The McCook tribune. (McCook, Neb.) 1886-1936, 1893-09-29
III QUIET MAN.

When I was quite a young fellow and
hadn't long Joined the army used to
belong to a fashionable club in London,
the members of which were just the sort
of men you read about in Levers novels
as wild as wild could be, always in some
scrape or other, and spending their whole
time in riding, shooting, gambling or
fghting-all except one.
That one was a small, quiet, pale
faced, gray haired man, with a very sad,
weary look, as if he had once been
crushed by some great sorrow and had
never been able to shake it off. He hard
ly ever spoke to any one, and when he
did it was in a voice as meek as his face.
So of course we made great fun of him
among ourselves, finding these quiet
ways of his a very queer contrast to our
own rackety, harum scarum style, and
we nicknamed him the "Quietest Man
In the Club" though, indeed, we might
just as well have called him the only
quiet man in it.
Well, n evening when the room was
pretty full, and u friend the quiet
man was sitting as usual in the far cor
ner away from everybody else, we be-
gan totalk about dueling, a subject with
which we were all tolerably familiar, for
there was hardly a man among us who
hadn't been tout" once.
"They did some tidy dueling in the old
times" said Lord H., who was killed
afterward in action. "You remember
how those six chums of Henry III of
France fought three to three till there
wa only n left alive out of the six"
THAT was pretty fair certainly" cried
Charlie Thornton of the Guards, ''but
after all it doesn't beat the great duel 30
years ago between Sir Harry Martingale
and Colonel Fortescue."
He had hardly spoken when up jumped
the quiet mar as if somebody had stuck
a pin into him.
"What on earth's the matter with
him?" whispered Thornton. 81 never
saw him like that before"
"But what was the story, then, Char
lie" asked another man. GIVE heard of
Fortescue, Of course, for he was the
most famous duelist of his time in all
England, and I've heard of his fight
with Martingale, too, but I don't think
I've ever had any particulars, or at
least none worth speaking Of"
81 can give them to you, them" an
swered Thornton; 'for my uncle was
Martingale's second. I've heard him
tell the story many a time, and he al
ways said that although he had been in
plenty Of duels he had never seen one
like that and never wanted to see it
again. What they quarreled about I
don't know, and I dare say they didn't
know themselves, but my uncle used to
say he knew by the look in their eyes
when they took their places to fire that
it could not end without blood, and it
didn't.
"They fired twice, and every shot told,
and then their seconds, seeing that both
men we're hard hit and bleeding fast,
wanted to put an end to it. But Fort
escue-who was one of those grim fell
lows who r always most dangerous to-
ward the end of the fight-insisted upon
a third shot. The third time, by some
accident, Martingale fired a moment too
soon and gave a him bad wound in the
side, but Fortescue pressed his hand to the
wound to stop the bleeding, and then,
almost bent double with pain though he
was, he fired and brought down his man."
"Killed him!"
"Rather. Shot him slap through the
heart. But it was his last duel, for from
that day he was eve heard of again,
and people said he had either committed
suicide OF died Of a broken heart"
"Well, I don't see why he need have
done that, for, after all, it was a fair
fight" struck in Lord H., who had been
looking over the newspapers on the ta-
BILE. ''But, if you talk of dueling, what
do you say to this?
"Another duelling tragedy in Paris.
The notorious Partisan bully and duel
list, Armand de Villeneuve, has just
added another wreath to his blood stained
~laurels, the new victim being the Chev-
alier Henri de Polignac, a fine young
fellow of 90, the only son of a widowed
mother. Some strong expressions of dis
gust used by the chevalier with refer
ence to one of De Villeneuve's former
duels having come to the latter's ears, he
sought out De Polignac and insulted
him so grossly as to render a meeting
inevitable.
"The chevalier having fired first and
missed, De Villeneuve called out to him,
Look to the second buttonhole of our
coatr and sent a bullet through the spot
indicated into the breast of his opponent,
who expired half an hour later in great
agony. His mother is said to be broken
hearted at his death. How much longer,
we wonder, will this savage be allowed
to offer these human sacrifices to his
OWL inordinate vanity"
Just then I happened to look up and
saw the quiet man rise slowly from his
chair, with a face so changed that it
startled me almost as much as if I had
seen him disappear bodily and another
man rise up in his stead. I had once
seen an oil painting abroad in which an
avenging angel was hurting lightnines