station had usually elevated him above the risks of their occurrence,
and that in the chance roughings of a sportsman's life it was the born
gentleman--Sybarite it might be at times--whose temper best sustained
him in all difficulties, and whose gallant spirit bore him most
triumphantly over the crosses and cares that beset him. It might not be
a very logical induction that led him to apply this reasoning to Alice,
but he did so, and in so doing he felt very little how the time went
over, till he found himself on the terrace at Lyle Abbey.

Led on by old habit, he passed in without ringing the bell, and was
already on his way to the drawing-room when he met Hailes the butler.

In the midst of a shower of rejoicings at seeing him again,--for he was
a great favorite with the household,--Hailes hastened to show him into
the dining-room, where, dinner over, Sir Arthur sat in an easy-chair at
the fire, alone, and sound asleep. Roused by the noise of the opening
door, Sir Arthur started and looked up; nor was he, indeed, very full
awake while Tony blundered out his excuses for disturbing him.

“My dear Tony, not a word of this. It is a real pleasure to see you. I
was taking a nap, just because I had nothing better to do. We are all
alone here now, and the place feels strange enough in the solitude. Mark
gone--the girls away--and no one left but Lady Lyle and myself. There's
your old friend; that's some of the '32 claret; fill your glass, and
tell me that you are come to pass some days with us.”

“I wish I was, sir; but I have come to say good-bye. I 'm off to-morrow
for London.”

“For London! What! another freak, Tony?”

“Scarcely a freak, sir,” said he, smiling. “They 've telegraphed to me
to come up and report myself for service at the Foreign Office.”

“As a Minister, eh?”

“No, sir; a Messenger.”

“An excellent thing, too; a capital thing. A man must begin somewhere,
you know. Every one is not as lucky as I was, to start with close on
twelve hundred a year. I was n't twenty when I landed at Calcutta,
Tony,--a mere boy!” Here the baronet filled his glass, and drank it off
with a solemnity that seemed as if it were a silent toast to his own
health, for in his own estimation he merited that honor, very few men
having done more for themselves than he had; not that he had not
been over-grateful, however, to the fortune of his early days in this
boastful acknowledgment, since it was in the humble capacity of an
admiral's secretary--they called them clerks in those days--he had
first found himself in the Indian Ocean, a mere accident leading to his
appointment on shore and all his subsequent good fortune. “Yes, Tony,”
 continued he, “I started at what one calls a high rung of the ladder. It
was then I first saw your father; he was about the same age as you are
now. He was on Lord Dollington's staff. Dear me, dear me! it seems like
yesterday;” and he closed his eyes, and seemed lost in revery; but if he
really felt like yesterday, he would have remembered how insolently the
superb aide-de-camp treated the meek civilian of the period, and how
immeasurably above Mr. Lyle of those days stood the haughty Captain
Butler of the Governor-General's staff.

“The soldiers used to fancy they had the best of it, Tony; but, I take
it, we civilians won the race at last;” and his eyes ranged over the
vast room, with the walls covered by pictures, and the sideboard
loaded with massive plate, while the array of decanters on the small
spider-table beside him suggested largely of good living.

“A very old friend of mine, Jos. Hughes--he was salt assessor at
Bussorabad--once remarked to me, 'Lyle,' said he, 'a man must make his
choice in life, whether he prefers a brilliant start or a good finish,
for he cannot have both.' Take your pleasure when young, and you must
consent to work when old; but if you set out vigorously, determined to
labor hard in early life, when you come to my age, Tony, you may be able
to enjoy your rest”--and here he waved his hand round, as though to show
the room in which they sat,--“to enjoy your rest, not without dignity.”

Tony was an attentive listener, and Sir Arthur was flattered, and went
on. “I am sincerely glad to have the opportunity of these few moments
with you. I am an old pilot, so to say, on the sea you are about to
venture upon; and really, the great difficulty young fellows have in
life is, that the men who know the whole thing from end to end will not
be honest in giving their experiences. There is a certain 'snobbery'--I
have no other word for it--that prevents their confessing to small
beginnings. They don't like telling how humble they were at the start;
and what is the consequence? The value of the whole lesson is lost! Now,
I have no such scruples, Tony. Good family connections and relatives
of influence I had; I cannot deny it. I suppose there are scores of men
would have coolly sat down and said to their right honorable cousin or
their noble uncle, 'Help me to this,--get me that;' but sach was not my
mode of procedure. No, sir; I resolved to be my own patron, and I went
to India.”

When Sir Arthur said this, he looked as though his words were: “I
volunteered to lead the assault It was I that was first up the breach.”
 “But, after all, Tony, I can't get the boys to believe this.” Now
these boys were his three sons, two of them middle-aged, white-headed,
liverless men in Upper India, and the third that gay dragoon with whom
we have had some slight acquaintance.

“I have always said to the boys, 'Don't lie down on your high
relations.'” Had he added that they would have found them a most
uncomfortable bed, he would not have been beyond the truth. “'Do as I
did, and see how gladly, ay, and how proudly, they will recognize
you.' I say the same to you, Tony. You have, I am told, some family
connections that might be turned to account?”

“None, sir; not one,” broke in Tony, boldly.

“Well, there is that Sir Omerod Butler. I don't suspect he is a man of
much actual influence. He is, I take it, a bygone.”

“I know nothing of him; nor do I want to know anything of him,” said
Tony, pushing his glass from him, and looking as though the conversation
were one he would gladly change for any other topic; but it was not so
easy to tear Sir Arthur from such a theme, and he went on.

“It would not do for you, perhaps, to make any advances towards him.”

“I should like to see myself!” said Tony, half choking with angry
impatience.

“I repeat, it would not do for _you_ to take this step; but if you had
a friend--a man of rank and station--one whose position your uncle could
not but acknowledge as at least the equal of his own--”

“He could be no friend of mine who should open any negotiations on my
part with a relation who has treated my mother so uncourteously, sir.”

“I think you are under a mistake, Tony. Mrs. Butler told me that it was
rather her own fault than Sir Omerod's that some sort of reconciliation
was not effected. Indeed, she once showed me a letter from your uncle
when she was in trouble about those Canadian bonds.”

“Yes, yes, I know it all,” said Tony, rising, as if all his patience was
at last exhausted. “I have read the letter you speak of; he offered to
lend her five or six hundred pounds, or to give it, I forget which;
and he was to take _me_”--here he burst into a fit of laughter that was
almost hysterical in its harsh mockery--“to take me. I don't know what
he was to do with me, for I believe he has turned Papist, Jesuit, or
what not; perhaps I was to have been made a priest or a friar; at all
events, I was to have been brought up dependent on his bounty,--a bad
scheme for each of us. He would not have been very proud of his protégé;
and, if I know myself, I don't think I 'd have been very grateful to my
protector. My dear mother, however, had too much of the mother in her to
listen to it, and she told him so, perhaps too plainly for his refined
notions in matters of phraseology; for he frumped and wrote no more to
us.”

“Which is exactly the reason why a friend, speaking from the eminence
which a certain station confers, might be able to place matters on a
better and more profitable footing.”

“Not with _my_ consent, sir, depend upon it,” said Tony, fiercely.

“My dear Tony, there is a vulgar adage about the impolicy of quarrelling
with one's bread-and-butter; but how far more reprehensible would it be
to quarrel with the face of the man who cuts it?”

It is just possible that Sir Arthur was as much mystified by his own
illustration as was Tony, for each continued for some minutes to look
at the other in a state of hopeless bewilderment. The thought of one
mystery, however, recalled another, and Tony remembered his mother's
note.

“By the way, sir, I have a letter here for you from my mother,” said he,
producing it.

Sir Arthur put on his spectacles leisurely, and began to peruse it. It
seemed very brief, for in an instant he had returned it to his pocket.

“I conclude you know nothing of the contents of this?” said he, quietly.

“Nothing whatever.”

“It is of no consequence. You may simply tell Mrs. Butler from me that I
will call on her by an early day; and now, won't you come and have a cup
of tea? Lady Lyle will expect to see you in the drawing-room.”

Tony would have refused, if he knew how; even in his old days he had
been less on terms of intimacy with Lady Lyle than any others of the
family, and she had at times a sort of dignified stateliness in her
manner that checked him greatly.

“Here 's Tony Butler come to take a cup of tea with you, and say
good-bye,” said Sir Arthur, as he led him into the drawing-room.

“Oh, indeed! I am too happy to see him,” said she, laying down her book;
while, with a very chilly smile, she added, “and where is Mr. Butler
bound for this time?” And simple as the words were, she contrived to
impart to them a meaning as though she had said, “What new scheme or
project has he now? What wild-goose chase is he at present engaged in?”

Sir Arthur came quickly to the rescue, as he said, “He's going to take
up an appointment under the Crown; and, like a good and prudent lad, to
earn his bread, and do something towards his mother's comfort.”

“I think you never take sugar,” said she, smiling faintly; “and for a
while you made a convert of Alice.”

Was there ever a more common-place remark? and yet it sent the blood to
poor Tony's face and temples, and overwhelmed him with confusion. “You
know that the girls are both away?”

“It's a capital thing they 've given him,” said Sir Arthur, trying to
extract from his wife even the semblance of an interest in the young
fellow's career.

“What is it?” asked she.

“How do they call you? Are you a Queen's messenger, or a Queen's
courier, or a Foreign Office messenger?”

“I'm not quite sure. I believe we are messengers, but whose I don't
remember.”

“They have the charge of all the despatches to the various embassies and
legations in every part of the world,” said Sir Arthur, pompously.

“How addling it must be,--how confusing!”

“Why so? You don't imagine that they have to retain them, and report
them orally, do you?”

“Well, I 'm afraid I did,” said she, with a little simper that seemed to
say, What did it signify either way?

“They'd have made a most unlucky selection in my case,” said Tony,
laughing, “if such had been the duty.”

“Do you think you shall like it?”

“I suppose I shall. There is so very little I 'm really fit for, that I
look on this appointment as a piece of rare luck.”

“I fancy I 'd rather have gone into the army,--a cavalry regiment, for
instance.”

“The most wasteful and extravagant career a young fellow could select,”
 said Sir Arthur, smarting under some recent and not over-pleasant
experiences.

“The uniform is so becoming too,” said she, languidly.

“It is far and away beyond any pretension of my humble fortune, Madam,”
 said Tony, proudly, for there was an impertinent carelessness in her
manner that stung him to the quick.

“Ah, yes,” sighed she; “and the army, too, is not the profession for one
who wants to marry.”

Tony again felt his cheek on fire, but he did not utter a word as she
went on, “And report says something like this of you, Mr. Butler.”

“What, Tony! how is this? I never heard of it before,” cried Sir Arthur.

“Nor I, sir.”

“Come, come. It is very indiscreet of me, I know,” said Lady Lyle; “but
as we are in such a secret committee here at this moment, I fancied I
might venture to offer my congratulations.”

“Congratulations! on what would be the lad's ruin! Why, it would be
downright insanity. I trust there is not a word of truth in it.”

“I repeat, sir, that I hear it all for the first time.”

“I conclude, then, I must have been misinformed.”

“Might I be bold enough to ask from what quarter the rumor reached you,
or with whom they mated me?”

“Oh, as to your choice, I hear she is a very nice girl indeed, admirably
brought up and well educated,--everything but rich; but of course that
fact was well known to you. Men in her father's position are seldom
affluent.”

“And who could possibly have taken the trouble to weave all this romance
about me?” said Tony, flushing not the less deeply that he suspected it
was Dolly Stewart who was indicated by the description.

“One of the girls, I forget which, told me. Where she learned it, I
forget, if I ever knew; but I remember that the story had a sort of
completeness about it that looked like truth.” Was it accident or
intention that made Lady Lyle fix her eyes steadily on Tony as she
spoke? As she did so, his color, at first crimson, gave way to an ashy
paleness, and he seemed like one about to faint. “After all,” said she,
“perhaps it was a mere flirtation that people magnified into marriage.”

“It was not even that,” gasped he out, hoarsely. “I am overstaying my
time, and my mother will be waiting tea for me,” muttered he; and with
some scarcely intelligible attempts at begging to be remembered to Alice
and Bella, he took his leave, and hurried away.

While Tony, with a heart almost bursting with agony, wended his way
towards home, Lady Lyle resumed her novel, and Sir Arthur took up the
“Times.” After about half an hour's reading he laid down the paper, and
said, “I hope there is no truth in that story about young Butler.”

“Not a word of it,” said she, dryly.

“Not a word of it! but I thought you believed it.”

“Nothing of the kind. It was a lesson the young gentleman has long
needed, and I was only waiting for a good opportunity to give it.”

“I don't understand you. What do you mean by a lesson?”

“I have very long suspected that it was a great piece of imprudence on
our part to encourage the intimacy of this young man here, and to give
him that position of familiarity which he obtained amongst us; but I
trusted implicitly to the immeasurable distance that separated him from
our girls, to secure us against danger. That clever man of the world,
Mr. Maitland, however, showed me I was wrong. He was not a week here
till he saw enough to induce him to give me a warning; and though at
first he thought it was Bella's favor he aspired to, he afterwards
perceived it was to Alice he directed his attentions.”

“I can't believe this possible. Tony would never dare such a piece of
presumption.”

“You forget two things, Sir Arthur. This young fellow fancies that his
good birth makes him the equal of any one; and, secondly, Alice, in her
sense of independence, is exactly the girl to do a folly, and imagine
it to be heroic; so Maitland himself said to me, and it was perfectly
miraculous how well he read her whole nature. And indeed it was he
who suggested to me to charge Tony Butler with being engaged to
the minister's daughter, and told me--and as I saw, with truth--how
thoroughly it would test his suspicions about him. I thought he was
going to faint,--he really swayed back and forwards when I said that it
was one of the girls from whom I had the story.”

“If I could only believe this, he should never cross the threshold
again. Such insolence is, however, incredible.”

“That's a man's way of regarding it; and however you sneer at our
credulity, it enables us to see scores of things that your obstinacy is
blind to. I am sincerely glad he is going away.”

“So am I--now; and I trust, in my heart, we have seen the last of him.”

“How tired you look, my poor Tony!” said his mother, as he entered the
cottage and threw himself heavily and wearily into a chair.

“I _am_ tired, mother,--very tired and jaded.”

“I wondered what kept you so long, Tony; for I had time to pack your
trunk, and to put away all your things; and when it was done and
finished, to sit down and sorrow over your going away. Oh, Tony dear,
are n't we ungrateful creatures, when we rise up in rebellion against
the very mercies that are vouchsafed us, and say, Why was my prayer
granted me? I am sure it was many and many a night, as I knelt down,
I begged the Lord would send you some calling or other, that you might
find means of an honest living; and a line of life that would n't
disgrace the stock you came from; and now that He has graciously heard
me, here I am repining and complaining just as if it was n't my own
supplication that was listened to.”

Perhaps Tony was not in a humor to discuss a nice question of ethical
meaning, for he abruptly said, “Sir Arthur Lyle read your note over, and
said he'd call one of these days and see you. I suppose he meant with
the answer.”

“There was no answer, Tony; the matter was just this,--I wanted a trifle
of an advance from the bank, just to give you a little money when you
have to go away; and Tom M'Elwain, the new manager, not knowing me
perhaps, referred the matter to Sir Arthur, which was not what I wished
or intended, and so I wrote and said so. Perhaps I said so a little too
curtly, as if I was too proud, or the like, to accept a favor at Sir
Arthur's hands; for he wrote me a very beautiful letter--it went home
to my heart--about his knowing your father long ago, when they were both
lads, and had the wide world before them; and alluding very touchingly
to the Lord's bounties to himself,--blessing him with a full garner.”

“I hope you accepted nothing from him,” broke in Tony, roughly.

“No, Tony; for it happened that James Hewson, the apothecary, had a
hundred pounds that he wanted to lay out on a safe mortgage, and so
I took it, at six per cent, and gave him over the deeds of the little
place here.”

“For a hundred pounds! Why, it 's worth twelve hundred at least,
mother!”

“What a boy it is!” said she, laughing. “I merely gave him his right to
claim the one hundred that he advanced, Tony dear; and my note to
Sir Arthur was to ask him to have the bond, or whatever it is called,
rightly drawn up and witnessed, and at the same time to thank him
heartily for his own kind readiness to serve me.”

“I hate a mortgage, mother. I don't feel as if the place was our own any
longer.”

“Your father's own words, eighteen years ago, when he drew all the money
he had out of the agent's hands, and paid off the debt on this little
spot here. 'Nelly,' said he, 'I can look out of the window now, and not
be afraid of seeing a man coming ap the road to ask for his interest.'”

“It's the very first thing I 'll try to do, is to pay off that debt,
mother. Who knows but I may be able before the year is over! But I am
glad you did n't take it from Sir Arthur.”

“You're as proud as your father, Tony,” said she, with her eyes full of
tears; “take care that you're as good as he was too.”

CHAPTER XXXVI. A CORNER IN DOWNING STREET

When Tony Butler found himself inside of the swinging glass-door at
Downing Street, and in presence of the august Mr. Willis, the porter, it
seemed as if all the interval since he had last stood in the same place
had been a dream. The head-porter looked up from his “Times,” and with
a severity that showed he had neither forgotten nor forgiven, said,
“Messengers' room--first pair--corridor--third door on the left.” There
was an unmistakable dignity in the manner of the speaker which served
to show Tony not merely that his former offence remained unpardoned, but
that his entrance into public life had not awed or impressed in any way
the stern official.

Tony passed on, mounted the stairs, and sauntered along a very ill-kept
corridor, not fully certain whether it was the third, fourth, or fifth
door he was in search of, or on what hand. After about half an hour
passed in the hope of seeing one to direct him, he made bold to knock
gently at a door. To his repeated summons no answer was returned, and he
tried another, when a shrill voice cried, “Come in.” He entered, and saw
a slight, sickly-looking youth, very elaborately dressed, seated at a
table, writing. The room was a large one, very dirty, ill-furnished, and
disorderly.

“Well, what is it?” asked the young gentleman, without lifting his head
or his eyes from the desk.

“Could you tell me,” said Tony, courteously, “where I ought to go? I
'm Butler, an extra messenger, and I have been summoned to attend and
report here this morning.”

“All right; we want you,” said the other, still writing; “wait an
instant.” So saying, he wrote on for several minutes at a rapid pace,
muttering the words as his pen traced them; at last he finished, and,
descending from his high seat, passed across the room, opened a door,
which led into another room, and called out,--

“The messenger come, sir!”

“Who is he?” shouted a very harsh voice.

“First for Madrid, sir,” said the youth, examining a slip of paper he
had just taken from his pocket.

“His name?” shouted out the other again.

“Poynder, sir.”

“I beg your pardon,” suggested Tony, mildly. “I'm Butler, not Poynder.”

“Who's talking out there,--what's that uproar?” screamed the voice, very
angrily.

“He says he 's not for Madrid, sir. It's a mistake,” cried the youth.

“No; you misunderstand me,” whispered Tony. “I only said I was not
Poynder.”

“He says he 's in Poynder's place.”

“I'll stop this system of substitutes!” cried the voice. “Send him in
here.”

“Go in there,” said the youth, with a gesture of his thumb, and his face
at the same time wore an expression which said as plain as any words
could have spoken, “And you 'll see how you like it.”

As Tony entered, he found himself standing face to face to the awful
official, Mr. Brand, the same who had reported to the Minister his
intended assault upon Willis, the porter. “Aw! what's all this about?”
 said Mr. Brand, pompously. “You are Mr.--Mr.--”

“Mr. Butler,” said Tony, quietly, but with an air of determination.

“And instead of reporting yourself, you come here to say that you have
exchanged with Poynder.”

“I never heard of Poynder till three minutes ago.”

“You want, however, to take his journey, sir. You call yourself first
for Madrid?”

“I do nothing of the kind. I have come here because I got a telegram two
days ago. I know nothing of Poynder, and just as little about Madrid.”

“Oh--aw! you're Butler! I remember all about you now; there is such a
swarm of extras appointed, that it's impossible to remember names or
faces. You 're the young gentleman who--who--yes, yes, I remember it
all; but have you passed the civil-service examiners?”

“No; I was preparing for the examination when I received that message,
and came off 'at once.”

“Well, you 'll present yourself at Burlington House. Mr. Blount will
make out the order for you; you can go up the latter end of this week,
and we shall want you immediately.”

“But I am not ready. I was reading for this examination when your
telegram came, and I set off at the instant.”

“Blount, Mr. Blount!” screamed out the other, angrily; and as the
affrighted youth presented himself, all pale and trembling, he went on:
“What's the meaning of this, sir? You first attempt to pass this person
off for Poynder: and when that scheme fails, you endeavor to slip him
into the service without warrant or qualification. He tells me himself
he knows nothing.”

“Very little, certainly, but I don't remember telling you so,” said
Tony.

“And do you imagine, sir, that a bravado about your ignorance is the
sure road to advancement? I can tell you, young gentleman, that the days
of mighty patronage are gone by; the public require to be served
with competent officials. We are not in the era of Castlereaghs and
Vansittarts. If you can satisfy the Commissioners, you may come back
here; if you cannot, you may go back to--to whatever life you were
leading before, and were probably most fit for. As for you, Mr. Blount,
I told you before that on the first occasion of your attempting to
exercise here that talent for intrigue on which you pride yourself, and
of which Mr. Vance told me you were a proficient, I should report you. I
now say, sir,--and bear in mind I say so openly, and to yourself, and in
presence of your friend here,--I shall do so this day.”

“May I explain, sir?”

“You may not, sir,--withdraw!” The wave of the hand that accompanied
this order evidently included Tony; but he held his ground undismayed,
while the other fell back, overwhelmed with shame and confusion.

Not deigning to be aware of Tony's continued presence in the room,
Mr. Brand again addressed himself to his writing materials, when a
green-cloth door at the back of the room opened, and Mr. Vance entered,
and, advancing to where the other sat, leaned over his chair and
whispered some words in his ear. “You 'll find I 'm right,” muttered he,
as he finished.

“And where's the Office to go to?” burst out the other, in a tone of
ill-repressed passion; “will you just tell me that? Where's the Office
to go--if this continues?”

“That's neither your affair nor mine,” whispered Vance. “These sort of
things were done before we were born, and they will be done after we 're
in our graves!”

“And is he to walk in here, and say, 'I 'm first for service; I don't
care whether you like it or not'?”

“He 's listening to you all this while,--are you aware of that?”
 whispered Vance; on which the other grew very red in the face, took
off his spectacles, wiped and replaced them, and then, addressing Tony,
said, “Go away, sir,--leave the Office.”

“Mr. Brand means that you need not wait,” said Vance, approaching Tony.
“All you have to do is to leave your town address here, in the outer
office, and come up once or twice a day.”

“And as to this examination,” said Tony, stoutly, “it's better I should
say once for all--”

“It's better you should just say nothing at all,” said the other,
good-humoredly, as he slipped his arm inside of Tony's and led him away.
“You see,” whispered he, “my friend Mr. Brand is hasty.”

“I should think he _is_ hasty!” growled out Tony.

“But he is a warm-hearted--a truly warm-hearted man--”

“Warm enough he seems.”

“When you know him better--”

“I don't want to know him better!” burst in Tony. “I got into a scrape
already with just such another: he was collector for the port of Derry,
and I threw him out of the window, and all the blame was laid upon me!”

“Well, that certainly was hard,” said Vance, with a droll twinkle of his
eye,--“I call that very hard.”

“So do I, after the language he used to me, saying all the while,
'I'm no duellist,--I'm not for a saw-pit, with coffee and pistols for
two,'--and all that vulgar slang about murder and such-like.”

“And was he much hurt?”

“No; not much. It was only his collar-bone and one rib, I think,--I
forget now,--for I had to go over to Skye, and stay there a good part of
the summer.”

“Mr. Blount, take down this gentleman's address, and show him where
he is to wait; and don't--” Here he lowered his voice, so that the
remainder of his speech was inaudible to Tony.

“Not if I can help it, sir,” replied Blount; “but if you knew how hard
it is!”

There was something almost piteous in the youth's face as he spoke; and,
indeed, Vance seemed moved to a certain degree of compassion as he said,
“Well, well, do your best,--do your best, none can do more.”

“It's two o'clock. I 'll go out and have a cigar with you, if you don't
mind,” said Blount to Tony. “We 're quite close to the Park here; and a
little fresh air will do me good.”

“Come along,” said Tony, who, out of compassion, had already a sort of
half-liking for the much-suffering young fellow.

“I wish Skeffy was here,” said Tony, as they went downstairs.

“Do you know Skeff Darner, then?”

“Know him! I believe he 's about the fellow I like best in the world.”

“So do I,” cried the other, warmly; “he hasn't his equal living; he 's
the best-hearted and he's the cleverest fellow I ever met.”

And now they both set to, as really only young friends ever do, to extol
a loved one with that heartiness that neither knows limit nor measure.
What a good fellow he was,--how much of this, without the least of
that,--how unspoiled, too, in the midst of the flattery he met with!
“If you just saw him as I did a few days back,” said Tony, calling up in
memory Skeffy's hearty enjoyment of their humble cottage-life.

“If you but knew how they think of him in the Office,” said Blount,
whose voice actually trembled as he touched on the holy of holies.

“Confound the Office!” cried Tony. “Yes; don't look shocked. I hate that
dreary old house, and I detest the grim old fellows inside of it.”

“They 're severe, certainly,” muttered the other, in a deprecatory tone.

“Severe isn't the name for it. They insult--they outrage--that's
what they do. I take it that you and the other young fellows here are
gentlemen, and I ask, Why do you bear it,--why do you put up with it?
Perhaps you like it, however.”

“No; we don't like it,” said he, with an honest simplicity.

“Then, I ask again, why do you stand it?”

“I believe we stand it just because we can't help it.”

“Can't help it!”

“What _could_ we do? What would _you_ do?” asked Blount

“I 'd go straight at the first man that insulted me, and say, Retract
that, or I 'll pitch you over the banisters.”

“That's all very fine with you fellows who have great connections and
powerful relatives ready to stand by you and pull you out of any scrape,
and then, if the worst comes, have means enough to live without work.
That will do very well for you and Skeffy. Skeffy will have six thousand
a year one of these days. No one can keep him out of Digby Darner's
estate; and you, for aught I know, may have more.”

“I have n't sixpence, nor the expectation of sixpence in the world. If I
am plucked at this examination I may go and enlist, or turn navvy, or go
and sweep away the dead leaves like that fellow yonder.”

“Then take my advice, and don't go up.”

“Go up where?”

“Don't go up to be examined; just wait here in town; don't show too
often at the office, but come up of a morning about twelve,--I 'm
generally down here by that time. There will be a great press for
messengers soon, for they have made a regulation about one going only so
far, and another taking up his bag and handing it on to a third; and the
consequence is, there are three now stuck fast at Marseilles, and two at
Belgrade, and all the Constantinople despatches have gone round by the
Cape. Of course, as I say, they 'll have to alter this, and then we
shall suddenly want every fellow we can lay hands on; so all you have
to do is just to be ready, and I 'll take care to start you at the first
chance.”

“You 're a good fellow,” cried Tony, grasping his hand; “if you only
knew what a bad swimmer it was you picked out of the water.”

“Oh, I can do that much, at least,” said he, modestly, “though I'm not
a clever fellow like Skeffy; but I must go back, or I shall 'catch it.'
Look in the day after to-morrow.”

“And let us dine together; that is, you will dine with me,” said Tony.
The other acceded freely, and they parted.

That magnetism by which young fellows are drawn instantaneously towards
each other, and feel something that, if not friendship, is closely akin
to it, never repeats itself in after life. We grow more cautious about
our contracts as we grow older. I wonder do we make better bargains?

If Tony was then somewhat discouraged by his reception at the Office, he
had the pleasure of thinking he was compensated in that new-found friend
who was so fond of Skeffy, and who could talk away as enthusiastically
about him as himself. “Now for M'Gruder and Cannon Row, wherever that
may be,” said he, as he sauntered along; “I 'll certainly go and
see him, if only to shake hands with a fellow that showed such 'good
blood.'” There was no one quality which Tony could prize higher than
this. The man who could take a thrashing in good part, and forgive him
who gave it, must be a fine fellow, he thought; and I 'm not disposed to
say he was wrong.

The address was 27 Cannon Street, City; and it was a long way off, and
the day somewhat spent when he reached it.

“Mr. M'Gruder?” asked Tony of a blear-eyed man, at a small faded desk in
a narrow office.

“Inside!” said he, with a jerk of his thumb; and Tony pushed his way
into a small room, so crammed with reams of paper that there was barely
space to squeeze a passage to a little writing-table next the window.

“Well, sir, your pleasure?” said M'Gruder, as Tony came forward.

“You forget me, I see; my name is Butler.”

“Eh! what! I ought not to forget you,” said he, rising, and grasping the
other's hand warmly; “how are you? when did you come up to town? You see
the eye is all right; it was a bit swollen for more than a fortnight,
though. Hech, sirs! but you have hard knuckles of your own.”

It was not easy to apologize for the rough treatment he had inflicted,
and Tony blundered and stammered in his attempts to do so; but M'Gruder
laughed it all off with perfect good-humor, and said, “My wife will
forgive you, too, one of these days, but not just yet; and so we'll go
and have a bit o' dinner our two selves down the river. Are you free
to-day?”

Tony was quite free and ready to go anywhere; and so away they went,
at first by river steamer, and then by a cab, and then across some
low-lying fields to a small solitary house close to the Thames,--“Shads,
chops, and fried-fish house,” over the door, and a pleasant odor of each
around the premises.

“Ain't we snug here? no tracking a man this far,” said M'Grader, as
he squeezed into a bench behind a fixed table in a very small room. “I
never heard of the woman that ran her husband to earth down here.”

That this same sense of security had a certain value in M'Grader's
estimation was evident, for he more than once recurred to the sentiment
as they sat at dinner.

The tavern was a rare place for “hollands,” as M'Grader said; and they
sat over a peculiar brew for which the house was famed, but of which
Tony's next day's experiences do not encourage me to give the receipt
to my readers. The cigars, too, albeit innocent of duty, might have been
better; but all these, like some other pleasures we know of, only were
associated with sorrow in the future. Indeed, in the cordial freedom
that bound them they thought very little of either. They had grown to be
very confidential; and M'Gruder, after inquiring what Tony proposed to
himself by way of a livelihood, gave him a brief sketch of his own rise
from very humble beginnings to a condition of reasonably fair comfort
and sufficiency.

“I 'm in rags, ye see, Mr. Butler,” said he, “my father was in rags
before me.”

“In rags!” cried Tony, looking at the stout sleek broadcloth beside him.

“I mean,” said the other, “I 'm in the rag trade, and we supply the
paper-mills; and that's why my brother Sam lives away in Italy. Italy is
a rare place for rags,--I take it they must have no other wear, for
the supply is inexhaustible,--and so Sam lives in a seaport they call
Leghorn; and the reason I speak of it to you is that if this messenger
trade breaks down under you, or that ye 'd not like it, there's Sam
there would be ready and willing to lend you a hand; he 'd like a fellow
o' your stamp, that would go down amongst the wild places on the coast,
and care little about the wild people that live in them. Mayhap this
would be beneath you, though?” said he, after a moment's pause.

“I 'm above nothing at this moment except being dependent; I don't want
to burden my mother.”

“Dolly told us about your fine relations, and the high and mighty folk
ye belong to.”

“Ay, but they don't belong to me,--there 's the difference,” said Tony,
laughing; then added, in a more thoughtful tone, “I never suspected that
Dolly spoke of me.”

“That she did, and very often too. Indeed, I may say that she talked of
very little else. It was Tony this and Tony that; and Tony went here and
Tony went there; till one day Sam could bear it no longer--for you see
Sam was mad in love with her, and said over and over again that he never
met her equal. Sam says to me, 'Bob,' says he, 'I can't bear it any
more.' 'What is it,' says I, 'that you can't bear?'--for I thought it
was something about the drawback duty on mixed rags he was meaning. But
no, sirs; it was that he was wild wi' jealousy, and couldn't bear her to
be a-talkin' about you. 'I think,' says he, 'if I could meet that same
Tony, I 'd crack his neck for him.'”

“That was civil, certainly!” said Tony, dryly.

“'And as I can't do that, I 'll just go and ask her what she means by it
all, and if Tony's her sweetheart?'”

“He did not do that!” Tony cried, half angrily.

“Yes, but he did, though; and what for no? You would n't have a man lose
his time pricing a bale of goods when another had bought them? If she
was in treaty with you, Mr. Butler, where was the use of Sam spending
the day trying to catch a word wi' her? So, to settle the matter at
once, he overtook her one morning going to early meeting with the
children, and he had it out.”

“Well, well?” asked Tony, eagerly.

“Well, she told him there never was anything like love between herself
and you; that you were aye like brother and sister; that you knew each
other from the time you could speak; that of all the wide world she did
not know any one so well as you; and then she began to cry, and cried so
bitterly that she had to turn back home again, and go to her room as if
she was taken ill; and that's the way Mrs. M'Gruder came to know what
Sam was intending. She never suspected it before; but, hech sirs! if she
did n't open a broadside on every one of us! And the upshot was, Dolly
was packed off home to her father; Sam went back to Leghorn; and there's
Sally and Maggie going back in everything ever they learned; for it
ain't every day you pick up a lass like that for eighteen pounds a year,
and her washing.”

“But did he ask her to marry him?” cried Tony.

“He did. He wrote a letter--a very good and sensible letter too--to her
father. He told him that he was only a junior, with a small share, but
that he had saved enough to furnish a house, and that he hoped, with
industry and care and thrifty ways, he would be able to maintain a wife
decently and well; and he referred to Dr. Forbes of Auchterlonie for
a character of him; and I backed it myself, saying, in the name of the
house, it was true and correct.”

“What answer came to this?”

“A letter from the minister, saying that the lassie was poorly, and in
so delicate a state of health it would be better not to agitate her by
any mention of this kind for the present; meanwhile he would take up
his information from Dr. Forbes, whom he knew well; and if the reply
satisfied him, he 'd write again to us in the course of a week or two;
and Sam's just waiting patiently for his answer, and doing his best, in
the mean while, to prepare, in case it's a favorable one.”

Tony fell into a revery. That story of a man in love with one it might
never be his destiny to win had its own deep significance for him. Was
there any grief, was there any misery, to compare with it? And although
Sam M'Gruder, the junior partner in the rag trade, was not a very
romantic sort of character, yet did he feel an intense sympathy for him.
They were both sufferers from the same malady,--albeit Sam's attack was
from a very mild form of the complaint.

“You must give me a letter to your brother,” said he at length. “Some
day or other I 'm sure to be in Italy, and I'd like to know him.”

“Ay, and he like to know _you_, now that he ain't jealous of you.
The last thing he said to me at parting was, 'If ever I meet that Tony
Butler, I 'll give him the best bottle of wine in my cellar.'”

“When you write to him next, say that I 'm just as eager to take _him_
by the hand, mind that. The man that's like to be a good husband to
Dolly Stewart is sure to be a brother to _me_.”

And they went back to town, talking little by the way, for each was
thoughtful,--M'Grader thinking much over all they had been saying; Tony
full of the future, yet not able to exclude the past.

CHAPTER XXXVII. MR. BUTLER FOR DUTY ON------

“I suppose M'Gruder's right,” mattered Tony, as he sauntered away
drearily from the door at Downing Street, one day in the second week
after his arrival in London. “A man gets to feel very like a 'flunkey,'
coming up in this fashion each morning 'for orders.' I am more than half
disposed to close with his offer and go 'into rags' at once.”

If he hesitated, be assured himself, very confidently too, that it
was not from the name or nature of the commercial operation. He had no
objection to trade in rags any more than in hides or tallow or oakum,
and some gum which did not “breathe of Araby the blest.” He was sure
that it could not possibly affect his choice, and that rags were just as
legitimate and just as elevating a speculation as sherry from Cadiz or
silk from China. He was ingenious enough in his self-discussions; but
somehow, though he thought he could tell his mother frankly and honestly
the new trade he was about to embark in, for the life of him he could
not summon courage to make the communication to Alice. He fancied her,
as she read the avowal, repeating the word “rags,” and, while her lips
trembled with the coming laughter, saying, “What in the name of all
absurdity led him to such a choice?” And what a number of vapid and
tasteless jokes would it provoke! “Such snobbery as it all is,” cried
he, as he walked the room angrily; “as if there was any poetry in cotton
bales, or anything romantic in molasses, and yet I might engage in these
without reproach, without ridicule. I think I ought to be above such
considerations. I do think my good blood might serve to assure me
that in whatever I do honorably, honestly, and avowedly there is no
derogation.”

But the snobbery was stronger than he wotted of; for, do what he would,
he could not frame the sentence in which he should write the tidings to
Alice, and yet he felt that there would be a degree of meanness in the
non-avowal infinitely more intolerable.

While he thus chafed and fretted, he heard a quick step mounting the
stair, and at the same instant his door was flung open, and Skeffy
Darner rushed towards him and grasped both his hands.

“Well, old Tony, you scarcely expected to see me here, nor did I either
thirty hours ago, but they telegraphed for me to come at once. I 'm off
for Naples.”

“And why to Naples?”

“I 'll tell you, Tony,” said he, confidentially; “but remember this is
for yourself alone. These things mustn't get abroad; they are Cabinet
secrets, and not known out of the Privy Council.”

“You may trust me,” said Tony; and Skeffy went on.

“I 'm to be attached there,” said be, solemnly.

“What do you mean by attached?”

“I'm going there officially. They want me at our Legation. Sir George
Home is on leave, and Mecklam is Chargé d'Affaires; of course every one
knows what that means.”

“But _I_ don't,” said Tony, bluntly.

“It means being bullied, being jockeyed, being outmanoeuvred, laughed at
by Brennier, and derided by Caraffa. Mecklam's an ass, Tony, that 's
the fact, and they know it at the Office, and I'm sent out to steer the
ship.”

“But what do _you_ know about Naples?”

“I know it just as I know the Ecuador question,--just as I know the
Month of the Danube question,--as I know the slave treaty with Portugal,
and the Sound dues with Denmark, and the right of search, and the
Mosquito frontier, and everything else that is pending throughout the
whole globe. Let me tell you, old fellow, the others--the French, the
Italians, and the Austrians--know me as well as they know Palmerston.
What do you think Walewski told Lady Pancroft the day Cavour went down
to Vichy to see the Emperor? They held a long conversation at a table
where there were writing-materials, and Cavour has an Italian habit of
scribbling all the time he talks, and he kept on scratching with a pen
on a sheet of blotting-paper, and what do you think he wrote?--the one
word, over and over again, Skeff, Skeff,--nothing else. 'Which led us,'
says Walewski, 'to add, Who or what was Skeff? when they told us he was
a young fellow'--these are his own words--'of splendid abilities in the
Foreign Office;' and if there is anything remarkable in Cavour, it is
the way he knows and finds out the coming man.”

“But how could he have heard of you?”

“These fellows have their spies everywhere, Tony. Gortchakoff
has a photograph of me, with two words in Russian underneath, that I
got translated, and that mean 'infernally dangerous'--_tanski
serateztrskoff_, infernally dangerous!--over his stove in his study.
You 're behind the scenes now, Tony, and it will be rare fun for you
to watch the newspapers, and see how differently things will go on at
Naples after I arrive there.”

“Tell me something about home, Skeffy; I want to hear about Tilney. Whom
did you leave there when you came away?”

“I left the Lyles, Alice and Bella,--none else. I was to have gone back
with them to Lyle Abbey if I had stayed till Monday, and I left them, of
course, very disconsolate, and greatly put out.”

“I suppose you made up to Alice. I thought you would,” said Tony, half
sulkily.

“No, old fellow, you do me wrong; that's a thing I never do. As I
said to Ernest Palfi about Pauline Esterhazy, I 'll take no unfair
advantage,--I 'll take no steps in your absence; and Alice saw this
herself.”

“How do you mean? Alice saw it?” said Tony, reddening.

“She saw it, for she said to me one day, 'Mr. Damer, it seems to me you
have very punctilious notions on the score of friendship.'

“'I have,' said I; 'you 're right there.'

“'I thought so,' said she.”

“After all,” said Tony, in a half-dogged tone, “I don't see that the
speech had any reference to me, or to any peculiar delicacy of yours
with respect to me.”

“Ah, my poor Tony, you have a deal to learn about women and their ways!
By good luck fortune has given you a friend--the one man--I declare I
believe what I say--the one man in Europe that knows the whole thing; as
poor Balzac used to say, '_Cher_ Skeffy, what a fellow you would be if
you had my pen!' He was a vain creature, Balzac; but what he meant was,
if I could add his descriptive power to my own knowledge of life; for
you see, Tony, this was the difference between Balzac and me. He knew
Paris and the salons of Paris, and the women who frequent these salons.
I knew the human, heart. It was woman, as a creature, not a mere
conventionality, that she appeared to me.”

“Well, I take it,” grumbled out Tony, “you and your friend had some
points of resemblance too.”

“Ah! you would say that we were both vain. So we were, Tony,--so is
every man that is the depository of a certain power. Without this same
conscious thought, which you common folk call vanity, how should we come
to exercise the gift! The little world taunts us with the very quality
that is the essence of our superiority.”

“Had Bella perfectly recovered? was she able to be up and about?”

“Yes, she was able to take carriage airings, and to be driven about in a
small phaeton by the neatest whip in Europe.”

“Mr. Skeff Damer, eh?”

“The same. Ah, these drives, these drives! What delicious memories of
woodland and romance! I fell desperately in love with that girl, Tony--I
pledge you my honor I did. I 've thought a great deal over it all since
I started for Ireland, and I have a plan, a plan for us both.”

“What is it?”

“Let us marry these girls. Let us be brothers in law as well as in love.
You prefer Alice,--I consent. Take her, take her, Tony, and may you be
happy with her!” And as he spoke, he laid his hand on the other's head
with a reverend solemnity.

“This is nonsense, and worse than nonsense,” said Tony, angrily; but the
other's temper was imperturbable, and he went on: “You fancy this is
all dreamland that I 'm promising you: but that is because you, my dear
Tony, with many good qualities, are totally wanting in one,--you have
no imagination, and, like all fellows denied this gift, you never can
conceive anything happening to you except what has already happened.
You like to live in a circle, and you do live in a circle,--you are the
turnspits of humanity.”

“I am a troublesome dog, though, if you anger me,” said Tony, half
fiercely.

“Very possibly, but there are certain men dogs never attack.” And as
Skeffy said this, he threw forward his chest, held his head back, and
looked with an air of such proud defiance that Tony lay back in a chair
and laughed heartily.

“I never saw a great hulking fellow yet that was not impressed with the
greatness of his stature,” said Skeffy. “Every inch after five feet six
takes a foot off a man's intellectual standard. It is Skeff Darner says
it, Tony, and you may believe it.”

“I wish you 'd tell me about Tilney,” said Tony, half irritably.

“I appreciate you, as the French say. You want to hear that I am not
your rival,--you want to know that I have not taken any ungenerous
advantage of your absence. _Tonino mio_, be of good comfort,--I
preferred the sister; shall I tell you why?”

“I don't want to hear anything about it.”

“What a jealous dog it is, even after I have declared, on the word of a
Darner, that he has nothing to apprehend from me! It was a lucky day
led me down there, Tony. Don't you remember the old woman's note to me,
mentioning a hundred pounds, or something like it, she had forgotten to
enclose? She found the bank-note afterwards on her table, and after much
puzzling with herself, ascertained it was the sum she had meant to
remit me. Trifling as the incident was she thought it delicate, or
high-minded, or something or other, on my part. She said 'it was so nice
of me;' and she wrote to my uncle to ask if he ever heard such a pretty
trait, and my uncle said he knew scores of spendthrifts would have
done much the same; whereupon the old lady of Tilney, regarding me as
ill-used by my relatives, declared she would do something for me; but
as her good intentions were double-barrelled, and she wanted to do
something also for Bella, she suggested that we might, as the Oberland
peasants say, 'put our eggs in the same basket.' A day was named,
too, in which we were all to have gone over to Lyle Abbey, and open
negotiations with Sir Arthur, when came this confounded despatch
ordering me off to Naples! At first I determined not to go,--to
resign,--to give up public life forever. 'What's Hecuba to him?' said I;
that is, 'What signifies it to me how Europe fares? Shall I not think
of Skeff Darner and his fortunes?' Bowling down dynasties and setting
up ninepin princes may amuse a man, but, after all, is it not to the
tranquil enjoyments of home he looks for happiness? I consulted Bella,
but she would not agree with me. Women, my dear Tony, are more ambitious
than men,--I had almost said, more worldly. She would not, she said,
have me leave a career wherein I had given such great promise. 'You
might be an ambassador one day,' said she. 'Must be!' interposed
I,--'must be!' My unfortunate admission decided the question, and I
started that night.”

“I don't think I clearly understand you,” said Tony, passing his hand
over his brow. “Am I to believe that you and Bella are engaged?”

“I know what's passing in your mind, old fellow; I read you like large
print. You won't, you can't, credit the fact that I would marry out of
the peerage. Say it frankly; out with it.”

“Nothing of the kind; but I cannot believe that Bella--”

“Ay, but she did,” said Skeffy, filling up his pause, while he smoothed
and caressed his very young moustaches. “Trust a woman to find out the
coming man! Trust a woman to detect the qualities that insure supremacy!
I was n't there quite three weeks in all, and see if she did not
discover me. What's this? Here comes an order for you, Tony,” said he,
as he looked into the street and recognized one of the porters of the
Foreign Office. “This is the place, Trumins,” cried he, opening the
window and calling to the man. “You 're looking for Mr. Butler, are n't
you?”

“Mr. Butler on duty, Friday, 21,” was all that the slip of paper
contained. “There,” cried Skeffy, “who knows if we shall not cross the
Channel together to-night? Put on your hat and we 'll walk down to the
Office.”

CHAPTER XXXVII. TONY WAITING FOR ORDERS

Tony Butler was ordered to Brussels to place himself at the disposal of
the Minister as an ex-messenger. He crossed over to Calais with
Skeffy in the mail-boat; and after a long night's talking, for neither
attempted to sleep, they parted with the most fervent assurances of
friendship.

“I 'd go across Europe to thrash the fellow would say a hard word of
him,” muttered Tony; while Skeffy, with an emotion that made his lip
tremble, said, “If the world goes hard with you, I 'll turn my back
on it, and we 'll start for New Zealand or Madagascar, Tony, remember
that,--I give it to you as a pledge.”

When Tony presented himself at the Legation, he found that nobody
knew anything about him. They had some seven or eight months previous
requested to have an additional messenger appointed, as there were cases
occurring which required frequent reference to home; but the emergency
had passed over, and Brussels was once again as undisturbed by
diplomatic relations as any of the Channel Islands.

“Take a lodging and make yourself comfortable, marry, and subscribe to
a club if you like it,” said a gray-headed attaché, with a cynical face,
“for in all likelihood they'll never remember you're here.” The speaker
had some experiences of this sort of official forgetfulness, with the
added misfortune that, when he once had summoned courage to remonstrate
against it, they did remember him, but it was to change him from a first
to a second-class mission--in Irish phrase, promoting him backwards--for
his temerity.

Tony installed himself in a snug little quarter outside the town, and
set himself vigorously to study French. In Knickerbocker's “History of
New York,” we read that the sittings of the Council were always measured
and recorded by the number of pipes smoked by the Cabinet. In the same
way might it be said that Tony Butler's progress in Ollendorf was only
to be computed by the quantity of tobacco consumed over it. The pronouns
had cost two boxes of cigars; the genders a large packet of assorted
cavendish and bird's-eye; and he stood fast on the frontier of the
irregular verbs, waiting for a large bag of Turkish that Skeffy wrote to
say he had forwarded to him through the Office.

Why have we no statistics of the influence of tobacco on education? Why
will no one direct his attention to the inquiry as to how far the
Tony Butlers--a large class in the British Islands--are more moved to
exertion, or hopelessly muddled in intellect, by the soothing influences
of smoke?

Tony smoked on and on. He wrote home occasionally, and made three
attempts to write to Alice, who, despite his silence, had sent him a
very pleasant letter about home matters. It was not a neighborhood to
afford much news; and indeed, as she said, “they have been unusually
dull of late; scarcely any visitors, and few of the neighbors. We
miss your friend Skeff greatly; for, with all his oddities and
eccentricities, he had won upon us immensely by real traits of
generosity and high-mindedness. There is another friend of yours here
I would gladly know well, but she--Miss Stewart--retreats from all my
advances, and has so positively declined all our invitations to the
Abbey that it would seem to imply, if such a thing were possible, a
special determination to avoid us. I know you well enough, Master Tony,
to be aware that you will ascribe all my ardor in this pursuit to the
fact of there being an obstacle. As you once told me about a certain
short cut from Portrush, the only real advantage it had was a stiff
four-foot wall which must be jumped; but you are wrong, and you are
unjust,--two things not at all new to you. My intentions here were
really good. I had heard from your dear mother that Miss Stewart was in
bad health,--that fears were felt lest her chest was affected. Now, as
the doctors concurred in declaring that Bella must pass one winter, at
least, in a warm climate, so I imagined how easy it would be to extend
the benefit of genial air and sunshine to this really interesting girl,
by offering, to take her as a companion. Bella was charmed with my
project, and we walked over to the Burn-side on Tuesday to propose it in
all form.

“To the shame of our diplomacy we failed completely. The old minister,
indeed, was not averse to the plan, and professed to think it a most
thoughtful attention on our part; but Dolly,--I call her Dolly, for it
is by that name, so often recurring in the discussion, I associate
her best with the incident,--Dolly was peremptory in her refusal. I
wanted,--perhaps a little unfairly,--I wanted to hear her reasons. I
asked if there might not possibly be something in her objections to
which we could reply. I pressed her to reconsider the matter,--to take
a week, two if she liked, to think over it; but no, she would not listen
to my compromise; she was steady and resolute, and yet at the same time
much moved. She said 'No!' but she said it as if there was a reason she
should say so, while it was in direct violence to all her wishes. Mind,
this is mere surmise on my part. I am speaking of one of whose nature
and temperament I know nothing. I may just as easily be wrong as
right. She is, indeed, a puzzle to me; and one little trait of her has
completely routed all my conceit in my own power of reading character.
In my eagerness to overcome her objections, I was picturing the life
of enjoyment and interest Italy would open to her,--the charm of a land
that realizes in daily life what poets and painters can only
shadow forth; and in my ardor I so far forgot myself as to call her
Dolly,--'dear Dolly,' I said. The words overcame her at once. She grew
pale, so sickly pale that I thought she would have fainted; and as two
heavy tears stood in her eyes, she said in a cold quiet voice: 'I beg
you will not press me any more. I am very grateful to you; but I cannot
accept your offer.'

“Bella insisted on our going over to your mother, and enlisting her
advocacy in the cause. I did not like the notion, but I gave way. Your
dear mother, all kind as she ever is, went the same evening to the
Burnside; but a short note from her the next morning showed she had no
better success than ourselves.

“Naturally,--you at least will say so,--I am ten times more eager about
my plan now that it is pronounced impracticable. I have written to Dr.
Stewart. I have sent papa to him; mamma has called at the cottage.
I have made Dr. Reede give a written declaration that Miss Stewart's
case,--I quote him,--'as indicated by a distinct “Bronchoffany” in the
superior portion of the right lung, imperatively demands the benefit of
a warm and genial climate;' and with all these _pièces de conviction_ I
am beaten, turned out of court, and denied a verdict.

“Have you any explanation to offer about this, Master Tony? Dolly was an
old playfellow of yours, your mother tells me. What key can you give us
as to her nature? Is she like what she was in those old days; and when
did you cease to have these games together? I fancied--was it mere
fancy?--that she grew a little red when we spoke of you. Mind, sir, I
want no confessions. I want nothing from _you_ but what may serve to
throw light upon _her_. If you can suggest to me any means of overcoming
the objection she seems to entertain to our plan, do so; and if you
cannot, please to hold your peace on this matter ever after. I wrote
yesterday to Mark, who is now at Milan, to make some inquiries about
Italian villa life. I was really afraid to speak to your friend Skeff,
lest, as mamma said, he should immediately offer us one of the royal
palaces as a residence. No matter, he is a dear good fellow, and I have
an unbounded reliance on his generosity.

“Not, a word about yourself. Why are you at Brussels? Why are you a
fixed star, after telling us you were engaged as a planet? Are there any
mysterious reasons for your residence there? If so, I don't ask to hear
them; but your mother naturally would like to know something about you
a little more explanatory than your last bulletin, that said, 'I am here
still, and likely to be so.'

“I had a most amusing letter from Mr. Maitland a few days ago. I had put
it into this envelope to let you read it, but I took it out again, as I
remembered your great and very unjust prejudices against him. He seems
to know every one and everything, and is just as familiar with the great
events of politics as with the great people who mould them. I read
for your mother his description of the life at Fontainebleau, and the
eccentricities of a beautiful Italian Countess Castagnolo, the reigning
belle there; and she was much amused, though she owned that four changes
of raiment daily was too much even for Delilah herself.

“Do put a little coercion on yourself, and write me even a note. I
assure you I would write you most pleasant little letters if you showed
you merited them. I have a budget of small gossip about the neighbors,
no particle of which shall you ever see till you deserve better of your
old friend,

“Alice Trafford.”

It may be imagined that it was in a very varying tone of mind he
read through this letter. If Dolly's refusal was not based on her
unwillingness to leave her father,--and if it were, she could have said
so,--it was quite inexplicable. Of all the girls he had ever known, he
never saw one more likely to be captivated by such an offer. She had
that sort of nature that likes to invest each event of life with a
certain romance; and where could anything have opened such a vista for
castle-building as this scheme of foreign travel? Of course he could not
explain it; how should he? Dolly was only partly like what she used to
be long ago. In those days she had no secrets,--at least, none from him;
now she had long dreary intervals of silence and reflection, as though
brooding over something she did not wish to tell of. This was not the
Dolly Stewart he used to know so well. As he re-read the letter, and
came to that passage in which she tells him that if he cannot explain
what Dolly's refusal is owing to without making a confession, he need
not do so, he grew almost irritable, and said, “What can she mean by
this?” Surely it is not possible that Alice could have listened to any
story that coupled his name with Dolly's, and should thus by insinuation
charge him with the allegation? Lady Lyle had said to himself, “I heard
the story from one of the girls.” Was it this, then, that Alice referred
to? Surely she knew him better; surely she knew how he loved her, no
matter how hopelessly it might be. Perhaps women liked to give this sort
of pain to those whose heart they owned. Perhaps it was a species of
torture they were given to. Skeffy could tell if he were here. Skeffy
could resolve this point at once, but it was too much for _him_.

As to the passage about Maitland, he almost tore the paper as he read
it. By what right did he correspond with her at all? Why should he write
to her even such small matter as the gossip of a court? And what could
Alice mean by telling him of it, unless--and oh, the bitterness of this
thought!--it was to intimate by a mere passing word the relations that
subsisted between herself and Maitland, and thus convey to him the utter
hopelessness of his own pretensions?

As Tony walked up and down his room, he devised a very strong, it was
almost a fierce, reply to this letter. He would tell her that as to
Dolly he could not say, but she might have some of his own scruples
about that same position called companion. When he knew her long ago,
she was independent enough in spirit, and it was by no means impossible
she might prefer a less brilliant condition if unclogged with
observances that might savor of homage. At all events, _he_ was no fine
and subtle intelligence to whom a case of difficulty could be submitted.

As for Maitland, he hated him! he was not going to conceal it in any
way. His air of insolent superiority he had not forgotten, nor would he
forget till he had found an opportunity to retort it. Alice might think
him as amusing as she pleased. To himself the man was simply odious, and
if the result of all his varied gifts and accomplishments was only
to make up such a being as he was, then would he welcome the most
unlettered and uninformed clown that ever walked, rather than this mass
of conceit and self-sufficiency.

He sat down to commit these thoughts to paper, and though he scrawled
over seven sheets in the attempt, nothing but failure came of it.
Maitland came in, if not by name, by insinuation, everywhere; and, in
spite of himself, he found he had got into a tone not merely querulous,
but actually aggressive, and was using towards Alice an air of reproof
that he almost trembled at as he re-read it.

“This will never do,” cried he, as he tore up the scribbled sheets. “I
'll wait till to-morrow, and perhaps I shall do better.” When the morrow
came, he was despatched on duty, and Alice remained unanswered.

CHAPTER XXXIX. THE MAJOR'S MISSION

If my reader has been as retentive as I could wish him, he will have
borne in mind that on the evening when Major M'Caskey took a very
menacing leave of Norman Maitland at Paris, Count Caffarelli had
promised his friend to write to General Filangieri to obtain from the
King a letter addressed to Maitland in the royal hand by the title
of Count of Amalfi,--such a recognition being as valid an act of
ennoblement as all the declarations and registrations and emblazonments
of heralds and the colleges.

It had been originally intended that this letter should be enclosed to
Count Ludolf, the Neapolitan envoy at Turin, where Maitland would have
found it; but seeing the spirit which had now grown up between Maitland
and M'Caskey, and foreseeing well what would occur whenever these two
men should meet, Caffarelli, with that astuteness that never fails the
Italian, determined to avert the peril by a stratagem which lent its aid
to the object he had in hand. He begged the General would transmit the
letter from the King, not to Turin, but to the Castello di Montanara,
where Maitland had long resided, in a far-away part of Calabria, and
employ as the messenger M'Caskey himself; by which means this very
irritable and irritating individual might be, for a time at least,
withdrawn from public view, and an immediate meeting with Maitland
prevented.

It was not very difficult, without any breach of confidence, for
Caffarelli to convey to Filangieri that his choice of M'Caskey for this
mission was something stronger than a caprice, and that his real wish
was that this fiery personage should not be at Naples when they arrived
there.

A very brief note, which reached Caffarelli before he had left Paris,
informed him that all he had requested had been duly done. “He gave
it,”--it was of the King he spoke,--“he gave it at once, Carlo; only
saying, with a laugh, 'One of my brothers may dispute it with him some
of these days, for it gives some privilege; but whether it be to claim
the rights of the Church after high treason, or to have two wives in
Lower Calabria, I don't remember; but tell your friend to avoid both
murder and matrimony, at least till he returns to a more civilized
region.'

“I shall send the Irish Major with the despatch, as you wish. If I
understand you aright, you are not over-anxious he should come back
with the answer. But why not be more explicit? If you want----remember
Calabria is----Calabria,--you understand.”

At first Caffarelli had intended not to show this note to Maitland; but
the profound contempt which his friend exhibited for M'Caskey, proved
that no sense of a debt of honor outstanding between them would lessen
Maitland's satisfaction at hearing that this troublesome “cur”--so he
called him--should not be yelping at his heels through the streets of
Naples.

Maitland, in fact, declared that he knew of no misfortune in life so
thoroughly ruinous as to be confronted in a quarrel with a questionable
antagonist. From the ridicule of such a situation, he averred, the
only escape was in a fatal ending; and Maitland knew nothing so bad as
ridicule. Enmity in all its shapes he had faced, and could face again.
Give him a foe but worthy of him, and no man ever sprang into the lists
with a lighter heart; the dread of a false position was too much for
him.

Leaving these two friends then at Paris, to talk, amid their lives of
many dissipations, of plots and schemes and ambitions, let us
betake ourselves to a very distant spot, at the extreme verge of the
Continent,--a little inlet on the Calabrian coast below Reggio; where,
on a small promontory separating two narrow bays, stands the lone
castle of Montanara. It had been originally a convent, as its vast size
indicates, but was purchased and converted into a royal residence by a
former king of Naples, who spent incredible sums on the buildings and
the gardens. The latter, especially, were most costly, since they were
entirely artificial,--the earth having been carried from the vicinity of
Naples.

The castle itself was the most incongruous mass that could be conceived,
embracing the fortress, the convent, the ornate style of Venice, and the
luxurious vastness of an Oriental palace, all within its walls. It may
be imagined that no private fortune, however ample, could have kept in
perfect order a place of such immense size, the gardens alone requiring
above thirty men constantly at work, and the repairs of the sea-wall
being a labor that never ended.

The present occupant, Sir Omerod Butler, lived in one small block
called the “Biolo,” which projected into the sea at the very end of the
promontory, and was approachable on the land side by a beautiful avenue
of cedars. They were of great age, and, tradition said, had been brought
from Lebanon. If ruin and neglect and desolation characterized all
around, no sooner had the traveller entered this shady approach than all
changed to the most perfect care and culture,--flowery shrubs of every
kind, beds of gorgeous flowers, _pergolati_ of vines leading down to
the sea, and orange groves dipping their golden balls in the blue
Mediterranean at every step, till the ample gate was reached; passing
into which you entered a spacious court paved with variegated marble,
with a massive fountain in the centre. From this court, under a pillared
archway, led off all the lower rooms,--great spacious chambers, with
richly painted ceilings and tessellated floors. Into these was gathered
the most costly furniture of the whole palace; tables and consoles of
malachite and porphyry, gorgeously inlaid slabs of _lapis lazuli_ and
agate, cabinets of rare beauty, and objects of ancient art. Passing
through these again, you gained the rooms of daily habitation, arranged
with all the taste and luxury of modern refinement, and distinctively
marking that the cold splendor without could not attain to that sense of
comfort and voluptuous ease which an age of greater indulgence requires.

The outer gate of the castle, which opened by a draw-bridge over a deep
moat, on the Reggio road, was little less than a mile off; and it may
give some idea of the vast size of the place to state that, from that
entrance to the Molo, there was a succession of buildings of one kind or
other, only interrupted by areas of courtyard or garden.

When, at the close of a sultry day, Major M'Caskey presented himself at
this gate, summoning the porter with a vigorous pull of the bell, he was
not admitted till a very careful scrutiny showed that he was alone, and
did not, besides, exhibit anything very formidable in his appearance. He
was told, as he passed in, that he must leave his horse at the stables
beside the gate, and make the rest of his way on foot The Major was both
tired and hungry; he had been in the saddle since daybreak, had twice
missed his way, and tasted no food since he set out.

“Is there much more of this confounded way to go?” asked he of his
guide, as they now mounted a terrace, only to descend again.

“About a quarter of an hour will bring you to the Molo,” said the other,
just as ill-pleased to have the duty of escorting him. A quick glance
at the fellow's face showed the Major how hopeless it would be to
expect any information from him; and though he was burning to know who
inhabited this lonesome place, and why he lived there, he forebore all
questioning, and went along in silence.

“There!” said his guide, at last, as they reached a great archway
standing alone in a sort of lawn,--“there! you follow that road to the
little gate yonder, pass in, cross the garden, and you will be at the
side entrance of the Molo. I don't suppose you want to enter by the
grand gate?”

Major M'Caskey was not much in the habit of suffering an insolence to
pass unresented; but he seemed to control himself as he drew forth his
purse and took out a crown piece. “This is for your trouble, my worthy
fellow,” said he; “go and look for it yonder;” and he jerked the piece
of money over the low parapet, and sent it skimming along the sea a
hundred yards off.

Though the man's lips murmured in passion, and his dark eyes flashed
anger, one look at the face of his companion assured him that the safer
policy was to restrain his wrath, and, touching his hat in salute, he
retired without a word.

As though he felt in better temper with himself for having thus
discharged this little debt, the Major stepped more briskly forward,
gained the small postern, and entered a large and formal garden, the
chief avenue of which showed him the gate at the extremity. It lay open,
and he found himself in a large vaulted hall, from which doors led off.
In doubt which course to take, he turned to seek for a bell, but there
was none to be found; and after a careful search on every side, he
determined to announce himself by a stout knocking at one of the doors
before him.

The hollow clamor resounded through the whole building, and soon brought
down two men in faded livery, half terrified, half angry at the summons.

M'Caskey, at once assuming the upper hand, a habit in which practice
had made him proficient, demanded haughtily to see “the Count,” their
master.

“He is at dinner,” said they both together.

“I wish I were so too,” said the Major. “Go in and tell him that I am
the bearer of a royal despatch, and desire to see him immediately.”

They held counsel together in whispers for a few minutes, during which
the name Maria occurred frequently between them. “We will tell the
Signora Maria you are here,” said one, at last.

“And who may she be?” said M'Caskey, haughtily.

“She is the Cameriera of the Countess, and the chief of all the
household.”

“My business is not with a waiting-woman. I have come to see the Count
of Amalfi,” said the Major, sternly.

The men apparently knew their own duties best, and, civilly asking
him to follow, they led the way up a small flight of stairs, and after
traversing some scantily furnished rooms, showed him into a pretty
decorated little chamber, with two windows looking on the sea.

Having politely begged him to be seated, they left him. The Major,
besides being hungry and jaded, was irritable and angry. Filangieri had
told him his mission was one of importance and high trust; in fact, so
much so, that it could not be confided to one less known than himself.
And was this the way they received a royal envoy, sent on such an
errand? While he thus fumed and chafed, he heard a door open and
close, and shortly after the sweep of a woman's dress coming along the
corridor; and now the step came nearer, and the door opened, and a tall,
sickly-looking woman entered; but scarcely had she advanced one pace
within the room, when she uttered a faint scream and fainted.

The Major's first care was to turn the key in the lock; his second was
to lift up the almost lifeless figure, and place her on a sofa. As he
did so, any emotion that his features betrayed was rather of displeasure
than astonishment; and in the impatient way he jerked open the window
to let the fresh air blow on her, there was far more of anger than
surprise.

“So, then, you are the Signora Maria, it would seem,” were the first
words she heard as she rallied from her swoon.

“Oh, Miles!” cried she, with an intense agony, “why have you tracked me
here? Could you not have let me drag out my few years of life in peace?”

It was difficult to guess how these words affected him, or, rather, in
how many different ways; for though at first his eyes flashed angrily,
he soon gave a short jeering sort of laugh, and, throwing himself down
into a chair, he crossed his arms on his breast and gazed steadily at
her.

The look seemed to remind her of bygone suffering, for she turned her
head away, and then covered her face with her hands.

“Signora Maria,” said he, slowly,--“unless, indeed, you still desire I
should call you Mrs. M'Caskey.”

“No, no,--Maria,” cried she, wildly; “I am but a servant--I toil for
my bread; but better that than--” She stopped, and, after an effort to
subdue her emotion, burst into tears and sobbed bitterly.

“It matters little to me, madam, what the name. The chain that ties
us is just as irrevocable, whatever we choose to call ourselves. As
to anything else, I do not suppose you intend to claim _me_ as your
husband.”

“No, no, never,” cried she, impetuously.

“Nor am I less generous, madam. None shall ever hear from me that you
were my wife. The contract was one that brought little credit to either
of us.”

“Nothing but misery and misfortune to me!” said she, bitterly; “nothing
else,--nothing else!”

“You remind me, madam,” said he, in a slow, deliberate voice, as though
he were enunciating some long-resolved sentiment,--“you remind me much
of Josephine.”

“Who is Josephine?” asked she, quickly.

“I speak of the Empress Josephine, so you may perceive that I have
sought your parallel in high places. She, like you, deemed herself the
most unhappy of women, and all because destiny had linked her with a
greatness that she could not measure.”

Though her vacant stare might have assured him either that she did not
understand his words, or follow their meaning, never daunted, he went
on.

“Yes, madam; and, like _her_ husband, yours has had much to
bear,--levity, frivolity, and--worse.”

“What are you here for? Why have you come after me?” cried she, wildly.
“I swore to you before, and I swear it again, that I will never go back
to you.”

“Whenever you reduce that pledge to writing, madam, call on me to be
your security for its due performance; be it known to you, therefore,
that this meeting was an unexpected happiness to me.”

She covered her face, and rocked to and fro like one in the throes of a
deep suffering.

“I should be a glutton, madam, if I desired a repetition of such scenes
as these; they filled eight years--eight mortal years--of a life not
otherwise immemorable.”

“And what have they done for _me?_” cried she, roused almost to boldness
by his taunting manner.

“Made you thinner, paler, a trifle more aged, perhaps,” said he,
scanning her leisurely; “but always what Frenchmen would call a _femme
charmante_.”

The mockery seemed more than she could bear, for she sprang to her
feet, and, in a voice vibrating with passion, said, “Take care, Miles
M'Caskey,--take care; there are men here, if they saw me insulted, would
throw you over that sea-wall as soon as look at you.”

“Ring for your bravos, madam,--summon your condottieri at once,” said
he, with an impudent laugh; “they 'll have some warmer work than they
bargained for.”

“Oh, why not leave me in peace?--why not let me have these few years of
life without more of shame and misery?” said she, throwing herself on
her knees before him.

“Permit me to offer you a chair, madam,” said he, as he took her hands,
and placed her on a seat; “and let me beg that we talk of something
else. Who is the Count?--'The Onoratissimo e Pregiatissimo Signor
Conte,'” for he read now from the address of a letter he had drawn from
his pocket,--“'Signor Conte d'Amalfi,'--is that the name of the owner of
this place?”

“No; it is the Chevalier Butler, formerly minister at Naples, lives
here,--Sir Omerod Bramston Butler.”

“Ah, then, I perceive it is really meant for another person! I thought
it was a mode of addressing him secretly. The Count of Amalfi lives
here, perhaps?” “I never heard of him.” “Who lives here besides Sir
Omerod?” “My Lady,--that is, the Countess; none else.” “Who is the
Countess? Countess of what, and where?” “She is a Milanese; she was a
Brancaleone.” “Brancaleone, Brancaleone! there were two of them. One
went to Mexico with the Duke of Sommariva,--not his wife.”

“This is the other; she is married to Sir Omerod.” “She must be Virginia
Brancaleone,” said M'Caskey, trying to remember,--“the same Lord Byron
used to rave about.” She nodded an assent, and he continued,--“Nini
Brancaleone was a toast, I remember, with Wraxall and Trelawney, and
the rest of us. She was the 'reason fair' of many a good glass of claret
which Byron gave us, in those days before he became stingy.”

“You had better keep your memories to yourself in case you meet her,”
 said she, warningly. “Miles M'Caskey, madam, requires very little advice
or admonition in a matter that touches tact or good breeding.” A sickly
smile of more than half-derision curled the woman's lip, but she did not
speak.

“And now let us come back to this Count of Amalfi, who is he? where is
he?”

“I have told you already I do not know.”

“There was a time, madam, you would have required no second intimation
that it was your duty to find out.”

“Ah, I remember those words but too well,” cried she, bitterly. “Finding
out was my task for many a year.”

“Well, madam, it was an exercise that might have put a fine edge on
your understanding, but, like some other advantages of your station, it
slipped by you without profit. I am generous, madam, and I forbear to
say more. Tell me of these people here all that you know of them, for
they are my more immediate interest at present.”

“I will tell you everything, on the simple condition that you never
speak to me nor of me again. Promise me but this, Miles M'Caskey, and I
swear to you I will conceal nothing that I know of them.”

“You make hard terms, madam,” said he, with a mock courtesy. “It is no
small privation to be denied the pleasure of your agreeable presence,
but I comply.”

“And this shall be our last meeting?” asked she, with a look of
imploring meaning.

“Alas, madam, if it must be!”

“Take care,” cried she, suddenly; “you once by your mockery drove me
to--”

“Well, madam, your memory will perhaps record what followed. I shot
the friend who took up your cause. Do you chance to know of another who
would like to imitate his fortune?”

“Gracious Heaven!” cried she, in an agony, “has nothing the power to
change your cruel nature; or are you to be hard-hearted and merciless to
the end?”

“I am proud to say, madam, that Miles M'Caskey comes of a house whose
motto is 'Semper M'Caskey'.”

A scornful curl of her lip seemed to show what respect she felt for the
heraldic allusion; but she recovered herself quickly, and said, “I can
stay no longer. It is the hour the Countess requires me; but I will
come back to-morrow, without you would let me buy off this meeting. Yes,
Miles, I am in earnest; this misery is too much for me. I have saved a
little sum, and I have it by me in gold. You must be more changed than
I can believe, or you will be in want of money. You shall have it all,
every ducat of it, if you only pledge me your word never to molest
me,--never to follow me,--never to recognize me again!”

“Madam,” said he, severely, “this menial station you have descended to
must have blunted your sense of honor rudely, or you had never dared
to make me such a proposal. Let me see you to-morrow, and for the last
time.” And haughtily waving his hand, he motioned to her to leave; and
she turned away, with her hands over her face, and quitted the room.

CHAPTER XL. THE MAJOR'S TRIALS

Major Miles M'Caskey is not a foreground figure in this our story, nor
have we any reason to suppose that he possesses any attractions for
our readers. When such men--and there are such to be found on life's
highway--are met with, the world usually gives them what sailors call
a “wide berth and ample room to swing in,” sincerely trusting that they
will soon trip their anchor and sail off again. Seeing all this, I have
no pretension, nor indeed any wish, to impose his company any more
than is strictly indispensable, nor dwell on his sojourn at the Molo of
Montanara. Indeed, his life at that place was so monotonous and weary to
himself, it would be a needless cruelty to chronicle it.

The Major, as we have once passingly seen, kept a sort of brief journal
of his daily doings; and a few short extracts from this will tell us all
that we need know of him. On a page of which the upper portion was torn
away, we find the following:--

“Arrived at M----- on the 6th at sunset. Ruined old rookery.
Open at land side, and sea defences all carried away; never could
have been strong against artillery. Found Mrs. M'C. in the style of
waiting-woman to a Countess Butler, formerly Nini Brancaleone. A warm
interview; difficult to persuade her that I was not in pursuit of
herself,--a feminine delusion I tried to dissipate. She”--henceforth it
is thus he always designates Mrs. M'Caskey--“she avers that she knows
nothing of the Count d' Amalfi, nor has ever seen him. Went into a long
story about Sir Omerod Butler, of whom I know more myself. She pretends
that Nini is married to him--legally married; don't believe a word of it
Have my own suspicions that the title of Amalfi has been conferred on B.
himself, for he lives estranged from England and Englishmen. Will learn
all, however, before I leave.

“Roast pigeons, with tomato, a strange fish, and omelette, with Capri
to wash it down; a meagre supper, but they say it shall be better
to-morrow.

“_7th, Wednesday_.--Slept soundly and had a swim; took a sea view of the
place, but could see no one about. Capital breakfast--'_Frutti di mare_'
boiled in Rhine wine; fellow who waited said a favorite dish of his
Excellency's, meaning Sir. O. B. Best chocolate I ever tasted out of
Paris. Found the _menu_ for dinner on the table all right; the wine is
_au choix_, and I begin with La Rose and La Veuve Cliquot. A note from
her referring to something said last night; she is ill and cannot see
me, but encloses an order on Parodi of Genoa, in favor of the nobile
Signor il Maggiore M'Caskey, for three thousand seven hundred and
forty-eight francs, and a small tortoise-shell box, containing
eighty-six double ducats in gold, so that it would seem I have fallen
into a '_vrai Californie_' here. Reflected, and replied with a refusal;
a M'Caskey cannot stoop to this. Reproved her for ignoring the character
to whom she addressed such a proposal, and reiterated my remark of last
night, that she never rose to the level at which she could rightly take
in the native chivalry of my nature.

“Inquired if my presence had been announced to Sir O., and learned it
had. Orders given to treat me with distinguished consideration, but
nothing said of an audience.

“Pigeons again for supper, with apology; quails had been sent for to
Messina, and expected to-morrow. Shot at a champagne-flask in the sea,
and smoked. Sir O.'s tobacco exquisite, and the supply so ample, I am
making a _petite provision_ for the future.

“Full moon. Shot at the camellias out of my window. Knocked off
seventeen, when I heard a sharp cry,--a stray shot, I suppose. Shut the
casement and went to bed.

“_Thursday_.--Gardener's boy--flesh wound in the calf of the leg; hope
Sir O. may hear of it and send for me.

“A glorious capon for dinner, stuffed with oysters,--veritable oysters.
Drank Mrs. M'C.'s health in the impression that this was a polite
attention on her part. No message from Sir O.

“_Friday_.--A general fast; a lentil soup and a fish; good but meagre;
took it out in wine and tobacco. Had the gardener's boy up, and
introduced him to sherry-cobbler. The effect miraculous; danced
Tarantella till the bandage came off and he fainted.

“_Saturday_.--Rain and wind; macaroni much smoked; cook lays it on the
chimney, that won't draw with a Levant wind. Read over my instructions
again, and understand them as little as before: 'You will hold yourself
at the orders of the Count d'Amalfi till further instructions from this
department.' Vague enough all this; and for anything I see, or am likely
to see, of this Count, I may pass the autumn here. Tried to attract
Sir O.'s attention by knocking off the oranges at top of his wall, and
received intimation to fire in some other direction.

“_Sunday_.--Don Luigi something has come to say mass. Asked him to
dinner, but find him engaged to the Countess. A dry old cove, who
evidently knows everything but will tell nothing; has promised to lend
me a guitar and a book or two, in return for which I have sent down
three bottles of our host's champagne to his reverence.

“_Monday_.--Lobsters.

“_Tuesday_.--Somebody ill apparently; much ringing of bells and
disorder. My dinner an hour late. Another appeal from Mrs. M'C,
repeating her former proposal with greater energy; this feminine
insistence provokes me. I might tell her that of the three women who
have borne my name none but herself would have so far presumed, but
I forbear. Pity has ever been the weakness of my nature; I feel its
workings even as I write this. It may not carry me to the length of
forgiveness, but I can compassionate; I will send her this note:--

“'Madam,--Your prayers have succeeded; I yield. It would not be generous
in me to say what the sacrifice has cost me. When a M'Caskey bends, it
is an oak of the forest snaps in two. I make but one condition; I will
have no gratitude. Keep the tears that you would shed at my feet for the
hours of your solitary sorrow. You will, see, therefore, that we are to
meet no more.

“'One of the ducats is clipped on the edge, and another discolored as
by an acid; I am above requiring that they be exchanged. Nothing in this
last act of our intercourse shall prevent you remembering me as “Semper
M'Caskey.”'

“'Your check should have specified Parodi & Co., not Parodi alone. To a
man less known the omission might give inconvenience; this too, however,
I pardon. Farewell.'”

It was evident that the Major felt he had completed this task with
befitting dignity, for he stood up before a large glass, and, placing
one hand within his waistcoat, he gazed at himself in a sort of
rapturous veneration. “Yes,” said he, thoughtfully, “George Seymour and
D'Orsay and myself, we were men! When shall the world look upon our
like again? Each in his own style, too, perfectly distinct, perfectly
dissimilar,--neither of them, however, had this,--neither had this,”
 cried he, as he darted a look of catlike fierceness from his fiery gray
eyes. “The Princess Metternich fainted when I gave her that glance. She
had the temerity to say, 'Qui est ce Monsieur M'Caskey?' Why not ask who
is Soult? Who is Wellington? Who is everybody? Such is the ignorance
of a woman! Madame la princesse,” added he, in a graver tone, “if it
be your fortune to turn your footsteps to Montpellier, walk into the
churchyard there, and see the tomb of Jules de Besançon, late major of
the 8th Cuirassiers, and whose inscription is in these few words,--'Tué
par M'Caskey.' I put up the monument myself, for he was a brave soldier,
and deserved his immortality.”

Though self-admiration was an attractive pastime, it palled on him at
last, and he sat down and piled up the gold double ducats in two tall
columns, and speculated on the various pleasures they might procure,
and then he read over the draft on Parodi, and pictured to his mind some
more enjoyments, all of which were justly his due, “for,” as he said to
himself aloud, “I have dealt generously by that woman.”

At last he arose, and went out on the terrace. It was a bright starlit
night, one of those truly Italian nights when the planets streak the
calm sea with long lines of light, and the very air seems weary with its
burden of perfume. Of the voluptuous enervation that comes of such
an hour he neither knew nor asked to know. Stillness and calm to him
savored only of death; he wanted movement, activity, excitement, life,
in fact,--life as he had always known and always liked it. Once or twice
the suspicion had crossed his mind that he had been sent on this distant
expedition to get rid of him when something of moment was being done
elsewhere. His inordinate vanity could readily supply the reasons for
such a course. He was one of those men that in times of trouble become
at once famous. “They call us dangerous,” said he, “just as Cromwell was
dangerous, Luther was dangerous, Napoleon was dangerous. But if we are
dangerous, it is because we are driven to it. Admit the superiority that
you cannot oppose, yield to the inherent greatness that you can only
struggle against, and you will find that we are not dangerous,--we are
salutary.”

“Is it possible,” cried he, aloud, “that this has been a plot,--that
while I am here living this life of inglorious idleness the great stake
is on the table,--the game is begun, and the King's crown being
played for?” M'Caskey knew that whether royalty conquered or was
vanquished,--however the struggle ended,--there was to be a grand scene
of pillage. The nobles or the merchants--it mattered very little which
to him--were to pay for the coming convulsion. Often and often, as he
walked the streets of Naples, had he stood before a magnificent palace
or a great counting-house, and speculated on the time when it should be
his prerogative to smash in that stout door, and proclaim all within it
his own. “_Spolia di_ M'Caskey,” was the inscription that he felt would
defy the cupidity of the boldest. “I will stand on the balcony,” said
he, “and declare, with a wave of my hand, These are mine: pass on to
other pillage.”

The horrible suspicion that he might be actually a prisoner all this
time gained on him more and more, and he ransacked his mind to think of
some great name in history whose fate resembled his own. “Could I only
assure myself of this,” said he, passionately, “it is not these old
walls would long confine me; I 'd scale the highest of them in half an
hour; or I 'd take to the sea, and swim round that point yonder,--it 's
not two miles off; and I remember there's a village quite close to it.”
 Though thus the prospect of escape presented itself so palpably before
him, he was deterred from it by the thought that if no intention of
forcible detention had ever existed, the fact of his having feared
it would be an indelible stain upon his courage. “What an indignity,”
 thought he, “for a M'Caskey to have yielded to a causeless dread!”

As he thus thought, he saw, or thought he saw, a dark object at some
short distance off on the sea. He strained his eyes, and, though long in
doubt, at last assured himself it was a boat that had drifted from her
moorings, for the rope that had fastened her still hung over the stern,
and trailed in the sea. By the slightly moving flow of the tide towards
shore she came gradually nearer, till at last he was able to reach her
with the crook of his riding-whip, and draw her up to the steps.
Her light paddle-like oars were on board; and M'Caskey stepped in,
determined to make a patient and careful study of the place on its
sea-front, and see, if he could, whether it were more of chateau or
jail.

With noiseless motion he stole smoothly along, till he passed a little
ruined bastion on a rocky point, and saw himself at the entrance of a
small bay, at the extremity of which a blaze of light poured forth, and
illuminated the sea for some distance. As he got nearer, he saw that the
light came from three large windows that opened on a terrace, thickly
studded with orange-trees, under the cover of which he could steal on
unseen, and take an observation of all within; for that the room was
inhabited was plain enough, one figure continuing to cross and recross
the windows as M'Caskey drew nigh.

Stilly and softly, without a ripple behind him, he glided on till the
light skiff stole under the overhanging boughs of a large acacia, over a
branch of which he passed his rope to steady the boat, and then standing
up he looked into the room, now so close as almost to startle him.

CHAPTER XLI. EAVESDROPPING

If M'Caskey was actually startled by the vicinity in which he suddenly
found himself to the persons within the room, he was even more struck by
the tone of the voice which now met his ear. It was Norman Maitland
who spoke, and he recognized him at once. Pacing the large room in
its length, he passed before the windows quite close to where M'Caskey
stood,--so close, indeed, that he could mark the agitation on his
features, and note the convulsive twitchings that shook his cheek.

The other occupant of the room was a lady; but M'Caskey could only
see the heavy folds of her dark velvet dress as she sat apart, and so
distant that he could not hear her voice.

“So, then, it comes to this!” said Maitland, stopping in his walk and
facing where she sat: “I have made this wearisome journey for nothing!
Would it not have been as easy to say he would not see me? It was no
pleasure to me to travel some hundred miles and be told at the end of it
I had come for nothing.”

She murmured something inaudible to M'Caskey, but to which Maitland
quickly answered: “I know all that; but why not let _me_ hear this from
his own lips, and let _him_ hear what I can reply to it? He will tell
_me_ of the vast sums I have squandered and the heavy debts I have
contracted; and I would tell _him_ that in following his rash counsels I
have dissipated years that would have won me distinction in any land of
Europe.”

Again she spoke; but before she uttered many words he broke suddenly
in with, “No, no, no! ten thousand times no! I knew the monarchy was
rotten--rotten to the very core; but I said, Better to die in the street
_à cheval_ than behind the arras on one's knees. Have it out with the
scoundrels, and let the best man win,--that was the advice _I_ gave.
Ask Caraffa, ask Filangieri, ask Acton, if I did not always say, 'If the
king is not ready to do as much for his crown as the humblest peasant
would for his cabin, let him abdicate at once.'”

She murmured something, and he interrupted her with: “Because I never
did--never would--and never will trust to priestcraft. All the intrigues
of the Jesuits, all the craft of the whole College of Cardinals, will
not bring back confidence in the monarchy. But why do I talk of these
things to you? Go back and ask him to see me. Say that I have many
things to tell him; say”--and here the mockery of his voice became
conspicuous--“that I would wish much to have his advice on certain
points.--And why not?” cried he aloud to something she said; “has my new
nobility no charm for him? Well, then, I am ready to strike a bargain
with him. I owe Caffarelli two hundred and eighty thousand francs, which
I mean to pay, if I take to the highway to do it. Hush! don't interrupt
me. I am not asking he should pay this for me,--all I want is that he
will enable me to sell that villa which he gave me some years ago beyond
Caserta. Yes, the Torricelia; I know all that,--it was a royal present.
It never had the more value in my eyes for that; and perhaps the day is
not far distant when the right to it may be disputed. Let him make out
my title, such as it is, so that I can sell it. There are Jews who will
surely take it at one-half its worth. Get him to consent to this, and I
am ready to pledge my word that he has seen the last of me.”

“He gave it to you as a wedding-present, Norman,” said she, haughtily;
and now her deep-toned voice rung out clear and strong; “and it will be
an unpardonable offence to ask him this.”

“Have I not told you that I shall not need forgiveness,--that with this
act all ends between us?”

“I will be no party to this,” said she, haughtily; and she arose
and walked out upon the terrace. As she passed, the lamplight flared
strongly on her features, and M'Caskey saw a face he had once known
well; but what a change was there! The beautiful Nini Brancaleone, the
dark-haired Norma, the belle that Byron used to toast with an enthusiasm
of admiration, was a tall woman advanced in years, and with two masses
of snow-white hair on either side of a pale face. The dark eyes, indeed,
flashed brightly still, and the eyebrows were dark as of yore; but the
beautifully formed mouth was hard and thin-lipped, and the fair brow
marked with many a strong line of pain.

“You forget, perhaps,” said she, after a short pause,--“you forget
that it is from this villa I take my title. I am Brancaleone della
Torricella, and I forfeit the name when it leaves our hands.”

“And do you hold to this, mother?” asked he, in a voice of sorrow,
through which something of scorn was detectable.

“Do I hold to it? Of course I hold to it! You know well the value it
has in his eyes. Without it he never would have consented--” She stopped
suddenly, and seemed to catch herself in time to prevent the utterance
of some rash avowal. “As it is,” added she, “he told me so late as
yesterday that he has no rest nor peace, thinking over his brother's
son, and the great wrong he has done him.”

“Let him think of the greater wrong he has done me!--of my youth that
he has wasted, and my manhood lost and shipwrecked. But for him and
his weak ambition, I had belonged to a party who would have prized
my ability and rewarded my courage. I would not find myself at thirty
brigaded with a set of low-hearted priests and seminarists, who have
no other weapons than treachery, nor any strategy but lies. If I have
squandered his fortune, he has beggared me in reputation. He does not
seem to remember these things. As to him whom he would prefer to me and
make his heir, I have seen him.”

“You have seen him, Norman! When?--where?--how?” cried she, in wild
impatience.

“Yes, I even had a plan to let the uncle meet his promising nephew.
I speculated on bringing together two people more made for mutual
detestation than any other two in Europe.”

“It would have been a rash venture,” said she, fiercely; “If you mean
for _me_, that was the very reason I thought of it. What other game than
the rash one is open to a mau like _me?_”

“Who ever had the safer road to fortune if he could have walked with the
commonest prudence?” said she, bitterly.

“How can you say that? Talk of prudence to the man who has no fortune,
no family, not even a name,--no!” cried he, fiercely; “for by the first
Maitland I met I might be challenged to say from what stock I came. He
could have saved me from all this. Nothing was ever easier. You yourself
asked,--ay, begged this. You told me you begged it on your knees; and I
own, if I never forgave him for refusing, I have never forgiven you for
the entreaty.”

“And I would do it again to-day!” cried she, passionately. “Let him but
acknowledge you, Norman, and he may turn me out upon the world houseless
and a beggar, and I will bless him for it!”

“What a curse is on the bastard,” broke he ont, in a savage vehemence,
“if it robs him of every rightful sentiment, and poisons even a mother's
love! Do not talk to me this way, or you will drive me mad!”

“Oh, Norman! my dear, dear Norman!” cried she, passionately; “it is not
yet too late.”

“Too late for what?”

“Not too late to gain back his favor. When he saw the letter in the
King's hand, calling you Count of Amalfi, he said: 'This looks ill for
the monarchy. I have a Scotch earldom myself in my family granted by
another king the day after he had lost his own crown.' Try, then, if you
cannot rally to the cause those men who are so much under your influence
that as you have often told me they only wanted to be assured of
your devotion to pledge their own. If _he_ could believe the cause
triumphant, there is nothing he would not do to uphold it.”

“Yes,” said he, thoughtfully, “there never lived the man who more
worshipped success! The indulgences that he heaped upon myself were
merely offerings to a career of insolent triumph.”

“You never loved him, Norman,” said she, sadly.

“Love had no share in the compact between us. He wanted to maintain a
cause which, if successful, must exclude from power in England the men
who had insulted him, and turned him out of office. I wanted some one
who could afford to pay my debts, and leave me free to contract more.
But why talk to you about these intrigues?--Once more, will he see me?”

She shook her bead slowly in dissent. “Could you not write to him,
Norman?” said she at last.

“I will not write to a man under the same roof as myself. I have some
news for him,” added be, “if he cares to buy it by an audience; for I
suppose he would make it an audience;” and the last word he gave with
deep scorn.

“Let me bring him the tidings.”

“No, he shall bear them from myself, or not hear them at all. I want
this villa!” cried be, passionately,--“I want the title to sell it, and
pay off a debt that is crushing me. Go, then, and say I have something
of importance enough to have brought me down some hundred miles to tell
him, something that deeply concerns the cause he cares for, and to which
his counsel would be invaluable.”

“And this is true?”

“Did I ever tell you a falsehood, mother?” asked he, in a voice of deep
and sorrowful meaning.

“I will go,” said she, after a few moments of thought, and left the
room. Maitland took a bottle of some essenced water from the table and
bathed his forehead. He had been more agitated than he cared to confess;
and now that he was alone, and, as he believed unobserved, his features
betrayed a deep depression. As he sat with his bead leaning on both
hands, the door opened. “Come,” said she, gently,--“come!” He arose, and
followed her. No sooner was all quiet around than M'Caskey rowed swiftly
back to his quarters, and, packing up hastily his few effects, made with
all speed for the little bay, where was the village he had passed on his
arrival, and through which led the road to Reggio. That something was
“up” at Naples he was now certain, and he resolved to be soon on the
field; whoever the victors, they would want _him_.

On the third evening he entered the capital, and made straight for
Caffarelli's house. He met the Count in the doorway. “The man I wanted,”
 said he, as he saw the Major. “Go into my study and wait for me.”

“What has happened?” asked M'Caskey, in a whisper. “Everything. The King
is dead.”

CHAPTER XLII. MARK LYLE'S LETTER

The following letter was received at Lyle Abbey shortly after the events
recorded in our last chapter had happened. It was from Mark Lyle to his
sister, Mrs. Trafford:--

“Hotel Victoria, Naples.

“My dear Alice,--While I was cursing my bad luck at being too late for
the P. and O. steamer at Marseilles, your letter arrived deciding me to
come on here. Nothing was ever more fortunate: first of all, I shall
be able to catch the Austrian Lloyds at Anevna, and reach Alexandria in
good time for the mail; and, secondly, I have perfectly succeeded--at
least I hope so--in the commission you gave me. For five mortal days I
did nothing but examine villas. I got a list of full fifty, but in the
course of a little time the number filtered down to ten possible, and
came at last to three that one could pronounce fairly habitable. To
have health in this climate--that is to say, to escape malaria--you must
abjure vegetation; and the only way to avoid tertian is to book yourself
for a sunstroke. These at least were my experiences up to Tuesday last,
for all the salubrious spots along the seashore had been long since
seized on either by the King or the Church, and every lovely point of
view was certain to be crowned by a royal villa or a monastery. I was
coming back then on Tuesday, very disconsolate indeed from a long day's
fruitless search, when I saw a perfect gem of a place standing on the
extreme point of a promontory near Caserta. It was of course 'royal'--at
least it belonged to a Count d'Amalfi, which title was borne by some
younger branch of the Bourbons; yet as it was untenanted, and several
people were working in the gardens, I ventured in to have a look at
it. I will not attempt description, but just say that both within and
without it realizes all I ever dreamed or imagined of an Italian villa.
Marble and frescos and fountains, terraces descending to the sea, and
gardens a wilderness of orange and magnolia, and grand old rooms, the
very air of which breathed splendor and magnificence; but _à quoi
bon?_ dear Alice. It was a _palazzotto reale_, and one could only gaze
enviously at delights they could not hope to compass.

“Seeing my intense admiration of the place, the man who showed me around
it said, as I was coming away, that it was rumored that the Count would
not be indisposed to sell the property. I know enough of Italians to be
aware that when a stranger supposed to be rich: all English are in this
category--is struck with anything--picture, house, or statue--the owner
will always part with it at tenfold its value. Half out of curiosity,
half to give myself the pretext for another morning's ramble over the
delicious place, I asked where I could learn any details as to the
value, and received an address as follows: 'Count Carlo Caffarelli,
Villino del Boschetto, Chiaja, Naples.' Caffarelli I at once remembered
as the name of Maitland's friend, and in this found another reason
for calling on him, since I had totally failed in all my attempts to
discover M. either in London, Paris, or even here.

“The same evening I went there, and found Count Caffarelli in one of
those fairy-tale little palaces which this country abounds in. He had
some friends at dinner, but on reading my name, recognized me, and came
out with a most charming politeness to press me to join his party. It
was no use refusing; the Italian persuasiveness has that element of the
irresistible about it that one cannot oppose; and I soon found myself
smoking my cigar in a company of half a dozen people who treated me as
an intimate friend.

“I may amuse you some day by some of the traits of their _bonhomie_.
I must now confine myself to our more immediate interests. Caffarelli,
when he found that I wanted some information about the villa, drew
his arm within my own, and, taking me away from the rest, told me in
strictest confidence that the villa was Maitland's,--Maitland being the
Conte d'Amalfi,--the title having been conferred by the late King, one
of the very last acts of his life.

“'And Maitland,' said I, scarcely recovering from my astonishment;
'where is he now?'

“'Within a few yards of you,' said he, turning and pointing to the
closed jalousies of a room that opened on a small separately enclosed
garden; 'he is there.'

“There was something like secrecy, mystery at least, in his manner as
he said this, that prevented my speaking for a moment, and he went on:
'Yes, Maitland is in that room, stretched on his bed, poor fellow; he
has been severely wounded in a duel which, had I been here, should
never have been fought. All this, remember, is in confidence; for it is
needless to tell you Maitland is one of those men who hate being made
gossip of; and I really believe that his wound never gave him one-half
the pain that he felt at the bare possibility of his adventure being
made town-talk. So well have we managed hitherto, that of the men you
see here to-night--all of them intimate with him--one only knows that
his illness is not a malaria fever.'

“'But can you answer for the same prudence and reserve on the part of
the other principal?'

“'We have secured it, for the time at least, by removing him from
Naples; and as the laws here are very severe against duelling, his own
safety will suggest silence.'

“'Do you think Maitland would see me?'

“'I suppose he will be delighted to see you; but I will ascertain that
without letting him know that I have already told you he was here.
Remember, too, if he should receive you, drop nothing about the duel or
the wound. Allude to his illness as fever, and leave to himself entirely
the option of telling you the true story or not.'

“After a few more words of caution--less needed, if he only had known
how thoroughly I understood his temper and disposition--he left me. He
was back again in less than five minutes, and, taking me by the arm, led
me to Maitland's door. 'There,' said he, 'go in I he expects you.'

“It was only after a few seconds that I could see my way through the
half-darkened room, but, guided by a weak voice saying, 'Come on--here,'
I approached a bed, on the outside of which, in a loose dressing-gown,
the poor fellow lay.

“'You find it hard to recognize me, Lyle,' said he, with an attempt to
smile at the amazement which I could not by any effort repress; for he
was wasted to a shadow, his brown cheeks were sunken and sallow, and his
dark flashing eyes almost colorless.

“'And yet,' added he, 'the doctor has just been complimenting me on
my improved looks. It seems I was more horrible yesterday.' I don't
remember what I said, but he thanked me and pressed my hand,--a great
deal from him, for he is not certainly demonstrative; and then he
pressed me to tell about you all,--how you were, and what doing. He
inquired so frequently, and recurred so often to Bella, that I almost
suspected something between them,--though, after all, I ought to have
known that this was a conquest above Bella's reach,--the man who might
any day choose from the highest in Europe.

“'Now a little about yourself, Maitland,' said I. 'How long have you
been ill?'

“'This is the seventeenth day,' said he, sighing. 'Caffarelli of course
told you fever--but here it is;' and he turned on his side and showed
me a great mass of appliances and bandages. 'I have been wounded. I went
out with a fellow whom none of my friends would consent to my meeting,
and I was obliged to take my valet Fenton for my second, and he, not
much versed in these matters, accepted the Neapolitan sword instead of
the French one. I had not touched one these eight years. At all events,
my antagonist was an expert swordsman,--I suspect, in this style of
fencing, more than my equal; he certainly was cooler, and took a thrust
I gave him through the fore-arm without ever owning he was wounded till
he saw me fall.'

“'Plucky fellow,' muttered I.

“'Yes, pluck he has, unquestionably; nor did he behave badly when all
was over, for though it was as much as his neck was worth to do it, he
offered to support me in the carriage all the way back to Naples.'

“'That was a noble offer,' said I.

“'And there never was a less noble antagonist!' cried Maitland, with
a bitter laugh. 'Indeed, if it ever should get abroad that I crossed
swords with him, it would go near to deny me the power of demanding a
similar satisfaction from one of my own rank to-morrow. Do not ask me
who he is, Lyle; do not question me about the quarrel itself. It is the
thinking, the brooding over these things as I lie here, that makes
this bed a torture to me. The surgeon and his probes are not pleasant
visitors, but I welcome them when they divert my thoughts from these
musings.'

“I did my best to rally him, and get him to talk of the future, when
he should be up and about again. I almost thought I had done him some
little good, when Caffarelli came in to warn me that the doctors were
imperative against his receiving any visitors, and I had been there then
full two hours!

“'I have told Lyle, said he, as we were leaving the room, 'that you must
let him come and see me to-morrow; there are other things I want to talk
over with him.'

“It was high time I should have left him, for his fever was now coming
on, and Caffarelli told me that he raved throughout the whole night, and
talked incessantly of places which, even in a foreign pronunciation, I
knew to be in our own neighborhood in Ireland. The next day I was not
admitted to see him. The day after that I was only suffered to pass a
few minutes beside his bed, on condition, too, that he should not be
allowed to speak; and to-day, as it is my last in Naples, I have been
with him for above an hour. I am certain, my dear Alice, that there is
something at least in my suspicion about Bella, from what took place
to-day. Hearing that I was obliged to leave to-night to catch the
steamer at Ancona, he said, 'Lyle, I shall want a few minutes with you,
alone, though, before you leave.' He said this because either the doctor
or Caffarelli, or both, have been with us since our first meeting.
'Don't look gloomy, old fellow,' he added; 'I 'm not going to speak
about my will. It is rather of life I mean to talk, and what to do with
life to make it worth living for. Meanwhile Caffarelli has been telling
me of your hunt after a villa. There is mine,--the Torricella,--take it.
Carlo says you were greatly struck with it; and as it is really pretty,
and inhabitable too,--a thing rare enough with villas,--I insist upon
your offering it to your family. There's a sort of summer-house or
“Belvedere” on the extreme point of the rock, with half a dozen little
rooms; I shall keep that for myself; but tell Lady Lyle I shall not be
a troublesome visitor. It will be the rarest of all events to see me
there, for I shall not be long in Italy.' I was eager to ask why, or
whither he was turning his steps, but he was never one to stand much
questioning, and in his present state it would have been dangerous to
cross him. By way of saying something--anything at the moment--I asked
how were things going on here politically. He laughed his usual little
quiet laugh, and called out to Caffarelli, who stood in the window.
'Come here, Carlo, and tell Lyle how we are getting on here. He wants to
know if the ammunition has been yet served out for the bombardment;
or are you waiting for the barricades?' He jumped up in his bed as he
spoke, and then fell back again. The doctor ran hastily over, and cried,
out, 'That's exactly what I said would come of it. There 's hemorrhage
again.' And so we were turned out of the room, and the other doctors
were speedily summoned, and it was only an hour ago I heard that he was
going on favorably; but that in future a strict interdict should be put
upon all visits, and none admitted to him but his physicians. Seeing
this, there was no use deferring my departure, which would, besides,
place my commission in jeopardy. I have already outstayed my leave by
two mails.

“Caffarelli is to write to you about the villa, and take all your
directions about getting it in order for your arrival. He says that
there is only too much furniture; and as there are something like eighty
odd rooms,--it is called Palazzotto, a grand word for palace,--the
chances are that even you will have space enough for what you call 'to
turn round in.' I am in no dread of your being disappointed in it, and I
repeat once more, it is the most exquisitely beautiful spot I ever saw.
I would rather own it than its larger brother, the great kingly palace
on the opposite side of the bay.

“I left my card at the Legation for your friend Mr. Darner, but he has
not returned my visit. I own I had no peculiar anxiety to know him.
Maitland could only say that he 'was not an ill-natured fellow, and
perhaps a shade smarter than his colleagues.'

“Caffarelli promises to keep you informed about, poor Maitland, of whom,
notwithstanding all the doctors say, I do not augur too favorably. On
every account, whether you really avail yourself of it or not, do not
refuse his offer of the villa; it would give him the deepest pain and
mortification, knowing how I had fixed upon it before I heard of his
being the owner. I am very sorry to leave him, and sorrier that I have
not heard what he was so eager to tell me. I shall be very impatient
till I hear from you, and know whether you concur in my conjecture or
not.

“The King sent twice to-day to inquire after M., and has already
announced his intention to come in person, so soon as the doctors deem
such a visit safe. To see the names that were left to-day with the
porter you would say it was one of the first men in Europe was causing
all this public anxiety.

“I trust, my dear Alice, you will be satisfied with this long-winded
epistle,--the last probably you will get from me till I reach Calcutta.
I had intended to have given you all the gossip of this pleasant place,
which, even on the verge, as some think, of a revolution, has time and
to spare for its social delinquencies; but Maitland has so engrossed my
thoughts that he has filled my letter; and yet I have not told you one
tithe of what I have heard about him from his friend Caffarelli.
Indeed, in his estimation, M. has no equal living; he is not alone the
cleverest, boldest, and most accomplished of men, but the truest and the
best-hearted. I sat late into the night last night listening to traits
of his generosity,--the poor people he had helped, the deserving
creatures he had succored, and the earnest way he had pressed claims on
the Ministry for wretched families who had been friendless without him.
I was dying to ask other questions about him, but I did not venture, and
yet the man puzzles me more than ever. Once, indeed, Caffarelli seemed
on the verge of telling me something. I had asked what Maitland meant
by saying that he should probably soon quit Italy? 'Ah,' replied
Caffarelli, laughing, 'then he has told you of that mad scheme of his;
but of all things in the world, why go into the service of a Bey of
Tunis?' 'A Bey of Tunis!' cried I, in such evident astonishment as
showed I had heard of the project for the first time. 'Of course it was
but a jest,' said Caffarelli, catching himself up quickly. 'The present
Bey and Maitland lived together in Paris in their early days; and I
have seen scores of letters entreating Maitland to come to Tunis,
and offering him the command of a division, the place of a
Minister,--anything, in fact, that might be supposed to tempt him. You
may imagine yourself how likely it is that a man with all Europe at his
feet would consent to finish his life in an African banishment.'

“If I could only have one week more here, I feel certain that Caffarelli
would tell me everything that I want to learn, but I must up and away.
My servant is already hurrying down my baggage, and I have not more time
than to send my loves to you all.

“Yours always,

“Mark Lyle.

“P. S. Caff is just the fellow to be made very useful, and likes it;
so don't scruple to write to him as fully as you please. He has already
told me of a first-rate chief-servant, a Maestro di Casa, for you; and,
in fact, only commission him, and he'll improvise you a full household
ready for your arrival. _Addio!_”

CHAPTER XLIII. THE MAJOR AT BADEN

“You will please to write your name there, sir,” said a clerk from
behind a wooden railing to a fierce-looking little man in a frogged coat
and a gold-banded cap, in the busy bank-room of Parodi at Genoa.

“And my qualities?” asked the other, haughtily.

“As you please, sir.”

The stranger took the pen, and wrote “Milo M'Caskey, Count of the two
Sicilies, Knight of various orders, and Knight-postulate of St. John of
Jerusalem, &c. &c.”

“Your Excellency has not added your address,” said the clerk,
obsequiously.

“The Tuileries when in Paris, Zarkoe-Zeloe when in Russia. Usually
incog, in England, I reside in a cottage near Osborne. When at this side
of the Alps, wherever be the royal residence of the Sovereign in
the city I chance to be in.” He turned to retire, and then, suddenly
wheeling round, said, “Forward any letters that may come for me to my
relative, who is now at the Trombetta, Turin.”

“Your Excellency has forgotten to mention his name.”

“So I have,” said he, with a careless laugh. “It is somewhat new to me
to be in a town where I am unknown. Address my letters to the care
of his Highness the Duke of Lauenburg-Gluckstein;” and with a little
gesture of his hand to imply that he did not exact any royal honors at
his departure, he strutted out of the bank and down the street.

Few met or passed without turning to remark him, such was the contrast
between his stature and his gait; for while considerably below the
middle size, there was an insolent pretension in his swagger, a defiant
impertinence in the stare of his fiery eyes, that seemed to seek a
quarrel with each that looked at him. His was indeed that sense
of overflowing prosperity that, if it occasionally inclines the
right-minded to a feeling of gratitude and thankfulness, is just as
certain to impel the men of a different stamp to feats of aggressiveness
and insolence. Such was indeed his mood, and he would have hailed as the
best boon of Fate the occasion for a quarrel and a duel.

The contempt he felt for the busy world that moved by, too deep in its
own cares to interpret the defiance he threw around him, so elevated him
that he swaggered along as if the flagway were all his own.

Was he not triumphant? What had not gone well with him? Gold in his
pocket, success in a personal combat with a man so highly placed that
it was a distinction to him for life to have encountered; the very
peremptory order he received to quit Naples at once, was a recognition
of his importance that actually overwhelmed him with delight; and he saw
in the vista before him, the time when men would stop at the windows of
printshops to gaze on the features of “Le fameux M'Caskey.”

There was something glorious in his self-conceit, for there was nothing
he would not dare to achieve that estimation which he had already
conceived of his own abilities. At the time I now speak of, there was a
momentary lull in the storm of Italian politics caused by Count Cavour's
crafty negotiations with the Neapolitan Government,--negotiations solely
devised to induce that false sense of security which was to end in
downfall and ruin. Whether M'Caskey had any forebodings of what was to
come or not, he knew well that it was not the moment for men like
himself to be needed. “When the day of action comes, will come the
question, 'Where is M'Caskey?' Meanwhile I will be off to Baden. I feel
as though I ought to break the bank.”

To Baden he went. How many are there who can recall that bustling,
pretentious, over-dressed little fellow, who astonished the
pistol-gallery by his shooting, and drove the poor _maître d'armes_ to
the verge of despair by his skill with the rapier, and then swaggered
into the play-room to take the first chair he pleased, only too happy if
he could provoke any to resent it. How he frowned down the men and ogled
the women; smiling blandly at the beauties that passed, as though in
recognition of charms their owners might well feel proud of, for they
had captivated a M'Caskey!

How sumptuous, too, his dinner; how rare and curious his wines; how
obsequious were they who waited on him; what peril impended over the man
that asked to be served before him!