Chapter XV.
Nutts.In his circle.
Slowgoe.(With newspaper.) Pretty quiet, I see, about this Cracow business.
Nutts.Why, yes; when kings choose to break into towns, it’s what we may ’nominate burglary made easy. Heads may do anything, if they happen to be anointed, as you call it; for then they’ve been made so slippery, Justice can’t catch hold of ’em.
Slowgoe.Mr Nutts, you’re incurable. Justice is very well for people like us; but when it comes to emperors and kings—why, then, you see the scales of Justice——
Nutts.I know; not big enough for royal transactions. Justice may keep a chandler’s shop in the Old Bailey, to serve out penn’orths to poor people——
Nosebag.And sometimes cruel hard penn’orths, too.
Nutts.But she hasn’t weights heavy enough for wholesale work. She can’t weigh cities and towns, and thousands of men, women, and children, for royal customers. There’s no place sufficiently large in this world for her to set up her scales in.
Peabody.Why, no; perhaps not in this world. But heaven’s big enough, Mr Nutts; and there’s a destiny, they tell us, that weighs mountains.
Slowgoe.Now none of your irreligion, Mr Peabody. If the King of Prussia and the Emperor of Austria and of Russia——
Tickle.Well, I’d a droll dream about them a night or two ago. I’d been reading a police case and fell asleep, and I dreamt that I saw the three of ’em, with their crowns upon their heads, put into a police-van. And then I thought I saw a policeman in a coat of blue fire—no reflections on you, Mr Peabody—jump upon the steps, and heard him bang to the door, and cry out with a jolly loud voice, “All right,Newgate!”
Slowgoe.Well, I’m not a cruel person; but if order’s to be at all respected, I’d hang any man for dreaming a dream like that.
Tickle.And then I thought the three crowned heads—and how often has Fortin crowned where she ought to have bonneted!—the three crowned heads was put upon a cast-iron treadmill; and as they went up and up, it grew warmer and warmer, till at last it was red-hot.
Slowgoe.If this conversation is continued I must leave the shop.
Tickle.And then, after a little while, I thought I saw the crowned heads put upon a bench pickin’ oakum—no; it was a lot of little snakes in knots which the crowned heads couldn’t separate; and which the more they was picked the more they stung—and didn’t the crowned heads all blow and blow, as if they’d well burnt their precious fingers!
Mrs Nutts.Don’t talk in that way, Mr Tickle; it isn’t like a Christian; ’specially with such company as kings. For after all, poor things! they mayn’t know better.
Nutts.And after all—I do confess it—since I’ve seen Prince Albert’s pigs at the cattle-show, I do feel a greater respect for all sorts of royalty.
Tickle.Well, I must say it, and I don’t mean any joke, but in the respect that’s got from prize pigs there must be a good deal of gammon.
Slowgoe.Here’s the account (reads): “Pigs of any breed, above twenty-six and under fifty-two weeks old.—H.R.H. Prince Albert, of Windsor Castle, a pair of three forty-one-weeks-old Bedfordshire pigs, bred by H.R.H. and fed on corn, meal, milk, and potatoes.—Second prize, £5.”
Mrs Nutts.And you can’t think it, Mr Slowgoe, such loves! I could have nursed ’em!
Nutts.I own it; loyalty seemed to steal all over me as I looked at ’em. I confess the weakness, but had my country been on one side, and them pigs on the other, I should have been a traitor in the cause of pork.
Mrs Nutts.As I said to Mrs Biggleswade over the way—for she went with us; the poor soul! like me, it isn’t often she gets out from that brute her—but never mind—as I said to Mrs Biggleswade, “My dear, this is the Prince’s pork, and they don’t look like common vulgar pigs, do they?” And they didn’t; they looked as white as if they’d been washed with the best scented Windsor soap, and dried upon damask. “My dear,” whispered Mrs Biggleswade to me, and I could see something was passing in her mind—“My dear, them’s the Prince’s pigs! Well, I feel so affected, I could kiss ’em.”
Tickle.Not bad things, I daresay, to put your lips to, when roasted.
Mrs Nutts.Ha! There was something in ’em. They wasn’t at all common pigs, I tell you. Fed on corn, and milk, and potatoes! Under the Prince’s own eye, too! only think, wasn’t that something to consider, as the sweet things lay grunting—for they was too fat to stand—grunting afore you?
Slowgoe.Mrs Nutts, I must honour your principles. To a loyal mind, it must be impossible tolook upon those pigs, and not feel there was a perfume, as it were, of royalty about ’em.
Nutts.I can’t say about that: when I looked at ’em, I seemed to smell nothin’ but sage and onions.
Mrs Nutts.Don’t talk in that way, Nutts. It appears to me wicked to think of eating ’em: all the while I looked at ’em, they seemed to take me nearer to his Royal Highness. And so it seemed with a good many other ladies; I’m sure there wasn’t one of us that would have begrudged her golden ear-rings to put in their precious noses.
Tickle.Women are such devoted creturs—specially when there’s princes in the way. To throw ear-rings to pigs! Well, what next?
Mrs Nutts.Ha! but they wasn’t at all like common pigs, I tell you—so genteel; not at all like other pork. In a minute you could see they were pigs of high breedin’; for they lay upon their sides, with their noses a-restin’ on the troughs, doing nothin’. They wouldn’t try to take the trouble to look at us; they was so fat they couldn’t open their eyes theirselves, when a young man—to oblige us—with his finger and thumb opened ’em for ’em. And Mrs Biggleswade and me both agreed, that for pig’s eyes, they were the sweetest blue we ever see.
Tickle.Ha! This comes o’ being fattened on royal milk, and filled with royal potatoes. Jestlike you women. If a great man was to bring up a prize donkey, you’d swear it was the finest zebra; and, for what I know, wear thistles in your caps and bonnets in honour of the animal. If the Prince’s pigs were to be bled into black puddings, what a scramble there would be to buy the delicacy!
Mrs Nutts.There now, Mr Tickle, I don’t want to hear your heathen discourse. If I was to look upon such puddin’s—coming from the Prince’s sty—as the blood royal, what’s that to you? And if Mr Nutts was like any other man—which he isn’t—he’d hardly hear his wife talked to in this manner. And then, Mr Slowgoe—not but what the pigs carry away the bell with me—then you should have only seen the Prince’s heifer!
Slowgoe.Here it is, I see (reads): “Extra Stock.—Cattle.—H. R. H. Prince Albert, of Windsor Castle, a two-years-and-eleven-months-old Highland Scot and Durham heifer, bred by Mr Milnes, Downham, Norfolk, and fed on cake, meal, hay,Swedes, and mangold-wurzel! travelled to the show on foot nine miles, and by railway twenty-two miles.—Silver medal.” Now, does the medal, I wonder, go to the Prince or to Mr Milnes?
Mrs Nutts.To Mr Milnes, indeed! Like his impudence! To Prince Albert, of course; and Ishould hope on state days and drawing-rooms, and so forth, he’ll wear it.
Tickle.No objection to that at all. As there’s the Order of the Golden Fleece, and the Order of the Elephant, and suchlike—given to statesmen and soldiers, very often for swindling and killing one another—eh, Mr Peabody? you’re a scholar, and know all about it—I don’t see why at these cattle-shows there shouldn’t be the Order of the Ox—the Order of the Steer—the Order of the Ram—the Order of the Wether Sheep—the Order of the China Pig—and the Order of the Pig of Any Breed.
Peabody.Why not? With Knights Companions of Oilcake, Mangold-Wurzel, Buckwheat, and Barleymeal? I don’t see why a very pretty sort of heraldry might not be got up of prize cattle; much wiser and more serviceable, after all, to mankind, than the prize Unicorns and prize Griffins won upon battle-fields. Then, as for the shedding of blood, I don’t think that’s the best sort that grows us laurels; but thatthatruns to black puddings.
Nutts.Well, of the two, I know which does the least mischief, and gives the wholesomest bellyful. And as there’s a good many of the aristocracy—by-the-by, you can’t think what a while I was mustering that word, but I’ve got hold of him at last—as the aristocracy go in every year for a showof fat, I shouldn’t wonder to see the day come when medals for killing men, and, as Mr Tickle says, for swindling ’em in cabinets, haven’t all the shine taken out of ’em by the medals of cattle-shows.
Peabody.Very true, Mr Nutts. Put a case now. There is M. Bresson: I believe he has had bestowed upon him the Order of the Golden Fleece.
Nosebag.What was the beginnin’ of that Order?
Peabody.To reward the flaying of a whole people! Well, Mons. Bresson has the Fleece because he kidnapped that little girl—the Infanta—as a daughter-in-law for Louis Philippe. Poor little Merino Lamb! the Fleece had a meaning in it, as payment for such work. Nevertheless, when the Frenchman walks with it about his neck—as though he carried a star out of heaven under his chin—do you think, all matters considered, the Order is as honest a looking thing—as honourable to him who carries it, and as serviceable to the world, as the gold medal given to—here it is (reads)—to “Mr J. Painter of Burley, near Oakham, Rutland” for “a pen of three twenty-one-months-old new Leicester wethers”? Tell me that, Mr Slowgoe.
Tickle.I should think not: that’s something like Fleece, that is; and the wethers were fed upon good honest corn, and meal, and pulse, I’ll bebound—while for the poor little Spanish girl, I wonder what sort of promise the Frenchman crammed her with, that made her a Prize Bride, and so rewarded him with the Prize Order.
Nosebag.But after all—though I’ve stuck the bills, as I may say, taken money of the cattle—after all, it does seem to me a flying in the face of plenty, to fatten ’em, not for the food of Christians, but for soap and candles. I’m sartin on it—for I walked round and looked at all on ’em—there was half-a-dozen oxen there that was so fat they seemed quite disconcerned o’ themselves. And the poor creturs seemed to look at some o’ their owners as much as to say, “We wonder you ain’t ashamed o’ yourselves to spile our figures in this fashion; to pad us—and all in the wrong places—with tallowy fat; and to take all the shape and make out of us innocent unsuspecting oxen, as if we was nothin’ more than churchwardens or city aldermen.”
Mrs Nutts.Nonsense! I’m sure the poor creturs had no such stuff in their heads. And for the royal pigs—if they’d been emperors, they couldn’t have sprawled about more at their ease, and seemed more full and happy. They knew what was what, and never had their noses out of the troughs.
Nutts.I should like to know who’ll buy ’em. Nobody can call me a worshipper of rank and fortin,and that sort of thing, but I should like to know who’ll buy them pigs, and when they’ll cook ’em.
Limpy.What can it matter to you, Nutts, who’ll cook the Prince’s pigs?
Nutts.’Twould be a satisfaction, that’s all. Them pigs have taken such a hold on me, I’d go ten mile to walk up and down by the kitchen window to smell ’em roastin’.
Peabody.Well, the pigs—for they’ve been spoilt, as things very often are, brought up in their walk of life—the pigs are sensible creatures, for all that; and if you’d have heard them really talk as I did on Tuesday night——
All.Talk!
Peabody.Talk. I’ll tell you how it was. I was on duty at the show, walking about among the cattle all night—at least nearly all night; for I sat down on a bench at about twelve—for a minute after I heard the church clock strike. At that very moment, who should I see rise up out of a heap of straw but a short thick-set man, with a large head bossed like a huge potato. I knew him at once by his looks and his garment—it was Æsop.
Nosebag.I don’t believe a syllable about it; but who is Æsop?
Nutts.Well, Mr Nosebag! I never did hear such ignorance; if I don’t feel ashamed of myselfthat ever I shaved you. Did you never see a spellin’-book? Wasn’t he the intimate friend of the birds, and the beasts, and the fishes, and hasn’t he told us all they talked about? Didn’t he write the story of the Lion and the Mouse?
Mrs Nutts.And Cock Robin? But go on, Mr Peabody—never mind Nosebag. Some people are so wicked they won’t believe nothin’! Go on. Wasn’t you afeard?
Peabody.Just at first. But there was such a look of true good-nature—and true wisdom, Mrs Nutts, is always good-natured—in Æsop’s face; such a look, I may say, of pleasant benignity, that in a moment I ceased to be afraid of the thing as a ghost, and stood bolt upright, and took my hat off—though it’s not required by the rules of the “force”—as to a teacher and a friend.
Slowgoe.Well, I shall begin to have some hopes of you, after all. I didn’t think you’d show such a respect for ghosts. I’m glad you’re not quite lost to the wisdom of our ancestors. I have lived to hear the ghosts of Cock Lane doubted; but—I confess it—it’s positively comforting to hear you talk as you do of Æsop. A great man! I should like to know what wisdom we’ve had since he lived? Why, nothing new: it’s been the old thing served up, like a cold joint hashed with ketchup, and kayenne, and all that.
Mrs Nutts.And very good eatin’, too, Mr Slowgoe; but go on, Mr Peabody. What did Æsop say when he saw you?
Peabody.Nothing to me at all; he merely smiled and nodded, and kept all his discourse for the cattle. Well, it was very odd, but in a minute every four-footed thing seemed to know the presence of their great interpreter, Æsop.
Nosebag.How could they see him? Was the gas burning?
Tickle.Not at all. But don’t you know it’s a rule with ghosts always to appear with their own lights?
Peabody.All’s one for that. I tell you they all knew him: and the heaviest oxen there, though wellnigh broken-backed with fat, rose upon its four legs; and its loose velvety skin seemed to quiver and wrinkle with pleasure; and its eyes glowed with a mild and almost human light; and it bent its head in token of veneration and acknowledgment of the immortal Æsop. And the sheep—those packs of breathing wool—they softly baaed, and shook their tails; and——
Mrs Nutts.And the pigs?—the Prince’s pigs?
Peabody.They couldn’t fail to support the dignity of their breeding, and made more noise to welcome even the ghost of genius than all therest; indeed it was delightful, wonderful, to see how the great master was acknowledged.
Mrs Nutts.And didn’t he say a syllable to you?
Peabody.Not a word: there was better company for him. But he walked from class to class, and from pen to pen; and as he looked upon the misshapen mountains of vitality, he shook his head, and, with a mild melancholy upon his face, heaved a frequent sigh.
Nutts.Not to be wondered at; he was always such a friend to pigs.
Peabody.At last the ghost paused close beside a four-year-old Hereford steer. It had won the first prize and a silver medal. “How are you?” said Æsop, laying his hand upon the beast. “Choking; wellnigh gone,” answered the steer. “Did you ever see such a beast as I am in all your days? And this is what the stupidity and vaingloriousness of man have brought me to!” “Foolish wretch!” cried Æsop, “how was it you gorged so much? Couldn’t you restrain your appetite?” “Impossible!” said the steer. “I had taken no temperance pledge against oil-cake: I hadn’t vowed to keep to grass, with now and then a mouthful of turnips; no. And so when they put the cake, and the mangold-wurzel, and the Swedes, and the meal, and the cabbagesbefore me, I did no more than what men do with port and sherry, and brandy and gin, upon the table: I took all I could swallow, though I felt I was making a greater beast of myself every minute.” “Poor wretch!” said Æsop again; “however, I’m glad you feel the degradation. Still, there’s one comfort for you—yes, one consolation; like a glutton and wine-drinker with gout in his stomach, you’ll die a prize beast.” “As for dying,” said the steer, in a small asthmatic voice—“As for dying—but I beg your pardon, great Æsop!—would you allow me to lie down in your presence? for I feel my legs are cracking under my fat.” Æsop, with his old benevolence, nodded assent; and the poor beast, after much wheezing and groaning laid itself down again, and resumed its talk. “As for dying, life’s a burden to me; and I’m sure of it, I shall smile at the butcher. You can’t think I’ve any comfort in the gluttony that’s been forced upon me. As for this stalling and over-feeding, what is it all to a sweet rational mouthful of summer grass, with now and then a cabbage or two, a gentle walk about the pastures, and at the heat of noon a foot-bath in the pond, away from the flies under the shade of a willow? That’s wholesome life; and makes good, honest beef—beef that’s a credit to the plum-pudding and horse-radish. And now I’ve awhole tallow-chandler’s stock upon my ribs and back, and the taste of unprofitable fat in my mouth. Look at me,” and the animal languidly flourished its tail—“Look at me, you who know what steers and oxen ought to be, and say if nature isn’t outraged and violated in my person. I’m at the best a filthy unnatural curiosity—a monster fattened by the conceit of man—and not a decent beast fit for a decent table. I’m a mountain, and not a comely animal.”
Tickle.Well, upon my life! a very sensible beast indeed.
Peabody.Don’t interrupt me. “Well,” says Æsop, shaking his head, “I’m not given to compliments; and I must say it, you are a fat, filthy, nasty-looking beast indeed. And then, again, how much respectable beef might have been bred and properly fattened with the food that has been thrown away—for it’s no better—upon you!”
Tickle.And I should like to know what the brute had to answer to that.
Peabody. Why, though its heart was in walls of fat, the reproach of Æsop went right through to it. It rolled, and kicked, and lowed, and at last, somehow, the tears running out of its eyes, it cried, “Don’t, don’t; there’s my remorse. I knew that there were whole herds of beasts somewhere that would have been bettered by the superfluitythat was crammed down my throat; but the fact is, I had lived so long and intimately with man, that I had fallen into his greatest vice, and over-gorged myself with what would have comforted others.” And then again the prize beast lowed, and its compunction seemed terrible; and in this way Æsop went from prize beast to prize beast—to steers, to oxen and heifers, and sheep.
Nutts.And pigs?
Peabody.And pigs.
Mrs Nutts.And tell me, what did the Prince’s pigs say? Surely they didn’t bewail their fat to Æsop.
Peabody.All in the same manner as the steer; and one of the pigs in special said this, “They’ve over-fattened me, made my life a burden, and now they’ll kill me. Still I have this revenge; for be assured, whoever eats a morsel of me—if it’s hours afterwards—I’ll do nothing but rise upon him.”