University of Virginia Library

A VILLAGE POLITICIAN.

The Goblins.

In one of my visits to the village with Master
Simon, he proposed that we should stop at the
inn, which he wanted to show me, as a specimen
of a real country inn, the head quarters of village
gossip. I had remarked it before, in my
perambulations about the place. It has a deep
old fashioned porch; leading into a large hall,
which serves for a tap room and traveller's room,
having a wide fireplace, with high-backed settles
on each side; where the wise men of the
village gossip over their ale, and hold their sessions
during the long winter evenings. The

landlord is an easy indolent fellow, shaped a little
like one of his own beer barrels, who is apt
to stand gossiping at his door, with his wig on
one side, and his hands in his pockets, whilst his
wife and daughter attend to customers. His
wife, however, is fully competent to manage the
establishment; and, indeed, from long habitude,
rules over all the frequenters of the tap room as
completely as if they were her dependents, instead
of her patrons. Not a veteran ale bibber
but pays homage to her, having no doubt been
often in her arrears. I have already hinted that
she is on very good terms with Ready Money
Jack. He was a sweetheart of her's in early
life, and has always countenanced the tavern on
her account. Indeed, he is quite the “cock of
the walk” at the tap room.

As we approached the inn, we heard some
one talk with great volubility, and distinguished
the ominous words, “taxes,” “poor's rates,”
and “agricultural distress.” It proved to be a
thin loquacious fellow, who had got the landlord
pinned up in one corner of the porch, with his

hands in his pockets as usual, listening with an
air of the most vacant acquiescence.

The sight seemed to have a curious effect on
Master Simon, as he squeezed my arm, and, altering
his course, sheered wide of the porch as
though he had not had any idea of entering.
This evident evasion made me notice the orator
more particularly. He was meagre, but active
in his make, with a long, pale, bilious face; a
black beard, so ill shaven as to bloody his shirt-collar,
a feverish eye, and a hat sharpened up at
the sides into a most pragmatical shape. He
had a newspaper in his hand, and seemed to be
commenting on its contents, to the thorough conviction
of mine host. At the sight of Master
Simon, the landlord was a little flurried, and
began to rub his hands, edge away from his corner,
and make several profound publican bows;
while the orator took no other notice of my companion
than to talk rather louder than before,
and with, as I thought, something of an air of
defiance. Master Simon, however, as I have
before said, sheered off from the porch and passed

on, pressing my arm within his, and whispering
as we got by, in a tone of awe and horror,
“that's a radical! he reads Cobbett!”

I endeavoured to get a more particular account
of him from my companion; but he
seemed unwilling even to talk about him, assuring
me only in general terms, that he was
“a cursed busy fellow, that had a confounded
trick of talking, and was apt to bother one
about the national debt, and such nonsense;”
from which I suspected that Master Simon had
been rendered wary of him by some accidental
encounter on the field of argument; for these
radicals are continually roving about in quest of
wordy warfare, and never so happy as when
they can tilt a gentleman logician out of his
saddle.

On subsequent inquiry my suspicions have
been confirmed. I find the radical has but recently
found his way into the village, where he
threatens to commit fearful devastation with his
doctrines. He has already made two or three
complete converts or new lights; has shaken the

faith of several others; and has grievously puzzled
the brains of many of the oldest villagers,
who had never thought about politics or scarce
any thing else during their whole lives.

He is lean and meagre, from the constant restlessness
of mind and body; worrying about with
newspapers and pamphlets in his pockets, which
he is ready to pull out on all occasions. He has
shocked several of the staunchest villagers by
talking lightly of the Squire and his family, and
hinting it would be better the park should be
cut up into small farms and kitchen gardens, or
feed good mutton instead of worthless deer.

He is a great thorn in the side of the Squire,
who is sadly afraid he will introduce politics into
the village, and turn it into an unhappy, thinking
community. He is a still greater grievance
to Master Simon, who has hitherto been able to
sway the political opinions of the place without
much cost of learning or of logic; but has been
very much puzzled, of late, to weed out the doubts
and heresies already sown by this champion of
reform. Indeed, the latter has taken complete

command at the tap room of the tavern, not so
much because he has convinced, as because he
has out talked all the old established oracles.
The apothecary, with all his philosophy, has
been as naught before him. He has convinced
and converted the landlord, at least a dozen times,
who, however, is liable to be convinced and converted
the other way by the next person with
whom he talks. It is true, the radical has a violent
antagonist in the landlady, who is vehemently
loyal, and thoroughly devoted to the king,
Master Simon, and the Squire. She now and
then comes out upon the reformer, with all the
the fierceness of a cat-a-mountain; and does not
spare her own soft headed husband, for listening
to what she terms such “low lived politics.”
What makes the good woman the more violent,
is the perfect coolness with which the radical
listens to her attacks; drawing his face up into
a provoking supercilious smile; and when she
has talked herself out of breath, quietly asking
her for a taste of her home-brewed.

The only person that is in any way a match

for this redoubtable politician is Ready Money
Jack Tibbets; who maintains his stand in the
tap room in defiance of the radical and all his
works. Jack is one of the most loyal men in the
country, without being able to reason about the
matter. He has that admirable quality for a
tough arguer, also, that he never knows when
he is beat. He has half a dozen old maxims,
which he advances on all occasions; and though
his antagonist may overturn them never so often,
yet he always brings them anew to the field.
He is like the robber in Ariosto, who, though
his head might be cut off half a hundred times,
yet whipped it on his shoulders again in a twinkling,
and returned as sound a man as ever to the
charge.

Whatever does not square with Jack's simple
and obvious creed he sets down for “French
politics,” for, notwithstanding the peace, he
cannot be persuaded the French are not still
laying plots to ruin the nation and get hold of the
Bank of England. The radical attempted to
overwhelm him one day by a long passage from

a newspaper, but Jack neither reads nor believes
in newspapers. In reply, he gave him
one of the stanzas which he has by heart from
his favourite, and indeed only author, old Tusser,
and which he calls his golden rules:
When Tibbets had pronounced this with great
emphasis, he pulled out a well-filled leathern
purse; took out a handful of gold and silver,
paid his score at the bar with great punctuality,
returned his money, piece by piece, into his
purse, his purse into his pocket, which he buttoned
up; and then, giving his cudgel a stout
thump upon the floor, and bidding the radical
“good morning, sir,” with the tone of
a man who conceives he has completely done
for his antagonist, he walked with lion-like gravity
out of the house. Two or three of Jack's
admirers who were present, and were afraid
to take the field themselves, looked upon this
as a perfect triumph, and winked at each other,
when the radical's back was turned. “Aye,
aye!” said mine host, as soon as the radical
was out of hearing, “let old Jack alone, I'll
warrant he'll give him his own.”