Chap. VI The Dismal Transmigration of Master Tommy Filch Into the Body of a Wolf
As soon as we had lifted up the latch to enter into the next apartment, we were immediately alarmed by a horrid howling; which upon opening the door we discovered to be the savage musick of a lusty young wolf, who looked as fierce as if he would have torn every one of us to pieces. But a strong chain confined his fury to one corner of the room; so that we could venture pretty near him without any danger of feeling the strength of his jaws. “This plundering and voracious animal, said the Bramin, who has been accustomed to gratify his appetite at the expense of all the farmers in the neighbourhood, is inhabited by the soul of the late Master Filch, who, as you will find by the sequel of the story, is now placed in a station which is perfectly suitable to his character. His very infancy was disgraced by a natural propensity to fraud and rapine; for as soon as he could talk plain enough to be understood, the chief employment of his tongue was to tell as many stories as his little head was capable of inventing; and that his hands might come in for their share of mischief, he never failed to make a property of all the sugar, fruit, tarts, &c. which the carelessness of the servants had left within his reach. If his parents had been wise enough to chastise him for his little roguery, they might have nipped it in the bud; but they were so imprudently fond, that they not only neglected to administer the discipline of the rod, but made his falsehood and pilferings the constant subject of their merriment. They considered his faults as trivial, because they were the faults of a child; not reflecting that if the seeds of vice are suffered to grow, they will in a shorter time than is commonly imagined, take such deep root in the heart, that it will be scarcely possible to eradicate them. Experience, however, soon undeceived them; for when little Filch was eight or nine years old, though he had plenty of fruit at home, they had the mortification to be informed that he was making daily incursions into every poor man’s garden in the neighbourhood. The consequence of these repeated complaints was sometimes a severe reprimand, and sometimes as severe a flogging; but neither the one nor the other were able to produce a reformation, though it is very probable, that if they had been applied in time, they might have been applied to better purpose. From robbing orchards he soon proceeded to the raising private contributions on his school fellows. Sometimes he defrauded them at play: sometimes he picked their pockets; and very frequently he stole their books, or money, out of their desks and boxes: and, as it is the study of every wicked boy to maintain the appearance of honesty as long as he is able, as soon as the robbery was discovered he was the first person to exclaim against it, which he did in the bitterest terms, and to prevent a long and circumstantial inquiry after the author of it (which he suspected would not terminate in his favour) he impudently pretended to have been an eye witness of the fact, and then boldly charged it upon one or another of his school mates, who he knew had neither skill nor spirit enough to contradict his evidence in a satisfactory manner. By this means the bashful innocent was frequently punished instead of the guilty. But as bad boys are seldom able to conceal their faults long from the eye of justice, young Filch was soon detected in his wickedness, and being considered as a dangerous person, whose bad example might have a pernicious effect upon his play fellows, he was first corrected with all the severity he deserved, and then sent home to his parents. In this disgraceful manner he was dismissed from every school in the country, ’till at last, though he was only thirteen years old, there was not a single academy into which he could be admitted upon any terms whatever. But this was not the worst effect of the ill character he had acquired: for as no one is willing to introduce a lad of bad reputation into his house, there was not a tradesman of any credit to be found who would venture to take him as an apprentice, though a large premium was offered for that purpose. His parents, therefore, were under the disagreeable necessity of keeping him at home; but having little or nothing for him to do, he soon fell into bad company, who in as short a time gave him a perfect relish for the scandalous and expensive amusement of gaming and tippling. His finances, though sufficiently plentiful for a youth of his age, were by these destructive means so much encumbered with little debts, that to maintain a worthless credit among his worthless companions, he formed the wicked resolution of taking money from his father and mother without their knowledge. The One man pointing a hand gun at another mansuccess of his first attempt (in which he was not discovered, because he was not suspected to be capable of so much baseness) encouraged him to a second; and the success of his second attempt encouraged him to greater extravagances and more expensive risk than he had ventured upon before. But his wickedness, which in the former instances had been wrongfully charged upon the servants of the family, being at last detected, and his parents taking him very severely to task on account of such an abandoned and depraved conduct, he left them in a fit of anger and remorse, and became a thoughtless and unhappy wanderer; in this situation falling one evening into a company whose mirth and gaiety greatly delighted him, and whose genteel appearance led him to suppose they were gentlemen, though in reality they were no other than highwaymen, he was prevailed on in an unguarded moment, when heated with liquor, to make an incursion with this infamous banditti, and actually stopped a gentleman and demanded his money; fortunately, however for this unhappy youth, the gentleman was an old school fellow, and making himself known to him, with much intreaty prevailed on him immediately to leave the company of those desperate adventurers, and totally to abandon a mode of life so shockingly wicked in itself, and so dreadfully fatal in its consequences. A boy in front of wall shelves “But from the idle and dissipated manner in which he had spent his time, he had contracted an unconquerable habit of indolence, and a rooted aversion to business; in this frame of mind, the army became his last resource, into which he entered as a common soldier, but after a short time his itch for pilfering returning, he could not refrain from making free with some money with which he was intrusted by his officer; being detected, he was punished with that rigorous severity with which thefts in the army usually are, and being afterwards thrown into the Savoy prison, to prevent a repetition of his crime, he died there in a few days of his wounds in the utmost misery. When the Bramin had finished this melancholy tale, the poor wolf, as if he was conscious how nearly it concerned him, heightened the horrour with which it had filled us by such a mournful and terrifying howl, as made us heartily glad to quit the room.”