CHAPTER XVII.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 hecouldwalk. 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 werenothurt. 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 calledhisbook, 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 asdeath; Besides, duelling is over, let Bertie Loftus say what he will. We agreednot 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 ofgoodness, 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 forwhat?" 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."
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 hecouldwalk. 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 werenothurt. 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 calledhisbook, 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 asdeath; Besides, duelling is over, let Bertie Loftus say what he will. We agreednot 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 ofgoodness, 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 forwhat?" 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."