ce. Next came a young
butcher or two from the killing-yards, each already a _toreador_ in his
own estimation. The rest were chiefly _arrieros_ or carriers, with a
stray gipsy from the south, dark as a Moor; but every man as familiar
with the use of his long curved sheath-knife as a cathedral priest with
his breviary.

Meanwhile the tall young man with the long sword was not silent. His
Spanish was fluent if inelegant, and as it had been acquired among the
_majos_ of Sevilla and the mule-clippers of Aragon rather than in more
reputable quarters, his speech to the critical ear was flavoured with a
certain rich allusiveness of personality and virility of adjective
which made ample amends (in the company in which he found himself) for
any want of grammatical correctness.

With the Spanish anathemas that formed the main portion of his address,
he mingled certain other words in a foreign tongue, which, being
strong-sounding and guttural, served him almost as well in the Venta of
San Vicencio as his _Carais_ and _Carambas_.

"_Dogs of dog-mothers without honour!_ Come on, and I will stap twal
inches o' guid steel warranted by Robin Fleming o' the Grassmarket doon
your throats! A set o' gabbling geese--tak' that! With your virgins and
saints! Ah, would you? There, that will spoil your sitting down for a
day or two, my lad! Aye, scart, gin it does ye ony guid?"

A knife in his left hand, and in his right the long waving sword, bitter
and sometimes unknown and mysterious words in his mouth, this youth kept
his enemies very successfully at bay, meeting their blades six at a
time, and treading and turning so lightly that as he lunged this way and
that, there was a constant disorganisation among the opposing ranks, as
one and the other sprang back to elude his far-reaching point.

"He is of the devil--a devil of devils!" they cried. "We shall all
perish," wailed an old woman, shrinking back further into the
chimney-corner, and wringing her hands.

Meanwhile the youth apostrophised his blade.

"My bonny Robin Fleemin'--as guid as ony Toledan steel that ever was
forged! What do you think o' that for Leith Links? And they wad hae
made me either a minister or a cooper's apprentice!"

As he spoke he disarmed one of his chief opponents, who in furious anger
snatched a pistol and fired point-blank. The shot would indubitably have
brought down the young hero of the unequal combat, had not a stout
ruddy-faced youth, who had hitherto