Tony Butler Part 24

"Get those boats aboard; clear away that hawser there; look out, or you 'll foul that collier," cried the skipper, his deep voice ringing above the din and crash of the escaping steam, but never so much as noticing one word of Tony's speech.

Too proud to repeat his address, and yet doubting how it had been taken, he stood, occasionally buffeted about by the sailors as they hurried hither and thither; and now, amidst the din, a great bell rang out; and while it clattered away, some scrambled up the side of the ship, and others clambered down, while with shouts and oaths and imprecations on every side, the great ma.s.s swung round, and two slow revolutions of her paddles showed she was ready to start Almost frantic with anxiety for his missing friend, Tony mounted on a bulwark, and scanned every boat he could see.

"Back her!" screamed the skipper; "there, gently; all right Go ahead;"

and now with a shouldering, surging heave, the great black monster lazily moved forward, and gained the middle of the river. Boats were now hurrying wildly to this side and to that, but none towards the "Foyle."

"What will become of me? What will he think of me?" cried Tony; and he peered down into the yellow tide, almost doubtful if he ought not to jump into it.

"Go on," cried the skipper; and the speed increased, a long swell issuing from either paddle, and stretching away to either bank of the river. Far away in this rocking tide, tossing hopelessly and in vain, Tony saw a small boat wherein a man was standing, wildly waving his handkerchief by way of signal.

"There he is, in one minute; give him one minute, and he will be here,"

cried Tony, not knowing to whom he spoke.

"You 'll get jammed, my good fellow, if you don't come down from that,"

said a sailor. "You'll be caught in the davits when they swing round;"

and seeing how inattentive he was to the caution, he laid a hand upon him and forced him upon deck. The ship had now turned a bend of the river, and as Tony turned aft to look for the boat, she was lost to him, and he saw her no more.

For some miles of the way, all were too much occupied to notice him.

There was much to stow away and get in order, the cargo having been taken in even to the latest moment before they started. There were some carriages and horses, too, on board, neither of which met from the sailors more deferential care than they bestowed on cast-metal cranks and iron sleepers, thus occasioning little pa.s.sages between those in charge and the crew, that were the reverse of amicable. It was in one of these Tony heard a voice he was long familiar with. It was Sir Arthur Lyle's coachman, who was even more overjoyed than Tony at the recognition. He had been sent over to fetch four carriage-horses and two open carriages for his master, and his adventures and mishaps were, in his own estimation, above all human experience.

"I'll have to borrow a five-pound note from you," said Tony; "I have come on board without anything,--even my luggage is left behind."

"Five-and-twenty, Mr.. Tony, if you want it. I'm as glad as fifty to see you here. You'll be able to make these fellows mind what I say. There's not as much as a spare tarpaulin to put over the beasts at night; and if the ship rocks, their legs will be knocked to pieces."

If Tony had not the same opinion of his influence, he did not however hesitate to offer his services, and a.s.sisted the coachman to pad the horse-boxes, and bandage the legs with an overlaid covering of hay rope, against any accidents.

"Are you steerage or aft?" asked a surly-looking steward of Tony, as he was washing his hands after his exertions.

"There's a question to ask of one of the best blood in Ireland,"

interposed the coachman.

"The best blood in Ireland will then have to pay cabin fare," said the steward, as he jotted down a mem. in his book; and Tony was now easy enough in mind to laugh at the fellow's impertinence as he paid the money.

The voyage was not eventful in any way; the weather was fine, the sea not rough, and the days went by as monotonously as need be. If Tony had been given to reflection, he would have had a glorious opportunity to indulge the taste, but it was the very least of all his tendencies.

He would indeed, have liked much to review his life, and map out something of his future road; but he could do nothing of this kind without a companion. Asking him to think for himself and by himself was pretty much like asking him to play chess or backgammon with himself, where it depended on his caprice which side was to be the winner.

The habit of self-depreciation had, besides, got hold of him, and he employed it as an excuse to cover his inertness. "What's the use of my doing this, that, or t'other? I 'll be a stupid dog to the end of the chapter. It's all waste of time to set me down to this or that. Other fellows could learn it,--it's impossible for _me_."

It is strange how fond men will grow of pleading _in forma pauperis_ to their own hearts,--even men const.i.tutionally proud and high-spirited.

Tony had fallen into this unlucky habit, and got at last to think it was his safest way in life to trust very little to his judgment.

"If I had n't been 'mooning,' I 'd not have walked under the pole of the omnibus, nor chanced upon this poor fellow, whose bundle I have carried away, nor lost my own kit, which, after all, was something to me."

Worse than all these--infinitely worse--was the thought of how that poor peasant would think of him! What a cruel lesson of mistrust and suspicion have I implanted in that honest heart! "What a terrible revulsion must have come over him, when he found I had sailed away and left him!" Poor Tony's reasoning was not acute enough to satisfy him that the man could not accuse him for what was out of his power to prevent,--the departure of the steamer; nor with Tony's own luggage in his possession, could he arraign his honesty, or distrust his honor.

He bethought him that he would consult Waters, for whose judgment in spavins, thoroughpins, capped hocks, and navicular lameness, he had the deepest veneration. Waters, who knew horses so thoroughly, must needs not be altogether ignorant of men.

"I say, Tom," cried he, "sit down here, and let me tell you something that's troubling me a good deal, and perhaps you can give me some advice on it." They sat down accordingly under the shelter of a horse-box, while Tony related circ.u.mstantially his late misadventure.

The old coachman heard him to the end without interruption. He smoked throughout the whole narrative, only now and then removing his pipe to intimate by an emphatic nod that the "court was with the counsel."

Indeed, he felt that there was something judicial in his position, and a.s.sumed a full share of importance on the strength of it.

"There 's the whole case now before you," said Tony, as he finished,--"what do you say to it?"

"Well, there an't a great deal to say to it, Mr. Tony," said he, slowly.

"If the other chap has got the best kit, by course he has got the best end of the stick; and you may have an easy conscience about that. If there's any money or val'able in _his_ bundle, it is just likely there will be some trace of his name, and where he lives too; so that, turn out either way, you 're all right."

"So that you advise me to open his pack and see if I can find a clew to him."

"Well, indeed, I 'd do that much out of cur'osity. At all events, you 'll not get to know about him from the blue hand-kercher with the white spots."

Tony did not quite approve the counsel; he had his scruples, even in a good cause, about this investigation, and he walked the deck till far into the night, pondering over it. He tried to solve the case by speculating on what the countryman would have done with _his_ pack. "He 'll have doubtless tried to find out where I am to be met with or come at. He 'll have ransacked my traps, and if so, there will be the less need of _my_ investigating _his_. _He 's_ sure to trace _me_." This reasoning satisfied him so perfectly that he lay down at last to sleep with an easy conscience and so weary a brain that he slept profoundly.

As he awoke, however, he found that Waters had already decided the point of conscience which had so troubled him, and was now sitting contemplating the contents of the peasant's bundle.

"There an't so much as a sc.r.a.p o' writing, Mr. Tony; there an't even a prayer-book with his name in it,--but there 's a track to him for all that. I have him!" and he winked with that self-satisfied knowingness which had so often delighted him in the detection of a splint or a bone-spavin.

"You have him," repeated Tony. "Well, what of him?"

"He's a jailer, sir,--yes, a jailer. I won't say he 's the chief,--he 's maybe second or third,--but he 's one of 'em."

"How do you know that?"

"Here's how I found it out;" and he drew forth a blue cloth uniform, with yellow cuffs and collar, and a yellow seam down the trousers. There were no b.u.t.tons on the coat, but both on the sleeve and the collar were embroidered two keys, crosswise. "Look at them, Master Tony; look at them, and say an't that as clear as day? It's some new regulation, I suppose, to put them in uniform; and there's the keys, the mark of the lock-up, to show who he is that wears them."

Though the last man in the world to read riddles or unravel difficulties, Tony did not accept this information very willingly. In truth, he felt a repugnance to a.s.sign to the worthy country fellow a station which bears, in the appreciation of every Irishman, a certain stain. For, do as we will, reason how we may, the old estimate of the law as an oppression surges up through our thoughts, just as springs well up in an undrained soil.

"I 'm certain you're wrong, Waters," said he, boldly; "he had n't a bit the look of that about him: he was a fine, fresh-featured, determined sort of fellow, but without a trace of cunning or distrust in his face."

"I 'll stand to it I 'm right, Master Tony. What does keys mean? Answer me that. An't they to lock up? It must be to lock up something or somebody,--you agree to that?"

Tony gave a sort of grunt, which the other took for concurrence, and continued.

"It's clear enough he an't the county treasurer," said he, with a mocking laugh,--"nor he don't keep the Queen's private purse neither; no, sir. It's another sort of val'ables is under his charge. It's highwaymen and housebreakers and felony chaps."

"Not a bit of it; he's no more a jailer than I'm a hangman. Besides, what is to prove that this uniform is his own? Why not be a friend's,--a relation's? Would a fellow trained to the ways of a prison trust the first man he meets in the street, and hand him over his bundle? Is that like one whose daily life is pa.s.sed among rogues and vagabonds?"

"That's exactly how it is," said Waters, closing one eye to look more piercingly astute. "Did you ever see anything trust another so much as a cat does a mouse? She hasn't no dirty suspicions at all, but lets him run here and run there, only with a make-believe of her paw letting him feel that he an't to trespa.s.s too far on her patience."

"Pshaw!" said Tony, turning away angrily; and he muttered to himself as he walked off, "how stupid it is to take any view of life from a fellow who has never looked at it from a higher point than a hayloft!"

As the steamer rounded Fairhead, and the tall cliffs of the Causeway came into view, other thoughts soon chased away all memory of the poor country fellow. It was home was now before him,--home, that no humility can rob of its hold upon the heart; home, that appeals to the poorest of us by the selfsame sympathies the richest and greatest feel! Yes, yonder was Carrig-a-Rede, and there were the Skerries, so near and yet so far off. How slowly the great ma.s.s seemed to move, though it was about an h.o.a.r ago she seemed to cleave the water like a fish! How unfair to stop her course at Larne to land those two or three pa.s.sengers, and what tiresome leave-takings they indulge in; and the luggage, too, they 'll never get it together! So thought Tony, his impatience mastering both reason and generosity.

"I 'll have to take the horses on to Derry, Master Tony," said Waters, in an insinuating tone of voice, for he knew well what able a.s.sistance the other could lend him in any difficulty of the landing. "Sir Arthur thought that if the weather was fine we might be able to get them out on a raft and tow them into sh.o.r.e, but it's too rough for that."

"Far too rough," said Tony, his eyes straining to catch the well-known landmarks of the coast.

"And with blood-horses too, in top condition, there's more danger."

"Far more."

"So, I hope, your honor will tell the master that I did n't ask the captain to stop, for I saw it was no use."