Uncle Silas, J. Sheridan Le Fanu [10 ebook reader .txt] 📗

him not to fight,” whispered Milly; “he’ll a no chance wi’ Dudley.”

I saw Dickon Hawkes grinning over the paling on which he leaned.

“Mr. Hawkes,” I said, drawing Milly with me toward that unpromising mediator, “pray prevent unpleasantness and go between them.”

“An’ git licked o’ both sides? Rather not, Miss, thank ye,” grinned Dickon, tranquilly.

“Who are you, sir?” demanded our romantic acquaintance, with military sternness.

“I’ll tell you who you are⁠—you’re Oakley, as stops at the Hall, that Governor wrote, overnight, not to dare show your nose inside the grounds. You’re a half-starved cappen, come down here to look for a wife, and⁠—”

Before Dudley could finish his sentence, Captain Oakley, than whose face no regimentals could possibly have been more scarlet, at that moment, struck with his switch at Dudley’s handsome features.

I don’t know how it was done⁠—by some “devilish cantrip slight.” A smack was heard, and the Captain lay on his back on the ground, with his mouth full of blood.

“How do ye like the taste o’ that?” roared Dickon, from his post of observation.

In an instant Captain Oakley was on his feet again, hatless, looking quite frantic, and striking out at Dudley, who was ducking and dipping quite coolly, and again the same horrid sound, only this time it was double, like a quick postman’s knock, and Captain Oakley was on the grass again.

“Tapped his smeller, by ⸻!” thundered Dickon, with a roar of laughter.

“Come away, Milly⁠—I’m growing ill,” said I.

“Drop it, Dudley, I tell ye; you’ll kill him,” screamed Milly.

But the devoted Captain, whose nose, and mouth, and shirtfront formed now but one great patch of blood, and who was bleeding beside over one eye, dashed at him again.

I turned away. I felt quite faint, and on the point of crying, with mere horror.

“Hammer away at his knocker,” bellowed Dickon, in a frenzy of delight.

“He’ll break it now, if it ain’t already,” cried Milly, alluding, as I afterwards understood, to the Captain’s Grecian nose.

“Brayvo, little ’un!” The Captain was considerably the taller.

Another smack, and, I suppose, Captain Oakley fell once more.

“Hooray! the dinner-service again, by ⸻,” roared Dickon. “Stick to that. Over the same ground⁠—subsoil, I say. He han’t enough yet.”

In a perfect tremor of disgust, I was making as quick a retreat as I could, and as I did, I heard Captain Oakley shriek hoarsely⁠—

“You’re a d⁠⸺ prizefighter; I can’t box you.”

“I told ye I’d lick ye to fits,” hooted Dudley.

“But you’re the son of a gentleman, and by ⸻ you shall fight me as a gentleman.”

A yell of hooting laughter from Dudley and Dickon followed this sally.

“Gi’e my love to the Colonel, and think o’ me when ye look in the glass⁠—won’t ye? An’ so you’re goin’ arter all; well, follow what’s left o’ yer nose. Ye forgot some o’ yer ivories, didn’t ye, on th’ grass?”

These and many similar jibes followed the mangled Captain in his retreat.

XII Doctor Bryerly Reappears

No one who has not experienced it can imagine the nervous disgust and horror which such a spectacle as we had been forced in part to witness leaves upon the mind of a young person of my peculiar temperament.

It affected ever after my involuntary estimate of the principal actors in it. An exhibition of such thorough inferiority, accompanied by such a shock to the feminine sense of elegance, is not forgotten by any woman. Captain Oakley had been severely beaten by a smaller man. It was pitiable, but also undignified; and Milly’s anxieties about his teeth and nose, though in a certain sense horrible, had also a painful suspicion of the absurd.

People say, on the other hand, that superior prowess, even in such barbarous contests, inspires in our sex an interest akin to admiration. I can positively say in my case it was quite the reverse. Dudley Ruthyn stood lower than ever in my estimation; for though I feared him more, it was by reason of these brutal and cold-blooded associations.

After this I lived in constant apprehension of being summoned to my uncle’s room, and being called on for an explanation of my meeting with Captain Oakley, which, notwithstanding my perfect innocence, looked suspicious, but no such inquisition resulted. Perhaps he did not suspect me; or, perhaps, he thought, not in his haste, all women are liars, and did not care to hear what I might say. I rather lean to the latter interpretation.

The exchequer just now, I suppose, by some means, was replenished, for next morning Dudley set off upon one of his fashionable excursions, as poor Milly thought them, to Wolverhampton. And the same day Dr. Bryerly arrived.

Milly and I, from my room window, saw him step from his vehicle to the courtyard.

A lean man, with sandy hair and whiskers, was in the chaise with him. Dr. Bryerly descended in the unchangeable black suit that always looked new and never fitted him.

The Doctor looked careworn, and older, I thought, by several years, than when I last saw him. He was not shown up to my uncle’s room; on the contrary, Milly, who was more actively curious than I, ascertained that our tremulous butler informed him that my uncle was not sufficiently well for an interview. Whereupon Dr. Bryerly had pencilled a note, the reply to which was a message from Uncle Silas, saying that he would be happy to see him in five minutes.

As Milly and I were conjecturing what it might mean, and before the five minutes had expired, Mary Quince entered.

“Wyat bid me tell you, Miss, your uncle wants you this minute.”

When I entered his room, Uncle Silas was seated at the table, with his desk before him. He looked up. Could anything be more dignified, suffering, and venerable?

“I sent for you, dear,” he said very gently, extending his thin, white hand, and taking mine, which he held affectionately while he spoke, “because I desire to have no secrets, and wish you thoroughly to know all that concerns your own interests while subject to my guardianship; and I am happy to think,