Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 17.djvu/162

156 harvest. This John felt by woful experience. John's cause was a good milch cow, and many a man subsisted his family out of it. However, John began to think it high time to look about him. He had a cousin in the country, one sir Roger Bold, whose predecessors had been bred up to the law, and knew as much of it as any body; but having left off the profession for some time, they took great pleasure in compounding lawsuits among their neighbours, for which they were the aversion of the gentlemen of the long robe, and at perpetual war with all the country attorneys. John put his cause in sir Roger's hands, desiring him to make the best of it: the news had no sooner reached the ears of the lawyers, but they were all in an uproar. They brought all the rest of the tradesmen upon John: 'squire South swore he was betrayed, that he would starve before he compounded; Frog said he was highly wronged; even lying Ned the chimney-sweeper, and Tom the dustman complained that their interest was sacrificed. The lawyers, solicitors, Hocus, and his clerks, were all up in arms, at the news of the composition; they abused him and his wife most shamefully. "You silly, awkward, illbred, country sow, (quoth one) have you no more manners than to rail at Hocus, that has saved that clodpated numskull'd ninnyhammer of yours from ruin, and all his family? It is well known, how he has risen early and sat up late " to