CHAPTERCX.MR. ERIC FORTESCUE AND HIS RESPECTABLE ASSOCIATES—THE CHALLENGE, AND THE RESULT.Mr. Eric Fortescue, alias Alf Parvis, alias Mr. Algernon Sutherland, smarting with pain, and foaming with rage, made the best of his way to London after he had been ignobly expelled from Stoke Ferry farmhouse. He was in a terrible plight—was saturated with the dirty water which had been thrown over him by the girl Kitty, and his back and shoulders were black and blue from the blows that had been so mercilessly showered upon him by Ashbrook, but he contrived to reach the metropolis. For three days he preserved a moody silence, and shut himself up in one room from morning to night.On the evening of the third day he sent for Laura Stanbridge. He made her acquainted with all that had passed at Broxbridge. She laughed at him, and this made him perfectly furious.“You make a jest of my misfortunes,” cried he. “It’s just like women—they are always pleased when they hear of a friend’s mishap. I am sick of the world—sick of you and of everybody.”“I dare say you are, but who have you to blame but yourself? You imagine every woman must of necessity be smitten with you. You shouldn’t be so vain, my young spark.”“Don’t preach to me, you fool. I’m not disposed to listen to your lectures. I have had enough of them.”“Very well, that being so, “I’ll make no further observations,” replied Miss Stanbridge, with perfect composure.“What am I to do?” he inquired, after a pause. “Tell me what I am to do. How can I be revenged?”“I am not able to tell you,” said she.“Confound it, Lorry, you appear to be most indifferent about the cruel treatment your old friend has met with.”“I know not what advice to give you. The whole affair I look upon as a piece of folly. This is the second time you have been thrust forth with cuffs and hard words from Stoke Ferry house. The first time you were not so much to blame, but the last time you were much to blame. I don’t know that you deserve much pity,” she added, scornfully.“Hang your pity!—I want none of it. But you’ve got a good head-piece of your own. Can’t you advise a fellow in this business?”“You must be badly off, indeed, to come to a woman for advice,” she rejoined. “When you want to rob a house, do you ask me how to pick the locks? And now that a lusty farmer has insulted you and given you a good drubbing, you ask me what to do. Throw off your fine clothes and your finnicking airs. Alf Purvis, I am only a weak woman, but I need no instruction when I wish to be avenged. Ah! you do not know how sweet it is to be revenged.”She became frightfully pale as she made this last observation, and cast upon him a look as venomous as a viper. He remained silent for some minutes. She watched him eagerly.“Your friends have been more successful than you have been,” said Laura Stanbridge; “they managed to get into Nettlethorpe’s house, and carried off all the valuables in a regular business-like way. They were clever, but you are not.”“I am much obliged for the compliment,” returned her companion; “much obliged. This is a fitting time to indulge in taunts and sneers. You compare me to the Smoucher and the Cracksman—a low-bred pair of rascals as ever darkened the doors of an honest man’s house. I tell you what it is, my lady, you are not the same woman to me that you were, not by a long way.”“That is most surprising—isn’t it?”“It’s a fact that I know full well.”“Are you the same? As long as you were an outcast, a poor wretch, wandering about the streets without a home or a friend, you were civil and tractable enough; but now——”“Well, go on, Lorry, go on, finish the sentence.”“Now you are vain, haughty, and unmindful of those who have befriended you.”“It is false. I never was unmindful of past favours, but I intend to alter my course of life—to reform, and, if possible, to live honestly.”His companion laughed.“I mean it,” he added—“mean what I say, but I must commit one crime more. I will not rob this man, I will not steal his money, I will rob him of a treasure he holds dearer than his gold—I will take his wife. Thus my heart shall be consoled and my hate revenged.”Miss Stanbridge looked at the speaker in a state of bewilderment.“You love her then?” said she, as her eyes scintillated sparks of fire.The young man nodded significantly. “I love her,” he repeated, “and will go abroad and take her with me.”“Excellent device!”“She shall never leave me.”“She will always hate you.”“And I shall always love her. All that the mind of man can conceive, all that the powers of man can execute, I will employ to gain her love. But she shall be mine, I swear it.”Laura Stanbridge writhed as she listened to these words, after which she became very calm.“You must have taken leave of your senses, my very excellent young friend,” she murmured. “You always love her!”“Yes, always.”“Bah! you are mad.”“Am I? Well, that’s a matter of opinion,” said he, running his hand through his auburn locks.“You are vain—that you will admit, I suppose?”“Nothing of the sort—never was so in my life.”“And ape the manners of your betters.”“Anything else?”“Which, to say the truth, do not in any way become you.”“Ah, you are jealous,” cried he, with asperity.The face of his companion flushed up.“Jealous of you, my beauty!” she ejaculated, in a tone of contempt. “Don’t flatter yourself, Alf, by such a supposition. We know each other by this time. If we don’t, we never shall. Jealous of you, indeed!”“Well, there’s no occasion to be petulant or spiteful, Lorry. Don’t lose your temper. Every gentleman must have his private amours, and I like you none the less because I have been carrying on a little innocent flirtation with the farmer’s wife.”“Love me! I wonder you can make use of such a term,” cried Laura Stanbridge, with something like indignation in her tone.“We don’t want to quarrel. It wouldn’t answer either of our purposes to do that.”At this moment there was a knock at the door, and to Fortescue’s “Come in,” the “Smoucher” and the “Cracksman” entered.“Oh, you’ve got back from Broxbridge, then?” said the latter, in a familiar and half-sneering tone.“Yes, I have,” answered Fortescue, alias Alf Purvis.“You’ve bin having a fine time of it, captain. Enjoying yourself like anythink, I s’pose?”“That’s my business and not yours, my tea-tray friend.”At this he and the Smoucher burst out into a loud laugh.“We worked it to rights—did the trick as clean as a brand-new whistle. Got off wi’ the swag, and nobody any the wiser. I suppose you’ve heard the whole history from your old friends at the farmhouse?”“I’ve heard all about it. Mr. Nettlethorpe is half crazy, and they say he’ll never recover the loss he has sustained.”“Oh, what a pity, poor chap! Everybody is so fond of him, you know; that must be a great comfort to him. It was a good joke, though, your taking up your quarters at the next farm; jolly good that was. I hope as how you’ve enjoyed yerself?”“Yes, I have, very much; but don’t you trouble yourself about me or my pleasures and enjoyments. You’ve got to look after yourself.”“Why, captain, you’re rather short and sharp with an old pal. Something’s upset you.”“Yes; I’m vexed and annoyed.”“What about?”“Oh, many things.”“Can either of us help you?”“I don’t think you can.”“He’s lost his heart,” observed Miss Stanbridge, with a merry twinkle in her eye.The two scoundrels burst out into another and still louder laugh.“Why, that’s nothing new, missus,” said the Smoucher. “The captain is easily knocked over by a pretty face. He’s so werry susceptible.”“Don’t talk nonsense, you fool,” cried Alf Purvis, in an angry tone.“Oh, I’ve done. Sorry I spoke, for the matter of that.”“But there’s an old saying,” observed the Cracksman, “and may be it’s a wise one—‘the course of true love never did run smooth.’”All present laughed again, all but Alf, who turned away with disgust.“I’m not disposed to stand any more of your chaff,” said he, “and so if you’ve nothing better to talk about, the sooner you take your hook the better.”“Well, I’m blest,” cried the Cracksman, “you are riled about summut, that’s quite sartain. I never knew you to be so short in temper as you are to-day.”“I don’t want any more of your sneering observations, and I’ve business to attend to.”“Oh, that’s it, eh?” said the Smoucher—“we’ll be for making tracks then—come along, mate.”And upon this the two men wished their superior good-day, and beat a retreat.“You were very sharp with them, Alf,” observed Miss Stanbridge when the two had gone; “they meant no harm.”“They are a pair of vulgar common brutes, and I don’t choose to give them too much latitude. I am glad to be rid of them.”“And I suppose you will be glad to be rid of me?”“I don’t say that, Lorry; you I can bear with, but I can’t bear those fellows when I am perplexed and troubled, which I happen to be just now.”“Is there anything I can do for you?” said the deceitful woman, placing one arm round his neck in a loving manner.“Yes, I tell you what you can do.”“Out with it, then.”“I wish, as you go home, you’d call upon young Bradley, and tell him to come here as soon as he possibly can.”“I will do so with pleasure. Say you wish to see him?”“Yes; upon particular business.”“All right; it shall be done, Alf, dear. Done with the greatest pleasure.”The woman took her departure, and in an hour or two after this Mr. Bradley, the young man in question, made his appearance.He was a genteel, good-looking fellow, of about eight-and-twenty, and was one of Alf Purvis’s most particular friends—if friendship can with propriety be applied to such a connection—for, like Purvis, he was a loose fish, a lawless character. He, however, affected to be very partial to Mr. Algernon Sutherland, and was just the sort of man he needed to perform the office which he was about to assign to him.The greeting between the two was a cordial one, for Mr. Bradley had not seen his young friend since he rusticated at Broxbridge.Alf at once proceeded to put his friend in possession of all those circumstances which have been described in the preceding chapter.He, however, passed lightly over the thrashing and his ignominious expulsion from the farmer’s house.“A nasty, spiteful, objectionable, old agriculturist,” cried Mr. Bradley, after the narrative had been brought to a conclusion. “He rode rusty—did he?”“That he most certainly did.”“He’s a hog—a swine—a low-bred, vulgar fellow.”“Very low-bred.”“Oh, so I should imagine. But we’ll find some means of serving him out. Wife’s a pretty little woman, I suppose?”“Oh, dear me, yes.”“And a great deal too good for such a pig?”“Much too good. But we will not discuss that question now. I am in need of a confidential friend like yourself.”“Certainly, old boy. I am at your service.”“I have left my portmanteau and things at the farmer’s, also my horse. I want you to run down to Broxbridge and demand them.”“Good. That I’ll do without a moment’s hesitation. You must give me a note, of course?”“Yes—a note requesting him to give them up to you, and at the same time I purpose sending him a challenge.”“Oh, Jerusalem! a challenge, eh? Capital! That I am to deliver, I suppose?”“Yes.”“Oh, what a lark! Nothing could suit me better. It’s quite in my line. By-the-way, you’d better say the bearer of your challenge is your friend, Captain Bradley.”“I will do so. Captain Bradley, of the Horse Marines.”“Or the Fall Backs. There’s magic in the word ‘captain,’” said Bradley, rubbing his hands together with great glee. “By-the-way, I ought to put on spurs, and wear a military coat.”“It would be all the better.”“I will do so, and at the same time assume a military bearing. I’ll astonish old Mangold Wurtzel; give it him hot and strong, without sugar. Egad! I’ll astonish his weak nerves.”Mr. Eric Fortescue, as he called himself, wrote a dignified epistle, in which he demanded all that he had left at Stoke Ferry. This he supplemented with another, challenging the farmer to mortal combat.Both these precious documents were given to Mr. Bradley, who was quite delighted with his mission.“You must remember that on this occasion I am Mr. Eric Fortescue; that is the name I gave when I first made the acquaintance of this rustic. Don’t forget that.”“I’ll bear it in mind; of course I do not know you by any other. I shall say that my friend Fortescue has directed me to wait on you,&c.You can imagine the rest; leave it all to me. He won’t accept the challenge, I suppose?”“I should say not, but press the question. Put the matter home to him.”“I will.”The next day Mr. Bradley put himself in the train, and made the best of his way to Broxbridge. He had been told by his friend to call at the “Carved Lion” before proceeding to Stoke Ferry farmhouse, as possibly he might pick up some information at that respectable hostelry, but John Brickett was as silent as the grave, and studiously avoided referring to the circumstances attending Fortescue’s visit to Mr. Ashbrook.It was a scandal he was in no way desirous of making more public than necessary, and hence his reticence.Mr. Bradley had therefore no other course than to fight his battle single-handed. He presented himself at the farmhouse, and inquired for Mr. Richard Ashbrook. Kitty, who opened the door, said her master was in the fields, but if the gentleman would call in about an hour and a half’s time Mr. Ashbrook would be sure to be in by that time.Mr. Bradley, upon this, contrived to kill time by a stroll round the neighbourhood. When he returned the farmer was at home, awaiting the stranger’s appearance, in the very same room in which he had chastised his ungrateful guest.The girl announced Captain Bradley, who was at once shown into the parlour.“Ah! your servant, sir,” cried the captain; “Mr. Ashbrook, I presume?”“Aye, that be my name. What may your business be?”“It is a delicate and in some respects a painful one,” returned Bradley.“Oh, indeed, I’m sorry to hear that.”“Yes, I am deputed by my friend, Mr. Eric Fortescue, to wait upon you. In the first place I am directed by him to demand the things he left here, together with his horse, which I am to take back to his town residence.”Upon this he handed the farmer the first letter.“You can take ’em wi’ you at once, the sooner the better,” said Ashbrook, after he had perused the letter; then thrusting his head out of the front door, he called out, “Joe, Joe.”Joe Doughty made his appearance.“Go upstairs and bring down Mr. Fortescue’s portmanteau,” said Ashbrook.Joe did as he was bid, and in a few seconds returned with the article in question.“There it be,” said the farmer, addressing himself to the false captain. “Now, Joe, let this gentleman have the black horse—him as is owned by Mr. Fortescue.”“Anything else, sir?” said Ashbrook.“I am sorry to say that there is. I have another and more important letter to deliver. Its nature I am very well acquainted with. Sir, I must inform you that Mr. Fortescue has been grossly insulted, and I have further to declare that he is a gentleman who never tamely submits to an insult.”“Doesn’t ee, though?”“No, sir. In short, he cannot pass over the indignities to which he has been subjected. No gentleman in his position would be warranted in doing so—not if he had any desire to maintain his status in fashionable and good society. I must, therefore, beg of you to read this second missive. It is a challenge, Mr. Ashbrook. You cannot consistently refuse to give my friend that satisfaction which one gentleman has a right to expect from another.”Richard Ashbrook perused the document curiously; then he burst into a loud laugh.“Do not treat the matter with unbecoming levity, sir. If you do I shall have reason to feel offended. It is not a time for jesting, Mr. Ashbrook. I therefore demand an answer. Please to name some gentleman who will officiate as your second, so that I may confer with him. That is the usual course we adopt in cases of this sort.”“Do ’ee tek me for a fool, my brave young spark?” cried Ashbrook; “or what?”“I decline to inform you what I take you to be. All I require is an answer. Name your conditions.”“Conditions! I aint a goin’ to mek any conditions wi’ the loikes of ’ee, or your friend, as you term him—a circumwenting, deceitful varmint!”“Have a care, sir. Have a care as to what you say. I will not stand tamely by and hear my friend, Fortescue, reviled.”“Get out! don’t ’ee think to bullyrag me. If ye gi’ me any more of yer nonsense, I’ll chuck ’ee forth, and send ’ee about yer business. Take the fellow’s things, and be off while ye’ve got a whole skin.”“What! threats?” cried Bradley, putting himself into a military and defiant attitude. “Mr. Ashbrook, I am surprised. I will not depart without an answer.”“An answer to what?”“Respecting the proposed hostile meeting. But I pardon you—you do not understand the usages of polite society. Permit me to explain.”“I want none of yer explanations. Don’t care to listen to such rubbish. So ye’d better be off.”“Then am I to say you decline to meet my friend Fortescue?”“Fortescue!” cried the farmer, with a sneer. “He’s no more Fortescue than I am. Don’t ’ee come here wi’ any more cock-and-bull stories. Why, he’s a thief, and the p’leece are arter him. If I were to appoint a place of meeting, he’d be collered and clapped into gaol. Do you see that, my brave captain?”Mr. Bradley was rather taken aback at this speech. He also had the honour of being well acquainted with the police, and he thought that it was therefore quite time to lower his tone. He assumed for the nonce an air of injured innocence.“Mr. Ashbrook,” said he, “I put it to yourself as an honourable man whether you think it the right thing to cast aspersions upon a gentleman when he is not here to answer you. I do hope and trust that you have not so bad an opinion of me as to suppose for a moment I would lend myself to so dishonourable a proceeding as to espouse the cause of a disreputable character. In common justice you ought to offer an apology, and express your sorrow for making such indiscreet observations.”“Look ’ee here—you can go back to London, and tell this friend of yours that he is found out. His real character is known here. The p’leece will gi’ee more information respecting him than I can. He’s a bad egg if there ever was one, and as to this, well, there—”He tore up the letter which contained the challenge into a hundred pieces, and threw them in the grate.“Now Mr.—or captain—you had better be off, or, may be, you and I shall quarrel.”“I hope not, I’m sure,” returned Bradley. “I have not done anything to offend you that I am aware of.”“There be an old adage, ‘Ye may know a man by his friends,—and if Mr. Fortescue, as he choses to call himself, is a friend of yourn—well, I wouldn’t gi’ much for ’ee; that be all I ha’ to say.”“You are complimentary, Mr. Ashbrook,” said Bradley, with a sneer.“Horse be ready, master,” cried Joe Doughty from the yard.There, your—or rather his—horse be ready. Ye’d better mount and be off, or may be we shall find out something about you. What regiment are you captain of?”“What regiment? oh, the 3rd West Middlesex.”“Oh, you’re in the volunteer service?”“Ahem! yes.”“Well, captain, I wish you may arrive safely back in London. Your horse is ready.”“And you decline to return any answer?”“Look ’ee here. If that young scoundrel comes in this neighbourhood he will very soon find himself in one of her Majesty’s prisons—so ’ee may tell him that from me. And now, if ye’ll take good advice, which I think it, just as well to offer ’ee, you’ll just mek yerself as scarce as possible, or maybe ’ee may find yerself as deep in the mud as he be in the mire.”“I shall not condescend to have any further discourse with you,” said Bradley, assuming as high a tone as possible at parting. He went out into the yard, mounted his friend’s black horse, and directed Joe Doughty to take the portmanteau round to the “Carved Lion,” handing him half-a-crown for his trouble. He then trotted off, very much dissatisfied with his visit to Stoke Ferry Farm, which he considered to be a most miserable failure.
Mr. Eric Fortescue, alias Alf Parvis, alias Mr. Algernon Sutherland, smarting with pain, and foaming with rage, made the best of his way to London after he had been ignobly expelled from Stoke Ferry farmhouse. He was in a terrible plight—was saturated with the dirty water which had been thrown over him by the girl Kitty, and his back and shoulders were black and blue from the blows that had been so mercilessly showered upon him by Ashbrook, but he contrived to reach the metropolis. For three days he preserved a moody silence, and shut himself up in one room from morning to night.
On the evening of the third day he sent for Laura Stanbridge. He made her acquainted with all that had passed at Broxbridge. She laughed at him, and this made him perfectly furious.
“You make a jest of my misfortunes,” cried he. “It’s just like women—they are always pleased when they hear of a friend’s mishap. I am sick of the world—sick of you and of everybody.”
“I dare say you are, but who have you to blame but yourself? You imagine every woman must of necessity be smitten with you. You shouldn’t be so vain, my young spark.”
“Don’t preach to me, you fool. I’m not disposed to listen to your lectures. I have had enough of them.”
“Very well, that being so, “I’ll make no further observations,” replied Miss Stanbridge, with perfect composure.
“What am I to do?” he inquired, after a pause. “Tell me what I am to do. How can I be revenged?”
“I am not able to tell you,” said she.
“Confound it, Lorry, you appear to be most indifferent about the cruel treatment your old friend has met with.”
“I know not what advice to give you. The whole affair I look upon as a piece of folly. This is the second time you have been thrust forth with cuffs and hard words from Stoke Ferry house. The first time you were not so much to blame, but the last time you were much to blame. I don’t know that you deserve much pity,” she added, scornfully.
“Hang your pity!—I want none of it. But you’ve got a good head-piece of your own. Can’t you advise a fellow in this business?”
“You must be badly off, indeed, to come to a woman for advice,” she rejoined. “When you want to rob a house, do you ask me how to pick the locks? And now that a lusty farmer has insulted you and given you a good drubbing, you ask me what to do. Throw off your fine clothes and your finnicking airs. Alf Purvis, I am only a weak woman, but I need no instruction when I wish to be avenged. Ah! you do not know how sweet it is to be revenged.”
She became frightfully pale as she made this last observation, and cast upon him a look as venomous as a viper. He remained silent for some minutes. She watched him eagerly.
“Your friends have been more successful than you have been,” said Laura Stanbridge; “they managed to get into Nettlethorpe’s house, and carried off all the valuables in a regular business-like way. They were clever, but you are not.”
“I am much obliged for the compliment,” returned her companion; “much obliged. This is a fitting time to indulge in taunts and sneers. You compare me to the Smoucher and the Cracksman—a low-bred pair of rascals as ever darkened the doors of an honest man’s house. I tell you what it is, my lady, you are not the same woman to me that you were, not by a long way.”
“That is most surprising—isn’t it?”
“It’s a fact that I know full well.”
“Are you the same? As long as you were an outcast, a poor wretch, wandering about the streets without a home or a friend, you were civil and tractable enough; but now——”
“Well, go on, Lorry, go on, finish the sentence.”
“Now you are vain, haughty, and unmindful of those who have befriended you.”
“It is false. I never was unmindful of past favours, but I intend to alter my course of life—to reform, and, if possible, to live honestly.”
His companion laughed.
“I mean it,” he added—“mean what I say, but I must commit one crime more. I will not rob this man, I will not steal his money, I will rob him of a treasure he holds dearer than his gold—I will take his wife. Thus my heart shall be consoled and my hate revenged.”
Miss Stanbridge looked at the speaker in a state of bewilderment.
“You love her then?” said she, as her eyes scintillated sparks of fire.
The young man nodded significantly. “I love her,” he repeated, “and will go abroad and take her with me.”
“Excellent device!”
“She shall never leave me.”
“She will always hate you.”
“And I shall always love her. All that the mind of man can conceive, all that the powers of man can execute, I will employ to gain her love. But she shall be mine, I swear it.”
Laura Stanbridge writhed as she listened to these words, after which she became very calm.
“You must have taken leave of your senses, my very excellent young friend,” she murmured. “You always love her!”
“Yes, always.”
“Bah! you are mad.”
“Am I? Well, that’s a matter of opinion,” said he, running his hand through his auburn locks.
“You are vain—that you will admit, I suppose?”
“Nothing of the sort—never was so in my life.”
“And ape the manners of your betters.”
“Anything else?”
“Which, to say the truth, do not in any way become you.”
“Ah, you are jealous,” cried he, with asperity.
The face of his companion flushed up.
“Jealous of you, my beauty!” she ejaculated, in a tone of contempt. “Don’t flatter yourself, Alf, by such a supposition. We know each other by this time. If we don’t, we never shall. Jealous of you, indeed!”
“Well, there’s no occasion to be petulant or spiteful, Lorry. Don’t lose your temper. Every gentleman must have his private amours, and I like you none the less because I have been carrying on a little innocent flirtation with the farmer’s wife.”
“Love me! I wonder you can make use of such a term,” cried Laura Stanbridge, with something like indignation in her tone.
“We don’t want to quarrel. It wouldn’t answer either of our purposes to do that.”
At this moment there was a knock at the door, and to Fortescue’s “Come in,” the “Smoucher” and the “Cracksman” entered.
“Oh, you’ve got back from Broxbridge, then?” said the latter, in a familiar and half-sneering tone.
“Yes, I have,” answered Fortescue, alias Alf Purvis.
“You’ve bin having a fine time of it, captain. Enjoying yourself like anythink, I s’pose?”
“That’s my business and not yours, my tea-tray friend.”
At this he and the Smoucher burst out into a loud laugh.
“We worked it to rights—did the trick as clean as a brand-new whistle. Got off wi’ the swag, and nobody any the wiser. I suppose you’ve heard the whole history from your old friends at the farmhouse?”
“I’ve heard all about it. Mr. Nettlethorpe is half crazy, and they say he’ll never recover the loss he has sustained.”
“Oh, what a pity, poor chap! Everybody is so fond of him, you know; that must be a great comfort to him. It was a good joke, though, your taking up your quarters at the next farm; jolly good that was. I hope as how you’ve enjoyed yerself?”
“Yes, I have, very much; but don’t you trouble yourself about me or my pleasures and enjoyments. You’ve got to look after yourself.”
“Why, captain, you’re rather short and sharp with an old pal. Something’s upset you.”
“Yes; I’m vexed and annoyed.”
“What about?”
“Oh, many things.”
“Can either of us help you?”
“I don’t think you can.”
“He’s lost his heart,” observed Miss Stanbridge, with a merry twinkle in her eye.
The two scoundrels burst out into another and still louder laugh.
“Why, that’s nothing new, missus,” said the Smoucher. “The captain is easily knocked over by a pretty face. He’s so werry susceptible.”
“Don’t talk nonsense, you fool,” cried Alf Purvis, in an angry tone.
“Oh, I’ve done. Sorry I spoke, for the matter of that.”
“But there’s an old saying,” observed the Cracksman, “and may be it’s a wise one—‘the course of true love never did run smooth.’”
All present laughed again, all but Alf, who turned away with disgust.
“I’m not disposed to stand any more of your chaff,” said he, “and so if you’ve nothing better to talk about, the sooner you take your hook the better.”
“Well, I’m blest,” cried the Cracksman, “you are riled about summut, that’s quite sartain. I never knew you to be so short in temper as you are to-day.”
“I don’t want any more of your sneering observations, and I’ve business to attend to.”
“Oh, that’s it, eh?” said the Smoucher—“we’ll be for making tracks then—come along, mate.”
And upon this the two men wished their superior good-day, and beat a retreat.
“You were very sharp with them, Alf,” observed Miss Stanbridge when the two had gone; “they meant no harm.”
“They are a pair of vulgar common brutes, and I don’t choose to give them too much latitude. I am glad to be rid of them.”
“And I suppose you will be glad to be rid of me?”
“I don’t say that, Lorry; you I can bear with, but I can’t bear those fellows when I am perplexed and troubled, which I happen to be just now.”
“Is there anything I can do for you?” said the deceitful woman, placing one arm round his neck in a loving manner.
“Yes, I tell you what you can do.”
“Out with it, then.”
“I wish, as you go home, you’d call upon young Bradley, and tell him to come here as soon as he possibly can.”
“I will do so with pleasure. Say you wish to see him?”
“Yes; upon particular business.”
“All right; it shall be done, Alf, dear. Done with the greatest pleasure.”
The woman took her departure, and in an hour or two after this Mr. Bradley, the young man in question, made his appearance.
He was a genteel, good-looking fellow, of about eight-and-twenty, and was one of Alf Purvis’s most particular friends—if friendship can with propriety be applied to such a connection—for, like Purvis, he was a loose fish, a lawless character. He, however, affected to be very partial to Mr. Algernon Sutherland, and was just the sort of man he needed to perform the office which he was about to assign to him.
The greeting between the two was a cordial one, for Mr. Bradley had not seen his young friend since he rusticated at Broxbridge.
Alf at once proceeded to put his friend in possession of all those circumstances which have been described in the preceding chapter.
He, however, passed lightly over the thrashing and his ignominious expulsion from the farmer’s house.
“A nasty, spiteful, objectionable, old agriculturist,” cried Mr. Bradley, after the narrative had been brought to a conclusion. “He rode rusty—did he?”
“That he most certainly did.”
“He’s a hog—a swine—a low-bred, vulgar fellow.”
“Very low-bred.”
“Oh, so I should imagine. But we’ll find some means of serving him out. Wife’s a pretty little woman, I suppose?”
“Oh, dear me, yes.”
“And a great deal too good for such a pig?”
“Much too good. But we will not discuss that question now. I am in need of a confidential friend like yourself.”
“Certainly, old boy. I am at your service.”
“I have left my portmanteau and things at the farmer’s, also my horse. I want you to run down to Broxbridge and demand them.”
“Good. That I’ll do without a moment’s hesitation. You must give me a note, of course?”
“Yes—a note requesting him to give them up to you, and at the same time I purpose sending him a challenge.”
“Oh, Jerusalem! a challenge, eh? Capital! That I am to deliver, I suppose?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, what a lark! Nothing could suit me better. It’s quite in my line. By-the-way, you’d better say the bearer of your challenge is your friend, Captain Bradley.”
“I will do so. Captain Bradley, of the Horse Marines.”
“Or the Fall Backs. There’s magic in the word ‘captain,’” said Bradley, rubbing his hands together with great glee. “By-the-way, I ought to put on spurs, and wear a military coat.”
“It would be all the better.”
“I will do so, and at the same time assume a military bearing. I’ll astonish old Mangold Wurtzel; give it him hot and strong, without sugar. Egad! I’ll astonish his weak nerves.”
Mr. Eric Fortescue, as he called himself, wrote a dignified epistle, in which he demanded all that he had left at Stoke Ferry. This he supplemented with another, challenging the farmer to mortal combat.
Both these precious documents were given to Mr. Bradley, who was quite delighted with his mission.
“You must remember that on this occasion I am Mr. Eric Fortescue; that is the name I gave when I first made the acquaintance of this rustic. Don’t forget that.”
“I’ll bear it in mind; of course I do not know you by any other. I shall say that my friend Fortescue has directed me to wait on you,&c.You can imagine the rest; leave it all to me. He won’t accept the challenge, I suppose?”
“I should say not, but press the question. Put the matter home to him.”
“I will.”
The next day Mr. Bradley put himself in the train, and made the best of his way to Broxbridge. He had been told by his friend to call at the “Carved Lion” before proceeding to Stoke Ferry farmhouse, as possibly he might pick up some information at that respectable hostelry, but John Brickett was as silent as the grave, and studiously avoided referring to the circumstances attending Fortescue’s visit to Mr. Ashbrook.
It was a scandal he was in no way desirous of making more public than necessary, and hence his reticence.
Mr. Bradley had therefore no other course than to fight his battle single-handed. He presented himself at the farmhouse, and inquired for Mr. Richard Ashbrook. Kitty, who opened the door, said her master was in the fields, but if the gentleman would call in about an hour and a half’s time Mr. Ashbrook would be sure to be in by that time.
Mr. Bradley, upon this, contrived to kill time by a stroll round the neighbourhood. When he returned the farmer was at home, awaiting the stranger’s appearance, in the very same room in which he had chastised his ungrateful guest.
The girl announced Captain Bradley, who was at once shown into the parlour.
“Ah! your servant, sir,” cried the captain; “Mr. Ashbrook, I presume?”
“Aye, that be my name. What may your business be?”
“It is a delicate and in some respects a painful one,” returned Bradley.
“Oh, indeed, I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Yes, I am deputed by my friend, Mr. Eric Fortescue, to wait upon you. In the first place I am directed by him to demand the things he left here, together with his horse, which I am to take back to his town residence.”
Upon this he handed the farmer the first letter.
“You can take ’em wi’ you at once, the sooner the better,” said Ashbrook, after he had perused the letter; then thrusting his head out of the front door, he called out, “Joe, Joe.”
Joe Doughty made his appearance.
“Go upstairs and bring down Mr. Fortescue’s portmanteau,” said Ashbrook.
Joe did as he was bid, and in a few seconds returned with the article in question.
“There it be,” said the farmer, addressing himself to the false captain. “Now, Joe, let this gentleman have the black horse—him as is owned by Mr. Fortescue.”
“Anything else, sir?” said Ashbrook.
“I am sorry to say that there is. I have another and more important letter to deliver. Its nature I am very well acquainted with. Sir, I must inform you that Mr. Fortescue has been grossly insulted, and I have further to declare that he is a gentleman who never tamely submits to an insult.”
“Doesn’t ee, though?”
“No, sir. In short, he cannot pass over the indignities to which he has been subjected. No gentleman in his position would be warranted in doing so—not if he had any desire to maintain his status in fashionable and good society. I must, therefore, beg of you to read this second missive. It is a challenge, Mr. Ashbrook. You cannot consistently refuse to give my friend that satisfaction which one gentleman has a right to expect from another.”
Richard Ashbrook perused the document curiously; then he burst into a loud laugh.
“Do not treat the matter with unbecoming levity, sir. If you do I shall have reason to feel offended. It is not a time for jesting, Mr. Ashbrook. I therefore demand an answer. Please to name some gentleman who will officiate as your second, so that I may confer with him. That is the usual course we adopt in cases of this sort.”
“Do ’ee tek me for a fool, my brave young spark?” cried Ashbrook; “or what?”
“I decline to inform you what I take you to be. All I require is an answer. Name your conditions.”
“Conditions! I aint a goin’ to mek any conditions wi’ the loikes of ’ee, or your friend, as you term him—a circumwenting, deceitful varmint!”
“Have a care, sir. Have a care as to what you say. I will not stand tamely by and hear my friend, Fortescue, reviled.”
“Get out! don’t ’ee think to bullyrag me. If ye gi’ me any more of yer nonsense, I’ll chuck ’ee forth, and send ’ee about yer business. Take the fellow’s things, and be off while ye’ve got a whole skin.”
“What! threats?” cried Bradley, putting himself into a military and defiant attitude. “Mr. Ashbrook, I am surprised. I will not depart without an answer.”
“An answer to what?”
“Respecting the proposed hostile meeting. But I pardon you—you do not understand the usages of polite society. Permit me to explain.”
“I want none of yer explanations. Don’t care to listen to such rubbish. So ye’d better be off.”
“Then am I to say you decline to meet my friend Fortescue?”
“Fortescue!” cried the farmer, with a sneer. “He’s no more Fortescue than I am. Don’t ’ee come here wi’ any more cock-and-bull stories. Why, he’s a thief, and the p’leece are arter him. If I were to appoint a place of meeting, he’d be collered and clapped into gaol. Do you see that, my brave captain?”
Mr. Bradley was rather taken aback at this speech. He also had the honour of being well acquainted with the police, and he thought that it was therefore quite time to lower his tone. He assumed for the nonce an air of injured innocence.
“Mr. Ashbrook,” said he, “I put it to yourself as an honourable man whether you think it the right thing to cast aspersions upon a gentleman when he is not here to answer you. I do hope and trust that you have not so bad an opinion of me as to suppose for a moment I would lend myself to so dishonourable a proceeding as to espouse the cause of a disreputable character. In common justice you ought to offer an apology, and express your sorrow for making such indiscreet observations.”
“Look ’ee here—you can go back to London, and tell this friend of yours that he is found out. His real character is known here. The p’leece will gi’ee more information respecting him than I can. He’s a bad egg if there ever was one, and as to this, well, there—”
He tore up the letter which contained the challenge into a hundred pieces, and threw them in the grate.
“Now Mr.—or captain—you had better be off, or, may be, you and I shall quarrel.”
“I hope not, I’m sure,” returned Bradley. “I have not done anything to offend you that I am aware of.”
“There be an old adage, ‘Ye may know a man by his friends,—and if Mr. Fortescue, as he choses to call himself, is a friend of yourn—well, I wouldn’t gi’ much for ’ee; that be all I ha’ to say.”
“You are complimentary, Mr. Ashbrook,” said Bradley, with a sneer.
“Horse be ready, master,” cried Joe Doughty from the yard.
There, your—or rather his—horse be ready. Ye’d better mount and be off, or may be we shall find out something about you. What regiment are you captain of?”
“What regiment? oh, the 3rd West Middlesex.”
“Oh, you’re in the volunteer service?”
“Ahem! yes.”
“Well, captain, I wish you may arrive safely back in London. Your horse is ready.”
“And you decline to return any answer?”
“Look ’ee here. If that young scoundrel comes in this neighbourhood he will very soon find himself in one of her Majesty’s prisons—so ’ee may tell him that from me. And now, if ye’ll take good advice, which I think it, just as well to offer ’ee, you’ll just mek yerself as scarce as possible, or maybe ’ee may find yerself as deep in the mud as he be in the mire.”
“I shall not condescend to have any further discourse with you,” said Bradley, assuming as high a tone as possible at parting. He went out into the yard, mounted his friend’s black horse, and directed Joe Doughty to take the portmanteau round to the “Carved Lion,” handing him half-a-crown for his trouble. He then trotted off, very much dissatisfied with his visit to Stoke Ferry Farm, which he considered to be a most miserable failure.