Tony Butler Part 99

"My father will be glad to see you, Tony,--he wants to hear all about your campaigns; he was trying two nights ago to follow you on the map, but it was such a bad one he had to give up the attempt."

"I'll give you mine," cried the old lady,--"the map Tony brought over to myself. I 'll no just give it, but I 'll lend it to you; and there's a cross wherever there was a battle, and a red cross wherever Tony was wounded."

"Pooh, pooh, mother! don't worry Dolly about these things; she 'd rather hear of pleasanter themes than battles and battle-fields. And here is one already,--Jeanie says, 'dinner'."

"Where did you find your sprig of myrtle at this time?" asked Dolly, as Tony led her in to dinner.

"I got it at the Abbey. I strolled up there to-day," said he, in a half-confusion. "Will you have it?"

"No," said she, curtly.

"Neither will I, then," cried he, tearing it out of his b.u.t.ton-hole and throwing it away.

What a long journey in life can be taken in the few steps from the drawing-room to the dinner-table!

CHAPTER LXIV. THE END

As Dr. Stewart had many friends to consult and many visits to make,--some of them, as he imagined, farewell ones,--Dolly was persuaded, but not without difficulty, to take up her residence at the cottage till she should be able to return home. And a very pleasant week it was. To the old lady it was almost perfect happiness. She had her dear Tony back with her after all his dangers and escapes, safe and sound, and in such spirits as she had never seen him before. Not a cloud, not a shadow, now ever darkened his bright face; all was good-humor, and thoughtful kindness for herself and for Dolly.

And poor Dolly, too, with some anxious cares at her heart,--a load that would have crushed many,--bore up so well that she looked as cheery as the others, and entered into all the plans that Tony formed about his future house, and his gardens and stables, as though many a hundred leagues of ocean were not soon to roll between her and the spots she traced so eagerly on the paper. One evening they sat even later than usual. Tony had induced Dolly, who was very clever with her pencil, to make him a sketch for a little ornamental cottage,--one of those uninhabitable little homesteads, which are immensely suggestive of all the comforts they would utterly fail to realize; and he leaned over her as she drew, and his arm was on the back of her chair, and his face so close at times that it almost touched the braids of the silky hair beside him.

"You must make a porch there, Dolly; it would be so nice to sit there with that n.o.ble view down the glen at one's feet, and three distinct reaches of the Nore visible."

"Yes, I'll make a porch; I'll even make you yourself lounging in it See, it shall be perfect bliss!"

"What does that mean?"

"That means smoke, sir; you are enjoying the heavenly luxury of tobacco, not the less intensely that it obscures the view."

"No, Dolly, I'll not have that. If you put me there, don't have me smoking; make me sitting beside you as we are now,--you drawing, and I looking over you."

"But I want to be a prophet as well as a painter, Tony. I desire to predict something that will be sure to happen, if you should ever build this cottage."

"I swear I will,--I 'm resolved on it."

"Well, then, so sure as you do, and so sure as you sit in that little honeysuckle-covered porch, you 'll smoke."

"And why not do as I say? Why not make you sketching--"

"Because I shall not be sketching; because, by the time your cottage is finished, I shall probably be sketching a Maori chief, or a war-party bivouacking on the Raki-Raki."

Tony drew away his arm and leaned back in his chair, a sense almost of faintish sickness creeping over him.

"Here are the dogs too," continued she. "Here is Lance with his great majestic face, and here Gertrude with her fine pointed nose and piercing eyes, and here's little Spicer as saucy and pert as I can make him without color; for one ought to have a little carmine for the corner of his eye, and a slight tinge to accent the tip of his nose. Shall I add all your 'emblems,' as they call them, and put in the fishing-rods against the wall, and the landing-net, and the guns and pouches?"

She went on sketching with inconceivable rapidity, the drawing keeping pace almost with her words.

But Tony no longer took the interest he had done before in the picture, but seemed lost in some deep and difficult reflection.

"Shall we have a bridge--a mere plank will do--over the river here, Tony? and then this zigzag pathway will be a short way up to the cottage."

He never heard her words, but arose and left the room. He pa.s.sed out into the little garden in front of the house, and, leaning on the gate, looked out into the dark still night.

Poor Tony! impenetrable as that darkness was, it was not more difficult to peer through than the thick mist that gathered around his thoughts.

"Is that Tony?" cried his mother from the doorway.

"Yes," said he, moodily, for he wanted to be left to his own thoughts.

"Come here, Tony, and see what a fine manly letter your friend Mr.

M'Gruder writes in answer to mine."

Tony was at her side in an instant, and almost tore the letter in his eagerness to read it. It was very brief, but well deserved all she had said of it. With a delicacy which perhaps might scarcely have been looked for in a man so educated and brought up, he seemed to appreciate the existence of a secret he had no right to question; and bitterly as the resolve cost him, he declared that he had no longer a claim on Dolly's affection.

"I scarcely understand him, mother; do you?" asked Tony.

"It 's not very hard to understand, Tony," said she, gravely. "Mr.

M'Gruder sees that Dolly Stewart could not have given him her love and affection as a man's wife ought to give, and he would be ashamed to take her without it."

"But why could n't she? Sam seems to have a sort of suspicion as to the reason, and I cannot guess it."

"If he does suspect, he has the nice feeling of a man of honor, and sees that it is not for one placed as he is to question it."

"If any man were to say to me, 'Read that letter, and tell me what does it infer,' I'd say the writer thought that the girl he wanted to marry liked some else."

"Well, there's one point placed beyond an inference, Tony; the engagement is ended, and she is free."

"I suppose she is very happy at it."

"Poor Dolly has little heart for happiness just now. It was a little before dinner a note came from the doctor to say that all the friends he had consulted advised him to go out, and were ready and willing to a.s.sist him in every way to make the journey. As January is the stormy month in these seas, they all recommended his sailing as soon as he possibly could; and the poor man says very feelingly, 'To-morrow, mayhap, will be my farewell sermon to those who have sat under me eight-and-forty years.'"

"Why did you not make some proposal like what I spoke of, mother?" asked he, almost peevishly.

"I tried to do it, Tony, but he would n't hear of it. He has a pride of his own that is very dangerous to wound, and he stopped me at once, saying, 'I hope I mistake your meaning; but lest I should not, say no more of this for the sake of our old friendship.'"

"I call such pride downright want of feeling. It is neither more nor less than consummate selfishness."

"Don't tell him so, Tony, or maybe you 'd fare worse in the argument. He has a wise, deep head, the doctor."

"I wish he had a little heart with it," said Tony, sulkily, and turned again into the garden.

Twice did Jeanie summon him to tea, but he paid no attention to the call; so engrossed, indeed, was he by his thoughts, that he even forgot to smoke, and not impossibly the want of his accustomed weed added to his other embarra.s.sments.

"Miss Dolly's for ganging hame, Master Tony," said the maid at last, "and the mistress wants you to go wi' her."

As Tony entered the hall, Dolly was preparing for the road. Coquetry was certainly the least of her accomplishments, and yet there was something that almost verged on it in the hood she wore, instead of a bonnet, lined with some plushy material of a rich cherry color, and forming a frame around her face that set off all her features to the greatest advantage. Never did her eyes look bluer or deeper,--never did the gentle beauty of her face light up with more of brilliancy. Tony never knew with what rapture he was gazing on her till he saw that she was blushing under his fixed stare.