"Good earthenware pitchers, sir!--of an excellent quaint pattern
and sober color."
The market dinner at "the Marquis" was in high repute in Treby and its
neighborhood. The frequenters of this three-and-sixpenny ordinary liked
to allude to it, as men allude to anything which implies that they move
in good society, and habitually converse with those who are in the
secret of the highest affairs. The guests were not only such rural
residents as had driven to market, but some of the most substantial
townsmen, who had always assured their wives that business required this
weekly sacrifice of domestic pleasure. The poorer farmers, who put up at
the Ram or the Seven Stars, where there was no fish, felt their
disadvantage, bearing it modestly or bitterly, as the case might be;
and although the Marquis was a Tory house, devoted to Debarry, it was
too much to expect that such tenants of the Transomes as had always been
used to dine there, should consent to eat a worse dinner, and sit with
worse company, because they suddenly found themselves under a Radical
landlord, opposed to the political party known as Sir Maxim's. Hence the
recent political divisions had not reduced the handsome length of the
table at the Marquis; and the many gradations of dignity--from Mr. Wace,
the brewer, to the rich butcher from Leek Malton, who always modestly
took the lowest seat, though without the reward of being asked to come
up higher--had not been abbreviated by any secessions.
To-day there was an extra table spread for expected supernumeraries, and
it was at this that Christian took his place with some of the younger
farmers, who had almost a sense of dissipation in talking to a man of
his questionable station and unknown experience. The provision was
especially liberal, and on the whole the presence of a minority destined
to vote for Transome was a ground for joking, which added to the good
humor of the chief talkers. A respectable old acquaintance turned
Radical rather against his will, was rallied with even greater gusto
than if his wife had had twins twice over. The best Trebian Tories were
far too sweet-blooded to turn against such old friends, and to make no
distinction between them and the Radical, Dissenting, Papistical,
Deistical set with whom they never dined, and probably never saw except
in their imagination. But the talk was necessarily in abeyance until the
more serious business of dinner was ended, and the wine, spirits, and
tobacco raised mere satisfaction into beatitude.
Among the frequent though not regular guests, whom every one was glad to
see, was Mr. Nolan, the retired London hosier, a wiry old gentleman past
seventy, whose square, tight forehead, with its rigid hedge of gray
hair, whose bushy eyebrows, sharp dark eyes, and remarkable hooked nose,
gave a handsome distinction to his face in the midst of rural
physiognomies. He had married a Miss Pendrell early in life, when he was
a poor young Londoner, and the match had been thought as bad as ruin by
her family; but fifteen years ago he had had the satisfaction of
bringing his wife to settle amongst her own friends, and of being
received with pride as a brother-in-law, retired from business,
possessed of unknown thousands, and of a most agreeable talent for
anecdote and conversation generally. No question had ever been raised
as to Mr. Nolan's extraction on the strength of his hooked nose, or of
his name being Baruch. Hebrew names "ran" in the best Saxon families;
the Bible accounted for them; and no one among the uplands and hedgerows
of that district was suspected of having an oriental origin unless he
carried a peddler's jewel-box. Certainly, whatever genealogical research
might have discovered, the worthy Baruch Nolan was so free from any
distinctive marks of religious persuasion--he went to church with so
ordinary an irregularity, and so often grumbled at the sermon--that
there was no ground for classing him otherwise than with good Trebian
Churchmen. He was generally regarded as a good-looking old gentleman,
and a certain thin eagerness in his aspect was attributed to the life of
the metropolis, where narrow space had the same sort of effect on men as
on thickly-planted trees. Mr. Nolan always ordered his pint of port,
which, after he had sipped it a little, was wont to animate his
recollections of the Royal Family, and the various ministries which had
been contemporary with the successive stages of his prosperity. He was
always listened to with interest: a man who had been born in the year
when good old King George came to the throne--who had been acquainted
with the nude leg of the Prince Regent, and hinted at private reasons
for believing that the Princess Charlotte ought not to have died--had
conversational matter as special to his auditors as Marco Polo could
have had on his return from his Asiatic travel.
"My good sir," he said to Mr. Wace, as he crossed his knees and spread
his silk handkerchief over them, "Transome may be returned, or he may
not be returned--that's a question for North Loamshire; but it makes
little difference to the kingdom. I don't want to say things which may
put younger men out of spirits, but I believe this country has seen it's
best days--I do, indeed."
"I am sorry to hear it from one of your experience, Mr. Nolan," said the
brewer, a large, happy-looking man. "I'd make a good fight myself before
I'd leave a worse world for my boys than I've found for myself. There
isn't a greater pleasure than doing a bit of planting and improving
one's buildings, and investing one's money in some pretty acres of land,
and when it turns up here and there--land you've known from a boy. It's
a nasty thought that these Radicals are to turn things round so as one
can calculate on nothing. One doesn't like it for one's self, and one
doesn't like it for one's neighbors. But somehow, I believe it won't
do: if we can't trust the Government just now, there's Providence and
the good sense of the country; and there's a right in things--that's
what I've always said--there's a right in things. The heavy end will get
downmost. And if Church and King, and every man being sure of his own,
are things good for this country, there's a God above will take care of
'em."
"It won't do, my dear sir," said Mr. Nolan--"It won't do. When Peel and
the Duke turned round about the Catholics in '29, I saw it was all over
with us. We could never trust ministers any more. It was to keep off a
rebellion, they said; but I say it was to keep their places. They're
monstrously fond of place, both of them--that I know." Here Mr. Nolan
changed the crossing of his legs, and gave a deep cough, conscious of
having made a point. Then he went on--"What we want is a king with a
good will of his own. If we'd had that, we shouldn't have heard what
we've heard to-day; Reform would never have come to this pass. When our
good old King George III. heard his ministers talking about Catholic
Emancipation, he boxed their ears all round. Ah, poor soul! he did
indeed, gentlemen," ended Mr. Nolan, shaken by a deep laugh of
admiration.
"Well, now, that's something like a king," said Mr. Crowder, who was an
eager listener.
"It was uncivil, though. How did they take it?" said Mr. Timothy Rose, a
"gentleman farmer" from Leek Malton, against whose independent position
nature had provided the safeguard of a spontaneous servility. His large
porcine cheeks, round twinkling eyes, and thumbs habitually twirling,
expressed a concentrated effort not to get into trouble, and to speak
everybody fair except when they were safely out of hearing.
"Take it! they'd be obliged to take it," said the impetuous young Joyce,
a farmer of superior information. "Have you ever heard of the king's
prerogative?"
"I don't say but what I have," said Rose, retreating. "I've nothing
against it--nothing at all."
"No, but the Radicals have," said young Joyce, winking. "The prerogative
is what they want to clip close. They want us to be governed by
delegates from the trades-unions, who are to dictate to everybody, and
make everything square to their mastery."
"They're a pretty set, now, these delegates," said Mr. Wace, with
disgust. "I once heard two of 'em spouting away. They're a sort of
fellow I'd never employ in my brewery, or anywhere else. I've seen it
again and again. If a man takes to tongue-work it's all over with him.
'Everything's wrong,' says he. That's a big text. But does he want to
make everything right? Not he. He'd lose his text. 'We want every man's
good,' say they. Why, they never knew yet what a man's good is. How
should they? It's working for his victual--not getting a slice of other
people's."
"Ay, ay," said young Joyce, cordially. "I should just have liked all the
delegates in the country mustered for our yeomanry to go into--that's
all. They'd see where the strength of Old England lay then. You may tell
what it is for a country to trust to trade when it breeds such spindling
fellows as those."
"That isn't the fault of trade, my good sir," said Mr. Nolan, who was
often a little pained by the defects of provincial culture. "Trade,
properly conducted, is good for a man's constitution. I could have shown
you, in my time, weavers past seventy, with all their faculties as sharp
as a pen-knife, doing without spectacles. It's the new system of trade
that's to blame: a country can't have too much trade if it's properly
managed. Plenty of sound Tories have made their fortune by trade. You've
heard of Calibut & Co.--everybody has heard of Calibut. Well, sir, I
knew old Mr. Calibut as well as I know you. He was once a crony of mine
in a city warehouse; and now, I'll answer for it, he has a larger rent
roll than Lord Wyvern. Bless your soul! his subscriptions to charities
would make a fine income for a nobleman. And he's as good a Tory as I
am. And as for his town establishment--why, how much butter do you think
is consumed there annually?"
Mr. Nolan paused, and then his face glowed with triumph as he answered
his own question. "Why, gentlemen, not less than two thousand pounds of
butter during the few months the family is in town! Trade makes
property, my good sir, and property is conservative, as they say now.
Calibut's son-in-law is Lord Fortinbras. He paid me a large debt on his
marriage. It's all one web, sir. The prosperity of the country is one
web."
"To be sure," said Christian, who, smoking his cigar with his chair
turned away from the table, was willing to make himself agreeable in the
conversation. "We can't do without nobility. Look at France. When they
got rid of the old nobles they were obliged to make new."
"True, very true," said Mr. Nolan, who thought Christian a little too
wise for his position, but could not resist the rare gift of an instance
in point. "It's the French Revolution that has done us harm here. It was
the same at the end of the last century, but the war kept it off--Mr.
Pitt saved us. I knew Mr. Pitt. I had a particular interview with him
once. He joked me about getting the length of his foot. 'Mr. Nolan,'
said he, 'there are those on the other side of the water whose name
begins with N. who would be glad to know what you know.' I was
recommended to send an account of that to the newspapers after his
death, poor man! but I'm not fond of that kind of show myself." Mr.
Nolan swung his upper leg a little, and pinched his lip between his
thumb and finger, naturally pleased with his own moderation.
"No, no--very right," said Mr. Wace, cordially. "But you never said a
truer word than that about property. If a man's got a bit of property, a
stake in the country, he'll want to keep things square. Where Jack isn't
safe, Tom's in danger. But that's what makes it such an uncommonly nasty
thing that a man like Transome should take up with these Radicals. It's
my belief he does it only to get into Parliament; he'll turn round when
he gets there. Come, Dibbs, there's something to put you in spirits,"
added Mr. Wace, raising his voice a little and looking at a guest lower
down. "You've got to vote for a Radical with one side of your mouth, and
make a wry face with the other; but he'll turn round by-and-by. As
Parson Jack says, he's got the right sort of blood in him."
"I don't care two straws who I vote for," said Dibbs, sturdily. "I'm not
going to make a wry face. It stands to reason a man should vote for his
landlord. My farm's in good condition, and I've got the best pasture on
the estate. The rot's never come nigh me. Let them grumble as are on the
wrong side of the hedge."
"I wonder if Jermyn'll bring him in, though," said Mr. Sircome, the
great miller. "He's an uncommon fellow for carrying things through. I
know he brought me through that suit about my weir; it cost a pretty
penny, but he brought me through."
"It's a bit of a pill for him, too, having to turn Radical," said Mr.
Wace. "They say he counted on making friends with Sir Maximus, by this
young one coming home and joining with Mr. Philip."
"But I'll bet a penny he brings Transome in," said Mr. Sircome. "Folks
say he hasn't got many votes hereabout; but toward Duffield, and all
there, where the Radicals are, everybody's for him. Eh, Mr. Christian?
Come--you're at the fountain-head--what do they say about it now at the
Manor?"
When general attention was called to Christian young Joyce looked down
at his own legs and touched the curves of his own hair, as if measuring
his own approximation to that correct copy of a gentleman. Mr. Wace
turned his head to listen for Christian's answer with that tolerance of
inferiority which becomes men in places of public resort.
"They think it will be a hard run between Transome and Garstin," said
Christian. "It depends on Transome's getting plumpers."
"Well, I know I shall not split for Garstin," said Mr. Wace. "It's
nonsense for Debarry's voters to split for a Whig. A man's either a Tory
or not a Tory."
"It seems reasonable there should be one of each side," said Mr. Timothy
Rose. "I don't like showing favor either way. If one side can't lower
the poor's rates and take off the tithe, let the other try."
"But there's this in it, Wace," said Mr. Sircome. "I'm not altogether
against the Whigs. For they don't want to go so far as the Radicals do,
and when they find they've slipped a bit too far they'll hold on all the
tighter. And the Whigs have got the upper hand now, and it's no use
fighting with the current. I run with the----"
Mr. Sircome checked himself, looked furtively at Christian, and, to
divert criticisms, ended with--"eh, Mr. Nolan?"
"There have been eminent Whigs, sir. Mr. Fox was a Whig," said Mr.
Nolan. "Mr. Fox was a great orator. He was very intimate with the Prince
of Wales. I've seen him, and the Duke of York too, go home by daylight
with their hats crushed. Mr. Fox was a great leader of Opposition:
Government requires an Opposition. The Whigs should always be in
opposition, and the Tories on the ministerial side. That's what the
country used to like. 'The Whigs for salt and mustard, the Tories for
meat,' Mr. Gottlib, the banker, used to say to me. Mr. Gottlib was a
worthy man. When there was a great run on Mr. Gottlib's bank in '16, I
saw a gentleman come in with bags of gold, and say, 'Tell Mr. Gottlib
there's plenty more where that came from.' It stopped the run,
gentlemen--it did indeed."
This anecodote was received with great admiration, but Mr. Sircome
returned to the previous question.
"There now, you see, Wace--it's right there should be Whigs as well as
Tories--Pitt and Fox--I've always heard them go together."
"Well, I don't like Garstin," said the brewer. "I didn't like his
conduct about the Canal Company. Of the two, I like Transome best. If a
nag is to throw me, I say, let him have some blood."
"As for blood, Wace," said Mr. Salt, the wool-factor, a bilious man, who
only spoke when there was a good opportunity of contradicting, "ask my
brother-in-law, Labron, a little about that. These Transomes are not the
old blood."
"Well, they're the oldest that's forthcoming, I suppose," said Mr. Wace,
laughing. "Unless you believe in mad old Tommy Trounsem. I wonder where
that old poaching fellow is now."
"I saw him half-drunk the other day," said young Joyce. "He'd got a
flag-basket with handbills in it over his shoulder."
"I thought the old fellow was dead," said Mr. Wace. "Hey! why, Jermyn,"
he went on merrily, as he turned round and saw the attorney entering;
"you Radical! how dare you show yourself in this Tory house? Come, this
is going a bit too far. We don't mind Old Harry managing our law for
us--that's his proper business from time immemorial; but----"
"But--a--" said Jermyn, smiling, always ready to carry on a joke, to
which his slow manner gave the piquancy of surprise, "if he meddles with
politics he must be a Tory."
Jermyn was not afraid to show himself anywhere in Treby. He knew many
people were not exactly fond of him, but a man can do without that, if
he is prosperous. A provincial lawyer in those old-fashioned days was as
independent of personal esteem as if he had been a Lord Chancellor.
There was a good-humored laugh at this upper end of the room as Jermyn
seated himself at about an equal angle between Mr. Wace and Christian.
"We were talking about old Tommy Trounsem; you remember him? They say
he's turned up again," said Mr. Wace.
"Ah?" said Jermyn, indifferently. "But--a--Wace--I'm very busy
to-day--but I wanted to see you about that bit of land of yours at the
corner of Pod's End. I've had a handsome offer for you--I'm not at
liberty to say from whom--but an offer that ought to tempt you."
"It won't tempt me," said Mr. Wace, peremptorily, "if I've got a bit of
land, I'll keep it. It's hard enough to get hereabouts."
"Then I'm to understand that you refuse all negotiation?" said Jermyn,
who had ordered a glass of sherry, and was looking around slowly as he
sipped it, till his eyes seemed to rest for the first time on Christian,
though he had seen him at once on entering the room.
"Unless one of the confounded railways should come. But then I'll stand
out and make 'em bleed for it."
There was a murmur of approbation; the railways were a public wrong much
denunciated in Treby.
"A--Mr. Philip Debarry at the Manor now?" said Jermyn, suddenly
questioning Christian, in a haughty tone of superiority which he often
chose to use.
"No," said Christian, "he is expected to-morrow morning."
"Ah!----" Jermyn paused a moment or two, and then said, "You are
sufficiently in his confidence, I think, to carry a message to him with
a small document?"
"Mr. Debarry has often trusted me so far," said Christian, with much
coolness; "but if the business is yours, you can probably find some one
you know better."
There was a little winking and grimacing among those of the company who
heard this answer.
"A--true--a," said Jermyn, not showing any offence; "if you decline. But
I think, if you will do me the favor to step round to my residence on
your way back, and learn the business, you will prefer carrying it
yourself. At my residence, if you please--not my office."
"Oh, very well," said Christian. "I shall be very happy." Christian
never allowed himself to be treated as a servant by anyone but his
master, and his master treated a servant more deferentially than an
equal.
"Will it be five o'clock? what hour shall we say?" said Jermyn.
Christian looked at his watch and said, "About five I can be there."
"Very good," said Jermyn, finishing his sherry.
"Well--a--Wace--a--so you will hear nothing about Pod's End?"
"Not I."
"A mere pocket-handkerchief, not enough to swear by-a--" here Jermyn's
face broke into a smile--"without a magnifying-glass."
"Never mind. It's mine into the bowels of the earth and up to the sky. I
can build the Tower of Babel on it if I like--eh, Mr. Nolan?"
"A bad investment, my good sir," said Mr. Nolan, who enjoyed a certain
flavor of infidelity in this smart reply, and laughed much at it in his
inward way.
"See now, how blind you Tories are," said Jermyn, rising; "if I had been
your lawyer, I'd have had you make another forty-shilling freeholder
with that land, and all in time for this election. But--a--the _verbum
sapientibus_ comes a little too late now."
Jermyn was moving away as he finished speaking, but Mr. Wace called out
after him, "We're not so badly off for votes as you are--good sound
votes, that'll stand the Revising Barrister. Debarry at the top of the
poll!"
The lawyer was already out of the doorway.