Sylvester Sound the Somnambulist/Chapter 32

When Sylvester had ascertained in the morning that the ghost had been seen in the village again, he felt greatly relieved, having found the string, on awaking, round his ancle as usual, the key in the desk, and the desk beneath the bed. He held it, then, to be abundantly clear that he couldn't be the "ghost," and was about to repudiate the idea of his being a somnambulist, when he received from his solicitor a letter requiring his presence in town. This had the effect of reinspiring suspicion. He might be a somnambulist, and yet not the "ghost." It was possible—nay, when he reflected upon the serious accusation of Sir Charles—he could not but think it highly probable. But how was the thing to be proved? That was the question still. He had in vain tried to prove it himself; and, therefore, felt bound to communicate his suspicion to another. This he eventually resolved to do; but as he had to go to London immediately, he thought it best to conceal it, at least for the present, from his aunt and her reverend friend, and on his arrival in town to consult Tom Delolme.

He accordingly communicated only the contents of the letter then; and no sooner had his aunt and the reverend gentleman become perfectly conscious of his intention to leave them that morning, than the cottage became a theatre of excitement. Cook, Judkins, and Mary were instantly summoned. Judkins was directed to get the phaeton ready; cook received instructions to make up a large fire for the purpose of airing the shirts; and while Mary went with her mistress to ransack the drawers, the reverend gentleman, with an infinite profundity of expression, was cutting sandwiches, in a peculiarly scientific style.

By virtue of this admirable division of labour, the shirts, within the hour, were aired and packed up—the sandwiches were enveloped in sheets of Bath paper—and the phaeton appeared at the gate. There had been, however, no time to impress upon Sylvester the necessity for his sending them every information having reference to the trial, at which they both of course intended to be present. Aunt Eleanor, therefore, hastily slipped on her things, and entered the phaeton with her reverend friend, with the view not only of seeing Sylvester to the coach, but of enforcing this necessity by the way.

As they passed through the village, Obadiah and Pokey were, as usual, with Legge, at the Crumpet and Crown, and the very moment Obadiah saw them, he exclaimed—

"There, there you are, my Britons! That's the dodge—that's it. I'll bet you what you like of it: up to something, safe. Don't you see the portmanter? Going to the coach, perhaps, to get rid of that boney fide young fibber."

"What do you mean by a young fibber?" demanded Legge.

​"What do I mean? What! Didn't he have the howdacious impudence, while we were fructifying yesterday in the fair, to tell me plump to my very teeth, that he wasn't here at all the other night!"

"Did he though!" said Pokey.

"Did he? Did he not? I'll back him against life to lie. There's nothing like him in all flesh. He beats Peter the Great hollow, and he could lie a little."

"Some one was with him perhaps," observed Legge.

"Not a bit of it! Not so much as half a one. There we were alone, quietly fructifying about equal rights, when, says he, all at once, says he, 'Isn't your name Drant?' Says I, 'Drant is my name,' says I; 'Obadiah Drant.' 'You sent me a song,' says he, 'didn't you, this morning?' 'I did,' says I, 'according to promise.' 'According to promise,' says he; 'what promise?' 'What promise!' says I; 'what, don't you recollect that I promised to send it?' 'You promised me nothing of the sort,' says he. 'What!' says I; 'what, not the copy of the song you heard me sing?' 'I never heard you sing a song,' says he. 'What,' says I, 'not the other night at the Crumpet?' 'The Crumpet,' says he; 'I was never at the Crumpet but once in my life, and that was in the morning.' 'The morning,' says I; 'I don't speak about morning, I speak about night.' 'I never was there of a night in my life,' says he, I'm blessed if he didn't, plump. Well; this kind of doubled me up: so, looking at him fierce, says I,'What!—do you mean that?' 'Mean it,' says he; 'of course I do. You told Mr. Rouse,' says he, 'that I was there, drinking brandy-and-water.' 'Well, I'm sorry for that,' says I; 'but you know that you was there.' 'I know that I was not,' says he; 'and however you came to think of such a falsehood, I can't imagine.' 'A falsehood,' says I. 'Yes, a falsehood,' says he. 'But you don't,' says I, 'mean to tell me that you wasn't that night at the Crumpet at all?' 'I mean to tell you that you know I was not there,' says he; no better and no worse. Well, this staggered me a little above a bit. 'But,' says I, 'do you really. mean to mean what you say?' 'Of course,' says he, indignantly; 'I was not there, and you know it.' Upon which I was so boney fidely disgusted that I left him to his own fructifying reflections. Now, what do you think of that—eh? What do you think of it?"

"Why it certainly is strange," returned Legge, "that he should deny it to you, there being no one else present."

"Strange! It's stunning!"

"Well, but didn't he laugh at the time?" inquired Pokey.

"Laugh! He looked, for all the world, as if there wasn't a laugh in him. I never, in all my born days, witnessed anything like it. I'll back him against nature. I never saw a fellow tell a lie with so much liberty. He's the swell to swear a man out of his christian name. There's no hesitation about him: there's no such thing as faltering—no such thing as a blush about him while he's at it. He'll lie like a lunatic, that fellow will. And there we see the force of example. He got it all from Teddy Rouse. Ted taught him—safe. I never saw two fellows lie so much alike. But when you come to look at it, isn't it disgusting to see a man like Ted—a man of his cloth—a ​man professing so much religion, teaching lads like that to lie? But then what can we expect from such a clerical lot of locusts? What can we expect when we allow them to suck here a matter of five hundred millions a year from the vitals of the poverty-stricken people? I say it serves us right: and, moreover than that, we ought to be served out ten thousand times worse. It's amazing to me that the people don't see this. As true as I'm alive, it makes my head turn quite round, when I think of their boney fide blindness. Is it a mite likely, do you think, that I'd stand it if I was the people alone? Do you think that I'd let them get fat upon me? Suppose I was the people—that's the way to put it—suppose that I was the whole of the people, do you think that I'd be swindled by a lot of pensioned paupers in this way? No! not a bit of it. I'll tell you what I'd do. In the first place, I'd send for the king, and I'd say to him, 'Now then, I'll tell you what it is, old fellow: I'm not going to stand this sort of thing any longer, so I tell you. You must abdicate and cut it. I'm not going to allow you to rob me of fifty or sixty millions a-year in this sort of way. You've been amalgamating at a rare rate lately, and you ought to have saved money. If you have, why so much the better for you; if you haven't, go and work for your living like an honest man. I want no king: what's the good of a king to me? What use are you—what do you do? I'm not going to support you in idleness any longer; so that's all about it.' I'd then send for the ministers, and I'd say to them, 'Gentlemen, it's all very fine, I dare say, but you have no more money from me. You've been feathering your nests to a fructifying extent, I've no doubt; but your valuable services are no longer required. I am the people; I can govern myself: at all events I've had enough of you! therefore pack up your traps and be off.' Then I'd send for the bishops, but I'd make mighty short work of them; and the same with the parsons; I'd turn them all adrift. And as for the pensioners, 'What!' I'd say, 'I support a lot of paupers in the lazy lap of luxury? I wish you may get it. No! go to work, and earn an honest livelihood. If you can't do that, apply to the parish. I dare say, indeed, I'm going to let a lot of lazy locusts live on my vitals in this sort of way. Be off! and never let me set eyes on you again.' That would be the only way to work it. What should I want with a king and a lot of lords, what should I want with bishops, parsons, and pensioners? I wouldn't have them. I'd form a republic within myself, and I myself would govern myself. That's what I should do, if I were the whole people; and that's just the way the people ought to do now. They should set to work; and act as one man, and send all the amalgamating oligarchies howling!

"There's something in that," observed Pokey.

"Yes, there is something in it," said Legge, who immediately left the room, smiling.

"I believe you," pursued Obadiah, addressing Pokey alone: "and I'm glad that you agree with me. I find that I shall fructify your ideas a little yet. Look you here. The thing lies in a nutshell. Just place. yourself now in the juxtaposition of the people. You are the people. Very well. Now, do you want a king? Do you want a lot of lords, a myriad of bishops, and about fifty millions of parsons? Do you want them?" ​"No, I can't say I do."

"Do want about a hundred thousand pensioned paupers picking your pocket of five-and-twenty million a year to live in luxury, and keep their carriages, and drive slap over you, and think nothing of it, if you don't get out of the way? Do you want them?"

"Certainly not."

"Very well, then. If you were the people, and you wouldn't want them, why should the people want them now?"

"That's feasible: certainly, that's feasible."

"Feasible! Doesn't it stand to reason?"

"I must say it does."

"The thing, you see, only wants a little fructification in a simplified manner for every soul on earth to understand it. I'd undertake to make it clear to the meanest capacity; but then you see I can't travel about the country to open the eyes of the universal people, and the consequence is, they're on that important subject sand blind. They listen to parsons: what's the good of that? Is there a parson in all flesh who'll tell them what I've told you now? Not a bit of it. They know better. They know that if they were to fructify the ideas of the people in that way, it would open their eyes, and their object is to keep their eyes closed to all the abuses, and all the swindles, and all the corrupt dead robberies of those who live upon the sweat of the poor man's brow. Oh! it's shocking when you come to look at the ignorance of the people—boney fidely shocking! If Billy the Conqueror could rise from his grave and talk over the matter with Peter the Great, they'd be right down astonished to find what the people—the ignorant people—will bear."

"There's a good deal of ignorance about, I dare say," observed Pokey. "No doubt there's a good deal of ignorance."

"A good deal of ignorance. It's stunning! Why, look at the lot of locusts now preying upon our vitals! Only look at them, and see what they cost! Will any man tell me that, if all those disgusting sums of money which they swallow up were in the pockets of the people, they wouldn't be better off? Don't it stand to reason, that if one man has five hundred thousand a year, and five thousand men, as good as he is, have nothing, the five thousand men would have a hundred a year each, if that money were equally divided?"

"Yes: that's clear enough."

"Clear enough! I believe you. It is clear enough: and yet the people can't see this. They can't see how they are plundered and oppressed, and rode rough-shod over, and trodden under foot. Not a bit of it. Their ignorant ideas don't fructify in that way. Besides, do you think that if I were the people, I'd suffer myself to be ground to the earth by any such thing as a National Debt?"

"Certainly," said Pokey, "that ought to be paid off."

"Paid off! Do you know what you're talking about? Paid off! Send I may live! Why, do you know that if you take five hundred millions of miles of ground and cover it over with fifty-pound notes, you would not have enough, even then, to pay it off? I've seen it calculated: so there can be no mistake about that. Pave Europe with sovereigns ​and you wouldn't have enough. Pay it off! Sponge it! That's the only way to pay it off."

"What, and let them as has scraped a little money together suffer?"

"Don't your ideas fructify? Wouldn't it be better for them afterwards?"

"I don't see that."

"Not see it! As true as I'm alive, you're as blind as the rest. Don't you see that we should then have an equal division?"

"Would the money I've got in the Savings' Bank be divided amongst them as hasn't got none?"

"All, I tell you, would be equally divided."

"Then I won't vote for that."

"What, not to have a share of the millions upon millions which the pauper aristocracy have got?"

"It won't do," said Pokey; "I shouldn't be sure of that."

"Not sure of it! What's to prevent it?"

"Many things might. I say many things might. And 'a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.'"

"Pokey, Pokey, I'm sorry to find you're a boney fide ignoramus still."

"I don't care a button about what you say: I mean to look after my money."

"You mean to look after your money! Why you've no more patriotism in you than the ghost. By the bye, I mean to look after that swell to-night. I've made up my mind to that. I know who he is."

"What! do you?"

"I know the gentleman."

"What! isn't it a ghost, then, after all?"

"A ghost! Not a bit of it. No, it's a man."

"Indeed! Is it any one I know?"

"Oh yes! you know him very well."

"Who is he?"

"Why, I didn't intend to say until I'd caught him; but I don't mind telling you. It's Bob Potts."

"Bob Potts! Lor, is it though? Bob Potts. Blow him, he's always up to something. But how do you know?"

"Oh! I know all about it; but don't say a word. If it should come to his ears that I know him, he'll of course keep at home: therefore, don't say a syllable to any living soul."

"Not a word. Trust to me. I'll not open my lips."

"I'll cook the green goose of Mr. Bob Potts. I only want to catch him; and when I do, he won't play the game of 'ghost' again in a hurry. He's been carrying it on long enough; and if I don't place him in a juxtaposition to make him ashamed of himself all his life, I'll eat grass, like a cow; therefore, mum!"

Pokey again promised to be silent on the subject; and when Obadiah had explained to him the delicate minutia of the scheme he had conceived, they parted on the most affectionate terms to meet again, with the view of ensnaring Bob Potts.