“Thro’ the wood, laddie.”—SCOTTISH SONG.
I NEVER was in the pillory but once, which I must ever consider a misfortune. For looking at all things, as I do, with a philosophical and enquiring eye, and courting experience for the sake of my fellow-creatures, I cannot but lament the short and imperfect opportunity I enjoyed of filling that elevated situation, which so few men are destined to occupy. It is a sort of Egg-Premiership; a place above your fellows, but a place in which your hands are tied. You are not without the established political vice, for you are not absolved from turning.
Let me give a brief description of the short irregular glimpse I had of men and things, while I was in Pillory Power. I was raised to it, as many men are to high stations, by my errors. I merely made a mistake of some sort or other in an answer in Chancery, not injurious to my interests, and lo! the Recorder of London, with a suavity of manner peculiar to himself, announced to me my intended promotion, and in due time I was installed into office!
It was a fine day for the pillory; that is to say, it rained in torrents. Those only who have had boarding and lodging like mine, can estimate the comfort of having washing into the bargain.
It was about noon, when I was placed, like a statue, upon my wooden pedestal; an hour probably chosen out of consideration to the innocent little urchins then let out of school, for they are a race notoriously fond of shying, pitching, jerking, pelting, flinging, slinging—in short, professors of throwing in all its branches. The public officer presented me first with a north front, and there I was—“God save the mark!”—like a cock at Shrovetide, or a lay-figure in a Shooting Gallery!
The storm commenced. Stones began to spit—mud to mizzle—cabbage-stalks thickened into a shower. Now and then came a dead kitten—sometimes a living cur: anon an egg would hit me on the eye, an offence I was obliged to wink at. There is a strange appetite in human kind for pelting a fellow-creature. A travelling China-man actually threw away twopence to have a pitch at me with a pipkin; a Billinsgate huckster treated me with a few herrings, not by any means too stale to be purchased in St. Giles’s; while the weekly halfpence of the schoolboys went towards the support of a Costermonger and his Donkey, who supplied them with eggs fit for throwing, and for nothing else. I confess this last description of missiles, if missiles they might be called that never miss’d, annoyed me more than all the rest; however, there was no remedy. There I was forced to stand, taking up my livery, and a vile livery it was; or, as a wag expressed it, “being made free of the Peltmongers.”
WHAT MUST BE—MUST.