"Sir Ma.s.singberd Heath, you are under my roof, although unbidden and unwelcome," returned my host; "your tongue, therefore, is chartered, so far as I am concerned. I could not, I confess, help my countenance expressing some astonishment when you spoke of your fitness for the education of youth."

There was a pause here for which I could not account. Sir Ma.s.singberd's eyes were riveted upon something on which the firelight danced and shone. I should very much misrepresent the baronet's character, and probably even exaggerate his capabilities, if I said he blushed, but certainly his countenance changed. Then he broke out fiercely, "I live as I choose, sir, and am answerable to no man, least of all to you. The parsons had their say, and have got their reply long ago, but am I also to be arraigned by--"

"You cannot justify yourself by any quarrel with me," interrupted Mr.

Gerard. "I have, as you say, although not for the foolish reason you would mention, no right to be either your judge or accuser. But, Sir Ma.s.singberd, there is a G.o.d whom we have both good cause to fear."

"So you make your own sermons, I perceive," exclaimed the other, bitterly. "That is the reason, is it, why the good folks never see you at church? Cant amuses me always; but religion out of your mouth is humorous, indeed. Pray go on, sir, if my dear nephew can wait a little, for I should be sorry to miss him altogether. You were affirming, I think, the existence of a G.o.d."

"I was about to urge," continued Mr. Gerard, with grave severity, "since howsoever persons differ on religious matters, they generally acknowledge a common Father, that if there is one crime more hateful to Him than another, it is the deliberate debauchery of the mind of youth.

I had no intention of making any particular accusation, such as the sight of this flask seems to have suggested to you. I know nothing--but what I guess--of its history. It has only been in my hands a very few minutes. The person by whose means it came into this house was, I believe, an old gipsy woman, and you are, doubtless, well aware how it got into her possession."

Mr. Gerard paused. Sir Ma.s.singberd, who, though smiling scornfully, had been beating the ground with his foot, here observed, with a forced calmness, "She is a liar; she is a thief, and the mother of thieves."

"Did she steal this flask?" inquired Mr. Gerard, regarding the other attentively. "It has your crest upon it. She did not. Good. It was then, I suppose, only a gage d'amour of yours."

A lurid light came over Sir Ma.s.singberd's evil face; for a moment I trembled for the man who dared to speak such words to him, but almost instantly he recovered his usual cruel calm.

"Your sagacity, Mr. Gerard," returned he, "is truly admirable. Is it the result of experience or intuition? or has this old ginger-faced harridan made you her favoured confidant? With your fondness for all such vagabonds I am well acquainted."

"The reprobation of a man like you, Sir Ma.s.singberd, should be dearer than the praise of ordinary mortals; but this matter does not concern myself in any way."

The baronet muttered something between his set teeth.

"Pshaw! man," continued Mr. Gerard, with unutterable scorn; "think not to frighten me. I am stronger than you, because I am richer; you are as poor as those very vagabonds whom you despise; your very existence depends upon the alms of a stranger. That you are unscrupulous in your revenges, I do not doubt; but you would have to deal in Harvey Gerard with one who only uses honourable weapons with an honourable foe. If you did me or mine a mischief, I swear to you that I would shoot you like a dog."

The frame of the speaker shook with contemptuous pa.s.sion. Defiant as was his language, it fell far short of the disdain expressed in his tone and manner. It was not in Sir Ma.s.singberd's nature to be overawed, but his truculent features no longer maintained their grimness--their cruel humour. He could not put aside a man like Gerard with a brutal jest. I do not say that he was conscious of his own inferiority, but he knew that his opponent not only did not fear, but actually despised him. This was wormwood.

"I am ashamed," continued Mr. Gerard, after a pause, "to have lost my temper with you, Sir Ma.s.singberd, upon my own account. I wish to have nothing in common with you--not even a quarrel. We were speaking of this gipsy woman, and you called her thief, and what not. Whatever may be her faults, however, it does not become you to dwell on them; but for her and her prompt a.s.sistance, your nephew would not at this moment be alive. Out of this very flask she administered to him--" So frightful an execration here broke from the baronet's lips that I antic.i.p.ated it to be the prelude to a personal a.s.sault upon my host. Mr. Gerard, however, stood quietly stirring the fire, with his eyes fixed firmly but calmly on those of Sir Ma.s.singberd, just as a mad doctor might regard a dangerous patient.

"That is a very singular exclamation of grat.i.tude," observed Mr. Gerard, sardonically, "to one who has just performed you--or at least yours--so great a service. It really seems as though you almost regretted that it was performed."

A look of deadly hatred had now taken the place of all other expressions on the baronet's face. It forgot even to wear its sneer.

"I have been insulted enough, I think," said he, with a calmness more terrible than wrath. "Even as it is, I shall scarcely be able to requite you, though, be sure, I will do my best. But, with respect to my errand, I am come here to see my nephew, and that I will do."

"That you shall not do, Sir Ma.s.singberd, so surely as this house is mine."

"And who shall prevent me?" exclaimed the baronet, contemptuously measuring his foe from head to foot.

"Not I, sir, indeed," returned Mr. Gerard; "but I will see that my servants put you out of doors by force," and as he spoke he laid his hand upon the bell.

"Before night, then, I shall send for Marmaduke, and he shall be carried back to Fairburn, which, after all, is his proper home, and be there nursed."

"Nursed!" repeated my host, hoa.r.s.ely. "Nursed by the grave-digger, you mean."

Sir Ma.s.singberd turned livid and sat down; then, as one who acts in his sleep, he pa.s.sed his handkerchief once or twice across his forehead.

"How dare you speak such things to me?" said he, looking round about him. "To hear you talk, one would think that I had tried to murder the boy."

"I know you did," cried Mr. Gerard, solemnly, laying his finger upon the baronet's arm. "If your nephew, Marmaduke, dies, his blood is on your head."

"On mine! how on mine? How, in the name of all the devils, could I have hindered the lad's horse from running away with him?"

"I will tell you how. You might have suffered Mr. Long to purchase a horse for the boy, as he offered to do, and not have sent to London for a confirmed run-away."

"He rode it half a dozen times without any harm," replied Sir Ma.s.singberd, sullenly.

"Yes, with a curb that would have tamed a wild horse fresh from the la.s.so. But when you took that curb for the keeper's pony, riding with gun in hand for the first time in your life--and sent your nephew forth upon that devil with a snafflebridle--nay, I have it yonder, sir--don't lie; you calculated that if what you wished should happen all would be laid to chance. A change of bridles is an accident like enough to happen; lads are thrown from horseback every day. See, I track your thoughts like slime. Base ruffian! rise; begone from beneath this roof, false coward--"

Sir Ma.s.singberd started up like one stung by an adder.

"Yes, I say coward! Heavens! that this creature should still feel the touch of shame! Be off, be off; molest not any one within this house, at peril of your life--murderer--murderer!"

Without a word, without a glance of reply, Sir Ma.s.singberd seized his hat, and hurried from the room. I felt some alarm lest he should make some violent effort to visit Marmaduke; but Mr. Gerard's countenance gave me comfort. He stood quite still, listening with grim satisfaction to the baronet's retreating footsteps.

They were heard for an instant striding along the floor of the hall, and then were exchanged for the sound of his horse's hoofs urged to speed along the carriage-drive. Sir Ma.s.singberd Heath had met for once with his match--and more.

CHAPTER IX.

MR. HARVEY GERARD.

So entirely engrossed had I been with the action and dialogue of the speakers in the preceding scene, that it scarcely struck me while it was going on that I had not paid for my place in the pit in the usual fashion, but was a mere eavesdropper under an orange-tree.

So soon as Sir Ma.s.singberd was really gone, however, I became conscious of the impropriety of my situation, and not wishing to own what I had done, I stole noiselessly out into the garden, and then re-entered the conservatory, and thereby the drawing-room, as though I had been out of sight and hearing all the time. It was not quite a chivalrous act; but I do not think that the boys of my time, myself included, were quite so honourable and frank as Mr. Tom Brown describes those of the present day to be. There was something, moreover, about Mr. Harvey Gerard which told me he would have loathed a listener, nor would have been very ready to have accepted fear as any excuse for my conduct. He was a man of n.o.ble bearing, nearly six feet in height, and extremely well formed. He was dressed in a blue lapelled coat, light waistcoat and kerseys, and Hessian boots. These last I had not seen before upon any person, and I remember them well. I think they were the most graceful covering for the leg that has yet been devised, although, I own, they may not have been so convenient as the modern knickerbockers. He wore his own grey hair--which was not very usual with persons of his rank of life--and rather long. His features were large, but handsome; and there was a kind of youthful blandness about them which gave his face a most agreeable expression in ordinary. When excited by pa.s.sion, however, as I had lately seen him, his appearance greatly changed. His thin lips parted contemptuously, and showed his threatening teeth, while his blue eyes, gentle almost to dreaminess, became blood-streaked, and almost started from their sockets. As I now beheld him calmly kindling a lamp on the drawing-room table, no one could have been a greater contrast than himself to the man who had just driven Sir Ma.s.singberd Heath from the room with such a hail-storm of invective.

"Well, young gentleman," exclaimed he, cheerfully, "the enemy is repulsed, you see, although, I confess, your friend the baronet is rather a formidable fellow. He's uncommonly like Front de Boeuf. I daresay you have read the new romance of 'Ivanhoe,' have you not?"

"Marmaduke has, sir, I believe," replied I; "but I am sorry to say I am no great reader."

"That is not well, Mr. Meredith; youth is the time for reading. A knowledge of books, if they are sufficiently varied, is half-way towards the knowledge of men. It is true that a student may turn out a fool, because he may have been a book-worm; but the probability is greater of that misfortune befalling one who has been 'no great reader.' I would not say so much, if you were older than you are, and had not plenty of time before you to redeem the past. There is nothing more contemptible than ignorance; save, perhaps"--here he sighed--"than knowledge misapplied. What a dangerous villain would that man be, for instance, who has just been here, had his natural powers been cultivated by study.

As it is, he rushes headlong, like the bull." Here he turned upon me gaily. "Did he ever toss you, my young friend?"

"Well, sir," returned I, remembering that interview in the churchyard, "he bellowed at me once a little."

"Did he, my boy, did he?--the cowardly brute! Well, I've put a ring through his nose for a considerable time to come, I flatter myself. I like a bull-fight. I think I should have made a capital matador,"

cried Mr. Gerard, rubbing his hands and laughing.

"How did you--how did you manage to ring him, sir?" inquired I, with hesitation, for I was curious to see whether Mr. Gerard would make me a confidant of what had pa.s.sed.

"Oh, I watched him carefully--never took my eyes off him for a moment.

When he was calm in his white malice, then I irritated him by waving my red flag--this silver-headed brandy-flask put him in a horrible rage.

When he made his rushes, I stood aside, and let him go where he would.

When he had exhausted himself, I stepped in, and gave him the steel. I wonder," soliloquized Mr. Gerard, aloud, as he slowly paced up and down the room--"I wonder if it would be safe to give him the coup de grace!"

"But," said I, "were you not afraid--"