There I found two men of
my old regiment--Kurz and another--at words with a small, dark,
nimble fellow, who carried bright and dancing eyes in a pock-marked
face. He had his iron drawn, a heavy box-handled cut-and-thrust
blade, and seemed ready to fall at once on the pair that had been
jeering him for his strange speech.
"Who is this, lads?" I asked.
"Ein Englander," answered they.
"No Englishman," says he, in a curious accent not unlike our
brogue, "but a plain gentleman, though he bears a king's name and
hath Alan Breck to his by-name."
"Come, come," says I in German, "let the gentleman go his way; he
is my own countryman." This was true enough for them; and you
should have seen the Highlander's eyes flash, and grow dim again.
I took his arm, for Potzdorff will expect me to know all about the
stranger, and marched him down to the Drei Konige.
"I am your host, sir; what do you call for, Mr. Stuart of -?" said
I, knowing there is never a Scot but has the name of his kailyard
tacked to his own.
"A King's name is good enough for me; I bear it plain. Mr. -?"
said he, reddening.
"They call me the Chevalier Barry, of Ballybarry."
"I am in the better company, sir," quoth he, with a grand bow.
When a bowl of punch was brought he takes off his hat, and drinks,
very solemnly, "To the King!"
"Over the water?" I asked.
"Nay, sir, on THIS side," he said; and I smoked the Jacobite.
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