Turbot

“ When he got nearly right, the old "Turbot" took tea at Merivale, and the Doctor let the past bury the past, as they say, and made a speech, and hoped that the chaps would follow "Turbot's" lead in certain directions, though not in all. But privately to the "Turbot" he said more than this. In fact, he dug up the past again, and reminded "Turbot" that he should not do evil that good may come. ”

“ Juvenal, in his fourth Satire, gives us a very ludicrous description of the Roman emperor Domitian assembling the Senate to decide how and with what sauce this fish should be eaten. The Turbot is sometimes two feet and a half long, and about two broad. The scales on the skin are so very small that they are hardly perceptible. The colour of the upper side of the body is a dark brown, spotted with dirty yellow; the under side a pure white, tinged on the edges with a somewhat flesh-colour, or pale pink. There is a great difficulty in baiting the Turbot, as it is very fastidious in its food. ”

“ Although the turbot abounds off the west coast of Ireland, the fishing is not carried on with the same energy and success as in the English Channel and German Ocean. The turbot is also common, though not abundant, in the Mediterranean, and is replaced in the Black Sea by an allied species with much larger bony tubercles (Rh. Mæoticus) . Both species grow to a large size, being usually sold at from 5 to 10 lb. ”

“ These anomalies, either real or supposed, had, perhaps, as great a share in rendering the scarus celebrated, as the delicacy of its flesh, and the exquisite flavour of its intestines. Merit the most real can so rarely keep the field unsupported by cajollery.
TURBOT.
Rome and Italy were indebted to the prætor, Sempronius, or to Rufus Rutilius, [XXI_95] for the turbot, which they taught their countrymen to appreciate. This fish quickly obtained the success which it merited, and was compared to the pheasant, as soles were likened to partridges, lampreys to quails, and sturgeons to peacocks. ”

“ I cannot teach him much seamanship, but I’ll give a hint to those who can, and I’ll look after him, and see that he gets into no mischief, as long as I am in the ship. We are going out to a somewhat trying climate though, and men of my figure are apt to suffer, I am told.”
He cast a momentary glance over himself. It was fortunate for Sergeant Turbot that he was a marine, and still more that he had not to go aloft. On board ship he could do his duty admirably, but on shore his figure was decidedly against him. ”

“ The cattle are always housed in winter, but remain out at night from May till October. There was formerly a small black breed of horses peculiar to the island, but horses are now chiefly imported from France or England. Pigs are kept principally for local consumption, and only a few sheep are reared. Fish are not so plentiful as round the shores of Guernsey, but mackerel, turbot, cod, mullet and especially the conger eel are abundant at the Minquiers. There is a large oyster bed between Jersey and France, but partly on account of over-dredging the supply is not so abundant as formerly. ”

“ C.—Small examples taken in wolders, Shrimp and draw nets. Some very large specimens occasionally brought in from the North Sea. Two on the wharf on Feb. 1st, 1896, when gutted, weighed 29 lb. and 30 lb. "Double" Turbots not unfrequently occur, when both sides are found dark coloured, and spiny processes adorn the under surface as well as the upper. Occasionally a notch in the head holds one eye, which can see either way. ”

“ Tur"bo (?) , n. [L. turbo, - inis, a top. See Turbine.] (Zoöl.) Any one of numerous marine gastropods of the genus Turbo or family Turbinidæ, usually having a turbinate shell, pearly on the inside, and a calcareous operculum.
Tur"bot (?) , n. [F.; — probably so named from its shape, and from L. turbo a top, a whirl.] (Zoöl.) (a) A large European flounder (Rhombus maximus) highly esteemed as a food fish. It often weighs from thirty to forty pounds. Its color on the upper side is brownish with small roundish tubercles scattered over the surface. The lower, or blind, side is white. ”

“ They are all your friends for life."
"Nevertheless," returned Turpin, "I should be glad to know what has become of Bess."
"If it's your prancer you are wanting," chirped a fluttering creature, whom Turpin recognized as Luke's groom, Grasshopper, "I gave her a fresh loaf and a stoup of stingo, as you bade me, and there she be, under yon tree, as quiet as a lamb."
"I see her," replied Turpin; "just tighten her girths, Grasshopper, and bring her after me, and thou shalt have wherewithal to chirp over thy cups at supper." ”

“ While involved in one of these fogs, Turpin became aware of another horseman by his side. It was impossible to discern the features of the rider, but his figure in the mist seemed gigantic; neither was the color of his steed distinguishable. Nothing was visible except the meagre-looking, phantom-like outline of a horse and his rider, and, as the unknown rode upon the turf that edged the way, even the sound of the horse's hoofs was scarcely audible. Turpin gazed, not without superstitious awe. ”

“ I drive along, and am a proper man, as if I had four-and-twenty legs!" These were Turpin's sentiments precisely. Give him four legs and a wide plain, and he needed no Mephistopheles to bid him ride to perdition as fast as his nag could carry him. Away, away!—the road is level, the path is clear. Press on, thou gallant steed, no obstacle is in thy way!—and, lo! the moon breaks forth! Her silvery light is thrown over the woody landscape. Dark shadows are cast athwart the road, and the flying figures of thy rider and thyself are traced, like giant phantoms, in the dust! ”

“ The wind was from the south-east, and being thus partially off shore, would enable the frigate to stand in closer to the land than she otherwise might have ventured to do. This greatly diminished the chances of the cutter’s escape.
Captain Turgot, however, like a brave man, did not tear his hair, or stamp, or swear, as Frenchmen are sometimes supposed to do, but, taking the helm, set every sail his craft could carry, and did his best, by careful steering, to keep to windward of the enemy. ”

“ Dick Turpin!" and the hurrahs were changed to hootings; but such was the rate at which our highwayman rode, that no serious opposition could be offered to him.
A man in a donkey-cart, unable to get out of the way, drew himself up in the middle of the road. Turpin treated him as he had done the dub at the knapping jigger, and cleared the driver and his little wain with ease. This was a capital stroke, and well adapted to please the multitude, who are ever taken with a brilliant action. "Hark away, Dick!" resounded on all hands, while hisses were as liberally bestowed upon his pursuers. ”

“ With his friends, they say Dick Turpin can be as gentle as a lamb; with his foes, especially with a limb of the law like yourself, he's been found but an ugly customer. I once saw him at Newmarket, where he was collared by two constable culls, one on each side. Shaking off one, and dealing the other a blow in the face with his heavy-handled whip, he stuck spurs into his mare, and though the whole field gave chase, he distanced them all, easily. ”

“ Turpin, at least, understood the appeal in that sense; he was skilled in the language of the Houyhnhnms. "I would rather lose my right hand than that should happen," sighed he; "but there's no saying: the best of friends must part; and thou and I may be one day separated: thy destination is the knacker—mine, perhaps, the gibbet.—We are neither of us cut out for old age, that's certain. Curse me if I can tell how it is; since I've been in that vault, I've got some queer crotchet into my head. I can't help likening thee to that poor gipsy wench, Sybil ”

“ The familiar "Dick" itself shows us how the great public long ago took Turpin to its ample bosom, and cherished him, but the student of these things smiles a little sourly as he traces the quite unheroic doings of this exceptionally mean and skulking scoundrel, and fails all the time to note anything of a dashing nature in his very busy but altogether sordid career.
Turpin never rode that famous Ride to York upon Black Bess: another and an earlier than he by some sixty years—the bold and daring Nevison—performed [Pg 174] that ride, as we have already shown ”

“ Of course it is now by far too late to snatch from Turpin the false glory bestowed upon him. A hundred romances, a century of popular plays, have for ever in the popular mind identified him with the Ride to York, and with all manner of achievements and graces that were never his. Lies are brazen and immortal; truth is modest; and the Great Turpin Myth is too fully established to be thoroughly scotched.
But let us to the career of Nevison, as told in the pages of what few authorities exist. He seems to have been a precocious boy: precocious in things evil. ”

“ But hark back to Dick Turpin. We left him rattling along in superb style, and in the highest possible glee. He could not, in fact, be otherwise than exhilarated; nothing being so wildly intoxicating as a mad gallop. We seem to start out of [389] ourselves—to be endued, for the time, with new energies. Our thoughts take wings rapid as our steed. We feel as if his fleetness and boundless impulses were for the moment our own. We laugh; we exult; we shout for very joy. ”

“ An Italian economist, when he heard of Turgot's appointment, wrote to a friend in France as follows: "So Turgot is controller general! He will not remain in office long enough to carry out his plans. He will punish some scoundrels; he will bluster about and lose his temper; he will be anxious to do good, but will run against obstacles and rogues at every turn. Public credit will fall; he will be detested; it will be said that he is not fitted for his task. Enthusiasm will cool ”

“ It was Harrison Ainsworth who made Turpin a hero from such very unpromising material, and he, in fact, invented not only the ride to York, but Black Bess as well. According to the novelist, Turpin started from Kilburn, and came into the Great North Road at Highgate, with three mounted officers after him. Thence he turned into Hornsey, and so by the Ware route, the mare clearing the twelve feet high toll-gate on the way without an effort. They always do that in fiction, but the animal that could do it in fact does not exist. ”

“ After a turret lathe is equipped with the tools needed for machining a certain part, it produces the finished work much more rapidly than would be possible by using an ordinary engine lathe, principally because each tool is carefully set for turning or boring to whatever size is required and the turret makes it possible to quickly place any tool in the working position. Turret lathes also have systems of stops or gages for controlling the travel of the turret carriage and cross-slide, in order to regulate the depth of a bored hole, the length of a cylindrical part or its diameter ”

“ PORTMANTEAU, FORMERLY BELONGING TO TURPIN, DISCOVERED AT CLERKENWELL.
But here there should not be much room for doubt. The relic was probably genuine. It was illustrated in Pink's book, but the whereabouts of it are not now known.
The irons worn by Turpin in his cell at York Castle are now preserved in the York Museum, together with those used for Nevison. They have a total weight of 28 lb. ”

“ Turpin, the reader already knows, was a crack rider; he was the crack rider of England of his time, and, perhaps, of any time. The craft and mystery of jockeyship was not so well understood in the eighteenth as it is in the nineteenth century; men treated their horses differently, and few rode them as well as many ride now, when every youngster takes to the field as naturally as if he had been bred a Guacho. Dick Turpin was a glorious exception to the rule, and anticipated a later age. ”

“ But Turpin was on his feet almost instantly; and though he bore four lance-wounds in his body, he raised his sword on high and ran to the side of Roland, crying,—
"I am not defeated! A brave soldier yields with life alone!" Then wreaked he such vengeance upon the heathen hordes that some say God wrought a miracle in his behalf.
If miracle of God there was, it was not granted to save the Christian few from destruction. In the last struggle, the valiant Turpin, wounded and afoot, and the matchless Roland faced the Moslem hosts alone. ”

“ Every few minutes he is compelled to rise to the surface to look out from the top of the machine to guide his course, and his track grows very zig-zag through the waters.
Ah! the soldiers at Governor’s Island see the Turtle! Hundreds are gathering upon the parapet to watch its motions, such a curious boat as it is, with turret of brass bobbing up and down, sinking, disappearing—coming to the surface again in a manner wholly unaccountable. ”

“ Amongst the rest was the ranger Thomson’s man i in company with a higgler. Turpin was unarmed, standing alonc, and not knowing the man, took him for one poaching for hares, and told him he would get no hares near that thicket. “No" says says the fellow, “but I have got a Turpin,” and presented his gun at him, commanded him to surrender. Turpin stood talking with him, and receding back to his cave, laid hold of his carbine, and shot him dead, at which the higgler made off. The man’s death obliged Turpin to make off precipitately; so he went farther into the country in search of King ”

“ He took from him his whip, and saying he had a better horse than his, made him dismount, change, and stay till he had changed clothes likewise, and then rode towards London. Mr Major got to the Green Man, and acquainted Mr Bayes of it, who immediately said, "I dare wager it is Turpin has done it, or one of that crew, that'll endeavour to get intelligence of your horse. ”