THE COURT MAGAZINE, AND Belle Assemblée, FOR SEPTEMBER, 1833. THE SLAYER AND THE SLAIN. He is dead! we are alone in the chamber, the slayer and the slain. Ay! there you lie, Richard Mostyn, there you lie stiff in death. There you lie, my schoolfellow, my chum, my companion, my confidant, my friend-and your blood is upon my sword. How strangely this array of luxury, this magnificently furnished table, these relics of a costly feast, contrast with the condition of him who gave it. The guests are gone—the songs have been sung-the jests are evaporated-the jesters asleep. And he he who called them together-he, the wit, the grace of the company, the glory of the scene, is weltering in his blood. There stands before his chair his unfinished glass, and there too lies that unfinished letter to-to-tono matter to whom, for her name shall never cross my lips again. I am athirst. I must remain here a few minutes longer. The household are slumbering; little do they think what is before them in the morning. I pour out this goblet of the wine of the man whom I have killed. Fiercely have I drunk it. Shall I try another? I may with impunity. The demon working in my brain is too potent to be quelled by so feeble a power. Wine-wine; what is wine when compared with hate? Oh! Richard! Richard! those were gay days when we were in Oriel together, and shared every thought, every amusement, every study, every dissipation. Twenty years have VOL.III.-NO. 111. past and gone, but the recollection of those golden hours is brighter in my mental eye than that of the events of yesterday. Who of those who then saw us together could have thought that Richard Mostyn was to perish by the hand of Tom Churchill? Who would have thought that Richard Mostyn would have committed that surpassing wrong which justifies his slaughter to my soul? Justifies! out, cold word! When I think of what he has done, his death makes me rejoice. I exult that I have slain him. Let me examine his features as he lies beneath my foot. Yes, there is still that clear and ample brow shaded with clustering locks; that beauteous countenance; that magnificent form. Pale are the once blooming cheeks. Silent are the lips on whose accents I so often hung; closed the eyes once beaming with intelligence, or glowing with friendship. Why were those lips taught to deceive and betray? Why were the glances of those eyes permitted to work ruin and disgrace? Why did those lips dare to press-out, cursed thoughtshall I stay here to parley with myself in words approaching to compassion when I think of that? Here lies the man who injured me beyond hope; his carcase is stretched at my foot, and I trample on it in the fury of despair. Once-twice-thrice, I bury my rapier in his body. There-there-there. I am a fool. I dishonour not the poor remains; I dishonour myself. But I know not what I do. I am glad, however, that he fought me. I could not have slain him as an assassin slays. Did he fight with his wonted bravery? Perhaps not. The sense of what he had done must have weighed heavy on his soul, and unnerved his arm. A few passes and he was dead. I am not sure that he defended himself as he could have done. I am sure that this wound in my side was accidental. I am happy that I have received it. It shows that the fight was fair. God! how I longed for that fight; with what impatience I waited for the breaking up of this protracted banquet; with what disgust I viewed the tardy departure of the wineladen guests, and heard their praises of their entertainer. They were gone at last. Too well did I know how to enter, unobserved, this house, long the scene of many a happy, many a frolic hour. I stood before him alone. He was writing; my heart told me to whom. How he started! what a flush of conscious shame and guilt overspread his features when his uplifted eyes met mine. "I know," said he, “why you come." "You know, then," I replied, "that I come not to talk. Draw, scoundrel, draw. You are a villain, but you were not a coward. One or both of us must fall in this room before the hour is over!" Fain would he parley; fain refuse to draw on his "friend." Gracious God! On his friend. The word made me mad. I forced him to defend himself, and he has fallen. The crime was great; the fight was fair; and my revenge is accomplished. I have slain him full of bread—I have killed him, body and soul. My wound bleeds apace; I must stanch it as I can. My senses begin to reel. What was he writing when the avenger came? Ay, as I thought as I knew. Dare I read it? the words gleam out of the paper like fire. But what is this? Contrition-sorrow-penitence -remorse. He was a villain, then, bold-faced to the world, but not gay at heart. I am glad that the iron had entered into his soul—that some of the miseries which he has inflicted on me came back upon himself. But it is all hypocrisy. Satiety had-No more of that! Oh! Richard! let me hope that the remorse was real, and that I have not sent you to your last account without some true shade of penitence upon your spirit. Why do the boatmen tarry? How strange it is that, in the confusion of my thoughts, I should have put this miniature into my pocket. Faithful painter! it is she-she, innocent, good, true, and kind. Isabella! I thought that I was never more to breathe the word, but it flies to my lips. Isabella! you have wrung my heart, have marred my hopes, have stained my name. You must be as an outcast, nay, as an enemy to me for ever; but I love you still. Your partner in sin is gone may God return to you the peace of mind that to me is lost. I declare before heaven that I knew not when I married you that your consent was extorted by the prayers and advice of your parents, and that your heart belonged to the long-absent Mostyn. What a world of sorrow a candid tale of your feelings would have saved! How he betrayed his friend, and how you yielded your honour I know not-I seek not to know. It is passed. He is dead. You go to a life of obscurity or shame. I fly an exile from my native land. The moon rises over the hill, and I can see the boat rocking by the shore. The shrill whistle of Tom Bowling summons me away, and I leave England never to return. I leave behind me a scene of blood and sorrow, but I bear with me a hand which shed that blood, and a heart in which sorrow has set its throne. Many a man will grieve over Richard Mostyn, but what can their grief be when compared with that of him who has killed him? In another goblet of his Burgundy I bid farewell to England, and wander over the waters a broken-hearted man! W. M. The above was found by me among the papers of my grand uncle, who died last year at the age of eightyfive. He was a man of remarkably quiet and placid manners, and nobody would have suspected him of nourishing such feverish thoughts as those which he has here left behind him in this paper. His sister, my grandmother, has been dead for some years, and she only was acquainted with his history. I am not sure that even she knew every thing about him, for she was younger by twenty years, and so must have been a mere girl at the time when the events referred to had occurred. We, the junior branches of the family, never thought that Mr. Churchill had been married. On reading this paper, I went to the part of the country where his estates lay. I never, in fact, knew their situation or extent until after his death; and then I learned that nearly fifty years ago, Sir Richard Mostyn had been found dead in his dining room, in the morning after he had given, what was in those days fashionable, a splendid supper to the principal gentry of the neighbourhood. He was wounded in several places. Suspicion attached to his servants, and two of them were tried, but acquitted. When he was killed, Mr. Churchill was believed to be in London, and his name was never implicated with the deed. I could not learn any thing of Mrs. Churchill, except what I found in the parish books, which told me that Thomas Churchill, Esq., married Isabella Robinson, on the 2nd of May, 1782. In 1783, Sir Richard Mostyn was killed; and among the burials of the same year is that of Isabella Churchill. I found her tomb in the church-yard, but it only contained her name, and an old verger told me that, for almost fifty years, a guinea was sent regularly by some unknown hand, to keep it clean. The guinea, added the old man, has not come this year. The story is thus buried in obscurity for ever. On recollecting my granduncle's conversation, I do not remember any thing which would lead to the suspicion that he was haunted by any feeling or sentiment of remorse. I only remember that two or three years ago, some one was regretting that gentlemen did not now wear swords as formerly; and old Mr. Churchill, with a peculiar emphasis, said—" It is better as it is; they were the too-ready instruments of hasty wrath." HOG-HUNTING IN INDIA. THE last breathings of my Havannah having received all the assistance that the remains of a well-mixed glass of brandy and water could bestow, sundry olive-coloured bipeds, with turbans large, were summoned to the presence of mine host, who proceeded to administer his orders for my morning's promised sport. Not only was the grisly monster to be found, but his detection was directed to take place" where the gentleman could ride him;" partially steeped as my senses were in forgetfulness, from the hot and rebellious liquors I had imbibed, such a distinction did not appear desirable, and required, as I thought, some inquiry as to the safety of this Indian propensity. ner, 66 "Ride a hog, Mr. Curryface! Do you take me for a bristle that has lost its home?" "Dear sir," exclaimed my amused, but unsmiling companion, who was as particular in his explanations as he was formal in manforgive the annoyance that my directions appear to have caused, brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio. In these our eastern dominions it is a common expression, and perfectly understood by our domestics. It merely signifies that the animal should be driven out from the woods into the open country, that you may be enabled to ride after it, and not upon it, as you most erroneously supposed." With this explanation we retired to our rooms-he to sleep, and I to bed without the usual result. Oh! the wretchedness of an Indian sleepless night, the door and windows admitting, in place of the fresh air for which they were left open, a murmuring Cloud of cumbrous gnatts which doe molest; The cold-expelling blanket is looked upon as sudden death, and sheets fine as the gossamer would no doubt prove as fatal as the tunic of Nessus. There is only the alternative of attempting to lie still, and submitting your body quietly to the inspection of the "lithe proboscis" of every member of this hungry assembly. At intervals the monotony of the entomologist's situation is relieved by the hootings of owls, the chirping of lizards, or the howlings of a pack of jackals in pursuit of their prey, whose screams form an additional sound of horror to those with which the sufferer is already supplied "Through the long night they gambol in their way, And end their pleasures with the morning ray." Mine, I was in hopes, had just commenced; pain had been my portion for so many hours, that the mere absence of it towards morning brought relief, and with it "nature's soft nurse." During the short time I was enabled to sleep, dreams of the late past and the early future came upon me: one moment my hand appeared painfully cut by a wine-glass which I had crushed in its retreat from my mouth, after it had performed its duty; at another, the spear that was uplifted to strike the raging boar that I was pursuing in my sleep, appeared to vanish, and my hand was delivered in its stead into the jaws of the infuriated animal. This was too much like “the future fight" not to disturb my repose, and on awaking, I found my musquitobit hand lustily pulled at by a grinning black servant, who, in a whispering scream, exclaimed "Sahib! sahib! quickly make dress,-morning time come-very fine shikar (hunt) make." My late dream accorded too much with "the bloody business which thus informed mine ears," to prevent any mistake as to the reality of my situation. I immediately rose, and donned my ridgy cords with their snow-topped leather terminations, and within the squeezing of a lemon (as Tony Lumpkin would have said), had drunk my stirrup-cup (coffee, good reader), and was seated firmly on the hog-skin. The horse with which my eccentric host had supplied me, was an Arab, little, but I had no doubt good. I adjusted my stirrups to business-like length, and gave a glance round from my exalted seat, to observe who were my companions. Within five yards of me stood from twenty to twenty-five turbanedheaded, tunicked individuals, armed with spears, and apparently" eager for the fight" amongst these were three shikarry wallahs, visibly more attached to the simple dress with which nature had provided them than to any other; these were provided with long matchlocks, which I was afterwards informed were carried on such occasions more to show the nature of their caste as game pursuers than to exhibit their skill as marksmen, as that mode of administering death to swine, "when master wished to ride them," would be tantamount to robbing the temple of Vishnu. Beyond this : trusty band Of parti-coloured blacks—a shining train," there stood a large-boned, country-bred horse of darkish hue, and on its back sat a small slight Hindoo, the strangeness of whose habiliments contrasted strongly with the very dark complexion of his face, which (with the exception of his turban) was the only testimony in his appearance of his oriental extraction. This most sensible article of dress for defence against a grilling sun, the "gliding sword," or close communication with the stony ground, was of the brightest scarlet a boy's jacket of the same fierce sanguinary hue, edged with gold, clothed his upper half, and to complete this most ludicrous phenomenon, a pair of deep-furrowed yellow inexpressibles were met above the knee by large military boots, which, to judge from appearances, had once received the benefit of some liquid, maliciously denominated Warren's jet blacking. The servant who had accompanied me from England, not having yet left my service, I was enabled to turn out, as I thought, rather in the style of a Meltonian fox hunter; my coat most ably cut, with leathers and boots superlatively well cleaned, thinking that, go to what country I would, the style and appearance of a gentleman and his attendant, in the perspiring chase, would vary as little as possible from that in Old England. My confined notions as to costume were now entirely put to flight, and my only consideration now was, upon viewing Mr. Curryface's attendant, whether the eccentricity of the outward appearance of the servant was in exact proportion to the inward of the master, or whether externally and internally it was "tel valet, tel maître." As I surveyed this solitary yellowbreeched red-jacket, and his twelve couple of attendant bipeds, varying in their skins as the same number of hounds would in a pack, I thought to myself what an effect they would cause at the gorse cover in the Quorn country, in place of Mr. Osbaldiston's hounds, and "How Jack Stevens, the whipper-in, would swear, And Harry Goodricke meet them with a stare." ing of praise. Ludicrous as were the dress and appearance of my host's huntsman, it is not he, I said to myself, that is to pursue and slay the game; his duty is to endeavour to follow and observe how we of England perform our deeds of arms; and so satisfactory an exhibition of prowess would never, I anticipated, again fall to his lot to witness. Just as "the dawning day was drawing near," the motley party arrived on the boundary of an extensive plain covered with low stunted bushes, and long arid speargrass. To the right was a large plantation of sugarcane, in which lay concealed, I was informed, "Drunk with the sugared food, whose sweets had lured them," a tusky boar, with several ladye loves. Bearing in mind the lesson of my childhood, that the masculine was always to be considered more worthy than the feminine, I explained to my black audience, in the worst English I could compose, (in hopes that, by such an arrangement, I should be able to approach as near as possible to their own barbarous tongue,) that it was my wish that for once the female sex should be disregarded, and all their attention directed towards the male; such a preference being ever in accordance with Hindoo tastes, my suggestion was evidently received with universal approbation, and the whole twelve couple of turbaned bipeds proceeded with alacrity to enter the shady bower of swine and sweets. To speak in the language of a sportsman, just as the "stern" of the last was seen flourishing" through the leafy foliage, to my utter astonishment appeared, spear in hand, mine host of the yellow face and formal manners, who had positively declined accompanying me, and in whose mind I had supposed, 66 the savage nature of the chase, Revenge, and all ferocious thoughts, were dead.” It was evident, from his style of riding, that his life had not been passed in Leicestershire, and that "great would be his fall," perhaps before the morning sports were closed. While the black pack were exerting their powers to arouse the sweet-toothed grunter from his lair, by hooting, chattering, halloo My mind had already been made up, and as ing, and tom-tomming, (as the flagellation of it had ever been my practice to extract "Sermons from stones, and fun from everything," the moment I had finished my lengthened reverie, I determined to look forward and ascertain whether the pursuit of the bristly boar, spear in hand, was a diversion deserv the spirit-stirring kettle is there denominated,) I carefully scrutinised the appearance of the wealthy Mr. Curryface, by the cover side. His horse would have delighted the most fastidious, and with an able proficient in the saddle, would have shown what an Arab can do. A purple velvet hunting cap, with a peak |