Mr. Leek in Convulsions.
Yes: both the duellists had fallen, and lay on their backs, their white
faces upwards, and the pistols beside them. The seconds were standing
over them with long chins of horror, and the surgeon came striding up.
Gall was nearest to him, and he halted there first.
"Where has it struck you?" he asked, very gently. Gall, just able to
speak, faintly said he did not know. He thought in the small of the
back. But this was impossible according to the doctor's views. The
bullet might have come out at the back, but it certainly could not have
gone in that way. As Gall lay there, hardly knowing whether he was dead
or not, and the glorious sun shining right into his eyes, an awful
remorse came over him. Now that it was too late, he saw how easy it
would have been to refuse to fight, even at the risk of being called a
coward. While some cast that reproach on him, others would have lauded
him for his plain good sense. How fair, how very fair the world looked,
now that he was about to quit it!
"Let's see," said Mr. Robert Brown, intending to turn him on his face,
but attempting it slowly and gingerly. Truth to say, the operator in
embryo felt himself in a bit of a predicament: he had never extracted a
ball in his life, and was rather undecided which way to begin. Gall
groaned.
"Why, there's no sign of any injury here," exclaimed the doctor, in a
tone of surprised pleasure, as Gall went over in a lump. "The coat's
not touched. See if you can get up."
It was what Gall, beginning to recover the shock and his senses
together, was already doing. Mr. Brown took his hand to help him, but
there seemed no need for it. He was up, and stood as well as ever he
had stood in his life. He walked a few paces and found he _could_ walk.
The surgeon critically passed his eyes and fingers over him, and came
to the conclusion that—he was not injured.
"You are not hurt; you were not struck at all," he cried, and the tears
actually came into Mr. Bob's Brown's eyes, so glad and great was the
relief.
"The bullet must have passed you."
He, Robert Brown, flew off to the other wounded man, Bertie Loftus.
Bertie was on his feet too, under convoy of Onions and Brown major.
Very much the same ceremony had been gone through with him. A moment or
two he had lain as one dead, he also having been struck (as he
believed) in the small of the back, but had got upon his feet without
help, though with much condolence.
"Why, you are not hurt, either!" shouted Mr. Robert Brown, in his
astonishment. "Where on earth can the bullets have gone?"
It was quite true; they were _not_ hurt. As to the bullets—they must
have gone somewhere.
"What made you fall?" reiterated the surgeon, whose delight at this
result caused his face to glow with a red like the early rising sun.
Neither of them could say. Each thought he had been struck in the back;
each had felt the shot there. Bertie repeated this aloud: Gall said
nothing. Gall was wondering how he could ever be thankful enough to
Heaven that he was in the world yet. How fair it was! how lovely looked
the line of horizon over the dark-blue sea!
"I—don't—think—there—has—been—any—duel," slowly spoke Mr. Robert Brown,
when he revolved matters. "Did they forget to load the pistols?"
"If there has been no real duel they must be put up again," volubly
interposed Brown major, quite forgetting, in this agreeable
termination, his recent fears.
"Where was the good of all the bother? Where's the use of going in for
satisfaction if you don't get satisfaction? My heart alive, who's
this?"
Who indeed! Brown major's startled question was caused by the
appearance of a stranger on the scene. He came puffing up at a sharp
pace, and Bertie nearly dropped into his shoes at the apparition: for
it was his uncle, Sir Simon. And Sir Simon had heard the report of the
pistols too, and took in the truth at a glance. The young surgeon, some
view perhaps of self-exculpation in his mind, explained the affair in a
few brief words, and dwelt upon the fact that no harm had come of it.
"You two wicked ones!" exclaimed the really shocked and scared Sir
Simon to Gall and Loftus. "Give me up those pistols, sir," he sternly
continued to his nephew. "They shall never be in your possession
again."
It was easy to say, Give me he pistols. But the pistols had
disappeared, and Bertie's second with them. Before Sir Simon was seen,
or thought of, Mr. Leek had hastily shut the pistols into their case,
and glided quietly away with them, unobserved.
"Where are the pistols?" roared Sir Simon.
"Onions must have gone off with them," cried Brown major, who seemed
more at his ease altogether than any of the rest.
Lissom and surefooted as any cat, Onions was then making his way down
the almost perpendicular descent between Napoleon's column and the
sands, the case of pistols safe in his hands. When the descent was
effected he sat down, partly to recover breath, partly to burst into
vehement laughter. Swaying his body from side to side it seemed that he
never would leave off, to the intense astonishment of a fisherman going
by with three mackerel dangling in his hand from a string, who stopped
to gaze at him.
Never, sure, did a pair of duellists take their way off the field more
ignominiously than ours! For nothing to have come of the meeting was
sufficiently crest-lowering on the surface, whatever the inward
satisfaction might have been; but to be exposed the whole way to the
fire of Sir Simon's tongue—now thundering forth its condemning anger,
now sunk in ironical raillery—was hardly to be borne. He treated them
like a couple of children. In the first place he made them walk arm in
arm, and march before him; himself, the acting surgeon, Brown major,
and Lord Shrewsbury, bringing up the rear like so many policemen. Thus
they made their way home, taking the route through the Upper Town and
down the Grande Rue, for Sir Simon would go no other way. Arrived at
the hotel, the others having dropped off on the road, he marshalled
them into his own room, shut himself in with them, and talked to the
two; not in the angry or ironical strain he had been using publicly,
but in a solemn, severe, and yet kind tone, with the tears of emotion
running down his cheeks.
"Shake hands, and be thankful to God," he wound up with, "for a great
mercy has been vouchsafed to you both this day. But for that, you might
just as well have been lying stark upon the heights now."
He never supposed but that the pistols had been loaded with bullets.
Any doubt to the contrary had not been whispered to him. And the fact,
as to whether they had or not, remained yet to be proved.
But the occurrence spoilt the pleasure in Boulogne. It was looked upon
in a very grave light by both the families concerned, and they resolved
to cut the visit short and return home. Sir Simon made a call upon
Onions, and demanded the pistols, which were given up to him. Never
again were they seen by Bertie Loftus; and what Sir Simon did with them
Bertie could not get to know, but always thought he dropped them into
the waves of the receding tide, and let them drift out to sea.
Onions was back in London before they were. Lady Sophia Leek, grown
tired of her visit, as it was natural to her to grow, wherever she
went, crossed over the day before the large party. It was quite the
same to Onions whether he stayed or returned home. He made himself
happy anywhere.
Let us take a look at Mr. Henry. While they and others had been amusing
themselves, he was working as usual. He gave his private lessons, he
finished his translation, he accomplished certain work that Mr. Baker
had asked him to do as a favour—the working out of some difficult
problems in Euclid. "You are as capable as I am, Henry," said the
mathematical master, "and I want to go into Wales and see my poor old
father." And Mr. Henry had accepted the task with a patient sigh.
Yes, the translation was finished at last. It had been a stupendous
labour, considering the little time Mr. Henry could give to it and the
many abstruse books he had been obliged to consult. Had he foreseen
what the task would be, he might not have entered upon it. And he had
made too light, by anticipation, of his legitimate work in the college,
for that had been greatly added to by the ill-will of the boys. All the
trouble and labour they possibly could give to him, they did give. Many
and many a night, when he might have been at his translation, was he
detained over their wretchedly false exercises; rendered purposely as
incorrect, and also as illegible, as it was possible for the malice of
schoolboys to render them. Mr. Henry had felt ill for some time now. It
was hot summer weather, and yet a sort of ague was upon him; but he did
what he could to shake it off.
And that was a red-letter day when, the translation completed, he set
out with it for London. It happened to be the same day that Sir Simon
and his large party were crossing over from Boulogne; but that had
nothing to do with Mr. Henry. The sun was bright, the skies were clear;
his ailments and his weakness, the weary night vigils, and the past
fatigue in his labours, all were alike forgotten, as he bore on to the
publisher's house in Paternoster Row, and passed at length through its
swing doors, carrying his heavy parcel.
"Would you like to receive the money now?" inquired the publisher,
after he had talked with him.
"If you please. If not inconvenient."
Not inconvenient certainly to pay thirty pounds; and the money, in
five-pound notes, was given into his hand. "We shall send the proofs to
you, Mr. Henry; no one but yourself must correct them."
"Very well. You will present me with a copy of the book for my own
use?"
"One copy, sir! You shall have more than that, and be welcome to them.
Half a dozen if you like."
"Thank you very much. Then I can give a copy to Dr. Brabazon, and send
over another to my old university."
He went out, his eyes quite luminous with the pleasure. The money in
his pocket; the learned book (it might almost be called _his_ book, so
great had been his labour) coming out immediately; copies to give to
his friends! For once Mr. Henry forgot his care, and seemed to tread on
air.
But he could not live on air; and hunger was very powerfully reminding
him of that fact when he reached the Strand. He looked out for an
eating-house, and turned into Simpson's. Ordering a plateful of lamb
and peas (recommended by the waiter), he went out again to a shop close
by, to buy some trifle he wanted. As he was bounding back into
Simpson's, he found his coat-tails seized, and turned to see a boy in
the College cap. It was Leek.
"Why, Onions!" he exclaimed, calling him, in his surprise, by the more
familiar name, "I thought you were in France. George Paradyne wrote to
me a day or two ago, and mentioned you."
"We came over yesterday; Lady Sophia got tired of the place," answered
Onions. "The rest are crossing to-day: I mean Loftus and Gall's lot,"
he went on to explain with the customary scant ceremony of the College
boys. "Oh, Mr. Henry, we have had the jolliest lark! I should like to
tell it you."
"Do so," said Mr. Henry. "I am going to have some dinner: will you take
some with me?"
"Don't care if I do," returned Onions. "Lamb and peas! That's good,
after the kickshaws we've had in France. You'll laugh yourself into a
fit when you hear what happened there."
Seated at a table in the corner, Onions recounted his story, and eat
his lamb and peas between whiles. Mr. Henry treated him also to some
cherry tart. Onions eat and talked, and exploded into bursts of
laughter, contagious to see and hear. The diners in the room turned and
looked; there seemed some danger of his going into a fit himself. It
was the duel he was telling of, and Mr. Henry, when the boy first
began, truly thought he was recounting a fable: though it is possible,
having been acclimatized to Germany, that he did not feel so shocked at
the idea of the duel as the other masters might have felt; say the
Reverend Mr. Jebb, for instance, or Dr. Brabazon.
"You see, when they asked me and Lord Shrewsbury to stand seconds, we
didn't much like it. Suppose one of them had got killed? But it was of
no use our saying a syllable: Gall and Loftus are both just as
obstinate as pigs, and a comet with a fiery tail wouldn't have turned
either of them. They thought their honour was involved, you see. Oh,
and what do you think? Dick went into the sea during a gale, and was
all but drowned."
"Dick was!"
"And Paradyne saved him," continued Onions, having got out of one tale
into another. "Nobody saw Dick go in, or knew he was in, until his
cries were heard. It was too rough for bathers to venture that day, and
the Sauvetage boat was not on duty, but Dick thought he'd try it on the
sly. And there he was, drowning without help! While the rest of us were
rushing about wildly to find the men, Paradyne quietly threw off his
jacket, plunged in, and went swimming after him—and a deuce of a long
way Dick had drifted out with the tide. He is a brave fellow after all,
that Paradyne. You should have heard the cheers when he came in with
Dick!"
Mr. Henry was leaning back in his chair, absorbed in the narrative—a
hectic flush on his cheeks, a glowing light in his eyes. Praises of
George Paradyne stirred every fibre of his heart.
"George never said a word of this in his letter to me."
"Oh, I daresay not; he's not a fellow to talk of himself," was Mr.
Leek's answer. "You never saw such a swimmer. Well, Dick was saved. We
wondered afterwards whether, if he had been drowned, it would have
stopped the duel."
"And the duel really took place? It seems past all belief," continued
Mr. Henry. And Onions, his mouth full of pie, went into convulsions
again, and upset the beer. When the choking was over, he continued his
account.
"I and Shrewsbury laid our heads together; we didn't want, you know, to
aid them in going in for such a chance as _death_; Besides, duelling is
over, let Bertie Loftus say what he will. We agreed _not to load the
pistols_; but that fool of a Brown major got putting his tongue into
it, saying we must take a surgeon. We couldn't say we'd not, for fear
of exciting suspicion, and he proposed his big brother who is at St.
George's, and we took him. What we feared was, that he might get
looking to the pistols; which would have spoilt the game. He didn't
though, and was in an awful fright all the time. He placed our men at
the distance of twenty paces—you should have seen the combatants; the
two were as white as this table cloth—and gave the signal to fire. At
the moment the pistols went off I gave Loftus a smart knock in the back
with some pieces of brass that jangled frightfully; Talbot gave Gall
the same, and down the two went, thinking they were both shot. Oh my
goodness! I shall never get over it to the last hour of my life," broke
off Onions, struggling and spluttering. "Mr. Henry, if I were in
church,—if I were watching somebody dead,—if I were before the
examiners for the Oxford, and thought of it, I must laugh."
It seemed so, by the way he was laughing now.
"They thought they were shot, and there they lay; and Bob Brown came up
with a long face, getting out his case of instruments. 'Where are you
struck?' says he, beginning with Gall who was nearest him; 'whereabouts
has the bullet gone into you?' 'I think it went into my back,' says
Gall, with a groan. 'Let's see,' says Brown, delicately turning him a
little, 'perhaps it came out there? No, there's no hole in your coat at
the back. Why, you're not shot at all!' he shouts out, as Gall got up
and felt himself. Oh my stars, but it was rich! I and the earl had to
keep our countenances, and nearly died of it."
Mr. Henry was laughing quietly; and the crowded room turned round once
more and gazed at the College lad.
"I made off with the pistols. That had been arranged. Oh, I assure you
we laid the programme well, and rehearsed our parts over and over. My
mother walked me off to a miserable ball the previous night; but Lord
Shrewsbury came to sleep in my room, and we were practising the thrust
upon each other's backs till daylight. We got a brass candlestick out
of Lady Sophia's chamber and battered it up for the pieces; the hotel
people, finding it had disappeared, thought my Lady must have swallowed
it. I've got the brass yet."
He laid his head down on the table, not exactly after a public fashion;
shaking and convulsed. "Go on," said Mr. Henry.
"There's no more fun to tell. I made off with the pistols, for fear
they should find out the trick, and fight in earnest—but they must have
gone to the town for bullets first. Sir Simon Orville came on the scene
then, and——."
"Who had warned him of it?"
"Nobody. His coming was accidental. He went in early to Dick's room, to
see how he was, and dressed himself afterwards to take a walk, instead
of getting into bed again like a Christian; and somehow arrived at the
spot by chance. Wasn't there a row? Shrewsbury says he never heard any
old fellow go on so. He made Gall and Loftus shake hands, and marched
them home again before him arm in arm. That same day he came to me,
demanding the pistols, and threatened to tell Lady Sophia of me unless
I promised never to help in such an affair of iniquity again: that was
what he called it, 'an affair of iniquity.' So I gave him up the
pistols, and told him the truth at the same time—that I and Talbot had
not put any charge in them. You should have watched the change in him!
He called me all sorts of charming names, and shook my hand, turning
himself about with delight in his funny fashion, and said he'd be my
friend always and Talbot's too; and then he put his hand into his
pocket and gave me—what do you think?—five golden sovereigns. But he
took the pistols; and Loftus's belief is, that he pitched them, case
and all, into the harbour. Oh, it was a lark, that duel! I don't
believe I shall ever get in for such another."
It was the conclusion of the tale. The company, who had remained at the
different tables, as if fascinated, began to move. They had caught but
a word here and there, and rose up impressed with the idea that a peer
of England, the Right Honourable the Earl of Shrewsbury and Talbot, had
been one of the principals in a duel; which news they forthwith carried
to their friends. There are people who believe to this day that his
lordship was the culprit. Mr. Henry paid for his dinner, and went out
with Leek. They were parting, for their way was not the same, when the
master laid his hand upon the young man's shoulder.
"I wish I could get you to do me a favour, Leek."
"That I will," was the ready answer. "What is it?"
"Make my duties easy to me next term, instead of difficult. That is,
help to make them so. No one but myself, Leek, knows what I have to
battle with. Sometimes I think it is wearing me out."
"Are you ill?" exclaimed Leek, suddenly noticing, now that they were in
the sunlight, the peculiarly worn look on the quiet and refined face.
"I am not very well. Perhaps I may give up my post in the College."
"I say, though, you don't mean that! Are we boys driving you away?"
"That, and other things. I don't know how it will be yet. But if I
remain, I must get you all to behave differently."
"And so we will," cried Leek, in a generous fit of repentance, and some
shame; as he remembered the impediments it had been their delight to
throw into the way of the foreign master, and how patiently he had
borne it all. Leek could not help being struck with the look of
_goodness_, of truth in the face before him, though it might never have
struck him particularly before; and it suddenly occurred to him to
wonder whether they had been mistaken on sundry little matters. A man
who has just treated us to a good dinner can't be a bad man.
"Mr. Henry, was it you that told of the seniors smoking, when there was
that row last autumn term?" he asked impulsively.
"It was not. I answered this at the time."
"Then I'm blest if I don't believe it was Lamb, after all! He's a
beauty. And I daresay other things that they said of you were as
untrue?"
"I daresay they were," replied Mr. Henry, smiling.
"What a jolly shame! Don't go away because of us, Mr. Henry. It was all
Trace's fault."
"Ay. Good bye," he kindly added, as he walked away to catch an omnibus
that would take him to Orville.
He went to Mrs. Paradyne's on his arrival there. That lady was alone,
evidently in a very aggrieved temper. She sat in her usual place on the
sofa, in a once handsome but now faded muslin gown, garnished with
seagreen ribbons. Her bonnet lay on the table.
"What is the matter?" inquired Mr. Henry.
"The matter is, that Mary has not come home, and she knows she was to
have gone out with me," was Mrs. Paradyne's fretful answer. "I can't
think what is keeping her. Mrs. Hill should not do it."
He sat down by her on the sofa, reached out his pocket-book, and gave
her five of the bank-notes lying in it.
"I took my translation in to-day," was all he said. Mrs. Paradyne began
counting them. She looked up.
"I thought you were to receive thirty pounds for it. You have always
said so."
"I did receive thirty. But—"
"You have given me only twenty-five," came the quick interruption; and
the tone was not a pleasant one.
"I have kept one of the notes. I am sorry to have to do so, but I want
it."
"Want it for _what?_" she asked with a surprised stress upon the word.
"But a day or two ago you informed me you had no need of money just
now."
"True. I will tell you if you wish particularly to know," he continued;
for she was looking at him questionably, and evidently waiting for the
information, as one might who had a right to it. "You have heard me
speak of Carl Weber?"
"That great friend and fellow-professor of yours at Heidelberg. Well?"
"I had a letter from him yesterday, telling me how much worse he is,
and that his malady is now confirmed beyond doubt—consumption. I had
another letter; it was from young Von Sark, who happened to write to
me. He spoke of Weber in it; of the sad state of privation he is in, of
the inroads the disease is making, and of his almost utter want of
friends. He has been ill so long that people have grown tired of
assisting him. A five-pound note will lighten his way to death."
Mrs. Paradyne made no dissentient answer; but she was evidently not
pleased. Taking out her purse with almost an unlady-like jerk, she shut
the five bank-notes into it with a sharp click.
"I cannot help it," said Mr. Henry in a low tone. "He is in great need,
and friendless. It seems to be a duty placed before me."
"Has he been improvident, that he should have saved no means?" asked
Mrs. Paradyne.
"No; his salary was small, and he had his mother to keep," was Mr.
Henry's reply, looking away from Mrs. Paradyne for a moment. "She died
two months ago; the last of his relatives."
"Well, your giving away a bank-note more or less is of little
consequence," resumed Mrs. Paradyne, in a displayed sort of
resignation, but which bore a sound of irony to initiated ears. "You
will not earn many more bank-notes, if you persist in your insane
resolution of speaking to Dr. Brabazon."
"I have told you why I must do that," he gently said; "do not let us go
over the matter again. As soon as he returns from Malvern, I shall
declare all. I have no resource but to do it, and no argument can now
change my resolution."
"Or bring you to your senses," retorted Mrs. Paradyne.
"I have something to tell you that will please you very much," he
resumed, quitting the other subject.
Mrs. Paradyne lifted her delicate hands in dissenting deprecation, as
if nothing could ever please her again.
"It is a story of George's bravery. He has been saving the life of
young Loftus."