and thumb at James’s beak, “I do not value your threatening an ill halfpenny. Come away out your ways to the crown of the causey, and I’ll box any three of ye, over the bannys, for half-a-mutchkin. But ’od-sake, Batter, my man, nobody’s speaking to you,” added Cursecowl, giving a hack now and then, and a bit spit down on the floor; “go hame, man, and get your cowl washed; I dare say you have pushioned me, so I have no more to say to the like of you. But now, Maister Wauch, just speaking holy and fairly, do you not think black burning shame of yourself, for putting such an article into any decent Christian man’s hand, like mine?”
“Wait a wee—wait a wee, friend, and I’ll give ye a lock salt to your broth,” answered I, in a calm and cool way; for, being a confidential elder of Maister Wiggie’s, I kept myself free from the sin of getting into a passion, or fighting, except in self-defence, which is forbidden neither by law nor gospel; and, stooping down, I took up the towel from the corner, and, spreading it upon the counter, bade him look, and see if he knew an auld acquaintance!
Cursecowl, to be such a dragoon, had some rational points in his character; so, seeing that he lent ear to me with a smirk on his rough red face, I went on: “Take my advice as a friend, and make the best of your way home, killing-coat and all; for the most perfect will sometimes fall into an innocent mistake, and,
at any rate, it cannot be helped now. But if ye show any symptom of obstrapulosity, I’ll find myself under the necessity of publishing you abroad to the world for what you are, and show about that head in the towel for a wonder to broad Scotland, in a manner that will make customers flee from your booth, as if it was infected with the seven plagues of Egypt.”
At sight of the goat’s-head, Cursecowl clapped his hand on his thigh two or three times, and could scarcely muster good manners enough to keep himself from bursting out a-laughing.
“Ye seem to have found a fiddle, friend,” said I; “but give me leave to tell you, that ye’ll may be find it liker a hanging-match than a musical matter. Are you not aware that I could hand you over to the sheriff, on two special indictments? In the first place, for an action of assault and batterification, in cuffing me, an elder of our kirk, with a sticked killing-coat, in my own shop; and, in the second place, as a swindler, imposing on his Majesty’s loyal subjects, taking the coin of the realm on false pretences, and palming off goat’s flesh upon Christians, as if they were perfect Pagans.”
Heathen though Cursecowl was, this oration alarmed him in a jiffie, soon showing him, in a couple of hurries, that it was necessary for him to be our humble servant: so he said, still keeping the smirk on his face, “Keh, keh, it’s not worth making a noise about after all. Gie me the jacket, Mansie, my man, and it’ll maybe
serve my nephew, young Killim, who is as lingit in the waist as a wasp. Let us take a shake of your paw over the counter, and be friends. Bye-ganes should be bye-ganes.”
Never let it be said that Mansie Wauch, though one of the king’s volunteers, ever thrust aside the olive branch of peace; so, ill-used though I had been, to say nothing of James Batter, who had got his pipe smashed to crunches, and one of the eyes of his spectacles knocked out, I gave him my fist frankly.
James Batter’s birse had been so fiercely put up, and no wonder, that it was not so easily sleeked down; so, for a while he looked unco glum, till Cursecowl insisted that our meeting should not be a dry one; nor would he hear a single word on me and James Batter not accepting his treat of a mutchkin of Kilbagie.