Charles Lever - Tony Butler

“Is your name Maitland?” said the other, with perfect coolness.

“Yes.”

“Mine is M’Caskey, sir.”

“And by what presumption do I find you here?”

“This is not the place nor the moment for explanations; but if you want or prefer exposures, don’t balk your fancy. I ‘m as ready as you are.”

Maitland reeled back as if from a blow, and looked positively ill; and then laughingly turning to the company, he said some common-place words about his ill luck in being late to hear the last song.

“Well, it must be the last for to-night,” said Mr. M’Caskey, rising. “I have really imposed too much upon every one’s forbearance.”

After a little of the usual skirmishing, – the entreaties and the coy refusals, the recollection of that charming thing you sang for us at Woodpark, and the doubts lest they had brought no music with them, – the Misses Graham sat down to one, of those duets which every one in England seems able to compose and to sing; lackadaisical ditties adapted to the humblest musical proficiency, and unfortunately, too, the very narrowest intelligences. While the remainder of the company, after a brief moment of silence, resumed conversation, Major M’Caskey stepped unobserved from the room, – by all, at least, but by Maitland, who speedily followed him, and, led by the sound of his footsteps along the corridor, tracked him through the great hall. M’Caskey was standing on the lawn, and in the act of lighting his cigar, as Maitland came up.

“Explain this intrusion here, sir, now, if you can,” cried Maitland, as he walked straight towards him.

“If you want any explanations from me, you ‘ll have to ask for them more suitably,” said the other, coldly.

“I desire to know, under what pretence you assume a name and rank you have no right to, to obtain admission to this house?”

“Your question is easily answered: your instructions to me were, on my arrival at Coleraine, to give myself out for a foreigner, and not to speak English with any one. I have your note in my desk, and think there can be no mistake about its meaning.”

“Well, well; I know all that: go on,” cried Maitland, impatiently.

M’Caskey smiled, half insolently, at this show of temper, and continued: “It was, then, in my assumed character of Frenchman, Spaniard, Italian, or whatever you wish, – for they are pretty much alike to me, – I was standing at the door of the inn, when a rather pompous old fellow, with two footmen after him, came up, and in some execrable French endeavored to accost me, mingling your name in his jargon, and inviting me, as well as his language would permit, to return with him to his house. What was I to conclude but that the arrangement was yours? indeed, I never gave a doubt to it.”

“When he addressed you as the Count Caffarelli, you might have had such a doubt,” said Maitland, sneeringly.

“He called me simply Count,” was the reply.

“Well; so far well: there was no assumption of a name, at least.”

“None whatever; and if there had been, would the offence have seemed to you so very – very unpardonable?” It is not easy to convey the intense impertinence given to the delivery of this speech by the graduated slowness of every word, and the insolent composure with which it was spoken.

“What do you mean, sir, by this – this insinuation?” cried Maitland.

“Insinuation! – it’s none. It is a mere question as to a matter of good taste or good morals.”

“I have no time for such discussions, sir,” said Maitland, hotly. “I am glad to find that the blunder by which you came here was not of your own provoking, though I cannot see how it makes the explanation less difficult to myself.”

“What is your difficulty, may I ask?” cried M’Caskey, coolly.

“Is it no difficulty that I must explain how I know – ” and he stopped suddenly, just as a man might stop on the verge of a precipice, and look horror-struck down into the depth below him. “I mean,” said he, recovering himself, “that to enter upon the question of our relations to each other would open the discussion of matters essentially secret. When I have said I know you, the next question will be, ‘Who is he?’”

“Well, what is the difficulty there? I am Graf M’Caskey, in Bavaria; Count of Serra-major, in Sicily; Commander of the Order of St. Peter and St. Paul, and a Knight of Malta. I mention these, for I have the ‘brevets’ with me.”

“Very true,” said Maitland; “but you are also the same Lieutenant Miles M’Caskey, who served in the 2d West Indian Regiment, and who left a few unsettled matters between him and the Government there, when he quitted Barbadoes.”

“And which they won’t rake up, I promise you, if they don’t want to hang an ex-governor,” said he, laughing. “But none of us, Mr. Maitland, will stand such investigations as these. There’s a statute of limitations for morals as well as for small debts.”

Maitland winced under the insolent look of the other, and in a tone somewhat shaken, continued, “At all events it will not suit me to open these inquiries. The only piece of good fortune in the whole is that there was none here who knew you.”

“I am not so very sure of that, though,” said the Major, with a quiet laugh.

“How so? what do you mean?”

“Why; that there is an old fellow whom I remember to have met on the West Indian Station; he was a lieutenant, I think, on board the ‘Dwarf,’ and he looked as if he were puzzled about me.”

“Gambier Graham?”

“That’s the man; he followed me about all night, till some one carried him off to play cribbage; but he ‘d leave his game every now and then to come and stare at me, till I gave him a look that said, ‘If you do that again, we ‘ll have a talk over it in the morning.’”

“To prevent which you must leave this to-night, sir,” said Maitland. “I am not in the habit of carrying followers about with me to the country-houses where I visit.”

A very prolonged whistle was M’Caskey’s first reply to this speech, and then he said: “They told me you were one of the cleverest fellows in Europe, but I don’t believe a word of it; for if you were, you would never try to play the game of bully with a man of my stamp. Bigger men than Mr. Norman Maitland have tried that, and did n’t come so well out of it.”

An insolent toss of the head, as he threw away his cigar, was all Maitland’s answer. At last he said, “I suppose, sir, you cannot wish to drive me to say that I do not know you?”

“It would be awkward, certainly; for then I ‘d be obliged to declare that I do know you.”

Instantly Maitland seized the other’s arm; but M’Caskey, though not by any means so strong a man, flung off the grasp, and started back, saying, “Hands off, or I’ll put a bullet through you. We’ve both of us lived long enough amongst foreigners to know that these are liberties that cost blood.”

“This is very silly and very unprofitable,” said Maitland, with a ghastly attempt at a smile. “There ought not, there cannot be, any quarrel between you and me. Though it is no fault of yours that this blunder has occurred, the mistake has its unpleasant side, and may lead to some embarrassment, the more as this old sea-captain is sure to remember you if you meet again. There ‘s only one thing for it, therefore, – get away as fast as you can. I ‘ll supply the pretext, and show Sir Arthur in confidence how the whole affair occurred.”

M’Caskey shook his head dubiously. “This is not to my liking, sir; it smacks of a very ignominious mode of retreat. I am to leave myself to be discussed by a number of perhaps not over-favorable critics, and defended by one who even shrinks from saying he knows me. No, no; I can’t do this.”