_Concerning sister =Peg=._
When the accounts were brought to sister Peg of all those fine doings
in John’s house; how Jowler was entrusted with every thing, and was
driving it away like Jehu; and how John had brought all his arms from
the cellar, and was determined to fight with Lewis Baboon himself; and
how John’s hall was stuck round, as it used to be, with guns, pikes,
bayonets and cutlasses, mixed, as report was, with stags branches, fox
skins, and solitairs taken from Lewis in his youth; Peg expected a
message every minute to desire she would garnish her hall in the same
manner, and get ready the few young men she had left in her house to
oppose Lewis, in case he should attempt to break in that way. But many
a day passed without any tidings; and what was most surprizing of all
was, that with all this lady’s wonted spleen, and acrimony when she
was vexed, there was scarcely a discontented word heard from her on
the occasion. One morning, indeed, at breakfast, she said, that she
could not blame her brother, but that she could not well understand,
what Mrs. Bull meant by putting such a slight upon her, or how it came
to pass that her own clerks, whom she sent to the office, and who had
nothing else to do but to mind her affairs, never let her hear a word
of the matter.
This was almost all that she said, for a great while, and that with
so little appearance of concern, that few historians have taken any
notice of it. People who thought of former times, expected bad humour
enough from her on this occasion; but the fact was, that this lady was
greatly changed in her manners and deportment. From being jealous,
captious, and ready to quarrel about a straw, she was grown in a very
little time, a quiet easy-tempered, good-conditioned body, as could be
wished, and this made some people think that the girl might have been
always easy enough to live with, if people had not played tricks on
porpose to vex her, which indeed was so often the case, that you would
have thought her in a perpetual passion; and she was, by the habit of
continual fretting, so much on the catch, that she thought herself
affronted often, when no such thing was meant. In those days her
servants had better lose their ears, than slight her in the manner they
now did, and they commonly stood as much in awe of her, as the servants
in John’s, or any other house could do of their master and mistress.
But it was a changed world now. Her elder boys and upper servants
passed most of their time out of the house, and sent any orders they
pleased, about the kitchen, the cellar, or the farm; and those who
stayed at home, and did the work of the family, forgot the way to
complain.
Whilst John’s house perpetually rung with the marrow-bones and
cleavers, or cat-calls and groans either in honour or contempt of the
upper-servants, according to their behaviour; insomuch, that Mrs.
Bull’s own woman durst not give herself any saucy airs; in Peg’s house
all was hush, the good and the bad were used almost alike; and as to
the business of the office, it was out of sight out of mind with Peg;
she sent her clerks to wait upon Mrs. Bull, and although she was at
no pains to send people that would not require looking after, yet she
never inquired any more about the matter. Accordingly, they not only
neglected her concerns, but often got bits of the best, for abusing
her to the nurse and the game-keeper, and others of Mrs. Bull’s
gossips; and few or none of them thought of any thing, but how to get a
share to themselves of what was going about Mr. Bull’s house. She had
even the mortification to see some of the worst of them come home, from
John’s counting-room, with directions to keep the keys of her cellar
and pantry, and deal out the victuals to her children; in doing which,
they had a wonderful jargon, which nobody could understand, but which
had a strange effect in benumning and stupifying all their hearers.
They talked perpetually of the _people above_, the _great folks_, or
_the people in power_; and now and then would whisper Peg herself, that
if she kept her temper, the _people above_ might possibly make her a
present of a hood, or a tippet, or a new petticoat, at a proper time;
and though she did not know, who the devil these people above were,
she was perpetually gulled with this sort of talk. Those who pretend
to understand these matters, say, that the people above were such as
had the naming of John Bull’s servants, and that they contrived new
offices, and a variety of perquisites and vails, on purpose to allure
people, who were willing to sell their souls to hell, and cheat their
own father and mother.