The Greatest Regency Romance Novels. Maria Edgeworth

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СКАЧАТЬ sullen the whole night; and their mutual ill-humour might possibly have lasted much longer, but for an accident more material, which took off their attention, as it might have produced much worse consequences than any quarrel between themselves could be attended with. It happened in this manner.

      The brother of Miss Betsy was of a fiery disposition; and though those who were entrusted with the care of his education were not wanting in their pains to correct this propensity, which they thought would be the more unbecoming in him, as he was intended for the pulpit, yet did not their endeavours for that purpose meet with all the success they wished. Nature may be moderated, but never can be wholly changed: the seeds of wrath still remained in his soul; nor could the rudiments that had been given him be sufficient to hinder them from springing into action, when urged by any provocation. The treatment his sister had received from the gentleman-commoner, seemed to him so justifiable a one, that he thought he ought not, without great submissions on the part of the transgresser, to be prevailed upon to put up with it.

      The first step he took was to sound the young student, as to what he knew relating to the affair; who freely told him, as Miss Betsy had done, where they met the ladies, and the manner in which they went into the house; protesting, that neither himself, nor (according to the best of his belief) the gentleman-commoner, had at that time any designs in view but mere complaisance and gallantry.

      'How then, came you to separate yourselves?' cried Mr. Francis, with some earnestness. 'That also was accidental,' replied the other; 'your sister's companion telling me she liked the garden better than the room we were in, I thought I could do no less than attend her thither. I confess I did not consult whether those we left behind had any inclination to follow us or not.'

      The air with which he spoke of this part of the adventure, had something in it which did not give Mr. Francis the most favourable idea of Miss Flora's conduct; but that not much concerning him, and finding nothing wherewith he could justly reproach the student, he soon after quitted him, and went to the gentleman-commoner, having been told he might find him in his rooms.

      Had any one been witness of the manner in which these two accosted each other, they would not have been at a loss to guess what would ensue; the brother of Miss Betsy came with a mind full of resentment, and determined to repair the affront which had been offered to him in the person of a sister, who was very dear to him, by calling the other to a severe account for what he had done. The gentleman-commoner was descended of a noble family, and had an estate to support the dignity of his birth, and was too much puffed up and insolent on the smiles of fortune: he was conscious the affront he had given demanded satisfaction, and neither doubted of the errand on which Mr. Francis was come, nor wondered at it; but could not bring himself to acknowledge he had done amiss, nor think of making any excuse for his behaviour. Guilt, in a proud heart, is generally accompanied with a sullen obstinacy; for, as the poet says—

      'Forgiveness to the injur'd does belong;

       But they ne'er pardon who have done the wrong.'

      He therefore received the interrogatories Mr. Francis was beginning to make, with an air rather indignant than complying; which the other not being able to brook, such hot words arose between them as could not but occasion a challenge, which was given by Mr. Francis. The appointment to meet was the next morning at six o'clock; and the place, that very field in which the gentleman-commoner and his friend had so unluckily happened to meet the ladies in their morning's walk.

      Neither of them wanted courage, nor communicated their rendezvous to any one person, in hopes of being disappointed without danger of their honour; but each being equally animated with the ambition of humbling the arrogance of the other, both were secret as to the business, and no less punctual as to the time.

      The agreement between them was sword and pistol; which both having provided themselves with, they no sooner came within a proper distance, than they discharged at each other the first course of this fatal entertainment: that of the gentleman-commoner was so well aimed, that one of the bullets lodged in the shoulder, and the other grazing on the fleshy part of the arm of his antagonist, put him into a great deal of pain. But these wounds rather increased than diminished the fury he was possessed of: he instantly drew his sword, and ran at the other with so well-directed a force, that his weapon entered three inches deep into the right-side of the gentleman-commoner. Both of them received several other hurts, yet still both continued the fight with equal vehemence; nor would either of them, in all probability, have receded, till one or other of them had lain dead upon the place, if some countrymen, who by accident were passing that way, had not, with their clubs, beat down the swords of both, and carried the owners of them, by mere force, into the village they were going to; where they were no sooner entered, than several people who knew them, seeing them pass by in this manner, covered all over with their own blood, and guarded by a pack of rusticks, ran out to enquire what had happened; which being informed of, they took them out of the hands of these men, and provided proper apartments for them.

      By this time they were both extremely faint through the anguish of their wounds, and the great effusion of blood that had issued from them. Surgeons were immediately sent for; who, on examining their hurts, pronounced none of them to be mortal, yet such as would require some time for cure.

      Mr. Francis suffered extreme torture in having the bullet extracted from his shoulder; yet, notwithstanding that, and the weak condition he was in, he made a servant support him in his bed while he scrawled out these few lines to his sister; which, as soon as finished, were carried to her by the same person.

      'To Miss Betsy Thoughtless.

      My dear sister,

      I have endangered my life, and am now confined to my bed by the wounds I have received, in endeavouring to revenge your quarrel: do not think I tell you this by way of reproach; for, I assure you, would the circumstances of the affair have permitted it to have been concealed, you never should have known it.

      I should be glad to see you; but think it not proper that you should come to me, till I hear what is said concerning this matter. I shall send to you every day: and that you will be perfectly easy, is the earnest request of, dear Betsy, your most-affectionate brother, and humble servant,

      F. Thoughtless.'

      The young ladies were that morning at breakfast in the parlour, with the gentlewoman of the house, when the maid came running in, and told her mistress she had heard, in a shop where she had been, of a sad accident that had just happened: 'Two gentlemen,' cried she, 'of the university, have been fighting, and almost killed one another; and they say,' continued she, 'it was about a young lady that one of them attempted to ravish.'

      Miss Betsy and Miss Flora, at this intelligence, looked at each other with a good deal of confusion, already beginning to suspect who the persons were, and how deeply themselves (one of them especially) were interested in this misfortune. The gentlewoman asked her servant if she knew the names of those who fought. 'No, Madam,' answered she, 'I could not learn that as yet: but the people in the street are all talking of it; and I doubt not but I shall hear the whole story the next time I go out.'

      The good gentlewoman, little imagining how much her guests were concerned in what she spoke, could not now forbear lamenting the ungovernableness of youth; the heedless levities of the one sex, and the mad-brained passions of the other. The persons to whom she directed this discourse, would not, at another time, have given much ear to it, or perhaps have replied to it with raillery: but the occasion of it now put both of them in too serious a temper to offer any interruption; and she was still going on, inveighing against the follies and vices of the age, when Miss Betsy received the above letter from her brother, which confirmed all those alarming conjectures the maid's report raised in her mind.

      The mistress of the house perceiving the young man who brought the letter СКАЧАТЬ