332 THE MAN OF TWO LIVES. 



was he by no means averse from the enjoyment of such delights a 

 are duly restrained by moderation and temperance. In summer 

 evenings especially, at a certain hour, 4 he might be detected wending 

 his way over the " smooth-shaven green " towards a public-house 

 boasting the imposing and perhaps awful title of " the Griffin.'* 

 Here the company was select, and at the same time cordial ; affable 

 without moroseness, easy without vulgarity. And here was Singe 

 lord paramount ; and here, as he smoked his pipe and sipped his ale, 

 deference conceded to him that respect which his superior information 

 and acquirements might have exacted. Grim the farrier, when 

 Singe outspake, drew down his mouth like a horse-shoe and was 

 mute; Rusk the baker was upon such occasions taciturn ; Halbert, 

 the Serjeant of a regiment quartered in the town, a huge portly 

 man, with no ordinary bow-window and a handsome sash in front of 

 it, one also who had gleaned a harvest of anecdote from the fields of 

 Waterloo even this warrior held his peace ; and Spigot the landlord 

 has been known to stand for hours with the handle of the door between 

 his fingers, until a too familiar voice from behind has recalled him to 

 himself, or rather to that better half of himself which he had so long 

 deserted in the bar. In short, Samuel at this place of rational en- 

 tertainment was a universal favourite, and I question whether that 

 fabulous monster the griffin himself would not have smiled upon him 

 as he entered the house, had there been so desirable a portrait of 

 such monster over the entrance. But this, unhappily, was not the 

 case, the artist employed by Spigot for that purpose, after receiving 

 payment by anticipation for liis labours, having, as though wilfully, 

 " died and made no sign.*' 



To a prosperous man on the wrong side of thirty marriage naturally 

 presents itself as something claiming serious consideration. To the 

 barber it was so, who, having debated the matter within himself long 

 and earnestly, entered himself of the temple of Hymen, taking to part- 

 ner one Kezia Thoroughgood, only daughter of old Thoroughgood 

 the wheelwright and cooper in general. Nor was this by any means 

 the worst choice he could have made. Kezia Singe (late Thorough- 

 good) was a woman in whom a pervading principle of thrift was in- 

 nate, in whom fprudence had shown itself marvellously precocious, 

 in whom also frugality had begotten a large family of maxims and 

 undeviating rules of conduct. She had duties for every day in the 

 year, work for every week, manifold business monthly. She was 

 expert as Arachne at spinning, and yet was a mortal enemy to spiders 

 and cobwebs. She earned her bread where she made it at home, 

 and her house was as clean as a new pin, arid she was the head of it. 

 She exhibited the patriotism of a true Briton in her patronage and 

 manufacture of English wines, and she knew the contents of her two 

 casks (paternal puncheons), and the absorbing capacity of her servant 

 (from the workhouse), to a single drop. The current of her wrath was 

 fearfully let loose if she detected a defalcation in the old gooseberry ; 

 and she played up " old gooseberry " if she discovered a diminution 

 of the currant. Added to these merits, she bore no common love for 

 her husband, and took the very best care of him with not the very 

 worst grace in the world ; and I think (such was her scrupulosity) 



