University of Virginia Library

18. CHAPTER XVIII.

“I know that this is unavoidable. I know not well,
my son, how you could have acted otherwise than you
did,—and yet the whole affair is very shocking.”

Thus began the elder Calvert to the younger, when
they again found themselves alone together.

“It is; but crime is shocking; and death is shocking;
and a thousand events that, nevertheless, occur hourly in
life. Our best philosophy, when they seem unavoidable,
is to prepare for them as resolutely as we prepare for
death.”

“It may be death, my son,” said the other with a
shudder.

“And if it were, sir, I should gladly meet death that I
might have the power of avenging. Oh God! when I
think of her—so beautiful, so proud, so bright—so dear
to me then—so dear to me, even now,—I feel how worthless
to me are the triumphs,—how little worth is life
itself!”

And a passionate flood of tears concluded the words of
the speaker.

“Give not way thus, my son. Be a man.”

“Am I not? God! what have I not endured? What
have I not overcome? Will you not suffer a moment's
weakness—not even when I think of her. Oh, Margaret,
but for this serpent in our Eden what might we not have
been. How might we have loved—how happy might
have passed these days which are now toil and hopelessness
to me; which are shame and desolation to you! But
for this serpent we had both been happy.”

“No, my son! that would have been impossible. But
the speculation is useless now!”

“Worse than useless!”

“Why brood upon it then?”

“For that very reason; as one broods over his loss,
who does not value his gain. It is thus I think of her,—
and cease to think of these successes. What are they to

me? Nothing! ah! what might they not have been had
she been mine? Oh! my father,—I think of her—her
beauty—her genius,—as of some fallen angel. I look
upon this wretch as I should regard the fiend. The hoof
is wanting, it is true, but the mark of the beast is in his
face. It can surely be no crime to slay such a wretch,—
murder it cannot be!”

“You think not of yourself, William.”

“Yes!—he may kill me; but thinking of her, the
fallen,—and of him the beguiler,—I have no fear of death
—I know not that I have a love of life—I think only of
the chance accorded me of avenging the cruel overthrow.”

The re-entrance of Mr. Barnabas, interrupted the dialogue.
He came to make the necessary arrangements.

“Very awkward business, Mr. Calvert—too late now
for adjustment. May I have the pleasure of knowing the
name of your friend.”

Calvert named Major Hawick, a young gentleman of
his party; but the old man interfered—

“I will act for you, William.”

“You!” said the young man.

“You, old gentleman!” exclaimed Mr. Barnabas.

“Yes,” replied old Calvert, with spirit, “shall I be
more reluctant than you to serve my friend. This, sir,
is my son by adoption. I love him as if he were my own.
I love him better than life. Shall I leave him at the very
time when life is perilled. No! no! I am sorry for this
affair, but will stand by him to the last. Let us discuss
the arrangements.”

“You've seen service before, old gentleman,” said Barnabas,
looking the eulogium which he did not express.

“I, too, have been young,” said the other.

“True blue, still,” said Barnabas; “and though I'm
sorry for the affair, yet, it gives me pleasure to deal with
a gentleman of the right spirit. I trust that your son is
a shot.”

“He has nerve and eye!”

“Good things enough—very necessary things, but a
spice of practice does no harm. Now, Sharpe has a
knack with a pistol that makes it curious to see him, if
you be only a looker on.”

“Let me stop you, young gentleman,” said old Calvert;
“when I was a young man, such a remark would have
been held an impertinence.”

“Egad!” said Barnabas, “you have me! Are we
agreed then? Shall it be pistols?”

“Yes—at sunrise to-morrow.”

“Good!”

“Distance when we meet.”

The place of meeting was soon agreed on, and the
parties separated; Barnabas taking his leave by complimenting
the “old gentleman,” as a “first-rate man of
business.”

“Of course,” said he, after he had reported to Sharpe
the progress of the arrangements; “of course you were
the said Stevens. I saw that the fellow's story was true
at the first jump. It was so like you.”

“How if I deny it?”

“I shouldn't believe you. 'Twas too natural. Besides,
Whisker-Ben blew you long ago, though he could not tell
the girl's name. Where's she now—what's become of
her?”

“That's the mystery I should give something handsome
to find out; but you may guess, from the spirit this
fellow has shown, that it wouldn't do for me to go back
to Charlemont. She was a splendid woman!”

“Was she though? I reckon this fellow loved her. He
must have done so. He looked all he said.”

“He did! The wonder is equally great in his case.
He was a sort of half-witted rustic in Charlemont—Margaret
despised him;—he wanted to fight me before, on
her account, and we were within an ace of it. His name
was Hinkley—to think that I should meet in him the now
famous Calvert. Look you, Barnabas! the pistol is a
way we had not thought of for laying our orator on his
back.”

“Will you do it?”

“I must! He leaves me no alternative. He will keep
no terms—no counsel. If he goes on to blab this business—nay,
he can prove it, you see—he will play the
devil with my chances.”

“Wing him!—That will be enough. The fellow has
pluck; and for the sake of that brave old cock, his father,
I'd like him to get off with breath enough to carry him
father.”

“No, d—n him, let him pay the penalty of his impertinence!
Who made him the champion of Margaret

Cooper? Were he her husband now—nay, had she
even tolerated him, I think I should have let him off with
some moderate hurt; but I owe him a grudge. You have
not heard all, Barnabas!”—the tone of the speaker was
lowered here, and a deep crimson flush suffused his face
as he concluded the sentence—“He struck me, Barnabas
—he laid a cowskin over my back!”

“The d—l he did!”

“He did—I must remember that!”

“So you must! So you must!”

“I will kill him, Barnabas! I am resolved on it! I feel
the sting of that cowskin even now?”

“So you must, but somehow, d—n the fellow, I'd like
to get him off.”

“Pshaw! you are getting old. Certainly you are getting
blind. We have a thousand reasons for not letting
him off. He's in our way—he's a giant among the opposition—the
crack man they have set up against me.
Even if I had not these personal causes of provocation
do you not see how politic it would be to put him out of
the field. It's he or me. If Desha succeeds, I am attorney-general;
if Tompkins, Calvert! No! no! The more I
think of it, the more necessary it becomes to kill him.”

“But, what if he shoots?”

“That he does not—he did not at least. You must,
at all events, secure me my distance. I suppose you will
have little difficulty in this respect. The old man will
scarcely know any thing about these matters.”

“You're mistaken—he talks as if he had been at it all
his life. I reckon he has fed on fire in his younger days.
The choice, of course, is his.”

“A little adroitness, Barnabas, will give us what we
want. You can insinuate twelve paces.”

“Yes, that can be done, but ten is more usual. Suppose
he adopts ten?”

“That is what I expect. He will scarcely accept your
suggestion. He will naturally suppose, from what you
say, that I practise at twelve. This will, very probably,
induce him to say ten, and then I have him on my own
terms. I shall easily bottle him at that distance.”

“And you will really commission the bullet? You
will kill him?”

“Must!”

“Sleep on that resolution first, Sharpe!”

“It will do no good. It will not change me. This
fellow was nothing to Margaret Cooper, and what right
had he to interfere? Besides,—you forget the cowskin.”

“Oh! true,—d—n that cowskin! That's the worst
part of the business.”

“Good night, Barnabas,” said Sharpe. “See that I do
not oversleep myself.”

“No fear. Good night! Good night! D—n the fellow.
Why did he use a cowskin? A hickory had not
been so bad. Now will Sharpe kill him to a dead certainty.
He's good for any button on Calvert's coat; and
there he goes, yawning as naturally as if he had to meet,
to-morrow morning, nothing worse than his hominy!”