THE DUEL.

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BY E. S. GOULD, ESQ. OF NEW YORK.

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Harry Bradford sat musing by the window and was apparently lost in thought, when a sudden knock at his door aroused him; but before he could bid the applicant enter, Fred Stanley burst into the room.

“It’s all arranged, Harry,” said he with a glee in which, however, his companion did not seem at all to participate.

“So I supposed,” replied Harry, quietly; “such an affair is not likely to remain long unfinished in your hands.”

“And why should it, pray?” inquired Stanley, a little nettled at his friend’s want of enthusiasm.

“Oh, it should not, of course,” said Harry; “such matters, after all, are best done when soonest done. Where do we meet?”

“On the old battle-ground—Weehawken,” said Stanley; “no place like it.”

“No, none like it, indeed! What time have you appointed?” asked Harry.

“To-morrow, at sunrise,” replied Stanley.

“That’s rather prompt, too,” said Harry, “if one has to take leave of his friends and make his peace with God.”

“Bah!” said Stanley, slightingly, “we must not think too much of these things.”

“I must not, certainly,” replied Harry, “if I would just now retain my self-possession. We use pistols, I presume?”

“Yes, at ten paces;” said Stanley.

“A fearful proximity for men of approved courage and skill who are bent on taking each other’s life!” rejoined Harry; then after a pause, he added, “Wilson persists in his challenge, Fred?”

“Good G—!” exclaimed Stanley in dismay at what appeared to him a prospect of losing his expected sport, “you are not afraid to meet him Harry?”

“No, Stanley,” said Harry, “not in your sense of the word. So long as consequences are limited to myself, I have little thought of fear. But,” he continued—and he spoke in a low tone and with unwonted rapidity, lest some tremulousness of the voice might betray his emotion—“there are other interests, other fears, other considerations—”

“Forget them for heaven’s sake, until after to-morrow,” said Stanley, interrupting him, “or you will never acquit yourself with honor. If you have any little affairs to despatch, set about them at once, and don’t fail to be abed and asleep before ten, or you won’t be up in season. I would not have Wilson on the ground before us for the world. Good-bye; I must prepare my pistols, for I see you will never give them a thought;” and away went Fred Stanley as full of bravery, as solicitous for his friend’s honor, and as indifferent about his friend’s distress of mind—as seconds are wont to be.

Harry did not move for some minutes after Stanley left him; and when at length he raised his eyes from the floor, his countenance bore an expression of unutterable wo.

It was no wonder. He was the only child of a widowed mother, and the affianced lover of the sweetest maid in the land. If he should fall, as he well might, what would become of that mother and of Kate Birney?

He at length aroused himself saying—“I dare not see my mother: but Kate—dearest, loveliest Kate! I promised to call on her at five; and it’s five now; and, by heaven, there she stands at her parlor window beckoning me to hasten; yes! and she holds up that bouquet of flowers. It was but yesterday I gathered them for her—and what has not happened since yesterday!” Here he paused, as if too much overcome by fond recollections to proceed: he then added in a different tone—“these follies come upon us, with both cause and consequences, as suddenly, as fatally as the inevitable casualties of life! A day of promise is changed to a life of mourning by the event of a moment; the act of an instant destroys the happiness and poisons the memory of years! Those flowers were gathered in hope; and before they—frail, perishing mementos—can wither, he who bound them and she who wears them may be lost in despair!”

With a heavy heart Harry repaired to his love’s rendezvous, where, full of beauty and tenderness, Kate awaited him. They were to be married in a week; and these interviews of the lovers now possessed an additional witchery from the fact that their communings, as lovers, were so soon to terminate forever.

The romance of passion is a bright episode in our youth. The hymenæal sun, while he yet clambers toward the “misty mountain-tops” on the morning of a wedding-day, spreads his promise over the broad firmament in a thousand fantastical images of crimson and gold. We watch the accumulating splendors of the sky and say, exultingly, if the dawn be so gorgeous what will not the day bring forth? But as we gaze, the sun heaves his broad disk above the horizon—the ephemeral imagery of vapor disappears—and the calm, steady sunlight of every day-life succeeds to the beautiful vision.

To Kate, this glowing blazonry of heaven was now at its culminating point; but Harry felt, as he almost reluctantly approached her, that a cloud—the more terrible from his uncertainty as to its dimensions and progress—was gathering on that glorious sky.

As he approached, his lovely mistress hailed him with an arch reproof for his delay; but when she reached out her hand to welcome him, she saw that his face was flushed and his eye disturbed; and, changing her tone of censure to one of solicitude, she inquired anxiously:

“Are you ill, Harry?”

The pressure of the hand—the eager look of inquiry—the tremulous tone of affection which accompanied these few words startled Harry from his self-possession; and he replied—

“No—no—not at all ill; I—I—”

“Harry! dear Harry!” exclaimed Kate with passionate earnestness, “what has happened? Tell me, Harry! tell me all!”

It was instantly obvious to the young man that his engagement for the morning—which he held himself bound in honor to fulfil—would in some way certainly be interfered with by his mistress, if he allowed her to be informed of it; for, whatever might be his notions of chivalric obligations, and however imperiously he might demand her acquiescence in them, he still knew that a dread of personal danger to himself would overbear, in her mind, all other considerations. He, therefore, felt it necessary to equivocate and deceive her. This train of argument, which of course went through his mind in far less time than is required to note it down, resulted in his saying promptly—

“For heaven’s sake, Kate, don’t alarm yourself in this manner! Nothing has happened.”

It is not to be supposed that this reply was altogether satisfactory, but as Harry, in his attempt to mislead Kate had broken the spell of his own forebodings, he was now able to regain his self command; and he then soon succeeded in making a jest of her fears.

After an interview such as lovers know how to protract and no one knows how to describe, they parted; Kate inspired with bright visions of happiness, and Harry, in a state of wretchedness, the nature, but not the extent, of which may be readily conceived. He hurried to his room and without any preparation for the morrow cast himself on the bed where his agony found poor relief in a fit of uncontrollable weeping.

In this condition, he fell asleep.

It often happens, by some strange contrariety of nature, that our dreams have relation to the subjects not nearest our hearts: what has occupied our thoughts during the day usually gives place, in sleep, to something of more remote interest—as if the soul, when momentarily disencumbered of the cares of life, shook off its dependence on the body and pursued the bent of its own fancy, regardless of the wants and woes of this tabernacle of day to which it is ordinarily held in subjection. But Harry’s experience did not, at this time, conform to the rule.

After he had slept awhile, he dreamed that he was hurrying, stealthily and alone, to the scene of mortal strife. A little in advance of him was an old man whom he had several times tried to avoid by changing his route, but the stranger, without appearing to be conscious of Harry’s motions, happened so exactly to regulate his course by that which Harry took, that the impatient youth found it necessary to brush past him, at the risk of being interrupted, if he would reach his destination in due season.

He had just overtaken the old man, and was rapidly striding onward, when the latter, with a promptness and vigor not to be expected in one of his years, grasped Harry’s arm, saying—

“Hold a moment, young man; you are Harry Bradford, I believe?”

“That is my name, old gentleman,” replied Harry, with a stare of astonishment, “but as I have not the pleasure of knowing you, I must beg you to defer your civilities. I am in haste.”

“Stay a moment, nevertheless,” continued the stranger, “or,”—seeing Harry about to move on in spite of him—“if you will not, at least walk slower, that I may accompany you. I knew your father, Harry, and I can surely claim of his son the privilege of a parting word just as he is about to rush unbidden into eternity.”

“Who are you, then, and what would you say?” exclaimed Harry, not a little startled to find that his purpose as well as his name was known to the stranger.

“I am your friend,” replied the old man, “and my name is Common Sense. Why are you determined to throw away your life?”

“Sir,” said Harry, “I am engaged in an affair of honor—a matter with which, I fancy, you can have no concern.”

“I have little to do with honor as young men understand it; but I am desirous to serve you. Tell me, therefore, what is your predicament?”

“A quondam friend and rival lover, jealous of my success with a lady, insinuated something to her prejudice in the presence of gentlemen. I struck him. He challenged me; and I am bound to fight him.”

“Why?”

“The laws of honor accord full satisfaction to an injured person.”

“Is he injured?”

“No, not in fact: he merely received a just chastisement for a wanton insult.”

“Who says, then, that he is injured?”

“He says so.”

“And is it one of the articles of your code of honor that a party to a quarrel is entitled, also, to be a judge of his own case?”

“That is immaterial. If a man chooses to consider himself aggrieved, he can demand an apology, or, personal satisfaction. The apology being refused—as in my case it must be—the challenge ensues: and to question his right to issue it, provided he is recognised as a gentleman, is, equally with a refusal to fight, equivalent to an admission of cowardice.”

“An admission of one’s own cowardice is, truly, no alluring alternative. But let us understand each other: what sort of cowardice do you mean?”

“I know of but one.”

“Indeed! Cowardice, speaking generally, is fear: what fear does a man betray who declines to accept a challenge?”

“The fear—eh—that is—the fear of being shot.”

“Death, young gentleman, to one who believes in a future state of reward and punishment, is a solemn event; and I apprehend that a brave man, or a good man (to say nothing of a bad man) may fear to meet it without suffering the imputation of cowardice: so that, thus far, your position is none of the strongest. Does this cowardice comprehend nothing else than the fear of death?”

“Nothing else.”

“Then we have all the argument on that side of the question. Let us look a moment at the other. What induces a man to accept a challenge?”

“The fear of dishonor.”

“Ay? then fear operates on both horns of the dilemma: and, for my own part, if I were forced to act under the dictation of fear, I would choose that course which promised the least disastrous result. But here, again, we do not perhaps understand each other. What kind of dishonor is this?”

“Disgrace, in an intolerable form! A man thus degraded would be driven from society, branded with the stigma of cowardice, and blasted with the scorn of all honorable men.”

“That, truly, were a fate to be deprecated; though a man of sober judgment might urge that even such a fate is nothing compared to what awaits those who throw themselves, uncalled and unprepared, into the presence of their Maker. But is what you say true? Does such dishonor involve such consequences?”

“Unquestionably it does!”

“Stop a moment. Let us consider this. You say the man would be driven from society: tell me, by whom?”

“By public opinion.”

“And the same agent would brand him a coward and blast him with universal scorn?”

“Even so.”

“This public opinion, I take it, is the united opinion of that class whom you designate by the phrase all honorable men?”

“It is.”

“Very well. I wish now to ascertain the practical operation of public opinion. Supposing you were this dishonored individual: who, as the Scripture hath it, would cast the first stone at you? Who would take the initiative in banishing, branding and scorning you—would your father have done it?”

“No, certainly not.”

“Would your mother?”

“No.”

“Would the lady you love—or any lady on the face of the earth?”

“No.”

“Would any of the old respectable inhabitants—your father’s companions and equals?”

“No.”

“Would any of those who, by common consent, form the respectable and estimable portion of the community?”

“No.”

“Would not, rather, all these to whom I have referred, applaud you for refusing deliberately to give or receive a death-wound in a quarrel; and honor you for daring to practice what every sensible man has preached since the world began?”

“Perhaps they might.”

“Then will you tell me, identically, who would inflict on you the penalties of this imaginary dishonor? Who would pronounce you disgraced and point at you as a coward?”

“Why, Wilson, and Fred Stanly, and Jack Smith, and Jim Brown, and every body.”

“What are they?”

“Gentlemen.”

“What is a gentleman?”

“One who has, or had, or expects to have a plenty of cash—who has no particular vocation—who carries a rattan, wears long hair, and goes to all the fashionable parties.”

“I have but two questions more to ask: supposing you are killed in this duel: what would be the consequences to others?”

“My mother would die of a broken heart; and Kate—God knows what would become of her!”

“Supposing, on the contrary, you should kill your antagonist?”

“If I were not arrested and hanged according to law, I should be obliged to quit the country and bear, ever, in my bosom the remorse and on my brow the mark of a murderer.”

“One thing more: are you not heartily ashamed of your present purpose?”

Before Harry could reply, Stanley stood at his side and awakened him by saying:

“Come, Harry, you will be too late!”

The brotherly, disinterested zeal of a second is worthy of all admiration. How dispassionately he tries the flint! How coolly he squints along the barrel to ascertain if the sight is in order! How carefully he graduates the powder, and with what a touching connoisseurship he chooses a ball! Observe, too, with what a stately air he paces off the ground—from the pride of his step you might imagine he was a prince or a conqueror marching to receive the reward of his greatness!—God in heaven! is that man arranging the ground where his friend is to be shot—shot in cold blood—and he, a silent, premeditating witness of the deed?

At the hour designated, the parties were all in attendance: the ground was measured and the pistols were loaded.

Harry now interrupted the proceedings saying:

“Gentlemen this affair has gone far enough.”

“It is too late now, sir!” said Wilson’s second, haughtily: “my friend refuses to accept an apology.”

“He had better wait,” said Harry, “until I offer it. I accepted his challenge under a misapprehension of my obligations to my friends, to society, and to what are called the laws of honor. I now retract that acceptance. He insulted me and I struck him; the reckoning of revenge was thus closed as soon as it was opened. If he dares to repeat the offence, I shall repeat the punishment; without holding myself liable to be shot at like a wild beast of the forest. You are all welcome to put your own interpretation on my refusal to fight. My conduct will justify itself to all those whose opinions are truly worthy of regard; and as for the bullying denunciation of those few miscreants whose highest ambition is to be known as the lamp-lighters and candle-snuffers of mortal combats—combats which the laws of God and man pronounce to be murder—as for their denunciation, my now wishing you a good morning shows how thoroughly I despise it.”

Was Harry Bradford a sensible man or a fool? Did he, in after years, regret his refusal to fight a duel? And will anyone who reads this have the good sense and manliness to do likewise?