In one of my visits to the village with Master Simon, he proposed that we should stop at the inn, which he wished to show me, as a specimen4 of a real country inn, the head-quarters of village gossip. I had remarked it before, in my perambulations about the place. It has a deep, old-fashioned porch, leading into a large hall, which serves for tap-room and travellers' room; having a wide fireplace, with high-backed settles on each side, where the wise men of the village gossip over their ale, and hold their sessions during the long winter evenings. The landlord is an easy, indolent fellow, shaped a little like one of his own beer barrels, and is apt to stand gossiping at his door, with his wig5 on one side, and his hands in his pockets, whilst his wife and daughter attend to customers. His wife, however, is fully6 competent to manage the establishment; and, indeed, from long habitude, rules over all the frequenters of the tap-room as completely as if they were her dependants7 instead of her patrons. Not a veteran ale-bibber but pays homage8 to her, having, no doubt, been often in her arrears9. I have already hinted that she is on very good terms with Ready-Money Jack10. He was a sweetheart of hers in early life, and has always countenanced11 the tavern12 on her account. Indeed, he is quite "the cock of the walk" at the tap-room.
As we approached the inn, we heard some one talking with great volubility, and distinguished13 the ominous14 words "taxes," "poor's rates," and "agricultural distress15." It proved to be a thin, loquacious16 fellow, who had penned the landlord up in one corner of the porch, with his hands in his pockets as usual, listening with an air of the most vacant acquiescence17.
The sight seemed to have a curious effect on Master Simon, as he squeezed my arm, and, altering his course, sheered wide of the porch as though he had not had any idea of entering. This evident evasion18 induced me to notice the orator19 more particularly. He was meagre, but active in his make, with a long, pale, bilious20 face; a black, ill-shaven beard, a feverish21 eye, and a hat sharpened up at the sides into a most pragmatical shape. He had a newspaper in his hand, and seemed to be commenting on its contents, to the thorough conviction of mine host.
At sight of Master Simon the landlord was evidently a little flurried, and began to rub his hands, edge away from his corner, and make several profound publican bows; while the orator took no other notice of my companion than to talk rather louder than before, and with, as I thought, something of an air of defiance22. Master Simon, however, as I have before said, sheered off from the porch, and passed on, pressing my arm within his, and whispering as we got by, in a tone of awe23 and horror, "That's a radical24! he reads Cobbett!"
I endeavoured to get a more particular account of him from my companion, but he seemed unwilling25 even to talk about him, answering only in general terms, that he was "a cursed busy fellow, that had a confounded trick of talking, and was apt to bother one about the national debt, and such nonsense;" from which I suspected that Master Simon had been rendered wary26 of him by some accidental encounter on the field of argument: for these radicals27 are continually roving about in quest of wordy warfare28, and never so happy as when they can tilt29 a gentleman logician31 out of his saddle.
On subsequent
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