Poor Adams was extremely dejected at this disappointment, nor knew he what further stratagem to try. He immediately applied to his pipe, his constant friend and comfort in his afflictions; and, leaning over the rails, he devoted himself to meditation, assisted by the inspiring fumes of tobacco.
He had on a nightcap drawn over his wig, and a short greatcoat, which half covered his cassock—a dress which, added to something comical enough in his countenance, composed a figure likely to attract the eyes of those who were not over given to observation.
Whilst he was smoaking his pipe in this posture, a coach and six, with a numerous attendance, drove into the inn. There alighted from the coach a young fellow and a brace of pointers, after which another young fellow leapt from the box, and shook the former by the hand; and both, together with the dogs, were instantly conducted by Mr. Tow-wouse into an apartment; whither as they passed, they entertained themselves with the following short facetious dialogue:—
"You are a pretty fellow for a coachman, Jack!" says he from the coach; "you had almost overturned us just now."—"Pox take you!" says the coachman; "if I had only broke your neck, it would have been saving somebody else the trouble; but I should have been sorry for the pointers."—"Why, you son of a b—," answered the other, "if nobody could shoot better than you, the pointers would be of no use."—"D—n me," says the coachman, "I will shoot with you five guineas a shot."—"You be hanged," says the other; "for five guineas you shall shoot at my a—."—"Done," says the coachman; "I'll pepper you better than ever you was peppered by Jenny Bouncer."—"Pepper your grandmother," says the other: "Here's Tow-wouse will let you shoot at him for a shilling a time."—"I know his honour better," cries Tow-wouse; "I never saw a surer shot at a partridge. Every man misses now and then; but if I could shoot half as well as his honour, I would desire no better livelihood than I could get by my gun."—"Pox on you," said the coachman, "you demolish more game now than your head's worth. There's a bitch, Tow-wouse: by G—she never blinked 4 a bird in her life."—"I have a puppy, not a year old, shall hunt with her for a hundred," cries the other gentleman.—"Done," says the coachman: "but you will be pox'd before you make the bett."—"If you have a mind for a bett," cries the coachman, "I will match my spotted dog with your white bitch for a hundred, play or pay."—"Done," says the other: "and I'll run Baldface against Slouch with you for another."—"No," cries he from the box; "but I'll venture Miss Jenny against Baldface, or Hannibal either."—"Go to the devil," cries he from the coach: "I will make every bett your own way, to be sure! I will match Hannibal with Slouch for a thousand, if you dare; and I say done first."
They were now arrived; and the reader will be very contented to leave them, and repair to the kitchen; where Barnabas, the surgeon, and an exciseman were smoaking their pipes over some cyder-and; and where the servants, who attended the two noble gentlemen we have just seen alight, were now arrived.
"Tom," cries one of the footmen, "there's parson Adams smoaking his pipe in the gallery."—"Yes," says Tom; "I pulled off my hat to him, and the parson spoke to me."
"Is the gentleman a clergyman, then?" says Barnabas (for his cassock had been tied up when he arrived). "Yes, sir," answered the footman; "and one there be but few like."—"Aye," said Barnabas; "if I had known it sooner, I should have desired his company; I would always shew a proper respect for the cloth: but what say you, doctor, shall we adjourn into a room, and invite him to take part of a bowl of punch?"
This proposal was immediately agreed to and executed; and parson Adams accepting the invitation, much civility passed between the two clergymen, who both declared the great honour they had for the cloth. They had not been long together before they entered into a discourse on small tithes, which continued a full hour, without the doctor or exciseman's having one opportunity to offer a word.
It was then proposed to begin a general conversation, and the exciseman opened on foreign affairs; but a word unluckily dropping from one of them introduced a dissertation on the hardships suffered by the inferior clergy; which, after a long duration, concluded with bringing the nine volumes of sermons on the carpet.
Barnabas greatly discouraged poor Adams; he said, "The age was so wicked, that nobody read sermons: would you think it, Mr. Adams?" said he, "I once intended to print a volume of sermons myself, and they had the approbation of two or three bishops; but what do you think a bookseller offered me?"—"Twelve guineas perhaps," cried Adams.—"Not twelve pence, I assure you," answered Barnabas: "nay, the dog refused me a Concordance in exchange. At last I offered to give him the printing them, for the sake of dedicating them to that very gentleman who just now drove his own coach into the inn; and, I assure you, he had the impudence to refuse my offer; by which means I lost a good living, that was afterwards given away in exchange for a pointer, to one who—but I will not say anything against the cloth. So you may guess, Mr. Adams, what you are to expect; for if sermons would have gone down, I believe—I will not be vain; but to be concise with you, three bishops said they were the best that ever were writ: but indeed there are a pretty moderate number printed already, and not all sold yet."—"Pray, sir," said Adams, "to what do you think the numbers may amount?"—"Sir," answered Barnabas, "a bookseller told me, he believed five thousand volumes at least."—"Five thousand?" quoth the surgeon: "What can they be writ upon? I remember when I was a boy, I used to read one Tillotson's sermons; and, I am sure, if a man practised half so much as is in one of those sermons, he will go to heaven."—"Doctor," cried Barnabas, "you have a prophane way of talking, for which I must reprove you. A man can never have his duty too frequently inculcated into him. And as for Tillotson, to be sure he was a good writer, and said things very well; but comparisons are odious; another man may write as well as he—I believe there are some of my sermons,"—and then he applied the candle to his pipe.—"And I believe there are some of my discourses," cries Adams, "which the bishops would not think totally unworthy of being printed; and I have been informed I might procure a very large sum (indeed an immense one) on them."—"I doubt that," answered Barnabas: "however, if you desire to make some money of them, perhaps you may sell them by advertising the manuscript sermons of a clergyman lately deceased, all warranted originals, and never printed. And now I think of it, I should be obliged to you, if there be ever a funeral one among them, to lend it me; for I am this very day to preach a funeral sermon, for which I have not penned a line, though I am to have a double price."—Adams answered, "He had but one, which he feared would not serve his purpose, being sacred to the memory of a magistrate, who had exerted himself very singularly in the preservation of the morality of his neighbours, insomuch that he had neither alehouse nor lewd woman in the parish where he lived."—"No," replied Barnabas, "that will not do quite so well; for the deceased, upon whose virtues I am to harangue, was a little too much addicted to liquor, and publickly kept a mistress.—I believe I must take a common sermon, and trust to my memory to introduce something handsome on him."—"To your invention rather," said the doctor: "your memory will be apter to put you out; for no man living remembers anything good of him."
With such kind of spiritual discourse, they emptied the bowl of punch, paid their reckoning, and separated: Adams and the doctor went up to Joseph, parson Barnabas departed to celebrate the aforesaid deceased, and the exciseman descended into the cellar to gauge the vessels.
Joseph was now ready to sit down to a loin of mutton, and waited for Mr. Adams, when he and the doctor came in. The doctor, having felt his pulse and examined his wounds, declared him much better, which he imputed to that sanative soporiferous draught, a medicine "whose virtues," he said, "were never to be sufficiently extolled." And great indeed they must be, if Joseph was so much indebted to them as the doctor imagined; since nothing more than those effluvia which escaped the cork could have contributed to his recovery; for the medicine had stood untouched in the window ever since its arrival.
Joseph passed that day, and the three following, with his friend Adams, in which nothing so remarkable happened as the