The Fortunes of Nigel by Walter Scott (good summer reads txt) 📕

mustaches turned up with a military twist, a broad buff belt, a long rapier, and other outward symbols of the honoured profession, which lives by killing other people—“you talk of the siege of Leith, and I have seen the place—a pretty kind of a hamlet it is, with a plain wall, or rampart, and a pigeon-house or so of a tower at every angle. Uds daggers and scabbards, if a leaguer of our days had been twenty-four hours, not to say so many months, before it, without carrying the place and all its cocklofts, one after another, by pure storm, they would have deserved no better grace than the Provost-Marshal gives when his noose is reeved.”

“Saar,” said the Chevalier, “Monsieur le Capitaine, I vas not at the siege of the petit Leyth, and I know not what you say about the cockloft; but I will say for Monseigneur de Strozzi, that he understood the grande guerre, and was grand capitaine—plus grand—that is more great, it may be, than some of the capitaines of Angleterre, who do speak very loud—tenez, Monsieur, car c'est a vous!”

“O Monsieur.” answered the swordsman, “we know the Frenchman will fight well behind his barrier of stone, or when he is armed with back, breast, and pot.”

“Pot!” exclaimed the Chevalier, “what do you mean by pot—do you mean to insult me among my noble guests? Saar, I have done my duty as a pauvre gentilhomme under the Grand Henri Quatre, both at Courtrai and Yvry, and, ventre saint gris! we had neither pot nor marmite, but did always charge in our shirt.”

“Which refutes another base scandal,” said Lord Dalgarno, laughing, “alleging that linen was scarce among the French gentlemen-at-arms.”

“Gentlemen out at arms and elbows both, you mean, my lord,” said the captain, from the bottom of the table. “Craving your lordship's pardon, I do know something of these same gens-d'armes.”

“We will spare your knowledge at present, captain, and save your modesty at the same time the trouble of telling us how that knowledge was acquired,” answered Lord Dalgarno, rather contemptuously.

“I need not speak of it, my lord,” said the man of war; “the world knows it—all perhaps, but the men of mohair—the poor sneaking citizens of London, who would see a man of valour eat his very hilts for hunger, ere they would draw a farthing from their long purses to relieve them. O, if a band of the honest fellows I have seen were once to come near that cuckoo's nest of theirs!”

“A cuckoo's nest!-and that said of the city of London!” said a gallant who sat on the opposite side of the table, and who, wearing a splendid and fashionable dress, seemed yet scarce at home in it—“I will not brook to hear that repeated.”

“What!” said the soldier, bending a most terrific frown from a pair of broad black eyebrows, handling the hilt of his weapon with one hand, and twirling with the other his huge mustaches; “will you quarrel for your city?”

“Ay, marry will I,” replied the other. “I am a citizen, I care not who knows it; and he who shall speak a word in dispraise of the city, is an ass and a peremptory gull, and I will break his pate, to teach him sense and manners.”

The company, who probably had their reasons for not valuing the captain's courage at the high rate which he himself put upon it, were much entertained at the manner in which the quarrel was taken up by the indignant citizen; and they exclaimed on all sides, “Well run, Bow-bell!”—“Well crowed, the cock of Saint Paul's!”—“Sound a charge there, or the soldier will mistake his signals, and retreat when he should advance.”

“You mistake me, gentlemen,” said the captain, looking round with an air of dignity. “I will but inquire whether this cavaliero citizen is of rank and degree fitted to measure swords with a man of action; (for, conceive me, gentlemen, it is not with every one that I can match myself without loss of reputation;) and in that case he shall soon hear from me honourably, by way of cartel.”

“You shall feel me most dishonourably in the way of cudgel,” said the citizen, starting up, and taking his sword, which he had laid in a corner. “Follow me.”

“It is my right to name the place of combat, by all the rules of the sword,” said the captain; “and I do nominate the Maze, in Tothill-Fields, for place—two gentlemen, who shall be indifferent judges, for witnesses;—and for time—let me say this day fortnight, at daybreak.”

“And I,” said the citizen, “do nominate the bowling-alley behind the house for place, the present good company for witnesses, and for time the present moment.”

So saying, he cast on his beaver, struck the soldier across the shoulders with his sheathed sword, and ran down stairs. The captain showed no instant alacrity to follow him; yet, at last, roused by the laugh and sneer around him, he assured the company, that what he did he would do deliberately, and, assuming his hat, which he put on with the air of Ancient Pistol, he descended the stairs to the place of combat, where his more prompt adversary was already stationed, with his sword unsheathed. Of the company, all of whom seemed highly delighted with the approaching fray, some ran to the windows which overlooked the bowling-alley, and others followed the combatants down stairs. Nigel could not help asking Dalgarno whether he would not interfere to prevent mischief.

“It would be a crime against the public interest,” answered his friend; “there can no mischief happen between two such originals, which will not be a positive benefit to society, and particularly to the Chevalier's establishment, as he calls it. I have been as sick of that captain's buff belt, and red doublet, for this month past, as e'er I was of aught; and now I hope this bold linendraper will cudgel the ass out of that filthy lion's hide. See, Nigel, see the gallant citizen has ta'en his ground about a bowl's-cast forward, in the midst of the alley—the very model of a hog in armour. Behold how he prances with his manly foot, and brandishes his blade, much as if he were about to measure forth cambric with it. See, they bring on the reluctant soldado, and plant him opposite to his fiery antagonist, twelve paces still dividing them—Lo, the captain draws his tool, but, like a good general, looks over his shoulder to secure his retreat, in case the worse come on't. Behold the valiant shop-keeper stoops his head, confident, doubtless, in the civic helmet with which his spouse has fortified his skull—Why, this is the rarest of sport. By Heaven, he will run a tilt at him, like a ram.”

It was even as Lord Dalgarno had anticipated; for the citizen, who seemed quite serious in his zeal for combat, perceiving that the man of war did not advance towards him, rushed onwards with as much good fortune as courage, beat down the captain's guard, and, pressing on, thrust, as it seemed, his sword clear through the body of his antagonist, who, with a deep groan, measured his length on the ground. A score of voices cried to the conqueror, as he stood fixed in astonishment at his own feat, “Away, away with you!—fly, fly—fly by the back door!—get into the Whitefriars, or cross the water to the Bankside, while we keep off the mob and the constables.” And the conqueror, leaving his vanquished foeman on the ground, fled accordingly, with all speed.