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 by 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 shirt-front 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.
Chapter 47.
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 court-yard.
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, my beloved niece, that you requite my candour. Oh, here is the gentleman. Sit down, dear.”
Doctor Bryerly was advancing, as it seemed, to shake hands with Uncle Silas, who, however, rose, with a severe and haughty air, not the least over-acted, and made him a slow, ceremonious bow. I wondered how the homely Doctor could confront so tranquilly that astounding statue of hauteur.
A faint and weary smile, rather sad than contemptuous, was the only sign he showed of feeling his repulse.
“How do you do, Miss?” he said, extending his hand, and greeting me after his ungallant fashion, as if it were an after-thought.
“I think I may as well take a chair, sir,” said Doctor Bryerly, sitting down serenely, near the table, and crossing his ungainly legs.
My uncle bowed.
“You understand the nature of the business, sir. Do you with Miss Ruthyn to remain?” asked Doctor Bryerly.
“I sent for her, sir,” replied my uncle, in a very gentle and sarcastic tone, a smile on his thin lips, and his strangely-contorted eyebrows raised for a moment contemptuously. “This gentleman, my dear Maud, thinks proper to insinuate that I am robbing you. It surprises me a little, and, no doubt, you — I’ve nothing to conceal, and wished you to be present while he favours me more particularly with his views. I’m right, I think, in describing it as robbery, sir?”
“Why,” said Doctor Bryerly thoughtfully, for he was treating the matter as one of right, and not of feeling, “it would be, certainly, taking that which does not belong to you, and converting it to your own use; but, at the worst, it would more resemble thieving, I think, than robbery.”
I saw Uncle Silas’s lip, eyelid, and thin cheek quiver and shrink, as if with a thrill of tic-douloureux, as Doctor Bryerly spoke this unconsciously insulting answer. My uncle had, however, the self-command which is learned at the gaming-table. He shrugged, with a chilly, sarcastic, little laugh, and a glance at me.
“Your not says waste, I think, sir?”