“Angry! brother James,” cries Bath; “angry!—I love you, brother, and have obligations to you. I will say no more, but I hope you know I do not fear making any man angry.”
James answered he knew it well; and then the doctor, apprehending that while he was stopping up one breach he should make another, presently interfered, and turned the discourse back to Booth. “You tell me, sir,” said he to James, “that my gown is my protection; let it then at least protect me where I have had no design in offending—where I have consulted your highest welfare, as in truth I did in writing this letter. And if you did not in the least deserve any such suspicion, still you have no cause for resentment. Caution against sin, even to the innocent, can never be unwholesome. But this I assure you, whatever anger you have to me, you can have none to poor Booth, who was entirely ignorant of my writing to you, and who, I am certain, never entertained the least suspicion of you; on the contrary, reveres you with the highest esteem, and love, and gratitude. Let me therefore reconcile all matters between you, and bring you together before he hath even heard of this challenge.”
“Brother,” cries Bath, “I hope I shall not make you angry—I lie when I say so; for I am indifferent to any man’s anger. Let me be an accessory to what the doctor hath said. I think I may be trusted with matters of this nature, and it is a little unkind that, if you intended to send a challenge, you did not make me the bearer. But, indeed, as to what appears to me, this matter may be very well made up; and, as Mr. Booth doth not know of the challenge, I don’t see why he ever should, any more than your giving him the lie just now; but that he shall never have from me, nor, I believe, from this gentleman; for, indeed, if he should, it would be incumbent upon him to cut your throat.”
“Lookee, doctor,” said James, “I do not deserve the unkind suspicion you just now threw out against me. I never thirsted after any man’s blood; and, as for what hath passed, since this discovery hath happened, I may, perhaps, not think it worth my while to trouble myself any more about it.”
The doctor was not contented with perhaps, he insisted on a firm promise, to be bound with the colonel’s honour. This at length he obtained, and then departed well satisfied.
In fact, the colonel was ashamed to avow the real cause of the quarrel to this good man, or, indeed, to his brother Bath, who would not only have condemned him equally with the doctor, but would possibly have quarrelled with him on his sister’s account, whom, as the reader must have observed, he loved above all things; and, in plain truth, though the colonel was a brave man, and dared to fight, yet he was altogether as willing to let it alone; and this made him now and then give a little way to the wrongheadedness of Colonel Bath, who, with all the other principles of honour and humanity, made no more of cutting the throat of a man upon any of his punctilios than a butcher doth of killing sheep.
Chapter v. — What passed at the bailiff’s house.
The doctor now set forwards to his friend Booth, and, as he past by the door of his attorney in the way, he called upon him and took him with him.