Christmas Stories

"I know that well enough," said Barton, "but that would be so ill-natured and unneighbourly-neighbourly, that I could not bear to think of it."

"And so," rejoined Mr. Bentley, "the necks and limbs of his Majesty's subjects are to be endangered, and the whole neighbourhood put to inconvenience, for the credit of your good-nature? A man in a public office, Mr. Barton, should always execute the duties of that office with as much civility and kindness as possible; but he must never neglect his public duty, for the sake of gratifying any private individual whatever. – And look! what business has this dunghill here? your warrant tells you that nothing should be laid within fifteen feet of the middle of the road – and this dunghill is so close, that the road is ruined by the moisture proceeding from it. And see how the farmer has cut the road to pieces by drawing out his dung in the wet weather."

"To be sure, what you say is true, but the field won't be ready for the dung till the spring."

"Another sacrifice of the interests of the public to private convenience! – And here again – you'll think and call me a troublesome fellow, Mr. Barton – but why do you suffer these heaps of stones to be so forward in the road? They are absolutely dangerous."

"Why the men who work on the road like to have them handy."

"As they are paid by the day it can make no difference to them, and even if it did, you must not endanger the safety of travellers from a good-natured wish to humour your workmen – I suppose the same reason induces you to allow them to put in the stones without breaking them?"

Barton acknowledged that it was. Mr. Bentley charged him again not to let his good-nature make him forget his duty to the public – "But," added he laughing, "perhaps I must confess that it is some feeling of the same sort, which keeps me from fining you five pounds, as I might and ought to do, for these neglects of your duty as surveyor."

They now reached the town, and happening to use the same inn, rode into the yard together. Fowler and his wife, who were already there, augured well from this circumstance – and Mr. Bentley was hardly off his horse, when Nanny accosted him in a wheedling tone, with, "I hope, Sir, you'll be so kind as to stand our friend about this licence."

"We shall see about that presently," said Mr. Bentley, as he walked off, wishing to cut short applications of this nature till he got into the justice-room. He found his way stopped, however, by two or three poor women from the village near which he resided. "Well!" said he, "and what brings you all to Chippingden?"

"Why, Sir, we want a little of your kindness."

"My kindness! why can you find none of my kindness at home?"

"O yes, Sir, you are always ready to assist a poor person yourself, but we want you to stand our friend, and order us a little more relief from the farmers."

"That, my good woman, is quite a different story. As a magistrate I must not be a friend to any one person more than to another; but must endeavour to act without favour or affection either to rich or poor. With respect to parochial relief, our business is to consider, as well as we are able, what the laws require and allow, and to act accordingly. Poor people often apply to us in great distress, and the relief which we can order seems but very little. If we listened to our own feelings, our own good-nature as you would call it, we should often be glad to order much more, but we must not indulge such feelings at another man's expense – we must not be good-natured with other people's money."

"But, Sir," said Betty Horseman, "I only wanted about a shilling a week more, and I'm sure that can't hurt the farmers."

"Whether it is much or little," said Mr. Bentley, "we cannot order more, than the law, in our opinion, appears to require. Knowingly to order more than that, is to rob those out of whose pockets the poor rates are paid. You would not wish me, Betty, to help you in picking a man's pocket."

"But it is so little that I ask for," said Betty, still harping upon the same string.

"We may not pick a man's pocket of sixpence, any more than of a hundred pounds. Your application shall be heard presently, Betty, and we will give it the best attention we can. If we think that you ought to have more, we will order it. – But you must remember, that if you have a shilling a week more, every family in the like circumstances will expect the same, which will make your shilling a week a pretty round sum. In short, I am always glad as far as I can to help a poor person out of my own pocket, but must consider well before I help him out of the pockets of other people."

Mr. Bentley now joined his brother magistrates in the justice-room. The licensing business came on first; and the licences to the old established houses having been renewed, the applications for new houses were taken into consideration. Fowler produced his certificate.

"This certificate," said Mr. Hale the chairman, "has not the clergyman's name; how happens that?"

Farmer Barton was at Fowler's elbow, and immediately answered, "Mr. Hooker has laid down a rule not to set his hand to an application of this sort, and could not break through it – but I'm sure he has no objection."

"And besides," said one of the justices, "if my memory does not deceive me, there was a man of that name in your parish who was a noted poacher."

"Why, I must confess," said the farmer, "that some time back the poor man was led by distress to go out once or twice; but he has, long ago, given it up, and is now quite an altered character. – When a man has seen his fault, and turned over a new leaf, I am sure, gentlemen, that you are too good-natured to bring it up against him."

The justices still hesitated; but Barton and two or three of the farmers of the village represented to them that there always used to be a public house; that it was in many respects inconvenient to be without one; and that in this instance, it would give occupation and maintenance to a poor family. At length the magistrates said, that in general they were not disposed to increase the number of ale-houses, but that they would give way to the declared wish of almost all the leading men in the parish. In a case of doubt, they naturally leant to the side of good-nature. Accordingly the licence was granted.

Fowler was overjoyed at his success, and after making his acknowledgments, set off, first to the carpenter, and then to the painter, to give directions for a sign and its appendages. After these matters of business, he could not think of returning without drinking the health of the magistrates at the Red Lion.

Several friends dropped in to congratulate him; and when he thought about going home, he was not quite able to walk straight. The butcher's boy, who had made one of the party at the Red Lion, offered to give him a lift in his cart. They set off in high glee, and the exalted state of their spirits induced them to urge on the horse. Though the night was dark and the horse sometimes swerved to one side of the road and sometimes to the other, yet the light colour of the road served for a guide, and they felt that as long as they kept to that they were safe. They were mistaken, however. They were within a mile of Inglewood, and had got the horse almost into a gallop, when all at once the wheel came upon one of the heaps of stones, which had been shot down in the quartering, and the cart was overturned. Peter, the butcher's boy, called out that he was killed; but having got up and shaken himself, and found that he had received no sort of injury, he burst into a loud fit of laughter.

Poor Fowler, however, lay groaning in the road, unable to stir. He was severely bruised, and both the bones of his right leg were broken. Peter scratched his head, and was quite at a loss what to do, when luckily Farmer Barton and one of his neighbours came to the spot, in their way back from market. They extricated the horse, which, having put his foot in the deep rut, had fallen with the cart, and then raised the cart without difficulty. It was not, however, so easy a matter to get Fowler into it. He cried out from pain every time that they took hold of him, and sometimes begged that they would leave him to die where he was. At last, however, they succeeded, and at a slow pace he was conveyed to his humble cottage, which was soon to assume the dignity and importance of a public house.

His wife helped to get him to bed, though not without reproaching him with some asperity for staying so long at the Red Lion after he had sent her home. Having taken as much care of him, as in her opinion he deserved, she hastened down stairs to comfort herself with some tea, of which two or three of her neighbours, who had been brought to the house by the tidings of the accident, were invited to partake. The condolences and lamentations were soon over, and they fell into the usual train of village gossip. The hardness of the times, of course, was one of the topics of conversation. "Well, Hannah," said one of the party, "and what did you get from the justices?"

"Oh! there's no use in a poor person's going to them," said Hannah, "they're all for the farmers?"

"I wonder to hear you say that," said Nanny, who was naturally disposed to be in good humour with the magistrates, who had just granted a licence to her husband; "I wonder to hear you say that, for as I was going out of the room, I fell in with two or three overseers, who were saying just the contrary. They were complaining that the justices were ready to hear all the idle stories of the poor about wanting relief, and that they were much too apt to order some little addition. In fact, they said, that they were all in favour of the poor; and the farmers could not stand it."

"If the poor complain that they were in favour of the farmers, and the farmers that they favoured the poor," said an old man sitting in the chimney corner, "I dare say they pretty nearly did the thing that was right between both parties."

"Well," said Hannah, "if I was a justice, I could'nt bear that the poor should think me ill-natured. Be it how it would, I'd take care to have their good word, even if I did now and then order a trifle more than was quite right."

"What should you say, Hannah," said the same old man, "of a justice who acted contrary to law for the sake of a sum of money?"

"What! a bribe! Why I'd have him turned out before he was a day older."

"And is not acting contrary to law for the sake of any one's good will, or good word, pretty much the same as doing so for a bribe? A magistrate is sworn to do justice, according to law, to the best of his knowledge."

All the women, however, consoled themselves with the near approach of the time, when the poor would have to apply for their weekly allowances to Farmer Barton instead of Farmer Oldacre; it being the custom of the parish that the overseers should divide the year between them, each taking the trouble of the office for six months.

"Yes, indeed," said Hannah Bolt, "it will be a happy day for us poor creatures, when Mr. Barton takes the books; – Farmer Oldacre was always a hard man to the poor."

"Farmer Oldacre a hard man to the poor!" said old John Truman, who came in at the moment from the sick man's room – "Farmer Oldacre a hard man to the poor! I'm sure you're an ungrateful woman for saying so; as I should be an ungrateful man, if I allowed you to say it without taking you to task. – I've worked for him now these seventeen years, and a better or a kinder master cannot be. Did'nt I see you, Hannah, day after day, when your little boy was ill, going to his house, sometimes for a little milk, sometimes for a little made wine, and did he ever refuse you? did he ever refuse any poor person, who was really in want, any thing that he was able to give?"

"I can't say but that he's ready enough to help a poor body with any thing he has himself; but then if one asks him for a little more parish relief, he's so terrible particular, and asks so many questions, that it's quite unpleasant, and perhaps we can get nothing after all."

"In short," said John, "you mean to say that he is liberal and kind in giving from his own pocket, but careful and cautious how he makes free with the pockets of other people. And then again – who employs so many men as Farmer Oldacre? I'm sure I have often known him in the winter try to find out jobs for the sake of keeping the men at work; and after all I believe, that he feels the change of times as much as any man, and that he and his family allow themselves little beyond bare necessaries. And even with respect to parish relief, I believe that the old men and women, who are really past work, are better off when Farmer Oldacre has the books, than at any other time."

"But then," answered Hannah, "Farmer Barton is so good-natured when we go to him. He says that a shilling or two cannot signify to the farmers, and is not worth thinking about."

"I believe it would be better for all parties," replied Truman, "if the able-bodied poor thought less of running to the parish, and more of depending, under God's blessing, on themselves. When I was young, a man would have been ashamed of begging for parish relief. Indeed, the law was, that those who were relieved were to be marked by a badge. I know that I contrived to bring up a family of seven children without being beholden to any body. For a few years it was certainly hard work, but God helped us on."

"But wages," said Nanny Fowler, "were better in those days."

"Compared with what they would buy, perhaps they were, but their being low now is, I take it, partly owing to the poor rates."

"Why how can you make that out?" cried the whole party.

"In the first place, can you tell me, why wheat is so cheap just at present? It was, you know, ten shillings the bushel, and indeed sometimes a great deal more – it is now less than five."

"Why it's cheap to be sure, because there is such plenty of it."

"And is it not the over-plenty of labourers, that makes labour cheap? I remember this village when there were not more than fifty labourers' families, each with a cottage to itself; now there are upwards of eighty families, and sometimes two crammed together in one house. I have read in the newspapers, that the people throughout England have increased in the last twenty years thirty-two in every hundred – that is, where there were but ten, there are now more than thirteen."

"But what has that to do with the poor rates?"

"Why do not you think that the poor rates are an encouragement to early marriages?"

"And what then," said Hannah; "did not the Almighty say, Increase and multiply?"