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Custis, "I will stop there with my friends, the Turpins, and start again, after coffee, in the morning, and reach Cambridge for breakfast." "I will turn off at Spring Hill," Samson spoke, "and I kin feed my mule at sundown in Laurel an' go to sleep."
I cannot quite realize the terrified passengers being driven through the Black Forest, but can picture their horror when ordered to "bail up" by a party of Australian Turpins. In every window milliners, baby-linen warehouses, &c., included was exhibited the usual advertisement of the gold buyer namely, a heap of gold in the centre, on one side a pile of sovereigns, on the other bank-notes.
Larry had been entertaining Sam Green with an account of the depredations committed by such gentry in the bygone days of the colony, when the Dick Turpins, who had obtained a short-lived celebrity on the highway of Old England, laid the settlers in this new land under contribution; and the white stockmen shot down the black natives with as little compunction as they would kangaroos; the blacks, in retaliation, murdering them or any white men they could meet with.
The details of the crime are simply horrible, without one touch of even that sort of romance which sometimes gives a little dignity to murder. As such they precisely suited Mr. Thackeray's purpose at the time which was to show the real manners and customs of the Sheppards and Turpins who were then the popular heroes of fiction.
The domestic life of the Turpins was a beautiful picture to see. But you couldn't gaze upon it as you could at an oleograph of "Don't Wake Grandma," or "Brooklyn by Moonlight." You had to blink when looked at it; and you heard a fizzing sound just like the machine with a "scope" at the end of it. Yes; there wasn't much repose about the picture of the Turpins' domestic life.
Your vine is the mistletoe; your fig tree bears dates. Your household gods are Mercury and John Howard Payne. For the wedding march you now hear only "Come with the Gypsy Bride." You rarely dine at the same place twice in succession. You tire of the food; and, besides, you want to give them time for the question of that souvenir silver sugar bowl to blow over. The Turpins were therefore happy.
"But do you know, I was simply shaking with nervousness when Nealie was harnessing, for I was so afraid that she would make some awful blunder, and that they would refuse to let us have the horse and wagon, for I knew that I could not have stood the test as she did; and then, too, these colonial horses seem to have such a good opinion of themselves, and they carry their heads with a swagger that is entirely different from the meek, downtrodden air of the Turpins, and Smilers, and Sharpers of the old country; and their names are as bumptious as themselves.
Turpin's income was $200 per month. On pay day, after calculating the amounts due for rent, instalments on furniture and piano, gas, and bills owed to the florist, confectioner, milliner, tailor, wine merchant and cab company, the Turpins would find that they still had $200 left to spend. How to do this is one of the secrets of metropolitan life.
He takes a low pleasure in parading his intimate acquaintance with these poor creatures' foul slang and barbaric laws; and is, we should say, the natural father of that lowest form of all literature, which has since amused the herd, though in a form greatly purified, in the form of 'Beggars' Operas, 'Dick Turpins, and 'Jack Sheppards. Everything which is objectionable in such modern publications as these was exhibited, in far grosser forms, by one of the greatest poets who ever lived, for the amusement of a king of England; and yet the world still is at a loss to know why sober and God-fearing men detested both the poet and the king.
The world unfortunately is full of Dick Turpins and Jack Sheppards, not to mention their lady friends." "Ah," said Flamby and sat silent for some time studying the panorama of the busy London streets. "Is Liberty's dear?" she inquired presently. "Not at all; most reasonable." "I'm glad," replied Flamby. "I have got seven pounds ten saved. Will that be enough?" Don held his breath.
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