Volume I Part 15 (2/2)
”Well, well, they may perhaps lead that winna drive,” said Charlie; and he went by the friar at a light gallop, leaving him behind, who prayed to the other not to leave him nor forsake him; but it was a device of Yardbire's, and a well conceived one. He saw that as long as he kept the rear guard, and rode behind the friar, the men that pursued them would not separate on that long narrow path; therefore he vanished among the bushes, keeping, however, always within hearing of the mule's feet.
Accordingly, at the first turn of the road, the foremost of the English troopers, seeing the jolly bedesman posting away by himself, put the spurs to his steed, and made a furious dash at him. The friar cried out with a loud voice; and, seeing that he would be overtaken, he turned round and drew his sword to stand on the defensive; and actually not only bore the first charge of his opponent with considerable firmness, but had ”very nigh smitten him between the joints of the harness,” as he termed it. It happened, moreover, very singularly, from the perversity of the mule, that in the charge the combatants changed sides, at the imminent peril of the Englishman; for the mule brushed by his horse with such violence, and leaned so sore to the one side, that both the horse and his rider were within an inch of the verge of the precipice.
The friar had no sooner made his way by, than he saw another rider coming like lightning to meet him in the face; but at the same time he heard the voice of Charlie Scott behind him, and the rending crash of his weapon. This cheered the drooping spirits of the brave friar, who had been on the very point of crying for quarter. ”They beset me before and behind,” cried he, ”yet shall my hand be avenged. Come on, thou froward and perverse one.” So saying he a.s.sumed his guard, and met his foe face to face, seeing he had no alternative. The Englishman drew a stroke, but got not time to lay it on; for just as the mule and his tall horse met, the former, in the bitterness of his ire, rushed between his opponent and the upper bank, and pressed against his fore counters with such energy, that he made the leg next him to slacken, and the horse reared from the other. The intention of the irritated mule was to crush his master's leg, or, if possible, to rub him from off his back; and therefore, in spite of the rein he closed with the Englishman's tall steed in a moment, and almost as swift as lightning. The English moss-trooper had raised his arm to strike, but seeing his horse shoved and rearing in that perilous place, he seized the rein with his sword hand. The mule finding the substance to which he leaned give way, pressed to it the harder. It was all one to him whether it had been a tree, a horse, or a rock; he shouldered against it with his side foremost so strenuously, that in spite of all the trooper could do, the fore feet of his horse on rearing, alighted within the verge of the precipice. The n.o.ble animal made a spring from his hinder legs, in order to leap by the obstreperous mongrel; but the latter still coming the closer, instead of springing by he leaped into the open void, aiming at the branches of an oak that grew in a horizontal direction from the cliff. It was an old and stubborn tree, the child of a thousand years; and when the horse and his rider fell upon its h.o.a.ry branches, it yielded far to the weight. But its roots being entwined in the rifted rock as far as the stomach of the mountain, it sprung upward again with a prodigious force to regain its primitive position, and tossed the intruding weight afar into the unfathomed deep. Horse and rider went down in a rolling motion till they lessened to the eye, and fell on the rocks and water below with such a shock, that the clash sounded among the echoes of the linn like the first burst of the artillery of heaven, or the roar of an earthquake from the depths of the earth.
Charlie Scott gazed on the scene with horror; every feature of his countenance was changed, and every hair on his great burly head stood on end. He gave a look to heaven, crossed himself, and said a short prayer, if a prayer it may be called that consisted only of four syllables. It consisted merely in the p.r.o.nunciation of a name, too sacred to be set down in an idle tale; but he p.r.o.nounced it with an emphasis that made it doubly affecting. The friar, on the contrary, astonished at his own prowess, or rather at that of his mule, beheld the scene with wonder, it is true, but also with a shade of ostentation. ”I have overthrown the horse and his rider,” said he, ”and they are sunk down as a stone into the mighty waters.” Corby manifested the fright that he was in, by loud and reiterated snortings; the mule also was astonied, and, that he might witness the horrific scene in more perfection, he kept his tail close to the precipice, and looked back.
”Now, by my honour as a man and a warrior, father,” said Charlie, ”you are a man amang ten thousand. I never knew of a bedesman who behaved so gallantly, nor have I seen a knight behave better. How durst you close so instantaneously and furiously with both these valiant troopers?”
”Thou hadst better put that question to my mule,” said the friar,--”for it is a truth that he hath that in him that is the ruin of many people, viz. obstinacy of heart. When he smelleth the battle he disdaineth all parley or courtesy, as thou beholdest, but rusheth upon his adversary like one of the bulls of Bashan.”
At that moment the friar's eye caught a glance of several hors.e.m.e.n close upon them, but as they could only come one man rank, they paused at seeing their enemies in quiet possession of the way, and standing in peaceful colloquy, apparently about something else.
”By the life of Pharaoh,” said the friar, gazing all around, ”I had forgot the man whom I first engaged and smote as he pa.s.sed by.”
”You will see nae mair o' him, father,” said Charlie; ”I gae him a deadly wound, but the saddle was locked to the horse, and the man to the saddle, and the furious animal has escaped away to the forest with the dead man on its back.”
”Thou art indeed a man of valour,” said the friar; ”and here will we keep our ground. I will do more in our defence than thou hast yet witnessed; therefore, be not afraid, my son, for that sword of thine is a good sword.”
”It is a good sword at a straik,” returned Charlie; ”but it's no very handy at making a defence. But an I get the first yerk of a chield, I'm no unco feared for his return. However, father, this sword, sic as it is, shall be raised in your defence as lang as my arm can wag it. I like the man that will stand a brush when a pinch comes,--see, thae chaps darena come on us. But, ill luck to the coward! gin they winna come to us, we'll gang to them.”
”I will certainly go with thee,” said the friar; ”but I know the nature of the beast that I bestride, and that it will at the first onset bear me into the thickest of the battle; therefore, be not thou far from me in my need, for, though nothing afraid, yet I know it will carry me into peril. Come, let us go and smite these men with the edge of the sword.”
”Gallant friar,” said Charlie, ”the Thief-road is lang an' narrow, an'
there's hardly a bit o't that they can come on us twa in a breast; stand ye still; or be chopping on your way, an' I'll let you see yon lads get a surprise for aince.”
”Nay, I will certainly stand with thee in battle,” said the friar; ”thinkest thou I will stand and be a looker on, when my preserver is in jeopardy? Lo, my heart is as thy heart, my arm as thy arm, and--but I cannot say my horse is as thy horse, for the beast is indeed froward in his ways, and perverse in all his doings.”
Charlie hardly smiled at the phrase of the worthy friar,--for he meditated an attack on their pursuers, and his eye kindled with his heart toward the battle. He heaved up his sword-arm twice at its full stretch, to feel if it was nowise enc.u.mbered in the armour, and putting Corby in motion, he rode deliberately up to the face of his enemies. The foremost man spoke to him, demanding what he wanted; but he only answered by heaving his sword a little higher, and making his horse mend his pace. In one second after that he was engaged with the first man, and in two seconds the horse and his rider had fallen in the middle of the path. Charlie listed not coming to close quarter; his sword was so long and heavy, that it was quite unhandy in warding the blows of a short and light weapon. His aim, therefore, was always to get the first stroke, which was as apt to light on the horse as the man, and thus down both of them went. Springing by the prostrate warrior, he attacked the second and the third in the same manner, and with the same success, always either cutting down the trooper or cleaving the head of his horse at the first stroke. The path was now in the utmost confusion. Owing to the pause that had taken place, all the riders had come up and crowded each other behind, some crying, ”He is a devil!” and others at a greater distance shouting out, ”Down with the Scot! down with him!” Charlie regarded not their cries, but laid about him with all his might, till, after striking down three of the foremost and one horse, those next to him were glad to turn in order to effect their escape; but the hindermost on the path refusing for a while to give way, many of their friends fell a sacrifice to Charlie's wrath. He pursued them for a s.p.a.ce, and might have cut them off every man, had he been sure that all was safe behind,--but he had rushed by some wounded men and wounded horses, and knew not how matters stood with the friar.
As he dreaded, so it fell out. Two of the Englishmen who had fallen perhaps under their horses, had scrambled up the bosky precipice, and, as he returned, a.s.sailed him with large stones, a mode of attack against which he was unable to make the least resistance. Therefore, it was at the utmost peril of his life that he made his way back through the enc.u.mbered path to his friend the friar. This latter worthy had found it impossible to lend his friend any a.s.sistance. The beast that he bestrode was fonder of rubbing shoulders with a living brute, than a mangled or dead one; so he refused to come nearer the first that fell than about twice his own length, where he stood firm, turning his tail to the scene of battle, and looking back. Our two heroes now set off at full speed after the rest of their party, whom they expected to overtake before reaching the outposts of the beleaguering army.
CHAPTER XII.
_Lord Duffus._--I saw the appearance of a mounted warrior.
Whence did it come, or whither did it go?
Or whom did it seek here?
Hush thee, my lord; The apparition spoke not, but pa.s.sed on.
'Tis something dreadful; and, I fear me much, Betokens evil to this fair array.
_Trag. of the Prioress._
The rest of our cavalcade continued to advance at a quick pace, not without anxiety. They were not afraid of their enemies coming behind them, for they had strong faith in the prowess of their friend, as well as his horse Corby. But when they came to the end of the narrow path, called the Thief-gate, there were two roads, and they knew not which of these to follow. As bad luck would have it, they took the most easterly, which led towards Yetholm, and left the Scottish army to the westward.
In that path they continued to jog on, turning many a long look behind them for the approach of Charlie; and, at one time, they thought they got a view of him coming at a furious pace all alone; but the rider being at a great s.p.a.ce behind them, he was shortly hid from their view in an intervening hollow, and it was long before they saw him any more.
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