The Arkansaw traveler., 1886-05-15

l suppose l speedily thought more ot her than of the young lady at Elm Knoll Indeed, we were married the next year.
 At the time speak of good many things were in vogue or at least had not | died out, which have quite vanished now, and among these was duelling. Every now and then a duel was fought but the ridicule which attended blood less meetings, and the greater activity of the police in cases where harm was done, were diminishing them greatly yet still they did occasionally happen. A great stir was made by a violent quarrel among some officers of regi- ment quartered in Lancashire, in which a challenge to fight duel had been given and refused. It was called in the papers of the day, "The Great Military i Scandal and arose in the following offered gross insult to young lady, on whom, 1t appeared, he had been forcing his attentions for some time, and her only relative, half-brother, was in the same regiment with the major. The details were not pleasant, and it was no wonder that Captain Laurenston chal- 1 lenged the major; but the latter declined the challenge on some professional grounds and when the parties met high words passed. These commenced, it appeared, with the captain but each be- came violent in the dispute, until at last the captain thrashed his antagonist in the presence of several officers. This was not q make-believe beating; con sider-yourselfhorsewhipped ' affair, but a right-down welting' the major being badly cut and bruised. This was serious enough anyhow; but what made it worse was that the officers were on duty at the time; and by the strict letter of military law, the captain would cer- tainly be punished with death.
 He had expected, it seems, that after so public and such a painful humiliation he would infallibly receive challenge from the injured officer; but it was not SO He was placed in arrest in the bar racks, and expected to be brought to a court-martial He heard however from some friendly source that it was in tended to hand him over to the civil power, when he would be charged with an assault with intent to kill.
 In those days almost anything was transportable, and as Major Starley be- longed to one of the most influential families in the kingdom, there was no doubt that the captain would be sent to a convict settlement; there was also no doubt that the prosecution would be conducted in the most vindictive spirit and pushed to the bitterest end.
 Terrified at such prospect, the young officer escaped from the barracks, by connivance of the guard, there was req son to suppose, although this was never completely proved at any rate he got clear away and disappeared. Immediate advantage was taken of this fatal al though very natural step and a reward was at once offered for his apprehension. l If he could get out of the country, he would be safe, as there were then no engagements for giving up criminals, so 1 the ports were watched; an easier thing to do when there was not such tremen- dous outflow of emigration as now.
 Public sympathy was, naturally strongly in favor of Captain Laurenston, and against the major, who would be compelled, it was generally said, to leave 1 the service. But this would not save the captain from being cashiered, nor 1 lIhIll lpllItttIl NtlIS lIdfiSIOIltllOll, dS he was certain to be made an example of, if only for the purpose of showing that officers would be protected when they refused to accept challenge.
 1 had taken an interest in all these details, as my mates had done and as with them, my sympathies were on the side of Captain Laurenston, yet only as a stranger, for had never, to my knowl- edge, heard of him before. But after a while it began to be said that the cap tain was the officer who had been so long a visitor at Elm Knoll, and was the accepted suitor of Miss Cleabyrn. This gave me more interest in the affair, and l sincerely hoped he might make good his escape.
 Miss Beatrice had returned to Elm Knoll, but she rarely left the house and still more rarely rode out, although it was the hunting season, so that hardly ever saw her.
 was on night duty at the signals and when l went there one evening to relieve the day man, he told mo that there were several London detectives hanging about the place he knew this from one of the guards who had formerly been in the police, and so recognized them l naturally asked if the company suspected anything wrong among their people, and my mate said no, not at all The detectives, of course would not say anything about their bus mess; but the guard suspected that they were after Captain Laurenston, who was likely to try to see Miss Cleabyrn be- fore leaving England This appeared feasible enough; and was able heartily to echo the wish of my mate, to the effect that the young fellow might give his pursuers the slip.
 have said that my signals and cross ing were on a branch of no great traffic so when the last down passenger and first night goods trains had passed-they followed each other pretty closely there was nothing stirring for several hours. Traffic through the gates at the