Ready Money Jack

My purse, it is my privy wyfe,
This song I dare both syng and say,
It keepeth men from grievous stryfe
When every man for hymself shall pay.
As I ryde in ryche array
For gold and sylver men wyll me floryshe;
By thys matter I dare well saye,
Ever gramercy myne owne purse.

BOOK OF HUNTING.

On the skirts of the neighbouring village there lives a kind of small
potentate, who, for aught I know, is a representative of one of the most
ancient legitimate lines of the present day; for the empire over which
he reigns has belonged to his family time out of mind. His territories
comprise a considerable number of good fat acres; and his seat of power
is an old farm-house, where he enjoys, unmolested, the stout oaken chair
of his ancestors. The personage to whom I allude is a sturdy old yeoman
of the name of John Tibbets, or rather Ready-Money Jack Tibbets, as he
is called throughout the neighbourhood.

The first place where he attracted my attention was in the churchyard on
Sunday; where he sat on a tombstone after service, with his hat a little
on one side, holding forth to a small circle of auditors, and, as I
presumed, expounding the law and the prophets, until, on drawing a
little nearer, I found he was only expatiating on the merits of a brown
horse. He presented so faithful a picture of a substantial English
yeoman, such as he is often described in books, heightened, indeed, by
some little finery peculiar to himself, that I could not but take note
of his whole appearance.

He was between fifty and sixty, of a strong muscular frame, and at least
six feet high, with a physiognomy as grave as a lion's, and set off with
short, curling, iron-gray locks. His shirt-collar was turned down, and
displayed a neck covered with the same short, curling, gray hair; and he
wore a coloured silk neckcloth, tied very loosely, and tucked in at the
bosom, with a green paste brooch on the knot. His coat was of dark-green
cloth, with silver buttons, on each of which was engraved a stag, with
his own name, John Tibbets, underneath. He had an inner waistcoat of
figured chintz, between which and his coat was another of scarlet cloth
unbuttoned. His breeches were also left unbuttoned at the knees, not
from any slovenliness, but to show a broad pair of scarlet garters. His
stockings were blue, with white clocks; he wore large silver
shoe-buckles; a broad paste buckle in his hatband; his sleeve buttons
were gold seven-shilling pieces; and he had two or three guineas hanging
as ornaments to his watch-chain.

On making some inquiries about him, I gathered that he was descended
from a line of farmers that had always lived on the same spot, and owned
the same property; and that half of the churchyard was