It would be difficult to say how it was exactly, but somehow or other, in spite of the alarm which landowners and tenantry alike felt at the broaching of Jacobinism,"—that terror terrorum to the squirearchy and farmers,—Kucky Sarson contrived to keep a fair share of custom in the matter of clipping hair and scraping beards. Scarcely an hour of the day but Kucky had a customer; or if customers scanted, he was sure to have company for gossip. Perhaps it was chiefly owing to the frank-heartedness and real courtesy of manner which the barber mingled with his earnest speech—for he was a very great talker, and a good one too,—that he was respected by almost all who knew him, notwithstanding his open profession of the principles of "equality."
Indeed, it was a maxim of Kucky Sarson, that, "if you believed all men to be equal, you ought to treat every man like a gentleman." "That is the especial hinderance to the spread of first principles, sir," said Kucky to a customer one day. "Democrats foolishly imagine, sir, that democracy consists in barking like a bull-dog, or growling like a bear, at every man they meet; when, the fact is, that that is just the way to repel a sensible man from both yourself and your principles. Don't you think so, sir?"
Kucky's customer would have answered, but Kucky held him at that moment by the nose, and was applying a keen razor to his upper lip. The earnest shaver did not think of this, but supposed, since his customer was a stranger, that he was either modest or unacquainted with politics; and, in the latter case, Kucky was too true an enthusiast to omit the opportunity of trying to make a convert—so he resumed, after clearing his throat with a loud "a-hem!"
"If the beautiful principles of equality do not spread, sir," he said, resolving to show his best graces of conversational style to a well-dressed stranger, "in my humble opinion, it will be chiefly attributable to the miscalculating rudeness of those who affect to advocate them. These principles, in themselves, are so self-evidently true, and so happily calculated to ensure the felicity of the human family, that it is impossible for any unprejudiced man to——"
"Pardon me, friend," said the stranger, extricating his nose from the barber's fingers somewhat dexterously, "there may be considerable doubt about the self-evident truth of the principles you are speaking of: you seem to me to be somewhat too hasty in concluding that every one, from even a candid review of them, must acknowledge them to be incontrovertible. Give me leave to say, my good friend, that nothing will be more stoutly controverted than these same doctrines of human equality."
"Men may controvert them, sir," rejoined the barber, with some shade of an approach to asperity of manner, "but I cannot, in my conscience, give them credit for sincerity. Who was ever born into the world with a star on his breast or his shoulder, to signify that he ought to rule his fellows solely by his own will?—or who was ever created with a crook on his knee, to signify that he ought to bow down to the caprice of others? No, sir, the doctrines of equality are as clear as daylight when opposed to the darkness of slavery and mastership. In short, sir, 'Right is every man's, but wrong is no man's right,' was a maxim of my grandfather,—and I think it settles the question."
"Indeed!" exclaimed the stranger, staring at the barber's last words, and opening his lips till the lather ran into his mouth.
"Yes, sir—I think so," repeated Kucky, striving to look as confident as before, but evidently somewhat doubtful, on second thought, of the conclusiveness of his own odd logic,—"I think so, sir; for, as I hold it to be a natural right for every man to be governed only by his own consent, so I conclude it to be wrong for any other man to attempt to rule him without first asking his will or waiting his choice. I think those two points are as clear as twice two makes four: the first is a right, and belongs to every man, and the second is a wrong that should be practised by no man. Does not my grandfather's precept mean the same thing—'Right is every man's, but wrong is no man's right?'"
"Pardon me, my friend," replied the gentleman, unable entirely to suppress a smile, "if I say that I admire your sincerity more than your logic. Allow me further to say——"
"Oh, allow, sir!" exclaimed the barber, bowing very low, and spreading out his hands,—"to be sure, I allow every man to judge for himself, sir. It would be extremely inconsistent in me, who claim the fullest freedom of opinion myself, to refuse others the liberty of thought, sir. I pray you, sir, forgive me if I have been a little too positive in my manner: I will assure you, sir, I am not a bigot,—indeed, I am not——"