He maintains the peace on the
village green at holiday games, and quells all brawls and quarrels by
collaring the parties and shaking them heartily, if refractory. No one
ever pretends to raise a hand against him, or to contend against his
decisions; the young men having grown up in habitual awe of his
prowess, and in implicit deference to him as the champion and lord of
the green.
[Footnote 2: MERRY NIGHT--a rustic merry-making in a farm-house about
Christmas, common in some parts of Yorkshire. There is abundance of
homely fare, tea, cakes, fruit, and ale; various feats of agility,
amusing games, romping, dancing, and kissing withal. They commonly
break up at midnight.]
He is a regular frequenter of the village inn, the landlady having
been a sweetheart of his in early life, and he having always continued
on kind terms with her. He seldom, however, drinks any thing but a
draught of ale; smokes his pipe, and pays his reckoning before leaving
the tap-room. Here he "gives his little senate laws;" decides bets,
which are very generally referred to him; determines upon the
characters and qualities of horses; and, indeed, plays now and then
the part of a judge in settling petty disputes between neighbours,
which otherwise might have been nursed by country attorneys into
tolerable law-suits.
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