Tony Butler Part 82

"Your business must have been important to require such activity," said M'Gruder, half inquiringly.

"Very important, indeed, for Mr. Butler, if I could only meet with him.

Can you give any hint, sir, how that is to be accomplished?"

"I scarcely think you 'll follow him when I tell you where he has gone,"

said M'Gruder, dryly. "He has gone to join Garibaldi."

"To join Garibaldi!" exclaimed the other. "A man with a landed estate and thirty-six thousand in the Three per Cents gone off to Garibaldi!"

"It is clear we are not talking of the same person. My poor friend had none olthat wealth you speak of."

"Probably not, sir, when last you saw him; but his uncle, Sir Omerod Butler, has died, leaving him all he had in the world."

"I never knew he had an uncle. I never heard him speak of a rich relation."

"There was some family quarrel,--some estrangement, I don't know what; but when Sir Omerod sent for me to add a codicil to his will, he expressed a great wish to see his nephew before he died, and sent me off to Ireland to fetch him to him; but a relapse of his malady occurred the day after I left him, and he died within a week."

The man of law entered into a minute description of the property to which Tony was to succeed. There was a small family estate in Ireland, and a large one in England; there was a considerable funded fortune, and some scattered moneys in foreign securities; the whole only charged with eight hundred a-year on the life of a lady no longer young, whom scandal called not the widow of Sir Omerod Butler. M'Grader paid little attention to these details; his whole thought was how to apprise Tony of his good-luck,--how call him back to a world where he had what would make life most enjoyable. "I take it, sir," asked he, at last, "that you don't fancy a tour in Sicily?"

"Nothing is less in my thoughts, sir. We shall be most proud to act as Mr. Butler's agents, but I 'm not prepared to expose my life for the agency."

"Then, I think I must go myself. It's clear the poor fellow ought to know of his good fortune."

"I suspect that the Countess Brancaleone, the annuitant I mentioned, will not send to tell him," said the lawyer, smiling; "for if Mr. Butler should get knocked over in this ugly business, she inherits everything, even to the family plate with the Butler arms."

"She sha'n't, if I can help it," said M'Gruder, firmly. "I'll set out to-night."

Mr. Culter pa.s.sed a warm eulogium on this heroic devotion, enlarged on the beauty of friendship in general, and concluded by saying he would step over to his hotel, where he had ordered dinner; after which he would certainly drink Mr. M'Grader's health.

"I shall want some details from you," said M'Grader,--"something written and formal,--to a.s.sure my friend that my tidings are trustworthy. I know it will be no easy task to persuade him that he is a man of fortune."

"You shall have all you require, sir,--a copy of the will, a formal letter from our house, reciting details of the property, and, what will perhaps impart the speediest conviction of all, a letter of credit, in Mr. Butler's favor, for five hundred pounds for immediate use. These are the sort of proofs that no scepticism is strong enough to resist. The only thing that never jests, whose seriousness is above all levity, is money;" and so M'Grader at once acknowledged that when he could go fortified with such testimonies, he defied all doubt.

His preparations for departure were soon made. A short letter to his brother explained the cause of his sudden leaving; a longer one to Dolly told how, in his love for her, he could not do enough for her friend; and that, though he liked Tony well for his own sake, he liked him far more as the "adopted brother and old playfellow of his dearest Dolly."

Poor fellow! he wrote this from a full heart, and a very honest one too.

Whether it imparted all the pleasure he hoped it might to her who read it, is none of our province to tell. It is only ours to record that he started that night for Genoa, obtained from a friend--a subordinate in the Government employment--a letter to Garibaldi himself, and sailed with an agent of the General's in charge of a supply of small-arms and ammunition.

They were within thirty miles of Sicily when they were boarded by the Neapolitan corvette the "Veloce," and carried off prisoners to Palermo,--the one solitary capture the royal navy made in the whole of that eventful struggle.

The proofs that they were Garibaldians were too strong and many for denial; and for a day and a half their fate was far from hopeful.

Indeed, had the tidings of the first encounters between the King's forces and the buccaneers been less disastrous than they were, the prisoners would have been shot; but already a half doubt had arisen as to the fidelity of the royal troops. This and that general, it was rumored, had resigned; and of those who remained, it was said, more than one had counselled "concessions." Ominous word at such a moment, but the presage of something darker and more ominous still.

M'Gruder bore up with a stout heart, and nothing grieved him in all his calamity more than the thought that all this time Tony might be exposing his life as worthless and hopeless, while, if he only knew it, he had already succeeded to what men are content to pa.s.s their whole existence to grasp and gain.

Nor was he inactive in his imprisonment He wrote letters to Garibaldi, enclosing others to Tony; he wrote to all the consuls he could think of; to the Minister at Naples, or to his representative; and he proclaimed his right as a "civis Roma.n.u.s," and threatened a Palmerstonian vengeance on all and every that had a hand in curtailing his freedom.

In this very natural and British pursuit we must now leave him, and betake ourselves to other cares and other characters.

CHAPTER LII. ON THE CHIAJA AT NIGHT

The night had just closed in after a hot sultry day of autumn in Naples, as Maitland and Caffarelli sat on the sea-wall of the Chiaja, smoking their cigars in silence, apparently deep in thought, or sometimes startled by the distant shouts and cries of the populace who crammed the Toledo or the Quarter of St Lucia; for all Naples was now in the streets, and wild songs and yells resounded on every side.

In the bay the fleet lay at anchor; but the rapid flash of lanterns, as they rose and fell in the riggings, showed that the signalman was at work, and that messages were being transmitted and replied to throughout the squadron. A like activity seemed to prevail in the forts above the city, and the roll of the drum and the bugle-call occasionally could be heard overtopping all other sounds.

"What would a newly come traveller say to all this?" said Caffarelli, at last. "Would he think it was a city about to be attacked by an enemy, or would he deem it a town in open revolt, or one given up to pillage after the a.s.sault? I have seen to-night what might confirm any of these impressions."

"And all three are present," said Maitland, moodily. "Your traveller could scarcely be more puzzled than we are."

The other sighed wearily, and Maitland went on. "What do you trust, or whom? Is it those noisy legions up there, who only muster to disband; or that gallant fleet that has come to anchor, only the more easily to surrender and change its flag?"

"There may be some traitors, but the great majority, I 'll swear, will stand by the King."

"No; not one in fifty,--not one in a hundred. You don't seem to apprehend that loyalty is not a sudden instinct. It is a thing a man inherits. Take my word for it, Carlo, these men will not fight to keep a certain set of priests around a bigoted old Queen, or support a King whose highest ambition is to be a Jesuit."

"And if you thought so meanly of the cause, why have you adopted it?"

"Because, ill as I think of the Court, I hate the rabble more. Remember, Carlo,"--and now he spoke in a rapid and marked tone,--"remember that, when I joined you, I deemed myself a rich man, and I had my ambitions, like the rest of you. Had I known what I now know,--had I foreseen that the day was so near wherein I was to find myself a beggar--"

"No, no, Maitland; don't say this."

"And why not say it? It is true. You know as well as I do, that amongst that yelling rabble there is none poorer than myself; and for this reason, I repeat, I might have chosen my a.s.sociates more wisely. You yourself saw the treatment I met with this morning."

"Ay, but bear in mind, Maitland, what was the provocation you gave.

It is no small thing to tell a king, surrounded by his ministers and generals, that he has not one loyal and true man in his train; that, what between treachery and cowardice, he will find himself alone, at the head of a few foreign regiments, who will only fight to cut their way through towards home."

"I scarcely went so far as this," said Maitland, smiling.

"Did you not, _per Bacco!_ I was there and heard you. You accused Laguila to his face of being bought, and named the sum; and you told Cadorno that you had a copy of his letter promising to surrender the flag-ship to Garibaldi."

"And they listened to me with an admirable patience."

"I don't know that; I am certain Cadorno will send you a message before the week is over."

"And why not before the day was over? Are these accusations a man sleeps upon?"

"The King commanded them both to reply to your charges formally and distinctly, but not with the sword; and he was right so far."

"At all events, was it kingly to tell me of the favors that had been bestowed upon me, and to remind me that I was an alien, and unknown?"

"The King was angry."

"He was angrier when I handed him back his patent, and told him that I did not care to be the last-made n.o.ble of a dynasty."

"It was outrageous, I was shocked to hear you; and for one so young, I was struck with the dignity with which he heard you."

"I don't think he understood me; he was impa.s.sive because he did not know he was wounded. But why do I talk of these things? They have no longer the faintest interest for me. Except yourself, there is not a man in the cause I care for."