HOW JACK RAN MAD A SECOND TIME.
After Jack and Martin parted company, you may remember that Jack, who
had turned his face northward, got into high favour with the landlord of
the North Farm Estate, who, being mightily edified with his discourses
and sanctimonious demeanour, and not aware of his having been mad
before, or being, perchance, just as mad himself--took him in, made much
of him, gave him a cottage upon his manor to live in, and built him a
tabernacle in which he might hold forth when the spirit moved him. In
process of time, however, it happened that North Farm and the Albion
Estates came into the possession of one proprietor, Esquire Bull, in
whose house Martin had always been retained as domestic chaplain--at
least, ever since that desperate scuffle with Lord Peter and his crew,
when he tried to land some Spanish smugglers on the coast, for the
purpose of carrying off Martin, and establishing himself in Squire
Bull's house in his stead. Squire Bull, who was a man of his word, and
wished to leave all things on North Farm as he found them, Jack and his
tabernacle included, undertook at once to pay him a reasonable salary,
with the free use of his house and tabernacle to him and his heirs for
ever. But knowing that on a previous occasion, (which you may
recollect,[46]) Jack's melancholy had gone so far that he had hanged
himself, though he was cut down just before giving up the ghost, and by
dint of bloodletting and galvanism, had been revived; and also that,
notwithstanding his periodical fits and hallucinations, he could beat
even Peter himself, who had been his instructor, for cunning and
casuistry, he took care that, before Jack was allowed to take possession
under his new lease, every thing should be made square between them. So
he had the terms of their indenture all written out on parchment,
signed, sealed, and delivered before witnesses, and even got a private
Act of Parliament carried through, for the purpose of making every thing
between them more secure. And well it was for the Squire that he
bethought himself of his precaution in time, as you will afterwards
hear.
[46] John Bull, Part IV. ch. ii.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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