The Scarlet Pimpernel | Page 8

the
short time she seemed inclined to spare him.
They were mostly fisher-folk who patronised Mr. Jellyband's
coffee-room, but fishermen are known to be very thirsty people; the salt
which they breathe in, when they are on the sea, accounts for their
parched throats when on shore. but "The Fisherman's Rest" was
something more than a rendezvous for these humble folk. The London
and Dover coach started from the hostel daily, and passengers who had
come across the Channel, and those who started for the "grand tour," all
became acquainted with Mr. Jellyband, his French wines and his
home-brewed ales.
It was towards the close of September, 1792, and the weather which
had been brilliant and hot throughout the month had suddenly broken
up; for two days torrents of rain had deluged the south of England,
doing its level best to ruin what chances the apples and pears and late
plums had of becoming really fine, self-respecting fruit. Even now it
was beating against the leaded windows, and tumbling down the
chimney, making the cheerful wood fire sizzle in the hearth.
"Lud! did you ever see such a wet September, Mr. Jellyband?" asked
Mr. Hempseed.
He sat in one of the seats inside the hearth, did Mr. Hempseed, for he
was an authority and important personage not only at "The Fisherman's
Rest," where Mr. Jellyband always made a special selection of him as a
foil for political arguments, but throughout the neighborhood, where
his learning and notably his knowledge of the Scriptures was held in
the most profound awe and respect. With one hand buried in the
capacious pockets of his corduroys underneath his elaborately-worked,
well-worn smock, the other holding his long clay pipe, Mr. Hempseed

sat there looking dejectedly across the room at the rivulets of moisture
which trickled down the window panes.
"No," replied Mr. Jellyband, sententiously, "I dunno, Mr. 'Empseed, as
I ever did. An' I've been in these parts nigh on sixty years."
"Aye! you wouldn't rec'llect the first three years of them sixty, Mr.
Jellyband," quietly interposed Mr. Hempseed. "I dunno as I ever see'd
an infant take much note of the weather, leastways not in these parts,
an' _I_'ve lived `ere nigh on seventy-five years, Mr. Jellyband."
The superiority of this wisdom was so incontestable that for the
moment Mr. Jellyband was not ready with his usual flow of argument.
"It do seem more like April than September, don't it?" continued Mr.
Hempseed, dolefully, as a shower of raindrops fell with a sizzle upon
the fire.
"Aye! that it do," assented the worth host, "but then what can you
`xpect, Mr. `Empseed, I says, with sich a government as we've got?"
Mr. Hempseed shook his head with an infinity of wisdom, tempered by
deeply-rooted mistrust of the British climate and the British
Government.
"I don't `xpect nothing, Mr. Jellyband," he said. "Pore folks like us is of
no account up there in Lunnon, I knows that, and it's not often as I do
complain. But when it comes to sich wet weather in September, and all
me fruit a-rottin' and a-dying' like the `Guptian mother's first born, and
doin' no more good than they did, pore dears, save a lot more Jews,
pedlars and sich, with their oranges and sich like foreign ungodly fruit,
which nobody'd buy if English apples and pears was nicely swelled. As
the Scriptures say--"
"That's quite right, Mr. `Empseed," retorted Jellyband, "and as I says,
what can you `xpect? There's all them Frenchy devils over the Channel
yonder a-murderin' their king and nobility, and Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox
and Mr. Burke a-fightin' and a-wranglin' between them, if we
Englishmen should `low them to go on in their ungodly way. `Let 'em
murder!' says Mr. Pitt. `Stop `em!' says Mr. Burke."
"And let `em murder, says I, and be demmed to `em." said Mr.
Hempseed, emphatically, for he had but little liking for his friend
Jellyband's political arguments, wherein he always got out of his depth,
and had but little chance for displaying those pearls of wisdom which
had earned for him so high a reputation in the neighbourhood and so

many free tankards of ale at "The Fisherman's Rest."
"Let `em murder," he repeated again, "but don't lets `ave sich rain in
September, for that is agin the law and the Scriptures which says--"
"Lud! Mr. `Arry, `ow you made me jump!"
It was unfortunate for Sally and her flirtation that this remark of hers
should have occurred at the precise moment when Mr. Hempseed was
collecting his breath, in order to deliver himself one of those Scriptural
utterances which made him famous, for it brought down upon her
pretty head the full flood of her father's wrath.
"Now then, Sally, me girl, now then!" he said, trying to force