"'Christopher Crowfield, Esq.,"'Sir,—If you want to know how American women are to be brought back to family work, I can tell you a short method. Pay them as good wages for it as they can make in any other way. I get from seven to nine dollars a week in the shop where I work; if I could make the same in any good family, I should have no objection to doing it.
"'Christopher Crowfield, Esq.,
"'Sir,—If you want to know how American women are to be brought back to family work, I can tell you a short method. Pay them as good wages for it as they can make in any other way. I get from seven to nine dollars a week in the shop where I work; if I could make the same in any good family, I should have no objection to doing it.
"'Your obedient servant,"'Letitia.'"
"'Your obedient servant,
"'Letitia.'"
"My correspondent Letitia does not tell me," said I, "how much of this seven or nine dollars she pays out for board and washing, fire and lights. If she worked in a good family at two or three dollars a week, it is easily demonstrable, that, at the present cost of these items, she would make as much clear profit as she now does at nine dollars for her shop-work.
"And there are two other things, moreover, which she does not consider: First, that, besides board, washing, fuel, and lights, which she would have in a family, she would have also less unintermitted toil. Shop-work exacts its ten hours per diem; and it makes no allowance for sickness or accident.
"A good domestic in a good family finds many hours when she can feel free to attend to her own affairs. Her work consists of certain definite matters, which being done her time is her own; and if she have skill and address in the management of her duties, she may secure many leisure hours. As houses are now built, and with the many labor-saving conveniences that are being introduced, the physical labor of housework is no more than a healthy woman really needs to keep her in health. In case, however, of those slight illnesses to which all are more or less liable, and which, if neglected, often lead to graver ones, the advantage is still on the side of domestic service. In the shop and factory, every hour of unemployed time is deducted; an illness of a day or two is an appreciable loss of just so much money, while the expense of board is still going on. But in the family a good servant is always considered. When ill, she is carefully nursed as one of the family, has the family physician, and is subject to no deduction from her wages for loss of time. I have known more than one instance in which a valued domestic has been sent, at her employer's expense, to the seaside or some other pleasant locality, for change of air, when her health has been run down.
"In the second place, family work is more remunerative, even at a lower rate of wages, than shop or factory work, because it is better for the health. All sorts of sedentary employment, pursued by numbers of persons together in one apartment, are more or less debilitating and unhealthy, through foul air and confinement.
"A woman's health is her capital. In certain ways of work she obtains more income, but she spends on her capital to do it. In another way she may get less income, and yet increase her capital. A woman cannot work at dress-making, tailoring, or any other sedentary employment, ten hours a day, year in and out, without enfeebling her constitution, impairing her eyesight, and bringing on a complication of complaints, but she can sweep, wash, cook, and do the varied duties of a well-ordered house with modern arrangements, and grow healthier every year. The times, in New England, when all women did housework a part of every day, were the times when all women were healthy. At present, the heritage of vigorous muscles, firm nerves, strong backs, and cheerful physical life hasgone from American women, and is taken up by Irish women. A thrifty young man, I have lately heard of, married a rosy young Irish girl, quite to the horror of his mother and sisters, but defended himself by the following very conclusive logic:—'If I marry an American girl, I must have an Irish girl to take care of her; and I cannot afford to support both.'
"Besides all this, there is a third consideration, which I humbly commend to my friend Letitia. The turn of her note speaks her a girl of good common sense, with a faculty of hitting the nail square on the head; and such a girl must see that nothing is more likely to fall out than that she will some day be married. Evidently, our fair friend is born to rule; and at this hour, doubtless, her foreordained throne and humble servant are somewhere awaiting her.
"Now domestic service is all the while fitting a girl physically, mentally, and morally for her ultimate vocation and sphere,—to be a happy wife and to make a happy home. But factory work, shop work, and all employments of that sort, are in their nature essentiallyundomestic,—entailing the constant necessity of a boarding-house life, and of habits as different as possible from the quiet routine of home. The girl who is ten hours on the strain of continued, unintermitted toil feels no inclination, when evening comes, to sit down and darn her stockings, or make over her dresses, or study any of those multifarious economies which turn a wardrobe to the best account. Her nervous system is flagging; she craves company and excitement; and her dull, narrow room is deserted for some place of amusement or gay street promenade. And who can blame her? Let any sensible woman, who has had experience of shop and factory life, recall to her mind the ways and manners in which young girls grow up who leave a father's roof for a crowded boarding-house, without any supervision of matron or mother, and ask whether this is the best school for training young American wives and mothers.
"Doubtless there are discreet and thoughtful women who, amid all these difficulties, do keep up thrifty, womanly habits, but they do it by an effort greater than the majority of girls are willing to make, and greater than they ought to make. To sew or read or study after ten hours of factory or shop work is a further drain on the nervous powers, which no woman can long endure without exhaustion.
"When the time arrives that such a girl comes to a house of her own, she comes to it as unskilled in all household lore, with muscles as incapable of domestic labor, and nerves as sensitive, as if she had been leading the most luxurious, do-nothing, fashionable life. How different would be her preparation, had the forming years of her life been spent in the labors of a family! I know at this moment a lady at the head of a rich country establishment, filling her station in society with dignity and honor, who gained her domestic education in a kitchen in our vicinity. She was the daughter of a small farmer, and when the time came for her to be earning her living, her parents wisely thought it far better that she should gain it in a way which would at the same time establish her health and fit her for her own future home. In a cheerful, light, airy kitchen, which was kept so tidy always as to be an attractive sitting-room, she and another young country-girl were trained up in the best of domestic economies by a mistress who looked well to the ways of her household, till at length they married from the house with honor, and went to practise in homes of their own the lessons they had learned in the home of another. Formerly, in New England, such instances were not uncommon;—would that they might become so again!"
"The fact is," said my wife, "the places which the daughters of American farmers used to occupy in our families are now taken by young girls from the families of small farmers in Ireland. They are respectable, tidy, healthy, and capable of being taught. A good mistress, who is reasonable and liberal inher treatment, is able to make them fixtures. They get good wages, and have few expenses. They dress handsomely, have abundant leisure to take care of their clothes and turn their wardrobes to the best account, and they very soon acquire skill in doing it equal to that displayed by any women of any country. They remit money continually to relatives in Ireland, and from time to time pay the passage of one and another to this country,—and whole families have thus been established in American life by the efforts of one young girl. Now, for my part, I do not grudge my Irish fellow-citizens these advantages obtained by honest labor and good conduct: they deserve all the good fortune thus accruing to them. But when I see sickly, nervous American women jostling and struggling in the few crowded avenues which are open to mere brain, I cannot help thinking how much better their lot would have been, with good strong bodies, steady nerves, healthy digestion, and the habit of looking any kind of work in the face, which used to be characteristic of American women generally, and of Yankee women in particular."
"The matter becomes still graver," said I, "by the laws of descent. The woman who enfeebles her muscular system by sedentary occupation, and over-stimulates her brain and nervous system, when she becomes a mother, perpetuates these evils to her offspring. Her children will be born feeble and delicate, incapable of sustaining any severe strain of body or mind. The universal cry now about the ill health of young American girls is the fruit of some three generations of neglect of physical exercise and undue stimulus of brain and nerves. Young girls now are universallyborndelicate. The most careful hygienic treatment during childhood, the strictest attention to diet, dress, and exercise, succeeds merely so far as to produce a girl who is healthy so long only as she does nothing. With the least strain, her delicate organism gives out, now here, now there. She cannot study without her eyes fail or she has headache,—she cannot get up her own muslins, or sweep a room, or pack a trunk, without bringing on a backache,—she goes to a concert or a lecture, and must lie by all the next day from the exertion. If she skates, she is sure to strain some muscle; or if she falls and strikes her knee or hits her ankle, a blow that a healthy girl would forget in five minutes terminates in some mysterious lameness which confines our poor sibyl for months.
"The young American girl of our times is a creature who has not a particle of vitality to spare,—no reserved stock of force to draw upon in cases of family exigency. She is exquisitely strung, she is cultivated, she is refined; but she is too nervous, too wiry, too sensitive,—she burns away too fast; only the easiest of circumstances, the most watchful of care and nursing, can keep her within the limits of comfortable health: and yet this is the creature who must undertake family life in a country where it is next to an absolute impossibility to havepermanentdomestics. Frequent change, occasional entire break-downs, must be the lot of the majority of housekeepers,—particularly those who do not live in cities."
"In fact," said my wife, "we in America have so far got out of the way of a womanhood that has any vigor of outline or opulence of physical proportions, that, when we see a woman made as a woman ought to be, she strikes us as a monster. Our willowy girls are afraid of nothing so much as growing stout; and if a young lady begins to round into proportions like the women in Titian's and Giorgione's pictures, she is distressed above measure, and begins to make secret inquiries into reducing diet, and to cling desperately to the strongest corset-lacing as her only hope. It would require one to be better educated than most of our girls are, to be willing to look like the Sistine Madonna or the Venus of Milo.
"Once in a while our Italian opera-singers bring to our shores those glorious physiques which formed the inspiration of Italian painters; and thenAmerican editors make coarse jokes about Barnum's fat woman, and avalanches, and pretend to be struck with terror at such dimensions.
"We should be better instructed, and consider that Italy does us a favor, in sending us specimens, not only of higher styles of musical art, but of a warmer, richer, and more abundant womanly life. The magnificent voice is only in keeping with the magnificent proportions of the singer. A voice which has no grate, no strain, which flows without effort,—which does not labor eagerly up to a high note, but alights on it like a bird from above, there carelessly warbling and trilling,—a voice which then without effort sinks into broad, rich, sombre depths of soft, heavy chest-tone,—can come only with a physical nature at once strong, wide, and fine,—from a nature such as the sun of Italy ripens, as he does her golden grapes, filling it with the new wine of song."
"Well," said I, "so much for our strictures on Miss Letitia's letter. What comes next?"
"Here is a correspondent who answers the question, 'What shall we do with her?'—aproposto the case of the distressed young woman which we considered in our November number."
"And what does he recommend?"
"He tells us thatheshould advise us to make our distressed woman Marianne's housekeeper, and to send South for three or four contrabands for her to train, and, with great apparent complacency, seems to think that course will solve all similar cases of difficulty."
"That's quite a man's view of the subject," said Jennie. "They think any woman who isn't particularly fitted to do anything else can keep house."
"As if housekeeping were not the very highest craft and mystery of social life," said I. "I admit that our sex speak too unadvisedly on such topics, and, being well instructed by my household priestess, will humbly suggest the following ideas to my correspondent.
"1st. A woman is not of course fit to be a housekeeper because she is a woman of good education and refinement.
"2d. If she were, a family with young children in it is not the proper place to establish a school for untaught contrabands, however desirable their training may be.
"A woman of good education and good common-sense maylearnto be a good housekeeper, as she learns any trade, by going into a good family and practising first one and then another branch of the business, till finally she shall acquire the comprehensive knowledge to direct all.
"The next letter I will read.
"'Dear Mr. Crowfield,—Your papers relating to the domestic problem have touched upon a difficulty which threatens to become a matter of life and death with me."'I am a young man, with good health, good courage, and good prospects. I have, for a young man, a fair income, and a prospect of its increase. But my business requires me to reside in a country town near a great manufacturing city. The demand for labor there has made such a drain on the female population of the vicinity, that it seems, for a great part of the time, impossible to keep any servants at all; and what we can hire are of the poorest quality, and want exorbitant wages. My wife was a well-trained housekeeper, and knows perfectly all that pertains to the care of a family; but she has three little children, and a delicate babe only a few weeks old; andcanany one woman do all that is needed for such a household? Something must be trusted to servants; and what is thus trusted brings such confusion and waste and dirt into our house, and the poor woman is constantly distraught between the disgust of having them and the utter impossibility of doing without them."'Now it has been suggested that we remedy the trouble by paying higher wages; but I find that for the very highest wages I secure only the most miserable service; and yet, poor as it is, we are obliged to put up with it,because there is an amount of work to be done in our family that is absolutely beyond my wife's strength."'I see her health wearing away under these trials, her life made a burden; I feel no power to help her; and I ask you, Mr. Crowfield, What are we to do? What is to become of family life in this country?
"'Dear Mr. Crowfield,—Your papers relating to the domestic problem have touched upon a difficulty which threatens to become a matter of life and death with me.
"'I am a young man, with good health, good courage, and good prospects. I have, for a young man, a fair income, and a prospect of its increase. But my business requires me to reside in a country town near a great manufacturing city. The demand for labor there has made such a drain on the female population of the vicinity, that it seems, for a great part of the time, impossible to keep any servants at all; and what we can hire are of the poorest quality, and want exorbitant wages. My wife was a well-trained housekeeper, and knows perfectly all that pertains to the care of a family; but she has three little children, and a delicate babe only a few weeks old; andcanany one woman do all that is needed for such a household? Something must be trusted to servants; and what is thus trusted brings such confusion and waste and dirt into our house, and the poor woman is constantly distraught between the disgust of having them and the utter impossibility of doing without them.
"'Now it has been suggested that we remedy the trouble by paying higher wages; but I find that for the very highest wages I secure only the most miserable service; and yet, poor as it is, we are obliged to put up with it,because there is an amount of work to be done in our family that is absolutely beyond my wife's strength.
"'I see her health wearing away under these trials, her life made a burden; I feel no power to help her; and I ask you, Mr. Crowfield, What are we to do? What is to become of family life in this country?
"'Yours truly,"'A Young Family Man.'
"'Yours truly,
"'A Young Family Man.'
"My friend's letter," said I, "touches upon the very hinge of the difficulty of domestic life with the present generation.
"The real, vital difficulty, after all, in our American life is, that our country is so wide, so various, so abounding in the richest fields of enterprise, that in every direction the cry is of the plenteousness of the harvest and the fewness of the laborers. In short, there really are not laborers enough to do the work of the country.
"Since the war has thrown the whole South open to the competition of free labor, the demand for workers is doubled and trebled. Manufactories of all sorts are enlarging their borders, increasing their machinery, and calling for more hands. Every article of living is demanded with an imperativeness and over an extent of territory which set at once additional thousands to the task of production. Instead of being easier to find hands to execute in all branches of useful labor, it is likely to grow every year more difficult, as new departments of manufacture and trade divide the workers. The price of labor, even now higher in this country than in any other, will rise still higher, and thus complicate still more the problem of domestic life. Even if a reasonable quota of intelligent women choose domestic service, the demand will be increasingly beyond the supply."
"And what have you to say to this," said my wife, "seeing you cannot stop the prosperity of the country?"
"Simply this,—that communities will be driven to organize, as they now do in Europe, to lessen the labors of individual families by having some of the present domestic tasks done out of the house.
"In France, for example, no house-keeper counts either washing, ironing, or bread-making as part of her domestic cares. All the family washing goes out to a laundry; and being attended to by those who make that department of labor a specialty, it comes home in refreshingly beautiful order.
"We in America, though we pride ourselves on our Yankee thrift, are far behind the French in domestic economy. If all the families of a neighborhood should put together the sums they separately spend in buying or fitting up and keeping in repair tubs, boilers, and other accommodations for washing, all that is consumed or wasted in soap, starch, bluing, fuel, together with the wages and board of an extra servant, the aggregate would suffice to fit up a neighborhood laundry, where one or two capable women could do easily and well what ten or fifteen women now do painfully and ill, and to the confusion and derangement of all other family processes.
"The model laundries for the poor in London had facilities which would enable a woman to do both the washing and ironing of a small family in from two to three hours, and were so arranged that a very few women could with ease do the work of the neighborhood.
"But in the absence of an establishment of this sort, the housekeepers of a country village might help themselves very much by owning a mangle in common, to which all the heavier parts of the ironing could be sent. American ingenuity has greatly improved the machinery of the mangle. It is no longer the heavy, cumbersome structure that it used to be in the Old World, but a compact, neat piece of apparatus, made in three or four different sizes to suit different-sized apartments.
"Mr. H. F. Bond of Waltham, Massachusetts, now manufactures these articles, and sends them to all parts of the country. The smallest of them doesnot take up much more room than a sewing-machine, can be turned by a boy of ten or twelve, and thus in the course of an hour or two the heaviest and most fatiguing part of a family ironing may be accomplished.
"I should certainly advise the 'Young Family Man' with a delicate wife and uncertain domestic help to fortify his kitchen with one of these fixtures.
"But after all, I still say that the quarter to which I look for the solution of the American problem of domestic life is a wise use of the principle of association.
"The future model village of New England, as I see it, shall have for the use of its inhabitants not merely a town lyceum-hall and a town library, but a town laundry, fitted up with conveniences such as no private house can afford, and paying a price to the operators which will enable them to command an excellence of work such as private families seldom realize. It will also have a town bakery, where the best of family bread, white, brown, and of all grains, shall be compounded; and lastly a town cook-shop, where soup and meats may be bought, ready for the table. Those of us who have kept house abroad remember the ease with which our foreign establishments were carried on. A suite of elegant apartments, a courier, and one female servant were the foundation of domestic life. Our courier boarded us at a moderate expense, and the servant took care of our rooms. Punctually to the dinner-hour every day, our dinner came in on the head of a porter from a neighboring cook-shop. A large chest lined with tin, and kept warm by a tiny charcoal stove in the centre, being deposited in an ante-room, from it came forth, first, soup, then fish, then roast of various names, and lastly pastry and confections,—far more courses than any reasonable Christian needs to keep him in healthy condition; and dinner being over, our box with itsdébriswent out of the house, leaving a clear field.
"Now I put it to the distressed 'Young Family Man' whether these three institutions of a bakery, a cook-shop, and a laundry, in the village where he lives would not virtually annihilate his household cares, and restore peace and comfort to his now distracted family.
"There really is no more reason why every family should make its own bread than its own butter,—why every family should do its own washing and ironing than its own tailoring or mantua-making. In France, where certainly the arts of economy are well studied, there is some specialty for many domestic needs for which we keep servants. The beautiful inlaid floors are kept waxed and glossy by a professional gentleman who wears a brush on his foot-sole, skates gracefully over the surface, and, leaving all right, departeth. Many families, each paying a small sum, keep this servant in common.
"Now if ever there was a community which needed to study the art of living, it is our American one; for at present, domestic life is so wearing and so oppressive as seriously to affect health and happiness. Whatever has been done abroad in the way of comfort and convenience can be done here; and the first neighborhood that shall set the example of dividing the tasks and burdens of life by the judicious use of the principle ofassociationwill initiate a most important step in the way of national happiness and prosperity.
"My solution, then, of the domestic problem may be formulized as follows:—
"1st. That women make self-helpfulness and family helpfulness fashionable, and every woman use her muscles daily in enough household work to give her a good digestion.
"2d. That the situation of a domestic be made so respectable and respected that well-educated American women shall be induced to take it as a training-school for their future family life.
"3d. That families by association lighten the multifarious labors of the domestic sphere.
"All of which I humbly submit to the good sense and enterprise of American readers and workers."
The two combatants came to the field in a very different spirit. Neville had already fought two duels, and been successful in both. He had confidence in his skill and in his luck. His conscience, too, was tolerably clear; for he was the insulted person; and if a bullet should remove this dangerous rival from his path, why, all the better for him, and all the worse for the fool who had brought the matter to a bloody issue, though the balance of the lady's heart inclined his way.
He came in high spirits, and rode upon Kate Peyton's gray, to sting his adversary, and show his contempt of him.
Not so Griffith Gaunt. His heart was heavy, and foreboded ill. It was his first duel, and he expected to be killed. He had played a fool's game, and he saw it.
The night before the duel he tried hard to sleep; he knew it was not giving his nerves fair play to lie thinking all night. But coy sleep, as usual when most wanted, refused to come. At daybreak the restless man gave it up in despair, and rose and dressed himself. He wrote that letter to Catharine, little thinking it would fall into her hands while he lived. He ate a little toast, and drank a pint of Burgundy, and then wandered listlessly about till Major Rickards, his second, arrived.
That experienced gentleman brought a surgeon with him,—Mr. Islip.
Major Rickards deposited a shallow wooden box in the hall; and the two gentlemen sat down to a hearty breakfast.
Griffith took care of his guests, but beyond that spoke scarcely a word; and the surgeon, after a ghastly attempt at commonplaces, was silent too. Major Rickards satisfied his appetite first, and then, finding his companions dumb, set to work to keep up their spirits. He entertained them with a narrative of the personal encounters he had witnessed, and especially of one in which his principal had fallen on his face at the first fire, and the antagonist had sprung into the air, and both had lain dead as door-nails, and never moved, nor even winked, after that single discharge.
Griffith sat under this chilling talk for more than an hour.
At last he rose gloomily, and said it was time to go.
"Got your tools, Doctor?" inquired the Major.
The surgeon nodded slightly. He was more discreet than his friend.
When they had walked nearly a mile in the snow, the Major began to complain.
"The Devil!" said he; "this is queer walking. My boots are full of water. I shall catch my death."
The surgeon smiled satirically, comparing silent Griffith's peril with his second's.
Griffith took no notice. He went like Fortitude plodding to Execution.
Major Rickards fell behind, and whispered Mr. Islip,—
"Don't like his looks; doesn't march like a winner. A job for you or the sexton, you mark my words."
They toiled up Scutchemsee Nob, and when they reached the top, they saw Neville and his second, Mr. Hammersley, riding towards them. The pair had halters as well as bridles, and, dismounting, made their nags fast to a large blackthorn that grew there. The seconds then stepped forward, and saluted each other with formal civility.
Griffith looked at the gray horse, and ground his teeth. The sight of the animal in Neville's possession stirred up his hate, and helped to steel his heart. He stood apart, still, pale, and gloomy.
The seconds stepped out fifteen paces, and placed the men. Then they loaded two pair of pistols, and put a pistol in each man's hand.
Major Rickards took that opportunity to advise his principal.
"Stand sharp. Keep your arm close to your side. Don't fire too high. How do you feel?"
"Like a man who must die, but will try to die in company."
The seconds now withdrew to their places; and the rivals held their pistols lowered, but fixed their deadly eyes on each other.
The eye, in such a circumstance, is a terrible thing: it is literally a weapon of destruction; for it directs the deadly hand that guides the deadly bullet. Moreover, the longer and the more steadily the duellist fixes his eye on his adversary, the less likely he is to miss.
Griffith was very pale, but dogged. Neville was serious, but firm. Both eyed each other unflinchingly.
"Gentlemen, are you ready?" asked Neville's second.
{"Yes."{{"Yes."
{"Yes."{{"Yes."
"Then," said Major Rickards, "you will fire when I let fall this handkerchief, and not before. Mark me, Gentlemen: to prevent mistakes, I shall say, 'One,—two,—three!' and then drop the handkerchief. Now, then, once more, are you quite ready?"
{"Yes."{{"Yes."
{"Yes."{{"Yes."
"One,——two,——three!"
He dropped the handkerchief, and both gentlemen fired simultaneously. Mr. Neville's hat spun into the air; Griffith stood untouched.
The bullet had passed through Neville's hat, and had actually cut a lane through his magnificent hair.
The seconds now consulted, and it was intimated to Griffith that a word of apology would be accepted by his antagonist. Griffith declined to utter a syllable of apology.
Two more pistols were given the men.
"Aim lower," said Rickards.
"I mean to," said Griffith.
The seconds withdrew, and the men eyed each other,—Griffith dogged and pale, as before, Neville not nearly so self-assured: Griffith's bullet, in grazing him, had produced the effect of a sharp, cold current of air no wider than a knife. It was like Death's icy fore-finger laid on his head, to mark him for the next shot,—as men mark a tree, then come again and fell it.
"One,——two,——three!"
And Griffith's pistol missed fire; but Neville's went off, and Griffith's arm sank powerless, and his pistol rolled out of his hand. He felt a sharp twinge, and then something trickle down his arm.
The surgeon and both seconds ran to him.
"Nay, it is nothing," said he; "I shoot far better with my left hand than my right. Give me another pistol, and let me have fair play. He has hit me; and now I'll hit him."
Both seconds agreed this was impossible.
"It is the chance of war," said Major Rickards; "you cannot be allowed to take a cool shot at Mr. Neville. If you fire again, so must he."
"The affair may very well end here," said Mr. Hammersley. "I understand there was some provocation on our side; and on behalf of the party insulted I am content to let the matter end, Mr. Gaunt being wounded."
"I demand my second shot to his third," said Griffith, sternly; "he will not decline, unless he is a poltroon, as well as—what I called him."
The nature of this reply was communicated to Neville, and the seconds, with considerable reluctance, loaded two more pistols; and during the process Major Rickards glanced at the combatants.
Griffith exasperated by his wound and his jealousy, was wearing out the chivalrous courage of his adversary; and the Major saw it. His keen eye noticed that Neville was getting restless, and looking confounded at his despised rival's pertinacity, and that Gaunt was more dogged and more deadly.
"My man will kill yours this time," said he, quietly, to Neville's second;"I can see if in his eye. He is hungry: t' other has had his bellyful."
Once more the men were armed, and the seconds withdrew to their places, intimating that this was the last shot they would allow under any circumstances whatever.
"Are you both ready?"
{"Yes."{{"Yes."
{"Yes."{{"Yes."
A faint wail seemed to echo the response.
All heard it, and in that superstitious age believed it to be some mysterious herald of death.
It suspended even Major Rickards's voice a minute. He recovered himself, however, and once more his soldier-like tones rang in the keen air:—
"One,——"
There was a great rushing, and a pounding of the hard ground, and a scarlet Amazon galloped in, and drew up in the middle, right between the levelled pistols.
Every eye had been so bent on the combatants, that Kate Peyton and her horse seemed to have sprung out of the very earth. And there she sat, pale as ashes, on the steaming piebald, and glanced from pistol to pistol.
The duellists stared in utter amazement, and instinctively lowered their weapons; for she had put herself right in their line of fire with a recklessness that contrasted nobly with her fear for others. In short, this apparition literally petrified them all, seconds as well as combatants.
And while they stood open-mouthed, yet dumb, in came the Scamp, and, with a brisk assumption of delegated authority, took Griffith's weapon out of his now unresisting hand, then marched to Neville. He instantly saluted Catharine, and then handed his pistol to her seeming agent, with a high-bred and inimitable air of utter nonchalance.
Kate, seeing them, to her surprise, so easily disarmed, raised her hands and her lovely eyes to heaven, and, in a feeble voice, thanked God and Saint Nescioquis.
But very soon that faint voice quavered away to nothing, and her fair head was seen to droop, and her eyes to close; then her body sank slowly forward like a broken lily, and in another moment she lay fainting on the snow beside her steaming horse.
He never moved, he was so dead beat too.
Oh, lame and impotent conclusion of a vigorous exploit! Masculine up to the crowning point, and then to go and spoil all with "woman's weakness"!
"N. B. This is rote sarcasticul," as Artemus the Delicious says. Woman's weakness! If Solomon had planned and Samson executed, they could not have served her turn better than this most seasonable swooning did; for, lo! at her fall, the doughty combatants uttered a yell of dismay, and there was an indiscriminate rush towards the fair sufferer.
But the surgeon claimed his rights.
"This is my business," said he, authoritatively. "Do not crowd on her, Gentlemen: give her air."
Whereupon the duellists and seconds stood respectfully aloof, in a mixed group, and watched with eager interest and pity.
The surgeon made a hole in the snow, and laid his fair patient's head low.
"Don't be alarmed," said he; "she has swooned; that is all."
It was all mighty fine to say, "Don't be alarmed." But her face was ashy, and her lips the color of lead; and she was so like death, they could not help being terribly alarmed; and now, for the first time, the duellists felt culprits; and as for fighting, every idea of such a thing went out of their heads. The rivals now were but rival nurses; and never did a lot of women make more fuss over a child than all these bloodthirsty men did over this Amazonmanquée. They produced their legendary lore. One's grandmother had told him burnt feathers were the thing; another, from an equally venerable source, had gathered that those pink palms must be profanely slapped by the horny hand of man,—for at no less a price couldresuscitation be obtained. The surgeon scorning all their legends, Griffith and Neville made hasty rushes with brandy and usquebaugh; but whether to be taken internally or externally they did not say, nor, indeed, know, but only thrust their flasks wildly on the doctor; and he declined them loftily. He melted snow in his hand, and dashed it hard in her face, and put salts close to her pretty little nostrils. And this he repeated many times without effect.
But at last her lips began to turn from lead color to white, and then from white to pink, and her heavenly eyes to open again, and her mouth to murmur things pitiably small and not bearing on the matter in hand.
Her cheek was still colorless, when her consciousness came back, and she found she was lying on the ground with ever so many gentlemen looking at her.
At that, Modesty alarmed sent the blood at once rushing to her pale cheek.
A lovely lily seemed turning to a lovely rose before their eyes.
The next thing was, she hid that blushing face in her hands, and began to whimper.
The surgeon encouraged her: "Nay, we are all friends," he whispered, paternally.
She half parted her fingers and peered through them at Neville and Gaunt. Then she remembered all, and began to cry hysterically.
New dismay of the unprofessionals!
"Now, Gentlemen, if you will lend me your flasks," said Mr. Islip, mighty calmly.
Griffith and Neville were instantly at his side, each with a flask.
The surgeon administered snow and brandy. Kate sipped these, and gulped down her sobs, and at last cried composedly.
But when it came to sipping brandied snow and crying comfortably, Major Rickards's anxiety gave place to curiosity. Without taking his eye off her, he beckoned Mr. Hammersley apart, and whispered,—
"Who the Deuse is it?"
"Don't you know?" whispered the other in return. "Why, Mistress Peyton herself."
"What! the girl it is all about? Well, I never heard of such a thing: thecausa bellito comegallopingandswooningon the field of battle, and so stop the fighting! What will our ladies do next? By Heaven! she is worth fighting for, though. Which is the happy man, I wonder? She doesn't look at either of them."
"Ah!" said the gentleman, "that is more than I know, more than Neville knows, more than anybody knows."
"Bet you a guineasheknows,—and lets it out before she leaves the field," said Major Rickards.
Mr. Hammersley objected to an even bet; but said he would venture one to three she did not. It was an age of bets.
"Done!" said the Major.
By this time Kate had risen, with Mr. Islip's assistance, and was now standing with her hand upon the piebald's mane. She saw Rickards and Hammersley were whispering about her, and she felt very uneasy: so she told Mr. Islip, timidly, she desired to explain her conduct toallthe gentlemen present, and avert false reports.
They were soon all about her, and she began, with the most engaging embarrassment, by making excuses for her weakness. She said she had ridden all the way from home, fasting; that was what had upset her. The gentlemen took the cue directly, and vowed eagerly and unanimously it was enough to upset a porter.
"But, indeed," resumed Kate, blushing, "I did not come here to make a fuss, and be troublesome, but to prevent mischief, and clear up the strangest misunderstanding between two worthy gentlemen, that are, both of them, my good friends."
She paused, and there was a chilling silence: everybody felt she was getting on ticklish ground now. She knew that well enough herself. But she had a good rudder to steer by, called Mother-Wit.
Says she, with inimitable coolness,—
"Mr. Gaunt is an old friend of mine, and a little too sensitive where I am concerned. Some chatterbox has been and told him Mr. Neville should say I have changed horses with him; and on that the gossips put their own construction. Mr. Gaunt hears all this, and applies insulting terms to Mr. Neville. Nay, do not deny it, Mr. Gaunt, for I have it here in your own handwriting.
"As for Mr. Neville, he merely defends his honor, and is little to blame. But now I shall tell the true story about these horses, and make you all ashamed of this sorry quarrel.
"Gentlemen, thus it is. A few days ago Mr. Gaunt bade me farewell, and started for foreign parts. He had not been long gone, when word came from Bolton that Mr. Charlton was no more. You know how sudden it was. Consider, Gentlemen: him dead, and his heir riding off to the Continent in ignorance. So I thought, 'Oh, what shall I do?' Just then Mr. Neville visited me, and I told him: on that he offered me his piebald horse to carry the news after Mr. Gaunt, because my gray was too tired: it was the day we drew Yew-tree Brow, and crossed Harrowden Brook, you know,"——
Griffith interrupted her.
"Stay a bit," said he: "this is news to me. You never told me he had lent you the piebald nag to do me a good turn."
"Did I not?" said Kate, mighty innocently. "Well, but I tell you now. Ask him: he cannot deny it. As for the rest, it was all done in a hurry: Mr. Neville had no horse now to ride home with; he did me the justice to think I should be very ill pleased, were he to trudge home afoot and suffer for his courtesy; so he borrowed my gray to keep him out of the mire; and, indeed, the ways were fouler than usual, with the rains. Was there any ill in all this?HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE!say I."
The gentlemen all sided loudly with her on this appeal,—except Neville, who held his tongue, and smiled at her plausibility, and Griffith, who hung his head at her siding with Neville.
At last he spoke, and said, sorrowfully,—
"If you did exchange horses with him, of course I have only to ask his pardon—and go."
Catharine reflected a moment before she replied.
"Well," said she, "I did exchange, and I did not. Why quarrel about a word? Certainly he took my horse, and I took his; but it was only for the nonce. Mr. Neville is foreign-bred, and an example to us all: he knows his piebald is worth two of my gray, and so he was too fine a gentleman to send me back my old hunter and ask for his young charger. He waited for me to do that; and if anybody deserves to be shot, it must be Me. But, dear heart, I did not foresee all this fuss; I said to myself, 'La, Mr. Neville will be sure to call on my father or me some day, or else I shall be out on the piebald and meet him on the gray, and then we can each take our own again.' Was I so far out in my reckoning? Is not that my Rosinante yonder? Here, Tom Leicester, you put my side-saddle on that gray horse, and the man's saddle on the piebald there. And now, Griffith Gaunt, it is your turn: you must withdraw your injurious terms, and end this superlative folly."
Griffith hesitated.
"Come," said Kate, "consider: Mr. Neville is esteemed by all the county: you are the only gentleman in it who has ever uttered a disparaging word against him. Are you sure you are more free from passion and prejudice and wiser than all the county? Obligeme, and do what is right. Come, Griffith Gaunt, let your reason unsay the barbarous words your passion hath uttered against a worthy gentleman whom we all esteem."
Her habitual influence, and these last words, spoken with gentle and persuasive dignity, turned the scale. Griffith turned to Neville, and said in a low voice that he began to fear he had been hasty, and used harsher words than the occasion justified: he was going to stammer out something more, but Nevilleinterrupted him with a noble gesture.
"That is enough, Mr. Gaunt," said he. "I do not feel quite blameless in the matter, and have no wish to mortify an honorable adversary unnecessarily."
"Very handsomely said," put in Major Rickards; "and now let me have a word. I say that both gentlemen have conducted themselves like men—under fire; and that honor is satisfied, and the misunderstanding at an end. As for my principal here, he has shown he can fight, and now he has shown he can hear reason against himself, when the lips of beauty utter it. I approve his conduct from first to last, and am ready to defend it in all companies, and in the field, should it ever be impugned."
Kate colored with pleasure, and gave her hand eloquently to the Major. He bowed over it, and kissed the tips of her fingers.
"Oh, Sir," she said, looking on him now as a friend, "I dreamed I saw Mr. Neville lying dead upon the snow, with the blood trickling from his temple."
At this Neville's dark cheek glowed with pleasure. So! it was her anxiety onhisaccount had brought her here.
Griffith heard too, and sighed patiently.
Assured by Major Rickards that there neither could nor should be any more fighting, Kate made her adieus, mounted her gray horse, and rode off, discreetly declining all attendance. She beckoned Tom Leicester, however. But he pretended not to see the signal, and let her go alone. His motive for lingering behind was characteristic, and will transpire shortly.
As soon as she was gone, Griffith Gaunt quietly reminded the surgeon that there was a bullet in his arm all this time.
"Bless my soul!" said Mr. Islip, "I forgot that, I was so taken up with the lady."
Griffith's coat was now taken off, and the bullet searched for: it had entered the fleshy part of his arm below the elbow, and, passing round the bone, projected just under the skin. The surgeon made a slight incision, and then, pressing with his finger and thumb, out it rolled. Griffith put it in his pocket.
Neville had remained out of civility, and now congratulated his late antagonist, and himself, that it was no worse.
The last words that passed between the rivals, on this occasion, were worth recording, and characteristic of the time.
Neville addressed Gaunt with elaborate courtesy, and to this effect:—
"I find myself in a difficulty, Sir. You did me the honor to invite me to Mr. Charlton's funeral, and I accepted; but now I fear to intrude a guest, the sight of whom may be disagreeable to you. And, on the other hand, my absence might be misconstrued as a mark of disrespect, or of a petty hostility I am far from feeling. Be pleased, therefore, to dispose of me entirely in this matter."
Griffith reflected.
"Sir," said he, "there is an old saying, 'Let every tub stand on its own bottom.' The deceased wished you to follow him to the grave, and therefore I would on no account have you absent. Besides, now I think of it, there will be less gossip about this unfortunate business, if our neighbors see you under my roof, and treated with due consideration there, as you will be."
"I do not doubt that, Sir, from so manly an adversary; and I shall do myself the honor to come."
Such was Neville's reply. The rivals then saluted each other profoundly, and parted.
Hammersley and Rickards lingered behind their principals to settle their little bet about Kate's affections: and, by the by, they were indiscreet enough to discuss this delicate matter within a dozen yards of Tom Leicester: they forgot that "little pitchers have long ears."
Catharine Peyton rode slowly home, and thought it all over as she went, and worried herself finely. She was one that winced at notoriety; and she could not hope to escape it now. How the gossips would talk about her! they would say the gentlemen had fought abouther;and she had parted them for love of one of them. And then the gentlemen themselves! The strict neutrality she had endeavored to maintain on Scutchemsee Nob, in order to make peace, would it not keep them both her suitors? She foresaw she should be pulled to pieces, and live in hot water, and be "the talk of the county."
There were but two ways out: she must marry one of them, and petition the other not to shoot him; or else she must take the veil, and so escape them both.
She preferred the latter alternative. She was more enthusiastic in religion than in any earthly thing; and now the angry passions of men thrust her the same road that her own devout mind had always drawn her.
As soon as she got home, she sent a message to Father Francis, who drove her conscience, and begged him to come and advise her.
After that, she did the wisest thing, perhaps, she had done all day,—went to bed.
The sun was just setting when Catharine's maid came into her room and told her Father Francis was below. She sent down to say she counted on his sleeping at Peyton Hall, and she would come down to him in half an hour. She then ordered a refection to be prepared for him in her boudoir; and made her toilet with all reasonable speed, not to keep him waiting. Her face beamed with quiet complacency now, for the holy man's very presence in the house was a comfort to her.
Father Francis was a very stout, muscular man, with a ruddy countenance; he never wore gloves, and you saw at once he was not a gentleman by birth. He had a fine voice: it was deep, mellow, and, when he chose, sonorous. This, and his person, ample, but not obese, gave him great weight, especially with his female pupils. If he was not quite so much reverenced by the men, yet he was both respected and liked; in fact, he had qualities that make men welcome in every situation,—good humor, good sense, and tact. A good son of his Church, and early trained to let no occasion slip of advancing her interests.
I wish my readers could have seen the meeting between Catharine Peyton and this burly ecclesiastic. She came into the drawing-room with that imperious air and carriage which had made her so unpopular with her own sex; and at the bare sight of Father Francis, drooped and bent in a moment as she walked; and her whole body indicated a submissiveness, graceful, but rather abject: it was as if a young poplar should turn to a weeping willow in half a moment. Thus metamorphosed, the Beauty of Cumberland glided up to Francis, and sank slowly on her knees before him, crossed her hands on her bosom, lowered her lovely head, and awaited his benediction.
The father laid two big, coarse hands, with enormous fingers, on that thorough-bred head and golden hair, and blessed her business-like.