HICKS OF BODMIN
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
"'I went down to the parzley bed, all in the dead waste and middle of the night, and there I found 'un. He'd a cut his throat with the rape(ing)-hook. I took 'un by the hair of his head, and I zaid, ses I, "You darned old grizzley blackguard, you've brought disgrace on the family." I brought 'un in, and laid 'un on the table, and rinned for the doctor; and he zewed up the throt o'un avore the vital spark was 'xtinct. Zo you zee, Mr. Hicks, I've had rather an indiffer'nt night.'"
Here is another of Hicks's stories:—
A young curate was teaching some boys in the Sunday-school, and was impressing on them the duties to their parents.
"What do you owe your mother, Bill Lemon?"
"I don't owe her nothin'! her never lent me nothin'."
"But she takes care of you."
The boy stared.
"What does she do for you?"
"Her gives me a skat in the vace sometimes, and tells me to go to"——(curate intervenes).
"That is not what I mean. When you are sick, what does she do?"
"Wipes it op."
Hicks, as already intimated, was a very short man, very rotund about the belly. Following the Mayor of Bodmin into the room on the occasion of a public dinner, he heard the Mayor announced in a voice of thunder, "The Mayor of Bodmin." Following directly after he intimated to the butler "and the Corporation." The man, without a moment's consideration, roared out, "and the Corporation."
A man of Hicks's acquaintance—every man of whom he had a story to tell was an acquaintance—made a bet that he would drink a certain number of gallons of cider in a given time. The trial of the feat came off, and the man was reduced to the last stage of helplessness, in an armchair, his head resting on the back of the chair, his mouth open, utterly unable to proceed, when he sighed out to his backers, "Try the taypot!" The spout was used to pour down the liquor and the bet was won.
Hicks had a story of a farmer whom he knew intimately, and who had been canvassed for the approaching election, and had promised his vote to the lady of the candidate. Said she, "Dear Mr. Polkinghorne, when you come up to town, do come and see us, come any time—come to dinner. You are sure to be welcome."
Now, as it so fell out, Zechariah Polkinghorne did go to London on some business, and in the evening, when his work was over, he called at the member's house. As it happened that evening, a dinner party was given. When his name was taken up, the member's wife said: "Good gracious! What is to be done? We must, I suppose, have him in, or he will be mortally offended, and next election will not only vote against us, but influence a good many more voters."
So Mr. Polkinghorne was shown up into a room full of ladies and gentlemen in evening dress, and felt somewhat out of it. Presently dinner was announced and he went in with the rest and took his place at the table.
"So sorry, Mr. Polkinghorne," said the lady of the house; "so sorry we have no partner for you to take in; but, you see, you came unexpectedly, and we had not time to invite a lady for you."
"Never mind, ma'am, never mind. It doth remind me o' my old sow to home. Her had thirteen little piglings—zuckers—for a brood, and pore thing had only twelve little contrivances for them to zuck to."
"What did the thirteenth do then, Mr. Polkinghorne?"
"Why, ma'am, thickey there little zucker was like me now—just out in the cold."
WILLIAM R. HICKS OF BODMIN From a Caricature
Hicks was driving along a road in the dark one night when he came upon an empty conveyance, and two men close to the hedge on the roadside. One man was drunk—a Methodist class-leader—but the other was sober. The drunken man was lamenting:—
"Ah, too bad! What shall I do when I be called to my last account? What shall I zay?"
"Zay, Nathaniel?" the sober man said. "What can 'ee zay but that you've been to Liskeard a auditing of accounts, and took an extra glass? 'Twill be overlooked for once, sure enough, up there."
A day or so after Hicks met the sober man, and asked how Nathaniel had got on that night.
The answer was: "He's a terrible affectionate man to his family, and when we got home he took the babby out o' the cradle for to kiss 'un, and valled vore with 'un over a vaggot of vurze. Jane, her got into a passion and laid onto 'un with the broomstick, while he kep' tumblin' over the babby. When I comed away her'd 'a thrashed 'un sober; and they'd 'a got the babby on the dresser, naked, and was a-picking out the prickles."
Hicks knew a man who was of a morose, fanatical humour; and this man had married a widow with a brisk, merry wench for a daughter. Once he reproved the girl for singing secular songs in this vale of woe, and said to her: "Suppose you was took sudden, and called to your last account with the Soldier's Tear in your mouth?"
Another of his stories was of a chapel where they sang a Cornish anthem; the females began—
Oh for a man! oh for a man! oh for a mansion in the sky!
To which the men, basses and tenors, responded—
Send down sal! send down sal! send down salvation from on high!
A boy at church—another of Hicks's anecdotes; he knew the boy well—heard the parson give out the banns of "John So-and-so and Betsy So-and-so, both of this parish. This is the third and last time of asking."
"Mother," said the lad after service; "I shouldn't like it to be proclaimed in church that sister Jane had been askin' for a husband dree times afore her got one."
Again, another story told by Hicks:—
"Where be you a-bound to this afternoon?"
"Gwain to see the football match."
"Aw! Like to be a good un?"
"Yes, I reckon. There be a lot o' bitter feelin' betwixt the two teams."
But, indeed, the stories told by William Robert Hicks were many, and for those who would desire more, let them get Mr. W. F. Collier's Tales and Sayings of W. R. Hicks, Plymouth, Brendon and Son, 1893; and look at "An Illustrious Obscure," by Abraham Hayward, q.c., in the Morning Post, 8th September, 1868; and J. C. Young's Memoirs of C. M. Young, 1871, Vol. II, pp. 301-8.
Hicks died at Bodmin 5th September, 1868, at the age of sixty.