Barrington. Volume 2

“I don’t think I could have brought myself to it.”

“I could, I promise you.”

“And there ‘s an end of a man after such a thing.”

“Yes, if he fails. If he’s overtaken and thrashed, I grant you he not only loses the game, but gets the cards in his face, besides. But why fail? Nobody fails when he wants to win, – when he determines to win. When I shot De Courcy at Asterabad – ”

“Don’t bring up that affair, at least, as one of precedent, Duff. I neither desire to be tried for a capital felony, nor to have committed one.”

“Capital fiddlesticks! As if men did not fight duels every day of the week; the difference between guilt and innocence being that one fellow’s hand shook, and the other’s was steady. De Courcy would have ‘dropped’ me, if I’d have Jet him.”

“And so you would have carried her off, Master Duff?” said Stapylton, slowly.

“Yes; if she had the pot of money you speak of, and no Lord Chancellor for a guardian. I ‘d have made the thing sure at once.”

“The money she will and must have; so much is certain.”

“Then I ‘d have made the remainder just as certain.”

“It is a vulgar crime, Duff; it would be very hard to stoop to it.”

“Fifty things are harder, – no cash, no credit are harder. The Fleet is harder. But what is that noise? Don’t you hear a knock at the door? Yes, there’s some one without who hasn’t much patience.” So saying, he arose and walked to the door. As he opened it, he started back a little with surprise, for it was a police constable stood before him.

“Not you, Captain, not you, sir! it’s another gentleman I want. I see him at the table there, – Major Stapylton.” By this time the man had entered the room and stood in front of the fire. “I have a warrant against you, Major,” said he, quietly. “Informations have been sworn before Mr. Colt that you intend to fight a duel, and you must appear at the office to-morrow, to enter into your bond, and to give securities to keep the peace.”

“Who swore the informations?” cried Brown.

“What have we to do with that?” said Stapylton, impatiently. “Isn’t the world full of meddling old women? Who wants to know the names?”

“I ‘ll lay the odds it was old Conyers; the greatest humbug in that land of humbugs, – Bengal. It was he that insisted on my leaving the Fifth. Come, Sergeant, out with it. This was General Conyers’s doing?”

“I’m sorry to be obliged to declare you in custody, Major,” said the policeman; “but if you like to come over to Mr. Colt’s private residence, I ‘m sure he ‘d settle the matter this evening.”

“He’ll do no such thing, by George!” cried Brown. “The sneaking dogs who have taken this shabby course shall be exposed in open court. We ‘ll have the names in full, and in every newspaper in England. Don’t compromise the case, Stapylton; make them eat the mess they have cooked, to the last mouthful. We ‘ll show the world what the fighting Irishman and his gallant friend are made of. Major Stapylton is your prisoner, Sergeant?”

The man smiled slightly at the passionate energy of the speaker, and turned to Stapylton. “There ‘s no objection to your going to your lodgings, Major. You ‘ll be at the chief office by ten to-morrow.”

Stapylton nodded assent, and the other retired and closed the door.

“What do you say now?” cried Brown, triumphantly. “Did n’t I tell you this? Did n’t I say that when old Con-yers heard my name, he ‘d say, ‘Oh, there ‘ll be no squaring this business’?”

“It’s just as likely that he said, ‘I ‘ll not confer with that man; he had to leave the service.’”

“More fool you, then, not to have had a more respectable friend. Had you there, Stapylton, – eh?”

“I acknowledge that. All I can say in extenuation is, that I hoped old Barrington, living so long out of the world, would have selected another old mummy like himself, who had never heard of Captain Duff Brown, nor his famous trial at Calcutta.”

“There’s not a man in the kingdom has not heard of me. I ‘m as well known as the first Duke in the land.”

“Don’t boast of it, Duff; even notoriety is not always a cheap luxury.”

“Who knows but you may divide it with me to-morrow or next day?”

“What do you mean, sir? – what do you mean?” cried Stapylton, slapping the table with his clenched hand.

“Only what I said, – that Major Stapylton may furnish the town with a nine-days wonder, vice Captain Duff Brown, forgotten.”

Evidently ashamed of his wrath, Stapylton tried to laugh off the occasion of it, and said, “I suppose neither of us would take the matter much to heart.”

“I ‘ll not go to the office with you to-morrow, Stapylton,” added he, after a pause; “that old Sepoy General would certainly seize the opportunity to open some old scores that I’d as soon leave undisturbed.”

“All right, I think you are prudent there.”

“But I ‘ll be of use in another way. I ‘ll lay in wait for that fellow who reports for the ‘Chronicle,’ the only paper that cares for these things, and I ‘ll have him deep in the discussion of some devilled kidneys when your case is called on.”

“I fancy it does not matter what publicity it obtains.”

“Ah, I don’t know that. Old Braddell, our major, used to say, ‘Reputation, after forty, is like an old wall. If you begin to break a hole in it, you never know how much will come away.’”

“I tell you again, Duff, I’m past scandalizing; but have your way, if you will ‘muzzle the ox,’ and let us get away from this as soon as may be. I want a little rest after this excitement.”

“Well, I ‘m pretty much in the same boot myself, though I don’t exactly know where to go. France is dangerous. In Prussia there are two sentences recorded against me. I ‘m condemned to eight years’ hard labor in Wurtemberg, and pronounced dead in Austria for my share in that Venetian disturbance.”

“Don’t tell me of these rascalities. Bad enough when a man is driven to them, but downright infamy to be proud of.”

“Have you never thought of going into the Church? I ‘ve a notion you ‘d be a stunning preacher.”

“Give up this bantering, Duff, and tell me how I shall get hold of young Conyers. I ‘d rather put a ball in that fellow than be a Lieutenant-General. He has ever been my rock ahead. That silly coxcomb has done more to mar my destiny than scores of real enemies. To shoot him would be to throw a shell in the very midst of them.”

“I ‘d rather loot him, if I had the choice; the old General has lots of money. Stapylton, scuttle the ship, if you like, but first let me land the cargo. Of all the vengeances a man can wreak on another the weakest is to kill him. For my part, I ‘d cherish the fellow that injured me. I ‘d set myself to study his tastes and learn his ambitions. I ‘d watch over him and follow him, being, as it were, his dearest of all friends, – read backwards!”

“This is tiresome scoundrelism. I’ll to bed,” said Stapylton, taking a candle from the table.

“Well, if you must shoot this fellow, wait till he’s married; wait for the honeymoon.”

“There’s some sense in that. I ‘ll go and sleep over it.”

CHAPTER XVIII. AUNT DOROTHEA

“You must come down with me for one day, Tom, to see an old aunt of mine at Bournemouth,” said Hunter to young Dill. “I never omitted going to see her the first thing whenever I landed in England, and she ‘ll not forgive me if I were to do so now.”

“But why should I go, sir? My presence would only trouble the comfort of a family meeting.”

“Quite the reverse. She ‘ll be delighted to see you. It will be such a triumph to her, amongst all her neighbors, to have had a visit from the hero of the day, – the fellow that all the print-shops are full of. Why, man, you are worth five hundred pounds to me. I ‘m not sure I might not say double as much.”

“In that case, sir, I ‘m perfectly at your orders.”

And down they went, and arrived late on the day after this conversation at an old-fashioned manor-house, where Miss Dorothy Hunter had passed some sixty-odd years of her life. Though to Tom she seemed to bear a great resemblance to old Miss Barrington, there was really little likeness between them, beyond an inordinate pride of birth, and an intense estimation for the claims of family. Miss Hunter’s essential characteristic was a passion for celebrities; a taste somewhat difficult to cultivate in a very remote and little visited locality. The result was that she consoled herself by portraits, or private letters, or autographs of her heroes, who ranged over every imaginable career in life, and of whom, by mere dint of iteration, she had grown to believe herself the intimate friend or correspondent.