Part 7 (1/2)
Upon a consultation with the other gentlemen, who had the management of the ball, it was agreed, that we should say nothing of the gift of twenty pounds, but distribute it in the winter to needful families, which was done; for we feared that the authors of the derision would be found out, and that ill-blood might be bred in the town.
CHAPTER x.x.xI--THE BAILIE'S HEAD
But although in the main I was considered by the events and transactions already rehea.r.s.ed, a prudent and sagacious man, yet I was not free from the consequences of envy. To be sure, they were not manifested in any very intolerant spirit, and in so far they caused me rather molestation of mind than actual suffering; but still they kithed in evil, and thereby marred the full satisfactory fruition of my labours and devices. Among other of the outbreakings alluded to that not a little vexed me, was one that I will relate, and just in order here to show the animus of men's minds towards me.
We had in the town a clever lad, with a geni of a mechanical turn, who made punch-bowls of leather, and legs for cripples of the same commodity, that were lighter and easier to wear than either legs of cork or timber.
His name was Geordie Sooplejoint, a modest, douce, and well-behaved young man--caring for little else but the perfecting of his art. I had heard of his talent, and was curious to converse with him; so I spoke to Bailie Pirlet, who had taken him by the hand, to bring him and his leather punch- bowl, and some of his curious legs and arms, to let me see them; the which the bailie did, and it happened that while they were with me, in came Mr Thomas M'Queerie, a dry neighbour at a joke.
After some generality of discourse concerning the inventions, whereon Bailie Pirlet, who was naturally a gabby p.r.i.c.k-me-dainty body, enlarged at great length, with all his well dockit words, as if they were on chandler's pins, pointing out here the utility of the legs to persons maimed in the wars of their country, and showing forth there in what manner the punch-bowls were specimens of a new art that might in time supplant both China and Staffords.h.i.+re ware, and deducing therefrom the benefits that would come out of it to the country at large, and especially to the landed interest, in so much as the increased demand which it would cause for leather, would raise the value of hides, and per consequence the price of black cattle--to all which Mr M'Queerie listened with a shrewd and a thirsty ear; and when the bailie had made an end of his paternoster, he proposed that I should make a filling of Geordie's bowl, to try if it did not leak.
”Indeed, Mr Pawkie,” quo' he, ”it will be a great credit to our town to hae had the merit o' producing sic a clever lad, who, as the bailie has in a manner demonstrated, is ordained to bring about an augmentation o'
trade by his punch-bowls, little short of what has been done wi' the steam-engines. Geordie will be to us what James Watt is to the ettling town of Greenook, so we can do no less than drink prosperity to his endeavours.”
I did not much like this bantering of Mr M'Queerie, for I saw it made Geordie's face grow red, and it was not what he had deserved; so to repress it, and to encourage the poor lad, I said, ”Come, come, neighbour, none of your wipes--what Geordie has done, is but arles of what he may do.”
”That's no to be debated,” replied Mr M'Queerie, ”for he has shown already that he can make very good legs and arms; and I'm sure I shouldna be surprised were he in time to make heads as good as a bailie's.”
I never saw any mortal man look as that pernickity personage, the bailie, did at this joke, but I suppressed my own feelings; while the bailie, like a bantam c.o.c.k in a pa.s.sion, stotted out of his chair with the s.p.u.n.k of a birslet pea, demanding of Mr M'Queerie an explanation of what he meant by the insinuation. It was with great difficulty that I got him pacified; but unfortunately the joke was oure good to be forgotten, and when it was afterwards spread abroad, as it happened to take its birth in my house, it was laid to my charge, and many a time was I obligated to tell all about it, and how it couldna be meant for me, but had been incurred by Bailie Pirlet's conceit of spinning out long perjink speeches.
CHAPTER x.x.xII--THE TOWN DRUMMER
Nor did I get every thing my own way, for I was often thwarted in matters of small account, and suffered from them greater disturbance and molestation than things of such little moment ought to have been allowed to produce within me; and I do not think that any thing happened in the whole course of my public life, which gave me more vexation than what I felt in the last week of my second provostry.
For many a year, one Robin Boss had been town drummer; he was a relic of some American-war fencibles, and was, to say the G.o.d's truth of him, a divor body, with no manner of conduct, saving a very earnest endeavour to fill himself fou as often as he could get the means; the consequence of which was, that his face was as plooky as a curran' bun, and his nose as red as a partan's tae.
One afternoon there was a need to send out a proclamation to abolish a practice that was growing into a custom, in some of the bye parts of the town, of keeping swine at large--ordering them to be confined in proper styes, and other suitable places. As on all occasions when the matter to be proclaimed was from the magistrates, Thomas, on this, was attended by the town-officers in their Sunday garbs, and with their halberts in their hands; but the abominable and irreverent creature was so drunk, that he wamblet to and fro over the drum, as if there had not been a bane in his body. He was seemingly as soople and as senseless as a bolster.--Still, as this was no new thing with him, it might have pa.s.sed; for James Hound, the senior officer, was in the practice, when Robin was in that state, of reading the proclamations himself.--On this occasion, however, James happened to be absent on some hue and cry quest, and another of the officers (I forget which) was appointed to perform for him. Robin, accustomed to James, no sooner heard the other man begin to read, than he began to curse and swear at him as an incapable nincomp.o.o.p--an impertinent term that he was much addicted to. The grammar school was at the time skailing, and the boys seeing the stramash, gathered round the officer, and yelling and shouting, encouraged Robin more and more into rebellion, till at last they worked up his corruption to such a pitch, that he took the drum from about his neck, and made it fly like a bombsh.e.l.l at the officer's head.
The officers behaved very well, for they dragged Robin by the lug and the horn to the tolbooth, and then came with their complaint to me. Seeing how the authorities had been set at nought, and the necessity there was of making an example, I forthwith ordered Robin to be cas.h.i.+ered from the service of the town; and as so important a concern as a proclamation ought not to be delayed, I likewise, upon the spot, ordered the officers to take a lad that had been also a drummer in a marching regiment, and go with him to make the proclamation.
Nothing could be done in a more earnest and zealous public spirit than this was done by me. But habit had begot in the town a partiality for the drunken ne'er-do-well, Robin; and this just act of mine was immediately condemned as a daring stretch of arbitrary power; and the consequence was, that when the council met next day, some sharp words flew from among us, as to my usurping an undue authority; and the thank I got for my pains was the mortification to see the worthless body restored to full power and dignity, with no other reward than an admonition to behave better for the future. Now, I leave it to the unbia.s.sed judgment of posterity to determine if any public man could be more ungraciously treated by his colleagues than I was on this occasion. But, verily, the council had their reward.
CHAPTER x.x.xIII--AN ALARM
The divor, Robin Boss, being, as I have recorded, reinstated in office, soon began to play his old tricks. In the course of the week after the Michaelmas term at which my second provostry ended, he was so insupportably drunk that he fell head foremost into his drum, which cost the town five-and-twenty s.h.i.+llings for a new one--an accident that was not without some satisfaction to me; and I trow I was not sparing in my derisive commendations on the worth of such a public officer.
Nevertheless, he was still kept on, some befriending him for compa.s.sion, and others as it were to spite me.
But Robin's good behaviour did not end with breaking the drum, and costing a new one.--In the course of the winter it was his custom to beat, ”Go to bed, Tom,” about ten o'clock at night, and the reveille at five in the morning.--In one of his drunken fits he made a mistake, and instead of going his rounds as usual at ten o'clock, he had fallen asleep in a change house, and waking about the midnight hour in the terror of some whisky dream, he seized his drum, and running into the streets, began to strike the fire-beat in the most awful manner.