Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 69, No. 423, January 1851

by Various

"So, sir! going to the tithe-eating parson's, I see—much good may it do ye. And if ye don't happen to have any particular sins this fine morning to repent of, I may as well remind ye that the quartern loaf is a farthing dearer than it ought to be just at the present time. Do you know what a locust is, you clod? You're a cankerworm, you base chawbacon!" And so on he would go reviling the honest man, who had all the mind in the world to lay him on the broad of his back in the mud—and would have done it too, had it been a working week-day. Another while, Dick would send the bellman round the village, and having called a special meeting of weavers like himself, he would harangue them, in some fashion like the following:—

"Look'ye, my lads, I'm an independent man and a weaver, and I don't care a brass for Squire Bull. I've got a seat in the under-servants' room, and if I am not entitled to make a row at meal-times I don't know who is. I'll tell you a bit of my mind—you're the worst-used set of fellows on the face of the earth, and if you have the least atom of pluck you won't stand it. Here are you obliged to take your flour from the Squire's tenantry, when you might get it cheaper if you went to the next town and bought it from Nick Frog, or Philip Baboon, or even Esquire North; though I consider his name an abomination, and would not give sixpence to save him from perdition. And then you have to find meal for Dragon the house-dog, and to victual some of the under servants; and it's no joke, I can tell you, what they eat. If you stand this any longer, you are a set of jolterheads, and nincompoops, and asses, and slaves, and base cowardly coistrels. Why don't you get up a stir, rouse the villages, and alarm the tenantry a little? Rely upon it, they will come to reason soon enough if you give them a hint or two about the duck-pond or the pump; and for my own part, I don't mind telling them so in the servants' hall."

And so he would go on, raving and spouting, telling everybody that Squire Bull was a superannuated idiot, with not half the sense of his natural bye-blow Jonathan—a chap whom Dick quoted on all occasions—till he got a kind of reputation as an itinerant orator; and the tag-rag-and-bobtail would come from any distance, if they were certified that Devilsdust was to give tongue.

Now, as to the grievance that Dick complained of, there was none. The tenantry, as you know, were obliged to pay a pretty high rent to Squire Bull for their farms, and to keep up all sorts of watchmen and gamekeepers, and rural police—besides a night-patrol on the canal—not only for the general security of the estate, but for the order of the villages, which hatched the most turbulent, mischievous, and discontented crew that ever an estate was cursed with. When one of these fellows in the villages fell ill, the tenantry were compelled to pay for his nursing and cure. When any of them were out of employment, and lounging about the market-place with their hands in their breeches' pocket, not knowing where to turn for a job, the tenantry, out of sheer goodness of heart, gave them a turn at ditching or draining; and though they worked very ill they got fair wages. More than two-thirds of all the webs they wove—for some of them were really skilful artisans, and not mere botchers like Devilsdust—were taken by John Bull's tenantry: they paid almost no rent to the squire—in fact, they were a great deal too well treated, and this indulgence had turned their heads. They wanted now to have nothing to do with the tenantry—beyond forcing them to take the same amount of cloth as before—and to get all their meat and bread from Frog, Baboon, North, Jonathan, and others, who lived off the estate, and who, they thought, would be uncommonly glad to take webs in exchange for provisions. None of these squires wanted webs, because their own villagers would have made a precious hullabaloo if they had introduced into their estates anything which was manufactured on the grounds of Mr Bull; but they made believe as if they would have no objections, at some future period, to meet the views of Devilsdust; and in the mean time, having a good deal of land which they wished to see properly tilled, they intimated to the villagers of Squire Bull, that they would have no objection whatever to sell them cattle and corn at a rate somewhat smaller than Bull's tenantry could afford.

This scheme never could have been carried into effect but for a difference, in the servants' hall. It is of no use now raking up old matters. Carried it was, to the great disgust of the tenantry, and Juggling Johnny was appointed steward. To do the Juggler justice, he was not altogether in favour of the plan. But he could hardly help himself, as, without the assistance of Dick and his backers, he never would have got the keys; so, being an adroit little creature, and as clever at spinning a pirouette as an opera-dancer, he turned his back upon himself, declared that the tenantry were labouring under an antiquated fallacy, and that he would put all to rights in the twinkling of a bed-post. So, much against the convictions of the Squire, who knew him of old for as incapable a squirrel as ever cracked a rotten nut, he sat himself down at the head of the table, and began to talk to the servants as though he were a second edition of Mahomet or the prophet Nixon.

And where do you think was Dick Devilsdust all this time? If you suppose that he was not looking after his own interest, you are consumedly mistaken. No sooner was the measure which swindled Squire Bull's tenantry carried in the servants' hall, than he went down to the country, called the villagers together, mounted upon an old sugar-barrel—which was now perfectly useless—and, brandishing a billy-roller in his hand, addressed them in the following terms:—

"Friends, Billy-roller men, and brothers! lend me your ears! The victory is won—we have done the trick! Cottonchester and the Mississippi are henceforward laid side by side. (Enormous cheering.) The devil take Bull's tenantry. (Applause.) They are dolts, asses, fools, idiots, chawbacons, and Helots. Bull himself is a blockhead, and we must look after his affairs. We alone, and not the tenantry, are fit to do it. (Cheering.) And I am not going to stand any nonsense about police or house-dogs. (Vociferous applause.) We know very well why they are kept; and I, for one, have no notion of being interfered with. You understand me? (Cries of "We do!") Well, then, I'll tell you what it is—the Juggler hasn't behaved to me at all handsome in this matter. Not that I care about it one toss of a Brummagem farden; but I think they might have paid a little more respect to the voice of the villages. Howsom'dever, d'ye see, I don't mind the thing; only, as my health's a little shaken as it were with doing jobs of yours, I think a slight jaunt would do me good; and as I have been obliged to neglect my business, at an enormous sacrifice, on your account, perhaps you wouldn't consider it an unwarrantable liberty if I were just to send round the hat."

So Devilsdust sent round the hat, and pocketed a lot of browns with some stray sixpences to boot—quite enough in fact to clear him in his projected jaunt, and something more. This subscription—being the first—turned out so well that Bendigo the Quaker, who had been a strong backer of Devilsdust, and, as some thought, was the cleverer fellow of the two, tried to get up a collection on his own account; but, I am sorry to say, made nothing of it. So Devilsdust, having pocketed the blunt, went out to take his holiday.

How do you think he used it? He made what he called a "Practical Tour" through the estates of Don Pedro, Don Ferdinando, Signor Macaroni, and Sultan Koran, advertising his wares everywhere, and entreating them to give him custom. Moreover, he lost no opportunity of abusing his landlord, John Bull, whom he held up everywhere to contempt as the most idiotical, prejudiced, pig-headed individual living. He said that there was but one way of promoting universal brotherhood among all the estates, and that was by admitting his, Dick Devilsdust's, wares free of duty. He pledged himself that, if this were done, there would be no more squabbles or lawsuits; and as he invariably spoke in a dialect which no one who heard him could understand, whilst he did not understand one word which was made in reply to his speeches, the effect, of course, was electric. He came back, swearing that there could be no more lawsuits, on account of his (Devilsdust's) enormous expected consignments; and that all Bullockshatch should unite as one man, to compel Squire Bull to dismiss every policeman, watchman, and bumbailiff in his service. As for poor Dragon, who had long been the terror of tramps and poachers, Dick proposed that he should be poisoned forthwith, or at all events starved to death; but he had not the smallest objection that his skin should be stuffed, and preserved as a specimen of an extinct animal.

Meanwhile Juggling Johnny, the new steward, set about regulating the affairs of the household as quietly as possible. The Juggler was not now quite so young as he once was, and, moreover, he had taken unto himself a wife; so that his wages became a matter of considerable importance to him, and he had no wish to do anything which might induce Squire Bull to give him warning. But he had difficult cards to play. You must know that the lower servants' room was fitted with an entirely new set, and a number of these were fellows bred in the villages, who were ready to say ditto to every word which was uttered by Devilsdust or Bendigo. They had no abstract affection, but, on the contrary, an intense contempt for the Juggler, who they said—and perhaps they had reason for it—was not worth his wages; and they seemed to make it the pet business of their lives to keep him in hot water. One while Hum, the quack doctor, would insist on overhauling his accounts, and made a tremendous outcry if every remnant of candle was not accounted for. The Juggler tried to stop his mouth by giving his son an appointment in the scullery, but old Hum, who was a regular Greek, would not submit to be put off in that way. Another while a fellow would rise in the common's hall, and quietly propose that the villagers should, thenceforward, pay no rent to the Squire. Some wanted to have beer gratis; others complained that they were not allowed to have their stationery for nothing. In short, there was no end to their clamour, so that the Juggler very soon found that he had by no means an easy seat. Then there was another section of the servants, friends of the regular tenantry, who liked the Juggler just one degree better than they liked Devilsdust or Bendigo. They took every opportunity of telling him that he was playing the mischief with the whole estate; that the rents were being paid simply out of capital or borrowed money, instead of profits; and that, if he did not alter his whole system, and clap on a decent embargo on the corn-carts and meat-vans of Nick Frog, North, Jonathan, and the rest, he might wake some fine quarter-day without finding money enough in the till to pay himself his wages. That, however, must have been an exaggeration, for the Juggler was too old a raven not to look ahead whenever his own interest was concerned. The only men who really stuck to him on all occasions were such of the servants as he could provide with places in the household, or furnish with stray pickings on the sly; and, to do them justice, they adhered to him like leeches. The upper servants, though they bore no great love to Johnny, thought it best, in the mean time, to interfere as little as possible, and to let things run their course; only this they were determined upon, that no improper or suspected person should get into the house without their leave.