The Quality of Mercy - By Barry Unsworth Page 0,61
and the pursuit of a greased pig—there was a guinea for the man who succeeded in catching the beast and keeping hold of it. He was looking for a bit of ground that would be quiet enough for his fiddling and singing to be heard and open enough for a crowd to gather. This was not easy to find; the field was thronged, and the general jollity was increased as people had recourse to the beer stall. Not far from this there was a cockfight in progress, with a great shouting of bets and cries of encouragement to the bloodstained adversaries. He saw at a distance the wrestler with a crowd before him, but he kept away.
Finally he found a quieter area, where a game of skittles was going on, and near this a raised platform, on which a very fat and smiling man in a wide-brimmed black hat sat at a table before a row of bottles containing a reddish liquid. Below the platform, at the foot of the three steps up to it, a youngish man in the kind of white cotton apron worn by apothecaries was shouting in a high-pitched, slightly cracked voice. The words came from him with the unfaltering flow of long habit, and Sullivan paused to listen.
“Come forward, ladies and gentlemen, do not hold back, we shall be moving on within the hour and your last chance of obtaining a cure for all human disorders will be gone forever. Our much-famed Hypodrops, if taken for three days in succession, will infallibly cure hypochondriac melancholy in men and vapors in women, so as never to return again, and that by striking at the very root or true cause as well as remedying the effects of these perplexing maladies and all their variety of symptoms, all the diseases we poor mortals are afflicted with—vicious ferments in the stomach, flatulent or windy disorders, gout, giddiness, impediments in locomotion, dimness of sight, swollen veins, kidney stones, choked lungs. Only two shillings and sixpence the bottle, chemically prepared from the most valuable specifics in the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms … The man you see behind me is the world-famed Dr. Ebenezer Muir, his Hypodrops are in demand by the crowned heads of Europe, to you for this occasion he is offering this universal cure for only two-and-six a bottle …”
People came forward, among them a number who were visibly ailing, hobbling on crutches or half blind. The shouter mounted the steps for the bottles and took the money. The smiling, immobile man at the table kept a very sharp eye on the coins that were changing hands. All the takings found their way into a black leather bag that lay on the table before him.
Sullivan moved some distance away and took up a position with his back to the table and the inventor of the Hypodrops and the one employed to do the shouting. He took off his waistcoat, spread it on the ground before him and dropped coins to the value of one-and-six or so—half his remaining stock—into the middle of it, as an indication of where people should lay the hoped-for offerings. He took up his fiddle and played a reel, with all the verve he could summon. There was nothing like a reel for attracting attention. Before long there was a small knot of people gathered before him. When he judged the number sufficient, he embarked on “Tarry Trousers,” playing first the air and taking some short dance steps as he played. It was a song he knew well, belonging to the dockside taverns of his other life, before the slave ship, before the days in Florida. After some minutes he lowered his fiddle and sang the first verse:
Yonder stands a pretty maiden.
Who she is I do not know.
I will court her for her beauty.
She can answer yes or no.
His voice was pleasing, a slightly husky tenor, not very strong but sweet in tone. From childhood on he had been a singer, and had often enough kept body and soul together through the gift; many of the words he used in talking came from his memory of songs.
A countrywoman in a bonnet came forward and dropped a coin to join the others on the outspread waistcoat, and Sullivan smiled and ducked his head in thanks—there was always a first one needed to set the others on to it. The song he had chosen to start with had the rhythm of a jig, and this was