Richard Blackmore - The Maid of Sker

"What, Davy! Brother Davy!" he cried, being compelled to begin, because I took care not to look at him. "Has it been so ordered that I behold good brother Davy with fish upon a Monday?" His object in this was plain enough – to beat down my goods by terror of an information for Sabbath-labour.

"The Lord has been merciful to me," I answered, patting my best fish on his shoulder; "not only in sending them straight to my net, at nine o'clock this morning; but also, brother Hezekiah, in the hunger all people have for them. I would that I could have kept thee a taste; not soon wouldst thou forget it. Sweeter fish and finer fish never came out of Newton Bay" – this I said because Newton Bay is famous for high quality. "But, brother Hezekiah, thou art come too late." And I began to pack up very hastily.

"What!" cried Hezekiah, with a keen and hungrily grievous voice; "all those fish bespoken, Davy?"

"Every one of them bespoken, brother; by a man who knows a right down good bass, better almost than I do. Griffy, the 'Cat and Snuffers.'"

Now, Griffith, who kept the "Cat and Snuffers," was a very jovial man, and a bitter enemy to Hezekiah Perkins; and I knew that the latter would gladly offer a penny a-pound upon Griffy's back, to spoil him of his supper, and to make him offend his customers.

"Stop, brother Davy," cried Hezekiah, stretching out his broad fat hands, as I began to pack my fish, with the freshest smellers uppermost; "Davy dear, this is not right, nor like our ancient friendship. A rogue like Griffy to cheat you so! What had he beaten you down to, Davy?"

"Beaten me down!" I said, all in a hurry; "is it likely I would be beaten down, with their eyes coming out of their heads like that?"

"Now, dear brother Dyo, do have patience! What was he going to give you a-pound?"

"Fourpence a-pound, and ten pound of them. Three-and-fourpence for a lot like that! Ah, the times are bad indeed!"

"Dear brother Dyo, fourpence-halfpenny! Three-and-nine down, for the lot as it stands."

"Hezekiah, for what do you take me? Cut a farthing in four, when you get it. Do I look a likely man to be a rogue for fivepence?"

"No, no, Davy; don't be angry with me. Say as much as tenpence. Four-and-twopence, ready money; and no Irish coinage."

"Brother Hezekiah," said I, "a bargain struck is a bargain kept. Rob a man of his supper for tenpence!"

"Oh, Dyo, Dyo! you never would think of that man's supper, with my wife longing for fish so! Such a family as we have, and the weakness in Hepzibah's back! Five shillings for the five, Davy."

"There, there; take them along," I cried at last, with a groan from my chest: "you are bound to be the ruin of me. But what can I do with a delicate lady? Brother, surely you have been a little too hard upon me. Whatever shall I find to say to a man who never beats me down?"

"Tell that worldly 'Cat and Snuffers' that your fish were much too good – why, Davy, they seem to smell a little!"

"And small use they would be, Hezekiah, either for taste or for nourishment, unless they had the sea-smell now. Brother, all your money back, and the fish to poor Griffy, if you know not the smell of salt water yet."

"Now, don't you be so hot, old Davy. The fish are good enough, no doubt; and it may be from the skewer-wood; but they have a sort, not to say a smell, but a manner of reminding one – "

"Of the savoury stuff they feed on," said I; "and the thorough good use they make of it. A fish must eat, and so must we, and little blame to both of us."

With that he bade me "good-night," and went with alacrity towards his supper, scornfully sneering as he passed the door of the "Cat and Snuffers." But though it was a fine thing for me, and an especial Providence, to finish off my stock so well, at a time when I would have taken gladly a shilling for the lot of it, yet I felt that circumstances were against my lingering. Even if Hezekiah, unable to enter into the vein of my fish, should find himself too fat to hurry down the steep hill after me, still there were many other people, fit for supper, and fresh for it, from the sudden coolness, whom it was my duty now to preserve from mischief; by leaving proper interval for consideration, before I might happen to be in front of their dining room windows another day.

Therefore, with a grateful sense of goodwill to all customers, I thought it better to be off. There I had been, for several hours, ready to prove anything, but never challenged by anybody; and my spirit had grown accordingly. But I never yet have found it wise to overlie success. Win it, and look at it, and be off, is the quickest way to get some more. So I scarcely even called so much as a pint at the "Cat and Snuffers," to have a laugh with Griffy; but set off for Newton, along the old road, with a good smart heel, and a fine day's business, and a light heart inside of me.

When I had passed Red-hill and Tythegston, and clearly was out upon Newton Down, where the glow-worms are most soft and sweet, it came upon me, in looking up from the glow-worms to the stars of heaven, to think and balance how far I was right in cheating Hezekiah. It had been done with the strictest justice, because his entire purpose was purely to cheat me. Whereupon Providence had stepped in and seen that I was the better man. I was not so ungrateful – let nobody suppose it – as to repine at this result. So far from that, that I rattled my money and had a good laugh, and went on again. But being used to watch the stars, as an old sailor is bound to do, I thought that Orion ought to be up, and I could not see Orion. This struck me as an unkindly thing, although, when I thought of it next day, I found that Orion was quite right, and perhaps the beer a little strong which had led me to look out for him; anyhow, it threw me back to think of Hezekiah, and make the worst of him to myself for having had the best of him.

Everybody may be sure that I never would have gone out of the way to describe my traffic with that man unless there were good reason. Nay, but I wanted to show you exactly the cast and the colour of man he was, by setting forth his low attempt to get my fish for nothing.

There was no man, of course, in my native village, and very few in Bridgend perhaps, to whom I would have sold those fish, unless they were going to sell it again. But Hezekiah Perkins, a member and leading elder of the "Nicodemus-Christians," was so hard a man to cheat – except by stirring of his gall – and so keen a cheat himself; so proud, moreover, of his wit and praying, and truly brotherly, – that to lead him astray was the very first thing desired by a sound Churchman.

By trade and calling he had been – before he received his special call – no more than a common blacksmith. Now a blacksmith is a most useful man, full of news and full of jokes, and very often by no means drunk; this, however, was not enough to satisfy Hezekiah. Having parts, as he always told us – and sometimes we wished that he had no whole – cultivated parts, moreover, and taken up by the gentry, nothing of a lower order came up to his merits than to call himself as follows: "Horologist, Gunsmith, Practical Turner, Working Goldsmith and Jeweller, Maker of all Machinery, and Engineman to the King and Queen."

The first time he put this over his door, all the neighbours laughed at him, knowing (in spite of the book he had got full of figures and shapes and crossings, which he called "Three-gun-ometry") that his education was scarcely up to the rule of three, without any guns. Nevertheless he got on well, having sense enough to guide him when to talk large (in the presence of people who love large talk, as beyond them), and when to sing small, and hold his tongue, and nod at the proper distances, if ever his business led him among gentry of any sense or science, such as we sometimes hear of. Hence it was that he got the order to keep the church-clock of Bridgend a-going by setting the hands on twice a-day, and giving a push to the pendulum; and so long as the clock would only go, nobody in the town cared a tick whether it kept right time or wrong. And if people from the country durst say anything about it, it was always enough to ask them what their own clocks had to say.