“A parson once had a remarkable foible
Of loving good liquor far more than his Bible;
His neighbours all said he was much less perplext
In handling a tankard than in handling a text.
Derry down, down, down, derry down.”
The gist of which lies in the parson’s reply to his wife, who, when the pigs set his ale running, and he stormed and swore, reminded him of his laudation of the patience of Job, whereupon he denies the application, with the remark—
“Job never had such a cask in his life.”
“The hunting in the Cheviot,”
now called “Chevy Chase,” succeeded, and the night closed with Dibdin singing his last new song, to music of his own composing, with a jolly, rollicking chorus by the whole company.
CHAPTER X.
THE WILLEY RECTOR, AND OTHER OF THE SQUIRE’S FRIENDS.
The Squire’s Friends and the Willey Rector more fully drawn—Turner—Wilkinson—Harris—The Rev. Michael Pye Stephens—His Relationship to the Squire—In the Commission of the Peace—The Parson and the Poacher—A Fox-hunting Christening.
Besides professional sportsmen who were wont to make the Willey roof-trees echo with their shouts, the Squire usually assembled round his table, on Sundays, the leading men of the neighbourhood, each of some special note or importance in his own district, who formed at Willey a sort of local parliament. Among these were brother magistrates, tenants, and members of the clerical, legal, and medical professions. Thomas Turner, a county magistrate, and the chairman of a court of equity, to establish which the Squire assisted him in obtaining an Act of Parliament, to whom was dedicated a sermon delivered before the justices of the peace by the Rev. L. Booker, LL.D., was one of these. Mr. Turner carried on the now famous Caughley works, where he succeeded in producing, by means of English and French workmen, china of superior merit, which, like the old Wedgwood productions, is now highly prized by connoisseurs. He was the first producer of the “willow pattern,” still so much in demand, and his general knowledge gave him great influence. The Squire paid occasional visits to his elegant chateau at Caughley, and gave him one of the two portraits of himself which he had painted, a picture now in possession of the widow of Mr. Turner’s son, George, of Scarborough, in which the Squire is represented—as in our engraving—in his scarlet hunting coat, with a fox’s brush in his hand—a facsimile of the one from which our woodcut is taken. Another, but only an occasional visitor at the Hall, was John Wilkinson, “the Father of the Iron Trade,” as he is now called, who then lived at Broseley, and who was one of the most remarkable men of the past century. He was for some years a tenant of the Squire, and carried on the Willey furnaces. He was also a friend of Boulton and Watt, and was the first who succeeded in boring their cylinders even all through; he was the first, too, who taught the French the art of boring cannon from the solid. He built and launched at Willey Wharf the first iron barge—the precursor of all iron vessels on the Thames and Tyne, and of the Great Eastern, as well as of our modern iron-clads. Mr. Harries of Benthall, Mr. Hinton of Wenlock, Mr. Bryan of The Tuckies, and Mr. John Cox Morris, farmer of Willey, who took the first silver cup given by the Agricultural Society of Shropshire for the best cultivated farm, and who had still further distinguished himself in the estimation of sportsmen by a remarkable feat of horsemanship for a large amount, were among those who visited the Squire.
But a more frequent guest at the Hall and at the covert-side was the Willey Rector, the Rev. Michael Pye Stephens, whose family was related to that of the Welds, through the Slaneys. The Rector was therefore, as already shown, on familiar terms with the Squire, and the more so as he was able to tell a good tale and sing a good song. The rural clergy a century ago were great acquisitions at the tables of country squires, and were not unfrequently among the most enthusiastic lovers of the chase. It was by no means an uncommon thing, forty years ago, to see the horse of the late Rector of Stockton, brother to the Squire of Apley, waiting for him at the church door at Bonnigale, which living he also held, that he might start immediately service was over for Melton Mowbray. His clerk, too, old Littlehales, who to more secular professions added that of village tailor, has often told how his master, being sorely in need of a pair of hunting breeches for Melton, undertook to close the church one Sunday in order to give him the opportunity of making them, with the remark, “Oh, d—n the church, you stop at home and make the breeches.” But the Rector of Willey was by no means so enthusiastic as a sportsman. He was not the
“Clerical fop, half jockey and half clerk,
The tandem-driving Tommy of a town,
Disclaiming book, omniscient of a horse,
Impatient till September comes again,
Eloquent only of the pretty girl
With whom he danced last night!”
Neither did he resemble those more bilious members of the profession of modern times—