The Splendid Spur<br />Being Memoirs of the Adventures of Mr. John Marvel, a Servant of His Late Maj by Arthur Quiller-Couch (the giving tree read aloud .txt) 📖

clatter and shouting of the company above had gone on without a break; and all this while the man with the white hair had rested quietly on one side, watching. But now he steps up to where the bully stood mopping his face (for all the coolness of the evening), and, with a finger between the leaves of his book, bows very politely.

“You handled that dog, sir, choicely well,” says he, in a thin voice that seemed to have a chuckle hidden in it somewhere.

The other ceased mopping to get a good look at him.

“But sure,” he went on, “'twas hard on the poor cur, that had never heard of Captain Lucius Higgs—”

I thought the bully would have had him by the windpipe and pitched him after the mastiff, so fiercely he turn'd at the sound of this name. But the old gentleman skipped back quite nimbly and held up a finger.

“I'm a man of peace. If another title suits you better—”

“Where the devil got you that name?” growled the bully, and had half a mind to come on again, but the other put in briskly—

“I'm on a plain errand of business. No need, as you hint, to mention names; and therefore let me present myself as Mr. Z. The residue of the alphabet is at your service to pick and choose from.”

“My name is Luke Settle,” said the big man hoarsely (but whether this was his natural voice or no I could not tell).

“Let us say 'Mr. X.' I prefer it.”

The old gentleman, as he said this, popped his head on one side, laid the forefinger of his right hand across the book, and seem'd to be considering.

“Why did you throttle that dog a minute ago?” he asked sharply.

“Why, to save my skin,” answers the fellow, a bit puzzled.

“Would you have done it for fifty pounds?”

“Aye, or half that.”

“And how if it had been a puppy, Mr. X?”

Now all this from my hiding I had heard very clearly, for they stood right under me in the dusk. But as the old gentleman paused to let his question sink in, and the bully to catch the drift of it before answering, one of the dicers above struck up to sing a catch——

“With a hey, trolly-lolly! a leg to the Devil, And answer him civil, and off with your cap: Sing—Hey, trolly-lolly! Good-morrow, Sir Evil, We've finished the tap, And, saving your worship, we care not a rap!”

While this din continued, the stranger held up one forefinger again, as if beseeching silence, the other remaining still between the pages of his book.

“Pretty boys!” he said, as the noise died away; “pretty boys! 'Tis easily seen they have a bird to pluck.”

“He's none of my plucking.”

“And if he were, why not? Sure you've picked a feather or two before now in the Low Countries—hey?”

“I'll tell you what,” interrupts the big man, “next time you crack one of your death's-head jokes, over the wall you go after the dog. What's to prevent it?”

“Why, this,” answers the old fellow, cheerfully. “There's money to be made by doing no such thing. And I don't carry it all about with me. So, as 'tis late, we'd best talk business at once.”

They moved away toward the seat under the sycamore, and now their words reached me no longer—only the low murmur of their voices or (to be correct) of the elder man's: for the other only spoke now and then, to put a question, as it seemed. Presently I heard an oath rapped out and saw the bully start up. “Hush, man!” cried the other, and “hark-ye now—“; so he sat down again. Their very forms were lost within the shadow. I, myself, was cold enough by this time and had a cramp in one leg—but lay still, nevertheless. And after awhile they stood up together, and came pacing across the bowling-green, side by side, the older man trailing his foot painfully to keep step. You may be sure I strain'd my ears.

“—besides the pay,” the stranger was saying, “there's all you can win of this young fool, Anthony, and all you find on the pair, which I'll wager—”

They passed out of hearing, but turned soon, and came back again. The big man was speaking this time.

“I'll be shot if I know what game you're playing in this.”

The elder chuckled softly. “I'll be shot if I mean you to,” said he.

And this was the last I heard. For now there came a clattering at the door behind me, and Mr. Robert Drury reeled in, hiccuping a maudlin ballad about “Tib and young Colin, one fine day, beneath the haycock shade-a,” &c., &c., and cursing to find his fire gone out, and all in darkness. Liquor was ever his master, and to-day the King's health had been a fair excuse. He did not spy me, but the roar of his ballad had startled the two men outside, and so, while he was stumbling over chairs, and groping for a tinder-box, I slipp'd out in the darkness, and downstairs into the street.