Previous to the matters chronicled in the preceding chapter, Mr. Garnet
had received a note, of which the following is a copy:—
“SIR,—My friend, Major Blazeater, late of the Hon. East India
Companyʼs 59th Regiment of Native Infantry, has kindly consented to
see you, on my behalf, to request a reference to any gentleman whom
you may be pleased to name, for the purpose of concerting measures for
affording me that satisfaction which, as a man and a gentleman, I am
entitled to expect for your cowardly and most ruffianly violence on
the 28th ultimo.
“I beg you to accept my sincere apologies for the delay which
has occurred, and my assurance that it has been the result of
circumstances entirely beyond my own control.
“I have the honour to be, Sir,
“Your most obedient Servant,
“RUFUS HUTTON.
“Geopharmacy Lodge, Nov. 1st, 1859.”
The circumstances beyond the fiery little doctorʼs control were that he
could not find any one who would undertake to carry his message.
When Bull Garnet read this letter—handed to him, with three great
bows of the Chinese pattern, by the pompous Major Blazeater—his face
flushed to a deep amethyst tinge, which subsided to the colour of cork.
Then he rolled his great eyes, and placed one strong finger across the
deep channels of his forehead, and said, “Let me think, sir!”
“Hurrah,” said the Major to himself, “now we shall have something to
redeem the honour of the age. It is a disgrace for a fellow to live in
a country where he can never get satisfaction, although he gets plenty
of insult.”
“Major Blazeater, you will make allowances for me,” resumed Mr. Garnet;
“but I have never had much opportunity of becoming acquainted with the
laws—the code, perhaps, I should say—which govern the honourable
practice of duelling at the present day.”
“No matter, my dear sir; no matter at all, I assure you. Your second,
when I have the honour of meeting him, will settle all those little
points, which are beside the general issue; we shall settle them
together, sir, with the strictest regard to punctilio, and to your
entire satisfaction.”
“Capital fellow!” pursued the Major, in his own reflection–room;
“knew he couldnʼt be a coward: just look at his forehead. No doubt he
was perfectly justified in kicking out Rue Hutton; Rue is such an
impudent beggar. Ah! referring to his pocket–book to find his military
friendʼs address; now we shall do it in style. Glorious fellow this
Garnet—shall have the very best powder. Wish I was on his side.” And
the Major rubbed his long brown hands upon his lanky knees.
“Will it be according to rule,” asked Mr. Garnet, looking steadily
(“What an eye for a pistol!” said the Major to himself), “quite
according to rule and order, if I write down for you, Major Blazeater,
the name of the friend to whom I refer; also the time and place at
which he will be ready to discuss this little matter with you?”
“To be sure, to be sure, my dear sir; nothing could be better. Your
conduct, Mr. Garnet, does you the very highest honour.”
“Nothing, you think, can be objected to my course in this?—nothing
against the high chivalric code of modern duelling?”
“No, my dear sir, nothing at all. Please to hand me the assignation;
ha, ha, it is so pleasant—I mean the rendezvous.”
Mr. Garnet handed to him a card, whereon was written: “Town Hall,
Lymington, Wednesday, November 2nd. Before Admiral Reale, Col. Fale,
and C. Durant, Esq. Application will be made at 12 oʼclock for a
warrant against Rufus Hutton and Major Blazeater—Christian name
unknown—for conspiring together to procure one Bull Garnet to fight a
duel, against the peace of Her Majesty, and the spirit of the age.”
Major Blazeater fell back in his chair; and all his blood ran to his
head. As he told his daughter afterwards, he had never had such a
turn in his life. The fairest prospect blasted, the sunrise of murder
quenched; what good was it to live in a world where people wonʼt shoot
one another? Bull Garnet bent his large eyes upon him, and the Major
could not answer them.
“Now, Major Blazeater,” said Mr. Garnet, “I shall bind you over to keep
the peace, and your principal as well, and expose you to the ridicule
of every sensible man in England, unless I receive by to morrow
morningʼs post at 10.15 A.M. an apology for this piece of infantile
bravado. What a man does in hot passion, God knows, and God will
forgive him for, if he truly strive to amend it—at least—at least, I
hope so.”
Here Mr. Garnet turned away, and looked out of the window, and perhaps
it was the view of Bob that made his eyes so glistening.
“But, sir,” he resumed—while the Major was wondering where on earth
he should find any sureties for keeping Her Majestyʼs peace, which he
could not keep with his wife—“sir, I look at things of this sort from
a point of view diametrically opposed to yours. Perhaps you have the
breadth to admit that my view _may_ be right, and yours _may_ be wrong.”
“Nothing, nothing at all, sir, will I admit to a man who actually
appoints the magistrates the custodians of his honour.”
“Honour, sir, as we now regard it, is nothing more than foolʼs varnish.
Justice, sir, and truth are things we can feel and decide about. Honour
is the feminine of them, and, therefore, apt to confuse a man. Major
Blazeater, the only honour I have is to wish you good morning.”
“Hang it all,” said the Major to himself, as he was shown out
honourably, “I have put my foot in it this time; and wonʼt Mrs.
Blazeater give it to me! That woman finds out everything. This is now
the third time Iʼve tried to get up a snug little meeting, and the
fates are all against me. Dash it, now, if Iʼve got to pay costs, O
Boadicea Blazeater, you wonʼt mend my gloves for a fortnight.”
Major Blazeater wore very tight doeskin gloves, and was always wearing
them out. Hence, his appeal to the female Penates took this constricted
form. The household god of the Phœnicians, and the one whose image
they affixed to the bows of their galleys, hoping to steer homewards,
was (as we know from many sources) nothing but a lamb; a very rude
figure, certainly,—square, thick–set, inelegant; but I doubt not that
some grand home–truth clung to their Agna Dea. Major Blazeater was
a lamb, whose wits only went to the shearing the moment you got him
upon his own hearth, and Boadicea bleated at him. He would crumple his
neck up, and draw back his head, and look pleadingly at any one, as a
house–lamb does on Good Friday, and feel that his father had done it
before him, and he, too, must suffer for sheepishness.
Meditating sadly thus, he heard a great voice coming after him down
the gravel–walk, and, turning round, was once more under Mr. Garnetʼs
eyes. “One more word with you, if you please, sir. It will be necessary
that you two warlike gentlemen should appoint a legal second. Mine will
be Mr. Brockwood, who will be prepared to show that your principal
was grossly inquisitive and impertinent, before I removed him from my
premises.”
“Oh!” cried the Major, delighted to find any loophole for escape, “that
puts a new aspect upon the matter, if he gave you provocation, sir.”
“He gave me as strong provocation as one man can well give another,
by prying into my—domestic affairs, in the presence of my son and
daughter, and even tampering with my servants. He left me no other
course, except to remove him from my house.”
“Which you did rather summarily. My dear sir, I should have done the
same. Had I been aware of these facts, I would have declined to bear
his cartel. You shall receive my apology by to–morrow morningʼs post.
I trust this unwise proceeding—may—may not proceed any further. Your
behaviour, sir, does you credit, and requires no vindication at law.”
Thus spoke Major Blazeater, bowing and smiling elaborately under a
combination of terrors—the law, public ridicule, expenses; worst of
all, Mrs. Blazeater. The next morning, Mr. Garnet received from him
a letter, not only apologetic, but highly eulogistic, at which Bull
Garnet smiled grimly, as he tossed it into the fire. By the same post
came a letter from Rufus, to the following effect:—
“SIR,—I regret to find that your courage consists in mere brute
force and power. I regard you as no longer worthy of the notice of a
gentleman. The cowardly advantage you took of your superior animal
strength, and your still more cowardly refusal to redress the brutal
outrage, as is the manner of gentlemen, stamp you as no more than a
navvy, of low mechanical brutishness. Do not think that, because I
cannot meet you physically, and you will not meet me fairly, you are
beyond my reach. I will have you yet, Bull Garnet; and I know how to
do it. Your last ferocious outrage has set me thinking, and I see
things which I must have been blind not to see before. I shall see
you, some day, in the felonʼs dock, an object of scorn to the lowest
of the low, so sure as my name is
“RUFUS HUTTON.
“P.S.—I shall be at Lymington to–morrow, ready to meet you, if you
dare initiate the inquiry.”
Mr. Garnet did not burn this letter, but twice read it through very
carefully, and then stowed it away securely. Who could tell but it
might be useful as a proof of animus? During these several operations
his eyes had not much of triumph in them.
Rufus Hutton rode to Lymington, carrying a life–preserver: he appeared
in the Town Hall, at the petty sessions; but there was no charge
made against him. Being a pugnacious little fellow, and no lover of
a peaceful issue, he had a great mind then to apply for a warrant
against Garnet for assaulting him. But he felt that he had given some
provocation, and could not at present justify it; and he had in the
background larger measures, which might be foiled by precipitancy. So
that lively broil, being unfought out and unforgiven—at least on one
side—passed into as rank a feud as ever the sun went down upon. Not
that Mr. Garnet felt much bitterness about it; only he knew that he
must guard against a powerful enemy.
Amy had told her father, long ago, what Cradock had said to her in the
churchyard, and how she had replied to him. In fact, she could not
keep it to herself until she went to bed that night; but mingled her
bright, flowing hair with his grey locks, while her heart was still
pit–a–patting, and leaned on his shoulder for comfort, and didnʼt cry
much before she got it. “My own dearest, life of my life,” cried John,
forgetting both Greek and Latin, but remembering how he loved her
mother, “my own and only child—now you do look so like your mother,
darling—may the God who has made you my blessing bless your dear heart
in this!”
The very next day John Rosedew fell into a pit of meditation. He forgot
all about Pelethronian Lapiths, the trimming of Gruterʼs lamp (which
had long engaged him; for he knew the flame of learning there unsnuffed
by any Smelfungus): even the Sabellian elements were but as _sabellicus
sus_ to him. It was one of his peculiarities, that he never became
so deeply abstracted as when he had to take in hand any practical
question. He could take in hand any glorious thesis, such as the traces
still existing of a middle voice in Latin, or the indications of very
early civilization in Eubœa, and the question whether the Ionians
came not mainly westward—any of these things he could think of, dwell
upon, and eat his dinner without knowing salt from mustard. But he
could not make a treatise of Amy, nor could he get at her etymology. He
began to think that his education had been neglected in some points.
And then he thought about Socrates, and his symposiastic drolleries,
and most philosophic reply when impeached of Xanthippic weakness.
Nevertheless, he could not make up his mind upon one point—whether or
not it was his duty to go and inform Sir Cradock Nowell of his sonʼs
attachment. If the ancient friend had been as of old, or had only
changed towards John Rosedew, continuing true all the while to the
son, the parson would have felt no doubt as to how his duty lay. And
the more straightforward and honest course was ever the first to open
upon him. But, when he remembered how sadly bitter the father already
was to the son, how he had even dared in his wrath to charge him with
wilful fratricide, how he had wandered far and wide from the sanity of
affection, and was, indeed, no longer worthy to be called a father,
John Rosedew felt himself absolved from all parental communion.
Then how was it as to expediency? Why, just at present, this knowledge
would be the very thing to set Sir Cradock yet more against the
outcast. For, in the days of old confidence and friendly interfusion,
he had often expressed to John his hope that Clayton might love Amy;
and now he would at once conclude that Cradock had been throughout the
rival of his darling, and perhaps an unsuccessful one, till the other
was got rid of. Therefore John Rosedew resolved, at last, to hold his
peace in the matter; to which conclusion Aunt Doxyʼs advice and Amyʼs
entreaties contributed. But these two ladies, although unanimous in
their rapid conclusion, based it upon premises as different as could be.
“Inform him, indeed!” cried Miss Eudoxia, swelling grandly, and
twitching her shawl upon the slope of her shoulders, of which,
by–the–by, she was very proud—she had heard it showed high
breeding—“inform him, brother John; as if his son had disgraced him
by meditating an alliance with the great–granddaughter of the Earl
of Driddledrum and Dromore! Upon such occasions, as I have always
understood, though perhaps I know nothing about it, and you understand
it better, John, it is the gentlemanʼs place to secure the acquiescence
of his family. Acquiescence, indeed! What has our family ever thought
of a baronetcy? There is better blood in Amy Rosedew, Brian OʼLynn,
and Cadwallader, than any Cradock Nowell ever had, or ever will have,
unless it is her son. Inform him, indeed! as if our Amy was nobody!”
“Pa, donʼt speak of it,” said Amy, “until dear Cradock wishes it. We
have no right to add to his dreadfully bad luck; and he is the proper
judge. He is sure to do what is right. And, after all that he has been
through, oh, donʼt treat him like a baby, father.”