COCK O' THE NORTH
"_Carai! Caramba! Car----!_ This bantam will outface us on our own
dung-hill! Close in there, Pedro! Take down the iron spit to him, Jose!
Heaven's curses on his long arm! A foreigner to challenge us to fight
with the knife, or with the sword, or with the pistol!"
From the kitchen of the venta at San Vicencio, just where the track up
the Montblanch takes its first spring into the air, came these and other
similar cries. It was a long and narrowish apartment--the upper portion
merely of a ground-floor chamber, which occupied the whole length of the
building.
Part of the space was intended for horses and mules, and indeed was
somewhat overcrowded by them that night. These being alarmed by the
tumult and shoutings, were rearing so far as their short unsinkered
head-stalls permitted them, and in especial making play with their feet
at the various _machos_ or he-mules scattered among them. These gladly
retaliated, that being their form of relaxation, and through the
resulting chaos of whinnying, stamping, neighing, and striking of sparks
from pavement stones, skirmished a score of brown imps, more than half
naked, each armed with a baton or stout wand with which he struck and
pushed the animals entrusted to their care out of the reach of harm, or
with equal good-will gave a sly poke with the sharp spur of the goad to
a neighbour's beast, by way of redressing any superiorities of heels or
teeth.
But all the men had run together to the kitchen end of the apartment.
Where the stable ended there was a step up, for all distinction between
the abode of beasts and of men. Over this step most of those who had
thus hasted to the fray incontinently stumbled. And in the majority of
instances their stumble had been converted into a fall by a blow on the
sconce, or across the shoulders, from the flat of a long sword wielded
by the arm of a youth so tall as almost to reach the low-beamed ceiling
along which the spiders were scuttling, in terror doubtless of the
sweeping bright thing on which the firelight played as it waved this way
and that.
First in the fray were a round dozen of Migueletes, come in from an
unsuccessful chase, and eager to avenge on a stranger the failure and
disgrace they had suffered from one of their own race. Next came a young
butcher or two from the killing-yards, each already a _toreador_ in his
own estimation. The rest were chiefly _arrieros_ or carriers, with a
stray gipsy from the south, dark as a Moor; but every man as familiar
with the use of his long curved sheath-knife as a cathedral priest with
his breviary.
Meanwhile the tall young man with the long sword was not silent. His
Spanish was fluent if inelegant, and as it had been acquired among the
_majos_ of Sevilla and the mule-clippers of Aragon rather than in more
reputable quarters, his speech to the critical ear was flavoured with a
certain rich allusiveness of personality and virility of adjective
which made ample amends (in the company in which he found himself) for
any want of grammatical correctness.
With the Spanish anathemas that formed the main portion of his address,
he mingled certain other words in a foreign tongue, which, being
strong-sounding and guttural, served him almost as well in the Venta of
San Vicencio as his _Carais_ and _Carambas_.
"_Dogs of dog-mothers without honour!_ Come on, and I will stap twal
inches o' guid steel warranted by Robin Fleming o' the Grassmarket doon
your throats! A set o' gabbling geese--tak' that! With your virgins and
saints! Ah, would you? There, that will spoil your sitting down for a
day or two, my lad! Aye, scart, gin it does ye ony guid?"
A knife in his left hand, and in his right the long waving sword, bitter
and sometimes unknown and mysterious words in his mouth, this youth kept
his enemies very successfully at bay, meeting their blades six at a
time, and treading and turning so lightly that as he lunged this way and
that, there was a constant disorganisation among the opposing ranks, as
one and the other sprang back to elude his far-reaching point.
"He is of the devil--a devil of devils!" they cried. "We shall all
perish," wailed an old woman, shrinking back further into the
chimney-corner, and wringing her hands.
Meanwhile the youth apostrophised his blade.
"My bonny Robin Fleemin'--as guid as ony Toledan steel that ever was
forged! What do you think o' that for Leith Links? And they wad hae
made me either a minister or a cooper's apprentice!"
As he spoke he disarmed one of his chief opponents, who in furious anger
snatched a pistol and fired point-blank. The shot would indubitably have
brought down the young hero of the unequal combat, had not a stout
ruddy-faced youth, who had hitherto been leaning idly against the wall,
knocked up the owner's arm at the moment the pistol went off.
"Ha' done!" cried the new-comer in English; "twenty to one is bad
enough, specially when that one is a fool. But pistols in a house-place
are a disgrace! Stand back there, will ye?"
And with no better weapon than a long-pronged labourer's fork snatched
from the chimney-corner, he set himself shoulder to shoulder with the
young Scot and laid lustily about him.
That son of an unkindly soil, instead of being grateful for this
interference on his behalf, seemed at first inclined to resent it.
"What call had ye to put your neck in danger for an unkenned man's
sake?" he cried, crabbedly. "Couldna ye hae letten me fill thae carles'
skins as fu' o' holes as a riddle?"
"I am not the man to stand and see a countryman in danger!" said the
other, while the broad sweeps of his companion's sword and the energetic
lunges of his own trident kept the enemy at a respectful distance.
Suddenly a thought struck the Englishman. Without dropping the fork, he
rushed to the hearth, where the _ollas_ and _pucheros_ of the entire
company bubbled and steamed, he caught the largest of the pots in one
hand and threatened to overturn the entire contents among the ashes and
_debris_ on the floor.
"I speak their lingo but ill," he cried to his companion; "but tell them
from John Mortimer, that if they do not cease their racket, I will
warrant that they shall not have an onion or a sprig of garlic to stink
their breaths with this night. And if that does not fear them, nothing
will--not Purgatory itself!"
The young man communicated this in his own way, and though every man
among his assailants was to the full as brave as himself, the threat of
the Englishman did not fail in its effect. The _arrieros_ and Aragonese
horse-clippers drew off and consulted, while the Scot who had caused all
the disturbance, dropped his point to the floor, and contented himself
with wrapping his cloak more tightly about his defensive arm. He had
evidently been some time in the country, for he wore the dark _capa_ and
red _boina_ of Navarra, and answered the deputation which now came
forward with readiness and composure. Whoever gave in, it would
certainly not be he. That, at least, was the impression given by his
attitude.
"Certainly, most certainly," he said. "I will be glad to meet any one of
you anywhere. I will stand to my words spoken in any language, or any
field of honour, from the carpet of a prime minister to one of your
infernal dusty _campos_, with any weapon, from pistol and sword to a
tooth-pick--with any Spaniard, or Frenchman, or mongrel tyke that ever
lifted wine pot."
"Is this a way to speak to gentlemen--I put it to you, caballeros?"
cried one of the deputation, a huge rawboned Galician, angrily.
The Scot instantly detected the accent of the speaker and, dismissing
him with the gesture one uses to a menial, called out, "Caballeros,
indeed! What needs this son of the burden-bearing animal to speak of
Caballeros? Is there any old Castilian here, of the right ancient stock?
If so, let him arbitrate between us. I, for one, will abide by his
decision. The sons of gentlemen and soldiers will not do wrong to a
soldier and a stranger!"
Then from the darkest and most distant corner, where he had sat wrapped
in his great striped mantle with the cape drawn close about his head,
rose a man of a little past the middle years of life, his black beard
showing only a few threads of grey, where the tell-tale wisdom tuft
springs from the under lip.
"Young sir," he said courteously, "I am an Old Castilian from
Valladolid. I will hear your cause of quarrel, and, if you so desire,
advise my compatriots, if they in their turn will consent to put their
case into my hands."
There was some demur at this among the rougher gipsies and muleteers,
but every one was anxious for the evening meal, and the fragrant earthen
pipkins and great iron central pot gave forth a good smell. Also a
red-waistcoated man-servant ran hither and thither among them,
whispering in the ear of each belligerent; and his communication, having
presumably to do with the stranger's quality and condition, had a
remarkable effect in casting oil upon the waters. Indeed, the Migueletes
had withdrawn as soon as the Castilian came forward, and presently he of
Galicia, having consulted with his fellows, answered that for his part
he was quite prepared to submit the causes of strife to the noble
cavalier from Valladolid, provided the stranger also would abide by the
decision.
"I have said so," put in the Scot fiercely, "and _my_ custom is not to
make a promise at night for the purpose of breaking it in the morning!"