KUCKY SARSON, THE BARBER;
OR,
THE DISCIPLE OF EQUALITY.
Once upon a time—and that was when "French principles," as they were called, were beginning to spread in England, and here and there one began to profess admiration of the new republic,—there lived in the little town of Caistor, in North Lincolnshire, a notable barber of the name of Habakkuk Sarson,—but "Kucky" was the name by which he was familiarly known; for Lincolnshire folk are a plain folk, and don't like, nor ever did, to trouble themselves with uttering long cramp names.
It would be difficult to say how it was exactly, but somehow or other, in spite of the alarm which landowners and tenantry alike felt at the broaching of Jacobinism,"—that terror terrorum to the squirearchy and farmers,—Kucky Sarson contrived to keep a fair share of custom in the matter of clipping hair and scraping beards. Scarcely an hour of the day but Kucky had a customer; or if customers scanted, he was sure to have company for gossip. Perhaps it was chiefly owing to the frank-heartedness and real courtesy of manner which the barber mingled with his earnest speech—for he was a very great talker, and a good one too,—that he was respected by almost all who knew him, notwithstanding his open profession of the principles of "equality."
Indeed, it was a maxim of Kucky Sarson, that, "if you believed all men to be equal, you ought to treat every man like a gentleman." "That is the especial hinderance to the spread of first principles, sir," said Kucky to a customer one day. "Democrats foolishly imagine, sir, that democracy consists in barking like a bull-dog, or growling like a bear, at every man they meet; when, the fact is, that that is just the way to repel a sensible man from both yourself and your principles. Don't you think so, sir?"
Kucky's customer would have answered, but Kucky held him at that moment by the nose, and was applying a keen razor to his upper lip. The earnest shaver did not think of this, but supposed, since his customer was a stranger, that he was either modest or unacquainted with politics; and, in the latter case, Kucky was too true an enthusiast to omit the opportunity of trying to make a convert—so he resumed, after clearing his throat with a loud "a-hem!"
"If the beautiful principles of equality do not spread, sir," he said, resolving to show his best graces of conversational style to a well-dressed stranger, "in my humble opinion, it will be chiefly attributable to the miscalculating rudeness of those who affect to advocate them. These principles, in themselves, are so self-evidently true, and so happily calculated to ensure the felicity of the human family, that it is impossible for any unprejudiced man to——"
"Pardon me, friend," said the stranger, extricating his nose from the barber's fingers somewhat dexterously, "there may be considerable doubt about the self-evident truth of the principles you are speaking of: you seem to me to be somewhat too hasty in concluding that every one, from even a candid review of them, must acknowledge them to be incontrovertible. Give me leave to say, my good friend, that nothing will be more stoutly controverted than these same doctrines of human equality."
"Men may controvert them, sir," rejoined the barber, with some shade of an approach to asperity of manner, "but I cannot, in my conscience, give them credit for sincerity. Who was ever born into the world with a star on his breast or his shoulder, to signify that he ought to rule his fellows solely by his own will?—or who was ever created with a crook on his knee, to signify that he ought to bow down to the caprice of others? No, sir, the doctrines of equality are as clear as daylight when opposed to the darkness of slavery and mastership. In short, sir, 'Right is every man's, but wrong is no man's right,' was a maxim of my grandfather,—and I think it settles the question."
"Indeed!" exclaimed the stranger, staring at the barber's last words, and opening his lips till the lather ran into his mouth.
"Yes, sir—I think so," repeated Kucky, striving to look as confident as before, but evidently somewhat doubtful, on second thought, of the conclusiveness of his own odd logic,—"I think so, sir; for, as I hold it to be a natural right for every man to be governed only by his own consent, so I conclude it to be wrong for any other man to attempt to rule him without first asking his will or waiting his choice. I think those two points are as clear as twice two makes four: the first is a right, and belongs to every man, and the second is a wrong that should be practised by no man. Does not my grandfather's precept mean the same thing—'Right is every man's, but wrong is no man's right?'"
"Pardon me, my friend," replied the gentleman, unable entirely to suppress a smile, "if I say that I admire your sincerity more than your logic. Allow me further to say——"
"Oh, allow, sir!" exclaimed the barber, bowing very low, and spreading out his hands,—"to be sure, I allow every man to judge for himself, sir. It would be extremely inconsistent in me, who claim the fullest freedom of opinion myself, to refuse others the liberty of thought, sir. I pray you, sir, forgive me if I have been a little too positive in my manner: I will assure you, sir, I am not a bigot,—indeed, I am not——"
"Stay, stay, my friend!" cried the stranger, puzzled and bothered with the superlative politeness of him of the razor, "if you will finish your operation upon my chin, we will have half-an-hour's talk on these subjects afterwards. In the mean time, believe me, I am happy to find you are so truly tolerant of other men's opinions: if we all cultivated that spirit, this world would speedily be much happier than it is."
"Excellent—excellent, sir!" exclaimed the honest and enthusiastic barber, resuming his shaving, but too much excited to leave his favourite theme—"you speak like a true gentleman, sir. I see we really agree, although we may seem to differ; for you have just maintained a sentiment which is purely in accordance with the principles I profess. Some great man once said, 'No man was ever born with a saddle on his back, nor was any other man brought into the world ready booted and spurred to ride him.' That was a very true and striking saying: do you recollect it, sir?"
"I recollect it, and admire it much," answered the gentleman; "but I do not just now remember whose it is."
"Nor I, sir," rejoined the garrulous barber; "but that is of little consequence, sir: truths are valuable solely for their own weight, and not for the sake of those who utter them."
"There, again, we differ," observed the stranger. "I think that many truths are doubly valuable;—first, for their intrinsic excellence, and often, secondarily, for the sake of the great and the good men who utter them. For instance, the striking saying you have just quoted becomes, to my mind, as a passionate lover of his own country, increasedly valuable, when I remember that it is attributed to the illustrious patriot-martyr, Algernon Sydney."
"Why, sir," resumed Kucky Sarson, who was the soul of ingenuity at an argument, "the man, and the truth he utters, are very often one, essentially. Some men's lives—nay, their very deaths,—are great truths in themselves,—like the life and death of the noble commonwealthsman you have just mentioned: in such cases the man becomes so closely and entirely identified with the truths he utters, that he and they may be said to be one."
"You are now really becoming too refined for me, my friend," replied the gentleman, laughing. "But give me the pleasure of your company for a couple of hours at my inn, if you please, and I will do my best to discuss these points with you, good-humouredly and charitably, over a glass of wine."
The barber was making his politest acknowledgments, and was assuring the gentleman that he felt highly honoured and gratified by his handsome invitation, when old Farmer Garbutt, a regular customer of Kucky's for more than thirty years past, although a stout "church-and-king" man, pushed his burly person in at the little shop door, and gruffly bidding the barber "good-morning," sat down in the shaving-chair, which the gentleman had just quitted. Farmer Garbutt could not have come at a moment when he was less welcome; but Bucky Sarson could not decline to shave a beard he had shorn for so long a period, and therefore politely assured the strange gentleman that he would be with him, at his inn, in the course of a quarter of an hour.
Ere the farmer's beard was cleansed, however, more than one additional chin had gathered round the chair; and what was most vexing to Kucky, in his impatient mood, was the "striking fact" that all the chins and their beards belonged to the most extreme and sturdy opposers of Kucky's republican principles to be found among his regular customers. With all his acquirement of suave manners, the poor barber was greatly in danger of going into a passion, as he heard, first one, and then another, allude, jeeringly, to the persecution that was commencing against Kucky's favourite doctrines. Yet he kept down the rising storm within, though with a considerable struggle:—
"Ay, ay—they'll soon hang all the levellers out o' the way, I'll warrant 'em!" said gruff Garbutt, rolling his eye in wicked waggery at his neighbours, and then threateningly at Kucky.
"What else can folk expect that side with cutting off kings' heads?" cried Bobby Sparrow, a dapper little master-tailor, who made and repaired habits for the parson, and all the genteel people, of Caistor and its vicinity.
"More by token—such folk as would pull down all the parish churches, and murder all the Protestants!" added old Davy Gregson, a fat little retired man of business, who liked to enjoy his joke,—sitting in a corner of the old shop, and thrusting his tongue grotesquely into his cheek,—although he was nearly fourscore.
"You will please to remember, gentlemen," interjected the barber, driven to the extremity of his temper, "that I am not an advocate either for cutting off kings' heads, or pulling down parish churches, or murdering people of any religion, much more my own."
"But ye take part with rogues that do, neighbour Kucky," said Bobby Sparrow, with provoking pertness,—"and the more's the shame to you!"
"Ay, marry, good faith—that he does!" exclaimed old Davy Gregson, enjoying the barber's apparent soreness; "and it has always been held that the abettor is as bad as the thief or the murderer!"
"If you mean to be respected, Kucky Sarson," growled old farmer Garbutt, "be advised, and give up all your Jacobin notions. The Squire says it would be ruin for this country to be without a king and an established church. I had a famous talk with him on all these things at the rent-day; and so he said: and if such gentlefolk as Squire Pelham don't know what belongs to good government, I should like to know who does."
"Squire Pelham's great-grandfather was of a somewhat different opinion," answered the barber: "Peregrine Pelham was his name; and he signed the death-warrant of Charles Stuart."
"The Lord be merciful to us!" exclaimed old Davy, beginning to look really alarmed—"why, that was in the time of the awful troubles that my grandmother used to talk so sorrowfully about!—Surely you don't wish that such grievous days were come again, do you, Kucky Sarson?"
"God forbid!" ejaculated farmer Garbutt, solemnly.
"You all know I don't, before you ask me," answered the barber, with some show of dignity. "I defy any one of you to say that there is a quieter and more upright citizen in England than I am. Who can say that I ever injured him? who dares say that I ever cheated any man of one farthing—ay, or that I owe him one? And do I ever try to compel any man to think as I think? Speak!—any one of you that can charge me with an act of wrongfulness, or a single speech of intolerance!"
"Well, well—excuse us, Kucky! We all regard you as an excellent neighbour. But you seem more short about taking a joke than usual," answered the dapper little master-tailor.
The barber merely bowed, and said, "Well, well—never mind, never mind, neighbours! we are none the worse friends for a joke." But he was conscious that he felt short-tempered, and heartily wished his customers would shorten their stay, in order that he might visit the gentleman at his inn. Agreeably to his wish, the farmer, the master-tailor, and the retired man of business each shook hands heartily with Kucky, after a few more sentences of restorative kindness, and bid him "good-day." The barber forthwith doffed his apron and fore-pocket, adjusted his neckerchief, brushed his hat, exchanged his shop jacket for his holiday-coat, and crying "Shop, my dear!" to his wife, hurried away towards the inn, where, according to the strange gentleman's request, Kucky had promised to meet him.
To the barber's great mortification, when he arrived at the inn the gentleman had been called out, and had left word that he would be happy to receive his new acquaintance at six in the evening. Kucky Sarson felt half disposed to be unhappy with disappointment; for he feared that he would be unable to leave his shop at that busy hour of the evening. He was hastening homeward, and striving to banish this unpleasant feeling, when, passing by the end of a narrow street or lane, he suddenly saw the strange gentleman in close conversation with a ragged, dirty-looking female, who seemed by her uncouth garb and sun-burnt complexion to belong to the wandering race of the gypsies. The barber stopped short and gazed in astonishment at what he saw. The woman bent her keen eyes upon him; but the strange gentleman seemed too much absorbed in looking at and talking to the gypsy to be aware that he was discovered.
The barber passed on to his shop, pondering much upon what he had observed.—"What in the name of prudence and propriety!" soliloquised Kucky, "can such a person have to do with a houseless out-cast and vagabond of a gypsy?" The more he thought upon it, the more he wondered; till, in the course of an hour, seeing that no one stepped into the shop, he felt so exquisitely curious to know the meaning of what he had seen, that he once more doffed his apron and shop-coat, put on his holiday covering, and sallied forth again in search of the strange gentleman's secret.
Turning the first corner of the street, he suddenly ran hard against his old gossip, Davy Gregson, and nearly knocked him down in his haste.
"Hey-day, Kucky!" exclaimed Davy, "what a hurry you are in!—I reckon you are posting away to see the gentleman dance with the gypsy!"
Davy Gregson's exclamation operated like lightning upon the barber: he took to his heels and ran, in the direction from whence Davy came, with all the mettle he possessed. Just as he was crossing the way, however, at the end of one street with the intent to run down another, he was suddenly seized by little Bobby Sparrow, the dapper master-tailor.
"What the dickens are you running so for, Kucky?" asked the little man; "you'll be too late to see the gentleman huddle the gypsy—it's all over, and——"
"Huddle the gypsy!" exclaimed Kucky, "I thought he was dancing with her?"
"So he was: but he fell to kissing and huddling her after that," answered Sparrow.
"For Heaven's sake let me go see," cried the barber; and bolted away again at the hazard of tearing his coat, which the tailor had kept hold of. But before he had stretched one hundred yards, he was once more stopped; and this time it was by the strong and effectual gripe of gruff farmer Garbutt.
"Art thou mad, Kucky Sarson?" asked the farmer, "or what is the reason that thou art scampering away at such a hare-brained rate?"
"The gypsy!" gasped the barber, still striving to run,—"the gypsy and the gentleman!"
"Pshaw, man!—the gentleman has suddenly found his sister who was stolen when she was young," said the farmer: "the gentleman has explained it all himself, and has taken the young woman into the Pelham's Arms, where he puts up. I thought thou hadst had more sense, Kucky, than to run after any crowd that gathered in the street."
"Crowd!" echoed the barber, "was there a crowd then?
"A crowd!" repeated the farmer, "that was there, I assure thee. There: good-bye, Kucky!" and so saying he loosed hold of his neighbour, who was now in some degree cooled down.
Kucky Sarson did not set off to run again; but walked musingly on towards the Pelham's Arms Inn, resolved, if possible, to get at the bottom of the curious incidents just related. He was shown into the strange gentleman's room at once, when he had intimated that it would be inconvenient for him to call at six in the evening. And now the barber felt completely embarrassed, and quite ashamed of his own curiosity, in having forced himself upon the stranger so suddenly after the affecting occurrence he had just been informed of by old farmer Garbutt. In fact, Kucky had begun to stammer forth very odd apologies, and was backing out of the room with a profusion of bows and scrapes, when the gentleman rose, and leading his newly-recovered relative by the hand, introduced her to his humble visitor. Kucky Sarson recognised her face for the same he had seen in the narrow street a short time before; but the altered dress and demeanour of the female caused him to take her hand with much greater reverence than he would have shown had that hand been offered him when he first saw its owner.
"I saw you a short time ago, when my brother had just discovered me," observed the female, as the barber took her hand.
"You did, madam," replied he, stammering with confusion, and surprised at the peculiar grace wherewith, he now thought, the gypsy conducted herself.
"No doubt you felt greatly surprised when you saw us," observed the gentleman.
"I must say I did," answered the barber, still looking very bashful.
"Did you witness any of my capers in the street, my friend? I am fearful that I have played a somewhat foolish part, for my elation well nigh drove me out of my senses. Come, my good friend," concluded the gentleman, noting the shy look of the barber, "let us sit down, and, over a comfortable glass of wine, talk over this matter;—not forgetting your family adage of 'Right is every man's, but Wrong is no man's right.'"
They were seated accordingly; and the barber, having been plied with a couple of glasses of claret, and his shame-facedness having vanished, the gentleman renewed the conversation, with a look of great good-humour.
"My good friend," said he, "I remember an observation of yours which, it strikes me, you cannot always bring to bear upon your mind with the force of a maxim, although you profess to have made it one: it was that 'When we believe all men to be equal, we ought to treat every man like a gentleman.' Now, tell me, frankly, did you not completely forget your principles of equality at the moment you saw me with this my beloved and only sister, in the guise of a vagabond gypsy?" The gentleman took the hand of his recovered relative once more in his own, and they looked with joy and love upon each other.
The barber felt conscience-stricken with the inconsistency between his philosophy and his practice, in this notable instance, and, despite his natural loquacity, remained dumb.
"Nay, my good friend," resumed the stranger; "do not think yourself unlike other people. Let me see you rally, and display the spirit you did this morning: all the world is too prone to fail in the act of applying principles and professions to practice."
"I do, indeed, feel," said the barber at length, but still hanging down his head, "that I have not felt and acted as a disciple of the great doctrine of equality ought to have felt and acted this day."
"And I think you will not fail to draw this great lesson from your own experience, my friend," rejoined the gentleman, "that, however intrinsically true it may be that we are all equal in the eye of Him who made us, yet our birth, our early associations, our habits,—in brief, the whole complexity of circumstances with which we are every hour, nay, every moment, surrounded, renders it absolutely impossible for any of us to act at all times, or even generally, upon the conviction of that most undeniable and solemn truth."
"You are perfectly right, sir," replied the barber, conscious that the stranger spoke the language of common sense, and feeling humbled into willing discipleship.
"And, granting the doctrine of equality to be strictly true," continued the gentleman, "yet how long, how very long must it be, ere the race of mankind shall be able to throw off their prejudices—their present artificial condition, shall we call it?—so completely as to reinduce and reinstate that universal equality we have just agreed to be natural."
"Very sensible, sir," interjected Kucky Sarson; "but I am just thinking," he added, feeling some return of his usual confidence, "that equality never will be reinstated, unless we spread its great doctrines by all the means in our power. Equality must be enuntiated, maintained, and defended, sir; or, like other truths which have lain hid for ages, it will not produce any fruit."
"True, my good friend," answered the gentleman; "but permit me to remind you that practice is more powerful than precept. If we each sought to act towards our fellow-creatures as if they were really our brethren and sisters, the principles of a true equality would soon gain a citadel in each human heart. It is the putting into practice of this deep conviction of our common brotherhood which is really most worthy of our endeavours. We may contend against the artificial distinctions which are established among men till doomsday; but if we do not, on all occasions, display brotherly feeling towards our fellows, our contention will produce no salutary effect."
"Indeed, sir," said the barber, "I feel you are by far the more consistent philosopher of the two——"
"Nay," said the gentleman, cutting short the barber's strain of intended panegyric; "I would not have you suppose that I am a perfect practiser of the maxims I am recommending. I never yet found a man who fulfilled his own definition of a philanthropist, a patriot, or a philosopher,—that is, if his definition were worthy of being termed one. I only press this fact upon your notice, my friend: that I was once in the habit of talking as loudly about equality as yourself,—nay, even dogmatically about it, and that is not like your way of talking; but I have ceased to talk about the name, and am now endeavouring to spread the spirit of it. I try to do all the good I can, to make every one as happy as I can, to banish all the misery I can. I cannot always keep in mind that every human being I meet is my brother or sister; for the force of old habit is such that a pernicious aristocracy moves within me sometimes, but I try to keep it down. My friend, I am preaching to you, rather than conversing with you; but we will now leave this subject for some lighter theme, if you please; only permit me to say, in conclusion, that you must never believe yourself to be a thorough disciple of Equality while a grain of offence arises in your mind on seeing a gentleman converse with a gypsy."
It would be tiresome to pursue any further the conversation of the barber and the strange gentleman. Suffice it to say that Kucky Sarson was an altered man from that day, though he never saw the gentleman again. He subdued the habit of expressing his convictions in terms which he knew must give offence and create prejudice, rather than advance truth, couch them as courteously as he might in the flourish of politeness. He turned his efforts, in the humble sphere of his conventional existence, rather towards preparing the world for rigid truth, than towards impelling the people into the acknowledgment and practice of principles of which they had not as yet learned the alphabet. These changes, to Kucky Sarson's honour be it spoken, came over his spirit, not through cowardice,—for he possessed enough of strength of mind and principle to have braved a prison, had he thought his lot cast in the fitting and becoming time: it was honest conviction which acted as a mollifier of Kucky's manners, and the usefulness of the change in him was evidenced by the greater good he effected in his modified character. He preserved his grandfather's favourite saying to the last day of his life; and, as no one sought more ardently to fulfil the character of an humble philanthropist,—to alleviate distress wherever he found it,—to soften and dissipate asperity of temper, and to create the genuine feeling of brotherhood, and the practice of self-sacrifice among all men,—so his name and favourite adage were remembered after his death; insomuch that when a word tending to difference arose among the plain inhabitants of Caistor-in-Lindsey, it was usually succeeded, and the difference prevented, by some one observing, "Why, neighbours, what's the use of wrangling? You know what good Kucky Sarson used to say,—'Right is every man's, and Wrong is no man's right.'"