Micah Clarke<br />His Statement as made to his three grandchildren Joseph, Gervas and Reuben During by Arthur Conan Doyle (read e books online free txt) 📕

cried gruffly. ‘It was with sweet words that you did coax my fingers into that fool-catcher of yours. Now, here is my old headpiece of Spanish steel. It has, as you can see, one or two dints of blows, and a fresh one will not hurt it. I place it here upon this oaken stool high enough to be within fair sword-sweep. Have at it, Junker, and let us see if you can leave your mark upon it!’

‘Do you strike first, sir,’ said I, ‘since the challenge is yours.’

‘I must bruise my own headpiece to regain my soldierly credit,’ he grumbled. ‘Well, well, it has stood a cut or two in its day.’ Drawing his broadsword, he waved back the crowd who had gathered around us, while he swung the great weapon with tremendous force round his head, and brought it down with a full, clean sweep on to the smooth cap of steel. The headpiece sprang high into the air and then clattered down upon the oaken floor with a long, deep line bitten into the solid metal.

‘Well struck!’ ‘A brave stroke!’ cried the spectators. ‘It is proof steel thrice welded, and warranted to turn a sword-blade,’ one remarked, raising up the helmet to examine it, and then replacing it upon the stool.

‘I have seen my father cut through proof steel with this very sword,’ said I, drawing the fifty-year-old weapon. ‘He put rather more of his weight into it than you have done. I have heard him say that a good stroke should come from the back and loins rather than from the mere muscles of the arm.’

‘It is not a lecture we want, but a beispiel or example,’ sneered the German. ‘It is with your stroke that we have to do, and not with the teaching of your father.’

‘My stroke,’ said I, ‘is in accordance with his teaching;’ and, whistling round the sword, I brought it down with all my might and strength upon the German’s helmet. The good old Commonwealth blade shore through the plate of steel, cut the stool asunder, and buried its point two inches deep in the oaken floor. ‘It is but a trick,’ I explained. ‘I have practised it in the winter evenings at home.’

‘It is not a trick that I should care to have played upon me,’ said Lord Grey, amid a general murmur of applause and surprise. ‘Od’s bud, man, you have lived two centuries too late. What would not your thews have been worth before gunpowder put all men upon a level!’

‘Wunderbar!’ growled Buyse, ‘wunderbar! I am past my prime, young sir, and may well resign the palm of strength to you. It was a right noble stroke. It hath cost me a runlet or two of canary, and a good old helmet; but I grudge it not, for it was fairly done. I am thankful that my head was not darin. Saxon, here, used to show us some brave schwertspielerei, but he hath not the weight for such smashing blows as this.’

‘My eye is still true and my hand firm, though both are perhaps a trifle the worse for want of use,’ said Saxon, only too glad at the chance of drawing the eyes of the chiefs upon him. ‘At backsword, sword and dagger, sword and buckler, single falchion and case of falchions, mine old challenge still holds good against any comer, save only my brother Quartus, who plays as well as I do, but hath an extra half-inch in reach which gives him the vantage.’

‘I studied sword-play under Signor Contarini of Paris,’ said Lord Grey. ‘Who was your master?’

‘I have studied, my lord, under Signer Stern Necessity of Europe,’ quoth Saxon. ‘For five-and-thirty years my life has depended from day to day upon being able to cover myself with this slip of steel. Here is a small trick which showeth some nicety of eye: to throw this ring to the ceiling and catch it upon a rapier point. It seems simple, perchance, and yet is only to be attained by some practice.’

‘Simple!’ cried Wade the lawyer, a square-faced, bold-eyed man. ‘Why, the ring is but the girth of your little finger. A man might do it once by good luck, but none could ensure it.’

‘I will lay a guinea a thrust on it,’ said Saxon; and tossing the little gold circlet up into the air, he flashed out his rapier and made a pass at it. The ring rasped down the steel blade and tinkled against the hilt, fairly impaled. By a sharp motion of the wrist he shot it up to the ceiling again, where it struck a carved rafter and altered its course; but again, with a quick step forward, he got beneath it and received it on his sword-point. ‘Surely there is some cavalier present who is as apt at the trick as I am,’ he said, replacing the ring upon his finger.

‘I think, Colonel, that I could venture upon it,’ said a voice; and looking round, we found that Monmouth had entered the room and was standing quietly on the outskirts of the throng, unperceived in the general interest which our contention had excited. ‘Nay, nay, gentlemen,’ he continued pleasantly, as we uncovered and bowed with some little embarrassment; ‘how could my faithful followers be better employed than by breathing themselves in a little sword-play? I prythee lend me your rapier, Colonel.’ He drew a diamond ring from his finger, and spinning it up into the air, he transfixed it as deftly as Saxon had done. ‘I practised the trick at The Hague, where, by my faith, I had only too many hours to devote to such trifles. But how come these steel links and splinters of wood to be littered over the floor?’

‘A son of Anak hath appaired amang us,’ said Ferguson, turning his face, all scarred and reddened with the king’s evil, in my direction. ‘A Goliath o’ Gath, wha hath a stroke like untae a weaver’s beam. Hath he no the smooth face o’ a bairn and the thews’ o’ Behemoth?’

‘A shrewd blow indeed,’ King Monmouth remarked, picking up half the stool. ‘How is our champion named?’

‘He is my captain, your Majesty,’ Saxon answered, resheathing the sword which the King had handed to him; ‘Micah Clarke, a man of Hampshire birth.’

‘They breed a good old English stock in those parts,’ said Monmouth; ‘but how comes it that you are here, sir? I summoned this meeting for my own immediate household, and for the colonels of the regiments. If every captain is to be admitted into our councils, we must hold our meetings on the Castle Green, for no apartment could contain us.’

‘I ventured to come here, your Majesty,’ I replied, ‘because on my way hither I received a commission, which was that I should deliver this small but weighty package into your hands. I therefore thought it my duty to lose no time in fulfilling my errand.’

‘What is in it?’ he asked.

‘I know not,’ I answered.

Doctor Ferguson whispered a few words into the King’s ear, who laughed and held out his hand for the packet.

‘Tut! tut!’ said he. ‘The days of the Borgias and the Medicis are over, Doctor. Besides, the lad is no Italian conspirator, but hath honest blue eyes and flaxen hair as Nature’s certificate to his character. This is passing heavy—an ingot of lead, by the feel. Lend me your dagger, Colonel Holmes. It is stitched round with packthread. Ha! it is a bar of