C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
The Village Worthies
By George Eliot (1819–1880)
T
“Some folks ’ud say that was a fine beast you druv in yesterday, Bob?”
The butcher, a jolly, smiling, red-haired man, was not disposed to answer rashly. He gave a few puffs before he spat, and replied, “And they wouldn’t be fur wrong, John.”
After this feeble delusive thaw, the silence set in as severely as before.
“Was it a red Durham?” said the farrier, taking up the thread of discourse after the lapse of a few minutes.
The farrier looked at the landlord, and the landlord looked at the butcher, as the person who must take the responsibility of answering.
“Red it was,” said the butcher, in his good-humored husky treble,—“and a Durham it was.”
“Then you needn’t tell me who you bought it of,” said the farrier, looking round with some triumph: “I know who it is has got the red Durhams o’ this country-side. And she’d a white star on her brow, I’ll bet a penny?” The farrier leaned forward with his hands on his knees as he put this question, and his eyes twinkled knowingly.
“Well, yes—she might,” said the butcher, slowly, considering that he was giving a decided affirmative. “I don’t say contrairy.”
“I knew that very well,” said the farrier, throwing himself backward again, and speaking defiantly; “if I don’t know Mr. Lammeter’s cows, I should like to know who does—that’s all. And as for the cow you’ve bought, bargain or no bargain, I’ve been at the drenching of her—contradick me who will.”
The farrier looked fierce, and the mild butcher’s conversational spirit was roused a little.
“I’m not for contradicking no man,” he said; “I’m for peace and quietness. Some are for cutting long ribs—I’m for cutting ’em short myself; but I don’t quarrel with ’em. All I say is, it’s a lovely carkiss—and anybody as was reasonable, it ’ud bring tears into their eyes to look at it.”
“Well, it’s the cow as I drenched, whatever it is,” pursued the farrier, angrily; “and it was Mr. Lammeter’s cow, else you told a lie when you said it was a red Durham.”
“I tell no lies,” said the butcher, with the same mild huskiness as before; “and I contradick none—not if a man was to swear himself black; he’s no meat o’ mine, nor none o’ my bargains. All I say is, it’s a lovely carkiss. And what I say I’ll stick to; but I’ll quarrel wi’ no man.”
“No,” said the farrier with bitter sarcasm, looking at the company generally; “and p’raps you aren’t pig-headed; and p’raps you didn’t say the cow was a red Durham; and p’raps you didn’t say she’d got a star on her brow—stick to that, now you’re at it.”
“Come, come,” said the landlord, “let the cow alone. The truth lies atween you; you’re both right and both wrong, as I allays say. And as for the cow’s being Mr. Lammeter’s, I say nothing to that; but this I say, as the Rainbow’s the Rainbow. And for the matter o’ that, if the talk is to be o’ the Lammeters, you know the most upo’ that head, eh, Mr. Macey? You remember when first Mr. Lammeter’s father come into these parts, and took the Warrens?”
Mr. Macey, tailor and parish clerk, the latter of which functions rheumatism had of late obliged him to share with a small-featured young man who sat opposite him, held his white head on one side, and twirled his thumbs with an air of complacency, slightly seasoned with criticism. He smiled pityingly in answer to the landlord’s appeal, and said:—
“Ay, ay; I know, I know; but I let other folks talk. I’ve laid by now, and gev up to the young uns. Ask them as have been to school at Tarley; they’ve learned pernouncing; that’s come up since my day.”
“If you’re pointing at me, Mr. Macey,” said the deputy clerk, with an air of anxious propriety, “I’m nowise a man to speak out of my place. As the psalm says:—
“Well, then, I wish you’d keep hold o’ the tune when it’s set for you; if you’re for practicing I wish you’d practice that,” said a large jocose-looking man, an excellent wheelwright in his weekday capacity, but on Sundays leader of the choir. He winked, as he spoke, at two of the company who were known officially as “the bassoon” and “the key bugle,” in the confidence that he was expressing the sense of the musical profession in Raveloe.
Mr. Tookey the deputy clerk, who shared the unpopularity common to deputies, turned very red, but replied with careful moderation:—“Mr. Winthrop, if you’ll bring me any proof as I’m in the wrong, I’m not the man to say I won’t alter. But there’s people set up their own ears for a standard, and expect the whole choir to follow ’em. There may be two opinions, I hope.”
“Ay, ay,” said Mr. Macey, who felt very well satisfied with this attack on youthful presumption; “you’re right there, Tookey: there’s allays two ’pinions; there’s the ’pinion a man has of himsen, and there’s the ’pinion other folks have on him. There’d be two ’pinions about a cracked bell, if the bell could hear itself.”
“Well, Mr. Macey,” said poor Tookey, serious amidst the general laughter, “I undertook to partially fill up the office of parish clerk by Mr. Crackenthorp’s desire, whenever your infirmities should make you unfitting; and it’s one of the rights thereof to sing in the choir—else why have you done the same yourself?”
“Ah! but the old gentleman and you are two folks,” said Ben Winthrop. “The old gentleman’s got a gift. Why, the Squire used to invite him to take a glass, only to hear him sing the ‘Red Rovier’; didn’t he, Mr. Macey? It’s a nat’ral gift. There’s my little lad Aaron, he’s got a gift—he can sing a tune off straight, like a throstle. But as for you, Master Tookey, you’d better stick to your ‘Amens’: your voice is well enough when you keep it up in your nose. It’s your inside as isn’t right made for music: it’s no better nor a hollow stalk.”
This kind of unflinching frankness was the most piquant form of joke to the company at the Rainbow, and Ben Winthrop’s insult was felt by everybody to have capped Mr. Macey’s epigram.
“I see what it is plain enough,” said Mr. Tookey, unable to keep cool any longer. “There’s a consperacy to turn me out o’ the choir, as I shouldn’t share the Christmas money—that’s where it is. But I shall speak to Mr. Crackenthorp; I’ll not be put upon by no man.”
“Nay, nay, Tookey,” said Ben Winthrop. “We’ll pay you your share to keep out of it—that’s what we’ll do. There’s things folks ’ud pay to be rid on, besides varmin.”
“Come, come,” said the landlord, who felt that paying people for their absence was a principle dangerous to society; “a joke’s a joke. We’re all good friends here, I hope. We must give and take. You’re both right and you’re both wrong, as I say. I agree wi’ Mr. Macey here, as there’s two opinions; and if mine was asked, I should say they’re both right. Tookey’s right and Winthrop’s right, and they’ve only got to split the difference and make themselves even.”
The farrier was puffing his pipe rather fiercely, in some contempt at this trivial discussion. He had no ear for music himself, and never went to church, as being of the medical profession, and likely to be in requisition for delicate cows. But the butcher, having music in his soul, had listened with a divided desire, for Tookey’s defeat and for the preservation of the peace.
“To be sure,” he said, following up the landlord’s conciliatory view, “we’re fond of our old clerk; it’s nat’ral, and him used to be such a singer, and got a brother as is known for the first fiddler in this country-side. Eh, it’s a pity but what Solomon lived in our village, and could give us a tune when he liked, eh, Mr. Macey? I’d keep him in liver and lights for nothing—that I would.”
“Ay, ay,” said Mr. Macey, in the height of complacency; “our family’s been known for musicianers as far back as anybody can tell. But them things are dying out, as I tell Solomon every time he comes round; there’s no voices like what there used to be, and there’s nobody remembers what we remember, if it ain’t the old crows.”
“Ay, you remember when first Mr. Lammeter’s father came into these parts, don’t you, Mr. Macey?” said the landlord.
“I should think I did,” said the old man, who had now gone through that complimentary process necessary to bring him up to the point of narration; “and a fine old gentleman he was—as fine and finer nor the Mr. Lammeter as now is. He came from a bit north’ard, so far as I could ever make out. But there’s nobody rightly knows about those parts; only it couldn’t be far north’ard, nor much different from this country, for he brought a fine breed o’ sheep with him, so there must be pastures there, and everything reasonable. We heard tell as he’d sold his own land to come and take the Warrens, and that seemed odd for a man as had land of his own, to come and rent a farm in a strange place. But they said it was along of his wife’s dying; though there’s reasons in things as nobody knows on—that’s pretty much what I’ve made out; though some folks are so wise that they’ll find you fifty reasons straight off, and all the while the real reason’s winking at ’em in the corner, and they niver see’t. Howsomever, it was soon seen as we’d got a new parish’ner as know’d the rights and customs o’ things, and kep a good house, and was well looked on by everybody. And the young man—that’s the Mr. Lammeter as now is, for he’d niver a sister—soon begun to court Miss Osgood, that’s the sister o’ the Mr. Osgood as now is, and a fine handsome lass she was—eh, you can’t think—they pretend this young lass is like her, but that’s the way wi’ people as don’t know what come before ’em. I should know, for I helped the old rector, Mr. Drumlow as was, I helped him marry ’em.”
Here Mr. Macey paused; he always gave his narrative in installments, expecting to be questioned according to precedent.
“Ay, and a partic’lar thing happened, didn’t it, Mr. Macey, so as you were likely to remember that marriage?” said the landlord, in a congratulatory tone.
“I should think there did—a very partic’lar thing,” said Mr. Macey, nodding sideways. “For Mr. Drumlow—poor old gentleman, I was fond on him, though he’d got a bit confused in his head, what wi’ age and wi’ taking a drop o’ summat warm when the service come of a cold morning; and young Mr. Lammeter he’d have no way but he must be married in Janiwary, which, to be sure, ’s a unreasonable time to be married in, for it isn’t like a christening or a burying, as you can’t help; and so Mr. Drumlow—poor old gentleman, I was fond on him; but when he come to put the questions, he put ’em by the rule o’ contrairy like, and he says, ‘Wilt thou have this man to thy wedded wife?’ says he, and then he says, ‘Wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded husband?’ says he. But the partic’larest thing of all is, as nobody took any notice on it but me, and they answered straight off ‘Yes,’ like as if it had been me saying ‘Amen’ i’ the right place, without listening to what went before.”
“But you knew what was going on well enough, didn’t you, Mr. Macey? You were live enough, eh?” said the butcher.
“Lor bless you!” said Mr. Macey, pausing, and smiling in pity at the impotence of his hearers’ imagination,—“why, I was all of a tremble: it was as if I’d been a coat pulled by the two tails, like; for I couldn’t stop the parson, I couldn’t take upon me to do that; and yet I said to myself, I says, ‘Suppose they shouldn’t be fast married, ’cause the words are contrairy?’ and my head went working like a mill, for I was allays uncommon for turning things over and seeing all round ’em; and I says to myself, ‘Is’t the meanin’ or the words as makes folks fast i’ wedlock?’ For the parson meant right, and the bride and bridegroom meant right. But then when I come to think on it, meanin’ goes but a little way i’ most things, for you may mean to stick things together and your glue may be bad, and then where are you? And so I says to mysen, ‘It isn’t the meanin’, it’s the glue.’ And I was worreted as if I’d got three bells to pull at once, when we got into the vestry, and they begun to sign their names. But where’s the use o’ talking?—you can’t think what goes on in a ’cute man’s inside.”
“But you held in for all that, didn’t you, Mr. Macey?” said the landlord.
“Ay, I held in tight till I was by mysen, wi’ Mr. Drumlow, and then I out wi’ everything, but respectful, as I allays did. And he made light on it, and he says:—‘Pooh, pooh, Macey, make yourself easy,’ he says, ‘it’s neither the meaning nor the words—it’s the register does it—that’s the glue.’ So you see he settled it easy; for parsons and doctors know everything by heart, like, so as they aren’t worreted wi’ thinking what’s the rights and wrongs o’ things, as I’n been many and many’s the time. And sure enough the wedding turned out all right, on’y poor Mrs. Lammeter—that’s Miss Osgood as was—died afore the lasses were growed up; but for prosperity and everything respectable, there’s no family more looked on.”
Every one of Mr. Macey’s audience had heard this story many times, but it was listened to as if it had been a favorite tune, and at certain points the puffing of the pipes was momentarily suspended, that the listeners might give their whole minds to the expected words. But there was more to come; and Mr. Snell, the landlord, duly put the leading question:—
“Why, old Mr. Lammeter had a pretty fortin, didn’t they say, when he come into these parts?”
“Well, yes,” said Mr. Macey; “but I dare say it’s as much as this Mr. Lammeter’s done to keep it whole…. Why, they’re stables four times as big as Squire Cass’s, for he thought o’ nothing but hosses and hunting, Cliff didn’t—a Lunnon tailor, some folks said, as had gone mad wi’ cheating. For he couldn’t ride, Lor bless you! they said he’d got no more grip o’ the hoss than if his legs had been cross-sticks: my grandfather heared old Squire Cass say so many and many a time. But ride he would, as if Old Harry had been a-driving him; and he’d a son, a lad o’ sixteen; and nothing would his father have him do but he must ride and ride—though the lad was frightened, they said. And it was a common saying as the father wanted to ride the tailor out o’ the lad, and make a gentleman on him—not but what I’m a tailor myself, but in respect as God made me such, I’m proud on it, for ‘Macey, tailor,’ ’s been wrote up over our door since afore the Queen’s heads went out on the shillings. But Cliff, he was ashamed o’ being called a tailor, and he was sore vexed as his riding was laughed at, and nobody o’ the gentlefolks here about could abide him. Howsomever, the poor lad got sickly and died, and the father didn’t live long after him, for he got queerer nor ever, and they said he used to go out i’ the dead o’ the night, wi’ a lantern in his hand, to the stables, and set a lot o’ lights burning, for he got as he couldn’t sleep; and there he’d stand, cracking his whip and looking at his hosses; and they said it was a mercy as the stables didn’t get burnt down wi’ the poor dumb creaturs in ’em. But at last he died raving, and they found as he’d left all his property, Warrens and all, to a Lunnon Charity, and that’s how the Warrens come to be Charity Land; though as for the stables, Mr. Lammeter never uses ’em—they’re out o’ all charicter—Lor bless you! if you was to set the doors a-banging in ’em, it ’ud sound like thunder half o’er the parish.”
“Ay, but there’s more going on in the stables than what folks see by daylight, eh, Mr. Macey?” said the landlord.
“Ay, ay; go that way of a dark night, that’s all,” said Mr. Macey, winking mysteriously, “and then make believe, if you like, as you didn’t see lights i’ the stables, nor hear the stamping o’ the hosses, nor the cracking o’ the whips, and howling too, if it’s tow’rt daybreak. ‘Cliff’s Holiday’ has been the name of it ever sin’ I were a boy; that’s to say, some said as it was the holiday Old Harry gev him from roasting, like. That’s what my father told me, and he was a reasonable man, though there’s folks nowadays know what happened afore they were born better nor they know their own business.”
“What do you say to that, eh, Dowlas?” said the landlord, turning to the farrier, who was swelling with impatience for his cue: “here’s a nut for you to crack.”
Mr. Dowlas was the negative spirit in the company, and was proud of his position.
“Say? I say what a man should say as doesn’t shut his eyes to look at a finger-post. I say as I’m ready to wager any man ten pound, if he’ll stand out wi’ me any dry night in the pasture before the Warren stables, as we shall neither see lights nor hear noises, if it isn’t the blowing of our own noses. That’s what I say, and I’ve said it many a time; but there’s nobody ’ull ventur a ten-pun’ note on their ghos’es as they make so sure of.”
“Why, Dowlas, that’s easy betting, that is,” said Ben Winthrop. “You might as well bet a man as he wouldn’t catch the rheumatise if he stood up to ’s neck in the pool of a frosty night. It ’ud be fine fun for a man to win his bet as he’d catch the rheumatise. Folks as believe in Cliff’s Holiday aren’t a-going to ventur near it for a matter o’ ten pound.”
“If Master Dowlas wants to know the truth on it,” said Mr. Macey, with a sarcastic smile, tapping his thumbs together, “he’s no call to lay any bet; let him go and stan’ by himself—there’s nobody ’ull hinder him; and then he can let the parish’ners know if they’re wrong.”
“Thank you! I’m obliged to you,” said the farrier, with a snort of scorn. “If folks are fools, it’s no business o’ mine. I don’t want to make out the truth about ghos’es; I know it a’ready. But I’m not against a bet—everything fair and open. Let any man bet me ten pound as I shall see Cliff’s Holiday, and I’ll go and stand by myself. I want no company. I’d as lief do it as I’d fill this pipe.”
“Ah, but who’s to watch you, Dowlas, and see you do it? That’s no fair bet,” said the butcher.
“No fair bet?” replied Mr. Dowlas angrily. “I should like to hear any man stand up and say I want to bet unfair. Come now, Master Lundy, I should like to hear you say it.”
“Very like you would,” said the butcher. “But it’s no business o’ mine. You’re none o’ my bargains, and I aren’t a-going to try and ’bate your price. If anybody’ll bid for you at your own vallying, let him. I’m for peace and quietness, I am.”
“Yes, that’s what every yapping cur is, when you hold a stick up at him,” said the farrier. “But I’m afraid o’ neither man nor ghost, and I’m ready to lay a fair bet—I aren’t a turn-tail cur.”
“Ay, but there’s this in it, Dowlas,” said the landlord, speaking in a tone of much candor and tolerance. “There’s folks, i’ my opinion, they can’t see ghos’es, not if they stood as plain as a pike-staff before ’em. And there’s reason i’ that. For there’s my wife, now, can’t smell, not if she’d the strongest o’ cheese under her nose. I never seed a ghost myself; but then I says to myself, ‘Very like I haven’t got the smell for ’em.’ I mean, putting a ghost for a smell, or else contrariways. And so I’m for holding with both sides; for as I say, the truth lies between ’em. And if Dowlas was to go and stand, and say he’d never seen a wink o’ Cliff’s Holiday all the night through, I’d back him; and if anybody said as Cliff’s Holiday was certain sure for all that, I’d back him too. For the smell’s what I go by.”
The landlord’s analogical argument was not well received by the farrier—a man intensely opposed to compromise.
“Tut, tut,” he said setting down his glass with refreshed irritation; “what’s the smell got to do with it? Did ever a ghost give a man a black eye? That’s what I should like to know. If ghos’es want me to believe in ’em, let ’em leave off skulking i’ the dark and i’ lone places—let ’em come where there’s company and candles.”
“As if ghos’es ’ud want to be believed in by anybody so ignorant!” said Mr. Macey, in deep disgust at the farrier’s crass incompetence to apprehend the conditions of ghostly phenomena.