Salute to Adventurers Part 16

I nicked the dust from my coat, and walked quietly to where Mr. Grey was standing amid a knot of his friends, who talked of the races and their losses and gains. He saw me coming, and said something which made them form a staring alley, down which I strolled. He kept regarding me with bright, watchful eyes.

"I have been very patient, sir," I said, "but there is a limit to what a man may endure from a mannerless fool." And I gave him a hearty slap on the face.

Instantly there was a dead silence, in which the sound seemed to linger intolerably. He had grown very white, and his eyes were wicked.

"I am obliged to you, sir," he said. "You are some kind of ragged gentleman, so no doubt you will give me satisfaction."

"When and where you please," I said sedately.

"Will you name your friend now?" he asked. "These matters demand quick settlement."

To whom was I to turn? I knew n.o.body of the better cla.s.s who would act for me. For a moment I thought of Colonel Beverley, but his age and dignity were too great to bring him into this squabble of youth. Then a notion struck me.

"If you will send your friend to my man, John Faulkner, he will make all arrangements. He is to be found any day in my shop."

With this defiance, I walked nonchalantly out of the dumbfoundered group, found my horse, and rode homewards.

My coolness did not last many minutes, and long ere I had reached James Town I was a prey to dark forebodings. Here was I, a peaceful trader, who desired nothing more than to live in amity with all men, involved in a b.l.o.o.d.y strife. I had sought it, and yet it had been none of my seeking. I had graver thoughts to occupy my mind than the punctilios of idle youth, and yet I did not see how the thing could have been shunned. It was my hard fate to come athwart an obstacle which could not be circ.u.mvented, but must be broken. No friend could help me in the business, not Ringan, nor the Governor, nor Colonel Beverley. It was my own affair, which I must go through with alone. I felt as solitary as a pelican.

Remember, I was not fighting for any whimsy about honour, nor even for the love of Elspeth. I had openly provoked Grey because the hostility of the young gentry had become an intolerable nuisance in my daily life. So, with such pedestrian reasons in my mind, I could have none of the heady enthusiasm of pa.s.sion. I wanted him and his kind cleared out of my way, like a noisome insect, but I had no flaming hatred of him to give me heart.

The consequence was that I became a prey to dismal fear. That bravery which knows no ebb was never mine. Indeed, I am by nature timorous, for my fancy is quick, and I see with horrid clearness the incidents of a peril. Only a shamefaced conscience holds me true, so that, though I have often done temerarious deeds, it has always been because I feared shame more than the risk, and my knees have ever been knocking together and my lips dry with fright. I tried to think soberly over the future, but could get no conclusion save that I would not do murder. My conscience was pretty bad about the whole business. I was engaged in the kind of silly conflict which I had been bred to abhor; I had none of the common gentleman's notions about honour; and I knew that if by any miracle I slew Grey I should be guilty in my own eyes of murder. I would not risk the guilt. If G.o.d had determined that I should perish before my time, then perish I must.

This despair brought me a miserable kind of comfort. When I reached home I went straight to Faulkner.

"I have quarrelled to-day with a gentleman, John, and have promised him satisfaction. You must act for me in the affair. Some one will come to see you this evening, and the meeting had better be at dawn to-morrow."

He opened his eyes very wide. "Who is it, then?" he asked.

"Mr. Charles Grey of Grey's Hundred," I replied.

This made him whistle low, "He's a fine swordsman," he said. "I never heard there was any better in the dominion. You'll be to fight with swords?"

I thought hard for a minute. I was the challenged, and so had the choice of weapons. "No," said I, "you are to appoint pistols, for it is my right."

At this Faulkner slowly grinned. "It's a new weapon for these affairs.

What if they'll not accept? But it's no business of mine, and I'll remember your wishes." And the strange fellow turned again to his accounts.

I spent the evening looking over my papers and making various appointments in case I did not survive the morrow. Happily the work I had undertaken for Lawrence was all but finished, and of my ordinary business Faulkner knew as much as myself. I wrote a letter to Uncle Andrew, telling him frankly the situation, that he might know how little choice I had. It was a cold-blooded job making these dispositions, and I hope never to have the like to do again. Presently I heard voices outside, and Faulkner came to the door with Mr. George Mason, the younger, of Thornby, who pa.s.sed for the chief buck in Virginia. He gave me a cold bow.

"I have settled everything with this gentleman, but I would beg of you, sir, to reconsider your choice of arms. My friend will doubtless be ready enough to humour you, but you have picked a barbarous weapon for Christian use."

"It's my only means of defence," I said.

"Then you stick to your decision?"

"a.s.suredly," said I, and, with a shrug of the shoulders, he departed.

I did not attempt to sleep. Faulkner told me that we were to meet the next morning half an hour after sunrise at a place in the forest a mile distant. Each man was to fire one shot, but two pistols were allowed in case of a misfire. All that night by the light of a lamp I got my weapons ready. I summoned to my recollection all the knowledge I had acquired, and made sure that nothing should be lacking so far as human skill would go. I had another pistol besides the one I called "Elspeth," also made in Glasgow, but a thought longer in the barrel.

For this occasion I neglected cartouches, and loaded in the old way. I tested my bullets time and again, and weighed out the powder as if it had been gold dust. It was short range, so I made my charges small. I tried my old device of wrapping each bullet in soft wool smeared with beeswax. All this pa.s.sed the midnight hours, and then I lay down for a little rest, but not for sleep.

I was glad when Faulkner summoned me half an hour before sunrise. I remember that I bathed head and shoulders in cold water, and very carefully dressed myself in my best clothes. My pistols lay in the box which Faulkner carried. I drank a gla.s.s of wine, and as we left I took a long look at the place I had created, and the river now lit with the first shafts of morning. I wondered incuriously if I should ever see it again.

My tremors had all gone by now, and I was in a mood of cold, thoughtless despair. The earth had never looked so bright as we rode through the green aisles all filled with the happy song of birds. Often on such a morning I had started on a journey, with my heart grateful for the goodness of the world. Could I but keep the road, I should come in time to the swampy bank of the York; and then would follow the chestnut forest: and the wide marshes towards the Rappahannock; and everywhere I should meet friendly human faces, and then at night I should eat a hunter's meal below the stars. But that was all past, and I was moving towards death in a foolish strife in which I had no heart, and where I could find no honour, I think I laughed aloud at my exceeding folly.

We turned from the path into an alley which led to an open s.p.a.ce on the edge of a derelict clearing. There, to my surprise, I found a considerable company a.s.sembled. Grey was there with his second, and a dozen or more of his companions stood back in the shadow of the trees.

The young blood of Virginia had come out to see the trader punished.

During the few minutes while the seconds were busy pacing the course and arranging for the signal, I had no cognizance of the world around me. I stood with abstracted eyes watching a grey squirrel in one of the branches, and trying to recall a line I had forgotten in a song. There seemed to be two Andrew Garvalds that morning, one filled with an immense careless peace, and the other a weak creature who had lived so long ago as to be forgotten. I started when Faulkner came to place me, and followed him without a word. But as I stood up and saw Grey twenty paces off, turning up his wristbands and tossing his coat to a friend, I realized the business I had come on. A great flood of light was rolling down the forest aisles, but it was so clear and pure that it did not dazzle. I remember thinking in that moment how intolerable had become the singing of birds.

I deadened my heart to memories, took my courage in both hands, and forced myself to the ordeal. For it is an ordeal to face powder if you have not a dreg of pa.s.sion in you, and are resolved to make no return.

I am left-handed, and so, in fronting my opponent, I exposed my heart.

If Grey were the marksman I thought him, now was his chance for revenge.

My wits were calm now, and my senses very clear. I heard a man say slowly that he would count three and then drop his kerchief, and at the dropping we should fire. Our eyes were on him as he lifted his hand and slowly began,--"One--two--"

Then I looked away, for the signal mattered nothing to me. I suddenly caught Grey's eyes, and something whistled past my ear, cutting the lobe and shearing off a lock of hair. I did not heed it. What filled my mind was the sight of my enemy, very white and drawn in the face, holding a smoking pistol and staring at me.

I emptied my pistol among the tree-tops.

No one moved. Grey continued to stare, leaning a little forward, with his lips working.

Then I took from Faulkner my second pistol. My voice came out of my throat, funnily cracked as if from long disuse.

"Mr. Grey," I cried, "I would not have you think that I cannot shoot."

Forty yards from me on the edge of the covert a turkey stood, with its foolish, inquisitive head. The sound of the shots had brought the bird out to see what was going on. It stood motionless, blinking its eyes, the very mark I desired.

I pointed to it with my right hand, flung forward my pistol, and fired.

It rolled over as dead as stone, and Faulkner walked to pick it up. He put back my pistols in the box, and we turned to seek the horses....

Then Grey came up to me. His mouth was hard-set, but the lines were not of pride. I saw that he too had been desperately afraid, and I rejoiced that others beside me had been at breaking-point.

"Our quarrel is at an end, sir?" he said, and his voice was hesitating.

"Why, yes," I said. "It was never my seeking, though I gave the offence."

"I have behaved like a cub, sir," and he spoke loud, so that all could hear. "You have taught me a lesson in gentility. Will you give me your hand?"

I could find no words, and dumbly held out my right hand.

"Nay, sir," he said, "the other, the one that held the trigger. I count it a privilege to hold the hand of a brave man."

I had been tried too hard, and was all but proving my bravery by weeping like a bairn.