Chapter 22

Yes, life hath left him--every busy thought,
Each fiery passion, every strong affection,
All sense of outward ill and inward sorrow,
Are fled at once from the pale trunk before me;
And I have given that which spoke and moved,
Thought, acted, suffer'd as a living man,
To be a ghastly form of bloody clay,
Soon the foul food for reptiles.
OLD PLAY.

I believe few successful duellists (if the word successful can be
applied to a superiority so fatal) have beheld their dead antagonist
stretched on the earth at their feet, without wishing they could
redeem with their own blood that which it has been their fate to
spill. Least of all could such indifference be the lot of so young a
man as Halbert Glendinning, who, unused to the sight of human blood,
was not only struck with sorrow, but with terror, when he beheld Sir
Piercie Shafton lie stretched on the green-sward before him, vomiting
gore as if impelled by the strokes of a pump. He threw his bloody
sword on the ground, and hastened to kneel and support him, vainly
striving, at the same time, to stanch his wound, which seemed rather
to bleed inwardly than externally.

The unfortunate knight spoke at intervals, when the syncope would
permit him, and his words, so far as intelligible, partook of his
affected and conceited, yet not ungenerous character.

"Most rustical youth," he said, "thy fortune hath prevailed over
knightly skill--and Audacity hath overcome Condescension, even as the
kite hath sometimes hawked at and struck down the falcon-gentle.--Fly
and save thyself!--Take my purse--it is in the nether pocket of my
carnation-coloured hose--and is worth a clown's acceptance. See that
my mails, with my vestments, be sent to the Monastery of Saint
Mary's"--(here his voice grew weak, and his mind and recollection
seemed to waver)--"I bestow the cut velvet jerkin, with close breeches
conforming--for--oh!--the good of my soul."

"Be of good comfort, sir," said Halbert, half distracted with his agony
of pity and remorse. "I trust you shall yet do well--Oh for a leech!"

"Were there twenty physicians, O most generous Audacity, and that were
a grave spectacle--I might not survive, my life is ebbing
fast.--Commend me to the rustical nymph whom I called my Discretion--O
Claridiana!--true empress of this bleeding heart--which now bleedeth
in sad earnest!--Place me on the ground at my length, most rustical
victor, born to quench the pride of the burning light of the most
felicitous court of Feliciana--O saints and angels---knights and
ladies--masques and theatres--quaint devices--chain-work and
broidery--love, honour, and beauty!----"

While muttering these