The Daltons; Or, Three Roads In Life. Volume II

Charles Lever

Charles James Lever

The Daltons; Or, Three Roads In Life. Volume II (of II)

CHAPTER I. A MORNING OF MISADVENTURES

“Well, my Lord, are we to pass the day here,” said Count Trouville, the second of the opposite party, as Norwood returned from a fruitless search of George Onslow, “or are we to understand that this is the English mode of settling such matters?”

“I am perfectly ready, Monsieur le Comte, to prove the contrary, so far as my own poor abilities extend,” said Norwood, calmly.

“But your friend has disappeared, sir. You are left alone here.”

“Which is, perhaps, the reason of your having dared to insult me,” rejoined the other; “that being, perhaps, the French custom in such affairs.”

“Come, come, gentlemen,” interposed an old cavalry officer, who acted as second friend to Guilmard, “you must both see that all discussion of this kind is irregular and unseemly. We have come here this morning for one specific purpose, – to obtain reparation for a great injury. The gentleman who should have offered us the amende has suddenly withdrawn himself. I offer no opinion on the fact that he came out accompanied by only one friend; we might, perhaps, have devised means to obviate this difficulty. For his own absence we have no remedy. I would therefore ask what you have to propose to us in this emergency?”

“A little patience, – nothing more. My friend must have lost his way; some accident or other has detained him, and I expect to see him here every instant.”

“Shall we say half an hour longer, my Lord?” rejoined the other, taking out his watch. “That will bring us to eight o’clock.”

“Which, considering that our time was named �sharp six,’” interposed Trouville, “is a very reasonable �grace.’”

“Your expression is an impertinence, Monsieur,” said Norwood, fiercely.

“And yet I don’t intend to apologize for it,” said the other, smiling.

“I �m glad of it, sir. It’s the only thing you have said to-day with either good sense or spirit.”

“Enough, quite enough, my Lord,” replied the Frenchman, gayly. “�Dans la bonne société, on ne dit jamais de trop.’ Where shall it be, and when?”

“Here, and now,” said Norwood, “if I can only find any one who will act for me.”

“Pray, my Lord, don’t go in search of him,” said Trouville, “or we shall despair of seeing you here again.”

“I will give a bail for my reappearance, sir, that you cannot doubt of,” cried Norwood, advancing towards the other with his cane elevated.

A perfect burst of horror broke from the Frenchmen at this threat, and three or four immediately threw themselves between the contending parties.

“But for this, my Lord,” said the old officer, “I should have offered you my services.”

“And I should have declined them, sir,” said Norwood, promptly. “The first peasant I meet with will suffice;” and, so saying, he hurried from the spot, his heart almost bursting with passion. With many a malediction of George – with curses deep and cutting on every one whose misconduct had served to place him in his present position – he took his way towards the high-road.

“What could have happened?” muttered he; “what confounded fit of poltroonery has seized him? a fellow that never wanted pluck in his life! Is it possible that he can have failed now? And this to occur at the very moment they are beggared! Had they been rich, as they were a few months back, I’d have made the thing pay. Ay, by Jove! I �d have �coined my blood,’ as the fellow says in the play, and written a swingeing check with red ink! And now I have had a bad quarrel, and nothing to come of it! And so to walk the high-roads in search of some one who can load a pistol.”

A stray peasant or two, jogging along to Florence, a postilion with return horses, a shabbily dressed curate, or a friar with a sack behind him, were all that he saw for miles