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Preceded by a drummer and accompanied by a jeering rabble, among whom the urchins and all the tag-rag and bobtail of the town mustered in great force, the figure was carried about by the flickering light of torches to the discordant din of shovels and tongs, pots and pans, horns and kettles, mingled with hootings, groans, and hisses.
Return of the young master—A first meeting in the chamber, a second at table—The Judge’s weighty lecture on courtesy—The Chamberlain’s political remarks on fashions—Beginning of the quarrel over Bobtail and Falcon—Lamentations of the Seneschal—The last Apparitor—Glance at the political conditions of Lithuania and Europe at this period.
Manik Chand was so much alarmed by seeing the effect of the big guns of the fleet that he abandoned the place almost without striking a blow, and when the British troops entered they were too late even to make any prisoners save a few of the ragtag and bobtail in the rear. Mr. Merriman returned to Calcutta a few days later. Desmond was grieved to observe how rapidly he was aging.
Chamberlain had come down and joined in the fray lending his authority to tactics which usually had been left to the rag-tag and bobtail of all parties. As I have already said, this kind of intervention had seriously diminished Mr. Chamberlain in the respect of the House. And the way in which he did his work was venomous as well as petty.
By now the Law and Order forces had become numerically formidable. The bobtail and rag-tag, ejected either by force or by fright, flocked to the colours. A certain proportion of the militia remained in the ranks, though a majority had resigned.
In their own opinion the most law-abiding of Her Majesty's subjects, the Ballinrobe folk indulged but very slightly in groaning or hissing, and when the little army got clear of the town its sole followers were a couple of cars, a market cart, and a private gig driven by a lady, the tag-rag and bobtail being made up of a dozen bare-legged girls, whose scoffs and jeers never went beyond the inquiry, "Wad ye dig auld Boycott's pitaties, thin?"
And sure enough, when I looked up I saw thousands of newspapers flying about with their great wooden back-bones, and the padlock dangling like a bobtail at the end, flapping their wings and hawking at each other like mad.
Bellingham interrupted, "the archdeacon will rush forth and pelt that expert with Shepherd Kings and Sequenen-Ra and the whole tag-rag and bobtail of the seventeenth dynasty. Oh, there'll be wigs on the green, I can tell you." "Yes, I expect there will be quite a skirmish," said Miss Bellingham.
When you've slept under a wagon to Salt Lake and l'arned to sling a bull whip and relish your beans burned, you can look anybody in the eye and tell him to go to hell, if you like. This roarin' town life it's no life for you. It's a bobtail, wide open in the middle. I'll be only too glad to get away on the long trail myself. So you come with me," and he smiled winningly.
"No," said he; "not till it got about that there was no protection on the premises, and it come to be considered dangerous, with convicts and Tag and Rag and Bobtail going up and down. And then I was recommended to the place as a man who could give another man as good as he brought, and I took it. It's easier than bellowsing and hammering. That's loaded, that is."
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