Bracebridge Hall: A Village Politician

A Village Politician

     I am a rogue if I do not think I was designed for the helm of
     state; I am so full of nimble stratagems, that I should have
     ordered affairs, and carried it against the stream of a
     faction, with as much ease as a skipper would laver against
     the wind.--THE GOBLINS.

In one of my visits to the village with Master Simon, he proposed that
we should stop at the inn, which he wished 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
tap-room and travellers' 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, and 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
dependants 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 hers 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 talking 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 penned the landlord 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 induced
me to notice the orator more particularly. He was meagre, but active in
his make, with a long, pale, bilious face; a black, ill-shaven beard, 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 sight of Master Simon the landlord was evidently 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, answering 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 devastations 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 anything 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 that 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 that
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 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 established oracles. The apothecary,
with all his philosophy, was as nought 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 fierceness of a cat-o'-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 who 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 into 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 that the French are not still laying plots to ruin the nation,
and to 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:

    "Leave Princes' affairs undescanted on,
    And tend to such doings as stand thee upon;
    Fear God, and offend not the King nor his laws,
    And keep thyself out of the magistrate's claws."

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 had been 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. "Ay, ay!" 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!"

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