The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit Part 60

"O, my lud, the misdirection was, I venture respectfully and deferentially to submit, and with the utmost deference to the learned Judge, in his lords.h.i.+p's telling the jury that if they found that the right of way which the defendant set up in his answer to the trespa.s.s, or eas.e.m.e.nt-but perhaps, my lud, I had better read from the short-hand writer's notes of his luds.h.i.+p's summing-up. This is it, my lud, his luds.h.i.+p said: 'In an action for stopping of his _ancient_ lights -."

"What!" said Mr. Justice Doughty, "_did he black the plaintiff's eyes_, then?"

"No, my lud," said Mr. Ricochet, "that was never alleged or suggested."

"I only used it by way of ill.u.s.tration," said Mr. Justice Pangloss.

Then their lords.h.i.+ps consulted together, and after about three-quarters of an hour's conversation the learned Mr. Justice Doughty said:

"You can take a rule, Mr. Ricochet."

"On all points, my lud, if your luds.h.i.+ps please."

"It will be more satisfactory," said his lords.h.i.+p, "and then we shall see what there is in it. At present, I must confess, I don't understand anything about it."

And I saw that what there was really in it was very much like what there is in a kaleidoscope, odds and ends, which form all sorts of combinations when you twist and turn them about in the dark tube of a "legal argument." And so poor b.u.mpkin was deprived of the fruit of his victory.

Truly the law is very expeditious. Before b.u.mpkin had got home with the cheerful intelligence that he had won, the wind had changed and was setting in fearfully from the north-east. Juries may find as many facts as they like, but the Court applies the law to them; and law is like gunpowder in its operation upon them,-twists them out of all recognisable shape. It is very difficult in a Court of law to get over "_guttatims_"

and "_stillatims_," even in an action for the price of a pig.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII.

Mr. b.u.mpkin is congratulated by his neighbours and friends in the market place and sells his corn.

What a lovely peace there was again over the farm! It was true Mr.

b.u.mpkin had not obtained as large a measure of damages as his solicitor had led him to antic.i.p.ate, but he was triumphant, and that over a man like Snooks was something. So the damages were forgotten beneath that peaceful August sky. How bright the corn looked! There was not a particle of "s.m.u.t" in the whole field. And it was a good breadth of wheat this year for Southwood Farm. The barley too, was evidently fit for malting, and would be sure to fetch a decent price: especially as they seemed to say there was not much barley this year that was quite up to the mark for malting. The swedes, too, were coming on apace, and a little rain by and by would make them swell considerably. So everything looked exceedingly prosperous, except perhaps the stock. There certainly were not so many pigs. Out of a stye of eleven there was only one left.

The sow was nowhere to be seen. She had been sold, it appeared, so no more were to be expected from that quarter. When Mr. b.u.mpkin asked where "old Jack" was (that was the donkey), he was informed that "the man" had fetched it. "The man" it appeared was always fetching something.

Yesterday it was pigs; the day before it was ducks; the day before that it was geese; and about a week ago it was a stack of this year's hay: a stack of very prime clover indeed. Then "the man" took a fancy to some cheeses which Mrs. b.u.mpkin had in the dairy, some of her very finest make. She remonstrated, but "the man" was peremptory. But what most surprised Mr. b.u.mpkin, and drew tears from Mrs. b.u.mpkin's eyes, was when the successful litigant enquired how the bull was.

Mrs. b.u.mpkin had invented many plans with a view to "breaking this out"

to her husband: and now that the time had come every plan was a failure.

The tears betrayed her.

"What, be he dead?" enquired Mr. b.u.mpkin.

"O, no, Tom-no, no-"

"Well, what then?"

"The man!"

"The man! The devil's in thic man, who be he? Where do ur come from?

I'll bring an action agin him as sure's he's alive or shoot un dead wi my gun;" here Mr. b.u.mpkin, in a great rage, got up and went to the beam which ran across the kitchen ceiling, and formed what is called the roof-tree of the house, by the side of which the gun was suspended by two loops.

"No, no, Tom, don't-don't-we have never wronged any one yet, and don't-don't now."

"But I wool," said b.u.mpkin; "what! be I to be stripped naaked and not fight for th' cloathes-who be thic feller as took the bull?"

Mrs. b.u.mpkin was holding her ap.r.o.n to her eyes, and for a long while could say nothing.

"Who be he, Nancy?"

"I don't know, Tom-but he held a paper in his hand writ all over as close as the stubble-rows in the field, and he said thee had signed un."

"Lord! lord!" exclaimed Mr. b.u.mpkin, and then sat down on the settle and looked at the fire as though it threw a light over his past actions. He couldn't speak for a long time, not till Mrs. b.u.mpkin went up to him and laid her hand upon his shoulder, and said:

"Tom! Tom! thee ha winned the case."

"Aye, aye," said b.u.mpkin, starting up as from a reverie. "I ha winned, Nancy. I ha beat thic there Snooks; ur wont sn.i.g.g.e.r now when ur gooes by-lor, lor,-our counsellor put it into un straight, Nancy."

"Did ur, Tom?-well, I be proud."

"Ah!" said b.u.mpkin, "and what d'ye think?-it wornt our counsellor, that is the Queen's Counsellor nuther; he wornt there although I paid un, but I spoase he'll gie up the money, Nancy?"

"Were it much, Tom?"

"Farty guineas!"

"Farty guineas, Tom! Why, it wur enough to set up housekeepin wi-and thee only winned twenty-five, Tom; why thic winnin were a heavy loss I think."

"Now, lookee ere," said b.u.mpkin; "I oughter had five undered, as Laryer Prigg said, our case were that good, but lor it baint sartain: gie I a little gin and water, Nancy-thee ain't asked I to have a drap since I bin oame."

"Lor, Tom, thee knows I be all for thee, and that all be thine."

"It beant much, it strikes me; lor, lor, whatever shall us do wirout pigs and sheep, and wirout thic bull. I be fit to cry, Nancy, although I winned the case."

Tom had his gin and water and smoked his pipe, and went to bed and dreamed of all that had taken place. He rose with the lark and went into the fields and enjoyed once again the fresh morning air, and the sweet scent of the new hayrick in the yard; and, without regarding it, the song of the lark as it shot heavenward and poured down its stream of glad music: but there was amidst all a sadness of spirit and a feeling of desolation. It was not like the old times when everything seemed to welcome him about the farm wherever he went. The work of "the man" was everywhere. But the harvest was got in, and a plentiful harvest it was: the corn was threshed, and one day Mr. b.u.mpkin went to market with his little bags of samples of the newly-housed grain. Everybody was glad to see him, for he was known everywhere as a regular upright and down-straight man. Every farmer and every corn-dealer and cattle-dealer congratulated him in his homely way on his success. They looked at his samples and acknowledged they were very bright and weighty. "I never liked that Snooks feller," was the general cry, and at the farmers'

ordinary, which was held every market day at the "Plough," every one who knew b.u.mpkin shook hands and wished him well, and after dinner, before they broke up, Farmer Gosling proposed his health, and said how proud he "were that his old neighbour had in the beautiful words o' the National Anthem, 'confounded their politicks': and he hoped that the backbone o'

old England, which were the farmers, wornt gwine to be broked jist yet awhile. Farmin might be bad, but yet wi little cheaper rents and a good deal cheaper rates and taxes, there'd be good farmin and good farmers in England yit."

Now this speech, I saw in my dream, brought down the house. Everyone said it was more to the point than the half-mile speeches which took up so much of the newspapers to the exclusion of murders, burglaries and divorces. And in truth, now I come to look at it in my waking moments, I respectfully commend it to our legislators, or what is better, to their const.i.tuencies, as embodying on this subject both the principles of true conservatism and true liberalism: and I don't see what the most exacting of politicians can require more than that.

Mr. b.u.mpkin made a suitable reply-that is to say, "he wur mighty proud o'

their neighbourliness-he wur a plaain man, as had made his own way in the world, or leastwise tried to do un by ard work and uprightedness and downstraightedness; tried to be straight forrerd, and n.o.body as he knowed of could ax un for a s.h.i.+llin'. But," he added: "I be praisin oop myself, neighbours, I be afeard, and I doant wish to do thic, only to put I straaight afore thee. I beant dead yit, and I hope we shall all be friends and neighbours, and meet many moore times at this ornary together."

And so, delighted with one another, after a gla.s.s or two, and a song or two, the party broke up, all going to their several farms. Mr. b.u.mpkin was particularly well pleased, for he had sold twenty quarters of wheat at forty-nine s.h.i.+llings a quarter; which, as times went, was a very considerable increase, showing the excellent quality of the samples.

Sooner or later, however, it must be told, that when b.u.mpkin reached his quiet farm, a strange and sad scene presented itself. Evidences of "_the man_" were in all directions. He had been at work while Mr. b.u.mpkin in his convivial moments was protesting that he did not owe anyone a s.h.i.+lling. Alas! how little the best of as know how much we owe!

Mrs. b.u.mpkin, who had borne up like a true woman through all the troubles that had come upon her home,-borne up for his sake, hoping for better days, and knowing nothing of the terrible net that had been spread around them by the wily fowler, at length gave way, as she saw "the man" loading his cart with her husband's wheat; the wheat he had gone that day to sell. Bitterly she wrung her hands, and begged him to spare her husband that last infliction. Was there anything that she could do or give to save him this blow? No, no; the man was obstinate in the performance of his duty; "right was right, and wrong was no man's right!"

So when Mr. b.u.mpkin returned, the greater part of his wheat was gone, and the rest was being loaded. The beautiful rick of hay too, which had not yet ceased to give out the fresh scent that a new rick yields, were being cut and bound into trusses.

Poor Tom was fairly beside himself, but Mrs. b.u.mpkin had taken the precaution to hide the gun and the powder-flask, for she could not tell what her husband might do in his distraction. Possibly she was right.

Tom's rage knew no bounds. Youth itself seemed to be restored in the strength of his fury. He saw dimly the men standing around looking on; he saw, as in a dream, the man cutting on the rick, and he uttered incoherent sentences which those only understood who were accustomed to his provincial accent.