With the company that composed the dinner-party we have only a very passing concern. They were—including Skeffington and Tony—eight in all. Three were young officials from Downing Street; two were guardsmen; and one an inferior member of the royal household,—a certain Mr. Arthur Mayfair, a young fellow much about town, and known by every one.
The dinner was ostensibly to celebrate the promotion of one of the guardsmen,—Mr. Lyner; in reality, it was one of those small orgies of eating and drinking which our modern civilization has imported from Paris.
A well-spread and even splendid table was no novelty to Tony; but such extravagance and luxury as this he had never witnessed before; it was, in fact, a banquet in which all that was rarest and most costly figured, and it actually seemed as if every land of Europe had contributed some delicacy or other to represent its claims to epicurism, at this congress. There were caviare from Russia, and oysters from Ostend, and red trout from the Highlands, and plover-eggs and pheasants from Bohemia, and partridges from Alsace, and scores of other delicacies, each attended by its appropriate wine; to discuss which, with all the high connoissèurship of the table, furnished the whole conversation. Politics and literature apart, no subject could have been more removed from all Tony's experiences. He had never read Brillat-Savarin, nor so much as heard of M. Ude,—of the great controversy between the merits of white and brown truffles, he knew positively nothing; and he had actually eaten terrapin, and believed it to be very exquisite veal!
He listened, and listened very attentively. If it might have seemed to him that the company devoted a most extravagant portion of the time to the discussion, there was such a realism in the presence of the good things themselves, that the conversation never descended to frivolity; while there was an earnestness in the talkers that rejected such an imputation.
To hear them, one would have thought—at least, Tony thought—that all their lives had been passed in dining, Could any memory retain the mass of small minute circumstances that they recorded, or did they keep prandial records as others keep game-books? Not one of them ever forgot where and when and how he had ever eaten anything remarkable for its excellence; and there was an elevation of language, an ecstasy imported into the reminiscences, that only ceased to be ludicrous when he grew used to it. Perhaps, as a mere listener, he partook more freely than he otherwise might of the good things before him. In the excellence and endless variety of the wines, there was, besides, temptation for cooler heads than his; not to add that on one or two occasions he found himself in a jury empanelled to pronounce upon some nice question of flavor,—points upon which, as the evening wore on, he entered with a far greater reliance on his judgment than he would have felt half an hour before dinner.
He had not what is called, in the language of the table, a “made head,”—that is to say, at Lyle Abbey, his bottle of Sneyd's Claret after dinner was more than he liked well to drink; but now, when Sauterne succeeded Sherry, and Marcobrunner came after Champagne, and in succession followed Bordeaux, and Burgundy, and Madeira, and then Bordeaux again of a rarer and choicer vintage, Tony's head grew addled and confused. Though he spoke very little, there passed through his mind all the varied changes that his nature was susceptible of. He was gay and depressed, daring and cautious, quarrelsome and forgiving, stern and affectionate, by turns. There were moments when he would have laid down his life for the company, and fleeting instants when his eye glanced around to see upon whom he could fix a deadly quarrel; now he felt rather vainglorious at being one of such a distinguished company, and now a sharp distrust shot through him that he was there to be the butt of these town-bred wits, whose merriment was nothing but a covert impertinence.
All these changeful moods only served to make him drink more deeply. He filled bumpers and drank them daringly. Skeffington told the story of the threat to kick Willis,—not much in itself, but full of interest to the young officials who knew Willis as an institution, and could no more have imagined his personal chastisement than an insult to the royal arms. When Skeff, however, finished by saying that the Secretary of State himself rather approved of the measure, they began to feel that Tony Butler was that greatest of all created things, “a rising man.” For as the power of the unknown number is incommensurable, so the height to which a man's success may carry him can never be estimated.
“It's deuced hard to get one of these messenger-ships,” said one of the guardsmen; “they say it's far easier to be named Secretary of Legation.”
“Of course it is. Fifty fellows are able to ride in a coach for one that can read and write,” said May fair.
“What do you mean by that?” cried Tony, his eyes flashing fire.
“Just what I said,” replied the other, mildly,—“that as there is no born mammal so helpless as a real gentleman, it's the rarest thing to find an empty shell to suit him.”
“And they're, well paid, too,” broke in the soldier. “Why, there's no fellow so well off. They have five pounds a day.”
“No, they have not.”
“They have.”
“They have not.”
“On duty—when they're on duty.”
“No, nor off duty.”
“Harris told me.”
“Harris is a fool.”
“He's my cousin,” said a sickly young fellow, who looked deadly pale, “and I'll not hear him called a liar.”
“Nobody said liar. I said he was a fool.”
“And so he is,” broke in Mayfair, “for he went and got married the other day to a girl without sixpence.”
“Beaumont's daughter?”
“Exactly. The 'Lively Kitty,' as we used to call her; a name she'll scarce go by in a year or two.”
“I don't think,” said Tony, with a slow, deliberate utterance,—“I don't think that he has made me a suit—suit—suitable apology for what he said,—eh, Skeff?”
“Be quiet, will you?” muttered the other.
“Kitty had ten thousand pounds of her own.”
“Not sixpence.”
“I tell you she had.”
“Grant it. What is ten thousand pounds?” lisped out a little pink-cheeked fellow, who had a hundred and eighty per annum at the Board of Trade. “If you are economical, you may get two years out of it.”
“If I thought,” growled out Tony into Skeff's ear, “that he meant it for insolence, I'd punch his head, curls and all.”
“Will you just be quiet?” said Skeff, again.
“I 'd have married Kitty myself,” said pink cheeks, “if I thought she had ten thousand.”
“And I 'd have gone on a visit to you,” said Mayfair, “and we 'd have played billiards, the French game, every evening.”
“I never thought Harris was so weak as to go and marry,” said the youngest of the party, not fully one-and-twenty.
“Every one hasn't your experience, Upton,” said May-fair.
“Why do the fellows bear all this?” whispered Tony, again.
“I say, be quiet,—do be quiet,” mumbled Skeff.
“Who was it used to call Kitty Beaumont the Lass of Richmond Hill?” said Mayfair; and now another uproar ensued as to the authority in question, in which many contradictions were exchanged, and some wagers booked.
“Sing us that song Bailey made on her,—'Fair Lady on the River's Bank;' you can sing it, Clinton?”
“Yes, let us have the song,” cried several together.
“I 'll wager five pounds I 'll name a prettier girl on the same spot,” said Tony to Skeff.
“Butler challenges the field,” cried Skeff. “He knows, and will name, the prettiest girl in Richmond.”
“I take him. What 's the figure?” said Mayfair.
“And I—and I!” shouted three or four in a breath.
“I think he offered a pony,” lisped out the youngest.
“I said, I 'd bet five pounds,” said Tony, fiercely; “don't misrepresent me, sir.”
“I 'll take your money, then,” cried Mayfair.
“No, no; I was first: I said 'done' before you,” interposed a guardsman.
“But how can it be decided? We can't summon the rival beauties to our presence, and perform Paris and the apple,” said Skeff.
“Come along with me and you shall see her,” broke in Tony; “she lives within less than five minutes' walk of where we are. I am satisfied that the matter should be left to your decision, Skefflngton.”
“No, no,” cried several, together; “take Mayfair with you. He is the fittest man amongst us for such a criticism; he has studied these matters profoundly.”
“Here 's a health to all good lasses!” cried out another; and goblets were filled with champagne, and drained in a moment, while some attempted the song; and others, imagining that they had caught the air, started off with “Here's to the Maiden of Blooming Fifteen,” making up an amount of confusion that was perfectly deafening, in which the waiter entered to observe, in a very meek tone, that the Archdeacon of Halford was entertaining a select party in the next room, and entreated that they might be permitted to hear each other occasionally.
Such a burst of horror and indignation as followed this request! Some were for an armed intervention at once; some for a general smash of all things practicable; and two or three, haughtier in their drunkenness, declared that the Star and Garter should have no more of their patronage, and proudly ordered the waiter to fetch the bill.
“Thirty-seven—nine—six,” said Mayfair, as he held the document near a candle; “make it an even forty for the waiters, and it leaves five pounds a head, eh?—not too much, after all.”
“Well, I don't know; the asparagus was miserably small.”
“And I got no strawberries.”
“I have my doubts about that Moselle.”
“It ain't dear; at least, it's not dearer than anywhere else.”
While these criticisms were going forward, Tony perceived that each one in turn was throwing down his sovereigns on the table, as his contribution to the fund; and he approached Skeffington, to whisper that he had forgotten his purse,—his sole excuse to explain, what he would n't confess, that he believed he was an invited guest Skeff was, however, by this time so completely overcome by the last toast that he sat staring fatuously before him, and could only mutter, in a melancholy strain, “To be, or not to be; that's a question.”
“Can you lend me some money?” whispered Tony. “I if want your purse.”
“He—takes my purse—trash—trash—” mumbled out the other.
“I 'll book up for Skeffy,” said one of the guardsmen; “and now it's all right.”
“No,” said Tony, aloud; “I haven't paid. I left my purse behind, and I can't make Skeffington understand that I want a loan from him;” and he stooped down again and whispered in his ear.
While a buzz of voices assured Tony that “it did n't matter; all had money, any one could pay,” and so on, Skeffington gravely handed out his cigar-case, and said, “Take as much as you like, old fellow; it was quarter-day last week.”
In a wild, uproarious burst of laughter they now broke up; some helping Skeffington along, some performing mock-ballet steps, and two or three attempting to walk with an air of rigid propriety, which occasionally diverged into strange tangents.
Tony was completely bewildered. Never was a poor brain more addled than his. At one moment he thought them all the best fellows in the world; he 'd have risked his neck for any of them; and at the next he regarded them as a set of insolent snobs, daring to show off airs of superiority to a stranger, because he was not one of them; and so he oscillated between the desire to show his affection for them, or have a quarrel with any of them.
Meanwhile Mayfair, with a reasonable good voice and some taste, broke out into a wild sort of air, whose measure changed at every moment One verse ran thus:—
“By the light of the moon, by the light of the moon,We all went home by the light of the moon.With a ringing songWe trampled along,Recalling what we 'll forget so soon,How the wine was good,And the talk was free,And pleasant and gay the company.“For the wine suppliedWhat our wits denied,And we pledge the girls whose eyes we knew, whose eyes we knew.You ask her name, but what's that to you, what's that to you?”
“Well, there 's where she lives, anyhow,” muttered Tony, as he came to a dead stop on the road, and stared full at a small two-storeyed house in front of him.
“Ah, that's where she lives!” repeated Mayfair, as he drew his arm within Tony's, and talked in a low and confidential tone.
“And a sweet, pretty cottage it is. What a romantic little spot! What if we were to serenade her!”
Tony gave no reply. He stood looking up at the closed shutters of the quiet house, which, to his eyes, represented a sort of penitentiary for that poor imprisoned hardworking girl. His head was not very clear, but he had just sense enough to remember the respect he owed her condition, and how jealously he should guard her from the interference of others. Meanwhile Mayfair had leaped over the low paling of the little front garden, and stood now close to the house. With an admirable imitation of the prelude of a guitar, he began to sing,—
“Come dearest Lilla,Thy anxious loverCounts, counts the weary moments over—”
As he reached thus far, a shutter gently opened, and in the strong glare of the moonlight some trace of a head could be detected behind the curtain. Encouraged by this, the singer went on in a rich and flowery voice,—
“Anxious he waits,Thy voice to hearBreak, break on his enraptured ear.”
At this moment the window was thrown open, and a female voice, in an accent strongly Scotch, called out, “Awa wi' ye,—pack o' ne'er-do-weels as ye are,—awa wi' ye a'! I 'll call the police.” But Mayfair went on,—
The night invites to love,So tarry not above,But Lilla—Lilla—Lilla, come down to me!
“I'll come down to you, and right soon,” shouted a hoarse masculine voice. Two or three who had clambered over the paling beside Mayfair now scampered off; and Mayfair himself, making a spring, cleared the fence, and ran down the road at the top of his speed, followed by all but Tony, who, half in indignation at their ignominious flight, and half with some vague purpose of apology, stood his ground before the gate.
The next moment the hall door opened, and a short thickset man, armed with a powerful bludgeon, rushed out and made straight towards him. Seeing, however, that Tony stood firm, neither offering resistance nor attempting escape, he stopped short, and cried out, “What for drunken blackguards are ye, that canna go home without disturbing a quiet neighborhood?”
“If you can keep a civil tongue in your head,” said Tony, “I 'll ask your pardon for this disturbance.”
“What's your apology to me, you young scamp!” cried the other, wrenching open the gate and passing out into the road. “I'd rather give you a lesson than listen to your excuses.” He lifted his stick as he spoke; but Tony sprang upon him with the speed of a tiger, and, wrenching the heavy bludgeon out of his hand, flung it far into a neighboring field, and then, grasping him by the collar with both hands, he gave him such a shake as very soon convinced his antagonist how unequal the struggle would be between them. “By Heaven!” muttered Tony, “if you so much as lay a hand on me, I 'll send you after your stick. Can't you see that this was only a drunken frolic, that these young fellows did not want to insult you, and if I stayed here behind them, it was to appease, not to offend you?”
“Dinna speak to me, sir. Let me go,—let go my coat I 'm not to be handled in this manner,” cried the other, in passion.
“Go back to your bed, then!” said Tony, pushing him from him. “It's clear enough you have no gentleman's blood in your body, or you 'd accept an amends or resent an affront.”
Stung by this retort, the other turned and aimed a blow at Butler's face; but he stopped it cleverly, and then, seizing him by the shoulder, he swung him violently round, and threw him within the gate of the garden.
“You are more angered than hurt,” muttered Tony, as he looked at him for an instant.
“Oh, Tony, that this could be you!” cried a faint voice from a little window of an attic, and a violent sob closed the words.
Tony turned and went his way towards London, those accents ringing in his ears, and at every step he went repeating, “That this could be you!”
What a dreary waking was that of Tony's on the morning after the orgies! Not a whit the less overwhelming from the great difficulty he had in recalling the events, and investigating his own share in them. There was nothing that he could look back upon with pleasure. Of the dinner and the guests, all that he could remember was the costliness and the tumult; and of the scene at Mrs. M'Grader's, his impression was of insults given and received, a violent altercation, in which his own share could not be defended.
How different had been his waking thoughts, had he gone as he proposed, to bid Dora a good-bye, and tell her of his great good fortune! How full would his memory now have been of her kind words and wishes; how much would he have to recall of her sisterly affection, for they had been like brother and sister from their childhood! It was to Dora that Tony confided all his boyhood's sorrows, and to the same ear he had told his first talc of love, when the beautiful Alice Lyle had sent through his heart those emotions which, whether of ecstasy or torture, make a new existence and a new being to him who feels them for the first time. He had loved Alice as a girl, and was all but heart-broken when she married. His sorrows—and were they not sorrows?—had all been intrusted to Dora; and from her he had heard such wise and kind counsels, such encouraging and hopeful words; and when the beautiful Alice came back, within a year, a widow, far more lovely than ever, he remembered how all bis love was rekindled. Nor was it the less entrancing that it was mingled with a degree of deference for her station, and an amount of distance which her new position exacted.
He had intended to have passed his last evening with Dora in talking over these things; and how had he spent it? In a wild and disgraceful debauch, and in a company of which he felt himself well ashamed.
It was, however, no part of Tony's nature to spend time in vain regrets; he lived ever more in the present than the past. There were a number of things to be done, and done at once. The first was to acquit his debt for that unlucky dinner; and, in a tremor of doubt, he opened his little store to see what remained to him. Of the eleven pounds ten shillings his mother gave him he had spent less than two pounds; he had travelled third-class to London, and while in town denied himself every extravagance. He rang for his hotel bill, and was shocked to see that it came to three pounds seven-and-sixpence. He fancied he had half-starved himself, and he saw a catalogue of steaks and luncheons to his share that smacked of very gluttony. He paid it without a word, gave an apology to the waiter that he had run himself short of money, and could only offer him a crown. The dignified official accepted the excuse and the coin with a smile of bland sorrow. It was a pity that cut both ways,—for himself and for Tony too.
There now remained but a few shillings above five pounds, and he sat down and wrote this note:—
“My dear Skeffington,—Some one of your friends, lastnight, was kind enough to pay my share of the reckoning forme. Will you do me the favor to thank and repay him? I amoff to Ireland hurriedly, or I 'd call and see you. I havenot even time to wait for those examination papers, whichwere to be delivered to me either to-day or to-morrow. Wouldyou send them by post, addressed T. Butler, Burnside,Coleraine? My head is not very clear to-day, but it shouldbe more stupid if I could forget all your kindness since wemet.“Believe me, very sincerely, &c.,“Tony Butler.”
The next was to his mother:—
“Dearest Mother,—Don't expect me on Saturday; it may betwo or three days later ere I reach home. I am all right,in rare health and capital spirits, and never in my lifefelt more completely your own“Tony Butler.”
One more note remained, but it was not easy to write it, nor even to decide whether to address it to Dora or to Mr. M'Gruder. At length he decided for the latter, and wrote thus:—
“Sir,—I beg to offer you the very humblest apology forthe disturbance created last night before your house. We hadall drunk too much wine, lost our heads, and forgotten goodmanners. If I had been in a fitting condition to expressmyself properly, I 'd have made my excuses on the spot. Asit is, I make the first use of my recovered brains to tellyou how heartily ashamed I am of my conduct, and howdesirous I feel to know that you will cherish no ungenerousfeelings towards your faithful servant,“T. Butler.”
“I hope he 'll think it all right. I hope this will satisfy him. I trust it is not too humble, though I mean to be humble. If he's a gentleman, he 'll think no more of it; but he may not be a gentleman, and will probably fancy that, because I stoop, he ought to kick me. That would be a mistake; and perhaps it would be as well to add, by way of P.S., 'If the above is not fully satisfactory, and that you prefer another issue to this affair, my address is T. Butler, Burnside, Coleraine, Ireland.'
“Perhaps that would spoil it all,” thought Tony. “I want him to forgive an offence; and it's not the best way to that end to say, 'If you like fighting better, don't balk your fancy.' No, no; I 'll send it in its first shape. I don't feel very comfortable on my knees, it is true, but it is all my own fault if I am there.
“And now to reach home again. I wish I knew how that was to be done! Seven or eight shillings are not a very big sum, but I 'd set off with them on foot if there was no sea to be traversed.” To these thoughts there was no relief by the possession of any article of value that he could sell or pledge. He had neither watch nor ring, nor any of those fanciful trinkets which modern fashion affects.
He knew not one person from whom he could ask the loan of a few pounds; nor, worse again, could he be certain of being able to repay them within a reasonable time. To approach Skeffington on such a theme was impossible; anything rather than this. If he were once at Liverpool, there were sure to be many captains of Northern steamers that would know him, and give him a passage home. But how to get to Liverpool? The cheapest railroad fare was above a pound. If he must needs walk, it would take him a week; and he could not afford himself more than one meal a day, taking his chance to sleep under a corn-stack or a hedgerow. Very dear, indeed, was the price that grand banquet cost him, and yet not dearer than half the extravagances men are daily and hourly committing; the only difference being that the debt is not usually exacted so promptly. He wrote his name on a card, and gave it to the waiter, saying, “When I send to you under this name, you will give my portmanteau to the bearer of the message, for I shall probably not come back,—at least, for some time.”
The waiter was struck by the words, but more still by the dejected look of one whom, but twenty-four hours back, he had been praising for his frank and gay bearing.
“Nothing wrong, I hope, sir?” asked the man, respectfully.
“Not a great deal,” said Tony, with a faint smile.
“I was afraid, sir, from seeing you look pale this morning, I fancied, indeed, that there was something amiss. I hope you 're not displeased at the liberty I took, sir?”
“Not a bit; indeed, I feel grateful to you for noticing that I was not in good spirits. I have so very few friends in this big city of yours, your sympathy was pleasant to me. Will you remember what I said about my luggage?”
“Of course, sir, I 'll attend to it; and if not called for within a reasonable time, is there any address you 'd like me to send it to?”
Tony stared at the man, who seemed to flinch under the gaze; and it shot like a bolt through his mind, “He thinks I have some gloomy purpose in my head.” “I believe I apprehend you,” said he, laying his hand on the man's shoulder; “but you are all wrong. There is nothing more serious the matter with me than to have run myself out of money, and I cannot conveniently wait here till I write and get an answer from home; there 's the whole of it.”
“Oh, sir, if you 'll not be offended at a humble man like me,—if you 'd forgive the liberty I take, and let me as far as a ten-pound note;” he stammered, and reddened, and seemed positively wretched in his attempt to explain himself without any breach of propriety. Nor was Tony, indeed, less moved as he said,—
“I thank you heartily; you have given me something to remember of this place with gratitude so long as I live. But I am not so hard pressed as you suspect. It is a merely momentary inconvenience, and a few days will set it all right Good-bye; I hope we'll meet again.”
And he shook the man's hand cordially in his own strong fingers, and passed out with a full heart and a very choking throat.
When he turned into the street, he walked along without choosing his way. His mind was too much occupied to let him notice either the way or the passers-by; and he sauntered along, now musing over his own lot, now falling back upon that trustful heart of the poor waiter, whose position could scarcely have inspired such confidence.
“I am certain that what are called moralists are unfair censors of their fellow-men. I 'll be sworn there is more of kindness and generosity and honest truth in the world than there is of knavery and falsehood; but as we have no rewards for the one, and keep up jails and hulks for the other, we have nothing to guide our memories. That's the whole of it; all the statistics are on one side.”
While he was thus ruminating, he had wandered along, and was already deep in the very heart of the City. Nor did the noise, the bustle, the overwhelming tide of humanity arouse him, as it swept along in its ceaseless flow. So intently was his mind turned inward, that he narrowly escaped being run over by an omnibus, the pole of which struck him, and under whose wheels he had unquestionably fallen, if it were not that a strong hand grasped him by the shoulder, and swung him powerfully back upon the flag-way.
“Is it blind you are, that you didn't hear the 'bus?” cried a somewhat gruff voice, with an accent that told of a land he liked well; and Tony turned and saw a stout, strongly built young fellow, dressed in a sort of bluish frieze, and with a bundle on a stick over his shoulder. He was good-looking, but of a more serious cast of features than is common with the lower-class Irish.
“I see,” said Tony, “that I owe this good turn to a countryman. You're from Ireland?”
“Indeed, and I am, your honor, and no lie in it,” said he, reddening, as if—although there was nothing to be ashamed of by the avowal—popular prejudice lay rather in the other direction.
“I don't know what I was thinking of,” said Tony, again; and even yet his head bad not regained its proper calm. “I forgot all about where I was, and never heard the horses till they were on me.”
“'Tis what I remarked, sir,” said the other, as with his sleeve he brushed the dirt off Tony's coat. “Isaw you was like one in a dhream.”
“I wish I had anything worth offering you,” said Tony, reddening, while he placed the last few shillings he had in the other's palm.
“What's this for?” said the man, half angrily; “sure you don't think it's for money I did it;” and he pushed the coin back almost rudely from him.
While Tony assuaged, as well as he might, the anger of his wounded pride, they walked on together for some time, till at last the other said, “I'll have to hurry away now, your honor; I 'm to be at Blackwall, to catch the packet for Derry, by twelve o'clock.”
“What packet do you speak of?”
“The 'Foyle,' sir. She's to sail this evening, and I have my passage paid for me, and I mustn't lose it.”
“If I had my luggage, I 'd go in her too. I want to cross over to Ireland.”
“And where is it, sir,—the luggage, I mean?”
“Oh, it's only a portmanteau, and it's at the Tavistock Hotel, Covent Garden.”
“If your honor wouldn't mind taking charge of this,” said he, pointing to his bundle, “I 'd be off in a jiffy, and get the trunk, and be back by the time you reached the steamer.”
“Would you really do me this service? Well, here 's my card; when you show this to the waiter, he 'll hand you the portmanteau; and there is nothing to pay.”
“All right, sir; the 'Foyle,' a big paddle-steamer,—you 'll know her red chimney the moment you see it;” and without another word he gave Tony his bundle and hurried away.
“Is not this trustfulness?” thought Tony, as he walked onward; “I suppose this little bundle contains all this poor fellow's worldly store, and he commits it to a stranger without one moment of doubt or hesitation.” It was for the second time on that same morning that his heart was touched by a trait of kindness; and he began to feel that if such proofs of brotherhood were rife in the world, narrow fortune was not half so bad a thing as he had ever believed it.
It was a long walk he had before him, and not much time to do it in, so that he was obliged to step briskly out. As for the bundle, it is but fair to own that at first he carried it with a certain shame and awkwardness, affecting in various ways to assure the passers-by that such an occupation was new to him; but as time wore on, and he saw, as he did see, that very few noticed him, and none troubled themselves as to what was the nature of his burden, he grew more indifferent, well consoled by thinking that nothing was more unlikely than that he should be met by any one he knew.
When he got down to the river-side, boats were leaving in every direction, and one for the “Foyle,” with two passengers, offered itself at the moment. He jumped in, and soon found himself aboard a large mercantile boat, her deck covered with fragments of machinery and metal for some new factory in Belfast. “Where's the captain?” asked Tony of a gruff-looking man in a tweed coat and a wideawake.
“I'm the captain; and what then?” said the other.
In a few words Tony explained that he had found himself short of cash, and not wishing to be detained till he could write and have an answer from home, he begged he might have a deck passage. “If it should cost more than I have money for, I will leave my trunk with your steward till I remit my debt.”
“Get those boats aboard; clear away that hawser there; look out, or you 'll foul that collier,” cried the skipper, his deep voice ringing above the din and crash of the escaping steam, but never so much as noticing one word of Tony's speech.
Too proud to repeat his address, and yet doubting how it had been taken, he stood, occasionally buffeted about by the sailors as they hurried hither and thither; and now, amidst the din, a great bell rang out; and while it clattered away, some scrambled up the side of the ship, and others clambered down, while with shouts and oaths and imprecations on every side, the great mass swung round, and two slow revolutions of her paddles showed she was ready to start Almost frantic with anxiety for his missing friend, Tony mounted on a bulwark, and scanned every boat he could see.
“Back her!” screamed the skipper; “there, gently; all right Go ahead;” and now with a shouldering, surging heave, the great black monster lazily moved forward, and gained the middle of the river. Boats were now hurrying wildly to this side and to that, but none towards the “Foyle.” “What will become of me? What will he think of me?” cried Tony; and he peered down into the yellow tide, almost doubtful if he ought not to jump into it.
“Go on,” cried the skipper; and the speed increased, a long swell issuing from either paddle, and stretching away to either bank of the river. Far away in this rocking tide, tossing hopelessly and in vain, Tony saw a small boat wherein a man was standing, wildly waving his handkerchief by way of signal.
“There he is, in one minute; give him one minute, and he will be here,” cried Tony, not knowing to whom he spoke.
“You 'll get jammed, my good fellow, if you don't come down from that,” said a sailor. “You'll be caught in the davits when they swing round;” and seeing how inattentive he was to the caution, he laid a hand upon him and forced him upon deck. The ship had now turned a bend of the river, and as Tony turned aft to look for the boat, she was lost to him, and he saw her no more.
For some miles of the way, all were too much occupied to notice him. There was much to stow away and get in order, the cargo having been taken in even to the latest moment before they started. There were some carriages and horses, too, on board, neither of which met from the sailors more deferential care than they bestowed on cast-metal cranks and iron sleepers, thus occasioning little passages between those in charge and the crew, that were the reverse of amicable. It was in one of these Tony heard a voice he was long familiar with. It was Sir Arthur Lyle's coachman, who was even more overjoyed than Tony at the recognition. He had been sent over to fetch four carriage-horses and two open carriages for his master, and his adventures and mishaps were, in his own estimation, above all human experience.
“I'll have to borrow a five-pound note from you,” said Tony; “I have come on board without anything,—even my luggage is left behind.”
“Five-and-twenty, Mr.. Tony, if you want it. I'm as glad as fifty to see you here. You'll be able to make these fellows mind what I say. There's not as much as a spare tarpaulin to put over the beasts at night; and if the ship rocks, their legs will be knocked to pieces.”
If Tony had not the same opinion of his influence, he did not however hesitate to offer his services, and assisted the coachman to pad the horse-boxes, and bandage the legs with an overlaid covering of hay rope, against any accidents.
“Are you steerage or aft?” asked a surly-looking steward of Tony, as he was washing his hands after his exertions.
“There's a question to ask of one of the best blood in Ireland,” interposed the coachman.
“The best blood in Ireland will then have to pay cabin fare,” said the steward, as he jotted down a mem. in his book; and Tony was now easy enough in mind to laugh at the fellow's impertinence as he paid the money.
The voyage was not eventful in any way; the weather was fine, the sea not rough, and the days went by as monotonously as need be. If Tony had been given to reflection, he would have had a glorious opportunity to indulge the taste, but it was the very least of all his tendencies.
He would indeed, have liked much to review his life, and map out something of his future road; but he could do nothing of this kind without a companion. Asking him to think for himself and by himself was pretty much like asking him to play chess or backgammon with himself, where it depended on his caprice which side was to be the winner. The habit of self-depreciation had, besides, got hold of him, and he employed it as an excuse to cover his inertness. “What's the use of my doing this, that, or t'other? I 'll be a stupid dog to the end of the chapter. It's all waste of time to set me down to this or that. Other fellows could learn it,—it's impossible forme.”
It is strange how fond men will grow of pleadingin forma pauperisto their own hearts,—even men constitutionally proud and high-spirited. Tony had fallen into this unlucky habit, and got at last to think it was his safest way in life to trust very little to his judgment.
“If I had n't been 'mooning,' I 'd not have walked under the pole of the omnibus, nor chanced upon this poor fellow, whose bundle I have carried away, nor lost my own kit, which, after all, was something to me.” Worse than all these—infinitely worse—was the thought of how that poor peasant would think of him! What a cruel lesson of mistrust and suspicion have I implanted in that honest heart! “What a terrible revulsion must have come over him, when he found I had sailed away and left him!” Poor Tony's reasoning was not acute enough to satisfy him that the man could not accuse him for what was out of his power to prevent,—the departure of the steamer; nor with Tony's own luggage in his possession, could he arraign his honesty, or distrust his honor.
He bethought him that he would consult Waters, for whose judgment in spavins, thoroughpins, capped hocks, and navicular lameness, he had the deepest veneration. Waters, who knew horses so thoroughly, must needs not be altogether ignorant of men.
“I say, Tom,” cried he, “sit down here, and let me tell you something that's troubling me a good deal, and perhaps you can give me some advice on it.” They sat down accordingly under the shelter of a horse-box, while Tony related circumstantially his late misadventure.
The old coachman heard him to the end without interruption. He smoked throughout the whole narrative, only now and then removing his pipe to intimate by an emphatic nod that the “court was with the counsel.” Indeed, he felt that there was something judicial in his position, and assumed a full share of importance on the strength of it.
“There 's the whole case now before you,” said Tony, as he finished,—“what do you say to it?”
“Well, there an't a great deal to say to it, Mr. Tony,” said he, slowly. “If the other chap has got the best kit, by course he has got the best end of the stick; and you may have an easy conscience about that. If there's any money or val'able inhisbundle, it is just likely there will be some trace of his name, and where he lives too; so that, turn out either way, you 're all right.”
“So that you advise me to open his pack and see if I can find a clew to him.”
“Well, indeed, I 'd do that much out of cur'osity. At all events, you 'll not get to know about him from the blue hand-kercher with the white spots.”
Tony did not quite approve the counsel; he had his scruples, even in a good cause, about this investigation, and he walked the deck till far into the night, pondering over it. He tried to solve the case by speculating on what the countryman would have done withhispack. “He 'll have doubtless tried to find out where I am to be met with or come at. He 'll have ransacked my traps, and if so, there will be the less need ofmyinvestigatinghis.He 'ssure to traceme.” This reasoning satisfied him so perfectly that he lay down at last to sleep with an easy conscience and so weary a brain that he slept profoundly. As he awoke, however, he found that Waters had already decided the point of conscience which had so troubled him, and was now sitting contemplating the contents of the peasant's bundle.
“There an't so much as a scrap o' writing, Mr. Tony; there an't even a prayer-book with his name in it,—but there 's a track to him for all that. I have him!” and he winked with that self-satisfied knowingness which had so often delighted him in the detection of a splint or a bone-spavin.
“You have him,” repeated Tony. “Well, what of him?”
“He's a jailer, sir,—yes, a jailer. I won't say he 's the chief,—he 's maybe second or third,—but he 's one of 'em.”
“How do you know that?”
“Here's how I found it out;” and he drew forth a blue cloth uniform, with yellow cuffs and collar, and a yellow seam down the trousers. There were no buttons on the coat, but both on the sleeve and the collar were embroidered two keys, crosswise. “Look at them, Master Tony; look at them, and say an't that as clear as day? It's some new regulation, I suppose, to put them in uniform; and there's the keys, the mark of the lock-up, to show who he is that wears them.”
Though the last man in the world to read riddles or unravel difficulties, Tony did not accept this information very willingly. In truth, he felt a repugnance to assign to the worthy country fellow a station which bears, in the appreciation of every Irishman, a certain stain. For, do as we will, reason how we may, the old estimate of the law as an oppression surges up through our thoughts, just as springs well up in an undrained soil.
“I 'm certain you're wrong, Waters,” said he, boldly; “he had n't a bit the look of that about him: he was a fine, fresh-featured, determined sort of fellow, but without a trace of cunning or distrust in his face.”
“I 'll stand to it I 'm right, Master Tony. What does keys mean? Answer me that. An't they to lock up? It must be to lock up something or somebody,—you agree to that?”
Tony gave a sort of grunt, which the other took for concurrence, and continued.
“It's clear enough he an't the county treasurer,” said he, with a mocking laugh,—“nor he don't keep the Queen's private purse neither; no, sir. It's another sort of val'ables is under his charge. It's highwaymen and housebreakers and felony chaps.”
“Not a bit of it; he's no more a jailer than I'm a hangman. Besides, what is to prove that this uniform is his own? Why not be a friend's,—a relation's? Would a fellow trained to the ways of a prison trust the first man he meets in the street, and hand him over his bundle? Is that like one whose daily life is passed among rogues and vagabonds?”
“That's exactly how it is,” said Waters, closing one eye to look more piercingly astute. “Did you ever see anything trust another so much as a cat does a mouse? She hasn't no dirty suspicions at all, but lets him run here and run there, only with a make-believe of her paw letting him feel that he an't to trespass too far on her patience.”
“Pshaw!” said Tony, turning away angrily; and he muttered to himself as he walked off, “how stupid it is to take any view of life from a fellow who has never looked at it from a higher point than a hayloft!”
As the steamer rounded Fairhead, and the tall cliffs of the Causeway came into view, other thoughts soon chased away all memory of the poor country fellow. It was home was now before him,—home, that no humility can rob of its hold upon the heart; home, that appeals to the poorest of us by the selfsame sympathies the richest and greatest feel! Yes, yonder was Carrig-a-Rede, and there were the Skerries, so near and yet so far off. How slowly the great mass seemed to move, though it was about an hoar ago she seemed to cleave the water like a fish! How unfair to stop her course at Larne to land those two or three passengers, and what tiresome leave-takings they indulge in; and the luggage, too, they 'll never get it together! So thought Tony, his impatience mastering both reason and generosity.
“I 'll have to take the horses on to Derry, Master Tony,” said Waters, in an insinuating tone of voice, for he knew well what able assistance the other could lend him in any difficulty of the landing. “Sir Arthur thought that if the weather was fine we might be able to get them out on a raft and tow them into shore, but it's too rough for that.”
“Far too rough,” said Tony, his eyes straining to catch the well-known landmarks of the coast.
“And with blood-horses too, in top condition, there's more danger.”
“Far more.”
“So, I hope, your honor will tell the master that I did n't ask the captain to stop, for I saw it was no use.”
“None whatever. I 'll tell him,—that is, if I see him,” muttered Tony, below his breath.
“Maybe, if there was too much sea 'on' for your honor to land—”
“What?” interrupted Tony, eying him sternly.
“I was saying, sir, that if your honor was forced to come on to Derry—”
“How should I be forced?”
“By the heavy surf, no less,” said Waters, peevishly, for he foresaw failure to his negotiation.
“The tide will be on the flood till eleven, and if they can't lower a boat, I 'll swim it, that's all. As to going on to Derry with you, Tom,” added he, laughing, “I'd not do it if you were to give me your four thoroughbreds for it.”
“Well, the wind 's freshening, anyhow,” grumbled Waters, not very sorry, perhaps, at the turn the weather was taking.
“It will be the rougher for you as you sail up the Lough,” said Tony, as he lighted his cigar.
Waters pondered a good deal over what he could not but regard as a great change in character. This young man, so gay, so easy, so careless, so ready to do anything or do nothing,—how earnest he had grown, and how resolute, and how stern too! Was this a sign that the world was going well, or the reverse, with him? Here was a knotty problem, and one which, in some form or other, has ere now puzzled wiser heads than Waters's. For as the traveller threw off in the sunshine the cloak which he had gathered round him in the storm, prosperity will as often disclose the secrets of our hearts as that very poverty that has not wealth enough to buy a padlock for them.
“You want to land here, young man,” said the captain to Tony; “and there's a shore-boat close alongside. Be alive, and jump in when she comes near.”
“Good-bye, Tom,” said Tony, shaking hands with him. “I 'll report well of the beasts, and say also how kindly you treated me.”
“You 'll tell Sir Arthur that the rub on the off shoulder won't signify, sir; and that Emperor's hock is going down every day. And please to say, sir,—for he 'll mindyoumore than me,—that there 's nothing will keep beasts from kicking when a ship takes to rollin'; and that when the helpers got sea-sick, and could n't keep on deck, if it had n't been for yourself—Oh, he's not minding a word I'm saying,” muttered he, disconsolately; and certainly this was the truth, for Tony was now standing on a bulwark, with the end of a rope in his hand, slung whip fashion from the yard, to enable him to swing himself at an opportune moment into the boat, all the efforts of the rowers being directed to keep her from the steamer's side.
“Now's your time, my smart fellow,” cried the Captain,—“off with you!” And, as he spoke, Tony swung himself free with a bold spring, and, just as the boat rose on a wave, dropped neatly into her.
“Well done for a landsman!” cried the skipper; “port the helm, and keep away.”
“You 're forgetting the bundle, Master Tony,” cried Waters, and he flung it towards him with all his strength; but it fell short, dropped into the sea, floated for about a second or so, and then sank forever.
Tony uttered what was not exactly a blessing on his awkwardness, and, turning his back to the steamer, seized the tiller and steered for shore.