St. Ronan's Well

With a swifter pace than his half-pay leisure usually encouraged, or than his habitual dignity permitted, Captain MacTurk cleared the ground betwixt the Spring and its gay vicinity, and the ruins of the Aultoun, where reigned our friend Meg Dods, the sole assertor of its ancient dignities. To the door of the Cleikum Inn the Captain addressed himself, as one too much accustomed to war to fear a rough reception; although at the very first aspect of Meg, who presented her person at the half opened door, his military experience taught him that his entrance into the place would, in all probability, be disputed.

“Is Mr. Tyrrel at home?” was the question; and the answer was conveyed, by the counter-interrogation, “Wha may ye be that speers?”

As the most polite reply to this question, and an indulgence, at the same time, of his own taciturn disposition, the Captain presented to Luckie Dods the fifth part of an ordinary playing card, much grimed with snuff, which bore on its blank side his name and quality. But Luckie Dods rejected the information thus tendered, with contemptuous scorn.

“Nane of your deil's play-books for me,” said she; “it's an ill world since sic prick-my-dainty doings came in fashion – It's a poor tongue that canna tell its ain name, and I'll hae nane of your scarts upon pasteboard.”

“I am Captain MacTurk, of the – regiment,” said the Captain, disdaining further answer.

“MacTurk?” repeated Meg, with an emphasis, which induced the owner of the name to reply, “Yes, honest woman – MacTurk – Hector MacTurk – have you any objections to my name, goodwife?”

“Nae objections have I,” answered Meg; “it's e'en an excellent name for a heathen. – But, Captain MacTurk, since sae it be that ye are a captain, ye may e'en face about and march your ways hame again, to the tune of Dumbarton drums; for ye are ganging to have nae speech of Maister Tirl, or ony lodger of mine.”

“And wherefore not?” demanded the veteran; “and is this of your own foolish head, honest woman, or has your lodger left such orders?”

“Maybe he has and maybe no,” answered Meg, sturdily; “and I ken nae mair right that ye suld ca' me honest woman, than I have to ca' you honest man, whilk is as far frae my thoughts as it wad be from heaven's truth.”

“The woman is deleerit!” said Captain MacTurk; “but coom, coom – a gentleman is not to be misused in this way when he comes on a gentleman's business; so make you a bit room on the door-stane, that I may pass by you, or I will make room for myself, by Cot! to your small pleasure.”

And so saying he assumed the air of a man who was about to make good his passage. But Meg, without deigning farther reply, flourished around her head the hearth-broom, which she had been employing to its more legitimate purpose, when disturbed in her housewifery by Captain MacTurk.

“I ken your errand weel eneugh, Captain – and I ken yoursell. Ye are ane of the folk that gang about yonder setting folk by the lugs, as callants set their collies to fight. But ye sall come to nae lodger o' mine, let a-be Maister Tirl, wi' ony sic ungodly errand; for I am ane that will keep God's peace and the King's within my dwelling.”

So saying, and in explicit token of her peaceable intentions, she again flourished her broom.

The veteran instinctively threw himself under Saint George's guard, and drew two paces back, exclaiming, “That the woman was either mad, or as drunk as whisky could make her;” an alternative which afforded Meg so little satisfaction, that she fairly rushed on her retiring adversary, and began to use her weapon to fell purpose.

“Me drunk, ye scandalous blackguard!” (a blow with the broom interposed as parenthesis,) “me, that am fasting from all but sin and bohea!” (another whack.)

The Captain, swearing, exclaiming, and parrying, caught the blows as they fell, showing much dexterity in single-stick. The people began to gather; and how long his gallantry might have maintained itself against the spirit of self-defence and revenge, must be left uncertain, for the arrival of Tyrrel, returned from a short walk, put a period to the contest.

Meg, who had a great respect for her guest, began to feel ashamed of her own violence, and slunk into the house; observing, however, that she trewed she had made her hearth-broom and the auld heathen's pow right weel acquainted. The tranquillity which ensued upon her departure, gave Tyrrel an opportunity to ask the Captain, whom he at length recognised, the meaning of this singular affray, and whether the visit was intended for him; to which the veteran replied very discomposedly, that “he should have known that long enough ago, if he had had decent people to open his door, and answer a civil question, instead of a flyting madwoman, who was worse than an eagle,” he said, “or a mastiff-bitch, or a she-bear, or any other female beast in the creation.”

Half suspecting his errand, and desirous to avoid unnecessary notoriety, Tyrrel, as he showed the Captain to the parlour, which he called his own, entreated him to excuse the rudeness of his landlady, and to pass from the topic to that which had procured him the honour of this visit.

“And you are right, my good Master Tyrrel,” said the Captain, pulling down the sleeves of his coat, adjusting his handkerchief and breast-ruffle, and endeavouring to recover the composure of manner becoming his mission, but still adverting indignantly to the usage he had received – “By Cot! if she had but been a man, if it were the King himself – However, Mr. Tyrrel, I am come on a civil errand – and very civilly I have been treated – the auld bitch should be set in the stocks, and be tamned! – My friend, Sir Bingo – By Cot! I shall never forget that woman's insolence – if there be a constable or a cat-o'-nine-tails within ten miles” —

“I perceive, Captain,” said Tyrrel, “that you are too much disturbed at this moment to enter upon the business which has brought you here – if you will step into my bedroom, and make use of some cold water and a towel, it will give you the time to compose yourself a little.”

“I shall do no such thing, Mr. Tyrrel,” answered the Captain, snappishly; “I do not want to be composed at all, and I do not want to stay in this house a minute longer than to do my errand to you on my friend's behalf – And as for this tamned woman Dods” —

“You will in that case forgive my interrupting you, Captain MacTurk, as I presume your errand to me can have no reference to this strange quarrel with my landlady, with which I have nothing to” —

“And if I thought that it had, sir,” said the Captain, interrupting Tyrrel in his turn, “you should have given me satisfaction before you was a quarter of an hour older – Oh, I would give five pounds to the pretty fellow that would say, Captain MacTurk, the woman did right!”

“I certainly will not be that person you wish for, Captain,” replied Tyrrel, “because I really do not know who was in the right or wrong; but I am certainly sorry that you should have met with ill usage, when your purpose was to visit me.”

“Well, sir, if you are concerned,” said the man of peace, snappishly, “so am I, and there is an end of it. – And touching my errand to you – you cannot have forgotten that you treated my friend, Sir Bingo Binks, with singular incivility?”

“I recollect nothing of the kind, Captain,” replied Tyrrel. “I remember that the gentleman, so called, took some uncivil liberties in laying foolish bets concerning me, and that I treated him, from respect to the rest of the company, and the ladies in particular, with a great degree of moderation and forbearance.”

“And you must have very fine ideas of forbearance,” replied the Captain, “when you took my good friend by the collar of the coat, and lifted him out of your way as if he had been a puppy dog! My good Mr. Tyrrel, I can assure you he does not think that you have forborne him at all, and he has no purpose to forbear you; and I must either carry back a sufficient apology, or you must meet in a quiet way, with a good friend on each side. – And this was the errand I came on, when this tamned woman, with the hearth-broom, who is an enemy to all quiet and peaceable proceedings” —

“We will forget Mrs. Dods for the present, if you please, Captain MacTurk,” said Tyrrel – “and, to speak to the present subject, you will permit me to say, that I think this summons comes a little of the latest. You know best as a military man, but I have always understood that such differences are usually settled immediately after they occur – not that I intend to baulk Sir Bingo's inclinations upon the score of delay, or any other account.”

“I dare say you will not – I dare say you will not, Mr. Tyrrel,” answered the Captain – “I am free to think that you know better what belongs to a gentleman. – And as to time – look you, my good sir, there are different sorts of people in this world, as there are different sorts of fire-arms. There are your hair-trigger'd rifles, that go off just at the right moment, and in the twinkling of an eye, and that, Mr. Tyrrel, is your true man of honour; – and there is a sort of person that takes a thing up too soon, and sometimes backs out of it, like your rubbishy Birmingham pieces, that will at one time go off at half-cock, and at another time burn priming without going off at all; – then again pieces that hang fire – or I should rather say, that are like the matchlocks which the black fellows use in the East Indies – there must be some blowing of the match, and so forth, which occasions delay, but the piece carries true enough after all.”

“And your friend Sir Bingo's valour is of this last kind, Captain – I presume that is the inference. I should have thought it more like a boy's cannon, which is fired by means of a train, and is but a pop-gun after all.”

“I cannot allow of such comparisons, sir,” said the Captain; “you will understand that I come here as Sir Bingo's friend, and a reflection on him will be an affront to me.”

“I disclaim all intended offence to you, Captain – I have no wish to extend the number of my adversaries, or to add to them the name of a gallant officer like yourself,” replied Tyrrel.

“You are too obliging, sir,” said the Captain, drawing himself up with dignity. “By Cot! and that was said very handsomely! – Well, sir, and shall I not have the pleasure of carrying back any explanation from you to Sir Bingo? – I assure you it would give me pleasure to make this matter handsomely up.”

“To Sir Bingo, Captain MacTurk, I have no apology to offer – I think I treated him more gently than his impertinence deserved.”

“Och, Och!” sighed the Captain, with a strong Highland intonation; “then there is no more to be said, but just to settle time and place; for pistols I suppose must be the weapons.”

“All these matters are quite the same to me,” said Tyrrel; “only, in respect of time, I should wish it to be as speedy as possible. – What say you to one, afternoon, this very day? – You may name the place.”

“At one, afternoon,” replied the Captain deliberately, “Sir Bingo will attend you – the place may be the Buck-stane; for as the whole company go to the water-side to-day to eat a kettle of fish,22 there will be no risk of interruption. – And who shall I speak to, my good friend, on your side of the quarrel?”

“Really, Captain,” replied Tyrrel, “that is a puzzling question – I have no friend here – I suppose you could hardly act for both?”

“It would be totally, absolutely, and altogether out of the question, my good friend,” replied MacTurk. “But if you will trust to me, I will bring up a friend on your part from the Well, who, though you have hardly seen him before, will settle matters for you as well as if you had been intimate for twenty years – and I will bring up the Doctor too, if I can get him unloosed from the petticoat of that fat widow Blower, that he has strung himself upon.”

“I have no doubt you will do every thing with perfect accuracy, Captain. At one o'clock, then, we meet at the Buck-stane – Stay, permit me to see you to the door.”

“By Cot! and it is not altogether so unnecessary,” said the Captain; “for the tamned woman with the besom might have some advantage in that long dark passage, knowing the ground better than I do – tamn her, I will have amends on her, if there be whipping-post, or ducking-stool, or a pair of stocks in the parish!” And so saying, the Captain trudged off, his spirits ever and anon agitated by recollection of the causeless aggression of Meg Dods, and again composed to a state of happy serenity by the recollection of the agreeable arrangement which he had made between Mr. Tyrrel, and his friend Sir Bingo Binks.

We have heard of men of undoubted benevolence of character and disposition, whose principal delight was to see a miserable criminal, degraded alike by his previous crimes, and the sentence which he had incurred, conclude a vicious and wretched life, by an ignominious and painful death. It was some such inconsistency of character which induced honest Captain MacTurk, who had really been a meritorious officer, and was a good-natured, honourable, and well-intentioned man, to place his chief delight in setting his friends by the ears, and then acting as umpire in the dangerous rencontres, which, according to his code of honour, were absolutely necessary to restore peace and cordiality. We leave the explanation of such anomalies to the labours of craniologists, for they seem to defy all the researches of the Ethic philosopher.

CHAPTER XIII.

DISAPPOINTMENT

Evans. I pray you now, good Master Slender's serving-man, and friend Simple by your name, which way have you looked for Master Caius?

Slender. Marry, sir, the City-ward, the Park-ward, every way; Old Windsor way, and every way.

Merry Wives of Windsor.

Sir Bingo Binks received the Captain's communication with the same dogged sullenness he had displayed at sending the challenge; a most ungracious humph, ascending, as it were, from the very bottom of his stomach, through the folds of a Belcher handkerchief, intimating his acquiescence, in a tone nearly as gracious as that with which the drowsy traveller acknowledges the intimation of the slipshod ostler, that it is on the stroke of five, and the horn will sound in a minute. Captain MacTurk by no means considered this ejaculation as expressing a proper estimate of his own trouble and services. “Humph?” he replied; “and what does that mean, Sir Bingo? Have not I here had the trouble to put you just into the neat road; and would you have been able to make a handsome affair out of it at all, after you had let it hang so long in the wind, if I had not taken on myself to make it agreeable to the gentleman, and cooked as neat a mess out of it as I have seen a Frenchman do out of a stale sprat?”

Sir Bingo saw it was necessary to mutter some intimation of acquiescence and acknowledgment, which, however inarticulate, was sufficient to satisfy the veteran, to whom the adjustment of a personal affair of this kind was a labour of love, and who now, kindly mindful of his promise to Tyrrel, hurried away as if he had been about the most charitable action upon earth, to secure the attendance of some one as a witness on the stranger's part.

Mr. Winterblossom was the person whom MacTurk had in his own mind pitched upon as the fittest person to perform this act of benevolence, and he lost no time in communicating his wish to that worthy gentleman. But Mr. Winterblossom, though a man of the world, and well enough acquainted with such matters, was by no means so passionately addicted to them as was the man of peace, Captain Hector MacTurk. As a bon vivant, he hated trouble of any kind, and the shrewd selfishness of his disposition enabled him to foresee, that a good deal might accrue to all concerned in the course of this business. He, therefore, coolly replied, that he knew nothing of Mr. Tyrrel – not even whether he was a gentleman or not; and besides, he had received no regular application in his behalf – he did not, therefore, feel himself at all inclined to go to the field as his second. This refusal drove the poor Captain to despair. He conjured his friend to be more public-spirited, and entreated him to consider the reputation of the Well, which was to them as a common country, and the honour of the company to which they both belonged, and of which Mr. Winterblossom was in a manner the proper representative, as being, with consent of all, the perpetual president. He reminded him how many quarrels had been nightly undertaken and departed from on the ensuing morning, without any suitable consequences – said, “that people began to talk of the place oddly; and that, for his own part, he found his own honour so nearly touched, that he had begun to think he himself would be obliged to bring somebody or other to account, for the general credit of the Well; and now, just when the most beautiful occasion had arisen to put every thing on a handsome footing, it was hard – it was cruel – it was most unjustifiable – in Mr. Winterblossom, to decline so simple a matter as was requested of him.”

Dry and taciturn as the Captain was on all ordinary occasions, he proved, on the present, eloquent and almost pathetic; for the tears came into his eyes when he recounted the various quarrels which had become addled, notwithstanding his best endeavours to hatch them into an honourable meeting; and here was one, at length, just chipping the shell, like to be smothered, for want of the most ordinary concession on the part of Winterblossom. In short, that gentleman could not hold out any longer. “It was,” he said, “a very foolish business, he thought; but to oblige Sir Bingo and Captain MacTurk, he had no objection to walk with them about noon as far as the Buck-stane, although he must observe the day was hazy, and he had felt a prophetic twinge or two, which looked like a visit of his old acquaintance podagra.”

“Never mind that, my excellent friend,” said the Captain, “a sup out of Sir Bingo's flask is like enough to put that to rights; and by my soul, it is not the thing he is like to leave behind him on this sort of occasion, unless I be far mistaken in my man.”

“But,” said Winterblossom, “although I comply with your wishes thus far, Captain MacTurk, I by no means undertake for certain to back this same Master Tyrrel, of whom I know nothing at all, but only agree to go to the place in hopes of preventing mischief.”

“Never fash your beard about that, Mr. Winterblossom,” replied the Captain; “for a little mischief, as you call it, is become a thing absolutely necessary to the credit of the place; and I am sure, whatever be the consequences, they cannot in the present instance be very fatal to any body; for here is a young fellow that, if he should have a misfortune, nobody will miss, for nobody knows him; then there is Sir Bingo, whom every body knows so well, that they will miss him all the less.”

“And there will be Lady Bingo, a wealthy and handsome young widow,” said Winterblossom, throwing his hat upon his head with the grace and pretension of former days, and sighing to see, as he looked in the mirror, how much time, that had whitened his hair, rounded his stomach, wrinkled his brow, and bent down his shoulders, had disqualified him, as he expressed it, “for entering for such a plate.”

Secure of Winterblossom, the Captain's next anxiety was to obtain the presence of Dr. Quackleben, who, although he wrote himself M.D., did not by any means decline practice as a surgeon, when any job offered for which he was likely to be well paid, as was warranted in the present instance, the wealthy baronet being a party principally concerned. The Doctor, therefore, like the eagle scenting the carnage, seized, at the first word, the huge volume of morocco leather which formed his case of portable instruments, and uncoiled before the Captain, with ostentatious display, its formidable and glittering contents, upon which he began to lecture as upon a copious and interesting text, until the man of war thought it necessary to give him a word of caution.

“Och,” says he, “I do pray you, Doctor, to carry that packet of yours under the breast of your coat, or in your pocket, or somewhere out of sight, and by no means to produce or open it before the parties. For although scalpels, and tourniquets, and pincers, and the like, are very ingenious implements, and pretty to behold, and are also useful when time and occasion call for them, yet I have known the sight of them take away a man's fighting stomach, and so lose their owner a job, Dr. Quackleben.”

“By my faith, Captain MacTurk,” said the Doctor, “you speak as if you were graduated! – I have known these treacherous articles play their master many a cursed trick. The very sight of my forceps, without the least effort on my part, once cured an inveterate toothache of three days' duration, prevented the extraction of a carious molendinar, which it was the very end of their formation to achieve, and sent me home minus a guinea. – But hand me that great-coat, Captain, and we will place the instruments in ambuscade, until they are called into action in due time. I should think something will happen – Sir Bingo is a sure shot at a moorcock.”

“Cannot say,” replied MacTurk; “I have known the pistol shake many a hand that held the fowlingpiece fast enough. Yonder Tyrrel looks like a teevilish cool customer – I watched him the whole time I was delivering my errand, and I can promise you he is mettle to the backbone.”

“Well – I will have my bandages ready secundum artem,” replied the man of medicine. “We must guard against hæmorrhage – Sir Bingo is a plethoric subject. – One o'clock, you say – at the Buck-stane – I will be punctual.”

“Will you not walk with us?” said Captain MacTurk, who seemed willing to keep his whole convoy together on this occasion, lest, peradventure, any of them had fled from under his patronage.

“No,” replied the Doctor, “I must first make an apology to worthy Mrs. Blower, for I had promised her my arm down to the river-side, where they are all to eat a kettle of fish.”

“By Cot! and I hope we shall make them a prettier kettle of fish than was ever seen at St. Ronan's,” said the Captain, rubbing his hands.

“Don't say we, Captain,” replied the cautious Doctor; “I for one have nothing to do with the meeting – wash my hands of it. No, no, I cannot afford to be clapt up as accessory. – You ask me to meet you at the Buck-stane – no purpose assigned – I am willing to oblige my worthy friend, Captain MacTurk – walk that way, thinking of nothing particular – hear the report of pistols – hasten to the spot – fortunately just in time to prevent the most fatal consequences – chance most opportunely to have my case of instruments with me – indeed, generally walk with them about me —nunquam non paratus– then give my professional definition of the wound and state of the patient. That is the way to give evidence, Captain, before sheriffs, coroners, and such sort of folk – never commit one's self – it is a rule of our profession.”

“Well, well, Doctor,” answered the Captain, “you know your own ways best; and so you are but there to give a chance of help in case of accident, all the laws of honour will be fully complied with. But it would be a foul reflection upon me, as a man of honour, if I did not take care that there should be somebody to come in thirdsman between Death and my principal.”

At the awful hour of one afternoon, there arrived upon the appointed spot Captain MacTurk, leading to the field the valorous Sir Bingo, not exactly straining like a greyhound in the slips, but rather looking moody like a butcher's bull-dog, which knows he must fight since his master bids him. Yet the Baronet showed no outward flinching or abatement of courage, excepting, that the tune of Jenny Sutton, which he had whistled without intermission since he left the Hotel, had, during the last half mile of their walk, sunk into silence; although, to look at the muscles of the mouth, projection of the lip, and vacancy of the eye, it seemed as if the notes were still passing through his mind, and that he whistled Jenny Sutton in his imagination. Mr. Winterblossom came two minutes after this happy pair, and the Doctor was equally punctual.

“Upon my soul,” said the former, “this is a mighty silly affair, Sir Bingo, and might, I think, be easily taken up, at less risk to all parties than a meeting of this kind. You should recollect, Sir Bingo, that you have much depending upon your life – you are a married man, Sir Bingo.”