Silas Marner · Part I · Chapter 6 (1/2)

VI

The conversation, which was at a high pitch of animation when Silas approached the door of the Rainbow, had, as usual, been slow and intermittent when the company first assembled. The pipes began to be puffed in a silence which had an air of severity; the more important customers, who drank spirits and sat nearest the fire, staring at each other as if a bet were depending on the first man who winked; while the beer-drinkers, chiefly men in fustian jackets and smock-frocks, kept their eyelids down and rubbed their hands across their mouths, as if their draughts of beer were a funereal duty attended with embarrassing sadness. At last Mr. Snell, the landlord, a man of a neutral disposition, accustomed to stand aloof from human differences as those of beings who were all alike in need of liquor, broke silence, by saying in a doubtful tone to his cousin the butcher⁠—

“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-humoured 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 countryside. 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’rhaps you aren’t pigheaded; and p’rhaps you didn’t say the cow was a red Durham; and p’rhaps 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—

“Aye, aye; 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 learnt 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—

‘I know what’s right, nor only so,

But also practise what I know.’ ”

“Well, then, I wish you’d keep hold o’ the tune, when it’s set for you; if you’re for practising, I wish you’d practise 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.”

“Aye, aye,” 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 countryside. Eh, it’s a pity but what Solomon lived in our village, and could give us a tune when we liked; eh, Mr. Macey? I’d keep him in liver and lights for nothing⁠—that I would.”

“Aye, aye,” 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 isn’t the old crows.”

“Aye, you remember when first Mr. Lammeter’s father come 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 heared 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; yet some folks are so wise, 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 instalments, expecting to be questioned according to precedent.

“Aye, 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 hearer’s 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 went 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.

“Aye, 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 regester 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 was 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 favourite 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 daresay it’s as much as this Mr. Lammeter’s done to keep it whole. For there was allays a talk as nobody could get rich on the Warrens: though he holds it cheap, for it’s what they call Charity Land.”

“Aye, and there’s few folks know so well as you how it come to be Charity Land, eh, Mr. Macey?” said the butcher.