Читать книгу The Stalking-Horse - Рафаэль Сабатини - Страница 6

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Macdonald of Invernaion was in close attendance upon King James. He accompanied him to La Hogue, and was with him there, waiting to embark for England with the army of invasion supplied by King Louis. There he witnessed the raid by the British fleet, under Russel, which destroyed at the very outset the hopes of that embarkation. He returned in the following of the dejected monarch to Saint Germains, sharing his dejection.

With Invernaion went Lochmore, shining in the glory which his brother-in-law reflected, and persuaded ever that he owed the favour in which he stood to the amiable parts discovered in himself by this discerning court. He was completely happy for perhaps the first time in his foolish life. He wrote vainglorious letters to his countess. So as to impress her with the consequence into which he was come at last, he packed these letters with accounts of what His Majesty had said to him upon this occasion or upon that, and with what answers he had dazzled Majesty in return. He gave the clear impression that Majesty hung upon his utterances.

At first his letters may have departed none too widely from the truth. But, little by little, his dull, contentious, unlovable nature coming to be perceived, men began to fall away from him here as all his life they had fallen away from him elsewhere. Because he could not brook this neglect, he met the growing indifference by an aggressive intrusiveness. Thus it follows that he made matters worse. He became the object of slights and sarcasms which, offending his vanity, stirred into full activity an evil, ugly temper, which had never required much stirring. It needed all the tact of Invernaion, supported by the respect in which he was held, to prevent an open rupture between his troublesome brother-in-law and one or another of the hotheads of whom there were plenty in the composition of that court.

In these efforts Invernaion was humanely seconded by a soldier of distinction, whose qualities had earned him a universal esteem at Saint Germains.

Colonel Dudley Walton had seen a great deal of French service, and had learned more than soldiering in the course of it. He was one of the very few who had the discernment, wit, and humanity to be sorry for Lochmore. He perceived the man's besetting trouble to be the loneliness to which he was doomed by the attributes inherent in him. Gross and coarse he might be. But underneath these qualities Colonel Walton caught glimpses of the man's passionate, pathetic desire for esteem and popularity such as he lacked the natural means to command. It was from this that his worst blundering resulted.

Colonel Walton befriended him when he was growing most friendless, and by his humour, tact, and skill kept the aggressive fellow safe for a season. But it was a wasted endeavour. Eventually the inevitable happened when Colonel Walton was not at hand to avert it.

The Earl of Lochmore occupied, as did so many other of the followers of King James, lodgings in the town of Saint Germains. These lodgings he shared with an Irishman named Burke. One night when his lordship had been drinking heavily he replied to a taunting jest of Burke's with a blow. From childhood he had been too ready with his hands.

A challenge followed.

Lochmore, in need of a friend to act for him, but afraid to meet the anger of his brother-in-law by telling him what had occurred, sought Colonel Walton.

The Colonel used every endeavour to compose the quarrel. He dealt with the two men separately; reasoned with each of them, more in the manner of a parson than of a soldier of fortune such as he was; and eventually he succeeded in bringing them to a peace-making meeting.

In this confrontation the Earl of Lochmore was his most sullen self, and Burke, a mere youngster, airily impudent. The Colonel delivered himself to them of a little homily upon the duty of keeping their lives at the disposal of their King who sorely needed them.

In age Colonel Walton stood between the two, a man in the early thirties, but in experience and worldly wisdom he was old enough to be the grandfather of either. And the calm suavity of his manner conveyed a sense of this. He was a tall man, straight, spare and vigorous, and of an exceptional elegance in all his appointments, from his black periwig to his Spanish shoes. His face was long, lean and olive-tinted, very square in the chin and firm in the mouth. His calm grey eyes were set at a downward slant, which lent the attractive countenance an air of gentle melancholy that served to increase its distinction.

If in all that court there was a man who commanded the gentle authority necessary to bring a couple of quarrelsome idiots to their senses, that man was Colonel Walton. But the present task was to prove beyond him. As he brought his little homily to a close, he seemed to direct his appeal more directly to Burke, or so Burke fancied.

He protested plaintively

"Och now, hasn't there been a blow struck, Colonel darling? And would ye honour a man who could take a blow?"

"I would if he had provoked it," said the Colonel.

"It's the nice judge in a matter of honour ye are, to be sure, Colonel. And I'll take your judgment. If his lordship will apologize for the blow, I'll apologize for any provocation I may have given him."

"You hear, Lochmore," said Colonel Walton hopefully

But Lochmore stood squarely planted on his thick legs, the very incarnation of obstinacy.

"I hear conditions," he grumbled. "Captain Burke called me a drunken heretic. I can take that from no man."

"Setting aside the matter of heresy, ye'll admit that ye were drunk," said Burke.

"I don't admit it, sir. I was not."

"Then more shame on ye for calling me a damned rapparee. I ask ye, Colonel, is that a thing a man can leave unanswered, now? If he insisted that he was sober when he said it, then it's devil an apology I'll accept from him at all."

"It's not been offered," snapped Lochmore. "If there are going to be apologies, you'll begin them."

"Not at all. If, as ye say, there are going to be apologies we'll have them in their proper order. Sure it's only to please the Colonel that I consent to this at all."

Colonel Walton intervened with a laugh, in the desperate endeavour to keep the matter light. "Come, come! Ye're both behaving like schoolboys. So that ye both apologize, what does it matter who begins it? Here!" He caught each by an arm, and pulled them forward. "Make it simultaneous by just shaking hands, and forget a folly done when ye were both the worse for liquor."

Burke let himself be drawn forward willingly. He was grinning his satisfaction of the compromise the Colonel had discovered. But Lochmore employed his weight to resist the Colonel's physical suasion. Observing this the volatile young Irishman, who had been ready to jettison all rancour, took sudden fire.

"Just look at the omadhaun's reluctance, Colonel. Sure it's the fight he wants, and, begad, that's an inclination I've never baulked in any man. To Hell with apologies." He wrenched his arm free of Colonel Walton's grasp. "I've none to offer now, first or last."

"I'm relieved," said his lordship. "I've never apologized to a man in my life."

The Colonel vented a sigh of despair. "I shouldn't make a boast of it, Lochmore."

"You are pleased to instruct me, Colonel Walton," said the quarrelsome fellow, climbing on to his dignity.

But the Colonel laughed, and clapped his shoulder. "Not I. Advice is not instruction."

"It is sometimes presumption."

The Colonel ceased to laugh.

"So it is. I'll presume no more."

The meeting took place next morning in the magnificent park of Saint Germains. On the way to it Lochmore, walking with a strut and a forward thrust of his incipient paunch, talked of what he would do to that damned Irish rapparee. The Colonel silent and dejected, regretting that he should have allowed himself to be drawn into an affair in which he could perceive only folly, let his lordship talk on uninterrupted.

Lochmore never came back from that morning walk under the dappled shade of those great elms that rose like the pillars of a cathedral to support the green roof above. The powerful, but heavy and sluggish earl, was no match for the light, quick Irishman, nor had he Burke's obvious experience in arms.

The fight was over almost as soon as it began, and Lochmore, his throat transfixed, lay on the turf and yielded up his foolish, obstinate, lonely soul.

Almost the only tears that were shed for him were those of Burke, who in an emotional storm of contrition called God and the Colonel to witness that he had never meant to do his lordship any mortal hurt.

Colonel Walton had a bad quarter of an hour with King James when he went, as was necessary, to render an account of the affair. Burke, on his advice, had gone off to report himself to Sarsfield, under whom he served, and to invoke that great soldier's protection. He was helped, too, by the testimony Colonel Walton gave of the young Irishman's willingness at one time to make the peace although he had received a blow. But Colonel Walton, who had enjoyed the King's confidence, bore now the brunt of the royal ill humour and left the presence with a sense of being in disgrace.

He sought Invernaion. Deeply shocked though he was by the event, Invernaion was not so shocked as not to be able to recognize Colonel Walton's good offices, however vainly employed. Warmly he expressed his gratitude to him for his endeavours and also for having stood by the unfortunate Lochmore in that disastrous meeting.

The only good that resulted from the deplorable affair was the bond which it set up between Invernaion and Colonel Walton, who became firm friends from that hour.