It was on a fine summer morning, somewhere about four o’clock, when I waukened from my night’s rest, and was about thinking to bestir mysel, that I heard the sound of voices in the kail-yard, stretching south frae our back windows. I listened—and I listened—and I better listened—and still the sound of the argle-bargling became more distinct, now in a fleeching way, and now in harsh angry tones, as if some quarrelsome disagreement had ta’en place. I hadna the comfort of my wife’s company in this dilemma; she being awa, three days before, on the top of Tammy Trundle the carrier’s cart, to Lauder, on a visit to her folks there; her mother (my gudemother, like) having been for some time ill, with an income in her leg, which threatened to make a lameter of her in her old age; the twa doctors there, no speaking of the blacksmith, and sundry skeely old women, being able to mak naething of the business; so nane happened to be wi’ me in the room, saving wee Benjie, who was lying asleep at the back of the bed, with his little Kilmarnock on his head, as sound as a top. Nevertheless, I lookit for my claes; and opening one-half of the window-shutter, I saw four young birkies well dressed; indeed three of them customers of my ain, all belanging to the toun; twa of them young doctors; ane of them a writer’s clerk; and the ither a grocer; the hale looking very fierce and fearsome, like turkey cocks; swaggering about with their hands and arms as if they had been the king’s dragoons; and priming a pair of pistols, which ane of the surgeons, a speerity, out-spoken lad, Maister Blister, was haddin’ in his grip.
I jaloused at ance what they were after, being now a wee up to firearms; so I saw that skaith was to come o’t, and that I wad be wanting in my duty on four heads—first, as a Christian; second, as a man; third, as a subject; and fourth, as a father, if I withheld mysel frae the scene, nor lifted up my voice, however fruitlessly, against such crying iniquity as the wanton letting out of human blood; sae furth I hastened—half-dressed, with my gray stockings rolled up my thighs, over my corduroys, and my auld hat aboon my cowl—to the kail-yard of contention.
I was just in the nick of time, and my presence checked the effusion of blood for a little;—but wait a wee. So high and furious were at least three of the party, that I saw it was catching water in a sieve to waste words on them, knowing, as clearly as the sun serves the world, that interceding would be of no avail. Howsomever, I made a feint, and threatened to bowl awa for a magistrait, if they wadna desist, and stop from their barbarous and bluidy purpose; but, i’fegs, I had better have keepit my counsel till it was asked for.
“Tailor Mansie,” quoth Maister Thomas Blister, with a furious cock of his eye (he was a queer Eirish birkie, come ower for his yedication), “since ye have ventured to thrust your nose,” said he, “where nobody invited ye, you must just stay,” said he, “and abide by the consequences. This is an affair of honour,” quoth he; “and if ye venture to stir one foot from the spot, och then,” said he, “by the poker of St Patrick, but whisk through ye goes one of these leaden playthings, as sure as ye ever spoiled a coat, or cabbaged broadcloth. Ye have now come out, ye observe, hark ye,” said ye, “and are art and part in the business;—and, if one, or both, of the principals be killed, poor devils,” said he, “we are all alike liable to take our trial before the Justiciary Court, hark ye; and, by the powers,” said he, “I doubt not but that, on proper consideration, they will allow us to get off mercifully, on this side of hanging, by a verdict of manslaughter.”
’Od, I fund mysel immediately in a scrape; but how to get out of it baffled my gumption. It set me all a shivering; yet I thought that, come the warst when it wad, they surely wad not hang the faither of a helpless sma family, that had naething but his needle for their support, if I made a proper affidavy, about having tried to make peace between the youths. So, conscience being a brave supporter, I abode in silence, though not without many queer and qualmish thochts, and a pit-patting of the heart, no unco pleasant in the tholing.
“Blood and wounds!” bawled Maister Thomas Blister, “it would be a disgrace for ever on the honourable profession of physic,” egging on puir Maister Willie Magneezhy, whose face was as white as double-bleached linen, “to make any apology for such an insult. You not fit to doctor a cat,—you not fit to bleed a calf,—you not fit to poultice a pig,—after three years apprenticeship,” said he, “and a winter with Doctor Monro? By the cupping-glasses of ’Pocrates,” said he, “and by the pistol of Gallon, but I would have caned him on the spot, if he had just let out half as much to me. Look ye, man,” said he, “look ye, man, he is all shaking” (this was the truth); “he’ll turn tail. At him like fire, Willie.”
Magneezhy, though sadly frightened, looked a thocht brighter, and made a kind o’ half stap forrit. “Say that ye’ll ask my pardon once more,—and if no,” said the puir lad, with a voice broken and trembling, “then we must just shoot one another.”
“Devil a bit,” answered Mr Bloatsheet, “devil a bit. No, sir; you must down on your bare knees, and beg ten thousand pardons for calling me out here, in a raw morning; or I’ll have a shot at you, whether you will or no.”
“Will you stand that?” said Blister, with eyes like burning coals. “By the living jingo and the holy poker, Magneezhy, if you stand that—if you stand that, I say, I stand no longer your second, but leave you to disgrace, and a caning. If he likes to shoot you like a dog, and not as a gentleman, then let him do it and be done.”
“No, sir,” replied Magneezhy, with a quivering voice, which he tried in vain, puir fellow, to render warlike (he had never been in the volunteers, like me). “Hand us the pistols, then, and let us do or die!”