There were
huge, stalwart men, brown with exposure, long-haired, and clothed in
fantastic rags; there were middle-sized youths, of truculent
countenance, and similarly clad; there were blind medicants, with
patched or bandaged eyes; crippled ones, with wooden legs and
crutches; there was a villain-looking peddler with his pack; a
knife-grinder, a tinker, and a barber-surgeon, with the implements
of their trades; some of the females were hardly grown girls, some
were at prime, some were old and wrinkled hags, and all were loud,
brazen, foul-mouthed; and all soiled and slatternly; there were
three sore-faced babies; there were a couple of starveling curs,
with strings around their necks, whose office was to lead the blind.
The night was come, the gang had just finished feasting, an orgy
was beginning, the can of liquor was passing from mouth to mouth. A
general cry broke forth:
'A song! a song from the Bat and Dick Dot-and-go-One!'
One of the blind men got up, and made ready by casting aside the
patches that sheltered his excellent eyes, and the pathetic placard
which recited the cause of his calamity. Dot-and-go-One
disencumbered himself of his timber leg and took his place, upon sound
and healthy limbs, beside his fellow-rascal; then they roared out a
rollicking ditty, and were reinforced by the whole crew, at the end of
each stanza, in a rousing chorus. By the time the last stanza was
reached, the half-drunken enthusiasm had risen to such a pitch that
everybody joined in and sang it clear through from the beginning,
producing a volume of villainous sound that made the rafters quake.
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