Part 10

The landlord passively yielded. Broster unlocked the door, and flung the key down on the flagged passage. "Now, my lads," cried he to half-a-dozen countrymen who were hanging-on spectators on the skirts of the combat, and at the same time twisting his whip-lash tightly round his right hand till the heavy-leaded head became a formidable weapon, a blow from which would be effective on any skull of ordinary susceptibility; "Now, my lads, we are resolved to put an end to this; will you assist us?" The captain's family had been long resident in the county, he was himself personally known to all of them, and a cheerful "Ay, ay," was the response. "Penruddock, separate them when you can, knock them over when you can't, Welshman or Irishman, it's quite the same." So saying, in we drove. Broster clove a way for himself, distributing his blows with great impartiality, and knocking over the combatants like nine-pins. We soon reached the middle of the square, where the fight was hottest. The captain was swept away in an eddy for a moment, and right in front of Penruddock and myself two men were grappling on the ground. As they rolled over, we saw that one was the hammersmith who had caused the whole affray. We flung ourselves upon them, and dragged them up. The dealer, with whom I was more particularly engaged, had got the worst of it, and plainly wasn't sorry to be released from the clutches of his antagonist. With his foe it was different. His slow sullen blood was fairly in a blaze, and when Pen pushed him aside, he dashed at him and struck him a severe blow on the face. In a twinkling Penruddock's coat was off, while the faintest stream of blood trickled from his upper lip. "Well, my man," said he, as he stood up ready for action, "if that's the game you mean to play at, I hope to give you a bellyful before I've done." "Seize that man, knock him over," said Broster; "you're surely not going to fight _him_, Penruddock, it's sheer madness; knock him over." "I tell you what it is," said Penruddock, turning savagely, "you shan't deprive me of the luxury of giving this fellow a sound hiding." Broster shrugged his shoulders, as if giving up the case. By this time the cry arose, "Black Jem's goin' to fight the gentleman;" and a wide enough ring was formed. [Sidenote: The fight.] Many who were prosecuting small combats of their own desisted, that they might behold the greater one. Broster stood beside John. "He's an ugly mass of strength," whispered he, "and will hug you like a bear; keep him well off, and remain cool for Heaven's sake." "Ready?" said John, stepping forward. "As a lark i' the mornin'," growled Jem, as he took up his ground. The men were very wary--Jem retreating round and round, John advancing. Now and then one or other darted out a blow, but it was generally stopped, and no harm done. At last the blows went home; the blood began to rise. The men drew closer, and struck with greater rapidity. They are at it at last, hammer and tongs. No shirking or flinching now. Jem's blood was flowing. He was evidently getting severely punished. He couldn't last long at that rate. He fought desperately for a close, when a blinding blow full in the face brought him to the earth. He got up again like a madman, the whole bull-dog nature of him possessed and mastered by brutal rage. He cursed and struggled in the arms of his supporters to get at his enemy, but by main force they held him back till he recovered himself. "He'll be worked off in another round," I heard Broster whisper in my ear. Ah! here they come! I glanced at Pen for a moment as he stood with his eye on his foe. There was that in his face that boded no good. The features had hardened into iron somehow; the pitiless mouth was clenched, the eye cruel. A hitherto unknown part of his nature revealed itself to me as he stood there--perhaps unknown to himself. God help us, what strangers we are to ourselves! In every man's nature there is an interior unexplored as that of Africa, and over that region what wild beasts may roam! But they are at it again; Jem still fights for a close, and every time his rush is stopped by a damaging blow. They are telling rapidly; his countenance, by no means charming at the best, is rapidly transforming. Look at that hideously gashed lip! But he has dodged Penruddock's left this time, and clutched him in his brawny arms. Now comes the tug of war, skill pitted against skill, strength against strength. They breathe for a little in each other's grip, as if summoning every energy. They are at it now, broad chest to chest. Now they seem motionless, but by the quiver of their frames you can guess the terrific strain going on. Now one has the better, now the other, as they twine round each other, lithe and supple as serpents. Penruddock yields! No! That's a bad dodge of Jem's. By Jove he loses his grip. All is over with him. Pen's brow grows dark; the veins start out on it; and the next moment Black Jem, the hero of fifty fights, slung over his shoulder, falls heavily to the ground.

[Sidenote: Retreat of the hammermen.]

At his fall a cheer rose from the dealers. "You blacksmith fellows had better make off," cried Broster; "your man has got the thrashing he deserves, and you can carry him home with you. I am resolved to put a stop to these disturbances--there have been too many of late." The furnacemen hung for a moment irresolute, seemingly half-inclined to renew the combat, but a formidable array of cattle-dealers pressed forward and turned the scale. They decided on a retreat. Black Jem, who had now come to himself, was lifted up, and, supported by two men, retired toward the works and dwellings on the upper grounds, accompanied by his companions, who muttered many a surly oath and vow of future vengeance.

When we got back to the inn, Pen was very anxious about his face. He washed, and carefully perused his features in the little looking-glass. Luckily, with the exception of the upper lip slightly cut by Jim's first blow, no mark of the combat presented itself. At this happy result of his investigations he expressed great satisfaction--Broster laughing the meanwhile, and telling him that he was as careful of his face as a young lady.

The captain came down to see us off. The fair was over now, and the little streets were almost deserted. The dealers--apprehensive of another descent from the furnaces--had hurried off as soon as their transactions could in any way permit. Groups of villagers, however, were standing about the doors discussing the event of the day; and when Penruddock appeared he became, for a quarter of an hour, an object of public interest for the first time in his life, and so far as he has yet lived for the last; an honour to which he did not seem to attach any particular value.

We shook hands with the captain; then, at a touch of the whip, the horse started at a gallant pace, scattering a brood of ducks in all directions; and in a few minutes Keady--with its whitewashed houses and dark row of furnaces, tipped with tongues of flame, pale and shrunken yet in the lustre of the afternoon, but which would rush out wild and lurid when the evening fell--lay a rapidly dwindling speck behind.

[Sidenote: John Penruddock.]

I am induced to set down this business of the Irish market and market fight in order that the reader may gather some idea of the kind of man Penruddock was. He was not particularly witty, although on occasion he could say a good and neat thing enough; on no subject was he profoundly read; I don't think that he ever attempted to turn a stanza, even when a boy and in love; he did not care for art; he was only conscious of a blind and obscure delight in music, and even for _that_ the music had to be of the simplest kind--melody, not harmony. He had his limitations, you see: but as a man I have seldom met his equal. He was sagacious, kindly, affectionate, docile, patient, and unthinking of self. There was a peculiar deference in his ordinary manner, as if he were continually in the presence of a lady. Above all things, he was sincere, and you trusted Pen when you came to know him as implicitly as you would a law of nature. If you were out in a small boat in a storm with him; if you were ascending or descending a steep rocky hill-face with him, and got giddy on his hands; if you were in the heart of a snow-storm on the hills with him, when all traces of the road were lost, and the cold began to make thick your blood with the deadly pleasure of sleep--in such circumstances you found out what he was: cool, courageous, helpful; full of resource, with a quick brain, an iron nerve, a giant's strength. To the possessor of such solid worth and manhood your merely brilliant talker, your epigrammatist, your sayer of smart things, is essentially a poor creature. What is wit?--a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. What is epigram? Penruddock did not paint pictures or write poems; it was his business "to make good sheep," as the Skye people say, and magnificent sheep he did make.

Pen had an ideal sheep in his mind, and to reach that ideal he was continually striving. At the yearly winnowings of his stock he selected his breeding ewes with the utmost care, and these ewes, without spot or blemish, he crossed with wonderfully-horned and far-brought rams, for which he sometimes paid enormous prices--so at least his neighbours said. His sheep he bred in Skye for the most part, and then he sent them over to Ulster to fatten. There, on pasture and turnips, they throve amazingly, all their good points coming into prominence, all their bad points stealing modestly into the shade. At markets, Penruddock's sheep always brought excellent prices, and his lot was certain to be about the best shown.

Pen and the Landlord had business relations. In partnership, they brought over meal from Ireland, they speculated in turnips, they dealt in curious manures which were to the sour Skye soil what plum-pudding is to a charity boy: above all, he was confederate in a scheme of emigration which the Landlord had concocted, and was in the course of carrying out. Pen's visit at this time was purely a business one: he wished to see me, but that was far from his sole motive in coming--so he frankly said. But I did not care for that; I was quite able to bear the truth, and was glad to have him on any conditions.

_A SMOKING PARLIAMENT._

[Sidenote: The opposite side of the street.]

One morning after our return, when breakfast was over, the Landlord, followed by Maida, carried the parrot into the sunshine in front of the house, and, sitting down on one of the iron seats, lighted a cheroot. As there was nothing on the cards on that special morning, we all followed him, and, lifting his cheroot-case, helped ourselves. The morning was warm and pleasant; and as no one had anything particular to say, we smoked in silence and were happy. The only one who was occupied was Fellowes. A newspaper had reached him by post the evening before, and with its pages he was now busy. Suddenly he burst out laughing, and read out from a half column of _facetiæ_ how an Irishman was anxious to discover the opposite side of the street, and making inquiries at the passengers, was kept knocking about from one side of the thoroughfare to the other, like a ball in a racket-court. Pat was told that the opposite side of the street was "over there;" and when he got "over there," to his sore bewilderment he discovered that the opposite side of the street, as if on purpose to torment him, had slipped anchor and flitted away to the side on which he had been making inquiries a few moments previously. We all laughed at Pat's intellectual perplexity; and shutting up the paper Fellowes maintained, in the light cynical vein so common at present, that the hunt after the opposite side of the street was no bad image of the hunt after truth. "Truth is always 'over there,'" he said; "and when you get 'over there,' running extreme peril from cab and dray in crossing, you find that it has gone back to the place from which you started. And so a man spends his life in chasing, and is as far on at the end of it as he was at the beginning. No man ever yet reached truth, or the opposite side of the street."

"What creatures those Irish are, to be sure!" said the Landlord, as he knocked a feather of white ash from the tip of his cheroot; "it would be a dull world without them. In India, a single Irishman at a station is enough to banish blue devils. The presence of an Irishman anywhere keeps away low spirits, just as a cat in a house keeps away rats and mice. Every station should wear an Irishman, as an amulet against despondency."

"I have lived a good deal both in Ireland and the Highlands," said Pen, "and the intellectual differences between the two races have often struck me as not a little curious. They are of the same stock originally, antiquarians say; and yet Ireland is a land of Goshen, overflowing with the milk and honey of humour, whereas in every quality of humour the Highlands are as dry as the Sahara. Jokes don't usually come farther north than the Grampians. One or two are occasionally to be found in Ross-shire over there; but they are far from common, and their appearance is chronicled in the local prints just as the appearance of the capercailzie is chronicled. No joke has yet been found strong-winged enough to cross the Kyles. That's odd, is it not?"

[Sidenote: Highland wit.]

"But have not the Highlanders wit?"

"Oh yes, plenty of it, but rather of the strenuous than of the playful kind; their wit is born for the most part of anger or contempt. 'There she goes,' sneered the Englishman, as Duncan marched past in his tartans at a fair.' 'There she lies,' retorted Duncan, as he knocked the scorner over at a blow. 'Coming from Hell, Lauchlan,' quoth the shepherd, proceeding on a sacrament Sunday to the Free Church, and meeting his friend coming from the Church of the Establishment. 'Better than going to it, Rory,' retorted Lauchlan, as he passed on. Of that kind of rapid and sufficient retort, of the power of returning a blow swiftly and with interest, the Highlander is not in the least deficient. But he differs from the Irishman in this--that he has no eye for the pleasantly droll side of things; he has no fun in him, no sense of the genially comic. He laughs, but there is generally a touch of scorn in his laughter, and it is almost always directed against a man or a thing. The Irishman's humorous sense puts a stitch in the torn coat, ekes the scanty purse, boils the peas with which he is doomed to limp graveward. The bested Highlander can draw no amelioration of condition from such a source. The two races dine often scantily enough, but it is only the Irishman that can sweeten his potatoes with point. 'They talk of hardships,' said the poor Irish soldier as he lay down to sleep on the deck of the transport--'They talk of hardships; but bedad this is the hardest ship I ever was in in my life.' No Highlander would have said _that_. And I believe that the joke made the hard plank all the softer to the joker."

"And how do you account for this difference?"

"I can't account for it. The two races springing from the same stock, I rather think it is _un_accountable; unless, indeed, it be traceable to climatic influence,--the soft, green, rainy Erin producing riant and ebullient natures; the bare, flinty Highlands, hard and austere ones. There is one quality, however, in which your Highlander can beat the world, with the exception, perhaps, of the North American Indian."

[Sidenote: Pride of the Highlander.]

"What quality is that?"

"The quality of never exhibiting astonishment. The Highlander would as soon think of turning his back on his foe as of expressing astonishment at anything. Take a Highland lad from the wilds of Skye or Harris and drop him in Cheapside, and he will retain the most perfect equanimity. He will have no word of marvel for the crowds and the vehicles; the Thames Tunnel will not move him; he will look on St Paul's without flinching. The boy may have only ridden in a peat-cart; but he takes a railway, the fields, hedges, bridges, and villages spinning past, the howling gloom of the tunnels, the speed that carries him in an hour over a greater extent of country than he ever beheld in his life even from his highest hill-top, as the merest matter of course, and unworthy of special remark."

"But the boy will be astonished all the same?"

"Of course he is. The very hair of his soul is standing on end with wonder and terror, but he will make no sign; he is too proud. Will he allow the Sassenach to triumph over him? If he did, he would not be his father's son. He will not admit that earth holds anything which he has not measured and weighed, and with which he is not perfectly familiar. When Chingachgook groans at the stake in the hearing of his tormentors, the Highlander will express surprise."

"This disinclination to express astonishment, if it does exist to the extent you say amongst the Highlanders, must arise from a solitary mode of living. People up in these Western Islands live on the outskirts of existence, so to speak; and the knowledge that a big, bustling, important world exists beyond their horizon 'intensifies their individualism,' as the poet said the bracing air of old St Andrews intensified his. They are driven in on themselves; they are always standing in an attitude of mental self-defence; they become naturally self-contained and self-sustained."

[Sidenote: Chaff.]

"To some extent what you say is true; but the main reason of the Highlander's calmness and self-command in the presence of new and wonderful objects is pride. To express astonishment at the sight of an object implies previous ignorance of that object; and no Highlander worthy of the name will admit that he is ignorant of anything under the sun. To come back, however, to what we were speaking about a little while ago,--the differences between the Highlanders and the Irish--the light-hearted Irishman delights to 'chaff' and to be 'chaffed;' the intenser and more serious-hearted Highlander can neither do the one nor endure the other. The bit of badinage which an Irishman will laugh at and brush carelessly aside, stings the Highlander like a gadfly. When the Highlander is fencing, the button is always coming off his foil, and the point is in your arm before you know where you are. If you enter into a gay wit-combat with a Highlander, it is almost certain to have a serious ending--just as the old Highland wedding-feasts, beginning with pledged healths and universal three-times-three, ended in a brawl and half-a-dozen men dirked."

"Chaff, in common with shoddy, the adulteration of food, and the tailor-sweating system, is the product of an over-ripe civilisation. It is the glimmer on the head of the dead cod-fish--putridity become phosphorescent. It can only thrive in large cities. It is the offspring of impudence and loquacity. I am not astonished that the Highlander cannot endure it; it is out of his way altogether. He no more can use it as a weapon of offence or defence than David could wear the armour of Saul. Chaff grows in the crowded street, not in the wilderness. It is the one thing we have brought into perfection in these later days. It is a weed that grows lustily, because it is manured with our vices and our decomposed faiths. I don't think the worse of the Highlander because he cannot chaff or endure being chaffed. A London cabman would slang Socrates into silence in a quarter of an hour."

"I suppose," said the Landlord, "when the Skye railway is finished we poor Highlanders will get our jokes from the South, as we get our tea and sugar. It's a pity the Board of Directors did not mention that special import in their prospectus. The shares might have gone off more rapidly, Pen!"

[Sidenote: Distrust of nature.]

"By the by," said Fellowes, turning to me, "you were speaking the other day of the curious distrust of Nature, which you consider the soul of all Celtic poetry and Celtic superstition, and you were inclined to attribute that distrust and fear to the austerities of climate and physical conformation, to the rain-cloud, and the precipice, the sea-foam, and the rock. I agree with you so far; but I think you lay too much stress on climatic influences and the haggardness of landscape. That quick sense of two powers--of Nature and Humanity, of man and a world outside of man--is the root of all poetry."

"Of course it is. To the Celt, Nature is malign, evil-disposed, cruel; and his poetry is dreary as the strain of the night wind. To a Wordsworth, on the other hand, Nature is merciful and tranquil, deep-thoughted and calm; and as a consequence his poetry is temperate and humane, cool as a summer evening after the sun has set, and--with all reverence be it spoken--sometimes tiresomely hortatory."

"Preaching is generally dull work, I fear; and Nature's sermons, even when reported by Wordsworth, are as dull as some other sermons which I have heard and read."

"But what I was going to say was, that the sense of malevolence in Nature which you claim as the central fact of Celtic song and superstition, is not so much the result of harsh climates and wild environments as it is a stage in the mental progress of a race. At one stage of progress, all races fear Nature alike. The South-Sea Islander, whose bread-fruit falls into his mouth, fears Nature just as much as the Greenlander, who hunts the white bear on the iceberg and spears the walrus in the foam. When once man has got the upper hand of Nature, when he has made her his slave, when her winds sit in his sails and propel his ships, when she yields him iron whereby she is more firmly bound to his service, when she gives him coal wherewith to cook food and to mitigate the rigours of her winters--when man has got that length, the aboriginal fear dies out of his heart, the weird Celtic bard goes, and Wordsworth comes. Even in the Lowlands, scraps of verses still exist--relics of long past time, and shuddering yet with an obsolete terror--which are as full of a sense of the malevolence of Nature as any Highland song or tune you could produce."

"Let me hear one or two."

"Well, here is one which has been occasionally quoted, and which you have in all likelihood come across in your reading:--

'Says Tweed to Till, What gars ye rin sae still? Says Till to Tweed, Though ye rin wi' speed, An' I rin slaw, For ae man that ye droon, I droon twa.'"

"Yes, it is very striking, and hits the nail on the head exactly. Sir Walter quotes it somewhere, I think. I have little doubt that these rhymes suggested to Scott his Voices of the River in the 'Lay,' which is not that of the kelpie, a creature _in_ the river, but of the river itself, in spiritual personation."

[Sidenote: "The dowie Dean."]

"That may be, or it may not. But nowhere, that I know of, does that sense of an evil will, and an alienation from man in nature, find a profounder and more tragic, if withal a playful, half-humorous expression than in this curious little Border fragment, unless, indeed, it be beaten by this from Forfarshire. Of the Dean stream, wherein, while it was yet golden time with me, I slew many a fine trout, there existed then a local rhyme of much less artistic and literary completion than that relating the colloquy between Till and Tweed, but, as I think, in its rudeness if anything even more gruesome and grim--

'The dowie Dean, It rins it lean, An' every seven year it gets ean.'"

"What a hideous _patois_," quoth the Landlord, "your Forfarshire people must talk! I can't say I understand a word of your rhymes. Perhaps you will be good enough to translate."

Fellowes laughed. "I'll do my best,--