my humility,” said the lady, “for demeaning
myself to converse with you so long. I shall take
other measures; for I see you are a confederate with
them. But the sooner you leave me the better;
and I shall give orders that my doors may no longer
be open to you. I will suffer no parsons who
run about the country with beauties to be entertained
here.”—“Madam,” said Adams,
“I shall enter into no persons’ doors
against their will; but I am assured, when you have
enquired farther into this matter, you will applaud,
not blame, my proceeding; and so I humbly take my
leave:” which he did with many bows, or
at least many attempts at a bow.
CHAPTER III.
What passed between the lady and lawyer Scout.
In the afternoon the lady sent for Mr Scout, whom
she attacked most violently for intermeddling with
her servants, which he denied, and indeed with truth,
for he had only asserted accidentally, and perhaps
rightly, that a year’s service gained a settlement;
and so far he owned he might have formerly informed
the parson and believed it was law. “I
am resolved,” said the lady, “to have no
discarded servants of mine settled here; and so, if
this be your law, I shall send to another lawyer.”
Scout said, “If she sent to a hundred lawyers,
not one or all of them could alter the law. The
utmost that was in the power of a lawyer was to prevent
the law’s taking effect; and that he himself
could do for her ladyship as well as any other; and
I believe,” says he, “madam, your ladyship,
not being conversant in these matters, hath mistaken
a difference; for I asserted only that a man who served
a year was settled. Now there is a material difference
between being settled in law and settled in fact;
and as I affirmed generally he was settled, and law
is preferable to fact, my settlement must be understood
in law and not in fact. And suppose, madam, we
admit he was settled in law, what use will they make
of it? how doth that relate to fact? He is not
settled in fact; and if he be not settled in fact,
he is not an inhabitant; and if he is not an inhabitant,
he is not of this parish; and then undoubtedly he
ought not to be published here; for Mr Adams hath
told me your ladyship’s pleasure, and the reason,
which is a very good one, to prevent burdening us
with the poor; we have too many already, and I think
we ought to have an act to hang or transport half
of them. If we can prove in evidence that he is
not settled in fact, it is another matter. What
I said to Mr Adams was on a supposition that he was
settled in fact; and indeed, if that was the case,
I should doubt.”—“Don’t
tell me your facts and your ifs,” said the lady;
“I don’t understand your gibberish; you
take too much upon you, and are very impertinent,
in pretending to direct in this parish; and you shall
be taught better, I assure you, you shall. But
as to the wench, I am resolved she shall not settle
here; I will not suffer such beauties as these to
