Читать книгу The Greatest Novels of Charles Reade - Charles Reade Reade - Страница 111

Table of Contents

The two combatants came to the field in a very different spirit. Neville had already fought two duels, and been successful in both. He had confidence in his skill, and in his luck. His conscience too was tolerably clear: for he was the insulted person; and, if a bullet should remove this dangerous rival from his path, why all the better for him, and all the worse for the fool who had brought the matter to a bloody issue, though the balance of the lady's heart inclined his way.

He came in high spirits, and rode upon Kate Peyton's grey, to sting his adversary, and show his contempt of him.

Not so Griffith Gaunt. His heart was heavy, and foreboded ill. It was his first duel, and he expected to be killed. He had played a fool's game, and he saw it.

The night before the duel he tried hard to sleep: he knew it was not giving his nerves fair play to lie thinking all night. But coy sleep, as usual when most wanted, refused to come. At daybreak the restless man gave it up in despair, and rose and dressed himself. He wrote that letter to Catherine, little thinking it would fall into her hands while he lived. He ate a little toast and drank a pint of Burgundy; and then wandered listlessly about till Major Rickards, his second, arrived.

That experienced gentleman brought a surgeon with him; Mr. Islip.

Major Rickards deposited a shallow wooden box in the hall; and the two gentlemen sat down to a hearty breakfast.

Griffith took care of his guests, but beyond that spoke scarcely a word; and the surgeon, after a ghastly attempt at commonplaces, was silent too. Major Rickards satisfied his appetite first, and then, finding his companions dumb, set to work to keep up their spirits. He entertained them with a narrative of the personal encounters he had witnessed, and especially of one in which his principal had fallen on his face at the first fire, and the antagonist had sprung into the air, and both had lain dead as door nails, and never moved, nor even winked, after that single discharge.

Griffith sat under this chilling talk for more than an hour.

At last he rose gloomily, and said it was time to go.

"Got your tools, doctor?" inquired the Major.

The surgeon nodded slightly. He was more discreet than his friend.

When they had walked nearly a mile in the snow, the Major began to complain. "The devil!" said he; "this is queer walking. My boots are full of water. I shall catch my death."

The surgeon smiled satirically, comparing silent Griffith's peril with his second's.

Griffith took no notice. He went like Fortitude plodding to Execution.

Major Rickards fell behind, and whispered Mr. Islip: "Don't like his looks; doesn't march like a winner. A job for you or the sexton, you mark my words."

They toiled up Scutchemsee Nob, and when they reached the top, they saw Neville and his second, Mr. Hammersley, riding towards them. The pair had halters as well as bridles, and dismounting, made their nags fast to a large blackthorn that grew there. The seconds then stepped forward and saluted each other with formal civility.

Griffith looked at the grey horse, and ground his teeth. The sight of the animal in Neville's possession stirred up his hate, and helped to steel his heart. He stood apart, still, pale and gloomy.

The seconds stepped out fifteen paces, and placed the men. Then they loaded two pair of pistols, and put a pistol in each man's hand.

Major Rickards took that opportunity to advise his principal. "Stand sharp. Keep your arm close to your side. Don't fire too high. How do you feel?"

"Like a man who must die; but will try to die in company."

The seconds now withdrew to their places, and the rivals held their pistols lowered: but fixed their deadly eyes on each other.

The eye, in such a circumstance, is a terrible thing: it is literally a weapon of destruction; for it directs the deadly hand that guides the deadly bullet. Moreover the longer and the more steadily the duelist fixes his eye on his adversary, the less likely he is to miss.

Griffith was very pale, but dogged. Neville was serious, but firm. Both eyed each other unflinchingly.

"Gentlemen, are you ready?" asked Neville's second.

{"Yes."

{"Yes."

"Then," said Major Rickards, "you will fire when I let fall this handkerchief, and not before. Mark me, gentlemen; to prevent mistakes, I shall say 'one——two——three'——and then drop the handkerchief. Now then, once more, are you quite ready?"

{"Yes."

{"Yes."

"One———Two———Three."———He dropped the handkerchief, and both gentlemen fired simultaneously. Mr. Neville's hat spun into the air; Griffith stood untouched.

The bullet had passed through Neville's hat, and had actually cut a lane through his magnificent hair.

The seconds now consulted, and it was intimated to Griffith that a word of apology would be accepted by his antagonist.

Griffith declined to utter a syllable of apology.

Two more pistols were given the men.

"Aim lower," said Rickards.

"I mean to," said Griffith.

The seconds withdrew, and the men eyed each other: Griffith dogged and pale, as before, Neville not nearly so self-assured; Griffith's bullet, in grazing him, had produced the effect of a sharp, cold, current of air no wider than a knife. It was like death's icy forefinger laid on his head, to mark him for the next shot; as men mark a tree; then come again and fell it.

"One——two——three!"

And Griffith's pistol missed fire, but Neville's went off, and Griffith's arm sank powerless, and his pistol rolled out of his hand. He felt a sharp twinge, and then something trickle down his arm.

The surgeon and both seconds ran to him. "Nay, it is nothing," said he, "I shoot far better with my left hand than my right. Give me another pistol, and let me have fair play. He has hit me. And now I'll hit him."

Both seconds agreed this was impossible.

"It is the chance of war," said Major Rickards: "you cannot be allowed to take a cool shot at Mr. Neville. If you fire again, so must he."

"The affair may very well end here," said Mr. Hammersley. "I understand there was some provocation on our side; and on behalf of the party insulted I am content to let the matter end, Mr. Gaunt being wounded."

"I demand my second shot to his third," said Griffith sternly; "he will not decline, unless he is a poltroon as well as——what I called him."

The nature of this reply was communicated to Neville, and the seconds, with considerable reluctance, loaded two more pistols; and during the process Major Rickards glanced at the combatants.

Griffith, exasperated by his wound and his jealousy, was wearing out the chivalrous courage of his adversary; and the Major saw it. His keen eye noticed that Neville was getting restless, and looking confounded at his despised rival's pertinacity: and that Gaunt was more dogged, and more deadly.

"My man will kill yours this time," said he, quietly, to Neville's second. "I can see it in his eye; he is hungry; t'other has had his bellyful."

Once more the men were armed, and the seconds withdrew to their places, intimating that this was the last shot they would allow under any circumstances whatever.

"Are you both ready?"

{"Yes."

{"Yes."

A faint wail seemed to echo the response.

All heard it, and in that superstitious age believed it to be some mysterious herald of death.

It suspended even Major Packard's voice a minute. He recovered himself, however, and once more his soldier-like tones ran in the keen air:—

"One——"

There was a great rushing, and a pounding of the hard ground, and a scarlet Amazon galloped in and drew up in the middle, right between the leveled pistols.

Every eye had been so bent on the combatants, that Kate Peyton and her horse seemed to have sprung out of the very earth. And there she sat pale as ashes, on the steaming piebald, and glanced from pistol to pistol.

The duelists stared in utter amazement, and instinctively lowered their weapons; for she had put herself right in their line of fire, with a recklessness that contrasted nobly with her fear for others. In short this apparition literally petrified them all, seconds as well as combatants.

And, while they stood open-mouthed yet dumb, in came the Scamp, and, with a brisk assumption of delegated authority, took Griffith's weapon out of his now unresisting hand; then marched to Neville. He instantly saluted Catherine, and then handed his pistol to her seeming agent, with a high-bred and inimitable air of utter nonchalance.

Kate, seeing them to her surprise so easily disarmed, raised her hands and her lovely eyes to Heaven, and in a feeble voice, thanked God and St. Nescioquis.

But very soon that faint voice quavered away to nothing, and her fair head was seen to droop, and her eyes to close; then her body sank slowly forward like a broken lily; and in another moment she lay fainting on the snow beside her steaming horse.

He never moved, he was so dead beat too.

O lame and impotent conclusion of a vigorous exploit! Masculine up to the crowning point, and then to go and spoil all with "woman's weakness."

"N.B.: This is rote sarcasticul," as Artemus, the delicious, says. Woman's weakness! If Solomon had planned and Samson executed, they could not have served her turn better than this most seasonable swooning did. For lo! at her fall the doughty combatants uttered a yell of dismay, and there was an indiscriminate rush towards the fair sufferer.

But the surgeon claimed his rights:—"This is my business," said he, authoritatively; "do not crowd on her, gentlemen; give her air."

Whereupon the duelists and seconds stood respectfully aloof in a mixed group, and watched with eager interest and pity.

The surgeon made a hole in the snow and laid his fair patient's head low. "Don't be alarmed," said he: "she has swooned; that is all."

It was all mighty fine to say don't be alarmed. But her face was ashy, and her lips the color of lead: and she was so like death, they could not help being terribly alarmed: and now, for the first time, the duelists felt culprits; and, as for fighting, every idea of such a thing went out of their heads: the rivals now were but rival nurses: and never did a lot of women make more fuss over a child, than all these bloodthirsty men did over this Amazon manquée. They produced their legendary lore: one's grandmother had told him burnt feathers were the thing; another, from an equally venerable source, had gathered that those pink palms must be profanely slapped by the horny hand of a man; for at no less a price could resuscitation be obtained. The surgeon scorning all their legends, Griffith and Neville made hasty rushes with brandy and usquebaugh; but whether to be taken internally or externally, they did not say, nor indeed know; but only thrust their flasks wildly on the doctor: and he declined them loftily. He melted snow in his hand, and dashed it hard in her face; and put salts close to her pretty little nostrils. And this he repeated many times, without effect.

But at last her lips began to turn from lead color to white, and then from white to pink, and her heavenly eyes to open again, and her mouth to murmur things pitiably small and not bearing on the matter in hand.

Her cheek was still colorless, when her consciousness came back, and she found she was lying on the ground with ever so many gentlemen looking at her.

At that, Modesty alarmed sent the blood at once rushing to her pale cheek.

A lovely lily seemed turning to a lovely rose before their eyes.

The next thing was, she hid that blushing face in her hands, and began to whimper.

The surgeon encouraged her: "Nay, we are all friends," he whispered, paternally.

She half parted her fingers and peered through them at Neville and Gaunt. Then she remembered all, and began to cry hysterically.

New dismay of sanguinary unprofessionals!

"Now, gentlemen, if you will lend me your flasks," said Mr. Islip, mighty calmly.

Griffith and Neville were instantly at his side, each with a flask.

The surgeon administered snow and brandy. Kate sipped these, and gulped down her sobs, and at last cried composedly.

But, when it came to sipping brandied snow and crying comfortably, Major Rickards's anxiety gave place to curiosity. Without taking his eye off her he beckoned, Mr. Hammersley apart, and whispered, "Who the deuce is it?"

"Don't you know?" whispered the other in return. "Why Mistress Peyton herself."

"What, the girl it is all about? Well, I never heard of such a thing: the causa belli to come galloping, and swooning, on the field of battle, and so stop the fighting! What will our ladies do next? By Heaven, she is worth fighting for though. Which is the happy man, I wonder? She doesn't look at either of them."

"Ah!" said the gentleman, "that is more than I know, more than Neville knows, more than anybody knows."

"Bet you a guinea she knows; and lets it out before she leaves the field," said Major Rickards.

Mr. Hammersley objected to an even bet; but said he would venture one to three she did not. It was an age of bets.

"Done!" said the Major.

By this time Kate had risen, with Mr. Islip's assistance, and was now standing with her hand upon the piebald's mane. She saw Rickards and Hammersley were whispering about her, and she felt very uneasy: so she told Mr. Islip timidly she desired to explain her conduct to all the gentlemen present, and avert false reports.

They were soon all about her, and she began with the most engaging embarrassment by making excuses for her weakness. She said she had ridden all the way from home, fasting; that was what had upset her. The gentlemen took the cue directly, and vowed eagerly and unanimously it was enough to upset a porter.

"But indeed," resumed Kate, blushing, "I did not come here to make a fuss, and be troublesome; but to prevent mischief, and clear up the strangest misunderstanding between two worthy gentlemen that are, both of them, my good friends."

She paused, and there was a chilling silence: everybody felt she was getting on ticklish ground now. She knew that well enough herself. But she had a good rudder to steer by, called Mother-wit.

Says she, with inimitable coolness, "Mr. Gaunt is an old friend of mine, and a little too sensitive where I am concerned. Some chatter-box has been and told him Mr. Neville should say I have changed horses with him; and on that the gossips put their own construction. Mr. Gaunt hears all this, and applies insulting terms to Mr. Neville. Nay, do not deny it, Mr. Gaunt, for I have it here in your own handwriting.

"As for Mr. Neville, he merely defends his honor, and is little to blame. But now I shall tell the true story about these horses, and make you all ashamed of this sorry quarrel.

"Gentlemen, thus it is: a few days ago Mr. Gaunt bade me farewell, and started for foreign parts. He had not been long gone when word came from Bolton that Mr. Charlton was no more. You know how sudden it was. Consider, gentlemen; him dead, and his heir riding off to the Continent in ignorance. So I thought, 'Oh what shall I do?' Just then Mr. Neville visited me, and I told him: on that he offered me his piebald horse to carry the news after Mr. Gaunt, because my grey was too tired; it was the day we drew Yew-tree Brow, and crossed Harrowden brook, you know—"

Griffith interrupted her: "Stay a bit," said he: "this is news to me. You never told me he had lent you the piebald nag to do me a good turn."

"Did I not?" said Kate, mighty innocently. "Well, but I tell you now. Ask him; he cannot deny it. As for the rest, it was all done in a hurry; Mr. Neville had no horse now to ride home with; he did me the justice to think I should be very ill pleased were he to trudge home a-foot and suffer for his courtesy; so he borrowed my grey, to keep him out of the mire; and indeed the ways were fouler than usual, with the rains. Was there any ill in all this? HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE! says I."

The gentlemen all sided loudly with her on this appeal—except Neville, who held his tongue, and smiled at her plausibility; and Griffith, who hung his head at her siding with Neville.

At last he spoke and said sorrowfully: "If you did exchange horses with him, of course I have only to ask his pardon—and go."

Catherine reflected a moment before she replied.

"Well," said she, "I did exchange, and I did not. Why quarrel about a word? certainly he took my horse, and I took his; but it was only for the nonce. Mr. Neville is foreign bred, and an example to us all: he knows his piebald is worth two of my grey, and so he was too fine a gentleman man to send me back my old hunter and ask for his young charger. He waited for me to do that; and, if anybody deserves to be shot, it must be Me. But, dear heart, I did not foresee all this fuss; I said to myself, 'La, Mr. Neville will be sure to call on my father or me some day, or else I shall be out on the piebald, and meet him on the grey, and then we can each take our own again.' Was I so far out in my reckoning? Is not that my Rosinante yonder? Here, Tom Leicester, you put my side-saddle on that grey horse, and the man's saddle on the piebald there.—And now, Griffith Gaunt, it is your turn: you must withdraw your injurious terms, and end this superlative folly."

Griffith hesitated.

"Come," said Kate, "consider; Mr. Neville is esteemed by all the county: you are the only gentleman in it who have ever uttered a disparaging word against him. Are you sure you are more free from passion and prejudice, and wiser than all the county? oblige me, and do what is right. Come, Griffith Gaunt; let your reason unsay the barbarous words your passion hath uttered against a worthy gentleman, whom we all esteem."

Her habitual influence, and these last words, spoken with gentle and persuasive dignity, turned the scale. Griffith turned to Neville, and said in a low voice that he began to fear he had been hasty, and used harsher words than the occasion justified: he was going to stammer out something more, but Neville interrupted him with a noble gesture: "That is enough, Mr. Gaunt," said he. "I do not feel quite blameless in the matter: and have no wish to mortify an honorable adversary unnecessarily."

"Very handsomely said," put in Major Rickards: "and now let me have a word. I say that both gentlemen have conducted themselves like men—under fire; and that honor is satisfied, and the misunderstanding at an end. As for my principal here, he has shown he can fight, and now he has shown he can hear reason against himself, when the lips of beauty utter it. I approve his conduct from first to last, and am ready to defend it in all companies, and in the field, should it ever be impugned."

Kate colored with pleasure, and gave her hand eloquently to the Major. He bowed over it, and kissed the tips of her fingers.

"Oh! sir," she said, looking on him now as a friend, "I dreamed I saw Mr. Neville lying dead upon the snow, with the blood trickling from his temple."

At this Neville's dark cheek glowed with pleasure. So! it was her anxiety on his account had brought her here.

Griffith heard too, and sighed patiently.

Assured by Major Rickards that there neither could nor should be any more fighting, Kate made her adieux, mounted her grey horse, and rode off, discreetly declining all attendance. She beckoned Tom Leicester, however. But he pretended not to see the signal; and let her go alone. His motive for lingering behind was characteristic, and will transpire shortly.

As soon as she was gone, Griffith Gaunt quietly reminded the surgeon that there was a bullet in his arm all this time.

"Bless my soul!" said Mr. Islip, "I forgot that; I was so taken up with the lady."

Griffith's coat was now taken off, and the bullet searched for: it had entered the fleshy part of his arm below the elbow, and, passing round the bone, projected just under the skin. The surgeon made a slight incision, and then, pressing with his finger and thumb, out it rolled. Griffith put it in his pocket.

Neville had remained out of civility, and now congratulated his late antagonist, and himself, that it was no worse.

The last words that passed between the rivals on this occasion were worth recording, and characteristic of the time.

Neville addressed Gaunt with elaborate courtesy, and to this effect: "I find myself in a difficulty, sir. You did me the honor to invite me to Mr. Charlton's funeral, and I accepted: but now I fear to intrude a guest, the sight of whom may be disagreeable to you. And, on the other hand, my absence might be misconstrued as a mark of disrespect, or of a petty hostility I am far from feeling. Be pleased, therefore, to dispose of me entirely in this matter."

Griffith reflected. "Sir," said he, "there is an old saying, 'let every tub stand on its own bottom.' The deceased wished you to follow him to the grave, and therefore I would on no account have you absent. Besides, now I think of it, there will be less gossip about this unfortunate business if our neighbors see you under my roof; and treated with due consideration there, as you will be."

"I do not doubt that, sir, from so manly an adversary; and I shall do myself the honor to come." Such was Seville's reply. The rivals then saluted each other profoundly, and parted.

Hammersley and Rickards lingered behind their principals to settle their little bet about Kate's affections: and, by-the-by, they were indiscreet enough to discuss this delicate matter within a dozen yards of Tom Leicester: they forgot that "little pitchers have long ears."

Catherine Peyton rode slowly home, and thought it all over as she went; and worried herself finely. She was one that winced at notoriety; and she could not hope to escape it now. How the gossips would talk about her! they would say the gentlemen had fought about her; and she had parted them for love of one of them. And then the gentlemen themselves! The strict neutrality she had endeavored to maintain on Scutchemsee Nob, in order to make peace, would it not keep them both her suitors? She foresaw she should be pulled to pieces, and live in hot water, and be "the talk of the county."

There were but two ways out: she must marry one of them, and petition the other not to shoot him; or else she must take the veil, and so escape them both.

She preferred the latter alternative. She was more enthusiastic in religion than in any earthly thing: and now the angry passions of men thrust her the same road that her own devout mind had always drawn her.

As soon as she got home she sent a message to Father Francis, who drove her conscience, and begged him to come and advise her.

After that, she did the wisest thing, perhaps, she had done all day. Went to bed.