No sooner was it noised abroad that Mat-o'-the-Mint was on his travels, than there was a considerable stir both among the southern squirearchy and their tenantry, who were then unfortunately at loggerheads. Everybody who had a dispute with anybody else wanted to know what Squire Bull thought of the matter, hoping probably that he would not be disinclined to lend him a helping hand, and mayhap a few pounds; for the fellows in those parts laboured under the delusion that the Squire was made of money. So they were all anxious to get a confidential hearing from Mat-o'-the-Mint, whom they imagined to be a very great man indeed, and a very wise one; arguing, naturally enough, that the Squire would not have entrusted such a mission except to a person of consummate prudence and discretion. Little they knew of the Juggler or Protocol, or of the way in which Squire Bull's business was conducted! But to resume. One fine day Mat-o'-the-Mint arrived on the estate of a gentleman, Don Vesuvius, who was an old friend of Bull's, and was received at the boundary by the ground-steward, who, in the very civilest possible manner, presented his master's compliments, and requested that Master Matthew would drive straight up to the Hall, where a handsome suite of apartments was ready for his accommodation. Privately, and in his heart, Mat would have liked nothing better; but he was not quite sure whether Protocol would approve of his doing so, especially as Don Vesuvius was notoriously on bad terms with some of his own people. So he thought it best to decline for the present.
"My compliments," quoth he, "to your master, and say to him that I am quite sensible that he has done the proper thing in asking me to the Hall. But you see that I am so situated that I can't very well come. My master, the squire, has heard a good deal of what is going on in these parts; and though, as a matter of course, he has no wish to interfere between the Don and his tenantry, yet the fact is that, under present circumstances, I had better put up at the inn. Say to your master that I shall be glad to see him there, any time he may be passing; at all events, I shall certainly make a point of writing him my opinion on the general question, in the course of a day or so."
Now, it so happened that there were a number of lazy-looking fellows, with knives in their belts, loitering around the drosky while Mat-o'-the-Mint delivered this answer to the ground steward; and these were precisely the worst of the whole crew with whom Don Vesuvius was at feud. Who so rejoiced as they to find that Squire Bull's confidential servant was likely to be on their side! They threw up their hats, and brayed, and danced, and cut fandangos, to all which Mat-o'-the-Mint replied by taking off his hat and bowing like a Chinese mandarin. At last, in the exuberance of their joy, the crowd took the horses out of the vehicle, and fairly dragged him to the village inn, leaving the unhappy ground steward as disconsolate as Ariadne on Naxos.
No sooner were they arrived at the inn, than Mat asked a number of the men to step up to his sitting-room; and having questioned them regarding their grievances, which you may be sure they took care to magnify to the utmost, he called for pen, ink, and paper, and sate himself down to write a long epistle to Don Vesuvius. I can't give you the particulars of this document, further than that it contained an intimation that in his, Mat-o'-the-Mint's opinion, the gentleman had been very much misled in the management of his own affairs. That for the sake of restoring peace and tranquillity, it appeared to the aforesaid Matthew that Don Vesuvius would do well to surrender one half of his estate to the tenantry, without receiving any consideration for it; and that if this arrangement, which he merely ventured to suggest, should meet with approbation, there could be no difficulty whatever in reducing the rents on the remaining half. As also that the undersigned was with the highest consideration, &c. &c. Having finished this doughty epistle, which he despatched by the boots of the inn, Mat ordered his equipage, and drove away to another estate, as proud as Punch, amidst the shouts of the whole idlers of the village.
You may fancy the astonishment of the honest gentleman when he read Mat's letter. It was some time before he could believe the evidence of his spectacles. "Good heavens!" he said, "is it possible that Squire Bull can treat an old friend and fellow-sportsman thus? Haven't I dozens upon dozens of letters under his own hand, guaranteeing me possession of my whole estate, and am I now to be fobbed off in this way, and insulted to boot by an old trencherman of whom nobody ever heard? But I won't believe it! It must be some trick of that rascal, Protocol, who is perpetually writing letters without authority in the name of his master—at all events, I won't submit to be dictated to, in the disposal of my own, by the best Squire living!"
By this time, however, the riotous portion of the tenantry were fully possessed with the notion that Squire Bull was ready to back them up to any extent; so they began a regular insurrection, fired at the gamekeepers, beat the watchmen, and barricaded one of the villages, after they had thoroughly plundered it. But they reckoned without their host; for the tenantry on the home farm were to a man true to their master, and having armed themselves, they crossed the canal, (in which, by the way, some of John's barges were lying, it was thought with the connivance of Protocol,) and gave the rascally rabble such a drubbing, that nothing more was heard afterwards about the partition of the property. The rioters, however, believe to this hour that they were deceived by Squire Bull, who, they aver, had promised to support them, and they accordingly hate him like ratsbane; neither, as you may well conceive, is Don Vesuvius, whose property was proposed to be divided, over and above grateful for this impudent interference with his private affairs.
This, however, was a mere segment of the mischief which was effected by Mat-o'-the-Mint. Wherever he went he tendered advice; and whenever that advice was given, rioting ensued. In short, he proved such a nuisance, that well-affected people would much rather have submitted to a visit from the cholera. At last he arrived at Peter's patrimony, a place which was by no means tranquil at the time. Notwithstanding Peter's boasting, and his perpetual attempt to get his emissaries quartered on every estate in the country, he was the reverse of popular at home. He had a very handsome house, which he kept full of friars, monks, Jesuits, Dominicans, Carthusians, and Grand Inquisitors, fellows who did little else than eat, drink, sleep, and conspire at the expense of the working population. This had become so intolerable, that Peter, though the most tyrannical despot upon earth, found it necessary to come down a peg or two, and announced his intention of revising the laws of his household, which, to say the truth, needed mending sorely. But he did not stop there. He began to intrigue for a restoration of the whole estates which were formerly in the family of Signor Macaroni, but which latterly had passed into the hands of other proprietors—for example, Don Ferdinando; and, at the time I speak of, his village was filled with every description of cut-throat, robber, and murderer that could be gathered from the country round, all of them shouting "Long life to Peter!" and "Hurrah for the independence of Macaroni!" They were in the very midst of this jubilation, which sounded more like an echo of Pandemonium than anything else, when Mat-o'-the-Mint drove into the town; and the moment they heard of his arrival, the very worst of them—Massaniello, Massaroni, Corpo di Caio Mario, and Vampyrio degli Assassinacione—congregated under the windows, and whooped and howled, till Mat, in an access of terror, came out upon the balcony, pressed a flag, with a death's-head and cross-bones upon it, to his bosom, and proposed three cheers for the independence of Macaroni! You may conceive what a taking the poor fellow must have been in before he ventured to do anything of the sort.
Mat, being thus committed to Macaroni, was a mere baby in the hands of Peter. They had an interview to discuss the affairs of the neighbouring Squirearchy, and any other little matters which might occur to either; which Mat felt as an honour, whilst Peter was feeling his pulse. Peter, like an aged villain as he was, affected to be extremely straightforward and open in his remarks, and quite confidential in his communications; so that, in the course of half an hour, poor Mat was entirely at his mercy. After they had chatted for a short time, and cracked a bottle or so of Lachrymæ together, Peter claps me down a map of the whole country, whereon Squire Bull's farm was marked out with some twelve or thirteen crosses, before Mat, and asked him whether he thought it was all correct?
"Undubitably," quoth Mat-o'-the-Mint, who regarded the crosses as simply indicative of the villages.
"Then there can be no objections to the publication of a map of this kind upon hierarchical principles?" continued Peter, ogling his victim at the same time, as a fox makes love to a gander.