‘I have much pleasure in stating, on the part of my principal, that while accepting Mr. Hampden’s handsome apology and retractation, he desires to recognise cordially his generous behaviour.’
Only the Spartan laws of the duello, inexorably binding upon all men soever of a certain rank in society, prevented Fred Churbett from throwing his hat into the air at this termination of the affair.
As each party moved off in opposite directions, after Argyll had, rather against his will, submitted to having his arm bandaged, secundum artem, Hampden said to Neville:
‘What mockeries these affairs are! I could have shot Argyll “as dead as a herring.” It’s better as it is, though.’
‘It’s a good thing his last shot wasn’t an inch or two inside your collar instead of out,’ said Neville gravely. ‘After all, as you say, these things are mockeries, and worse. Suppose he had drilled you, and I was on my way to tell Mrs. Hampden that her husband would never return to her?’
‘But you wouldn’t be able to have given the sad intelligence, old fellow,’ said Hampden; ‘you would have been fleeing from justice, or surrendering yourself. Deuced troublesome affair to all concerned, except the departed. But a man must live or die, in accordance with the rules of society. After all, there’s nearly as much chance of breaking one’s neck mustering over that lava country of ours as being snuffed out in this way. Life’s a queer lottery at best.’
‘H—m, ha!’ said Neville, ‘great deal to be got out of the subject; don’t feel in the humour for enlarging on it just now. What a good fellow that Churbett is! He had a mind to read the Riot Act himself.’
An angry man ye may opine,
Was he, the proud Count Palatine!
And dire would have been the wrath of our provincial potentate, William Rockley, had he but known on Sunday morning what deeds were about to be enacted within his social and magisterial jurisdiction.