left his mark on his age and his name in history; but in contesting the
borough, which he was sure to carry, he had to face an opponent in a real
fine gentleman whom his father had ruined, cool and highbred, with a
tongue like a rapier, a sneer like an adder. A quarrel of course; Louis
Grayle sent a challenge. The fine gentleman, known to be no coward (fine
gentlemen never are), was at first disposed to refuse with contempt. But
Grayle had made himself the idol of the mob; and at a word from Grayle,
the fine gentleman might have been ducked at a pump, or tossed in a
blanket,--that would have made him ridiculous; to be shot at is a trifle,
to be laughed at is serious. He therefore condescended to accept the
challenge, and my father was his second.

"It was settled, of course, according to English custom, that both
combatants should fire at the same time, and by signal. The antagonist
fired at the right moment; his ball grazed Louis Grayle's temple. Louis
Grayle had not fired. He now seemed to the seconds to take slow and
deliberate aim. They called out to him not to fire; they were rushing to
prevent him, when the trigger was pulled, and his opponent fell dead on
the field. The fight was, therefore, considered unfair; Louis Grayle was
tried for his life: he did not stand the trial in person.[1] He escaped
to the Continent; hurried on to some distant uncivilized lands; could not
be traced; reappeared in England no more. The lawyer who conducted his
defence pleaded skilfully. He argued that the delay in firing was not
intentional, therefore not criminal,--the effect of the stun which the
wound in the temple had occasioned. The judge was a gentleman, and summed
up the evidence so as to direct the jury to a verdict against the low
wretch who had murdered a gentleman; but the jurors were not gentlemen,
and Grayle's advocate had of course excited their sympathy for a son of
the people, whom a gentleman had wantonly insulted. The verdict was
manslaughter; but the sentence emphatically marked the aggravated nature