The Fair Maid of Perth Part 29

"Gramercy, and thank thee kindly," said Oliver much embarra.s.sed by his friend's unexpected deference; "thou art the good friend I have always thought thee. But I have as much friendship for Henry Smith as he for Oliver Proudfute. I swear by St. John, I will not fight in this quarrel to thy prejudice; so, having said so, I am beyond the reach of temptation, since thou wouldst not have me mansworn, though it were to fight twenty duels."

"Hark thee," said the smith, "acknowledge thou art afraid, Oliver: tell the honest truth, at once, otherwise I leave thee to make the best of thy quarrel."

"Nay, good gossip," replied the bonnet maker, "thou knowest I am never afraid. But, in sooth, this is a desperate ruffian; and as I have a wife--poor Maudie, thou knowest--and a small family, and thou--"

"And I," interrupted Henry, hastily, "have none, and never shall have."

"Why, truly, such being the case, I would rather thou fought'st this combat than I."

"Now, by our halidome, gossip," answered the smith, "thou art easily gored! Know, thou silly fellow, that Sir Patrick Charteris, who is ever a merry man, hath but jested with thee. Dost thou think he would venture the honour of the city on thy head, or that I would yield thee the precedence in which such a matter was to be disputed? Lackaday, go home, let Maudie tie a warm nightcap on thy head, get thee a warm breakfast and a cup of distilled waters, and thou wilt be in ease tomorrow to fight thy wooden dromond, or soldan, as thou call'st him, the only thing thou wilt ever lay downright blow upon."

"Ay, say'st thou so, comrade?" answered Oliver, much relieved, yet deeming it necessary to seem in part offended. "I care not for thy dogged humour; it is well for thee thou canst not wake my patience to the point of falling foul. Enough--we are gossips, and this house is thine. Why should the two best blades in Perth clash with each other?

What! I know thy rugged humour, and can forgive it. But is the feud really soldered up?"

"As completely as ever hammer fixed rivet," said the smith. "The town hath given the Johnstone a purse of gold, for not ridding them of a troublesome fellow called Oliver Proudfute, when he had him at his mercy; and this purse of gold buys for the provost the Sleepless Isle, which the King grants him, for the King pays all in the long run. And thus Sir Patrick gets the comely inch which is opposite to his dwelling, and all honour is saved on both sides, for what is given to the provost is given, you understand, to the town. Besides all this, the Douglas hath left Perth to march against the Southron, who, men say, are called into the marches by the false Earl of March. So the Fair City is quit of him and his c.u.mber."

"But, in St. John's name, how came all that about," said Oliver, "and no one spoken to about it?"

"Why, look thee, friend Oliver, this I take to have been the case. The fellow whom I cropped of a hand is now said to have been a servant of Sir John Ramorny's, who hath fled to his motherland of Fife, to which Sir John himself is also to be banished, with full consent of every honest man. Now, anything which brings in Sir John Ramorny touches a much greater man--I think Simon Glover told as much to Sir Patrick Charteris. If it be as I guess, I have reason to thank Heaven and all the saints I stabbed him not upon the ladder when I made him prisoner."

"And I too thank Heaven and all the saints, most devoutly," said Oliver.

"I was behind thee, thou knowest, and--"

"No more of that, if thou be'st wise. There are laws against striking princes," said the smith: "best not handle the horseshoe till it cools.

All is hushed up now."

"If this be so," said Oliver, partly disconcerted, but still more relieved, by the intelligence he received from his better informed friend, "I have reason to complain of Sir Patrick Charteris for jesting with the honour of an honest burgess, being, as he is, provost of our town."

"Do, Oliver; challenge him to the field, and he will bid his yeoman loose his dogs on thee. But come, night wears apace, will you be shogging?"

"Nay, I had one word more to say to thee, good gossip. But first, another cup of your cold ale."

"Pest on thee for a fool! Thou makest me wish thee where told liquors are a scarce commodity. There, swill the barrelful an thou wilt."

Oliver took the second flagon, but drank, or rather seemed to drink, very slowly, in order to gain time for considering how he should introduce his second subject of conversation, which seemed rather delicate for the smith's present state of irritability. At length, nothing better occurred to him than to plunge into the subject at once, with, "I have seen Simon Glover today, gossip."

"Well," said the smith, in a low, deep, and stern tone of voice, "and if thou hast, what is that to me?"

"Nothing--nothing," answered the appalled bonnet maker. "Only I thought you might like to know that he questioned me close if I had seen thee on St. Valentine's Day, after the uproar at the Dominicans', and in what company thou wert."

"And I warrant thou told'st him thou met'st me with a glee woman in the mirk loaning yonder?"

"Thou know'st, Henry, I have no gift at lying; but I made it all up with him."

"As how, I pray you?" said the smith.

"Marry, thus: 'Father Simon,' said I, 'you are an old man, and know not the quality of us, in whose veins youth is like quicksilver. You think, now, he cares about this girl,' said I, 'and, perhaps, that he has her somewhere here in Perth in a corner? No such matter; I know,' said I, 'and I will make oath to it, that she left his house early next morning for Dundee.' Ha! have I helped thee at need?"

"Truly, I think thou hast, and if anything could add to my grief and vexation at this moment, it is that, when I am so deep in the mire, an a.s.s like thee should place his clumsy hoof on my head, to sink me entirely. Come, away with thee, and mayst thou have such luck as thy meddling humour deserves; and then I think, thou wilt be found with a broken neck in the next gutter. Come, get you out, or I will put you to the door with head and shoulders forward."

"Ha--ha!" exclaimed Oliver, laughing with some constraint, "thou art such a groom! But in sadness, gossip Henry, wilt thou not take a turn with me to my own house, in the Meal Vennel?"

"Curse thee, no," answered the smith.

"I will bestow the wine on thee if thou wilt go," said Oliver.

"I will bestow the cudgel on thee if thou stay'st," said Henry.

"Nay, then, I will don thy buff coat and cap of steel, and walk with thy swashing step, and whistling thy pibroch of 'Broken Bones at Loncarty'; and if they take me for thee, there dare not four of them come near me."

"Take all or anything thou wilt, in the fiend's name! only be gone."

"Well--well, Hal, we shall meet when thou art in better humour," said Oliver, who had put on the dress.

"Go; and may I never see thy c.o.xcombly face again."

Oliver at last relieved his host by swaggering off, imitating as well as he could the st.u.r.dy step and outward gesture of his redoubted companion, and whistling a pibroch composed on the rout of the Danes at Loncarty, which he had picked up from its being a favourite of the smith's, whom he made a point of imitating as far as he could. But as the innocent, though conceited, fellow stepped out from the entrance of the wynd, where it communicated with the High Street, he received a blow from behind, against which his headpiece was no defence, and he fell dead upon the spot, an attempt to mutter the name of Henry, to whom he always looked for protection, quivering upon his dying tongue.

CHAPTER XVII.

Nay, I will fit you for a young prince.

Falstaff.

We return to the revellers, who had, half an hour before, witnessed, with such boisterous applause, Oliver's feat of agility, being the last which the poor bonnet maker was ever to exhibit, and at the hasty retreat which had followed it, animated by their wild shout. After they had laughed their fill, they pa.s.sed on their mirthful path in frolic and jubilee, stopping and frightening some of the people whom they met, but, it must be owned, without doing them any serious injury, either in their persons or feelings. At length, tired with his rambles, their chief gave a signal to his merry men to close around him.

"We, my brave hearts and wise counsellors, are," he said, "the real king over all in Scotland that is worth commanding. We sway the hours when the wine cup circulates, and when beauty becomes kind, when frolic is awake, and gravity snoring upon his pallet. We leave to our vice regent, King Robert, the weary task of controlling ambitious n.o.bles, gratifying greedy clergymen, subduing wild Highlanders, and composing deadly feuds.

And since our empire is one of joy and pleasure, meet it is that we should haste with all our forces to the rescue of such as own our sway, when they chance, by evil fortune, to become the prisoners of care and hypochondriac malady. I speak in relation chiefly to Sir John, whom the vulgar call Ramorny. We have not seen him since the onslaught of Curfew Street, and though we know he was somedeal hurt in that matter, we cannot see why he should not do homage in leal and duteous sort. Here, you, our Calabash King at arms, did you legally summon Sir John to his part of this evening's revels?"

"I did, my lord."

"And did you acquaint him that we have for this night suspended his sentence of banishment, that, since higher powers have settled that part, we might at least take a mirthful leave of an old friend?"

"I so delivered it, my lord," answered the mimic herald.

"And sent he not a word in writing, he that piques himself upon being so great a clerk?"

"He was in bed, my lord, and I might not see him. So far as I hear, he hath lived very retired, harmed with some bodily bruises, malcontent with your Highness's displeasure, and doubting insult in the streets, he having had a narrow escape from the burgesses, when the churls pursued him and his two servants into the Dominican convent. The servants, too, have been removed to Fife, lest they should tell tales."

"Why, it was wisely done," said the Prince, who, we need not inform the intelligent reader, had a better t.i.tle to be so called than arose from the humours of the evening--"it was prudently done to keep light tongued companions out of the way. But St. John's absenting himself from our solemn revels, so long before decreed, is flat mutiny and disclamation of allegiance. Or, if the knight be really the prisoner of illness and melancholy, we must ourself grace him with a visit, seeing there can be no better cure for those maladies than our own presence, and a gentle kiss of the calabash. Forward, ushers, minstrels, guard, and attendants!

Bear on high the great emblem of our dignity. Up with the calabash, I say, and let the merry men who carry these firkins, which are to supply the wine cup with their life blood, be chosen with regard to their state of steadiness. Their burden is weighty and precious, and if the fault is not in our eyes, they seem to us to reel and stagger more than were desirable. Now, move on, sirs, and let our minstrels blow their blythest and boldest."

On they went with tipsy mirth and jollity, the numerous torches flashing their red light against the small windows of the narrow streets, from whence nightcapped householders, and sometimes their wives to boot, peeped out by stealth to see what wild wa.s.sail disturbed the peaceful streets at that unwonted hour. At length the jolly train halted before the door of Sir John Ramorny's house, which a small court divided from the street.

Here they knocked, thundered, and halloo'd, with many denunciations of vengeance against the recusants who refused to open the gates. The least punishment threatened was imprisonment in an empty hogshead, within the ma.s.samore [princ.i.p.al dungeon] of the Prince of Pastimes' feudal palace, videlicet, the ale cellar. But Eviot, Ramorny's page, heard and knew well the character of the intruders who knocked so boldly, and thought it better, considering his master's condition, to make no answer at all, in hopes that the revel would pa.s.s on, than to attempt to deprecate their proceedings, which he knew would be to no purpose. His master's bedroom looking into a little garden, his page hoped he might not be disturbed by the noise; and he was confident in the strength of the outward gate, upon which he resolved they should beat till they tired themselves, or till the tone of their drunken humour should change. The revellers accordingly seemed likely to exhaust themselves in the noise they made by shouting and beating the door, when their mock prince (alas! too really such) upbraided them as lazy and dull followers of the G.o.d of wine and of mirth.