"Then, by heavens! you shall fight me," exclaimed the exasperated Smithers. "I'll be on this spot with pistols in ten minutes; so you may make the most of your time, and obtain a friend."
CHAPTER II.
"Are honour, virtue, conscience, all exiled;
Is there no pity, no relenting Ruth?"
Burns.
"But I remember now
I'm in this earthly world; where to do harm
Is often laudable."
Macbeth, Act 4, Sc. 2.
The suddenness and hostile nature of Smithers' challenge so took John Ferguson by surprise that for some few minutes he could not utter a sound; and, when he had sufficiently recovered himself to speak, his adversary was out of hearing, on his mission to prepare the instruments of death. Left to a calm consideration of his position all its unpleasantnesses in a moment flashed across his mind. Here he was involved in a broil the result of which might prove fatal if persevered in, and with the brother of his kind entertainer. The successful suitor of the girl he adored, he was called upon to meet in deadly strife. John felt he could not leave the place to compromise his honour, and insult his host; at the same time he looked upon a hostile meeting with Bob Smithers with great repugnance. Much as he had been contemned by Bob, and many as were the indignities offered to him, John bore him no animosity; and he could not reconcile to his conscience the idea of steeping his hands in the blood of a fellow mortal; even in the act of self-defence, when that defence became culpable by his voluntary exposure. Yet he feared not death; no, he could stare the grim tyrant in the face, and unflinchingly meet his shafts. He even felt he could court his embrace now that he was to lose the only being he deemed life worth living for.
"Oh! Eleanor! Eleanor!" he exclaimed. "Oh! that I had not known thee! cruel fate, that I should be drawn into the vortex of thy charms only to be suffered to estimate thy worth, and then have my hopes crushed on the rocks of despair. With thee life would be an Elysium; without thee 'tis a perpetual blank; a dismal future looms in the distance like the shades of stygian darkness. Oh, cruel fates! would that thou had'st bereft me of life while yet I breathed in the delicious dream. But yet a door of hope is left me to escape this bondage. I will meet the fire of your favourite, and let him, if he so desires it, release my wearied spirit." Thus John soliloquized as he walked back to the ball-room in a state of mind bordering on insanity, and reduced to the lowest depths of love-sick despair. But a "still, small voice" faintly prompted reason, as his agitated feelings somewhat subsided, and he ceased to apostrophize his idol, as he approached the building.
He entered the room, and casually casting his eyes round the company rested them on his brother; whom, upon his obtaining an opportunity, he called out unobserved by the mass of the guests, and in a few words explained to him the incident we have just described.
"But, surely, John, you do not intend to accept the challenge?" said William.
"I have already done so," replied his brother.