of a couple of pots of porter, were soon procured from the neighbouring alehouse; and while the parties are filling them, and pushing the paper of tobacco from one to the other, I shall digress, notwithstanding the contrary opinion of the other sex, in praise of this most potent and delightful weed.
I love thee, whether thou appearest in the shape of a cigar, or diest away in sweet perfume enshrined in the Mereshaum bowl; I love thee with more than woman’s love! Thou art a companion to me in solitude. I can talk and reason with thee, avoiding loud and obstreperous argument. Thou art a friend to me when in trouble, for thou advisest in silence, and consolest with thy calm influence over the perturbed spirit.
I know not how thy power has been bestowed upon thee; yet, if to harmonise the feelings, to allow the thoughts to spring without control, rising like the white vapour from the cottage hearth, on a morning that is sunny and serene;—if to impart that sober sadness over the spirit, which inclines us to forgive our enemy, that calm philosophy which reconciles us to the ingratitude and knavery of the world, that heavenly contemplation whispering to us, as we look around, that “All is good;”—if these be merits, they are thine, most potent weed.
What a quiet world would this be if every one would smoke! I suspect that the reason why the fairer sex decry thee is, that thou art the cause of silence. The ancients knew thee not, or the lips of Harpocrates would have been closed with a cigar, and his fore-finger removed from the mouth unto the temple.
Half an hour was passed without any observation from our party, as the room gradually filled with the volumes of smoke which wreathed and curled in graceful lines, as they ascended in obedience to the unchangeable laws of nature.
Hilton’s pipe was first exhausted; he shook the ashes on the table. “A very melancholy business, indeed!” observed he, as he refilled. The rest nodded a grand assent; the pipe was relighted; and all was silent as before.
Another pipe is empty.—“Looking at this inventory,” said the curate, “I should imagine the articles to be of no great value. One fur cap, one round hat, one pair of plush breeches, one—; they are not worth a couple of pounds altogether,” continued he, stuffing the tobacco into his pipe, which he relighted, and no more was said. Nicholas was the third in, or rather out. “It appears to me,” observed he;—but what appeared is lost, as some new idea flitted across his imagination, and he commenced his second pipe, without further remark.
Some ten minutes after this, Mr. Spinney handed the pot of porter to the curate, and subsequently to the rest of the party. They all took largely, then puffed away as before.
How long this cabinet council might have continued it is impossible to say; but Silence, who was in “the chair,” was soon afterwards driven from his post of honour by the most implacable of his enemies, “a woman’s tongue.”
“Well, Mr. Forster! well, gentlemen! do you mean to poison me? Have you made smell and dirt enough? How long is this to last, I should like to know?” cried Mrs. Forster, entering the room. “I tell you what, Mr. Forster, you had better hang up a sign at once, and keep an alehouse. Let the sign be a Fool’s Head, like your own. I wonder you are not ashamed of yourself, Mr. Curate; you that ought to set an example to your parishioners!”
But Mr. Dragwell did not admire such remonstrance; so taking his pipe out of his mouth, he retorted—“If your husband does put up a sign, I recommend him to stick you up as the ‘Good Woman;’ that would be without your head—Ha, ha, ha!”
“He, he, he!”
“He, he, he! you pitiful ’natomy,” cried Mrs. Forster, in a rage, turning to the clerk, as she dared not revenge herself upon the curate. Take that for your He, he, he! and she swung round the empty pewter-pot which she snatched from the table, upon the bald pericranium of Mr. Spinney, who tumbled off his chair, and rolled upon the sanded floor.
The remainder of the party were on their legs in an instant. Newton jerked the weapon out of his mother’s hands, and threw it in a corner of the room. Nicholas was aghast: he surmised that his turn would come next; and so it proved.—“An’t you ashamed of yourself, Mr. Forster, to see me treated in this way—bringing a parcel of drunken men into the house to insult me? Will you order them out, or not, sir?—Are we to have quiet or not?”
“Yes, my love,” replied Nicholas, confused, “yes, my dear, by and bye, as soon as you’re—”
Mrs. Forster darted towards her husband with the ferocity of a mad cat. Hilton perceiving the danger of his host, put out his leg so as to trip her up in her career, and she fell flat upon her face on the floor. The violence of the fall was so great, that she was stunned. Newton raised her up; and, with the assistance of his father (who approached with as much reluctance as a horse spurred towards a dead tiger), carried her up stairs, and laid her on her bed.
Poor Mr. Spinney was now raised from the floor. He still remained stupified with the blow, although gradually recovering. Betsy came in to render assistance. “O dear, Mr. Curate, do you think that he’ll die?”
“No, no; bring some water, Betsy, and throw it in his face.”
“Better take him home as he is,” replied Betsy, “and say that he is killed; when Missis hears it, she’ll be frightened out of her life. It will keep her quiet for some time at least.”
“An excellent idea, Betty; we will punish her for her conduct,” replied Hilton. The curate was delighted at the plan. Mr. Spinney was placed in an arm-chair, covered over with a table-cloth, and carried away to the parsonage by two men, who were provided by Betsy before Nicholas or Newton had quitted the room where Mrs. Forster lay in a deplorable condition: her sharp nose broken, and twisted on one side; her eyebrow cut open to the bone, and a violent contusion on her forehead. In less than half an hour it was spread through the whole town that Spinney had been murdered by Mrs. Forster, and that his brains were bespattered all over the shop windows!
Volume One--Chapter Seven.
That she is mad, ’tis true: ’tis true, ’tis pity;
And pity ’tis, ’tis true: a foolish figure;
But farewell it, for I will use no art.
Mad let us grant her then; and now remains
That we find out the cause of this effect,
Or rather say, the cause of this defect.
Shakespeare.
Mr. Dragwell has already made honourable mention of his wife; it will therefore only be necessary to add, that he had one daughter, a handsome lively girl, engaged to a Mr. Ramsden, the new surgeon of the place, who had stepped into the shoes and the good-will of one who had retired from forty years’ practice upon the good people of Overton. Fanny Dragwell had many good qualities, and many others which were rather doubtful. One of the latter had procured her more enemies than at her age she had any right to expect. It was what the French term “malice,” which bears a very different signification from the same word in our own language. She delighted in all practical jokes, and would carry them to an excess, at the very idea of which others would be startled; but it must be acknowledged that she generally selected as her victims those who from their conduct towards others richly deserved retaliation. The various tricks which she had played upon certain cross old spinsters, tatlers, scandalmongers, and backbiters, often were the theme
