The Master of Ballantrae: A Winter's Tale by Robert Louis Stevenson (most popular ebook readers txt) 📖

the power to make you writhe. But sometimes I have more trouble with this dear fellow here, who seems to have gone to sleep upon his cards. Do you not see the applicability of the epithet I have just explained, dear Henry? Let me show you. For instance, with all those solid qualities which I delight to recognise in you, I never knew a woman who did not prefer me—nor, I think,” he continued, with the most silken deliberation, “I think—who did not continue to prefer me.”

Mr. Henry laid down his cards. He rose to his feet very softly, and seemed all the while like a person in deep thought. “You coward!” he said gently, as if to himself. And then, with neither hurry nor any particular violence, he struck the Master in the mouth.

The Master sprang to his feet like one transfigured; I had never seen the man so beautiful. “A blow!” he cried. “I would not take a blow from God Almighty!”

“Lower your voice,” said Mr. Henry. “Do you wish my father to interfere for you again?”

“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” I cried, and sought to come between them.

The Master caught me by the shoulder, held me at arm’s length, and still addressing his brother: “Do you know what this means?” said he.

“It was the most deliberate act of my life,” says Mr. Henry.

“I must have blood, I must have blood for this,” says the Master.

“Please God it shall be yours,” said Mr. Henry; and he went to the wall and took down a pair of swords that hung there with others, naked. These he presented to the Master by the points. “Mackellar shall see us play fair,” said Mr. Henry. “I think it very needful.”

“You need insult me no more,” said the Master, taking one of the swords at random. “I have hated you all my life.”

“My father is but newly gone to bed,” said Mr. Henry. “We must go somewhere forth of the house.”

“There is an excellent place in the long shrubbery,” said the Master.

“Gentlemen,” said I, “shame upon you both! Sons of the same mother, would you turn against the life she gave you?”

“Even so, Mackellar,” said Mr. Henry, with the same perfect quietude of manner he had shown throughout.

“It is what I will prevent,” said I.

And now here is a blot upon my life. At these words of mine the Master turned his blade against my bosom; I saw the light run along the steel; and I threw up my arms and fell to my knees before him on the floor. “No, no,” I cried, like a baby.

“We shall have no more trouble with him,” said the Master. “It is a good thing to have a coward in the house.”

“We must have light,” said Mr. Henry, as though there had been no interruption.

“This trembler can bring a pair of candles,” said the Master.

To my shame be it said, I was still so blinded with the flashing of that bare sword that I volunteered to bring a lantern.

“We do not need a l-l-lantern,” says the Master, mocking me. “There is no breath of air. Come, get to your feet, take a pair of lights, and go before. I am close behind with this—” making. the blade glitter as he spoke.

I took up the candlesticks and went before them, steps that I would give my hand to recall; but a coward is a slave at the best; and even as I went, my teeth smote each other in my mouth. It was as he had said: there was no breath stirring; a windless stricture of frost had bound the air; and as we went forth in the shine of the candles, the blackness was like a roof over our heads. Never a word was said; there was never a sound but the creaking of our steps along the frozen path. The cold of the night fell about me like a bucket of water; I shook as I went with more than terror; but my companions, bare-headed like myself, and fresh from the warm ball, appeared not even conscious of the change.

“Here is the place,” said the Master. “Set down the candles.”

I did as he bid me, and presently the flames went up, as steady as in a chamber, in the midst of the frosted trees, and I beheld these two brothers take their places.

“The light is something in my eyes,” said the Master.

“I will give you every advantage,” replied Mr. Henry, shifting his ground, “for I think you are about to die.” He spoke rather sadly than otherwise, yet there was a ring in his voice.

“Henry Durie,” said the Master, “two words before I begin. You are a fencer, you can hold a foil; you little know what a change it makes to hold a sword! And by that I know you are to fall. But see how strong is my situation! If you fall, I shift out of this country to where my money is before me. If I fall, where are you? My father, your wife—who is in love with me, as you very well know—your child even, who prefers me to yourself:—how will these avenge me! Had you thought of that, dear Henry?” He looked at his brother with a smile; then made a fencing-room salute.

Never a word said Mr. Henry, but saluted too, and the swords rang together.

I am no judge of the play; my head, besides, was gone with cold and fear and horror; but it seems that Mr. Henry took and kept the upper hand from the engagement, crowding in upon his foe with a contained and glowing fury. Nearer and nearer he crept upon the man, till of a sudden the Master leaped back with a little sobbing oath; and I believe the movement brought the light once more against his eyes. To it they went again, on the fresh ground; but now methought closer, Mr. Henry pressing more outrageously, the Master beyond doubt with shaken confidence. For it is beyond doubt he now recognised himself for lost, and had some taste of the cold agony of fear; or he had never attempted the foul stroke. I cannot say I followed it, my untrained eye was never quick enough to seize details, but it appears he caught his brother’s blade with his left hand, a practice not permitted. Certainly Mr. Henry only saved himself by leaping on one side; as certainly the Master, lunging in the air, stumbled on his knee, and before he could move the sword was through his body.

I cried out with a stifled scream, and ran in; but the body was already fallen to the ground, where it writhed a moment like a trodden worm, and then lay motionless.

“Look at his left hand,” said Mr. Henry.

“It is all bloody,” said I.

“On the inside?” said he.

“It is cut on the inside,” said I.

“I thought so,” said he, and turned his back.

I opened the man’s clothes; the heart was quite still, it gave not a flutter.

“God forgive us, Mr. Henry!” said I. “He is dead.”

“Dead?” he repeated, a little stupidly; and then with a rising tone, “Dead? dead?” says he, and suddenly cast his bloody sword upon the ground.

“What must we do?” said I. “Be yourself, sir. It is too late now: you must be yourself.”

He turned and stared at me. “Oh, Mackellar!” says he, and put his face in his hands.

I plucked him by the coat. “For God’s sake, for all our sakes, be more courageous!” said I. “What must we do?”

He showed me his face with the same stupid stare.

“Do?” says he. And with that his eye fell on the body, and “Oh!” he cries out, with his hand to his brow, as if he had never remembered; and, turning from me, made off towards the house of Durrisdeer at a strange stumbling run.

I stood a moment mused; then it seemed to me my duty lay most plain on the side of the living; and I ran after him, leaving the candles on the frosty ground and the body lying in their light under the trees. But run as I pleased, he had the start of me, and was got into the house, and up to the hall, where I found him standing before the fire with his face once more in his hands, and as he so stood he visibly shuddered.

“Mr. Henry, Mr. Henry,” I said, “this will be the ruin of us all.”

“What is this that I have done?” cries he, and then looking upon me with a countenance that I shall never forget, “Who is to tell the old man?” he said.

The word knocked at my heart; but it was no time for weakness. I went and poured him out a glass of brandy. “Drink that,” said I, “drink it down.” I forced him to swallow it like a child; and, being still perished with the cold of the night, I followed his example.

“It has to be told, Mackellar,” said he. “It must be told.” And he fell suddenly in a seat—my old lord’s seat by the chimney-side—and was shaken with dry sobs.

Dismay came upon my soul; it was plain there was no help in Mr. Henry. “Well,” said I, “sit there, and leave all to me.” And taking a candle in my hand, I set forth out of the room in the dark house. There was no movement; I must suppose that all had gone unobserved; and I was now to consider how to smuggle through the rest with the like secrecy. It was no hour for scruples; and I opened my lady’s door without so much as a knock, and passed boldly in.

“There is some calamity happened,” she cried, sitting up in bed.

“Madam,” said I, “I will go forth again into the passage; and do you get as quickly as you can into your clothes. There is much to be done.”

She troubled me with no questions, nor did she keep me waiting. Ere I had time to prepare a word of that which I must say to her, she was on the threshold signing me to enter.

“Madam,” said I, “if you cannot be very brave, I must go elsewhere; for if no one helps me to-night, there is an end of the house of Durrisdeer.”

“I am very courageous,” said she; and she looked at me with a sort of smile, very painful to see, but very brave too.

“It has come to a duel,” said I.

“A duel?” she repeated. “A duel! Henry and—”

“And the Master,” said I. “Things have been borne so long, things of which you know nothing, which you would not believe if I should tell. But to-night it went too far, and when he insulted you—”

“Stop,” said she. “He? Who?”

“Oh! madam,” cried I, my bitterness breaking forth, “do you ask me such a question? Indeed, then, I may go elsewhere for help; there is none here!”

“I do not know in what I have offended you,” said she. “Forgive me; put me out of this suspense.”

But I dared not tell her yet; I felt not sure of her; and at the doubt, and under the sense of impotence it brought with it, I turned on the poor woman with something near to anger.

“Madam,” said I, “we are speaking of two men: one of them insulted you, and you ask me which. I will help you to the answer. With one of these men you have spent all your hours: has the other reproached you? To one you have been always kind; to the other, as God sees me and judges between us two, I think not always: has his love ever failed you? To-night one of these two men told the other, in my hearing—the hearing of a hired stranger,—that you were in love with him. Before I say one word, you shall answer your own question: Which was it? Nay, madam, you shall answer me another: If it has come to this dreadful end, whose fault is it?”

She stared at me like one dazzled. “Good God!” she said once, in a kind of bursting exclamation; and then a second time in a whisper to herself: “Great God!—In the name of mercy, Mackellar, what is wrong?” she cried. “I am made up; I can hear all.”

“You are not fit to hear,” said I. “Whatever it was, you shall say first it was your fault.”

“Oh!” she cried, with a gesture of wringing her hands, “this man will drive me mad! Can you not put me out of your thoughts?”

“I think not once of you,” I cried. “I think of none but my dear unhappy master.”

“Ah!” she cried, with her hand to her heart, “is Henry dead?”

“Lower your voice,” said I. “The other.”

I saw her sway like something stricken