Part 27 (1/2)
”No,” said I, ”I cannot.”
”Why?” he asked, looking at me darkly.
”Tut, this is mere foolery. You would not have me meddling in such a fray?”
”You think we're no worthy for you to fecht wi',” he said, quietly, ”we, that are as guid as the best gentlemen i' the land, and have saved your life for ye, Master John Burnet. Weel, let it be. I didna think ye wad hae dune it.” Then the tinker blood came out. ”Maybe you're feared,”
said he, with an ugly smile.
I turned away and made no answer; indeed, I could trust myself to make none. I was bitterly angry and unhappy. All my misfortunes had drawn to a point in that moment. I had lost everything. A fatal mischance seemed to pursue me. Now I had mortally offended the man who had saved my life, and my outlook was drear enough.
I had been looking the other way for a second, and when I turned again the fray had begun. The Earl, with a cutla.s.s, had engaged the captain, and the wings, if one may call them by so fine a word, had met and mingled in confusion. But still it was not a general mellay, but rather a duel between the two princ.i.p.al combatants. The little man with the short sword showed wondrous agility, and leaped and twisted like a tumbler at a fair. As for the Baillie, he had naught to do but keep him at a distance, for he was both better armed and better skilled. As he fought he let his eye wander to the others and directed them with his voice. ”Come up, Mathy lad,” he would cry. ”Stand weel into them, and dinna fear the la.s.ses.” Then as he saw one of his own side creeping behind the Earl to strike a back blow, he roared with anger and bade him keep off. ”Let the man be,” he cried. ”Is't no eneuch to hae to fecht wi' blaggards that ye maun be blaggards yoursel'?”
But in a little the crowd closed round them and they had less room for play. Then began a grim and deadly fight. The townspeople, at the word of the tinkers fighting, had left the fair and come out in a crowd to witness it. It was a sight such as scarce a man may see twice in his lifetime. The mist rolled low and thick, and in the dim light the wild, dark faces and whirling weapons seemed almost monstrous. Now that the death had begun there was little shouting; nothing was heard save the rattle of the cutla.s.ses, and a sort of sighing as blows were given and received. The bolder of the women and boys had taken their place, and at the back the little children and young girls looked on with the strangest composure. I grew wild with excitement, and could scarce keep from yelling my encouragements or my warnings; but these had no thought of uttering a word. Had there been a cloud of smoke or smell of powder it would have seemed decent, but this quietness and clearness jarred on me terribly. Moreover, the weapons they fought with were rude, but powerful to inflict deep wounds, being all clubs and short swords and scythe-blades fixed on poles. Soon I saw ghastly cuts on the faces of the foremost and blood-splashes on brow and cheek. Had there been horses it would not have seemed so cruel, for there would have been the rush and trample, the hot excitement of the charge and the recoil. But in the quiet, fierce conflict on foot there seemed nothing but murder and horror.
At first the battle was fought in a little s.p.a.ce, and both sides stood compact. But soon it widened, and the wings straggled out almost to the edge of the bog-water. The timid onlookers fled as from the plague, and I, in my station in the back, was in doubts whether I should bide still or no. But in front of me were the girls and children, and I thought if I could do naught else I might bide still and see to them. For the horns of the Ruthven's company (which was far the larger) threatened to enclose the Baillies, and cut off their retreat. Meantime the mist had come down still closer and had given that decent covering which one desires in a b.l.o.o.d.y fray. I could scarce see the front ranks of our opponents, and all I could make out of my friends was the captain's bright sword glinting as he raised it to the cut.
But that soon happened which I had feared. For the Ruthvens, enclosing our wings, had all but surrounded us, since the captain had put the weaker there and left all the more valiant for the centre. Almost before I knew I saw one and another great gipsy rush around and make towards the girls who had not joined the battle. In that moment I saw the bravest actions which it has ever been my lot to see. For these slim, dark-haired maids drew knives and stood before their a.s.sailants, as stout-hearted as any soldiers of the King's guard. The children raised a great cry and huddled close to one another. One evil-looking fellow flung a knife and pierced a girl's arm.... It was too much for me. All my good resolutions went to the wind, and I forgot my pride in my anger.
With a choking cry I drew my sword and rushed for him.
After that I know not well what happened. I was borne back by numbers, then I forced my way forward, then back I fell again. At first I fought calmly, and more from a perverted feeling of duty than any l.u.s.t of battle. But soon a tinker knife scratched my cheek, and a tinker bludgeon rattled sorely against my head. Then I grew very hot and angry. I saw all around me a crowd of fierce faces and gleaming knives, and I remember naught save that I hurled myself onward, sword in hand, hewing and slas.h.i.+ng like a devil incarnate. I had never drawn blade in overmastering pa.s.sion before, and could scarce have thought myself capable of such madness as then possessed me. The wild moss-trooping blood, which I had heired from generations of robber lords, stood me in good stead. A reckless joy of fight took me. I must have seemed more frantic than the gipsies themselves.
At last, I know not how, I found my way to the very front rank. I had been down often, and blood was flowing freely from little flesh wounds, but as yet I was unscathed. There I saw William Baillie laying about him manfully, though sore wounded in the shoulder. When he saw me he gave me a cry of welcome. ”Come on,” he cried, ”I kenned ye wad think better o't. We've muckle need o' a guid man the noo.” And he spoke truth, for anything more fierce and awesome than the enemy I have never seen. The Earl of h.e.l.l was mangled almost to death, especially in the legs and thighs. The flesh was clean cut from the bone of one of his legs, and hung down over the ankles, till a man grew sick at the sight.
But he was whole compared with his daughter, Jean Ruthven, who was the chief's wife. Above and below her bare b.r.e.a.s.t.s she was cut to the bone, and so deep were the gashes that the movement of her lungs, as she breathed, showed between the ribs. The look of the thing made me ill with horror. I felt giddy, and almost swooned; and yet, though white as death, she fought as undauntedly as ever. I shunned the sight, and strove to engage her husband alone, the great fair-haired man, who, with no weapon but a broken cutla.s.s, had cleared all around him. I thrust at him once and again and could get no nearer for the swing of his mighty arms. Then the press behind, caused I suppose by the Ruthvens at the back, drove me forward, and there was nothing for it but to grapple with him. Our weapons were forced from our hands in the throng, and, with desperate energy, we clutched one another. I leaped and gripped him by the neck, and the next instant we were both down, and a great, suffocating wave of men pressed over us. I felt my breath stop, and yet I kept my grip and drew him closer. All was blackness around, and even as I clutched I felt a sharp thrill of agony through my frame, which seemed to tear the life from my heart, and I was lost to all.
CHAPTER XVIII
SMITWOOD
That I am alive to this day and fit to write this tale, I owe to William Baillie. He saw me fall and the press close over me, and, though hard beset himself, he made one effort for my salvation. ”Mathy,” he cried, ”and Tam and Andra, look after your man and get him up,” and then once more he was at death-grips. They obeyed his bidding as well as they might, and made a little ring in the centre around me, defending me with their weapons. Then they entwined us and lifted me, senseless as I was, to the light and air. As for Kennedy, he was heavy and florid, and his life had gone from him at the first overthrow.
I do not know well how I was got from the fray. I think I would have been killed, had not the Ruthvens, whose best men were wounded, given way a little after. Their trick of surrounding the enemy, by spreading wide their wings, was not wise and met with sorry success. For it left their middle so weak, that when Kennedy and the valiant Earl had been mastered, there remained no resistance. So when my friends made haste to push with me to the back they found their path none so hard. And after all that there was nothing but confusion and rout, the one side fleeing with their wounded, the other making no effort to pursue, but remaining to rest and heal their hurts.
As I have said, I was unconscious for some time, and when I revived I was given a sleeping draught of the gipsies' own making. It put me into a profound slumber, so that I slept for the rest of the day and night and well on to the next morning. When I awoke I was in a rough cart drawn by two little horses, in the centre of the troop who were hurrying westward. I felt my body with care and found that I was whole and well.
A noise still hummed in my head and my eyes were not very clear, as indeed was natural after the fray of the day before. But I had no sore hurt, only little flesh scratches, which twinged at the time, but would soon be healed.
But if this was my case it was not that of the rest of the band. The battle had been like all such gipsy fights-very terrible and b.l.o.o.d.y, but with no great roll of dead. Indeed, on our side we had not lost a man, and of the enemy Kennedy alone had died, who, being a big man and a full-blooded, had been suffocated in his fall by the throng above him.
It was just by little that I had escaped the same fate, for we two at the time had been in death-grips, and had I not been thin and hardy of frame, I should have perished there and then. But the wounds were so terrible on both sides that it scarce seemed possible that many could ever recover. Yet I heard, in after days, that not one died as a result of that day's encounter. Even the Earl of h.e.l.l and his daughter Jean recovered of their wounds and wandered through the country for many years. But the sight of the folk around me on the march was very terrible. One man limped along with a great gash in his thigh in which I could have placed my open hand. Another had three fingers shorn off, and carried his maimed and bandaged hand piteously. Still a third lay in the cart with a breast wound which gaped at every breath, and seemed certain ere long to bring death. Yet of such strength and hardihood was this extraordinary people that they made light of such wounds, and swore they would be healed in three weeks' time. Perhaps this tenacity of life is due in some part to their excellent doctoring, for it is certain that these folk have great skill in medicaments, and with herb-concoctions, and I know not what else, will often perform wondrous cures. I have my own case as an instance-where first I was restored from a high fever by their skill, and, second, from a fit of suffocation far more deadly.
The storms of the day before had pa.s.sed and a light frost set in which made the air clear and sharp and the countryside plain even to the distances. We were pa.s.sing under the great ma.s.s of Tintock-a high, hump-backed hill which rises sheer from the level land and stands like a mighty sentinel o'er the upper Clyde valley. We travelled slow, for the wounded were not fit to bear much speed, and many of the folk walked to suffer the horses to be yoked to the carts. After a little I espied the captain walking at the side, with his shoulder and cheeks bandaged, but as erect and haughty as ever. Seeing that I was awake, he came over beside me and asked very kindly after my health. His tenderness toward me was as great as if I had been his son or nearest blood-kin. When I told him that I was well and would get down and walk beside him, he said that that would be a most unbecoming thing and would never do, but that he would have a horse brought me from the back. So a horse was brought, an excellent black, with white on its fetlocks, and I mounted; and despite some little stiffness, found it much to my liking.
He told of the end of the battle and all the details of its course. He was in the highest spirits, for though his folk were sore wounded, they had yet beaten their foes and sent them off in a worse plight than themselves. Above all he was full of a childish vanity in his own prowess. ”Saw you that muckle bullion, Kennedy, Master Burnet? I gied him some gey licks, but I never could win near eneuch to him for his muckle airm. You grippit him weel and he'll no bother us mair. His ain folk 'll keep quiet eneuch aboot the affair, I'll warrant, so we may look to hear naething mair aboot it. I'm thinking tae, that the Yerl 'll no seek to come back my gate again. I tried to mak him fecht like a gentleman, but faith, he wadna dae't. He just keepit cuttin' at my shanks till I was fair wild, and telled some o' our ain folk to tak the legs frae the body wi' a scythe-stick. I haena seen a fecht like it since that at the Romanno Brig fifteen years syne, atween the Faas and the Shawes, when they were gaun frae Haddington to Harestane. Our folk wad hae been in't if they hadna come't up ower late and juist seen the end o't.”
”And will you have no farther trouble about the matter?” I asked. ”If the justice gets word of it will you not suffer?”
”Na, na,” he said, with conviction, ”nae fear. Thae things dinna come to the lugs o' the law. We didna dae ony hairm except to oorsels, and there's nane o' us killed save Kennedy whae dee'd a naitural death, so there can be nae word aboot that. Forbye, how's the law to grip us?”
And he turned on me a face full of roguish mirth which looked oddly between the bandages. ”If they heard we were at Biggar Moss yae day and cam after us, afore the morn we wad be in the Douglas Muirs or the Ettrick Hills. We're kittle cattle to fash wi'. We gang slow for ordinar, but when aucht presses we can flee like a flock o' stirlins.”
”Then where are you going?” I asked.