Notwithstanding that Peg had taken all this trouble, many people were of opinion that the affair would never be heard of in the counting-room, so much were they used to see Peg’s affairs overlooked; but they were mistaken. Gilbert told Mrs. Bull the first or second time he saw her, what a suit he was to present from her sister, and two or three of Peg’s boys were determined that it should not go without a hearing. Mean time, the nurse and Hubble-bubble were not idle. The scheme which they thought to have frustrated was taking place very fast. The boy George and his companions were laughing at them as usual, and the young men who had been sent out to watch Lewis Baboon’s motions, past their time merrily in the fields, playing at cricket, pitch-bar, and foot-ball, from morning to night, eat their victuals with a good appetite, and slept as sound in a barn, as ever they had done in the best bed in John’s house: all which, the nurse would not have believed, if you had sworn it to her on all the four evangelists. In short, there was no appearance of their tiring, and they would have held out through mere spite, if they had been tired, when they found that there was any intention to vex them.
All this was sore enough upon the nurse, without being obliged to see her predictions equally falsified, by having the same thing tried in sister Peg’s house. This she could by no means think of with any patience, and she determined to do all she could with Mrs. Bull to prevent it. For this purpose, Hubble-bubble and she took their opportunity to talk to many of Mrs. Bull’s attendants. They put them in mind of all the perquisites, presents and vails, which had been so kindly thrown in their way; observed of what consequence the present affair was to them, and that if they suffered their friends to be baffled, and discredited, they must not expect to be served so, in time coming. You may soon get other people in our places, said they, who will be willing to court you for the sake of your mistress; but can you go as familiarly to a new comer, to ask for a bit of victuals, or a glass of liquor between meals? By this and such like talk, they contrived to secure the people who had Mrs. Bull’s ear. And though they were sure of herself at last, yet matters would go much more smoothly, if they could get any of sister Peg’s own clerks to give up the affair, as if she was not very much bent upon it herself.
Historians agree, that they tampered with many people for this purpose; but it is well known that not a soul of them would listen to proposals of that kind, till they came to Bumbo, whom they would have tried sooner, if they had not thought themselves sure of him, and at the same time known what degree of credit he was likely to bring them. They had sometimes let him loose upon Mrs. Bull before, to very little purpose; although for discourse he was always ready, and had stuff in his head, which might be turned into jocular sayings, serious sentences, pathetic declamations, angry ebullitions, or plaintive ditties, with equal propriety. He made the same thing pass in all these shapes, but the hearers did not know either when to laugh or cry, unless he gave them a signal, by a slap in the chops, a remarkable roar, or a doleful whine, by means of which it was dangerous to sit near him; and whether you was near him or no, the changes of his voice produced an odd sort of mounting and dipping, like the heaving of waves, and had the same effect in raising a violent inclination to vomit. They say, that he had often turned Mrs. Bull’s stomach, and that she always took cordials when she expected a visit from him. This being the case, he was to be employed with caution; but he had still one quality, from which they expected some good, and that was his precise and accurate method of dividing mankind into Thomists and Geoffrites; in the last of which classes, he commonly put his mother Peg.
A Geoffrite originally meant any person who was for restoring Squire Geoffrey to the management of John Bull’s business, and a Thomist the opposite. What this gentleman meant by these appellations nobody could find out, for he sometimes bestowed them indifferently on Sir Thomas’s best friends; and what is more surprizing still, on people who never thought of Sir Thomas nor Squire Geoffrey in all their lives; as well as some others, who never thought of any thing at all, but how to fill their own bellies and their pockets. He himself, it was said, was a Thomist of this kind; but whilst he did nothing himself, but swallow the warm pottage he had got from John Bull’s nurse, he wanted to persuade you, that other people’s heads were constantly taken up about the divine right of attornies to treat their clients as they pleased. A Geoffrite was his favourite topic to speak upon; but whether it was to show his sagacity in finding out what escaped other people, or merely because he had never seen any body paid for finding out Thomists, it is certain, that for one Thomist, he would point you out a dozen of Geoffrites; and you would be surprized, how the devil Sir Thomas got into the management of John Bull’s or sister Peg’s business at all, as Bumbo certainly was not in the way to help him to it.
With all these considerations pro and con, the nurse was extremely desirous to see him; and as fortune would have it, he was no less anxious to see her. He wanted at this very time a special reward for all his services, no less than to be appointed major-domo in Peg’s own house: this was a sort of a man house-keeper, and was commonly a grave elderly person who kept the keys of Peg’s pantry, and entertained as he thought proper any of the tenants, who had affairs about the house. The last major-domo was lately dead; and as John Bull’s nurse took the charge of all pantries and nurseries far and near, and would let nobody meddle with them, but who was of her own chusing, it was not doubted at this time, that her favourite Bumbo would be the man. But in order to secure it the more, he furnished himself with a list of some dozen of Geoffrites, picked up nobody knows how, and containing some of those who were likely to oppose himself, in getting the major-domo-ship in Peg’s family. With this provision he went down stairs, and so across the court to John Bull’s house.
CHAP. XIII.
How Bumbo discoursed with John Bull’s Nurse, and found her not so great a fool as he thought her.
Bumbo, without staying to speak with any body, went straight to the nurse’s closet, where he found her very melancholy, lamenting her connection with such a fool as Hubble-bubble, and not much comforted with the thought of having nobody now to trust to but Bumbo. However, as the saying is, a drowning man will catch at a straw; whenever he appeared, she got up and embraced him. Which he understanding to be as much as to say, My dear major-domo, I am glad to see you, was going to thank her, when she broke out into a perfect rage against sister Peg and her family.
What, says she, is the meaning of this impertinent saucy letter, you have sent from your house to Mr. Bull? have I not enough to do with his own humours and his freaks, without your refreshing his memory, and pretending to copy after him like the ass in Æsop? Set you up, indeed! we should bring our matters to a fine pass, if we minded all your letters and remonstrances.
I hope your ladyship, says Bumbo, does not imagine that I had any hand in writing that letter, or would put any thing in Peg’s head, which I knew to be so disagreeable to your ladyship; indeed, I could not shew myself any where, without the hazard of being absolutely worried by the people who were for writing that insolent letter.