376 The Baron Court of Little Brought-in. 



ranker in the hugue than any other onion upon earth ; and this he 

 peeled and peeled, till his own eyes watered at the work, and the 

 snout of him turned up to be out of the line of the mephitis, as any 

 one may see to this day on looking- at his brazen effigies in Beggars' 

 Close. 



No sooner was this huge peeled onion landed in Furyfield, than 

 all the members of the Manor Court rushed out, some holding hand- 

 kerchiefs to their noses, and those who had no handkerchiefs holding 

 them with their fingers, or any thing they could get hold of. A goo< 

 many came over to Hangland, where Billy Dimple let them int 

 the Baron Court, or made them free of the kitchen, or both. Ver^ 

 many of them left Furyfield for good; and, strange to say, the very 

 tithe pigs found their way out of the place when they came to the 

 years of discretion. The parsons would have done the same to a 

 man, had it not been for fear of losing their lien on the tithe pigs. 

 But the story is too long for telling just now. Suffice it to say, 



that when the men with the '* and blood" handkerchiefs got 



drunk and ran about the manor, bawling out, " The tithe pigs are 

 in peril !" Derrinandan taught the country-folks, first to put their 

 finger in their cheek, and make it " play bluck" and then to halloo 

 and shout, ' RE-PEEL THE ONION !" This cry came like a thunder- 

 bolt no, not like a thunderbolt, but like something far worse, upon 

 the whole band of the Porks, and the Parsons, and their abettors ; 

 and the poor fellows that had been bawling about the tithe pigs were 

 like to belch up their insides to the very bottom. Corporal Sla^ hem- 

 sabre, who had been drummed out of more than one regiment for 

 insolence to his commanding officers, was for crossing the cudgels 



at once, and Earl Soddenhead flared about his " and 



blood" handkerchief like the old " oriflamma" of a " red-wood" 

 paynim. But the people again put their fingers in their cheeks, 

 and made them play bluck, and tee-hee'd, and shouted " Re-peel 

 the Onion ! R,E-peel the Onion!!" faster than ever ; while the baron's 

 bailiff expressly forbade all cudgel-play. 



Hitherto the Baron Court has been spoken of as only one ; but 

 when, like Derrinandan on field-days, it has all its tail on, it really 

 consists of three : first, *' the Baron," who is always J, by himself, I ; 

 secondly, the members of the Cushion chamber, who are sometimes 

 vulgarly, but very vulgarly, termed " the Luds Spoutfire and Ter- 

 rible ;" and thirdly, the common file of the court, who are vulgarly 

 Btyled " the Comings," as some suppose because they are always 

 making a show as if they were coming to something comprehensible 

 and useful, but never actually come to it. These three are the com- 

 ponent parts of the whole court. We cannot say that any of them 

 are constituent parts ; for the whole barony, court and all, are the 

 constituents of the baron : the farmers and clod-hoppers are the con- 

 stituents of the comings ; and as for the luds, they have no consti- 

 tuents at all. At one time, indeed, they had, by hook and by crook, 

 got hold of the constituating of the bulk of the comings, and at that 

 time the comings were really but little bet'er than an old tin kettle 

 clattering at the tail of the luds, which increased the noise (hat the 

 >a'd luds made in the world, and enabled them to "do what they 



