The Courtship of Morrice Buckler. A. E. W. Mason
with courteous gentleness. "As I have said, I am very tired. Luck is on your side, and, if I may be permitted to add, the advantage of the stakes."
Elmscott glanced at me, paused for a second, and then, with a forced laugh:
"Very well; so be it," he said. The dice were brought; he rattled them vigorously, and flung them down.
"Four!" cried one of the gentlemen.
"Damn!" said my cousin, and he mopped his forehead with his handkerchief. His antagonist picked up the dice with inimitable nonchalance, barely shook them in the cup, and let them roll idly out on to the table.
"Three!"
Elmscott heaved a sigh of relief. The other stretched his arms above his head and yawned.
"'Tis a noble house, your house in Monmouth Square," he remarked.
At the second throw, Elmscott discovered a most nervous anxiety. He held the cup so long in his hand that I feared he would lose the courage to complete the game. I felt, in truth, a personal shame at his indecision, and I gazed around with the full expectation of seeing a like feeling expressed upon the features of those who watched. But they wore one common look of strained expectancy. At last Elmscott threw.
"Nine!" cried one, and a low murmur of voices buzzed for an instant and suddenly ceased as the other took up the dice.
"Two!"
Both players rose as with one motion. Elmscott tossed down his throat the brandy in his tumbler--it had stood by his side untasted since the early part of the night--and then turned to me with an almost hysterical outburst.
"One moment."
It was the youth who spoke, and his voice rang loud and strong. His weariness had slipped from him like a mask. He bent across the table and stretched out his arm, with his forefinger pointing at my cousin.
"I will play you one more bout, Lord Elmscott. Against all that you have won back from me to-night--the money, your house, your estate--I will pit my docks in the city of Bristol. But I claim one condition," and he glanced at me and paused.
"If it affects my cousin's presence----" Elmscott began.
"It does not," the other interrupted. "'Tis a trivial condition--a whim of mine, a mere whim."
"What is it, then?" I asked, for in some unaccountable way I was much disquieted by his change of manner, and dreaded the event of his proposal.
"That while your cousin throws you hold his buckles in your hands."
It were impossible to describe the effect which this extraordinary request produced. At any other time it would have seemed no more than laughable. But after these long hours of play we were all tinder to a spark of superstition. Nothing seemed too whimsical for belief. Luck had proved so tricksy a sprite that the most trivial object might well take its fancy and overset the balance of its favours. The fierce vehemence of the speaker, besides, breaking thus unexpectedly through a crust of equanimity, carried conviction past the porches of the ears. So each man hung upon Elmscott's answer as upon the arbitrament of his own fortune.
For myself, I took a quick step towards my cousin; but the youth shot a glance of such imperious menace at me that I stopped shamefaced like a faulty schoolboy. However, Elmscott caught my movement and, I think, the look which arrested me.
"Not to-day," he said, "if you will pardon me. I am over-tired myself, and would fain keep to our bargain." Thereupon he came over to me. "Now, Morrice," he exclaimed, "it is your turn. You have the money. What else d'ye lack? What else d'ye lack?"
"I need the swiftest horse in your stables," I replied.
Elmscott burst into a laugh.
"You shall have it--the swiftest horse in my stables. You shall e'en take it as a gift. Only I fear 'twill leave your desires unsatisfied." And he chuckled again.
"Then," I replied, with some severity, for in truth his merriment struck me as ill-conditioned, "then I shall take the liberty of leaving it behind at the first post on the Bristol Road."
"The Bristol Road?" interposed the youth. "You journey to Bristol?"
I merely bowed assent, for I was in no mood to disclose my purpose to that company, and caught up my hat; but he gently took my arm and drew me into the window.
"Mr. Buckler," he said, gazing at me the while with quiet eyes, "Fortune has brought us into an odd conjunction this night. I have so much of the gambler within me as to believe that she will repeat the trick, and I hope for my revenge."
He held out his hand courteously. I could not but take it. For a moment we stood with clasped hands, and I felt mine tremble within his.
"Ah!" he said, smiling curiously, "you believe so, too." And he made me a bow and turned back into the room.
I remained where he left me, gazing blindly out of the window; for the shadow of a great trouble had fallen across my spirit. His words and the concise certainty of his tone had been the perfect voicing of my own forebodings. I did indeed believe that Fortune would some day pit us in a fresh antagonism; that somewhere in the future she had already set up the lists, and that clasp of the hands I felt to be our bond and surety that we would keep faith with her and answer to our names.
"Morrice," said Elmscott at my elbow, and I started like one waked from his sleep, "we'll go saddle your horse."
And he laughed to himself again as though savouring a jest. He slipped an arm through mine and walked to the door.
"Good morning, gentlemen," he said. "Marston, au revoir!" And with a twirl of his hat, he stepped into the outer room. His servant was sleeping upon a bench, and he woke him up and bade him fetch the money and follow home.
The morning was cold, and we set off at a brisk pace towards Monmouth Square, Elmscott chatting loudly the while, with ever and again, I thought, a covert laugh at me.
I only pressed on the harder. It was not merely that I was vexed by his quizzing demeanour; but the moment I was free from that tawdry hell, and began to breathe fresh air in place of the heavy reek of perfumes and wine, the fulness of my disloyalty rolled in upon my conscience, so that Elmscott's idle talk made me sicken with repulsion; for he babbled ever about cards and dice and the feminine caprice of luck.
"What ails you, Morrice?" at length he inquired, seeing that I had no stomach for his mirth. "You look as spiritless as a Quaker."
"I was thinking," I replied, in some irritation, for he clapped me on the back as he spoke, "that it must be sorely humiliating for a man of your age either to win money or lose it when you have a mere stripling to oppose you."
"A man of my age, indeed!" he exclaimed. "And what age do you take to be mine, Mr. Buckler?"
He turned his face angrily towards me, and I scanned it with great deliberation.
"It would not be fair," I answered, with a shake of the head. "It would not be fair for me to hazard a guess. Two nights at play may well stamp middle-age upon youth, and decrepitude upon middle-age."
At this he knew not whether to be mollified or yet more indignant, and so did the very thing I had been aiming at--he held his tongue. Thus we proceeded in a moody silence until we were hard by Soho. Then he asked suddenly:
"What drags you in such a scurry to Bristol?"
"I would give much to know myself," I answered. "I journey thither at the instance of a friend who lies in dire peril. But that is the whole sum of my knowledge. I have not so much as a hint of the purport of my service."
"A friend! What friend?" he inquired with something of a start, and looked at me earnestly.
"Sir Julian Harnwood," said I, and he stopped abruptly in his walk.
"Ah!" he said; then he looked on the ground, and swore a little to himself.
"You know what threatens him?" said I; but