_What sort of fellows =John= and =Lewis= were in use to employ to keep
their orchards, and their poultry._
History tells us many lies, if this was the first time that John and
Lewis came to blows; and Sir Humphrey Polisworth may think to conceal
it if he will, but many a time has Lewis, in his youth, lost his hat
and his wig in scuffles with John, and as often has John come home with
a broken pate, though very few people durst tell it to his wife or his
mother. In short, these two had been troublesome rogues to one another
time out of mind; and at the time of which we are now speaking, there
was no such thing as law or justice in the whole country. If you could
keep your own, it was well; if not, it did not signify complaining;
two or three stout fellows at your back, a brace of pistols, or a
blunderbuss, was a better title to an estate than the best conveyance
in the world. Whilst you thought yourself sure of your lands, two or
three fellows in the neighbourhood would be disputing who should have
it; and of Lord Strutt, Lewis Baboon, Squire South, Nicholas Frog,
John Bull himself, and all the gang of them, there was not one to
mend another, they did not mind blowing out one another’s brains one
farthing; they had got honourable names for thieving, robbing, and
house-breaking, such as policy, conquest, and invasion; and if you
lived in their neighbourhood, they were sure to leave you nothing,
unless you could handle a cutlass, or fire a blunderbuss, and kept
friends with some one or other of them, who protected you for his own
sake, or that he might take all you had at a more convenient time. God
help the poor milk-sop that trusted to the goodness of his cause.
This made every body look about him; and John among the rest, for
many a day, had as stout a family of young fellows as any in all the
neighbourhood, and would not take an affront or an injury from any man.
His boys were for the most part sober, peaceable fellows within doors;
but if there was any noise heard over-night among the poultry in the
orchard, or the workshop, it needed only the bark of a dog to bring a
score of them into the court, and from every corner of John’s house you
could hear nothing but striving who should be out first. Every body
had his cutlass, or his carabine at his bed’s-head, and it is hard to
say which they were most jealous of, their father’s honour, or the
preservation of his estate. It was the pride of John’s heart in those
days, to see his boys hardy and resolute, and he hated a sneaking,
puny, pewling fellow, like the devil.
In this humour John lived for many a day; but many changes happen
which nobody looks for; people persuaded him by degrees, that if
he had money enough there was nothing else worth minding. From this
hopeful maxim, he even neglected sending his children to school, locked
up their cudgels and cricket-batts, and would not let one of them touch
a gun, for fear they should hurt themselves. He had got by heart all
the stories that ever his nurse had told him, about the accidents which
happen at rough play, or in handling firelocks, and would repeat them
sometimes, till his wife and his mother were quite ashamed of him.
It would require the pen of a great historian to tell how this great
change was brought about. Some people said, that John was old and
began to doat; others said, that it was all owing to an old nurse
who lived about the house; but alas, they do not tell us how John
came to be directed by old women, or what was the reason that some
of John’s neighbours were grown worse than even he was at this
time. Lewis Baboon was grown from a spruce forward gallant, a mere
priest-ridden, whore-ridden, flimsey periwig-making old fool. Lord
Strutt could never be got out of his bed before eleven o’clock in the
morning; and Nicholas Frog would rather have taken ready money for a
farthing-candle, than see his best friend return from the grave. One
stout man could have chaced a hundred of them into the sea, and yet
these damned fellows contrived to be very troublesome for all that, by
means of a device of which the devil himself was certainly the author.
In their younger days they were all ready enough at a blow, yet as they
and every body about them, had some other business besides fighting,
they could not well quarrel when they were otherways engaged; but they
came at last to keep people on purpose to fight, and as nobody cared
what became of these fellows, they would send them out for the turn
of a straw, to play the devil in all the neighbourhood; and the rest
of the people at home trusting to them, became mere milk-sops and old
women.
An historian of great credit affirms, that this practice was grafted
on that of keeping a game-keeper; and for this reason it is, that
although there be many more of them in every house than are necessary
to keep the game, they are nevertheless known under the title of
game-keepers even unto this day. In former times, continues he,
every father of a family and his children, were sportmen more or
less. It mattered not who started the game, they could all shoot
without distinction; and it mattered as little what part of the house
a thief attempted to break in upon, the first man he met thought
himself obliged to defend the premises. But when they grew lazy,
spiritless, and purse-proud, they must needs keep their game-keepers
like lords, and each according to his estate, got as many as he
could well maintain, and those he employed not only to knock down
a hare, or a partridge, now and then, for the master’s table, but
to them he entrusted the whole defence of his estate inclosed and
common, barn-yards, orchards, and kitchin-grounds, and it was thought
presumption in any body else to do any thing besides running away when
any body attempted to disturb the house. Lewis Baboon would have kept
you forty or fifty at a time, and this when nobody was meddling with
him, as he said, to guard his poultry, and attend him to church.
These fellows did nothing from morning to night, but first turn upon
one heel, and then upon another, put a gun sometimes to their hip,
sometimes to their nose, sometimes to their shoulder; and, in short,
played so many antic tricks with a musket, that few or none of them
could remember or distinguish its real use. But they bilked their
landlords, cursed, swore, and bullied, wherever they went, and in many
houses where such fellows were kept, nobody durst say his life was his
own for them.
It may be hard enough to tell how any matter of a family came to keep
such people about him; but the most amazing thing of all is, how John
Bull, so kind a father, and so good a master, should ever think of
entertaining so many of them, and trust more to their affection, than
to that of his own children.
It is true, that John’s heart has always misgiven him in this project;
he generally keeps a dozen or so, but nobody could ever prevail on
him, or Mrs. Bull, to tell how long they were to keep them; and every
Saturday night when he pays off his workmen, he always says, Gentlemen,
whereas it goes against my conscience, to keep some damned rascals
perpetually about my house, you are to remain only for next week, and
no longer; but still he keeps them on in this manner from one week to
another, for which he has many salvo’s. In the first place, says John,
I don’t take any body but my own tenants sons, or now and then an idle
fellow from my own farm, and I have always some of my own boys who keep
them company; so that they always behave very respectfully to me, and
have often taken my part, when such fellows as Nicholas Frog keeps
would have cut my throat. Secondly, says John, I only keep them as long
as Squire Geoffrey and his abettors are like to be troublesome, which I
hope will not be long. But many of John’s enemies said, that there was
a better reason than all these put together, viz. that he was afraid to
fire a gun himself, and was frightened out of his senses when he had
not some of his bullies by him.
Whether this was the cause, or the effect of his keeping those fellows,
it must be owned that John Bull, who used to be a bold hearty fellow,
always master in his own house, and afraid of nothing, began to sneak
about the doors, and would start at his own shadow; and when there was
any noise in the orchard, or poultry-yard, he would scour up to the
garret, and leave the game-keepers and the thieves to do what they
pleased with his effects, shutting his eyes, and stopping his ears,
that he might not see or hear any shooting of guns, of which in truth
he was become marvelously afraid. Lewis Baboon had no more ado, but
to give out that he was going to pay a civil visit to John, in order
to put the whole house in a pannic: and this word _pannic_ was grown
so familiar with John, that he had it always ready as an excuse for
running away upon the slightest occasion.