Part 27 (2/2)
”I remember a ma.s.s of things, but nothing distinctly; A quarrel.”
”I do repent; but Heaven hath pleased it so To punish me with this.”
”We will compound this quarrel.”
”'What's that?'--'Why, a horse.'
”'Tell thou the tale.'”
”Nay, I will win my wager better yet, And show more signs of her obedience.”
”Now go thy ways, thou hast tamed a curst shrew.”
--_Shakspeare_.
”WHY did you prevent me from giving that insolent scoundrel the lesson he deserved?” was Oaklands' first observation as we left the quadrangle in which Lawless's rooms were situated; ”I do not thank you for it, Frank.”
”My dear Harry,” replied I, ”you are excited at present; when you are a little more cool you will see that I could not have acted otherwise than I did. Even supposing I could have borne such a thing myself, what would have -174--been said of me if I had allowed you to fight in my quarrel?
no honourable man would have permitted me to a.s.sociate with him afterwards.”
”But I don't see that the quarrel was yours at all,” returned Oaklands; ”your share of it was ended when the toast affair came to a conclusion; the rest of the matter was purely personal between him and myself.”
”How can that be, when the origin of it was his doubting, or pretending to doubt, the truth of the anecdote which I related?” inquired I. ”No; depend upon it, Harry, I have acted rightly, though I bitterly regret now having gone to the party, and so exposed myself to all this. I have always looked upon duelling with the greatest abhorrence; to run the risk of committing murder (for I can call it by no milder name), when at the very moment in which the crime is consummated you may fall yourself, and thus even the forlorn hope of living to repent be cut off from you, appears to me little short of madness. On one point I am resolved--if I do go out with him, nothing shall induce me to fire at him; I will not die a murderer, at all events.”
”Should your life indeed be sacrificed,” said Oaklands, and his deep voice trembled with emotion as he spoke, ”I will follow this man as the avenger of blood, fix a mortal insult upon him wherever I meet him, and shoot him like a dog, convinced that I shall perform a righteous act in so doing, by ridding the world of such a monster!”
I saw by his manner that it would be useless to attempt to reason with him at that moment--his warm feelings, and the fiery though generous impulses of his impetuous nature, had so completely gained possession of him, that he was no longer a reasonable creature--we therefore walked in silence to my rooms, where we parted; I declining his offer to remain with me till I should learn the decision of Lawless and his friends, on the plea of wis.h.i.+ng to be alone (which was, indeed, a true one), although my chief reason for so doing was to prevent the possibility of Oaklands saying anything in his present excited state of mind, which, if repeated, might in any way involve him with Wilford.
My first act, when I found myself once more alone, was to sit down, and endeavour calmly to review the situation in which I was placed. In the event of their deciding that the affair might be arranged amicably, my course was clear--I had only to avoid Wilford as much as possible during the time I should remain at Cambridge, and, if -174--ever I were obliged to be in his company, to treat him with a cool and studied civility, which would leave him no pretext for forcing a quarrel upon me. On the other hand, if they should think it imperative upon me to go out with him, then indeed was the prospect a gloomy one. Wilford, whose ruthless disposition was so well known as to have become, as it were, a by-word among the set he mixed with, was not a man to be offended with impunity, and as, moreover, I had made up my mind not to return his fire, the chances were strongly against my escaping with life.
I am no coward; on the contrary, like most men whose physical energy is unimpaired, I am const.i.tutionally fearless, and in moments of danger and excitement have never found myself wanting; still it would be affectation to deny that the prospect of a sudden and violent death, thus unexpectedly forced upon me, impressed my mind with a vague sensation of terror, mingled with regret for the past, and sorrow for the future. To be thus cut off in the bright spring-time of vigorous manhood, when the warm blood of youth dances gladly through the veins, and every pulse throbs with the instinct of high and n.o.ble daring--to die with hopes unattained, wishes ungratified, duties unperformed--to leave those we love without one parting look or word to struggle on through this cold unsympathising world alone and unprotected--and, above all, to lose one's life in an act the lawfulness of which was more than questionable--all these things contributed to form a picture, which it required either a very steadfast or an utterly callous heart to enable one to gaze upon without blanching. I thought of the misery I should entail upon my family; how, instead of fulfilling my father's dying injunctions to take his place, and devote myself to comfort and protect them, I should wound my mother's heart anew, and spread the dark mist of sorrow over the fair prospect of my sister's young existence; and I cursed my fastidious folly in objecting to the toast, to which, in my self-accusation, I traced all that had afterwards occurred. Then, with the inconsistency of human nature, I began to speculate upon what would be Clara Saville's feelings, were she to learn that it was to prevent the slightest breath of insult being coupled with her name that I was about to peril, not only my life, but, for aught I knew, my hopes of happiness here and hereafter. As the last awful possibility occurred to me, the burden of my misery became too great for me to bear, and, retiring to the privacy of my own chamber, I flung myself on my knees, and poured -176--forth an earnest prayer for pardon for the past, and deliverance for the future.
When I again returned to my sitting-room my mind had nearly recovered its usual tone, and I felt prepared to meet and to go through whatever might be before me with calmness and determination. As I was uncertain how long it might be before Lawless would arrive, I resolved, in order to avoid the horrors of suspense, to employ myself, and taking up the mathematical treatise upon which I was engaged, and by a vigorous effort of mind compelling my attention, I read steadily for about half an hour, at the end of which time the sound of hasty footsteps was heard ascending the stairs, and in another minute the door was flung open, and Lawless and Archer entered the apartment.
”Reading mathematics, as I'm a slightly inebriated Christian!” exclaimed Archer, taking the book out of my hands; ”well, if that isn't pretty cool for a man who may be going to be shot at six o'clock to-morrow morning, for anything he knows to the contrary, I'm no judge of temperature.”
”Oh! bother mathematics,” rejoined Lawless, flinging the book which Archer held out to him at a bust of Homer adorning the top of my bookshelves, which it fortunately missed--”Frank, old boy! it's all right--you're not to have a bullet through your lungs this time--shake hands, old fellow! I'm so glad about it that I've--”
”Drunk punch enough to floor any two men of ordinary capacity,”
interposed Archer.
”Of course I have,” continued Lawless, ”and I consider I've performed a very meritorious act in so doing;--there was the punch, all the other fellows were gone away, somebody must have drunk it, or that young reprobate Shrimp would have got hold of it; and I promised the venerable fish-f.a.g his mother to take especial care of his what do ye call 'ums--morals, isn't it? and instil by precept, and--and--”
”Example,” suggested Archer.
”Yes, all that sort of thing,” continued Lawless, ”a taste for, that is, an unbounded admiration of, the sublime and beautiful, as exemplified under the form of--”
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