St. Ives: Being the Adventures of a French Prisoner in England by Stevenson (rom com books to read .TXT) 📗

in line on the morning of a battle.  Presently there leaped three men out of the heather; we had scarce time to get to our feet before we were assailed; and in a moment each one of us was engaged with an adversary whom the deepening twilight scarce permitted him to see.  How the battle sped in other quarters I am in no position to describe.  The rogue that fell to my share was exceedingly agile and expert with his weapon; had and held me at a disadvantage from the first assault; forced me to give ground continually, and at last, in mere self-defence, to let him have the point.  It struck him in the throat, and he went down like a ninepin and moved no more.

It seemed this was the signal for the engagement to be discontinued.  The other combatants separated at once; our foes were suffered, without molestation, to lift up and bear away their fallen comrade; so that I perceived this sort of war to be not wholly without laws of chivalry, and perhaps rather to partake of the character of a tournament than of a battle à outrance.  There was no doubt, at least, that I was supposed to have pushed the affair too seriously.  Our friends the enemy removed their wounded companion with undisguised consternation; and they were no sooner over the top of the brae, than Sim and Candlish roused up their wearied drove and set forth on a night march.

‘I’m thinking Faa’s unco bad,’ said the one.

‘Ay,’ said the other, ‘he lookit dooms gash.’

‘He did that,’ said the first.

And their weary silence fell upon them again.

Presently Sim turned to me.  ‘Ye’re unco ready with the stick,’ said he.

‘Too ready, I’m afraid,’ said I.  ‘I am afraid Mr. Faa (if that be his name) has got his gruel.’

‘Weel, I wouldnae wonder,’ replied Sim.

‘And what is likely to happen?’ I inquired.

‘Aweel,’ said Sim, snuffing profoundly, ‘if I were to offer an opeenion, it would not be conscientious.  For the plain fac’ is, Mr. St. Ivy, that I div not ken.  We have had crackit heids—and rowth of them—ere now; and we have had a broken leg or maybe twa; and the like of that we drover bodies make a kind of a practice like to keep among oursel’s.  But a corp we have none of us ever had to deal with, and I could set nae leemit to what Gillies micht consider proper in the affair.  Forbye that, he would be in raither a hobble himsel’, if he was to gang hame wantin’ Faa.  Folk are awfu’ throng with their questions, and parteecularly when they’re no wantit.’

‘That’s a fac’,’ said Candlish.

I considered this prospect ruefully; and then making the best of it, ‘Upon all which accounts,’ said I, ‘the best will be to get across the border and there separate.  If you are troubled, you can very truly put the blame upon your late companion; and if I am pursued, I must just try to keep out of the way.’

‘Mr. St. Ivy,’ said Sim, with something resembling enthusiasm, ‘no’ a word mair!  I have met in wi’ mony kinds o’ gentry ere now; I hae seen o’ them that was the tae thing, and I hae seen o’ them that was the tither; but the wale of a gentleman like you I have no sae very frequently seen the bate of.’

Our night march was accordingly pursued with unremitting diligence.  The stars paled, the east whitened, and we were still, both dogs and men, toiling after the wearied cattle.  Again and again Sim and Candlish lamented the necessity: it was ‘fair ruin on the bestial,’ they declared; but the thought of a judge and a scaffold hunted them ever forward.  I myself was not so much to be pitied.  All that night, and during the whole of the little that remained before us of our conjunct journey, I enjoyed a new pleasure, the reward of my prowess, in the now loosened tongue of Mr. Sim.  Candlish was still obdurately taciturn: it was the man’s nature; but Sim, having finally appraised and approved me, displayed without reticence a rather garrulous habit of mind and a pretty talent for narration.  The pair were old and close companions, co-existing in these endless moors in a brotherhood of silence such as I have heard attributed to the trappers of the west.  It seems absurd to mention love in connection with so ugly and snuffy a couple; at least, their trust was absolute; and they entertained a surprising admiration for each other’s qualities; Candlish exclaiming that Sim was ‘grand company!’ and Sim frequently assuring me in an aside that for ‘a rale, auld, stench bitch, there was nae the bate of Candlish in braid Scotland.’  The two dogs appeared to be entirely included in this family compact, and I remarked that their exploits and traits of character were constantly and minutely observed by the two masters.  Dog stories particularly abounded with them; and not only the dogs of the present but those of the past contributed their quota.  ‘But that was naething,’ Sim would begin: ‘there was a herd in Manar, they ca’d him Tweedie—ye’ll mind Tweedie, Can’lish?’  ‘Fine, that!’ said Candlish.  ‘Aweel, Tweedie had a dog—’  The story I have forgotten; I dare say it was dull, and I suspect it was not true; but indeed, my travels with the drove rendered me indulgent, and perhaps even credulous, in the matter of dog stories.  Beautiful, indefatigable beings! as I saw them at the end of a long day’s journey frisking, barking, bounding, striking attitudes, slanting a bushy tail, manifestly playing to the spectator’s eye, manifestly rejoicing in their grace and beauty—and turned to observe Sim and Candlish unornamentally plodding in the rear with the plaids about their bowed shoulders and the drop at their snuffy nose—I thought I would rather claim kinship with the dogs than with the men!  My sympathy was unreturned; in their eyes I was a creature light as air; and they would scarce spare me the time for a perfunctory caress or perhaps a hasty lap of the wet tongue, ere they were back again in sedulous attendance on those dingy deities, their masters—and their masters, as like as not, damning their stupidity.

Altogether the last hours of our tramp were infinitely the most agreeable to me, and I believe to all of us; and by the time we came to separate, there had grown up a certain familiarity and mutual esteem that made the parting harder.  It took place about four of the afternoon on a bare hillside from which I could see the ribbon of the great north road, henceforth to be my conductor.  I asked what was to pay.

‘Naething,’ replied Sim.

‘What in the name of folly is this?’ I exclaimed.  ‘You have led me, you have fed me, you have filled me full of whisky, and now you will take nothing!’

‘Ye see we indentit for that,’ replied Sim.

 ‘Indented?’ I repeated; ‘what does the man mean?’

‘Mr. St. Ivy,’ said Sim, ‘this is a maitter entirely between Candlish and me and the auld wife, Gilchrist.  You had naething to say to it; weel, ye can have naething to do with it, then.’

‘My good man,’ said I, ‘I can allow myself to be placed in no such ridiculous position.  Mrs. Gilchrist is nothing to me, and I refuse to be her debtor.’

‘I dinna exac’ly see what way ye’re gaun to help it,’ observed my drover.

‘By paying you here and now,’ said I.

‘There’s aye twa to a bargain, Mr. St. Ives,’ said he.

‘You mean that you will not take it?’ said I.

‘There or thereabout,’ said he.  ‘Forbye, that it would set ye a heap better to keep your siller for them you awe it to.  Ye’re young, Mr. St. Ivy, and thoughtless; but it’s my belief that, wi’ care and circumspection, ye may yet do credit to yoursel’.  But just you bear this in mind: that him that awes siller should never gie siller.’

Well, what was there to say?  I accepted his rebuke, and bidding the pair farewell, set off alone upon my southward way.

‘Mr. St. Ivy,’ was the last word of Sim, ‘I was never muckle ta’en up in Englishry; but I think that I really ought to say that ye seem to me to have the makings of quite a decent lad.’

CHAPTER XI—THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

It chanced that as I went down the hill these last words of my friend the drover echoed not unfruitfully in my head.  I had never told these men the least particulars as to my race or fortune, as it was a part, and the best part, of their civility to ask no questions: yet they had dubbed me without hesitation English.  Some strangeness in the accent they had doubtless thus explained.  And it occurred to me, that if I could pass in Scotland for an Englishman, I might be able to reverse the process and pass in England for a Scot.  I thought, if I was pushed to it, I could make a struggle to imitate the brogue; after my experience with Candlish and Sim, I had a rich provision of outlandish words at my command; and I felt I could tell the tale of Tweedie’s dog so as to deceive a native.  At the same time, I was afraid my name of St. Ives was scarcely suitable; till I remembered there was a town so called in the province of Cornwall, thought I might yet be glad to claim it for my place of origin, and decided for a Cornish family and a Scots education.  For a trade, as I was equally ignorant of all, and as the most innocent might at any moment be the means of my exposure, it was best to pretend to none.  And I dubbed myself a young gentleman of a sufficient fortune and an idle, curious habit of mind, rambling the country at my own charges, in quest of health, information, and merry adventures.

At Newcastle, which was the first town I reached, I completed my preparations for the part, before going to the inn, by the purchase of a knapsack and a pair of leathern gaiters.  My plaid I continued to wear from sentiment.  It was warm, useful to sleep in if I were again benighted, and I had discovered it to be not unbecoming for a man of gallant carriage.  Thus equipped, I supported my character of the light-hearted pedestrian not amiss.  Surprise was indeed expressed that I should have selected such a season of the year; but I pleaded some delays of business, and smilingly claimed to be an eccentric.  The devil was in it, I would say, if any season of the year was not good enough for me; I was not made of sugar, I was no mollycoddle to be afraid of an ill-aired bed or a sprinkle of snow; and I would knock upon the table with my fist and call for t’other bottle, like the noisy and free-hearted young gentleman I was.  It was my policy (if I may so express myself) to talk much and say little.  At the inn tables, the country, the state of the roads, the business interest of those who sat down with me, and the course of public events, afforded me a considerable field in which I might discourse at large and still communicate no information about myself.  There was no one with less air of reticence; I plunged into my company up to the neck; and I had a long cock-and-bull story of an aunt of mine which must have convinced the most suspicious of my innocence.  ‘What!’ they would have said, ‘that young ass to be concealing anything!  Why, he has deafened me with an aunt of his until my head aches.  He only wants you should give him a line, and he would tell you his whole descent from Adam downward, and his whole private fortune to the last shilling.’ A responsible solid fellow was even so much moved by pity for my inexperience as to give me a word or two of good advice: that I was but a young man after all—I had at this time a deceptive air of youth that made me easily pass for one-and-twenty, and was, in the circumstances, worth a fortune—that the company at inns was very mingled, that I should do well to be more careful, and the like; to all which I made answer that I meant no harm myself and expected none from others, or the devil was in it.  ‘You are one of those d---d prudent fellows that I could never abide with,’ said I.  ‘You are the kind of man that has a long head.  That’s all the world, my dear sir: the long-heads and the short-horns!  Now, I am a short-horn.’  ‘I doubt,’ says he, ‘that you will not go very far without getting sheared.’  I offered to bet with him on that, and he made off, shaking his head.

But my particular delight was to enlarge on politics and the war.  None damned the French like me; none was more bitter against