The Mayor's Dovecoat

== THE MAYOR'S DOVECOTE ==
=== By Arthur T.Quiller-Couch ===
From Cassel’s Winter Annual, 1923
In the first quarter of the nineteenth
century there lived at Dolphin House, Troy, a Mr. Samuel Pinsent, shipchandler,
who by general consent was the funniest fellow that ever took up his abode in
the town. He came originally from somewhere in the South Hams, but this tells
us nothing, for the folk of the South Hams are a decent, quiet lot, and you
might travel the district to-day from end to end without coming across the like
of Mr. Pinsent. 
He was, in fact, an original. He could do
nothing like an ordinary man, and he did everything jocosely, with a wink and a
chuckle. To watch him, you might suppose that business was a first-class
practical joke, and he invariably wound up a hard bargain by slapping his
victim on the back. Some called him Funny Pinsent, others, The Bester. Few
liked him. Nevertheless he prospered, and in 1827 was chosen mayor of the
borough. 
In person Mr. Pinsent was spare and
diminutive, with a bald head, a tuft of badger-grey hair over either ear, and a
fresh-coloured clean-shaven face, extraordinarily wrinkled about the mouth and
at the corners of the eyes, which twinkled at you from under a pair of restless
stivvery eyebrows. You had only to look at them and note the twitch of his lips
to be warned of the man's facetiousness. 
Mr. Pinsent's office - for he had no
shop-front, and indeed his stock-in-trade was not of a quality to invite
inspection - looked out upon the Town Square; his back premises upon the
harbour, across a patch of garden terminated by a low wall and a blue-painted
quay door. I call it a garden because Mr. Pinsent called it so; and, to be
sure, it boasted a stretch of turf, a couple of flower-beds, a flagstaff, and a
small lean-to greenhouse. But casks and coils of manila rope, blocks, pumps and
chain-cables encroached upon the amenities of the spot - its pebbled pathway,
its parterres, its raised platform overgrown with nasturtiums where Mr. Pinsent
sat and smoked of an evening and watched the shipping; the greenhouse stored
sacks of shipbread as well as pot plants; and Mrs. Salt, his housekeeper (he
was unmarried), had attached a line to the flagstaff and aired the washing
thereon. 
But the pride of the garden was its
dovecote, formed of a large cider barrel on a mast. The barrel was pierced with
pigeon-holes and fitted with ledges on which the birds stood to preen
themselves. Mr. Pinsent did not profess himself a fancier. His columbarium - a
mixed collection of fantails and rocksters - had come to him by a side-wind of
business, as offset against a bad debt; but it pleased him to sit on his
terrace and watch the pretty creatures as they wheeled in flight over the
harbour and among the masts of the shipping. They cost him nothing to keep, for
he had always plenty of condemned peas on hand, and they multiplied in peace at
the top of their mast, which was too smooth for any cat to climb. 
One summer's night, however, about midway
in the term of his mayoralty, Mr. Pinsent was awakened from slumber by a
strange sound of fluttering. It came through the open window from the garden,
and almost as he sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes it warned him that something
serious was amiss with his dovecote. He flung off the bedclothes and made a
leap for the window. 
The night was warm and windless, with a
waning moon in the east, and as yet no tremble of the dawn below it. Around the
foot of the dovecote the turf lay in blackest shadow; but a moon-ray,
over-topping the low ridge of Mr. Gangway's back premises (Mr. Pinsent's
next-door neighbour on the left), illuminated the eastern side of the barrel,
the projecting platform on which it rested, and a yard or more of the mast,
from its summit down - or, to be accurate, it shed a pale radiance on a
youthful figure clinging there by its legs, and upon a hand and arm reaching
over the platform to rob the roost. 
"You infernal young thief!"
shouted Mr. Pinsent. 
As his voice broke upon the night across
the silent garden the hand paused suddenly in the act of dragging forth a pigeon
which it had gripped by the neck. The bird, almost as suddenly set free,
flapped across the platform, found its wings and scuffled away in flight. The
thief - Mr. Pinsent had been unable to detect his features - slid down the mast
into darkness. And the darkness, a moment later, became populous with
whispering voices and the sound of feet stealing away towards the yet deeper
shadow of Mr. Garraway's wall. 
"Who goes there!" challenged Mr.
Pinsent again. "Villains! Robbers! You just wait till I come down to you! I've
a gun here, by George! and if you don't stand still there and give me your
names - " 
But this was an empty threat. Mr. Pinsent,
though nothing of a sportsman, did indeed possess a gun, deposited with him
years ago as security against a small loan. But it hung over the office
chimney-piece downstairs, and he could not have loaded it even if given the
necessary powder and shot. Possibly the boys guessed this. At any rate they made
no answer. 
Possibly, too - for a white nightcap and
nightshirt were discernible in almost pitchy darkness - they saw him strut back
from the window to slip downstairs and surprise them. Mr. Pinsent paused only
to insert his feet into a pair of loose slippers, and again, as he unbolted the
back door, to snatch a lantern off its hook. Yet by the time he ran out upon
the garden the depredators had made good their escape. 
He groped inside the lantern for the
tinder-box which lay within, handy for emergencies; found it, and kneeling on the
grass plot beside the mast struck flint upon steel. As he blew upon the tinder
and the faint glow lit up his face and nightcap, a timorous exclamation
quavered down from one of the upper windows. 
"Oh, sir! Wha - whatever is the
matter?" It was the voice of Mrs. Salt, the housekeeper. For a moment Mr.
Pinsent did not answer. In the act of thrusting the brimstone match into the
lantern his eye had fallen on a white object lying on the turf and scarcely a yard
away - a white fantail pigeon, dead, with a twisted neck. He picked up the bird
and stared around angrily into the darkness. 
"Robbery is the matter, ma'am!"
he announced, speaking up to the unseen figure in the window. "Some young ruffians
have been stealing and killing my pigeons. I caught 'em in the act, and a
serious matter they'll find it." Here Mr. Pinsent raised his voice, in
case any of the criminals should be lurking within earshot. "I doubt,
ma'am, a case like this will have to go to assizes." 
"Hadn't you better put something
on?" suggested another voice, not Mrs. Salt's, from somewhere on the left.
"Eh?" Mr. Pinsent wheeled about
and peered into the darkness. "Is that you, Garraway?" 
"It is," answered Mr. Garraway
from his bedroom window over the wall. "Been stealin' your pigeons, have
they? Well, I'm sorry; and yet in a way 'tis a relief to my mind. For, first
along, seeing you out there skipping round in your shirt with a lantern, I'd a
fear you had been taken funny in the night!" 
"Bless the man!" said Mr.
Pinsent. "Do you suppose I'd do this for a joke?" 
"I don't know," responded Mr.
Garraway with guarded candour. "I feared it. But, of course, if they've
stolen your pigeons, 'tis another matter. A very serious matter, as you say,
and no doubt your being mayor makin' it all the worse." 
Now this attitude of Mr. Garraway conveyed
a hint of warning, had Mr. Pinsent been able to seize it. The inhabitants of
Troy have, in fact, a sense of humour, but it does not include facetiousness.
On the contrary, facetiousness affronts and pains them. They do not understand
it, and Mr. Pinsent understood nothing else. Could he have been told that for
close upon twenty years he had been afflicting his neighbours with the
pleasantries he found so enjoyable, his answer had undoubtedly been: "The
bigger numskulls they!" But now his doom was upon him. 
He ate his breakfast that morning in
silence. Mrs. Salt, burning to discuss the robbery, set down the dishes with a quite
unnecessary clatter, but in vain. He scarcely raised his head. 
"Indeed, sir, and I've never known you
so upset," she broke out at length, unable to contain herself longer. Which
I've always said that you was wonderful, the way you saw the bright side of
everything and could pass it off with a laugh." 
"Good lord!" said Mr. Pinsent
testily. "Did I ever call midnight robbery a laughing matter?" 
"No-o," answered Mrs. Salt, yet
as one not altogether sure. "And I dare say your bein' mayor makes you
take a serious view." 
Breakfast over the mayor took hat and
walking-stick for his customary morning stroll along the street to Butcher Trengove's
to choose the joint for his dinner and pick up the town's earliest gossip. It
is Troy's briskest hour; when the dairy carts, rattling homeward, meet the
country folk from up the river who have just landed at the quays and begun to sell,
from door to door, their poultry and fresh eggs, vegetables, fruit and nosegays
of garden flowers; when the tradesmen, having taken down their shutters, stand
in the roadway; admire the effect of their shop-windows and admonish the
apprentices cleaning the panes ; when the children loiter and play at
hop-scotch on their way to school, and the housewives, having packed them off,
find time for a neighbourly clack over the scouring of doorsteps. 
It might be the mayor's fancy and no more,
but it certainly appeared to him that the children smiled with a touch of
mockery as they met him and saluted. For aught he knew, any one of these
grinning imps - confound 'em! might be implicated in the plot. The townsmen
gave him good morning as usual, and yet not quite as usual. He felt that news
of the raid had won abroad; that, although shy of speaking, they were studying
his face for a sign. He kept it carefully cheerful, but came near to losing his
temper when he reached Trengove's shop to find Mr. Garraway already there and
in earnest conversation with the butcher. 
"Ah, good mornin' again! I was just
talkin' about you and your pigeons," said Mr. Garraway frankly. 
"Good morning, Y'r Worship!"
echoed Butcher Trengove. "And what can I do for Y'r Worship this fine morning?
I was just allowin' to Mr. Garraway here that, seem' the young dare-devils had
left you a bird with their compliments, maybe you'd fancy a nice cut of rump
steak to fill out a pie." 
"This isn't exactly a laughing matter,
Mr. Trengove." 
"No, no, to be sure!" Butcher
Trengove composed his broad smile apologetically. But, after a moment,
observing Mr. Pinsent's face and that (at what cost he guessed not) it kept its
humorous twist, he let his features relax. "I was allowin', though, that
if any man could get even with a bit of fun it would be Y'r Worship." 
"Oh, never fear but I'll get even with
'em," promised His Worship, affecting an easiness he did not feel. 
"Monstrous, though! Monstrous!"
pursued the butcher. "The boys of this town be gettin' past all control.
Proper young limbs, I call some of 'em." 
"And there's the fellow that's to
blame!" put in Mr. Garraway, with a nod at a little man hurrying past the shop,
on the opposite pavement. This was Mr. Lupus, the schoolmaster, on his way to
open school. "Hi, Mr. Lupus!" 
Mr. Lupus gave a start, came to a halt, and
turned on the shop door a pair of mildly curious eyes guarded by moon-shaped
spectacles. Mr. Lupus lived with an elderly sister who kept a bakehouse beside
the Ferry Landing, and there in extra-scholastic hours he earned a little money
by writing letters for seamen. His love-letters had quite a reputation, and he
penned them in a beautiful hand, with flourishes around the capital letters;
but in Troy he passed for a person of small account. 
"I - I beg your pardon, gentlemen!
Were you calling to me?" stammered Mr. Lupus. 
"Good morning, Lupus!" The mayor
nodded to him. "We were just saying that you bring up the boys of this town
shamefully. Yes, sir, shamefully." 
"No, indeed, Your Worship," protested
Mr. Lupus, looking up with a timid smile as he drew off his spectacles and polished
them. "Your Worship is pleasant with me. I do assure you, gentlemen, that
my boys are very good boys, and give me scarcely any trouble." 
"That's because you sit at school in
your day-dreams, and don't take note of the mischief that goes on around you. A
set of anointed young scoundrels, Mr. Lupus!" 
"You don't mean it, sir. Oh, to be
sure you don't mean it! Your Worship's funny way of putting things is well known,
if I may say so. But they are good boys, on the whole - very good boys; and you
should see the regularity with which they attend. I sometimes wish - meaning no
offence - that you gentlemen of position in the town would drop in upon us a
little oftener. It would give you a better idea of us, indeed it would. For my
boys are very good boys, and for regularity in attendance we will challenge any
school in Cornwall, sir, if you will forgive my boasting." 
Now this suggestion of Mr. Lupus, though
delicately put, and in a nervous flutter, ought by rights to have hit the mayor
and Mr. Garraway hard, the pair of them being trustees of the charity under
which the Free Grammar School was administered. But in those days few public men
gave a thought to education, and Mr. Lupus taught school, year in and year out,
obedient to his own conscience, his own enthusiasms, unencouraged by visitation
or word of advice from his governors. 
The mayor, to be sure, flushed red for a
moment, but Mr. Garraway 's withers were unwrung. 
"That don't excuse their committing
burglary and stealing His Worship's pigeons," said he. Briefly he told
what had happened. 
Mr. Lupus adjusted and re-adjusted his
spectacles, still in a nervous flurry. "You surprise me, gentlemen. It is
unlike my boys - unlike all that I have ever believed of them. You will excuse
me, but if this be true I shall take it 
much to heart. So regular in attendance and
Stealing 
pigeons, you say? Oh, be sure, sirs, I will
give them a talking to - a severe talking to - this very morning." 
The little schoolmaster went his way down
the street in a flutter. The mayor stared after him abstractedly. 
"That man," said he, after a long
pause, "ought to employ someone to use his cane for him." 
With this, for no apparent reason, his eye
brightened suddenly. But the source of his inspiration he kept to himself. His
manner was jocular as ever as he ordered his steak. 
On his way home he knocked at the door of
the town sergeant, Thomas Trebilcock, a septuagenarian, more commonly known as
Pretty Tommy. The town sergeant was out in the country picking mushrooms, but
his youngest granddaughter, who opened the door, promised to send him along to
the mayor's office as soon as ever he returned. 
At ten o'clock, or a little later, Pretty
Tommy presented himself, and found Mr. Pinsent at his desk engaged in
complacent study of a sheet of manuscript, to which he had just attached his
signature. 
"I think this will do," said Mr.
Pinsent with a twinkle, and he recited the composition aloud. 
Pretty Tommy, having adjusted his horn
spectacles, took the paper and read it through laboriously. 
"You want me to cry it through the
town?" 
"Certainly. You can fetch your bell,
and go along with it at once." 
"Your Worship knows best, o'
course." Pretty Tommy appeared to hesitate. 
"Why, what's wrong with it?" 
"Nothin'," said Tommy, after a
slow pause and another perusal, "only 'tis unusual - unusual, and funny at
the same time; an' that's always a risk." He paused again for a moment,
and his face brightened. "But there," he said, " 'tis a risk
you're accustomed to, by this time!" 
Half an hour later the sound of the town
sergeant's bell at the end of the street called tradesmen from their benches and
housewives from their kitchens to hear the following proclamation, to which
Tommy had done honour by donning his official robe (of blue, gold-laced, with a
scarlet pelisse) and cocked hat. A majestic figure he made, too, standing in
the middle of the roadway with spectacles on nose, and the great hand-bell
tucked under his arm: 
"Take you all notice: that whereas
some evil-disposed boys did last night break into the premises of Samuel
Pinsent, Worshipful Mayor of this Borough, and did rob His Worship of several
valuable pigeons; His Worship hereby offers a reward of Five Shillings to the
parent or parents of any such boy as will hand him over, that the Mayor may have
ten minutes with him in private. Amen. 
GOD SAVE THE KING!" 
Mr. Pinsent, seated in his office, heard
the bell sounding far up the street, and chuckled to himself. He chuckled again,
peering through his wire blinds when Pretty Tommy emerged upon the square
outside and took his stand in the middle of it to read the proclamation. It
collected no crowd, but it drew many faces to the windows and doorways, and Mr.
Pinsent observed that one and all broke into grins as they took the humour of
his offer. 
He rubbed his hands together. He had been
angry, to begin with; yes - he would confess it - very angry. But he had
overcome it and risen to his reputation. The town had been mistaken in thinking
it could put fun on him. It was tit-for-tat again, and the laugh still with
Samuel Pinsent. 
He ate his dinner that day in high good
humour, drank a couple of glasses of port, and retired (as his custom was on
warm afternoons) to his back parlour for an hour's siesta. Through the open
window he heard the residue of his pigeons murmuring in their cote, and the
sound wooed him to slumber. So for half an hour he slept, with an easy conscience,
a sound digestion and a yellow bandanna handkerchief over his head to protect
him from the flies. A tapping at the door awakened him. 
"There's a woman here - Long
Halloran's wife, of Back Street - wishes to see you, sir," announced the
voice of Mrs. Salt. 
"Woman," said the mayor testily,
"haven't you learned by this time that I'm not to be disturbed after
dinner?" 
"She said her business was important,
sir. It's - it's about the pigeons," explained Mrs. Salt, and before he could
protest again Mrs. Halloran had thrust her way into the room and stood
curtsying, with tears of recent weeping upon her homely and extremely dirty
face. Behind her snuffled a lanky sheepish-eyed boy, who took up his stand at
her shoulder with a look half-sullen, half-defiant. 
"It's about my Mike, sir," began
Mrs. Halloran in a lachrymose voice, and paused to dab her eyes with a corner
of her apron. "Which I'm sure, sir, we ought to be very grateful to you
for all your kindness and the trouble you're takin' and so says the boy's
father. For he's growin' up more of a handful every day, and how to manage him
it passes our wits." 
"Are you telling me, Mrs. Halloran,
that this boy of yours is the thief who stole my pigeons?" Mr. Pinsent,
looking at the boy with a magisterial frown, began to wish he had not been
quite so hasty in sending round the town sergeant. 
"You did, didn't you, Mike?"
appealed Mrs. Halloran, and Mike, looking straight before him, grunted
something which might pass for an admission. "You must try to overlook the
boy's manner, sir. He's case-hardened, I fear, and it goes sore to a mother's
heart that ever I should rear up a child to be a thief. But as Halloran said to
me, 'Take the young limb to His Worship,' Halloran says, 'and maybe a trifle of
correction by a gentleman in His Worship's position will have some effect,' he
says. But I hope, sir, you won't visit all the punishment on Mike; for he
didn't do it alone." 
"My good woman, I - I have no such
intention," stammered the mayor. 
"I thank Your Worship." Mrs.
Halloran dropped a quick curtsy. "And so I made free to tell Halloran, who
was in doubt of it." 
"Yes, yes!" The mayor took her up
impatiently. "Er - by the way, what age is your son?" 
"Rising fifteen, sir; christened
fifteen years ago last St. Michael's Day, which is the twenty-ninth of September,
though little good it done him. He takes after his father, sir. All the
Hallorans shoot up tall, like runner beans, and thick in the bone. Or so his
father says. For my part I've never been to Ireland, but by the looks of 'en you'd
say not a day less than seventeen. It seems like blood-money, my takin' five
shillin' and handin' the child over - at his tender age - and me his own mother
that nursed 'en!" 
Here Mrs. Halloran, whose emotions had been
mastering her for some moments, broke down in a violent fit of sobbing, and
this so affected her offspring that he emitted a noise like the hoot of a dog.
As he started it without warning, so abruptly he ended it. 
It was uncanny. It shook the mayor's nerve.
"My dear Mrs. Halloran, if you will
let me have a word or two with your son - " 
"Oh, I know!" she wailed.
"That's how you put it. But you give me over the money, sir, and let me go
quick before I weaken on it! You never had a child of your own, Mr. Pinsent -
and more's the pity for the child but with one of your own you'd know what it
feels like!" 
Mr. Pinsent felt in his trouser-pocket,
drew forth two half-crowns and pressed them into Mrs. Halloran's dirty palm.
With a sob and a blessing she escaped. He heard her run sobbing down the
passage to the front door. 
The boy had sidled round with his back
against the wall, and stood there with his left elbow up and his fists half
clenched. 
"Sit down, Mike," said the mayor
gently. 
"Goo! what d'ye take me for?" 
"Sit down, I tell you." 
"Huh - yes, an' let you cop me over
the head? You just try it- that's all!" 
"I - er - have no intention of trying
it," said Mr. Pinsent. "It certainly would not become me to
administer - to inflict - corporal punishment on a youth of your - er -
inches." 
"Why," he went on with the air of
one making a pleasant little discovery, "I shouldn't be surprised to find you
almost as tall as myself! Yes. I declare I believe you are quite as tall!
No" - he put up a hand as Mike, apparently suspecting a ruse, backed in a
posture of defence - "we will not take our measures to-day. I have something
more serious to think about. For you will have noticed that while I suspected
this robbery to be the work of small thoughtless boys I treated it lightly, but
now that I find a great strapping fellow like you mixed up in the affair it
becomes my business to talk to you seriously." 
And he did. He sat down facing Mike
Halloran across the table, and read him a lecture that should have made any boy
of Mike's size thoroughly ashamed of himself, and might have gone on
admonishing for an hour had not Mrs. Salt knocked again at the door. 
"If you please," announced Mrs.
Salt, "here's the Widow Barnicutt along with her red-headed
'Dolphus." 
"Which," said the Widow
Barnicutt, panting in at her heels and bobbing a curtsy, "it's sorry I am
to be disturbin' Your Worship, and I wouldn't do it if his poor father was alive
and could give 'en the strap for his good. But the child bein' that out of hand
that all my threats do seem but to harden him, and five shillin' a week's wage
to an unprovided woman - and I hope Your Worship will excuse the noise I make
with my breathin', which is the assma, and brought on by fightin' my way
through the other women." 
Mr. Pinsent gasped and put up a hand to his
brow. 
"The other women?" he echoed. 
"The passage is full of 'em,"
said Mrs. Salt, much as though she were reporting that the house was on fire. 
"Ay," said the widow, "but
my 'Dolphus is the guilty one - I got his word for it." 
"There's Maria Bunny," persisted
Mrs. Salt, beginning to tick off the list on her fingers; "Maria Bunny
with her Wesley John, and Mary Polly Polwarne with her Nine Days' Wonder, and
Amelia .Trownce with the twins, and Deb Hicks with the child she christened
Nonesuch, thinkin' 'twas out of the Bible, and William Spargo's second wife Maria
with her stepchild, and Catherine Nance with her splay-footed boy that I can
never remember the name of-" 
"Oh, send 'em away!" bawled Mr.
Pinsent. "Send 'em away before their husbands come home from work and
raise a riot!" Then he recollected himself. "No, fetch 'em all in
here from the street," said he, dropping into a chair and taking his head
in both hands. "Fetch 'em all in, and let me deal with 'em!" 
The town, when it laughed over the story
next day, found the cream of the joke in this - Bester Pinsent in promising
Mrs. Halloran that her boy should but share punishment with the rest, had
forgotten in his agitation of mind to stipulate that the reward should also be
divided. As it was, he had paid her the full five shillings, and the rest of
the women (there were twenty-four) would be content with nothing less. 
But it was really little Mr. Lupus, the
schoolmaster, that - all unconsciously - had the last word. Trotting past Butcher
Trengove's shop next morning, on his way to open school, Mr. Lupus caught sight
of His Worship standing within the doorway and halted. 
"Mr. Mayor, sir, if I may have a word
with you? Begging your pardon, sir, but it lies on my conscience - all night,
sir, it has been troubling me - that I boasted to you yesterday of my boys'
good attendance. Indeed, sir, it has been good in the past. But yesterday
afternoon! Oh, sir, I fear that you were right after all, and something serious
is amiss with the boys of this town!" 
I regret that I cannot report here the
precise words of Mr. Pinsent's reply.
Category:Cassel's
Category:Quiller-Couch