Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. IX.—February, 1851.—Vol. II.. Various
true-hearted. My brother, however, chose to understand it in the ordinary modern sense, and he replied, "Yes, it's tall enough, if you take it south and north: from Bullock Smithy in the south, to beyond Lancaster in the north, it measures a matter of sixty miles or more; certainly it's tall, but then it's very thin, generally speaking."
"Ay, but," said the man, "thick or thin, it's a county palatine."
"Well, I don't care much for that," rejoined my brother; "palatine or not palatine, thick or thin, I wouldn't take any jaw (which meant insolence) from Lancashire, more than from any other shire."
The man stared a little at this unlooked-for attitude of defiance to a county palatine; but, recovering himself, he said, that my brother must take it, if Lancashire chose to offer it.
"But I wouldn't," replied my brother. "Look here: Lincolnshire, the county that I've been staying in for these, I don't know how many years – and a very tall county, too, tall and fat – did I take any jaw from her? Ask the sheriff. And Leicestershire, where I've generally spent my holidays, did I take jaw from her? Tell me that. Neither, again, did Louth ever dream of giving me any of her jaw; then why should I stand it from Lancashire?"
Certainly, why should he? I, who took no part in all this but as a respectful listener, felt that there was much reason in what my brother said. It was true that, having imbibed from my nurses a profound veneration for my native county, I was rather shocked at any posture (though but in a hypothetical case) of defiance to Lancashire; and yet, if three out of four capital L's had been repulsed in some mysterious offense, I felt that it was mere equity to repulse the fourth. But I prepared anxiously to say, on the authority of my last nurse, that Lancashire (I felt sure) was not the county to offer him any "jaw," whatever that might be. Unhappily, in seeking for words, which came very slowly at all times, to express my benevolent meaning, the opportunity passed over for saying any thing at all on the subject; but, though wounded by his squaring at Lancashire, I yet felt considerable respect for a brother who could thus resolutely set his arms a-kimbo against three tall counties, two of them tolerably fat, and one decent market-town.
The ordinary course of our day's warfare was this: between nine and ten in the morning, occurred our first transit, and consequently our earliest opportunity for doing business. But at this time the great sublunary interest of breakfast, which swallowed up all nobler considerations of glory and ambition, occupied the work-people of the factory (or what in the brutal pedantry of this day are termed the "operatives"), so that very seldom any serious business was transacted. Without any formal armistice, the paramount convenience of such an arrangement silently secured its own recognition. Notice there needed none of truce, when the one side yearned for breakfast, and the other for a respite; the groups, therefore, on or about the bridge, if any at all, were loose in their array, and careless. We passed through them rapidly, and, on my part, uneasily; exchanging only a few snarls, but seldom or ever snapping at each other. The tameness was almost shocking of those who in the afternoon would inevitably resume their natural characters of tiger-cats, wolves, and hunting-leopards. Sometimes, however, my brother felt it to be a duty that we should fight in the morning, particularly when any expression of public joy for a victory – bells ringing in the distance, or when a royal birthday, or some traditional commemoration of ancient feuds (such as the 5th of November), irritated his martial propensities. These being religious festivals, seemed to require of us some extra homage, for which we knew not how to find any natural or significant expression, except through sharp discharges of stones, that being a language older than Hebrew or Sanscrit, and universally intelligible. But excepting these high days of religious solemnity, when a man is called upon to show that he is not a Pagan or a miscreant in the eldest of senses, by thumping, or trying to thump, somebody who is accused or accusable of being heterodox, the great ceremony of breakfast was allowed to sanctify the hour. Some natural growls we uttered, but hushed them soon, regardless (in Mr. Gray's language) "of the sweeping whirlpool's sway, that hushed in grim repose, looked for his evening prey."
That came but too surely. Yes, evening never forgot to come – never for once forgot to call for its prey. Oh! reader, be you sure of that. Pleasures – how often do they forget themselves, forget their duty, forget their engagements, and fail to revolve! But this odious necessity of fighting never missed its road back, or fell asleep, or loitered by the way, more than a bill of exchange, or a tertian fever. Five times a week (Saturday sometimes, and Sunday always, were days of rest) the same scene rehearsed itself in pretty nearly the very same succession of circumstances. Between four and five o'clock, we had crossed the bridge to the safe, or Greenhay side; then we paused, and waited for the enemy. Sooner or later a bell rang, and from the smoky hive issued the hornets that night and day stung incurably my peace of mind. The order and procession of the incidents after this was odiously monotonous. My brother occupied the main high road, precisely at the point where a very gentle rise of the ground attained its summit; for the bridge lay in a slight valley; and the main military position was fifty or eighty yards perhaps above the bridge; then – but having first examined my pockets in order to be sure that my stock of ammunition, stones, fragments of slate, with a reasonable proportion of brickbats, was all correct and ready for action – he detached me about forty yards to the right, my orders being invariable, and liable to no doubts or "quibbling." Detestable in my ears was that word "quibbling," by which, for a thousand years, if the war had happened to last so long, he would have fastened upon me the imputation of meaning, or wishing at least, to do what he called "pettifogulizing" – that is, to plead some little technical quillet, distinction, or verbal demur, in bar of my orders, under some colorable pretense that, according to their literal construction, they really did not admit of being fulfilled, or perhaps that they admitted it too much as being capable of fulfillment in two senses, either of them a practicable sense. Unhappily for me, which told against all that I could ever have pleaded in self-justification, my Christian name was Thomas – an injury for which I never ceased to upbraid secretly my two godfathers and my one godmother; and with some reason: they ought to have seen what mischief they were brewing; since I am satisfied to this hour that, but for that wretched wo-begone name, saturated with a weight of predestined skepticism that would sink a seventy-four with the most credulous of ship's companies on board, my brother never would have called me Thomas à Didymus, which he did sometimes, or Thomas Aquinas, which he did continually. These baptismal sponsors of mine were surely answerable for all the reproaches against me, suggested by my insufferable name. All that I bore for years by reason of these reproaches, I charge against them; and perhaps an action of damages would have lain against them, as parties to a conspiracy against me. For any thing that I knew, the names might have been titles of honor; but my brother took care to explain the qualities, for better and worse, which distinguished them. Thomas à Didymus, it seemed, had exactly my infirmity of doubting and misgiving, which naturally called up further illustrations of that temper from Bunyan – a writer who occupied a place in our childish library, not very far from the "Arabian Nights." Giant Despair, the Slough of Despond, Doubting Castle, mustered strong in the array of rebukes to my weakness; and, above all, Mr. Ready-to-sink, who was my very picture (it seems) or prophetic type. As to Thomas Aquinas, I was informed that he, like myself, was much given to hair-splitting, or cutting moonbeams with razors; in which I think him very right; considering that in the town of Aquino, and about the year 1400, there were no novels worth speaking of, and not even the shadow of an opera; so that, not being employed upon moonbeams, Thomas's razors must, like Burke's, have operated upon blocks. But were these defects of doubting and desponding really mine? In a sense, they were; and being thus embodied in nicknames, they were forced prematurely upon my own knowledge. That was bad. Intellectually, if you are haunted with skepticism, or tendencies that way, morally, and for all purposes of action, if you are haunted with the kindred misery of desponding, it is not good to see too broadly emblazoned your own infirmities: they grow by consciousness too steadily directed upon them. And thus far there was great injustice in my brother's reproach; true it was that my eye was preternaturally keen for flaws of language, not from pedantic exaction of superfluous accuracy, but, on the contrary, from too conscientious a wish to escape the mistakes which language not rigorous is apt to occasion. So far from seeking to "pettifogulize," or to find evasions for any purpose in a trickster's minute tortuosities of construction, exactly in the opposite direction, from mere excess of sincerity, most unwillingly I found, in almost every