Christie Johnstone Part 36

_Ipsden (ironically)._ "You surprise me with your moderation, sir."

_Gatty._ "Then you will waive your rank--you are a lord, I believe-and give me satisfaction."

_Ipsden._ "My rank, sir, such as it is, engages me to give a proper answer to proposals of this sort; I am at your orders."

_Gatty._ "A man of your character must often have been called to an account by your victims, so--so--" (hesitating) "perhaps you will tell me the proper course."

_Ipsden. "I_ shall send a note to the castle, and the colonel will send me down somebody with a mustache; I shall pretend to remember mustache, mustache will pretend he remembers me; he will then communicate with your friend, and they will arrange it all for us."

_Gatty._ "And, perhaps, through your licentiousness, one or both of us will be killed."

_Ipsden._ "Yes! but we need not trouble our heads about that--the seconds undertake everything."

_Gatty._ "I have no pistols."

_Ipsden._ "If you will do me the honor to use one of mine, it shall be at your service."

_Gatty._ "Thank you."

_Ipsden._ "To-morrow morning?"

_Gatty._ "No. I have four days' painting to do on my picture, I can't die till it is finished; Friday morning."

_Ipsden._ "(He is mad.) I wish to ask you a question, you will excuse my curiosity. Have you any idea what we are agreeing to differ about?"

_Gatty._ "The question does you little credit, my lord; that is to add insult to wrong."

He went off hurriedly, leaving Lord Ipsden mystified.

He thought Christie Johnstone was somehow connected with it; but, conscious of no wrong, he felt little disposed to put up with any insult, especially from this boy, to whom he had been kind, he thought.

His lords.h.i.+p was, besides, one of those good, simple-minded creatures, educated abroad, who, when invited to fight, simply bow, and load two pistols, and get themselves called at six; instead of taking down tomes of casuistry and puzzling their poor brains to find out whether they are gamec.o.c.ks or capons, and why.

As for Gatty, he hurried home in a fever of pa.s.sion, begged his mother's pardon, and reproached himself for ever having disobeyed her on account of such a perfidious creature as Christie Johnstone.

He then told her what he had seen, as distance and imagination had presented it to him; to his surprise the old lady cut him short.

"Charles," said she, "there is no need to take the girl's character away; she has but one fault--she is not in the same cla.s.s of life as you, and such marriages always lead to misery; but in other respects she is a worthy young woman--don't speak against her character, or you will make my flesh creep; you don't know what her character is to a woman, high or low."

By this moderation, perhaps she held him still faster.

Friday morning arrived. Gatty had, by hard work, finished his picture, collected his sketches from nature, which were numerous, left by memorandum everything to his mother, and was, or rather felt, as ready to die as live.

He had hardly spoken a word or eaten a meal these four days; his mother was in anxiety about him. He rose early, and went down to Leith; an hour later, his mother, finding him gone out, rose and went to seek him at Newhaven.

Meantime Flucker had entirely recovered, but his sister's color had left her cheeks. The boy swore vengeance against the cause of her distress.

On Friday morning, then, there paced on Leith Sands two figures.

One was Lord Ipsden.

The other seemed a military gentleman, who having swallowed the mess-room poker, and found it insufficient, had added the ramrods of his company.

The more his lords.h.i.+p reflected on Gatty, the less inclined he had felt to invite a satirical young dog from barracks to criticise such a _rencontre;_ he had therefore ordered Saunders to get up as a field-marshal, or some such trifle, and what Saunders would have called incomparable verticality was the result.

The painter was also in sight.

While he was coming up, Lord Ipsden was lecturing Marshal Saunders on a point on which that worthy had always thought himself very superior to his master--"Gentlemanly deportment."

"Now, Saunders, mind and behave like a gentleman, or we shall be found out."

"I trust, my lord, my conduct--"

"What I mean is, you must not be so overpoweringly gentleman-like as you are apt to be; no gentleman is so gentleman as all that; it could not be borne, _c'est suffoquant;_ and a white handkerchief is unsoldier-like, and n.o.body ties a white handkerchief so well as that; of all the vices, perfection is the most intolerable." His lords.h.i.+p then touched with his cane the generalissimo's tie, whose countenance straightway fell, as though he had lost three successive battles.

Gatty came up.

They saluted.

"Where is your second, sir?" said the mare'chal.

"My second?" said Gatty. "Ah! I forgot to wake him--does it matter?"

"It is merely a custom," said Lord Ipsden, with a very slightly satirical manner. "Savanadero," said he, "do us the honor to measure the ground, and be everybody's second."

Savanadero measured the ground, and handed a pistol to each combatant, and struck an imposing att.i.tude apart.

"Are you ready, gentlemen?" said this Jack-o'-both-sides.

"Yes!" said both.

Just as the signal was about to be given, an interruption occurred. "I beg your pardon, sir," said Lord Ipsden to his antagonist; "I am going to take a _liberty--a great liberty_ with you, but I think you will find your pistol is only at half c.o.c.k."

"Thank you, my lord; what am I to do with the thing?"

"Draw back the c.o.c.k so, and be ready to fire?"

"So?" _Bang!_

He had touched the trigger as well as the c.o.c.k, so off went the barker; and after a considerable pause the field-marshal sprang yelling into the air.

"Hallo!" cried Mr. Gatty.

"Ah! oh! I'm a dead man," whined the general.

"Nonsense!" said Ipsden, after a moment of anxiety. "Give yourself no concern, sir," said he, soothingly, to his antagonist--"a mere accident.

Mare'chal, reload Mr. Gatty's pistol."

"Excuse me, my lord--"