Queechy Volume I Part 34

"Neither new nor old. I mean, simply, that I have changed my mind."

"But this is very extraordinary!" said Rossitur. "What reason do you give?"

"I give none, Sir."

"In that case," said Captain Beebee, "perhaps Mr. Carleton will not object to explain or unsay the things which gave offence yesterday."

"I apprehend there is nothing to explain, Sir ? I think I must have been understood; and I never take back my words, for I am in the habit of speaking the truth."

"Then we are to consider this as a further unprovoked unmitigated insult, for which you will give neither reason nor satisfaction!" cried Rossitur.

"I have already disclaimed that, Mr. Rossitur."

"Are we, on mature deliberation, considered unworthy of the honour you so condescendingly awarded to us yesterday?"

"My reasons have nothing to do with you, Sir, nor with your friend; they are entirely personal to myself."

"Mr. Carleton must be aware," said Captain Beebee, "that his conduct, if unexplained, will bear a very strange construction."

Mr. Carleton was coldly silent.

"It never was heard of," the Captain went on, "that a gentleman declined both to explain and to give satisfaction for any part of his conduct which had called for it."

"It never was heard that a _gentleman_ did," said Thorn, removing his cigar a moment, for the purpose of supplying the emphasis, which his friend had carefully omitted to make.

"Will you say, Mr. Carleton," said Rossitur, "that you did not mean to offend us yesterday, in what you said?"

"No, Mr. Rossitur."

"You will not!" cried the Captain.

"No Sir; for your friends had given me, as I conceived, just cause of displeasure; and I was, and am, careless of offending those who have done so."

"You consider yourself aggrieved, then, in the first place?"

said Beebee.

"I have said so, Sir."

"Then," said the Captain, after a puzzled look out to sea, "supposing that my friends disclaim all intention to offend you, in that case ?"

"In that case I should be glad, Captain Beebee, that they had changed their line of tactics ? there is nothing to change in my own."

"Then what are we to understand by this strange refusal of a meeting, Mr. Carleton? what does it mean?"

"It means one thing in my own mind, Sir, and probably another in yours; but the outward expression I choose to give it is, that I will not reward uncalled-for rudeness with an opportunity of self-vindication."

"You are," said Thorn, sneeringly, "probably careless as to the figure your own name will cut in connection with this story?"

"Entirely so," said Mr. Carleton, eyeing him steadily.

"You are aware that your character is at our mercy."

A slight bow seemed to leave at their disposal the very small portion of his character he conceived to lie in that predicament.

"You will expect to hear yourself spoken of in terms that befit a man who has cowed out of an engagement he dared not fulfil?"

"Of course," said Carleton, haughtily; "by my present refusal I give you leave to say all that, and as much more as your ingenuity can furnish in the same style; but not in my hearing, Sir."

"You can't help yourself," said Thorn, with the same sneer.

"You have rid yourself of a gentleman's means of protection, ?

what others will you use?"

"I will leave that to the suggestion of the moment ? I do not doubt it will be found fruitful."

n.o.body doubted it who looked just then on his steady sparkling eye.

"I consider the champions.h.i.+p of yesterday given up, of course," Thorn went on in a kind of aside, not looking at anybody, and striking his cigar against the guards to clear it of ashes; ? "the champion has quitted the field, and the little princess but lately so walled in with defences must now listen to whatever knight and squire may please to address to her. Nothing remains to be seen of her defender but his spurs."

"They may serve for the heels of whoever is disposed to annoy her," said Mr. Carleton. "He will need them."

He left the group with the same air of imperturbable self- possession which he had maintained during the conference. But presently, Rossitur, who had his private reasons for wis.h.i.+ng to keep friends with an acquaintance who might be of service in more ways than one, followed him, and declared himself to have been, in all his nonsense to Fleda, most undesirous of giving displeasure to her temporary guardian, and sorry that it had fallen out so. He spoke frankly, and Mr. Carleton, with the same cool gracefulness with which he had carried on the quarrel, waived his displeasure, and admitted the young gentleman apparently to stand as before in his favour. Their reconciliation was not an hour old when Captain Beebee joined them.

"I am sorry I must trouble you with a word more on this disagreeable subject, Mr. Carleton," he began, after a ceremonious salutation, "My friend, Lieutenant Thorn, considers himself greatly outraged by your determination not to meet him. He begs to ask, by me, whether it is your purpose to abide by it at all hazards?"

"Yes, Sir."

"There is some misunderstanding here, which I greatly regret.

I hope you will see and excuse the disagreeable necessity I am. under of delivering the rest of my friend's message."

"Say on, Sir."

"Mr. Thorn declares that if you deny him the common courtesy which no gentleman refuses to another, he will proclaim your name with the most opprobrious adjuncts to all the world; and, in place of his former regard, he will hold you in the most unlimited contempt, which he will have no scruple about showing on all occasions."

Mr. Carleton coloured a little, but replied, coolly ?

"I have not lived in Mr. Thorn's favour. As to the rest, I forgive him! ? except indeed, he provoke me to measures for which I never will forgive him."

"Measures!" said the Captain.

"I hope not! for my own self-respect would be more grievously hurt than his. But there is an unruly spring somewhere about my composition, that when it gets wound up, is once in a while too much for me."

"But," said Rossitur, "pardon me, ? have you no regard to the effect of his misrepresentations?"

"You are mistaken, Mr. Rossitur," said Carleton, slightly, "this is but the blast of a bellows ? not the simoon."

"Then what answer shall I have the honour of carrying back to my friend?" said Captain Beebee, after a sort of astounded pause of a few minutes.

"None, of my sending, Sir."