Katerfelto: A Story of Exmoor

by G. J. Whyte-Melville

"A fine!" objected the punch-ladler, judicially. "By the laws of our society, no member has leave to pledge a female toast. It leads to mischief. Gentlemen, we have decided to draw the line, and we draw it at beauty. Call something else!"

"Then here's John Wilkes!" laughed the first speaker. "He's ugly enough in all conscience. John Wilkes! His good health and deliverance—with three!"

"Hold!" exclaimed a beetle-browed, square-shouldered man of forty or more, turning down his glass; "I protest against the toast. John Wilkes ought still to be fast by the heels in the Tower of London. If he had his deserts John Wilkes would never have come out again, alive or dead, and nobody but a d—d Jacobite, and traitor to His Majesty King George, would venture to call such a toast in this worshipful company. I stand to what I say, John Garnet. It's you to play next!"

Each man looked at his neighbour. The punch-ladler half rose to interfere, but shortly plumped into his seat again, finding himself, it may be, not quite steady on his legs, while the young gentleman, thus offensively addressed, clenched his glass, as if to hurl it in the last speaker's face. Controlling himself, however, with obvious effort, he broke into a forced laugh, glanced at his rapier, standing in a corner of the room, and observed quietly, "If you desire to fasten a quarrel on me, Mr. Gale, this is neither a fitting time nor place."

"Quarrel!" exclaimed the man behind the punch-bowl; "no gentleman, drunk or sober, would be fain to quarrel on John Wilkes' behalf. Sure, he can take his own part with the best or worst of us, and Mr. Gale was only playing the ball back to your service, John Garnet. You began the jest, bad or good. Be reasonable, gentlemen. Fill your glasses, and let us wash away all unkindness. Here's to you both!"

Mr. Gale, though something of a bully, was not, in the main, an ill-natured man. He squared his shoulders, filled his glass, and pledged the person he had insulted with an indifference that almost amounted to additional provocation. Confident in his personal strength and skill with his weapon, Mr. Gale, to use his own phraseology, was accustomed to consider himself Cock of the Walk in every society he frequented. Nine men out of ten are willing to accept bluster for courage, and give the wall readily enough to him who assumes it as a right. The tenth is made of sterner stuff, resists the pretension, and exposes too often a white feather lurking under the fowl's wing, that crowed so lustily and strutted with so defiant a gait.

All this passed through the mind of John Garnet, completely sobered by his wrangle, while he sipped punch in silence, meditating reprisals before the night was past.

This young gentleman, whom nature and fortune seemed to have intended for better things, was at present wasting health and energy in a life of pleasure that failed egregiously to please, but that succeeded in draining the resources of a slender purse to their lowest ebb. He came of an old family, and indeed, but for the attainder that deprived his father of lands and title, would have been the owner of large estates in the North, and addressed by tenantry or neighbours as Sir John—that father, devoted body and soul to the Stuarts, died at Rome, beggared and broken-hearted, leaving his son little besides his blessing, and an injunction never to abandon the good cause, but bequeathing to him the personal beauty and well-knit frame that Acts of Parliament were powerless to alienate. The young man's laughing eyes, rich colour, dark hair, and handsome features were in keeping with a light muscular figure, a stature slightly above the average, and an easy jaunty bearing, set off by a rich dress, particularly pleasing to feminine taste. Hence, while he repudiated the title of which he had been deprived, it became a jest among his intimates to call him "plain John Garnet," a jest of which the point was perhaps more appreciated by the other sex, than by his own.

Plain John Garnet looked somewhat preoccupied now, sitting moodily over his punch, and the influence of his demeanour seemed to steal upon the company in general. Mr. Gale, indeed, held forth loudly on horse-racing, cock-fighting, and such congenial topics, but spent his breath for an inattentive audience, not to be interested even by a dissertation on West-country wrestling in all its branches—the Cornish hug, the Devonshire shoulder-grip, and the West Somerset "rough-and-tumble catch where you can."

At an earlier hour than usual the reckoning was called, and the guests, not very steady, assumed their swords and hats to pass downstairs into the street. Mr. Gale by accident, John Garnet by design, were the last to leave the room.