It was the most wondrous unfathomable face that ever fellow-man fixed gaze upon; lost to mankindliness, lost to mercy, lost to all memory of God. As handsome a face as need be seen, with a very strong forehead and coal-black eyes, a straight white nose, and a sharp-cut mouth, and the chin like a marble sculpture. Disdain was the first thing it gave one to think of; and after that, cold relentless humour; and after that, anything dark and bad.
Meanwhile this was a very handsome man, as women reckon beauty; and his age not over forty, perhaps; also of good average stature, active and elegant form, and so on. Neither years nor cubits make much odds to a man of that sort; and the ladies pronounce him perfect.
When these two were gone by, I was able to gaze again at the taller one. Truly a goodly man he was, though spared from being a good one. He seemed to stand over me, like Sir Philip; although I was measured for six feet and one inch, before I got into rheumatic ways. And as for size and compass, my parents never could give me food to fetch out my girth, as this parson’s was. He looked a good yard and a half round the chest, and his arms were like oak-saplings. However, he proved to be a man void of some pride and some evil desires, unless anybody bore hard on him; and as for reading the collects, or lessons, or even the burial service, I was told that no man in the British realm was fit to say “Amen” to him. This had something to do with the size of his chest, and perhaps might have helped to increase it. His sermons also were done in a style that women would come many miles to enjoy; beginning very soft and sweet, so as to melt the milder ones; and then of a sudden roaring greatly with all the contents of enormous lungs, so as to ring all round the sides of the strongest weaker vessels. And as for the men, what could they think, when the preacher could drub any six of them?
This was “Parson Jack,” if you please, his surname being “Rambone,” as I need not say, unless I write for unborn generations. His business in Boutport Street that day was to see if any man would challenge him. He had held the belt seven years, they said, for wrestling, as well as for bruising; the condition whereof was to walk the street both at Barnstaple fair and at Bodmin revels, and watch whether any man laid foot across him.
This he did purely as a layman might. But the boxing and bruising were part of his office, so that he hung up his cassock always for a challenge to make rent in it. There had been some talk of a Cornishman interfering about the wrestling; and bad people hoped that he might so attempt, and never know the way home again; but as for the fighting, the cassock might hang till the beard of Parson Jack was grey, before anyone made a hole in it. Also the Cornish wrestler found, after looking at Parson Jack, that the wisest plan before him was to challenge the other Cornishmen, and leave the belt in Devonshire.
All this I found out at a little gathering which was held round the corner, in Bear Street, to reflect upon the business done at the fair, and compare opinions. And although I had never beheld till then any of our good company, neither expected to see them again, there were no two opinions about my being the most agreeable man in the room. I showed them how to make punch to begin with, as had been done by his Royal Highness, with me to declare proportions; and as many of the farmers had turned some money, they bade me think twice about no ingredient that would figure on the bill, even half-a-crown.
By right of superior knowledge, and also as principal guest of the evening, I became voted the chairman, upon the clear understanding that I would do them the honour of paying nothing; and therein I found not a man that would think of evading his duty towards the chair. I entreated them all to be frank, and regard me as if I were born in Barnstaple, which they might look upon as being done otherwise, as the mere turn of a shaving; for my father had been there twice, and my mother more than once thought of trying it. Everybody saw the force of this; and after a very fine supper we grew as genial as could be. And leading them all with a delicate knowledge of the ins and outs of these natives (many of which I had learned at the fair), and especially by encouraging their bent for contradiction, I heard a good deal of the leading people in the town or out of it. I listened, of course, to a very great deal, which might be of use to me or might not; but my object was, when I could gather in their many-elbowed stories, to be thoroughly up to the mark on three points.
First, about Fuzzy, and most important. Who was he? What was he? Where did he live? Had he got a wife? And if so, why? And if not, more especially, why
