“Oh, Mrs. Busk, not adulteration?”
“No, miss, no! The very last thing he would think of. Only the good use of potatoes in the bread, when flour was frightful bad and painful dear. What is the best meal of the day? he used to reason. Dinner. And why? Why, because of the potatoes. If I can make people take potato for their breakfast, and potato for their supper too, I am giving them three meals a day instead of one. And the health of the village corresponded to it.”
“Oh, but, Mrs. Busk, he might have made them do it by persuasion, or at least with their own knowledge—”
“No, miss, no! The whole nature of our people, Moonstock or out of it, is never to take victuals by any sort of persuasion. If St. Paul was to come and preach, 'Eat this or that,' all I had of it in the shop would go rotten. They hate any meddling with their likings, and they suspect doctor's rubbish in all of it.”
“I am quite of their opinion,” I replied; “and I am glad to hear of their independence. I always used to hear that in England none of the poor people dared have a will of their own.”
Mrs. Busk lifted up her hands to express amazement at my ignorance, and said that she “must run away and put the shutters up, or else the policeman would come rapping, and look for a glass of beer, which he had no right to till it came to the bottom of the firkin; and this one was only tapped last Sunday week. Don't you ever think of the police, miss.”
Probably this was good advice, and it quite agreed with the opinions of others, and my own impressions as to the arrogant lethargy of “the force,” as they called themselves, in my father's case. Mrs. Busk had more activity and intelligence in her little head than all the fat sergeants and inspectors of the county, helmet, belt, and staff, and all.