Tales of the Wonder Club Volume I Part 4

"Nothing, thank you," said the Baron; and the landlord left the room.

I was surprised at the change in the Baron's manner. Perhaps, after all, he might not be so bad as he appeared. His infirmity of temper was certainly against him. His personal appearance no less so. Nevertheless, in his better moments he appeared to possess the manners of a gentleman.

I began to fancy that the experiences of the past night might, after all, have been a dream, until I caught sight again of the enormous flea-bites on my hands, which still smarted.

The Baron's manner to me during breakfast was most affable. After breakfast we left the inn together and strolled leisurely towards the Hall. On the way the Baron made me acquainted with the particulars of his case, and I promised to do the best I could to serve him.

Nevertheless, I saw at once that the Baron was most decidedly in the wrong. I told him it was likely to go hard with him; in fact, I said I did not see how he could well get off.

The Baron frowned, and we walked on in silence towards the Hall. That very day the case was tried at the a.s.sizes, and in spite of all my efforts, the Baron lost. I will not weary you with the details of the case. Suffice it that there was oppression and injustice on the part of the Baron which could not be excused, resulting from a morbid belief in his own importance.

After the court broke up the Baron led me in silence to the Hall and beckoned me to his room, the walls of which were covered over with every sort of weapon of defence under the sun. There were pistols, daggers, blunderbusses, rapiers, broadswords, cutla.s.ses, Malay creases, poisoned spear heads, a two-handed sword, probably belonging to his ancestor of cruel memory, and an iron bar to which were attached a chain and ball of spikes.

On entering the room he slammed the door, and turning suddenly upon me, he hissed out, "Paltry pettifogger, this is the second time that through your d----d bungling I have been brought to disgrace. Not content with hanging me once, you have played me foul a second time. But think not to escape me now," and he cleared the room with one terrific stride. (Now almost for the first time I noticed the enormous length of the Baron's legs.) "Choose your weapons," he cried, "and thank your stars that I don't fell you on the spot as I would an ox."

"But--but--I don't see how you have a right to--to--I did all in my power to----" stammered I. "I don't think you ought to be offended.

Reflect, my dear Baron," I said. "I am sure, in your better mood, you will see the matter in another light."

"No more prating, but choose your weapon," screamed the Baron.

"Really, Baron," I said, "this conduct of yours is contrary to all the generally received etiquette in duelling. There are no seconds present, nothing regular. I accept your challenge, if you really cannot be brought to reason, but if I die, it must be like a gentleman, in a regular duel, with all the usual ceremony."

"Driveller! dost prate to me of ceremony? But have it your own way,"

said the Baron. "You do not escape me this time."

"I will write to a friend of mine from town," I said. "Meanwhile, I have the pleasure of wishing your lordship a remarkably good morning."

I opened the door and made for the staircase, but, with two immense strides, the Baron was at my heels.

"Take that, Sir Bungler," cried he, and lifting one of his enormous legs, lunged forth a kick upon that part of my person anatomically known as the _Glutaeus Major_, which sent me flying from the top of the stairs to the bottom, at the imminent risk of breaking my neck; but, as good luck would have it, I landed safely on my feet. Nevertheless the insult stung me to the quick.

I turned round indignantly, yet striving to master my pa.s.sion, in order to preserve my dignity, and said, "Baron, you are no gentleman."

With the yell of a wounded tiger, the Baron vaulted with one bound from the top of the staircase to the bottom, just as my hand was on the door.

I opened it and slammed it again in his face, and walked briskly in the direction of the village. I heard the door open behind me and the Baron's fearful footsteps after me.

I do not know what would have become of me, if just at that moment an over-driven bull had not come to my rescue and stood between me and the Baron. Seeing a man striding towards him furiously, he imagined the attack was meant for himself, and accordingly stood on the defensive.

The Baron tried to pa.s.s, but the bull lowered his horns, and looked menacing, so he wisely retreated to his Hall.

Arrived at "The Swan," I demanded pen, ink, and paper, and wrote to my friend in town to come to me for the purpose of performing the office of second, after which I endeavoured to kill time in this lonely village till dinner. Feeling hungry, I made a sumptuous repast and turned into bed with feelings full of revenge towards the Baron.

"No more Phantom Fleas to-night," I said to myself as I tucked myself up in my comfortable little bed at "The Swan," and soon fell into a sound sleep.

And now, said the lawyer, when he had got thus far in his narrative, I must root up an old and very painful subject that occurred in my early life, and which I would fain have allowed to rest for ever.

In my earlier days, when as yet I had no fixed profession, during my travels in Italy, I became enamoured of a beautiful Italian girl. Poor Mariangela! how she loved me! That girl possessed the soul of an angel.

I see her before me now, with her sweet, dreamy, saintlike eyes, and her quiet graceful step. We were never married, for I was not in a position then to support a wife. She vowed that she would never love anyone else but me. We parted, and--and--she died; died through love of me.

(Here the lawyer became visibly affected and hastily brushed away a tear-drop with his hand. Mastering himself at length, he resumed.)

On her death-bed she sent for me. I arrived just in time to catch her parting breath. When I stooped down to kiss her she hung a small relic of some saint that had been blessed by the Pope, suspended with a piece of ribbon, round my neck, and begged me to wear it for her sake, and said that it would preserve me from all harm. Poor girl! she died in my arms; I followed her to the grave and was for a long time inconsolable.

But time, that changes everything, changed me. A tender recollection of her past love only remained; the wild tumultuous pa.s.sion I had felt for her while living, and the overwhelming grief I experienced at her death, had subsided. For two years I wore the relic she gave me round my neck.

Not because I believed in its virtue, not being a Roman Catholic myself, but for her sake alone--in remembrance of _her_. Afterwards, however, I wore it less often, and at length discontinued wearing it altogether. I kept it still at the bottom of my trunk, between the leaves of a book.

This trunk I left in town when I went down to the Baron's. The key, I must tell you, I had lost a day or two before. I was just thinking of sending for the locksmith when I received the Baron's letter to come down to his place for a day or two. I left town hurriedly and the box behind me, locked--the key lost.

Ever since poor Mariangela's death, even long after I had ceased to think of her regularly, I have remarked that in those periods of my life when I was in any difficulty her spirit used to appear to me in a dream and counsel me, and being guided by her counsel, I found my way invariably out of my dilemma. When weighed down by any great grief she was sure to appear and console me.

That night when I turned into my snug little bed at "The Swan," no one was further from my thoughts than that poor Italian girl who loved me so well. My thoughts were far too full of ill-feeling towards the Baron and the preparations for the coming duel to allow room for anything else.

Nevertheless, I had a most remarkable dream towards morning. I thought Mariangela came towards me as I lay in bed, and reproached me for having left off wearing the charm that she had hung round my neck.

"Your life is in danger," she said. "Good swordsman and expert with the pistol as you are, you are no match for the Baron with either, whose skill is from the Evil One. Listen to me, and do not refuse my last pet.i.tion. Wear this round your neck, and it will protect you from all harm."

Having spoken thus, she kissed me on the brow and vanished. I awoke, and would you believe it, gentlemen, I found suspended round my neck that identical relic that I left at the bottom of my trunk in town, the key of which was lost. Well, I could no longer doubt this being a spiritual visitation, so I left the relic there suspended.

In the course of the day my friend arrived. The usual ceremonies were gone through, and the meeting was to be at sundown, in a wood belonging to the Baron's estate. A surgeon was also provided to bind up the wounds of the one who should fall, should they not be mortal. As I was asked my choice of weapon, I chose the rapier, having at that time no inconsiderable skill in the use of it.

The hour arrived, and we met on the spot. The Baron, at the sight of me, was unable to restrain his rage, and it was with difficulty that he was prevented from breaking through every rule of etiquette appertaining to the duello. Without waiting for the customary salute beforehand, he rushed at me sword in hand at the first sight of me like a savage. The seconds interfered, and something like order was restored.

We advanced, retired, clashed swords, lunged, parried. "_Tierce_, _quarte_, _quinte_, _flanconade_, single attack, double attack, lunge."

The Baron lunged furiously, I parried, and the Baron was disarmed.

Without waiting for my permission to pick up his sword, he, disregarding all etiquette, made a sudden grab at it, and flew at me again in fury.

The Baron's fencing was very wild. He made three or four successive desperate lunges at me, but was foiled every time. He grew more and more furious; he had never been accustomed to be thus thwarted.

I felt my hand grow lame, however. It was like fencing with Mephistopheles. To tire him out was impossible. His long wind was his _forte_. I could only try to match the Baron's fury by the most guarded coolness and self-possession. For some time past I had done nothing but parry, waiting calmly for an opportunity. At length an opening presented itself. I lunged, and the Baron fell, pierced right through the heart, at the foot of one of his own stately oaks. He rolled up his eyes, and after death still retained the same expression of ferocity that he wore when living.

Thus died the last Baron ----. With his death the line became extinct, and the property fell into other hands. Duelling even in those days was fast falling into disuse, and I had to fly the country. I travelled for many years, and at length returned home, but never from the day of the duel up to the present time have I once neglected to wear the pious relic of that poor Italian girl round my neck.

Bursts of applause followed the lawyer's recital. Mr. Blackdeed said it ought to be dramatised; that it would "create a sensation," and "bring down the house." The doctor shook his head gravely. The chairman, in a short speech, proposed the health of the narrator, and expressed a hope that he might be free from all such clients for the future.

"Shiver my timbers!" cried Captain Toughyarn, "if that yarn won't do for the marines. Odds, blood and thunder, if I thought anyone but a tar could have spun such a yarn as that. I tell you what it is, Hardcase, you've mistaken your calling. You were meant for the sea."

"I hope, Captain Toughyarn," said the lawyer, "you don't doubt the veracity of my statement."

"Not I," answered the captain, but with a most provoking look of scepticism, which belied his words.

"I do believe the captain's a sceptic," said the chairman. "Take care, captain, the rules of this club are severe. If any member or guest presumes to doubt the statement of any other member of the club, given out by the said member as a fact, he shall incur the penalty of being forced to drink a cup of cold water on his bended knees, and----"

"Ugh!" groaned the captain, before the chairman had finished his sentence. "Well, chairman," he said, humbly awed at the severity of the sentence, "I don't mean to say that I'll give a 'lee lurch,' and throw Mr. Hardcase's cargo overboard altogether; but the fact is I have been on sh.o.r.e so long, that I have got quite out of the way of shipping those sorts of goods into my hold, and it rather sticks in my tramway, but I have no doubt that another gla.s.s of grog will send it clean down, and that I shall find storage-room in my hull for that and as much more cargo as any of our messmates choose to ship this evening."

"Hear, hear," cried the guests, pa.s.sing the bowl towards the captain, who, after having filled up his gla.s.s and drained it, declared himself ready to set sail.

"Another bowl, landlord!" shouted the chairman; "and whilst you are about it, you might bring up another log as well. See how the cold makes the fire burn." Then, turning to his guest, Mr. Vand.y.k.e McGuilp, he observed, "It is lucky you arrived in time to-night for our great meeting. You have now heard a specimen of these stories, the fame of which has reached Rome."

At this moment the host returned with a fresh bowl of punch, which was received with a murmur of approbation. The landlord then stirred up the fire, and put on a fresh log. It was getting late, but that was nothing for the members of the "Wonder Club" on such an occasion as this.