CHAPTER V.

THE WAPENTAKE.

Once, however, he thought it his duty to derogate from this prudence, for prudence’ sake, thinking that it might be well to make Gwynplaine uneasy.  It is true that this idea arose from a circumstance much graver, in the opinion of Ursus, than the cabals of the fair or of the church.

Gwynplaine, as he picked up a farthing which had fallen when counting the receipts, had, in the presence of the innkeeper, drawn a contrast between the farthing, representing the misery of the people, and the die, representing, under the figure of Anne, the parasitical magnificence of the throne—­an ill-sounding speech.  This observation was repeated by Master Nicless, and had such a run that it reached to Ursus through Fibi and Vinos.  It put Ursus into a fever.  Seditious words, lese Majeste.  He took Gwynplaine severely to task.  “Watch over your abominable jaws.  There is a rule for the great—­to do nothing; and a rule for the small—­to say nothing.  The poor man has but one friend, silence.  He should only pronounce one syllable:  ‘Yes.’  To confess and to consent is all the right he has.  ‘Yes,’ to the judge; ‘yes,’ to the king.  Great people, if it pleases them to do so, beat us.  I have received blows from them.  It is their prerogative; and they lose nothing of their greatness by breaking our bones.  The ossifrage is a species of eagle.  Let us venerate the sceptre, which is the first of staves.  Respect is prudence, and mediocrity is safety.  To insult the king is to put oneself in the same danger as a girl rashly paring the nails of a lion.  They tell me that you have been prattling about the farthing, which is the same thing as the liard, and that you have found fault with the august medallion, for which they sell us at market the eighth part of a salt herring.  Take care; let us be serious.  Consider the existence of pains and penalties.  Suck in these legislative truths.  You are in a country in which the man who cuts down a tree three years old is quietly taken off to the gallows.  As to swearers, their feet are put into the stocks.  The drunkard is shut up in a barrel with the bottom out, so that he can walk, with a hole in the top, through which his head is passed, and with two in the bung for his hands, so that he cannot lie down.  He who strikes another one in Westminster Hall is imprisoned for life and has his goods confiscated.  Whoever strikes any one in the king’s palace has his hand struck off.  A fillip on the nose chances to bleed, and, behold! you are maimed for life.  He who is convicted of heresy in the bishop’s court is burnt alive.  It was for no great matter that Cuthbert Simpson was quartered on a turnstile.  Three years since, in 1702, which is not long ago, you see, they placed in the pillory a scoundrel, called Daniel Defoe, who had had the audacity to print the names of the Members of Parliament who had spoken on the previous evening.