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Page 15
"Come, Skulpit," repeated Handy, getting impatient, "you're not going
to go along with old Bunce in helping that parson to rob us all.
Take the pen, man, and right yourself. Well," he added, seeing that
Skulpit still doubted, "to see a man as is afraid to stand by hisself
is, to my thinking, the meanest thing as is."
"Sink them all for parsons, says I," growled Moody; "hungry beggars,
as never thinks their bellies full till they have robbed all and
everything!"
"Who's to harm you, man?" argued Spriggs. "Let them look never so
black at you, they can't get you put out when you're once in;--no,
not old Catgut, with Calves to help him!" I am sorry to say the
archdeacon himself was designated by this scurrilous allusion to his
nether person.
"A hundred a year to win, and nothing to lose," continued Handy. "My
eyes! Well, how a man's to doubt about sich a bit of cheese as that
passes me;--but some men is timorous;--some men is born with no pluck
in them;--some men is cowed at the very first sight of a gentleman's
coat and waistcoat."
Oh, Mr Harding, if you had but taken the archdeacon's advice in that
disputed case, when Joe Mutters was this ungrateful demagogue's rival
candidate!
"Afraid of a parson," growled Moody, with a look of ineffable scorn.
"I tell ye what I'd be afraid of--I'd be afraid of not getting nothing
from 'em but just what I could take by might and right;--that's the
most I'd be afraid on of any parson of 'em all."
"But," said Skulpit, apologetically, "Mr Harding's not so bad;--he did
give us twopence a day, didn't he now?"
"Twopence a day!" exclaimed Spriggs with scorn, opening awfully the
red cavern of his lost eye.
"Twopence a day!" muttered Moody with a curse; "sink his twopence!"
"Twopence a day!" exclaimed Handy; "and I'm to go, hat in hand, and
thank a chap for twopence a day, when he owes me a hundred pounds a
year; no, thank ye; that may do for you, but it won't for me. Come,
I say, Skulpit, are you a going to put your mark to this here paper,
or are you not?"
Skulpit looked round in wretched indecision to his two friends. "What
d'ye think, Bill Gazy?" said he.
But Bill Gazy couldn't think. He made a noise like the bleating of an
old sheep, which was intended to express the agony of his doubt, and
again muttered that "he didn't know."
"Take hold, you old cripple," said Handy, thrusting the pen into poor
Billy's hand: "there, so--ugh! you old fool, you've been and smeared
it all,--there,--that'll do for you;--that's as good as the best
name as ever was written": and a big blotch of ink was presumed to
represent Billy Gazy's acquiescence.
"Now, Jonathan," said Handy, turning to Crumple.
"A hundred a year's a nice thing, for sartain," again argued Crumple.
"Well, neighbour Skulpit, how's it to be?"
"Oh, please yourself," said Skulpit: "please yourself, and you'll
please me."
The pen was thrust into Crumple's hand, and a faint, wandering,
meaningless sign was made, betokening such sanction and authority as
Jonathan Crumple was able to convey.
"Come, Job," said Handy, softened by success, "don't let 'em have to
say that old Bunce has a man like you under his thumb,--a man that
always holds his head in the hospital as high as Bunce himself, though
you're never axed to drink wine, and sneak, and tell lies about your
betters as he does."
Skulpit held the pen, and made little flourishes with it in the air,
but still hesitated.
"And if you'll be said by me," continued Handy, "you'll not write your
name to it at all, but just put your mark like the others;"--the cloud
began to clear from Skulpit's brow;--"we all know you can do it if you
like, but maybe you wouldn't like to seem uppish, you know."
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