never lived, and whose peregrinations had only existed in the very little world of his own brain.

His expedition had been most successful; for, although he had not exactly succeeded in discovering Colin's retreat,—a mishap attributable to the enormous extent of London, and not to his own want of sagacity,—yet he had astonished the natives there by such specimens of country talent as they were very little prepared for. He pulled out a new watch. “Look there,” said he. “I got that through parting with the old 'un, and a better than that niver went on wheels. I bought some handkerchers for about half-price, and see'd more of Lunnun in ten days than many folks that have been agate there all their lives.”

“Then you went 'top o' th' Moniment?” demanded old George.

“To be sure I did!” exclaimed Palethorpe, “and St. Paul's Cathedral as well.”

“I hope you did not get dropped on, anyhow,” remarked Miss Sowersoft, inquiringly; for she really burned to know whether any of the fears she had expressed at his setting out had been realised.

“No, dang it! not I,” replied Palethorpe, in a misgiving tone, though with a great assumption of bravery. Yet upon that subject, somehow, he could not expatiate. He felt tongue-tied in spite of himself; and then, as if desirous of escaping any farther explanation touching what he had individually done or not done, he got up and went to the pocket of his great-coat, from which he drew a Sunday newspaper that he had purchased as the coach was starting, and presenting it to Miss Sowersoft—“Here,” said he, “I've brought you th' latest news I could lay my hands on, just to let you see what sort of things they do i' th' big town. I hav'n't look'd at it myself yet, so you 've the first peep, meesis.”

Miss Sowersoft took the newspaper very graciously, and opened it. Strange news indeed she very soon found there. While Palethorpe was yet maintaining all the dignity of a hero, and stuffing his audience with marvellous accounts of his own exploits, Miss Sowersoft's eye fell upon a report under the head of “Police Intelligence,” entitled, “A Yorkshireman in London.” She read it; but with such avidity and such a sombre expression of countenance, that the eyes of every one present were irresistibly attracted towards her, and even Mr. Palethorpe's efforts to speak passed almost unobserved. At length Miss Sower-soft uttered a loud hysterical shriek, and fell back in her chair.

Palethorpe instinctively snatched at the newspaper; but, as Abel had seized it before him, only a portion of it reached the fire, into which it was instantly hurled. The part remaining in the grasp of the farming-man contained the awful cause of Miss Sowersoft's calamity. A fight might have ensued for the possession of that fragment also, had not Abel dexterously slipped round the table before Palethorpe could reach him, and, snatching up a lighted lantern that stood on the dresser, escaped into a hayloft; where, having drawn the ladder up after him, he sat down on a truss, and, while Palethorpe bawled and threatened vainly from beneath, deliberately read as follows:—

“A Yorkshireman in London.—Yesterday a stupid-looking 'son of the soil' from Yorkshire, whose legs appeared to have been tied across a barrel during the previous part of his life, and who gave his name Samuel Palethorpe, was brought before their worships, charged by policeman G. 95, with having been found dead drunk in Blackman Street, Borough, between one and two o'clock that morning. When found he was sitting bolt-upright in a pool of lime-water about twelve inches deep, which had been made in the gutter by some bricklayer's labourers employed in mixing mortar near the spot. His hat was crushed into the form of a pancake, and was floating beside him; while he was calling in a stentorian voice for assistance. From the very deplorable statement he made, with tears in his eyes, it appeared that, after rambling about town the greater part of the previous day, in search of the 'lions' of London, during which time he had imbibed an immense quantity of heavy-wet, he repaired to a well-known house in the neighbourhood of the Haymarket, and regaled himself until midnight with wine and cigars. While there he picked up an acquaintance in the person of a 'lady,' (as he described her,) 'with a plum-coloured silk gown on, and one of the handsomest shawls he ever saw in his life.' As the 'lady' was very communicative, and was very polite, and told him that she wished to marry, he naturally concluded she might entertain no very deeply-rooted, objection to himself. In order, therefore, to make a beginning in his courtship, he eventually consented to accompany her home. He believed her to be what she appeared, 'a lady,' and was over-persuaded by the hope of marrying a good fortune. One of the magistrates here expressed his astonishment that any man arrived at the age of the prisoner, (he appeared nearly forty-five,) even though brought up in the veriest wild in England, could possibly be such a fool as the individual before him represented himself. Mr. Palethorpe replied that he had several times read of ladies falling in love with cavaliers, and he thought such a thing might happen to him as well as to anybody else. (Laughter.)

“'And what happened afterwards?' asked the magistrate.

“Mr. Palethorpe.—'I don't know very well, for I'd a sup too much. I ar'n't used to drink sich strong wine: but we went over a bridge, I think, becos I remember seeing some lights dance about; but where we went to I know no more than this man here' (pointing to the policeman).

“'How much money did you spend?'

“'Whoy, unfortinately, I 've lost every farthing I had.'

“'And how much had you about your person when you set out?'

“'Please, sir, I had seven pounds in goold, and about twelve shillin's in shillin's, besides some ha'pence.'

“'Do you think you've been robbed, or did you spend it on the lady?'

“'I don't know, sir,—but it's all gone.'

“'Well, as you seem to have paid pretty dearly for your pleasure, I shall not fine you this time, but I should advise you to take better care the next time you come to London.'

“The prisoner left the court very chop-fallen, while one of the spectators as he passed whistled in his ear the tune of

Before Abel had perused half the above extract he was in ecstasies: and when he had done he cut it out of the paper with his pocket-knife, in order the easier to preserve it for future use. The story soon became known throughout the country side, as Abel made a point of reading it aloud at every public-house he called at, and on every occasion when the hero of it chanced to displease him.

The gist of the joke, however, seemed, in the general opinion, to consist in the fact that Mr. Palethorpe himself had unwittingly brought it all the way from London in his own pocket, for the edification and amusement of the community. In fact, from that day until the end of his life, that worthy never heard the last of his expedition to London.

But, how did he settle matters with his mistress? That question may be solved when other events of greater importance have been described.