[Sidenote: Reminiscences]
Gazing with the rest, the stranger saw a long table glittering under the soft radiance of many candles and surrounded by a numerous company--fat and thin, old and young, red-faced and pale, gentle and simple. At the end farthest from the street one figure stood erect--a short, round, rubicund little man, wearing a gown of rusty black, one thumb stuck into his vest, and a rosy benignity in the glance with which he scanned the table. He threw back his head, cleared his tight throat sonorously, and began, in tones perhaps best described as treacly, to address the seated company, with an intention also towards the larger audience without.
"Now, neebours all, we be trim and cosy in our insides, and 'tis time fur me to say summat. I be proud, that I be, as it falls to me, bein' bailiff o' this town, to ax ya all to drink the good health of our honoured townsman an' guest. I ha' lived hereabout, boy an' man, fur a matter o' fifty year, an' if so be I lived fifty more I couldna be a prouder man than I bin this night. Boy an' man, says I. Ay, I knowed our guest when he were no more'n table high. Well I mind him, that I do, comin' by this very street to school; ay, an' he minds me too, I warrant. I see him now, I do, skippin' along street fresh an' nimble-like, his eyne chock full o' mischief, lookin' round fur to see some poor soul to play a prank on. It do feel strange-like to have him a-sittin' by my elbow to-day. Many's the tale I could tell o' his doin' an' our sufferin'. Why, I mind a poor lump of a prentice as I wunst had, a loon as never could raise a keek: poor soul, he bin underground this many year. Well, as I were sayin', this prentice o' mine were allers bein' baited by the boys o' the grammar-school. I done my best for him, spoke them boys fair an' soft, but bless ya, 'twas no good; they baited him worse'n ever. So one day I used my stick to um. Next mornin', I was down in my bake-hus, makin' my batch ready fur oven, when, oothout a word o' warnin', up comes my two feet behind, down I goes head fust into my flour barrel, and them young----hem! the clergy be present--them youngsters dancin' round me like forty mad merryandrews at a fair."
A roar of laughter greeted the anecdote.
"Ay, neebours," resumed the bailiff, "we can laugh now, you an' me, but theer's many on ya could tell o your own mishappenin's if ya had a mind to 't. As fur me, I bided my time. One day I cotched the leader o' them boys nigh corn-market, an' I laid him across the badgerin' stone, and walloped him nineteen-twenty--hee! hee! D'ya mind that, General?"
He turned to the guest at his right hand, who sat with but the glimmer of a smile, crumbling one of Bailiff Malkin's rolls on the table-cloth.
"But theer," continued the speaker, "that be nigh twenty year ago, an' the shape o' my strap binna theer now, I warrant. Three skins ha' growed since then--hee! hee! Who'd ha' thought, neebours, as that young limb as plagued our very lives out 'ud ha' bin here to-day, a general, an' a great man, an' a credit to his town an' country? Us all thought as he'd bring his poor feyther's grey hairs in sorrow to the grave. An' when I heerd as he'd bin shipped off to the Injies--well, thinks I, that bin the last we'll hear o' Bob Clive. But bless ya! all eggs binna addled. General Clive here--'twere the Injun sun what hatched he, an' binna he, I ax ya, a rare young fightin' cock? Ay, and a good breed too. A hunnerd year ago theer was a Bob Clive as med all our grandfeythers quake in mortal fear, a terrible man o' war was he. They wanted to put 'n into po'try an' the church sarvice.
From Wem and from Wyche
An' from Clive o' the Styche,
Good Lord, deliver us.
That's what they thought o' the Bob Clive o' long ago. Well, this Bob Clive now a-sittin' at my elbow be just as desp'rate a fighter, an' thankful let us all be, neebours, as he does his fightin' wi' the black-faced Injuns an' the black-hearted French, an' not the peaceful bide-at-homes o' Market Drayton."
The little bailiff paused to moisten his lips. From his audience arose feeling murmurs of approval.