worsted stockings and smart buckled shoes, that characterised every
self-respecting innkeeper in Great Britain in these days--and while
pretty, motherless Sally had need of four pairs of brown hands to do
all the work that fell on her shapely shoulders,
worthy Jellyband
discussed the affairs of nations with his most
privileged guests.
The coffee-room indeed, lighted by two well-polished lamps,
which hung from the raftered ceiling, looked
cheerful and cosy in the
extreme. Through the dense clouds of
tobacco smoke that hung about in
every corner, the faces of Mr. Jellyband's customers appeared red and
pleasant to look at, and on good terms with themselves, their host and
all the world; from every side of the room loud guffaws accompanied
pleasant, if not highly
intellectual, conversation--while Sally's
repeated giggles testified to the good use Mr. Harry Waite was making
of the short time she seemed inclined to spare him.
They were
mostly fisher-folk who patronised Mr. Jellyband's
coffee-room, but fishermen are known to be very thirsty people; the
salt which they
breathe in, when they are on the sea,
accounts for
their parched throats when on shore. but "The Fisherman's Rest" was
something more than a rendezvous for these
humble folk. The London
and Dover coach started from the hostel daily, and passengers who had
come across the Channel, and those who started for the "grand tour,"
all became acquainted with Mr. Jellyband, his French wines and his
home-brewed ales.
It was towards the close of September, 1792, and the weather
which had been
brilliant and hot throughout the month had suddenly
broken up; for two days torrents of rain had deluged the south of
England, doing its level best to ruin what chances the apples and
pears and late plums had of becoming really fine, self-respecting
fruit. Even now it was
beating against the leaded windows, and
tumbling down the chimney, making the
cheerful wood fire sizzle in the
hearth.
"Lud! did you ever see such a wet September, Mr. Jellyband?"
asked Mr. Hempseed.
He sat in one of the seats inside the
hearth, did Mr.
Hempseed, for he was an authority and important
personage not only at
"The Fisherman's Rest," where Mr. Jellyband always made a special
selection of him as a foil for political arguments, but throughout the
neighborhood, where his
learning and
notably his knowledge of the
Scriptures was held in the most
profound awe and respect. With one
hand buried in the
capacious pockets of his corduroys
underneath his
elaborately-worked, well-worn smock, the other
holding his long clay
pipe, Mr. Hempseed sat there looking dejectedly across the room at the
rivulets of
moisture which trickled down the window panes.
"No," replied Mr. Jellyband, sententiously, "I dunno, Mr.
'Empseed, as I ever did. An' I've been in these parts nigh on sixty
years."
"Aye! you wouldn't rec'llect the first three years of them sixty,
Mr. Jellyband," quietly interposed Mr. Hempseed. "I dunno as I ever
see'd an
infant take much note of the weather, leastways not in these
parts, an' _I_'ve lived `ere nigh on seventy-five years, Mr. Jellyband."
The
superiority of this
wisdom was so incontestable that for the moment
Mr. Jellyband was not ready with his usual flow of argument.
"It do seem more like April than September, don't it?"
continued Mr. Hempseed, dolefully, as a
shower of raindrops fell with
a sizzle upon the fire.
"Aye! that it do," assented the worth host, "but then what can you `xpect,
Mr. `Empseed, I says, with sich a government as we've got?"
Mr. Hempseed shook his head with an infinity of
wisdom,
tempered by deeply-rooted
mistrust of the British climate
and the British Government.
"I don't `xpect nothing, Mr. Jellyband," he said. "Pore folks
like us is of no
account up there in Lunnon, I knows that, and it's
not often as I do
complain. But when it comes to sich wet weather in
September, and all me fruit a-rottin' and a-dying' like the `Guptian
mother's first born, and doin' no more good than they did, pore dears,
save a lot more Jews, pedlars and sich, with their oranges and sich
like foreign ungodly fruit, which nobody'd buy if English apples and
pears was
nicely swelled. As the Scriptures say--"
"That's quite right, Mr. `Empseed," retorted Jellyband, "and
as I says, what can you `xpect? There's all them Frenchy devils over
the Channel yonder a-murderin' their king and
nobility, and Mr. Pitt
and Mr. Fox and Mr. Burke a-fightin' and a-wranglin' between them, if
we Englishmen should `low them to go on in their ungodly way. `Let
'em murder!' says Mr. Pitt. `Stop `em!' says Mr. Burke."
"And let `em murder, says I, and be demmed to `em." said Mr.
Hempseed,
emphatically, for he had but little
liking for his friend
Jellyband's political arguments,
wherein he always got out of his
depth, and had but little chance for displaying those pearls of
wisdomwhich had earned for him so high a
reputation in the neighbourhood and
so many free tankards of ale at "The Fisherman's Rest."
"Let `em murder," he
repeated again, "but don't lets `ave sich rain in
September, for that is agin the law and the Scriptures which says--"
"Lud! Mr. `Arry, `ow you made me jump!"
It was
unfortunate for Sally and her flirtation that this
remark of hers should have occurred at the
precise moment when Mr.
Hempseed was collecting his
breath, in order to deliver himself one of
those Scriptural utterances which made him famous, for it brought down
upon her pretty head the full flood of her father's wrath.
"Now then, Sally, me girl, now then!" he said,
trying to force
a frown upon his good-humoured face, "stop that fooling with them
young jackanapes and get on with the work."
"The work's gettin' on all ri', father."
But Mr. Jellyband was peremptory. He had other views for his buxom
daughter, his only child, who would in God's good time become the owner
of "The Fisherman's Rest," than to see her married to one of these
young fellows who earned but a
precariouslivelihood with their net.
"Did ye hear me speak, me girl?" he said in that quiet tone,
which no one inside the inn dared to
disobey. "Get on with my Lord
Tony's supper, for, if it ain't the best we can do, and `e not
satisfied, see what you'll get, that's all."
Reluctantly Sally obeyed.
"Is you `xpecting special guests then to-night, Mr.
Jellyband?" asked Jimmy Pitkin, in a loyal attempt to
divert his
host's attention from the circumstances connected with Sally's exit
from the room.
"Aye! that I be," replied Jellyband, "friends of my Lord Tony
hisself. Dukes and duchesses from over the water yonder, whom the
young lord and his friend, Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, and other young
noblemen have helped out of the clutches of them murderin' devils."
But this was too much for Mr. Hempseed's querulous philosophy.
"Lud!" he said, "what do they do that for, I wonder? I don't
'old not with interferin' in other folks' ways. As the Scriptures
say--"
"Maybe, Mr. `Empseed," interrupted Jellyband, with biting
sarcasm, "as you're a personal friend of Mr. Pitt, and as you says
along with Mr. Fox: `Let `em murder!' says you."
"Pardon me, Mr. Jellyband," febbly protested Mr. Hempseed, "I
dunno as I ever did."
But Mr. Jellyband had at last succeeded in getting upon his
favourite hobby-horse, and had no
intention of dismounting in any
hurry.
"Or maybe you've made friends with some of them French chaps
'oo they do say have come over here o' purpose to make us Englishmen
agree with their murderin' ways."
"I dunno what you mean, Mr. Jellyband," suggested Mr.
Hempseed, "all I know is--"
"All _I_ know is," loudly asserted mine host, "that there was
my friend Peppercorn, `oo owns the `Blue-Faced Boar,' an' as true and
loyal an Englishman as you'd see in the land. And now look at
'im!--'E made friends with some o' them frog-eaters, `obnobbed with
them just as if they was Englishmen, and not just a lot of immoral,
Godforsaking furrin' spies. Well! and what happened? Peppercorn `e
now ups and talks of revolutions, and liberty, and down with the
aristocrats, just like Mr. `Empseed over `ere!"
"Pardon me, Mr. Jellyband," again interposed Mr. Hempseed feebly,
"I dunno as I ever did--"
Mr. Jellyband had appealed to the company in general, who were
listening awe-struck and open-mouthed at the
recital of Mr.
Peppercorn's defalcations. At one table two customers--gentlemen
apparently by their clothes--had pushed aside their half-finished game
of dominoes, and had been listening for some time, and
evidently with
much
amusement at Mr. Jellyband's
international opinions. One of them
now, with a quiet, sarcastic smile still lurking round the corners of
his mobile mouth, turned towards the centre of the room where Mr.
Jellyband was standing.
"You seem to think, mine honest friend," he said quietly,
"that these Frenchmen,--spies I think you called them--are mighty
clever fellows to have made mincemeat so to speak of your friend Mr.
Peppercorn's opinions. How did they accomplish that now, think you?"
"Lud! sir, I suppose they talked `im over. Those Frenchies,
I've `eard it said, `ave got the gift of gab--and Mr. `Empseed `ere
will tell you `ow it is that they just twist some people round their
little finger like."
"Indeed, and is that so, Mr. Hempseed?" inquired the stranger
politely.
"Nay, sir!" replied Mr. Hempseed, much irritated, "I dunno as
I can give you the information you require."
"Faith, then," said the stranger, "let us hope, my
worthyhost, that these clever spies will not succeed in upsetting your
extremely loyal opinions."
But this was too much for Mr. Jellyband's pleasant equanimity.
He burst into an uproarious fit of
laughter, which was soon echoed by
those who happened to be in his debt.
"Hahaha! hohoho! hehehe!" He laughed in every key, did my
worthy host, and laughed until his sided ached, and his eyes streamed.
"At me! hark at that! Did ye `ear `im say that they'd be upsettin'
my opinions?--Eh?--Lud love you, sir, but you do say some queer
things."
"Well, Mr. Jellyband," said Mr. Hempseed, sententiously, "you know
what the Scriptures say: `Let `im `oo stands take `eed lest `e fall.'"
"But then hark'ee Mr. `Empseed," retorted Jellyband, still
holding his sides with
laughter, "the Scriptures didn't know me. Why,
I wouldn't so much as drink a glass of ale with one o' them murderin'
Frenchmen, and nothin' `d make me change my opinions. Why! I've `eard
it said that them frog-eaters can't even speak the King's English, so,
of course, if any of `em tried to speak their God-forsaken lingo to
me, why, I should spot them directly, see!--and forewarned is
forearmed, as the
saying goes."
"Aye! my honest friend," assented the stranger
cheerfully, "I
see that you are much too sharp, and a match for any twenty Frenchmen,
and here's to your very good health, my
worthy host, if you'll do me
the honour to finish this bottle of mine with me."
"I am sure you're very
polite, sir," said Mr. Jellyband,
wiping his eyes which were still streaming with the
abundance of his
laughter, "and I don't mind if I do."
The stranger poured out a couple of tankards full of wine, and
having offered one to mine host, he took the other himself.
"Loyal Englishmen as we all are," he said,
whilst the same humorous
smile played round the corners of his thin lips--"loyal as we are,
we must admit that this at least is one good thing which comes to
us from France."
"Aye! we'll none of us deny that, sir," assented mine host.
"And here's to the best
landlord in England, our
worthy host,
Mr. Jellyband," said the stranger in a loud tone of voice.
"Hi, hip, hurrah!" retorted the whole company present. Then
there was a loud clapping of hands, and mugs and tankards made a
rattling music upon the tables to the
accompaniment of loud
laughterat nothing in particular, and of Mr. Jellyband's muttered
exclamations:
"Just fancy ME bein' talked over by any God-forsaken
furriner!--What?--Lud love you, sir, but you do say some queer things."