CHAPTER XVI. THE BLOODY CARTRIDGE. So stands the Thracian herdsman with his spear DRYDEN'S Palamon and Arcite. Nay, never shake thy gory locks at me; Macbeth. It was on a fine summer morning, somewhere about four o'clock, when I wakened from my night's rest, and was about thinking to bestir myself, that I heard the sound of voices in the kail-yard stretching south from our back windows. I listened—and I listened-and I better listened and still the sound of the argle-bargling became more distinct, now in a fleeching way, and now in harsh angry tones, as if some quarrelsome disagreement had taken place. I had not the comfort of my wife's company in this dilemmy; she being away, three days before, on the top of Tammie Trundle the carrier's cart, to Lauder, on a visit to her folks there; her mother (my gudemother like) having been for some time ill with an income in her leg, which threatened to make a lameter of her in her old age, the two doctors there-not speaking of the blacksmith, and sundry skeely old women—being able to make nothing of the business; so nobody happened to be with me in the room saving wee Beniie, who was lying asleep at the back of the bed, with his little Kilmarnock on his head, as sound as a top. Nevertheless, I looked for my clothes; and, opening one half of the window shutter, I saw four young birkies, well dressed-indeed three of them customers of my own-all belonging to the town; two of them young doctors, one of them a writer's clerk, and the other a grocer. The whole appeared very fierce and fearsome, like turkey-cocks; swaggering about with warlike arms as if they had been the king's dragoons; and priming a pair of pistols, which one of the surgeons, a spirity, outspoken lad, Maister Blister, was holding in his grip. I jealoused at once what they were after, being now a wee up to fire-arms; so I saw that scaith was to come of it; and that I would be wanting in my duty on four heads,—first, as a Christian; second, as a man; third, as a subject; and fourth, as a father; if I withheld myself from the scene; nor lifted up my voice, however fruitlessly, against such crying iniquity as the wanton letting out of human blood; so forth I hastened, half dressed, with my grey stockings rolled up my thighs over my corduroys, and my old hat above my cowl, to the kail-yard of contention. I was just in the nick of time; and my presence checked the effusion of blood for a little-but wait a wee. So high and furious were at least three of the party, that I saw it was catching water in a sieve to waste words on them, knowing as clearly as the sun serves the world, that interceding would be of no avail. Howsoever, I made a feint, and threatened to bowl away for a magistrate, if they would not desist from their barbarous and bloody purpose; but, i'fegs, I had better kept my counsel till it was asked for. "Tailor Mansie," blustered out Maister Thomas Blister with a furious cock of his eye-he was a queer Eirish birkie, come over for his education—“ since ye have ventured to thrust your nose, ma vourneen," said he, "where nobody invited ye, you must just stay," added he, "and abide by the consequences. This is an affair of honour, you take, don't ye? and if ye venture to stir one foot from the spot, och then, ma bouchal,” said he, “by the poker of St Patrick, but whisk through ye goes one of these leaden playthings, as sure as ye ever spoiled a coat, or cabbaged broadcloth! Ye have now come out, ye observe,-hark ye," said he, "and are art and part in the business; and if one, or both, of the principals be killed, poor devils," said he, “we are all alike liable to take our trial before the Justiciary Court, hark ye; and by the powers," said he, "I doubt not but, on proper consideration, machree, that they will allow us to get off mercifully, on this side of swinging, by a verdict of manslaughter -and be hanged to them!" 'Od, I found myself immediately in a scrape; but how to get out of it baffled my gumption. It set me all a shivering; yet I thought that, come the worst when it should, they surely would not hang the father of a helpless small family, that had nothing but his needle for their support, if I made a proper affidavy, about having tried to make peace between the youths. So, conscience being a brave supporter, I abode in silence, though not without many queer and qualmish thoughts, and a pit-patting of the heart, not unco pleasant in the tholing. "Blood and wounds!" bawled Maister Thomas Blister, "it would be a disgrace for ever on the honourable profession of physic," egging on poor Maister Willy Magneezhy, whose face was as white as double-bleached linen, "to make an apology for such an insult. Arrah, my honey! you not fit to doctor a cat,you not fit to bleed a calf,-you not fit to poultice a pig,—after three years' apprenticeship," said he, “and a winter with Doctor Monro? By the cupping-glasses of 'Pocrates," said he, “and by the pistol of Gallon, but I would have caned him on the spot if he had just let out half as much to me! Look ye, man," said he, "look ye, man, he is all shaking," (this was a God's truth;) "he'll turn tail. At him like fire, Willie." Magneezhy, though sadly frightened, looked a thought brighter; and made a kind of half step forward. "Say that ye'll ask my pardon once more,-and if not," whined the poor lad, with a voice broken and trembling, "then we must just shoot one another." "Devil a bit," answered Maister Bloatsheet, "devil a bit. No, sir; you must down on your bare knees, and beg ten thousand pardons for calling me out here, in a raw morning; or I'll have a shot at you, whether you will or not." "Will you stand that?" said Blister, with eyes like burning coals. " By the living jingo, and the holy poker, Magneezhy, if you stand that,—if you stand that, I say, I stand no longer your second, but leave you to disgrace and a caning. If he likes to shoot you like a dog, and not as a gentleman, then, cuishla machree,-let him do it, and be done!" “No, sir,” replied Magneezhy with a quivering voice, which he tried in vain, poor fellow, to render warlike, (he had never been in the volunteers like me.) “Hand us the pistols, then; and let us do or die!" Spoken like a hero, and brother of the lancet: as little afraid at the sight of your own blood, as at that of your patients," said Blister. "Hand over the pistols." It was an awful business. Gude save us, such goings on in a Christian land! While Mr Bloatsheet, the young writer, was in the act of cocking the bloody weapon, I again, but to no purpose, endeavoured to slip in a word edgeways. Magneezhy was in an awful case; if he had been already shot, he could not have looked more clay and corpse-like; so I took up a douce earnest confabulation, while the stramash was drawing to a bloody conclusion, with Mr Harry Molasses, the fourth in the spree, who was standing behind Bloatsheet with a large mahogany box under his arm, something in shape like that of a licensed packman, ganging about from house to house, through the country-side, selling toys and trinkets; or niffering plaited ear-rings, and suchlike, with young lasses, for old silver coins or cracked teaspoons. "Oh!" answered he, very composedly, as if it had been a canister full of black-rapee or black-guard, that he had just lifted down from his top-shelf, "it's just Doctor Blister's saws, whittles, and big knives, in case any of their legs or arms be blown away, that he may cut them off." Little would have prevented me sinking down through the ground, had I not remembered at the preceese moment, that I myself was a soldier, and liable, when the hour of danger threatened, to be called out, in marching-order, to the field of battle. But by this time the pistols were in the hands of the two infatuated young men, Mr Bloatsheet, as fierce as a hussar dragoon, and Magneezhy as supple in the knees as if he was all on oiled hinges; so the next consideration was to get well out of the way, the lookers-on running nearly as great a-chance of being shot as the principals, they not being accustomed, like me for instance, to the use of arms; on which account, I scougged myself behind a big pear-tree; both being to fire when Blister gave the word "Off!” I had scarcely jouked into my hidy-hole, when “crackcrack" played the pistols like lightning; and as soon as I got my cowl taken from my eyes, and looked about, woes me! I saw Magneezhy clap his hand to his brow, wheel round like a peerie, or a sheep seized with the sturdie, and then play flap down on his broadside, breaking the necks of half-a-dozen cabbage-stocks-three of which were afterwards clean lost, as we could not put them all into the pot at one time. The whole of us ran forward, but foremost was Bloatsheet, who seizing Magneezhy by the hand, cried, with a mournful face, "I hope you forgive me? Only say this as long as you have breath; for I am off to Leith harbour in half a minute." The blood was running over poor Magneezhy's eyes, and drib-dribbling from the neb of his nose, so he was truly in a pitiful state; but he said with more strength than I thought he could have mustered,-"Yes, yes, fly for your life. I am dying without much pain-fly for your life, for I am a gone man!" Bloatsheet bounced through the kail-yard like a maukin, clamb over the bit wall, and off like mad; while Blister was feeling Magneezhy's pulse with one hand, and looking at his doctor's watch, which he had in the other. "Do ye think that the poor lad will live, doctor?" said I to him. He gave his head a wise shake, and only observed, “I dare say, it will be a hanging business among us. In what direction do you think, Mansie, we should all take flight? But I answered bravely, "Flee them that will, I’se flee nane. If I am taken prisoner, the town-officers maun haul me from my own house; but, nevertheless, I trust the visibility of my innocence will be as plain as a pikestaff to the eyes of the Fifteen!" "What, then, Mansie, will we do with poor Magneezhy? Give us your advice in need." "Let us carry him down to my own bed," answered I; would not desert a fellow-creature in his dying hour! Help me down with him, and then flee the country as fast as you are able! " We immediately proceeded, and lifted the poor lad, who had now dwalmed away, upon our wife's hand-barrow-Blister taking the feet, and me the oxters, whereby I got my waistcoat |