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Bob Mahon's elevation of the Sherif
Phiz
August 1842 instalment
Steel-engraving
14.8 cm by 11.3 cm (5 ⅞ by 4 ⅜ inches), vignetted
Sixteenth steel-engraving and twenty-fifth serial illustration for Charles Lever's Jack Hinton, The Guardsman (1843), facing page 242.
[Click on image to enlarge it.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
[You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned it, and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
. . . at last Nick fixed his eye upon the little door into the loft, upon which now two great big padlocks were hanging.
'“I suppose it's oats you have up there, Major?” said he.
'“No, indeed,” said Bob, looking a little confused.
'“Maybe seed-potatoes?” said Hennessy.
'“Nor it neither,” said he.
'“Barley, it's likely?” cried Nick; “it is a fine dry loft.”
'“No,” said Bob, “it is empty.”
'And with that he endeavoured to turn them away and get them back into the house; but old Basset turned back, and fixing his eye upon the door, shook his head for a couple of minutes.
'“Well,” said he, “for an empty loft it has the finest pair of padlocks I ever looked at. Would there be any objection, Major, to our taking a peep into it?”
'“None,” said Bob; “but I haven't a ladder that long in the place.”
'“I think this might reach,” said Hennessy, as he touched one with his foot that lay close along the wall, partly covered with straw.
'“Just the thing,” said Nick; while poor Bob hung down his head and said nothing. With that they raised the ladder and placed it against the door.
'“Might I trouble you for the key, Major Mahon?” said Hennessy.
'“I believe it is mislaid,” said Bob, in a kind of sulky way, at which they both grinned at each other, as much as to say, “We have him now.”
'“You'll not take it amiss then, Major, if we break the door?” said Nick.
'“You may break it and be hanged!” said Bob, as he stuck his hands into his pockets and walked away.
'“This will do,” cried one of the bailiffs, taking up a big stone as he mounted the ladder, followed by Nick, Hennessy, and the other. [Chapter XXXV, "The Journey," 242]
But how is it that Lever has changed horses, so to speak? For Lever has switched from narrating (through Jack Hinton) the journey by Father Tom's gig to Murranakilty to deliver a letter from Tom's bishop in Chapter XXXIV to the very different journey that Bob Mahon is making with the bailiffs from Clare in Chapter XXXV. And the reader naturally wonders what Bob is trying to hide from the Sheriff and bailiffs in the supposedly empty loft. As it turns out, the story of Bob and Sheriff is an interpolated tale told by Father Tom himself.
The padlocks on the hay-loft in the barn are a ruse of Bob's devising. He orders his servant to put on the padlocks, then tear into the bog, and bring back the peasants who have been harvesting turf there. The upshot is that the Sheriff and the three bailiffs find themselves stranded in the hay-loft when Bob withdraws the ladder. As Bob tells off the officers, his country people arrive in their turf cars to cheer him on. In the background Phiz has sketched in a horse and a turf car arriving in haste: seventy such cars in total come to Bob's assistance. Quick-thinking Bob then has his farm workers pack up anything of value (the potatoes and grains) in the carts, and drive the fowl, sheep, pigs, and cattle to safety: the bailiffs will have nothing of value to seize. Bob then makes good his escape. However, the four authorities, released by the peasants the next day, enter an action against Bob for false imprisonment. Bob's sharpness does him little good, for the Sheriff gets the court to award substantial damages. Bob now has to go into hiding — and we have already seen the result in Bob Mahon and the “Widdy” (facing p. 218). Part of the charm of the Phiz illustration is the cheerful self-confidence with which the well-dressed Bob is carrying the ladder away from the barn, and how his ragtag supporters are enthusiastically deriding those now trapped in the hay-loft.
Allingham, Philip V. "Hablot Knight Browne: A Good Hand at a Horse." Illustration, 73 (Autumn 2022): 36-40.
Lester, Valerie Browne. Phiz: The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004.
Lever, Charles. Jack Hinton, The Guardsman. Illustrated by Hablột Knight Browne (Phiz). London: Downey & Co., 1901. [First published serially in The Dublin University Magazine January through December 1842; and subsequently in a single volume, Dublin: William Curry, Jun. December 1842, pp. 396. Illustrated with wood and steel engravings by H. K. Browne: 27 full-page plates. 8vo, 396pp. Boston: Little, Brown, 1894; New York: Croscup, 1894. 2 vols.
Stevenson, Lionel. Chapter VI, "Editor, 1841-1843." Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. London: Chapman and Hall, 1939. 92-107.
Sutherland, John A. "The Dublin University Magazine." The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford, Cal.: Stanford U. P., 1989, rpt. 1990, 200.
Thomson, David Croal. Life and Labours of Hablột Knight Browne, "Phiz". London: Chapman and Hall, 1884.
Created 29 May 2023