Showing how true it is that it takes at least two to make a bargain or a
quarrel.
The day after the events which I have recorded, while the good farmer and
his wife were at breakfast, which was about seven o'clock, Joe presented
himself in the sitting-room, and said:
"Plase, maister, here be t' money for t' pig."
"Money for t' pig," exclaimed Mr. Bumpkin; "what's thee mean, lad? what
pig?"
"Maister Snooks!" said Joe, "there ur be, gwine wi' t' pig in t' barrer."
Nothing shall induce me to repeat the language of Mr. Bumpkin, as he
jumped up from the table, and without hat or cap rushed out of the room,
followed by Joe, and watched by Mrs. Bumpkin from the door. Just as he
got to the farmyard by one gate, there was Snooks leaving it by another
with Mr. Bumpkin's pig in a sack in the box barrow which he was wheeling.
"Hulloa!" shouted the farmer; "hulloa here! Thee put un down--dang thee,
what be this? I said thee shouldn't ave un, no more thee sha'n't. I
beant gwine to breed Chichster pigs for such as thee at thy own price,
nuther." Snooks grinned and went on his way, saying;
"I bought un and I'll 'ave un."
"An I'll 'ave thee, dang'd if I doant, afore jussices; t' Squoire'll tell
thee."
"I doant keer for t' Squire no more nor I do for thee, old Bumpkin; thee
be a cunnin' man, but thee sold I t' pig and I'll 'ave un, and I got un
too: haw! haw! haw! an thee got t' money--nine-and-six--haw! haw! haw!"
Mr. Bumpkin by this time came up to him, but was so much out of breath,
or "winded," that he was unable to carry on the conversation, so he just
tapped the bag with his stick as if to be certain the pig was there, and
sure enough it was, if you might judge by the extraordinary wriggling
that went on inside the bag.
The indomitable Snooks, however, with the largest and most hideous grin I
ever saw, pushed on with his barrow, and Mr. Bumpkin having now
sufficiently recovered his breath, said,
"Thee see ur tak un, didn't thee, Joe?"
"Sure did ur," answered the lad. "I seed un took un clane out o' the
stye, and put un in the sack, and wheeled un away."
"Ha! so ur did, Joe; stick to that, lad--stick to un."
"And thee seed I pay th' money for un, Joe, didn't thee?" laughed Snooks.
"Seed I put un on t' poast, and thee took un oop--haw! haw! haw! I got
t' pig and thee got t' money--haw! haw! haw! Thee thowt thee'd done I,
and I done thee--haw! haw! haw!"
And away went Snooks and away went pig; but Snooks' laugh remained, and
every now and then Snooks turned his head and showed his large yellow
teeth and roared again.
The rage of Mr. Bumpkin knew no bounds. There are some things in life
which are utterly unendurable; and one is the having your pig taken from
you against your will and without your consent--an act which would be
described legally as _the rape of the pig_. This offence, in Mr.
Bumpkin's judgment, Snooks was guilty of; and therefore he resolved to do
that which is considered usually a wise thing, namely, to consult a
solicitor.
Now, if I were giving advice--which I do not presume to do--I should say
that in all matters of difficulty a man should consult his wife, his
priest, or his solicitor, and in the order in which I have named them.
In the event of consulting a solicitor the next important question
arises, "What solicitor?" I could write a book on this subject. There
are numerous solicitors, within my acquaintance, to whom I would entrust
my life and my character; there are some, not of my acquaintance, but of
my knowledge, into whose hands, if I had one spark of Christian feeling
left, I would not see my enemy delivered. There is little difference
between one class of men and another as to natural disposition; and
whether you take one or another, you must find the shady character. But
where the opportunities for mischief are so great as they are in the
practice of the Law, it is necessary that the utmost care should be
exercised in committing one's interests to the keeping of another. Had
Mr. Bumpkin been a man of the world he would have suspected that under
the most ostentatious piety very often lurked the most subtle fraud.
Good easy man, had he been going to buy a hay-stack, he would not have
judged by the outside but have put his "iron" into it; he could not put
his iron into Mr. Prigg, I know, but he need not have taken him by his
appearance alone. I may observe that if Mr. Bumpkin had consulted his
sensible and affectionate spouse, or a really respectable solicitor, this
book would not have been written. If he had consulted the Vicar,
possibly another book might have been written; but, as it was, he
resolved to consult Mr. Prigg in the first instance. Now Mrs. Bumpkin,
except as the mother of the illustrious Bull, has very little to do with
this story. Mr. Prigg is one of its leading characters; but in my
description of that gentleman I am obliged to be concise: I must minimize
Prigg, great as he is, and I trust that in doing so I shall prospectively
minimize all future Priggs that may ever appear on the world's stage. I
do not attempt to pulverize him, that would require the crushing pestle
of the legislature; but merely to make him as little as I can, with due
consideration for the requirements of my story.
I should be thought premature in mentioning Prigg, but that he was a
gentleman of great pretensions in the little village of Yokelton.
Gentleman by Act of Parliament, and in his own estimation, you may be
sure he was respected by all around him. That was not many, it is true,
for his house was the last of the straggling village. He was a man of
great piety and an extremely white neck-cloth; attended the parish church
regularly, and kept his white hair well brushed upwards--as though, like
the church steeple, it was to point the way at all times. He was the
most amiable of persons in regard to the distribution of the parish
gifts; and, being a lawyer it was not considered by the churchwardens, a
blacksmith and a builder, safe to refuse his kind and generous
assistance. He involved the parish in a law-suit once, in a question
relating to the duty to repair the parish pump; and since that time
everyone knew better than to ignore Mr. Prigg. I have heard that the
money spent in that action would have repaired all the parish pumps in
England for a century, but have no means of ascertaining the truth of
this statement.
Mr. Prigg was a man whose merits were not appreciated by the local
gentry, who never asked him to dinner. Virtue is thus sometimes
ill-rewarded in this world. And Mrs. Prigg's virtue had also been
equally ignored when she had sought, almost with tears, to obtain tickets
for the County Ball.
Mr. Prigg was about sixty years old, methodical in his habits,
punctilious in his dress, polite in his demeanour, and precise in his
language. He wore a high collar of such remarkable stiffness that his
shoulders had to turn with his head whenever it was necessary to alter
his position. This gave an appearance of respectability to the head, not
to be acquired by any other means. It was, indeed, the most respectable
head I ever saw either in the flesh or in marble.
Mr. Prigg had descended from the well-known family of Prigg, and he
prided himself on the circumstance. How often was he seen in the little
churchyard of Yokelton of a Sunday morning, both before and after
service, pointing with family pride to the tombstone of a relative which
bore this beautiful and touching inscription:--
HERE
LIE THE ASHES OF
MR. JOHN PRIGG,
OF SMITH STREET, BRISTOL,
ORIGINALLY OF DUCK GREEN, YOKELTON,
WHO UNDER PECULIAR DISADVANTAGES
WHICH TO COMMON MINDS
WOULD HAVE BEEN A BAR TO ANY EXERTIONS
RAISED HIMSELF FROM ALL OBSCURE SITUATIONS
OF BIRTH AND FORTUNE
BY HIS OWN INDUSTRY AND FRUGALITY
TO THE ENJOYMENT OF A _MODERATE COMPETENCY_.
HE ATTAINED A PECULIAR EXCELLENCE
IN PENMANSHIP AND DRAWING
WITHOUT THE INSTRUCTIONS OF A MASTER,
AND TO EMINENCE IN ARITHMETIC,
THE USEFUL AND THE HIGHER BRANCHES OF
THE MATHEMATICS,
BY GOING TO SCHOOL ONLY A YEAR AND EIGHT MONTHS.
* * * * *
HE
DIED A BACHELOR
ON THE 24TH DAY OF OCTOBER, 1807,
IN THE 55TH YEAR OF HIS AGE;
AND WITHOUT FORGETTING
RELATIONS FRIENDS AND ACQUAINTANCES
BEQUEATHED ONE FIFTH OF HIS PROPERTY
TO PUBLIC CHARITY.
READER
THE WORLD IS OPEN TO THEE.
"GO THOU AND DO LIKEWISE." {22}
It was generally supposed that this beautiful composition was from the
pen of Mr. Prigg himself, who, sitting as he did so high on his branch of
the Family Tree,
COULD LOOK
WITH PRIDE AND SYMPATHY
ON
THE MANLY STRUGGLES
OF A HUMBLER MEMBER
LOWER DOWN!
High Birth, like Great Wealth, can afford to condescend!
Mrs. Prigg was worthy of her illustrious consort. She was of the noble
family of the Snobs, and in every way did honour to her progenitors. As
the reader is aware, there is what is known as a "cultivated voice," the
result of education--it is absolutely without affectation: there is also
the voice which, in imitation of the well-trained one, is little more
than a burlesque, and is affected in the highest degree: this was the
only fault in Mrs. Prigg's voice.
Mr. Prigg's home was charmingly small, but had all the pretensions of a
stately country house--its conservatory, its drawing-room, its study, and
a dining-room which told you as plainly as any dining-room could speak,
"I am related to Donkey Hall, where the Squire lives: I belong to the
same aristocratic family."
Then there was the great heavy-headed clock in the passage. He did not
appear at all to know that he had come down in the world through being
sold by auction for two pounds ten. He said with great plausibility, "My
worth is not to be measured by the amount of money I can command; I am
the same personage as before." And I thought it a very true observation,
but the philosophy thereof was a little discounted by his haughty
demeanour, which had certainly gone up as he himself had come down; and
that is a reason why I don't as a rule like people who have come down in
the world--they are sure to be so stuck up. But I do like a person who
has come down in the world and doesn't at all mind it--much better than
any man who has got up in the world from the half-crown, and does mind it
upon all occasions.
Mrs. Prigg, apart from her high descent, was a very aristocratic person:
as the presence of the grand piano in the drawing-room would testify.
She could no more live without a grand piano than ordinary people could
exist without food: the grand piano, albeit a very dilapidated one, was a
necessity of her well-descended condition. It was no matter that it
displaced more useful furniture; in that it only imitated a good many
other persons, and it told you whenever you entered the room: "You see me
here in a comparatively small way, but understand, I have been in far
different circumstances: I have been courted by the great, and listened
to by the aristocracy of England. I follow Mrs. Prigg wherever she goes:
she is a lady; her connections are high, and she never yet associated
with any but the best families. You could not diminish from her very
high breeding: put her in the workhouse, and with me to accompany her, it
would be transformed into a palace."
Mr. Prigg was by no means a rich man as the world counts richness. No
one ever heard of his having a "_practice_," although it was believed he
did a great deal in the way of "lending his name" _and profession_ to
impecunious and uneducated men; who could turn many a six-and-eightpence
under its prestige. So great is the moral "power of attorney," as
contradistinguished from the legal "power of attorney."
But Prigg, as I have hinted, was not only respectable, he was _good_: he
was more than that even, he was _notoriously_ good: so much so, that he
was called, in contradistinction to all other lawyers, "_Honest Lawyer
Prigg_"; and he had further acquired, almost as a universal title, the
sobriquet of "Nice." Everybody said, "What a very nice man Mr. Prigg
is!" Then, in addition to all this, he was considered _clever_--why, I
do not know; but I have often observed that men can obtain the reputation
of being clever at very little cost, and without the least foundation.
The cheapest of all ways is to abuse men who really are clever, and if
your abuse be pungently and not too coarsely worded, it will be accepted
by the ignorant as _criticism_. Nothing goes down with shallow minds
like criticism, and the severest criticism is generally based on envy and
jealousy.
Mr. Prigg, then, was clever, respectable, good, and nice, remarkably
potent qualities for success in this world.
So I saw in my dream that Mr. Bumpkin, whose feelings were duly aroused,
turned his eye upon Honest Lawyer Prigg, and resolved to consult him upon
the grievous outrage to which he had been subjected at the hands of the
cunning Snooks: and without more ado he resolved to call on that very
worthy and extremely nice gentleman.