The History of Henry Esmond, Esq Part 16

"Yes, G.o.d bless you--you shall be by."

"When is it, sir?" says Harry, for he saw that the matter had been arranged privately and beforehand by my lord.

"'Tis arranged thus: I sent off a courier to Jack Westbury to say that I wanted him specially. He knows for what, and will be here presently, and drink part of that bottle of sack. Then we shall go to the theatre in Duke Street, where we shall meet Mohun; and then we shall all go sup at the 'Rose' or the 'Greyhound.' Then we shall call for cards, and there will be probably a difference over the cards--and then, G.o.d help us!--either a wicked villain and traitor shall go out of the world, or a poor worthless devil, that doesn't care to remain in it. I am better away, Hal--my wife will be all the happier when I am gone," says my lord, with a groan, that tore the heart of Harry Esmond, so that he fairly broke into a sob over his patron's kind hand.

"The business was talked over with Mohun before he left home--Castlewood I mean"--my lord went on. "I took the letter in to him, which I had read, and I charged him with his villainy, and he could make no denial of it, only he said that my wife was innocent."

"And so she is; before heaven, my lord, she is!" cries Harry.

"No doubt, no doubt. They always are," says my lord. "No doubt, when she heard he was killed, she fainted from accident."

"But, my lord, MY name is Harry," cried out Esmond, burning red. "You told my lady, 'Harry was killed!'"

"d.a.m.nation! shall I fight you too?" shouts my lord in a fury. "Are you, you little serpent, warmed by my fire, going to sting--YOU?--No, my boy, you're an honest boy; you are a good boy." (And here he broke from rage into tears even more cruel to see.) "You are an honest boy, and I love you; and, by heavens, I am so wretched that I don't care what sword it is that ends me. Stop, here's Jack Westbury. Well, Jack! Welcome, old boy! This is my kinsman, Harry Esmond."

"Who brought your bowls for you at Castlewood, sir?" says Harry, bowing; and the three gentlemen sat down and drank of that bottle of sack which was prepared for them.

"Harry is number three," says my lord. "You needn't be afraid of him, Jack." And the Colonel gave a look, as much as to say, "Indeed, he don't look as if I need." And then my lord explained what he had only told by hints before. When he quarrelled with Lord Mohun he was indebted to his lords.h.i.+p in a sum of sixteen hundred pounds, for which Lord Mohun said he proposed to wait until my Lord Viscount should pay him. My lord had raised the sixteen hundred pounds and sent them to Lord Mohun that morning, and before quitting home had put his affairs into order, and was now quite ready to abide the issue of the quarrel.

When we had drunk a couple of bottles of sack, a coach was called, and the three gentlemen went to the Duke's Playhouse, as agreed. The play was one of Mr. Wycherley's--"Love in a Wood."

Harry Esmond has thought of that play ever since with a kind of terror, and of Mrs. Bracegirdle, the actress who performed the girl's part in the comedy. She was disguised as a page, and came and stood before the gentlemen as they sat on the stage, and looked over her shoulder with a pair of arch black eyes, and laughed at my lord, and asked what ailed the gentleman from the country, and had he had bad news from Bullock fair?

Between the acts of the play the gentlemen crossed over and conversed freely. There were two of Lord Mohun's party, Captain Macartney, in a military habit, and a gentleman in a suit of blue velvet and silver in a fair periwig, with a rich fall of point of Venice lace--my Lord the Earl of Warwick and Holland. My lord had a paper of oranges, which he ate and offered to the actresses, joking with them. And Mrs. Bracegirdle, when my Lord Mohun said something rude, turned on him, and asked him what he did there, and whether he and his friends had come to stab anybody else, as they did poor Will Mountford? My lord's dark face grew darker at this taunt, and wore a mischievous, fatal look. They that saw it remembered it, and said so afterward.

When the play was ended the two parties joined company; and my Lord Castlewood then proposed that they should go to a tavern and sup.

Lockit's, the "Greyhound," in Charing Cross, was the house selected.

All six marched together that way; the three lords going a-head, Lord Mohun's captain, and Colonel Westbury, and Harry Esmond, walking behind them. As they walked, Westbury told Harry Esmond about his old friend d.i.c.k the Scholar, who had got promotion, and was Cornet of the Guards, and had wrote a book called the "Christian Hero," and had all the Guards to laugh at him for his pains, for the Christian Hero was breaking the commandments constantly, Westbury said, and had fought one or two duels already. And, in a lower tone, Westbury besought young Mr. Esmond to take no part in the quarrel. "There was no need for more seconds than one," said the Colonel, "and the Captain or Lord Warwick might easily withdraw." But Harry said no; he was bent on going through with the business. Indeed, he had a plan in his head, which, he thought, might prevent my Lord Viscount from engaging.

They went in at the bar of the tavern, and desired a private room and wine and cards, and when the drawer had brought these, they began to drink and call healths, and as long as the servants were in the room appeared very friendly.

Harry Esmond's plan was no other than to engage in talk with Lord Mohun, to insult him, and so get the first of the quarrel. So when cards were proposed he offered to play. "Psha!" says my Lord Mohun (whether wis.h.i.+ng to save Harry, or not choosing, to try the botte de Jesuite, it is not to be known)--"Young gentlemen from college should not play these stakes. You are too young."

"Who dares say I am too young?" broke out Harry. "Is your lords.h.i.+p afraid?"

"Afraid!" cries out Mohun.

But my good Lord Viscount saw the move--"I'll play you for ten moidores, Mohun," says he. "You silly boy, we don't play for groats here as you do at Cambridge." And Harry, who had no such sum in his pocket (for his half-year's salary was always pretty well spent before it was due), fell back with rage and vexation in his heart that he had not money enough to stake.

"I'll stake the young gentleman a crown," says the Lord Mohun's captain.

"I thought crowns were rather scarce with the gentlemen of the army,"

says Harry.

"Do they birch at College?" says the Captain.

"They birch fools," says Harry, "and they cane bullies, and they fling puppies into the water."

"Faith, then, there's some escapes drowning," says the Captain, who was an Irishman; and all the gentlemen began to laugh, and made poor Harry only more angry.

My Lord Mohun presently snuffed a candle. It was when the drawers brought in fresh bottles and gla.s.ses and were in the room on which my Lord Viscount said--"The Deuce take you, Mohun, how d.a.m.ned awkward you are. Light the candle, you drawer."

"d.a.m.ned awkward is a d.a.m.ned awkward expression, my lord," says the other. "Town gentlemen don't use such words--or ask pardon if they do."

"I'm a country gentleman," says my Lord Viscount.

"I see it by your manner," says my Lord Mohun. "No man shall say d.a.m.ned awkward to me."

"I fling the words in your face, my lord," says the other; "shall I send the cards too?"

"Gentlemen, gentlemen! before the servants?" cry out Colonel Westbury and my Lord Warwick in a breath. The drawers go out of the room hastily.

They tell the people below of the quarrel up stairs.

"Enough has been said," says Colonel Westbury. "Will your lords.h.i.+ps meet to-morrow morning?"

"Will my Lord Castlewood withdraw his words?" asks the Earl of Warwick.

"My Lord Castlewood will be ---- first," says Colonel Westbury.

"Then we have nothing for it. Take notice, gentlemen, there have been outrageous words--reparation asked and refused."

"And refused," says my Lord Castlewood, putting on his hat. "Where shall the meeting be? and when?"

"Since my Lord refuses me satisfaction, which I deeply regret, there is no time so good as now," says my Lord Mohun. "Let us have chairs and go to Leicester Field."

"Are your lords.h.i.+p and I to have the honor of exchanging a pa.s.s or two?"

says Colonel Westbury, with a low bow to my Lord of Warwick and Holland.

"It is an honor for me," says my lord, with a profound congee, "to be matched with a gentleman who has been at Mons and Namur."

"Will your Reverence permit me to give you a lesson?" says the Captain.

"Nay, nay, gentlemen, two on a side are plenty," says Harry's patron.

"Spare the boy, Captain Macartney," and he shook Harry's hand--for the last time, save one, in his life.

At the bar of the tavern all the gentlemen stopped, and my Lord Viscount said, laughing, to the barwoman, that those cards set people sadly a-quarrelling; but that the dispute was over now, and the parties were all going away to my Lord Mohun's house, in Bow Street, to drink a bottle more before going to bed.

A half-dozen of chairs were now called, and the six gentlemen stepping into them, the word was privately given to the chairmen to go to Leicester Field, where the gentlemen were set down opposite the "Standard Tavern." It was midnight, and the town was abed by this time, and only a few lights in the windows of the houses; but the night was bright enough for the unhappy purpose which the disputants came about; and so all six entered into that fatal square, the chairmen standing without the railing and keeping the gate, lest any persons should disturb the meeting.

All that happened there hath been matter of public notoriety, and is recorded, for warning to lawless men, in the annals of our country.

After being engaged for not more than a couple of minutes, as Harry Esmond thought (though being occupied at the time with his own adversary's point, which was active, he may not have taken a good note of time), a cry from the chairmen without, who were smoking their pipes, and leaning over the railings of the field as they watched the dim combat within, announced that some catastrophe had happened, which caused Esmond to drop his sword and look round, at which moment his enemy wounded him in the right hand. But the young man did not heed this hurt much, and ran up to the place where he saw his dear master was down.

My Lord Mohun was standing over him.

"Are you much hurt, Frank?" he asked in a hollow voice.

"I believe I am a dead man," my lord said from the ground.

"No, no, not so," says the other; "and I call G.o.d to witness, Frank Esmond, that I would have asked your pardon, had you but given me a chance. In--in the first cause of our falling out, I swear that no one was to blame but me, and--and that my lady--"