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Armed with this staff, the officer, remembering his student days, when he, too, was an expert swinger of the cane, a Bavarian mountaineer's weapon with which duels to the death are not unseldom fought, he stood before the student. "Had you been a gentleman," began the major, with a sullen courtesy, extorted from him by the gallantry of his antagonist.
Swinger was placed upon the bed by Hatchie, and, while Emily endeavored to ascertain the nature of her wound, the mulatto examined into Jerry's condition. The worthy woodman had only been stunned by the blow, and Hatchie's vigorous application soon restored him to consciousness. With the assistance of the mulatto, he rose. Looking wildly around him, he discovered the form of Vernon upon the floor.
Encouraging his party by shouts, and by his own example, a general engagement ensued. Hatchie no sooner saw the foe of his mistress' peace, than, stepping between him and Jerry Swinger, who also had an account to settle with him, he knocked down the pistol which was levelled at his head, and grasped him by the throat. In the hands of Hatchie the attorney was as nothing.
Some hard blows had been dealt; some few upon both sides were severely wounded; but, considering the desperate character of the invaders, the masterly tact of Jerry Swinger had evidently saved much bloodshed. Hatchie, as soon as he had secured his prisoner, hastened, somewhat in advance of Jerry's party, towards the cottage. Vernon waited the approach of the party in front of the cottage.
Two hours later the stage came with a clatter of hoofs and a cloud of red dust, which precipitated itself and a dozen thirsty travelers upon the veranda before the hotel bar-room; it brought also the usual "express" newspapers and much talk to Colonel Swinger, who always received his guests in a lofty personal fashion at the door, as he might have done in his old Virginian home; but it brought likewise marvelous to relate an ACTUAL GUEST, who had two trunks and asked for a room!
Frost would lead Mr. Hawke by two, without having a majority. Eliminate Mr. Patch and Mr. Swinger, however, and Mr. Hawke would be chosen by a majority of seven. And, while the battle might be made to stagger on through forty ballots, in the end Mr. Patch and Mr. Swinger must perforce withdraw. They could give no excuse for holding on forever in a fight shown to be hopeless.
Swinger, perceiving his purpose, elevated the rifle to her shoulder as gracefully as the most accomplished Kentuckian would have done, and fired. But her aim was bad; the ball passed through the attorney's hat. It came near enough, however, to rouse his passion, and, without a moment's deliberation, which might have saved him the reproach of shooting a woman, he fired.
Whereon my Lady, being no more able to get conversation out of him than a song out of a dead nightingale, determined to go off and leave him and the doctor and Captain Swinger, the agent, to snore in concert every evening to their hearts' content. So she started for the seaside with all the children, in order to put herself and them into condition by mild applications of iodine.
The proprietor of this building, Colonel Swinger, had been looked upon by the community as a person quite as remote, old-fashioned, and inconsistent with present progress as the house itself.
The incident and reflections of the previous night had strangely influenced his mind, and changed the whole current of his impulses and hopes. The solitude of his lonely island no longer seemed desirable. The world, with all its vanities and vexations, was the true sphere of life. The arrival of Jim now summoned him to the relief of Mrs. Swinger.
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