Dr Thorne

CHAPTER XXI

MR MOF­FAT FALLS IN­TO TROU­BLE

We will now, with the read­er’s kind per­mis­sion, skip over some months in our nar­ra­tive. Frank re­turned from Cour­cy Cas­tle to Gre­shams­bury, and hav­ing com­mu­ni­cat­ed to his moth­er–much in the same man­ner as he had to the count­ess–the fact that his mis­sion had been un­suc­cess­ful, he went up af­ter a day or two to Cam­bridge. Dur­ing his short stay at Gre­shams­bury he did not even catch a glimpse of Mary. He asked for her, of course, and was told that it was not like­ly that she would be at the house just at present. He called at the doc­tor’s, but she was de­nied to him there; ’she was out,’ Janet said,–’prob­ably with Miss Oriel.’ He went to the par­son­age and found Miss Oriel at home; but Mary had not been seen that morn­ing. He then re­turned to the house; and, hav­ing come to the con­clu­sion that she had not thus van­ished in­to air, oth­er­wise than by pre­con­cert­ed ar­range­ment, he bold­ly taxed Beat­rice on the sub­ject.

Beat­rice looked very de­mure; de­clared that no one in the house had quar­relled with Mary; con­fessed that it had been thought pru­dent that she should for a while stay away from Gre­shams­bury; and, of course, end­ed by telling her broth­er ev­ery­thing, in­clud­ing all the scenes that had passed be­tween Mary and her­self.

‘It is out of the ques­tion your think­ing of mar­ry­ing her, Frank,’ said she. ‘You must know that no­body feels it more strong­ly than poor Mary her­self;’ and Beat­rice looked the very per­son­ifi­ca­tion of do­mes­tic pru­dence.

‘I know noth­ing of the kind,’ said he, with the head­long im­per­ative air that was usu­al with him in dis­cussing mat­ters with his sis­ters. ‘I know noth­ing of the kind. Of course I can­not say what Mary’s feel­ings may be: a pret­ty life she must have had of it among you. But you may be sure of this, Beat­rice, and so may my moth­er, that noth­ing on earth shall make me give her up–noth­ing.’ And Frank, as he made this protes­ta­tion, strength­ened his own res­olu­tion by think­ing of all the coun­sel that Miss Dun­sta­ble had giv­en him.

The broth­er and sis­ter could hard­ly agree, as Beat­rice was dead against the match. Not that she would not have liked Mary Thorne for a sis­ter-​in-​law, but that she shared to a cer­tain de­gree the feel­ing which was now com­mon to all the Gre­shams–that Frank must mar­ry mon­ey. It seemed, at any rate, to be im­per­ative that he should ei­ther do that or not mar­ry at all. Poor Beat­rice was not very mer­ce­nary in her views: she had no wish to sac­ri­fice her broth­er to any Miss Dun­sta­ble; but yet she felt, as they all felt–Mary Thorne in­clud­ed–that such as a match as that, of the young heir with the doc­tor’s niece, was not to be thought of;–not to be spo­ken of as a thing that was in any way pos­si­ble. There­fore, Beat­rice, though she was Mary’s great friend, though she was her broth­er’s favourite sis­ter, could give Frank no en­cour­age­ment. Poor Frank! cir­cum­stances had made but one bride pos­si­ble to him: he must mar­ry mon­ey.

His moth­er said noth­ing to him on the sub­ject: when she learnt that the af­fair with Miss Dun­sta­ble was not to come off, she mere­ly re­marked that it would per­haps be best for him to re­turn to Cam­bridge as soon as pos­si­ble. Had she spo­ken her mind out, she would prob­ably have al­so ad­vised him to re­main there as long as pos­si­ble. The count­ess had not omit­ted to write to her when Frank had left Cour­cy Cas­tle; and the count­ess’s let­ter cer­tain­ly made the anx­ious moth­er think that her son’s ed­uca­tion had hard­ly yet been com­plet­ed. With this sec­ondary ob­ject, but with that of keep­ing him out of the way of Mary Thorne in the first place, La­dy Ara­bel­la was now quite sat­is­fied that her son should en­joy such ad­van­tages as an ed­uca­tion com­plet­ed at the uni­ver­si­ty might give him.

With his fa­ther Frank had a long con­ver­sa­tion; but, alas! the gist of his fa­ther’s con­ver­sa­tion was this, that it be­hoved him, Frank, to mar­ry mon­ey. The fa­ther, how­ev­er, did not put it to him in the cold, cal­lous way in which his la­dy-​aunt had done, and his la­dy-​moth­er. He did not bid him go and sell him­self to the first fe­male he could find pos­sessed of wealth. It was with in­ward self-​re­proach­es, and true grief of spir­it, that the fa­ther told the son that it was not pos­si­ble for him to do as those who may do who are born re­al­ly rich, or re­al­ly poor.

‘If you mar­ry a girl with­out a for­tune, Frank, how are you to live?’ the fa­ther asked, af­ter hav­ing con­fessed how deep he him­self had in­jured his own heir.

‘I don’t care about mon­ey, sir,’ said Frank. ‘I shall be just as hap­py if Box­all Hill had nev­er been sold. I don’t care a straw about that sort of thing.’

‘Ah! my boy; but you will care: you will soon find that you do care.’

‘Let me go in­to some pro­fes­sion. Let me go to the Bar. I am sure I could earn my own liv­ing. Earn it! of course I could, why not I as well as oth­ers? I should like of all things to be a bar­ris­ter.’

There was much more of the same kind, in which Frank said all that he could think of to lessen his fa­ther’s re­grets. In their con­ver­sa­tion not a word was spo­ken about Mary Thorne. Frank was not aware whether or no his fa­ther had been told of the great fam­ily dan­ger which was dread­ed in that quar­ter. That he had been told, we may sur­mise, as La­dy Ara­bel­la was not wont to con­fine the fam­ily dan­gers to her own bo­som. More­over, Mary’s pres­ence had, of course, been missed. The truth was, that the squire had been told, with great bit­ter­ness, of what had come to pass, and all the evil had been laid at his door. He it had been who hand en­cour­aged Mary to be re­gard­ed al­most as a daugh­ter of the house of Gre­shams­bury: he it was who taught that odi­ous doc­tor–odi­ous on all but his ap­ti­tude for good doc­tor­ing–to think him­self a fit match for the aris­toc­ra­cy of the coun­ty. It had been his fault, this great ne­ces­si­ty that Frank should mar­ry mon­ey; and now it was his fault that Frank was ab­so­lute­ly talk­ing of mar­ry­ing a pau­per.

By no means in qui­es­cence did the squire hear these charges brought against him. The La­dy Ara­bel­la, in each at­tack, got quite as much as she gave, and, at last, was driv­en to re­treat in a state of headache, which she de­clared to be chron­ic; and which, so she as­sured her daugh­ter Au­gus­ta, must pre­vent her from hav­ing any more length­ened con­ver­sa­tions with her lord–at any rate for the next three months. But though the squire may be said to have come off on the whole as the vic­tor in these com­bats, they did not per­haps have, on that ac­count, the less ef­fect up­on him. He knew it was true that he had done much to­wards ru­in­ing his son; and he al­so could think of no oth­er rem­edy than mat­ri­mo­ny. It was Frank’s doom, pro­nounced even by the voice of his fa­ther, that he must mar­ry mon­ey.

And so, Frank went off again to Cam­bridge, feel­ing him­self, as he went, to be a much less­er man in Gre­shams­bury es­ti­ma­tion than he had been some two months ear­li­er, when his birth­day had been cel­ebrat­ed. Once dur­ing his short stay at Gre­shams­bury he had seen the doc­tor; but the meet­ing had been any­thing but pleas­ant. He had been afraid to ask af­ter Mary; and the doc­tor had been too dif­fi­dent of him­self to speak of her. They had met ca­su­al­ly on the road, and, though each in his heart loved the oth­er, the meet­ing had been any­thing but pleas­ant.

And so Frank went to Cam­bridge; and, as he did so, he stout­ly re­solved that noth­ing should make him un­true to Mary Thorne. ‘Beat­rice,’ said he, on the morn­ing he went away, when she came in­to his room to su­per­in­tend his pack­ing–’Beat­rice, if she ev­er talks about me–’

‘Oh, Frank, my dar­ling Frank, don’t think of it–it is mad­ness; she knows it is mad­ness.’

‘Nev­er mind; if she ev­er talks about me, tell her that the last word I said was, that I would nev­er for­get her. She can do as she likes.’

Beat­rice made no promise, nev­er hint­ed that she would give the mes­sage; but it may be tak­en for grant­ed that she had not been long in com­pa­ny with Mary Thorne be­fore she did give it.

And then there were oth­er trou­bles at Gre­shams­bury. It had been de­cid­ed that Au­gus­ta’s mar­riage was to take place in Septem­ber; but Mr Mof­fat had, un­for­tu­nate­ly, been obliged to post­pone the hap­py day. He him­self had told Au­gus­ta–not, of course, with­out protes­ta­tions as to his re­gret–and had writ­ten to this ef­fect to Mr Gre­sham, ‘Elec­tion­eer­ing mat­ters, and oth­er trou­bles had,’ he said, ‘made this pe­cu­liar­ly painful post­pone­ment ab­so­lute­ly nec­es­sary.’

Au­gus­ta seemed to bear her mis­for­tune with more equa­nim­ity than is, we be­lieve, usu­al with young ladies un­der such cir­cum­stances. She spoke of it to her moth­er in a very mat­ter-​of-​fact way, and seemed al­most con­tent­ed at the idea of re­main­ing at Gre­shams­bury till Febru­ary; which was the time now named for the mar­riage. But La­dy Ara­bel­la was not equal­ly well sat­is­fied, nor was the squire.

‘I half be­lieve that fel­low is not hon­est,’ he had once said out loud be­fore Frank, and this set Frank a-​think­ing of what dis­hon­esty in the mat­ter it was prob­able that Mr Mof­fat might be guilty, and what would be the fit­ting pun­ish­ment for such a crime. Nor did he think on the sub­ject in vain; es­pe­cial­ly af­ter a con­fer­ence on the mat­ter which he had with his friend Har­ry Bak­er. This con­fer­ence took place dur­ing the Christ­mas va­ca­tion.

It should be men­tioned, that the time spent by Frank at Cour­cy Cas­tle had not done much to as­sist him in his views as to an ear­ly de­gree, and that it had at last been set­tled that he should stay up at Cam­bridge an­oth­er year. When he came home at Christ­mas he found that the house was not pe­cu­liar­ly live­ly. Mary was ab­sent on a vis­it with Miss Oriel. Both these young ladies were stay­ing with Miss Oriel’s aunt, in the neigh­bour­hood of Lon­don; and Frank soon learnt that there was no chance that ei­ther of them would be home be­fore his re­turn. No mes­sage had been left for him by Mary–none at least had been left with Beat­rice; and he be­gan in his heart to ac­cuse her of cold­ness and per­fidy;–not, cer­tain­ly, with much jus­tice, see­ing that she had nev­er giv­en him the slight­est en­cour­age­ment.

The ab­sence of Pa­tience Oriel added to the dull­ness of the place. It was cer­tain­ly hard up­on Frank that all the at­trac­tion of the vil­lage should be re­moved to make way and pre­pare for his re­turn–hard­er, per­haps, on them; for, to tell the truth, Miss Oriel’s vis­it had been en­tire­ly planned to en­able her to give Mary a com­fort­able way of leav­ing Gre­shams­bury dur­ing the time that Frank should re­main at home. Frank thought him­self cru­el­ly used. But what did Mr Oriel think when doomed to eat his Christ­mas pud­ding alone, be­cause the young squire would be un­rea­son­able in his love? What did the doc­tor think, as he sat soli­tary by his de­sert­ed hearth–the doc­tor, who no longer per­mit­ted him­self to en­joy the com­forts of the Gre­shams­bury din­ing-​ta­ble? Frank hint­ed and grum­bled; talked to Beat­rice of the de­ter­mined con­stan­cy of his love, and oc­ca­sion­al­ly con­soled him­self by a stray smile from some of the neigh­bour­ing belles. The black horse was made per­fect; the old grey pony was by no means dis­card­ed; and much that was sat­is­fac­to­ry was done in the sport­ing line. But still the house was dull, and Frank felt that he was the cause of its be­ing so. Of the doc­tor he saw but lit­tle: he nev­er came to Gre­shams­bury, un­less to see La­dy Ara­bel­la as doc­tor, or to be clos­et­ed with the squire. There were no spe­cial evenings with him; no an­imat­ed con­fab­ula­tions at the doc­tor’s house; no dis­cours­es be­tween them, as there was wont to be, about the mer­its of the dif­fer­ent cov­ers, and the ca­pac­ities of the dif­fer­ent hounds. These were dull days on the whole for Frank; and sad enough, we may say, for our friend the doc­tor.

In Febru­ary Frank again went back to col­lege; hav­ing set­tled with Har­ry Bak­er cer­tain af­fairs which weighed on his mind. He went back to Cam­bridge, promis­ing to be home on the twen­ti­eth of the month, so as to be present at his sis­ter’s wed­ding. A cold and chill­ing time had been named for these hyme­neal joys, but one not al­to­geth­er un­suit­ed to the feel­ings of the hap­py pair. Febru­ary is cer­tain­ly not a warm month; but with the rich it is gen­er­al­ly a cosy, com­fort­able time. Good fires, win­ter cheer, groan­ing ta­bles, and warm blan­kets, make a fic­ti­tious sum­mer, which, to some tastes, is more de­light­ful than the long days and the hot sun. And some mar­riages are es­pe­cial­ly win­ter match­es. They de­pend for their charm on the same sub­stan­tial at­trac­tions: in­stead of heart beat­ing to heart in sym­pa­thet­ic uni­son, purse chinks to purse. The rich new fur­ni­ture of the new abode is looked to in­stead of the rap­ture of a pure em­brace. The new car­riage is de­pend­ed on rather than the new heart’s com­pan­ion; and the first bright gloss, pre­pared by the up­hol­ster­er’s hands, stands in lieu of the rosy tints which young love lends to his true votaries.

Mr Mof­fat had not spent his Christ­mas at Gre­shams­bury. That eter­nal elec­tion pe­ti­tion, those eter­nal lawyers, the eter­nal care of his well-​man­aged wealth, for­bade him the en­joy­ment of any such plea­sures. He could not come to Gre­shams­bury for Christ­mas, nor yet for the fes­tiv­ities of the new year; but now and then he wrote pret­ti­ly word­ed notes, send­ing oc­ca­sion­al­ly a sil­ver-​gilt pen­cil-​case, or a small brooch, and in­formed La­dy Ara­bel­la that he looked for­ward to the twen­ti­eth of Febru­ary with great sat­is­fac­tion. But, in the mean­while, the squire be­came anx­ious, and at last went up to Lon­don; and Frank, who was at Cam­bridge, bought the heav­iest-​cut­ting whip to be found in that town, and wrote a con­fi­den­tial let­ter to Har­ry Bak­er.

Poor Mr Mof­fat! It is well known that none but the brave de­serve the fair; but thou, with­out much ex­cuse for brav­ery, had se­cured for thy­self one who, at any rate, was fair enough for thee. Would it not have been well hadst thou looked to thy­self to see what re­al brav­ery might be in thee, be­fore thou hadst pre­pared to desert this fair one thou hadst al­ready won? That last achieve­ment, one may say, did re­quire some spe­cial courage.

Poor Mr Mof­fat! It is won­der­ful that as he sat in that gig, go­ing to Gatherum Cas­tle, plan­ning how he would be off with Miss Gre­sham and af­ter­wards on with Miss Dun­sta­ble, it is won­der­ful that he should not then have cast his eye be­hind him, and looked at that stal­wart pair of shoul­ders which were so close to his own back. As he af­ter­wards pon­dered on his scheme while sip­ping the duke’s claret, it is odd that he should not have ob­served the fiery pride of pur­pose and pow­er of wrath which was so plain­ly writ­ten on that young man’s brow: or, when he ma­tured, and fin­ished, and car­ried out his pur­pose, that he did not think of that keen grasp which had al­ready squeezed his own hand with some­what too warm a vigour, even in the way of friend­ship.

Poor Mr Mof­fat! it is prob­able that he for­got to think of Frank at all as con­nect­ed with his promised bride; it is prob­able that he looked for­ward on­ly to the squire’s vi­olence and the en­mi­ty of the house of Cour­cy; and that he found from en­quiry at his heart’s puls­es, that he was man enough to meet these. Could he have guessed what a whip Frank Gre­sham would have bought at Cam­bridge–could he have di­vined what a let­ter would have been writ­ten to Har­ry Bak­er–it is prob­able, nay, we think we may say cer­tain, that Miss Gre­sham would have be­come Mrs Mof­fat.

Miss Gre­sham, how­ev­er, nev­er did be­come Mrs Mof­fat. About two days af­ter Frank’s de­par­ture for Cam­bridge–it is just pos­si­ble that Mr Mof­fat was so pru­dent as to make him­self aware of the fact–but just two days af­ter Frank’s de­par­ture, a very long, elab­orate, and clear­ly ex­plana­to­ry let­ter was re­ceived at Gre­shams­bury. Mr Mof­fat was quite sure that Miss Gre­sham and her very ex­cel­lent par­ents would do him the jus­tice to be­lieve that he was not ac­tu­at­ed, &c, &c, &c. The long and the short of this was, that Mr Mof­fat sig­ni­fied his in­ten­tion of break­ing off the match with­out of­fer­ing any in­tel­li­gi­ble rea­son.

Au­gus­ta again bore her dis­ap­point­ment well: not, in­deed, with­out sor­row and heartache, and in­ward, hid­den tears; but still well. She nei­ther raved, nor faint­ed, nor walked about by moon­light alone. She wrote no po­et­ry, and nev­er once thought of sui­cide. When, in­deed, she re­mem­bered the rosy-​tint­ed lin­ing, the un­fath­omable soft­ness of that Long-​acre car­riage, her spir­it did for one mo­ment give way; but, on the whole, she bore it as a strong-​mind­ed wom­an and a De Cour­cy should do.

But both La­dy Ara­bel­la and the squire were great­ly vexed. The for­mer had made the match, and the lat­ter, hav­ing con­sent­ed to it, had in­curred deep­er re­spon­si­bil­ities to en­able him to bring it about. The mon­ey which was to have been giv­en to Mr Mof­fat was still to the fore; but alas! how much, how much that he could ill spare, had been thrown away in bridal prepa­ra­tions! It is, more­over, an un­pleas­ant thing for a gen­tle­man to have his daugh­ter jilt­ed; per­haps pe­cu­liar­ly so to have her jilt­ed by a tai­lor’s son.

La­dy Ara­bel­la’s woe was re­al­ly piteous. It seemed to her as though cru­el fate were heap­ing mis­ery af­ter mis­ery up­on the wretched house of Gre­shams­bury. A few weeks since things were go­ing so well with her! Frank then was still all but the ac­cept­ed hus­band of al­most un­told wealth–so, at least, she was in­formed by her sis­ter-​in-​law–where­as, Au­gus­ta, was the ac­cept­ed wife of wealth, not in­deed un­told, but of di­men­sions quite suf­fi­cient­ly re­spectable to cause much joy in the telling. Where now were her gold­en hopes? Where now the splen­did fu­ture of her poor duped chil­dren? Au­gus­ta was left to pine alone; and Frank, in a still worse plight, in­sist­ed on main­tain­ing his love for a bas­tard and a pau­per.

For Frank’s af­fairs she had re­ceived some poor con­so­la­tion by lay­ing all the blame on the squire’s shoul­ders. What she had then said was now re­paid to her with in­ter­est; for not on­ly had she been the mak­er of Au­gus­ta’s match, but she had boast­ed of the deed with all a moth­er’s pride.

It was from Beat­rice that Frank had ob­tained his tid­ings. This last re­solve on the part of Mr Mof­fat had not al­to­geth­er been un­sus­pect­ed by some of the Gre­shams, though al­to­geth­er un­sus­pect­ed by the La­dy Ara­bel­la. Frank had spo­ken of it as a pos­si­bil­ity to Beat­rice, and was not quite un­pre­pared when the in­for­ma­tion reached him. He con­se­quent­ly bought his cut­ting-​whip, and wrote his con­fi­den­tial let­ter to Har­ry Bak­er.

On the fol­low­ing day Frank and Har­ry might have been seen, with their heads near­ly close to­geth­er, lean­ing over one of the ta­bles in the large break­fast-​room at the Tavi­stock Ho­tel in Covent Gar­den. The omi­nous whip, to the han­dle of which Frank had al­ready made his hand well ac­cus­tomed, was ly­ing on the ta­ble be­tween them; and ev­er and anon Har­ry Bak­er would take it up and feel its weight ap­prov­ing­ly. Oh, Mr Mof­fat! poor Mr Mof­fat! go not out in­to the fash­ion­able world to-​day; above all, go not to that club of thine in Pall Mall; but, oh! es­pe­cial­ly go not there, as is thy wont to do, at three o’clock in the af­ter­noon!

With much care did those two young gen­er­als lay their plans of at­tack. Let it not for a mo­ment be thought that it was ev­er in the minds of ei­ther of them that two men should at­tack one. But it was thought that Mr Mof­fat might be rather coy in com­ing out from his seclu­sion to meet the prof­fered hand of his once in­tend­ed broth­er-​in-​law when he should see that hand armed with a heavy whip. Bak­er, there­fore, was con­tent to act as a de­coy duck, and re­marked that he might no doubt make him­self use­ful in re­strain­ing the pub­lic mer­cy, and, prob­ably, in con­trol­ling the in­ter­fer­ence of po­lice­men.

‘It will be deuced hard if I can’t get five or six shies at him,’ said Frank, again clutch­ing his weapon al­most spas­mod­ical­ly. Oh, Mr Mof­fat! five or six shies with such a whip, and such an arm! For my­self, I would soon­er join the sec­ond Bal­acla­va gal­lop than en­counter it.

At ten min­utes be­fore four these two heroes might be seen walk­ing up Pall Mall, to­wards the — Club. Young Bak­er walked with an ea­ger dis­en­gaged air. Mr Mof­fat did not know his ap­pear­ance; he had, there­fore, no anx­iety to pass along un­no­ticed. But Frank had in some mys­te­ri­ous way drawn his hat very far over his fore­head, and had but­toned his shoot­ing-​coat up round his chin. Har­ry had rec­om­mend­ed to him a great-​coat, in or­der that he might the bet­ter con­ceal his face; but Frank had found the great-​coat was an en­cum­brance to his arm. He put it on, and when thus clothed he had tried the whip, he found that he cut the air with much less po­ten­cy than in the lighter gar­ment. He con­tent­ed him­self, there­fore, with look­ing down on the pave­ment as he walked along, let­ting the long point of the whip stick up from his pock­et, and flat­ter­ing him­self that even Mr Mof­fat would not recog­nise him at the first glance. Poor Mr Mof­fat! If he had but had the chance!

And now, hav­ing ar­rived at the front of the club, the two friends for a mo­ment sep­arate: Frank re­mains stand­ing on the pave­ment, un­der the shade of the high stone area-​rail­ing, while Har­ry jaun­ti­ly skips up three steps at a time, and with a very civ­il word of in­quiry of the hall porter, sends his card to Mr Mof­fat–

‘MR HAR­RY BAK­ER’

Mr Mof­fat, nev­er hav­ing heard of such a gen­tle­man in his life, un­wit­ting­ly comes out in­to the hall, and Har­ry, with the sweet­est smile, ad­dress­es him.

Now the plan of the cam­paign had been set­tled in this wise: Bak­er was to send in­to the club for Mr Mof­fat, and in­vite that gen­tle­man down in­to the street. It was prob­able that the in­vi­ta­tion might be de­clined; and it had been cal­cu­lat­ed in such case the two gen­tle­men would re­tire for par­ley in­to the strangers’ room, which was known to be im­me­di­ate­ly op­po­site the hall door. Frank was to keep his eye on the por­tals, and if he found that Mr Mof­fat did not ap­pear as read­ily as might be de­sired, he al­so was to as­cend the steps and hur­ry in­to the strangers’ room. Then, whether he met Mr Mof­fat there or else­where, or wher­ev­er, he might meet him, he was to greet him with all the friend­ly vigour in his pow­er, while Har­ry dis­posed of the club porters.

But for­tune, who ev­er favours the brave, spe­cial­ly favoured Frank Gre­sham on this oc­ca­sion. Just as Har­ry Bak­er had put his card in­to the ser­vant’s hand, Mr Mof­fat, with his hat on, pre­pared for the street, ap­peared in the hall; Mr Bak­er ad­dressed him with his sweet­est smile, and begged the plea­sure of say­ing a word or two as they de­scend­ed in­to the street. Had not Mr Mof­fat been go­ing thith­er it would have been very im­prob­able that he should have done so at Har­ry’s in­stance. But, as it was, he mere­ly looked rather solemn at his vis­itor–it was his wont to look solemn–and con­tin­ued the de­scent of the steps.

Frank, his heart leap­ing the while, saw his prey, and re­treat­ed two steps be­hind the area-​rail­ing, the dread weapon al­ready well poised in his hand. Oh! Mr Mof­fat! Mr Mof­fat! if there be any god­dess to in­ter­fere in thy favour, let her come for­ward now with­out de­lay; let her now bear thee off on a cloud if there be one to whom thou art suf­fi­cient­ly dear! But there is no such god­dess.

Har­ry smiled bland­ly till they were well on the pave­ment, say­ing some noth­ing, and keep­ing the vic­tim’s face avert­ed from the aveng­ing an­gel; and then, when the raised hand was suf­fi­cient­ly nigh, he with­drew two steps to­wards the near­est lamp-​post. Not for him was the hon­our of the in­ter­view;–un­less, in­deed, suc­cour­ing po­lice­men might give oc­ca­sion for some gleam of glo­ry.

But suc­cour­ing po­lice­men were no more to be come by than god­dess­es. Where were ye, men, when that sav­age whip fell about the ears of the poor ex-​leg­is­la­tor? In Scot­land Yard, sit­ting doz­ing on your bench­es, or talk­ing soft noth­ings to the house­maids round the cor­ner; for ye were not walk­ing on your beats, nor stand­ing at coign of van­tage, to watch the tu­mults of the day. Had Sir Richard him­self been on the spot Frank Gre­sham would still, we may say, have had his five shies at that un­for­tu­nate one.

When Har­ry Bak­er quick­ly se­ced­ed from the way, Mr Mof­fat at once saw the fate be­fore him. His hair doubt­less stood on end, and his voice re­fused to give the loud screech with which he sought to in­voke the club. An ashy pale­ness suf­fused his cheeks, and his tot­ter­ing steps were un­able to bear him away in flight. Once, and twice, the cut­ting whip came well down across his back. Had he been wise enough to stand still and take his thrash­ing in that at­ti­tude, it would have been well for him. But men so cir­cum­stanced have nev­er such pru­dence. Af­ter two blows he made a dash at the steps, think­ing to get back in­to the club; but Har­ry, who had by no means re­clined in idle­ness against the lamp-​post, here stopped him: ‘You had bet­ter go back in­to the street,’ said Har­ry; ‘in­deed you had,’ giv­ing him a shove from off the sec­ond step.

Then of course Frank could do no oth­er than hit him any­where. When a gen­tle­man is danc­ing about with much en­er­gy it is hard­ly pos­si­ble to strike him fair­ly on his back. The blows, there­fore, came now on his legs and now on his head; and Frank un­for­tu­nate­ly got more than his five or six shies be­fore he was in­ter­rupt­ed.

The in­ter­rup­tion how­ev­er came, all too soon for Frank’s idea of jus­tice. Though there be no po­lice­man to take part in a Lon­don row, there are al­ways oth­ers ready enough to do so; am­ateur po­lice­men, who gen­er­al­ly sym­pa­thize with the wrong side, and, in nine cas­es out of ten, ex­pend their gen­er­ous en­er­gy in pro­tect­ing thieves and pick­pock­ets. When it was seen with what tremen­dous ar­dour that dread weapon fell about the ears of the poor un­de­fend­ed gen­tle­man, in­ter­fer­ence was at last, in spite of Har­ry Bak­er’s best en­deav­ours, and loud­est protes­ta­tions.

‘Do not in­ter­rupt them, sir,’ said he; ‘pray do not. It is a fam­ily af­fair, and they will nei­ther of them like it.’

In the teeth, how­ev­er, of these as­sur­ances, rude peo­ple did in­ter­fere, and af­ter some nine or ten shies Frank found him­self en­com­passed by the arms, and en­cum­bered by the weight of a very stout gen­tle­man, who hung af­fec­tion­ate­ly about his neck and shoul­ders; where­as, Mr Mof­fat was al­ready sit­ting in a state of syn­cope on the good-​na­tured knees of a fish­mon­ger’s ap­pren­tice.

Frank was thor­ough­ly out of breath: noth­ing came from his lips but half-​mut­tered ex­ple­tives and un­in­tel­li­gi­ble de­nun­ci­ations of the in­iq­ui­ty of his foe. But still he strug­gled to be at him again. We all know how dan­ger­ous is the taste of blood; now cru­el­ly it will be­come a cus­tom even with the most ten­der-​heart­ed. Frank felt that he had hard­ly fleshed his vir­gin lash: he thought, al­most with de­spair, that he had not yet at all suc­ceed­ed as be­came a man and a broth­er; his mem­ory told him of but one or two of the slight­est touch­es that had gone well home to the of­fend­er. He made a des­per­ate ef­fort to throw off that in­cubus round his neck and rush again to the com­bat.

‘Har­ry–Har­ry; don’t let him go–don’t let him go,’ he bare­ly ar­tic­ulat­ed.

‘Do you want to mur­der the man, sir; to mur­der him?’ said the stout gen­tle­man over his shoul­der, speak­ing solemn­ly in­to his very ear.

‘I don’t care,’ said Frank, strug­gling man­ful­ly but use­less­ly. ‘Let me out, I say; I don’t care–don’t let him go, Har­ry, what­ev­er you do.’

‘He has got it pret­ti­ly tidi­ly,’ said Har­ry; ‘I think that will per­haps do for the present.’

By this time there was a con­sid­er­able con­course. The club steps were crowd­ed with mem­bers; among whom there were many of Mr Mof­fat’s ac­quain­tance. Po­lice­men now flocked up, and the ques­tion arose as to what should be done with the orig­ina­tors of the af­fray. Frank and Har­ry found that they were to con­sid­er them­selves un­der a gen­tle ar­rest, and Mr Mof­fat, in a faint­ing state, was car­ried in­to the in­te­ri­or of the club.

Frank, in his in­no­cence, had in­tend­ed to have cel­ebrat­ed this lit­tle af­fair when it was over by a light repast and a bot­tle of claret with his friend, and then to have gone back to Cam­bridge by the mail train. He found, how­ev­er, that his schemes in this re­spect were frus­trat­ed. He had to get bail to at­tend at Marl­bor­ough Street po­lice-​of­fice should he be want­ed with­in the next two or three days; and was giv­en to un­der­stand that he would be un­der the eye of the po­lice, at any rate un­til Mr Mof­fat should be out of dan­ger.

‘Out of dan­ger!’ said Frank to his friend with a star­tled look. ‘Why I hard­ly got at him.’ Nev­er­the­less, they did have their slight repast, and al­so their bot­tle of claret.

On the sec­ond morn­ing af­ter this oc­cur­rence, Frank was again sit­ting in that pub­lic room at the Tavi­stock, and Har­ry was again sit­ting op­po­site to him. The whip was not now so con­spic­uous­ly pro­duced be­tween them, hav­ing been care­ful­ly packed up and put away among Frank’s oth­er trav­el­ling prop­er­ties. They were so sit­ting, rather glum, when the door swung open, and a heavy quick step was heard ad­vanc­ing to­wards them. It was the squire; whose ar­rival there had been mo­men­tar­ily ex­pect­ed.

‘Frank,’ said he–’Frank, what on earth is all this?’ and as he spoke he stretched out both hands, the right to his son and the left to his friend.

‘He has giv­en a black­guard a lick­ing, that is all,’ said Har­ry.

Frank felt that his hand was held with a pe­cu­liar­ly warm grasp; and he could not but think that his fa­ther’s face, raised though his eye­brows were–though there was on it an in­tend­ed ex­pres­sion of amaze­ment and, per­haps, re­gret–nev­er­the­less he could not but think that his fa­ther’s face looked kind­ly at him.

‘God bless my soul, my dear boy! what have you done to the man?’

‘He’s not a ha’porth the worse, sir,’ said Frank, still hold­ing his fa­ther’s hand.

‘Oh, isn’t he!’ said Har­ry, shrug­ging his shoul­ders. ‘He must be made of some very strong ar­ti­cle then.’

‘But my dear boys, I hope there’s no dan­ger. I hope there’s no dan­ger.’

‘Dan­ger!’ said Frank, who could not yet in­duce him­self to be­lieve that he had been al­lowed a fair chance with Mr Mof­fat.

‘Oh, Frank! Frank! how could you be so rash? In the mid­dle of Pall Mall, too. Well! well! well! All the wom­en down at Gre­shams­bury will have it that you have killed him.’

‘I al­most wish I had,’ said Frank.

‘Oh, Frank! Frank! But now tell me–’

And then the fa­ther sat well pleased while he heard, chiefly from Har­ry Bak­er, the full sto­ry of his son’s prowess. And then they did not sep­arate with­out an­oth­er slight repast and an­oth­er bot­tle of claret.

Mr Mof­fat re­tired to the coun­try for a while, and then went abroad; hav­ing doubt­less learnt that the pe­ti­tion was not like­ly to give him a seat for the city of Barch­ester. And this was the end of the woo­ing with Miss Gre­sham.