said Henry Smith, “though the blast of the bellows and the clatter of the anvil make but coarse company to lays of minstrelsy; but I can afford them no better, since I must mend my fortune, though I mar my verses.”
“Right again – my own son just,” answered the glover; “and I trust thou hast made a saving voyage of it?”
“Nay, I made a thriving one, father: I sold the steel habergeon that you wot of for four hundred marks to the English Warden of the East Marches, Sir Magnus Redman. He scarce scrupled a penny after I gave him leave to try a sword dint upon it. The beggardly Highland thief who bespoke it boggled at half the sum, though it had cost me a year’s labour.”
“What dost thou start at, Conachar?” said Simon, addressing himself, by way of parenthesis, to the mountain disciple; “wilt thou never learn to mind thy own business, without listening to what is passing round thee? What is it to thee that an Englishman thinks that cheap which a Scottishman may hold dear?”
Conachar turned round to speak, but, after a moment’s consideration, looked down, and endeavoured to recover his composure, which had been deranged by the contemptuous manner in which the smith had spoken of his Highland customer.
Henry went on without paying any attention to him. “I sold at high prices some swords and whingers when I was at Edinburgh. They expect war there; and if it please God to send it, my merchandise will be worth its price. St. Dunstan make us thankful, for he was of our craft. In short, this fellow (laying his hand on his purse); who, thou knowest, father, was somewhat lank and low in condition when I set out four months since, is now as round and full as a six weeks’ porker.”
“And that other leathern sheathed, iron hilted fellow who hangs beside him,” said the glover, “has he been idle all this while? Come, jolly smith, confess the truth – how many brawls hast thou had since crossing the Tay?”
“Nay, now you do me wrong, father, to ask me such a question (glancing a look at Catharine) in such a presence,” answered the armourer: “I make swords, indeed, but I leave it to other people to use them. No – no, seldom have I a naked sword in my fist, save when I am turning them on the anvil or grindstone; and they slandered me to your daughter Catharine, that led her to suspect the quietest burgess in Perth of being a brawler. I wish the best of them would dare say such a word at the Hill of Kinnoul, and never a man on the green but he and I.”
“Ay – ay,” said the glover, laughing, “we should then have a fine sample of your patient sufferance. Out upon you, Henry, that you will speak so like a knave to one who knows thee so well! You look at Kate, too, as if she did not know that a man in this country must make his hand keep his head, unless he will sleep in slender security. Come – come, beshrew me if thou hast not spoiled as many suits of armour as thou hast made.”
“Why, he would be a bad armourer, father Simon, that could not with his own blow make proof of his own workmanship. If I did not sometimes cleave a helmet, or strike a point through a harness, I should not know what strength of fabric to give them; and might jingle together such pasteboard work as yonder Edinburgh smiths think not shame to put out of their hands.”
“Aha, now would I lay a gold crown thou hast had a quarrel with some Edinburgh ‘burn the wind’ upon that very ground?”
[“Burn the wind,” an old cant term for blacksmith, appears in Burns:
Then burnewin came on like death, At every chaup, etc.]
“A quarrel! no, father,” replied the Perth armourer, “but a measuring of swords with such a one upon St. Leonard’s Crags, for the honour of my bonny city, I confess. Surely you do not think I would quarrel with a brother craftsman?”
“Ah, to a surety, no. But how did your brother craftman come off?”
“Why, as one with a sheet of paper on his bosom might come off from the stroke of a lance; or rather, indeed, he came not off at all, for, when I left him, he was lying in the Hermit’s Lodge daily expecting death, for which Father Gervis said he was in heavenly preparation.”
“Well, any more measuring of weapons?” said the glover.
“Why, truly, I fought an Englishman at Berwick besides, on the old question of the supremacy, as they call it – I am sure you would not have me slack at that debate? – and I had the luck to hurt him on the left knee.”
“Well done for St. Andrew! to it again. Whom next had you to deal with?” said Simon, laughing at the exploits of his pacific friend.
“I fought a Scotchman in the Torwood,” answered Henry Smith, “upon a doubt which was the better swordsman, which, you are aware, could not be known or decided without a trial. The poor fellow lost two fingers.”
“Pretty well for the most peaceful lad in Perth, who never touches a sword but in the way of his profession. Well, anything more to tell us?”
“Little; for the drubbing of a Highlandman is a thing not worth mentioning.”
“For what didst thou drub him, O man of peace?” inquired the glover.
“For nothing that I can remember,” replied the smith, “except his presenting himself on the south side of Stirling Bridge.”
“Well, here is to thee, and thou art welcome to me after all these exploits. Conachar, bestir thee. Let the cans clink, lad, and thou shalt have a cup of the nut brown for thyself, my boy.”
Conachar poured out the good liquor for his master and for Catharine with due observance. But that done, he set the flagon on the table and sat down.
“How now, sirrah! be these your manners? Fill to my guest, the worshipful Master Henry Smith.”
“Master Smith may fill for himself, if he wishes for liquor,” answered the youthful Celt. “The son of my father has demeaned himself enough already for one evening.”
“That’s well crowed for a cockerel,” said Henry; “but thou art so far right, my lad, that the man deserves to die of thirst who will not drink without a cupbearer.”
But his entertainer took not the contumacy of the young apprentice with so much patience. “Now, by my honest word, and by the best glove I ever made,” said Simon, “thou shalt help him with liquor from that cup and flagon, if thee and I are to abide under one roof.”
Conachar arose sullenly upon hearing this threat, and, approaching the smith, who had just taken the tankard in his hand, and was raising it to his head, he contrived to stumble against him and jostle him so awkwardly, that the foaming ale gushed over his face, person, and dress. Good natured as the smith, in spite of his warlike propensities, really was in the utmost degree, his patience failed under such a provocation. He seized the young man’s throat, being the part which came readiest to his grasp, as Conachar arose from the pretended stumble, and pressing it severely as he cast the lad from him, exclaimed: “Had this been in another place, young gallows bird, I had stowed the lugs out of thy head, as I have done to some of thy clan before thee.”
Conachar recovered his feet with the activity of a tiger, and exclaimed: “Never shall you live to make that boast again!” drew a short, sharp knife from his bosom, and, springing on Henry Smith, attempted to plunge it into his body over the collarbone, which must have been a mortal wound. But the object of this violence was so ready to defend himself by striking up the assailant’s hand, that the blow only glanced on the bone, and scarce drew blood. To wrench the dagger from the boy’s hand, and to secure him with a grasp like that of his own iron vice, was, for the powerful smith, the work of a single moment.
Conachar felt himself at once in the absolute power of the formidable antagonist whom he had provoked; he became deadly pale, as he had been the moment before glowing red, and stood mute with shame and fear, until, relieving him from his powerful hold, the smith quietly said: “It is well for thee that thou canst not make me angry; thou art but a boy, and I, a grown man, ought not to have provoked thee. But let this be a warning.”
Conachar stood an instant as if about to reply, and then left the room, ere Simon had collected himself enough to speak. Dorothy was running hither and thither for salves and healing herbs. Catharine had swooned