LADY BETTY TAKES THE FIELD
THE sun had not yet risen: earth and sky were softly gray and brown,
with green where the meadows lay, and purple in the shadows. Morning,
like a white flower with a heart of gold, opened in the east. Shafts
of light—the sun’s gold-tipped arrows—quivered on the distant hills,
while the vapors, smokelike and fantastic, floated along the level
lands and the trees loomed spectre-like.
It was chilly, too, with the chill of dawn in the early autumn, and
Lord Clancarty and young Mackie were muffled in their cloaks as they
walked across the fields together. The Irishman was smiling, in his
usual daring fashion, but the younger man was sober and even nervous as
he listened to him.
“I have to thank you, Sir Edward,” Clancarty said, “for standing by a
stranger, but I should look for no less at your hands.”
“I am very glad to serve you, Mr. Trevor,” the young man replied,
blushing like a girl, “I thought Lord Savile’s attitude toward you
quite unwarranted.”
“We Irishmen do not look for courtesy at the hands of our conquerors,
except in a few rare instances,” Clancarty said; “but it is due to
you, Sir Edward, to tell you that my name is not Trevor; I assumed it
for convenience only; I am the proscribed exile, Donough Macarthy of
Clancarty.”
Young Mackie stopped short with a gasp.
“Lady Clancarty’s husband!” he cried, turning deadly pale.
Lord Clancarty bowed. “The same,” he said smiling, “and in telling
you, I confide in your honor not to reveal my identity—even to Lady
Clancarty, unless I fall, and then—I would have her ladyship know that
she was free.”
But young Mackie had not yet recovered his composure; he stared at the
earl strangely.
“Does she not divine your identity?” he asked, and the pain in his face
was so easy to read that Lady Clancarty’s husband smiled again.
“I think not,” he responded; “but we must go on unless we would be
tardy at keeping the tryst.” Then he glanced sharply at the boy, “I
take it for granted that you are willing to stand by me; if not—I
fully pardon you, Sir Edward, and I can go alone.”
Young Mackie’s face crimsoned.
“Nay, my lord,” he said bluntly, “I did not offer to stand by you for
love, but for honor’s sake, and now—I will—for her sake,” and he
raised his hat reverently.
Lord Clancarty bared his own head and kissed the hilt of his sword.
“For her dear sake, sir,” he said; “so let it be, I love you for it,”
and they walked on in silence.
They passed through the grove of limes and entered the field. As they
did so, the sunbeams, sloping from the hills, fell on the tree tops,
but the long meadow was in the shadow. The sweetness of new-mown hay
was in the air; there was a glint of white blossoming still upon the
hedgerow, and beyond, the red brown of new turned earth and green, the
green of the turf and the hawthorn.
Across the meadow from the farther side came Lord Savile and Mr.
Benham, and as the two parties approached they saluted courteously.
Clancarty was smiling, gracious, perfectly at ease, but his opponent
scowled sullenly; some instinct—a brute one doubtless—made him hate
this daring Irishman. Sir Edward, full of boyish importance, beckoned
Mr. Benham aside.
“Can’t we adjust this difference, sir?” he asked; “there is a serious
reason why they should not fight.”
Benham stared at him coolly. “To be sure, so I supposed,” he drawled
indifferently; “but Savile will give you twenty reasons why they
should.”
“For all that, we might adjust it honorably,” urged Mackie, with
feverish anxiety.
“Pshaw, man, we can’t!” said Benham, with contempt; “they’re both in
love with the same woman. You are inexperienced, sir,” he added aloud,
smiling scornfully. “Measure the paces, Sir Edward; the sun is rising,
and the advantage will lie then with the man whose back is toward
it. We will draw lots, sir, so—ah, Lord Savile has drawn the best
position,” and he laughed complacently.
Young Mackie, crimsoned with confusion and annoyance, made no further
effort at a compromise; instead he busied himself with the weapons and
in helping Lord Clancarty strip off coat and waistcoat. Then the two
men confronted each other, sword in hand, and as they did so the sun
looked over the horizon and the meadow suddenly lay in a golden mist as
the sparks flew from the steel.
This was the picture that Betty saw floating in a golden haze, two
strong, lithe figures swaying lightly from side to side and the flash
of their naked swords at play.
“For shame!” she cried, thrusting their weapons aside with her own
white hands, “for shame! So, there is no better cause for a fight than
a song?”
At the sight of her the two men stepped back in sheer amazement,
sinking their sword points in the ground at her feet.
“Ay, shame on you both!” she cried with sparkling eyes; “’tis but a
pretty fashion of murder—and I’ll none of it! Put up your weapons,
gentlemen, for he who draws his here is my friend no more!”
Lord Savile’s sword leaped into its sheath, but Clancarty kissed the
hilt of his and handed it to Lady Betty.
“Madam, my honor is involved,” he said, “and I place it in your hands.”
The color rose in her cheeks and she turned on Savile.
“My lord,” she said wilfully, “I heard it all, and ’tis you who should
ask pardon.”
Savile flushed darkly and folded his arms.
“My lady,” he said, “my sword is at your service, but you ask too much
now.”
“Ah, you will not trust me with your honor, my lord,” she retorted,
with a little laugh.
“Nay,” he replied testily, “a man may not grovel to his foe.”
“Oh,” said Lady Betty, and she glanced at him archly, “is your
reasoning quite sound, my lord?”
Savile bit his lip; he saw Lord Clancarty smile and brush a fallen leaf
from his sleeve with elaborate care.
“Come, come,” interposed Mr. Benham, “let there be peace, since my lady
wills it; and here, too, is young Mackie pining to mediate. My lord,
we cannot quarrel before a lady,” and he spoke a few words very low in
Savile’s ear.
Betty, meanwhile, stood between them, holding Clancarty’s sword in her
hand; her tall young figure outlined in the heavenly morning sunshine,
and the glory of the day in her eyes.
“To put up your sword is naught, my lord, unless there be peace,” she
said, smiling ingenuously, “pshaw, what a petty quarrel! ’Tis like two
women over a cup of tea or a new gown,” and she shrugged her shoulders
prettily.
Lord Savile crossed over to Clancarty.
“Your hand, sir,” he said, and then, as he clasped it, very low,
“another time and another place.”
“I am always at your service,” replied Clancarty with a scornful smile,
and he took out his handkerchief and wiped the palm of his right hand.
The gesture made Lady Betty smile and bite her lip, though she had not
heard the undertone.
“Faith, the morning is so lovely that it augurs a peaceful day,” she
said, with her sweetest manner. “Gentlemen, you are all bidden to join
my Lady Sunderland and me at eleven for a cup of chocolate before we go
to the races.”
“Who could refuse?” Mr. Benham said gallantly; “when men make peace for
your sake, my lady, what would they not do?”
But Lady Betty’s quick eye caught the gloom on the boyish face of young
Mackie. She held out her hand.
“Sir Edward, you will take me home to the inn?” she said.
He colored like a girl and involuntarily glanced at Lord Clancarty;
then catching his lordship’s falcon eye, he bowed in deep confusion.
“I’m only too happy, my lady,” he said.
She stood quite still, her bright eyes on Lord Savile and Mr. Benham.
Then she pointed with her finger toward the farther end of the field.
“Yonder,” she said, “one combatant and his friend retire, and,” she
turned quickly, pointing in the opposite direction, “yonder, the others
go!”
Clancarty laughed. “A safe device, my lady,” he said, “but I could not
fight without my sword.”
She blushed prettily and held it out to him.
“I forgot, sir,” she said.
He took it gracefully, kissing the hand that gave it in spite of her
quick frown of displeasure.
Lord Savile bowed profoundly, his hand on his heart.
“Madam, I obey,” he said gallantly, and retreated with Mr. Benham in
the direction she had chosen, and at the same time Lord Clancarty went
in the other, leaving Lady Betty alone in the field with young Mackie.
Hovering in the distance was the muffled figure of Alice, who had
accompanied her mistress to the grove of limes and halted there, with
her fingers in her ears, lest she should hear the clash of swords.
But Lady Betty saw her not, nor the glory of the day, nor the green
of hedgerows and fields, nor the blooming daisy at her feet. Her eyes
followed the figure of Clancarty, and there was a shadow on her face.
She shivered and drew her cloak about her.
“Come, Sir Edward,” she said, “we must run for it; I am a truant, and
Lord Spencer will put me upon bread and water if he finds me upon such
errands, and faith, sir, I deserve it!”