CHAPTER XXIX

The words, spoken deliberately, but without any particular emphasis, startled Dick quite as much as they did Major O’Teague.

“You’re a coward, sir, and I will force you to fight me!” shouted Mathews.

Dick took a couple of steps to the side of Mr. Long, and at the same instant O’Teague took three to the side of Mathews.

“Hold your tongue, sir; leave me to manage this affair,” said Major O’Teague to his principal.

He took a step nearer Mr. Long.

“I’m afraid, sir,” he said in a frigid tone and with a distinctly English accent, which sounded very much more formal than the soft Irish slur which came so easily to him—“I’m afraid that there’s some misunderstanding between us; but a little explanation will, I daresay, tend to smooth away matters, and lead to such an amicable settlement that the fight will take place as originally intended. Pray, sir, state your reasons for saying that you’re not called on to consummate the jewel. Come, sir, your reasons.”

“My reasons? This is one of them,” said Mr. Long, pointing toward the bramble hedge beside the lane.

So intent had every one been over the technicalities of the duel, none had noticed a little figure standing there waiting for a signal—the figure of a little boy. When Mr. Long raised his arm and pointed toward him, he began to run to the group, and now all eyes were turned upon him. He was a pretty child of perhaps eight or nine years of age, and while he ran he kept calling out:

“Daddy, daddy, I’se come, I’se come!”

No one in the group moved, and the little boy ran toward Mathews with outstretched arms. He had almost reached him before Mathews had recovered from the astonishment that had left his face pale. He stepped back, saying:

“Take the brat away! What demon brought him hither? Take him away, I say, before I do him a hurt.”

“’Tis not a demon that brings the like of that to men,” said O’Teague. Then, putting out his hands to the little boy, he cried, “Come hither, my little man, and tell us what is your name.”

The child stopped and gazed with wondering eyes at Major O’Teague, who was kneeling on one knee, with inviting hands stretched forth.

“Mammy said for I to run to daddy,” lisped the little fellow, and he looked round, putting a tiny thumb in his mouth.

“Take the brat away, or I shall do it a hurt,” shouted Mathews.

The child shrank back, and a frightened look came to his face.

“I’se good to-day, pappy,” he said. “I’se very good. I’se did what mammy told. She said, ‘Go to pappy,’ and I’se goed.”

Mathews, his hands clenched, took a step in the direction of Mr. Long, and Dick took a step in the direction of Mathews.

“Coward!” said the last named. “Coward! this is how you would shirk the fight that you owe me. You have brought them here.”

“Yes, I brought them here—all your family,” said Mr. Long. “And—yes, I own to being a coward; I own that I shrink from standing up with a deadly weapon in my hand before the husband of an estimable lady and the father of an innocent child. Captain Mathews, you are aware of the fact that I am acquainted with some compromising incidents in your past life. I do not wish you ill, sir. I implore of you to be advised in time. Return to your home, and make an honest attempt to redeem the past.”

“I will—I will—when I have seen you lying dead at my feet,” said Mathews. Then, turning to the others of the party, he cried: “Gentlemen, are we here to be made fools of? Let the affair proceed, or let Mr. Long and his friend make up their minds to be branded in public as cowards and poltroons.”

“Major O’Teague,” said Dick, “you cannot possibly have known that Captain Mathews, while professing honourable intentions in regard to a lady in Bath, was all the time a married man?”

“I acknowledge that that is the truth, Mr. Sheridan,” said Major O’Teague; “but you’ll pardon me if I say that I can’t for the life of me see what that disclosure has to do with the matter before us.”

“What, sir, you don’t think that a gentleman should be exempted from fighting with so unscrupulous an adventurer as, on your own admission, Captain Mathews has proved to be?” said Dick.

“Upon my soul, I don’t, Mr. Sheridan,” said O’Teague. “On the contrary, sir, it appears to me that a man who behaved so dishonourably as my friend Captain Mathews has done, makes a most suitable antagonist for a gentleman of honour like Mr. Long or yourself, sir.”

Mr. MacMahon, the stranger who had come to witness the fight, had taken the little boy by the hand, and was leading him up the meadow away from the men; and every now and again the child looked over his shoulder with big, puzzled eyes. He was asking a perpetual question.

“Sir,” said Dick, with great promptitude when O’Teague had spoken—“Sir, I give you my word that I have no objection to fight Captain Mathews myself.”

“No,” cried Mr. Long. “No laws of honour demand that a gentleman shall stand up before a felon.”

“True, sir,” said Major O’Teague; “but you see, nothing that Captain Mathews has yet done can be construed as an act of felony.”

“Indeed, sir, Captain Mathews and I know better than that,” said Mr. Long.

“’Tis a lie—I swear that ’tis a foul lie!” shouted Mathews. “I admit that years ago—— But there were no proofs that the girl did not die by her own hands. She did it to be revenged upon me. Have you proofs? If you have, pray produce them.”

“I have proof enough to send you to the hangman,” said Mr. Long.

“Sir,” said Major O’Teague, “I did not come hither to listen to such recrimination. You must be aware, Mr. Long, that you have seriously compromised your position as a man of honour by making a vague charge against your opponent a pretext for backing out of a fight with him. If a man was a fool years ago—well, which of us hasn’t been a fool at some time of our life?”

“Sir,” said Mr. Long, “I do not need to be instructed on points of honour by you or any one else. I did not refer to your friend’s felony of four years ago, but to a much more recent act of his.”

“Let us have your proofs, sir, or, by Hivins, my felonious friend will have my assistance in branding you as a coward!” cried Major O’Teague.

Mr. Long was holding between his finger and thumb a small piece of lace before the man had done speaking.

“This is my proof,” he said.

Major O’Teague stared at him and then at Dick Sheridan. He saw that Dick was as much puzzled as himself.

“In the name of all that’s sensible——” he began.

“The fellow is a fool,” cried Mathews. “Ay, a fool as well as a coward.”

“In the name of all that’s sensible, Mr. Long, tell us what it is you mean at all,” said O’Teague. “What in the name of all the Hivins do you mean by showing us that rag?”

“This piece of lace is a souvenir that your friend left with me of our last encounter. Look at the torn ruffle of his right sleeve, sir. I think you will find that the rent needs for its repair this piece of lace which I hold in my hand.”

“Sir, I heard of no encounter,” said Major O’Teague.

“Then you would do well to get your friend to acquaint you with some of its details,” said Mr. Long.

Major O’Teague, mystified to a point of distraction, turned to Mathews; but he failed to catch his eye, the fact being that Mathews was gazing at Mr. Long as a man gazes at another who has just amazed him by a sudden revelation.

“Am I asleep or awake—that’s what I want to know?” cried Major O’Teague. “And I want to know it badly too, for what’s the drift of all these hints and all this aimless talk baffles me. Look you here, Mr. Long, you tell me you crossed swords with Captain Mathews quite lately; well, sir, if that is the truth, will you tell me why you should object to fight with him now?”

“Sir,” said Mr. Long, “Mr. Mathews was in the disguise of a footpad on that road between those trees and the iron gate opposite, and I fought for my life against him and his two confederates.”

Major O’Teague did not allow any one to see how startled he was. He stroked his chin and pursed out his lips. There was a long pause before he said:

“And that is the evidence you bring forward of a very remarkable affair, sir—that scrap of rag?”

“Psha! sir, I have as much evidence of that remarkable affair as would suffice to hang the dean and chapter of a cathedral!” said Mr. Long.

“Pray give us an example of it, sir,” said the major. “Juries in this country don’t hang even dogs, to say nothing of deans, on the evidence of a scrap of rag.”

“That’s it,” said Mathews; his voice was a trifle husky—he had not had much practice in speaking for some minutes. “That’s it!—Major O’Teague, you are my friend: I ask no better friend. Let the fellow produce his evidence.”

“I will,” said Mr. Long.

He took a few steps toward the trees around the knoll where Dick had fancied he saw some figures moving. He raised a finger, and at this signal two men clad in homespun hastened down the meadow.

Mathews’ jaw fell.

“One of these men was Mathews’ confederate, the other is an honester man; he is the shepherd who lay concealed among the brambles yonder when Mathews and his bravos waited for me in this very place. He saw the fight, but having no weapon, he was wise enough to refrain from interfering in what did not concern him. He was fortunate enough, however, to pick up the shoe which came off Mathews’ foot in his hasty flight from my friend, Mr. Sheridan, so that——”

A shout of warning came from Major O’Teague’s friend, MacMahon, and the next second a sword went flashing through the air a dozen yards away, and Dick Sheridan, breathing hard, stood with his own sword in his hand. He had been just in time to disarm Mathews, who had drawn his sword and rushed with it upon Mr. Long.

And while every one stood aghast for the moment, there came forth from the plantation of trees a well-dressed lady, leading by the hand the little boy who had been on the scene before. She walked slowly across the meadow to the group, and every one looked at her.

The sword that had been jerked out of Mathews’ hand remained nodding, like a reed before the wind, with its hilt in the air, for the point had penetrated the soft turf an inch or two, at such an acute angle as made the steel top-heavy at the hilt.

No one had the presence of mind to call Mathews an assassin, but all removed their hats at the approach of the lady.

She was smiling.

“Good-morning, gentlemen,” she said, responding to their respectful salutations. “I perceive that my dear husband has been at his tricks again. He has been passing himself off at Bath as a gay bachelor, I hear, and the people were fools enough to be taken in by him; and all the time he was writing to me such loving letters, and sending them to the North to be posted. He made out that he was recruiting in Kendal, the sly rogue!”

She gave a laugh, pointing an upbraiding finger at Mathews. Clearly she was not greatly put out by anything that had yet come under her notice,—she seemed more inclined to regard the escapade of which her husband was guilty, in the light of a piece of pleasantry, to be referred to with smiles; but the only one of the party who responded to her in a like spirit was Major O’Teague.

“O madam!” he cried, “he is indeed a sad dog—quite inexcusable, madam—oh, altogether inexcusable! For I vow that, however leniently disposed his friends may have been in regard to his freak before they had seen the lady whom he forsook, they cannot condone his offence now that they have been so happy as to make her acquaintance. Madam, the man that could leave you for—for—the frivolities of Bath deserves no sympathy.”

A well-dressed lady walked slowly across the meadow

A well-dressed lady ... walked slowly across the meadow to the group.

[page 288 .

“Sir, you are, I protest, vastly polite,” said Mrs. Mathews; “but I am sure you will not be hard upon poor Captain Mathews’ frailties. ’Tis his misfortune to be over-susceptible to the charms of new faces. Who can blame him when the trait was born with him? After all, constancy is an acquired virtue.”

“True, madam, quite true,” said Major O’Teague. “But, Mrs. Mathews, I beg of you to permit me to say that if a gentleman who is fortunate enough to be married to so charming a lady as yourself does not acquire constancy, we may well distrust your theory.”

“I vow, sir, you overwhelm a simple country-bred woman with your flattery,” said she. “But I see that Mr. Long and his friends are feeling bored by our philosophy. Still, I should like to ask Mr. Long if his experience can suggest better advice to a woman married to so erratic a gentleman as Captain Mathews than to make the best of a bad bargain? Lud, sir, to spend my days weeping on a bed because of my husband’s peccadilloes would only be to make myself miserable, without improving him. After all, he doesn’t annoy me much. I have a fortune of my own and two sweet children, and he is a good deal from home, so that I have much to be thankful for. Come along, captain: you see that no one here wishes to fight with you. Perhaps at home you will have a better chance. A husband, if he keeps his eyes open, can always find some one at home to quarrel with. At the worst, there are always servants to be sworn at. ’Tis a great ease to a man’s mind to know that he can always curse a groom or a wife or a dog without being called to account. Come along, captain; you have still got your grooms and your wife left to you. You know as well as I do that if you succeeded in captivating a young beauty at Bath—though I haven’t seen much of this beauty—you would swear at her within the month as heartily as you do at me.”

Mathews looked quite ready to swear at her at that moment. He restrained himself, however, and, after only a short pause, went hastily to where his sword was still swaying on its point. He drew it out of the wound it had made in the earth, and rammed it back into its sheath. Then he took the shortest route to the gate; only when he was passing the line of trees in the plantation did he turn and glance back at the group whom he had left. The expression upon his face was one of disappointed malice; no trace of repentance was to be seen there.

With a laugh, his wife followed him, the golden-haired little boy running by her side. She cast an apologetic glance at the gentlemen, and they all made profound bows.

“Major O’Teague, I ask your pardon, sir, for having caused you to come here on a business which I knew must prove fruitless,” said Mr. Long.

“Sir,” said Major O’Teague, “I think that if there’s to be an apology it should come from me. But I give you my word of honour, sir, I had no idea that the fellow was such a rascal: he has only been acquainted with me for three days. I guessed that he was bad enough. But think of that last coup of his, sir—trying to run you through the body while you were speaking! By my soul, Mr. Long, ’tis something of a pity that he was obstructed in time, for ’twould be a pleasure to all of us to see him hanged for such an act.”

“I fear that I could not have shared that pleasure,” said Mr. Long.

“And pray why not, sir, when you would know that the fellow was the greatest rascal unhung?” cried Major O’Teague.

“Perhaps I am too tender-hearted, sir,” said Mr. Long, “but truth compels me to assure you that I could not bear to see a man hanged merely for killing me.”

“Faith, and you are mighty compassionate, sir,” said Major O’Teague. “I give you my word that there’s no sight I would enjoy so much as the hanging of the man that had killed me by a mortal wound when my attention was diverted elsewhere.”