The Shoes of Fortune. Munro Neil

Dan Risk’s the very man ye’re in the need of. You’re wanting out of Scotland, are ye no’?”

      “More than that; I’m wanting out of myself,” said I, but that seemed beyond him.

      “Come in anyway, and we’ll talk it over.”

      That he might help me out of the country seemed possible if he was not, as I feared at first, some agent of the law and merely playing with me, so I entered the tavern with him.

      “Two gills to the coffin-room, Mrs. Clerihew,” he cried to the woman in the kitchen. “And slippy aboot it, if ye please, for my mate here’s been drinking buttermilk all his life, and ye can tell’t in his face.”

      “I would rather have some meat,” said I.

      “Humph!” quo’ he, looking at my breeches. “A lang ride!” He ordered the food at my mentioning, and made no fuss about drinking my share of the spirits as well as his own, while I ate with a hunger that was soon appeased, for my eye, as the saying goes, was iller to satisfy than my appetite.

      He sat on the other side of the table in the little room that doubtless fairly deserved the name it got of coffin, for many a man, I’m thinking, was buried there in his evil habits; and I wondered what was to be next.

      “To come to the bit,” said the at last, looking hard into the bottom of his tankard in a way that was a plain invitation to buy more for him. “To come to the bit, you’re wanting out of the country?”

      “It’s true,” said I; “but how do you know? And how do you know my name, for I never saw you to my knowledge in all my life before?”

      “So much the worse for you; I’m rale weel liked by them that kens me. What would ye give for a passage to Nova Scotia?”

      “It’s a long way,” said I, beginning to see a little clearer.

      “Ay,” said he, “but I’ve seen a gey lang rope too, and a man danglin’ at the end of it.”

      Again my face betrayed me. I made no answer.

      “I ken all aboot it,” he went on. “Your name’s Greig; ye’re from a place called the Hazel Den at the other side o’ the country; ye’ve been sailing wi’ a stiff breeze on the quarter all night, and the clime o’ auld Scotland’s one that doesna suit your health, eh? What’s the amount?” said he, and he looked towards my pocket “Could we no’ mak’ it halfers?”

      “Five pounds,” said I, and at that he looked strangely dashed.

      “Five pounds,” he repeated incredulously. “It seems to have been hardly worth the while.” And then his face changed, as if a new thought had struck him. He leaned over the table and whispered with the infernal tone of a confederate, “Doused his glim, eh?” winking with his hale eye, so that I could not but shiver at him, as at the touch of slime.

      “I don’t understand,” said I.

      “Do ye no’?” said he, with a sneer; “for a Greig ye’re mighty slow in the uptak’. The plain English o’ that, then, is that ye’ve killed a man. A trifle like that ance happened to a Greig afore.”

      “What’s your name?” I demanded.

      “Am I no tellin’ ye?” said he shortly. “It’s just Daniel Risk; and where could you get a better? Perhaps ye were thinkin’ aboot swappin’ names wi’ me; and by the Bass, it’s Dan’s family name would suit very weel your present position,” and the scoundrel laughed at his own humour.

      “I asked because I was frightened it might be Mahoun,” said I. “It seems gey hard to have ridden through mire for a night and a day, and land where ye started from at the beginning. And how do ye ken all that?”

      “Oh!” he said, “kennin’s my trade, if ye want to know. And whatever way I ken, ye needna think I’m the fellow to make much of a sang aboot it. Still and on, the thing’s frowned doon on in this country, though in places I’ve been it would be coonted to your credit. I’ll take anither gill; and if ye ask me, I would drench the butter-milk wi’ something o’ the same, for the look o’ ye sittin’ there’s enough to gie me the waterbrash. Mrs. Clerihew – here!” He rapped loudly on the table, and the drink coming in I was compelled again to see him soak himself at my expense. He reverted to my passage from the country, and “Five pounds is little enough for it,” said he; “but ye might be eking it oot by partly working your passage.”

      “I didn’t say I was going either to Nova Scotia or with you,” said I, “and I think I could make a better bargain elsewhere.”

      “So could I, maybe,” said he, fuming of spirits till I felt sick. “And it’s time I was doin’ something for the good of my country.” With that he rose to his feet with a look of great moral resolution, and made as if for the door, but by this time I understood him better.

      “Sit down, ye muckle hash!” said I, and I stood over him with a most threatening aspect.

      “By the Lord!” said he, “that’s a Greig anyway!”

      “Ay!” said I. “ye seem to ken the breed. Can I get another vessel abroad besides yours?”

      “Ye can not,” said he, with a promptness I expected, “unless ye wait on the Sea Pyat. She leaves for Jamaica next Thursday; and there’s no’ a spark of the Christian in the skipper o’ her, one Macallum from Greenock.”

      For the space of ten minutes I pondered over the situation. Undoubtedly I was in a hole. This brute had me in his power so long as my feet were on Scottish land, and he knew it. At sea he might have me in his power too, but against that there was one precaution I could take, and I made up my mind.

      “I’ll give you four pounds – half at leaving the quay and the other half when ye land me.”

      “My conscience wadna’ aloo me,” protested the rogue; but the greed was in his face, and at last he struck my thumb on the bargain, and when he did that I think I felt as much remorse at the transaction as at the crime from whose punishment I fled.

      “Now,” said I, “tell me how you knew me and heard about – about – ”

      “About what?” said he, with an affected surprise. “Let me tell ye this, Mr. Greig, or whatever your name may be, that Dan Risk is too much of the gentleman to have any recollection of any unpleasantness ye may mention, now that he has made the bargain wi’ ye. I ken naethin’ aboot ye, if ye please: whether your name’s Greig or Mackay or Habbie Henderson, it’s new to me, only ye’re a likely lad for a purser’s berth in the Seven Sisters.” And refusing to say another word on the topic that so interested me, he took me down to the ship’s side, where I found the Seven Sisters was a brigantine out of Hull, sadly in the want of tar upon her timbers and her mainmast so decayed and worm-eaten that it sounded boss when I struck it with my knuckles in the by-going.

      Risk saw me doing it. He gave an ugly smile.

      “What do ye think o’ her? said he, showing me down the companion.

      “Mighty little,” I told him straight. “I’m from the moors,” said I, “but I’ve had my feet on a sloop of Ayr before now; and by the look of this craft I would say she has been beeking in the sun idle till she rotted down to the garboard strake.”

      He gave his gleed eye a turn and vented some appalling oaths, and wound up with the insult I might expect – namely, that drowning was not my portion.

      “There was some brag a little ago of your being a gentleman,” said I, convinced that this blackguard was to be treated to his own fare if he was to be got on with at all. “There’s not much of a gentleman in the like of that.”

      At this he was taken aback. “Well,” said he, “don’t you cross my temper; if my temper’s crossed it’s gey hard to keep up gentility. The ship’s sound enough, or she wouldn’t be half a dizen times round the Horn and as weel kent in Halifax as one o’ their ain dories. She’s guid enough for your – for our business, if ye please, Mr. Greig; and here’s my mate Murchison.”

      Another