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 ran 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!” Scarcely had this soliloquy terminated, when a lady, who had alighted from the carriage (leaving the gentleman who came with her to give some orders about the luggage), entered the inn, and was greatly surprised to find her delicate hand seized by the horny grasp of the landlord of the Red Lion, who addressed her as “Dear Mrs Wilkins,” and vowed he was quite delighted at the unexpected pleasure of seeing her, and hoped the worthy rector was well, and all the dear little darlings. Mrs Wilkins disengaged her hand as quickly as possible, and made her escape into a room, the door of which was held open for her admittance by the waiter; and then the worthy rector made his appearance, followed by one of the “little darlings,” whom Jacob Philpot, in the joy of his heart at finding himself once more among friends, snatched up in his arms, and thereby produced a bellowing which instantly brought the alarmed mother from her retreat. “What is that frightful man doing with the child?” she cried, and Jacob, who could scarcely believe his ears, was immediately deprived of his burden, while his particular friend, the worthy rector, looked upon him with a cold and vacant stare, and then retired into his room with his wife and the little darling, and Jacob was once more left to his own cogitations. “I see it!” he exclaimed, after a short pause, “I see it! This is the reward of rectitude of principle! This is the reward of undeviating and inflexible firmness of purpose! He has read my unanswerable pamphlet! I always thought there was a laxity of principle about him!” So Jacob forthwith walked into the open air to cool himself, and strolled round the garden of the inn, and meditated upon divers important subjects; and thus he passed his time till the hour of dinner, though he could not but keep occasionally wondering that some of his friends did not come down to meet him, since they must have seen him walking in the garden. His patience, however, was at length exhausted, and his appetite was exceedingly clamorous, partly, perhaps, because his outward man had been used to dine at the plebeian hour of noon, while his inward man made a point of never taking anything more than a biscuit and a glass of wine between breakfast and five o’clock; and even that little modicum had been omitted on this fatal day, in consequence of the incivility of the people of the inn. “The dinner hour was five precisely,” said he, looking at his watch, “and now it is half-past—but I’ll wait a little longer. It’s a bad plan to hurry them. It puts the cook out of humour, and then all goes wrong.” Therefore he waited a little longer; that is to say, till the calls of absolute hunger became quite ungovernable, and then he went into 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 in 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. For the rest, it was unlike the garb of the strange gentleman, inasmuch as that, though possibly entitled to the epithet shabby, it could not be termed genteel. “What’s the fellow gaping at?” cried Jacob, in an angry voice; “go and tell your master that 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 the table, as if to discern by whom the strange gentleman in the scarlet-and-yellow plush waistcoat and the dirty shirt might be patronised; but there were others who recognised 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. I have been walking in the garden for these two hours, and you must have seen me. And now you stare at me as if you didn’t know me! Really, gentlemen, it is too bad! I love a joke as well as any man, and can take one too; but, as I said before, a joke may be carried too far.”—“I think so too,” said the landlord of the Old Boar, tapping him on the shoulder; “so come along, and don’t make a fool of yourself here.”—“Fellow!” cried Jacob, rising in great wrath, “go your ways! Be off, I tell you! 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 parsonified 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 Martin!” said he, “can you sit by and see me used thus? I am sure 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 licence, you shall hear of this.” The landlord of the Old Boar was withal a kind-hearted man; and as he well knew that the loss of its licence 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 arm-chair 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 anything 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 had anything 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.
At this moment the Reverend Mr Stanhope opened the little door at the foot of the stairs. On waking, and finding himself upon a bed, he had concluded that he must have fainted in consequence of the agitation of mind produced by the gross insults which he had suffered, or perhaps from the effects of hunger. Great, therefore, was his surprise to find himself at the Red Lion in his own parish; and the first questions he asked of Mrs Philpot were how and when he had been brought there. “La, sir!” said the landlady, “you went up-stairs of your own accord, after you were tired of smoking under the tree.”—“Smoking under the tree, woman!” exclaimed Mr Stanhope; “what are you talking about? Do you recollect whom you are speaking to?” “Ay, marry, do I,” replied the sensitive Mrs Philpot; “and you told Sally to call you when Scroggins and Smith came for their gallon of ale, as you meant to join the party.”
The Reverend Mr Stanhope straightway took up his hat, put it upon his head, and stalked with indignant dignity out of the house, opining that the poor woman was in her cups; and meditated, as he walked home, on the extraordinary affairs of the day. But his troubles were not yet ended, for the report of his public jollification had reached his own household; and John, his trusty man-servant, had been despatched to the Red Lion, and had ascertained that his master was really gone to bed in a state very unfit for a clergyman to be seen in. Some remarkably goodnatured friends had been to condole with Mrs Stanhope upon the extraordinary proceedings of her goodman, and to say how much they were shocked, and what a pity it was, and wondering what the bishop would think of it, and divers other equally amiable and consolatory reflections and notes of admiration. Now Mrs Stanhope, though she had much of the “milk of human kindness” in her composition, had withal a sufficient portion of “tartaric acid” mingled therewith. Therefore, when her beer-drinking husband made his appearance, he found her in a state of effervescence. “Mary,” said he, “I am extremely fatigued. I have been exposed to-day to a series of insults, such as I could not have imagined it possible for any one to offer me.”—“Nor anybody else,” replied Mrs Stanhope; “but you are rightly served, and I am glad of it. Who could have supposed that you, the minister of a parish!—Faugh! how filthily you smell of tobacco! I vow I cannot endure to be in the room with you!” and she arose and left the divine to himself, in exceeding great perplexity. However, being a man who loved to do all things in order, he remembered that he had not dined, so he rang the bell and gave the needful instructions, thinking it best to satisfy nature first, and then endeavour to ascertain the cause of his beloved Mary’s acidity. His appetite was gone, but that he attributed to having fasted too long, a practice very unusual with him; however, he picked a bit here and there, and then indulged himself with a bottle of his oldest port, which he had about half consumed, and somewhat recovered his spirits, ere his dear Mary made her reappearance, and told him that she was perfectly astonished at his conduct. And well might she say so, for now, the wine, which he had been drinking with unusual rapidity, thinking, good easy man, that he had taken nothing all day, began to have a very visible effect upon a body already saturated with strong ale. He declared that he cared not a fig for the good opinion of any gentleman in the county, that he would always act and speak according to his principles, and filled a bumper to the health of the Lord Chancellor, and drank sundry more exceedingly loyal toasts, and told his astonished spouse, that he should not be surprised if he was very soon to be made a Dean or a Bishop; and as for the people at the Old Boar, he saw through their conduct—it was all envy, which doth “merit as its shade pursue.” The good lady justly deemed it folly to waste her oratory upon a man in such a state, and reserved her powers for the next morning; and Mr Stanhope reeled to bed that night in a condition which, to do him justice, he had never before exhibited under his own roof.
The next morning, Mrs Stanhope and her daughter Sophy, a promising young lady about ten years old, of the hoyden class, were at breakfast, when the elderly stranger called at the rectory, and expressed great concern on being told that Mr S. was somewhat indisposed, and had not yet made his appearance. He said that his business was of very little importance, and merely concerned some geological inquiries which he was prosecuting in the vicinity; but Mrs Stanhope, who had the names of all the ologies by heart, and loved occasionally to talk thereof, persuaded him to wait a short time, little dreaming of the consequence; for the wily old gentleman began to romp with Miss Sophy, and, after a while, produced his teetotum, and, in short, so contrived it, that the mother and daughter played together therewith for five minutes. He then politely took his leave, promising to call again; and Mrs Stanhope bobbed him a curtsy, and Sophia assured him that Mr S. would be extremely happy to afford him every assistance in his scientific researches. When the worthy divine at length made his appearance in the breakfast parlour, strangely puzzled as to the extreme feverishness and languor which oppressed him, he found Sophy sitting gravely in an arm-chair, reading a treatise on craniology. It was a pleasant thing for him to see her read anything, but he could not help expressing his surprise by observing, “I should think that book a little above your comprehension, my dear.”—“Indeed! sir,” was the reply; and the little girl laid down the volume, and sat erect in her chair, and thus continued: “I should think, Mr Nicodemus Stanhope, that after the specimen of good sense and propriety of conduct, which you were pleased to exhibit yesterday, it scarcely becomes you to pretend to estimate the comprehension of others.” “My dear,” said the astonished divine, “this is very strange language! You forget whom you are speaking to!”—“Not at all,” replied the child. “I know my place, if you don’t know yours, and am determined to speak my mind.” If anything could add to the Reverend Mr Nicodemus Stanhope’s surprise, it was the sound of his wife’s voice in the garden, calling to his man John to stand out of the way, or she should run over him. Poor John, who was tying up some of her favourite flowers, got out of her way accordingly in quick time, and the next moment his mistress rushed by, trundling a hoop, hallooing and laughing, and highly enjoying his apparent dismay. Throughout that day, it may be imagined that the reverend gentleman’s philosophy was sorely tried; but we are compelled, by want of room, to leave the particulars of his botheration to the reader’s imagination.
We are sorry to say that these were not the only metamorphoses which the mischievous old gentleman wrought in the village of Stockwell. There was a game of teetotum played between a sergeant of dragoons, who had retired upon his well-earned pension, and a baker, who happened likewise to be the renter of a small patch of land adjoining the village. The veteran, with that indistinctness of character before mentioned, shouldered the peel, and took it to the field, and used it for loading and spreading manure, so that it was never afterwards fit for any but dirty work. Then, just to show that he was not afraid of anybody, he cut a gap in the hedge of a small field of wheat which had just been reaped, and was standing in sheaves, and thereby gave admittance to a neighbouring bull, who amused himself greatly by tossing the said sheaves; but more particularly those which were set apart as tithes, against which he appeared to have a particular spite, throwing them high into the air, and then bellowing and treading them under foot. But—we must come to a close. Suffice it to say, that the village of Stockwell was long in a state of confusion in consequence of these games; for the mischief which was done during the period of delusion, ended not, like the delusion itself, with the rising or setting of the sun.
Having now related as many particulars of these strange occurrences as our limits will permit, we have merely to state the effect which they produced upon ourselves. Whenever we have since beheld servants aping the conduct of their masters or mistresses, tradesmen wasting their time and money at taverns, clergymen forgetful of the dignity and sacred character of their profession, publicans imagining themselves fit for preachers, children calling their parents to account for their conduct, matrons acting the hoyden, and other incongruities—whenever we witness these and the like occurrences, we conclude that the actors therein have been playing a game with the Old Gentleman’s Teetotum.