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We find in them the indirect originals of some of the bulls and blunders which have in modern times been credited to Irishmen and Scotch Highlanders, and the germs also, perhaps, of some stories of the Gothamite type: as brave men lived before Agamemnon, so, too, the race of Gothamites can boast of a very ancient pedigree!
"And then," you say, looking as wise as the three Gothamites of the nursery song, "even if I should not be able to trot long, and should fall behind my friends on the road, I shall have perfect control of my horse, and can walk on until they miss me and turn back for me. Will you please tell me all the ways of holding the reins?"
We have here an evident relic of the Norsemen's occupation of the Hebrides. Several of the tales of the Gothamites are found almost unaltered in Gaelic.
His next deputation ought to be sent, after vanquishing the "blarsted" Gothamites, to the recesses of the Alleghany, and pitted there against the woodsman with his ancient weapon carrying a round ball of seventy-five to the pound, five feet long and decorated with tin sights, double trigger and mayhap flint-lock.
I said to him what I often feel, I only know three persons who seem to me fully to see this law of reciprocity or compensation himself, Alcott, and myself: and 't is odd that we should all be neighbors, for in the wide land or the wide earth I do not know another who seems to have it as deeply and originally as these three Gothamites.
Think of that, ye Gothamites, who complain if you are detained any where on the face of the earth three minutes only detained three hours every eight or ten miles! But for delay occasioned by any insuperable impediment, says the Norwegian law-book such as a storm at sea, or too great a distance between the inns no liability is incurred on either side.
This is also related of the villagers near the Marlborough Downs, in Wiltshire, and the sobriquet of "moon-rakers," applied to Wiltshire folk in general, is said to have had its origin in the incident; but they assert that it was a keg of smuggled brandy, which had been sunk in a pond, that the villagers were attempting to fish up, when the exciseman coming suddenly upon the scene, they made him believe they were raking the reflection of the moon, thinking it a green cheese, an explanation which is on a par with the apocryphal tale of the Gothamites and the messengers of King John.
Among the numerous stories of the Gothamites preserved orally, but not found in the collection of "A.B., of Phisicke Doctour," is the following, which seems to be of Indian extraction: One day some men of Gotham were walking by the riverside, and came to a place where the contrary currents caused the water to boil as in a whirlpool. "See how the water boils!" says one.
The race of Gothamites is indeed found everywhere in popular tales, if not in actual life; and their sayings and doings are not less diverting when husband and wife are well mated, as in the following story: An Arab observing one morning that his house was ready to tumble about his ears from decay, and being without the means of repairing it, went with a long face to his wife, and informed her of his trouble.
At three o'clock on the afternoon they arrived, the two young Gothamites stood with good Brother Cristofer in the great, cold hallway of the monastery to watch the monks march past on their way to the refectory. They came slowly, pacing by twos, with their heads bowed, treading noiselessly with sandaled feet upon the rough stone flags.
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