The Bigwig family (composed of all the stateliest people
thereabouts, and all the noisiest) had undertaken to save him the
trouble of thinking for himself, and to manage him and his affairs.
"Why truly," said he, "I have little time upon my hands; and if you
will be so good as to take care of me, in return for the money I pay
over"--for the Bigwig family were not above his money--"I shall be
relieved and much obliged, considering that you know best." Hence
the drumming, trumpeting, and speech-making, and the ugly images of
horses which he was expected to fall down and worship.
"I don't understand all this," said he, rubbing his furrowed brow
confusedly. "But it HAS a meaning, maybe, if I could find it out."
"It means," returned the Bigwig family, suspecting something of what
he said, "honour and glory in the highest, to the highest merit."
"Oh!" said he. And he was glad to hear that.
But, when he looked among the images in iron, marble, bronze, and
brass, he failed to find a rather meritorious countryman of his,
once the son of a Warwickshire wool-dealer, or any single countryman
whomsoever of that kind. He could find none of the men whose
knowledge had rescued him and his children from terrific and
disfiguring disease, whose boldness had raised his forefathers from
the condition of serfs, whose wise fancy had opened a new and high
existence to the humblest, whose skill had filled the working man's
world with accumulated wonders.
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