Mrs. Henry withdrew, as was now her custom, very early. We had set ourselves of late to pass the evening with a game of cards; another mark that our visitor was wearying mightily of the life at Durrisdeer; and we had not been long at this when my old lord slipped from his place beside the fire, and was off without a word to seek the warmth of bed. The three thus left together had neither love nor courtesy to share; not one of us would have sat up one instant to oblige another; yet from the influence of custom, and as the cards had just been dealt, we continued the form of playing out the round. I should say we were late sitters; and though my lord had departed earlier than was his custom, twelve was already gone some time upon the clock, and the servants long ago in bed. Another thing I should say, that although I never saw the Master anyway affected with liquor, he had been drinking freely, and was perhaps (although he showed it not) a trifle heated.
Anyway, he now practised one of his transitions; and so soon as the door closed behind my lord, and without the smallest change of voice, shifted from ordinary civil talk into a stream of insult.
“My dear Henry, it is yours to play,” he had been saying, and now continued: “It is a very strange thing how, even in so small a matter as a game of cards, you display your rusticity. You play, Jacob, like a bonnet-laird, or a sailor in a tavern. The same dullness, the same petty greed, cette lenteur d’hébété qui me fait rager; it is strange I should have such a brother. Even Square-toes has a certain vivacity when his stake is imperilled; but the dreariness of a game with you I positively lack language to depict.”
Mr. Henry continued to look at his cards, as though very maturely considering some play; but his mind was elsewhere.
“Dear God, will this never be done?” cries the Master. “Quel lourdaud! But why do I trouble you with French expressions, which are lost on such an ignoramus? A lourdaud, my dear brother, is as we might say a bumpkin, a clown, a clodpole: a fellow without grace, lightness, quickness; any gift of pleasing, any natural brilliancy: such a one as you shall see, when you desire, by looking in the mirror. I tell you these things for your good, I assure you; and besides, Square-toes” (looking at me and stifling a yawn), “it is one of my diversions in this very dreary spot to toast you and your master at the fire like chestnuts. I have great pleasure in your case, for I observe the nickname (rustic as it is) has always the power to make you writhe. But sometimes I have more trouble with this dear fellow here, who seems to have gone to sleep upon his cards.—Do you not see the applicability of the epithet I have just explained, dear Henry? Let me show you. For instance, with all those solid qualities which I delight to recognise in you, I never knew a woman who did not prefer me—nor, I think,” he continued, with the most silken deliberation, “I think—who did not continue to prefer me.”
Mr. Henry laid down his cards. He rose to his feet very softly, and seemed all the while like a person in deep thought. “You coward!” he said gently, as if to himself. And then, with neither hurry nor any particular violence, he struck the Master in the mouth.
The Master sprang to his feet like one transfigured; I had never seen the man so beautiful. “A blow!” he cried. “I would not take a blow from God Almighty!”
“Lower your voice,” said Mr. Henry. “Do you wish my father to interfere for you again?”
“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” I cried, and sought to come between them.
The Master caught me by the shoulder, held me at arm’s length, and still addressing his brother: “Do you know what this means?” said he.
“It was the most deliberate act of my life,” says Mr. Henry.
“I must have blood, I must have blood for this,” says the Master.
“Please God it shall be yours,” said Mr. Henry; and he went to the wall and took down a pair of swords that hung there with others, naked. These he presented to the Master by the points. “Mackellar shall see us play fair,” said Mr. Henry. “I think it very needful.”
“You need insult me no more,” said the Master, taking one of the swords at random. “I have hated you all my life.”
“My father is but newly gone to bed,” said Mr. Henry. “We must go somewhere forth of the house.”
“There is an excellent place in the long shrubbery,” said the Master.
“Gentlemen,” said I, “shame upon you both! Sons of the same mother, would you turn against the life she gave you?”
“Even so, Mackellar,” said Mr. Henry, with the same perfect quietude of manner he had shown throughout.
“It is what I will prevent,” said I.
And now here is a blot upon my life. At these words of mine the Master turned his blade against my bosom; I saw the light run along the steel; and I threw up my arms and fell to my knees before him on the floor. “No,
