Tony Butler Part 31

"The praise was not extravagant. I don't feel my cheek growing hot under it."

"And Sally said that if she had not seen with her own eyes, she'd never have believed that a man with such a diamond ring, and such wonderful pendants to his watch, could hook an eight-pound salmon, and bring him to land."

"That indeed touches me," said he, laying his hand over his heart.

"And old Graham himself declared to my father that if one of his girls had a fancy that way, though you were n't exactly his style of man, nor precisely what he 'd choose--"

"Do spare me. I beseech you, have _some_ pity on me."

"That he'd not set himself against it; and that, in fact, with a good certificate as to character, and the approved guarantee of respectable people, who had known you some years--"

"I implore you to stop."

"Of course I'll stop when you tell me the theme is one too delicate to follow up; but, like all the world, you let one run into every sort of indiscretion, and only cry Halt when it is too late to retire. The Grahams, however, are excellent people,--old G. G., as they call him, a distinguished officer. He cut out somebody or something from under the guns of a Spanish fort, and the girls have refused--let me see whom they have not refused; but I 'll make them tell you, for we 'll certainly call there on our way back."

The malicious drollery with which she poured out all this had heightened her color and given increased brilliancy to her eyes. Instead of the languid delicacy which usually marked her features, they shone now with animation and excitement, and became in consequence far more beautiful.

So striking was the change that Maitland paid little attention to the words, while he gazed with rapture at the speaker.

It must have been a very palpable admiration he bestowed, for she drew down her veil with an impatient jerk of the hand, and said, "Well, sir, doesn't this arrangement suit you, or would you rather make your visit to Port-Graham alone?"

"I almost think I would," said he, laughing. "I suspect it would be safer."

"Oh, now that I know your intentions,--that you have made me your confidante,--you 'll see that I can be a marvel of discretion."

"Put up your veil again, and you may be as _maligne_ as you please."

"There! yonder is Tilney," said she, hastily, "where you see those fine trees. Are the horses distressed, George?"

"Well, ma'am, they 've had enough of it"

"I mean, are they too tired to go round by the river-side and the old gate?"

"It's a good two miles round, ma'am."

"Oh, I know what that means," said she, in a whisper. "If there should be anything amiss for the next three months, it will be that cruel day's work down at Tilney will be charged with it. Go in by the new lodge,"

added she, aloud; "and as they have innumerable carriages here, Mr.

Maitland, I 'll take you a drive over there to-morrow. It's a very nice thing, is n't it, to be as rich as old Mrs. Maxwell, and to be always playing the part of 'Good Fairy,' giving splendid banquets, delicious little country-parties to all the world; offering horses to ride, boats to sail in? What _are_ you looking at so fixedly?"

"I think I recognize a conveyance I once had the happiness to travel in.

Isn't that the Graham equipage before us?"

"I declare, it is!" cried she, joyfully. "Oh, lucky Mr. Maitland; they are going to Tilney."

As she spoke, George, indignant at being dusted by a shambling old mare with long fetlocks, gathered up his team in hand, and sent them "spinning" past the lumbering jaunting-car, giving the Grahams only time to recognize the carriage and its two occupants.

CHAPTER XIX. TONY'S TROUBLES

When Tony Butler met Mrs. Trafford's carriage, he was on his road, by a cross path, to the back entrance of Lyle Abbey. It was not his intention to pay a visit there at that moment, though he was resolved to do so later. His present errand was to convey a letter he had written to Maitland, accepting the proposal of the day before.

He had not closed his eyes all night thinking of it. There was a captivation in its promise of adventure that he felt to be irresistible.

He knew too well the defects of his nature and of his intelligence not to be aware that, in any of the ordinary and recognized paths in life, he must see himself overtaken and left behind by almost all. What were called the learned professions were strictly debarred to him. Had he even the means for the study he would not have the qualities to pursue them.

He did not feel that he could take willingly to a trade; as little could he be a clerk. To be sure, he had obtained this appointment as messenger, but how disparagingly Maitland had spoken of it! He said, it is true they "weren't bad things," that "gentlemen somehow or other managed to live on them;" but he hinted that these were gentlemen whose knowledge of life had taught them a variety of little accomplishments,--such as whist, billiards, and _ecarte_,--which form the traffic of society, and a very profitable traffic too, to him who knows a little more of them than his neighbors. Worst of all, it was a career, Maitland said, that led to nothing. You can become an "old messenger," if you live long enough, but nothing more; and he pictured the life of a traveller who had lost every interest in the road he journeyed,--who, in fact, only thought of it with reference to the time it occupied,--as one of the dreariest of all imaginable things. "This monotony," added he, "will do for the fellow who has seen everything and done everything; not for the fresh spirit of youth, eager to taste, to learn, and to enjoy. A man of your stamp ought to have a wider and better field,--a sphere wherein his very vitality will have fair play.

Try it; follow it if you can, Butler," said he; "but I'm much mistaken in you, if you 'll be satisfied to sit down with a station that only makes you a penny-postman magnified." Very few of us have courage to bear such a test as this,--to hear the line we are about to take, the service we are about to enter, the colony we are about to sail for, disparaged, unmoved.

The unknown has always enough of terror about it without the dark forebodings of an evil prophet.

"I like Maitland's project better," said Tony, after a long night's reflection. "At all events, it's the sort of thing to suit _me_. If I should come to grief, it will be a sad day for poor mother; but the same might happen to me when carrying a despatch-bag. I think he ought to have been more explicit, and let me hear for whom I am to fight, though, perhaps, it does n't much signify. I could fight for any one but Yankees! I think I 'll say 'done.' This Maitland is a great 'Don;' has, apparently, fortune and station. It can't be a mistake to sail in the same boat with _him_. I'll certainly say 'done.'" With this resolve he jumped out of bed, and wrote the following brief note:--

"Burnside, Tuesday morning.

"Dear Sir,--I'll not take the three days you gave me to consider your offer; I accept it at once.--Yours truly,

"Tony Butler.

"Norman Maitland, Esq., Lyle Abbey."

"I'll have to write to Skeffy," said he to himself, "and say you may tell my n.o.ble patron that I don't want the messengership, and that when next I call at the Office I 'll kick Willis for nothing. I don't suppose that this is the formal way of resigning; but I take it they 'll not be sorry to be quit of me, and it will spare the two old coves in white cravats all the trouble of having me plucked at the examination. Poor Skeffy won't be pleased, though; he was to have 'coached me' in foreign tongues and the Rule of Three. Well, I 'm glad I 'm in for a line of life where n.o.body asks about Colenso's Arithmetic, nor has so much as heard of Ollendorff's Method. Oh dear! how much happier the world must have been when people weren't so confoundedly well informed!--so awfully brimful of all knowledge as they now are! In those pleasant days, instead of being a black sheep, I 'd have been pretty much like the rest of the flock."

The speculations on this topic--this golden age of ignorance and bliss--occupied him all the way, as he walked over the hills to leave his letter at the gate-lodge for Mr. Maitland.

Resisting all the lodge-keeper's inducements to talk,--for he was an old friend of Tony's, and wanted much to know where he had been and what doing of late, and why he was n't up at the Abbey every day as of yore,--Tony refused to hear of all the sad consequences that had followed on his absence; how the "two three-year-olds had gone back in their training;" how "Piper wouldn't let a saddle be put on his back;"

how the carp were all dying in the new pond, n.o.body knew why,--there was even something gone wrong with the sun-dial over the stable, as though the sun himself had taken his departure in dudgeon, and would n't look straight on the spot since. These were, with many more, shouted after him as he turned away, while he, laughing, called out, "It will be all right in a day or two, Mat. I 'll see to everything soon."

"That I 'll not," muttered he to himself when alone. "The smart hussar--the brave Captain--may try his hand now. I 'd like to see him on Piper. I only wish that he may mount him with the saddle tightly girthed; and if he does n't cut a somerset over his head, my name is n't Tony! Let us see, too, what he 'll do with those young dogs; they 're wild enough by this time! I take it he 's too great a swell to know anything about gardening or grafting; so much the worse for my Lady's flower-pot! There 's one thing I 'd like to be able to do every morning of my life," thought he, in sadder mood,--"just to give Alice's chestnut mare one canter, to make her neck flexible and her mouth light, and to throw her back on her haunches. And then, if I could only see Alice on her! just to see her as she bends down over the mane and pats the mare's shoulder to coax her not to buck-leap! There never was a picture that equalled it! the mare snorting and with eyes flashing, and Alice all the while caressing her, and saying, 'How silly you are, Maida! come, now, do be gentle!'"

These thoughts set others in motion,--the happy, happy days of long ago; the wild, half-reckless gallops over the fern-clad hills in the clear bright days of winter; or the still more delightful saunterings of a summer's eve on the sea-sh.o.r.e!--none of them--not one--ever to come back again. It was just as his reveries had reached so far that he caught sight of the four dappled grays--they were Alice's own--swinging smoothly along in that long easy stride by which thoroughbreds persuade you that work is no distress to them. It was only as they breasted the hill that he saw that the bearing-reins were not let down,--a violation of a precept on which he was inexorable; and he hastened, with all the speed he could, to catch them ere they gained the crest of the ridge.

To say the truth, Tony was somewhat ashamed of himself for his long absence from the Abbey. If it was not ingrat.i.tude, it had a look of it.

_They_ knew nothing of what had pa.s.sed between Mark and himself, and could only p.r.o.nounce upon his conduct as fickleness, or worse; and he was glad of an opportunity to meet them less formally than by a regular morning visit. Either Alice and her sister, or Alice alone, were certain to be in the carriage; for Lady Lyle was too timid to trust herself with those "grays;" and so he bounded forward, his heart full of expectancy, and burning once more to hear that voice whose very chidings were as music to him.

He was close to the carriage before he saw Maitland,--indeed, the sight of Alice, as he drew near, had so entranced him that he saw nothing else; but when his eyes did fall on her companion, a pang shot through him as though he had been stabbed. In the raging jealousy of the moment everything was forgotten but his pa.s.sion,--his hatred of that man. He 'd have given his right hand to be able to hurl at him a mortal defiance, to have dared him to the death. Indeed, so far as the insolence of his stare could convey his meaning, it declared an open war between them.

Nor did Maitland's att.i.tude a.s.suage this anger; he lay back with a cool a.s.sumption of superiority--an air of triumphant satisfaction--that seemed to say, Each of us is in the place that befits him.

So overcome was he by pa.s.sion, that even Alice's invitation to get into the carnage sounded like an outrage to his ears. It was bitter enough to cast him off without making him witness the success of another.

Maitland's daring to apologize for him--to explain away why he had or had not done this, that, or t' other--was more than his endurance could brook; and as he hurried away from the spot, dashing recklessly down cliff and crag, and sprang from rock to rock without a thought of the peril, he almost accused himself of cowardice and cold-bloodedness for not having insulted him on the instant, and by some open outrage forced upon him a quarrel from which there could be no retreating. "If I 'd insulted him before her," cried he, "he never could have evaded me by calling me an angry boy."

"I'll have no companionship with him, at all events," said he, suddenly checking himself in his speed; "he shall neither be leader nor comrade of mine. I 'll get my letter back before it reach him." With this resolve he turned his steps back again to the Abbey. Although he knew well that he must reach the lodge before they could return from their drive, he hurried along as though his life depended on it The keeper was out, but Tony dashed into the lodge, and found, as he expected, the letter on the chimney; he tore it into fragments, and turned away.

The day was already drawing to a close as he descended the little path to the Burnside, and saw his mother awaiting him in the porch. As he came nearer, he perceived that she held up a letter in her hand.

"Something important, Tony dear," cried she. "It is printed at top, 'On H. M's Service,' and marked 'Immediate' underneath. I have been very impatient all the day for your return."

Although Tony's mood at the moment did not dispose him to be on the very best terms with the world at large, nor even with himself, he felt a strange sort of vainglorious glow through him at being addressed on a great square-shaped envelope, "On Her Majesty's Service," and with a huge seal, the royal arms affixed. It imparted a sense of self-importance that was very welcome at such a moment It was a spoonful of brandy to a man not far from fainting.

With all this, he did n't like his mother to see how much this gratified or interested him; and he tossed the letter to one side, and said, "I hope the dinner isn't far off; I'm very hungry."