human
Sir, pardon me; but is not your name Fairfield? Ah, it is Leonard--it is--my dear, dear boy! What joy! So altered, so improved, but still the same honest face. Squire, come here--your old friend, Leonard Fairfield.
gpt
And he wanted to persuade me, said the Squire, shaking Leonard heartily by the hand,
human
Not that, sir, said Leonard, smiling.
gpt
But the world has thriven with me at last, though not without some rough usage at starting. Ah, Mr. Dale, you can little guess how often I have thought of you and your discourse on Knowledge; and, what is more, how I have lived to feel the truth of your words, and to bless the lesson.
human
I expected nothing less of you, Leonard; you were always a lad of great sense, and sound judgment. So you have thought of my little discourse on Knowledge, have you?
gpt
Hang knowledge! I have reason to hate the word. It burned down three ricks of mine; the finest ricks you ever set eyes on, Mr. Fairfield.
human
That was not knowledge, Squire, that was ignorance.
gpt
Ignorance! The deuce it was. I'll just appeal to you, Mr. Fairfield. We have been having sad riots in the shire, and the ring-leader was just such another lad as you were!
human
I am very much obliged to you, Mr. Hazeldean. In what respect?
gpt
Why, he was a village genius, and always reading some cursed little tract or other; and got mighty discontented with King, Lords, and Commons, I suppose, and went about talking of the wrongs of the poor, and the crimes of the rich, till, by Jove, sir, the whole mob rose one day with pitchforks and sickles, and smash went Farmer Smart's thrashing-machines; and on the same night my ricks were on fire. We caught the rogues, and they were all tried; but the poor deluded laborers were let off with a short imprisonment. The village genius, thank heaven, is sent packing to Botany Bay.
human
But did his books teach him to burn ricks, and smash machines?
gpt
No; he said quite the contrary, and declared that he had no hand in those misdoings.
human
But he was proved to have excited, with his wild talk, the boobies who had! 'Gad, sir, there was a hypocritical Quaker once, who said to his enemy, 'I can't shed thy blood, friend, but I will hold thy head under water till thou art drowned.' And so there is a set of demagogical fellows, who keep calling out, 'Farmer This is an oppressor, and Squire That is a vampire! But no violence! Don't smash their machines, don't burn their ricks! Moral force, and a curse on all tyrants!' Well, and if poor Hodge thinks moral force is all my eye, and that the recommendation is to be read backward, in the devil's way of reading the Lord's Prayer, I should like to know which of the two ought to go to Botany Bay--Hodge who comes out like a man, if he thinks he is wronged, or t'other sneaking chap, who makes use of his knowledge to keep himself out of the scrape?
gpt
It may be very true; but when I saw that poor fellow at the bar, with his intelligent face, and heard his bold, clear defense, and thought of all his hard struggles for knowledge, and how they had ended, because he forgot that knowledge is like fire, and must not be thrown among flax--why, I could have given my right hand to save him. And, oh, Squire, do you remember his poor mother's shriek of despair when he was sentenced to transportation for life--I hear it now! And what, Leonard--what do you think had mislead him? At the bottom of all the mischief was a Tinker's bag. You can not forget Sprott?
human
Tinker's bag!--Sprott!
gpt
That rascal, sir, was the hardest fellow to nab you could possibly conceive; as full of quips and quirks as an Old Bailey lawyer. But we managed to bring it home to him. Lord! his bag was choke-full of tracts against every man who had a good coat on his back; and as if that was not enough, cheek by jowl with the tracts were lucifers, contrived on a new principle, for teaching my ricks the theory of spontaneous combustion. The laborers bought the lucifers--
human
And the poor village genius bought the tracts.
gpt
All headed with a motto--'To teach the working-classes that knowledge is power.' So that I was right in saying that knowledge had burnt my ricks; knowledge inflamed the village genius, the village genius inflamed fellows more ignorant than himself, and they inflamed my stack-yard. However, lucifers, tracts, village genius, and Sprott, are all off to Botany Bay; and the shire has gone on much the better for it. So no more of your knowledge for me, begging your pardon, Mr. Fairfield. Such uncommonly fine ricks as mine were, too! I declare, Parson, you are looking as if you felt pity for Sprott; and I saw you, indeed, whispering to him as he was taken out of court.
human
Indeed, Squire, I was only asking him what had become of his donkey--an unoffending creature.
gpt
Unoffending! Upset me amidst a thistle-bed in my own village green. I remember it. Well, what did he say _had_ become of the donkey?
human
He said but one word; but that showed all the vindictiveness of his disposition. He said it with a horrid wink, that made my blood run cold. 'What's become of your poor donkey?' said I, and he answered--
gpt
Go on. He answered--
human
Sausages! Like enough; and sold to the poor; and that's what the poor will come to if they listen to such revolutionizing villains. Sausages! Donkey sausages!--(spitting)--'Tis as bad as eating one another; perfect cannibalism.
gpt
No; don't leave me yet, Leonard--I have so much to ask you, and to talk about. I shall be at leisure shortly. We are just now going to call on a relation of the Squire's, whom you must recollect, I am sure--Captain Higginbotham--Barnabas Higginbotham. He is very poorly.
human
And I am sure he would take it kind in you to call, too,
gpt
Nay, sir, would not that be a great liberty?
human
Liberty! To ask a poor sick gentleman how he is? Nonsense. And I say, sir, perhaps, as no doubt you have been living in town, and know more of new-fangled notions than I do--perhaps you can tell us whether or not it is all humbug, that new way of doctoring people?
gpt
What new way, sir? There are so many.
human
Are there? Folks in London _do_ look uncommonly sickly. But my poor cousin (he was never a Solomon) has got hold, he says, of a homely--homely--what's the word, Parson?
gpt
Homoeopathist.
human
That's it. You see the Captain went to live with one Sharpe Currie, a relation who had a great deal of money, and very little liver;--made the one, and left much of the other in Ingee, you understand. The Captain had _expectations_ of the money. Very natural, I dare say; but, Lord, sir! what do you think has happened? Sharpe Currie has done him! Would not die, sir; got back his liver, and the Captain has lost his own. Strangest thing you ever heard. And then the ungrateful old Nabob has dismissed the Captain, saying, 'He can't bear to have invalids about him;' and is going to marry, and I have no doubt will have children by the dozen!
gpt
It was in Germany, at one of the Spas, that Mr. Currie recovered; and as he had the selfish inhumanity to make the Captain go through a course of waters simultaneously with himself, it has so chanced that the same waters that cured Mr. Currie's liver have destroyed Captain Higginbotham's. An English homoeopathic physician, then staying at the Spa, has attended the Captain hither, and declares that he will restore him by infinitesimal doses of the same chemical properties that were found in the waters which diseased him. Can there be any thing in such a theory?
human
I once knew a very able, though eccentric homoeopathist, and I am inclined to believe there may be something in the system. My friend went to Germany: it may possibly be the same person who attends the Captain. May I ask his name?
gpt
Cousin Barnabas does not mention it. You may ask it of himself, for here we are at his chambers. I say, Parson (whispering slily), if a small dose of what hurt the Captain is to cure him, don't you think the proper thing would be a--legacy? Ha! ha!
human
Hush, Squire. Poor human nature! We must be merciful to its infirmities. Come in, Leonard.