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Cradock Nowell Vol. 2

justified in kicking out Rue Hutton; Rue is[236] 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[237].” 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[238].” “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 Ph&oelig;nicians, 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[239] 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,[240] 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[241] 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[242] 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 Eub&oelig;a, 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.[243] 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[244] 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.” <hr> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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