part of the shop, pressed their faces against the window and swayed with
impatience across the street, and also seized a lamp-post for purposes
of observation--rehearsed the terms of the advertisement with
considerable accuracy and expounded them with various figures of speech,
and then issued his ultimatum.
"Ye have heard the invitation sent oot by a magistrate o' Perth, and a
man whom I've met on public occasions" (Tarn had been prosecuted before
the Bailie under the Game Acts): "we're here in response to a public
advertisement in terms thereof, and my money is on the counter. I call
these persons present to witness that I've fulfilled my side of the
covenant, and I here and now before these witnesses demand the tea and
the whisky as above stated" (howls from the crowd, who were greatly
impressed by this judicial effort, and were getting every minute more
thirsty).
"It's maist extraordinary that the Bailie is no here himsel' to receive
his friends; but what is done by the servant is done by the
master--that's good law" (vehement support from Jess Mitchell, who at
the smell of the shop was getting beyond control); "and I give ye two
meenuts, my dainty young friend, and if the material be not forthcoming
at the end of that time, the law will allow us to help ourselves, and
gin ye offer ony resistance I'll pit ye and yir neebour inside the
sugar-cask." And it was fortunate for every person concerned that the
police, who had been somewhat perplexed by the circumstances, arrived at
the scene, and turned Tinkler Tam and his friends into the street and
themselves stood guard over the shop. It was at this point that the
Bailie arrived and was received with frantic applause and a Babel of
appeal.
[Illustration: "BEFORE HIM STOOD LONDON JOHN BEARING THE SEDUCTIVE
ADVERTISEMENT."]
"Hurrah for the Bailie! Come awa' man, quick, else yir shop will be
wreckit. Where ha' ye been? The folk are cryin' oot for ye. It's time ye
started on the tea and the whisky. Make way for the Bailie. He's coming
to start the auction. Three cheers for Bailie MacConachie!" And the
Bailie, limp and dishevelled, amazed and furious, was hustled through
the crowd to see the Italian warehouse guarded by the police, and the
mob of Muirtown clamouring for tea and whisky at his hand, while face to
face with him stood London John, who had now been produced for the
occasion, bearing on his back and breast the seductive advertisement.
"It's a brazen lie!" And the enraged Bailie lost all self-control as he
read the legend on the board. "A low, mean, dirty trick, a deliberately
planned fraud. It's perfectly iniquitous, in fact, juist--juist
damnable! Bankrupt--who is bankrupt? Is't me?" And the veins on the
Bailie's neck swelled visibly. "Tea at elevenpence-halfpenny! I never
had such trash in my shop. Three shillings is the lowest, and I never
recommended it. Whisky!--there is not a drop in the shop. Who dare say I
would turn this shop into a public-house? I'll be at the bottom of this,
though it cost me a thousand pounds. Who hired ye to carry round the
board, ye peetiful creature? If ye don't tell the truth I'll commit ye
to gaol this very meenute." And the Bailie turned the battery of his
wrath upon London John, who was greatly flattered by his own prominent
position, and not at all concerned about the Bailie's threat.
"It was," replied the Mercury of the Vennel, with great composure, "a
big, stout man like yirsel', Bailie, that gied me the boards and a
shillin'; or, noo that I think about it, he wasna so big, he was a
little man, and gey shilpit (thin) about the neck. Dod! I'm no very
sure, though, but that it was a woman wi' a red face and a shepherd's
tartan plaid; at ony rate, if it wasna her it micht be a bit lassie wi'
bare head and feet; and I'm thinkin' noo, Bailie, it was a bit lassikie,
for she said to me, 'Have ye ever been in London?' Noo, Bailie, I would
like to tell you about London." And if the police had not silenced
London John, the Bailie at that moment would have had a fit of apoplexy,
for it was evident that the trail was blind and there was no getting to
the real person behind London John.
The crowd had listened with considerable patience and self-restraint to
this conversation, but as soon as the hope of tea and refreshment died
away, and they realised that some one had fooled them, they looked out
for a victim, and settled upon the Bailie.
"Ye should be ashamed of yourself," and Tinkler Tam, standing out from
the midst of the crowd, and sitting as it were upon the bench sentenced
the Bailie in the dock. "It's a fine business to be playing tricks on
the poor folk o' Muirtown, wilin' them from their work to waste their
time at your shop-door and sendin' them awa' empty-handed. If it had
been the first o' April, and ye had been a laddie, I wouldna hev said
much aboot it; but at your age, and you a magistrate, to play sic a
trick, it's perfectly disgraceful. Ye ought to get a month's hard
labour, but aye thing's sure, ye'll no long be a Bailie o' Muirtown. It
was fearsome to hear ye askin' London John who gave him the shillin'
when he describit ye juist as ye are standing; then the puir body, when
ye threatened him, brought in the lassie. Man, though ye're a Bailie and
I'm naething but Tinkler Tam, I would scorn to make use of a poor
natural that hasna his wits, juist to feed my vanity and gither a crowd
round my shop." Then the crowd united in three long groans, and possibly
might have shown their indignation in a still more pronounced form, but
the police, being still further reinforced, drove them along the
streets, while the Bailie hid himself in the recesses of his shop.
Three minutes later Speug sauntered into the shop with Howieson and
Bauldie, and demanded a pennyworth of peppermint drops. He also remarked
to Jock, as they were being folded up, "If there be as mony o' the
Bailie's friends callin' at the shop on Monday, I doubt the police will
no be able to spare a constable to keep order on the Terrace." And as a
matter of fact the offensive patrol was withdrawn, and the Seminary
resumed possession of the debatable ground.
THE FALL OF GOLIATH
XIII
Bailie MacConachie made a mistake when he risked a war with the boys of
the Seminary, and it was colossal folly on his part to continue the war
after his first defeat in the affair of the advertisement. No doubt it
was humiliating to have his respectable place of business filled with
the mob of Muirtown demanding whisky as a right, and threatening him
with penalties as a covenant-breaker when they did not get it; he had
also very good reasons for believing that the unholy inspiration which
gathered the vagrants to his shop came from the Seminary. His best
policy, however, would have been to treat the matter as a joke; and if
the Bailie had stopped on his way to dinner, and told the boys plainly
that he knew quite well they were at the bottom of the affair, that they
were a set of confounded young rascals, that he had intended to hang six
of them and send the rest to penal servitude, that he was going to
forgive them for the sake of their unhappy parents, and because it had
not been half bad fun after all, that there would be no more policemen
before the Seminary, and there must be no more windows smashed in his
(the Bailie's) house--the Seminary, which always respected a fellow who
took his licking with good humour and didn't squeal, would have given
the Bailie the best cheer he ever got in his public career, and a
covenant of peace would have been made between him and the boys which
would never have been forgotten. Had another pane of glass been broken
by a Seminary ball, the value thereof in a packet of halfpence, with an
expression of regret, would have been handed in before evening. The
honorary freedom of the school would have been conferred on the Bailie,
without any public ceremony, but with immense practical advantage, and
although the Bailie was surfeited with civic honours, yet even he might
have tasted a new pleasure as he passed along the terrace to see the
boys suspend a game for an instant to let him pass in stately walk, and
to hear Speug cry, "Oot o' the Bailie's road," and to receive a salute
from tailless Highland bonnets that were touched to none outside the
school, except to the Count and Dr. Manley. If Providence had given a
touch of imagination to the Bailie, and his head had not been swollen by
a position approaching that of the angels, he would have come to terms
at once with the boys, in which case bygones would have been bygones,
and he would have been spared much humiliation.
Unfortunately the Bailie allowed his temper to get the better of him,
raging furiously in public places, and breathing forth threatenings
about what he would do to the plotter, till all Muirtown, which
otherwise might have pitied him, held its sides. He kept our single
detective at work for a fortnight, who finally extracted from London
John that the "boardies" containing the shameful advertisement had been
given him by a man uncommonly like the detective himself and that the
said "boardies" were not to be compared with those he used to carry in
London. The detective also learned, on a somewhat risky visit to Mr.
McGuffie's stables, that the Speug had spent the whole day of that
historical Saturday till the hour of two--when he called for peppermints
at the Bailie's shop--in cleaning out his rabbit-hutch and other
domestic duties--this on the testimony of three of Mr. McGuffie's
grooms, each of whom was willing to swear the same anywhere, or fight
the detective, with gloves or without gloves, in the stable-yard or any
other place which might be agreed upon. The Bailie also, going from bad
to worse, offered a reward of £5 for any information which would lead to
the conviction of the offender, and received thirty letters--so many
anonymous, attacking his character, public and private, and so many
signed, from various cranks in Muirtown, in which the crime was
assigned to Irish Roman Catholics, to the Publicans, to the
Morisonians, and to a tribe of gypsies camped outside the city. They
were all annoying, but there were two which cut the Bailie to the quick.
One was written from the security of Glasgow, in which the writer
promised, on receipt of the reward, to send a full account of the
conspiracy, and, having got the money, replied briefly that he left the
matter to the Bailie's own conscience; and the second, which asked for
no reward except the writer's sense of having done his duty, and which
hinted that if the Bailie put the question straight to his senior
assistant, he might find he had been nourishing a viper in his bosom,
and that a young man with such a smug appearance could be little else
than a rascal. This letter, which was written in a schoolboy hand, and
had five words misspelt, was signed, "An Elder of the Free Kirk." None
of the letters seemed to help the matter forward, and life at the
Bailie's residence was very troubled during those weeks.
When news of the Bailie's vindictive spirit spread through the Seminary,
the boys were much pained, for it was sad to see an old man forgetting
himself and harbouring a spirit of revenge. It seemed, indeed, as if all
they had done for the Bailie was simply love's labour lost, and that
they must begin again to bring him to a proper state of mind. The
Seminary loved peace and hated war, being a body of quiet,
well-behaved, hard-working lads. Still, if war was forced upon them, and
detectives set upon their track, it was a duty to themselves and their
families to meet the situation bravely. Nothing could have been more
successful than the last campaign; and, although Speug had never
boasted, and none dared say that he had anything to do with it, there
was a feeling in the Seminary that the conduct of the next campaign was
safe in his hands. As it turned out, it was certainly safe, and one
ought not to detract from genius, but there can be no doubt that Fortune
played into the hands of Speug.
Much may be allowed to a broad sense of humour, and the walk of the
Bailie was marvellous to behold; but it was rather poor business for
Speug to walk half the length of the Terrace a yard behind the Bailie in
an exact imitation of the magistrate's manner, although the school was
hugely delighted. If the Bailie had taken no notice, the score had been
on his side; but when he turned round and gave Speug a sound box on the
side of the head, he lost himself, and out of that single mistake, by a
chain of consequences, arose the scandal which almost drove the Bailie
from Muirtown. Speug could not have hoped for anything so good as that
foolish blow, and the moment that it came he saw his opportunity. Many a
stroke had he endured in his day, from his father and from the grooms,
when his mischief was beyond endurance, and from Bulldog when he caught
him red-handed, and from the boys in a fight, and there was no one of
his age so indifferent to such afflictions. Had the hand been any other
than that of Bailie MacConachie, Speug would have made derisive gestures
and invited the second stroke. As it was, he staggered across the
pavement and fell with a heavy thud upon the street, where, after one
sharp, piercing cry of pain, he lay motionless, but his moans could be
heard along the Terrace. His one hope was that, when he had seized the
occasion with such dramatic success, the Seminary would not fail to play
up and support his _rôle_, and, although they were cleverer at reality
than acting they entered heartily into their opportunity.
"Are ye conscious, Peter?" inquired Howieson tenderly, as he stooped
over the prostrate figure. "Div ye hear us speakin' to ye? Dinna moan
like that, but tell us where ye're hurt. What are ye gatherin' round
like that for an keepin' away the air? Hold up his head, Bauldie? Some
o' ye lift his feet out o' the gutter? Run to the lade, for ony's sake,
and bring some water in yir bonnets."
It was pretty to see Jock and Bauldie lifting the unconscious form of
their beloved friend, and carrying him carefully across the pavement,
and placing Speug in a sitting position against the railing, and then
rendering what would now be called first aid to the wounded, while that
ingenuous youth kept his eyes tightly closed and moaned occasionally, to
show that he was still living. Never in his life had Providence given
him a chance of playing so much mischief, and he was not going to be
disobedient. They opened his shirt at the breast to give him air, they
anxiously searched the side of his head for the wound, and washed away
imaginary blood with very dirty pocket-handkerchiefs. They bathed his
forehead with such profuseness that the water ran down his chest,
whereat Speug expressed himself in low but stern tones, so Nestie
advised them to stick to his head; and some of the smaller boys were
only prevented from taking off his boots by a seasonable warning from
Bauldie and a reasonable fear of consequences. The Seminary circle was
reinforced by all the message-boys within sight, and several ladies who
were coming home from the shops. Two maiden ladies, against whose
railings Peter had been propped in the hour of his distress, came
out--their hearts full of compassion and their hands of remedies. As
Jock and Bauldie did not consider it safe that Peter should be moved at
once, one maiden lady placed a cushion between his head and the
railings, while the other chafed his forehead with scent, and both
insisted that Dr. Manley should be sent for at once. This was the first
suggestion which seemed to have any effect on Peter, for it would not at
all have suited his plans that that matter-of-fact physician should
have arrived on the spot. And when a bottle of ferocious smelling-salts
was held to the patient's nose, Speug showed signs of returning
consciousness.
"Poor dear!" said one lady; "what a mercy he wasn't killed. A blow
behind the ear is often fatal. He's coming round nicely. The colour is
returning to his cheeks. Bailie MacConachie, did you say?" as Jock
Howieson unfolded to the ladies in simple, straightforward, truthful
words the story of the murderous attack. "I can't believe that any man
would so abuse a poor helpless child." (At this moment Peter, who had
been reconnoitring the whole scene through his half-closed eyes, seized
the opportunity to wink to the mourners with such irresistible effect as
to prove once again the close connection between tears and laughter.)
"And him a magistrate," concluded the sympathetic female. "He ought to
be ashamed of himself; but if I were the laddie's friends, I would make
the Bailie hear about it on the deaf side of his head."
[Illustration: "A BOTTLE OF FEROCIOUS SMELLING-SALTS WAS HELD TO THE
PATIENT'S NOSE."]
Upon a sign from Speug, who was getting a little weary of inaction, he
was helped to his feet, and after one or two staggers seemed to come to
himself, and submitted with agreeable humour to the attention of his
friends, who dusted him from head to foot, under the superintendence of
the ladies and to the huge delight of the message-boys, who were now
entering into the meaning of the scene. His bonnet, which had been
thoughtfully used as a water-can, was placed wrong end foremost upon his
head, but Peter resisted the proposal to tie up his head in Bauldie's
handkerchief, partly because there was a limit even to his endurance,
and because Bauldie's handkerchief served many a purpose in the course
of the day. The maiden ladies were anxious that he should rest in their
house, but Speug indicated that he preferred to be taken home, where he
could break the news himself to his anxious father. And so an impressive
procession was formed, with so many boys in front to clear the way, and
then Speug, upheld on the one hand by Nestie, and on the other by Jock,
while Bauldie commanded the rearguard and kept the message-boys at a
distance, in order to secure due respect for the sufferer. It was with
difficulty that Speug could sustain his _rôle_ until he and his friends
got safely within the shelter of the stable-yard, when they plunged into
a straw-shed and rolled together in one heap of triumphant mischief.
"You're a g-genius, Peter," said Nestie, "and it would be pure waste for
you to be a h-horsedealer. You must go on the st-stage. The way you came
whack on the pavement was j-just immense; and do you know, Peter, you
looked quite nice when you lay f-fainting. One lady called you a pretty
boy, and I was quite sorry you were unconscious."
"Ye're a disgustin' liar, Nestie, besides being an impident young brat.
I heard every word, and she never said 'pretty'; but," and Speug looked
round thoughtfully, "if I knew which o' ye emptied the water down my
breast, I'd give him something to remember. I'm wet to the skin," and
Speug made a drive at Bauldie, who caught Howieson by the leg, who
pulled down Nestie by the hair of the head, and they all fought together
in high glee. Speug extricated himself and demanded news of the Bailie.
Then the three told Speug the story together in bits, one beginning
where another left off.
"He was that astonished when ye coupit over that he couldna speak, and
Jock cried, 'The Bailie has killed Speug.'" "He was wantin' to lift ye
up, but Bauldie gets in afore him and dares him to strike ye a second
time." "It would have done you good, Peter, to see the Bailie walking
along to his house, just like an ordinary man, all the s-starch out of
him, and taking a look back to see what was h-happening." "Aye, and he
stoppit opposite the lade to get another look, and if Cosh didna empty a
cupful of water on his legs by mistake! I didna think Cosh had the
spirit." "He was ashamed to stand at the w-window, but I saw him
p-peeping out behind the curtains, just to find out whether you were
living." "If his servant lass didna follow us across the meadow, and, my
word, she's back to the Bailie with a fine story." "He's sweatin' the
now for fear he be taken up for assault, and maybe manslaughter." "What
w-would you say, Peter, just to die altogether, and we would gi-give you
an A1 funeral? If you'll just be g-good-natured and do it, I'll write
your l-life myself. It's perfectly sc-scrummageous." And then Peter fell
on Nestie, and Howieson on Bauldie, and they rejoiced together once more
in the straw.
"You're 'avin' an 'igh 'ole time in 'ere, young gentlemen," and Mr.
McGuffie's English groom looked down on the boys; "but you're missin'
the Derby, that's what you are. Hold Pompous has come 'isself, and if he
ain't been hexplainin' to the master 'ow he 'appened to knock Speug
down. He's out o' breath now, and the master he's took up the runnin',
and--my eye and Betty Martin--ain't he talkin'! Not cussin'--no, not one
swear word has he let go. Young gentlemen, upon my Alfred David, if the
master ain't preachin' for all the world as if he was a blessed beak on
the Bench and old Pompous was a 'habit and repute.' It's as good as a
circus; you just go and 'ear 'im," and in exactly one and a quarter
seconds the boys were an unseen audience when Mr. Peter McGuffie senior
gave his opinion of the conduct of Bailie MacConachie, which he had been
doing already for some time with much effect.
"Imitatin' ye, was he, and followin' ye along the street, walkin' as ye
walk, and so ye knocked him down in open day? Why should he not be doing
as ye did? Is yir walk protected by law, that nobody dare step the same
way on the streets of Muirtown? Answer me that, if ye please. Bailies
are pretty high and mighty in this town, they are; but I never heard yet
that the street belonged to them, and that a laddie was in danger of
death if he followed in their steps. That would be a fine pass. Aren't
boys always imitatin' somebody? Why, you stupid old fool, half the
laddies in this district try to imitate me; and, as sure as ye're
standing there, I've seen half a dozen of them, each one with a straw in
his mouth, and the bit legs of him straddled, and his bonnet on the side
of his head, and the belly of him stuck out like a pillow, just the
eemage of myself. What would ye think of me if I knockit one of them
down, ye double-distilled old fool?
"I'm astonished at ye, for ye might be pleased to think that the
laddies, instead of copying a horsedealer, are trying to be magistrates.
Didna the Provost tell the laddies the last time he gave the prizes to
'take notice of my freend Bailie MacConachie, and try to be like him?'
And now, when one of them has taken his advice, if ye dinna turn round
on the street and half kill him, till he had to be brought home half
faintin' to his father's house! Fine-like conduct for a magistrate! Ye
bloodthirsty old ruffian!
"Came to make inquiries, did ye? Ye made enough inquiries, by all
accounts, on the Terrace. Expression of regret, was it? We don't want
yir regret, ye hypocritical Pharisee! Present of a top? I wonder ye have
the face! Ye break a laddie's head and then offer him a top! I can buy
tops myself for my family. Confound ye! to think ye're standing there
after manglin' a poor, defenceless, harmless, motherless laddie! Ye
should be ashamed to show yir face in Muirtown; and if there was any
public spirit in this town, ye would be drummed out o' the place!
"Look ye here, Bailie MacConachie"--and Mr. McGuffie adopted a
conciliatory tone--"the best of us will make mistakes, and ye've made a
particularly big one when ye knockit down Peter McGuffie in the face of
the public of Muirtown. Ye may bet on that and take my tip for it. Let's
settle this matter fair and sure as between man and man. Ye say ye're
sorry, and ye don't want any noise made about it. Well, now, I've lived
here man and boy for fifty years, and any man in Muirtown will tell you
I'm straight. If I give a warranty with any horse, ye needn't be afraid
to buy that horse, and I'll deal with ye on the square.
"Ye and me are about an age of and on, and we ought to be pretty even
as fighting men. Ye have the pull of me in height, but I would say that
I am nimbler on my legs. Ye might be called a heavy weight, and I am a
middle weight, but there isn't much in that. We could meet pretty level
with the gloves.
"Suppose, now, we just went into the straw-shed here, and stripped and
fought the matter of six rounds, easy and quiet? There would be no
mischief done, and no bad blood left, and that would be the end of the
matter.