CHAPTER V
HAXO THE BULL INTERFERES
Walter bowed and returned him his sword, holding it by the blade.
"And now, Lieutenant Scarlett," he said, "I desire to ride back toAmersfort, and you, I doubt not, wish as eagerly to return whence youcame--by sea to Flanders, as I guess. I shall be grateful, therefore,if you will draw off your company, and give an order that my horse bebrought to that door which is in possession of your own men."
At this moment Haxo the Bull stepped into the room.
"Not so fast by a great deal, master-fighter with windlestraws," hecried. "If it have pleased this friend of yours and traitorous officerof the King of France to make a public bargain upon the issue of aprivate duel, that has nothing to do with me. There are many otherfights to be fought ere you leave this house with the papers safein your pocket. Listen," he continued, addressing the officers andsoldiers standing in the opposite doorway behind Lieutenant Scarlett:"are you to lose your reward and be left without reason or remedy herein the very heart of an enemy's country--your work undone, your doomsealed? For if ye let him escape, this fellow will instantly set theprince's horsemen or his swift Dutch ships upon your track. Better tokill him and take his papers without delay, when rewards and promotionswill assuredly be yours on your return to your master."
It was easy to see that this harangue had not been the inspiration ofHaxo himself, for he delivered it, now trippingly and now haltingly,like a schoolboy who does not know the meaning of his lesson. But yetit was perfectly comprehensible to all in the room, and Wat could seethat the purport of it moved the officers and men greatly. The widearchway behind the table from which the arras had been drawn back wasnow thronged with faces.
Wat Gordon stood aside whistling an air softly, like one who waits fora discussion to be concluded in which he has no interest. He had not somuch as looked at Haxo the Bull while he was speaking.
But John Scarlett grew redder and redder as he listened, and so soonas the butcher was finished he started towards him so abruptly andfiercely that that worthy gat himself incontinently behind the weaponsof his allies, the Calf and the Killer, with an alacrity which seemedquite disproportionate to his physical condition.
"I am the commander here," Scarlett cried, "and I am bound by mypromise. I am determined to let this man go according to my word. Standback there!"
But the elder of the two French officers came forward.
He saluted Scarlett and addressed himself directly to him.
"Lieutenant Scarlett," he said, "I am your equal in rank though notin standing. We were sent here under your orders to obtain certaindespatches of great importance to our general and to the comingcampaign. We shall therefore be compelled to take this man with us,with all the papers in his possession, and to report your conduct tothe commander at headquarters."
His words appeared first to amuse and then to infuriate John Scarlett.
Striking suddenly at the triple candlestick on his right, he leapedover the table, crying, "Down with the lights! I am with you, WatGordon. Through the door and have at them out into the open. It is youronly chance."
Wat, whose sword was ready in his hand, struck sideways at the othergroup of lights and sent them crashing to the floor. Most of thesewent out at once in their fall, but one or two continued to burn fora moment with a faint light as they lay among the trampling feet. Watthrew himself at the doorway in which he had heard the laugh, andthrough which Scarlett had preceded him a moment before. Wat could hearthat valiant sworder somewhere in front of him, striking good blowsand swearing, "Out with you, devil's brats!" at the top of his voice.So when he reached the end of the passage he found at the outer doorScarlett making brisk play with four or five men, who were endeavoringto hem him into a narrow space where he should not have the liberty ofhis sword-arm.
Wat ranged himself beside his late enemy, the two long blades beganto flicker fatally in the starlight, and the hurt men to cry out andstagger away. Then quite unexpectedly the crowd in front broke and fled.
"Get on your horse, Wat!" Scarlett cried. "I can keep the door againstthese loons of mine--at least till you are well out of the way."
There were two good horses, one on either side of the doorway--Wat's,and that upon which Haxo had ridden. Wat sprang upon his own, and, witha cut of his sword, Scarlett divided the halter. The horse wheeled andset off at a gallop through the sand-hills. Yet he went reluctantly,for, had it not been for the safety of his papers, Wat would gladlyhave stayed and helped John Scarlett to engage the whole of the army ofFrance, with any number of Bulls and Killers in addition thereto.
For, as he vanished into the black night, he could hear John Scarlettadvising the first man who desired three feet of cold steel throughhis vitals to step up and be accommodated. And as he turned eastwardtowards Amersfort, riding beneath the silent bulk of the old castle ofBrederode, he heard again the clash of iron and the cry of pain whichhe knew so well. He smiled a little grimly, and wished nothing betterthan that his papers had been delivered, and he again at work at hisold master's elbow.
Presently, however, having, as it seemed to him, left all possibilityof pursuit behind, Wat put his horse into an easier pace, and rodeon by silent and unfrequented paths towards the east, judging hisdirection by the stars--which had been an old study of his when it washis hap to take to the heather in the black days of the Covenant inScotland.
As he went he became aware of the noise of a horse galloping swiftlybehind him. He drew his sword and stood on the defence, lest the soundshould betoken a new danger; but presently he heard a voice calling hisown name loudly:
"Wat Gordon! I say, Wat Gordon!"
It was the voice of Jack Scarlett, his late enemy and present deliverer.
He rode up beside Walter, very strange to look upon, clad in some suitof white or pale blanket-color that glimmered in the dusk of the night.
"I gave half a dozen of the rascals that which it will be two days orthey get the better of, I'se warrant," he said, chuckling to himself;"and then, thinking that mayhap I might not be welcome any longer inthe army of France, I e'en came my ways after you. As I rode I cast myuniform and left my commission in the pocket of my coat. So I am butpoor masterless Jack Scarlett once more--a free comrade looking for aregiment, and equipped with nothing but his thews and his long sword,which, God be thanked, are both his own. Think ye the States-Generaland the Yellow Prince have need of such as I?"
"And how now about the anointed king?" Wat could not help saying.
"The anointed king is safe in Whitehall, and can afford to wait tillJack Scarlett is a little less hungry," answered the free-lance,frankly.
Having been thus fortunate in obtaining the only two good horses aboutthe inn of Brederode (for the Frenchmen had come by sea to the littleport of Lis-op-Zee, and the horses of the Calf and the Killer were butsorry jades), Scarlett had ridden all the way back without a challenge,or so much as encountering any sound more threatening than the roopychuckle of disturbed poultry on the farm-house roosts as he clatteredby on his way.
As the two horsemen came nearer to the city, and the east began tosend up a fountain of rosy hues to mingle with the gray spaces of theearly morning, Wat could not help laughing at the figure his comradepresented. The master-at-arms was attired simply and Spartanly in suchdarned and patched underclothing as he had amassed during half a dozencampaigns. These were not all of the same material nor color. They werenot, indeed, at all points strictly continuous, the native hide beingallowed to show itself through here and there, while only the longsword belted about the waist and the cavalry boots remained to tell ofthe well-seasoned man of wars and stratagems.
Jack Scarlett was noways offended at Wat's frank laughter. He evenglanced down at himself with a comically rueful air.
"I wish to the saints that I had met somebody else in this garb," hesaid; "and then I own I could have laughed myself off my horse."
But, nevertheless, laugh he did, and that most heartily, like agood-humored carl
e, at the figure of sin he cut in the morning light;and specially he was delighted at the paralyzed astonishment of a lank,hobbledehoy gooseherd who came trolloping along a path towards a canalbridge, yawning so that his lower jaw and his head well-nigh droppedapart. For at sight of the red-bearded man in the white sacking andtop-boots the wand-twirling yokel gave a yell sudden as the popping ofa cork, and forthwith fled, running fleet-foot along the edge of thecanal as though the devil himself had been tattering at his tail.
"This guiser's mode will never do to enter the city of Amersfortwithal!" quoth Scarlett, looking down at his own inconsequentragamuffin swathings.
And he paused to consider the problem, while Wat divided himselfbetween chuckling at his late enemy's dilemma, thinking what he wouldsay in his coming interview with Barra in the camp, and (what occupiednine out of every ten minutes) wondering how Kate McGhie would receivehim in the street of Zaandpoort.
At last the man in the white bandagings had an idea. He clapped hishand suddenly to his brow.
"What a dull dotard am I to forget Sandy Lyall!"
"I know," he continued in explanation, "a certain honest fool of a Scotthat hath wedded a wife of the country. He lives but a mile from hereand breeds young Flamands for the prince's armies, and ducks for theAmersfort market. We will e'en go find him, and make him deliver of thebest in his wardrobe. For he and I count kin in some seventeenth oreighteenth degree, though this is the first time I ever bethought me ofclaiming it."
And with no more words John Scarlett turned his horse briskly down aside lane, just as the sun was rising and beginning to shine ruddilybrown through the morning haze. The sails of a score of windmillsdarted up suddenly black in the level rush of light, and every hissinggoose and waddling, matronly hen had a rosy side and a gray side,together with an attenuated shadow which stretched up the dikes andaway across the polders.
Presently Scarlett and his companion, at the foot of a leafy by-lane,came to the house of the Scot who had married the Flemish wife for thevery practical purposes described by Scarlett.
The madcap figure in white went forward to the door, while Wat remainedbehind cackling helplessly with idiot laughter. Scarlett thundered onthe warped and sun-whitened deal of the panels with the hilt of hissword. Then, receiving no response, he kicked lustily with his bootsand swore roundly at the unseen occupants in a dozen camp dialects.
During his harangues, sulky maledictions grumbled intermittently fromthe house. Presently an upper window flew open, a splash of dirtywater fell souse on the warrior, and still more sadly bedraggled thepreposterous quixotry of his attire.
The temper of the master-at-arms was now strained to thebreaking-point. "Sandy Lyall," he cried--and to do him justice,his voice was more full of sorrow than of anger--"Sandy Lyall, ofPittenweem, listen to me, John Scarlett, gin ye dinna come doon thisminute and get me a suit o' claes, warm and dry, I'll thraw your dirtyFifish neck--aye, like a twist of rotten straw at a rick-thatching."
But even this explicit malediction threatened to go by without effect.
But at long and last there looked out of the small diamond-paned windowfrom which the jar of water had fallen the head of a respectable enoughwoman, who wore a red shawl wrapped round her coarse black hair in thefashion of a nightcap.
"SCARLETT THUNDERED ON THE PANELS WITH THE HILT OF HISSWORD"]
"Decent woman," cried Jack Scarlett to her, "is your man at hame?"
But the woman, feather-bed sleep yet blinking heavily in her eyes,threw up her hands and shrieked aloud at the unexpected apparition ofa man thus mountebanking before her window in white and incompleteskin-tights.
Without articulate speech she withdrew her head and fled within.Whereat Scarlett fell to louder knocking than before, exclaiming allthe while on the idleness, incapacity, and general uselessness ofsuch men of Fife as had married foreigneering sluts, and especiallythreatening what he would do to the particular body and soul of SandyLyall, sometime indweller in the ancient borough of Pittenweem.
"Never did I see such a man. The ill-faured wife o' him settin' herhead out o' a winnock-sole at five in the morning, and Sandy himsel'lyin' snorkin' an' wamblin' in his naked bed like a gussy swine in astye! Lord, Lord, wait till I get my hands on him! I'll learn him tokeep honester men than himsel' waitin' on the loan of his Sabbath gear,crawling partan o' the East Neuk that he is!"
"Aye, John Scarlett, man, but is that you, na?" drawled a quiet, sleepyvoice at the window. "Wha wad hae thocht on seeing you in mountebank'scleading so early in the morning? Hae ye been at some play-actin' nearby? Ye dinna look as if you had gotten muckle for your pains. Come awaben, and I'll gar the wife rise an' get ye porridge--siclike porridgeas ane can get in this Guid-forsaken country, that is mair likehen-meat than decent brose for Scots thrapples, to my thinkin'!"
"Sandy Lyall!" cried Scarlett, still much incensed, "hear to me! Comedown this instant and let me in! Gi'e me a pair o' trews, a coat, anda decent cloak, and let me be gaun, for I am on an errand of greatimportance which takes me before the Prince of Orange himsel' this verymorning, and it befits not a Scot and a soldier to appear before hishigh mightiness in this costume."
"I'll come doon the noo, as fast as I can don my gear and truss mypoints!" cried Sandy Lyall. "Ye were aye a rude man and unceevil a' thedays o' ye, John Scarlett. But I canna leave ony Scots lad to want fora pair o' breeks and a cloak to cover his nakedness--or what amounts tothe same thing, as the monkey said when he sat down on the hot girdleand gat up again before he was fairly rested."
And with these words, Sandy Lyall, of Pittenweem, in the shire of Fife,slowly descended, his feet sounding portentously on the wooden ladder.The door opened, and there was the master of the dwelling standing withoutstretched hand, bidding his compatriots welcome to his house. Theaction would have disarmed a Cossack of Russia. It quenched the angerof John Scarlett like magic.
"Aye, man, an' hoo's a' wi' ye?" he said, as it is the custom for allScots to say when they forgather with one another in any land under thesun.
After turning out of one drawer and another various articles of hiswife's attire, which were clearly not intended (as Sandy remarked)"for breeks to a grown man like John Scarlett," the master of thehouse at last managed to array his friend somewhat less unsuitably ina coat of dark-blue Rotterdam cloth, adorned with tails, which on histhinner figure clapped readily together in a military manner; a pair ofbreeches of tanned leather went very well with the boots and sword-beltof buff, which were all that remained to Scarlett of his fine Frenchuniform. The master-at-arms surveyed himself with no small satisfaction.
"For a Fifer, ye are a man of some discernment," he said; "and yourduds fit me no that ill. They maun hae been made for ye when ye wereyounger, and altogether a better-lookin' figure o' a man!"
"Aye; they were cutted oot for me when I was coortin'--no this ane,"Sandy Lyall explained, indicating his present wife with a placid,contemptuous thumb, "but a braw, weel-tochered lass oot o' the pairisho' Sant Andros. But she wadna hae me because I cam' frae Pittenweem.She said I smelled o' fish-creels."
"And what, Master Lyall, might have brought you to Flanders?" askedWat, who had been waiting as patiently as he might while his companionarrayed himself.
He thought that this otiose burgher of Pittenweem must be a strangesubject for the religious enthusiasm which was mostly in these days thecause of a man's being exiled from his native country.
"Weel," returned Sandy, with immense and impressive gravity, checkingoff the details upon the palm of one hand with the index-finger of theother, "ye see the way o't was this: There was a lass, and there was aman, and there was me. And the man and me, we baith wanted the lass--yecomprehend? And the lass didna want but ane o' us. And that ane wasname. So I gied the man a clour, and he fell to the grund and didna getup. And the lass she gaed and telled. So that was the way that I leftmy native land for conscience' sake."
Wat marvelled at the simple, quiet-looking man who had so strenuouslyarranged matters to his satisfactio
n before leaving his love and theland of his birth.
"Aye, but that wasna the warst o' it," Sandy Lyall went on, "for,a' owin' to that lang-tongued limmer, I had to leave ahint me asthrivin' a cooper's business as there was in a' the heartsome toon o'Pittenweem--aye, and as mony as half a score o' folk owin' me siller!But I owed ither folk a deal mair, and that was aye some consolation."
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