Page:Stories of the two drovers and Countess of Exeter.pdf/17

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give him, though,” said his antagonist, whose heart began to relent towards his old associate; “and would rather by half give the rest to yourself, Mr Fleecebumpkin for you pretend to know a thing or two, and Robin had not art enough even to peel before setting to, but fought with his plaid dangling about him.——Stand up Robin, my man! all friends now; and let me hear the man that will speak a word against you, or your country for your sake.”

Robin Oig was still under the dominion of his passion, and eager to renew the onset; but being withheld on the one side by the peace-making Dame Heskett, and on the other, aware that Wakefield no longer meant to renew the combat, his fury sunk into gloomy sullenness. “Come, come, never grudge so much at it, man,” said the brave-spirited Englishman, with the placability of his country, “shake hands, and we will be better friends than ever.” “Friends!” exclaimed Robin Oig with strong emphasis——“friends!——Never. Look to yourself, Harry Waakfelt.” “Then the curse of Cromwell on your proud Scots stomach, as the man says in the play, and you may do your worst and be d—————d; for one man can say nothing more to another after a tussel, than that he is sorry for it.”

On these terms the friends parted; Robin Oig drew out, in silence, a piece of money, threw it on the table, and then left the alehouse. But turning at the door, he shook his hand at Wakefield, pointing with his forefinger upwards, in a manner which might imply either a threat or a caution. He then disappeared in the moonlight.

Some words passed after his departure, between the bailiff, who piqued himself on being a little of a bully, and Harry Wakefield, who with generous inconsistency, was now not indisposed to begin a new combat in defence of Robin Oig’s reputation, “although he could not use his daddies like an Englishman, as it did not come natural to him.” But Dame Heskett prevented this second quarrel from coming to a head by her peremptory