_Fr. Sol._ O, prennez misericorde! ayez pitie de moy!
_Pist._ Moy shall not serve, I will have forty moys;
For I will fetch thy rim out at thy throat,
In drops of crimson blood.
HENRY V.
From the first moment I clapped eye on the caricature thing of a coat,
that Tammie Bodkin had, in my absence, shaped out for Cursecowl the
butcher, I foresaw, in my own mind, that a catastrophe was brewing for
us; and never did soldier gird himself to fight the French, or sailor
prepare for a sea-storm, with greater alacrity, than I did to cope with
the bull-dog anger, and buffet back the uproarious vengeance of our
heathenish customer.
At first I thought of letting the thing take its natural course, and of
threaping down Cursecowl's throat that he must have been feloniously
keeping in his breath when Tammie took his measure; and, moreover, that
as it was the fashion to be straight-laced, Tammie had done his utmost
trying to make him look like his betters; till, my conscience checking me
for such a nefarious intention, I endeavoured, as became me in the
relations of man, merchant, and Christian, to solder the matter
peaceably, and show him, if there was a fault committed, that there was
no evil intention on my side of the house. To this end I dispatched the
bit servant wench, on the Friday afternoon, to deliver the coat, which
was neatly tied up in brown paper, and directed--"Mr Cursecowl, with
care," and to buy a sheep's head; bidding her, by way of being civil,
give my kind compliments, and enquire how Mr and Mrs Cursecowl, and the
five little Miss Cursecowls, were keeping their healths, and trusting to
his honour in sending me a good article. But have a moment's patience.
Being busy at the time, turning a pair of kuttikins for old Mr
Mooleypouch the mealmonger, when the lassie came back, I had no mind of
asking a sight of the sheep's head, as I aye like the little blackfaced,
in preference to the white, fat, fozy Cheviot breed; but, most
providentially, I catched a gliskie of the wench passing the shop window,
on the road over to Jamie Coom the smith's, to get it singed, having been
dispatched there by her mistress. Running round the counter like
lightning, I opened the sneck, and halooed to her to wheel to the right
about, having, somehow or other, a superstitious longing to look at the
article. As I was saying, there was a Providence in this, which, at the
time, mortal man could never have thought of.
James Batter had popped in with a newspaper in his hand, to read me a
curious account of a mermaid, that was seen singing a Gaelic song, and
combing its hair with a tortoise-shell comb, someway terrible far north
about Shetland, by a respectable minister of the district, riding home in
the gloaming after a presbytery dinner. So, as he was just taking off
his spectacles cannily, and saying to me--"And was not that droll?"--the
lassie spread down her towel on the counter, when, lo and behold! such an
abominable spectacle! James Batter observing me run back, and turn
white, put on his glasses again, cannily taking them out of his well-worn
shagreen case, and, giving a stare down at the towel, almost touched the
beast's nose with his own.
"And what, in the name of goodness, is the matter?" quo' James Batter;
"ye seem in a wonderful quandary."
"The matter!" answered I, in astonishment; looking to see if the man had
lost his sight or his senses--"the matter! who ever saw a sheep's head
with straight horns, and a visnomy all colours of the rainbow--red, blue,
orange, green, yellow, white, and black?"
"'Deed it is," said James, after a nearer inspection; "it must be a lowsy-
naturay. I'm sure I have read most of Buffon's books, and I have never
heard tell of the like. It's gey an' queerish."
"'Od, James," answered I, "ye take every thing very canny; you're a
philosopher, to be sure; but, I daresay, if the moon was to fall from the
lift, and knock down the old kirk, ye would say no more than 'it's gey
an' queerish!'"
"Queerish, man! do ye not see that?" added I, shoving down his head
mostly on the top of it. "Do ye not see that? awful, most awful!
extonishing!! Do ye not see that long beard? Who, in the name of
goodness, ever was an eyewitness to a sheep's head, in a Christian land,
with a beard like an unshaven Jew crying 'owl clowes,' with a green bag
over his left shoulder!"
"Dog on it," said James, giving a fidge with his hainches; "Dog on it, as
I am a living sinner, that is the head of a Willie-goat."
"Willie or Nannie," answered I, "it's not meat for me; and never shall an
ounce of it cross the craig of my family:--that is as sure as ever James
Batter drave a shuttle. Give counsel in need, James: what is to be
done?"
"That needs consideration," quo' James, giving a bit hoast. "Unless he
makes ample apology, and explains the mistake in a feasible way, it is my
humble opinion that he ought to be summoned before his betters. That is
the legal way to make him smart for his sins."
At last a thought struck me, and I saw farther through my difficulties
than ever mortal man did through a millstone; but, like a politician, I
minted not the matter to James. Keeping my tongue cannily within my
teeth, I then laid the head, wrapped up in the bit towel, in a corner
behind the counter; and, turning my face round again to James, I put my
hands into my breeches-pockets, as if nothing in the world had happened,
and ventured back to the story of the mermaid. I asked him how she
looked--what kind of dress she wore--if she swam with her corsets--what
was the colour of her hair--where she would buy the tortoise-shell
comb--and so on; when, just as he was clearing his pipe to reply, who
should burst open the shop-door like a clap of thunder, with burning
cat's een, and a face as red as a soldier's jacket, but Cursecowl
himself, with the new killing-coat in his hand,--which, giving tremendous
curse, the words of which are not essentially necessary for me to repeat,
being an elder of our kirk, he made play flee at me with such a birr,
that it twisted round my neck, and mostly blinding me, made me doze like
a tottum. At the same time, to clear his way, and the better to enable
him to take a good mark, he gave James Batter a shove, that made him
stoiter against the wall, and snacked the good new farthing tobacco-pipe,
that James was taking his first whiff out of; crying, at the same blessed
moment--"Hold out o' my road, ye long withered wabster. Ye're a pair of
havering idiots; but I'll have pennyworths out of both your skins, as I'm
a sinner!"
What was to be done? There was no time for speaking, for Cursecowl,
foaming like a mad dog with passion, seized hold of the ell-wand, which
he flourished round his head like a Highlander's broadsword, and stamping
about, with his stockings drawn up his thighs, threatened every moment to
commit bloody murder.
If James Batter never saw service before, he learned a little of it that
day, being in a pickle of bodily terror not to be imagined by living man;
but his presence of mind did not forsake him, and he cowered for safety
and succour into a far corner, holding out a web of buckram before him--me
crying all the time, "Send for the town-officer! will ye not send for the
town-officer?"
You may talk of your General Moores, and your Lord Wellingtons, as ye
like; but never, since I was born, did I ever see or hear tell of
anything braver than the way Tammie Bodkin behaved, in saving both our
precious lives, at that blessed nick of time, from touch-and-go jeopardy:
for, when Cursecowl was rampauging about, cursing and swearing like a
Russian bear, hurling out volleys of oaths that would have frighted John
Knox, forbye the like of us, Tammie stole in behind him like a wild-cat,
followed by Joseph Breekey, Walter Cuff, and Jack Thorl, the three
apprentices, on their stocking soles; and, having strong and dumpy arms,
pinned back his elbows like a flash of lightning, giving the other
callants time to jump on his back, and hold him like a vice; while,
having got time to draw my breath, and screw up my pluck, I ran forward
like a lion, and houghed the whole concern--Tammie Bodkin, the three
faithful apprentices, Cursecowl and all, coming to the ground like a
battered castle.
It was now James Batter's time to come up in line; and though a douce
man, (being savage for the insulting way that Cursecowl had dared to use
him,) he dropped down like mad, with his knees on Cursecowl's breast, who
was yelling, roaring, and grinding his buck-teeth like a mad bull,
kicking right and spurring left with fire and fury; and, taking his
Kilmarnock off his head, thrust it, like a battering-ram, into
Cursecowl's mouth, to hinder him from alarming the neighbourhood, and
bringing the whole world about our ears. Such a stramash of tumbling,
roaring, tearing, swearing, kicking, pushing, cuffing, rugging and riving
about the floor!! I thought they would not have left one another with a
shirt on: it seemed a combat even to the death. Cursecowl's breath was
choked up within him like wind in an empty bladder, and when I got a
gliskie of his face, from beneath James's cowl, it was growing as black
as the crown of my hat. It feared me much that murder would be the
upshot, the webs being all heeled over, both of broad cloth, buckram,
cassimir, and Welsh flannel; and the paper shapings and worsted runds
coiled about their throats and bodies like fiery serpents. At long and
last, I thought it became me, being the head of the house, to sound a
parley, and bid them give the savage a mouthful of fresh air, to see if
he had anything to say in his defence.
Cursecowl, by this time, had forcible assurance of our ability to
overpower him, and finding he had by far the worst of it, was obliged to
grow tamer, using the first breath he got to cry out, "A barley, ye
thieves! a barley! I tell ye, give me wind. There's not a man in nine
of ye!"
Finding our own strength, we saw, by this time, that we were masters of
the field; nevertheless, we took care to make good terms when they were
in our power; nor would we allow Cursecowl to sit upright, till after he
had said, three times over, on his honour as a gentleman, that he would
behave as became one.
After giving his breeches-knees a skuff with his loof, to dad off the
stoure, he came, right foot foremost, to the counter side, while the
laddies were dighting their brows, and stowing away the webs upon their
ends round about, saying, "Maister Wauch, how have ye the conscience to
send hame such a piece o' wark as that coat to ony decent man? Do ye
dare to imagine that I am a Jerusalem spider, that I could be crammed,
neck and heels, into such a thing as that? Fye, shame--it would not
button on yourself, man, scarecrow-looking mortal though ye be!"
James Batter's blood was now up, and boiling like an old Roman's; so he
was determined to show Cursecowl that I had a friend in court, able and
willing to keep him at stave's-end. "Keep a calm sough," said James
Batter, interfering, "and not miscall the head of the house in his own
shop; or, to say nothing of present consequences, by way of showing ye
the road to the door, perhaps Maister Sneckdrawer, the penny-writer, 'll
give ye a caption-paper with a broad margin, to claw your elbow with at
your leisure, my good fellow."
"Pugh, pugh," cried Cursecowl, snapping his finger and thumb at James's
beak, "I do not value your threatening an ill halfpenny. Come away out
your ways to the crown of the causey, and I'll box any three of ye, over
the bannys, for half-a-mutchkin. But 'odsake, Batter, my man, nobody's
speaking to you," added Cursecowl, giving a hack now and then, and a bit
spit down on the floor; "go hame, man, and get your cowl washed; I dare
say you have pushioned me, so I have no more to say to the like of you.
But now, Maister Wauch, just speaking hooly and fairly, do you not think
black burning shame of yourself, for putting such an article into any
decent Christian man's hand, like mine?"
"Wait a wee--wait a wee, friend, and I'll give ye a lock salt to your
broth," answered I, in a calm and cool way; for, being a confidential
elder of Maister Wiggie's, I kept myself free from the sin of getting
into a passion, or fighting, except in self-defence, which is forbidden
neither by law nor gospel; and, stooping down, I took up the towel from
the corner, and, spreading it upon the counter, bade him look, and see if
he knew an auld acquaintance!
Cursecowl, to be such a dragoon, had some rational points in his
character; so, seeing that he lent ear to me with a smirk on his rough
red face, I went on: "Take my advice as a friend and make the best of
your way home, killing-coat and all; for the most perfect will sometimes
fall into an innocent mistake, and, at any rate, it cannot be helped now.
But if ye show any symptom of obstrapulosity, I'll find myself under the
necessity of publishing you abroad to the world for what you are, and
show about that head in the towel for a wonder to broad Scotland, in a
manner that will make customers flee from your booth, as if it was
infected with the seven plagues of Egypt."
At sight of the goat's-head, Cursecowl clapped his hand on his thigh two
or three times, and could scarcely muster good manners enough to keep
himself from bursting out a-laughing.
"Ye seem to have found a fiddle, friend," said I; "but give me leave to
tell you, that ye'll may be find it liker a hanging-match than a musical
matter. Are you not aware that I could hand you over to the sheriff, on
two special indictments? In the first place, for an action of assault
and batterification, in cuffing me, an elder of our kirk, with a sticked
killing-coat, in my own shop; and, in the second place, as a swindler,
imposing on his Majesty's loyal subjects, taking the coin of the realm on
false pretences, and palming off goat's flesh upon Christians, as if they
were perfect Pagans."
Heathen though Cursecowl was, this oration alarmed him in a jiffie, soon
showing him, in a couple of hurries, that it was necessary for him to be
our humble servant: so he said, still keeping the smirk on his face,
"Keh, keh, it's not worth making a noise about after all. Gie me the
jacket, Mansie, my man, and it'll maybe serve my nephew, young Killim,
who is as lingit in the waist as a wasp. Let us take a shake of your paw
over the counter, and be friends. Bye-ganes should be bye-ganes."
Never let it be said that Mansie Wauch, though one of the king's
volunteers, ever thrust aside the olive branch of peace; so ill-used
though I had been, to say nothing of James Batter, who had got his pipe
smashed to crunches, and one of the eyes of his spectacles knocked out, I
gave him my fist frankly.
James Batter's birse had been so fiercely put up, and no wonder, that it
was not so easily sleeked down; so, for a while, he looked unco glum,
till Cursecowl insisted that our meeting should not be a dry one; nor
would he hear a single word on me and James Batter not accepting his
treat of a mutchkin of Kilbagie.
I did not think James would have been so doure and refractory--funking
and flinging like old Jeroboam; but at last, with the persuasion of the
treat, he came to, and, sleeking down his front hair, we all three took a
step down to the far end of the close, at the back street, where Widow
Thamson kept the sign of "The Tankard and the Tappit Hen;" Cursecowl,
when we got ourselves seated, ordering in the spirits with a loud rap on
the table with his knuckles, and a whistle on the landlady through his
fore-teeth, that made the roof ring. A bottle of beer was also brought;
so, after drinking one another's healths round, with a tasting out of the
dram glass, Cursecowl swashed the rest of the raw creature into the
tankard, saying,--"Now take your will o't; there's drink fit for a king;
that's real 'Pap-in.'"
He was an awful body, Cursecowl, and had a power of queer stories, which,
weel-a-wat, did not lose in the telling. James Batter, beginning to
brighten up, hodged and leuch like a nine-year-old; and I freely confess,
for another, that I was so diverted, that, I dare say, had it not been
for his fearsome oaths, which made our very hair stand on end, and were
enough to open the stone-wall, we would have both sate from that time to
this.
We got the whole story of the Willie-goat, out and out; it seeming to be,
with Cursecowl, a prime matter of diversion, especially that part of it
relating to the head, by which he had won a crown-piece from Deacon
Paunch, who wagered that the wife and me would eat it, without ever
finding out our mistake. But, aha, lad!
The long and the short of the matter was this. The Willie-Goat had, for
eighteen year, belonged to a dragoon marching regiment, and, in its
better days, had seen a power of service abroad; till, being now old and
infirm, it had fallen off one of the baggage-carts, and got its leg
broken on the road to Piershill, where it was sold to Cursecowl, by a
corporal, for half-a-crown and a dram. The four quarters he had managed
to sell for mutton, like lightning--this one buying a jigget, that one a
back-ribs, and so on. However, he had to weather a gey brisk gale in
making his point good. One woman remarked that it had an unearthly, rank
smell; to which he said, "No, no--ye do not ken your blessings,
friend,--that's the smell of venison, for the beast was brought up along
with the deers in the Duke's parks." And to another wife, that, after
smell-smelling at it, thought it was a wee humphed, he replied, "Faith,
that's all the thanks folk gets for letting their sheep crop heather
among the Cheviot-Hills;" and such like lies. But as for the head, that
had been the doure business. Six times had it been sold and away, and
six times had it been brought back again. One bairn said, that her
"mother didna like a sheep's head with horns like these, and wanted it
changed for another one." A second one said, that "it had tup's een, and
her father liked wether mutton." A third customer found mortal fault
with the colours, which, she said, "were not canny, or in the course of
nature." What the fourth one said, and the fifth one took leave to
observe, I have stupidly forgotten, though, I am sure, I heard both; but
I mind one remarked, quite off-hand, as she sought back her money, that,
"unless sheep could do without beards, like their neighbours, she would
keep the pot boiling with a piece beef, in the mean time." After all
this, would any mortal man believe it, Deacon Paunch, the greasy Daniel
Lambert that he is, had taken the wager, as I before took opportunity to
remark, that our family would swallow the bait? But, aha, he was off his
eggs there!
James and me were so tickled with Cursecowl's wild, outrageous, off-hand,
humoursome way of telling his crack, that, though sore with neighering,
none of the two of us ever thought of rising; Cursecowl chapping in first
one stoup, and then another, and birling the tankard round the table, as
if we had been drinking dub-water. I dare say I would never have got
away, had I not slipped out behind Lucky Thamson's back--for she was a
broad fat body, with a round-eared mutch, and a full-plaited check
apron--when she was drawing the sixth bottle of small beer, with her
corkscrew between her knees; Cursecowl lecturing away, at the dividual
moment, like a Glasgow professor, to James Batter, whose een were
gathering straws, on a pliskie he had once, in the course of trade,
played on a conceited body of a French sicknurse, by selling her a lump
of fat pork to make beef-tea of to her mistress, who was dwining in the
blue Beelzebubs.
Ohone, and woes me, for old Father Adam and the fall of man! Poor,
sober, good, honest James Batter was not, by a thousand miles, a match
for such company. Every thing, however, has its moral, and the truth
will out. When Nanse and me were sitting at our breakfast next morning,
we heard from Benjie, who had been early up fishing for eels at the water-
side, that the whole town-talk was concerning the misfortunate James
Batter, who had been carried home, totally incapable, far in the night,
by Cursecowl and an Irish labourer--that sleeped in Widow Thamson's
garret--on a hand-barrow, borrowed from Maister Wiggie's servant-lass,
Jenny Jessamine.