They accordingly sat down together, and the stranger displayed considerable knowledge in the science of mining; and Jacob was so much delighted with his companion, that an hour or two slipped away, as he said, “in no time;” and then there was heard the sound of a horse’s feet at the door, and a somewhat authoritative hillo!
“It is our parson,” said Jacob, starting up, and he ran to the door to inquire what might be his reverence’s pleasure. “Good morning,” said the Reverend Mr Stanhope. “I’m going over to dine with our club at the Old Boar, and I want you just to cast your eye on those fellows in my home close; you can see them out of your parlour window.”—“Yes, to be sure, sir,” replied Jacob.—“Hem!” quoth Mr Stanhope, “have you anybody indoors?”—“Yes, sir, we have,” replied Jacob, “a strange gentleman, who seems to know a pretty deal about mining and them sort of things. I think he’s some great person in disguise; he seems regularly edicated—up to everything,” “Eh, ah! a great person in disguise!” exclaimed Mr Stanhope. “I’ll just step in a minute. It seems as if there was a shower coming over, and I’m in no hurry, and it is not worth while to get wet through for the sake of a few minutes.” So he alighted from his horse, soliloquising to himself, “Perhaps the Lord Chancellor! Who knows? However, I shall take care to show my principles;” and straightway he went into the house, and was most respectfully saluted by the elderly stranger; and they entered into a conversation upon the standing English topics of weather, wind, crops, and the coal trade; and Mr Stanhope contrived to introduce therein sundry unkind things against the Pope and all his followers; and avowed himself a stanch “church-and-king” man, and spake enthusiastically of our “glorious constitution,” and lauded divers individuals then in power, but more particularly those who studied the true interests of the Church, by seeking out and preferring men of merit and talent to fill vacant benefices. The stranger thereat smiled significantly, as though he could, if he felt disposed, say something to the purpose; and Mr Stanhope felt more inclined than ever to think the landlord might have conjectured very near the truth, and, consequently, redoubled his efforts to make the agreeable, professing his regret at being obliged to dine out that day, &c. The stranger politely thanked him for his consideration, and stated that he was never at a loss for employment, and that he was then rambling, for a few days, to relax his mind from the fatigues of an overwhelming mass of important business, to which his duty compelled him to attend early and late. “Perhaps,” he continued, “you will smile when I tell you that I am now engaged in a series of experiments relative to the power of the centrifugal force, and its capacity of overcoming various degrees of friction.” (Here he produced the teetotum.) “You perceive the different surfaces of the under edge of this little thing. The outside, you see, is all of ivory, but indented in various ways; and yet I have not been able to decide whether the roughest or smoothest more frequently arrest its motions. The colours, of course, are merely indications. Here is my register,” and he produced a book, wherein divers abstruse mathematical calculations were apparent. “I always prefer other people to spin it, as then I obtain a variety of impelling power. Perhaps you will do me the favour just to twirl it round a few times alternately with the landlord? Two make a fairer experiment than one. Just for five minutes. I’ll not trouble you a moment longer, I promise you.”—“Hem!” thought Mr Stanhope.
“Learned men, now and then,
Have very strange vagaries!”
However, he commenced spinning the teetotum, turn and turn with Jacob Philpot, who was highly delighted both with the drollery of the thing, and the honour of playing with the parson of the parish, and laughed most immoderately, while the stranger stood by, looking at his stop-watch as demurely as on the preceding evening, until the five minutes had expired; and then, in the middle of the Rev. Mr Stanhope’s spin, he took up the little toy and put it into his pocket.
Jacob Philpot immediately arose, and shook the stranger warmly by the hand, and told him that he should be happy to see him whenever he came that way again; and then nodding to Mr Stanhope and the landlady, went out at the front door, mounted the horse that stood there, and rode away. “Where’s the fellow going?” cried Mrs Philpot; “Hillo! Jacob, I say!”—“Well, mother,” said the Reverend Mr Stanhope, “what’s the matter now?” but Mrs Philpot had reached the front of the house, and continued to shout “Hillo! hillo, come back, I tell you!”—“That woman is always doing some strange thing or other,” observed Mr Stanhope to the stranger. “What on earth can possess her to go calling after the parson in that manner?”—“I declare he’s rode off with Squire Jones’s horse,” cried Mrs Philpot, re-entering the house. “To be sure he has,” said Mr Stanhope; “he borrowed it on purpose to go to the Old Boar.”—“Did he?” exclaimed the landlady; “and without telling me a word about it! But I’ll Old Boar him, I promise you!”—“Don’t make such a fool of yourself, mother,” said the parson; “it can’t signify twopence to you where he goes.”—“Can’t it?” rejoined Mrs Philpot. “I’ll tell you what, your worship——”—“Don’t worship me, woman,” exclaimed the teetotum landlord parson; “worship! what nonsense now! Why, you’ve been taking your drops again this morning, I think. Worship, indeed! To be sure, I did once, like a fool, promise to worship you; but if my time was to come over again, I know what——But, never mind now—don’t you see it’s twelve o’clock? Come, quick, let us have what there is to eat, and then we’ll have a comfortable pipe under the tree. What say you, sir?”—“With all my heart,” replied the elderly stranger. Mrs Philpot could make nothing of the parson’s speech about worshipping her; but the order for something to eat was very distinct; and though she felt much surprised thereat, as well as at the proposed smoking under the tree, she, nevertheless, was much gratified that so unusual an order should be given on that particular day, as she had a somewhat better dinner than usual, namely, a leg of mutton upon the spit. Therefore she bustled about with exceeding goodwill, and Sally spread a clean cloth upon the table in the little parlour for the parson and the strange old gentleman; and when the mutton was placed upon the table, the latter hoped they should have the pleasure of Mrs Philpot’s company; but she looked somewhat doubtfully till the parson said, “Come, come, mother, don’t make a bother about it; sit down, can’t you, when the gentleman bids you.” Therefore she smoothed her apron and made one at the dinner-table, and conducted herself with so much precision that the teetotum parson looked upon her with considerable surprise, while she regarded him with no less, inasmuch as he talked in a very unclerical manner; and, among other strange things, swore that his wife was as “drunk as blazes” the night before, and winked at her, and behaved altogether in a style very unbecoming a minister in his own parish.
At one o’clock there was a great sensation caused in the village of Stockwell, by the appearance of their reverend pastor and the elderly stranger, sitting on the bench which went round the tree, which stood before the sign of the roaring rampant Red Lion, each with a long pipe in his mouth, blowing clouds, which would not have disgraced the most inveterate smoker of the “black diamond” fraternity, and ever and anon moistening their clay with “heavy wet,” from tankards placed upon a small table, which Mrs Philpot had provided for their accommodation. The little boys and girls first approached within a respectful distance, and then ran away giggling to tell their companions; and they told their mothers, who came and peeped likewise; and many were diverted, and many were scandalised at the sight: yet the parson seemed to care for none of these things, but cracked his joke, and sipped his ale, and smoked his pipe, with as much easy nonchalance as if he had been in his own arm-chair at the rectory. Yet it must be confessed that now and then there was a sort of equivocal remark made by him, as though he had some faint recollection of his former profession, although he evinced not the smallest sense of shame at the change which had been wrought in him. Indeed this trifling imperfection in the change of identity appears to have attended such transformations in general, and might have arisen from the individual bodies retaining their own clothes (for the mere fashion of dress hath a great influence on some minds), or, perhaps, because a profession or trade, with the habits thereof, cannot be entirely shaken off, nor a new one perfectly learned, by spinning a teetotum for five minutes. The time had now arrived when George Syms, the shoemaker, and Peter Brown, the blacksmith, were accustomed to take their “pint and pipe after dinner,” and greatly were they surprised to see their places so occupied; and not a little was their astonishment increased, when the parson lifted up his voice, and ordered Sally to bring out a couple of chairs, and then shook them both warmly by the hand, and welcomed them by the affectionate appellation of “My hearties!” 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.
Tol de rol, lol, &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, “non-plushed;” but fortunately he recollected the Catholic question, about which most people were then talking, and which everybody 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 unchristianlike 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. For my part, I’d as soon live at the sign of the Mitre as the Lion, or mount the cardinal’s hat for that matter, if I thought I could get anything by it. Look at home, say I. 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, who was one of the sturdy English old-fashioned school, and did not approve of hot and cold being blown out of the same mouth, 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 at 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.