CHAPTER IV.

When Walter Brown heard of the delicacy of his clerk in keeping the name of his family out of that foolish altercation, and saw the masterly summary he had made of the business confided to his hand, the bold operator in pork recognized a value in his clerk. To his remonstrances Bob said, "It's a closed account, sir, and I must pay the balances. If I let the police interfere, I shall have a dozen rows on hand, and could not manage the roughs in the yard."

But, though Mr. Brown saw that he could not interfere without injuring Bob's reputation, he resolved that she who had made the quarrel should stop it. He sent the dowager, packed with her prejudices, to the police magistrate. "Hold up your hand. You swear L. B. Mason, Esq., and ---- Nettles contemplate a breach of the peace?" said the judge.

"I can't swear of my own knowledge," said she. "It is incredible a nettles "--with a small _n_--"should meet a Brown," with a four-line pica _B_. And it did seem incredible to the august dowager.

"Really, madam, we have nothing to found a warrant upon," said the court.--"Show the lady out, and call the next case."

In fact, as decided in _Ex-parte Jones_, the right of personal redress was recognized by law in Kentucky, and an elective judiciary cared neither to ignore nor acknowledge the case. But in going out she heard a policeman make some reference to the duel in conversing with a comrade.

"Of what were you speaking just now?" asked the dowager.

"Of a little game between a low-down dead-beat and a gent," said the policeman.

"If I understand you," said the dowager, "I am glad to find such correct feeling in men of your class."

"Oh, it's so on the Force," said the man. "Short-stop is quite a favo-rite with the tip-toppers. You may ha' heerd o' him. T'other's a sort o' stool-pigeon--name Mason. They do say as a rich aunt o' his'n got him into it. Blest if she'll get much of him out of it when Nettles is done with him! Why, Nettles beats professionals!--Now, boy, you going to drive your missis' carriage, or shall I? This ain't no place to scrouge about and stare."

Aunt Fanny sank back astounded. Was she a Moabitish mother who had sacrificed her nephew to a professional duellist? "Drive to Lawyer Winnett's," she said--"quick!"

"Your information was sufficient," said the lawyer with that contempt the profession has for irregular police proceedings, "but the code is a bastard child of the law. If you had a warrant the officers would not execute it."

"But," said the dowager, brought face to face with a family prejudice in favor of the code, "it is too horrible to suppose that peace-officers will stand coolly by and see homicide contemplated and executed without interference."

"True, nevertheless," said the lawyer, too familiar with contradictions of the law to regard it. "But, in fact, I wished to speak to you of your nephew's affairs. Captain Mason sent a schedule of his liabilities this morning, saying you had authorized their settlement. I don't regard Captain Mason's stories usually, but there was something about a family marriage included, which, knowing your wishes, I think justifies me in referring to it."

"The wretch!" said his aunt. "I have authorized nothing of the kind."

"No? Well, excuse my reference to it. It just occurred to me if such an arrangement was contemplated we might kill two birds with one stone."

"How?" asked the dowager. "I want this atrocious duel stopped. The rabble have my name mixed in it, as if I counselled or approved. I am shocked at it, and it must be stopped at any cost."

"Of course," said the lawyer, his professional coolness contrasting with the dowager's fierce temper. "I might buy up Captain Mason's notes in the hands of Walker or Levi, and have him arrested in civil proceedings as about to leave the State to avoid his creditors. That writ would go into the hands of the sheriff, and I do not doubt its execution. Captain Mason's credit is such at present he cannot find security. If necessary, I could put on some others," looking over the schedule. "I have no doubt it will hold him until the matter is stopped. If you instruct me to that effect, you can go home, madam, and leave it to me."

How refreshing it was to meet a practical, sound head in all that confusion! Much relieved, Aunt Fanny hurried home to comfort Sudie, just wakened to grief by her father's visit.

The dowager's appreciation of the shrewd lawyer's hypothesis was heightened almost immediately by a visit from Wylde Payne with a note from her nephew soliciting pecuniary assistance. The dowager fairly clapped her hands. It began to assume all the interest of a race or a match game at whist. "We shall take every trick, child," said she; "and this Mister Payne, my overseer's grandson, who made all this trouble, shall be laid by the heels to begin with."

She kept him in the anteroom while she despatched a swift messenger to her lawyer asking for a policeman to take Payne into custody. Lind Mason's second, it will be observed, had had every assurance that his principal was fighting his aunt's quarrel, and looked for no small share of commendation for his own zeal and services. He had time to hear the regular movements of a great household revolving about the pivotal dinner-hour before he rang a second time. Then the mulatto maid, Memmie, appeared: "This way, sah. Yalla Memmie done knowed ye when ye could tie you'se'f in a cawnah o' yo' pock't-hankchah and put yo'se'f in yo' pock't."

Pondering on such precocious jugglery of his early years, he was ushered into the dowager's boudoir, where she sat with Sudie and ma'amselle.

"Be seated, Mr. Payne," she said with that royal gesture of command habitual to power in her sphere. "I am glad to see you. You are at the bottom of this bloody business."

Payne took breath as from a sudden douche, and began a speech conned over in the carriage: "In a crisis involving the honor of a noble family--"

"I know the false and criminal jargon by which you justify your barbarous code," interrupted the haughty dowager. "It lacks that manly directness I require in all who address me. Why, sir, did you avail yourself of a quick-tempered old woman's hasty words to force her wretched nephew into wicked folly? How dared you intercept my messenger?" sharply, as if at a new and sudden offence just sprung.

All this was astounding to Payne as the caresses of a tigress; but his too was a bold, high temper when aroused, and he retorted: "Madam, if you desire your nephew to be kicked and cuffed and driven from his cousin's house, it cannot be as Wylde Payne's friend. Your messenger was excluded by Captain Mason's orders, he having matters more important in hand than the intermeddling of a lady who had forced him into this business, but who now makes a merit of deserting him and abusing those who decline to act as treacherously."

The hot shot went home to the magazine, for the dowager rose blazing: "I know you for murder's lackey, and the cheap notoriety you seek, at the cost of your friend's courage and life, as the witness of his assassination, ready to testify it was well and fairly done--the base policeman of murder, to guard guilt in its guiltiness as the law protects the innocent in innocency. But you shall not escape: mark that!"

"I am responsible for my actions and easy to find," said Payne. "I scorn a law that presumes to enter into my feelings and judge the measure of my wounded honor."

"Weigh your words well," said the dowager--"you who presume to sit in judgment on the honor of a Brown! Public opinion is ripe to break the shackles of this vile code. No mail of chivalry protects the second who stands coolly by, a participant and accessory without risk or danger, to justify the black murder done on his bosom friend. When wealth and social influence are thrown into the scale against one who caught up a rash woman's hasty word, as hastily repented, we shall know what the law thinks of one who excluded her messenger of peace and pressed his victim on to the murdering-ground."

Angry as she was, the old lady was putting her points well. Payne's position was already very equivocal. Common rumor presented him as forcing that Boabdil Mason to the mark; but he answered contemptuously, "You have already appealed to the law, and know the result."

"I do," interrupted the dowager, crumpling the lawyer's unread note in her hand. "You will find your friend's quarters in the Louisville jail, and a policeman at the door to escort you to him."

Payne rose hastily and left the room without ceremony.

"Oh, aunty!" said little Sue, who had listened to the roar of great guns in awe and terror, "it will make you sick."

"Sick!" said the dowager, looking almost real in her affected youth with congenial excitement: "it is life, child. But let us see what Winnett says."

Before reading the lawyer's note let us follow Payne. The reader will understand that Mason was now in the condition of Ivanhoe after his wager with the Templar of the precious reliquary, and before he was relieved by the gratitude of Isaac of York. He lacked the means to get to his Ashby de la Zouche. But at Payne's rueful face in telling of his interview with the dowager the graceless scamp threw his fat figure on the bed, cracking his sides with laughter.

"I don't see the fun," said Payne sulkily. "I wish I was well out of it. The dowager talked devilish strong."

"If my aunt won't help us," said Mason, "my uncle will. You must just take my stop-watch to the three balls.

Farewell to my golden repeater! We've come to my uncle's old shop!"

Payne was just leaving when a voice in the next room stopped him. "It's that infernal pawnbroker," said he in a rage.

The man came in, smooth, civil, obsequious. "I thought you'd like to have this thing off your mind," said he, presenting a note of Mason's.

The two looked at each other blankly.

"See here, Levison," said Mason coaxingly: "you know my aunt will settle all these things, and I want money right now. Payne was just going to see you."

"She'll pay some--not this," said the man coolly. "In fact, I am just from Winnett's. He has paid Levi and Walker"--at which Mason stared--"and taken out a writ in summary proceedings. In fact, I come to warn you, and one good turn deserves another: pay it and go."

Mason by chaffering got a small sum on his watch over the debt. He was clear at last. Payne had left, and Mason was taking a final drink at the bar when a man tapped his shoulder. Aunt Fanny had played her trump and won: it was the sheriff.

"All right!" said Levison, laughing. "Whenever you _have_ anything, you know, I am accommodating, but--"

We can now return and read Aunt Fanny's correspondence.