Part 46 (1/2)
”The government expect it, I can tell you. They're in a pitiable funk, I hear. One regiment is ordered to Uxbridge already, because they daren't trust it. They'll find soldiers are men, I do believe, after all.”
”Men they are,” said Sandy; ”an' therefore they'll no be fools eneugh to stan' by an' see ye pu' down a' that is, to build up ye yourselves dinna yet rightly ken what. Men? Ay, an' wi' mair common sense in them than some that had mair opportunities.”
”I think I've settled everything,” went on Crossthwaite, who seemed not to have heard the last speech--”settled everything--for poor Katie, I mean.
If anything happens to me, she has friends at Cork--she thinks so at least--and they'd get her out to service somewhere--G.o.d knows!” And his face worked fearfully a minute.
”Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori!” said I.
”There are twa methods o' fulfilling that saw, I'm thinkin'. Impreemis, to shoot your neebour; in secundis, to hang yoursel.”
”What do you mean by grumbling at the whole thing in this way, Mr. Mackaye?
Are you, too, going to shrink back from The Cause, now that liberty is at the very doors?”
”Ou, then, I'm stanch eneuch. I ha' laid in my ain stock o' weapons for the fecht at Armageddon.”
”You don't mean it? What have you got?”
”A braw new halter, an' a muckle nail. There's a gran' tough beam here ayont the ingle, will haud me a' crouse and cantie, when the time comes.”
”What on earth do you mean?” asked we both together.
”Ha' ye looked into the monster-pet.i.tion?”
”Of course we have, and signed it too!”
”Monster? Ay, ferlie! Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum. Desinit in piscem mulier formosa superne. Leeberty, the bonnie la.s.sie, wi' a sealgh's fud to her! I'll no sign it. I dinna consort wi'
shoplifters, an' idiots, an' suckin' bairns--wi' long nose, an' short nose, an' pug nose, an' seventeen Deuks o' Wellington, let alone a baker's dizen o' Queens. It's no company, that, for a puir auld patriot!”
”Why, my dear Mackaye,” said I, ”you know the Reform Bill pet.i.tions were just as bad.”
”And the Anti-Corn-law ones, too, for that matter,” said Crossthwaite. ”You know we can't help accidents; the pet.i.tion will never be looked through.”
”It's always been the plan with Whigs and Tories, too!”
”I ken that better than ye, I guess.”
”And isn't everything fair in a good cause?” said Crossthwaite.
”Desperate men really can't be so dainty.”
”How lang ha' ye learnit that deil's lee, Johnnie? Ye were no o' that mind five years agone, lad. Ha' ye been to Exeter Hall the while? A's fair in the cause o' Mammon; in the cause o' cheap bread, that means cheap wages; but in the cause o' G.o.d--wae's me, that ever I suld see this day ower again! ower again! Like the dog to his vomit--just as it was ten, twenty, fifty year agone. I'll just ha' a pet.i.tion a' alane to mysel--I, an' a twa or three honest men. Besides, ye're just eight days ower time wi' it.”
”What do you mean?”
”Suld ha' sent it in the 1st of April, an' no the 10th; a' fool's day wud ha' suited wi' it ferlie!”
”Mr. Mackaye,” said Crossthwaite, in a pa.s.sion, ”I shall certainly inform the Convention of your extraordinary language!”
”Do, laddie! do, then! An' tell 'em this, too”--and, as he rose, his whole face and figure a.s.sumed a dignity, an awfulness, which I had never seen before in him--”tell them that ha' driven out * * * * and * * * *, an'