“For heaven’s sake, Sackville,” said Lord Bruce, “take care lest she make us all repent of this. Don’t you see that she is a spaewife?”
“What care I for your spaewives?” cried Sackville. “All I know is, that she is a cursed old beggar or gipsy, and has nearly caused me break my neck!”
“I tell you she is a witch and a fortune-teller,” said his gentler companion; “and there is not a man in the country but would rather have his neck broken than say any thing to offend her.”
The woman, who had hitherto stood with a face beaming with indignation, now broke out—
“Ride on to your hunting, young man,” addressing Sackville; “you will not have the better sport for abusing the helpless infirmities of old age. Some day you two will go out to a different kind of sport, and one only will come back alive; alive, but wishing that he rather had been doomed to the fate of his companion.”
Both Sackville and Bruce were for the time deeply impressed with this denunciation, to which the superstitious feelings of the age gave greater weight than can now be imagined; and even while they mutually swore that hostility between them was impossible, they each secretly wished that the doom could be unsaid. Its chief immediate effect was to deepen and strengthen their friendship. Each seemed to wish, by bestowing more and more affection upon his companion, at once to give to himself a better assurance of his own disposition to quarrel, and to his friend a stronger reason for banishing the painful impression from his mind. Perhaps this was one reason—and one not the less strong that it was in some measure unconscious—why, on the separation of their characters in ripening manhood, they still clung to each other with such devoted attachment.
In process of time, a new and more tender relation arose between these two young men, to give them mutually better assurance against the doom which had been pronounced upon them. Lady Clementina Sackville, eldest daughter of the Earl of Dorset, was just two years younger than Sir George and his friend, and there was not a more beautiful or accomplished gentlewoman in the court of Queen Anne. Whether in the walking of a minuet, or in the personation of a divine beauty in one of Ben Jonson’s court masks, Lady Clementina was alike distinguished; while her manners, so far from betraying that pride which so often attends the triumphs of united beauty and talent, were of the most unassuming and amiable character. It was not possible that two such natures as those of Lord Bruce and Lady Clementina Sackville should be frequently in communion, as was their case, without contracting a mutual affection of the strongest kind. Accordingly, it soon became understood that the only obstacle to their union was their extreme youth, which rendered it proper that they should wait for one or two years, before their fortunes, like their hearts, should be made one. It unfortunately happened that this was the very time when the habits of Sir George Sackville made their greatest decline, and when, consequently, it was most difficult for Bruce to maintain the friendship which hitherto subsisted between them. The household of Lord Dorset was one of that sober cast, which, in the next age, was characterised by the epithet puritanical. As such, of course, it suited with the temper of Lord Bruce, who, though not educated in Scotland, had been impressed by his mother with the grave sentiments and habits of his native country. Often then did he mourn with the amiable family of Dorset over the errors of his friend; and many was the night which he spent innocently in that peaceful circle, while Sir George roamed about, in company with the most wicked and wayward spirits of the time.
One night, after he had enjoyed with Lady Clementina a long and delightful conversation respecting their united prospects, Sir George came home in a state of high intoxication and excitement, exclaiming loudly against a Scotch gentleman with whom he had had a street quarrel, and who had been rescued, as he said, from his sword, only by the unfair interference of some other “beggarly Scots.” It was impossible for a Scotsman of Bruce’s years to hear his countrymen spoken of in this way without anger; but he repressed every emotion, till his friend proceeded to generalise upon the character of these “beggarly Scots,” and extended his obloquy from the individuals to the nation. Lord Bruce then gently repelled his insinuations, and said, that surely there was one person at least whom he would exempt from the charge brought against his country. “I will make no exemptions,” said the infatuated Sackville, “and least of all in favour of a cullion who sits in his friend’s house, and talks of him puritanically behind his back.” Bruce felt very bitterly the injustice of this reproach; but the difficulty of shaping a vindication rendered his answer more passionate than he wished; and it was immediately replied to by Sackville with a contemptuous blow upon the face. There, in a moment, fell the friendship of years, and deadly gall usurped the place where nothing before had been but “the milk of kindness.” Lady Clementina, to whom the whole affair seemed a freak of a hurried and unnatural dream, was shocked beyond measure by the violence of her brother; but she was partly consoled by the demeanour of Bruce, who had the address entirely to disguise his feelings in her presence, and to seem as if he looked upon the insult as only a frolic. But though he appeared quite cool, the blow and words of Sackville had sunk deep into his soul; and after brooding over the event for a few hours, he found that his very nature had become, as it were, changed. That bitterest of pains—the pain of an unrequited blow—possessed and tortured his breast; nor was the reflection that the injurer was his friend, and not at the time under the control of reason, of much avail in allaying his misery. Strange though it be, the unkindness of a friend is the most sensibly felt and most promptly resented; and we are never so near becoming the irreconcilable enemies of any fellow-creature, as at the moment when we are interchanging with him the most earnest and confiding affection. Similar feelings possessed Sackville, who had really felt of late some resentment at Lord Bruce, on account of certain references which had been made by his parents to the regret expressed by this young nobleman respecting his present course of life. To apologise for his rudeness was not to be thought of; and, accordingly, these two hearts, which for years had beat in unison, became parted at once, like rocks split by one of the convulsions of nature, and a yawning and impassable gulf was left between.
For some weeks after, the young men never met; Sackville took care never to intrude into the family circle, and Bruce did not seek his company. It appeared as if the unfortunate incident had been forgotten by the parties themselves, and totally unknown to the world. One day, however, Bruce was met in Paul’s Walk by a young friend and countryman, of the name of Crawford, a rambling slip of Scottish nobility, whose very sword seemed, from the loose easy way in which it was disposed by his side, to have a particular aptitude for starting up in a quarrel. After some miscellaneous conversation, Crawford expressed his regret at a story which had lately come to his ears, respecting a disagreement between Sackville and Bruce. “What!” he said, “one might have as well expected Castor and Pollux to rise from their graves and fall a-fighting, as that you two should have had a tussle! But, of course, the affair was confined merely to words, which, we all know, matter little between friends. The story about the batter on the face must be a neat figment clapped upon the adventure by Lady Fame.”
“Have you indeed heard,” asked Bruce, in some agitation, “that any such incident took place?”