On that he drew his hanger and made a pass on me; but I, too, could sail on that course: not for nothing had I wrought at Clayton Manor, and learnt to hold a foil under one of the cunningest sworders of Italy. I stepped swiftly aside, and drew my rapier; and, as sword and pirate came blundering by me, I caught the one a tricksy turn beneath the haft, so that it sped hurtling in the air, and gave the other so shrewd a taste of rapier-point as set him howling.
He recovered himself; and, firing off a volley of threats and imprecations at me, turned furiously, and cast about for his hanger. It was fallen, however, into a cane-brake.... We left him to fish it out as best he could, and parted from him, not without laughter. I doubt not, he wished he had his pistols.
“’Twas jolly sport,” cried I, giving him a parting shot. “Another day we’ll to’t again!”
And Burke, who had got over his queasiness, added:
“As good as quoits, i’ faith!” and bent double with a laughter-fit.
Indeed, we were gotten quite out of sight of the pirate ere Burke ceased to make merry over him. Burke was ever inclined to hilarity; but never, methought, so high as this. As we swung along arm in arm, and taking no heed of the way, he began to tell me many a merry tale and many a jolly jest. But sure his jollity was a malignant jollity, an elfin intoxication....
The island was most witchingly beautiful, the woodland being a harmony of green and gold, a chequer-work of mellow light and flashing arcs; whilst golden shadows waved, and jewelled motes danced in the shade of the bowering trees.
Of all the merry japes that Burke told me then, but one remains in my memory, like a gaudy picture in a dark frame. It was the last jest he was to make in this world.
“Did ever I tell you, Frank,” said he, “of old John Baluster and the fun we had with him when I was a boy? No? Well, this Baluster, you must know, was a miserly flint of a man, and withal as guzzling and greedy as a cardinal. He contrived to stuff his paunch, and husband his moneybags, by quartering himself upon his acquaintances—friends he had none; and kept flitting from one easy-going soul to another of such as would suffer him.
“Of these was my father; a country doctor he, but one more busied with his garden, his plum trees, his dahlias, his roses, than with the sick, of which (to speak sooth), he dealt with but a few, and of that few (dear man), killed as many as he cured.