His lordship was, besides, one of those good, ******-minded creatures, educated abroad, who, when invited to fight, simply bow, and load two pistols, and get themselves called at six; instead of taking down tomes of casuistry and puzzling their poor brains to find out whether they are gamecocks or capons, and why.
As for Gatty, he hurried home in a fever of passion, begged his mother's pardon, and reproached himself for ever having disobeyed her on account of such a perfidious creature as Christie Johnstone.
He then told her what he had seen, as distance and imagination had presented it to him; to his surprise the old lady cut him short.
"Charles," said she, "there is no need to take the girl's character away; she has but one fault--she is not in the same class of life as you, and such marriages always lead to misery; but in other respects she is a worthy young woman--don't speak against her character, or you will make my flesh creep; you don't know what her character is to a woman, high or low."
By this moderation, perhaps she held him still faster.
Friday morning arrived. Gatty had, by hard work, finished his picture, collected his sketches from nature, which were numerous, left by memorandum everything to his mother, and was, or rather felt, as ready to die as live.
He had hardly spoken a word or eaten a meal these four days; his mother was in anxiety about him. He rose early, and went down to Leith; an hour later, his mother, finding him gone out, rose and went to seek him at Newhaven.
Meantime Flucker had entirely recovered, but his sister's color had left her cheeks. The boy swore vengeance against the cause of her distress.
On Friday morning, then, there paced on Leith Sands two figures.
One was Lord Ipsden.
The other seemed a military gentleman, who having swallowed the mess-room poker, and found it insufficient, had added the ramrods of his company.
The more his lordship reflected on Gatty, the less inclined he had felt to invite a satirical young dog from barracks to criticise such a _rencontre;_ he had therefore ordered Saunders to get up as a field-marshal, or some such trifle, and what Saunders would have called incomparable verticality was the result.
The painter was also in sight.
While he was coming up, Lord Ipsden was lecturing Marshal Saunders on a point on which that worthy had always thought himself very superior to his master--"Gentlemanly deportment."
"Now, Saunders, mind and behave like a gentleman, or we shall be found out."
"I trust, my lord, my conduct--"
"What I mean is, you must not be so overpoweringly gentleman-like as you are apt to be; no gentleman is so gentleman as all that; it could not be borne, _c'est suffoquant;_ and a white handkerchief is unsoldier-like, and nobody ties a white handkerchief so well as that; of all the vices, perfection is the most intolerable." His lordship then touched with his cane the generalissimo's tie, whose countenance straightway fell, as though he had lost three successive battles.
Gatty came up.
They saluted.
"Where is your second, sir?" said the mare'chal.
"My second?" said Gatty. "Ah! I forgot to wake him--does it matter?"
"It is merely a custom," said Lord Ipsden, with a very slightly satirical manner. "Savanadero," said he, "do us the honor to measure the ground, and be everybody's second."
Savanadero measured the ground, and handed a pistol to each combatant, and struck an imposing attitude apart.
"Are you ready, gentlemen?" said this Jack-o'-both-sides.
"Yes!" said both.
Just as the signal was about to be given, an interruption occurred. "I beg your pardon, sir," said Lord Ipsden to his antagonist; "I am going to take a _liberty--a great liberty_ with you, but I think you will find your pistol is only at half cock."
"Thank you, my lord; what am I to do with the thing?"
"Draw back the cock so, and be ready to fire?"
"So?" _Bang!_
He had touched the trigger as well as the cock, so off went the barker; and after a considerable pause the field-marshal sprang yelling into the air.
"Hallo!" cried Mr. Gatty.
"Ah! oh! I'm a dead man," whined the general.
"Nonsense!" said Ipsden, after a moment of anxiety. "Give yourself no concern, sir," said he, soothingly, to his antagonist--"a mere accident.
Mare'chal, reload Mr. Gatty's pistol."
"Excuse me, my lord--"
"Load his pistol directly," said his lordship, sternly; "and behave like a gentleman."
"My lord! my lord! but where shall I stand to be safe?"
"Behind me!"
The commander of division advanced reluctantly for Gatty's pistol.
"No, my lord!" said Gatty, "it is plain I am not a fit antagonist; I shall but expose myself--and my mother has separated us; I have lost her--if you do not win her some worse man may; but, oh! if you are a man, use her tenderly."
"Whom?"
"Christie Johnstone! Oh, sir, do not make her regret me too much! She was my treasure, my consolation--she was to be my wife, she would have cheered the road of life--it is a desert now. I loved her--I--I--"
Here the poor fellow choked.
Lord Ipsden turned round, and threw his pistol to Saunders, saying, "Catch that, Saunders."
Saunders, on the contrary, by a single motion changed his person from a vertical straight line to a horizontal line exactly parallel with the earth's surface, and the weapon sang innoxious over him.
His lordship then, with a noble defiance of etiquette, walked up to his antagonist and gave him his hand, with a motion no one could resist; for he felt for the poor fellow.
"It is all a mistake," said he. "There is no sentiment between La Johnstone and me but mutual esteem. I will explain the whole thing. _I_ admire _her_ for her virtue, her wit, her innocence, her goodness and all that sort of thing; and _she,_ what _she_ sees in _me,_ I am sure I don't know," added he, slightly shrugging his aristocratic shoulders. "Do me the honor to breakfast with me at Newhaven."
"I have ordered twelve sorts of fish at the 'Peacock,' my lord," said Saunders.
