The Parson O' Dumford

A Friendly Meeting

There was a goodly meeting at the Bull and Cucumber that evening, for the discussion of the disappearance of Daisy Banks. Sim Slee was there, and one of the chief spokesmen.

“Well, what do you say, Sim?” said the landlord, with a wink at his other guests, as much as to say, “Let’s draw him out.”

“Say!” cried Sim; “why, that Dick Glaire’s a lungeing villin. Look at him: a man fixed in business as he is, and plenty o’ money, and he knows nowt but nastiness. He ought to be hung.”

“Where weer you to-day, Sim?” said another. “I didn’t see thee helping.”

“Helping!” said Sim; “why, I was in the thicket all day. Search indeed! what’s the good o’ searching for what aint theer?”

“Do you know wheer she is?” said the landlord.

“If yow want to know wheer Daisy Banks is, ask Dicky Glaire, and – ”

“And what?” said several, for Sim had stopped short.

“And he wean’t tell yow,” said Sim. “He knows, though. Why, he’s been mad after the lass for months; and if she weer my bairn, I’d half kill him; that’s what I’d do wi’ him. He’s a bad lot, and it’s a pity as Dumford can’t get shoot of him. Such rubbish! he’s ony fit to boon the roads.”

“Well, Sim,” said the grocer, “when they make you boon master, you can use him up o’ purpose.”

“Hello!” said Sim, “what! are yow here? I thowt as the Bull and Cowcumber wasn’t good enew for such as thee.”

“You niver thowt so, Sim,” said the jovial little grocer, laughing, “till I wouldn’t give thee any more credit till thou had paid what thee owdst.”

“I can pay yow any day,” said Sim, chinking the money in his pocket.

“Yes, but yow wean’t,” said the grocer, imitating Sim’s broad Lincoln dialect. “Yes, I wanted to hear a bit o’ the news,” he continued, “so I thowt I’d put up the shuts and have a gill and a pipe, same as another man; for I niver object to my ’lowance, as is good for any man as works hard.”

“So ’tis, so ’tis,” chorussed several.

“How chuff we are to-night,” said Sim, with a sneer; “why, yow’re getting quite sharp. Yow wearn’t so nation fast wi’ your tongue fore yow took to trade and was only a bricklayer. It’s all very fine for a man to marry a grocer’s widow, and take to her trade and money, and then come and teach others, and bounce about his money.”

“Oh, I’m not ashamed of having handled the mortar-trowel before I took to the sugar-scoop,” said the grocer, laughing.

“When it used to be to the boy,” continued Sim, mimicking the other’s very slow drawling speech: “‘Joey, wilt thou bring me another brick?’ and then thou used to groan because it weer so heavy.”

“Sim Slee’s in full swing to-night,” said another guest.

“He will be if he don’t look out, for Tom Podmore says he’s sure he had a hand in getting away Daisy Banks,” said another; “and Joe Banks is sure of it. I wouldn’t be surprised if he hung him.”

“Don’t you be so nation fast,” said Sim, changing colour a little, but laughing it off the next moment. “Iv I were a owry chap like thee, Sam’l Benson, I’d wesh mesen afore I took to talking about other folk. It was Sam’l, you know,” continued Sim, to the others, “that owd parson spoke to when he weer a boy. ‘When did thee wesh thee hands last, Sam?’ he says, pointing at ’em wi’ his stick. ‘When we’d done picking tates,’ says Sam, He, he, he! and that was three months before, and parson give ’im a penny to ware in soap.”

There was a hearty laugh at this, in which the man of whom the story was told joined.

“Strange different sort o’ man this one to the last parson,” said the grocer.

“Ay, he is. Do you mind owd parson’s dunk pigs?” said Johnson, the butcher.

“To be sure,” said the landlord, rapping his pipe. “I’ve got four of the same breed now.”

“He used to come and see you pretty oftens, didn’t he?” said the grocer.

“Oh, yes; he’d come toddling up on the saints’ days to Mrs Winny’s there, and sit for a bit, and then come across here, and sit and wait, and have a gill o’ ale, and then if there was anybody coming up to church, Jacky Budd – Jacky Budd’s father, you know – would come and fetch him, and if there was nobody coming Jacky used to lock the church doors again and go back home.”

“He was a rum one, he was. Fond of his garden, too.”

“Well, so’s this un,” said the landlord. “He’s getten it to raights now.”

“Course he has,” said Slee. “Getten it done for nowt, wi’ Tom Podmore and big Harry, and iver so many more wucking for him.”

“You let th’ parson alone, Sim,” said the landlord, who was a bit of an autocrat in his own parlour, “and he’ll let thee alone.”

“I should hope he would. He’s fun me a hot one a’ready,” said Sim.

“He’s a good sort, is parson,” said Johnson, the butcher; “and it’s how do, and shake hands, as friendly with ye, as if you was the best in the land.”

“Yes,” said the grocer; “and he don’t come begging and borrowing always.”

“Begging, no,” said Johnson, chuckling. “Why, he’s paid me thutty pounds this last ten days for meat.”

“Thutty pounds!” said the landlord.

“Ay, all that.”

“What for?” said Sim.

“Meat for soup,” said Johnson.

“Ah, and I’ve took a lot of him for grosheries,” said the grocer.

“Yes; he’s giving away a sight o’ money,” said the landlord, “to them as is on strike and wants it. He says to me, only yesterday, when I went across to take him a bit o’ Marquory – it was some as we’d got very fine – ‘Thankye, Robinson,’ he says, ‘so that’s Mercury, is it?’ – he called it ‘Mercury.’ ‘I never see any before,’ he says. ‘We call it Good King Henry down in the South.’ ‘Yes, sir,’ I says, ‘that’s marquory, and as good a vegetable as you can eat.’ ‘Makes a difference in your trade, this strike, I suppose,’ he says. ‘Our takings aint been above half, sir,’ I says, ‘since it begun.’ ‘Sorry for it,’ he says, ‘sorry for it. I don’t dislike to see men come and have their pipe and glass in moderation, and then chat after work; and I’m sure, Robinson,’ he says, ‘you are not the man to let any one exceed.’ ‘Never do if I can help it, sir,’ I says; and then he talked for ever so long, and then he took me in and give me a glass o’ wine, and shew’d me his silver cups as he’d won at college, and rowing and running, and one thing and another; and when I was coming away he says, ‘Tell me,’ he says, ‘if you hear of anybody very hard pushed through the strike, and I’ll see what I can do.’”

“Here’s parson’s very good health,” said Johnson, the butcher; and it was drunk by all present but Sim, who uttered a loud, “Yah!”

“They say he’s makkin’ up to Mrs Glaire, don’t they?” said the grocer.

“Ay, they say so,” said the butcher; “and that owd Purley’s sister and Miss Primgeon are both in a regular takkin’ about it. They’ve both been wucking slippers for him.”

“He was fine and on about Daisy Banks, to-day,” said the landlord. “I heerd, too, as Joe Banks quarrelled wi’ him for interfering ’bout her, just afore she went.”

“How did you hear that?” said the grocer.

“Joe Banks’s Missus towd mine,” said the landlord. “But, say, lads, what’s this ’bout Bultitude’s John Maine?”

“Don’t know – what?” said first one and then another.

“Why, I hear as he was seen talking to a couple of owry-looking poacher chaps, down the road – them two, as they think, had something to do wi’ Daisy Banks going off.”