A Nest of Linnets

by Frank Frankfort Moore

“By the Lord Harry, friend Long has a pair of arms that a man thirty years younger might envy!” Dick heard one of the gentleman say.

“He will have a wife that a man forty years younger does envy,” laughed a second.

“I heard my father talk of the great strength of Mr. Long when he was at his best,” said a third. “Why, ’twas he that floored Devonshire Paul, the wrestler, early in the forties, going to Barnstaple to do it—’tis one of Sir Edmund’s stories. Well, I dare swear that we haven’t seen the last of this business. How is the fellow? Bind him over not to make a disturbance in the house.”

Dick walked slowly to the villa. He found that the ladies who had been so overcome by the sight of Mathews’ blood were being carefully attended to. Poor Tom Linley was sitting in a corner with his sister. Tom looked very sulky. He was the hero of Parnassus, and yet no one paid any attention to him. People were laughing and talking, some in a loud tone, others in a whisper, not upon the subject of the construction of the sonnet of Petrarch as distinguished from the sonnet of Shakespeare, but upon the likelihood of a duel following the exciting scene which they had witnessed. Tom sulked, and tried to avoid seeing that Mrs. Abington was the centre of a group of gentlemen of fashion, with whom she was exchanging quips, also on the subject of the horsewhipping of Mathews.

Of course there would be a duel. Mathews held the king’s commission and wore the king’s uniform. If he failed to send a challenge to the man who had so publicly disgraced him, he need never show his face in society again. That was the opinion which was universal among the party in Lady Miller’s drawing-room, and it was only modified by the rider which some people appended to their verdict, to the effect that it was quite surprising how Mathews had ever got a footing in Bath society.

Mr. Linley, who was by the side of his daughter when Dick entered, was looking solemn. He was greatly perturbed by what had taken place, and expressed the opinion that Mr. Long would have shown more wisdom by refraining from noticing Mathew’s insult than he had displayed by avenging it, even though he had done so with remarkable success. Of course there would be a duel, he said; and Mathews was probably a first-class pistol-shot, though he had shown himself unable to contend with Mr. Long when taken by surprise.

Poor Betsy was overwhelmed by the thought of such a possibility. She appealed to Dick when he had come to her side. Was a duel inevitable? Was there no alternative? Could she do nothing to prevent such a sequel to the quarrel?

“Why should you be distressed at the possibility of a duel?” said Dick. “There is no particular reason why Mr. Long should stand up against that fellow; any gentleman who was present here to-day has a perfect right to send a challenge to Mathews.”

“Oh, that is only saying that some one else may be killed—some one in addition to Mr. Long,” cried Betsy. “Ah, why is it that disaster follows an acquaintance with me? Why have I been doomed to bring unhappiness upon so many people?”

Dick did not ransack his memory for an answer to her question—an answer founded upon the records of history. He did not cite any of the cases with which he was acquainted, of the unhappiness brought about by the fatal dower of beauty.