These cheerless meditations were probably compounded in equal proportions of bilious indigestion and natural regret. Fred’s inner man had come off indifferently under a regimen of late hours and mixed refreshments; so much so, that he had professed his intention, when he returned to the peaceful shades of The She-oaks, ‘to lie on his back for a month and live on blue-pill.’ Such thoughts would not have occurred to him had he been engaged as principal. But as a mere spectator of a mortal combat they were impressively urgent.
Besides all this, Hampden was a married man—had a wife and half-a-dozen boys and girls at Mount Wangarua. When he thought that a messenger might ride up through the far-famed meadows, where the white-faced Herefords lay thick on the clover sward the summer through, to tell the expectant wife that the husband—the father, the pattern country gentleman—would return no more! Fred felt as if he must strike up everybody’s sword, as in old melodramas, and call upon them in the name of God and man to desist from a deed at once puerile and immoral.
But like a dream when morning breaks, and princess and noble, castle and dragon flee into the shadow-land, whence they came, so his purpose vanished into thin air, as they suddenly debouched upon the Granite Glen, and he saw by the set faces of the men, as they dismounted, how unavailing would be all interference.
With sudden revulsion of feeling, he prepared to act his part. Motioning the young surgeon to follow him to the little creek which rippled plaintively over the grey blocks, shaded by the funereal, sighing casuarina, they took charge of the horses of the combatants. Forbes and Neville each produced one of the oblong cases ‘which no gentleman could be without’ in those days. Twelve paces were stepped by Forbes, in deference to his similar experiences. The principals took their ground.
Fred Churbett scanned narrowly, at the moment, the faces he knew so well. On Argyll’s he saw the look of vehement resolve which he had seen a hundred times before, while his eyes glowed with angry light. Fred knew that whenever any one alluded to Hampden’s alleged expression, ‘that he was a hot-blooded Highlander, accustomed to rule semi-savages, and who did not know how to conduct himself among gentlemen,’ or words to that effect, Argyll could not be held accountable for his actions. When the passion fit was over, a more accomplished, courteous gentleman did not live—generous to a fault, winning, nay, fascinating, of manner to all with whom he came into contact.
Hampden’s face, on the other hand, bore its usual serious expression, with no shadow of change o’er the mild, contemplative gaze. He looked, as he always appeared to those who knew him, as if he were thinking out the subject on hand with painstaking earnestness in the interests of truth.
Duels were always rare in Australia. Now they are unknown. Society appears to manage without them in disputes affecting the honour of individuals. Whether manners have suffered in consequence, is a point upon which opinions have differed. It had so chanced that Hampden had never stood ‘on the ground’ before, although in skirmishes with the wild tribes of his native land it was well known that his cool intrepidity and unerring aim had more than once saved life.
On this occasion an observer of character might have believed that he was more closely occupied in analysing his own and his adversary’s sensations than in attending to his personal interest.
That opinion would have been modified, when the critic observed him raise his hand with quiet precision at the signal. He fired with instinctive rapidity, and at the falling handkerchief two reports rang out.
As each man preserved his position unaltered, a sigh of relief broke from Fred Churbett. The features of Hampden had not in the slightest degree altered their expression. The eager observer even thought he detected a tendency to the slow, humorous smile which was wont to be his substitute for laughter, as Argyll threw down his weapon with a hasty exclamation, while a red line on his pistol arm showed that the accuracy of Hampden’s aim had not been altered by the nature of his target.