THE MAN WITH THE TARTAN WAISTCOAT
It was the first of May. But for Father Hamilton's birds, and some
scanty signs of it in the small garden, the lengthened day and the
kindlier air of the evenings, I might never have known what season it
was out of the almanac, for all seasons were much the same, no doubt, in
the Isle of the City where the priest and I sequestered. 'Twas ever the
shade of the tenements there; the towers of the churches never greened
nor budded; I would have waited long, in truth, for the scent of the
lilac and the chatter of the rook among these melancholy temples.
Till that night I had never ventured farther from the gloomy vicinity of
the hospital than I thought I could safely retrace without the necessity
of asking any one the way; but this night, more courageous, or perhaps
more careless than usual, I crossed the bridge of Notre Dame and found
myself in something like the Paris of the priest's rhapsodies and the
same all thrilling with the passion of the summer. It was not flower nor
tree, though these were not wanting, but the spirit in the air--young
girls laughing in the by-going with merriest eyes, windows wide open
letting out the sounds of songs, the pavements like a river with
zesty life of Highland hills when the frosts above are broken and the
overhanging boughs have been flattering it all the way in the valleys.
I was fair infected. My step, that had been unco' dull and heavy, I
fear, and going to the time of dirges on the Isle, went to a different
tune; my being rhymed and sang. I had got the length of the Rue de
Richelieu and humming to myself in the friendliest key, with the
good-natured people pressing about me, when of a sudden it began to
rain. There was no close in the neighbourhood where I could shelter from
the elements, but in front of me was the door of a tavern called the
Tête du Duc de Burgoyne shining with invitation, and in I went.
A fat wife sat at a counter; a pot-boy, with a cry of “V'ià!” that was
like a sheep's complaining, served two ancient citizens in skull-caps
that played the game of dominoes, and he came to me with my humble order
of a litre of ordinary and a piece of bread for the good of the house.
Outside the rain pelted, and the folks upon the pavement ran, and
by-and-by the tavern-room filled up with shelterers like myself and kept
the pot-boy busy. Among the last to enter was a group of five that took
a seat at another corner of the room than that where I sat my lone at a
little table. At first I scarcely noticed them until I heard a word
of Scots. I think the man that used it spoke of “gully-knives,” but at
least the phrase was the broadest lallands, and went about my heart.
I put down my piece of bread and looked across the room in wonder to see
that three of the men were gazing intently at myself. The fourth was
hid by those in front of him; the fifth that had spoken had a tartan
waistcoat and eyes that were like a gled's, though they were not on me.
In spite of that, 'twas plain that of me he spoke, and that I was the
object of some speculation among them.
No one that has not been lonely in a foreign town, and hungered for
communion with those that know his native tongue, can guess how much I
longed for speech with this compatriot that in dress and eye and accent
brought back the place of my nativity in one wild surge of memory.
Every bawbee in my pocket would not have been too much to pay for such
a privilege, but it might not be unless the overtures came from the
persons in the corner.
Very deliberately, though all in a commotion within, I ate my piece and
drank my wine before the stare of the three men, and at last, on the
whisper of one of them, another produced a box of dice.
“No, no!” said the man with the tartan waistcoat hurriedly, with a
glance from the tail of his eye at me, but they persisted in their
purpose and began to throw. My countryman in tartan got the last chance,
of which he seemed reluctant to avail himself till the one unseen said:
“_Vous avez le de'_, Kilbride.”
Kilbride! the name was the call of whaups at home upon the moors!
He laughed, shook, and tossed carelessly, and then the laugh was all
with them, for whatever they had played for he had seemingly lost and
the dice were now put by.
He rose somewhat confused, looked dubiously across at me with a
reddening face, and then came over with his hat in his hand.
“Pardon, Monsieur,” he began; then checked the French, and said: “Have I
a countryman here?”
“It is like enough,” said I, with a bow and looking at his tartan. “I am
from Scotland myself.”
He smiled at that with a look of some relief and took a vacant chair on
the other side of my small table.
“I have come better speed with my impudence,” said he in the Hielan'
accent, “than I expected or deserved. My name's Kilbride--MacKellar of
Kilbride--and I am here with another Highland gentleman of the name of
Grant and two or three French friends we picked up at the door of the
play-house. Are you come off the Highlands, if I make take the liberty?”
“My name is lowland,” said I, “and I hail from the shire of Renfrew.”
“Ah,” said he, with a vanity that was laughable. “What a pity! I wish
you had been Gaelic, but of course you cannot help it being otherwise,
and indeed there are many estimable persons in the lowlands.”
“And a great wheen of Highland gentlemen very glad to join them there
too,” said I, resenting the implication.
“Of course, of course,” said he heartily. “There is no occasion for
offence.”
“Confound the offence, Mr. MacKellar!” said I. “Do you not think I am
just too glad at this minute to hear a Scottish tongue and see a tartan
waistcoat? Heilan' or Lowlan', we are all the same” when our feet are
off the heather.
“Not exactly,” he corrected, “but still and on we understand each other.
You must be thinking it gey droll, sir, that a band of strangers in a
common tavern would have the boldness to stare at you like my friends
there, and toss a dice about you in front of your face, but that is the
difference between us. If I had been in your place I would have thrown
the jug across at them, but here I am not better nor the rest, because
the dice fell to me, and I was one that must decide the wadger.”
“Oh, and was I the object of a wadger?” said I, wondering what we were
coming to.
“Indeed, and that you were,” said he shamefacedly, “and I'm affronted
to tell it. But when Grant saw you first he swore you were a countryman,
and there was some difference of opinion.”
“And what, may I ask, did Kilbride side with?”
“Oh,” said he promptly, “I had never a doubt about that. I knew you were
Scots, but what beat me was to say whether you were Hielan' or Lowlan'.”
“And how, if it's a fair question, did you come to the conclusion that I
was a countryman of any sort?” said I.
He laughed softly, and “Man,” said he, “I could never make any mistake
about that, whatever of it. There's many a bird that's like the
woodcock, but the woodcock will aye be kennin' which is which, as the
other man said. Thae bones were never built on bread and wine. It's a
French coat you have there, and a cockit hat (by your leave), but to my
view you were as plainly from Scotland as if you had a blue bonnet on
your head and a sprig of heather in your lapels. And here am I giving
you the strange cow's welcome (as the other man said), and that is all
inquiry and no information. You must just be excusing our bit foolish
wadger, and if the proposal would come favourably from myself, that is
of a notable family, though at present under a sort of cloud, as the
other fellow said, I would be proud to have you share in the bottle of
wine that was dependent upon Grant's impudent wadger. I can pass my word
for my friends there that they are all gentry like ourselves--of the
very best, in troth, though not over-nice in putting this task on
myself.”
I would have liked brawly to spend an hour out any company than my own,
but the indulgence was manifestly one involving the danger of discovery;
it was, as I told myself, the greatest folly to be sitting in a tavern
at all, so MacKellar's manner immediately grew cold when he saw a
swithering in my countenance.
“Of course,” said he, reddening and rising, “of course, every gentleman
has his own affairs, and I would be the last to make a song of it if
you have any dubiety about my friends and me. I'll allow the thing looks
very like a gambler's contrivance.”
“No, no, Mr. MacKellar,” said I hurriedly, unwilling to let us part
like that, “I'm swithering here just because I'm like yoursel' of it and
under a cloud of my own.”
“Dod! Is that so?” said he quite cheerfully again, and clapping down,
“then I'm all the better pleased that the thing that made the roebuck
swim the loch--and that's necessity--as the other man said, should have
driven me over here to precognosce you. But when you say you are under
a cloud, that is to make another way of it altogether, and I will not be
asking you over, for there is a gentleman there among the five of us who
might be making trouble of it.”
“Have you a brother in Glasgow College?” says I suddenly, putting a
question that had been in my mind ever since he had mentioned his name.
“Indeed, and I have that,” said he quickly, “but now he is following the
law in Edinburgh, where I am in the hopes it will be paying him better
than ever it paid me that has lost two fine old castles and the best
part of a parish by the same. You'll not be sitting there and telling me
surely that you know my young brother Alasdair?”
“Man! him and me lodged together in Lucky Grant's, in Crombie's Land in
the High Street, for two Sessions,” said I.
“What!” said MacKellar. “And you'll be the lad that snow-balled the
bylie, and your name will be Greig?”
As he said it he bent to look under the table, then drew up suddenly
with a startled face and a whisper of a whistle on his lips.
“My goodness!” said he, in a cautious tone, “and that beats all. You'll
be the lad that broke jyle with the priest that shot at Buhot, and there
you are, you _amadain_, like a gull with your red brogues on you, crying
'come and catch me' in two languages. I'm telling you to keep thae feet
of yours under this table till we're out of here, if it should be the
morn's morning. No--that's too long, for by the morn's morning Buhot's
men will be at the Hôtel Dieu, and the end of the story will be little
talk and the sound of blows, as the other man said.”
Every now and then as he spoke he would look over his shoulder with a
quick glance at his friends--a very anxious man, but no more anxious
than Paul Greig.
“Mercy on us!” said I, “do you tell me you ken all that?”
“I ken a lot more than that,” said he, “but that's the latest of my
budget, and I'm giving it to you for the sake of the shoes and my
brother Alasdair, that is a writer in Edinburgh. There's not two
Scotchmen drinking a bowl in Paris town this night that does not ken
your description, and it's kent by them at the other table there--where
better?--but because you have that coat on you that was surely made for
you when you were in better health, as the other man said, and because
your long trams of legs and red shoes are under the table there's none
of them suspects you. And now that I'm thinking of it, I would not go
near the hospital place again.”
“Oh! but the priest's there,” said I, “and it would never do for me to be
leaving him there without a warning.”
“A warning!” said MacKellar with contempt. “I'm astonished to hear you,
Mr. Greig. The filthy brock that he is!”
“If you're one of the Prince's party,” said I, “and it has every look of
it, or, indeed, whether you are or not, I'll allow you have some cause
to blame Father Hamilton, but as for me, I'm bound to him because we
have been in some troubles together.”
“What's all this about 'bound to him'?” said MacKellar with a kind of
sneer. “The dog that's tethered with a black pudding needs no pity, as
the other man said, and I would leave this fellow to shift for himself.”
“Thank you,” said I, “but I'll not be doing that.”
“Well, well,” said he, “it's your business, and let me tell you that
you're nothing but a fool to be tangled up with the creature. That's
Kilbride's advice to you. Let me tell you this more of it, that they're
not troubling themselves much about you at all now that you have given
them the information.”
“Information!” I said with a start. “What do you mean by that?”
He prepared to join his friends, with a smile of some slyness, and gave
me no satisfaction on the point.
“You'll maybe ken best yourself,” said he, “and I'm thinking your
name will have to be Robertson and yourself a decent Englishman for my
friends on the other side of the room there. Between here and yonder
I'll have to be making up a bonny lie or two that will put them off the
scent of you.”
A bonny lie or two seemed to serve the purpose, for their interest in me
appeared to go no further, and by-and-by, when it was obvious that there
would be no remission of the rain, they rose to go.
The last that went out of the door turned on the threshold and looked at
me with a smile of recognition and amusement.
It was Buhot!