Read Ebook: The Firebrand by Crockett S R Samuel Rutherford

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Ebook has 2571 lines and 138691 words, and 52 pages

"He is of the devil--a devil of devils!" they cried. "We shall all perish," wailed an old woman, shrinking back further into the chimney-corner, and wringing her hands.

Meanwhile the youth apostrophised his blade.

"My bonny Robin Fleemin'--as guid as ony Toledan steel that ever was forged! What do you think o' that for Leith Links? And they wad hae made me either a minister or a cooper's apprentice!"

As he spoke he disarmed one of his chief opponents, who in furious anger snatched a pistol and fired point-blank. The shot would indubitably have brought down the young hero of the unequal combat, had not a stout ruddy-faced youth, who had hitherto been leaning idly against the wall, knocked up the owner's arm at the moment the pistol went off.

"Ha' done!" cried the new-comer in English; "twenty to one is bad enough, specially when that one is a fool. But pistols in a house-place are a disgrace! Stand back there, will ye?"

And with no better weapon than a long-pronged labourer's fork snatched from the chimney-corner, he set himself shoulder to shoulder with the young Scot and laid lustily about him.

That son of an unkindly soil, instead of being grateful for this interference on his behalf, seemed at first inclined to resent it.

"What call had ye to put your neck in danger for an unkenned man's sake?" he cried, crabbedly. "Couldna ye hae letten me fill thae carles' skins as fu' o' holes as a riddle?"

"I am not the man to stand and see a countryman in danger!" said the other, while the broad sweeps of his companion's sword and the energetic lunges of his own trident kept the enemy at a respectful distance.

"I speak their lingo but ill," he cried to his companion; "but tell them from John Mortimer, that if they do not cease their racket, I will warrant that they shall not have an onion or a sprig of garlic to stink their breaths with this night. And if that does not fear them, nothing will--not Purgatory itself!"

"Is this a way to speak to gentlemen--I put it to you, caballeros?" cried one of the deputation, a huge rawboned Galician, angrily.

The Scot instantly detected the accent of the speaker and, dismissing him with the gesture one uses to a menial, called out, "Caballeros, indeed! What needs this son of the burden-bearing animal to speak of Caballeros? Is there any old Castilian here, of the right ancient stock? If so, let him arbitrate between us. I, for one, will abide by his decision. The sons of gentlemen and soldiers will not do wrong to a soldier and a stranger!"

Then from the darkest and most distant corner, where he had sat wrapped in his great striped mantle with the cape drawn close about his head, rose a man of a little past the middle years of life, his black beard showing only a few threads of grey, where the tell-tale wisdom tuft springs from the under lip.

"Young sir," he said courteously, "I am an Old Castilian from Valladolid. I will hear your cause of quarrel, and, if you so desire, advise my compatriots, if they in their turn will consent to put their case into my hands."

There was some demur at this among the rougher gipsies and muleteers, but every one was anxious for the evening meal, and the fragrant earthen pipkins and great iron central pot gave forth a good smell. Also a red-waistcoated man-servant ran hither and thither among them, whispering in the ear of each belligerent; and his communication, having presumably to do with the stranger's quality and condition, had a remarkable effect in casting oil upon the waters. Indeed, the Migueletes had withdrawn as soon as the Castilian came forward, and presently he of Galicia, having consulted with his fellows, answered that for his part he was quite prepared to submit the causes of strife to the noble cavalier from Valladolid, provided the stranger also would abide by the decision.

A LITTLE COMB-CUTTING

"Will the Se?or state his case?" he said, bowing to the young man.

"I came to this venta, the proprietor of which, and all his relations, may God confound for liars and thieves! When I entered I paid for one week's good straw and barley in coined silver of Mexico. The unshorn villain stole the feed from under my horse's nose so soon as my back was turned, and then to-night, upon my complaining, set his rascal scullions on to vilify my country, or at least a country which, if not mine, is yet no concern of his or theirs. Whereupon I tendered to all the cleaner of them my cartel, offering to fight them with any weapon they might name, and in any place, for the honour of Scotland and the Presbyterian religion!"

Though he had never heard of either of these last, the grey-bearded umpire gravely wagged his head at the statement of the Scot, nodded in acknowledgment, and turned with equal gravity and distinction to the Gallegan as the representative of the opposite faction. He motioned him to proceed.

"Hear the bog-trotting cowards lie!" cried the Scot, fiercely. "Save for the barley, I paid no money, good or bad. All I had remains here in my belt. If I gave bad money, let him produce it. And, save in the matter of his beast's provend, who gives money at the entering in of a hotel?"

"Least of all a Scot," put in the Englishman, who had been following with some difficulty the wordy warfare.

"Then because he would not exchange good money for the bad, and because of his words, which carried stings, we challenged him to fight, and he fought. That, worthy Se?or, is the beginning of the matter, and the end."

"No," sighed the landlord, from beyond the bottle-encumbered counter where he had taken refuge, "because he threatened to let daylight into the vitals of the man who carried it to him."

"But as to the insults to his country?" asked the old Castilian, "you ought to have borne in mind that for that cause will a man fight quicker than for his sweetheart."

"So it is, Se?or, we deny it not," answered the Gallegan; "yet this fellow, after abusing the English and their land till there were no more ill words in the language, turned upon us because we chanced to agree with him, outs with his pocket-book and deals round what he calls 'cartels of defiance' as if he dealt a hand at ombre. Then, after some give and take of ill words, as your honour knows the custom is, he pulls his blade upon us, and makes play as you saw. We are poor fellows, and know no more than how to defend ourselves. And if we fight, our custom is to do it with a couple of Albacete knives before half the town, and be done with it. But this stranger was all for duels, and seconds, and codes of honour, after the mode of Paris."

"And a very excellent thing too, sir," said the Old Castilian, smiling at the Scot, "but in their due place, and their place is hardly in the kitchen of the venta of San Vicencio. Listen to me. My finding is this. You will all shake hands, after an apology given and received in the matter of the stranger's country, and since he has paid no reckoning these ten days according to his own statement, the which I believe, he shall defray his count so soon as it shall be presented to him by the host. Are you agreed?"

"Agreed!" said the Gallegan, holding out his hand to the Scot, "and I regret, on behalf of myself and my companions, that we ever said aught to the discredit of England, the very distinguished country of which the Se?or stranger is a native."

The Scot shrugged his shoulders in the French manner, but nevertheless held out his hand with some show of heartiness.

"I am no citizen of England, thank God," he said, "I own no such pock-pudding land, but it will be a heavy day when Rollo Blair of Castle Blair, in the good shire of Fife, sits still with his hands in his pockets and hears a garlic-eating Frenchman abuse the English, with whom his forbears fought so many good fights."

"I thank you on behalf of my country for your championship, such as it is," said the stout Englishman, smiling; "things that cut and thrust or go off with a bang, are not in my way. But if my knuckles are any good against the bridge of a man's nose, they shall henceforth be at your country's service. For the rest, bills of lading and exchanges at thirty days are more in my line."

"Ah," said the young Scot, twirling an almost invisible moustache, "commerce I know little of. I was bred to the profession of arms. My good father taught me the sword and the pistol, according to the practice of the best modern schools. Sergeant McPherson, his orderly, gave me instruction in the sabre and bayonet. I was intended for a commission in the 77th, my father's old regiment, when a pecuniary loss, the result of an unfortunate speculation, broke my poor father's heart and sent me out to seek my fortune with no more than Robin Fleeming's sword and my right arm."

"Poor capital to start on," said the Englishman, in his bluff manner, as he examined the article in question; "now you do not happen to write a good round hand, do you?"

The Scot started and laid his hand on his sword hilt.

"Sir," he cried, "your avocations do not permit you to understand how great an insult you offer to a gentleman!"

"Say no more of the matter, I beg of you," said the Scot, haughtily. "I have not yet been reduced to the necessity of choosing a mercantile career."

"And that is a most fortunate thing for you," quoth the Englishman, with the utmost gravity.

"Eh?" said the Scot, somewhat surprised, and, being occupied with his own thoughts and with keeping an eye on the door, not exactly taking the Englishman's meaning, "Oh, you were speaking of a mercantile career. Yes, I am indeed fortunate in that my lines have been cast in pleasanter places than before a ream of foolscap on a desk."

"It pays well, though," said the other placidly.

"For me, I care nothing for money," said Rollo Blair. "Eh! what is this?"

He wheeled round quickly in response to a tap upon his arm, and the Englishman, looking at him keenly , saw him turn visibly paler.

The landlord was at Master Rollo Blair's elbow with the reckoning written out upon a long sheet of paper. A couple of serving men, who were probably privy to the extravagant total, stood sniggering and whispering in a neighbouring archway. The Gallegan and his companions sat crossing their legs and gossiping watchfully, darting inquisitive glances under their brows at their late adversary, to see how he would bear himself. Only that noble gentleman, the Old Castilian, sipped his chocolate unmoved, and, with the perfection of good manners, stared at the fire.

From red to white, and from white back again to a kind of greenish paleness, went and came the hues of the young man's complexion. The son of the house of Blair of Blair was manifestly unhappy. He put his hand in one pocket. He clapped another. His purse was not in either.

"Perchance 'tis in your honour's equipage," suggested the landlord wickedly; "shall I call your body-servant to bring it?"

It was a face of bitter chagrin that Rollo Blair of Blair lifted to the Englishman who had meantime never ceased from his study of a fly upon the wall. He beckoned him a little apart with a look of inimitable chagrin.

Here a kind of a sob came into his voice. "God knows, I would rather sell my right hand!" he said brusquely.

"How came you to run up such a bill, having no effects?" said the Englishman, looking at him coolly, and taking no notice of the young man's offer of his weapon, which he continued to hold by the scabbard.

"I can hardly tell," said the Scot, hanging his head, "but only two nights ago there was a young French lord here who out-faced me first at the cards and then at the drinking of wine. So I was compelled to order in more and better to be upsides with him!"

"There is no meaner ambition, especially on an empty purse," said the Englishman, not moving from the angle of wall upon which he leaned.

"Curse me that ever I troubled myself to appeal to a cold-livered Englishman!" cried the young man, "I will go to the Castilian over yonder. He looks as if he might have the bowels of a man. At least he will not palm off a gentleman in distress with moral precepts culled from last week's sermon!"

The Englishman leaped forward and clapped the hot-headed Scot on the shoulder. With the other hand he drew a well-filled wallet, with a mercantile calendar slipped into the band, from his pocket.

"No," he said, "at least not that I know of. My father made mouse-traps before he took to cotton-spinning, and I never so much as heard whether I had any grandfather. I am plain John Mortimer of Chorley at your service. I think you are an honest lad, sorely led astray by whimsies in the brain, but you are honest, and in a far land. You are welcome to my purse and, credit to any reasonable amount which will put you in the way of repaying your obligation, as I am sure you desire to do."

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