Yet only a little while afterwards I was to learn what a glorious thing the vote is.
In my village there is an amiable labourer with that cast of countenance upon which, as on the possessions of his great country, the sun never sets. And with it all, he has that placidity of manner, that evenness of gait which suggest that he is always going to or coming from a service at his chapel.
No one would ever dream of consulting him upon anything, though, indeed, I once did ask him the name of a certain plant.
“There be some as call it the Deadly shade,” said he, “and some as call it the Nightly shade, but I don’t know rightly which it be.”
When later on, for my own foolish amusement, I said I had heard it was called the Deadly shade, he replied in precisely the same fashion. I tried him once more, by saying that I had looked up a book on the subject and found it to be the Nightly shade. Again he replied, word for word, as before.
At last, a few weeks later, I came to him and said—
“You know we were all wrong about that plant. I find at South Kensington Museum that the proper name for it is the Deadly Nightshade.”
And what do you think he replied? “There be some,” said he, “as call it the Deadly shade, and some as call it the Nightly shade, but I don’t know rightly which it be.”
Now that man’s wife had no respect for him, and truly I’m not surprised. I found out, too, that he knew it—it would not, of course, be a difficult fact to ascertain—and I felt sorry for him.
And then one day—the day before the polling in our village—all my pity for him was ended. I met him on the road, carrying home his bag of tools.