“By my faith, Captain MacTurk,” said the Doctor, “you speak as if you were graduated!—I have known these treacherous articles play their master many a cursed trick. The very sight of my forceps, without the least effort on my part, once cured an inveterate toothache of three days' duration, prevented the extraction of a carious molendinar, which it was the very end of their formation to achieve, and sent me home minus a guinea.—But hand me that great-coat, Captain, and we will place the instruments in ambuscade, until they are called into action in due time. I should think something will happen—Sir Bingo is a sure shot at a moorcock.”
“Cannot say,” replied MacTurk; “I have known the pistol shake many a hand that held the fowlingpiece fast enough. Yonder Tyrrel looks like a teevilish cool customer—I watched him the whole time I was delivering my errand, and I can promise you he is mettle to the backbone.”
“Well—I will have my bandages ready
“Will you not walk with us?” said Captain MacTurk, who seemed willing to keep his whole convoy together on this occasion, lest, peradventure, any of them had fled from under his patronage.
“No,” replied the Doctor, “I must first make an apology to worthy Mrs. Blower, for I had promised her my arm down to the river-side, where they are all to eat a kettle of fish.”
“By Cot! and I hope we shall make them a prettier kettle of fish than was ever seen at St. Ronan's,” said the Captain, rubbing his hands.
“Don't say
“Well, well, Doctor,” answered the Captain, “you know your own ways best; and so you are but there to give a chance of help in case of accident, all the laws of honour will be fully complied with. But it would be a foul reflection upon me, as a man of honour, if I did not take care that there should be somebody to come in thirdsman between Death and my principal.”
At the awful hour of one afternoon, there arrived upon the appointed spot Captain MacTurk, leading to the field the valorous Sir Bingo, not exactly straining like a greyhound in the slips, but rather looking moody like a butcher's bull-dog, which knows he must fight since his master bids him. Yet the Baronet showed no outward flinching or abatement of courage, excepting, that the tune of Jenny Sutton, which he had whistled without intermission since he left the Hotel, had, during the last half mile of their walk, sunk into silence; although, to look at the muscles of the mouth, projection of the lip, and vacancy of the eye, it seemed as if the notes were still passing through his mind, and that he whistled Jenny Sutton in his imagination. Mr. Winterblossom came two minutes after this happy pair, and the Doctor was equally punctual.
“Upon my soul,” said the former, “this is a mighty silly affair, Sir Bingo, and might, I think, be easily taken up, at less risk to all parties than a meeting of this kind. You should recollect, Sir Bingo, that you have much depending upon your life—you are a married man, Sir Bingo.”
Sir Bingo turned the quid in his mouth, and squirted out the juice in a most coachman-like manner.
“Mr. Winterblossom,” said the Captain, “Sir Bingo has in this matter put himself in my hands, and unless you think yourself more able to direct his course than I am, I must frankly tell you, that I will be disobliged by your interference. You may speak to your own friend as much as you please; and if you find yourself authorized to make any proposal, I shall be desirous to lend an ear to it on the part of my worthy principal, Sir Bingo. But I will be plain with you, that I do not greatly approve of settlements upon the field, though I hope I am a quiet and peaceable man. But here is our honour to be looked after in the first place; and moreover, I must insist that every proposal for accommodation shall originate with your party or yourself.”
“
“And, perhaps, may never see again,” said the Doctor, looking at his watch; “for it is ten minutes past the hour, and here is no Mr. Tyrrel.”
“Hey! what's that you say, Doctor?” said the Baronet, awakened from his apathy.
“He speaks tamned nonsense,” said the Captain, pulling out a huge, old-fashioned, turnip-shaped implement, with a blackened silver dial-plate. “It is not above three minutes after one by the true time, and I will uphold Mr. Tyrrel to be a man of his word—never saw a man take a thing more coolly.”
“Not more coolly than he takes his walk this way,” said the Doctor; “for the hour is as I tell you—remember, I am professional—have pulses to count by the second and half-second—my timepiece must go as true as the sun.”
“And I have mounted guard a thousand times by my watch,” said the Captain; “and I defy the devil to say that Hector MacTurk did not always discharge his duty to the twentieth part of the fraction of a second—it was my great grandmother, Lady Killbracklin's, and I will maintain its reputation against any timepiece that ever went upon wheels.”
“Well, then, look at your own watch, Captain,” said Winterblossom, “for time stands still with no man, and while we speak the hour advances. On my word, I think this Mr. Tyrrel intends to humbug us.”
“Hey! what's that you say?” said Sir Bingo, once more starting from his sullen reverie.
“I shall not look at my watch upon no such matter,” said the Captain; “nor will I any way be disposed to doubt your friend's honour, Mr. Winterblossom.”
“
“And how dare you, then, say that the man is my friend?” said the Captain, knitting his brows in a most formidable manner.
“Pooh! pooh! Captain,” answered Winterblossom, coolly, if not contemptuously—“keep all that for silly boys; I have lived in the world too long either to provoke quarrels, or to care about them. So, reserve your fire; it is all thrown away on such an old cock as I am. But I really wish we knew whether this fellow means to come—twenty minutes past the hour—I think it is odds that you are bilked, Sir Bingo?”
“Bilked! hey!” cried Sir Bingo; “by Gad, I always thought so—I wagered with Mowbray he was a raff—I am had, by Gad. I'll wait no longer than the half hour, by Gad, were he a field-marshal.”
“You will be directed in that matter by your friend, if you please, Sir Bingo,” said the Captain.
“D—— me if I will,” returned the Baronet—“Friend? a pretty friend, to bring me out here on such a fool's errand! I knew the fellow was a raff—but I never thought you, with all your chaff about honour, such a d——d spoon as to bring a message from a fellow who has fled the pit!”
“If you regret so much having come here to no purpose,” said the Captain, in a very lofty tone, “and if you think I have used you like a spoon, as you say, I will have no objection in life to take Mr. Tyrrel's place, and serve your occasion, my boy!”
“By ——! and if you like it, you may fire away, and welcome,” said Sir Bingo; “and I'll spin a crown for first shot, for I do not understand being brought here for nothing, d—— me!”
“And there was never man alive so ready as I am to give you something to stay your stomach,” said the irritable Highlander.
“Oh fie, gentlemen! fie, fie, fie!” exclaimed the pacific Mr. Winterblossom—“For shame, Captain—Out upon you, Sir Bingo, are you mad?—what, principal and second!—the like was never heard of—never.”
The parties were in some degree recalled to their more cool recollections by this expostulation, yet continued a short quarter-deck walk to and fro, upon parallel lines, looking at each other sullenly as they passed,