as the
startling preface to George Truman's complaint of a public-house row, in
which his father had got a black eye.

Still, there was less fighting among the men and much less among the
women, since Nanny Barton and Betsy Seddon had lodged
counter-accusations after a great quarrel over the well, when Nanny had
called Betsy, among other choice epithets, "a sneaking hypercriting old
cat of a goody," and Betsy had returned the compliment by terming Nanny
"a drunken, trapesing, good-for-nothing jade, as had no call to good
water." On which Nanny had torn out a large bunch of Betsy's hair, and
Betsy had used her claws to make long scratches on Nanny's cheeks, the
scars of which were cherished for the magistrates! It was expected in
the village that Betsy would get off, being that she and her husband
worked for Captain Gobbleall, and Nanny was known, when "a bit
overtaken," to have sauced Miss Sophy. Nevertheless they were equally
fined, with the choice of three weeks' imprisonment, and, to every one's
surprise, the fines were produced.

Betsy thought it very hard that she should be fined when she worked in
the captain's fields; and she lamented still more when he insisted on
the family removing to a vacant cottage of his own between two of his
fields. It was in better condition, had more garden, and a lower rent,
and her husband, who was a quiet man, never quarrelling unless she made
him, much rejoiced. "She have too much tongue," he said, and she had to
keep the peace, for the captain declared that, after the next uproar in
his fields, he should give her no more work there. And though she
declared it was not her, but "they women who would not let her alone,"
things certainly became much quieter.

For Captain Carbonel was an active magistrate, busy in all the county
improvements, and preserving as much order in the two parishes as was
possible where there was no rural police, only the constable, Cobbler
Cox, who was said to be more "skeered of the rogues than the rogues was
of he," and, at Downhill, Appleton, the thatcher, who was generally to
be found enjoying himself at the Selby Arms. Still, fewer cases came up
to the bench than in former times, and Uphill hardly furnished one
conviction in a quarter. The doctors at the infirmary said that they
knew an Uphill person by the tidier clothing. This was chiefly owing to
the weekly club, of which the women were very glad. "It is just as if
it was given," they sai