Volume Ii Part 21 (2/2)
No! It was impossible I could abstain from laughter;--but yet, for all that, things turned out quite the reverse. He had actually sliced off a rasher of bacon, the fattest, the whitest, and the most beautiful rasher of bacon ever I had seen in my life! There were three distinct layers of lire and fat, curving alternately through it like quarter moons. No man ever beheld such a sight! He sliced out another piece, which was still more perfectly beautiful than the preceding one. My eyes darkened. I had seen enough to shew me the enormity of my folly, and my irreparable loss! He roasted his rashers on the fire. The fat fried out of them, and flamed among the embers; and when he laid them on his bread, they soaked it all with pure liquid fat. And there was I sitting beside him, gnawing at my piece of infernal beef, the sinewy hip of some hateful Galloway stott that had died of the blackleg, and, having been unfit for ought else, had been dried till the hateful substance was out of it. Yet I had my choice of both, and took this. I shall never wish any friend of mine to suffer such pangs as I did that morning; for all that I had suffered in my dangers and disappointments was nothing to them. I would fain have slain the Gorb privately; but not daring to do that, I resolved never to see his face again, after the vile trick he had played. All my hopes and all my enjoyments of the foray being now ended, I resolved on taking my departure, and that by the time my enemy had the first slice of bacon eaten.
We had orders to halt all that day, for the Johnstons and the Jardines were a day's march before us. Their advanced columns had fallen back; and as the troops were sleeping or straggling about, I prepared for my departure. My comrade having been with the knight's women all the night, a set of creatures madder than himself, he was quite worn out; and as soon as he got his inside lined with the salutary beverage, he fell fast asleep. An inward light now began to dawn on my heart, brighter than the sun at noon day, and lighting my steps forward to future felicity. My breath cut short with ecstatic delight, and my knees trembled as I formed the resolution of changing hams with my hopeful comrade. His wallet was lying open--not so the tailor's eyes: I might have exchanged coats, and shoes too, for him. The great work was done in an instant. I whipped out his shoulder of bacon, and put my piece of black timber in its place. ”Take you that, honest man,” said I to myself: ”Time about is fair play. I have given you something that will exercise your jaws for a while.”
When I found that I had this most delicious of all morsels on my back, I was so light that I scarcely felt my feet touch the ground; and there being no time now to lose, I made straight away into England, for I durst not turn towards Scotland, the sentinels being so very thick on that quarter. Our advanced guard was composed of the Gordons from the Ken,--a set of desperate raggam.u.f.fins whom I durst not have gone among had it not been fair forenoon. I had my wallet on my back and my sword by my side; and when I saw any of them eying me, I went up to them and asked how far the Johnstons were before us?
”What the devil was I wanting with the Johnstons?”
”O, I was afraid there might be a battle fought before I saw it, which I would not should happen for any thing in the world.”
”Hear to the coulter-nibbit piper,” said one.
”He is as like supping a pint o' fat brose as killing an Englishman,”
said another.
”I wadna trust him wi' ought beyond a litter o' English pigs,” said a third.
”Let him gang forrit, and fiend that he get his chafts clawn the first sword that's drawn! I wadna that his name were Gordon for a hunder civis.”
Accordingly I got liberty to pa.s.s; but as soon as I got out of sight, I turned to the left, and escaped to the moors of Bewcastle. I had now found out the invaluable art of flint and frizzle, and could kindle a fire whenever I pleased. So I sought out a lonely wild dell, and lighting a fire of birns and strong heather, roasted two slas.h.i.+ng slices of my shoulder of bacon. I also took a good shave of bread from my friend the tailor's hearth-bannock; but after all I could not think of adulterating the savoury delicious fare by any unnatural intermixture,--so I ate up the dry bread by itself, and then smacked up the bacon afterwards. I cannot describe my sensations of delight, not only in my meal, but in contemplating the beauty of the object. I sat long feasting my eyes on the beauty of the slices before I committed them to the coals. They were curved so beautifully in semi-circles, the fat and the lire time about, that, unless for such an object, the term _beauty_ would have no meaning. They lay alternately, as if it were this way, and this way, and this way.
”I protest against your drawing of your pictures on my shoulder,” cried Gibbie; ”and also against the party being any longer mocked with such fulsome trash in place of a story. Do you not perceive, Sir Master, and do you not all perceive, that he is havering and speaking without end or aim? He is sensible that he has failed in his story; and that a dismal fate awaits him, and all that he is now intent on is driving of time.”
”I confess that I am sick of the bacon and other fat things,” said Charlie.
”My soul disdains the abject theme,” said the poet: ”Its tantalizing sight is like the marshfire's vacant gleam to the bewildered wight. 'Tis throwing meat to hungry souls, with fainting sore opprest; or drink unto the parched lips, whereof they may not taste.”
”Let us show some spirit, wretched as we are,” said Gibbie, ”and protest with one a.s.sent against being farther sickened, as well as mocked by such loathsome stuff.”
This is unfair, and using undue influence,” cried Tam. ”None of you were thus interrupted, but got time to finish your stories as you liked. Mine is not done; the best part of it is yet to come, and I say it is unfair. Great Master, you sit as judge; I appeal to you. My life has been varied. Let them chuse what sort of a theme they want, and I will fit them, only suffer me to relate one other exploit.”
The Master, on whom hunger seemed to make no impression, thought the request was reasonable; but in making choice, every one of them, young and old, pitched on a different subject, so that Tam could not get proceeded; neither can this chapter, as an extraordinary incident befel, which naturally brings it to an end.
END OF VOL. II.
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