The Reavers. George Fraser MacDonald

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ for, preferably in the shape of virtuous muscle – which, thank heaven, is e’en now thundering down the highway, snow flying beneath its charger’s hooves, moonlight glinting on drawn broadsword and gleaming teeth, the latter bared in a reckless fighting smile between a pencil-slim moustache and a rakish little chin-beard. Like a thunderbolt he speeds to the rescue, awakening the echoes with his laughing slogan: “Teckle low, Eccies!”, a cry which consternates the startled reivers and brings hope and joy to beleaguered beauty. For only heroes and idiots make that kind of noise when faced with odds of ten to one, and this character’s got hero written all over him.

      No, it isn’t Archie Noble, who at this moment is miles away trying to jimmy a larder window. Archie was in rags, remember, whereas this new chap isn’t dressed, he’s positively Attired, in the latest romantic gear of boots, cloak, Mechlin at wrists and throat, gems o’ price in his baldric, and a plumed hat that would make Sir Francis Walsingham gnash and turn green. He spurs among the astonished heavies, scattering them with plunging hooves and darting blade. In the time it takes to leap nimbly from the saddle and cry “Sa-ha, muckrakes! Hev et thee!” he had his back to the carriage door, rapped on the panels, cried: “Knock-knock – who’s thair? – Hatcher – Hatcher who – Hatcher survice, ladies!”, pinked Wor Jackie in the shoulder and Oor Kid in the leg, and was fronting the dismayed remnants of Tynedale Athletic, perfectly poised, point snaking in and out, clean-cut features reflecting the moonlight, ruby earring fairly dancing with glee of combat, and joyous laughter bubbling on his lips and bursting on his moustache.

      A rotten prospect for the remaining reivers, who could read the signs as well as we can – six feet plus, immaculately clad, foppish finery belying steely wrist and sinewy speed, handsome, dashing, merry to the point of hysteria, and obviously slated to get the girl in the last reel: the kind of super-gallant for whom they, being expendable extras, were so much rapier-fodder. But they did their best, flinging themselves on him with despairing cries of “Pantywaist!” and “Snob!”, and falling back, gashed and cursing, before a dazzling point which was everywhere at once, or if you prefer it, simultaneously ubiquitous.

      You’ve seen Tyrone Power do it often enough – engaging three blades at a time from opponents who stand obligingly frozen in the lunge position while he cries a cheery reassurance over his shoulder to Maureen O’Hara, carves his call-sign on their linen, stoops to let an attacker fall over him, and finally leaps forward with stamp and sweep to drive them off in panic-stricken rout. And not even breaking sweat.

      Our boy was like that, only better: within a minute there was a pile of reivers on the deck, bleeding and going “Aarrgh!”, and only the squeaking little Milburn was left, hacking away gamely at that impenetrable guard.

      “Kiss my steel!” cried the gallant gaily, and the little Milburn, seeing the chance to deliver the best riposte in the whole encounter, cried: “Kiss my arse!” and died happy.

      Frantic stuff, and watched with finger-twisting admiration by our beauteous duo in the coach, respectively gasping with apprehension and emitting squeals of “Wow! Gotcha!” Now, as their saviour wiped his blade on a lace kerchief and louted low, plumed hat in hand, they let down the window, Kylie fairly gushing with girlish congratulation and even Lady Godiva warming the knight-errant with her most queenly smile. Indeed, a hint of blush undercoat appeared ’neath the ivory satin finish of her cheek, and her ruby lips parted with a soft splooch, for if this was not Master Errol Flynn in Elizabethan costume, she’d never seen him. Kylie, less mistress of her emotions, gaped starry-eyed and gasped: “Golly, quel hunk!” The newcomer shot them a brilliant smile and spoke.

      “Oll raight, gurls? Ai hope these belly reskals didn’t hurrt you. Ai’d hev hasted to yur aid even fester, but the road’s in a helluva state, simply fraightful. You shoor yur okay?”

      Being unprepared for the accent of Glasgow W2 from this Apollo, Lady Godiva was momentarily taken aback, but came off the ropes with speedy aplomb.

      “We are much beholden to you, sir,” said she, all peerless dignity, and extended a white hand over which he bowed reverent curly head, the bristles of his lip-cosy sending electric tingles up her arm to her smooth shoulder, whence they dispersed delightfully through the rest of her, a sensation which would have caused her to go “Eek!” had she not been schooled to hide girlish emotion.

      Little Kylie knew no such reticence. Proffering eager mitt in turn, and feeling her knuckles nibbled (this gallant can obviously tell top quality from mere talent, and responds accordingly) she exclaimed: “Yikes! Much beholden nothing! ’Tis miracle that sends such dashing champion to our aid – oh, sir, your footwork was brill, and how may we repay you?” As if I didn’t know, thought the wanton hussy, lowering coy lashes o’er worshipping orbs.

      “Och, don’t menshn’it – no bother, reelly,” was the modest reply. “Pleez, just sit taight while Ai round up those varlets of yurs, whurrever they’ve got to. Going laike the cleppers when Ai saw them lest. Heff a jiffy, end Ai’ll be beck!”

      And with another graceful bow and flash of gum-gear, he sprang lightly on his horse, and with the command: “Come on, Garscadden – away!” cleared the roadside hedge from a standing start and was off across the snowy fields shouting: “Ho there, leckeys! Get yurselves follen in! Where urr you, desh it? Yur mistress ken’t stay heer oll naight!”

      A faint furrow did its stuff ’twixt Lady Godiva’s delicately pencilled brows. “Methinks,” said she, “this gentleman should be a Scot, by his tongue.”

      “Who cares about his tongue?” enthused glowing Kylie. “Regard me rather those super shoulders, chiselled clock, sexy legs, and the Mephisto-gleam in his tawny eyes! And what a mover – nay, ’a went through those nasties like a dose of Dr Lopez his salts!” She sighed. “Bit of a waste of beefcake, if you ask me, but that’s the way the farl fractures. What makes you think he’s Scotch, Goddy?”

      “His speech, dum-dum!” quoth impatient Godiva. “Had ye but marked the dialogue in Macbeth^*,’ stead of ogling the husky who played the Bleeding Sergeant, you’d ha’ noted that the nobles of Scotland – you know, Angus, Lennox, McHaggis, whoever – spoke exactly as doth our rescuer. A quaint affected dialect, which they do term ‘toffee-nosed’, for that it apes gentility – sex are what they keep coal in, and a crèche is two carts colliding on Byres Road,” she explained, but with a musing, dreamy look that suggested preoccupations other than nutty slack and vehicle pile-ups. Aware of Kylie’s slantendicular smirk, her ladyship feigned a yawn. “Thus talks he – aye, and plies pretty rapier enough. For the rest,” she shrugged indifferent shoulders, “I marked him not.”

      “Get her!” scoffed Kylie. “You marked him ten out o’ ten! Going to offer him a lift, are we?”

      Disdain tilted the exquisite nose and squiggled the delectable mouth of the Thrashbatter heiress. “And if I so condescend,” she snooted, “to one that hath done me service, why, what’s it to thee, sauce-pot? He may be mere gentry and talk as if he had a mouse up his nose, yet is he the most presentable thing I’ve seen this side of Watford Gap.”

      “Does that mean I have to ride on the roof?” sniffed Kylie. “Or don’t you mind the competition?”

      “That,” quoth Godiva, patting complacent coiffure, “will be the day. Bear us company an ye list, sweet child – but try playing footsie with him and I’ll break your leg.”

      Thus it was that when the stranger had scooped in Samkin and the perspiring lackeys, with brisk halloo and cries of “C’mon, churrls, move it! Run laike stegs, you aidle shower!” and they had put to the horses and tidied the fallen reivers into the ditch, he found himself bidden to a seat in the carriage, his horse being anchored astern. Kylie, with pretty becks and flutters, proffered СКАЧАТЬ