The Firebrand Page 3

  CHAPTER III

  COCK O' THE NORTH

  "_Carai! Caramba! Car----!_ This bantam will outface us on our owndung-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 fightwith the knife, or with the sword, or with the pistol!"

  From the kitchen of the venta at San Vicencio, just where the track upthe Montblanch takes its first spring into the air, came these and othersimilar cries. It was a long and narrowish apartment--the upper portionmerely of a ground-floor chamber, which occupied the whole length of thebuilding.

  Part of the space was intended for horses and mules, and indeed wassomewhat overcrowded by them that night. These being alarmed by thetumult and shoutings, were rearing so far as their short unsinkeredhead-stalls permitted them, and in especial making play with their feetat the various _machos_ or he-mules scattered among them. These gladlyretaliated, that being their form of relaxation, and through theresulting chaos of whinnying, stamping, neighing, and striking of sparksfrom pavement stones, skirmished a score of brown imps, more than halfnaked, each armed with a baton or stout wand with which he struck andpushed the animals entrusted to their care out of the reach of harm, orwith equal good-will gave a sly poke with the sharp spur of the goad toa neighbour's beast, by way of redressing any superiorities of heels orteeth.

  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 betweenthe abode of beasts and of men. Over this step most of those who hadthus hasted to the fray incontinently stumbled. And in the majority ofinstances their stumble had been converted into a fall by a blow on thesconce, or across the shoulders, from the flat of a long sword wieldedby the arm of a youth so tall as almost to reach the low-beamed ceilingalong which the spiders were scuttling, in terror doubtless of thesweeping bright thing on which the firelight played as it waved this wayand that.

  First in the fray were a round dozen of Migueletes, come in from anunsuccessful chase, and eager to avenge on a stranger the failure anddisgrace they had suffered from one of their own race. Next came a youngbutcher or two from the killing-yards, each already a _toreador_ in hisown estimation. The rest were chiefly _arrieros_ or carriers, with astray gipsy from the south, dark as a Moor; but every man as familiarwith the use of his long curved sheath-knife as a cathedral priest withhis breviary.

  Meanwhile the tall young man with the long sword was not silent. HisSpanish was fluent if inelegant, and as it had been acquired among the_majos_ of Sevilla and the mule-clippers of Aragon rather than in morereputable quarters, his speech to the critical ear was flavoured with acertain rich allusiveness of personality and virility of adjectivewhich made ample amends (in the company in which he found himself) forany 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, beingstrong-sounding and guttural, served him almost as well in the Venta ofSan Vicencio as his _Carais_ and _Carambas_.

  "_Dogs of dog-mothers without honour!_ Come on, and I will stap twalinches o' guid steel warranted by Robin Fleming o' the Grassmarket doonyour throats! A set o' gabbling geese--tak' that! With your virgins andsaints! Ah, would you? There, that will spoil your sitting down for aday 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, bitterand sometimes unknown and mysterious words in his mouth, this youth kepthis enemies very successfully at bay, meeting their blades six at atime, and treading and turning so lightly that as he lunged this way andthat, there was a constant disorganisation among the opposing ranks, asone and the other sprang back to elude his far-reaching point.

  "He is of the devil--a devil of devils!" they cried. "We shall allperish," wailed an old woman, shrinking back further into thechimney-corner, and wringing her hands.

  Meanwhile the youth apostrophised his blade.

  "My bonny Robin Fleemin'--as guid as ony Toledan steel that ever wasforged! What do you think o' that for Leith Links? And they wad haemade me either a minister or a cooper's apprentice!"

  As he spoke he disarmed one of his chief opponents, who in furious angersnatched a pistol and fired point-blank. The shot would indubitably havebrought down the young hero of the unequal combat, had not a stoutruddy-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 badenough, specially when that one is a fool. But pistols in a house-placeare a disgrace! Stand back there, will ye?"

  And with no better weapon than a long-pronged labourer's fork snatchedfrom the chimney-corner, he set himself shoulder to shoulder with theyoung Scot and laid lustily about him.

  That son of an unkindly soil, instead of being grateful for thisinterference on his behalf, seemed at first inclined to resent it.

  "What call had ye to put your neck in danger for an unkenned man'ssake?" 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 theother, while the broad sweeps of his companion's sword and the energeticlunges of his own trident kept the enemy at a respectful distance.

  Suddenly a thought struck the Englishman. Without dropping the fork, herushed to the hearth, where the _ollas_ and _pucheros_ of the entirecompany bubbled and steamed, he caught the largest of the pots in onehand 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 themfrom John Mortimer, that if they do not cease their racket, I willwarrant that they shall not have an onion or a sprig of garlic to stinktheir breaths with this night. And if that does not fear them, nothingwill--not Purgatory itself!"

  The young man communicated this in his own way, and though every manamong his assailants was to the full as brave as himself, the threat ofthe Englishman did not fail in its effect. The _arrieros_ and Aragonesehorse-clippers drew off and consulted, while the Scot who had caused allthe disturbance, dropped his point to the floor, and contented himselfwith wrapping his cloak more tightly about his defensive arm. He hadevidently been some time in the country, for he wore the dark _capa_ andred _boina_ of Navarra, and answered the deputation which now cameforward with readiness and composure. Whoever gave in, it wouldcertainly not be he. That, at least, was the impression given by hisattitude.

  "Certainly, most certainly," he said. "I will be glad to meet any one ofyou anywhere. I will stand to my words spoken in any language, or anyfield of honour, from the carpet of a prime minister to one of yourinfernal dusty _campos_, with any weapon, from pistol and sword to atooth-pick--with any Spaniard, or Frenchman, or mongrel tyke that everlifted 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, dismissinghim with the gesture one uses to a menial, called out, "Caballeros,indeed! What needs this son of the burden-bearing animal to speak ofCaballeros? Is there any old Castilian here, of the right ancient stock?If so, let him arbitrate between us. I, for one, will abide by hisdecision. The sons of gentlemen and soldiers will not do wrong to asoldier and a stranger!"

  Then from the darkest and most distant corner, where he had sat wrappedin 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 beardshowing only a few threads of grey, where the tell-tale wisdom tuftsprings from the under lip.

  "Young sir," he said courteously, "I am an Old Castilian fromValladolid. I will hear your cause of quarrel, and, if you so desire,advise my compatriots, if they in their turn will consent to put theircase into my hands."

  There was some demur at this among the rougher gipsie
s and muleteers,but every one was anxious for the evening meal, and the fragrant earthenpipkins and great iron central pot gave forth a good smell. Also ared-waistcoated man-servant ran hither and thither among them,whispering in the ear of each belligerent; and his communication, havingpresumably to do with the stranger's quality and condition, had aremarkable effect in casting oil upon the waters. Indeed, the Migueleteshad withdrawn as soon as the Castilian came forward, and presently he ofGalicia, having consulted with his fellows, answered that for his parthe was quite prepared to submit the causes of strife to the noblecavalier from Valladolid, provided the stranger also would abide by thedecision.

  "I have said so," put in the Scot fiercely, "and _my_ custom is not tomake a promise at night for the purpose of breaking it in the morning!"