Miss Philly Firkin, The China-Woman | Page 3

voice loud as a stentor, with which he now guided a drove of
oxen, and now roared a catch, that his listeners in either case found
irresistible. Jem Tyler was the very spirit of vulgar jollity, and could, as
he boasted, run, leap, box, wrestle, drink, sing, and shoot (he had been
a keeper in his youth, and still retained the love of sportsmanship which
those who imbibe it early seldom lose) with any man in the county. He
was discreet, too, for a man of his occupation; knew precisely how
drunk a journeyman tailor ought to get, and when to stop a fight
between a Somersetshire cattle-dealer and an Irish pig-driver. No

inquest had ever sat upon any of his customers. Small wonder, that with
such a landlord the Old Red Cow should be a hostelry of unmatched
resort and unblemished reputation.
The chief exception to Jem Tyler's almost universal popularity was
beyond all manner of doubt his fair neighbour Miss Philadelphia Firkin.
She, together with her trusty adherents, Miss Wolfe and Mr. Lamb,
held Jem, his alehouse, and his customers, whether tailor, drover, or
dealer, his yard and its contents, horse or donkey, ox or cow, pig or dog,
in unmeasured and undisguised abhorrence: she threatened to indict the
place as a nuisance, to appeal to the mayor; and upon "some
good-natured friend" telling her that mine host had snapped his fingers
at her as a chattering old maid, she did actually go so far as to speak to
her landlord, who was also Jem's, upon the iniquity of his doings. This
worthy happening, however, to be a great brewer, knew better than to
dismiss a tenant whose consumption of double X was so satisfactory.
So that Miss Firkin took nothing by her motion beyond a few of those
smoothen-ing and pacificatory speeches, which, when administered to a
person in a passion, have, as I have often observed, a remarkable
tendency to exasperate the disease.
At last, however, came a real and substantial grievance, an actionable
trespass; and although Miss Philly was a considerable loser by the
mischance, and a lawsuit is always rather a questionable remedy for
pecuniary damage, yet such was the keenness of her hatred towards
poor Jem, that I am quite convinced that in her inmost heart (although
being an excellent person in her way, it is doubtful whether she told
herself the whole truth in the matter) she rejoiced at a loss which would
enable her to take such signal vengeance over her next-door enemy. An
obstreperous cow, walking backward instead of forward, as that placid
animal when provoked has the habit of doing, came in contact with a
weak part of the paling which divided Miss Firkin's back premises from
Master Tyler's yard, and not only upset Mr. Lamb into a crate of
crockery which he was in the act of unpacking, to the inexpressible
discomfiture of both parties, but Miss Wolfe, who, upon hearing the
mixture of crash and squall, ran to the rescue, found herself knocked
down by a donkey who had entered at the breach, and was saluted as

she rose by a peal of laughter from young Sam Tyler, Jem's eldest hope,
a thorough Pickle, who, accompanied by two or three other chaps as
unlucky as himself, sat quietly on a gate surveying and enjoying the
mischief.
"I'll bring an action against the villain!" ejaculated Miss Philly, as soon
as the enemy was driven from her quarters, and her china and her
dependants set upon their feet:--"I'll take the law of him!" And in this
spirited resolution did mistress, shopman, and shopwoman, find
comfort for the losses, the scratches, and the bruises of the day.
This affray commenced on a Thursday evening towards the latter end
of March; and it so happened that we had occasion to send to Miss
Philly early the next morning for a cart-load of garden-pots for the use
of my geraniums.
Our messenger was, as it chanced, a certain lad byname Dick Barnett,
who has lived with us off and on ever since he was the height of the
table, and who originally a saucy, lively, merry boy, arch, quick-witted,
and amusing, has been indulged in giving vent to all manner of
impertinences until he has become a sort of privileged person, and
takes, with high or low, a freedom of speech that might become a lady's
page or a king's jester. Every now and then we feel that this licence,
which in a child of ten years old we found so diverting, has become
inconvenient in a youth of seventeen, and favour him and ourselves
with a lecture accordingly. But such is the force of inveterate habit that
our remonstrances upon this subject are usually so much gravity wasted
upon him and upon ourselves.