But in spite of Mr Hockley’s inadequacy, the men who reassembled at The Nick of Time for dinner shewed no reluctance for their meal. Food and drink was provided on a lavish scale, a pound of beef and several gallons of beer being apportioned to each man. The three casks—two thirty-sixes and an eighteen—made a brave show; and the company responded with a vast blare of applause when Mr Secretary Bailey climbed on to one of them, and, fortifying his precarious balance by resting his right hand on the head of Mr Warden Mykelborne and his left on that of Mr Warden Sweet, with a modest preliminary hem called for silence. When the uproar had subsided, and the orator’s mouth was seen to be filling with the first word of his speech, Mr Bellman Growcock, the blacksmith, rang his bell fiercely and shouted: ‘Silence, gennelmen, for Mus Sikkitary!’ At this the applause was renewed, and Mr Bailey had to wait again. But, during this chant of praise, those who were most eager for their meal began shouting for order; Mr Growcock rang his bell a second time; and silence was at last restored. ‘Gentlemen and fellow clubfellows,’ said Mr Bailey, ‘we are all assembled together once again. Another year has rolled past, season following season in its appointed turn. Last year is gone, and this year is with us, and our club is the same as ever. It gives me great satisfaction to be able to tell you that we have had a year giving great satisfaction to all. George Mew broke his leg and received club pay for a period of seventeen calendar weeks. Our old friend and pensioner Willy Brown, his gout has gone from bad to worse. We buried old Mr Thorpe with club money last Michaelmas, and his grateful and refined widow followed him before the year’s end. These, gentlemen, are the only outgoings of consequence that I have to report. So we will now fall to, with such inclination as has been vouchsafed to us. And may I remind you, gentlemen, that spitting while at table is against the club rules, and that the practice of throwing bits of fat and gristle at your opposite neighbours is one that has led to a great deal of unpleasantness in the past, such playful sallies being not always received in the right spirit, especially by persons who are a little consarned in liquor. And now, fellow clubfellows,
Thank you, gentlemen, for your kind attention.’ But he was not yet suffered to descend from the eminence of his barrel. For, first, Bellman Growcock must draw a pint, and offer it to him with the ceremonial words: ‘Mus Sikkitary, sir!’ No one was permitted to drink until Mr Secretary had begun. ‘And do pitysake drink a sup with no more words, Mus Bailey,’ added Growcock, in a hoarse hurried whisper, ‘for tis all I can do to keep ’em off it, tellee. Like a parcel of snorten lions they be.’
With this request Mr Bailey hastily complied, and the chained lions were let loose. A roar filled the room, for these hearty fellows somehow contrived to shovel food into their mouths, and gnaw it and swallow it, and yet maintain a continuous and noisy conversation. Mr Bailey came in for a little criticism for not having mentioned that old Jarge Mew, that had bruk his leg, had for many years been the club bannerman, a very high and responsible office, his duty being no less (and no more) than to carry the banner at the head of the procession from tavern to church. The appointment of a successor to Jarge had been the occasion of many an anxious conference among the seven elders of the club: the secretary, the two wardens, the bellman, and three other committeemen. ‘We maun get a steady man,’ said Mykelborne, ‘and a God-fearer. Tis a bright and costly bauble, our banner; and twould never do to trust he to the hands of a blaspheemious rogue the like of Bellman Growcock here, or some such another, nor yet to a gummut the like of Tahm Shellett.’ They had all, including Growcock himself, wagged their heads in solemn agreement; and these conferences had borne good fruit, for it was agreed now, by connoisseurs of the art of banner-bearing, that the man on whom their choice had fallen was making a very fair job of the business. ‘What say you, young Seth Shellett?’ But this was mere banter, a rhetorical question; for it was notorious that Seth, sitting mumchance at the feast, would never let himself be coaxed into expressing an opinion on anything. Yet he was no fool, they said, or Squire Marden would never have him for gamekeeper.
‘How be they birds of yourn, Seth?’
‘Middlin bad. They’ve got the spasms, most on ’em.’
‘Ah, have ’em? And what says Squire to that?’
‘Squire dunnaw everything,’ said Seth, without a smile.
‘Ah, Squire dunnaw everything, daun’t a?’
‘No, a daun’t.’
In Marden Fee old jokes are best. Seth’s interlocutor winked at his neighbour. ‘Hearkee what Seth do say? Squire dunnaw everything, a says.’