SEDERUNT XXV. (Major, Doctor, and Laird.) LAIRD.-I say, Doctor-noo that I've got time to spier-what cam' owre ye on the Queen's birth-day? It was a daft-like thing to be awa' on sic a special occasion! Crabtree here, and mysel', missed ye sairly! DOCTOR.-Necessity, and not my will, caused my absence. On Tuesday preceding the loyal saturnalia, I was called to visit a patient in the vicinity of Brampton, and did not get back to town till Thursday afternoon. MAJOR.-I opined that you made it a point not to stir beyond a walking distance from your "crib," (as Captain Bobadil hath it) on curative or killative missions? DOCTOR.-Very little, in the primary instance -a fit of indigestion, or something of that sort. Unfortunately, however, he fell in with one of those herb or yarb empirics who, like locusts, infest this poor credulous Canada, and put himself under his treatment. MAJOR.-Your story is told-but one catastrophe could result from such premises! DOCTOR.-Ere three weeks had elapsed, my hapless amicus was bed-ridden in good earnest, and it required all my skill to undo the mischief which the squalid disciple of Hornbook had occasioned. MAJOR.-How passing strange it is that, in this enlightened and progressive nineteenth century, men, with the slightest pretensions to rationality, should intrust themselves to vagaDOCTOR. Such is my general rule, but every bonds whose ignorance is as obvious as their rule has its exception. LAIRD. That proposition I deny, root and branch! Wha ever heard tell, for instance, o' an exception to the rule, that a bill in Chancery is followed by a bill o' costs? assurance! LAIRD.-Ye may weel say that, Crabtree! A farmer who will not give the making o' a pair o' breeks to ony ane wha has not served a regular apprenticeship to the tailoring craft, MAJOR.-Come, come, Laird, you must not, will without scruple commit the health-I may in your senectitude, leave the chopping of pine say the very existence-o' himsel', his wife, and for the chopping of logic! Permit Sangrado, his bairns to a ne'er-do-weel, whose knowledge an' it so please you, to give his explanation. o' drugs and anatomy, such as it is, has been DOCTOR.-Indeed, there is very little explana-acquired by inspiration! tion to give. A very worthy, though soft-headed DOCTOR.-There is no great mystery in the friend of mine, residing in Chinguacousy, who matter. The quack, whatever other qualificathinks in his simplicity that my brain contains tions he lacks, generally possesses a glib and the concentrated essence of medical wisdom, voluble tongue, which constitutes his main was taken very unwell, and forthwith tele-stock-in-trade. Thus endowed, the reptile graphed for me. LAIRD.-What ailed the man? crawls into a dwelling where sickness has taken up its abode, (these vampires have a keen and MAJOR.-One would imagine that a few such upshots would serve to open the eyes of the gullish hoi polloi. "Calces o' fossils, earths, and trees; Aqua-fortis-what you please, He can content ye. "Forby some new, uncommon weapons, Or mite-horn shavings, filings, scrapings, Sal-alkali o' midge-tail clippings, MAJOR.-One portion of your quotation I should judge was a trifle inappropriate—I refer to the rattling over of "Latin names!" LAIRD. If the Shark didna spout Latin, he weel! DOCTOR.-And how fared it with the trustful DOCTOR.-Not a bit of it! The yarb man has a thousand ingenious theories at his finger rapped oot a gush o' Dutch, and sic like unknown ends to account for the miscarriage. His tongues, which answered the purpose quite as directions had not been implicitly followed, or -what is a very common get-off with such gentry-the licensed practitioner had, in the first instance, irremediably injured the patient by the administration of marcury, or some other regler medicament! Daidles? LAIRD.—It was a crowning mercy that I happened to ca' upon him! Though I am nae leech, I soon saw that the puir body was labouring under pleurisy; and there was the Hippocrates or rather, I should say, the hypocrite-o' Brampton, drenching him wi' denty-lion tea and lime-water! DOCTOR.-The murderous ruffian! LAIRD.—I met, no' lang ago, wi' ane o' the veepers—as ye very properly ca' them-at the house o' an auld acquaintance o' mine, Duncan Daidles, wha had been seduced to mak' use o' his services. He had a' the external marks o' a broken-doon field-preacher-such as a roosty LAIRD. The very words I used to the scounblack coat, sairly oot at the elbows, and a neck-drel! By my certy, I kicked him oot o' the cloth aboot his craig which might hae been white door in double quick time, and sent aff an half a century ago. The creature spoke through express for a real doctor, wha arrived just in his nose, wi' a twang savouring unwholesomely season, and nae mair, to save the sick gowk's o' Dollardom, and, losh preserve us! what a life by proper remedies! spate o' meaningless, lang-nebbet words he evacuated to be sure! MAJOR.-What a crying disgrace to the authorities of "this Canada" that man-slaughtering DOCTOR. What was the name of the fellow? brigands, like Shark, of Brampton, are perLAIRD.-He ca'd himsel' Dr. Shark, o'mitted to fatten and wax plethoric upon the Brampton! blood of their fellow-creatures! Let a publican DOCTOR.-Why, that is the identical vaga- vend a horn to a pilgrim, without having a bond who occasioned my late inopportune license to do so, and, presto! he is pulled up, exodus from Toronto! Confound him! if he and stringently fined for the delict! On the had been caged in his proper domicile, the other hand, there are to be found in every Provincial Penitentiary, I should not have been quarter of the Province desperadoes like Doctor prevented from celebrating the nativity of Shark, murdering with impunity in the very Regina in your good company! teeth of the law! LAIRD.-Seeing that I was a stranger, Dr. DOCTOR.-Yes! and, keeping out of view the Shark did a' he could to impress me wi' a sense certain loss of human life which is thus occao' his skill, by expatiating upon a' the ills to sioned, what an injustice to men who, at much which human flesh is heir to, and his infallible expenditure of precious money, and more preremedies for the same. When he was palaver- cious time, have qualified themselves to practice ing, I couldna help thinking upon the lines o' in a legal manner! Robin Burns, referring to a similar character: "And then o' doctor's saws and whittles, Their Latin names as fast he rattles LAIRD.-Some unco liberal folk argue that "the people" should be left to judge for themselves in sic matters! But, as I say, what for is this rule no carried oot in a' things? Land surveyors and barristers canna carry on their trades withoot a leeshence, and if they ventured crimsoned their honest cheeks, he never more to do sae, would be harled owre the coals before would have babbled about a Yankee invasion ye could cry Jack Robinson! Noo, will ony ane of Canada! tell me that the measuring o' a kail-yard, or the pleading a case anent the price o' a stirk or a wheen bushels o' wheat is mair important than the life or death o' ane o' God's images-silly chips thereof! and feckless though that image be? Answer me that. MAJOR.-Your question is unanswerable. LAIRD.-Vera weel! Why, then, in the name o' common justice, is fish made o' ane and flesh o' the ither? MAJOR. Why, indeed! LAIRD. He would just as soon hae speculated upon the possibility o' quarrying doon the rock o' Quebec, and bigging dry stane dykes wi' the DOCTOR.-How did the represented personages look? MAJOR." First-rate," as our unsophisticated bush-whackers would say! Nothing could be more sublime than the bearing of the Grand Turk-Britannia seemed born to command-and our friend Louis Napoleon had an imperial aroma which was hugely imposing! DOCTOR. I have noticed, as a general rule, that the patrons of quacks are clamorous advo- DOCTOR. Was the night procession effective? cates for a Maine Liquor-law. Now, are "the LAIRD. It was the very cream o' the conmillion" not quite as well qualified to judge for cern! I and the Major were standing at the themselves as to the quality of the beverages Parliament Buildings, and when I saw the forest which they ought to imbibe, as they are to pro- o' torches advancing, and heard the row-denounce judgment upon the capabilities of their medical advisers? dowing o' the drums, it reminded me for a' the world o' the Porteous mob coming to storm the LAIRD.-A plain man, like your humble ser- Heart o' Mid-Lothian! The effect closely rubbed vant, would think sae! shoothers wi' the shooblime! DOCTOR.-It was a pity that the pyrotechnical display proved a failure! LAIRD.-Pyro-pyrotech-I saw naething there bearing sic a heathenish, jaw-dislocating designation! MAJOR. The root of the whole matter is, that we live in an age of rampant humbug! Every day we see Peter robbed, in order that the sum due to Paul may be liquidated! One man may abduct a horse, without any impertinent question being asked, while another will subject himself to the manipulation of Squire Ketch for merely looking at the quadruped like that? Ye should mind that everybody from over a fence! DOCTOR.-I notice from the accounts given by the fourth estate, that her Majesty's birth-day was honoured becomingly in " Muddy Little York." DOCTOR.-Oh, I mean the fireworks! disna understand Welsh ! Sairly has your education, I fear, been negleckit, doctor though you be! delet passed off. MAJOR.-The drawback to which you refer was amply compensated by the luminous manLAIRD. Oo, man, it was a grand and speerit-ner in which the incremation of Judge Monstirring demonstration! If ye had been wi' us at Mr. Wyllie's wunnock on the forenoon o' LAIRD.-Dinna mention the name o' that Wednesday, the 24th o' May, and seen the landlouper, or you will gie me a fit o' the colic! parade sailing alang wi' its flags and banners, I declare that my throat's sair yet wi' shouting and cornets and dulcimers, ye would hae and yelling at the reprobate, as the loyal flames imagined that ye were in Glasgow or Auld consumed him to ashes! If there exists an infidel wha questions the sterling British feelMAJOR. You indeed missed a spectacle well ing o' our community, he should hae seen that worth seeing! Never did I behold a finer body sight! By my certy, the skirls o' delight which of men than that which then defiled along King greeted each squib and rocket as it exploded Street! When I gazed upon the stalwart fire in the wame o' the railing Rabshakeh, would brigades, and the national societies of the hae sent him hame a thorough convert frae his United Empire, how did I long that John heresy! Mitchel could have witnessed the most sugges Reekie! DOCTOR.-You are too hard upon the unfortive sight! If he could have gazed upon that tunate law-monger of Montreal! He evidently noble turn-out of Anglo-Saxons and Celts, and lacks a few coppers of the shilling! marked the flush of affectionate loyalty which LAIRD.-Mair shame to the men that suffer a daft body to squirm and clocher upon the MAJOR. Willingly! There is not much in bench! O'd, he should be deciding pleas the following anecdote, but still sufficient to between speeders and blue-bottles in Dr. enable you to judge of the author's style. Workman's Hotel! [Reads.] MAJOR.-Tory though I be, I must say this A COOL REJOINER.-A Mr. Kelly, who was in much for the unfortunate fellow, that he has the habit of imbibing pretty freely, at a court held in one of the counties of North Alabama, made no attempt to justify his dismal backupon a case being called, in which K. found he sliding! Mondelet is evidently a flatulent could not get along for want of proof, was asked talker by nature, and consequently his silence by the court what course he would take in the under the jobations which he has been receiv-matter. "Why," said K., "if it please your ing must charitably be set down to the score of penitence! LAIRD. Deil thank him for hauding his tongue! He has said naething, because he had naething to say! DOCTOR. JAM satis-as the urchin said, when he had finished the discussion of a pot of preserves! Let us call a new cause! honor, I believe I will take water" (a common expression, signifying that the person using it would take a nonsuit). Judge A. was on the bench, and was something of a wag in a dry way, and had his pen in his hand ready to make the entry. "Well," said the Judge, "brother K., if you do, you will astonish your stomach most mightily." LAIRD.-Lawyer Kelly puts me in mind o' MAJOR. You have sometimes observed, the drouthy Laird o' Strathbungo. When on Sangrado, that Brother Jonathan was lacking his death-bed, the Laird gave solemn directions in humour? to his son touching the most orthodox manner DOCTOR.-I confess the corn-as Jonathan of manufacturing toddy. "John," said he, aforesaid hath it. In nine cases out of ten-dinna forget to put into the tumbler a suffiand I speak equally in reference to his literature ciency o' sugar, and plenty o' whusky; and be and his pictorial art—he mistakes exaggeration sure and dinna forget, that every drap o' water for wit. ye add to the brewing spoils the toddy!" MAJOR. The duodecimo which I hold in my hand rather contradicts your theory. DOCTOR.-Its name? MAJOR.--There is something peculiarly racy in the following description of an interview between a case-hunting, pettifogging barrister, MAJOR."The Flush Times of Alabama and and a worthy whom he wished to hook as a Mississippi." DOCTOR.-The author? MAJOR. Joseph G. Baldwin, a blackbrigadesman, hailing from Livingston, Alabama. client. [Reads.] JOHN STOUT, ESQ., AND MARK SULLIVAN.Mark Sullivan was imprisoned in the Sumter county jail, having changed the venue and place of residence from Washington county, where he DOCTOR.-What is the drift of the affair? had committed a murder. John Stout was an old acquaintance of Mark's, and being of a susMAJOR.-It consists of a series of sketches of ceptible nature when there was any likelihood of the Bar of the State of Alabama, and a fresher a fee, was not a man to stand on ceremony or or more appetizing volume I have not masticated the etiquette of the profession. He did not for many a long day. Mr. Baldwin (who is wait to be sent for, but usually hurried postsignally free from the detestable sin of book- haste to comfort his friends, when in the disconsolate circumstances of the unfortunate making) presents us with a gallery of pictures, Mark. John had a great love for the profession, all of them, evidently, taken from the life. He and a remarkable perseverance under discouintroduces his reader into a newly-formed com- raging circumstances, having clung to the bar munity, and pourtrays, with a hand at once for some practices indicating a much greater after being at least twice stricken from the roll, free and cultivated, the peculiarities of men zeal for his clients than for truth, justice, or and manners therein existing. fair dealing; but he had managed to get reinstated on promises of amendment, which were, standard of morality was not exalted, nor were we fear, much more profuse than sincere. John's his attainments in the profession great; having confined himself mostly to a class of cases and of clients better suited to give notoriety than enviable reputation to the practioner. He seemed to have a separate instinct, like a carLAIRD.-Afford us an opportunity o' judging rion crow's, for the filthy; and he snuffed up a DOCTOR.-If Mr. Baldwin heard an inveterate anti-republican fossil like you speak after this fashion, he might well exclaim, "Praise from Sir Hubert Stanley!" MAJOR. The praise, however, is sincere and well-founded. for oursels! tainted atmosphere, as Swedenborg says certain spirits do, with a rare relish. But with all with me: it was done fair,-it was an old John's industry and enterprise, John never quarrel. We settled it in the old way: I had throve, but at fifty years of age, he was as my rifle, and I plugged him fust-he might a seedy and threadbare in clothes as in character. knowed I would. It was devil take the hindHe had no settled abode, but was a sort of Cal- most. It wasn't my fault he didn't draw trigger muc Tartar of the Law, and roamed over the fust-they can't hurt me for it. But I hate to country generally, stirring up contention and be stayin' here so long, and the fishin' time breeding dirty lawsuits, fishing up fraudulent comin' on, too-it's mighty hard, but it can't papers, and hunting up complaisant witnesses be helped, I suppose." (And here Mark heaved to very apocryphal facts. a slight sigh.) Well, on one bright May morning, Squire "Ah, Mark," said John, "I aint so certain Stout presented himself at the door of the jail about that; that is, unless you are particular in Livingston, and asked admittance, professing well defended. You see, Mark, it aint now a desire to see Mr. Mark Sullivan, an old friend. like it used to be in the good old times. They Harvey Thompson, the then sheriff, admitted are getting new notions now-a-days. Since him to the door within, and which stood between the penitentiary has been built, they are got Mark and the passage. John desired to be led quare ways of doing things, they are sending into the room in which Mark was, wishing, he gentlemen there reg'lar as pigtracks. I believe said, to hold a private interview with Mark as they do it just because they've got an idea it one of Mark's counsel; but Harvey peremptorily helps to pay taxes. When it used to be neck refused-telling him, however, that he might or nothin', why, one of the young hands could talk with the prisoner in his presence. The clear a man; but now it takes the best sort of door being thrown open, left nothing but the testimony, and the smartest sort of lawyers in iron lattice-work between the friends, and Mark, the market, to get a friend clear. The way dragging his chain along, came to the door. things are goin' on now, murdering a man will At first, he did not seem to recognize John; but be no better than stealin' a nigger, after a John, running his hand through the intertices, while." grasped Mark's with fervour, asking him, at the same time, if it were possible that he had forgotten his old friend, John Stout. Mark, as most men in durance, was not slow to recognise "Yes," said Mark, "things is going downknow'd the time in old Washington, when peowards, --there aint no denyin' of that. I any friendship, real or imaginary, that might ple let gentlemen settle these here little matters be made to turn out to advantage, and, of course, minded their own business. And now you their own way, and nobody interfered, but allowed the claim, and expressed the pleasure can't put an inch or two of knife in a fellow, it gave him to see John. John soon got his hydraulics in readiness,-for sympathy and or lam him over the head a few times with a light-wood knot, but every little lackey must pathetic eloquence are wonderfully cheap accessories to rascality, and begun applying his poke his nose into it, and Law, law, law, is the handkerchief to his eyes with great energy them lawyers must have their jaw in it, and word, the cowardly, nasty slinks; and then "Mark, my old friend, you and I have been friends many a long year, old fellow; we have bow, bow wow, it goes; and the juror, they must have their say so in it; and the sherrer, played many a game of seven up together, Mark, and shot at many a shooting match, Mark, and that grinds out the law to 'em in the box, he he must do something, too; and the old cuss drunk many a gallon of 'red eye' together; and must have his how-de-do about it; and then to think, Mark, my old friend and companion, the witnesses, they must swear to ther packs that I loved and trusted like a brother, Mark, of lies-and the lawyers git to bawlin' and should be in this dreadful fix,-far from wife, bellerin', like Methodist preachers at a camp children, and friends, Mark,-it makes a child of me, and I can't-control-my feelings."jawin' and jawin' back, and such eternal lyin' meetin'-allers quarrellin' and no fightin'(Here John wept with considerable vivacity,I tell you, Stout, I won't stay in no such and doubled up an old bandanna handkerchief and mopped his eyes mightily.) Mark was not country. When I get out of here, I mean to one of the crying sort. He was a Roman-nosed, go to Texas, whar a man can see some peace, eagle-eyed ruffian of a fellow, some six feet two and not be interfered with in his private coninches high, and with a look and step that the McGregor himself might feel entitled him to be respected on the heather. sarns. All this come about consekens so many new settlers comin' in the settlement, bringin' their new-fool ways with 'em. The fust of it was two preachers comin' along. I told 'em So Mark responded to this lachrymal ebulli-'twould never do- and if my advice had been tion of Stout's a little impatiently; "Hoot, tuk, the thing could a been stopped in time; man, what are you making all that how-de-do but the boys said they wanted to hear the news for? It aint so bad as you let on. To be sure, them fellers fotch'd about the Gospel and sich it aint as pleasant as sitting on a log by a camp-and there was old Ramsouser's mill-pond so fire, with a tickler of the reverend stuff, a pack handy, too!--but it's too late now. And then of the documents and two or three good fellows, and a good piece of fat deer meat roasting at the end of a ramrod; but, for all that, it aint so bad as might be: they can't do nothing the doggery-keepers got to sellin' licker by the drink, instead of the half-pint, and a dime a drink at that; and then the Devil was to pay, and No mistake. But they can't hurt me, John. |