Indeed, they made a fitting pair, the worn old soldier and the ancient inn, alike both long behind the times, dreaming of the past, rather than the future, which seemed to me like an invisible bond between them. Thus, when old Jasper fell ill, and, taking to his bed, had it moved opposite the window where he could lie with his eyes upon the battered gables of the inn--I for one could understand the reason.
The Three Jolly Anglers is indeed ancient, its early records long since lost beneath the dust of centuries; yet the years have but served to mellow it. Men have lived and died, nations have waxed and waned, still it stands, all unchanged beside the river, watching the Great Tragedy which we call "Life" with that same look of supreme wisdom, that half-waggish, half-kindly air, which I have already mentioned once before.
Those Sons of the Soil, who meet regularly within its walls, are horny-handed, and for the most part grey of head and bent with over-much following of the plough. Quiet of voice are they, and profoundly sedate of gesture, while upon their wrinkled brows there sits that spirit of calm content which it is given so few of us to know.
Chief among these, and held in much respect, was old Jasper Trent. Within their circle he had been wont to sit ensconced in his elbow-chair beside the hearth, by his long use and custom, and not to be usurped; and while the smoke rose slowly from their pipe-bowls he would recount some tale of battle and sudden death--now in the freezing trenches before Sebastopol, now upon the blood-stained heights of Inkermann. Yet, and I noticed it was always towards the end of his second tankard, the old man would lose the thread of his story, whatever it might be, and take up the topic of "The Bye Jarge."
I was at first naturally perplexed as to whom he could mean, until Mr. Amos Baggett, the landlord, informed me on the quiet that the "bye Jarge" was none other than old Jasper's only son--a man now some forty years of age--who, though promising well in his youth, had "gone wrong"--and was at that moment serving a long term of imprisonment for burglary; further, that upon the day of his son's conviction old Jasper had had a "stroke," and was never quite the same after, all recollection of the event being completely blotted from his mind, so that he persisted in thinking and speaking of his son as still a boy.
"That bye were a wonder!" he would say, looking round with a kindling eye. "Went away to make 'is fortun', 'e did. Oh, 'e were a gen'us, were that bye Jarge! You, Amos Baggett, were 'e a gen'us or were 'e not?"
"'E were!" Mr. Baggett would answer, with a slow nod.
"Look'ee, sir, do'ee see that theer clock?"--and he would point with a bony, tremulous finger--"stopped it were--got sum'mat wrong wi' its inn'ards--wouldn't stir a finger--dead it were! But that bye Jarge 'e see it, 'e did--give it a look over, 'e did, an' wi' nout but 'is two 'ands set it a-goin' good as ever! You, Silas Madden, you remember as 'e done it wi' 'is two 'ands?"
"'Is two 'ands!" Silas would repeat solemnly.
"An' it's gone ever since!" old Jasper would croak triumphantly. "Oh! 'e were a gen'us, were my bye Jarge. 'E'll come a-marchin' back to 'is old feyther, some day, wi' 'is pockets stuffed full o' money an' banknotes--I knaw--I knaw, old Jasper bean't a fule."