Various
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 53, No. 329, March, 1843
THE TALE OF A TUB: AN ADDITIONAL CHAPTER
HOW JACK RAN MAD A SECOND TIME
After Jack and Martin parted company, you may remember that Jack, who had turned his face northward, got into high favour with the landlord of the North Farm Estate, who, being mightily edified with his discourses and sanctimonious demeanour, and not aware of his having been mad before, or being, perchance, just as mad himself—took him in, made much of him, gave him a cottage upon his manor to live in, and built him a tabernacle in which he might hold forth when the spirit moved him. In process of time, however, it happened that North Farm and the Albion Estates came into the possession of one proprietor, Esquire Bull, in whose house Martin had always been retained as domestic chaplain—at least, ever since that desperate scuffle with Lord Peter and his crew, when he tried to land some Spanish smugglers on the coast, for the purpose of carrying off Martin, and establishing himself in Squire Bull's house in his stead. Squire Bull, who was a man of his word, and wished to leave all things on North Farm as he found them, Jack and his tabernacle included, undertook at once to pay him a reasonable salary, with the free use of his house and tabernacle to him and his heirs for ever. But knowing that on a previous occasion, (which you may recollect,46) Jack's melancholy had gone so far that he had hanged himself, though he was cut down just before giving up the ghost, and by dint of bloodletting and galvanism, had been revived; and also that, notwithstanding his periodical fits and hallucinations, he could beat even Peter himself, who had been his instructor, for cunning and casuistry, he took care that, before Jack was allowed to take possession under his new lease, every thing should be made square between them. So he had the terms of their indenture all written out on parchment, signed, sealed, and delivered before witnesses, and even got a private Act of Parliament carried through, for the purpose of making every thing between them more secure. And well it was for the Squire that he bethought himself of his precaution in time, as you will afterwards hear.
This union of the two entailed properties in the Bull family, brought Jack and Martin a good deal more into one anothers' company than they had formerly been; and 'twas clear, that Jack, who had now got somewhat ashamed of his threadbare raiment, and tired of his spare oatmeal diet, was mightily struck with the dignified air and comfortable look of Martin, and grudged him the frequency with which he was invited to Squire Bull's table. By degrees, he began to conform his own uncouth manner to an imitation of his. He wore a better coat, which he no longer rubbed against the wall to take the gloss from off it; he ceased to interlard all his ordinary speech with texts of Scripture; his snuffle abated audibly; he gave up his habit of extempore rhapsody, and lost, in a great measure, his aversion to Christmas tarts and plum-pudding. After a time, he might even be seen with a fishing-rod over his shoulder; then he contrived sundry improvements in gun-locks and double-barrels, for which he took out a patent, and in fact did not entirely escape the suspicion of being a poacher. He held assemblies in his house, where at times he allowed a little singing; nay, on one occasion, a son of his—for he had now a large family—was found accompanying a psalm-tune upon the (barrel) organ, and it was rumoured about the house, that Jack, though he thought it prudent to disclaim this overture, had no great objection to it. Be that as it may, it is certain, that instead of his old peaked hat and band, Jack latterly took to wearing broad-brimmed beavers, which he was seen trying to mould into a spout-like shape, much resembling a shovel. And so far had the transformation gone, that the Vicar of Fudley, meeting him one evening walking to an assembly arrayed in a court coat, with this extraordinary hat upon his head, and a pair of silver buckles in his shoes, pulled off his hat to him at a little distance, mistaking him for a near relation of Martin, if not for Martin himself.
There was no great harm you will think in all these whims, and for my own part, I believe that Jack was never so honest a fellow as he was during this time, when he was profiting by Martin's example. He kept his own place, ruling his family in a quiet and orderly way, without disturbing the peace of his neighbours: and seemed to have forgotten his old tricks of setting people by the ears, and picking quarrels with constables and justices of the peace. Howbeit, those who knew him longest and best, always said that this was too good to last: that with him these intervals of sobriety and moderation were always the prelude to a violent access of his peculiar malady, and that by-and-bye he would break out again, and that there would be the devil to pay, and no pitch hot.
It so happened that Squire Bull had a good many small village schools on his Estate of North Farm, to which the former proprietors had always been in the custom of appointing the ushers themselves; and much to Jack's annoyance, when Squire Bull succeeded, the latter had taken care in his bargain with him, to keep the right of appointment to these in his own hand. But, at the same time, he told Jack fairly, that as he had no wish to dabble in Latin, Greek, or school learning himself, he left him at full liberty to say whether those whom he appointed were fit for the situation or not—so that if they turned out to be ignoramuses, deboshed fellows, or drunken dogs, Jack had only to say so on good grounds, and they were forthwith sent adrift. Matters went on for a time very smoothly on this footing. Nay, it was even said that Jack was inclined to carry his complaisance rather far, and after a time seldom troubled himself much about the usher's qualifications, provided his credentials were all right. He might ask the young fellow, who presented John's commission, perhaps, what was the first letter of the Greek alphabet? what was Latin for beef and greens? or where Moses was when the candle was blown out?—but if the candidate answered these questions correctly, and if there were no scandal or fama clamosa against him, as Jack in his peculiar jargon expressed it, he generally shook hands with him at once, put the key of the schoolhouse in his hand, and told him civilly to walk up-stairs.
The truth was, however, that in this respect Jack had little reason to complain; for though the Squire, in the outset, may not have been very particular as to his choice, and it was said once or twice gave an ushership to an old exciseman, on account of his skill in mensuration of fluids, he had latterly become very particular, and would not hear of settling any body as schoolmaster on North Farm, who did not come to him with an excellent character, certified by two or three respectable householders at least. But, strangely enough, it was observed that just in proportion as the Squire became more considerate, Jack became more arrogant, pestilent, and troublesome. Now-a-days he was always discovering some objection to the Squire's appointments: one usher, it seemed, spoke too low, another too loud, one used an ear-trumpet, another a pair of grass-green spectacles; one had no sufficient gifts for flogging; another flogged either too high or too low—(for Jack was like the deserter, there was no pleasing him as to the mode of conducting the operation;) and, finally, another was rejected because he was unacquainted with the vernacular of Ossian—to the great injury and damage, as was alleged, of two Highland chairmen, who at an advanced period of life were completing their education in the school in question. At first Squire Bull, honest gentleman, had given in to these strange humours on the part of Jack, believing that this new-born zeal on his part was in the main conscientious, though he could not help thinking it at times sufficiently whimsical and preposterous. He had even gone so far, occasionally, as to send Jack a list of those to whom he proposed giving the usherships, accompanied with a polite note, in some such terms as these, "Squire Bull presents his respects, and begs his good friend Jack will read over the enclosed list, and take the trouble of choosing for himself;" a request with which Jack was always ready to comply. And, further, as Jack had always a great hankering after little-goes and penny subscriptions of every kind, and was eternally trumpeting forth some new nostrum or scheme of this kind, as he used to call it, the Squire had been prevailed upon to purchase from him a good many tickets for these schemes from time to time, for which he always paid in hard cash, though I have never heard that any of them turned up prizes, except it may have been to Jack himself.
Jack, as we have said, grew bolder as the Squire became more complying, thinking that, in the matter of these appointments, as he had once got his hand in, it would be his own fault if he could not contrive to wriggle in his whole body. It so happened, too, that just about the very time that one of John's usherships became vacant, one of those atrabilious and hypochondriac fits came over Jack, with which, as we have said, he was periodically afflicted, and which, though they certainly unsettled his brain a little, only served, as in the case of other lunatics, to render him, during the paroxysm, more cunning, inventive, and mischievous. After moving about in a moping way for a day or two—mumbling in corners, and pretending to fall on his knees, in his old fashion, in the midst of the street, he suddenly got up, flung his broad-brimmed beaver into the kennel, trampled his wig in the dirt, so as to expose his large ears as of old, ran home, pulled his rusty black doublet out of the chest where it had lain for years, squeezing it on as he best could—for he had got somewhat corpulent in the mean time—and thus transfigured, he set out to consult the village attorney, with whom it was observed he remained closeted for several hours, turning over Burns' Justice, and perusing an office-copy of his indenture with the Squire—a planetary conjunction from which those who were astrologically given boded no good.
What passed between these worthies on this occasion—whether the attorney really persuaded Jack that, if he set about it, he would undertake to find him a flaw in his contract with Squire Bull, which would enable him to take the matter of the usherships into his own hand, and to do as he pleased; or whether Jack—as he seemed afterwards to admit in private—believed nothing of what the attorney told him, but was resolved to take advantage of the Squire's good-nature, and to run all risks as to the result, 'tis hard to say. Certain it was, however, that Jack posted down at once from the attorney's chamber to the village school, which happened to be then vacant, and gathering the elder boys about him, he told them he had reason to believe the Squire was about to send them another usher, very different from the last, who was a mortal enemy to marbles, pitch-and-toss, chuck-farthing, ginger-bread, and half holydays; with a corresponding liking to long tasks and short commons; that the use of the cane would be regularly taught, along with that of the globes, accompanied with cuts and other practical demonstrations; that the only chance of escaping this visitation was to take a bold line, and show face to the usher at once, since otherwise the chance was, that at no distant period they might be obliged to do the very reverse.
Jack further reasoned the matter with the boys learnedly, somewhat in this fashion—"That as no one could have so strong an interest in the matter, so no one could be so good a judge of the qualifications of the schoolmaster as the schoolboy; that the close and intimate relation between these parties was of the nature of a mutual contract, in the formation of which both had an equal right to be consulted; so that, without mutual consent, or, as it were, a harmonious call by the boys, there could be no valid ushership, but a mere usurpation of the power of the tawse, and unwarrantable administration of the birchen twig; that, further, this latter power involved a fundamental feature, in which they could not but feel they had all a deep interest—and which, he might say, lay at the bottom of the whole question; that he himself perfectly remembered that, in former days, the schoolboys had always exercised this privilege, which he held to be equally salutary and constitutional; and that he would, at his leisure, show them a private memorandum-book of his own, in which, though he had hitherto said nothing about it, he had found an entry to that effect made some thirty years before. In short, he told them, if they did not wish to be rode over rough-shod, they must stand up boldly for themselves, and try to get all the schools in the neighbourhood to join them, if necessary, in a regular barring-out, or general procession, in which they were to appear with flags and banners, bearing such inscriptions as the following: "Pro aris et focis"—"Liberty is like the air we breathe," &c. &c., and, lastly, in large gilt capitals—"No usher to be intruded into any school contrary to the will of the scholars in schoolroom assembled." And, in short, that this process was to be repeated until they succeeded in getting quit of Squire Bull's usher, and getting an usher who would flog them with all the forbearance and reserve with which Sancho chastised his own flesh while engaged in the process of disenchanting Dulcinea del Toboso. At the same time, with that cunning which was natural to him, Jack took care to let the scholars know that his name was not to be mentioned in the transaction; and that, if they were asked any questions, they must be prepared to say, nay, to swear, for that matter, that they objected to John's usher from no personal dislike to the man himself, and without having received fee or reward, in the shape of apples, lollypops, gingerbread, barley-sugar, or sweetmeats whatever—or sixpences, groats, pence, halfpence, or other current coin of the realm.
It will be readily imagined that this oration of Jack, pronounced as it was with some of his old unction, and accompanied with that miraculous and subtle twist of the tongue which we have described in a former chapter,47 produced exactly the effect upon his audience which might be expected. The boys were delighted—tossed up their caps—gave Jack three cheers, and told him if he stood by them they would stand by him, and that they were much mistaken if they did not contrive to make the schoolhouse too hot for any usher whom Squire Bull might think fit to send them.
It happened not long after, as Jack had anticipated, that one morning a young man called upon with a letter from the Squire, intimating that he had named him to the vacant ushership; and requesting Jack to examine into his qualifications as usual. Jack begged him to be seated, and (having privately sent a message to the schoolboys) continued to entertain him with enquiries as to John's health and the state of the weather, till he heard, by the noise in the court, that the boys had arrived. In they marched accordingly, armed with horn-books, primers, slates, rulers, Gunter's-scales, and copy-books, taking up their station near the writing-desk. The young usher-elect, though he thought this a whimsical exhibition, supposed that the urchins had been brought there only to do honour to his examination, and accordingly begged Jack, as he was in a hurry, to proceed. "Fair and softly, young man," said Jack, in his blandest tones; "we must first see what these intelligent young gentlemen have got to say to that. Tom, my fine fellow, here is a gentleman sent by Squire Bull to be your usher. What do you say to him?" "I don't like him," said Tom. "May I venture to ask why?" said the usher, putting in a word. "Don't like him," repeated Tom. "Don't like him neither," said Dick. "And no mistake," added Peter, with a grin, which immediately circulated round the school. "It is quite impossible," said Jack, "under existing circumstances, that the matter can proceed any further; it is plain the school can never be edified by such an usher. But, stop, that there may be no misconception on the subject. Here you, Smith—do you really mean to say, on soul and conscience, you don't think this respectable gentleman can do you any good?" Of course, Smith stated that his mind was quite made up on the subject. "Come here, Jenkins," said Jack, beckoning to another boy; "tell the truth now—honour bright, remember. Has any body given or promised you any apples, parliament, or other sweetmeat unknown, to induce you to vote against the usher?" Jenkins, who had just wiped his lips of the last remains of a gingerbread cake, which somehow or other had dropped into his pocket by accident, protested, on his honour, that he was quite above such a thing, and was, in fact, actuated purely by a conscientious zeal for the cause of flogging all over the world. "The scruples of these intelligent and ingenuous youths," said John, turning to the usher, "must, in conscience, receive effect; the law, as laid down in my copy of Squire Bull's own contract, is this—'That noe ushere be yntruded intoe anie schoole against ye wille of ye schooleboys in schoole-roome assembled.' So, with your permission, we will adjourn the consideration of the case till the Greek Calends, or latter Lammas, if that be more convenient." And, so saying, he left John's letter lying on the table, and shut the schoolroom door in the face of the astonished usher.
Squire Bull, as may be imagined, was not a little astonished and mortified at hearing from the usher, who returned looking foolish and chop-fallen, of this outbreak on the part of Jack, for whom he had really begun to conceive a sort of sneaking kindness; but knowing of old his fantastical and melancholic turn, he attributed this sally rather to the state of his bowels, which at all times he exceedingly neglected, and which, being puffed up with flatulency and indigestion to an extraordinary degree, not unfrequently acted upon his brain—generating therein strange conceits and dangerous hallucinations—than to any settled intention on Jack's part to pick a quarrel with him or evade performance of the conditions of their indenture, so long as he was not under the influence of hypochondria. And having this notion as to Jack's motives, and knowing nothing of the private confab at the village lawyer's, he could not help believing that, by a brisk course of purgatives and an antiphlogistic treatment—and without resorting to a strait-waistcoat, which many who knew Jack's pranks at once recommended him to adopt—he might be cured of those acrid and intoxicating vapours, which, ascending into the brain, led him into such extravagant vagaries. "I'faith," said the Squire, "since the poor man has taken this mad fancy into his head as to the terms of his bargain, the best way to restore him to his senses is to bring the matter, as he himself seemed to desire it, before the Justices of the Peace at once: 'Tis a hundred to one but he will have come to his senses long before they have come to a decision; at all events, unless he is madder than I take him to be, when he finds how plain the terms of the indenture are, he will surely submit with a good grace.'"
So thought the Squire; and, accordingly, by his direction, the usher-elect brought his case before the Justices at their next sittings, who forthwith summoned Jack before them to know why he refused performance of his contract with the Squire. Jack came on the day appointed, attended by the attorney—though for that matter he might have safely left him behind, being fully as much master of all equivocation or chicanery as if he had never handled anything but quills and quirks from his youth upward. This, indeed, was probably the effect of his old training in Peter's family, for whose hairsplitting distinctions and Jesuistical casuistries, notwithstanding his dislike to the man himself, he had a certain admiration, founded on a secret affinity of nature. Indeed it was wonderful to observe how, with all Jack's hatred to Peter, real or pretended, he took after him in so many points—insomuch that at times, their look, voice, manner, and way of thinking, were so closely alike, that those who knew them best might very well have mistaken them for each other. The usher having produced the Squire's copy of the indenture, pointed out the clause by which Jack became bound to examine and admit to the schools on North Farm any qualified usher whom the Squire might send—as the condition on which he was to retain his right to the tabernacle and his own mansion upon the Farm—at the same time showing Jack's seal and signature at the bottom of the deed. Jack, being called upon by the justices to show cause, pulled out of his pocket an old memorandum-book—very greasy, musty, and ill-flavoured—and which, from the quantity of dust and cobwebs with which it was overlaid, had obviously been lying on the shelf for half a century at least. This he placed in the hands of his friend Snacks the attorney, pointing out to him a page or two which he had marked with his thumb nail, as appropriate to the matter in hand. And there, to be sure, was to be found, among a quantity of other nostrums, recipes, cooking receipts, prescriptions, and omnium-gatherums of all kinds, an entry to this effect:—"That no ushere be yntruded intoe anie schoole against ye wille of ye schooleboys in schoole-roome assembled." Whereupon the attorney maintained, that, as this memorandum-book of Jack's was plainly of older date than the indenture, and had evidently been seen by the Squire at or prior to the time of signing, as appeared from some of the entries which it contained being incorporated in the deed, it must be presumed, that its whole contents, though not to be found in the indenture per expressum, or totidem verbis, were yet included therein implicitly, or in a latent form, inasmuch as they were not per expressum excluded therefrom;—this being, as you will recollect, precisely the argument which Jack had borrowed from Peter, when the latter construed their father's will in the question as to the lawfulness of their wearing shoulder-knots; and very much of the same kind with that celebrated thesis which Peter afterwards maintained in the matter of the brown loaf. And though he was obliged to admit (what indeed from the very look of the book he could not well dispute) that no such rule had ever been known or acted upon—and on the contrary that Jack, until this last occasion, had always admitted the Squire's ushers without objection whatsoever; yet he contended vehemently, that now that his conscience was awakened on the subject, the past must be laid out of view; and that the old memorandum-book, as part and parcel of the indenture itself, must receive effect; and farther, that whether he, Jack, was right or wrong in this matter, the Justices had no right to interfere with them.
But the Justices, on looking into this antiquated document, found that, besides this notandum, the memorandum-book contained a number of other entries of a very extraordinary kind—such, for instance, as that Martin was no better than he should be, and ought to be put down speedily: that Squire Bull had no more right to nominate ushers than he had to be Khan of Tartary: that that right belonged exclusively to Jack himself, or to the schoolboys under Jack's control and direction: that Jack was to have the sole right of laying down rules for his own government, and of enforcing them against himself by the necessary compulsitors, if the case should arise; thus, that Jack should have full powers to censure, fine, punish, flog, flay, banish, imprison, or set himself in the stocks as often as he should think fit; but that whether Jack did right or wrong, in any given case, Jack was himself to be the sole judge, and neither Squire Bull nor any of his Justices of the Peace was to have one word to say to him or his proceedings in the matter: on the contrary, that any such interference on their part, was to be regarded as a high grievance and misdemeanour on their part, for which Jack was to be entitled at the least to read them a lecture from the writing-desk, and shut the schoolroom door in their own or their children's face.
There were many other whimsical and extravagant things contained in this private note-book, so much so, that it was evident no man in his senses could ever have intended to make them part of his bargain with Jack. But the matter was put beyond a doubt by the usher producing the original draft of the indenture, on which some of these crotchets, including this fancy about the right of the schoolboys to reject the usher if they did not like him, had been interlined in Jack's hand: but all of which the Squire, on revising the deed, had scored out with his own pen, adding in the margin, opposite to the very passage, the words, in italics—"See him damned first.—J.B." And as it could not be disputed that Jack and the Squire ultimately subscribed the deed, omitting all this nonsense—the Justices had no hesitation in holding, that Jack's private memorandum-book, even if he had always carried it in his breeches pocket, and quoted it on all occasions, instead of leaving it—as it was plain he had done—for many a long year, in some forgotten corner of his trunk or lumber-room, could no more affect the construction of the indenture between himself and Squire, or afford him any defence against performance of his part of that indenture, than if he had founded on the statutes of Prester John, on the laws of Hum-Bug, Fee-Faw-Fum, or any other Emperor of China for the time being. And so, after hearing very deliberately all that the attorney for Jack had to say to the contrary, they decided that Jack must forthwith proceed to examine the usher, and give him possession, if qualified, of the schoolhouse and other appurtenances; or else make up his mind to a thundering action of damages if he did not.
The Justices thought that Jack, on hearing the case fairly stated, and their opinion given against him, with a long string of cases in point, would yield, and give the usher possession in the usual way; but no: no sooner was the sentence written out than Jack entered an appeal to the Quarter-sessions. There the whole matter was heard over again, at great length, before a full bench; but after Jack and his attorney had spoken till they were tired, the Quarter-sessions, without a moment's hesitation, confirmed the sentence of the Justices, with costs.
Jack, who had blustered exceedingly as to his chances of bamboozling the Quarter-sessions, and quashing the sentence of the Justices, looked certainly not a little discomfited at the result of his appeal. For some days after, he was observed to walk about looking gloomy and disheartened, and was heard to say to some of his family, that he began to think matters had really gone too far between him and his good friend the Squire, to whom he owed his bread; that, on second thoughts, he would give up the point about intruding ushers on the schools, and see whether the Squire might not be prevailed on to arrange matters on an amicable footing; and that he would take an opportunity, the next time he had an assembly at his house, of consulting his friends on the subject. And had Jack stuck to this resolution, there is little doubt that, by some device or other, he would have gained all he wanted; for the Squire, being an easy, good-natured man, and wishing really to do his duty in the matter of the ushership, would probably, if Jack had yielded in this instance with a good grace, have probably allowed him in the end to have things very much his own way. But to the surprise of everybody, the next time Jack had a party of friends with him, he rose up, and putting on that peculiarly sanctimonious expression which his countenance generally assumed when he had a mind to confuse and mystify his auditors by a string of enigmas and Jesuitical reservations, made a long, unintelligible, and inconsistent harangue, the drift of which no one could well understand, except that it bore that "both the Justices and the Quarter-sessions were a set of ignoramuses who could not understand a word of Jack's contract, and knew nothing of black-letter whatever; but that, nevertheless, as they had decided against him, he, as a loyal subject, must and would submit;—not, however, that he had the least idea of taking the Squire's usher, or any other usher whatsoever, on trials, contrary to the schoolboys' wishes; that, he begged to say, he would never hear of:—still he would obey the law by laying no claim himself to the usher's salary, nor interfering with the usher's drawing it; and yet that he could not exactly answer for others not doing so;"—Jack knowing all the time, that, claim as he might, he himself had no more right to the salary than to the throne of the Celestial Empire; while, on the other hand, by locking up the schoolroom, and keeping the key in his pocket, he had rendered it impossible for the poor wight of an usher to recover one penny of it—the legal condition of his doing so being his actual possession of the schoolhouse itself, of which Jack, by this last manœuvre, had contrived to deprive him. But, as if to finish the matter, and to prove the knavish spirit in which this protestation was made, he instantly got a private friend and relative of his own, with whom the whole scheme had been arranged beforehand, to come forward and bring an action on the case, in which the latter claimed the whole fund which would have belonged to the unlucky usher—in terms, as he said, of some old arrangement made by the Squire's predecessor as to school-salaries during vacancy; to be applied, as the writ very coolly stated it, "for behoof of Jack's destitute widow, in the event of his decease, and of his numerous and indigent family."