Chapter I: Part 1

Transcriber's Note

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations
in hyphenation have been standardised but all other spelling and
punctuation remains unchanged.

WORKS

_Preparing for Publication._

LAYS AND LEGENDS OF FANCY AND FABLE.
A Collection of Oriental Tales,
ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE IMAGINATIVE CHARACTER OF DIFFERENT
AGES AND NATIONS:

Designed to elucidate the philosophy of fiction as well as to
afford specimens of those marvels which have entered into popular
belief, and taken a permanent place in literature. The classical
inventions of the Greeks, the romantic fables of the middle ages,
the gorgeous and sometimes gloomy conceptions of the orientals, and
our own pleasing superstitions of fairy lore, will be exemplified
by specimens, and the influence of fancy on belief will be
illustrated by a variety of legends most of which have not hitherto
been brought before the English public. By W. C. TAYLOR, L.L.D.

Adorned with Twenty beautiful line Engravings on Steel, from
pictures by British Artists, and several Woodcuts, elegantly
printed in demy 4to, and richly bound in gilt, _Price_ 21_s._

THE BOOK OF ART; Or, Cartoons, Frescoes, Sculpture, and Decorative
Art, as applied to the New Houses of Parliament, as also to
building in general: with an Appendix, containing an Historical
Notice of the Exhibitions in Westminster Hall.

The Volume, which will contain at least One Hundred Engravings,
is printing in the best manner, in royal 4to. _Price_ 15_s._
handsomely bound.

_On the 1st of November, Part 1., Price Half-a-crown, to be continued
Monthly, and completed in Ten Parts_,

WANDERINGS OF A PEN AND PENCIL; Being the results of an antiquarian
and picturesque tour through the Midland Counties of England, by F.
P. PALMER & ALFRED CROWQUILL. The illustrations will be drawn on
wood by the latter, and engraved by our best wood-cutters.

The Book will present something of interest for those readers who
cherish the affection for antiquity, or an appreciation of manners,
customs, and legends which abound in the nooks of "Merry England."

_At Christmas_,
THE
HONEY STEW OF THE COUNTESS BERTHA.
A Fairy Tale.

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF ALEXANDER DUMAS BY
MARIANNE TAYLOR.

With Coloured Engravings.

_Square Royal._
RAMBLES IN NORMANDY.
BY JAMES HAIRBY, M.D.

Normandy, the cradle of our monarchy and aristocracy, the last
resting-place of our early kings, and the scene of our first great
struggles against France, must ever have strong interest for
Englishmen. We find our national associations connected with its
most striking localities; and many of our leading families must
refer to the archives of this province for the antiquities of their
race. It is also as rich in natural scenery as it is in historical
associations; its peasants surpass those of the rest of France in
industry, intelligence, and comforts; while the numerous English
families who annually visit its sea-coast for the purpose of
bathing have brought it almost as close to England in alliance as
it was anciently in connection.

This Volume will record the impressions of a two years' residence,
and sundry journeyings in the province, furnishing a useful guide
to visitors, and information for tarry-at-home travellers. The
Illustrations will consist of a variety of subjects, Costume,
Landscape, and Architecture.

WISE SAWS
AND
MODERN INSTANCES.

VOL. I.

LONDON:
Printed by A. SPOTTISWOODE,
New-Street-Square.

WISE SAWS
AND
MODERN INSTANCES.

BY
THOMAS COOPER,
THE CHARTIST,
AUTHOR OF
"THE PURGATORY OF SUICIDES."

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

LONDON:
PRINTED FOR JEREMIAH HOW,
209. PICCADILLY.
1845.

TO DOUGLAS JERROLD.

My friend, heart-homage, in this simple strain,
I yield thee for thy toil to aid the Right!
Too long hath genius, with a guilty slight,
Passed by the thousands who life's load sustain
Of scorn and indigence,—to court the vain
And foppish crowd,—or laud, in phrases dight
With fulsome flattery, some pampered wight
Who counts himself for polished porcelain,—
The poor for vulgar clay! A nobler path,—
Disdaining hireling censure, hireling praise,—
Thou, for thyself, hast chosen. Still, in faith
That thy true toil shall hasten the boon days
Of brotherhood renewed, brother, toil on!—
All upright hearts give thee blythe benison!

ADVERTISEMENT.

With the exception of the last three sketches, the pieces composing these two volumes were written during the author's confinement, for "conspiracy," in Stafford gaol, merely, as a relief from the intenser thought exercised in the composition of his "Prison-Rhyme,"—"The Purgatory of Suicides,"—already published. Higher merit than naturalness combined with truth is not claimed for any of the stories: they are, simply, such as any man may write who has the least power of pourtraying the images which human life, in some of its humblest, least disguised forms, has impressed on his memory,—while the heart has formed no attachment sufficiently powerful to seduce the judgment into a decision, that it is either wise or honest to hide these images from the observance of others. Nearly all the homely characters sketched are real,—some of them, in their very names; and the few adventures allotted to them, are devoid of romance and intricacy, because they seldom exceed fact.

The "_Old_ Lincolnshire," so often mentioned in these simple pieces, and endeared to the writer of them by the associations of thirty years of his life, is likely soon to disappear before the social changes of that _New_ Lincolnshire which railway "civilisation" will summon into existence:—would that the manufacturing-misery of the modern Leicestershire, outlined in two or three uncoloured and painfully-veritable pictures, might, as speedily, evanish!

Of the three concluding sketches, the writer feels it right to state that the first is merely a slight alteration of a series of paragraphs furnished to the _Stamford Mercury_, in 1838, and records strict facts which were then occurring in Lincolnshire; while the two remaining fragments were intended to form parts of a novel, in some degree autobiographical,—but the completion of which was relinquished, at first, from a toilful engagement with the sterner business of life, and at length from a growing preference for other subjects.

_134, Blackfriars' Road,
London, Nov. 1. 1845._

CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

PAGE

KUCKY SARSON, THE BARBER; OR, THE DISCIPLE OF
EQUALITY 1

RAVEN DICK, THE POACHER; OR, "WHO SCRATCHED THE
BULL?" 20

TIM SWALLOW-WHISTLE, THE TAILOR; OR, "EVERY DOG
HAS HIS DAY" 38

DAVY LIDGITT, THE CARRIER; OR, THE MAN WHO
BROUGHT HIS NINEPENCE TO NOUGHT 57

THE FISHERMAN AND THE FIDDLER; OR, "DON'T SAY SO
TILL YOU ARE SURE" 72

MASTER ZERUBBABEL, THE ANTIQUARY; AND HOW HE
FOUND OUT THE "NOOSE LARNING" 104

THE BEGGARED GENTLEMAN, AND HIS CROOKED STICK 127

THE NURTURE OF A YOUNG SAILOR; OR, THE HISTORY OF
COCKLE TOM 142

THE LAST DAYS OF AN OLD SAILOR; OR, "BUTTER YOUR
SHIRT! SING TANTARA-BOBUS, MAKE SHIFT!" 159

DOROTHY PYECROFT'S PREACHING; OR, "CHARITY BEGINS
AT HOME" 177

THE MINISTER OF MERCY 189

"MERRIE ENGLAND"—NO MORE! 201

SETH THOMPSON, THE STOCKINGER; OR, "WHEN THINGS
ARE AT THE WORST, THEY BEGIN TO MEND" 218

SAM SIMKINS, THE RUN-AWAY; OR, VILLAINY AS A
REFUGE FROM THE TORTURES OF SOUR-GODLINESS 235

KUCKY SARSON, THE BARBER; OR, THE DISCIPLE OF EQUALITY.

Once upon a time—and that was when "French principles," as they were called, were beginning to spread in England, and here and there one began to profess admiration of the new republic,—there lived in the little town of Caistor, in North Lincolnshire, a notable barber of the name of Habakkuk Sarson,—but "Kucky" was the name by which he was familiarly known; for Lincolnshire folk are a plain folk, and don't like, nor ever did, to trouble themselves with uttering long cramp names.

It would be difficult to say how it was exactly, but somehow or other, in spite of the alarm which landowners and tenantry alike felt at the broaching of Jacobinism,"—that _terror terrorum_ to the squirearchy and farmers,—Kucky Sarson contrived to keep a fair share of custom in the matter of clipping hair and scraping beards. Scarcely an hour of the day but Kucky had a customer; or if customers scanted, he was sure to have company for gossip. Perhaps it was chiefly owing to the frank-heartedness and real courtesy of manner which the barber mingled with his earnest speech—for he was a very great talker, and a good one too,—that he was respected by almost all who knew him, notwithstanding his open profession of the principles of "equality."

Indeed, it was a maxim of Kucky Sarson, that, "if you believed all men to be equal, you ought to treat every man like a gentleman." "That is the especial hinderance to the spread of first principles, sir," said Kucky to a customer one day. "Democrats foolishly imagine, sir, that democracy consists in barking like a bull-dog, or growling like a bear, at every man they meet; when, the fact is, that that is just the way to repel a sensible man from both yourself and your principles. Don't you think so, sir?"

Kucky's customer would have answered, but Kucky held him at that moment by the nose, and was applying a keen razor to his upper lip. The earnest shaver did not think of this, but supposed, since his customer was a stranger, that he was either modest or unacquainted with politics; and, in the latter case, Kucky was too true an enthusiast to omit the opportunity of trying to make a convert—so he resumed, after clearing his throat with a loud "a-hem!"

"If the beautiful principles of equality do not spread, sir," he said, resolving to show his best graces of conversational style to a well-dressed stranger, "in my humble opinion, it will be chiefly attributable to the miscalculating rudeness of those who affect to advocate them. These principles, in themselves, are so self-evidently true, and so happily calculated to ensure the felicity of the human family, that it is impossible for any unprejudiced man to——"

"Pardon me, friend," said the stranger, extricating his nose from the barber's fingers somewhat dexterously, "there may be considerable doubt about the self-evident truth of the principles you are speaking of: you seem to me to be somewhat too hasty in concluding that every one, from even a candid review of them, must acknowledge them to be incontrovertible. Give me leave to say, my good friend, that nothing will be more stoutly controverted than these same doctrines of human equality."

"Men may controvert them, sir," rejoined the barber, with some shade of an approach to asperity of manner, "but I cannot, in my conscience, give them credit for sincerity. Who was ever born into the world with a star on his breast or his shoulder, to signify that he ought to rule his fellows solely by his own will?—or who was ever created with a crook on his knee, to signify that he ought to bow down to the caprice of others? No, sir, the doctrines of equality are as clear as daylight when opposed to the darkness of slavery and mastership. In short, sir, 'Right is every man's, but wrong is no man's right,' was a maxim of my grandfather,—and I think it settles the question."

"Indeed!" exclaimed the stranger, staring at the barber's last words, and opening his lips till the lather ran into his mouth.

"Yes, sir—I think so," repeated Kucky, striving to look as confident as before, but evidently somewhat doubtful, on second thought, of the conclusiveness of his own odd logic,—"I think so, sir; for, as I hold it to be a natural right for every man to be governed only by his own consent, so I conclude it to be wrong for any other man to attempt to rule him without first asking his will or waiting his choice. I think those two points are as clear as twice two makes four: the first is a right, and belongs to every man, and the second is a wrong that should be practised by no man. Does not my grandfather's precept mean the same thing—'Right is every man's, but wrong is no man's right?'"

"Pardon me, my friend," replied the gentleman, unable entirely to suppress a smile, "if I say that I admire your sincerity more than your logic. Allow me further to say——"

"Oh, allow, sir!" exclaimed the barber, bowing very low, and spreading out his hands,—"to be sure, I allow every man to judge for himself, sir. It would be extremely inconsistent in me, who claim the fullest freedom of opinion myself, to refuse others the liberty of thought, sir. I pray you, sir, forgive me if I have been a little too positive in my manner: I will assure you, sir, I am not a bigot,—indeed, I am not——"

"Stay, stay, my friend!" cried the stranger, puzzled and bothered with the superlative politeness of him of the razor, "if you will finish your operation upon my chin, we will have half-an-hour's talk on these subjects afterwards. In the mean time, believe me, I am happy to find you are so truly tolerant of other men's opinions: if we all cultivated that spirit, this world would speedily be much happier than it is."

"Excellent—excellent, sir!" exclaimed the honest and enthusiastic barber, resuming his shaving, but too much excited to leave his favourite theme—"you speak like a true gentleman, sir. I see we really agree, although we may seem to differ; for you have just maintained a sentiment which is purely in accordance with the principles I profess. Some great man once said, 'No man was ever born with a saddle on his back, nor was any other man brought into the world ready booted and spurred to ride him.' That was a very true and striking saying: do you recollect it, sir?"

"I recollect it, and admire it much," answered the gentleman; "but I do not just now remember whose it is."

"Nor I, sir," rejoined the garrulous barber; "but that is of little consequence, sir: truths are valuable solely for their own weight, and not for the sake of those who utter them."

"There, again, we differ," observed the stranger. "I think that many truths are doubly valuable;—first, for their intrinsic excellence, and often, secondarily, for the sake of the great and the good men who utter them. For instance, the striking saying you have just quoted becomes, to my mind, as a passionate lover of his own country, increasedly valuable, when I remember that it is attributed to the illustrious patriot-martyr, Algernon Sydney."

"Why, sir," resumed Kucky Sarson, who was the soul of ingenuity at an argument, "the man, and the truth he utters, are very often one, essentially. Some men's lives—nay, their very deaths,—are great truths in themselves,—like the life and death of the noble commonwealthsman you have just mentioned: in such cases the man becomes so closely and entirely identified with the truths he utters, that he and they may be said to be one."

"You are now really becoming too refined for me, my friend," replied the gentleman, laughing. "But give me the pleasure of your company for a couple of hours at my inn, if you please, and I will do my best to discuss these points with you, good-humouredly and charitably, over a glass of wine."

The barber was making his politest acknowledgments, and was assuring the gentleman that he felt highly honoured and gratified by his handsome invitation, when old Farmer Garbutt, a regular customer of Kucky's for more than thirty years past, although a stout "church-and-king" man, pushed his burly person in at the little shop door, and gruffly bidding the barber "good-morning," sat down in the shaving-chair, which the gentleman had just quitted. Farmer Garbutt could not have come at a moment when he was less welcome; but Bucky Sarson could not decline to shave a beard he had shorn for so long a period, and therefore politely assured the strange gentleman that he would be with him, at his inn, in the course of a quarter of an hour.

Ere the farmer's beard was cleansed, however, more than one additional chin had gathered round the chair; and what was most vexing to Kucky, in his impatient mood, was the "striking fact" that all the chins and their beards belonged to the most extreme and sturdy opposers of Kucky's republican principles to be found among his regular customers. With all his acquirement of _suave_ manners, the poor barber was greatly in danger of going into a passion, as he heard, first one, and then another, allude, jeeringly, to the persecution that was commencing against Kucky's favourite doctrines. Yet he kept down the rising storm within, though with a considerable struggle:—

"Ay, ay—they'll soon hang all the levellers out o' the way, I'll warrant 'em!" said gruff Garbutt, rolling his eye in wicked waggery at his neighbours, and then threateningly at Kucky.

"What else can folk expect that side with cutting off kings' heads?" cried Bobby Sparrow, a dapper little master-tailor, who made and repaired habits for the parson, and all the genteel people, of Caistor and its vicinity.

"More by token—such folk as would pull down all the parish churches, and murder all the Protestants!" added old Davy Gregson, a fat little retired man of business, who liked to enjoy his joke,—sitting in a corner of the old shop, and thrusting his tongue grotesquely into his cheek,—although he was nearly fourscore.

"You will please to remember, gentlemen," interjected the barber, driven to the extremity of his temper, "that _I_ am _not_ an advocate either for cutting off kings' heads, or pulling down parish churches, or murdering people of any religion, much more my own."

"But ye take part with rogues that do, neighbour Kucky," said Bobby Sparrow, with provoking pertness,—"and the more's the shame to you!"

"Ay, marry, good faith—that he does!" exclaimed old Davy Gregson, enjoying the barber's apparent soreness; "and it has always been held that the abettor is as bad as the thief or the murderer!"

"If you mean to be respected, Kucky Sarson," growled old farmer Garbutt, "be advised, and give up all your Jacobin notions. The Squire says it would be ruin for this country to be without a king and an established church. I had a famous talk with him on all these things at the rent-day; and so he said: and if such gentlefolk as Squire Pelham don't know what belongs to good government, I should like to know who does."

"Squire Pelham's great-grandfather was of a somewhat different opinion," answered the barber: "Peregrine Pelham was his name; and he signed the death-warrant of Charles Stuart."

"The Lord be merciful to us!" exclaimed old Davy, beginning to look really alarmed—"why, that was in the time of the awful troubles that my grandmother used to talk so sorrowfully about!—Surely you don't wish that such grievous days were come again, do you, Kucky Sarson?"

"God forbid!" ejaculated farmer Garbutt, solemnly.

"You all _know_ I don't, before you ask me," answered the barber, with some show of dignity. "I defy any one of you to say that there is a quieter and more upright citizen in England than I am. Who can say that I ever injured him? who dares say that I ever cheated any man of one farthing—ay, or that I owe him one? And do I ever try to compel any man to think as I think? Speak!—any one of you that can charge me with an act of wrongfulness, or a single speech of intolerance!"

"Well, well—excuse us, Kucky! We all regard you as an excellent neighbour. But you seem more short about taking a joke than usual," answered the dapper little master-tailor.

The barber merely bowed, and said, "Well, well—never mind, never mind, neighbours! we are none the worse friends for a joke." But he was conscious that he felt short-tempered, and heartily wished his customers would shorten their stay, in order that he might visit the gentleman at his inn. Agreeably to his wish, the farmer, the master-tailor, and the retired man of business each shook hands heartily with Kucky, after a few more sentences of restorative kindness, and bid him "good-day." The barber forthwith doffed his apron and fore-pocket, adjusted his neckerchief, brushed his hat, exchanged his shop jacket for his holiday-coat, and crying "Shop, my dear!" to his wife, hurried away towards the inn, where, according to the strange gentleman's request, Kucky had promised to meet him.

To the barber's great mortification, when he arrived at the inn the gentleman had been called out, and had left word that he would be happy to receive his new acquaintance at six in the evening. Kucky Sarson felt half disposed to be unhappy with disappointment; for he feared that he would be unable to leave his shop at that busy hour of the evening. He was hastening homeward, and striving to banish this unpleasant feeling, when, passing by the end of a narrow street or lane, he suddenly saw the strange gentleman in close conversation with a ragged, dirty-looking female, who seemed by her uncouth garb and sun-burnt complexion to belong to the wandering race of the gypsies. The barber stopped short and gazed in astonishment at what he saw. The woman bent her keen eyes upon him; but the strange gentleman seemed too much absorbed in looking at and talking to the gypsy to be aware that he was discovered.

The barber passed on to his shop, pondering much upon what he had observed.—"What in the name of prudence and propriety!" soliloquised Kucky, "can such a person have to do with a houseless out-cast and vagabond of a gypsy?" The more he thought upon it, the more he wondered; till, in the course of an hour, seeing that no one stepped into the shop, he felt so exquisitely curious to know the meaning of what he had seen, that he once more doffed his apron and shop-coat, put on his holiday covering, and sallied forth again in search of the strange gentleman's secret.

Turning the first corner of the street, he suddenly ran hard against his old gossip, Davy Gregson, and nearly knocked him down in his haste.

"Hey-day, Kucky!" exclaimed Davy, "what a hurry you are in!—I reckon you are posting away to see the gentleman dance with the gypsy!"

Davy Gregson's exclamation operated like lightning upon the barber: he took to his heels and ran, in the direction from whence Davy came, with all the mettle he possessed. Just as he was crossing the way, however, at the end of one street with the intent to run down another, he was suddenly seized by little Bobby Sparrow, the dapper master-tailor.

"What the dickens are you running so for, Kucky?" asked the little man; "you'll be too late to see the gentleman huddle the gypsy—it's all over, and——"

"Huddle the gypsy!" exclaimed Kucky, "I thought he was dancing with her?"

"So he was: but he fell to kissing and huddling her after that," answered Sparrow.

"For Heaven's sake let me go see," cried the barber; and bolted away again at the hazard of tearing his coat, which the tailor had kept hold of. But before he had stretched one hundred yards, he was once more stopped; and this time it was by the strong and effectual gripe of gruff farmer Garbutt.

"Art thou mad, Kucky Sarson?" asked the farmer, "or what is the reason that thou art scampering away at such a hare-brained rate?"

"The gypsy!" gasped the barber, still striving to run,—"the gypsy and the gentleman!"

"Pshaw, man!—the gentleman has suddenly found his sister who was stolen when she was young," said the farmer: "the gentleman has explained it all himself, and has taken the young woman into the Pelham's Arms, where he puts up. I thought thou hadst had more sense, Kucky, than to run after any crowd that gathered in the street."

"Crowd!" echoed the barber, "was there a crowd then?

"A crowd!" repeated the farmer, "that was there, I assure thee. There: good-bye, Kucky!" and so saying he loosed hold of his neighbour, who was now in some degree cooled down.

Kucky Sarson did not set off to run again; but walked musingly on towards the Pelham's Arms Inn, resolved, if possible, to get at the bottom of the curious incidents just related. He was shown into the strange gentleman's room at once, when he had intimated that it would be inconvenient for him to call at six in the evening. And now the barber felt completely embarrassed, and quite ashamed of his own curiosity, in having forced himself upon the stranger so suddenly after the affecting occurrence he had just been informed of by old farmer Garbutt. In fact, Kucky had begun to stammer forth very odd apologies, and was backing out of the room with a profusion of bows and scrapes, when the gentleman rose, and leading his newly-recovered relative by the hand, introduced her to his humble visitor. Kucky Sarson recognised her face for the same he had seen in the narrow street a short time before; but the altered dress and demeanour of the female caused him to take her hand with much greater reverence than he would have shown had that hand been offered him when he first saw its owner.

"I saw you a short time ago, when my brother had just discovered me," observed the female, as the barber took her hand.

"You did, madam," replied he, stammering with confusion, and surprised at the peculiar grace wherewith, he now thought, the gypsy conducted herself.

"No doubt you felt greatly surprised when you saw us," observed the gentleman.

"I must say I did," answered the barber, still looking very bashful.

"Did you witness any of my capers in the street, my friend? I am fearful that I have played a somewhat foolish part, for my elation well nigh drove me out of my senses. Come, my good friend," concluded the gentleman, noting the shy look of the barber, "let us sit down, and, over a comfortable glass of wine, talk over this matter;—not forgetting your family adage of 'Right is every man's, but Wrong is no man's right.'"

They were seated accordingly; and the barber, having been plied with a couple of glasses of claret, and his shame-facedness having vanished, the gentleman renewed the conversation, with a look of great good-humour.

"My good friend," said he, "I remember an observation of yours which, it strikes me, you cannot always bring to bear upon your mind with the force of a maxim, although you profess to have made it one: it was that 'When we believe all men to be equal, we ought to treat every man like a gentleman.' Now, tell me, frankly, did you not completely forget your principles of equality at the moment you saw me with this my beloved and only sister, in the guise of a vagabond gypsy?" The gentleman took the hand of his recovered relative once more in his own, and they looked with joy and love upon each other.

The barber felt conscience-stricken with the inconsistency between his philosophy and his practice, in this notable instance, and, despite his natural loquacity, remained dumb.

"Nay, my good friend," resumed the stranger; "do not think yourself unlike other people. Let me see you rally, and display the spirit you did this morning: all the world is too prone to fail in the act of applying principles and professions to practice."

"I do, indeed, feel," said the barber at length, but still hanging down his head, "that I have _not_ felt and acted as a disciple of the great doctrine of equality ought to have felt and acted this day."

"And I think you will not fail to draw this great lesson from your own experience, my friend," rejoined the gentleman, "that, however intrinsically true it may be that we are all equal in the eye of Him who made us, yet our birth, our early associations, our habits,—in brief, the whole complexity of circumstances with which we are every hour, nay, every moment, surrounded, renders it absolutely impossible for any of us to act at all times, or even generally, upon the conviction of that most undeniable and solemn truth."

"You are perfectly right, sir," replied the barber, conscious that the stranger spoke the language of common sense, and feeling humbled into willing discipleship.

"And, granting the doctrine of equality to be strictly true," continued the gentleman, "yet how long, how very long must it be, ere the race of mankind shall be able to throw off their prejudices—their present artificial condition, shall we call it?—so completely as to reinduce and reinstate that universal equality we have just agreed to be natural."

"Very sensible, sir," interjected Kucky Sarson; "but I am just thinking," he added, feeling some return of his usual confidence, "that equality never will be reinstated, unless we spread its great doctrines by all the means in our power. Equality must be enuntiated, maintained, and defended, sir; or, like other truths which have lain hid for ages, it will not produce any fruit."

"True, my good friend," answered the gentleman; "but permit me to remind you that practice is more powerful than precept. If we each sought to act towards our fellow-creatures as if they were really our brethren and sisters, the principles of a true equality would soon gain a citadel in each human heart. It is the putting into practice of this deep conviction of our common brotherhood which is really most worthy of our endeavours. We may contend against the artificial distinctions which are established among men till doomsday; but if we do not, on all occasions, display brotherly feeling towards our fellows, our contention will produce no salutary effect."

"Indeed, sir," said the barber, "I feel you are by far the more consistent philosopher of the two——"

"Nay," said the gentleman, cutting short the barber's strain of intended panegyric; "I would not have you suppose that I am a perfect practiser of the maxims I am recommending. I never yet found a man who fulfilled his own definition of a philanthropist, a patriot, or a philosopher,—that is, if his definition were worthy of being termed one. I only press this fact upon your notice, my friend: that I was once in the habit of talking as loudly about equality as yourself,—nay, even dogmatically about it, and that is _not_ like your way of talking; but I have ceased to talk about the name, and am now endeavouring to spread the spirit of it. I try to do all the good I can, to make every one as happy as I can, to banish all the misery I can. I cannot always keep in mind that every human being I meet is my brother or sister; for the force of old habit is such that a pernicious aristocracy moves within me sometimes, but I try to keep it down. My friend, I am preaching _to_ you, rather than conversing _with_ you; but we will now leave this subject for some lighter theme, if you please; only permit me to say, in conclusion, that you must never believe yourself to be a thorough disciple of Equality while a grain of offence arises in your mind on seeing a gentleman converse with a gypsy."

It would be tiresome to pursue any further the conversation of the barber and the strange gentleman. Suffice it to say that Kucky Sarson was an altered man from that day, though he never saw the gentleman again. He subdued the habit of expressing his convictions in terms which he knew must give offence and create prejudice, rather than advance truth, couch them as courteously as he might in the flourish of politeness. He turned his efforts, in the humble sphere of his conventional existence, rather towards preparing the world for rigid truth, than towards impelling the people into the acknowledgment and practice of principles of which they had not as yet learned the alphabet. These changes, to Kucky Sarson's honour be it spoken, came over his spirit, not through cowardice,—for he possessed enough of strength of mind and principle to have braved a prison, had he thought his lot cast in the fitting and becoming time: it was honest conviction which acted as a mollifier of Kucky's manners, and the usefulness of the change in him was evidenced by the greater good he effected in his modified character. He preserved his grandfather's favourite saying to the last day of his life; and, as no one sought more ardently to fulfil the character of an humble philanthropist,—to alleviate distress wherever he found it,—to soften and dissipate asperity of temper, and to create the genuine feeling of brotherhood, and the practice of self-sacrifice among all men,—so his name and favourite adage were remembered after his death; insomuch that when a word tending to difference arose among the plain inhabitants of Caistor-in-Lindsey, it was usually succeeded, and the difference prevented, by some one observing, "Why, neighbours, what's the use of wrangling? You know what good Kucky Sarson used to say,—'Right is every man's, and Wrong is no man's right.'"

RAVEN DICK, THE POACHER; OR, "WHO SCRATCHED THE BULL?"

Kiah Dobson,—they always called him Kiah "for shortness sake," as we used to say in Lincolnshire; but his full name was Hezekiah,—Kiah Dobson was a hearty buck of a farmer, who ploughed about fifty acres, and fed sheep and bullocks on about fifty others. He was a tenant of good old Squire Anderson, the ancestor of the Yarboroughs, who are called Lords in these new-fashioned times. Lindsey and its largest landlord presented, it need scarcely be said, very different features sixty years ago to those they present now. Squire Anderson kept a coach, but he had not three or four, like his successor, the peer: he had one good house at Manby, but he had not that and a much grander one at Brocklesby, another at Appuldercome, in the Isle of Wight, and another in town.

The farmers of Lindsey kept each a good nag, for market service, and so forth; but it was a very, very scarce thing to find a blood horse in their stables; and when their dames went to market, it was on the pillion-seat, behind the farmer himself, and not in the modern kickshaw gig. There were none of your strongholds of starvation, which the famishing thousands call "Bastiles," in those days; and a horn of good humming ale, and a motherly slice of bread and cheese, awaited the acceptance of any poor man who happened to be journeying, and called either at the hall of the squire or at the cottages of any of the farmers on his extensive estates.

Kiah Dobson was nearing his cottage one November evening, a little before dusk, when a figure caught his eye, the sight of which roused his gall,—and yet Kiah was by no means a choleric or hasty-tempered man. It was Raven Dick, the poacher, that the farmer was so wroth to see; for Dick was beheld as the farmer had beheld him nearly fifty times before,—with a bundle of dead hares under his arm. The farmer turned to cross the home-close in another direction, willing, as it seemed, to give Dick another fair opportunity of getting safely away. But "the devil was in Dick for impudence," as Kiah used often to say,—"if you gave him an inch, he would be sure to take an ell!" Not content with imposing on farmer Dobson's good-nature forty-nine times in the course of his harum-scarum life, he must e'en "try it on" for the fiftieth, and so made the experiment just once too often.

"Farmer! how d'ye feel yoursen?" said Dick, striding up to Kiah Dobson, and looking him full in the face, as bold as a bull-dog.

"Better than thou'lt feel, scapegrace! when thou gets thy hempen collar on!" replied the farmer, snarling as angrily as a mastiff when he doesn't like you.

"May be the thread of it isn't spun yet," retorted Dick, mocking the farmer's angry tone.

"Surely, old Nick himself isn't more impudent than his children that wear his own colour!" exclaimed Kiah, darting a withering look at Dick's black face, for Dick's skin was even swarthier than a gypsy's; and I might as well say now as at any other time, that the sable shade of Dick's countenance, coupled with their knowledge of his wild way of life, were the emphatic reasons why his neighbours gave him the epithet of "Raven."

Now, above all things, Dick did not like these reflections on his unfair colour; so, with something in the shape of an oath, Dick turned his heel in dudgeon, and seemed, not at all to the farmer's displeasure, to be bent on making his way home.

Dame Dobson, who was a stout country-wife, and was labouring lustily at her churn, and scolding one of her maids, who had been idling, just as her husband entered the cottage, caught a sight of the well-known poacher with the hares under his arm ere the farmer could close the door, and, with the anger that her maid had kindled, was ill prepared to brook new provocation.

"Shame on thee, Kiah, for letting that rascal escape so often!" she exclaimed, screaming so loudly that Dick could hear her words distinctly, though nearly half way over the close; "it will come to the Squire's ears at long-last, thou may depend on't! and then thou knowst what will follow!"

"Hang the villain!" said Kiah, "he really deserves nabbing; and I've half a mind to go after him and collar him; for, confound him! he grows more brazenly impudent than a miller's horse! he's getting worse than come-out!"

"You'll ha' no need to do that," said the incorrigibly idle maiden, who had gone to the window to peep at the poacher, in spite of her mistress's fierce scolding, "he's turned again, and has been listening to you, and now he's coming hither as fast as shanks' horse can carry him!"

And so it was, for Dick had changed his intent; and, with a perverse will, now strode, at full stretch, towards the door of the farm house.

"Curse his gallows-neck!" exclaimed farmer Dobson, between his teeth, when he heard the maiden's words: "has he such a brass-face as that comes to? I'll nab him this time, or I'm a Dutchman else!"

Raven Dick's foot was on the grunsel almost before the farmer had finished this last sentence; and throwing himself on a chair in the kitchen, and the hares on the cottage floor, alike with the air and impudence of one who braves the gallows, he asked for a horn of ale and a lump of bread and cheese with as little ceremony as if he had been a squire in his own mansion. Dick's audacity, however, had now overstretched its mark. The farmer's strong fist was on Dick's frock collar in a moment; the next, the farmer had dragged him from his seat; and, in the third, Dick was prostrate on the cottage floor. Unluckily, Kiah Dobson's anger overbalanced his caution; and, with the impetuosity of his own force upon the poacher, Kiah brought himself, also, to the floor.

Dick had so long careered it over the farmer's fields, by day and by night, and had so often "snickled," or noosed the hares, as one may say, under the farmer's nose, and the farmer had all the while taken it so mildly, that the poacher was never more surprised in his life than at this portentous assault upon his person by mild, good-natured Kiah Dobson. Had it not been for his imaginary security of feeling, the poacher would not so easily have been overthrown. And, as it was, Dick was not disposed to believe that all was over with him; he speedily succeeded in wriggling his body from under the farmer's weight, and, in the course of a few minutes, had his knee upon Kiah's breast, and began to grab the farmer so tightly by the throat that he soon grew blacker than Dick himself. Luckily Dame Dobson's churn staff came to the rescue. She pommelled the hard head of the poacher so soundly, and her strokes came so thick and fast after each other, that he was compelled to loose his hold on the farmer's throat, in order to catch the churn-staff from the farmer's wife. The engagement, however, now became more furious. Poor Kiah lay gasping on the floor, for some moments, unable to rise, much less to aim a blow at the adversary; but the war was at its height between Raven Dick and the dame, and two stout maidens of her service. Mops, brooms, and brushes were successively impelled with no playful force towards the seasoned skull of the poacher, but were shivered with the rapidity of lightning, as he dexterously caught hold of them, and wrested them from the hands of his clamorous assailants. The din of female tongues was scarcely less than the noise of blows; and when the more effective ammunition was all expended, the discharge was confined, at last, to the small shot of epithets, poured in every imaginable shape, from the fair musketry of the three female belligerents' mouths.

The scene had now become as laughable as previously it had been serious. Raven Dick stood on a chair in the middle of the floor, drawing his face into the most whimsical forms and mocking the women, while they stood around him, each with hands on hip, and tearing their throats with the effort to abuse and irritate, or otherwise to shame him. The farmer, seeing what turn the war had taken, had seated himself on a chair, and forgetting his anger, was shaking his sides with laughter at the ludicrous and unwonted scene presented that night in his kitchen. The affray at length shrank into silence; the women's tongues were fairly wearied; they each sat down to rest; and so Dick sat down, likewise.

"Dang it Dick, thou'rt a good woolled 'un!" said the hearty farmer; "but thou art an idle rogue, after all."

"How so, Maister Kiah?" asked the saucy poacher; "why do you call me an idle rogue?"

"Because thou art fonder of stealing than working," quickly replied the farmer.

"Stealing, say you?" rejoined Dick, his brows knitting together; "I scorn your words, Kiah Dobson!—You lie in your throat!—What do I steal?"

"The 'squire's hares, by dozens, thou saucy varlet," answered Kiah.

"How come they to be the 'squire's hares?" asked Dick, fixing his eyes very keenly on the farmer.

"By feeding and breeding on his land," answered Kiah Dobson.

"But don't _you_ plough the land, Farmer Dobson?"

"To be sure I do——"

"And don't _you_ buy the seed to sow upon the land?"

"Sartainly I do——"

"And don't _you_ sow the seed when you have bought it?"

"Ay, and I can sow a breadth with here and there a fellow in any——"

"Pshaw!—don't _you_ watch the corn while it is growing, weed it, and attend to it till it is ripe? and do not _you_, with the sweat of your own brow, and the help of those you hire with your own purse, reap the corn, and gather it into the stack-yard?—and don't _you_, afterwards, pay many a shilling in wages for Roger Brown, and Tim Wilson, and others, to thrash your corn for you?—and don't you consider the corn _yours_ when you are taking it to market?—and don't you think _you_ have a right to receive the money for which you sell it?"

"Ay, and I would fain be knowing, Dick, who besides has so good a right to it as I have," replied the farmer, starting to his feet with warmth, and not apprehending the drift of Dick's queries.

"Then the corn which these poor hares have eaten during the summer," said Dick, pointing to the dead animals which lay on the floor, "was _your_ corn, and _not_ the 'squire's, for you pay him his rent, don't you, Kiah?"

"Zounds, ay! to the very day," instantly and proudly replied the farmer.

"And yet _you_ durst not kill a hare, and be seen in doing it," said Dick, not permitting a moment's pause to take place.

"Me kill a hare!" exclaimed Kiah, scratching his head, and colouring very deeply; "Lord! you know, Dick, I've no licence; and, besides, the 'squire always reckons the hares his own, you know."

"Does he?" said Dick, with a peculiar sneer, "then he's a fool for so doing.—Why, Farmer Dobson, don't you remember how, last latter-end, three persons came from Lincoln, and went shooting like wild devils over the whole estate, murdering and bagging all they could see? And it's more than likely you'll have a greater number of the Lincoln Minster Jackdaws, as the 'squire called 'em, this month than you had last November; and will the 'squire be such a fool as to call the hares his own then, when the black thieves are packing off with them, think you?"

"Dang it! thou talks very odd, Dick!" said the farmer, sitting down very quietly, fixing his eyes on the floor, and scratching his head harder than before; "thou talks very odd, but what thou say'st is as true as the gospel, for all that."

"That it is, as sure as eggs are eggs," added the dame, into whose mind conviction had been entering a little more quickly than into that of her husband.

"There now!" exclaimed Dick, springing from his seat, and feeling proud of the power of his argumentation, when he saw both the farmer and his wife brought over so triumphantly to his side of the question. "There now, you see, Kiah Dobson, a man may be judged very wrongly, and be condemned for a thief and a rogue by many who are either—saving your presence, farmer—thorough fools or rogues themselves, and yet, all the while, he may be quite as honest as his neighbours. Now, don't you think it hard, Kiah, under all the circumstances, that _you_ are not allowed to kill a hare when you like?"

"I'm not thinking so much about that," replied Farmer Dobson, his eyes still bent very thoughtfully downward—"I'm not thinking so much about that, as I am wondering how, in the name of Old Nick, these things came to be as they are. You see, Dick, it was the same in my father's time, though I've heard him say that my grandfather used to tell how, in the time of the great troubles, folks killed game when and where they liked; but that was only owing to the unsettled state of things, for these laws about the game were made before that time I take it, Dick."

"According to what I've learned about it," said Dick, looking still more proud than before, and feeling himself superior in information to the rest of the company, "these Game Laws, as they are called, began with William the Conqueror, the king that I dare say you've heard of, farmer, that came from beyond the sea, and got possession of this country, when——"

"Likely, likely," said the farmer, yawning, and growing wearied of Dick's learning; "I don't care two straws who first made such laws, Dick; but I'm sure of one thing—that it must be wrong, when one thinks on it, that the great folk should claim the wild creatures God Almighty makes himself as their own, when, all the while, they have no more right to 'em than other folk."

"To be sure it's wrong, farmer," said Dick. "What right could any man have, whether he were a king, or a 'squire, or a parson, to say to all the people of this country, or any other country, 'You shall none of you kill a stag, or a hare, or a pheasant, under pain of losing a hand, or going to prison?' The only wonder is, farmer, that people have submitted to these laws so long and so quietly."

"Why, you see, Dick," continued the farmer, whose common sense was of a more solid character than Dick's, though his perceptions were not quite so acute at the outset of an enquiry—"you see, Dick, this law is contrived, like most other laws, to draw a number of folk into the love and the liking of it: it isn't simply _one_ man _now_, whatever it might have been formerly, that is interested in keeping up these Game Laws. Rich folks generally think they ought to do no other but uphold 'em. They say, that all the game would soon be destroyed if every body was allowed to kill hares and pheasants when and where they like. The 'squire, too, sends presents, you know, to his acquaintances the great folk in London, and elsewhere; and if hares and pheasants and partridges were as common with poor folk as with rich, why, the great folk would soon scorn to have 'em on their tables. 'There are wheels within wheels,' as the miller says, Dick. Rich folk are sure to hang together on their side of the wheat-sack; and that is the reason—more than their money, Dick, mind ye! more than their money—why they are so much more powerful than the poor. And for the self-same reason that they _are_ so powerful, Dick," concluded the farmer, seeming determined to finish his speech in spite of the poacher's evident dislike to it, "I think it is far better for all who love peace and quietness, and a whole skin, to keep out of harm's way. You understand me, Dick! Come, dame, fill us a good jug of ale, and let us have a bit of bread and cheese, or a mouthful of bacon, and Dick and I will talk these things over a bit, just in a quiet and sensible way."

The dame hasted to set her hospitality before her spouse and the poacher; and it soon became hard to say which most excelled in the act of doing justice to it. The strong ale, however, was most freely partaken by the poacher, and, under its potency, Dick's tongue soon began to indulge itself with a tolerably large licence.

"I' faith, farmer," he said, "you gave me a roughish reception when I crossed your threshold; you must do things gentlier another time, when you're disposed for a cramp: it's only a fool-hardy sort of a thing to take a bull by the horns: it's ten times wiser, when he makes a butt at you, to scratch him a bit, and coax him, and smooth him down."

The farmer was a little nettled by Raven Dick's taunting tone and the devilry of his eye; but he thought one scuffle enough for a day, and so replied with a somewhat forced look of good humour, "I hardly think it's wisest at all times, Dick. I think, for my own part, the only way sometimes is to take a bull by the horns. And besides, Dick, whoever heard o' such a thing as scratching a bull? You may scratch an angry cur, you know, Dick," he concluded with a laugh, "but a bull!—no, no, Dick, scratching a bull won't do at all!"

"I know what I say, Farmer Dobson," cried Dick aloud, thumping one hand upon the table, and pouring the ale on the outside of the horn, instead of into it, with the other, "I know what I say,—and I say _scratching_!"

"Speak in the house, Dick!" retorted the farmer, colouring, "thou wilt not talk better sense for shouting. I tell thee that that bull's only a fool of a bull that will stand scratching! Wilt thou make me believe, think'st thou, that any body would be such a goose, for instance, as to try to scratch my old white bull in the second home close? Thou won't venture to scratch him, I'm pretty sartain, Dick, with all thy brag and bluster to boot!"

"Won't I?" cried Dick, fiercely; "why, what do ye fancy is to hinder me, eh! old clod-pate?"

"Dick, Dick!" said the farmer, cooling himself with the remembrance that the poacher was a much younger and inexperienced man than himself, and tapping the wild youth admonishingly on the shoulder, "it is far wiser for a man to go steadily about getting his bread, than either to scratch bulls, or to snickle hares, depend on't. I don't say but that you have as much right to practise one as t'other, if you feel inclined; only, you are almost sure to repent it in the end, in either case: you understand me, Dick?"

"'Od dang it!" hiccupped Dick, setting his ragged hat on one side, and looking at the farmer as if he intended him to understand he was no ordinary hero, "do ye think, Kiah Dobson, that I fear aught that may happen? I say I _will scratch_ your bull; ay, and I'll tame him, too, as I've tamed you?"

"Better not," replied the farmer drily; "better go quietly home, Dick, and try to earn thy living honestly, like thy father and thy brother Ned."

"To Jericho with 'em both!" roared Raven Dick, bouncing up from his seat: "they're fools both of 'em! I don't intend to slave for ever, and never have any fun, like them. No, no! I'll have a hare when I like; ay, and I'll scratch a bull when I like, too!—so here goes!" and out sallied the intoxicated poacher, snatching up the dead hares as he went, and placing them under his arm as before. Farmer Dobson and the dame followed, for their curiosity was, naturally, too highly excited to permit their remaining behind.