Major Blazeater fell back in his chair; and all his blood ran to his head. As he told his daughter afterwards, he had never had such a turn in his life. The fairest prospect blasted, the sunrise of murder quenched; what good was it to live in a world where people wonʼt shoot one another? Bull Garnet bent his large eyes upon him, and the Major could not answer them.
“Now, Major Blazeater,” said Mr. Garnet, “I shall bind you over to keep the peace, and your principal as well, and expose you to the ridicule of every sensible man in England, unless I receive by to morrow morningʼs post at 10.15 A.M. an apology for this piece of infantile bravado. What a man does in hot passion, God knows, and God will forgive him for, if he truly strive to amend it—at least—at least, I hope so.”
Here Mr. Garnet turned away, and looked out of the window, and perhaps it was the view of Bob that made his eyes so glistening.
“But, sir,” he resumed—while the Major was wondering where on earth he should find any sureties for keeping Her Majestyʼs peace, which he could not keep with his wife—“sir, I look at things of this sort from a point of view diametrically opposed to yours. Perhaps you have the breadth to admit that my view may be right, and yours may be wrong.”
“Nothing, nothing at all, sir, will I admit to a man who actually appoints the magistrates the custodians of his honour.”
“Honour, sir, as we now regard it, is nothing more than foolʼs varnish. Justice, sir, and truth are things we can feel and decide about. Honour is the feminine of them, and, therefore, apt to confuse a man. Major Blazeater, the only honour I have is to wish you good morning.”
“Hang it all,” said the Major to himself, as he was shown out honourably, “I have put my foot in it this time; and wonʼt Mrs. Blazeater give it to me! That woman finds out everything. This is now the third time Iʼve tried to get up a snug little meeting, and the fates are all against me. Dash it, now, if Iʼve got to pay costs, O Boadicea Blazeater, you wonʼt mend my gloves for a fortnight.”
Major Blazeater wore very tight doeskin gloves, and was always wearing them out. Hence, his appeal to the female Penates took this constricted form. The household god of the Phœnicians, and the one whose image they affixed to the bows of their galleys, hoping to steer homewards, was (as we know from many sources) nothing but a lamb; a very rude figure, certainly,—square, thick–set, inelegant; but I doubt not that some grand home–truth clung to their Agna Dea. Major Blazeater was a lamb, whose wits only went to the shearing the moment you got him upon his own hearth, and Boadicea bleated at him. He would crumple his neck up, and draw back his head, and look pleadingly at any one, as a house–lamb does on Good Friday, and feel that his father had done it before him, and he, too, must suffer for sheepishness.
Meditating sadly thus, he heard a great voice coming after him down the gravel–walk, and, turning round, was once more under Mr. Garnetʼs eyes. “One more word with you, if you please, sir. It will be necessary that you two warlike gentlemen should appoint a legal second. Mine will be Mr. Brockwood, who will be prepared to show that your principal was grossly inquisitive and impertinent, before I removed him from my premises.”
“Oh!” cried the Major, delighted to find any loophole for escape, “that puts a new aspect upon the matter, if he gave you provocation, sir.”