The Gipsy: A Tale (Vols I & II). G. P. R. James

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СКАЧАТЬ the skylight over the staircase gave light enough; and Colonel Manners, descending, found a housemaid, with unbought roses on her cheeks, and blue arms, busily washing the marble hall and the steps that went out into the garden, which, stretching away to the south-west, was separated from the park in which the house stood, by a haw-haw and a light fence.

      Give me a flower-garden, in the early morning, with its dry gravel-walks shining in the fresh sunbeams, and all the thousands of flowers which man's care and God's bounty have raised to beautify our dwellings, expanding their refreshed petals to the young light. The garden into which Colonel Manners now went forth was an old-fashioned one, with manifold beds, arranged in as many mathematical figures. Each bed, fringed with its close-cut green border of box, was full of as many flowers as it would hold, and as the season afforded; and though of late many a foreign land has been ransacked to procure new exotics for our grounds, yet even then the garden was not without its rich assortment of flowering shrubs; some still bearing the blossom, some fallen into the fruit. Between the beds--and, as the gardens were of very great extent, the beds were not very close together--were spaces of soft green turf, sometimes flanked with holly, or hedged with yew, so as to make a sort of little bowling-green; sometimes wide open to the gay sunshine, and full of innumerable thrushes and blackbirds, hopping along, with their fine shanks sunk amid the blades of grass. Here and there, too, was an arbour covered with clematis; and hothouses and green-houses now and then peeped out from behind the shrubberies, on the sunny side of the garden.

      Colonel Manners took his way along a walk that flanked the enclosure to the east, and which, running by the side of the haw-haw, a little elevated above the park and surrounding country, gave, on the one side, an extensive prospect over a rich and smiling landscape, with the deer bounding over the grass, and the cattle lowing along the distant upland; and, on the other, showed the garden--somewhat formal, perhaps, but neat, and beautiful, and sparkling. He was a soldier, and a man of the world, and he loved books, and he did not dislike society; but, perhaps, there never was a man upon earth who more thoroughly enjoyed a solitary morning walk amid flowers and beautiful scenery--scenery in which one can pause and fill one's eye with fair sights, while the ideas springing from each particular blossom, or from the whole general view, can ramble out into a world of indistinct loveliness, wherein one can scarcely be said to think, but rather to live in a sensation of happiness which approaches near to heaven.

      Although, as we have observed, one can scarcely be said to think, yet there is no situation on the earth--or very few--in which a man so little likes to have his thoughts interrupted, and his fine imaginations forcibly called back to the dull ground. Colonel Manners, therefore, was not very well pleased, when, after following the walk which he had chosen to the end, he heard footsteps beyond the bushes, round which the path now swept.

      Had these footsteps, indeed, possessed that light peculiar sound which is produced by a small and pretty foot, Colonel Manners, who never objected to see the beautiful things of nature enhanced by the presence of the most beautiful, might not have thought his reveries unworthily disturbed. In the present instance, however, the sound was very different: it was the dull, heavy, determined step of a foot that takes a firm hold of the ground; and, as he went on, he was not surprised to meet with Lord Dewry at the turning of the walk.

      Colonel Manners, if he had not forgot all about their discussion of the preceding evening, had remembered it as little as possible; and, being one of those happy men who never suffer any annoyance of such a nature to rankle at the heart, he had settled the matter in his own mind by thinking that the old gentleman had the toothache, or some of those corporal pangs and infirmities which cause and excuse ill-temper, and sometimes even rudeness, at that period of life when the passing away of those mighty blessings, vigour and health, is in itself matter enough for irritation. As, however, he never liked to subject himself to occasions for commanding his temper, he proposed, in the present instance, merely to give the peer "Good-morning," and pass on upon his walk.

      This purpose he was not permitted to execute; as no sooner did Lord Dewry come opposite to him, than he stopped abruptly, and answered Colonel Manners's salutation by a cold and haughty bow. "Colonel Manners," he said, "I saw you come into the garden from the windows of my room, and I have done myself the honour of seeking you."

      The peer spoke slowly and calmly; but Manners, who doubted not that his intention was to apologize, was both somewhat surprised that so proud a man should do so at all, and likewise somewhat puzzled by a sneering curl of the nostril and a slight twinkling of the eyelid, which seemed to betray a spirit not quite so tranquil as his tone would have indicated. "Your lordship does me honour," he replied; "what are your commands?"

      "Simply as follows, Colonel Manners," replied Lord Dewry: "I think you last night made use of the term calumny, as applied to part of my discourse; and as I am not in the habit of being insulted without taking measures to redress myself, I have followed you hither for the purpose of arranging the necessary result."

      Colonel Manners felt inclined to smile, but he refrained, and replied, seriously, "My lord, I wish to heaven you would forget this business. You thought fit to apply the strongest terms of injury to a gentleman for whom I had expressed my friendship and gratitude; and I pronounced such terms to be calumnious in regard to my friend, but expressed, at the same time, my belief that we were speaking of different persons. For Heaven's sake, let the matter rest where it does: I meant no personal insult to you; I trust you meant none to me. I came down here the friend of your son, on a joyful occasion, and it would pain me not a little to go away the enemy of his father."

      The lip of Lord Dewry curled with a bitter and galling sneer. "Colonel Manners," he said, "I believe that you wear a sword."

      "I do, sir," replied Manners, reddening; "but I should be unworthy to wear one, did I draw it against a man old enough to be my father."

      Lord Dewry, too, reddened. "If, as I perceive, sir," he said, "you intend to make my age your protection, I trust you have calculated the consequences to your reputation, and will understand the light in which I view you. When I am willing, sir, to waive all respect of age, I do not see what you have to do with it."

      "Much, my lord," answered Colonel Manners; "much have my own conscience and my own honour to do with it."

      "Do not let an officer who is refusing to fight talk of honour, sir," replied Lord Dewry.

      "You cannot provoke me to forget myself, Lord Dewry," answered the other; "I hold all duelling in abhorrence, and as any thing but a proof of courage but when the encounter is to be between a young and active man, and one of your lordship's age and probable habits, it is murder outright. Your lordship will excuse me for saying that I think the business a very foolish one, and that I must insist upon its being dropped."

      "I shall drop it as far as regards the endeavour to make a man fight who is not disposed to do so," replied Lord Dewry, with an angry and disappointed, rather than a contemptuous, smile, for which he intended it to be; "but, as a matter of course, I shall make generally known the fact that you have refused to draw your sword when called upon."

      Colonel Manners laughed. "My lord," he answered, "I have drawn it in eleven different battles in his majesty's service; I have been wounded nine times, and I am quite satisfied with a certain degree of reputation obtained in these affairs, without seeking to increase it by the encounter to which your lordship would provoke me."

      Lord Dewry stood and gazed at him for a moment or two with a heavy lowering brow, as if contemplating how he might lash his adversary to the course he sought to bring him to pursue; but the calm and confident courage and cool determination of Colonel Manners foiled him even in his own thoughts; and, after glaring at him thus while one might count twenty, he exclaimed, "You shall repent it, sir! you shall repent it!"

      "I do not think it, my lord," replied Manners: "I wish you good-morning;" and he turned calmly СКАЧАТЬ