The Jessamy Bride

by Frank Frankfort Moore

He ordered the coachman to drive to the Temple, and took advantage of the occasion to lecture the excited man upon the impropriety of his conduct. A lecture on the disgrace attached to a public fight, when delivered in a broad Irish brogue, can rarely be effective, and Captain Higgins's counsel of peace only called for Goldsmith's ridicule.

“Don't tell me what I ought to have done or what I ought to have abstained from doing,” cried the still breathless man. “I did what my manhood prompted me to do, and that is just what you would have done yourself, my friend. God knows I didn't mean to harm Evans—it was that reptile Kenrick whom I meant to flail; but when Evans undertook to shelter him, what was left to me, I ask you, sir?”

“You were a fool, Oliver,” said his countryman; “you made a great mistake. Can't you see that you should never go about such things single-handed? You should have brought with you a full-sized friend who would not hesitate to use his fists in the interests of fair play. Why the devil, sir, didn't you give me a hint of what was on your mind when you left the tavern?”

“Because I didn't know myself what was on my mind,” replied Goldsmith. “And, besides,” he added, “I'm not the man to carry bruisers about with me to engage in my quarrels. I don't regret what I have done to-day. I have taught the reptiles a lesson, even though I have to pay for it. Kenrick won't attack me again so long as I am alive.”

He was right. It was when he was lying in his coffin, yet unburied, that Kenrick made his next attack upon him in that scurrility of phrase of which he was a master.

When this curious exponent of the advantages of peace had left him at Brick Court, and his few incidental bruises were attended to by John Eyles, poor Oliver's despondency returned to him. He did not feel very like one who has got the better of another in a quarrel, though he knew that he had done all that he said he had done: he had taught his enemies a lesson.

But then he began to think about Mary Horneck, who had been so grossly insulted simply because of her kindness to him. He felt that if she had been less gracious to him—if she had treated him as Mrs. Thrale, for example, had been accustomed to treat him—regarding him and his defects merely as excuses for displaying her own wit, she would have escaped all mention by Kenrick. Yes, he still felt that he was the cause of her being insulted, and he would never forgive himself for it.

But what did it matter whether he forgave himself or not? It was the forgiveness of Mary Horneck and her friends that he had good reason to think about.

The longer he considered this point the more convinced he became that he had forfeited forever the friendship which he had enjoyed for several years, and which had been a dear consolation to him in his hours of despondency. A barrier had been raised between himself and the Hornecks that could not be surmounted.

He sat down at his desk and wrote a letter to Mary, asking her forgiveness for the insult for which he said he felt himself to be responsible. He could not, he added, expect that in the future it would be allowed to him to remain on the same terms of intimacy with her and her family as had been permitted to him in the past.