THE VILLAGE CARRIER.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume I, Issue 33, 19 August 1867, Page 4

THE VILLAGE CARRIER.

CHAPTER I. A happy and contented man was John Bennett, the carrier between his own pretty little village of Tryford and one of the principal towns in the fair county of Somerset. Along the road travelled by him, to and fro, twice weekly, every man, women, and child had a greeting for him, while his round, good-natured face and hearty laugh had gained for him the sobriquet of “Happy John.” For the ten long years that in all weathers he had been ou the read, no one had ever seen John in a passion; save on one occasion, when some malicious urchin had thrown a stone at a most particularly ill-favoured cur, the companion of his master’s travels. Sven then his anger was but of short duration ; having ascertained that his dog was not injured, he shook his whip once or twice over the culprit's head, and making him solemnly promise never to repeat the offence, dismissed him with a blessing, and a penny to buy candv with.

John was a very good specimen of everybody’s friend; beseemed to have some slight knowledge of all trades, and was always willing to let his neighbours "have the advantage of his skill. He was a first-rate gardener, could repair watches and clocks, and in his treatment of diseases incidental to horses and cattle, had no equal for miles round. Had John charged anything for the multifarious services he rendered, he might have greatly improved his condition, but nothing was ever further from his thoughts than asking for remuneration. Even in his actual Business as carrier he had the same easy going ideas; if anyone had a parcel and no money to pay for it they could owe it to him, a permission of which many most readily' availed themselves. John was a short and rather fat, awk-wardiy-built man, dressed in a suit of unvarying drab, with gaiters so ve.iy tight, that some people imagined he must have put them on when a boy, and worn them ever since. His face very much resembled the inside of a muffin coloured to a very light crimson; his hair was as curly “and about the same tint as a new thatch, and not very much softer; lips and nose he had nothing- of either worth mentioning; so that the little beauty of his countenance could boast lay' in his eyes, which were very ■bright and small, and always twinkling with good-nature. His vau was an ancient vehicle, that his father had driven before him, and which, in the memory of the oldest inhabitant, had never been repaired nor received a touch of paint. The old gray mare appeared to partake of a large portion of her master’s equable temperament; she always regulated her own pace, and no amount of persuasion, either by kind words or the whip, had power to increase her speed.

John and his mother lived in a tiny house on the borders of the village; so small was it, that at a little distance it resembled a rabit-hutcli with a small excrescence for the accommodation or the horse, whicti John called a stable.

At the time we write of, John’s only ambition was to be landlord of “The Eising Sun,” in order that he might have the felicity of making Mary Giles (the belle of Try ord) its mistress and his wife. Mary was as prudent as she was prettv; and although John, to whom she had been engaged for nearly seven years, had often pressed ber to share his fortunes and his home—for so he was pleased to designate his earnings as carrier, and the ■small habitation before mentioned —she had steadily refused to link her lot with his, until she could be quite sure of not having to repent it Now the landlord of the little inn had intimated to John his intention of leaving if he could find any one willing to take the house off his hands, and John had arranged to do so, as soon as he could raise the small sum required; hut the time went on, and found him still giving all his rustic 'talents for nothing, carrying parcels for nothing, and, in consequence, saving nothing; and yet under circumstances that would have made many a man, to say the least of it, uncomfortable, he was still “Happy Jehu” One fine Summer evening, John with more than usually cheerful countenance, sat at the door of his cottage, tranquilly pulling a short pipe, and regarding a small and rather dirty piece of paper. An observer, judging from his expression, would have concluded that his thoughts were of the pleasantest, but they were not so. He had that day received an intimation from the proprietor of the coveted tavern, that he could -not wait much longer for him to take it. In his hand John held a memorandum of the money he had laid up for the purpose. He found, to his great delight, that foe had succeeded during the last three years in saving thirty-seven shillings and ninepence half-penny, and was trying to calculate how long he would he, at the same rate, in amassing the required twelve pounds. This was a most ohstruse sum to him; it went far beyond bis usual simple arithmetic, which he was accustomed to work upon his fingers and obliged him to press the hobnails which adorned his boots into the service. Having multiplied one row of nails by the next, in erdeavouring to divide the product by bis two thumbs, be got into such a hopeless confusion of figures, that nothing but his mother calling him to

supper could have extricated him from; and so he went to take his evening meal just as he had proved that to raise the given sura he would have to live about two hundred years. This would have disheartened a good many men. Not so John. He carefully knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and whistling a particularly lively tune, went to supper with a firstrate appetite. John had finished his meal, and his mother had just cleared away, when, to their great surprise, they heard the sound of seme approaching vehicle. They were surprised, because beyond their cottage there was no thoroughfare, therefore any one driving that way must either stop there or in an adjacent pond, and their list of carriage acquaintances was small.. Their astonishment was in no way diminished when a handsome carriage drew up before their door, and a grave elderly man, habited entirely in black, dismounted, and asked if they knew of any one in the village by the name of Bennett.

“ That is our name, sir,” replied John, “and Ido not know'of any one else of that name round here.”

“I should be glad of a few minutes’ conversation with you, sir,” said the stranger.

John had found that no one ever gave him the title of “ sir ” unless he came to ask some favour; therefore he thought that the man in black would prove no exception to the rule, hut was much puzzled to think what he could want, until he remembered his lately curing Farmer Bond’s lame cow, and decided that the gentleman was come after the recipe. The stranger entered, and, taking the chair carefully dusted for him by Mrs. Bennett, seemed rather uncertain how to approach his subject; at length he said, “I am glad to have found you Mr. Bennett; I have to ask you some very important questions, which if you can answer correctly, will be much to your advantage, I assure you. At these words John gave a twitch of his neckerchief, and put on as grave a countenance as possible, thinking to himself, “ Without, doubt he has come alter some of my cow physic, and means to pay me for it; that is good—very good indeed.”

_ The stranger interrupted these cogitations by- abruptly' asking for the name of his father; to which John, still thinking of the cow, replied, without hesitation, “ Turpentine and treacle, which I think hut when he had got so far John rt-collecced himselfj and stopped in great confusion. '

The stranger noticing John’s confusion and attributing his distress to another cause, said gravely', “ We are not answerable for the sins of our parents, and as long as we ourselves are honest, we need not blush for our ancestors.”

“Ido not blush for my father,” said John, who by this time recovered his senses; “he has been dead now some time; bullish any of the villagers about old John Bennett, (honest John Bennett they call him,) and you will learn that although like myself, only a poor carrier, he never wronged a man of a farthing, nor spent a penny that he had not earned.”

“ I am delighted to hear it,” said the stranger ; “ and so your father’s name was John eh ? That is quite right; quite right, indeed. Will you kindly tell me the name of your grandfather ?” ” “Intruth, you are very curious* sir,” said John, begining to dislike this examination ; “ still, I have no reason to he ashamed of him; hut his fate was not a happy one. He was a well-to-do farmer, bis name being also John; he married an extravagant wife, who ruined him, and he died in his prime, brokenhearted.”

“ Had he any children beside your father?” 3

“ No,” said John, “ not one ?” “ I am delighted to hear all this,” said the unknown; “it is really quite charming.”

“ Delighted ! charming !” said John, moved beyond himself by such terms being applied to his ancestor’s misfortunes; “it may he charming for an honest man to he beggared by a wicked women, and you, sir, may be delighted at the tale, but I cannot be supposed to see it in the same light.” “No, no, of course not,” said the stranger coolly, “May I trouble you for the name of your great-grandfather ?” On the previous evening John had heard some ale-house politician declaring that in his country everything was taxed, to which some one, replied that there was no duty on relations. At the time it struck him as a very silly remark but now he r< numbered it, and made up his mind (his conviction being strengthened by seeing the stranger referring to some papers he carried) that the Government was about to repair the omission by imposing a tax on grandfathers. Bor this reason he refused to answer another question ; and it required all his visitor’s powers of persuasion, and a most solemn assurance that he was not a tax-collector, to induce him to forego his resolution. The stranger, however, gleaned from him, bit by bit, that his great-grandfather had been a coachman in the service of a wealthy man, owning one of the first estates in the country. His master’s only daughter had entertained an affection for him, and they had eloped together. When it came to

her father’s knowledge, he (for he was a very proud man) refused to ever see her again; and she, after the birth of her only child, died of grief. Her husband took to drinking as long as the money she had brought him lasted, and then feeling unwilling, after being so long his own master, to re-enter service, committed suicide; and the only issue of the ill-assorted marriage was John Bennett’s grandfather. When he had finished his recital, the stranger, who, throughout, had listened with close attention, said, “ Now, sir one more question, and I have done. Have you any brothers f” TO BE CONTINUED.