Philip Winwood Part 31

"Now, lad, what in the name of heaven--" he began, in the most gentle, indulgent manner, as we stood alone in the pa.s.sage.

"For G.o.d's sake," I blurted irritably, "be like your countrymen in there: be sneering, resentful, supercilious! Don't be so cursed amiable--don't make it so hard for me to do this!"

"I supercilious! And to thee, lad!" he replied, with a reproachful smile.

"Show your inward self, then. I know how selfish you are, how unscrupulous! You like people for their good company, and their admiration of you, their attachment to you. But you would trample over any one, without a qualm, to get at your own pleasure or enrichment, or to gratify your vanity."

He meditated for a moment upon my words. Then he said, good-naturedly:

"Why, you hit me off to perfection, I think. And yet, my liking for some people is real, too. I would do much for those I like--if it cost not too many pains, and required no sacrifice of pleasure. For you, indeed, I would do a great deal, upon my honour!"

"Then do this," quoth I, fighting against the ingratiating charm he exercised. "Grant me a meeting--swords or pistols, I don't care which--and the sooner the better."

"But why? At least I may know the cause."

"The blight you have brought on those I love--but that's a cause must be kept secret between us."

"Must I fight twice on the same score, then?"

"Why not? You fared well enough the first time. Tom fought on his family's behalf. I fight on behalf of my friend--Captain Winwood.

Besides, haven't I given you cause to-night, before your friends in there? If I was in the wrong there, so much the greater my offence.

Come--will you take up the quarrel as it is? Or must I give new provocation?"

He sighed like a man who finds himself drawn into a business he would have considerately avoided.

"Well, well," said he, "I can refuse you nothing. We can manage the affair as we did the other, I fancy. It must be a secret, of course--even from my friends in there. I shall tell them we have settled our difference, and let them imagine what they please to. I'll send some one to you--that arrangement will give you the choice of weapons."

"'Tis indifferent to me."

"To me also. But I prefer you should have that privilege. I entreat you will choose the weapons you are best at."

"Thank you. I shall expect to hear from you, then. Good-night!"

"Good-night! 'Tis a foggy evening. I wish you might come in and warm yourself with a gla.s.s before you go; but of course--well, good-night!"

I went out into the damp darkness, thanking heaven the matter was settled beyond undoing; and marvelling that exceptional, favoured people should exist, who, thanks to some happy combination of superficial graces, remain irresistibly likable despite all exposure of the selfish vices they possess at heart.

But if my prospective opponent was one who could not be faced antagonistically without a severe effort, the second whom he chose was one against whose side I could fight with the utmost readiness, thanks to the irritating power he possessed upon me. He was Lieutenant Chubb, whom I had worsted in the affair to which I have alluded earlier, which grew out of his a.s.sumption of superiority to us who were of American birth. I had subjected this c.o.c.k to such deference in my presence, that he now rejoiced at what promised to be my defeat, and his revenge by proxy, so great reliance he placed upon Captain Falconer's skill with either sword or pistol. I chose the latter weapon, however, without much perturbation, inwardly resolved that the gloating Chubb should so far fail of his triumph, as to suffer a second humiliation in the defeat of his princ.i.p.al. For my own second, Lieutenant Berrian, of our brigade, did me the honour to go out with me. A young New York surgeon, Doctor Williams, obliged us by a.s.suming the risk which it would have been too much to ask Doctor McLaughlin to undertake a second time. At my desire, the place and hour set were those at which Tom Faringfield had met his death. I felt that the memory of his dying face would be strongest, there and then, to make my arm and sight quick and sure.

A thaw had carried away much of the snow, and hence we had it not as light as it had been for Tom's duel; although the moon made our outlines and features perfectly distinct as we a.s.sembled in the hollow, and it would make our pistol-barrels shine brightly enough when the time came, as I ascertained by taking aim at an imaginary mark.

Falconer and I stood each alone, while the seconds stepped off the paces and the surgeon lighted a small lantern which might enable him to throw, upon a possible wound, rays more to the purpose than the moon afforded. I was less agitated, I think, than the doctor himself, who was new to such an affair. I kept my mind upon the change wrought in the Faringfield household, upon the fate of Tom, upon what I imagined would be Philip's feelings; and I had a thought, too, for the disappointment of my old enemy Chubb if I could cap the firing signal with a shot the fraction of a second before my antagonist could. We were to stand with our backs toward each other, at the full distance, and, upon the word, might turn and fire as soon as possible. To be the first in wheeling round upon a heel, and covering the foe, was my one concern, and, as I took my place, I dismissed all else from my mind, to devote my entire self, bodily and mental, to that one series of movements: all else but one single impression, and that was of malicious exultation upon the face of Chubb.

"You'll smile on t'other side of your face in a minute," thought I, pressing my teeth together.

I was giving my hand its final adjustment to the pistol, when suddenly a man dashed out of the covert at one side of the hollow, and ran toward us, calling out in a gruff voice:

"Hold on a minute. Here's su'thin' fur you, Ensign Russell."

We had all turned at the first sound of the man's tread, fearing we had been spied upon and discovered. But I now knew there was no danger of that kind, for the voice belonged to old Bill Meadows.

"What do you mean?" I asked sharply, annoyed at the interruption.

"Nothin'. Read this here. I've follered yuh all evenin', thinkin' to ketch yuh alone. I gev my word to get it to yuh, fust thing; an' fur my own sake, I tried to do it unbeknownst. But now I must do it anyhow I ken. So take it, an' my compliments, an' I trust yuh to keep mum an'

ask no questions, an' furget 'twas me brung it. And I'll keep a shet mouth about these here goings on. Only read it now, fur G.o.d's sake."

He had handed me a sealed letter. My curiosity being much excited, I turned to Falconer, and said:

"Will you grant me permission? 'Twill take but a moment."

"Certainly," said he.

"Ay," added Chubb, against all the etiquette of the situation, "it can be allowed, as you're not like to read any more letters."

I tore it open, disdaining to reply in words to a gratuitous taunt I could soon answer by deed. The doctor having handed me his lantern, I held it in one hand, the letter in the other. The writing was that of Philip Winwood, and the letter read as follows:

"DEAR BERT:--I have learned what sad things have befallen. You will easily guess my informant; but I know you will not use your knowledge of my communication therewith, to the detriment thereof. And I am sure that, since I ask it, you will not betray (or, by any act or disclosure, imperil or hamper) the messenger who brings this at risk of his life; for the matter is a private one.

"Pondering upon all that has occurred, I am put in a fear of your forgetting whose right it is to avenge it, and of your taking that duty to yourself, which belongs by every consideration to me. This is to beg, therefore, that you will not forestall me; that while I live you will leave this matter to me, at whatsoever cost though it be to your pride and your impatience. Dear Bert, I enjoin you, do not usurp my prerogative. By all the ties between us, past and to come, I demand this of you. _The man is mine to kill_. Let him wait my time, and I shall be the more, what I long have been, Ever thine,

"PHILIP."

I thought over it for a full minute. He asked of me a grievous disappointment; nay, something of a humiliation, too, so highly had I carried myself, so triumphant had my enemy Chubb become in antic.i.p.ation, so derisive would he be in case of my withdrawal.

If I receded, Chubb would have ground to think the message a device to get me out of a peril at the last moment, after I had pretended to face it so intrepidly thereunto. For I could not say what my letter contained, or who it was from, without betraying Meadows and perhaps Mr. Faringfield, which both Philip's injunction and my own will prohibited my doing. Thus, I hesitated awhile before yielding to Philip what he claimed so rightly as his own. But I am glad I had the courage to face Chubb's probable suspicions and possible contempt.

"Gentlemen," said I, folding up the letter for concealment and preservation, "I am very sorry to have brought you out here for nothing. I must make some other kind of reparation to you, Captain Falconer. I can't fight you."

There was a moment's pause; during which Lieutenant Chubb looked from me to his princ.i.p.al, with a mirthful grin, as much as to say I was a proven coward after all my swagger. But the captain merely replied:

"Oh, let the matter rest as it is, then. I'm sorry I had to disappoint a lady, to come out here on a fool's errand, that's all."

He made that speech with intention, I'm sure, by way of revenge upon me, though doubtless 'twas true enough; for he must have known how it would sting a man who thought kindly of Madge Faringfield. It was the first cutting thing I had ever heard him say; it showed that he was no longer unwilling to antagonise me; it proved that he, too, could throw off the gentleman when he chose: and it made him no longer difficult for me to hate.

CHAPTER XVIII.

_Philip Comes at Last to London._

A human life will drone along uneventfully for years with scarce a perceptible progress, retrogression, or change; and then suddenly, with a few leaps, will cover more of alteration and event in a week than it has pa.s.sed through in a decade. So will the critical occurrences of a day fill chapters, after those of a year have failed to yield more material than will eke out a paragraph. Experience proceeds by fits and starts. Only in fiction does a career run in an unbroken line of adventures or memorable incidents.

The personal life of Philip Winwood, as distinguished from his military career, which had no difference from that of other commanders of rebel partisan horse, and which needs no record at my hands, was marked by no conspicuous event from the night when he learned and defeated Madge's plot, to the end of the war. The news of her departure, and of Tom's death, came to him with a fresh shock, it is true, but they only settled him deeper in the groove of sorrow, and in the resolution to pay full retribution where it was due.

He had no pusillanimous notion of the unworthiness of revenge. He believed retaliation, when complete and inflicted without cost or injury to the giver, to be a most logical and fitting thing. But he knew that revenge is a two-edged weapon, and that it must be wielded carefully, so as not to cause self-damage. He required, too, that it should be wielded in open and honourable manner; and in that manner he was resolved to use it upon Captain Falconer. As for Madge, I believe he forgave her from the first, holding her "more in sorrow than in anger," and pitying rather than reproaching.

Well, he served throughout the war, keeping his sorrow to himself, being known always for a quietly cheerful mien, giving and taking hard blows, and always yielding way to others in the pressure for promotion. Such was the state of affairs in the rebel army, that his willingness to defer his claims for advancement, when there were restless and ambitious spirits to be conciliated and so kept in the service, was availed of for the sake of expediency. But he went not without appreciation. On one occasion, when a discontented but useful Pennsylvanian was pacified with a colonelcy, General Washington remarked to Light Horse Harry Lee: "And yet you are but a major, and Winwood remains a captain; but let me tell you, there is less honour in the t.i.tles of general and colonel, as borne by many, than there is in the mere names of Major Lee and Captain Winwood."