SWORD-PLAY.
Full of conflicting thoughts Lewie Baronald, with a slower pace than
usual, proceeded towards the residence of the Countess van Renslaer,
and quitting the Lang Vourhout, he crossed the canal that encircles
the whole Hague.
If compelled by his powerful uncle's eccentric opposition to act the
laggard now, he might leave Dolores to be won by his rival
Morganstjern! Such things have been, and may be again. His brain
whirled and his heart sank at the thought; and even if he had the
permission of the Director-General of Infantry accorded him, could he
ask the brilliant Dolores to share his solitary room in the
barracks--the _Oranje Caserne_--of the Scots Brigade?
The thought was full of folly and presumption. He was not quite
aware of the full extent of the hostile--yet well-meant--design his
uncle the General was forming, for an effectual separation between
him and the object of his love. He had left her yesterday with the
avowed intention of obtaining the sanction of the General, from whom
he had a yearly allowance: and now that the sanction was withheld, he
was in sore perplexity, for by the then rules of the Dutch service no
officer could marry without the consent of his superior; and how was
he to tell Dolores that this had been bluntly refused, and that even
exile or foreign service menaced him?
While these thoughts were passing through his mind, he came suddenly
upon Maurice Morganstjern; he was seated under one of the trees that
bordered the canal near the Hooge Wal, and was leisurely polishing
the blade of his rapier with his leather glove, while conversing with
a friend.
He was rather a handsome but dissipated-looking young fellow, and had
shifty eyes and a very sinister expression of face. He wore his
sandy-coloured hair powdered and tied, a smart Nivernois hat (such
hats were all the rage about 1780), small, and with the flaps
fastened up to the brim with hooks and eyes; his costume was bright
in colours and richly laced.
That of his companion was the reverse. He wore an old battered
Khevenhüller hat; his shaggy hair was unpowdered; his ruffles were
soiled and torn; his visage was bloated and his eyes bloodshot and
watery, while a scar on his nose, covered by a piece of black
court-plaster, did not add to the respectability of his appearance:
and Lewie Baronald, who knew him to be the Heer van Schrekhorn, a
noted bully, gamester, and frequenter of gambling-houses and
estaminets, barely accorded him any recognition, though feeling
himself compelled to present his hand to Maurice Morganstjern.
'How now, Mynheer--have you been fighting?' he inquired laughingly of
the latter.
'No; only polishing some specks off my sword,' replied Morganstjern,
with a smile on his thin lips, though there was none in his watery
grey eyes; 'but apropos of fighting--do you affect that?'
'In a proper cause--yes,' replied Baronald, surprised by the question.
'And can cover yourself well?' continued Morganstjern, making a
half-mock lunge which the other--with the quickness of
lightning--parried by his sword which he instantly drew.
'I can cover myself, as you shall see,' he exclaimed; and they began
to fence in jest apparently, while the Heer looked approvingly on,
and said with a laugh and an oath:
'Now we shall see who is the better ruffler of the two.'
And the Heer, who bore Lewie no goodwill for the coldness of his
demeanour and the general hauteur he manifested towards him, looked
as if he would very much have relished to draw his old hanger and
engage in the perilous sport too--for perilous it was, with
keen-edged and sharply-pointed straight-bladed swords.
The Heer van Schrekhorn was everyway an odious fellow--a lover of the
fair sex, of schiedam and cards; but one who always avowed openly
that _liking_ for a woman was one thing, but love for her was
another--and certes he knew nothing about it.
He loudly and bluntly applauded his friend's fencing.
'Appel now!' he exclaimed; 'quick--disengage to that side again!
contract your arm--quick--dart a thrust right forward now!'
At that moment, as if in obedience to the suggestion, the point of
Morganstjern's sword struck the gilded regimental gorget of Baronald,
which was adorned with the Lion Rampant of the Netherlands.
'The devil!' he exclaimed; 'do you aim at my throat?'
'All a mistake,' said Morganstjern, beginning to pant as he was
pressed on in turn and driven back.
'Is this folly or fury--do you really wish to quarrel?' asked Lewie
Baronald; but the other made no reply, though his eyes became
inflamed, his colour deepened, his teeth were set and his brows knit;
and though he laughed, the sound of his laughter was strange and
unnatural.
This game at sharps was certainly jest with Baronald, though he
little liked his opponent; but he soon became aware that the eyes of
the latter seemed to become more bloodshot, that his cheek paled, his
grasp grew firmer on his hilt; that his thrusts came quickly and
fiercely--in short, that beyond all doubt, under cover of a little
pretended sword-play, he had--murder in his heart!
They were rivals for the love of Dolores, yet Morganstjern had not
the courage to challenge Baronald to a regular mortal duel. His
bearing now, and the perilous thrust arrested by his gorget, were a
warning to the latter of that which Morganstjern was now
capable--killing him by design, without peril to himself, while he
would affect that it was done by mere chance in rough jest; and had
Baronald been run through the body, the Heer would have been ready to
affirm and swear that it was all done by the merest accident.
Baronald felt his blood getting warm; he knew that duelling was
sternly discouraged by the Dutch authorities; and that to kill the
cousin of Dolores, even in self-defence, would preclude all chance of
possessing her favour.
But a strong measure was absolutely necessary. Darting forward he
suddenly locked-in--seized his adversary's sword-arm, by twining his
left arm round it, thus closing his parade hilt to hilt, and disarmed
him by literally wrenching his sword from his grasp.
Pale as death now, panting, and with eyes flashing fire, Morganstjern
stood before the victor, who, presenting the captured sword by the
blade, said, with a kind of smile:
'This rough play is being carried too far--here let it end.'
Hissing out some execration, Morganstjern took his sword by the hilt,
and in the blind excesss of his fury would have plunged it into the
breast of Baronald, but at the moment it was struck up by another
sword, as two officers of the Scots Brigade, Francis, Lord Lindores,
and the Master of Dumbarton, threw themselves between them.
'We do but jest, gentlemen,' said Morganstjern, lifting his hat and
sheathing his sword.
'Is this true, Baronald?' asked Lord Lindores.
'Jest assuredly, so far as I am concerned,' replied Lewie.
'I must confess that the work looked remarkably like earnest, so far
as your adversary was concerned,' remarked the Master of Dumbarton,
with a look at Morganstjern which there was no mistaking; but the
latter simply bowed, and saying:
'Gentlemen--your servant. I have the honour to bid you good evening.'
Then, accompanied by the Heer van Schrekhorn, he hastened away;
leaving Baronald to explain the matter as he chose to his two
brother-officers, who had some difficulty in making him really aware
of the deadly risk he had run.
'He is gone like a man who has lost an hour and runs as if to
overtake it,' said Lord Lindores. 'Now how came you, Lewie Baronald,
to be fencing, even in jest, with rufflers such as these?'
Baronald could not explain that one of them was the cousin of Dolores.
'At the Kanongietery we have just parted with Van Otterbeck, the
Minister of State. It is as well he did not accompany us and see
that piece of folly, Baronald; it might have gone hard with you, as
the Brigade is not greatly in favour just now,' said the Master of
Dumbarton, who was James Douglas, grandson of the loyal and gallant
Earl of that title, who was Colonel of the Royal Scots, and followed
James VII. into exile.
He was tall, had a straight nose, the bold dark eyes of the Douglas
race, and sunny brown hair tied behind with a black ribbon and
rosette.
'True,' added Lord Lindores; 'and I begin to think the Brigade has
had enough and to spare of Holland during these two hundred years
past, fighting to defend lazy boors and greedy merchants, in a land
of frowsy fogs and muddy canals; as Butler has it in "Hudibras:"
'"A land that rides at anchor, and is moored;
In which they do not live, but go aboard."'
These remarks referred to the growing discontent between the
regiments of the Brigade and the States-General--matters to which we
may have to refer elsewhere, and which led to the former abandoning
the service of the latter for that of Great Britain.
And now Lewie Baronald, after thanking his friends for their
intervention and advice, took the road to the residence of the
Countess van Renslaer, whither, unknown to him, Morganstjern had
preceded him, and was, at that very moment, engaged with Dolores.