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Ever since I have known this country, which is now a good many years ago, the people who inhabit it have liked to be as comfortable as they could be, especially when living quietly in their own homes, intrusion into which they have always greatly resented. “An Englishman’s house is his castle” is a very old proverb amongst them, and they have a strong attachment to the particular localities in which they have been bom and bred. So that when this Boar ravaged right and left, respected no man’s castle, uprooted everybody’s crops, and made himself generally disagreeable, it was quite natural that the worthy people who suffered from his depredations should feel exceedingly annoyed. After a while, this annoyance took the form of an earnest desire to get rid of the monster. The question, however, of the means to be employed to accomplish this desirable result was by no means easy of solution. To dig pits, such as were in those days commonly used for the destruction of wild animals, would have been an utterly useless proceeding when employed against a creature of such supernatural sagacity. Guns had not been invented; no dog could be found strong and fierce enough to attack the monster; and the more the poor people thought of the matter the more hopeless did their case appear. Law and order were not then what they are now, and there existed no county constabulary to whom, in the present day, the business would at once be referred with a perfect certainty that the wrong-doer would be forthwith arrested and punished. Nor had the pious founder of Eton College as yet existed, or doubtless aid would have been sought by the sufferers from the provost and fellows of that famous abode of learning. Their prayers at least would have been invoked, for these saintly men have always been persons of great age, profound wisdom, and extreme piety, and the only doubt might have been lest, as the Boar had been so long in existence, they might not have considered him as one of the institutions of their country, and declined to take any steps against him in consequence. But, as they themselves did not then exist, the question did not arise, and the Boar continued supreme.
For aught I know, he might have continued so down to this day but for the circumstances which I am about to relate.
A poor woman of the neighbourhood dreamed that she was about to become the mother of the largest family that the world had ever seen. This being a thing which her husband, being in straitened circumstances, deemed by no means desirable, he received the news with disgust only tempered by disbelief, and treated his helpmate to language of a rough and discourteous character. His frame of mind changed, however, when, as years rolled on, one child only claimed him for its father, which of course entitled him to sneer at his wife and her dreams as a good husband would naturally do under such circumstances. The child, however, was one of no ordinary description. Not only was he the largest and most strongly made child ever seen in these parts, but he showed from an early age a singular and precocious intelligence. Before the time when infants are supposed to be able to convey their meaning to their friends by intelligible utterances, a very remarkable instance of this precocity occurred. The father and mother (whose names have not been handed down to posterity) were discussing the future of their promising babe in his presence, and one asked of the other the question what distinguishing name should be given to so fine a child. The astonishment of the parents may be imagined when the infant, suddenly sitting upright in his mother’s lap, and steadfastly regarding his father, winked his left eye violently, laid the first finger of his right hand against his little nose in a confidential manner, and emphatically pronounced the word “Smith.”
Whether this proceeding was, by the powers of magic, ordered and decreed with a view to the fulfilment of the dream of the child’s mother, is a question upon which (like most others) various opinions may be entertained. Certain, however, it is that the result justifies the idea, inasmuch as the astonished parents obeyed the commands of their offspring, and gave him that name which has since been borne by so many of the inhabitants of this island, and of which, (despite all other accounts bearing the stamp of probability) this child was the inventor and founder.