Tony Butler Part 13

An Irish legion, some five or six thousand devout Catholics and valiant soldiers, was a project that the Minister of War at once embraced. His Excellency saw Maitland on it, and talked over the whole plan. Maitland was himself to direct all its operations. Caffarelli would correspond with him from Naples, and, in case of any complication or difficulty, shroud the Minister from attack. Ample funds would be provided. The men could be engaged as laborers upon some great public work, and forwarded in small drafts to a convenient port. Arms could be easily procured from Liege. Officers could be readily obtained, either Irish or Poles or Hungarians, who could speak English. In a word, all the details had been well discussed and considered; and Maitland, on arriving in London, had again talked over the project with wise and crafty heads, whose prudent counsels showed him how little fit he was, personally, to negotiate directly with the Irish peasant, and how imperative above all things it was to depute this part of his task to some clever native, capable of employing the subordinates he needed. "Hide yourself," said they, "in some out-of-the-way spot in Wales or Scotland; even the far North of Ireland will do; remain anywhere near enough to have frequent communication with your agent, but neither be seen nor known in the plot yourself. Your English talk and your English accent would destroy more confidence than your English gold would buy."

Such an agent was soon found,--a man admirably adapted in many respects for the station. He had been an adventurer all his life; served with the French in Austria, and the Austrians in the Banat; held an independent command of Turks during the Crimean War; besides, episodically, having "done a little," as he called it, on the Indian frontier with the Yankees; and served on the staff of Rosas, at La Plata; all his great and varied experiences tending to one solitary conviction, that no real success was ever to be attained in anything except by means of Irishmen; nor could order, peace, and loyalty be ever established anywhere without their a.s.sistance. If he was one of the bravest men living, he was one of the most pushing and impertinent. He would have maintained a point of law against the Lord Chancellor, and contested tactics with a Marshal of France. He thought himself the ornament of any society he entered, and his vanity, in matters of intellect, was only surpa.s.sed by his personal conceit. And now one word as to his appearance. With the aid of cleverly constructed boots he stood five feet four, but was squarely, stoutly built, broad in the chest, and very bow-legged; his head was large, and seemed larger from a ma.s.s of fiery red hair, of which he was immensely vain as the true Celtic color; he wore great whiskers, a moustache, and chin-tuft; but the flaming hue of these seemed actually tamed and toned down beside his eyes, which resembled two flaring carbuncles. They were the most excitable, quarrelsome, restless pair of orbs that ever beamed in a human head. They twinkled and sparkled with an incessant mischief, and they darted such insolent glances right and left as seemed to say, "Is there any one present who will presume to contradict me?"

His boundless self-conceit would have been droll if it had not been so offensive. His theory was this: all men detested him; all women adored him. Europe had done little better than intrigue for the last quarter of a century what country could secure his services. As for the insolent things he had said to kings and emperors, and the soft speeches that empresses and queens had made to himself, they would fill a volume.

Believe him, and he had been on terms of more than intimacy in every royal palace of the Continent. Show the slightest semblance of doubt in him, and the chances were that he 'd have had you "out" in the morning.

Amongst his self-delusions, it was one to believe that his voice and accent were peculiarly insinuating. There was, it is true, a certain slippery insincerity about them, but the vulgarity was the chief characteristic; and his brogue was that of Leinster, which, even to Irish ears, is insufferable.

Such was, in brief, the gentleman who called himself Major M'Caskey, Knight-Commander of various Orders, and C.S. in the Pope's household,--which, interpreted, means Cameriere Secreto,--a something which corresponds to gentleman-in-waiting. Maitland and he had never met. They had corresponded freely, and the letters of the Major had by no means made a favorable impression upon Maitland, who had more than once forwarded extracts from them to the committees in London, pettishly asking, "if something better could not be found than the writer of this rubbish." And yet, for the work before him, "the writer of this rubbish"

was a most competent hand. He knew his countrymen well,--knew how to approach them by those mingled appeals to their love of adventure and love of gain; their pa.s.sion for fighting, for carelessness, for disorder; and, above all, that wide uncertainty as to what is to come, which is, to an Irishman's nature, the most irresistible of all seductions. The Major had established committees--in other words, recruiting-depots--in several county towns; had named a considerable number of petty officers; and was only waiting Maitland's orders whether or not he should propose the expedition to adventurous but out-at-elbows young fellows of a superior station,--the cla.s.s from which officers might be taken. We have now said enough of him and the project that engaged him to admit of our presenting him to our readers in one of his brief epistles. It was dated,--

"Castle Dubbow, August--, 18--.

"Sir,--I have the honor to report for your information that I yesterday enrolled in this town and neighborhood eighteen fine fellows for H. N.

M. Two of them are returned convicts, and three more are bound over to come up for sentence at a future a.s.sizes, and one, whom I have named a corporal, is the notorious Hayes, who shot Captain Macon on the fair green at Ballinasloe. So you see there's little fear that they'll want to come back here when once they have attained to the style and dignity of Neapolitan citizens. Bounty is higher here by from sixteen to twenty shillings than in Meath; indeed, fellows who can handle a gun, or are anyways ready with a weapon, can always command a job from one of the secret clubs; and my experiences (wide as most men's) lead me entirely to the selection of those who have shown any apt.i.tude for active service. I want your permission and instruction to engage some young gentlemen of family and station, for the which I must necessarily be provided with means of entertainment. _Tafel Gelt ist nicht Teufel's Gelt_, says the Austrian adage; and I believe a very moderate outlay, a.s.sisted by my own humble gifts of persuasion, will suffice. _Seduction de M'Casky_, was a proverb in the 8th Voltigeurs. You may ask a certain high personage in France who it was that told him not to despair on a particular evening at Strasbourg. A hundred pounds--better if a hundred and fifty--would be useful. The medals of his Holiness have done well, but I only distribute them in the lower ranks. Some t.i.tles would be very advisable if I am to deal with the higher cla.s.s. Herewith you have a muster-roll of what has been done in two counties; and I say it without fear, not a man in the three kingdoms could have accomplished it but Miles M'Marmont could plan, but not execute; Ma.s.sena execute, but not organize; Soul could do none but the last. It is no vanity makes me declare that I combine all the qualities. You see me now 'organizing;'

in a few days you shall judge me in the field; and, later on, if my convictions do not deceive me, in the higher sphere of directing the great operations of an army. I place these words in your hands that they may be on record. If M'Caskey falls, it is a great destiny cut off; but posterity will see that he died in the full conviction of his genius. I have drawn on you for thirty-eight, ten-and-six; and to-morrow will draw again for seventy-four, fifteen.

"Your note has just come. I am forced to say that its tone is not that to which, in the sphere I have moved, I have been accustomed. If I am to regard you as my superior officer, duty cries, 'Submit.' If you be simply a civilian, no matter how exalted, I ask explanation. The dinner at the Dawson Arms _was_ necessary; the champagne was _not_ excessive; none of the company were really drunk before ten o'clock; and the destruction of the furniture was a _plaisanterie_ of a young gentleman from Louth who was going into holy orders, and might most probably not have another such spree in all his life again. Are you satisfied? If not, tell me what and where any other satisfaction may meet your wishes.

You say, 'Let us meet.' I reply, 'Yes, in any way you desire.' You have not answered my demand--it was demand, not request--to be Count M'Caskey. I have written to Count Caffarelli on the subject, and have thoughts of addressing the king. Don't talk to me of decorations. I have no room for them on the breast of my coat. I am forced to say these things to you, for I cannot persuade myself that you really know or understand the man you correspond with. After all, it took Radetzky a year, and Omar Pasha seventeen months, to arrive at that knowledge which my impatience, unjustly perhaps, complains that you have not attained to. Yet I feel we shall like each other; and were it not like precipitancy, I'd say, believe me, dear Maitland, very faithfully your friend,

"Miles M'Caskey."

The answer to this was very brief, and ran thus:--

"Lyle Abbey, August.

"Sir,--You will come to Coleraine, and await my orders there,--the first of which will be to take no liberties of any kind with your obedient servant,

"Norman Maitland.

"Major M'Caskey, 'The Dawson Arms, Castle Durrow.

"P. S. Avoid all English acquaintances on your road. Give yourself out to be a foreigner, and speak as little as possible."

CHAPTER IX. MAITLAND'S FRIEND

"I don't think I 'll walk down to the Burnside with you to-day," said Beck Graham to Maitland, on the morning after their excursion.

"And why not?"

"People have begun to talk of our going off together alone,--long solitary walks. They say it means something--or nothing."

"So, I opine, does every step and incident of our lives."

"Well. You understand what I intended to say."

"Not very clearly, perhaps; but I shall wait a little further explanation. What is it that the respectable public imputes to us?"

"That you are a very dangerous companion for a young lady in a country walk."

"But am I? Don't you think you are in a position to refute such a calumny?"

"I spoke of you as I found you."

"And how might that be?"

"Very amusing at some moments; very absent at others; very desirous to be thought lenient and charitable in your judgments of people, while evidently thinking the worst of every one; and with a rare frankness about yourself that, to any one not very much interested to learn the truth, was really as valuable as the true article."

"But you never charged me with any ungenerous use of my advantage; to make professions, for instance, because I found you alone."

"A little--a very little of that--there was; just as children stamp on thin ice and run away when they hear it crack beneath them."

"Did I go so far as that?"

"Yes; and Sally says, if she was in my place, she 'd send papa to you this morning."

"And I should be charmed to see him. There are no people whom I prefer to naval men. They have the fresh, vigorous, healthy tone of their own sea life in all they say."

"Yes; you'd have found him vigorous enough, I promise you."

"And why did you consult your sister at all?"

"I did not consult her; she got all out of me by cross-questioning. She began by saying, 'That man is a mystery to me; he has not come down here to look after the widow nor Isabella; he's not thinking of politics nor the borough; there 's no one here that he wants or cares for. What can he be at?'"

"Could n't you have told her that he was one of those men who have lived so much in the world it is a luxury to them to live a little out of it?

Just as it is a relief to sit in a darkened room after your eyes have been dazzled with too strong light. Could n't you have said, He delights to talk and walk with me, because he sees that he may expand freely, and say what comes uppermost, without any fear of an unfair inference? That, for the same reason,--the pleasure of an unrestricted intercourse,--he wishes to know old Mrs. Butler, and talk with her,--over anything, in short? Just to keep mind and faculties moving,--as a light breeze stirs a lake and prevents stagnation?"

"Well. I 'm not going to perform Zephyr, even in such a high cause."

"Could n't you have said, We had a pleasant walk and a mild cigarette together,--_voila tout?_" said he, languidly.

"I think it would be very easy to hate you,--hate you cordially,--Mr.

Norman Maitland."

"So I've been told; and some have even tried it, but always unsuccessfully."

"Who is this wonderful foreigner they are making so much of at the Castle and the Viceregal Lodge?" cried Mark, from one of the window recesses, where he was reading a newspaper. "Maitland, you who know all these people, who is the Prince Caffarelli?"

"Caffarelli! it must be the Count," cried Maitland, hurrying over to see the paragraph. "The Prince is upwards of eighty; but his son, Count Caffarelli, is my dearest friend in the world. What could have brought him over to Ireland?"

"Ah! there is the very question he himself is asking about the great Mr.

Norman Maitland," said Mrs. Trafford, smiling.

"My reasons are easily stated. I had an admirable friend who could secure me a most hospitable reception. I came here to enjoy the courtesies of country home life in a perfection I scarcely believed they could attain to. The most unremitting attention to one's comfort, combined with the wildest liberty."

"And such port wine," interposed the Commodore, "as I am free to say no other cellar in the province can rival."