"Will you name your friend now?" he asked. "These matters demand quick settlement."
To whom was I to turn? I knew nobody of the better class who would act for me. For a moment I thought of Colonel Beverley, but his age and dignity were too great to bring him into this squabble of youth. Then a notion struck me.
"If you will send your friend to my man, John Faulkner, he will make all arrangements. He is to be found any day in my shop."
With this defiance, I walked nonchalantly out of the dumbfoundered group, found my horse, and rode homewards.
My coolness did not last many minutes, and long ere I had reached James Town I was a prey to dark forebodings. Here was I, a peaceful trader, who desired nothing more than to live in amity with all men, involved in a bloody strife. I had sought it, and yet it had been none of my seeking. I had graver thoughts to occupy my mind than the punctilios of idle youth, and yet I did not see how the thing could have been shunned. It was my hard fate to come athwart an obstacle which could not be circumvented, but must be broken. No friend could help me in the business, not Ringan, nor the Governor, nor Colonel Beverley. It was my own affair, which I must go through with alone. I felt as solitary as a pelican.
Remember, I was not fighting for any whimsy about honour, nor even for the love of Elspeth. I had openly provoked Grey because the hostility of the young gentry had become an intolerable nuisance in my daily life. So, with such pedestrian reasons in my mind, I could have none of the heady enthusiasm of passion. I wanted him and his kind cleared out of my way, like a noisome insect, but I had no flaming hatred of him to give me heart.
The consequence was that I became a prey to dismal fear. That bravery which knows no ebb was never mine. Indeed, I am by nature timorous, for my fancy is quick, and I see with horrid clearness the incidents of a peril. Only a shamefaced conscience holds me true, so that, though I have often done temerarious deeds, it has always been because I feared shame more than the risk, and my knees have ever been knocking together and my lips dry with fright. I tried to think soberly over the future, but could get no conclusion save that I would not do murder. My conscience was pretty bad about the whole business. I was engaged in the kind of silly conflict which I had been bred to abhor; I had none of the common gentleman's notions about honour; and I knew that if by any miracle I slew Grey I should be guilty in my own eyes of murder. I would not risk the guilt. If God had determined that I should perish before my time, then perish I must.
This despair brought me a miserable kind of comfort. When I reached home I went straight to Faulkner.
"I have quarrelled to-day with a gentleman, John, and have promised him satisfaction. You must act for me in the affair. Some one will come to see you this evening, and the meeting had better be at dawn to-morrow."
He opened his eyes very wide. "Who is it, then?" he asked.