I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales Part 13

'Aw, very shockin' indeed!' was the words I heerd flyin' about, an'

'Who'll make en sensible o't?' an' 'We'll give en what-for.' 'A silent tongue makes a wise head,' said I, an' o' this I call Uncle Issy here to witness."

Uncle Issy corroborated. "You was proverbial, crowder, I can duly vow, an' to that effect, unless my mem'ry misgives me."

"So, in a mollifyin' manner, I says, 'What hev the pore chap done, to be treated so bad?' I says. Says I, 'better lave me use logic wi' en'-- eh, Uncle Issy?"

"Logic was the word."

The stranger turned round upon the company, who with one accord began to look extremely foolish as Old Zeb so adroitly turned the tables.

"Is this true?" he asked.

"'Tis the truth, I must admit," volunteered Uncle Issy, who had not been asked, but was fluttered with delight at having stuck to the right side against appearances.

"I think," said the stranger, deliberately, "it is as well that you and I, my friends, should understand each other. The turn of events has made it likely that I shall pa.s.s my days in this neighbourhood, and I wish to clear up all possible misconceptions at the start. In the first place, I am going to marry Miss Ruby Tresidder. Our banns will be asked in church to-morrow; but let us have a rehearsal. Can any man here show cause or just impediment why this marriage should not take place?"

"You'd better ask that o' Young Zeb, mister," said Prudy.

"Why?"

"You owe your life to'n, I hear."

"When next you see him you can put two questions. Ask him in the first place if he saved it at my request."

"Tut-tut. A man likes to live, whether he axes for it or no," grunted Elias Sweetland. "And what the devil do you know about it?" demanded the stranger.

"I reckon I know what a man's like."

"Oh, you do, do you? Wait a while, my friend. In the second place," he went on, returning to Prudy, "ask young Zebedee Minards, if he wants my life back, to come and fetch it. And now attend all. Do you see these?"

He threw back his cloak, and, diving a hand into his coat-pocket, produced a couple of pistols. The b.u.t.ts were rich with bra.s.s-work, and the barrels shone as he held them out in the firelight.

"You needn't dodge your heads about so gingerly. I'm only about to give you an exhibition. How many tall candlesticks have you in the house besides the pair here?" he inquired of Prudy.

"Dree pair."

"Put candles in the other two pairs and set them on the chimney-shelf."

"Why?"

"Do as I tell you."

"Now here's summat _like_ a man!" said Prudy, and went out obediently to fetch them.

Until she returned there was dead silence in the bar-parlour. The men puffed uneasily at their pipes, not one of which was alight, and avoided the stranger's eye, which rested on each in turn with a sardonic humour.

Prudy lit the candles, one from the other, and after snuffing them with her fingers that they might burn steadily, arranged them in a row on the mantelshelf. Now above this shelf the chimney-piece was panelled to the height of some two and a half feet, and along the panel certain ballads that Prudy had purchased of the Sherborne messenger were stuck in a row with pins.

"Better take those ballads down, if you value them," the stranger remarked.

She turned round inquiringly.

"I'm going to shoot."

"Sakes alive--an' my panel, an' my best bra.s.s candlesticks!"

"Take them down."

She gave in, and unpinned the ballads.

"Now stand aside."

He stepped back to the other side of the room, and set his back to the door.

"Don't move," he said to Calvin Oke, whose chair stood immediately under the line of fire, "your head is not the least in the way. And don't turn it either, but keep your eye on the candle to the right."

This was spoken in the friendliest manner, but it hardly rea.s.sured Oke, who would have preferred to keep his eye on the deadly weapon now being lifted behind his back. Nevertheless he did not disobey, but sat still, with his eyes fixed on the mantelshelf, and only his shoulders twitching to betray his discomposure.

_Bang!_

The room was suddenly full of sound, then of smoke and the reek of gunpowder. As the noise broke on their ears one of the candles went out quietly. The candlestick did not stir, but a bullet was embedded in the panel behind. Calvin Oke felt his scalp nervously.

"One," counted the stranger. He walked quietly to the table, set down his smoking pistol, and took up the other, looking round at the same time on the white faces that stared on him behind the thick curls of smoke. Stepping back to his former position, he waited while they could count twenty, lifted the second pistol high, brought it smartly down to the aim and fired again.

The second candle went out, and a second bullet buried itself in Prudy's panel.

So he served the six, one after another, without a miss. Twice he reloaded both pistols slowly, and while he did so not a word was spoken.

Indeed, the only sound to be heard came from Uncle Issy, who, being a trifle asthmatical with age, felt some inconvenience from the smoke in his throat. By the time the last shot was fired the company could hardly see one another. Prudy, two of whose dishes had been shaken off the dresser, had tumbled upon a settle, and sat there, rocking herself to and fro, with her ap.r.o.n over her head.

The sound of firing had reached the neighbouring houses, and by this time the pa.s.sage was full of men and women, agog for a tragedy.

The door burst open. Through the dense atmosphere the stranger descried a crowd of faces in the pa.s.sage. He was the first to speak.

"Good folk, you alarm yourselves without cause. I have merely been pointing an argument that I and my friends happen to be holding here."

Then he turned to Calvin Oke, who lay in his chair like a limp sack, slowly recovering from his emotions at hearing the bullets whiz over his head.

"When I a.s.sure you that I carry these weapons always about me, you will hardly need to be warned against interfering with me again. The first man that meddles, I'll shoot like a rabbit--by the Lord Harry, I will!

You hear?"

He slipped the pistols into his pocket, pulled out two crown pieces, and tossed them to Prudy.

"That'll pay for the damage, I daresay." So, turning on his heel, he marched out, leaving them in the firelight. The crowd in the pa.s.sage fell back to right and left, and in a moment more he had disappeared into the black drizzle outside.

But the tradition of his feat survives, and the six holes in Prudy's panel still bear witness to its truth.

CHAPTER VIII.