CHAPTER XXXII--THE TOWN DRUMMER



Nor did I get every thing my own way, for I was often thwarted in
matters of small account, and suffered from them greater disturbance
and molestation than things of such little moment ought to have been
allowed to produce within me; and I do not think that any thing
happened in the whole course of my public life, which gave me more
vexation than what I felt in the last week of my second provostry.

For many a year, one Robin Boss had been town drummer; he was a
relic of some American-war fencibles, and was, to say the God's
truth of him, a divor body, with no manner of conduct, saving a very
earnest endeavour to fill himself fou as often as he could get the
means; the consequence of which was, that his face was as plooky as
a curran' bun, and his nose as red as a partan's tae.

One afternoon there was a need to send out a proclamation to abolish
a practice that was growing into a custom, in some of the bye parts
of the town, of keeping swine at large--ordering them to be confined
in proper styes, and other suitable places. As on all occasions
when the matter to be proclaimed was from the magistrates, Thomas,
on this, was attended by the town-officers in their Sunday garbs,
and with their halberts in their hands; but the abominable and
irreverent creature was so drunk, that he wamblet to and fro over
the drum, as if there had not been a bane in his body. He was
seemingly as soople and as senseless as a bolster.--Still, as this
was no new thing with him, it might have passed; for James Hound,