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He then winked, and in an under tone began to sing—
“Though I’m tied to a crusty old woman,
Much given to scolding and jealousy,
I know that the case is too common,
And so I will ogle each girl I see.
Toi de roi, loi, &c.
“Come, my lads!” he resumed, “sit you down, and clap half a yard of clay into your mouths.” The two worthy artisans looked at each other significantly, or rather insignificantly, for they knew not what to think, and did as they were bid. “Come, why don’t you talk?” said the teetotum parson landlord, after a short silence. “You’re as dull as a couple of tom cats with their ears cut off—talk, man, talk—there’s no doing nothing without talking.” This last part of his speech seemed more particularly addressed to Peter Brown, who, albeit a man of a sound head, and well skilled in such matters as appertained unto iron and the coal trade, had not been much in the habit of mixing with the clergy; therefore he felt, for a moment, as he said, “nonplushed;” but fortunately he recollected the Catholic question, about which most people were then talking, and which every body professed to understand. Therefore, he forthwith introduced the subject; and being well aware of the parson’s bias, and having, moreover, been told that he had written a pamphlet; therefore (though to do Peter Brown justice, he was not accustomed to read such publications) he scrupled not to give his opinion very freely, and concluded by taking up his pint and drinking a very unchristian-like malediction against the Pope. George Syms followed on the same side, and concluded in the same manner, adding thereunto, “Your good healths, gemmen.”—“What a pack of nonsense!” exclaimed the parson, “I should like to know what harm the Pope can do us! I tell you what, my lads, it’s all my eye and Betty Martin. Live and let live, I say. So long as I can get a good living, I don’t care the toss of a halfpenny who’s uppermost. The Pope’s an old woman, and so are they that are afraid of him.” The elderly stranger here seemed highly delighted, and cried, “Bravo!” and clapped the speaker on the back, and said, “That’s your sort! Go it, my hearty!” But Peter Brown took the liberty of telling the parson, in a very unceremonious way, that he seemed to have changed his opinions very suddenly. “Not I,” said the other; “I was always of the same way of thinking.”—“Then words have no meaning,” observed George Syms, angrily, “for I heard you myself. You talked as loud about the wickedness of ‘mancipation as ever I heard a man in my life, no longer ago than last Sunday.”—“Then I must have been drunk—that’s all I can say about the business,” replied the other, coolly; and he began to fill his pipe with the utmost nonchalance, as though it was a matter of course. Such apparently scandalous conduct was, however, too much for the unsophisticated George Syms and Peter Brown, who simultaneously threw down their reckoning, and, much to their credit, left the turncoat reprobate parson to the company of the elderly gentleman.
If we were to relate half the whimsical consequences of the teetotum tricks of this strange personage, we might fill volumes; but as it is not our intention to allow the detail to swell even into one, we must hastily sketch the proceedings of poor Jacob Philpot, after he left the Red Lion to dine with sundry of the gentry and clergy of the Old Boar, in his new capacity of an ecclesiastic, in the outward form of a somewhat negligently dressed landlord. He was accosted on the road by divers of his coal-carrying neighbours with a degree of familiarity which was exceedingly mortifying to his feelings. One told him to be home in time to take part of a gallon of ale that he had won of neighbour Smith; a second reminded him that to-morrow was club-night at the Nag’s Head; and a third asked him where he had stolen his horse. At length he arrived, much out of humour, at the Old Boar, an inn of a very different description from the Red Lion, being a posting house of no inconsiderable magnitude, wherein that day was to be holden the symposium of certain grandees of the adjacent country, as before hinted.
The landlord, who happened to be standing at the door, was somewhat surprised at the formal manner with which Jacob Philpot greeted him, and gave his horse into the charge of the hostler; but, as he knew him only by sight, and had many things to attend to, he went his way without making any remark, and thus, unwittingly, increased the irritation of Jacob’s new teetotum sensitive feelings. “Are any of the gentlemen come yet?” asked Jacob, haughtily, of one of the waiters.—“What gentlemen?” quoth the waiter. “Any of them,” said Jacob, “Mr. Wiggins, Doctor White, or Captain Pole?” At this moment a carriage drove up to the door, and the bells all began ringing, and the waiters rah to see who had arrived, and Jacob Philpot was left unheeded.—“This is very strange conduct!” observed he; “I never met with such incivility in my life! One would think I was a dog!” Jacob walked into the open air to cool himself, and strolled round the garden of the inn, till the calls of hunger forced him to return to the house, where the odour of delicate viands was quite provoking; so he followed the guidance of his nose, and arrived in the large dining-room, where he found, to his great surprise and mortification, that the company were assembled, and the work of destruction had been going on for some time, as the second course had just been placed on the table. Jacob felt that the neglect with which he had been treated was “enough to make a parson swear;” and perhaps he would have sworn, but that he had no time to spare and, therefore, as all the seats at the upper end of the table were engaged, he deposited himself on a vacant chair about the centre, between two gentlemen with whom he had no acquaintance, and, spreading his napkin on his lap, demanded of a waiter what fish had gone out. The man replied only by a stare and a smile, a line of conduct which was by no means surprising, seeing that the most stylish part of Philpot’s dress was, without dispute, the napkin aforesaid. “What’s the fellow gaping at?” cried Jacob, in an angry voice; “go and tell your master I want to speak to him directly. I don’t understand such treatment. Tell him to come immediately! Do you hear?” The loud tone in which this was spoken aroused the attention of the company; and most of them cast a look of inquiry, first at the speaker, and then round at the table, as if to discern by whom the strange gentleman in the scarlet and yellow plush waistcoat and the dirty shirt might be patronized but there were others who recognized the landlord of the Red Lion at Stockwell. The whole, however, were somewhat startled when he addressed them as follows:—“Really, gentlemen, I must say, that a joke may be carried too far; and, if it was not for my cloth (here he handled the napkin), I declare I don’t know how I might act. Mr. Chairman, we have known each other now for a good many years, and you must be convinced that I can take a joke as well as any man; but human nature can endure this no longer. Mr. Wiggins! Captain Pole! my good friend Doctor White! I appeal to you.” Here the gentlemen named looked especially astounded. “What! can it be possible that you have all agreed to cut me! Oh, no! I will not believe that political differences of opinion can run quite so high. Come—let us have no more of this nonsense!”—No, no, we’ve had quite enough of it,” said the landlord of the Old Boar, pulling the chair from beneath the last speaker, who was consequently obliged again to be upon his legs, while there came, from various parts of the table, cries of “Chair! chair! Turn him out!”—“Man!” roared the teetotum par-soned landlord of the Red Lion, to the landlord of the Old Boar, “Man! you shall repent of this! If it wasn’t for my cloth, I’d soon-”— “Come, give me the cloth!” said the other, snatching away the napkin, which Jacob had buttoned in his waistcoat, and thereby causing that garment to fly open and expose more of dirty linen and skin than is usually sported at a dinner party. Poor Philpot’s rage had now reached its acme, and he again appealed to the chairman by name. “Colonel Martain!” said he, “can you sit by and see me used thus? I am sure that you will not pretend that you don’t know me!”—“Not I,” replied the chairman; I know you well enough, and a confounded impudent fellow you are. I’ll tell you what, my lad, next time you apply for a license, you shall hear of this.” The landlord of the Old Boar was, withal, a kind-hearted man; and, as he knew that the loss of its license would be ruin to the rampant Red Lion and all concerned therewith, he was determined that poor Philpot should be saved from destruction in spite of his teeth; therefore, without further ceremony, he, being a muscular man, laid violent hands upon the said Jacob, and, with the assistance of his waiters conveyed him out of the room, in despite of much struggling, and sundry interjections concerning his “cloth.” When they had deposited him safely in an armchair in “the bar,” the landlady, who had frequently seen him before, in his proper character, that of a civil man, who “knew his place” in society, very kindly offered him a cup of tea; and the landlord asked how he could think of making such a fool of himself; and the waiter, whom he had accosted on first entering the house, vouched for his not having had any thing to eat or drink; whereupon they spoke of the remains of a turbot, which had just come down stairs, and a haunch of venison that was to follow. It is a sad thing to have a mind and body that are no match for each other. Jacob’s outward man would have been highly gratified at the exhibition of these things; but the spirit of the parson was too mighty within, and spurned every offer, and the body was compelled to obey. So the horse that was borrowed of the squire was ordered out, and Jacob Philpot mounted and rode on his way in excessive irritation, growling vehemently at the insult and indignity which had been committed against the “cloth” in general, and his own person in particular.
“The sun sunk beneath the horizon,” as novelists say, when Jacob Philpot entered the village of Stockwell, and, as if waking from a dream, he suddenly started, and was much surprised to find himself on horseback, for the last thing that he recollected was going up stairs at his own house, and composing himself for a nap, that he might be ready to join neighbour Scroggins and Dick Smith, when they came in the evening to drink the gallon of ale lost by the latter. “And, my eyes!” said he, “if I haven’t got the squire’s horse that the parson borrowed this morning. Well—it’s very odd! however, the ride has done me a deal of good, for I feel as if I hadn’t any thing all day, and yet I did pretty well too at the leg of mutton at dinner.” Mrs. Philpot received her lord and nominal master in no very gracious mood, and said she should like to know where he had been riding. “That’s more than I can tell you,” replied Jacob; “however, I know I’m as hungry as a greyhound, though I never made a better dinner in my life.”—“More shame for you,” said Mrs. Philpot; “I wish the Old Boar was a thousand miles off.”—“What’s the woman talking about?” quoth Jacob. “Eh! what! at it again, I suppose,” and he pointed to the closet containing the rum bottle. “Hush!” cried Mrs. Philpot, “here’s the parson coming down stairs!”—“The parson!” exclaimed Jacob; what’s he been doing up stairs, I should like to know?”—“He has been to take a nap on mistress’s bed,” said Sally.—“The dickens he has! This is a pretty story,” quoth Jacob. “How could I help it?” asked Mrs. Philpot; “you should stay at home and look after your own business, and not go ramshackling about the country. You shan’t hear the last of the Old Boar just yet I promise you.” To avoid the threatened storm, and satisfy the calls of hunger, Jacob made off to the larder, and commenced an attack upon the leg of mutton.