28th October, 1761 - Claptrap!

Cockfoster's Rub has done the trick, and I am bursting at the gates to get out of here.

Despite the drizzle I ventured to the Market Place in search of some entertainment. Had me a nice plate of oysters. Afterwards, listened to the City Waits playing from upon the Guildhall roof (I think several of their number were drunk), and then had a brief argument with that rogue, Irish Jim. Seeing her at a distance, I avoided Mrs Briggs; hiding in a doorway until she had passed. I decided then, to join the queue for a viewing of the Pig-Faced boy from Framlingham. It was worth a penny - extraordinary! By this time I was working up a prodigious thirst which I was eager to slake.

Taking my place at the window of the Angel Tavern, I was soon joined by Mr Dan Tangle. He was in a very jolly mood, and laughed mightily upon recollection of various japes and adventures we have shared. After some little while, our conversation took a more serious turn when we fell upon discussing our encounter with young Mr Acorn the night before. Whispering, we agreed that this Norman nonsense must be nipped in the bud. We live in an age of Reason, and will not see our pond muddied by such palpable claptrap.

'Gadzooks, Mr Hump! Before you know it some fool will be telling us that men are descended from apes!'

We laughed heartily at the thought.

Rolling Hills and the Buddery Stare...

On this ground once stood Cornelius Hump, Esq

June 15th, 1761...
Woke with the crowing of the cock and, obligingly, mayde was on hand to help me rise. I breakfasted on a collop of bacon and resolved to take an early morning constitutional up to Mousehold heath. Walking beyond Magdalen gate, some way on I found a poor distressed soul; a fellow Antiquarian, standing quite still and staring fixedly. I instantly recognised him as that young upstart, Phileas Acorne. 

At the Society meeting the night before I had observed him engaged in a heated exchange with Mr. Buddery, the noted wall fancier. Although their words were hard to discern, it seemed to me that Acorne was arguing that divination of historical details through the tasting of mortar was, "akin to magic". Aghast at such presumption, Buddery's anger was palpable. Being mindful of the wall fanciers malevolent powers I feared for poor Phileas and offered to accompany him to the Angel for a diversionary pot of nog. Alack! The young fool declined... I can only surmise that, he had been lured to this wild place and then subjected to the Buddery stare! Egad though, I had determined to perambulate the heath, and was forced to leave him frozen where he stood...

Stood on St James' Hill and looked out across the city for a long while, catching earwards, here a dog's bark, there a snatch of some distant conversation - wind-blown sounds caught up by the mischievous breeze. Distantly, Rooks flew in circles above the castle prison and...

... I can only imagine that, in the midst of my reverie, I must have overbalanced and toppled down the hill. I have no clear recollection of events. I only know that my periwig was lost in the descent and that, having passed at great velocity through thicket and thorn I revived sometime later in a state of utter dishevelment. Indeed, even Mr. Tangle himself would never allow himself to be seen in such a condition!

© Tangle & Hump, Peddlers of the Past

The Last Word...

February 25th 1761

Despite Mr. Tangle's distracting screams I have made considerable progress on the epitaph for the stone which will mark my final resting place. I could not resist the temptation of writing this in my own blood...

Cornelius Hump, Gent.

Born 1715, deceased ...

The pie is eaten

The crust remains

No more trifles

No more pains

Every Spring the frog

Will jump

But still I lie,

Cornelius Hump


© Tangle & Hump, Peddlers of the Past

Scrotal Bells and Screams in Croyland Abbey

February 24th 1761, Norwiche

Still recovering from the coach journey to Croyland Abbey with Dan Tangle and Jimothy Ditheridge. I shudder to think on it, but I must record here a most perplexing incident which took place as we stepped into the main abbey church.

Hearing my medieval crotal bell ringing in my pocket, Ditheridge enquired,
"Cornelius, is that your crotal bell I can hear ringing?"
"Scrotal bell!" exclaimed Dan immediately.
"No Dan, crotal", replied I.
"SCROTAL you say!" cries he, in his harsh loud tones.
I gestured to him to place his ear-trumpet to his ear, and as he did so I repeated myself...
"It's my crotal bell Dan."
"Scrotal bell Cornelius! Well I'll be damned, didn't take you for one of those tinkle-tailed dandiprats..."

It was then that I noticed a gathered of well-dressed ladies glowering accusingly from the chancel end in our direction, clearly shocked by our exchange. Despite my years I felt myself colouring up and smiled meekly as I removed Mr. Tangle's hat from atop his head.

For as long as I may be granted the gift of life I will never forget the sound of their screams as I reached into my pocket to reveal my bell to them.

© Tangle & Hump, Peddlers of the Past

Ditheridge!

February 23rd 1763...

My latest paper for submission to 'The Learned Society of Antiquarians' was completed over five weeks ago. I had yet another meeting with Jimothy Ditheridge on Monday last and he reassures me that he has the illustrations I have requested, "in hand". I suggested that if he try moving the aforementioned hand,  whilst gripping a pencil, then I might have the completed paper, "in hand" by now!

© Tangle & Hump, Peddlers of the Past

Dandiprat & Twangling Jack!

February 21st 1761

"You Sir are a dandiprat and a twangling Jack!"

"Potbelly! Cudden! Fustilliarian!"

Mr. Tangle was screaming by this point...

"Goat-licker! Fopdoodle..."

Having imbibed a few too many measures of aqua vitae at the Angel we were what might be termed, 'potvaliant' as we staggered and swayed on our way homewards. 

With his tattered green frockcoat, flapping shoe-buckle and lurching wig, one might readily mistake him for a lowly drazel . To think that this same creature authored such ground-breaking papers as, "Notable Norfolke Knockers", "In Defence of Conquest Denial" and "Antiquarian Articles and Pernickerty Disputations"!  

We are over-cloyed indeed!

© Tangle & Hump, Peddlers of the Past

A Persistent Stain!

February 25th 1761

Despite Maide's best efforts the stain persists, and I am in the most damnable blue  funk as a result! I may have to take the precious tome to Pauper McKnowall's for restoration ...


One really would expect a chap to maintain his eyes more responsibly than Mr. Tangle - the fopdoodle!

Meanwhile, the aforementioned fopdoodle continues to slumber deeply, as if unconscious, as he hath many days previously...
© Tangle & Hump, Peddlers of the Past

Gadzooks, My Lovely Book!

Feb 22nd 1761

Had just finished a grand steak and ale pie in the company of Mr. Tangle, when, once again, the poor wretch's eyes began to bleed profusely, making an unsightly mess on my treasured copy of Bulstrode Proudlove's 'Knobs & Knockers of Norfolke'. I am very concerned that the resulting stain will  be permanent, and have tasked Maide with restoring the manuscript to its former condition. This really is most perplexing!
© Tangle & Hump, Peddlers of the Past

Jebediah's Return...

February 20th, 1761...

Jebediah returned past midnight to the carriage, bright-eyed and bedraggled. He smelt of the marsh and by some ingenuity had contrived to construct a pair of lichen eyebrows to adorn his brow. Experience has taught me to refrain from enquiring about such matters, and so it was with some considerable relief that we wended our way homewards through the dark night lanes of Norfolk. No matter how queer the gallopings of the artist may appear to us clod-footed trundlers, we must, nonetheless, trust to their conspectuity!

Back in the city, I am sitting in my study composing this in the dead of night , as, alas, I find sleep is not a butterfly that landeth on this withered flower. In the flickering candlelight the baboon skull gifted me by Tobias Irnwin grins malevolently. Aside from the barkings of some stray curs Norwiche slumbers...

Tomorrow Dan Tangle will come a calling, for we are to go to the market place to view Billy Kipper Hands, the Yarmouth fish boy. I am mightily weary now...
© Cornelius Hump, Esq.
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A Purchaser of Pillows!

April 19th, 1761...

Huzzah! Dan Tangle has confirmed to me that, this Friday next, he will bring a carriage to the door of my abode, for we are to travel along the lazy lost lanes of Norfolk as we seek to harvest new corne from olde fields. We are to go a-churching once again and, having just thumbed through my volume of  Didcot Cockermouth's "Large Erecktions in Norfolke", I am prodigously excited!

Thus aroused, I feel the sap rising and, adorning my finest frock-coat, I walk swaggeringly on my way to the Angel as if I were the Norfolke Dandy himself. Upon entering that establishment, I step over the prostrate form of poor Robert Dominic Maltravers, and make my way to the table next the window, where Dan Tangle stares transfixed at the remains of Jimothy Ditheridge's half-eaten cake. I join them and I too find my self staring at the moist morsels, wondering how it can be that a man can cast aside such delights. I know too that I am playing a waiting game. Eventually, Jimothy makes his excuses, adjusts his cuffs and lollops off and out of the inn. 

"How d'ya do it Hump!" cries Mr. Tangle.

"Don't know what you mean Sir" says I, indignantly, chewing the cake that, rapier-like, I had stuffed into my fissog. 

"You always get his leavings - it in't fair!" protests Dan.

"Don't sulk Dan, your face will fall into that plate. Look, if you want to grow one of these (tapping my belly), then you need to strike quick and then chew slow."

Whereupon I patted my lips with the table-cloth and began to discourse upon the subject of a man who leaves morsels upon his plate ...

"You see Dan, it is a French affectation - nay, a disease Sir... an affliction in fact. An Englishman should be a sturdy beast, fed full and well on beef and cake and other felicitous fecundities, whereas the Frenchman... well, he is lean and rickety, much like poor Jimothy there. Do you know that I heard that he recently purchased a pillow?"

"A pillow!" cried Dan, shocked...

"Yes, a pillow, damn and blast it!"

"It cannot be Cornelius... most perplexing..."

© Cornelius Hump, Esq.
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Jebediah, where are you?

February 19th, 1761...

Travelling in the modest carriage of my dear friend, Jebediah Mondrake, I arrived at the fine old church of East Lexham in Norfolke around midday. On this crisp winters day snow lay all around, and I spied a solitary Robin Red Breast standing like a  sentinel upon the Holly bush yonder; poised the little fella was, as if to salute our arrival. Before my stockinged leg had even stepped beyond the aforementioned vehicle, Jebediah had gamboled off into the churchyard, bandy-legged like a Spring lamb.

Recorded within the handsome calf-skin bound volume, nestled snugly in the pocket of my frock coat, were notes about the church composed by the learned antiquarian, and fellow member of the Ragged Society of Antiquarian Ramblers, Pariah Greengrass...

"Whilst the ignorant ploughboy is oft tymes heard to proclaim that this construction be the relict of a well remayning from the tyme of the flood, this is clearly erroneous. Rather, the rigorous endeavours of certyaine notable Antiquarians have indisputably established this to be a Roman Slaughter Tower, from whence the daughters of the red-headed queen Boadicea were cast off into oblivion!"

There I stood, transfixed, looking up at the vertiginous tower, whilst those poor fragile creatures, conjured to form in the wings of my mind's eye, fell to their ghastly end. Whereupon, aghast at the thought of such brutality, I felt compelled to go and investigate the soil proximate to the tower to see if there was still some impression left by the impact of those poor fallen babes. There was not.

I was carefully examining some curious mossy growth on the tower, when a bony hand clasped my shoulder, causing me to shriek out loud like Mrs Briggs herself...
"Aieek!" cried I.

"Nature's art forms Sir!"

It was Jebediah, returned from his frolics in search of snowdrops and other such winter wonders. 

"Art forms?" answered I, perplexed.

"Yay indeed Sir. Even in such seemingly unpromising mossy compositions as these, if you take your eye-glass and look closely, a jewel-box of forms will be revealed - a jewel-box I say! "

We fell to silence, and, recovering from my momentary reverie, I noted that Jebediah stood, head back with mouth gaping open in wonder as he stared fixedly up at the tower...

"What a truly splendid erection this is Cornelius! I have not seen one as large or as long lasting as this in a long time." 

And then he was off again, scuttling out of the gate and off into the small woods proximate to the church ; in search of  small creatures, the beauty of nature - and a place to piss no doubt!

I am writing this entry some five hours after Jebediah's disappearance, and although dusk has dimmed our lights he is still nowhere to be seen. I have eaten Jebediah's cold pork cuts and  pasties, and drunk a good swig of Nog. Sitting here in the carriage with a blanket on my knees, warmed only by my prodigious farts and the embers of my pipe, I find myself remembering Dan Tangle's verdict upon poore Jebediah -
"He is a perfect jobbernob Cornelius - as much use to a man as a one-winged butterfly!"
In reply, I had discoursed at length about the virtues of both Jebediah and one-winged butterflies, but alack, now...
Now, I am very much afeared that I may yet be waiting here for some considerable time...  
© Cornelius Hump, Esq.
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