Captain Macartney," and he shook Harry's hand--for the
last time, save one, in his life.

At the bar of the tavern all the gentlemen stopped, and my Lord Viscount
said, laughing, to the barwoman, that those cards set people sadly
a-quarrelling; but that the dispute was over now, and the parties were
all going away to my Lord Mohun's house, in Bow Street, to drink a
bottle more before going to bed.

A half-dozen of chairs were now called, and the six gentlemen stepping
into them, the word was privately given to the chairmen to go to
Leicester Field, where the gentlemen were set down opposite the
"Standard Tavern." It was midnight, and the town was abed by this time,
and only a few lights in the windows of the houses; but the night was
bright enough for the unhappy purpose which the disputants came about;
and so all six entered into that fatal square, the chairmen standing
without the railing and keeping the gate, lest any persons should
disturb the meeting.

All that happened there hath been matter of public notoriety, and is
recorded, for warning to lawless men, in the annals of our country.
After being engaged for not more than a couple of minutes, as Harry
Esmond thought (though being occupied at the time with his own
adversary's point, which was active, he may not have taken a good note
of time), a cry from the chairmen without, who were smoking their pipes,
and leaning over the railings of the field as they watched the dim
combat within, announced that some catastrophe had happened, which
caused Esmond to drop his sword and look round, at which moment his
enemy wounded him in the right hand. But the young man did not heed
this hurt much, and ran up to the place where he saw his dear master was
down.

My Lord Mohun was standing over him.

"Are you much hurt, Frank?" he asked in a hollow voice.

"I believe I am a dead man," my lord said from the ground.

"No, no, not so," says the other; "and I call God to witness, Frank
Esmond, that I would have asked your pardon, had you but given me a
chance. In--in the first cause of our falling out, I swear that no one
was to blame but me, and--and that my lady--"

"Hush!" says my poor Lord Viscount, lifting himself on his elbow and
speaking faintly. "'Twas a dispute about the cards--the cursed cards.
Harry my boy, are you wounded, too? God help thee! I loved thee, Harry,
and thou must watch over my little Frank--and--and carry this little
heart to my wife."

And her