“But what was it all about?” asked Fanny.
“The paupers have been complaining of two or three things for some weeks past, and they demanded the redress of all in a lump to-day; as if we magistrates could alter the whole state of things in a day to please them. In the first place, they one and all asked more pay, because the same allowance buys only two-thirds what it bought when the scale was fixed. This they charged upon Cavendish and me. It is well you were not there, Cavendish; you would hardly have got away again.”
“Why, what would they have done with me?” asked Cavendish, with a constrained simper, and a pull up of the head which was meant to be heroic.
“In addition to the tossing they intended for me, they would have given you a ducking, depend upon it. Heartily as they hate all bankers, they hate a Haleham banker above all. Indeed I heard some of them wish they had you laid neatly under the workhouse pump.”
“Ha! ha! very good, very pleasant, and refreshing on a warm day like this,” said Cavendish, wiping his forehead, while nobody else was aware that the day was particularly warm. “Well, Sir; and what did you do to appease these insolent fellows?”
“Appease them! O, I soon managed that. A cool man can soon get the better of half a dozen passionate ones, you know.”[know.”]
The girls looked with wonder at one another; for they knew that coolness in emergencies was one of the last qualities their father had to boast of. Fanny was vexed to see that Mr. Longe observed and interpreted the look. She divined by his half-smile, that he did not think her father had been very cool.
“I desired them to go about their business,” continued Mr. Berkeley, “and when that would not do, I called the constables.”
“Called indeed,” whispered Mr. Longe to his cousin. “It would have been strange if they had not heard him.”
“But what were the other complaints, Sir?” inquired Fanny, wishing her father to leave the rest of his peculiar adventure to be told at home.