higgling as to prices, and shillings and half-crowns were tossed in a
wonderful manner from palm to palm. Apparently, nothing could be
transacted without that ceremony, whatever it might mean. Idlers
were everywhere celebrating the merits and "dacency" of the various
buyers and sellers. Huge greasy leather pocket-books, of undoubted
antiquity, were to be seen in many a hand, and rolls of bank-notes
were deftly changing owners. The ground, too, was beginning to
clear, and purchasers were driving off their cattle. Many of the
dealers who had disposed of stock were taking their ease in the inns.
You could see them looking out of the open windows; and occasionally
a man whose potations had been early and excessive went whooping
through the crowd. In a short time John returned with his friend.
"Captain Broster," said John, presenting him, "has promised to dine
with us at three. Sharp at the hour, mind, for we wish to leave
early."
"I'll be punctual as clockwork," said the captain, turning to look
after his purchases.
[Sidenote: The Welsh forgemen.]
We strolled up and down till three o'clock, and then bent our steps
to the inn, where we found Broster waiting. In honour to his guests
the landlord himself brought in dinner, and waited with great
diligence. When the table was cleared we had punch and cigars, and
sat chatting at the open window. The space in front was tolerably
clear of cattle now, but dealers were hovering about, standing in
clumps, or promenading in parties of twos and threes. But at this
point a new element had entered into the scene. It was dinner hour,
and many of the forgemen from the furnaces above had come down to see
what was going on. Huge, hulking, swarthy-featured fellows they
were. Welshmen, chiefly, as I was afterwards told, who, confident in
their strength, were at no pains to conceal their contempt for the
natives. They, too, mingled in the crowd, but the greater number
leaned lazily against the houses, smoking their short pipes, and
indulging in the dangerous luxury of "chaffing" the farmers. Many a
rude wit-combat was going on, accompanied by roars of laughter,
snatches of which we occasionally heard. Broster had been in the
Crimea, was wounded at Alma, recovered, went through all the work and
privation of the first winter of the siege, got knocked up, came home
on sick leave, and having had enough of it, as he frankly confessed,
took the opportunity on his father's death, which happened then, to
sell out and settle as a farmer on a small property to which he fell
heir. He chatted about the events of the war in an easy familiar
way, quietly, as if the whole affair had been a game at football; and
when courage, strength, and splendid prospects were changed by unseen
bullet, or grim bayonet stab, into a rude grave on the bleak plateau,
the thing was mentioned as a mere matter of course! Sometimes a
comrade's fate met with an expression of soldierly regret, slight and
indifferent enough, yet with a certain pathos which no high-flown
oration could reach. For the indifferent tone seemed to acquiesce in
destiny, to consider that disappointment had been too common in the
life of every man during the last six thousand years to warrant any
raving or passionate surprise at this time of day; that in any case
our ordinary pulse and breath beat our march to the grave; passion
the double-quick; and when it is all over, there is little need for
outcry and the shedding of tears over the eternal rest. [Sidenote:
The scuffle in the inn.] In the midst of his talk voices rose in one
of the apartments below; the noise became altercation, and
immediately a kind of struggling or dragging was heard in the flagged
passage, and then a tipsy forgeman was unceremoniously shot out into
the square, and the inn door closed with an angry bang. The
individual seemed to take the indignity in very good part; along he
staggered, his hands in his pockets, heedless of the satirical gibes
and remarks of his companions, who were smoking beneath our windows.
Looking out, we could see that his eyes were closed, as if he scorned
the outer world, possessing one so much more satisfactory within
himself. As he went he began to sing from sheer excess of happiness,
the following stanza coming distinctly to our ears:--
"When I was a chicken as big as a hen,
My mother 'ot me, an' I 'ot her agen;
My father came in for to see the r-r-rrow,
So I lifted my fist, an' I 'ot him a clow."
"I hope that fellow won't come to grief," said Broster, as the
forgeman lurched through a group of countrymen intent on a bargain,
and passed on without notice or apology, his eyes closed, and singing
as before--
"Ses my mother, ses she, There's a Peeler at hand."
[Sidenote: The fair fight.]
"By Jove, he's down at last, and there'll be the devil to pay!" We
looked out, the forgeman was prone in the dust, singing, and
apparently unconscious that he had changed his position. A party of
farmers were standing around laughing; one of them had put out his
foot and tripped the forgeman as he passed. The next moment a
bare-armed black-browed hammersmith strode out from the wall, and,
without so much as taking the pipe from his mouth, felled the dealer
at a blow, and then looked at his companions as if wishing to be
informed if he could do anything in the same way for them. The blow
was a match dropped in a powder magazine. Alelu! to the combat.
There were shouts and yells. Insult had been rankling long in the
breasts of both parties. Old scores had to be paid off. From every
quarter, out of the inns, leaving potheen and ale, down the streets
from among the cattle, the dealers came rushing to the fray. The
forgemen mustered with alacrity, as if battle were the breath of
their nostrils. In a few seconds the square was the scene of a
general _mêlée_. The dealers fought with their short heavy sticks;
the forgemen had but the weapons nature gave, but their arms were
sinewed with iron, and every blow told like a hammer. These last
were overpowered for a while, but the alarm had already spread to the
furnaces above, and parties of twos and threes came at a run, and
flung themselves in to the assistance of their companions. Just at
this moment a couple of constables pressed forward into the yelling
crowd. A hammersmith came behind one, and seizing his arms, held
him, despite his struggles, firmly as in a vice. The other was
knocked over and trampled under foot. "Good heavens, murder will be
done," cried Broster, lifting his heavy whip from the table; "we must
try and put an end to this disgraceful scene. Will you join me?"
"With heart and soul," said Penruddock, "and there is no time to be
lost. Come along." At the foot of the stair we found the landlord
shaking in every limb. He had locked the door, and was standing in
the passage with the key in his hand. "M'Queen, we want out; open
the door."
"Shure, jintlemen, you're not goin' just now. You'll be torn to
paces if you go."
"If you won't open the door, give me the key, and I'll open it
myself."
[Sidenote: Black Jem.]
The landlord passively yielded. Broster unlocked the door, and flung
the key down on the flagged passage. "Now, my lads," cried he to
half-a-dozen countrymen who were hanging-on spectators on the skirts
of the combat, and at the same time twisting his whip-lash tightly
round his right hand till the heavy-leaded head became a formidable
weapon, a blow from which would be effective on any skull of ordinary
susceptibility; "Now, my lads, we are resolved to put an end to this;
will you assist us?" The captain's family had been long resident in
the county, he was himself personally known to all of them, and a
cheerful "Ay, ay," was the response. "Penruddock, separate them when
you can, knock them over when you can't, Welshman or Irishman, it's
quite the same." So saying, in we drove. Broster clove a way for
himself, distributing his blows with great impartiality, and knocking
over the combatants like nine-pins. We soon reached the middle of
the square, where the fight was hottest. The captain was swept away
in an eddy for a moment, and right in front of Penruddock and myself
two men were grappling on the ground. As they rolled over, we saw
that one was the hammersmith who had caused the whole affray. We
flung ourselves upon them, and dragged them up. The dealer, with
whom I was more particularly engaged, had got the worst of it, and
plainly wasn't sorry to be released from the clutches of his
antagonist. With his foe it was different. His slow sullen blood
was fairly in a blaze, and when Pen pushed him aside, he dashed at
him and struck him a severe blow on the face. In a twinkling
Penruddock's coat was off, while the faintest stream of blood
trickled from his upper lip. "Well, my man," said he, as he stood up
ready for action, "if that's the game you mean to play at, I hope to
give you a bellyful before I've done." "Seize that man, knock him
over," said Broster; "you're surely not going to fight _him_,
Penruddock, it's sheer madness; knock him over." "I tell you what it
is," said Penruddock, turning savagely, "you shan't deprive me of the
luxury of giving this fellow a sound hiding." Broster shrugged his
shoulders, as if giving up the case. By this time the cry arose,
"Black Jem's goin' to fight the gentleman;" and a wide enough ring
was formed. [Sidenote: The fight.] Many who were prosecuting small
combats of their own desisted, that they might behold the greater
one. Broster stood beside John. "He's an ugly mass of strength,"
whispered he, "and will hug you like a bear; keep him well off, and
remain cool for Heaven's sake." "Ready?" said John, stepping
forward. "As a lark i' the mornin'," growled Jem, as he took up his
ground. The men were very wary--Jem retreating round and round, John
advancing. Now and then one or other darted out a blow, but it was
generally stopped, and no harm done. At last the blows went home;
the blood began to rise. The men drew closer, and struck with
greater rapidity. They are at it at last, hammer and tongs. No
shirking or flinching now. Jem's blood was flowing. He was
evidently getting severely punished. He couldn't last long at that
rate. He fought desperately for a close, when a blinding blow full
in the face brought him to the earth. He got up again like a madman,
the whole bull-dog nature of him possessed and mastered by brutal
rage. He cursed and struggled in the arms of his supporters to get
at his enemy, but by main force they held him back till he recovered
himself. "He'll be worked off in another round," I heard Broster
whisper in my ear. Ah! here they come! I glanced at Pen for a
moment as he stood with his eye on his foe. There was that in his
face that boded no good. The features had hardened into iron
somehow; the pitiless mouth was clenched, the eye cruel. A hitherto
unknown part of his nature revealed itself to me as he stood
there--perhaps unknown to himself. God help us, what strangers we
are to ourselves! In every man's nature there is an interior
unexplored as that of Africa, and over that region what wild beasts
may roam! But they are at it again; Jem still fights for a close,
and every time his rush is stopped by a damaging blow. They are
telling rapidly; his countenance, by no means charming at the best,
is rapidly transforming. Look at that hideously gashed lip! But he
has dodged Penruddock's left this time, and clutched him in his
brawny arms. Now comes the tug of war, skill pitted against skill,
strength against strength. They breathe for a little in each other's
grip, as if summoning every energy. They are at it now, broad chest
to chest. Now they seem motionless, but by the quiver of their
frames you can guess the terrific strain going on. Now one has the
better, now the other, as they twine round each other, lithe and
supple as serpents. Penruddock yields! No! That's a bad dodge of
Jem's. By Jove he loses his grip. All is over with him. Pen's brow
grows dark; the veins start out on it; and the next moment Black Jem,
the hero of fifty fights, slung over his shoulder, falls heavily to
the ground.
[Sidenote: Retreat of the hammermen.]
At his fall a cheer rose from the dealers. "You blacksmith fellows
had better make off," cried Broster; "your man has got the thrashing
he deserves, and you can carry him home with you. I am resolved to
put a stop to these disturbances--there have been too many of late."
The furnacemen hung for a moment irresolute, seemingly half-inclined
to renew the combat, but a formidable array of cattle-dealers pressed
forward and turned the scale. They decided on a retreat. Black Jem,
who had now come to himself, was lifted up, and, supported by two
men, retired toward the works and dwellings on the upper grounds,
accompanied by his companions, who muttered many a surly oath and vow
of future vengeance.
When we got back to the inn, Pen was very anxious about his face. He
washed, and carefully perused his features in the little
looking-glass. Luckily, with the exception of the upper lip slightly
cut by Jim's first blow, no mark of the combat presented itself. At
this happy result of his investigations he expressed great
satisfaction--Broster laughing the meanwhile, and telling him that he
was as careful of his face as a young lady.
The captain came down to see us off. The fair was over now, and the
little streets were almost deserted. The dealers--apprehensive of
another descent from the furnaces--had hurried off as soon as their
transactions could in any way permit. Groups of villagers, however,
were standing about the doors discussing the event of the day; and
when Penruddock appeared he became, for a quarter of an hour, an
object of public interest for the first time in his life, and so far
as he has yet lived for the last; an honour to which he did not seem
to attach any particular value.
We shook hands with the captain; then, at a touch of the whip, the
horse started at a gallant pace, scattering a brood of ducks in all
directions; and in a few minutes Keady--with its whitewashed houses
and dark row of furnaces, tipped with tongues of flame, pale and
shrunken yet in the lustre of the afternoon, but which would rush out
wild and lurid when the evening fell--lay a rapidly dwindling speck
behind.
[Sidenote: John Penruddock.]
I am induced to set down this business of the Irish market and market
fight in order that the reader may gather some idea of the kind of
man Penruddock was. He was not particularly witty, although on
occasion he could say a good and neat thing enough; on no subject was
he profoundly read; I don't think that he ever attempted to turn a
stanza, even when a boy and in love; he did not care for art; he was
only conscious of a blind and obscure delight in music, and even for
_that_ the music had to be of the simplest kind--melody, not harmony.
He had his limitations, you see: but as a man I have seldom met his
equal. He was sagacious, kindly, affectionate, docile, patient, and
unthinking of self. There was a peculiar deference in his ordinary
manner, as if he were continually in the presence of a lady. Above
all things, he was sincere, and you trusted Pen when you came to know
him as implicitly as you would a law of nature. If you were out in a
small boat in a storm with him; if you were ascending or descending a
steep rocky hill-face with him, and got giddy on his hands; if you
were in the heart of a snow-storm on the hills with him, when all
traces of the road were lost, and the cold began to make thick your
blood with the deadly pleasure of sleep--in such circumstances you
found out what he was: cool, courageous, helpful; full of resource,
with a quick brain, an iron nerve, a giant's strength. To the
possessor of such solid worth and manhood your merely brilliant
talker, your epigrammatist, your sayer of smart things, is
essentially a poor creature. What is wit?--a sounding brass and a
tinkling cymbal. What is epigram? Penruddock did not paint pictures
or write poems; it was his business "to make good sheep," as the Skye
people say, and magnificent sheep he did make.
Pen had an ideal sheep in his mind, and to reach that ideal he was
continually striving. At the yearly winnowings of his stock he
selected his breeding ewes with the utmost care, and these ewes,
without spot or blemish, he crossed with wonderfully-horned and
far-brought rams, for which he sometimes paid enormous prices--so at
least his neighbours said. His sheep he bred in Skye for the most
part, and then he sent them over to Ulster to fatten. There, on
pasture and turnips, they throve amazingly, all their good points
coming into prominence, all their bad points stealing modestly into
the shade. At markets, Penruddock's sheep always brought excellent
prices, and his lot was certain to be about the best shown.
Pen and the Landlord had business relations. In partnership, they
brought over meal from Ireland, they speculated in turnips, they
dealt in curious manures which were to the sour Skye soil what
plum-pudding is to a charity boy: above all, he was confederate in a
scheme of emigration which the Landlord had concocted, and was in the
course of carrying out. Pen's visit at this time was purely a
business one: he wished to see me, but that was far from his sole
motive in coming--so he frankly said. But I did not care for that; I
was quite able to bear the truth, and was glad to have him on any
conditions.
_A SMOKING PARLIAMENT._
[Sidenote: The opposite side of the street.]
One morning after our return, when breakfast was over, the Landlord,
followed by Maida, carried the parrot into the sunshine in front of
the house, and, sitting down on one of the iron seats, lighted a
cheroot. As there was nothing on the cards on that special morning,
we all followed him, and, lifting his cheroot-case, helped ourselves.
The morning was warm and pleasant; and as no one had anything
particular to say, we smoked in silence and were happy. The only one
who was occupied was Fellowes. A newspaper had reached him by post
the evening before, and with its pages he was now busy. Suddenly he
burst out laughing, and read out from a half column of _facetiæ_ how
an Irishman was anxious to discover the opposite side of the street,
and making inquiries at the passengers, was kept knocking about from
one side of the thoroughfare to the other, like a ball in a
racket-court. Pat was told that the opposite side of the street was
"over there;" and when he got "over there," to his sore bewilderment
he discovered that the opposite side of the street, as if on purpose
to torment him, had slipped anchor and flitted away to the side on
which he had been making inquiries a few moments previously. We all
laughed at Pat's intellectual perplexity; and shutting up the paper
Fellowes maintained, in the light cynical vein so common at present,
that the hunt after the opposite side of the street was no bad image
of the hunt after truth. "Truth is always 'over there,'" he said;
"and when you get 'over there,' running extreme peril from cab and
dray in crossing, you find that it has gone back to the place from
which you started. And so a man spends his life in chasing, and is
as far on at the end of it as he was at the beginning. No man ever
yet reached truth, or the opposite side of the street."
"What creatures those Irish are, to be sure!" said the Landlord, as
he knocked a feather of white ash from the tip of his cheroot; "it
would be a dull world without them. In India, a single Irishman at a
station is enough to banish blue devils. The presence of an Irishman
anywhere keeps away low spirits, just as a cat in a house keeps away
rats and mice. Every station should wear an Irishman, as an amulet
against despondency."
"I have lived a good deal both in Ireland and the Highlands," said
Pen, "and the intellectual differences between the two races have
often struck me as not a little curious. They are of the same stock
originally, antiquarians say; and yet Ireland is a land of Goshen,
overflowing with the milk and honey of humour, whereas in every
quality of humour the Highlands are as dry as the Sahara. Jokes
don't usually come farther north than the Grampians. One or two are
occasionally to be found in Ross-shire over there; but they are far
from common, and their appearance is chronicled in the local prints
just as the appearance of the capercailzie is chronicled. No joke
has yet been found strong-winged enough to cross the Kyles. That's
odd, is it not?"
[Sidenote: Highland wit.]
"But have not the Highlanders wit?"
"Oh yes, plenty of it, but rather of the strenuous than of the
playful kind; their wit is born for the most part of anger or
contempt. 'There she goes,' sneered the Englishman, as Duncan
marched past in his tartans at a fair.' 'There she lies,' retorted
Duncan, as he knocked the scorner over at a blow. 'Coming from Hell,
Lauchlan,' quoth the shepherd, proceeding on a sacrament Sunday to
the Free Church, and meeting his friend coming from the Church of the
Establishment. 'Better than going to it, Rory,' retorted Lauchlan,
as he passed on. Of that kind of rapid and sufficient retort, of the
power of returning a blow swiftly and with interest, the Highlander
is not in the least deficient. But he differs from the Irishman in
this--that he has no eye for the pleasantly droll side of things; he
has no fun in him, no sense of the genially comic. He laughs, but
there is generally a touch of scorn in his laughter, and it is almost
always directed against a man or a thing. The Irishman's humorous
sense puts a stitch in the torn coat, ekes the scanty purse, boils
the peas with which he is doomed to limp graveward. The bested
Highlander can draw no amelioration of condition from such a source.
The two races dine often scantily enough, but it is only the Irishman
that can sweeten his potatoes with point. 'They talk of hardships,'
said the poor Irish soldier as he lay down to sleep on the deck of
the transport--'They talk of hardships; but bedad this is the hardest
ship I ever was in in my life.' No Highlander would have said
_that_. And I believe that the joke made the hard plank all the
softer to the joker."
"And how do you account for this difference?"
"I can't account for it. The two races springing from the same
stock, I rather think it is _un_accountable; unless, indeed, it be
traceable to climatic influence,--the soft, green, rainy Erin
producing riant and ebullient natures; the bare, flinty Highlands,
hard and austere ones. There is one quality, however, in which your
Highlander can beat the world, with the exception, perhaps, of the
North American Indian."
[Sidenote: Pride of the Highlander.]
"What quality is that?"
"The quality of never exhibiting astonishment. The Highlander would
as soon think of turning his back on his foe as of expressing
astonishment at anything. Take a Highland lad from the wilds of Skye
or Harris and drop him in Cheapside, and he will retain the most
perfect equanimity. He will have no word of marvel for the crowds
and the vehicles; the Thames Tunnel will not move him; he will look
on St Paul's without flinching. The boy may have only ridden in a
peat-cart; but he takes a railway, the fields, hedges, bridges, and
villages spinning past, the howling gloom of the tunnels, the speed
that carries him in an hour over a greater extent of country than he
ever beheld in his life even from his highest hill-top, as the merest
matter of course, and unworthy of special remark."
"But the boy will be astonished all the same?"
"Of course he is. The very hair of his soul is standing on end with
wonder and terror, but he will make no sign; he is too proud. Will
he allow the Sassenach to triumph over him? If he did, he would not
be his father's son. He will not admit that earth holds anything
which he has not measured and weighed, and with which he is not
perfectly familiar. When Chingachgook groans at the stake in the
hearing of his tormentors, the Highlander will express surprise."
"This disinclination to express astonishment, if it does exist to the
extent you say amongst the Highlanders, must arise from a solitary
mode of living. People up in these Western Islands live on the
outskirts of existence, so to speak; and the knowledge that a big,
bustling, important world exists beyond their horizon 'intensifies
their individualism,' as the poet said the bracing air of old St
Andrews intensified his. They are driven in on themselves; they are
always standing in an attitude of mental self-defence; they become
naturally self-contained and self-sustained."
[Sidenote: Chaff.]