I remained as true to God, as I did to the Maiden of my love, I had not needed this.” So saying, and ere the hand of Abubeker could arrest him, he drew a poniard from his embroidered vest, and the heart-blood of the renegade spouted on the royal robes of the successor of Mahomet.
* * * * *
So grandly had James spooted this bloody story, that notwithstanding my sleepiness, his words whiles dirled through my marrow like quicksilver, and set all my flesh a grueing. In the middle of it, he was himself so worked up, that twice he pulled his Kilmarnock from his head, silk-napkin, bandage and all, and threw them down with a thump on the table, which once wellnigh capsized a candlestick.
The porter and the stabbing, also, very nearly put me beside myself; and I felt so queerish and eerie when I took my hat to wish him a good-night—knowing that baith Nanse and Benjie would be neither to hold nor bind, it being now half-past ten o’clock—that, had it not been for the shame of the thing, and that I remembered being one of the King’s gallant volunteers, I fear I would have asked James for the lend of his lantern, to show me down the dark close.
The reader will thus perceive that the adventure of the killing-coat, stuck alike in the measurement and in the making by Tammie Bodkin, was destined, in the great current of human events, to form a prominent
feature, not only in my own history, but in that of worthy James Batter. To me it might be considered as a passing breeze—having been accustomed to see and suffer a vast deal; but my friend, I fear much, will bear marks of it to his grave. Yet I cannot blame myself with a safe conscience for James having fallen the victim to Cursecowl. I had tried everything to solder up matters which the heart of man could suggest; and knowing that it was a catastrophe which would bring down open war and rebellion throughout the whole parish, my thoughts were all of peace, and how to stave off the eruption of the bloody heathen. I had thought over the thing seriously in my bed; and, reckoning plainly that Cursecowl was not one likely soon to hold out a flag of truce, I had come to the determination within myself to sound a parley—and offer either to take back the coat, or refund part of the purchase-money. I may add, that having an unbounded regard for his judgment and descretion, I had, in my own mind, selected James Batter to be sent as the ambassador. The same day, however, brought round the extraordinary purchase of the Willie-goat’s head, and gave a new and unexpected turn to the whole business.
Folk, moreover, should never be so over-proud as not to confess when they are in fault; and from what happened, I am free to admit, that James, harmless as a sucking dove, was no match in such a matter for
the like of Cursecowl, who was a perfect incarnation, for devilry and cunning, of the old Serpent himself.
My intentions, however, were good, and those of a Christian; for, had Cursecowl accepted the ten shillings by way of blood-money, which it was thus my intention to have offered, this fearful and bloody stramash would have been hushed up without the world having become a whit the wiser. But “there is many a slip,” as the proverb says, “between the cup and the lip”; and the best intentions often fall to the ground, like the beggarman between the two stools.
The final conclusion of the whole tradegy was, as it behoves me to mention, that Cursecowl, in consideration of a month’s gratis work in the slaughter-house, made a brotherly legacy of the coat to his nephew, young Killim. The laddie was a perfect world’s wonder every Sunday, and would have been laughed at out of his seven senses, had he not at last rebelled and fairly thrown it off. I make every allowance for the young man; and am sorry to confess that it was indeed a perfect shame to be seen. At Dalkeith, where one is well known, anything may pass; but I was always in bodily terror, that, had he gone to Edinburgh, he would have been taken up by the police, on suspicion of being either a Spanish pawtriot or a highway robber.