Part 6

Jacob Philpot immediately arose, and shook the stranger warmly by the hand, and told him, that he should be happy to see him whenever he came that way again; and then nodding to Mr. Stanhope and the landlady, went out at the front door, mounted the horse that stood there, and rode away. “Where’s the fellow going?” cried Mrs. Philpot; “Hillo! Jacob, I say!”--“Well mother,” said the Reverend Mr. Stanhope, “what’s the matter now?”--but Mrs. Philpot had reached the front of the house, and continued to shout. “Hillo! hillo, come back, I tell you!”--“That woman is always doing some strange thing or other,” observed Mr. Stanhope to the stranger “What on earth can possess her to go calling after the parson in that manner?”--“I declare he’s rode off with squire Jones’s horse,” cried Mrs. Philpot, re-entering the house. “To be sure he has,” said Mr. Stanhope; “he borrowed it on purpose to go to the Old Boar.”--“Did he?” exclaimed the landlady; “and without telling me a word about it! But I’ll Old Boar him I promise you!”--“Don’t make such a fool of yourself, mother,” said the parson; “it can’t signify twopence to you where he goes.”--“Can’t it?” rejoined Mrs. Philpot. “I’ll tell you what, your worship-”--“Don’t worship me woman,” exclaimed the teetotum landlord parson; “worship, what nonsense now! Why, you’ve been taking your drops again this morning, I think. Worship, indeed! To be sure, I did once, like a fool, promise to worship _you_; but if my time was to come over again, I know what-. But, never mind now--don’t you see it’s twelve o’clock? Come, quick, let us have what there is to eat, and then we’ll have a comfortable pipe under the tree. What say you, Sir?”--“With all my heart,” replied the elderly stranger. The latter hoped they should have the pleasure of Mrs. Philpot’s company; but she looked somewhat doubtfully till the parson said, “Come, come, mother, don’t make a bother about it.” Therefore she smoothed her apron and made one at the dinner table, and conducted herself with so much precision, that the teetotum parson looked upon her with considerable surprise, while she regarded him with no less, inasmuch as he talked in a very unclerical manner; and, among other strange things, swore, that his wife was as “drunk as blazes” the night before, and winked at her, and behaved altogether in a style very unbecoming a minister in his own parish.

At one o’clock there was a great sensation caused in the village of Stockwell, by the appearance of their reverend pastor and the elderly stranger, sitting on the bench which went round the tree, which stood before the sign of the roaring rampant Red Lion, each with a long pipe in his mouth, blowing clouds, which would not have disgraced the most inveterate smoker of the “black diamond” fraternity, and ever and anon moistening their clay with “heavy wet,” from tankards placed upon a small table, which Mrs. Philpot had provided for their accommodation. The little boys and girls first approached within a respectful distance, and then ran away giggling to tell their companions; and they told their mothers, who came and peeped likewise; and many were diverted, and many were scandalized at the sight; yet the parson seemed to care for none of these things, but cracked his joke, and sipped his ale, and smoked his pipe, with as much easy nonchalance as if he had been in his own arm-chair at the rectory. Yet it must be confessed that now and then there was a sort of equivocal remark made by him, as though he had some faint recollection of his former profession, although he evinced not the smallest sense of shame at the change which had been wrought in him. Indeed this trifling imperfection in the change of identity appears to have attended such transformations in general, and might have arisen from the individual bodies retaining their own clothes (for the mere fashion of dress hath a great influence on some minds), or, perhaps, because a profession or trade, with the habits thereof, cannot be entirely shaken off, nor a new one perfectly learned, by spinning a teetotum for five minutes. The time had now arrived when George Syms, the shoemaker, and Peter Brown, the blacksmith, were accustomed to take their “pint and pipe after dinner,” and greatly were they surprised to see their places so occupied; and not a little was their astonishment increased, when the parson lifted up his voice, and ordered Sally to bring out a couple of chairs, and then shook them both warmly by the hand, and welcomed them by the affectionate appellation of “my hearties!”

He then winked, and in an under tone began to sing--

“Though I’m tied to a crusty old woman, Much given to scolding and jealousy, I know that the case is too common, And so I will ogle each girl I see. Toi de roi, loi, &c.

“Come, my lads!” he resumed, “sit you down, and clap half a yard of clay into your mouths.” The two worthy artisans looked at each other significantly, or rather insignificantly, for they knew not what to think, and did as they were bid. “Come, why don’t you talk?” said the teetotum parson landlord, after a short silence. “You’re as dull as a couple of tom cats with their ears cut off--talk, man, talk--there’s no doing nothing without talking.” This last part of his speech seemed more particularly addressed to Peter Brown, who, albeit a man of a sound head, and well skilled in such matters as appertained unto iron and the coal trade, had not been much in the habit of mixing with the clergy; therefore he felt, for a moment, as he said, “nonplushed;” but fortunately he recollected the Catholic question, about which most people were then talking, and which every body professed to understand. Therefore, he forthwith introduced the subject; and being well aware of the parson’s bias, and having, moreover, been told that he had written a pamphlet; therefore (though to do Peter Brown justice, he was not accustomed to read such publications) he scrupled not to give his opinion very freely, and concluded by taking up his pint and drinking a very unchristian-like malediction against the Pope. George Syms followed on the same side, and concluded in the same manner, adding thereunto, “Your good healths, gemmen.”--“What a pack of nonsense!” exclaimed the parson, “I should like to know what harm the Pope can do us! I tell you what, my lads, it’s all my eye and Betty Martin. Live and let live, I say. So long as I can get a good living, I don’t care the toss of a halfpenny who’s uppermost. The Pope’s an old woman, and so are they that are afraid of him.” The elderly stranger here seemed highly delighted, and cried, “Bravo!” and clapped the speaker on the back, and said, “That’s your sort! Go it, my hearty!” But Peter Brown took the liberty of telling the parson, in a very unceremonious way, that he seemed to have changed his opinions very suddenly. “Not I,” said the other; “I was always of the same way of thinking.”--“Then words have no meaning,” observed George Syms, angrily, “for I heard you myself. You talked as loud about the wickedness of ‘mancipation as ever I heard a man in my life, no longer ago than last Sunday.”--“Then I must have been drunk--that’s all I can say about the business,” replied the other, coolly; and he began to fill his pipe with the utmost nonchalance, as though it was a matter of course. Such apparently scandalous conduct was, however, too much for the unsophisticated George Syms and Peter Brown, who simultaneously threw down their reckoning, and, much to their credit, left the turncoat reprobate parson to the company of the elderly gentleman.

If we were to relate half the whimsical consequences of the teetotum tricks of this strange personage, we might fill volumes; but as it is not our intention to allow the detail to swell even into one, we must hastily sketch the proceedings of poor Jacob Philpot, after he left the Red Lion to dine with sundry of the gentry and clergy of the Old Boar, in his new capacity of an ecclesiastic, in the outward form of a somewhat negligently dressed landlord. He was accosted on the road by divers of his coal-carrying neighbours with a degree of familiarity which was exceedingly mortifying to his feelings. One told him to be home in time to take part of a gallon of ale that he had won of neighbour Smith; a second reminded him that to-morrow was club-night at the Nag’s Head; and a third asked him where he had stolen his horse. At length he arrived, much out of humour, at the Old Boar, an inn of a very different description from the Red Lion, being a posting house of no inconsiderable magnitude, wherein that day was to be holden the symposium of certain grandees of the adjacent country, as before hinted.

The landlord, who happened to be standing at the door, was somewhat surprised at the formal manner with which Jacob Philpot greeted him, and gave his horse into the charge of the hostler; but, as he knew him only by sight, and had many things to attend to, he went his way without making any remark, and thus, unwittingly, increased the irritation of Jacob’s new teetotum sensitive feelings. “Are any of the gentlemen come yet?” asked Jacob, haughtily, of one of the waiters.--“What gentlemen?” quoth the waiter. “Any of them,” said Jacob, “Mr. Wiggins, Doctor White, or Captain Pole?” At this moment a carriage drove up to the door, and the bells all began ringing, and the waiters rah to see who had arrived, and Jacob Philpot was left unheeded.--“This is very strange conduct!” observed he; “I never met with such incivility in my life! One would think I was a dog!” Jacob walked into the open air to cool himself, and strolled round the garden of the inn, till the calls of hunger forced him to return to the house, where the odour of delicate viands was quite provoking; so he followed the guidance of his nose, and arrived in the large dining-room, where he found, to his great surprise and mortification, that the company were assembled, and the work of destruction had been going on for some time, as the second course had just been placed on the table. Jacob felt that the neglect with which he had been treated was “enough to make a parson swear;” and perhaps he would have sworn, but that he had no time to spare and, therefore, as all the seats at the upper end of the table were engaged, he deposited himself on a vacant chair about the centre, between two gentlemen with whom he had no acquaintance, and, spreading his napkin on his lap, demanded of a waiter what fish had gone out. The man replied only by a stare and a smile, a line of conduct which was by no means surprising, seeing that the most stylish part of Philpot’s dress was, without dispute, the napkin aforesaid. “What’s the fellow gaping at?” cried Jacob, in an angry voice; “go and tell your master I want to speak to him directly. I don’t understand such treatment. Tell him to come immediately! Do you hear?” The loud tone in which this was spoken aroused the attention of the company; and most of them cast a look of inquiry, first at the speaker, and then round at the table, as if to discern by whom the strange gentleman in the scarlet and yellow plush waistcoat and the dirty shirt might be patronized but there were others who recognized the landlord of the Red Lion at Stockwell. The whole, however, were somewhat startled when he addressed them as follows:--“Really, gentlemen, I must say, that a joke may be carried too far; and, if it was not for my cloth (here he handled the napkin), I declare I don’t know how I might act. Mr. Chairman, we have known each other now for a good many years, and you must be convinced that I can take a joke as well as any man; but human nature can endure this no longer. Mr. Wiggins! Captain Pole! my good friend Doctor White! I appeal to you.” Here the gentlemen named looked especially astounded. “What! can it be possible that you have _all_ agreed to cut me! Oh, no! I will not believe that political differences of opinion can run _quite_ so high. Come--let us have no more of this nonsense!”--No, no, we’ve had quite enough of it,” said the landlord of the Old Boar, pulling the chair from beneath the last speaker, who was consequently obliged again to be upon his legs, while there came, from various parts of the table, cries of “Chair! chair! Turn him out!”--“Man!” roared the teetotum par-soned landlord of the Red Lion, to the landlord of the Old Boar, “Man! you shall repent of this! If it wasn’t for my cloth, I’d soon-”-- “Come, give me the cloth!” said the other, snatching away the napkin, which Jacob had buttoned in his waistcoat, and thereby causing that garment to fly open and expose more of dirty linen and skin than is usually sported at a dinner party. Poor Philpot’s rage had now reached its acme, and he again appealed to the chairman by name. “Colonel Martain!” said he, “can you sit by and see me used thus? I am sure that you will not pretend that you don’t know me!”--“Not I,” replied the chairman; I know you well enough, and a confounded impudent fellow you are. I’ll tell you what, my lad, next time you apply for a license, you shall hear of this.” The landlord of the Old Boar was, withal, a kind-hearted man; and, as he knew that the loss of its license would be ruin to the rampant Red Lion and all concerned therewith, he was determined that poor Philpot should be saved from destruction in spite of his teeth; therefore, without further ceremony, he, being a muscular man, laid violent hands upon the said Jacob, and, with the assistance of his waiters conveyed him out of the room, in despite of much struggling, and sundry interjections concerning his “cloth.” When they had deposited him safely in an armchair in “the bar,” the landlady, who had frequently seen him before, in his proper character, that of a civil man, who “knew his place” in society, very kindly offered him a cup of tea; and the landlord asked how he could think of making such a fool of himself; and the waiter, whom he had accosted on first entering the house, vouched for his not having had any thing to eat or drink; whereupon they spoke of the remains of a turbot, which had just come down stairs, and a haunch of venison that was to follow. It is a sad thing to have a mind and body that are no match for each other. Jacob’s outward man would have been highly gratified at the exhibition of these things; but the spirit of the parson was too mighty within, and spurned every offer, and the body was compelled to obey. So the horse that was borrowed of the squire was ordered out, and Jacob Philpot mounted and rode on his way in excessive irritation, growling vehemently at the insult and indignity which had been committed against the “cloth” in general, and his own person in particular.

“The sun sunk beneath the horizon,” as novelists say, when Jacob Philpot entered the village of Stockwell, and, as if waking from a dream, he suddenly started, and was much surprised to find himself on horseback, for the last thing that he recollected was going up stairs at his own house, and composing himself for a nap, that he might be ready to join neighbour Scroggins and Dick Smith, when they came in the evening to drink the gallon of ale lost by the latter. “And, my eyes!” said he, “if I haven’t got the squire’s horse that the parson borrowed this morning. Well--it’s very odd! however, the ride has done me a deal of good, for I feel as if I hadn’t any thing all day, and yet I did pretty well too at the leg of mutton at dinner.” Mrs. Philpot received her lord and nominal master in no very gracious mood, and said she should like to know where he had been riding. “That’s more than I can tell you,” replied Jacob; “however, I know I’m as hungry as a greyhound, though I never made a better dinner in my life.”--“More shame for you,” said Mrs. Philpot; “I wish the Old Boar was a thousand miles off.”--“What’s the woman talking about?” quoth Jacob. “Eh! what! at it again, I suppose,” and he pointed to the closet containing the rum bottle. “Hush!” cried Mrs. Philpot, “here’s the parson coming down stairs!”--“The parson!” exclaimed Jacob; what’s he been doing up stairs, I should like to know?”--“He has been to take a nap on mistress’s bed,” said Sally.--“The dickens he has! This is a pretty story,” quoth Jacob. “How could I help it?” asked Mrs. Philpot; “you should stay at home and look after your own business, and not go ramshackling about the country. You shan’t hear the last of the Old Boar just yet I promise you.” To avoid the threatened storm, and satisfy the calls of hunger, Jacob made off to the larder, and commenced an attack upon the leg of mutton.

At this moment the Reverend Mr. Stanhope opened the little door at the foot of the stairs--On waking, and finding himself upon a bed, he concluded that he must have fainted in consequence of the agitation of mind produced by the gross insults which he had suffered, or perhaps from the effects of hunger. Great, therefore, was his surprise to find himself at the Red Lion in his own parish; and the first questions he asked of Mrs. Philpot were, how and when he had been brought there. “La, Sir!” said the landlady, “you went up stairs of your own accord, after you were tired of smoking under the tree.”--“Smoking under the tree, woman!” exclaimed Mr. Stanhope; “what are you talking about? Do you recollect whom you are speaking to?”--“Ay, marry, do I,” replied the sensitive Mrs. Philpot; “and you told Sally to call you when Scroggins and Smith came for their gallon of ale, as you meant to join their party.”

The Reverend Mr. Stanhope straightway took up his hat, put it upon his head, and stalked with indignant dignity out of the house, opining that the poor woman was in her cups; and meditated as he walked home, on the extraordinary affairs of the day. But his troubles were not yet ended, for the report of his public jollification had reached his own household; and John, his trusty man-servant, had been dispatched to the Red Lion, and had ascertained that his master was really gone to bed in a state very unfit for a clergyman to be seen in. Some remarkably good-natured friends had been to condole with Mrs. Stanhope upon the extraordinary proceedings of her good man, and to say how much they were shocked, and what a pity it was, and wondering what the bishop would think of it, and divers other equally amiable and consolatory reflections and notes of admiration.--Now Mrs. Stanhope, though she had much of the “milk of human kindness” in her composition, had, withal, a sufficient portion of “tartaric acid” mingled therewith. Therefore, when her beer-drinking husband made his appearance, he found her in a state of effervescence. “Mary,” said he “I am extremely fatigued. I have been exposed to-day to a series of insults, such as I could not have imagined it possible for any one to offer me.”

“Nor any body else,” replied Mrs. Stanhope; “but you are rightly served, and I am glad of it. Who could have supposed that you, the minister of a parish?--Faugh! how filthily you smell of tobacco! I vow I cannot endure to be in the room with you!” and she arose and left the divine to himself, in exceeding great perplexity. However, being a man who loved to do all things in order, he remembered that he had not dined, so he rang the bell and gave the needful instructions, thinking it best to satisfy nature first, and _then_ endeavour to ascertain the cause of his beloved Mary’s acidity. His appetite was gone but that he attributed to having fasted too long, a practice very unusual with him; however, he picked a bit here and there, and then indulged himself with a bottle of his oldest port, which he had about half consumed, and somewhat recovered his spirits, ere his dear Mary made her re-appearance, and told him that she was perfectly astonished at his conduct.--And well might she say so, for _now_ the wine, which he had been drinking with unusual rapidity, thinking, good easy man, that he had taken nothing all day, began to have a very visible effect upon a body already saturated with strong ale. He declared that he cared not a fig for the good opinion of any gentleman in the county; that he would always act and speak according to his principles, and filled a bumper to the health of the Lord Chancellor, and drank sundry more exceedingly loyal toasts; and told his astonished spouse, that he should not be surprised if he was very soon to be made a dean or a bishop; and as for the people at the Old Boar, he saw through their conduct--it was all envy, which doth “merit as its shade pursue.” The good lady justly deemed it folly to waste her oratory upon a man in such a state, and reserved her powers for the next morning; and Mr. Stanhope reeled to bed that night in a condition which to do him justice, he had never before exhibited under his own roof.

The next morning, Mrs. Stanhope and her daughter Sophy, a promising young lady about ten years old, of the hoyden class, were at breakfast, when the elderly stranger called at the rectory, and expressed great concern on being told that Mr. S. was somewhat indisposed, and had not yet made his appearance. He said that his business was of very little importance, and merely concerned some geological inquiries, which he was prosecuting in the vicinity; but Mrs. Stanhope, who had the names of all the ologies by heart, and loved occasionally to talk thereof, persuaded him to wait a short time, little dreaming of the consequence; for the wily old gentleman began to romp with Miss Sophy, and, after a while, produced his teetotum, and, in short, so contrived it, that the mother and daughter played together therewith for five minutes. He then politely took his leave, promising to call again; and Mrs. Stanhope bobbed him a curtsey, and Sophia assured him that Mr. S. would be extremely happy to afford him every assistance in his scientific researches. When the worthy divine at length made his appearance in the breakfast parlour, strangely puzzled as to the extreme feverishness and langour which oppressed him, he found Sophy sitting gravely in an arm-chair, reading a treatise on craniology. It was a pleasant thing for him to see her read any thing; but he could not help expressing his surprise, by observing, “I should think that book a little above your comprehension, my dear.”--“Indeed! Sir,” was the reply; and the little girl laid down the volume, and sat erect in her chair, and thus continued:--“I should think, Mr. Nicodemus Stanhope, that after the specimen of good sense and propriety of conduct which you were pleased to exhibit yesterday, it scarcely becomes _you_ to pretend to estimate the _comprehension_ of others.”--“My dear,” said the astonished divine, “this is very strange language! You forget whom you are speaking to!”--“Not at all,” replied the child. “I know _my_ place, if you don’t know yours, and am determined to speak my mind.” If anything could add to the Reverend Mr. Nicodemus Stanhope’s surprise, it was the sound of his wife’s voice in the garden, calling to his man John to stand out of the way, or she should run over him. Poor John, who was tying up some of her favourite flowers, got out of her way accordingly in quick time, and the next moment his mistress rushed by, trundling a hoop, hallooing and laughing, and highly enjoying his apparent dismay. Throughout that day, it may be imagined that the reverend gentleman’s philosophy was sorely tried; and we are compelled, by want of room, to leave the particulars of his botheration to the reader’s imagination.

We are sorry to say that these were not the only metamorphoses which the mischievous old gentleman wrought in the village of Stockwell.