Within the bounds of Annandale
The gentle Johnstones ride;
They have been there a thousand years,
A thousand more they’ll bide.
Old Ballad.
The character and quality of Sir Patrick Charteris, the Provost of
Perth, being such as we have sketched in the last chapter, let us now
return to the deputation which was in the act of rendezvousing at the
East Port, in order to wait upon that dignitary with their complaints at
Kinfauns.
And first appeared Simon Glover, on a pacing palfrey, which had
sometimes enjoyed the honour of bearing the fairer person as well as the
lighter weight of his beautiful daughter. His cloak was muffled round
the lower part of his face, as a sign to his friends not to interrupt
him by any questions while he passed through the streets, and partly,
perhaps, on account of the coldness of the weather. The deepest anxiety
was seated on his brow, as if the more he meditated on the matter he was
engaged in, the more difficult and perilous it appeared. He only greeted
by silent gestures his friends as they came to the rendezvous.
A strong black horse, of the old Galloway breed, of an under size, and
not exceeding fourteen hands, but high shouldered, strong limbed, well
coupled, and round barrelled, bore to the East Port the gallant smith. A
judge of the animal might see in his eye a spark of that vicious temper
which is frequently the accompaniment of the form that is most vigorous
and enduring; but the weight, the hand, and the seat of the rider,
added to the late regular exercise of a long journey, had subdued his
stubbornness for the present. He was accompanied by the honest bonnet
maker, who being, as the reader is aware, a little round man, and
what is vulgarly called duck legged, had planted himself like a red
pincushion (for he was wrapped in a scarlet cloak, over which he had
slung a hawking pouch), on the top of a great saddle, which he might be
said rather to be perched upon than to bestride. The saddle and the man
were girthed on the ridge bone of a great trampling Flemish mare, with
a nose turned up in the air like a camel, a huge fleece of hair at each
foot, and every hoof full as large in circumference as a frying pan. The
contrast between the beast and the rider was so extremely extraordinary,
that, whilst chance passengers contented themselves with wondering how
he got up, his friends were anticipating with sorrow the perils which
must attend his coming down again; for the high seated horseman’s
feet did not by any means come beneath the laps of the saddle. He had
associated himself to the smith, whose motions he had watched for the
purpose of joining him; for it was Oliver Proudfute’s opinion that men
of action showed to most advantage when beside each other; and he was
delighted when some wag of the lower class had gravity enough to cry
out, without laughing outright: “There goes the pride of Perth--there go
the slashing craftsmen, the jolly Smith of the Wynd and the bold bonnet
maker!”
It is true, the fellow who gave this all hail thrust his tongue in his
cheek to some scapegraces like himself; but as the bonnet maker did not
see this byplay, he generously threw him a silver penny to encourage
his respect for martialists. This munificence occasioned their being
followed by a crowd of boys, laughing and hallooing, until Henry Smith,
turning back, threatened to switch the foremost of them--a resolution
which they did not wait to see put in execution.
“Here are we the witnesses,” said the little man on the large horse,
as they joined Simon Glover at the East Port; “but where are they that
should back us? Ah, brother Henry! authority is a load for an ass rather
than a spirited horse: it would but clog the motions of such young
fellows as you and me.”
“I could well wish to see you bear ever so little of that same weight,
worthy Master Proudfute,” replied Henry Gow, “were it but to keep you
firm in the saddle; for you bounce aloft as if you were dancing a jig on
your seat, without any help from your legs.”
“Ay--ay; I raise myself in my stirrups to avoid the jolting. She is
cruelly hard set this mare of mine; but she has carried me in field
and forest, and through some passages that were something perilous,
so Jezabel and I part not. I call her Jezabel, after the Princess of
Castile.”
“Isabel, I suppose you mean,” answered the smith.
“Ay--Isabel, or Jezabel--all the same, you know. But here comes Bailie
Craigdallie at last, with that poor, creeping, cowardly creature the
pottingar. They have brought two town officers with their partizans, to
guard their fair persons, I suppose. If there is one thing I hate more
than another, it is such a sneaking varlet as that Dwining.”
“Have a care he does not hear you say so,” said the smith, “I tell thee,
bonnet maker, that there is more danger in yonder slight wasted anatomy
than in twenty stout fellows like yourself.”
“Pshaw! Bully Smith, you are but jesting with me,” said Oliver,
softening his voice, however, and looking towards the pottingar, as if
to discover in what limb or lineament of his wasted face and form lay
any appearance of the menaced danger; and his examination reassuring
him, he answered boldly: “Blades and bucklers, man, I would stand the
feud of a dozen such as Dwining. What could he do to any man with blood
in his veins?”
“He could give him a dose of physic,” answered the smith drily.
They had no time for further colloquy, for Bailie Craigdallie called to
them to take the road to Kinfauns, and himself showed the example. As
they advanced at a leisurely pace, the discourse turned on the reception
which they were to expect from their provost, and the interest which
he was likely to take in the aggression which they complained of. The
glover seemed particularly desponding, and talked more than once in
a manner which implied a wish that they would yet consent to let the
matter rest. He did not speak out very plainly, however, fearful,
perhaps, of the malignant interpretation which might be derived from
any appearance of his flinching from the assertion of his daughter’s
reputation. Dwining seemed to agree with him in opinion, but spoke more
cautiously than in the morning.
“After all,” said the bailie, “when I think of all the propines and
good gifts which have passed from the good town to my Lord Provost’s,
I cannot think he will be backward to show himself. More than one lusty
boat, laden with Bordeaux wine, has left the South Shore to discharge
its burden under the Castle of Kinfauns. I have some right to speak of
that, who was the merchant importer.”
“And,” said Dwining, with his squeaking voice, “I could speak of
delicate confections, curious comfits, loaves of wastel bread, and even
cakes of that rare and delicious condiment which men call sugar, that
have gone thither to help out a bridal banquet, or a kirstening feast,
or suchlike. But, alack, Bailie Craigdallie, wine is drunk, comfits are
eaten, and the gift is forgotten when the flavour is past away. Alas!
neighbour, the banquet of last Christmas is gone like the last year’s
snow.”
“But there have been gloves full of gold pieces,” said the magistrate.
“I should know that who wrought them,” said Simon, whose professional
recollections still mingled with whatever else might occupy his mind.
“One was a hawking glove for my lady. I made it something wide. Her
ladyship found no fault, in consideration of the intended lining.”
“Well, go to,” said Bailie Craigdallie, “the less I lie; and if these
are not to the fore, it is the provost’s fault, and not the town’s: they
could neither be eat nor drunk in the shape in which he got them.”
“I could speak of a brave armour too,” said the smith; “but, cogan na
schie! [Peace or war, I care not!] as John Highlandman says--I think the
knight of Kinfauns will do his devoir by the burgh in peace or war; and
it is needless to be reckoning the town’s good deeds till we see him
thankless for them.”
“So say I,” cried our friend Proudfute, from the top of his mare. “We
roystering blades never bear so base a mind as to count for wine and
walnuts with a friend like Sir Patrick Charteris. Nay, trust me, a good
woodsman like Sir Patrick will prize the right of hunting and sporting
over the lands of the burgh as an high privilege, and one which, his
Majesty the King’s Grace excepted, is neither granted to lord nor loon
save to our provost alone.”
As the bonnet maker spoke, there was heard on the left hand the cry of,
“So so--waw waw--haw,” being the shout of a falconer to his hawk.
“Methinks yonder is a fellow using the privilege you mention, who, from
his appearance, is neither king nor provost,” said the smith.
“Ay, marry, I see him,” said the bonnet maker, who imagined the occasion
presented a prime opportunity to win honour. “Thou and I, jolly smith,
will prick towards him and put him to the question.”
“Have with you, then,” cried the smith; and his companion spurred his
mare and went off, never doubting that Gow was at his heels.
But Craigdallie caught Henry’s horse by the reins. “Stand fast by the
standard,” he said; “let us see the luck of our light horseman. If he
procures himself a broken pate he will be quieter for the rest of the
day.”
“From what I already see,” said the smith, “he may easily come by such
a boon. Yonder fellow, who stops so impudently to look at us, as if he
were engaged in the most lawful sport in the world--I guess him, by his
trotting hobbler, his rusty head piece with the cock’s feather, and long
two handed sword, to be the follower of some of the southland lords--men
who live so near the Southron, that the black jack is never off their
backs, and who are as free of their blows as they are light in their
fingers.”
Whilst they were thus speculating on the issue of the rencounter the
valiant bonnet maker began to pull up Jezabel, in order that the smith,
who he still concluded was close behind, might overtake him, and either
advance first or at least abreast of himself. But when he saw him at a
hundred yards distance, standing composedly with the rest of the group,
the flesh of the champion, like that of the old Spanish general, began
to tremble, in anticipation of the dangers into which his own venturous
spirit was about to involve it. Yet the consciousness of being
countenanced by the neighbourhood of so many friends, the hopes that
the appearance of such odds must intimidate the single intruder, and the
shame of abandoning an enterprise in which he had volunteered, and
when so many persons must witness his disgrace, surmounted the strong
inclination which prompted him to wheel Jezabel to the right about, and
return to the friends whose protection he had quitted, as fast as her
legs could carry them. He accordingly continued his direction towards
the stranger, who increased his alarm considerably by putting his little
nag in motion, and riding to meet him at a brisk trot. On observing this
apparently offensive movement, our hero looked over his left shoulder
more than once, as if reconnoitring the ground for a retreat, and in the
mean while came to a decided halt. But the Philistine was upon him
ere the bonnet maker could decide whether to fight or fly, and a very
ominous looking Philistine he was. His figure was gaunt and lathy, his
visage marked by two or three ill favoured scars, and the whole man had
much the air of one accustomed to say, “Stand and deliver,” to a true
man.
This individual began the discourse by exclaiming, in tones as sinister
as his looks, “The devil catch you for a cuckoo, why do you ride across
the moor to spoil my sport?”
“Worthy stranger,” said our friend, in the tone of pacific remonstrance,
“I am Oliver Proudfute, a burgess of Perth, and a man of substance;
and yonder is the worshipful Adam Craigdallie, the oldest bailie of the
burgh, with the fighting Smith of the Wynd, and three or four armed
men more, who desire to know your name, and how you come to take your
pleasure over these lands belonging to the burgh of Perth; although,
natheless, I will answer for them, it is not their wish to quarrel with
a gentleman, or stranger for any accidental trespass; only it is
their use and wont not to grant such leave, unless it is duly asked;
and--and--therefore I desire to know your name, worthy sir.”
The grim and loathly aspect with which the falconer had regarded
Oliver Proudfute during his harangue had greatly disconcerted him, and
altogether altered the character of the inquiry which, with Henry Gow to
back him, he would probably have thought most fitting for the occasion.
The stranger replied to it, modified as it was, with a most inauspicious
grin, which the scars of his visage made appear still more repulsive.
“You want to know my name? My name is the Devil’s Dick of Hellgarth,
well known in Annandale for a gentle Johnstone. I follow the stout Laird
of Wamphray, who rides with his kinsman the redoubted Lord of Johnstone,
who is banded with the doughty Earl of Douglas; and the earl and the
lord, and the laird and I, the esquire, fly our hawks where we find our
game, and ask no man whose ground we ride over.”
“I will do your message, sir,” replied Oliver Proudfute, meekly enough;
for he began to be very desirous to get free of the embassy which he had
so rashly undertaken, and was in the act of turning his horse’s head,
when the Annandale man added:
“And take you this to boot, to keep you in mind that you met the Devil’s
Dick, and to teach you another time to beware how you spoil the sport of
any one who wears the flying spur on his shoulder.”
With these words he applied two or three smart blows of his riding rod
upon the luckless bonnet maker’s head and person. Some of them lighted
upon Jezabel, who, turning sharply round, laid her rider upon the moor,
and galloped back towards the party of citizens.
Proudfute, thus overthrown, began to cry for assistance in no very
manly voice, and almost in the same breath to whimper for mercy; for his
antagonist, dismounting almost as soon as he fell, offered a whinger,
or large wood knife, to his throat, while he rifled the pockets of the
unlucky citizen, and even examined his hawking bag, swearing two or
three grisly oaths, that he would have what it contained, since the
wearer had interrupted his sport. He pulled the belt rudely off,
terrifying the prostrate bonnet maker still more by the regardless
violence which he used, as, instead of taking the pains to unbuckle the
strap, he drew till the fastening gave way. But apparently it contained
nothing to his mind. He threw it carelessly from him, and at the
same time suffered the dismounted cavalier to rise, while he himself
remounted his hobbler, and looked towards the rest of Oliver’s party,
who were now advancing.
When they had seen their delegate overthrown, there was some laughter;
so much had the vaunting humor of the bonnet maker prepared his friends
to rejoice when, as Henry Smith termed it, they saw the Oliver meet with
a Rowland. But when the bonnet maker’s adversary was seen to bestride
him, and handle him in the manner described, the armourer could hold out
no longer.
“Please you, good Master Bailie, I cannot endure to see our townsman
beaten and rifled, and like to be murdered before us all. It reflects
upon the Fair Town, and if it is neighbour Proudfute’s misfortune, it is
our shame. I must to his rescue.”
“We will all go to his rescue,” answered Bailie Craigdallie; “but let no
man strike without order from me. We have more feuds on our hands, it is
to be feared, than we have strength to bring to good end. And therefore
I charge you all, more especially you, Henry of the Wynd, in the name of
the Fair City, that you make no stroke but in self defence.”
They all advanced, therefore, in a body; and the appearance of such a
number drove the plunderer from his booty. He stood at gaze, however, at
some distance, like the wolf, which, though it retreats before the dogs,
cannot be brought to absolute flight.
Henry, seeing this state of things, spurred his horse and advanced far
before the rest of the party, up towards the scene of Oliver Proudfute’s
misfortune. His first task was to catch Jezabel by the flowing rein, and
his next to lead her to meet her discomfited master, who was crippling
towards him, his clothes much soiled with his fall, his eyes streaming
with tears, from pain as well as mortification, and altogether
exhibiting an aspect so unlike the spruce and dapper importance of
his ordinary appearance, that the honest smith felt compassion for
the little man, and some remorse at having left him exposed to such
disgrace. All men, I believe, enjoy an ill natured joke. The difference
is, that an ill natured person can drink out to the very dregs the
amusement which it affords, while the better moulded mind soon loses the
sense of the ridiculous in sympathy for the pain of the sufferer.
“Let me pitch you up to your saddle again, neighbour,” said the smith,
dismounting at the same time, and assisting Oliver to scramble into his
war saddle, as a monkey might have done.
“May God forgive you, neighbour Smith, for not backing of me! I would
not have believed in it, though fifty credible witnesses had sworn it of
you.”
Such were the first words, spoken in sorrow more than anger, by which
the dismayed Oliver vented his feelings.
“The bailie kept hold of my horse by the bridle; and besides,” Henry
continued, with a smile, which even his compassion could not suppress,
“I thought you would have accused me of diminishing your honour, if I
brought you aid against a single man. But cheer up! the villain took
foul odds of you, your horse not being well at command.”
“That is true--that is true,” said Oliver, eagerly catching at the
apology.
“And yonder stands the faitour, rejoicing at the mischief he has done,
and triumphing in your overthrow, like the king in the romance, who
played upon the fiddle whilst a city was burning. Come thou with me, and
thou shalt see how we will handle him. Nay, fear not that I will desert
thee this time.”
So saying, he caught Jezabel by the rein, and galloping alongside of
her, without giving Oliver time to express a negative, he rushed towards
the Devil’s Dick, who had halted on the top of a rising ground at some
distance. The gentle Johnstone, however, either that he thought the
contest unequal, or that he had fought enough for the day, snapping his
fingers and throwing his hand out with an air of defiance, spurred his
horse into a neighbouring bog, through which he seemed to flutter like
a wild duck, swinging his lure round his head, and whistling to his hawk
all the while, though any other horse and rider must have been instantly
bogged up to the saddle girths.
“There goes a thoroughbred moss trooper,” said the smith. “That fellow
will fight or flee as suits his humor, and there is no use to pursue
him, any more than to hunt a wild goose. He has got your purse, I doubt
me, for they seldom leave off till they are full handed.”
“Ye--ye--yes,” said Proudfute, in a melancholy tone, “he has got my
purse; but there is less matter since he hath left the hawking bag.”
“Nay, the hawking bag had been an emblem of personal victory, to be
sure--a trophy, as the minstrels call it.”
“There is more in it than that, friend,” said Oliver, significantly.
“Why, that is well, neighbour: I love to hear you speak in your own
scholarly tone again. Cheer up, you have seen the villain’s back, and
regained the trophies you had lost when taken at advantage.”
“Ah, Henry Gow--Henry Gow--” said the bonnet maker, and stopped short
with a deep sigh, nearly amounting to a groan.
“What is the matter?” asked his friend--“what is it you vex yourself
about now?”
“I have some suspicion, my dearest friend, Henry Smith, that the villain
fled for fear of you, not of me.”
“Do not think so,” replied the armourer: “he saw two men and fled, and
who can tell whether he fled for one or the other? Besides, he knows
by experience your strength and activity: we all saw how you kicked and
struggled when you were on the ground.”
“Did I?” said poor Proudfute. “I do not remember it, but I know it is my
best point: I am a strong dog in the loins. But did they all see it?”
“All as much as I,” said the smith, smothering an inclination to
laughter.
“But thou wilt remind them of it?”
“Be assured I will,” answered Henry, “and of thy desperate rally even
now. Mark what I say to Bailie Craigdallie, and make the best of it.”
“It is not that I require any evidence in thy favour, for I am as brave
by nature as most men in Perth; but only--” Here the man of valour
paused.
“But only what?” inquired the stout armourer.
“But only I am afraid of being killed. To leave my pretty wife and my
young family, you know, would be a sad change, Smith. You will know this
when it is your own case, and will feel abated in courage.”
“It is like that I may,” said the armourer, musing.
“Then I am so accustomed to the use of arms, and so well breathed, that
few men can match me. It’s all here,” said the little man, expanding his
breast like a trussed fowl, and patting himself with his hands--“here is
room for all the wind machinery.”
“I dare say you are long breathed--long winded; at least your speech
bewrays--”
“My speech! You are a wag--But I have got the stern post of a dromond
brought up the river from Dundee.”
“The stern post of a Drummond!” exclaimed the armourer; “conscience,
man, it will put you in feud with the whole clan--not the least wrathful
in the country, as I take it.”
“St. Andrew, man, you put me out! I mean a dromond--that is, a large
ship. I have fixed this post in my yard, and had it painted and carved
something like a soldan or Saracen, and with him I breathe myself, and
will wield my two handed sword against him, thrust or point, for an hour
together.”
“That must make you familiar with the use of your weapon,” said the
smith.
“Ay, marry does it; and sometimes I will place you a bonnet--an old one,
most likely--on my soldan’s head, and cleave it with such a downright
blow that in troth, the infidel has but little of his skull remaining to
hit at.”
“That is unlucky, for you will lose your practice,” said Henry. “But how
say you, bonnet maker? I will put on my head piece and corselet one
day, and you shall hew at me, allowing me my broadsword to parry and pay
back? Eh, what say you?”
“By no manner of means, my dear friend. I should do you too much evil;
besides, to tell you the truth, I strike far more freely at a helmet or
bonnet when it is set on my wooden soldan; then I am sure to fetch it
down. But when there is a plume of feathers in it that nod, and two eyes
gleaming fiercely from under the shadow of the visor, and when the whole
is dancing about here and there, I acknowledge it puts out my hand of
fence.”
“So, if men would but stand stock still like your soldan, you would play
the tyrant with them, Master Proudfute?”
“In time, and with practice, I conclude I might,” answered Oliver. “But
here we come up with the rest of them. Bailie Craigdallie looks angry,
but it is not his kind of anger that frightens me.”
You are to recollect, gentle reader, that as soon as the bailie and
those who attended him saw that the smith had come up to the forlorn
bonnet maker, and that the stranger had retreated, they gave themselves
no trouble about advancing further to his assistance, which they
regarded as quite ensured by the presence of the redoubted Henry Gow.
They had resumed their straight road to Kinfauns, desirous that nothing
should delay the execution of their mission. As some time had
elapsed ere the bonnet maker and the smith rejoined the party, Bailie
Craigdallie asked them, and Henry Smith in particular, what they meant
by dallying away precious time by riding uphill after the falconer.
“By the mass, it was not my fault, Master Bailie,” replied the smith.
“If ye will couple up an ordinary Low Country greyhound with a Highland
wolf dog, you must not blame the first of them for taking the direction
in which it pleases the last to drag him on. It was so, and not
otherwise, with my neighbour Oliver Proudfute. He no sooner got up from
the ground, but he mounted his mare like a flash of lightning, and,
enraged at the unknightly advantage which yonder rascal had taken of
his stumbling horse, he flew after him like a dromedary. I could not but
follow, both to prevent a second stumble and secure our over bold friend
and champion from the chance of some ambush at the top of the hill. But
the villain, who is a follower of some Lord of the Marches, and wears a
winged spur for his cognizance, fled from our neighbour like fire from
flint.”
The senior bailie of Perth listened with surprise to the legend which
it had pleased Gow to circulate; for, though not much caring for the
matter, he had always doubted the bonnet maker’s romancing account
of his own exploits, which hereafter he must hold as in some degree
orthodox.
The shrewd old glover looked closer into the matter. “You will drive the
poor bonnet maker mad,” he whispered to Henry, “and set him a-ringing
his clapper as if he were a town bell on a rejoicing day, when for order
and decency it were better he were silent.”
“Oh, by Our Lady, father,” replied the smith, “I love the poor little
braggadocio, and could not think of his sitting rueful and silent in
the provost’s hall, while all the rest of them, and in especial that
venomous pottingar, were telling their mind.”
“Thou art even too good natured a fellow, Henry,” answered Simon. “But
mark the difference betwixt these two men. The harmless little bonnet
maker assumes the airs of a dragon, to disguise his natural cowardice;
while the pottingar wilfully desires to show himself timid, poor
spirited, and humble, to conceal the danger of his temper. The adder
is not the less deadly that he creeps under a stone. I tell thee, son
Henry, that, for all his sneaking looks and timorous talking, this
wretched anatomy loves mischief more than he fears danger. But here we
stand in front of the provost’s castle; and a lordly place is Kinfauns,
and a credit to the city it is, to have the owner of such a gallant
castle for its chief magistrate.”
“A goodly fortalice, indeed,” said the smith, looking at the broad
winding Tay, as it swept under the bank on which the castle stood, like
its modern successor, and seemed the queen of the valley, although, on
the opposite side of the river, the strong walls of Elcho appeared to
dispute the pre-eminence. Elcho, however, was in that age a peaceful
nunnery, and the walls with which it was surrounded were the barriers of
secluded vestals, not the bulwarks of an armed garrison.
“‘Tis a brave castle,” said the armourer, again looking at the towers
of Kinfauns, “and the breastplate and target of the bonny course of the
Tay. It were worth lipping a good blade, before wrong were offered to
it.”
The porter of Kinfauns, who knew from a distance the persons and
characters of the party, had already opened the courtyard gate for
their entrance, and sent notice to Sir Patrick Charteris that the eldest
bailie of Perth, with some other good citizens, were approaching the
castle. The good knight, who was getting ready for a hawking party,
heard the intimation with pretty much the same feelings that the modern
representative of a burgh hears of the menaced visitation of a party of
his worthy electors, at a time rather unseasonable for their reception.
That is, he internally devoted the intruders to Mahound and Termagaunt,
and outwardly gave orders to receive them with all decorum and civility;
commanded the sewers to bring hot venison steaks and cold baked meats
into the knightly hall with all despatch, and the butler to broach his
casks, and do his duty; for if the Fair City of Perth sometimes filled
his cellar, her citizens were always equally ready to assist at emptying
his flagons.
The good burghers were reverently marshalled into the hall, where the
knight, who was in a riding habit, and booted up to the middle of
his thighs, received them with a mixture of courtesy and patronising
condescension; wishing them all the while at the bottom of the Tay, on
account of the interruption their arrival gave to his proposed amusement
of the morning. He met them in the midst of the hall, with bare head and
bonnet in hand, and some such salutation as the following:
“Ha, my Master Eldest Bailie, and you, worthy Simon Glover, fathers of
the Fair City, and you, my learned pottingar, and you, stout smith, and
my slashing bonnet maker too, who cracks more skulls than he covers, how
come I to have the pleasure of seeing so many friends so early? I was
thinking to see my hawks fly, and your company will make the sport more
pleasant--(Aside, I trust in Our Lady they may break their necks!)--that
is, always, unless the city have any commands to lay on me. Butler
Gilbert, despatch, thou knave. But I hope you have no more grave errand
than to try if the malvoisie holds its flavour?”
The city delegates answered to their provost’s civilities by
inclinations and congees, more or less characteristic, of which the
pottingar’s bow was the lowest and the smith’s the least ceremonious.
Probably he knew his own value as a fighting man upon occasion. To the
general compliment the elder bailie replied.
“Sir Patrick Charteris, and our noble Lord Provost,” said Craigdallie,
gravely, “had our errand been to enjoy the hospitality with which we
have been often regaled here, our manners would have taught us to tarry
till your lordship had invited us, as on other occasions. And as to
hawking, we have had enough on’t for one morning; since a wild fellow,
who was flying a falcon hard by on the moor, unhorsed and cudgelled our
worthy friend Oliver Bonnet Maker, or Proudfute, as some men call him,
merely because he questioned him, in your honour’s name, and the town of
Perth’s, who or what he was that took so much upon him.”
“And what account gave he of himself?” said the provost. “By St. John! I
will teach him to forestall my sport!”
“So please your lordship,” said the bonnet maker, “he did take me at
disadvantage. But I got on horseback again afterwards, and pricked after
him gallantly. He calls himself Richard the Devil.”
“How, man! he that the rhymes and romances are made on?” said the
provost. “I thought that smaik’s name had been Robert.”
“I trow they be different, my lord. I only graced this fellow with the
full title, for indeed he called himself the Devil’s Dick, and said he
was a Johnstone, and a follower of the lord of that name. But I put him
back into the bog, and recovered my hawking bag, which he had taken when
I was at disadvantage.”
Sir Patrick paused for an instant. “We have heard,” said he, “of the
Lord of Johnstone, and of his followers. Little is to be had by meddling
with them. Smith, tell me, did you endure this?”
“Ay, faith did I, Sir Patrick, having command from my betters not to
help.”
“Well, if thou satst down with it,” said the provost, “I see not why we
should rise up; especially as Master Oliver Proudfute, though taken at
advantage at first, has, as he has told us; recovered his reputation and
that of the burgh. But here comes the wine at length. Fill round to my
good friends and guests till the wine leap over the cup. Prosperity to
St. Johnston, and a merry welcome to you all, my honest friends! And
now sit you to eat a morsel, for the sun is high up, and it must be long
since you thrifty men have broken your fast.”
“Before we eat, my Lord Provost,” said the bailie, “let us tell you the
pressing cause of our coming, which as yet we have not touched upon.”
“Nay, prithee, bailie,” said the provost, “put it off till thou hast
eaten. Some complaint against the rascally jackmen and retainers of the
nobles, for playing at football on the streets of the burgh, or some
such goodly matter.”
“No, my lord,” said Craigdallie, stoutly and firmly. “It is the
jackmen’s masters of whom we complain, for playing at football with the
honour of our families, and using as little ceremony with our daughters’
sleeping chambers as if they were in a bordel at Paris. A party of
reiving night walkers--courtiers and men of rank, as there is but too
much reason to believe--attempted to scale the windows of Simon Glover’s
house last night; they stood in their defence with drawn weapons when
they were interrupted by Henry Smith, and fought till they were driven
off by the rising of the citizens.”
“How!” said Sir Patrick, setting down the cup which he was about to
raise to his head. “Cock’s body, make that manifest to me, and, by
the soul of Thomas of Longueville, I will see you righted with my best
power, were it to cost me life and land. Who attests this? Simon Glover,
you are held an honest and a cautious man--do you take the truth of this
charge upon your conscience?”
“My lord,” said Simon, “understand I am no willing complainer in this
weighty matter. No damage has arisen, save to the breakers of the peace
themselves. I fear only great power could have encouraged such lawless
audacity; and I were unwilling to put feud between my native town and
some powerful nobleman on my account. But it has been said that, if I
hang back in prosecuting this complaint, it will be as much as admitting
that my daughter expected such a visit, which is a direct falsehood.
Therefore, my lord, I will tell your lordship what happened, so far as I
know, and leave further proceeding to your wisdom.”
He then told, from point to point, all that he had seen of the attack.
Sir Patrick Charteris, listening with much attention, seemed
particularly struck with the escape of the man who had been made
prisoner.
“Strange,” he said, “that you did not secure him when you had him. Did
you not look at him so as to know him again?”
“I had but the light of a lantern, my Lord Provost; and as to suffering
him to escape, I was alone,” said the glover, “and old. But yet I might
have kept him, had I not heard my daughter shriek in the upper room;
and ere I had returned from her chamber the man had escaped through the
garden.”
“Now, armourer, as a true man and a good soldier,” said Sir Patrick,
“tell me what you know of this matter.”
Henry Gow, in his own decided style, gave a brief but clear narrative of
the whole affair.
Honest Proudfute being next called upon, began his statement with an air
of more importance. “Touching this awful and astounding tumult within
the burgh, I cannot altogether, it is true, say with Henry Gow that I
saw the very beginning. But it will not be denied that I beheld a great
part of the latter end, and especially that I procured the evidence most
effectual to convict the knaves.”
“And what is it, man?” said Sir Patrick Charteris. “Never lose time
fumbling and prating about it. What is it?”
“I have brought your lordship, in this pouch, what one of the rogues
left behind him,” said the little man. “It is a trophy which, in good
faith and honest truth, I do confess I won not by the blade, but I
claim the credit of securing it with that presence of mind which few men
possess amidst flashing torches and clashing weapons. I secured it, my
lord, and here it is.”
So saying, he produced, from the hawking pouch already mentioned, the
stiffened hand which had been found on the scene of the skirmish.
“Nay, bonnet maker,” said the provost, “I’ll warrant thee man enough to
secure a rogue’s hand after it is cut from the body. What do you look so
busily for in your bag?”
“There should have been--there was--a ring, my lord, which was on the
knave’s finger. I fear I have been forgetful, and left it at home, for
I took it off to show to my wife, as she cared not to look upon the dead
hand, as women love not such sights. But yet I thought I had put it on
the finger again. Nevertheless, it must, I bethink me, be at home. I
will ride back for it, and Henry Smith will trot along with me.”
“We will all trot with thee,” said Sir Patrick Charteris, “since I
am for Perth myself. Look you, honest burghers and good neighbours of
Perth; you may have thought me unapt to be moved by light complaints and
trivial breaches of your privileges, such as small trespasses on
your game, the barons’ followers playing football in the street, and
suchlike. But, by the soul of Thomas of Longueville, you shall not find
Patrick Charteris slothful in a matter of this importance. This hand,”
he continued, holding up the severed joint, “belongs to one who hath
worked no drudgery. We will put it in a way to be known and claimed of
the owner, if his comrades of the revel have but one spark of honour in
them. Hark you, Gerard; get me some half score of good men instantly to
horse, and let them take jack and spear. Meanwhile, neighbours, if
feud arise out of this, as is most likely, we must come to each other’s
support. If my poor house be attacked, how many men will you bring to my
support?”
The burghers looked at Henry Gow, to whom they instinctively turned when
such matters were discussed.
“I will answer,” said he, “for fifty good fellows to be assembled ere
the common bell has rung ten minutes; for a thousand, in the space of an
hour.”
“It is well,” answered the gallant provost; “and in the case of need,
I will come to aid the Fair City with such men as I can make. And now,
good friends, let us to horse.”