"That was precisely," he said, "what I thought when this"--he indicated his maimed hand--"happened to me. And I did my best to procure one."
"Did you succeed?" Payton retorted in an insolent tone.
"To some extent," the Colonel replied, in the most matter-of-fact manner. And he transferred the foil to his left hand.
"Give you four to one," Payton rejoined, "Lemoine hits you twice before you hit him once."
Colonel John had antic.i.p.ated some of the things that had happened. But he had not foreseen this. He was quick to see the use to which he might put it, and it was only for an instant that he hesitated. Then "Four to one?" he repeated.
"Five, if you like!" Payton sneered.
"If you will wager," the Colonel said slowly, "if you will wager the grey mare you were riding this morning, sir----"
Payton uttered an angry oath. "What do you mean?" he said.
"Against ten guineas," Colonel John continued carelessly, bending the foil against the floor and letting it spring to its length again, "I will make that wager."
Payton scowled at him. He was aware of the other"s interest in the mare, and suspected, at least, that he had come to town to recover her.
And caution would have had him refuse the snare. But his toadies were about him, he had long ruled the roast, to retreat went against the grain; while to suppose that the man had the least chance against Lemoine was absurd. Yet he hesitated. "What do you know about the mare?" he said coa.r.s.ely.
"I have seen her. But of course, if you are afraid to wager her, sir----"
Payton answered to the spur. "Bah! Afraid?" he cried contemptuously.
"Done, with you!"
"That is settled," the Colonel replied. "I am at your service," he continued, turning to the Maitre d"Armes. "I trust," indicating that he was going to fence with his left hand, "that this will not embarra.s.s you?"
"No! But it is interesting, by G--d, it is vare interesting," the Frenchman replied. "I have encountered _les gauchers_ before, and----"
He did not finish the sentence, but saluting, he a.s.sumed an att.i.tude a little more wary than usual. He bent his knees a trifle lower, and held his left shoulder somewhat more advanced, as compared with his right.
The foils felt one another, and "Oh, va, va!" he muttered. "I understand, the droll!"
For half a minute or so the faces of the onlookers reflected only a mild surprise, mingled with curiosity. But the fencers had done little more than feel one another"s blades, they had certainly not exchanged more than half a dozen serious pa.s.ses, before this was changed, before one face grew longer and another more intent. A man who was no fencer, and therefore no judge, spoke. A fierce oath silenced him. Another murmured an exclamation under his breath. A third stooped low with his hands on his hips that he might not lose a lunge or a parry. For Payton, his face became slowly a dull red. At length, "Ha!" cried one, drawing in his breath. And he was right. The Maitre d"Armes" b.u.t.ton, sliding under the Colonel"s blade, had touched his opponent. At once, Lemoine sprang back out of danger, the two points dropped, the two fencers stood back to take breath.
For a few seconds the Colonel"s chagrin was plain. He looked, and was, disappointed. Then he conquered the feeling, and he smiled. "I fear you are too strong for me," he said.
"Not at all," the Frenchman made answer. "Not at all! It was fortune, sare. I know not what you were with your right hand, but you are with the left vare strong, of the first force. It is certain."
Payton, an expert, had been among the earliest to discern, with as much astonishment as mortification, the Colonel"s skill. With a sudden sinking of the heart, he had foreseen the figure he would cut if Lemoine were worsted; he had endured a moment of great fear. But at this success he choked down his apprehensions, and, a sanguine man, he breathed again. One more hit, one more success on Lemoine"s part, and he had won the wager! But with all he could do he could no longer bear himself carelessly. Pallid and troubled, he watched, biting his lip; and though he longed to say something cutting, he could think of nothing. Nay, if it came to that, he could not trust his voice, and while he still faltered, seeking for a gibe and finding none, the two combatants had crossed their foils again. Their tense features, plain through the masks, as well as their wary movements, made it clear that they played for a victory of which neither was confident.
By this time the rank and file of the spectators had been reinforced by the arrival of Marsh; who, discovering a scene so unexpected, and quickly perceiving that Lemoine was doing his utmost, wondered what Payton"s thoughts were. Apart from the wager, it was clear that if Lemoine had not met his match, the Captain had; and in the future would have to mend his manners in respect to one person present. Doubtless many of those in the room, on whose toes Payton had often trodden, had the same idea, and felt secret joy, pleased that the bully of the regiment was like to meet with a reverse and a master.
Whatever their thoughts, a quick rally diverted them, and riveted all eyes on the fencers. For a moment thrust and parry followed one another so rapidly that the untrained gaze could not distinguish them or trace the play. The spectators held their breath, expecting a hit with each second. But the rally died away again, neither of the players had got through the other"s guard; and now they fell to it more slowly, the Colonel, a little winded, giving ground, and Lemoine pressing him.
Then, no one saw precisely how it happened, whiff-whaff, Lemoine"s weapon flew from his hand and struck the wall with a whirr and a jangle. The fencing-master wrung his wrist. "_Sacre!_" he cried, between his teeth, unable in the moment of surprise to control his chagrin.
The Colonel touched him with his b.u.t.ton for form"s sake, then stepped rapidly to the wall, picked up the foil by the blade, and courteously returned it to him. Two or three cried "Bravo," but faintly, as barely comprehending what had happened. The greater part stood silent in sheer astonishment. For Payton, he remained dumb with mortification and disgust; and if he had the grace to be thankful for anything, he was thankful that for the moment attention was diverted from him.
Lemoine, indeed, the person more immediately concerned, had only eyes for his opponent, whom he regarded with a queer mixture of approval and vexation. "You have been at Angelo"s school in Paris, sare?" he said, in the tone of one who stated a fact rather than asked a question.
"It is true," the Colonel answered, smiling. "You have guessed it."
"And learned that trick from him?"
"I did. It is of little use except to a left-handed man."
"Yet in play with one not of the first force it succeeds twice out of three times," Lemoine answered. "Twice out of three times, with the right hand. _Ma foi!_ I remember it well! I offered the master twenty guineas, Monsieur, if he would teach it me. But because"--he held out his palms pathetically--"I was right-handed, he would not."
"I am fortunate," Colonel John answered, bowing, and regarding his opponent with kind eyes, "in being able to requite your good nature. I shall be pleased to teach it you for nothing, but not now. Gentlemen,"
he continued, giving up his foil to Lemoine, and removing his mask, "gentlemen, you will bear me witness, I trust, that I have won the wager?"
Some nodded, some murmured an affirmative, others turned towards Payton, who, too deeply chagrined to speak, nodded sullenly. How willingly at that moment would he have laid the Colonel dead at his feet, and Lemoine, and the whole crew, friends and enemies! He gulped something down. "Oh, d--n you!" he said, "I give it you! Take the mare, she"s in the stable!"
At that a brother officer touched his arm, and, disregarding his gesture of impatience, drew him aside. The intervener seemed to be reminding him of something; and the Colonel, not inattentive, and indeed suspicious, caught the name "Asgill" twice repeated. But Payton was too angry to care for minor consequences, or to regard anything but how he might most quickly escape from the scene of defeat and the eyes of those who had witnessed his downfall. He shook off his adviser with a rough hand.
"What do I care?" he answered with an oath. "He must shoe his own cattle!" Then, with a poor show of hiding his spite under a cloak of insouciance, he addressed the Colonel. "The mare is yours," he said.
"You"ve won her. Much good may she do you!"
And he turned on his heel and went out of the armoury.
CHAPTER VII
BARGAINING
The melancholy which underlies the Celtic temperament finds something congenial in the shadows that at close of day fall about an old ruin.
On fine summer evenings, and sometimes when the south-wester was hurling sheets of rain from hill to hill, and the birch-trees were bending low before its blast, Flavia would seek the round tower that stood on the ledge beside the waterfall. It was as much as half a mile from the house, and the track which scaled the broken ground to its foot was rough. But from the narrow terrace before the wall the eye not only commanded the valley in all its length, but embraced above one shoulder a distant view of Brandon Mountain, and above the other a peep of the Atlantic. Thither, ever since she could remember, she had carried her dreams and her troubles; there, with the lake stretched below her, and the house a mere Noah"s ark to the eye, she had cooled her hot brow or dried her tears, dwelt on past glories, or bashfully thought upon the mysterious possibilities of that love, of that joint life, of that rosy-hued future, to which the most innocent of maidens must sometimes turn their minds.
It was perhaps because she often sought the tower at sunset, and he had noted the fact, that Luke Asgill"s steps bore him thither on an evening three days after the Colonel"s departure for Tralee. Asgill had remained at Morristown, though the girl had not hidden her distaste for his presence. But to all her remonstrances The McMurrough had replied, with his usual churlishness, that the man was there on business--did she want to recover her mare, or did she not? And she had found nothing more to say. But the most slavish observance on the guest"s part, and some improvement in her brother"s conduct--which she might have rightly attributed to Asgill"s presence--had not melted her. She, who had scarcely masked her reluctance to receive a Protestant kinsman, was not going to smile on a Protestant of Asgill"s past and reputation; on a man whose father had stood hat in hand before her grandfather, and whose wealth had been wrung from the sweat of his fellow peasants.
Be that as it might, Asgill did not find her at the tower. But he was patient; he thought that she might still come, and he waited, sitting low, with his back against the ruined wall, that she might not see him until it was too late for her to retreat. By-and-by he heard footsteps mounting the path; his face reddened, and he made as if he would rise.
Remembering himself, however, he sat down again, with such a look in his eyes as comes into a dog"s when it expects to be beaten. But the face that rose above the brow was not Flavia"s, but her brother"s. And Asgill swore.
The McMurrough understood, grinned, and threw himself on the ground beside him. "You"ll be wishing me in the devil"s bowl, I"m thinking,"
he said. "Yet, faith, I"m not so sure--if you"re not a fool. For it"s certain I am, you"ll never touch so much as the sole of her foot without me."
"I"m not denying it," the other answered sulkily.
"So it"s mighty little use your wishing me away!" The McMurrough continued, stretching himself at his ease. "You can"t get her without me; nor at all, at all, but on my terms! It would be a fine thing for you, no doubt, if you could sneak round her behind my back! Don"t I know you"d be all for old Sir Michael"s will then, and I might die in a gutter, for you! But an egg, and an egg"s fair sharing."
"Have I said it was any other?" Asgill asked gloomily.
"The old place is mine, and I"m minded to keep it."
"And if any other marries her," Asgill said quietly, "he will want her rights."