“For how long? You know what an outcry there is about them in London?”
“From landlords or tenants?”
“From tenants chiefly;—from shopkeepers who will pocket the amount of tax for the time their leases have to run, and will then be just where they are now.”
“But they ought not to be indulged, while so many worse burdens are pressing on a larger and more suffering class. They surely ought not to be indulged.”
“Not as to the repeal of the house-tax, which is, if people would but examine and judge, perhaps the very best tax we have. But then, it wants to be equalized. The London shopkeepers are right enough in saying that.
But its being unequally laid on is no reason for its being taken off altogether.”
“How does it want to be made equal? between houses of a different rank in London? or between houses of the same rank in London and in the country?”
“Chiefly between houses of a different rank, in London and in the country. It seems to me ridiculous to make such prodigious complaints as we hear about the enormous amount levied on London in comparison with the country. London may measure no more miles than there may be seen lying below my new house; but the property of London is more than our whole county; and the property on which the tax is levied is the question; not the space within which it is levied. The number of houses assessed in London and Middlesex is above 116,000; and in the county of Rutland 240.”
“People must pay for the privilege of living in London,—for the thousands of comforts and conveniences which are to be had there only.
Here, if people want to send letters a few miles, two or three times a-day, they must dispatch two or three messengers, for want of a twopenny post. If they want to buy meat, they must go a good way to a butcher, and take the chance of getting what they want, if it be not market-day, instead of having an universally-stocked market at hand every day of the week. If they want to ride any distance, they must hire horses, for want of omnibuses and stages; and they have none of the luxuries of fine buildings, inexhaustible libraries, and the best of pictures, and of music, and of theatrical and other exhibitions at hand.
O, people ought to pay for living in London.”
“And the most natural way is to pay in rent, and therefore in house-tax also. In as far as the country improves,—as provincial towns approach more nearly to the glory of London,—rents and house-tax will rise much more certainly than by any law that shall attempt to equalize them with the metropolis. I would not interfere between the shop-owner of Charing-Cross and the shop-owner of A——. The real grievance lies between the noblemen of Charing-Cross and of Yorkshire, and the landlord of a shop in the Strand. While the shop-owner pays a house-duty of 80_l._ a-year, and the peer in the park no more, and another peer in his country palace less than half, there is certainly ample room for complaint.”
“Without proving that the tax itself is bad. I should think some test of value, other than the rent they would bring, might be found out for those country palaces which, with all their splendour and convenience, might be difficult to let. Very rich men would not mind having the value of one article of their property ascertained, in order to be taxed, however disagreeable the inquisition may be to a less wealthy man, whose credit depends on the amount of his property. The house-tax would become “It is a property-tax already; and therefore a tax of the best kind; and therefore to be parted with only when swallowed up in a general property-tax. Yet I am afraid it will be parted with, on account of the clamour of people who live near enough to the Treasury to make their clamour seem very terrible. If the sum which will then be taken off——” “How much?”
“The house and window taxes together are between two and three millions.”
“That would go a great way towards relieving the poor of some really bad taxes, and particularly if great houses were taxed as they should be, so as to allow of more reduction in a right place.”
“Besides that the excise,—the really bad taxes, some of which press so heavily on the poor,—cost such an amazing deal to collect, that the saving in taking them off would be much more than the amount that comes into the Treasury.”
“If the house-tax is taken off,” said Fanny, “I shall persuade Richard to rebel at not being asked for it, as vehemently as some people in London threaten to rebel for a contrary reason. I should like to see a higher tax laid upon Fellbrow. I think we do not pay our share.”
“You have nothing to do but to give Mr. Taplin a hint to that effect. He will be very thankful for it.”
“Why?”
“He will gain a per centage upon the increase. These surveyors of the assessed taxes have so much per cent. upon all that they can lay hold of, which would not have been paid but for their exertions.”
“That is what makes Mr. Taplin so disliked,” Sarah observed. “He squeezes every shilling he can get from people who do not know how to answer him, or resist him.”
“Let them come to Richard,” cried Fanny. “He knows the law. He will help them, I am sure.”
“He cannot,” said James. “There is nothing for it but applying in person to the Commissioners; and many people do not think the matter is mended by going to the Commissioners at all.”
“But Richard might keep Mr. Taplin in awe.”
“That depends on whether Taplin has most reason to wish to stand well with Richard or to have his per centage on increases. He will soon be taxing you for Fido, Sarah. I will answer for it he has Fido down in his Fanny dreaded a burst of grief from Sarah; but she did not know Sarah’s power of self-command, or appreciate the strength of the motive to keep back the sad tale till the lovers should be alone. Wallace had sauntered near them, so as to hear the last sentence, and be struck with a bright idea in consequence.
“What do you think I have a good mind to do?” said he to Anne. “It would be capital fun to send an anonymous letter,—very solemn,—to Taplin, to bid him look to your sister’s dog, and tell him of half a hundred more taxable articles that she never had or will have.”
“O, don’t do it, Mr. Wallace! You will make him so angry, and my father, too!”
“And then,” pursued Wallace, “she will have to come before the Commissioners to tell her story, and——” “O, Mr. Wallace, pray do not!” entreated Anne.
The more alarmed she looked, the more Wallace was amused with the idea of bringing up, not only Sarah, but half the neighbourhood, before the Commissioners. He suspected that Taplin’s avarice about his per centages would carry him a great way in demanding what he had no right to. In answer to her “Pray do not,” Anne obtained a “Well, well,” which satisfied her. In all innocence, she allowed him to extract from her everything she knew about the little concerns of her acquaintance among the small housekeepers of A——, and the cottages on Whitford’s lands. She was charmed by Mr. Wallace’s close interest in such trifles, and so engrossed by it that her father’s voice startled her when he called to her over the hedge. He was mounted, leading a string of horses which he was conducting to a fair at some distance. As George was otherwise engaged, it was necessary for the girls to be at home to keep the books, he said, and they had been out a very long time. Where was Sarah?
When Anne looked round, Sarah and her companions were not to be seen.
Till lately, nothing so wonderful had ever happened as that the one sister should not know where the other was, or should have to go home alone. Wallace’s gallantry was exhausted. After explaining the improbability of Anne’s meeting another mad dog this day, he loaded his piece, and declared he must have a turn through yonder cover before he showed himself in A, though the hour for business appointed by himself was already past. He supposed James was there; and he would serve the purpose at present. If James was gone elsewhere after his amusement, why the people at A—— must wait a little.
CHAPTER VI.
BATTLES AT NAVARINO.
“Who said James was at his living?” asked Fanny of her brother Richard, as she sat at a window of the Navarino, waiting till he should have settled his business with the surveyor and the commissioners, and be at liberty to finish his walk with her. “Who said James was at his house this morning?”
“Not I,” said Richard. “I know nothing about him. Where is he?”
“Riding over the moor with the Lees. You may see them from this window.
Now look? Just turning down towards Bray Fells. He wants to show Mary Lee that ride under the crags; and they could not have a finer morning.”
“When did the Lees come? I heard nothing of their being here.”
“They only arrived yesterday; and they will be off to town again in a month. They spend Christmas here, that is all. Mary Lee little expected such weather as this,—little expected any rides so near Christmas, I should think.”
“James will take care that she has one every day, I dare say, while the roads are in their present state. He will make the most of a party of friends while they are to be had. How long are we to be kept here, I wonder?”
“There is no knowing. There is quite a little crowd below, and more are coming up every minute. If all these people are here on business, like you, there is no telling when it will be done.” Leaning forward to whisper, she added, “The Swallows are here, I see. Let me ask the girls to this window. I want you to see Sarah. I don’t call it seeing her, to sit in the park, and take a curtsey from her as she passes.”
Nor did Richard: but he did not wish to be aiding and abetting in deceiving the poor girl. From this hour James’s head would be full of Miss Lee—— “Of Mary Lee! he never cared for her in London.”
“Because he was taken up with other things then. At Fellbrow, he fell in love for want of better amusement——” “I do not mean but that he would be as angry as you, if he heard me say so. He is fully persuaded,—at least he was yesterday,—that he has lost his heart in that direction,” glancing towards the girls; “but before Christmas-day, he will find that he has it to lose again.”
Fanny spoke not another word. She repeated again and again to herself how glad she was that she had warned Sarah against the infirmity of some of James’s purposes, though she had believed as fully as Sarah herself that he was really in love. She had prepared Sarah for his house never being finished,—for his betaking himself to the turf when he should be tired of the field,—for his putting a curate into his living, and carrying Sarah to London, never perhaps to visit A—— again: but that he would give up Sarah,—that is, that he did not really love her, was a danger that Fanny herself had not anticipated since she had witnessed the courtship. Her spirits were sunk fathoms deep in a moment.
It was Sarah who had said that James was to be at his living this morning. She could not go with him, because she had to appear before the commissioners to plead against paying duty for the dog she had lost. She was now not in the best spirits. The errand hither was not a pleasant one: her grief for Fido was still fresh; and a strange trouble connected with him was in her mind. James had not been half so angry, or half so sorry, as she had expected, when she told him, the day before, of Fido’s fate. She had dreaded his anger so much that she was not sorry that he had been detained by his clerical duties all Sunday, and that Monday was a pouring rain, so that she did not see him. Yet on Tuesday, when she told him, she was as much surprised at his indifference as he was at her tears. He could easily get her another dog, he said; and she had been almost as much offended at the words as when the thresher had said the same thing. As if another could be the first gift! She was not much cheered at this moment by what she saw from the window,—the riding party lightly winning its way over the moor towards the very rocks whose echoes——O, what had not been confided to those echoes! But he was coming this afternoon, to consult her about a Christmas feast he was planning for the poor people in his parish, and then she should hear who these gentry were, and why he was obliged to ride with them. What a bustle there was below!
The Navarino indeed looked something like the rallying point of a host of hoaxed persons. When the commissioners arrived, they saw at a glance that to-day they must not dawdle about for a quarter of an hour, hat in hand, and yawn, and go away again, but prepare for the transaction of real business. Was there a rebellion against Taplin and his customary charges? or had an informer been stimulating Taplin to make new charges which were to be resisted?
“Let Swallow speak first,” said Richard. “His time is more precious than mine.”
“Whose is not?” asked his sister, laughing.
It ended in every body’s business being dispatched before Richard’s. His main occupation,—that of observing men and manners,—proceeded, however, to his satisfaction.
“Mine is a very extraordinary case, gentlemen,” pleaded Swallow. “The surveyor fixes the assessment of my premises at 70_l._ Gentlemen, I was never asked for more than 20_l._ till now.”
Taplin thought he ought to be very thankful for escaping the larger payment so long. His ranges of stables,—all his large back premises,—had been hitherto overlooked, and the house alone charged for.
The plan of the premises was produced. Swallow insisted that there was no connexion whatever between the house and the back premises;—merely that the house-door opened under the gateway. No witnesses could be heard as to the supposed value of the property compared with the neighbouring houses, or as to any of the points Swallow wished to establish. The rent of the entire estate was sworn to, and that the house was not considered separate from the back premises on any occasion but when the house-tax was to be levied. Swallow’s case was pronounced a bad one. He must pay the 70_l._ Swallow was very cross,—declaring that taxation was enough to ruin any man. No man was more burdened than he.
His very calling was taxed. Who else, he wondered, but horse-dealers, paid 12_l._ 10_s._ a-year for following their business?
“Come, come; that won’t do,” said Taplin. “We all know well enough that it is your customers that pay that tax, and your interest upon your 12_l._ 10_s._ ’Tis a very good tax; and you won’t succeed in making people discontented with it. If every thirteen thousand pounds of tax was as pleasantly raised as that, we assessors should hear few complaints.”
“Move off, sir, unless you have any other complaint to make,” said one of the commissioners to Swallow.
“I have, sir. Here is a charge of a pound for a dog of my daughter’s.
Neither of my daughters has a dog; as they are both here to testify.”
“A pound charged! A greyhound then. Will these young ladies swear that they have not been in possession of a greyhound?”
“That is the point,” declared Taplin. “The young ladies will not deny that a greyhound, by name Fido——” “Never mind the name,” said the commissioner.
“But he is dead,” murmured Sarah. “I had him only——only——” “O, you grant you had one: then you must pay.”
Swallow muttered that if his daughter had had the impertinence to deny, or equivocate, or battle the matter with the surveyor, she might have got off. He now vented his displeasure upon the girls, desiring them to accept of no more dogs; unless somebody else could be found to pay the duty: for he could not and would not.
Yet it was owing to Sarah that he escaped a far heavier and more expensive vexation. Horse-dealers are bound to deliver in accounts of the exercise of their trade (as they do not take out licenses) once a quarter, to the assessor. Partly from his having delivered the book into George’s keeping, and having a short memory for what was not before his eyes, and partly from the hurry and bustle consequent on George’s commitment, and his own narrow escape, Swallow had forgotten all about this quarterly report. It was Sarah who remembered it, just in time, and saved the fine. Swallow took occasion, in the midst of his wrath, to ask the surveyor if he was not grievously disappointed that this fine of 50_l._ remained safe in the horse-dealer’s pocket. The surveyor declared it was no concern of his.
Mrs. Barton! the loyal Mrs. Barton! what could she be here for? She might have been expected to pay the last half of her last cup of tea in tax, if the king had been graciously pleased to call for it. What could bring her here?
A very aggravated distress about windows. She and Miss Biggs could use no more than one window each to look out of; and when the maid had appropriated a third, far more remained than were necessary for the ventilation of Mrs. Barton’s small house. Four windows had for years been shut up. The surveyor had now taken it into his head to charge for these windows. He pretended to suppose that these windows might be opened the day after he had turned his back. Such a dreadful supposition! that Mrs. Barton would cheat the king! She,—the most devoted to Church and King—— “Please to tell us, ma’am, how these windows are closed up.”
“Sir, the shutters are put to, and painted black, sir; and then there is lath and plaster erected within; so that not the minutest particle of light——not the most piercing eye——O, who could suspect me? But I cannot, you see, gentlemen, when the commerce of the place has so fallen off, and such a revolution and transition is going on; and when four windows are in question——” Taplin only knew that he had received information that Mrs. Barton’s dead windows could let in any convenient portion of light upon occasion.
As for her business failing off, everybody knew that she had fresh customers for hair-powder——” “What is that to us, Taplin?” said the surveyor. “Do keep to business.
It is the least you can do, after bringing all these people about us to-day.”
“They brought me; not I them, gentlemen. If they had chosen to pay at once, there would have been none of this trouble. But her selling more hair-powder has to do with business. She cannot deny that she has starch in her house.”
“I!—Bless me! Starch in my house!” cried Mrs. Barton, looking from side to side, as if not knowing whether to admit or deny that she had starch in her house.
“Remember your oath. You have sworn to speak the truth, remember,” said Taplin, terrifically. “Your having starch gives me a strong impression that I shall find alabaster there, one of these days.”
“We have nothing to do with strong impressions,” declared the commissioners. “If you have nothing more to say about these windows, Taplin,—if you cannot overthrow Mrs. Barton’s evidence of their being completely shut up, we must decide in her favour.”
“What is all this about starch, and alabaster, and strong impressions?”
asked Fanny of her brother.
“Those who sell hair-powder (which is made of alabaster and starch) are prohibited from keeping alabaster in their houses. Taplin chooses to suppose Mrs. Barton has alabaster, because he is told she has starch.
But that is an excise inquiry, and has nothing to do with the assessed taxes, as he knows. He only wants to frighten her, and make her give up about the windows.”
“They assess Maynard’s white head, however.”
“Yes, I have had to pay 1_l._ 3_s._ 6_d._ for your serving man’s white head.”
“Must I make him leave off powder?”
“Not unless you wish to send him to his grave. No, government shall have the advantage of Maynard’s taste in dress as long as the old fellow lives with us. How Mrs. Barton’s head shakes! How triumphant she looks!
I am afraid she will grow disloyal, after all. The commissioners are offering her a direct premium on resistance to——” “Ah! to what? To Taplin, not to taxation. I am sure it must be a very bad thing for a government to have such servants as Taplin,—so prying,— so grasping!”
“There will be such till people grow as honest about paying their taxes as their other liabilities.”
“Stay, ma’am, we have not done with you yet,” said Taplin to Mrs.
Barton. “There is a gentleman below, that I find travels for your house,—a commercial traveller, ma’am; 1_l._ 10_s._ is the tax, ma’am, which I hope he brings you orders enough to enable you to pay. I shall by no means give up the claim for the windows, but refer it to the six judges: but I conceive you will hardly contest the traveller.”
“If you mean Mr. Taylor, who brought me a message from cousin Becky that she wanted some eau de Cologne, I am happy to tell you that gentleman never rode a mile out of his way for me.” And Mrs. Barton related that Mr. Taylor and her cousin were engaged, and that Mr. Taylor, being a commercial traveller, called on Mrs. Barton as he passed through A——, to give her news of Becky; but she offered to swear that he never took an order for her, or paid her any money, in his life. Some wag had imposed upon Taplin. Everybody laughed. Mrs. Barton had better have stopped here. Emboldened by the success of her eloquence, she went on to complain of the distresses of the times to commercial people, and of the favour shown to the agricultural class over that to which she belonged.
She was afraid his Majesty forgot that kings formerly lived upon the land, and at the expense of those who held it. It was quite an innovation, their now living upon their trading subjects. Farmers had no house-tax to pay. There were actually near 137,000 farm-houses in England and Wales exempt from the house-tax. Farmers’ horses were to pay no tax, forsooth; and her friend Mr. Whitford had insured his farm-stock, and been charged nothing for the stamp. If a rich man’s wealth did but happen to be land, he was not charged the inventory and legacy duties; and so it was in these degenerate days, that traders, the most useful set of subjects the king could have—— “You say so because you are a trader, and not a farmer, Mrs. Barton,” observed her friend, Mr. Whitford. “If you had to pay such burdens as I have, or even such a charge as I am here about now——” “Come, let us hear it, Mr. Whitford,” said the Commissioners.
“Of all unconscionable things, the surveyor wants to charge me for my market-cart.”
“Because you use it to ride in, I suppose?”
“The horse cannot go to market without somebody to drive him; but we have a gig for our pleasure; and that I pay for.”
“Your gig for pleasure, and your cart for convenience, I suppose. Does nobody ever ride in your cart for convenience?”
Whitford could not deny that if his wife and he wanted to go into A——, or to the village of M——, they took the opportunity of a lift when the good wife and her boy were going with mutton, eggs, and butter; but the cart was a market-cart, and he already paid for a gig. It came out, however, that the cart was painted so as to look very pretty; and there was a seat which could be strapped on, to make the vehicle convenient for more persons than could be wanted to drive it to market.—The assessment was confirmed.
Whitford hoped Mrs. Barton perceived that agriculture was not too much considered. She saw the treatment he met with to-day; and if she was aware how Taplin was on the watch whenever the farm-horses went to drink, to find out that they were used for some purpose which might justify a charge,—if she knew how nearly he prevailed with the Commissioners last time to tax Whitford for his shepherd’s dog, she would to think trade particularly aggrieved.
Taplin declared that Whitford’s horses went to drink oftener than any horses at the Navarino or the Turk’s Head thought of drinking. It had become quite a joke, Whitford’s horses going to drink; and the dog was certainly seen feeding off one of Whitford’s sheep.
Because the sheep happened to die, Whitford declared. In that case, the Commissioners had done justice to agriculture.
“These people are a specimen of how people talk, the wide world over,” observed Richard to his sister. “You see how they argue upon the vast interests of vast bodies from the temporary aspect of their own little affairs. Agriculture is protected or oppressed, according as Whitford has to pay thirty shillings more or less; and Mrs. Barton’s windows are to be the test how trade is regarded by King, Lords, and Commons.”
“I wonder how King, Lords, and Commons are ever to know what to depend upon, if all interests are urged in this partial way,” observed Fanny.
“There are always principles to be depended upon in this matter of taxation, as in everything else; and there can be no other safe guides.
Amidst the inconsistent, the bewildering representations offered, a certain number must be in accordance with true principles; and it is these which must be professedly acted upon.”
“But if foolish representations abound, and wise ones are scarce, what must Government do then?”
“The last thing it ought to do is to ground its proceedings on the ignorance of the people,—to yield them that which they will hereafter despise the donors for granting them.”
“The house-tax, for instance, which some people in London are clamouring to be rid of.”
“The house-tax, indeed, is an instance. The house-tax is one of the best taxes that ever was imposed. It is one of the very few which falls only on the wealthy and substantial—on none below the owners of houses. It is a direct tax, and might be made an equal one; and is particularly convenient as to the time and mode of payment, to all who are not such babies as to prefer having their money taken from them without their knowing it. This tax is unpopular with a portion of a particular class; and an immense proportion of the nation knows nothing, and has nothing to say, about it. This gives a favourable opportunity to the highest classes, who have not paid their due share, to get rid together of the question and the odium of not paying their share; and thus the Government is tempted to silence clamour and please the aristocracy, on the plea of yielding to the popular wish. But if the Government yields to this temptation,—if it takes off the best-principled tax we have, and leaves the worst,—I hope it is preparing itself for that retribution which, sooner or later, overtakes every government which founds its measures on popular ignorance.”
“But what can be done? Is not its unpopularity a sufficient reason for the abolition of a tax, when some tax is to be abolished?”
“Its general unpopularity. But, in this instance, the opposition, though harassing, is partial, and only such as might easily be diverted, by equalizing the pressure of the tax. If it were now to be thus equalized, and if any pains whatever were taken to exhibit to the people the comparative qualities of this duty, and of any one of our worst excise taxes, the very shopkeepers of London would soon worship the footsteps of the Chancellor of the Exchequer for preferring to their dictation the unurged interests of the many.”
“The taxes that have been in question to-day have none of them fallen on the poor.”
“None of the direct taxes do; yet they are so few, that the poorer classes pay five times as much as the classes above them. Now, mark our consistency. We admit (because nobody can deny) that an equitable taxation leaves all parties in the same relative position in which it found them. We know (or might know) that the poorer classes are made, by indirect taxation, to pay five times as much as others; and yet, as soon as there is a tax to take off, we leave the excise untouched, and relieve the upper classes of the very heaviest which bears particularly on them, and the very fairest which our long list can exhibit. This injustice could not be perpetrated if the poor had their rights, either of enlightenment or of parliamentary representation.”
“I do wonder that these assessed taxes are so unpopular, even among those who pay them; for, however disagreeable it may be to have the tax-gatherer come and take a certain sum, which the owner would like to keep for some other purpose, the tax-payer is, at least, master of his own house and his own business. The brewer, and the paper-maker, and the glass-manufacturer have much more reason to complain, liable as they are to be watched and persecuted by excisemen, and insulted by anybody who chooses to inform.”
“These direct taxes are difficult to evade; and this, which is a real virtue in a tax, makes it disliked by those who entertain ‘an ignorant impatience of taxation.’ But it ought to be known that the most ingenious person that ever evaded the payment of his share of tax would part with less of his money by manly payment, under a system of direct taxation, than by paying no more than he could possibly help under an excise and customs’ system. Mr. Pitt lowered the duty on tea in 1784; and, to make up for the deficiency to Government, laid on an additional window-tax. What happened? The same classes who had to pay an additional window-duty found that they had more money than before to spend on tea.
The consumption of tea increased so marvellously, that the amount of revenue it brought in was not much less than before; and Government was, on the whole, a great gainer, and the people not losers. Less was lost between the people’s pockets and the Treasury. If we could but take a lesson from this event, and go on diminishing our indirect and increasing our direct taxation, both Government and people might be astonished at the apparent creation of wealth to them both. It is grievous to think of 2,000,000_l._ being levied on our own manufactures, and 6,000,000_l._ on the raw materials in the country, while only five millions and a quarter are raised by direct taxation, while the cost of collection of the one is three times that of the other. If, out of this five millions and a quarter, the house-tax is yet to be taken, we must bear to be taunted with ‘the wisdom of our ancestors,’ and be sure that our posterity will not have much to say in praise of ours.”
“And yet people talk of absentees being brought home by the doing away of direct taxes.”
“The absentees will hardly talk of coming home for any such reason. They see that there is now a smaller proportion of direct taxation in this country than in any other in Europe; and they know that out of our government revenue of between forty and fifty millions, scarcely one million and a half is raised on expenditure peculiar to the rich, and that they did not go abroad to escape this very slight burden. If they did not go abroad to escape it, they will not be brought back by a small reduction of their small share.”
“And if they could be brought back, their return is not for a moment to be set against any advantage given to the lower and more heavily-burdened classes.—But see! there are some poor people standing before the Commissioners; some really poor people, Richard.”
“Who can yet afford some luxury which Mr. Taplin has got scent of, perhaps.”
“Do you know, I think some informer has been busy among us. Mr. Taplin can never have had the wit to find out so suddenly all these liabilities.”
“There are informers for profit, and informers for fun, Fanny. I have seen somebody enjoying the joke as the tax-payers came up to appeal; and the more cross they look, the more he enjoys the fun. He is a good deal annoyed, I fancy, at our sitting here so quietly, waiting to let my case be the last.”
“Wallace! Do you think he would connect himself with Mr. Taplin?”
“Anonymous letters would serve the purpose. But I will not forgive him for wasting the time of these poor people, if they are not liable; and I cannot think they can be liable.”
The group consisted of a poor woman and her two sons, the elder of whom resembled her in his evident dread of being sworn, while the younger seemed likely to fail in nothing for want of courage. The mother might safely swear, however, that the mule for which she was to be taxed, if Mr. Taplin was to have his way, was given by Mr. Whitford to her elder lad, and that it was too young to be used yet; and when it should be strong enough, it would not pay its own tax of half a guinea. If she might be let off now, she would get rid of the beast before night, if the gentlemen pleased. Any of them should be welcome to the mule, which was of no use to her, but only cropped its living along the lanes. Mr.
Taplin was made duly ashamed of this charge.
Perhaps the being upon oath tied the tongue of the elder lad; for he would not say that he had not carried a gun any day this last season; that he had not, in any manner, knocked down a hare or a rabbit; that he had not been seen coursing when Mr. Cranston’s harriers were in the field. He declared that he was there merely as a spectator; that he had no dogs; and that he was returning on horseback from an errand on which he had been sent by his master, and had merely joined the sport because the horse he rode wished to do so. These excuses were not admitted: he was requested to pay 3_l._ 13_s._ 6_d._; on hearing which request, he turned as white as ashes, and looked apprehensively at his mother. It was clear that they could not raise the money.
“For God’s sake, Richard, tell me how I may get this poor fellow off,” said Wallace, coming up to his brother, in much perturbation.
“Suppose you pay the fine. It is hardly fair that the Government should not have something out of your pocket to-day, when you have managed to extract more or less from almost every body else. I do wonder you could bring yourself to waste the valuable time of these poor people; and pray observe how their consciences are racked about the oath. I fancy a little bold swearing would have brought off that good lad. Stop, Wallace!” as Wallace was darting towards his victim. Wallace returned.
“I am pretty sure the Commissioners are wrong here. You can offer to refer the case to the six judges, if you think proper: I feel sure they will give it against the Commissioners.”
“You must make the offer, Richard; I will take all the trouble, I faithfully promise you. But you would not have me be thanked by these people, when they do not know that I brought them into this scrape: you must speak up for them.”
Richard did so; and Wallace whispered to them that, happen what might, they would have nothing to pay. The younger lad swore to all and everything that was convenient, in order to escape what his brother had been threatened with. He had not carried a gun. Well, if he had, it was only to shoot crows. O yes; he had shot at something besides crows,—he had brought down a paper kite that had stuck in a tree. That which he brought home in his bag was a weasel, which his master thanked him for destroying. Thus did he get rid of every question; and he evidently took credit to himself for his superiority over his brother in cleverness.
Fanny thought it all very bad, and was glad to be convinced that the fault lay, not in the principle of the taxes in question, but in the methods of managing their collection. Even now, all this was far less disagreeable and pernicious than the management of the excise and