THE DUMMIE DOCTOR.
When the night watching was given up, Dan maintained himself by doing on a larger scale the odd sorts of jobs which he had sometimes taken in hand in order to add to his salary as watchman, or “dummie doctor,” as he was called. My older readers will remember with what feelings of indignation the resurrectionists or dummie doctors (for these were the names given to the violators of the graves) were spoken of, and that after their disappearance the odious name, “dummie doctor,” sometimes stuck to the watchman.
Dan acted amongst the surrounding farmers as butcher, mole-catcher, rat-catcher, and, in a rough way, as a veterinary surgeon; was employed as extra hand at sheep-shearings, corn-threshings, etc. He was a regular attender of local cattle markets, fairs, races, and games; a good and keen fisher, and strongly suspected of being a poacher, but never convicted. He was a wiry, spare, athletic man of about 5 feet 11 inches high, with a weatherbeaten countenance, thin grizzled hair, and a long stride. He lived in a cottage, divided by a single park-breadth from Knowe Park, and kept a perfect menagerie of dogs, ferrets, goats, and fowls—the latter being principally game sorts. His favourite pastime was cock-fighting; but it was, to Dan’s great regret, being discountenanced and put down. He had a variety of surnames; “the Corbie,” as a contraction of his own name, was the most common, but he was known as the “Mowdie” (mole), the “Rat,” the “Doctor,” the “Vet.,” and “Ggemmie,” as well as the “Dummie Doctor” or “Dummie.”
The eggs he had given to Bell were not from his stock, but had been got in exchange for some of these; and as he had sometimes been employed by Bell as a butcher, there was a trade connection between them, but the intimacy had been purely “professional,” as Dan, in the matter of social position or religion, was looked on as quite an outcast; and the description of him, in this respect, ranged from “a poor creature” to “an awfu’ man.”
Dan had got a setting of eggs from a very rare strain of game fowls, and had been loud in laying off their properties to his cronies, some of whom, on the night that Dan “set” them, took them carefully from under the hen and put ducks’ eggs in their place; they then crossed the field, got over Knowe Park wall, and put Dan’s eggs under one of Bell’s “clockers,”[14] using every precaution not to injure the eggs, as well as to avoid detection.
[14] Clucking hens.
Dan waited long and wearily for his expected brood; he looked for them on the reckoned day, but it passed, and the next, and the next, until a full week had elapsed, and still no birds. Early on the eighth morning he determined to “pitch” the eggs away, and was angrily stooping down to lift off the hen, which, although it was a great favourite and a “splendid sitter,” would have had a rough toss and a long one, when he heard a cheep.
HIDDEN TREASURES.
The welcome sound was marrow to his bones. “Eh!” was his first exclamation; “what’s that? is’t possible after a’?” He heard more cheeping. “Isn’t it a gude thing I’ve been sae patient?” Then looking at the hen, which, but a minute before, he was preparing to use very roughly, he said, “Eh, grannie, grannie, ye’re the best clocker in the county; eh, my auld darlin’, my queen o’ beauty, ye’ll no’ want your handfu’ o’ groats for this—I’ll gi’e ye a peck; jist anither day, grannie, an’ ye’ll get oot wi’ yer darlin’s, ye ace o’ diements!”
The cheeping had now become very decided, and Dan, again addressing grannie, said: “Sit on, my flower o’ the flock, my fail-me-never, hap[15] the giant-killers wi’ yer bonnie, golden, cosy feathers just till the nicht, till their wee jackets an’ glancin’ spurs are dry; an’ I’ll bring a’ the neebors about seven o’clock when they come hame, and I’ll open the door, an’ ye’ll march out like Wallington at the head o’ the Scotch Greys at Waterloo; and will they no’ stare when they see your sturdy family following ye like the Royal Artillery?”