Red Cap Tales Part 37

Edie leaped into the grave and began to strike; but he soon tired or pretended to tire. So he called out to the German that turn and turn about was fair play. Whereupon, fired with the desire for wealth, Dousterswivel began to strike and shovel the earth with all his might, while Edie encouraged him, standing very much at his ease by the side of the hole.

"At it again," he cried; "strike--strike! What for are ye stopping, man?"

"Stopping," cried the German, angrily, looking out of the grave at his tormentor; "I am down at the bed-rock, I tell you!"

"And that's the likeliest place of any," said Edie; "it will just be a big broad stone laid down to cover the treasure. Ah, that's it! There was a Wallace stroke indeed! It's broken! Hurrah, boys, there goes Ringan's pickaxe! It's a shame o' the Fairport folk to sell such frail gear. Try the shovel; at it again, Maister Dousterdeevil!"

But this time the German, without replying, leaped out of the pit, and shouted in a voice that trembled with anger, "Does you know, Mr. Edie Ochiltree, who it is you are putting off your gibes and your jests upon?

You base old person, I will cleave your skull-piece with this shovels!"

"Ay," said Edie, "and where do ye think my pike-staff would be a' the time?"

But Dousterswivel, growing more and more furious, heaved up the broken pickaxe to smite his tormentor dead--which, indeed, he might have done had not Edie, suddenly pointing with his hand, exclaimed in a stern voice, "Do ye think that heaven and earth will suffer ye to murder an auld man that gate--a man that might be your father? _Look behind you, man!_"

Dousterswivel turned, and beheld, to his utter astonishment, a tall dark figure standing close behind him. Whether this was the angry Misticot or not, the newcomer certainly lifted a st.u.r.dy staff and laid it across the rascal's back, bestowing on him half-a-dozen strokes so severe that he fell to the ground, where he lay some minutes half unconscious with pain and terror.

When the German came to himself, he was lying close to Misticot's open grave on the soft earth which had been thrown out. He began to turn his mind to projects of revenge. It must, he thought, be either Monkbarns or Sir Arthur who had done this, in order to be revenged upon him. And his mind finally deciding upon the latter, as most likely to have set Edie Ochiltree on to deceive him, he determined from that moment to achieve the ruin of his "dear and honoured patron" of the last five years.

As he left the precincts of the ruined Priory, he continued his vows of vengeance against Edie and all a.s.sociated with him. He had, he declared aloud, been a.s.saulted and murdered, besides being robbed of fifty pounds as well. He would, on the very next day, put the law in motion "against all the peoples"--but against Edie Ochiltree first of all.

A QUITE SUPERFLUOUS INTERLUDE

The snow was now deep in the woods about the library. It lay sleek and drifted upon the paths, a broad-flaked, mortar-like snow, evidently produced on the borderland between thawing and freezing.

"It is fine and b.u.t.tery," said Hugh John, with a glance of intention at Sir Toady Lion, which was equal to any challenge ever sent from Douglas to Percy--or even that which Mr. Lesley carried for Hector MacIntyre to Mr. Lovel's Fairport lodgings.

Sir Toady nodded with fierce willingness. He scented the battle from afar.

"Ten yards then, twenty s...o...b..a.l.l.s made before you begin, and then go as you please. But no rus.h.i.+ng in, before first volley!"

"And no holding the b.a.l.l.s under the drip of the kitchen roof!" said Hugh John, who had suffered from certain Toady Lionish practices which personally he scorned.

"Well, then," said I, "out you go in your jerseys for one hot half-hour. But no standing about, mind!"

Sweetheart and Maid Margaret looked exceedingly wistful.

"Of course," I said, "Sweetheart will want to go on with her knitting, but if she likes, the Maid can watch them from the window."

"Oo-oh!" said Maid Margaret, "I _should_ like to go too!"

"And I should not mind going either," admitted Sweetheart, "just to see that they did not hurt the Maid. They are such rough boys!"

So it was arranged, as I had known it would be from the first. The snow was still falling, but the wind had gone down. There was to be no standing still, and afterward they were to change immediately for dinner. These were the conditions of permitted civil strife.

"Please, is rolling in the snow permitted?" said Hugh John, to whom this was a condition of importance.

"Why, yes," said I, "that is, if you catch the enemy out of his intrenchments."

"Um-m-m-m!" said Hugh John, grimly rubbing his hands, "I'll catch him." In a lower tone he added, "And I'll teach him to put s...o...b..a.l.l.s in the drip!"

As he spoke, he mimicked the motions of one who shoves snow down inside the collar of his adversary.

The cover of a deal box, with a soap advertis.e.m.e.nt on it, made a very fair intrenching tool, and soon formidable snow-works could be seen rising rapidly on the slopes of the clothes' drying ground, making a semicircle about that corner which contained the big iron swing, erect on its two tall posts. Hugh John and Maid Margaret, the attacking party, were still invisible, probably concocting a plan. But Sweetheart and Sir Toady, laughing and jesting as at some supreme stratagem, were busily employed throwing up the snow till it was nearly breast-high. The formation of the ground was in their favour. It fell away rapidly on all sides, except to the north, where the position was made impregnable by a huge p.r.i.c.kly hedge.

Nominally they were supposed to be enacting _The Antiquary_, but actually I could not see that the scene without bore any precise relation to what they had been hearing within. Perhaps, however, the day was too cold and stormy for standing upon the exact.i.tudes of history.

I did not remain all the time a spectator of the fray. The stated duel of twenty b.a.l.l.s was over before I again reached the window. The combatants had entered upon the go-as-you-please stage.

Indeed, I could gather so much even at my desk, by the confusion of yells and slogans emitted by the contending parties.

Presently the cry of "It's not fair!" brought me to the window.

Hugh John and Maid Margaret had evidently gained a certain preliminary success. For they had been able to reach a position from which (with long poles used at other times for the protection of the strawberry beds) they were enabled, under shelter themselves, to shake the branches of the big tree which overshadowed the swing and the position of the enemy. Every twig and branch was, of course, laden with snow, and ma.s.ses fell in rapid succession upon the heads of the defenders. This was annoying at first, but at a word from Sir Toady, Sweetheart and he seized their intrenching tools, calling out: "Thank you--thank you! It's helping us so much! We've been wanting that badly!

All our snow was gone, and we had to make b.a.l.l.s off the ramparts. But now it's all right. Thank you--thank you!"

The truth of this grew so evident that the baffled a.s.sailants retired to consult. Nothing better than a frontal attack, well sustained and driven home to the hilt, occurred to Hugh John; and, indeed, after all, that was the best thing that could happen on such a day. A yell, a charge, a quick batter of s...o...b..a.l.l.s, and then a rush straight up the bank--Maid Margaret, lithe as a deer-hound, leading, her skirts kilted "as like a boy" as on the spur of the moment she could achieve with a piece of twine. Right on Sweetheart she rushed, who,--as in some sort her senior and legal protector,--of course, could not be very rough with her, nor yet use the methods customary and licensed between embattled brothers.

But while the Maid thus held Sweetheart in play, Hugh John developed his stratagem. Leaning over the ramparts he seized Sir Toady by the collar, and then, throwing himself backward down the slope, confident in the thick blanketing of snow underneath, he dragged Sir Toady Lion along with him.

"A prisoner--a prisoner!" he cried, both of them, captor and captive alike, being involved in a misty flurry of snow, which boiled up from the s...o...b..nk, in the midst of which they fraternally embraced, in that intimate tangle of legs and arms which only boys can achieve without breaking bones.

"Back--come back!" rang out the order of the victorious Hugh John. "Sit on him--sit on him hard!"

Thus, and not otherwise, was Sir Toady captured and Sweetheart left alone in the shattered intrenchments, which a little before had seemed so impregnable. Now in these snow wars, and, indeed, in all the combattings of the redoubtable four, it was the rule that a captive belonged to the side which took him, from the very moment of his giving in. He must utterly renounce his former allegiance, and fight for his new party as fiercely as formerly he had done against them. This is the only way of decently prolonging strife when the combatants are well matched, but various prejudices stand in the way of applying it to international conflicts.

In this fas.h.i.+on was Sweetheart left alone in the fort which she and Sir Toady had constructed with such complete confidence. She did not, however, show the least fear, being a young lady of a singularly composed mind. On the other hand, she set herself to repair the various breaches in the walls, and so far as might be to contract them, so that she would have less s.p.a.ce to defend. Then she sat sedately down on the swing and rocked herself to and fro to keep warm, till the storm should break on her devoted head.

It broke! With unanimous yell, an army, formidable by being exactly three times her own numbers, rushed across the level s.p.a.ce, waving flags and shouting in all the stern and headlong glory of the charge. s...o...b..a.l.l.s were discharged at the bottom of the glacis, the slope was climbed, and the enemy arrived almost at the very walls, before Sweetheart made a motion. There was something uncanny about it. She did not even dodge the b.a.l.l.s. For one thing they were very badly aimed, and her chief safety was in sitting still. They were, you see, aiming at her.

It soon became evident, however, that the works must be stormed. Still Sweetheart had made no motion to resist, except that, still seated on the broad board of the swing, she had gradually pushed herself back as far as she could go without losing her foothold on the ground.

"She's afraid!--She is retreating! On--on!"

No, Hugh John, for once your military genius has been at fault. For at the very moment when the snowy walls were being scaled, Sweetheart suddenly lifted her feet from the ground. The swing, pushed back to the limit of its chains, glided smoothly forward. One solidly shod boot-sole took Hugh John full on the chest. Another "plunked" Sir Toady in a locality which he held yet more tender, especially, as now, before dinner. Both warriors shot backward as if discharged from a petard, disappearing from view down the slope into the big drifts at the foot. Maid Margaret, who had not been touched at all, but who had stood (as it were) in the very middle of affairs, uttered one terrified yell and bolted.

"Time!" cried the umpire, appearing in the doorway.

The baffled champions entered first. While changing, they had got ready at least twenty complete explanations of their downfall.

Sweetheart, coming in a little late, sat down to her sewing, and listened placidly with a faint, sweet, far-away smile which seemed to say that knitting, though an occupation despised by boys, does not wholly obscure the intellect. But she did not say a word.

Her brothers somehow found this att.i.tude excessively provoking.

Thus exercised in mind and body, and presently also fortified by the mid-day meal, the company declared its kind readiness to hear the rest of _The Antiquary_. It was not _Rob Roy_, of course--but a snowy day brought with it certain compensations. So to the crackle of the wood fire and the click and s.h.i.+ft of the knitting needles, I began the final tale from _The Antiquary_.