lord markham was a person of indefinite appearance, indefinite age and indefinite manners. he wore an ill-fitting wig, but he had a high reputation as a man of honour. he sat beside sir jasper on the front seat, while on the back sat tom stafford; and the curricle sped cheerily along through the up-and-down bath streets out into the country budding with green, down, down the hill, to hammer's fields by the winding avon. sir jasper's face bespoke great dissatisfaction with life at large, and with his own existence in particular. tom stafford was beginning to feel slightly bored.
"'tis an early spring," said lord markham, in the well-meant endeavour to beguile away the heavy minutes and distract his principal's mind. "'tis very mild weather for the time of year; and the lambs are forward."
"ugh!" said sir jasper.
"speak not to him of lambs," whispered stafford; "do not you see he is all for blood and thunder?"
then he added maliciously; "there is but one animal in the whole fauna that sir jasper takes an interest in at present; and that's not easy, it seems, to find in these purlieus, though we know it does haunt them: 'tis the red dear!" he chuckled, vastly delighted with the conceit.
"let us hope we shall not have rain," said lord markham; "these clouds are menacing."
"nay, they will hold up for half-an-hour. enough to serve our purpose," growled sir jasper, and tipped the horses with the lash so that they spurned the slope.
"but we shall get wet returning," pleaded the well-meaning earl, "i said so all along; 'twould have been better to have gone in a coach."
"i vow," cried sir jasper with a sudden burst of spleen, "i vow that i have it in my heart to wish that villiers' ball may speed so well that i may feel neither rain nor shine, coming home again. home again," said he with a withering smile; "blast it, a pretty home mine is!"
"and a pretty cheerful fellow you are to bring out to a merry meeting," quoth stafford from the back, "and a nice pair of fools you and the colonel be, plague on you both! and when you are shot, 'twill be a fine satisfaction to think that your wife can console herself with the owner of the red curl, eh? what are you going to fight old villiers about, i should like to know?"
"you do know," growled sir jasper, then he exploded. "you goad me, sir; do i want to fight villiers? is not this business the merest fooling; sheer waste of time when the real fellow—villain!—has eluded me?" his hold on the reins tightened, he laid on the whip, and the curricle swayed as the horses leaped and plunged.
"really," said lord markham, "i wish i had come in a coach."
and: "hold on," cried stafford, "hold on, jasper; we don't all want to leave our bones in this business."
there came a pause in the conversation. they bowled alone a more level road with the wind humming in their ears, and the rhythmic trot of the greys beating a tune. then stafford remarked vaguely:
"i have a notion there will be no duel to-day at hammer's fields, jasper, that you will be able to return with undiminished vigour to the hunt of the unknown culprit."
"how now," cried sir jasper fiercely, "have you heard from villiers? are they all rats now-a-days? verney first, then that spicer, then the colonel! no, no, the fellow was mad with me, sir; and—gad!—the offence was mine!"
"nevertheless," said stafford unmoved, "i happen to know that colonel villiers' man was sent in all haste for his physician, sir george waters, at such an unconscionable hour this morning that sir george despatched the apothecary in his stead, and the apothecary found our fire-eating colonel roaring in a fit of the most violent gout 'tis possible to imagine. so violent, indeed, that poor mr. wigginbotham was soundly beat by the colonel for not being sir george. villiers' foot is as large as a pumpkin, old foulks tells me; i had it all from foulks over a glass of water in the pump room this morning, and zooks, sir, his false teeth rattled in his head as he tried to describe to me the awful language colonel villiers was using. he's to be villiers' second, you know, but he swore 'twas impossible, rank impossible, for any man to put such a foot to the ground."
they were rounding the corner of hammer's fields as he spoke, and stafford's eyes roaming over the green expanse of grass rested upon the little group drawn up towards the entrance gate.
"unless," he went on, "the colonel comes upon crutches. no, zounds! ha, ha! jasper i will always love you, man, for the capital jokes you have provided of late. strike me ugly if the old fellow has not come—in a bath-chair!"
"really," said lord markham, "this is very irregular. i have never before been privy to a duel where one of the combatants fought in a chair. and i am not sure that i can undertake the responsibility of concluding arrangements in such circumstances."
"blasted nonsense!" said sir jasper with all his former urbanity of demeanour. he flung the reins to his man as he spoke, and clambered down from the curricle. stafford had gone before him to the gate and was now stamping from one foot to another in exquisite enjoyment of the situation.
"(ha, ha, ha!) hello! morning, colonel, sorry to see you this way! (ha, ha!) have you brought another bath-chair for our man? oh come, yes. 'twon't be fair if he do not sit in a bath-chair too! say, foulks, you wheel one chair, i'll wheel the other, and we will run them one at the other and let them fire as soon as they please. gad, what a joke!"
colonel villiers turned upon his volatile friend a countenance the colour of which presented some resemblance to a well-defined bruise on the third day; it was yellow and green with pain where it was not purple with fury.
"mr. stafford, sir, these jokes, sir, are vastly out of place. (curse this foot!) mr. foulks, have the kindness to explain.... major topham, explain to these gentlemen that i have come out to fight, sir, and that fight i will, by the living jingo!" he struck the arm of the chair in his fury, gave his suffering foot a nasty jar and burst into a howl of rage and agony.
"stap me," said stafford, "i'd as soon fight an old bear! whisper, foulks, is he going to shoot in his cage—beg pardon, i mean his chair?"
"such is his intention," said mr. foulks, grinning nervously as he spoke, and showing the set of fine bond street ivory already referred to by mr. stafford. "but it strikes me it is somewhat irregular."
"somewhat irregular?" ejaculated lord markham; "it is altogether irregular. i decline to have anything to say to it."
sir jasper remained standing, gloomily looking at the ground and driving his gold-headed malacca into the soft mud as if all his attention were directed to the making of a row of little tunnels.
"what is the difficulty, what is the difficulty?" bellowed colonel villiers. "you wheel me into position, and you mark the paces, eight paces, foulks, not a foot more, and you give me my pistol. what is the difficulty—hang me, hang you all, i say! what is the difficulty?"
"the combatants will not be equal," suggested major topham. "i told villiers that i will gladly take his place."
"no no, no!" screamed the old man turning round, and then, "oh," cried he, and screwed up his face. and then the gout had him with such fury that he gripped the arms of his chair and flung back his head, displaying a ghastly countenance.
"i remember," champed old foulks, "the dear duke of darlington insisted upon fighting basil verney (that's verney's father, you know) with his left arm in splints, but as my lord marquis of cranbroke, his grace's second, remarked to me at the time——"
"oh, spare us the marquis!" interrupted stafford brutally. "let us keep to the business on hand, if you please. the whole thing is absurd, monstrous! look here, jasper, look here, colonel, you two cannot fight to-day. how could you be equally matched even if we got another bath-chair for jasper. we cannot give him the gout, man, and 'twould be too dashed unfair. gad, colonel you would shoot too well or too ill, 'twon't do! come, come, gentlemen, let us make a good business out of a bad one. why should you fight at all? here's jasper willing to apologise. (yes you are, jasper, hold your tongue and be sensible for once; you pulled off his wig, you know. gad, it was not pretty behaviour, not at all pretty!) but then, colonel, did not he think you had cut him out with his wife, and was not that a compliment? the neatest compliment you'll ever have this side the grave! he was jealous of you, colonel; faith, i don't know another man in bath that would do you so much honour, now-a-days."
"oh, take me out of this," cried the colonel, suddenly giving way to the physical anguish that he had been struggling against so valiantly. "zounds, i will fight you all some day! take me out of this. where is that brimstone idiot, my servant? take me out of this, you devils!"
between them they wheeled his chair into the road and his screams and curses as he was lifted into the coach were terrible to hear.
"lord, if he could but call out the gout!" cried stafford. "look at him, gentlemen! ha, he has got his footman by the periwig! oh, 'tis as good as a play, he is laying it on to the fellow like a trojan! why, the poor devil has escaped, but his wig is in the colonel's hands. ha, ha, he has sent it flying out of the coach! off they go; what a voice the old boy has got, he is trumpeting like the elephant at the fair! well, jasper, what did i say? no duel to-day."
"do not make so sure of that," said sir jasper. he was moving towards the curricle as he spoke, and turned a sinister face over his shoulder to his friend.
"oh," cried the latter, and fell back upon markham, "the fellow's look would turn a churn-full of cream! no, i will not drive back with ye, thankye, sir jasper; i will walk. devil take it," said stafford, "i don't mind a little jealousy in reason myself; but if i were to drive home in that company, i'd have no appetite for dinner. come, gentlemen, 'tis a lovely day, let us walk."
so sir jasper rolled home alone, and, as his coachman observed a little later as he helped to unharness the sweating horses, "drove them cruel!"
