Читать книгу The Member And The Radical - John Galt - Страница 19

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

In the course of the journey to Frailtown, we arranged together a very expedient system; and, as Mr. Tough said, ‘we could not but succeed’. He was really a very clever and dexterous man, and I was so content with what he advised, that, being somewhat fatigued on the second night, I proposed that we should sleep at Beverington, which is a stage short of Frailtown, and which, being a considerable manufacturing town, has a much more commodious inn. To be sure, we might have gone to the hotel at Physickspring, a most capital house; but I had understood that the sedate inhabitants of the borough had no very affectionate consideration for that hotel; and therefore, as it was my business not to give offence to them, I thought it would be just as well to sleep at Beverington, and go on betimes in the morning to the borough.

Accordingly we did so; and in the morning we resumed the remainder of the road, and were not a little surprised, when we were crossing the bridge of Frailtown, to hear vast shouts and huzzas rising from the heart of the town, and to see all hands, young and old, clodpoles and waggoners, all descriptions of persons, wearing purple and orange cockades, and bellowing, like idiots, ‘Gabblon for ever!’

My heart was daunted by the din, and Mr. Tough was just a provocation by his laughter; especially when, before we got to the Royal Oak Inn, in the market-place, we met a great swarm of the ragamuffins drawing Mr. Gabblon and that ne’er-do-weel Probe, in their postchaise, in triumph, without the horses. The latter, limb of Satan, as he was, had suspected our journey, and had gone immediately to his client; off at once they came from London, and while we, like the foolish virgins, were slumbering and sleeping at Beverington, they had passed on to Frailtown, and created all this anarchy and confusion.

But the mischief did not end with that. The ettercap Probe, on seeing us, shouted in derision, and the whole mob immediately began to halloo and yell at us in such a manner, flinging dirt and unsavoury missiles at us, that we were obliged to pull up the blinds, and drive to the inn in a state of humiliation and darkness. To speak with decorum of this clever stratagem of the enemy, we were, in fact, greatly down in the mouth; and for some time after we got safe into the inns, we wist not well what to do. Gabblon and Probe were masters of the field, and Mr. Spicer was their herald every where. At last, Mr. Tough bethought him of an excellent device to cut them out; and accordingly he sent for the landlord, and spoke to him if there was nobody in the town who had a grudge at Mr. Spicer, and would, for a consideration, befriend us in our need.

There was, to be sure, some hazard in this, as Mr. Gabblon and his familiar were likewise inmates of the same inn, and the landlord was, or pretended to be, reluctant to side with either of the candidates. But Mr. Tough persuaded him to send for a man whom he said he knew, who bore a deadly hatred to Mr. Spicer, and was, moreover, a relation of the Misses Stiches, for whom I had done so much. This man was accordingly brought forward. His name was Isaac Gleaning, an elderly person, and slow of speech, but a dungeon of wit. We received him with familiar kindness; and told him of the misfortune that had overtaken us, by our fatigue constraining us to sleep at Beverington.

‘It has,’ said Isaac, ‘been a great misfortune, for your adversaries have got the ears of the mob, and the whole town is in such an uproar that you must not venture to shew your horns in the street.’

‘What then,’ said I, ‘is to be done?’

‘Well,’ replied Isaac, ‘I have been thinking of that; the players are just now at Physickspring, and they have a very funny fellow among them: could not you send for the manager and the clown, and pay them well to be a mountebank and merry-andrew this evening in the market-place; and get them to throw funny squibs and jibes to the mob, against Mr. Gabblon and his compeers?’

Mr. Tough rubbed his hands with glee at this suggestion, and no time was lost in sending for the manager: over he came, and we soon privately made a paction with him; whereupon due notice was sent by the bellman through the town, that a great physician from the Athens of the north, with his servant, a learned professor, was to exhibit his skill and lofty tumblings in the market-place.

By the time that the bellman had proclaimed these extraordinary tidings, all the players, tag, rag, and bob-tail, came over from Physickspring, and set about erecting a stage for their master and the clown in the market-place. They had brought their play-actoring dresses; and they mingled in the crowd with Mr. Gabblon’s clanjamfrey, insomuch that Macbeth king of Scotland, Hamlet the Dane, and Julius Caesar, were visible in the streets.

Mr. Tough, who was in his way a wag, undertook to instruct Dr. Muckledose and his merry-andrew in what they should do; and the whole town was on such tiptoe of expectation, that Mr. Gabblon and his friends were in a manner deserted – and the multitude gathered in swarms and clusters round the stage, to secure good places to see the performance. In so far the device was successful beyond expectation, for Mr. Gabblon and his coadjutors found themselves obliged to return desjasket to the inn, so much superior were the attractions of the other mountebank.

It was not, however, in this only that the counselling of old Isaac Gleaning was serviceable; he went about among the friends of Mrs. Stiches and her late husband, and gathered together about twenty of the topping inhabitants, whom I invited to dinner; and Mr. Gabblon and the bodie Probe having engaged themselves to dine with their patron, Mr. Spicer, we had a most jovial party.

In the meantime it began to spunk out what a liberal man I was; and the whole mob were as pleased when they heard of the great dinner, as if every one had been an invited guest. Besides, when it was known that the players were hired by me to come over to entertain the town after dark, they in a great body came to the fore part of the inn, and gave me their thanks in three most consolatory cheers. There was, however, a small popular error among them, for I had not bargained for more of the players than the manager and the clown; but Mr. Tough, who was a knowing hand, told me not to make two bites of the cherry, but to hire the Mason Lodge, and make the players a compliment for a gratis entertainment of songs and scenes for the edification of the people. This I agreed to do; so that long before the dinner was ready, the wind had changed, and Mr. Tough told me to be of good cheer, for we were sailing before it with a steady breeze.