The answer came promptly that he was in his quarters.
"How long has he been there?"
"About half an hour, sir."
"Egad, Norcliff, you have come by the same train from Canterbury," said the colonel, after the servant had withdrawn. "How if you had been in the same compartment?"
"I might have been tempted to throw him out of the window."
"Studhome, see Berkeley, and arrange this matter; but remember the honour of the regiment," said the colonel, "as well as that of your friend, for at all risks and hazards I will have no public scandal about us—no handle given to the wretched whipsters of the newspaper press, when we are on the eve of departure for the seat of war."
"Trust me, colonel," said Jack, as he lit a fresh cigar, donned his gold-laced forage cap very much over the right ear, took up his riding-whip from force of habit, and hurried away.
The time of his absence passed slowly. I was in a dilemma, out of which I did not clearly see my way; and the colonel continued to punish Jack's port, to smoke in silence, and peruse the "Description Book."
Deeply in my heart I cursed alike the amenities of civilized life and the laws of modern society, which deprived me of the means of swift and certain retribution, even at the risk of my own life and limbs. Such trammels, in these days of well-ordered police, luckily, perhaps, compel us to conceal our hates and animosities; to submit quietly to wrong, insult, and obloquy, for which the very laws that pretend to protect and guide us afford no due reparation; trammels that avail greatly the coarse, the cowardly, and the mean, who may thus sneer or insult with impunity, when in the old pistol days their lives would have paid the forfeit; and whatever may have been the folly, error, or wickedness of duelling as a system, there can be no doubt that, when men had the test of moral courage as a last resort, the tone of society was higher, healthier, and better, especially in the army. Then practical jokes, rudeness, and quizzing were unknown at a mess-table; while an open wrong or insult bore with it the terrible penalty of a human life.
By the rules of the service I knew that no officer or soldier could send a challenge to any other officer or soldier to fight a duel, lest, if a commissioned officer, under the pain of being cashiered; if a non-commissioned officer or soldier, of suffering corporal punishment, or such other award as a court-martial might inflict.