"And pray how old may your mother be?"
"Why, your worship," replied Mrs. Bunce, doubtingly, "I reckon she must be fifty—or thereabouts!"
There was a general and very ungallant burst of laughter at the broad guess; and poor Mrs. Bunce seemed a good deal confused; but at length the gentle Julia took upon her fair self to say that Mrs. Bunce's mother was seventy-eight, to her own certain knowledge.
At last it was ordered that the young ladies, Miss Eliza Pritchard and Miss Hannah Maria Bagwell, should find bail to keep the peace towards Mrs. Margaret Bunce; and not being prepared with any, they followed the turnkey to his stronghold, weeping as they went.
A SMALL TASTE OF JIMAKEY.
A new-booted, yellow-vested, blue-coated, red-headed, rosy-faced, buckish young bricklayer, was brought up from the neighbourhood of Cranford-bridge, charged by one Tom Nagle with having robbed him, on the King's highway, of ten shillings in money, and one bottle of "the best Jimakey rum."
Tom Nagle is an honest, hard-faced, sandy-whiskered Emeralder, who takes out a drop of the rum or the whiskey, now and then, into the country, to make an honest penny of that same. "It so happened that, one Tuesday night, he went into the Queen's Head, at Cranford, with a bottle of the best Jimakey rum in his little basket. There was a lovely sweet fire in the chimney, and the buckish young bricklayer was there sitting before it, with a face like a full moon at the rising, and a yard-and-a-half backey-pipe sticking out of the middle of it. And there was the parish-clerk, and the blacksmith of Cranford, and many other jontlemen blowing their steamers, and taking their drops mighty convanient at that same time. So Tom Nagle sat down amongst them, and took his drops 'mighty convanient' too. He drained off one pot of heavy wet,[24] and then another, and another, and he blew a bigger cloud than any of them; and at the last, he introduced his bottle of Jimakey, in the hope that some of the jontlemen would dale with him—but they wouldn't. They only bother'd him—bad luck to 'em, and wouldn't dale with him at all; so he put out his pipe, and departed. Then, as he was walking away from fore-anent the door of the place, the buckish young bricklayer comes out after him, and says he, 'Hallo! Tom Nagle,' says he, 'what shall I give you for the rum?'—that's the Jimakey he was axing about. 'Four and sixpence,' says Tom Nagle, says he, 'and ye shall have the corck and the bottle into it,' says he.—'No,' says the bricklayer 'I sha'n't give thee four and sixpence, but I'll give ye just a shilling for a small taaste of it.'—'No,' says Tom Nagle, 'get along wid ye,' says he—'fait ye sha'n't have any taaste of it at all,' says he. Then the buckish young bricklayer, bad luck to him! took the bottle from Tom Nagle by force, and took a taste of it, just in no time to spake of, and slithered his fist into Tom Nagle's breeches pocket, and pulled out ten shillings from the bottom of it; and split back again along the road—with the shillings in one hand, and the bottle of Jimakey in the other, and Tom Nagle went to look for a constable.
In reply to all this it was stated, by the buckish young bricklayer, and the parish clerk, and two other witnesses, that Tom Nagle was neither more nor less than a bit of a smuggler, and a great pest to all the country round about Cranford for many miles; that on the night in question he was very much the worse for the beer, and that the company at the Queen's Head did certainly joke him about his spirituous calling; that he was very angry in consequence; that he went out of the house in a passion; that the bricklayer followed him, and having given him a shilling for a taste of his rum, he took the bottle from him—telling him, "in a lark," that he would inform against him, for selling spirits without a license. It was further stated, that the bottle was carried back to the Queen's Head, and safely deposited with the landlord, to be re-delivered to Tom Nagle, when he should call for it; and as to the ten-shilling story, it was declared by everybody to be a great fib—a pure invention of Tom Nagle's, and intended by the said Tom as a set-off against the threat of information for selling contraband spirits.
The magistrate asked Tom Nagle—"Is it true that you were drunk at the time?"