In short, Jowler went on helter-skelter; and as long as John and his wife were in the humour of paying his bills, he hired all the poachers, game-keepers, and whippers-in in the country, and did not care a farthing for a fellow, unless he could send him off the country, to do some mischief or other. For this reason he made John get as many game-keepers as possible, but never a word of arming his own children. He made up matters again with Rousterdivel, gave him all he asked, and encouraged him to play the devil in the house of Squire South, John’s old friend. He sent more people to look after Sir Thomas’s farm, than ever were there before in this world. He brought John in bills of expence laid out in the East country, so extravagant, and consisting of so many articles, that you would have thought all the taylors and apothecaries in the country, had been concerned in making them up. But Jowler minded nothing of all this; as long as John was in the humour, he went on, and bullied and roared, and spent his money, as if the master’s salvation depended on the noise which his man Jowler should make in the neighbourhood; and there was nothing to stop him, for peoples tongues were tied up, some by one thing, some by another; and well did he know how to hold one tongue, that used to be the loudest of all on the like occasions.
There was, however, seldom a day but John had the news of some mischance befalling his foe Lewis, and then he had the marrow-bones and cleavers at his door, and his house rung with dancing of hornpipes, jigs, and country bumkins. It was in vain to tell him that these things would not avail his family a sixpence after all was over, and that he had forgot the fine resolutions he had taken, about the defence of his own house at home, the clearing up of his old arms, and sending his children to the fencing-school.
Jowler kept him perpetually drunk, in order to get his money to spend; there was seldom a night, but he made him drink twelve bumpers, and dance three hornpipes; so that John frequently exposed himself to the neighbourhood, and in his cups talked no less than of taking the half of Lewis Baboon’s estate to himself.
In all this hurry-scurry, the nurse and Hubble bubble were laughing in their sleeves; they saw their own game played to better purpose, than ever they durst venture to play it. Sir Thomas and they got the fingering of more money than ever they had seen before in their lives, and they might lay it out where they pleased, so they let Jowler have the honour of the treat: whilst in the mean time they saw no necessity of taking the arms out of the cellar, and they hoped, that John would soon forget all that he ever said upon the subject. And so, perhaps, he would, till Lewis Baboon chose to put him in mind of it again, if it had not been for the boy George, and one or two more. But George never rested till he got his gun again, which the game-keeper had taken from him some time before; and there was no hindering of him, from getting some choice fellows together on holidays to shoot, as he had an order for it under Mrs. Bull’s own hand.
The nurse then thought that she would give them their bellyful; she said, that Lewis Baboon was coming, and advised Sir Thomas to call them out of their beds, at all hours of the night, to send them over hedge and ditch, from post to pillar, and never give them any rest, in hopes that they would tire of their project; she thought that when they found there was no money to be got by the bargain, they would beg to be off. And here historians observe, that this good woman had forgotten, how much young people like fun better than money. But still she made something of a bad bargain; she advised Sir Thomas never to let these people come home, because Lewis Baboon was coming, and to send away all the game-keepers to his own farm, because Lewis Baboon was not coming. In short, we can find no clear account of Lewis Baboon’s real intention, in any historian of that age, much less collect any opinion about it from the conduct of John Bull’s advisers at this time.
CHAP. X.
How sister Peg began to look about her; and how she wrote a letter to her brother John.
Many were the freaks which John had taken in his head at different times: he once thought of turning lawyer, as every body knows; but he now despised that and every other profession, and would be nothing less than a duke or a lord. He thought that he only wanted a suitable estate to maintain his dignity, and encouraged every scheme that was laid before him for acquiring it. He had, accordingly, twenty proposals brought him every day in writing by Jowler, all entitled, “Speedy and easy methods of acquiring a great land estate, humbly addressed to John Bull, Esq;” Islands were to be seized here and there by main force; the whole common was to be inclosed, without enquiring who had a right there; plantations were to be cut down, and sent to market; farms were to be let to tenants that John could confide in, and every door was to be chalked with John Bull’s name in great letters.
Why should not I, says he, have a great estate, as well as another? Every body knows, that Lewis did not come honestly by all he has, yet the rogue is never the worse esteemed in the neighbourhood.
Whilst John’s head was busied with these hopeful projects, the news came that Lewis Baboon was coming in earnest. John looked like a person just awake from his first sleep, and made some motions towards the back-door, before he recollected that he had some guns ready in the hall, and that he and his people must be affronted for ever, if they did not pluck up their spirits. He saw a good many of his people ready to stand by him, and the blood returned to his face; the game-keepers were all brought into the yard; and the nurse herself was then glad to see as many of John’s people in arms as possible; the watermen were sent out in the barge to meet Lewis Baboon; and John, in short, passed the night, as easily as could be expected of a man in his situation.