Charles Lever - Tony Butler

“Castle Dubbow, August – , 18 – .

“Sir, – I have the honor to report for your information that I yesterday enrolled in this town and neighborhood eighteen fine fellows for H. N. M. Two of them are returned convicts, and three more are bound over to come up for sentence at a future assizes, and one, whom I have named a corporal, is the notorious Hayes, who shot Captain Macon on the fair green at Ballinasloe. So you see there’s little fear that they’ll want to come back here when once they have attained to the style and dignity of Neapolitan citizens. Bounty is higher here by from sixteen to twenty shillings than in Meath; indeed, fellows who can handle a gun, or are anyways ready with a weapon, can always command a job from one of the secret clubs; and my experiences (wide as most men’s) lead me entirely to the selection of those who have shown any aptitude for active service. I want your permission and instruction to engage some young gentlemen of family and station, for the which I must necessarily be provided with means of entertainment. Tafel Gelt ist nicht Teufel’s Gelt , says the Austrian adage; and I believe a very moderate outlay, assisted by my own humble gifts of persuasion, will suffice. Séduction de M’Casky , was a proverb in the 8th Voltigeurs. You may ask a certain high personage in France who it was that told him not to despair on a particular evening at Strasbourg. A hundred pounds – better if a hundred and fifty – would be useful. The medals of his Holiness have done well, but I only distribute them in the lower ranks. Some titles would be very advisable if I am to deal with the higher class. Herewith you have a muster-roll of what has been done in two counties; and I say it without fear, not a man in the three kingdoms could have accomplished it but Miles M’Marmont could plan, but not execute; Masséna execute, but not organize; Soul could do none but the last. It is no vanity makes me declare that I combine all the qualities. You see me now ‘organizing;’ in a few days you shall judge me in the field; and, later on, if my convictions do not deceive me, in the higher sphere of directing the great operations of an army. I place these words in your hands that they may be on record. If M’Caskey falls, it is a great destiny cut off; but posterity will see that he died in the full conviction of his genius. I have drawn on you for thirty-eight, ten-and-six; and to-morrow will draw again for seventy-four, fifteen.

“Your note has just come. I am forced to say that its tone is not that to which, in the sphere I have moved, I have been accustomed. If I am to regard you as my superior officer, duty cries, ‘Submit.’ If you be simply a civilian, no matter how exalted, I ask explanation. The dinner at the Dawson Arms was necessary; the champagne was not excessive; none of the company were really drunk before ten o’clock; and the destruction of the furniture was a plaisanterie of a young gentleman from Louth who was going into holy orders, and might most probably not have another such spree in all his life again. Are you satisfied? If not, tell me what and where any other satisfaction may meet your wishes. You say, ‘Let us meet.’ I reply, ‘Yes, in any way you desire.’ You have not answered my demand – it was demand, not request – to be Count M’Caskey. I have written to Count Caffarelli on the subject, and have thoughts of addressing the king. Don’t talk to me of decorations. I have no room for them on the breast of my coat. I am forced to say these things to you, for I cannot persuade myself that you really know or understand the man you correspond with. After all, it took Radetzky a year, and Omar Pasha seventeen months, to arrive at that knowledge which my impatience, unjustly perhaps, complains that you have not attained to. Yet I feel we shall like each other; and were it not like precipitancy, I’d say, believe me, dear Maitland, very faithfully your friend,

“Miles M’Caskey.”

The answer to this was very brief, and ran thus: —

“Lyle Abbey, August.

“Sir, – You will come to Coleraine, and await my orders there, – the first of which will be to take no liberties of any kind with your obedient servant,

“Norman Maitland.

“Major M’Caskey, ‘The Dawson Arms, Castle Durrow.

“P. S. Avoid all English acquaintances on your road. Give yourself out to be a foreigner, and speak as little as possible.”

“I don’t think I ‘ll walk down to the Burnside with you to-day,” said Beck Graham to Maitland, on the morning after their excursion.

“And why not?”

“People have begun to talk of our going off together alone, – long solitary walks. They say it means something – or nothing.”

“So, I opine, does every step and incident of our lives.”

“Well. You understand what I intended to say.”

“Not very clearly, perhaps; but I shall wait a little further explanation. What is it that the respectable public imputes to us?”

“That you are a very dangerous companion for a young lady in a country walk.”

“But am I? Don’t you think you are in a position to refute such a calumny?”

“I spoke of you as I found you.”

“And how might that be?”

“Very amusing at some moments; very absent at others; very desirous to be thought lenient and charitable in your judgments of people, while evidently thinking the worst of every one; and with a rare frankness about yourself that, to any one not very much interested to learn the truth, was really as valuable as the true article.”

“But you never charged me with any ungenerous use of my advantage; to make professions, for instance, because I found you alone.”

“A little – a very little of that – there was; just as children stamp on thin ice and run away when they hear it crack beneath them.”

“Did I go so far as that?”

“Yes; and Sally says, if she was in my place, she ‘d send papa to you this morning.”

“And I should be charmed to see him. There are no people whom I prefer to naval men. They have the fresh, vigorous, healthy tone of their own sea life in all they say.”

“Yes; you’d have found him vigorous enough, I promise you.”

“And why did you consult your sister at all?”

“I did not consult her; she got all out of me by cross-questioning. She began by saying, ‘That man is a mystery to me; he has not come down here to look after the widow nor Isabella; he’s not thinking of politics nor the borough; there ‘s no one here that he wants or cares for. What can he be at?’”

“Could n’t you have told her that he was one of those men who have lived so much in the world it is a luxury to them to live a little out of it? Just as it is a relief to sit in a darkened room after your eyes have been dazzled with too strong light. Could n’t you have said, He delights to talk and walk with me, because he sees that he may expand freely, and say what comes uppermost, without any fear of an unfair inference? That, for the same reason, – the pleasure of an unrestricted intercourse, – he wishes to know old Mrs. Butler, and talk with her, – over anything, in short? Just to keep mind and faculties moving, – as a light breeze stirs a lake and prevents stagnation?”

“Well. I ‘m not going to perform Zephyr, even in such a high cause.”

“Could n’t you have said, We had a pleasant walk and a mild cigarette together, — voilà tout? ” said he, languidly.

“I think it would be very easy to hate you, – hate you cordially, – Mr. Norman Maitland.”

“So I’ve been told; and some have even tried it, but always unsuccessfully.”

“Who is this wonderful foreigner they are making so much of at the Castle and the Viceregal Lodge?” cried Mark, from one of the window recesses, where he was reading a newspaper. “Maitland, you who know all these people, who is the Prince Caffarelli?”