Some ten minutes after this, Mr Spinney handed the pot of porter to the curate, and subsequently to the rest of the party. They all took largely, then puffed away as before.
How long this cabinet council might have continued it is impossible to say; but Silence, who was in “the chair,” was soon afterwards driven from his post of honour by the most implacable of his enemies, “a woman’s tongue.”
“Well, Mr Forster! well, gentlemen! do you mean to poison me? Have you made smell and dirt enough? How long is this to last, I should like to know?” cried Mrs Forster, entering the room. “I tell you what, Mr Forster, you had better hang up a sign at once, and keep an alehouse. Let the sign be a Fool’s Head, like your own. I wonder you are not ashamed of yourself, Mr Curate; you that ought to set an example to your parishioners!”
But Mr Dragwell did not admire such remonstrance; so taking his pipe out of his mouth, he retorted—“If your husband does put up a sign, I recommend him to stick you up as the ‘Good Woman;’ that would be without your head—Ha, ha, ha!”
“He, he, he!”
“He, he, he! you pitiful ’natomy,” cried Mrs Forster, in a rage, turning to the clerk, as she dared not revenge herself upon the curate. Take that for your He, he, he! and she swung round the empty pewter-pot which she snatched from the table, upon the bald pericranium of Mr Spinney, who tumbled off his chair, and rolled upon the sanded floor.
The remainder of the party were on their legs in an instant. Newton jerked the weapon out of his mother’s hands, and threw it in a corner of the room. Nicholas was aghast: he surmised that his turn would come next; and so it proved.—“An’t you ashamed of yourself, Mr Forster, to see me treated in this way—bringing a parcel of drunken men into the house to insult me? Will you order them out, or not, sir?—Are we to have quiet or not?”
“Yes, my love,” replied Nicholas, confused, “yes, my dear, by and bye, as soon as you’re—”
Mrs Forster darted towards her husband with the ferocity of a mad cat. Hilton perceiving the danger of his host, put out his leg so as to trip her up in her career, and she fell flat upon her face on the floor. The violence of the fall was so great, that she was stunned. Newton raised her up; and, with the assistance of his father (who approached with as much reluctance as a horse spurred towards a dead tiger), carried her up stairs, and laid her on her bed.
Poor Mr Spinney was now raised from the floor. He still remained stupified with the blow, although gradually recovering. Betsy came in to render assistance. “O dear, Mr Curate, do you think that he’ll die?”