The Fair Maid of Perth Part 12

"The bailie kept hold of my horse by the bridle; and besides," Henry continued, with a smile, which even his compa.s.sion could not suppress, "I thought you would have accused me of diminishing your honour, if I brought you aid against a single man. But cheer up! the villain took foul odds of you, your horse not being well at command."

"That is true--that is true," said Oliver, eagerly catching at the apology.

"And yonder stands the faitour, rejoicing at the mischief he has done, and triumphing in your overthrow, like the king in the romance, who played upon the fiddle whilst a city was burning. Come thou with me, and thou shalt see how we will handle him. Nay, fear not that I will desert thee this time."

So saying, he caught Jezabel by the rein, and galloping alongside of her, without giving Oliver time to express a negative, he rushed towards the Devil's d.i.c.k, who had halted on the top of a rising ground at some distance. The gentle Johnstone, however, either that he thought the contest unequal, or that he had fought enough for the day, snapping his fingers and throwing his hand out with an air of defiance, spurred his horse into a neighbouring bog, through which he seemed to flutter like a wild duck, swinging his lure round his head, and whistling to his hawk all the while, though any other horse and rider must have been instantly bogged up to the saddle girths.

"There goes a thoroughbred moss trooper," said the smith. "That fellow will fight or flee as suits his humor, and there is no use to pursue him, any more than to hunt a wild goose. He has got your purse, I doubt me, for they seldom leave off till they are full handed."

"Ye--ye--yes," said Proudfute, in a melancholy tone, "he has got my purse; but there is less matter since he hath left the hawking bag."

"Nay, the hawking bag had been an emblem of personal victory, to be sure--a trophy, as the minstrels call it."

"There is more in it than that, friend," said Oliver, significantly.

"Why, that is well, neighbour: I love to hear you speak in your own scholarly tone again. Cheer up, you have seen the villain's back, and regained the trophies you had lost when taken at advantage."

"Ah, Henry Gow--Henry Gow--" said the bonnet maker, and stopped short with a deep sigh, nearly amounting to a groan.

"What is the matter?" asked his friend--"what is it you vex yourself about now?"

"I have some suspicion, my dearest friend, Henry Smith, that the villain fled for fear of you, not of me."

"Do not think so," replied the armourer: "he saw two men and fled, and who can tell whether he fled for one or the other? Besides, he knows by experience your strength and activity: we all saw how you kicked and struggled when you were on the ground."

"Did I?" said poor Proudfute. "I do not remember it, but I know it is my best point: I am a strong dog in the loins. But did they all see it?"

"All as much as I," said the smith, smothering an inclination to laughter.

"But thou wilt remind them of it?"

"Be a.s.sured I will," answered Henry, "and of thy desperate rally even now. Mark what I say to Bailie Craigdallie, and make the best of it."

"It is not that I require any evidence in thy favour, for I am as brave by nature as most men in Perth; but only--" Here the man of valour paused.

"But only what?" inquired the stout armourer.

"But only I am afraid of being killed. To leave my pretty wife and my young family, you know, would be a sad change, Smith. You will know this when it is your own case, and will feel abated in courage."

"It is like that I may," said the armourer, musing.

"Then I am so accustomed to the use of arms, and so well breathed, that few men can match me. It's all here," said the little man, expanding his breast like a trussed fowl, and patting himself with his hands--"here is room for all the wind machinery."

"I dare say you are long breathed--long winded; at least your speech bewrays--"

"My speech! You are a wag--But I have got the stern post of a dromond brought up the river from Dundee."

"The stern post of a Drummond!" exclaimed the armourer; "conscience, man, it will put you in feud with the whole clan--not the least wrathful in the country, as I take it."

"St. Andrew, man, you put me out! I mean a dromond--that is, a large ship. I have fixed this post in my yard, and had it painted and carved something like a soldan or Saracen, and with him I breathe myself, and will wield my two handed sword against him, thrust or point, for an hour together."

"That must make you familiar with the use of your weapon," said the smith.

"Ay, marry does it; and sometimes I will place you a bonnet--an old one, most likely--on my soldan's head, and cleave it with such a downright blow that in troth, the infidel has but little of his skull remaining to hit at."

"That is unlucky, for you will lose your practice," said Henry. "But how say you, bonnet maker? I will put on my head piece and corselet one day, and you shall hew at me, allowing me my broadsword to parry and pay back? Eh, what say you?"

"By no manner of means, my dear friend. I should do you too much evil; besides, to tell you the truth, I strike far more freely at a helmet or bonnet when it is set on my wooden soldan; then I am sure to fetch it down. But when there is a plume of feathers in it that nod, and two eyes gleaming fiercely from under the shadow of the visor, and when the whole is dancing about here and there, I acknowledge it puts out my hand of fence."

"So, if men would but stand stock still like your soldan, you would play the tyrant with them, Master Proudfute?"

"In time, and with practice, I conclude I might," answered Oliver. "But here we come up with the rest of them. Bailie Craigdallie looks angry, but it is not his kind of anger that frightens me."

You are to recollect, gentle reader, that as soon as the bailie and those who attended him saw that the smith had come up to the forlorn bonnet maker, and that the stranger had retreated, they gave themselves no trouble about advancing further to his a.s.sistance, which they regarded as quite ensured by the presence of the redoubted Henry Gow.

They had resumed their straight road to Kinfauns, desirous that nothing should delay the execution of their mission. As some time had elapsed ere the bonnet maker and the smith rejoined the party, Bailie Craigdallie asked them, and Henry Smith in particular, what they meant by dallying away precious time by riding uphill after the falconer.

"By the ma.s.s, it was not my fault, Master Bailie," replied the smith.

"If ye will couple up an ordinary Low Country greyhound with a Highland wolf dog, you must not blame the first of them for taking the direction in which it pleases the last to drag him on. It was so, and not otherwise, with my neighbour Oliver Proudfute. He no sooner got up from the ground, but he mounted his mare like a flash of lightning, and, enraged at the unknightly advantage which yonder rascal had taken of his stumbling horse, he flew after him like a dromedary. I could not but follow, both to prevent a second stumble and secure our over bold friend and champion from the chance of some ambush at the top of the hill. But the villain, who is a follower of some Lord of the Marches, and wears a winged spur for his cognizance, fled from our neighbour like fire from flint."

The senior bailie of Perth listened with surprise to the legend which it had pleased Gow to circulate; for, though not much caring for the matter, he had always doubted the bonnet maker's romancing account of his own exploits, which hereafter he must hold as in some degree orthodox.

The shrewd old glover looked closer into the matter. "You will drive the poor bonnet maker mad," he whispered to Henry, "and set him a-ringing his clapper as if he were a town bell on a rejoicing day, when for order and decency it were better he were silent."

"Oh, by Our Lady, father," replied the smith, "I love the poor little braggadocio, and could not think of his sitting rueful and silent in the provost's hall, while all the rest of them, and in especial that venomous pottingar, were telling their mind."

"Thou art even too good natured a fellow, Henry," answered Simon. "But mark the difference betwixt these two men. The harmless little bonnet maker a.s.sumes the airs of a dragon, to disguise his natural cowardice; while the pottingar wilfully desires to show himself timid, poor spirited, and humble, to conceal the danger of his temper. The adder is not the less deadly that he creeps under a stone. I tell thee, son Henry, that, for all his sneaking looks and timorous talking, this wretched anatomy loves mischief more than he fears danger. But here we stand in front of the provost's castle; and a lordly place is Kinfauns, and a credit to the city it is, to have the owner of such a gallant castle for its chief magistrate."

"A goodly fortalice, indeed," said the smith, looking at the broad winding Tay, as it swept under the bank on which the castle stood, like its modern successor, and seemed the queen of the valley, although, on the opposite side of the river, the strong walls of Elcho appeared to dispute the pre-eminence. Elcho, however, was in that age a peaceful nunnery, and the walls with which it was surrounded were the barriers of secluded vestals, not the bulwarks of an armed garrison.

"'Tis a brave castle," said the armourer, again looking at the towers of Kinfauns, "and the breastplate and target of the bonny course of the Tay. It were worth lipping a good blade, before wrong were offered to it."

The porter of Kinfauns, who knew from a distance the persons and characters of the party, had already opened the courtyard gate for their entrance, and sent notice to Sir Patrick Charteris that the eldest bailie of Perth, with some other good citizens, were approaching the castle. The good knight, who was getting ready for a hawking party, heard the intimation with pretty much the same feelings that the modern representative of a burgh hears of the menaced visitation of a party of his worthy electors, at a time rather unseasonable for their reception.

That is, he internally devoted the intruders to Mahound and Termagaunt, and outwardly gave orders to receive them with all decorum and civility; commanded the sewers to bring hot venison steaks and cold baked meats into the knightly hall with all despatch, and the butler to broach his casks, and do his duty; for if the Fair City of Perth sometimes filled his cellar, her citizens were always equally ready to a.s.sist at emptying his flagons.

The good burghers were reverently marshalled into the hall, where the knight, who was in a riding habit, and booted up to the middle of his thighs, received them with a mixture of courtesy and patronising condescension; wishing them all the while at the bottom of the Tay, on account of the interruption their arrival gave to his proposed amus.e.m.e.nt of the morning. He met them in the midst of the hall, with bare head and bonnet in hand, and some such salutation as the following:

"Ha, my Master Eldest Bailie, and you, worthy Simon Glover, fathers of the Fair City, and you, my learned pottingar, and you, stout smith, and my slashing bonnet maker too, who cracks more skulls than he covers, how come I to have the pleasure of seeing so many friends so early? I was thinking to see my hawks fly, and your company will make the sport more pleasant--(Aside, I trust in Our Lady they may break their necks!)--that is, always, unless the city have any commands to lay on me. Butler Gilbert, despatch, thou knave. But I hope you have no more grave errand than to try if the malvoisie holds its flavour?"

The city delegates answered to their provost's civilities by inclinations and congees, more or less characteristic, of which the pottingar's bow was the lowest and the smith's the least ceremonious.

Probably he knew his own value as a fighting man upon occasion. To the general compliment the elder bailie replied.

"Sir Patrick Charteris, and our n.o.ble Lord Provost," said Craigdallie, gravely, "had our errand been to enjoy the hospitality with which we have been often regaled here, our manners would have taught us to tarry till your lordship had invited us, as on other occasions. And as to hawking, we have had enough on't for one morning; since a wild fellow, who was flying a falcon hard by on the moor, unhorsed and cudgelled our worthy friend Oliver Bonnet Maker, or Proudfute, as some men call him, merely because he questioned him, in your honour's name, and the town of Perth's, who or what he was that took so much upon him."

"And what account gave he of himself?" said the provost. "By St. John! I will teach him to forestall my sport!"

"So please your lordship," said the bonnet maker, "he did take me at disadvantage. But I got on horseback again afterwards, and p.r.i.c.ked after him gallantly. He calls himself Richard the Devil."

"How, man! he that the rhymes and romances are made on?" said the provost. "I thought that smaik's name had been Robert."