Charles Dickens: Barnaby Rudge

Chapter 29 (continued)

Mr Chester kissed his hand gracefully; and with the same tranquil face he had preserved throughout--even when he had seen his companion so tortured and transported by his passion that his whole frame was shaken--lay in his lounging posture on the seat and watched him as he walked away.

'My scapegoat and my drudge at school,' he said, raising his head to look after him; 'my friend of later days, who could not keep his mistress when he had won her, and threw me in her way to carry off the prize; I triumph in the present and the past. Bark on, ill-favoured, ill-conditioned cur; fortune has ever been with me--I like to hear you.'

The spot where they had met, was in an avenue of trees. Mr Haredale not passing out on either hand, had walked straight on. He chanced to turn his head when at some considerable distance, and seeing that his late companion had by that time risen and was looking after him, stood still as though he half expected him to follow and waited for his coming up.

'It MAY come to that one day, but not yet,' said Mr Chester, waving his hand, as though they were the best of friends, and turning away. 'Not yet, Haredale. Life is pleasant enough to me; dull and full of heaviness to you. No. To cross swords with such a man--to indulge his humour unless upon extremity--would be weak indeed.'

For all that, he drew his sword as he walked along, and in an absent humour ran his eye from hilt to point full twenty times. But thoughtfulness begets wrinkles; remembering this, he soon put it up, smoothed his contracted brow, hummed a gay tune with greater gaiety of manner, and was his unruffled self again.