The MS. in a Red Box

by John A. Hamilton

So spoke my friend Drury, when I told him how matters stood with me. One half of my mind held him wise, but that did not in the least quench my desire to settle my quarrel with Vliet man to man. I have often done things, knowing all the while I was a fool for doing them; my difficulty not being lack of wisdom (for my friends have always been ready to supply me with the best) so much as want of liking for it.

While I waited at Belshaw for the answer to my challenge, my friend gave me many particulars of the history of Captain John Smith, whom he thought one of the greatest men in the world, although the captain was his cousin.

"He is now in London," said John, "and in hope to lead another expedition. He will snap you up at a word. A tall fellow who has more lives than a cat, and relishes fighting better than his victuals, will suit him to admiration."

"There, indeed, you mistake me," I protested. "I am no lover of brawls, and would go far to avoid one."

"But not so far as to the house of a justice of the peace—eh?" answered John, with his low, pleasant laugh. "I have been wondering why you hate Lord Sheffield so cordially."

"Oh! that is a very old story. His younger brother—younger by nine or ten years—and I were playmates. He was a tender little chap, and I was a big, hulking boy; but I was his squire, ready almost to be his dog, partly because he was as delicate as a girl, and partly because he was of so fine a spirit. Child as he was, he could make me laugh or cry by the music he drew out of his fiddle. What was the driest taskwork to me was play to him, and while I slowly spelled out a story of Greece or Rome, he was somehow rapt away, and seeing it all enacted before his eyes. And he told tales of his own making such as I never heard or read. But I cannot describe him. His elder brother used to torment him with the devil's own cunning. Edmund was feeble in body and timid, but he scorned to be a coward. His chief pride he took in that his father had received the Garter for his courageous exploits against the Spanish Armada, and he would not own to fear, even when he was ready to die of it. Sheffield practised on the child's pride and terror, endlessly. An old mastiff, chained in the courtyard, was so savage (with some kind of pain, poor beast, I doubt not) that the kennel-man feared to deal with it. One day Sheffield dared his little brother to go up to the dog, swearing him a coward if he did not. Edmund went within the reach of the mastiff, and fell down in a faint. The dog was nobler than the brother, and did not touch the child. At another time, Sheffield tied a rope round Edmund's body and lowered him far down the deepest well, threatening to let go the rope, and paying it so fast as to terrify the boy into thinking he had done so."

"But why, in Heaven's name, didn't the little one appeal to his father?"

"He would have died sooner. He was drawn up from the well more dead than alive, and was ill for days after, but he never breathed a word about the torture he had been put to, except to me."

"But why didn't you acquaint his lordship with what went on? You couldn't be afraid of the big brother."

"I was afraid of my hero's contempt. He would have thought me dastardly, traitorous, I know not what, if I had told tales of the cruelty he was too proud to complain of himself. But there came an end to the business, and I made it. Looking for Edmund one day, I went into an outhouse, where Sheffield had the little fellow across his knee, held fast as in a vice, and the demon was pinching his tender body with slow, screwing pinches. Edmund was writhing and moaning. I didn't stop to think, but struck the tormentor's cheek as hard as I could with my fist, and the next instant we were going at each other with all our might. I was only a lad of fourteen and he a man of twenty-four, but I was tall and strong for my age. He knocked me down pretty often, but I was up like a cat and flew at him again, until, either in fear lest he should kill me, or in fear for himself, he opened the door and ran. Shortly afterward, as Edmund led me across the courtyard—for both my eyes were puffed up so that I could not see—it chanced that the earl met us, and would have an account of what I had been doing. Nothing loth, I answered his questions, and he heard enough to make him careful Edmund suffered no more at the hands of his brother. The dear little fellow died a year later. I could tell you more, but do you wonder I hate my Lord Sheffield?"