“Oh, to be sure,” replied his companion; “the whole Temple has been ringing with it for the last few days, as I am assured by my friend Jack Topper. And I heard it myself spoken of last week to the west of Temple Bar. Indeed, I believe it was Sackville himself who told the tale at first among some of his revellers; but, for my part, I think it not a whit the more true or likely on that account.”
“It is,” said Bruce, with deep emotion, “too true. He did strike me, and I, for sake of friendship and love, did not resent it. But what, Crawford, could I do in the presence of my appointed bride, to right myself with her brother?”
“Oh, to be sure,” said Crawford, “that is all very true as to the time when the blow was given; but then, you know, there has been a great deal of time since. And, love here or love there, people will speak of such a thing in their ordinary way. The story was told the other day in my presence to the French ambassador; and Monsieur’s first question was, ‘Doth the man yet live?’ When told that he was both living and life-like, he shrugged his shoulders, and looked more than I can tell.”
“Oh, Crawford,” said Bruce, “you agonise me. I hoped that this painful tale would be kept between ourselves, and that there would be no more of it. I still hoped, although tremblingly, that my union with the woman I love would be accomplished, and that all should then be made up. But now I feel that I have been but too truly foredoomed. That union must be anticipated by a very different event.”
“You know best,” said the careless Crawford, “what is best for your own honour.” And away he tripped, leaving the flames of hell in a breast where hitherto every gentle feeling had resided.
The light talk of Crawford was soon confirmed in import by the treatment which Bruce began to experience in society. It was the fashion of the age that every injury, however trifling, should be expiated by an ample revenge; that nothing should be forgiven to any one, however previously endeared. Accordingly, no distinction was made between the case of Bruce and any other; no allowance was made for the circumstances in which he stood respecting the family of his injurer, nor for their former extraordinary friendship. The public, with a feeling of which too much still exists, seemed to think itself defrauded of something which was its right, in the continued impunity of Sackville’s insolence. It cried for blood to satisfy itself, if not to restore the honour of the injured party. Bruce, of course, suffered dreadfully from this sentiment wherever he appeared; insomuch that, even though he might have been still disposed to forgive his enemy, he saw that to do so would only be to encounter greater misery than could accrue from any attempt at revenge, even though that attempt were certain to end in his own destruction.
It happened that just at this time Bruce and Sackville had occasion, along with many other attachés of the court, to attend the Elector Palatine out of the country, with his newly-married bride, Elizabeth, the daughter of the king and queen. The two young men kept apart till they came to Canterbury, where, as the royal train was viewing the cathedral, it chanced that they saw each other very near. The elector, who knew a little of their story, immediately called Sackville up to him, and requested his sword, enjoining him, at the same time, in a friendly manner, to beware of falling out with Bruce so long as he was in attendance upon the court. His highness said, farther, that he had heard his royal father-in-law speak of their quarrel, and express his resolution to visit any transgression of the laws by either of them with his severest displeasure. Sackville obeyed the command of the elector, and withdrew to a part of the cortege remote from the place where Bruce was standing. However, it happened, that, in surveying the curiosities of that gorgeous architectural scene, they came to the monument of a Scottish crusader, who had died here on his way back from the Holy Land. Sackville muttered something respecting this object, in which the words “beggarly Scot” were alone overheard by Bruce, who stood at no great distance, and who immediately recriminated by using some corresponding phrase of obloquy applicable to England, to which Sackville replied by striking his former friend once more upon the face. Before another word or blow could pass between them, a number of courtiers had rushed forward to separate them, and they were immediately borne back to a distance from each other, each, however, glaring upon the other with a look of concentrated scorn and hate. The elector thought it necessary, after what had taken place, that they should be confined for a time to their apartments. But no interval of time could restore amity to those bosoms where formerly it had reigned supreme. It was now felt by both that nothing but blood could wipe out the sense of wrong which they mutually felt; and, therefore, as the strictness of the king regarding personal quarrels rendered it impossible to fight in Britain, without danger of interruption, Bruce resolved to go beyond seas, and thence send a challenge requesting Sackville to follow him.
In forming this purpose, Bruce felt entirely like a doomed man. He recollected the prediction of the old woman at Culross Abbey, which had always appeared to him, somehow, as implying that Sackville should be the unhappy survivor. Already, he reflected, the least probable part of the prediction had been fulfilled by their having quarrelled. Under this impression, he found it indispensable to his peace that he should return to London, and take leave of two individuals in whom he felt the deepest interest—his mother and his once-intended bride. Notwithstanding the painful nature of his sensations, he found it would be necessary to assume a forced ease of demeanour in the presence of these beloved persons, lest he should cause them to interpose themselves between him and his purpose. The first visit was paid to his mother, who resided at his own house. He had received, he said, some news from Scotland, which rendered it necessary that he should immediately proceed thither; and he briefly detailed a story which he had previously framed in his own mind for the purpose of deceiving her. After having made some preparations for his journey, he came to take leave of her; but his first precautions having escaped from his mind during the interval, his forehead now bore a gloom as deep as the shade of an approaching funeral. When his mother remarked this, he explained it, not perfectly to her satisfaction, but yet sufficiently so to avert farther question, by reference to the pain of parting with his mistress on a long and dangerous journey, when just about to be united to her for life. As he pronounced the words “long and dangerous journey,” his voice faltered with tenderness; but there was so much truth in the real meaning of the phrase (however little there might be now), that no metaphorical interpretation occurred to the mind of Lady Bruce. He even spoke of his will without exciting her suspicions. There was but one point in it, he said, that he thought it worth while to allude to. Wherever or whensoever it might please fate to remove him from the coil of mortal life, he wished his mother, or whoever might survive him, to recollect that his dying spirit reverted to the scenes of his infancy, and that his heart wished in life that it might never in death be parted from that spot. These words, of course, communicated to Lady Bruce’s spirit that gravity which the mention of mortal things must ever carry; but yet nothing seemed amiss in what she heard. It was not till after she had parted with her son—not till she felt the blank impression of his last embrace lingering on her bosom, and thought of him as an absent being, whom it would be long before she saw again—that his final words had their full force upon her mind. Those words, like a sweet tune heard in a crowd with indifference, but which afterwards in solitude steals into and melts the soul, then revived upon her mind, and were pondered upon for days afterwards with a deep and unaccountable sadness of spirit.
It now only remained that he should take leave of his mistress. She was in the garden when he arrived, and no sooner did she obtain a glimpse of his person, than she ran gaily and swiftly towards him, with a face beaming with joy, exclaiming that she had such good news to tell him as he had not ever heard before. This turned out, upon inquiry, to be the permission of her father that their nuptials should take place that day month. The intelligence fell upon Bruce’s heart like a stab, and it was some moments ere he could collect himself to make an appropriate answer. Lady Clementina observed his discomposure, and, with a half-alarmed feeling, asked its cause. He explained it as occasioned by regret for his necessary absence in Scotland, to which he was called by some very urgent business, so as to render it necessary that the commencement of their mutual happiness should be put off for some time longer. “Thus,” he said, “to be obstructed by an affair of my own, after all the objections of others had been removed with so much difficulty, is particularly galling.” The disappointment of the young lady was more deeply felt than it was strongly expressed. She was reassured, however, by a fervent and solemn promise from her lover, that, as soon as possible, he would return to make her his own. After taking leave of her parents, he clasped her in one last fond embrace, during which every moment seemed an age of enjoyment, as if all the felicity of which he was about to be defrauded had been concentrated and squandered in that brief space. At one moment, he felt the warm pressure of a being beloved above all earthly objects, and from whom he had expected a whole life of happiness; at another, he had turned away towards the emptiness of desolation, and the cold breath of the grave.
One hour did he give to reflection upon all he left behind—an hour such as those which sometimes turn men’s hair gray—the next, and all after it, he devoted to the enterprise upon which he was entering. Crawford, whom he requested to become his second, readily agreed to accompany him for that purpose; and they immediately set out for the Netherlands, leaving a challenge for Sackville in the hands of a friend, along with directions as to the proposed place of meeting.