Page:The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club.djvu/630

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stepped lightly aside, and snatching the young man's sword from his hand before he had recovered his balance, drove him to the wall, and running it through him and the pannelling up to the very hilt, pinned him there hard and fast. It was a splendid example. My uncle, with a loud shout of triumph and a strength that was irresistible, made his adversary retreat in the same direction, and plunging the old rapier into the very centre of a large red flower in the pattern of his waist- coat, nailed him beside his friend ; there they both stood, gentlemen, jerking their arms and legs about in agony, like the toy-shop figures that are moved by a piece of packthread. My uncle always said after- wards, that this was one of the surest means he knew of, for disposing of an enemy ; but it was liable to one objection on the ground of expense, inasmuch as it involved the loss of a sword for every man disabled.

throwing her beautiful arms round his neck ; * we may yet escape.'
 * ' ' The mail, the mail !' cried the lady, running up to my uncle and

" ' May ! ' said my uncle ; * why, niy dear, there's nobody else to kill, is there?' My uncle was rather disappointed, gentlemen, for he thought a little quiet bit of love-making would be agreeable after the slaughtering, if it were only to change the subject.

" ' We have not an instant to lose here,' said the young lady. ' He (pointing to the young gentleman in sky blue) is the only son of the powerful Marquess of Filletoville.'

" ' Well then, my dear, I'm afraid he'll never come to the title,' said my uncle, looking coolly at the young gentleman as he stood fixed up against the wall, in the cockchaffer fashion I have described. ' You have cut off the entail, my love.'

said the young lady, her features glowing with indignation. ' That wretch would have married me by violence in another hour.'
 * ' ' I have been torn from my home and friends by these villains,'

'^'Confound his impudence!' said my uncle, bestowing a very contemptuous look on the dying heir of Filletoville.

" * As you may guess from what I have seen,' said the young lady, ' the party are prepared to murder me if you appeal to any one for assistance. If their accomplices find us here, we are lost. Two minutes hence may be too late. The mail !' — and with these words, over- powered by her feelings and the exertion of sticking the young Mar- quess of Filletoville, she sunk into my uncle's arms. My uncle caught her up, and bore her to the house-door. There stood the mail with four long-tailed flowing-maned black horses, ready harnessed ; but no coachman, no guard, no ostler even, at the horses' heads.

" Gentlemen, I hope I do no injustice to my uncle's memory, when I express my opinion, that although he was a bachelor, he had held some ladies in his arms before this time ; I believe indeed, that he had rather a habit of kissing barmaids, and I know, that in one or two instances, he had been seen by credible witnesses, to hug a landlady in a very perceptible manner. I mention the circumstance, to show what a very uncommon sort of person this beautiful young lady must have been to have aflTected my uncle in the way she did ; he used to say, that as her long dark hair trailed over his arm, and her beautiful dark eyes fixed themselves upon his face when she recovered, he felt so strange