The Amateur Gentleman

Even on a summer's afternoon Oakshott's Barn is a desolate place, a

place of shadows and solitude, whose slumberous silence is broken

only by the rustle of leaves, the trill of a skylark high overhead,

or the pipe of throstle and blackbird.

It is a place apart, shut out from the world of life and motion, a

place suggestive of decay and degeneration, and therefore a

depressing place at all times.

Yet, standing here, Barnabas smiled and uncovered his head, for here,

once, SHE had stood, she who was for him the only woman in all the

world. So having paused awhile to look about him, he presently went

on into the gloom of the barn, a gloom damp and musty with years and

decay.

Now glancing sharply this way and that, Barnabas espied a ladder or

rather the mouldering remains of one, that led up from the darkest

corner to a loft; up this ladder, with all due care, he mounted, and

thus found himself in what had once served as a hay-loft, for in one

corner there yet remained a rotting pile. It was much lighter up here,

for in many places the thatch was quite gone, while at one end of

the loft was a square opening or window. He was in the act of

looking from this window when, all at once he started and crouched

down, for, upon the stillness broke a sudden sound,--the rustling of

leaves, and a voice speaking in loud, querulous tones. And in a

while as he watched, screening himself from all chance of observation,

Barnabas saw two figures emerge into the clearing and advance

towards the barn.

"I tell you C-Chichester, it will be either him or m-me!"

"If he--condescends to fight you, my dear Ronald."

"C-condescend?" cried Barrymaine, and it needed but a glance at his

flushed cheek and swaying figure to see that he had been drinking

more heavily than usual. "C-condescend, damn his insolence!

Condescend, will he? I'll give him no chance for his c-cursed

condescension, I--I tell you, Chichester, I'll--"

"But you can't make a man fight, Ronald."

"Can't I? Why then if he won't fight I'll--"

"Hush! don't speak so loud!"

"Well, I will, Chichester,--s-so help me God, I will!"

"Will--what, Ronald?"

"W-wait and see!"

"You don't mean--murder, Ronald?"

"I didn't s-say so, d-did I?"

"Of course not, my dear Barrymaine, but--shall I take the pistols?"

And Mr. Chichester stretched out his hand towards a flat, oblong box

that Barrymaine carried clutched beneath his arm. "Better give them

to me, Ronald."

"No,--w-why should I?"

"Well,--in your present mood--"

"I--I'm not--d-drunk,--damme, I'm not, I tell you! And I'll give

the f-fellow every chance--honorable meeting."

"Then, if he refuses to fight you, as of course he will, you'll let

him go to--ah--make love to Cleone?"