A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [508]
Caldwell glanced around; there was an air of restlessness around them, of men calling their accounts and settling up. The official meeting of the convention was to begin at two o’clock, at MacIntyre’s farmhouse. It was past noon now, delegates, speakers, and spectators would be slowly gathering, girding themselves for an afternoon of conflict and decision. The breathless feeling came back.
“Aye, then. Give him my regards, if ye will—though perhaps I may see him myself. And may the Holy Spirit penetrate the encrustations of habit and lethargy, and convert the souls and rouse the consciences of those who gather here today!”
“Amen,” said Roger, smiling in spite of the glances from the men—and not a few women—around them.
He found Jamie in the Blue Boar, in the company of a number of men in whom the Holy Spirit had already been hard at work on the encrustations, judging from the volume. The chatter near the door died away, though, as he made his way through the room—not in cause of his own presence, but because there was something more interesting going on near the center.
To wit: Jamie Fraser and Neil Forbes, both red with heat, passion, and a gallon or two of mixed spirits, head to head over a table, and hissing like snakes in the Gaelic.
Only a few of the spectators were Gaelic speakers; these were hastily translating the high points of the dialogue for the rest of the crowd.
Gaelic insult was an art, and one at which his father-in-law excelled, though Roger was obliged to admit that the lawyer was no slouch at it, himself. The translations rendered by the onlookers fell far short of the original; nonetheless, the taproom was rapt, with occasional admiring whistles or whoops from the spectators, or laughter as a particularly pungent point was made.
Having missed the beginning, Roger had no idea how the conflict had begun, but so far into it as they were, the exchange was focused on cowardice and arrogance, Jamie’s remarks aimed at Forbes’s leading the attack on Fogarty Simms as a low-minded and cowardly attempt to make himself look the big man at the price of a defenseless man’s life, Forbes—shifting into English here, as he realized that they had become the cynosure of the room—taking the view that Jamie’s presence here was an unwarrantable affront to those who truly held the ideals of liberty and justice, as everyone knew he was in truth the King’s man, but he, the puffed-up cock o’ the walk, thought that he could pull the wool over everyone’s eyes long enough to betray the whole boiling, but if he, Fraser, thought he, Forbes, was fool enough to be gulled by antic tricks in the public street and a lot of talk with nay more substance than the shrieking of gulls, he, Fraser, had best think again!
Jamie slapped a hand flat on the table, making it boom like a drum, and rattling the cups. He rose, glaring down at Forbes.
“Do ye libel my honor, sir?” he cried, also shifting to English. “For if ye do, let us go out, and we shall settle the matter at once, yea or nay!”
Sweat was streaming down Forbes’s broad, flushed face, and his eyes were gleaming with anger, but even overheated as he was, Roger saw belated caution pluck at his sleeve. Roger hadn’t seen the fight in Cross Creek, but Ian had told him the details, meanwhile laughing his head off. The last thing Neil Forbes could desire was a duel.
“Have ye honor to libel, sir?” Forbes demanded, standing in turn, and drawing himself up as though about to address the jury. “Ye come here acting the great one, carousing and showing away like a sailor come ashore with prize money in his pocket—but have we any evidence that your words are more than puffery? Puffery, I say, sir!”
Jamie stood, both hands braced on the tabletop, surveying Forbes through narrowed eyes. Roger had once seen that expression focused on himself. It had been followed rapidly by the sort of mayhem customary in a Glasgow pub on Saturday night—only more so. The only thing to be thankful for was that Forbes had clearly not heard any whiff of Malva Christie’s accusation, or there