"If I am not, my father was at least a gentleman," said I, almost choking with the conflict of suppressed emotions; "he was an officer, who died in action——"
"If he had been a thief who died on the gallows, it were all the same to me," replied the legal bully; "I want neither gentlemen, nor their sons, in my office. I want only my orders obeyed; my work, my business done. I want——"
"Stay, Mr. Quirky; do stop, pray," interposed Macfarisee, with an air of solemnity and alarm. "This outbreak is useless; if one hundred and fifty guineas——"
"Will not tempt me, the hard words and gratuitous insolence of an underbred villain are less likely to do so," I exclaimed; and by one blow of the ponderous ruler stretched Mr. Quirky bleeding and senseless at my feet. Then a flame seemed to pass before my eyes, a shock like electricity ran over every fibre, and feeling my heart grow wild with rage and excitement, I sprang upon the excited Macfarisee just as he was rushing to the bellrope. Grasping his white neckcloth by one hand, I showered my blows upon his bald caput and shoulders with the other, until, in reeling backward, he stumbled over Quirky, and falling heavily against a writing-table, lay still as if dead. A wilder spirit of mischief and destruction was now added to my long-pent-up hatred; and with the mischief of a boy, or of an enraged monkey, I snatched sundry bundles of papers, tore some to pieces, heaped others on the fire, spilled the contents of a large inkbottle over everything, threw down the tables and chairs, and with an io pæan of triumph, rushed from the the field of battle, flourishing my ruler like the truncheon of a conqueror.
Just as I sprang down stairs into the street, taking three steps at a time, a window was opened overhead, and I heard the shrill voice of Macfarisee shouting,—
"The guard! the guard!"
There were no police, and this was the usual cry when the soldiers of the city watch were required. The evening was dusk now, and I ran through the thoroughfares bare-headed and grasping tightly my weapon—for my blood was yet up, and I would without shrinking have faced all the charged bayonets of the city guard; but I ran on—on—I knew not, and cared not whither.
CHAPTER XI.
EDINBURGH IN 1792.
The house from which I had just issued stood nearly opposite to the old Tolbooth, or Heart of Midlothian, which was built almost in the centre of the High Street, and in the lower story thereof were nightly lodged a lieutenant with a party of the ancient city guard. The cries of Macfarisee readily reached the sentinel at the door, and he turned out the watch. Armed with fixed bayonets and Lochaber axes, they issued forth in pursuit; but I fled before them like an arrow and darted down the Lord President's Stairs, which, I knew communicated with the Fishmarket Close, and the entrance to which was in a great tenement on the eastern side of the Parliament-square—all since removed and numbered with the things that were. I plunged breathlessly down the steep Close, cries of "The guard! the guard! to the Tolbooth with him," following me, for these shouts, though uttered heedlessly by those I passed, were additional incentives to flight; and panting with rage and fear, I sped on, while I could hear the guardsmen swearing in Gaelic behind me. I could also hear the clank of their terrible Lochaber axes, which were furnished with sharp hooks, wherewith to catch fugitives, or to drag the refractory, and I could see the dim glimmer of their large horn lanterns, as I crossed the narrow Cowgate and rushed up the steep College Wynd towards a gate in the town wall known as the Potter How Porte. Here stood a sentinel, who put his axe before me and demanded sixpence for allowing me to pass. I pretended to search my pockets, wherein I had not a stiver; and while thus throwing him off his guard, darted through the barrier, and, with a shout of triumph, rushed into the darkness beyond. My first impulse was to run into the country, and take refuge in the village where my mother's cottage stood; but a fear lest Macfarisee might send the guards there first, deterred me; and hastening to the Meadows, which lie southward of the city, and were then, as now, a lonely and sequestered place, rendered unwholesome by swamps, being the bed of an ancient lake, and dangerous as the haunt of armed footpads, robbers, and outcasts. I had nothing to lose but my liberty, and they were not likely to deprive me of that.