He advanced direct, as I have said, towards Sir Francis Tyrrell, looking him in the face, and pulling off his hat with a respectful bow. The baronet remembered to have seen him somewhere before, but could not tell where. He was impatient because he did not recollect at once; he was impatient because the man had not gratified him by turning out a poacher; and he was impatient because he stood respectfully in the middle of the way, waiting till Sir Francis began, without announcing his own business at once.
"What do you want? What do you want?" he exclaimed, at length; "why the devil don't you speak, and not stand bowing there."
"Why, I made bold, your honour," replied the countryman, "to come up to speak to your honour about my poor boy of a son, who was sent to prison, your honour, and I thought--"
"And who the devil is your son?" demanded Sir Francis; "how can I tell who your son is, unless you tell me his name: Do you suppose I am to know every old man's son in the country?"
"No, sir, no," replied the old man, "that would be a hard job indeed, as you say: but I thought mayhap you might know my poor boy, John Smithson, who was sent to jail some little time ago with the smugglers. I thought you might recollect him mayhap, and me too, seeing that I used always to serve the house with fish in your father's time; ay, those were pleasant days!"
There are some people who might have been in a degree moved by this appeal. There are some people who might have smiled at it, and there are a great number who would quietly and reasonably have told the old man, that his son being committed to jail, nothing could be done for him by the magistrate but to leave him there to take his trial. Few, very few are there, on the contrary, who would have acted as Sir Francis Tyrrell acted. He flew into a violent and most outrageous passion. He called the old fisherman a thousand times a fool and an idiot; told him--not that he could not do anything for his son--but that he would not; and added a hope that he might be transported at least, as the law was weak enough not to hang the robbers of the public revenue, though it hanged those who took a few shillings on the highway.
The old man listened at first with surprise, and then with evident indignation; but he did not follow the bad example of the gentleman with whom he conversed, but gave way to no passion, retorted upon the baronet none of his abusive language, and only replied from time to time, "Well, that is a hard word! I didn't think to hear that, howsover, at my time of life!"
Still, however, Sir Francis Tyrrell went on; and we have already remarked that he was eloquent upon such occasions; but he did not succeed in disturbing the calm tranquillity with which the old man listened to him, and, of course, became but the more angry at such being the case. He ended an oration, which would have done honour to a Xantippe, by bidding the old man get out of his park, and never show his face there again, otherwise he would order the servants to horsewhip him.
The old man instantly put on his hat, and grasped his cudgel firmly while he replied, "I should be sorry to see any gentleman so disgrace himself by giving such an order as your honour mentions, and still sorrier to see any of your powdered vallys attempt to execute it; for I think, though I be past seventy, I could manage to thrash two or three of them, master and men and all."
This still farther excited Sir Francis Tyrrell's indignation; and though the old man began to move off as soon as he had delivered himself of his oration, the baronet continued to load him with abuse, finding no end to his copious vocabulary of harsh terms, till he was suddenly surprised by seeing old Smithson stop and turn short upon him. The old man used no threatening attitude, and nothing on his countenance marked his anger but the gathering together of his heavy white eyebrows as he marched straight up to the baronet.