Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon [116]
“Indeed we are not,” Mr. Husband put in, still mildly. I was surprised to hear him claim association with the Regulators; perhaps the movement wasn’t quite so violent and lawless as Wylie implied. “We seek only justice, and that is not a quantity that can be obtained by means of violence, for where violence enters in, justice must surely flee.”
Wylie laughed, a surprisingly deep and masculine sound, given his foppery.
“Justice apparently should flee! That is certainly the impression I was given by Mr. Justice Dodgson when I spoke with him last week. Or perhaps he was mistaken, sir, in his identification of the ruffians who invaded his chambers, knocked him down, and dragged him by the heels into the street?” He smiled engagingly at Hunter, who flushed dark red beneath his weathered tan. His fingers tightened about the stem of his wineglass. I glanced hopefully at Jamie. No sign of a signal.
“Mr. Justice Dodgson,” Hunter said precisely, “is a userer, a thief, a disgrace to the profession of law, and—”
I had for some little time been hearing noises outside, but had put these down to some crisis in the cookhouse, which was separated from the main house by a breezeway. The noises became clearer now, though, and I caught a familiar voice that quite distracted me from Mr. Hunter’s denunciations.
“Duncan!” I half rose from my seat, and heads nearby turned inquiringly.
There was a sudden confusion of movement out on the terrace, with shadows jerking past the open French windows, and voices calling, arguing and exhorting.
Conversation in the dining room fell silent, and everyone looked to see what was happening. I saw Jamie push back his chair, but before he could rise, an apparition appeared in the doorway.
It was John Quincy Myers, the mountain man, who filled the open double door from top to bottom and side to side, resplendent in the same costume in which I had first met him. He leaned heavily upon the doorframe, surveying the assemblage through bloodshot eyes. His face was flushed, his breathing stertorous, and in one hand he held a long glass bottle.
His eyes lit upon me, and his face contorted into a fearful grimace of gratification.
“THERE ye are,” he said, in tones of the deepest satisfaction. “Said sho. Duncan wudd’n havit. Said yesh, Mishess Claire said gotter be drunk afore she cuts me. Sho I’m drunk. Drunk—” He paused, swaying dangerously, and raised his bottle high. “As a SKUNK!” he ended triumphantly. He took a step into the room, fell flat on his face, and didn’t move.
Duncan appeared in the doorway, looking a good deal the worse for wear himself. His shirt was ripped, his coat hung off his shoulder, and he had the beginnings of what looked like a black eye.
He glanced down at the prostrate form at his feet, then looked apologetically at Jamie.
“I did try to stop him, Mac Dubh.”
I extricated myself from my seat, and reached the body at the same time as Jamie, followed by a tidal wave of curious guests. Jamie glanced at me, eyebrows raised.
“Well, ye did say he must be unconscious,” he observed. He bent over the mountain man and thumbed back an eyelid, showing a slice of blank white eyeball. “I’d say he’s made a good job of it, myself.”
“Yes, but I didn’t mean dead drunk!” I squatted by the insensible form, and put a ginger two fingers over the carotid pulse. Nice and strong. Still …
“Alcohol isn’t a good anesthetic at all,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s a poison. It depresses the central nervous system. Put the shock of operating on top of alcohol intoxication, and it could kill him, easily.”
“No great loss,” said someone among the guests, but this caustic opinion was drowned in a flood of reproachful shushing.
“Shame to waste so much brandy,” someone else said, to general laughter. It was Phillip Wylie; I saw his powdered face loom over Jamie’s shoulder, smiling wickedly.
“We’ve heard a great deal of your skill, Mistress Fraser. Now’s your chance of proving yourself—before witnesses!