Features / The Ken Speckle Papers: the relief of Magniebay
At ye. Manse of Stobister, Breezey Isle, Zetland, this fifth day of March, yr. of Our Lord 1826
Work continues on the huge bundle of the Rev. Kenneth Speckle’s papers discovered last year in the Muniment Room of Stobuster House. This extract has been edited for publication by Dr Jonathan Wills and his dedicated team of volunteer scribes and palaeographers.
Unto the Honble. Jock McSwimmy, Keeper of the Great Selkie of Scotland, at Dross Close, hard by the kirk of the Holy Rood, Edinburgh.
Respected Sire,
It was a great pleasure to meet in person again, upon your recent peregrination of Zetland, albeit that our rendezvous was of necessity so brief and surreptitious. The ‘smoko’ at the back of Nortness is not the most salubrious of venues but no doubt your men of business wished us to avoid detection by the “Whitehoose Whigs” who infest that quarter of Scharnycrick.
An apology is due for my dilatory correspondence of late but, as you will see below, I have been busy upon your account and am now regarded as a trusted familiar by Mr McMerkiaverly and the squadrone of politickal gentlemen despatched hither from the Whigs’ head office in the Capital to shore up the faltering campaign of Her Grace the Countess Coupkecks, Lady Pinkrivlins, their candidate at the forthcoming parliamentary poll.
I was taking tea one afternoon last week with Lady Pinkrivlins, having been invited to the Toon Hoose by Sir Allastir Curmudgeon to coach Her Ladyship in how she might reply to questions that may be put to her at Mr Olsterfry’s hustings, by ribald and vulgar hecklers, should they manage to evade the sentries posted at the door by Mr Risible, in his role as le Gardien des Crapauds Municipaux.
Mr Risible, you will remember from your days as the Minister for Parochial Inspection and Correction, was the “Monitoring Officer” responsible, back in the year 1810, for the Commissioners of Supply being obliged to pay £284,975 Scots in compensatory dues to Baron Goliath Biggity, after Mr Risible deliberately did not call any witnesses at the Baron’s disciplinary hearing for allegedly being drunk in the Toon Hoose, threatening his subordinate officers if they told all they knew, and for using ill words with Dr Witney Garlick. Ever since that lamentable episode, which could so easily have resulted in our dear Baron’s summary dismissal, Mr Risible has been regarded as the most indispensable of the Municipal Overlings.
Of late he has proved his worth yet again, when he used his powers plenipotentiary to thwart and deflect efforts by Herr Martyr of Ye Zetland Intelligencer to discover sundry tidbits of privy information that the publick had no business knowing. Mr Risible owned that there did exist a law requiring “transparency” in the Commissioners’ affairs, but said it was “written in an old book somewhere” and was “a d*mn nuisance” so he did not intend to observe it. At this, several Commissioners jumped up from their seats to give him a standing ovation, grateful as they were that details of municipal expenses incurred in transporting and entertaining them at various ‘junquettes’ would not be published.
Even more grateful was Lady Magniebay of Hullsook, whose financial embarrassments in respect of her apparent failure to pay window tax, skatt, cess and ox pennies have recently been widely publicised in the more sensational scandal sheets, both here and upon the continent of Scotland. Mr Risible was quick to assure Lady Magniebay that, although His Majesty’s Comptroller of Excise had indeed banned her from holding any commercial office for the duration of forty-two months, and had strongly hinted that she ought to “consider her position”, his personal advice to her, as a renowned legal expert, far better qualified than some paltry London Exchequer clerk who had “gotten abune hissel”, was that she need not resign from her position, nor forego her senior Commissioner’s emoluments of some £40,000 Scots per annum. Notwithstanding this most authoritative counsel, matters will take their predictable course.
Lady Pinkrivlins, who has relied upon Lady Magniebay to keep order in her chamber when challenged by dissidents such as Dr Shovego and Commissioner Scotty-Afftack, was so distressed at this unforeseen blow that she is understood to be holding a silver collection for Hullsook’s finest: “She’s such a kind and generous creature and it’s such a shame that anyone could even think of being beastly to her,” she told me, with a silent tear, over a toasted teacake and a slice of her best huffsie. “Besides, it’s only publick money, isn’t it?”T
urning to the reason for my visit, at this point I asked Her Ladyship what she would say if, at the hustings, some irate person from Whalesahoy, for example, asked her why there was such a very long delay in digging her promised tunnel from Skelberry to Symbister.
“Well, it’s a very long tunnel, isn’t it?” she replied. At this, Sir Allastir, who was sitting at an adjacent table, attending to a piece of ‘Hundred Thousand Shortbread’ (freshly baked by the new Superintendent of the Poor’s Schools), groaned and rolled his eyes but said nothing, so I proceeded with the list he had given me.“
And what, Your Ladyship, would you reply if one of Mr Scotty-Afftak’s constituents were to ask why you had not intervened in the affair of the Scallywag Paddling Pool?”
“Oh, that would be a matter for the local member, Commissioner Mogloyal, who wanted to run as the candidate because running is mostly what she does but I beat her because I’m better and much, much nicer!” she replied. I looked around to see Sir Allastir’s reaction, but he had retired to the privy offices.
Ignoring the piteous sounds of retching from behind the cubicle door, I asked the next question on his manuscript: “Why are you complaining about the new clinic and dispensary at Gruntfield for indigent Scharnycrick paupers?”
“I’m not complaining,” Her Ladyship replied. “I’m just mad as h*ll that the blooming Essenpee shot my fox!”
I confess I was bewildered by this response. I must ask Sir Allastir what he thinks she meant.
Next question, sent in advance by a gentleman described as ‘Indignant of Tait’s Closs’, was: “Why don’t you get rid of some of your grossly overpaid chief officers and use the money to provide soup kitchens for all of the paupers’ brats?”
“Ah,” she replied. “You clearly have no idea of how essential my wonderful team are. The very suggestion that they might be worth less than an annual salary of £100,000 Scots each is, quite frankly, offensive. Let the paupers’ brats eat brioche from the publick cake fridges!”
Asked her opinion of the plan to construct two new steam packets to carry His Majesty’s mails to Zetland, Lady Pinkrivlins commented: “I have been asking for this over so many years, ever since Mr Trevithick’s experiments with steam power in the mines. When I recently granted Mr McSwimmy an audience I confirmed that the proposal, albeit belated, still had my personal approval. I hoped he would show his appreciation and respect by naming the vessels St Emma and St Andrea. It is most disappointing that he did not immediately accede to this request, for I had been told I had his ear.”
The last question was how the candidate would respond if asked whether she wished to thank the Scotch ministers for agreeing so promptly to Lady Anna Stokfisk-Gödelåde’s proposal that the passage fares on Mr Sarko Garotte’s packet boats should be reduced to a less onerous level for gentlemen and ladies resident in Zetland (as was the case in the past century, before the Hon. Tovarish Lairdsloon, in that distant era the Whig Minister of Ferries and Fraughts, dismissed Messrs Piano and secured the services of Mr Garotte in their stead).
“Thank her? Her? Her! I don’t think so!” she hissed. “As with the steam packets, that idea was mine, all mine. Or was it Mr McMerkiaverly’s? I can’t remember. He’s been such a help to me and his fees are so very reasonable, you know. But anyway that young lady would need to mind her manners. Does she know who I am? This well-beloved Zetland of mine is Whig country, has been in all the minding of man and will forever be so! Now, do have another teacake…”
Editor’s note: from this point on the script on the last page of this fragile document is unintelligible, as the paper is so heavily stained with claret wine and tobacco juice.
