suspicion of poisoning.
* The four following chapters contain the history of passing
the Bill against Occasional Conformity, and of the Whigs
agreeing to it.
The attentive reader cannot have forgot that the story of Van
Ptschirnsooker's powder was interrupted by a message from Frog. I have a
natural compassion for curiosity, being much troubled with the distemper
myself; therefore to gratify that uneasy itching sensation in my reader,
I have procured the following account of that matter.
Van Ptschirnsooker came off (as rogues usually do upon such occasions)
by peaching his partner; and being extremely forward to bring him to
the gallows, Jack* was accused as the contriver of all the roguery. And,
indeed, it happened unfortunately for the poor fellow, that he was
known to bear a most inveterate spite against the old gentlewoman; and,
consequently, that never any ill accident happened to her but he was
suspected to be at the bottom of it. If she pricked her finger, Jack, to
be sure, laid the pin in the way; if some noise in the street disturbed
her rest, who could it be but Jack in some of his nocturnal rambles?
If a servant ran away, Jack had debauched him. Every idle tittle-tattle
that went about, Jack was always suspected for the author of it.
However, all was nothing to this last affair of the temperating,
moderating powder.
* All the misfortunes of the Church charged upon the Puritan
party.
The hue and cry went after Jack to apprehend him dead or alive, wherever
he could be found. The constables looked out for him in all his usual
haunts; but to no purpose. Where d'ye think they found him at last? Even
smoking his pipe, very quietly, at his brother Martin's; from whence
he was carried with a vast mob at his heels, before the worshipful Mr.
Justice Overdo. Several of his neighbours made oath,* that of late, the
prisoner had been observed to lead a very dissolute life, renouncing
even his usual hypocrisy and pretences to sobriety; that he frequented
taverns and eating-houses, and had been often guilty of drunkenness and
gluttony at my Lord Mayor's table; that he had been seen in the company
of lewd women; that he had transferred his usual care of the engrossed
copy of his father's will to bank bills, orders for tallies, and
debentures:** these he now affirmed, with more literal truth, to be
meat, drink, and cloth, the philosopher's stone, and the universal
medicine;*** that he was so far from showing his customary reverence
to the will, that he kept company with those that called his father a
cheating rogue, and his will a forgery; that he not only sat quietly and
heard his father railed at, but often chimed in with the discourse, and
hugged the authors as his bosom friends;**** that instead of asking for
blows at the corners of the streets, he now bestowed them as plentifully
as he begged them before.*** In short, that he was grown a mere rake;
and had nothing left in him of old Jack except his spite to John Bull's
mother.
* The manners of the Dissenters changed from their former
strictness.
** Dealing much in stock-jobbing.
*** "Tale of a Tub."
**** Herding with deists and atheists.
Another witness made oath, that Jack had been overheard bragging of a
trick* he had found out to manage the "old formal jade," as he used to
call her. "Hang this numb-skull of mine," quoth he, "that I could not
light on it sooner. As long as I go in this ragged tattered coat, I am
so well known, that I am hunted away from the old woman's door by every
barking cur about the house; they bid me defiance. There's no doing
mischief as an open enemy; I must find some way or other of getting
within doors, and then I shall have better opportunities of playing my
pranks, besides the benefit of good keeping."
* Getting into places and Church preferments by occasional
conformity.
Two witnesses swore* that several years ago, there came to their
mistress's door a young fellow in a tattered coat, that went by the name
of Timothy Trim, whom they did in their conscience believe to be the
very prisoner, resembling him in shape, stature, and the features of
his countenance. That the said Timothy Trim being taken into the family,
clapped their mistress's livery over his own tattered coat; that the
said Timothy was extremely officious about their mistress's person,
endeavouring by flattery and tale-bearing to set her against the rest of
the servants: nobody was so ready to fetch anything that was wanted,
to reach what was dropped. That he used to shove and elbow his
fellow-servants to get near his mistress, especially when money was
a paying or receiving--then he was never out of the way; that he was
extremely diligent about everybody's business but his own. That the said
Timothy, while he was in the family, used to be playing roguish tricks;
when his mistress's back was turned, he would loll out his tongue, make
mouths, and laugh at her, walking behind her like Harlequin, ridiculing
her motions and gestures; but if his mistress looked about, he put on a
grave, demure countenance, as if he had been in a fit of devotion; that
he used often to trip up-stairs so smoothly that you could not hear him
tread, and put all things out of order; that he would pinch the children
and servants, when he met them in the dark, so hard, that he left the
print of his forefingers and his thumb in black and blue, and then
slink into a corner, as if nobody had done it. Out of the same malicious
design he used to lay chairs and joint-stools in their way, that
they might break their noses by falling over them. The more young and
inexperienced he used to teach to talk saucily, and call names. During
his stay in the family there was much plate missing; being caught with a
couple of silver spoons in his pocket, with their handles wrenched off,
he said he was only going to carry them to the goldsmiths to be mended:
that the said Timothy was hated by all the honest servants, for his
ill-conditioned, splenetic tricks, but especially for his slanderous
tongue; traducing them to their mistress as drunkards and thieves: that
the said Timothy, by lying stories, used to set all the family
together by the ears, taking delight to make them fight and quarrel;
**particularly one day sitting at table, he spoke words to this effect:
"I am of opinion," quoth he, "that little short fellows, such as we are,
have better hearts, and could beat the tall fellows; I wish it came to a
fair trial; I believe these long fellows, as sightly as they are, should
find their jackets well thwacked."
* Betraying the interests of the Church when got into
preferments.
** The original of the distinction in the names of Low
Churchmen and High Churchmen.
A parcel of tall fellows, who thought themselves affronted by the
discourse, took up the quarrel, and to it they went, the tall men and
the low men, which continues still a faction in the family, to the great
disorder of our mistress's affairs. The said Timothy carried this frolic
so far, that he proposed to his mistress that she should entertain no
servant that was above four feet seven inches high, and for that purpose
had prepared a gauge, by which they were to be measured. The good old
gentlewoman was not so simple as to go into his projects--she began
to smell a rat. "This Trim," quoth she, "is an odd sort of a fellow;
methinks he makes a strange figure with that ragged, tattered coat
appearing under his livery; can't he go spruce and clean, like the rest
of the servants? The fellow has a roguish leer with him which I don't
like by any means; besides, he has such a twang in his discourse, and
an ungraceful way of speaking through the nose, that one can hardly
understand him; I wish the fellow be not tainted with some bad disease."
The witnesses further made oath, that the said Timothy lay out a-nights,
and went abroad often at unseasonable hours; and it was credibly
reported he did business in another family: that he pretended to have
a squeamish stomach, and could not eat at table with the rest of the
servants, though this was but a pretence to provide some nice bit
for himself; that he refused to dine upon salt fish, only to have an
opportunity to eat a calf's head (his favourite dish) in private; that
for all his tender stomach, when he was got by himself, he could devour
capons, turkeys, and sirloins of beef, like a cormorant.
Two other witnesses gave the following evidence: That in his officious
attendance upon his mistress, he had tried to slip a powder into her
drink, and that he was once caught endeavouring to stifle her with a
pillow as she was asleep; that he and Ptschirnsooker were often in close
conference, and that they used to drink together at the "Rose," where it
seems he was well enough known by his true name of Jack.
The prisoner had little to say in his defence; he endeavoured to prove
himself alibi, so that the trial turned upon this single question,
whether the said Timothy Trim and Jack were the same person; which was
proved by such plain tokens, and particularly by a mole under the
left pap, that there was no withstanding the evidence; therefore the
worshipful Mr. Justice committed him, in order to his trial.