The Fair Maid of Perth; Or, St. Valentine's Day by Walter Scott (electronic reader .TXT) 📕

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 cumber.”

“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 ass 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 coxcombly face again.”

Oliver at last relieved his host by swaggering off, imitating as well as he could the sturdy 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.