Page:Once a Week Volume 8.djvu/536

528 word of the narrative is true, and there is not the slightest objection to the real names being recognised, as they easily will be, by many a friend and acquaintance who reads these pages.

Three or four weeks ago, I was staying at Carroll Hall, a large country house in Wiltshire. The host, Sir Edward Moreton, had assembled around him a numerous and pleasant party. Among the number of those staying at the Hall were Colonel Moreton, Sir Edward’s eldest son, and Major Dyvart. The last-mentioned officer had seen much active service. He had been through the war in the Crimea, where his name was well-known; he had served in India and in China; he was decorated with many a hardly-earned medal; and had so distinguished himself on several occasions by his conspicuous courage, that he had been specially complimented and rewarded for his bravery. His reputation, thanks to the newspapers, and the association of the French with us in the Crimea, might at one time fairly have been described as being of European, if not world-wide, extent. And should there be any one, who from this account thinks he ought to remember, but fails to recognise, the real name of Major Dyvart, he may have his memory quickened, and his understanding enlightened, if I mention that, in by-gone days of active service and hard-won fields, the officer in question was far more generally spoken of and addressed by the soubriquet of “Plucky Dick,” than his proper surname. Such then was Major Dyvart, the chief character in my story—the bravest among the brave.

It so happened that one morning when I was staying at Carroll Hall, Major Dyvart performed some unusual feat of courage. A carriage and pair, the driver of which had lost all control over the horses, came at a runaway pace down the avenue. Major Dyvart threw himself in the way, seized the head of one of the horses, and after being dragged some little distance, in the course of which he was severely bruised, succeeded in averting a catastrophe which had threatened to be fatal. One reads so often in novels of runaway horses being checked in their mad career by heroes who perform extraordinary acts, and not only invariably save the heroines of the tale, but invariably escape themselves, that seated by our firesides we almost look upon the act as common-place and comparatively easy. All I can say is, try to perform it yourself, reader, when the sad opportunity occurs, or see another man do it while you yourself stand by, paralysed with fear, and you will no longer speak slightingly or feel lightly about the danger incurred.

It was the second evening after the above-mentioned circumstance had taken place, that we were seated round the dining-table, talking over the scene. Everyone was loud in the praises of the courage of Major Dyvart, who sat with one arm in a sling, and his forehead strapped in two or three places with plaister. A new turn was given to the conversation by Colonel Moreton exclaiming, “It is very well for you all to praise Dyvart so much, and he knows how much I myself honour and value him; but let me tell you that time has been when he was a coward.”

“Impossible, impossible!” exclaimed many of the party; “you are only jealous, Moreton.”

“Oh fie! George,” exclaimed his sister.

“Nonsense, George,” cried his father, old Sir Edward, “nonsense: Dyvart a coward!”

Colonel Moreton smiled, cracked his nuts, and seemed imperturbable, merely repeating, “I tell you all, Dyvart has been a coward.”

A fresh storm of abuse arose, if that could be called abuse, which was only a very strong expression of good natured astonishment.

Dyvart wore a puzzled look.

“I tell you,” repeated George, “that I know Dyvart has been a coward, an arrant coward—small blame to him. The Duke of Wellington is said to have run away in his first battle: Dyvart, however, has been worse than the Duke. I have seen him most thoroughly frightened, so frightened that though his hair was stiff enough to stand on end, and would have supported his hat, if he had not lost it in his fright, yet at the same time the strength that had gone to his uppermost extremities had left his legs and knees so weak, that a child might have knocked him down with a feather; and if you do not call a man in that state a coward for the time being, I do not know what cowardice means.”

Dyvart looked more mystified than ever.

Colonel Moreton was not speaking in the slightest degree in an offensive tone. He was speaking seriously, with, if possible, a dash of irony and banter underlying his seriousness. At length, roused apparently by the doubts expressed by all at table, he had recourse to an Englishman’s mode of defending the truth of a statement.

“I will bet you anything you like that Dyvart has been a coward.”

“Done, done,” exclaimed the ladies.

“How much will you bet?” cried the gentlemen.

“Yes, George, but how will you prove it?” said Sir Edward.

“Listen,” exclaimed Colonel Moreton. “I will bet the ladies any amount of gloves they choose to name, and the gentlemen of the party any sum of money in moderation, that to-morrow evening, after dinner, Dyvart himself shall confess that, so far from having always deserved the name of ‘Plucky Dick,’ he has once been, and that too in my presence, as pluckless and as cowardly as any one well could be.”

The bets were made, Miss Fanny Moreton quietly remarking to me, with an arch side-long glance, “Of course, Mr. Temple, if I lose, you will pay for me? It is not possible, though, for me to lose,” she added.

Dyvart had before been appealed to by some of the company, and had professed his utter ignorance of any time when his friend Colonel Moreton could have seen him in the state described. No one could doubt the truth of the speaker. A mysterious circular nod from the lady of the house, and her fair companions, rising in a magically simultaneous manner, shook out the reefs of their crinolines, and sailed from the room. The subject then dropped.

The following evening, after dessert had been placed on the table, and directly the servants had